“As long as you are fine. Why did you suddenly run over there just now?” Yueyi let go of her.
Just as Yan Nianyi had stood up to grab the popcorn, Yueyi thought she was just going somewhere else, only to watch her walk right up to the table in front, bend down, and start talking to the young woman.
From her own angle, all Yueyi could see was Yan Nianyi’s bright, smiling expression.
Who would have guessed that after just a few words, the woman sitting in the chair would suddenly start screaming insults at the young man and drench him with her cup of cola.
“That guy bumped into the popcorn earlier, so it felt kind of gross. I figured rather than just throwing it away, I might as well hand it over to them,” Yan Nianyi said, opening her hands.
She blinked her eyes innocently, her voice laced with a childish streak of schadenfreude. “Though, that girl seemed to be the guy’s girlfriend. I just repeated what the guy had told us word for word, and then she threw her drink at him.”
Yueyi let out a soft chuckle. She had guessed the relationship between the young man and woman from the start, but she hadn’t expected Yan Nianyi to be so bluntly straightforward.
Yet, looking at her pure and naive demeanor, she found herself starting to doubt whether Yan Nianyi had done it on purpose.
“Never mind, I will go buy another bucket of popcorn.” Yueyi glanced down at the popcorn scattered across the tabletop, stained with sticky cola, and frowned slightly.
A cleaner walked over, holding a mop and a broom.
“Excuse me, sorry to trouble you with the cleanup,” Yueyi said apologetically.
Even though the cola hadn’t been thrown by them, some of the spilled popcorn did belong to them.
“No problem, no problem.” The cleaner had been tidying up this area just moments ago, so she had witnessed the entire process and heard the young man’s remarks. She held nothing but contempt for people who came out flirting while already taken. “You two go on and enjoy your movie. I will clean this right up.”
“Thank you.” Yueyi offered another word of gratitude.
She turned to gesture toward the front desk, letting Yan Nianyi know she was going to buy more popcorn and instructing her to wait right there.
Yan Nianyi nodded obediently, walking back to her original seat to wait.
She held her cup of cola in both hands, nibbling out of habit on the straw with her teeth until it was flattened before finally letting go.
Her deep gaze followed Yueyi’s retreating back closely, as if fearing that a single moment of inattention would cause the other person to vanish from her sight.
Yueyi returned very quickly, holding a large bucket of popcorn. As she sat back down, she asked, “Do you want to try one?”
“Sure.” Yan Nianyi shifted away from the straw, took a single piece, and popped it into her mouth. The sweetness and crisp crunch burst across her palate simultaneously.
She wasn’t normally a fan of sweets, but if Big Sister liked them, she could try to accept it.
“Sweet,” Yan Nianyi remarked.
Yueyi picked up a piece for herself, placed it in her mouth, and nodded approvingly.
With less than ten minutes left before the movie started, Yan Nianyi checked the time on her ticket once more and took the initiative to pick up her cup of cola along with the bucket of popcorn.
“Big Sister, we can go in now.” Yan Nianyi stood up.
“Mhm.” Yueyi acknowledged with a soft hum.
Walking one after the other to the ticket checkpoint, they handed their tickets over to the attendant, who took a brief look, nodded, and motioned for them to enter.
Past the checkpoint lay a corridor connecting several screening halls. The movie screening Yan Nianyi had chosen was in Hall Three, located just to the front left of Hall One.
Pushing open the heavy door of the screening hall, the interior lights had already been dimmed. Guided only by the faint illumination cast by the projection screen, the two of them groped their way forward in the dark.
They had barely taken two steps when the wrist of the hand holding the cola was enveloped in warmth.
Yueyi had grabbed her hand.
“It is dark here, watch your step.” Yueyi’s gentle voice echoed softly beside her ear.
Yan Nianyi’s body tightened instantly, and for a split second, she forgot how to walk.
A beam of light shone from behind as Yueyi turned on her phone’s built-in flashlight, illuminating the path ahead. “You have your hands full with things, make sure you do not spill.”
Footsteps sounded in a chaotic clatter behind them as other moviegoers entered the hall.
Yan Nianyi couldn’t afford to linger. Casting one lingering look down at her wrist, she stepped forward.
Following the beam of Yueyi’s phone light, they rounded a partition and stepped onto the stairs.
The grip Yueyi maintained on her wrist tightened slightly.
A faint, pleased smile curved the corners of Yan Nianyi’s lips. Was Big Sister holding on so tightly because she was afraid, she might fall?
Following the seat numbers, Yan Nianyi quickly found her and Yueyi’s seats, placing her cup of cola into the armrest’s recessed holder while hugging the bucket of popcorn to her chest.
Yueyi released her grip and sat down right beside her.
With her wrist suddenly empty and the warm palm withdrawn, Yan Nianyi pressed down on the spot with a sense of lingering loss.
“Do you want me to hold that?” Yueyi asked in a low voice.
“Oh, okay.” Yan Nianyi handed over the popcorn.
The moment time hit the mark, the two remaining dim pathway lights clicked off with a soft snap, plunging the entire screening hall into absolute darkness.
Yan Nianyi heard the sound of a sharp intake of breath coming from beside her.
She instinctively turned her head, though the dark environment allowed her to see only vague outlines.
“What is wrong?” Yan Nianyi asked softly.
“Nothing,” Yueyi replied.
Yan Nianyi frowned, leaning back fully into the theater seat as she kept her gaze fixed squarely on Yueyi, monitoring her condition.
A moment later, the projection screen lit up brilliantly with the movie’s signature opening sequence.
Only then did Yan Nianyi see Yueyi’s posture clearly. The woman’s spine was held rigidly straight, looking almost tense.
Once the hall was illuminated by the light from the movie screen, the rigid posture relaxed a fraction.
Yan Nianyi narrowed her eyes, watching Yueyi through the dim light while simultaneously dividing a portion of her attention to follow the film.
The popcorn inside the bucket was gradually disappearing.
This kind of youth romance film offered no particularly memorable plot points, mostly recycling standard templates: the protagonists meet, understand each other, fall in love, face unavoidable separation due to endless misunderstandings, and finally overcome their trials to successfully end up together.
The only thing that could remotely count as innovative was that the film portrayed the female supporting character’s unusual feelings for the female lead through an extremely subtle, understated lens.
When that specific dynamic between the second female lead and the main lead appeared on screen, Yan Nianyi paid special attention to Yueyi’s micro-expressions.
However, Yueyi’s expression remained entirely unchanged throughout, continuing to pick up a few pieces of popcorn and pop them into her mouth from time to time.
Yan Nianyi licked her upper lip. When Yueyi reached her hand back into the popcorn bucket once more, Yan Nianyi deliberately slipped her own hand inside under the guise of watching the movie.
Their hands brushed against each other in the confined space.
“Open up.” Yueyi’s gentle voice drifted softly across her eardrum.
Yan Nianyi parted her lips slightly out of instinct.
“Open wider.” The amused tone carried a hint of the woman’s helplessness.
Yueyi tilted her head slightly, holding two irregularly shaped pieces of popcorn between her fingertips.
Realizing what Yueyi intended to do, Yan Nianyi’s long, curled eyelashes trembled along with her blinking eyes.
“These are the last two left.” Yueyi fed the final two pieces to the person beside her.
Her fingers brushed lightly against Yan Nianyi’s lips, though she paid it no mind as she asked softly, “The movie is almost over, is it not?”
Yan Nianyi rolled her tongue around the food, her voice muffled as she replied, “Almost.”
She kept her gaze lowered, swallowing slowly just as the movie reached its end and the lights inside the screening hall flickered back on.