CRAIGSLIST THERAPIST | hyunho ✔

.07

Although bursting from its stitched seams, the Hello Kitty coin bag can only pay for one medium popcorn. It's Minho who buys it, with Hyunjin's money, as Hyunjin recoils behind him.

"Is that all?" The cashier says, which is funny, because Minho also said it to him during Brunch. Hyunjin — with his problematic Felix-proclaimed 'so little to no contact with human beings' behaviour — tends to remember things like that. Observant, but not like those other people. Good memory, but not obsessive (he hopes). But, overall, not so secretive as he wishes he were.

Minho nods and pinches each coin into a tiny pile in front of the cashier, who casts a blank stare at the scene. Behind Minho, Hyunjin brings a sleeve to muffle his laugh into the fabric.

By the time Minho's done, the queue reaches the bathroom. Thus, unkind to Minho's creation, the cashier curls a fist over the coin towers. Some clink to the sides and some fall with a thud on Minho's muddied shoe. The cashier doesn't notice or count the money. In haste, he secures the coins into the machine and yanks the receipt with such repressed rage that a bit of arm fat jiggles as he presents it to Minho, who takes it and indiscreetly reaches for the fallen coin.

He winks at Hyunjin with conspiration and drops it into the Hello Kitty bag. With the weight of it, the fabric stretches and her cartoonish features enlarge. Hyunjin wants to dive his nose into the popcorn and snort out a laugh. If anyone were to pay close attention, they'd think he's inebriated.

It's already dark when they enter the room, and the screen blackens and spins and flashes with commercials. Hyunjin's heart picks up, loud like the boisterous speakers, the screen larger than life, a magnifying glass up close. Are these seats theirs? Is it healthy to sit so close? On another day, Hyunjin might've worried about his eye wellness. Today's not that day.

Before they lower the cushioned seats, Minho's hand dives into the popcorn, popping a handful into his mouth like a starving child. His jaw protrudes right at the edge of his ear with each crunch.

Not too long, the film starts. Up this close, Hyunjin can see every pixel, every fragment of light that groups and merges to replicate the moving images. He doesn't even need to mentally swap the male lead's face with his own, it's perfect as it is, with the comforting presence of another arm on his armrest, with the ghost of butter coating his tongue. Despite choosing a film at random, picking this one solely for the dramatic title, Hyunjin watches every second of it, completely detached from himself, completely in tune with this form of art. Still, watching, no one's watching him. Nor here, nor on the screen.

Minho's interference comes right when he needs it: "I was thinking," he says, cracking a kernel in his teeth. Every color in the movie finds its way to reflect against his face. His voice is not a murmur, instead enveloped by an amalgamation of the movie's dialogue and Hyunjin's swirling thoughts. Some hushed shhhhhh's echo among the rows behind them. "What about you just become, like, a TikTok actor?"

Hyunjin can't stifle a scoff. "That's no actor."

"Why not? They act. On camera. Acting."

Hyunjin crosses his arms as though Minho would force him to install the app. The popcorn bucket, perched on one knee, nearly wobbles and plummets to the floor. "No," he says.

"You could build a following, gain traction, garner attention," Minho insists. "Until a real director wants to take you in on a project."

"Those were real directors," Hyunjin deflects. This is no time to discuss his work. But his shoulders sag against the seat, and the butter in the popcorn now tastes like unfiltered grease. "I think it's something with me."

Through the speakers, wholly anti-climatic, the shrilling violin pierces through the half-empty room, and Hyunjin stares at Minho staring at him. He's fully turned on his seat, hand claw-like and gripping Hyunjin's arm. His right cheek flashes red thrice. The female lead screams. Minho, a complete stranger Hyunjin plucked out of a crackhouse and followed into a movie theater, sits next to him in the farthest corner of rows and perhaps he's cloaking a rusty blade under his coat, or he's filling his lungs for a verbal fight Hyunjin would never recover from.

But he just nods. Which is, in turn, way more painful.

Only when the tense scene ends and Hyunjin's eyes take in the gory sight of a Hollywood-manufactured dead body, does Minho go back to slouching on his seat. All he says to Hyunjin is an expontaneous, "You should bleach your hair."