Still a human
Ler!In-Ho Lee!Gi-Hun
A/N: ACTUALLY the one who inspired me to do this it’s my luv @letupabit 🫠 And her renting about intense tickles… It’s usually not something which I’m writing about but *this one* was a pure fluff and *this one* was intense but the whole plot and feeling description was like cotton candy (BTW!!! This “cotton candy one” is not only my fic ofc but it’s our legendary child of brainstorming with my darling @secretly-tword-obsessed WHO ALSO EDITED THIS CURRENT FIC FOR ME AGAIN 😭💔 GIVE THIS GIRL HER CREDIT PLEASE, SHE’S ONE OF THE SLAYEST PERSON EVER) AND I think the next after this one is gonna be pure fluff again (cause I have some idea AFTER ALL THIS TIME)
But I can’t fighting myself anymore I wanna write and post THIS… (and it’s still not the most intense tickling in the world and it’s not that intense as I expected according the idea but I’m still learning)
SO!!! I hope you’ve seen that backstage photos of LJJ in the frontmen’s suit (that was rude…) and remember how this shot which I pinned to this fic produced the theories about In-Ho’ll go to talk to him while everyone playing the game.
So this is my tickle-coded version of the plot where no one lets Gi-Hun to play the keys and knifes and he’s waiting for the Frontman will come and offer him to work together now… OR to force him 👀
Read this only if you don’t mind about the handcuffs and intense non-consensual tickles❗️❗️❗️
———————
It was all over. He lost three years ago when he was the last survivor and got all this bloody money. He lost a year after that, when he didn't get on that plane.
He lost a few days ago when he decided to return to the games. He’d rather die. In fact, he was already a living corpse, sitting here, on the floor, handcuffed to the bed, not saying a word in the last few hours. How humiliating.
That's all Seong Gi-Hun was thinking about, looking at the back of the last players who were leaving the room for a new terrible game. At first it seemed that only the lack of opportunity for him to vote was a sufficient humiliation and punishment, but it turned out that whoever was the host of all these games, he was clearly against the further participation of player 456.
Gi-Hun lowered his head. He didn't sleep that night. But neither did he think about anything instead. What was happening in his head could hardly be called thoughts. He tormented and gnawed himself from the inside. He hated himself, he hated his life, he hated these games, he hated this world.
Now it seemed that all this had reached its limit and Gi-Hun could hardly sleep properly, but his body still let him down, reminding him that he was still just a human being. So he couldn't tell how much time had passed before he heard how the front door quietly slid away. Gi-Hun opened his swollen eyes with difficulty and raised his head. He wouldn't be surprised if he saw the surviving players coming back. To be honest, he wouldn't be surprised at all. Never again.
EXCEPT by what he actually saw when the door was re-shut.
The Frontman walked straight to him. The knock of his heels echoed through the half-empty room and Gi-Hun was almost surprised at how quickly not only visual, but also auditory hallucinations overtook him. So that's how madness comes. Well, it's not surprising that it ended up happening.
The delusion came close to the bed, to which Gi-Hun was chained. And stopped, looking straight at him from top to bottom.
"Seong Gi-Hun?"
Gi-Hun forced himself to focus his gaze on the face hidden by a black mask. If now he saw hallucinations, why couldn't it be his daughter or Jung-Bae or at least Yong-Il, for whose death he for some reason blamed himself no less, although he had known him for a very short time? Why did it have to be the man he so desperately wanted to see and destroy every day for the past three years, the man who brought him nothing but pain?
"Seong Gi-Hun! It seems to me that yesterday our dialogue failed", the mechanical voice changed by the mask continued to speak. The hand in the black glove took out a small key from his pocket. Was it really the key to the handcuffs? Although it didn't matter. Gi-Hun didn't care at all.
“Are you ready to come with me? We definitely have something to discuss!”
Gi-Hun shook his head weakly, hoping that the hallucination would disappear, but that didn’t happen. The frontman just continued to stand there, seemingly waiting for his answer, before unlocking the handcuffs.
“You don't exist...”, said Gi-Hun, although after so many hours of silence these words were unexpectedly difficult for him to pronounce.
“In what sense?”
