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It's raining when they let him go. Cho Sang-woo, 46, of no fixed residence, is dumped unceremoniously on the stoop of a convenience store, several miles from the motel in which, prior to the games, he was living.
He does not know that this is where he's been dumped until gentle fingers undo first the blindfold around his head, and then the ropes around his wrists. A nervous woman in a supermarket tabard hovers over him. She asks if he would like a sweet bun, and then asks if he'd like for her to call the police.
-
The motel staff don't seem surprised to see Sang-woo when he shows up there an hour later. He paid to have possession of the room for two months, after all. Whether or not he actually uses it during that time is of no concern to them.
And anyway, he's only been gone a week. Even if it feels like it's been a year.
Up in his room he slips off his damp suit jacket, his shoes and his trousers, until he's standing only in his dress shirt (looser now, a little; he's lost weight) and boxer shorts. He checks his jacket pocket. They've returned his phone, his wallet, his watch, his lighter, and a soggy pack of cigarettes rendered useless by rainwater.
He runs a bath.
Sang-woo appraises himself in the bathroom mirror while he waits. It is not a pretty sight.
He isn't sure which wound to tend to first. Crude bandages have been slapped over the bite mark on his ankle, the shallow stab wound in his neck. His head aches, from the bridge of his nose right around to the base of his skull. Purple bruises bloom ghoulishly on both cheekbones. He nudges his tongue against a loose tooth in his mouth. If he were to smile, everything would hurt.
The bandages need changing, and his wounds need cleaning, but he was nonetheless surprised when the dressings were applied to his hurt body by a guard just prior to his departure from the games. It felt like an act of care, however minuscule. It's more than likely they just didn't want him bleeding all over their car.
He doesn't know where to start. He has no disinfectant, no clean bandages. There's vodka in the bedroom, but it seems dramatic to use something like that on his vulnerable skin when he still has 10,000 won in his wallet and could easily walk down to the supermarket for proper supplies.
He doesn't have the energy, he realises. He ought to shave too, but he doesn't have the energy for that either. And besides, his bath is ready, and his toes and the tips of his fingers are numb with cold, and so he tests the bathwater with his bare foot, finds the temperature is good, and slowly sinks the rest of his body down beneath the hot surface.
It's a few moments before he realises he's gotten into the water with his clothes still on.
-
Sang-woo doesn't leave his motel room for eight days. He lives off vending machine food, and feels constantly on the verge of a sugar crash.
When he finally does venture outside, on a Tuesday afternoon dull with weak sunlight, Gi-hun finds him. So quickly, in fact, that Sang-woo is not convinced that Gi-hun hasn't been following him.
Gi-hun reads his mind.
“I wasn't following you. I just… knew I'd find you here.”
‘Here’ is a tobacco shop close to where they both went to high school. There are two small tables outside of it. Sang-woo nearly upends one in his haste to back away from Gi-hun.
“I'm not going to harm you,” Gi-hun says, face blank. He takes a step back, giving Sang-woo some space. "I just needed to talk to you. It's important.” He gestures towards the store's fold-out chairs. “Maybe we could sit?”
Sang-woo looks at him, still wary. His hand scrabbles aimlessly on the table, finding his cigarette box. He pulls out a cigarette, but his hands are shaking too much to light it. Gi-hun watches him struggle for a few moments, then sits down on one of the fold-out chairs, motioning for Sang-woo to do the same. Reluctantly, Sang-woo does.
The silence that stretches between them is agonizing.
Gi-hun is looking right at him, but Sang-woo can't meet his gaze. Some ugly emotion is licking its way up his spine. Anger or fear, he can't decide. It makes it difficult to sit still.
Finally, Gi-hun speaks.
“How are you?”
Sang-woo shrugs.
The briefest smile flickers on Gi-hun’s face, sadness hiding in the corners of it. “Me too,” he says gently.
“What do you want, Gi-hun?”
Their eyes meet.
“It's my mother,” Gi-hun says finally.
“Your mother?”
“She's… she passed away.”
Something in the region of Sang-woo’s kidneys heaves.
“How?” he chokes out.
Gi-hun mumbles something about complications, his bandaged hand rubbing at the back of his neck. He's ashamed, Sang-woo realises.
“We had the funeral on Sunday,” Gi-hun finishes.
Sang-woo’s eyes dart away, unable to face Gi-hun's pain. Memories flash through his mind of Gi-hun’s mother. Her kind smile, her fearsome reprimands. Hotteok and bungeo-ppang waiting for them on the table after school in winter, pears and honey in the spring. They would study for their high school exams in Gi-hun’s bedroom, and she'd bring them steaming mugs of barley tea. “For the little soldiers,” she'd say, eyes twinkling. Gi-hun’s eyes.
“I'm sorry,” Sang-woo murmurs. The words feel inadequate; tiny pebbles thrown into a vast sea.
Gi-hun nods. “I know things are difficult between us. But she always cared about you. She would have wanted us to… I don't know. To make peace.”
Sang-woo's fists clench a little.
“Peace,” he echoes bitterly. “How can there be peace after everything that's happened?”
Gi-hun's expression hardens slightly, but he doesn't back down. “Because I think there's something worth salvaging here. Don't you?”
The words hang heavy in the air. Sang-woo lights his cigarette finally, the flame dancing in the dull afternoon light. He takes a long drag, exhaling slowly, trying to calm his nerves.
“Gi-hun, I…” he starts, the cigarette trembling between his fingers.
Gi-hun doesn't wait. “There's something else I need to tell you.” He spreads his large hands, palm-up, against the table, almost as if he's apologising. “I don't know how to say it.”
“Just spit it out,” Sang-woo mutters. Above them, the sky is darkening, clouds fat and grey with the promise of rain. He just wants to go home. To his semblance of a home, anyway.
Gi-hun takes a deep breath. “I’ve been given the money,” he says in a low voice. “The money we were both competing for. It's mine now.”
Sang-woo feels like he's been struck. His thumb and forefinger squeeze his cigarette so hard it creases in two.
His anger is instant, volcanic - but he knows he can't let it out. Not with Gi-hun's grief hanging in the air like a shroud.
His voice, when he finally speaks, is strained and bitter.
“Congratulations, Gi-hun. You got what you wanted, in the end.”
“It's not like that -”
“Not like what?” Sang-woo interrupts, his voice rising in spite of himself. He takes a deep breath, trying to regain some control. “I gave up everything. Everything. And you… you just get it handed to you?”
