Summary: The island has blown to pieces. The games are on hold. Gihun survived, but what he doesn't know is his survival has been a team effort. In this au, Inho, Young-il, Frontman and Player 132 are all different people, sharing one body with each other. They have different personalities, memories, different wants, needs, opinions, thoughts, roles and they all strive to function with each other. Its partly inspired by Dissociative Identity Disorder, but I don't claim its an 100% accurate portayal. In this particular fic, after the destruction of the island, Gihun wants to return the knife to "Inho", but he doesn't know he's been speaking with four people in the same body, and he's about to find out.
CW: dissociation, inner conflict, panic attack, trauma-talk, overwhelm, forced dissociative switch, mildly threatening behaviour, mentions of blood and knife, slight body paralysis, [Young-il is unable to move the body for a brief moment], forced grounding, use of alchool, consent that makes you go hmmm.
Weeks after the island blew to pieces, Young-il has taken residence in their usual flat. It's not the most luxurious place they've been in, but he loves the coziness of it, the familiarity.
And most importantly, Gihun knows about it.
He shows up most days with warm meals, checking on them, without even realizing he's helping multiple people at once. Jun-ho has told him their real name, the body's legal name, and ever since then Frontman decided its best to keep the mask.
Let him think Young-il was an act, at least for a while, even though Young-il finds it increasingly difficult to respond whenever he's called by Inho's name.
Sitting in bed with his eyes towards the ceiling, he's not even sure when the conversation started drifting about Gihun, but he's been talking for a few minutes.
"It's like...he looks at me...and he can just see me, you know? Like he knows it wasn't all an act. He never even accused me of it! There's this quiet understanding that there's some things we both can't talk about, but he shows up anyway. No one has ever done this for me." Young-il says towards the ceiling.
Inside the front room of the headspace, Frontman has lounged on the couch in the exact same position, listening to the quiet and to Young-il's voice. The front room is empty, safe for the two of them. Inho and 132 have gone somewhere deeper into their inner world.
"You did give him your name, rather than the body's name...back in the games." Frontman reminds him.
Young-il groans at the memory.
"I know– I should've known it would get us in trouble. But I've never told anyone my actual name, its always this stupid mask we have to wear, we have to appear as one person because its normal. And I wanted him to know my name... Now he probably thinks I picked a random name to fuck with him. HE SHOULD BE MAD AT ME!" he empasizes, like its the most logical thing, half-lifting his body on the elbows before lowering back into the soft matress. "He should feel betrayed, and maybe he does feel betrayed, its well within his right, but he keeps showing up. He's always so careful and tender and he looks at me with those eyes and his hair is always a bit messy and he is so...good to us." Young-il says with a sigh. "I wanna tell him about all of us, eventually." he adds, glancing to the side as if the other alter sits next to him. But there's no one there, only the tiny stars he plastered years ago on the wall.
He expects a cold hard no, not yet, but Frontman keeps quiet for a moment, and Young-il wishes he wouldn't.
"You've been more sour since the island got destroyed. What's going on with you?" Young-il prods, flipping over on his stomach in bed, like he's ready to listen.
"All this talk about love got me thinking about someone else..." Frontman admits.
He shouldn't push. He knows he shouldn't, its none of his business, but he tries and fails to keep the smirk off his face.
"...you got a special someone on the side?" he pushes, then thinks about it. "Its that guy, isn't it? The one you were having drinks with when I switched in. The square officer one. We share the body, you can't keep secrets from me and besides, you keep worrying about Gihun, but that one had a wolf smirk on him like he was waiting for me to make a mista–"
"It's a no, Young-il." Frontman cuts him off. "Player 456 can't know anything about any of us." he adds, and Young-il rolls his eyes at the change in subject. "We don't know what he could do with this. He could rush to tell that brother we have, he might not get it, he'll think we're unstable, and even if he doesn't think so, its only a matter of time before he could learn our switches, our triggers, our likes and dislikes and use it–"
"Yeah, but don't you want this?" Young-il argues, speaking out loud over him. "Don't you want someone to know you - you - not the you masking as Inho everyday?" Young-il says.
