Of course I had meant it when I said I'd buy Sia so much tteokbokki she'd get sick of it.
But 10 servings of tteokbokki.
'She can eat all that?'
"I'm sorry, but ten servings...... is that correct, ma'am?"
"Yes, that's right. I'll write the extra noodles down on a separate note for you, so if you could do it that way, that'd be great."
"Ah, yes, yes!"
Fortunately, the order went through without a hitch.
I had thought it might take a while, but fortunately the tteokbokki came out on time.
"Your tteokbokki is ready."
A mountain of tteokbokki, enough to fill you up just looking at it, was ready.
Seeing the tteokbokki containers piled high on the table, I marveled once again.
As I'd thought earlier, how on earth is she going to eat all that?
After paying, we headed for my studio with our arms full of tteokbokki.
But then.
"Oppa. To get to your place, don't you normally have to turn the other way from here?"
When we took a different road from the one she knew, Sia asked me, puzzled.
"Ah, I moved a few months ago. Want to bet you'll be surprised when you find out where, Sia?"
"I'll be surprised?"
She seemed half in doubt, but I was privately sure Sia would be surprised.
And that certainty soon became reality.
"Oppa, is this place......."
"That's right. It's the studio you used to live in."
After the day Sia died.
I had desperately tried to preserve every trace Sia had left in the world.
And one of those was this place.
The very studio where Sia had lived while she was alive.
Most of the clothes and other belongings in the studio had been handed over to Sia's relatives, but the studio itself hadn't gone anywhere.
I couldn't bear the thought of someone else moving into this room full of my memories with Sia, so I got in touch with the owner of her building and ended up moving into this room myself.
Of course, it went without saying that the studio had a completely different feel from when Sia lived here.
Nearly all of Sia's belongings were gone.
But even so, it was all right. It was a space where I could savor my memories with Sia, if only a little.
When she came home after so long, Sia's eyes welled up with tears.
"Oppa......."
The view of the studio where she used to live, familiar and yet unfamiliar.
Perhaps because the one who had filled that view again was not some nameless stranger but me, Sia began to shed tears of relief, drop after drop.
"Hic, sob. Why, why am I crying so much, sob, today, oppa?"
"Sia, it's okay. These are tears of joy, not sadness."
As Sia wept on and on, saying her tears wouldn't stop, I gave her a gentle pat.
"Hic, even if I try not to cry, sob, when I see that doll, hic, I can't help crying, oppa."
Having ended up in my arms before either of us knew it, Sia pointed at a teddy bear in a corner of the room.
It was the teddy bear Sia had given me along with a letter on our 1st anniversary.
Several years had passed since I received it, but perhaps because I had taken good care of it so as never to forget my memories with Sia, the doll still looked just as it had the day I got it, without a single stain.
Ah, and of course, I had kept the letter safe just like the doll.
"Oppa, you tried so hard, sob, not to forget me either."
"Of course, of course."
The tears of joy soon turned into tears of relief.
Only after hugging me tight and soaking my shoulder with tears did Sia stop crying.
"The tteokbokki's getting cold. Hurry and eat."
"Mm-hm... Sniff."
***
After the long meal was over.
We roughly cleared away the tteokbokki we'd finished and flopped straight down on the floor.
Our stomachs were full, and lying cozily in the studio with just the two of us for the first time in so long, I couldn't have asked for anything more.
I couldn't imagine being any happier than this.
"Oppa, your tummy is totally stuffed."
"How come your tummy doesn't pop out after eating that much, Sia?"
Even though she had eaten nearly all of a whopping 10 servings of tteokbokki by herself, Sia's belly looked perfectly normal, as if nothing had gone into it at all.
"Hmm, it's a secret!"
We poked at each other's tummies and leisurely enjoyed the moment.
After we had squeezed each other's bellies to our hearts' content and rested like that.
"Oppa."
Sia called me.
"Now that I think about it, ever since we met again, I've only talked about myself and haven't heard anything about you. How have you been all this time, oppa?"
Come to think of it, I had been so happy to see Sia that I hadn't told her anything about myself either.
Realizing this anew, I slowly began to tell her about my life without her.
"Well, I'd be lying if I said I'd been doing fine."
***
The 1 year in which trauma from Sia's death left him gasping for breath every time he entered a Gate, unable to do his job as a Hunter.
That 1 year was also 1 year in which he had lived consumed by pain and self-blame, unable to function properly as a human being.
Having heard the story of Min-jun's 1 gloomy year, Sia sank quietly into thought.
How hard Min-jun oppa's life must have been in the 1 year since I died.
'At least I had a sliver of hope that I could meet oppa again while researching dimensional transfer magic. But Min-jun oppa didn't even have that sliver of hope.'
In a situation this awful, as much as I hate to imagine it, he must have thought about ending it all at least once.
But Min-jun had fought with everything he had to protect his memories of her.
He hadn't seen anyone else in the meantime, and he hadn't forgotten her death anniversary either.
