National Championships (3)
That evening, inside the hotel.
The free skate cut score is high.
I checked the score sheet for the short program, now that judging was finished, and let out a quiet breath of admiration. Junior free skate cut scores usually sat around thirty-five points. What caught my eye now was forty-five — a number that matched figure skating’s growing popularity.
Then again, Sehee and I both cleared seventy for first and second. Maybe that’s the stranger part.
The only real disappointment was that girl’s name sitting at the very bottom. Chloe. No score at all — just a withdrawal mark next to it.
So she’s sitting this one out after all.
I understood the strategy well enough. Two straight national titles, plus fifth and third at Junior Worlds. The federation had no reason not to select her again this year. But skipping the competition entirely would invite gossip, so they put her name on the list and then withdrew her for “condition issues.” As for ability, she’d already won the Association President’s Cup a month ago. No one was going to question that.
Clever.
Still, disappointment was disappointment. I’d wanted to see Chloe’s program with my own eyes. Now it would have to wait.
“Haa…”
What remained was tomorrow’s free skate. From this point on, emotion and stamina both had a single destination. There was no room left to waste energy on pointless thoughts.
I turned off my phone and let my back sink into the mattress. The stiff, neatly made sheets didn’t feel unfamiliar. Hotels for competitions like this were all more or less the same.
Chloe was out. Jin Sehee would come at me with everything she had.
The short program scores were high across the board…
That meant the judges might lean generous on composition and performance quality rather than pure technical value. The smart call was not to force anything tonight and simply sleep well.
I switched off the light and closed my eyes. Yerim, lying in the next bed, was already dead to the world. Maybe the long drive after so long had wiped her out.
Mom and Dad are coming tomorrow, too.
No matter how unconditional their love for me was, the money that went into figure skating remained astronomical. If there was a way for me to repay that—
Show them with results.
Technical completeness. Density of performance. And the right to stand on this stage at all. It all had to be said through results.
Thinking that, I steadied my breathing and pulled the blanket up. The more you talk on the ice, the more you lose. Tomorrow I would settle everything with a single silent performance.
“We meet again.”
“…Ah—hello.”
Han Jinsung offered an awkward greeting to Yu Hyungyeong, who had approached him with natural ease.
“Somehow these days I feel like I run into you more often at the venues than on TV.”
“True… it does feel that way.”
After taking Olympic gold two years earlier and retiring, Han Jinsung had not joined the ice show circuit the way other skaters did. Nor had he chosen the path of a coach. What he had chosen was the role of technical controller — and specifically, judging work focused on junior competitions.
The reason hardly needed saying.
She’s finally here.
Last year, when age restrictions had kept that girl from the junior championships, Han Jinsung had nearly packed up and gone home. That was how completely her performances had given him a catharsis nothing else could match. Cha Seolhwa’s skating.
“Lately it almost feels like juniors are more popular than seniors,” Yu Hyungyeong said, tossing out a topic as if to break the awkward air.
Juniors more popular than seniors. It wasn’t just conversation filler. It was fact.
“The junior skaters’ personalities probably sell better.”
Hearing the word personalities come from Han Jinsung — a man who had once thought of figure skating as an aristocratic sport — made Yu Hyungyeong smile faintly, satisfied with the answer.
“There’s Jin Sehee, there’s Chloe… and now Cha Seolhwa as well.”
You could dress figure skating up as art all you liked; in the end, people went wild because the skaters were pretty, cute, or cool. And the current junior field — especially the ladies — knew how to use that. Strong technique, charming faces, and distinct individual flavors on top of it. Thanks to that, the junior ranks were enjoying an unprecedented golden age.
“…And among them, Cha Seolhwa is special in a different sense.”
Han Jinsung turned his head toward the rink. Beyond his gaze, skaters were warming up for the free skate.
“Usually, if someone has great technique, or great performance quality, or an appealing look — even one of the three is enough to draw attention.”
Rare certainty colored his tone.
“Cha Seolhwa isn’t just all three. She’s on an entirely different axis.”
Even the technique she had shown in yesterday’s short alone had left every judge on the panel — Han Jinsung and Yu Hyungyeong included — stunned. Yu Hyungyeong nodded.
Seolhwa’s skating couldn’t be explained with a simple “she’s good.” On the ice it created a kind of overwhelming presence: unrealistically beautiful, meticulously calculated, and yet capable of stirring real emotion. Audiences found themselves seized by the feeling that they had witnessed something.