"For one week on an island where no one is gonna remember it and everyone is gonna die...sure, its nice. It stops being nice when it could interfere with our daily life and you know this! You're smart enough to know this!"
Young-il groans out loud out of frustration. He hates it when they argue. Not only he can feel his emotions, but Frontman's too and it mostly ends with a tight headache.
"I know..." Young-il caves, taking a deep breath "...you're tryna protect us. I don't wanna fight. I'm just tired of pretending to be someone I'm not. And he would be so good–"
"Isn't anyone else hearing the goddamn doorbell?" Inho asks, walking into the front room.
Young-il blinks and it suddenly hits him the doorbell is ringing. It must've been ringing for a while now. He's been so dissociated he didn't pick up on any outside noise.
And given how many people know of this apartament, it could either be the brother or...
"I think its him!" Young-il says, jumping out of bed so quickly he staggers with a sudden wave of dizziness. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and shoves aside the stupid feeling creeping down his neck that this isn't him or his body because it is and there's nothing he can do about it. He runs the comb through his bangs before he rushes to the door.
Gihun stands in the doorway, dressed in a casual fit, his hair slightly wind-blown, but grown from the past few weeks.
"Hi. Is it a bad time?" Gihun says, glancing inside the apartament. "Are you with someone? I thought I heard talking, I can come back later..." he says and Young-il shakes his head.
"No, don't worry. Come on in." he says while Gihun walks into the flat. His fingers are curled around a square black box, sleek and elegant, with no markings of anything.
"I...we don't need to talk about this if you don't want to..." Gihun hesitates "...I wanted to give you back the knife." he says and looks like he worked out the courage to say it. "Since its one of the only things left from that place, I don't wanna hold on to it. I get why you...gave it to me back then." Gihun says and hands him the box.
Young-il doesn't recall any knife, not to mention a specific knife, but he reaches out, his hand wrapping around the box. His fingers shake and he grips it harder to get them to stop.
Inside the box, there's a sheated black dagger. A butterfly is carved into the golden cross guard, right above the sheathe and its beauti–
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Blood flashes before his eyes, staining the black sheathe and trickling in droplets to the floor. He tries to blink it away but the sight steals his breath.
Oh Il-Nam once gave them this dagger. He can't remember when. He can't think. He feels like he can't breathe and surely that was his hand gripping the hilt, it had to be, it was his hand drenched in blood, feeling the bone crack under his fingers, watching the life flicker away from someone until its too late, and doing it again and again–
Player 132 lifts his gaze, suddenly staring into familiar eyes.
"You didn't do it." 132 gasps out. "Why didn't you do it?" he asks player 456.
His hands are shaking on the sheathed blade.
"Kid. Hey. It's okay, I need you to give me the body." he can hear Frontman sound through his thoughts, muffling what Gihun is saying, something about how they don't need to speak of this, and he shakes his head in response.
"I didn't do it either." 132 replies, unsheathing the dagger to take a good look at the blade. It flashes with blood again and he looks away. "I could never do something like that..." he says, disgust slipping off his tongue with every word. "Not me, anyway. But someone here did... I have to live with his memories every. single. day. The blood gushing and their silent screams. I get to remember all of it." he says, bitterly.
Gihun hesitates, a look of confusion on his face.
"I think I'm gonna be sick..." Young-il declares internally, stuck in the front room. He feels his heart pounding wildly, but is it his heart? Is it because of him or he's too close to a body that isn't his anymore?
"Can someone please get Young-il out of here?" he hears Frontman says, but he spins around just in time to argue that he won't leave. The look on his face must say enough because Inho steps away from him, hands lifted in surrender.
"People will do anything to survive in there..." Gihun responds.
