The Teachers’ Office,
Park Seongdae stacked the exam papers in front of him and flipped through them one by one.
Dense calculations, lengthy inductions, tables enumerating every possible case.
He traced the lines of computations with the tip of his red pen, then soon shook his head.
It was a proof that endlessly circled around detours to find the answer. If it luckily happened upon the right path, only then did it stop spinning in circles.
Dividing unnecessary assumptions again and again, re-proving unnecessary propositions over and over…
The logic was not wrong, but each time it passed over the core, the sentences swelled and the truth faded.
The red pen moved busily.
Three points, five points, two points.
As expected, the students’ scores could not escape the average he had intended.
Teacher Park glanced at the exam paper on top.
“P ↔ P’, therefore the answer is even.”
Even on a problem asking for graph degrees, the answer was just one line; the generating function was finished with a single formula.
“Each edge contributes 2, therefore the answer is even.”
“G(x) = 1 / ((1−x)(1−x²)(1−x⁵))”
Questions three, four, five… Every item ended this concisely. They were excessively short, but there were no wrong answers. And no logical gaps could be found.
Park Seongdae stopped his pen.
‘Insufficient process?’
No, that wasn’t it. The answer itself already implied every step.
He unfolded the grading rubric.
“I look at the flow of the solution rather than the correct answer,” he himself had said.
Was there no flow?
There was.
Only, instead of meandering, it had cut straight to the core in one go.
Quietly, he wrote down the scores.
Question 1, 10 points. Question 2, 10 points. Question 3, 10 points…
Ten circles were drawn in order at the top of the exam paper.
Total score: 100.
Park Seongdae leaned back and rested against his chair.
‘I hope the children take this well…’
Looking at the answers, he could see the personality.
Seoha pursued extreme efficiency in proofs. He could not tolerate the unnecessary.
Direct and blunt, yet stubborn at the same time. Once a proof was complete in his own mind, he offered no further explanation.
And he was outstanding beyond belief.
Teacher Park found himself wondering whether it was even appropriate for him to continue teaching Seoha.
* * *
The next day, before second period began, a large sheet of paper was posted on the bulletin board at the back of the classroom.
[Math Quiz Results]
1st place: Yu Seoha — 100 points.
2nd place: Jo Taejin — 47 points.
3rd place: Kim Eunbin — 46 points.
4th place: Park Gibeom — 45 points.
(Omitted below)
The classroom, which had been abuzz with students trying to guess their scores, froze in an instant.
Someone read the numbers twice.
“Is a hundred points for real?”
No one laughed at the words a student had blurted out like a joke.
Taejin looked at the results sheet with an expressionless face.
‘Forty-seven points?’
It was a score he could understand. The exam had been excessively difficult, after all.
But Yu Seoha’s score was beyond their common sense.
Taejin turned his head to look at the front row.
Seoha sat straight in his chair as usual. He did not pay the results sheet any attention, as if he did not even need to look at it.
There was no surprise, no exultation, no arrogance in him.
Creak.
The classroom door opened, and Teacher Park entered.
“Everyone saw?”
“Yes…”
Park Seongdae smiled at the students’ weak voices.
“You must have a lot of questions about the exam results.”
The students nodded slightly, looking at the teacher with eyes that had much to say.
Tap.
Teacher Park placed one exam paper on the lectern.
“I could explain it myself, but it’s best to hear it directly from the one who got a hundred points. Seoha, would you come up and explain it yourself?”
Everyone’s gaze converged on one spot.
“Yes!”
Seoha stood up from his seat energetically. Then he walked to the front and picked up the chalk.
Seoha was confident.
Because during the IMO period, he had studied with his teammates and explained many problems.
Seoha drew a large square grid on the chalkboard. Then he drew a diagonal line through the center and looked at the students.
“For this problem, I used a concept called ‘pairing.’”
Though usually quiet, Seoha exuded confidence in his tone when explaining.
“Counting every path directly is difficult. But if we use symmetry, it becomes simple. If there is an arbitrary path P, we reflect it around the center point. Then another path P′ is created.”
Everyone followed the graph being drawn by Seoha’s hand with their eyes. Some understood Seoha’s explanation and exclaimed, “Ah!”
“In other words, every path necessarily has a symmetric pair. Mathematically speaking, a correspondence is created that pairs off the entire set into twos.