“It wasn't my decision. I didn't ask for this.” Gi-hun's face, which until now has been resolutely blank, creases a little with pain. “I understand why you're angry, Sang-woo. I don't deserve the money. I know that. But I didn't come here to gloat. It can be for both of us. To fix things. To… make things right.”
Sang-woo clenches and unclenches his jaw, studying Gi-hun's face carefully, searching for signs of deceit.
“After everything?” he says eventually. He doesn't want to be seduced like this, couldn't bear to be tricked - but even the faintest hope of a normal future makes him feel sick with want. Beneath the table, his stomach roils.
Gi-hun shrugs, looking tired. “What other choice is there? We'll never be able to talk to anyone about what happened. Nobody besides each other.”
Which, Sang-woo decides, sounds less like an offer of friendship, and more like an acceptance of defeat.
-
A gift from an old man in a hospital bed, Gi-hun explains, when they go back to his apartment and sit in the tiny kitchen with untouched cups of yuja-cha.
Gi-hun places the gold debit card on the table in front of them. They both stare at it like it's something perverse.
Sang-woo curls his fingers into his fists, nails biting half-moons into his palms, afraid to touch it.
“It's all in there,” Gi-hun murmurs. “I checked.”
Sang-woo says nothing.
“We'll pay off our debts first. Get everyone off our backs. And then…”
Sang-woo looks up. “And then?”
Gi-hun opens his mouth, appears to hesitate, closes it again. He changes tack.
“Have you been to see your mother?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
“I know, just…” Sang-woo gestures to his face, mottled yellow now with old bruises still healing. “Not like this.”
A long silence. And then Gi-hun says cautiously: “You could say you ran into a door.” At first his expression remains blank, serious, but then Sang-woo sees the grin twisting at Gi-hun’s mouth to get out.
When they were teenagers, they'd sometimes do their homework on the bottom steps of Gi-hun’s apartment complex if the weather was nice. Or rather, Sang-woo would do his homework and Gi-hun would complain loudly about whatever happened to be ailing him that particular day - a broken Walkman, a twisted ankle, a bad grade on a Chemistry paper. One afternoon he'd become so bored with Sang-woo’s refusal to entertain his inane melancholy that he'd reached over and whipped Sang-woo’s exercise book right out of his lap.
Gi-hun sprinted off with the book like his life depended on it. Sang-woo chased him all the way up to the top floor. Gi-hun just barely made it through his apartment door before slamming it shut. Sang-woo ran full speed into the doorframe.
That was how he got his first black eye.
Gi-hun is chuckling now, trying and failing to smother it with his hand. Sang-woo doesn't want to smile back, but he can't help it, even though the pull of it hurts his still-tender face.
“You were screaming bloody murder,” Gi-hun grins. “All the way up the stairs.”
“Because you were being an asshole. My mom grounded me for a week, do you know that? You made me nearly knock myself out and I got grounded for it.” Sang-woo stops short, abruptly closing the door on the memory. He stops smiling. “I'll go and see her soon. I will.”
He wonders what has happened to Gi-hun’s mother. Whether her ashes have been kept in a columbarium, or if Gi-hun has already scattered her somewhere special. Sang-woo wonders if he ought to ask. He wonders if Gi-hun is hurting badly - but it's hard, after everything, to now think of death as anything other than mundane.
Gi-hun reaches across the table, his hand hovering over Sang-woo’s clenched fist. After a moment's hesitation, he lets his hand - his hurt hand, still bandaged and weak - drop uselessly onto the tabletop.
“We should get to work,” he says, and Sang-woo, desperate for purpose, agrees.
-
They pay off their debt. Sang-woo is in far greater trouble than Gi-hun, but in Seoul, money has a way of making certain crimes go unpunished.
When they're done, Sang-woo pays for another month in the motel.
“You could stay somewhere better,” Gi-hun reminds him.
“What's the point?” asks Sang-woo, and Gi-hun doesn't appear to have an answer for that.
“You could stay with me,” he says instead. “I wouldn't mind.”
“I don't think so, Gi-hun.”
“I'd like it.”
They're sitting in a bar. Neither of them are brave enough to actually spend the prize money on themselves yet, so they've ordered the cheapest beers available and paid for them in change.
“What I mean is, the apartment's really quiet,” Gi-hun clarifies. “I think it's making me a little crazy.”
“You're already a little crazy.”
“Okay, then it's making me very crazy.”
So Sang-woo agrees to stay with him.
He sleeps on the sofa and Gi-hun sleeps in his bedroom. Neither of them open the door into the room which used to belong to Gi-hun’s mother, even if it would make more sense to use the empty space. Every morning Sang-woo rolls up his blanket and places it neatly on the end of the sofa, out of the way, until it's time to go to sleep again.
Except he doesn't sleep. He stares up at the living room ceiling every night until the early hours of the morning. Sometimes he’ll hear bed springs creaking in the next room, and he'll know that Gi-hun is awake too, turning over and over on his mattress. But they never go to each other. Finally, around four a.m., Sang-woo’s overactive brain will stutter its way into a jittery, staccato sleep, and he'll pass out for two hours, and then wake up in the morning red-eyed and stiff. He doesn't dream. He's grateful for this.
-
It rains for days. They settle into a strangely domestic routine.
In the mornings they eat breakfast together and watch television, which at that time of the day is usually either ladies’ talk shows or kids’ cartoons.
When they leave the apartment, it's always together, as though one or the other of them is convalescing and requires a strong arm to grip. They leave mainly to buy food. They pick small convenience stores instead of large supermarkets, because the bright lights and loud noises and errant shopping carts of the nearby Lotte Mart are too overbearing.
In the afternoons Gi-hun disappears into his bedroom, closing the door behind himself.
These are the hardest parts of the day for Sang-woo. When he first left the games, he was fine being by himself. Now that there's somebody else with him, he finds he doesn't want to be left alone. Sang-woo doesn't know how to articulate this to Gi-hun, so instead he watches the bedroom door swing shut, and then spends the next few hours trying desperately to occupy himself. He'll leaf through the tatty pile of crime and romance paperbacks by the TV, or tidy up the kitchen, or chop too many vegetables for dinner. By the time Gi-hun finally reemerges in the evening, Sang-woo is so relieved he'll do anything Gi-hun wants. Play cards. Drink soju or beer. Watch terrible movies. He feels like he's at college again, but without any of the stress or satisfaction of assignments and exams.