"So why didn't you?" 132 shoots back. "Someone had to save you because you insisted on playing till the en–" 132 blinks a few times, finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto the body, with Young-il pushing and shoving. "I'm gonna rip out guts if you keep pushing me, nuisance." he snarls out loud.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"...it angered me at first, but then I think about Ga-yeong and maybe I owe you for saving my life back then." Gihun says.
Young-il blinks finally in the body, the words barely processing, and yet they're so sweet and gentle, he clings onto his voice.
"You don't owe us–me..." he says, shaking his head through the dissociation.
Someone keeps telling him to ground.
And to stop looking at this damn dagger.
"No, I do. The net was a nasty trick, but it came in handy when we were both dangling off that edge and..." Gihun says, then hesitates "Inho? Are you okay?" he asks, worry frowning his features.
Someone is yelling at him.
He barely holds onto front, but he nods and hopes it shows on the body.
"I need...Give us a minute." he manages to say and drags himself, the body, to the bathroom.
His fingers are still gripping the damn dagger. He throws it in the tub, as far away as he possibly could. Sound echoes when it hits the acrylic marble, but he can't dwell on it now.
He moves to the sink and cold water suddenly floods his senses. It wipes away some of the heavy dissociating haze enough to realize he's co-fronting. There's someone else using the body with him.
It hits him that he can't even remember turning on the water, or placing his wrists under it and he can't move them away either.
"Easy...its okay..." Frontman says.
"It's cold!" Young-il argues while ice cold water keeps flowing down his wrists.
"It's fine. I feel it too. You're fine." he argues back. "Try to take a few breaths. Switch out if you can't take it."
It borders on unbearable, but he doesn't wanna switch out. Not right now. Not with Gihun–
A knock sounds on the door.
"Inho? You sure you're okay?" Gihun sounds from the other side.
Young-il forces a few deep breathes, in and out of his lungs. He hates masking. He hates that he can't move. He hates that there's someone else having control of his body. He hates that he can't just tell Gihun about it. He even hates that staying like this actually helps.
Between one breath and the next, his body relaxes slowly, and he moves his wrists away from the biting ice, turning the faucet off.
He's alone. Frontman still lingers nearby, but they're not co-fronting anymore, its like he took a step back.
He stares at himself in the mirror, wrists cold as frost.
"Its so cold..." he tells himself while wrapping a fuzzy towel over his wrists.
"...Inho?" Gihun sounds from the other side of the door, concern shading every word. "Please...please let me help you." he adds.
He feels his heart melting.
Young-il takes a few more deep breaths, then lets go of the towel and moves towards the door.
He almost stumbles into Gihun's perfectly carved chest.
"...sorry." he says, looking up at those perfect eyes. "Sorry." he repeats. "We–I..." he hesitates, pointing back towards the door. "We." he says more stubbornly, looking up at Gihun. He bites his lip, thinking about how he would react if he'd knew how many people share this body with him. Would it disgust him? Would he not believe them? Would he comfort him? "I've got something to tell you..." he shoots out before he can lose his guts. "I've been wanting to tell you for so long, but–"
"Young-il." Frontman warns internally.
"–everything got so complicated with the games–"
"Young-il, stop talking about this."
"–and the island blowing up and I know you feel betrayed and you have every right to because I've hidden so many things–"
"He's gonna use this against us, you know it!"
"–and its like what horrendous secrets can he have now, but it was never meant to get so messy and I wanted to tell you and I wanna tell you and I don't want you to hate me–"
"Young-il!" Frontman yells at him, so sudden and so close he almost feels himself jolt.
A wrinkle of confusion creases Gihun's features, but his hands intertwine gently with Young-il's and it steals the worry away from him.
"I wanted to hate you, I did, but I can't, not when you saved my life. And it was still you in those games, Inho, I know it was." Gihun says.
