Translator: Dreamscribe
Anonymous board,
[I confess to my blasphemy.]
-Actually, before the test, I was worried what if I scored higher than Duck Lord. I even felt a little sorry, honestly. But after seeing the results, I felt at ease. I think I can keep working hard without feeling guilty anymore.
└No, to have such a cute thoughtㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Anyone can dream. Didn't everyone here used to get first place before coming here?
└Agreed. I never thought I’d get this score either.
└The math and science questions were really brutal. Getting them all right is something unreal.
└I was like, no way, but the Duck Lord's true identity is.... mmph!
└Everyone watch your mouths. He is very shy.
After the grades were forcibly revealed, there was a slight change in Seo-ha’s life.
“Hi, Seo-ha!”
A student from the neighboring class waved at Seo-ha while passing by.
“Hello.”
That was already the fifth time today.
More people had started greeting Seo-ha first. Most of them were first-year students from other classes, and sometimes even upperclassmen he didn’t know. Seo-ha knew the names of all the first-year students, and now he was wondering if he should start memorizing the upperclassmen’s names too.
Besides that, his name was being called much more frequently during class, and the school newspaper club had asked to interview him, but Seo-ha stayed grounded and continued to do what he needed to do.
On a weekday afternoon, Seo-ha headed to the library as usual.
Even though the exams were over, the library at this school was always full of people. Yet, for some reason, the window seat on the third floor that he liked had consistently been empty for a while now.
It was the students’ way of showing respect to the top scorer in every subject, but Seo-ha didn’t know that.
‘Thank goodness.’
He put down his bag and opened his notebook. Then he went to the reference section to look for the book he needed to study today.
'It's here!'
Seo-ha was known as a notorious high-maintenance patron of the library.
Whenever he couldn’t find the book he needed, he always asked them to buy it.
[Theory of Computation]
Seo-ha returned to his seat with the book.
It was one of the methods he had chosen to break through the challenges of the Four Color Theorem. Though mainly used in computer science, it was also a branch of mathematics.
‘There are just too many cases to calculate.’
It was already known that the theorem could be proven by dividing a planar graph into thousands of special cases and verifying each one, like Appel and Haken had done. It just wasn’t within the realm of what humans could do manually.
Seo-ha decided to dig into that very point.
‘What if I could compress all the possible cases into far fewer steps without counting every single one?’
Theory of Computation analyzes how quickly problems can be solved.
Among the tools of this theory are concepts like Automata (mathematical modeling of computational processes), formal languages, and polynomial verification. Seo-ha wanted to borrow these to express the possibility of graph coloring in a different way.
‘Instead of splitting into cases, I’ll create a new decision rule.’
To accomplish that, there were many theories he had to study.
Sunset light seeped through the library window.
Seo-ha propped his elbow on the book and followed the formulas he had written with his eyes. The pencil in his right hand moved busily across the paper.
Automata formed in Seo-ha’s mind were connecting one by one, and vertices of the graph overlapped on top of them. After a moment, countless possibilities blurred and scattered, only to be orderly rearranged once again at Seo-ha’s fingertips.
‘Ah!’
The modeling he had tried as a test showed potential. But when he tried to move on to more complex stages, the path became obscured as if fog had settled in.
‘Is this not enough on its own?’
Without noticing the time pass, Seo-ha kept trying to make the connections again and again.
***
Gyeo-ul was angry.
Looking at the clock, the promised time had already passed by ten minutes.
‘Making me wait?’
Gyeo-ul had never waited for anyone in her life. The other person had always arrived first at the appointed time. Not that she had ever been late herself.
A surge of displeasure rose inside her.
In the end, she couldn't hold it in and sent a text, but there was no reply.
Once more.
Still no response.
‘He’s not even reading it?’
Beep-
“The phone is turned off and cannot be reached.”
Her hand gripping the phone trembled.
“Ah! Seriously! Like hell I’m ever meeting you again!”
Gyeo-ul gathered her math books and stood up. Then she forcefully pushed open the door to the music room and stormed out.
