Chapter Text
The rain hits hard. That’s normal. It’s the rainy season. But I need it. I need to go out. And at least the rain will keep most people inside. I need to feel something against my skin. Something alive. Fresh, cold.
I don’t know by what miracle I managed to get through it. That game… a few days that felt like months. Years, maybe. I came out alive, yes, but “alive” is a big word.
I walk through the soaked streets. Water seeps into my shoes, my sleeves, even into my head. It’s almost pleasant, this feeling. It erases everything. It keeps me from thinking.
The wind blows violently, ready to lift me if I weighed a few kilos less. I clutch an old lighter and a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I don’t know why I took them. It’s not like I’d manage to light one in this downpour. But it’s a habit. A gesture that ties me to something from before.
Before the game.
Before the screams.
Before the silence.
I stop at a street corner, just to watch the water crash against the asphalt. Puddles form, distorting the reflections of the neon lights. Everything is blurry, everything blends together.
It reminds me of when my mother used to read me the Bible. I remember the passage where Noah had to gather two animals of each kind before the flood. The rain is similar.
A punishment.
A selection.
What nonsense…
Would I have been allowed on the boat?
No.
Absolutely not.
I don’t deserve anything even close. I would have been left there, on the drowned earth, watching the others board, powerless.
I ramble. Again. It’s become a habit too. Rambling to avoid thinking too hard.
People say silence is calming, but for me, it screams. Since the game, there’s no difference between noise and emptiness. Everything sounds fake. Even my breathing. Especially my breathing.
I wonder how the other players are doing… The format didn’t want us to share our names, to remain anonymous, interchangeable pawns marked with a number. But sometimes, faces come back to me.
A laugh, a voice.
A hand that trembled before pulling the trigger.
I wonder how some are doing. Not that I worry about them. No one worried about me.
I lift my head. The rain intensifies, as if it wants to erase me completely. Maybe it’s right. Maybe I deserve it?
I walk aimlessly. Each step resonates in a different puddle. The steady sound almost lulls me. And then, at the turn of an alley, a still-lit sign catches my eye. A café.
Through the window, the light seems warm, unreal. A warmth I hardly believe in anymore. I stay outside for a while, watching the drops slide down the glass. And then, without thinking, I enter.
I check my pockets one last time, trying to see if I still have any coins.
It would be stupid to order something, then stare at the waiter explaining that, after all, I’m too poor to buy a stupid coffee with a cake that’s too dry for the price.
I complain so much. Always.
Why did I go in?
Ah, yes. The light.
I act like a mosquito drawn to the slightest warmth, the slightest illusion of comfort. Pathetic.
Fortunately, I find a few coins. I count them with my fingertips, without even taking them out. It should be enough for a coffee, maybe a sugar, if I’m lucky.
I lift my head, surveying the place. Too much light for a rainy day, too many people too, too many forced smiles.
And then my eyes land on a waiter.
He approaches me with that smile that isn’t really a smile.
I don’t know how to explain…
It’s a smile stuck on his face, like a poorly fitted mask.
How can a smile be so fake?
And why do I feel like I’m the only one noticing it?
Maybe I’m in a movie, and everyone here is playing a role.
Extras, puppets moving around me, reciting their lines.
God, I really need to sleep.
“One person?” he asks in a soft, almost singing voice.
That voice matches the café’s atmosphere: too calm, too clean, too polite.
I stare at him for a long time.
Too long.
He starts to look away, a little uncomfortable, probably seeking help with his eyes.
And that’s when I realize I’ve been staring at him for, what… five seconds? Ten? Fifteen? An eternity.
“Yes, sorry. One person, yes!”
He nods, relieved, and invites me to follow. I sigh, low enough that he doesn’t hear, but loud enough to remind myself I’m still breathing.
I’ve made a fool of myself again.
He grabs a menu on the way, with precise, automatic gestures. He knows this place by heart, it shows.
How long has he worked here?
Why am I thinking about this, again? Why can’t I just walk and sit without analyzing everything as if my life depends on it?
A sharp noise sounds behind me, tac. A pen dropped.
I don’t know why, but that sound pierces me. It’s an ordinary, insignificant noise, but in my head, it resonates differently.
I see a room again, too colorful, too cold.
I see the pink soldiers. The metallic sound of their weapons being loaded. It was always the same sound: first a little click, then the silence that followed, the one where you knew everything was about to change. The third sound, the worst, the body falling.
That sound, I could never forget.
I turn my head, without really thinking.
