Chapter 37: The Nobel Call
The call from Stockholm came on an October morning, which was poetic in a way that Dojun suspected the universe had planned.
He was in the kitchen, trying to convince Dojun Junior that sweet potatoes were not, in fact, a form of punishment, when his phone rang. The caller ID showed a Swedish country code.
“Mr. Park?” The voice was formal, accented, and barely containing its own excitement. “This is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. I’m calling to inform you that you, along with Professor Baek Jeonghwan and Dr. Tanaka Yuki, have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of the Containment Theorem and the Mirror Protocol for AI alignment.”
Dojun sat down. Not deliberately—his legs simply stopped working.
“Mr. Park? Are you still there?”
“I’m here. I’m just… sitting.”
“Understandable. The formal announcement will be made in two hours. May we confirm your acceptance?”
“Yes. I accept. We all accept.” He paused. “Can I also nominate the sweet potato? It’s been very underappreciated.”
There was a confused silence from Stockholm. “I… sir?”
“Never mind. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He hung up. Dojun Junior threw a piece of sweet potato at his face. It hit him directly on the nose.
“You heard the man,” Dojun told his son. “Daddy just won the Nobel Prize.”
Junior threw another sweet potato.
The news hit the internet within hours. Three regressors—though the world didn’t know that part—had won the Nobel Prize for solving the alignment problem. The narrative was irresistible: a Korean CEO, a Japanese researcher, and an elderly mathematician, all working together to prevent an AI catastrophe that most people didn’t even know had been possible.
Dojun’s phone didn’t stop ringing for three days. He turned it off after the forty-seventh congratulatory call and spent the evening in the nursery, building block towers with his son and knocking them down together.
Hana found them there, surrounded by scattered blocks, both laughing.
“The President’s office called,” she said. “They want to give you the Order of Merit.”
“Tell them I’m busy.”
“Dojun.”
“Tell them I’ll call back tomorrow. Tonight, I’m playing blocks.”
She sat down beside him. Junior immediately presented her with a block, which she accepted with the gravity of a diplomatic exchange.
“Are you happy?” Hana asked.
Dojun considered the question. Happy. Such a simple word for such a complex state. In his first life, he’d never been happy—he’d been successful, brilliant, driven, and ultimately dead. In this life, he was sitting on a nursery floor with a Nobel Prize he didn’t care about and a family he’d die for.
“Unbearably,” he said.
“Good.” Hana leaned against his shoulder. “Because the Stockholm ceremony is in December, and I need you happy enough to wear a tuxedo.”
“I hate tuxedos.”
“I know. But you’ll look very handsome, and your son will see photos of it someday and think his father was important.”
“His father is important. He builds the best block towers in Pangyo.”
Junior knocked over the tower. Both parents applauded.
The Nobel ceremony was two months away. Before that, there would be press conferences, interviews, a speech at the United Nations, and a joint presentation with Baek and Yuki at the World AI Safety Summit. There would be praise and criticism and the inevitable backlash from people who believed the alignment problem was overblown. There would be new challenges—scaling Aether, integrating the Mirror Protocol globally, navigating the politics of technology that could reshape civilization.
But tonight, there were blocks. And sweet potatoes. And a family that didn’t need a Nobel Prize to know what mattered.
Dojun picked up a block and placed it carefully on top of the tower his son was rebuilding.
“Higher, Daddy!” Junior demanded.
“As high as you want, buddy. As high as you want.”