Chapter 3 - Deep Thinking
Chapter 3 - Deep Thinking
Two months after arriving in the United States, Siwoo began to realize one strange fact.
If he focused too deeply, his body would break down. At first, he thought it was just fatigue.
He thought it was because he had come to an unfamiliar country and was trying to adapt, or perhaps his brain was just tired from constantly listening to English.
But as time passed, he felt it wasn't just ordinary fatigue.
There were days when his brain moved too fast.
On those days, the world would slow down. The ticking of the clock became distinct, the small vibration of the refrigerator motor caught his ear, and even the speed and distance of cars passing outside the window were calculated in his head.
When he opened a book, he didn't see sentences, but structures. When he looked at equations, he didn't see the answer, but the path.
When he looked at computer code, he didn't see commands written by someone, but why that person had thought that way.
The problem was what came after. His head would get hot, his vision would blur, his fingertips would tremble, and he would get a nosebleed.
That morning, too, started normally.
Siwoo was sitting at his desk in his room on the 2nd floor, and the problem sheet and notes left behind by an MIT professor were spread out on the desk.
The professor had told him to read them when he was bored, but to Siwoo, they were closer to toys.
Complex equations, unorganized hypotheses, structures that hadn't been proven yet—it was content that would give a normal person a headache just by looking at it, but Siwoo picked up his pencil as soon as he saw the paper.
"Why did they approach it like this?"
Siwoo muttered to himself.
The problem itself was difficult, but the existing approach was taking too long of a detour.
It felt like someone was climbing over a mountain when there was a closer path.
Siwoo rearranged the equations.
He changed the conditions, grouped the variables, and deleted unnecessary assumptions.
He started slowly at first, but soon, the speed in his head began to pick up.
One equation split into ten possibilities, those ten divided into a hundred, and among the hundred paths, the unnecessary ones disappeared, and the remaining paths merged into a single structure.
Siwoo took a small breath.
The world slowed down. The sound of the wind outside the window, the sound of his mother organizing dishes in the kitchen downstairs, the sound of a radio ringing softly in a vehicle outside the house—everything was excessively vivid.
It felt as if Siwoo wasn't looking at the equations, but had entered inside them.
The surface of the problem disappeared, and the skeleton beneath it became visible.
"Ah... so this is how you do it."
From then on, the speed of his pencil increased, filling one sheet of paper, and the next sheet was filled just as quickly.
The desk became covered in equations, and his sense of time vanished.
He felt like if he went just a little further, it would be completely solved.
Tuk, a red dot fell onto the paper.
In an instant, Siwoo's hand stopped, and when he checked, he was having a nosebleed.
Siwoo stared blankly at the red dot on the paper.
His vision gradually blurred, and his heart began to beat rapidly.
Strength drained from his entire body.
"Uh..."
Siwoo tried to get up from his seat, but his legs wouldn't listen to him.
"Siwoo-ya, come eat..."
Hyejin's voice cut off, and what she saw was the papers filling the desk and her son bleeding from his nose.
"Siwoo-ya!"
Hyejin screamed and ran over, and Siwoo lifted his head with a dazed expression.
"Mom..."
"What's wrong? Are you sick? Siwoo-ya!"
Taesik ran up the stairs in a hurry.
"What's going on!"
Taesik's face also stiffened as he entered the room.
Siwoo tried to say something, but his lips wouldn't move properly.
"My head..."
"What?"
"It's hot."
Siwoo's body tilted forward, and Taesik barely managed to catch his son.
"Siwoo-ya!"
Hyejin's scream echoed through the house, and a few seconds later, the FBI agents who had been outside the house rushed in.
As soon as William saw the situation, he picked up his radio.
"Call the medical team!"
A few hours later, at the hospital.
Siwoo was lying on a white bed.
Hyejin was sitting in a chair next to the bed, holding her son's hand, and Taesik was leaning against the wall, not saying a word.
The doctors were busy checking the test results.
There was no major damage to his body, and no serious illness was found.
Blood tests, brain scans, and nerve responses were all within the normal range, but the child was in a state of extreme exhaustion.
The attending physician said.
"It appears to be excessive brain activity."
Taesik asked back with a confused face.
"Excuse me?"
"To put it simply, his brain used too much energy."
"Is that even possible?"
The doctor answered with a troubled face.
"Usually, it's impossible."
When night deepened, Siwoo opened his eyes.
"Siwoo-ya!"
Hyejin immediately leaned over.
"Are you okay? Can you see Mom?"
"Yes..."
Taesik said with a forced smile.
"You scared the hell out of us."
His body was heavy and his head was dull, but he knew what had happened to him.
He had gone too deep into that deep thinking.
Ethan approached and asked cautiously.
"What happened?"
"I thought too deeply."
The hospital room went quiet, and the doctor asked.
"What do you mean by 'thought too deeply'?"
Siwoo carefully chose his words.
"When I use my brain really fast..."
He pointed to his head.
"Too many calculations run at once in here."
"Calculations?"
"There are equations, structures, possibilities..."
