Chapter Text
He was young again,sat with his sisters in their childhood home. They were teaching him Gonggi and he was about to have his first ever win. Catching the stones, he looked up, expecting to see his sisters smiling faces but instead he was greeted by Jung-bae and a guard in a pink suit who raised his arms in a circle. As cheering erupted from the crowd he stood up, receiving praise from the older man before they continued on.
The next time he turned and looked up, corpses dangled from the ceiling, blood staining everyone, including himself. And it looked as though the body with 390 embroidered on his jacket was glaring at him, whilst rapid gunshots exploded in the distance, because it was all his fault, it was all his fault, it was all…
“Dae-ho? Dae-ho? Why isn’t he responding? Is he okay?” Asked the panicked voice he slowly identified to Jun-hee.
“He gets like this sometimes. Dae-ho? Can you hear us?” Replied the reassuring one belonging Hyun-ju. He hesitantly nodded his head, shame creeping in. Blinking a few times, he readjusted to his surroundings. He was sat on a wooden park bench, the two woman next to him. The shorter of the two was looking at him worriedly, almosy shocked. The taller was calm, slowly asking him questions to check he was okay, and that he knew he was safe.
“Shit…” he looked over to jun-her. “Sorry for scaring you”
He looked back down, his gaze burning holes in the grass. He was meant to be better. Why wasn’t he better?
“It’s okay,”
From listening to Hyun-ju explain whilst Jun-hee looked at him sympathetically (why couldn’t they just treat him like a normal man? Not a cowardly, pathetic, weak excuse for one), he learned that a car had backfired a few streets away, sounding too much like a gun for any of their likings, and had made him panic.
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t even go for a walk anymore.
“I was shaken up too, didn’t move from where I was standing for about five minutes,” the younger quietly interjected. Something lifted a little inside him, maybe it was knowing he wasn’t the only one or maybe it was that she didn’t judge. Either way, he smiled gratefully at her stood up, straightening his leg out. A dull ache of pain twisted up it as he stood up. He was used to it by now, but it wasn’t nice.
——
Later, laying in his bed and staring blankly at the ceiling, his mind thought back to one particular night in the games.
The night after the second game, Gi-hun had made a group of them sleep underneath the beds incase the other players attacked. Although at the time he thought this was overkill, he did as he was told and had climbed underneath next to Jun-hee who was still pregnant then.
Both of them too nervous to sleep, they ended up talking.
“Dae-ho?” Whispered Jun-hee, breaking the tense silence of the night, phantom gunshots still ringing in everyone’s minds, “Are you awake?”
Turning to face her the best he could in the cramped space, he nodded. “Yeah. Are you okay? Is it the baby?”
“No, I just can’t sleep in here…I don’t want anything to happen to her…”
“Her? It’s a girl?” Something tightened in his chest, if it was a girl the father might not be happy. From what he knew, she would still love it but…
“Yeah! I found out right before…this place”
His heart ached at her sad tone, if it was hell on earth for him in here, it would be so much worse for her.
“What do you think you’ll do when you get out?”
She barely hesitated before answering; “Pay off the debts that poor excuse of a father gave me, then try and get a home for me and my baby” She spat out the word Father like poison.
“…You and him don’t get along then?”
“No. He’s here now,”
Dae-ho watched as she pointed at a man with 333 embroidered on him. He’d seen him arguing with the other men earlier, and could guess he wasn’t likeable without even speaking to him.
“What do you plan to do?”
What did he plan to do? Thinking for a moment before answering carefully,
“Well, I’m also gonna pay off my debts then…” Then what?
“…then maybe try and get myself a place to live or a job or something?”
She smiled, “Similar goals then?”
“Sounds like it,”
A small period of silence lapsed between them, every noise making them jump slightly.
Later that same night, he had woken up with tears running down his face, shaking from another nightmare.
“Are you okay?”
“…oh— yeah- sorry..” he mumbled, quickly wiping his face.
At the time, he had been embarrassed, and in some ways he still was, but now as he thought back he realised that she had never judged him, and didn’t now.
She had trusted him enough to tell him the baby’s gender, before anyone else. And even though he had broken that trust, it had been repaired.
He had done a lot of fixing over the last few months. Gi-hun wasn’t a friend quite yet, but both were okay with eachother again.
Guem-ja welcomed him to her house whenever he needed, her son starting to treat him normally again. Hyun-ju was what he would call a best friend, Young-mi smiling at him when she saw him. And Jun-hee? He had cleared up any doubts between them from the games, and trusted each other immensely.
The loss of someone he saw as his first, most likely only, father would haunt him forever, but it was gradually becoming easier.
Things would be okay.