The one thing they don't do is talk about the games.
Sang-woo senses that Gi-hun wants to. They watch television at night and even with the lights off Sang-woo can feel that Gi-hun is looking at him as much as he's looking at the screen.
He knows he should probably bring it up. But he's afraid to unstopper his own mouth, and anyway, the silence has a strange kind of comfort to it. It's like there's an unspoken agreement that talking about it might unravel the fragile balance they've somehow managed to cobble together.
But as the nights go on, Gi-hun becomes more and more restless. He fidgets on the sofa, pushes his food around his bowl without eating, sometimes gets up and paces, or stands by the living room window, staring out at the quiet road below. Sang-woo watches him warily, knees drawn up to his chest.
“You're putting me on edge,” he finally says one night. “Can you just sit still?”
Gi-hun snaps his head around to look at him, dropping the curtain he had held in his hand to peer out of the window at the rain.
“I think I can help Sae-byeok,” he says.
Sang-woo stares at him. His stomach clenches a little at the mention of her name. His first thought is that Gi-hun has gone genuinely mad.
“What?”
“I've found out which children's home her brother is in,” Gi-hun explains, and Sang-woo closes his eyes in relief that Gi-hun’s sanity has been granted a stay of execution. So this is what Gi-hun has been doing alone in his bedroom each afternoon. Playing at being a private investigator.
“We could help him,” Gi-hun continues, still standing.
“Fine. Send him some money,” says Sang-woo, turning back to the television.
“I was thinking more than that.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know. Children need more than money, don't they?”
“You already have a child, Gi-hun. It's not him.”
Gi-hun narrows his eyes slightly. It's dark in the living room, but Sang-woo still notices it.
“We could help the others too,” Gi-hun persists. “Couldn't we? The ones whose names we know. Ali had a baby, didn't he?”
The blow of hearing Ali's name spoken allowed is almost physical. Sang-woo recoils for a moment, and then, tongue loosened by sudden emotion, he spits out, “Don’t.”
“He was one of us. He had a family -”
“I said don't!” Sang-woo stands up. He feels his hands shaking, and rolls them into fists to stop the trembling. “What, you think you can just… play God and decide who gets help and who doesn't? You think you can make things right by throwing some money around?”
“It's your mistakes I'm trying to fix,” Gi-hun barks back.
Sang-woo points a steady finger at him and speaks carefully. “Fuck you, Gi-hun. I'm not the only one with blood on my hands.” His voice cracks, and he hates himself for it. He looks away. “There's no redemption for what happened,” he says hoarsely. “It's over.”
“Do you really think this is about penance? It's about doing something good. We can use the rest of the money to find out who's behind the games. To make sure -”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“ - no one ever has to go through it again.”
“You're insane,” Sang-woo says weakly. He shakes his head, angry tears burning the backs of his eyes foolishly. “You think you can fight those people?”
“I can't just sit here and do nothing.*
“Why not? That's all you ever did before.”
The words are out before Sang-woo has a chance to stop them, and although he expects Gi-hun to hit him, it's worse, somehow, to see his shoulders slump slightly, his head to nod.
“I'm going out,” Gi-hun says shortly, grabbing a jacket from the hook by the door.
“It's pouring down with rain,” Sang-woo says, but the front door has already slammed in his face before he's even finished getting the words out.
-
This is what Sang-woo remembers from the final game.
They hadn't given him socks, and he remembers how the patent leather of his new shoes rubbed his ankles raw and bloody. Sand and dirt crept into the open wounds, each grain like a tiny shard of glass.
He remembers the firm flesh of Gi-hun’s palm first resisting and then yielding to the press of Sang-woo's knife, with the same smooth, even pressure of sinking a blade into a ripe tomato.
He remembers the look on Gi-hun's face as he wrestled that same knife out of Sang-woo’s hand, moments after Sang-woo had stuck the point of it into his own neck - deep enough to be agony, shallow enough not to kill.
And the rain. He remembers how he drooled watery blood into the filth and grit of the ground, and from an opening in the hellish playground it rained and rained and rained.
And rains; it's still raining, it won't stop - Sang-woo opens his eyes, jerked from light sleep, rain hammering on the door and windows of the apartment.
He sits up with a start. The room is pitch black.
He gets up and goes straight to Gi-hun’s room, heart in his throat. He knocks on the open door before poking his head in. Gi-hun is still out. Sang-woo calls out for him anyway, feeling foolish and oddly afraid.
He returns to the living room and tries to flick the light on, but nothing happens. He tries the kitchen light instead. Nothing. As if on cue, thunder rumbles outside and the wind howls, forcing rain in through the small gaps around the windows. There's a storm, and it's caused a power cut.
He uses the flashlight on his phone to rummage around for candles in the kitchen. All he can find is one tapered candle and four tea lights. It must be late - definitely after midnight. He could just go back to sleep. But the apartment feels all the darker for his being here alone, and in the end he lights all five candles and props them up in the living room like a paltry church display. He settles into his makeshift sanctuary, wrapping his blanket around himself. He wonders if he ought to have gone out too. If he ought to have drunk himself into peaceful oblivion, maybe found a boy for the night. He doesn't know how long he sits there before Gi-hun finally returns home.
Gi-hun is drunk, and understandably confused by the scene he walks in on.
He squints at Sang-woo in the dim light. “Are you doing something… spooky?”
Sang-woo stares back at him levelly. “The power went out.”
“Oh.”
“You're soaked.”
“Well.” Gi-hun flicks his thumb unsteadily over his shoulder towards the front door. “It's raining.”
Sang-woo sighs, shrugs off his blanket, walks into the kitchen. The water is still running, at least. He fills a glass for Gi-hun.
“Bring the soju,” Gi-hun calls, a request Sang-woo ignores.
When he comes back, Gi-hun is sitting on the floor where the candlelight is brightest. Sang-woo sits down next to him. Their shoulders press together, heavily, Gi-hun leaning all his weight against him. Sang-woo huffs a little, but doesn't stop him.
Gi-hun lights two cigarettes, one for each of them. They shouldn't smoke indoors, but it doesn't really matter anymore, if it's just the two of them.
