Chapter 63
With our two-week stay in France over.
we returned to our beloved home.
Ssshh—haaah—sshh—haaah—.
I took a deep breath of the air of our longed-for home.
I also greeted Topi and Popo, who were facing each other on the blanket, and asked if they’d been doing well.
Hotels are nice, but nothing beats the stability of home.
And the biggest difference.
The Nentendo 2 I’d ordered before leaving had proudly taken its place in front of the TV!
“Waaah!”
Patter-patter-patter—!
The moment I saw it, I was about to kick off my shoes carelessly at the entrance and run over.
Oops—then I turned back and neatly lined up my shoes.
Then I ran, patter-patter-patter, back into the living room.
“It’s a Nentendo!”
This black body. Even the finish looked gorgeous!
I carefully stroked the Nentendo set up in front of the TV.
Its smooth, cool feel was pleasant.
Who am I?
A genius with an IQ of 160, a former Apple phone owner, the first author of the paper proving the Riemann Hypothesis, master of the three sacred tools of outfits, hair, and makeup, a lawyer’s niece, owner of a seal stamp, and owner of a Nentendo.
I’m a Nentendo owner~ I’m a Nentendo owner~
Now I can even be friends with Pika-chu’s Eevee!
“Ayeon, you kept singing about Nentendo this, Nentendo that, and now you got one? Nice.”
Mom came home carrying Arin, who was sleeping soundly, and said,
“Hmph. I’m the Nentendo-owner Yu Ayeon!”
“Dad received the delivered Nentendo in advance and put it away for you. Take a look.”
I opened the Nentendo pouch as Dad said.
Inside were the game chips for Zelda and Pokemon that Dad had been tearing through for a week.
They say Nentendo cartridges taste bitter to stop children from swallowing them... was that true?
Experimental spirit activated.
I stuck out my tongue and went lick—.
Bleh—.
Lick-lick—.
And then I licked it like I was eating a lollipop.
…!
This taste is...!
“Heeeeeck... it’s sooo bitter...!”
Ptui—!
It was so bitter that my face twisted up before I knew it.
“Hng, my cute face got ugly!”
A grimacing face is ugly, you know!
To get rid of the bitterness left in my mouth, I quickly opened the fridge and gulped down some sweet strawberry milk.
“Phew...”
I shouldn’t carelessly put this in my mouth.
I’d better make sure Arin knows that later too.
✒️✒️✒️
Now that I was home, it was time to deal with the work I’d been putting off for a long time.
Huh? What work was I talking about?
Why, ego search, of course!
Tap-tap-tap—.
I opened Mom’s laptop and searched for Yu Ayeon’s name.
An article saying the Riemann Hypothesis had officially been settled as the Riemann Theorem.
An article saying Yu Ayeon had received 1 million dollars at the Millennium Prize ceremony.
The comments under the article were all praise, saying things like, “Yu Ayeon is such a genius, sniff sniff—”
“Hmph.”
I also went into the major mathematics gallery.
[Become an absurdly cute bishoujo VS Receive 1.5 billion won]
I confirmed that an attention-grabbing balance game had made it onto the best-of board.
Before clicking the post, I thought it over.
“Hmm... a cute bishoujo... 1.5 billion won...”
It was a truly difficult question.
Couldn’t I just have both?
With that thought, I clicked the post.
[Title: Become an absurdly cute bishoujo VS Receive 1.5 billion won]
(A photo.jpg of me peeking my head out above a huge panel that says 1 million dollars)
Oh no.
While you were hesitating, Yu Ayeon took everything~~~
Then better luck next time!
- Kraaak, gallery deity, give me back my 1.56251 billion won
- ㄴ What, the exchange rate went up that much already? Shit
- Kraaah, you insolent Math-gaki...!
- ㄴ The moment I saw it, I shouted for a TS bishoujo in 0.1 seconds, so why won't you TS me... sniff sniff
- ㄴ Bro, it’s exam period, get a grip
“Puh-heheh.”
The gallery really still had that primal kind of fun.
But my one-million-dollar prize had already climbed that high?
A month ago it was 1.47 billion won, so without doing anything, it had earned an extra 90 million won in a month!
Should I be happy about this or not...
My feelings became a little complicated.
No, actually, I felt conflicted.
“No idea. I guess I’ll just do some gallery surfing!”
My account had already been exposed, and the mods were letting it slide anyway.
I decided to browse the gallery openly and proudly.
[Title: I Went to the Millennium Prize Ceremony]
[Author: IQ Super Genius]
France was so far away that it was a bit rough...
- Oh, the gallery deity has appeared
- Ayeon, hi
- Ayeon, tomorrow’s my differential geometry exam, so lend me your brain for just one day; at this rate I’m gonna get a C
- ㄴ (IQ Super Genius): How about studying now instead of spending time on gallery surfing?
- ㄴ (cute Miku crying sniffle sniffle emote)
- I watched the ceremony; you were good at chess too?
“Huh?”
- ㄴ (IQ Super Genius): How did you know I entered a chess tournament?