And that’s when I see him.
Purple hair, messy. Long, nervous fingers playing with a pen, the same one that just fell. A bitten lower lip, a familiar tic.
Could it be…?
Yes. It’s him.
Thanos.
I feel something twist inside me, like my stomach is turning over. Everything comes back at once. His voice. His laugh, a little too honest to be real. His gaze, always on the edge between challenge and fear.
How could I have forgotten him?
And above all, how could I have forgotten the way he looked at me? Not quite like a friend. Not quite like an enemy either. Somewhere in between. A gray zone.
Why, when most people voted to leave, did I see genuine disappointment in his eyes? Why did he look sad? What was he looking for in this game? I saw something die in him that day, the same thing that had sparked when he realized how much money we could make.
I stand there, stuck in the middle of the café, like a soaked idiot, lost between two worlds.
The waiter speaks to me, but I hear nothing. I keep staring at Thanos, as if just looking at him could fill all the months of absence.
“Sir? Doesn’t this seat interest you?”
Huh? What?
I flinch like a startled cat.
Shit. Lost in my thoughts again.
I look at the waiter, then at Thanos, then at the table. Everything blurs together.
And before I even understand what I’m doing, I hear my own voice say: “Can I sit over there, near the guy by the window? He’s… he’s a friend.”
A friend? It just slipped out. Can we still call it that?
But the waiter nods, not asking questions. And before I can turn back, my steps are already carrying me toward him.
Each step is a punch in my chest.
I don’t know if he’s seen me.
I don’t know what I’m going to say.
And then I’m in front of him. He looks up.
“Thanos?”
My voice cracks at the end, pathetic.
I hate my voice.
I hate this moment.
And yet…
A spark flashes in his eyes.
Something almost joyful, genuine. And he smiles, really smiles this time. Not a fake one, not a polite one.
“Namsu? Is that you? Oh my boy, I didn’t recognize you with your hair that wet!”
And everything stops.
The noise, the rain, the whole world.
I breathe again, but it hurts.
His voice cuts through me, like an echo I never expected to hear again.
Thanos speaks with that lightness he’s always had, that half-laughing, half-detached tone. But there’s something else in his eyes. A weariness. A shadow. Maybe the same as mine.
I laugh nervously, too loudly.
“Yeah, sorry, I look like a wet dog.”
He laughs too, softly, and that sound. God… that sound hurts. Because it reminds me that people can still laugh, even after all this. And that I’ve forgotten how.
I sit down across from him. The waiter drops off the menu, walks away, and I stay there, fingers clenched on the table.
I don’t know what to say. I never know what to say.
I glance at his notebook, a black one, a bit worn at the edges. He closes it quickly, as if I’d looked at it too long.
“You still write?” I ask, without thinking.
“Always, yeah. It’s pretty much all I’ve got left.”
A silence. I don’t know if I should answer. The sound of rain against the window grows louder, filling the space between us. I can’t stand silence, but at the same time… I need it.
“I write to understand,” he adds.
I look up at him.
“Understand what?”
“Why we’re still here, I guess. Why me. Why you. Why no one else.”
His words tighten around my throat. I hate that he’s right.
I want to tell him that I wonder the same thing, that every morning I feel like I’ve stolen something from someone: a place, a chance, a life, a death?
But the words stay trapped.
I look at the cup the waiter just set in front of me. The coffee steams. I bring my hands close to the warmth without daring to touch it.
The contrast is almost violent: outside, the rain; inside, this soft light.
I feel out of place, unreal, like an ink stain on a pencil drawing.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” Thanos blurts suddenly, without looking at me.
My heart skips a beat.
“I mean… not like that. I just… you know. It’s stupid.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
I lied. I don’t get it. Or maybe, I do. Too well, even.
He smiles a little, nervously.
His fingers tap against the notebook’s cover. I wonder what’s inside. Words about the game? About himself? … About me?
I wonder if he sleeps at night, if he still dreams about what we went through.
The rain keeps falling, stubborn.
I feel myself trembling a little, not knowing if it’s because of the cold or because of what I’m feeling. Thanos keeps talking, but I’m not listening anymore. I just watch him. His purple hair has lost its shine, but his eyes… they still sparkle. With a weird, tired, yet alive light.
And for the first time in a long while, I think maybe… I’m not the only one who survived by accident.
I take the coffee between my fingers. It’s a comforting warmth. After blowing on it several times to get rid of the steam and trying to cool the liquid, like a clumsy child, I finally taste it.
