[POINT OF VIEW: HELENA - THIRD PERSON]
The echo of Leo's "Yabba-Dabba-Doo" still seemed to vibrate in the atoms of the room. Helena stood motionless, watching her star operative, the man for whom she had nearly triggered a diplomatic crisis with half of Asia, now attempting to use the tassels of a silk curtain as if they were Tarzan's vine. The 18th-century screen was precariously leaning against a marble statue. Chaos hadn't just returned; it had been invited to dinner, gotten drunk, and was now dancing on the table.
With the icy calm of a surgeon about to perform an amputation, Helena turned. Her gaze landed not on the whirlwind of energy that was Leo, but on the source of the disaster. She focused on Jo Yu-ri, who still stood in the middle of the room, empty dishes at her feet, watching the scene with the expression of someone who has created a new and terrible life form and doesn't know whether to feel proud or run.
"Miss Jo," Helena said, and her voice, though quiet, cut through the air like a scalpel. Min-jun's and Ho-yeon's nervous laughter instantly stopped. Everyone turned towards her. "Come closer, please."
Yu-ri, intimidated, took a couple of hesitant steps forward.
"I would like," Helena continued, "for you to describe to me, in as much detail as possible, the exact contents of the meal you prepared for Leonidas for his... resurrection."
The question wasn't an accusation. It was something worse. It was a forensic request.
"I... I just..." Yu-ri stammered, feeling like a small child being interrogated by the school principal. "I just wanted him to eat something. He seemed so... dull."
"I understand your intentions, which were no doubt kind," Helena said with a patience that was more terrifying than anger. "Now, please, the menu."
"Well... I made ramyeon," Yu-ri said. "The super spicy kind, with double cheese. And tteokbokki, with extra gochujang sauce. And then... I fried some hotteok. With lots of brown sugar and cinnamon. I thought... I thought he needed energy."
Helena closed her eyes. Slowly, she brought a hand to her face, not in a gesture of dramatic frustration, but one of deep, absolute resignation. She pinched the bridge of her nose hard, as if trying to contain a migraine of cosmic proportions. She let out a long, heavy sigh, a sound that seemed to carry with it a lifetime's patience.
"Of course," she whispered to herself. "Of course it was hotteok."
She opened her eyes and looked at the confused Yu-ri. "You couldn't have known, dear. And deep down, I don't blame you. Your act was one of pure kindness." She paused. "However, you have just administered to the brain with the most severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder I have seen in thirty years of my career, the biochemical equivalent of pouring a barrel of kerosene on a bonfire and then throwing a stick of dynamite at it."
She looked at the rest of the group, who listened with open mouths. "I see you need a lesson in applied neurochemistry."
She settled in, adopting her lecturer mode. "As I explained, Leo's brain has an imbalance. His reward system, the one that produces dopamine, is... lazy. It needs much larger stimuli than a neurotypical person to feel 'normal.' That's why he seeks danger, novelty, chaos. They are his way of self-medicating."
"The pill I gave him," she continued, "is a selective dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. It doesn't sedate him. It regulates. It creates a stable chemical floor, preventing extreme peaks and valleys. It keeps him... balanced."
She gestured towards the kitchen. "And then you came along, Miss Jo, with your arsenal of biochemical destruction. First, the ramyeon and tteokbokki. Ultra-fast releasing refined carbohydrates. In a normal bloodstream, they convert to glucose and provide an energy spike. In Leo's, that surge of glucose causes his stimulus-starved brain to release an abnormally large amount of dopamine. It's like firing a starting pistol for a marathon runner."
"But the true weapon of mass destruction," she said, her gaze fixed on Yu-ri, "was the hotteok. Pure sugar, syrup, cinnamon, all wrapped in a fried dough that also converts to sugar. That's not a dessert. It's a military-grade sucrose bomb. It's a direct injection into the central nervous system."
"The medication was trying to build a dam to hold back the river," she explained. "And you arrived with a glucose tsunami that not only broke the dam, but pulverized it. You triggered a dopamine spike so massive, so euphoric, that it completely overrode the drug's effects and put his brain in a state of hyperactivity that will likely last several hours. You didn't just wake the dragon, dear. You gave the dragon a pair of rocket wings and an unlimited fuel supply."
The explanation left everyone in silence. Wi Ha-joon nodded slowly, fascinated by the science behind the madness. Mr. Choi looked like he was going to ban sugar from the entire company. And Yu-ri... Yu-ri felt as if she had made a terrible medication error with the world's most volatile patient.
"So..." Min-jun said cautiously. "More sugar is... bad?"
