National Championships (1)
What matters most when it comes to height?
Nutrition, rest, and any number of other things play a part, of course — but genetics is almost certainly the biggest factor.
And the reason I'd been able to compete as a tall figure skater in my previous life was genetics, too.
"..."
"Hm? Something wrong?"
On the way home, instead of following Mom, I stopped and stared straight through her. Mom had the kind of finished physique that let her model for her own brand — and of course, she was quite tall. As for Dad, anyone who didn't know him would have taken him for Mom's bodyguard rather than a company president. He was that massive.
My parents hadn't changed between my previous life and this one, so I'd assumed this body would end up pretty tall as well. I'd figured I'd hit at least 170 centimeters, no problem.
And yet… 148?
The average height for kids my age was 153, from what I'd looked up. And for most girls, growth stopped toward the end of middle school. In theory, I had about three years of growing left. More than twenty centimeters in that window?
No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't picture it.
It's not like there's anything wrong with this body.
It wasn't a bad body, either. My limbs were long, so the proportions were fine, and my physical ability sat well above average. Honestly, this was a body to be grateful for — good balance, excellent flexibility, a stable axis of rotation. On top of that, a smaller frame meant less air resistance in figure skating, which was a genuine advantage for technical elements.
Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that this didn't quite feel like my body.
And the next day.
"My height? When I measured it at the start of the year it was, what, 163…? Something like that."
Jin Sehee, now fourteen, dropped that bombshell of a red pill — 163 — and I had no choice but to reel from the shock. When we'd first met, we'd been about the same height even with the age gap.
"…What about you, though?"
Jin Sehee asked it casually. I clamped my mouth shut and yanked the zipper of the jumper I'd been wearing all the way up to my chin. Watching me, she grinned mischievously and gave my head a few playful pats. I could feel her hand coming down from above.
"Still, isn't being small better for figure skating?"
"I mean, yeah, but…"
Looking at videos of Chloe, who'd been sweeping junior competitions lately, she was at least Sehee's height — if not taller. And then there was Reina, who would clear 170 in the future. If things kept going like this… an uneasy feeling crept in that every girls' singles skater my age would end up taller than me.
"You're fine, though. You jump well, and your spins are great."
Jin Sehee offered it as comfort, but I shook my head.
"That's a separate issue. When you're tall, costumes look better on you, and you look more open and striking on the ice."
Figure skating was an artistic sport, so of course there were unspoken bonus points for a pretty face or an eye-catching physique. But even setting those scores aside—
"…It's my gala."
The gala. After the official programs wrapped up, the top finishers came out for a celebration with the fans. No scores. Mistakes were fine. That freedom actually let each skater's individual charm shine through even more — costume, atmosphere, performance, physique, music. In a gala, even a single jump looked bigger, the whole stage felt wider, when you were tall with long limbs.
"Still… even small, you've got presence."
That one pulled a laugh out of me before I could stop it.
"I'm not complaining. I just… I kind of want the tall version of me doing the gala."
"Yeah, I think I get what you mean."
Another half year passed after that.
And my height had grown.
…149.
You could call it a measly one centimeter, but the fact that I'd grown at all mattered. If I kept this up, maybe I could still reach 170.
…Or not.
Height wasn't what mattered anyway. What mattered was that I was thirteen now — and from thirteen on, I could compete in junior competitions.
"Seolhwa, the entry list for this one is out."
I checked the National Championships entry list Yerim handed me. Men's and senior divisions weren't my competition, so I skipped those and looked only at junior girls' singles. Seventy skaters in total — about thirty more than I'd expected, probably because figure skating had gotten more popular. The free skate cut — the de facto preliminaries — went down to twenty-fifth place. Pretty tight for a domestic junior competition.
Twenty-five out of seventy…
A fairly narrow gate, but I wasn't worried. If I skated the short program clean, without jump deductions, getting through wouldn't be hard. The real problem came after that.
Chloe. Jin Sehee.
Of course both their names were on the list. Jin Sehee had sat out last year to focus on improving her skills. Chloe had taken gold two years running.
