Oppa, Thank You For The Present!

With Sia watching through the camera too, I put on the control device and began my training.

I tried to draw out as much of the Dragon Bone Sword’s power as I could, and to realize the Dragon Word by pouring my will into mana and letting it flow out. None of it differed from my usual training, except that this time I was doing it with the control device on.

Ah, one more thing.

Before, I’d simply poured my will into the sword to draw out its power. This time I trained while replaying the sensation of the moment I’d raised that aurora-light sword energy. Rokan had said the power was still too dangerous for me to handle, but I’d have to master it completely someday. He had even advised me that training this way would do me more good.

“Train like that and the power will accumulate in the control device of its own accord.”

Rokan was explaining yet another function of the control device he had made. So it wasn’t merely a control device; it could store power, too.

It looks like a plain bracelet from the outside, but this really is a remarkable thing.

One thing bothered me, though.

“Then wouldn’t that make it more dangerous, not less?”

Rokan had told me before that this power was dangerous enough to swallow me whole. If it built up and then went off by mistake, I worried, it could unleash a disaster beyond anyone’s power to contain.

Rokan called it a good question and cleared up my doubt.

“Ordinarily, yes. That is why securing its stability made the control device take so long to build. It was quite a finicky piece of work.”

No wonder. That explained why the control device had taken longer to make than I’d expected, and why Rokan, an ancient dragon, had looked so thoroughly worn out.

“At any rate, the power stored in the control device can be put to use in an emergency.”

With that, Rokan told me how to use the stored power. All it took was to breathe a trace of mana into the bracelet and then pull it straight off.

“I don’t know how much power that control device will store, but in theory it should let you draw on, in an instant, power so immense that even I could not withstand it.”
“Whoa…”

If even an ancient dragon like Rokan couldn’t withstand it, just how formidable was this power? I couldn’t begin to gauge it.

“So I must never use it unless it’s unavoidable.”
“Just so. Use it only when you think that if you don’t use this power you will die here and now. It certainly is dangerous, but the backlash will be no ordinary thing either.”

Coming from Rokan, that left me unable to even guess how dreadful the pain would be. At the terrifying warning, I squeezed both eyes shut before I knew it.

“I’d better pray I never have cause to use this power.”
“Just so. And once the whole situation is over, you had best cast Sleep on yourself.”
“Me… on myself?”
“That’s right. For now you can’t use magic properly, never mind the Dragon Word, so I’ll give you an artifact that can cast Sleep.”

Casting Sleep on myself made no sense to me, but the explanation Rokan gave next left me no choice but to accept it. By his account, the pain was only one part of it; using the power stored in the control device also carried the risk of a runaway surge as a side effect.

…Truly, this was a power to save for the direst need.

This thing’s basically a nuclear bomb.

“In any case, that should do for talk of the control device.”

With the explanation done, I went back to my training. Strangely, though, Sia had gone quiet for a while now…

This isn’t like Sia at all.

Puzzled, I turned my head toward the screen.

“Ta-da!”

There on the screen was Sia, holding up a silver bracelet.

“Doesn’t it look just like yours from the outside?”
“Sia, don’t tell me…”

Had she been so quiet all this time because she’d been making that bracelet behind my back?

“It looked pretty when I saw you wearing yours, Oppa. Well? Does it suit me?”

Wearing a proud look, Sia turned her wrist this way and that to show off the bracelet.

“It’s pretty. Your grandfather designed it well.”

I stole a glance at Rokan to check his reaction. He was chuckling, heh heh, as though his granddaughter’s antics amused him.

“I think it every time I see the two of you, but in all my years I have never seen lovers so affectionate with each other.”

Minjun’s training over, and the call just ended.

Forgetting even to eat dinner, Sia was in the dressing room putting clothes on and taking them off again, over and over. Tomorrow was a date with Minjun, yes, but it was also the day she would meet Junhwi, who owed Minjun his life, and Junhwi’s older sister, and share a meal with them.

