The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 59

Unfazed by the various reactions, information flooded from Yu Sera, the self-proclaimed human-intelligence. It was as if she were saying, ‘I’ll give you all the information I know, so interpret it yourself.’ The information was extensive but lacked logical coherence.

“Uh, growth hormone is lacking—no, is it excessive? And the nutrition isn’t balanced either—.”

Jinhyuk suppressed a laugh. How could the mother and daughter be so alike, even down to the way they stammer when explaining something complex? From Jinhyuk’s experience, it was because their mouths couldn’t keep up with their fast-thinking brains. He knew they weren’t unintelligent people.

Jinhyuk, as if soothing a sulking child, quickly stepped in, placing Hong Sujeong on his lap. Since no one else was doing anything, he intended to rescue Yu Sera.

“Her muscles were strained, pressing on the nerves in her lower back.”

“Oh, oh. That’s what I meant.”

Since the nerves were compressed, any treatment would only be temporary, and the pain would persist. That was the diagnosis of the specialists in the city. In the past, even as an adult, he had suffered for over a week, unable to move. In severe cases, he would walk cautiously, as if one side of his lower back had collapsed.

“If the hospital said the same thing, then we just have to wait, right?”

“Yes, well…”

Jinhyuk pulled down his rolled-up t-shirt.

The town hospital had simply told him to get an injection and rest on his stomach. It was a prescription for the pain, so he couldn’t dismiss it as a wrong diagnosis.

His whole body felt itchy, almost to the point of being unbearable. He would wake up in the middle of the night, rubbing himself all over, and roll around on the floor like a caterpillar. Anyway, if being unable to move because of his back was growing pains, then so be it.

‘I’m itching to move since I can’t exercise.’

It wasn’t just the disappointment of not being able to exercise.

The reason he always pushed his body to exhaustion through exercise was to clear his mind of unnecessary thoughts. But now, forced to rest, all sorts of thoughts were tormenting him. When he couldn’t sleep, the question ‘Who am I?’ would beckon him, and each time, his soul would wander through a maze, searching for a lost answer.

“Mom, please give me a hot compress.”

“Okay, sure.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll lie down for a bit.”

His parents and the guests from Seoul looked at Jinhyuk with curious eyes.

Yu Sera’s eyes, in particular, were sparkling. He had become quite talkative after getting sick. It seemed he was maturing as much as he was hurting.

‘They’re looking at me like I’m some kind of spectacle. Have they never seen a patient before?’

Jinhyuk’s thoughts were different.

Unable to even go up to his room, Jinhyuk lay on his stomach in the living room, attaching a low-frequency heating pad. After trying various things, he found that the low-frequency therapy device he bought at the market for 5,000 won [approximately $4 USD] was the most effective.

‘Ooooh, so electrical stimulation is the best. It’s electrifying.’

It was tingling, painful yet refreshing.

The adults’ conversation while watching the Olympics replay faded into the distance, and his mind grew hazy as sleep washed over him. He buried his face in the pillow and fell asleep.

“Oppa, oppa. Oppa, are you hurting?”

In his sleep, he heard Yujin’s voice.

Worried that her younger sister might make things harder for him, his mother had strictly kept Yujin away from her brother. But today, for some reason, she had rushed to her brother without any hindrance. Perhaps her mother was too busy catching up with Yu Sera to stop Yujin, or maybe Yujin had escaped while her mother was asleep.

‘Or maybe my condition has improved so much that she let her come.’

Whatever the reason, it seemed his younger sister would be playing on her brother’s back for the first time in a while. Even in his sleep, Jinhyuk spread his back wide, so the baby wouldn’t fall off and get hurt.

Yujin played by rubbing her brother’s buzz cut, riding on his back, and patting his back and waist.

Slap, slap-!

‘Hehehe. That’s right, that’s right. Good job, my little sister! Your hands are still strong.’

