#figureskaterau

Sunghoon is already waiting in the middle of the ice. He moves smoothly across the ice as if the laws of physics do not apply to him. When he spots you, his face lights up. And that's when your heart does that stupid thing it always does in his presence. If only he knew.

You met each other here. Not exactly at this ice rink, but at a similar one, during a competition you begged your parents to go to for a long time. You were maybe eleven at the time and obsessed with figure skating, like any girl who discovered Korean sports television too late at night. You secretly watched reruns of performances, trying to imitate the skaters' movements on the slippery floor in your socks. Eventually you managed to drag your parents to a local competition. It was cold, the seats were hard and you were trembling with excitement. And then a boy entered the rink. Sunghoon. His performance lasted maybe three minutes, but you remember his every move. It wasn't just about technique - although he was already excellent. It was about the fact that he looked like the ice was his home. As if he knew every inch of the ice sheet and trusted it more than anything else. Afterwards, you couldn't help yourself. You went down, accosted him clumsily, and he,instead of ignoring you like most athletes, listened as if he was genuinely curious about what you had to say.

'I liked how you did that... that with your hand,' you said. - you began, waving your hand in the air, trying to replicate one of his moves. Instead of laughing, he nodded.

'You demonstrate it nicely' - he said quietly, but with a smile. And then, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, he asked:

'Do you skate too?" You hesitated. Because, after all, you weren't. Not yet. But in your head you were already a figure skater. And when you nodded, he didn't even question it for a second.

From that day on, everything changed.

Your parents signed you up for classes, then a second and a third. And Sunghoon? He just... was there. Not always next to you, not every day, but at every competition, every once in a while - as if the universe was making sure you didn't lose sight of each other. Sometimes you only saw each other for a moment, in the corridor between the changing rooms, sometimes you only exchanged a quick nod. But it was enough. Back then it was still good enough.

Then that camp came. The summer camp. You were already fourteen years old and by chance you ended up in the same group. For the first week you were like two magnets, hanging around each other, not speaking much. But once you started talking, you couldn't stop. You don't remember exactly when he stopped being just a rink boy to you. Maybe when he made you laugh to tears with the story of how he forgot his performance gloves and had to borrow pink ones with bunny ears from his younger sister. Maybe the time he helped you up after a failed pirouette and said ‘You're stronger than you think you are.’

Maybe when you started to miss him before he even left.

Or maybe... maybe you never stopped.

You drive onto the ice carefully, as if the sheet might crack under your weight. Sunghoon drives closer, but leaves a safe space between you. A space neither of you has dared to cross in years.

‘It's been a long time since you've been here.’ - he says, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

'I was a little afraid I wouldn't be able to skate anymore."

‘And yet you came.’ - you smile, uncertainly.

‘Sometimes you have to go back to where something started.’ Sunghoon is silent for a moment, then moves first. His figure cuts through the air with the same elegance you remember from your childhood, as if he never stopped. As if he were part of the ice, not just a guest of it. You try to catch up with him and for a moment you ride in sync, in a rhythm that only the two of you know. It's not choreography, it's muscle memory. A silent understanding. The ice sings under your skates. Quietly, almost unnoticeably as if it wants not to disturb you. Some boy in the background falls over with a thud, his friend snorts with laughter. A girl in a red helmet shouts something to her parents, who film her from behind the railing. All this is happening next to you, but your bubble is tight. When  you turn, you feel Sunghoon doing the same. It's like you're connected by an invisible string. As if you still knew things about each other that you had never said out loud.

‘Do you remember how you used to teach me to skate backwards?’ you ask, without turning your head.

‘I remember you bumping into me three times at the speed of light,’ he says, his voice trembling with laughter.

‘Only because you were unlucky enough to be the closest,’ you reply without thinking, but the laughter doesn’t come immediately. Because it’s not just a joke. It’s a memory of something simpler. Without the tension that now hangs between you. You stop and watch him come back to you, swinging in a wide arc. Sunghoon always skated as if he didn't have an ounce of doubt in him. You never mastered that confidence. Maybe that's why you bumped into him so often. You were looking for balance. In him. He stops right in front of you. He looks at you with his head slightly tilted, as if reading thoughts from your face that you haven't sorted out yet.

‘You know,’ he begins calmly, his voice warm and familiar, ‘when you stand like that, you really look like you're waiting for something to happen. Your lips move faster than your heart.’

