The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 176

He was always thinking.

What could he do to become someone who helps his siblings?

As Jinhyuk spent more time with Yujin, he finally understood his role as an older brother.

First, he would be the kind of brother who would tell Yujin she was beautiful even when she became a grandmother.

Just saying ‘pretty, pretty’ wasn’t enough.

‘Money is also important.’

Providing what she needed, like preparing drinks, and getting what she wanted in the way she wanted, like promising to build her a boat, would surely make his sister happy. But the most important thing was something else.

‘I love playing with you every single day, Oppa-.’

Nothing made Yujin happier than spending time together.

Jinhyuk didn’t want Yujin to experience the same disappointment that Choi Mikyung, a teenager who always had to hang out with Jinhyuk because she had an athlete brother, had felt.

‘Now, let’s go see Mikyung unnie’s [older sister] Ggumma-.’

‘Okay.’

Staying with Yujin and rediscovering his childhood innocence wasn’t bad for Jinhyuk either. No, rather, it was when he was with his sister that he truly felt like he was living a new life. It was an emotion like new flesh growing and pushing out a scar.

*

‘We’re here-! Ggumma-!’

Yujin loved dogs so much that she would abandon the bicycle her brother had given her and run.

‘A thief who stole my sister’s heart.’

He was jealous of the dog that was monopolizing Yujin’s love these days, but Jinhyuk, who walked on two feet, decided to let it go.

Because it was true that the dog was cuter than her brother.

Choi Mikyung’s yellowish dog had mated with a Jindo dog [Korean breed] from another neighborhood this summer, and Choi Janghwan had claimed the rights of the stud dog and brought home a male puppy.

He thought it would be a female that looked like the yellowish dog since it was a Jindo, but looking at the puppy’s fur coat, it wasn’t.

‘Aww-, so pretty-.’

‘Wow-, it’s really cute.’

Kkiing kkiing-.

Kkami, the yellowish dog’s son, licked Yujin’s cheek and wagged his tail in circles.

His fur was mostly black, with white spots like dots around his eyes, a black and tan color.

Even for Jinhyuk, who had seen them in photos and videos, the puppy was amazing and cute, so how much more would it be for Yujin?

‘I want to steal Ggumma.’

Wow, Yujin has really grown up a lot.

To be able to express herself like that. It must mean she thinks he’s that pretty.

‘Yujin, stealing is a bad thing, right?’

‘Yes. It’s a bad thing.’

Yujin nodded, but her eyes still showed a hint of regret.

She was the same sister who had secretly brought a persimmon puppy into the house and slept with it. Jinhyuk could understand Yujin’s feelings.

Still, it would be nice if she called him by his proper name.

‘Yujin, it’s not Ggumma, it’s Kkami.’

‘The name I gave him is Ggumma. Chunma, Gwangma, Ggumma.’

She must have named him Ggumma because he was black, right?

It was okay to show affection by calling him a nickname besides his real name. Jinhyuk didn’t insist any further. Didn’t Jinhyuk change Lucky and Max to Chunma and Gwangma? If there was Chunma and Gwangma, there could be Ggumma too.

‘If that’s the case, Tanma would be okay too.’

Yujin, holding Kkami in her arms, looked up at Jinhyuk with a worried expression.

‘I hope dog thieves don’t come to our neighborhood-.’

‘Dog thieves?’

‘Yes, they said so at the village hall. They said dog thieves are rampant these days-! They said the doggies can’t even bark at the dog thieves and just get dragged away.’

He seemed to have heard such a broadcast while jogging in the evening.

They scout the neighborhood during the day and then reappear at night in black clothes, trapping the dogs in small wire cages and stealing them.

‘They steal them like that on motorcycles. Motorcycles are, umm- faster than cars and can go on narrow roads. They carry four wire cages on their motorcycles.’

Yujin was explaining seriously with wide eyes, but to her brother, she just looked bright and cute.

How could my sister be so smart, Jinhyuk thought, looking at his sister with a happy and content gaze.

Bbudadadada-.

A black 125cc motorcycle appeared.

Yujin quickly hid Kkami, and Jinhyuk, in turn, hid Yujin behind his back.

‘Black clothes!’

There were also four boxes made of wire mesh.

‘Is he a chicken seller?’

The things on the back were actually boxes made of wire mesh that chicken sellers used.

Bbadadadada-!

The motorcycle driver turned skillfully the moment he made eye contact with Jinhyuk. He went back the way he came.

A suspicious situation by anyone’s standards.