“If you had come to kill me, you wouldn't have done it yourself. You’d have sent your soldiers. You could have killed me yesterday, but you decided that that would be too merciful for a bastard like you. Why would you need to come here alone, and also to free me, without the protection of your faithful dogs? And you wouldn't call me by my name. Of course, it would not be difficult to know what my name is, but why would you make such a ridiculous gesture of comradery?"
“Because I want to help you”, The Frontman answered very simply.
“Help?!”, If Gi-Hun could still laugh, that's exactly what he would have done now. But it seemed he would never laugh again... How wrong he was, “Fuck you, leave me alone”.
“You are very rude to a person who REALLY wants to help, Gi-Hun...”
“But why would you want that?”
The frontman froze in place for a few seconds, (the room had become so quiet that it felt like a little longer). Gi-Hun could almost hear the Frontman contemplating his next step. And then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Gi-Hun watched how the frontman took off his hood, how he put his hands behind his head and unbuttoned the belts holding the sinister mask, how he squated down, finding himself on the same level with the former winner, and lowered the mask to the floor.
Young-Il and Gi-Hun silently looked into each other's eyes and Gi-Hun finally felt it. He realized that it wasn't a hallucination. And it was at this very moment that ALL his emotions suddenly returned to him at once. So abruptly and stunningly that there was too much to bear. He pulled back as far as those wretched handcuffs allowed and trembled, squeezing his fingers so that his nails painfully dug into his palms.
“My name is Hwang In-Ho”, Young-Il said calmly, not taking his eyes off Gi-Hun. “I don't want to kill you. And you don't want to die the way you think. I feel sorry for your friend. And everyone else. But it's not your fault. And it's not their fault. These are just horse races and they are just organized the way they are. And you are no longer a horse. You're human, Gi-Hun. You won't be able to be the same person as before. But you can do a lot more. Right now, I'm the only person who can help you, whether you want it or not!”
Gi-Hun wanted to say so much that in fact he couldn't say a single word. He just looked at the man whom he hated and had longed to kill for years - and whose death had killed him internally the day before.
“Come with me, Gi-Hun, we have a lot to discuss. But this is definitely not a conversation for this place. This room is no longer for you”.
In-Ho took off his gloves to let his fingers be more agile and unhooked the handcuffs from the bed, and for the first few seconds Gi-Hun just looked at him without even lowering his freed hand, only squeezing the iron beam of the bed instead. But after a few seconds he rushed forward, intending to cling to the frontman's neck. It didn't matter if Gi-Hun wouldn't have time to hear the Frontman’s last breath before the guards broke in here and finally shot him. That's the kind of finale Gi-Hun wanted.
However, the Frontman was obviously ready for this, and Gi-Hun was too weak and disoriented, so before he could jump to his feet, or at least knock the frontman to the floor with a quick push, he hit his back on the same bed to which he had been chained for the duration of the last day.
Waving his hands indiscriminately, Gi-Hun could not be stronger and faster than In-Ho, who was clearly ready for such a move, and after a few seconds the handcuffs clicked again, changing their position so that both Gi-Hun’s hands were directly above his head, bent at the elbows.
“Well, well...”, In-Ho sang with a voice of gloomy anticipation, in which something lese could be heard...disappointment? “I can't say that I didn't expect such a turn of events, but despite your broken state, you still have to be smarter than this! I am offering great prospects! I wanted to leave this for a more thorough conversation than now, in my office, but I can reveal the cards right now, if you're so stubborn! My recruiter is dead, as you know, and I need a new person for this place... You can go back to your normal life and visit the island only when you want too. Do you still believe in people? After everything you've seen and experienced?”
Gi-Hun didn't answer anything.
“Come on! You don't want me to use force, do you? I don't want to! But I'll just have to, if you throw yourself at me every time I open these handcuffs...”
Saying this, In-Ho seemed to have tried to sound soothing and even stroked Gi-Hun's shoulders, squeezing them with strong fingers. In fact, he would never have hurt Gi-Hun, and he didn't seem to be afraid of pain anymore. Gi-Hun was still breathing heavily after his failed escape attempt, but his face again did not express anything. It seems that In-Ho would even prefer to see hatred in him, but the eyes of player 456 were empty again, almost as if he was sleeping with his eyes open.
