systempoop😛

yeah hi I'm system she/her but I actually don't care

[systemm]

My laptop broke today🥲 gotta write lectures manually now(my professors speak at an indescribable speed idk how ill write it all with my idiot hands)

Kill me

[hwang-456]

seong gihun should be able to beat hwang inho without consequences if he wished to

[cotteafeline]

multiple times as well

[mr-stendahl]

With multiple tools too.

[systemm]

He might like it unfortunately

[systemm]

lowkey want to do inhun art requests(perhaps squid game in general at some point) 🤔🤔

my asks are open btw(maybe nsfw👀👀??)

[systemm]

doing face studies with inhun because I dont have time to do other stuff :'l

[systemm]

lmao is it too late to add that it's inhun because they're in an au where gihun survived and everything's good besides the fact that gihun still kinda hates inho(the hickeys are saying otherwise though)

listen im an artist not a writer so I won't develop much further as I would like so yeah

[systemm]

doing face studies with inhun because I dont have time to do other stuff :'l

[systemm]

maybe it's just a conspiracy but isn't it weird how just a week before everyone was theorising trumps death for kirk to take the bullet instead🤔

[systemm]

I was in a toxic yuri mood and decided that inhun needed a genderswap au yes they definitely needed that(please excuse me for really brute sketches but it's like 00:40 where im from I want to sleep but I got a splash of inspiration that I couldn't ignore)

I need to clarify just in case that inhocita is NOT touching gihuncitas boobs but art is up to interpretation right so think of it whatever you want😃

[yellowwwcrayon]

I want to write something in between S1 and S2 where Frontman calls Gihun with his voice filter on to warn him against further digging (AGAIN) when he's in the middle of a small emergency (like he accidentally spilled hot kettle water on a wall plug in the motel and start a fire), and Gihun's panicking so much that Inho immediate goes into first responder mode and talks Gihun through fixing the problem. And then, while he's covered in fire extinguisher foam with Inho on speaker, Gihun thanks him. It's an unconscious thing, but Inho's heart skips a beat and he hangs up abruptly.

It happens again, the next time he calls is when Gihun's being waterboarded by a busted toilet pipe. And Inho finds himself furiously googling how to fix things with Gihun clumsily describing stuff on the other end. It doesn't work. Gihun's pissed and hangs up on him this time. Masked Officer comes up a few hours later to find half of the Frontman's apartment flooded with water. Inho attempted to replicate the problem Gihun had and learn to fix it. He fails spectacularly and they have to call an actual plumber to his floor. Inho decides to send their plumber over to Gihun's motel.

The next time, Gihun calls him. It's a surprise. He's unprepared. Gihun's in the grocery store for the first time in months and he can't decide what to get. He's not hungry. He's been so obsessed with finding the Frontman's operation, he's neglected to take care of his body. So Inho talks him through selecting groceries, mostly based off of what he himself prefers. Gihun makes fun of his old man-esque choices, but Inho insists it's healthy, and Gihun needs all his health and strength to beat him, doesn't he? But then, when Gihun asks him why he's doing this, Inho can't come up with an answer and hangs up instead.

(Off to work, I'll add more later)

[yellowwwcrayon]

Ok, I'm back for some Part 2:

Gihun comes up with a new plan. Recruiter tells Inho over dinner one evening he's on the island. Inho feels that sick urge to call Gihun again. It's been almost a month since their last conversation. He's forced himself to stay away, only requesting essential updates from the employees sent to monitor the man. He hasn't figured out why he wants to talk to Gihun, so the best thing is to keep away. But he's drunk (Recruiter made him take out his best scotch), and the itch won't go away, so after dinner ends and he's all alone, he dials Gihun's number again.

It rings and rings. Gihun doesn't pick up. It goes to a robotic female voice of recording telling him to leave a message. He's disappointed until his cellphone lights up with an incoming call. Gihun's first words are to tell him not to call again. It clashes with Inho's question of "why didn't you pick up?" They both fall silent. And then Gihun says, "I was taking a shit."

Oh.

Well, he had a reason to call. Inho was supposed to give him the usual warning not to keep searching. So he does. Gihun ignores it again.

"Just tell me where the island is."

"And if I did, what would you do?"

"Come and stop the games."

"And kill me?"

There's silence between them for a few seconds. Inho flexes his hand restlessly and waits.

"It's not about you," Gihun finally says, "I need to stop the games and people from dying. That's the whole point."

"So you don't hate me?"

"No," There's confusion in his tone now. "I don't care about you. You're just a cog in the machine."

That dislodges a memory. His first meeting with his dead wife. She'd said something similar to him, in that same curt and dismissive tone, when she showed up at the police station to report a crime. He'd gotten her to marry him later.

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to hate you?" Gihun asks, "no, wait, I do hate someone. That recruiting guy you have running around the subway stations in Seoul. I hate him."

Inho laughs at that. "He's actually a really funny guy if you get to know him."

"I'd rather not."

"I'll let him know," Inho says, "I assume you will continue your pursuits despite my warnings?"

"And I assume you're going to keep calling me?"

"Good night, Seong Gihun-ssi."

[yellowwwcrayon]

the next time they talk, it's Gihun that's wasted. He can tell because Gihun is slurring his words. and it doesn't take long before Inho's intentionally leading questions move them away from Gihun's mission to more personal stuff. Except-

"What do you look like?"

It's a question he's not expecting. Gihun catches him off guard again.

