California

      It was cold in the intermission room. Cold and sterile, the way the doctor’s office is. Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong had pushed two bunk beds together and hung sheets around them, making their own little canopy bed. They surrounded the edges with scrap panels and rods that they found. Everyone in their circle knew it was a futile attempt at keeping any other groups out but what more could they do?

     As everyone was sitting and discussing look out shifts, Ji-yeong rested her head on Sae-byeok’s shoulder and laced their fingers together. Ji-yeong’s warm hand with Sae-byeok’s freezing one. Sae-byeok glanced at the other woman before gently pulling her fingers away. Ji-yeong pouted slightly, expecting her head rest privileges to be revoked too but the taller woman did nothing to shift away from her. That felt like a win.
Ji-yeong looked up at Sae-byeok, her cheek squished against her shoulder as she gave her a small smile of thanks.
It had been decided that Ali and Sang Woo would take first watch, then Gi-hun and the old man, Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong, and Mi-Neyo would switch out last.

     The two young women crawled into their enclosed canopy bed and laid side by side. “Won’t you tell me your name?” Ji-yeong prodded. Neither knew the other’s name so to each other they were simply Player 067 and Player 240.
“I told you it’s not important,” 067 muttered, her hands clasped together near her face. “Must be important enough if you treat it like a secret,” 240 grinned. “Maybe it is,” the other shot back, “it’s none of your business.”
“Come on,” the shorter woman persisted, “what if we exchanged names? You don’t even have to give me your real name.”

     067 cocked her head. “Why would I give you a fake name?” She asked, puzzled. “I don’t know…” 240 mumbled, “it feels wrong just referring to you by number, like it’s inhumane.” 067 still looked a bit confused, as if referring to real people by a number was the most natural thing in the world. “Fine,” she finally agreed. “My name is Sae-byeok.”
240’s eyes shone, she gazed at Sae-byeok like her irises held the stars. “Pretty,” she said, smiling again. “My name is Ji-yeong.”

      Sae-byeok smiled softly as well, studying her counterpart. “Why did you invite me to join your team?” Ji-yeong questioned, her smile faltering. “That guy looked annoyed you brought me.”
Sae-byeok looked away, picking at her nails. “Mostly to spite him…’Only bring back men.’ what bullshit. I suppose it was also because you were easy to approach, on the stairs by yourself,” she mused. Ji-Yeong nodded in understanding. “You would have gotten stuck with me anyway, like we did with that 212 lady.”

     Sae-byeok’s eyes snapped back to her. “I wouldn’t have minded being ‘stuck with you’,” she admitted. “At least I would have minded less than I did when 212 came over.” Ji-yeong studied the other woman, they both laid with their heads on one forearm and their other hand in front of them. Slowly, she reached out and intertwined their pinkie fingers.
Unlike earlier when Sae-byeok had pulled her hand away from Ji-yeong’s touch, she simply looked down and acknowledged the contact with a small exhale.

     “Why are you here?” Ji-yeong murmured softly. Sae-byeok looked up from their conjoined fingers. “I have family,” she replied quietly, “in North Korea. I need the money to get them out.” It was silent for a handful of minutes before she spoke again. “What about you?”
“I didn’t have anywhere to go. When I was young, my father killed my mother.” Ji-yeong answered. “He had been standing over her, knife in hand. No one was waiting for me when I got out of jail for killing my father.”

     

Sae-byeok’s eyes flashed with curiosity. “You don’t have family, friends, a partner?” She guessed. Ji-yeong shook her head. “Nope,” she popped the letters. “But now that I know why you’re here I want to help you win.”
“Why would you do that?” Sae-byeok asked, thoroughly confused. “It doesn’t matter if I die since I have no one to go back to,” Ji-yeong explained, “but you have family. You deserve to win.” Sae-byeok blinked, bemused. “Don’t you want to live?”