In-Ho didn't know what to do next... He would never torture Gi-Hun, despite his threats, he would have just called his soldiers to drag Gi-Hun away from here, but he didn't want to do that either... And then what? Gi-Hun HAD to follow him voluntarily. But this brooding face killed In-Ho and ruined his whole plan.
In-Ho once again squeezed Gi-Hun's shoulder, then shook it vigorously. Nothing.
“Gi-Hun?”
Nothing.
“Don't you want to talk to me anymore?”
Nothing.
In-Ho waved a hand in front of Gi-Hun’s face and didn’t get any reaction. He clapped suddenly, but Gi-Hun didn't even shudder. And then In-Ho remembered something...
A distant vague memory of how his younger brother refused to talk to him and the only thing that made him change his mind.
In-Ho slowly and carefully lowered his hands on Gi-Hun’s sides, just above the hip bones and squeezed them several times with force.
And Gi-Hun SQUEALED...
Well, thank God, there it is! It was that stupid that if In-Ho had thought about it for more than a few seconds, he would have blushed... No less than Gi-Hun himself.
In-Ho was DEFINITELY on the right track!
“What happened? No way someone's here is ticklish?” In-Ho grinned teasingly and if Gi-Hun wasn't so stunned and lost, he would be able to hear that the man's tone contained...relief?
“Ugh... NO!”
“No? Is that how it is? Okay, then you probably just squeaked for no reason when I did this-" In-Ho squeezed the same places again this time staying a little longer on the hip bone with one hand, while the second one was already crawling higher, scratching and climbing through his whole side.
Gi-Hun tilted his head back and laughed loudly with a high pitched laugh, rushing from side to side, despite the fact that the ruthless tickling from both sides at once deprived even this pathetic attempt of any meaning. In fact, to some extent this even made it worse, because it didn't escape In-Ho's attention.
“Where are you going? You're having so much fun, don't you? Such a sweet laugh! Don't you want to laugh so much after sitting here like a living corpse? We can delay our conversation and my persuasion for the sake of this!”
Gi-Hun could have expected anything, but NOT THIS... He tried to bite his lip, but it seemed that his nervous system, overloaded to the point of complete failure, made these sensations similar to electric discharges even more unbearable, so he had to abandon that attempt.
“DON'T!!! LE-HEHEHET ME GOOOHOHHAHAHA, YOU’RE SICK BASTAAHAHAHAHAHAHARD!”
“Already?? I let you go even before you got it, Gi-Hun, and what did I get as thanks? Now just be patient!”
“NohoooOOOOO”
“Oh-oh-oh... You sound very desperate, and it's just tickling!”
“SHUT UHAHAHAHAP!!!”
“Don't you like the way I talk to you? It's certainly better than your eternal silence! And what a good word, you just listen to how it sounds!! Tickle-tickle-tickle!”
Gi-Hun might have thought he had gone crazy yesterday, but it was only now that he had really lost it. He howled, screamed and, it seems, even whimpered, while frontman, (who was surprisingly very good at this), used all the existing tactics of tickling in the world all over his torso. It couldn't have been worse... At least until In-Ho decided to explore Gi-Hun’s belly. Taking advantage of the fact that the former winner could neither escape, nor try to push his hands away, nor cover himself, he began to dig all over its surface, bypassing only the navel (apparently deciding to leave it for later). In-Ho, to be very honest with himself, enjoyed every moment of this process. In addition, some techniques like light pinches sometimes did not work at all or worked worse than he would like. Although it was impossible to say for sure due to Gi-Hun's crazy laugh. However, as soon as In-Ho got tired of holding the T-shirt fabric with his fingers from time to time, instead of tracing the skin with his nails, he suddenly stopped, forcing Gi-Hun to cough from the sudden opportunity to breathe deeply.
"Oookay, let's lift this T-shirt! I think it's just getting in our way, isn't it?” In-Ho cooed in such a sweet voice that Gi-Hun trembled again.
"No need! NO," Gi-Hun whined, squeezing into the bed behind him with his whole body and choking on his own breath. It DID tickle, although right now no one was even touching him.