In his hazy state, Jinhyuk felt Yujin slapping and pressing down with her palms. His body warmed up, and a tingling sensation accompanied by pleasure washed over him.

The pain that had suddenly struck before the downpour vanished as quickly as the dark clouds had cleared.

The back pain that had kept Jinhyuk immobile for ten days was gone just like that.

‘……What.’

***

Son Yujin doesn’t know how to be angry.

It’s normal for a baby who can’t speak to cry and wail when frustrated, but Son Yujin was used to smiling even as a baby.

‘Did she smile even when she pooped?’

She often enjoyed the soft, warm feeling of sitting on her diaper and rubbing her bottom. After playing like that, her bottom would get itchy, and she would pout and cry, pretending to tear off her diaper. When she cried sadly, someone would rush to wash her and change her diaper.

She would inevitably cry when she was hungry or scared. That was the only way to escape hunger and fear. But she never got angry enough to scream.

‘Oppa, uncle. Did she smile even when she got hit?’

That was probably because the family’s wish for her to be full of smiles had influenced the baby. A harmonious environment would have also played a role. The baby, who had no logical way to explain it, could only vaguely guess.

Son Yujin remembers the words that echoed in her head when she was a baby.

It was a more intuitive exchange than what she saw or heard.

[Grow up healthy.]

It was a voice with a form. If you ask how a sound can have a form, Son Yujin has no way to explain it. It’s the same reason why you can’t run before you can walk.

The moment she realized the existence of her family, who were always around her, she wanted to find the owner of the voice. Son Yujin explored the owner of that voice.

‘It’s not Dad, is it?’

Dad’s voice was soft and pleasant to listen to, but it was far from being dignified.

Her mother, with her beautiful voice, was even less likely to be the one.

At least, there was no one in the neighborhood who had that voice. After touring the neighborhood on her guardian’s back for several years, she came to that conclusion.

The closest match was her brother, but his voice changed little by little, making it difficult to pinpoint.

There was another reason why she couldn’t find it.

‘As I live, the words are different, right?’

The words she heard in her head were different from the language her family used.

Son Yujin had reached the point where she could not only understand the language of that voice but also speak it. It was in the past tense because she had forgotten most of it. Of course, there weren’t many words she could say.

They said it was wrong, that she shouldn’t use those words. Even her mother, who had laughed when she called ‘Mom’ ‘Mya Mya,’ told her not to use those words.

Her mom and dad pretended not to hear when she used those words, but when even her most trusted brother told her not to, she had no choice but to correct herself.

‘But ‘dog’ is still ‘saniel,’ right?’

She even gave up the word she used to describe dogs.

It was strange. Dad also shouted ‘saniel’ when he saw a dog.

Although she was puzzled, she couldn’t go against the words of the people who fed her, put her to bed, and dressed her.

And so, Son Yujin began to compromise with the world, little by little.

As she spent more time talking to people every day, she gradually forgot the owner of the voice.

However, the words ‘grow up healthy’ were deeply engraved in her mind, so she decided to grow up healthy.

Ts ts ts- twetete-.

She ate dirt and sucked on her toes. She licked the refrigerator door and tore at the sofa.

Her kind mother didn’t stop Son Yujin from eating anything.

Ah, she didn’t let her eat everything.

“Yujin, this is soy sauce, right?”

Mom is a liar.

The soy sauce that her mother hid was a similar color to the voice she had heard when she was a newborn. If you ask how a voice can have a form and even a color, this 50-month-old baby has no way to explain it. Logic is in the realm of reason, but Son Yujin is still in the realm of spirituality.

Anyway, the adults gulped down soy sauce. Dad made a monster sound in his throat after drinking soy sauce. Grrrroooaaar-, a sweet smell came from the monster sound.

Her mother never let her eat it, but Son Yujin was not a fool, even though she couldn’t express her anger.

‘This smell is not the smell of soy sauceee-!’

Then, there was only one person she could trust.

‘Oppa will give it to me, right?’