He wanted to grab him and ask, but he couldn’t leave his sister alone and chase after him.

And he didn’t have the skill to run faster than a skilled racer on a motorcycle.

If he was a dog thief, he should catch him.

He postponed it for later and moved his feet, which wouldn’t fall off.

‘Yujin, let’s go wash up now.’

‘Okay-. Bye, Ggumma-.’

Even while going home, Jinhyuk kept looking back at the place where the motorcycle had disappeared.

‘It’s still unsettling.’

Every house had a dog, and Jinhyuk’s house had four. He felt like he had to do something.

***

The weekdays passed without any particular commotion, and the weekend arrived.

Perhaps it was natural peace.

Due to rumors of suspicious people appearing in and out of the village, SSS [likely a neighborhood watch group] volunteered to patrol, and the fields, which had entered the farming season, were bustling with farmers and machines during the day. Would there be people who would openly steal in such places?

The problem was at night, but thanks to the village hall’s continuous announcements to bring dogs into the yard and lock the gates, raising awareness among the residents, no theft incidents occurred.

‘But the motorcycle is still going around. I saw it yesterday too-.’

Even while reporting the suspicious person, Yujin couldn’t take her eyes off her brother’s science experiment.

Jinhyuk listened to his sister’s words and diligently worked on his task.

Bbogol bbogol bbogol-.

Bubbles were constantly rising in the washbasin.

He had finally found the hole while soaking and pressing the bicycle tube.

‘Heh-, I found it-.’

‘Hehe-, I found it-.’

Son Yujin, the little shadow who was squatting and watching, repeated Jinhyuk’s words.

Moon Seokil also smiled along.

The siblings, whose actions and expressions were subtly similar, had a clear difference in physique, but it was heartwarming like watching innocent children play.

He wanted to ask if he should take it to a bicycle shop for repair, but it was meaningless. The only stores in the neighborhood were two small corner stores, and you had to go to the town to see a bicycle shop.

Anyway, it was something Jinhyuk had been doing since the first grade.

When he got a flat tire less than a month after buying it, Jinhyuk had learned everything from bicycle maintenance to repair methods in detail from the all-knowing Jo Ilheon.

‘Oppa, Oppa. Are you going to patch the hole now-?’

‘Yeah, I have to.’

When he went to school, the front wheel felt different than yesterday, so he thought he had gained weight, but on the way home after finishing his morning classes, all the air had finally escaped. Jinhyuk had to drag his bicycle for about 1km to get home.

‘It’s not the first time this has happened.’

Since he was planning to fix his bicycle after school on Saturday anyway, he thought it was a good thing. It was like feeling happy when the warning light came on when he was thinking about refueling. He didn’t know what that feeling was like since he had never owned a car, but that’s how he would describe it.

‘It looks fun-.’

‘Yeah, it’s fun.’

As if proving the hard ride, the tire was worn and hardened, but it was clean without any traces of wire or nails, and it was still amazing how the inner tube got a flat tire. It wasn’t torn or burst, so every time he had to use a washbasin, water, and other country science experiment tools to find it. Even Jinhyuk, who had good eyesight, couldn’t find it with his bare eyes.

‘Dry cloth-.’

‘Yes-.’

Yujin, who was acting as her brother’s assistant, moved quickly.

She wiped the water off the tube, but the cloth kept getting caught. There were that many places that had been patched before.

He wiped off the water and cut out a piece of the discarded tube that he had prepared in advance.

Squeak squeak- Yujin’s mouth curled into a circle as she watched the tube being cut into an oval shape.

Yujin would watch carefully whenever her brother did something, and then she would admire it alone.

‘Glue-.’

‘Yes-.’

‘It’s not good to smell it, so it’s better to stay a little away.’

‘Yes!’

He used a flathead screwdriver to slowly pry open the tightly closed lid of the cylindrical strong glue container.

Pop-. As the lid opened, a strong volatile smell tormented Jinhyuk’s developed sense of smell.

It was a smell that made him naturally frown. Some foolish teenagers would get completely wasted by huffing this strong glue instead of the glue sold at stationery stores.

Yujin, who was far away, covered her nose and mouth with her hands. Where was she going to breathe? Her eyes were so big that it seemed like she could breathe through them. When she farted while sleeping, he sometimes suspected that his sister was breathing through her rectum.

‘I think I heard that there are creatures that breathe through their rectum.’

What was it?

It was certain that it wasn’t a creature called Son Yujin.