In-Ho, however, was only enticed by this. He laughed quietly and deeply, rolling up his T-shirt and exposing his trembling stomach and stick-like ribs (poor Gi-Hun... he surely hadn't looked this thin last time). In-Ho blinked quickly, surprised by this thought. Despite his... unusual activity, he actually did not like violence as such and never received pleasure from someone else's pain and suffering. The fact that now he really liked the way Gi-Hun's voice broke and trembled from such a simple and stupid thing as tickling was to say the least strange. He tried not to think about it.
"Well, how is that? Why not? I only propose to raise it a little while, and you already look like you're about to cry, like a little boy! What will happen when we take it off completely and it will also open your armpits? I dread to imagine!”
Gi-Hun closed his eyes and shook his head, either trying to let In-Ho know that he couldn't stand it anymore, or trying to shake all thoughts out of his head. To be honest, there were not so many thoughts there. Mainly - the thought of how stupid and pathetic he felt. Was he really about to cry from the light touches of other man’s fingers? How pathetic...
Obviously, closing his eyes was actually a big mistake, because a very slight, but very fast scratching on his now completely naked and defenceless belly was felt a thousand times stronger because of how suddenly it began. Gi-Hun arched his back, in fact only putting himself harder under his evil fingers because of this. In-Ho was too delighted not to voice it.
"What an amazing sensitivity, Seong Gi-Hun! You're just lucky that no one found out about it before me! Or do you consider it your omission? Are you bending towards me because you really want me to tickle you?”
It seemed that Gi-Hun was being tickled by even the word itself... He closed his eyes again and whined.
“Aaaww you poor ticklish thing! How hard it must be to handle my fingers on your tummy, right?” - hateful deep voice came to him
"THIS IS A TOHOHOHAHAHAHA... THIS IS A TORTURE AAAAAAAHAHAH", Gi-Hun shouted through a crazy laugh, twitching his hands so hard that the ringing of his handcuffs unpleasantly cut his eardrums.
“Torture?”, In-Ho raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about? You understand that I'm not doing anything that bad, right? Just checking your ribs! I can see them too well, by the way, you haven't eaten well these three years! Even this is a greater torture for your body than a stupid tickle!", saying this, In-Ho was really exploring Gi-Hun's ribs already, as if walking over them from the bottom up, and then from top to bottom, and then again... Lingering longer only on those ribs, which, in his humble opinion, made the former winner make especially loud sobs and funny sounds.
"PLEHEHEHEHASE!!”
"Oh, well, be quiet, quiet, Gi-Hun! What is it? What are you asking for? "Please" what? Please don't forget any of your sweet ribs? Don't worry, we will definitely pay attention to each of them! We won't miss a single one!” In-Ho spread his fingers so wide that each of them fell on the next edge and began to drill them so firmly that it was almost painful. Almost. Gi-Hun might even have preferred if it had hurt, but it was still just unbearably ticklish and did not cause any visible harm.
"I BEG YOU, AHAHAHAHA… ANYWHERE BUAAHAHAHAHAHT NOT THERE!!!"
“Does this man still think he can choose? Very nice, Gi-Hun! But since I checked everything here and you're asking so politely, we can try something new! For example, your knees are completely bored, right?"
Gi-Hun, who had just barely breathed into his burning lungs, while In-Ho gave him a little respite for the duration of this speech (which, by the way, did not help so much, because the residual laughter was still echoing on the walls of the room) groaned exhaustedly.
The moan turned back into a scream, then a laugh, when both of In-Ho's hands roughly squeezed just a little above the kneecaps and remained just like that, squeezing again and again, then higher, then lower.
"Wow, does it tickle here too? What a pity!"
All Gi-Hun had time to think of was that he really didn't expect that he was so ticklish even there and this thought made him absolutely horrified..
"Oooh, you're crying," In-Ho sang sympathetically, taking away one of his hands to wipe the tear in the corner of Gi-Hun's eye, "Do you want a break?
“Yes, PLEHEHEHEEEASE!!”
“And come with me? Do you want to stop it altogether and come with me?”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHSH NEVER!!!”
