Chapter Text
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The dirt path behind the old rice fields hasn’t changed.
Dried stalks line the edges now, cut down for the season, but Gi-hun still remembers running barefoot here, dust between his toes, the sun burning his scalp while In-ho chased after him with a bamboo stick, threatening divine punishment. It’s hot today—the kind of heat that sticks to your back like wet cotton—but the air smells like home: rice husks, old pine, and sweetened barley tea someone poured into a bowl and left to cool on a windowsill.
The cicadas scream overhead like they’re trying to out-sing time.
Power lines buzz faintly with trapped energy.
A black-and-white dog lies panting in front of a convenience shop behind them, ears twitching each time a truck honks on the main road. An old man rides past on a bicycle with a live chicken in his basket and a pack of Chamisul in his bag.
The world is alive. Familiar. So blindingly ordinary.
Gi-hun walks beside In-ho with his hands stuffed into his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched, the way he’s always walked—like he expects life to throw something at him. In-ho, meanwhile, is completely relaxed. Arms swinging at his sides, his white t-shirt too clean, barely sweating.
Too calm. Too comfortable.
“The halmeoni at the tofu shop says she saw a gwishin again last night,” Gi-hun mutters, kicking a rock across the road.
“She needs new material,” In-ho says. “Last year it was a woman without eyes.”
“This time it was headless. Floating over the stream.”
“Maybe her husband’s the ghost.”
“He does look like he’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Smells like it too.”
They both laugh. Loud enough to rattle a nearby magpie from a tree. Its wings slap the air, scattering leaves across the trail.
“You really don’t remember anything?” Gi-hun asks.
In-ho pauses, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Nope. Not a thing.” He flashes that easy grin. “Blackout. Blinked and woke up like nothing happened.”
“You were gone , In-ho. The whole village was out looking for you. Even the monk from Daeseong Temple said prayers. Auntie Min-jung was convinced you’d been dragged into the hills by mountain spirits.”
“I heard.” He shrugs. “Guess they gave me back.”
“Didn’t even charge a ransom.” Gi-hun snorts. “Cheap bastards.”
“You missed me. Just admit it.”
“As much as I miss food poisoning.”
“You cried, didn’t you?”
“I’ll throw you in the stream.”
“You cried so hard .”
“One more word and you’re lunch for that ghost.”
They pass a field of green onions and garlic drying under straw mats. A scarecrow watches them from its post, head tilted too far to the side. A single crow lands on its arm and stares.
“You always talk this much when you’re flustered?” In-ho teases.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m just saying. You’re acting like a guy who missed me a lot .”
"You’re acting like someone who didn’t almost get eaten by a goddamn forest."
“I’m acting like someone who’s back where he belongs.”
Gi-hun doesn’t answer right away.
The wind carries the faint sound of a samulnori drum from far off—someone rehearsing for the festival, maybe, down near the schoolyard.
They stop at the bend in the path, just before the shrine gate. The old lantern is still there, covered in moss, chipped from typhoons and time. The box of coins under the gate has long since rusted shut, but someone’s left a slice of apple and two sticks of incense on the stone.
The shrine door hangs slightly ajar. A wind chime above it lets out a lazy, uneven note.
They don’t speak for a moment.
In-ho squats to tie his shoelace. Gi-hun watches the sun catch in the curve of his cheekbone. The same face he’s always known.
Everything is exactly the same.
The cicadas drone.
The sky stretches bright and endless overhead.
The fields sway like waves.
And then—
“Hey,” Gi-hun says, lightly, like he’s just remembered something.
“Hm?”
“You’re not really In-ho, are you?”
Everything freezes.
Cicadas cut off.
Wind stops.
Even the clouds seem like they’re holding their breath.
The silence is wrong. Not peaceful—vacant. Like something holy has been vacuumed from the air, and the space left behind is screaming without sound.
In-ho doesn’t move. But his shadow does.
It peels away from him like wet paper—fluttering, twitching, then dragging itself across the dirt like a wounded animal. The shape of it glitches—first too thin, then bloated, bending in ways no spine should. Like the shadow is trying to remember how to be human , and failing.
In-ho’s smile lingers too long.
Frozen. Wrong. Then it splits, softly, almost tenderly—unzipping down the middle of his face like skin is just fabric.
Teeth bloom out like petals.
Not rows. Layers.
Not where they should be—some facing inward, some growing from places where bone doesn’t exist.
His eyes begin to multiply.
Not just across his face—down his neck, across his chest, like constellations. Each one spirals outward, forming kaleidoscopic rings of light and shadow.
Each eye reflects Gi-hun’s face.
Crying. Screaming. Still.
Thousands of Gi-huns staring back at him—each frozen in a different moment of devastation.
And then—the sky breaks.
Colors rupture across the horizon.
Not reds or blues. Not colors with names.
They move like liquid thought. Like regret made visible .
Geometry splits the world open—shapes that shouldn’t exist, fractal veins pulsing in midair, the fores folding into itself like a dying lung.
A thousand limbs unfurl—
Silk? Wings? Blades?
Ideas of arms, each one bending, reaching, retracting before the mind can grasp their shape.
The air burns sweet.
