Translator: Dreamscribe
“Wow! A Fields Prize in his teens! That’s absolutely incredible.”
Sri leaped up, delighted as if it were his own achievement. Cecilia crossed herself and gave thanks to God, and Theo’s face was full of smiles too.
“It’s a perfectly natural outcome. Honestly, if you tally up everything Seo-ha has accomplished so far, it wouldn’t be strange to give him the Fields Prize twice. Unless the IMU has lost its mind, there’s no way they could pass over Seo-ha.”
“But since he’s still young, they could always tell him to receive it next time.”
A silence fell at Su-jeong’s words.
“Ah. That’s an undeniable point. There is the forty-year age limit, after all. Using that as an excuse, they often do give the opportunity to those nearing forty, that’s the truth of it.”
Theo’s expression turned bitter.
He understood the conservative nature of academia better than anyone. There were surely those who didn’t welcome the idea of a genius from the East, one not even twenty years old at that, shaking the established order of the field to its very core.
Cecilia nodded as if in agreement.
“I heard the mood on the IMU committee is extremely sensitive because of this whole Felix and Arthur affair. It’s no wonder. The reputation of the mathematics world has hit rock bottom.... It wouldn’t be surprising if voices started saying that this year’s Fields Prize should go to a proven candidate to clean up the atmosphere.”
“Are you saying Seo-ha isn’t proven?”
Su-jeong asked with a sulky expression.
“Seo-ha’s achievements are concentrated in the last two or three years. There are probably no small number of scholars still poring over Smale’s Problems and the Minimum Energy Theory, you know?”
“Huh? But that won’t do.”
When Seo-ha rarely showed a flash of ambition, the team members’ eyes all turned to him at once. It was all the more striking because he usually came across as detached from honor or money.
“What’s gotten into you? I figured you’d say you couldn’t care less about awards and the like.”
When Su-jeong asked teasingly, Seo-ha scratched his head bashfully and said,
“It’s just, Seo-eun said she wants the Fields Medal as a birthday present....”
“Wow....”
“I really wish I’d had an oppa like that.”
“What’s scary is that this is a totally realistic possibility.”
An award that mathematicians the world over yearned for had suddenly become a birthday present for a little elementary schoolgirl. Su-jeong covered her mouth and laughed quietly.
‘Yu Seo-eun, nice!’
Seo-ha needed to develop a few more worldly desires.
In Su-jeong’s eyes, he was precarious. Just like Perelman, who turned down wealth and fame and vanished after proving the Poincaré Conjecture.
The fact that the only thing such a Seo-ha was greedy about was his little sister’s birthday present left Su-jeong oddly reassured and yet wistful at the same time.
‘What else should I tell her about?’
Just you wait, Seo-eun!
There were still plenty of wonderful things a mathematician could receive.
She clenched a small fist and struck a fighting pose.
* * *
Park Sang-won, CEO of Haim Books, glared at his blank monitor and muttered to himself.
It was an age when print books were dying. But if a book had real value, people were still ready to open their wallets.
“Last year and the year before were so cozy.”
The essay Mi-young wrote, ‘I Never Intended to Raise a Genius’, had been an unprecedented hit. He’d expected plenty of parents to buy it, but once it actually came out, its impact went far beyond imagination.
Every time Seo-ha appeared in the news, the book’s sales figures shot straight up. Office workers worn down by daily life sought it out from pure curiosity, and students picked it up with the kind of admiration they’d feel for the hero of a comic book. But that too was a thing of the past. It was fair to assume that everyone who was going to buy it already had.
“And there’s still no word on author Yoon Mi-young’s next work.”
Even if they didn’t put out a book right now, maintaining the relationship with the author was important.
He never forgot to send her gifts, not only on Mi-young’s birthday but on every holiday.
“Did I put up the company building too soon?”
He refreshed the page with hollow eyes. It was a tour of online communities to read the trends. As he scrolled the mouse wheel with a heavy heart, his eyes snapped wide open at one post.
