Small and Fragile Things - Chapter 10

Was he really that curious?

He knew he wasn’t. There was no way Muk-hyun came here every single day just to hear excuses he could already predict.

While she babbled on in that messy way, Muk-hyun’s mind gradually went cold.

“Then why would they lock you up — if you really didn’t know anything?”

“…I don’t know.”

A breeze slipped through the open window, damp and heavy. Looked like it would rain tonight or maybe tomorrow. The air between them grew just as heavy.

“Yeah.”

Muk-hyun moved closer to her as she peeked up at him, reading his mood. He sat down in his usual spot, and her rambling lips sealed shut. Good. If she’d kept spinning those innocent-faced excuses, he might’ve changed his mind about holding back.

“Fine, let’s say you don’t know Kim Deok-gyu… The man. Who was he?”

“…Huh?”

“Not Park Eun-young or the doctor — the other man. I need to know every single person who came in and out of that place.”

She looked lost, eyes darting, before stammering out an answer.

“I don’t… know his name. He wore black… a hat, a necklace with a blue stripe… His face was like this,” she gestured vaguely, “and he had a butterfly tattoo on his hand…”

“Security team?”

Muk-hyun’s brow furrowed at the unexpected answer. When he’d found that house, the men knocked out on the floor had worn something like that. He didn’t know which one she meant — but whoever he was, he was an inside man.

“Who the hell is on the security team…?”

The door that only opened with a card, the shackles on her ankle, the bruises and finger marks that had been on her skin — they all came rushing back at once. Bitter bile rose in his throat.

“So it wasn’t Kim Deok-gyu — it was that bastard?”

“That bastard…?”

“The one who made you crawl under the bed.”

“…!”

Her eyes clouded over in an instant. Like she’d slipped straight into the memory while trying to grab hold of it.

“That was just…” Her eyes lost focus, and her chest started to heave. Her breath tangled as she gasped and bit her lip, clutching the blanket like a lifeline.

“A b-bad… dream.”

Her eyes, fogged like glass, stared straight ahead but didn’t see a thing — just reflecting, blank and dull like she was drifting through a nightmare.

“What happened in that dream?”

“That man… hurt me… I couldn’t… make a sound… But then suddenly my ha-hand, he…” Her voice broke, turning into a soft whimper.

Muk-hyun didn’t need more. Just her broken words painted the whole ugly picture.

A perfect, helpless prey — tied up, fragile, unable to scream.

“Hh… Hnng, hh…”

Did Park Eun-young really not know what that animal was doing? She must’ve. She just chose to look the other way — which meant Kim Deok-gyu didn’t care, either. He’d left this girl alive and trapped, like she was nothing but disposable.

Muk-hyun’s eyes narrowed, his lip curled, then smoothed out again. Meanwhile, she was suffocating herself with the memories she’d dragged out.

“…Enough.”

He pulled her back right before she really fell apart.

“Okay. That’s enough.”

He tapped the tip of her sharp nose, and the focus slowly came back into her cloudy eyes. Her face was damp with cold sweat, looking completely worn out already.

“Here. Drink some water.”

He hated seeing her face all pale like that, so he brought her some water. She held the cup with both hands and gulped it down.

Watching her, Muk-hyun felt that same tightness building in his chest again. He fiddled with his cigarette pack, but then she suddenly asked something unexpected.

“Is he… a good person? Or a bad person?”

“Who?”

“Kim… Deok-gyu.”

What the hell kind of question was that?

Was she really not pretending not to know him? Did she really lose her memory?

Even if she truly didn’t know him, how did this question even make sense? He’d already told her Kim Deok-gyu was the one who locked her up. Just remembering what happened there made her break down like that — so how could she even wonder if he might be good?

She was definitely hiding something. Something she couldn’t risk slipping out — not without a clumsy excuse to cover it. That much he was sure of.

But what if that thing had nothing to do with Kim Deok-gyu? Then what the hell was this girl?

A sharp headache stabbed his temples, and he pressed his forehead with his palm.

“Whatever else he is, to you, he’s a bad person.”

“…Bad person.”

Her tiny voice just repeated him like a parrot, but there was no anger in it. She just looked like someone who’d gotten an answer to a question she was genuinely curious about.

More questions dragged him deeper into this maze.

Muk-hyun finally lit up a fresh cigarette and got to his feet. Even the smoke filling his lungs didn’t clear out that suffocating feeling.

This was exactly why he’d never wanted to know anything.

He looked at the girl sitting there, head hung low in regret. He used to think her face showed everything — now he couldn’t read her at all.

When he was about halfway through his cigarette, a sudden realization hit him

Why hasn’t she asked anything?

Not once. Not a single question about any of this.

She never asked why he took her out of there. Never asked what he planned to do with her. Never asked who was behind it all, or why she had to go through any of this.

She didn’t even ask what day it was or where she was right now.

And yet the only thing she’d asked in days was: Why are you being nice to me?

Looking at him with that face like she just couldn’t understand it.

When that sank in, Muk-hyun’s face turned stiff as concrete.

***

In an ordinary neighborhood somewhere in Seoul, an old car came to a stop. But the engine didn’t turn off for a while.

After a long moment of hesitation, a woman finally opened the door and stepped out. She checked her surroundings first, then looked at the time.

9:02 PM. She knew the person she was about to meet cared a lot about punctuality, but her feet just wouldn’t move. So she ended up wasting a few more minutes just standing there.

“Ha… what am I gonna do?”

She was just as inconspicuous as the beat-up car she’d driven there in.

Her hair was cut in a neat, blunt bob. She wore a black suit with sleeves so worn at the edges they looked frayed. The plain white shirt underneath was the most basic style you could find. The only thing that usually drew any attention was her thick black horn-rimmed glasses — but even those were gone tonight. The frame had snapped not long ago because of that incident.

She hadn’t had the time or money to get them fixed. Ever since that day, she hadn’t slept a wink — who cared about glasses at that point? She’d worn out the soles of her shoes driving around, running, chasing leads wherever she could — and now, after all that, she’d arrived in Seoul empty-handed.

[Han-seong Ki-won.]

An old shaman’s office on the second floor of an unremarkable building. It had been there for years, barely noticeable except for the light still burning late at night. Looking up at that bright window, she let out a heavy breath.

Everything about this was the worst it could be. It was no wonder she couldn’t bring herself to open that door just yet. But this wasn’t something she could run from either.

“I didn’t have a choice. I did everything I could. It’ll be fine.”

She tried to pep herself up under her breath — but it felt more like she was a stray dog being dragged up the stairs by an invisible leash.

Inside, just as she expected, there was only one person left at this hour.

Under the cold glare of the white bulb, a man sat with a gibo* in his left hand and a black baduk stone in his right. He didn’t even glance up when she came in. He just sat there, straight-backed, completely focused on the stones spread out on the board in front of him.
TL/N: *A game record of Baduk (Korean board game)

A crisp white shirt, a perfectly pressed suit, hair combed so precisely that not a single strand was out of place — he looked like the textbook image of a public official. There was something about him that made it hard to even approach.

Swallowing the suffocating tension, she stepped forward and bent at the waist, bowing deeply.

“It’s been a while, Chief Prosecutor.”

But he didn’t spare her so much as a flick of his eyes.

So all she could do was wait. Silent. Not even daring to breathe too loudly.

It felt like she was standing there serving out a punishment for showing up late. But she knew she had no excuse. By the time her neck and shoulders had grown so stiff from the tension that even her head started pounding, he finally lifted his head.