Chapter 66
I’m translating the chapter into polished HTML and keeping the special in-universe text in styled blocks where it belongs. I’m also checking the chapter structure so the narration flows naturally instead of reading like a line-by-line gloss.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Medal He Didn’t Know How to Wear
Everything about the situation felt awkward.
A medal, of all things.
He was grateful for it, but at the same time, it was hard not to feel overwhelmed.
"May I speak honestly?"
Si-woo spoke carefully.
"Of course."
Parn nodded.
"I’m not sure I’m worthy of receiving a medal like this."
There was sincerity in Si-woo’s voice, and humility too.
"I only happened to find the sketch. I didn’t really do anything for Norway in particular."
It was a work he’d stumbled across at an online auction.
He had only bought it.
It wasn’t as though he had donated it out of the goodness of his heart.
At Si-woo’s attitude, Parn smiled with the warmth of a grandfather looking at his grandson.
That gentle expression lasted only a moment.
Then his voice turned firm.
"Appraiser Kim Si-woo."
Parn continued slowly.
"Finding the early sketch of Munch’s The Scream alone is enough to bring honor to Norway."
Helena Vik agreed, adding her voice to his.
"That’s right. No one even knew a piece like this existed. Who would have imagined that an early sketch of The Scream would be drawn on a torn section of Munch’s notebook... You were the one who found it, Appraiser Kim Si-woo."
Parn spoke again.
"You deserve it. No, you must receive it. To the people of Norway, Munch is not just a painter. He is our pride, our soul itself. It is only natural to express our gratitude to the one who returned his lost work to us."
Si-woo was at a loss for words.
When it was put that way, refusing would be discourteous.
The letter he accepted was sealed with red wax and finished with elegant gold leaf.
"When should I come to receive the medal?"
"We would be glad to receive you whenever it suits you, but perhaps it would be best to schedule your visit to Norway around the time the Munch Museum publicly unveils the recovered work?"
Si-woo tilted his head.
"On the day it’s revealed?"
"Yes. We are planning a special exhibition to present Munch’s sketch to the public. It will be a major retrospective illuminating the birth of The Scream."
Parn’s eyes shone as he went on.
"Before the exhibition opens, there will be a gathering attended by the world’s press and leading figures from the art world."
He let a meaningful smile appear.
"I’d like to hold the medal ceremony then. Appraiser Kim Si-woo, who discovered the sketch, would attend in person, and His Majesty the King would present the medal."
Even hearing about it was enough to tell him it would be an enormously distinguished occasion.
But for some people, a place like that could feel more like pressure than honor.
Right now, I was exactly in that state.
To receive a medal in a foreign country, in front of art world figures from all over the globe.
Just thinking about it made my head go blank.
I’d been nervous enough at the Blue House, and this was on a completely different scale.
"On the day the sketch is unveiled, we want to express our gratitude to the person who found it. Could there be a more perfect time?"
The others nodded in agreement.
"It will be deeply moving for the people of Norway as well. Their lost cultural treasure will return, and the person who made that possible will come all the way to Oslo in person."
"When is the exhibition scheduled?"
"We haven’t set the exact date yet. But we’re aiming for about three months from now."
Three months.
That wasn’t very long at all.
Suppressing a sigh, Si-woo said, "Understood. I’ll come three months from now, for the exhibition opening."
A bright smile spread across Parn’s face.
"Then we’ll send a private jet for you directly from Korea. We’ll receive you as a state guest, so please come comfortably."
That only deepened the pressure on him.
Home in Yeonnam-dong.
The moment he opened the front door, a black ball of fur came running toward him.
"Meow!"
It was Kkamangi.
It rubbed itself against his legs in greeting.
"Oh, there’s my baby. Kkamangi, you were good, weren’t you?"
He bent down and scooped Kkamangi up.
Held against his chest like an infant, Kkamangi purred with apparent contentment.
The vibration in its throat traveled all the way to his palm.
What an odd little creature it was.
That something so gentle had lived as a stray cat.
He had never intended to keep a pet in the first place.
He’d thought he wouldn’t have the time to take care of an animal with his schedule.
His mother didn’t even especially like animals.
And yet, on the day they built the new house and moved in, a black cat no one knew where it had come from was sitting in the yard.
At first, they hadn’t paid it much attention.
But the cat didn’t leave.
It was waiting by the front door the next day, and the day after that too.
His mother softened first.
She gave the cat wet canned food, and after that, it stayed for good.
"I think this one likes our house. Let’s just keep it."
He wouldn’t deny that the cat’s cute face had played a major role.
And that was how Kkamangi became family.
Today had left him exhausted.
The highest medal in Norway.
An invitation from the king.
And now they were even sending a private jet.
One burden after another.
But holding Kkamangi made the fatigue ease.
Then a savory smell drifted out from inside the house.
The smell of fish grilling.
"Mom, I’m home!"
Si-woo called toward the back of the house.
"Oh, you’re back? Wash up quickly and come eat."
His mother’s voice came from the kitchen.
He carried Kkamangi into the living room.
Black fur clung all over his clothes.
Without that one flaw, it would be the perfect living creature.
He went to his room, showered, then came back out and stopped short.
There were more potted plants again.
This was not just his imagination.
The windowsill in the living room was crowded with pots.
There were clearly more than there had been last week.
Areca palms, Boston ferns, phalaenopsis orchids, peperomias...
Names he had never heard or seen before.
The green leaves had taken over one entire wall of the living room.
The spacious room somehow felt narrower.
Because there wasn’t enough space, perhaps.
Even the entrance hallway was lined with plants.
Plant-filled delivery boxes had been arriving every day.
And now it had come to this.
He knew his mother liked growing plants.
So he had paid attention when designing the house.
