Squid Game x Reader

Three

The next day.

Dim street lights illuminate the silent lanes of my neighbourhood. I stand outside my house, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my coat to keep them warm. My breath comes out in small puffs of steam. 

Before I left the house, I checked in on my brother to find him curled up in bed asleep; it is almost midnight after all. I went over and put a glass of water by his bedside. His black eye had swollen up now and looked worse than it did yesterday so I left him a note with the water that said for him to regularly put ice on his bruises, and that I'd be back soon. 

When I was about to leave the front door, Auntie Soo had stirred half-awake and babbled something. "You okay, auntie?" I said, unsure if she was conscious or not. The only times she left that couch were to pee or buy more alcohol with the government checks she received for taking 'care' of my brother. I'd been saving up money so that I could go to court and become Dae-Hyung's legal guardian, but my brother had insisted that he didn't mind waiting another two years to become independent. Maybe if I hadn't listened to him and gone through with the forms, we wouldn't be in this neighbourhood anymore; we might've found some place else to live. Things might have been different and then maybe we wouldn't have been in this mess.

"Where's..." my auntie spluttered, shifting position on the couch, her eyes glazed. "Where is she?" she said. "Where's... Yu-Jun?" 

I sighed, irritated by the mention of my mother. "She's gone, auntie," I reminded her, staring down at her drunken form, unsure if I sympathized her or felt disgusted. Maybe both. 

She's a sad woman. As much as I appreciate her taking my brother and I in, what she really did was just give us a roof and the security from being put into the system. That was the extent of her care because she wasn't sober enough to take care of us back then either. 

Let's just say I had to mature faster than most kids to ensure Dae-Hyung was taken care of properly. 

"Your sister isn't here. Go back to sleep now," I said.

"Oh..." she said, her eyelids drooping as her head lolled back. Sometimes I wondered when it would be the day that she just didn't wake up, died in her sleep from alcohol poisoning. I just hoped Dae-Hyung wouldn't be around to see it when that time comes.

As I wait outside on the street, I'm hyper sensitive to the sound of an old pipe dripping on the wall next to me and the soft rustle of trees in the cold wind. There's a stutter in my heart each time a minute passes and the time draws nearer to 12am. 

I tap my foot, glancing at my phone every two seconds, then looking up and down the lane. Maybe if they had just told me what to expect, I wouldn't be so fucking on edge. 

A part of me thinks I'm about to be sold into human trafficking, but I guess it'd be my own fault for agreeing to such a suspicious proposition. I can see the head lines now 'Korean woman dies because of her own stupidity'. I would laugh if I wasn't so nervous.

The sound of a vehicle cornering into the street strikes my attention. I whip my head around to find a white van driving towards me, slowing as it approaches.

This is it. 

I draw in a deep breath as they pull up next to me. Peering into the driver's window, my throat goes dry when I find someone in a pink suit and strange mask staring at me. Great, I was looking for more reasons to be anxious as fuck. 

"Password," is all he says. 

I blink, resisting the impulse to turn around and run back into the house. 

Calm down, I tell myself. This must just be part of the game. I'll be fine. I just need to play along and, by the end of it all, I'll have my money and the crappy situation I'm in will disappear. 

"Password," he tries again when I take too long to reply.

Repeating reassuring words in my head, I force out, "Red light, green light." My voice sounds funny, like it's not me saying it, like I'm some faraway entity observing the situation. 

The van door slides open after my words. It must be automatic. I get in with hesitant steps, noticing there's other seats in here that are already occupied by people who appear to be sleeping. I sit down in the one seat available, glancing at the others then back at the driver, my eyebrows furrowed. 

"Uh... just checking... you're not really going to sell me into human trafficking, are you?" I say with a nervous chuckle. 

But I don't get my answer because a wave of gas comes over the van and I fall unconscious within seconds. 

The last thought I have is: fuck.

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a/n: thanks for reading! please leave a vote if you enjoyed the chapter :)