Chapter Text
Get up, Jiseok told himself. The voice in his head didn’t sound like his own. Get up. You’re pathetic. You’re weak. Get up.
He peeled himself up off the ice, ignoring the cold ache clinging to his side, ignoring the ringing in his ears, ignoring the excruciating pain in his knee, letting himself stumble into muscle memory’s arms to carry him into his step sequence. The scrape of his skates on the ice sliced through the music echoing across the arena, piano and strings in frantic accelerando as if hurrying to catch up with his racing pulse.
But it was the other way around—he was the one chasing the music, off his pace, off his rhythm, delayed by his last fall. He could see nothing but glaring lights and blinding ice, but even through the pain he could feel the stares of the audience, the judges, his coach; unsympathetic witnesses to his graceless falls and his fall from grace. Maybe he was on his feet, going through the motions—rockers and chocktaws and counters, sloppy edges and scratchy turns—but he had fallen in every way that mattered. He didn’t think he was getting back up from this.
Did he even fucking care?
Out of the step sequence and into his final element, a combination spin that had fire racing up and down his right leg as he pulled his foot over his head and into his Biellmann position, lungs frozen in agony, biting down hard on the insides of his cheeks to keep from grimacing. Jiseok’s spins were some of the most renowned in men’s skating, and some of the highest-scoring, too, but he knew this was far from his best. Not like it would make a difference now. He just wanted it to be over. All of it. He couldn’t take it anymore.
At last, the music struck its final ringing chord. Jiseok struck his final pose a second behind.
The crowd offered polite applause. A handful of wrapped flowers and stuffed toys flew down onto the ice, and for a moment Jiseok’s heart hurt almost more than his knee to know he’d proven himself a sore disappointment to those who’d come here to support him.
As he got off the ice, he avoided eye contact with both the camera and his coach. Galina said nothing, just handed him his skate guards, waited for him to clip them on, then passed him his water bottle and team jacket and led the way to the Kiss and Cry.
“You win,” he heard himself say as he sat on the cushioned bench beside her. “I’m done.”
Galina glanced at him but maintained her silence.
The score came in. The number itself was painful enough, but it was the ranking that hurt the worst. Tenth, with three skaters to go, meaning that unless all three of them fucked up even worse than he did, he would finish outside the top ten.
That made two years in a row that he’d failed his country with a shitty final result at the World Championships. But it was worse this year, so much worse—because next season was an Olympic season. If he’d finished within the top ten, he could have earned at least one more spot for South Korean men to compete at the Olympics. But he couldn’t even do that.
What good was he?
What good are you?
He wanted nothing more than to get out of there as soon as the red light on the camera went out and the next skater took the attention away from him, but before he could steel himself to stand, he felt the cold touch of Galina’s spidery hand on his knee. He fought back an involuntary wince.
“So you won’t be returning to Portland this summer,” she said. She tutted, tongue behind her teeth, dark curls quivering as she shook her head. “A shame. You really were a talented skater.”
She got up and left before Jiseok could formulate a response. He sat there for a long moment, staring out towards the rink but not really seeing anything, squeezing his water bottle between his numb hands as Turandot blasted through the speakers. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a representative from the Korean Skating Union approaching, gesturing at him to get out of the Kiss and Cry.
He stood.
His knee protested.
He took a step.
His leg gave out.
*⁎*⁎*
“And there we have the final standings from the Men’s Singles event at the World Figure Skating Championships… a disappointing finish for our South Korean National Champion Kwak Jiseok, down in thirteenth.”
“What does this mean for South Korean men at next season’s Olympics, Sungbin-ssi?”
“Well, if Kwak had finished within the top ten, it would have provided the opportunity for another men’s singles skater to compete at a qualifying event later this year and earn a second Olympic berth for our country. However, since he was the only South Korean man competing at the World Championships this year, and he finished outside of the top ten…”
“Ah, that’s a shame.”
“Yes, indeed. The men’s singles event at next year’s National Championships may end up being quite the battle, given how close the scores were this season between Kwak and silver medallist Lee Jooyeon.”
“Hey, they mentioned me!” Jooyeon exclaimed, scrabbling to sit up straight from where he’d been slumping further and further down on the couch.
“Which I think means it’s time to turn this off and go to bed,” was Seungmin’s dry response, reaching for the remote on the cushion between him and Jooyeon to, indeed, turn the TV off as the commentators continued to discuss the matter of Olympics qualifications. “Damn. He couldn’t even get a top-ten finish.”
“He did his best,” Jooyeon insisted.
“He fell three times!”
“He looked like he was in pain,” Hyeongjun chimed in from his spot at the dining table behind them. He’d been on his phone all throughout the broadcast, so it would have been reasonable to assume he wasn’t paying attention, but Jooyeon figured he was probably keeping an eye on the reactions on Twitter. “Probably his knee again. I don’t think it ever properly healed.”
Jooyeon frowned. He didn’t know much about Jiseok’s knee injury other than what Jungsu had mentioned, and Jungsu only knew what Jiseok had deigned to tell him. “He seemed okay in the short program yesterday, though.”
Okay was definitely the word to be using, because he hadn’t been his best, either. Jooyeon had seen Jiseok skate his short program clean at Nationals, and it was, objectively, the most impressive short program in men’s singles since Yuzuru Hanyu. Delicate and powerful at once, with breathtaking spins, heart-stopping jumps, and the most mesmerising step sequence Jooyeon had ever seen, so fully embodying Fauré’s “Pavane, Op. 50” as if his very limbs had been forged from the music. Yesterday’s short program had still been impressive, but it hadn’t been clean—he’d missed the second part of his jump combination thanks to a shaky landing on his quad Salchow. Due to that fatal error, he’d been down in sixth going into the free skate, which surely stung badly enough, but dropping all the way down to thirteenth probably felt even worse.
“A lot can change in a day,” Gunil said grimly, speaking up for the first time in several minutes. “Especially with injuries like that. Especially if he’s been skating on it all this time without letting it heal.” He idly brushed one ankle against the other, no doubt thinking about the injury that had murdered his own competitive career.
“Well,” Jooyeon said uneasily, “at least he gets a chance to rest now that the season is over.”
