Seoryeong started practicing gymnastics much later than the others.
She came from an orphanage. She had to fight against poverty, and was often seen as someone unlucky—a charity case, a burden. But she received full support from the head coach at Jiseul High School, who saw something in her that others couldn't name.
It was hard to believe she had only started training after graduating elementary school.
Han Seoryeong's gymnastics was very different from Joo Daeun's.
Joo Daeun—who had grown up with high-class standards since childhood—was like water. Fluid. Graceful. Predictable in the way excellence often is.
Han Seoryeong was like fire.
Although she wasn't cheerful or friendly like Joo Daeun, every time she started to move, there was an attraction that made all the team members unable to look away. Something magnetic. Something dangerous.
However, her risky performances often resulted in point deductions. Things that were prohibited—she did anyway. She didn't hesitate to challenge with moves that made coaches hold their breath.
While Joo Daeun often swept awards in competitions, Han Seoryeong was constantly disqualified. She never won a single award during her time in the gymnastics club.
Even so, Joo Daeun began to subtly distance herself from Han Seoryeong.
She knew very well that every time the girl who never smiled started to apply gymnastic chalk to her hands, the entire room would immediately fall silent.
All eyes would be on her.
Until one night—Joo Daeun's leg was severely injured in the gymnasium, while Han Seoryeong calmly walked away from the scene.
---
The coach swallowed slowly before finally speaking.
Even though that incident had happened ten years ago...
"Seoryeong... you're the one who broke Joo Daeun's leg, right?"
"..."
"I... actually, I saw what happened." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "You did the *Korbut Flip*, didn't you?"
The **Korbut Flip**.
The move meant *"raven's feather"* in French. It had been banned since 1972 because it was too dangerous.
The coach clearly remembered how the head coach used to sternly warn that the move should never be attempted—because if it failed, it could shatter ankles and leg bones. If one fell, the bones would break, and the coaches would not be responsible in the slightest.
The Korbut Flip was a move where the athlete had to flip backward on the low bar, then leap to the high bar relying solely on the rebound of their body.
Like a raven flapping its wings from a great height.
The move was so dangerous that the International Gymnastics Federation had banned it entirely.
"But you..." The coach's voice trembled. "You succeeded in doing it. And you even provoked Joo Daeun to try."
The memory of that day was still terrifying.
The fact that a seventeen-year-old had managed to perform a long-banned move wasn't as horrifying as the sight of someone's leg breaking from the knee down to the ankle.
Joo Daeun had screamed in pain until she fainted.
*Was Han Seoryeong really unaware that she had provoked Joo Daeun to attempt that move?*
"Oh... so the person who was hiding back then was you."
Seoryeong's cold, calm gaze pierced through the coach—giving her goosebumps, rendering her momentarily speechless.
"It's not like that... I... I..."
"How interesting."
"..."
"So this is why people come to reunions? To talk about pleasant things like this?"
But the coach felt that this wasn't the pleasant story she had imagined.
Seoryeong stared blankly at the children who were practicing, then said:
"I don't like gymnastics."
"What?"
"The floor exercise mat is too narrow. The uneven bars are too small. The high bar is too low..."
"..."
"It feels suffocating."
She looked at her arm in its cast, then easily removed the sling—as if the injury meant nothing.
"That's why I tried it. Even though the coach said they wouldn't be responsible."
"..."
"Just because something is called *dangerous*—is that a good enough reason not to try it?" A faint smile crossed her lips. "I actually found it funny. How else would I know how far my body could endure?"
"..."
"That's why I had to try it."
That kind of courage meant Han Seoryeong could never truly grow into an *athlete*.
Gymnastics was the foundation of all sports—requiring both strength and flexibility, discipline and control. But Han Seoryeong was obsessed with difficult and dangerous moves—a fundamental difference between her and Joo Daeun.
Like a knot that had been tied wrong from the very beginning.
"It's not my fault if she tried to imitate me."
"But... because you did that move in front of Joo Daeun, she..."
The coach immediately fell silent as she realized why she kept trying to protect Joo Daeun.
After that incident, Joo Daeun quit gymnastics entirely. Han Seoryeong was accused—without evidence—of causing the accident, and was eventually expelled from school.
No one mentioned the fact that she had successfully performed the Korbut Flip.