It’s disgusting.
Too strong and yet tasteless at the same time. How is it possible to combine two completely opposite things?
The question now is: why am I tasting this coffee again?
The warmth it gives off?
The fact that I paid way too much for it?
Or… have I developed a toxic relationship with this coffee?
“Do you live far from here?” Thanos’s voice pulls me out of my endless loop of thoughts about a stupid coffee.
“Uh… to be honest… I don’t even know where we are…”
He laughs. Not mockingly, just that little light laugh that makes me want to smile despite myself.
“What do you mean?”
A small smile stretches his lips, and suddenly, everything seems simpler. As if this simple gesture could calm the chaos inside me.
“I wanted to go out to avoid the crowd. I’ve been struggling with people lately… so I walked, walked… and I found this café. I tried my luck.”
“Oh… I see, I understand.”
And you? I want so badly to ask him this question. I have so many questions for Thanos.
“Are you going to stay here long?”
What? Why am I asking that?
After a moment of thought, he smiles mischievously.
“Is that an attempt to ask me out? Unfortunately, I have to decline, my boy. I have a meeting with a producer in thirty minutes.”
Oh… why am I disappointed? Did I want to stay longer with another survivor? To feel less alone… especially with him…
“But if you want, I can give you my number!”
My eyes light up. Like a kid in front of a carousel. Thanos’s smile softens, as if he just realized he offered me the best thing I’ve heard in weeks.
“Haha, cute. Ah shit, wait… I think I left my phone in my car. Anyway, I’ll write my number on a piece of paper.”
Before I can protest, before I can just tell him to put it in my phone, he opens his notebook. He flips through the pages with intense, almost feverish concentration. Every movement of his fingers seems significant, a detail I cling to as if my life depends on it.
I catch glimpses of words scribbled hastily, incomplete sentences, notes I can’t decipher. Some drawings. Silhouettes, faces, maybe fragments of memories. Everything is… Thanos. Chaotic, nervous, energetic, yet oddly alive.
He tears a page out with force, and I’m fascinated by the gesture. Then he scribbles his number without looking up and hands me the sheet.
Our fingers brush. Just a touch, and yet… a spark shoots through my entire body. An electric shiver that runs from the top of my head down to my ankles. I hold my breath. The paper trembles slightly between our hands.
I look at him. I don’t dare speak. I don’t know why I stay there, eyes fixed on him like an idiot.
He lifts his gaze, and that single look makes me falter.
He smiles, this time really, without a mask, without irony. A gentle, almost tender smile. As if this gesture, this tiny moment, were the most important thing he had ever done in his life.
I fold the paper, carefully. Not to protect it from coffee, or wind, or rain, but as if I were holding a rare, fragile treasure. I feel like everything I’ve lived through since the game has condensed into this small piece of paper. The rain, the sound of the pink soldiers, the screams, the blood, the fear… it’s all there, and yet now, there’s something else.
I hear him straighten up, putting his notebook back in his bag. The bag is small but heavy, filled with pins and little badges. Illustrations that seem to represent him, celebrating his ego and his universe. I wonder how someone can be both so complex and so self-aware. Is this man’s ego infinite?
I smile, despite myself, with that strange tenderness that surprises me. It’s been a long time… it feels odd. As if I were meeting someone I had known forever, but had forgotten in the process of surviving.
“See you soon, Namsu!”
His voice hits me, makes me stagger slightly.
Before I have time to say anything, to remind him that my name isn’t Namsu but Namgyu, he heads toward the exit. He almost trots, hood up, disappearing into the curtain of rain.
I stay there, frozen, breathless, unable to move.
Everything is confusing. I still feel the shiver from our fingers brushing, the warmth of his gaze.
I realize my heart is racing, my hands trembling slightly. I want to speak, call out, do something, but all I can do is stay still. Each thought collides with another. Fear. Admiration. Relief. Unease. A strange excitement I haven’t felt in… ever.
And I catch myself thinking of all the questions I want to ask him. Why did he participate in that game? Why did he seem sad? What did he lose, and what did he find? Why does this simple exchange, this single touch, affect me so much?
And then, without realizing it, the world around me regains some consistency. The sound of raindrops on the roof, the muffled conversations in the café, the steam rising from my cup… everything returns. But something inside me has changed.
I stay there, alone with my thoughts, with my inner chaos, and this scribbled piece of paper.
I look at my coffee. Still disgusting, but strangely… I don’t mind anymore.