Anonymous Board,
[Using the Laundry Room: Let’s Mind Our Manners.]
-This is seriously too much. If your laundry’s done, take it out right away or put it in the dryer! I’ve got piles of studying to do—how long am I supposed to wait for this?
└Ah, I think I’m getting PTSD. Laundry hell.
└Filed a complaint with the student council.
└The reservation system itself is wrong. Is first-come, first-served fair?
└What can we do? Is there even a better way?
└If we just cracked down on no-shows, it’d be way less crowded than now.
└It’s because you’re all lazy. I always get up at dawn and do mine comfortably.
└Can’t they just increase the number of washing machines?
└There are already ten of them, and you want more? Why not open a laundromat while you’re at it?
Student council president Baek Jungi sighed as he looked over the board.
“We’ve already gotten more than twenty complaints about the laundry room this week. Don’t you think we need to come up with some kind of measure?”
Vice president Min Dohyeon raised his hand.
“Isn’t it because it’s first-come, first-served and left up to everyone’s discretion?
We could modify the reservation app so each person gets a different recommended time. If we just reduce the bottleneck periods, the number of washing machines should be enough, so I think it would be fine.”
The gifted high school recognized student autonomy in quite a few areas. Laundry room usage was one of them.
But because of that, they had to solve even these minor issues on their own.
“Hmm…”
Jungi turned Dohyeon’s opinion over in his head, then nodded.
“That’s a good idea. The reservation app we’re using now was made by our seniors in the first place.”
“I heard it was made three years ago. Back then, everything was analog, so during peak times everyone stood in line holding their laundry baskets…”
The current system had been established one piece at a time over the years. But when technology advanced, systems had to change as well.
That afternoon, the student council went to the computer club, “Bit Forge.”
Creeeak—
The small clubroom could not be called clean by any stretch of the imagination.
Desks piled high with cables like mountains, computer towers thick with dust, and empty energy drink cans were scattered everywhere.
As they opened the door, the unpleasant smell unique to electronics rushed out through the damp air.
Baek Jungi frowned.
“Please, for the love of everything, clean up once in a while!”
Inside, students with hoodies pulled low stared blankly at them. On their screens, complicated graphs and lines of code were endlessly running.
One of them got up and greeted them.
“Student council? What brings you here?”
“It’s about the laundry room reservation app.”
Dohyeon, the vice president, spoke politely.
“Ah! That thing? Our club seniors made it, but it’s a total mess.”
Snickers spread through the clubroom.
“If you know that, could you fix it? Let’s overhaul the reservation system.”
As soon as the president finished speaking, a girl with a baseball cap pulled low tossed out a remark.
“It’s a problem because it’s free. Charge money and everything’s solved.”
‘Why is there no normal person here?’
Jungi barely suppressed the anger boiling up inside him and spoke gently.
“We can’t do that. The principle is that it’s free. We can’t take money from students.”
At Jungi’s firm words, the clubroom fell silent for a moment.
“But why should we do that? There’s no reward.”
A male student sitting in the corner with one earbud in leaned his chair back and added his opinion.
The president sighed.
“Aren’t you students of this school too? We’re all going to use it anyway, so if it’s convenient, it’s good for everyone.”
It was common sense, but it didn’t work on them.
“We’re not inconvenienced. We only do laundry once every three weeks anyway.”
“How clean. I do it once a month.”
“I just take everything home when I go.”
Jungi finally raised both hands.
“Fine. Tell me your conditions. Something we can actually grant.”
The requests poured in the moment he finished speaking.
“Budget, obviously. Replace our computers with brand-new ones.”
“Expand Wi-Fi to the entire campus.”
“Make jackets with our club name embroidered on them.”
Min Dohyeon whispered with a dumbfounded expression.
“This is basically a wishlist of desires, isn’t it?”
Jungi’s face turned cold.
“Not a single one of those is possible. How about this instead?
