Chapter 32
[Why is Wayo so good at solving problems?]
Fuck, my burger;;
-For realㅋㅋ
-He really is solving them well
-He knows this??
[Honestly, though, isn't he just a little above average?]
Looking at this, I knew all of them too.
-VTubers normally don't know this stuffㅇㅇ
ㄴ Average VTuber levelㅋㅋ
ㄴ ㄴㄴ Wayo-hwang is such a tiny streamer that he's solving them without reading the room
ㄴ For realㅋㅋ
ㄴ They're supposed to pretend not to know and do the WWE routineㅋㅋ
[Wayo-hwang is funny as hell though]
He has normal intelligence, yet he plays Rell like that??
-For realㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-The lane-phase details are still there, though
ㄴ Only the lane phase is alive, fuck;;
-Wayo-hwang obviously has some intelligence if you look at him
ㄴ ??
[What intelligence does Wayo-hwang have, fuck]
(Wayo's gameplay compilation)
He's just a primitive bastard who headbutts everything.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Wow, is headbutting literally all he does?
-That's What, though
ㄴ For real, that's the What spirit
[How the hell do you solve four-character idioms???]
I could solve the others too, but fuck, where do you even learn that stuff?
-Wayo-hwang's mentor is ancient as fuck, that's why
ㄴ The mentor he always talks about??
ㄴ Yeahㅇㅇ
-The mentor teacher is definitely a Chinese classics teacher
ㄴ For real, definitelyㅋㅋ
ㄴ Chinese classics teacher special: talks all day through four-character idioms
[So is Wayo-hwang a college graduate??]
What's his major?
-I don't know, it's fucking ambiguous
ㄴ For real
-Seeing him unable to solve science, he's not a STEM guy
ㄴ Maybe he's pretending not to know because it's related?
ㄴ Huh??
ㄴ This was it all alongㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ (Wayo-bird missed calls +99)
ㄴ What kind of bottom-tier school did Wayo-bird even attend?ㅋㅋ
[Honestly, if some bastard can get all five oceans and six continents and the geography questions right,]
How can he not know hydrogen's chemical symbol?
Isn't it just an act??
-For real; first time I've seen a VTuber get the five oceans and six continents rightㅋㅋ
-The fact that he just skipped it makes me think he might really be pretending not to know
-For real;;
-Wayo-hwang's playing dumb is something else, bb
[Wayo-hwang finally enters the math sectionㅋㅋ]
You can tell just by looking here.
-I've never seen a VTuber solve problems hereㅋㅋ
ㄴ For real, this place is just a graveyard
-Wayo-hwang might be different
[What is this guy?ㅋㅋ]
(Wayo charging straight toward the hard problem)
He just skips everything?
-?
-He must be incredibly confidentㄷㄷ
-Isn't that one hard?
ㄴ Yeah, normal people can't solve it unless they're studying for an exam
[???]
Wait, can you do that in your head?
-I had my notebook out solving it, what the hell
-Didn't he ask an AI?
ㄴ For real;;
[His dad is a math teacher???]
Game over, bustedㅋㅋ You're a STEM guy.
-No wonder, fuck, his score calculations were perfectㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ Wow, he deliberately saved it for the end
-Wayo-hwang is a STEM guy??
ㄴ If his dad's a math teacher, he definitely is
ㄴ For real, there was no way he wouldn't be influenced
[I thought Wayo-hwang was a chaebol parachute hire,]
but his father-in-law is a math teacher;;
-For real;;
-Then what's Wayo-hwang's job??
ㄴ Isn't he some kind of freelancer?
ㄴ Looking at his broadcast hours, the odds-on favorite is a foreign companyㅇㅇ
[So Wayo-hwang is]
a super-elite who clocks in remotely to Silicon Valley?
And streaming is just a hobby??
-So all those business trips were to Silicon Valleyㅋㅋ
-Kyaㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-For real, if that's true, it's understandable he'd abandon the stream
ㄴ How insane is the work-life balance over there??
ㄴ Wayo-hwang's abilities are just that insaneㅇㅇ
[Wayo-dogs have really lost their minds]
Silicon Valley, my ass.
Let's see how far they take this.
-For realㅋㅋㅋ
-The Wayo-dog bastards are so fucking overdramaticㅋㅋ
ㄴ But if that's not it, why isn't he full-time??
ㄴ How the hell would I know
-He's probably just a moderately successful freelancer
ㄴ For real, that's the odds-on favoriteㅋㅋ
[So what's this “ban on walks”?]
Does it mean don't go to other streams?
-Yeah;;
-Haㅋㅋ
-What happens if you go?
ㄴ If you go, you go..
-Ban on walksㅋㅋ Wayo-hwang really is a tiny streamerㅋㅋ
ㄴ Ah..
**
Once upon a time.
So, when I was around four.
Before I had become a child model, I spent the brutal boredom of early childhood playing with my little brother and watching cartoons about masked heroes.
‘Ahyeon knows this too~?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
Since I'd learned to talk unusually early and knew a lot about all sorts of things.
‘Daughter~ Want to try solving this?’
My father, who had earned his PhD and was working as a researcher at a company at the time,
had once taken an interest in his daughter's intelligence.
‘Like this?’
‘?! Th-this too….’
‘I did them all.’
‘!!!!!!!!!!’
When I solved the problem in one go, all hell broke loose.
It wasn't a difficult problem, just simple addition.
‘My daughter's destined for mathematics!!’
Looking back, it really was the sort of problem that made a four-year-old sound like a genius.
'My princess, want to try this too?'
Thus, with my father's mathematical prostate stimulated, he started bringing me all sorts of problems.
‘N-no, I don't want to solve it.’