Step, step... step.
But her pace gradually slowed, then eventually came to a complete stop.
She hadn’t known him for long, but no matter how she thought about it, Seo-ha wasn’t the kind of person to break a promise without a reason.
Suddenly, something he had said before came to mind and started to bother her.
'I sometimes need peace of mind.'
The look in his eyes when he said that calmly... he had pleaded, as if he desperately needed her.
Come to think of it, his complexion hadn’t looked good either, and she began to worry if he might be sick.
“Fine! I’ll go find you.”
Gyeo-ul decided to check for herself what had happened.
She crossed across the lawn and passed through a narrow path.
Then the scenery began to change little by little. For the first time since enrolling, Gyeo-ul stepped into the science department area.
An unusually silent campus,
Unconsciously, Gyeo-ul took a deep breath and paused her steps.
The usual murmurs from the pre-med department, the silly jokes and laughter, students smiling as they played music on benches, none of that existed here.
“Why is it so quiet?”
It felt like even the wind lost its sound, muted by the bleak concrete buildings.
The bulletin board was filled with stiff, formal notices and strings of unfamiliar terms she couldn’t decipher.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but even the students walking by looked exhausted and indifferent.
‘Can people even live in a place like this?’
Gyeo-ul forgot that this was even the same school.
Just then, she heard students talking nearby.
“Hey, what’s Seo-ha been up to lately?”
The familiar name made Gyeo-ul’s heart sink.
“No idea. I heard he asked the librarian to get him some theory book? It’s only been a few days since exams ended.”
At Tae-jin’s answer, Ki-bum nodded lightly.
“I can’t help but respect that. My cousin is a PhD student in new materials, and even he doesn’t study that hard.”
Gyeo-ul couldn’t hold back and called out to them.
“Excuse me!”
Both students turned their heads at the same time. Then they flinched in surprise.
In the science department, the gender ratio was 8.5 to 1.5.
Even the 1.5 that existed were not much different from them. The hoodies and sweatpants they wore every day, the dark circles visible behind thick horn-rimmed glasses, if they were a color, they would be the same gray.
But Gyeo-ul was different.
Softly glowing brown hair, a neatly pressed blouse, shoulders held straight, and most of all, bright and lively eyes wide open. She shone like radiant gold.
For the first time since enrolling, the two realized their school uniform was actually pretty.
Gyeo-ul ignored their flustered reactions and got straight to the point.
“Do you know Yu Seo-ha?”
“Yes! We know him!”
Both nodded like fools.
“Where is he right now?”
She clearly looked young, but Gyeo-ul had a cool yet confident air about her.
A stark contrast to their own disheveled appearances.
“Probably on the third floor of the library...”
Before Ki-bum even finished speaking, she turned her body. Without looking back, she walked away.
“Whoa, shit! She’s totally here looking for Seo-ha, right?”
Ki-bum blinked in disbelief.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I take back what I said about respecting him earlier. That little kid’s pulling off a romance even our older bros couldn’t manage...”
“Let’s stop. This is pathetic.”
Tae-jin patted Ki-bum on the shoulder.
“No, but seriously, how is this even possible? Seo-ha’s crazy good at studying too. Is this world really fair?”
“....”
The two of them felt a greater sense of defeat toward Seo-ha than they had during the exams.
***
Gyeo-ul stood in front of the library door and took a moment to catch her breath.
She didn’t want to make it obvious that she had come rushing to see Seo-ha.
"I thought you were sick, but here you are perfectly fine?"
She was genuinely angry. She strongly disliked people who didn’t take promises seriously.
"I'll just say one thing and leave. Then we won't need to see each other again."
What did he mean by ‘as much as breathing.’? (TL: From Ch 38, when Gyeo-ul asked Seo-ha "How much did he need her?" Seo-ha's answer was "As much as breathing.")
She truly hated people who made promises they couldn’t even keep for a month.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the library door.
A place she was entering for the first time,
From inside, the sound of pages turning and quiet coughing could be heard.
