Chapter 58
The morning after the academic conference ended.
“Mmm-mmm…”
Chirp chirp-.
I woke up to the chirping of an early bird and greeted the Paris morning.
Just as I was about to get up, Mom was holding up her phone.
“Ayeon, you're up early?”
“Yeah…”
Rub-rub-.
I rubbed my sleepy eyes.
When I looked over, Dad and Arin were fast asleep, snoring softly.
“Ayeon, look at this.”
Mom held out her phone screen.
A message had come in from overseas.
— $1,000,000 deposited into Yoo Ayeon's account
— Sender: Clay Mathematics Institute
Since I still didn't have a smartphone, I'd previously set up the deposit and withdrawal notifications to go to Mom instead.
“One million dollars? You really got it…?”
“Of course. Now it's really Ayeon's money.”
Rub-rub-.
I rubbed my eyes again and looked at the screen.
“Heehee-.”
I had literally become millionaire Yoo Ayeon!
But.
More than the one million dollars right in front of me,
there was something that made me even happier.
It was that, at yesterday's academic conference, my name had been attached to the theorem in my paper!
I was even happier to become the creator of Ayeon's theorem than to have one million dollars in cash.
Maybe because I was still so young.
Getting lots of applause felt better than having a lot of money.
Of course, that doesn't mean getting one million dollars isn't great. This is exciting enough too.
“Mom, how much is one million dollars in Korean won right now?”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Mom searched the dollar exchange rate and showed it to me.
“Oh my gosh…”
It had definitely been 1.47 billion won before coming to Paris.
And when we opened the foreign-currency account, it had been 1.49 billion won.
And now, after receiving the prize money, it was 1.51 billion won!
To have made an extra 40 million won in just two weeks without doing anything…!
I couldn't tell whether I should be happy about that or feel weird about it... it was such an odd feeling.
“Haaam…”
Before I knew it, Dad had stretched and come over.
“Oh, it’s been deposited?”
“Yep!”
“Our daughter is rich now.”
“Hehe.”
“You’ve got more money than Dad.”
“Hee-hee.”
“…I expected this, but it still feels weird. To lose in wealth to my six-year-old daughter.”
Dad scratched the back of his head, looking a little lost in thought.
“Well, what’s good is good. Ayeon, come here!”
“Eek!”
Dad abruptly grabbed me around the waist, lifted me up, and gave me a first-class airplane ride.
“Heh-heh-heh!”
Up and down~
Feeling that buoyant weightlessness as my body floated, I burst into peals of laughter.
At some point, Arin had gotten up too.
Our family got ready to head out by washing up and brushing our teeth.
Brush-brush-.
Splash-splash-.
“There are four days left until Dad goes back to Korea, so let's go see lots of things in the meantime.”
We changed into comfortable clothes for walking.
Mom and Dad put on clothes with zippered pockets instead of carrying bags, as a precaution against pickpockets, and put their passports and cash inside.
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The Louvre Museum.
At the entrance, Arin looked up at the building and said,
“Ah, so this is where the diamonds were stolen!”
“Arin, is that really your first impression of the museum?”
“I saw it on the news! A bunch of thieves used drills—drdrdrdr- to bore holes in the wall and steal the diamonds!”
Hup-!
I clamped my hand over Arin's mouth.
Sneak-.
Then I looked around to gauge the people nearby.
Because the diamond-theft incident might be a sensitive topic to bring up here.
Fortunately, the nearby staff member seemed not to understand Korean, so there was no reaction.
“Arin, the Louvre has the Mona Lisa. It's the most famous painting in the world.”
“They have the Mona Lisa at the place where the diamonds were stolen too?”
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
It seemed the diamond theft incident had really left an impression on Arin.
The Mona Lisa herself, who probably used to walk around here with a bit of swagger, might burst into tears if she heard that.
‘...Huh? Come to think of it, wasn't the Mona Lisa also famous because it was stolen?’
It was stolen in 1911, splashed across headlines all over the world, and because of that, the Mona Lisa became the most famous painting in the world.
Maybe other people, too, are most interested not in the artwork's inherent value, but in the theft scandal itself, just like Arin.
People are creatures that live by consuming information, after all.
“…Anyway, Arin, a museum is a public place, so you need to be quiet, okay?”
“Got it-.”
Mom and Dad also reminded us.
“Our girls, there are a lot of people inside the museum, so you absolutely must not let go of Mom and Dad's hands, okay?”
“Yeees-.”
We held hands tightly and went inside through the glass pyramid.
The inside was huge and packed with people.
We kept looking around at the strangely fascinating artifacts and marveling.
“Oooooh-.”
“Unnie, but why is this in France? Isn't this Egyptian?”
Arin remembered the Egypt-like artifact she had seen in a children's general-knowledge book and asked.
Well, you see... France had taken them from other countries by force—
—but saying that would hardly be good for a child's emotional development, would it?
“…There were complicated adult reasons that children wouldn't understand.”
“…? Is that so? But you're a child too, Unnie.”
“So I don't really know either.”
“Tch. What even is that?”
We moved to the room where the Mona Lisa was.
Many people gathered to see the Mona Lisa were holding their phone cameras high and snapping photos, click-click-.
Our family squeezed our way through the crowd, and then peeked our heads out to look at the Mona Lisa.
Even with the still-perfect eyesight of a child who doesn't use a phone at night, it was barely visible.
Arin tilted her head.