Seungmin rolled his eyes. “You’re too soft, Jooyeonie,” he said. “I’ll never understand why you treat him like a friend when he only sees you as a rival. And that’ll be true more than ever next season—it’ll be you and him competing for that spot at the Olympics, and the KSU already favours him.”
Jooyeon shrugged, staring at the blank TV screen, at the reflection of himself sitting on the couch between Seungmin and Gunil, Hyeongjun at the table behind them. The room was lit only by a single floor lamp beside the TV. The digital clock on the kitchen counter declared it to be 01:28.
In truth, he felt anxious. But maybe not for the reason he should have been.
“Whatever happens, happens,” he said quietly.
There was plenty of history between Lee Jooyeon and Kwak Jiseok. Hard for there not to be, in a sport like this. Jiseok likely would have described it as ill-fated, but Jooyeon had always seen it as star-written. Jiseok thought Jooyeon was naive; Jooyeon thought Jiseok was just too competitive, too obsessed with perfection. They were rivals, sure, but why did that mean they had to be enemies?
As kids, they’d crossed paths at several novice competitions—Kwak Jiseok from Uijeongbu and Lee Jooyeon from Daegu, always trading off who won gold and who won silver. With similar builds and similar talent, they’d held the promise of great things to come in Korean men’s skating. Jiseok moved up into junior-level competition a year ahead of Jooyeon, with them being born in the same year but on either side of the July cut-off. Jooyeon remembered it as the most boring season of his life—he liked skating, but he preferred it when he could compete with Jiseok, when he could stand next to him on the podium, whatever order they were in.
They’d both been big fish in a small pond at the novice level, but moving up into juniors knocked them each back a couple of pegs, especially now that they were competing internationally. Even so, Jooyeon mostly remembered the awe he’d felt at getting to compete in foreign countries, against foreign skaters. He’d been thirteen years old.
By a stroke of serendipity, in Jooyeon’s first junior season, he and Jiseok had competed at the same Junior Grand Prix event in Nagoya, Japan. It was a force beyond Jooyeon’s control that had him approaching Jiseok after the official practice session.
“Hey!” he greeted. “Fancy meeting you here!”
Jiseok glanced up at him, finished putting his skate guards on, then grinned. “Can’t wait to lose to me again, huh?”
They were fighting words, but they ignited something joyful in Jooyeon’s heart, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Your triple–triple combos are pretty stable now, I admit. But I bet I’ll land a quad before you do.”
“Really?” Jiseok raised an eyebrow. “Have you been working on one?”
“Well, no, not yet,” Jooyeon admitted. “Have you?”
“I can’t just tell you that,” said Jiseok.
Jooyeon blinked. “Then—neither can I!”
Jiseok laughed. That was the first time Jooyeon made Jiseok laugh. The sound pealed out of him, clear and joyful in the high-ceilinged rink, and something inside Jooyeon buzzed pleasantly as if he’d just received the highest praise from his coach, bringing an uncontrollable beam to his face.
“Jiseok!”
Jiseok’s laugh cut off and his face froze at the shrill call. He turned to look at the woman beckoning furiously at him from the rink entrance. When he turned back to Jooyeon, his expression was level and blank.
“I have to go,” he said, and, without a word, ducked his head and hurried to the woman’s side, disappearing through the exit with her. Jooyeon only caught the first few words of what she started to say to him:
“You’re not here to make friends, Jiseok, you’re here to—”
And it made Jooyeon glad that his own coach was so laid-back. He wondered if maybe that was just the difference between Daegu and Uijeongbu. Because, otherwise, he thought he and Jiseok had a lot in common. He thought they could probably be good friends.
They enjoyed a few other similar encounters throughout their time as juniors—playful banter cut short when Jiseok was called away by his coach, who Jooyeon later learned was also his mother.
As with their ascent from novice to junior, Jiseok would be advancing to senior competition a season before Jooyeon was eligible. In that last junior season, Jiseok won the gold to Jooyeon’s silver at Junior Nationals, but at the Junior World Championships, Jooyeon earned himself his first major international medal with a second-place finish, while Jiseok fell on his quad toe loop in the free skate (he had, in the end, been the first of them to land a quad—just not that one) and finished in third.
Similar to the one season he’d spent in advanced novice without Jiseok, Jooyeon expected his final junior season to be a similar bore. But at the end of that summer, right before his fifteenth birthday, right before the Junior Grand Prix, a botched landing on his own newly minted quad toe loop had broken Jooyeon’s ankle and kept him off the ice for the better part of the season. Then, even once his ankle was good as new, a major difference between him and Jiseok made itself known:
Physical growth. Jiseok seemed to grow steadily, at a rate that his coordination could easily keep up with, while Jooyeon shot up in fits and starts, constantly outgrowing himself, constantly having to adjust his centre of gravity to account for the inexplicable centimetres of height he seemed to gain every other week.
It was infuriating to no end. If it had only plagued Jooyeon for just one season, then maybe he wouldn’t have minded—but it continued for the better part of two years, and between that and the time spent out of training due to his injury, he practically had to relearn how to skate, how to jump, how to spin. His body was suddenly taller and broader and lankier than he knew how to inhabit, with limbs that didn’t obey him the way he was used to and feet that seemed to grow at a rate oddly disproportionate to the rest of him, frustrating his family’s finances with the near-constant need for new skates.
During this period, he (and his parents) thought that maybe moving to a new coach would be what helped him get back on a competitive level—back on Jiseok’s level. Jooyeon was pretty sure his parents had been intending for him to go abroad to train, but Jooyeon already had a coach in mind.
Four years prior, just as he’d moved up into juniors, he’d watched Goo Gunil, all of nineteen years old at the time, skate his way to a national gold medal, then a Four Continents Championship gold, then a World Championship bronze—all in the same season. The summer following, he dislocated his ankle, tearing a ligament in the process, and was forced to retire. But Gunil’s quad Salchow had been the stuff of dreams, and Jooyeon badly wanted to be able to jump like that. So, when he heard that Gunil was now coaching novice and junior skaters at the rink Hyeongjun’s family owned in Seoul, Jooyeon annoyed Hyeongjun for long enough to get Gunil’s number and then practically begged Gunil to be his coach.
