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“You don’t even upload on to your channel that often.” Minho grumbled as he fell back on the mat as he watched Jisung adjust the camera that was on a tripod.
“You’ve been watching my youtube channel?” He raised an eyebrow and grinned towards Minho as he flipped the view finder round. It was pointing towards the bouldering wall.
“Don’t think you’re special Jisungie.” Minho sat up and smirked as Jisung approached him.” I’m subbed to all the climbers channels. Anyways don’t you just usually sit and talk about past competitions? You’ve never done this kind of video before.” Minho leaned back on his arms as Jisung leaned into his space.
“Should I be jealous?” Jisung glared lightly, arms crossing.
Minho leaned forward, mouth brushing against Jisung’s lightly, “hmm, don’t tell anyone else you’re my fave.”
“I’ll keep it a secret.” Jisung closed the gap and kissed Minho softly before moving back and rushing over to his bag. Inside he had a bowl full of different challenges and some questions for him to answer in the video. He had posted on his instagram to ask people to give him challenges for the pair and questions for them to answer.
Minho shuffled himself over so he sat on the mat in front of the camera as Jisung double checked the angle making sure his ‘rule of thirds’ was perfect.
“You good to start?” Jisung asked as he clicked on the record button and sat down beside his boyfriend.
“Am I expected to answer in English?” Minho raised an eyebrow as he turned to Jisung.
Jisung usually filmed all his videos in English. The very few he had made in Korea he had mixed in some Korean with his video, especially when he did a small video with Miihi and the pair were watching old competition videos of themselves and reacting to their skills.
“You can speak Korean, I can edit in subtitles if you do. I’ll probably mainly speak Korean so it’s easier for you. But I don’t know all the climbing terms in Korean so I may mix in English.” Jisung explained as he pulled the bowl onto his lap and clapped his hands towards the camera.
“Hello! Welcome back to my channel. Today I have a very special guest. Most of you will know him as the Lead expert. I know him as my annoying boyfriend- Ow–” Jisung rubbed his arm where Minho punched him lightly, “I mean my super cool and loving boyfriend, Minho Hyung!”
“Hi.” Minho gave a small smile and a wave.
“If you follow my instagram you’ll know I asked you to send in questions or climbing challenges! I’ve put them all into this bowl and we’ll be doing four or five of them. We don’t have much time as we have a training session soon. So I’ll be saving the rest for another video.” Jisung explained as he shook the bowl full of folded paper and put his hand in it and felt around for a slip he deemed good enough.
“We’ll take turns picking!” Jisung pulled out a slip and unfolded it as Minho leaned in to read it over his shoulder.
Why did you choose to specialise in Lead and Boulder?
“Oh!” Jisung grinned and leant back, knocking Minho’s shoulder lightly. That’s a good one.” Jisung scrunched up the paper and threw the ball over towards his bag.
“I guess I chose Boulder because I liked how you had to focus all your energy into doing the climb in the smallest amount of attempts. It makes you have to solve problems under pressure and I like that there’s a wide variety of different betas that you can do! There’s also a bunch of different styles that boulder problems have, so you can train and climb in so many different ways.” Jisung explained as simply as he could.
“Min? How about you? Why do you like Lead climbing?” Jisung nudged his shoulder, which Minho knocked his own shoulder back against.
“Hmm, It’s fun.” Minho shrugged,” I like that you just have to commit to one attempt. I prefer the long stamina of it. I do a lot of running to help with that. It’s a good mix of adrenaline from being up high and getting to exercise your strength and stamina all in one go. You get to go all out for one attempt.”
“Yeah, I like lead cause you get to focus your attention on just one climb rather than having to switch between three or four problems. But then my brain sometimes prefers being able to switch off after one problem and being able to then focus on a new one.” Jisung nodded as he passed the bowl over to Minho.
“I hate bouldering for that exact reason. Too much brain work.” Minho chuckled lightly as plucked out the top slip of paper.
“Ah, A challenge. Climb a route without any chalk.” Minho scrunched up his eyes and sighed.
Jisung let out a groan and fell back on the mats, “Howwww”
Minho patted Jisung’s stomach and the younger boy squirmed lightly as sat back upwards facing the camera.
“”We’ll be back when we figure out which route to climb.” Jisung clapped his hands.
—--------
Standing in front of a red bouldering problem Jisung flicked the camera back on, “Okay! So we do have the problem that because we are in the Korea training centre a lot of the climbs are V7 and up. So it's not really wise to climb them without any chalk. But we do have a couple of warm up problems that aren’t on our spray wall. So we’ll be doing these.” Jisung motioned to the couple of problems that are in a small corner of the gym.
“Even better for your entertainment, it’s a slab.” Minho deadpanned into the camera. He shook his head and headed over to the wall as Jisung filmed him set himself up, his hand automatically going to reach for a chalk bag on his waist that wasn’t there.
