In the masked world of Squid Game, where names are numbers and loyalty is tested by death, you were different.

Not just another faceless guard — you were his favorite.

The Front Man, always cloaked in silence and the cold gleam of his obsidian mask, kept his distance from most. But not from you. He noticed the way you handled your role — not with brute force, but with controlled precision. Efficient. Intelligent. A stillness about you that disturbed others more than shouting ever could.

You didn’t speak unless necessary. You never flinched, even when the walls echoed with gunfire or screams. You were calm during the worst of it — when players sobbed at the edge of the glass bridge, when bodies were dragged out at night, when other guards laughed at the cruelty of it all.

You didn’t laugh.

You didn’t look away either.

To the players, your silence was a strange mercy. A softer kind of death. To the guards, it was a warning. To the Front Man — it was potential.

But your mask was never for him. It was for you — to bury the person you used to be.

And that person… loved Hwang Jun-ho.

He slipped in like a ghost, disguised in a stolen red uniform, his face hidden but his spirit burning too bright. You spotted it immediately — in the way he looked around rather than through, the way he moved like a man with purpose rather than orders. The others didn’t notice. But you did.

And you knew.

Because once, in another life, you had shared cheap takeout and worn-out blankets with him on rainy nights. You knew the way his shoulders tensed when he was holding back something heavy. You knew how he kissed — thoughtful, lingering, like he was afraid to let go.

You should’ve reported him.

Instead, you walked past his bunk and dropped a folded note from your sleeve. An old habit from your time together — three dots drawn with a pencil, no words. It meant: I see you. I’m still here.

From that moment on, you danced at the edge of betrayal.

You left doors unlocked at key moments. You rerouted camera loops for two minutes, no more. You dropped extra magazines into the armory, uncounted. All small things. All deniable. All pieces of a map that only Jun-ho could read.

But it wasn’t until the night on the narrow bridge between the sleeping quarters and the cliffside surveillance tower that the veil finally cracked.

A shot rang out.

Jun-ho stumbled, and instinct overrode protocol. You lunged forward, grabbed his uniform collar, and pulled him out of the line of fire. Your hood slipped back. The wind caught your mask and tugged it loose — just enough.

Your eyes met.

Shock. Recognition. A thousand sleepless nights condensed into a single breath.

“…You?” he whispered.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

But later — hours later, in the steamy haze of the boiler room beneath the incinerator vents — you found each other again.

No masks this time. Just sweat and soot, heavy breath and heavier silence.

“I thought you were gone,” he said, his voice tight, shaking, afraid to speak too loud in case it broke something real. “I looked. I thought maybe…”

“You thought right,” you murmured. “I vanished. I had to. I wasn’t strong enough to say goodbye.”

He stared at you like he was memorizing you all over again.

And then he kissed you — not out of passion, but desperation — like if he could just hold you long enough, the world would bend and give you both back the time you’d lost.

You stayed there a while, in the flickering dark, forehead to forehead.

“I can get you out,” he said.

You shook your head. “Not yet. I’m deeper than you think. I’m close to the center. The Front Man trusts me. If I leave now, it’s just survival. But if I stay…” You looked at him, voice low. “I can dismantle this from the inside.”

He was quiet for a long time.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” he said.

“You won’t,” you promised. “This time, we’re writing the ending.”