⏤ 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲
maybe i know somewhere deep in my
soul that love never lasts .
𖦹Ꜥꜥ ꧇ ⾕ ៸៸ ( 🚋 ،゛

SUK YUMI DESPISED THE HOSPITAL. NOT just in the ordinary way that people muttered about the smell of antiseptic stinging their nostrils or the relentless hum of fluorescent lights that flattened the world into pallid grays and greens. She hated it more deeply than the frustration of finding cafeteria coffee lukewarm or the ache in her tailbone from sitting too long in vinyl-covered chairs.

Her hatred was older, more corrosive, and less polite — something twisted up in her from before she knew how to spell "phlebotomy," before she learned how to interpret the low murmurs of doctors who thought their clipped tones would shield patients from grief.

Her hatred was born from knowing.

Not just understanding in a vague sense, but a lived, searing knowledge that burrowed into her marrow.

The hospital didn't merely house sickness; it consumed vitality and spat out absence. It didn't heal so much as shuffle the suffering from one sterile room to another, buying time at the cost of tenderness. Time was expensive. It accumulated debt as easily as snow piled on a slanted roof, silent and crushing. Time bought machines that beeped with purpose, chemicals in bags with names no one could pronounce, and specialists with clipped, efficient movements.

Time didn't buy reprieve, not really.

Not for her twin brother Yunho, who had been tethered to this institution since their childhood.

Yumi grew up in the halls of that hospital. She knew its rhythms and rituals better than her school's morning announcements or the names of her neighbors.

The elevator groaned between floors, sometimes pausing for no reason at all, as if hesitating to bear the weight of its cargo. Nurses' sneakers squeaked against linoleum, their voices pitched low in camaraderie or raised sharp in crisis. Machines hummed and ventilators hissed, and the faint echo of pain carried down its endless corridors, no matter how many times the janitors scrubbed at its walls.

Her twin suffered from advanced systemic scleroderma, a rare and insidious autoimmune disorder that wove itself into his skin, his organs, his blood vessels.

It wasn't a quiet invader; it announced itself with tightening skin, swollen joints, and the slow, relentless suffocation of his lungs. Doctors spoke in terms of progression, degeneration, and experimental therapies.

The words stacked like bricks, building a wall Yumi and her family had long stopped trying to scale. The diagnosis had come when they were eight, after months of puzzling symptoms and consultations with increasingly somber specialists. By ten, Yunho's world was measured in hospital visits and dosages.

By thirteen, he barely left his bed.

Their parents had tried, at first. They really had. Her mother's hands once smelled of lavender soap and flour, and her father's voice used to rumble with bedtime stories. They had fought for Yunho, scouring the internet for clinical trials and second opinions, trading vacations and hobbies for sleepless nights and medical bills.

But debt is corrosive.

It strips people of their patience, their softness.

It replaces hope with resentment.

By the time Yumi was sixteen, the lavender soap had been replaced by raw hands, cracked from scrubbing dishes at the diner. Her father's bedtime stories turned to terse exchanges over past-due notices. The hospital was a black hole, sucking in their money, their energy, their ability to dream of anything beyond the next payment.

They no longer saw Yunho as a boy fighting an impossible disease. He became a ledger entry, a balance never in their favor. Her mother once whispered to Yumi, tears brimming in her bloodshot eyes, "Why is he still here? It'd be easier if he..." She hadn't finished the sentence, but Yumi understood. The thought hung heavy in their house, like mildew that couldn't be scrubbed away.

Yunho, of course, noticed. He was sharp in a way that made his exhaustion all the more tragic. "They're waiting for me to die," he told Yumi one afternoon. His voice was matter-of-fact, as if commenting on the weather. His hands, thin and pale as paper, folded neatly over the blanket that covered his legs. "It's okay. I get it."