He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten him to agree, but it had taken some doing. Jooyeon did remember how indignant he’d felt when Seungmin, a season later, only had to ask once.
Jiseok had changed coaches a season before Jooyeon did, but unlike Jooyeon, he had gone abroad. His skating had caught the eye of Galina and Castor Matchavaryan, a husband-and-wife coaching team from the US who were famous or infamous, depending on who you asked. Famous because they’d coached some of the most successful skaters in the world, particularly in women’s singles. Infamous because there were disturbing rumours about their coaching techniques, whispers of restrictive diet plans and exhausting regimes, along with the fact that skaters who left them never managed to make a successful return to competition.
Jooyeon hadn’t known about the rumours until recently. To be fair, he’d been a little preoccupied with his own plight. But after moving to America to train, Jiseok improved in leaps and bounds, climbing up the international rankings and earning widespread appraisal, the media labelling him the biggest thing in Korean figure skating since Kim Yuna.
So while Jooyeon was finally finding his edge again, clawing his way from fifth to third at last season’s Nationals, Jiseok was already soaring high above, earning his third national title.
Jooyeon’s bronze medal had at least been enough to earn him a spot at the Four Continents Championships last season, where he’d been blessed to witness in person as Jiseok delivered two flawless programs and cinched his first major championship gold.
It was at some point between Four Continents in February and that season’s Worlds in March that Jiseok injured his knee. Jooyeon found it both amazing and insane that he didn’t withdraw from Worlds, since he clearly wasn’t in any state to compete, failing to even qualify for the free skate after a disaster of a short program. But in retrospect, Jooyeon wondered if Jiseok had even had a choice in the matter.
Jiseok had a rough start to the next season—this one that had just ended—by coming fourth at both of his Grand Prix events and not making the final. Jooyeon, for his part, had earned fifth and third at his own events, which in his mind made them about equal. Once, that would have been expected. Now, it felt… strange. He wanted to catch up with Jiseok, but he didn’t want it to be because Jiseok’s wings were clipped.
Even more surprising to Jooyeon was that he’d been just three points behind Jiseok’s final score at this year’s Nationals back in January.
“I’m coming for that gold medal next year,” he said to Jiseok when they shook hands on the podium. “I’m working on a quad Lutz, you know. Just you wait!”
He expected Jiseok to at least crack a smile. He’d just won his fourth national title, after all. He wasn’t even twenty. He should have been happy. But he just said blankly, “Looking forward to it.”
They met again at last month’s Four Continents in Brisbane, Australia. Jiseok, the defending champion, won bronze. Jooyeon finished in fourth. They didn’t talk at all during the competition itself, but fate brought them together after the Gala Exhibition and the afterparty banquet that had followed.
It was when Jooyeon and Seungmin were leaving the hotel room to check out the unofficial after-afterparty arranged by one of the Canadian ice dance teams that they encountered Jiseok in the lobby, staring blankly at the vending machine.
As ever, Jooyeon couldn’t help but approach, Seungmin reluctant on his heels.
“Hey!” Jooyeon greeted. “Are you coming to the after-afterparty?”
Jiseok startled, looking up with wide eyes, gaze briefly flicking to Seungmin. “After… afterparty?”
“It’s at a club downtown,” Seungmin intoned.
“A club?” Jiseok tilted his head, which, with his wide eyes and fair skin, made him look a bit like a Maltese puppy. “Are we old enough to go to clubs in this country?”
“Drinking age here’s eighteen, apparently,” said Jooyeon. “You should come! It’ll be fun.”
Jiseok considered this very seriously. His gaze flicked over Jooyeon’s shoulder, towards the elevators, as if expecting someone to appear.
In the end, he sighed. “Fuck it,” he said under his breath. Then, at full volume, “Sure, why not?”
Australian clubs, they learned, were very loud. It was extremely possible that all clubs were loud, country notwithstanding, but this was Jooyeon’s first time in one, so he had nothing to compare it to. It was loud, and it was crowded with people, and though they spotted some familiar faces amongst the strobing lights, it seemed less like an (after-)afterparty and more like an excuse to have some fun in a foreign country. Jooyeon didn’t mind. It was new and exciting, the lights and the people and the music.
They fought their way to the bar and bought a round of vodka shots just because they could. Jiseok eyed his shot with an odd look on his face as it was poured in front of him, but obediently knocked it down at the end of Jooyeon’s countdown. The alcohol was bitter-tasting and burned like ice in Jooyeon’s chest, and Jooyeon saw his own disgust mirrored on Jiseok’s face.
“Eugh,” Jiseok grit out over the pounding music.
“No kidding!” Jooyeon agreed with a laugh.
Jiseok looked up at him, and a tentative smile spread across his face, and Jooyeon properly noticed for the first time, standing side by side on flat ground without skates on, that there was a notable difference in height between them now. Jiseok had barely changed, in fact; he was still so small, as if he’d barely grown at all in the time that Jooyeon had been beset with growth spurts.
They ordered another round of drinks. “Something sweet,” they asked the bartender, and ended up with neon-green appletinis. Seungmin had boldly purported to have only agreed to come so he could keep an eye on Jooyeon, but he was soon approached by a friend he’d made on the French team. They struck up a disjointed but enthusiastic conversation, as Jooyeon and Jiseok stood there awkwardly sipping their drinks. Soon, Seungmin was dragged away to dance when the DJ played a club remix of some BTS song Jooyeon only sort of recognised. Jiseok pointed out a miraculously unoccupied corner booth, and the two of them fought their way through the mass of sweaty, writhing bodies to reach it.
Jooyeon was already feeling the vodka shot and the sips of appletini, leaving him with a goofy grin and a pleasantly spinny feeling, as if he were gliding in gentle circles on the ice. It wasn’t his first time drinking, so he already knew that he had the alcohol tolerance of a liverless mouse, but, hey—the appletini had been a full twenty Aussie bucks, so at least he was getting his money’s worth.
“You know,” he shouted into Jiseok’s ear as they squeezed into the booth (Jooyeon understood now why it was unoccupied; there was a massive fucking pillar in the way), “you’re my favourite skater!”
