Chapter 141
A few days before I was due to leave the country.
One day, I gathered the two undergraduate researchers in the lab.
“Okay! Guys! I have an announcement!”
“Yes?”
Jae-hyeok oppa looked up from his laptop.
So-young unni also lifted her gaze from the paper she had been reading.
“I'm going to America next week. For a month.”
“What? A whole month?”
“Yep!”
I climbed onto the footstool and planted both hands on my hips.
“I'm attending the International Congress of Mathematicians!”
“Ah, you mean the ICM?”
Jae-hyeok oppa nodded.
“Whoa! You know about it too?”
“Of course. It takes place once every four years.”
“That's right!”
I explained excitedly.
“It's an event where thousands of mathematicians from around the world gather! I've also been invited to give a lecture!”
“Wow…”
“I have a few other things to take care of after the conference, so I'm making it a month-long trip.”
“Understood. Oh, and congratulations on being invited to give a lecture.”
Jae-hyeok oppa nodded without raising any particular questions.
Thank goodness.
It would've been troublesome if they'd started asking too many questions.
“Then what are we supposed to do while you're gone?”
“Study, of course!”
Both their expressions grew uneasy.
“Don't worry! I won't leave you to fend for yourselves just because I'm gone!”
I declared from atop the footstool.
“I'll check your progress through online video meetings!”
“Video meetings?”
“Yep! Once a week!”
When I thought about it, the world really had gotten convenient.
In the old days, if a professor went abroad for a month, the entire lab would've come to a standstill.
The students they supervised would be left not knowing what to do, and the professor would have to start looking after them from scratch upon returning.
But now, as long as you have an Internet connection, you can talk face-to-face even from the other side of the world.
You can share your screen and look at equations together, and if necessary, open a writing program and write equations right there.
These days, apparently it's also common for international collaborators to write papers without seeing each other's faces even once for years.
So there was absolutely no reason my students' studies should be affected just because I was leaving the country.
“I'll have you give seminar presentations during the video meetings!”
“Presentations?”
“Yep! You'll each explain what you've read in the papers over the past week to the other person!”
“But the papers were all incredibly difficult… I don't know if I'll be able to explain them well…”
They were both still newbies, so apparently they had an allergy to seminar presentations.
“But this is a necessary process. When you explain something to someone else, you learn exactly what you don't know.”
This was something I was absolutely certain about.
When you read a paper alone, it's easy to fall into the illusion that you understand it.
As you follow the sentences with your eyes and nod along, your brain automatically decides that you understand them.
But when you try to explain the content to someone else, you'll inevitably reach a point where the words just won't come out.
That's the part you don't know.
“I usually chatter away about math to my family, too. It's nice because every time I do, I can check what I know and what I don't.”
“That's right. When I wrote the paper on the Riemann theorem with Professor A-yeon Yoo, we explained the parts we knew to each other and caught logical errors that way.”
Mom, who had been reading a paper beside us, chimed in too.
“Exactly. Jae-hyeok oppa and So-young unni need to get used to presenting to other people, too!”
“Understood, Professor.”
The two nodded.
“Then I'll share the Zoom link!”
I created a meeting-room link and sent it to the two of them.
“You won't need to make a new one every time; we'll keep using this one! Save it!”
“Yes, I got it.”
“Me too.”
✒️✒️✒️
“By the way, Professor, what's the time difference with America?”
So-young unni asked.
“Oh, good question! The eastern United States is thirteen hours behind Korea!”
“Thirteen hours?”
“Yep! So when it's 9 p.m. in Korea, it'll be 8 a.m. where I am!”
“Oh, I see.”
“So we'll do the seminar presentations at 9 p.m.! From my perspective, it'll be a good-morning meeting!”
“That time works for me.”
“Me too.”
So-young unni nodded calmly too.
“Ooh! Then it's set for nine in the evening!”
I just loved how chill the students in our lab were.
“Oh, and I'll send the paper list again too!”
I attached a file and sent them an email.
“Since I'll be gone for a month, I added a few more so you wouldn't be bored!”
