Chapter Text
Prelude
An ugliness festered/
Under this, my pretty nymph skin/
But, Mother, he found me. He saw me/
Nourish this beast in the woods/
Fell in love with the part of me that/
No one else could
((PERSEPHONE TO DEMETER))
When Gi-hun’s daughter turned six, his mother gifted her with a picture book about Greek mythology. Ga-yeong quickly had a favorite story-- the tale of Persephone, and she made Gi-hun read it to her at bedtime every night for a month. Gi-hun never focused on the details much, usually counting down the moments until Ga-yeong fell asleep and he could slip out to check on his gambling wagers.
Four years later, as he watches the waves ripple onto the island’s shore, the story suddenly pops back into his head in its entirety.
A pomegranate. Six seeds. Flowers, baby animals. Souls of the damned. A weeping mother. A bargain. The lonely God of hell—not so lonely anymore.
Letting the memories of it wash over him now, Gi-hun laughs to the point of crying.
I saw you, Spring Goddess, restless in your loneliness/
Pulling at crimson flowers to watch them die/
Wondering if immortality was worth anything/
If you were powerless to have any control/
Over your fate or destiny
((HADES TO PERSEPHONE))
They iron out the rules of the deal while Gi-hun is still handcuffed to the bedframe.
In-ho’s mask lays cast aside on the floor, the name “Young-il” discarded along with it early in their conversation. If he’d been hoping for a big reaction out of Gi-hun when he revealed his face, he didn’t get it. Gi-hun’s expression had cracked right down the middle, but not in surprise. In-ho swore he could only recognize it as heartbreak.
“Did you know?” In-ho couldn’t help but ask in the moment.
Gi-hun had shaken his head. “I wondered…but I thought I was wrong.”
“You weren’t.”
“Well. I don’t like being right.”
The other players had been taken out twenty minutes ago for the fourth game, left with the implication that Gi-hun would be eliminated during their absence as a final punishment for the rebellion.
In reality, In-ho presented Gi-hun with a deal.
Six weeks per year on the island. Forty-six weeks out in the world. Unconditional cooperation, in exchange for the release of five players. Dae-ho, Jun-hee, Geum-ja, Young-sik, and Hyun-ju.
“There’s one more,” Gi-hun argues now. They’ve been going back and forth on the details, and Gi-hun is slowly feeling bold enough to ask for more.
“Who?” In-ho asks, patient.
“I don’t know his name—number 333. Jun-hee said he’s the father of her baby.”
In-ho considers it for a moment. “Fine. Him too.”
In-ho takes a radio from his coat pocket and speaks into it.
“Manager on game four, respond.”
“Copy. What’s wrong, Boss?”
“Player 333 is to be removed along with the others.”
“Got it. To be clear—120, 388, 222, 149, 007, and 333—correct?”
“Confirmed.”
Gi-hun feels his stomach turn, witnessing the power In-ho has. He just saved a life with the press of a button, and could damn them all just as easily.
“Aren’t they playing the game now?” Gi-hun panics. “They could be dead already.”
“This game has a thirty-minute window of time for getting into teams using the lottery system. They haven’t started playing yet.”
“What’s the game?”
“Flashlight tag.”
Gi-hun curses. “The older woman—Geum-ja, she has bad eyes. She won’t be able to see anything. And Dae-ho said he’s afraid of the dark. They’ll be terrible at that game. You can’t let them play—”
In-ho holds up his hand in a silencing gesture.
“Yes, Gi-hun. They’re playing a game in the dark for a reason,” In-ho says, with the air of a long-suffering spouse. It pisses Gi-hun off.
“So you’ll get them out? No tricks?”
“No tricks. The arena is pitch black and the control room can cut the power to each player’s flashlight at any time. The other players won’t see a thing.”
Gi-hun feels himself relax a little, until he notices In-ho’s unwavering stare locked onto him. It should scare him, but instead it makes Gi-hun profoundly sad.
‘Young-il’s eyes were soft,’ Gi-hun thinks to himself. ‘In-ho’s eyes are dead.’
“You still haven’t asked why,” In-ho says, breaking the brief silence.
There are one thousand why’s—why doesn’t In-ho just kill him. Why did he pretend to be a player. Why make this deal with Gi-hun at all. Why six weeks. Why all this trouble over just one man. Why does he want this.
Gi-hun does not ask. In some shameful way, he already knows.
