"IF YOU WERE ACTUALLY ANY GOOD at this, you'd let me look while you cut it," Gi-hun complained for the hundredth time, growing more suspicious by the second that each extra chop of the scissors Yoon-ah did on his hair was but another choice made towards a horrendous haircut.

Why didn't he do this himself? Why didn't he just go to the nearest salon again?

That's right, he recalled the core reason to his undeniably bad choice. She offered to help.

"Wanting to check on it every two minutes is an insult to my skills. I'm not giving you a mirror anymore out of principle."

"Eh!" Gi-hun straightened up, his ears deaf to the previous times Yoon-ah had warned him about moving too much. "What skills are those? Your hands shake worse than that of a Parkinson's patient." Her warning repeated itself in the form of her pulling on the strand of his hair she was holding at the time. With his eyes shutting in pain, Gi-hun hissed through his pursed lips preparing for a pout through his next words, albeit coming out much quieter, "You have the grip of a butcher too. Shouldn't women have gentler touches?"

"If I was good enough for my brother back when he had to look presentable every day for university and we were too tight on money to think of salons, then I'll be good enough for you too," Yoon-ah said, using that tone he learnt to know too well in the past few months since they've met — the tone she used for scolding, when she was neither upset, nor truly angry, but simply mildly annoyed, which often counted as a feeling coming hand in hand with a nudge of amusement. He knew for a fact she found it funny that he fretted about his hair, and he would be lying if he didn't at least acknowledge that she was partially to blame for why he'd care so much in the first place for how his hair, of all things, looked, when there were much more important things to worry about.

"He loved you too much to say anything about it," he mumbled along, this time receiving a hit from her knee, targeting his lower back.

"I've got a sharp object in hand, Gi-hun. Don't test me."

The threat earned her only a couple of seconds of silence and stillness from him, fact that stayed true to the pattern he's set since they've started this whole ordeal, one of the last touches in preparing for the important night ahead of them. His whole room, a blip past the open door besides them, reflected the absolute havoc they have gone through to fit into their formal attire, and ensure everything has gone through as expected regarding their attendance at the fundraising event.

Now, however, they have retreated to the bathroom of the room, the only place where this last minute makeover could be tackled without leaving too much of a mess behind. With a shower curtain from two rooms down the corridor wrapped around him to shield the rented suit below, Yoon-ah couldn't exactly blame Gi-hun for being restless. Even the position they found themselves into wasn't all that comfortable and, having to stare at a wall instead of a mirror just because of her error of fixing him a chair inside the narrow bathroom couldn't have been all that entertaining either.

"How much longer?" He asked as soon as the few seconds of peace were up.

Some part of Yoon-ah wanted to comment out loud that it was alright for him to just admit already that having his hair brushed, washed — even if just in the sink — and properly taken care of was actually pleasant, and that he didn't need to keep covering up the pleasure he did find into it with incessant talking. Instead, keeping that part to herself, she resorted to rolling her eyes, "You're worse than a child."

"I told you to cut my hair, how hard can it be, Yoon-ah? This would take me no longer than five minutes. Do you want us to be late?"

"Five minutes and you'd end up looking like a toddler did a prank on your hair," she pulled her hand away before his own, reaching back over his shoulder, could grab it. "How about some gratitude, eh? I am not even asking you to pay me here."

"I wouldn't pay anyway," he pouted, bringing his hand back down. "It's poor service."

"Poor service...," she repeated, unflinching in mocking his choice of words. However, at the same time, Yoon-ah dropped the scissors into the sink, a soundly sign that she was done with the final adjustments after having blown dried his hair. "I'll make you eat your words."

"I'd like to see that happening."

Much to his surprise, as he fully expected her to fabricate some other means to keep him seated there longer still, Yoon-ah reached down and undid the knot on the shower curtain, pulling it off him and throwing it in the shower tub where they could worry about cleaning the hair later. With shared excitement, they both maneuvered the chair out of their way in silent recklessness and clumsiness, ending up throwing it to the side, half open, and kicking over the stand of toilet paper in the corner of the room.

All that just for Yoon-ah to grab Gi-hun by the shoulders and turn him around to face the dirty bathroom mirror.

