The Regressor's Ice Is Golden - Chapter 6

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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006.

I’d bolted in panic, but the Ice Rink was too crowded to mount any real chase.
‘What does she want with me?’
I forced my scattered thoughts back into focus.
I sped through a quick lap and returned to where I’d started.
Coach Park stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I made eye contact with a school friend and she suddenly started chasing me.”
“A friend? Who? When did that happen?”
Before I could answer, Cha Jin-hee skidded to a halt beside us.
The ice shrieked beneath her blades.
Cha Jin-hee looked between me and Coach Park, then lowered her head respectfully.
“Excuse me, are you Kim Ha-seol’s instructor?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so……?”
“I’m Cha Jin-hee. I have something I need to discuss with my friend, and since we’ve run into each other here, would it be all right?”
“Cha Jin-hee?”
Ah, so he’d placed her after all.
Coach Park glanced at her face, then at her skates, and nodded with recognition.
They were used Figure Skates from a decent brand—not cheap for a beginner.
“Ah, I see. But does it have to be right now?”
“Well, the thing is——”
“Coach, it shouldn’t take long. Just a lap or two at an easy pace, right?”
General admission starts at four, so there are two hours until six.
From the way she carried herself, she didn’t seem likely to monopolize my practice time.
Coach Park studied us with suspicion for a moment, then nodded.
“One lap, slow pace, then come back. We get to work right after.”
“……Yes.”
“Thank you so much!”
Cha Jin-hee bowed deeply.
What on earth was happening?
I found myself pushing off again, bewildered.
I’d slowed my pace, but Cha Jin-hee kept up easily.
She hadn’t lost her touch from her Figure Skating days.
“So, what did you want to tell me?”
“……Don’t tell anyone about this.”
“About what?”
Instead of answering, Cha Jin-hee stopped at the far side of the rink.
The boy from earlier had disappeared and now stood at the barrier, leaning against it.
Oh, no.
“Are you two dating?”
“God, no, it’s not like that.”
Cha Jin-hee wrinkled her nose in disgust, then paused for a moment.
“First, introduce yourself. I know him.”
“Oh, so you’re the friend Jin-hee mentioned? Hey there~.”
The boy grinned and propped his chin on his hand.
“You’re the same year as Jin-hee, right? I’m Park Ji-ho! I’m a second-year, so if anyone tries to shake you down, just drop my name?”
“Are you seriously making jokes right now?”
“What, come on, no need to be so serious about it.”
“Hello. I’m Kim Ha-seol.”
Whatever was going on, the two of them seemed remarkably close.
Park Ji-ho straightened up with a small laugh and stepped back.
“Go on and talk, you two. I won’t badmouth you or anything?”
“Like I believe that.”
Cha Jin-hee sighed as she watched Park Ji-ho retreat to the benches.
I hesitated between the two of them, then drifted back into my skating.
“Right, I didn’t explain it well enough……. I come here sometimes to skate.”
“You do?”
“This might sound petty, but if my parents find out I still have my Figure Skates……. they might not let me come back here again.”
“…….”
“That thing about me quitting figure skating.”
“I think I can guess most of what’s going on, so I’ll leave it at that.”
“!”
Cha Jin-hee, who had been leading the way, spun around abruptly.
“How did you know that?”
“If your parents are the type who have to worry based on just you keeping figure skates around, the whole picture’s pretty clear.”
I clicked my tongue and slid up beside Cha Jin-hee.
“And don’t go blabbing your personal business around. Sure, some people will sympathize and cut you slack. But others? They’ll just see you as someone to exploit, or as pathetic and lacking.”
Cha Jin-hee laughed hollowly.
“Sorry. Did it feel like too much pressure?”
“Not really, but it’s not the kind of thing to talk about here.”
“Mm, I guess you’re right.”
I didn’t press further and led the kid over to the opposite side of the rink.
Park Ji-ho, who’d been resting, waddled back out onto the ice.
“Hey, hey, are we done talking? This one gets scared pretty easy. Sorry for giving my junior such a fright~.”
“Can’t you just keep quiet for a while?”
“It’s fine. Go ahead and have fun.”
The nerve it takes to crack jokes while barely able to stay on your feet is truly something.
I left the two of them bickering and headed back to Coach Park.
Coach Park held out an Ion Drink with a sullen expression.
I drank it down with ceremonial solemnity.
The whole thing took about ten minutes.
“Let’s start practice right away.”
“……Yeah.”