He had made a vegetable garden on the first floor.
And the second-floor terrace had been designed so it could be used as a greenhouse.
He had even arranged for perfect skylights so the sunlight would pour in.
He hadn’t expected her to be this enthusiastic.
The house was completely filled with plants.
Maybe those tiny plants weren’t expensive enough to matter much to someone with hundreds of billions in assets, but still.
"Mom, why not just open a botanical garden at this point?"
He asked it half as a joke, half in earnest.
His mother came out of the kitchen carrying grilled mackerel and said, "Honestly, Si-woo, that little rascal went and dug up the plants."
"Kkamangi did?"
"Yes. I checked earlier, and it had dug through the soil in several of the pots. It was a pain cleaning it up."
He looked down at Kkamangi, which had somehow come to sit beside him again.
As if it knew nothing at all, the cat was daintily licking its paw pads.
"Kkamangi."
When he called its name, Kkamangi opened its yellow eyes wide and looked up at him.
It seemed to be silently insisting, Not me.
"You little trickster. What a little trickster."
What an adorable rascal.
Kkamangi rolled over.
"Good grief, look at that. Acting cute for the owner who dotes on it. And when I say it dug up the pots, it acts like it doesn’t know anything."
His mother clicked her tongue.
That sent him into laughter.
Over dinner, he told her about what had happened that day.
About the people from the Munch Museum.
About the invitation from the king of Norway and the medal.
"My goodness, is that really true?"
Having someone in the house he could talk to so easily made everything feel lighter.
He couldn’t even remember how he had lived before this.
Hadn’t someone once said that the world can change overnight?
When he woke the next morning and turned on the TV, there was a story about him.
Notifications were pouring in endlessly on Ketalk and even on Byeolstagram.
Follow requests and DMs from all kinds of celebrities.
No matter how far he scrolled, the list never seemed to end.
There were names that stood out among them.
Famous Hollywood actors.
Global pop stars.
Seeing the verified badges, they didn’t seem fake.
They all said they had enjoyed the documentary.
That they had been moved by it.
That they wanted to meet him someday.
"...What is this?"
Was this real?
He still couldn’t believe it.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
He checked his follower count.
Eight million.
Just yesterday it had been five million.
It had jumped by three million overnight.
It went up every time he looked, which made it almost frightening.
He turned on his computer and went into YouTube.
Maybe because of the algorithm, maybe for some other reason.
Every video was connected to him.
No, K-Appraiser was a bit much, wasn’t it?
It was the kind of so-called national-pride content that saturated the internet.
Kim Si-woo’s name was stamped into every title.
The thumbnails were just as ridiculous.
One looked like an AI-generated image of the President of the United States clutching his head and shouting, "Oh my god!" while staring at him.
"...This is a little too much. Isn’t this lawsuit material?"
He laughed helplessly and shut YouTube off.
And this was before the second episode of the documentary had even been released.
If one episode had already done this much.
What was going to happen when episodes two and three came out?
He couldn’t even imagine it.
He didn’t forget to browse the auction sites, either.
That was how he spent his time.
In the afternoon, he went to the mart with his mother.
She said they needed to do some shopping.
He went along as the driver and tagalong.
"Oh my, could that be...?"
"It is! I think it’s the one from Netflix!"
"Aren’t you Appraiser Kim Si-woo?"
The moment they walked in, people recognized him.
Si-woo bowed his head in embarrassment.
But his mother beside him was different.
"Hohoho. Yes, that’s right. He’s my son."
She actually seemed to enjoy it.
"Oh, you’re his mother? Your son is amazing!"
"Hoho, it’s nothing."
His mother handled it as smoothly as if she were a celebrity manager.
When people asked for photos, she arranged for them without waiting for Si-woo to say anything.
She even had him signing autographs.
In the end, it took two hours just to finish shopping at the mart.
They hadn’t even bought that much.
All the time had gone into photos and greetings.
By the time they got home, he was completely drained.
Just in case, he started looking through the auction sites again.
That was when Kkamangi jumped up onto the desk.
"Meow."
"What is it? Hungry? Want a snack?"
Suddenly Kkamangi raised its claws and tapped the mouse.
Click.
"Hey, Kkamangi..."
Si-woo stopped speaking.
Kkamangi had hit the mouse and brought up a YouTube travel video.
It must have clicked something from the recommended list.
Inside the video, the YouTuber was walking somewhere in America.
All kinds of goods were spread across the grass: old furniture, worn tableware, dusty toys.
It was the classic look of an American flea market.
"Everyone, there’s seriously so much stuff here! This is all five dollars. Insane, right?"
The YouTuber chattered excitedly and swung the camera around.
Si-woo was watching without much thought, reaching for the mouse to close it.
Then, just as his hand stretched toward it, something flashed in one corner of the screen.
"...?"
His hand froze.
He hit rewind.
Ten seconds back.
Play again.
On a table the camera had casually passed over.
Amid the dusty odds and ends.
There it was.
A goose pulling a carriage carrying an egg.
The gold leaf had peeled away and it was stained with grime, looking to anyone else like nothing more than junk.
But to Si-woo’s eyes, it was different.
Light was pouring out of that egg-shaped work.
His heart dropped with a heavy thud.
He paused the video.
Then he zoomed in.
Even through the blurry resolution, the shape was unmistakable.
Fine workmanship.
Traces where jewels had once been set.
An eagle pattern engraved along the side.
"...No way."
A groan escaped him.
Fabergé egg.
A jeweled egg made for the Russian imperial family.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution, many of them disappeared.
Seven are still unaccounted for to this day.
Each one worth hundreds of billions of won.
And one of them was sitting in a flea market in America?
The thought had barely formed when a status window appeared before his eyes.