Now it was time to take the glue and apply it to the tube piece. He could use the popsicle stick that Yujin had eaten without throwing it away.

Sniff sniff-. This is Seoju Ice. Our Yujin likes milk flavor. Jinhyuk’s keen nose diagnosed the ice cream name.

‘It’s really like taffy-.’

‘Huh?’

Jinhyuk’s eyes widened at the unexpected harsh words.

‘The glue. It stretches like taffy.’

‘Ah. Right. It’s like taffy.’

He almost misunderstood.

There were many times when life felt like taffy, but it wasn’t a word that a young child would say, and it was even less of a word to use when patching a bicycle tube. For Jinhyuk, this was a fun task.

‘Hehe-, my bicycle.’

It was the first bicycle he had ever had in his second life. Of course, it was also the first time he had ever ridden one.

Jinhyuk was fourteen years old in his second life when he rode a bicycle for the first time.

That’s why he was worried.

‘When I turn eight, please teach me how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle, Oppa-.’

‘Umm-. I will.’

Huuuung-. A puff of air came out of his nose.

Jinhyuk didn’t know how to ride a bicycle.

‘I just stepped hard before falling, and it went forward.’

He had just bullied the bicycle with his athletic ability and strength. Like a Texas cowboy taming a bison. Well, the bicycle didn’t charge at him with its horns, but it meant that it was just as thrilling of a process.

He blew on the well-spread glue to dry it. Hoo- hoo-.

It was better to attach it when it started to harden, as it could move like a snail if it was attached in a soft state.

Yujin seemed to have noticed something as she watched her brother’s cheeks puff up and his eyes converge in the middle.

‘I want to eat ramen.’

‘Hehe-.’

What should he do with this sister who doesn’t miss a single one of her brother’s actions and associates it with something?

During exam periods, she came to her brother’s room in the early morning and complained that she had woken up because of the sound of her dad making a ‘chop chop’ sound while giving her mom artificial respiration.

No, that… could that back-and-forth interaction look like artificial respiration?

‘I was dizzy.’

After that, Yujin moved her sleeping quarters to a room on the second floor.

But she still woke up in her brother’s room in the morning.

Perhaps it was because he heard the word ramen, but Jinhyuk also suddenly had a strong craving for ramen.

It was a food he had forgotten about because he had been living a life of exercising, managing his health, and avoiding instant food.

‘My brother doesn’t like ramen-.’

‘I don’t dislike it.’

On a day when a downpour announced the end of a dry summer, Jinhyuk had cooked ramen but only ate one bite. His nose was happy, but his tongue wasn’t, because it was too stimulating. It was his favorite beef-flavored ramen from his past life, but still.

‘It’s because my brother’s constitution has changed.’

‘Mom doesn’t give me ramen because it’s not good for my body.’

‘I’ll cook it for you later, Oppa.’

‘Hee-.’

When she was really happy, she would just smile without saying anything.

Jinhyuk quietly leaned his head and rubbed it against Yujin’s forehead. To a creature that was just lovely even when she smiled like a fool.

‘Our baby’s legs must be numb.’

‘It’s okay.’

She no longer used the words ‘I’m tired’ or ‘It’s okay,’ but to Jinhyuk, she was still a baby. Perhaps even when she became an adult, older than that, and when Jinhyuk was about to die, that feeling would not change.

‘Because she’s a baby we had together.’

Other parents must also think of their children as babies even when they get old, watching their birth and growth.

*

The tube piece was well attached to the hole, so now it was time to inject a little air to check.

‘Is it all done-?’

‘Yeah. It’s well attached. But I still have to check. Please give me the pump over there-.’

‘I’ll do it!’

Yujin quickly grabbed the pump. Curious children must want to interfere and participate like this. Jinhyuk didn’t try to stop his sister and connected the hose to the air valve.

‘Itcha itcha-! Euit-!’

Psh-, psh-, p-shhh-.

One, two, three- times.

‘Haaigo-, it’s hard.’

‘That’s enough.’

Even though it was a bicycle pump, it was heavy and required a lot of strength for a child to use continuously. Even adults would complain of pain in their shoulders and back if they pumped without rest.

He put the tube back into the washbasin and pressed it down.

It was suspicious that all the air had escaped in just one day, even if it was an old bicycle.

Sure enough.

Bbogol- bbogol-.

There was another hole.

Hehyu-.

Janggun, who was next to him, sighed.

He didn’t know what that guy knew to do that.

As Moon Seokil had said a while ago, it was strangely unpleasant when Janggun looked at him and sighed.