The Dragon and the Nape
"Lately everyone's been going on about K-food this and that online, so you've at least seen videos of people grilling samgyeopsal, right?"
"Of course. A Korean restaurant even opened up in our country recently. One run by an actual Korean, too."
"What about you two?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. My sister's been going crazy grilling meat at home these days. Mom and Dad seemed like they were about to join in, too."
"M-my mom and dad have been watching Korean food videos lately too..."
Sizzle~~~
The place I brought the kids into was my and Ha-yan's regular samgyeopsal joint downtown.
When the owner spotted me walking in with kids other than Ha-yan, he even teared up, saying, "So you're finally trying to live a social life, huh?"
On top of that, he piled on special cuts of meat as a free service, so it was already too late to correct the misunderstanding after accepting it all. A little unfair, but still.
"Whoa... holy crap. This looks amazing... Completely different from the meat we eat at home."
Teave was already completely lost in the meat.
"Meat... meat... delicious meat... meat that's going into my stomach..."
"...Slurp."
Lily and Silvi seemed to have completely lost their minds to hunger as well.
I figured I should feed them first and clear up the misunderstanding later.
In the end I just heaved a long sigh and accepted the owner's pitying look for what it was. I quickly arranged the prepared meat and side dishes, then spoke to the kids.
"I already heard everything about how hard you worked through Rhea. This meal's my treat for all that effort. I'm paying, so don't worry and eat as much as you want. You're not going to complain about eating at a shabby little meat place like this, are you?"
I had meant it as a pure joke, but to the three of them it clearly wasn't one.
"O-o-o-of course not! Even if our families have money, we still eat ordinary meals!"
"Th-thank you for the food!!"
"Th-thank you..."
Hunger had nearly short-circuited the trio, but once they came back to their senses, the realization that they were eating with someone they could only look up to snapped them right back into line.
Lily and Silvi started sneaking glances at me again while picking at the side dishes in front of them, and Teave, who still seemed to have something on his mind, carefully spoke up.
"Um... so, is there some particular reason you came by today?"
"Do I need a reason to drop by?"
"N-no, not exactly. But from the moment we came to Korea, you didn't seem all that happy about it."
"Well. That's true enough."
Teave really was a sharp one.
He had picked up right from the start that I wasn't especially thrilled about the current situation.
I stared at him for a moment, then opened my mouth.
"At first, yeah. But not anymore. I've got no intention of giving you guys a hard time at this point, and I'm not going to tell you to go home either."
"Why is that?"
I hesitated slightly at Teave's question. Should I tell them the truth or not?
Ah, well. It wasn't like I was only going to see them for a day or two, and they didn't seem like the type to have loose lips.
"Because if I did, I have no idea how badly Ha-yan would chew me out. I don't know exactly how the rumors about our relationship have spread in the mage world, but around here, Ha-yan is the one above me."
"...What?"
"...???"
At my words, not only Teave sitting right beside me but also Lily and Silvi, who had been diligently stuffing themselves with side dishes, all stared at me with wide eyes.
I raised my brows a little and casually threw up a sound barrier around us.
Yeah. Better to tell these kids before any more misunderstandings piled up.
Besides, without this explanation, how were they supposed to believe that the legendary archmage they looked up to was completely under the thumb of a single human mage? Not to mention that the two of them were actually a couple.
"Whoa~! Amazing amazing amazing amazing! It's like something out of a movie!"
"A-a romance between master and disciple... that's so romantic..."
"Is this the right reaction? Have I been so out of social circulation that my brain's gone soft? Hey, Teave. You say something."
"Ahahaha..."
Once my story, which had started over a table full of meat, came to an end, the two girls, Lily and Silvi, clasped each other's hands and started chattering excitedly about how incredibly romantic it all was.
I had expected surprise, or at least the look of someone who had just heard something they shouldn't have. Instead I got something completely different, so I turned to Teave for backup, but all he offered was an awkward laugh.
"Come on. Doesn't it strike you as weird? Me and Ha-yan... uh... do you even know how big the age gap is?"
But Lily answered my question with absolute confidence.
"Age doesn't matter at all for you, Siu! You've already lived for an incredibly long time, haven't you?"
"Uh? Uhh. Y-yeah, I guess that's true?"
There was no way I could tell them I had only lived one year longer than these kids.
