Sense-Chapter 13: What day, what time(6)

Dowook went to the Skylounge looking for Lim So Yool. Finding her by the window, he walked towards her direction and realized she was sharing a table with someone.

‘What is she doing?’

At first, he thought she was drawing something. She was talking to the child with rapt attention.

But the numerous pages which covered the table reminded him of her unique propensity that he’d witnessed in her VIP room.

“Wow! There’s another one.”

The child’s admiration was toward a paper held in Lim So Yool’s hand.

Drawn only with circles, the bear had a very consistent shape, as if it had been drawn using a compass.

Once every 5 seconds, bears that looked like they were printed by a photocopier descended on the paper.

“There. If they pass this door, how many bears would there be?”

“Veee~rry many.”

“Right. You don’t have to pay attention to how many there are. Very many, so think about how there are so many bears that you can’t count them. That’s what ‘infinite’ means.”

“Infinite?”

“It’s a magic spell that makes any mathematical condition worthwhile.”

“I like infinite, too. The bears are infinite.”

Come to think of it, there was an infinity symbol ‘∞’ in the drawing of the bear. Lim So Yool’s method of teaching a child that was just starting to learn what 1,2,3 meant, about higher math concepts made him think if it was alright to leave them be but it seemed to work.

“Unni, will there be more bunnies if they pass this door, too?”

“Bunnies?”

Lim So Yool’s pen stopped at the gesture of the child who found a picture of a rabbit in the book buried under the papers.

“This one has a lot of curves.”

Lim So Yool drew a y- and x-axis on the rabbit’s ears and turned it into a graph. Then she started calculating the functions. Dowook became suddenly shocked.

‘Is she calculating the lines and curves so she can draw?’

The ears, eyes, nose, and mouth were dismantled by mathematical calculus then were replaced with sine and cosine functions. With this, it gave birth to a rabbit.

Then identical rabbits, without even a 1mm difference, started to infinitely cover the page. It was only possible because it was created via calculation from start to finish.

“Wow! There’s a lot of bunnies, too.”

“How much?”

“It’s infinite.”

The mindset of the child trapped by 11 bears disappeared and a new world of infinity expanded before her.

Watching the amazing photocopy of the animal drawings, Dowook remembered the reason he came and coughed to get their attention.

“Doctor.”

Turning to look, Lim So Yool saw Dowook and stopped her pen.

“Is there something you want?”

“There’s something I need to ask you in relation to the operation.”

Lim So Yool checked the clock on the lounge wall and answered.

“The child’s mother will be here in 30 minutes. Is it something we can talk about here?”

“That’s fine.”

Dowook sat at the table.

The child who happily looked at the hundreds of bears and tens of rabbits saw an elephant in the book and pointed at it.

“Unni, can the elephant become infinite, too?”

“Elephant?”

Seeing the new animal in the book, Lim So Yool displayed a puzzled expression.

“Straight and curved lines are pretty mixed up.”

“He can’t be infinite?”

“It’s not that he can’t.”

Answering with confidence, Lim So Yool started analyzing the drawing with a helpless expression. It seemed she couldn’t turn a blind eye to an innocent child feeling sad about the situation.

Lim So Yool started talking while her eyes were fixed on the paper.

“What did you want to ask about?”

Maybe it was because he was sitting beside a concentrating Lim So Yool, but Dowook felt the special senses tingling at his fingertips.

“Prof. Choi said surgery was possible. However, the operation will be performed by me.”

“By you? Didn’t you say the operation must be performed by a skilled surgeon to reduce the aftereffects?”

At the direct question, Dowook couldn’t say a word.

He thought about it a lot on the way here. But the reason why instead of the best skilled surgeon, a resident in his 4th year should perform the operation didn’t come to mind.

‘As expected. This is the only thing I can do.’

Dowook grabbed a pen and took a sheet of paper from the table.

“I came to explain about that part.”

He turned to look at the child.

“Can I have one of these papers?”

“Yup.”

“Thanks.”

He took a deep breath and held the paper.

His hand moved by itself as it started to calculate the estimated aftereffects of surgery after adding Prof. Choi’s skill that he’d just witnessed. Of course, it was all calculation methods he’d never seen or heard of in his life.

The child, who’d been looking at Dowook blankly, asked.

“Unni, is that doctor also drawing infinite?”

“It seems like he’s doing unbiased estimation since he’s defining something’s true value.”

Dowook’s hand moving the pen flinched. She said this is an uncomfortable number.

[T/N: unbiased estimation literally translates to ‘uncomfortable estimation.’ So Dowook misunderstood.]

‘I can’t show her a poor appearance.’

Fortunately, Lim So Yool was looking at the child.

“What’s that, unni?”

“Unbiased estimation is an annoying concept so let’s go to differentiation. What do you think about this elephant’s nose?”

Lim So Yool pushed her paper towards the child.

“The wrinkles on the nose were placed based on differential topology. To be safe.”

“Wow. Unni, you’re so good at drawing.”

“If you learn for about a year, you’ll also be great.”

“Elephant drawing?”

“No, topology.”

Dowook thought, ‘so that’s it.’ He looked at the nodding child and Lim So Yool with surprise. Although he wondered if that was something to be taught to such a young child, he couldn’t criticize her when it came to numbers.

When the number of elephants created with topology reached 10, Dowook’s calculations were also finished.

“Here. I tried to put together the information.”

Lim So Yool looked at the paper Dowook gave her without a word.

Having not understood everything even though he wrote it, Dowook only spoke about what he could understand.

“In this operation, I can extract the cyst as accurately as Prof. Choi. However, since I’m not him, I tried to calculate an estima……”

“I’ll do it, the surgery.”

Dowook wondered if he had misheard. He didn’t even think that permission would be granted so easily.

“Did you think about it seriously?”

“The doctor who understands me the most in this hospital will perform the surgery. So do you think my answer wasn’t thought through?”

Her decision-making speed was pretty quick. Although the reason she agreed was probably the accurate calculations, dowook didn’t have the ability to understand those formulas. He only had the sense of it at his fingertips.

Still, that sense was a huge help to him one more time.

“Then I’ll inform our chief that I have received consent.”

“When will the operation take place?”

“It will be scheduled as soon as possible.”

“That’s good.”

Vrrrr.Vrrrr.

The phone in his pocket vibrated twice.

Upon checking, Chief Ha contacted him in worry because he was taking so long.

“I will go downstairs first.”

Lim So Yool looked at Dowook who was rising to his feet.

“By any chance…..”

Having been looking at his phone, Dowook reflexively turned to look and met the deep bright eyes that were looking at him searchingly.

“………..do you like math?”

A question out of nowhere.

In Lim So Yool’s world, the dynamic between Prof. Choi and the neurosurgery department, the vice president and VIP’s uniqueness, did not matter as much as the calculations Dowook did to convince her today.

That was because she only cared about the truth behind the numbers.

This was something that had never been tried in Dowook’s world, but was a strange yet attractive logic.

“I didn’t really like them before, but I think I will like them from now on.”

Unexpectedly, his true thoughts came out.

There was a tiny smile on Lim So Yool’s face. It was a smile that made her sparkle and seem like another person.

The child looked back and forth between the two adults with an expression saying, ‘what is this?’ on her face.