Chapter Text
It only took mere minutes for Gihun’s phone to ring after he turned away from the plane.
He knew he shouldn’t answer. His heart was already pumping vengeance through his veins, his entire body tensed up as if he was resisting the physical pull back toward attempting to live in blissful ignorance. To escape this place and the constant reminders that still haunted him, despite making good on his promises to Sangwoo and Saebyeok.
Gihun grit his teeth in frustration and answered the phone, wondering what that voice– his voice–would have to say.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The difference made him pause. The voice no longer sounded fully human; it was distorted, deeper, likely modulated by a mask, but Gihun could tell it was still the Front Man. It had a subtle sneer in it, but an unnerving gentleness underneath, and Gihun recognized exactly how he pronounced his words. He had never forgotten the voice he heard in the limo one year ago–strangely soft and silky, the kind that disarms you to lure you into a trap. Like a monster.
“You’ve got no place to go.”
Gihun inhaled shakily, checking his surroundings. He didn’t even know the face that matched the voice, but somehow thought he could catch the monster out in the open.
“Don’t hide like a sneaky little rat. Show yourself,” Gihun whispered scathingly. He could play this game of taunting just as well.
“You should have gotten on that plane,” the Front Man responded, his voice lowered, breathier, as if he were making sure only Gihun could hear him. “You will regret your decision.”
Gihun sucked air through his teeth, his hand trembling as he brought the phone closer to his lips.
“I’m going to find you. No matter what it takes.”
It was a threat, a promise, a conviction, words that he would continue to hold on to in order to not completely lose himself.
The cut behind Gihun’s ear was still fresh when he returned to his studio apartment, situated on the outskirts of Seoul. His unused plane ticket to Los Angeles was still crumpled up in the inner pocket of his suit jacket, a weightless thing that managed to sink heavily into his chest as he settled on his bed and into silent solitude.
He would need to find a new place to inhabit–not to truly live, simply a place to begin his search operations. From now on, the blood money would be dedicated to resources that would help him hunt down the Front Man, with the goal of putting an end to the games.
Gihun stared at his phone, his background a picture of Gayeong holding a certificate for finishing sixth grade, and her first year of school in America. All of this would need to be erased from this phone. He would need to make his actions untraceable, moving in silence and in the shadows, just like the people he despised. The Front Man had likely already been living like this for years in order to conceal his identity.
It felt as if there were evil shadows lurking in the corners of his tiny apartment waiting to pounce as soon as he fell asleep. He was aimless, the crushing weight of everything coming down on him when he tried to shut his brain off to get some rest.
His thoughts kept clinging on to that voice, that entity he could only refer to as the Front Man. Having seen the creator of the games die in front of his eyes, Gihun realized he had nowhere else to place his blame and hatred, except this disembodied voice that kept coming back to haunt him.
Think of it as a dream.
Those words, as much as Gihun hated them, had been the only thing that helped Gihun find sleep for the past year. But he never dreamed anymore, he only had nightmares.
His phone jolted him out of another restless sleep when it rang in the middle of the night. Gihun sat up in a panic with laboured breathing, his hand searching aimlessly in the dark.
The light on his phone was the only thing illuminating the room; he groaned, rubbing his eyes and clearing his dry throat, too delirious to check the time or who was calling at this hour.
“Hello?” Gihun slurred.
“You can still change your mind. You can still get on a plane tomorrow.”
Gihun immediately shot up in his bed, all the drowsiness leaving his body at once.
“Why the hell are you calling me in the middle of the night?” Gihun growled. “Fuck, I knew I should’ve changed my number.”
“That won’t help you, just like ridding yourself of the tracker won’t keep us from watching you.” The Front Man was speaking with the voice modulator still, but Gihun could hear a tremor of desperation hidden behind its succinctness. “You can’t win.”
“I won your fucking game once already, I’ll do it again. Goodnight.”
Immediately after hanging up, Gihun cursed to himself. He had probably just missed an opportunity to pry for answers, to try and grasp for any trace of the man’s identity that he could. And why the fuck had he said something so stupid? And ‘goodnight’?
It pissed him off that the Front Man had thought it was a good idea to call him at this hour. He wondered what the man even did between the games or where he lived.
