Chapter 5 - Oppa, You've Been Through So Much

Of course I'd meant it when I said I'd buy Sia enough tteokbokki to make her sick of it. But ten servings? 'Can she really eat all that?'

"Sorry, did you say ten servings?" the employee asked.

"Yes. I'll write down the extra toppings separately, so please add them as listed."

"Oh, sure!"

Thankfully, the order went through without a hitch. I'd thought it might take a while, but the tteokbokki was ready on time.

"Here's your tteokbokki."

There was enough of it to make me feel full just looking at it. I marveled again at the containers piled high on the table. I'd thought it earlier, but how was she going to eat all that?

After paying, we headed toward my apartment with our hands full of tteokbokki. Then Sia noticed something.

"Oppa, don't we usually turn the other way here to get to your place?"

She looked puzzled when we took a route she didn't know.

"Oh, I moved a few months ago. You'll be surprised when you see where."

"Surprised?"

She looked doubtful, but I was sure she would be. And a moment later, I was proved right.

"Oppa, is this...?"

"That's right. It's the apartment you used to live in."

Ever since the day Sia died, I'd desperately tried to preserve every trace she had left in the world. This apartment was one of them: the place she'd lived while she was alive. Most of her clothes and other belongings had been handed over to her relatives, but the apartment itself was still here. I couldn't bear the thought of someone else living in a room filled with memories of her, so I contacted the landlord and eventually moved in.

Of course, the place felt completely different from when Sia had lived here. Almost all her belongings were gone. But that was all right. It still gave me a place to revisit at least some of our memories.

Tears welled in Sia's eyes as she came home for the first time in so long.

"Oppa..."

The apartment she'd once lived in looked familiar and unfamiliar all at once. Perhaps it was because I, rather than some stranger, now occupied that familiar space that tears of relief began rolling down her cheeks.

"Why am I... why am I crying so much today, Oppa?" she asked between sobs.

"It's okay, Sia. Those are happy tears, not sad ones."

She kept crying, saying the tears wouldn't stop, and I gently patted her.

"Even when I try not to cry... I see that bear, and I just can't help it, Oppa."

Nestled against me, she pointed to a teddy bear in the corner of the room. She'd given it to me with a letter on our first anniversary. Though years had passed, I'd taken good care of it so I wouldn't forget our memories together. It looked just as it had when she gave it to me, without a single stain. And of course, I'd kept the letter safe too.

"Oppa, you tried so hard not to forget me too," she said with a sob.

"Of course I did."

Her tears of joy turned to tears of relief. She hugged me tight, soaking my shoulder with tears, and only then did she stop crying.

"The tteokbokki's getting cold. Let's eat."

"Mm..." She sniffled.

* * *

After a long meal, we gave the empty tteokbokki containers a cursory cleanup and sprawled on the floor. Full and content, lying here together in the apartment after so long, I couldn't have asked for anything more. How could I possibly be happier than this?

"Oppa, your belly's so round."

"How come yours isn't sticking out after all you ate?"

She'd eaten nearly all ten servings herself, yet her stomach looked as flat as if she hadn't eaten a thing.

"Hmm. Secret!"

We relaxed, playing with each other's bellies. After we'd had our fill of that, Sia called to me.

"Oppa. Come to think of it, since we met again, we've only talked about me. I haven't even asked about you. How have you been all this time?"

She was right. I'd been so happy to see her that I hadn't told her anything about myself. Realizing that, I slowly began to tell her about my life without her.

"Well, I'd be lying if I said I'd been doing fine."

* * *

Sia's death had left Minjun traumatized. For a year, his breathing had grown ragged every time he entered a gate, leaving him unable to function as a hunter. It was also a year in which grief and self-blame had kept him from functioning properly in everyday life.

Hearing about that bleak year, Sia fell silent in thought. How hard had Oppa's life been in the year since she died?

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

In circumstances that awful, he must have thought of taking his own life at least once, as much as she hated to imagine it.

Yet Minjun had fought desperately to preserve their memories. He hadn't been with anyone else in that time, and he'd remembered the anniversary of her death and honored it. That was the man she loved.

