Archive of Our Own

Gi-hun never thought about his soulmate before.

When he was a kid, soulmates were all the talk. Kids were taught the concept of soulmates before they were taught how to read, girls would whisper in the school hallways about their fantasies of being soulmates with celebrities, and may god help those who found their soulmate, because their entire life was suddenly the talk of the town. No matter how big the town is, by the way.

Physical touch is manually taught to everyone and highly encouraged. Since the soulmate bond can easily bypass clothes, strangers pass by and tap others all of the time. Boundaries are taught too, but when you’re walking outside, you can get poked quite often. If the stranger is shy, that is. If they aren’t, well…

Some people look for high fives, some people intentionally bump shoulders, some grab others forcefully and harass them while using soulmate finding as an excuse. Some people are not shy and feel entitled to the right to touch others, if they might be their soulmate.

Gi-hun hates physical touch.

He didn’t have an aversion to it before, hell, he was one of those people who shook others’ hands on the street without any shame. If he needed to ask anyone for anything, he’d tap on their shoulder first before speaking up. He used to be hopeful.

It wasn’t like he fantasised about soulmates — quite honestly, he didn’t care for it. He just wanted to look for them because, why not? It was a fun gimmick to think about, he was less attached to the idea of a relationship or who his soulmate might be. And who knows, maybe they were one of those really excited but shy people, and he would’ve saved them from never finding their soulmate. Life is unpredictable.

But, he’s been isolated for years. Slowly growing a discomfort to touch. And other people in general.

He’s been alone, and he’s long since forgotten about soulmates all together. Ever since he started to pursue the games, that is.

Who cares about being able to share yourself with someone else. He wouldn’t want to have his soulmate carry all of his baggage anyway. They didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. No, he would be himself and himself only. He was plenty enough to deal with as is.

And, really, it was quite unrealistic to think that he would find them anyway. People pass by their soulmates all the time and just… Never meet. It’s the most expected outcome. In some places, between betting on seeing a soulmate pair walking around with your own two eyes, and buying a lottery ticket — you’d have better luck with the lottery ticket.

All of this to say, he was really not prepared for when he would return to the games.

In his first time being here, he was the same as he was most of his life. Used to touch, used to asking for handshakes or physical contact in case of anything.

But now he was definitely not. And walking around a dormitory with over 400 people was not the experience he was prepared for. He was prepared for shots to be fired, he was prepared to aim and cover. He was not prepared for all of the subconscious grazing of fingers on the green fabric of his tracksuit, he was not prepared to refuse people’s harmless requests to touch, and he was not at all prepared to see Jung-bae of all people. The most handsy person Gi-hun knows, which is saying a lot.

Quickly, on the first day, he learned how to avoid physical contact all of the time: Express distaste at any show of contact immediately and sharply, glare at everyone, and maintain his distance.

That strategy worked well. So well in fact, that even Jung-bae — the one who slung his arms around anyone out of habit — learned to tone it down and stay in his lane.

There was just one person who kept testing his limits…

Oh Young-il.

Gi-hun was looked at like an insane person. Someone who didn’t have all of their gears in check. And that, honestly, was warranted. He hadn’t checked his gears in a few years, and they’re not exactly shiny and new. So people avoided him, mostly. This plain refusal of touch was just another factor that made him “crazy”, everyone kept their distance naturally.

But Young-il? Young-il didn’t care for the walls Gi-hun put up. Young-il tried to lean in, always. Young-il stayed by his side all of the time, never close enough to brush hands, but close enough that he could feel the man’s breath tickling his back.

It was unbearable. The man was just barely pushing Gi-hun’s boundaries, without necessarily breaking them, and it was driving him insane.

This constant feeling of unease, feeling on edge while blindly trusting that that edge won’t be crossed. But hell, if standing at a cliff side feels like this, he’d rather just take the plunge and fall. Just to put an end to the uncertainty.

And yet, Young-il died, pushing Gi-hun to safety and taking the deadly way down himself.

Gi-hun never thought he’d wonder what a person’s touch felt like, only after it was too late.

He was in the elevator, heading up to the Frontman’s headquarters after being called there by the man of the hour. A storm was brewing in his head. He didn’t think his heart was able to pump out blood in such a raging rhythm. His nerves were firing off like lightning, yet he stood as still as a statue, glared as sharp as a sword, and stayed rooted to the ground.