Copper. Firecrackers.
Like a childhood memory caught fire.
And then—
The thing inside begins to cry.
His voice is still layered—In-ho’s, others, Gi-hun’s own voice whispering things he never said—but it shakes now.
“You weren’t supposed to ask yet.”
“You weren’t supposed to see me.”
The creature takes a step back.
Its body ripples. It tries to shrink, to reform , as if it could fold itself back into In-ho’s skin.
It wants to be small again. Harmless. Beloved.
It’s failing.
“I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this. I didn’t—”
Its face fractures. Not physically—emotionally.
Like it’s trying to remember how to cry .
Its hands tremble. Or maybe those aren’t hands anymore.
“I was so careful,” it sobs. “I practiced your name until it felt like mine.”
The sky above them is leaking .
The edges of the world curl, as if the story itself is warping around them.
“I really do love you, Gi-hun. I-”
“I̡̨͙͙̪̹̾͟ ṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧa͔͔̜̗̦ͩ̅̎l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘y͙͙̪̰ͫ͌́ d̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥ’t͖͖̠̬͛ w̡̻̻̣͚̒̀ͅa͔͔̜̗̦ͩ̅̎n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥt͖͖̠̬͛ t͖͖̠̬͛o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ k̼̼̞̦̞̼̔i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘ y͙͙̪̰ͫ͌́o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡.”
That last part is said softly. Almost childlike.
Like a prayer.
Like a wish made too late.
“Please don’t tell a soul,” it whispers.
Then louder—raw—“Please. Please. Please.”
The sky twitches overhead. The colors falter like a broken reel of film, looping the same shattered image of In-ho’s silhouette over and over again.
The ground beneath them quivers, not from weight—but from fear.
His fear.
“If they find out—” the thing chokes, voice catching on something jagged inside its throat. “If they see me for what I am… I won’t get to stay. And you’ll never see me again.”
It steps forward—but slowly. Like it’s afraid its shape will scare him more than its words.
One of its hands reaches out—if you could call it a hand. Too many joints. Fingers that divide like roots.
But the gesture is soft. Longing.
“I just wanted to stay with you. That’s all I ever wanted.”
A pause.
Its voice shakes now—not monstrous, not overlapping. Just one voice. In-ho’s voice.
“Please don’t send me away.”
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Gi-hun doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
His mouth is dry.
His lungs are full of needles.
Something inside his chest is fracturing, the sound of it soft and wet, like ice splitting beneath water.
His body is trembling, but not from cold.
He’s breaking open—quietly, thoroughly, like the world has peeled back the skin of reality just to show him this one thing. And it hurts. God, it hurts.
A thousand questions claw inside his head, all screaming at once:
What are you?
What did you do with In-ho?
But no words come out.
He blinks—and the sky above them glitches again. Shapes he doesn't have language for drift like ghosts. The smell of copper deepens, thick like blood behind his teeth. In-ho— the thing that wears In-ho —is still crying. Still reaching. Still trembling like he’s the one afraid.
And that’s what destroys him most.
The monster isn’t attacking.
It’s begging .
Like a stray dog on the edge of being beaten. Like a child who knows the secret he never should’ve said out loud.
Gi-hun’s heart is a mess of thunder and static. Every instinct screams: Run. Fight. Forget. But something else… something quieter… presses down on him like a hand on his shoulder.
Love.
Or what’s left of it.
Or what could be mistaken for it, in a nightmare like this.
He thinks of In-ho’s smile earlier.
How stupid it was. How real it felt.
He thinks of forty years of friendship, real or not, warped or not.
He thinks of how gently the creature said his name.
And against everything—against logic, biology, terror, God—his mouth moves.
Barely a whisper.
“...Okay.”
The monster freezes.
Gi-hun swallows, or tries to. His throat burns.
He forces himself to meet its eyes—all of them. He sees himself mirrored again. A thousand Gi-huns: wide-eyed, crying, breaking. But he’s still here.
Still looking.
Still choosing.
“G-Good to see you, In-ho..”
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Gaedokdo, Busan, South Korea. 6 years ago
The rain hadn’t let up for days.
Not the kind that stormed or howled—just a steady drizzle that turned the clay roads to soup and left everything smelling of wet bark and soy sauce from the banchan shop across the hill.
In-ho sat on the porch of Gi-hun’s house, one slipper half-on, drinking makgeolli straight from the bottle like the old bastard he was.
“You’re gonna rot your liver,” Gi-hun muttered, stepping around a puddle with a towel in his hand. “Again.”
In-ho lifted the bottle in salute. “What a way to go.”
“Not in my yard. I’m not burying you next to the dog.”
“You loved that dog.”
“Yeah, and he had better manners.”
They fell into the usual rhythm—bickering that wasn’t really bickering, like notes in an old song they both knew too well to forget.
Gi-hun handed him a plate of hot pajeon. Greasy, steaming, perfect with the rain.
“You make this?” In-ho asked, already biting in.
“Sae-byeok sent it over.”
“Tell her to marry me.”
Gi-hun grits his teeth “She’s married, idiot.”
In-ho grinned through a mouthful. “So? We’ll fight for her.”
