Worlds 2018

Chapter 3: The end of worlds 2018

She slipped out of the room and into the hallway unnoticed. Her brain was going crazy, did she just talk to Shoma? Why did he help her? He was so nice to her, and so on. She mentally slapped herself trying to get her thoughts straight. She had to see the medal ceremony, not stand here thinking about what just happened. 

She ran down the hall, and into the stadium. She went as close to the ice as possible, leaning with her stomach against the cold metal bars of the rink side fence. The podium and red carpet was already laid out on the ice. The murmur of several hundred voices, was messing a little with her already occupied mind. 

Luckily the noise soon quieted down as there started to play a calm italian inspired piece of music. All the light was turned off except for some projectors pointing at three woman in colourful old styled italian dresses, presumably carrying the medals. Behind them walked three woman i long white dresses in their hands a white bouquet of flowers. The women stood, three on each side of the podium. They presented Nathan Chen, and he went on to greet the audience. They played the song Nathan had skated to, as he stepped onto the first place podium spot. 

Shoma was the next to be announced and they started playing turandot. He carefully stepped on the ice. She could see him very clearly from where she was standing. He turned around about to bow to the crowd, as he spotted the girl from before. He bowed and smiled towards her. 

She felt her heart flutter, just by the thought of how close she had been to him not too long ago. The part of skin he had touched felt like it was burning with a comfortable warm fire. She smiled to herself as she watched him step onto the second place podium. Still feeling the after effects of his adorable broken english accent, she never fully understood how this man were able to make her feel so incredible soft. 

The third spot went to Mikhail Kolyada, a well known Russian figure skater. She decided to leave before the ceremony was fully done, thinking that it would be better to avoid all the people. The officials handed the medals and the flowers to the competitioners, shaking their hand and congratulating them. 

She corrected the bag on her shoulder, turning around and walking out of the stadium. She didn't have any tickets for the gala there should be held the  day after, but she was planning to watch it on the tv in her hotel room. She did not take the bus holding in front of the arena, instead she decided to walk back to her hotel. She held her right hand up in eye height, observing the bandaids adorning her palm. A small spark of energy ran through her body, remembering how careful and soft his touch had been. 

Tomorrow was her last day in Milano, she was planning to go to one of the local rinks not too far away from the hotel before the gala started at 14:30. In order to take this short vacation to Italy, she had had to skip two of her practise days, and her coach had not been happy about that. She had skated for almost a season at this point, so she was still rather new to the sport. To be exact, she had gotten into figure skating a year ago, at worlds 2017. She remember watching it in the tv, wanting to cheer for the japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu. Since then she had managed to fall for the small man Shoma Uno instead. He had become an important person in her life. She had started skating after the summer break, she had started late by the age of 17, and had no experience in skating before she decided it would be a good idea to begin. 

She skipped along the walkway, full of energy and happiness for the man's second place. She went into her hotel flopping onto the comfortable bed. The hotel room wasn't big or fancy at all, she was on a low budget since the tickets for the tournament had been quite expensive. She curled into a ball under the blanket and fell asleep, the image of Shomas shining eyes and beautiful smile as he had looked at her when she thanked him in japanese, fresh in her memory.