Jiseok threw him an incredulous look and barked a laugh that was instantly swallowed by the heave and roll of the club’s sea of sound. “What?”
“It’s true!” Jooyeon insisted. “I would have probably quit skating by now if not for you.”
“Are you drunk already?” asked Jiseok.
Jooyeon grinned wider. “Kinda, yeah. You?”
Jiseok took a dainty sip of his appletini. “A little.”
It wasn’t really funny, but Jooyeon started laughing anyway. Jiseok watched him, a smile spreading across his face as whatever had infected Jooyeon took hold of him, too.
“What are you laughing at?” he demanded.
“I don’t know!” Jooyeon admitted. “Hey—we should talk about something other than skating. I don’t think we ever have.”
“Probably because we’re skaters. And we only ever meet at competitions.”
“I don’t like that,” said Jooyeon, reaching out and gripping Jiseok’s shoulder. “I want to see you other places, too.”
“Yeah? Like where? An overpriced Australian club?”
Jooyeon cackled again. He gulped his drink. It was almost gone. Where did it go? He hadn’t noticed himself drinking it. “It’s a good start, I guess,” he said. “But, I don’t know. I just think… I just… I think we like… could be, like…”
“Be what?” Jiseok prompted through giggles. “There’s no fucking way you’re this drunk already, come on!”
“I just think!” Jooyeon continued. “We’re meant to be together!”
Jiseok was silent for a second, blinking at him with those big, sparkly eyes. Then he burst into laughter so suddenly that he unbalanced himself, almost knocking over his drink and bracing himself against Jooyeon’s chest. Jooyeon grabbed his arms and laughed with him, because how could he not? How could he feel anything but joy at having made Kwak Jiseok laugh again after all these years?
When Jiseok calmed down and looked up, his eyes twinkled with mirth. His face was very close to Jooyeon’s, one hand still warm on his chest, just below his collarbone. Jooyeon could feel the club pulsing around them. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest. If he were sober, his thoughts wouldn’t have translated to action so swiftly, but he wasn’t sober. His hand found itself on the side of Jiseok’s neck. His skin was as soft as it looked and as warm as an afternoon nap. And as soon as Jooyeon’s gaze wandered from Jiseok’s wide, blinking eyes to his mouth, an irrepressible need surged within him like the centrifugal force of a scratch spin, and then his lips were crashing against Jiseok’s.
Jiseok froze like winter, but then he thawed like spring, lips parting beneath Jooyeon’s, fingers curling into his shirt. It was a wet kiss, clumsy, apple-vodka flavoured; the taste of something forbidden, something Jooyeon had long tried not to want. It made it all the sweeter to finally—finally—give into temptation, and even with their lips locked headily together, Jooyeon wanted to ask Jiseok if it was the same for him.
They were both breathing heavily when they pulled away. Jooyeon felt twice as intoxicated as before, as if, by kissing him, he’d drunk Jiseok’s appletini straight out of his mouth.
“I, uh,” Jiseok stuttered, eyes wide. “I need the, uh. Bathroom. I need the bathroom!”
Within a blink, he ducked under the table and was gone.
Dazed and disappointed, Jooyeon waited, and waited, but Jiseok didn’t come back, and when Seungmin finally found him, he shouted something about Jiseok having headed back to the hotel.
Jooyeon couldn’t help the twinge of hurt in his heart, but at the same time, he understood. Or, at least, he thought he did.
As he and Seungmin made their own way back to the hotel and he started to sober up, his emotions cycled like a carousel through his head: awe to horror to embarrassment to anxiety and, finally, to acceptance.
After all… Jiseok had definitely kissed him back.
*⁎*⁎*
If someone had asked Jiseok back in February where he thought he’d be by July, he probably wouldn’t have had a clear answer. Maybe he would have said something noncommittal about expecting to be back in Portland, Oregon, USA, preparing for the upcoming Olympic season.
He definitely would never have expected to be taking up space in his cousin’s one-room Seoul apartment, spending his days wondering if he’d ever skate again and his nights asking himself if he even wanted to.
At present, he was somewhere between those two states, lying on his back on the floor staring up at the white plaster ceiling tinted murky yellow by the setting sun. Jungsu was at his part-time job teaching elementary schoolers how to skate. The kitchen was behind Jiseok’s head, the bed near his feet. The floor fan whirred somewhere off to his left. Jiseok wouldn’t have minded sleeping on the floor (evidently), but Jungsu insisted on sharing the bed, insisted that he actually slept better with someone next to him. Jiseok believed him, because he’d been clingy since they were kids, his hand glued into Jiseok’s at the rink they’d grown up in, but he still felt bad.
If he had anywhere else to go, he would have gone there, even if just so that Jungsu didn’t feel obliged to take care of him like an invalid or child or pet. But he couldn’t.
You could, Jiseok reminded himself. You just don’t want to.
Okay, fine. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go home, and he couldn’t go to his aunt and uncle’s—Jungsu’s parents—because that wasn’t far enough away from home that his mother wouldn’t just drag him back to their apartment, kicking and screaming—and he was not above kicking and screaming, even at his big age of twenty years old. But his mother wasn’t above kicking and screaming either, so as much as he kicked and screamed about not wanting to go back to Portland, not wanting to beg the Matchavaryans to keep coaching him, she, too, would just kick and scream back until he gave in and did as he was told.
But he wouldn’t give in. He’d kick and scream until he passed the fuck out and then keep kicking and screaming once he woke, because he wasn’t going back. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep skating at all. He didn’t know what else he wanted, either.
Theoretically, he was old enough to find his own place, find his own way, make his own choices, but he was realising that he didn’t know how. All he knew was skating—and a fat lot of good that knowledge was doing him.
But, anyway… it was probably better for Jiseok to not be on his own. Even if Jungsu was attentive and caring to the point of being overbearing sometimes, he at least kept Jiseok on track with his stretching routines and made sure he ate and never let him skip a physio or doctor’s appointment.
