The room buzzed with the hollow murmur of hollowed-out people—contestants picking at their food with mechanical precision, their eyes dull with the kind of exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep. You sat apart from them, your tray untouched, the scent of lukewarm stew curdling in your nostrils. It wasn’t the food that turned your stomach. It was the memory of what you’d seen that morning: the slick sound of a body hitting the tiles, the way the blood had spread like a grotesque sunrise across the floor. You’d stepped in it. You could still feel it clinging to the soles of your shoes.

The fork in your hand felt alien, a useless metal twig. You twisted it absently, watching the overhead lights fracture in its tines. The world had taken on a surreal quality since you’d arrived here—like you were moving through a nightmare that refused to end. Then, without ceremony, a tray clattered onto the table beside yours.

Sae-byeok slid into the seat next to you, her movements deliberate, her expression unreadable. She didn’t look at you at first, just stared straight ahead, her jaw set in that familiar stubborn line. The others gave her a wide berth; they always did. There was something about her—a quiet lethality, a stillness that warned of storms beneath the surface. But you knew better. You’d seen the way her fingers trembled after the last game, the way she’d pressed them into her thighs to make it stop.

Silence stretched between you, thick but not uncomfortable. Then, with a barely-there sigh, she reached over with her chopsticks and plucked a piece of fried fish from her tray. She dropped it onto yours.

Your favorite.

You blinked, startled. You’d mentioned it once, couple of days before, in passing—back when the games still felt like some twisted abstraction, back when you still believed you could wake up from this. She’d remembered.

"Eat," she said, her voice low, rough at the edges. "You need the strength." She still wasn’t looking at you, but you caught it—the flicker of concern in her eyes, there and gone like a match struck in the dark. It was more than she gave most people. More than she’d ever admit to giving.

You wanted to argue. To tell her you couldn’t, that every bite would taste like iron and guilt. But something in her posture—the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers curled too tight around her own utensils—stopped you. She was trying. In her own stubborn, infuriating way, she was trying.

So you ate.

The fish was cold, the rice overcooked. It didn’t matter. Across from you, Sae-byeok’s shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. Neither of you spoke. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t shatter the fragile understanding between you—the unspoken agreement that, in this place where trust was a liability, you were each other’s exception.

The noise faded into white static. For the first time that day, the weight in your chest felt a little lighter.
Sae-byeok stole a glance at you, then quickly looked away, pretending she hadn’t.