If I don’t take care on a day like this, when am I ever going to take care?

She had no idea how pretty Kim Junhwi’s older sister might be, or whether she had the sort of charm that captivated men. Still, it was best to leave every possibility open.

“Not this one.”

The tenth change of clothes.

“This one’s not it either.”

The twentieth.

“This one… maybe?”

The thirtieth.

Not until she had changed a full thirty times did she finally find an outfit she was satisfied with. With that settled, Sia moved on to rehearsing tomorrow’s makeup.

What sort of makeup would bring out her own charm and, at the same time, keep any other woman from daring to set her sights on Minjun? She even considered changing her appearance outright with Polymorph, but decided that wasn’t what Minjun wanted. The best way would be to make the most of her current face while still showing off a beauty overwhelming enough to draw a gasp. Surely there was some way to pull that off?

She was in the middle of putting on makeup and wiping it off again with magic when Rokan came calling at her lair.

“Oh, Grandpa!”

The moment he stepped inside, Rokan took in the assorted cosmetics strewn across the vanity and Sia’s clothes still scattered over the floor, not yet tidied away.

“Didn’t you say the date was tomorrow, Shasha?”
“Yes! Which is exactly why I have to pick out today what I’m wearing tomorrow!”
“…I see.”

He couldn’t readily understand it, but he decided to simply accept it.

“Anyway, Grandpa, what brings you here at this hour?”
“Minjun asked me to pass this on to you.”
“From Oppa?”

The instant Minjun’s name came out of Rokan’s mouth, Sia’s whole face flushed with excitement.

“Here it is. He meant to give it to you himself tomorrow, but he said it would be better a day early, so he asked me to bring it.”

Whatever it was, it came wrapped in gift paper.

“Well then, tomorrow won’t do, with your date, so let’s have a meal together one of these days.”
“Sounds good! Thank you, Grandpa!”

The brief visit over, Rokan returned to his own lair. The moment he was gone, Sia stroked the present from Minjun as carefully as if she were tending a household shrine jar¹.

“What’s our Oppa gone and given me this time, I wonder.”

Humming to herself, she carefully tore the wrapping off the gift box. Inside was a set of white pajamas printed with a cute dragon character.

“Pajamas?”

Come to think of it, she had made that video call to Minjun during the day in his old clothes instead of her usual pajamas, hadn’t she?

Did that bother Oppa, maybe?

Of all things, she’d been sleeping in the very clothes he used to wear. Mightn’t that have felt a little awkward from Minjun’s side? That would explain pajamas like these. In truth, those old clothes, steeped in Minjun’s scent more deeply than any pajamas, felt better against her skin and were more comfortable.

“But they’re pajamas Oppa gave me as a present.”

There was no way she wasn’t going to try them on.

She could vividly picture Minjun picking out couple pajamas all by himself, then asking her grandfather to send her pair along. Imagining the scene, Sia couldn’t keep the smile off her lips the whole time she was changing.

In no time at all she was wearing the pajamas Minjun had given her, and she took a selfie and sent it to him straight away.

“Oppa thank you for the present!!!”
“The pajamas are crazy cute…”

After sending the message on KakaoTalk, she gripped her phone tight and waited for his reply. Before long, Minjun answered with a photo.

“Glad you like them”
“I thought it’d be nice to have matching couple pajamas so I bought a pair”

The photo he’d sent was none other than a selfie of himself in the newly bought couple pajamas. Only the color was different, black; everything else matched Sia’s pair exactly.

…Way too cute!

He usually gave off a sexy charm, but seeing Minjun in character-print pajamas, she found him cute as well.

She set the photo of Minjun in his pajamas as her phone wallpaper on the spot, then picked their KakaoTalk conversation back up.

“Looking forward to our date tomorrow toooo hehehe”

Having other people tag along was a bit much, but maybe that was exactly what would make this date special. Wasn’t it a rare chance to watch, with her own eyes, other people treating the person she loved as precious?