“I put a bet on the baseball while I was out,” Gi-hun murmurs, passing his free hand gently over the top of the flame of the tapered candle, forward and back again, careful not to wave it out with his long fingers. “Gambling’s not as much fun when you already have money.”
“Please don't blow all the money on baseball, Gi-hun. You don't know anything about baseball.”
“I do!” Gi-hun says indignantly, and for a moment he sounds so much like his sixteen year old self that Sang-woo can't help but smile. Gi-hun seems relieved by this, and chuckles dopily. He presses their shoulders more firmly together. “You'll see, hyung. I'm going to win big.”
“Sure.”
Gi-hun’s smile widens.
They smoke in silence for a while. At last, Gi-hun turns to look at him again. In the flicker of the dim light, Sang-woo watches Gi-hun's eyes move in a slightly unfocused curve from Sang-woo’s nose to his mouth to his neck.
“Do you know, sometimes I look at you and it feels like no time has passed at all,” Gi-hun says.
Sang-woo clears his throat.
“Well, it has,” he says. He tries to sound exasperated, but his cheeks are suddenly hot.
Gi-hun’s face has gone a little pink too, but it could be pink from the cold, or the booze, or both. Up close, his eyes are big and young, like a calf’s.
Sang-woo feels something brush his fingertips. He looks down between them, where his hand rests against the floor. Gi-hun’s fingers trace his own slowly. They move to his palm, where they draw small circles. They move up to the soft skin on the inside of Sang-woo’s wrist. The pads of Gi-hun’s fingers are cool with damp, and feel pleasant against Sang-woo's hot skin.
Sang-woo jerks his arm away.
“Sorry,” Gi-hun says instantly, drawing back too. He looks away, the tips of his ears red.
Sang-woo takes a long drag on his cigarette, steadying himself. “It's okay,” he says after a while. “You're drunk.”
Gi-hun laughs a little too loudly. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“We should go to sleep.” Sang-woo stands, offering down his hand. Gi-hun takes it and Sang-woo pulls him up.
In Gi-hun's bedroom, Sang-woo kneels to untie Gi-hun's wet shoes. Gi-hun watches him with a soft expression on his face.
“You're always taking care of me,” he murmurs. He smiles, slow as honey and silly.
Sang-woo looks up at him, pausing for a moment. “Someone has to,” he says quietly.
“Thank you.”
Sang-woo swallows roughly. “Just… try to sleep. We'll talk in the morning.”
Gi-hun nods as he lies back, eyes closing. Sang-woo pulls the blanket over him, then sits on the edge of the bed.
“Goodnight, Gi-hun,” he says after a moment, but Gi-hun is already asleep.
Sang-woo stays there for a while, listening to Gi-hun's steady breathing. He runs an absent finger over the wound in his neck. It's closed up now and calloused, preparing to scar. It's been bothering him a little lately, throbbing dully like a second pulse whenever he tries to sleep or relax. As if it's trying to remind him of something. As if it doesn't want him to forget.
-
Sang-woo loved Gi-hun once, of course. In the sticky, bleary, anxious way children sometimes fall in love with their closest friends.
From twelve through to nineteen he loved Gi-hun, except for when he hated him, which was often. They argued as much as they laughed, fought as much as they played. In the middle of a row over a broken cassette tape, Gi-hun had held Sang-woo down on the rug in his bedroom (both of them sixteen, sharp-elbowed, barefoot) and kissed him hard on the mouth, and the kiss was clunky with too much teeth and the metal of Gi-hun's braces, and Sang-woo had choked a little with the shock of it and dug his fingers into Gi-hun’s t-shirt to keep him there.
For the three years that followed, Sang-woo struggled to think about himself without also thinking of Gi-hun, who at that age was handsome and stupid, like an overlarge puppy. His kisses were infrequent, bestowed upon Sang-woo whenever Gi-hun was bored, or drunk, or especially happy. They were strawberry-sweet and clumsy, and Sang-woo would feel the effects of them right down in the pit of his lungs, on the backs of his thighs. They kissed under bed covers on Sang-woo’s eighteenth birthday, and Gi-hun bit down on Sang-woo’s lip hard enough to draw blood, then lapped at the bright red dribble like it was cherry juice. He stuffed a hand down the front of Sang-woo’s boxer shorts and clapped another hand over Sang-woo’s stuttering mouth, and Sang-woo loved him.
He loved him when he went to college, where he tried his best not to. This would work for weeks at a time, until Gi-hun would invariably show up at Sang-woo’s dormitory, crestfallen over an argument with a girlfriend, or a loss on the horses (he believed he had a gift for gambling even back then) and Sang-woo would let him in wordlessly, lie rigid in bed for a while, waiting for Gi-hun to press his nose into the crook of his shoulder or burrow down into the duvet to press sloppy, open-mouthed kisses along his pubic bone. And Sang-woo wanted him to, wanted him, every long limb and lick of him, and in the morning they would talk about bad coffee and the weather and what time the trains were running.
Sang-woo didn't know quite how he managed to stop loving Gi-hun, only that, like most things in Sang-woo’s life, it was largely a matter of will. He was pleased about this. It meant that, when Gi-hun’s wedding invitation eventually arrived on his doormat, fat and proud, Sang-woo barely even cried.
-
A neighbour complains about them. The property manager knocks on the door to the apartment before nine a.m. the next morning, looking hassled and uncomfortable.
“She's concerned about the change in your routine,” he explains sheepishly, as Gi-hun stands in the doorway, sleepy and irate, blocking entry. “And your… guest.”
Gi-hun glances over his shoulder at Sang-woo, who's still in the t-shirt and sweatpants he sleeps in, and who is trying his best to hastily make the sofa look less like a bed.
Gi-hun turns back to the property manager.
“My mother died,” he says in a hollow voice. “Didn't you know that?”
“Yes, of course, Mr Seong, and I'm very sorry to -”
“My friend is helping me by staying here while I try to figure everything out. Have you no sympathy?”
“Yes, of course, of course, but -”
“Who is this lady? I'll go tell her about it myself.”
“Oh no, no, Mr Seong, all complaints must remain anonymous -”
“So she can bother me so early in the morning but I can't bother her back?”
In the apartment, Sang-woo smothers his laugh with his palm.
“I just want to know who has so much free time to scrutinize my life,” Gi-hun is saying. “I'm dealing with enough already.”
Eventually, he rambles long enough that the property manager goes away. Gi-hun closes the door, shrouding the apartment in a comforting morning darkness once more. He turns to Sang-woo, half smiling, neither of them sure if they should laugh.