"Don't say that," Yumi snapped, though her voice lacked conviction. She perched on the edge of his bed, one foot propped against the wheel. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and the overly sweet artificial lemon of industrial cleaners. She stared at the IV line snaking into his arm, the clear liquid dripping with an unnerving patience, as if even time itself had learned to tread carefully around him.

"You know it's true." Yunho's eyes were sharp, though his body had long since betrayed him. The scleroderma had wasted his muscles, tightened his skin until it shone taut over his bones. His cheeks hollowed in a way that made him look older than their sixteen years, like someone had pressed fast-forward on his body while his mind remained painfully aware of every moment.

Yumi swallowed hard, biting back the words that clawed at her throat. She wanted to scream at him, to rail against the cruelty of it all.

But she couldn't.

He was right.

Yunho's room was on the fourth floor, tucked away at the end of the hallway. It wasn't much, just a bed, a chair, and a window that overlooked the parking lot. Yumi spent hours staring out that window, watching cars pull in and out, wondering about the lives of the people who came and went.

She envied them, their ability to leave, to return to homes that weren't saturated with the weight of impending loss.

"What's it like?" Yunho asked one day, his voice thin but steady.

"What's what like?" Yumi turned from the window to face him. He looked even smaller than usual, swallowed by the sterile white sheets and the machines that flanked his bed like silent sentinels.

"Being out there. Living. Like... really living."

Yumi hesitated. She wanted to tell him it was amazing, that the world was full of wonders waiting just beyond the hospital walls. But she couldn't lie to him. Not Yunho. "I don't know," she admitted. "I guess it's... messy. People rush around and complain about traffic. The air smells like gasoline. It's not as great as it looks from here."

Yunho's lips twitched into a faint smile. "Sounds perfect."

Yumi's chest tightened. She wanted to give him the world, to trade places if it meant he could feel the sun on his skin or the wind in his hair. But all she could offer were these small moments, stolen fragments of a life that wasn't fair to either of them.

The days blurred together in a monotony of routines and check-ins. Doctors came and went, their expressions carefully neutral as they updated her parents on Yunho's condition. Nurses adjusted his medications, charted his progress, and offered strained smiles that never quite reached their eyes.

Their parents grew more distant with each passing day.

Her mother buried herself in work, taking double shifts at the diner to cover the mounting medical bills. Her father spent long hours in the garage, tinkering with old tools that didn't need fixing. They rarely spoke to each other, and when they did, their words were sharp, laden with unspoken blame.

Yumi became invisible in their grief, a ghost in her own family.

She learned to fend for herself, stealing moments of peace wherever she could find them. She read books in Yunho's room, letting the stories transport her to worlds far removed from the sterile confines of the hospital. She sketched doodles on napkins, leaving them on Yunho's bedside table for him to find. She didn't know if it helped, but it was all she could do.

Suk Yumi became Yunho's sole caregiver the day their parents walked out.

It wasn't a dramatic departure — no slammed doors, no teary goodbyes. Just a quiet, hollow moment when their father placed a stack of unpaid medical bills on the kitchen table, glanced at Yumi with a look that was equal parts sorrow and relief, and said, "We can't do this anymore."

Their mother had been packing a suitcase upstairs. By the time Yumi grasped what was happening, they were gone, leaving behind an empty house and an impossible weight.

Yumi was twenty, barely an adult herself, when the full responsibility of Yunho's care fell on her shoulders.

She dropped out of college without hesitation, leaving behind lecture halls and classmates who had always seemed so far removed from the reality she lived. Her days became a grueling routine of hospital visits, medication schedules, and endless phone calls to insurance companies that spoke in circles.

Nights were no easier.

Yunho's condition required constant vigilance — adjusting his oxygen levels, massaging his stiffening joints, holding his hand through episodes of pain so severe that he bit down on a towel to keep from screaming.

The bills piled up faster than she could count them. Each envelope brought another wave of dread, another reminder of how insurmountable their situation had become. Yumi took on any job she could find: waitressing at a 24-hour diner, cleaning offices after midnight, stocking shelves at a grocery store before dawn. She slept in stolen increments, her body running on caffeine and sheer determination.

