Sparkle
"Seolhwa, that last jump was perfect."
"Yes."
I answered Yerim's fussing half-heartedly and reached for the meat on my plate. What registered on my tongue was less flavor than function. My body, still taut with nerves, took in the protein and fat like fuel rather than food. Only after I swallowed a few barely chewed bites did the tightness in my stomach begin, at last, to ease. An emptiness built of hunger and tension was finding its place again, piece by piece.
Yerim kept sparkling at me with praise, but I quietly lifted my fork once more.
"I was the one who suggested that final sequence, but my heart dropped right through the floor. Everyone just sat there staring."
"They did?"
"Of course they did. The technical layout was one thing—but chaining that axel at that exact timing? That was a real surprise."
When I had nearly finished, Yerim set her utensils down first and asked,
"Want more?"
"No. I'm good now."
A little meat still sat on the plate, but I couldn't take another bite. Once my body had something in it, all I wanted was rest.
Yerim stood and stretched her arms lightly.
"I've got a few things to go over with the federation people. What about you, Seolhwa?"
"Mm… I'll go downstairs and loosen up a bit."
"You've got the free tomorrow."
"I checked this morning—there's a foam roller and everything. I'm just going to stretch."
"Then stretch and that's it. Go up and get some sleep first."
"Yes."
No one should be down here now.
The elevator carried me to the basement, and a familiar hush rose to meet me. The space was empty, as expected, held cold by the air conditioning. Enjoying the clean chill, I stepped inside, warmed myself up, and laid out a mat.
I lay back carefully and pressed into the locked places in my shoulders and lower back. As the foam roller traveled down my spine, a series of dull pops answered, and the chronic tightness in the muscles there began, slowly, to let go.
More knotted than I thought.
Maybe it was because this body was facing its first international competition. Even though I'd only skated the short—not the free—I was surprisingly stiff.
I drew a deep breath in and out, easing the tension along my chest and abdomen. The release ran deeper than I'd expected, and my body sank into it. I worked through the lower half as well—hamstrings, calves, ankles. After a long while of that, I rolled onto my stomach on the mat, rested my forehead on my arms, and closed my eyes.
The quiet of the basement, the air-conditioned breeze, the sound of my own breathing—emptiness that, for a moment, felt like comfort.
Before I knew it, today's performance began to play again behind my eyes. The opening pose. The axel. The lutz. And that final sequence jump. That timing. That brief connection. The feel of the ice was still with me—the push-off of the blade, the tiny tremor after landing, even the applause that had broken from the stands.
From juniors on, the time given to a skater is barely two minutes and fifty seconds. Everything has to fit inside it. One mistake, or a failure to show every scrap of what makes you compelling, and you're out—unable even to present the free you've prepared so much harder for. A brutally cruel format. And yet that is precisely why figure skating survives as a sport with almost no profitability at all.
Figure skating is the sport of becoming a princess.
That belief had not changed for Reina even after her junior debut. Only—
But not me.
There was a saying that winning inside Japan was harder than winning an international title—that was the state of Japanese figure skating now. In that world, Reina had never quite taken the crown, though she had made the national training squad and sometimes brought home silver or bronze.
I don't sparkle.
In Reina's mind, the only thing that suited a sparkling princess was a gold medal. Without that light, the stage lights and the blades cutting the ice all felt ordinary.
Even so, after failing to win more times than she could count, Reina had kept skating for one reason.
Seolhwa. Sparkling.
They weren't from the same country, and they weren't the same age, so they'd never shared a stage. Still, there had always been that friend shining from a distance. Because of her, Reina hadn't quit. And now, at last, they had met—and she wanted to show her.
But in yesterday's short program, Reina had missed two of her three jumps. She'd managed to cover with Level 4s on her steps and spins, but she had survived by three-tenths of a point. If any of the skaters below her had been even slightly sharper, it would have been over right there.
"Haa…"
Reina steadied her breath ahead of the free skate. Her starting order today was first. Opinions differed on that, but for Reina as she was now, it couldn't have been better.
