I snatched my jacket hanging on the door out of instinct before I immediately closed it, pulling Jessica with me through it all. When we got out of our room, we were met by several pairs of eyes, all lined up in a single line. I realized that we must've been the last pair to come out of our rooms, if not, one of the last ones to do so. Both of us caught our breaths as we stood in line, along with the rest.

"What's your name?"

"Kim Taeyeon, ma'am." 

"You both are lucky you made it in the nick of time." The coordinator gave us a smile that was more of intimidating than comforting. "So no punishment for the both of you this time."

"Thank you ma'am" I responded by doing a slight bow along with it. I saw our coordinator's eyes trail down to the direction between me and Jessica, which made us both turn to where she was looking at. That was when we both noticed that we were still holding hands. My eyes widened in shock and tried to meet her eyes. I couldn't comprehend what I should do, but Jessica was quicker in thinking and she roughly pulled her hand away from my grasp. I don't even know why I held her hand in the first place. The coordinator gave us a smirk before she moved on to scold two other pairs who were late in getting out of their rooms. I tied my jacket around my waist, securing it there.

"Hey there." I looked to my left and a smiling girl greeted me. 

"H-hi."

"You guys are lucky to have made it before the countdown. I honestly couldn't sleep last night 'cause I was so nervous so I had difficulty waking up earlier. I feel sorry for my roommate." It was then that I realized that she must've been one of those pairs who would be given punishment.

"Don't worry about it too much. Just do your best in the upcoming challenges so that you'd be more confident. Then, maybe you'd have less things to think about tonight." She smiled at me.

"Hmm.. Maybe you're right. Thanks. I'm Sheryl Tuan."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kim Tae-"

"Kim Taeyeon, right?" She might've noticed that I got caught off-guard so she giggled and explained herself.

"You're quite popular around here, actually. You've been a frequent talk in the company. Then I finally saw you when you introduced yourself in last week's meeting."

"Oh." I'm that popular around here? At the moment, I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. "Nice to meet you, Sheryl." I tilted my head back to the front, but in my peripheral vision, I swear I saw Jessica tilt her head towards the front too at the same time I did, as if, she's been caught doing something. Wait. Was she looking at me? Couldn't be. I didn't want to look at her. Not after the embarrassing holding-hands-longer-than-needed thing. I wasn't actually planning to talk to her throughout the day if not for that damn wake up punishment threat. And I honestly have to put more effort into what Seohyun reminded me not to do. Refrain from talking with her. Being with her just makes it harder and harder. You can do it, Taeyeon.  

After a couple of minutes, the coordinator proceeded in front of all of us in the center where we all could see her. She raised her megaphone up to , greeted us all and introduced herself as Mrs. Song. 

"Good Morning everyone. Sorry to wake you up so early and sudden. But I just have to remind you that this is a training. You may not have expected to stay in such a mediocre place, what more, share a room with another person or colleague. You may have asked between yourselves why when the company is more than capable to provide and afford luxurious hotel rooms for each one of you, but let me tell you this. You all have to know what it feels like to start at the bottom and experience what it feels like to work your way up to the top. And what's up with the warning earlier this morning? It's because you also have to learn to put up with your roommate. If not, you will both be punished. Why is that? In being a great leader of a company, you need to be in a good relationship with your colleagues and subordinates to have a good coordination and teamwork. You cannot be Disneyland Corp's next CEO if you are not s disciplined person yourself. If you can't even put up with how your roommate snores or if you can't even be considerate to place your clothes in the proper places and not scatter them on the floor, then you have a long long way to go."

I nodded my head as to what Mrs. Song had just said.  I tilted my head to the sides and observed the other's reactions. Others seemed to have understood and nodded their heads like me, but some also expressed confusion, discomfort, protest and even disgust by scrunching up their noses. Personally, I didn't find any problem with the place we're currently staying at. I mean, I don't even have a real home to start with... 

