I didn't see any of it until hours later, collapsed in my shoebox apartment in Mapo-gu with ice packs on both hips and my ego.

First, a message from my mother:

Then, instagram.

Oh lovely — Isabella Whitfield's Instagram: a photo of her in the UK training centre, my old spot, with the caption "Dreams do come true! 💙 #TeamGB #RoadToWorlds"

I scoffed and closed the app. Dreams, I wanted to tell her, were for people who could afford them. The rest of us just had work. Salty? Oh, absolutely. But not all of us had a billionaire father bankrolling scholarships and skating facilities for the ‘next generation of British figure skating talent.’

I took a sip from the glass of chicken broth on my bedside table. “Kosher and good for joints! Drink it instead of pop,” Savta had insisted. And who was I to argue with a 5’0” nonagenarian who’d survived the Farhud?

I opened Kakao.

#PRISMJacketGirl
#프리즘자켓녀
#그녀는누구인가
#WhoIsShe
#PR1SM사건 
#세상제일잘생긴_전역남
#유진우_컴백
#YooJinwoo_Comeback
#진우야_그만해

...What?

I tapped into one of the posts with a thumbnail and a chill ran up my spine. It was a video. Potato quality, thank God, but—yep. That was me. Vaulting the security barrier. And getting my bag caught on… oh no.

Oh hell no.

What I thought had been a strap getting caught on the barrier was, in fact, caught on a decorative chain on Yoo Jin-woo's coat. His very expensive coat. A coat belonging to Korea's golden boy who stood there, dumbfounded, clutching the chain and dark blue fabric in his hand as I sprinted away like a criminal. Wait, holding...? 

I threw myself across the room to my kit bag, dropping to my knees to rifle through the contents. Gloves? Yep, still there after all—left untouched after my self-imposed training punishment. But conspicuously absent? My old Team GB training jacket. Dark blue. Rumpled. Kept in my kit as a bitter reminder of everything I’d lost.

This couldn’t be real. My grubby old jacket, in the hands of a national treasure. I could already imagine his assistants disinfecting him behind closed doors. Burning the thing. Tossing it down a trash chute.

Well, it's gone for good now, I thought. I lay back on the floorboards, hands massaging my temples as I stared at the ceiling. It was overdue, anyway. I don't need a jacket to remind me of what I'm fighting to prove. I only think about it every damn second of the day.

At least you couldn’t see my face in the video! I grasped my necklace and sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for the hood I’d been wearing during my accidental foray into celebrity assault.  Savta had pressed the silver star into my hands at Heathrow, her hands warm and safe. "Your shield," she'd said. "And to remember—you are never just one thing." Thanks for the assist, Savta.

I played the video again. Oh God. Mortifying. My limbs were everywhere. My foot almost caught on the barrier. But there wasn’t anything clearly identifiable, so with any luck, this embarrassment would remain mine alone to cringe over at 2 am for years to come.

The doorbell rang. 

I take it back. That's it. It's over. The sasaengs had found me. Maybe if I turned off the lights, they’d think I wasn’t home.

I hobbled over to the door, still in my practice clothes, and slowly peered through the peephole.

A deliveryman stood there with a harried look on his face, holding a garment bag and an envelope.

"Chae Song-hwa-ssi?" he asked, as I cracked the door open, chain still on.

"I didn't order anything."

"Instructions say to leave it whether you're home or not." He thrust both items at me and fled before I could protest, already swiping on his tablet, onto the next job.

The envelope had my name written in careful Hangul. Inside, hotel stationery:

I believe this is yours. You dropped it while practising your Olympic sprint. —YJW

A frisson of ice shot down my spine.

What.

I unzipped the garment bag, the buzz of the zipper suddenly unsettling. My GB  team jacket stared back at me, the Union Flag bright against navy blue. But how...?

I checked the — freshly laundered?? — jacket and the name tag was still there. Same neat stitching Ma used for my school PE kit: Sarah Chae.

Okay. That explained how he knew my name. It did not explain how he found my address.

Fucking K-pop idols and their S-tier assistants. Or lunch-break sasaengs doing God's work. Who knows.

Tucked in the pocket was a business card. Premium cardstock, minimalist design, just a phone number and a tiny prism symbol in the corner.

I turned it over. English, this time, in the same careful handwriting:

I hope you made it on time.

I stood in my doorway for a full minute, holding my ghost jacket and a K-pop idol's business card, while Seoul hummed its evening song around me. Shutters rattled outside as the greengrocer shut up shop. A siren wailed in the distance. Drunken salarymen laughed, stumbling toward home or their next round.

Coach Park was right. I needed to keep working on my lutz.

But apparently, I needed to work on my situational awareness more.

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