I’m winning this bet.
Deja was still braiding my hair.
She’d been at it for hours now, fingers parting, pulling, weaving.
Rin had moved from the wall and was seated off to the side by Kaoru in one of the velvet chairs, legs crossed, watching the screen below.
But I'd noticed something.
Every time Deja shifted behind me—reaching for a clip, adjusting her angle, or leaning close to section a new part—Rin's gaze moved to her quick.
Then back to the movie like nothing happened.
But it kept happening.
I doubted Deja ever noticed.
I need to talk to Kenji about getting Deja a security detail so she actually gets off this island. Rin is being creepy.
Meanwhile, Satoshi was still in the corner, covered in the mixture. He looked like he'd been dipped in oatmeal, but the relief on his face was worth it. He'd stopped scratching and fidgeting.
Instead, he finally relaxed, leaning in so close to Zo their shoulders touched and they whispered and laughed about stuff.
The theater below shifted personalities every two hours.
The war film’s crowd had been mostly elderly couples. Men in pressed slacks. Women in cardigans with brooches shaped like birds. One man held the door for his wife. The light caught the gun tattoos creeping from his collar to just below his ear.
The film had been about two soldiers on opposite sides of a civil war who we later discovered were father and son.
When bombs exploded on screen, the box vibrated and I felt the violence in my spine.
Yet, Deja never paused. She stayed in the zone with her fingers working.
At the end, mud clung to the father’s uniform and blood spilled from his bullet ridden chest, in his pocket was a letter to his son.
When the screen went black, the audience filtered out in soft waves with their hands intertwined.
The horror movie crowd flooded in like a different species.
Teenagers.
Loud ones.
Sneakers squeaking.
Hoodies half-zipped.
This one was about a dead transgender girl who crawled out of mirrors and dragged people back through the glass. Once inside, she wore their skin and lived their lives until someone looked in the mirror too long and saw the wrong face smiling back.
The moment when a bathroom mirror rippled like water and a rotting gray hand pressed outward from the other side of the glass, Nika jumped up from her seat and shook her head. “Naw, man.”
Then, a face followed—smiling wrong, eyes too wide, lips stretched just a little too far.
Nika shook her head. “Shit like this will bring bad spirits to you. We shouldn’t be watching this.”
Thankfully, it was more funny than scary. At the parts meant to be terrifying, a group of girls laughed so hard one of them dropped her slushie.
Other teens talked through the slow scenes, shouted at the screen, and at one point someone launched a fistful of popcorn three rows back like it was a sport.
