Translator: Dreamscribe
News about a young genius always becos a hot topic.
The news of Seo-ha being selected for the IMO national team spread rapidly and adorned the main pages of major daily newspapers and portals.
[12-Year-Old Genius Boy Selected as Korean Representative for the International Mathematical Olympiad]
-A historic record in the history of Korean education has been made at a small rural elentary school in Okcheon County, Chungcheongbuk-do.
Yu Seo-ha (12 years old), a sixth-grade student at Dodam Elentary School, has been selected as the youngest mber of the Korean national team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 20xx.
This is the first ti in Korea that an elentary school student has been chosen as an IMO representative, and globally, it is only the second ti after the mathematician Elijah Cronen, who won both the Fields dal and the Abel Prize.
What’s even more surprising is that Yu Seo-ha achieved this result through after-school programs and self-study, without any help from private tutoring.
(omitted)
After this news broke, Dodam Elentary School suddenly received nationwide attention overnight.
Principal Kim Jae-hyung is struggling with the overwhelming number of dia interview requests and is voicing his difficulties.
(omitted)
└Without private tutoring? Is that even possible?
└They’re probably just saying that. Do you really believe that?
└Guys, that’s Okcheon in Chungbuk. It's a rural town with a population of 40,000ㅋㅋㅋ. There aren’t even any academies in the town center.
└What do you an rural? I'm a resident of Okcheon and I find that offensive. If you keep saying things like that, we'll confiscate your deliveries.
└The terrifying Okcheon logistics hub ㄷㄷㄷ
└He’s in 6th grade, right? That’s insane. He beat out all the Science High School and Gifted School kids to get selected.
└Isn’t he the one who was in the news before? The one who won the Grand Prize at the National Math Contest.
└Yeah, that’s him. At this level, he probably has a free pass to Seoul National University, right?
└Just being selected is amazing, but we’ll have to see the results too.
└The student who placed 3rd overall last year is also competing. Let’s do well this ti.
***
Drip.
Hot barley tea filled the cup.
Woo-hyun tried to recall the last ti he had barley tea, but he couldn't rember.
Slurp.
The savory aroma of barley put his mind at ease.
“Thank you for taking care of Seo-ha, teacher.”
To Mi-young, Woo-hyun was a savior.
“No, it’s sothing I did because I wanted to.”
Woo-hyun shook his head as he set down the cup of barley tea. Having visited Okcheon many tis over the years, he had grown close to Seo-ha’s parents. Woo-hyun liked the couple’s sincerity.
‘There are so many parents who try to profit off their children.’
After the article was published, Woo-hyun felt uneasy. Of course, he trusted the couple, but there were just too many bad people in the world.
“Still, Seo-ha could co this far thanks to you, teacher. You told him what to study and even sent us books... Co to think of it, it happened just as you said a few years ago.”
She hadn’t completely believed him when he said Seo-ha could get a master’s degree from KAIST at sixteen.
They just thought he would be better than them since he was a famous instructor. But as the years passed, his words were becoming reality.
“Thank you for saying that, but to be honest, I ca today because I was worried.”
Woo-hyun's expression turned serious.
“Worried?”
“There must have already been several people reaching out after the article was published.”
“How did you know? Really, we’ve been getting nonstop calls since yesterday....”
Her expression darkened.
Mi-young felt burdened by the overwhelming attention, which couldn’t even be compared to the past.
“I thought so.”
Woo-hyun nodded calmly.
"We don't know anything about what's going on...."
From the looks of it, they hadn’t signed any contracts or had any serious etings yet. Woo-hyun let out a sigh of relief.
“Where did they co from?”
“Several were from educational companies, and even so major corporations offered to sponsor him.”
“Educational companies?”
“Yes. They said they make textbooks and also offer lectures. They offered to provide Seo-ha with free books and lectures. And if he shows results, they said they’d give him a scholarship too....”
Woo-hyun’s brow twitched, and his eyes turned fierce.
“Damn, these shaless, unethical bastards!”
