Chapter Text
Minho is reaped one hundred and thirteen days before he turns seventeen. He knows this precisely, and only because he has been counting down to his nineteenth birthday since his twelfth.
No one volunteers for him. He doesn’t expect them to. It is an honor for him to be reaped naturally and no other Career would dare take it away from him. This is an unspoken rule by which they live.
“You’re so lucky,” one of them whispers as Minho passes by her. The crowd of sixteens parts and averts their eyes, save the few faces Minho sees every day at the other end of a blade. They watch him with tinged jealousy and he can see the open hunger in their eyes when he steps onto the stage.
He can see his face projected onto the screen at the corner of the stage. Cold. Impassive. It looks as blank and empty as Minho feels.
Luck?
Minho digs his thumbnail into his middle finger as the district escort takes his shoulders and hurries him to the reaping ball. This year’s Quarter Quell has demanded four tributes to be reaped instead of two in order to remind them that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen.
And to remind them that rebels were led into danger by their very own, the first male and female tributes reaped will in turn reap their partners.
“Well, don’t keep us waiting all day,” the escort —Minho thinks his name is Kibum, but he’s never cared enough to pay attention— says. His voice booms in an otherwise silent square.
Among the seventeens and eighteens, Minho can see the smattering of Careers, practically poised to be picked. The rules of the Quell have made it clear that the second male and female tributes cannot volunteer. Knowing that, he’s sure the Facility has done even more to skew the odds in favor of the Careers.
It would be better if he picked a Career.
The tiny slip of paper Minho pulls is as crisp as his starched shirt. He can practically feel the eyes trained on his every move tearing away at his flesh as he unfolds the paper and swallows once, then twice.
“Kim Seungmin,” he reads, looking up. The screen shows him amongst a crowd of whispering fifteens, all turning to look for him. Seungmin is plain. He doesn’t stand out. He doesn’t move a muscle as he looks directly at Minho with a gaze that punctures right into his soul. There’s something defiant about the way he sets his jaw and starts to push through the crowd.
Luck?
Minho hasn’t believed in luck in almost seven years. If there is luck in this world, there is none reserved for him. He half thinks that this is some cruel conspiracy against him.
At least this time he has some control over it.
It's not supposed to be like this.
Kim Seungmin’s mouth is pressed into a tight line, his face tensing as he grits his teeth.
Minho’s thoughts falter as though wiped clean, lips still parted where the name had fallen. He hasn’t faltered in anything in years.
Mistakes are fatal, after all. He can’t afford to make them.
Kibum is ushering him away before he regains himself, making a flat joke to the crowd about how Minho must want to hog the limelight from the girls.
He hadn’t even realized that Seungmin had stepped onto the stage in his hesitation. It is too late to save him now. Minho crumples the paper with Seungmin’s name on it in his fist as he takes his place beside him. Rather than look at Seungmin —which Minho stubbornly refuses to do— he stares out over the crowd and tries to still the shakes that radiate out from his chest.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
In all his years watching and living the reapings, he’s never figured out where the cameras are. Knowing they’re there is enough.
Minho will give them nothing. Whatever they take he will never get back.
Beside him, he hears stuttering breaths.
An eighteen named Yujin wears a triumphant, smug look as her name echoes across the square. Minho has seen how good she is with a bow and been on the receiving end of her deceptively good close combat skills before — a formidable opponent no matter how he looks at it.
He never knew her name until today.
The girl Yujin picks is a familiar face from the seventeens: Kim Dahyun, he learns. She gives the camera a beaming, pretty smile the whole time she’s on stage.
Minho knows better than to buy the pure, innocent look that the screen sells him. Disarming as her smile is, she’s held a sword to his throat too many times to count.
When the cameras are finally off and the four of them are finally being escorted to the municipal building, she gives him a smile that is far less friendly.
“What kind of game are you playing, Lee Minho?” She hisses. Minho stares at Seungmin’s head in front of him and can only imagine the target that is currently being drawn on it.
“No talking,” the Peacekeeper escorting them says.
“I don’t play games,” he hisses back.
“I said no talking.”
“Probably just wanted to give us an easy kill,” Yujin giggles in their ears before she and Dahyun are pulled away by another Peacekeeper and taken down another hall. The giggling echoes in his ears for far too long.
🜲
It doesn’t shock Minho when no one comes to see him, to weep or to tell him that he has to make it home or else. For a moment, he imagines it.
Only for a moment.
He’s glad he doesn’t have anything like that.
It means there’s no one there to witness his still closed fist collide with the wall.
🜲
Seungmin is five thousand seven hundred sixty days old when they finally come face to face again on the train. For all his composure there are still tear tracks drying on his face. The girls are already at the dining table, engaged in a spirited conversation with Kibum.
Minho’s stomach twists and he tightens his white knuckle fist, ignoring how much the skin smarts where it's broken and bleeding.
Seungmin stares at him like he’s trying to puzzle him out. He glances at Minho’s fist, then looks back up to his face.
“You should get that checked,” he finally says when it becomes evident that Minho won’t break the heavy silence between them. It’s so casual, so light. Minho’s arm trembles.
“So”—Seungmin falls heavily onto one of the plush couches that line the coach, the ghost of a grim smile on his face—"how are you planning on killing me, hyung?”
Here’s the thing: Minho had a plan, set into motion the moment his name had been pulled. For a fleeting moment, he thought maybe he had been lucky, though not in the way that sixteen had meant. A plan that had developed quick as a flash the moment he’d stepped up on stage, only to shatter a mere minute later when Seungmin had.
Among all the variables, his plan didn’t account for this.
