Translator: Dreamscribe
Late at night, Seo-ha couldn't fall asleep.
The notebook spread open on the desk was growing blurry. His eyes were tired, but his mind was becoming sharper by the minute.
"Why won't it co out?"
Seo-ha got up from his seat and grabbed his board.
He had already erased and rewritten it dozens of tis just today. But no matter how many tis he reorganized, there was one part that kept nagging at him.
"I need to get through this before I can move on...."
The process of minimizing the Energy Function using Calculus of Variations, the starting point and core frawork of the proof.
'ΔE=0⇒Euler – Lagrange equation....'
The equation flowed smoothly, then hit a wall at so point.
It was like driving along a well-paved road only to suddenly find himself on a rough gravel field.
'Is there no way around it?'
Seo-ha stared at the mirror with an uneasy expression.
"Ducky, what do you think?"
The mont Seo-ha called the na, the atmosphere shifted as if a switch had been flipped.
A strange stillness, as though the center of gravity of a personality had shifted.
Thump, thump.
His heartbeat quickened, as if his body demanded more fuel just to keep running.
Before long, a part of Seo-ha's mind clicked open.
"Hmm."
An energy different from his usual self settled into his eyes.
Shooting a gaze sharp as a beam of light, he scanned the board.
"Let's start from the beginning. Don't waste ti on pointless things, just help ."
Seo-ha hadn't wanted to call on this uncomfortable cohabitant if he could help it. The various side effects were exhausting. But this was still a part of himself, and when he needed help, he had to accept it.
The Energy Function as seen through Ducky's eyes.
The functions squird and took shape. The landscape called 'energy,' the equations began to take on three-dinsional form. Curves rose like mountain ridges, and gradients bent like sheer cliffs.
Beneath the integral sign, an endless field stretched out.
'So this is what it felt like.'
Seo-ha looked around.
Before him, where the path cut off, a massive mountain range of energy had risen.
"Is there no other way?"
It was a path no one had ever managed to cross.
A mountain range preserving its primordial form, as if rejecting the touch of human hands.
Silent, like a predator lying in wait for an intruder.
Seo-ha approached it slowly.
Sheer cliffs and towering ridges, the precipice dropped vertically like a blade's edge, and it seed that one wrong step would make a person vanish without a trace.
"No wonder I couldn't find a shortcut in a place like this."
One more step and he would enter the domain of the energy mountain range.
Seo-ha pushed his foot forward.
Ruuuumble-
Was it because it detected the intrusion? The entire mountain range made of functions shuddered violently.
The ground cracked open with a sharp snap, and from the depths, another ridge surged upward.
Seo-ha smirked as if he had expected exactly this, and took a step back.
"You really are sothing, aren't you?"
Apart from the Riemann Hypothesis, it was more massive than any problem he had ever encountered.
There were no shortcuts. The only option was to tackle it head-on, one step at a ti.
"Whew."
Seo-ha let out a long breath.
His body felt hollow. Like an F1 driver who had floored the accelerator without thinking about what ca next, burning through all his fuel in one burst.
'I shouldn't have left the CD at the lab....'
Even that was starting to lose its effect; he had listened to it so many tis he was building up an immunity.
A fair amount of ti had already passed.
He was thirsty. Not for water, but for glucose. His body was desperately craving sugar.
Seo-ha slowly pushed back his chair and stood up.
It was the dead of night, so even the slightest movent made a loud noise.
Tiptoe, tiptoe-
He walked on the balls of his feet, careful not to make a sound.
He reached the kitchen and carefully opened the refrigerator door.
Hiss-
'What's in here?'
A few containers of side dishes, water bottles, so at left out to thaw for breakfast, and salad vegetables. That was all.
'This isn't going to cut it....'
Seo-ha made a troubled face.
'Hm?'
He was about to close the door when he noticed sothing in the corner: a pudding cup with a cute character printed on it.
Seo-eun's favorite snack in the whole world. Seo-ha's hand reached for it unconsciously.
He needed sothing sweet.
