Chapter 5

[5] Oppa, You’ve Been Through So Much.

Of course I’d meant it when I told Sia I would buy her enough tteokbokki to make her sick of it.

But ten servings?

‘She can eat all that?’

“Sorry, did you say… ten servings?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ll write down the extras on a separate note, so please add those too.”

“Oh, of course!”

Fortunately, we placed our order without any trouble.

I thought it might take a while, but thankfully, the tteokbokki was ready on time.

“Here’s your tteokbokki.”

There was so much that just looking at it made me feel full.

Seeing the containers piled high on the table, I couldn’t help marveling all over again.

I’d already thought it earlier, but how was she going to eat all that?

After paying, we headed toward my apartment with both hands full of tteokbokki.

Then—

“Oppa, don’t we normally turn the other way here to get to your place?”

When we took a different route from the one she remembered, Sia gave me a puzzled look.

“Oh, I moved a few months ago. You’ll definitely be surprised when you see where.”

“Surprised?”

She seemed skeptical, but I was certain she would be.

And I was soon proved right.

“Oppa, is this…?”

“That’s right. It’s your old apartment.”

Ever since the day Sia died…

I had desperately tried to preserve every trace she had left behind in this world.

And this place was one of them.

The apartment where she had lived.

Most of her clothes and other belongings had been handed over to her relatives, but the apartment itself was still there.

I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else moving into a room filled with my memories of Sia, so I contacted her landlord and eventually moved in myself.

Naturally, though, the apartment felt completely different from when Sia had lived here.

Almost all her belongings were gone.

But that was all right. It was still a place where I could relive at least a few of our memories.

Returning home after so long, Sia’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oppa…”

The apartment she had once lived in looked both familiar and unfamiliar.

Perhaps it was the relief of knowing that I was the one who had filled that space again, rather than some stranger, that made tears begin rolling down her cheeks.

“Sniff… Why, why am I crying so much today, Oppa?”

“It’s all right, Sia. You’re crying because you’re happy, not because you’re sad.”

I gently patted her as she kept crying, saying her tears wouldn’t stop.

“Even when I try not to cry… sniff… when I see that teddy bear… how am I supposed to stop, Oppa?”

Having naturally nestled into my arms, Sia pointed at the teddy bear in the corner.

She had given it to me with a letter on our first anniversary.

Several years had passed since then, but I had taken good care of it to preserve my memories of her. There wasn’t a single stain on it; it looked just as it had when she first gave it to me.

Of course, I had kept the letter just as carefully.

“Oppa, you tried… sniff… so hard not to forget me, too.”

“Of course I did.”

Her tears of joy soon became tears of relief.

Only after hugging me tightly and thoroughly soaking my shoulder did Sia finally stop crying.

“The tteokbokki’s going to get cold. Let’s eat.”

“Okay… sniff.”

After our long meal…

We roughly cleared away the empty containers and lay down on the floor.

My stomach was full, and I was lying here alone with her in the apartment for the first time in so long. What more could I possibly want?

How could I be any happier than this?

“Oppa, your tummy’s so round.”

“How come yours isn’t sticking out after eating so much?”

Despite having eaten almost all ten servings of tteokbokki herself, Sia’s stomach looked as though she hadn’t eaten a thing.

“Hmm, that’s a secret!”

We enjoyed the quiet moment, idly playing with each other’s bellies.

After resting and poking and kneading each other’s stomachs to our hearts’ content…

“Oppa.”

Sia called to me.

“Come to think of it, we’ve only talked about me since we met again. I haven’t heard anything about you. How have you been?”

Now that she mentioned it, I’d been so happy to see her that I hadn’t talked about myself at all.

Realizing that, I slowly began telling her about my life without her.

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I’d been doing well.”

The trauma of Sia’s death had left him gasping for breath whenever he entered a Gate, rendering him unable to work as a Hunter for an entire year.

It had also been a year spent drowning in anguish and self-blame, barely able to function as a person.

After listening to Minjun recount that bleak year, Sia quietly sank into thought.

How much had he suffered during the year after her death?

‘At least I had a little hope that I could see him again if I kept researching dimensional travel magic. But Minjun didn’t even have that.’

She hated to imagine it, but in such a hopeless situation, the thought of taking his own life must have crossed his mind at least once.

Yet Minjun had fought desperately to preserve his memories of her.

He hadn’t dated anyone else, and he had remembered the anniversary of her death.

That was the kind of man Minjun was—the man she loved.

‘How much pain must he have been in that whole year?’

Gratitude that he had somehow persevered through such hardship, and guilt that she hadn’t come back to him sooner.