‘W-why not….’
‘I don't like numbers.’
Luckily, I sensed that something was off and refused.
I nearly ended up at a gifted kindergarten snapping the fingers of actual genius kids.
Well, anyway.
‘Daughter~ You're starting middle school soon, right? Want to preview the material with Dad?’
‘Huh? Oh, I've given up on math.’
‘Huh? Why, why?’
‘I think I can make a living as a model, so what do I need math for?’
After that, his daughter became a model and gave up on math.
‘Heroes don't study stuff like that.’
‘Son, what are you talking about…!’
Because Aseong, who had been exposed to weird ideas by his older sister during puberty, also walked the path of a math dropout (though of course he regretted it after retaking the entrance exam),
‘But Dad's a math professor….’
As the only mathematician in the family, my father endured his loneliness all by himself.
Apparently, asking him about it during the Holmes game had triggered something.
“Daughter, I'm going to a conference this time. Want to come with Dad?”
“Huh? Me?”
Considering he'd recommended a math conference, something he'd never done before.
Shouldn't he be asking Aseong, who's in college?
“It'd be nice for father and daughter to go out together after so long.”
“Still, a conference is a bit… If it's clothes shopping, I'll go.”
“...Ahem, I'll go alone.”
Maybe he remembered taking me to the department store for my birthday last time.
My father went pale and retreated.
Tsk, did he hate that so much?
It had been the effort of a model daughter trying to dress up her professor father, who wore nothing but checkered shirts.
For reference, I lead the family's fashion.
I wasn't interested in it originally either, but after modeling for about ten years, my eye for fashion opened up.
Maybe my mother was the sole exception.
The mother who provided the genetic foundation for my sibling and me had always dressed well.
Anyway, though I beat my father back once,
he didn't give up easily even after that.
“Daughter, did you know?”
“Yes? Know what?”
“Even a runway route is ultimately geometry—the direction a model walks, where she turns, even the angle of her gaze, all of it is calculated….”
“Ah, yes. Fascinating.”
He even brought up geometry out of nowhere.
“This photo has such a lovely composition. It differs quite a bit from the golden ratio, but….”
“That is a compliment, right?”
He would sit beside me and mutter things like that while looking at a magazine.
“Ahem, of course.”
For reference, the magazine my father was looking at contained the photos I'd taken beneath the cherry blossoms last time.
[Domestic model Kim Ahyeon, signed to global brand Andel, exudes an air of mystery beneath cherry blossoms in a departure from her previous image….]
I remembered the article that had come out about this magazine.
'Roselia, have you seen this?'
‘Did you bribe the reporter with a meal or something?’
‘Of course not.’
It was written so over-the-top that Roselia and I laughed while reading it.
‘They have been writing about me pretty favorably lately.’
This article included.
This sort of thing had been happening a lot lately.
Should I say that little articles came out whenever anything happened?
Seeing familiar names among the reporters, it seemed people who specialized in covering me had appeared.
Andel really did carry some weight.
It wasn't as if there had never been articles before, but back then they tended to be one-off pieces.
Maybe people really did need a brand behind them.
With the title ‘Andel exclusive model,’ I could feel the difference in attention firsthand.
“More importantly, Daughter.”
As I was thinking about all the articles that had been coming out lately,
my father beside me spoke again.
“Ah, yes.”
“Ahem, I missed my chance to ask last time. What was that problem?”
“Huh? Oh. It just came up while I was talking to a friend on the phone.”
“Really? You didn't happen to take an interest, did you?”
As he asked, he stole a glance at me from behind his intellectual-looking glasses.
Since his daughter had gone into the arts and his son had gone into mechanical engineering,
the hope of a fifty-something professor whose dream of publishing a paper with his children had collapsed was visible in that gaze, but.
“No, I don't think so. Math's just not for me.”
What did I need math for, anyway?
Did math put food on the table?
Well, it could feed you if you were good at it.
But for now, it wouldn't do much to help me as a model.
“Guh.”
At my firm answer, my father let out a deep sigh.
I did feel a little bad, as if I'd dangled false hope in front of him for no reason.
Should I really go to a conference with him sometime?
“...Ahem, Daughter, the principles of the world lie in mathematics.”
“Really?”
“Yes, this world is so mathematical. Even if you don't make it your profession, studying it as a hobby will be fun.”
Study math when it wasn't even your career?
I couldn't understand what that was supposed to mean, though.
"Ah... yes."
His eyes were sparkling too brightly, so I didn't argue.
“Actually, subjects like physics, chemistry, and astronomy are all children born from mathematics.”
“That sounds controversial.”
Besides, wasn't my father incredibly serious about math?
Even the fact that he'd quit a well-paying researcher position at a major corporation to become a professor
must have been because his desire to study mathematics was that strong.
Even though he'd already published plenty of papers, he was still researching.
“No, mathematics is the beginning of all scholarship.”
That seemed a little excessive.
Still, perhaps it was fortunate that he didn't force it?
He always only suggested it carefully.
Because he never forced it, Aseong ended up walking the path of a math dropout and brought home a report card with a seventh-grade math score.
My father's expression then had been something else.
I imagine it looked like that of a soldier who had lost his country.
Anyway, even while I was reminiscing, Father's theory of mathematics explaining everything continued.
“If God exists, he must be a mathematician, since he created such an intricate world....”
Even God, huh.
At his almost devout appearance, I pointed above the sofa in our living room.
“Can you say that in front of Mom too?”
“...Ahem.”
Above the sofa I had pointed to,
on the wall near the ceiling, there was a huge cross.
'Honey, don't you want dinner?'
It almost sounded as though I could hear my mother's voice.