Ch. 3 — 03
—”Keep this in mind. In South Korea, money comes first. You need money to avoid being looked down upon, you need money to learn what you want to learn, and you need money to do what you want to do. So, when it comes to matters of money, you must be absolutely thorough. Even family members should never get tangled up over money. If it’s absolutely unavoidable, you must ensure you go through the proper legal procedures. That’s how you prevent problems from arising. The way to do that is……”
To Cheol-jun, Dad Jae-kang’s words were akin to religious truth.
Therefore, even if there were parts that were a bit hard to understand, he simply believed them and etched them into his mind.
“Well, you see. It’s, it’s a bit difficult right now. It’s tied up money, you could say? No, no. It’s not that I’m not going to give it to you, huh? Yeah, that’s right. You’re still a minor. Uncle will, huh? I’ll just hold onto it for you until you become a legal adult…”
Usually, people in a disadvantageous position talk at length.
Cheol-jun let out a small sigh and carefully observed the man he had met for the first time today.
If he felt anything suspicious, Cheol-jun planned to find another guardian without a shred of hesitation.
After all, his dad had arranged a few other people he could get help from in South Korea besides this man.
‘……?’
Observing him, one of Cheol-jun’s eyebrows twitched.
The man was flustered, but it wasn’t the look of someone trying to hide something.
It was the face of someone experiencing something incredibly amusing.
And a hint of… pride?
That kind of emotion flashed briefly as well.
Dad Jae-kang used to look at him like that from time to time.
Cheol-jun’s stiff expression softened slightly.
He would need to observe him a bit more, but looking closely, even though this man seemed a bit cocky, he didn’t appear to be a bad person at heart.
Cheol-jun pulled up the mental map of his interpersonal network data.
‘For now, I’ll place him at Tier 4 reliability for close associates…’
If the first impression reliability rating for the very first person he met in South Korea was Tier 4, that was still pretty decent.
“Why? Can’t you trust your uncle?”
Cheol-jun smiled.
“I’ll trust you.”
“Hah. Yeah! Just trust this uncle of yours! Huh? If you live diligently and become an upstanding adult…”
Cheol-jun quickly shook his head side to side.
His dad had predicted this exact situation and detailed exactly how he should react.
This was entirely separate from trust.
His dad had told him that relying purely on such abstract concepts would inevitably lead to problems later on.
“Please establish a legal basis. And apply for a guardianship supervisor at the court, too.”
“Ah, w-well, to do that we’d have to hire a lawyer, and that costs money, so just trust your uncle for now…”
“Dad said we can get free help if we contact the Korea Legal Aid Corporation. He said they also handle breaches of a guardian’s duty to manage property…”
“……”
“You can just create a legal framework to precisely deduct any living expenses I need until I become an adult from that money.”
“Hah……”
Cheol-jun smiled brightly as he looked at Hyung-man’s dumbfounded face.
“The phone number for the NIS agent Mr. Kim Han-soo is 010-6346-5…”
“Haha. Wow… Hey, why the f** is that bastard cutting in without using a blinker! He drives like absolute s**! I swear…! …Uh, um… yeah, okay. Okay. We’ll go straight to a lawyer’s office tomorrow! Happy?”
Cheol-jun nodded with a radiant face.
“Yes!”
‘Hah…’
Hyung-man clicked his tongue in amazement.
Jae-kang, that guy was always thorough to a fault.
Sure enough, he raised his kid properly.
*
*
*
“Uh, you can sleep in that room for now. If you need anything else, just let me know as we go.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
Cheol-jun beamed, looking at his space.
He loved it.
It was the first time in his life he had a room of his own.
When he lived in Shenyang with his dad, he technically had his own room once, but it was more like a partitioned space than an actual room.
But this was a real room.
It had a bed, a desk, and a rolling chair.
It had a sturdy door that locked, completely solid walls, and a window.
Cheol-jun threw the window wide open.
‘Wow! It’s really high up.’
His first day in South Korea.
Everything was exciting to Cheol-jun.
*
*
*
“Aren’t you hungry? We should eat first.”
“Oh!”
“What do you want to eat?”
“Meat!”
“Hah, right. Meat is good. What kind of meat?”
Cheol-jun blinked his round eyes.
There were quite a few things his dad had promised they would eat together if they ever went to South Korea.
The first thing that came to mind among them was,
“Fried chicken!”
“Oh! What kind of chicken?”
“Uh…”
Were there different kinds of chicken?
“Well…”
“Haha. Hang on. I’ll take care of ordering it for you.”
About 30 minutes passed, and the doorbell rang.
“This is called Bburinkle… I looked it up and apparently, it’s what elementary schoolers like the most…”
A moment later.
Sucking the yellow magic powder off his fingers, Cheol-jun’s round eyes went even rounder.
It was a taste of a whole new world, making him instantly understand why his dad insisted they had to eat fried chicken when they went to South Korea.