- ㄴ The rumor’s already gone everywhere, hasn’t it? That Yu Ayeon is crushing French kids at chess
- ㄴ (IQ Super Genius): Aha
Looks like the rumor that I’d entered a French chess tournament had spread all the way here.
I thought it would only be broadcast inside France.
How does everybody know about it?
Of course, it came with extra fame, so I wasn’t unhappy about it.
“Then maybe everyone saw Arin’s face too...?”
The star of that chess tournament wasn’t me, but my little sister.
There was no way they wouldn’t have seen her.
Just in case, I opened the chess gallery.
Sure enough, the gallery users were mentioning Yu Arin, the winner of the French under-8 tournament, like crazy.
[I Analyzed Yu Arin’s Tournament Game Records]
[Yu Arin, the GOAT of Korea’s chess prospects]
[Seeing the French people’s mental states break gave me insane catharsis]
“Arin’s already become popular too.”
Even during the close-up coverage, Mom had tried hard to strictly protect Dad’s and Arin’s portrait rights.
But as the saying goes, an awl in your pocket can’t stay hidden forever.
Someone as talented as Arin was probably fated to rise to the surface on her own, no matter how tightly you tried to hide her.
I walked over to Arin, who was lying face-down and solving a puzzle, and said,
“Arin... since it’s come to this, just get famous like your big sis... If you get famous and get lots of clap-clap applause, it’ll feel good...”
But Arin must have been using all her concentration, because she didn’t hear me properly.
“Huh? What did you say, sis?”
“No, nothing. Keep solving your puzzle—”
Arin went back to the puzzle.
Pang—. Pang—.
Arin was wiggling her feet and kicking the blanket pang-pang.
After growing up watching my habits, Arin seemed to have picked up the habit of kicking her feet when she concentrated too.
The influence of the environment you grow up in is really huge.
✒️✒️✒️
My fame on the internet was spreading more and more.
I found myself wanting to become even more famous and be showered with applause.
How could I become more famous...
“Hmm, should I do InstaStar or something...?”
But I’d never once used SNS, including InstaStar, up until now. Even in my past life.
How on earth do you even do that...?
Tap-tap-tap—.
I started searching the internet for information about InstaStar.
“Huh?”
But while searching, this information caught my eye.
It said that the InstaStar platform was deleting large numbers of accounts belonging to children under 13 as part of strengthened child protection policies.
“Hmm.”
Deleting children’s accounts because of child protection policies?
Are there that many downsides to kids using SNS?
I kept looking up what various people had to say.
Since SNS is a platform where you take pictures of your daily life and share them, it seems there are a lot of problems.
First, your private life gets exposed, which can put your personal safety at risk.
If your home area is identified, you could even become a target for crimes by someone with bad intentions.
During the close-up coverage.
The playground scene was even completely cut because it could let people infer the route near our house.
It wasn’t for nothing that Mom put in such strict contract clauses.
It was all done with our safety in mind.
I didn’t want to make all of Mom’s efforts meaningless.
And becoming dependent on other people’s attention was also a problem.
The number of likes, the number of followers, the reactions in the comments.
Those things certainly feel good and give you a rush.
But if you become addicted to them, your brain’s reward system could get damaged.
‘What if I ended up obsessing only over people’s attention...?’
I thought I might lose the joy of researching simply because I loved math.
The feeling I got when reading difficult journals and understanding a concept I hadn’t known before.
The sensation I felt when I went back and completed the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis, resolving every tiny logical leap.
That was what I liked.
I didn’t want that academic passion to disappear.
Clack.
I closed the laptop and took some time for self-reflection.
“Yeah. Right. Moderation is important in everything.”
It was true that I wanted to get super famous and hear people go, “Waaah, Yu Ayeon is amazing! Clap clap clap clap—”
I would keep that feeling.
But I didn’t want to live a life obsessed with that alone.
The cozy, warm time I spent with Mom, Dad, and Arin.
I was afraid I’d ignore those things and end up only staring at the number of likes.
And honestly.
I couldn’t even be sure how I’d react if I ever got fewer likes at some point.
Because I’m a very sensitive six-year-old.
“Yeah. I’m not going to do InstaStar.”
SNS seems to have more harm than benefit.
Excessive SNS use is already being pointed to as one of the causes of rising depression rates worldwide.
Adults and teenagers are affected by SNS, so children whose emotions are still developing would probably be even more sensitive to it.
And as I thought that,
I gently looked back at myself and began self-reflection.
“I should probably do ego search and gallery surfing in moderation too...”
Hunting for posts that mention my name.
Puffing up proudly because I’d become somewhat famous in the gallery.
It’s fun, but if I overdo it, I’ll end up spending too much energy on that alone.
Then the time I spend focusing on what’s truly important would decrease.
Dodo-dodo—.
I went to the study and picked up this month’s new issue of a math journal.
It had clearly been days since it was delivered, but the plastic wrap still hadn’t been removed.
Rrrip—!
I tore open the plastic and opened the journal.
“...Oh! There’s an interesting paper in combinatorics?”
I read the journal, completely absorbed.
Bzz-bzz—.
My feet, unable to reach the floor, wiggled in the air.