LEE MYUNGGI

his gay ass. . . @388s

favourite colour: green

last song: should i kill him by baek eunwoo & kim taejoon

currently reading: nothing, but i read k's threads sometimes

currently watching: good boy

currently craving: threads on my cranium, maybe. . . ?

For a moment, Myunggi allowed himself to breathe — to inhale deeply and to exhale it all. The rise of his chest brought all of his feelings together — grief, anger, and everything in between that. With the release of his breath, he attempted to let it all go. Attempted — the emotions were clogged within his throat, preventing him from speaking the words he so desperately needed to use as a shield. The intense burning feeling within his chest only spread further through his body, and if he hadn’t already been fighting back tears, this time, the light from above reflecting in the glossy layer on his eyes. Myunggi refused to admit it, but he could not avoid it any longer — the words stung, this man knew nothing about the life Junhee had with him or how that baby came into existence. It was how he pretended to know and understand Junhee personally that made Myunggi’s fingers twitch around the pole in his hands. Or was it simply guilt? Not even because he cared about Junhee in particular — was it because he wanted to mean something, wanted to be more than whatever he was in his life before the games. Was it why he antagonised Myunggi, desperate for a villain in this story? It made Myunggi sick. This wasn’t a fucking book, this wasn’t a fucking game — this was their reality, a dark and cruel reality that neither of them could escape from no matter how much they told themselves they were doing everything for a good reason. This counter for the man before him and this counted for Myunggi himself — he, too, should know by now that none of his actions could be excused, that none of his actions could be justified by coming up with a noble reason for it. Even he needed to snap back to reality, no matter how much it would confront him.

Even if this stranger called himself the father of that child. The father of his child — of the child that would bear Myunggi’s last name. How he claimed to love her without even knowing her, without even knowing her mother, without even knowing anything about everything. The audacity of this stranger inserting himself into the lives of those he did not know, to take responsibility even if the one responsible was standing right before him. Myunggi needed to stay calm, no matter how much this prepared every cell of his body for a fight. If it meant survival, he needed to stand down. He was used to this, he knew how to keep himself small and take what was given to him so that things wouldn’t escalate further, but the stakes had never been higher than this situation, had they? Neither had he ever been confronted with such blatant disrespect towards him. At least, if Myunggi could survive this, he knew that any hate comment he’d get would never affect him again — compared to his experiences in the games, a mere mockery of his appearance or personality was nothing.

Breathe, again. It was the only way to calm himself. Myunggi witnessed the rage in the stranger’s eyes. With that strength and conviction, Myunggi knew, he knew, he would not survive a fight against him. He wouldn’t survive fights against anyone, but this one in particular would ensure that his death was miserable, that he would make him suffer, because who else could take the blame for everything but Myunggi?

With great hesitation, Myunggi loosened his grip on the pole, his hands shaking as he did — he didn’t trust this stranger to not resort to violence, and letting go of this pole would throw all his chances of survival out of the window should it all come to worst. He didn’t trust anyone in this place — to trust anyone here meant certain death. In this case, though, Myunggi needed to reevaluate his options. Not getting in a fight here was the best possible course of action he could take, but what would happen from there? Someone had to die in order for them to progress, right? The finish line was within sight — did somebody really have to bite the dust for it? His hand was hovering around the pole, palm no longer touching the steel pipe, but still within grasp in case the man before him decided to launch at him. That man claimed he’d give his life for that baby, but Myunggi doubted that any of those words were true. He wouldn’t lay down his life — Myunggi believed him to be as selfish as him, to want to survive and live too. Hiding behind that baby like a coward. No one’s death was the correct answer here.

Finally, the lump in his throat had become bearable to speak through, though it was still hard to voice his thoughts properly. Myunggi had to push through the forest of anger and entitlement to get to a clear mindspace — well, as clear as he could get. Slowly, very slowly, as slow as he could possibly be, Myunggi removed his hand from the pole, though not without twitching and shaking, obviously afraid he was losing his only means to survive. He tried to ease his expression, but it was hard to not look at this stranger without contempt. Still, Myunggi tried to be as civil as possible.

