From morning onward, Ohsu had been filled with practice, the sharp scrape of her skates cutting across the ice beneath the camp’s blue sky. It was difficult, certainly, yet for the challenges waiting ahead, even the cold that clung to her legs and the frozen surface below had to mean something, however small.

By then, the ache in her legs should have been enough to slow her down. The tightness in her lungs should have told her to stop. Even the sting beneath each breath should have been enough to wear at her resolve.

But her blade still drove forward.

‘It hurts... but I can’t stop here. Not with this much progress. Not yet... not now. If I stay like this, I’ll never be able to win against them.’

Her body lowered, gathered, and rose. Another jump. Another landing. Not perfect.

She felt the mistake at once. By the time her blades touched the ice again, her mind had already seized upon it, turning even that slight flaw into something she could not allow herself to leave uncorrected.

She had already practiced longer than any coach would call reasonable.

‘Maybe... this is just the difference I’m still too weak to close.’

Even so, despite the faint trembling in her legs, she forced herself upright once more and pushed back into motion. The answer to that thought was already there in her eyes, burning more clearly than doubt ever could.

‘No... I shouldn’t think like that. I just have to keep practicing more, more than anyone else, until I get better!’

Those words echoed through the rink as she threw herself into one last attempt. This time, what she focused on was control.

Then, at last, it held.

She landed the technique cleanly, and for a moment, even the ache in her body seemed to fall away beneath that small victory.

‘I... I finally did it!’

Only then did she pause.

Her eyes shifted toward the doorway. For a moment, surprise showed plainly on her face, made clumsier by the cold in her body and the breathlessness left by the jump.

‘...Sorry. I thought I felt someone there just now.’

At the edge of the rink, near the doorway, the quiet seemed to linger a little differently, as though her attention had caught on something not yet fully seen.

Would you step out and reveal yourself, or let the moment pass without an answer?