Jae-hyeok oppa opened the email.
Then he looked down at the screen and froze.
“P-Professor?”
“Yep?”
“There were originally twelve papers, but now there are eighteen.”
“I added six more!”
So-young unni had already gone completely silent.
She simply downloaded the file in silence, then quietly closed her laptop.
She moved like someone who had already resigned herself to her fate.
“Nihihi. I'm not saying you have to understand everything before you come back!”
I waved both hands frantically.
“Just read them and mark the parts where you get stuck! We can go over those together on Zoom!”
“Okaaay…”
“…Understood.”
Their replies sounded oddly drained.
Huh?
I'd given them a whole pile of fun reading for the month, so why were they acting like that?
✒️✒️✒️
Just as we were finishing up the announcements.
“Oh, right. Professor A-yeon Yoo.”
“Yes?”
“Are you getting the Fields Medal this time, by any chance?”
So-young unni suddenly tossed out the awkward question in a perfectly ordinary voice.
“Heeeeeek…!”
I sprang straight up on the spot.
“I-I don't really know anything about that! It's the committee's decision! I'm just going to attend the conference! I have a lecture to give too! A-And that's not something you can just talk about carelessly! No, how would I even know?!”
I waved both hands wildly and babbled incoherently.
And then, when I suddenly came to my senses.
The two of them were staring at me intently.
‘Oh no, I'm screwed!’
I cleared my throat and straightened my posture.
“Ahem.”
First, stay calm.
If I stayed calm, I could get past this smoothly. Not Yoo A-yeon-ly, though.
From this moment on, I was Yoo A-yeon, the embodiment of composure.
“So-young unni. What makes you think that?”
“No, not really… It's just that you're a strong candidate this time. You even proved the Riemann theorem.”
So-young unni said matter-of-factly.
It was an utterly obvious conclusion, after all.
The idea that someone who had solved a Millennium Prize Problem would be mentioned as a Fields Medal candidate was about as obvious as saying rocks were hard and the sky was blue.
People online would already be talking about it, and every math student had probably thought about it at least once.
In other words, So-young unni hadn't figured out anything in particular.
She'd simply voiced an ordinary guess that anyone could make.
But that was precisely what made it even more awkward.
The less she knew when she asked, the more suspicious my reaction would look!
I thought for a moment, then answered hesitantly.
“I'm sorry, So-young unni, but that's confidential, so I can't tell you anything more…!”
As soon as I said it, I froze.
Huh?
Wait a minute.
Didn't the very fact that I'd called it a secret give her the answer?
If I weren't getting the Fields Medal, I could've simply said no!
Sweat trickled down my face.
I waited nervously for So-young unni's reaction.
Was she going to start grilling me?
Is it true? When did you find out? When will it be announced?
Something like that.
But then.
“Oh, so it was a secret.”
So-young unni nodded very matter-of-factly.
“That explains it. Got it.”
“…Huh?”
With that, So-young unni returned to her seat.
Scribble-scribble-.
Then she opened the paper she'd been reading earlier and began studying again, writing equations in her notebook.
I stood atop the footstool and stared blankly at her.
That's it?
Her response was so cool that I was flustered instead.
Wouldn't most people get a little more curious after hearing something like that?
At the very least, shouldn't there have been a reaction like, Whoa, that's amazing?
I subtly glanced to the side.
Jae-hyeok oppa had already turned his attention back to his laptop too.
But the corners of his mouth had lifted ever so slightly, making it clear that he'd caught on to something.
Neither of them said a word.
If anything, this was even scarier!
“Heh.”
Mom also covered her mouth with her hand and smiled contentedly.
Feeling awkward, I cleared my throat once more and hurriedly changed the subject.
“Ahem! Anyway! Give the papers I sent you a good read, and prepare well for the seminars!”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Jae-hyeok oppa and So-young unni answered at the same time.
I hopped down from the footstool and returned to my spot.
Then I sat in my chair and stared fixedly out the window.
‘I wish the opening ceremony would hurry up and get here.’