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tie yourself to me, no one else
The mask is black, geometric, and split in two. Gi-hwa’s gaze follows it first.Both pieces hit the ground with a thud, landing side-by-side. The sight reminds her of shucked oysters, like the ones her grandfather used to sell at market. Just empty shells. Gi-hwa used to search for pearls, back when she was young and hopeful, but her grandfather warned her not to expect anything. Only one in ten-thousand oysters would surprise you, he said.Gi-hwa looks up and meets the Front Man’s eyes. Her breath catches. Several emotions war inside of her: relief, shock, confusion, horror. Nothing is making any sense. She staggers back, unmoored. 'Surprised' is too small a word for how she feels, finally unmasking her enemy.
The Front Man, it turns out, isn’t a man at all. Gi-hwa is prepared to see a stranger— somebody she can immediately dismiss as cruel and deserving of death.But standing in their place is Young-eun.The woman’s hair has been tied back and her expression is colder than Gi-hwa's ever seen it, but it’s undeniably her. Same dark eyes, same carved jaw, same soft mouth.“Aish,” Young-eun hisses, hunching inward and rubbing her forehead. A deep red welt has formed there, courtesy of the vase thrown at her. It looks like it really hurts. Gi-hwa’s struck by the urge to apologise.What comes out instead is: “Oh, no. Not you. Anyone but you.”How pathetic, she thinks. It’s not the righteous speech she had in mind for their confrontation. But nor is Young-eun the monster she was waiting to confront.Is she?The pain is blunt, punching through her chest with the weight of so many betrayals, assembled for a finishing blow. Gi-hwa has fallen prey to yet another 001. She put her faith in the wrong person again. It’s soul-wrenching.She’s such a fool.“I’m sorry,” Young-eun says, though she doesn’t sound it. Blood is smeared across her hands, running down her forehead and dribbling past her eyes. Gi-hwa wants to wipe it away with her sleeve. The thought makes her want to cut her own arm off, to keep from embarrassing herself again. “The game went on too long. You grew attached to Young-eun, didn’t you?”The way she says the name is detached. Gi-hwa realises immediately that it must have been another lie.“Who are you?” she asks, more shakily than she’d like to admit.The woman recognises the prevarication for what it is but smiles, thinly.
“Does it matter?” she counters. It’s almost teasing. There are dark bags under her eyes, heavier than Gi-hwa ever noticed. “Knowing my name won’t change anything. At the end of the day, I’m still their leader. You’re still going to kill me.”There’s something challenging in her tone. She doesn’t believe Gi-hwa can actually do it. Gi-hwa isn’t so sure she can, either.“Tell me,” Gi-hwa orders. Her throat aches, constricting with the thought of hurting someone wearing Young-eun’s face.The woman tilts her head. “In-hye. Hwang In-hye.”“… does your brother know what you’ve been doing?”She nods, smile tightening. It’s fake. It doesn’t make Young— In-hye’s— eyes crease the way Gi-hwa knows they should, with crow’s feet and dimples. “He wasn’t my spy, if that’s what you’re worried about. He has far too much pride for that. If he kept my identity from you, it’s because he’s too soft for his own good.”Gi-hwa can’t resent Jun-ho. She knows what it’s like to love a bad person. All she feels is bone-deep resignation.Maybe Jung-bae was the last friend she could genuinely trust. After tonight, he’ll never have a chance to betray her.“He was so worried about you,” Gi-hwa remembers. Her stomach turns. “You shot him. You shot your own brother.”In-hye laughs. The sound is jarringly insincere. “Are you surprised? He jeopardised the games. I did what I needed to do.”It can’t have been that simple. Gi-hwa refuses to believe it.“But you let him live,” she argues. For reasons she doesn’t want to dwell on, she’s desperate to find some good in In-hye. “You could’ve aimed for his head, but you didn’t. He survived because you wanted him to.”