The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 188

The unusually chilly autumn felt like a reward for the hot and dry summer.

Every time an unexpected shower fell, it felt like the temperature dropped several degrees.

Swish, swish-.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”

After finishing lunch in the cafeteria, Jinhyuk, who was playing on the ropes with his friends, took shelter under the eaves of the wrestling ring to avoid the sudden downpour.

Jo Seul-chan and Yeom Byeong-taek squatted down and began their Jo-Seul-Yeom-Byeong talk [a nonsensical, rambling conversation between the three friends].

“They say Sang-gi is transferring, so even the sky is sad.”

“We should be sad, why is the sky sad?”

“Yeom-byeong, you’re always looking at naked older girls in magazines, so your heart is like that. Why don’t you read Hwang Sun-won or Kim Yu-jeong novels like me? There are many books in the library.”

“Whatever. I like pictures. You jerk.”

They were guys whose conversations were impossible to follow, and you never knew what they would say next.

Slurp-.

Park Sang-gi sucked the yogurt provided as a dessert after lunch into his mouth. It seemed he had forgotten to bring a spoon.

Park Sang-gi, who licked the yogurt off his lips with his tongue, mumbled.

“…Is Kim Yu-jeong a woman?”

“Of course, she is. That’s why she writes about things like camellias. Men write about things like the rose of Sharon, like that Kim Jin-maeng.”

Oooooh-.

Beyond admiration, Yeom Byeong-taek looked at Jo Seul-chan with surprised eyes, as if in awe.

However, Park Sang-gi looked skeptical.

“…Can you tell by the name? Jeong-hwa in the social studies textbook wasn’t a woman…”

It was a passage from the social studies class about ‘Jeong-hwa’s Expedition’. He was greatly shocked by the fact that Jeong-hwa was not a woman but a man, a eunuch and a general.

What was the chance that a eunuch and general would have the same name as his girlfriend? My girlfriend is a eunuch. The world was a never-ending ordeal for Park Sang-gi.

Jinhyuk, who had been watching his friends’ absurd conversation, also fell into his own question.

‘Was Jeong-hwa’s real name Ma Sambo?’

That Jeong-hwa was probably the model for the characters who often appeared as skilled eunuchs in martial arts novels.

He knew it, but it was hazy. It was strange that the content he studied for exams was clear in his head, while the texts he read just to satisfy his addiction to reading were blurry.

“Sang-gi seems to be studying hard these days. He even knows foreigners.”

“Are you trying to date a foreign girl?”

“…How can your conversations go in that direction?”

Jinhyuk completely understood Park Sang-gi’s skepticism.

Still, he just let his friends ramble on. They’d stop eventually.

Even though there were differences in taste and intellectual level, they were really good friends. They were more mature than tainted, more innocent than ignorant, and more cautious than cowardly. They didn’t blindly believe or spread rumors, they questioned, thought, and endlessly shared their opinions.

“Jo-seul, is Hwang Sun-won a woman too?”

Well, the topic was always strange, and it was rare for them to come to a proper conclusion.

But they were really good people.

“That guy’s name is neutral, but I think he’s a man. That’s what the Korean teacher said.”

“Oh. Jo-seul listened in class?”

“The Korean teacher looks like my mom’s picture…”

Ah, that’s right.

Yeom Byeong-taek, who turned his gaze to the ground where raindrops were splashing, muttered.

Thud, thud-.

As if it had never rained, the clouds cleared and the sun shone.

Female students were seen running late to the cafeteria after the rain stopped.

‘Oh, it’s noona [older sister or female friend].’

Even if the cafeteria was large, it was difficult to accommodate both middle and high school students at once. After the middle school students finished eating, it was the high school students’ turn. Hwang Ga-young seemed to be going to fill her stomach with her friends after waiting for the rain to stop.

‘It’s chilly, isn’t she cold?’

It was quite a distance from the school building to the cafeteria.

But Hwang Ga-young wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

“Oh, is Jinhyuk finally opening his eyes to the opposite sex? Ack!”

Jinhyuk lightly grabbed Yeom Byeong-taek’s trapezius muscle to shut his mouth before he could say nonsense.

“She’s my cousin.”

“Sss-, who? You can see someone that far away?”

“You can see people you know even from far away.”

Just like how he could recognize his dad even in the vast mudflat.

Jo Seul-chan defended Jinhyuk.

