After that day, Choi Moo-gyeol’s parents carefully took care of many aspects.
The effect of those emotion-learning lessons that continued every evening after work was clear.
Choi Moo-gyeol, having sufficiently practiced ‘memorizing’ ordinary human reactions and communication for a while.
After advancing to the next grade, the children’s reactions changed.
The instances of him making odd expressions or taking a wary attitude as before greatly decreased.
Of course, he and Lee Dong-gyu, whom he had thought was his best friend, grew permanently distant, and the rumor from the previous grade—that he was a kid who had changed because of an accident—followed him, but.
Choi Moo-gyeol’s special training.
The efforts he had poured into observing, memorizing, and reacting to the emotions ordinary people feel from unseen places.
Those efforts were not in vain.
No more hostile children appeared.
From middle school onward, there was another change.
In elementary school he had been on the smaller side, but from the first year of middle school, his body suddenly began a growth spurt.
The cognitive focusing and neural acceleration mode obtained as a trade-off for damaging his brain. The super-senses, super-memory, super-comprehension, and super-motor skills from that time.
That ability, which he could use four to five times a day for about two hours, also developed, making it possible to use it six or seven times for about three hours.
Thanks to that, he was at the top tier not only in grades but also in PE class.
On top of that, his once ordinary appearance also improved.
It was a harmonious manifestation of only the parents’ strong points.
At some point, Choi Moo-gyeol began hearing things like this.
“Wow, there goes a cheater character.”
After becoming a ‘cheater character,’ no problems arose in his school life.
Even a unique personality becomes ‘four-dimensional’ if a person as talented as Choi Moo-gyeol has it. If an unattractive person has it, it becomes ‘unlikable.’
It is impossible to ostracize or bully a cheater character.
People originally burn with competitiveness and envy toward those similar to themselves or slightly better, but they tend to be cautious around those who appear overwhelmingly superior.
His peers had a cautious side when dealing with Choi Moo-gyeol.
Thanks to that, Choi Moo-gyeol’s peculiar aspects did not stand out well.
‘He’s growing up more smoothly than I thought.’
Watching Choi Moo-gyeol grow up safely during his childhood, his parents could be somewhat relieved.
Of course, this did not completely erase their worries about Choi Moo-gyeol’s interpersonal relationships.
Because there were no friends who bothered Choi Moo-gyeol, but there were also no friends who approached him.
The subtle discomfort given by acted emotions.
The instinctive fear felt even without knowing he was a psychopath.
People smelled that kind of scent from Choi Moo-gyeol.
They could not explain it precisely, but they sensed that something was different from ordinary people.
A ‘cheater character’ with psychopathic traits.
He was a being too difficult to get close to.
Choi Moo-gyeol agonized.
‘Just because a few centimeters of brain tissue disappeared, have I become a being that finds it difficult to make friends?’
‘Am I broken, or have I evolved?’
Amid such circumstances, Choi Moo-gyeol had become a high school student before he knew it.
It was the time to prepare in earnest for the college entrance exam.
They say children who start early for college entrance prepare from elementary and middle school.
Choi Moo-gyeol had spent several years delayed because he was busy adapting to the world after an unexpected incident.
‘What university and what department should I go to in the future?’
But being a little late is not a problem. Choi Moo-gyeol had obtained a cheat-like brain.
The real problem was.
The question, ‘What profession should I, an acquired psychopath, have?’
* * *
The examinee life, where studying was the top priority, ended with the CSAT.
One day, as graduation approached. All three members of Choi Moo-gyeol’s family were sticking their faces close to the computer monitor.
Because today was the day the acceptance results for the university he applied to were announced.
Tap tap tap.
Choi Moo-gyeol entered his exam number and name on the Hankook University admission results inquiry page.
Tap—!
The moment he pressed the final enter.
The content of the screen that appeared on the monitor.
――――――――――――――――――
Congratulations! You have been finally accepted to Hankook University’s freshman regular/early admission recruitment.
We sincerely congratulate you on becoming an alumnus of Hankook University College of Medicine. Your outstanding capabilities and efforts have borne fruit.
Please be sure to check the acceptance letter printing and registration guide below and complete the registration procedure within the designated period.
―――――――――――――――――
“You got in! You got in!”
“Well done, our son!”
Choi Moo-gyeol’s father, who embraced his mother in joy, and his mother, whose eyes welled up with tears, perhaps because she had suffered greatly in her heart even though she had not said anything.
But the acquired psychopath Choi Moo-gyeol, as expected, spoke indifferently.
“You already knew I’d get in anyway. My school records were sufficient, and my mock exam scores were always above the cutoff.”
“I know, I know, kid! But now that acceptance is confirmed, Dad feels like he could fly! When you say Hankook University College of Medicine, it’s the best medical school in Korea—how proud must I be of my son!”
His father playfully ruffled Choi Moo-gyeol’s hair and said.
Then he suddenly saw his mother frowning and asked.
