Confession
“Phew! Hey, Yuki-nii, look! I did pretty well on these gyozas, right?”
The two of us were alone for the day. His parents were on an overseas trip, and my own were away for the time being. At some point, it had become a custom for us to make gyoza or shumai together when we had the house to ourselves like this.
“They look great. You’ve gotten better at it.” I was impressed at how neatly folded his gyozas were.
“Eheheh, well I am in high school now. Remember how when I made them with you the first time, I totally messed them up and started crying? But they look perfect now, right?”
I found it adorable how he got so excited over the smallest things.
In my heart, I murmured a prayer of gratitude to god. I was sure that he and his sister would start traveling with their parents after they started high school, but luckily,
A sudden sigh escaped from me.
“What’s up? You don’t usually sigh like that.”
“Oh, did I sigh? I didn’t realize.”
He tilted his head a bit before continuing, “Ah, but I do remember you sighing a lot when you got silver at that one novice competition.”
“Right around the time I discovered MotG… I did have a lot on my mind at the time.” After I replied to him, a realization hit me. “No, actually, I think I’m still hung up over the same issues,” I added.
Although my physical body grew, I still saw the same dream over and over. I still tried to reach for my ideal self that I saw in that dream, unable to ever grasp it. And I still had the same unanswered questions lingering in my mind. What am I skating for? Who am I skating for?
“My ideal skating style… I do have an idea of what I’d like to express someday, but…I have to admit that my skill isn’t at that level. I don’t even fully understand it on a mental aspect, so I do feel like I’m just not enough at times.”
“Hm? What’re you talking about?”
I seemed to have taken
“Right. Sorry for bringing it up so suddenly.”
He stared at me with the same gaze he had when I showed him that first clumsy performance all of those years ago: unwavering and earnest. It told me that he would accept anything I told him. Words I had never spoken before about my dreams poured out of my mouth, pulled out by the way he looked at me.
“…I’ve been having this specific dream over and over since I was little.”
Although I knew I was telling the truth, having to put it into words made me feel uneasy. The odd, magical landscape, the vision of myself gliding serenely on the ice, the fact that the castle I had seen was brought into reality in the form of a trading card; it all seemed entirely too surreal.
But
“…You don’t think I’m lying?”
“You’d never do that sort of thing. I do think it’s a little strange, but weird coincidences like that happen more often than you think.”
It made me somewhat relieved to hear that he believed me. I even started to think that my dreams were no longer mere illusions; that they might have been real.
“But your ideal skating style, huh? You probably wanna skate the way you do in that dream, right? Like, it’s one of your goals?”
“I…suppose it is.”
“I think that’s wonderful. Aiming for gold medals is an awesome goal too, but if you plan on skating even after you retire, it’s amazing to think about what you wanna do past that. Like, a program you’d dedicate your whole life to creating or something.”
He said it so easily, but it struck me like lightning. Past winning medals? A program I’d dedicate my life to? I had never even thought of that before.
I skate to win gold medals. Above all else, I skate for myself. Even though something about the ideas my father placed into my head felt off, I still carried them with me, unable to toss them aside. It almost felt like a warning to myself—that if I completely gave up on aiming to win, I’d never receive another medal again.
Since the day I won silver at that novice competition, I was lost on what my own goals should be, so I simply decided to abide by my father’s hopes for the time being. But somewhere in the corner of my heart, I knew that wasn’t the right path for me to take. I didn’t know what to do with that sense of unease.
“…You’re right. Maybe it’s okay to have more than one goal.”
I could say that I wanted to win gold medals for my dad’s sake, but if I wanted to skate like I do in those dreams, I had a feeling that it had to be for the sake of someone else—an offering for someone else.
“Oh, this reminds me! I heard about this from my dad, but apparently, when lakes freeze over in some countries, they like to do ice shows with projection shows. Like, they use holograms to project the night sky and stuff. They do them when you can see the aurora too, so it’s super pretty.”
“I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“Yeah. Maybe if you get that Icicle Palace card, you can do an ice show with holograms just like that. I think it’d be really nice!” Excited by the mere idea, his voice grew increasingly more energetic.
I thought about it for a moment. If that were to happen, then the hope I held in my chest for many years might finally come true. I might be able to skate like I do in those dreams.
“Yuki-nii, if you get that card, and… If you’re able to create a program that you’re happy with, then I’ll take you to that frozen lake myself!” He proudly smacked his hand on his chest, giving me a bright grin. “I’ll take you to that place you always dream about… So promise me you’ll show me that program when you put it together!”
He stuck out his pinky finger, and a smile snuck its way onto my face.
“Yeah. I promise.”
I had always thought of him as a cute younger brother I could dote on, but he made me realize that I could rely on him to help me escape my troubles too.
What am I skating for? Who am I skating for?
I felt that I had finally found the answer.