Brother, Am I Cute? [EN]: Chapter 168

Hyung, aren’t I cute? 168

Now that we’re in the water, it’s time to scrub.

I gently scrubbed Siha’s delicate skin.

I checked several times, worried he might be in pain.

“Siha, does it hurt? You have to tell me if it hurts, okay?”

“No hurt.”

“Okay. Here, look at all this dead skin coming off. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Hyung. Mana!”

“A dead skin millionaire.”

Scrub, scrub.

I scrubbed Siha’s body, removing the dead skin.

I stopped when I felt it getting slightly red.

Honestly, I can’t scrub too hard because I’m worried about hurting him.

I’m just pretending to scrub.

After I finished scrubbing his back, Siha opened his mouth.

“Ah! Shi-won-hae~” [Korean for ‘so refreshing’]

“Hahaha. Was it ticklish here?”

“Shi-won-hae~”

“Okay. It’s refreshing, right? Okay, all done. Let’s rinse off.”

I poured water on Siha’s body, and it washed away cleanly.

I remember my dad always scrubbing my dead skin off first and then letting me play in the bathhouse when I was little.

Always son first. Always trying to keep his son from being bored.

‘When was the last time I scrubbed my dad’s back?’

This memory, which I can’t even recall, can never be recreated.

My heart aches at that fact.

I thought there would be more days to scrub each other’s backs together.

I regret not going to the bathhouse together, always using the excuse that I was busy.

“Hyung. Siha too.”

“Huh?”

Siha reached out his hand.

I wondered what I should give him and looked around.

Siha grabbed my hand and took off the green scrub mitt.

“Siha do.”

“Wow. Siha’s going to scrub for me?”

“Ah ah.”

“Then wet it with water here, squeeze it tight, and then scrub Hyung’s back. Easy, right?”

“Ah ah.”

Siha dipped the scrub mitt in the water in the bucket and squeezed it tightly with his hands.

Drip. Drip.

Water dripped down.

He didn’t squeeze it properly, but he looks so cute trying hard.

He puts on the damp scrub mitt and makes a face that says, ‘Did I do well?’

He turns around and puts his hand on my back, and I feel the dampness of the scrub mitt.

“Hyung. Siha do.”

“Okay. Start.”

Scrub, scrub.

He wiggles around, scrubbing my back.

Instead of feeling refreshed, the wriggling movement is ticklish.

But I have to pretend to like it for Siha’s sake.

“Ouch! That’s refreshing!”

“Hyung. Shi-won-hae?”

“Yeah. It’s super refreshing. I should leave my back to Siha from now on?”

“Siha. Good job?”

“You’re doing a great job.”

Siha got excited and scrubbed my back hard.

But Siha, it’s good that you’re working hard, but why are you scrubbing the same spot? Scrub somewhere else too.

“Now scrub other parts too.”

“Ah ah. Like this. Like this.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

It’s good that he’s scrubbing other parts.

But he’s only scrubbing that one spot again.

Three-year-old Lee Siha. A man who only digs in one spot.

No. Is this the right expression to use at this time?

So, I ended up only getting a certain part of my back scrubbed, and later I had no choice but to secretly ask Oh Sang-hwan to scrub my back.

***

After the bath, we came outside.

Maybe it’s just me, but the advantage of bathing is that you can feel the refreshment three times.

When you soak in the tub. When you scrub off dead skin. And finally, when you come outside.

I don’t know why, but the outside air feels different, as if warmth remains in my body.

“Siha, let’s go eat now. That uncle over there is going to buy us something delicious.”

“Uncle?”

“Yeah. Seung-joon would like to eat something delicious too, right?”

“I eat everything well. It’s more delicious when I eat with Siha.”

We went to dinner like that.

We stopped by a restaurant that specializes in healthy chicken soup, but the price was over 10,000 won [approximately $7.50 USD].

I guess there are a lot of good things in it.

I’m a little worried about whether Siha will be able to eat it well…….

Mr. Kim said.

“First, let’s order one chicken soup each for us. Tell me if you want to eat something else. Ah.”

Mr. Kim looked at me.

“This place is delicious. The kids like it too. But don’t order chicken soup for everyone at that table, order something the kids like. The galbi-tang (beef short rib soup) is good here, and so is the bulgogi jeongol (beef and vegetable hot pot). I’m paying today.”

The surrounding employees give him a thumbs up.

“Wow! You’re awesome!”

