Chapter Text
Jun-ho wakes with the taste of cotton in his mouth, trying to move his head only to let out a groan at the splitting headache that filled the base of his skull. His entire body felt like it was a thousand pounds heavier, lying flat over the ledge and struggling to stay upright with nothing but a failing core.
Unable to force his eyes open, Jun-ho went to lift his wrists. The burning friction of rope immediately dug into his flesh, stinging as if he had already spent hours struggling against the bonds in his sleep. He automatically sought a gasp of breath, only to be met with a tight restraint against his chest. That’s how he came to feel his restraints, sitting upright and bound to a metal chair, ropes binding his wrists and a thick, tape-like fabric tightened as far as it would go across his chest.
But that pull, the heavy weight pulling him back using the tape, it was far too heavy to have come from the chair to which he was bound. Actually, it resembled the weight of a…
“Oh thank god, I thought you’d croaked,” came a stringy voice from behind him, driving Jun-ho to flinch as the pressure against his chest tightened even further when the woman spoke. Judging by the force she was exerting on him, she was tied in the same way, the back of her chair positioned against the back of his.
“Lean back,” he managed to rasp, stars beginning to appear within his vision. “I can’t breathe.”
“Me neither, you’re taking up more of the rope than I am,” the woman said. Jun-ho thought that she’d made a point to laugh when she’d said that, just to taunt him with how much air she could actually get.
Not having any idea of who his co-prisoner was, Jun-ho already felt too tired and oxygen deprived to deal with her bullshit the nice way. Eyes still shut—probably swollen so—he took as deep of a breath as he could manage and lurched his body forward, forcing the woman back and gasping for air the second he felt the crushing pressure fall away.
The euphoria of being able to breathe again lasted right up until Jun-ho’s ears were pierced with the crippling gasps of the woman behind him struggling to choke oxygen into her own lungs as it freely flowed into his. An immediate pang of regret burning through him at having purposefully hurt someone he didn’t even know, Jun-ho immediately sat back, giving himself enough room for sufficient, even if shallow breaths, while allowing her the same privilege.
“Sorry,” he said, fighting to get as much information about the room in which they were being contained through the slit of the one eye that was slowly beginning to open up. He couldn’t tell if his eyelids had been made so heavy by a beating or some form of drugs and while he couldn’t feel any pain he couldn’t remember being drugged either.
“Sorry? You almost killed me, you imbecile,” the woman cried, struggling against the tape though this time Jun-ho was expecting it and didn’t let her budge their arrangement enough to cut off his breath. She struggled for about 30 more seconds, eventually giving up and slumping against the backrest. “Fine, you think you’re so big and strong and I can’t do anything? I have so many skills you couldn’t even dream of.”
Opening and shutting his one working eye, Jun-ho struggled to rearrange the haze within his mind. “Can you see anything?”
“Ah, you’re still tripping balls on the drugs, aren’t you?” she said, letting out a manic laugh. “Enjoy 'em while they last, you can’t see while you’re on ‘em but you can’t feel pain either. And judging by how you looked when they brought you in, you’ll have plenty of that.”
They…
Right, they. The ones in the pink suits, Jun-ho could remember running from them. Through the endless black hallways, the senseless turns and circles in a maze whose pattern he couldn’t understand. They understood it though, which he found out when he realized that he hadn’t been getting away, they’d just been letting him dig himself further and further into the corner that they’d built.
“Shit.”
“Amen,” the woman said, swinging her legs around under the chairs and hitting the bottom of his seat. Jun-ho tried to move his legs too, but realized that they were bound just like his wrist. “I wish they’d given me more. Now I know what I’ll use all that money on once I win.”
“Why are your legs not bound?” Jun-ho said, trying to remember the condition he’d been in when they’d brought him in, as the woman had so ominously let on, without any signals of pain to go off.
“I guess I’m just not as much of a threat as you big strong men,” she said, spitting out each word with the venom that Jun-ho knew could only come from a fresh experience. Whoever had struck a nerve with her had done it recently, and judging from her behavior Jun-ho shared enough traits with him to be the same within her eyes. She wasn’t going to be easy to make into an ally.
“Can you see anything?” he repeated through gritted teeth, feeling the lack of oxygen slowly begin to retrace its way into his brain.
“Not much to see, boy, same white walls and white ceiling as everywhere else,” she said, continuing to hit the back of his chair with her feet, each clang of the metal sending a new wave of throbbing pain through Jun-ho’s head. For whatever reason whoever had made the drugs hadn’t had the brains to make it get rid of the migraines and there was nothing Jun-ho wanted to do more than shake them by the shoulders and demand to know why the hell not. No, he couldn’t let his anger control his reason, not right now. The woman’s feet weren’t bound and her eyes were open, he needed her on his side.
