Smartphone Return

I decided to stop looking into Shin Ijun online.

There weren't that many mentions of him to begin with.

And all of them were stuck five years in the past.

If anyone was still talking about someone who died five years ago, it would be outside the internet, not on it.

Past life was the past life.

Present life was the present life.

Because now I was Yoo Ayeon.

So now I had to stir up the bait myself!

Heehee.

Unnie- play with me-.

Wiggle wiggle~

Arin seemed bored, so she shook my body.

Later, Arin.

I immediately pressed the post button.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Typing on the smartphone with my tiny hands took quite a while.

[Title: I think I solved the Riemann Hypothesis]

[Author: IQSuperGenius]

The proof is done, and I've almost finished the paper too. I'll upload it within a few months, so check arXiv later.

- Idiot.

- Don't feed the troll.

- Just post it now.

- Wow, that's amazing. *clap clap clap clap~

- Navier-Stokes was solved last week, and P-NP was solved the day before yesterday, did you know? Only on this board.

- (Congrats on proving the Riemann Hypothesis emote)

(*Navier-Stokes, P-NP: two of the seven great mathematical problems on the same level as the Riemann Hypothesis)

Hmm...

That reaction wasn't all that satisfying.

Well, that made sense.

There are so many people who stir up attention by claiming they've solved a hard problem.

Of course, I'd actually succeeded in proving it, unlike those flashy attention-seeking frauds.

But there wasn't really any way to prove that right now.

Come to think of it, what's with that emote?

Just how many trolls had claimed to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, anyway!

After waiting a bit, more comments came in.

- (ㅇㅇ(121.182)) : How high is your IQ that you use a nickname like that?

I grinned at that comment.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

- ㄴ(IQSuperGenius) : Wechsler 160.

Hmph.

If someone asked for my IQ, it was only right to answer personally.

I would never voluntarily reveal my IQ to others-?

But if you were that curious, I didn't really have a reason not to tell you-?

Unnie- unnie- I'm bored-.

Wiggle wiggle~

Just a sec.

As I waited, replies kept coming.

- ㄴ (ㅇㅇ(121.182)) : Bullshit.

Muu-.

My cheeks puffed out.

- ㄴ(IQSuperGenius) : I'm serious...

- ㄴ (ㅇㅇ(121.182)) : If there's no proof, then what is it?

Fortunately, this was something I could prove.

I sprang up from the sofa.

Arin, who had been shaking me beside me, looked delighted.

"Unnie-! Are you going to play with me?"

"Nope. Unnie's in a keyboard battle right now. Wait a little."

"What's a keyboard battle...?"

I hurried into the master bedroom.

'The IQ test results I got ages ago should be in the wardrobe drawer...'

Rummage, rummage-.

Rummage, rummage-.

Rummage, rummage-.

But no matter how hard I looked, there wasn't even a trace of the test results.

It had been 2 years and 10 months since I took the IQ test.

I had never once taken it out and looked at it.

Because I already knew I had perfect scores in every field, there was no need to look at it again.

So of course I couldn't find it when I went looking again.

"Aww..."

Pout-.

It wouldn't matter if I left without proof.

That guy would definitely think I was a bragging little liar.

And that felt like losing in its own way, which I hated.

It couldn't be helped.

If I was going to be a lying little brat either way, then I'd just have to use the forbidden secret technique only brats can use...!

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I carefully typed out a certain sentence and copied it.

Then I pasted it in as-is.

- ㄴ (IQSuperGenius) : This comment is invisible to anyone with an IQ below 160.

- ㄴ (ㅇㅇ(121.182)) : ? What the hell is this bullshit

- ㄴ (IQSuperGenius) : This comment is invisible to anyone with an IQ below 160.

- ㄴ (ㅇㅇ(121.182)) : Damn it, brat.

- ㄴ (IQSuperGenius) : This comment is invisible to anyone with an IQ below 160.

- ㄴ (IQSuperGenius) : This comment is invisible to anyone with an IQ below 160.

- ㄴ (IQSuperGenius) : This comment is invisible to anyone with an IQ below 160.

The guy turned tail and ran.

In other words, it was my victory.

Heh-heh-heh.

For a moment, I savored the joy of defeating some faceless stranger on the internet.

'The dopamine shower that comes after victory is so delightful-!'

And then, at that very moment.

I heard a heartbroken crying voice from the living room.

"Waaah!"

"A-Arin, why are you crying?"

As soon as Mom heard Arin's voice, she came out of the room, hugged Arin tightly, and patted her back.

"Waaah! Unnie... sob... won't play with me! She keeps looking at her phone... hic... I hate you, unnie!"

Rumble-.

'Hate... hate... hate...? I... am hated?'

The moment I heard that, it felt as if a huge wedge had been slammed straight into my chest.

To hear those words from Arin of all people.

Thud-.

My legs gave out and I sank to the floor.

I checked the time on my smartphone clock.

It felt like only a very short time had passed, but before I knew it, more than two hours had gone by.

'What... was I doing right now?'

I made my little sister cry.

I hurt my little sister's feelings.

Realizing that, embarrassment washed over me belatedly.