Gi-hun rolled his eyes and sat beside him on the porch, towel draped over his shoulder. The rain softened the air, making the mountains in the distance look like watercolors.
They didn’t say much for a while.
Just the rain, and the way the lantern outside swayed gently in the wind, casting warm light over the wood.
Then In-ho said, almost too softly, “You ever think about leaving?”
Gi-hun blinked. “Leaving where?”
“Here. The village. Everything.”
Gi-hun scoffed. “What would I even do?”
“Live. Maybe differently.”
“That’s rich coming from you. You haven’t left since the army.”
“I did leave. I just came back.”
They both stared into the gray.
Gi-hun said, “I don’t think I could. My whole life’s here. The dumb shrine. The tofu lady. You.”
In-ho looked down at the bottle in his hand. “Yeah. Me too.”
He didn’t look up again for a while. And Gi-hun didn’t ask what he meant by that.
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Summer in Gaedokdo, 3 years ago
The sun came back that week, just for a little while.
Just long enough to dry the laundry and make the stream look clean again. The kids were out barefoot. Someone was boiling barley a few houses down, and Gi-hun swore he could smell pine sap on the breeze. He stood on the porch with a cigarette he never lit. Just held it, turned it over in his fingers, pretending he wasn’t watching In-ho fight with the rust-bucket truck he refused to give up.
In-ho’s voice cut through the stillness.
“Hit it!”
Gi-hun rolled his eyes. “I am hitting it.”
“Not like that. Hit it with love.”
He padded down the steps, barefoot on dirt, sun in his eyes. “If I loved it, I wouldn’t be hitting it.”
“You’d be surprised what love puts up with,” In-ho muttered, elbow-deep in the engine.
Gi-hun laughed under his breath. It came out softer than he meant it to. He leaned against the truck, watching his best friend swear and twist metal like the engine had personally offended him.
Sometimes he wondered if this was it.
His life.
His whole damn life. This man. This truck.
Sometimes, when the sun caught In-ho’s profile just right, Gi-hun would forget to breathe. Then In-ho would turn, and the moment would shatter.
"Why’re you staring at me?"
"I’m not," Gi-hun lied, throat tight.
“You were.”
“Just wondering if you actually know what you’re doing.”
“I always know what I’m doing,” In-ho said—and immediately sliced his knuckle on the edge of the engine.
Gi-hun already had a tissue out of his pocket before In-ho cursed.
“Here.” He handed it over.
Their fingers touched. Brief. Nothing. Everything.
The blood bloomed through the paper like ink in water. In-ho didn’t thank him. He never had to.
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Gaedokdo, Busan, South Korea. A year ago
They were lying in the tall grass behind the old community center, beer bottles clinking near their heads, fireflies blinking in and out like distant signals. Gi-hun had brought nothing. In-ho had brought too much.
The stars were faint that night, but they still tried.
“I thought I’d be married by now,” Gi-hun said suddenly.
In-ho gave a snort. “You?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d forget the anniversary and show up drunk with a dead fish.”
“That’s you, asshole.”
In-ho smirked, raised his beer. “To being disasters.”
Gi-hun smiled and bumped his bottle against it. “To staying that way.”
He didn’t say what he really wanted to say.
Not that night.
Not any night.
The words pressed against the inside of his throat. If I tell him… maybe he won’t laugh. Maybe…
But he didn’t risk it.
He just watched the fireflies trace gold light over In-ho’s face. And it felt like looking at something holy.
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Gaedokdo, Busan, South Korea. 2 weeks ago
It was a gray morning. Fog hung low in the hills, rolling like slow breath through the rice paddies. The air smelled like rain that hadn’t fallen yet.
Gi-hun waited by the gate, thumb brushing over the edge of the old cigarette lighter In-ho had once given him—more charm than tool now, its flame long dead. He rocked on his heels, trying not to check the time again.
In-ho was loading something into the back of his truck—straps, boxes, tools, tarp. Routine stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary. But Gi-hun kept watching him like the morning was holding its breath.
“You busy?” he asked, finally.
In-ho didn’t look up. “Little bit. Why?”
Gi-hun shoved his hands in his pockets, forcing a casual shrug. “Thought we could grab soju or something.”
A pause. In-ho straightened, dusted off his hands.
“Can’t. I’ve gotta head out early. It’s a bit far, might be gone a day.”
“Oh.” Gi-hun nodded, eyes on the gravel. “Right. No problem.”
He tried not to let it show. He tried not to feel it. It wasn’t like it was a big deal. Not really. Just… April 6th. The day they’d met all those years ago behind the school, In-ho bleeding from a broken nose and Gi-hun handing him a bandage.
They joked about it every year. Called it their “shitiversary.” Bought bad beer and worse snacks and yelled at whatever baseball game was playing. Nothing romantic. Nothing serious.
But Gi-hun always remembered.
Because it was the day that changed everything for him.
In-ho turned, squinting at him through the gray. “You’re pouting.”
Gi-hun rolled his eyes. “I’m not pouting.”
“You get this look when you’re trying not to pout. It’s like a dying dog.”
“Go to hell.”
In-ho laughed, soft and familiar. The kind of laugh that made Gi-hun feel fourteen again. Then, quieter:
“I didn’t forget.”
