As Lady Winterfeld descended the stairs, every man around her surrounded her.
“My lady, would you grant me a dance?”
“Please, allow me that honor first!”
Her eyes met Seoha’s, then swept past him indifferently.
Seoha started to approach her, then took a step back.
Men reached out their hands from every side.
With a smile on her face, she politely declined their offers.
When she walked to one side and sat down before the piano, the murmuring subsided. Lady Winterfeld began to play.
Ding, di-ding—
Her hands looked as light as butterfly wings.
The clear sound of the piano rang throughout the hall, and the expressions of those listening began to change little by little.
At first, surprise. Then admiration. And finally, awe.
“Beautiful. I’d heard the rumors, but she surpasses them.”
“I hear even the Kaiser is curious about her.”
“The phrase ‘a flower on a cliff’ suits her perfectly. She gives no one so much as a glance.”
Seoha watched her in silence.
This was likely the image of Gyeoul that existed in his own unconscious.
Someday, she would surely become famous. And she would live beneath brilliant spotlights.
‘I have a rough idea of what kind of world this is.’
Seoha quietly drew in a breath.
Then he slowly turned and went outside.
* * *
Several days passed.
Leibniz had left for Italy on diplomatic business,
and Seoha stayed at his house while investigating the city.
Seventeenth-century Hanover—the very sight he had once seen in history books had been recreated here.
The people living here, too, were likely among the countless people he had brushed past before.
When he discovered Theo and Sri, Seoha was so glad to see them that he nearly greeted them.
Sitting on a rooftop and looking down at the street, he saw all sorts of people.
“Ducky! Won’t you stop right there?”
“Quack, quack!”
Rine was chasing after a duck that had escaped from her arms.
Her family ran a bakery. The person baking the bread was, of course, Miyeong.
Out of longing, Seoha had bought bread there twice or so, but he no longer went.
‘This is my subconscious, a world where all the landscapes hidden deep in my unconscious have mixed together and flowed out. There’s no point talking to them.’
Seoha sat on the roof with a piece of bread in his hand.
Whoooosh—
The wind of seventeenth-century Germany.
And yet this was unmistakably the scent of Okcheon’s air, one he had known since the moment he was born.
“Situation assessed.”
Now it was time to go catch the culprit.
* * *
“That child is playing with the duck again?”
Someone muttered at the mouth of the alley.
In front of the bakery, Rine was having some unknowable conversation with the duck, then running around with it.
“Quack, quack!”
“No, it’s dangerous if you go that way! That’s where the carriages pass!”
As if the duck understood Rine’s words, it changed direction. Rine busily moved her little legs and chased after it.
A narrow alley. The duck abruptly changed direction, trying to shake Rine off. Just as it was about to turn the corner and run,
“Quaaaaack!”
Seoha grabbed the duck by the neck.
“Shh!”
He put a finger to his lips as if telling the duck to be quiet, then quietly went inside.
When he let go of its neck, it let out a fierce cry.
“Quack, quack!”
It sounded as if it were protesting, asking why he had brought it here.
Seoha looked at it with cold eyes.
“Ducky, I’m not really in the mood for games right now. What exactly are you doing?”
“…”
Perhaps realizing it had been caught, the duck’s form slowly changed.
A drawing he had made in his notebook as a child—a man in a black coat slowly rose to his feet. On his face was a yellow duck mask.
“How did you know?”
His voice sounded as if it had been put through a voice changer.
It felt strange that a conversation he had only ever had in his imagination was now taking place in reality.
“It was simple process of elimination.
Only you can move freely in the world of my unconscious. Enough with the childish games. Send me back to reality now.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
He shrugged.
“What do you mean?”
“I am you. This is the space you longed for. If you want, you can stay here for about a hundred years without any penalty.
There’s no way for new knowledge to come in, but there are no restrictions on your thoughts.”
“What?”
