First Competition (3)
"She's improved again this year."
"She even threw in a double Lutz, though the ending felt a little weak."
"You can kind of tell they changed the program in a rush, right?"
"Still, for a seven-year-old to pull this off, she could aim for the World Championships."
The judges' chatter beside him barely registered.
A genius, at this level?
To Han Jinsung—the man once called the pinnacle of Korean men's singles—the word "genius" was laughably overblown for what he had just seen. Flashy enough to shine at a Korean youth meet, and that was the end of it.
Shouldn't have come.
He had accepted the judging invitation only because the federation president had begged him, and the whole experience was reminding him once again that this sort of work did not suit him in the slightest. Even so, his electronic stylus tapped steadily against the tablet in front of him. Money was money; the scores would be accurate.
Hiding his boredom, he checked the next entry. A faint crease formed between his brows.
Next is… five years old?
Elite skaters usually began at five at the earliest, which meant even the quickest among them would only have a full year under their belts by six. This was a youth competition built on experience, after all, and five felt early. The thought lasted only a moment.
A little girl named Cha Seolhwa stepped onto the ice.
"Oh, she's adorable~ Wait, is that Yerim's student?"
"She's ridiculously pretty, isn't she?"
"If a face like that can actually skate, she'll take half the audience already."
"She hasn't even finished a full year of training? And that costume looks custom-made."
None of the other judges seriously expected the child to be any good.
Han Jinsung did not share their complacency.
A man who had walked the World Championships, the Olympics, and every major international stage in between saw something else entirely.
…What is that presence?
Even after stepping onto the ice there was not a flicker of fear in her—only a quiet, absolute confidence that belonged to someone who trusted herself completely. That was the bearing of a veteran who had earned every medal on her résumé, not something a five-year-old with less than a year of training should be able to wear.
She had merely taken center ice, yet every gaze in the building was pulled toward her. It was not simply her age or her striking looks. An atmosphere—something sharp and blade-like that made it hard to believe she was only five—radiated outward in every direction.
Wind on the Snow… is it?
The OST of a recent hit children's animated film from a major studio. It had been popular enough that Han Jinsung had watched it with his girlfriend; the melody was familiar. For a child named Seolhwa—Snow Flower—the concept could not have been more perfect.
A violin note trembled strangely into existence, almost too soft to catch. Then the piano entered with careful transparency, each note like a clear water droplet. One, two… tones that brushed the keys as lightly as a child might touch falling snow, hesitant and delicate, slipping between the silences.
And then Cha Seolhwa moved.
The way she pressed into the ice and glided forward was the exact instant a breeze skims across a field of snow. Even the curve of her fingertips looked as light and translucent as drifting flakes. Everything was slow, yet nothing felt dull. She had traded speed for the careful shaping of emotion itself.
How does a five-year-old act like this?
Han Jinsung's stylus stopped without his noticing. Seolhwa passed through center ice and sank a little lower into her edge. The music continued as carefully as a heart hidden beneath a blanket.
In that moment—
She struck the ice and sprang.
The first jump was a single Axel. Technically modest compared with her acting, yet the quality was entirely different. Takeoff and rotation were not separate; they were fused into a single motion.
And then—
There's no sound.
Landing noise differs from skater to skater. Even a perfect landing produces a faint scrape as the blade compresses the ice. Just now, silence had fallen. If the sound was not one she herself intended, then even the noise of her own body was unnecessary—an entire philosophy of performance distilled into a single quiet edge.
"Her emotional line is so alive."
Someone murmured it softly. Han Jinsung did not hear. Or rather, he refused to hear; he would not let any casual appraisal steal even a second of this performance from him.
Through it all Seolhwa never broke the current after the jump. The music paused for a single breath. The piano sank low; a cello unfurled beneath it like a distant landscape. She bent one knee and lifted the free leg into the air.
Han Jinsung knew at once what she was about to attempt.
At this timing?