She vowed to pester her brother and taste it someday.

Because her brother would do anything for his younger sister.

Son Yujin also found grabbing her brother’s hair more fun than touching her mother’s ‘Mya Mya.’ The short strands that were hard to grab subtly stimulated her competitive spirit. So, she sometimes tore at them with her mouth.

‘There are two soy sauces in the refrigerator-.’

For that to happen, her brother had to be able to open the refrigerator door.

But her tall and strong brother hadn’t been walking lately.

‘Oppa, you’re not going to school and crawling, right?’

He was someone who would get up for his younger sister at any time.

Son Yujin was always looking for an opportunity.

Finally, the time had come.

When another family from Seoul came to visit, her mother got busy.

Her mother sat on the bed with her Seoul mom, laughing while looking at new cosmetics.

‘Cosmetics don’t taste good…’

Son Yujin had tasted everything she could get her hands on. She would have the most information about taste in this house. Son Yujin had experienced the bitterness of life after tasting cosmetics.

Anyway, it was an opportunity for Son Yujin.

She had to go to her brother!

Her mother’s surveillance had become lax, and she was finally able to reach her brother.

Slap, slap-!

She touched and hit her brother, whom she had met after a long time. She put her heart into her touch. It was a greeting she only used for her brother, but it could be called assault. However, every time she hit him like this, her brother would laugh like the ‘Saniel’ General, saying, ‘Good job, good job.’

But today, her brother’s reaction was strange.

“Yujin, how did you do that?”

She had just hit him because she was happy to see him, but her brother seemed to be misunderstanding something. He suddenly stood up and asked how she had done it.

Although Son Yujin wasn’t good at talking, she could at least answer questions.

She smiled brightly at her brother. Because he was the one who would give her the sweet soy sauce.

“Like this, like this, right?”

Now, the soy sauce that makes monster sounds-.

***

He had suffered for over ten days, so it was time for him to get better.

But usually, the pain would go away after a good night’s sleep.

To feel the pain go away in real-time.

‘This is a bit strange?’

Jinhyuk was so surprised that he jumped up.

Hong Sujeong, who had been sleeping with her head on Jinhyuk’s leg, rolled off.

The fathers, who were drinking makgeolli [Korean rice wine] with kimchi pancakes, were startled and gaped. It was understandable, as the guy who had been lying on the floor, writhing in pain from his back, had risen like a zombie.

Son Gwang-yeon, with a flushed face, moved his lips as if talking to himself.

“Has he grown that much?”

“I thought you had gone over there while I was drinking.”

Even Hong Gijun, who hadn’t drunk much yet, found the scene strange.

They hadn’t seen him standing upright while he was sick, so it was understandable.

“Kyahaha-.”

Yujin burst into laughter, looking at Hong Sujeong, who had rolled off.

It seemed that Yujin was the only one who wasn’t surprised by Jinhyuk’s sudden awakening.

Jinhyuk first touched his lower back, which had felt like it was about to break.

‘Could it be, Yujin…’

There are people who believe they exist because they think, but Jinhyuk wasn’t the type to apply the measure of contemplation to everything. It was partly because he didn’t have the mental space, and partly because he thought it was more efficient to learn by directly experiencing things.

Yes, Son Jinhyuk was a human who pursued efficiency in many ways. At least in situations that he could control with his reason.

‘But this is a bit… something…’

His lower back, which had felt like it was about to break, had suddenly become fine, making normal thinking impossible.

It was hard to tell whether it was because it was time for him to get better or because Yujin had touched him.

He gently asked his smiling younger sister.

“Yujin, how did you do that?”

“Like this, like this, right?”

Slap, slap-.

Yujin smiled and hit her brother’s back with her small hands. It didn’t seem like she was doing it with any intention.

‘Is Yujin a healing hand?’

Jinhyuk took his sister’s hand and placed it on his forehead.

He had woken up groggily with a throbbing head, so he thought he would test it out.