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Not you guys! Who said I’d buy you guys food!”

I looked at the price tag.

Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) 14,000 won, galbi-tang 12,000 won, bulgogi jeongol 34,000 won.

Oh Sang-hwan glanced at the menu and said from the front.

“Let’s order one bulgogi jeongol and one samgyetang. This way, the kids can eat a variety of things.”

“Should we?”

It felt wrong to get a free meal when it was so expensive.

We’re not even close, and aren’t we just people who ran for 30 minutes together today?

But Mr. Kim didn’t seem to mind, so I chose a menu and waited.

After the food came out.

Everyone was so hungry that they didn’t say a word and just ate quietly.

“Siha, this is called samgyetang. The chicken is tender and delicious.”

Siha’s eyes lit up as he put it in his mouth, saying, ‘Mashisuh! (delicious)’

Seung-joon, who was in front of me, was so hungry that he was practically inhaling it.

Siha seemed to be eating better than usual because his friend was eating well.

After we filled our stomachs to some extent, stories began to emerge one by one, and as drinks went around, company stories were also revealed.

“The new recruit this time is really sharp.”

“Ah. Right. The president always complains about why we only hire graduate students from Kangin University.”

“Ah. That’s because it’s not common to specialize in EEPROM [Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory] design. I mean, DRAM [Dynamic Random-Access Memory] and SRAM [Static Random-Access Memory] are different.”

“But this time, we hired a graduate student from another university.”

Oh Sang-hwan seemed uncomfortable with the story and gulped down the barley tea in front of him.

I tilted my head.

After roughly grasping the content of the conversation, it seemed that the president had chosen someone else.

But why does he feel so uncomfortable?

Oh Sang-hwan smiled awkwardly.

“Let’s stop talking about that. Haha.”

“Ah! It’s not that the president told us not to hire him, so we didn’t. You know that, right?”

“Yes. I know. Haha. This is embarrassing.”

Mr. Kim frowned and gave him a look.

“Let’s talk about something else. Something else. Haha. It was a fair competition.”

It doesn’t seem like he was dropped just because he was from Kangin University.

Judging from the looks of it, it seemed that he just didn’t do well.

Then this situation might be a little regrettable.

As a professor, he would be uncomfortable with the story of his student being dropped.

“Dad?”

Seung-joon looked up at Oh Sang-hwan with a worried face.

Then Oh Sang-hwan smiled gently and put meat on his spoon.

Now, to end the uncomfortable atmosphere, we had to move on to another topic.

I hate things like this.

But why did that person bring up such an uncomfortable topic? It’s annoying.

I spoke first.

“But Professor, you’re amazing. I used to work at the career center. But the employment rate of the Department of Electronic Engineering was no joke. I helped prepare for a job lecture, and I was impressed at that time. It was very easy to understand. After that, I looked into semiconductors a little.”

Oh Sang-hwan doesn’t know that I know this.

At that time, I was just in charge of reserving a lecture room for the lecture preparation and setting up the list of entrants.

Since we never met, he won’t remember me.

The lecture was about semiconductors and companies.

‘I didn’t understand it back then… but it’s different now.’

Semiconductor-related articles and papers float around in my head, helping me understand the design that Oh Sang-hwan lectured on.

The world of tiny computers called chips.

It’s very closely related to today’s era. There’s nothing more important than this.

Smartphones, TVs, medical devices.

I could clearly see how important the design is to capture small current signals.

“VPP cross-charge pump. You designed it to maximize the delicate boundary of the current while lowering the existing resistance value. If you have a surplus of current with such a small design, you can use it for other functions.”

Mr. Kim looked at me with shining eyes.

“You’ve studied quite a bit, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I just got interested for a while? Actually, I asked the professor a lot too.”

Oh Sang-hwan gave me a look that said, ‘When?’ and then maintained a poker face.

“If you can save current on one side, you can give more current to the display or camera.”

“That’s right.”

“But it’s amazing to adjust the width and length of the NPN [Negative-Positive-Negative transistor] to create a resistance value and create that design. You can make it more detailed with just the design.”

“You really know something?”

Mr. Kim looked surprised.

That’s because he knows that my major is Korean literature.

“Tell me honestly. You’re a graduate student of Professor Oh Sang-hwan, right? VPP cross-charge pump is the original design name of Professor Oh Sang-hwan.”