“It's sunny, now the storm's passed,” says Gi-hun, jerking his head towards the window. “Let's go out.”
They have breakfast in a café - or rather, Sang-woo orders coffee and Gi-hun has haejang-guk because he's hungover and feeling sorry for himself.
“Maybe I ought to move out,” Sang-woo says, watching him eat. They sit outside so they can smoke.
“And go where?”
“I don't know, Gi-hun. I just… don't want to cause any more trouble.”
Gi-hun, eyes heavy with exhaustion, sets his spoon down. “You're not causing trouble. I want you to stay.”
“Why?”
“Because I do.”
“But why?”
“Do you want some soup?”
Sang-woo squints, sun on his face. “No, it looks disgusting.”
“It's good!”
“I'll have to take your word for it.”
“Stay another month at least. Then I'll help you look for a place.”
“You don't have to do that.”
“What kind of apartment would you want to live in? Maybe you'd prefer a house?”
Sang-woo doesn't answer right away. “I had an apartment in Seongsu before,” he says finally, tapping ash from his cigarette into a tray.
Gi-hun raises his eyebrows. “Hip.”
“I wanted to be close to the park, the river. I wanted to feel like I lived in New York or something. I don't know.”
“What was your place like?”
“Nice. Small. I liked the kitchen. And the balcony. I had plants all along the patio. Peace lilies and calathea and Chinese evergreens. My mother used to talk to them when she'd visit.” Sang-woo looks down at his barely touched coffee. “She said they liked it. It helped them grow.”
“My mother used to say that too.”
Sang-woo smiles at him. Gi-hun smiles back.
They go home and drink tea in the front room and Gi-hun pretends to read a magazine, and Sang-woo wants to ask if it will always be like this, if there will always be breakfasts to buy and rice to cook and tea to nurse; if they will always smile at one another and pretend that they didn't try to kill each other all those months ago. That they didn't try to kill everyone else.
Gi-hun doesn't go to his bedroom that afternoon. He shaves and gets changed and goes out, a baseball cap shoved down over hair that needs cutting, and when he returns an hour later it's with a rubber plant in an orange plastic pot, its leaves dark green and smooth as new skin.
“I didn't pick the best one,” Gi-hun admits, sliding the plant onto the kitchen counter, brushing soil from his hands. “I picked one that looked like it needed a little affection.”
-
Sang-woo goes to see his mother. Gi-hun is pleased.
“We’ll watch a movie when you get home. I'll get beer!” he says, like Sang-woo is off for a job interview, or to sit an exam.
Sang-woo doesn't go to see her at her stall. He doesn't want to interrupt her working day. He waits until he knows she'll be home, and then knocks on the door to her apartment. His old apartment, the one where she brought him up.
She cries when she sees him. She puts her cool, leathery palms on his face, presses the tips of her fingers to his cheekbones and hisses gently, as though she's cut herself on them.
“You've gotten so skinny,” she chides.
“Don't worry, eomma,” he says softly. “I've just been busy.”
“Where are your glasses?”
He motions to his eyes. “Contacts.”
“You don't look like you!” she tells him.
She brings him inside, makes him food with what little she has. He watches her, pain in the hollow of his throat. She hums as she works, blissfully unaware of how close she'd come to losing everything - this home, and everything in it. From her lovingly waxed furniture to the simple clothesline outside, where decades ago she used to string up Sang-woo’s sneakers after he'd splashed them in deep puddles.
She deserves better - she deserves the truth. But as he opens his mouth to speak, the words catch in his throat.
“You're back just in time,” she says with a smile, picking up a laden tray. “I was worried you wouldn't be here for your birthday.”
His birthday is not for another two months. She has it marked on her kitchen calendar in bright purple ink.
“Eomma…”
“Come and sit,” she says, easing past him, careful not to spill anything. He does as he's told.
She asks all about his trip to America, but he can't bear to lie again, and so he tells her the truth without mentioning specifics: that his time away was difficult, that he met a lot of new people, that he was paid a good sum of money.
“It's made me reconsider some things,” he tells her. “I'm wondering about a change of career.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “But you're so good at what you do!”
He smiles, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “I just think it might be good to slow down a little. I'm not getting any younger.”
She considers this.
“You wanted to be an astronaut when you were a little boy.”
“Maybe I'll do that then,” he says, and she laughs in delight.
When he gets home, Gi-hun is asleep on the sofa, his head cushioned on Sang-woo’s rolled up blanket. Sang-woo tries to be quiet, but the sound of the front door closing makes Gi-hun stir.
“Umma?” he mumbles, eyes still closed. Sang-woo goes still.
“It's just me,” he says after a moment, taking off his jacket.
The sound of his voice seems to bring Gi-hun back to life. He sits up, rubbing his eyes, trying to smile.
“Sang-woo? How did it go? Did you already eat? Hey, I went out, I got you good tea.”
Without thinking about it, Sang-woo crouches down next to the sofa, almost reaching out to smooth Gi-hun’s hopeless hair back from his eyes but stopping himself just in time. His fingers hover pointlessly instead, heart thumping in his chest.
Gi-hun blinks up at him. “Sang-woo-ya?”
“Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you.”
“Is everything alright?”
Sang-woo nods. Makes himself smile. “I'll make us dinner.”
He isn't a proficient cook, but he's better than Gi-hun, who can barely stir fry noodles without injury.
Sang-woo fries bulgogi beef in a wok while Gi-hun clumsily slices radishes and spring onions beside him, even though Sang-woo tells him he doesn't need to help. The back door is open on the new sun, letting sweet, humid air in. Gi-hun has put the radio on.
Sang-woo glances across at him, and the sheer look of concentration on Gi-hun’s face makes Sang-woo’s heart stumble sweetly.
Gi-hun catches him looking.
“Am I doing it wrong?” he asks cautiously, and Sang-woo shakes his head.
“You're fine,” he says.
-
By conventional standards, their situation improves.
They're debt-free. They send money to Sae-byeok’s brother, anonymously, hoping questions won't be asked. They pay a plumber to fix a bad leak in the bathroom. Sang-woo begins looking for a job.
For Gi-hun, none of it is enough.
“If I could just find him again,” he says over dinner one night, playing with his food without eating it.
“Find who?” asks Sang-woo.
“The man with the ddakji.”
