Chapter Text
Jun-ho didn’t remember waking.
Not at first.
There were flashes — salt in his throat, a wave crashing over the boat, Woo-jin’s voice shouting something in the distance. Then white-hot pain. Then nothing.
When he finally opened his eyes, it was to the sterile hush of a hospital room and the rhythmic beeping of a monitor. His whole body ached. Something tugged in his side — bandages, tubes.
And there, curled awkwardly on a narrow couch by the window, was Woo-jin. Asleep. Hair messy. Clothes stained with salt and soot and blood. Still wearing that ridiculous tactical vest.
Jun-ho’s mouth was dry. “...You look like shit.”
Woo-jin jerked awake instantly, blinking at him like he couldn’t believe it. “Holy fuck. ”
He was at the bedside in seconds, gripping Jun-ho’s hand, brushing damp hair back from his forehead. “Don’t ever do that again, you bastard. You died. We had to resuscitate you.”
Jun-ho managed a small wince. “What happened?”
“The doc said you had a chunk of rubble in your stomach. And then the ceiling fell on you.” Woo-jin exhaled, shaky. “You’re lucky one of Woo-seok’s guys was a combat medic. He bought us time to make port.”
His head was a mess but a question still got to him. “Where’s In-ho?”
Woo-jin just gave an apologetic stare. “We don’t know, he said he’ll made it out but…”
Jun-ho tears then started falling. He felt like he failed.
“I’m sorry” he heard Woo-jin said.
Jun-ho squeezed his hand. “Thanks… for staying”
Woo-jin’s voice cracked. “Always.”
~☆~☂~〇~△~
No-eul didn’t just leak the Games — she unleashed them.
One year later, the whole world still hadn’t recovered.
Every major media outlet had played the footage: the masked guards, the killing fields, the children’s games turned to slaughter. Names. Numbers. Coordinates. The sheer scale of it.
It was a mediatic circus.
Every ruler was pointing fingers to the other. A war might be in sight.
The investigation about this case has become a worldwide issue. Ssangmun-dong Police is under investigation thanks to the proof of corruption Jun-ho provided.
It has been chaotic.
And through it all, No-eul had disappeared.
Jun-ho knew she only resurfaced once — to reach her son.
He pulled strings to help. One of his old NPA contacts found the address. A quiet suburb. A boy with her eyes. A chance at something normal.
She knew now that at least he was doing fine. She didn’t intend to meddle on his life and ruin it.
No-eul sent a single message back: Thank you. For everything.
~☆~☂~〇~△~
They sent Captain Baek off with fire and sea.
The Hyun-mi sat anchored just beyond the jagged rocks of a remote cove, the engine stilled for once, riding the tide like it was holding its breath. Above them, the sky was all bruised gold and ember red, the sun bleeding into the ocean like it knew something sacred was happening.
Baek’s body lay wrapped in linen on a small wooden boat they’d built together the night before — uneven, shoddy craftsmanship in places, but done with care. Woo-seok had insisted on sanding the edges smooth. Min-jae added railings. Dae-sik carved the bow into a grimacing fox’s head. They wanted it to feel like Baek: a little rough, a little absurd, but solid where it counted.
They placed offerings all around him. A bottle of soju in each hand — one for the journey, one for the crew he left behind. Half a pack of cigarettes tucked into his vest. A box of matches and an ashtray shaped like a shark. Someone threw in a deck of greasy playing cards. Ji-yoon added the karaoke remote she once caught him singing into. Fishing lures hung from the railing like wind chimes. And at the very front, cradled against his chest, the hideous little wooden dragon Woo-jin carved as a kid — stubby wings, one eye bigger than the other, teeth that looked like broken corn kernels.
“He said it was cursed,” Woo-jin murmured, smiling as he touched it one last time. “Carried it with him every time we crossed the Yellow Sea. Said if the boat ever sank, it’d scare the sharks away.”
They lit the arrows together.
One by one, Woo-seok, Ji-yoon, Dae-sik, Seung-woo, Jin-bae — even quiet old Sang-hoon, who hadn’t spoken all morning — dipped the arrowheads into oil and raised their bows. They stood on the upper deck, silhouetted against the horizon, warriors in crooked sunglasses and tattered shirts. Jin-bae sniffled once, hiding behind his aviators, while Min-jae muttered something about how Baek owed him money.
They let the arrows fly.
The first missed. The second skimmed the edge of the boat and fizzled in the water. But the third — Woo-seok’s — landed true. Flames caught on the linen. Then the others struck, and the boat became a torch.
