Chapter 32 Midnight Sun
Midnight Sun
“Girls,” Aliona singsongs as we take our seats. “Scary Adventure today.”
The good news, apart from not being eliminated, is that we do get to sleep in beds tonight.
Our hotel “rooms” are individual, isolated glass igloos under the northern lights.
Or, rather, they would be under the northern lights, if it weren’t midnight sun season.
It’s nearly ten at night when Aliona calls us for our interview, and Iceland appears to have settled into a perpetual raspberry-sorbet pink twilight.
“It was definitely a scary Adventure today,” I affirm, keeping my eyes on the gold-streaked horizon instead of looking at my partner.
“How do you feel about your performance today?” Aliona asks bluntly.
I take a deep breath. “I’m really disappointed in my performance. Any Adventureverse fan will tell you that you have to read the clue. I let us down today.”
“You did read the clue,” Yumi protests.
“But I read it wrong.” I cross my arms.
“And I didn’t even notice, so it’s on both of us.”
Aliona’s eyes sparkle. “Interesting. So you’re saying it was a team failure?”
“No,” I say at the same moment Yumi says, “Yes.”
I look at her. The watercolor light softens her features, but not her resolve. “What I mean,” she says, “is that we are a team. Noelle likes to carry the weight of the world on her back, but I’ve been working out.” She flexes playfully. “I can take a turn holding up the sky.”
I chuckle, casting my gaze down as my face heats.
“Noelle wasn’t the only person on today’s Adventure. Getting the items was separate from the challenge—I could’ve helped with that without us getting in trouble, and I didn’t notice it, either.” She says this last part directly to me, emphasizing the words.
“How did it feel racing Bee and Logan to the finish line?” Aliona asks, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.
“It was terrifying racing Bee and Logan to the finish line.”
“I think I saw my life flash before my eyes,” Yumi adds.
“Does this kind of experience bring you closer as a couple?”
There’s a moment of silence as Yumi and I exchange a glance.
“Uh, absolutely,” Yumi says, then corrects, “The Adventureverse has absolutely brought us closer as a couple.”
I nod quickly. Probably too quickly. “This show is a pressure cooker. We’re definitely closer now than we were, say, nine months ago. You know, before we started dating and everything,” I say, trying not to look at Yumi, because I’ll burst out laughing and have to explain myself.
“You two are some of the youngest contestants we’ve had on the show.”
“Except for the Bring Your Child to Adventureverse season,” I interject with the affectionate nickname the fandom has bestowed on Season 21, Family Ties.
“Yes, exactly. How do you feel like your relationship stacks up against people who have been together longer, like Clyde and Cora, who have been together thirty years?”
I furrow my brow. Putting aside the fact that Clyde and Cora probably shouldn’t have stayed together for thirty years, I feel a surge of defensiveness for Yumi, for our friendship and our fake relationship.
“We’re still young, but Yumi and I have known each other for a long time. We’ve been through a lot together. I don’t think you can judge a relationship solely on number of years.”
“But wouldn’t you say that people who have public relationships, like Rania and Kendell or KC and Gabriel, experience more together than two girls in high school?”
It’s bait. It’s such bait. I take it anyway. “I don’t know what Rania and Kendell have experienced, because social media isn’t real.” I smile at the camera. “They could be totally faking it for the camera, and the world would never know.”
Yumi’s hand brushes mine, not to stop me, but to steady me.
“I’m not saying they are faking it, but the only people who know the depth and strength of a relationship are the people inside it. And I’m telling you that Yumi and I have roots that go deeper than the fucking lupines in the Hekla forest.”
Aliona smiles beatifically. Once again, she’s lured me into being Good TV. “Do you think you two will still be together in ten years, then?”
I look at Yumi. She looks back at me. The pause isn’t hesitation, it’s reassurance. She holds eye contact as she says, “Noelle and I will be playing shuffleboard in the old folks’ home.”
Did I say beds? Plural? Because apparently we get to sleep in bed tonight. Singular.