“Eh? It's super tiny…”
“Right? It's smaller than you'd think, isn't it?”
“But isn't this just a picture of a lady? Our mom is way prettier!”
“Hehe, Arin, thanks for complimenting Mom.”
Mom's lips twitched upward at the praise.
She really was the one who passed on the praise-loving genes to us.
“Unnie, why is that lady so famous?”
“Actually, that painting had been stolen too—100 years ago, no less.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah. That's why it got famous, I think.”
“Heeey…”
Arin sneaked one more glance at the Mona Lisa.
“Where are the stolen diamonds?”
“…They still haven't found those.”
“Ah, I see.”
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Notre-Dame Cathedral.
When its exterior came into view, my steps slowed.
“Whoa... it's huge.”
A building that seemed to have been packed full of nothing but grandeur.
At that scale, my mouth fell open without me realizing it.
I almost ended up drooling.
Arin leaned her head all the way back to look up at the building.
“Gasp! Unnie, look over there! There's someone up there!”
“It's a building people are meant to go up.”
“Can we go inside too?”
“Yep. Let's go up together!”
We went inside.
“Wow…”
A gigantic cross, gigantic stained glass, and a gigantic pipe organ.
Our family doesn't really go to church, but I couldn't help feeling reverent, so I neatly clasped my hands and walked around politely.
It was so magnificent that if a Christian saw it, they'd probably shed tears of emotion.
We climbed the stairs, heave-ho-.
“Huff... huff... this is way too hard...!”
Once we finally reached the lookout, we could see the Paris scenery on a clear day.
Far away, the Eiffel Tower looked as tiny as a pinky fingernail.
Arin pointed with her finger.
“Eppelle Tab!”
“We went there the day before yesterday.”
“It looks prettier from far away.”
A cool breeze blew.
My hair fluttered lightly.
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Rumble-.
When evening came, we went to a nearby Paris restaurant.
We opened the menu and ordered things like croque-monsieur, beef bourguignon, ratatouille, and crêpes.
I said to Arin, who was peering at the menu,
“Arin. Do you know what kind of dish ratatouille is?”
“What is it?”
“A long time ago, there was a rat named Ratatouille. It cooked this and that and served it to customers, and it was incredibly delicious. That's how it got the name Ratatouille.”
“Haa...? Unnie. I'm four now, you know. Do you think I'll keep falling for weird lies like that?”
Hmph-.
Arin puffed out her cheeks a little.
Ah... so she doesn't know about the classic animated masterpiece.
Someone born in 2022 would definitely have no idea.
Of course, I wasn't really one to talk, being born in 2020.
“Ayeon's right. They say even gourmets were licking their fingers clean after eating that rat's cooking.”
“Yep. Mom saw it on TV too. The part where the rat sprinkles seasoning into the soup.”
“Huh, Mom too...? Oh, Dad too? That doesn't make sense... This is real?”
There was an old saying called sam-in-seong-ho.
It means that if three people all say the same thing, even a tiger can be made to appear.
And just like that.
In Arin's mind, ratatouille had now been firmly established as a dish truly made by rats.
“…Doesn't that violate the food hygiene law?”
“They say there weren't any hygiene laws back then. Of course, now humans make it all, so you don't have to worry about hygiene.”
“Hmm...”
Hmm~
Arin half-lidded her eyes with a dubious expression.
At that sight, Mom, Dad, and I struggled to hold back our snickering.
After a while, the food came out.
Nom nom chomp chomp-.
“Mmm! Tasty!”
Thankfully.
Once it was in her mouth, Arin ate it without caring about rat stories or anything else.
“Right? It's yummy, isn't it?”
“Bonjour! Merci!”
She seemed to be in a good mood, because Arin even raised her hand and greeted the waiter and the people at the next table.
As the cute little girl greeted them cheerfully, everyone looked at her with pleased smiles.
“Bonsoir!”
“Bonsoir!”
“Hee-hee.”
Night had settled over Paris outside the window.
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One way or another,
our family managed to cover all the famous Paris tourist spots over four days.
“Now Dad has to go back to Korea.”
He had coordinated with his company in advance to take a week off, so he had no choice but to go back to Korea.
It was a little disappointing, but it was fine.
We'd already toured the famous sights and taken lots of photos, click-!
The next day, we went to the airport to see Dad off.
“Bye, Dad-.”
Bye-bye-.
We waved our hands.
“Have fun, my girls.”
Dad had a strangely happy expression at the thought of spending the remaining week at home enjoying chicken and beer by himself. He'd probably tear through Zelda and Pokémon too within a week.
We returned to the hotel.
Flop-.
We dived onto the fluffy mattress.
“Haaah... it's so soft and comfy...”
Maybe because we'd been walking so much these past few days, exhaustion quickly started to set in.
“Unnie, let's not go out today and just play chess.”
Thump. Thump.
Arin took the chessboard out of the suitcase and thumped the mattress with it.
“I was tired anyway. Let's take it easy and just play some chess today. The tournament's coming up soon, after all.”
We wiggled around on the bed and played chess all day long.
“Mom's going to lie down and rest a bit too...”
“Really? Arin, come here! Let's give Mom a massage together!”
Knead-knead-.
And while we were at it, we pressed on Mom's calves as she lay there resting.
“Haaah... Ayeon, Arin, you're such good daughters...”
Zzz-.
Mom couldn't withstand our calf kneading and fell asleep.
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A few days later.
The French FIDE Youth Chess Tournament began.