Small and Fragile Things - Chapter 31

“Strange? Come on…”

The ice cream had vanished in the blink of an eye. Both men tilted their heads up, as if on cue, to look at the sky. The dark night was smeared with wispy clouds.

Considering they’d just come from a place filled with screams, violence, and cursing, the atmosphere between them now felt oddly peaceful.

Jung Yoon glanced at Muk-hyun, whose face, for once, looked clear and unburdened. But there was a hint of sadness in Jung Yoon’s gaze as he finally spoke.

“You’ve always been someone with a soft spot for others.”

“Me? Think the guys I just crushed would agree with that?”

“If you hadn’t grown up in such a harsh environment, I bet you’d be running some friendly neighborhood grocery store or teaching kids at a taekwondo gym.”

Muk-hyun chuckled, brushing off the sincerity in Jung Yoon’s voice.

“I’d rather be unemployed, honestly.”

“That fits too. You’d still somehow be raking in money anyway.”

“Rich and jobless. I could live with that.”

He laughed as if he truly believed it was just around the corner. Jung Yoon gave a faint smile—then let it fall.

“You know, that thing you said… about how this might be the last time. I get it now. And I can understand why you’d feel for her.”

Back in the basement—that first time he saw Irang—she’d looked like a gust of wind could knock her over. Even then, she’d glared with those fierce eyes, determined not to show weakness.

In that moment, everyone had been stunned. But Jung Yoon had seen something shift in Muk-hyun’s eyes.

At first, he’d brushed it off as nothing—just a flicker of concern. But as time went on, concern turned to suspicion. And as Muk-hyun started checking on her every single day, that suspicion grew louder.

Then, one night not too long ago, Jung Yoon saw it for himself.

He had come to pick up Muk-hyun, as usual—and caught him quietly slipping out of the bedroom. Through the slightly ajar door, he saw Irang asleep in the bed. And he saw the way Muk-hyun looked at her before gently closing the door behind him.

That look said everything. The thing Jung Yoon had feared most? It was happening.

“You’ve always had a soft spot for the weak,” he said quietly. “Especially kids.”

He’d seen it too many times—how Muk-hyun couldn’t help but protect the helpless ones, the ones who couldn’t fend for themselves. Irang, fragile as she was, had hit that nerve right on target.

Which is why Jung Yoon couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to be a problem.

“But… it has to stop at pity,” Jung Yoon added, more firmly now.

“And if it doesn’t?” Muk-hyun asked, raising an eyebrow. “What—are you afraid I’ll actually catch feelings?”

Jung Yoon faltered, caught off guard. “Well… when a man and a woman spend that much time together, it’s only natural that… I mean, I know I might be overstepping here, but lately you’ve been… different. So I was just thinking ahead…”

Muk-hyun gave a low laugh. “All you had to say was, ‘Don’t fall for her.’ Why dress it up like a lecture?”

“…Sorry.”

Jung Yoon had known Muk-hyun long enough to understand the man he really was. Sure, Muk-hyun could be warm—to a select few. But even then, that warmth was more like camaraderie than affection. Even Gi-seon, who was a woman, wasn’t treated any differently.

That was Muk-hyun’s limit.

He took people in. He took responsibility for them. But he didn’t love them—not the way most people understood love. He didn’t fill his gaze with warmth or linger close to share his heart. That just wasn’t who he was.

Except—sometimes—when it came to kids.

Tiny things that couldn’t survive on their own. Fragile, breakable little beings the world would swallow whole if he didn’t step in. Those were the ones he couldn’t walk past. He’d stay close. Watch over them.

And Irang… she had landed right in that soft spot.

That’s why Jung Yoon was sure—this was going to turn into something messy.

“Maybe I’m just overthinking it,” he said quietly.

But Muk-hyun didn’t confirm or deny. Instead, he murmured.

“Yoon-ah… you give me too much credit.”

“…What?”

Muk-hyun was looking at the drifting clouds above—but his mind was somewhere else, following things that had already drifted too far to catch.

***

Muk-hyun had been born in a small provincial town, barely touched by development. Maybe fifteen families lived there. A tight-knit, dusty neighborhood where the old folks doted on him endlessly.

They used to say he was born to be a general. As he grew, they’d joke he looked as neat and polished as a glossy chestnut laid out for ancestral rites. Everyone adored him.

But that was probably because he was the only kid around.

Even as a little boy, he could sense it. The attention they gave him—it came from pity.

“Still won’t say who the dad is?”

“Probably a reason she won’t talk…”

“She started showing not long after she was working with the lunch crew. Bet it was one of those laborers she ran off with.”

“Then the dad’s just some lowlife construction worker?”

He was still young when he realized what it meant to be the only one without a father—or even a proper last name.

Still, he wasn’t too disappointed. Because he had his mom. That was enough.

“Hyun-ah!”

To a child’s eyes, his mother was the most beautiful person in the world. No one, in the upper or lower village, could match her. Some of the younger teachers were prettier, maybe, but none more beautiful.

His grandma used to brag that when his mother was younger, everyone said she should enter Miss Korea. Her beauty was a confirmed fact.

He’d felt so proud of her that even when other kids teased him for not having a dad, he could just laugh it off.

“You’ve got such a mild nature,” his mom would say, brushing his hair gently.

And while it wasn’t always easy, he never let it show. He knew if he started crying, his mom would be sad.

He’d never had a father, so he never really missed one.

“As long as I have my son, I’m okay,” she used to say.

“And I’m okay as long as I have you!”

“What about me, you rascal?”

“Oops—Grandma too!”

It had been a peaceful time. But that changed when Muk-hyun turned ten.

His grandma, who worked at a restaurant, slipped and broke her leg. It could’ve just been a small accident—but it wasn’t.

While she was down, hot soup spilled onto a rich woman’s hand, leaving a burn. That became the real problem.

With Grandma bedridden, his mom had to visit that lady to beg for forgiveness—for days.

Or so Muk-hyun thought.

After that, things got… strange.

His mom quit her job at the flower farm. Grandma, too, started complaining of pains in more than just her leg. And by the time Muk-hyun woke up to her moans in the morning, his mom was already gone—off to work, supposedly.

He was told it was a better-paying job, farther away. That’s why she had to leave early.

It wasn’t until he caught her smoking that he knew something was wrong.

“Mom…?”

“Oh, hey sweetheart. How was school?”

He didn’t know if that was the first time or not, but after that, he often caught her with a cigarette. She used to say she hated the smell.

The little spot where she used to place wildflowers now held cigarette packs and a lighter. He felt a flicker of disappointment then—but watching her crouch in the yard, staring blankly at the distance, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to stop.

It looked like her tears had turned into smoke.

Her once-lovely face grew pale and thin. Her eyes turned dull. Her lips, which used to hum lullabies, only blew smoke now. The hands that once stroked his hair were cracked and scabbed with broken nails.

Eventually, when she stepped out to the yard, Muk-hyun would bolt from the house—anything to avoid seeing her like that. The old folks in the neighborhood had stopped calling him their “little general.”