The Promotion Exam
On the way home after another figure skating lesson that had long since become routine, I held an ice cream cone I'd coaxed out of Mom with a carefully deployed dose of charm.
"Is it good?"
"Mm."
An ice cream ran about two hundred fifty calories. Figure skating, at a competitive training pace, burned roughly four hundred calories an hour. Today's session had been jump-heavy, and I'd been on the ice for four hours. One ice cream was, by any reasonable measure, entirely legal.
"Aah..."
My mouth was still too small to take the whole cone in one bite. That was a shame — half the pleasure was devouring it in a single go — but it didn't make the ice cream any less delicious. The moment the cold vanilla cream touched my tongue, a soft sweetness bloomed from the tip and spread slowly through my mouth. The faintly sticky sugar and the way it melted into something silken and sweet woke a craving for sugar that training had almost made me forget.
This is pure bliss.
I was nearly finished, basking in the happiness of it, when Mom looked at me and asked,
"Do you enjoy learning figure skating?"
There was a thread of worry in her face as she said it.
Is it the training intensity?
I'd survived the kind of deranged forty-eight-hour programs they ran at the national team training camps in my past life, so Yerim's coaching never struck me as particularly hard. But to someone who didn't know any of that, the workload might look like a lot for a five-year-old girl.
There's less than half a year until the competition.
The competition was in June. That meant I'd be walking into it after only six months under Yerim. I'd said I would reach Level 1 in a span most people needed a full year for, so the training volume wasn't strange. And as far as I could tell, it still fell short of overtraining.
...Is it because I keep falling?
What mattered most to me right now was adapting this body. That was why even techniques I could already land, I was still hunting for their ideal form. Failure after failure was inevitable along the way, and Mom had clearly been watching me spend entire sessions flat on the ice.
"It's fun."
With this kind of worry, the best answer was the plain truth. When I said it, Mom studied my reaction and tried again.
"Mom doesn't only love you if you take first place and bring home a prize, Seolhwa."
"I know."
But if I wasn't first, I wouldn't be satisfied. In figure skating, a podium finish — a place under the lights — went as far as third. And yet second and third, standing up there without the gold, only made the podium feel more miserable.
Still.
This was the first time I'd ever heard anything like it. Not even in my past life. Back then, when I first started skating, guilt toward my parents had come first. They never asked me questions like this unless I brought it up myself.
Strange.
Until I was reborn, I never understood people who said they were close with their parents. Parents and children were near and distant at the same time, and my own two had been so impossibly accomplished that being near them only felt like pressure.
This life was different. The more I played cute for them, the more unreservedly they doted on me in return.
This is good, too.
I didn't know how things would change once figure skating got serious — but for now, I decided to enjoy the time I could still spend with them like this.
"All right. One more run, and then we're done for today."
"We've only been at it for two hours."
"I know. You've got the promotion exam tomorrow, so this is it. Rest is part of training, too."
Most figure skating competitions didn't bar entry by rank. Instead, they split the event into separate fields by level. If there was a Competition A, you could think of it as containing a Novice A, a Level 1 A, and a Level 2 A under the same roof. Awards were handed out by rank as well, which was why skaters sometimes deliberately stayed at a lower level to compete there.
The experience of winning matters.
Even at a slightly lower-tier event, a first-place finish was valuable. The reason I still wanted to go out at Level 1 was simple.
Competing at Novice would just be ridiculous.
Novice programs barely used jumps. Some skaters slipped them in chasing a win, but that field was mostly brand-new little kids playing around. Level 1 was the first rank where, if you wanted to contend for the top, you actually had to have the elements in your body — which was why I'd chosen it.
"But the promotion exam is already here?"
I'd taken the Novice test only last month. In my past life, promotion exams had come four times a year, so this felt early.
"Figure skating's gotten popular lately, so there are a lot more people. That means they run the exams more often. You know how it was when your unnie was learning? Once a year."
So this really was a world where figure skating had more of a following. From the position of someone trying to advance faster than I had in my previous life, that was nothing but good news.
