Chapter Text
The rain hammered, relentlessly soaking his already trembling hands as they held the tainted knife, each drop that struck the metal was mixing with sweat. Rapid breathing barely being registered by the sounds of the rainfall.
His breath hitched—not from exhaustion but from the daunting feeling that, the things he has done, the things he will do, will never be undone, never forgiven. A coward.
Ahead of him, a slouched figure stood with clenched fists, a sorrowful expression mixed with guilt, eyes wild, expectant of what was bound to happen.
This was more than the games, it was about them, about who was to live rich with guilt written on their face,and who was to be ash endlessly floating through an ocean.
"is this it? is this what our conclusion is?"
He couldnt articulate any word to respond to that, mind swirling—searching for an answer, something, so that his question wouldn't be left to float through the suffocating silence of nothing but rain, but he couldn't, because nothing he could say would change this,mend the predicament they ended up in to his liking, the mistakes he made along the way a stark reminder of why they're even here. Just Horses being bet on.
its silent for a moment, just them, the rain, and the pink men he hadn't even registered to be at the very back.
But the silence is torn when the voice of a broken man rings through the arena.
"Answer me dammit!"
Ah. Gi-hun's angry, angry at his silence, because he is too much of a coward to answer even the simplest of questions. He still didn't know how to reply, so when he starts approaching him, he watched carefully bracing for the first move.q
With each step, wet sand was sticking to his feet,clinging like the weight of everything. Hes getting closer, just a little closer and he'll be getting the money, just a little more and he'll forget all of this and be a rich man, rid of adult worries cluttering in his mind— he should be glad, he won't have any more impossible goals to worry about, no more stress, but, he isn't, he cannot bear to make another mistake.
But another one won't hurt, just one more and then he'll stop, no more mistakes because he'll be rich and unworried of anything.
With a finality of thought hes swinging the knife, hitting nothing but drops of rain, and a clenched, rough and possibly familiar hand is approching his face and he dosen't register it, and with one blow, another is landed, and another and thats when his composure comes back—hes fighting now,not playing or escaping, so he cannot make room for another mistake,with clarity and focus, he swings and manages a cut on the others face.
Just one or two more and he'll be out.
With hjs non dominant hand, he throws a punch at Gi-hun, the blow barely connecting with his nose, but the loud crunch that follows is unmistakeable.
Gihun's nose starts bleeding.
With an opportunity welcoming him, he kicks him in the shin,not hard enough to break a bone but enough to cause the man to collapse, not to his knees though.
Just for a few seconds Gi-Hun is vulnerable, but before he managed just one more hit, the man already recovered and tried snatching his blade, but he was faster–calculated, and his blade is moved away, towards the others thigh, and with a hard push, he pulls the blade out, its bloody, of course it is, their fluids mixing, sweat and blood.
Collapsing on him, Gi-Hun gets the opportuity to have his hands on the blade, and he lifts it up, but not before asking another question which, in truth will be floating in the cold and wet air yet again.
"Do you really think, this mockery of a game, is worth the lives of our brothers and sisters?" He pauses, thinking of what to say next, what to reason.
" The one's who expected to come out alive, with their debts paid, being with their families, not knowing there will be one winner only?"
silence. of course, but Gi-Hun is persistent, he has always been that way,huh.
"Sang-woo.. Please, just...answer me...anything...We still have a chance.. to get out.."
With silence and blood everywhere,mixing with eveything, their faces, the sand, the rain, he forces himself up, just enough to grab the blade, and in a swift motion, Gi-Hun's hand is pierced, and yet again, his blade is stolen, and he dosen't realize it but he's taking punch after punch to his face, his face full of blood, not his, Gi-Hun's.
As Gi-Hun starts rising the blade, he starts a monologue yet again– again preparing for his ideas to be neglected , ignorance is bliss, afterall.
"Sang-woo-yah.. I don't know how we got here.. how we ended up in a place, where we have to eliminate people for money, money which is shared as a pay for 455 individual lives.."
He paused a little, just finding the right words before he continued;
"But i dont want to end anybody's life, not like you did, like you tricked Ali, pushed the glassmaker..."
He never hears the whispered "Sae-byeok.."
And with a finality of tone, and no more words left unsaid, he notices the others waterline shiny, tears just threatening to drip on soft cheeks, but, just as he's rising the blade, he closes his eyes, knowing that maybe, it is infact better this way, really, in the end he is failure of a man, from the start to the end,a man who's only quality is intelligence, because he's sure one hand would be enough to count his good qualities, a failure is never meant to get far, but the man before him was a failure too, maybe even worse than him—just maybe.
...
It never comes, and hearing a splash of liquid right by his throat, he opens his eyes and crams his neck to see, and it's true, his life has been spared, somehow, the blade is just by him, and with such adrenaline, he acts before thinking, pulling the metal out of the soggy sand, which sticks to the blood far longer than he'd like, he lifts his head up.
He looks at Gi-Hun, really looks at him, observing his bloodied face, hardened by the week that ruined him more than over twenty years did—over twenty years in which he's barely contacted the other, his eyes, searching, looking, wanting to be able to see, to understand what lurks under his stoic demeanor.
