Squid Game (Jikook)

╔ 2 ╝

The gentle sound of trumpet, accompanied by a soft ensemble of strings, woke Jimin up. He blinks, sitting up, confused. The last thing he remembers before waking up here was getting into a van...a masked man...gas...

That's it.

He looks down, lifting his arms one by one. He's wearing a sea green track suit; a jacket and pants. On his left breast is a number; 136.

Slowly Jimin climbed out of his bunk, situated in the middle of what seems to be the back wall. Others are doing the same, as confused as he is, wearing exactly what he is.

They each have a number, displayed as three digits. The number is shown once on the left side of the jacket, like Jimin had already discovered, and one on the back. The number again is shown on their shirts.

He walks down the black steps, to the floor in the middle. There are large metal doors on one wall, situated on a platform, and two small doors on each side of that same wall, though they were closed. There were no windows in this room, but the lights overhead made the entire room bright.

Above the platform where the large doors are, is a screen, with pixelated numbers and letters. In Korean, it states, "창가인윈." In English, it says, "NUMBER OF PLAYERS." Jimin can't speak English, but he assumes it's a translation. Taking up the most space, was yet another three-digit number; 523.

523 people in this odd room, stacked to the ceiling with bunk beds. This was unlike anything the boy had ever seen.

They congregate to the empty space in the middle of the room, save for a few staying in their bunks, surveying everything. Jimin is wary of all these people, they're his competitors after all. 522 people standing in the way of him getting his money.

"136..." Jimin hears behind him.

"What?" He turns around. There, is a man with long, dark, honestly slightly fluffy hair. The number on his jacket was 097.

"Nothing, I'm just very aware of that number," He was taller than Jimin, with deep, piercing eyes. He spoke a bit softly, and, while Jimin still very much refused to trust anyone, in these games or otherwise...he seemed like one of the less intimidating people here, despite his appearance. If anything, he seemed easy to beat. "June 13th. It's just a day that holds a lot of meaning for me."

"Okay," Jimin looks down, weirded out by his strong eye-contact. "Good for you."

"I'll be watching you 136," His gaze is kind. That's even weirder to Jimin. He...he looks so tough, but he's being too nice to him to mean anything good. He eyes the tattoos poking out from under his sleeve.

This guy seems like trouble.

"Sounds about right," Back into his eyes, his stare is barely short of a glare. "I'll be ahead of you in the competition, so the only thing you'll be seeing is my ass."

"We'll see about that," He smirks, before walking away. Fucking confident people.

The large metal doors suddenly slide open, and once again Jimin's brain short-circuits, so confused. Nine masked men in hot pink uniforms appeared from behind. One, in the center, wore a black mask with a white square on it. On each side of him, are men in masks quite similar, except with circles, standing two by two. Every inch of skin was covered...they almost seemed unhuman.

The man in the square mask walks up to the front, the other eight following a pace behind. And, when what Jimin can only describe as the lead stops, the rest of them stop too. They fan out into a line, completely symmetrical.

Square steps one more step forward. "I'd like to give a warm welcome to all of you." His voice is altered, deepened. "All of you will be participants of six games over the span of six days. Those of you who win all six games, will get a handsome cash reward."