My Childhood Friend And The Summer Movie

According to my childhood friend, “You know how movie theaters sell hot dogs? I always wonder when you’re actually supposed to eat the thing, since if you wait until the film starts it goes cold…” or so she says.

Honestly, even if you’re going to buy something, isn’t popcorn just the better call? Better price, better portion. Or is that just me?

As for that childhood friend of mine, Sakura Ayuri, the one who’d pulled such a blunt, no-frills answer out of me… well, right now…

“It’s so crowded, huh…”

Ayu mutters it to herself, taking in the crush of people flowing through the shopping mall. It took us a good while to get here, and the place is huge, thronging and lively.

“It’s summer break, so of course it is.”
“Well, we’re part of that crowd ourselves.”

Ayu had said she was off to see a movie today, and with nothing better to do, I’d decided to tag along. Even so…

“It’s been forever! The three of us heading out together!”
“I know I’ve let it slide this whole time, but… did you actually invite Senior Hotaru along too?”
“Nah… when I was about to leave, somehow she was just there at my place…”

Our senior Hotaru, present for reasons unknown.

When Ayu had turned up at my place, some corner of my mind had gone huh, there’s an extra one…, but I never imagined she’d simply barge in and tag along out of nowhere. Then again, that’s about par for the course with our senior.

“We’re seeing a movie today, right? Come on, let’s get going already!”

And now she’s weirdly raring to go. Does our senior even have the faintest idea what we came here to watch?

◆◆◆

“So, what should we watch!”
“Were you even listening, senior?”
“Oh, it’s already decided? Ayu kept dodging me on it…”
“Ayu…?”
“N-no, well, um…”
“…Senior, could you give us just a second?”
“Sure~”

I get our senior to wait a moment and tug Ayu off a little way to the side.

The movie Ayu had come to see today was, in a word, a tokusatsu movie. Specifically, the theatrical version of the kind that airs on Sunday mornings.

“B-but, y’know, I was gonna come by myself today, and then you came along, Gin… and on top of that Hotaru came too, so…”
“Nobody invited our senior, though… I mean, are you seriously planning to just cater to us?”
“I mean, you haven’t watched the actual TV show, right, Gin?”
“I haven’t, no.”
“And Hotaru probably hasn’t either… actually, why’d you even come along, Gin, if you haven’t watched it?”
“…”

Ayu’s question leaves me stuck for an answer.

There’s no deep reason for it. Killing time by myself over summer break is kind of a drag. Ayu wandering off somewhere on her own worries me a little, too. That’s honestly all it is. Well, plus I’m a bit curious what the show I used to watch tagging along after my big brother is like these days. Anyway, the point stands: there’s no real reason. Even if she presses me with a “why,” I can’t produce an answer that doesn’t exist.

“Nothing. Just a whim.”
“Then it’s totally fine to switch to something else…”
“But I told you back at the fireworks festival, didn’t I? ‘It bugs me when you put everyone else first and cave.’ And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do right now.”
“It’s not like I’m agonizing over it… and I can always just come back another time…”
“I also told you to be more selfish, didn’t I.”

Ayu looks away, sulking a little under my pressing. Honestly, our senior and I are the ones who muscled our way into this, so I genuinely can’t understand why Ayu, the one the rest of us latched onto, is the one trying to compromise.

“…Fine then, I’ll go ahead and say it.”
“Go on.”
“It’s just plain embarrassing! Being seen as someone who’s this old and STILL watching Sunday-morning kids’ shows — that’s what’s embarrassing!”
“…Haaah?”

What is she even on about? She’s been hopelessly hooked on tokusatsu songs, belting them out at karaoke this whole time. Did she honestly think she’d been keeping it under wraps?

“A little late for that, no?”
“What do you mean, ‘a little late,’ Gin?! And here I’ve been holding back this whole time, biting my tongue every time I wanted to gush to everyone about how ‘this episode’s SO good—’ or ‘the scene where this one plays as an insert song is just amazing—’!”
“You’re out there pulling ichiban-kuji, though.”
“You know about that?!”
“If anything, apparently some of the girl cliques in class already know.”
“In class?!”

