Gi-hun approached the Pink Hotel like a shadow slipping into a void, the building's cracked facade seeming to pulse with a life of its own. The neon sign above flickered erratically, casting ghostly hues onto the pavement littered with discarded remnants of lives forgotten.

Each step he took echoed down the empty corridor, a grim dirge to accompany the pounding in his chest. The air was thick, clinging to him with a suffocating weight, as if the building itself knew why he had come.

Room 410. The numbers etched into his mind like a curse.

With a hand trembling but determined, he turned the worn handle. The door creaked open, revealing a dimly lit room where shadows danced on peeling wallpaper. And there, standing in the center like a figure carved from darkness itself, was the recruiter.

His silhouette was sharp, imposing, and his grin—a wicked crescent—was as cold as the steel of the gun he twirled casually between his fingers.

"Seong Gi-hun," the recruiter greeted, his voice a silk thread pulled taut. "It's been a while. You really should have gotten on that plane"

Gi-hun stepped inside, his gaze unwavering. "I changed my mind the moment I saw you," he said, his tone laced with defiance.

The recruiter chuckled, low and menacing, his presence filling the room like a storm cloud.

"Look at you. All this effort, all this searching. I have to say, I'm touched."

Gi-hun's lips curled in a bitter smile. "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?" the recruiter asked, amusement flickering in his eyes as he leaned back against a battered desk.

"For inviting me to join the game," Gi-hun replied smoothly. "I won. Thanks to you, I'm swimming in money now. Thought I'd show a little gratitude."

The recruiter's grin sharpened, slicing through the air. "All I did was extend the invitation. I'm just a delivery man."

"And who hired you to deliver those invitations?" Gi-hun countered, his voice steady, though his mind raced.

He scanned the room, every fiber of his being on high alert. Woo-seok was here—somewhere. He had to be.

The recruiter chuckled, the sound dark and rich. "If you've got a message, I'll deliver it."

"It's not for a lackey like you," Gi-hun spat, his words biting. "You prey on people at their lowest, offer them a sliver of hope only to drown them in despair. You wouldn't understand."

The recruiter's smirk faltered briefly, his eyes narrowing.

Then he leaned forward, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Do you think I got here by chance? I understand more than you know."

He straightened, his presence growing more oppressive.

"I used to work in the games—clearing the bodies, incinerating them. Trash, I told myself. That's all they were. Then, one day, they gave me a gun. That was when everything changed."

Gi-hun's stomach churned, but he didn't flinch. The recruiter's voice grew colder, laced with bitterness.

"One day, I pointed that gun at a man who'd lost. But I knew him. My father. The man who always looked at me like I was nothing compared to my brother. He begged for his life, tears in his eyes. And do you know what I did? I pulled the trigger. Bang. Right between his eyes." The recruiter's smile twisted into something monstrous. "That's when I realized I was meant for this."

Gi-hun's voice, sharp and unyielding, cut through the air. "Whether you're killing in there or conning out here, it doesn't change what you are—a dog on a leash."

The recruiter cocked his gun, the metallic click echoing ominously. "Careful, Mr. Seong," he said, his grin feral. "Winning doesn't make you special."

But then, faintly, there it was. The whisper of footsteps outside the door. Gi-hun's heart skipped, his instincts flaring.

The recruiter raised his weapon, his eyes glinting with anticipation. "Why don't we play a little—"

A thunderous crash shattered the tension as the door burst open. Dust swirled in chaotic spirals, shrouding the figure that stood in the doorway.

The recruiter's gun snapped toward the intruder.

"One of your men?" he sneered, pressing the barrel against Gi-hun's temple.

As the dust settled, the figure stepped forward, and Gi-hun's breath caught.

His eyes widened in disbelief, his mind struggling to comprehend what he was seeing.

The man standing in the doorway was a mirror of the recruiter.

Same height. Same lean build. Same sharp features, down to the cutting planes of his jaw. Jet-black hair. Piercing eyes. But where the recruiter's smirk exuded icy malice, the newcomer's face burned with fury.

Gi-hun's gaze darted between them, his chest tightening. The air crackled with a silence so heavy it seemed to crush the room.

The recruiter's smirk widened, a venomous delight lighting his features. "Well, this just got interesting," he drawled, his grip on the gun tightening.

