The meal trays clattered against steel as the guards slid them across the floor—cold rice, wilted greens, and a single sliver of meat that barely qualified as protein. The room, once filled with frightened silence, now buzzed with whispers, desperate chewing, and the occasional choked sob.

You glanced over at the far corner, your eyes landing—again—on Gi-hun.

He hadn’t moved since the fight.

Not since the blood dried on the concrete, not since the guards overwhelmed the resistance and shoved the bodies aside like trash. They had cuffed him to the metal frame of the bunk, one wrist secured with a crude iron restraint. He sat hunched over, eyes fixed on the floor, mouth tight, jaw clenched like stone. His other hand rested limp on his lap, trembling faintly. He hadn’t spoken in hours.

Not to you. Not to anyone.

You’d been with him from the beginning. You believed him when he told you he had been here before—that he knew how the games worked, that he wasn’t here to win this time but to help. Everyone else had doubted him, but not you. Not for a second. You stayed at his side even when the others turned skeptical. He never asked for loyalty, but you gave it anyway.

And now he looked like he had given up.

You rose slowly, carefully balancing your metal tray in both hands, ignoring the glance someone gave you as you stepped out of the line. You walked past the bunks, weaving around crumpled blankets and sleeping bodies, until you reached him.

You whispered his name, your voice low, uncertain.

He didn’t lift his head.

You lowered yourself down, knees clicking softly as you knelt beside him on the cold floor. He was pale—paler than you’d ever seen him—and that spark in his eyes, the one you trusted without question, was missing. His cuffed wrist twitched subtly against the rail.

You placed your tray beside him, nudging it gently until it was within reach of his free hand, offering him some food.