“What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“We were almost there! Why did you look away?” It’s because I felt a huge wave of guilt when I looked into your eyes. I remembered that I was the cause of your accident, why you ran away and met an accident. But of course, I couldn’t tell her that.

“I... um.. a dust particle got into my eye and I had to look away to blink it off instead of doing it facing you.” What a stupid lie.

“I don’t buy that. We both know that’s not true.” Okay, she’s good at catching lies. What do I say?

“Okay guys, gather here! We will now announce the second activity.” We heard Mrs. Song’s voice through her megaphone. I’ve never been so thankful about Mrs. Song. I guess instead of “Saved by the bell”, it would be “Saved by the Song”.

I stood in the middle of the crowd, close, but with a distance to Jessica. I didn’t want to face her wrath again.

“The second activity will be the Blindfold Activity. Only one out of the pair will be blindfolded. The other one will be responsible in guiding his or her partner towards the end of the track or the finish line. The blindfolded one will have to hold on to his or her partner until they reach the end. Facilitators will be alongside the tracks, saying things for distraction. What they will be saying might be true or not, but it will be purely up to your non-blindfolded partner to tell you what truth. Your time will be recorded in this. But although this is time pressured, your safety will be prioritized, do you all understand me?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“So, who will be blindfolded?” Our facilitator asked us. Since neither Jessica and I spoke up, or rather, wanted to speak up, our blindfolding fate was decided by flipping a coin. Heads will be me, tails will be Jessica. In the end, Jessica ended up as the one being blindfolded.

The facilitator placed the blindfold around her eyes and held her wrist to guide her. I’m glad it wasn’t supposed to be me who’ll do that to her. Together, we walked towards the start of the track. Our facilitator stopped and let go of her wrist to pass her on to me. Jessica panicked when she didn’t feel any hand on her so she immediately stretched her arms to try and look for something or someone to hold on to. And since I was standing close to her, she brushed my arm with her hand and immediately clung on to me.

“Ms. Kim, Ms. Hwang, I will be waiting for you in the finish line to record your final time. Good luck and please be safe.” The facilitator fished his stopwatch out of his pocket and clicked start, walked away, and left us.

I took the initiative to lead her in walking. The first path was a straight path, and I guess they made it this way for the blindfolded ones to be familiar with the feeling of being blindfolded first. I suddenly remembered what Mrs. Song has said, and decided to speak about it towards my partner.

“No matter what the facilitators say, may it be true or not, don’t listen to them.”

She didn’t reply, but I believed in the saying, Silence means yes, so I guess I’ll just have to hold on to that and hope she really will do as I say. The end of the straight path leads to a curve to the right, so we turned.

I noticed that there were obstacles that we needed to get through, and now, we need to be more careful. There was a wet floor sign 15 meters away from us, and I could already see that the floor was indeed wet. We were already nearing it and I was about to inform Jessica about it when a facilitator spoke up.

“Run forward!” I felt the tug by Jessica’s hand, indicating that she was indeed planning to run.

“Jessica, no!” I placed my hand over hers, locking it around my arm. “You’ll slip if you do that. The only voice you should listen to is mine.”

 I felt her grip tighter around my arm, and to be honest, my arm still hurt a lot. But at the moment, I’d rather choose her to grip my arm tighter, than to let go and go on her own, so I held her closer to me. I find it comforting yet pressuring as well. I know she’s depending on me for this one. I had to make sure that I’ll be able to let the both of us out safely. For that, I had to concentrate, but having her so close to me makes me distracted as well. There’s still this thing I’m feeling whenever she touches me, and that feeling is beginning to become familiar again after all these years.

I guided her along the remaining path of the track. Some facilitators were still distracting Jessica, telling her to go left, go right, stop, even playing scary sound effects and music. I was actually impressed that Jessica didn’t seem to be getting scared by it. She did shake a bit here and there but nothing too much not to be handled. I made sure to hold on to her properly as for her not to do anything rash.

We were doing okay, until we reached a bridge- like path which was only wide enough to be crossed by one person at a time. There was no way we could walk together, side by side, at this condition.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Jessica speak up for the first time since this challenge started. She must have noticed that we stopped for a while. I was trying to figure out how we would be able to get through the narrow bridge- like board safely and properly. Clearly, making her go ahead of me won’t work, and leaving her behind will also not work since I won’t be able to guide her properly with me in front of her and she might take a wrong step and fall off. I can’t put her safety at risk. So, what’s my plan so that we can cross it together?

