Translator: Dreamscribe
From the day the encyclopedia collection took its place in one corner of the room, Yu Seo-ha's daily life changed completely.
As if he was overjoyed by the abundance of knowledge to explore, Seo-ha always opened a book and read.
He started with the insect and animal sections that had lots of pictures.
He was surprised by the fact that each tiger had a different pattern, and tilted his head curiously while reading a sentence about birds migrating across continents.
‘How do they know the direction? Do they use pheromones too?’
Immediately in the next chapter, he read about the principle of ‘Earth’s magnetic field’ and tried to understand it.
He asked himself questions as he read, and he enjoyed the process of finding the answers within the books.
Usually, when a child encounters an unfamiliar word or concept, they skip over it or lose interest, but that was never the case for Seo-ha. He would immediately search other chapters of the encyclopedia to find it, and only after completely resolving his question would he move on to the next chapter.
On the day he read the word ‘photosynthesis’, he opened the plant section and traced the process of light, chloroplasts, and energy conversion step by step. Sometimes, he finished an entire chapter in one day, but other times, it took him a month. What mattered more was that he remembered all the content by connecting it together.
To his parents, it looked like he was reading slowly because the books were difficult, but Seo-ha was weaving all the information together to create a vast knowledge map in his mind.
Thus, it took Seo-ha two years to finish reading the entire set of twenty-nine volumes of the encyclopedia collection.
***
“Yu Seo-ha! Was school fun?”
At the age of seven, Seo-ha entered elementary school.
Since he hadn’t gone to daycare or kindergarten, they had worried he might lack social skills, but Seo-ha always came home with a smiling face.
“Yeah! I played soccer with the kids.”
Answering halfheartedly, he tossed the chick backpack from his shoulders and dashed off into his room.
Seo-ha's attention was now focused on his newborn younger sister.
After washing his hands, Seo-ha stood by the bed and gazed quietly at Seo-eun, who squirmed without even being able to open her eyes properly.
“Is she that cute?”
At his mother’s question, Seo-ha nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah! She’s so pretty. I’m really going to be good to Seo-eun.”
Maybe from the noise, Seo-eun frowned in her sleep, then burst into laughter when she saw her oppa.
It was a heartwarming sight. Mi-young thought she had really done well having a second child. Although Seo-ha was always a low-maintenance child, the second was different. Perhaps because she was a girl, Seo-eun would cry like the world was ending if she was even slightly separated from her mother’s arms, leaving both parents constantly sleep-deprived.
So now, seeing that daughter smiling brightly every time she saw her oppa made Mi-young more grateful than anything.
“Seo-eun, oppa will show you something fun.”
Seo-ha squatted next to the bed. He took little Seo-eun’s hands and covered her eyes.
“Where did I go? Oppa disappeared!”
In an instant, his hands opened wide, revealing his brightly smiling face.
“Peek-a-boo!”
Seo-eun burst into giggles. Flapping her arms and legs, she laughed so hard her gums were exposed, and Seo-ha beamed proudly at the sight of his little sister.
Seo-eun stretched her arms toward her oppa as if to say, ‘Do it again!’
“Okay, this time I’ll really disappear.”
When Seo-ha slipped his body under the bed, Seo-eun looked left and right with a puzzled expression.
“Peek-a-boo!”
When her oppa suddenly popped out from beside the bed, Seo-eun’s eyes widened in surprise, then she once again burst into laughter.
‘With him playing like this, she’d be obsessed with her oppa.’
Mi-young shook her head as she looked at the two children.
She and her husband, running on empty, felt they could never play with the kids like that all day.
After playing for a while and getting tired, the baby gulped down her formula and fell asleep. Only then did Seo-ha gently stroke his sister’s head and quietly head to his room.
Seo-ha’s room had changed from before.
The bookshelf that had been sitting alone in the corner now occupied an entire wall. The part that had especially fascinated Yu Seo-ha as he devoured the encyclopedia collection was mathematics. Since there was nothing left for him to read, he asked his parents for more books, one or two at a time. When those books had nowhere to go, they added more shelves.
Standing in front of the bookshelf, Seo-ha slowly ran his fingertips along the spines as he moved along. They were all wonderful friends who had given him the joy of gaining knowledge. His fingers gradually moved toward the heavier, thicker hardcover books. Then they stopped at a book with a black hard cover and silver letters in the title.
《Linear Algebra and Its Applications》
Linear Algebra and Its Applications.
It wasn’t a translated version but the original English edition.
Seo-ha found the part he had been reading fluently and quickly turned the pages. And soon, he was immersed in his own world.
***
“Sigh… There are parents like this here too.”
Kim Yoon-mi, the newly appointed teacher of Class 2, First Grade at Dodam Elementary School in North Chungcheong Province, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and middle finger, looking tired.
“I came all the way here so I wouldn’t have to see this kind of stuff…”
Yoon-mi sighed, then swallowed it back.
It had only been three months since she moved back to her hometown after teaching children for several years at a well-known elementary school in Gangnam.
From the 4-Year-Old Entrance Exam for English preschools to the 7-Year-Old Entrance Exam for math academies aimed at entering medical school or Science High School.
That place was hell in the name of early education.
A time far from fulfilling.
Children who received that kind of education were always emotionally anxious and exhausted. And eventually, they grew up into adolescents who couldn’t solve anything without their parents. Because as long as they studied, their parents took care of everything else.
If that were the only issue, it might still be tolerable. But some of them, based on the sense of intellectual superiority formed through fast-tracked learning, would grow into destructive adults who looked down on others.
It was rare for a Science High School graduate to become an elementary school teacher.