Gi-hun blinked.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” In-ho said. “We’ll do our stupid anniversary then. I’ll even bring the disgusting dried squid you like.”
Gi-hun stared at him, stunned into silence.
“You remembered?”
“Of course I remembered,” In-ho said, with a crooked smile. “It’s our most important national holiday.”
Gi-hun laughed. It came out all wrong—relieved, surprised, full of that aching warmth he’d tried to bury for years. He looked away so In-ho wouldn’t see it on his face.
“Don’t die on the road,” he muttered.
“I’ll try not to.”
They smiled at each other. For a moment, the fog didn’t matter. For a moment, the world felt steady.
Gi-hun would replay that smile a hundred times later. A thousand.
He would chase it in his sleep.
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Gi-hun wakes up gasping for air, his chest tight, constricted like a vice. The air feels thick, suffocating, as if his lungs have forgotten how to breathe. His body is dead weight—he can't move. Every part of him aches, every muscle heavy and unwilling. His skin is slick with sweat, and his heartbeat is all he can hear, pounding in his ears like the desperate rhythm of a clock running out of time.
He blinks, trying to clear the fog from his mind, but everything is wrong. His eyes are swollen, blurry, and for a moment, everything is still. The world outside feels distant, far away, like he’s trapped in a place that doesn’t quite belong to him.
But his heart—his heart won’t stop. It's thudding so hard, it feels like it's tearing through his ribs. Why? Why, why, why?
The air in his lungs feels thick, like he's trying to suck in water. He’s drowning, gasping for breath, but it’s trapped inside him. His mind is a storm of chaotic images, memories that don’t make sense. The creature. No, In-ho. It was In-ho, but it wasn’t. Those eyes—their shape, the way they spiraled and multiplied. The colors that bent the world in ways it shouldn’t have bent. The thing, that thing —that wasn’t In-ho. But... it was.
Gi-hun’s stomach churns, the tightness in his chest growing unbearable. His skin crawls, the remnants of the nightmare still seeping into his veins like poison. He tries to remember, tries to pull the moments when In-ho was just In-ho —when he was real, when he was alive. But every memory is blurred by that horrific image, and he can’t untangle the truth from the nightmare.
It was just a dream, wasn’t it?
His breath hitches again as the realization hits him, a sickening wave of confusion washing over him. No. It wasn’t just a dream. The memory— those memories—they were real. In-ho had been real. And the thing—whatever it was—it wasn’t.
A harsh sob tears at his throat, but it’s swallowed by the weight of his panic. His body shakes, uncontrollable tremors racking him, his hands clenched in fists on the blankets. His throat feels raw, like he’s trying to scream but can’t. Every muscle in his body feels paralyzed, as if his very soul is frozen, stuck in a loop of terror.
“Fuck...”
The words barely leave his mouth, hoarse and unrecognizable.
Suddenly, his mother’s voice slices through the haze, pulling him back into something familiar.
“Gi-hun! In-ho is already waiting outside! Don’t keep him waiting!”
The name In-ho —it’s too much. It’s like a heavy stone sinking into his stomach. His mind spins again. He tries to push himself up, to shake off the weight of the nightmare, but his body betrays him. His legs feel like lead, his arms weak as though they’ve forgotten how to move.
In-ho...
The warmth of their past—of the days before everything turned—is fading from his mind, slipping through his fingers like sand. He can’t remember him the way he was—alive, laughing, real. All that’s left are the sharp, jagged edges of the monster that wore his face.
Gi-hun squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the overwhelming feeling of dread that fills his chest. He’s still shaking. He can’t function. Why? Why can’t he function?
The realization settles in like cold water, creeping into his bones. He’s not ready to face him. Not today. But he has to. The weight of the world is on his shoulders, pulling him down, pressing him back into the bed. He doesn’t know if he can get up. He doesn’t know if he can keep pretending everything is normal, when all he wants to do is curl up and forget.
With great effort, he drags himself to the edge of the bed, each movement slow, deliberate. His hands tremble as he grips the edge of the mattress, as though the very act of standing might tear him apart. His breath is shallow, every inhale feeling like he’s trying to swallow broken glass.
He doesn’t have time. He can’t let himself spiral into this. Not now. Not when he has to face him.
“In-ho” is waiting outside.
Gi-hun stands, unsteady on his feet, the room spinning around him. His vision flickers for a moment—he sees a flash of that thing, that monster , twisting and warping. But then it’s gone, replaced by the all-too-familiar world outside his window. The sun is rising, the light too bright, too normal . The world is moving on, and so must he.
“Fuck,” he mutters again, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
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Gi-hun steps into the hallway, feeling the chill of the morning air against his skin, but it does nothing to cool the fire in his chest. The house is quiet, the usual hum of life replaced by the tension he can’t shake. His legs feel like they’re made of stone, heavy and uncertain, each step an effort. He’s barely aware of the sound of his own feet on the floor until he reaches the door, where he pauses.
He breathes deeply, fighting the pounding in his chest, the nagging panic that refuses to leave him. He forces himself to exhale, shoving the chaos of his thoughts away for now. He doesn’t have time to think about that.