Sang-woo wishes he would just leave it alone.
They argue about it. They reconcile. They cook rice and shell peas and drink beer. Gi-hun stops hiding in his bedroom in the afternoons. He goes out instead. Sometimes for hours. He doesn't always take his wallet. This is the part that confuses Sang-woo the most.
“Where do you go all day?” Sang-woo finally asks one morning.
“The subway station,” Gi-hun replies, not even putting up a fight, and Sang-woo doesn't understand how he could have been so stupid as to not realise this before.
He knows that Gi-hun is angry. Sang-woo is angry too. At the games, at himself. But he's also exhausted, and he's also afraid. They've made it out alive, but now he feels the weight of the past threatening to pull them under.
Still, one evening, he decides to join Gi-hun on his hunt. It's better than waiting for him at home like some dithering housewife. They sit together on a cold, hard bench in the subway station, watching the ebb and flow of blissfully ignorant commuters. The minutes tick by, time marked only by the smooth arrival and departure of the trains.
“Why do you think you'll find him here?” Sang-woo asks.
“It's where he found me before.”
Another hour passes. Sang-woo doesn't know how Gi-hun can take it without going mad.
He looks down between them. Gi-hun's fingers are twisted into the metal rungs of the bench, gripping tight. Slowly, subtly, Sang-woo moves his little finger over the top of Gi-hun’s, applying the slightest pressure.
“Can we go home now?” he asks quietly.
Gi-hun looks down at their fingers, then up at Sang-woo in surprise. “Home?” he echoes, as though he needs to be reminded of the concept. But he sighs, and nods, and they walk back to the apartment slowly.
Gi-hun unlocks the door, pushes it open, but doesn't go inside. He plays absently with the key in his hand.
“It's just something I have to do, Sang-woo,” he says in a low voice. “You understand, don't you?”
Sang-woo rests his head against the cool brick of the wall. Without pausing to think about it he raises his hand to Gi-hun’s tired face, thumbs at the grumpy pink swell of his lower lip.
“No,” he says softly, and then, as if seized by an idea, he leans forward and kisses him.
He feels Gi-hun’s lips open against his uncertainly, and then a hand on Sang-woo’s stomach pushes him back. Sang-woo opens his mouth to apologise, but Gi-hun is already speaking.
“Not here,” he says hurriedly, and Sang-woo understands, and promptly follows Gi-hun inside like an anxious puppy.
They close the front door.
“Here?” Sang-woo murmurs, and Gi-hun pulls him in close and kisses him briefly, the thistle of his stubble a little scratchy against Sang-woo’s face. Gi-hun puts both hands to Sang-woo’s temples so he can gently kiss his forehead.
“Here,” Gi-hun says quietly, before lightly kissing the ridge of Sang-woo’s nose, the apple of his cheek.
Gi-hun looks at him for a moment, eyes nervous in the dark. His thumb bites into the pulse in Sang-woo’s neck. For a moment Sang-woo thinks he’s made a mistake, until Gi-hun leans in and kisses him again, for a long time this time. When he pulls back just enough to breathe he’s smiling from his mouth all the way up to his crinkled eyes, and he smells like laundry soap and ginger and cotton when he presses his hand to Sang-woo’s forehead, and then into his hair, smoothing it back, soothing him.
They go to Gi-hun’s bedroom. Once there, neither of them seem certain of what to do next. They fuss around, brushing their teeth and washing their faces, pulling the curtains closed.
When they get into bed there’s a hand-width of space between them. But once Sang-woo turns out the lamp, he feels Gi-hun roll over to him, and then his arm is around Sang-woo’s waist and his breath is at the back of his neck, and Sang-woo soon slips into a far deeper sleep than he could ever have expected.
Hours later, a weak dawn sunlight spreads like syrup through the curtains and across the bed. Sang-woo wakes with the duvet tangled around him and Gi-hun’s fingers in his hair, everything in Sang-woo’s body itching for him. He turns in Gi-hun’s arms and Gi-hun stirs. Softly, sleepily, Sang-woo presses in and kisses him, then kisses him again, and again, like he isn’t sure of how to do anything else, a hunger he hasn’t felt in ages opening up in him.
Gi-hun pushes the covers down and Sang-woo presses his mouth against Gi-hun’s jaw, tasting stubble and the salty sweetness of his skin, and when he drags his teeth a little way down Gi-hun’s neck he feels Gi-hun swallow, hears the soft hitch of his breath.
“Is this okay?” Sang-woo mumbles, nosing at the column of his throat.
Gi-hun goes still for a moment, his hand poised right at the point where Sang-woo’s boxers meet his hips, and then he murmurs, “Finish what you’ve started,” in a rough voice thick with sleep.
Emboldened, Sang-woo fists a hand in the fabric of Gi-hun’s t-shirt, pulling him impossibly closer as he opens his mouth against Gi-hun’s, kissing him hungrily, his fingers finding their way into the soft places where Gi-hun’s t-shirt has ridden up in his sleep, and then to the waistband of his boxers which he hurriedly pushes down, Gi-hun’s breath hitching in between them as their mouths find each other again and again.
Afterwards, hands sticky, limbs loose, they both laugh, at each other and out of relief. Gi-hun rolls half on top of Sang-woo, soft strands of his hair catching the morning sunlight like feathers.
“Well,” Gi-hun whispers, “I wasn't expecting that.”
“Liar,” Sang-woo whispers back, hand in Gi-hun’s hair, gripping; keeping him right there.
-
He doesn't realise Gi-hun has nightmares until they start sharing the bed.
The first few nights are quiet. Only the faintest hum of the neighbourhood outside breaks through the silence, and Sang-woo finds it easy enough to sleep.
Then, one night, he's jolted awake by a strangled shout. He twists in bed to see Gi-hun half-sitting up, eyes wild but unfocused, as if he's still trapped in his terrible nightmare.
Sang-woo reaches out a hand, running his palm up Gi-hun’s bare arm.
“It's just a bad dream,” he whispers, and after a moment Gi-hun appears to accept this. He slides back under the covers, out cold again in moments.
But it happens again, and again, every third or fourth night, and soon Sang-woo learns to wake at the faintest stirring.
“I'm sorry,” Gi-hun says after each incident, whispers it, slack-jawed and exhausted against Sang-woo’s shoulder as Sang-woo pulls him close.