We’ve slept together countless times, but never like this.
We kissed today, don’t go thinking that I’ve forgotten.
Don’t think I ever will. And while, yes, we did share a sleeping bag last night, it was dark in the labyrinth.
It is decidedly not dark here in Iceland.
There isn’t a light to turn off, so I have to watch as Yumi putters around in the fluffy white robe the hotel provides with every room.
The (one) bed is lofted on a platform above the igloo’s central heater and a tiny bathroom. Though the sun isn’t aware of the time, the temperature is. It’s dropped significantly in the past few hours, and the warmth from the heater is a welcome companion.
“It’s just that a tarp isn’t a tool,” she complains, preparing her pack for the morning. “Ask anyone. Ask your dad if he uses a tarp to install wiring or whatever.”
He probably does use tarps, but I don’t say that.
“They worded it like that on purpose to trip us up.”
This much is true. Especially because nobody went home this challenge.
If we were eliminated on a debatable technicality, the fans would riot in the streets with Tools, Not Tarps!
written on picket signs. But because it was a non-elimination leg, it gets to just be fun drama.
Edge-of-your-seat to sigh-of-relief, The Adventureverse’s bread and butter.
Yumi makes her way up the short staircase to the bed. “I’m just glad we’re still here,” she says, the mattress sinking under her weight as she climbs in beside me.
My heart beats a little faster at the brush of her leg against mine as she adjusts.
Her legs are always smooth—I think it’s genetic—and I can’t help but wonder if mine are, too.
Or are they prickly from not shaving? I stop just short of reaching down to feel for myself.
Because that would be crossing the line.
That would be doing something weird. This?
Lying inches apart from Yumi Panganiban and thinking about her lack of clothing and soft skin is normal.
Completely normal. Very friendly. Straight, even.
“Today was…a lot, huh?” Yumi whispers.
Our faces are way too close, but neither of us moves.
“Yep,” I manage. Yep? Who says that? “That challenge was specifically designed to break me,” I joke.
Her eyes search mine. “I wasn’t talking about the challenge.”
I nearly choke on my own tongue. Was it too much to hope that we’d both just repress it? “Oh. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Crazy.” There is something deeply wrong with me.
Yumi just smiles knowingly. “At least you didn’t run away this time.”
“There’s a lot more money on the line this time,” I joke, watching the clouds drift by above us. Joking is safe. Banter is good. Then I realize she might have taken that the wrong way. I turn to look at her, but she doesn’t seem bothered.
She stares me down with an unreadable expression, something close to amusement but not quite that. “Because of the show,” she says wryly.
“Right.”
“Right.”
I’m hyperaware of everything. The hum of the heater. The sound of my breathing—is it too loud? Should I try to breathe more quietly? How exposed we are in this glass dome, like figures in a snow globe.
In the stillness, Yumi’s hand finds mine under the covers, interlacing our fingers. She doesn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t say anything. Her face doesn’t even indicate that she’s done it. It’s as if neither of us has moved at all.
She squeezes my hand. I squeeze back. It reminds me of what I said to Aliona earlier: the only people who really know a relationship are the people inside it. Only the figures in the snow globe know what’s happening under the covers.
“Good night, Noe.”
“Night, Yumi.”
My waking mind is a fearful and confused thing. But my subconscious? She has game.
In the morning, Yumi is curled into me, her head on my chest, her breathing slow and gentle.
I steal glances at her profile. The sun’s glow, exactly the same as it was when we fell asleep, casts a warm halo around her face, highlighting the shape of her slightly parted lips, the delicate curve of her cheek, the way her lashes flutter against her skin as she dreams—all details that have long been etched into my memory.
I allow myself to enjoy the weight of her while I have it. All I can hope is that when this show ends, I get to stay friends with Yumi. Anything beyond that…
I recognize that thinking is my enemy. So I don’t think.
This morning in Iceland, with Yumi’s body soft and solid and warm pressed against me, I just am.