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In the seconds after he finds the child, he doesn't know what to say. Heavy silence settles over him, as it always does, but the devastation that washes him through shocks Junho. Perhaps it's the card, resting on her chest- circle, triangle, square- taunting him. He knows. He'll never forget.
So here it is; the culmination of Junho's vastest efforts. Every night, he rewatches the island exploding, rewatches his brother disappearing with the child bundled in his arms, silence oppressive save for the beat of Junho's heart, the pad of the waves. Here it all is.
It strikes him, suddenly- like salt water in a wound- that Inho must've been here, in his apartment. He would trust no one to find Junho and let him be (that's what he wants to believe; that his brother isn't all the wordless Front Man, but still the hyung that cared for him), so he must've left the child here, with his own two hands, and walked through these halls that Junho sleeps in, night after achingly slow night. He breathes, once, twice through his nose, and tries very hard not to think about Inho walking through here like he used to walk through their childhood home; about Inho's fingerprints on the front door, the impression of his footsteps on the floorboards; the last traces of a man who slips from Junho's fingers like ice: slippery, and painful to hold, and shattering against the floor.
The child babbles, all sounds and soft confusion- she's not old enough to feel confused- and Junho snaps his head to the halted reality before him, and all it's implications. He has half the heart to let out a humourless laugh, shaking his head as his eyes flit incredulously from the soft-faced baby to the gleaming bank card, inscribed with his name. It's obvious what Inho intended, and Junho wants to shake him by the shoulders for it, amongst other things.
It's irony that's bitter in his mouth, as he places the card on the coffee table, and leans over to stare down at the child, and the damning tracksuit wrapped around her small, newborn body. New life, born in the game of death, winning, and here is the younger brother, who has only stumbled and lost and failed, left to look after her. Deep in his gut, Junho is sick with the statement Inho has made about himself- the man who wanted a family, to be a father, who raised Junho since birth- he must be truly changed, and unrecognisable, if he could not trust himself with, or would not want the child as his own. Thready, barely-there hope is snubbed out like dead embers stamped away into dusty ash.
Junho breathes a sharp breath through clenched teeth, and the baby hiccups a giggle at the sensation of a passing breeze. Duty rushes vertigo through him, at the sight of such saccharine, untainted innocence.
"I suppose it's just me and you, then."
//
He realises, embarrassingly quickly, that he does not have the first idea where to begin. Mechanically, he can go through the expected motions- baby formula, nappies, clothes, lullabies. But babies cry. A lot. And try as he might to calm her- all frayed nerves, and rocking with as much meaning as he can, and breathless reassurances, he just can't. The weight of her is too heavy in his arms, his apartment seems too small for a child, he freezes and finds himself doubting his ability to ever love her when he looks at the jacket tucked away in her drawers, or sees himself in the mirror because he's not Inho, he's not the detective, or the hero, and he can't-
He's not her father. She's not his daughter. He realises that the first time she gets sick, as babies do, and he's gripped with panic that the child is unvaccinated, and unregistered, and she hasn't even got a name, and she's crying and he doesn't-
He caves, and calls his mother, and shakily asks her to come around, because he can't explain over the phone, steadily rocking the child in his arms as she burns up. Junho puts his phone down, with a shaky breath, and mentally runs through whatever he can remember of legal custody claims- though it's a lawyer's job, more than a detective's- and which paperwork he'll need to ask for first. The child keeps crying.
Explaining to his mother that he is now looking after a baby practically full-time is…. is something, alright. Junho never thought he'd be in such a tangled, ridiculous predicament, but he faces it head on- if only for the child's safety, as she struggles feverishly in his arms. He can't let someone else die- and the thought is like lightning in his belly. Breathlessly, clenching his hands against the fast-coming panic, he assures his mother that the child isn't his- not like that. It's been years since Junho finished his transition, and it's not like he has a partner anyways, and his mother would've noticed regardless. So no- she is not his daughter.
He struggles to find the words to describe what she is then- he stumbles halfway through an explanation of finding her, abandoned, and not being able to leave her in the middle of the night, and is horrifyingly saved by the child's worsening screaming. His mother takes her from his arms, and presses pursed lips to her flushed forehead in that way that mothers do, nodding to herself.
"Have you taken her to see the doctor yet?"
"N-no. Not yet."
"Okay. Right now, she needs ibuprofen- and sleep. You can't leave her; you take her to the doctors the very first thing in the morning. It's dangerous for children to get sick, if you don't know anything about their health."
