They said love had no place in the games. But love doesn’t ask for permission.

You weren’t supposed to be in Room 108. Not alone. And definitely not with him.

The guards’ quarters were lined up like coffins — identical, windowless, silent. A thousand rules for living and a thousand more for dying. Room 108 was forgotten by accident — a technical blind spot where the surveillance cut out for exactly seven minutes during nightly resets. A ghost of a flaw. Most guards didn’t even know.

But you weren’t most guards.

And neither was the man waiting inside.

Hwang Jun-ho sat on the edge of the metal cot, still dressed in stolen red. Hood down. Mask loose in his lap. He looked up the second you opened the door — like he’d been holding his breath, waiting for your shadow to fill the frame.

“Close it,” he said softly.

The door clicked shut behind you. The hum of the hallway vanished. The silence inside was thick — not empty, but heavy. Like the air had been waiting too.

You stared at him — older now, rougher around the edges. His jaw was tense. His hands stained with grime and old bruises. But his eyes — dark, unreadable, still his — softened the moment they met yours.

“You kept the scar,” he murmured.

You blinked, caught off guard. Your fingers instinctively went to the thin line just below your collarbone — a reminder of a night that nearly cost you everything, long before the Games. He’d been the one to carry you out of that fire. You’d barely been conscious, and he hadn’t slept for two days after.

“You remember that?” you said, voice barely a whisper.

He gave a tired half-smile. “I never forgot anything about you.”

The words settled between you, warm and cutting. It had been years. So much blood. So much silence. So much mask.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” you said, finally stepping closer. “It’s worse now. They’ve tightened everything. No one disappears anymore — they’re just… erased.”

“I know,” he said. “But I heard rumors. About a guard who doesn’t shoot unless necessary. Who doesn’t laugh when they fall. Who walks the halls like a ghost but never leaves a mess behind.” He looked at you, slower now. “I knew it had to be you.”

You sat beside him, the cot creaking under your combined weight. Your shoulders touched. The room smelled like oil and metal and a faint trace of his skin — familiar in a way that made your throat tighten.

“Why did you come back, Jun-ho?” you asked, even though you already knew.

He turned toward you fully. His voice was raw. “Because I never stopped looking. Not for the truth. Not for you.”

Your breath hitched.

You remembered those nights in the city — the ones before all of this. Cold rooftops. Half-drunk confessions. Your head on his shoulder. His hand always finding yours under the table like it was instinct.

And now you were here — in a prison pretending to be order, surrounded by death — and still, still, you found him.

“I want to get you out,” he said. “Both of us. I have a way. But we only get one shot.”

You shook your head. “It’s not that simple. I’m close to the Front Man now. He watches me. I’m useful to him, which means I’m dangerous.”

“You were always dangerous,” he said gently.

You looked at him.

And kissed him.

Not with the hunger of reunion — but with the ache of everything you hadn’t said. The apology. The years. The nights you dreamed of him, even here, even in the red.

For seven minutes, you weren’t Guard 027. And he wasn’t the intruder with a gun hidden in his boot.

You were just two broken people in the only room left without cameras, trying to remember what it felt like to be whole.

The alarm beeped once — a soft, mechanical tone.

Seven minutes were up.

You pulled away, both of you breathless. A tear slipped down your cheek, and Jun-ho caught it with his thumb.