Tokyo (5)
The Japan trip my family had planned was four nights and five days.
And today was the fifth day.
Which meant, yes—it was time to go home.
I couldn't help but groan at the fact.
It's still unfinished.
With everything I'd learned so far, I could manage the midair rotations somehow, but a clean landing under my own power was still impossible.
I'd been sulking about it since morning, and Mom noticed right away.
"What's got my daughter looking so sad?"
"There's training I can only do here."
"Is that so? Then how about we send Dad home first, and you and I stay a little longer?"
Mom sometimes put out this rich-girl vibe that never failed to surprise me. It was thanks to that, of course, that I could figure skate without worrying about money. From the perspective of someone who'd cut all family ties in a past life, watching her still felt strange every time.
"How many days do you need?"
My school was on break anyway, and Mom didn't have anything urgent at the moment, so she asked me with a perfectly serious face.
"...Years."
"Hm?"
"...One year."
Mom laughed and shut me down on the spot. I'd already cut the real answer—two years—down to one, for the record.
"Seolhwa, you've got school. A year is a bit much."
"Then I'll just go home with Dad."
Getting a feel for the jump was harvest enough. Jumps were the kind of thing you drilled into your body by falling, and another week or even a month of lessons here wouldn't have changed much. If it was going to take years either way, it was better to lock in the feel and keep learning from Yerim.
"Yeah? Then how about we stay there just through lunch today, and do a little sightseeing in the afternoon? We've done nothing but practice."
"Sounds good."
"Aigoo. At this rate you're going to end up marrying figure skating instead of becoming a skater."
No matter how I looked at it, dating a guy in my current headspace was out of the question. Dating a girl in this body felt equally weird. Sometimes I really did wonder if I was going to marry the ice—and Mom's comment pricked my conscience a little.
"..."
Reina, who usually barreled up with some new word she'd learned just to chatter at me, looked gloomy all day. I tried talking to her, half-worried I'd done something wrong.
"Hmph."
That was the attitude I got. She wouldn't even look at me, and she wasn't saying her favorite word—sparkle—either.
Reina isn't sparkling...?
A Reina without sparkle was a red-bean bun with no filling, a Yerim with no alcohol—a serious situation. Had I made some mistake without realizing it? Crossed a line because I didn't know Japanese culture? Had something been off during harness training yesterday? Or had I drawn too much attention these past few days?
After fretting on my own, I carefully approached. Reina stuck out her lower lip and stared at the floor.
"No Korea."
"...Huh?"
She dipped her head a little and said it again, quieter and smaller.
"Seolhwa. Today. Don't go."
I thought I understood. She was hurt that I was leaving, so she was picking a fight for no good reason. In place of talking, she kept her lips pressed tight and kept looking at the ground.
Yeah. That tracks.
No matter how hard the jumps they landed, no matter that they were "athletes," they were still teenage girls. She'd thought of me as a new friend, and of course it hurt when it was time to say goodbye.
I pulled out my phone and opened the translator.
I promise. I'll come back.
I switched the sentence into Japanese and showed her the screen.
Uso...
I didn't know Japanese, but I knew what that meant.
"I'm not lying."
"...Uso."
I'd thought Reina was more mature than Jin Sehee or Chloe. Maybe I'd just had too small a sample size.
In moments like this, the best move was to walk over without a word and give her a hug. I did, and patted her on the back.
"Waaah—"
Reina started crying like the world had ended. A few minutes later she looked up at me with puffy eyes. Blinking up at me mid-sniffle, she looked exactly like a cat.
"...Promise."
I nodded.
"Yeah. Promise. I'll come back."
Only then did Reina manage a smile and fire off her signature one-word cheer.
"Sparkle!"
She finally seemed to calm down. I took her hand and headed for the rink. It really was time for the last practice here.
"...Whoa."
"Whoa."
When I landed the jump after coming back, both Yerim and Jin Sehee looked stunned. Fair enough. Pulling the quality of a triple axel up this far in a single week was something to be shocked about. Of course, I still couldn't land it perfectly every time.
"Wait—weren't you supposed to be on vacation?"
"Yeah. Japan."
"Then why are your jumps better...?"
"I practiced there too."
"...?"
Jin Sehee stared at me like she was done with my nonsense. For me, figure skating was life, leisure, and the club all at once. The important part was that Sehee was a human being of the same species.
"If there'd been a rink by the ocean, you would've practiced too."
"...Okay, yeah."
Sehee had no choice but to nod in surrender.
"But... how did you even practice? It's not like you got lessons in a week."
"I did, actually. There was a harness, and a coach."