"The hobby-class kids will be here soon, so let's do one last run, quick."
"Yes."
Unlike Novice, which only required basic skating movement on the ice, Level 1 demanded a program performed to music. That was what made it the dividing line — whether you were in it as a hobby or meant to take figure skating seriously.
"First, let's check the jump layout. Single toe loop, Salchow, and Axel."
"Right."
"And for the combination jump at the end — two jumps in a row — you'll go toe loop plus toe loop."
I moved with the music spilling from the portable speaker.
It's really huge.
Promotion exams were held at the larger rinks in each region. The rink Yerim's parents ran had everything you could want and excellent facilities, but this place still made me marvel every time I came.
It wasn't this big in my past life.
The rink in Mokdong had been treated as Seoul's largest even then — but that had always felt like a title only possible in a skating wasteland like Korea. Now it felt large enough to stand beside rinks overseas without embarrassment.
"Looks like the Novice exams are almost done."
"So I'm up right after?"
"Yeah. Kids trying for Level 1 this time... about twenty of them. Wow. Twenty applicants for Level 1?"
I looked around while I waited for my turn. Most of the children waiting for the Level 1 exam looked like elementary schoolers. Maybe that was why the glances aimed my way all felt a little strange.
Like they're wondering what I'm doing here.
Then the Level 1 exams began, and I stepped onto the ice behind an instructor from the Skating Union.
"We'll begin the test after a short warm-up."
As I loosened up, I ran through what I'd prepared one more time. Time: one minute thirty. Four jumps in total. Spins: five forward rotations and three backward — a basic Level 1 exam program.
"Warm-up is over. We'll begin. Number one: Cha Seolhwa."
Hearing my name called first was a relief. For children just starting figure skating, the Level 1 exam was the first time they performed a full individual program in front of a crowd of strangers.
Whoever goes first almost always falls apart.
The pressure made most of them blank on the choreography or miss an element. But if I went out first and passed cleanly, the kids after me would almost all pass too.
With a promotion exam, if you just don't panic halfway through, you've already got half the battle won.
I thought that for a practical reason as well: every failed attempt cost at least a hundred thousand won. The federation had to make a living, so of course the fees were set that way — but still. Paying a hundred thousand starting from the Level 1 exam and then failing would be a miserable feeling.
I headed to center ice ready to put on a perfect performance. As I settled into my starting pose, a quiet hush closed in, and I could feel countless eyes on me. For the first time since being born as Cha Seolhwa, I was under gazes that meant to judge me.
I took them in without hurry and waited for the start. A moment later, the music began.
Maybe I'll change it a little.
A promotion exam only required you to complete the assigned elements to pass. Adding choreography suited to the level within the allotted time was no problem at all.
Shhhk— I dug into the ice harder than usual and launched myself into motion. What should have followed after the start was ordinary stroking. Instead, after building speed, I slowly lifted my left leg. My small arms stretched long and straight, my gaze fixed forward, holding the speed.
Spiral.
Not simply raising a leg — a technique of gliding over the ice while extending the entire body into one long, continuous line. One of the most beautiful elements in figure skating.
Now.
Still carrying the spiral's speed, the left foot that had been softly driving against the ice suddenly carved deep. At the same time my body turned through a clean full rotation and landed. I didn't stop there. I stabbed the toe pick hard into the ice again and sprang. Using the rebound of the previous jump, I went for the consecutive jump that followed.
Combination.
A Salchow-toe loop combination. After that I took the Salchow and the toe loop once each on their own. The last one left was—
Axel.
The only jump that took off facing forward. Even as a single, it was effectively one and a half rotations, and I couldn't guarantee a perfect landing in this body yet. I steadied my breath. The blade that had been whispering over the ice suddenly drove hard against it. I lifted the free leg — that single instant when blade tip and ice met.
Now.
I threw myself upward as if hauling my body into the air. A short, fierce rotation in the air. Wind brushed past my ears, and time slowed. Tap. The blade found the ice again. Not a hint of a wobble — soft and clean.
Where every movement ended, even the cold air felt warm.