“Huh?”
Mi-young was startled by Woo-hyun’s harsh words, sothing she’d never heard from him before.
“I’m sorry. I got emotional."
Woo-hyun took a breath and organized his thoughts.
“This is sothing that happens all the ti in the industry. What they want is to package Seo-ha’s future success as if it was thanks to them. They’ll promote it like, ‘A student who took our lectures and studied with our textbooks won a gold dal at the IMO.’”
They were truly low-quality operators, not even willing to pay properly.
“Aigoo, I didn’t even know that. Thank you for telling .”
“Large corporations aren’t much different. The bigger the company, the less likely they are to do business that results in a loss. Later on, when Seo-ha grows up, it will beco a shackle in so form.”
At Woo-hyun’s words, Mi-young nodded.
“You’re saying we should just keep doing things the way we are, right?”
“That’s right. For a genius like Seo-ha, the most important thing is a free environnt where no one interferes.”
While they were talking, Seo-eun peeked her head out from behind her mom and shouted when she saw Woo-hyun.
“Ah! It’s the scary teacher!”
Woo-hyun gave a wry smile.
Since she was Seo-ha’s younger sister, he was curious and thought he’d try a simple test.
But what a surprise!
An incredible mory and ntal arithtic ability.
When she said she wanted to do number linking, he asked what she ant, and it turned out to be pri factorization.
He got a bit greedy and tried to teach her a little, but sohow she sensed it and ran off in fright.
Since then, whenever Seo-eun sees Woo-hyun, she never cos close and keeps a distance like a cat.
‘Did Seo-ha teach her?’
What on earth was Seo-ha planning to raise his sister into?
Woo-hyun suddenly felt curious.
***
Winter passed, and spring brushed by.
Seo-ha had now beco a sixth grader.
And already, it was May, the season where the early sumr heat could be felt.
In the anti, Seo-ha had gone through quite a few changes.
First of all, he had grown taller.
The clothes he used to wear no longer fit him.
But the biggest change happened inside his mind.
Seo-ha was sitting at his desk, writing sothing in a notebook. But unlike usual, it wasn’t filled with equations, but with words.
“What are you writing?”
At Mi-young’s question, Seo-ha closed the notebook.
“A journal.”
But it wasn’t a journal.
As he completely imrsed himself in mathematics, Seo-ha realized he could not fully eliminate his compulsions. So, he had no choice but to find a way to live with them.
Seo-ha didn’t fall into despair. Instead, he chose a scientific approach.
It was a narrative therapy technique he found in a psychology book.
He thought he might be able to solve the problem by using externalization, which is viewing the issue as separate from oneself.
‘Let’s think of the compulsion not as an enemy, but as a roommate.’
First, he gave it a na.
‘Ducky.’
Assuming it had a nasty personality, he gave it the na of the grumpiest duck.
Ducky loved perfect patterns and beautiful symtry, and wanted to organize and record everything in the world as numbers.
Seo-ha allocated a specific amount of ti each day entirely for Ducky.
So that Ducky could imrse himself completely in whatever he wanted to do.
Outside of that ti, Seo-ha would say, “This isn’t your ti!” and negotiate with him.
After treating it this way, Ducky was no longer just an annoying and harmful presence.
When he let Ducky check math answers, Ducky enjoyed it.
Even when writing down answers, Ducky had a ticulous and thorough personality. He liked to write out details that Seo-ha tended to skip out of habit.
Tap tap.
Seo-ha opened his wardrobe and quietly stared at the duck on the end of his pencil.
“You’ll understand too, right?”
The duck didn’t answer, but Seo-ha felt as if he had heard a response.
Instead of his checkered shirt, Seo-ha picked a black windbreaker.
For a mont, a sense of resistance welled up.
“Ducky, we take turns compromising.”
Gritting his teeth, Seo-ha pulled out the windbreaker and put it on.
It was bearable. The feeling wasn’t as bad as he thought.
Ducky was fickle.