He settled back down on the pillows with a huff, burning with rage that would definitely keep him from falling back asleep. Speaking with the Front Man just now had felt violating in a way; to have his voice in his ear in the dark stillness of his apartment, while Gihun lay in his bed in only his underwear. He felt unclean. Like the sick freak could somehow see him right now.
As he lay there in thought, he felt a strange satisfaction creep in over the fact that the Front Man might have been kept up all night too, panicking over Gihun’s actions. Now it was giving him a new sense of determination and vigour, like he really did have a chance after all.
But that voice, that fucking voice, wouldn’t leave his head, even in his dreams. It was all Gihun had to go off of right now, but it was strangely something Gihun was clinging to, the one tangible piece of evidence that the Front Man was not a monster, not some unbreakable, sultry villain. He had to remind himself that he was just a man–a person who could die, who might be just as scared as him.
Gihun frowned to himself, his eyes opening to see the muted blue glow from outside trickling into the room.
Sultry? Now why was he thinking of the Front Man as sultry?
He rolled over onto his side, sighing loudly.
That fucking voice…
The Front Man didn’t call again after that night, but Gihun never changed his number, either.
At first it frustrated him; he wanted a chance to chew him out again, to drag him through the dirt over pretending like he cared whether Gihun got on that plane or not. The more Gihun thought about it, the more he realized it wasn’t an accident that he crossed paths with the recruiter at the airport. It had been a set up to see what he would do. Gihun was sure of it.
After weeks spent in complete isolation, with Gihun barely able to even set foot out of his apartment without intense paranoia, the first person he came in contact with was the loan shark Kim Jeongrae. The man who had hunted him and basically threatened to cut out his organs himself before Gihun entered the games.
Gihun didn’t know who else to go to, but he had to put his trust in somebody. And it turned out that Mr. Kim wasn’t such a bad guy after all, at least, after he saw the money.
So Gihun ended his lease at the apartment with a hefty payment to his landlord as an apology and moved into the Pink Motel.
The place was a dump, but Jeongrae had helped Gihun get a good deal to buy it out; it was nestled in a dingy alleyway several blocks from Hongdae’s club street. He kept the lights off, signalling to anyone wandering past looking for a love motel that it had no vacancy, and holed up in a room on the fourth floor.
After the initial rush of adrenaline of hiring Kim Jeongrae and finding a place to really get the search for the recruiter started, days of loneliness in a shitty love motel took its toll. Gihun found himself afraid of being near any crowds, so much that Jeongrae had started bringing necessities to him when he noticed Gihun had run out.
He was jittery without constant access to his cigarettes or soju if he emptied his supply, and flinched at the smallest noises, especially when he lay awake at night in his room in a haze of smoke, alone with his fears that the Front Man might come knocking at his door to kill him himself.
So when, during one of those nights, his phone buzzed and the word ‘Restricted’ appeared on his screen, Gihun’s heart pounded with anticipation and he answered it as quickly as he could.
He waited for the other man to speak first, two of his fingers finding the stitched up cut behind his ear and absentmindedly rubbing light circles over it. It stung a little, but it didn’t stop him.
Before a voice, he heard the faintest inhale. Gihun found himself holding his breath, listening as close as he could, and finally he couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“Are you just going to sit there and make me listen to you breathe?”
His response was an amused scoff, a short huff of air through the nose.
“You didn’t change your number.”
He was speaking with a voice modulator again, but Gihun could still hear the amusement in it.
“I knew there was no point. I don’t care who’s watching me.”
The thrill that was crackling through his body right now made him run hot. He continued when the Front Man took too long to respond.
“I’m not surprised you called me again–this is all just a game to you, and you love games. You also seem to enjoy observing me.” Gihun moved his fingers from his scar and scraped them over his bare thigh, trying to calm himself down. “It’s like you want me to find you. You get excited by it.”
He waited to hear his voice again, curious how he would respond.
“You’re enjoying this too,” the man said, his voice going deeper than before. “You’ve never been able to stop gambling.”
It irritated him more than Gihun even wanted to admit to himself; there was something strangely electrifying about this, and not only in the way it angered and repulsed him: he was speaking to the man running this whole sick, dehumanizing operation, the man he was giving up everything to find and capture, yet he was helpless to do anything but listen to that voice of his. And not even his real, raw voice.
