EGOIST (Sang Woo x Fem!OC) [COMPLETED]

32

Hae Young had been angry before, with blinding rage and the urge to ruin everything she saw. And it was something that she'd rarely feel, but hate so much. But then, at the slow end of it, it was all sadness at the bottom of her madness. When she raged, she is thunderstorms, and then she is rain. So when she saw upon entering the room, that there were fewer beds and even fewer people, that the person that had first caught her eye was Ali. Gi-hun is nowhere to be seen. Stuck in her denial, she approaches the man who sat dejected on his bed, with nimble yet shaking feet.

"Ali." She says "Ali, where is Gi-Hun?"

He doesn't answer, averting her piercing gaze and shaky fists. She tries again when he doesn't answer, shouting her question this time, but he doesn't even flinch in her wake.

"Answer me, answer me!" She yelled, grabbing Ali by the collar of his shirt. "Why--" She cried. "You promised that you'd keep him safe!"

"I'm sorry!" Ali sobbed, limp in her grip, as his weak knees brought him to the floor as he pleaded for forgiveness. Though there is nothing to forgive, there shouldn't be. Not even the bus fare or the ramyeon she had bought him; the food rations, and all the little moments in between. It wasn't a sin to win fairly, under circumstances that they had agreed on, upon knowing the risk that was presented before them. It was an agreement already, but then Hae Young did not want to accept it. She could not.

Ali sobbed on the floor, and she could also feel her knees getting weak at the weighted truth; that the beds were made for the remaining eighteen players and none of them are Gi-hun's. She could only walk silently back to her bed at this point, waiting for the rain.

In the silence and collective grievances of the room, they all ate quietly. The potato was tasteless and dry, though she still eats it despite her tongue asking for nothing else but water. The discomfort and the thirst, the tastelessness of the potato was almost like a punishment for them. Some chose not to eat, like 069 who only sat on his bed as he grieved the death of his wife. Weakly, he steps down from the bunk of his bed, walking to the center of the room with the last ounce of dignity he has left.

"Let's end this." 069 says, violating the sacred silence of the room with his sobs. "I can't do this anymore."

He cries, trying to catch himself from falling into the pits of his own despair, and the all looks away in case he drags them down with him to his loss.

"We can stop if the majority agrees." He says, though it sounded more like a plea. "If ten of us just agree, we can get out of here."

"Doesn't anyone want to leave? If you want to leave with me, please stand up."

No one does. Everyone remains glued to their bunks. 069 breaks into tears.

"How could you call yourselves human?" He wails. "You really want to continue with this insanity? Because of that money!"

Hae Young's grip on her potato tightens, slowly turning it into mash. He needs to stop, she thinks. He needs to stop talking.

"You just killed the person you're closest to in this place because of that money!" He sobs.

"And if you leave?" Hae Young turns to him sharply, tossing her uneaten food onto the ground. Rage wells up in her as she approaches the desperate man. Thunderstorm.

"You think your wife will come back to life?" She spat. "You think you'll be forgiven for killing her?"

There was something in her that was just ready to burst out at that moment. All the grief, all the dead people. Everything and anything she hadn't comprehend since the beginning now closing in on her--closer and closer. It was like the weight she felt in her jacket pockets, or when Mi-nyeo had restrained her in a tight embrace. More and more people are dead, and less and less people are alive.