Translator: Dreamscribe
When the young lady of House Winterfeld descended the staircase, every man in the vicinity surrounded her.
"My lady, would you honor with a dance?"
"Please, grant that privilege first!"
Her eyes t Seo-ha's, then drifted past him with indifference.
Seo-ha started to approach her but stepped back.
Hands reached out toward her from every direction.
She wore a smile on her face as she politely declined each offer.
When she walked to one side and sat down at the piano, the murmuring died away. The young lady of House Winterfeld began to play.
Ding, di-ding-
Her hands looked as light as the wings of a butterfly.
The clear sound of the piano reverberated through the hall, and the expressions on the listeners' faces shifted little by little.
First ca surprise, then admiration, and finally, awe.
"Beautiful. I'd heard the rumors, but this surpasses them."
"I hear even the Kaiser has expressed curiosity about her."
"A flower on a cliff, they say, and the description suits her well. She won't spare a glance for anyone."
Seo-ha watched her in silence.
This was most likely the image of Gyeo-ul that lived in his subconscious.
Soday, she would surely beco famous. And she would live beneath the brilliant spotlight.
'I think I understand what kind of world this is.'
Seo-ha quietly drew in a breath.
Then he slowly turned and walked outside.
* * *
Several days passed.
Leibniz had departed for Italy on diplomatic business.
Seo-ha stayed at his house and investigated the city.
Seventeenth-century Hanover, reproduced exactly as he had once seen it in a history book.
The people living here were likely so of the countless faces he had brushed past over the course of his life.
When he spotted Theo and Sri, Seo-ha nearly called out to them in delight.
Sitting on a rooftop and looking down at the streets, he could see all manner of people going about their lives.
"Ducky! Stop right there."
"Quack quack!"
Aureline was chasing a duck that had escaped from her arms.
Her family ran a bakery. The one baking the bread was, of course, Mi-young.
Seo-ha had bought bread there twice, driven by longing, but he no longer went.
'This place is a world where the landscapes hidden deep in my subconscious and unconscious mind have all blended together and spilled out. There's no point in trying to talk to anyone.'
Seo-ha sat on the edge of the rooftop with a piece of bread in his hand.
Whoosh-
The wind of seventeenth-century Germany.
But this was unmistakably the sll of the air in Okcheon, the one he had known since the day he was born.
"Assessnt complete."
Now it was ti to go catch the culprit.
* * *
"That kid's playing with the duck again?"
Soone muttered from the mouth of the alley.
In front of the bakery, Aureline carried on so incomprehensible conversation with the duck, then broke into a run alongside it.
"Quack quack!"
"No, it's dangerous that way! That's where the carriages go!"
As if it understood her, the duck changed direction. Aureline moved her small legs busily as she chased after it.
A narrow alleyway. The duck veered sharply, trying to shake free of Aureline. Just as it rounded the corner and was about to bolt,
"QUAAACK!"
Seo-ha grabbed the duck by the neck.
"Shh!"
He raised a finger to his lips as if telling it to be quiet, then carried it inside.
The mont he released its neck, it let out a furious cry.
"Quack quack!"
It sounded almost like a protest, demanding to know why it had been taken.
Seo-ha looked at it with cold eyes.
"Ducky, I'm really not in the mood for gas right now. What exactly are you doing?"
"..."
As if realizing it had been caught, the duck's form slid smoothly into sothing else.
A drawing he had sketched in a notebook as a child: a man in a black coat slowly rose to his feet. He wore a yellow duck mask over his face.
"How did you figure it out?"
A voice that sounded artificially distorted.
It was a strange feeling, having a conversation that had only ever taken place in his imagination actually happen in reality.
"Simple process of elimination.
You're the only one who can move freely in the world of my subconscious. Enough with the childish gas. Send back to reality now."
"Are you sure you'll be okay with that?"
Seo-ha shrugged.
"With what?"
"I am you. This place is the space you've always wished for. If you want, you can stay here for about a hundred years with no penalties whatsoever.
