Translator: Dreamscribe
Seo-ha turned around in surprise.
The one grabbing his wrist was the person who had been glaring at him during the test.
“Huh?”
He tried to quickly pull his hand away, but the look on this person's face was unusual.
Probably a middle school student?
Although the competition had no specific eligibility requirements, most of the participants were second or third-year high school students.
Among them, Seo-ha was already a distinct presence, but the student in front of him also stood out enough.
Seo-ha looked her over.
A face that was holding back tears.
She looked desperately in need of something.
From her face, he could sense an indescribable pain.
Her eyes were pleading with him earnestly.
Like someone drowning, clinging to their last hope.
In the end, Seo-ha decided to hear her out.
“Um… is something wrong?”
“Ah… um… that is…”
Su-jeong’s lips moved several times, but she couldn’t find the right words.
What on earth was she supposed to say?
Her throat was choked up, and no sound came out. Instead, the tears welling in her eyes spilled over once again.
It was an unfortunate moment for both of them, but it was a scene prone to misunderstandings.
Whispers started around them.
"Why is she acting like that?"
“I don’t know, a love confession?”
“Isn’t that Lim Su-jeong? I heard she turned down all the guys because she needed to study, but is that her type?”
Only then did Su-jeong snap back to her senses as if cold water had been splashed on her.
‘How can they say something so low?’
Su-jeong’s body trembled with rage.
It felt like she needed to say something to everyone around her to feel satisfied.
But Seo-ha spoke first.
“What are you going to do about that?”
Seo-ha pointed with his eyes to the desk.
The messed-up test paper. The paper was full of traces of her wandering aimlessly for three hours.
‘N-no!’
Su-jeong felt a shame incomparable to the kids whispering.
Her face flushed red.
She hurriedly used her body to cover the desk.
“This isn’t the answer sheet I’m turning in! I just wrote it today for practice, that’s all! I-I would obviously get a perfect score if I was serious. Hahaha! I only came because a friend really insisted on going together. Said she was scared to attend the competition alone? And if I do it properly, my friend’s ranking might drop.”
In truth, Su-jeong didn’t have a single friend.
She hastily grabbed the test paper and shoved it into her bag.
‘What’s with this pitiful person?’
Her face was pretty, but her interactions with people and her emotional expressions seemed excessively awkward.
“So… I mistook you for someone else. I’ll be going now. Sorry!”
Unable to overcome her embarrassment, she chose to escape.
Su-jeong picked up her bag and rushed out of her seat.
But the space between the desks in the auditorium wasn’t very wide. The floor was cluttered with the test-takers’ bags and belongings.
Thud-
Su-jeong tripped over someone’s bag strap and fell.
With a loud thump and no cushioning.
“Are you okay?”
Seo-ha quickly followed and checked on her.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she was seriously hurt.
As he sighed in relief, a faint voice was barely audible.
“...Go.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m so embarrassed I could die. Please just go.”
Su-jeong hung her head low, as if she didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone.
Students who had been watching the situation with interest started to gather around.
If there were conditions for dying of shame, Su-jeong was certain she met them all right now.
“Let’s get out of here. Didn’t you have something you wanted to say to me?”
It was only a few seconds, but Seo-ha had looked at her test paper.
She had failed to reach an answer, but her use of analysis in the approach caught his interest. That problem could definitely be proven using the Minkowski inequality.
‘With her current level, it would still be difficult though.’
She was someone he just couldn’t ignore.
At Seo-ha’s question, Su-jeong’s eyes widened, then she slowly nodded.
“Okay.”
***
“Do you happen to know my name?”
Su-jeong, who had barely calmed herself sitting on a bench outside the auditorium, asked while looking at Seo-ha.
But a cold voice responded.
“No.”
A wave of emotion surged within her.
It felt like she was the only one caring about the other.
“Lim Su-jeong. I represented in this year’s Mathematical Olympiad.”
She wanted him to recognize just how amazing she was, but his expression seemed indifferent. Then, as if he had just remembered, he let out an exclamation.
“Ah!”
Seo-ha had vaguely heard of it too.
The youngest participant in 20 years.
But Su-jeong interpreted it differently.
“I know. I blew it. The teacher said the team was particularly weak this year. All the talented sunbaes graduated. Next year will be different. At the very least, I plan to take first place individually.”
Su-jeong clenched her small fist tightly.
But Seo-ha was thinking something else.
‘So she's competing again next year. That means we’ll meet at the selection.’
“But why did you... to me...”
“Ah! Look at this.”
She had already thrown herself in.
She no longer intended to just avoid it. Su-jeong pulled the test paper out of her bag.
“What do you think of this proof?”
Seo-ha carefully examined her solution.
As he had thought, it was a decent approach.
“I think the direction was right. But here…”
Seo-ha took out a pen and started writing formulas.
The sight of the two crouched over the paper on the bench solving a problem seemed comical, and passing students made comments as they walked by.
But Su-jeong didn’t care at all.
Scratch scratch.
“You defined the vector space here with the L² norm, but this inequality has slightly different conditions.”
Seo-ha explained as he wrote out the formulas with his pencil.
And finally, he reached a point different from the conclusion she had arrived at.
