Chapter 59 - Because I Had to Tell You Someday, Oppa

A place of breathtaking beauty reserved for just the two of us. The scenery was gorgeous, and a gentle breeze from who knew where added to the atmosphere. Sharing the food we'd each brought and talking together in such a romantic setting stirred feelings in me like something out of a TV drama.

"Oppa, open wide."

"Ahh."

Sia fed me a piece of the kimbap she'd made, and not to be outdone, I fed her some of my homemade tteokbokki. Seeing each other enjoy the food we'd brought made us smile.

"This place is amazing. We should come here for dates now and then."

"I know! There's nobody else here but us. I think that makes it even nicer. It feels like we're the only two people left in this whole wide world." Sia confessed that she'd always wanted to go on a date like this at least once.

"Maybe someday we could buy a deserted island and go on dates there. We'd build a vacation home just for us and stay there. What do you think, Oppa? Doesn't that sound nice?"

"It sounds wonderful just imagining it."

"We could go fishing, catch crabs and clams to make seafood stew, and watch the stars together from the roof at night..."

Ordinarily, that dream would probably have remained a fantasy, but Sia might actually make it happen. As we let our imaginations run, a question occurred to me.

"Sia, did you recreate the seasons here too?"

"Why?"

"It's autumn foliage season in Korea. I was wondering what it would look like if we could see all the trees below us turning red and gold."

The view was already beautiful enough, but with autumn here, I couldn't help thinking of red leaves. Still, surely they hadn't gone so far as to recreate all four seasons in a training ground. I was just about to suggest we go see the autumn foliage somewhere soon instead when Sia said,

"Wait a second, Oppa."

She rummaged in her pocket dimension and pulled out a crystal orb. It looked just like the one Rokan had taken out here last time.

When Sia channeled mana into the orb, the lush green leaves began turning red, changing to autumn colors in an instant. Every tree around us and every tree covering the slopes below the cliff changed.

"Well? Do you like it?"

"It's so beautiful..."

It had been beautiful before, but the autumn colors seemed to make it twice as lovely. Mesmerized by a sight I'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, I took out my phone and snapped a picture.

Sia beckoned toward the air. A maple leaf fluttered down from a nearby tree and settled in her hand. She held it gently, studied it for a moment, then handed it to me.

"Here, a present. Laminate it and use it as a bookmark."

"Thanks."

I found that little thoughtful gesture of hers incredibly cute. I carefully took the maple leaf and put it in my pocket dimension. Then I fed her another bite of tteokbokki to thank her. Sia closed her eyes in contentment and savored it.

"You know, something just occurred to me."

"What?" Sia asked, wiping tteokbokki sauce from her mouth.

"The place you lived was in another dimension from Earth. But the maple leaves here look a lot like the ones there."

Suddenly I wondered what the maple leaves in Sia's world really looked like. My question might have seemed a little odd, but she answered with a smile.

"The leaves there do look surprisingly similar to the ones here. They're not exactly the same, but whenever they changed color, I remembered going to see the autumn foliage with you."

Since we'd come around to the subject, I decided to ask her what her life as a dragon had been like, even if it was a little sudden. I'd meant to ask someday.

"Sia, could you tell me more about it? About your home, and the life you've lived?"

"... Hmm."

Normally Sia would have launched into the story excitedly, but judging by her reaction, she didn't seem eager to talk about it. Why? She'd lived some twenty-five hundred years, an unimaginable span for a human. Surely she had plenty of interesting stories she wanted to share.

Come to think of it, though, Sia almost never brought up that world or her life there. Apart from our first day together after our reunion, she'd barely spoken of it at all. Perhaps I should wait until she was ready to tell me herself.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to talk about it."

I didn't know whether I'd inadvertently touched a nerve, but her reaction told me I should change the subject. Sia shook her head, though. She let out a long sigh, as if steeling herself, and spoke slowly.

"No. I was going to have to tell you about these things someday anyway. Besides, it doesn't feel right to keep so many secrets from someone I love."

Now that she'd begun, Sia said, she might as well tell me the things she'd kept to herself.

"I didn't tell you because, well, they're not exactly pleasant stories."

Calmly, she began to tell me in detail about the life she'd lived as a dragon.

* * *

When she first realized she'd been reincarnated as a dragon, the first thing she felt was confusion. To someone who'd grown up dreaming over fantasy novels, being reborn as a dragon, one of the most powerful beings in the world, might have been a cause for joy. But she couldn't simply be happy. Part of it was that Minjun was no longer beside her, but there was another reason: the way dragons regarded humans.

Though many dragons spent nearly all their time in human form once they became adults, most paradoxically saw humans as insignificant, inferior creatures. Much as humans might look at a baby monkey.

And living among dragons had shown her what they thought of romance with humans. The prevailing view was that even feeling romantic love for a human, let alone wanting to start a family with one, was improper. Humans were merely partners for passing amusement.

Those values left her confused about who she was. You hear about children from multicultural families struggling with their identities when they're young. In her case, it was far worse: she was caught not between two countries, but between two species.