“I don’t want to fight.”

Lies, he wanted this man dead, but that would come at the expense of his life, and Myunggi wasn’t ready to sacrifice himself just to enact revenge on a man who didn’t know any better. It returned to him — the sense of superiority, the feeling of being the bigger person despite deep down knowing damn well none of them were here without blood on their hands. His voice was shaky — he wasn’t sure, he was afraid, he was anxious. Myunggi had only ever placed trust in himself, but he failed to put his full trust in the decision he was making now. To stand down, to back off, to wait and not get ahead of himself.

For a split second, he looked away, not wanting to look into the eyes of this man, but Myunggi returned his attention towards him as soon as he realised that taking his eyes off of him for only a second could mean death if he wasn’t careful. Breathe, Myunggi — do not forget to breathe. To be able to breathe meant that he was alive.

“I get it, you’re angry at me,” he started, his body tired, but still completely alert. “Or you’re just angry, but there’s no one else around, so you’re angry at me.” Myunggi pointed at the child cradled tightly in the stranger’s arms, his breath shaky again. “That child, you want to protect it.” He placed his hand on his chest. “I do too. But we have to think clearly here. If we fight, chances are that all three of us die. At least that baby will get hurt, and we don’t want that, right? So you need to put that anger away if you care about that baby.”

It was true that he cared at least a little for that baby, but his words were primarily for his own survival. Myunggi wanted to leave this place with the money, because why else would he have gone through such lengths to get to this point? To stand here, on the final platform, just a step away from victory? His hands were raised to his chest to show him that he wasn’t there to fight and that he wasn’t in a position to do so. He was afraid of this man, deathly so, yet he hoped that his actions would somehow get through his thick skull and calm him down, even if it was just a little.

“Let’s think this through, okay?” Myunggi was so obviously a man desperate to stay alive. But who could blame him, when they could imagine themselves in his shoes? Would anyone really throw their life away for that baby if they had lived the life of Lee Myunggi?

bold = always.　italics = sometimes/dependent.　crossed out = in the past.

alcoholism.　amnesia.　anxiety.　appetite loss.　binge eating.　co—dependence.　cynicism.　defensiveness.　denial.　depersonalisation.　depression.　derealisation.　devaluation.　displacement.　dissociation.　drug abuse.　dysphoria.　emotional detachment.　flashbacks.　flat affect.　guilt.　hallucinations.　hypersomnia.　hypervigilance.　hypochondria.　idealisation.　insomnia.　intellectualisation.　introjection.　isolation.　low  self—esteem.　mania.　narcissism.　night terrors.　obsessive compulsion.　overeating.　panic attacks.　passive aggression.　paranoia.　phobias.　projection.　psychosis.　rationalisation.　regression.　repression.　restrictive eating.　self-harm.　somatization.　splitting.　sublimation.　suicidal ideation.　sleepwalking.　suppression.　thousand-yard stare.　triggers.　trust issues.　violence.　whiplash temper.

Before him stood a man as enraged as he. The sight of his posture, his face, his words, his emotions, the way he held that baby, oh, the way he held that baby, only worsened the pressure between Myunggi’s ears, it only made him angrier, it only provoked him. There was no trust on this platform — none in Myunggi and none in the player standing on the platform with him. No, Myunggi was sadly mistaken. . . There was trust placed in the heart of player 388, by none other than the woman who refused to place that same trust in him. To put more faith in a single number out of hundreds that she only knew for a few days than in the man she spent years with only pushed the knife she plunged into his heart deeper. Even in death, she had him in a chokehold. Even in death, Myunggi cared too much about her image of him.

Did he understand the reasons behind her actions, though? Myunggi may be in constant denial of his own faults, but he was not unaware — in fact, he was so painfully conscious about which parts of him caused her to go down the path that strayed far, far away from him. His heart ached at the thought of it, but Myunggi understood more than anyone else how his deeds have impacted many, mostly negatively, and he was simply facing the consequences for them. Of course he understood the reason why the man before him looked at him with full contempt, clinging on to that baby as if Myunggi would harm it. Would he? The question flashed within his mind and the answer came to him just as quickly, yet the thought was tucked away immediately. This was not the time for a self-reflection that could cause him to break down, much like when he committed his first murder in the bathroom. Myunggi would come up with an excuse for anything he does, anyway. It didn’t quite matter what he did at this point. Perhaps killing Thanos was the boundary he had to cross in order to completely drown and suffocate in his greed, allowing him to do things much more evil than he ever expected himself to do.