The elevator doors slide open, and a decently lit hallway greets him. Colored in various shades of gold and orange, coupled with a sleek, polygonal dark look. At the end of the hallway sits the Frontman, crosslegged, mask adorned on his face and a coat hanging off of his frame. Across from the man is a wooden chair, barren and empty.

Gi-hun clenches his jaw, taking careful, measured steps forward as the man sits inhumanly still on his cushy leather armchair.

Gi-hun often wondered just about what kind of coward was behind that mask. He’d entertained many ideas; maybe the man was some sick bastard who enjoyed watching people suffer, but didn’t have the guts to go out there and bleed out dry himself, deciding to bet on people instead. Maybe he was treating this like an extremely well-paying office job, running the games in a strictly calculative way.

He’d thought of the idea of the Frontman being soulmates. A pair, if you will. Pairs are technically not registered as a separate entity in legal documents, even if the two people making up that person decide to live their lives as one (which is extremely rare, hence why it’s never been made an official thing. But it’s not impossible). Soulmate pairs are hard to track, hard to recognize, hard to hurt in any way. Pretty perfect for a job like this.

But those were all just theories at the end of the day, pure speculation. He would never know, unless he gripped that mask with his fingers and shoved it off on his own.

Gi-hun stopped in his step next to the chair, off to the side of the table that sits in front of it. Stubbornly refusing to sit down. If it meant that he could tick the Frontman off even somewhat, he’ll try anything.

“Player 456.”

The suppressed shiver that runs down Gi-hun’s spine is involuntary. He never did get used to that modulated, detached voice referring to him as a player, a number. It was uncomfortable, and wrong, and sickening. Gi-hun stayed silent.

“Sit down, this may take a while.” The voice doesn’t sound commanding, which almost makes Gi-hun quirk an eyebrow.

He’s surprised by the suggestion, and even more surprised that it is a suggestion. Just that. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s so unlike the image Gi-hun had of the man before him that he stutters in his thoughts and almost sits down on instinct. He catches himself last second, scowling at the man instead.

The Frontman lets Gi-hun have this little reign of rebellion in the action (or, lack of action, to be precise), instead continuing in his speech “This concerns your future, and the baby’s.”

“Did we even have a future to begin with?” Gi-hun responds with a bite to his words. It was an automatic response, an impulsive thought that Gi-hun gave in to, just to see if he could breach the skin of the man before him with his tongue and draw blood.

He needed to see the damn bastard. This man, who’s hiding behind his suit and mask like a child hiding behind their mother’s leg. He needs to learn that it’s futile, that there is no one for him to hide behind. He needs to take responsibility, he needs to show his face so that Gi-hun can paint it in various hues of purple and red with his fists, confident strokes and stark gradients, like you would a painting.

Gi-hun still refuses to sit down, the Frontman must see that nothing he does will shift Gi-hun off of his standing position, and gets straight to the point.

The man reaches somewhere Gi-hun can’t see and Gi-hun tenses, one leather shoe scraping against the squeaky clean floors. His heart starts beating just a touch faster, and doesn’t calm down even when an item is pulled out and placed on the table. The Frontman’s pitch black gloves retreat, showing no indication of violent intent, and set themselves on the armrests of his chair.

“Take it. Kill all of the trash down there and save yourself and the baby. The game can’t be played with only two people.” the Frontman explains, resigned and flat. Not shifting a single centimeter in his armchair.

Taking a glance down at the table — which was supposed to sit in the middle of the both of them, but is now awkwardly placed at Gi-hun’s side — he sees that the item the Frontman placed before him is a sheathed knife. Covered in a black casing with gold accents and swirls.

Gi-hun’s scowl deepens. This man is surrounded by leather, leather, leather. Hugged from all directions in the expensive material. And he’s handing Gi-hun a knife like it’s some cheap excuse for a moral act? How does he have the guts to do that?

“Is this some form of pity?” Gi-hun asks bitterly.

That seems to stall the Frontman, if the sudden silence is anything to go by. Like he hadn’t expected such a response. Gi-hun resists the urge to bite out a laugh into the quiet, lips pursed tightly, holding back the string of curses and various sounds that might slip out if he isn’t too careful.

“I am not pitying you, Player 456, I’m offering help.”

This time, Gi-hun can’t help the quiet, breathy chuckle he lets out. His head drops down to hide it (unsuccessfully), almost as if he’s ashamed of himself. No, he can’t be ashamed while in front of this man, someone who has (quite literally) haunted his nightmares. Gi-hun lifts his head up, letting his lips go back to their tightly clipped frown. Careful to make sure he can step away if need be.