“That’s true. Yeom-byeong can recognize the bar hostesses just by looking at the back of their heads.”

Just by looking at the back of their heads…

‘Isn’t that another name for fate?’

You recognize people you know that way, and people who are meant to meet will meet somehow.

Slurp, slurp-.

Park Sang-gi, who had finished his dessert, put on the jacket he had draped over his arm.

“Come visit us, president. Byeong-taek and Seul-chan too. There’s a great pork bone stew place near Cheongju University.”

Today was Park Sang-gi’s last day at school.

He had already said goodbye to his classmates.

“…Dad’s here.”

Park Sang-gi turned his head towards the school gate where a car was entering.

They could visit each other once or twice, and if they tried, they could meet.

But if one side didn’t care, how long could the relationship last?

Jinhyuk had never experienced sending a close friend to another region. There was no time or reason to become close.

The world was still moving slowly.

For some reason, Hong Gi-jun was not releasing his cell phone to the world. Even though he had proudly unveiled the completed product, he was hesitant about mass production and service. He was blatantly ignoring the demands of the market and consumers.

Hong Gi-jun had only told Jinhyuk the real reason. By email.

「I am different from you. To an alien who first came to Earth, the human world might look beautiful. On the other hand, what about an alien who has completed his view of humans, with preconceptions and prejudices? A worn-out old alien cannot see humans as beautiful. Humans are too ugly to enjoy the achievements of an old alien. I don’t need a cell phone to make money. Read and delete.」

Jinhyuk was an alien who first came to Earth, and Hong Gi-jun was an old alien trapped in stereotypes. It was probably an expression to be careful, but how could he not understand the metaphor?

In Jinhyuk’s straightforward words, it would be something like, ‘I don’t want to be nice to those rude humans.’

Anyway, that was Hong Gi-jun’s answer.

‘That’s a shame.’

Jinhyuk had a secure phone, but his friends didn’t have pagers or cell phones.

Still, his view of the world had broadened, and he knew that the world wasn’t that big, so he still believed that they could see each other if they had contact information and the will.

“Goodbye, Sang-gi.”

Jinhyuk held out his hand.

He couldn’t say goodbye to Park Ji-beom because they went to different schools, so he was glad he could at least see him off. It was a shame, but he was glad. As he always felt, humans were contradictory, and their emotions were fickle.

On the other hand, he also felt a pain like a needle piercing his chest.

‘I hate goodbyes.’

Why does it hurt so much?

He should avoid it as much as possible. He didn’t want to do it.

Maybe it was more comfortable when his emotions were dry.

Unfamiliar emotions brought a fear he had never experienced before.

“…I’ll go.”

Park Sang-gi shook hands with his friends, hugged them to soothe his sadness, and got into the car.

The sandy playground, as wet as Park Sang-gi’s teary eyes, struggled to push up its damp breath.

“It’s all soggy because of the rain. Let’s go inside now. Let’s go-”

“Let’s go.”

Jo Seul-chan and Yeom Byeong-taek would go to different schools, but it was a relief that they didn’t move.

Those guys should study a bit.

***

It was late autumn in the countryside, before dawn.

Jaedong-ri was adjacent to the town, with a ridge in between.

It meant that if you crossed that hill, you would immediately reach the town.

Cluck, cluck-.

The laying hens in the chicken farm flapped their wings and shouted, ‘I laid an egg!’, but the diligent chicken farm owner was not yet in the mood to work.

“If it’s this time, he’d be around, but why isn’t he here today?”

Then it happened.

Wheeeeeee- Whoooosh-.

A bicycle without lights sped up the hill and quickly disappeared.

At first glance, it was faster than a 100cc motorcycle.

“Hoo- It’s not a ghost, what is that?”

Still, it was a good sight to see.

At first, he was about to faint, but after seeing it repeatedly, he got used to it. That was human immunity. When strange events are repeated, they become dull and eventually accepted as a truth.

They say that things more like a movie than a movie happen in reality, and maybe that was one of them.

‘Montma me ton ta te son sa se… Madam, medam, monsieur, meshu, mademoiselle, un, une…’

The time it took to walk to school had become so short that it couldn’t be reduced any further.

It was thanks to the energy of his heart that had opened wide on the day he ran to Janggun’s call.

“Did I come too early? Oh my, my thighs are tight.”