Sia quietly dwelled on those two feelings.

Something welled up inside her.

‘Why? Why did I make such a terrible mistake at the very end?’

If only she hadn’t made that one mistake in the formula before casting the dimensional travel spell, he wouldn’t have had to suffer like this.

Because of her, an entire precious year of his life had been wasted.

Idiot. Jeong Sia, you idiot.

No matter how excited you were about seeing him again, how could you make a mistake at such a crucial point?

Jeong Sia, you stupid bitch.

But it’s all right now.

From now on, I’ll make sure there’s nothing but happiness ahead of him.

No. I have to.

“Oppa, you’ve been through so much this past year.”

Sia spoke with all her heart, her words filled with remorse and guilt over her mistake.

Now that they had found each other again, she wanted them to be happy.

“You’re the one who’s been through so much, Sia. You said you spent two thousand years researching dimensional travel magic just to see me again.”

“That much was nothing if it meant seeing you. If you’d been in my position, you would’ve made the same choice. I know you would, Oppa.”

“How can you call that nothing? I only suffered for a year, but you…”

Unable to finish, Minjun pulled Sia into a tight embrace, tears brimming in his eyes.

How much pain and loneliness had his Sia endured over all those years?

Gently patting Minjun as his tears began flowing too, Sia thought to herself.

Coming back to see her boyfriend had been the right choice after all.

He had held on through that long, dark year, and she was so grateful.

Now, she would make him truly happy.

Whatever it took.

After spending the night cuddling, the second day of my reunion with Sia dawned.

I felt something soft against my cheek and heard a quiet little smack.

“Oppa, are you going to keep sleeping?”

I woke to Sia’s sweet morning kiss.

“Sia, just let me sleep for five more minutes.”

“It’s noon, Oppa. Isn’t it about time you got up?”

“Five minutes. Sia, just five more minutes.”

When I whined in my sleep-heavy voice, she kissed me on the lips this time.

“Then I’ll just keep kissing you until you get up.”

“In that case, I should sleep for another five hours instead.”

She probably thought she could pester me into getting up, but that sounded wonderful to me.

Sia’s sweet kisses were always welcome.

And even if she kept kissing me, she would have to get tired eventually, right?

‘I’d like to see how she reacts when that happens.’

I didn’t know how long she would last, but surely after about twenty minutes, she’d get tired and wake me in a sweet, pleading voice.

“Oppa, you win. Now get up.”

Just imagining it made me smile.

But—

“Even better.”

Contrary to my expectations, Sia planted another lingering kiss on my cheek, then pressed her cherry-red lips against mine.

‘Wait, is she really going to kiss me for five hours?’

Thinking about it again, five hours wouldn’t amount to even the tiniest fraction of a moment for a dragon like Sia.

So there was… no reason she couldn’t?

Wait, wait, wait.

Then she planted a lingering kiss on my neck and began working her way down.

Her pale hand tugged at my shirt.

‘Any further than this, and we’re in dangerous territory!’

Well, there were other concerns too, but we were getting into trouble with the genre here.

Goosebumps rose all over me, and I immediately sat up.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

As I sprang upright, Sia pouted as though something hadn’t gone according to plan.

“You can sleep some more if you’re tired.”

“No, I’m fine! I’m not sleepy at all anymore.”

I had been a little groggy, but her kissing attack had woken me up completely.

Still, apparently disappointed that things hadn’t gone any further, Sia tried to force me back down.

“Then shall I put you to sleep?”

“No, I’m wide awake now. Seriously.”

“No, if you’re tired, you should lie down a little longer, Oppa.”

Normally, I would have somehow held my ground with my superior strength, but now that Sia was a dragon, that was no longer an option.

Completely overpowered by her terrifying strength, I was laid flat on my back again and subjected to five minutes of intense, one-sided affection. Only after she loosened her hold could I finally sit up.

It had only been five minutes of kissing, but my head was spinning.

Her kisses were definitely sweet. They were sweet, but…

For some reason, they were also a little frightening.

If my words had really come true and she had kissed me for five hours, wouldn’t I have passed out halfway through?

After barely collecting myself, I turned to Sia, who was gently stroking the skin her affection had left flushed.

“…Sia, was what we did yesterday not enough?”

“Nope!”

I’d thought we had been more than a little affectionate yesterday, but apparently it really hadn’t been enough for her. She answered with a bright smile.

Well, I could understand it from her perspective.

She hadn’t been able to share any affection with her boyfriend for two thousand years.

I gently wrapped my arms around her.