One of the monks shows Jongin to a long, narrow room where he’s given a bowl of porridge and some steamed vegetables. It’s a plain, bland meal, but it’s warm and it’s filling and it’s more than welcome after the arduous hike up the mountain. Jongin wolfs down the entire bowl, and he’s given a second without even having to ask even though he knows that monks themselves only ever have one bowl.

After he’s eaten, another monk shows him where he can bathe and provides him with some clean clothes. The bathwater is cold and the clothes are plain and itchy, but again Jongin can’t complain. They’re taking care of him far better than he’s taken care of himself on some occasions as of late.

Once he’s clean and clothed and his belly is full, he finds that, even with excitement of learning more about Kyungsoo’s past, he is absolutely exhausted. He’s been awake for a very long time now, and the mountain hike is far more exercise than he’s used to getting. So when yet a third monk shows him to a sleeping room, where they’ve rolled out an extra mat for his use, he falls asleep almost as soon as he lays down.

He’s woken the following morning by the quiet whisper of the monks’ robes as they rise at dawn, carefully rolling up their sleeping mats and leaving the room. Jongin rises too, feeling the excitement bubbling up again. He follows the monks’ lead and rolls up his sleeping mat, stacking it against the far wall with the others, and, pulling on his boots, he goes out into the courtyard.

The sun is just starting to rise, the sky over the mountain tinged with pinks and yellows and golds. Even as anxious as he is to speak with Junmyeon, he can’t help but stop for a moment and take it all in. They definitely don’t get sunrises like this back in Seoul. Not that he is ever really awake for sunrise.

“Mr. Kim?” a monk interrupts his quiet contemplation of the sky. “If you’d like to join us for breakfast, Junmyeon will see you after.”

Jongin thanks the monk and follows him to the meal room, where he is given yet more porridge with steamed vegetables. He isn’t as hungry this time around so the plain fare isn’t nearly as appealing, but he knows beggars can’t be choosers, so he accepts his bowl with quiet thanks and joins the other monks to eat.

After he’s eaten and cleaned his bowl, the monk shows him to Junmyeon’s private chamber. He finds Junmyeon sitting in the exact same place as he had been the night before, almost as if hadn’t moved all night.

He waits until the first monk has gone, leaving him and Jongin alone in the small room, to speak.

“So, you wish to speak with me about an adoption,” Junmyeon says, folding his hands calmly on the desk before him.

Jongin nods. “Yes. I think you’re the only one who might be able to help me.” Junmyeon doesn’t speak, so Jongin continues. “My best friend disappeared ten, nearly eleven, years ago. I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to him. I-I’m pretty sure he ran away, but it feels like the more I keep digging, the more mysterious his past becomes. I discovered recently that he was adopted, and when I found his birth certificate, it had both the mother’s and father’s names left off. The only connection to them that I could find was a name – your name – and the name of this temple.”

Junmyeon nods, looking a bit sad. “I remember this boy quite well, although I sincerely wish he’d never had to come through the temple.”

“What can you tell me about his adoption?” Jongin asks eagerly. “About his mother and father, and why they didn’t keep him?”

Instead of answering the question directly, Junmyeon says, “Mr. Kim, how much do you know about the Catholic church?”

Jongin is taken aback by the change in topic. He can’t see how the Catholic church has anything to do with Kyungsoo or his disappearance. “Uh, not much,” he admits. His grandparents had been Buddhists, but his parents had only followed the religion halfheartedly and he and Jongdae have never been religious. He knows a couple people who are Catholic – he thinks the night receptionist, Krystal, might be – but he doesn’t really know anything about the religion.

Junmyeon fixes Jongin with a deep stare. “The Catholic church has always had bouts of fanaticism over certain ideas. Converting nonbelievers, stamping out witchcraft, the crusades, etcetera. Around the turn of the century, they got very zealous about unwanted pregnancies. Any woman who got pregnant out of wedlock was seen as a terrible sinner. They were shunned in their communities. Many times, they were sent away until the baby was born. This practice continued until quite recently.