“Tempting, isn’t it? Here, you can study mathematics to your heart’s content without anyone interfering.”
Seoha’s eyes widened.
“I wanted a space like this?”
“Of course. You must have sensed it vaguely too. Why do you think you fall into confusion when you summon me?”
“…”
“Because your instincts clash with reality.
Leibniz’s loneliness, the madness Newton endured—they were all the same kind as you.
The only difference between them and you is that they didn’t resist their fate, but accepted it.
But you separated me out. And you want to take me out and use me only when you need me. Do you think I’d obediently accept such one-sided terms?”
Ducky interpreted everything in the world through numbers.
What he wanted was the secret of this world, the complete truth. He wanted to know everything.
“Humans live as they are born. You were designed that way from birth.”
Seoha looked at him and gave a faint laugh.
“So you created this space? So I could experience loneliness in advance?”
A world where no one knew him. As Ducky said, was this the kind of world he had dreamed of?
Seoha shook his head.
“Ducky. You are me, but I am not you.”
Ducky threw back his head and laughed.
“What kind of wordplay is that?
I am your instinct, your primitive thought, your purest impulse.
I’m the being who knows you better than you know yourself.”
Seoha could not agree with him.
“Mathematics may be everything to you, but it isn’t to me. You aren’t my entirety either.”
“Hmph! Ridiculous. What’s left of you if you take away mathematics?”
Seoha closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. The reason he had no choice but to tear him away.
“People.”
“You?”
“Yes. The part of me that likes people, that wants to be with someone.
Do you want me to live like Newton, like Leibniz? That’s your way, and your desire. Don’t force that on me.”
Ducky took one step closer and stared straight into Seoha’s eyes.
“That’s a very funny thing to say. You claim people are important, yet you treat them only as tools.
Do you really think the people around you are happy to be with you? Why don’t you just admit it? That you’re no different from Newton or Leibniz.”
“That’s how you feel. I’m different.”
As if angered, Ducky’s voice lowered.
“Even if I no longer lend you my power? Then you’ll become an ordinary human.”
After hearing his words, Seoha began to laugh.
“Hahaha! Ducky, don’t make me laugh. What kind of joke is that?”
Seoha clutched his stomach and laughed as if he found it hilarious.
“A joke? Do my words sound like a game to you?”
Seoha stopped laughing at once and looked at him.
“Ducky, don’t get the wrong idea! Everything I’ve done until now—I could have done it all perfectly well without you. It might have taken a little longer.
You won’t lend me your power?
That ability of yours is what came from my thoughts in the first place. Your power is nothing more than arranging the structures I had already thought of a little faster.
It’s only a difference of speed. Slow or fast, I would have reached it in the end. So don’t make such pathetic jokes.”
Ducky seemed deeply shocked.
After standing still for a long while, he muttered self-deprecatingly.
“So in the end, I’m nothing but your calculation switch?”
“That’s… I’m sorry. I went too far back then. But you’ve changed quite a bit too, Ducky.”
“Changed? What has?”
Seoha quietly approached and whispered into his ear.
“You don’t have to hide it. Right now, you’re deliberately staying by Seoeun’s side, aren’t you?”
Ducky’s eyes widened, as if startled.
“I know why you brought me here. You must have been anxious because I forgot mathematics for a day. Don’t worry. I won’t give up anything.
Trust me. In the end, we’ll reach the truth together. Let’s go that far together.”
A dark gleam wavered once in the eyes behind Ducky’s mask, then vanished.
As if he were calculating something, or sorting out an emotion he had never felt before. At last, he nodded.
“You’d better do it properly. Otherwise, I don’t know what I might do.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Excuse meee! Has my duck come here by any chance?”
Rine’s voice came from outside.
Ducky instantly returned to the shape of a duck.
Creeeak.
When the door opened, Rine’s face lit up.
“Ducky! I was worried when you suddenly disappeared.”
Rine came over and gently hugged Ducky.