She said she couldn't even bring herself to confide in the other dragons, so she'd suffered in silence. It had been especially difficult before she told her family there that she'd been reincarnated. She carried the soul of a human, a member of the species they considered inferior, yet the others of her kind loved her as a dragon. As time passed, guilt began to grow quietly inside her.

And that wasn't all that troubled her. Among the red dragons, Sia was the pride of her kind. As Rokan had said before, she was born with a special energy other dragons did not possess. Her power was overwhelming compared with dragons her own age. That made the others cherish her even more, but paradoxically, it also made her life there feel like a heavier burden. She believed she received far more love than she deserved.

Dragons took their contempt for humans for granted, while she, a human in her previous life, received so much attention and love. Inevitably, the conflict weighed on her. And her emotional suffering wasn't the only thing that plagued her.

When she was around a hundred years old—only about four in human terms—the energy lying dormant within her suddenly began to run wild. As she'd said, she had been born with energy so rare that even in the long history of dragons, there were only a handful of comparable cases. No dragon knew how it might affect her. They'd merely assumed she would be stronger than the others and eventually become a Dragon Lord who led her kind, like her grandfather.

But perhaps that power was too much for someone with a human soul to contain. One day, it swallowed her whole. The first time it happened, Sia and her family were terrified. Even they had never seen anything like it.

Neither healing magic nor medicinal elixirs could stop the energy from running wild. Even dragon speech failed. Thankfully, no one was harmed, and it subsided after a day. It happened repeatedly afterward, but fortunately the episodes gradually became less frequent with time.

"I rambled a bit, didn't I? Anyway, that's what happened. I have plenty of happy memories too, but thinking back to those days brings up the bad ones as well. That's why I've been reluctant to revisit any of it."

"I see."

"And when I'm with you, I just want to be the human Jeong Sia, not Shasha the red dragon. That's another reason I deliberately avoided talking about it. Still, I feel a little better now that I've gotten it all off my chest."

Sia met Minjun's eyes with a faint smile. Yet for some reason he couldn't explain, it seemed subtly different from her usual smile. In fact, his intuition was partly right. Despite saying she'd gotten everything off her chest, there were still things she hadn't told him.

For instance, she hadn't told him that dragons existed in this world too, or that when she'd met them, they had reacted with the same disgust as other dragons to the idea of a dragon having genuine romantic feelings for a human. No matter how much she wanted to tell him everything, Sia couldn't bring herself to tell him that.

Unaware that Minjun had sensed something amiss, she lay down with her head on his lap.

"Oppa, can I stay like this for a little while?"

"Sure."

"It's nice to rest my head on your lap again. We used to do this all the time."

Talking about that darker part of her past had made the mood a little heavy. Sia wanted to change the subject and return to the sweetness of their date. As she wondered how to do it, she remembered what her grandfather had told her yesterday: he planned to start a guild for Minjun soon.

Rokan had told her he hadn't mentioned it to Minjun yet and thought she should be the one to break the news. She'd been waiting for the right moment, with no idea that Minjun had already heard about it. Eager to see his reaction, she looked up at him from his lap and said,

"Oppa, want to hear some news that'll surprise you?"

"News that'll surprise me?"

Minjun immediately realized what she was about to say. But he met her eyes with a curious look, pretending he didn't know a thing.

"Yep. Something that'll surprise you a whole lot. Guess what?"

"Hmm. What could it be..." Minjun stalled, pretending to think. He debated whether to guess correctly, then decided not to this time.

"I can't figure it out. What's the answer?"

"My grandpa's going to start a guild himself, just for you!"

"Really?"

Minjun acted as if it was the first he'd heard of it. His performance must have been convincing, because Sia began explaining excitedly.

"He'd been thinking about starting a guild for ages, but you helped him make up his mind. You're in an awkward position: joining an ordinary guild doesn't quite work for you, but neither does staying out of one. So I guess he's decided this is the time to do it."

"Oh..."

It was exactly what Rokan had told him, but Minjun put on an interested expression as though it were all new to him.

"Do you know you're grinning from ear to ear right now?"

"Oh, really?"

"You must be so happy! If I'd known, I'd have asked Grandpa to start a guild ages ago."

Sia thought Minjun was smiling because of the news about the guild, but that wasn't why. Seeing her chatter away so excitedly, convinced she'd surprised him, was so cute that he couldn't help smiling.

"Now that he's starting one, maybe I should join Grandpa's guild too? We probably won't be able to work together much, but still. Remember what we said before we graduated from the academy? That it would be nice if we could join the same guild."

"I do. Back then I was D-rank, so I thought it'd be hard to make that dream come true. And now here we are."

"Right! I'll talk to Grandpa. Someday we can even go on a date inside a gate, and fight together for old times' sake."

"I'd like that."

Ah, this was the life.

Worried that Minjun's legs might be getting numb, Sia sat up, peeled the tangerines she'd brought for dessert, and fed him some. Together they enjoyed the breathtaking view and each other's company.

They both hoped they could spend the rest of the date chatting quietly and admiring the scenery in peace. Their last date, after all, had been interrupted by a sudden gate break. They hoped today would pass peacefully, with nothing like that happening.

But a little while later, Sia realized that their small wish would not come true. She could feel the first signs of the energy she'd told Minjun about earlier beginning to run wild.