If it happens this way, you can prove that the total number of paths is always even without counting them separately.”
Students who had been listening without preparation began taking out their notebooks and writing down Seoha’s explanation before they knew it.
The explanation continued.
Questions two, three, four…
Seoha had solved every problem in a similar manner.
He did not take the long way around.
There were no unnecessary calculations, no verbose explanations.
For each problem, he plucked out exactly one core concept and proved it with a single summarized line.
The only difference was that the teammates he had been with then were five individuals carefully chosen from across Korea.
No matter how gifted this high school was, the levels could not be the same, and more than half could not properly understand Seoha’s explanation.
“Does anyone have any questions?”
The problem-solving was finished.
Seoha looked at the students with sparkling eyes.
It was an expression that seemed to proudly say, “I explained it so easily!”
The students could not bring themselves to raise their hands, sorry to disappoint Seoha like that.
Then he smiled as if satisfied and returned to his seat.
“Writing at length is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Sensing the atmosphere, Teacher Park came up with words to comfort the students.
“However, if you can see the essence, you can finish it briefly. I do not think that is a privilege reserved only for geniuses. You all will be able to see that path someday.
But for now, it is a time to learn how to take the roundabout way. So do not overdo it.”
At Teacher Park’s words, the students bowed their heads as if disappointed.
Class was over.
“It’s lunchtime.”
At someone’s words, the students rose from their seats one by one.
Even as they moved to the cafeteria, they could not escape the shock left by Seoha’s solutions.
“As expected of an IMO first place! Yu Seoha is no joke, right?”
When Gibeom, who had placed fourth, spoke up first, everyone nodded.
“I thought he was only good at solving problems, but he’s good at explaining too.”
“Did you guys actually understand? I had no idea. I feel completely inadequate.”
“He’s on another level anyway. Let’s not compare.”
“Honestly, just being chosen for the Korean team means you’re top six in the country, right? But Seoha is literally world number one.”
“It’s basically cheating. When he asked if there were any questions, it felt like he was saying, ‘Guys, surely you understood this, right?’”
They were students with strong pride, but they were not foolish enough to be unable to accept reality. Like many other prodigies Seoha had met, they too were going through the process of understanding and acceptance.
Taejin, who was following behind, was thinking similar thoughts.
That perhaps he was a very ordinary student. Thinking that way, he felt ashamed of the way he had acted until now.
Yu Seoha, who possessed truly special abilities, had always approached him first—so what had he been acting so high and mighty for?
Could it be that the friends around him had actually been putting up with his arrogant behavior all this time?
Was he someone who could only be friends with others if someone showed him patience?
The realization that struck him suddenly made Taejin want to run away somewhere.
* * *
That evening,
the dining hall was filled with the unique rowdiness of high school students.
Laughter burst from here and there, and students chatted happily about various topics.
Seoha received his food on a tray, looked around a bit, and sat down in a corner.
“Oh! As expected of the best school lunch in the country.”
Exclamations of admiration came out at the high-quality menu.
A thickly grilled chicken breast steak was drizzled with brown demi-glace sauce.
Buttery corn giving off a savory fragrance, fresh salad, and warm mushroom soup served in place of the usual soup.
It was a definite upgrade from elementary school cafeteria food.
Seoha ate and looked back on the past week.
The school atmosphere had been hard to blend into, the students kept their distance, and the teachers somehow seemed burdened by him.
Everything was very different from what he had imagined.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
He shook his head to shake off the negative thoughts.
‘It’s all just a passing process anyway.’
Seoha worried about how he would endure life here as he ate.
Before he knew it, he had finished eating.
Seoha cleared his leftovers and stood up from his seat.
“Thank you for the meal!”
The nutritionists responded to Seoha’s greeting with smiles.
As he walked to the dormitory, someone was coming down from ahead. It was Taejin from the same class.
“Hello.”
As usual, Seoha bowed his head slightly and tried to pass by.
He thought Taejin would naturally ignore him, but this time it was different.
Taejin pulled an earphone from his ear.
“Hi? Did you eat?”
Seoha was surprised by the unexpected reaction.
“Yes, I’m on my way back from eating now.”
Taejin nodded.
“Our school’s food is pretty decent. By the way, do you play soccer?”
“Excuse me?”
