[4] Oppa Really Is a Genius.

Everyone is familiar with the situation where a man starts sweating bullets after his girlfriend asks, “Oppa, is that celebrity on TV prettier, or am I prettier?” Even if they’ve never experienced it themselves, they’ve probably seen it often enough to recognize the situation.

I’d even laughed at scenes like that a few times while watching TV.

But now, I was in a situation where I couldn’t laugh anymore.

What I had once thought was nothing more than a simple joke had somehow turned into a documentary.

***

“Oppa. Do you like how I look now, or was my original face from before my reincarnation prettier?”

It was a question that made my chest tighten.

And she wasn’t even comparing herself to another woman.

She was comparing herself to herself—before and after her reincarnation.

In a way, Sia was preparing to wage a battle against her own self.

And I was the innocent shrimp whose back would be broken in the process.

‘What on earth am I supposed to say?’

All right. Let’s approach this as objectively as possible.

Sia had definitely been beautiful when she was human.

It wasn’t just because I happened to think so. Pretty much everyone who knew Sia would have agreed.

But Sia’s appearance now was on an entirely different level.

She was so overwhelmingly beautiful that even actresses renowned for their looks would probably hesitate to stand beside her.

Yeah. If I was being completely honest, the answer was obvious.

Her current face was much, much prettier.

But what if I told her that outright?

‘Oppa, then what about the old me? Are you saying I wasn’t very pretty back then?’

And if I told her that her old appearance was better?

‘Don’t lie to me, Oppa. Do you really think I wouldn’t know?’

I was well and truly trapped.

I hurriedly racked my brain, trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy Sia.

What should I do?

If I said they were both beautiful, wouldn’t that sound like I was just giving her a half-hearted answer?

Then again, considering Sia’s current mood, she might actually be happy to hear that.

Still, it was a gamble.

‘That’s not a sure bet. Maybe I should steer the conversation in a slightly different direction?’

That might work.

Or maybe...

Right. Let’s think about this from Sia’s perspective.

‘If I were Sia, what would I want to hear?’

Let’s assume I’m Sia for a moment. What answer would I want to hear from the man I love?

Once I had gathered my thoughts, I swallowed hard and opened my mouth.

“Sia. Honestly, Oppa doesn’t mind either way. You’re beautiful either way, but if I really had to choose, I think I’d prefer your old appearance just a little because I’m more used to seeing you that way. But...”

“But?”

Sia perked up her ears.

“Oppa thinks you should stick with whichever version of yourself would make other women more jealous.”

“The version that would make other women jealous? What does that mean, Oppa?”

Apparently, that wasn’t the answer she had expected. Sia tilted her head in confusion.

Good.

It was a little out of left field, but I’d successfully shifted the focus to something that had piqued her curiosity.

Now I just had to deliver the finishing blow.

“I want you to choose whichever version of yourself is so beautiful that other women would look at you and think, ‘There’s no way I could steal a man who’s dating a woman that beautiful.’ I’m a man, so I don’t really know what kind of face women consider beautiful...”

“Oppa.”

Sia cut me off before I could finish.

For a moment, I worried that she hadn’t liked my answer.

But the delighted tone of her voice and the way her eyes curved into crescents told me the exact opposite.

“Oppa, you’re a total genius.”

‘Do you like how I look now, or was my original face from before my reincarnation prettier?’

Sia had asked Minjun that question with completely innocent intentions.

She didn’t really care which one Minjun chose.

In fact, she wouldn’t have minded if he had come up with a third option either.

All Sia wanted was to stay in whichever appearance best matched Minjun’s physical ideal.

After all, she was a Dragon who could use magic like Polymorph as casually as eating a meal.

‘So, if I’m going to choose one anyway, wouldn’t it be better to stay in the form that Oppa will love more?’

But contrary to Sia’s intentions, Minjun had given her a rather unexpected answer.

‘He wants me to stay in whichever face other women would be more jealous of?’

It wasn’t the face Oppa personally preferred.

Nor was it the face he thought looked better.

He wanted the face that other women would be jealous of?

Sia couldn’t make sense of it.

‘What exactly is Oppa trying to say? Is he telling me to just make myself as pretty as I want?’

But the moment she heard the rest of Minjun’s answer, a shiver ran through her entire body.

‘He wants me to have a face that other women find beautiful, not one that men find beautiful. That way, other women won’t dare flirt with him.’

That was how Sia interpreted Minjun’s words.

‘How did I not think of that?’

Oppa is right. I need to make sure those other sly vixens can’t get anywhere near him.

Oppa didn’t forget me for an entire year. He even brought homemade spicy rice cakes to my memorial day.

And I’m supposed to just sit back and let other women flirt with him?

