I Became A Renowned Genius At My Arts High School - Chapter 253



Only Krnovel

Episode 253. Vending Machine Effect (1)

“wait a minute.”

Bloomberg muttered to himself and pressed the button again.

Rattling.

This time the gift fell through again.

“Huh… … .”

After checking the contents, Bloomberg made a strange sound and then…

I pressed the button again.

Rattling.

And one more time.

Rattling.

Once again, once again.

Rattling.

Soon, a dozen or so gift boxes were piled up in front of Bloomberg.

Swish.

Bloomberg, his face pounding with excitement as he caresses the presents placed under the tree on Christmas morning.

As he carefully opened the box and examined its contents, tears welled up in his eyes.

“ha.”

Bloomberg let out a sigh.

“Let’s do it right now. As fast as possible. As much as possible! Don’t worry about the cost! So tell me, Soo-hyun. How long will it take to get this done?”

That was the moment when Bloomberg’s big decision fell through.

***

Two months later,

A home in Brooklyn, New York.

A man in his 60s, his son and daughter-in-law in their early 30s, and his granddaughter were sitting around the table eating dinner.

“This is cheap meat.”

A man in his 60s nervously evaluated the dinner menu.

“That’s ridiculous. Jenny cut off the best parts and cooked them.”

“Then your cooking skills are terrible.”

“Ha, father.”

His wife, Jenny, gently grabbed the arm of the young man who was about to argue and shook her head.

Then a man in his 60s raised one corner of his mouth and said.

“Are you guys winking at each other because you can’t see me right now?”

“No, Father!”

The woman answered quickly, but the man did not stop whining.

“Remember, you can only see one side. That is, the left side. The left side of your vision is clearly alive.”

The man said, leaning his face close to the plate of steak.

“The best meat? If it wasn’t a lie that was made by looking at my eyes, Jenny was foolishly fooled by the merchant. Now, Jenny, tell me. Will you choose the lie, or the fool?”

“father!”

A young man rose from the table with a flushed face.

“Please stop! Do you think it’s easy for us to come here like this? This person and I both work. We only have weekends to rest, and we give that up to come see our father. And every time, it’s like this… … !”

“What a mess. Once you go to California, you won’t be coming here like this. And the reason you’re looking for me probably isn’t that pure.”

“What did you say?”

“Aren’t you expecting my inheritance? If you want to inherit, you can’t get by with this kind of crappy steak.”

The young man could no longer bear the man’s persistence and immediately grabbed his wife and child’s hands and helped them up.

“Do whatever you want. I won’t take care of you anymore, so do whatever you want. Jenny, wake up. Lucia, you too!”

“Dad… … .”

“honey.”

“Let’s go home. Listen to me.”

thud.

After a while, the sound of the front door slamming shut was heard, and the man who had been sitting there motionless like a statue slowly got up from his seat.

“That son of a bitch.”

Swish-.

The man lifted one hand to check the position of the wall, then walked along it, scanning it.

“ouch!”

And the man who screamed only once. The man who was feeling what had hit his toe soon smiled brightly.

“It’s Lucia.”

It was a toy train left behind by her granddaughter Lucia.

The man who had been fiddling with the train for a while got up, holding it in one hand, and started feeling around the wall again.

And click.

I opened the front door and came out.

“Jaden!”

After a while, the voice of the woman next door rang in the man’s ears.

“Do you need anything?”

“I just came out to get some fresh air.”

“Ah. Me again.”

A cold woman’s voice.

Jaden opened his mouth again.

“But since we’ve met, let me ask you a favor.”

“What is it?”

The woman’s voice became cheerful.

“Please buy me some whiskey like last time.”

“Whiskey? Two bottles would be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll pay you generously for your errand this time too.”

“Oh my. Then I guess I’m not bad. How long do you need it for?”

“The faster the better.”

“I’m going to the city tomorrow, so I’ll buy it for you then. Oh, and if you’re in a hurry, I have a bottle left at home. Should I bring that to you?”

“I would appreciate it if you would do that.”

“wait a minute.”

The woman next door went into the house and quickly came out.

“Here it is.”

The woman kindly handed Jayden a bottle of whiskey.

“Money is for a moment.”

Jaden took his wallet out of his pants pocket and felt the bills, checking them.

“Give it here.”

The woman next door snatched my wallet away from me, picked out some bills instead, and quickly stuffed a few into her pocket.

“I paid the same amount as last time.”

“is it so.”

“By the way, Jaden. This may be a bit of a nitpick, but did you tell the kids?”

The woman said, turning Jaden’s body towards the front door.

“So, you’re saying that the vision in your other eye is starting to decline as well. And it’s progressing very quickly.”

“That’s none of your business, Laura.”

“Well, it’s something I should do, but sometimes I don’t feel good about it. I wonder if it’s right to buy alcohol like this.”

“That sounds like you’re saying the errand fee isn’t enough.”

“Ha! Jaden! This is why people call you a cranky old man. Don’t you want to try talking to him a little more kindly?”

“They say that when a person changes, it means that it is time to die. Just wait. As the time of death approaches, things might change a little.”

“ha.”

The woman next door opened the front door and shook her head.

“I’ll turn on the hallway lights before I go. Anyway, don’t drink too much at once.”

“Thank you, Laura. See you tomorrow then.”

widely.

The front door was closed again.

Although her tone was one of concern, Laura, the woman next door, took the money for the errand.