An attempt jump placed mid-program. Inserting a high-difficulty element here was dangerous—especially for a young skater whose center of gravity could easily waver. Moreover the music itself was not built on hard beats but on continuous flow; one small misstep and the entire emotional thread would unravel.
The girl did not hesitate.
She accelerated across the rink, then turned her body in a tight, precise circle, catching the exact instant she needed.
My lungs burned.
No matter how hard I had trained, this was still a five-year-old girl's body. Every muscle screamed for me to stop right now.
Stop?
My head delivered a completely different verdict: I wanted to hold this moment a little longer—even for a single extra heartbeat.
The violin stretched thin and long again, and I felt wind brush past my back. The pure elation of having returned to figure skating raced along every nerve.
Next.
I had already finished almost every jump required in this program. What remained was the hardest of them all: a combination of two consecutive double loops. It was the highest technical element this body could currently produce, so I poured every scrap of focus into it.
Look at me, all of you.
Before the jump I deliberately circled the rink once more, gathering every spectator's attention and concentration back onto me.
Nerves sharp, body light.
I brushed the ice with the right blade, lifted the left foot. Torso locked solid, left arm drawn in against my chest. The body left the ice so smoothly that the air itself seemed to pause. Knees together, toes pointed, two clean rotations in the air. Then the right blade settled carefully, never shattering the ice—only kissing it.
No time to rest. Using the rebound, I launched straight into the second loop. Thought vanished; the body simply executed the motion it had repeated countless times. A little more acceleration this time, pushing off the ice as if kicking the floor itself skyward.
Enough. I can do this.
The second rotation was sharper. The center wavered for an instant, but I locked the upper body and rebuilt the axis. At the moment of landing I gathered every remaining ounce of power into the tips of my toes.
Tuk.
Both feet together, the right blade caught the ice cleanly. A faint slide, yet no skid.
Combination successful.
Breath clawed its way up to the base of my throat, but the corners of my mouth still lifted. That sensation. That landing. A quiet, private roar of triumph that only I could hear.
Next.
I still had not used the full minute and thirty seconds allotted to me. How cleanly I finished the second half would matter more than most people realized.
I regulated my breathing, twisted the torso with liquid ease, and extended the left leg high and straight behind me.
A spiral.
Gliding across the ice as if the surface itself were carrying me, I looked upward. The rink lights glittered beneath my free leg. If I tipped my head a fraction higher I could see the ceiling, and above that I imagined snow falling.
Wind on the Snow. I am that wind.
Arms opening gently on a diagonal. Torso lower still, free leg higher. Balance. Stillness. Flow. I gathered every element into a single point inside myself.
And when the music descended—slowly, so very slowly—into the lightest of piano notes, I turned once in a small circle and lowered my body.
Finish position.
It was a little disappointing, but it was time to end. I sank onto both knees as if folding them together, wrapped both arms around myself as though cradling something precious, and slowly bowed my head.
The final piano notes—one, two—melted away across the ice as if they might vanish completely. My lips were dry with exertion, yet I held the tension to the very last breath. A sensation of sinking beneath the ice itself, every sense dissolving until only the clear sound of my heartbeat remained. On the rink I became a single unmoving sculpture; even the microscopic tremble of a pupil was part of the performance, dissolving emotion into the air itself.
A moment later the last aftertone of the piano settled, and silence descended over the ice.
Everything felt as though it had stopped—my breathing, the hammering of my heart, even the residual echo of music still vibrating somewhere beneath the cold surface.
It took roughly one beat longer than it should have for me to realize it was truly over.
"…"
I lifted my head slowly.
The lights were still trained on me. Beyond them I could see the people in the stands, the unfamiliar faces of the judges. All of them had lost their words and were watching me in absolute quiet.
I savored that atmosphere, then rose silently and set my blades back onto the ice.
The instant my toes touched the surface—
Careful applause began to bloom.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
A child had started it. Soon adult hands joined in. The sound spread sideways, forward, then rolled all the way to the back rows.
I bowed my head deeply—slowly, fully, twice.
My heart was still racing, yet somewhere inside, everything was quiet.