“A mistake,” says In-hye, witheringly. “Seeing as he’s thrown away his second chance, chasing a ghost.”Is that what you are? Gi-hwa wonders. A ghost?There is something ghostly about In-hye, hidden in details that easily go overlooked. Her gaze is just slightly too dark, her footfall too quiet, her voice too melodic, too lovely, too persuasive. Likewise, she gives the impression of impermanence, ready to disappear at any moment. Gi-hwa had often watched her, hoping her gaze could somehow ground the other woman, make her tangible. In-hye seemed to enjoy that. She reacted like somebody relearning how it felt to be seen clearly.Like Gi-hwa was the only person in the world worth being seen by, as well as the only person worth looking at.“If I can’t kill you,” Gi-hwa swallows. “Will you kill me, instead?”It’s supposed to be a question. It sounds devastatingly close to a request.In-hye softens. “You remind me of him, in some ways. Too soft, that’s for sure. People like you tend to die first— both inside and out of the games.”“Just tell me, Young-eun." It's the wrong name. Gi-hwa knows by the taste of it, like bile in her throat. "Am I going to die here?”For the first time, In-hye hesitates. “I don’t particularly want you dead,” she murmurs. Quietly, as though the confession shouldn't be overheard. “But it’s up to you, really. Kill me, and my guards will storm the room. Leave me alive, and I’ll keep you….” she stops and, almost as an afterthought, tacks on: “safe.”Gi-hwa stares at her. This beautiful, black-hearted ghost. In-hye’s expression is indiscernible. Shadowed. The elastic band holding her hair back has snapped. Dark locks fall into her face, crusted with blood, and Gi-hwa is paralysed by the memory of how it feels to stroke it.You have nice hands, Young-eun had said. Gentle hands. You’d make a good lover, Gi-hwa.It was a thoughtless remark, thrown out as Gi-hwa's slender fingers combed through her hair. She’d been sitting on a bunk while Young-eun kneeled below, sandwiched between her thighs. When she leaned back, the crown of her head brushed Gi-hwa’s stomach.Their closeness was intoxicating. Gi-hwa had wanted to kiss her.“Stay,” In-hye says suddenly, visibly agitated by the silence. Her hands fist at her sides. “Please, stay with me— here. They’ll allow it, it’s happened before.”Gi-hwa remembers the sight of Young-eun smiling upside down, right before their foreheads knocked together. It was an accident. Gi-hwa had been leaning down, Young-eun had been leaning back. They’d laughed.The memory fades. Tainted, now.“What do you mean?”In-hye waves a dismissive hand. “The VIPs, sometimes they take home their favourites—” it’s nauseating, how casually she references human trafficking— “and I’m due a bonus, after all these years.”A bonus?“I’m a human being,” Gi-hwa says, tightly. “And so are all the other players. Besides, that’s not what I’m asking. What do you mean, I should ‘stay’?”The look she gets in return is penetrating. In-hye studies her from head to toe, as if she’s evaluating Gi-hwa’s worth. It feels violating, somehow.“You’ll live,” she explains. Her eyes meet Gi-hwa’s, gauging her reaction. “But it will be by my side. Permanently.”It’s a terrible ultimatum. Live like she's dead, or actually die. Would Gi-hwa be caged, collared, flaunted as a pet? Kept alive only to be tortured later on?After the games, Gi-hwa knows survival can be a crueller punishment than death.“As in, forever?” she asks, voice small.In-hye indulges her, though it’s really a childish way of saying the same thing.“Forever,” she confirms.Shamefully, Gi-hwa wishes there wasn’t a choice. She wishes that In-hye would demand her to stay, chain her down, and make an unwilling victim of her. Being an active participant in her own capture sounds unbearable.“I’d rather die.”In-hye blinks, slowly. Her face smooths over. With no real expression to focus on, all Gi-hwa can see is the blood.“Have you ever read any Schopenhauer?” In-hye asks. She seems eerily calm, dragging a hand through her hair. Rigid with drying blood, it stays slicked black. Her jaw lifts, defiantly, and she looks at Gi-hwa down her long nose.She’s all sharp angles. Effortlessly, agonisingly gorgeous.Gi-hwa’s chest hurts.“… no,” she admits, taking a step back. Her instincts are telling her to run. But where to? A legion of armed guards are stationed right outside the door.In-hye’s lips curl, revealing teeth. "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants,” she recites. “You don’t mean what you’re saying, Gi-hwa. You’re trying to honour some misguided sense of morality, one that’s been holding you hostage all this time.”