If you don’t comply with the student council’s request, your club will undergo an audit. We’ll thoroughly compare the budget you’ve been taking with your actual achievements and dig into whether this club has any reason to exist. And while we’re at it, let’s do an environmental hygiene evaluation too.”
Silence settled over the clubroom.
Yeonu, the president of Bit Forge, gave an awkward cough and exchanged glances with everyone.
“Well… It’s true that we have the code our seniors made.”
“We have always respected the student council. Just tell us what to do!”
Jungi looked satisfied.
“Good! Our conditions are simple.”
The president dragged over a board and began writing down the requirements.
-10 washing machines, 12 dryers.
-Nighttime noise restrictions: 00:00–05:00
-Priorities: lab coats, club group laundry, weighted consideration for disabled students.
-Ensure fairness.
-Minimize average wait time, minimize traffic conflicts, minimize idle time for washers and dryers.
Yeonu, the president of Bit Forge, looked at the board and scratched his head with a troubled expression.
“President, we can whip up an app. But you do know that recommendation engine is actual hell, right?”
“Why?”
The girl who barely spoke suddenly cut into the conversation.
“Impossible. Not simple app development. Too many objectives. Probability, optimization, fairness issues, demand fluctuation, seasonal effects.
Paper-worthy. Research lab project-level difficulty.”
“Still, we need a solution.”
Seeing the president looking angry, Yeonu proposed a compromise.
“Let’s compromise. Just remove fairness. Then we’ll somehow make it work. All we’d need to do is run the machines at maximum efficiency.”
“Say something that makes sense. If you were only ever recommended late at night or during meal times, would you accept that?”
As if frustrated, Yeonu’s voice rose.
“Then what exactly do you expect us to do!”
“I’m telling you to try to make it possible. We’ll recognize it as a school project. There’ll be a decent budget. Of course, you can also receive performance assessment points.”
Perhaps all the blood had rushed to his head, because Yeonu’s face turned bright red.
“Now hold on! Search the whole world—do you think there’s a high school student who can do this?”
Watching the agitated Yeonu, the girl spoke briefly.
“There is.”
““Huh?””
The two of them looked at her at the same time.
“The god of mathematics, Ori-jwa, could do it.”
A small duck figurine was attached to the top of the girl’s monitor.
* * *
Seoha had no idea what was happening.
All of a sudden, a crowd of people had rushed over, surrounded him without a word, and dragged him here.
[Bit Forge]
As he sat in a chair, the student council president, looking embarrassed, explained the situation.
“So you’re saying you need me to make a laundry algorithm?”
“You got it right away. Please, I’m begging you. This is dissatisfaction that’s been building up for years, and if we just let it slide, the student council might get destroyed.
Since it’s a school project, you’ll probably get full marks on your second-semester information performance assessment too.”
Jungi clasped his hands together and pleaded earnestly.
“But I can’t program.”
““Eh?””
Seeing Seoha’s innocent expression, everyone was at a loss for words.
Since information class was offered, most students at the gifted high school studied coding in advance before entering.
“Could I perhaps learn it now?”
“We’re in a hurry. Do you think that’s possible?”
The president of Bit Forge shook his head, saying it was impossible.
Even so, if Seoha set the mathematical rules and they wrote the overall code, it seemed they could proceed.
“Possible now. Book here.”
Nari brought a guidebook from somewhere and handed it to him.
‘What is he supposed to do with it if you give it to him now?’
She was already strange enough on a normal day, but right now, it was completely impossible to understand what Nari was thinking.
“Thank you.”
“Classmate. Casual speech is good.”
“Okay!”
Seoha accepted the book.
Watching the two of them communicate oddly well, Jungi and Yeonu suddenly became aware that they had grown old.
[Python, from Beginner to Advanced]
“The title alone is scary. Don’t you have just an introductory book?”
At Jungi’s words, Nari shrugged.
“This was on top.”
Seoha sat in the chair and began reading the book.
From the first chapter, unfamiliar words like function scope, iterator, and generator poured out.
