Chapter Text
MINHO
Torino (
Last year’s Grand Prix Finale)
December 9th, 2:43 PM
For some reason, Minho had imagined it differently. He hadn’t made a habit of it, the imagining, but worst-case scenarios were always a possibility in his line of work, so it could hardly be helped. His ponderings usually included a sense of sympathy for himself, at least a sliver, because it was always an accident, and he was also a victim.
Well, he would have been, if it hadn’t been entirely his fault.
“Sorry,” said someone’s squeaky voice, and Minho looked down at one of the tiny volunteers in a sparkly purple outfit and space buns on her head. Her eyes were wide and her face wary. She was wringing her hands together. “Sorry, sir, do you need help?”
Minho’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. His mind had drifted off at some point, but he wasn’t sure why he continued to stand by the rink—their turn had come and gone, the paramedics had left long ago, and another pair had taken the ice. Their music—Vivaldi—was drilling into his skull like a metal bit.
“Hm?” he murmured. He had trouble with English on a good day. This wasn’t a good day.
“You—they said you should head to the lounge,” the girl explained awkwardly, “take a rest.”
Minho understood enough to realize that he’d overstayed his welcome. The stands were full of people who had just witnessed the horror of Minho’s failed performance, but the competition continued, and his presence was distracting. Instead of watching the ice, the audience was turning in their seats to stare at Minho frozen by the barriers, gripping his Team Korea windbreaker like he was trying to throttle it. He was freezing—his costume was soaked through with sweat—but it felt like he shouldn’t be flaunting his flag, given what happened.
“Yes,” he said in English, then lamely switched to Korean when he ran out of vocabulary: “I’m leaving.”
He wobbled down the corridor leading away from the ice and into the sports center of the Torino Palavela. He cringed when he heard his blades scrape against concrete—where had his skate guards gone? He couldn’t say. The ISU staff were watching him with pity as he clumsily unlaced his skates and trudged on in his socks, feeling distant and dull.
Minho found his team without really meaning to—he was in a trance, wilting under the horrified stares of the other skaters who were warming up in the hallway, but the noise tipped him off easily enough. He could hear his coach across the whole lounge.
“This is over! I mean it this time,” was what he said. “I will make sure this fool never sets foot on the ice again!”
Minho stopped in his tracks. He was still far enough for his coach not to see him, though Minho had no trouble making out his bald head and red face, tinted by anger and a prominent five o’clock shadow. He was unloading his frustrations on their manager, who looked equally angry, typing something on his phone with a sense of deep urgency.
Off to the side was the manager’s assistant, Kim Seungmin. He was still gripping his notepad as if he intended to take notes—as if they’d be needed later—and chewing on his Grand Prix lanyard worriedly. His face was pale and long, eyes big like two saucers, following their coach and manager from side to side like in a game of table tennis. When their gazes met for a second, Seungmin jolted and took an aborted step Minho’s way.
Minho decided that this was his cue. He turned on his heel and marched in the opposite direction, legs wobbly like cotton but not enough to deter him. He swiftly ignored the Canadian representatives who approached him to tell him not to worry and how sorry they were—Minho had to assume that they hadn’t seen the performance—and went for the hallway leading towards the exit.
He abandoned his skates somewhere along the way and half-sprinted until he got outside. It was still mostly bright, but the wind was biting, and clouds were gathering over Torino, threatening with snow. He should have used the back door, but it was too late; people had already noticed him. The main public entrance, with the duck-bill-shaped roof looming over the sidewalk, was a high-traffic area. New guests were arriving for the men’s singles final—seeing a ruffled skater in full costume was not what they’d expected.
Still, Minho ignored the staring. He cut through the square in front of the Palavela, briefly remembering that he was still in his socks when he stepped into a wet clump of snow, and then crumpled on the closest bench like a melting wax figure.
This was it, then. His career—over.
It made perfect sense, of course, Coach Saeguk was right. Minho just wasn’t up to par, despite all the effort and sponsor money poured into his training, and lack was the perfect breeding ground for disaster.
He sat like this for some time, head in his hands, staring at the ground as if in search of answers. Then, something soft landed on his shoulders with a poof.
“Huh?” he mumbled, startled into straightening up.
“It’s cold,” Seungmin said, looking at him critically. He fixed the puffer jacket around Minho’s shoulders, then placed Minho’s sneakers in front of him, nudging them with his shoe. “Are you out of your mind, running around barefoot? Put these on.”
“My socks are wet,” Minho said without thinking, and his voice came out hoarse.
“Fine,” Seungmin huffed and knelt on the ground, grabbing Minho by the ankle to strip his sock, all while frowning in focus. Minho let him.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting your shoes on.”
“No, I mean—” Minho leaned back and glanced at the sky. It was getting cloudier by the minute. “What are you doing here?”
“They left for the hospital,” Seungmin explained with a shrug. “Yoona asked not to come all at once, she didn’t want the fuss—we can go together later.”
“Ah. Did they leave you behind to deal with me?”
“No, I quit.”
This finally loosened some of the stupor. Minho blinked fast. “You—you quit?”
