Figure Skating (1)
Can you show us!?
Screeech—the sharp blade of the skate carved into the ice as he tore across it.
This is the timing to jump. The score gap is bigger than expected. If you’re going to turn this around, it has to be now!
Skrrrt. Ice scraped once more.
In perfect time with it, he focused every ounce of concentration into his entire body, into every connected muscle.
That fall earlier is weighing too heavily. The pressure of having to land a quad axel right after the quad lutz must be enormous!
A technique he had failed over and over in practice.
He had finally succeeded and made it his own in the end, yet with his current stamina he couldn’t be sure he could even attempt it now.
Even so.
If I can’t win.
This wasn’t mere competitive spirit.
To cross the ice. To look beautiful upon it.
He had ruined himself, destroyed his own body, pouring everything into it all this time.
He jumped!
He kicked off the ice and launched. Cumulative fatigue from climbing this far made his lower body, thighs included, scream in protest.
Yet he poured every last scrap of strength into this single jump.
Four and a half revolutions! That’s a quadruple axel! Some skaters have landed it in isolation, but after consecutive quads—and after falling once already—he’s done it!
The rotations in the air succeeded.
But in figure skating, a jump is not complete until the landing.
He caught his center, tipped the edge of his blade ever so slightly, and touched down.
Ugh…
Faintly, the moment he landed, he thought he heard a wet crack.
At the same time came the pain in his ankle.
But he could not stop now.
What remained was the secret weapon he had prepared for this day.
Cha Yunsung of South Korea has done magnificently. Still, it feels like he needs one last statement if he wants those high marks!
After a slightly lower-difficulty step sequence—
He spun in the air! Right as the music’s mood shifts—a backflip!
After the backflip he extended one leg behind him, found his balance, and slid.
And he finishes with a flying sit spin! That’s Cha Yunsung of South Korea!
“Congratulations.”
“For what?”
In the waiting room after the medal ceremony, the man who approached me received the still-warm medal I held out.
“Whoa, isn’t this just discrimination? You threw that many quads and even landed the quad axel without falling, and they still give you silver?”
“That American bastard should’ve skated only half-decently. Age is a hell of a cheat code, and there was a gap in technical execution at the end too.”
What I held was a silver medal.
Women’s figure skating had some popularity in Korea, but the men’s side was a complete wasteland.
As the representative of a country like that, should I be happy about silver?
The answer was already decided.
“…It stings.”
“If you’re going to talk like that, what about me and Sehee? We didn’t even qualify and came all this way just to play support.”
“That’s because you two lost the trials.”
At my reply he stepped in and locked me in a headlock.
Even a little roughhousing like that helped clear my head.
“Still regret choking on the lutz from the nerves at the start.”
“Hey, that couldn’t be helped. Just look at the difference in cheers when you came out versus when that American did. The whole atmosphere was obvious.”
I lifted the medal without a word and stared at it.
In the silver surface my own face reflected back.
“There’s still next time. Just take gold then and it’s done. Bias only works once—now they’ve seen your face.”
“I’m retiring.”
“What?”
“I’ve done enough.”
“Are you out of your mind?! You know a medal means military exemption, right? Some of us are about to get dragged off to the army!”
The moment I said the word “retire,” he exploded. I simply removed my skate and showed him my ankle.
When I unwound the tape, the right ankle was swollen far beyond normal.
He stared, momentarily flustered.
“Yah, wait—I’ll go get the doctor. Just stay put.”
“Don’t make a fuss. It’s already over anyway.”
Figure skating carries a far higher risk of injury than it appears.
No—higher doesn’t cover it. Injury is nearly inevitable.
The very structure of the skate boots locks the ankle in place so jumps can be executed cleanly.
An ankle forced into that position countless times inevitably weakens, and chronic injury follows.
On top of that, figure skating demands the entire body—especially the upper body and arms—not just the legs. Staying intact is almost impossible.
Starting young plays its part too.
Most begin by age seven at the latest—before first grade of elementary school.
By the time an athlete reaches adulthood, that means more than a decade spent on the ice. The human body simply isn’t that durable.