Junho nods at her numbly, the logic rushing through him. He understands, in the way that one can digest facts and know them as truth, but the unsteadiness still grips him. If only to give himself something to do, he stands up, and grabs his keys.
"I- I don't have any. I'll buy some."
"Quickly, now."
He leaves her with his mother, and welcomes the bracing wind as it ruffles his hair. The 24-hour chemist is only two blocks down. He lets his feet do the walking, and tries to nip the thought of the child left abandoned at the bud. He knows what happened, he knows who did it. He keeps seeing his face in the mirror, and wishing he'd wake up as the version of his brother who always knew what to do, always knew how to fix every scrape, every fear, every hint of childish, foolish dread.
Like his body isn't his own, Junho buys the suspension of medicine, and makes the trek back home, and does it with a fervour that burns his thighs. He doesn't know the first thing of what he'll say to the doctor tomorrow, as the full weight of the reality settles over him again. Saying the words aloud to his mother had made the situation real, and heavy, and inescapable.
She's not his daughter. He doesn't know where she came from (except he does. he does, he does, he does-) and he has every right to walk away (away, away, away?)
Does he trust himself? Not to turn and bolt, tomorrow, when they ask about her, and how she relates to him, and go through his background checks- determine him fit to look after a child, or not? Does he trust himself, like Inho trusted him- or else what sort of sick joke is this, leaving a child in Junho's home, and excusing himself from his younger brother's life?!
One breath, two. He turns the key, to the house where the child ruffles blankets restlessly, and where the last evidence of where she came from- a number repeated thrice, simple- makes a nestled weight at the bottom of Junho's wardrobe.
//
The next morning confirms what Junho already knows, his mother by his side as the nurses sweep the child from his arms, and check her over, and question him about where she came from. They help her, with her immediate fever, and sickness, but they call CPS, and the officers ask him lots of questions- all of which he answers as honestly as he can without sounding insane, and trembling too badly- all just to come to the same conclusion. The baby is nameless, and parentless, and recordless. There is no recorded nationality, or date of birth, or place of birth. She doesn't match with any missing person records for children neonate to 18 months old, and so they keep her for a week.
At the appointment, his heart heaving with the relief that she'll be just fine, doubly so, once they've vaccinated her and set up her file, and his eyes fooling him with glimpses of Inho's face in the corners of the room, and the bloodstains across that quiet number (222), Junho finds it in himself to speak the question running restless through him. He knows what he has to do- has known it since he'd realised what Inho had done, all those nights ago- but it's the clarity that shocks the doubt out of him. He still feels himself tremble beneath gooseflesh, eyes following the child as they take her away from him, but there's no room for fear, or self-flagellation, in his head, as he asks that teetering question.
He turns to the social worker- a lady with kind eyes, and blonde highlights through her brown hair; she can't be any older than him, maybe even younger- and, "C-can I keep her?" He feels his mother's eyes on him, and the sincerity in his own voice fractures through him. Inho's shadow is still there, the baby's mother- her real mother- is still dead, and Junho was never meant to- to have a-
He's an officer, resigned or not, at the end of the day, and the very least he can do is keep her from harm. (Is that all a father does? Could he ever love her? Could he ever look at her without the blood silhouetting her? He could. He can.)
The social worker opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again, hesitantly. It must be the sight of something desperately hopeful in Junho's eyes, no matter how much he wishes his hope would just die already. She gives him a nod, and a kind smile.
//
Those months after their escapade together, trailing the island like a wild goose chase, and evading death at every sharp, unseeable corner, Mr Choi, Junho and Kim decided to keep contact. He can guess at the reasons why Wooseok had clung to him stubbornly, but for a man whom Junho had saved, and who'd in turned saved him, Kim was ever elusive with his reasons for exchanging numbers.
His first thought is that pacts between men who preserve each other from certain death don't break easily, and Kim's served military, so he must know it deeper than Junho could in the police force, but the why ceases to matter when the child comes into Junho's life. Kim's there, and he's helpful, when Junho needs to make his monthly visits to noona's memorial, or needs to meet the social worker in person, or needs company from his own thoughts whilst she sleeps. Wooseok, too, has a surprisingly (unsurprisingly) large number of tips for Junho- when to expect her to crawl, which teething rings are best when her incisors start coming in, when it's time to go up a nappy size. He knew the man had a child, but the unconscious bias in Junho had informed him that criminals were often deadbeat fathers. He's pleasantly surprised that Choi Wooseok has made it a habit to surprise him.