“Do you have trouble hearing?”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“I want to keep managing you,” Seungmin said, voice resolute and certain, but eyes squinted with tension. He glanced up from Minho’s sneakers and met his eyes for a brief moment. “You’re going to need a manager, hyung.”
You don’t have one anymore, was only implied but even unsaid, it hung between them like an acrid smell.
“I’m going to need a lot of things,” Minho scoffed. His stomach cramped with a new wave of his old friend—guilt. His eyes were stinging, so he closed them and swallowed hard. “I need to retire, Seungmin-ah. Go ask for your job back while you still can.”
“No,” Seungmin said bluntly, slapping Minho’s thighs as he was getting up, “you’re not going to retire. Now get up, we need to grab our things.”
Minho was too cold and exhausted to fight. Seungmin grabbed him by the wrists and hauled him up onto his feet, dusting off Minho’s costume. Wearing trainers without socks felt horrible. Minho wanted to cry, and wanting to cry was almost worse than crying itself. He bit down on his lip, feeling his throat constrict.
Seungmin looked him over appraisingly, zipped up Minho’s jacket, and then patted him on the shoulder with a nod. He started walking back towards the venue, towing Minho along with surprising force, which felt a lot like a tattered raft from a shipwreck being reeled onto the deck of a cruise liner. Minho didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
At least an hour must have passed since he’d fled because, by the time they returned, the lounge was full of male skaters either warming up or cooling down. Seungmin told him to wait by the entrance and hurried off to pick up their bags, so Minho listed against the wall like a powered-down robot.
There was a screen mounted on the opposite wall, where the preparing athletes could monitor the competition. Minho stared at it idly as they showed the Kiss and Cry—they’d just announced the score for a skater from China.
The next man on the ice was Han Jisung.
Feeling caught out and played, like it had been arranged by higher powers for him to see Jisung perform while his life was falling apart, Minho watched him take center ice. They didn’t know each other—not well, anyway—but they both represented Korea, and it was impossible not to be aware of Han Jisung’s devastating presence. He was young and rough-edged, he’d sprouted from nowhere, made a mark on the entire industry, and moved records far beyond what his competition could ever hope to break. He was a demon.
He was everything Minho wasn’t.
It was tantalizing to watch him skate, dressed in blood red, expression sharp and intense, every move delicate and precise. He was a speck in the arena, and yet the crowd was mesmerized. There was no sound playing, but Minho followed every step as if he could hear it, encoded in Jisung’s body, a translation in movement. Something hot pooled in Minho’s stomach. He quenched it down.
Seungmin returned when Jisung was at the Kiss and Cry with his coach and manager, celebrating. Minho didn’t move until they showed the points—201.28 just for the Free Skate. There were still two skaters left, but Minho didn’t even have to see the score table to know that Jisung had won this. Judging by the blaze behind his eyes, Jisung knew it, too.
Minho walked away feeling hazy and half-empty, with his heart pounding in his chest and a bitter taste in his mouth. It was a victory for someone, at least.
JISUNG
Torino (
Last year’s Grand Prix Finale)
December 9th, 2:43 PM
Jisung knew that he’d fucked up when he realized that, somehow, he wasn’t holding his flowers anymore. Or, rather, that the judge he’d been speaking to started sputtering, and seemed to have acquired a yellow imprint of pollen on his forehead. Whatever was left of the bouquet exploded around them, half on the ice, half on the ground beside it, buttercups disintegrating on impact.
“Oh my god!” someone exclaimed—probably another judge who had the misfortune of standing nearby. Jisung barely heard her through the fog of anger and upset.
“Are you kidding me?” Jisung said over the music, while the man tried to fix his glasses in deep shock. The other two medalists, Germany and China, were still on the ice with their flags, waving to the fans, but Jisung stood frozen by the barrier, only vaguely aware of the camera flash going off around him.
“Someone call security!” shouted the judge, spitting out a petal.
“You need security?” Jisung snapped back, looking around for another thing to throw at him. He was holding a stuffed quokka plushie that he got from one of his fans, he remembered, and off it went, hurled right at the judge. The man had stumbled back at that point and cowered at the sight of the projectile, but it still made contact with the back of his head, bouncing off into the crowd of photographers. “Security won’t help you there, buddy!”
He’d never used English with such ease before—he supposed the adrenaline supplied him with additional brain cells for a brief moment. Or maybe killed some of the existing ones. It was hard to tell as it was happening.
The music cut off, and the sounds of people gasping could be heard from all over the arena. Jisung was still seething when someone grabbed him from behind and pulled him away from the scurrying judges just before he had the idea to climb over the railing and charge.
“Yah, let me go!” he struggled, only to be put in what could be described as a gentler version of a chokehold. He wanted to scratch in defense, but his hands were covered by red lacy gloves, which rendered them pretty useless.
“Easy!” barked Chan in Korean right below Jisung’s ear. “Just walk, okay?”