After his disastrous performance at Worlds, Jiseok’s knee had understandably given up on life and left him unable to so much as walk. The doctor at the hospital there in Oslo had told him exactly what he expected to hear: that there was a severe tear in the patellar tendon in his right knee. It was very similar to what the doctor in Portland had told him just over a year ago, except then it had been a minor tear, outlook good with proper rest and rehabilitation, surgery probably not necessary.
The difference between minor and severe was that now he certainly needed surgery if he wanted to maintain the proper use of his leg, which he rather did.
He flew straight back to Korea to be given into the care of the Korean Skating Union’s national team doctors, who stitched up his tendon, told him to stay off the ice under all circumstances for at least sixteen weeks, and then referred him to rehabilitation, where he’d been rotting ever since.
Had it been sixteen weeks? He hadn’t really been keeping track. He wasn’t sure if it even mattered, if he even cared.
He had no coach, he hadn’t set foot in a rink since Oslo, and he didn’t find himself as eager to get back on the ice as he should have been. What was the point of even calling himself a skater anymore?
“You know, you’re my favourite skater! I would have probably quit skating by now if not for you.”
“Then if I quit now,” Jiseok muttered to the long shadows on the ceiling, “would you follow me, Lee Jooyeon?”
By his hand, his phone buzzed. It was a long moment before he checked it.
Hello, Jiseok. If you intend to skate again, remember not to make things more difficult for yourself. Actions have consequences.
“Actions have consequences,” he mumbled, arm dropping to his side. His phone left his hand, bouncing end over end across the floorboards.
Thunk thunk thunk.
It was vivid in his memory, in full colour with surround sound and 4D sensation, the day he was injured. Or, at least, the day that months of overtraining on an increasingly weak knee had come to a head and burst like a boil.
It had been another day at Glide24, the rink where Jiseok trained in Portland alongside skaters from all corners of the world who came to train under Galina and Castor Matchavaryan. It was three weeks before the World Championships. Jiseok had been struggling with his quad flip that day—his best jump, his reliable money-maker, as it were, that always earned him high grades of execution. But that day, for reasons he still didn’t understand, he just couldn’t stick the landing.
Galina’s prescription for the problem was that he jump it over and over until he could land it perfectly five times in a row. The Matchavaryans’ skating philosophy was fairly simple, see—it wasn’t enough to practice something until you got it right; you had to practice it until you couldn’t possibly get it wrong. Failure was not an option, and anything less than perfection was failure. It was a philosophy that had always aligned with Jiseok’s, and perhaps more pertinently, with his mother’s, which was probably why she’d agreed to send him to Glide24 in the first place.
So he jumped, and he jumped, and he jumped. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was pointless, reckless, dangerous. The thing about jumps in figure skating is that the centrifugal force of the wickedly fast in-air revolutions doesn’t just dissipate once the rotations are complete; it needs somewhere to go, thus conferring upon the one-footed landing a force several times that of the skater’s body weight. The more rotations in the jump, the greater the force, and, consequently, the harder the landing. Quadruple jumps, with four in-air rotations, had been said to have a landing force of up to seven times the skater’s body weight. That was why it was so important to land with a clean running edge, to translate some of that weight into acceleration.
Most skaters weren’t so fascinated by the physics of the process as Jiseok, but he liked to think that his interest in and understanding of the forces at work served to aid his progress and success.
It didn’t help him much on days like this. He didn’t know if it was his skates, or if he’d gained or lost some weight since the day before, or what, but every landing was accompanied by a wobble, a foot down, a correction, a fall. And with every jump, he grew more frustrated, and with every jump, Galina barked at him to do it again, her voice growing louder each time, and with every jump, his energy sloughed away like the ice slurry he continually swiped off the blades of his skates, and his body ached, and his ears were ringing, and he was so fucking mad because why couldn’t he get it right?
In his anger, he rushed his next take-off, picking into the ice and springing into the air a second too soon. His axis was off, tilted like the Earth itself. He unfolded in a rush to try and rescue the landing, but he came down too straight, too hard, the force concentrated into the only place it could go: his leg. His knee.
He didn’t even feel his body slam against the ice, didn’t even notice the air vacuum out of his lungs. He did hear a sickeningly hollow sound as his head hit the ice, but even that was drowned out by the white-hot agony in his knee as he lay there breathless and gasping like a dying fish.
“Get up.”
His vision swam, but he could see Galina looming over him, her curly hair forming a dark halo around her head against the fluorescent tube lights lining the ceiling. Vaguely, over the ringing in his ears, Jiseok could hear other skaters circling close, like birds of prey.
“Get up!”
Jiseok tried. He tried. But everything spun and pain lanced like molten knives through his right leg, radiating all the way up into his hip, into his stomach, making him nauseous. He flopped right back down again, the little breath he’d regained spooked away.
Galina tutted and turned to someone out of Jiseok’s view. “Help him.” And then she skated away to yell at someone else.
Jiseok loved skating, he really did. But after that day, he could only associate it with pain. Every time he stepped onto the ice, it was guaranteed. No amount of painkillers or cortisol injections could completely take it away.
Seemed fitting that it was only now, after what was probably the longest he’d ever been off the ice, that his knee finally stopped hurting.
But he wouldn’t say he felt better.
“So? What did the doctor say?”
Jiseok looked up at Jungsu as he shouldered through the door with a jingle of keys and a rustle of shopping bags. “You’re home late.”
“I was picking something up for dinner. Why is it so dark in here? Where are you?” After some fumbling about, Jungsu hit the light switch in the kitchen, partially illuminating the one-room dwelling. His eyes fell on Jiseok, still on the floor, his view of Jungsu upside-down. “What are you doing on the floor?”
“Rotting,” Jiseok answered.
Jungsu rolled his eyes as he set the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and started to unpack them. Vegetables, eggs, instant ramyeon, premade tteok, a jar of sauce… Jiseok could guess what was for dinner. “Okay, so now answer my first question.”
Jiseok shrugged, lifting his right leg straight up into the air. He was wearing shorts, exposing the surgery scar on his knee, a stark shade darker than the rest of his skin. He bent his leg, straightened it. Pointed his toes. It didn’t hurt. “He said I can ease into skating again so long as I take it slow.”