“I guess we’re both getting something from this chase then,” Gihun replied. “How long are you going to drag this out? Are you afraid to talk to me face-to-face? Or are you scared of what I might do to you if we’re in the same room?”
The silence lay thick between them; it already felt like they could be here in this room together, even now. Gihun tried to control his breathing, still tracing circles into his own skin, the feeling of it sending pleasant shivers through his body. He sat up in his bed, waiting.
Then his voice came through the phone again, tantalizingly low and smooth.
“What would you do to me if you did find me?”
It made Gihun’s stomach lurch. He swallowed hard, letting a shaky breath escape his lips before he closed his teeth in a grimace and quickly drew his hand away from his thigh as if it burned him.
“I would,” Gihun started, licking his lips and inhaling sharply before continuing, picturing it in his head despite not knowing what the man looked like. “I would tie you up, render you unable to run away and hide, which is something you’re so good at. Then I’d press a gun to your temple, and ask why you keep doing this–why you run these games, serve those fat cats and…”
He trailed off, realizing the sick fuck was probably enjoying this, probably smiling to himself in satisfaction.
“Unless you want to just tell me now, since you wanted to speak with me so badly that you called in the middle of the night. I already heard Oh Ilnam’s bullshit reasoning. Why do you run these games?”
The Front Man hummed through the phone in response, and the sound of it was thick and bassy, like a low growl. It vibrated into Gihun’s ear, resonated down his spine, then became molten heat in his lower belly.
He shifted, closing his eyes and willing the feeling to go away, despite how good it was.
“I wanted to warn you one more time to turn away from all of this. I don’t have the power to stop the games, so getting answers from me wouldn’t change anything. The games will never stop. This is just how the world is.”
“Oh, cut the shit. I’m asking why you are doing it. I want to know who you are.”
With every subtle shift of clothing and every breath he heard over the phone, he started to become more curious about the man underneath the Front Man persona and what had led him to take this role. He would dig into him and find answers to get to the root; his goal was to end the games to save the people they would continue to prey on for their own entertainment, whether the Front Man told him it was hopeless or not.
His response caught Gihun off guard. He spoke with his real voice again.
“I already told you why–the ones we recruit to play these games have no chance out in the world. They may as well just be trash. You’re wasting your time trying to fight for them.”
There was an edge to his soft voice now, exactly as Gihun remembered it the first time he heard it, and it scraped over his skin. Despite his anger, the crackling fire in his belly hadn’t been snuffed out. He should’ve hung up, but no part of him wanted to. He craved more of whatever this was.
“I know you’re trying to rile me up,” he said through grit teeth.
“Mmm.”
The short hum sounded almost…pleased. Like a purr in Gihun’s ear, going right to his groin.
“Is it working?” The Front Man added tauntingly.
“Fucking depraved bastard,” Gihun grunted; he was fucking pissed at how his body was reacting to his enemy’s voice but he didn’t want it to stop. “Do you get off on this?”
He drew his hand over his mouth, nearly biting down on his fist, his heart pounding against his chest.
Click.
Gihun held the phone in front of him, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead. He looked down at the tent in his boxers in mild shock, and the guilt started to slowly seep in.
“Coward.” Gihun spat on his palm and shoved his hand down past his waistband unceremoniously, hissing as he started stroking himself.
It had been a long time since he had been aroused like this; he couldn’t believe it had been the Front Man’s voice that did it. Gihun couldn’t even let that thought linger, he just needed to get rid of this, he didn’t want to take it slowly or think of anything while doing it.
And it pissed him off more than anything that he had been hung up on. Damn him. Damn that fucking seductive voice of his. At least he had no idea Gihun was jerking off after their call.
He wondered wildly, if there was a chance the Front Man was stroking himself right now too. Gihun would probably fall apart if he heard that voice making satisfied sounds in his ear.
“Shit, stop it, Seong Gihun. Fuck…” He let out a breathy whine, quickening his pace, leaning back onto the headboard and letting his head fall against the hard surface. “Just…fucking…”
He peered down at himself with one open eye, seeing precum already beading at his blushing tip; Gihun curled in on himself, biting his lip as he swiped his thumb over his dribbling slit to stimulate himself faster and easier.