Well, of course being seen out with a guy like that would set tongues wagging, given Ayu’s position. It blew over fast once people found out the guy was just her little brother, though, or so I heard from Hina. Knowing Ayu, she’d probably planned to wave it off with “it’s just my little brother’s hobby!” if anyone she knew ever pressed her, so for it to out her regardless, well, this must be what they call the schemer done in by his own scheme.

“B-but Hotaru’s in a totally different year, so there’s still a chance…!”
“No, she’s the single most likely person to have noticed.”
“You don’t know that yet! You can’t know for sure!”

Pretty sure it’s a lost cause, though.

That was my honest read, but Ayu had her own pride on the matter, apparently, because she cut the conversation short and marched straight back over to our senior.

…What did she even come here for.

“All done talking? You came to watch tokusatsu, right!”
“I’ve been found out—!!”

Exactly what I’d warned her about. It seemed to genuinely blindside Ayu, though, because she planted both hands on the floor as though utterly crushed.

“N-no, um… whatever could you mean…? Th-th-there’s no way I’d watch something that childish now that I’m a high schooler…”

You’ve got to be kidding… she still thinks she can pull this off?

Apparently unwilling to let it go, she’s still bent on resistance; back on her feet, Ayu launches into a whole song and dance of playing innocent. After she flat-out wailed “I’ve been found out—!” and crumpled to her knees not a moment ago, it makes for a downright pitiful, doomed little stand.

“Ohh, so it’s not that, then~…”
“Th-that’s right~! Ahaha…”
“I was actually a little curious, though~… but if you’re not watching it, Ayu, then never mind, I guess!”
“…Eh.”

Quit looking over here.

Even I, the one who usually can’t read a thing off Ayu and ends up stewing over it, can tell exactly what’s going on this time. That face says…

I blew it! If only I’d owned it a little and said something like, “This year’s movie’s supposedly getting rave reviews, so I’m a little curious, and if you’re into it too, Hotaru, why don’t we go with this one!”

That’s the face of someone thinking exactly that. Probably.

“O-oh, I see, so that’s how it is~…”
“…Hehe, just kidding, Ayu!”
“Eh.”
“You came here to watch tokusatsu, didn’t you?”
“Is that okay?!”
“I’m the one who barged in, so I don’t get a say in the pick — and I’m a bit curious myself, so let’s watch it!”
“Yaaay—!!”

A first-year high-school girl, out in public, thrilled to bits at getting to see the theatrical cut of a Sunday-morning kids’ show. And the person inside her is a reincarnator, a former man who, counting the past life, is apparently north of thirty. To anyone who’s been let in on all that, it’s the sort of sight that has you wanting to blurt out, “you have got to be kidding.”

“But I’m so sad~… to think you’d lie to me, Ayu.”
“Th-that’s…”
“So sad~… Maybe I’ll change which movie we watch after all~.”
“Nooo, come on~!”

You’ve got to be kidding, is she still keeping this up?

Our senior Hotaru lays it on thick with a blatant show of heartbreak, the sort Ayu would normally see straight through and coolly call out. But having her tokusatsu hobby sniffed out by part of the class must have rattled her so badly that she’s taking the whole act at face value, trembling and aquiver.

“I’m sorry, Hotaru… it’s just so embarrassing to be seen as someone who still watches it…”
“Ehh~ (deadpan)… well then, if you beg me nicely, I’ll forgive you.”
“B-beg you? …Please! Please watch tokusatsu with me!”
“More cutely.”
“C-cutely? …Please, Hotaru!”
“Say ‘Big Sis Hotaru.’”
“Please, Hotaru, big si— …hm? …hnn??”

Like I said, quit looking over here.

More to the point, what does our senior think she’s doing out in the open like this? I really wish she’d stop using her junior’s pick of movie as leverage to indulge her own whims.

