Jongin is eager to return to work. Well, more precisely, he’s eager to see his friends and share with them what he learned from Junmyeon at Seondeoksa Temple. Despite the fact that he’s returning from disciplinary leave, he’s smiling when he walks through the doors of Precinct 95.

Victoria, perched as always behind the front desk, lets out a low whistle. “Well, well, well. Look who’s returned from exile.”

Jongin grins. “It’s good to see you too, Victoria. I hope you’re not still too mad at me about the fake warrant.”

She sighs expansively, but her bright red lips are turning up in a smile. “Well, you left out my involvement in your illegal activities, so I suppose I can’t be too mad. Besides, I’ve had some time to cool off.” She hesitates. “How was your trip to Jeju? Did you learning anything?” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Jongin answers, leaning against her desk. “I learned a lot. But I’m not quite sure what to do with the information I got. I was hoping you and the others could help me out with it.”

Victoria checks the chic watch on her wrist. “It’s a bit too early for a coffee run, but give it an hour and I think we can all sneak away to Club Espresso for a chat.”

Jongin grins. “It’s a date.”

So an hour later, he and Victoria head to Club Espresso with Luhan, Chanyeol, and Sehun. They wait until they’re tucked in their favorite booth at the back, each with their drink of choice, to broach the obvious subject.

“So?” Sehun prompts, leaning forward on his elbows. “Spill the beans, dude. We’re all dying to know what you found out.”

So Jongin tells them everything he’d learned from Junmyeon. He tells them about Rahee and the priest who’d her, about her being sent to the maternity home on the mountain, about her running away and giving Kyungsoo to the monks to arrange the adoption.

When he finishes, they all seem a bit speechless.

“I know the church has been responsible for a lot of terrible things, but to murder newborn babies…” Victoria shudders.

Luhan purses his lips thoughtfully. “I dunno, I guess I don’t find it that hard to believe, actually. They’ve done some pretty horrific things in the past.” He shakes his head, looking to Jongin. “So what are you going to do with the information that you discovered?”

“That’s the thing,” Jongin admits. “I don’t know. Kyungsoo’s mother is a dead end, so I guess I need to look into his father. But I don’t know how to even go about doing that. He could be dead, for all I know.”

Victoria taps her long fingernails against the Formica tabletop. “You could always go talk to Kyungsoo’s adoptive parents,” she suggests.

Jongin scoffs. “Yeah, right. If I show up at their house again, Mr. Do will probably throw a punch. I’ve pissed them off enough prying into the past.”

“Yeah, but now you know everything,” she points out. “Maybe they’ll be more willing to talk now that there are no more secrets.”

Jongin frowns, but Victoria has a point – as she usually does.

So, come the weekend, he steels his nerves and makes another trip to the Do residence. His hands are practically shaking when he rings the bell. He’s convinced that he’s going to get punched in the face in about two seconds.

Sure enough, when Mr. Do answers the door, he’s red-faced and angry. “I thought I told you never to come around here again,” he bellows, hands balled up into fists. “Do I need to call the cops? Get a restraining order? What part of ‘go away’ do you not get?”

Jongin holds his hands up in a sign of surrender. “Mr. Do, please. I just want to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mr. Do grumbles.

He goes to shut the door in Jongin’s face, but Jongin shoves his foot in the doorway before it can close. “I know about the adoption,” he says grimly. “About Kim Junmyeon and Kyungsoo’s birth parents. Please, please, just talk to me.”

Mr. Do hesitates, the surprise evident on his face. The anger trickles away, and suddenly he seems old, so very old. He pulls the door back open. “Fine,” he mutters, and it sounds like all the fight has gone out of him. “Come in.”

He leads the way to the living room, where Mrs. Do is watching television and doing a crossword puzzle. She looks up when her husband and Jongin come in, surprise evident on her face. She turns the television off. “Jongin,” she says, and it’s obvious from the tightness of her voice that she disapproves. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s fine, dear,” Mr. Do says wearily. “I let him in. He wants to talk about Kyungsoo.”

Mrs. Do’s expression grows even more dour. “I thought we’d agreed that this isn’t something we should talk about.”

“He knows, honey,” Mr. Do mutters. “He knows everything.” He gestures for Jongin to sit down.

He sinks onto the sofa tensely. “After I found Kyungsoo’s adoption papers, I traced it back to Kim Junmyeon. I went myself to Seondeoksa Temple to find him, and he told me the whole story. About Kyungsoo’s birth mother and how she put him up for adoption to save him.”

Now Mrs. Do looks more sad than angry. “Then you know that everything we did, we did to protect him.”

“Of course you did,” Jongin assures her quickly. “Nobody is saying that you didn’t. Honestly, Kyungsoo probably wouldn’t have survived his first year if it weren’t for you! He owes you his life!”

That seems to placate them a little bit, and they seem to relax.

Jongin takes a deep breath and decides to press his luck; it’s why he’s come to talk to them, at any rate. “Mr. and Mrs. Do,” he says cautiously. “Did Kyungsoo know that he was adopted?”

They exchange a nervous look, which answers his question before they even speak.

“We didn’t tell him,” Mr. Do says, looking down at his hands. “We didn’t want him to know. There was so much pain in his past, and we wanted to spare him all that. And the less he knew, the less likely it was that his birth parents could find him. We knew they weren’t safe, especially his father.”

Mrs. Do takes a deep breath. “He found out by accident,” she says, and it sounds like she’s close to tears. “The night he disappeared. He came home with a broken arm, and I got so angry with his carelessness.”

Jongin blanches. So they had known about the broken arm all along. Like him, they had never said anything to the police about it.

“I-I shouted at him,” Mrs. Do continues, sniffling. “I was so angry and so worried that I wasn’t thinking. I told him that if he wasn’t careful, his father would find him. Of course that got his attention. I tried to smooth it over, but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept demanding that we tell him the truth, so in the end, we did. We told him about his adoption and that his mother had left him for his safety. He was angry, so angry. He couldn’t believe we’d kept it from him all that time.” Now she really does begin to cry.

Mr. Do sighs, patting her on the shoulder comfortingly. “He yelled at us a bit, then stormed out. Honestly, we thought he was going to your house. But when we couldn’t get a hold of him the next morning, we realized he had really gone.” He wipes at his own eyes. “You have to understand, Jongin, we only ever wanted what was best for him. We never meant for any of this to happen.” He hesitates. “We’ve blamed ourselves, you know. Ever since he disappeared. We know it’s our fault.”

Jongin reached for Mr. Do’s hand. “It’s not your fault at all!” he assures them. “Please, please don’t blame yourselves!”

Mrs. Do sniffs. “You really don’t think it was our fault?”

“Of course not!” Jongin insists. And he knows that it wasn’t their fault. He knows this because it’s all his fault.