Oppa, Which Bitch Is It.

— SHK.

Minjun’s sword pierced another lizardman’s throat.

The Minjun she had known a year ago could never have landed a blow that clean. Watching him now, Sia felt something strange stir in her.

That’s… not just because of the sword.

Physicality, technique, instinct. Every one of them had visibly climbed to a different level from before. Minjun himself might not realize it, but Sia was a dragon, and she could feel it. He was fighting in ways that defied all common sense.

How did this happen?

Long ago, in the world she used to live in, she had actually seen people who wielded Dragon Bone Swords. Each of them fought with a different style of swordsmanship, yet every one of them drew the power out the same way, by stimulating the sword until it released the innate power dwelling in the dragon bone.

Minjun, though, was drawing out the sword’s latent power by an entirely different method. At first she hadn’t been sure, but after watching him use the sword again, she was certain.

Something like this… I’ve never seen it even once.

This was no mere human ‘borrowing’ the dragon’s power that dwelt in the sword. He was using that power as though it were his own. His handling of it was still clumsy, yes, but Sia had no doubt that if the dragons ever learned of this, it would send an enormous shockwave through them.

While she was still lost in that confusion, Minjun finished the fight and turned toward her.

“Sia.”
“…”
“Sia, what are you thinking about?”
“Uh, hm? No, nothing.”

Anyone could have seen how suspicious her reaction was, but Minjun didn’t press.

“Let’s rest a bit before we move on.”
“Mm-hm. Sounds good.”

However unbothered she looked on the outside, her thoughts kept going round and round in tangled circles.

One way or another, I really will have to look into this before long.

Into the secret Minjun carried without even knowing it himself.

The Gate clear wrapped up without a hitch.

Minjun cut down every last lizardman inside the Gate without any help from Sia, fighting on a completely different level than before. Even so, now that he had cleared the Gate and come out, he still couldn’t work out what that power Sia had spoken of actually was.

“I guess I’ll find out someday?”
“Of course. For today, let’s just count it as meaningful that you found a talent.”

Don’t they say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? Minjun decided that, for today at least, he would forget both that power and the Dragon Bone Sword. Those things could wait. Agonizing over them from tomorrow wouldn’t be too late, once he had brought today’s date to a pleasant close.

By the time they came out of the Gate, the day was slowly growing dark.

“Shall we go get dinner soon?”
“Sure. I was just getting hungry too. Is there anything you want to eat, Oppa?”
“Anything’s good for me. How about you, Sia?”
“Hmm…”

After a moment’s thought, Sia answered in an innocent voice.

“Can we have tteokbokki again?”

They’d had tteokbokki for lunch as well, and apparently that hadn’t been enough to satisfy her. But only yesterday he had stood at her grave and wept, wishing he could have shared one more plate of tteokbokki with her while she was alive.

“No reason we can’t. And it’d be nice to order a few side dishes on top of it.”
“Ooh, I love that. Let’s do that, then.”

The two of them headed to a new tteokbokki place, not the one they’d gone to at lunch, and ordered tteokbokki.

“Heehee.”

Sia propped her chin in both hands like a flower’s calyx and gazed at Minjun.¹ She looked at him exactly the way a sunflower looks at the sun.

“What are you thinking about?”
“About Oppa.”
“Our Sia, you’re so cute I just want to take a bite out of you.”
“If it’s Oppa, you can eat me up as much as you like.”

The exchanges were toe-curlingly sweet, yet neither of them so much as blushed.

Then, while they were still trading idle chatter, Sia left the table for a moment to go to the bathroom.

“You’re not allowed to cry just because I’m gone a minute, okay, Oppa?”
“What do I do? I’m not confident I can manage that.”

Once Sia had gone, Minjun gazed at the spot where she had disappeared with a dreamy look in his eyes, happily chewing over everything that had happened that day.

Meanwhile, two women at the table diagonally across from him kept stealing glances his way as they talked.

“Yeonju. Turn your head that way for a sec and look at that guy.”
“The one in the black hoodie?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh… he’s good-looking.”

The two women watching Minjun, Jeong Minju and Hwang Yeonju, whispered too softly for anyone else to hear.

He had the kind of warm, easy good looks that earned the phrase ‘a crane among chickens’, a good voice to match, and above all, one glance told you how much he loved his girlfriend.

“I want a boyfriend like that too.”