The depressing reality surrounding him seeped through the cracks of his heady state as he took in his situation, looking around at the box of monitors next to his bed, the stacks of ramen cups, the old pink couch. There was a mirror above his head, a large shower room with a clear door, and a drawer still fully stocked with complementary condoms. Yet he was the only person in this building, not seeking any comfort or enjoyment for himself. There was no one he wanted to get close to anyway, not anymore, but right now he couldn’t help but wish it was someone else’s hand on him so he at least didn’t feel so alone.
Nothing seemed to excite him except this game of taunting and chasing, the thrill of letting himself be consumed by the only person he could talk to freely about what he had been through.
The Front Man had hung up, yes, but he had played along with Gihun’s banter rather than immediately showing disgust. Maybe this was it—maybe this was how he could get to him.
Gihun’s mouth fell open and he let out a high pitched gasp as he finally reached his climax, frantically grabbing tissues from the bedside table to control the mess. He lay there, disgusting, sweaty and breathless, unable to even look down at himself after. It was merely the thrill that had gotten him excited; not the Front Man’s voice, not the man himself. Gihun tried to convince himself of that to deal with the all-consuming guilt sinking in.
That man had run those games, the ones responsible for all those deaths, that torture, like they were all just a lab rats to be observed. Gihun couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the fuck had come over himself. Maybe he was just that lonely. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had sex or even touched someone intimately. It had even been a long time since he had touched himself.
This would never happen again. It was out of his system now. He would push this night out of his mind. And if the Front Man called again, he would only use the opportunity to get information. He would return to thinking of him as only a dark, faceless entity wearing a mask.
“It’s been a while.”
Gihun took a long drag of his cigarette after answering the phone. A nearly empty bottle of soju sat next to his ashtray in front of him, and two more pages from his calendar were crumpled up on the floor and full of red X’s since their last conversation.
“And you’re still trying to find me.”
Hm. His real voice again.
Gihun didn’t bother responding to that; of course he was still trying to find him. Or at least, the recruiter. This search was consuming him. He had set up the monitors and cameras around the building and the perimeter, barely sleeping as he watched for any of the Front Man’s spies. Jeongrae had been paid to get a small team of his men together to search for the tall man playing ddakji at subway stations, even though Gihun knew this would need to be a much bigger operation and perfectly timed if he really wanted results.
“Is all of this for closure, or do you really think all humans deserve to be saved from the games?”
Gihun exhaled a long stream of smoke. The man was trying to rile him up again.
“I do want to save them. Nobody deserves to go through something like that.”
A short hum rumbled through the speaker, followed by a sigh. Gihun brought the cigarette to his lips again; it was a somewhat reasonable hour this time rather than the middle of the night. In the silence, he heard the clinking of ice in a glass.
“What are you drinking?” Gihun asked, hoping to make him squirm a little.
“Whisky.” His voice was breathy when he said it. “Are you drinking now too?”
Gihun glanced at the window as if he would catch him looking in on instinct, but he relaxed and traced his fingers over the rim of his bottle, cigarette still resting between them.
“Yes. Soju.”
Another pleased sounding hum followed, and Gihun felt his ears get hot. He was trying his best not to slur his words despite the fact that he was a bit tipsy. Usually he just drank to get through the loneliness, to drown out his spiraling dark thoughts when they got too loud, or just to help him sleep when he ran out of pills. But right now it was affecting him in...other ways. It was as if the Front Man knew exactly when to call him.
He stretched, sighing, letting himself groan softly into the Front Man’s ear.
“Are you alone too?” Gihun asked, his stomach twisting a little.
“I am.”
Gihun crushed his cigarette butt into his overflowing ashtray and moved to his bed, flopping down on the edge. The rush of alcohol made him heady and weightless.
“And are you...lonely?” Despite the casual question, Gihun kept his voice low, slightly teasing.
“I don’t mind being alone.”
Gihun spread his legs, leaning forward and bringing his lips closer to the phone. “So, why else would you keep calling me? Do you just like the sound of my voice?”
If the Front Man would be honest with him, Gihun would do the same. He just wanted to be the one in control of their conversation, to find some sort of meaning in this strange situation.
