"In-ho?" Gi-hun’s voice cracked the silence...

"Gi-hun?" The voice that answered was low, strained, and unmistakably familiar. It was In-ho.

The hospital room was dim, the sterile scent of antiseptic hanging in the air, but it felt like the space between them was anything but clean. Gi-hun blinked against the light, his eyelids heavy, his body stiff, as though it had been stretched and pulled in too many directions. His chest ached, the weight of it grounding him in the present, where time had seemed to stop. He was alive.

The sudden realization hit him hard. He had expected nothing but the end, but here he was-here they both were. The crisp, salty air of the cliff, the rush of wind and freedom, had been swallowed up by the sterile confines of hospital walls. Nature hadn’t let them go, had refused to allow them the end they had sought. It was almost as if the universe, or fate, or whatever cosmic force watched over them, had decided that their story wasn’t finished yet.

Gi-hun could feel the bandages wrapped around his body, constricting his movements, binding him to this new reality. His limbs ached, and his head throbbed with an unfamiliar pain, but it was nothing compared to the void that stretched in his chest. The void where the clarity of his decision, the weight of his purpose, had been.

The desire to escape, to end the nightmare, felt foolish now. They had been pulled back, thrown into this second chance-if you could even call it that. What could they do with it? What could he do with it?

The quiet groans from the bed next to him interrupted his thoughts. In-ho was awake now, too, still and silent, but somehow more present than Gi-hun had expected. They hadn’t died, but now they were bound to this strange fate. Together, but apart.

Gi-hun turned his head slowly, his stiff neck protesting the motion. In-ho’s eyes met his-dark, unreadable, yet unmistakably full of something. Not anger. Not regret. Just… something that Gi-hun couldn’t decipher.

"What now?" Gi-hun asked quietly. His voice trembled with the uncertainty that had replaced his previous clarity.

In-ho’s lips pressed together in a thin line, but the silence between them was deafening. He didn't respond at first. It was almost as if the question itself held no real answer.

"What now?" Gi-hun asked again, his words more insistent this time. He needed to know if there was anything left for them.

But In-ho only stared at him, as if the question had no weight at all. As if the words had no power in this strange new reality. The two of them, once bound by shared pain and secrets, now found themselves at the mercy of a future that had no clear path forward.

Finally, In-ho blinked, the faintest shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, but it was gone before it could settle.

“I don’t know,” he said, the words low and almost lost in the sterile room. “I really don’t.”

Gi-hun swallowed. The truth of the situation was undeniable. They were both trapped in the aftermath of a choice that had no clear resolution. They hadn’t been allowed to leave, to end it. And now, in this moment of twisted survival, they had to face what came next without the clarity of purpose they had once shared.

Everything they had seen, everything they had been through-could it all really be forgotten now, simply because they were alive? Was it possible to start over, or was there only the weight of the past following them like an endless shadow?

The pain in Gi-hun’s chest intensified, but he didn't know what to do with it. What could he do with it? His mind raced, but it felt like he was trapped in a loop-a loop that would never end, no matter how hard he tried to break free.

In-ho turned his head slowly, his gaze never leaving Gi-hun’s face. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Eventually, Gi-hun closed his eyes, allowing the silence to swallow him whole. It wasn’t about forgetting. It wasn’t about moving forward, either. It was just the quiet acknowledgment that sometimes, the only thing left was the stillness-the stillness that settled over both of them, heavy and unyielding, like the weight of their shared past.

They didn’t need to speak anymore. There was nothing left to say. Only the shared glance between them-eyes that had seen too much, faces that had been scarred, hearts that had been broken.

And in that moment, they both knew. They weren’t meant to start over. They weren’t meant to find peace.

They were meant to simply exist. To simply survive.

Without thinking about it, they both turned their heads toward each other once again. No words, no plans, no thoughts of what the future might hold. Only the shared understanding that whatever came next, they would face it together.

The End.

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Honestly, I had absolutely no idea for this ending, so it turned out a bit more inconsistent than it should have been, but I wanted to end this book somehow. And I'm writing this because I would like to write some more in the future, it doesn't have to be a romance(but I won't despise writing abt this), because I also specialize in other genres, so I just wanted to ask for suggestions for other stories, because after all, I will be writing them for you, not for me, and of course it doesn't have to be about a squid game (and it's even better if it's something different than a squid game that I can actually struggle with writing, I really like doing it in my free time)

thank you all for reading! <3