Chapter 105: Seniors who care for their juniors

Fortunately, Jina and Hyo-in’s paper presentation preparations didn’t extend beyond the deadline.

Thanks to Ye-rin, who helped with her small fern-like hands, and Seo-ah, who perceptively took good care of the two, they were able to get some sleep before turning into zombies.

And so, with a day to spare, the four left the hotel after a long time and headed to the Vancouver Convention Centre, where the conference schedule was in full swing.

“Waaah… I thought it would be a stiff lecture hall atmosphere since it’s a paper presentation venue, but there’s so much to see.”

Seo-ah’s eyes sparkled as she held her smartphone camera in her hand.

SIGGRAPH, compared to other computer science conferences, is a conference that emphasizes the reproducibility of results.

Therefore, most presenters set up their booths so that attendees could directly experience the technology.

For Seo-ah, all of this was content.

Even if not specifically for a broadcast.

The technologies she saw here, she felt, would be of great help someday when she establishes her own ‘VTuber specialized MCN’.

“Ye-rin-ssi, if you’re okay with it, could you help me film a vlog?”

“Yes, Seo-ah unnie!”

Seo-ah and Ye-rin quickly hit it off and headed towards the inside of the hall.

The two had become considerably closer in just one day, to the point where Seo-ah ‘ssi’ became Seo-ah ‘unnie’.

While Seo-ah poured out all sorts of questions to the conference attendees with her fluent English.

Jina and Hyo-in, a little apart, looked around the poster session separately.

“…”

Unlike Seo-ah, whose tension was properly high, Hyo-in’s condition wasn’t very good.

Her steps were a bit slower than usual, and she spoke less.

“Hyo-in, are you okay? Are you very tired?”

At Jina’s worried words, Hyo-in jumped in surprise and waved her hands.

“Ah, no! I think it’s just because I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“…Ah. Right, after staying up all night and even chugging coffee, there’s no way you’d sleep well.”

But the real reason Hyo-in didn’t sleep well was different.

Last night, thanks to Seo-ah and Ye-rin giving them space(?), she ended up lying in the same bed with Jina.

Because she was unnecessarily conscious… she couldn’t sleep a wink.

Of course, it wasn’t the first time she slept under the same blanket as Jina, but she was always dead drunk then.

Sleeping together sober was practically the first time.

…No. She was exhausted from preparing for the presentation, so she wasn’t exactly in her right mind, but anyway.

‘Get a grip… What on earth am I doing?’

Hyo-in’s face, momentarily embarrassed, flushed red.

“This paper, isn’t this the topic the professor was interested in last year?”

Whether fortunate or unfortunate, Jina seemed completely oblivious to Hyo-in’s inner turmoil, just carefully examining the posters one by one.

“How about it? It seems like it would be good to throw to the lab kids.”

“These days, he doesn’t seem very interested in this?”

“Really? The project I was preparing when I was there, looks like it fell through. I worked hard on the proposal.”

“So it passed the document screening, but it failed miserably at the presentation evaluation. There was no one in the lab besides Jina unnie who properly knew about that topic.”

“…Well, that’s a shame.”

Jina naturally moved on to the next poster.

“Hey, this topic is a bit similar to what that Byeong-jae bastard is researching, isn’t it?”

Hyo-in stared blankly at Jina and let out a smirk.

“Why don’t you tell Byeong-jae oppa yourself, unnie? He’ll be waiting for your call.”

“…You know. My situation.”

“Still, you seem to be aware that you were a man?”

‘You didn’t seem to care at all last night?’

Hyo-in pouted and lightly nudged Jina’s shoulder.

“This is a matter of becoming troublesome or not… But after living like this for over a year, honestly, I don’t really think much about it anymore.”

“Wow, has it really been that long already? Time flies.”

A chuckle escaped Hyo-in’s lips.

Talking with Jina seemed to gradually make her fatigue disappear.

Also, looking around the conference hall together after a long time and talking about papers felt so comfortable and nice.

Walking slowly like that, Jina stopped in front of one poster.

“Real-time 3D model generation technology…”

Next to the poster, a young Western author happened to be standing.

He was glancing at Jina with a somewhat nervous expression.

“Here, the texture doesn’t seem to be synthesized properly.”

At Jina’s languidly thrown question, the other person swallowed hard, looking nervous.

“Did you properly remove the light source from the dataset?”

“Yes, yep. In the learning stage, we extracted the 2D texture map separately and applied an image decomposition model to it.”

“Why did you specifically go through the process of separating the texture map?”

“Th-that is…”

“If you apply a light source inference algorithm based on spherical harmonics to 3D objects, you should be able to separate shaders more easily.”

“…”

Watching the poor chick shrink properly under Jina’s nagging(?), Hyo-in let out an awkward laugh.

That sight was just like herself when she first entered graduate school and was writing her first paper.