“Say it.”
“U-um…”
“Come on, quickly.”
“…Gin.”
“What?”

Getting lumped in as one of their party would be mortifying, so I figured I’d quietly slip off. Just as the thought crossed my mind, Ayu called out to me, her shoulder seized and our senior looming over her.

“Could you back off a little?”
“Sure thing.”

I’d been meaning to anyway… or so I’d thought, but the instant someone tells me to do a thing, I stop wanting to. I’ve got that contrary streak in me. That’s just who I am.

Making a big show of clearing out of Ayu’s line of sight, I loop around behind her, sidle in close, and go right on watching.

“Hooo… haaah…”

Ayu pulls in a deep, deep breath and drops her head. Brat though she may be for wanting to catch a tokusatsu movie, in her own head she’s a grown adult with thirty-odd years behind her. Being made to call our senior Hotaru, a high-schooler younger than her true self, “big sister” has to sting for her in all sorts of ways.

“…Ngh—! Please! Big Sis Hotaru ♡”

This must be what they mean by throwing all caution to the wind. Snapping her face up, Ayu delivered an all-out, palms-together, wholehearted plea, the caked-on, groveling kind she was surely going to regret like crazy later.

“…”

— Staaare.

“You’re filming something?!!”

What she hadn’t realized was that, at the far end of her upturned gaze, our senior stood filming the whole performance on her phone. Is this woman a demon? If it were me, I’d have died of embarrassment on the spot.

“H-hey, why are you pointing your phone at me?! You’re recording, aren’t you?! You’re totally recording that, aren’t you?!!”
“I’m not recording~.”
“You’re aiming it right at me even now!”

Deflecting Ayu’s pursuit with breezy ease, in word and in body alike, our senior sports a huge grin and looks to be having the time of her life.

Seizing on the chaos, I slipped clear of the scene wearing my most innocent face.

“Delete it! Delete it, pleaaase!”
“No waaay ♡ I’ll pay for your movie ticket, so forgive me!”
“I’ll pay for it myself, thanks!!”
“I’ll treat you to the pamphlet too!”

“…”

— Freeze.

Ayu freezes solid at our senior’s word “treat.” Isn’t she far too easy to work? At a glance our senior looks the very picture of tender benevolence, but from where I’m standing, that’s the grin of someone dead certain of her win.

“…Does it come with the DVD?”
“Of course!”
“…No, you know what, forget it, I don’t need it! I’d only ever watch the making-of once anyw—”
“One little piece of merch would be fine too~”
“…”

She’s wavering. Clearly wavering, weighing her own dignity against the whole heap of freebies. Come to think of it, unlike us, our senior actually holds down a part-time job, so she’s got the spending power to back it up.

“N-no! This year’s movie’s honestly gotten such great reviews that the pamphlets are sold ou—”
“Hmm~ looks like they’ve reprinted them, though. Guess it’s been a while since it opened?”
“…”

Torn, Ayu groans out a “Ggh…” and a “No, but…”, clutching her head and pacing this way and that in agony. I mean, she’s basically caved already at this point, hasn’t she.

“…You won’t show it to anyone?”
“Of course not!”
“The other day, Hina had the audio from a recital, though…”
“I had permission to record it, and just like I promised, I never put it online, you know? Hina’s careful about that kind of thing, so it’s fine, isn’t it?”
“I never said it was okay to go handing the recording itself to other people, though…”
“But it was so good! Even you listened to it and said ‘that one’s a real winner,’ didn’t you, Ayu?”
“I mean, I’m the one who said that, sure, but…”

Ayu strains to squeeze out some pretext to refuse and get the thing deleted, but she hasn’t a hope of beating our senior in any sense of the word, and she’s boxed in on every side.

And in the end…

“…Fine, if you promise not to show anyone.”

And so, with Ayu caving, the whole grand commotion came to its close.

Our senior, meanwhile, was doing a little victory jig.