In-Ho raised an eyebrow in surprise again. Although in general, for so many years, he should have stopped being surprised by anything frm this person.. But he was still full of surprises... It would be so fun working together!
“Wonderful! To be honest, despite the fact that I should be disappointed with another refusal, in fact it is getting better and better! So you're ready for a new round? Maybe I should call the guards to help me?.. Unfortunately, I only have two hands, and you have so many sensitive places! To be honest, I didn't know that you and I would ever be in such a situation, but now I'm very interested in what will happen if I tickle you here at the same time" In-Ho ran his wriggling fingers on both sides at once, "and here" to the horror of Gi-Hun's hands met on his stomach again, "and pinch right here" a lot of fast-fast pinches fell on the slightly protruding thigh bones, again and left and right at the same time, "and squeeze these beautiful knees! When I do this, your laugh becomes so hoarse and more quiet! It seems because you're tired, but I think they're just no less sensitive, and it's hard for you to deal with it, no matter how hard you try to play the hero"
Gi-Hun dissolved in such a loud laugh that he could only be happy that the whole space of the island was so huge and that the players on the court couldn''t hear him now. Unlike the guards who were on duty right outside the door... God, PLEASE let In-Ho's threat just to call them be a joke! It would be too humiliating, but even that didn't matter compared to how unbearably ticklish it would be to be attacked by several pairs of hands at once. Maybe it was time to beg for real? But before Gi-Hun could at least try to shout a few words through his high laughter, In-Ho spoke again, drawing all the attention to his deep voice.
"Well, actually, it's all lyrics! If such a simple detail is added to all this in the same second! ... Oooh, I even almost sympathise with you!" A “simple detail” was the drilling of both armpits and Gi-Hun was afraid of it from the very beginning, but when the moment came, it turned out that no matter how he was trying to mentally prepare himself for it, he could not imagine HOW unbearable it would really feel... He swept in place, screaming, howling and sobbing, but not being able to do anything.
At the edge of his floating consciousness, the man noticed how a serious expression had returned to In-Ho's face and, without lowering his hands, raised his head, looking straight into the camera, obviously intending to carry out his plan... Even being a gambler in the past, Gi-Hun was too scared and exhausted to recognise an ordinary bluff in this gesture and threat. For In-Ho to allow some guards to share such an intimate moment with him in some sense? No way!
But Gi-Hun didn't know that. He didn't know anything at all, except how much he wanted to stop it all. So he gathered his strength to do the last thing that could save him.
"It's ENOAHAHAHAHUGH!!! HAHAHAHAH! StohoOHOHOOOOOP!!! NO MOOOOHOHORE!! I AGREE!!! I'LL GO HAHAHAHA! I’LL GOOOO!!!”
In-Ho's fingers (why were they even so dextrous?) Froze as quickly and suddenly as they started their work before.
"What did you say?"
“I'll gooho, I'll go!!! I'll do whatever you want, just don't do it anymore!!!”
“Well, what do we have here?...”, In-Ho blurred in a triumphant smile, which gave Gi-Hun an unpleasant taste of nausea in his mouth, “So simple! I'm impressed! Well..." the key rang in the Frontman's fingers and Gi-Hun’s hands fell helplessly, no longer attached to the bed. He couldn't even hold back the moan of relief when after so many hours they were finally able to return to a more natural and relaxed position. Well, something human really still remained in him, even if it was just reactions of his exhausted body, whether it was the need to sleep, the opportunity to finally restore normal blood circulation in the hand or... tickling. The latter was the strangest and to some extent even inexplicable. Gi-Hun didn't think he was SO ticklish, and absolutely everywhere, even before he was completely traumatised. But such stupidity absolutely made him out of this new empty and broken version of himself.. He DEFINITELY needed to sleep.
"Let's go!", the Frontman, who had already hidden the keys in his pocket, put on a mask and gloves, held out his hand to Gi-Hun, "You need to put yourself in order, you look terrible! And then we'll have to take measurements for your new suit! You're shorter than my previous recruiter, I'm afraid none of his old ones will suit you... Besides, you have such a tiny waist, Gi-Hun, I hope you're not too ticklish to withstand these measurements, right?"...