‘At first, Jina unnie’s questions were really scary for me too…’

On the other hand, she wonders if she could have grown this much if it weren’t for Jina.

Hyo-in stood with her arms crossed, quietly watching Jina verbally assault the chick in fluent English.

Then, around the time the other person became not just damp but thoroughly soaked, she pulled Jina’s arm.

“Stop bullying the kid and let’s go see something else. There’s still a lot to see.”

“Uh, uh… What are you talking about? I didn’t bully anyone. I was just asking things I was curious about…”

“Just be quiet and come. If you do more, that person looks like they’re going to cry.”

Today, Hyo-in had protected one budding researcher from the hurricane named Jina.

---

“How many people came to Canada? Four of us came. Me, Mama, and Mama’s two juniors.”

Seo-ah, no, Winter, sat in front of the laptop and carefully pulled the microphone closer.

Just in case she disturbed anyone outside the room, she lowered her voice.

“What’s everyone doing? Mama and one of Mama’s juniors are doing a final check because they have presentations tomorrow, and the other junior is organizing the papers she saw at the conference today.”

Soon, comments teasing Winter poured into the chat window.

[-So what’s Winter doing alone?]

[-Everyone’s working, but she’s playing alone…]

[-No matter how I look at it, it seems like she went there to interfere??]

Even while trying hard to explain.

When you think about it, not a single word from the viewers was wrong.

Winter let out a low sigh.

“Well… To be honest, I think it’s true I’m being a hindrance. Honestly, I myself feel a bit… no, a lot like a nuisance…”

Originally, she came to get a bit of a travel vibe.

But actually coming here, the atmosphere was completely different.

“Seeing Mama and the others staying up all night preparing… I think I was being too thoughtless. Really, I’m reflecting a lot.”

The self-reproach she had felt over the past two days pricked her chest again, and her face flushed hot.

“Still… I think coming along to the conference itself was a good decision. I saw so many amazing things here. I’m realizing anew that I was trapped in a small world.”

A bit of life began to return to Winter’s voice.

“There are so many amazing technologies. While going around the booths, there wasn’t just one or two things that made me think, ‘Wow, is this really possible?’”

‘Things I’ve only seen in movies or animations until now seem like they’ll soon become reality,’ she thought.

Winter smiled brightly.

[-So you’re saying you went to an alien technology demonstration event?]

[-Is Sword Master Online really coming out!!]

[-Show us pictures show us pictures show us pictures show us pictures]

“I’ll share the detailed stories in a review broadcast after I return to Korea. I’ll also edit and upload the vlog, so everyone please wait just a little longer.”

After hyping up the viewers’ anticipation, Winter finished her short chat broadcast.

Tomorrow is the day Jina and Hyo-in present their papers.

…If those two try to pull an all-nighter again today, she plans to forcibly put them to sleep, even if it’s just for managing their condition.

---

The day of the presentation.

Jina’s appearance was no different from usual.

Languid eyes, a calm expression.

And even a relaxed gait.

She looked composed, as if accustomed to presenting in such a place.

Compared to her, Hyo-in looked somewhat nervous.

However, she wasn’t short of breath or anxious.

Thanks to practicing the presentation countless times with Jina late into the night, she even felt confident.

Her condition isn’t bad either. Thanks to the meticulous manager named Seo-ah.

Actually, the most nervous one is Ye-rin, who isn’t even presenting.

She clasped her hands tightly, pacing around Hyo-in with an anxious expression.

“Unnie… Will it really be okay?”

“Yeah. I prepared a lot. Nothing will go wrong.”

At Hyo-in’s words, Ye-rin seemed a little relieved, smiled, and caught her breath.

“But Jina-nim, why are you carrying luggage?”

Seo-ah asked, pointing to the suitcase Jina was pulling.

She hadn’t paid much attention, but now that they were at the conference hall entrance, it felt like rather excessive luggage.

“Do you need such big equipment for the presentation?”

“Ah, this? These are devices to install on stage for the demonstration.”

“…You’re doing a demonstration too?”

Seo-ah looked at the suitcase again with surprised eyes.

Hyo-in also followed Seo-ah, casting a curious gaze.

Hyo-in suddenly felt worried.

Looking back, she had no memory of seeing Jina prepare for her presentation.

“Jina unnie, by any chance, you didn’t neglect your own preparation because you were helping me, right? I feel like I took too much of your time…”

“Huh? Not at all. In the first place, my name is on your paper too, right? Of course, I should help.”

Jina patted Hyo-in’s shoulder tok tok and smiled.

“And as for my paper, well, the presentation preparation was finished long ago.”

“Haha… I was worried about someone I didn’t need to worry about.”

Hyo-in realized it anew once again.

Unlike her own paper, where just getting accepted was a relief.

Jina’s paper was competing for the best paper award.