One year ago
The only sound that could be heard is the scraping of the ice under your skates and the pounding of your heart echoing through your body.
This is your world: the cold and the quiet enveloping you as you danced across the smooth, white ice.
Bringing your arms in tight towards your body to increase the speed of your spin, you shut your eyes and let the symphony of scuffing ice and shallow breaths consume you. Getting ready for the challenging move you've come here to practice, you slow your movement by extending your arms out gracefully, grabbing the blade and lifting your right leg up above your head carefully in a Biellmann spin.
Your entire body aches at the strength it requires to hold your legs in a near-full split, so you could have never noticed the boy watching in the stands.
It is past midnight at this point and the soft moonlight fluttering down through the glass ceiling panels illuminate the ice just enough to give you an ethereal glow.
You've always preferred to practice alone at night, the quiet and isolation helping you focus. After all, figure skating is an incredibly judgmental sport; your coaches and teammates constantly watching and critiquing every little thing. At every competition, there are a line of judges sitting and watching for your every mistake. And you're okay with it because that's just how the sport goes.
But being by yourself on the ice gives you the freedom to escape from the their eyes and explore new possibilities by letting your passion for the art fully express itself.
You truly love figure skating-it's like you can tell a story about yourself, a better version of yourself, to show to everyone. You can be bold or soft, graceful or playful, happy or sad. In a whole world of problems, insecurity, and confusion, you can control the 17,000 square feet of ice and dominate it. Here, there is no such thing as student debt or homework assignments or the global environmental crisis.
When you're on the ice, it's like everything is okay.
"Holy shit...," Mark breathes to himself as he stands behind a row of bleachers, witnessing your unintentional show with his jaw on the floor and eyes locked on your balletic dance. His heart pounds with such intensity that he is afraid it might echo throughout the whole stadium and you would hear.
Hoping to get in some extra drill sets in before the next game, the sophomore boy had come out to the rink that night, not expecting someone to already be there and definitely, definitely, not expecting to fall in love at first sight.
So he stands there frozen in the dark behind the bleachers like some sort of fool, mesmerized by you.
"Who are you?," he wonders to himself.
Mark had seen the figure skaters before as they entered and exited the rink around hockey practices. Usually he didn't pay them any attention because he was focused on his own sport, but the skating he's seen before didn't ever look like this.
This is raw beauty. Captivating- the way you control your body and glide around the ice effortlessly like gravity isn't here to pull you down.
The way the pieces of your hair fell slightly out of your bun and frame your face perfectly. The way the tip of your nose tints pink with cold. The way those yoga pants hug your-
Mark turns his face away, cheeks burning as he realizes how creepy he's being, spying on you from behind the bleachers like a peeping pervert.
Now, Mr. Popular Lee #2 usually did not have trouble with girls. In fact, they flock to him like pigeons to stale pringles and he's faced an overwhelming amount of confessions and love letters since moving to Korea just last year.
Despite being friendly and sociable, he feels quite awkward with all the attention and ironically, doesn't have a ton of experience with relationships except a few flings here and there.
Preferring to focus on his school work and athletics, Mark convinced himself doesn't have the time to commit to a relationship anyways. Besides, he was never really interested in any of them, trying to turn them down as politely as possible and even replying to each love letter detailing why he didn't feel the same way and how they'll meet a better person for sure. His friends always tease him for how soft he is, but what else could he do? His mama taught him to be a gentleman.
And it was because of his sweet disposition that he grew ever more popular at Seoul University. Girls, boys, and gender non-conforming fans alike fell for him left and right and they filled the stands with novel Canadian flags at every Gator's game. And if that isn't enough, much to his surprise and, honestly, slight fear, "The Lees" has an official fanclub on campus known as "The Lovelees".
So anyone could see why Mark Lee has generally elected to steer clear from girls for the time being and just focus on school and hockey.
However, what he is feeling right now, standing slack-jawed and weak-kneed as you skate across the ice completely unaware of his presence, could only be described as an absolute violation of his no-girls-hockey-and-grades-first rule.
You aren't fighting for his attention like every other girl. Well, you didn't even notice him. And he didn't fully understand why, but he wants you to; he wanted you to meet his eyes, to talk to you, to get to know you better. You seem so sure of yourself, so in control of everything you were doing. You're stunning and untouchable. It's like his soul has a magnet and you're the opposite charge he's been searching for, drawn to you with an indescribable force of attraction.
Man, he used to think that figure skating was kind of lame. After all, there was no motive, no puck to slam into the net, no opponent but yourself- all you do is spin around in circles and smile. But now, he gets it.
Mark, got busy eating his words and in his trance, drops his gym bag with a loud thud on the concrete floor.