“Wait, In-hye, I don’t—”All it takes is a single stride forward, arm outstretched, and In-hye catches Gi-hwa by the wrist. Her grip is ruthless. Gi-hwa cries with pain, attempting to shove her away. When that doesn’t work, she kicks out, striking her in the shin. In-hye hisses sharply but won't let go. Instead, she squeezes Gi-hwa’s wrist harder before yanking it backward.Pop.The joint is torn out of place. Something, maybe bone, juts up from her forearm.Gi-hwa screams.When she slumps to the ground, clutching her wrist, In-hye crouches down with her.“Ssh, ssh. It’s alright, jagi. Everything’s going to be okay,” she promises, rubbing Gi-hwa’s back. The gesture should be soothing but Gi-hwa’s eyes burn. “I’ll give you everything you want.”“I want to go home,” Gi-hwa chokes out, but even she’s not sure what she means by that. Home is her mother, her daughter, the little cottage by the sea where her grandparents used to live.Dead, gone, and lost to rising tides.In-hye scoffs. “That rundown motel?” she asks, pulling Gi-hwa against her breast and stroking down her spine. The touch is shockingly gentle. Her heartbeat is tellingly quick. “You’d be better off in a cell.”“Don’t lock me away,” Gi-hwa pleads, tugging at In-hye’s shirt with her working hand. The other hangs limply at her side. “I’d rather die, I’d honestly rather die—”In-hye’s embrace tightens. She coaxes Gi-hwa closer, tucking her face into her shoulder. Tears saturate the fabric.“There won’t be a cell,” In-hye says firmly, as if that’s all Gi-hwa needs to worry about. “I’ve prepared a room for you. It’s nicer than any place you’ve ever stayed. You’ll eat good food and sleep in a big bed— and if you can’t sleep, I’ll lay with you until you can. Everything’s going to be okay.”Gi-hwa twists her head to look at her. Her breath hitches.In-hye’s smiling.Threadlike lines stretch from her mouth and eyes, wrinkling beautifully, and her cheeks have coloured. It's the expression of the cat that got the cream.She makes a soft noise as her fingers circle Gi-hwa’s wrist, tracing the dislodged bone.“I’ll fix this for you," she says, absentmindedly. Her hand is a manacle, chaining them together. “Don’t worry, it’ll heal.”Gi-hwa tries to pull away. She meets immediate resistance as In-hye pulls back— on her injured wrist. With a strangled yelp, she gives in, sagging against the other woman’s chest. “You’re the reason it’s broken.”“Dislocated,” In-hye corrects. Her grip loosens, but Gi-hwa has learned not to test it. “The bone doesn’t need fixing. Just a little... reshaping.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I beg you, my darling / don't leave me, I'm hurting
The first thing In-hye does, after forcing Gi-hwa to stay, is leave.There’s no goodbye or explanation, just a flash of irritation across her face when Gi-hwa’s tears don’t stop.“What are you crying for?” is the last thing the Front Man asks, stooping down to retrieve the broken pieces of her mask.The sight of it makes Gi-hwa want to vomit.Logically, she knows that In-hye is the one who killed Jung-bae. But when she looks at the mask, that’s where she recognises his murderer.She doesn’t know how to feel disgust for Young-eun’s face. Not when she remembers it grinning after making stupid jokes or softening with relief when they survived another game together.Even if it was all a performance, there’s a part of Gi-hwa that wants to keep the act going. It’s agonising, trying to come to terms with the fact that this woman, who she foolishly trusted, who she had begun to grieve, shot her last remaining friend in cold blood.So what is she crying for? Gi-hwa’s answer is fuelled by rage.“My friends,” she snarls. Her back is pressed against the wall, knees pulled into her chest. She feels like a feral dog, all bark and no bite, but she doesn’t think In-hye will hurt her— not with that strange, conflicted expression on her face. “You killed everyone I loved.”The games killed them, to be exact, but In-hye, the ‘Front Man’, runs the games, and so Gi-hwa thinks it’s the same in the end.It’s been years since she last allowed herself to cry. Now, the floodgates just won’t shut.Everyone Gi-hwa cares about has died or betrayed her.Sae-byeok was so painfully young, Ali had a wife and child waiting for him, Sang-woo was forced into the worst version of himself and then martyred for her sake.Her mother expired slowly in their living room, thinking her daughter had fucked off to drink and play the ponies.Jung-bae thought she would save him because, in his mind, there was no place Gi-hwa could go where he wouldn’t follow— and vice versa. Neither of them would die if it meant leaving the other behind. For better or for worse, they had always been a team.And Young-eun… Young-eun was created and destroyed, just to mess with Gi-hwa’s head. She might as well be dead too.In-hye’s face twists at the accusation. She levels Gi-hwa with a stare that falls somewhere between frustration and contempt. “They brought this upon themselves.”The dismissal hurts so much more than Gi-hwa’s dislocated wrist. More than anything, she wants to hurt In-hye back.