When legitimate work wasn't enough, she turned to less savory options. She borrowed from loan sharks, their terms steep and unforgiving. The weight of their threats pressed against her like a vice, but she didn't care.

As long as Yunho had his treatments, as long as she could buy him a few more days, it was worth it.

The hospital staff knew her by name. Some admired her resilience, offering her weary smiles or slipping her extra Jell-O cups for Yunho when no one was looking. Others avoided her eyes, uncomfortable with the raw desperation she carried. They saw the toll it was taking on her — the dark circles under her eyes, the way her clothes hung loose on her frame, her shaking hands as she signed yet another consent form.

But none of them could do anything to ease her burden.

Yunho noticed, of course. "You're killing yourself for me," he said one evening, his voice a rasp that barely carried above the hum of the machines. His gaze was steady, despite the pain etched into his features. "You have to stop, Yumi. This isn't living."

"Neither is giving up," she shot back, her tone sharper than she intended. She regretted it immediately, but Yunho didn't flinch. He just sighed, a sound so heavy it seemed to drain what little strength he had left.

"I'm not asking you to give up," he said softly. "I'm asking you to let me go."

But Yumi couldn't. Letting go felt like betrayal. Letting go meant admitting that all her sacrifices had been for nothing. She clung to the hope — no matter how small, how fragile — that there was still a way to save him. She chased that hope with a ferocity that bordered on obsession, throwing herself into every possible avenue, no matter how implausible or dangerous.

In the end, it wasn't enough.

Yunho passed away on a gray morning in late August, at age twenty-five, his body finally succumbing to the disease that had consumed him for most of his life. Yumi was at his side, holding his hand as his breathing slowed, then stopped.

She whispered to him until the end, telling him stories about the places they'd dreamed of visiting, about the life they might have had if things had been different. When the machines went silent, she sat there for hours, unable to let go of his hand, unable to accept that he was truly gone.

The days that followed were a blur.

There was no funeral — she couldn't afford one.

She cremated him, keeping his ashes in a small wooden box that now sat on the shelf above her bed. The hospital bills didn't stop with his death. Neither did the loan sharks. Without Yunho to anchor her, Yumi drifted, weighed down by debt and an all-encompassing emptiness that made it hard to breathe.

She tried to go back to work, but the motions felt hollow. The jobs she had once endured for Yunho's sake now felt purposeless. She avoided the hospital, even though she knew she'd never escape its shadow. The very sight of its pale walls from a distance made her chest tighten, the memories threatening to drown her.

The life she had built around Yunho's care was gone, leaving her with nothing but the aftermath.

Debt collectors called daily, their voices cold and impersonal as they recited numbers that didn't feel real. The loan sharks weren't as polite. They came to her apartment, their presence looming and dangerous. She didn't know how to tell them she had nothing left to give.

And then there was the grief — a tidal wave that rose and fell without warning, dragging her under until she couldn't tell which way was up.

She saw Yunho everywhere: in the empty bed across the room, in the books he used to read, in the faint indent his wheelchair had left in the carpet. She spoke to him sometimes, her voice trembling in the quiet of the apartment. She told him she was sorry, that she had failed him. That she didn't know how to keep going.

The truth was, she didn't want to. Yunho had been her purpose, her reason to endure. Without him, the world felt hollow, stripped of color and meaning. She was drowning, not in water, but in the crushing weight of loss and debt and guilt.

And for the first time in her life, Yumi didn't have the strength to fight back.

The park was nearly empty at this hour, its silence broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves or the distant hum of traffic. Yumi sat on a worn bench near the playground, her legs pulled up to her chest. The swings hung motionless, chains swaying slightly in the faint breeze, and the slide gleamed under the soft glow of a single lamppost.