Sometimes they talk about it. Sometimes they talk about something else entirely. Sometimes Sang-woo will anchor Gi-hun with his arms around his waist and murmur into his hair, “Tell me a story. Tell me about our first day at school,” and Gi-hun will soon ramble himself back into a fitful sleep. Sometimes Sang-woo lets Gi-hun fuck him into the mattress, bed springs creaking cheerfully, and unsurprisingly this is what soothes them both the most.
“Don't you have them?” Gi-hun asks him once, as they lie there afterwards, slick with sweat, boneless. “Bad dreams?”
Sang-woo can't help but detect an accusatory undertone in the question. He stares up at the ceiling, considering his answer.
“Not much,” he settles on. He looks across at Gi-hun. “It doesn't mean I don't think about it. I'm just awake when I do.”
“What parts do you think about?” Gi-hun mumbles. He's lying on his side, mouth a little muffled where he's resting his head on his arm.
“All of it,” says Sang-woo. “The games. The people. The choices we made. But I can't… can't afford to let it control me.”
Gi-hun scoffs a little. “Must be nice, being able to just move on like that.”
In the dark, Sang-woo frowns at him. “I didn't say that.”
“But you act like it. Every day, I can see it. You're moving on. And here I am, drowning.”
“What do you want from me, Gi-hun? Do you want me to suffer more, to prove that I'm struggling too?”
“Yes!” Gi-hun blurts out. A noise of frustration twists its way from the back of his throat. “No, of course I don't want that. I want to know I'm not alone in this. I want to know that you're not just… forgetting.”
“I’m not. I’ll never forget it. Damn it, Gi-hun, I wish I could.”
Gi-hun doesn't respond straight away. When he does, his voice is so small.
“I feel like I'm being haunted.”
Guilt curls at Sang-woo’s stomach. He doesn't know what to say. He drags his knuckles across Gi-hun’s lower belly, the warm part just below his navel, and feels the muscles there twinge beneath his fingers.
“Just tell me what to do to help,” Sang-woo says.
“You already know what I want us to -”
“Besides that.”
“Then nothing. There's nothing you can do to help.” As if to prove his point, Gi-hun turns in bed so that his back is to Sang-woo, and Sang-woo’s hand is suddenly trailing through thin air.
“You don't have to be so stubborn,” Sang-woo mutters.
Gi-hun mumbles something back which Sang-woo can't make out, but which he guesses is probably fuck you.
-
Sang-woo knows he has no right to tell Gi-hun how to use the money. It was gifted to Gi-hun, not him - and besides, Sang-woo is the one with blood on his hands. He knows he forfeited any right to influence Gi-hun’s decisions the moment he made the choices he did in the games.
But he doesn't want Gi-hun to go insane, and he doesn't want him to die, and Sang-woo has borne the weight of his own inadequacy his entire life but has never felt it quite so keenly as he does now, watching Gi-hun embark on this vigilante mission with no discernible power, and no real strategy, and no specific purpose in mind besides, what - plunging a knife into the hearts of the men who made him a billionaire?
Weeks pass. During the day, their lives almost look normal. They don't talk about what they're doing together, what this is between them, and certainly they have no intention of broadcasting it beyond the walls of the apartment. But they eat all their meals together and go to bed together and wake up in the mornings wrapped in the covers and each other. They pay bills and cook dinner and fuck often, and it's not the life Sang-woo ever pictured for himself but it's not bad, either.
Gi-hun still goes out every afternoon, comes home late every night. Until one night he doesn't come home at all, and Sang-woo doesn't know what to do; doesn't know what he'll find if he goes looking for him, doesn't know what he'd tell the police if he called them - and so he sits, paralysed, on the floor of the living room and sobs, uselessly, selfishly, because he's afraid of being on his own, and because he might love Gi-hun, a little at least, and he's afraid of that too, of what that means and what it might do to him.
Gi-hun stumbles through the front door in the dewy blue light just before dawn, and tells Sang-woo he fell asleep at the subway station.
“How could you be so fucking stupid?” Sang-woo demands. “I thought you were - dead.”
Gi-hun looks dumbfounded, brow furrowed like a lost child. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. I thought you'd be asleep by now.”
Sang-woo sighs; a ragged, wounded sound. “I don't sleep when you go,” he hisses.
“I’m sorry,” Gi-hun says again, reaching out to touch Sang-woo's arm. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
“No! No.” Sang-woo pulls away, shakes his head. “It's not just about being careful. This - this thing you're doing, it won't end well.” He pauses. “So I'll help you. If you're really not going to stop. I'll come with you. Every day.” He lets his arms flop pointlessly to his sides. He is exhausted. “I don't know what the fuck your plan is, though, so you have to tell me everything. Alright?”
Gi-hun nods. “Alright.”
Later, when Gi-hun pushes into him, Sang-woo curls his legs tight around him, locks his arms around his back, palms pressing into the ridges of Gi-hun's spine. He bites hard into the hollow part where Gi-hun’s shoulder meets his neck, eliciting a pained groan, relishing the thought that his teeth might leave deep, greedy marks there.
Gi-hun stays on top of Sang-woo afterwards, covering Sang-woo with his own body, his own thudding heart.
He presses a kiss to Sang-woo’s damp temple and whispers into the hair there, “There's something we need to do tomorrow. You're not going to like it.”
-
Gi-hun sits on the edge of the bath where the light is best and smooths his hair away from the back of his right ear.
“Do you see it?” he asks, and Sang-woo feels a throb of nausea, because yes, he does see it.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks warily, even though Gi-hun has already placed the knife on the sink.
“Get it out of me. Then I'll do yours.”
Sang-woo’s hand flies up to his own neck and he stumbles back a little, as though Gi-hun already has the blade in his hand. He presses a desperate finger to the back of his ear, relieved when he feels normal, smooth skin there - but when he runs an experimental finger over the vague dark shape behind Gi-hun’s ear, that feels normal and smooth too.
“Do I have one?” Sang-woo asks weakly, and Gi-hun stands and gently moves Sang-woo’s hair to check, and confirms that he does. “Do you think they're following us? Have they been following us this whole time?”
Gi-hun nods slowly. “When I woke up, at the station, it was because someone was ringing me. They were ringing me. They knew I was looking for the man with the ddakji.”
“Did they threaten you?”
Gi-hun doesn't answer that.
“We need to get rid of these, now,” he says instead.
