Skating into My Life

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” — Audrey Hepburn

You had studied hard all of your high school years and had gotten into a prestigious college in South Korea. One of the top 3 to be exact. 

Naturally, you let yourself enjoy the first year of college, and participated in all of the school activities you could, enjoying your life. Also, you were hoping to find a girlfriend since you had “focused” on studying during high school.

In your second semester, there was an event that would change your life forever. 

Your school had an intense rivalry with another school and would compete with each other during the annual school festival.

Both schools would play against each other in various sports.

You were never much of a sports guy, so you weren’t inclined to watch all of the sports matches, but funny enough, one of them caught your eye.

Ice Hockey

Soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball were all sports you had seen before, but ice hockey was new, and you wanted to see what it was like.

You asked a friend to get hold of tickets for you, since you could never buy tickets fast enough, and luckily (and unluckily) they had got just one ticket.

“Dude, I got just one ticket, but it’s a little bit of a problem. You are in the front row, right in front of the rink, but you’re right behind the other team’s player benches.”

“Dude they are gonna kill me if they find out I’m on the opposing side.”

“Tough luck man, this was the only seat I could get my hands on.” 

And so here you were, right behind the players, watching ice hockey for the first time in your life.

Being your first time watching ice hockey, you had no idea what so ever as to what the players were doing, but one player kept catching your eye. 

Jersey number 3 was tall, and had aura. She hadn’t spoken much during the match, but when she did, her voice was loud and her teammates listened to what she said. 

It didn’t take long for you to follow every move she made on the ice.

When the coach subbed her off for another player, you got your first clear look at her face as she took off her helmet. It was love at first sight. 

Her semi-long wavy brown hair came down to her shoulders, and framed her face beautifully. 

Her big black eyes were like black holes that seemed to pull you in.

You forget about everything else during the remainder of the game.

You waited until the end of the match and tapped on the clear plastic in front of you, hoping to catch her attention.

She looked back at the noise, and you looked into her deep black eyes for the first time.

“Why are you tapping on the barrier?”

“Hi, I know this is strange but you played really well. Can I ask for your number or anything? I’m not a scouter or anything but I really want to be friends with you.”

“Okay, sure. Here’s my instagram, give me a dm.”

“Jiwoo, can tell me how to skate on the ice.”

It was the third time you were meeting with Jiwoo after you had asked her for her number.

You thought it would be fun to learn skating, since it was how you and Jiwoo had first met.

Skating on ice was harder than you imagined.

Jiwoo started gliding gracefully on the ice as if she was standing on the ground. Which was natural since she was an ice hockey player.

You, on the other hand, were sliding on the ice as if you were a new born fawn who was stretching their legs for the first time..

Seeing you sliding everywhere, Jiwoo skated next to you and lent you a hand.

You took it, using her so you could finally stand up. 

“I thought you knew how to skate?”

“No, I never learned how to skate. I wanted to come see the place where I met you for the first time, and try skating myself”

“That is so sweet of you. Now let me show you how to skate properly before you make this ice rink into an obstacle course.”

“First, I want you to hold my hands.”

“I’m going to pull you around the rink and I want you to get used to the feeling of gliding around on the ice.”

Jiwoo held both of my hands and started skating backwards, pulling me forward on the rink.

After a few laps of the rink, we were back at where we had started.

“Now, I want you to try lifting your feet one foot at a time while I pull you forward and try pushing diagonally on the ice. Yes, just like that. Make sure you lift and take your foot back to the original position after each push. That way, you can continue to move  forward.”

Slowly but surely, with the help of your beautiful (soon to be) girlfriend, you were getting the hang of skating on ice. 

Sure it was nowhere near how Jiwoo was skating, but at least you could move forward and keep yourself from falling onto the rink.

After a full day of learning skating, and holding hands for the first time, you asked her to date you.

It had been 3 years since you started dating Jiwoo after asking her to date you at the ice rink. You decided you wanted to get serious with Jiwoo, and decided to propose to her.