There's no way for new knowledge to enter, but there are no limits on your thinking."
"What did you say?"
"Tempting, isn't it? Here, you can research math to your heart's content without anyone getting in the way."
Seo-ha's eyes widened.
"You're saying I wished for a space like this?"
"Of course. You must have sensed it vaguely yourself. Why do you think you feel so disoriented whenever you call on ?"
"..."
"It's because your instincts clash with reality.
Leibniz's solitude, the madness Newton endured, they were both the sa kind as you.
The difference between them and you is that they didn't resist their fate; they accepted it.
But you split off. And now you want to pull out only when it's convenient? You really think I'd ekly agree to such a one-sided arrangent?"
Ducky interprets everything in the world through numbers.
What he wants is the secret of the universe, absolute truth. He wants to know everything.
"Humans are ant to live as they were born. You were designed this way from the start."
Seo-ha looked at him and let out a wry smile.
"So that's why you created this space? To give a preview of solitude?"
A world where no one knows who he is. Had he truly dread of such a world, just as Ducky said?
Seo-ha shook his head.
"Ducky. You are , but I am not you."
Ducky tilted his head back and laughed.
"What kind of wordplay is that?
I am your instinct, your primal mind, your purest impulse.
I know you better than you know yourself."
Seo-ha could not agree with him.
"Math may be everything to you, but it isn't to . And you aren't the whole of , either."
"Ha! That's rich. Take math away from you and what's left?"
Seo-ha closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. The reason he'd had no choice but to separate Ducky from himself.
"A person is left."
"You?"
"Yes. The desire to care for people, the desire to be with soone.
You want to live like Newton, like Leibniz? That's your way, your desire. Don't force it on ."
Ducky stepped closer and stared straight into Seo-ha's eyes.
"Now that's a funny thing to say. You claim people matter to you, and yet you treat everyone around you like tools.
Do you really think the people around you are happy being with you? Why don't you just admit it? You're no different from Newton or Leibniz."
"That's how you feel. I'm different."
Ducky's voice dropped low, as if in anger.
"Even if I stop lending you my power? Then you'll just beco an ordinary person."
Seo-ha listened, then burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Ducky, don't make laugh. What kind of joke is that supposed to be?"
Seo-ha clutched his stomach and cackled as though he found it genuinely hilarious.
"A joke? You think I'm kidding?"
Seo-ha cut his laughter short and looked at him.
"Don't kid yourself, Ducky! Everything I've accomplished so far, I could have done all of it without you. It might have taken a bit longer, that's all.
You won't lend your power?
That ability of yours originates from my own thinking. All your so-called power ever did was sort structures I had already conceived a little faster.
The only difference is speed. I would have gotten there in the end. So don't co at with that pathetic bluff."
Ducky seed deeply shaken.
After standing frozen for a long mont, he murmured as if mocking himself.
"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? How?"
Seo-ha walked over quietly and whispered in his ear.
"You don't have to hide it. You've been choosing to stay by Seo-eun's side."
Ducky's eyes went wide, as if caught off guard.
"I understand why you brought here. You got anxious because I forgot about math for a whole day. Don't worry. I'm not giving up on anything.
Trust . In the end, we'll reach the truth together. Let's walk that road side by side."
A dark flicker passed through the eyes behind Ducky's mask, then vanished.
As if calculating sothing, or perhaps sorting through an emotion he was feeling for the first ti. At last, he nodded.
"You'd better do it right. Otherwise, there's no telling what I might do."
Knock, knock, knock.
"Excuse ! Did my duck happen to co this way?"
Aureline's voice called from outside.
Ducky instantly reverted to the shape of a duck.
Creak.
When the door opened, Aureline's face lit up.
"Ducky! I was so worried when you suddenly disappeared."
Aureline ca closer and gently took Ducky into her arms.
"Quack quack!"
"Let's go ho now."