“Really? Jiseok, that’s great news!” Footsteps thudded across the room. Jungsu’s face loomed over him, forehead dented with concern. “It’s great news, Jiseok! You should be happy about it.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?” Jiseok agreed.
Jungsu reached out and wrapped his hand around Jiseok’s still-aloft ankle, giving it a gentle shake. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing, I’m doing great.”
“Jiseok.”
“I’m serious!”
“Then why are you rotting on my floor and not on the ice?”
Jiseok pulled his ankle out of Jungsu’s grip, aiming a lazy kick at his face, which was easily dodged.
“Because I don’t have a rink. I don’t have a club. I don’t have a coach.”
Jungsu’s expression softened. “But you have your skates, and you have friends.”
Han Hyeongjun was probably Jiseok’s closest friend aside from Jungsu, which was a bit sad to say since they weren’t really that close at all. They’d met at novice competitions as kids, and then the Han family had briefly lived in Uijeongbu, where Hyeongjun had trained under Kwak Jeongsook, Jiseok’s mother. They’d kept in touch when Hyeongjun moved to Seoul and when Jiseok went to America.
Jiseok would never say so aloud, to anyone, but if Hyeongjun had been a better skater, they wouldn’t have been able to be friends. Jiseok’s competitive streak wouldn’t have let him, the way it (and his mother) never let him get close to Lee Jooyeon. But, though Hyeongjun was a proficient skater, he wasn’t driven—skating was little more than a hobby for him. His real passions lay elsewhere. So, rather than pursue glory on world ice, he’d chosen to pursue a degree in sound engineering while working at the rink his family had bought in Seoul.
Jungsu, meanwhile, despite having grown up on the ice alongside Jiseok, had never been a competitive skater; he didn’t have the mental constitution for it. But, apparently, being born into this family came with a lifetime sentence of being involved in the sport, so when he’d been looking for a part-time job while studying sports journalism in Seoul, Jiseok had put him in contact with Hyeongjun, who had helped him get a job teaching young children the basics of skating.
It took Jungsu little more than a few minutes of back and forth on KakaoTalk to get Hyeongjun to agree to let Jiseok into the rink if he wanted to get some practice time in tonight. Just him and the ice, to get reacquainted.
“Are you my manager now or something?” Jiseok questioned around a mouthful of tteokbokki.
“I might as well be,” Jungsu sighed. “The things I do for you, Jiseok. Really.”
Jiseok shrugged and swallowed. “I never asked you to.” He swallowed again, staring at his food. “But… I appreciate it.”
Jungsu was silent for a second. “Sorry,” he finally said, “what was that? I didn’t quite hear.”
“Oh, shut up, you so did hear,” Jiseok said, rolling his eyes. “I appreciate it! Okay? You letting me stay and taking care of me and stuff. Thank you.”
With a chuckle, Jungsu reached across the table to pet Jiseok’s hair. “Well, you’re cute, so it’s worth it.”
“Ew, Hyung, I’m your cousin.”
“Cute like a puppy, you weirdo!”
It was an odd feeling, shoving his skates in his bag and hopping on a bus to the rink. It was an odd prospect, skating again. It sat like a weird kind of bubble in Jiseok’s gut, and he couldn’t honestly tell if it was excitement or fear.
The rink—named the Xdinarink, which had to be the strangest name Jiseok had ever come across—was an unassuming, box-like building in an industrial pocket of the neighbourhood. It looked barely big enough for the ice, changing rooms, and maybe a couple of off-ice practice rooms. It was ten o’clock at night, and the outside was lit up by floodlights set along the edges of the roof.
Hyeongjun was waiting at the side door, offering a small smile and a wave as Jiseok approached.
“Hyeongjun!” Jiseok greeted with a returning smile. “It’s been a while. How’ve things been?”
“Uneventful,” Hyeongjun said, “which is good, I think.” He shrugged. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but… I saw the Worlds broadcast.”
Jiseok grimaced. “Not my finest moment.”
“Everyone has ups and downs,” Hyeongjun said sincerely. “Are you planning on going back to America?”
“Ah, well…” Jiseok shrugged awkwardly. “It was kinda touch-and-go whether or not I’d be able to get back on the ice again at all, and Galina and Castor have a lot of other skaters, so… they wouldn’t have time to baby me, you know? So. I’m just. On my own for now. See how it goes, I guess.”
Hyeongjun’s brow creased. “I see,” he said. “Well… I’m glad you were able to rest and recuperate.” He held out a single key on a plain ring. “This is for this door. It’s a spare, so hold onto it as long as you like. I trust you. Light switches are on the left as you walk in.”
Jiseok took the key with a grin. “Thanks, Hyeongjun.”
Hyeongjun nodded. “I have to go, but… be careful, alright?”
As Jiseok had suspected, the Xdinarink’s facilities were compact. It clearly wasn’t a public rink, as there were no boards and no bleachers. Two sides of the rink were almost flush with the walls save for a rubber lip around the edge of the ice; the other two sides had minimal seating and an alcove for the Zamboni. The changing rooms and bathrooms were clean, there was a little break room with a kitchenette and an overstuffed couch, and the mirror-walled practice rooms had oddly peaceful acoustics.
Once he’d satisfied his curiosity and had a look around, Jiseok put his bag down on one of the rinkside benches to put his skates on for the first time in four months. It felt… normal, and strange in that normalcy. His hands did up the laces, tied them tight, and secured them the way they had done most days for the past fifteen years. As natural as breathing.
It did feel strange being at a rink by himself, and an unfamiliar one at that. It felt strange stepping up to the edge of the ice, and it definitely felt strange to step out, right foot first, and feel no pain as he bent his knees to propel himself forwards.
The lingering bubble in his gut popped into several smaller bubbles that all popped in succession. A small, giddy laugh pushed past his lips. He glided around the rink, leaning gently into the edges of his blades, skating in careful circles. It was good ice. The scratch and scrape of his skates was such a blissful sound. The cold air pushed against his face, biting at his nose and chin and cheekbones, and it was so familiar and so good, and he couldn’t help but grin as he bent his knees a little lower to gain a little more speed, a little more, a little more, until he was flying around the rink, painless and free.