Thanks to that, she had become the most preferred public elementary school teacher among Gangnam moms. She chose the job because she genuinely liked children, despite everyone's objections. She never imagined it would lead to such disillusionment.
Intellectual abuse stemming from parental ambition.
Seven-year-old children with tiny hands, repeatedly writing and memorizing equations they didn’t even understand, that image was unbearably repulsive. After seeing a child cry uncontrollably from the difficulty, she finally snapped and had a major fight with a parent.
‘And now here I am...’
Not wanting to escalate the problem, she accepted the principal’s suggestion and transferred. She thought she wouldn’t see such things anymore, but she was wrong.
Yu Seo-ha.
He was such a cute child and always smiled so brightly, she had thought his parents must be wonderful. Was it a misunderstanding?
The moment she saw The Essence of Mathematics inside Seo-ha’s chick backpack, Yoon-mi felt her PTSD flaring up. She immediately requested a parent-teacher meeting, and today was the day Seo-ha’s parents were coming.
Creak.
After school, in the now-empty classroom, the door opened cautiously.
From the gap in the door, the whining cry of a newborn baby could be heard.
“I’m sorry, just a moment.”
The woman who entered while soothing the baby had no makeup on her face.
Her skin was slightly tanned from the sun, and her hair was messily tied back, as if she hadn’t even had time to brush it.
But Yoon-mi could sense an intellectual aura in the woman’s black horn-rimmed glasses and modest demeanor. A pleasant smile naturally formed as she watched her gently pat the baby.
“Hello, teacher. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come until now. I’ve been busy.”
As the parent bowed deeply, Yoon-mi quickly accepted the greeting, feeling a bit overwhelmed.
“Ah… no! Not at all! The reason I called was…”
As she spoke, she noticed the woman’s clothes had a large, light cream-colored stain.
It was hard to tell whether it was formula or a trace of spit-up, but the area around the hastily wiped spot was still damp.
A tired face, gentle eyes, an expression full of concern as if worried her child might have caused trouble. It was the same face her own mother used to show when she came to school, busy from running her store.
Yoon-mi unconsciously pressed her lips together.
The image of “a parent who abuses their child out of ambition for early education” that she had imagined in her head didn’t match the woman in front of her at all.
“Ma’am, I saw 'The Essence of Mathematics' in Seo-ha’s backpack yesterday. By any chance, are you sending him to a academy that teaches that kind of material?”
Her heart had softened a little, but she still had to confirm the facts. Yoon-mi decided to ask directly rather than beat around the bush.
Flinch.
It was a reaction like someone who had just been caught committing a crime.
Yoon-mi thought, once again, that her suspicion had been right, but the words that came out of the woman’s mouth were completely unexpected.
“Well… I think that’s a book his father bought for him. Seo-ha was curious about what high schoolers study.”
"What? He's not learning it at an academy?"
“A little kid at a academy? Seo-ha doesn’t even like daycare or kindergarten, so we didn’t send him.”
Were they even having the same conversation?
Nothing was lining up.
Yoon-mi decided to retrace the situation from the beginning.
“So, ma’am, you’re saying that Seo-ha carries around 'The Essence of Mathematics' purely out of curiosity? He’s not actually solving it?”
Kids often show off.
Yoon-mi had often seen elementary schoolers carrying around difficult classical literature like Dante’s 'Divine Comedy' just to look impressive.
“I don’t think that’s it. Lately, I haven’t been able to pay much attention to his studying because of the baby, but I’ve seen him pack that book, saying he does it when he’s bored.”
He does it when he’s bored?
A first grader solving advanced high school math when he’s bored?
“So what you’re saying is… Seo-ha teaches himself and solves high school level math problems on his own?”
In response to Yoon-mi’s question, Mi-young nodded.
“Seo-ha has always been a bit unusual since he was little. We never taught him, but somehow he could already read Korean and do calculations quickly. So my husband and I decided to get him an encyclopedia collection. After that, he read it all day long… And these days, he keeps asking us to buy him different books, so I think my husband has been getting them for him.”
“Waaahhh!”
Perhaps sensing the heavy atmosphere, Seo-eun suddenly started crying.
As she watched Mi-young soothe the baby, Yoon-mi snapped back to reality.
She still had many questions she wanted to ask, but she realized now that she actually knew almost nothing about Seo-ha.
‘Okay. First, I’ll talk directly with Seo-ha.’
When it comes to their children, parents lie as easily as they breathe.
After returning home from work, Yoon-mi pulled out some books she hadn’t touched in a long time since her days at Science High School.
“I missed this.”
Introduction to Analysis, The Essence of Mathematics, Algebra, The Beauty of Mathematics, Geometry and Vectors, International Mathematical Olympiad Past Problems Collection...
Back then, just opening those books made her feel like throwing up, but now that she thought about it, they had all become precious memories.
Even when lights-out time came in the dormitory, if she hadn’t solved even one line of a problem, she would hide under her blanket and continue working with a flashlight so that the light wouldn’t leak out.
‘How far should I test him?’
No matter how smart a child is, there’s a limit to what can be done through self-study.
“Let’s start with the middle school level.”
Scratch, scratch.
She had no intention of blaming a child for acting precocious or showing off. After all, it’s all part of growing up.
But in the calm yet somewhat flustered tone of Seo-ha’s mother, there had been not a trace of such vanity.
“Let’s just verify, just verify.”
She had only intended to test up to trigonometry, but once she started writing, she ended up including calculus, geometry, and vectors. These were high-difficulty problems that couldn’t possibly be solved through memorization, only with a complete understanding of the concepts.
It wasn’t conscious, but deep down, she couldn’t completely ignore the tiny possibility that she might be dealing with an out-of-the-box genius.