***

After Cha Jin-hee finished skating that day, she went to the Convenience Store with Park Ji-ho.
“Now that I think about it, you always eat the same cup ramen after skating.”
“You… remember that?”
“Well, I could, couldn’t I?”
Park Ji-ho poured water over the noodles, puckering his lips.
“But is she really your friend? How’d you two meet?”
“Ah, that’s complicated to explain. You didn’t hear the rumor going around school? That the TK Conglomerate kids all go to this place?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I met her back then.”
Seeing him nod, he seemed to have grasped the general context.
“But I’m curious about something. Actually, no—I think it’s better if I don’t ask.”
“Why.”
“Because you’d punch me for it.”
“So you want to get hit first?”
“No, no, no!”
Park Ji-ho giggled and flailed around before handing wooden chopsticks to Cha Jin-hee.
“Honestly, for regular people like us, when it comes to figure skating, all we know is that Yui’s Triple Axel. I know from you singing some song that she didn’t land it, but that’s about it.”
“Ah, I see…….”
But surprisingly, Cha Jin-hee didn’t smack Park Ji-ho’s back.
Instead, her eyes widened with genuine interest as she listened.
As if she understood completely.
Encouraged by this, Park Ji-ho worked up a bit of courage to ask.
“So what’s the appeal of figure skating as a sport, anyway?”
“Ah.”
Cha Jin-hee nodded, then opened her ramen with a slightly troubled expression.
“Right. If you’re not actively interested, you might forget or just not know. How do I even explain this?”
“If you must, give me the one-liner version.”
“That’s asking a lot, isn’t it? Just keep eating, and I’ll explain.”
While Park Ji-ho ate eagerly, Cha Jin-hee thought of an appropriate explanation.
“There’s this figure skating manga I really love, and they said something there: ‘Figure skating is a sport where you watch gambling.'”
“Gambling?”
“Yeah, so… ah.”
Cha Jin-hee’s gaze settled on the corner of the table in the Convenience Store.
A familiar yellow mouse character sticker was stuck there.
“Remember that card game from elementary school? The one with Poké—? It’s similar to that.”
“Oh, yeah!”
Park Ji-ho nodded vaguely.
Anyone born in the late ’90s or early 2000s would probably remember it instantly.
A gaming IP that had swept through elementary schools on the wave of animation back then.
There were plenty of merchandise derived from it—stickers in bread bags, rubber tokens from stationery shops.
And then there was the card game that recreated the original Poké— battles.
“It’s not exactly one-on-one matches, but there were these creatures and something else, and you’d build a deck with them to battle. Figure skating’s similar.”
“So the Triple Axel is like a card?”
“Something like that.”
Honestly, she couldn’t quite remember the exact rules of the card game anyway, but the comparison worked well enough.
Cha Jin-hee quickly swallowed a mouthful of her Cup Ramen, then choked and coughed.
Park Ji-ho rapidly pulled out a tissue for her, and she recovered a bit.
“There are slots for the cards—seven Jumps, three Spins, and one Step Sequence set. You build your skills into those slots according to the rules, matching what the skater can do, and that’s how you compete.”
“It really does sound like a card game.”
“Ah, it’s better to explain this while watching it directly. When’s the World Championships again?”
Park Ji-ho watched her waving chopsticks absently through the air and let out a soft laugh.
“You know, you’re acting like a total otaku right now.”
“Did you just figure out that all figure skating fans are otaku?”
“Is that statement even fair?”
At any rate, the two bickered their way through the rest of the Cup Ramen and left.
They didn’t explain the rules much beyond that point.
The really interesting part hadn’t come up yet anyway, mainly because Park Ji-ho wasn’t listening.
Even though it was around quitting time, for Cha Jin-hee, the real part was only beginning.
The walk to the Study Cafe stretched before her endlessly.
‘Kim Ha-seol….’
Now that she thought about it, it was funny that she didn’t know about her, even though they were the same age, back in the Novice days.
