Junior World Championships (3)
"..."
I groped across the bed for my phone, still charging in the corner.
Five in the morning.
I'd gone to bed earlier than usual last night, but my eyes had opened of their own accord in the pre-dawn dark.
What now?
Beside me, Yerim was curled around her pillow, still fast asleep.
I lay back down and tried again, but sleep refused to come. Staying put felt pointless—just lying there for the sake of lying there—so I took the jersey hanging on the wall and rode the elevator down.
Going outside alone at this hour was out of the question. That left the hotel gym in the basement.
Being a luxury hotel, it at least had a twenty-four-hour fitness center. Small mercies.
Maybe just a short run.
There'd been official practice yesterday, and I wanted to work the tightness out of my legs.
I handed my room key to the basement counter and stepped inside. The automatic doors slid open in silence, revealing the gym beyond—neat rows of dumbbells, muted lighting that settled the nerves.
The problem was, I'd assumed no one else would be here at this hour.
...Akane?
At the far end, by the window, a single treadmill was already running. On the belt gliding soundlessly beneath her stood a familiar silhouette.
Long hair gathered up to her waist, black sports bra, tight training pants. The profile in the mirror was unmistakable.
Akane hadn't noticed me yet. She ran in a steady, unbroken rhythm—chin slightly down, eyes fixed ahead, long arms swinging in precise time with her body.
I watched her for a moment, then quietly stepped onto a treadmill at the opposite end of the room. I powered it on and started walking at a low speed to warm up.
The instant I did, a soft chime sounded—and Akane's treadmill shut off. She checked something on her phone, then walked straight toward me.
"...Here."
Her fingertip pointed at the empty treadmill right beside the one she'd been using. The machine was free, obviously—there was no one else in the room.
"Doushite?"
"...?"
"This spot. Empty."
In other words: why had I deliberately gone all the way to the other end when the machine next to hers was free?
...Isn't that obvious?
In a situation like this, walking right up beside someone was practically a crime. The unspoken rule was to pretend the other person didn't exist and keep your distance. We hadn't even exchanged a single word before.
But Akane was still standing in front of me.
...What am I supposed to do?
The awkwardness hung in the air until Akane climbed back onto a treadmill—not the one she'd been using, but the one directly next to mine.
"...?"
Even under my stare, she started walking as if to ask whether I had a problem with it.
It's not like I own the place.
Objecting to her running next to me would've been stranger still, so I simply raised the speed and began to run.
"What, you're already up?"
"Yeah."
By the time I got back to the room and finished my shower, Yerim was rubbing sleep from her eyes and staring at me.
"Shouldn't you sleep a little more?"
"A little tension feels better."
"Then how about we eat first?"
"Okay."
We went down to the breakfast buffet again, but I ate even less than yesterday. Two eggs and a single piece of pineapple. That was it.
Today, Yerim didn't say a word about it.
"You know it starts at eleven, right?"
"Yes."
"Jump layout for today?"
"2A, 3Lz... and the 3+3 combination depending on how it feels."
For the junior short program, the jump requirements came in three parts.
First, the axel—locked at a double, no exceptions. Second, the lutz—either a double or a triple, though nearly everyone would go for the triple. Third, a combination jump, up to a triple.
The catch was that each element in the short program could only be performed once, and only in isolation. Miss any one of those three jump opportunities and recovery was impossible. You had to land every single one on the first try—walking a sheet of thin ice, in every sense of the phrase.
"So."
Yerim glanced at my plate.
"What combination are you going with?"
"3F+3A."
"You're sure?"
I nodded. Triple flip into triple axel—the highest-scoring combination you could put into a short program.
"Can you land the flip clean and still put up a stable axel after?"
It was a technical program, after all. A shaky landing or an under-rotation would cost me heavily under the judges. But if I wanted to win, this was the right call. My free program was still unstable, which made stacking as many points as possible in the short an absolute necessity.
When I nodded again, Yerim looked resigned and ruffled my hair.
"Just watch the rotation calls. If the first jump wobbles, the second one suffers too."
"That's why I'm being careful with my toe pick."
"And skating skills score pretty high here, so use the whole ice."
"The whole thing?"
"Right. Even if it's hard, skate like you're covering every inch of the rink."
"Got it."
Yerim nodded, flipped open her notebook to check something, then spoke again.
"Once we're on the ice, warm up properly first. If your first stroke breaks, it's hard to find the feel."
"I already went for a light run this morning."
"Did you?"
She started to say something, then stopped.
"Fine. Rest a bit, then we leave at ten."
...There's a lot of people.
The moment we arrived at the arena, the size of the crowd hit me at a glance. Yesterday's practice had already drawn a decent audience, but today the place was nearly sold out.
Fifteen thousand people for a junior competition. Figure skating's popularity still managed to surprise me.
After a quick round of makeup in the waiting room, competition time drew near. I was fortieth in the order—out of sixty skaters, a reasonable slot. The only snag was that Chloe, Akane, and several other strong contenders for the title were stacked right in front of me. Not that I tended to worry about that sort of thing.
Still resurfacing.
On one side of the rink, the ice crew was working at a leisurely pace. I sat on a small backstage bench and followed the resurfacer with my eyes for a few minutes. Then the announcement finally came.
A roar went up from the stands.
The performances that followed were all more than solid. This was the stage where every skater proved why they represented their country, and every one of them delivered at a high level of finish.
Then, at last, it was my group's turn.
I stepped onto the ice and loosened up. Double axel, triple lutz—both clean. Every spin element cleared as well.
When practice time ended, the first skater out was Chloe.
I was genuinely glad for the chance to watch her skate. How much had she grown?
...Triple axel!
Just as I'd expected, Chloe opened with a triple axel. But in the short program the axel was locked at a double—which meant—
Straight into a triple toeloop.
The triple toe that followed had a slight miss on it, but considering the jump before it had been a triple axel, it was more than enough. The rest of her elements showed real polish. The moment her program ended, the crowd held nothing back.
Chloe's turn finished, and Akane stepped onto the ice.
The atmosphere...
Normally, a performance at Chloe's level would carry the crowd's heat straight into the next skater. But the second the defending champion appeared, the entire arena went quiet.
Of course.
I was the type who preferred to see a performance live if I was going to be curious about it. Outside of technical study, I never watched other skaters' competitions. Anticipation settled over me as I fixed my eyes on the ice.
Light.
Her first jump was a triple lutz—not a jump you take lightly. And yet the way she lifted off was so effortless I could only marvel. It wasn't just the jumps, either. Her skating skills were elite.
...Butter skating.
In figure skating, the highest praise for a smooth skater was that they'd buttered the ice—gliding forward without the slightest resistance. Watching her, the phrase fit perfectly.
Three jumps, three spins, and one sequence later, every person in the building rose to their feet for a standing ovation.
Figure skating is a hard sport to get into, which means the audience usually has a well-trained eye. A full standing ovation from people like that meant one thing.
Championship contender.
It was as good as a prophecy that the short program she'd just skated would be the best of the competition.
But—
No.
As far as I was concerned, that short could not be the best performance of the night.
"You can beat her, right?"
"Yes."
Even with Yerim asking beside me, tension written all over her face, I answered without a flicker of doubt.
"I'll win."
The layout I'd prepared and the one Akane had just shown carried nearly identical base values. That meant the difference would come down to how much GOE—Grade of Execution—each of us could earn. How perfectly you could perform even a relatively simple element.
I'll show you.
In the free, where artistry rode alongside the technical content, things might look different. But in the short—where the weight of pure technical evaluation ran highest—the time she and the others had stacked up against the time I had stacked up were simply not the same.