There was only one thing I have on my mind.

“Jessica, I need you to get on my back.”

“What?” I could understand her doubt, but I really couldn’t think of anything else better than this, knowing that our time was ticking.

I detached myself from her without letting go of her hand, as to not make her feel anxious, then crouched in front of her. I guided both her arms on my shoulders. “Here, hop on.”

“What the hell is up, Kim?”

“Just do as I say.”

“I can’t do what you’re telling me if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Why can’t we just walk together?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“How can it be dangerous? Besides, I have this urge to laugh at your face when you said you’d carry me.” She was really doubting me, and I admit that it hurt a bit. But for us to finish this challenge, she has to get on my back.

“There are rats, spiders, cockroaches on the path we are about to cross, mixed with a mixture of rotten fruits vegetables like carrots, lettuce, cucumbers…” And there she was hopping onto my back as immediately after I said cucumbers. The thought itself was too funny, but this I caught her thighs just in time

“Make sure my feet doesn’t touch any of th-those, okay?”

I felt her arms around my shoulders and neck tighten, but I didn’t mind it one bit. With a smirk on my face, I slowly got up and faced the path we were about to cross.

“Got it.”

-

“You may now take your blindfold off” We were able to spot our facilitator when we reached the end of the track. Jessica took off her blindfold on her own. I was a bit nervous of our time, ‘because I think I unconsciously walked a bit slower when we reached the final curve of the track. I don’t even know why.

“9 minutes and 30 seconds.”

My first reaction was to frown. That seemed too long.

“You shouldn’t be wearing that frown if I were you.” Our facilitator’s lips curved upwards and the both of us looked up at him. “The rest took more than 15 minutes. “

“Really?”

“Yes. There was even a pair who surrendered. I think it was because of the scary and spooky part, and the girl literally ran all the way back to the starting line. I wonder what her partner must’ve felt.” I frowned at that.  “But I heard that most of the pairs found it hard to complete the last part of the track. Uhh.. the one with the narrow bridge, I guess? How did you guys do it?”

“I carried her on my back.” The facilitator seemed impressed. “You’re quite a strong lady despite your body build then. I’m happy that you guys weren’t too awkward with each other when you did that.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, you guys must not know each other very well, right? I’m glad that she agreed to be carried on your back.”

“I wasn’t even going to agree if it wasn’t for the spiders and cucumbers.” Jessica spoke up and upon realizing it, my eyes widened.

“Spiders and cucumbers?” I noticed that the facilitator raised his eyebrow.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to get near them, let alone touch them.”

“I don’t think there are spiders and cu-“

“Ah.. ahh.. I think w-we are needed for the next challenge now!” I immediately intercepted the facilitator. I didn’t need another reason for Jessica to hate me more. If she knew that I just lied about those cucumbers for her to get on my back, we’ll never get any work done in the future. She might even accuse me of something else or that I have an ulterior motive or something.

“I think you’re right. Mrs. Song is about to blow her whistle again. Better cover your ears up now.” I’m glad that I was able to distract him. Phew.

-

“Now to proceed with our next activity. This activity is entitled Catch me when I fall” I choked on the nonexistent lump on my throat. What the hell is up with the activity title? “For this activity, one person will stand on a chair and will face away from his or her partner. You will be given two minutes to let yourself fall from the chair, and allow your partner to catch you. This will be an extreme test of trust. If you accomplish this activity, you will gain 100 points. Deductions will be made if the partner will not be caught properly. Obviously, the stronger one out of the two will be the one to catch his or her partner. Once you step on the chair, you can’t look back at your partner. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“But I’ll give you a bonus… if both of you decide to withdraw and not do the task, I’ll give you 50 points. But if you decide to proceed with the task but fail to accomplish it, you get none.” She smirked.  “Good luck” Mrs. Song walked off the podium, but it still haven’t sunk in me.

“So Miss Kim… I assume you’ll be the one in standby to catch Miss Hwang, right?”

“I..uhh…yes.“ He must’ve based it from what we did when we crossed the narrow bridge earlier.

“Very well then. Miss Hwang, let me guide you in stepping on the chair.” The facilitator offered his hand. Her expression was unreadable but she took it and allowed herself to be supported until she was already standing on the chair.

“So remember guys, you only have two minut