Once, this place might have been filled with laughter, the high-pitched squeals of children running and chasing each other through the maze of climbing frames.

Now, it stood abandoned, a hollow echo of its purpose.

The night sky stretched above her, a deep, velvety canvas scattered with stars. Yumi tipped her head back, letting her gaze wander across the constellations. They twinkled with a cold indifference, each one distant and unreachable.

Yet there was one — just one — that shone more brightly than the others, its light cutting through the darkness with a sharp, persistent clarity. She stared at it, her throat tightening. A tear slid down her cheek before she even realized it, warm against her chilled skin.

"Oppa," she whispered, the word catching in her throat like a prayer. "Are you watching me?"

The thought was absurd, but she clung to it anyway. She imagined her brother as that bright star, steadfast and unyielding, guiding her even now. The idea brought a brief flicker of comfort before it was swallowed by the gaping void his absence had left.

Her reverie was interrupted by the sudden appearance of two hands in front of her face. Startled, Yumi blinked and looked down.

The hands belonged to a man — a stranger — holding two objects: a piece of bread in one hand, and a folded lottery ticket in the other. She followed the hands up to his face and was met with an expression that seemed both amused and inscrutable.

The man was dressed sharply, his suit impeccably tailored, though it seemed oddly out of place in the park at this hour. His hair was neatly combed, and his eyes — sharp, calculating — bore into hers with an intensity that made her shift uncomfortably. There was something unsettling about his smile, a polite curve of the lips that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"What the hell is this?" Yumi asked, her voice flat, though her stomach betrayed her with an audible growl at the sight of the bread.

The man didn't answer. He simply gestured with the two items, his head tilting slightly as if inviting her to choose.

Yumi raised an eyebrow, scoffing. "Tssk." Her words dripped with bitterness. "Go bother someone else." Still, he said nothing. He held his hands steady, his expression unchanging. "Seriously?" Yumi asked, crossing her arms.

The man gave a small shrug, as if to say, 'Suit yourself,' but he didn't leave. He remained standing in front of her, the bread and the lottery ticket like scales balanced in his hands.

Yumi's patience wore thin. Her stomach growled again, louder this time, and she cursed under her breath. She hated this — hated the quiet judgment she felt radiating off him, hated the cruel game he seemed to be playing.

"Fine," she muttered. In one swift motion, she grabbed both items, yanking them from his hands before he could react. His expression flickered with surprise for just a moment before settling back into that infuriating smile. Without hesitation, she threw both the bread and the lottery ticket onto the ground, the bread landing with a soft thud, the ticket fluttering down like a wounded bird.

"There," she said, her voice rising. "Go find another homeless person to harass."

The man didn't move. He looked down at the discarded items, then back at her, his smile widening ever so slightly. For a moment, Yumi thought she saw something shift in his expression — amusement, perhaps, or maybe approval.

He crouched down slowly, retrieving the bread first. Then, with a deliberate motion, he held it out to her again.

"What is your problem?" she demanded, though her voice lacked its earlier conviction. Her eyes darted to the bread. Her stomach twisted painfully, a reminder of just how long it had been since her last meal.

The man gestured to the bread, his silent insistence maddening. Yumi hesitated. She hated him for putting her in this position, for making her feel like a charity case. But hunger was a cruel master, and pride could only carry her so far.

Slowly, she reached out and took the bread, her fingers brushing against his. She unwrapped it carefully, as if it might vanish if she moved too quickly.

The first bite was almost overwhelming. The bread was soft, its simple warmth spreading through her like a balm. She chewed slowly, savoring it, her eyes stinging with tears she refused to let fall. It might have been her only food for days, and she wasn't about to waste a crumb.

When she finally looked up, the man's hand was extended again. This time, it held the lottery ticket. Yumi's jaw tightened. She didn't want to take it. She didn't want to play into whatever twisted game he was orchestrating. But something in his expression stopped her. It wasn't pity or mockery; it was... expectation.