But the more pages he turned, the wider Seoha’s smile became.
The words in the book were unfamiliar, but their structure was all too familiar to Seoha.
‘Scope is the boundary between the assumptions and conclusion of a proof, an iterator is induction, and a generator is an infinite sequence.’
Code was merely a new set of symbols. The principles within it were the mathematical logic already engraved into Seoha’s body.
Seoha realized that programming languages were, in the end, nothing more than a collection of logic and rules.
His heart began to pound.
The fact that the intangible logic he had handled in mathematics could now be realized in the real world through the form of code filled him with anticipation.
Before he knew it, two hours had passed.
Unable to leave, the others each did their own work while waiting for Seoha.
Thud.
Seoha closed the book.
“Would it be all right if I came again next week? There are a few things I’d like to look into.”
He had read through a professional-level textbook in two hours.
‘Don’t tell me he already understood all of that?’
Everyone in the clubroom awkwardly nodded.
Seoha went straight to the library and headed for the computer science section.
‘What a wonderful language.’
Now that he understood programming, he felt he knew what was needed to solve the laundry room problem.
[Operating Systems and Scheduling]
[Computer Networks]
[Game Theory and Algorithmic Design]
After returning to the dormitory, Seoha placed the books and his notebook on his desk and turned on his laptop.
Whirrr—
“Now then, let’s give it a try.”
Tap, tap.
First, he laid out the overall framework.
Several mathematical theories he could use came to mind.
Tap, tap.
As the night deepened, the code on the screen grew longer.
‘What else do I need?’
It seemed like it would be good to apply a few ideas he had seen in the books to the app.
A random delay simulation to prevent collisions when reservations were clicked at the same time, and instant response event handling that imitated ghost calls.
‘Let’s give rewards.’
Even a simple reward model that controlled students’ choices by giving and receiving credits.
After finishing the rough design, Seoha went to sleep with a happy expression.
* * *
One week later,
Seoha had become a different person.
Tadadadadadadadak—
Code poured out before their eyes like a storm.
Though he was a third-year student, Yeonu had five years of coding experience.
He had won numerous prizes in competitions.
And yet Yeonu couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
‘He definitely learned Python for the first time a week ago.’
Seoha’s hands danced across the laptop as if possessed.
Creeeak—
“Are you ready?”
When the president entered, Seoha turned his chair around.
“I’ll tell you the conclusion first.”
The president and vice president hurriedly took out notebooks, ready to write it down.
“Perfect fairness is impossible.
But we can reach a state where no one suffers a major disadvantage—mathematically, a level called EF1, or Envy-Freeness up to one item.”
“E-F-one?”
Seoha turned the laptop around and showed them the screen.
It was a simulation result packed with graphs and tables.
“Yes. It means a state where envy disappears if a person yields just once. In other words, over the long term, we can ensure everyone gets similar opportunities. Of course, we can also run the machines at nearly maximum efficiency.”
Yeonu’s eyes widened.
“T-that can be implemented systemically?”
He had clearly heard it was a task difficult enough to require writing a paper, yet the kid in front of him was calmly explaining it as if it were nothing.
“Fairness can be balanced with probabilistic weights and a reward structure. If we combine those two, we can secure both efficiency and fairness.”
Yeonu let out a hollow laugh.
“No, you’re saying you’re going to implement EF1 in a mere laundry room?”
The student who had been wearing earbuds also sat up.
“If this is possible, winning the grand prize at a programming competition would be a free meal.”
“Very difficult but possible. Realistic. However, extreme mathematical ability required.”
Nari looked at Seoha with a satisfied expression.
Baek Jungi and Min Dohyeon stared fixedly at the simulation graphs Seoha had prepared.
The washing machines and dryers ran simultaneously, and the queues shrank.
The unfairness index marked in red gradually disappeared, eventually stabilizing at a very low line.
“It says the waiting time decreases by as much as 35%?”
Dohyeon’s voice trembled.
“As expected of the god of mathematics.”
Nari said proudly.