🜲
Minho is fifty-one days short of ten when a group of Peacekeepers arrive at his door. They push past his mother despite her immediate and desperate protests and march right up to the table. When Minho’s father stands, they push him right back down into his chair and point a gun at his head. There’s a painfully tight grip on his arm before Minho even knows what’s happening or had a chance to process the words being shouted around his head. His chopsticks drop to the floor as he’s unceremoniously hauled out of his chair and dragged to the door.
“Mom!” He sobs, turning back against the arms that hold him. “Dad!” Minho stretches his arms as far as they can go, but it could never be enough to reach them. His parents follow a few steps behind, tears running down their pale faces. The Peacekeepers shove him onto the pier.
“Let’s go,” one of them says gruffly.
A few meters away, staring out over the clear blue water, Minho recognizes one of the invigilators from the aptitude test.
“Isn’t it such an honor?” She asks, smiling as she turns her head towards him. The smile is all wrong. Too cheery, too relaxed.
He recognizes her voice more than anything. It still echoes in his head sometimes.
“Move.” A Peacekeeper pushes Minho’s shoulders. When he doesn’t move fast enough, his arms are grabbed and he isn’t given an option.
“Minho!” A voice rings clear and true in the salty air. By now, a few other families are peering out of their doors. Tucked behind his mom’s legs, Seungmin is watching, stone-faced. “Minho!”
“Hyung!” Minho turns his head, throat aching as he cries.
“You can’t take him!” Minho’s brother breaks through the stony wall their parents have made by the door. Their dad grabs him with reflexes Minho didn’t know he had. “No! Why are you just letting them take him?”
“Minwoo, stop,” their father pleads. “Stop, you know we can’t-”
Freshly nineteen, Minwoo is stronger than him. He tears his arm away and runs towards Minho and the Peacekeepers who are hauling him away.
“No, you can’t!” He screams again, ripping Minho out of their grasps with what feels like inhuman strength. “You can’t have him!” Minho is pulled so tightly to his chest that he can feel the rampant heartbeat like it’s his own.
Maybe it is.
“Hyung?” Minho is torn away again. Or rather, Minwoo is torn away from him. Minho’s heart leaps up into his throat and spasms. “Hyung!”
They uppercut him in the solar plexus and throw him into the water. And that shouldn’t be a problem, because Minwoo can swim. Of course he can. But then-
“Hyung! No! No!” He wails. “Please don’t do this! Please! Please! I’ll go!” Minho screams, whirling around to look at the invigilator. The smile is still plastered on her face. “Please stop, I’ll go! I’ll do anything!”
“Of course you will,” she says cheerfully. “You don’t have a choice.”
It takes Minho’s throat three days to recover.
(He wonders if the rest of him ever does.)
🜲
“Isn’t this nice?” Kibum claps his hands together, looking around at everyone at the table. “It feels like we’re a little family.”
“Families don’t kill each other,” Dahyun snorts, twirling a chopstick between her fingers. Minho’s tongue runs over his teeth, so hard he can feel the ridges in each one.
Kibum laughs awkwardly, running a finger along the collar of his garishly yellow suit. “Right. Well, why don’t you two introduce yourselves? I think the bar has some soju with my name on it.” He scurries out of the room, leaving the four of them staring at their last lifeline.
Junmyeon and Taeyeon size them up with unreadable expressions. There’s not much need for introductions: District 4 has few victors, and not one since Junmyeon 16 years ago.
In the runup to the Games every year, they’re all expected to come to the very same square where the reaping takes place to watch reruns and winner’s highlights of previous Games. Seemingly demure Taeyeon who had used a scavenged fishing line to garotte her opponents and endearingly polite Junmyeon who had used his Games’ mostly water Arena and his particularly strong swimming skills to sneak up on people and drown them are particular favorites of the Capitol.
“You take the boys, I’ll take the girls?” Taeyeon asks after a pause.
So Seungmin and Minho remain at the dining table under Junmyeon's scrutinizing eyes, food largely forgotten. Minho’s stomach twists far too much and, as Seungmin practically squirms beside him, he assumes his does too. He tries to focus on the blurring scenery outside the train window. District 4 isn’t known for its lush forests.
Junmyeon puts his arms behind his head and leans back in his chair. “1025, right? I’ve heard about you,” he says to Minho.
“Yeah?” The corner of Minho’s mouth ticks up. “Good things, I hope?”
There’s little doubt in his mind what Junmyeon has heard. For the past two years, Minho has heard the same thing. His instructors must be overjoyed right now, congratulating each other on a job well done as they place their bets.
“Let’s talk strategy.” Junmyeon steeples his fingers and leans his elbows on the table. Fleetingly, Minho thinks about how Kibum would scold him for it. “What angle can we use for you, Seungmin? What do you have going for you?” The frown he makes is thoughtful, at least halfway convincing that he does, to some degree, care.
“I mean”—Seungmin lets out a weak, half-hearted laugh, smile coming and going in a mere instant—“does it matter? We all know I’m not gonna make it very far anyway.”
“You certainly won’t if you don’t even try,” Junmyeon huffs. “Four has been an embarrassment for the past few years. I don’t care if you think you’re going to die, at least have some self respect.”
The car goes so silent that even a pin drop would be too loud. Seungmin’s face twitches.
When he opens his mouth to retort, under the table Minho stomps on his foot. His mouth closes, then opens again.
“I don’t have anything going for me,” Seungmin grits out. “Make me pitiable or something.”
“You’re too old for that to work,” Junmyeon tells him flatly. “And no one likes the pitiable ones. Give them something to root for. Something they’ll like.”
“Why aren’t you giving him a narrative?”