Had he not been immobilised by the lack of space, he would have probably slapped himself for having her slight smile be the first thing he noticed, her closeness a very decisive second. Mirror is too small and she wants to see her work too, he justified the latter of her choices, finally forcing himself to check out the result for himself.

Immediately after laying eyes on the end result though, he gasped, "You didn't even cut it!"

"I did," Yoon-ah argued back, slapping his shoulder before stepping away. "I cut the ends, since they were dead. And it's shorter at the back now too, and on the sides."

Gi-hun grabbed the handful of almost intact curls she left behind and fixed in place with too little foam to even feel sticky to his touch. Though he was trying to prove a point, he only managed to find his wrist immediately handcuffed in her grip and swatted away. "What about this?" He asked anyway, looking over at her, shocked. "Yoon-ah, I asked you to cut it all short."

"You look more handsome like this though," she pointed out with a certain degree of innocence, leaving him in the bathroom to come to terms with the fact that anything shorter than that was simply not going to happen. Not on her watch.

He tried his luck nonetheless, looking down in the sink, at the abandoned pair of scissors.

"If I hear you touching those scissors, I'll kill you," Yoon-ah called out from further in his room now.

His room. His freaking building. Gi-hun couldn't believe that he had to remind himself of that now. Ever since Yoon-ah started helping him out on the search for the recruiter, she's also been keeping the room he gave her for that one night. For months now, they've been neighbours and he never could have guessed just how much silence and space he'd lose thanks to that kindness of his.

Though he would very much like to claim otherwise on stressful days like these, he didn't regret it. None of it. And if he had to choose again between endless silence and someone whose pain and scars matched his own, the choice always made itself in his mind. 

So, with a sigh, he gave up on the idea to pick up the scissors himself and prove to her just how fast his 'dream haircut' could have been executed. Instead, he looked back up in the dirty mirror and sighed. Handsome, he recalled her backhanded compliment spoken so fast that she probably didn't even mean it as one. With this haircut and shaved so cleanly for the event, Gi-hun feared to admit it, but he almost looked like himself again.

To get away from that strange thought dangerously close to a mindless desire to be himself again too, he left the bathroom and vowed not to look too long in any mirror again, at least not until his hair grew out and became unruly once more.

The image of his room greeted him, and with it, the totems of the past recent months. An unopen bag of medicine on his coffee desk, the unfinished chess game on the edge of his bed — he was playing black again and he had had a sneaking suspicion, two moves back, that Yoon-ah was letting him win this time —, and of course, the calendar and subway system map on the wall.

Today, 31st of August, marked the day in which, according to calendars such as his own, summer ended. It hasn't quite sunk in for him just yet that he had lost the chance at finding the recruiter for another year in a row, and he doubted it will until at least September was past as well. Maybe they move the date for the games ever so slightly each year, he told himself, an extension of another thought he ran by Yoon-ah the other night, that maybe he should just have Mr. Kim's men do this the whole year round — just in case.

"Don't forget to button up and put your bow tie on," Yoon-ah's call from the other end of the room, where she took a seat to put on her heels for the night, broke him out of this trance that had him standing like some sort of statue, not quite in the bathroom, but not quite present in the room either. The reminder was however one which hurt.

All of a sudden, his eyes moved from instinct to the side and he woke up staring down an item he had intentionally abandoned on the floor, to hopefully forget about.

Just like last time he was presented with this formal attire choice, Gi-hun picked up the bow tie and stood defenseless against the onslaught of memories flooding him from every each side. Sang-woo, the last game, the rain, that darn knife — why didn't he just throw the knife away, why didn't he just prevent it all from happening?

With the last shoe strap secured around her ankle, Yoon-ah stood up, ready to let what the time spent together has achieved take over and allow her the freedom to just once graze the idea of pride again, to show off an outfit of the sorts every girl, even herself, has once wished to wear for things like proms or birthday parties. She's never had one or the other to attend, and has definitely never had the money to come close to owning anything even remotely close to such a fine material, so silky to the touch, so gentle and gracious. Her life has mostly been bruises and bared teeth, blood and sweat, but there was a child who would have fainted if she was told she would one day wear something so... beautiful.