Young-il finds it hard to breathe. He feels torn between so much love and the danger that could come with revealing his name isn't Inho at all, and it hasn't been for a while.
"Young-il, its not worth it..." Frontman says, his tone much more quiet. He doesn't need to look inward to know he regrets yelling.
Young-il shakes his head. Because it is worth it. If Gihun would know what's going on, wouldn't it be better if he'd adjust to them? If he'd help each one of them individually, instead of having to mask switches and triggers and pretend he's someone he's not?
"...please..." he pleads it quietly. "Frontman, please..." he adds as quiet as he can manage, and he blinks a few times, praying he won't be shoved out of the body. Coldness still coats his wrists, but Gihun's fingers are locked around his own. He grips his hands harder, like its gonna keep him grounded, then opens his mouth to speak to Gihun. "I...I have this condition, it feels like I've been having it since I was born, but its a protective mechanism. When I was a kid...throught my life actually...something happened to me and I can't know about it, I'm not allowed to, so it...it split those bad memories away from me. To someone else. It gave them to someone else so I can function. It made..." he gasps, finding it harder to speak "...other people. And we share the body and I–"
"Enough, you're done." Frontman argues internally while triggering a switch.
"No! –please, let me speak." he pleads, but its so hard to cling onto front. "Not yet, I don't wanna go yet...I wanna tell him–"
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Frontman blinks as he stands face to face with the man responsabile for so many sleepless nights, stress and happiness within their system. He doesn't like this at all, but Young-il already laid out so much. His boyfriend looks confused, even though there's a soft look to his features...like he wants to learn about it.
It would be easy to shut him off. Raise his voice high enough to sound like Young-il. Plaster a smile on his face. Call it nonsense. Laugh it off. It would feel safe and its his job to keep them safe, but...
"You shouldn't have shoved me! If you won't tell him, I will. I can't keep doing this... I want him to know." Young-il argues internally.
Clearly you do, Frontman thinks to himself.
He rips his hands away from Gihun's grasp.
"We have whisky in the cabinet..." he says out loud, letting his voice come off slightly different from Young-il's. Its a change of subject from the disorder talk, but he won't have this talk fully sober. "I'll be back." he adds and stands up to get a drink.
__________________________________
Frontman doesn't take Gihun for a drinker, but still places two glasses on the wooden table, next to the bottle. Its not a surprise when the other man doesn't take his, and instead keeps staring at him while he sits down on their couch. Frontman nurses his own glass for a moment.
"Back on the island, I had this bottle of a GlenAllachie twenty-one. Its a scotch you can pick up for around five hundred dollars. It was worth every cent...and went out in flames like everything else in there..." he says with a sigh.
Gihun refuses to lose the stare.
"Ten minutes ago, you were talking about other people in your head." Gihun reminds him.
Frontman takes another sip of whisky, feeling the alchool down his throat.
"I'm one of them..." he says, then lets the words settle while he places his glass back on the wooden surface. "We never actually had to explain this to any-"
He hesitates. Right. He needs to take it easy.
"Other people, remember? I never had to explain this to anyone, but I'm pretty sure the others haven't either." he corrects himself.
His fingers reach for Gihun's empty glass. "I won't explain it twice so pay attention. This is you, right? The glass." he attempts to explain. "This is your brain. You're one person with memories of your entire life, top to bottom. More or less, I assume..." he says, then pours some whisky into the glass. "This, the drink, think of it as trauma. The games. Whatever was traumatic to you. It sinks down at the bottom and you might suppress it, but you can remember every bit of it. The Red Light, Green Light. Dalgona. Mingle. Jung-bae. You can make sense of it and eventually process it as another memory that happened." he adds, his eyes lingering on the caramel alchool in the glass. He doesn't need to look at him to know he's far from actually processing it. The mere mention of these games seems to trigger those memories to the surface.
Gihun's voice comes out shallow, like he fights to say the words.
