For a moment, Minjun couldn't believe his ears. 'She wants me to take a nap in her bed?'

He had only met her today, and this wasn't even a social visit. He'd mentioned his girlfriend just moments ago. And she was telling him to lie down in her bed and get some sleep? '...Is this what they mean by Americans being open-minded?' Maybe it wasn't strange in another culture. Even so, Minjun felt this was an offer he shouldn't accept.

"I'm all right. Thank you for your concern." He declined as casually as he could, not wanting to embarrass her. At the same time, he realized he needed to come up with a suitable excuse and leave as soon as possible.

He'd let himself get swept along when he came here, curious that an SSS-rank hunter had traveled to meet him. But his instincts were warning him: if he stayed with this woman, something was bound to happen. He needed to keep his wits about him. Even in a tiger's den, you could survive if you kept your head.

"Excuse me. I'm going to use the bathroom."

"Of course."

The moment Minjun stood, a sudden wave of dizziness hit him. His whole body was sending him warning signals. First, he'd splash some water on his face in the bathroom to clear his head. If he still didn't feel normal afterward, he'd excuse himself and go home. He set off unsteadily in search of the bathroom.

But perhaps the curse Yuria had secretly cast had dulled his awareness, because the door he opened led not to the bathroom but to the bedroom. Signs of Yuria were everywhere: her suitcase, clothes strewn about, and even... revealing underwear that looked to be hers. "...!"

His dazed mind took a beat to catch up. He quickly shut the door and tried to find the bathroom instead, but Yuria stopped him. "M-Ms. Black. I was looking for the bathroom, but I—"

"Oh, Minjun. I told you, you can sleep if you're tired. I was just getting sleepy myself. Shall we sleep together?" With that suggestive invitation, Yuria pressed herself against him. "It's fine. Why don't you sleep in the bed for a while? Once you've had a good rest, we could have dinner together and finish our conversation."

Until now, Minjun hadn't been sure. But this settled it: she was openly coming on to him. 'Why is she doing this to me?' His thoughts grew tangled.

He'd once seen a tabloid rumor that she had a complicated love life, but he'd dismissed it as baseless gossip. Even if it were true, he'd told her only minutes ago that he had a girlfriend. Besides, he couldn't imagine why she would come on to him.

Right now, though, he had no time to wonder why. Yuria's soft skin was pressed against him. "Wh-why are you doing this?" Normally, he would have said it more firmly and pushed her away without hesitation. But because of the curse she'd cast on him, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

'What's wrong with me?' Something was off. Indecent fantasies he'd never normally entertain began to surface in his mind—like imagining himself rolling around in bed with a woman other than Sia.

Seeing his eyes waver, Yuria pressed closer and whispered, "What is it? A guilty conscience? Afraid your girlfriend will find out?"

"I have a girlfriend... How could I sleep in the same bed as another woman?"

"You're more of a romantic than you look. In some countries, a man can have several wives. These customs are all just for show. Why don't you quit playing the devoted boyfriend and be honest with yourself?"

Her argument wasn't even worth answering, yet Minjun's mind went blank. Why couldn't he walk out of this mortifying situation? "Besides, your girlfriend has no way of ever finding out what happened here today." Her whisper was sweet.

With the curse she'd secretly placed on the room, an ordinary person would probably have given in to Yuria's temptation by now and crossed a point of no return. But Minjun wasn't ordinary. Though his hands shook and his thoughts were in turmoil under the curse, he held on to at least a shred of reason.

Meanwhile, Yuria's thoughts were tangled too. 'I've gone this far. Why hasn't he given in?' It puzzled her. The curse was working, and she'd stirred his male instincts several times. By her calculations, he should already have surrendered. Yet there he stood, still resisting.

'Prey like this makes things interesting now and then.' Bringing a male down easily was fun, but bringing down a man who seemed impossible to win over was even more satisfying. Smiling, she strengthened the curse on the room a little, then slowly began undoing the buttons of her top to shake Minjun's resolve.

But Minjun said, "I... should go. Let's pretend none of this happened today." Even what she considered a last resort hadn't worked on him. The curse itself wasn't faulty: when she'd strengthened it, Minjun had grown steadily more dazed, as if he'd taken an aphrodisiac. Even so, he gritted his teeth and resisted.

'How?' When things failed to go her way yet again, Yuria's pride began to sting. 'Why—why hasn't he given in?' She couldn't make sense of it. Her interest in Minjun was slowly turning into stubborn determination. 'Fine. Let's see how far you can take this.' Her gaze changed. Letting him go now would wound her pride. She resolved to settle it here, one way or another.