“What’s your name?”
“What do you need my name for, you’re going to invite me out? Set up a nice candlelit dinner? Is it just my voice that has already pleased you so much? I can talk more if you want to hear it,” she said, voice growing more and more shrill with every syllable. Jun-ho couldn’t tell if it was from fear, oxygen deprivation, or genuinely just because she had already decided to hate him.
“My name is Jun-ho,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “Hwang Jun-ho.”
“Ay, well, who would I be to forget my manners when a gentleman is being so very kind,” the woman said, though Jun-ho had an inkling she wasn’t actually convinced. “Mi-nyeo.”
“Mi-nyeo, how did we get here? Did anyone come in while I was unconscious?”
“Ay, I feel like such a popular girl, so many questions just for me,” she said. Jun-ho wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or if she’d kicked the back of his chair even harder for no reason. Gritting his teeth, he repeated his mantra to himself. I need her on my side. I need her on my side. I need her on my side.
“Well, I was already here when they dragged you in.”
Dragged. That wasn’t great. Best case scenario he had been drugged unconscious by then, worst case he had an injury that prevented walking. He knew he could move his legs from pulling against the restraints, but it was impossible to tell much more than that while they remained tied down.
“None of those bastards wanted me as their partner for the games, hah, no one ever wants a weakling, no one ever wants a girl. I thought the pink suits would shoot one through my brain then and there, but they just brought me here and tied me up like some throwaway. Next thing I know you’re being dragged in and strapped into the chair behind me. You were whimpering like a little baby in your sleep.”
Sleep. More optimistic, so he hadn’t been injured past walking after all.
“I screamed a couple of times for you to wake up but you just kept whimpering like a fowl so I gave up. They must’ve given you more than they gave me, because by the time I woke up I could already open my eyes.”
Not great, Jun-ho thought. If she could open her eyes immediately and his left eye was beginning to drift open as well, that meant that his left had been swollen shut by something other than the drugs. A concussion would probably explain the headache.
“My eye is open, but I can’t see,” Jun-ho said, the panic leaking through his voice no matter how hard he struggled to smother it. “I can’t see.”
“Calm down, strong man, it’s just the mask,” Mi-nyeo sighed. Jun-ho continued to lose his fight with the panic, breaths growing faster and faster, struggling to scratch the surface of what his lungs were suddenly demanding. His growing frenzy must’ve been disruptive to her own ability to breathe given the tape that bound them together across the chest, as Mi-nyeo soon grew tired and turned her hand where it lay restrained in the space between their chairs, digging sharp nails into his wrist. “Calm the fuck down or you’ll kill us both. It’s the mask. You. are. wearing. a. mask.
Jerking his wrist back only to give himself several scratches where the nails had been lodged into his skin, Jun-ho hissed with pain. However, he had to admit that she had been right, he was actually wearing one of those black masks with the squares or circles drawn on them. This one must’ve been different though, for where his old one had had grails to allow for sight, this mask was nothing but black plastic on the inside.
“I’m sorry, you are right,” he said, taking a breath to steady himself.
“I’m right more than people realize,” Mi-nyeo said, dropping his wrist and falling back against her chair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to act dead. Or drugged. Anything other than conscious.”
“Why—
Jun-ho had begun to demand she get herself together and help them escape, but was soon struck with a realization as to why she’d checked out so quickly. Seconds after she pretended to pass out, he could hear the footsteps too.
“Good work catching the intruder, 41,” came a gruff voice from behind the door, jumbled and amplified by the sound system that must be contained within his mask. Jun-ho felt stings of electricity course up his spine, for he couldn’t remember any of the pinks having a robotic voice quite like that. This must be the black mask, the front man himself.
“Yes, sir,” said a voice that Jun-ho more or less recognized. It sounded like one of the pinks, shrill but muffled by the grails in their masks. He could hear the rustling of their suits as the door creaked open and they walked into the room.
The footsteps soon stopped dead, the rustling of cloth amplifying for a moment more before coming to a stop as well.
“I told you not to beat him beyond what was absolutely necessary, what is this?” the Front Man said, a slapping sound echoing off the walls of the room. At first Jun-ho thought that he’d slapped one of the pinks, but then he heard the straightening of fabric, realizing that the black mask had just thrown his hands up in the air, dropping them loudly at his sides. “Why is there blood on him?”
“Sorry, sir,” one of the pinks said, voice like a handful of gravel scratching across a dry chalkboard. “He was difficult to catch.”
“It was difficult for you, ten soldiers armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, to disarm one stray running around a dead end hallway?” the Front Man hissed, sending a shiver down Jun-ho’s spine even though he wasn’t the one being scolded. “Maybe I should hire him and dispose of your incompetence all together.”