The fire cracked and danced across the waves, dragging smoke trails into the sunset. The sea hissed around it, but it didn’t go out. It blazed.
They didn’t cry right away. They laughed.
Min-jae told the story of the time Baek kicked a customs officer off the deck during a random inspection, shouting “Next time knock!” while sipping instant coffee like nothing had happened.
Ji-yoon said Baek once burst into tears while she was drunkenly singing “I Will Survive” in a port-side dive bar. He’d pretended he had allergies, but she swore she saw him wiping his face on a bar towel.
Jin-bae brought up the time Baek got a sea urchin stuck to his butt while skinny-dipping and chased them around with a harpoon screaming, “Nobody dies with dignity!”
Even Seung-woo shared something, voice quiet: “He used to sneak snacks into the engine room when I was fixing up the old boat. Never said anything. Just left them there. Salted peanuts. Dried squid. He always knew what I liked.”
Then Woo-jin stepped forward.
“We were fishing when I was a kid,” he said, voice low, eyes locked on the fire drifting farther and farther into the sea. “Big storm. Some monster fish rammed the hull — nearly capsized us. I was so scared. Thought we were gonna die.”
He paused. The light flickered over his face. Everyone fell silent.
“But Baek just laughed. Laughed so hard he nearly slipped. He said he was only dying drunk’”
Soft chuckles rippled through the group. Woo-jin’s voice cracked.
“I think… I think that’s when I started loving the old man. And started seeing him as my dad.”
He looked down, fingers twitching.
Jun-ho stepped beside him, slipping his hand into Woo-jin’s without a word.
Woo-jin’s grip was tight.
“I never told him,” he said. “Not properly.”
“He knew,” Jun-ho said.
A gust of wind blew through, stirring the flames just as the boat dipped past the horizon, swallowed in light and smoke and distance.
They stood there long after it vanished.
Then Woo-jin raised his bottle. “To Captain Baek. The meanest bastard on the Sea.”
“To Baek!” they echoed, shouting, sobbing, laughing.
The crew passed bottles, lit cigarettes, howled drunken sea shanties at the sky. Dae-sik started beatboxing while Ji-yoon did a ridiculous interpretive dance. Min-jae pretended to puke over the side but ended up yelling, “I LOVED YOU, YOU GRUMPY TURD!” into the wind.
And somewhere in the middle of it, Woo-jin leaned into Jun-ho’s shoulder and whispered, “I hope he’s somewhere loud. Somewhere with good drinks. And no damn paperwork.”
Jun-ho kissed his temple, the smell of smoke and salt thick in the air.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’d hate heaven otherwise.”
They stayed up until the stars came out, until the last ember sank beneath the waves.
The sea took Baek the way he would’ve wanted — with flames, booze, and the people he made into family.
And the Hyun-mi sailed on.
~☆~☂~〇~△~
Ali Abdul. Kang Sae-byeok. Cho Sang-woo.
Names from the records Woo-jin have given him.
Jun-ho made it his mission to find the names Gi-hun had given him.
He tracked Ali’s wife and son first. Gave them a portion of the winnings — untraceable cash, a small trust fund, a safe living home.
“He was a good man,” he told her how much Ali loved them and that he never left them. “One of the bravest.”
She cried. Hugged him. Asked nothing more.
Then there was Cheol — Sae-byeok’s little brother — now living with Sang-woo’s mother. Jun-ho brought them groceries, school supplies, and a fake letter from witness protection saying their loved ones were safe.
He knew lying might be wrong but telling them the truth at this stage might be harmful.
“They wanted to keep you protected,” he said quietly. “You’re not alone.”
Cheol nodded with tears in his eyes.
“We’ll we ever see her again?” he whispered. “She always said she’d come back.”
The lady hugged the kid understanding they might not.
Jun-ho said nothing. Just smiled. And thought: So this is what you did, Gi-hun. All these years. This is what you carried.
He wondered if In-ho ever had the stomach to do the same.
Ga-yeong opened the door herself.
The apartment was modest — a fourth-floor walk-up in a quieter suburb of Seoul, ivy creeping up the balcony railings, the faint hum of evening traffic in the background. Jun-ho’s knock had been gentle, uncertain, like he was afraid the memory of her might vanish if he made too much noise.
She was almost a teenager now — taller than he remembered from the photos Woo-jin had shown him. Her black hair was tied back into a neat ponytail, and her uniform blazer hung just a little loose on her shoulders. Her eyes — big, sharp, watchful — narrowed when she saw him.
Stranger. Male. Alone.