Helena gave him a look that could have frozen magma. "Lock up all sweets," she ordered.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEE JUNG-JAE - THIRD PERSON]
While the rest of the group processed the biochemistry lesson, Lee Jung-jae observed the cause of all the chaos. Leo had grown tired of the curtains and was now on the balcony, not jumping, but still, watching the Seoul lights begin to flicker on against the twilight. The manic energy seemed to have calmed a bit, replaced by a quieter, but equally potent, intensity.
Jung-jae felt the need to understand. Not the operative, not the madman, but the man. With an apologetic glance at the others, he stepped out onto the balcony. The evening air was cool.
"It's an amazing view," Jung-jae said by way of greeting.
Leo turned. The maniacal grin was gone. His gaze was direct, and for the first time, he didn't seem to be looking at "Lee Jung-jae, the superstar," but at an equal.
"I saw it," Leo said quietly, his voice surprisingly serious. "The ending. The one from the last season that premiered."
Jung-jae was used to fans talking about the show, but Leo's tone was different. It wasn't that of a fan. It was that of a critic, a colleague.
"I liked it," Leo admitted, leaning on the railing. "It was thrilling. Brave. But the ending... the ending made me sad. Truly." He turned to look at Jung-jae, and his question completely blurred the line between fiction and reality. "Why didn't you change the ending?"
Jung-jae blinked, surprised by the strange frankness. He understood that Leo wasn't asking the actor, but the character. Gi-hun. He decided to play along. "The script was written that way," he replied calmly. "Sometimes, a character is destined for a certain path. Gi-hun is a man who, despite all the horror he lived, cannot abandon his humanity. He saw that the game continued, and he couldn't just get on that plane and pretend nothing was happening."
Leo shook his head, his gaze intense. "No. I don't understand it. I really don't understand it. You won. You survived hell. You had the money, a fortune that allowed you to do anything. You had your daughter waiting for you on the other side of the world. You had a way out. A chance for a normal life, a happy life."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper charged with an emotion Jung-jae didn't expect. "And you threw it all away? You gave up your daughter, your peace, to turn around and go back to fighting the men in masks? Why? Why would anyone do that?"
The question echoed in the balcony air. And Jung-jae realized that Leo wasn't asking about Seong Gi-hun. He was asking about himself. Why can't I, Leo, who obtains priceless treasures, just retire and live on an island? Why do I always have to go back to the next tomb, the next fight, the next danger?
Jung-jae stopped being an actor talking about a role and became a man talking to another. He looked at the city lights, the same lights Gi-hun had seen from the airport.
"Perhaps..." he began slowly, choosing his words. "Perhaps because after having been in such a hell, you can no longer go back to a normal life. Perhaps the normal world, with its trivial concerns, seems boring, empty, fake. Perhaps peace feels like a lie."
He looked at Leo. "Perhaps the only way to feel that your survival had any meaning, that it wasn't just blind luck while others died, is to try to ensure that no one else has to go through the same thing. Perhaps it's not about revenge. It's about a burden. The survivor's burden. It's not a logical choice. It's a condemnation."
Leo listened, his face a mask of absolute attention. The chaos was gone, exposing a deep, lonely melancholy.
"If it were you," Leo asked, his voice almost inaudible. "Not Gi-hun. You, Lee Jung-jae. If you had lived through all that, seen your friends die, won that blood-stained fortune... what would you do?" His gaze was vulnerable, like a child asking for an answer to an impossible riddle. "Would you get on the plane... or would you turn back?"
[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
From the balcony door, hidden in the shadow, Jo Yu-ri had been observing. She couldn't hear their conversation, only saw their silhouettes outlined against the tapestry of city lights. She saw Leo's transition, from manic energy to an intense, serious stillness. She saw the way Lee Jung-jae spoke to him, not like a madman, but like an equal.
She saw two men from completely different worlds, the survivor of a fictional game and the survivor of a real game, finding common ground in the loneliness of the survivor.
In that moment, she saw a side of Leo she never would have imagined. Not the arrogant adventurer, nor the depressed genius, nor the hyperactive clown. She saw a thoughtful, sad man, a man grappling with profound questions about purpose and sacrifice.
Lee Jung-jae didn't answer Leo's final question with words. He simply gave him a small, sad smile, a look of deep, compassionate understanding that said it all. I understand. I understand your burden.
And Yu-ri, seeing that silent communion, finally understood too. The chaos, the pranks, the jumps, the hyperactivity... it was all armor. An incredibly loud, flashy armor designed to protect the vulnerable, lonely core of a man who had seen too much and didn't know how to stop. A man who was constantly running, not only towards the next treasure, but also to escape from himself.
Her desire to scold him, to shake him, faded, replaced by an overwhelming and completely new desire: the desire to understand. To understand the man hiding behind the ghost.