Pleased with your progress on executing the difficult spin, you smile and let yourself circle around the ice freely, feeling the cold air breeze around you in calming silence. A sudden bang snaps you out of your zone and you immediately skate to a stop, spooked from the noise.
You look around the empty stadium for anyone who was there, but only see the entrance door swinging shut and nobody to be found.
"Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit"
The hockey player panics to himself, adrenaline pumping like crazy as his body sends him full fight-or-flight flying down the parking lot away from the university rink.
Dizzy from overthinking, Mark throws himself into his car and speeds off to the boys dorms without sparing a single look back, as if he had done something illegal and you're going to run out and chase him down.
The flustered boy makes a bee-line for his dorm and shuts himself in the safe confinement of his room in record time. His mind doesn't have time to process what had happened before his pissed roommate's voice cuts through the silence like a slap in the face.
"Where the hell have you been?," a sleepy Haechan complains, woken up from the sound of the slamming door.
"My bad. At the gym"
"Since when do you go to the gym, you spaghetti noodle lookin ass?," the younger boy flames, clearly not happy to be woken up from his precious sleep.
"Nice man. Trying to upgrade to linguini," Mark tries to joke back.
"Why is your face so red, man?" Haechan asks, ignoring the older's tired comedic attempt.
Sighing at the question, Mark runs his fingers through his tangled blonde hair. There's no way he could tell the younger boy that he suddenly met a girl at the rink and developed a crush while spying on her. More so, he's not sure he even understood what he's feeling right now.
But at the same time, the girl from the rink just wouldn't leave his mind- who was she? Was she on the skating team? She should be if she was able to get into the rink, right? Haechan does have way more connections than Mark and is good with this type of thing, so maybe telling him now could help him find you.
Rubbing his fingers up and down the bridge of his nose, the troubled sophomore sits on his bed debating what to do. "Ah fuck it. You can't tell anyone though. I don't know what's going on".
"Yo, is everything good?" The freshman sits up in his bed, now wide awake as concern for his best friend grows mistakenly.
The two boys met at a hockey camp several years back and became instant buddies. When Haechan got into Seoul University, he immediately hit up Mark and they naturally became roommates. And over all these years, he's never seen Mark as stressed as he is now.
"Yeah it's uh... It's this... I uh- I saw this girl-"
Ripping his covers off, Haechan leaps up and tackles Mark down on his bed, grabbing the older boy's shoulders with both hands and shaking him vigorously at the exciting news. "Dude what!? You've been getting laid!?"
"No! It's not like that at all, fuck you. I just saw her. I don't even know her and she didn't even see me, well, at least I think so". Mark holds his arms in front of his head in defense.
Haechan stops shaking him. "The hell does that mean?"
"Aight let me explain," Mark exclaims, shoving the younger friend back so he can sit up. He goes through the details of the night, detailing how he showed up to practice and you were there skating and how he dropped his hockey bag so he made a run for it. Despite his efforts to make it seem normal, the story was a little creepy no matter how he told it which only makes Mark feel more lost about the way he feels.
"You sneaky motherfucker". Haechan is simultaneously humored and shocked by the words that leave the older's mouth. Humored by the fact that he embarrassed himself like he was known to do and shocked that Mark could ever actually like a girl at this school. "What about your no-dating rule or whatever?"
The blonde boy groans, falling back onto his bed in mental agony. "I'm telling you, man. I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'll forget about her tomorrow, but I can't get her out of my head right now".
"Dang... was her ass really nice or something?," the brunette boy teases, trying to lighten the mood, but only earning a hard smack to the head. Mark feels his face flush a deeper red at the thought.
"...Yeah," he admits quickly, "but that's not the point! Can you help me find her? Online or something?"
"Help you stalk a girl whose name you don't know? With a nice ass? Hell yeah, move over".
Grabbing his laptop and jumping onto the bed, the light of the screen illuminates two pairs of eager brown eyes and his fingers got to typing.
Firstly, Facebook.
It's a go-to: everyone has Facebook. Clicking on the familiar blue icon, Haechan expertly opens the Seoul University figure skating team page while Mark looks on with doe eyes. As he scrolls past endless informational posts about team competitions and girls that aren't you, a post from 6 weeks ago about the new freshmen girls catches his eye.
Quickly clicking on it to take a closer look, Mark's nose is practically touching the screen trying to make out if you're in the tiny, low-quality group picture. The whole team of girls are posing on the ice in regular clothes surrounding three freshmen girls in the middle, sporting their brand-new team uniforms.
And there you are, the one to the left, a smile beaming from your lips as you hold up a peace sign, thrilled that you had made the team.
