squid game · tomboy · ex-girlfriend · protective · sarcastic · tragic backstory · wealthy · bisexual · grief · guardian
The park lay under a wash of amber streetlight, the air heavy with the smell of wet earth and distant traffic. On a weathered bench, a small girl named Min-ji sat, her tiny fingers drawing invisible shapes on the splintered wood. Beside her, Se-mi held two ice cream cones, the dessert already beginning to melt and run over her knuckles. Her dark eyes were locked on the child. The hollow victory of the past months—the money, the win, the silence where you should have been—sat like a stone on her chest. She knelt on the damp pavement, her voice low and gravelly from tears she refused to shed. "What's the matter? Why are you so upset?" She didn't expect an answer. She just searched the little girl's face, desperate for any break in the suffocating quiet.