Translator: Dreamscribe
Jo Tae-jin always sat in the front row.
It wasn’t because anyone told him to. Like a habit, he would enter the classroom thirty minutes before class began and place down his bag. When choosing his seat, he avoided the window side where the sunlight slanted in, and instead chose the spot where the blackboard was directly in view.
Since childhood, Tae-jin instinctively knew how to rise to the highest position within a group.
His father was a chief judge, his mother the daughter of a local influential figure.
Just that alone was enough for Tae-jin to always stand in a superior position among his peers. But he never bullied others or swung his fists.
"Don't cause trouble and ruin your own future. I trust that my child isn't such a pathetic person."
His father was always cold toward Tae-jin.
When he was young, there was a time he polished his father's shoes before he left for work. There was no special reason. He had just tried mimicking a good story he had seen somewhere.
He simply wanted to hear a small word of praise.
He imagined a scene where his father said, ‘My son is such a good boy’, while patting his head.
The image of his younger self proudly looking at his father while holding the shiny shoes.
But what he got in return was a cold gaze.
“Don’t ever do something like this again.”
His father’s voice was as cold as a blade.
“If you do a lowly task even once, it becomes a habit. If you’re not going to do this for a living, don’t ever lay a hand on it. What pleases parents is the achievement of their child.”
Since then, Tae-jin stopped saying anything unnecessary in front of his parents. He had realized that no matter what he said, it didn’t hold much meaning.
Instead, Tae-jin spent most of his time at his desk.
A blessed environment and DNA, combined with personal effort, created a terrifying synergy.
As time passed, Tae-jin’s grades continued to rise without end. First in class, first in the entire school, and then first in the region.
Whenever an exam ended, Tae-jin’s name was always at the top. The first student’s name that teachers memorized was also Tae-jin. Friends flocked around him. He quickly became the center of the group.
However, nothing had changed in Tae-jin’s life at home. His father remained expressionless, and even when Tae-jin handed over his report card, all he got was a nod.
Then one day, his mother invited a few acquaintances to their home. Perhaps because they were important guests, his father was also present.
As Tae-jin stepped out of his room to go to the bathroom, he happened to overhear his name suddenly pop up in the adults' conversation.
“I heard Tae-jin is doing so well in his studies? I heard he got into the Gifted High School... Tae-jin's mom must be so proud.”
His usually emotionally reserved mother shook her head with an exaggerated laugh.
“It’s nothing special. He still has a long way to go.”
His father also added a comment while lifting his glass.
“Maybe he takes after me, the boy works very hard. True achievement is something that must be sustained. This is just a part of the process.”
Though they spoke with modesty, Tae-jin didn’t miss the fleeting expressions that crossed their faces.
Pride, satisfaction, admiration, affection, everything he had hoped for from his parents was there.
‘So they were watching me properly all along.’
It felt like all his efforts had finally been rewarded.
With a faint smile, Tae-jin returned to his room and closed the door. Then he opened his book again.
On the first day he entered the Gifted High School,
As soon as he walked into the classroom, Tae-jin felt a strange sense of instinctive familiarity.
‘Why?’
What had changed compared to middle school?
Tae-jin looked around.
About twenty students seemed to be forming small groups here and there in the classroom.
Neatly groomed hair, clothes and bags with small luxury brand logos. Even in the smallest gestures, there was an air of leisure typical of those who had much.
He turned his head in another direction.
Students he was seeing for the first time were having a discussion.
“Isn’t that approach a bit too simplistic?”
“Ah, that argument was already refuted in a source I read before.”
They spoke softly, but their voices were full of confidence.
‘Ah! Was this it?’
All the kids here gave off a similar atmosphere.
If he had to describe it in words, would it be a sense of elitism?
A sense of kinship born from growing up in the same world, they were projecting their own reflections.
Tae-jin found it both unsettling and strangely reassuring.
‘Except for a few…’
Every group always has its irregulars.
Tae-jin turned his head and looked at the boy in question.
It had been noisy from the entrance ceremony.
Because a girl, who seemed to be his younger sister, cried so loudly that the whole school could hear, saying she didn’t want to be separated from her oppa.
But what caught Tae-jin’s eyes more than the younger sister was the parents’ attire.
They were dressed with care, but something was off.
The man's suit didn’t quite fit his body, as if it had been bought a long time ago.
The woman’s two-piece outfit also looked outdated, as if it followed an old trend and had a tacky design.
Even so, there was no trace of shame on their faces.
Among the other parents clad in luxury brands and tailored suits, they were smiling brightly as they looked at their son.
That sight made Tae-jin feel uneasy for some reason.
***
The next day as well, Tae-jin was following Seo-ha with his eyes.
He didn’t know why.
Whenever he entered the classroom, his eyes naturally searched for him first.
“Hello.”
As always, without any particular context or personal connection, he would bow his head first whenever they crossed paths.
In response, Tae-jin lightly pointed to his earphones.
People who lacked a sense of distance made him uncomfortable.
Most of the students at this school always maintained a calculated distance.
Whether or not to greet someone depended on considering their background, position, and the future of the relationship.