Jisung found himself frog-marched off the ice by his own coach, who’d walked onto the rink without skates and somehow wasn’t even slipping. The security had indeed been called, in the form of three burly men in bright yellow vests waiting for them by the Kiss and Cry. They didn’t try to grab him, which was probably for the best since Jisung felt like this could have triggered another panicked attempt at violence, but their expressions made it very clear that Chan and Jisung were to follow.
“Jesus,” said Chan at some point, his hand gripping Jisung’s nape tightly, scruffing him like a kitten, “Jesus, Jisung-ah.”
There was nothing else to add—Jesus was right.
They were taken to a secluded room with a bunch of chairs around a single table, where Changbin was already waiting for them. His manager’s face was a painted picture of fury and stress, eyes blown wide and all the muscles working overtime. He was already on the phone, speaking rapid-fire to god-knows-who, but his shoulders tightened when Jisung walked in.
“Please wait here,” said one of the security guards, sending Jisung a stern look. Jisung wiggled away from Chan’s grip and fixed his costume, huffing. His hands were shaking, but he refused to let the hysteria take over—he tapped back into the anger from before, nearly vibrating out of his skin.
“What—” started Chan, looking tired and worn out. His fluffy, bleached hair peeked from under his beanie, which had been thrown on haphazardly—he hadn’t been planning on another public appearance, that much was clear. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Oh, I know!” shouted Changbin, slamming his phone against the table once he’d finished his call. He rounded on Jisung like a cannon and took a warning step that had enough power to make the earth quake. “What the actual fuck, you stupid gremlin?”
“I don’t need a lecture!” Jisung shot back, bending to get out of his skates. “The guy was asking for it.”
“The guy was an ISU judge!”
“So what? Is he immune to getting slapped?”
Changbin laughed hysterically. “He should be immune to getting slapped by the skaters he’s meant to judge! And during the victory ceremony, too? Fucking hell.”
“Are they going to strip him of the medal?” asked Chan flatly, and it was probably the first time Jisung actually paused.
“Huh?” he mumbled, but Changbin paid him no mind.
“If that’s all they do,” he said, dragging a hand down his face, “we can consider this a win, hyung.”
Jisung gripped his gold instinctively, feeling the cold metal edges dig into his skin.
“They’re not taking away my medal,” he said, but it went unanswered because Changbin’s phone started ringing. The sound of it buzzing against the table startled them all into flinching.
“It’s the ISU liaison,” said Changbin gravely and quickly slunk out of the room to take the call. The silence that was left inside made Jisung’s heartbeat feel very loud and erratic. Or maybe it was just his imagination? Jisung pressed his hand against his chest, trying to take deep breaths. They remained shallow and quick, making his throat feel raw.
“Aegi,” said Chan, suddenly kneeling in front of him. His expression was twisted, pained, and he reached to grip Jisung’s shoulders. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“I—I didn’t go to that guy to punch him,” Jisung said through a hiccup, feeling on the verge of tears. “We just chatted, and then… you—you wouldn’t understand.”
“Then help me, hm? Help hyung understand.”
Jisung pulled back and scrambled onto his feet, feeling wobbly and shaken. His costume was starting to feel itchy and stiff, tugging on his skin uncomfortably. Jisung paced around the table, trying to create some distance between himself and Chan, even though the promise of a hug was beginning to look very appealing.
The door opened again before any of them spoke.
“Well,” said Changbin, arms slack by his sides, “he’s suspended.”
“Suspended?” Jisung repeated against the sinking feeling in his stomach. “W-what do you mean?”
“What else, you idiot?” Changbin said. “You’re suspended from competing in men’s singles, and you will have a disciplinary hearing with the ISU, where they will decide what to do with you next.”
Oh. Oh—well, sure. This was happening, somehow. Jisung used every ounce of energy he had left to remain standing and not cry.
“And the medal?” asked Chan softly.
“Jisung’s officially disqualified, so the medal goes to silver, silver to bronze, and the guy in fourth is getting an upgrade onto the podium. They are already posting the announcements on the results website.”
“Screw this. They can eat it, for all I care,” Jisung said shakily, whipping the medal off his neck and throwing it at the wall, where it made a small dent in the plaster and landed on the carpeted floor with a sad, dull thump. Chan and Changin watched him in stunned silence for a solid minute.
“Sung-ah,” said Chan, but was immediately interrupted.
“No, don’t Sung-ah him!” exclaimed Changbin. “This imbecile just ended his own career; let him stew in it! I swear to god, if I’d known managing him would be like this, I would’ve invested in horses instead.”
“Then don’t manage me!” Jisung shouted, cutting through the room to grab his skates. “I don’t need you, and I don’t need this stupid medal. I’m going home.”
“Stay, we can go to the hotel together,” said Chan with an exhausted sigh.
“No, I’m going home. See you back in Seoul—or not, I guess. Since I’m such a burden.”
“Yah, wait—”
Jisung already slammed the door and started down the hallway, where the security was still hanging around.
“I’m leaving, okay?” he told them when they made a move to follow. “You won’t see me here again.”
The words stayed with him all the way down to the locker room, where he was finally graced with the terrifying realization that they just may be true. And if they were, if he truly had ended his career, then he may as well kill himself.
Without skating, Jisung was nothing.