Visiting the Movie Theater on Summer Break
July. Midsummer had arrived, and the heat was truly enough to drive a person mad, an unrelenting, sweltering summer that refused to let up.
School was out for summer break.
It's hot.
And unfortunately, the air conditioner in our house—the savior of summer—had broken down last week.
No, it had already been broken; we only realized it when we tried to turn it on last week.
Because of that, our house was currently no different from hell itself.
A hell where we had no choice but to rely solely on the fan.
"Is it this hot even when I'm just sitting still...?"
Even lying motionless on the bed, sweat was pouring out of me on its own.
The kendo dojo was closed for break through today, but once practice started up again... every year I thought the same thing: I really didn't want to go.
Still, if there was a silver lining to the misfortune, it was that the technician was coming today to fix the air conditioner.
Of course, that was later in the afternoon, so it changed nothing about the morning right now.
Maybe I should just head out.
In a situation like this, rather than staying home, I could simply go somewhere that had air conditioning.
A movie theater or a library, for example.
There was a fun movie that had come out recently, so if I was going out anyway, the theater seemed like the better choice.
Hoyeon had gone out with Haryeong, and Yuwon was probably buried in a deadline.
In my short list of human relationships, the one who always remained at the end was a single person.
I should go with Riya.
I hadn't been able to see her properly since the first day of summer break, and I'd been wanting to meet her, so this worked out perfectly.
Thinking that, I immediately pulled out my phone and called Riya.
"Why?"
The call connected, and a voice that was somehow languid yet precise came through. A voice I never grew tired of hearing, no matter when I listened to it.
It was a little hoarse, as if she had just woken up.
"Do you have time today?"
"Time...? Yeah."
"Then come see a movie with me."
"What kind?"
"Well, I haven't decided yet."
I hadn't even settled on which movie we would watch, yet the time it took for her answer to come back was incredibly short.
"Okay. What time?"
"After lunch, around two? Meet me at the theater. We can grab dinner after."
"Mm."
With that, the call ended. Suggesting we meet after lunch was because it was currently one o'clock—a rather awkward time of day.
The theater we had agreed on was quite far from my house, so if I was going to get ready, I needed to start now.
More than that, it's really hot.
Honestly, I didn't want to move even a little, but what choice did I have?
I had to go meet Riya.
I arrived at the meeting place a little earlier than the appointed time. The bus had come faster than expected.
I had also left the house pretty quickly myself.
"Hah... Why are there so many people?"
The temperature was clearly over thirty degrees, delivering an extreme, sticky discomfort, so what on earth made people think going outside was a good idea?
Of course, I wasn't really in a position to talk, but I had Riya, didn't I?
I shouldn't have worn the outer layer for no reason.
I had put on a thin, cool-material jacket, and it seemed to have been a considerable mistake.
I had worn it because just a short-sleeved shirt alone felt a bit off with the ones I currently had.
I was seriously going to die from the heat.
Seriously.
If I stayed out here much longer, collapsing from dehydration wouldn't even be surprising.
As I wiped the sweat from my forehead and waited for Riya, she arrived before long.
Drawing a fair amount of definite attention from the people around her, no less.
"Sihyun. You're here."
It was a face I always saw, yet from childhood until now I had never been able to take my eyes off her appearance.
The silver hair that fell all the way to her waist, the white skin damp with sweat, the blue eyes set like jewels.
She was wearing a black oversized short-sleeved T-shirt and a mini skirt that reached mid-thigh.
Below that, Riya's long, straight white legs stretched out, proudly displaying themselves.
"...."
"Sihyun?"
"Ah, you're here? Did you eat?"
"I ate at home."
It had been three days since I last saw Riya, so it felt like quite a while. Both she and I had been busy with art and kendo, after all.
The moment we met, we forgot the surrounding heat and fell into conversation.
Then, in the middle of it, the voices of people around us drifted over.
"Hey, that silver-haired girl over there is seriously pretty, right?"
"That doesn't look like dye. Is she mixed?"
"More than that, her legs..."
Most of the comments were about Riya. Complimentary ones, at that.
But... for some reason, every time I heard those words, my mood soured.
The things they said while looking at Riya, the gazes that kept lingering on her—none of it sat well with me.
...Who am I to feel like this?
Who was I to feel bad about it?