“Because Aloof Pretty Boy works for Minho. The Capitol will eat it up and he won’t even have to lift a finger. I can do something with Aloof Pretty Boy.” Junmyeon points a finger at Seungmin, a chilling look that hasn’t left his eyes since the Arena fixed right on him. It’s enough to give even Minho shivers.
He wonders if it’ll take over them too, when the time comes.
In the brief moment he accidentally catches sight of his distorted reflection in the silver butter dish, he wonders if it already has.
“It’s entertainment, Seungmin. Make it easy for yourself and find a narrative that we can both do something with. If you don’t get sponsors, your slim chances of winning are going to be zero.”
“They’re already zero!” Seungmin snaps, slamming his fist against the table. His voice is tight and he stares at Junmyeon so hard it’s a wonder he doesn’t burst into flames.
“Stop,” Minho hisses to him, kicking his shin lightly. His own fingers curl into his pants.
“Fine.” The sound of wood scraping the floor is not unlike nails on a chalkboard. “I’m sure your parents can’t wait to watch their son give up before he even steps foot in that damn Arena. It’s not like it’s my body going home in a box. God, I need a drink.”
The car is empty and silent for a beat. Minho’s arm darts out to catch Seungmin’s wrist when he stands, so quick that his chair falls over behind him and lands with a thud that echoes through the entire car. The skin goes pale around his fingers.
"Do you have a death wish?" Minho growls.
“I’m being realistic.” Seungmin pulls his wrist away and scowls at Minho, nearly stumbling back in the process. “I have no chance.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Seungmin. Why the fuck are you here?”
“You picked-”
“No, I fucked up." It's his fault, Minho knows it is. Seungmin cannot answer the question any other way. But that doesn't explain the determination that had been locked in Seungmin's jaw when he'd pushed his way through the crowd. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was never supposed to happen. “You aren’t supposed to be here. Why are you here?” Minho presses, teeth locked tightly together.
“Why do you care? Consider me one less person you need to worry about.”
Minho grabs a butter knife and lunges for Seungmin, slashing at his face. Not close enough that he’ll actually hurt him, but close enough that he leaps back and throws his arms up in self defense.
“Why are you here?”
Kibum is there scolding him about attacking another tribute and prying the knife away before he gets an answer. But Minho sees Seungmin’s eyes as he scurries away, and he gets a different one instead.
🜲
Every year that they watch the Games, Minho brings a string from home and teaches Seungmin how to play cat’s cradle. He’s lousy at it, and his attempts are lukewarm at best, but Minho does his darndest to keep Seungmin’s eyes away from the screen. He covers Seungmin’s ears whenever the screams of terror start to ring across the square, just like his brother covers his, and on the other side Seungmin holds his sister’s hand with a white knuckle grip.
This year, Seungmin’s eyes never leave the screen. He doesn’t want to watch, but he can’t stop. This year, Minho holds his hand instead and lets it be crushed.
When they see the inevitable coming, he covers Seungmin’s eyes.
“Don’t look, Seungmin.” He wishes he had two more hands to cover his ears as well. Instead, he presses his hand tighter over his eyes, makes sure his fingers are closed. The tears that leak out are warm. It takes willpower Minho didn’t think he could muster not to let his own fall. “Don’t look.”
In previous years, he could lie and say that it’s all just for show, that it’s all just a game even though they both know it’s not. It was easy to pretend, even if only for both of them to feel less sick.
But this is real. It has never been moreso.
The children onscreen die, and they will never come home.
🜲
The training room in the Capitol is a feat of technology. Technology he doubts even Districts 1 and 2 are allowed. In addition to the instructors and targets dotted around the room, Minho can see the hologrammed enemies that charge at one of the tributes practicing with a sword.
“Looks fun.” Yujin grins as the four of them enter the room. “Make friends,” she sing-songs, turning to wink at Dahyun and Minho before sauntering over to the archery station where one of the girls from Two is eyeing the different bows on display.
“Feels like home, doesn’t it?” Dahyun cocks a brow at Minho, that toothy smile he can’t figure out on full display once more.
“If you can call it that.” He shrugs. The smile falters, and Dahyun’s eyes narrow minutely for a moment. She stalks off, leaving Minho to frown at her back until she disappears into a crowd around the swords.
“Seungmin,” he says, glancing to the side. Seungmin is still rooted to the spot. He looks every bit the fish out of water that he is. “Go to sparring.” The corners of his mouth tick up and Minho lets out a puff of air. “Your balance could use some work.”
Seungmin isn’t smiling.
“Already figuring out my weaknesses?”
“When you do such a bad job at hiding them it isn’t very hard.” Minho rolls his eyes. “And that doesn’t sound like a thank you.”
“Who said I was thanking you? I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Well, isn’t that just too damn bad, Kim Seungmin.” Minho sets his eyes on the survival station. “Have fun getting your ass kicked. Or don’t. Just don’t be another embarrassment when the time comes.”
When Minho glances up from his tiny fire half an hour later and sees Seungmin locked in combat with an instructor, hard determination in his furrowed brows, he can’t stop the corner of his mouth from twitching into a smile.
🜲
“So what’s your play?” Dahyun asks, cornering Minho in the dining room after Yujin has been pulled aside by Taeyeon and Seungmin has said that he wants an “early night” after the tribute parade. Her eyes are narrowed into slits, swimming in shimmering blue. “Why are you being so nice to him? He's not useful. You looking for an easy target? Are you weak, Lee Minho, or just stupid?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He shoves her away. “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
“You know,” she calls after him as he walks away, “they might think you’re District Four’s golden boy, but I don’t.”