I started late, relatively speaking.
Even so, beginning at twelve, I had poured in more than ten years of effort at several times the intensity of anyone else.
And this was the result.
I looked down at my swollen ankle.
Walking… should still be fine.
Originally I had planned to coach after retiring.
But even a coach needs to be able to demonstrate at least the basic jumps for their students. In my current condition, even after rehab, there was no guarantee I would ever jump again.
At this rate I would have to live out the rest of my life as someone completely unrelated to figure skating.
It is a little regrettable.
Objectively, silver was an enormous achievement.
But if someone asked whether that was the limit of my potential, I could answer no.
Maybe I should have started speaking up a little earlier.
As an athlete, my memories ended here.
“Princess, you’re awake?”
“…Yeah.”
And then I was reborn as a girl.
More precisely, my parents and family were exactly the same—only I had been swapped into a girl in this world.
I couldn’t even tell whether to call this regression or a full gender swap.
For the record, I absolutely did not become a girl because I took some extreme measure over a silver medal.
After the competition ended I was resting at the lodging, got hungry, headed to a convenience store, and was hit by a car.
When I opened my eyes, I was female.
Anyone could call it nonsense, but what choice did I have? I had been reborn like this.
“Today’s your birthday, Princess, so Mom worked hard since morning getting everything ready. You have to finish it all if you want to grow tall, okay?”
Today marked four years since being reborn as a girl—my fifth birthday.
“…Lift me up.”
I arrived at the breakfast table and called for Mom.
She slipped her hands under my arms and set me on the chair.
I really wanted this to stop.
Until I grew taller she would keep lifting me like this; changing the table for a lower one was apparently not an option. I had already given up.
Meat… meat… greens… that one’s greens too.
Perhaps because I was young again, picky eating had returned. Someone watched me check the menu with open fondness.
I looked up. A man wearing glasses was watching me while pretending not to.
Even like that his mouth had already gone soft; it was completely obvious.
“Dad, you’re not going to work today?”
“It’s Saturday. I can’t go to work on Saturday.”
“But you’re the boss. You should go.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
With that exchange I started eating.
Meat, meat, meat. As I picked only the meat, a piece of spinach landed on my rice bowl.
“Honey, you have to eat things like this to grow tall.”
“I don’t mind if I don’t grow—”
I cut off the answer that almost slipped out.
Not growing tall was ideal for me as a figure skater.
Right now, though, taller was probably better. Even for girls, height improved the odds of good proportions.
I stuffed the spinach into my mouth. Both parents wore matching looks of proud approval.
“Anything worth watching on?”
At the same time, the TV Dad had turned on began playing a familiar melody.
Chopin’s No. 12, is it?
Revolutionary—the famous étude by that name.
It was the piece I had used the very first time I competed, so I knew it well.
The music is Chopin’s Étude No. 12, Revolutionary.
“I hear figure skating’s gotten really popular lately?”
“One of my employees mentioned his son started recently.”
Right. Being a girl wasn’t the only thing different about this world.
Figure skating, which had held only modest recognition and always lagged behind the major sports, had surged in popularity.
Not to the point that everyone did it, of course—more that something once near-minor had become familiar to the public.
In Korean terms, not quite soccer or baseball, but maybe basketball or volleyball level?
That aside, even for a world championship, it was strange to see a junior competition airing on Saturday morning television.
Back when I competed there hadn’t even been a proper pro league; even at the Winter Olympics, figure skating got buried under other events.
With a faintly complicated feeling I paused my spoon and stared at the screen.
“Honey, do you want to try that?”
“No. Looks boring.”
There were so many fun things in the world—why would I do that again?
I had no such intention and answered firmly.
“Ugh, it’s freezing once you get inside. Should’ve worn something thicker.”
“There are so many people. Because it’s the weekend?”
“You take Seolhwa in. I’ll wait here.”
Had my parents decided my refusal was just a little kid’s reverse psychology?
On a precious Saturday, led by their hands, I found myself arriving at an ice rink.