Seoha turned around in surprise.
The person gripping his wrist was the one who had been glaring at him during the exam.
“Huh?”
He tried to hurriedly pull his hand free, but this person’s expression was unusual.
A middle schooler, perhaps?
Though the competition had no separate qualification requirements, most test-takers were second or third-year high school students.
Among them, Seoha was an exceptionally alien existence, but the student before him stood out plenty as well.
Seoha observed her.
An expression holding back tears.
She looked desperate about something.
Indescribable pain radiated from her face.
Eyes looking at him earnestly.
Like a drowning person grasping at their last hope.
In the end, Seoha decided to hear her out.
“Um… is something wrong?”
“Ah… um… well.”
Sujeong’s mouth opened and closed several times, but she couldn’t find the right words.
What on earth was she supposed to say?
Her throat was choked tight, and no sound came out. Instead, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and began to fall again.
It was ill-fated for the two of them, but it was the perfect scene to cause misunderstandings.
Murmurs rose from the surroundings.
“What’s with her?”
“Dunno, a love confession?”
“Isn’t that Im Sujeong? I heard she rejects every guy saying she needs to study. Was she into that kind of thing?”
Only then did Sujeong’s mind snap back as if doused with cold water.
‘How could they say such vulgar things…’
Sujeong’s body trembled with anger.
She felt like she had to shout something at everyone here to feel better.
But Seoha spoke first.
“What are you going to do about that?”
Seoha glanced toward the desk.
The ruined test paper. The sheet was full of traces of her wandering lost for three hours.
‘Ah… no!’
Sujeong felt a shame incomparable to the whispering of the children.
Her face flushed bright red.
She hurriedly covered the desk with her body.
“This isn’t an official answer sheet! I was just trying it out as a practice test today.
I… if I had taken it seriously, I would obviously have a perfect score. Hahaha! Today a friend begged me to come with them. They said they were scared to go to the competition alone? If I wrote it properly, my friend’s rank would drop by a step too.”
In truth, Sujeong didn’t have a single friend.
She hastily grabbed the test paper and shoved it into her bag.
‘What? Who is this pitiful person?’
Her face was pretty, but the way she treated people or expressed emotions seemed excessively clumsy.
“So… I mistook you for someone else. I’ll be going now. Sorry!”
Unable to overcome her embarrassment, she chose to flee.
Sujeong grabbed her bag and hurriedly left her seat.
But the spacing between desks in the auditorium wasn’t very wide. The floor was full of examinees’ bags and belongings.
Thud—
Sujeong’s foot caught on someone’s bag strap, and she fell.
With a heavy crash, without any cushioning whatsoever.
“Are you okay?”
Seoha quickly followed and checked on her.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem seriously hurt.
As he exhaled in relief, a small voice reached him, barely audible.
“…Go away.”
“What?”
“I want to die of embarrassment. Please, just go.”
As if unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes, Sujeong hung her head deeply.
The surrounding students who had been watching the situation with interest since earlier began gathering one by one.
Sujeong was certain that if there were conditions for dying of shame, she would meet every single one right now.
“Let’s get out of here first. Didn’t you have something to say to me?”
It had been only a few seconds, but Seoha had seen her test paper.
She had failed to reach an answer, but the solution applying analysis had piqued his interest. That problem could definitely be proven using Minkowski’s inequality.
‘At her current level, it would be impossible, but.’
For various reasons, she was someone he couldn’t just leave alone.
At Seoha’s question, Sujeong’s eyes widened, then she slowly nodded.
“Yeah.”
* * *
“Do you happen to know my name?”
Sitting on a bench outside the auditorium, Sujeong had finally calmed down and asked Seoha.
But the voice that answered was cold.
“No.”
A surge of emotion welled up.
It felt like she was the only one who cared about the other person.
“Im Sujeong. I was a representative at this year’s Math Olympiad.”
She wanted him to recognize how amazing she was, but his expression looked indifferent. Then, as if he had finally remembered, he let out an exclamation.
“Ah!”
Seoha had vaguely heard of it.
The youngest qualifier in 20 years.
But Sujeong interpreted it differently.
“I know. I failed. The teacher said this year’s members were especially weak. All the good seniors graduated. Next year will be different. At least I’m planning to take first place individually.”
Sujeong clenched her small fist.
But Seoha was thinking something else.
‘So she’s competing next year too. Then we’ll meet at the selection tournament.’
“But why did you come to me…?”
“Ah! Look at this.”
Having already thrown away all shame.
She no longer thought about running away. Sujeong took out the test paper from her bag.
“What do you think of this proof?”
Seoha examined her answer carefully.
As he had thought, it was a decent approach.
“I think the direction was right. But here…”
Seoha took out a pen and began writing formulas.
The sight of the two crouching over paper on the bench to solve a problem seemed comical, and students passed by making remarks.
But Sujeong didn’t care about any of that.
Scratch scratch.
“You defined the vector space with the L² norm here, but the conditions are slightly different for this inequality.”
Seoha explained as he wrote formulas with his pencil.
And finally, he reached a point different from the conclusion she had drawn.