"A harness?"
Yerim's eyes went round.
"The one with the rope from the ceiling?"
"Not the auto harness. The kind a person holds. One-on-one harness."
"...For real?"
Sehee's mouth fell open and never quite closed again.
"That thing is seriously dangerous. I saw a video once—if you get the wrong coach, both of you go flying."
"I was scared at first, but she was really good. The way she matched the movement and caught me was dead on."
"So that's why you got this good."
"It's less that, and more... hmm. More like the feel finally clicked?"
I traced a little spin in the air with my hand as I talked.
"Not something I know in my head—more like my body remembered it. Like the sensation locked into place."
Sehee still looked half-appalled, then crossed her arms and hung her head.
"I should've said I wanted to go to Japan too."
"Want to come next time?"
"For real?"
"Reina might even sparkle at you."
"...Sparkle?"
Explaining that would take a while.
And so I spent the rest of the session reorganizing the feel I'd picked up over the week, while Sehee woke her body back up after the break. We were packing up to head home when Sehee suddenly called me and Yerim over, like she'd just remembered something.
"I bought souvenirs this time."
What she pulled out was a box of lighthouse-shaped cookies.
"Eat one each now... and take one each home."
"Sehee bought these? I'll enjoy them~"
Yerim ruffled Sehee's hair, looking proud of her. Sehee handed Yerim a box, then passed one to me—and in the same breath:
"What about you?"
"Huh?"
"You went all the way to Japan and you don't have a single souvenir?"
"I didn't have time."
"Because of practice?"
"Yeah. I didn't even get to sightsee."
Sehee sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead.
"This kid is unreal..."
Yerim burst out laughing.
"That's so Seolhwa."
I turned my head a little, embarrassed.
"Reina did sparkle at me, though."
"What does that even mean?!"
"It's stronger than a souvenir."
"No. Next time you are buying something. Even one chocolate. No—even a pair of chopsticks."
"Got it."
Sehee grumbled the whole time, but she still pressed the cookie box into my hands.
"Eat these and reflect on your life."
"Oh, these are really good."
Yerim took a bite and made an impressed sound. I held my cookies and drifted into thought for a moment.
A trip that had been nothing but skating. Because of that, I had this rotation now, this feel, and a door opening on what came next.
No souvenirs—just a gift only I knew about.
It felt like a good season was about to begin.
"Axel, then straight into the loop!"
I moved my feet to Yerim's call, sharper than usual. I couldn't hear the music. I was running the program purely on the feel drilled into my body.
I shifted my weight and dropped lower. Ready for the rotation. The blade scraped the ice as I pushed off, and my body lifted into the air.
Triple axel.
The takeoff was clean, and the axis didn't waver. I didn't stop there. My body had already carried the spring into the next jump. No steps—straight into the loop.
A light press into the left foot, a firm takeoff off the right. Triple loop—knees tucked, arms drawn in, the rotation wound tight and vertical. When the turns finished, my right foot carved the ice and bled off the speed. The weight tipped a little, but I didn't lose center.
"That's it!"
Yerim's voice cracked across the rink from the far side.
A triple axel–loop combination. Eight-year-old Cha Seolhwa couldn't even have attempted it. For twelve-year-old Cha Seolhwa, it was a simple jump she could try without strain.
Perfect.
Four years after I'd first attempted a triple axel, the jump was no longer a wall for me.
"With this, we can do it!"
Yerim's words weren't empty praise. The reason we'd obsessed over this one jump was the competition coming up.
"That's more than enough to win, isn't it?"
Next January, I would finally be eligible for the Korean Figure Skating Championships. It wasn't just another domestic event. Its other name was the World Championship selection meet. Win it—or even just place high enough—and the door to the international stage opened.
"But Seolhwa."
"Yes?"
"In half a year you'll be a middle schooler, right?"
Yerim glanced at me as she asked. That was true, but why bring it up? Wait—surely not.
"You and I have known each other a long time, haven't we?"
It had already been eight years since Yerim appointed herself my coach. Put another way, she was entering her thirties, and for a woman, the thirties were a little... well. There was a thing. That said, Yerim had such a baby face that nothing about her had changed. From memory, past-life me had looked about the same into my twenties. People felt these things differently, so if she asked how she looked to me, I was ready to answer as kindly as possible—
"You know... Seolhwa, you really do have the perfect body for figure skating."
"...?"
At Yerim's words, I looked down at my own feet.
Cha Seolhwa, age twelve.
And 148 centimeters...
Being short was an advantage in figure skating, sure.
But this small? Isn't that a bug?