For all the praise, Jun-ho knew that there was practically nothing worse that the Front Man could’ve said when it came to his safety. With the pinks embarrassed and riled up, all Jun-ho could do was hope that he would never be left alone with them.
“Sir, should I go get the antidote?” another one of the pinks pitched in.
“Did I give you permission to talk, 56?” the Front Man snapped. “There will be no need for the antidote, both of them should have woken up already. If I were them, I would play dead too. However, whether they’re awake or not changes nothing for our purposes.”
Eye snapping open behind his mask, Jun-ho caught his breath. Having his play exposed so easily not only felt shameful, it made him feel not like a human—even if a prisoner—but an exhibit.
“41, take off his mask, I want to see the damage,” the Front Man commanded. “If his face is too bruised we will have to find someone else to entertain the VIPs.” Turning to the pink that had spoken earlier, the Front Man leaned in and spoke in a tone so low that Jun-ho struggled to hear what he’d said even though he was sitting right below them. “And since it’s on such short notice, that someone else might just be you.”
41 didn’t respond, but Jun-ho could feel their hands on his head a couple of seconds later, fumbling to take off his mask. Every touch sent a pang of pain through his skull, doing nothing to relieve his headache.
A moment later it got much worse, for now he was finally exposed to what had apparently been a very, very brightly lit room this entire time.
Unable to contain the pained groan that pushed past his chapped lips, Jun-ho struggled to avert his eyes, to hide from the sudden onslaught of light. More importantly, to hide from the piercing gaze of the man who clearly had no kind intentions toward him.
“Oh, look, he’s awake after all,” the Front Man said, tossing aside the mask that Jun-ho so desperately wished to put back on. “Turn toward me, intruder.”
When Jun-ho made no move to cooperate, the man grabbed him roughly by the chin and pulled his neck up to face him at an incredibly uncomfortable angle. Still struggling to see through the haze in his mind, Jun-ho was left extremely confused when the touch suddenly went away, the rough hand grasping under his jaw drawn back as if it had hit fire.
“Say something,” the Front Man directed. It was completely silent for a moment, Jun-ho waiting for the pinks to speak until he realized that the command had been directed at him. Unable to think of anything to say that would change his fate in any way, he opted to just stay silent.
“Sir, we can find you another, just give us time.”
This time the Front Man actually did slap 41, the sound of his mask bending in half and flying clean off echoing through the air in one shrill scream. “Never speak to me out of turn.”
41 did not say a word again, though Jun-ho thought it would be more accurate to attribute that to the work of the crisp sound of a gun expelling a single round that came as soon as the Front Man stopped talking.
Whoever it was behind that mask, Jun-ho had little doubt his gun had a bullet with Jun-ho’s name on it too. All he could do now was hope that he’d hidden his phone well enough that one day someone would find it, would use it to put away these criminals for every single disgusting crime that they had taken pleasure in committing behind closed doors.
“Untie him,” came a voice from above, Jun-ho belatedly catching on that it was the Front Man’s. Why in the world would he want to untie him?
None of the pinks dared speak this time, they just trotted over to the chairs and began to work with the ropes. However, just as the restraints around Jun-ho’s feet were about to give, the Front Man held up a hand. “Actually, no. Untie her.”
To his surprise, Mi-nyeo actually had the sense to keep still all through the time that they worked on her bonds, dramatically dropping forward when the tape across their chests was finally released and the liberty to breathe beyond shallow gasps restored.
“Stand in the corner of the room,” the Front Man said. “I know you are awake.”
That was enough to jolt Mi-nyeo into consciousness, the woman practically flying up to her feet and trying to walk to the corner. Her knees gave way half way through—whether it was from the drugs used to knock them out or how long they’d been sitting—and she had to crawl the rest of the way.
“The rest of you, out,” the Front Man commanded, remaining as still as a statue while his bodyguards filed out in a straight line like children in a school yard.
The pain in his head slowly beginning to subside, Jun-ho fought to connect the details, to create plausible theories as to why the situation had so suddenly flipped around. Why it was a pink suit lying dead on the ground and not him.
Once the last of the pinks exited the room and shut the door behind him, the Front Man turned to face Jun-ho head-on. “Now,” he said, drawing a gun out of its holster on his belt and pointing it into the corner, straight at Mi-nyeo’s head. “Let’s talk.”
Jerking where he was tied down, Jun-ho widened his eyes at Mi-nyeo’s shocked scream, sounds of her crawling as far as she could into the corner imprinting upon his ears. “What do you want?” he asked, desperately trying to think of something, anything, to say.