Gi-hun stands on the rocky shoreline, watching the ferry get smaller and smaller as it sails back to the mainland. The unconscious bodies of his former teammates are onboard, and it brings him a sense of peace to see them returning home, alive.
It’s surprising, that In-ho is allowing him outside like this. He has two more days here on the island, before being granted forty-six weeks away.
“But you said six weeks on the island,” Gi-hun had asked.
“Not until next time,” In-ho answered, though he didn’t explain why.
Gi-hun is glad he’s alone, so no one else can witness the strange, maniacal fit of laughter that overtakes him as he’s hit with the memory of Persephone and Hades from Ga-yeong’s book. That version of the myth was watered down and sanitized for children; Persephone taught Hades the error of his ways and was allowed to go free, but still returned to the underworld sometimes to check on her “dear friend.”
But Gi-hun remembers a more genuine retelling of the myth from his brief attempt at college classes. Persephone was kidnapped, coerced, raped. She married Hades and ruled the underworld at his side, against her own free will—at first. But she grew to love him, or at least she thought she did, and eventually she felt more at home in Hell than in the arms of her mother under a warm spring harvest.
His throat burns and his eyes water, and he feels like a man possessed when the laughter finally stops. The ferry is gone, invisible past the horizon line. He hears footsteps a few moments later, and In-ho appears at his side. His mask looks particularly morbid in the fading daylight.
“Satisfied?” In-ho asks. Gi-hun knows he’s referring to the six people safe aboard the ship.
“Yes,” he answers. He will not say thank you to this man.
“I’m sure you’ll seek them out once you get back to the mainland as well.”
Gi-hun turns to look at him in surprise. “That’s allowed? You’ll let me talk to them?”
“What you do during your time away is your choice. But if you resist when it’s time to return, or if you cause trouble during your weeks here, it would be considered breaking your end of the deal.”
The threat is implicit. He’s grown used to gambling with his own life after being in the games, but after his little rebellion failed so spectacularly, Gi-hun won’t gamble with the lives of anyone else again.
Well, almost anyone—
“What about Jun-ho?”
Earlier in the dormitory, he hadn’t directly asked In-ho if he was in fact the Hwang In-ho that Jun-ho was desperately searching for. Gi-hun never considers himself the smartest person in the room, but based on the information Jun-ho had shared about his brother, the chances of it being a coincidence are impossible.
In-ho stiffens at the mention of his little brother.
“Are you threatening him?” In-ho questions quietly, deadly.
“No,” Gi-hun answers immediately. “But I could tell him everything.”
“He already knows,” In-ho replies flatly.
And isn’t that a slap in the face. Gi-hun had felt a sort of bond with Jun-ho, companions in their suffering. But now, any warm feelings toward the kid burn to ash.
“Would you kill your own brother if he got in the way?” Gi-hun tries. “When you come for me next year, he could be waiting.”
Somehow, he can feel In-ho’s unimpressed look under the mask.
“Right. Because that worked so well for you on Halloween.”
Gi-hun loses his resolve at the embarrassing reminder-- the failed tracker, how easily he went back into the games alone, how he’s been breathtakingly fucked since the moment he got into that car.
He says nothing more.
“Your rooms are ready,” In-ho tells him. Then he turns and walks back up the rocky path without another look back, expecting to be followed.
Gi-hun does.
There are two armed guards stationed outside his suite at all times. No one mentions surveillance cameras, but the feeling of being watched is unshakable from the moment he walks in. Gi-hun gets the message. Don’t make any trouble.
Food is delivered, but he has no appetite. Grief over Jung-bae’s death engulfs him, and he vomits into the toilet until there’s nothing left and he’s retching dry.
Clothes, oddly already in his size, lay folded on the bathroom vanity. He doesn’t want them, but Jung-bae’s blood is on his shirt and he can already taste bile rising in his throat again. He showers quickly, then stumbles in the dark until he reaches the bed. He collapses into it, naked. If there’s cameras, he really doesn’t give a fuck.
The next two days pass in a surprisingly dull haze. Gi-hun and In-ho only see each other to view the games in In-ho’s private room. Outside of that, Gi-hun stays in his suite and lays…wherever. On the floor, the bed, a chair—in and out of sleep until guards come in to ensure he’s eaten his meals.
The fifth game is Treasure Hunt, played in a giant ball pit. The final game, played by the remaining seven players, is Duck Duck Goose. It’s one bloody fight after another until only one player remains.