“And why would you do that?”

The Frontman, who has been staring up at Gi-hun this entire time, doesn’t contemplate for long before he lowers his head. Gi-hun stays rooted to the ground, breathing in a steady rhythm, until the Frontman’s hands suddenly come up to remove his hood.

Gi-hun’s mouth goes bone dry at what’s happening. The Frontman is taking off his hood, reaching for his mask, and unclasping it. For a split second, his heart stops in anticipation.

This was someone he has dreamed about. Someone who had tormented him for years. This was the one who orchestrated the deaths of so many people and likely watched them just for the sake of it. This was the Frontman. And Gi-hun was about to see his face. It was a bone chilling sort of excitement, like looking up from the top of a rollercoaster and knowing that soon, you’re going to plummet down.

The mask goes down, and boy, does Gi-hun plummet.

Out of all things he might’ve expected, Young-il was not one of them.

His jaw goes slack, eyes darting from one feature of his face to another, and another, just to make sure that this isn’t another trick. That this was real.

The man who had died for his cause, someone who he considered a friend, is the same man who is sitting in luxury in front of him? The one who he had talked to late into the night, the one who smiled brightly at him as their team laughed at stupid jokes, the one who he had avoided touches from, the one who always stubbornly fought his reason, and yet came to fight for his reason. This couldn’t be the same man Gi-hun knew.

But then the Frontman lifts his cold, dark, lifeless eyes, and Gi-hun realizes in a raging revelation that he never really knew the man at all.

His body dives forward before his self restraint can catch him. He needs to restrain, he needs to trap. He needs to still the man before him and beat him to bits. He needs to scream at him. He needs to know why he did this. Why he lied to him.

His hands find the Frontman’s gloved ones on the armchair, and he clasps them, hard.

His vision cuts out, and a guttural scream tears through him.

His hands, his hands- the leather. The leather of the gloves pierces through him like spikes. The strings which are holding the fabric together unravel and pierce through him like a thousand needles. They crawl into his hand, branch out like a second set of nerves. The fabric pokes at his bones, and the leather splinters and cracks inside his flesh, pinching him from the inside a million times.

And on top of it all, he feels the second pair of hands. He feels their skin becoming one with his, the nerves in their fingers wrapping around his in a tight embrace before melting together. He feels what they feel in his fingertips which shift and turn as he breathes.

He screams, feeling how his throat scrapes and scratches at the sudden and unwelcome sound. Tears cloud his vision, and he instinctively tries to pull away, pull apart, away from the pain. Yet it only drags the intrusion inwards, inflaming the pain tenfold. All of the small pieces clutch at him like they can’t let go anymore. It’s thoroughly rooted inside his hand, like a nasty infection, or a horrible parasite.

Gi-hun’s knees nearly buckle from the sheer intensity of the initial shock. He realizes that he’s heaving now, not screaming. Like he doesn’t have it in him to scream any more. His mouth had simply fallen open and refused to let out even a breath. Silently choking on the ache.

Someone else is breathing heavily with him, only when Gi-hun notices this does he remember where he is.

His head lifts, with his hands still glued to the armchair (he can’t feel his fingers oh god he can’t feel any of it it hurts it hurts it hurts-), and he meets the face of Young-il again. The Frontman’s eyes are wide, his brows twitch ever so slightly, and his entire body shakes. Like a stunned, hurt animal, fighting to stay still and appear bigger than it is.

Even through Gi-hun’s teary vision, the display is pathetic. The Frontman opens his mouth, but what comes out is nothing, not even air. His teeth clatter and lock back into their closed position. He’s gritting his teeth. Hard.

The Frontman’s eyes are locked onto his face, while Gi-hun’s eyes dart all around, studying the rest of the man’s frame. There’s not much new to say, he still wears the Frontman’s attire, a body covered in perfectly fitting black, until he gets to his hands.

… Their? Hands??

The sight that greets him is unruly. Gi-hun only felt pain in his palm, which reached out to cover the surface of his hand, and now, it’s a powerful buzz constantly thrumming without stopping. It gets drowned out in the background.

But what he's experiencing looks way worse.