“You do have a nice voice,” the other man said with an edge of teasing to his words, and Gihun reeled back, slowly sitting up again in surprise. He really didn’t expect him to respond like that.
They both stayed silent for what felt like forever, neither of them wanting to hang up, listening to each other try to control their breathing. Gihun shifted, making the mattress creak; his insides twisted with exhilaration, his heart hammered against his chest.
“Where…” the Front Man’s breath shuddered in his ear, amplified by the phone. “Where are you right now?”
Gihun licked his lips, raking his fingers along his thigh. “Since you likely don’t mean my location on the map, I’ll just say…in bed.”
He heard the other man swallow hard; Gihun’s heart was in his throat now, and his head was spinning.
“And—and what about you?” Gihun stuttered out. He really had no idea how to continue this, but from the way the Front Man’s breath was hitching at the simplest words, Gihun had a feeling he was just as nervous, as tempted to test the other’s limits. He listened closely, telling himself he was doing this to get even the smallest hint at where to find him.
“I’m sitting at my desk.”
Gihun couldn’t help but scoff. “At home, or in an office? Hah, it’s funny to imagine you at work. Like it’s your job to stalk me and call me.”
He crawled up to the headboard to settle there against the pillows, slowly, letting the bed creak again. A strained, muffled grunt passed through the phone, making Gihun freeze for a moment.
“What are you doing?” Gihun asked, his eyes going wide. He wished he could just cut to the chase, he couldn’t even deny what he wanted anymore.
The Front Man’s breath quivered. Gihun had him in the palm of his hand; he couldn’t believe it. The man was just as starved for intimacy as he was, and had probably deprived himself of it just like him too. His mind was racing with possibilities.
“You can touch yourself. I did it after our call last time,” Gihun said bluntly, holding his breath waiting for a response. The man on the other end of the line had gone very quiet.
His hand was snaking down his own stomach as he spoke, fiddling with the button holding his jeans together; his cock was straining against his pants already, but he didn’t want to give the Front Man the satisfaction of doing it over the phone for him to hear.
“Let’s make it a game then,” Gihun said. “We can do it together. We’re just two lonely men helping each other get off–let’s see who lasts longer.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath and a trembling exhale, then the click of a belt buckle coming undone.
Oh, fuck. The Front Man was really going along with it.
Gihun swallowed thickly; the guilt was ringing in his ears, but it wasn’t loud enough to eclipse his body’s needs right now. He squeezed his eyes shut as he finally got the button undone on his pants with his one hand, unzipping them and breathing heavily, making sure his mouth was still close to the phone.
“Have you done this before? Why aren’t you talking?” Gihun said, whinier than he had intended.
“It’s been a while since I…” He groaned, the deep, pleasurable sound rippling down Gihun’s spine, making his cock throb. “Should I describe what I’m doing for you?”
“Uh huh,” Gihun’s response came out breathy and a little too enthusiastic. He wriggled his hips until his jeans were loose enough to kick off.
“I’m…I’m in bed now. I’m holding myself in my hand, not…not moving yet.” He let out a gasp, the sound coming out almost like a whimper. God, there was something so enticing about it. “Not until you tell me to.”
Gihun was completely drunk now, not even from the alcohol but from the man’s voice and the image forming in his head, the way he was submitting to him so willingly.
“It’s unfair that I don’t know what you look like,” he said daringly. “I wish I could picture it better.”
“Are you doing it now, too?” The Front Man asked, his voice clearer now, deep and quietly commanding as Gihun liked it, but clearly dodging Gihun’s remark. “Wrap your hand around yourself. Go slow.”
Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be this way–Gihun needed to keep the upper hand in this game of theirs. He had started this one after all, he was going to win it. They were getting under each other’s skin, Gihun was doing this to unravel him, a tactic to try and unveil who the Front Man was.
But the low, sultry rumble of that voice, the shame of the situation, the way they listened to each other’s trembling breaths alone in the dark, made Gihun’s cock ache with the need to be touched.
He wished it was someone else’s hand on him. He wished…
“You can make sounds,” the Front Man purred. “It’s just you and me here.”
Gihun hissed as he gripped himself impatiently, whimpering in satisfaction at the contact even with his own hand. It felt better this time, like he wasn’t truly alone, even if he hated the man keeping him company.