Seo-ha knelt on one knee and t Aureline's eyes.
"Do you like this duck?"
"Yes! He's my very best friend."
Aureline cradled Ducky carefully and bowed her head to Seo-ha.
"I'll be going now. Thank you for helping!"
Ducky, now a duck once more, looked back at Seo-ha from Aureline's arms.
"Quack!"
Seo-ha understood the aning packed into that single cry perfectly well.
'Keep your promise.'
Aureline's footsteps tapped along the stone path as she grew smaller in the distance.
Seo-ha watched them go in silence.
"What's this, Ducky. You were lonely too, weren't you."
Could even the purest instinct change?
Seo-ha made a ntal note to call Ducky out now and then and let him play with Seo-eun.
"Ti to go back."
The mont those words left his mouth, the air in the room began to ripple like water.
From sowhere, a piano lody drifted in.
Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.
"..."
Flash.
When he opened his eyes, he was in the sa place as before.
The second floor of Boston Symphony Hall.
He glanced to his side and saw Gyeo-ul desperately holding back laughter.
"Sleep well?"
Seo-ha lowered his gaze.
The warmth of a body's heat against his wrist. Suddenly, Ducky's words ca back to him.
'You treat everyone around you like tools.'
"Han Gyeo-ul."
"Hm?"
"Even without music, you'd still be soone precious to ."
Gyeo-ul's face turned red in an instant.
"Wh... what are you saying?"
She whipped her head away, but the flush creeping up her ears was impossible to hide.
Seo-ha told her that he would co visit Philadelphia soday, then parted ways with Gyeo-ul.
It was the first rest he had taken in a very long ti.
* * *
"Good morning!"
Seo-ha called out cheerfully as he walked into the lab.
"Hey! Welco back."
"Good morning, Seo-ha."
Weeks of relentless overwork had left both their faces sallow and drained.
'Do you really think the people around you are happy being with you?'
Why wouldn't Ducky's words leave his head?
His family had crossed an ocean to a distant country for his sake. Theo and Sri had both more or less staked their lives on him.
Seo-ha had no choice but to admit that he had been lacking in consideration for them.
"Everyone, I have sothing to say."
Seo-ha stood up and drew both their gazes to him.
"Did you already find a new breakthrough?"
"Hold on, let grab my notebook...."
Sri hurriedly opened a drawer.
"No, it's not that..."
Seo-ha hesitated for a mont, then spoke with an awkward air.
"How about we go get breakfast together?"
Theo stared at Seo-ha's face.
Lately, Seo-ha had seed restless and anxious, but right now there was no trace of that at all.
"Let's do it."
"Huh? Yeah! I'm in."
The three of them headed to the cafeteria and ordered coffee and sandwiches.
Through conversation, Seo-ha learned that both of them had been throwing themselves into the research with barely any sleep.
'I said I didn't want to live like that, and yet I was forcing it on others.'
Seo-ha realized that his own philosophy had a profound impact on his colleagues' lives.
It was also the mont when Seo-ha, who had never been conscious of his role as team leader, first felt the weight of responsibility.
From then on, Seo-ha began to regulate the pace.
"How about we pick this up tomorrow instead of pushing through today?"
Both Theo and Sri were stunned by his words.
"What? We're not doing it right now?"
"You used to say it bugged you to leave sothing like this unfinished."
Seo-ha looked at the two of them with a gentle smile.
"Let's start thinking long-term. This isn't a sprint."
The atmosphere in the lab softened.
eting tis had always crackled with tension, but gradually, the ti the three of them spent laughing and chatting grew longer.
Their efficiency, on the other hand, rose dramatically.
Because the two, who had previously been scrambling to prepare materials, now had the breathing room to organize their thoughts.
Seo-ha watched them debate with passion and smiled warmly.
'Catching one's breath didn't an slowing down.'
Concepts that would have required lengthy explanations in the past were now understood by both of them intuitively.
'It ant everyone could move forward together.'
User Comments
0 comments from readers