‘Third floor.’
Gyeo-ul climbed the stairs.
‘So this is how hard the science students study.’
Not wanting to disturb the students immersed in serious study, Gyeo-ul carefully made her way up the steps without making a sound.
Upon reaching the third floor, the atmosphere was different from the second. Instead of cubicle-style reading rooms, it was an open table layout. The nearby shelves were neatly lined with countless books.
She walked slowly and lightly, making a full circle around the third floor.
As she approached the window, she saw the person she was looking for.
Sunset light was pouring through the glass. At the center of that light stood Seo-ha.
Gyeo-ul’s steps came to a natural stop.
Seo-ha was completely immersed in his book, as if he had forgotten every sound in the world.
His brow furrowed deeply, then slowly relaxed as a pure smile appeared.
‘His eyelashes are long.’
His long, slender fingers held the pen neatly.
What he was writing were definitely difficult equations, ones she had never seen in her life, and Seo-ha wrote them out at length, then revised them again and again.
Watching him lost in his own world made Gyeo-ul feel like she couldn’t breathe.
She had come intending to scold him, but there was no displeasure left in her heart to burn.
She stood there for a long time, not even thinking to speak, until Seo-ha suddenly looked at the clock, startled, then checked his phone. And then his eyes met hers.
Embarrassment, surprise, guilt.
The usually expressionless face of his changed dramatically in a short moment. He stood up abruptly and came over to Gyeo-ul.
“I’m really sorry. I had set the alarm on my phone, but I didn’t know the battery had run out.”
His face was full of apology. Because of that, even the last traces of anger within Gyeo-ul completely faded. But she didn’t let it show.
“Thanks to you, I spent thirty minutes running around looking for you.”
The sunset had deepened, casting its light on Gyeo-ul. Her hair shimmered in the light. Perhaps because of that, even her ears were tinged red.
“I-I’ll get ready and come out now. I’ll definitely make this up to you later, I promise.”
Seo-ha quickly grabbed his bag and followed her out.
As they exited the library, Gyeo-ul said to him,
“Why not now instead of later? You could buy me tteokbokki after your study.”
“Yeah! Got it.”
The two of them walked along the narrow path toward the music room.
Gyeo-ul glanced back. The gloomy science buildings no longer looked depressing.
Once they arrived at the music room, Gyeo-ul sat right down at the piano.
“You’re playing first?”
“Yeah, I feel like it today.”
Ding- Diiing-
As Gyeo-ul began to play, Seo-ha closed his eyes.
The melody flowing out was Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
A hauntingly beautiful tune filled the music room.
Gyeo-ul felt stifled.
She didn’t know the reason for her frustration, but she knew what to do in such moments.
She poured everything into the music and let it fly away.
Gyeo-ul infused all the emotions she felt right now into her performance.
***
Seo-ha took a deep breath with his eyes closed.
The notes flowing from the keyboard gently soothed the tangled thoughts in his mind.
He felt like all his worries and concerns were fading away.
Thump, thump.
His heartbeat gradually synchronized with Gyeo-ul’s tempo.
Seo-ha felt a sense of peace. And he began to reflect on his day.
‘What was I trying to do today?’
He remembered.
He had been trying to create a new decision rule.
Seo-ha gathered his thoughts and brought back the trail of thinking he had lost.
‘Where did I get stuck? Ah! Modeling a more complex automaton.’
Seo-ha’s consciousness dove deep into the core of the problem where he had been stuck. And it quickly spread outward.
The fragments of thoughts that had been scattered began to find one another and merge. And at last, they formed one complete logic.
‘I’ve got it!’
He should not try to fill in the entire planar graph.
If he can encode only the color information along the boundary and create a finite automaton, then he can determine whether that boundary can be extended with four colors using local rules.
Now, Seo-ha was certain.
‘I can solve this problem.’
When he opened his eyes, Gyeo-ul was on the verge of tears.
“You’ve been like that for over thirty minutes.”