Junior World Championships (6)
The moment my turn drew near, Yerim looked at me and said,
"You know the real one is right now, don't you?"
"I know."
What she meant was that even if I had taken first in yesterday's short program, everything could still be overtaken in the free. In fact, Reina—who had posted the lowest short-program score—had already skated through the tenth slot and still sat first in the combined total. That was how absolute the free program's weight was. Anyone granted four minutes and thirty seconds could win. Anyone could also make a mistake.
I took a sip of water and quietly closed my eyes. It was less drinking than simply wetting my lips, but the faint moisture still brought life back to my drying mouth. My body felt light, and the techniques were ready. In the end, the real problem was mental strength—the ability to haul concentration all the way to the final second.
"Seolhwa."
Yerim called me again, her voice a shade more serious this time.
"You remember, right? Changing the free program was our decision."
But she would take the responsibility herself. So all I had to do was finish—mistakes or not—and focus on that alone. Her voice was firm yet warm: neither comfort nor pressure, simply quiet trust. That was enough.
"Oh, right."
Just before stepping onto the ice, with my name still not called, I looked at her and asked,
"Hm? Don't tell me you forgot some choreography!?"
"It's not that."
I hesitated over whether to say it, then curiosity won out.
"We don't do that sort of thing, do we?"
"What sort of thing?"
"Before a performance starts, other skaters and coaches do some kind of ceremony."
Take Reina and Coach Ayano: they pressed their foreheads together and spoke before the start. Jin Sehee and her coach clasped hands. Especially among the ladies, that pre-skate connection with the coach had become a trend. Of course there were cases like Chloe, whose coach never even showed her face beforehand. But Yerim and I simply talked—neither one thing nor the other.
At the question Yerim stared at me for a moment with an incredulous look, then snorted a quiet laugh.
"You wanted to do something like that?"
"Not exactly… just, everyone else does it."
"Hmm…"
She propped her chin in one hand and pretended to think, then lightly tapped the top of my head a few times.
"There. Done?"
"…?"
"Connection complete. Ceremony over."
Yerim's trademark rough-and-ready style left me laughing despite myself. It was exactly the sort of thing she would do—insisting that trust and the preparation we had already stacked mattered more than formality.
"Time to go out."
"I'll be back."
Korea — Cha Seolhwa!
The commentary pairing of Han Jinsung and Yu Hyungyeong enjoyed passionate support from Korean figure-skating fans. It was not the strange shipping kind of support, but pure praise for the quality of the analysis. Having two former medalists on the mic was already a luxury; the synergy made it better still. One coldly dismantled every technical element from the preparatory moves onward. The other, drawing on her experience as a ladies' skater, unpacked every artistic nuance. From a viewer's seat, nothing could have been more comfortable.
"Our next skater, Cha Seolhwa, recorded evenly high marks in both technical and component scores in the short program to take first place."
"Yes. In particular, that final jump sequence—the timing from the triple flip into the triple axel—made the artistic marks simply have to follow."
"Today as well she is coached by Shin Yerim, with choreography also by Coach Shin Yerim."
"The music is Metamorphosis. She has prepared a different program from the one she used at the recent National Championships."
The camera caught Cha Seolhwa standing in the center of the ice. She lifted her fingertips in silence and slowly lowered her head. Lights began to circle around her, and the music started.
"Oh? Doesn't the feeling seem different?"
"Yes. Cha Seolhwa has usually shown a strong, masculine style of performance."
"Right. But today it is clearly different. You can feel the intention to put femininity front and center."
"Even the fingertips flow softly downward, and the opening pose is a static crossed-leg position."
"This is very likely a strategy to express the theme of the piece more directly."
"The music is bright, too. Definitely unfamiliar for Seolhwa… which is exactly why it draws the eye more."
In the center of the rink Cha Seolhwa raised her head in time with the music. At the same moment the lights shifted again, and her blades traced a soft line across the ice to match. At first she kept her shoulders drawn in and her gaze lowered, but with each advancing step she lifted her eyes. The contracted motions gradually opened; both arms spread like wings, drawing curved trajectories that poured emotion across the ice.