"I mean, you know what I look like," Gihun says in the ensuing silence, "it's not fair."

Inho's brain is telling him this could be a trap, but part of him wants to walk into it, sprinkle some clues for Gihun just to see if he can pin him down.

"What do you think I look like?" The question comes out oddly intimate. He realizes it a beat too late. But it's out there already, hanging awkwardly between them like cigarette smoke in a still room.

He thinks he hears Gihun's exhale across the line. He probably is actually smoking. Inho waits.

"Tall," Gihun finally says, "and fit, probably."

There's amusement lighting up his voice now. He can see the man's face in his mind's eye so vividly. Inho's lips curl up in response.

"And handsome," Gihun added, "like that creepy guy with the ddakji. Am I right?"

"Maybe." He shouldn't say more, it could actually be dangerous, but Inho can't stop himself. "My wife said I looked like Lee Byung-hun."

"The actor?"

"Yes."

"Huh. That handsome?" there's skepticism bleeding into Seong Gihun's tone now. He's not great at keeping his emotions in check. it's one of the numerous things about him that fascinates Inho.

"And she's ok...with you running death games?"

His jaw tightens at that question. silence stretches infinitely between them until he finally says:

"She's dead, Gihun-ssi."

[yellowwwcrayon]

Gihun-ssi.

What had he used before? Seong Gihun. Player 456. A horse that one time in the limo.

something feels different. Gihun doesn't like it. he shouldn't have asked for a face behind the Frontman. It has become personal. he told Gihun he has a dead wife.

unless that had been a lie.

but Gihun has a gut feeling that had been one of the only truths between them thus far.

he’s so busy chasing various leads that he forgets. It slips his mind entirely for a day and he bolts up in the middle of the night, alone, tears wet and cold over his face, the faint lingering taste of his mother’s cooking echoing across his tongue.

he had forgotten to visit.

it wasn’t even the actual day she died. He didn’t know exactly when to happened. She had been all alone. In that tiny run-down apartment, probably thinking her son had finally died at the hands of his debt collectors.

he had made up that arbitrary time to go see her.

he-

Gihun scrambles up. It’s still pitch black outside. He collects some random items, food, alcohol, no flowers. All the shops are closed.

the drive up to the plot takes a few hours. It’s near-dawn when he gets there, and he stops in his tracks when he sees.

there are flowers (probably one or two days old) on the modest little stone plaque where he had laid his mother to rest. A vivid splash of color among the gray.

Gihun’s eyes sting.

there’s a card tucked in the bouquet. He doesn’t need to look to know who had sent it. He had a thing for sending Gihun flowers. Gihun still remembers that rose.

“why?” He asks when the man picks up on the second ring. “why would you do this?!”

he’s loud. The shout reverberates across the empty cemetery. His voice is shaking. Fury, grief, frustration, all mixed in a choking ball of heat throbbing in his throat.

“my condolences, Seong Gihun-sis,” is all the frontman says.

[systemm]

ghost gihun! au but there's no ghosts and it's just inho's guilt haunting him through various hallucinations of gihun that keep reminding him of his mistakes and motivating him to dismantle the games everywhere

aaand the actual reason inho gave up on the baby

[rhubarbspring]

miss ma'am...

[systemm]

geez I finished this round of applause because my spine hurts so bad now

not entirely satisfied but at least I've accomplished my self-proclaimed mission of making the reference from another piece of media (i hope it's obvious to guess to those who know the said media😢)

[systemm]

I dont know if it's a common fact/theory or if it was even mentioned somewhere but I'm half-asleep so can say what I want

I noticed something in the fact that inho wears a mask that obviously represents a human face, meanwhile everyone else in the system is either animalised (oh il nam, the VIPs) or completely dehumanised (pink soldiers, masked officer)

perhaps it shows that, at the end of the day, even if inho became a full member of their little organisation he's still not fitting in despite making the mechanism work (gathering VIPs, giving orders to soldiers)

maybe it's not even a fitting in problem but the fact that still, deep inside, he still has humanity left that is yet to be uncovered by someone(gihun), to the point where the mask represents the last anchor to what inho was once fully: a human and not a perpetrator of a destructive philosophy that he himself might not believe in eventually

final maybe weakest take because I'm really falling asleep and can't word my words properly is that his mask being human is, in some sense, a quiet protest against the VIPs (because I highly doubt that inho actually likes them) in a message similar to "yeah im smarter and superior to you dirty animals" who he definitely has to tolerate for some reason that I might have forgotten

yeah idk why I didn't wait the morning so that my thoughts could get clearer maybe i would just forget about posting this but whateva nighty night

[yellowwwcrayon]

Gihun-ssi = Gihussy?

[systemm]

perhaps a WIP, perhaps not..........

uni is in two week so it's either I'm finishing it in the span of this period or it's staying in drafts helpmeplease🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

[systemm]

it's actually horrible how similar s1 gihun was to daeho I'm dead serious WHY DO THAT TO ME

the way they both lost their closest friend in the games(saebyeok and jungbae) and had to fight their other closest friend (sangwoo and gihun himself)💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

you could say gihuns death began the moment he killed his past self in daeho and then in himself

[systemm]

@yellowwwcrayon perhaps the silliest quick sketch I've ever drawn aka sangwoo fighting against seagull!inho because sangwoo got the kindness to give a part of bread to a seagull (it was gihun)

the way I gave up on accuracy because I'm tired so I'm not ashamed yolo