Ballet
"...Hey!"
The shout hit me the second I landed my jump.
"What the hell was that?!"
I turned toward the voice. Of course. Standing there was Jin Sehee, who hadn't set foot in this rink in weeks because of competition practice.
Three weeks, huh.
We still trained together at school every lunch period, but meeting at the rink again felt like it had been forever.
She stormed over like none of that mattered and grabbed my shoulders.
"A triple Salchow! You could already do that?!"
She shook me with a look like the world had just ended, eyes blown wide—and for a second, something completely useless flashed through my head.
Her eyes are big.
This close, Sehee was genuinely pretty.
Still not as pretty as me, though.
"When we were practicing jump order, you deliberately held back on the Salchow, didn't you? You did! You lied to me!"
I turned my face away.
"There was no real need to say anything. Practice is just practice."
"That doesn't make any sense! This is... betrayal! Straight-up rebellion!"
"My success rate is still low anyway. It's not competition-ready."
Sehee dropped onto the ice like her legs had given out.
"Sehee, if you sit like that your butt's going to freeze solid. Then you won't even fit into your costume."
Yerim came over and coaxed her up; only then did Sehee stand. She still glared at me like I'd committed high treason.
But there really wasn't a reason to tell her.
Sehee was one of the favorites for the upcoming competition. On top of that, my triple Salchow was still unfinished. Those two facts together were why I'd kept quiet.
"You still should've told me! I'm your best friend!"
Looking at her reaction, though... I did feel a little bad.
"Sorry."
Sincerely. A little.
I lifted my head and met her eyes again.
"...Now I look like the bad guy!"
"You are the bad unnie. Yelling at your little sister."
"Hey!"
We bickered for a few more minutes before Yerim mediated and we could get back to training.
...Something about being around her.
Lately, every time I met Sehee I felt myself getting weirdly childish. We hadn't even been this close before.
"Oh, right—look at this."
About an hour into practice, Sehee shoved her phone in my face. On the screen was a novice skater's competition footage—flashy blonde hair and a striking, foreign face.
"She jumps well."
"She's mixed, apparently. Pretty good, right? She's competing this time too. One year older than me."
"One year?"
That made her eleven. Already putting triple jumps into actual programs at that age was impressive.
"So if I want to win this time, I need at least a combo jump with a triple in it."
Sehee puffed out her chest like she'd just handed me classified intel.
"...Thanks?"
"Pfft, it's nothing."
She played it cool, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. Well—at that age, kids loved praise even when they pretended not to. I got it.
"We should get back to it."
"Yeah. Gotta practice."
I tightened my skates and steeled myself. I'd landed the triple Salchow, but it was still unstable. Factoring in combo jumps meant I needed to double the volume.
"After watching that video, doesn't it feel like you have to do something?"
Sehee asked suddenly, her voice stripped of its usual playfulness.
"...Like what?"
"Like this isn't enough. One mistake and it's over."
The end of the sentence trembled slightly. It was almost the first time I'd ever heard Sehee let her anxiety show.
So that's why she blew up first.
Sure, part of it was jealousy over my triple Salchow, and betrayal. But the biggest reason was that she was panicking herself.
Right.
Sehee had landed a triple toe loop before I had—but that was as far as she'd gotten. Every harder triple was still failing.
When you grow suddenly, keeping your balance gets harder.
Hmm.
I finished thinking and turned to her.
"Want me to teach you something?"
"Huh?"
"There's a way to stabilize your landing edge."
...Exhausting.
My figure skating lessons usually wrapped at five. Today Sehee had latched on and wouldn't let go, so I didn't escape the rink until nearly eight.
Still, I think I got a better feel for it myself.
The silver lining was that teaching her the landing method had somehow locked the sensation in for me too. Having someone next to you who jumps differently really does make your own flaws easier to spot.
"Sweetheart, you know we're going somewhere else tomorrow, right?"
"What?"
I looked up at Mom as we walked home hand in hand, blindsided. The competition was close; every day counted. Somewhere else?