Siwoo stopped while explaining.
He knew it was difficult for adults to understand, but no other words came to mind.
"When I get into that state, the world slows down."
"The world slows down?"
"Yes."
Siwoo nodded slightly.
"I hear sounds one by one. People's movements look slow, and when I see a problem, the structure shows before the answer."
"But if I do it for a long time, my head gets hot."
Hyejin gripped her son's hand tighter.
"Then don't do it."
The words were close to a plea.
"Mom..."
"Don't do it. Studying is fine, and whatever else is fine, but if you ruin your body, it's all useless."
Taesik also said in a low voice.
"Your mom is right."
For the first time, Siwoo realized something.
That his thoughts could hurt his parents.
A few days later, a private meeting regarding Yoon Siwoo was held, and hospital data was displayed on the screen.
Brain activity, heart rate changes, blood glucose consumption, body temperature changes, estimated time of deep focus.
A researcher said.
"It's difficult to explain with normal human figures."
Michael Hayes, the Deputy Director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, asked.
"The conclusion?"
The researcher hesitated for a moment before answering.
"Yoon Siwoo shows thinking abilities that transcend human limits in a specific state."
"The cost?"
"Physical energy consumption skyrockets."
A red graph appeared on the screen.
"If this continues to be repeated, there is a possibility that his young body will not be able to withstand it."
The atmosphere in the conference room became heavy, and Michael watched the screen with his arms crossed.
"We need restrictions."
Ethan said in a low voice.
"The problem is whether that child can stop himself."
"Why?"
"His curiosity is too strong."
Ethan recalled the expression on Siwoo's face that he had seen in the hospital room.
It wasn't a scared face, but rather a face analyzing his own state.
A child who puts curiosity before pain—could such a child easily keep to his own limits?
After returning home, Siwoo made rules for himself.
The deep focus state is only for two hours. After that, he won't push himself.
Siwoo stuck a note directly on the wall next to his desk.
-No more than two hours a day
Every time Hyejin saw that note, her heart ached.
A child who was only eight years old was setting restrictions to control his own body.
She asked quietly.
"Siwoo-ya."
"Yes."
"Do you really have to do that?"
Siwoo looked at the note on the wall.
"If I don't, I feel stifled."
"What feels stifled?"
"It feels like I'm pretending not to see something that I can clearly see."
Hyejin didn't understand those words, but her heart ached.
To Siwoo, thinking was like breathing, and stopping it might have been painful.
But if she just left it alone, his young body would break.
A few days later, Siwoo was sitting by his room window.
The American residential area was quiet; there was no sound of motorcycles or children chattering in the alleys like in a shantytown in Busan.
He looked out the window and muttered as if talking to himself.
"Why is it like this..."
Even he didn't understand.
Why he was the only one who thought like this, why his brain moved like this.
Just then, the door opened carefully.
"Not sleeping?"
"Just a little longer."
Taesik entered the room without a word and sat next to his son.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Taesik wasn't a man of many words to begin with, but especially in this situation, he didn't know what to say.
He didn't know math or computers, and he didn't fully understand why the US government had brought Siwoo here, but he knew one thing.
That his son was struggling.
Taesik said in a low voice.
"Siwoo-ya."
"Yes."
"Don't carry it all by yourself."
Siwoo turned his head.
"Dad doesn't even know half of what you're thinking about."
"..."
"But I know you're having a hard time."
Siwoo thought for a while and said very quietly.
"...I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"I don't know how far I'll go."
The atmosphere in the room became heavy.
The words were too heavy for an eight-year-old to say, and Taesik couldn't answer right away.
Then, he slowly reached out and stroked his son's hair.
"It's okay."
"..."
"Dad doesn't know how far you'll go either."
Taesik smiled slightly.
"But you're a good kid."
Siwoo lifted his head, and Taesik said seriously.
"That's enough."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Taesik looked into his son's eyes.
"Being smart is important, and being great is important too, but Dad doesn't know much about that stuff. The high-and-mighty people will take care of that."
"..."
"But I know you're a good kid. Dad knows that best."
-FBI Internal Report
-Yoon Siwoo
-Thinking ability exceeds existing projections
-Recommended time limit: 2 hours or less
-General focus state: Good
-Mental structure: Stable
-Strong emotional bond with family
William, who was reading the report, stared at the last sentence for a long time and muttered in a low voice.
"The fortunate thing is that he's still human."
The agent next to him asked.
"Is that important?"
William nodded.
"It's very important that someone with that level of ability remains human."
He looked at the dark residential area outside the window.
"Because someday, the world might stop seeing that child as a human."
That night, Siwoo sat in front of his desk again, and the note was stuck on the wall.
-No more than two hours a day
Siwoo took out a small stopwatch and placed his finger on the button.
"...Just two hours."
Tik, time began to flow.
Siwoo's eyes changed, and the world slowed down again, but it was different from before.
This time, he tried not to go to the end, and he had to avoid going so deep that he lost himself.
And soon, the equations surfaced, the structures opened, and the possibilities unfolded.