SaeByeong

SaeByeong is the femslash ship between Kang Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong from the Squid Game fandom.

Canon
Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong meet each other at a remote island while they're both participating in mysterious survival games. Prior to the third game, contestants are told to form teams of ten players. Sang-woo, one of the unofficial leaders of the group, proposes they each bring in one man to improve their odds, saying that men tend to excel women at most games. With this, Sae-byeok starts looking for a teammate and spots Ji-yeong sitting by herself at the stairs. Seeing like-minded solitude and distrust in her, Sae-byeok ignores Sang-woo's instructions and invites Ji-yeong to join their team.

The game is revealed to be a Tug-of-War, where the losing teams will plunge to their deaths. Their team ends up victorious. Leaving the tower, Ji-yeong asks for Sae-byeok's name. Sae-byeok refuses and tells Ji-yeong to leave her alone, to which the latter counters that it was Sae-byeok who approached her first.

The fourth game requires teams of two. Sae-byeok, not interested in begging anyone from her team to pair up with her, leaves to search a partner by herself. As she is looking around, this time Ji-yeong approaches Sae-byeok and asks her to play with her. Although reluctant at first, Sae-byeok accepts Ji-yeong's offer when the latter assures her to do whatever it takes to grant her victory, and the two of them form a team. However, soon a twist is revealed: the partners have to play against each other, and the first one to gain all of their opponent's marbles within thirty minutes of the game, wins, as the loser of the game will consequently be killed.

With the timer ticking down, Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong sit down to mull over what game to play. Neither of them are in any particular hurry to do so, due to the life or death stakes of the game, and also because both are hit hard with revelation that they have to compete against each other. Since the players are free to create the rules of the game, Ji-yeong suggests that she and Sae-byeok play betting everything in a single round during the last minutes of the game, instead of spending the entire time doing it and in the meantime, they recount things they had never told anyone, since one of them will die either way, so they can tell each other anything with no need be embarrassed of it later, to which Sae-byeok agrees.

They start revealing their pasts to each other, with Sae-byeok telling Ji-yeong how her family tried to move from the North Korea to the South Korea for a better life. However, her father was shot while trying to swim across the border and her mother was caught by public security officers in China, then sent back. She also tells Ji-yeong that a plague in her village had killed her grandfather, grandmother, and older brother, and so she and her younger brother were the only ones who successfully crossed the border to the South Korea. Ji-yeong, in turn, reveals that she and her mother were abused by her father, who was a pastor and would pray for forgiveness every time he harmed them. One day when coming home from school, she found her mother dead by her father's hands, whom she later killed in an act of retaliation. She received a calling-card to the games the same day she was released from prison, to which she came with nowhere else to go. Ji-yeong then asks Sae-byeok what she will do with the cash prize if she wins. Sae-byeok responds that she will ensure an abode for her brother and herself, after which she will secure her mother from the North. Ji-yeong urges Sae-byeok to dream bigger and the latter reveals that she wishes to visit Jeju Island. Ji-yeong admits that she herself hasn’t thought about what she would do if she made it out of the games. She then asks Sae-byeok if the two of them should go to Jeju only to remember that they won't be able to leave together.

With the timer closing in on zero, they decide to determine the winner and loser of the game by seeing who can throw one marble closest to the wall in front of them. Before doing so, Sae-byeok finally reveals her name to Ji-yeong, as the latter does the same, with Sae-byeok noticing that Ji-yeong has no family name. Sae-byeok throws her marble close to the wall. Ji-yeong, however, drops hers at her feet on purpose, deciding to sacrifice herself so Sae-byeok could win the game. When Sae-byeok instantly advances on her, distraught with her decision, Ji-yeong explains that she has no reason to win since she has nothing left in life to come back to, whereas Sae-byeok still has her family. At last, Ji-yeong asks Sae-byeok to survive the games and live her life to the fullest. With the game over, Sae-byeok wins and heads for the exit, she stops as Ji-yeong calls her. She smiles and thanks Sae-byeok for playing with her. A guard shoots Ji-yeong in the head, eliminating her from the game as Sae-byeok cries silently.

Afterwards, Sae-byeok is seen deeply affected by Ji-yeong's sacrifice. Upon returning to the bedroom, Sae-byeok still mourns her friend's death as she is visibly dejected, barely eating the lunch handed to her.

As a result of Ji-yeong's act of kindness, Sae-byeok stops being so paranoid about the other players and begins trusting others. This was most evident when she starts to look out for Gi-hun, who was kind and helped protect her in the games. In her dying moments, she trusts him to take care of her little brother.

Fanon
SaeByeong is the most popular ship within the fandom. Not least due to the show's lack of "official" romance and the seemingly incredible chemistry between the two. Many fans online made the ship even more famous by doing edits, TikToks or other fan content, where people expressed their support for the ship and discussed possible homoerotic connotations in their relationship. One of the most iconic scenes that most fans remember of this ship is when Ji-yeong sacrifices herself so Sae-byeok can survive. The ship has became so famous, in fact, that it already has, of currently, 500+ works in AO3 while SangHun being the second, despite the fact the series started airing recently.

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Trivia

 * Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong's actresses, Ho Yeon Jung and Lee Yoo-mi, are good friends. In an interview Yoo-mi said: "We're the same age and we share similar interests, so we got along really well. When we were filming, we kept sharing Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok's feelings. There was no way we wouldn't grow close. So I guess we were meant to be?"
 * Ho Yeon says that Yoo-mi was always very considerate when she talked about her concerns in acting. "Since I trust her, we talked about many things. So I think it all wrapped up nicely. I'm still thankful for her." - Ho Yeon said.
 * Ho Yeon And Yoo-mi couldn't stop crying while filming the scene of Ji-yeong's sacrifice for Sae-byeok. As soon as the directors called “Cut,” both actresses let out their tears. Ho-yeon even walked away in order to compose herself again. The makeup artists had to take time in between takes to wipe away the tears off Ho Yeon’s face. Once the scene was succesfully filmed, Ho Yeon couldn’t do anything but rest her forehead on Yoo-mi's shoulder while crying.
 * When Ho Yeon was asked who her favorite character was in Squid Game, she replied "Ji-yeong, of course!".
 * Yoo-mi said in an interview that she wanted Sae-byeok to live.
 * The director of the show, Hwang Dong-hyuk, during a commentary with Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, and art director Chae Kyoung-sun remaked on Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong's relationship; "They're complete strangers, but there's some kind of friendship between them. A bond formed in a short period of time. Empathy and understanding of each other. I thought they would be the perfect example to portray such feelings."