SOFT SPOT, player 380

1.

Hyejin walked further into the room and Gihun relaxed at the sight of her, "Hello."

She nodded in acknowledgement, looking between Wooseok in his boxers and Gihun. She opened up the paper bag of steamed buns and held it out to Gihun with both hands, "Bun?"

Wooseok shuffled as he turned around to face them. Handing the bag of buns to Gihun, Hyejin pulled out her switchblade to free him from the binds. She left him to whatever he was going to do and glanced at the card Gihun was holding, "What's that?"

"The recruiter had it in his pocket." Gihun held it out for her to read. October 31st, midnight. Beneath it was a location: Club HDH. She flipped it over, her stomach twisting as she saw the eerie circle, triangle, and square symbols etched into the back.

"What is this?" she asked, looking back at Gihun.

"Our next lead," he replied grimly.

Hyejin gripped the card tightly, her resolve hardening. "Then we don't waste any time."

But Gihun wanted to wait till the detective came to, so he could speak to him. He was a familiar face to him, rolling his eyes at Hyejin's comment that he was handsome. Whilst Wooseok wiped blood off of the metro line map, she and Gihun carried the detective into the bathtub, cuffing him to the handles. Hyejin left him to his little interrogation, minding her business and eating some of the buns and helping Wooseok out with the blood.

Wooseok did pipe up as Gihun and the detective spoke, telling him not to trust cops since they've never helped people like them before. Gihun stood up, "I'm sorry about your brother. But you should forget about it." Hyejin was standing beside Wooseok at this point.

Just as he turned to leave the bathroom, the detective spoke firmly, "Can you forget?" Gihun stopped. "The people who died on that island?" Gihun stiffened, and Hyejin crossed her arms, nails digging into her jacket as she clenched her fists. "I saw things that you didn't. I can help you... with what you're trying to do."

Gihun turned back to him and before they knew it, the four of them were walking down a hallway. The detective, who Gihun introduced to her as Detective Hwang Junho, was with them. Wooseok was particularly chatty, telling Gihun to be careful and such and rambling into a story about him being scammed and the police arresting him when he roughed up the scammer.

Gihun unlocked a door into another room as Wooseok launched into another tirade about why he didn't trust cops. He flicked on the lights and just as Hyejin was about to slap Wooseok into silence, the sight in front of her shut him up and then some.

Gihun's prize money.

It was on a bedframe where a mattress usually would be, hell, it was the same size as one but several layers thicker. A small corner of the money was gone. Hyejin let out a low whistle.

"The money... " Wooseok stammered in shock. "Mr Seong... So its true that you won the game?"

Gihun walked towards the pile slowly, looking at it with a grim expression, "It's blood money for all those people who died there." He turned to face them, eyes meeting Hyejin's as she quickly wiped away the tears brimming. She sniffled a little, then coughed and shifted around a little as her mind raced.

What if Saebyeok had won?

"I'm going to use it to fight those bastards," Gihun practically growled. He turned to Junho. "If you help me, I'll give you as much as you want."

"I'm not doing this for money," Junho said as he stepped further into the room.

"Me neither," Wooseok said, still a little shaky.