“Viewing √(a² + 1) as the norm of vector (a, 1) was a good idea. But to directly apply Minkowski’s inequality…”
Seoha wrote a new formula.
“Think of it like this. Vector…”
The intelligent Sujeong completely understood Seoha’s difficult explanation. The proof she had intended was being completed by another’s hand. And in a far more complete form than she had expected.
Joy and sorrow intersected in Sujeong’s heart.
Her theory hadn’t been wrong.
But she had been unable to complete it on her own.
This child had only glanced at her test paper.
Yet he clearly saw every step of the proof she had failed at, from start to finish.
At this point, she couldn’t help but acknowledge it.
Yu Seoha was a wall Sujeong had never encountered. One she might never overcome no matter how hard she worked her entire life.
“Where did you learn math? Which university professor teaches you?”
He knew more than her, who had already progressed through university-level mathematics.
More than anything, the unfathomable depth terrified her.
“No? There is someone who sends me books, but I basically study alone. It’s not fun if someone tells me the answer…”
All the way here through self-study?
At this age?
Well, he lived in the countryside, so he probably couldn’t find a proper teacher.
She thought she would feel resentful, but instead felt refreshingly clear.
All her questions were answered.
‘As expected, I’m special.’
It was just that this child was a little more special than her.
Gurgle.
Perhaps because the tension had released, hunger belatedly swept over her.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten anything today except one cup of yogurt. That was usually the case before exams.
Just as she was wondering whether to suggest they eat tteokbokki together, a voice came from behind.
“Oppa!”
Seoeun charged in fiercely and hugged her brother. Then she stood beside Seoha as if blocking the way.
“Did you wait long?”
Seoeun shook her head.
“No! But who is this unnie?”
As Seoha tried to explain the situation, Sujeong bent her knees to match Seoeun’s eye level.
“You’re totally pretty. What, what! Is it even allowed to be this cute?”
Sujeong had always wanted a younger sister.
Plump cheeks, round eyes, even the small lips. Everything about Seoeun was lovely.
For a moment, Seoeun made a blank expression.
She had been trying to get angry at the unnie who had taken her oppa, but she hesitated upon receiving praise.
‘Maybe she’s a good person?’
Seoeun’s face softened gently.
“Hehe. I’m Yu Seoeun. What about you, unnie?”
While the three were talking, Miyeong and Cheolho watched from a short distance away.
They had come to the entrance because Seoha hadn’t come out even after the exam ended.
The sight of him passionately discussing with a girl who looked a few years older.
She didn’t seem as precocious as Seoha, but that child looked plenty mature as well.
‘Are all kids like this these days?’
They liked what they saw and waited until the conversation ended.
“Let’s go eat!”
Sujeong firmly refused, but the couple stubbornly took her to a restaurant. In the countryside, treating someone to a meal was a must.
On the way to the restaurant,
Seoeun pestered Seoha to play a number game.
And so began the game.
“Two.”
As soon as Seoha spoke, Seoeun followed.
“Three!”
Seoeun looked at her, asking her to join too.
She had never played it before, but Sujeong felt like she knew what kind of game this was.
“Five.”
The continuing sequence of prime numbers.
Seoeun called this “number linking”—a game where each person said the next larger indivisible number.
“Forty-seven.”
“Fifty-three!”
They had started as a joke, but it was impressive.
They had probably played it often.
Sujeong had no intention of losing, even in jest.
Before long, the numbers had long surpassed one hundred.
“One hundred seventy-three.”
“One hundred eighty-one!”
“Buzz! Wrong. You skipped 179.”
She had never gotten so worked up playing with a child before.
“Ehh, we used to get past three hundred before…”
Seoeun made a crying face.
“Do you usually play like this with oppa?”
“Yeah! We do number breaking too, and this!”
The two, having grown close before anyone knew it, walked holding hands.
Sujeong clicked her tongue.
‘What on earth are they teaching these kids? Even I, who studied in Gangnam, wasn’t at this level.’
She had been fooled because the couple both had gentle faces.
Who would have known? That they were specialists in early education.
‘The Yu family is scary.’
It would be quite some time before Sujeong’s misunderstanding was cleared up.
* * *
Beep beep beep beep.
Click.
Home after a month.
Familiar smells and a neatly organized desk welcomed her.
Her parents wouldn’t arrive until evening.
She threw her bag on the floor and shook off her clothes as if shedding a burden.
The soft mattress comfortably received her.
As Sujeong was thinking about the day’s events, she suddenly pulled the blanket over her head.
“Aaaaaaack!”
A scream echoed.
“I could die of embarrassment, seriously!”
What rumors would be spreading by the time she went to school next week?
Thud thud!
Her feet kicked through the air inside the blanket.
Then she suddenly sat up.
“No, I don’t have time to worry about this stuff!”
Sujeong shook off the blanket and sat in front of her desk.
Traces of effort were densely packed on the bookshelf.
Fighting spirit returned to Sujeong’s eyes.
‘First, let’s reconstruct the proof that kid did today.’
Sujeong took out her most difficult analysis textbook and looked for a similar type of problem.
Three hours later, she finally succeeded in completing her approach.