WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon ◈
Chapter 25: Oppa, How Did You Know?
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I looked over the old clothes I had packed into a bundle and fell into thought.
On average, I had worn all of them for over four years. They were clothes I had planned to put in a clothing donation bin soon because they were pilling, had stretched-out collars, and so on.
What on earth was Sia going to use these for?
‘She could have just asked me to buy her an outfit.’
Wanting to give her a proper gift, I had prepared some ordinary housewarming presents separately from what Sia had requested.
There was the classic housewarming gift, toilet paper, along with a blanket that could come in handy in all kinds of ways, and other small necessities useful for someone living alone, like instant rice and ramen.
‘Is there anything else I could give her?’
Sia had already decorated her lair nicely on her own, but as her boyfriend, I still wanted to do a little more for her.
If I had more time, I could have gone to the supermarket near my place.
It was my girlfriend's housewarming, after all. Wasn't there anything else I could bring?
‘There is one thing that comes to mind.’
Judging by why Sia had asked for my old clothes, I thought she might like something like this.
But if anyone else heard about it, they would definitely think I had lost my mind.
Besides, I was not even sure it counted as a present.
...Still, I had nothing to lose.
If the mood did not seem right, I simply would not give it to her.
As I finished packing the additional things into my pocket dimension and straightened my clothes...
“Oppa!”
I sensed Sia approaching from far away.
Sia, who could use Teleport freely, had come to pick me up herself.
The moment our eyes met, Sia let out a happy squeal and hugged me tightly.
“I thought I was going crazy because I missed you so much!”
“Me too. I was wondering if a week had always been this long.”
Even though we had video-called for hours just yesterday, we embraced each other intensely, as though we had been apart for months rather than a week.
But Sia continued squeezing me so hard that I could barely breathe, so I coughed and spoke to her.
“Cough, cough. Sia, I can't breathe.”
“Ah.”
Startled by my complaint, Sia loosened her arms.
“O-oppa, are you okay? I was so happy to see you that I didn't realize... Sorry!”
“No, no. I'm fine.”
Honestly, if she had held me like that a little longer, my ribs might have broken...
Fortunately, Sia quickly returned to her usual energy and asked,
“Oh, right. What about what we talked about yesterday?”
Feeling a little embarrassed, I pointed at the piles of old clothes stacked in the corner of my room.
The moment she saw them, the corners of Sia's eyes lifted with delight.
“Wow, how many outfits are there? Thank you, oppa! I'll put them to good use!”
I had no idea what she intended to do with my old clothes, but Sia hugged the bundle as though it contained treasure.
“I felt like it would be a little lacking if I only gave you those, so I prepared some other gifts too.”
“Come on, these are already more than enough, oppa. I'm really fine.”
She waved her hands and said she was fine, but the hopeful look on Sia's face told the truth.
I showed her the other gifts I had stored on the balcony, and Sia broke into a radiant smile as soon as she saw them.
“Wow, what is all this?”
She seemed deeply touched, saying she had not expected me to prepare this much.
“Do you like them?”
“Of course I do! Thank you so much, oppa!”
Humming to herself, Sia carefully placed the gifts I had prepared into her pocket dimension. Then, as thanks, she kissed my cheek.
Once she had packed everything away, Sia took my hand and immediately Teleported us to her lair.
The moment we arrived, the familiar sight I had seen through my phone spread out before me.
“Ta-da! This is our lair!”
Sia had given me virtual tours here and there during our video calls, but seeing it in person felt different.
Rather than a dragon's lair, it looked more like...
A luxurious detached house.
The spacious lair was filled with cute yet elegant furniture, and the modern, clean interior was so well done that I could not imagine it had been built by hollowing out the inside of a mountain.
What caught my eye most were the countless framed pictures hanging along one wall.
Every large frame contained photos of Sia and me together.
Not long ago, Sia had asked me to send her some of the pictures we had taken together. So this was why.
Seeing my pictures enlarged so much and hung in frames made me feel strangely shy.
As I stared at the frames, Sia, pressed up beside me, gently wrapped an arm around my waist and asked,
“What do you think, oppa?”
She seemed excited, probably because she expected me to praise it.
“It feels like I've come to an exhibition just for the two of us.”
Sia smiled softly, apparently pleased by my answer.
“I like that, an exhibition. We should take lots of pictures from now on. If we're going to hang enough photos to call it an exhibition.”
“Of course. They say photos are all that remain in the end.”
After that, Sia and I looked through the other rooms together.
The lair was so big that I thought I might have gotten lost if I had explored it alone.
“What do you think, oppa? Do you like it?”
“I wish this could be our newlywed home.”
I could not imagine a more perfect newlywed home, but unfortunately, we were not in a position to start a household together yet.