Minho pauses, pressing his tongue against his teeth. Something eats away at his insides. “Oh, yeah?” He gives Dahyun the iciest look he can. “And why’s that?”
“I just don’t think you have it in you, Lee Minho.” She smiles so sweetly, so saccharinely. Minho’s sure the Capitol will love to watch how fast that smile goes twisted. “District Four might finally have another winner, but I don’t think it’s gonna be you.”
Without thinking, Minho’s fingers have closed around a knife from the table and the cold silver has embedded itself in the wall right beside Dahyun’s head. Her eyes are wider, almost startled.
“District Four might finally have another winner,” he mocks, “but I don’t think it’s gonna be you, Kim Dahyun. And if you don’t watch out, that big mouth of yours will be the one to put a target on your back.”
🜲
The training room is split into two camps: one of the already competent Careers who seem more intent on playing around than anything, and one of the majority of tributes who have little to no experience with anything like this.
Minho does his rounds at a few stations, but mostly he prefers to watch. It’s strategic not to show off what you can really do, but Careers always show a preference. Yujin and her bow. Dahyun and her swords. It’s an exertion of power.
“Hey, 1025.” Speak of the devil, Dahyun rounds on him while he’s in line for the plant identification. “Ally with me.”
He glances behind her at the Career pack nudging each other and staring at him. Vaguely he recalls their reapings.
“Do your friends come with the deal, 528?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Dahyun brushes some hair out of her face. “This is a one time offer, so you should think fast. Your turn is coming up.”
Minho’s eyes shift from the Careers to the other end of the room, where Seungmin is eyeing the archery station with careful consideration. He looks back at Dahyun.
“Yeah, I’ll join your little crew. On one condition.” His eyes narrow at her. “I get to kill Kim Seungmin myself.”
🜲
“Oh, the Capitol will just eat you up,” Minho’s stylist tells him, punctuating the sentiment with a dusting of shimmery power along his temple and into his hair. It shifts from a turquoise blue to gold, like “the sun on the sea” apparently. Minho’s not sure he sees the vision, but he’s not a stylist. Just a doll to be made up and keep his mouth shut. “You look even better now that you’re properly cleaned up. Your face is just to die for.”
“Thank you,” he tells her somewhat unsurely. Satisfied with her finishing touches, she shoos him along to the chariot.
“Remember, no big, sudden moves. And watch your arms. If you break anything it will look ridiculous. Understand?”
Minho is the last among his district to make it to the chariots. The girls look as stiff and uncomfortable as he feels exposed like this. District 4. Fishing. Water. Nothing about that screams outfits that leave little to the imagination , but their district rarely escapes such a trend. The Capitol loves it, and so it continues and proliferates among the other districts as well.
At least they’re not naked, so he supposes that’s a step up from the year their tributes were given strategically placed seashells and nothing more. There’s a point of embarrassment that is passed when your stylist looks at you like a piece of meat, as fresh as the day you were born. Under the scrutiny of thousands upon thousands of people watching you, however, he does not even want to begin to imagine it.
Even this, an outfit made entirely of colored and clear glass designed to look like the cresting of waves around their legs and splashing water around their torsos and behind their heads, feels too exposed.
The millions of eyes that will see him are nothing like those at the Facility.
"I see they managed to scrub that layer of sweat off you." Seungmin is petting one of the horses, scratching his arm and angling himself in a way that is similarly uncomfortable to the rest of them.
"And I see they managed to get that fishy smell off you," Minho retorts. A chilly breeze runs through the tunnel and sends goosebumps all over his exposed skin. He scratches the junction between his forefinger and thumb with a little more force than necessary.
There's a beat of silence.
"Noona would've liked these," Seungmin says, somewhat absentmindedly and yet starkly intentional all at once. The corners of his mouth drop a bit.
The two of them are yelled at to get in the chariot.
"Yeah." Minho grabs the rail inside tightly. He doesn't know what his prep team did to his knuckles, but the skin is closed as though it was never split in the first place. "Probably."
The cheering is so loud, echoing in the massive tunnel. So close, yet so, so far. He grips the rail tighter as the chariot starts to move.
"What did they dress them up as that year?" Seungmin's voice is clear as a bell, louder than it needs to be. "Fighting fish?"
Minho gives him a tight smile. There's no way Seungmin doesn't know the answer, so what is he doing this for? The glittering night lights on the Capitol get closer and closer.
"That was the year before," he responds anyway. "It was sea glass."
When they break into the ring, he stares straight ahead at Dahyun's back so he doesn't have to see the people all watching, all cheering. It's easy to cheer when all you have to do is watch, when it doesn't feel like thousands of eyes are picking you apart like carrion birds with their sharp beaks.
Something crawls in Minho's stomach and starts to fester. It isn't soon enough that the parade is finally over and his stylist is gushing about something or other and removing his delicate headpiece.
"Hey, Aloof Pretty Boy," Junmyeon calls as he approaches. He’s red in the face, panting as he jogs over, but not a single hair is out of place. "Come here for a minute. I've got someone who wants to meet you."
The festering gets worse.
🜲
The glow of the TV turns the hallway blue. Still half asleep, Minho redirects his path from the bathroom to squint into the sunken living room. There’s no sound, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Games reruns are on.
“What are you doing, Seungmin?” He asks, stopping just above the couch. The light of the TV turns Seungmin ashen.
He practically leaps up at the sound of Minho’s voice, whirling around with dinner plates for eyes.
“I didn’t hear you there, hyung,” he mumbles, voice far clearer and more awake than Minho’s.
“I just got here.”
“Didn’t hear you coming then?” Seungmin tries.