Absolutely not.

With that one sentence, Sia had become certain of Minjun’s feelings for her.

However...

There was one thing Minjun had overlooked.

The more beautiful Sia was, the higher the caliber of the women who would be interested in him.

‘The kind of women who try to make a move on our Oppa will depend on how I look.’

Sia didn’t care in the slightest what other men thought about her appearance.

They could think she was ugly. She didn’t care.

They could think she was beautiful. That didn’t matter either.

But other women would judge Minjun’s value based on Sia’s appearance.

If she were too beautiful, they might think, ‘There has to be a reason a woman like that is with him,’ and become interested.

She couldn’t allow that to happen.

If a woman was bold enough to make a move on Minjun even with Sia by his side in her current form, there was a good chance that woman would be equally beautiful or attractive.

‘But if I use the appearance I had when I was human... women that impressive probably won’t come after him. Yeah. This is the right choice.’

The moment she reached her conclusion, her eyes curved into crescent moons.

‘But that alone isn’t enough.’

After all, what kind of man was her Oppa?

‘There’s definitely going to be at least one woman someday who can seduce our Oppa no matter what I do.’

Her feminine intuition was telling her as much.

‘I need more countermeasures. More. Changing my appearance isn’t enough. I can’t possibly feel safe with just that. Think, Jeong Sia. Think of something else. More, more. Squeeze every last bit of your brain for ideas.’

Did Minjun have any idea that Sia was quietly waging a desperate battle against herself?

No.

Probably not.

***

The plan was a resounding success.

It seemed that Sia was pleased with my answer, and as if she had successfully weathered the sudden crisis, she smiled and gave me a deep kiss on the cheek.

The moment she pulled away, Sia immediately cast a spell.

[Polymorph.]

I still hadn’t gotten used to seeing her cast magic without going through any of the usual calculations.

The moment she finished chanting, dazzling light enveloped Sia.

Then, the light faded away.

And standing before me once again was Sia as she had looked when she was human.

Gone was the red hair and breathtaking beauty of the goddess-like figure who could captivate anyone who looked at her.

Instead, there stood the woman I had loved: long, silky hair and soft, rounded features that gave her a gentle, innocent look.

“Oppa, am I pretty?”

“What do you mean, ‘am I pretty’? Is there anyone in this world prettier than our Sia?”

And yet...

I had answered instinctively, but I couldn’t help wondering.

Of course, I didn’t care what she looked like.

Whether she had the appearance she’d had as a human or her current appearance, none of that mattered to me.

The only thing that mattered was that Sia had miraculously come back to life.

Still, if I were a woman, I felt like I would have been more jealous of Sia’s impossibly beautiful red-haired appearance than the way she looked now.

So why had Sia chosen the appearance she’d had in her previous life?

‘Do Dragons have completely different standards for judging beauty than humans? Or does she genuinely think the face she had when we first fell in love was prettier?’

The question still wasn’t completely resolved, but I decided not to question Sia’s choice any further.

Whatever she looked like, she was still my beautiful girlfriend, Sia.

Anyway...

“This really brings back memories, doesn’t it, Oppa?”

We stood there quietly, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes.

For a very long time.

Only after the warmth in our hands had passed completely between us did we finally decide to go buy spicy rice cakes as planned.

As we’d talked about earlier while eating spicy rice cakes, two or three servings were nowhere near enough to satisfy Sia now that she had become a Dragon.

Sia took my hand and used Teleport.

In the blink of an eye, our surroundings changed.

“Wow. It’s really been forever since I’ve been here.”

We had arrived in a quiet, secluded alley in Seoul, in a neighborhood filled with tiny one-room apartments.

Sia looked around, clearly lost in memories.

To anyone else, it was nothing more than an ordinary, gray neighborhood of cheap rental apartments.

But to Sia and me, this place was filled with memories.

Just like we had back then, we shared a quick kiss in the secluded alley.

Then we headed outside and started looking for a good place to buy spicy rice cakes.

If we’d had a regular favorite place, we would have gone straight there.

But Sia had always loved spicy rice cakes so much that we rarely ordered from just one restaurant. We used to order from several places instead.

I walked at a leisurely pace, partly so Sia could take in the neighborhood again after such a long time.

Let’s see... I could have sworn there was a new spicy rice cakes restaurant around here.

After wandering the streets for more than ten minutes, we finally found a restaurant that had recently opened.

“How can I help you with your order?”

The modern restaurant menu seemed unfamiliar to Sia after so long away, and she slowly scanned the menu posted on the wall.

All while pressing herself closely against me.

After looking through all the items one by one, Sia finally spoke to the part-timer.

“We’ll take ten servings of spicy rice cakes to go.”

...

Did I hear that right?