On Thin Ice

Chapter 15- broken shards

JIMIN POV:

"I'm only trying to help you, you understand that?"

"I understand Coach."

"But the matches haven't been your personal bests you know? This isn't the quality you're capable of. The quality I've seen from you."

"I know Coach."

"Last season you were the best athlete on the ice. And there was no match for you. There was no competition... last season the figure skating Coaches had no standing, nothing to throw in my face because their so-called prodigies couldn't even get through the first match of the season."

His voice is thick and full of pride and passion, eyes bright as he looks at me. Tilting his screen towards me.

Replays the end of the final match we'd had.

The one that's been the reason that this year...this year we had a shot of qualifying as the national team for South Korea. To represent the nation in the Asia Cup.

And he plays out the final stretch of the match, mere minutes of it, but it's an entirely different feeling to watch a match as an observer. Easily distinguishing our team by our uniform's colours.

"Watch number 13."

My number.

Watching as he weaves swift and sharp on the ice. The movements clean and precise. Each movement practiced, rehearsed and executed to perfection. Shooting the puck into the goal from a distance, the puck careening past the goalkeeper.

That's what he's trying to show me.

Perfection.

Something I am-something I was capable of.

And then he switches to a more recent match.

The last game we'd played as a team, two days back.

The very match he'd been displeased by.

Because looking at it now, looking at it how Coach had seen us, how the other teams had seen us... I realise the difference Coach has noticed.

The team had had to work to push forward for a win towards the end. Towards those final minutes. Refusing to let the match close on a draw. An intensity in the team's plays, a jagged edge to everyone's movements. Watching as I skate unevenly, sweeping between the opposite team's defence, trying to find an opening.

A difference to the match Coach had just shown me before this one.

Pausing on a frame.

My posture a far cry from the one I'd just seen.

"What was the difference?" Coach asks, eyes looking at me expectantly.

"The first match was cleaner. Sharp."

"Practiced down to a t." Coach interjects.

"And the next match?" he asks.

"Messy."

"Unpracticed. You all looked unprepared. Even if your opposition is a rival for the skillset of our team, the athletes I scouted and chose were ones I knew would be able to overcome challenges without faltering." Words heavy with a disappointment, eyes staring at me, through me, making me feel two inches tall as he looks down at me despite just being on the other side of the desk.

And his words sink in, knife to skin, reminding me that he'd paid to sign me on.

He'd paid for players he thought were capable.