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In-ho decides against naming the baby.
Taking it with him is the logical choice. It is his custom to accompany each winner home as a sign of respect for their victory, as well as to indulge his own curiosity, and in this case it seems only more pertinent. The issue is that there is no home to return it to.
He can hardly trust a soldier to respect the baby's right to its credit card. That leaves the only other option as the VIPs, and In-ho thinks the baby would fare better on its own, or perhaps by being dropped off the cliff after all, than being entrusted to one of them. It makes sense for him to take it, though of course not as a permanent arrangement.
Naming it would be too parental; this is not his child, and given the circumstances surrounding its parents’ passing, assuming the role feels somewhat disrespectful. Referring to it aloud as Player 222 similarly makes him feel rather uncomfortable.
We are humans, Gi-hun informs him.
He half-considers calling it Jun-hee, but that disturbs something in him too. That is a dead woman. This is a living, screaming baby.
He buys baby products and formula and thinks he's going mad.
Giving it to a children's home would raise problems as well. He can hardly drop it off with its credit card in its blankets and expect everything to run smoothly. He debates waiting for the baby to turn eighteen and dropping off the card then, but it doesn't feel fair; growing up alone and penniless is not the kind of prize the Games promise.
A few nights in, staring blankly at the crying baby, he thinks of how, having kept tabs on Gi-hun, he saw the man bring Player 67's brother to Player 218's mother. For a delirious, sleep-deprived moment, he imagines giving her this child as well, leaving her one of the wealthiest, and most confused, women in Korea.
He makes phone calls, settles the aftermath of the games. All the VIPs got out untouched.
When the baby cries for a day straight, he takes it to a doctor, who declares it the picture of health. He thinks that's a first for a winner.
He drinks so he does not think about his wife. He prepares baby bottles and sees the hate, the terrible vitality, in Gi-hun's eyes. The baby squints at him and one thousand dead eyes stare with it.
He tries to make friendly faces at the baby once, stretching his mouth wide, and comes the closest he's been to crying in years.
He eventually concludes what he already knew - there's no one he can trust to give it to. He has proof that money - that much money - changes what a baby is in the world. But he cannot trust himself to raise it. He is not a person who could do so. He is not allowed a child. He doesn't have the heart for it.
He checks his brother's address.
Jun-ho's not in, which In-ho supposes is useful. He has successfully avoided having to try and explain for years now, and he knows that he couldn't. He sets the baby on the table, dressed in checks, and the jumpsuit, for finality's sake. The baby had grown at an alarming rate - the people in the clothes store were starting to recognise him as a regular, asking after his daughter. He leaves the card.
He turns to go and it makes a small noise.
He's fed and changed it recently, so presuming Jun-ho gets home within a few hours, it should be fine. He will figure it out, just as In-ho has, and do so with more warmth and heart than In-ho ever could.
That is, assuming Jun-ho comes home.
In-ho has made certain that this is his address, but who's to say he won't stay elsewhere tonight? With his mother, a friend, a stranger, or perhaps - though he finds it difficult to conceive - perhaps Jun-ho has gone on holiday. In-ho may be leaving the baby here to die. That would go against the entire ethos of the Games.
He clenches his jaw.
The door beeps.
In-ho steps around the corner, just out of sight, as it opens. Not on holiday, then.
He hears the door close, hears shoes being kicked off, and then Jun-ho's footsteps falter, which In-ho cannot blame him for. Even after months, he still finds himself rather taken aback by the baby in his house. He does not want to explain this. He should have left, should not have overestimated his brother's sociability.
Jun-ho appears, not looking to his right as he blinks at the baby. In-ho isn't breathing. As his brother walks past him, he contemplates slipping backwards out the door.
He wonders if Jun-ho will give the baby a name.
Jun-ho opens the envelope, reads the card. He discards it, taking out the credit card In-ho had put in his name.
In-ho takes a step towards the door, and Jun-ho whips around; he supposes the Games and the police force have given them both rather fast reflexes.
Their eyes meet.
Jun-ho's mouth drops open ever so slightly, and for a long moment he just stares. In-ho wonders if he's about to attack him. They haven't had an interaction not featuring gunfire in years.
“In-ho.”
In-ho dips his head.