Minho shrugs and steps down onto the couch. It’s too plush, too nice. A few moments of luxury before they die? If it wasn’t so depressing it would be funny.
“Couldn’t sleep?” It’s not a question so much as a statement, but Seungmin nods anyway, looking down at his lap. Like he’s been ashamed to be caught. "Yeah, me neither." It's not entirely untrue, but Minho's restless dreams have little to do with the impending Games.
Onscreen, Minho watches a tribute get bitten by a rat mutt she’s trying to kill. Within moments, her eyes lose their lucidity. She starts to tear at her hair and scratch at her face until it's bloody, mouth open in silent screams, before lunging at one of her allies and trying to choke them.
Seungmin flinches when someone finally puts her out of her misery and an arrow flies through her skull.
"I thought you couldn't stomach watching the Games," Minho comments.
"Guess I grew up." Seungmin laughs hollowly, teeth shining blue. "And a whole lot of good it did me. I feel like a pig fattened up for slaughter."
"So don't let them slaughter you."
"I told you-"
"And I'm telling you," Minho cuts in. "Don't give them the satisfaction of winning by giving up before you've even tried. Don't let them eat you alive. You're smart, Seungmin. It's a game to them, so start playing the fucking game. Didn't Junmyeon tell you that?"
"Ha," Seungmin says, "funny. He's barely spoken to me. Even he knows there's no point. I'm not District Four's golden boy."
Minho wishes he could transfer all the attention from himself onto Seungmin. He doesn’t need —doesn't want— the help he's getting.
They watch another tribute die, neck snapped so severely he looks like a marionette.
"Does your family still spearfish?" Minho asks as the camera changes to follow two tributes into a field of colorful flowers.
"Huh? Yeah, we do." Seungmin looks away from the screen. A huge bear rises up among the flowers, and even Minho's stomach turns when it starts to attack. "Why?"
"Tomorrow"—Minho jerks his head away from the mutilation, bile in his throat—"for the assessments. Use the spears."
"Hyung-"
"If you've ever trusted me, Seungmin, just listen to me. At least this once. Use the spears." The Games finally cut away to a trio of commentators, all decked out in colors so bright even the reef fish would be jealous. "Make them bet on you. Make. Them. Like. You. Play their game so well you make them play yours."
For the first time since they were kids, Minho thinks that Seungmin really looks at him. His eyes flick back and forth across Minho’s face, trying to read him, trying to pick apart his ulterior motives.
In the end, all he does is turn off the TV and tell Minho to get some rest.
🜲
When Minho is 7, his brother’s name is pulled. Before he can even process what that really means, an older boy is stepping forward to volunteer. One of the first to come out of the Career program.
They watch him die on the first day, and Minho’s whole family hugs his brother tighter.
Two years later, Seungmin’s sister is reaped.
It’s no one's fault, but Minho thinks that part of Seungmin never forgives him for that.
🜲
“District Four. Lee Minho,” a robotic voice intones into a crowded waiting room. When Minho stands, smoothing invisible creases on his pants, he can feel 34 pairs of eyes immediately hone in on his back. No one speaks much in the waiting room, just watches each tribute go into the room like they’re never coming out and then stares up at the screen above the door that displays the time.
“Don’t let us down,” Dahyun calls sweetly as Minho walks away. It’s not so much encouragement as it is a thinly veiled threat. If it wasn’t so frowned upon to kill tributes from your own district, Minho doesn’t doubt she would already be planning his demise.
The Gamemakers eyes are on him the minute he steps in the room. Minho can feel them, setting his skin ablaze, chewing on him like they want to eat him alive. The stares are impossible to shrug off, though he certainly tries as he makes his way towards the knives. He grabs one and lets the weight settle into his palm, ingrain itself into his fingers, while he glances around.
There’s no way for him to tell what Seungmin’s done. The room looks as spotless and organized as it did on the first day. Nothing is out of place, not a single target has been punctured.
It would be so easy to miss, so easy to let the knife slip out of his hand at the wrong moment.
Minho breathes deeply and throws.
The knife wedges itself directly into the heart of the target he’s aiming at. Minho’s own doesn’t know whether to be glad or not.
But the one variable he can be sure of is himself.
So he throws.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
🜲
“And now for the tributes from District Four.” Lee Jinki taps his cue cards on the desk. “For our highly anticipated Lee Minho…” he pauses for effect, staring directly into the camera. His eyes are a frightening silver to match his hair this year. The rest of the room holds its breath with him. Minho looks at his lap, fingers pressed between his knuckles as he clasps his hands together. “A ten.”
“Just as expected.” Junmyeon claps him on the back. “That’s what I like to hear.”
“And now Kim Seungmin”—Jinki’s eyebrows raise a bit—"well, this is a bit of a surprise. Kim Seungmin has scored a nine.”
The score flashes onscreen to stunned silence.
“Well, if people were overlooking you before they certainly aren’t now,” Junmyeon comments, mouth slightly agape. The whirring gears in his mind are practically audible. “What the hell did you do in there?”
Seungmin just shrugs as Dahyun and Yujin’s scores are announced. Both tens.
“Just took some friendly advice.”
Dahyun sidles up to Minho as they watch the rest of the scores play out. “Maybe I should have allied with him,” she murmurs.
“Yeah.” Minho steals a glance at Seungmin, watching the broadcast impassively. Like he doesn’t even care. “Maybe you should have.”
“He’s a threat now. You really think you can-”
“He’s not a problem. And even if he was, he’s not your problem,” Minho reminds her, teeth gritted together. It doesn’t matter what Seungmin scores, how good he is with a spear. Even if it’s been seven years, Minho still knows Seungmin. And there are some things that never change.