How's this going to go?
Jin Sehee, whose growing pains were finally easing and who'd cranked up her training intensity — her talent was starting to fully bloom. Chloe, who even on video looked like she was crushing the rest of the field flat. Those two alone would have been entertaining enough, but the other competitors couldn't be ignored either.
The junior age range ran from twelve to eighteen. Most skaters moved up to senior once they hit seventeen and became eligible — but some stayed in juniors because they hadn't earned Level 7, or because they'd decided they had no shot at senior. And most people tended to dismiss skaters like that.
But some of them are terrifying.
Figure skating didn't ignore the weight of years as easily as people thought. It was only because talent monsters like Jin Sehee and Chloe were devouring their seniors that it looked otherwise. Normally, skill grew with experience. It wasn't a matter of a rolling stone displacing a settled one — more like both of them becoming boulders together. Like ice freezing over layer upon layer of packed snow, they grew harder and sharper with time. Experience steadied your center. The habit of not making mistakes eventually became points. A newcomer could create a single brilliant moment. Veterans gathered those moments, steadily, and built a score out of them.
That was figure skating.
"Still, you'll probably be fine just watching Sehee and Chloe."
"Why?"
"If someone's old enough for senior and still hasn't gotten Level 7, that means they never mastered triples. Why bother?"
This time, I couldn't agree with Yerim.
Because…
I'd gotten wrecked that way before.
The gender was different, but that kind of person could exist in girls' singles too. Someone who couldn't pull off the advanced tech — but had thrown a straight punch ten thousand times. There was no harm in being careful.
What a headache.
On top of that, from juniors on, every competition ran under International Skating Union rules. So I'd had to build my programs around a whole set of regulations I hadn't even thought about until recently. The big one was the bonus points on the last three jump elements.
Because your stamina's gone by the end.
In theory, the highest-scoring approach was to put a three-jump combination of high-difficulty jumps at the very end. But attempting a triple combo when your legs were shot? The odds of failure were extremely high. So most skaters settled for a double plus a triple toe loop in the second half. Landing the high-value hard jumps cleanly early on mattered more than the bonus points anyway. Blow one in the second half and it was over.
But my program—
"You've been landing them fine in practice, but… Seolhwa, you're the type who doesn't get nervous in competition, so you'll be fine, right?"
"No problem."
Across the three second-half jump slots, I'd packed in two of the highest-difficulty combinations I could do. Even one would have carried a serious risk of failure. I'd put in two. You could call it reckless. I planned to settle it right there — at the exact moment stamina started to bottom out, one hard, piercing blow straight through the eyes of the judges and the crowd. From the audience's seat, that would taste a whole lot better.
"I'm not telling you not to. Just… really think about your stamina management, okay?"
"Got it. And stamina won't be an issue."
"Yeah?"
"I'm short."
Yerim's answer said, well, that's true enough. When you're small, jumps cost less energy. The most obvious logic in the world. If I was going to be short anyway, I'd decided I might as well use it like this.
The Figure Skating National Championships.
Skaters who placed well here could earn a berth at the World Championships. So what counted as "placing well"?
Simple.
Whatever the federation feels like.
They put together a team of whoever looked roughly solid enough to them. Winning meant automatic selection, of course — but they didn't just pick down the rankings in order. Was I unhappy with the system? Not particularly.
If I win, it doesn't matter.
At its core, that system still guaranteed the champion a spot. And I had no intention of hanging any other color of medal around my neck. If other people got squeezed out by federation politics… well, they'd just have to try again next time. If it bothered them, they should win.
"Hmm-hmm~"
Maybe it was because I was heading to a big competition for the first time in a while. In the car on the way to the rink, I found myself humming under my breath, swinging my legs back and forth. Yerim, who'd taken the wheel in place of my parents, glanced over and asked.
"That happy about it?"
"I haven't been to a competition in a while."
As much as I loved figure skating, I wasn't the kind of weirdo who preferred drilling technique alone in practice. The joy only became complete when I could lay myself bare under everyone's eyes.