━━ chapter three.
❝ romantic movies. ❞
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NATSUKO DISLIKED ROMANTIC MOVIES.

Happy sappy lovers in their stupid chick flicks. The usual routine of push and pull, the bad boy with her feisty good girl who knew how to read. Add the snarky remarks and the underlying sexual tension. She'd throw caramel popcorn on the screen, telling them to just kiss and end the torture.

Or it'd be something tragic with one of the two leads dying because of cancer. Careless remarks, promises, would be thrown around as if they were going to fulfill it. I'll love you forever, even when you are no longer here, they would say as they lay in picnic blankets watching the clouds drift in the expanse of blue sky, their hands entwined and they would kiss. Those promises would go unfulfilled and Natsuko was so jaded, with the formulaic stories that she'd merely roll her eyes.

She preferred the horror genre.

Liked the senseless screaming of foolish teenagers wandering into abandoned mental hospitals, the rebellious boys who thought they were men shoving the poor old men and shriek in despair as said old men turn out to be some long dead spawn of Satan, a serial killer, even the ones with the creepy clowns carrying axes ready to decapitate and drag children into sewers.

Cheap effects? Natsuko still liked that. No plot? Natsuko would bare her teeth and laugh. She'd watched too many scary things to even feel an ounce of fear. It's that feeling of having something so horrible that your skin would shiver at sight, that thing that plagued your nightmares and have you screaming in the dead of the night. That thing being so horrifying that others would look cute in comparison.

Natsuya, though, thought otherwise and still preferred the formulaic romance tales. They stayed in the Kirishima residence, huddled in one of the blankets as the AC blasts cool air into the room. The television screen is the only source of illumination in the room, myriads of color reflected off of their eyes.

Her fingers grapple at the bowl of cheese flavored popcorn, cringing at the feel of cheese powder burrowing itself on her fingernails.

Discomfort was very obvious on her face as the opening credits begun, Natsuya still in the kitchen runmaging through tupperwares his mom had prepared. Natsuko's heart melted, feeling warm over the kind gesture. It was as if they were kids again.

"Tsu, there's chocolate chip cookies," he said and siddled up to her with the tupperware. "There's also some chocolate covered strawberries and mochi."

The coolness was still visible from the way dews slid off of the transparent glass containers.

"You want some?" Natsuya asked and extended the container towards her.

Natsuko shakes her head. She does appreciate the kind gesture, but Natsuko wasn't into sweet things. Ice cream was the only exception and other than that was the time to time milk combined into her bitter espresso.

"It's really good, you know," he says and bites from one of the chocolate covered strawberries.

"I'm good," Natsuko says and pins her attention on the glowing screen. It began with the usual first person narration of the average, nerdy girl and how it was the first day of high school.

"Come on," he insists and Natsuko ignores her. The droning cliche of the protagonist being bumped into by the relatively attractive male lead happens and Natsuko holds the urge to roll her eyes at how the supposedly shy, reserved good girl who had maintained a lowkey personage for the past two years (as per narration) would shriek her lungs out at the boy.

They'd fight, Natsuko could tell and the next day of school they'd meet again and be surprised by each other's presence.

"Tsu," Natsuya calls, interrupting her train of thoughts.

"What?" she asks, the annoyance coating the word. Natsuko disliked watching movies with Natsuya because he would play the same formulaic movies and she wouldn't complain because it wasn't their home, but during the process of watching, she knew it was just a convenient excuse for Natsuya to get free food and pester her for hours.

"The strawberries are really good," he says, picking up another chocolate covered strawberry. "Mom used dark chocolate. She knows you like bitter things."

"Come on Tsu," he says and he probably knows that he only needs small increments of persuasion to make her bend. "Say ah."

"No."

"Come on, just try it."

"I'm trying to watch the movie, Natsuya."

"I promise I won't pester you after you try it." Natsuko knows that it's a lie but the next words make her oblige. "Mom probably stayed up all night making these and it's just going to waste."

A sigh escapes her prison of perfect teeth. "Fine," Natsuko says. "Give it to me."

But he doesn't. He holds it above her with a knowing smile.