Gi-hun and In-ho barely speak throughout both games, beyond In-ho offering Gi-hun a drink and Gi-hun declining. Gi-hun waits for a guard to come and take him back to his room.
“Chae Nam-Gyu” In-ho reads off a tablet. “The winner. He was with that…purple-haired delinquent, wasn’t he?”
Gi-hun nods. “Yeah. You kicked his ass on day one.”
In-ho smiles faintly. Then he turns to study Gi-hun’s reaction, seeing if he remembers the moment fondly too. Gi-hun tries to keep his face neutral, but can’t help the ghost of a smile that crosses his lips.
He does not see In-ho after that. Guards escort him onto a ferry early the next morning, then drop him off right in front of his motel. The other man’s absence should make Gi-hun feel more relaxed, but instead he feels neglected, like a dog left outside.
Until, the guard in the passenger’s seat rolls the window down and holds out a folded sheet of paper to Gi-hun.
A letter.
“From the boss,” is all the guard says before rolling the window back up.
The outside of the letter is blank. He doesn’t unfold it, not yet. He sticks it into the inner pocket of his jacket and locks himself inside the motel.
He doesn’t know what to do on his first night back home. Gi-hun rifles through his medicine bottles until he finds sleeping pills, takes one, and goes for a hasty shower while he waits for it to work. He pulls sweatpants on over his still sopping-wet legs as he texts Jun-ho. Apparently some shit went down with the boat captain—Gi-hun can’t be bothered with it right now. They arrange to meet the next day.
When sleep doesn’t come, he takes another pill. And finally, everything dissolves into black.
He dreams deeply on this night. Vividly, sweltering in how real it all feels.
Gi-hun dreams he’s in a bedroom of solid dark marble, low lights and no windows. He’s on his back on a comfortable bed, skin completely bare. He’s not alone. He feels fingers skim across his waist, and a mouth kisses gently from the bone of his right ankle all the way up his leg.
The face, imperceivable at the start, sharpens into focus. It’s In-ho—except the eyes are wrong. The eyes never finish; they remain colorless and shapeless, an indistinct blur across an otherwise perfect face.
His touch is the sweetest thing Gi-hun has ever felt. In-ho drags his palms up Gi-hun’s thighs, spreading them and holding him there. In-ho lowers his head, smiling at him beautifully, then a warmth suddenly envelopes Gi-hun’s cock. It feels like honey and silk at the same time.
In-ho lavishes the length of his cock with his mouth and tongue, and in the dream, it’s perfect—no uncomfortable wetness pooling under him. The heat pulls away, and In-ho is above him again. One hand replaces where his lips had been, beginning steady strokes on his cock, and the other hand moves lower until it brushes across the delicate skin of Gi-hun’s entrance.
There’s no pain, not an ounce of stretching or burning as In-ho presses one finger inside, then two. It’s nothing but a carnal fullness, deeply satisfying, and Gi-hun moans with each push and pull of the other man’s hand.
In-ho takes his fingers out and replaces them with his thumb, rolling it around in undulating spirals inside Gi-hun’s hole. It’s like he’s feeling every inch of Gi-hun just from that one pressure point, from his stomach to his heart.
“More,” he begs. It’s so hard to speak in a dream, but he gets it out. “More, please.”
Gi-hun blinks and suddenly he’s on his stomach, with the heat of In-ho behind him. The touch of In-ho’s cockhead against his rim is like the first notes of beautiful music, and before he knows it, In-ho buries himself into Gi-hun all the way. Each slide of In-ho’s cock is truly heaven; it feels like he’s sewing Gi-hun back together with every thrust.
It’s slow like dripping syrup, brutally deep but completely unhurried. If this weren’t a dream, Gi-hun would need it harder, faster. Maybe even a few strikes of an open palm against his skin to get him closer to climaxing; he’s always been something of a masochist.
But In-ho fucking him now is so loving, so adoring in its slow pace that he doesn’t even notice the room change right away. On one thrust, it’s the same luxurious bedroom. One more thrust, and they’re suddenly on the sterile white tile of the dormitory, surrounded by hundreds, thousands of dead bodies.
Gi-hun can’t scream, no sound comes out. He can’t control his arms or legs to push In-ho way. In-ho keeps fucking into him, leisurely, passionately, sucking kisses into Gi-hun’s exposed neck. In-ho’s missing eyes are godawful now, demonic.
