Ice Cold- Park Sunghoon

eight

The practices after that late-night encounter were pretty much awful. Not because Soojin didn't listen to Sunghoon, it was more the opposite of that. She was too obedient. She barely even spoke, didn't make those weird, unfunny jokes anymore or criticized Sunghoon's way of teaching. It felt odd, unfamiliar and Sunghoon didn't like it. 

He didn't exactly get why, after all, this was what he had wanted from the beginning, right? A silent, obedient Soojin that did as she was told. She also made a lot of progress in those few days. In fact, she was finally able to do rather simple jumps like the Waltz jump or the Salchow (I tried doing a little research but I'm not too sure if this is actually a rather easy jump, so if you do figure skating, I hope this doesn't annoy you:) ). 

They were almost one month into the whole figure skating thing. Soon they were going to show Soojins progress to the director, hopefully, able to keep the school-free time they had.  

Sunghoon wanted her to learn the double jumps until the competition. It seemed more than doable and even though there were probably going to be competitors with triples there, he wanted to clean up her jumps and other skills as close to perfection as he could. It was more realistic to win the competition with a really clean and neat performance rather than a really difficult but poorly executed one. 

The thing that bothered the boy the most though, was her lack of passion. She didn't seem happy while skating anymore. It seemed forced and if she was going to keep that up, they were definitely not going to win. So he had to do something about that, even if that meant, losing time to seriously practise. 

"Soojin?"

The girl looked at him, her face full of annoyance and boredom. Sunghoon hated to see that. 

"Why do you look like that all the time? You used to be so happy to be on the ice and now it seems like it's torture to be here." 

Soojin just chuckled, but not in a good way. "You mean the face you make all the time?"

"I don't do that!" 

"Sure", Soojin grinned, pleased about being able to annoy Sunghoon once again. And it wasn't even false. Oh, how she loved being right. 

Instead of answering, Sunghoon grabbed the protesting girls hand and pulled her towards the middle of the ice. Seconds later he skated away and disappeared for about a minute. Soojin wasn't sure why she was just waiting there for him, but she felt like he wanted to show her something. 

And indeed, shortly after, slow music appeared. She watched as the boy skated around her a little, testing the ice and space he had. Just before Soojin could ask what his plan was, he started skating. 

It looked beyond beautiful, the way he elegantly glided over the ice, executing even the hardest jumps with ease, while keeping that calm, pretty face of his. And the more he did that, the more he lost himself in the music while letting his body and heart take over, Soojin noticed a change in his gaze. 

It was minimal but it had such an impact that Soojin immediately noticed. For a few minutes, she caught a glimpse of the boy that loved what he was doing. That enjoyed dedicating his life to his passion. He was different. The Sunghoon on the ice right now didn't care what others thought of him, if he was good enough for the public or the judges or if he was able to win a competition.

This Sunghoon was real. 

She didn't want him to end, she didn't want to lose him. But at some, greatly feared point, the music stopped. And with that, Sunghoon disappeared. The real Sunghoon, at least. 

They were both left in silence, deeply staring at each other from different sides of the ice rink. Sunghoon was breathing heavily but he didn't take his gaze off of Soojin once. He proved his point, why was he still staring? 

To put it simply, Soojin was ethereal. 

He had noticed her beauty on multiple occasions already, but today it really stuck to him. Today he noticed that he very much needed Soojin for the sake of Soojin. And not to just win that stupid competition. Just like he realized, that ice skating still had this unreplaceable spot in his heart, that he just needed to revive. It was there, and he wanted to find it. Capture it. Never let it go again. Just like Soojin. 

With that realization, he skated towards the younger, instantly grabbing her waist, pulling her towards his exhausted body, which somehow managed to find enough energy to do this. 

"I need you, Yang Soojin."

Just as miraculously the next song started to play, Sunghoon reached out for Soojin's hand, which she gave him without hesitation, still staring at his brown eyes. Shortly after they were gliding over the ice together, Sunghoon's hand still intertwined with Soojins, a big smile plastered on both of their faces. 

The younger knew the risks of this. She knew that she would probably end up hurt just as she did the times before this. But she also knew that she was addicted to Sunghoon and not able to stay away from him any longer, neither physically nor mentally. 

And somehow, her stupid little teenage brain was ready to take that risk, ready to let it break her heart into billion pieces. Who else would she need it for anyways, if not Sunghoon? 

This was basically her one-way ticket into the unknown. If it was going to be a hit or miss, was still uncertain, but hey, she had enough time to find it out. 

___

SORRY FOR BEING SO LATE BUT CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE ENHYPEN MEMBERS (ESPECIALLY MA BABY) AND DON'T FORGET TO SUPPORT THE ONES ELIMINATED ON THEIR JOURNEY:) 

Once again I'm warning you that I don't know a lot about figure skating, which jumps are the easiest and if it's realistic to be able to jump them so quickly or not (I'm pretty sure not but idc). 

Anyways, feel free to correct my mistakes and help me out with a few jumps/skills I could include to make it more realistic:)