"I'm never gonna get over what happened there, if that's what you're getting at." Gihun says. "Those deaths are not something someone can just process..." he adds, sounding disgusted at the suggestion.
Frontman settles Gihun's half-empty glass back on the table, next to the bottle of whisky. He should stop, he knows he should and a part of him even relates to the feeling. He was made specifically to handle the games and watch those people die because its not something anyone else in their system can process. But like many of their talks before, he finds it enjoyable to get a reaction from the man, even more now when he's part of the reason the island went out in flames.
"Those money are never gonna dry up either." Frontman reminds him. "You've won twice. You're set for life. The trauma is for life too." he adds.
Gihun scoffs, his disgust seeming to mold into outrage.
"I don't even wanna touch those money!" he snaps.
The other man blinks at the confession. Words from their early conversation in the games trickle faintly into the back of his mind, he mentioned the money belong to everyone who died, something Frontman wrote off because he can't even fathom any other winner saying this and meaning it. If he wouldn't know any better, he'd say this is some kind of disorder too.
"Its called selflessness. Can you stop provoking him?" Young-il says internally.
"It sounds more like stubborn brattiness to me." Frontman thinks back in response.
Young-il only scoffs, the gesture so similar, its like they're made for each other.
"That's called PTSD." Frontman says out loud to Gihun, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt and place this stubborness on the trauma. "I'm not about to explain PTSD to you, but you won't heal by hoarding the money." he says. "Its the same way I can't un-split just because there's no more games to run, it doesn't fix anything." he adds. He picks back up his own glass, some traces of whiskey at the bottom.
'...un-split?" Gihun frowns, the word spoken quietly.
Frontman presses on the glass in his hand, careful enough to avoid hurting the body, but hard enough to hear a crack. A long stripe appears into the glass, and he settles it back down.
"This is our brain, in comparison." he says, looking at the split glass. "Its still one glass, but when too much trauma pressured on it, the glass cracked and split as a way to remain whole, survive. Every split we have is one person. Every one of us is different. I'm Frontman." he says, looking towards Gihun. "You know Young-il, he's the one who talked with you earlier about people in his head. There's other people here, but I can't speak for them and you mostly usually talked with the two of us." Frontman says. "It's a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder, developed in childhood when I assume something terrible happened to us. Our brain learned to split to survive, and it keeps doing it when we encounter new trauma. We're all different identities, people. We're all different people, and you've been talking with all of us for a while. And its safe to say we all feel differently about you...and your...heroic saviour needs." Frontman adds, giving Gihun an up and down look. "But Young-il likes you, this has kept you alive more often than you may realize." he says.
"Stop scaring him, please." Young-il says internally.
Frontman hesitates, giving Gihun a moment to process the words.
"...so what you're saying is...Young-il wasn't just...an act you put on? To mess with me?" Gihun asks.
Frontman opens his mouth to answer, but words come out before he's ready.
"It wasn't! We played the second game together and Mingle, I shot those guards in the rebellion–" Young-il says out loud in a gasp before he feels himself slipping front.
Frontman blinks a few times in annoyance.
"He...Well, he said it. He's here actually. He can take over just like I can. We switch with each other to use the body, sometimes we can get triggered in the body, but usually- " he emphasizes "we have manners. And wait for the other one to finish talking." Frontman says, throwing a glare towards Young-il.
"...sorry." Young-il says inward, beaming with excitement and sounding anything but sorry.
Frontman shakes his head, already feeling the beginning of a headache, but Gihun's expression has changed too.
"...the rebellion." he says. "If you are different people, then that means...it wasn't Young-il who shot Jung-bae, was it? It was you." Gihun says, seeming to finally put the pieces together.
Frontman watches him carefully. That night felt like war. The bodies piled one after the other, the bullets seemed endless, they got so close...he couldn't do anything in or out of the body and in the midst of it, he worried for the one person he trusted the most on the island.
In the end, none of it mattered. That person could be dead right now anyway.
