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

39

The room was a lot emptier.

Four beds were spread out to the three walls of the room, two on each side, and two in the middle. With the numerical order still in mind, the thought of Hae Young being in closer proximity to Deok-su than Sang-woo or Sae-byeok worried him a bit. He looks down at Hae Young's wounded leg, trailing blood on the floors. This simply won't do.

Deok-su had already made his way to his bed, eyeing the woman in contempt and anticipation. He eyes the injury on her leg like a predator to a prey, knowing that there's no way she could run. Though she could care less, she wasn't afraid of him.

The buzzer goes off, the doors open. Pink guards enter the room, four of them with gift boxes in hand. All four players stare in confusion.

"We sincerely congratulate and commend you for successfully making it through the five games."

Their monotonous, robotic voice echoes throughout the room, emphasizing its emptiness even more.

"You've now become the finalists, and we've prepared a special gift for you."

It was the boxes in hand, they all thought. All four of them stare at it strangely, uncomfortably, the gift boxes reminding them of the coffins they put the other players in before wheeling them away to God knows where--perhaps deeper into hell.

"Before we reveal the gift, please change into the outfit we've prepared."

************

Hae Young excused herself into the bathroom, closing herself in one of the stalls. The box she had been given was on the floor unopened as she sat on the toilet seat, nervously preparing herself to tend to her injury. The shard was lodged in there deep, its width thicker than expected. Its pain was not only sharp, but blunt and uncomfortable. Heaving, she bites into the collar of her shirt of support as she carefully touches the exposed part of the broken glass.

Someone knocks on her stall door, she yelps in surprise. Without even asking for permission, the door opens. Sae-byeok stands before the entrance of her stall.

Sweaty and breathless, she asks the kid why she's there.

"He sent me." She said, her eyes trail to her injury. Hae Young notices that she was trying to suppress a grimace.

Without another word, Sae-byeok leaves the stall to gather tissue paper from the sink. She returns with a handful of them.

"This is going to hurt." She says emotionlessly. "But I need you to brace yourself."

She needn't say more. Hae Young has both her hands clinging onto the walls of the cubicle, her teeth clamping hard on the thick hem of her shirt. Whatever Sae-byeok has to do, she just wishes she gets it over with.

She hesitates for a moment, kneeling over to reach the glass shard protruding from her leg. Without warning, she takes the exposed part, yanking it out. Hae Young screams in pain through gritted teeth. Moving quickly, Sae-byeok takes the rolls of tissue paper, pressing it onto the open wound.

"Hold it." She tells Hae Young, and she complies, applying as much pressure as she can. It was the worst pain she'd felt; unimaginable pain, though she pressed hard anyway. She feels the cut throbbing, her head growing heavy and her eyes losing focus from the pain.

Sae-byeok can no longer hide her grimace, as she removes the jacket that Hae Young had given her the night before, taking her shirt by the hem as she rips it to shreds. She takes the longest piece of torn cloth, moving Hae Young's hands away that covered her wound. Working quickly, she wraps the cloth around her leg, bounding and winding it tightly and ending it with a secure knot. And then, it was all over, but the pain was still there, searing and blinding. Hae Young curses under her breath.

"Alright." Sae-byeok says, finally standing from the bathroom floor. "That's it, now get changed."

"Thank you." Hae Young looks up at the kid. She just nods at her.

"Call me if you need any more help."

A tuxedo set meets her eyes the moment she opens the box. Her number was patched onto the left chest. 099. It sends her back yet again the first day she'd woken up to this hellhole, and now here she is; a finalist of this wicked game.

Hae Young finally limps out of the cubicle, leaving it as a mess of blood and torn clothing. The box tossed aside as well as the tracksuit that she had worn. Sae-byeok was already dressed as well. They look at their reflections in the mirror. Sharp, elegant, but bloodied and sullen. There was some sort of emptiness in their eyes, and some sort of exhaustion. As their eyes meet in their reflections, the weight of everything begins to crash on them, only, they are too tired to cry about it. The most that they had both let out was a shaky, exhausted sigh.

"Your bow tie is crooked." Hae Young points out, turning to Sae-byeok as she takes a step forward to straighten the thing. With a tight-lipped smile of satisfaction, she takes a careful step back to look at the kid. Sharp, sharper than how she had appeared, though the sullen look on her face remained.

"We're finalists." Sae-byeok finally says. "You know what that means, right?"

Yes. But she doesn't answer. It was an unnecessary question that they both already knew to answer.

"You don't have to kill me in order to win." Hae Young tells her. "Chances are you won't. I trust you that much."

Sae-byeok looks away.

"I know." Was all she could muster to say.

"And I won't do anything." Hae Young reassures her.

Sae-byeok already knew that as well.

"From now on, we have to stick together, watch our backs for each other." Hae Young tells her, hand on either side of her arms, trying to get Sae-byeok to look at her. It was an odd stance at first, with Hae Young talking to her like a mother to a daughter. Sae-byeok finally complies to her silent request, looking the older woman in the eyes. Though Sae-byeok was taller, at this moment it felt as if she was so small.

"We have to take care of each other from now on." Hae Young's voice breaks a little as the image of everyone flashes into her mind all at once, of those who have lived and those who have died. She made a promise, and she made sure none of them would die in vain.

"So if things go smoothly--" She holds back a sob, or a cry, something that was trying to escape her throat. "We have to promise each other that we will win this for everyone else, too."

Sae-byeok nods. She understands, and she understands very well. A single tear rolls down from her eye though her expression remains stone cold and rigid, a circumstance; a feeling all too familiar to her as if she knows that something bad would happen in the next second.

The bathroom, for a brief moment, had become their safe haven, secluded from everything that had happened, that is happening, and that will happen. Though the time comes where they must leave eventually and face the next task, and it took a lot of courage and strength to leave the very place they know they will never come back to. Together, they exit the bathroom and walk out into the inevitable.