*
*
*
“Yeah, the kid fell asleep earlier. He must’ve been exhausted. The kid is really smart. Jae-kang raised him well. …He pretends to be unfazed, but he must be a wreck inside. Just a bit ago, he was sobbing in his sleep. Twitching like he was having convulsions. His dad was shot to death right in front of him, so of course the shock must have been immense. And yet, he doesn’t show it at all. He’s very mature. Are all kids these days growing up so fast? …How would I know. I didn’t even get to watch my own kid grow up properly. …Yeah. Right. Got it. Let’s all get together once the kid adjusts a bit and settles down. …Of course, man. If he’s Jae-kang’s kid, he’s all of our kid. Yeah, got it. Oh, right. Where was Seok-hyun’s law office again? …No, no. I just want to get the guardianship stuff sorted out properly. …Yeah. Okay.”
After finishing the call, Hyung-man looked at the slightly ajar bedroom door.
‘Hah… Poor kid.’
The boy who had acted so nonchalantly had started twitching and sobbing intensely not long after falling asleep.
It was entirely justified.
For a child that young to witness such a traumatic scene right before his eyes…
Hyung-man couldn’t even dare to fathom what he was feeling.
Tossing back a shot of soju, Hyung-man scrunched his nose with a hiss.
Even though they didn’t see each other often, Jae-kang was practically a hero to the field agents who operated in China.
Though it wasn’t on record due to the nature of the job, the number of people who owed him their lives could easily fill a truck.
They all wanted to repay that debt somehow.
That’s why they had been eagerly counting the days until his return…
‘Hoo…’
Still, was it a relief of sorts?
At least the guy had sent his son to them.
Hyung-man tossed back another shot of soju.
‘Let’s see, what do we have to do tomorrow…’
Comprehensive health checkup, child psychology evaluation, intellectual assessment, Wechsler intelligence test…
‘It’s going to be busy. If we have to stop by the law office too…’
Hyung-man screwed the cap back onto the half-empty soju bottle.
It had been a long time since he left a bottle of soju unfinished.
*
*
*
“Well, it’s true his growth is quite delayed compared to his peers. His height is in the bottom 10 percent… But other than that, everything is fine. Actually, it’s above normal. His bone density is rather high for his age, and his muscle mass is considerable. His body fat percentage puts him in the top 1 percent for his age group, and his blood test results show no abnormalities whatsoever. His cardiopulmonary function is excellent, too. At this level, it’s safe to say he’s been maintaining his body with daily exercise…”
*
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*
“He does show a slight lack of attention. He gets bored easily. But that’s a common trait among children whose emotional development is lagging; in contrast, his verbal skills are outstanding. He has an exceptional ability to grasp the exact point of a question. His social flexibility also scored very high. If you look at this graph, you can see his verbal expressiveness is more mature than his peers, and his self-awareness is high. However, there are a few concerning points. He shows some perfectionist tendencies and an overwhelming fear of failure. Given the situations the child has been in, his emotional hypersensitivity is understandable, but it feels like he’s constantly trying to imagine and reconstruct new situations out of worry and anxiety. He shows slight signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder as well. While we haven’t observed any psychopathology meeting diagnostic criteria at this point, you should bring him by occasionally moving forward…”
*
*
*
Yoon Kyung-mi, a clinical psychologist at the Child Development Center in the Pediatric Psychiatry Department of Il-sung General Hospital, smiled brightly as she sat across from the child.
He was a boy whose round eyes set in an innocent expression were incredibly charming.
“Hello there. Did you wait long?”
“Hmm, about eight minutes. So it wasn’t that long of a wait.”
“…Oh, really?”
During her first question aimed at building rapport before the test, Yoon Kyung-mi was momentarily rendered speechless by an answer that was completely abnormal for an 11-year-old.
Quickly regaining her composure, she organized the test papers on the table.
Then, she reviewed the referral notes she had received from the pediatric psychiatric department.
Attention deficit, high social flexibility, perfectionist tendencies, emotional hypersensitivity, imagining and reconstructing the future…
These were diagnoses typically seen in gifted children.
Committing a few of the standout points to memory, Kyung-mi smiled gently.
“How did our Cheol-jun get here today?”
“By car.”
“Oh really? Did it take a long time?”
“Well, the distance isn’t that far, but there was a lot of traffic. And we had to wait a long time to park, too. So about forty minutes?”
“Wow. Cheol-jun, you’re really smart. Do you know what we’re going to do today?”
“An intelligence test? An exam?”
“Ah, yeah. Something like that. But what you’re doing with me today isn’t a test. Getting right or wrong answers isn’t what matters.”
“Okay.”
“If you don’t know something, you can just say you don’t know. You don’t have to force yourself to answer.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The child beamed and nodded.
Having already received two abnormal answers during their conversation, Yoon Kyung-mi was feeling slightly tense.
Usually, children who spoke like that scored exceptionally high on intelligence tests.
“Alright, don’t be nervous, and let me know when you’re ready. We’ll start then.”
