Six Years Old [Three Months Later / Rehabilitation Room]

Hajun walked again.

At first, two steps.

The next week, five.

A month later, he made it to the end of the hall.

Jian cried every time.

Taekyung did not.

Instead, he recorded numbers.

Seizure frequency.

Walking distance.

Language response.

Strength.

Cognitive changes.

And at some point,

he began recording them less often.

One day Hajun saw a yellow bus again and said,

(Hajun) : “Yellow.”

Jian smiled.

(Jian) : “That’s right.”

Hajun looked at his father.

(Hajun) : “Daddy knows too?”

Taekyung smiled.

(Taekyung) : “Daddy knows too.”

[One Year Later / Home]

Six candles stood on the cake.

Jian stopped while lighting them.

Six.

Both parents stared at the number for a long time.

Hajun complained impatiently.

(Hajun) : “Mom, hurry.”

Jian laughed and wiped her eyes.

(Jian) : “Okay, okay.”

The candles were lit.

Hajun took a deep breath and blew them out.

Applause filled the room.

Taekyung could not speak.

Five years old.

The boundary the doctor had warned them about was already behind them.

Hajun was six.

Alive.

That night, after Hajun fell asleep,

Taekyung took out the research notebook he had not opened in a long time.

He turned to the final page.

And then he stopped writing.

He ended the developmental acceleration research.

He published no paper.

Filed no patent.

Boasted to no one.

Jian asked,

(Jian) : “You’re really done?”

Taekyung looked toward Hajun’s bedroom door.

(Taekyung) : “Yeah.”

(Jian) : “But that research... if it reached the world, maybe other children—”

Taekyung slowly shook his head.

(Taekyung) : “Not the way I did it.”

Jian asked nothing more.

Taekyung knew exactly what he had done as a scientist.

One successful outcome did not make the method right.

The result he had needed

was already asleep in the next room.