“Viewing √(a² + 1) as the norm of the vector (a, 1) is a good idea. But to directly use the Minkowski inequality…”
Seo-ha wrote a new formula.
“Think of it like this. The vector…”
The sharp-minded Su-jeong completely understood Seo-ha’s explanation, even though it was difficult to follow. A proof she had intended was being completed by someone else. And in a form far more complete than she had expected.
A mix of joy and sorrow crossed Su-jeong’s heart.
Her theory wasn’t wrong.
But she couldn’t complete it on her own.
This kid had only glanced at her test paper.
And yet he saw clearly the entire process of the failed proof from beginning to end.
At this point, she had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Yu Seo-ha was a wall Su-jeong had never encountered before. One she might never be able to climb over even if she spent her whole life trying.
“Where did you learn math? Is a university professor teaching you?”
He knew more than she did, even though she had already gone through college-level math.
More than anything, the unknown depth of him was terrifying.
“No? There’s someone who sends me books, but I mostly study alone. It’s no fun if someone just gives me the answers…”
He got this far through self-study?
At his age?
Well, living in the countryside, he probably couldn’t find a proper teacher.
She thought she’d feel frustrated, but surprisingly, she felt a sense of clarity.
All her questions were answered.
‘As expected, I am special.’
It’s just that this kid is a little more special than she is.
Grumble.
Perhaps because her tension had eased, hunger hit her all at once.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten anything today besides a cup of yogurt. That was usually the case before exams.
She was debating whether to ask him to go get some tteokbokki together when a voice called from behind.
“Oppa!”
Seo-eun came running at full speed and hugged her oppa. Then she stood beside Seo-ha, as if to block the way.
“Did you wait long?”
Seo-eun shook her head side to side.
“No! But who’s this unnie?”
Seo-ha was about to explain the situation when Su-jeong bent down to meet Seo-eun at eye level.
“You’re so pretty. What’s this! Is it okay to be this cute?"
Su-jeong had always wanted a younger sister.
Plump cheeks, round eyes, small lips. Everything about Seo-eun was adorable.
For a moment, Seo-eun wore a blank expression.
She had intended to get mad at the unnie who took her oppa, but hearing praise made her hesitate.
‘Maybe she’s a good person?’
Seo-eun’s face softened.
“Hehe. I’m Yu Seo-eun. What’s your name, unnie?”
While the three of them chatted, Mi-young and Chul-ho stood a little distance away, watching.
Since the exam time had ended and Seo-ha hadn’t come out, they had come to look for him at the entrance.
The sight of him passionately discussing with a girl who looked a few years older.
Though not quite like Seo-ha, the girl also seemed quite mature.
‘Are all kids like this these days?’
The scene was pleasant to see, so they waited until the conversation ended.
“Let’s go eat!”
Su-jeong adamantly refused, but the couple insisted and eventually took her to a restaurant. In the countryside, it was customary to treat someone to a meal, no matter what.
On the way to the restaurant,
Seo-eun pestered Seo-ha to play a numbers game.
And so the game began.
“Two.”
As soon as Seo-ha spoke, Seo-eun followed.
“Three!”
Seo-eun looked at her, urging her to join in.
Though she had never played it before, Su-jeong had a sense of what kind of game this was.
“Five.”
A continued sequence of prime numbers.
Seo-eun called it number linking. A game where they took turns saying unbreakable numbers, growing them one by one.
“Forty-seven.”
“Fifty-three!”
It had started as a joke, but they were quite good.
They must’ve played it often.
Even as a joke, Su-jeong had no intention of losing.
Before they knew it, the numbers had far surpassed 100.
“One hundred seventy-three.”
“One hundred eighty-one!”
“Wrong! You missed 179.”
She had never gotten so fired up while playing with a kid.
“Aww, last time we went over 300….”
Seo-eun pouted.
“Do you normally play like this with your oppa?”
“Yep! We do number smashing and this too!”
The two, now completely comfortable with each other, walked hand in hand.
Su-jeong clicked her tongue.
‘What the heck are they teaching their kids? Even I, who learned in Gangnam, wasn’t this good.’
She had been fooled by the couple’s innocent faces.
Who could’ve known? That they were early education specialists.
‘That Yu family is scary.’
Su-jeong’s misunderstanding would only be cleared much later.
***
Beep beep beep beep.
Click.
Back home after a month away.
The familiar scent and the neatly arranged desk welcomed her.
Her parents wouldn’t be home until the evening.
She tossed her bag on the floor and stripped off her clothes as if shedding her skin.
The soft mattress embraced her comfortably.
Thinking about what had happened today, Su-jeong suddenly pulled the blanket over her head.
“Aaaaah!”
A scream echoed through the room.
"I'm dying of embarrassment, really!"
What kind of rumors would be spreading at school next week?
Whap whap!
Her feet kicked through the air under the covers.
Then she suddenly sat up.
“No, I don’t have time to care about stuff like this!”
Su-jeong threw the blanket off and sat at her desk.
The bookshelf was packed with traces of her hard work.
Determination returned to Su-jeong’s eyes.
‘First, let me recall the proof he did today.’
She pulled out the most difficult analysis textbook she owned. Then she searched for problems of a similar type.
Three hours later, she finally succeeded in completing her own version of the approach.