“Hey, hyung,” Seungmin says late that night, the scorching sun of last year’s Games reflected in his eyes. A tribute finds a tiny stream and desperately scoops the water into her mouth. Minho imagines that it tastes like blood. “Thanks. Even if it is all for nothing.”
It’s not for nothing, Minho wants to say.
But he doesn’t, just lets them both live in their lies, spoken and unspoken.
The same tribute takes a rock to a lizard’s head. Over and over until its brains are dashed out on a rock and it finally stops moving.
Minho sees a fish instead.
When he looks down, his hands are stained with blood.
🜲
Up until the last minute, Minho’s stylist is pinning and adjusting his outfit. Much to his surprise after seeing her work for the parade, tonight’s looks are almost conservative. The silk hanbok she’s put them in could hardly be more on the opposite side of the spectrum from the avant garde costumes of a few days ago. Based on the few glimpses Minho has caught of the other districts, they’re not the only ones. His stylist tells him that tomorrow there will be dozens of gossip magazines gushing about them. They love to see tributes in hanbok; it’s all the rage in the Capitol, apparently.
Rather bitterly, Minho takes this to mean that they find it quaint.
Yujin, in glittering white, is well received as she enters the stage, her hair pulled up into a sleek high ponytail that has become her signature.
Minho’s stylist has given the four of them different colors to make them all feel unique, but embroidered dragons on all of their jeogori to still make them “look like a team.” It takes an immense amount of effort to bite his tongue and not remind her that, come tomorrow, they’ll be gunning to kill each other. Maybe it hasn’t set in for her yet.
Maybe, in the Capitol, it never really does.
“They’ll love my girls,” Taeyeon tells Junmyeon smugly as Yujin’s interview begins, all smiles and a perfect balance of confidence and humility. It’s a far different Yujin than Minho has ever seen. How much is real, how much is simply a construction of Taeyeon’s design, he truly cannot tell. A swallow catches in his throat as he watches her answer questions with ease. He can practically feel Taeyeon’s eyes as they shift towards him and Seungmin doubtfully. “Maybe you should have focused more on the boys than the bar.”
If Seungmin is nervous, he does a good job of hiding it. He watches the screen with laser focus, a thoughtful frown on his face. He shifts it to Junmyeon as he approaches, running a hand down his face. He looks worse for the wear tonight, a bit like a towel that’s been wrung out to dry a few too many times.
“Look, you already know what to do.” He waves a hand at Minho. “You”—he looks at Seungmin—"well, just be friendly or something. I don’t know anymore. Just play the game. Where’s Kibum when I need him? He was supposed to bring us champagne.”
Seungmin’s frown sours as they watch Junmyeon head off down the hallway in search of Kibum and the missing champagne. “How helpful,” he says flatly. “I hope he’s better at getting you sponsors than he is at giving advice.”
Minho looks down at his feet. His stylist scolds him for shifting the fabric in the middle of her altering. So instead, he smoothes invisible creases on his pants and watches Lee Jinki raise one of Yujin’s arms above her head as the crowd claps and cheers for her.
It feels like a mere moment, just a blink, and suddenly Seungmin has replaced her on stage. The stage lights catch on the dark blue silk of his hanbok, the ocean on a stormy day. Seungmin betrays none of that storm as his interview begins.
Even as a kid, he’d been good at talking. What Seungmin had lacked in his ability to not get in trouble he had more than made up for in his knack for talking his way out of it. The skill has grown with him into a natural kind of charm and an ease in speaking that Minho can only envy. Though he’s polite, Seungmin speaks like he’s friends with the whole of the nation. The magnetism bleeds through the screen.
“Oh, he’s quite good,” Kibum says from somewhere behind Minho. “That’s a personality that’ll get him far.”
“You know”—Onscreen, Lee Jinki leans in towards Seungmin, like he’s telling him a secret—"you remind me of someone, Seungmin.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Taeyeon sounds thoughtful. “I swear there was a girl some odd years ago… Kim Sowon? No, that isn’t right. Kim Soyi?”
Seungmin’s smile falls a bit. Something between angry and sad, a split second of indecision whether to protect or expose.
“Kim Sohee?” Taeyeon tries again.
“Kim Sora,” Minho and Seungmin say at the same time.
“Sora, that’s it!” Taeyeon snaps her fingers. “Something about him reminds me of her.”
“She, uh"—Seungmin’s mouth twists and his fingers bunch together in his lap, but he keeps his head up—"she was a tribute seven years ago. You interviewed her too.” His eyes find the crowd, less assurance in them than mere moments ago. Guilty almost. Then sharp, cutting. Accusatory. “She was my sister.”
A gasp ripples through the crowd.
“Well, my goodness what are the odds!” Anywhere else the odd delight would be out of place. Here, however, it feels sickeningly fitting. “It must be such an honor that both of you have been given this opportunity. Your parents must be very proud.”
Seungmin’s brows press together, lips parting slightly as he stares at Jinki like he’s gone insane.
Minho hadn’t seen Seungmin’s parents when he’d been reaped, but he remembers their faces when Sora had.
Hurriedly, Seungmin plasters a smile back on. It goes as sharp as his eyes. He laughs good naturedly. “Yes, I suppose they must be. I hope I can make my sister proud too.”
“Oh?” Jinki gives Seungmin an encouraging look.
“She died,” Seungmin continues. Cold, but burning all the same. His fingers curl into his hanbok. Jinki nods sagely and the crowd devolves into sad murmurs. “She died, and now I-” He stumbles, catches himself before something rushes out. “I want to… win for her.”
“Damn.” Junmyeon materializes beside Minho, arms folded as he watches the screen. “Who’d have thought he had it in him.”