“You can start whenever you’re ready, Ma’am.”
“Huh?”
Cheol-jun blinked his round eyes.
He had blurted it out without thinking because she seemed nervous too, but apparently, it wasn’t something an ordinary child would say.
Given how she immediately asked him to repeat himself despite definitely hearing him clearly.
—Keep this in mind. Unless it’s something fun or something that makes you happy, never give it your all. You’re going to excel at everything far above the standard. If that happens, people might try to use you. You could easily end up in a situation where you’re forced to keep doing things you don’t even enjoy. So, hide it for now. Until you’ve assessed the entire situation, being ordinary is your safest bet.
His dad’s words suddenly flashed through his mind, and Cheol-jun quickly shook his head.
“Ah, nothing!”
Only then could Kyung-mi define the strange sense of incongruity she had been feeling from the child up until a moment ago.
The rapport-building stage before a test.
Usually, children tense up or shrink back in front of an unfamiliar adult.
During this time, the clinical psychologist was supposed to lead a comfortable conversation while carefully observing the child.
That’s right. It was supposed to be the time when she was reading the child.
‘What in the world. Was he reading me first?’
Flustered, Yoon Kyung-mi quickly masked it with a smile, fixing her expression as she aimlessly shuffled the test papers.
This hospital was one of the top four general hospitals in South Korea.
It was the final stop where children evaluated as highly intelligent at standard pediatric psychiatric clinics came for in-depth testing.
As a result, she had seen plenty of truly brilliant children, but this time felt like an entirely different level.
She was quite startled on the inside but maintained the most natural expression she could muster while organizing her papers.
“I’m ready. Are you ready, Cheol-jun?”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Alright, shall we begin?”
“Yes.”
Filled with eager anticipation, Yoon Kyung-mi turned the page of the test booklet.
*
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*
The test typically proceeded in the following order: block design, similarities, digit span, matrix reasoning, vocabulary, figure weights, visual puzzles, and picture memory.
However, not long after starting the first test—block design—Yoon Kyung-mi’s eyes widened as far as they could go.
Block design.
The child had to place patterned blocks onto a grid to recreate the image shown on a card.
Ordinary 11-year-olds usually substitute the blocks one by one, slowly putting the shape together piece by piece.
However, children with exceptional spatial reasoning skills do this incredibly fast.
Their eyes shift between the card and the blocks significantly fewer times, and they locate the required shapes instantly.
Such children will observe the card for a few extra seconds.
This is because their cognitive structure relies on thinking first, and then executing based on that judgment.
‘Wow…’
Watching Cheol-jun, Yoon Kyung-mi’s mouth hung open without her realizing it.
The time he spent checking the card was far shorter than that of gifted children.
Yet, from the moment he picked up the blocks, he never checked the card again and didn’t hesitate for a second.
It meant his observation skills and instantaneous memory were incredibly superb.
Furthermore, the order in which he placed the blocks was highly unusual.
Most children—even the quite smart ones—tended to build the shape starting from the top-left corner.
But this child started with whatever block his hand grabbed first.
He would use that first block as an anchor to build outward from the center, or he would establish the diagonal line first.
Not only was his speed at assembling the shapes nonsensical, but his fundamental approach was completely different.
‘What is… with this kid?’
Astonishment.
Only a few questions of the block design test had passed, yet that was the emotion completely filling the eyes of Yoon Kyung-mi, an eight-year clinical psychologist veteran.
At that moment, Cheol-jun shot a quick glance to assess Yoon Kyung-mi’s state.
Her expression, the position and movement of her fingers, the line of her shoulders, the angle of her waist, her gaze—in a flash, Cheol-jun observed and analyzed it all, and thought, ‘Oops.’
From the next card presented onward, he began pretending to think a little longer.
Forcing himself to go slowly on something he already knew, something this easy, was incredibly frustrating.
*
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*
From then on, Cheol-jun continued to solve the problems cautiously.
Not too fast, he maintained an appropriate pace while observing the expression of the examiner sitting across from him.
Cheol-jun determined that the rule of this test was time.
Therefore, he tried to maintain an illusion of normalcy purely by controlling his time.
However, Yoon Kyung-mi was a professional.
Cheol-jun’s time for assembling the blocks had grown much slower, but she was continually amazed for entirely different reasons.
‘Wait. He’s still only looking at the card once.’
Normally, the reason the test time increases is that the child, unsure of their memory, repeatedly checks the card again.
But this child was only spending time searching for the blocks.
His eyes had identified the correct block, but his hand would pick up a different one only to set it back down.
She was certain.
For whatever reason, this child was deliberately matching the shapes slowly.
‘Wow…’
It was a first.
A child like this.
When Yoon Kyung-mi’s mouth unknowingly fell half open, the child caught a glimpse of it, and his hands slowed down even more.
Then, he made an incredibly troubled expression.
Yoon Kyung-mi quickly fixed her expression.