The Darkened Movie Theater
After an expensive lunch, it was Yeoncheong who had suggested a walk to aid digestion, and yet...
In reality, she was closer to being dragged this way and that, held fast by the hand by Seoha.
A... date?
Using the soft sensation in her hand as a guidepost, her blue eyes wandered.
Her focus slowly settled on Seoha's face as the girl strode ahead of her along the street, and at the faint smile playing there, Yeoncheong hastily averted her gaze.
Because of what she said earlier, that's why...
Yeoncheong, who had never once thought of hanging out with a friend as a "date," was thoroughly confused.
It had never been like this when she met up with Suyeon alone. Funny, how the exact same event could mean something entirely different depending on how you named it.
The moment she called today's outing a "date," the ordinary act of eating lunch with a friend and going to see a movie took on a whole other meaning.
Just as Yeoncheong—who had never given any deep thought to being more than friends with Seoha—was drowning in a sea of thought over a single word...
Is she bored?
Seoha, for whom even walking hand in hand down the street was a joy in itself, had begun quietly studying Yeoncheong's expression.
At first she'd assumed the girl simply hadn't recovered from the shock of the lunch bill, but seeing it drag on this long, there was clearly another reason.
Seoha was content just like this.
Still, it would be even nicer if the person she liked smiled for her.
Suddenly, Seoha stopped walking.
With time being limited, even a moment wasted on dawdling felt precious to her.
"Oof!"
Yeoncheong, whose mind had been elsewhere, failed to notice and stepped right on Seoha's shoe.
"Sorry! Is your foot okay?"
"What are you thinking about so hard, when you're with me?"
Seoha didn't spare the shoe so much as a glance, her eyes fixed on Yeoncheong instead.
"...Nothing, really?"
Seoha caught the head of her evasive friend, turned it toward her so their eyes met, and asked again.
"You've already been caught, so out with it."
Such was the commanding tone of her friend.
Head held in place, eyes darting every which way, Yeoncheong hesitated, her lips wavering.
"It's... just... you said it was a date, so... it's been weighing on me, that's all..."
That's it? That's the whole reason?
The owner of the round red eyes let out a short, breathy ah of realization.
Releasing the head she'd been holding, Seoha called her friend's name.
"Yeoncheong."
"Yeah?"
"'Date' isn't a word only for couples, you know."
"Huh?"
It was the same one-syllable answer as before, but this time the tail end of it rose oddly.
Yeoncheong's head tilted to one side, her common sense having just been flatly denied.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Not for everyone, but some people call going out to hang out together a date too."
Only then did Yeoncheong understand what Seoha was saying.
Her face flushed crimson at the realization that she had been spinning elaborate fantasies all by herself.
"...Is that actually true?"
"If you don't believe me, ask Suyeon or one of the others."
Her expression was perfectly serious.
When Seoha said it with a firm nod to boot, Yeoncheong had no choice but to believe her.
The misunderstanding had been cleared up with almost insulting ease. Seoha smiled at her friend, who was trembling with mortification.
"If you'd been thinking of this as that kind of date, I'd have gone along with it right this sec—"
"No! No way!"
Yeoncheong cut her off with a strangled squawk.
As the gazes of passersby snapped toward them in an instant, she shoved Seoha's back and beat a hasty retreat from the scene.
With the misunderstanding(?) resolved, the two made it to the movie theater right on schedule.
Seoha surveyed the lineup of films released to cash in on the Chuseok holiday and asked, "What should we see?"
"Hmm..."
After some deliberation they settled on a light, easy action flick, and Seoha agreed readily, saying anything was fine.
"I'll go grab some popcorn. Want anything?"
While Seoha went to buy the tickets, Yeoncheong set off to get popcorn and cola for herself.
"I'm good."
"Why? I'll buy it."
"I said I'm fine—just get yourself something."
Unable to press the offer a third time, Yeoncheong gave in and parted ways with Seoha for a moment.
