Ice Cold- Park Sunghoon

three

They ended up not practising. At least Sunghoon wouldn't call it that. 

In fact, Soojin just tried standing on the ice without falling for about an hour until the boy just couldn't do it anymore.  A little upset he let her know that he had to come up with a plan and they wouldn't continue today. 

"Well- do I get your phone number or e-mail or something? To contact you?" Sunghoon sighed, completely drained from the idea of having to teach her figure skating in this short period of time. Or literally ever. "E-mail?" Soojin laughed at the elder, struggling to breathe for a while. 

He just stood there, watching the girl battling her uncontrollable laughter until it finally died down a few minutes later. "How old are you? 40?" She continued making fun of the figure skater, making him shake his head in annoyance. 

He was already pissed of. Not only was she terribly bad, but her personality was also extremely tiring as well. 

"You know what, just be here tomorrow at 6."

With that Sunghoon turned around and strutted away, leaving Soojin with nothing but confusion. She always joked around with people, this was the first time she was receiving a negative reaction to it. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. 

"Jiyoo!" She shouted, searching for her best friend to finally leave this place. Seconds later the searched person was standing right beside her, smiling like a maniac. 

"This is fun. I would love to do it with you and not against you but this won't ruin our friendship, right?", Jiyoo spoke softly. "Of course not. Sisters before... before... skaters?" 

"You should work on that." "I know." 

"Soooo, how was it?" Soojin knew that Jiyoo was just being polite, she probably knew already that it didn't go well. But the younger felt grateful for her effort in making her feel better. 

"We both know I am bad. Really bad. But thanks for not immediately assuming that", Soojin laughed before patting her best friend's back. "But you seem quite happy about your practice, so I guess I'm gonna have serious competition." 

Jiyoo just laughed it off, smiling at the subtle touch of her best friend. It was just calming having her around, they knew each other for over 13 years now, which seemed crazy to the both of them. 

"Minjae is great. He was one of the best figure skaters a few years ago until he had to retire due to an injury. Since then he has been teaching. He told me that Sunghoon had been quite problematic recently, which triggered the bet. This is basically just a plan to make Sunghoon fall in love with figure skating again."

Soojin nodded, she could sense something was odd. Now she knew. But the plan was stupid anyway. 

"How the fuck is this supposed to work? He's just going to hate it more after trying to teach me", she stated, feeling bad for the young figure skater. With all of that pressure on his shoulders, she didn't know if she would've still felt the same about ice skating if she was him. 

"Well, I told him that as well- OUCH!" Jiyoo wines after receiving a playful hit on the arm. "But he says that Sunghoon will find a way, he's a "smart boy" apparently."

"I feel sorry for him", Soojin sighed before grabbing her best friends hand, playing with the pretty rings on it. "I love this one", she giggled before stealing it from her small finger, sliding it onto her own. 

"If you want it, then it's yours", Jiyoo smiles, melting at the sight of Soojin playing around with her ring. "Oh no, my fingers are too fat for it anyway", she laughs before giving it back. 

"Then I'll have to buy you a fitting one, one day." 

*

Sunghoo was pissed. Something that was definitely happening way too much in the last few days. Why? Well, he was standing next to the ice rink for about an hour now, and Soojin still didn't show up. Much to his dismay, her friend did, but he refused to ask her for information about Soojin. 

In the end, she was the enemy. Kinda. And he was old enough to deal with this type of difficulties on his own. He didn't need help. He was Park Sunghoon for fucks sake. 

So he just decided to use the time instead of wasting it and worked on his own figure skating. In the end, he did have a competition in about two months. It was a fairly unimportant one, which is why he didn't feel the need to work as hard as usual, leaving him with enough time to train Soojin. If she were to show up, that is. 

Surprise surprise, the girl didn't show up for the whole day. It was almost 7, Sunghoon had just been skating to himself for this whole time, slowly giving up on the bet. He didn't have a number to contact and his pride was keeping him from asking her friend for help. 

"OMG I'M SO SORRY I'M LATE", Soojin shouted from the entrance, running towards Sunghoon in her skates, almost tripping several times before slowly approaching the ice, holding on to the rink as if her life depended on it. 

"Late?", Sunghoon laughed sarcastically, not believing what she just said. "You call this LATE?"

Soojin was confused. How else was she supposed to call it? 

"Well- yeah?" she muttered. 

"This is unbelievable. You are bad. Let's face it. I've never seen anyone skate as bad as you. You are obnoxious with all those shit jokes of yours, and you turn up 13 HOURS after-" 

"Wait? 13 hours? It's 7 pm. I'm ONE hour late."

Now Sunghoon started to understand. 

"You are stupid. Why the fuck would I be wanting to start practising at 6 pm? Do you seriously think that's enough time for you to beat your pretty little friend? That has already practised for over 7 hours today?" 

"Oh wait, you meant 6 AM? Whoops. My mistake", Soojin started laughing, trying to break the ice a little (hehe). "Indeed. Your mistake", Sunghoon let that last word leave his mouth like it was poison, staring at Soojin with a look of disgust as if she was some sort of disease he didn't want to catch. 

She felt belittled, looked down on and made fun of. But not in a good way. She could partly understand his anger, after all, he probably had a lot to lose if he lost this bet. She didn't know exactly what, but it must mean a shit ton to him if he was putting up with her for it. But even if that was the case, she wouldn't accept the way he treated her. Soojin was a pretty proud girl. She always had straight A's in school, making her the best in her class and fourth-best in the school, she had a lot of friends and was pretty good at art.

There was no way she was going to be belittled by this arrogant piece of pretty, attractive shit. 

"Oh shut your mouth, will you? I wasn't the one approaching you for this bullshit. YOU WERE. You have seen me skate, you knew what you were going to have to deal with and you still chose me. I don't get why you did that, but you did. So stick to it or let it be, but don't let your frustration about your sad, lonely life out on me. I am not your human punching bag, understood?"

Sunghoon must admit, that little girl was scary. So the only thing he could think of doing was clenching his teeth, giving her a forced smile and nodding. 

In that moment, Sunghoon understood that he had to approach her differently than he actually wanted. He might dislike it, but something deep inside of him was telling him that this was the right way. That this would lead to success. 

And in that very moment, the both of them fiercely staring into each other's eyes, was the first time they connected on a level they never thought they could. 

This was the moment Soojin had her first glance at the boy behind that Ice Cold shell.