“Is it really? You’re not putting on a show for the fucking VIPs you serve?”
“No. I promise, this is just between us.”
He hated how feverish those words made him, how he closed his eyes and arched up into his own hand, struggling to keep the phone to his ear.
“Put on a show for me then,” Gihun growled. “Move your hand on yourself now, faster, as if I was doing it. I’d dig my nails into your skin to make it hurt a little, but you want anything I’m willing to give you–you probably like some pain. Do you like that? How I’m getting you off with my hand?”
He was rewarded with a loud, raw groan, the sound punching Gihun in the gut, making him grit his teeth and grip himself so hard he might bruise.
Would the Front Man hold him like this if he were the one doing it to him? Did he have strong hands, or was he surprisingly gentle for someone so bloodthirsty and depraved, had he had a lot of lovers before, or had he denied himself this kind of pleasure for a long time? What would he smell like, what would his mouth taste like? Whisky…he’d taste like high quality whisky to match the sound of his voice. Gihun wondered how it would mix with soju.
He slowed his hand just to listen closely, and heard the obscene slick sound of skin against skin and heavy, rough panting matching the rhythm.
Gihun was leaking now, making the slide of his hand easier, and he held the phone closer to it, letting the Front Man hear how quick his pace was, hoping that it would tear him to pieces that he wasn’t the one touching Gihun right now.
He felt like he had already caught the man, the silent room filled with the sound of their sweaty skin slapping together and their breathy moans. Gihun felt unbelievably filthy right now, imagining the different ways they could use this room, how the Front Man could groan right into his ear. The sound alone would be enough to end him.
“Is this–” Gihun bit his lip to stifle another pathetic whimper as he struggled to hold on a little longer. “Is this what you wanted? Is this why you kept calling me? Filthy, pathetic creep, you–”
“Fuck.” The sound of him cursing, his voice beyond breathless and strained, made Gihun clamp his mouth shut mid-insult. “I’m close, Gihun, I’m–”
His words cut off with a pained groan, and Gihun would’ve taunted him for finishing so fast and before he gave permission if he wasn’t frozen from hearing the Front Man call him by his name.
The sound of it disgusted him and disarmed him at the same time, and it felt like the haze of pleasure had disappeared all at once. He lay there in the dark, holding his aching cock, the weight of everything crashing on him at once. He didn’t even want to look down at himself anymore.
“Don’t stop,” the Front Man finally spoke, still out of breath, but his voice had a sharp edge of frustration to it. “I want to hear you finish.”
“You lost.”
He scoffed, and it made Gihun’s blood boil. “This wasn’t even a game to begin with. You just wanted an excuse to do this.”
“You went along with it.”
“And why wouldn’t I? I’m only another man like you.”
Gihun hissed through his grit teeth, struggling to steady his breathing.
“I don’t even know your face or name. If you think you’re allowed to use mine, you should tell me yours.”
The Front Man groaned low again, and Gihun dug into his lip, closing his eyes and trying to quietly finish himself off.
“Do you really want to know my name? Wouldn’t that make me human? I didn’t think you wanted that.”
“I’m not like you,” Gihun said through clenched teeth, struggling not to gasp when he felt himself slipping over the edge. “I don’t see people as animals or trash.”
“Even someone like me?”
The bastard had already finished, why was he wanting Gihun to edge him so badly?
Instead of answering, he sped up his hand and chased his release, that voice lingering in his ears and crawling all over his skin. He lay there in the soft pink light, a disheveled, sweaty mess, catching his breath. If only the Front Man could see him right now. Maybe it would be enough to kill him.
He had let the phone fall beside him on top of the thin pink blanket; Gihun brought it to his face again once he felt like he could speak, seeing that the Front Man was still on the call, both of them breathing softly through the speaker.
“I would let you know me if I could, 456.”
Gihun swallowed dryly, his brow furrowing as he tried to decipher his meaning.
“You know where I am,” he said, and took a deep breath before making his most dangerous request yet. “Come here. No one will know. I think we both want the same thing.”
There was a long static silence, Gihun’s heart thrumming slowly in his chest as he waited.
But he only heard a short sigh full of regret and maybe something else, something distant, unreachable, and a final click as the Front Man ended the call.