However, any sort of boasting she might have planned to allow some voice to was immediately thrown back to the dark bottoms of her priority list, making room for concern instead. As soon as her eyes landed on Gi-hun's defeated stance and his shivering left hand holding onto that bow tie, Yoon-ah couldn't care less about what she was wearing. Nothing remotely close to vanity could cross her mind while she had just realized when the last time she had seen bow ties was too.

Why did you forget? Unable to slap herself for it, she merely bit her tongue. Though there was some taste of iron to be swallowed, she didn't flinch nor grimace at the pain while marching across the room and stopping in front of Gi-hun only to take that bow tie away from him and toss it towards the corner of the room, far behind her.

"Forget about it," she dismissed any attempt of his to look after it, blocking his path and distracting him with what her hands had busied themselves up doing instead. She started unbuttoning his white shirt down to the third button. "Actually, rich men don't really care about having everything formal. They are rich, after all. And we have to act like them to fit in tonight."

Given her reaction time into snapping him out of his spiral through memories, Gi-hun knew to understand that there was only one true explanation to be had: they forced her to wear that suit before the final game too.

"That was the last I wore something...," he looked down at himself, losing track of his words through his fading voice.

Yoon-ah merely hooked a finger under his chin and lifted his gaze back up. There was nothing she could have told him then that would erase what has happened. Her only hope was that her gesture paired with her silence could clue him in on the fact that all that was left to do was for him to not look down — to ignore the suit, or to surrender to staying behind now.

Fact was, while he didn't want to sit this operation out, looking up wasn't any better for him either. Lifting his gaze brought to Gi-hun's attention just how close Yoon-ah was to him, and how clearly he could see all the bruises she swore last night her make-up would cover thoroughly.

Noticing the slight frown on his face growing into sadness confused Yoon-ah, but before she could formulate an actual question about it, Gi-hun reached his right hand out and, bringing it up to her face, ghosted the place above her left cheek. Even without touching her, she had the instinct of recoiling.

"Why do you really do this to yourself?" He had to ask, remembering a little too clearly how bad her wounds were that night they first went to her place. Even fresher on his memory were the cuts he watched her bandage last night.

"You know why," Yoon-ah answer was sharp and merciless in its cuts, much like her narrowed eyes, watching between him and his hand, the latter of which chose to abandon the quest of getting any closer.

"But why last night? I thought you..." Gi-hun stopped himself before he might say something he was very likely to regret.

After she had pretty much moved into his hotel, there were only two occasions in which he's heard her leave in the dead of night, returning with a limp in her step several hours later, with the sunrise on her tail. Following those two times came a period in which no new wound had been added, in which every single bruise he's almost learnt the location of on her visible skin had healed away and left room for the frail porcelain it often stained. She still trained away on that boxing bag she installed somewhere in the hotel, meaning that her hands were not spared their fair share of pain, but for a while, there was no more cage fighting and he had been foolish enough to associate that with her benefiting from an understanding company as much as he did.

I thought you were feeling better, he finished his thought in his mind, recalling each chill he felt last night when he had heard her leave again. There was an emptiness in his chest, a guilt that perhaps it was his lack of results on his search for the recruiter which had undone any progress he might have made on this front. Then again, he had been perplexed entitely as well — shouldn't she be hopeful right ahead of the event they have been preparing for all summer?

Truth was, Gi-hun didn't know anything certain about her masochistic tendencies, and last night in particular, had taken him off guard so deeply that he had to follow her there again.

The drive back to the hotel had been quiet and he didn't think much about not getting any clarifications, not with a gut feeling that she disliked getting her walk of shame back to the hotel cut short and made easier by him, not until now.

Yoon-ah shrugged and looked away, as before her stood unmoving two very well defined choices: she could have deflected and pointed at the time to get out of this tight conversation with ease, or she could have at the very least been honest, albeit not entirely detailed. Familiarity and perhaps even as much as thinking back to everything else they've shared over late night chess and early morning coffees watching the sun rise over a city drenched in humidity and hesitance to wake up, those were the thing that made her actually consider the latter option. After all, there was only one person other than herself on this earth who knew she had had the time to hold Tae-ju in her arms before bleeding out took him to his death, and that person was standing right before her just then. 

