Climbing Up to You - Minsung

Chapter 7

Jisung untied his shoes before kicking them off. He was beyond frustrated. He'd flashed two of the walls but didn't even manage to get past the second zone on the last wall. Sure it was the hardest one. But Jisung even knew the route he was going to take. The Beta was easy. Tugging on his hair Jisung looked at the leaderboard on his phone. He was sitting in fourth. Minho was in third due to his speed climb being faster. Now all that was left was the lead. An Italian climber was currently in first. Jisung was confused by that. His name was Julio, Jisung only knew him from a few other contests but the guy only ever managed to sit in the middle of the board.

"Han let's go, Lead is up" Chris called Jisung as he strode towards the boy.

"Minho better repay me" Jisung grumbled as he stood up and grabbed his binoculars that he kept in his rucksack.

—-

"And here we have it, the last discipline for the Combined World Cup, this route is by far the hardest we've seen so far in the season, the route setters definitely didn't skimp out on making this a difficult route," Jackson announced as the climbers began to discuss and look at the route.

"Now we can see the climbers going forwards and taking it in turns to check out the start of the route, similar to the Bouldering route where the climbers are allowed to feel the starting holdings." Jamie discussed.

"That's right, the climbers always have at least three points of contact which they have to start on. Right now we can see Hyunjin and Seungmin from the US talking quickly about the starting hold as they move out the way to allow the other climbers time to see it.

"There's also Minho and Jisung standing further back from the group already sharing binoculars and pointing up nearer the top, it's clear Minho is repaying Jisung for his help on the Boulders" Jackson explained to the online watchers.

——-

"The holds seem too easy" Minho sighed as he handed the binoculars back to Han.

"They probably have no friction on them in some places, It seems that way for most of the route, except the middle where it's obvious they want to test our strength and push us by having a lot of smaller holds" Jisung added as he pointed to the small section just below some large holds, at a slight angle.

"Well if you stay to the right that section is probably going to be easier, you'd reach the larger holds quicker than if you were on the left, and you'd be able to rest quicker and use less energy." Minho shrugged at his own idea and looked for Han's reaction.

"True, but then it's at an angle so you'll be using a lot of energy anyways regardless." Jisung turned to Minho.

Minho went to respond but the timer went off and they were all ushered back into the waiting room. Jisung glanced at Chris who was already waiting in the pits with the other coaches and he gave the boy a thumbs up.

—--

Jisung sat down on his chair, grabbed his water and took a large gulp. He had a fairly long time to wait until it was his turn and so he took the chance to actually compose himself before putting in his headphones and spacing out for the wait.

Not many climbers opted to speak in the waiting room today, it seemed like everyone was keeping to themselves, there was the occasional chatter from climbers of the same team but it was all in whispers and hushed voices. It was tense.

Jisung leant down to untie his shoes and leave them off for the time being.

"Oh sorry can I get past?" Julio the Italian currently sitting in first place asked Jisung to move.

"Huh? Oh yeah sure" Jisung hummed as he moved his bag out of the way and saw the boy rush off towards what he assumed was the direction of the toilets. Clearly, the nerves were getting the best of him, as the boy looked slightly pale and queasy.