Breaking Ice || Squid Game Front Man

Chapter One: To Play or Not To Play

"I TOLD YOU, I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!" Nari was pleading to her mother and brother as much as she was yelling, though the both of them were staring down at her as if she were lying. She wasn't lying; she had money on her — pocket change really — but that didn't mean she had money. She definitely didn't have enough to cover dinner for the three of them like her mother had asked — for the third time this week, might she add, and it was only Wednesday.

Her mother, a once skinny woman who had ate her feelings when her husband passed away which lead her to nearly triple in size, had a frustrated expression on her stingy face. She had gone from a sweet, caring, gentle and generous mother to a lying, conniving, argumentative thief — better term, a bitch, though Nari wouldn't say that — in the three months after his passing. Nari didn't understand how someone could change so much in such little time, as if she were in an entirely new environment. She would of left if she could've, but she has no where to go and no money to afford a place. That left her to deal with the belittling and thievery in fear of being kicked out — fear of being alone.

Nari never had a fear of solitude until her father had passed. Her eyes looked from her mother, who was sitting on the couch, to her brother. He was leaning against the doorframe as support in the same way he used drugs; he had taken to them quite easily after their fathers passing, claiming it numbed his heartache. It was truly shameful to see someone so young, so bright, dwindle into his downfall. He, too, had become unrecognizable. Once Nari's best friend — laughing one moment and arguing the next, having dozens of inside jokes, leaning on each other for help — now stood a stranger wearing a mask that mimicked his old face. Seeing him become that reminded her painfully how she was alone; she was living with two complete strangers.

Despite all that, it was Nari that had taken her fathers death the hardest, and she wondered what the difference between herself and her remaining family was.

Nari was much closer to her father than mother, always had been. He was the sweetest soul to ever exist; he'd always make sure she was happy, taking her out for lunch dates and listening to her if she ever needed to talk. Finding out he had cancer shattered her heart into so many fragments that some were yet to be recovered, leaving her feeling empty. Going through what she did while having to pay all the medical bills was more than tiring — and she still owed so much money. She watched their bank accounts get eaten away in the same way cancer was doing to her father: dwindling down to nothing.

Her mother quit her job a month before he passed, though she never helped pay the bills even before. Her stinginess came out at the discovery of his illness. Her brother quit his job, as well, despite it being a small one. Neither of them attempted to get their careers back after he passed, and that left Nari struggling to work and go to school while they leached off of her. After a few months, she had to drop out of SNU. Schooling was always her ultimate dream but her family always came first — a horrible habit. Now she delivered food to make any form of living.

It wasn't easy. Being 21 years old with nearly 400 million won — and growing — in debt. She did all she could, though, and she felt that was all that mattered.

Her brother rolled his eyes, just as frustrated as his mother. "You can scrounge. You always have enough to keep yourself fed," he spat, words slurred with insobriety. Nari never could understand how her mother batted an eye at such a thing. "Just do to the small market 'round the corner," he muttered before pushing himself off the doorframe. He walked up the front door behind Nari, opened it, and pushed her into the hallway. The door shut in her face.

She stared at the door a moment, inhaling a shaky breath, then shut her eyes. Nari never felt pity for herself as she knew it would do no good to complain about something she could change instead of actually changing it — if she had money, that was — but, in that second, she did. She wished she lived a normal life, wished she had a normal family, wished she had money. It always came down to money, didn't it? Oh, the amount of change her life with endure if only she had money. She'd leave, get an apartment, eat proper meals, go back to school, get a cat! She always wanted a cat. The life she was living right now would be long forgotten.