Gi-hun, his voice trembling but defiant, whispered into the charged silence. "Who the hell are you?"

Neither man answered, their identical figures locked in an unspoken war, the room trembling under the weight of their confrontation.

The faint hum of a flickering bulb cast erratic shadows across the walls, their jagged shapes mirroring the fractured bond between the two men.

"Well, well, well," the recruiter's voice dripped with mockery, his polished boots echoing like a death knell on the cold concrete floor. "If it isn't my perfect brother dearest."

He took slow, deliberate steps forward, each one like the ticking of a clock counting down to catastrophe.

Chan-yeol's jaw tightened, his gaze steady but burning with an anger that had simmered for years.

"Sung-hoon," he said, his voice low and trembling with restrained fury, "I warned you—if you ever came for my family again, I wouldn't spare you." The threat lingered in the air, razor-sharp and cutting.

Sung-hoon let out a laugh, cruel and hollow, as he leaned closer, his eyes gleaming with derision. "Your family? Do enlighten me, dear brother. How exactly have I involved myself this time?"

Chan-yeol closed the distance between them in a single stride, his presence a storm about to break.

"Your twisted games, Sung-hoon, have always been your undoing. You're not as clever as you think, and you're even easier to find when someone looks hard enough. And now, you've dragged my family into your mess—"

"Your family?" Sung-hoon interrupted, his laughter cutting through Chan-yeol's words like a blade. "Don't make me laugh, Chan-yeol."

His amusement faded, his tone turning cold and venomous. "The family you built by stealing what wasn't yours? Her?"

"You left her," Chan-yeol growled, his voice shaking with barely contained rage.

"Left? Or let her go because she wasn't worth keeping?" Sung-hoon said smoothly, twirling his gun with a lazy elegance, the glint of metal catching the dim light. "She's not yours anyway."

Chan-yeol's composure snapped like a fraying thread. "What the hell does that mean, you son of a—" He lunged forward, his hands locking around Sung-hoon's throat in a grip born of fury and heartbreak.

With a thunderous crash, he slammed his brother against the wall, plaster crumbling around them.

Sung-hoon's lips curled into a defiant smirk, even as his breath came in shallow gasps. "You're angry because you know I'm right," he rasped, his words a taunt meant to inflame.

Chan-yeol's grip tightened, his knuckles white, but Sung-hoon delivered a sharp knee to his stomach, sending him staggering back.

The brothers moved like mirror images in a deadly dance, each drawing their guns with a fluidity that spoke of long-buried instincts.

The room seemed to freeze, the only sound the ragged breaths of the two men as they stared each other down. The weight of their shared history bore down on them, heavy with betrayal and unresolved fury.

"Let's play a game, Chan-yeol," Sung-hoon said quietly, his voice almost a whisper, but laced with a dark promise. "For old times' sake."

"I have nothing to prove to you," Chan-yeol said, his voice hard but faltering under the tension.

"Then play the game," Sung-hoon pressed, his grin widening as he lowered himself into a chair with a calculated nonchalance.

Gi-hun stood frozen in the corner, his heart pounding as he watched the brothers, each consumed by their own vendettas. He felt the room close in around him, the walls pressing tighter, the air growing thinner. He didn't know if either man deserved to walk away from this, but he was certain neither would let him leave unscathed.

Chan-yeol exhaled shakily, the weight of his decisions heavy on his shoulders, before he sank into the chair opposite his twin. The table between them became an altar of reckoning, its surface scarred and stained with years of resentment.

"You've seen this in the movies, I'm sure," Sung-hoon began, his voice taking on a theatrical edge as he pulled a revolver from his jacket. The gun gleamed ominously as he slid a single bullet into the chamber, spinning the cylinder with a deliberate flourish. "It's called Russian Roulette. One bullet. One spin. Each round resets the odds to one in six. Simple, isn't it?"

The revolver came to rest on the table, its cold barrel pointing between them like a silent arbiter.

Sung-hoon's smile widened, predatory and cruel. "Let's see if the golden boy has luck on his side tonight."

"Now, let's raise the stakes, shall we? A little tribute to the bond we share as brothers," Sung-hoon purred, his voice dripping with mockery as he tapped the gun against his temple.

