“Hey Da-yeon, I’m serious! I’m with NoName right now. Like, right next to me. You don’t believe me? He says it’s true! Didn’t you say you were in class… what, skipping? Hey Woo Da-yeon!”
The call dropped unceremoniously, and the woman let out a wry smile.
“Haha… I’m sorry, my younger sister is a huge fan of yours. Last time, she nearly lost it over some broadcast project she was working on and plastered posters everywhere! I definitely remember her face, and how can they be this cute in real life? Is he a V-tuber? Or not?”
“Well, he’s actually active on Twish… Do you know Professor Chun?”
“Oh, Professor Cheon Kyu-jin is my advisor! I recognized him from his name tag! But what brought you here?”
“Shouldn’t you have asked that before letting me in?”
“Ahah, is that so?”
What was she going to do, ask now that I’m already in the elevator?
“I came because Professor Chun called for me.”
“Wow, really? You found your way here by yourself? That’s impressive!”
“What can I say? Thanks for showing me the way.”
The elevator doors opened, revealing a bleak building interior.
It wasn’t structurally different from other buildings, but the atmosphere felt unusually dreary.
“Ugh, why is the hallway lights off! Sorry, these kids really hate bright lights. They think they’re vampires or something!”
But it didn’t seem like just that.
“How do you know Professor Chun? Are you related?”
The hallway lights brightly lit up.
And from the far end, a ruckus of voices could be heard.
Walking casually, holding hands with the woman, I said, “He’s my father.”
“Pfft!”
Just then, the woman drinking banana milk spewed it out in shock.
“What… wait, what did you just say?”
She hastily wiped her mouth and stared at me in disbelief.
The moment her mind raced with confusion, she stumbled over her words.
“Professor Chun is definitely unmarried… so is that a hidden daughter? No way, that doesn’t make sense! Does it? Oh man, wait…”
“Step-father. I’m adopted.”
In that brief moment, the woman, who could have shot a drama titled “Love and War,” calmed down her racing heart, but her gaze towards me was still complicated.
“Ah…”
“I don’t really care, so it’s fine.”
“I’m really sorry… that was just too shocking… why didn’t you tell us?”
This year, Professor Chun was on a research sabbatical, and despite not traveling abroad, he continued to come to the lab and occasionally help grad students with their research.
Thus, students relieved of graduation worries cheered, but due to the barrage of assignments, they had mixed feelings towards him. This could be described as a love-hate relationship.
Still, considering how long they’ve known him, it was surprising he never mentioned my story, making me wonder if he wanted to keep my private life under wraps.
“You said you had a surprise gift today, and I was wondering if it’s…”
As I stepped into the lab with Woo Hee-jin, several people gathered around a table in the center.
Even without sniffing, the aroma of pizza was evident.
Save for Woo Hee-jin, there was not a single woman; all four were men.
And from the furthest corner, a gray-haired uncle stood up and waved his hand.
“Oh Na-me, you’re here!”
At Professor Chun’s call, the four men instinctively stood up, spitting out their food mid-chew.
They were as quick as reflexes!
“Hello.”
Since we were all meeting for the first time, they greeted me by bowing their heads respectfully.
But I avoided bowing too low, not wanting to look like a kindergarten kid.
“Uh, hey… who…?”
The man at the front barely accepted my greeting.
“Why did you take a bus when you could’ve taken a taxi?”
“It’s been a while since I ventured outside school, so I thought the bus would be nice.”
“Okay, okay, why don’t you sit here and grab a slice of pizza? We might have to wait a little for our guest.”
“I’m not very hungry, so I’ll have just one slice.”
“Would you kindly make some room for her?”
“Yes, Professor!”
“No need to get up, just shift a bit.”
Caught in the bustling atmosphere, I sat awkwardly in the middle of the sofa, placing my hands neatly on my lap.
Are we really going to sit here eating pizza in complete silence?
That’d be uncomfortable enough to make me nauseous!
“Um, Professor?”
“Yeah?”
“If you could introduce everyone…”
Just then, one of the guys carefully poured grapefruit juice into my cup, gathering his courage. I really wished it was orange instead.
“Oh, right! My bad! This is my daughter Na-me. It’d be great if everyone could introduce themselves one by one.”
“Excuse me?”
“What?”
“Cough! Huh!”
After a brief round of introductions, we all stuffed pizza into our mouths under the heavy atmosphere directed by Professor Chun.
As he stepped out to welcome a guest, the grad students finally breathed a sigh of relief, like deer freed from a trap.
I hadn’t noticed before, but isn’t he surprisingly strict with the lab folks?
“Phew. Whoa, she is undeniably cute!”
“Hey Kim Hyun-woo! Watch your mouth!”
“Right, I didn’t say anything!”
Given the age difference between Professor Chun and me, assuming we were just father and daughter would send our imaginations to Andromeda, so Woo Hee-jin quietly informed the others about the truth.
