Yet Another Inho Whump Headcanon: Inho Suffers From Chronic Migraines.

Yet Another Inho Whump Headcanon: Inho suffers from chronic migraines.

Not the kind you can shake off. The kind that burrow in behind your eyes and make it feel like your skull is splintering from the inside. The kind you hide because life won’t slow down for your pain.

It started young. Before Junho ever needed a kidney, before they even knew the full extent of how hard life was going to get. Inho learned early to swallow his pain because his stepmother already had too much on her plate—medications, bills, long shifts at the market, and a fragile kid who needed more than they could afford. Inho was now an adult barely. He didn’t want to be a burden.

Sometimes Junho would find him like that: tucked in the fetal position, drenched in sweat, barely breathing through the pounding in his skull. And baby Junho, bless him, would climb in bed and curl around him, whispering nonsense, trying to “pet the pain away.” It never worked, but Inho would pretend it did.

Inho got good at hiding it. He had to. On the police force, you don’t get to be fragile. You don’t get sick days when your paycheck is feeding three mouths and buying dialysis supplies. He never disclosed his condition—he couldn’t afford the scrutiny. So he powered through shifts half-blind, vomiting quietly in the station bathroom before heading back out to the street. There were days he drove patrol with one eye closed and his fingers white-knuckled on the wheel.

Even from his wife—God, Inho hid it from her too. Said it was stress, just too many hours, said he was fine when he came home with that tightness in his jaw, his body trembling under the blankets. She knew. Of course she did. She’d sit beside him in the dark, quietly massaging his temples, kissing his forehead, running her fingers over pressure points on his brow. She never said anything, just held him like he wasn’t cracking open inside. Inho thinks of her hands even now, sometimes. Thinks of the quiet kindness, the way she never asked for an explanation.

And then she got sick. And the Games came. And everything broke.

Inho fought through the pain the entire time. People think the hardest part of the Game is the violence. But for Inho, it was the nights. The lights, the noise, the cold. He bit into his knuckles until they bled to keep from screaming. Sometimes he’d black out and wake up unsure if it was from a migraine or from sheer exhaustion. He only won because he was used to pain. He knew how to compartmentalize. He’d been doing it his whole life.

When Inho came home and found her gone, the grief screamed louder than any migraine ever had. He howled until his throat tore, and for one small, twisted moment, he was glad the pain in his head was drowned out by the pain in his chest.

But the migraines never left. If anything, becoming the Front Man made them worse. The mask—heavy, suffocating—makes the pressure unbearable. The screens are too bright. The intercoms too loud. He lives in a world of sensory torture, and no one sees it. He’s careful. Clinical. Keeps the lights in his quarters low. Takes his pills in secret. Breeds loyalty through silence. The guards never suspect anything. The Managers know better than to ask why he sometimes retreats to his room, breathing like he’s drowning. And when the VIPs are around, he wears his mask like a wall. They don’t see the tremor in his hands. They don’t notice how often he excuses himself mid-conversation.

And then came Gihun.

Inho, as Young-il, was supposed to monitor him. Test him. Chip away at him. But one night, the mask slipped. The migraine hit like a hammer, and Inho—Young-il—couldn’t hide it fast enough. He curled up in the shadows, fingers pressed hard to his temples, shaking, trying not to cry. Trying to breathe.

And Gihun found him.

Gihun knelt beside him without asking anything. Just placed Inho’s head in his lap and began to gently rub circles into his forehead, along his brow, down the sides of his nose.

“My mom used to say this helps,” he murmured.

Inho wanted to pull away. He should have pulled away. But the pain was too much. And the touch was… kind.

So he stayed.

And in the dark, with his head cradled in the lap of a man who didn’t know who he really was, a tear slipped down Inho’s temple and into his hair.

Because Gihun was comforting Young-il. Not him.

Gihun didn’t know he was touching a monster. Didn’t know the blood on Inho’s hands. Didn’t know the mask behind the man. Inho was glad it was dark. Glad Gihun didn’t see the tear.

Because if he did… he might have pulled away.