He’d been missing this. He really had.
He still loved skating. He still loved the ice.
It was as much relief as joy that fizzed and popped inside him, making him lighter than air as he flew. Cross rolls, crossovers, three-turns, swizzles. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this happy.
The urge to jump bobbed to the surface of his mind. Surely just one little jump wouldn’t hurt, right? An easy one. A double Axel—not even a triple. He could do them blindfolded.
Anticipation buzzed fiercely in his gut as he skated around one end of the rink, letting himself lose some speed so he wasn’t going into the jump with too much acceleration. He approached his chosen mark and then launched himself into the air.
The Axel was the only jump with a forward take-off, so even a double was two and a half rotations, since, like all other jumps, it was landed backwards. Even after so long out of training, the jump was embedded into Jiseok’s muscle memory—he completed the rotations easily, and, all considered, it wasn’t a bad jump at all—clean take-off, decent height and length, and even the landing wasn’t terrible. The problem was just that Jiseok’s knee was still too weak.
His leg folded like paper and sent him crashing to the ice.
It wasn’t his most painful fall, and he could have gotten straight back up, but the faint twinge in his leg and the dose of reality deflated his ego in an instant. Instead of springing back up, he gave into the fall, sprawling across the cold ice, sliding about a metre on his back.
For an inexplicable second, there was no breath in his lungs, but it was nothing to do with the fall. It hadn’t been hard enough for that. He could almost hear the scrape of skates across the ice, almost see the halo of dark, curly hair leaning over him, the cruel voice telling him to Get up. Get up. Get up. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.
“Jiseok! Are you okay?”
It took a second for his brain to register the voice. Not at all the voice he expected. Equally unexpected was the sound of sneakers scudding across the ice and the worried face that appeared over him as its owner skidded to his knees at his side. A face Jiseok hadn’t seen since February, since that drunken night in Brisbane.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Me?” said Lee Jooyeon, visibly taken aback. “I train here. What are you doing here?”
Oh. Of course. Jiseok felt like a moron for not putting the pieces together. He knew that Goo Gunil coached at Hyeongjun’s family’s rink. He was Jungsu’s coworker, for fuck’s sake—him and Oh Seungmin, who was both a fellow novice coach and one of Goo Gunil’s senior students. And as Goo Gunil’s other senior student, obviously Lee Jooyeon trained here.
“Hyeongjun let me in,” Jiseok answered weakly.
“Huh,” said Jooyeon. “Are you okay? Should you even be skating? Is your knee hurting? Do you need me to help you?”
Oh, God, he was so insufferably golden retriever-like. Jiseok sat up, knocking away Jooyeon’s hovering hands as he carefully got to his feet. His knee did hurt.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. His chest was still tight and his face felt hot and his hands felt cold and his knee hurt.
Anxiety lanced through him like a static shock. He hadn’t just fucked everything up, had he? He hadn’t just undone those months of rehab and healing on an impulsive whim?
“Are you okay?” Jooyeon questioned again, having scrambled up after Jiseok, hands still held out towards him as if afraid he would keel right back over.
“Fine,” Jiseok said. His voice shook. His hands shook. It felt like there was a metal band around his chest, tightening millimetre by millimetre with every second. He couldn’t breathe.
Like the flick of a switch, where before he’d been tangled in the euphoria of being on the ice again, now all he wanted was to be anywhere but here. Clumsily, he skated away from Jooyeon, to rinkside, one hand tugging at the neckline of his hoodie. His breath was gaining speed against his will, accelerating out of control like a car with no brakes on a downhill slope. He stepped off the ice and tripped on his toe pick, numbly collapsing to his knees with a dull flare of pain. All he could see was the rubber-mat floor and his own pale, shaking hands as his ears were flooded with his own gasping breaths and pins and needles rippled up and down his limbs.
“Jiseok? Hey, hey, are you okay?” Dimly, he felt a hand on his back, another on his forearm. “Are you—? Do you need—? Should I—? Shit, is this, like, a panic attack? I’ve, uh, I’ve only ever heard about them, I’ve never seen one, so, um, I have… no idea what I’m supposed to do here, sorry… Just—breathe, okay? You’re okay. Everything will be okay! Probably. Hopefully.”
Oddly, between the distractions of Jooyeon’s hand idly rubbing Jiseok’s back and his nonsense rambling, Jiseok’s breathing began to slow to the point where he could speak.
“Hopefully,” he repeated sarcastically.
“Listen, I can’t guarantee anything,” said Jooyeon. “Hell, I don’t know what’s happening, I just got here.”
Surprising himself, Jiseok laughed. It was a thin, shaky laugh. But it was appropriate for this absurd fucking situation. He took a deep breath. His lungs trembled as if afraid of it, but they bravely held on until he exhaled, realised it wasn’t so bad, and let him take his next breath a little more steadily.
“There, see? I was right,” Jooyeon said softly. Jiseok glanced sideways at him, but his eyes refused to focus on his comforting smile and gentle eyes. He dropped them to the floor again.
“Sorry,” he said. “This is pretty humiliating, I’m not gonna lie.”
“Really? Why?”
“‘Why?’” Jiseok repeated incredulously, glancing at him again. “You came in here—to train, I’m guessing—saw me eat shit on a double Axel, and then witnessed… whatever that just was.”
“A panic attack?”
“Maybe.” Jiseok made to get up, and would never admit that he was grateful when Jooyeon helped him, guiding him over to a bench to sit down. He was still trembling violently all over and there was a dull but steady ache in his knee.
“Okay,” said Jooyeon, balancing in a crouch on the balls of his feet in front of Jiseok, “but I’m curious—was it more embarrassing than that time you had a tummy bug at Junior Nationals and threw up on the ice during the warm-up and delayed the competition so they could clean it up?”
Jiseok groaned. “Why would you remind me of that?”
Come to think of it, Jooyeon had been the one to comfort him that time, too—dropping everything in the middle of his own warm-up to rush over from the opposite end of the rink and help Jiseok to the boards.
“It’s a vivid memory!” Jooyeon giggled. “Honestly, I was surprised you still competed that day.”
“Had to set a precedent some time,” Jiseok sighed.