Less than a minute after she sent her message, Minjun’s message came.

“Sia”
“Tomorrow we’re wearing the couple T-shirts you gave me, right?”

She had been so busy making herself as pretty as possible that she’d missed the most important thing.

“Obviously!”

The prettiest clothes of all were, of course, couple T-shirts worn with the person you loved. She stripped off the outfit she’d planned for tomorrow, took out the couple T-shirt that matched Minjun’s, and changed into it instead.

“Oooh.”

She had worn couple T-shirts a few times back when she’d dated before, but for Sia, reincarnated as a dragon, that was a very long time ago. No wonder she couldn’t help looking forward to it in all sorts of ways. And it went without saying that she also resolved to make sure Junhwi’s older sister wouldn’t even think of setting her sights on Minjun.

The day of the date arrived.

He had been on a double date once or twice in the early days of dating, but a date of this kind was a first for Minjun too. From the outside it might look like a double date, but the other pair were a brother and sister, not a couple.

What is Sia thinking, suggesting something like this?

Sia had gone out of her way to say she wanted to meet them together, and Junhwi and his sister had agreed, so for now they had settled on all getting together. Minjun still couldn’t work out what she had in mind.

“Oppa, what are you thinking about?”
“Just wondering when the two of them will get here. Did we come a bit early?”
“That just means we’ve got that much more time together, the two of us, so it’s a good thing.”

Sia pressed herself up against Minjun’s arm as she spoke.

“By the way, Sia. Somehow your cologne today—”
“That’s right! It’s the cologne you wear a lot, Oppa! It smelled good so I tried putting some on too. Did you happen to put the same one on today as well, Oppa?”

A unisex fragrance would be one thing, but the cologne Sia had sprayed on was squarely a men’s cologne. He thought about telling her so, but seeing her smile happily as she breathed in the cologne soaked into her clothes along with his scent, Minjun just huffed a small laugh and swallowed the words.

Right. Men’s cologne or women’s perfume, if the person wearing it likes it, that’s all that matters.

Sia was still busy checking which cologne Minjun had on.

“Hyungnim!”

Junhwi and his older sister had arrived.

Sia, who had been sniffing away at his clothes, turned her head toward the two of them just as she was. Junhwi looked away as if embarrassed, while Sia, on the contrary, offered a greeting as though nothing were amiss.

“I’m Minjun-oppa’s girlfriend, Jeong Sia. Pleased to meet you!”
“I’m Kim Junhwi.”

Junhwi bowed politely, and his sister greeted them warmly too. Sia swept a quick look over the pair. Junhwi was exactly as he’d looked in the footage, and his sister, perhaps because she’d taken care over her style, was rather on the pretty side.

“I’m Junhwi’s noona, Kim Jiyun! I’d actually been hoping to share a meal with Sia like this, the four of us together, so I’m so glad you came.”
“Sia… too?”

Minjun sounded as though he hadn’t expected that. As far as he could see, Junhwi’s sister had no particular reason to want to meet Sia.

“Yes. I heard Sia was the one who supplied Minjun’s equipment. So in a sense, Sia is one of Junhwi’s benefactors too. In other words, Minjun protected Junhwi with Sia’s equipment.”

She’d have liked to treat Sia to a meal as well, she said, but it had occurred to her that Sia might feel uncomfortable in that setting. She’d planned to prepare a separate present for Sia and pass it along through Minjun, and had apparently been delighted when Sia was the one who suggested eating together.

“Oh — let’s go in and finish talking inside.”

With a good-natured smile, Jiyun opened the restaurant door and ushered Minjun and Sia in ahead of her. Sia gave no outward sign of it, but she was filing away Jiyun’s every last move, one by one. So far she seemed all right, but one had to be prepared for the worst, didn’t one?

Making sure the two of them could see, Sia laced her fingers tightly through Minjun’s and walked into the restaurant.