‘Maybe I am waiting.’ It wasn't meant to sound so serious. But spoken aloud, it sounds almost like a confession. Revealing a soft, unprotected interior. Sunghoon says nothing. But he stares. Long and deeply. Just like he used to. Only now you know what that gaze does to you. And it hurts. Because you want to dive into it. But you're afraid that as soon as you try, you'll drown with no chance of rescue.

‘We used to come here every week,’ he recalls quietly, as if he doesn't want to break the short connection between you.

‘In winter, in summer...’ you agree. ‘No matter what the weather was like.’

‘It always ended the same way.’ You smile slightly, even though your eyes are filled with too many memories that have suddenly come back.

‘A disaster?

‘You falling on me. You burst out laughing. But only for a moment. Because his voice, his gaze, everything around you reminds you too strongly of how close you are to the edge. An emotional abyss you’ve been avoiding your whole life.

‘Maybe you were driving too close,’ you say, trying to balance things out.

‘Or maybe I just...’ He moves closer until you can feel his warmth despite the cold of the ice rink. ‘I didn't want to be anywhere else.’

This time, your heart is beating too hard. Too real. You feel it in your throat, in your fingers, in your lower abdomen, as if your whole body is trying to tell you: he feels it too. Instead of answering, you look. And suddenly you are that girl again, with her scarf blowing in the wind, laughing too loudly and not knowing what to do when his hand accidentally touched hers. But now it's no accident. He leans in, his hand gently brushing your cheek, as if to see if he can get away with it. You don't pull away.

‘Do you think if I fell into you now, you'd laugh too?’ he asks with a hint of affection that wasn't there before.

‘I don't know,’ you reply quietly. ‘Maybe I wouldn't want to get up.’ It slips out before you have time to think. And suddenly everything freezes. He stops smiling. But not in a bad way. More like someone who has just heard something. Something he has been waiting for for a long time.

And that's when you take a step. One of those uncertain steps that end in a quick sway of the body and a sudden loss of balance. Too much emotion, too little concentration. You try to save yourself, but the ice doesn't forgive such mistakes. You want to regain your balance, but you instinctively grab the nearest thing.

That thing is Sunghoon.

He tries to react. His hands rise as if to catch a falling object. But you're faster. You land on him. Literally. He hits the ice with his back, and you hit him with your whole body, your hand on his neck, your face right above his. Your forehead almost touches his cheek. Your knee digs into his side somewhere. Sunghoon looks surprised, but not scared. Rather, it's as if he didn't expect this moment, but at the same time, he doesn't mind. His hand, uncertain, lands lightly on your hip, just to make sure you're okay, at least that's what reason tells you. But your body feels differently. You look at each other for a moment that seems detached from the rest of the world. The laughter that was circulating between you a moment ago has disappeared. Instead, there is something new. A quiet tension. A desire you don't admit to. Because this wasn't supposed to happen. You were supposed to laugh, pretend that it was nothing, that you were just friends who accidentally fell over.

But nothing about it felt like an accident.

And now, as you try to shake off this strange mixture of emotion and coldness, your fingers accidentally brush against his neck. The skin beneath your touch is warm, and you immediately pull back as if you've been burned. But he doesn't react. Not with a word, not with a movement. He just stares. You feel something inside you soften. You feel at a loss for words. Your throat goes dry because you don't have the courage to say that you feel something you don't understand, but which has been there for a long time. Quiet, stubborn, just waiting for the moment to reveal itself.

But you say nothing. Because you're afraid you'll ruin it. Because you're not ready. Because maybe it's just you.

You get up, doing it too quickly, as if you want to escape from something more than just the cold of the ice rink. He also gets up, adjusting his jumper with a slight smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

‘No. Just my pride hurts a little,’ you reply, trying to sound light-hearted. But your heart is still beating too fast, too unevenly. You can feel it in your chest, as if it were trying to break out.

You go back to skating, as if nothing had happened. The jokes return, but they are shallower, less spontaneous. You don't look at him as often anymore. Because you're afraid that your gaze will reveal more than you want to show. Because you don't know how he feels. And when you say goodbye that evening, with an overly cautious ‘see you later’ and a gentle nod, silence remains with you. Not the silence between words, but the silence between hearts. 

If only he knew.

And if only you knew that he feels the same way.