He still drags his hand up and down Gi-hun’s cock, gripping harder, and Gi-hun feels the pressure coil inside his guts. Gi-hun cums with a soundless cry, and as it slips down In-ho’s closed fist, it turns into a deep red—
Gi-hun jolts upright on his mattress, violently awake. He’s covered in sweat, and his heart pounds painfully in his chest. The dream is over, but he feels so fucked up from it that he doesn’t move for several minutes. He feels a slight wetness against his sweatpants. He reaches a hand into his waistband to investigate—yes, that’s cum. He actually got off on that horrifying dream. Unbelievable; he hasn’t had a wet dream since his early twenties.
He cleans up in the bathroom. He doesn’t vomit, but one more sleeping pill won’t kill him, probably. When he lays back down on the bed, he finds that the ending of the dream is suddenly hard to recall.
But the rest of it—trails of kisses, the thick weight of In-ho’s cock, his warm hands, so lovesick in the devotion he showed to Gi-hun’s body— it’s just as vivid now as it was in the dream.
Gi-hun drifts back to sleep within minutes.
His conversation with Jun-ho the next day is brief.
He wants to punch the boy in the jaw for lying to him, but that will solve nothing. So Gi-hun says very little, and doesn’t tell Jun-ho that he knows who the Frontman really is. Revealing that would undoubtably cause Jun-ho to ask harder questions about how he got out of the games alive a second time, which would mean telling Jun-ho about his and In-ho’s arrangement.
Instead, he tells Jun-ho he was removed from the competition after telling the other players what each game would be, thereby ruining the fun for the VIPs. Jun-ho leaves, but Gi-hun knows the kid doesn’t believe a word of what he said. He’ll be back.
Gi-hun does some digging online. Death records are easy to find, especially when there’s a surviving spouse or other next of kin. A name comes up. Won Min-ah. Deceased in 2015 at the age of thirty-eight. Married to Hwang In-ho for six years.
Gi-hun buys flowers. Not the cheap supermarket kind—he orders massive bouquets in gorgeous colors, and carefully places them in the backseat of his car.
He visits his mother’s grave first. He covers it with roses and lilies, her two favorites. He stays longer than usual, but doesn’t speak.
Then, he drives across town to a different cemetery. A groundskeeper helps him find Won Min-ah’s grave.
“A loved one?” The groundskeeper asks. Then, not waiting for an answer, “Sorry for your loss.”
Gi-hun shakes his head. “Visiting on behalf of a loved one.”
“Ah, apologies. But that’s very kind of you.” The groundskeeper nods to the flowers Gi-hun hefts in his arms. “They must miss her very much.”
Alone now, Gi-hun studies the pictures on Min-ah’s gravestone. Her smile is so lively and sincere in each photo. Gi-hun knows he shouldn’t make assumptions about people’s behavior based on appearances, not after everything he’s seen, but he can’t stop himself.
He knows, looking at the pictures, that this woman was a kind soul.
“You would be afraid of him, if you could see him now,” Gi-hun whispers to the stone.
In one of the photographs, a younger In-ho leans beside his wife. He’s smiling, but it’s closed-lipped and tight. Apparently his gaze has always been a little sharp, a little cynical. Gi-hun feels it judging him now.
He stuffs as many flowers as he can fit into the small metal holder attached to her grave marker, and arranges the rest of the bouquets on the ground below it, careful not to obscure the names on any other stones.
When Gi-hun goes back to his motel that night, he dreads sleeping. He considers taking another pill but hesitates, wondering if they’re to blame for the wild dream.
But then, it’s like a spirit overtakes him. The same thing that possessed him during his fit of laughter back on the island. He moves as if in a trance, hunting down a calendar from a mess of papers on the lobby desk.
He flips ahead, forty-six weeks. He circles the following six weeks in a bright red marker, and pins the calendar up on a wall.
Then he finds the letter from In-ho where he left it in his jacket. He reads it.
Gi-hun,
I hope you will make the most of these next few months.
Enjoy yourself. Spend your money.
You are not a racehorse anymore.
But,
if you get restless in your time away,
you can return sooner.
Call this number:
001-456.
Gi-hun does not call the number. He stares at the circled weeks on the calendar until his vision goes blurry, and awaits his return to hell.
You are the kindest thing/
That has ever happened to me/
Even if that is not how our tale is told
((PERSEPHONE TO HADES))