She didn’t open the door wide. Just enough to see his face. Just enough to run.
“…Who are you?”
Jun-ho hesitated, caught off guard by how much she resembled Gi-hun. The same wariness, the same guarded hurt behind the eyes.
“I’m…” He swallowed. “I’m a friend of your dad.”
Her fingers curled tighter around the edge of the door. She didn’t move. Didn't open up, but didn’t shut it, either.
She’d learned by now, he thought. Not to trust men who claimed to know him.
“Is he…” Her voice dropped. “Is he okay?”
Jun-ho’s mouth opened, but no sound came. There was no version of this answer that wouldn’t bruise.
Before he could say anything, a voice called from deeper in the apartment.
“Ga-yeong? Who is it?”
Footsteps approached. Then the door opened wider, and Kang Eun-ji appeared — tired eyes, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled up like she’d been washing dishes or sorting laundry. She froze when she saw Jun-ho, frowning faintly as if trying to place him.
“This man says he’s my dad’s friend,” Ga-yeong said without looking at her mother.
Eun-ji’s eyes swept over Jun-ho from head to toe in an instant. Her expression hardened.
“What’s he done now?”
There was no venom in it — just exhaustion. Wounded resignation, as if she'd said that sentence too many times already.
“We can’t get involved,” she added quickly, directing the words at Jun-ho.
Jun-ho’s voice was quieter than he meant it to be. “Please. I’m not here for that. I’m not here to cause trouble. I just… I need to talk to you. Both of you.”
Eun-ji hesitated. Ga-yeong looked up at her, then back at Jun-ho. Still wary. But waiting.
Jun-ho reached into his coat and slowly withdrew his old police badge — faded, scratched, the leather cracked from years of disuse. He held it out without fanfare.
“I just need a few minutes”
The two exchanged a glance. After a pause, Eun-ji stepped back and opened the door fully.
Inside, the apartment smelled faintly of detergent and sesame oil. A radio played low in the kitchen — an old pop ballad, the kind Gi-hun might’ve hummed badly while folding dumplings.
They sat in the living room. Ga-yeong stayed at the edge of the couch, arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes never leaving Jun-ho’s face. Eun-ji sat nearby, stiff, arms crossed.
Jun-ho didn’t start right away. He stared at the carpet, collecting his thoughts. Then, slowly, he began.
He told them about the Games.
Not the gore. Not the horror. Not all at once. Just the truth — filtered gently, like he was unfolding a wound and trying to keep the blood from spilling.
He spoke of a place where the poor were hunted for sport. Of people who had nothing left but the will to survive. And of a man who’d walked back into that nightmare — not for glory, not for redemption, but to stop it.
“The Hell Games” Eun-ji murmured. The news was filled with this case. That’s the name the media had put.
“Gi-hun changed everything,” Jun-ho said softly. “He turned the tide. He didn’t just fight back. He made sure the world saw it. He gave his life to end it.”
Eun-ji’s mouth parted, soundless.
Ga-yeong was staring at him, expression unreadable. Like she was trying to hold it together through sheer force of will.
Jun-ho reached into his coat again and pulled out a small, sealed envelope. He handed it to Eun-ji.
Inside was a card. A numbered account. A trust.
“All the money that was left to her,” he said. “He didn’t keep a cent for himself. He made me promise. Said if anything happened… this goes to her.”
Eun-ji looked stunned. Slowly, she peeled the envelope open and stared down at the numbers, disbelief etched across her face.
“Why didn’t he… tell us?” she asked, almost to herself. “Why didn’t he call? Write? Say something?”
“He didn’t want to put you in danger,” Jun-ho said gently. “He knew they were watching. All the time.”
The silence stretched.
Then a soft sound — barely a breath — escaped from Ga-yeong’s throat. Her shoulders trembled. Tears fell, silent and hot, rolling down her cheeks as she pressed her sleeve to her face and tried not to sob out loud.
Ga-yeong clung to every word like they were lifelines.
When the sky outside had gone completely dark, and the radio was nothing but static, Jun-ho finally stood.
“I should go.”
Ga-yeong stood, too.
She stepped forward, hesitant, and then hugged him. Tight.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For telling me. For being there for him.”
Jun-ho held her back, his voice thick. “You’re a lot like him. Stronger, even.”
They pulled apart. He gave Eun-ji a final nod, and she — reluctantly, quietly — nodded back.
He didn’t see the man across the street watching.
Dressed in black. Half-hidden in shadow behind a lamppost. Still as stone. In-ho said nothing.