There's a quiet night, that he steals, five days after they give her back to him as a foster parent (going on adoption), where him and Kim find themselves hunched together, beneath the moon, and the glow of Seoul city lights shadows their chins in the dark. The baby is sleeping, quiet and peaceful, after Junho had spent two hours rocking her to bed. His hands tremble slightly, from the lack of her weight against them, and he breathes a tired sigh that plumes in the cool night air.
They made a habit of it, him and Kim, standing silently into late night hours, and just existing together. They speak little of what happened, and little in general; more nudges and soft breaths than anything. It's nice- blissful. If only Junho's head didn't jump at the chance to torture him every other quiet moment.
"Have you named her, yet?"
"W-what?" Junho snaps his head up, half surprised that Kim had broken the silence, and only just missing what he'd said. The rumble of traffic, far below them, sounds too much like seawater and waves lapping, as the world falls apart around him. He shakes the thought from his head and at last comprehends what he's just been asked.
"No…." he breathes, defeated at the thought of the registration papers left on his bedside table, and the empty, dashed line where he's expected to write out her legal name. Kim makes a sound that might be a laugh- in the days they'd known each other on business, then on life and death, it would be rare to see him smile… now, it comes marginally easier, around Junho. "Raising a child for 3 weeks, and she still has no name?!"
Junho bristles playfully at the remark, scoffing as he lets all regrets fall away from him. "Look, it's difficult, okay- whatever I pick will be her name forever and I just… I'd like to hear your suggestions, then."
He's heard parents recount stories, about deliberating over names for months with the child on the way, and yet, any decisions they'd made would fall into place the moment the child was in its mother's arms. They'd just know, which name to pick- who that child is. Junho thinks, regretfully, he can never easily know anything about her.
Kim rests his chin over his interlocked fingers, elbows leaning on the railings of Junho's balcony. His brows crease like they used to, when he'd aim his rifle to take a shot, and the look of deep thought muddies over his dark eyes. Eventually, he meets Junho's eyes, and pulls him from his reverie of watching the muscles in Kim's jaw twitch, by clearing his throat.
"How about… Hyunju?"
Junho lets out a soft breath, blinking owlishly like he hadn't expected Kim to take him seriously. He hadn't. Still, he turns the pretty word over in his head, and feels certainty flicker in his skin. "It means 'virtuous pearl',"
"It's pretty." Junho nods, tilting his head as if he could feel the name, see it, scrutinise it with all his thoroughness. He glances at the child, behind them in her crib, laid next to Junho's bed. "… where did you hear it?" He's never known Kim to have a wife, or a daughter, or a sister. The man rarely speaks of his family; of a mother, or cousins, or an aunt. Then again, beyond the mission, and the results of it, Kim doesn't know much about Junho either.
That's why he thinks it's…jarring- no, something quieter than that… unsettling, when Kim goes silent with contemplation shadowing his eyes. He swallows, muscles ticking minutely, again, and then nods once. "When I was serving in the army, the commander of my regiment… she…"
Junho dips his head, encouraging, in the brief space where Kim figures out his wording. An unexpected look of fondness overcomes his friend's face. "Well, her name was Hyunju. She told me once, that she picked it herself… when I asked her why, she said she'd wanted something persistent, and kind, and… well, it suited her." The muddling between his references isn't lost to Junho- there's a moment where Kim talks about his commander, and the child, like they're one.
"Picked it herself?" He prods, taking the offered thread with a sort of reverence that pushes him back into the body of that little girl, finding her way into the world and her name, when he was just 16.
Kim nods, and give him a small, earnest smile- the sort that so rarely graces his face, except as the quirk of his lips at the end of a laugh, or the gentleness with which he regards the child. For a moment, Junho wishes he could see it more often. "She was…. She used to live a different life, before I last saw her. Said she'd changed her name to fit her new one."
It could be the sign of a stowaway defecting, and hoping to renew themselves with a new name; or someone undercover, and searching for answers behind a mask… or it could be the sort of new life Junho had seen for himself, all those years ago. He aches when he hears the stories of people who could be like him; a sort of ache that settles into his being, holy, and wanting, and permanent.
The feeling reminds him of his brother. It reminds him of the sort of man he must be for the child.
Kim is right- it does suit her.
//
Moonlight pokes in like delicate, white rays floating, hovering over his face as he blinks awake through heaving breaths, shaking and sweaty, and so sure that he's drowning- that Inho just shot him, mocking smile on his face with the taunt of his identity, dangled before him.