If you are in a hurry, I will give you what I have first, so I will collect two bonuses, once today and once tomorrow, so it is a business with a lot left over.

‘I don’t think they even lied about the compensation.’

Jaden shook his head as he wondered if Laura, who had taken his wallet earlier, had honestly taken out the bills.

It was a tiring suspicion. Even if something like that happened, it was something that couldn’t be helped.

“Whew. It’s dark.”

Jaden opened the bottle of whiskey and took a sip, blinking his big eyes.

I was sure I heard Laura turn on the hallway light, but the house was dark as midnight.

As if it were the only time left for oneself.

***

“There is no way as of now.”

It was when Jaden was in his mid-30s that he began to lose vision in one eye.

“Is it something like presbyopia? I’ve heard that as you get older, your eyesight gets weaker.”

“That’s different. Um, Jaden. Would you like to see this picture? Here, on the left is a picture of a normal person’s eye, and on the right, Jaden. This is a picture of your eye.”

Looking closely, there was a big difference between the two photos.

“All the nerves in my right eye are dead. There is currently no way to revive the dead nerves.”

“What is your illness?”

“You can think of it as a problem with the macula. It’s a rare disease. Do you have a family member who has it?”

“… … Are you talking about a genetic disease?”

It was a shocking sound.

He was seventeen when he left his violent father’s home and headed to New York without a plan, so Jaden didn’t really know much about his family’s history.

He had worked hard, made a fortune in the stock market, started a family and had just settled into a home in Manhattan, but misfortune was smiling down on him again.

The problem is.

“It could be genetic.”

The doctor said the odds were fifty-fifty.

But Jaden wanted to believe that it was something like 10%.

His son Matthew was now six years old.

The thought that such a misfortune could happen to his precious child was already tearing his heart apart.

“I shouldn’t be a burden. I have a family.”

Jaden made his decision that day.

A situation where one eye is already in danger of becoming blind.

But I still have one eye left, and I will do my best as long as my eyesight allows me to do so. I will create an environment that will be the envy of others.

Ten years passed like that.

Jaden completely lost the vision in his right eye.

Another ten years have passed.

His son Matthew graduated from college with honors and got a job. He started a family. But Jayden didn’t rest. Now it was time to prepare for retirement for himself and his wife.

But there was something I didn’t expect.

Five years later, his wife suddenly passed away from a heart attack.

Five years later again.

Jaden’s remaining eye began to lose vision at a rapid rate.

And, Lucia.

He discovered that his granddaughter Lucia’s eyes resembled his own.

***

“Damn.”

Jaden roughly picked up the bottle of whiskey and put it back on the table.

Then he buried his face in his hands and fell into deep thought.

“grandfather.”

Last winter.

Lucia, who came to visit on Christmas, brought her face close to Jayden’s and whispered.

“Grandpa, did you do a lot of good things?”

“Huh? A good thing?”

“Mom said that if you don’t cry and do a lot of good things, Santa will come. So Lucia did a lot of good things. Well, she did cry a couple of times, though.”

“Then he will come. With a very big gift.”

“Really?”

Lucia smiled brightly and clapped her hands.

“What kind of gift is it?”

And Lucia said as she hugged Jayden.

“What kind of gift would you like to receive?”

Jaden had already prepared a large doll, but he pretended not to know and asked Lucia.

“Glasses.”

Lucia whispered in Jayden’s ear.

“Huh? Glasses?”

“fizzle!”

Lucia put one index finger to Jaden’s mouth and spoke in a low voice.

“This is a secret.”

“It’s a secret?”

“Actually, my mom told me not to read books at night, but I read them secretly. And then my eyesight got worse.”

“Eyes?”

My heart suddenly sinks.

Jaden asked with a trembling voice.

“Where and how did it get worse?”

“hmm.”

Lucia hesitated for a moment and covered her right eye with one hand.

“It looks better this way.”

Lucia covered her left eye this time.

“This makes the world look blurry.”

That Christmas was the worst.

Jayden knew it well, as he had been chasing her to the hospital and looking for a way out until recently.

That this disease has no cure or way to slow its progression.

But I had a question.

“Why already?”

He himself was in his mid-30s when he developed the disease. Lucia was only six years old. It was too soon.

“It’s all my fault.”

Jaden took another sip of whiskey.

“Everyone will know that it is my fault.”

If Lucia’s eyesight gets worse, her son Matthew and daughter-in-law will soon notice her problem.

And you will come to know that it is a disease that came from within you.

“You must hate me so much.”

Jaden smiled bitterly.

In my life, I never once properly confided in anyone about the discomfort in my eyes or the feelings it made me feel.

So no one knew what kind of cliff they had walked down.

“Heh heh.”

Jaden laughed bitterly.

Jaden’s life had been twisted by inevitable thorns. Now, he had to watch his only granddaughter go through the same process. Jaden was not sure.

I have the confidence to watch it.

The confidence to handle resentment.

“There’s nothing more to expect anyway.”

Jaden smiled bitterly.

I felt like I had to ask Laura, the girl next door, for a favor.

Instead of buying me some whiskey, ask me to take you downtown.

If you give her a little more money, Laura won’t refuse.

And if Hans is still in the area, he might be able to get a gun.

Two bottles of whiskey and a pistol.

Jaden made some plans step by step.

And that day also happened to be the day that Soo-Hyeon’s vending machine came into town.