That was the kind of man Min-jun was, the man she had loved.
'How painful that one year must have been.'
Gratitude that Min-jun had somehow held on steadfastly even in such hard circumstances, and guilt that she hadn't come to meet him sooner.
Sia quietly mulled over these two feelings by herself.
Then Sia felt something surging up inside her.
'Why, why on earth did I make a fatal mistake at the very end?'
If only I hadn't made that one mistake in the formula before casting the dimensional transfer magic, oppa wouldn't have had to suffer like this.
Because of me, oppa lost 1 precious year for nothing.
Idiot, Jeong Sia, you idiot.
No matter how excited I was to go and meet oppa, how could I make a mistake in a spot that important?
Jeong Sia, you stupid bitch.
But it's fine now.
Because from now on, I'll make sure oppa walks only on paths strewn with flowers.
No, I absolutely have to.
"Oppa, you've really been through so much, for 1 whole year."
Full of self-reproach for her mistake, of guilt, and of sincerity, Sia said to Min-jun.
That now that they had met again, they should live happily from here on.
"You're the one who's been through so much, Sia, not me. You said you spent 2 thousand years doing nothing but researching dimensional transfer magic just to see me."
"To see you, I could do that much easily. If you'd been in the same situation as me, oppa, you'd have made exactly the same choice. I believe that, oppa."
"That much? I only suffered for 1 year, but you, Sia......."
Unable to finish, Min-jun pulled Sia into a tight embrace, his eyes brimming with tears.
How hard and painful those long years must have been for my Sia.
Patting Min-jun, whose tears had burst forth in turn, Sia thought.
That she had been right to come back to meet her boyfriend.
That she would now truly make Min-jun oppa happy, after he had thankfully endured that long, 1-year tunnel.
By any means necessary.
***
After a lovey-dovey night like that, the second day with the reunited Sia dawned.
Along with a soft touch on my cheek, I heard a little smooch.
"Oppa, are you going to sleep more?"
I woke up to Sia's sweet morning kiss.
"Sia, oppa will sleep five more minutes and then get up."
"It's twelve o'clock now, oppa. Isn't it about time you got up?"
"Five minutes. Sia, five minutes."
When I whined in a thick, sleepy voice, Sia kissed my lips this time.
"Then I'll just keep kissing you until you get up, oppa."
"Then I'd better sleep five more hours instead of five minutes."
She seemed to think she could pester me into getting up, but for me, that was all the better.
Sia's sweet kisses were always welcome.
And even if she kept kissing me, she'd get tired eventually, wouldn't she?
'And I'm curious how Sia will react when she does.'
I didn't know when she'd get tired, but surely in about twenty minutes she'd tire out and wake me up in a cutesy voice, saying, 'Oppa, I lose, so get up already.'
Just imagining it made me smile.
But.
"All the better."
Contrary to my expectation, Sia planted another deep kiss on my cheek, then pressed her cherry lips to mine.
'What, is she seriously going to do nothing but kiss me for five hours?'
Come to think of it, for Sia the dragon, five hours wasn't even an instant of an instant.
So it's not like she couldn't...... do it?
Huh?
Whoa, whoa, whoa?
Next, Sia pressed a deep kiss to my neck and began to work her way lower and lower.
Her white hands tugged at my top.
'Anything beyond this is dangerous!'
How do I put it, it's a problem for other reasons too, but genre-wise, this is off-limits.
With goosebumps all over, I sprang up from where I lay.
"Oh, you're up, oppa?"
When I shot up, Sia pouted, as if something hadn't gone according to plan.
"You can sleep more if you're tired."
"No, I'm really fine! I'm not sleepy at all now."
I'd been a little groggy at first, but thanks to Sia's kiss attack, I was completely awake.
But Sia seemed genuinely disappointed that something hadn't gotten to happen, and she tried to force me to lie back down.
"Then should I put you to sleep?"
"No, I'm wide awake now. Really."
"No, if you're tired, lie down a little longer, oppa."
Normally I'd have held out somehow with my superior strength, but now that Sia had become a dragon, things could no longer go that way.
Completely overpowered by Sia's terrifying strength and pinned back down, I had no choice but to endure five minutes of Sia's one-sided, intense skinship, and only when Sia relaxed her grip could I barely get up.
Though I had only been kissed for a mere five minutes, my head was spinning.
The kisses had definitely been sweet. Sweet, but.......
Strangely, something about it was scary.
If my words had really come true and I'd been kissed for five hours, I would probably have passed out partway through.
After barely pulling myself together, I asked Sia, who was gently stroking my body, which was flushed red from her skinship.
"......Sia, was what we did yesterday not enough?"
"Yep!"
Yesterday we had shown each other plenty of affection, almost to excess, but Sia answered with a bright smile, as if it truly hadn't been enough.
Well, from Sia's point of view, that made sense.
She hadn't been able to share any affection with her lover for two thousand years.
I gently hugged Sia.