"Oh, before I forget..." All heads looked back at the woman in front of us. "Anticipate today and tomorrow's events. Be careful, but do your best." Again, most of us showed confusion as to what that might mean. She showed  us that smile again before she reached for the whistle hanging on her neck and blew into it.

"Okay, now that we're done with the introductions, let's get on with the real thing. First challenge, look around. Notice the sticks sticking from the ground?" We looked around and noticed what she was talking about. There were several sticks along the shoreline, and I think they're buried halfway underground. "Those are inverted flaglets. All you have to do is to run and head to one, dig it, know the color of your flaglet, then run around and find the person with the same color flaglet as you have. He or she will be your partner for the challenges prepared for this day. Yep, I said run. You have to run because you'll only be given a minute to do all these. If you fail to find your partner in time, you'll have to work individually and separately. I don't think you'll want that, right?"

I definitely didn't want to.

"3..." I slightly bent my knees, getting ready for the signal

"2..." I looked at the line of sticks along the shore, undecided where I'll be heading.

"1..." To the left. Away from Jessica. I quickly scanned along the sticks and fixed my eyes on one. That's it.

"Go!" 

I dashed towards the stick I fixed my eyes on,  running diagonally towards the left. It's quite a distance, to be honest. But I didn't want to jeopardize my chance and not have a partner. When I reached the shoreline, I dropped on my knees and quickly dug on the sand. It was harder since the sea was making the sand wet, thus it makes it harder to dig it. After struggling to dig my fingers on the sand, I was finally able to pull the flaglet out. Blue. My flaglet is color blue.

"30 seconds!" I heard Mrs. Song shout through the megaphone. I have to find my partner quick. I scanned the people on the shore. Some were running around and scanning for the person with their matching flaglets as well, but there were some who were still struggling to get their flaglets out. I ran towards the right, waving my flaglet in front of me. I must've looked like a fool while doing it, but it didn't matter at the moment. Some noticed me through this, but they looked away soon after as their flaglet colors didn't match with mine.

Red, no.

Green.

Yellow

"Taeyeon!" I felt a hand on my shoulder which made me turn around. It was Sheryl and she was still wearing a smile on her face.

"Oh hey! What color did you get?" I trailed my eyes down to her flaglet, which she was waving in front of her chest, just like what I was doing earlier. Blue. It's blue!  My eyes lit up for a moment when I saw the color of her flaglet.

"Just a reminder! Your flaglets have to match. Check the shades too. It may be of the same color but if the shades are different, it won't count." I panicked.

Sheryl and I brought up our flaglets next to one another and noticed that our shades don't completely match. Hers was darker in shade than mine, which was more on the lighter shade. 

"Excuse me, but I think we have more matching shades of flaglets." A man came up to Sheryl waving his own flaglet. They compared for a second, and yes, they were of the same shade. Sheryl slightly frowned but she bid me goodluck as she went with her partner to stand in line with the rest who were able to find their partners already.

"10 seconds!"

Fudge.

I began running like crazy, almost bumping into some people. I stopped when I realized that I was in the middle of the beach, with people still running around to look for their partners. As the seconds pass, less and less running people were on sight. I was beginning to lose hope, and was preparing myself to face on the day's challenges alone. But when the once crowded area in front of me began clearing out of the way, I saw a person standing still, looking around the beach, before stopping to face in my direction as well. Jessica. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second before our eyes trailed down to look at each other's flaglets. Light Blue.

Yes! 

...

Wait. 

...

No! 

...

Wait.

"5..." The struggle was real. When the countdown reached the final  five seconds, we must've both been alarmed as we started running towards each other.

"4..." Now, I'm sure that we're going to reach each other on time. 

"3..."  But the problem is that we were both running so fast towards each other that we both were struggling how to stop and not crash into each other

"2..." But we were just approaching each other too fast that I was sure that it was going to hurt us both. I used a lot of my leg strength