     Ji-yeong shook her head. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter, let me help you win.” Sae-byeok nodded, lacing her ring finger with the other woman’s. They stayed like that for a long time, Ji-yeong doing most of the talking, asking questions, answering any the Sae-byeok had and in return, once Sae-byeok deemed her worthy, she earned another finger of contact. Eventually, all of their fingers were laced together and they laid there staring at the each other in silence

     Sae-byeok shifted closer, moving her body so her face was hovering above Ji-yeong’s, their fingers still laced together. Ji-yeong’s breath shook slightly, her free hand moving to curl her fingers in Sae-byeok’s jacket.

     They were so close Ji-yeong could count the freckles on Sae-byeok’s face and practically hear her heart pounding. Picking up on the shorter woman’s uneven breathing, Sae-byeok looked for any sign of protest as her lips ghosted over Ji-yeong’s. For a moment there wasn’t a single sound within the walls of fabric they had created before Ji-yeong tightened her grip and closed the gap.

     Both of their lips were dry and chapped without proper hydration but it didn’t matter to them. Sae-byeok sat back slowly, Ji-yeong following her, chasing her mouth with her own. The women stared at each other for a moment, Sae-byeok reaching out to caress Ji-yeong’s cheek, noting how she tensed up at the touch. “Are you alright?” She murmured, her eyes searching Ji-yeong’s face again.

     Ji-yeong blinked, snapping back to her reality and nodding slowly. “Uh, yeah. It’s just um…” she fidgeted with her fingers nervously. “We’re not having sex, right?” She glanced up at Sae-byeok like she expected her to say that they were.



    “Hell no,” Sae-byeok snorted. “I’m not into that stuff, I think it’s gross.” She lifted her hand to Ji-yeong’s face, her knuckles brushing against the other woman’s cheek. “Why?” 
Ji-yeong stayed silent for a moment, looking at her hands as if she was contemplating whether or not to tell her reasoning to a person she barely knew.

     “My father used to abuse me,” she started quietly, “he’d pray to God while he did it. As if that made his savior forgive him for the things he had done to me and my mother.”
Now it was Sae-byeok’s turn to fall silent, her fingers still gently pressing into Ji-yeong’s face. “I’m also a lesbian because of it,” Ji-yeong added abruptly “What?” Sae-byeok exclaimed in shock.

      Ji-yeong looked at her, sitting up with a slightly confused on her face as if what she had just claimed was common sense. “When women are sexually abused by men they become lesbians,” she reiterated, her expression the same as a teacher would have when explaining syllables to children. “No they don’t- Ji-yeong…who told you that?” Sae-byeok pressed, her face puzzled.

      “My father,” Ji-yeong explained. “I don’t believe in all that godly, sin, sinner bullshit but he said I was only a lesbian because he started to abuse me before I could develop any sense of pure attraction. Then I went to jail and everyone held up the same rhetoric and I just…believed it.” She finished, her voice small. The silence stretched on for a few minutes before Sae-byeok slowly reached her hand up to caress Ji-yeong’s face, pressing their lips together. Ji-yeong brought her hands up to run her fingers through Sae-byeok’s hair, her touch gentle as she kissed her back.

     “There,” Sae-byeok whispered, pulling back from the kiss once again. “Now I’m no better than you are.” Ji-yeong opened her eyes slowly, as if savoring the calming darkness behind her eyes during the kiss. “Don’t say that…” she trailed off. “If I kiss you, Ji-yeong, and I love you as two women I’d gladly burn in hell for eternity if it meant burning with you,” Sae-byeok breathed. Ji-yeong stared at her, face blank.

     “You don’t mean that,” Ji-yeong muttered, looking away while her world felt like it was crumbling. The last person that had said anything as loving as that to her had been her mother.
“You really don’t mean that, Sae-byeok,” she said again softly, more to herself this time, “you don’t want to live a life like mine and you certainly don’t want one with me.” Sae-byeok frowned, pushing Ji-yeong down into the mattress, her hands on either side of the woman’s head and her hips hovering over hers.

