Chapter 32.2

Chapter 32.2

The woman went white at that. It was almost pitiful to see her gaze waver so wildly.

But whether it was fear, an inferiority complex, or whatever, she looked away as if she didn’t care.

“At that time, I thought it might be fun to be kicked out of the gym. But I was too young. A kid with no parents and no money, if I were to be cast out into society with even the few remaining ties severed…”

She observed the kids training absentmindedly.

“I’ve always lived a boring life, senior.” Around sick, dying people. Silent as an observer, tending to their needs.

A decade later, now a woman, she was much more subdued and refined than she had been as a child, but that deep, hollow quality was still there.

“Until recently.”

The coach couldn’t take her eyes off the side of her face, and she asked brightly as if to dismiss my shameful secret.

“R-really? So, do you have something you like again now?”

At that, the corner of her mouth lifted, ever so slightly. It was enough to bring color to his otherwise blank face.

“Yes, I did. It was the thing I liked most in the world.”

“….”

“The only thing that ever mattered to me.”

But the smile faded in the blink of an eye, leaving a blank face with nothing left.

She felt like she was fidgeting unnecessarily and blurted out something.

“Would you like to hold an iron bar for a change?”

Then an unexpected laugh burst out in front of her. Seoryeong didn’t hide her beaten lips and showed her casted arm. The coach looked disappointed, but nodded reluctantly.

It was then that Seoryeong’s face stiffened. She stared at the blue mat as if she’d been hit over the head. There was a strange amusement in her intense gaze.

“What, what’s wrong?”

Her senior asked, still a little stunned, and she stretched up with a smile. Shelooked relieved, like she’d finally solved a problem she’d been stuck on.

“Can I get on the mat for a moment?”

“Of course…!”

With the coach’s permission, she waited patiently to remove her shoes and socks. Then she stepped onto the mat as if she were stepping into the ocean.

The feel of the blue mat against her bare feet was like coming home. At that moment, she understood why she had come all the way up here like a salmon.

She needed a stage to stand on again.

That’s why her heart was beating so hard.

It had been a short time, only an iron, but this was definitely a field of survival. She remember being inexperienced, foolish, and all the more wild and fierce for it.

Then, her memories overlapped with her time in Thailand.

“–.”

Yeah… I’d been in the thick of it once, too.

Seoryeong hadn’t gotten off the mat in quite some time, but when she did, it wasn’t the cheering and yelling of the crowd that she remembered.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound of gunshots ricocheting off her eardrums and the voice of a person collapsing in a pool of blood.

She wanted to see it again. Not as a game where I had to memorise and perform moves on the board, balancing on the bars, tumbling on the floor, balancing on the beam, but as a game where everything broke, exploded, and fell apart.

Perhaps her senior’s words were right.

The place she needed to be now was on a whole new mat.

*

Two months passed quickly while she recovered.

In the last month of the year, she bought a cheap bottle of wine at a convenience store and drained it all by herself.

She was back to square one.

If there’s one thing she’s learned from her time at her alma mater, it’s that you have to pick up the bar yourself.

When you step onto the mat, no one is going to jump or roll for you. Gymnastics is a solo sport, and I had to fill the stage with my own strength.

Did I ever try to borrow someone else’s hand? Maybe I did, secretly.

Someone with a dangerous skill but no conscience. Someone with a bad personality and a lot of dissatisfaction with society.

Was that actually me…?

So it’s back to square one.

No, it’s the beginning.