His body urged him to tear open the wrapper and eat the pudding right now.
Just imagining the sweetness flooding in was enough to make his body feel warm.
The instant he started to peel off the wrapper, he snapped back to his senses.
A wave of self-loathing washed over him for not being able to control even sothing so small.
'She'd be so disappointed, wouldn't she?'
Pudding for dessert after breakfast.
It was an irreplaceable little joy in Seo-eun's day.
'Yeah, this isn't right.'
He shook his head and was about to put the pudding back when a small voice ca from behind him.
"...Oppa?"
Seo-ha flinched and turned around.
There was Seo-eun, clutching a beaver plushie.
In her pajamas, Seo-eun rubbed her sleepy eyes and stared at Seo-ha.
"Oppa, do you want to eat my pudding?"
Seo-eun's voice quivered as if she were about to cry.
"No!"
Seo-ha blurted out in surprise and hurriedly shut the refrigerator door.
"I was just checking the expiration date. I'd hate for you to get a stomachache from eating it."
"Really?"
"Yeah!"
"If you want it, I don't mind giving it to you, you know?"
"Absolutely not! You know I don't really eat sweets."
Seo-eun tilted her head, then nodded as if she understood.
"...That's true. Is the date okay?"
"Huh? Yeah! Totally fine. I don't think it's been long since Mom bought it."
"So it's okay to eat it in the morning?"
"Yep."
Seo-eun's face lit up.
"That's a relief, hehe."
After walking Seo-eun back to her room, Seo-ha let out a sigh of relief.
He had almost tarnished his dignity as an older brother.
'I should never do that at ho.'
This was a side of himself he never wanted his family to see.
* * *
The next morning,
Sri cleared his head with a coffee and headed to Seo-ha's lab.
His heart was pounding.
But there was also the excitent of doing math research alongside him.
Beep-
He held his newly issued keycard to the reader and the door opened.
He stepped inside cautiously. Then he saw what was on the front wall of the lab, and his eyes went wide.
"What is this?"
Sri's eyes grew round.
A massive drawing covered the chalkboard.
'Is it a doodle?'
No, it wasn't.
Every line, every dot had been placed with ticulous precision.
Curves were stacked in layers like mountain ridges, and beneath them, arrows representing gradients plunged steeply like cliffs.
"This isn't just a graph...."
It was no simple sketch.
Each curve was a visualization of the gradient S (∇S * a vector representing changes in the surface), and the parts that bent sharply like cliffs marked the points where singularities occurred, the very thing Seo-ha had wrestled with all night.
The contours of the surface connected seamlessly, as if following the flow of the variational equations.
All of it ca together in such harmony that it gave him the illusion of looking at an actual landscape.
In that instant, the function he had been grappling with for the past month flashed through his mind.
"Could it be...."
Sri's eyes flew open in shock.
"Did he actually draw the Energy Function?"
"Yep, that's right!"
Seo-ha's voice ca from behind him.
He was carrying a large box of donuts.
Rustle.
"Want one?"
When he opened the box, the rich sll of sugar wafted out.
Glazed donuts coated in a thick layer of white sugar, a sight that looked like it could send blood sugar levels through the roof.
The kind of snack Aricans go crazy for.
Chomp-
Seo-ha took a huge bite of a donut and made a face like he had been brought back to life.
Sri took a donut too.
When it ca to a sweet tooth, India was no slouch either.
"Thanks."
Paired with a strong Aricano, the sweetness was balanced out nicely.
Beep-
"Good morning, Seo-ha."
Theo walked in with a morning greeting.
He had been spending most of his day here.
"Hey, welco, Theo.
This is Sri. We'll be working together from now on, so I hope you two get along."
Sri sprang to his feet and gave a polite bow.
"I'm Srinivasa Krishnan, first-year chanical engineering master's student."
But Theo hadn't heard a word. Every nerve in his body was focused on the landscape Seo-ha had drawn.
"Ah.... Hmm. Huh?"
He let out vague murmurs while studying the chalkboard for a long ti.
Then he pulled out his cara and took a photo.
Click.