“I wish,” she says, poison dripping from her lips. “That Jung-bae was the one who lived. That Young-eun was the one with a hole in her chest. Because if anyone deserves to die, it’s you.”In-hye touches a distracted hand to her forehead. The blood has congealed. She draws her hood, covering the wound.With her face obscured, it’s hard to tell if Gi-hwa’s words have any impact.“You don’t mean that,” the Front Man says lowly, suggesting that they did.Gi-hwa only glares back. Her eyes are still wet, her chest still aching with grief. She doesn’t think she could bear to kill this stranger cloaked in Young-eun’s skin but nor can she ignore what she’s done.“You’re hardly even human,” Gi-hwa tells her viciously.In-hye takes a step forward, entering the light. It’s reflexive, like she feels the need to argue, or maybe insist again that you don’t mean that. But she hesitates. Gi-hwa watches her poker face crack.Something close to hurt seeps out.It’s lovely, like broken glass glinting in the sun, and Gi-hwa hates it.She blinks and In-hye’s expression has gone cold again. Without saying another word, the other woman retreats, knocking sharply on the exit and disappearing down a pink corridor as soon as it unbolts.The door slams shut behind her.
Hours pass. Gi-hwa traces the dislodged bone in her arm, wondering if In-hye still intends to ‘fix’ it.In the beginning, she didn’t move from the corner. She wasn’t sure when In-hye would return and, even more than that, sitting on the furniture seemed too civilised.Gi-hwa isn’t feeling civil. She’s feeling like a captive animal, tossed in a cage and abandoned.Eventually, she does stand, warily making her way across the room in search of a weapon. She figures she may as well find something to defend herself with in case In-hye decides to snap her other wrist.To her disappointment, In-hye must have seen this coming from a mile away. The room has been stripped of anything useful, leaving only the bare necessities. There isn’t even a second vase that Gi-hwa could pelt at her head.The closest thing to a weapon she finds is a sleek ballpoint pen, left forgotten at the back of a drawer. She clicks it and a small stub pops up. The pen’s broken, long since out of ink, but Gi-hwa doesn’t exactly plan on writing with it. Experimentally, she presses it to the palm of her hand. While it’s dull, she thinks it could do some damage if she pushes hard enough.With the pen in her pocket, Gi-hwa finally surrenders to the lure of the armchair. She’s a gangly woman but it’s still many sizes too big for her— the sort of chair that makes a statement, that draws attention to the person sitting there. Privately though, she thinks In-hye would look a little funny, dwarfed by the backrest that surely reaches far above her head.In the chair’s defence, it’s significantly more comfortable than it looks. Gi-hwa sinks into the cushioning and hugs her own middle. She sets her wrist to the side, on the armrest, and tries to ignore the displaced lump of bone and the pain that comes with it.She still struggles to believe that ‘Young-eun’ would hurt her like this.Young-eun had always been so careful with Gi-hwa, speaking in soft, hushed tones and touching her with firm but gentle hands. And she touched her frequently, squeezing her knee, swinging an arm around her neck, and laying her head on her shoulder. Some touches were casual, others lingered far too long.It was strange. It was exciting. It was so unfathomably new that Gi-hwa thought she would lose her mind.She hadn’t noticed an attraction to women before, though in hindsight it had always been there, a quiet curiosity buried deep inside her chest. Young-eun was the one to finally draw it out— forcing Gi-hwa to confront the fact that she’d never once felt the sort of electricity she