He opens the door, and there, standing just outside, is In-ho.
“Good morning, Gi-hun,” In-ho says, his voice low but pleasant, like nothing is wrong, like everything is fine.
Gi-hun blinks, his breath catching for a split second. He’s so normal. Too normal.
In-ho doesn’t look any different, standing there with his usual calm smile, his posture relaxed. He looks exactly like he always does—so familiar, so right. But something in the air is wrong. Gi-hun feels it in the way In-ho hesitates. His gaze flickers to the ground, then quickly back up to meet his, but there’s something off about it. He’s not looking at him like he normally would. It’s almost like... like he’s thinking too much before he speaks. Why is he hesitating?
For a brief moment, Gi-hun catches the subtle stutter in In-ho’s words. It’s barely there, but it’s enough to make his stomach tighten.
“Are you alright, In-ho?” Gi-hun asks, his voice quieter than he intends.
In-ho straightens almost immediately, his smile smoothing out, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, just t-tired, I guess.”
But you’re always tired. Gi-hun almost says it out loud, but the words die in his throat. Instead, he just nods, trying to ignore the creeping unease in the pit of his stomach.
Something’s wrong. It doesn’t make sense. But he doesn’t want to dwell on it. Not now. He can’t afford to.
“Let’s go,” Gi-hun says briskly, avoiding the gaze that In-ho tries to hold. “We’ll be late if we don’t leave now.”
In-ho nods quickly, and for a moment, it looks like he might say something else. He opens his mouth, then stops, as if he’s thinking better of it. It’s a small, almost unnoticeable thing, but Gi-hun catches it. And it makes his pulse quicken just a little. But he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.
He can’t afford to ask.
Instead, he turns toward the car, determined to keep things moving, to keep the routine intact. He knows he’s not fooling anyone. Not In-ho, not himself. But the thought of going back to that terrifying uncertainty, to the unknown, is worse than living in this half-truth. He made his choice. He has to live with it.
He’s already made a deal with it . He knows that much for sure now. And the thought of losing In-ho—of not having him around—would be far more agonizing than whatever it is that’s pretending to be him.
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Gaedokdo, Busan, South Korea. Present Day
The office buzzes with the soft drone of computers, the occasional clatter of keyboards, and the low hum of the coffee machine sputtering near the kitchenette. Outside, a light drizzle taps against the windows, smearing the city skyline into a blur of grey.
Gi-hun sits at his desk, eyes trained on the screen, though nothing’s really registering. He hasn't typed in five minutes. His ears keep drifting back to the sound coming from across the room—the frustrated shuffle of papers, the low muttering, the faint slam of a desk drawer.
It’s coming from In-ho.
Gi-hun lifts his head, blinking slowly, and glances across the partition. In-ho’s brows are furrowed, lips pressed tight as he stares down at a stack of misprinted documents, flipping through them too quickly, too roughly. There's a crease in his brow, tension in his shoulders, like he’s seconds from cursing.
Gi-hun hesitates, then stands. He walks over, trying not to make it weird. “Hey,” he says, voice light. “What’s up with you?”
In-ho doesn’t look up right away. He exhales sharply through his nose, hands pausing over the papers. “This printer,” he mutters. “Keeps jamming. Keeps duplicating pages. I’ve printed this thing five times and it’s still wrong.”
Gi-hun watches him quietly for a beat, then lets out a low chuckle. “Huh. The real In-ho wouldn’t get this worked up over a printer.”
That gets In-ho’s attention. He glances up, lips parting slightly. His face twitches—not in anger, but something else. Something more human. More… defensive.
“Why?” he says. His tone is calm, but there’s an edge to it. “Can’t I feel frustrated too?”
Gi-hun opens his mouth, then closes it.
In-ho continues, voice low now, thoughtful. “I have his memories. I know how he’d react. But this? This is my first time actually experiencing this... shit. ” He gestures at the printer, at the pile of crumpled papers. “It’s annoying.”
Gi-hun just stares. The words catch him off guard—not just the content, but the tone. The annoyance, the weariness… the relatability.
He doesn’t say anything. Just nods, slowly, as something unsettles in his chest.
In-ho sighs and rubs the back of his neck, finally cracking a small, sheepish smile. “Sorry. That came out wrong. I’m not mad at you.”
“No, it’s fine,” Gi-hun says, still staring. “I… just didn’t expect you to get annoyed by a printer, that’s all.”
In-ho shrugs. “Yeah, well. I guess I’m learning.”
Gi-hun doesn’t reply. Not really. He just lets the silence stretch for a moment, before quietly patting In-ho on the shoulder. “You want me to take a look at it?”
In-ho shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll figure it out.”
Gi-hun lingers a second longer, then walks back to his desk. The quiet returns, punctuated only by the hum of the office and the soft sound of rain tapping the glass.
But the moment lingers. That expression. That response.
He hadn’t expected that.
He hadn’t expected him to feel like that.
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They’re walking home when the smell hits them.
That sweet-spicy scent, thick in the air, like heat and childhood and comfort all rolled into one. Gi-hun barely notices it at first—he’s too tired, too wired—but then he sees the stall. The small one, just outside the subway exit, with its faded red awning and steam fogging up the glass.