Against her better judgment, she reached out and took the ticket, her fingers trembling. The man nodded, his smile softening, and for the first time, Yumi thought she saw a flicker of genuine kindness in his eyes. She didn't know what to say, so she said nothing, clutching the ticket in one hand and the remnants of the bread in the other.

The man's hand emerged once again, this time holding a coin. It glinted faintly in the light of the streetlamp, a simple 10-yen piece. He gestured toward the lottery ticket still clutched in Yumi's hand, his meaning clear. Scratch it.

Yumi swallowed hard, her throat dry despite the bread she'd just eaten.

These tickets weren't new to her.

She'd seen them sold on corners, clutched in the hopeful hands of the desperate, the disillusioned, the delusional. The game was simple: scratch off three boxes. Three sevens meant a win, an impossible stroke of fortune. But lurking beneath one of those spots could be the image of a bomb — instant loss. It was a cruel design, like the universe itself had turned into a game, playing with hope only to dash it.

She had never won.

She took the coin hesitantly, her fingers brushing the man's cool, calloused palm. He stepped back, watching her with an unnerving calmness, his hands now tucked into the pockets of his tailored trousers. Yumi stared at the ticket. The cheap paper felt fragile between her fingers, yet its weight was suffocating. Her heart thudded in her chest, heavy and deliberate, as if mocking her.

She scratched the first box.

Seven.

Her breath caught. The bold, curving line of the numeral stared back at her, clear and undeniable. For a moment, hope fluttered in her chest, light and frantic. She shook her head, dismissing it. This was a trick, it had to be. The universe didn't deal her hands like this — not with everything it had already taken. She pressed the coin to the second box, her movements mechanical, and scratched.

Seven.

Yumi's fingers trembled. She blinked at the ticket, her vision blurring slightly, as if her mind refused to process what she was seeing. Two sevens. A sharp laugh bubbled up in her throat, bitter and incredulous. It was absurd, impossible. Her luck didn't work this way. Her life didn't work this way.

The ticket was mocking her, a cruel cosmic joke.

The third box remained untouched, pristine and ominous.

Her hands clenched around the coin, nails digging into her palm. She stared at the blank square, her mind racing. She already knew what it would be. A bomb. Of course, it would be a bomb. The universe had no mercy. She'd lived her life under its boot, crushed by its indifference, its relentless cruelty. Why should this be any different?

"Just scratch it," she muttered under her breath, her voice shaking. "Get it over with."

With a sharp exhale, she pressed the coin to the paper and scratched.

Seven.

Her hand froze. Her heart stopped. She stared at the ticket, her breath shallow and disbelieving. Three sevens. Three perfect, undeniable sevens. The impossible had happened. Her mind struggled to catch up, every synapse firing in disbelief. She glanced up at the man, her face a mask of shock and confusion.

His smile had widened, his expression one of quiet satisfaction, as if he had expected this outcome all along.

"Congratulations," he said, his voice smooth and measured. He extended his hand, palm up, and Yumi realized he was asking for the coin.

Wordlessly, she returned it, her fingers numb as she placed it in his hand. He tucked it away into his pocket and then crouched down, opening the sleek black suitcase he had carried with him. The metallic latches clicked open with a deliberate finality, and from inside, he withdrew a neat stack of cash, bound tightly with a red ribbon.

Without a word, he handed it to her.

Yumi hesitated, her hands trembling as she reached out to take the stack. The weight of it surprised her, solid and real, the edges of the bills pressing against her palms. She stared at the money, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Was this real? Was any of this real?

"You won the game," the man said simply, his tone almost gentle. He straightened, closing the suitcase with a soft click.

With that, he turned and began to walk away, his footsteps unhurried, echoing softly against the empty paths of the park. Yumi watched him go, her mind spinning. Her fingers tightened around the cash, as if afraid it might vanish. Then she noticed something tucked between the bills, just beneath the red ribbon. A small card, brown and unassuming.