[Looks like Yu Seo-ha’s sister is good at studying too.]
-What good deeds did those kids’ parents do in a past life? They live in Boston, and apparently their daughter took first place in the Massachusetts state math competition.
└Really? I’ve never seen any article about it.
└Believe it or not.
└It’s not even nationwide, just one state’s competition, so. Honestly, nobody’s interested unless it’s an international contest.
└So studying really is 90% brains?
└So sick of this “genetics explains everything” theory. Shin Woo-hyun said don’t blame your head when it comes to getting into college. Said even being just average is enough to get into Seoul National with no problem.
└Isn’t what comes after the important part? In the world of true geniuses, the brains you’re born with are everything lololol
“Huh? Huh!”
CEO Park’s mind was racing.
If it had been Seo-ha alone, it could be written off as a miracle that happened to be born by chance, but if the younger sibling showed genius too, then the story changed.
It was proof that either heredity, or some special environment known only to the parents, actually existed. Even if it was the former, that was fine. Acquired factors had surely played a role as well.
“This is it!”
But fact-checking came first.
He picked up his phone with trembling hands. After the dial tone rang a few times, she answered.
-Hello. Mr. Park, what’s the occasion?
“Author-nim! You’re doing well, I hope? Anyway, I just saw a post in an online community saying there’s a rumor your daughter took first place in a math competition. Is it true?”
Mi-young’s laughter came through the receiver.
-Oh my! That made the rounds? The school just told us to enter her, so we did, and I guess she got lucky.
Bingo!
CEO Park clenched his fist. He could check the details by going there himself. He worked hard to set up a meal with Mi-young, and the very next day he boarded a plane bound for the United States.
* * *
“Why isn’t it gold? Justin, what do you think?”
Seo-eun spoke to the doll resting on the sofa.
Watching her daughter, Mi-young shook her head. Her body had grown, but Seo-eun still carried the doll Seo-ha had given her wherever she went.
How startled she’d been when the girl suddenly declared she was going to study math. She’d thought it wouldn’t last more than a few days, but she’d been wrong. It was a joy to watch the two siblings studying together affectionately every night. But this wasn’t the level of math obsession she’d been hoping for.
As if some spell had been cast over her eyes, her daughter still wore the name tag reading ‘Special Assistant Yu Seo-eun’ every single day.
“Mom thinks that medal looks pretty cool too?”
The award Seo-eun had brought home was added to the living room cabinet.
Once the girl started studying, she began overtaking the upper-grade gifted students at a terrifying pace. And before long, she went and took first place even in the state competition open to all elementary students.
Was it a genetic blessing, like people said? Probably not. Neither she nor her husband had been particularly outstanding at studying.
“Tsk, no! That thing is just plastic with paint on it! The medal oppa gave me was real silver. The outside was just plated, though.”
“Haah.”
A memory from long ago came back to her.
The siblings had filled a bowl with water, and when she wondered what they were up to, they said they were figuring out the specific gravity of metal. Naturally, they soaked the living room floor. The kitchen scale got wet too and broke.
Watching the siblings personally reenact Archimedes’ Eureka, she’d been left clutching the back of her neck in exasperation. Was it from that point on? Her daughter came to love gold and silver to an unusual degree.
Knock knock!
Mi-young looked at the clock. It was time.
When she opened the door, what she saw before her was a bright bouquet of flowers, and an even brighter smile on Park Sang-won’s face. As if he’d forgotten the fatigue of the long flight, he bowed with an utterly cheerful expression.
“It’s been a while. Author-nim! The air in Boston is truly sweet.”
“C-come in.”
With a somewhat flustered look, Mi-young let him into the house.
But that lasted only a moment. Before long, the living room was filled with laughter. Getting straight to the point was for amateurs, and even Seo-eun, shy as she was, had her guard dismantled in an instant by his dazzling ice-breaking skills.
‘Let me show you the power of a father of three daughters!’
