Small and Fragile Things - Chapter 4

The treasure turned out to be a person. But looking at it now, it was clear they hadn’t been “cherished” — more like hidden away.

“Director… what is this…?”

Even Jung Yoon, who was quick to read a situation, looked genuinely thrown this time. It made sense — no matter how you looked at her, the woman in front of them wasn’t anything but a patient. Actually, at a glance, she looked more like a prisoner.

She hadn’t been kept safe — she’d been locked up. Maybe even starved. Her condition was a mess.

Her skin was so pale it looked like thin paper, and under the baggy dress her limbs were skin and bones. One thin arm had a thick IV needle stuck in it, pumping in something they couldn’t even guess.

***

The treasure they were here to steal looked like she’d shatter if you just touched her. The only thing proving she was even alive was the wary look in her unusually large eyes.

“Boss… is that bastard DA selling logs or something…? No matter how you look at it…”

Yuk Joongpal whispered as he leaned in to Muk-hyun.

Logs, which was street slang for selling human bodies for organ trafficking. And honestly, it almost made sense. The woman looked like she was right on the edge of something horrible — either about to happen, or already done.

But still… the DA doing something like that? No way. There was no huge money in that, not enough to risk the mess it would cause. One rumor and it’d all blow up in his face.

So then… what was this?

Muk-hyun slowly looked around the room.

It was obviously some kind of medical setup — the whole white space was packed with medical equipment. The only furniture was a single bed. Next to it were monitors tracking the patient’s condition, a tray covered with a green cloth, and IV bags hanging in a cluster from a stand.

If you only looked at the surface, it seemed like they were treating a sick woman here.

But then… why here and not in a hospital?

And if this was a treatment, why the heavy iron shackle on her ankle — and that strange black collar locked tight around her neck? That alone made it clear: she wasn’t here by choice. Someone had locked her up and was doing something to her in the name of “treatment.”

So was it really treatment? It didn’t add up.

Muk-hyun stopped his thoughts from running too far. It didn’t matter anyway.

“Whatever she is… we’re stealing her.”

That was the job.

“Yoon-ah.”

As soon as Mukhyun gave the word, Jung Yoon moved in.

“You don’t need to be scared.”

He spoke softly, watching the woman’s every move as he stepped closer. She looked so weak he could probably handle her with one hand — but that just made him extra careful. She seemed like she might break if you touched her wrong.

 “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

He figured it out fast — whatever her story was, the best way to calm someone who’s tied up is to say exactly what they want to hear. And he was right.

The woman, who’d been standing pressed back like she wanted to disappear into the wall, finally opened her mouth.

“Out…?”

If you hadn’t seen her lips move, you’d think she hadn’t spoken at all — her voice was that small. But they understood her. In that tiny word, he could feel a bit of her guard come down.

“I wanna get this off you first,” Jung Yoon said, pointing to the cuff on her ankle. “Do you know where the key is?”

The woman blinked her huge eyes, like she’d only just realized she was even chained up. She looked around, searching for something, then mumbled in a tiny voice, “Park Eun-young…”

“That woman has it?”

Yang Gi-seon, who’d been listening, caught on quick and dashed out to find it. He came back with the key, and Jung Yoon carefully knelt to unlock her shackle. Her ankle was so thin he felt like he could’ve snapped it with one squeeze.

Jung Yoon frowned a little as he stood back up and checked the black collar around her neck. He turned back to Muk-hyun.

“Sir. We’ll need a tool to cut this off.”

“Looks like a tracker,” Mukhyun guessed.

“That’s what I thought too, but it’s a bit different,” Jung Yoon said. “I’ve only seen it once, so I’m not sure… but I think… it’s like an anti-bark collar.”

“Anti… bark?”

Everyone except Jung Yoon turned to look at the woman. She was sitting crouched against the wall, hugging her knees, still tense but looking a bit dazed — like a scared little animal dumped somewhere strange. Jung Yoon’s explanation only made her look even more pitiful.

“It’s usually used for training dogs,” Jung Yoon said. “If they bark louder than a certain level, they get a shock or something like that.”

Hearing that, Yook Jung-pal let out a curse under his breath, his face twisting up in disgust.

“God, what the hell are these bastards doing? Putting a damn dog collar on a person…?”

“She probably knows what it does, so she’s staying quiet,” Jung Yoon went on. “No wonder she didn’t scream even when we stormed in. I thought she was just too shocked, but it’s probably because she’s been trained not to.”

She really had been silent when they came in — she’d jumped and pressed herself against the wall but hadn’t made a sound. Now it made sense.

“We should just take her out as she is and—” Jung Yoon started, but Muk-hyun was already moving.

He walked over slowly, then stopped right in front of her and looked down. The woman shrank back under his shadow but lifted her eyes to meet his. For a moment, he just stared at her, like he was trying to read her mind. Then he gave a small nod — a signal for her to get on the bed.

At that, her eyes changed completely.

The woman’s breathing, which had been barely audible, suddenly turned rough. She bit her lip and glared at him like she was about to pounce. But Muk-hyun only noticed how her eyes were welling up with tears.

She slowly edged out of his shadow and pushed herself to her feet, her eyes darting around, looking for a way to escape.

But Muk-hyun just gave her another small nod — telling her to get on the bed again.

That was it. She snapped.

“Ah—!”

She lunged at him so fast that everyone watching flinched in surprise. Like a small animal escaping a predator, she slammed into him, then dove straight under the bed.

Her movements were so quick and desperate it was clear she’d done this before. The IV pole toppled over, glass bottles shattered, liquid and drops of bl00d splattered across the floor — but no one paid it any mind.

Under the bed, her breathing sounded shaky, half like a sob, half like a wild little animal cornered with nowhere to go.

Muk-hyun just watched her, then calmly crouched down beside the bed, lighting a cigarette. He was too big to see under there properly, but he didn’t even try to look.

He simply reached one arm right under the bed.

He grabbed her ankle as she squirmed under the bed — and yanked her out without hesitation.

“Ah—!”

She clung to the bedframe with both hands, trying to resist, but the difference in strength was too much. In the end, she slid right out, dragging across the floor like it was nothing.

Anyone else might have screamed, but she just bit down on her lip so hard it almost bled, holding it in.

“You—!”

She kept struggling, fighting with everything she had. It looked desperate, like her life depended on it.