Chapter 32
Chapter 32
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Graduation Day
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Who's that?]
Amid all this, the ones shedding tears of joy were the math YouTubers.
"Is this real? Math videos are actually getting views?"
Those who'd been scraping by with four-digit average views saw their chance and all jumped on it.
[Who is Eliya Kronen?]
Views: 320,000.
[Why Did Eliya Kronen Praise Yoo Seo-ha?]
Views: 800,000.
[In-Depth Analysis of IMO Problem 6.]
Views: 150,000.
[Why Did China Challenge Yoo Seo-ha's Score?]
[Olympiad Runner-Up: Has Korea Become a Math Powerhouse??]
As the public took interest, videos poured out. Naturally, every one featured the inescapable names: Eliya Kronen and Yoo Seo-ha.
And finally, the paper co-authored by Professor Edward Han on Seo-ha's behalf put an end to it all.
The paper, titled "Curvature Correction to Viviani's Theorem," began like this:
News that they'd supplemented Viviani's Theorem—the famous Italian mathematician and Galileo's disciple—first broke in Italy.
Then the articles made their way back to Korea.
[12-year-old co-authored a paper with a Stanford prof.]
The controversy passed, but the fame remained.
Seo-ha had become Korea's most famous 12-year-old.
And right now, he was in an admissions interview.
"Yoo Seo-ha, come on in."
The Korean Science Gifted High School—a place every top student in the country dreamed of attending.
Seo-ha, neatly dressed in slacks and a shirt, carefully entered the interview room and bowed his head.
"Hello, I'm Yoo Seo-ha."
The interviewers' lips twitched even before the interview began.
From the principal down, the staff were already in full festival mode.
IMO gold medalist—the youngest ever!
A super prodigy already stamped with approval by a math world giant!
For such a student to apply to their school? The principal was over the moon, practically ascending.
If he won a Nobel or Fields Medal someday, the school would be legendary for generations.
"Have a seat. Oh, is the chair too high?"
The physics teacher jumped up to fetch a cushion for the chair himself.
"No, it's fine."
Seo-ha waved his hands in embarrassment.
"Why are you doing that? Of course the math department should handle it."
Math teacher Park Young-ho snapped, snatching the cushion away.
This was a talent who'd soon be the school's top output. The interviewers had long forgotten their duty to evaluate.
Still, interviews must go on.
The panel fired various questions at Seo-ha.
"What are your future aspirations?"
"I want to be a mathematician."
The math teachers clenched tiny victory fists at his answer.
"Did you apply to other schools?"
"A teacher I know said to be safe and submit papers to the gifted schools in Busan and Incheon too."
The panelists blinked in surprise.
"Hrm! What pointless advice..."
They exchanged glances.
"Then why our school?"
"Uh... um... It's the closest?"
His honest reply short-circuited their brains for a moment. Then chemistry teacher Jeong Mi-kyung blurted out desperately.
"Yoo Seo-ha! Our school lunches are top-tier nationwide. We provide individual study rooms for every student.
The uniforms are so cute, kids from other schools are jealous. All our teachers have at least master's degrees."
Seo-ha seemed calmer than the sweating interviewers.
After what was more orientation than interview, Seo-ha returned home.
"Oh! Back already? How'd the interview go?"
"Yes, Dad drove me."
Mi-young was washing Seo-eun, who was caked in mud from whatever playtime mess.
Seo-ha massaged his mom's shoulders, pinched his sister's chubby cheeks, then headed to his room.
"Hoo..."
He couldn't get used to it.
The whole world was kind to him. Yet he was sinking into deepening depression.
Slide.
Seo-ha opened the bottom drawer.
Over a hundred notebooks stacked neatly—records of failure.
He pulled out the most recent one.
"154th attempt."
Today, it was time to apply the modular theory he'd been studying.
Seo-ha sat at his desk and picked up a pencil.
'Define each vertex as v₁, v₂, v₃,... and use the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix A.'
Hours passed. To Seo-ha, it was but an instant.
He didn't hear Seo-eun running across the floor, Mi-young prepping dinner, or Cheol-ho shaking off his shoes after work.
Seo-ha's mind was solely in the world of math.
'If d(f) is the number of edges around each face, Euler's formula imposes average constraints.'
His wrist ached, but he forgot the pain.
Yet no breakthrough came, even as night fell.
Modular theory couldn't fully capture the topological constraints of planar graphs.
The coloring problem was combinatorial yet topological at its core. Was a pure number theory approach arrogant?
