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Before the games he had been a nobody.
Park Min-su - a 27 years old man, broke, sad, alone.
He lived in an one-room-apartment so small you couldn’t take three steps without bumping into something.
He also was in a lot of debt because he got scammed more times than he could actually count.
A pushover.
A useless loser with nobody who loved him. (his mom died years ago, his dad was never there.)
Then he entered the games and nothing really changed.
Even among all those other broke people with a load of debt on their plates, he was still someone whom nobody wanted in their team. (he couldn’t say anything against that, he wouldn’t choose himself either.)
He could see it in their eyes - they saw him as the good for nothing he actually was.
They saw his fear, they saw his weakness and his indecisiveness.
They all looked away when it came to a team-building game. Everybody just looked away, overlooked him as if he didn’t exist. (maybe he didn’t.)
And then Se-mi came into his life.
The first time he had seen her was when she appeared out of thin air in front of him before Pentathlon, her lips tugged up in a slight smile, her piercing reflecting the sun above them, blinding Min-su for just a second.
At this moment, Min-su had thought she was an angel.
She just stood there, hands in her pockets, kind eyes, a laid-back smile and Min-su’s heart missed a beat.
Not because she was the first pretty girl to talk to him in a long time, but more because he couldn’t believe someone actually cared.
That– that someone could see him.
She asked him if he wanted to play the next game together with her and he couldn’t say no- she was the only one who spoke with him and she seemed like a good person.
He had wanted to leave those cruel games since the moment he had seen the first player dead.
Honestly, he had felt like he would die any second, his stomach clenching and his hands trembling out of fear.
But Se-mi’s warm eyes gave him hope again - despite the blue circle on her jacket.
She really was serious about him being her team partner.
When Thanos had asked her to join them, Min-su had been sure he would get dumped on the spot. (he would have never held that against her.)
But Se-mi stayed with him.
She was the first person in Min-su’s life who chose him over someone else.
He wasn’t sure why.
“Because you looked like you wouldn’t betray me.”
Min-su wished he could see himself like she did. Most of the time, he felt like Se-mi saw him as a better person than he actually was.
Not like a coward, not like a useless loser.
Like a … nice person.
Was he?
He wanted to be.
Se-mi made him feel something he had not felt for years, since his childhood, to be exact - the feeling of being of value for someone.
It made his heart warm but it also scared him.
Was he worth her effort?
Se-mi was the only one in their newly formed group he actually liked to talk to. He didn’t need to think about what to say when he was near her, she never judged him for anything.
And she always made sure to defend him whenever Nam-gyu would say something out of line again.
Min-su felt kind of bad about not being able to stand up for himself, but he also liked it when Se-mi would do that for him.
She was like a savior to him.
Like a protector he could just hide behind, not having to see this fucked up world and those fucked up games.
She grabbed his hand in Mingle when they needed to run to one of the doors and she always looked back while running to look after him.
“3”
He would come to hate this number.
Se-mi’s hand was in front of him, she was reaching out, waiting for him to grab it and run with her.
Her eyes were kind, as always when she looked at him.
She saw him as someone loyal, as a good person.
He wasn’t.
He was Park Min-su, 27 years old coward.
He formed a scissor with his fingers and held it against her hand.
The warmth in Se-mi’s eyes vanished.
Min-su wanted to die.
After that, she wasn’t in his life anymore.
Well, not entirely, at least.
Maybe that was for the best - he hadn’t deserved her from the beginning. He knew that it would turn out like this, sooner or later.
He was glad she was still alive. She would be better off without him.
But it hurt, looking at her from afar.
With Se-mi not next to him anymore, he felt as alone as before the games. She took the light she brought before with her when she left - he could only see it in the distance, shining a lot less than the previous days.
Nam-gyu found her when the lights were out.
Min-su heard it from the bed above them, where he was hiding.
He really wanted to save her.
To be her savior, when she had been his before.
He couldn’t do it.
He missed Nam-gyu’s head when he threw the glass bottle because he was too focused on staying hidden.
Because he was a coward.
Even when it was about someone he really cared for, about the only person in the world that cared for him too -
He couldn’t save her. Because he was too afraid.
Min-su had to cover his ears - he couldn’t bear hearing Se-mi die.
He wanted to blend everything out - Se-mi’s last moments just some feet away from him, Nam-gyu’s crazy laugh, his own weakness.
When he found Thanos’ necklace with those pills he and Nam-gyu had taken over the past days, he could see Se-mi again.
“Do not take this shit, it will fuck you up and make you miserable.”
He was already miserable enough, though. It didn’t take a minute for him to swallow the first pink pill.
After that, his head was clouded.
He was confused, paranoid, afraid.
In his mind he lost Se-mi a hundred more times and she was always looking at him while dying, holding his gaze, the light around her and also the light in her eyes disappearing slowly as life left her too.
It was hell.
He made Nam-gyu go onto the trail at the Jumping Rope game and he also watched how he fell down into his death.
But that didn’t bring Se-mi back to him.
Nothing did.
Why was she dead and Min-su was still alive?
Why was someone as kind and warm-hearted, as strong and cool as Se-mi dead and bad people like this number 100 or the number 203 were still here, fighting for the price money?
He was alone.
The other players didn’t overlook him, because he somehow got into the finale, but they looked at him with disgust now.
In their eyes he was only some random junkie, nothing more.
They didn’t see him.
But maybe they did.
Maybe he was only a junkie, nothing more. He certainly wasn’t what Semi had seen in him, so maybe he was what all the other finalists saw in him.
A trembling mess, a coward who couldn’t even save the only person that liked him. (they didn’t know that last part but he was sure they could see it.)
When the other men were circling around him, targeting him in the first round of the finale, player 333 in front of him with this pole, Min-su realized what would happen.
At first, he was afraid.
Dying was the one thing he had tried to avoid for the whole time of the games up till now.
The fear of death made him betray Se-mi - not once but twice.
Because of his crucial fear of dying he hadn’t taken her hand this day.
But now, Se-mi was with him again.
She appeared the same way she did the first time he saw her, a hand stretched out towards him, like in Mingle.
And, after all those days, she smiled at him again.
This time, her smile was different, though.
It was warm and kind, but also forgiving.
She forgave him.
Min-su took a shuddering breath, staring at her, afraid she would disappear as quickly as all the other times since he took the first pill from Thanos’ cross necklace.
But she stayed. This time, she stayed with him.
And finally, Min-su could take her hand.
He should have done it so much sooner.