He glances sideways. “You want some?”
In-ho is already looking at it with stars in his eyes.
They sit at the edge of the stall, metal stools wobbling under their weight. The ajumma behind the counter ladles a generous portion of tteokbokki into two paper bowls, tossing in a few slices of eomuk for good measure. Gi-hun offers his card. In-ho is too busy staring at the bubbling red sauce to notice.
“This,” In-ho says, eyes locked on his bowl like it’s sacred. “This is it. This is the one.”
Gi-hun lets out a soft snort. “You’ve had it before.”
“I know ,” In-ho says, almost bouncing in his seat. “I have the memories. This stall. This recipe. It’s where we always used to go after work, remember? You’d always try to steal my last piece.”
Gi-hun just nods, not looking at him. The plastic fork in his hand trembles slightly as he picks up a piece.
In-ho takes a bite.
He explodes .
“Oh my god ,” he says, mouth full, face lit up. “This is unreal. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. This is insane. Holy shit .”
Gi-hun side-eyes him, deadpan. “You’re talking with your mouth full.”
“And you’re so loud, ” he adds, jabbing his fork toward him. “Seriously, people are staring. Lower your voice.”
In-ho swallows, still grinning. “Sorry. Just—it’s wild. I knew what it would taste like. I remembered it. But this is different. This is now. It’s like… I knew what joy was, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt it.”
Gi-hun pauses. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just watches him—the way he chews, the way he beams like a kid, the way he clutches the bowl like it might disappear.
He forces a breath. “It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“That you remember everything… but somehow, everything still feels fresh to you.”
In-ho doesn’t answer right away. He just wipes a bit of sauce off his cheek with the back of his hand, eyes drifting toward the street, where the neon signs start blinking awake.
“I guess it’s because I wasn’t really alive then,” he finally says. “Not like this. I had the memories. I knew who I was supposed to be. But now, I’m here. I feel myself. Clearly. Like I’m not swimming in static anymore.”
Gi-hun’s grip tightens on his fork. “So what are you then? A ghost?”
In-ho snorts. “Nah. Probably not.”
Gi-hun glances at him, brows furrowed.
“I think I’m just some crazy monster of some sort,” In-ho says casually, popping another rice cake into his mouth. “One with really good taste.”
Gi-hun scoffs. It’s not quite a laugh, but it’s close.
He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. That it’s too easy to pretend in moments like this. That the stall still smells the same. That this version of In-ho still uses the same dumb jokes. That if he keeps listening to this thing talk like this, with that familiar voice and those warm eyes, he might forget how wrong everything is.
So he doesn’t respond.
Instead, he picks up another piece of tteokbokki and eats in silence.
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웃
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They finish their bowls in silence. Gi-hun wipes his hands on a napkin and crumples it without looking. In-ho hums contentedly beside him, swaying slightly like the meal just made him high.
They start walking again.
The night air is cooler now. The streets have quieted, neon buzz filling the spaces where voices used to be. They pass a fried chicken place, then a bakery just closing up. The scent of sugar lingers.
Gi-hun glances sideways. “…Is there anywhere you wanna go next?”
In-ho perks up. “Why? You taking requests now?”
Gi-hun shrugs. “You said you’re experiencing stuff for the first time. I just thought…”
He trails off, regretting it the second the words leave his mouth.
In-ho turns toward him, all teeth. “Wait—are you asking me out on a date?”
Gi-hun halts. “What—no.”
“Sounds like a date,” In-ho says smugly. “Snacks, night walk, then ‘where do you wanna go next?’ Classic setup.”
Gi-hun gives him the driest look in history. “You’re annoying.”
“You’re sweet.”
Gi-hun snaps . “I’m not sweet.”
The words come out louder than intended, sharp and sudden, cutting through the quiet like glass.
He stops walking. So does In-ho.
“I’m not sweet,” Gi-hun repeats, quieter this time, fists clenched in his pockets. “I’m just… I’m not. I’m not even kind. I’m hard on people. All the time. The only one I’m easy on is myself.”
For a moment, the world is too still. Too quiet.
Then In-ho speaks, voice softer now, without that teasing edge.
“I don’t really get that,” he says slowly. “But to me… your kindness never really went away.”
Gi-hun doesn’t answer.
He looks at the sky instead. The clouds have cleared a little, and the stars are faint, but there.
He doesn’t look back at In-ho again until they’re already walking.
“In-ho” hums under his breath as they walk—some shapeless melody, aimless and soft. The kind of thing the real In-ho used to do without thinking.
Gi-hun watches him.
Same gait. Same slouched shoulders. Same subtle glance at street signs, like he’s keeping track of how far they are from home. Everything is the same. Everything is too the same.
His feet stop moving.
He stares.
What the hell is this?
The thought lands heavy, unspoken. Just a quiet scream behind his eyes.
It looks like him. It walks like him. But it’s not him.
A faint breeze brushes past his cheek. He can hear traffic in the distance, a dog barking two streets over. Everything feels real. Everything feels wrong.
This is messed up. This is so wrong. He’s gone. In-ho is gone.