did with Young-eun over the entire course of her failed marriage.Young-eun isn’t real, she reminds her wistfulness. Her kindness, her warmth— they were just a facade.That raises another question. What about her husband? Is he really dying? Does he even exist, or was that another lie?And if it is the truth, when will In-hye find the time to take on a captive?Unless she plans to leave you here, whispers something terrible. On this godforsaken island, like a prisoner.But In-hye would never do that, right? After begging Gi-hwa to stay?Except that, as soon as she’d gotten on her nerves, In-hye had left. There was nothing keeping the other woman here, not when she could rely on a small army of guards to watch over Gi-hwa in her stead.Gi-hwa sinks lower into the armchair, weighed down by a pervasive sense of unease. She doesn’t know what to do. For someone so preoccupied with the notion of ‘choice’, In-hye sure hasn’t left her with any.Powerlessness is a feeling she’s used to. It’s been beaten into her, time and time again. At this point, she should be able to accept when things are hopeless. She’s fucked up. She’s failed. She’s gotten countless people killed and hasn’t done anybody any good in the long run.But she still wants to believe that she can fix this.If In-hye doesn’t have a reason to stay— if she doesn’t have a reason to value Gi-hwa’s opinion— then Gi-hwa will give her one.
By the time the door swings open, and Gi-hwa recognises the familiar clack of dress shoes, she has returned to her position on the floor, coiling in on herself like a threatened snake.The footsteps come to an abrupt stop. In-hye observes her from a distance. Gi-hwa continues looking at her knees.She speaks first, breaking the silence. “I thought you wouldn’t come back.”It’s difficult, embarrassingly so, but she forces a note of anxiety into her voice, biting back the venom that’s burning through her tongue.When she glances up, In-hye’s stare is piercing. It bores through Gi-hwa’s eyes, mouth, bloody clothes and wrist, taking in every inch of her.It’s as if she didn’t expect Gi-hwa to still be here when she came back. Which is ridiculous, Gi-hwa thinks, because where else would she go?“I’ll always come back,” In-hye says. Her tone is odd— regretful, and much too sincere to be meant for Gi-hwa alone. “You just have to wait for me.”“You were angry,” Gi-hwa points out. She says it for the sake of saying something, unnerved by how the atmosphere has shifted.“We can both get angry,” In-hye tells her. “That’s inevitable. You annoy me, frequently, and my role in the games makes you want to kill me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still… care, about each other.”Gi-hwa bites the inside of her cheek. Doesn’t it? she wants to ask, but it’s a stupid question. She already knows the answer.“You care about me?” she asks instead. It tastes sweet and sour in her mouth, like spitting up dessert. She swallows, loudly, and In-hye watches the bob of her throat.A wry smile crosses In-hye’s face. “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”Under any other circumstances, it might’ve sounded poignant. As things stand, it’s closer to a death threat.Doubt creeps through Gi-hwa. She rubs the back of her neck. Someone who cared about her wouldn’t behave the way In-hye does.In-hye doesn’t seem to have noticed the discrepancy. Or perhaps she has, and couldn’t care less about it.“Like a friend?” Gi-hwa says. There’s a challenging edge to her voice, though she’s not sure where it comes from. She supposes friendship implies even ground between them, which she’s pretty sure is impossible between a captor and their captive— but friendship isn’t what she’s talking about. Not really.In-hye appraises her. “Maybe.”Gi-hwa wants to push further. She gets to her feet, a little unsteadily, and In-hye’s gaze sharpens. It travels the length of Gi-hwa’s legs where her pants have torn. She’d struggled during her capture. It left her knees bruised and traces of her thighs visible, the fabric hanging in ribbons.She takes a hesitant step toward In-hye. And then another. In-hye doesn’t move, allowing Gi-hwa close enough to share her shadow.Before she can think better of the idea, Gi-hwa thrusts out her dislocated wrist. She schools her expression into something casual. Something unafraid. “Fix it.”A beat passes. Gi-hwa holds her breath.In-hye takes her wrist like a gift, and smiles.