Never Watch Alone

You would never willingly rewatch a bad movie. 

Her text comes through the next afternoon.

Yuna: still up for that hangout? saturday? my place?

You: yeah. what time

Yuna: 6? I have a whole night planned

You: should I be concerned

Yuna: absolutely

You are, a little, concerned. Two days after the meeting, you show up anyway.

Yuna's dorm smells like popcorn and whatever candle she's got lit on the windowsill. Something vaguely like vanilla and unearned confidence. She's already got the blanket fort situation handled by the time you knock. Couch cushions on the floor. String lights taped along the ceiling in a pattern that suggests either an electrician or complete chaos went into it. Possibly both.

“You actually came,” she says, opening the door like she wasn't sure you would.

“You invited me.”

“People don't always show up when they're invited. That's like half of hosting anything. Managing disappointment.”

“Statistically bleak outlook for tonight.”

“I'm an optimist. