Lin Zhexia’s attention returned: “Oh.”
Chi Yao lowered his hand and said, “Hold onto me.”
The corridor was crowded.
Lin Zhexia knew his words likely had no other meaning; he was just afraid she might follow the crowd in the wrong direction again.
She slowly grabbed Chi Yao’s sleeve: “It’s not like I don’t know how to walk.”
Chi Yao led the way: “So you do know how to walk. I thought you were sleepwalking.”
“…”
The couples around them were all holding hands as they entered, with her and Chi Yao wedged in between.
After walking into the theater, the lights suddenly dimmed, leaving only the large screen in front illuminated.
Lin Zhexia lowered her head, using the light to look at her hand gripping Chi Yao’s sleeve.
Chi Yao never paid much attention to warmth when dressing, and the jacket he wore today wasn’t particularly thick, so she could even feel a faint hint of body heat and the bones beneath the fabric.
She nervously moved her fingers.
Although she and Chi Yao weren’t holding hands like the people around them. But. Rounding things up, this could count as holding on, right?
Lin Zhexia held onto Chi Yao’s sleeve as they made their way through the side steps to find their seats.
He Yang stretched his arms and said, “While the ads are still playing, I’ll edit the photo first.”
“It’s not that I’m impatient,” He Yang explained, “I just want to get it over with. Every second I think about this photo, I get goosebumps.”
Lin Zhexia had no time to care about what He Yang was saying.
She sat next to Chi Yao, feeling awkward.
“Hey,” Lin Zhexia said with one hand still in the popcorn bucket, trying to ease her emotions through conversation, “do you want some popcorn?”
She thought Chi Yao probably wouldn’t eat any.
But to her surprise, Chi Yao leaned back a bit, then turned his head and casually reached out.
Lin Zhexia’s hand was still in the bucket and hadn’t had time to pull out, so their hands made extremely brief contact for a second inside the popcorn bucket.
Her fingers touched the back of his hand.
When Chi Yao reached in, they lightly brushed against each other.
Lin Zhexia yanked her hand out quickly, and the air filled with the unique sweetness of popcorn.
She coughed and asked: “Is it crunchy?”
“It’s alright.”
Chi Yao rested his elbow on the armrest, his hand against his jaw, munching on popcorn. After a while, before the movie prelude began, he suddenly added: “It’s quite sweet.”
Thankfully, the lighting in the theater was dim.
Otherwise, she feared her currently abnormal reactions would be exposed.
As the movie officially began, Lin Zhexia, with flushed cheeks, also grabbed a piece.
Today’s popcorn.
Seemed sweeter than usual.
He Yang had bought the movie tickets, and she had no idea what the movie was about. She hadn’t asked He Yang what movie he’d chosen before coming.
After arriving at the cinema and seeing the holiday poster, she could guess it was a Valentine’s Day romance film.
With this in mind, Lin Zhexia looked at the crumpled movie ticket in her palm.
The movie title on the ticket was “I Want to Be with You.”
Before the movie sound increased, He Yang put away his phone and commented: “Finally finished editing. You know, my Brother Yao’s hand is quite easy to edit. Just a little tweaking and it looks more slender, though the fingers ended up looking a bit too long.”
“But it’s fine, no big deal.”
He nudged Chi Yao with his elbow: “Thanks.”
Chi Yao ignored him.
The movie lasted over an hour. At first, because Chi Yao was beside her, Lin Zhexia found it hard to focus on the film.
The images on the big screen seemed to fly by like silent film clips.
Even though scenes played one after another and she stared at them, her mind registered nothing, just a blank.
After a while, she gradually began to grasp the content.
It was a Valentine’s Day youth drama about two desk mates secretly in love during their school days. The ending wasn’t happy; perhaps to make the story more dramatic, the girl was predictably diagnosed with cancer, and the two ultimately passed each other by.
They had made a naive promise during their school days to meet again ten years later.
At the film’s end, ten years later, the boy returned to the classroom but didn’t see the girl. Instead, he found a letter she had written before leaving: “Let me tell you a secret, I really liked you. If there’s a parallel universe, I want to be with you.”
Lin Zhexia had a low threshold for tears and started crying halfway through the film.
At first, she didn’t want anyone to notice and secretly sniffled.