Jun-ho swallows, eyes flickering towards the baby. “I think I misunderstood your operation,” he finally says. His voice is very cold, very tight. It's what In-ho thinks he himself sounds like. “How does a baby get into such crippling debt?”
In-ho breathes deeply. “The mother.”
“She brought her baby into the game? You let someone bring a baby?”
“She had the baby,” he says, bracing himself for his reaction. “During the games.”
He watches the mounting horror in Jun-ho's face with a kind of detached interest. This, he thinks, is the first human response he's seen to the situation since Seong Gi-hun's death. “You made a baby - a newborn baby - be a player? A baby?”
“Everyone is a player.”
Jun-ho is looking at him like he's not human. “A baby. That's so stupid, a baby. You - how does that work? How does a baby carve dalgona, do - what even was the last game? Did their mother just have to do it all for them? How's that fair to her? Why would you do that?”
“It was not just my choice.”
“Who's was it then? You're the boss, aren't you?” His eyes, if possible, darken further. “What, it was the VIPs then? Those bastards told you to kill a baby and you just said fine?”
“The baby was not killed. Yes, it's mother protected it. She and Player 456.”
Jun-ho breathes in sharply. “His name,” he enunciates, “is Seong Gi-hun.”
“I know his name,” In-ho replies coolly.
Jun-ho clenches his jaw. “He's dead, then?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“I did not.”
“He just lost the game? Is that it?”
With his brother's continued search and Gi-hun's damn tooth, In-ho had presumed that the two were working together. However, he had not imagined Jun-ho being so angry specifically about his loss. It is a bizarre, unnerving thought, that Gi-hun and Jun-ho might have been friends.
“Yes,” he answers tersely. “I did not - I rather bent the rules in his favour, but yes. He managed to die.”
Jun-ho's anger is so strong he feels like it could warp the air around them. “He was a good man,” he says. “Better than you.”
In-ho almost laughs. “I think you would be hard-pressed to find a man worse than me. But yes. I appreciated him.”
“Appreciated?”
“I did not wish him to die.” If Gi-hun had not died, In-ho would not be left with this baby. If he had not died, he wouldn't appear in the corner of In-ho's eyes, wouldn't be for a moment standing behind him in the store, walking past him on the street, wouldn't echo when he tried to sleep.
Of course, for him to have lived the baby would have had to die, so In-ho takes a mental step back, and wishes that Player 333 had died later, or that 100 had not died when he did, or that more had survived the fifth game or the fourth, or that Gi-hun never came back at all, or that the Games never existed at all. But that is a dangerous line of thought. He shuts it down.
“Then you shouldn't have made him a player in your death games,” Jun-ho snaps. “In-ho… why - why are you here?”
It is a slightly better question than the one he anticipated. “To give you the baby.”
For a pleasant moment, Jun-ho's anger is replaced with pure confusion. “To - why would you give me the baby?”
“I would not raise it well.”
Jun-ho's eyes flick between him and the baby, who is stirring slightly, in bewilderment. “Are we the only two options? Is there no father?”
“The father was also a player.”
Jun-ho swears. “Great game design. Why me?”
“I trust you.”
“Do you?” Jun-ho asks, frowning. “I broke into your games twice trying to shut them down. I-”
“I do. You are my brother, I know you. What you did may have annoyed me, but it did not surprise me. You are childishly moral.” Jun-ho looks a little offended, and In-ho is reminded of him when he was young. “I have faith you would not take advantage of the baby's prize money. I have faith you would raise a good person.”
“And what exactly is your definition of a good person, Hyung?” he asks scathingly.
Someone flashes through In-ho's mind.
“I will check on you,” he says, starting towards the door.
“Wait, what? No, you don't get to just leave me again, with a baby-”
“I have also left you with 45.6 billion won, hopefully that will soften the blow,” he says. He needs to leave. He feels as though Gi-hun is breathing down his neck.
“No, In-ho, you-”
He reaches the door. “I will check on you.”
“No!” Jun-ho seizes his arm as he steps into the corridor. “I - what's their name?”
In-ho shakes him off before registering the question. For a moment, he thinks he means Gi-hun, thinks he can feel him hovering too. “What?”
“The baby. Please, In-ho, don't go, you need to explain.”
“She doesn't have one.” Even horses have names. “Find her one. Please.”