'How much pain must he have been in for that whole year?'

She was grateful that Minjun had somehow held on through such difficult times, and sorry she hadn't come back to him sooner. As Sia quietly dwelled on those feelings, emotion welled up inside her.

'Why? Why did I make such a fatal mistake at the very end? If only I hadn't made that one error in the formula before casting the dimensional travel magic, Oppa wouldn't have suffered like this. Because of me, he lost a precious year of his life for nothing. Idiot. Jeong Sia, you idiot. I was excited to see him, but how could I make a mistake on something so important? Jeong Sia, you stupid bitch.'

'But it's all right now. From here on, I'll make sure Oppa has nothing but good things ahead of him. No. I have to.'

"Oppa, you've been through so much this past year."

Full of remorse for her mistake and heartfelt regret, Sia told Minjun they should live happily now that they were together again.

"I'm not the one who's been through so much. You are, Sia. You said you spent two thousand years studying nothing but dimensional travel magic just to see me."

"That was nothing if it meant I could see you. If you'd been in my place, you'd have made the same choice. I believe in you, Oppa."

"How can you call that nothing? I only suffered for a year, but you..."

Unable to finish, Minjun pulled her into a tight hug, his eyes filling with tears. How much pain had his Sia endured over all that time?

As Minjun began crying too, Sia patted him and thought how glad she was that she'd come back to see her boyfriend. Minjun had held on through that long, dark year. Now she would make him truly happy, no matter what it took.

* * *

After a night spent cuddling, the second day since Sia's return dawned. I felt something soft against my cheek and heard a tiny kiss.

"Oppa, are you going to sleep some more?"

Sia's sweet morning kiss woke me up.

"Sia, I'll get up in five more minutes."

"It's noon, Oppa. Isn't it about time you got up?"

"Just five minutes, Sia. Five more minutes."

I whined in a voice still thick with sleep, and this time she kissed me on the lips.

"Then I'll keep kissing you until you get up."

"In that case, I'd better sleep for another five hours instead of five minutes."

She seemed to think she could annoy me into getting up, but I was all for it. Sia's sweet kisses were always welcome. And surely she'd get tired eventually if she kept kissing me.

'I want to see how she reacts when she does.'

I didn't know how long it would take, but after twenty minutes or so, wouldn't she give up and wake me in a cute voice, saying, "Oppa, you win, so get up now"? Just imagining it made me smile.

But then...

"Even better."

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

'Wait. Is she really planning to do nothing but kiss me for five hours?'

Then again, to Sia, a dragon, five hours wasn't even the briefest of moments. So it wasn't impossible... was it?

Huh?

Huh? Huh?

Sia kissed my neck deeply, then began working her way down. Her pale hand tugged at my shirt.

'Any further and this gets dangerous!'

I mean, there were other reasons, but it would be a problem for the genre, too. Goose bumps prickled all over my body, and I sat straight up.

"You're up, Oppa?"

When I sprang up, 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 now."

I'd been a little groggy before, but her barrage of kisses had woken me right up.

Sia, however, seemed disappointed that things hadn't gone further and tried to force me to lie down again.

"Then should I help you get back to sleep?"

"No, I'm wide awake now. Really."

"Come on, Oppa. If you're tired, lie down a little longer."

Before, I might have been able to hold my ground by being stronger than her, but now that Sia was a dragon, that was out of the question. She easily overpowered me and pushed me back down. For five minutes, I could do nothing but endure her relentless, passionate affection, and I only managed to sit up again once she let go.

It had only been five minutes of kissing, yet my head was spinning. The kisses had definitely been sweet. They had, but... something about it had been strangely frightening. If I'd really talked myself into five hours of kisses, I might have passed out halfway through.

Once I'd gathered my wits, I looked at Sia as she gently stroked the skin her kisses had left flushed.

"... Sia, wasn't what we did yesterday enough?"

"Nope!"

I'd thought we'd been plenty affectionate yesterday, but she answered with a bright smile, apparently sincere. 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 wrapped my arms around her gently.