"I just thought.." he swallowed, carefully deciding his next words, his thoughts far too confusing for him to put into words. He can try and be a little more manipulative at the the end, it's what he's good at, afterall.
Taking the silence as a sign to continue, he does;
"How they used to call our names when..."
Swallowing yet again, he's determined to continue,
"Our moms had made supper for us...That..That won't happen again, will it?"
He watches Gi-Hun's face twist from sadness–stress, whatever it is, to shock as he finnaly decides, its time to let himself spill his thoughts.
"Gi-hun.." He is just testing the other mans name on his tongue, thinking of how to continue, if this is the end, he thinks, a miserable man like him, useless to the world, be the one to be the one placed in the metal coffin covered in pink ribbons. A cowardly individual would be scared of death's sweet embrace, but he's different. A coward nonetheless.
"Sang-woo-yah..? L-listen to me, ill talk to the guard-" Gi-Hun chokes, seeing the aformentioned guard right next to him, not noticing them holding the pistol to Sang-woo's head, his nose bleed starts going down his throat as he swallows.
"Remember, clause three of the agreement, when the majority agrees of leaving, they get the opportunity to?"
Gi-Hun knows this wont work. He is just trying to buy time, stop him from using the piece of cutlery, to put an end to whatever the man is thinking of doing.
Gi-Hun turns back towards him, his hair wet and soggy, sticking to his head, and when he is right by him, he suggests;
"We could vote again.. to leave... i am willing to give it all up, all the m-money waiting to be claimed, if.. if it means we can go back home...We'd be poor, but, t-the both of us would be-" he pauses, no reason as to why crosses his mind.
"Alive.." and with that, Gi-Hun looks down at him, looks at him, wondering as to what could make the situation so amusing that he is smiling .
But Gi-hun ignores it, for now, deciding that pleading is the only way to change him, change his direction to a good conclusion, for the both of them, but there can't be too many people with a good ending, there is no logic to it.
"Please..just...Listen to me..I know you make the righr choices, you always do, so, please make one more right choice, for me, Please."
Gi-Hun pleads, and begs and expects him to be on his side, thinking some empty pleads can change ones mind, ones view of the world.
He opens his mouth to continue..sitting there for some time with words on the tip of his tongue,careful as to not say too much, something quick, as he is not now and not ever ready to say more, just some thoughts and he'll be unbound of everything, leave Gi-Hun to deal with this.
On one hand, he thinks, getting out of here...Alive, with Gi-Hun, rebuilding their lives, in poverty, but alive, sounds promising, truly, but the thought of going through all he's did, everything hes experienced–What he did to Ali—, gone through—guiding Gi-Hun to choose the umbrella during dalgona— in just six days and getting nothing, just living with the regret, the guilt, and no reward, he reasons he'd rather see the gates of hell, than live with all of this, he is just a coward afterall.
But he is better than all of them, being able to admit such a thing, only a man like him could do so, because not everyone is intelligent and not everyone went to SNU, so if admitting he is a coward is one more step of proving he's better, so be it.
So, shutting the way too hopeful thoughts out, shoving them to a small crevice in the back of his brain, he decides this time, this one time, it won't be a happy ending for Gi-Hun, maybe in another life..
In another life they'll be out at a bar, he, Gi-hun and other friends of his, drinking soju, cracking jokes way too unfunny to be called jokes and then parting ways as they all say goodnight.
It's time for Sang-Woo, the pride and joy of Ssangmun-dong, to do another selfish act for someone, because he will be a coward, who's not scared to admit it.
Because, hope gets you nowhere in life, and he knows it too well to even care anymore, but he cares, just one more time.
Smiling a little bit too much for one to think it's the real Sang-woo, he starts;
"Gi-hun..i am sorry..." He waits just a little, watching the miserable way Gi-Hun lifts an eyebrow in confusion, with hints of mistrust as to what he is to do, what he is to pull now, to ruin their friendship further than it's been ever done. Sorry— another lie he has fabricated
"Sang-woo... what...what are you thinking ..?" He starts choking a little yet again, the blood in his throat drying.
Of course Gi-Hun dosen't understand what he means, because he isn't offering an explanation to the apology, for the apology not even he knows what it is for, what he could be apologizing for, after all the million things he's done, he dosen't know about why he's apologizing because he has no idea if he even cares, if he means it.
With one more..pathetic.. way to end their conversation–short conversation— forever, he decides to not answer Gi-Hun and offer yet another measly apology, another stark reminder about why they're diffrent, one means everything his mouth lets the world hear while the other lies for his own gain.
"So...
sorry...Hyung."
And in a coward-ish manner, shaking, he lifts the blade above, making use of the tension to move his hands,lingering a little bit too much in the air.
But..in the end, he does lunge the blade into his own stomach, before Gi-Hun can stop him. Before he can change his mind, stab the other man and leave with the money.
plunging the blade into his stomach, blood splatters everywhere—especially his hands, now tinted with both Gi-Hun's blood and his.
The others face twisting into a more shocked wrinkled expression, as Gi-Hun tries making sense of what just happened, his own conciousness is leaving him, and just like that, one more stab was the final.
He faded out, seeing the faces he wished he could forget about in the last seconds of conciousness, Ali, Sae-Byeok, his mother and...Gi-Hun too..
Not even death will free him of mistakes.