"This is the Energy Function visualized, right?"
Sri was stunned.
He himself had only been able to recognize the drawing because he had spent a long ti discussing it with Seo-ha.
But how did Theo know?
From what he could tell, Seo-ha hadn't shared anything about the Energy Function with him either.
"As expected, Theo, you recognized it right away."
Seo-ha gave a thumbs-up, and Theo turned his head, looking a bit embarrassed.
"What brought this on all of a sudden?"
"Sri and I are going to try to find the Minimal Energy Surface. I think imagery is incredibly important when it cos to tackling hard problems.
I tried to depict the waves of the Energy Function as I see them, and I'm pretty proud that both of you recognized it."
Theo's gaze drifted to the donut box sitting on the desk.
'Did he go into Hyperfocus again? If he collapses, that would be a serious problem.'
"What I'd really like is for all of us to work on solving this together. What do you two think?"
Seo-ha said it casually, but a brief silence fell between the other two.
Sensing the mood, Theo quietly raised his hand.
"This was a project you two started. It wouldn't be right for to butt in at this point."
Role conflicts, leadership struggles, issues over credit for contributions.
As a Stanford graduate, Theo had seen these problems more tis than he could count. Since Sri was the talent Seo-ha had personally scouted, it felt right for Theo to step back here.
"Hm? That's not going to work."
At Seo-ha's refusal, Theo blinked.
"What do you an...."
"With three of us, we can do a much better job. Theo, you're strong in Calculus of Variations and Analysis. And Sri can offer the engineering perspective that I'm lacking, on top of the math.
This is a hard problem. Even if we pour every resource we have into it, there's no telling when we'll solve it. And you're saying soone who could be a huge help wants to sit it out...."
Seo-ha stared directly at Theo.
"Ahem!"
He never imagined Seo-ha thought this highly of him.
Theo let out an awkward cough.
"I agree as well. What matters is solving the problem. Everything else is secondary. Let's throw everything we've got at it."
At Sri's words, Seo-ha nodded eagerly.
"Then the three of us are a team now."
"A team?"
"Is that what this is?"
"Then what's the team na?"
"Huh? Do we need one?"
Theo looked exasperated.
"Of course we do. When articles get written about us, when we publish papers, having a team na makes citations easier. It's also way more convenient when registering copyrights or patents."
"Oh!"
"Wow!"
The two of them looked at Theo with admiration.
Theo had a sneaking suspicion he was going to end up handling all the paperwork for this team.
"MIT already organizes a lot of its research by team units, so a na is definitely going to be necessary."
"Right, got it. Then the na should be...."
Seo-ha brought his hand to his chin and thought it over for a while.
"Why not just 'Team Seoha Yu'? You're basically the identity of this team anyway."
At Theo's suggestion, Seo-ha recoiled and waved his hands frantically.
"Absolutely not. If anyone heard that, they'd think I have so kind of ego complex.
How about 'Team Apex' (Apex * the highest point) instead?"
Theo nodded approvingly.
"Apex.... That's good. With Seo-ha on board, this team has no choice but to aim for the top anyway."
"Is that how it is?"
Sri was taken aback by how quickly the scale had grown beyond anything he had imagined.
"Obviously.
If this team produces diocre results, it'll be a hundred percent because of you or . Seo-ha has already turned the math world upside down multiple tis on his own.
So if you're not fully committed, it'd be better to bow out now.
You didn't co here half-hearted, did you?"
Sri bit down on his lip.
"I'm ready. If it ans making this project succeed, I'd stake the rest of my entire life on it."
A heavy silence settled over the room.
"Don't worry. You two are the finest mathematicians at MIT."
At Seo-ha's complint, both their expressions softened as if by magic.
"This is a hard problem, so I can't promise anything. But let's at least give it everything we've got."
"Of course."
"Yes!"
A new naplate was hung on Seo-ha's lab door.
[Team Apex Lab]
-Seoha Yu, Theodore Langford, Srinivasa Krishnan
Compared to the fa they would one day earn, it was a very humble beginning.
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