Chapter 4 - You Really Are a Genius

Even if you’ve never seen it happen in person, you probably know the scene: a girlfriend asks, “Which is prettier, me or that celebrity on TV?” and her boyfriend breaks out in a sweat. I’d seen it on television a few times and laughed.

But now I couldn’t laugh. What I’d taken for a joke had turned into real life.

‘Which face do you like better? The one I have now, or my old face from before I was reincarnated?’

The question made my chest tighten. She wasn’t even comparing herself to another woman. It was Sia before reincarnation versus Sia after reincarnation. In a way, she was picking a fight with herself, and I was the poor shrimp caught between two battling whales.

‘What on earth am I supposed to say?’

First, I tried to think about it as objectively as possible. Human Sia had definitely been beautiful before she was reincarnated. It wasn’t just me who thought so; most people who knew her would agree.

But her looks now were overwhelming. Even actresses famed for their beauty wouldn’t want to stand next to her. Yes, if I was honest, I already knew the answer: her current face was much prettier.

But what if I told her that outright?

‘Then what about the old me? Are you saying I wasn’t pretty back then?’

And if I said her old face was better?

‘Don’t lie to me. You think I can’t tell?’

Trapped either way, I racked my brain for an answer that would satisfy her. What should I do? Would saying they were both pretty sound too halfhearted? Then again, given her mood, she might actually be happy to hear that—but it was a gamble.

‘It’s not a sure bet. Maybe I should change the subject a little?’

That might work. Or...

Right. I should put myself in Sia’s shoes.

‘If I were Sia, what answer would I want to hear...?’

I imagined being her and thought about what I’d want my beloved boyfriend to say. Once I’d quickly sorted out my thoughts, I swallowed and opened my mouth.

“Sia, it doesn’t matter to me. You’re beautiful either way, but if I had to choose, your old face is more familiar to me, so I think I like it a little better. But...”

“But?”

Sia pricked up her ears.

“I think you should stick with whichever face would make other women even a little more jealous.”

“The face that would make other women jealous? What do you mean?”

Sia tilted her head, apparently caught off guard by my answer. Good. I’d managed to muddy the waters with something unexpected but intriguing. Now I just needed the finishing blow.

“I want you to pick the prettier face—the one that’ll make other women think, ‘I could never steal a man who’s dating someone that beautiful.’ I’m a man, so I don’t really know what kind of face women find beautiful...”

“Oppa.”

Sia cut me off before I could finish. For a moment, I worried she hadn’t liked my answer. But the delight in her voice and the way her eyes curved into crescents told me the opposite.

“You’re a total genius.”

* * *

‘Which face do you like better? The one I have now, or my old face from before I was reincarnated?’

Sia had asked Minjun out of pure curiosity. She didn’t mind which one he chose. In fact, she wouldn’t have minded if he suggested a third option. She simply wanted to wear the appearance that came closest to his ideal woman. After all, she was a dragon who could cast a spell like Polymorph as easily as eating a meal.

‘So I might as well look the way he’ll find most attractive, right?’

But Minjun’s answer was a little strange.

‘He wants me to use the face that’ll make other women more jealous?’

Not the one he liked better, or even the one she thought looked better, but the one other women would envy? Sia couldn’t make sense of it.

‘What is he getting at? Does he want me to decide for myself how to look pretty?’

But as soon as she heard the rest of Minjun’s answer, a thrill ran through her entire body.

‘Look beautiful to women, not men. That way, other women won’t dare flirt with me.’

That was how Sia understood his words.

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

He was right. She had to keep those other sly bitches away from him. He hadn’t forgotten her in the entire year she’d been gone, and he’d even personally packed tteokbokki to bring on the anniversary of her death. Was she supposed to let other women flirt with him? Absolutely not.

With those few words, Minjun had made his feelings perfectly clear to Sia.

However, there was one thing Minjun had overlooked. The more beautiful Sia looked, the more formidable the women who coveted him might become.

‘The kind of bitches who hit on my Minjun will depend on how I look.’

Sia didn’t care in the slightest what other men thought of her face. They could think she was ugly or beautiful; it made no difference to her. But other women would judge Minjun’s worth by her looks. If she was too beautiful, they might think, ‘There must be something special about a man with a woman like that at his side,’ and take an interest in him. She couldn’t let that happen.

If a woman was bold enough to make a move on him even with Sia in her current form beside him, she was likely to be comparably beautiful or charming herself.

‘But if I look the way I did when I was human... women that impressive probably won’t come after him. Yes, that’s it.’

As soon as she settled on that conclusion, her eyes curved into crescents.

‘But that’s not enough.’

Just look at what kind of man he was.

‘Surely, someday, no matter what I do, there’ll be at least one bitch who tries to seduce him.’

Her instincts as a woman told her so.

‘I need more precautions. More. Changing my appearance? That alone will never be enough to put me at ease. Think of something else, Jeong Sia. More, more. Rack your brain harder.’

Did Minjun have any idea that Sia was fighting this silent battle with herself? No. Probably not.

* * *

My plan had worked perfectly. I seemed to have escaped the sudden crisis. Pleased with my answer, Sia smiled and gave me a lingering kiss on the cheek.

As soon as her lips left my cheek, she chanted a spell.

[Polymorph.]

I still wasn’t used to seeing her cast magic without calculating a formula. Dazzling light enveloped her the moment she spoke, then faded. Standing before me was Sia as she had looked when she was human.

Gone were the vivid red hair and the goddess-like beauty that threatened to bewitch me. In their place was the woman I had loved, with long, soft hair and a sweet face with gently rounded features.

“Do I look pretty?”

“Do you even have to ask? Is there any woman in the world prettier than my Sia?”

But although I’d answered automatically, I couldn’t help wondering. Of course, I didn’t care what she looked like. Whether she wore her human face or her new one, all that mattered was that Sia had miraculously come back to me.

Still, if I were a woman, I thought I’d be more jealous of the impossibly beautiful red-haired Sia than of the face she wore now. So why had she chosen her old one?

‘Do dragons judge appearances differently from humans? Or does she genuinely think the face she had when we first fell in love is prettier?’

I still didn’t have an answer, but I decided not to question her choice any further. Whatever she looked like, she was still my beautiful girlfriend Sia.

Anyway.

“This really brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

We stood holding hands, taking in the sight of each other for a long, long time. Only after the warmth of each other’s hands had passed between us did we set off to buy tteokbokki as planned. As we’d discussed while eating earlier, two or three servings weren’t enough to satisfy Sia now that she was a dragon.

Still holding my hand, she used Teleport. The view changed in the blink of an eye.

“Wow, it’s been so long since I was here.”

We were in a quiet, tucked-away alley in a Seoul neighborhood full of small rental apartments. Sia looked around, seemingly lost in memories. To anyone else, it was an unremarkable gray neighborhood, but for us, it held countless memories.

Just as we had back then, we shared a light kiss in the secluded alley. Then we headed out to look for a tteokbokki shop.

If we’d had a regular place, we would have gone straight there. But Sia had always loved tteokbokki so much that we’d ordered from all sorts of places instead of sticking to one. I walked at an easy pace, giving her a chance to see the neighborhood again.

Let’s see. I was sure a new tteokbokki place had opened somewhere nearby recently. After wandering the streets for a little over ten minutes, we found it.

“What can I get for you?”

The menu of a modern restaurant seemed unfamiliar to Sia after so long. Pressed close against me, she read through the menu on the wall, item by item. Then she turned to the employee.

“We’ll take ten servings of tteokbokki to go, please.”

... Had I heard her right?