Mark unconsciously copies your smile, the blush creeping back onto his face as he admires the 480p image for a little too long. "Dude, that's her!"
"The hot blonde?" Haechan points to Yuna.
"No, dude, the girl on the left with the dark hair," Mark fawns.
Wavy, long locks frame your face and most noticeably, you stand quite a bit shorter than the rest of your teammates, especially the 'hot blonde in the middle', or your best friend, Yuna.
"So cute," he endears to himself, glad that Haechan actually helped him find you. Clicking on the tagged people, Haechan quickly found your name and Facebook page.
"Y/N... what a pretty name" Mark coos.
"Bro..." Haechan was already pretty weirded out by Mark's interest in you, but seeing him act like this is super out of character. Not once at his time at university did he ever see the older boy show any interest in girls, even when they were throwing themselves at him.
Is this that soulmate stuff that people are always talking about? Love at first sight?
Taking the laptop out of Haechan's hands, Mark scrolls through your Facebook page ardently. With each new minuscule thing he learns about you, he feels like he's falling deeper and deeper into his feelings for you despite barely knowing who you are.
"She likes baking, dog memes, the environment," the blushing boy mumbles under his breath, eyes sparkling as he taps through your pictures and reads over your environmental campaigns.
"Y/N is going to an event," Haechan points out, accepting the fact that his best friend is low key going crazy. Even he could admit you are kind of cute, though.
Without even checking what the event was about, Mark happily clicks that he is also going to the 'Women's March for Cervical Cancer Awareness'. Slapping his palm over his face, Haechan gives up all hope for his older friend and retreats back to his own bed.
Scrolling down through your memes and jokes, Mark laughs quietly to himself at your witty sense of humor.
She's beautiful, smart, and funny? There has to be some sort of catch, right?
And then just like a perfect joke from the universe, he sees it.
The bright smile fades slowly from his lips as he reads over your text post from one month ago:
"Unpopular opinion: Ice hockey isn't all that. Just some dudes grunting and hitting each other with sticks. Plus, they stole the ice from us during saturday practice >:( salty"
You then topped it off with a cherry of sarcasm, a gif of caveman spongebob to mock the heartbroken sophomore boy over and over again as he lay in bed rereading your harsh opinion post.
Looking over to Haechan for support, the younger boy grunts in annoyance as he gets out of bed a second time. Peering at the laptop screen, Haechan reads the unfortunate text post aloud slowly.
Meeting Mark's sad eyes, he manages to let out the only two words of consolation he knows: "Well shit".
...
The players line up in their positions and Mark skates to the center to do the face off which will start the game. Shaking off the memories from that night one year ago, he kind of wishes it had never happened- that he had never gone to the rink that night and he had never seen you skate. Because after all this time, not once have his feelings ever faltered.
Slamming his stick into the puck towards Ten in the face-off, he skates hard to get open, body remembering the years of practice put into this sport. He thought that he could forget about you after a few days and that all of it could be just some crazy, week long obsession.
Alas, week after week he tried to play it off and convince himself to forget about you. But, every time you passed by him in the lecture halls or the library, the memory of you on the ice all that time ago replayed in his head over and over again endlessly, like a broken record. His friends all thought he was crazy when Haechan told everyone about his irrational crush and even crazier when he said that he doesn't want to make a move.
Ten maneuvers his way quickly through the opposing players, seamlessly passing the puck to Haechan who receives it just fast enough to escape the clashing sticks of the defending team. Mark skates his way through the center of the rink to receive the puck next, just like they practiced. He is convinced- absolutely convinced- that you are way out of his league.
Slamming his way through the defensive line, Mark manipulates the puck around, dribbling it like it is a part of his own body before striking it through the goalie's legs with brutal speed. The crowd roars wildly in a wave of white and red as the booming voice in the speakers announces the Gator's first goal.
And just like that, a year has passed by. You live your days still oblivious to the burning feelings the most popular boy at school have for you. He doesn't know what to do; you seem so untouchable and unapproachable.
No matter how many scenarios he can make up about asking you out or how many times he has tried to talk to you, the timing never felt right and he could never do it. Something is always holding him back, be it fear or patience.
Mark's teammates surround him, smacking his helmet and lifting up their sticks in celebration. Ten skates around to find Yuna in the crowd and that's when Mark sees you.
Your dark, wavy hair is damp from showering and your expression is plain, but beautiful as ever to Mark. His breath, already short from playing hockey, hitches in his throat at the sight of you.
But surpassing all odds, Mark doesn't know that you are unknowingly on the same page as him. Not that you are secretly in love with him too, no, you really don't know who he is yet. But in the way that he is the part of your life that you're missing.
And this is a story of how two incomplete souls come together.