He refused to swim in his awareness much longer, though — Myunggi could understand the reasons for 388’s hostility towards him, but he chose not to. Why should he have an excuse to curse at him? Why should he have an excuse to be the last one standing and leave the games with all the prize money? What makes him a better carer for that baby? What makes him better than Myunggi?

Not a single second did he take his eye off the other player. Myunggi stayed exactly where he stood, still, motionless, having trouble with the conflict of wanting to hold in his breath and the heavy breathing that came with the anger he felt. All people were the same — not one ever bothered to understand his point of view, despite him always understanding another’s and choosing to ignore it. It simply proved to Myunggi that the world could never, ever, be as good as they wanted to, and that they’d always resort to the worst assumption of another man to survive. Not only in this game of life and death — always. He was never filled with optimism, but these games truly had shone light on the unfairness of this world, and that the only way to survive it was a clever mind and. . . money.

Myunggi stood and took the insults that were hurled at him — it wasn’t as if he had never heard these things before. That he was cruel, that he was a bad person. His time as a crypto influencer had hardened him against it after reading countless of comments telling him to go to hell, both before and after the incident with the Dalmation coin. Myunggi simply stood there, listening to what he had to say. There was nothing particularly new — he should’ve at least been more creative with it.

“You think those people would’ve stopped trying to attack that baby if I asked them nicely?” His head was slightly tilted, gesturing his bewilderment at the statement. “You’d rather have these people alive here right now, trying to kick both you and the baby off this platform? I did you a favour, I got rid of the people who wanted that baby dead.”

He remained relatively unbothered — meaning, his anger did not increase — hearing the accusations of his character, not reacting to it emotionally, or simply giving him the most rational response. It was the mention of Junhee’s name — it was always the mention of Junhee’s name — that made him lose the restraint of his anger.

“What?” was the first thing that came out of his mouth that was truly loaded with hatred for the man standing before him. Before, it was irritation, it was anger, and it could all be placed in a box within Myunggi’s heart due to the fact that he believed he was right, and that he had the upper hand in this conversation. He always had an excuse for everything. But not for Junhee — he could not attribute a reason for her decision to trust this stranger without insulting either his or her character. He could never insult Junhee and he could never insult himself — then where did that leave him?

“You think you fucking know Junhee? Someone you’ve known for just five fucking days?” The words barely came out coherently — it took everything in Myunggi not to stutter or stumble over the things he wanted to say. It’d make him look pathetic. He could not lose his righteousness in this conversation. “You think you know love because she placed that baby in your hands? You think you love that baby because you’re holding it?” He was seething. His fingers wrapped around the pole next to him, not quite taking it off the platform yet — just keeping it ready. “It doesn’t even matter if I fucking voted to stay or to leave, we would still be here all the same. At least by voting for the games to continue, I could take them all out so they didn’t harm the baby.” For the baby, yes, for the baby — the money was not at all a drive, was it, Myunggi? Oh, the accusations of his unmatched greed were right on point, yet Myunggi ignored any and all words that did not benefit him. “And wouldn’t you rather leave with more money in your pocket, anyway? Since you care so much about that baby.”

There was a high threshold for revealing his true relationship to that baby, simply because he couldn’t bear to lose the footing he had in this conversation. This stupid man who thought he was better than Myunggi all because he was cradling the baby like it was his. . . He would only win if he knew that the real father of that baby was standing before him. Not to mention, it would perhaps give him more reason to push Myunggi off this platform. Perhaps taking hold of the pole was not a good idea — perhaps it could be seen as a call for battle, to start the fight to the death. And Myunggi knew that without help, he would never win a physical fight against anyone.