“I was going to play a 5-on-5 mini-game with some classmates. If you come, we’ll have just the right number.”
Seoha hesitated for a moment before answering.
“I was in the Okcheon Dodam Elementary Best Eleven… I was a starter when we played against the neighboring school.”
Taejin laughed loudly and cheerfully at Seoha’s answer.
“Hahaha! Got it. We’ll gather at the lower field soon.”
“Yes! Then I’ll go change my clothes and come back.”
“Sure, I’ll head there first.”
Seoha immediately went up to his dorm room. Then he hurriedly opened his wardrobe to get his gear ready.
When Seoha came down to the field, the other nine were all gathered except for him.
They saw Seoha’s appearance and exclaimed in admiration.
“Wow! You came out in full gear?”
Seoha shrugged his shoulders and answered as if it were no big deal.
“If you’re going to do it, you have to do it right.”
Shorts, a jersey, cleats, and even tube socks…
It was an outfit that would not look out of place in a tournament right away.
He stood in stark contrast to the other children wearing ordinary gym clothes and sneakers.
Seoha tapped the ground with the studs at his toes.
And the game began.
“Pass, pass!”
“Here!”
Short, sharp shouts followed the ball here and there.
It was simple soccer: chase when the ball rolled, charge again when it was stolen.
But everyone was earnest.
“Defense, defense!”
“Get there first and block!”
The grass field made running feel great.
Seoha caught the ball and sent a long pass.
Gibeom caught the pass at the end of an all-out sprint. And he gave Seoha a thumbs up.
“Nice!”
The corner of Seoha’s mouth turned up slightly.
“Shoot! It’s in!”
“Yes!”
Cheers erupted.
The teammates ran over and embraced each other.
Seoha also joined them, bouncing up and down with joy.
When the game ended, everyone was exhausted and slumped to the ground.
“Hey! How are you in such good shape?”
“He’s young. We’re done for.”
“You’re good at soccer. Let’s play together next time too.”
Seoha, who never skipped his daily run, was confident at least in his stamina.
Seoha’s ears turned red.
“Yes! I had fun too.”
It was the day Seoha had spoken the most since enrolling.
From that day on, there was a change in Seoha’s life.
“Hello!”
“Hi.”
The rate of people greeting him back rose sharply.
Seventy-two point eight percent?
Seoha began to worry about how long he would have to maintain this statistic.
The place he had defined as another world was mixing with reality.
* * *
From his second week of enrollment, Seoha began attending the “University Early Credit Program.”
“Hey! Is it nice taking a class with your senior?”
Sujeong poked Seoha in the side.
There were twelve people here in total.
Seoha was the only freshman among them.
This linked program was not advanced learning for its own sake.
The goal was to study the curriculum he would learn in university ahead of time and reduce the time until graduation. After entering KAIST, it would be recognized as official credits, so only those qualified could apply.
“Who’s coming as the teacher?”
“The teaching assistant who came before was kind and nice.”
The students in the back whispered as if this was not their first time in this class.
Creak.
The door opened before the noise in the lecture room could subside.
Click-clack.
Footsteps he felt he had heard somewhere before.
Seoha raised his head.
And his eyes went wide.
A young woman in a form-fitting black suit walked into the classroom.
“I am Professor Kim Jiyun of the KAIST Department of Mathematical Sciences.”
The classroom buzzed instantly.
“The professor came in person?”
“Didn’t teaching assistants usually do this?”
“If it’s Professor Kim Jiyun, it’s that person, right? The one who was nominated as a Fields Medal candidate…”
Whispers of admiration spread throughout the classroom.
The students opened their eyes wide.
A student who had been sitting in a relaxed posture closed his laptop and straightened up.
Even Sujeong, a third-year, had a surprised expression.
Tap—
She placed a binder on the lectern. And she spoke in a cold voice.
“Everyone, I’ll tell you in advance: this semester’s Early Credit Program will be very difficult. I will not go easy on you just because you are high school students, like before.
So if you lack confidence, drop the course quickly.”
At the professor’s unprecedented warning, everyone swallowed their breath at the same time.
But Seoha’s heart fluttered at the fact that he could finally take a class from Jiyun.
Jiyun looked around the lecture hall silently, then met eyes with Seoha.
Whereupon she smiled and gave a quick wink.
Seoha felt the hair on his head stand on end.