The hand is twisted, pushed as deep into the armchair as it can be pushed. The fingers meet the side of the armchair in an unnatural position while two thumbs poke out of one hand, ugly and uneven at each side. Not only that, but the state of their skin is atrocious. The dark fabric deep inside paints little dots on the skin, never breaking it, just sitting right beneath the surface. It looks sickly. If he were to grab a scalpel and forcefully dig in, would he be able to grab a string and pull, until it all comes out?

Gi-hun brushes the thoughts away, when a new, way more pressing thought makes a home in his head. Screaming and shouting until his vision spins and his ears ring. 

He found his soulmate.

The Frontman is his soulmate.

…

Is soulmate fusion supposed to hurt..?

Gi-hun has heard many stories about soulmates. He was forced to read articles about them in school, and in his work life he always heard passing conversations of soulmates. Nevermind him doing his own personal research on the matter.

Never in his 50 years of life had he ever heard of soulmate fusion being painful.

Maybe he wasn’t looking in the right places, maybe he wasn’t diving deep enough, maybe he was just blind to the world or something — but he didn’t know of anyone who experienced pain while fusing, especially partially fusing.

The bond didn’t care for clothes, you could wear a million things and you’d still be able to fuse no problem. Entire studies were done on the topic. No one had any complaints. Yet here, through one layer, just gloves, Gi-hun was panting and non-stop crying. He hadn’t felt such physical pain since 2020, and that was overshadowed by a different type of pain anyway.

Right now, the physical overshadowed the emotional. He felt… Stunted. Stuck in survival mode without a real threat coming to get him. He hadn’t even fully registered, hadn’t fully grieved the loss of who he thought was a friend.

His eyes catch the Frontman’s again. The man hadn’t stopped looking at him for even a second.

The Frontman's eyes were less wide, a little shinier, but otherwise calm. His breathing was evening out as much as it could be through gritted teeth. And he stopped shaking. This must be as painful for him as it is for Gi-hun, fusion and all.

He gets back to his senses, and tries to pull away again. Soulmates can pull in and apart at any given moment, at any given time, no matter what. And yet, when Gi-hun tries to pull apart, the only thing he triggers is the dangerous poke and pinch of the fabric inside him.

His face drops and scrunches in pain, and he hears the Frontman inhale sharply. This wasn’t typical. No, not even that— this wasn’t normal. This didn’t just happen.

This wasn’t about statistics or likeliness, this was about how things worked period. Soulmates can unfuse at any given time. Hell, some people completely miss their soulmate because they just fuse through them and move on like nothing happened. Being… Stuck, wasn’t something that was supposed to be possible.

Unless.

Gi-hun’s eyes dart onto the Frontman, his face forming a scowl. His teeth grind together in an attempt to not let out a pained whimper as he opens his mouth.

“Let go.”

He says it coldly, but his voice wavers and shakes at the edges. Unstable with the consistent thrum plaguing his brain.

The Frontman’s eyebrows knit together, his eyes darting from side to side, looking at different parts of Gi-hun’s face (he’s so much more expressive when he’s in pain-)

“What?” The Frontman exhales shakily.

Gi-hun tenses up, he feels it intimately in his knuckles. They ache. It’s not the amount he’s used to.

“Let. Go.” He says through gritted teeth. Trying to pull away again, to no avail. The hurt aches beautifully now that he knows the Frontman feels it too.

The man in question lets out a tiny sound — one akin to a hiccup — at the sudden pull. His eyes finally brim over with tears, letting one slide down his cheek. He breathes heavily to hide the embarrassment. Gi-hun wants to rip him open, and let more of those salty tears spill.

“What are you talking about?” The Frontman responds in a carefully composed tone.

Gi-hun could laugh, he doesn’t. “I want to let go, you’re not letting me.”

The Frontman looks down for the first time since pain blinded Gi-hun’s senses, he must’ve noticed the current predicament they’re stuck in. Their disfigured hands, held tightly together by a bond that they didn’t know they shared.

Gi-hun feels their hands being pulled to opposite sides, and he lets out a yelp. Biting down on his tongue to keep from screaming again. He pushes them back down onto the armchair harshly and suppresses a smile when he hears a wince from opposite him.

“I can’t.” The Frontman says whilst staring down like he doesn’t believe it.

Gi-hun blinks twice, mulling over the sentence. He doesn't realize as he starts shaking his head. “No, no you’re lying. You’re the one who’s doing all of-” a shaky inhale “all of this.”