She slid it out carefully, her brow furrowing. The card was embossed with three simple shapes: a circle, a triangle, and a square. Flipping it over, she found a number printed on the back, stark and black against the brown surface. No name, no explanation. Just a number.

Her stomach churned. Something about the card unsettled her, a quiet, insistent whisper at the back of her mind. Call it, the whisper seemed to say. She clenched her jaw, pushing the thought away. But even as she tried to dismiss it, her gaze lingered on the number, her fingers tracing its edges.

The park seemed to hold its breath, the silence pressing in around Yumi as she stared at the card. Her hands trembled slightly, the embossed shapes rough against her fingertips.

Circle. Triangle. Square.

Simple symbols that meant nothing and everything all at once. On the back, the number stared at her, a silent dare she couldn't ignore.

Her phone weighed heavy in her pocket. She had nothing left, not really. No dreams, no plans, no future to nurture like a fragile sapling. Everything she'd done, every desperate measure, every sleepless night, had been for her brother. And now he was gone, the center of her universe ripped away, leaving her orbitless, adrift. Her debts still haunted her like ghosts, her own body was stretched to its limits from years of working and starving, and the world continued on, indifferent to her existence.

Yumi pressed the numbers into her phone, each tone echoing too loudly in the stillness of the night. She hesitated over the final digit, her thumb hovering as doubt clawed at her. This was stupid. Reckless. Whatever this was, it couldn't lead anywhere good.

But what did she have to lose?

She pressed the last number.

The line clicked. No rings, no tones, just silence that stretched uncomfortably long. Yumi's pulse quickened, her breath shallow as she stared out at the empty playground, the bright star above seeming to dim in her peripheral vision.

Then, a voice.

"Hello," a man said. The word was polite, clinical, devoid of warmth. "Please state your name and birthdate." Yumi's throat tightened, and for a moment, she couldn't speak. Her voice felt caught, tangled in the web of her racing thoughts. The voice repeated, calm and unwavering, like it had all the time in the world. "Please state your name and birthdate."

Yumi swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "Suk Yumi. May 7th, 1998."

There was a pause on the other end, a pause that seemed to stretch for an eternity. Her grip on the phone tightened, and she glanced around the park as if expecting someone — or something — to emerge from the shadows.

"Thank you, Suk Yumi," the voice said. There was a faint shuffle of papers, or maybe static; it was hard to tell. Then, in the same calm tone: "If you wish to participate, please be at the following location October 31st at 6:00 PM" He muttered a location, "Do not be late."

Yumi's breath hitched. "Participate in what?"

But the line had already gone dead.

And as the night swallowed her whole, Yumi realized there was nothing left to fear. Not the darkness, not the debt, not even herself.

After all, what was more terrifying than a person who had nothing left to lose?

JEON SO-NEE  as  𝐒𝐔𝐊 𝐘𝐔𝐌𝐈

IM SI-WAN  as  𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐌𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐆-𝐆𝐈

━━ I ONLY OWN YUMI and anyone unfamiliar. i do not own anyone else.

━━ CH1 WILL START IMMEDIATELY in day one of the games, if u didn't read the prelude you'll probably be very confused why she's there. The prelude was her backstory.

━━ THIS STORY CONTAINS violence, explicit and suggestive language, mentions of death, and other mature themes. if you are disturbed by any of the topics said, i advise you to leave now and do not read any further. your health is more important that this book.

━━ DON'T BE A SILENT READER ! interact, comments and votes motivate me <3

━━ DEDICATED TO MY LOVES cobracade lukiite junebluesfever seokslvrr MegxPeg aztrcncmy Adeeluvsu loverayz saintmearies gentlebeastwp eluxcastar whimsywitchess dairology -CH3RRYC0SM0S drowningforreggie achilleias paIedeath (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

━━━ 𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆!

PUBLISHED 12.29.24
FINISHED 00.00.00

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍
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