I want to show her.
Until yesterday's competition ended, she had only prayed—please, let someone else make a mistake so she could survive—and hated herself for praying it. But she had survived. That was enough. All that remained was to show them. Everything she had worked for, every bit of support she had received, and the longing she carried—she wanted to leave it all on this ice.
"Ready?"
"No problems!"
At Coach Ayano's question, Reina flashed a thumbs-up. Her breath misted faintly and vanished. Her heart was still racing, but even that rhythm felt familiar now.
Japan — Honda Reina!
Anxiety, expectation, longing—in this moment, all of it was simply part of the performance. To prove she wasn't tense, she waved big as she stepped onto the ice. At center ice she took her pose, fingertips lifted, one knee softly bent. The opening position was quiet, but the edge hidden inside it was clearer than anyone's.
This is it.
The walls she had never cleared at international competitions—Akane and Chloe. And Cha Seolhwa, whom she was meeting on the same stage for the first time. In these four minutes and thirty seconds, she would surpass them all.
When the music began, Reina's body answered on reflex. Her first light push carved a line forward across the ice.
We go for the killer move from the start.
Repeating her coach's words, she built more speed. At the end of that arc she pressed hard into the ice and launched. Weight loaded into the blade; her right foot cut the surface and fed the last of the spring into her body. She scooped the edge as if gathering it in—the motion that gave the technique its name, scooping.
In the air, Reina's body spun sharp as a top. Her skirt drew circles through the wind; the lights flashed off her blade in afterimages. With every added rotation the crowd held its breath with her.
One. Two. Three. Four.
And—
Thock.
The edge bit the ice clean.
…Yes!
She'd known it the instant she jumped. The salchow was Reina's most confident jump, and she had landed a quad that clean—the GOE would stack up. Meaning she could still contend even if higher-difficulty quads appeared later.
She settled her breathing so the tone of the whole program wouldn't collapse, and carried on. Her blades kept leaving artistic tracks on the ice—the angle of her turns, the path of her fingertips, a center axis that never wavered. Ways of using long legs that a child of only eight had once taught her.
Then the combination: triple loop + triple toeloop. That signature tight rotation was alive again this time. As the jumps kept landing, the stands broke like a wave of cheers.
Stay focused.
Two jumps left. First, the one she had placed in the second half for the bonus—the quad toeloop. It wasn't as strong as her salchow, but her toeloop success rate was solid enough that she went into it light.
Ah.
Maybe she had spent too much power on the choreography before it. She couldn't generate enough rotation. An under-rotated quad toeloop.
What's left…
The remaining jump was the required solo axel. The axel was Reina's stubborn weakness, so unlike most skaters she had built even her free program around a double axel—because a clean program scored better than attempting a triple and failing.
But I already failed.
The all-clean was gone. A second-half miss would also drag her component scores down hard.
Then I might as well—
Just as she finished deciding and began to build speed again, she caught sight of someone standing outside the boards.
Cha Seolhwa. Watching her with the same eyes as always.
Maybe it was first-slot nerves. Reina, who could throw a quad salchow at will, had missed her quad toeloop—and in the second half, no less. To cover that—
Triple axel.
She had to land a triple on the final axel, no other option. But the axel was her weak point. Yesterday she had even missed the double. Before I could even wonder what she would choose, Reina's body was already drawing an arc through the air.
One, two…
Three—and a half.
She went down on the landing. But she had filled the revolutions. A triple axel detonated into the program, and the crowd didn't hold back its applause.
Lucky break.
Figure skating tickets were mostly assigned seating, so the people who had watched yesterday's short were watching the free from the same places. Was there anything that dumped more dopamine than a skater who had failed a double axel the day before throwing a triple? As a spectator, you felt envy—and at the same time—
If she shows me this…
Like a warning, unease stirred deep in my chest. Or rather, something closer to excitement. I thought I was starting to understand a little of what Reina always meant by sparkle.
Unexpected growth—and a rival who could stand level with me—was always welcome.