Minju was genuinely disappointed. If only he hadn’t had a girlfriend, she said, she’d have gotten his number long ago.

But just then, out of nowhere, Hwang Yeonju said something absurd.

“Should I go get his number?”

“What the hell, you crazy bitch.”

Jeong Minju naturally assumed her friend was joking, but Hwang Yeonju’s expression was fairly serious.

“Hey, you… you’re not serious?”
“Obviously I’m serious.”
“You’re insane. Did you not see him talking with his girlfriend a second ago?”
“That’s what makes it more fun, bitch. And she’s away from the table right now, isn’t she? If I’m doing it, it has to be now. Wanna bet? If I come back with his number, you’re buying the drinks later.”

Hwang Yeonju was ridiculously boy-crazy at the best of times, but even she usually stayed behind a certain line. This time, though, she hopped over that line as easily as over a skipping rope.

“Hey, there’s no way this is okay, even for you.”

Walking up to a man who’d been canoodling with his girlfriend a second ago and asking for his number? She really didn’t seem to be in her right mind.

Yet Hwang Yeonju answered Minju with something outrageous.

“Scared?”
“What?”
“I’m asking if you’re scared you’ll lose. Anyway, watch closely. I’ll have it in a minute. Don’t forget about buying the drinks.”
“Hey, hey! Hwang Yeonju!”

Minju tried to stop her right to the end, but Hwang Yeonju finally rose from her seat and started walking toward the man.

“I swear she’s going to land herself in real trouble doing that.”

She’d always had a bit of a lunatic streak, but who knew she was this much of a crazy bitch? Jeong Minju sighed, quietly enough that nobody else would hear.

Whatever anyone thought, though, Hwang Yeonju walked up to Minjun with total confidence.

“Um, excuse me—”

She crossed the room with that self-assured walk and spoke to him.

“Could you give me your number? I’m not usually this kind of person, it’s just that you’re so completely my type.”
“…?”

The instant a woman asked for his number, Minjun couldn’t hide a flash of bewilderment.

Isn’t she the one who’s been sitting over there since a while ago?

She hadn’t been sitting far off, so of course she’d have seen him being all lovey-dovey with Sia. And she still wanted his number?

“I’m sorry. I have a girlfriend.”
“I know, I know. Still, how about we just keep it to being guy-friend and girl-friend?² That much is fine, isn’t it?”
“…Sorry?”

He’d thought she would go back quietly, but she held her phone out to him once again, subtly pushing her chest forward as she did.

…Has the world gone completely mad?

She wanted a man with a girlfriend to make her his ‘girl-friend’ because she couldn’t be the girlfriend? She could at least try making sense.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
“Aw, come on. If giving me your number feels like too much, I’ll put mine in for you. Not even that?”

Normally, people who ask for a number give up after being turned down once or twice and walk away without a second thought. This woman wouldn’t give up, though. She clung to Minjun like a leech, determined to leave with his number.

She was definitely a crazy bitch, Minjun thought.

“I have no intention of giving you my number. I’d rather we didn’t make this troublesome for both of us.”

His tone had turned sharp, in clear contrast to before. At that, Hwang Yeonju shrugged as though the fun had gone out of it and went back to her own seat.

Watching her retreating back, Minjun furrowed his brow. Something like this happening while Sia was away didn’t sit easily with him.

Then, right on cue, Sia came back, a shopping bag of unidentifiable contents in one hand.

“Oppa, you waited a long time, didn’t you? Sorry.”

She had barely stepped into the shop, though, when it struck her.

…Why is the mood in this place like this?

Sensing the subtle atmosphere in the room, she quietly sharpened her hearing, and all at once the murmuring of the people around her came flooding in.

Wow, unbelievable. How do you even get the idea to go for the number of a guy who has a girlfriend.
Right? However much I liked a man, I couldn’t do that.
From what I heard earlier, she said if she can’t be the girlfriend she’ll settle for being a girl-friend. Wow…
What’s going to happen when that guy’s girlfriend finds out?
What do you mean, what — we crack open the popcorn, obviously.

However softly they murmured, there was no sound a dragon like her could fail to hear.

“Oppa.”

In an instant, all the air around them froze.

“Oppa, you don’t have anything you’re hiding from me, do you?”
“Hiding something? Sia—”
“Which bitch is it.”

Her eyes, drained of all life, stared dimly at Minjun.

“Which bitch tried to get your number, Oppa.”