Small and Fragile Things - Chapter 68

“Doctor! They suddenly took the patient away! There was no word of this even in the morning…”

According to the lab staff, Irang’s condition had not improved, yet she had been moved in haste. They guessed she had been taken to Seoul, but even after scouring every hospital owned by Moon Heesook’s family, there was no trace.

The attending physician who left with her was the only thread to cling to, but even that was out of reach.

“…Haa.”

“Sir, try to close your eyes for a while.”

Muk-hyun leaned back, shutting his eyes and breathing in deep.

“Hyung…”

Every time his surroundings fell silent, or he so much as closed his eyes, her face rose up unbidden. It almost made him laugh bitterly. Annoying—how deeply she had carved herself into him.

Her smile, moist and radiant like a flower beaded with dew. The sweet fragrance of her skin. The soft curve beneath his hand. Just thinking of it made his body grow heavy, but the next moment, when he remembered she might be withering somewhere in pain, it choked the breath from his lungs.

How could he sleep? How could he eat? That fragile little thing could be dying right now. Sending her away was the worst mistake of his life. Every miscalculation, every hesitation, letting timing slip, convincing himself things would improve, they were all sins carved into his bones. He should have just kept her locked in his arms.

He had pretended to be human, to know restraint, to show “consideration.” And that pretense had led to this disaster.

“Fvck… everything’s rotten.”

Unable to rest, Muk-hyun pulled the pink notebook from the seat pocket before him. Its edges were worn soft, pages crumpled from his hands turning them too often. Reading it again and again was the only way to quiet the savage rage clawing at his chest.

“I want to see the sea. I wonder if the water is really blue, and how salty it is. I never learned to swim, so I can’t go in. But I think you’d be good at it. You’ll teach me, right? If I fall in, you’ll save me?”

He could still see her face on the day she asked. A childlike, innocent question that Gi-seon twisted into a crueler game.

“If Gi-seon, Jung-pal, and Irang all fell into the water, who would you save first?”

The boys had been grinning. Only she had been serious, tense, as though terrified he wouldn’t choose her. He had joked that Jung-pal was the heaviest and would sink first, so he’d save him. Her little face had fallen, lips turning down as she tried to pretend it didn’t matter.

She was still just a baby. If only he’d said the truth. Of course I’d save you first. Anywhere, anytime, I’d dive in to reach you. He could have seen her eyes, bright and damp with relief.
That tiny, fragile joy she carried so easily.

Irang was moved by the smallest things. A single piece of chocolate could make her glow as if she had the whole world. When he soothed her and stroked her soft hair, she would burrow into his chest, like a small animal searching for warmth. Even someone like him couldn’t help but hold her. Her sweetness was unbearable.

Damn it. What had he done to her? Like a cruel adult snatching away candy from a child, he had betrayed her. He gave her a taste of love, then shoved her back into a cold, empty basement.

[Sometimes I get so scared I start to cry. When I wake up, I’m afraid no one will be there.
He didn’t come… and it makes me so sad. I’m waiting.]

Muk-hyun dragged his hand down his tired face, exhaling a groan.

“Director. You’d better see this.”

Gu’s people were still lurking? Fine. In this state, he didn’t want to step into a place still haunted by her traces anyway.

But then—

“That man… it’s Kim Soohwan.”

The bastard who deserved a thousand deaths had walked straight into his hands. He had hidden himself so carefully before, but now— A killing urge, sharp enough to tear flesh, surged through Muk-hyun like wildfire.

***

How much weight should “I didn’t know” carry?

Did not knowing his parents had committed something monstrous mean he was innocent? Did not knowing he had lived by stealing Irang’s life mean he deserved pity?

Even if he had known, would it have changed anything? So when Soohwan wept, apologizing to his unseen sibling, Muk-hyun felt nothing.

“Good. Then if I open your belly later, you’ll have no complaints.”

“…What?”

Soohwan flinched, startled by the low, cutting reply. His eyes dropped to the floor.

“You think I’m pretending at virtue.”

“Why are you here?”

“I want to find my sibling. I came to ask for your help.”

Muk-hyun laughed softly, as if the very idea bored him.

“And why would I help you?”

“I… guessed, from what Director Park said.”

Soohwan had not come alone. Park Eunyoung stood beside him. If he was dragging her along, perhaps he really did know the truth now, or perhaps he was still dancing on Kim Deok-gyu’s strings.

Muk-hyun studied the woman, who avoided his gaze like a guilty shadow.

“She said that when the child was handed over, you claimed you’d keep watching. That the child seemed fond of you too. Do you know where my sibling is?”

Park Eunyoung shrank back, her eyes begging for a place to hide. Muk-hyun’s stare was frigid as he turned back to Suhwan.

“Why ask me? I returned her exactly as your father demanded.”

“…My father will never tell me. That’s why I came. I can’t do it alone.”

Muk-hyun’s voice was a blade.

“Park Eunyoung. What about you? You must know where Kim Deok-gyu would send her.”

Her head dipped, hands twisting. At last, cornered, she whispered.

“I don’t. After I led Illy to the Heungin lab, I was cast out. I never saw where she went afterward.”

“Cast out? Convenient excuse.”

“It’s true! Soohwan urgently needed a transplant. When Illy wasn’t ready, Madam exploded in fury. She said it was my failure, and I was dismissed.”

Soohwan broke in, voice tense.

“Muk-hyun. Whatever her reasons, that doesn’t matter now. What matters is finding my sibling. She was weak even before, and now, right after surgery, dragged away like that… She can’t be all right—”

The crash of a chair falling split the air. Both Soohwan and Eunyoung startled. But worse was the man striding toward them, his face twisted with feral rage. They stumbled back instinctively, but he stopped a mere handspan from Soohwan.

“…What did you just say?”

The words fell quiet, but each syllable burned with lethal fury. Soohwan froze under that gaze.

“You… didn’t know? She… she donated part of her liver to me. I collapsed with acute failure. There was no other way but a transplant—”

Muk-hyun’s voice was poison, low and seething.

“You split her open again?”

His gaze dropped without hesitation, sweeping over Soohwan’s torso. The look in his eyes was sharp as a blade — as if he could split the man’s stomach open right there and tear out whatever part of Irang once belonged to her.