Although a colder wind had begun to blow, Jinhyuk’s routine of starting the day by running around the playground every morning remained the same.

He stretched in his loose T-shirt, lightly ran around the playground, and then ran the 100-meter track several times.

‘Is anyone watching?’

At a time when Yeom Byeong-taek and Jo Seul-chan, who had finished their athletic careers, had not yet come to school, Jinhyuk pressed the stopwatch on his wristwatch.

Bang-!

His posture was unnatural, and he barely breathed. But what was important to Jinhyuk now was not breathing or posture.

「9.23」

Sigh-.

He frowned because he didn’t get the desired record.

‘It’s too good. I’ll stand out if I do this.’

One more time.

「9.51」

Retrial.

「8.58」

Hick-!

“Is it too fast?”

Last try.

「11.80」

“What is this? It’s slower than when I just ran.”

It was a mess.

To cool down his heated body, he took off his shirt and sat in the shade next to the reviewing stand.

Whoosh-.

He pondered while regulating his breathing, which didn’t even need to be regulated.

‘I tried to do it comfortably, but it only made my head hurt more.’

His body was lighter and full of energy, but there was a limit to fine-tuning it.

When running long distances, he had time to breathe and make decisions, so he could cover the distance in a similar time, but in the 100-meter sprint, where the result came out in less than 10 seconds, it was difficult to control, and the difference in the results was too great.

His posture and stride were also a problem.

The movements that should have been powerful and smooth were out of sync.

He was covering a distance that used to take three steps with just one step.

That was not how a track and field athlete should be.

‘It’s better to just do what I used to do. Training and matches.’

There couldn’t be a simpler conclusion than that.

If he didn’t use it, that was it.

‘I should check my stride.’

He already hated situations that were out of his control, so to misuse power that he couldn’t control? That was not something that suited Son Jinhyuk.

Well, he could use the strange power to catch dog thieves.

The unidentified power was probably the energy that Yujin was drawing and using.

The power belonged to Jinhyuk, but it was funny that he could only use it now, but Jinhyuk also had something to say.

‘How can I use it if I don’t know how?’

After the power was released, he gained improved physical strength and muscles that didn’t tire easily. He had asked people around him what they would do if they gained such power.

– “I’d rob a bank.”

– “Team Leader Bon would put on a mask and put all the bad guys in jail.”

Moon Seok-il and Yang Kang-wook were transparent people.

On the other hand, his dad’s emotions were murky.

– “Daejeong? Hey, why bother? Those guys will just die of old age or wither away. The best punishment for them is to not give them any attention. This dad, you know, every night, I just go ‘euh-heung-heung-‘. Don’t look at me like that. Our son will understand when he gets old. This dad is scared of the night these days.”

It was murky and seemed to smell a bit ominous.

He could finally understand what his mom meant when she called him a cowardly husband.

Jinhyuk wasn’t stupid, even if he lacked awareness.

He could also understand why his dad treated Daejeong like a barbarian from a distant land.

His dad was also someone who thought that hating and destroying things was the fastest way to become the same kind of person.

‘The human world is so difficult, so difficult.’

Someone might make fun of Jinhyuk for being a fool.

For example, those who dream of creating their own utopia by using violent power as a weapon, like Yang Kang-wook or Moon Seok-il.

The athletes who couldn’t resist the temptation of drugs would be the same.

‘What do you get by living like that?’

Fame and honor? Social power and wealth?

Jinhyuk already believed that he could reach a high position and obtain those things with his own abilities. If he didn’t become complacent and continued to work hard.

It wasn’t just a matter of believing or not believing.

He had measured his main power at the bear gym yesterday with the equipment provided by Yoo Se-ra.

It took 5.5 seconds to cover 50 meters after the start. The track was too short to measure the 100-meter track, but considering the momentum in the second half, he would already have a record that surpassed that of a general adult athlete.

– “The most perfect victory is to win fairly and squarely without any tricks. Yes.”

Jinhyuk fully agreed with Cheon Gil-ryong’s opinion.

‘But where did that old man learn those words?’

He was smiling to himself, thinking of Cheon Gil-ryong, when it happened.

Swoosh-.

A light but fully weighted step.

It was the sound of Hwang Ga-young’s footsteps, who was probably only 50 kilograms, shorter than she was in his past life.

Jinhyuk quickly put on his T-shirt.