And yet he’s here.
Talking. Smiling. Cracking dumb jokes.
I’ve gone insane. That’s it. That’s the only explanation. I made a deal with a monster. I let him wear In-ho’s face. I said yes. I said please. I begged him to stay.
His mind swirls. The lights of passing cars stretch and smear like oil across his vision. He can’t focus on “In-ho’s” voice anymore. It’s muffled. Warped. Echoing from the wrong corners.
In-ho is dead. This is not In-ho. This is a thing. A thing pretending.
His hands clench in his coat pockets. His throat tightens. He wants to scream, cry, throw up—maybe all three. But he does none of those things.
He exhales.
And the world settles.
Just like that, the colors go back to normal. The light sharpens. The sound returns. He hears footsteps stop a few paces ahead.
“Hey,” “In-ho” says, cheerful. “Next time—can I stay over at your place for the weekend?”
Gi-hun blinks.
“Huh?”
“We could go fishing,” In-ho says suddenly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Gi-hun blinks. “Fishing?”
“Yeah. You’ve got those old rods in your shed, right? The ones you never use?” He tilts his head, that easy grin still plastered on. “We could take them down to the river. Late night, just us. Bring beer. Ramyeon. Make a mess.”
Gi-hun exhales through his nose, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “What are you, a grandpa?”
“You tell me,” In-ho says, eyes narrowing with play. “I’m just guessing, based on your taste.”
Gi-hun doesn’t answer. Not really. He just nods, slow and tired, and keeps walking.
Then—a voice cuts through the quiet night like glass shattering.
“그 악마가 왔다!”
The demon has come!
Gi-hun startles. They both do.
An old woman stands across the street, hunched under a crooked black umbrella despite the clear sky. Her clothes don’t match the weather—heavy, layered, old-fashioned hanbok pieces—and her hair is a tangled mess of silver and soot. She’s pointing directly at In-ho.
Her eyes are wide, almost white with age or something else entirely.
“ 악마다! 죽음을 데리러 왔다! 죄인들을 태우러 왔어! ”
A devil! It’s here to take the dead! To burn the sinners!
People nearby begin to stare. A car slows. Someone mutters about the woman being drunk or mentally ill.
But Gi-hun—he can’t speak.
In-ho hasn’t moved.
The smile is gone. His face is slack, eyes staring forward like someone unplugged him from inside. No panic. No confusion. Just—
Blank.
Lifeless.
Gi-hun feels something cold crawl down the back of his neck. Something ancient. Primal. His hand twitches at his side.
The old woman screams again, this time backing away like she’s seen something crawl out of hell itself.
“Don’t let it near me! Don’t let it touch me!”
Gi-hun finally finds his voice.
“Let’s go,” he mutters, eyes on the ground. “She’s out of her mind. Just ignore her.”
But he can’t help it—he glances back at In-ho. And what he sees—
That expression, or lack of it—like someone else has taken over completely—
He flinches.
Not visibly. Not enough for In-ho to see.
But he feels it in his spine. Like a jolt. Like instinct.
He starts walking. Not fast. Not slow. Just… away.
“Let’s go,” he says again, more firmly this time, the weight of his steps rising.
Behind him, silence.
Then—
“Wait,” In-ho calls out, voice soft but echoing strangely in the empty space between them. “Wait for me.”
Gi-hun doesn’t answer, but his pace eases. And eventually, he hears the familiar steps fall into rhythm beside his own.
He doesn’t look. He doesn’t ask.
He just walks.
And beside him, the thing wearing In-ho’s face walks too.
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They reach his doorstep under a sky bruised deep indigo, the kind of color that makes you think of dying stars. Cicadas scream like electricity in his ears, their chorus unrelenting, metallic—louder now that everything else is quiet.
“In-ho” walks a step ahead, then turns to face him, still smiling like nothing happened. Like that old woman hadn't just screamed bloody murder. Like she hadn’t looked straight through Gi-hun and seen whatever that was.
“Tomorrow,” he says, easy. Too easy. “I’ll bring those fishing rods. The ones rotting in your shed. We’ll see who’s the bigger idiot standing waist-deep in a muddy river. I’m betting it’s you.”
Gi-hun stares at the door, hand hovering just inches from the handle. The wood feels swollen with moisture, like it’ll take more force than usual to open. His fingers don’t move.
“In-ho,” he says instead, quietly.
“He’s really dead, isn’t he?”
The cicadas pause for half a second—or maybe they don’t. Maybe that’s just in his head.
“…Yeah,” comes the reply.
Short. Unceremonious. And it hits him like a body slamming concrete from seven stories up. A sickening kind of finality.
There’s no argument. No denial. Not even a pause to pretend otherwise. Just that word, and suddenly Gi-hun feels like he’s been punched in the chest, air knocked out, lungs refusing to work.
“I mean,” the thing continues, its voice still warm, still perfectly In-ho, “this body—it’s warm, sure. It has a pulse. But the man you knew? He’s long gone.”
Gi-hun’s throat burns. He blinks and realizes his eyes are wet, and not from grief, not yet—more like shock. Like his body is reacting before his mind catches up. He thinks he might throw up. He thinks his feet are starting to go numb.