Still, both Sia and I knew that, so neither of us brought it up.
“If I move in here someday, how about buying some land nearby and growing tangerines or something on a small scale?”
“That sounds great. Or the lair is big, so we could build a greenhouse here! Then we could harvest the tangerines we grew ourselves together...”
It would probably be years away at the very least, but Sia happily let her imagination run wild as though that dream had already come true.
“Sia.”
“In winter, we could share a blanket and eat tangerines...”
“Sia?”
“Ah, what's gotten into me?”
How absorbed in her imaginary world had she been that she could not hear me speaking?
I did not know what she had imagined, but Sia's face was redder than before.
“This isn't the time for that. Oppa, let's hurry and make tteokbokki!”
Our first date at Sia's lair.
For several days, we had considered what we should do for this meaningful date. In the end, we decided to make and eat tteokbokki together.
Tteokbokki was Sia's favorite food, and more than that, she liked watching me cook.
We had cooked together a few times when Sia had been human, but strangely enough, we had never made tteokbokki together at home.
With that in mind, I suggested that we make tteokbokki first, and Sia readily agreed, saying it was the perfect idea.
But before we went to cook, there was one more thing I needed to give her.
“Sia.”
“Yeah?”
“Actually, I prepared more gifts besides those.”
At the words that there were more gifts, Sia cutely clasped her hands and looked at me with sparkling eyes.
Earlier, she had said that those gifts alone were enough.
The thought of that cute side of Sia made me smile, and I took out the things I had secretly prepared in my pocket dimension.
I had called them gifts for Sia, but from my perspective, they were more like items than presents. As I had said before, they were too embarrassing to call gifts.
“I wondered why you asked me for old clothes I used to wear as a present.”
They were old clothes, and they would not even fit her.
After much thought, I came to this conclusion.
She wanted to feel as though we were living together, even if it was only like this.
I thought that if she left traces of me throughout her lair, she could feel as though we lived together even when we were far apart.
So...
“I prepared some other things besides old clothes.”
I took out the things I had separately packed in my pocket dimension.
My favorite perfume, old shoes, and although I had wavered over whether I should bring them... even the underwear I had worn.
It might be a little embarrassing, but wouldn't it feel more real this way?
As I laid out the things I had brought, I watched Sia's reaction.
Just as I began to wonder if I had jumped to conclusions on my own...
“Oh my.”
The corners of Sia's eyes curved like bows. She carefully accepted the things I held out as though they were precious treasures and hugged them to her chest.
“How does my oppa know my heart so well?”
Uh...
Had she wanted this from the beginning?
* * *
The day before their date.
When Sia had asked Minjun for his old clothes, she had secretly been worried.
After all, wasn't it strange?
Even if they were in a relationship, it was not normal to suddenly ask her boyfriend for old clothes he had worn for years.
As a gift, no less.
‘What if oppa thinks I'm weird?’
He might wonder why she wanted old clothes he had worn instead of any number of normal gifts.
Or he might misunderstand and think she had some strange fetish, like a clothing fetish.
As her thoughts reached that point, her face turned bright red from embarrassment.
‘But I can't tell him the truth!’
The reason she had asked Minjun for his old clothes was so she could smell Minjun's scent on them whenever she missed him.
She was far too embarrassed to say that out loud.
Just thinking about smelling the scent deeply soaked into the clothes, or secretly trying on those old clothes and feeling as though she had become one with Minjun...
“Phew!”
She herself thought it was a somewhat perverted plan, but she could not help it.
As far as she was concerned, it was the best way to ease the longing she felt for Minjun when they could not meet often.
‘...Oppa doesn't know I'm thinking things like this, right?’
He probably did not, and he absolutely should not.
Even as she worried, she secretly hoped Minjun would bring lots of old clothes bearing his traces.
But then...
Not only did Minjun bring the old clothes she had asked for, but also shoes he had worn, perfume he used, and even his underwear. Then he said this.
‘You wanted to feel like we were living together, right? I thought you might need things like this to really get that feeling, so I brought them just in case.’
Even as he said it, Minjun had been nervously wondering whether he was right.
But Sia was not in any state to notice.
She had not even thought about the shoes or Minjun's favorite perfume.
And the underwear Minjun had brought...
‘#$%$%^@%@#$’
It made her imagine things so embarrassing that she could not bring herself to say them aloud.
“How does my oppa know my heart so well?”
Worried that Minjun might think she was perverted, Sia held back her surging emotions as much as possible and carefully stored the things he had given her in her pocket dimension.
“What a relief. I was worried I had gotten the wrong idea.”
Strictly speaking, Minjun had gotten the wrong idea.
But Minjun would probably never know that.
And perhaps it was better that he never did.
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