“First, raise your head and let me see your face,” the Front Man said, though he didn’t make a move to manhandle him this time. Ignoring the aching in his skull, Jun-ho raised his head and stared into the mask, imagining the dead eyes that must be looking back at him through its slits.
The Front Man tilted his head, surveying him curiously. Jun-ho fought to keep himself from visibly shivering, an eerie feeling coursing through him at the steady gaze that analyzed him up and down. It felt as if the Front Man wasn’t seeing him for the first time, though of course that was impossible.
“Tell me your name,” the Front Man directed. This was more dangerous than the previous command, and Jun-ho must’ve taken too long to consider the question for it was soon being answered for him.
“Hwang Jun-ho,” Mi-yeong screamed from the corner, facing the Front Man on her knees. “His name is Hwang Jun-ho. He told me himself, just moments ago. That’s his name, I’m sure of it.”
“Hwang Jun-ho,” the Front Man said, the words rolling off his tongue like sap fresh dripping from a tree. Jun-ho thought that he heard a break in his voice, the signal uncharacteristically shrill, though with the mask’s inbuilt voice changer it was impossible to be sure.
“Come with me, Hwang Jun-ho,” the Front Man said, extending a hand. It was all metaphorical of course, for Jun-ho couldn’t actually accept it against his restraints. “I want to show you something.”
Horrified at the prospect of going anywhere with the man who had just killed someone right before his eyes and threatened the life of another but brimming with curiosity, Jun-ho cursed himself. Of course he would go, and of course he would end up dead for it. But reality was, he would probably end up dead no matter what choice he made. Gathering himself, he mustered up as much conviction as he could for the audacity of what he was about to do. “I will come with you, but on one condition.”
The Front Man laughed, cocking his head curiously. The sound chilled Jun-ho’s blood inside his veins, but it was probably better that his comment had left the maniac amused rather than offended.
“And what is this condition?”
“Let her live,” Jun-ho said, nodding to the cowering shape in the corner.
“Interesting,” the Front Man said, continuing to give Jun-ho that curious knowing look, though he didn’t lower the gun. Snapping his fingers, the Front Man turned to face the two pinks that immediately ran into the room. “Bring the woman back into the dormitory. Anyways, she is the favorite of one of the VIPs.”
“Am I really?” Mi-nyeo asked, head jerking up.
“Yes,” the Front Man said, not elaborating a word further. Jun-ho thought that he would feel more relief once she had been dragged out of the room, alive, but really it just left him more afraid. For now that Mi-nyeo was gone, he would soon be completely alone with a man who killed and saved at the rise of a whim.
Jun-ho didn’t regret using the momentary power that had befallen him to save her, however. He didn’t have any glorious reason for the act, but it didn’t matter. The reality was that she was just the person who happened to have been in front of him at a moment when he had a genuine opportunity to save a life, and Jun-ho felt good about having used that opportunity, even if it was for someone that he didn’t know. No one deserved to die in this hell.
Besides, like he had said earlier, one could never have too many allies. He needed her on his side.
“Now that I’ve satisfied your adorable condition, I believe that I have something I would like to share with you… Jun-ho,” the Front Man said, leaving Jun-ho feeling as if he had meant to call him something other than his name, changing the word at the very last moment. Turning to the pinks, he gestured to the bonds remaining around Jun-ho’s hands and ankles. “Carry him to room 11. Keep him tied.”
Trying to hide his bafflement at the fact that he were to remain tied for this excursion, Jun-ho felt like an idiot for hoping to be released in the first place. For all he knew they were headed to the incinerator, though he couldn’t fathom why the Front Man would bother showing him that.
They walked in silence, Jun-ho feeling his hand tremble slightly against the metal leg of the chair as they made their way through the same endless expanse of black walled hallways as the ones that he had been captured in.
However, his panic was soon overtaken by curiosity as they rounded the corner, the brigade suddenly exposed to a brightly lit room, the lighting and props making it out to resemble a pompous jungle.
The pinks deposited him on the cushions of a ridiculous, leopard print couch and Jun-ho turned to the Front Man, who had taken the seat next to him, wrapping Jun-ho’s wrist around a cherry colored drink. Jun-ho’s legs had been re-tied from the chair to the legs of the couch, though his arms were allowed to roam free.
“Drink this,” the Front Man said. “It will reverse the drugs used to knock you out.”
Looking between the scarlet mixture swirling within his hand to the vivid drinks within the claws of the other five men sprawled out on the couches around him, Jun-ho looked into the masked face before him. “You said Mi-nyeo is the favorite of one of the VIPs. Who?”
“You,” the Front Man said, taking off his mask to reveal the very face that Jun-ho had come here to save.