“On the ice it feels like she’s conducting a ritual. Every movement carries this solemn weight.”
“…Exactly. It’s almost frightening.”
Han Jinsung gave a low laugh and continued.
“Sometimes I wonder if she’s mistaken about her own age.”
Mistaken about her age. If that wasn’t the explanation, then what on earth had shaped that girl into this? The adult coolness riding at the end of his words carried a strange persuasiveness.
Silence settled between them for a moment. The murmur of the stands and the scrape of blades on ice were all that filled it.
“Chloe withdrew this time, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Even so, one of the spots will probably go to her anyway.”
“Well, she did win the Association President’s Cup in December.”
Both pairs of eyes shifted to a different girl preparing on the ice — not Cha Seolhwa. Something like pity colored the way they looked at her.
“Jin Sehee is truly excellent, too. It’s a shame.”
“She’s sharing an era with Chloe… and now with Cha Seolhwa as well.”
“Don’t get nervous!”
“Yes!”
Jin Sehee answered her coach louder than usual.
“What’s our goal?”
“First place!”
The rink was thick with restless noise. The free skates of the short program’s top finishers were about to begin, and the crowd’s anticipation had reached its peak. Sehee turned her back on that atmosphere and slowly checked her laces one more time. Double-wrapped, pulled tight all the way to the end, knotted hard. She had already learned countless times that a single small mistake could bring everything down.
I’m going to win.
South Korea currently held two international competition berths. One of those places, however, already had an owner.
Chloe…
She was angry at the girl for using a loophole, but two consecutive titles had already proven her case. There was nothing to be done. That meant the only way to take the remaining spot was to win this competition outright. And for that—
“….”
Sehee turned her head and checked the skater sitting on the opposite bench.
Cha Seolhwa.
Most competitors never watched the skater before them. There were various reasons, but mainly it was about eliminating variables and keeping composure. When someone did watch the previous skater, people usually assumed—
Disrespect.
They would call it arrogance, claim the girl was only watching because she thought she would do better. But Sehee knew perfectly well that wasn’t why Seolhwa was looking.
She’s watching for me.
Seolhwa was watching as a friend — watching Sehee’s performance. In that case—
Watch carefully.
The instant her blades touched the ice, every scrap of noise vanished. Jin Sehee stepped into her own world. The lights found her. She stood at their center and waited for the music to begin.
The music was the OST from a recent hit anime version of Cinderella — a program built with a junior-appropriate atmosphere, prepared specifically to beat Cha Seolhwa, who performed far beyond her age.
Fast.
Soft, sharp curves carved across the ice as her performance began. Speed climbed, and the audience started murmuring admiration at how quick she was. Then came the next beat.
Shhhk — an outside edge ground into the surface and sprayed ice. The jump was a Salchow. Four revolutions. She didn’t stop. Immediate foot change into the next jump. The following triple toe loop landed cleanly as well.
4S+3T clean.
A truly aggressive opening. The short program, capped at triples, had never allowed her to show a quad. She had sacrificed the triple Axel and lowered her short program base value just to train these quads. This was the moment to collect on that investment.
First button fastened right.
Coming out of the rotation, she transitioned smoothly into skating. A short transition, then straight into the next jump: triple flip + triple loop combination. Using the energy built by her fast skating, Sehee packed two precise rotations into an extremely tight tempo. The crowd’s cheers never dipped.
This program had been designed thoroughly to stamp a “junior” image into the judges’ minds. Vitality over restraint. Liveliness over maturity. Sehee cut across the rink and launched into her step sequence, matching the light, bouncing development that called the anime to mind. The way she hopped through the steps looked as lovable as a princess.
I’ll show them why I’m here.
The double Axel that followed the steps landed, and she immediately prepared for the final jump.
It’s risky, but—
She built speed, jumped, and pulled her body as tight as it would go. A basic toe loop — except the revolutions were anything but basic. Four. Entry rhythm, rotational speed, the rock-solid stability of the landing. Sehee finished every element exactly as planned — no, better than planned.
She struck her final pose. The music stopped. A beat late, she exhaled. Bowing her head slightly, she looked out beyond the boards with a hard expression. At the end of that gaze sat Cha Seolhwa.
Your turn now.