The Frontman’s eyes dart upwards towards Gi-hun’s again, “Gi-hun, I’m not the one doing this.” his eyes sparkle with hopelessness (as it always did, really), his slightly open mouth looks like it wants to admit fear, but his sharp features and his clad uniform makes him on top of it all. His mouth clicks shut.

Gi-hun tries to find a lie in the Frontman’s eyes, tries to see a flaw somewhere in his facade where he didn’t see it the first time. But he sees nothing. Which, truly, could also mean nothing. He never saw through the man’s sharp eyes and cool gaze beforehand, who’s to say he’s not still blind to it?

The Frontman swallows, acting almost careful with what he's saying, “That doesn’t matter, we need to fix this.”

What a calculative, conniving piece of shit. Of course he doesn’t care for the reason, he doesn’t care for any reason. Reasons don’t concern him. Numbers concern him. Results concern him.

Gi-hun wants to bash his face in, if not for their fused hands.

“Well then, what do you suggest we do?” He drones sarcastically. Entertaining the Frontman with a response, since he is also stuck in this situation himself, sadly.

The Frontman stays quiet. It isn’t uncharacteristic of him, now he just actually needs to think about what he’s going to say, instead of speaking off of a script. So much for his confident Frontman persona.

Gi-hun’s heart beats in his ribcage, and he thinks he can feel it pump blood into where him and the Frontman are connected. Are they sharing it? Does it keep going until it is in the other’s system irreversibly? Is the Frontman's blood the thing pumping in his ears, or is it just him?

“Come closer.” The Frontman commands.

“Why.” Gi-hun responds, without actually asking.

The Frontman stares at his slacks and takes his time to choose his words carefully, he must be used to doing that a lot. Not enough to avoid mess-ups though… Gi-hun still remembers the chill he felt when Young-il called him by his name the first time. How Gi-hun didn’t see the silent panic in the man’s eyes is beyond him.

Gi-hun blinks when The Frontman stares at him. The most composed he has been since the start of this ordeal. He straightens out on his armchair and speaks flatly, similar to how he did while he was behind the mask. The mannerisms make Gi-hun tense.

“We can’t break apart, so let’s fuse, completely.”

Gi-hun stares at the Frontman like he just grew a second head. “What?!” He shouts, much too loud, against his will.

The Frontman looks like he expected that kind of response, which is why he waited until it passed, then continued. “Trying the same thing again and again will get us nowhere. We need to exhaust all the possibilities.”

“And be..." Gi-hun shakes his head, trying to think of an accurate term to call whatever this bond is "-in there? With you? No way!”

“What other option do we have?” The Frontman — who demands authority with an iron fist and a steel tongue — lets a slightly pleading undertone bleed through his words.

It stalls Gi-hun enough to think. Really think about this.

They initially tried breaking apart, to no avail. They calmed down and tried to pull apart again, and the results showed the exact same thing. Absolutely no progress whatsoever. Hell, it seems to be binding them even more when they try.

They were already stuck in this. With nowhere else to go but forwards. They really didn’t have any other options.

Soulmates are supposed to be something special. They’re people who share everything, heart, body, and soul. No secrets are kept apart, and not even a single cell will be left unfused once a pair becomes one. It’s an impossibly deep and personal connection, rare in nature amongst billions of humans.

Soulmates who find each other are considered lucky. The better part of them spend the rest of their lives together, if not together together. They call each other their other half, the missing piece, their true love, even.

Gi-hun doesn’t think he’s very lucky right now. The Frontman is absolutely none of those things, and Gi-hun would much rather die than spend another second with the man. The Frontman cannot be his other half, or his missing piece, he’s more like the reason that that other half is missing in the first place.

So, he would do literally anything to get as far away from him as possible, to kill the guy, to make him stop the games (to change his mind), which means that, really, this is his only option. Unless he wants to somehow function without hands at the next game tomorrow.

An idea pops into his head, and he lets himself smirk slightly with it. He doesn’t want to listen to the Frontman, so he won’t.

Instead of responding with an acceptance or a decline, or a third option, providing a different answer — Gi-hun smiles in the Frontman’s face and stands still, until the Frontman’s gaze starts darting back and forth between Gi-hun’s eyes like staring at a gun that's pressed to your temple directly.

That’s when he strikes, and lets his knees give out, falling into the man.

Feeling the startled jolt of their hands before he goes under brings him a sense of satisfaction. The last thing he feels is warmth.