“Because premarital has always and will continue to be an issue, someone came up with an idea to create a maternity house – a place specifically for unwed mothers to hide away from society until their baby was born,” Junmyeon continues. “These houses existed mostly in the Americas and Europe, but there were quite a few here in Korea as well. But, in the eyes of the Catholic church, these young unwed mothers were sinners. They couldn’t be allowed to live out their pregnancy in peace. No, according to the church, they needed to be punished. So the nuns who ran the maternity houses basically turned these women into indentured servants. They were treated badly, subjected to physical and mental abuse during their stay. They were forced to do hard physical labor and attend mass several times a day.

“Once the women gave birth to their babies, if they survived, they were sent home – without their children.” Junmyeon’s look is sad. “If the babies lived, the nuns were supposed to arrange for adoptions with loving couples who wanted children but were unable to have their own. In truth, most of these babies never made it out of the homes. Many of them were murdered, tossed aside like they were nothing of value. It was a truly horrendous practice.”

Jongin swallows past the lump in his throat. He’s never seen himself as having children, but even he, with no fatherly instincts at all, can’t imagine something so horrible happening to innocent babies.

“Kyungsoo’s mother was quite young when she got pregnant. Seventeen, I think,” Junmyeon says, bringing the conversation back to the topic Jongin is most interested in. “Her name was Rahee, though I never learned her family name. Her parents were very devout Catholics, which is where the problem arose. Rahee was forced to attend mass with her parents, and there a priest became infatuated with her despite the fact that he was thirty years older and that he’d taken a vow of celibacy. I never learned his name – I’m not even sure Rahee herself knew his real name – but I do know that his infatuation led to repeated .

“When Rahee’s parents discovered that she was pregnant, they sent her away – immediately,” Junmyeon continues his story. “It burned down about ten years ago, but there used to be one of the church’s maternity homes a few miles further up the mountain. They built it far from civilization in order to hide the vile things that happened there. That’s where Rahee was sent. She lived out her pregnancy there, and gave birth to her son – your friend, Kyungsoo.”

Jongin’s mouth is inordinately dry. He can’t believe what he’s hearing, about Kyungsoo’s mother and his father and the circumstances of his birth. He can’t believe that he’s on the same mountain where Kyungsoo was born.

Junmyeon goes on. “Rahee may have been indoctrinated in the church, but she was intelligent and she knew what would happen to her child if she left him with the nuns at the maternity home. Despite Kyungsoo being a product of , she loved him very much. So much that she risked her life to flee with him when he was less than a day old. Despite being weak from having just given birth, she stumbled down the mountain with him. We found her and brought her here, to this temple, where we hid her when the nuns came looking.

“Even so, she worried endlessly about the safety of her son. She was terrified that the nuns or the priest who had her would come along to finish the job, so she knew that, as much as she wanted to stay with him, she couldn’t risk it. So one of the monks here at the temple drafted a legal document, and she signed the rights to her son away to me on the condition that I find a safe place for Kyungsoo. Once the documents were signed, she disappeared.”

Junmyeon pauses to take a small sip of water from the metal cup on his desk.

“I took Kyungsoo into Seoul myself,” he goes on. “He was a very good baby, you know. He hardly ever cried. I interviewed prospective parents myself, and eventually decided on the Dos. They were a loving couple with means who desperately wanted children themselves but couldn’t have any. In order to put anyone who was looking for Kyungsoo off his trail, they faked Mrs. Do’s pregnancy and we pretended that Kyungsoo was biologically theirs. I’m afraid that’s as much as I know about it, however.”

Jongin swallows thickly. “So you’re telling me that Kyungsoo’s birth mother and father are still out there? Alive?”

“Not his mother, no,” Junmyeon replies, shaking his head. “I got word about her death maybe a year after she’d left Kyungsoo with us. She was murdered. I always suspected she was killed by the priest who impregnated her, but that’s just my guess. I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure.”

“So his father is still alive?” Jongin presses eagerly.

But again, Junmyeon shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kim, but I don’t know. I haven’t left this temple since the day I left Kyungsoo with Mr. and Mrs. Do. The priest may or may not be alive. From what Rahee told me, he was in his late forties when she got pregnant. That would make him nearly seventy now, so there’s really no telling. I’m sorry I can’t be of more service to you.”

“No, you’ve been quite a big help,” Jongin assures him, bowing low, respectfully. “I’ve learned so much from you.”

Junmyeon smiles in return, but it’s a melancholic sort of smile that stays with Jongin long after he’s heading back down the mountain.