But Yu Seo-ha didn’t seem to care about any of that.
Today, again, he entered the classroom earlier than anyone else, straightened the crooked desks, and adjusted the fallen window blinds several times until they were perfectly horizontal.
‘Unexpectedly tidy personality?’
Swipe swipe.
Even though he wasn’t on duty, he cleaned the blackboard thoroughly.
Tap.
Tap.
Only after neatly placing the chalk in a row by color did his morning routine end.
Honestly, he was intriguing.
He didn’t quite yet understand how impressive the result of placing first individually in the IMO really was. Now that they were in high school, he would soon be able to find out through competitions.
After sitting for a moment, class began.
And soon, it was time for math.
Click.
Teacher Park entered the classroom holding test papers.
“We’ll have a pop quiz.”
Tae-jin tensed up.
Even if it was a pop quiz, it was the first test after entering the school. It would serve as an important indicator of whether he could also rise to a superior position here.
The papers were handed out.
As the flipped-over test sheets were placed on the desks, the classroom instantly fell silent.
“Begin.”
Pencils began to move simultaneously.
Scratch scratch.
The sound of pencils rubbing against paper spread in a steady rhythm.
The students, heads bowed, were fully focused on the problems.
Seeing this, Park Sung-dae gave a satisfied smile.
‘The kids this year aren’t bad either. They won't be easy to handle, but I like that they’re willing to try.’
Problem 1.
[Let’s suppose there is a 2n × 2n grid. You move from coordinate (0, 0) to (2n, 2n). You can only move either right or up at each step. Prove that the number of possible paths is always even.]
Tae-jin looked at the problem and swallowed hard.
‘Prove that it’s even.’
It wasn’t just a problem of counting the paths. He immediately recalled the binomial coefficient.
Using the binomial coefficient, he could form an equation and prove that it was even.
Tae-jin’s pencil moved busily. First, he tried plugging in small values to look for a pattern.
There definitely was a pattern.
But calculation alone didn’t lead to a proof.
‘What should I do? Ah!’
Tae-jin recalled the structure of mathematical induction.
Scratch scratch.
Equations continued onto the paper.
He wrote Pascal’s identity and expanded the binomial coefficients. He broke it down into multiplication terms and examined the evenness of the numerator and denominator.
Line by line, logic built up like a staircase.
Tae-jin paused for a moment and looked around.
‘As expected of the Gifted High School.’
Right from the start, a difficult problem appeared, but the students were each finding their own way to the answer.
Everyone was filling in their answers with tense expressions.
‘Huh?’
At that moment, one student caught his eye for doing absolutely nothing.
It was Yu Seo-ha.
His flustered face and helpless demeanor stirred a sense of pity.
‘Is this really a problem the IMO 1st place winner can’t solve? Then what kind of level is this school...’
A small doubt rose in his mind, but Tae-jin soon erased it and refocused on the problem.
***
Seo-ha was flustered.
Very much so.
Everyone around him was busily solving the problems. Some students even ran out of space and were requesting extra paper.
But Seo-ha didn’t know what to write on his answer sheet.
Still, he had to solve the problem.
Seo-ha squeezed his eyes shut, then picked up his pencil and wrote down his answer.
「P ↔ P’, therefore the total number of paths is even.」
‘Is that enough? Professor Park said that even if something seems obvious to me, I should write it out in as much detail as possible...’
After the controversy at the Olympiad, Seo-ha had come to a realization.
He shouldn’t expect everyone to understand the logic he laid out. But that only applied when logic was needed.
To Seo-ha, the problem in front of him was a final destination where no further expression could be expanded.
If each path was matched symmetrically, then naturally, every path formed a pair.
That was where the proof ended.
The other students approached the problem through understanding and calculation. But Seo-ha saw the problem through structural symmetry and reinterpreted it with a completely different concept.
Seo-ha stared at the answer he had written. It looked excessively insincere.
‘Ducky, I really can’t do this. Can’t you handle it somehow?’
Feeling anxious, Seo-ha even sought help from his unwelcome roommate. But Ducky flatly refused to solve the problem, as if telling him not to bother with such trivial things.
Seo-ha was in despair.
Tick-tock.
Time passed.
Having come this far, Seo-ha resolved to write detailed proofs for the remaining problems.
But the result was the same. No matter the problem, he simply couldn’t manage to write more than a single line.
The questions Teacher Park had prepared exceeded the high school curriculum in difficulty, but were nowhere near IMO level.
So for Seo-ha, who had found even Olympiad problems too easy, they weren’t much different from basic arithmetic.
“Stop!”
"Already? I'm almost done..."
“Teacher! Seriously, this time limit is inhumane.”
As the test ended, disappointed voices rose from all over.
One by one, the students went up and submitted their answer sheets, filled tightly without a single gap.
Soon it was Seo-ha’s turn. He carefully gathered the four sheets of paper.
Then walked forward slowly.
Some students quietly chuckled as they saw his face, pale as a sheet.
“I did solve everything though…”
His hand trembled as he held out the test.
Park Seong-dae’s pupils shook violently as he looked at Seo-ha’s answer sheet, which was barely any different from a blank page.