“I’m going to fail.” Minho muttered as he pushed himself up off the first foot hold to grab onto the small hand hold. Luckily it wasn’t too small and he could hold onto it by crimping the entire volume.
“You’ve got this. It’s not too hard.” Jisung grinned as Minho looked back from the wall and glared at him. Jisung let out a small chuckle.
Minho reached his foot across onto a dual-tex foot volume and gently placed it down so he could start traversing his weight from his left leg into his right. As he did his hand dry-fired off the wall and his right foot slipped on the volume causing him to fall off.
“Ugh, without chalk I'm gonna be flying off the walls so easily. “ Minho huffed as he let out a deep breath, clapping his hands together and going back to the start of the wall.
“Just go super slowly, and you’ll manage.” Jisung bit his lip knowing how annoyed Minho would get by the stupid instructions and help.
“Yah! Do you want to try it?” Minho rolled his eyes as he pulled his boy up onto the wall and began his slow movements again. Jisung brought the camera closer to Minho as he managed to traverse to the next part of the wall. His right hand came up to hold onto a tiny pinch, which couldn’t be bigger than a small coin.
“Move the camera or I'll kick you.” Minho gritted his teeth taking the challenge way too seriously as he nudged his left foot over to the volume to match with his right foot.
Jisung quickly stepped to the side as Minho lost the grip on his hand and fell backwards onto the mats.
“I give up, there’s no way I can do it without chalk unless I just rub my hands raw onto my shorts to stop the sweat from making me slip.” Minho shook his head and stalked back towards where they had the bowl and tripod.
—---------
“Right.” Jisung sighed as they collapsed back onto the mat as the pair looked back into the camera. Minho pulled an annoyed face at his failed attempt of doing the slab without any chalk.
“Let’s go for another one..” Jisung grabbed the bowl and quickly pulled out a slip of paper.
How does it feel to have an Olympic Medal?
“Oh! That’s a good one.” Jisung thought for a moment before answering, “Honestly I still haven’t gotten used to it. I think when I go back to the UK to see my family it will sink in more, because they haven’t seen me or the medal since. I think the whole competition was crazy. I feel like I have amnesia from it. Kinda like when you go to a concert and you just forget everything.”
“True, I can’t remember much from the Olympics even if it only was a few weeks ago. Probably because it was such high tensions I never had time to really stop and think about what was happening. I still look at pictures of us on the podium, unable to really recognise this was something we achieved.” Minho added on.
“It of course is an amazing feeling. I think when everything calms down from doing interviews and having a break before winter training actually starts, that’s when it will actually set in.” Jisung nodded.
“Honestly, every time I look at my medal, there’s a part of me that doesn’t quite believe I’ve achieved it. Because besides the World Championships, the Olympics are now the biggest achievement you can have with Climbing. I think when we start our off-season training and start planning for the next world cup series it will sink in that there’s now some sort of defending that we have to do to prove we deserved the medals.” Minho explained as he stuffed his hand into the bowl to pull out another slip.
“Ah, another challenge.” Minho hummed
Climb a route with one of you blindfolded and the other guiding
“Well I think Jisungie should be the one blindfolded, considering I had to do the boulder without any chalk.” Minho grinned as he stood and already grabbed the pair's two harnesses from their bags.
“But surely it should be you cause you’re best at Lead.” Jisung crossed his arms over his chest, glancing at the camera as he showed his fingers crossed to the camera.
“If i’m the best, then i’ll be the best to guide you if you can’t see as I’ll be able to read the route whilst also belaying you.” Minho grinned.
Jisung took his harness from Minho and began putting it on.
“Okay, but we’re doing top rope, it’s way too dangerous to do lead climbing blind, especially as I won’t be able to see where the quick-drawers are or can estimate the gap between when I last clipped if I fall.” Jisung laid out some rules which Minho easily agreed with.
“Okay, we’ll be back when we are all set up!”
—-----
Jisung made a fun swooshing sound as he moved his hand that was covering the camera lens away to show Minho tied up with the grigri and Jisung with his harness secured and tied to the rope.
“Okay, so we don’t have an actual blindfold so I'm using Minho’s spare shirt. Which may fall down at some point. If that happens I'll either re-tie it or we will stop there. We are only going to be doing maybe half or a third of a climb depending on how long it takes.” Jisung explained as Minho came and attached Jisung’s chalk bag for him, the same one he used at the Olympics. He had become slightly attached to the pairs matching chalk bags. Never using his old one.
“I’ll be giving Jisungie instructions, and if he falls that’s the end of the challenge.” Minho also added as he grabbed his old shirt and began securing it around Jisung’s eyes.
“Ew it smells.” Jisung wrinkled his nose as he joked as he chalked up his hands
“Yah! That’s actually clean, stop spreading lies or I'll leave you abandoned halfway up the wall.” Minho shoved Jisung lightly. Jisung spun and tried to shove Minho back, his hands not landing directly, only pushing Minho on the shoulder and top of his back causing his boyfriend to giggle lightly. Leaving chalk handprints over Minho’s shirt.