Sang-woo picks up the box cutter. It's new, still in its packaging. He takes it out and holds it in his palm.
“What if something goes wrong?” he asks.
Gi-hun swallows, clearly having had this thought himself. “It'll be fine.”
With a steady hand, Sang-woo cleans Gi-hun’s skin with rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad. Then he picks up the box cutter again, eyes flicking between it and the small, dark shape behind Gi-hun’s ear.
“Hold still,” he murmurs. He puts his free hand on Gi-hun’s head to steady himself.
Gi-hun closes his eyes and holds his breath. The blade gleams under the ugly yellow light of the bathroom as Sang-woo carefully brings it closer to Gi-hun’s vulnerable skin. The moment the blade makes contact, Gi-hun flinches.
“Sorry,” Gi-hun mutters.
“You're okay. I've got you.”
Slowly, meticulously, Sang-woo begins to cut around the tiny shape. The thin flesh gives easily. As he works, a line of dark blood trickles down Gi-hun’s neck, but Gi-hun doesn't utter a sound, though his shoulders rise and tense against the pain like a trapped animal. Finally, after what feels like hours, but is in reality less than a minute or two, Sang-woo removes the device.
“It's out,” he breathes. He drops the bloody box cutter into the sink and examines the tiny tracker in his red hand.
“Your turn,” Gi-hun says hoarsely.
Sang-woo cleans Gi-hun up first, carefully dressing his new wound with gauze. Then they switch places, and Sang-woo sits on the edge of the bathtub instead.
“Do it quick,” he says, as Gi-hun cleans the blade.
“I'll be as gentle as I can.”
He is gentle. It still hurts like hell.
When Gi-hun has finished cleaning him up (Sang-woo bleeds the most out of the two of them) he moves his finger down to the old burgundy scar, lower down on Sang-woo’s neck; doesn't touch it but hovers his hand over it like a healer.
“Does it hurt?” he asks.
“No. Sometimes.” Sang-woo shrugs. “It's more like a memory of pain.”
Gi-hun lingers for a moment longer before moving away. He runs the blade of the box cutter under the tap. Sang-woo stands and comes up behind him, watching him. On the shelf above the sink, in a ceramic pot, are a pair of scissors.
“Sit down again,” Sang-woo says. “I’ll cut your hair.”
Gi-hun looks at him in the mirror, his expression indignant enough that it makes Sang-woo smile.
“You don't like the rugged look?” Gi-hun asks, examining his unruly mop of hair in the mirror.
“You look kind of homeless.”
“Kind of homeless?” Gi-hun scoffs, but he obediently sits back down on the edge of the bathtub, and Sang-woo gently positions himself behind him again. He lifts a lock of Gi-hun’s dark hair, feeling its clean softness between his fingers.
“These scissors… they're your mother's, aren’t they?”
Gi-hun smiles sadly. “She used to cut my hair when I was little.”
“I remember.”
Sang-woo begins to snip. He works with amateurish care, the dim bathroom light just enough to see by. Gi-hun closes his eyes, trusting him.
“There,” Sang-woo says with a little nod once he's finished. He gently brushes the stray hairs from Gi-hun's shoulders. “You look like someone loves you again.”
It's what Sang-woo’s mother used to say to him whenever he got a haircut as a child, or polished his school shoes, or wore a new coat. He means it as a joke, but out loud, it doesn't much sound like one.
Gi-hun stands and glances in the mirror. He runs a hand through his newly shorn hair, looking younger and older all at once. A grin begins to blossom on his tired face. He puts an arm around Sang-woo, pulls him close, buddy-buddy.
“Look at us,” he says, gesturing to their faces sharing the mirror. “Just two ordinary guys, cutting each other's necks open. Regular Tuesday morning.”
“Hurts a little,” Sang-woo admits, touching a finger gingerly to the gauze behind his ear.
“I'll get you some painkillers,” Gi-hun says instantly, and then he crooks his head a little and leans to brush a kiss, speculatively, on the side of Sang-woo’s face.
They look down at the trackers on the top of the sink, sitting in tiny puddles of pink-red water. Gi-hun reaches down and swipes them into the bowl of the sink, turns the tap on, washes them down the drain.
-
They have to leave the apartment. If they don't, then digging out the trackers would have been pointless. They spend their last night eating and smoking in bed, falling asleep around two, slightly drunk, forehead to forehead, Gi-hun’s long fingers tucked against Sang-woo’s skin beneath his t-shirt. They wake the same way, having not dreamed, and Sang-woo’s belly thrums with something which might be contentment.
“Where would you like to go?” Gi-hun asks over morning coffee.
“I don't mind,” Sang-woo says. “Somewhere with a balcony.”
They take as much as will fit in the rental car. They take the rubber plant, which Sang-woo repotted one afternoon to help it branch into a tree. They share a cigarette outside the front door to the apartment before locking it, Gi-hun slipping the key into his wallet to keep it safe for the day, which might never come, when he returns home.
Gi-hun pulls the car away from the curb and they drive slowly down the street they chalked hopscotch grids onto as children.
Sang-woo glances in the side mirror, again and again, wondering if anyone is following them. Gi-hun notices and turns on the radio, as though this will help.
For a moment Sang-woo hangs on to the image of the street in the mirror, the apartment complex, the tops of the houses peppered with signs of life: water tanks and satellite dishes and laundry lines, metal roofs weather-worn and patched. Then the car turns a corner, the street disappears, and Sang-woo lets it go.
They book into a hotel on the other side of the city. Take long showers because the water pressure is good. Sang-woo shaves, using gluttonous sinkfuls of hot water, enjoying the way it trickles warmly down his reddening throat. The air is close in the bedroom; they throw the windows wide. They eat takeaway noodles and stretch their damp bare legs out on the white sheets and drink a little, but not too much, because there's work to be done.
In the early evening they get dressed, wash their faces, shrug their jackets on. The slight tan line on Sang-woo’s wrist has faded, from his not having worn his watch for weeks. He fastens it back on now, checks that the time is correct.
“Sure you still want to come?” Gi-hun asks at the door, hand poised over the handle. One last chance to back out before he carries them into the breach.
Sang-woo looks at him, and then down at himself.
“I'm dressed, aren't I?” he says, and Gi-hun’s lips quirk into the semblance of a smile.
They leave the hotel, together; walk quietly into the thrumming guts of the city.
Their vigil begins in earnest.