“Wow! What a splendid doll. Does it happen to have a name?”
As if she herself were the one being praised, Seo-eun’s face relaxed.
“Yes! This is Justin, a doll oppa made for me. His tail even moves, do you want to see?”
His eyes lingered for a moment on Seo-eun’s name tag.
Before anyone knew it, Mi-young was pushed to the background as CEO Park played with the delighted Seo-eun for quite a while. Playing the games Seo-eun proposed, he couldn’t hide his astonishment.
‘Isn’t this Prime Factorization? She’s been doing this since she was a baby?’
‘Can this be real? She plays by rattling off four-digit primes? And she’s started on five digits too?’
‘You have to call in advance how many moves it’ll take to solve the cube? And her brother won’t accept anything that isn’t the shortest route?’
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it.
This tiny child played with numbers as naturally as breathing. As the finishing touch, watching Seo-eun get every single one of the thirty cards laid out correct, CEO Park had to clap a hand over his mouth like a teenage girl.
“Good heavens.”
Was this talent? Or was it education?
Needless to say, it was both. But this child’s growth story would surely carry far greater commercial impact than Seo-ha’s inhuman genius, where he’d done everything entirely on his own.
And the one who had designed all of this from the very beginning was none other than that very Yu Seo-ha. Dozens of titles guaranteed to catch readers’ eyes flashed through CEO Park’s mind.
“Authorrr-nimmmm! You absolutely have to do this!”
Before he knew it, CEO Park sprang to his feet and launched into an impassioned speech. But Mi-young merely wore a troubled expression.
“Seo-eun’s education was handled entirely by Seo-ha. Honestly, I thought he was just playing with her for fun. And Seo-eun didn’t seem to have any sense that she was studying at all.
So even if you’re asking me to write about that....”
“A-an observation-journal format will do. Just describe warmly, through a mother’s eyes, what the siblings did and played from when they were little. That alone will be enough. And it’d be nice for young Seo-eun to write some parts herself. The ideal would be for young Seo-ha to take part in the writing....”
“That’s out of the question!”
The moment her son came up, Mi-young’s expression went rigid.
Realizing his blunder, CEO Park hurriedly tried to change the subject.
“By the way, how on earth did she take first place in a state competition, of all things? Your daughter doesn’t seem to have learned math properly....”
He had already finished his preliminary research before coming to the United States.
Massachusetts was famous for its high academic fervor. Not only was it lined with top-tier prestigious high schools like Phillips Andover and Lexington, but it was also the region that produced the most winners of the AMC (American Mathematics Competitions), the most prestigious math contest in the United States.
And first place here?
It was practically the same as being number one in all of America.
“Ah, well, about that.”
Mi-young smiled faintly and pointed with her eyes at the book Seo-eun was reading.
“She started learning properly a little while ago. Seo-ha went and made the textbook his sister would use himself. The kids are just so adorable....”
He didn’t really hear the rest.
At some point, Seo-eun, her interest now gone, was lying on her stomach on the sofa reading a book. He hadn’t paid it much mind since it was full of colorful pictures, but it was a book that none other than that very Yu Seo-ha had made himself for his sister. The one that had turned her into a state champion in such a short time!
Without realizing it, a loud voice burst out of him.
“C-can I publish that?”
Forgetting even to ask permission, he stepped toward the sofa.
This was bound to sell, no matter what. It might even sell more than The Essence of Mathematics. No, it would definitely turn out that way.
His eyes wouldn’t leave Seo-eun’s book.
“Huh?”
Seo-eun quietly got up and backed away as if fleeing.
She clutched the book tightly to her chest as though she would never let it be taken from her.
‘But this is the book oppa made just for me?’
Seo-eun’s lips trembled, and then tears fell.
“Waaaaaaaaah-”
She bit down hard on her bottom lip trying to hold it in, but the wrenching grief was too much, and Seo-eun couldn’t stop crying.
*****
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