“Right, come on, we only have a few minutes before we get interrupted.” Minho grabbed Jisung’s shoulders and guided him to the bottom of the wall.
Minho looked towards the camera as he pulled the rope through his belaying device, “Sungie read the route before being blindfolded, it’s also a climb we’ve both done before so we know the beta. But of course that means nothing when you’re unable to see where you’re going.”
Jisung began to feel around for the start. The climb itself wasn’t too difficult, a lot of larger holders so that it was easier for Jisung to climb.
“Okay, so it’s a nice Jug to start.” Minho began to explain as Jisung’s hand found the jug hold.
“Now just pull yourself upwards and on your left there is a foot hold, yep.. Just a bit higher, almost. Yep.” Minho nodded as Jisung made sure his foot was secure on the foothold before balancing and listening to Minho’s other instructions.
Jisung got a few more moves up before the next hold caused him problems, with one foot dangling helplessly and his hands both gripping onto a sloper for dear life.
“Stop letting your foot just dangle, at least match it with your other foot. It’s like teaching a five year old how to climb. You’re supposed to be an Olympic climber.” Minho chuckled as he shouted up.
“Do you want to do this?! At least give me instructions on where my foot could go!” Shouted back mildly annoyed as he chalked up one of his hands before making a match and chalking up the other.
Jisung could already imagine the comments on his video either loving their petty squabbles or at least one person is going to say something like their ‘honeymoon’ phase is over.
“If you push yourself up there’s a nice jug above you, and then you can do a knee lock with the sloper your hands are on and the jug.” Minho explained simply.
Jisung reached up and moved his hand around, the tension growing in his arm as he tried to find the hold.
“Higher!” Minho shouted.
Jisung huffed and fell back into his position on the sloper, he didn’t have the strength to just mindlessly aim for the hold and hope he could find it.
“At least give me actual directions, not just ‘higher’” Jisung whined as he re-chalked his hands again and pushed up to find the hold.
“To your right!” Minho called up and Jisung managed to hit his hand on the jug, able to then feel around and secure his hold. As he grabbed it he pulled his body up and locked his knee into place so he could rest.
“I don’t even want to know how far we’ve gotten. Probably not even like ten holds up.” Jisung sighed as he scratched his head and pushed his hair out his face.
As Minho began calling up instructions for the next section the training centre door swung open and See-Yung walked in, clipboard in his hand, a harness already tied around his waist.
“Sungie, See-Yung is here.” Minho called out.
Jisung pulled the t-shirt off his face and wasn’t surprised they had barely gotten a third up the wall. Minho began to lower his boyfriend down as See-Yung took it upon himself to stop the camera from recording.
“I would get annoyed at you for climbing whilst blindfolded. But they do that in para-climbing. I’m just glad you didn’t lead climb it. Should I even ask why you were recording yourself doing it?” See-yung questioned as Minho helped Jisung untie his rope so he could pull it and feed it through the anchor at the top of the wall.
“For my youtube channel!” Jisung grinned as he began disassembling the tripod and storing the camera away. He’d have to film an outro at another time.
“Don’t you just do sit down videos? I thought you only posted training videos on your instagram?” See-Yung asked as he glanced over to the doors as they swung open. Changbin, Jeongyeon, and Miihi all chatting to each other carrying their own harnesses and chalk bags.
“Ah” Jisung scratched the back of his head, his face flushing as he realised the coach was watching his channel.
“I wanted to try something different. And thought it would be fun to answer some questions and do some challenges with Minho Hyung.”
Minho placed the now neatly rolled up climbing rope beside his bag and slung an arm over Jisung's shoulder. Jisung leant back into the warmth of Minho’s chest as See-Yung gave them a once over.
“I’m happy for you both, but if this” He motioned between the pair, “becomes a distraction for the pair of you, or others. It’s going to be a problem.”
Minho gave a small salute as the South Korean coach rolled his eyes.
“That being said, Jisung, you're not training today. Momo wanted to talk to you. You haven’t had a chance to speak with her since you came back from the Olympics right?”
Jisung nodded softly,” I was going to message her and ask when she was free actually so that’s good. I’ll pack up and go.”
See-Yung gave a curt nod and began telling the others to warm up.
Jisung loosened his harness and pulled it off, putting it in his climbing bag along with his chalk.
“Want me to come?” Minho came up to him and asked quietly. His hand reached out to touch Jisung’s shoulder.
“I should be good Min. I’ll text you when I’m done and come back here anyways.” Jisung gave a small smile.
“Okay, hope it goes well.” Minho squeezed Jisung’s shoulder and leant in and gave him a soft kiss, Jisung quickly reciprocated it, his hand falling to Minho’s waist, tugging him in slightly.
“Ew! Do we have to deal with that constantly now? If so, I'm quitting!” Miihi joked as the pair pulled away and laughed lightly.
Minho patted Jisung on the butt and nudged him towards the door.