"I was just nervous," Yoon-ah sighed out adding another secret to the countless Gi-hun ended up holding for her. "Needed to let out some steam before this. I knew we'd be wearing masks, so I didn't exactly care," she rushed the rest of her explanation only to finally reach out her right hand and pick up his left to point at the time on his watch. "Now, can we get going? We've got to be there early enough to see that painter guy come in, you know."

Whether it had been the fact that he was trusted with knowing at least the sketch of the true reason why she had sought out another beating in cage fighting, or rather that he understood the pressing matter of time at hand, Gi-hun nodded, doing his best to relax his shoulders. His focus circled back on himself and bounced off a mental wall: no looking in a mirror, no looking down at yourself. With those rules strictly imposed on him, to keep the memories at bay at leasr for this night, when being present and capable was so significant, he walked over and retriever the two masks they have procured for the event where they were mandatory.

Since the pictures they have seen created quite a clear picture on the standard to be expected of them in order to fit in, before Gi-hun now stood two masks of gold imitation, one depicting a bunny head, and one the head of a mouse.

Seeing him hesitate before the masks, Yoon-ah walked over and picked up the mouse one, "No one's gonna come check if this is real gold, don't worry. It looks authentic enough so we'll fit right in with the rest, so there's no need to worry about getting cornered and eventually recognized either. We prepared for this throughly, alright? Fake IDs, new identities, donation to the museum on those names, proper invitations. All we have to do now is actually attend the event and find that guy."

By the time her reassurance speech was over, there was no mystery to Gi-hun that she had said everything not to calm him down, but to calm herself. Given the tremble in her hands that she tried to hide by holding onto the mask a little stronger, he guessed a reminder of the sturdiness of their plan didn't work at all.

Maybe that's why she offered to cut my hair, Gi-hun started understanding while picking up his bunny mask. Maybe all she wanted was a distraction and I ruined it all with my stupid timing on remembering things I should have seen coming when renting the costume.

A gust of fresh air once they exited the hotel, as well as the background noise he made out of the higher pitched voice of the man Mr. Kim sent to drive them to the museum in a car more likely to blend in than Gi-hun's, and wait for them until they were done, he was able to get a hold of himself. At least he had recovered enough to realize while sitting down next to her in the backseat of the car that her nervousness aforementioned hadn't been cured — Yoon-ah was already staring out the window, bottom lip getting chewed on discreetly while her fingers twitched ever closer to disturbing the makeup she used to cover up some neat bandages over her knuckles.

It was a disaster waiting to happen and in order to stop her and help, Gi-hun allowed himself the grace of actually seeing her for once, in this difussed, neon light of the night. Her dress was quite beautiful but it couldn't hold a candle to how it made her look.

"I don't believe you anymore," he stated out loud, enough for her to hear, but not the driver as well, before turning his head away and decreeting by his faint attempt at a smile that he had stared enough.

"What?" Yoon-ah furrowed her eyebrows down, confusion snapping her out of her trance of worry.

When Gi-hun looked at her again, his eyes met hers. "I don't believe you don't have some boyfriend somewhere that's missing you and you're just avoiding the poor guy."

His serious tone gave away the compliment hidden underneath the surface of such a statement, coming hand in hand with half a pout. Yoon-ah was left helpless in front of the short chuckle overtaking her while she shook her head.

"It just wouldn't make sense if that wasn't the case, you know?" Gi-hun rejoiced at his success by stiking to it a little longer.

"Well, though shit," Yoon-ah had offered him a glimpse at her smile already, but most importantly, without even realizing it herself, she offered him the reassurance of her hands stopping their uncontrollable shake. "There's no one," she leant just a little closer towards him, across the empty middle seat between them. "Apparently I have anger issues and men don't feel safe around me."

"Can't imagine why that is," Gi-hun fired back without a second thought, knowing full well to expect her pushing him away for such a cheeky remark. But this was better, he told himself. Tonight, we don't need memories to drag us down, but hope to move us forward.

《 🦑 》

AUTHOR'S NOTE |   
Time skip powers bringing us in range of action and spicy new direction in which their relationship is growing now that they've actually spent some time together and started knowing each other more than just "you won, I won, we share trauma" or "we have the same enemy, hence we are now partners in this".

Really excited for this act because I'll finally get to cover Season 2's first two episodes with it. Meaning that, yes, detective boy, recruiter and squid game guards making an appearance real soon. Some sooner than the others 👀