Strawberry Candy
“Hey, Da-yeon, yeah, it's true! I'm with NoName right now. Like, right next to me. No way? She says it's her? But you said you were in class... What do you mean you're ditching? Hey, Woo Da-yeon!”
The call cut off abruptly, and the woman let out a wry smile.
“Haha... Sorry about that. That's my little sister—she's apparently a huge fan of yours. Last time, she did this research project on some streamer or whatever and plastered bromides all over the house. She made such a fuss that I memorized your face perfectly, and wow, you're just as cute in person as in the photos! You're a VTuber, right? Or not?”
“Technically, I stream on Twishi... but do you know Cheon Professor? That grad student...?”
“Ah, yeah, Professor Cheon Kyujin is my advisor. You saw the name tag! But what brings you here?”
“Wouldn't that be the kind of question you ask before letting someone into the building?”
“Ahaha, true?”
We're already in the elevator heading up—what good would asking now do?
“Professor Cheon called me here, too.”
“Whoa, really? You came alone? Impressive!”
“It's nothing. Thanks for showing me the way.”
The elevator doors slid open, revealing the stark interior of the building. It wasn't structurally different from any other, but the atmosphere felt oppressively gloomy somehow. Was it the dim lighting?
“Damn it, why are all the hallway lights off! Sorry, the guys here hate the light. Like they're vampires or something!”
It didn't seem like just that was the issue.
“How do you know Professor Cheon? Family? Niece?”
The hallway lights flickered on brightly. From the far end came the boisterous chatter of people.
The woman walked hand-in-hand with me, speaking casually. “He's my dad.”
“Pfft!”
She spat out the banana milk she'd been sipping.
“Wha... what did you just say?”
She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and stared at me in shock. A whirlwind of thoughts must have raced through her head as she stammered.
“Professor Cheon is definitely single... Hidden daughter? No, the ages don't add up! Do they? Ah, crap, what...?”
“Adoptive father. Adoption.”
In that brief moment, she'd probably imagined a whole romance novel or war epic. She patted her chest in relief, but her gaze on me remained complicated.
“Ah...”
“Don't worry about it.”
“Unnie's really sorry... It was just such a shock... Why didn't he ever mention it to us?”
This year was Professor Cheon's research sabbatical, but instead of traveling abroad, he kept showing up at the lab, occasionally helping the grad students with their work. The students had cheered at first—less graduation stress—but the avalanche of assignments left them with mixed feelings toward our professor. Love-hate, I suppose. They'd spent plenty of time around him, swapping personal stories, yet he'd never once brought me up. It was surprising, even to me. Maybe he just wanted to protect my privacy.
“He said he had a surprise gift today—don't tell me...?”
We entered the lab with Ms. Woo Hee-jin. Several people were gathered around a table in the center. Even without sniffing, the pizza aroma was unmistakable. Aside from Hee-jin, there were no other women—all four were men. From the farthest cubicle, a gray-haired man stood and waved enthusiastically.
“Oh, Nami! You made it!”
At Professor Cheon's call, the four men spat out their pizza and shot to their feet like Pavlov's dogs.
“Hello.”
Since it was our first meeting, I bowed politely—but not too deeply, lest I look like a kindergartener.
“Uh, hi... Who...?”
The guy in front barely managed a greeting.
“Why take a taxi when you could've just bused it? No need to tire yourself out.”
“It's been ages since I went out anywhere but school—buses are nice.”
“Right, right. Grab a seat and have a slice? The guest is running late, so we might wait a bit.”
“I'm not that hungry—just one slice.”
“Hey, make some room for the kid?”
“Ah, yes, Professor!”
“No need to stand—just scoot over a bit.”
In the ensuing bustle, I ended up in the middle of the sofa, awkwardly clasping my hands in my lap. Were they seriously expecting me to sit here silently and eat pizza? Talk about uncomfortable.
“Professor?”
“Yes?”
“Would you mind introducing... whoever this guest is...?”
Right on cue, one guy cautiously poured grapefruit juice into my cup. Grapefruit? No orange?
“Oh, right—my brain! This is my daughter, Nami. Everyone, take turns introducing yourselves.”
“Pardon?”
“What?”
“Cough! Hack!”
After the awkward round of introductions, Professor Cheon led the charge, and everyone stuffed pizza into their mouths amid the heavy silence. When he stepped out to greet the guest, the grad students finally exhaled like deer escaping a trap.