Well, if I had been active in this world even before my current memories, that age might stretch a little further, but I definitely hadn't lived as long as they were imagining.
"A-and, stories like that are like a romance fantasy for girls like us! Just meeting a mage master who's as handsome and young-looking as you, Siu, is already incredibly rare, and then being secret lovers with that master on top of it?! I-it's just like something out of a novel!"
"Ah. Um. I-I see."
Their reaction was so far from what I had expected that I was left a little dazed, but once I heard what Teave had to say, I was able to relax a bit.
"Still, you've hidden it well so far. If it ever got out among the mages that the two of you are a couple... we actually know a few of the girls around us who already harbor a little crush on you, Siu. You'd be able to cut off that kind of trouble in advance, wouldn't you? No, wait. Ha-yan's probably already been handling that, which is why you never noticed at all."
"Huh? Crushes? On me? For real?"
This was the first I was hearing of it.
Of all the people in the world, why me?
I must have looked thoroughly flustered, because this time Silvi gave me a faintly surprised look as she spoke.
"Huh? You didn't know? The girls around you go completely crazy every time they see you."
"Uhhn? Th-they do?"
When I reacted like I genuinely had no idea, Lily chimed in and held out a photo for me to see.
"Look at this picture. It's from the last evaluation—the female students crowding around near you. You really didn't know? It was the same at the evaluation before that, and the one before that too!"
"Whoa. This was happening?"
I flipped through the photos Lily handed over and saw that ever since I had started bringing Ha-yan to the evaluations, there had always been clusters of female students gathered around me.
Even so, my gaze never left Ha-yan while she was being evaluated.
But just because I was that focused didn't mean I should have been completely oblivious to other people's stares.
While I was turning that over in my head, Teave casually spoke up around a mouthful of meat.
"Maybe it's simple. You like Ha-yan a whole lot, and Ha-yan likes you a whole lot. Because of how deep that emotional connection is, you just never noticed?"
"...Huh?"
"Yes yes yes!!! That makes it even more romantic! They're so deeply in love that they completely fail to notice the people around them!"
"I-if there was a novel like that, I would definitely buy it..."
At Teave's words, Lily and Silvi started squealing and chattering in full high-school-girl mode again, but none of it reached my ears.
I finished dinner in a bit of a daze, sent the trio back to their respective rooms, and immediately teleported to the company.
"Ugh. These people really went all in, huh. Has the rumor already spread that far?"
"For now, we've used magic to completely conceal the fact that Miss Ha-yan attends that high school. That part had already been prepared in advance, so it wasn't particularly difficult."
"But why are they suddenly making this much noise now? And so what if an adult walks around in a school uniform... By their logic, is every amusement park just a den of lunatics?"
"It's not 'suddenly now.' They tried everything else, failed, and now they're just latching onto the young lady. Aside from the company people, Miss Ha-yan was the only person known to be close to you, Master, so they've completely switched tracks in that direction. Without realizing, of course, that it will be their end."
"Ugh. Did they really think I was just going to sit still?"
"They have no idea there's someone even more terrifying."
"...I feel like I'm the only one completely lounging around."
When I returned to the company, Ha-yan, who greeted me with nothing more than a quick glance, was still buried in work alongside Rhea.
The unexpected information from the trio had left me a little blank for a moment, but once I thought it over calmly, it made a certain kind of sense.
Had I ever looked at any other woman besides Ha-yan? Had I ever harbored feelings for anyone else?
I could stake my entire dragon life and my dragon heart on the absolute certainty that I had not.
But even so—could a dragon like me really have failed to notice those sticky gazes from other people?
"So what brings you here, Siu? Did you treat the kids to a meal?"
Having found a brief moment of free time, Ha-yan looked up at me with a smiling face and asked.
"Uh... yeah. I bought them meat. You know the place? Our usual samgyeopsal joint."
"Ah, that one? It's good. I heard samgyeopsal is so popular worldwide right now that even Chilean imports are dropping. Did the kids enjoy it?"
"They all ate well."
Eh. Did I really need to ask her about something like that?
Even if Ha-yan had been using magic—or some kind of woman-only aura—to drive away other girls who approached me, I didn't particularly mind.
Ah, and what about ending up completely under Ha-yan's thumb later?
I'm already living under her thumb, thank you very much. Right by the scruff of the neck.