Just watched them — mother and daughter silhouetted in the window, clinging to the truth of a man the world was only now learning to mourn.
A weight in his chest.
An unbearable pain.
~☆~☂~〇~△~
The sea was calm.
The kind of calm that felt earned — the hush after a storm, when the world hadn’t just stopped shaking, but remembered how to breathe again.
The Hyun-mi drifted gently with the current, anchored just beyond the jagged crescent of an uninhabited island. Salt clung to the air like perfume, and the sky above them was a watercolor wash of fire and honey, bleeding oranges into the deepening blue. The sun kissed the horizon in a long, slow goodbye.
Jun-ho and Woo-jin sat shoulder to shoulder on the edge of the bow, their bare feet swinging just above the darkening water. The metal beneath them was warm from the day’s heat, but cooling quickly — the kind of cool that made you lean into each other for no real reason but comfort.
Behind them, the crew was making a ruckus near the stern — drunken laughter, a half-sung sea shanty, someone loudly insisting that no, really, he could climb the mast upside down. The scent of charred mackerel and cheap rum carried faintly on the breeze.
But out here, it was quiet.
Jun-ho exhaled, eyes on the horizon. “Do you think he made it out?” he asked after a long silence. “In-ho.”
Woo-jin didn’t answer at first. He scratched absently at the stubble on his jaw, then glanced sideways.
“I think he’s too stubborn to stay dead.”
Jun-ho snorted under his breath. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
“Never said I was comforting.” Woo-jin shrugged. “The man’s made of spite and unfinished business. If anyone could crawl out of a burning island and still have perfect hair, it’s that asshole.”
Jun-ho chuckled, eyes still on the water, the wind tugging gently at his hair. “I think he might have felt something for Gi-hun, you know.”
“I figured.” Woo-jin leaned back on his hands. “Doesn’t make him any less of a jerk.”
There was a pause, quieter now. The kind that didn’t need to be filled.
Then Woo-jin shifted, turning to face him more fully. “Hey.”
Jun-ho tilted his head, only half-turning. “Hm?”
“I’m not ever letting you go again.”
That made Jun-ho look. His expression softened — half amused, half suspicious. “Is that a threat?”
“Maybe.” Woo-jin’s mouth twitched into something almost shy — or as close to shy as a smuggler who once faked his own death could get. “Or maybe it’s a promise.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out — a small, worn thing clutched in his fist. When he opened his hand, Jun-ho blinked.
It was a ring. Old. Battered. Gold worn thin at the edges, clearly not new. Tied to a small silver fishing hook with faded red thread. The kind used to patch sails or stitch wounds.
Jun-ho stared.
“…You’re serious?”
“As a gunshot,” Woo-jin said. “I kept this since the first raid I ever ran with Baek” He smiled.
Jun-ho laughed. Then frowned. “Wait. Are you seriously proposing with a stolen ring?”
“Technically it was given for safety,” Woo-jin said. “And a personal traumatic experience.”
Jun-ho’s eyes shone. His chest ached. His heart felt too full for his ribs.
“You’re unbelievable,” he muttered.
“I know.”
Jun-ho’s voice dipped quieter. “You want me to marry you? On a boat. Surrounded by fugitives and drunk idiots.”
“And fireworks,” Woo-jin added. “Someone’s lighting those off later. We can pretend it’s for us.”
Jun-ho let the silence stretch, just to see Woo-jin squirm a little.
Then, slowly, he smiled — wide and helpless and shining.
“Asshole,” he whispered. “Yeah. I will.”
Woo-jin beamed.
Then, without hesitation, he surged to his feet, turned to the deck, and bellowed:
“I’M GETTING MARRIED!”
The reaction was immediate — an explosion of cheers and whistles. Dae-sik screamed “ WHAT THE HELL ” from below deck, Ji-yoon dropped her drink and sprinted across the deck barefoot, tackling Woo-jin in a hug that nearly sent them both into the water.
Someone fired a flare by accident. A pelican flew off screaming. Min-jae started sobbing and claimed it was allergies.
Jun-ho stood last, watching the chaos unfold with that same crooked grin on his face.
He’d been happy before — he thought.
But never like this.
Never with his hand still warm from holding someone else’s. Never with the sound of laughter ringing in his ears and his lungs full of ocean wind.
Never with his heart intact and his soul whole.
He stepped up beside Woo-jin, who wrapped an arm around him and kissed his temple, lips lingering just a little too long.
The sky darkened into velvet.
And for once, there was no running.
Just them.
And a promise that, for once, might actually hold.
The End.