Even as I thought that, I hesitated for a moment, then took off the jacket I was wearing and tied it around her waist.
The jacket knotted around that slender waist, covering the exposed thighs.
"...What is this?"
"Just... it was bothering me..?"
It wasn't a lie. It was my clumsy, honest feeling.
I didn't like other people looking at her legs, and it put me in a bad mood.
But she seemed to have taken it a little differently.
"Y-You hate them...?"
Looking down at her own legs, Riya's face shifted into an expression of shock.
For her expression to show so clearly on the outside like that meant a huge change had just occurred in her emotions.
The moment she stared at her thighs with that stunned face, I could feel that something had gone wrong.
"No! It's not that I hate the clothes... or anything."
"...It's not?"
"Just... I don't like other people looking."
What was I even saying?
For a second I worried she might take offense and watched her carefully, but her expression didn't look bad at all.
No.
If anything, she looked a little pleased.
I think... that's right?
The change was so subtle I couldn't be completely sure. But at least that was how it felt.
After looking at her face for a moment, I soon pulled myself together and started walking.
"Riya, then let's go watch the movie."
There weren't that many people inside the theater. Maybe because of the heat.
Or maybe because the movie I was thinking of—the one we would most likely end up watching—had been out for a while already.
"How about this one?"
"Sounds good."
What we chose was a romance film based on a Japanese novel.
Neither Riya nor I particularly loved or hated any specific genre, so picking a movie went quickly.
The fact that it was screening soon after also helped.
After choosing without any issues, when the payment screen came up I caught Riya's hand as she was about to take out her card.
"I'll get it."
"...I treated last time."
"I invited you today."
I had also recently received my allowance and had a bit of extra money to spare.
Before she could say anything else, I paid with my card first. Ticket prices had gone up quite a bit lately, but I had no regrets. It was for Riya, after all.
"...Next time I'm buying."
After booking the tickets and buying popcorn, we headed straight into the screening room.
As expected, there weren't many people inside. It was only natural for a movie that everyone who wanted to see it had already seen.
The seats we took were in the middle. The back could be hard to see, and the front made your neck and eyes hurt too much.
If it had been crowded it might have been different, but with so few people there was no reason to claim a corner seat.
The moment I sat down, I rested my hand on the armrest between Riya and me. There were two bars, so neither of us needed to yield the armrest.
"....?"
Then I felt a hand that was cool yet somehow warm at the same time.
Guessing the owner of that small, slender hand was not difficult.
Riya?
Riya had quietly placed her hand on top of mine. White, delicate fingers overlapping.
She wasn't gripping tightly or pressing close; she had simply laid it on top, yet the sensation there was extraordinary.
Flustered, I looked at Riya's face, but I couldn't make it out clearly.
The theater had gone dark, making her already hard-to-read expression even harder to see.
Because of that, I...
did not see that Riya's face had flushed red.
"Your hand... is cold."
"Do you hate it?"
"No. I like it."
After that short exchange, there were no more words between us. We hadn't been talking much to begin with, but now a strange atmosphere hung in the air that made it even harder to speak.
Throughout the ads we continued saying nothing, and before long the movie began.
Just focus on the movie.
I deliberately tried to ignore the sensation of Riya's hand and watched the screen.
The movie wasn't bad.
I had been fairly interested in it from the start, so I was able to concentrate.
The story itself wasn't complicated.
A romance between a mixed-race foreign woman and a Japanese man.
But true to Japanese novels, the woman came with a terminal illness attached.
A moderate amount of comedy, a romance that looked quite sweet, and melodrama that grew heavier as it went on.
There was a reason the reviews weren't bad.
"..."
And as the movie raced toward its climax, when the emotional lines of the male and female leads reached their peak...
their kiss scene appeared.
At that moment, my hand flinched without meaning to.
In the same way, Riya's fingers twitched and lightly scratched the back of my hand, ticklish.
Then, as the kiss on screen deepened...
Riya's fingers suddenly slipped in between mine. Those thin fingers spreading my calloused ones apart.
Her fingers sliding into the spaces between mine. A ticklish sensation.
Once they had come all the way in, her fingers tightened, forming a fist...
and we ended up interlocking our hands.
"...?"
I turned my head to look at Riya beside me, but once again her expression didn't reach me.
Yet for some reason...
a vague instinct was telling me.
That Riya's face, just like mine, must have been dyed red as well.