His voice comes out too quiet, unformed.
“Then… y-you…”
But “In-ho” cuts him off gently. Patiently.
“When I found him, he was barely alive,” it says, gaze steady. “A shell. He had minutes left. Seconds. I—I wasn’t lying to you. Not really. I didn’t steal him. Not like that.”
The wind rustles the pine trees. There’s a damp, mossy smell in the air, sharp and bitter. Something about it makes Gi-hun’s stomach churn harder.
“I’ve always been in the mountains,” the thing says. “Always roaming. Searching. For what, I didn’t know. Just... drawn. Called. But I didn’t feel anything. Not hunger. Not joy. Not fear. Just... obedience. Like I was built to wander and wait. To mimic. To survive.”
Its eyes glint in the low porch light, and for a moment Gi-hun sees something behind them. Not malice. Not cruelty. But something ancient. Empty.
“A machine,” it murmurs. “A shadow.”
Gi-hun’s breath is coming too fast now. He tastes something metallic on his tongue. Panic, maybe. Or the memory of blood. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth and breathes in through his nose. The porch smells like old rain and dust. Like mildew. Like rot.
“And then In-ho died,” it says, softer this time. “And I woke up.”
Silence.
A long, crushing silence that fills Gi-hun’s chest like water. He can’t move. Can’t think. All the horror movies he used to watch when he was drunk— The Wailing , Gokseong , those slow, crawling ones where the evil didn’t jump at you but just stood there , watching—you always think you’ll run. That you’ll scream, or hit it, or pray.
But Gi-hun doesn’t do anything.
He just stands there, sweat slick on his back, legs trembling under him, every instinct screaming to flee—
—and doesn’t.
Because it’s still him . It still looks like him. Still sounds like him. Still says his name in that particular way that no one else ever did.
Gi-hun swallows hard. His tongue feels thick, like it doesn’t belong in his mouth. His entire body trembles with a coldness that’s wrong . The world around him blurs, and for a split second, he wonders if he’s sinking, drowning in his own breath.
This is hell.
No— this is worse. This is something deeper. A trick. A cosmic joke designed to torment someone who’s already seen too much. Someone who’s already lost. Someone who thought he’d run out of pain to feel, only to find there’s always more.
And yet—
“…Do you like me?”
The words leave him before he can stop them. They fall from his mouth like dead birds, weightless, ugly. Irreversible.
He doesn’t know where the words come from. His lips part before his mind can catch up, the question falling out like something that was never meant to be spoken. It’s strange, like a confession—or maybe a curse. It lingers between them, too heavy, too raw.
A beat. Then—
“What?” the thing asks, its voice puzzled but soft. “Gi-hun, what are you—”
And then—In-ho grins .
Not the smile Gi-hun remembers. Not the warm, messy grin full of mischief and familiarity. No, this is different. It’s sharp, dark, something that doesn’t quite fit. It’s a smile that shouldn’t be there, stretched across a face that feels like a mask.
And it gets wider. Wider.
“I like you.”
The words drip from its mouth, slow, deliberate—heavy with something twisted, something wrong.
“I really like you… so damn much.”
The words hang in the air, thick and suffocating. They cut through Gi-hun’s chest with a jagged precision. Gi-hun freezes.
That —that wasn’t a confession. It wasn’t the awkward, hesitant admission he always imagined—if he ever imagined one at all. It wasn’t the “I like you” from years of friendship, of drunken nights where maybe one or both of them might have said it.
No. This felt like a command. Like a plea from something that knew it shouldn’t be here, but was anyway. Something that didn’t belong in In-ho’s body, in his voice. Something pulling Gi-hun down into it, drowning him in this.
He stares at it—at him—and suddenly the world tilts. His vision warps and pulls, like reality is stretched too thin. The ground feels distant beneath his feet, like he’s no longer standing on solid earth, but suspended in some kind of nightmare he can’t wake up from.
This is a lie. The words press against his ribs, cold and jagged. This isn’t him.
But the smile keeps pulling, keeps stretching, keeps whispering through the air between them.
And then it hits him.
In-ho never said that. Not like this. Not once in all their years. Not even when Gi-hun thought, maybe… maybe, there was something more. Flirting, yes. But never this. Never this .
The grief is a tight knot in his chest. It clenches and drags, deep and cruel, and Gi-hun can feel his eyes burn—hot, fast. They spill over before he can even try to stop them.
Tears fall, stinging his skin, catching on his lips. They taste like salt and regret. Like the years of silent waiting, the hope he buried so deep in his chest he almost forgot it was there.
“I—” Gi-hun chokes on his own breath. His throat is raw. “Then—” His voice cracks, splinters under the weight of it.
“Don’t you dare disappear from me again.”
He doesn’t even recognize his own voice, thick and desperate, breaking under the weight of it all. The tears come faster now, unstoppable. His body is moving before he knows it—hands shaking as he fumbles for the door, his fingers so weak, so trembling that it takes everything to get it open.
He slams it shut, feeling the finality of the sound reverberate through his bones. The walls around him close in, but it’s the cicadas outside that linger in his ears, shrieking, relentless, fading into the distance.
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