"Your fingers are covered in cheese," he explains. "It'll ruin the taste. Just open your mouth."

Natsuko gives up on resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She sighs again, spits fine out of her mouth and opens it. Some of his fingers touch the skin around her mouth before he pops the strawberry inside. She takes a bite and tries to look at another direction, vividly aware of how their faces got so close to each other.

Natsuya smiles. "See? All good."

"Tch."

Natsuko pulls the blanket up to her cheeks hiding whatever tinges of red may have surfaced. There was that horrifying thing again and she uses up all her energy into making sure that it doesn't surface. It's exhausting. Especially with Natsuya having the gall to lean his head unto her shoulders, his scent taken in by her nose.

Calm down, Natsuko thinks, hoping that the movie would somehow calm the mess of heartbeats in her ribcage.

Halfway through the movie, Natsuko is all but ready to kill someone with all the amount of irritation she's garnered from the movies. The you're not like other girls scene had finally made itself known.

"I hate this scene," Natsuko mutters beneath her breath. "I hate this movie."

Natsuya hums next to her. He's eating all the mochi and he can hear him chewing.

"Why, Tsu?"

Natsuko thought that the entire premise of you're not like other girls was utter bullshit. Not like other girls? As if the idea of belonging to a vast spectrum of the female population was a compliment. Most girls were smart, most girls worked hard, most girls were confident and beautiful.

"It's so stupid," she says, burrowing her head into her palms. Exhaustion finally caught up to her. This past few days, the two of them had been doing all the stuff Natsuya wanted to do. Now, she was okay with Natsuya doing whatever he wanted with his life. From swimming every day to watching romantic movies, but Natsuko just didn't enjoy them and she disliked how he was always pestering her to come along.

"Then let's watch another one," he offers.

"I know you like them," she says, calm. "But I really hate them all."

"Then let's do another thing," Natsuya says, still not realizing what was causing the turmoil on his bestfriend's being.

"Let me guess. Swimming?" Natsuko liked swimming, but she hated pool water. Especially the chlorine, oh God, the smell was unbearable. It was like biting into metal and having it grind against your teeth.

"What's wrong, Tsu?"

She was too tired to even get angry.

"Natsuya, I hate romantic movies, that fact was clear to you even back in high school. Horror has always been my favorite. And you also know that I hate the smell of poolwater, it makes me nauseous. I'm in College and this summer is finally my time to be relieved of stress, but I haven't even done something that I wanted to do," Natsuko says. "I want to go camping, hiking, mountain climbing, but you always drag me to places before I even step outside of my apartment."

The look on Natsuya's face is shock, then regret, and finally, apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Tsu," he says slowly.

She shakes her head. She can't afford to be angry when he's so remorseful. "It's okay," she says.

"It's not," he insists. Gone is the Natsuya with his stupid jokes earning her ire. Here is the Natsuya who cares about her so much that he succumbed to all her petty wishes. The Natsuya who offered her a shoulder to cry on during her moments of weakness. "You know what? Let's do something you want to do."

"I can go camping by myself," Natsuko states. "You can go swim during that time."

"Nope," he answers. "I'm coming with. I'm getting tired from practice to be honest. Besides, you could encounter a bear."

Natsuko glares at him. "I can handle myself, Natsuya."

"I'm concerned about the bear, Tsu," he says with a smirk. "Or whatever poor defenseless animal you—"

A jab to the ribs interrupts him and he starts laughing. Gradually, the glare in Natsuko's face disappears and she only shakes her head at her bestfriend.

Natsuya gets up. "I'll get the horror movies." He turns to her with excitement. "You'll be scared to your death."

She watched him set things up with a smile on her face, cracking jokes every now and then. She washed the dishes while he was still preoccupied and when she returned, they shared another blanket and he held her hand just as he did when they were kids, to ward all the evil creatures away.

The movie started. Gloomy background music, ominous town and the premise of monsters.

Natsuko wouldn't be afraid.

Natsuko had fallen in love with Natsuya. And that was the most fearful thing in the world.

━━ to be continued.
🌻 | the sunflowers that last forever.