The child had been there- he thinks she had; a transient bundle of blood, and sobbing fear, all tangled up in the overcoat of her dead mother, as his brother… as the Front Man held her at gunpoint. The dream had been dizzying with it's confusion; dreadful, and lung-deep with the threat Inho had muttered to him.
You can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this, youcan'tdothis-
The sort of dream that gave itself over to dead bodies, and blood, and little children screaming innocently in the rain- his brother impossibly young, beneath the mask of the Front Man, and then not beneath it at all.
Junho had fallen. And he'd woken up in bed, sweating through his sheets, moonlight flickering over him.
Pushing himself up onto his elbows, and feeling himself breathe mechanically, Junho notes that it's currently 2am, based on the display of his alarm clock. Dizzyingly, he rubs sleep from his eyes, and stifles his groan as he sits up, against the headboard. His eyes sting, teary and exhausted, fighting the weight that taunts him back to the edge of sleep, unreasonably afraid of what he might see next- of closing his eyes, and waking in the soldiers' quarters, or the operating room, or the Front Man suite, running all over again, with a new threat behind each word. He gives himself two minutes- counts them, clinical and precise- to compose himself, and swallow that fear down, like the police officer he was, before quieting to hear the newly-silent room, devoid of his gulping gasps.
Carefully, he shuffles over to the far side of his bed, and leans over the edge to inspect Hyunju's cot, placed there. He hadn't heard her snores, soft and small in the quiet of his bedroom, and it had panicked his stilled heart; but she lays there now, safe and snug against her blankets. Unexpectedly, her wide, baby-grey eyes stare back up at him, as Junho breathes a shaky, relieved sigh.
Then, he realises, that must mean she's awake. She's awake at 2am. He sighs again, far more discontent this time, but unable to shake the rushing relief in his body.
She's safe, she's safe, she's safe-
"Well, what are you doing up so late, little lady?" He asks her, voice rough and gentle from sleep, leaning over her cot to bundle her into his arms. After weeks of taking care of her, and dedicating basically every waking moment to her happiness and safety, she fits easily into the nook his arms make around her body, and her weight settles against his chest like it was made for her.
The thought gives him pause, now, as he recounts the details of his dream- a nightmare where he'd almost lost her- and the panic of waking from it. She makes a steady weight, and a steady warmth, pressed against his body, and it wards the panic away better than those two minutes of manual breathing did. Thickly, he swallows, and goes through the motions of checking Hyunju over, trying to figure out what might've disrupted her sleep.
He checks she's clean, and stares down at her small face, fingers in her mouth and babbling, before he lifts the two of them from the mattress, and pads into the kitchen. With learned patience and dexterity, Junho goes about shaking up a bottle of baby formula for her, one handed as he keeps her secure against his shoulder, and leaves it to heat before moving to the sitting room.
He leans back against the cushions, only the low light of the lamp he'd switched on keeping them company, rocking Hyunju rhythmically in his arms. "I'm going to assume you're hungry, and that's the reason you're awake- I'll be mildly disappointed if that's not the case." He deadpans at her small face, drooling against his shirt. She coos at him, a small sound against the hum on the light-bulb and the sound of distant traffic.
Sleepy, and feeling moderately ridiculous about himself, he coos back at her, mimicking her mumbling attempt at baby speech with his lower, older voice. She stills, hearing him, and regards him with something that could be mistaken for judgement, if babies were known to side-eye people (which they are), as if to say to him 'that was your best attempt?' The rocking of his arms pauses.
"Don't look at me like that, Hyunju-ya. It's not like you're fluent in Korean either." In response, she purses her lips at him and blows a raspberry. Offended, Junho scoffs.
"Don't you think you're a little young to be defying me, young lady? At least leave that till you're 14 years old." He shakes his head at her, chuckling fondly as he says the words, lacking any real heat behind them. The little girl in his arms turns her head away from him, as if lifting her chin in rebellion, and something gives way in Junho's heart.
The rocking of his arms resumes this time, less the gentle rhythm that would encourage her body to rest, and more short, powerful bursts- the type he'd sometimes use to draw laughter out of her, and keep her entertained when she was bored enough to scream his ears off. He ensures her head is properly supported, propped against his wrist, as he playfully lifts her in his lap, and brings her back down again. "What did I say about judging, huh?" He tries to muster his best fatherly tone, like the sort Inho would use to tell him off for running too recklessly and scraping up his knees, and is rewarded with those sought-after laughs that burst between her small baby teeth. She giggles at him, and Junho's sure he's beaming back at her like an idiot.