So days, he seed to be in a good mood and would do anything, but the next day, he’d show signs of rejection.
But there was one thing both of them commonly liked, and that was mathematics.
[Algebraic Topology]
The complex structures of homotopy and homology theory.
[Hₙ₊₁(X,A) → Hₙ(A) → Hₙ(X) → Hₙ(X,A) → Hₙ₋₁(A)...]
“Ducky, let’s check this sequence together.”
Ducky's obsessive precision shined brilliantly. He instantly verified all the arrow directions and conditions in the complex diagram.
Seo-ha was convinced that Ducky, like himself, must love precise sequences.
But not every day was smooth.
So days, Ducky tried to check every single summation interval of an infinite series.
“That has no end. Let’s stop at a reasonable point.”
Ducky quieted down.
Seo-ha had been worried it wouldn’t work, but it was a huge success.
He closed the book he had been reading and gazed blankly at Ramanujan’s theta function.
An array of infinitely continuing, beautiful functions.
Perfect, beautiful, and above all, predictable.
A sense of peace washed over him.
‘There’s no such thing as an unsolvable problem.’
There was nothing wrong with what the mathematician François Viète had said.
***
Ti flew like an arrow, and the departure day arrived.
Seo-ha, about to go abroad for the first ti in his life, was so nervous the day before that he barely slept.
“Seo-ha, your passport’s in the bag, right?”
Mi-young, uneasy about sending her son overseas, checked his belongings several tis.
“Yes, Mom! Don’t worry.”
The departure lobby was filled with a hum of voices.
Travelers, families seeing them off, and even reporters.
“Yu Seo-ha! Please look this way!”
Pop!
A cara flash went off.
It hadn’t been like this last year, but perhaps because of the buzz around an elentary school student participating in the IMO, several news outlets had sent reporters.
“Are you nervous?”
“What is your goal?”
“Is it true you’ve never received private tutoring?”
As questions poured in, Seo-ha looked flustered, and the chaperone stepped forward.
“Sorry, but Seo-ha is still young, so please keep it brief.”
“Yes, Professor.”
A reporter brought a microphone to Seo-ha.
“Yu Seo-ha! We heard you never received private tutoring. Is there a special secret to how you’re so good at math?”
At the reporter’s question, Seo-ha thought for a mont and then smiled innocently.
“I just really like math.
Ah! Actually, I have a teacher who’s been sending various books and giving advice since I was little.”
“Who is that person?”
“I want to tell you his na, but he told never to do that. He said, if I achieve sothing big enough to be recorded in the history of world mathematics, then I can ntion it....”
“Hahaha! What an amusing person. I hope that really happens.”
Thinking it was a joke, the reporter burst out laughing.
Professor Park glanced at his watch and cut in.
“Let’s go over there.”
After walking a bit, familiar faces ca into view.
Su-jeong had co with her parents. Sung Ji-hoon, unusually dressed in a suit, and Ko Chang-seok, looking just as he always did, were chatting with their families.
A while later, Seo Ji-ye appeared, looking glamorous as if she had just co from a salon.
And finally, Do-hyun with a determined expression.
Once all six representatives had gathered, the atmosphere beca noticeably more relaxed.
Seo-ha crouched down and t eyes with Seo-eun, who had grown so much.
“You won’t cry this ti, right? Oppa will be back soon.”
Seo-eun had cried all day when she heard her oppa was leaving again.
But after he promised he’d definitely bring back a gold dal to hang around her neck, she was now trying hard to hold back tears.
“Yeah! I won’t cry. But you have to co back soon, okay? And don’t forget to bring my gold dal, promise?”
Seo-ha hugged his little sister’s small body and gently patted her back.
‘It’s been such a long journey.’
Six years to get here.
He understood in his head that it was a necessary process.
But more than boring competition problems, Seo-ha wanted to wrestle with the unsolved problems that piled up in the world.
‘Just a few more days now.’
110 countries,
The Olympiad where 660 mathematical geniuses compete will soon begin.
*****
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