Jooyeon’s smile faded as his eyes dropped to Jiseok’s knee. “No kidding.” His hand hovered uncertainly, as if wanting to touch but unsure if he should. He glanced up at Jiseok with an expression that did nothing to banish the impression of an overeager puppy. “Does it hurt? Do you want me to get some ice?”
“There’s plenty of ice right there,” Jiseok said with a vague gesture towards the rink.
“Ha ha,” Jooyeon said. “Now please answer genuinely, Kwak Jiseok-ssi.”
Jiseok felt a smile threatening his lips. “I’m okay,” he said. “But… thank you.”
He leaned forward to start undoing the laces of his boots. It had been a while since he’d worn them, and by now the ache of his feet was starting to overtake the ache of his knee, which was probably a good thing. His hands, however, were still trembling fiercely, even if he felt a lot calmer now, and he struggled with the knots.
“Here,” Jooyeon said, gently nudging Jiseok’s hands out of the way with his own. His bony fingers made deft work of the laces, and then he gently cupped each of Jiseok’s calves in turn to help pull the skates off his feet.
Jiseok was rendered breathless all over again, albeit in an entirely different way. The air was cold, and yet, even without the excuse of exertion, his cheeks felt hot.
He was freshly aware that they were alone. Jiseok thought that this was very possibly the first time they’d been one-on-one like this—even during their, uh, moment at that club in Brisbane, they’d been in a room full of people. Even before then, they’d mostly only met at competitions.
“I should let you get on with your training,” Jiseok muttered.
“You don’t have to leave,” Jooyeon said quickly, looking up at Jiseok with something that couldn’t possibly have been disappointment.
“But I should,” Jiseok repeated stiffly. “It’s your rink, not mine.”
Jooyeon hummed. “Are you planning to go back to America?”
Jiseok opened his mouth to deliver the same spiel he’d given Hyeongjun, then closed it again with a simple shake of his head.
“Well, you’re free to skate here any time you like,” Jooyeon said. He grinned. “Hyeongjun let you in, after all.”
It was past midnight by the time Jiseok got back to Jungsu’s. His cousin was already asleep, having left a rubber-duck-shaped mood light on for Jiseok to see by. But once Jiseok had showered, turned off the light, and was crawling under the covers, Jungsu rolled over to face him.
“How’d it go?” he asked in a whisper.
“Good,” Jiseok replied.
“How’s your knee?”
Jiseok hesitated. “A little sore.”
“It’s still healing,” said Jungsu, reaching over to squeeze Jiseok’s arm. “It’ll get there.”
“I hope so,” Jiseok whispered. “I’m not ready to give it up yet, Hyung. I want to skate. I want to compete.”
A lump rose into his throat as he spoke the words. It was only in the dark like this, in the midnight hours, that he found it in himself to be candid.
Jungsu gave his arm another comforting squeeze. “I know.” He shuffled closer, wending his arms around Jiseok to hold him as if he were a teddy bear. In Jungsu’s world, hugs fixed all problems. “That’s exactly why you have to go easy on yourself, okay?”
Jiseok didn’t answer. He could feel Jungsu’s breath on his shoulder through the polyester of his T-shirt. He could hear the hum of the fridge. Through the open window above the bed, a cool breeze ghosted across his face. The distant sounds of cars rumbling by on the street, three floors down, drifted in.
After several long moments, Jiseok could tell that Jungsu had fallen back to sleep. It was a while before he fell asleep himself. In his head, he was making plans.
It was July. The Grand Prix series started in October—that was three months away. But, assuming that it would be another two months before Jiseok could be declared fully recovered, that would only give him one month of proper training. Even if he used the same programs from last season (which he would have to), that was barely enough time to get back to full training capacity, let alone rebuild the stamina to be able to perform a free program with his usual technical content under competitive conditions.
So, the Grand Prix was off the table this year. But Nationals wasn’t until the first week of January, and the preliminary ranking competition usually held in November had been cancelled for this season. That gave Jiseok nearly six months to get back into top form in time to earn his spot at the Olympics—and since making the Grand Prix Final was impossible, maybe he could compete in the Golden Spin of Zagreb in December to warm himself back into competition.
He didn’t have a coach, but, honestly, why did he need one? His mother had been his coach until he was sixteen, and then he’d been under Galina and Castor’s thumbs, and beyond teaching him how to skate, how to jump, how to spin, the most any of them had ever done for him was try to control him.
Well, he was done. He was done being told what to do. He was done doing tricks and rolling over on command like a good little pup. He didn’t need a coach.
Tomorrow, he’d research ways to build up strength in his knee without putting strain on it, maybe look into local gyms, ease back into some cardio. He’d call his physio to ask for advice, maybe schedule more frequent appointments.
He’d start eating healthy again—actually eating. No more ramyeon, no more tteokbokki. But no fasting or inhumane diet plans, either. He needed protein, collagen, vitamins. Chicken breast, jokbal, fruits and vegetables and nuts. And supplements—he needed to find some high-quality supplements. Maybe things like glucosamine and chondroitin for joint and cartilage support.
Money was a problem—he needed to get in contact with his agency, see if they could help find him a new sponsorship or brand deal or advertising campaign. Jiseok didn’t love doing brand deals, but they always paid well, and he needed the funds. Maybe, if he earned enough, he and Jungsu could split the rent on a place built for more than one person.
And, for now… once a week. No—twice a week. Twice a week he would go to the Xdinarink and get in some ice time. At some point, once he was cleared to do so, he’d probably need to talk to Hyeongjun about actually officially booking some training time, if possible, or otherwise find another rink. He didn’t want to get in the way of Goo Gunil’s skaters, and he didn’t want them getting in his way, either.
He could do this. He didn’t need a coach. He’d prove it. He’d prove to everyone—to Galina and Castor, to his mother, to the world—that his success was his and his alone, that it belonged to no one but him, that he could shine on his own, without anyone’s help and despite anyone’s hindrance.
After all, figure skating was a solitary sport. When he skated, everything and anything that happened was solely between him and the ice.
His skates and a healthy body. Those were the only things he needed.
Anything else was just a distraction.