"Naughty little girl; think you can get away with being up this late, tut tut." He scolds, slowing the rocking of his arms back to steadiness. She babbles and coos at him, and Junho doubts he can put her down for bed at all. A soft, tiny fist reaches out to grip around his pinkie. "Oh so you're bribing me now, Hwang Hyunju." The gesture makes his heart melt, the ghost of duty and doubt and fear buckling beneath his skin. His heart is racing, but there's nothing that relates it to the panic of waking up from Inho's face in his dreams, anymore.
She's here. She likes him, trusts him. Don't leave her, don't leave her, don't leave her-
"Well, sorry to say that just won't work on me." He wags his pinkie at her, watches her glinting eyes track the movement of her own hand. It certainly has worked on him. Junho is now realising, gravely, that he is a victim of Hynju's adorable, inescapable charm. Does she know what she's done to him? Turned his life upside down, and now he's realising just how worth it the past 2 months of sleepless nights and bottomless anxiety have been? Innocently, sweetly, she huffs a breath at him, pulling his finger between her palm to her mouth.
"C'mon." He tells her, after watching her for a moment, lips pursed and renewed warmth spreading through his chest and limbs. "Let's get you fed and back to sleep. I'm tired, too."
She mutters something indistinct and meaningless, as he cradles her back to bed, letting her sip from her bottle when they return, frenzied covers strewn around them. She drinks, slow and with little more hunger, until her eyes start to droop, and Junho pulls away to pat her back and let her head fall into the nook against his shoulder. She's out like a candlelight, content, and full and sleepy, the way babies are, little body snug against his. He can shield her from the world, like this. He can make her giggle, and smile, nestled securely in his arms.
He thinks- he knows- he can love her, like this.
//
Some part of him, he thinks, had forgotten how to want this, and how to accept it.
He couldn't say exactly when it started, if only because he grew up a lonely child, without many friends, and because his family had never looked nuclear and normal; but, bit by grieving bit of hope and selfishness and want, Junho forgot how to be in a family, how to have a community around him, and good things to share, and special moments on sunny days.
His clinical psychologist had brought it up, the last few times he saw her- this isolation, this ache that seeped abandonment and seclusion into all the facets of Junho's life before Hyunju, and all the impressions left in its greedy wake. He'd told her about his family growing up, because she'd prodded about Inho (who "went missing" and has been "unrecoverable" for years now, who "left" Junho's life after the death of noona: anything close to the truth, and they'd call him insane, they'd take Hyunju from him, they'd alienate him more than the truth ever could)- and when she listened, she pointed out the effects with observant ease, picking out silk-thin threads as they stitched through Junho's life in the aftermath of trauma. There had been something about her kind gaze; knowing, flaying Junho like a fish beneath her stare. It had made him writhe, and made her words hang like ghosts over his head, late into the night.
She's right. It's a rotten truth, but she's right.
He's glad for it, for hearing it. Glad that he told her, as best as he could; glad that Wooseok and Kim had hung around with him; glad that they had agreed to meeting for dinner- Wooseok with Mrs Choi and their daughter- and trying, with Junho, to claw back at that normalcy and peace.
He's glad, above all, that Inho has stayed far enough away from it all that Junho could convince himself, on a good day, that Inho really had gone missing; that he had been forcefully stolen away, and couldn't return. It makes everything soft and bearable: blurry corners that don't cut.
"Hey, hey- Hyunju-ya, no snatching from her; play nice." He berates the child, softly, propped up on his knee as she reaches over to one Choi Juyeong, who pulls herself towards the babe, perched between her mother's legs. Mrs Choi smiles at the two girls, and gives Junho a small shake of her head. "Children will play; she's not old enough to steal, y'know."
"Yeah," He murmurs with some fondness, watching Hyunju burst out a giggle at Juyeong's stubby fingers on her wrist. "Still; it's good to teach her to play nice. You're friends, after all." He says the last part leaning over his daughter's face, eyeing the two children as they push at the small plush between them. At some point, it goes flying from Hyunju's grip, and lands in the centre of the living room; she's at that stage of life where anything she holds will be thrown, including Junho's fingers, because she's yet to make the unfortunate discovery that they're not detachable from his hands.