“Ahaha. The special lecture was so fun that day. The lecture was really great. I guess it’s stuck in my memory. I felt a little bad because I couldn’t understand it? So I went and asked.”

I kept praising Oh Sang-hwan.

“Since you teach other students so well, the training of talent for semiconductor design is well done. I thought it was fortunate to have someone like you as a professor at Kangin University.”

“Wow. Professor Oh Sang-hwan, how can you make even a Korean literature student this good?”

Oh Sang-hwan waved his hand.

“He studied hard himself. What did I do? I feel rewarded as a professor to have such a passionate student.”

“That’s really true.”

Professor Oh Sang-hwan’s shoulders shrugged.

That look was somehow similar to Seung-joon.

Seung-joon noticed that his dad was feeling good and shrugged his shoulders next to him.

I think if I put subtitles, something like ‘Tudun!’ would be embedded.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Great~”

“What do you know to say ‘great~’?”

Siha’s shoulders shrugged and went up.

Seeing the shoulders of the three men rising, I think I’m becoming like that too.

“Hyung. Ta-da-da-da. Did.”

“Puhaha. Yeah. You did.”

Siha probably didn’t understand.

But he probably understood from the feeling or atmosphere he had always seen.

It’s amazing when I see things like this.

“Okay, okay. If you’re all done eating, let’s have a cup of coffee.”

Mr. Kim got up from his seat.

The awkward atmosphere from before was gone.

It seemed like we could just have a cup of coffee and part ways.

Well, Siha and I will probably drink banana milk.

***

-Garam Semiconductor.

A new weekday began, and Mr. Kim sat down at his seat after finishing the morning meeting.

As he had some time to spare, he had other thoughts.

Lee Si-hyuk.

He said he was an interpreter before, and he suddenly became curious.

‘Did he say he had an Instagram account back then?’

He didn’t do Instagram enthusiastically at this age, but he signed up after seeing his children do it.

A tearful effort to get closer to his children even during his busy company life.

But he doesn’t know what’s so fun about this strange SNS [Social Networking Service].

Mr. Kim didn’t have that kind of sensibility.

‘Oh. He has a brilliant career?’

From the time we talked at the chicken soup restaurant, he had expected to some extent that he was an unusual friend.

He knew quite a bit about semiconductors, so it would be good to work with him.

Since we are doing business with the world, there are many things that require translation and interpretation.

Even though Garam Semiconductor has not caught up with the No. 1 company in Korea, it is not a company that can be ignored anywhere.

‘He has a considerable network?’

With this much, he didn’t seem to have any problems getting a job even if he didn’t come to a large company in the semiconductor field.

It was so much fun to watch that he kept looking at Instagram when suddenly a text message arrived.

‘Huh? The president?’

The president of Garam Semiconductor held an emergency meeting.

Mr. Kim got up from his seat and went straight to the conference room.

Everyone had serious expressions, so he couldn’t guess what was going on.

“Mr. Kim. Sit here.”

Even while sitting, he began to worry if he had done something wrong.

The president opened his mouth.

“It seems that Nine Hearts Semiconductor in Singapore stole our design, so Mr. Kim, please check it. Is this our design?”

“Yes. I’ll check it.”

“It’s a headache every time this happens. If the confirmation is over, take legal action and file a lawsuit immediately. Tsk. This will take a long time again. I want to resolve it quickly without disputes, but is there no way? If they drag it out, it will take 2-3 years.”

“That’s probably right.”

Mr. Kim answered like this and checked the design briefly, and he could definitely see similarities.

He hardened his expression and shook his head as if he was tired.

This is because it is not just a matter of entrusting it to the legal team.

The technology is passed on, tested, and further upgraded.

To overcome that and move forward, you have to design like crazy and grind your manpower.

A path that was obviously going to be difficult.

A path that I had to go through anyway.

He sighed inwardly and closed the data.

He had to go back to his seat and review it in more detail.

“Check if there was a problem with security.”

He listened to the president’s instructions one by one and waited for this time to end quickly.

Then suddenly, he thought he had heard the word ‘Nine Hearts’ somewhere.

“Ah!”

Mr. Kim unknowingly exclaimed.

The president looked at him as if asking what was wrong.

“I’m sorry. I suddenly remembered something about Nine Hearts.”

“What is it?”

Mr. Kim started talking about the interpreter Lee Si-hyuk, thinking it was nothing.

The president of Garam Semiconductor’s eyes lit up when he heard that.