"Get to the point," Chan-yeol growled, his voice as sharp and cutting as a blade drawn in the dark.

Sung-hoon's grin widened, a predator savoring his prey's simmering rage. "Simple. We take our turns, just like the game intends, but we won't spin the cylinder each round. The bullet will fire by the sixth shot, no matter what. It's destiny, don't you think?"

His words lingered like smoke in the air, curling around the tension between them.

Then, with a theatrical flourish, he raised the gun, clicked it against his temple without flinching, and slid it across the table. "Older brothers always go first. Isn't that the proper way to lead?"

Chan-yeol took the weapon with calm defiance, pressing it against his head with an unyielding stare before pulling the trigger. The empty click echoed like a ghost's whisper, and he slid the gun back, his silence more threatening than any words.

Sung-hoon chuckled, though his fingers trembled as he picked up the weapon.

"Always so stoic, little brother. I wonder if you'll beg for mercy before the end," he taunted, though the quiver in his voice betrayed him.

Chan-yeol smiled coldly, speaking with deliberate calm. "The odds are now one in two. The barrel is loaded with fate, Sung-hoon, and you're staring it in the eye. Feeling scared yet? Wondering if you've pushed too far this time? You've always danced on the edge of rules, but this time, you might just fall. If you do shoot me, though, you'll have to admit one thing to me. You will be dying completely alone. Unloved. And that you were always alone. You never loved anyone and no one ever loved you. Not my wife. Not my daughter

Sung-hoon hesitated, the gun heavy in his hand. The room seemed to hold its breath. Then, he pressed it to his temple once more, his grin faltering but defiant.

"I did love Eun-yoo at one point. And I do have a daughter," he said quietly, pulling the trigger. Another click.

The gun slid back to Chan-yeol, whose hands shook as he picked it up.

Sung-hoon leaned forward, his grin rekindled like a flame in the dark. "What's wrong, brother? Feeling your courage waver? The mighty Chan-yeol, shaken by a simple game? The rule follower. The good guy?"

Chan-yeol rose to his full height, towering over Sung-hoon, his shadow looming over the table like an executioner's hood. He pointed the gun directly at Sung-hoon, his eyes burning with years of suppressed fury.

"You promised you'd kill me," Sung-hoon said, his voice cracking under the weight of his bravado. "But I never thought you'd break your precious rules for me."

Chan-yeol's voice was low and unyielding. "I don't break promises. And you killed Eun-yoo. For that, I'll break you."

Sung-hoon's mask of confidence shattered. "No! I didn't—" he stammered, retreating into his chair.

Chan-yeol silenced him with a cold smile. "Games are for fools who believe in luck, Sung-hoon. But I believe in destiny. And yours has come."

With a resounding crack, the gun fired. The bullet struck Sung-hoon's chest, and he collapsed with a guttural groan, clutching at the crimson bloom spreading across his shirt.

Chan-yeol tossed the gun aside, his eyes scanning the room frantically for another weapon, desperate to finish the job.

Gi-hun stood frozen in horror, his gaze darting between the identical faces—one writhing in pain, the other consumed by fury. His breath caught as the echo of footsteps filled the room.

Three figures entered, their presence electric with authority.

Leading them was a tall, sharp-eyed man with a police badge that read Hwang Jun-ho. He strode in with calculated precision, his gun raised and aimed unwaveringly at the back of Chan-yeol's head.

"Hands up," Jun-ho ordered, his voice calm but edged with steel.

Chan-yeol slowly raised his hands, his fury momentarily stilled. Jun-ho's brows furrowed, confusion flickering across his face as he took in the scene.

Behind him, a young woman stepped into view, her badge reading Shin A-Yeong.

The moment her eyes fell on Sung-hoon's bleeding form, she let out a piercing scream. Gi-hun moved instinctively to quiet her, but Jun-ho blocked his path.

The last to enter was Woo-seok, his face pale and terror-stricken, his wide eyes darting wildly between the brothers. His trembling hands clutched at the doorway as though it might protect him from the chaos within.

The room fell into a tense, suffocating silence as each person absorbed the gravity of the scene—the shattered brotherhood, the spilled blood, and the undeniable finality of the violence.

A/N

did anyone expect this? 

also hopefully longer chapter next time!