After only one day of having a smartphone, I got so absorbed in ego-searching and forum lurking that I ignored my little sister?

My precious little sister, whom I'd held hands with and hugged every day since the day she was born?

'Don't forget. Yoo Ayeon. I am Yoo Arin's older sister. The older sister who sets an example for her little sister.'

Smack!

I slapped both of my cheeks hard with my palms.

'Ow-!'

It hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes.

But if it didn't hurt this much, I'd definitely never come to my senses.

The temptation of smartphones and the internet is enormous.

Unlike reading books, which requires a lot of brainpower, this stuff makes dopamine burst even if you watch it mindlessly.

I was a child who knew how to objectively assess herself.

If I were put through the marshmallow test, I'd probably be the type to fail and eat the marshmallow in front of me.

Impulse control isn't an intelligence issue; it's a hormone-system issue.

At the very least, five-year-old Yoo Ayeon still didn't have a hormone system mature enough to fully restrain her desires.

Even if I reflected on today's incident, someday I'd probably neglect my family again.

My parents had decided that limiting my phone use to under three hours a day was fine, but I thought differently.

For me right now, the smartphone was poison.

Once I'd finished thinking that far, I picked up the smartphone with a solemn expression and walked over to Mom.

"Mom."

I held out the smartphone.

"Please give me a refund for this."

Blink blink-.

Mom blinked.

"Ayeon, are you okay? You liked it so much..."

Shake-shake-.

I shook my head.

"Mm-mm. No. I don't need it right now. I'll only use Mom's laptop for the internet when I really, really need to."

Mom studied my face for a while before taking the smartphone.

"Our Ayeon, you're so good."

Pat pat.

Mom smiled gently and stroked my head.

'Farewell, my Apple phone.... Even though I only used you for two hours, it was fun being together...'

I'm sorry I couldn't be a better owner-

I gave it a brief farewell in my heart.

Then I walked up to Arin, who was sniffling in Mom's arms, and met her eyes.

"Arin. I'm sorry. Unnie was wrong. I won't do it again."

"...Really?"

"Yeah. Really. I don't have a phone anymore. I gave it up because I want to play with Arin more."

"Sniffle... Unnie."

"Yeah?"

"Then hug me."

Whoosh-.

I spread my arms.

Arin climbed down from Mom's arms and burrowed into mine.

Squeeze-

It was a much smaller five-year-old hug than Mom's broad one, but Arin liked this place better.

Before I knew it, Arin had stopped crying and was breathing softly in her sleep.

✒️✒️✒️

The Riemann Hypothesis proof paper had already passed 120 pages before I knew it.

Well, I'd spent a grand total of two years on it, so it'd be unfair if it didn't reach the length of a whole book.

The portion taken up by the "key idea only I could have come up with" was probably no more than about 10 percent.

Why was it so long?

Proving a problem that had gone unsolved for centuries felt like stacking a brick tower: adding one idea of mine on top of all the foundational theory accumulated over the years.

On top of that, the logical flow had to be mathematically rigorous, with not a single crack in it.

So I had to go through the trouble of proving every theorem and lemma that was already known, from the very beginning.

As a result, the length got bloated like this.

Andrew Wiles's paper proving Fermat's Last Theorem reportedly clocked in at 130 pages, didn't it?

Clack-clack-.

The paper work with Mom's help was almost finished now.

To meet the standards of me, who had published several papers in top-tier journals in my past life.

After revising it over and over and over again.

"Hmm... Hmmmm... Hmmmmmm..."

But I still wasn't satisfied, and I kept checking and rechecking and rechecking whether there were any typos or logic errors.

"Hmmmmm..."

"Hey, Ayeon, don't you think you can stop revising now? Dad even took the paper to work to check for typos... and Mom's starting to say her lower back, neck, shoulders, wrists, and fingers all hurt..."

Shake-shake-.

"No-no-no... If I present the paper and there's even one error I missed, it'll be so embarrassing... Then I'd get less applause and praise...!!! I'd be so embarrassed I'd have to hit the blankets for days...!"

"Sob... Professor Shin Ijun’s terrifying side is starting to show through in Ayeon..."

"Ugh... it reminds me of that nightmare from when I prepared for the Olympiad with Ijun..."

But after repeatedly staring at the paper with paranoid obsession, eyes blazing, and pestering Mom and Dad over and over...

"Heh-heh-heh! It's done! Done done done! It's really, truly, finally done! I'm satisfied with this!"

I had finished the paper.

"At, at last..."

Thud-.

Exhausted, Mom collapsed face-first in front of the laptop.

"I-it's over, Ayeon? Woooow, finally!"

Dad, who had even kept helping me search for typos after getting off work, cheered too, throwing his hands up.

"You all worked so hard-!"

I'd been working Mom and Dad pretty hard with the detailed revisions lately.

"Shh, quiet-. Arin's waking up."

"Hic-."

At Mom's warning, Dad clamped his mouth shut.

"Nihihi. I'll give Mom and Dad praise too!"

Pat pat-

I gently placed my tiny hands on Mom and Dad's heads and stroked them.