"It was me." Frontman admits. "You've killed several of my friends that night too. It seemed only fair that I kill one of yours." he states simply.
He picks up on how tight Gihun clenches his jaw.
"Jung-bae wasn't one of those sick squares–" Gihun bites out.
"I don't feel bad for it." Frontman cuts him off, and as soon as the words leave his lips, he realizes its a lie. He liked Jung-bae. The man was funny in brief moments, at least liked him enough to save his life the day before pressing the trigger. He feels bad, but he'd rather take another split than admit any of it to Young-il's boyfriend. "You won't find sympathy with me." he adds. "I split to handle the games and protect everyone in our system. Your little killing spree that night put us in danger. You put a lot of people in danger, even outside our system. You might like Young-il and my god, he loves you a lot, but we're a package deal. You'll be speaking a lot more with me if you fuck us over." Frontman says.
He's not sure wheter this frustration is his, or a feeling bleeding through from Young-il, but the other alter looks annoyed.
"...sure. Ruin my chances with him, real nice. You're like a love repellant." Young-il grumbles, so quiet he almost doesn't pick out on the words.
"I'm merely giving him a warning–" he thinks back right when Gihun starts speaking externally.
"...and Young-il lives with you? In his head? Daily?" Gihun asks, wording it as if he can't imagine a worst possible hell. Its a clear subject change from the rebellion, but he doesn't look ready to talk about it more.
He opens his mouth to answer, but Young-il's voice comes out again.
"Exactly, we actually had a fight earlier today!!" Young-il confirms out loud.
Frontman waits to see if he has anything more to share about their personal life before speaking again.
"We don't always get along." Frontman says.
"...sounds like an understatement..." Gihun intervenes.
"...and there's a few more of us, everyone has feelings and wants and needs, but we do our best. I wouldn't be talking to you right now, if I wouldn't...care about Young-il." he adds and almost wishes Young-il would have one of his blackouts instead of sitting so close to him. It feels like telling a sibling you mildly tolerate them. The other alter rests his chin on Frontman's shoulder.
"I wanna take over and talk to him, please." Young-il says.
There's so much Frontman feels he should still explain, but at least they don't have to mask anymore. Maybe its enough for one day. He lets the switch happen without forcing it, and he's suddenly in the inner world, blinking a few times to adjust.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Young-il shakes his head softly to adjust to the body again. He's not used to so many switches, and the dissociation hangs over him like a heavy cloud, but Gihun knows. He knows and there's no going back now. He knows about them. He knows about him.
"...Young-il?" Gihun's voice echoes with his name.
He hasn't heard him call him by his name in so long.
"Its me..." Young-il says sheepishly, looking at him with his familiar eyes. "I wanted to tell you, Gihun, I wanted to tell you every day, but I can't...when other people don't agree, I can't go over them." Young-il says.
"Hey." Gihun breathes out softly, shaking his head at him. "Its okay. I never heard of this disorder before, but...I'm not mad. We'll handle it together." he says reassuringly.
Young-il feels the need to both cry and laugh at the same time.
"You're only gonna get inconsistency with us..." he complains, finding it so unfair to him.
"Young-il. I love you. And I like a challenge, I wouldn't have survived so long if I didn't." Gihun says and the words feel like their own safety net.
Young-il responds without needing any words. He wraps his arms around Gihun, and takes in his scent, his body against his own safely.
He knows and he's not mad.
It got a bit too sweet towards the end, didn't it? Please let me know if you enjoy this. Squid System is basically Inho with DID and is something I've been thinking about for a while now. I love them with their dynamics and personalities, they can push on each other a lot, but at the end of the day, they only got each other...and now they got Gihun too. I need more people to talk to about them, I even thought about opening a Discord specifically for them, but haven't done it yet, genuinely don't know if people would be interested. And I would post it to AO3, but I'm too scared of the AO3 thing. But yeah, anyway, hope it was fun!!