He was already alone since the beginning of these games, occasionally reaching out to Junhee with a hand she would never take, but her death left him devoid of all sense. . . While he could cling to his humanity in her presence, even if she wouldn’t even glance at him for any longer than she must, with her now gone, greed seeped through the cracks of his heart even more so than before. There was no longer any reason to vote to stop the games — they’d all come this far. Myunggi wanted to go home with the prize money, and it did not matter who had to die for it.

Well, it did matter, but he only cared enough about one life other than his own. Myunggi cared enough about Junhee’s baby, whether it was for the sake of having a memoir of Junhee of some sorts or for the money that baby could bring him — his mind was clouded too much by grief, greed, and anger to be clearly aware of the real reason he pulled the other Os’ attention away from that baby. Perhaps it was finally his guilty subconsciousness in action, although Myunggi would only refer to the child as ‘Junhee’s baby’. She was his, yes, but Myunggi never quite felt that way.

What mattered more to him currently was the man who was holding that baby as if she was his. Taking responsibility for a child he did not create, for a woman that he did not know — it only added to Myunggi’s fury. There was no time nor space in his head to be thinking too rationally in this situation — there was no place for him to come to terms that all of this were the consequences of his own actions. To have left Junhee alone with a baby she couldn’t possibly care for with the debt he pushed her into, to have voted O in the early rounds to continue the games while they could’ve gone home without having to sacrifice the lives of many — the life of Junhee. It was his fault, but it did not matter at this point. He stood before that man, a stranger that Junhee put more trust in than the actual father of her baby.

Doing the best he can — it was not a lie, but it was not the truth. Myunggi struggled to keep himself alive first and foremost, exchanging humanity for life and cash. The statement wasn’t an attempt to cleanse his image in the eyes of this man, but it was meant to be informative. No hard feelings, this isn’t personal, stuff like that as Myunggi had his hand on the pole. The way this man clung onto that child, unwilling to part with her, as if she was his own, would cause problems — in the worst case scenario, he would be sending both of them to their deaths. Was killing his own child truly a fair exchange for his life? Was 45.6 billion won enough for him to kill his own child?

Myunggi hesitated. The sentiment of taking care of this child, even if he could only refer to it as Junhee’s baby unless it benefited him, had him slowly take his hand off the pole in the middle of the platform. That man was there to protect the baby. But right now, there was nobody but just the three of them — there was nobody to protect that baby from. He had no intentions of harming that baby, not if it meant that he could live. But he knew that the man before him would not simply give his life for this baby to leave her in the hands of an untrustworthy stranger. He stared at him, in an attempt to ease the tension between them. They hadn’t pushed the button yet — they had all the time in the world. But Myunggi’s gaze came off sharper than he intended — it wasn’t easy to mask the mix and whirl of complicated emotions that had a hold on his entire body.

“I don’t want to hurt that baby,” Myunggi stated, holding up his hands to show that he was not intending to use the pole to push him and the baby off, like he had done with the many players before them. Surely, he would have noticed Myunggi’s actions? Or was he as dense as he looked? Surely he would’ve noticed that Myunggi talked everyone out of trying to kill him and the baby first and put their attention on another easier target to kill off for the first round? Or how he defended the baby from the rest? Though his reasons were unknown to his fellow players, it was clear that he didn’t want that baby to just fucking die, right?

“Are you fucking stupid? Do you think I want to kill a fucking baby?” He had to keep his anger in check if it meant trying to get out of this mess alive, but it was hard to not let his emotions get the better of him. Despite this, Myunggi stayed put, right next to the pole. He didn’t want to risk being flung off the damn platform by this man — he’d seen what he was capable of. And if things came to the worst, there was always this trusted tool he could use to defend himself — even if it could tragically lead to the baby’s death.

Myunggi controlled his expression as well as he could, but he wasn’t sure if his skepticism bled through his poker face. He didn’t like his tone — how awfully friendly, cheery, and optimistic he sounded from the start of their conversation until now. He watched him make himself more safe and approachable, but who was he kidding? Even if they were having a rather vulnerable — yet normal, considering the circumstances — conversation, Myunggi was still high on alert. To him, they were still strangers. Myunggi didn’t even know his name. It didn’t matter to him much — he could refer to him by his player number. Calling someone by their name in this place felt like crossing the bridge between strangers and acquaintances and this wasn’t particularly a path Myunggi was ready to take yet.