She seized Minjun's wrist as he tried to leave and was about to intensify the curse again when a flash of light announced a third person's arrival between them. It was Rokan. "L-Lord Rokan?"

His sudden appearance startled Minjun into raising his voice. At the same time, a chill ran down his spine. The bed, women's underwear scattered on the floor, a woman who wasn't his girlfriend dressed provocatively, and himself, Rokan's granddaughter's boyfriend... Anyone who didn't know what had happened could easily think he'd been cheating on her. Or that he was about to. Minjun expected Rokan to shout at him.

Instead, Rokan asked, "Minjun, are you all right? Are you hurt?" To Minjun's surprise, Rokan was worried about him. He stared, dumbfounded. "L-Lord Rokan. This is, I mean—"

"I know. You've done nothing wrong. Go home and get some rest."

Rokan's voice was remarkably calm, which only made Minjun's skin crawl. Telling him not to worry, Rokan took his trembling hand and glared at Yuria, whose face had gone white. "I have business with that woman." Then he sent Minjun home with Teleport.

"Yuria." Rokan called her name coldly and advanced slowly. Until he'd appeared, Yuria had carried herself as though the world moved at her command. Now she backed away as if she'd seen a ghost. She'd been so fixated on seducing Minjun then and there and ruining his relationship with Sia that she hadn't considered Rokan might catch her. Even she knew it was an absurd mistake.

"I knew you resented my granddaughter because of what happened back then. I can understand that. But..." With each step, Rokan unleashed Dragon Fear so powerful that even Yuria, a dragon herself, could hardly breathe. They might both be dragons, but an ancient dragon exerting his Dragon Fear in earnest was on another level. "You were about to take your strange little games too far."

"Th-that was, Rokan... I only wanted Shasha to make a dragon's choice without regrets—" Yuria's voice trembled.

The moment Rokan returned from repairing the dungeon and saw Minjun's message, he'd sensed that Yuria intended to make a move on him. If she'd been toying with an ordinary human man this way, he wouldn't have cared. But the human she was trying to seduce was the boyfriend of the granddaughter he adored.

"Yuria." Rokan grabbed her by the collar. "Let's see if you can say that to our Shasha's face." Holding tight to her collar, he dragged her to his lair, where Sia was staying.

* * *

Rokan's lair. Sia lay on the bed, fiddling with her phone. Should she call Minjun or not? Should she at least send a text? She still couldn't escape the memory of that day.

She knew she'd eventually pick herself up and move on. Over twenty-five hundred years, she'd accumulated plenty of horrific memories she couldn't forget, yet she'd managed to move past those too. She only needed time. One day, she'd overcome this as well. But that day didn't seem to have come yet. 'I need to move past it soon...'

If this trauma lasted for years, Minjun would have a hard time staying by her side through it all. A few years were only an instant to a dragon, but not to a human like him. Knowing that made Sia feel even more pressure to escape the nightmare of that day quickly.

"What should I do..." No matter how she tried to pull herself together, she couldn't summon the courage to call him and pretend to be cheerful. After agonizing alone, she decided to try something she'd done in the past: write in a diary. Perhaps putting her feelings into words, along with her happy memories with Minjun, would ease the knot inside her a little.

She rummaged through a drawer for a notebook and pen, then sat at her desk, ready to begin. While she was wondering how to start, Rokan returned to the lair. "Grandpa?" She was about to greet him and ask how his trip had gone when she realized he wasn't alone.

The woman beside him was none other than Yuria, the black dragon. Sia knew who she was; she'd seen her once at that nightmarish gathering of dragons. 'Why is that woman with him...?'

Yuria was one of the dragons who disapproved of her relationship with Minjun, and Sia had heard she slept around. Beyond that, Sia knew nothing about her, and they hadn't met since. What had brought her here? Sia looked back and forth between them in puzzlement. Yuria's face was pale with fear, while Rokan looked uncharacteristically furious.

As Sia stood there bewildered, Rokan glared at Yuria. "Yuria. Tell Shasha yourself what you did to Minjun. I want to hear it from your own mouth."

"..." Yuria's face twisted.

It infuriated her that the former Dragon Lord had come running to scold her over a mere human. Having to explain herself in front of Sia, a dragon she considered insane, was even more humiliating. She bit her lip and lowered her head. "If you won't tell her, I will."

"..." Yuria remained silent. At last, Rokan told Sia what had happened between Yuria and Minjun.

"Yuria tried to make a move on Minjun." The instant she heard him, Sia slapped Yuria across the face without hesitation.