Still moving with her legs crossed, she gathered the opened arms back to center. Then the jump.
"A clean triple loop coming out of a counter turn."
"Opening with a triple loop."
Even with the base-value bonus for later jumps, most skaters still place one high-difficulty jump early, when stamina is highest, to reduce risk. For anyone capable of a quadruple, the first jump is naturally a quad. That was why the audience, the commentators—everyone watching—had assumed Cha Seolhwa's first jump would be a quad. What appeared instead was a triple. The construction left everyone feeling something was off. Yet Cha Seolhwa moved on as if nothing were wrong, gliding straight to center ice, extending her right arm lightly, and settling into her first spin position.
"Position change. Second position now, and a change of rotational direction… yes, exact."
"Rotation speed is holding steady as well. Level 4 is fully within reach."
Not her usual machine-like spin, but something more fluid, more matched to the music. After finishing the beautiful spin without a single tremor of uncertainty, Cha Seolhwa entered the next element at once.
"Next jump… a clean triple lutz."
"The jump difficulty is lower than usual today, but the choreography is truly striking."
"She has always used her fingertips beautifully, yet today you can feel she is paying them special attention."
"Still, every jump being a triple is a bit unexpected. This is different from the layouts Cha Seolhwa shows when she is hunting high scores."
"It is about time for the axel, though."
"Yes—look at the entry posture heading to the far side of the rink… here it comes."
Cha Seolhwa's blade whispered over the ice, telegraphing the jump's trajectory. After a short preparatory motion she drove her axis and lifted her body. Yet it was not the powerful, body-loading push that created her usual rotation axis. One revolution in the air, two, and a half.
"The solo axel was only a double."
"Perhaps her condition is a little off today. Even though she is a skater who can put a triple axel into a sequence, a double axel came out."
"Of course this is also her first international competition; nerves would be natural."
"True. Still, it is a relief that the performance remains clean so far—no misses yet."
Cha Seolhwa landed without trouble, exhaled once, and moved straight into the next element. She lifted her fingertips softly and tilted her upper body. Matching the music's mood, her blades began to draw circles once more.
"Step sequence now."
"Cha Seolhwa has chosen to pull the emotional line upward."
"While linking the steps she keeps the choreography alive through her fingertips."
The blades flowed in a zigzag across the ice. Cha Seolhwa lowered her torso deeply, then raised it again with deliberate slowness, holding her center axis the entire way. Rockers, counters, and brackets executed low to the ice, footwork breathing in time with the steps—together they formed a miniature stage of their own.
"The weight transfers inside the steps are truly delicate. Position changes are clean as well."
"The turn difficulty is high, and more than anything she is completely absorbed into the choreography. Forget the scores—this is art."
"So what if the jump difficulty is a little lower! This is a skater who can deliver a performance like this."
She was merely stepping across the ice, yet the density of emotion within those steps grew thicker with every stride. One step, then another. Even the faint scrape of blade on ice became part of the story. Without stopping, Cha Seolhwa moved toward the far side of the rink and raised her right arm high. When those fingertips reached almost to the judges' stand, the blades slowed and she turned her face fully forward—carefully, as if offering a shy confession. The image was endlessly soft and fragile.
"An appeal point."
"Usually skaters appeal a jump or spin to the panel. Today, is she appealing the performance that follows the choreography?"
But that was the exact instant.
Cha Seolhwa's fingertips sliced the air as though cutting the ice itself. Every trace of the earlier softness vanished; the music's atmosphere broke off and transformed. The clear, tranquil melody flipped into heavy, razor-edged strings, and the beat no longer flowed—it poured. At the same moment Cha Seolhwa thrust her hand upward. This was no longer the slender, trailing hand of before. The arm stretched straight and sharp. And the instant those fingers clenched the empty air—
A familiar violin melody erupted like an explosion. It felt as though something long concealed had cracked its shell and burst free. In a single breath the air over the rink changed.