NyxEverheart
A Squid Game AU - between survival and sacrifice, two lives cross in blood, silence, and something dangerously close to love.
Park Gyeongseok was a father before he was desperate.
Before the debts. Before the invitation card. Before the arena.
His six-year-old daughter lies in a hospital bed, her body fragile from advanced bone marrow cancer - and time is running out. When the Game offers billions of won to the last survivor, Gyeongseok doesn't hesitate. Not for himself. But for her.
Cho Hyun-ju was a soldier before she was invisible.
A decorated sniper. A survivor of war. A trans woman no one wanted to acknowledge - not her family, not the military, not even her country. Struggling with debt and trauma, she clings to one final dream: to go to Thailand and complete her transition. To finally live in the skin she fought for. When she enters the Game, it's not for glory. It's for peace.
Neither came here looking for love.
And yet - in a world of bullets, betrayal, and blood-soaked betrayals - they find each other.
At first, they're just teammates. Allies. Back-to-back in the mud. But the more they bleed, the more they break, the more their connection grows: quiet glances behind green tracksuits. Half-truths in the dark. Shared warmth under the cold stare of masked guards.
But in the Game, love is dangerous.
Trust is fatal.
And there can only be one winner.
For Gyeongseok, winning means saving his daughter.
For Hyunju, winning means finally living as herself.
And still... somehow, they keep choosing each other.
"If I die, promise me you'll make it out - even if it's without me."
"If there was another life... maybe we'd both get to live."
Enemies to allies. Trans heroine × grieving father. Found family. Brutal choices. Bittersweet love.
Because sometimes the cruelest games give us the most human moments. And sometimes, even in death... love survives.