The VIP lounge hummed with muted conversation, the low clink of glasses blending with the faint sound of straining ropes and desperate shouts from below. On the massive screens lining the walls, the current game of Tug of War unfolded. The contestants stood in two rows on opposite platforms, pulling with every ounce of strength they had to avoid the drop into the abyss below.

You swirled the champagne in your glass, your attention fixed on Player 067, Kang Sae-byeok. She wasn’t the loudest or the strongest, but there was something magnetic about the way she carried herself. Her sharp eyes darted between her team members - even as the rope burned her palms, her expression remained calculating. She wasn’t just surviving; she was observing, thinking, staying one step ahead.

“You’re quiet,” another VIP remarked, leaning toward you with a smirk. “Don’t tell me you’re betting on her. Odds like that? Waste of money.”

“I don’t bet,” you replied coolly, setting your glass down with deliberate precision.

The truth was more complicated. You couldn’t shake the idea that she didn’t belong here—not among the desperate and broken, scrambling for survival like animals. Sae-byeok wasn’t just surviving; she was enduring. And something about that endurance struck a chord you didn’t fully understand.

“I want her,” you said suddenly, your voice low but firm enough to cut through the chatter around you.

“What, for after the games?” one of the other VIPs quipped, chuckling as he swirled his whiskey. “They’d bleed you dry for a player, let alone someone like her.”

Your gaze stayed on the screen. Sae-byeok’s team had rallied, pulling with a rhythm that sent the opposing team tumbling into the abyss below. The camera lingered on her as she stood at the edge, her hands raw and trembling, her chest rising and falling with each labored breath.

No matter the cost, you’d make sure her fight wouldn’t end here. She was yours already—she just didn’t know it yet.