     “Ji-yeong,” Sae-byeok began firmly. “I want you, okay? The one thing I want the most for my family is to be together on Jeju Island and you became apart of that dream the moment you kissed me.” Ji-yeong’s eyes turned glassy as she stared up at Sae-byeok, curling her fingers into her jacket.

    
 Ji-yeong had never had a proper family, there was always someone being abused. Although Sae-byeok’s family might not be proper either, it was so much better, she would have a mom, a little brother…and Sae-byeok. Both young women stared at each other, the unasked question hanging before them. ‘What are we?’ Would it be wrong if Ji-yeong wanted to call a woman she met only a few hours ago in death games her girlfriend?
 
    Yes, Ji-yeong decided, it would be wrong; too bad she didn’t give a shit anymore. The stress of the games, the pain of having to recount her trauma and the waves of conflicting emotions about Sae-byeok were simply too overwhelming. Ji-yeong pulled Sae-byeok’s face down to hers, pressing their lips together. She was hungry, for this woman, to feel wanted in any way possible. Ji-yeong could never remember a time she knew someone that wanted her romantically or a time she’d reciprocated those feelings. She barely even remembered her abuse.

     But now, lying here in this bed, Sae-byeok gently sliding her body on top of hers; Ji-yeong felt wanted. She felt loved in a way that shouldn’t be possible when the love came from a stranger. With the love came desperation and with that came guilt. Was Ji-yeong anything special beyond her trauma? Was she more valuable than sex?

     Ji-yeong pulled away from the kiss slowly. “I’m sorry,” she began. “I really am, the attraction is there I just…” she trailed off as Sae-byeok gave her a look. “What?” Ji-yeong asked, confusion crossing her face. Sae-byeok simply sighed and sat back on her heels.
“Ji-yeong, I don’t see you like that and I don’t want to,” Sae-byeok explained. “I’m asexual, I told you.” Ah, right. 
In the surge of her guilt, Ji-yeong had forgotten that Sae-byeok had said she didn’t experience sexual attraction.

     A sense of relief washed over her, followed by a sense of aimlessness.
What could she do to satisfy Sae-byeok if the other woman didn’t look at her sexually? Sae-byeok wrapped her fingers around Ji-yeong’s again, holding them tightly. “I’ll never ask that of you. Even if I wanted to I can’t.” She didn’t need to say why. It was stupid to ask someone for something like a relationship in this godforsaken place.

     “Get some sleep,” the taller woman mumbled, shifting to the edge of bed and pushing the bedsheet-curtains aside to step out. Left alone with her thoughts, Ji-yeong lay in bed, limbs askew and her hair splayed around her head like a halo. The woman felt like a fallen Angel, every step in her life hand brought her here, to being in the lowest rung of Seoul’s people, poorest of the poor. Hindsight had kicked long ago and she regretted even calling the number on the card. Maybe if she had just actually tried to restart after she got out of prison, she would get somewhere in life, instead of being trapped in death games because she took the option that gave her a dopamine rush.

     Staring at the frame of the bunk bed above her quickly got boring, Ji-yeong decided, as did regretting every decision she’d ever made. She wished she was high. She had tried an assortment of drugs in prison, nothing serious enough for addiction but someone had always been smuggling something. Besides, being blissed out and hallucinating sounded way better to Ji-yeong than thinking about all the ways she could die tomorrow, and waiting for a woman who was ignoring her like she didn’t exist.

     Eventually, Sae-byeok returned to the small haven to find Ji-yeong curled up on her side. The woman was so peaceful when she slept. Not the snarky, sarcastic person with dark humor or dark humor. Sae-byeok brushed her hand over her friend’s cheek gently, smoothing back her hair. She prayed neither of them would have to kill each other because that would be the hardest decision to make.