His continued support of Myunggi didn’t sit quite right with him. Maybe this man was simply friendly to everyone he met and that this manner of speech was something he felt like he was obligated to do to make proper conversation with a stranger. Still, Myunggi felt no friendlier to this guy.

What was he even supposed to say at 388’s offer to ‘protect’ him? It felt insulting — as if he wasn’t capable of taking care of himself. He didn’t need the protection from a tall, big-armed man. There had been many instances of people viewing Myunggi as ‘lesser’ due to the fact that he was shorter than the average man and rather passive in his behaviour. This could go into two ways — either they saw him as ‘prey’, someone who was an easy target for harassment, or they saw him as ‘pitiful’, where they needed to provide him their protection. Myunggi believed 388 to be a member of the latter group, yet Myunggi despised both of these categories equally. He was a grown man, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t need to be taken under somebody’s wing. Though Myunggi did approach him with the intention to find ‘capable allies’, despite his disdain for relying on others — perhaps Myunggi had not quite realised that protection was a deep desire tucked away in his subconsciousness. He would never admit it out loud.

And oh, how Myunggi felt his chest swell up and burn at 388’s last statement. Myunggi wasn’t an idiot — he knew damn well he was talking about Junhee. In that Mingle room were three women — one was an old woman whose son was with her, one was perfectly capable of fending for her own, and Junhee. Junhee was the ‘meeker’ one, the one who ‘didn’t have anyone to protect her’. Though from Myunggi’s knowledge, she had what it took to survive — she was strong willed and had the ability to draw good people to her when necessary. Myunggi eyed the man before him from head to toe — he wasn’t convinced that this guy was capable of protecting her. Not to mention, that wasn’t his fucking job.

This time, Myunggi was certain his judgements were apparent on his face. Maybe it was because of his optimistic words, maybe it was because of his condescending offer, and maybe it was because he acted as if he was someone important to Junhee. Maybe it was all three of them. Myunggi couldn’t fathom that this guy was speaking sincerely and that his words and actions were meant to mock him, not help him. These were stupid assumptions on Myunggi’s part — the mention of Junhee made his brain malfunction.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said flatly, rolling his eyes at the thought of 388 coming to his rescue — that’d be embarrassing. “I can take care of myself.” His words were not backed by evidence, seeing as he would’ve lost the fight against Thanos and his little lap dog if that old man hadn’t intervened. Still, Myunggi couldn’t accept 388’s offer, whether it was real kindness or simply an empty gesture.

ohoho what an interesting question . . . starting out as a circle worker, myunggi is quickly made aware of the rank system that the games uphold — the circles are at the bottom, followed by triangles, followed by squares, then the masked officer, and finally, on top of it all, the frontman. the captain, the overseer — and myunggi doesn't regard him in such a positive light if he is responsible for the management and perhaps even creation of these games ( i don't suppose much information is given to unknowing circles . . . they may fill in the blanks by themselves, and myunggi chooses to believe that the frontman created the games ). he hates any of his higher ups, starting from triangles who kill the players, but he especially holds a grudge against the masked officer and the frontman who have more say in how things go on the island.

which is why myunggi finds it even more devastating when he learns he has been promoted to a soldier — he believes his higher ups had a hand in this, meaning the masked officer and the frontman, though he never actually speaks with the latter personally. the frontman remains a faceless silhouette looming over the pink guards, and myunggi despises him.

this is even further pushed when he is notified of the frontman's participation in the game as player 001. myunggi only sees him in the second game, the six-legged pentathlon, where he teams up with junhee out of all people. his orders were clear — if the frontman's team were to lose, kill all witnesses and leave him alive. it meant having to kill junhee and keeping this bastard alive. it made myunggi sick, and now he could put a face to the title he has learned to hate with all his being. he, that old fucking man, was responsible for all of this. myunggi probably believes that he also had a hand in his promotion, though i feel like the frontman leaves such menial tasks to the masked officer alone.