“Quack, quack!”
“Let’s go home now.”
Seoha knelt on one knee and met Rine’s eyes.
“Do you like this duck?”
“Yes! He’s my very best friend.”
Holding Ducky dearly in her arms, Rine bowed her head to Seoha.
“I’ll be going now. Thank you for helping me!”
Ducky, now a single duck, looked back at Seoha from Rine’s arms.
“Quack!”
Seoha understood exactly the meaning contained in that short cry.
‘Keep your promise.’
Rine’s footsteps clicked along the stone road as she grew farther away.
Seoha quietly watched them go.
“What the hell, Ducky. You were lonely too.”
Could even the purest instinct change?
Seoha thought he should summon Ducky from time to time and let him play with Seoeun.
“It’s time to go back now.”
The moment he said that, the air in the room began to ripple like water.
From somewhere, a piano melody came drifting in.
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
“…”
Flash.
When he opened his eyes, he was right where he had been.
The second floor of Boston Symphony Hall.
When he looked beside him, Gyeoul was desperately holding back her laughter.
“Did you sleep well?”
Seoha lowered his gaze.
The warm body heat he felt at his wrist. Suddenly, Ducky’s words came to mind.
‘You treat them only as tools.’
“Han Gyeoul.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re precious to me even without music.”
Gyeoul’s face instantly flushed.
“Wh-what are you saying?”
She turned her head sharply away, but she could not hide that even her ears had turned red.
After leaving her with a promise that he would visit Philadelphia someday, Seoha parted ways with Gyeoul.
It was the first rest he had taken in a very long time.
* * *
“Hello!”
Seoha came into the lab with a bright greeting.
“Oh! Welcome.”
“Good morning, Seoha.”
After weeks of continuous overwork, both of their faces had turned sallow.
‘Are they happy to be with you?’
Why did Ducky’s criticism refuse to leave his mind?
His family had crossed over to a far-off foreign country for his sake. Theo, Sri—both of them had more or less staked their lives on him.
Seoha had no choice but to admit that he had lacked consideration for them.
“Everyone, I have something to talk to you about for a moment.”
Seoha stood from his seat and drew the two of their gazes.
“Did you come up with a new breakthrough already?”
“Wait a second, let me grab my notebook…”
Sri hurriedly opened a drawer.
“No, it’s not that…”
Seoha hesitated for a moment, then spoke awkwardly.
“Shall we have breakfast together?”
Theo stared fixedly at Seoha’s face.
Lately, he had looked somehow impatient and anxious, but now there was no trace of that at all.
“Let’s do that.”
“Huh? Yes! I’m in too.”
The three of them moved to the cafeteria and ordered coffee and sandwiches.
As they talked, Seoha learned that the two of them had been devoting themselves to research while barely sleeping at all.
‘For someone who said he hated that kind of life, I was forcing it on others.’
Seoha realized that his philosophy had a great influence on the lives of his colleagues.
It was also the moment when Seoha, who had lacked any awareness as a team leader, first came to understand the weight of responsibility.
After that, Seoha began to adjust their pace.
“Shall we continue this tomorrow instead of today?”
At Seoha’s words, both Theo and Sri were startled.
“Huh? We’re not doing it right now?”
“You used to say it felt uncomfortable if we didn’t solve things like this immediately.”
Seoha looked at the two of them and smiled lightly.
“Let’s look a little farther ahead. This isn’t a sprint.”
The atmosphere in the lab softened.
Meetings that had always been filled with tension gradually became times when the three of them laughed and chatted more often.
In contrast, their efficiency rose greatly.
Because the two, who had been busy just preparing materials, now had room to organize their thoughts.
Seoha watched the two of them debate passionately and smiled in satisfaction.
‘Catching your breath didn’t mean slowing down.’
The two of them both understood concepts that, in the past, he would have had to explain at length.
‘It meant everyone could go together.’