“Honestly, it was hard to believe that Professor Chun could have a daughter like you. I mean, he’s the right age to be a grandfather!”
“Hey, watch what you say in front of the kid! What if she hears?”
“I’ll make sure to pass that message on to the Professor.”
“Ah, no! Just kidding! It was a joke!”
“Make sure to tell your dad about me. He’s got plenty of time until his cooldown after getting scolded.”
“I feel like I’ve been betrayed by the Professor. If he had asked me to show a picture of Na-me every day to come to work, I would have gladly done it.”
“I think I’m starting to realize why the Professor hid me.”
These guys are really untrustworthy!
Then again, since they’ve all been under the Professor, they seemed decent overall.
“Hey, Hee-jin!”
“Oh Da-yeon!”
“Oh look, Hee-jin’s sister is here!”
“Hi, hi!”
The door swung open, and another woman wearing a straw hat burst in.
In Seoul, Korea—wearing a straw hat? That’s some peculiar fashion sense.
Woo Da-yeon covered her mouth with her hands.
“No way… they’re identical… what the…?”
The straw hat toppled down, fluttering to the ground.
The woman glided over in disbelief; she looked familiar to me as well.
Picking the hat off the ground, I casually asked her, “Didn’t we meet last year?”
“Uh?”
“At the career experience fair.”
*
Woo Da-yeon felt like she’d been struck by lightning.
‘Right, that genius kid!’
She had cursed out main characters with face blindness in dramas and movies countless times; who would have thought she’d become one of them?
NoName’s main avatar looked so similar that it was hard to deny they were the exact same person.
“What… do you two know each other?”
“Sis, it’s the extraordinarily smart kid I told you about! This is her!”
At this moment, Da-yeon couldn’t be more upset with her memory. How could she not connect the dots between these two events?
“Genius…? Oh, you were part of the volunteer activity last year?”
“Yeah! But not just any genius.”
The career experience fair seemed like it would host only a genius-level talent worthy of an exceptional skills show;
But what if this kid was the exact identical person as ‘NoName’ I knew?
Now that’s a story that transcends beyond just a variety show into a global scoop!
One could also think of a third party with evil intent breaking the capsule ethics code, replicating the kid’s exact image to create an avatar, but that scenario seemed utterly unrealistic.
Na-me was back on the sofa, sipping her juice.
She shivered at the sour taste of grapefruit juice.
Meanwhile, Da-yeon’s inner conflict raged on.
While she was undeniably knowledgeable, the portrayal of NoName on broadcasts felt so mature for his age.
Being a genius doesn’t equal having life experience, which made me uneasy in my heart.
With a bag full of strawberry candy in hand, Da-yeon offered some to Na-me, who was having trouble swallowing the sour taste of the juice.
“Na-me…? Want to have this?”
Swish-
Swiftly snatching the candy, Na-me popped a pink sugar lump into her mouth.
Chew, chew-
“Thank you. By the way, do you have another one?”
“Oh, of course! Want one more?”
“If you offer, I’d gladly accept.”
Her way of speaking was similar.
Too mature for her age.
While the men beside me watched the child quietly munch on the candy with fond expressions, Da-yeon’s mind grew more complicated.
“How genius are we talking?”
Hee-jin poked Da-yeon playfully in the side.
“If it’s true, then she’d be number one in the world?”
Her sister, Hee-jin, had never watched internet broadcasts or V-tube, so she was completely oblivious to Na-me.
Saying something like that felt a bit cringy, but it didn’t require any fancy adjectives.
Da-yeon pulled a whiteboard from the corner of Professor Chun’s lab and hastily wrote something down.
[20,387,739 * 390,394 = ]
“Hey Na-me, want some more candy?”
“Yeah, it’s sweet and nice.”
“I’ll give you one if you can solve this!”
“Um… 7,959,250,979,166.”
“…?”
Grad students brought out their scientific calculators and were horrified by Na-me’s correct answer.
“What? How did you get that?”
“Is that really the answer?”
“This is hilarious, but do you have any other puzzles?”
“Uh, well, how about this?”
[ln(123,456,789) = ]
“Um, about 18.6314… if you want to be precise, it’s between 017661 and 2? By the way, it’s closer to 2.”
“How on earth did you calculate natural logs? Multiplication, sure, but that’s not something you can do in your head!”
“Is the answer… really right?”
“That’s insane!”
“Quick, give me the candy. Learning a logarithm could allow everyone to do this!”
Thereafter, Da-yeon lost five candies in rapid succession.
Na-me, with a mouth full of candy like a hamster, leaned back on the sofa with satisfaction.
“See? It’s as I said, NoName… so that was your real name?”
The kid Woo Hee-jin mentioned was called Noname.
Looking left and right, it just sounds like NoName being spoken in full.
“Da-yeon unnie.”
“Uh? Yes?”
“I heard you’re the PD for Hicks Studio.”
That was correct. Recently, I posted content on science and magic studies based on NoName’s gameplay.
“Why did you put up my videos without asking for permission?”