Pricey tickets or not, nothing beat a movie for whiling away the holiday, judging by how bustling the place was.
Hunching herself up as small as possible to avoid collisions with the crowd, she succeeded in her popcorn-and-cola purchase and rejoined Seoha, who had come back with the tickets.
"Wow... I thought I'd lost you."
"It's fine. I kept my eyes on you the whole time."
Coming from Seoha, that was probably the literal truth—even mid-purchase, she likely hadn't looked away once.
Knowing it wouldn't do her any good.
Rather than ask her to elaborate, Yeoncheong opted to pop a piece of popcorn into Seoha's mouth.
"Mm?"
"I got caramel. Good, right?"
With Seoha nodding as she chewed, Yeoncheong suggested, "It's crowded down here—let's wait upstairs," and headed for the screening room.
In the darkened theater, the screen was the only source of light.
It had been a while since Yeoncheong last came to the movies, and she couldn't tear her eyes from that enormous display.
Crime and punishment, comedy, action.
By some measures it was a perfectly ordinary film with nothing special about it, but it demanded no thought, and the exhilarating action sequences were easy on the eyes in their own way.
Major releases generally delivered a reliable average, and this one belonged to a well-known franchise besides, so it was fair to call it above par.
Eyes locked on the screen as she fished popcorn from the tub in her lap, Yeoncheong sensed something was off.
Huh?
For some reason, her hand was plunging deeper than before. For the first time, her gaze left the screen to check the popcorn.
It had definitely diminished too much for her to have eaten it all alone.
Just as she was hunting for the culprit like the detective in the movie—sure enough, the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime—a familiar hand reached over and casually snatched a fistful of popcorn.
So this was the plan all along.
The culprit was Seoha.
Eyes fixed on the screen just like Yeoncheong's, she was reaching out with nothing but her hand, pilfering popcorn from the tub in Yeoncheong's lap.
Grabbing her marks precisely without so much as a glance... this was absolutely not a first offense.
While her friend was busy chewing, Yeoncheong waited for the next reach and clamped her hand down on the last stretch of popcorn.
Naturally, Seoha's hand landed right on Yeoncheong's waiting one—and for the first time since the movie began, their eyes met.
Given the setting, Yeoncheong used her eyes instead of words.
Under that withering glare, Seoha merely gave a careless little shrug.
Then, with practiced nonchalance, she plucked the popcorn right out of Yeoncheong's hand and popped it into her own mouth.
At Yeoncheong, whose eyes had gone wide enough to pop out of her skull, Seoha leaned in close.
"It's tastier than I expected. My bad."
At that honest whisper, Yeoncheong let out a helpless little smile and set the popcorn on her armrest.
I bought the big size just in case... good call.
Seoha grinned at her and leaned in once more.
"I'll take just one sip of your cola too."
A light sigh. Yeoncheong twisted the cap off and handed the bottle over—but Seoha deliberately put the straw to her lips and drank.
The straw that had touched Yeoncheong's own mouth.
At a loss for words, Yeoncheong could only stare, flustered, while Seoha—
"Thanks."
—smirked, apparently satisfied beyond all measure, and turned her attention back to the film.
Yeoncheong stared blankly at the cola straw for a long moment, shook her head, and refocused on the screen as well.
The climax.
The movie barreled toward its ending, heart-pounding, tension-laced music pouring out without pause.
Yeoncheong and Seoha both kept their eyes on the screen as they reached into the emptying popcorn tub at the same time.
Two hands collided in the narrow space.
And naturally, the eyes of the two moviegoers met as well.
Yeoncheong withdrew empty-handed and awkward; Seoha's hand, by contrast, held the very last piece of popcorn.
When Seoha spotted her friend's empty hand, she wore a smug little look and flaunted her prize, and—
That does it. Seriously...
Saying she didn't want any, then sharing the popcorn anyway. Stealing the popcorn straight out of Yeoncheong's hand. Deliberately drinking from the straw Yeoncheong had used just to fluster her.