Snap.
The pencil lead broke.
Thwack.
Seo-ha hurled the pencil at the wall.
Ducky seemed to say not to, to calm down.
"What, you think you could solve it? Fine, take my body then. Give it a shot!"
Ducky was silent.
"Knew it. You're just my computation switch. Don't interfere with me again."
Seo-ha picked up the bounced-back pencil, sat down, and stared at the eraser end.
"Sorry. Didn't mean it."
Anger changed nothing. The problem remained, the solution distant.
Knock knock.
"Seo-ha, dinner time."
Mi-young's voice came from outside.
"Yes, Mom. Coming."
Seo-ha closed the notebook, stowed it in the drawer, and stood.
154th attempt: failure. But that was enough for today.
Even at dinner with family, his mind brimmed with math.
"Oppa, what're you thinking?"
Seo-eun stopped eating and stared at him.
"Huh? Oh, sorry."
"Oppa didn't play with me today!"
Seo-eun pouted hard.
"Sorry. Won't happen again."
He gently stroked her hair; her lips curved up.
Cheol-ho chuckled.
"Oppa's doing tough studies these days. You'll understand when you grow up, Seo-eun."
"Then I won't! I need Oppa to play with me!"
The family burst into laughter.
After dinner, Seo-ha took a walk to clear his head.
In his sister's room, she was already asleep.
On her desk sat the Union Jack duck and gold medal he'd given her, proudly displayed. Seo-ha reflected on his excessive impatience.
He knew his family had started watching him carefully, unlike before.
"I'm pathetic."
Back in his room, he trailed a finger along familiar bookshelves and pulled one out.
[Blaise Pascal]
A neatly permed young man gazed back.
"Pascal, guess I'm not as brilliant as you."
Pascal had proven the sum of a triangle's angles is 180 degrees at age 12, all self-taught. Using Euclid's parallel postulate, but key: no one taught him. He'd discovered it drawing on the ground with sticks.
At 16, he proved Pascal's Theorem—deemed a major geometry breakthrough.
For Seo-ha, who dreamed of sharing history's pages with math's geniuses, age 12 was crucial.
He knew better than anyone this was pointless stubbornness.
Great mathematicians had bloomed later.
But now it was over. His family was sad.
"No more obsessing over age 12. In the end, I'll just do something greater, right? Euclid's proof would've worked, but that was so hard?
Watch. In the end, I'll be on the page before you."
Soon to be a middle schooler—no, high schooler.
No matter how gifted, no one escaped puberty's hormones.
Warm spring sun bathed the playground.
The school gate bustled with kids holding parents' hands and families with bouquets.
"Doo-dam, our precious Doo-dam. Under Okcheon's clear skies..."
The school song echoed in the auditorium. As it ended, the MC proceeded.
"Graduation representative: Yoo Seo-ha."
The auditorium buzzed.
"The kid who skipped middle school for gifted high?"
"Honey! We gotta send ours there too."
"Lucky parents."
Seo-ha mounted the podium with his speech.
All eyes fixed on him.
He cleared his throat lightly and began his prepared speech.
"Today, we all gather for graduation..."
Cobbled from a writing textbook, but sniffles rose here and there.
"Sob sob."
"Wahhh."
"...Teachers' scoldings and praises will stay in our hearts forever."
Gazing at dear friends, emotion welled in Seo-ha too. He might've ad-libbed.
"I'm heading to another school a bit early, but I'm still the Seo-ha you know. Let's meet again!"
Laughter erupted. Then applause filled the hall.
Ears red, Seo-ha hurried down.
Cameras flashed everywhere.
Kids with flowers, suited parents—all snapping commemorative shots. Seo-ha was the school's biggest star.
"Photo together!"
"Can I brag you're my friend?"
A few girls ran up waving, eyes red from tears.
"Our boy's popular."
Cheol-ho whispered admiringly to his wife.
"Good thing he's not like you."
Then Mi-young spotted a familiar face approaching.
"Hey! Yoo Seo-ha!"
"Huh?"
It was Jun-sik, who'd brought workbooks to their house before.
"You go first. I'll follow for sure. Got it?"
He declared it to Seo-ha with rival's grim resolve.
"Yeah! Good oppa!"
Seo-eun peeked from behind Mom at the familiar face.
"Eek!"
Min-su yelped like he'd seen a ghost.
"One, two, three!"
Click.
Seo-ha posed with his bouquet and family for a photo.
Yoo Seo-ha, age 13.
Come spring, he'd finally be a high schooler.