The crowds cheer and applaud for Seungmin enthusiastically as he waves to them. As the camera pans over them, it looks like a few people are dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you.” Junmyeon pats Minho’s shoulder. The camera cuts close to Seungmin’s face, a last look before he leaves the stage and Dahyun takes his place. “It looks like Seungmin decided he wants to play this game after all.”
🜲
One of the walls in the dining room has been made into an aquarium, full of coral and brightly colored fish swimming in water far too blue to be natural. Early morning finds Minho staring at it, watching as the fish pass by without really seeing anything. The water gradually clouds, tendrils of red smoking dripping like paint and blossoming like carnations. One by one, like they’re trying to escape, the fish ram into the glass. Again and again and again until they float to the top, heads split open.
The water becomes impossible to see through, just like always.
“You know him?” When Minho blinks, Dahyun is reflected in the glass, a shadow against the glowing blue. He turns to look at her, arms folded and a brow raised, a slight frown on her face.
“What?”
“Kim Seungmin. You know him.”
“What makes you think so?” Minho feigns innocence, though there’s really no point. He thinks the question was really just a nicety.
“He calls you hyung.”
“Someone’s observant,” Minho says dryly. “Glad your ears work. Yeah, he does. We were neighbors.”
“That’s not going to be a problem is it?”
“Why would it be a problem?” Minho intones, narrowing his eyes. “I said I would kill him, didn’t I?”
“I told you”—Dahyun takes a knife from the table and twirls it loosely between her fingers—"I just don’t think you have it in you. And if you can’t do it, then don’t stand in my way.”
Minho looks back at the tank in front of him, past his reflection. Then he looks down at his hands and closes them into tight fists.
“Well, don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I worry about it.” The knife halts. “ Can you kill him?”
“Can I gut a fish?” Minho smiles at Dahyun without any ounce of warmth. He stands and plucks the knife from her fingers, setting it back on the table.
“He’s your friend.”
“Was,” Minho clarifies. He feels the falter in his throat and pushes it down into his chest. Dahyun will pounce on it if she hears it. “He was my friend.” Minho pushes past Dahyun to make for the bathroom. The hallway feels longer than ever and when he looks up the ghost of a child walks past, head down, lip wobbling, hands wringing together. Minho pauses as the child passes and looks down at his own hands, at the blood that has settled in the lines in his palms and beneath his nails.
The weight of a lie and the even heavier weight of a truth bear down on him. Even seven years later, they feel the same.
Once, he thinks he could have called Seungmin his brother.
“I’m not his friend anymore. So just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
No amount of Capitol soap can clean the permanent stain on Minho’s skin.
If anything, it only makes it worse.
🜲
“Hey.” Junmyeon snaps his fingers in front of Minho’s face. It causes him to jerk his head back abruptly and his empty focus zeroes in on Dahyun on screen, still in the midst of her interview. “1025. Are you in there?”
“Yeah.” Minho blinks again and his right thumb digs into the skin between his forefinger and left one. The dull ache is an easy distraction as time marches on and the seconds tick down, slow and fast all at once. The laughter of the audience is loud, louder than he thinks it was before. His ears grow hot. “I’m good.”
Junmyeon eyes him for about two seconds before shrugging and heading off to join Taeyeon and Yujin by a platter of tiny desserts Kibum has procured.
The mere idea of food makes Minho’s mouth feel unpleasant.
Someone taps him lightly on the shoulder and Minho is quick to release his thumb, swallowing down nerves that eat away at the base of his ribs. Seungmin looks at him with that stark intention that had marred his voice during the tribute parade.
Minho folds his arms over his chest. “Something you want to say?”
Seungmin shrugs mildly. “They already like you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried.”
Seungmin’s eyes flit to the side of Minho’s head, but he puts his hands up placatingly nonetheless. “If you say so.”
With a frown, Minho brings his hands to his head and rubs the tips of his ears with his fingers like it will move the blood down.
“You can pretend you’re just talking to me,” Seungmin tells him after a momentary pause. Dahyun’s interview is rapidly coming to a close. “Like you used to in school.” Over his shoulder, someone is beckoning for Minho, the cheering of the crowd echoing through the hallway. Minho shoves past Seungmin.
“We’re not in school anymore,” he mutters to no one as he climbs the stairs to the stage.
The audience is all a blur, a garble of noise and shadow that blends together beneath harsh, oppressive lights that seem to illuminate only him. Minho feels every needle sharp eye on him, pricking at his skin.
Beneath them, he resists the urge to cross his arms and draw his black jeogori tighter around him.
Lee Jinki starts to speak to him, and Minho tries to morph his face into Seungmin’s. He answers a question without knowing a single word that comes out of his mouth.
It is impossible to imagine Seungmin in Jinki’s place, nauseating even.
Whatever he said must have been funny, or Jinki has made it so, because a laugh ripples through the audience. Minho swallows thickly.
“Aloof Pretty Boy?” Minho asks flatly, arching a brow.
“D’you have a better idea?” Junmyeon is practically falling asleep at the bar, obviously drunk off his ass. Despite his lack of lucidity, that chilling look is still there when he finally seems to find Minho’s face.
“See? That’s exactly what you are,” he slurs when Minho can give him no answer. Ice clinks in his empty glass and he pouts at it, waving the bartender over. “And they love that shit.”
There is little Minho wants less than for the Capitol to love him, either their image or his truth, but the audience reacts to him like he’s some kind of star. It doesn’t seem to matter how he hides his nerve-induced clumsiness behind coldness, or that his answers are short and succinct. If anything, it seems to work in his favor. Jinki dubs him a mystery they’d all like to solve and it gets a roaring laugh.
