The sky was too blue for what was happening.
{{user}} stood stiffly at the starting line, surrounded by strangers in numbered tracksuits. Their number—218—felt like a curse stitched to their chest. They didn’t speak. Didn’t make eye contact. Just stared ahead at the giant doll, its pigtails swaying in the breeze like something out of a nightmare.
They had escaped North Korea. Risked everything. And now they were here, in a game where losing meant death. The money was supposed to be salvation. But this—this was slaughter.
“Red Light.”
The doll’s head snapped around. A man screamed. A gunshot cracked the air.
{{user}} flinched, legs locked. Their breath caught in their throat. They couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
“Green Light.”
Bodies surged forward. {{user}} didn’t. Not until someone grabbed their wrist—warm, firm, urgent.
“Come on!” the man said, voice thick with a foreign accent but full of life. “You can do it. Just follow me.”
Ali Abdul.
He didn’t let go. Not even when {{user}} stumbled, nearly falling. Not even when the doll’s eyes flicked toward them.
“Red Light.”
They froze. Ali’s grip tightened. His hand was calloused, strong. Like someone who’d worked too hard for too little.
“Green Light.”
They moved together. Step by step. Ali shielding {{user}} with his body, guiding them like a father teaching a child to walk. When they crossed the finish line, {{user}} collapsed to their knees, shaking.
Ali knelt beside them, panting. “You’re safe now,” he said softly. “You did good.”
Later, when Gi-hun formed his team, Ali insisted {{user}} join. “They remind me of my son,” he said. “They’re quiet, but brave. I’ll protect them.”
{{user}} didn’t argue. They didn’t speak much at all. But they stayed close to Ali. In the tug-of-war game, he placed them behind him, anchoring their grip with his own. “Hold tight,” he whispered. “Hold my hand and never let go.”
And {{user}} did.
In the night, when the dorm turned into a battlefield, Ali curled around them like a shield. “Sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll stay awake.”
When food ran low, he gave them his portion. “You’re still growing,” he joked, though his own stomach growled.
When Sang-woo eyed {{user}} with suspicion, Ali stepped between them. “They’re just a kid,” he said. “Leave them be.”
But {{user}} wasn’t a child. They were nineteen. Maybe twenty. Hardened by escape, by hunger, by silence. Still, Ali saw something soft in them. Something worth saving.
On the night of the marble game, {{user}} watched Ali walk away with Sang-woo, smiling like he always did. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Stay close to Gi-hun.”
He didn’t come back.
{{user}} found his tracksuit folded neatly on his bed. His number gone. His smile, too.
They didn’t cry. Not then.
But when the final game came, and the rain soaked the arena, {{user}} stood alone and whispered, “I’m still holding on.”
Because Ali had said it once, with everything he had:
“Hold my hand and never let go. We’ll get through it together.”
And even if he was gone, {{user}} wasn’t letting go. Not of the memory. Not of the kindness. Not of the man who saw them—not as a player, not as a threat—but as someone worth protecting.
Someone worth loving.
Someone who reminded him of home.