Hyunju makes a small, 'shocked' "oh", little lips curling around the sound as if processing what she's just achieved. Juyeong looks at her wordlessly, for a moment, before scooting down from the couch, and shuffling her way towards the small, red fox. She picks the toy up, turns to her mama and cocks her head. "Yeah, Juyeong, good girl! Now come; give it to Hyunju; share with each other." She applauds, with an incline of her head. Junho watches the girl- a year old and shaking on her feet; short, light hair pulled into a small ponytail at the nape of her neck- stumble her way back over, and slowly hold out the toy between her little hands, pushing it against Hyunju's chest. Juyeong smiles; a barely-there quirk of her lips, and Hyunju makes grabby hands towards the fox.
With the urgency of children missing out on moments for play, the two get back to tugging, and nudging, and smiling at each other. Absently, and with the ease of breathing, Junho leans over to press his lips to the crown of Hyunju's head, her soft hairs brushing at his nose. "They're quite the pair, aren't they?" Mrs Choi murmurs.
"They are." Junho nods his head at little Juyeong. "You've got a kind daughter, in her. She'll grow with a big heart."
"Something tells me your little one isn't far off, herself." Mrs Choi nudges, softly, and Junho's heart warms at the thought. "Oh, I don't know. She's unlocked the power of childhood mischief and I don't think she's letting go any time soon." He bounces the culprit gently, on his knee, as she pulls at Juyeong's fingers, engrossed with the girl before her.
The doorbell chimes, and pulls him from the moment. Mrs Choi raises a brow at him, and Junho considers who it could be, as he raises from the sofa- much to Hyunju's protests. He frowns, apologetically, as he hands her over to Mrs Choi- but the woman just gives him a kind smile, and takes Hyunju into her arms with delight.
There's surprise and quiet tension laced into his movements, as he passes the closed door of the kitchen, hearing Kim and Wooseok bickering quietly over the coffee pot and shared cigarettes, and stops at the front door. Something has been posted through the letterbox- a shiny card floats down against the laminated flooring, golden and glinting. The three, neat shapes, printed in black ink, confirm to Junho what it is.
On the flip side, when he picks it up, are the words "Thank you." written out in the cursive font he knows as his brother's hand. Entranced, and heart rushing, suddenly, Junho turns the door knob, and throws open the door to glare down the apartment hallway. There's no one behind it, and no one beyond: just the whoosh of the door moving, and Junho's abruptly harsh breathing. Shivering, Junho scans the card again, turning it over and over and over in his palms, reading and rereading those words.
Achingly, the hallway is void, and Junho just missed him.
Good. Thinks the bitter, logical part of him, even as tears prick his eyes and he sighs his defeat whilst closing the door again. He didn't want to see Inho anyways- it would've made everything worse.
It would've.
He's had Hyunju for a little over three months, and it's only now that his life has finally started to regain some semblance of normal; some semblance of comforting routine that he could use to drown everything that happened out. "Hwang? Is everything alright?" Wooseok peaks his head around the kitchen doorway, expressive eyes blinking back with genuine concern. Junho's jaw tightens, but he forces himself to nod. "Yeah- yeah; everything's okay. It must've just been some cold caller." His fists clench behind his back, crushing the card, and the words on it. Wooseok lingers for a moment, and then gives him an easy smile. "Alright. Two minutes and we'll bring the coffee 'round." Junho tries for his best smile back at him, but it falters when the door closes again.
He turns away, and stares down at the crumpled card, dread running him cold. Inho, Inho, Inho…
"Thank you." It had said; but what did that even mean?! He couldn't possibly have been thanking him for taking care of Hyunju- the audacity of the thought is bracing, and laughable: Hwang Inho leaves a baby girl, and an unconceivably large amount of money, in his younger brother's arms, disappears but seems to stalk him for the next three months, and then deems it fitting to express his gratitude with one of those accursed business cards and a small phrase. Disappears with no explanation, no answers, nothing, again. He can't even do Junho the courtesy of staying out of his and his daughter's life.
If it weren't for the Chois and Kim over, right now, Junho would be spitting insuppressible words of venom into the air, with the hope that whatever technology Inho was using to watch him, would pick up on the message and he would leave. Right now, the only cure to his rage is tearing the card up into small, golden fragments, and soothing himself with the knowledge that he'll burn it later.
"Thank you." Inho had said, like it mattered anymore, what he had to say. Like Junho had done it for him, and for his guilt. No. Nothing he had ever done, and will ever do, for Hyunju would be tainted by Inho or his memory. That girl was his- he'd protect her because she was a child; his child.
Inho doesn't get a damned say in it.
Junho exhales, lets the anger evaporate from him, and counts his blessings. Inho is out of his life, now. He turns his face back towards the things that matter.