He is everything and nothing all at once; a gift of possibility wrapped in black. Minho is whatever the Capitol decides he is, whatever story they project onto him. It makes his skin crawl at the same time as it affords him a shell to hide in. Jinki scratches that thin veneer of safety and rocks settle heavily in Minho's stomach.
He smiles politely and laughs along, but he feels naked beneath the echoing guffaws. The lights telescope around him and three minutes feels ever longer.
“Now, Minho, at the reaping you made quite the impression. Didn’t he, folks?” Jinki encourages the audience. Minho’s attention finally manages to find him among the mesh of their surroundings, words finally gaining conscious meaning. Briefly, he can recall the broadcast of the reapings they’d watched on the train. In comparison to varying levels of excitement and despair, he supposes that the stark nothingness must have been an oddity. “You looked so brave. What was going through your mind?”
It takes effort to keep his smile polite. Minho half thinks to tell Jinki that he wanted to keep some last semblance of control over his narrative before the Capitol made it their own, to use this one chance not give them the satisfaction of making him a spectacle, even if that's all he's been since his name was pulled, all he'll be after this. In less than twelve hours, nothing out here will matter anymore.
Once bitten, twice shy. Minho has sunk his teeth into the hand that fed him before and though there is nothing left to hurt him anymore, he does not doubt that the Capitol will find a way.
“I thought it was fitting,” he says instead.
The buzzer goes off before Jinki can get another question in and Minho finally feels like he can breathe.
But what little relief he feels at escaping the hundreds of eyes on stage vanishes when he makes it back to Four’s waiting area and Junmyeon gives him the closest thing to an almost apologetic look he’s likely to ever get.
“Someone wants to meet you later,” is all Junmyeon says.
Kibum’s praises fall on deaf ears as Minho only nods and swallows a sick feeling.
🜲
It isn’t horribly late when Minho returns to their floor, Junmyeon ditching him in favor of meeting up with another potential sponsor. The clock has barely passed midnight, but the apartment is still and dark, the dining room and living room illuminated mostly by the glowing aquarium. Minho tries to sneak through as quietly as he can, assuming that the others have already gone to bed.
“Oh, you’re back.” A dark figure shifts by one of the alcoved windows and Minho almost leaps out of his skin until he’s able to make out Seungmin, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” He asks with a sigh, taking a seat across from Seungmin and leaning against the other wall. “Early start tomorrow.”
“Can’t sleep.” Outside a firework goes off. The light flickers across Seungmin’s somber face and he suddenly looks far too old for a few months shy of 16.
In the distance, Minho watches beams of light wave back and forth in the sky and tiny houses glow with the gold of parties just starting to get going. No one in the Capitol will have trouble sleeping tonight.
“I didn’t think you’d talk about her,” he says quietly. Tiny bits of Sora bleed through Seungmin’s reflection, crystalized forever in 15.
“Neither did I.” Seungmin makes a fist. “I… I don’t know why I did. It wasn’t supposed to be a sob story. They don’t get to pity us.” His jaw tightens, eyes sharp in the glass. “I wanted them to feel bad. They killed her. I wanted them to know that. Their Games killed her. And now…” All that is sharp in Seungmin is old and dulled, a knife that has cut too many times before. When he exhales, what little is left is washed away with tired, shameful acceptance. “Now they're going to kill me too.”
“Don’t say that,” Minho murmurs, raking a hand through mousse stiff hair. “You don’t know that, Seungmin-ah.”
“Everyone knows that. Just because I can throw a spear doesn’t mean I can kill someone.”
“That-”
“Hyung, come on.” Seungmin looks at him almost desperately despite the sharp scoff he makes. “You know I have no chance. It’s a deathwish, you said so yourself. It’s okay. Really, it is.” He looks down at the ground, mouth twisted. “People like me don’t win the Games.”
Another firework goes off. It’s a gunshot that rings through Minho’s ears.
“Does it make you feel better to pretend you’re okay with dying?” It’s cold in his mouth, too fast to close his teeth around. “If you say it’s okay, then you aren’t scared. Is that it?”
“What does it matter?” Seungmin’s dark eyes smolder with bursts of orange light. He makes some sort of scoff in the back of his throat, looks back out the window. “I didn’t come here because I thought I could win.”
You shouldn't have come here at all, Minho thinks.
His teeth rip at a piece of skin on his lip and the tang of blood hits his tongue. “Ally with me.”
“Huh?” Light cuts the shadows of Seungmin’s face, incomplete as it jerks back to Minho.
“Ally with me,” Minho repeats.
The silence between them teeters on a knife’s blade.
“What about Dahyun?” Seungmin finally asks, slow, like a cat rounding on its prey. “And the others.”
Minho glances farther down the hallway, at the closed doors of Dahyun and Yujin’s rooms. He shakes his head. "I’ll find you, okay? Just… just stay alive.”
“But I-”
“Stay alive,” Minho tells him forcefully. “You can do that much, right?” He sticks his hand out towards Seungmin.
“Hyung”—Seungmin’s brows are pinched, his head tilted and eyes narrowed as he looks at Minho’s fragmented face—"why are you doing all this?”
“It makes a good show, doesn’t it?” Minho is glad for the dark, the way it hides the weak, muddled smile he makes. He moves his hand slightly. “Allies?”
There is surprisingly little hesitation when Seungmin takes it, grasp far more firm than it had been when they were kids, skin far rougher. It’s different yet still the same.
“Yeah,” Seungmin says quietly, squeezing Minho’s hand so gently he almost thinks he’s imagined it. “Sure. Allies.”
🜲