“Darling, why are you making such a dark face on such a good day?”
“Medical students are mostly smart. When he goes to university, what if they notice our Moo-gyeol is a bit different from ordinary people and ostracize him…….”
“I don’t think you need to worry in advance.”
“Yes, let’s put aside all such worries today and enjoy the acceptance! Moo-gyeol, what do you want to eat for dinner? This dad will buy you anything!”
“Beef……?”
“Let’s go grill some ribeye!”
A household with an acquired psychopath also has moments like this, sometimes like an ordinary family.
* * *
That’s right.
After much thought, the career path I chose was medical school.
There were three main reasons.
First, I wanted to treat people with brain injuries.
So that they would not be treated as strange like me.
So that they would not have to forcibly memorize and imitate lost emotions like me.
Second, I wanted to know, continuously since I became aware that something had gone wrong with my brain after the accident.
Where my ‘emotions’ had gone.
I realized only after I could no longer feel emotions.
How important a part emotions occupy in a human being.
If that is missing, you become a different human being.
In fact, I know that it was not only my classmates who thought I was strange after the accident.
One night.
I had woken up from sleep, gone out to the living room to drink water, and happened to hear my parents’ conversation flowing from the master bedroom.
A single remark that pierced my ears.
“When I’m with Moo-gyeol, sometimes I’m afraid because he doesn’t seem like the old Moo-gyeol.”
A tingle—.
In that moment, a phantom pain was felt near the operated frontal lobe.
Not only friends but even my parents, my closest family, thought I had changed strangely.
Am I really okay?
I pretend there’s no problem, but maybe I actually have many problems?
After that, I truly wanted to know.
How to regain emotions.
They must have clearly been in me once.
Third. How on earth did I obtain a kind of superpower like ‘cognitive focusing’?
If I explore further the mysterious changes that happened to me after the brain injury, will the day come when I understand?
If I study many people with brain injuries like ‘me,’ will I be able to know the secrets and mysteries of the brain?
In doing so, perhaps someday I will be able to recover my former emotions and return to my original self.
Not just knowing by memorization, but the day will come when I truly feel emotions.
Of course, I hope to find out without losing the superpower.
Anyway.
After such thoughts, I resolved to become a doctor, and by making good use of my brain’s abilities, I achieved my goal.
* * *
Choi Moo-gyeol, having become a Hankook University medical student, adapted to college life better than his mother had worried.
Medical school is originally a place where the nation’s top talent gathers.
Outsiders may not know, but it is also actually a place where the nation’s top oddballs gather.
In other words, Choi Moo-gyeol did not give his medical school classmates that peculiar a feeling.
Because medical students are all beings who possess at least a certain level of oddness inside.
Of course, Choi Moo-gyeol’s appearance, memorization, athletic ability, and such did become a bit of a topic.
‘He’s handsome and outstanding, but I don’t know what he’s usually thinking.’
‘There’s one exceptionally talented guy. He’s a bit awkward at communicating with people. Is it because he’s introverted?’
Mostly, the reactions were indifferent like this.
When Choi Moo-gyeol was among this new group, he did not make the same troublesome efforts as before—the effort to appear like a normal person rather than a psychopath.
Still, it was fine, and his heart was at ease.
It was a period when he could fully focus on medical school classes rather than worrying about the question, ‘Am I strange?’
The mystery of the human body, forming harmony like a small universe.
All kinds of diseases that ruin that universe, and the various treatments that fight against them.
There was so much to know and so much he wanted to know.
Thus, medical student Choi Moo-gyeol immersed himself in medicine.
Not only that, at some point Choi Moo-gyeol also gained one person who could be called a friend.
Since the accident in elementary school, he had always maintained an appropriate distance from people.
The guy who entered that precarious fence was the first to appear.
That classmate’s name was Park Seok-hun.
Did they become close because they had something in common, or because they had the same psychopathic tendency?
Actually, it was the exact opposite.
There was not a single thing in common between the two.
Compared to the cold-looking Choi Moo-gyeol, Park Seok-hun looked soft and gentle.
Bare-eyed Choi Moo-gyeol and four-eyes Park Seok-hun.
The two were humans at opposite extremes.
Moreover, there was a part where they differed even more than these external aspects, and that was the emotional aspect.
Park Seok-hun was perhaps a human with excessively rich emotions for a doctor.
The first time Choi Moo-gyeol felt that fact was during the cadaver (corpse) dissection practice in his first year of the main course.
* * *
Hankook University Medical School first-year main course class, “Structure and Function of the Human Body” time.
Medical students were chatting on their way to the anatomy lab.
“Ugh…… I’m nervous. To see a cadaver for the first time.”
“Do you think you’ll have nightmares after seeing it?”
“A senior in the club said the corpse itself isn’t that much of a problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”
A medical student’s question was soon answered.
As soon as they opened the lab door, the intense smell of formalin, which all the medical school classmates were smelling for the first time in their lives, stung their noses.