There were plenty of kids doing figure skating, plenty saying they wanted to do it, but almost none of them competed with short hair.
Usually they grew it long and pinned it up.
Of course, she could have cut it when she entered middle school, but who knows.
‘How could she even remember me anyway—no, wait. I can’t control my own family the way I want to either.’
If they’d called her a rising next-generation figure skating prospect who could land the Triple Axel, she’d probably have memorized that curiosity herself.
Honestly, even remembering all the figure skating rules this far felt ridiculous.
It’s not like she needed to care about any of it now.
Cha Jin-hee still hadn’t forgotten that day.
It was when the woman who would become her older sister figure was out winning medals left and right.
One day she came to her senses and found herself a civilian.
She’d slept in that morning, picked up her phone after waking, and only then did she understand.
It wasn’t that she’d missed the alarm—it had never rung in the first place.
The costume she’d worn, the hair ornaments, the Coach and the choreographer—they’d all vanished.
Even the Doll she’d received after the performance was nowhere to be found.
It was the third day of rest from an ankle injury.
She saw her parents again that afternoon.
“Oh, you’re awake? Your sister got the gold medal. We should go give her the Doll, shouldn’t we?”
Cha Jin-hee had to watch her sister—who had entered a competition she didn’t even know existed—receive a medal.
She couldn’t remember what her parents had actually explained to her.
Only that their tone had been one of helplessness, utterly natural and obvious.
That voice had been piercingly cold and dry.
There was no reason that could make sense of why they had to do that to a ten-year-old girl.
And so Cha Jin-hee, like any other child, turned off her phone, opened a planner, and solved problem sets.
The Study Cafe was silent and suffocating—a place where taking a proper breath felt like you needed to check if it was okay.
An overall dehumanized atmosphere that made it feel like you’d be killed if you made a sound.
Despite not having the strict rules of a reading room, something about it was strange.
As a result, Cha Jin-hee didn’t receive any calls or messages for about two hours.
In other words, any contact that came during that time could only be checked on the way home.
“Ugh, I’m stiff all over.”
Cha Jin-hee cracked her neck with a grinding sound and turned her phone back on.
[Kim Ha-seol: You don’t have time to come by the Ice Rink to watch, do you? I’ve got a two-hour reserved session Thursday evening.]
……?
‘Why me?’
What business did she have showing up to where the pro skaters trained?
Expecting sympathy because she was a retired athlete with circumstances?
But the text that came next kept her from blocking Kim Ha-seol.
[Kim Ha-seol: I’m going to practice my Program that day. I want feedback.]
She had no way of knowing then how that single message would transform Cha Jin-hee.

***

‘Hooked me good.’
I read her final reply once more and let out a quiet laugh.
[Cha Jin-hee: We’ll see when we get there.]
Since I’d made this connection, I might as well use it well.
She’d probably enjoy it too.
On the tablet screen was a video of Cha Jin-hee’s competition, uploaded to NewTube.
The Ice of the Returner Episode 6
E-book Publication Date | 2026.06.05

Author | Korkaroli
Publishers | Heo Heung-beom, Park Geon-won
Published by | Potent

Address | [04783] 10th Floor, 8 Yeonmuljang 11-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Phone | 02-6320-8500
Fax | 02-6320-8585

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260514092.0006
List Price | Not for Sale

ⓒ Korkaroli 2026

This e-book is a work protected by copyright law.
This e-book has been published under a contract with the author and is prohibited from unauthorized reproduction, copying, distribution, or sharing without written consent from both parties.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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