I hadn't noticed at home, but he must be pretty strict with the lab folks.
“Phew. Holy crap, that was intense—she's adorable!”
“Hey, Kim Hyun-woo! Watch it!”
“Right, zip it! I didn't say anything!”
Since the age gap made “real daughter” seem implausible—sending imaginations to Andromeda—Hee-jin had discreetly clued the others in.
“Makes sense—Professor Cheon having a kid like that? Nah. He's grandkid age already.”
“Dude, not in front of the kid! What if she tells?”
“I'll pass that along to Professor for you.”
“Gah, no! Kidding—joke! You know that, right?”
“Oppa, I'll make sure to tell your dad. Plenty of cooldown before the next scolding.”
“Feels like Professor betrayed us. If he'd shown a daily Nami pic to get us to come in, we'd have dragged ourselves happily.”
“Now I get why he kept me hidden.”
Shady bunch. Still, they seemed decent—loyal to the professor.
“Hee-jin unnie!”
“Da-yeon!”
“Hee-jin's sis is here!”
“Hiya.”
In burst a woman in a straw hat. A straw hat? In downtown Seoul? Wild fashion sense.
Woo Da-yeon clamped her hands over her own mouth.
“No way... It's her...”
The hat slid off, fluttering to the floor. She approached in a daze—someone familiar to me.
I picked it up and handed it back. “Didn't we meet last year?”
“Huh?”
“At the career expo.”
Woo Da-yeon reeled as if struck by lightning.
That's right—that genius kid!
She'd ragged on protagonists with face blindness in dramas and movies so many times—never imagining it'd happen to her. NoName's main avatar wasn't just similar to that kid; the faces were identical.
“Wait, you two know each other?”
“Unnie, this is that super-genius kid I told you about! It's her!”
Da-yeon cursed her memory now more than ever. How had she not connected the dots?
“Genius...? Oh, your volunteer thing last year?”
“Yeah! But not just any genius.”
A career expo demo could pass as prodigy-level talent for a talent show. But if this kid was truly “NoName”? That scaled up to world-shaking scoop territory, beyond variety shows.
Maybe some malicious third party hacked capsule ethics codes to clone a kid's avatar? But that was pure fantasy.
I sat back on the sofa, sipping juice. The tart grapefruit made my head shake. Da-yeon's internal debate raged on.
Knowledge aside, NoName had seemed too mature on stream. Genius and “adult-like” were different—she couldn't shake the doubt.
Spotting strawberry candies in her bag, Da-yeon offered one to me, still dazed by the sour juice.
“Nami...? Want this?”
I snatched it lightning-fast and popped the pink sugar lump in my mouth.
Nom nom—
“Thanks. Got any more?”
“Ah, yeah...! Want another?”
“If you offer, I'll gladly take it.”
The speech pattern matched. Too mature for a kid. The men watched contentedly as I quietly munched, but Da-yeon's heart grew more tangled.
“How genius is she, anyway?”
Hee-jin poked Da-yeon's side.
“If it's true? World number one?”
Her sister Hee-jin had never watched streams or VTuber stuff—zero clue about me. Saying it aloud felt cringey, like middle-school edginess, but no qualifiers needed.
Da-yeon dragged over the whiteboard in the corner and scribbled frantically.
20,387,739 × 390,394 =
“Hey, Nami—more candy?”
“Yes, it's sweet and nice.”
“Solve this, and I'll give you one right away!”
“Uh... 7,959,250,979,166.”
“...?”
A grad student pulled out an engineering calculator late and gawked at my answer.
“How'd you get that?”
“That's really right?”
“Fun—got more?”
“Uh... this one?”
ln(123,456,789) =
“Hmm, roughly 18.6314... More precisely, between 017661 and 2? Closer to 2, FYI.”
“How do you even calculate natural log mentally? Multiplication's one thing—this is mental math territory!”
“Is it... right?”
“Insane.”
“Candy, quick. And anyone memorizing log tables can do this.”
Da-yeon lost five candies in seconds. I hamstered my candy-stuffed cheeks, eyes closed in bliss, leaning into the sofa.
“Definitely her—NoName... So that's her real name?”
Hee-jin had shared the kid's name: No Nami. Look at it any way—it screamed NoName.
“Da-yeon unnie.”
“Huh? Yeah, what?”
“I heard you're a PD at Hicks Studio.”
Bullseye. I'd recently seen her upload science/magic content based on my playthroughs.
“Why'd you post my footage without permission?”