Mom loved dragging me around, but if this was about shopping I was ready to push it back—
"You forgot? Tomorrow's the lesson with the ballet teacher."
Ah. Right. That conversation had happened.
So that's tomorrow.
Learning ballet itself was something I was actually happy about. In my past life I'd started figure skating so late there was never time for anything else. For me, the chance to study anything connected to skating was joy in its purest form.
"Hello."
"Hi there—you must be Seolhwa. Is your mother waiting at the academy? If she is, she can sit in the consultation room; I'll bring her coffee!"
Han Jiyoon, twenty-four. She'd been friends with Shin Yerim since they were kids, one specializing in figure skating and the other in ballet, enough shared DNA that they got along effortlessly. Today, at Yerim's request, she was giving a ballet lesson to her friend's first student.
Pretty.
That was the first thought that hit her when she saw her friend's student. The calm, mature air that didn't match her age only made the girl's looks shine brighter.
I was worried about a private lesson...
The parents had insisted on one-on-one instruction, so Jiyoon had half-expected a problem child. Fortunately, Cha Seolhwa looked like the opposite—an unusually mature kid, the ideal student.
Wouldn't a group class be better for a child like this?
Of course, private instruction from a coach was always ideal. But ballet's nature—holding posture, repeating forms—meant group classes didn't drop in quality that much. And a calm kid like this would keep up just fine with others around. Private lessons cost several times more, so from the teacher's side the request was hard to understand.
Of course, there was no way for Han Jiyoon to know that all of this was because of Cha Seolhwa's own fierce demand for the highest-quality lessons possible.
"Seolhwa, can you put your hand on the barre? Today we're starting with the absolute basics of the basics."
Eyes far too steady for a child met hers and nodded at once. Seolhwa's fingertips rested on the unfamiliar barre with careful precision rather than nerves. Her shoulders held a little tension, but even that looked neat.
Clean lines.
Maybe she just had a good sense for how to use her body.
With that thought, Jiyoon gently turned Seolhwa so she faced the mirror.
"It's best to learn posture looking in the mirror like this at first. Ballet is all about posture. If it's wrong, you have to start over from the beginning."
Seolhwa nodded without a word and studied her own reflection. Her gaze never wavered. The corner of Jiyoon's mouth curved up slightly.
"Good. Then today we'll start with the foot positions. First position—like this."
Jiyoon turned her toes outward into a clean turnout. Seolhwa mirrored it immediately. Her knees bent a little and the turnout wasn't perfect, but the direction was right.
"Got it?"
"Yes. You hold it with leg strength, right?"
The unexpected grasp of it made Jiyoon pause. Most kids started with Why do I have to stand like this?
"Yeah, that's right. But the most important part is engaging the inner thighs. Here."
Jiyoon tapped the inside of her own leg. Seolhwa nodded, quietly placed a hand on her own thigh, and checked the engagement. Without awkwardness she repeated the motion, staring into the mirror as if determined to correct herself over and over.
After a few more basic positions, while they were catching their breath, Jiyoon asked,
"This is your first time learning. Isn't it hard?"
"I'm fine. My coach said ballet is the root of figure skating. That's why I wanted to learn."
"...Hmm?"
"The hands, the arm lines, the feet—she said they all come from ballet."
"She does say that a lot, yeah."
But a kid who remembers that and actually connects it like this? First time I've seen one.
Barely any time had passed, yet Seolhwa was already steadying her breath, carefully lifting her hand, and setting it back on the barre.
"So I want to get good at ballet. If I get better at ballet, I think I'll get better at figure skating too."
Watching her, Jiyoon had to swallow a quiet regret.
I was half-planning to snatch her if she ever quit skating...
The lines of her body, her face, her whole presence—she was perfect ballet-prodigy material. Jiyoon had even started entertaining the thought of taking her as her own student.
With a love of skating like that, though, it was impossible.
Shin Yerim's lucky. Getting a student like this.
But envy was just envy, and Cha Seolhwa was her friend's student. So Jiyoon swallowed the feeling and simply taught harder for the rest of the hour.