The story that seemed like a lie was eventually buried. Just like that.
"You should have said that Joo Daeun actually started it first." The coach's voice grew desperate. "If you had explained what really happened in the gymnasium that night, you wouldn't have been expelled. Maybe you would have a gold medal by now."
"Do you really believe that?"
"What?"
"Then why didn't you say anything yourself?" Seoryeong's eyes were ice. "You saw everything. But you chose to remain silent."
Those words made the coach freeze.
Her face turned pale. Her eyes trembled. As if a long-suppressed guilt was now surfacing, dragged into the light against her will.
But whether out of fear or feeling inferior—Han Seoryeong didn't care. She just turned away, indifferent.
"Back then, I thought it would be fun to be kicked out of the competition arena." Her voice was distant. "But I was still too young... a child with no parents, no money, who had to face the outside world without anything to hold onto..."
She looked back at the children practicing—without expression.
"I lived a boring life."
A life filled with pain and people who kept leaving, one by one.
Like a silent observer, watching the world from behind glass.
Ten years passed. She became a young woman who looked calm and composed compared to when she was a child.
But the emptiness inside her still remained.
"Until not long ago."
The coach looked at Seoryeong's face from the side, unable to look away—as if wanting to cover up an old shame. She tried to change the atmosphere, her voice forcibly cheerful.
"Is that so? Then... you have something you like now, right?"
Seoryeong smiled faintly.
Just a little—but enough to make her pale face look slightly more alive.
"I once had the one thing I loved most in the world."
"..."
"It was the only thing I had."
But that faint smile quickly disappeared. Her expression returned to its original flatness—dry and emotionless.
The coach felt uneasy, so she spoke without thinking:
"Um... how about trying to get on and hold the high bar?"
Unexpected laughter rang out.
The coach looked at Seoryeong—who was smiling broadly and brightly—while raising her arm in its cast to display it. The coach looked regretful, but finally nodded as well.
Then suddenly, Seoryeong's face hardened.
She stared at the mat with a sharp, piercing gaze—as if finding some kind of strange happiness just by looking at it like that.
"Why? What's wrong?"
The coach asked, slightly surprised.
But Seoryeong stood up straight with sudden enthusiasm—as if she had just resolved a long-standing burden in her heart.
"Can I get on the mat?"
"Of course!"
---
After getting permission, she took off her shoes and socks without hesitation.
Then she stepped onto the blue mat—as if stepping into the sea.
The touch of the mat on the soles of her feet felt comfortable.
Like coming home.
It was then that Seoryeong began to understand why she had returned to this place. Like a salmon swimming against the current.
_Maybe... I need a stage to stand on once more._
_Maybe this is why my heart is beating so fast._
Even though her time in this place had only lasted one season, it felt like a battlefield for survival. The moments when she was still weak, innocent—and therefore wild and fierce.
Those times suddenly overlapped with the events she had experienced in Thailand.
"—"
_Yes... I used to fight fiercely too._
Seoryeong didn't get off the mat for a long time.
But even while standing there again, the things that came to her mind weren't the cheers or shouts of an audience.
They were the sounds of gunshots.
**Bang—! Bang—! Bang bang—!**
And the image of someone whose body was covered in blood—falling with a heavy, final thud.
What she wanted to see was no longer a competition with memorized moves. Not the high bar. Not the vault.
But a scene where everything was destroyed.
Collapsed.
Completely ruined.
Perhaps the words of the Vice-Chairman back then were indeed correct.
The direction she should head now was a completely different field than before.
---
## — Two Months Later —
Her body recovered slowly.
Unconsciously, the year was almost changing.
Seoryeong bought a cheap bottle of wine from a convenience store and drank it alone—sitting by the window, watching the winter night settle over the city.
She found herself back at the starting point.
One thing she had learned after visiting her old school was this: **the bar in front of her, she had to grasp it herself.**
When she got on the mat, no one could jump or perform the moves in her place. Gymnastics was a competition she had to do alone. She had to fill that stage with her own strength.
Maybe she had unknowingly thought she could rely on others in the past.
But the person who was ignorant, possessed dangerous abilities, was dissatisfied with society, and behaved badly—
_That wasn't anyone else._
_It was myself, wasn't it?_
That's why she was back at the starting point.
Or maybe...
**This was the real beginning.**