Like a dam that had held and held and held finally bursting.
Now.
Yeoncheong's lips, beyond all restraint, closed in.
She took Seoha's entire hand into her mouth, plucked out only the popcorn, and chewed—then gave Seoha back her own expression, right to her face.
Seoha's eyes darted between Yeoncheong and her own hand, utterly scandalized.
She should have been content just to witness such a rare expression—but her mouth had run away with her.
"Mmm~ tastes like honey."
Needlessly, she'd needled Seoha one line too far.
Perhaps gleaning a hint from the words, Seoha grinned and brought her own now-empty hand to her lips.
With the tip of her tongue, she gave a slow, deliberate lick to the very fingers that had been in Yeoncheong's mouth, then let her lips glisten.
"You're right. Tastes like honey."
The darkened movie theater.
Those red eyes that seemed to glow all on their own, and the faint smile curving at the corner of her mouth.
With a BOOM from the movie's soundtrack, they shook Yeoncheong's heart to its core.
It was taking her long enough just to process her friend's behavior—and her heart, ignorant of its owner's feelings, kept hammering away, leaving Yeoncheong in total disarray.
This is... this is... it's the movie. It has to be the movie...
She chanted it to herself like a mantra: this pounding was just an illusion conjured by the film's breathless tension.
She whipped her head back toward the screen—but not a single scene registered in her mind.
The movie wrapped up cleanly, every last criminal swept off the board.
The two of them returned from the restroom and made their way out of the crowded theater.
The time to part had come before they knew it, and Yeoncheong pressed her still-damp hand to her cheeks, cooling the lingering heat there.
"Yeoncheong, today was so much fun."
Seoha, having just finished texting the chauffeur who always drove her home, came up beside her.
Yeoncheong patted away the last traces of warmth on her cheeks and gave a casual shrug.
"Same here. Got treated to a delicious lunch, saw a movie for the first time in ages. It was great."
That was her honest impression—entirely unrelated to the chaos of the movie's final act.
The sincerity carried in her voice. Seoha chuckled softly, her lips parting.
"I'm not going to forget today."
"Come on... it wasn't that special."
Seoha laced her hand with Yeoncheong's and bumped their shoulders together.
"This is the first time since starting high school that I've hung out with someone, just the two of us."
"First time?"
Startled by the unexpected remark, Yeoncheong blinked, and Seoha nodded slowly.
"Well... partly because I always avoided situations like that, but a first is a first."
Yeoncheong was beginning to wonder what on earth she had that made Seoha act this way.
Seoha asked once more, fishing for the answer she wanted.
"So you'll remember it, right?"
"......No."
After a long moment of deliberation, Yeoncheong shook her head, and Seoha's expression froze.
"Huh?"
"Nope. If it's a date like this, I'll keep you company as many times as you want. So don't bother trying to remember."
Seoha's feelings for her were genuine—that much was no longer something Yeoncheong could just look away from.
Yeoncheong herself had no idea what answer she'd one day give to that confession of hers, but...
"Actually, you're the one who won't remember. I'll give you so many of these you'll lose count."
At the very least—
watching Seoha enjoy herself like she had today wasn't a bad thing at all.
"Huh?"
Seoha's face was slowly flushing red.
"Seoha, your face is all red. Are you catching a cold?"
It was autumn, after all—the season when mornings and evenings turned sharply chilly.
Her worry for her friend lasted only a moment; the instant Seoha registered her own state, she shoved Yeoncheong away and hid her face behind her hair.
"I... I've got to go."
"Did you hear from the chauffeur?"
Nodding furiously, Seoha gave a vague wave of her hand and dashed off toward the road.
Yeoncheong, who had managed a belated goodbye, winced.
Ugh... should've asked for a ride.
She scratched her head, then quickly changed her mind.
Never mind... it'd be nice to take my time walking home alone and think things over.
And so, the two of them's first date(?) came to a close.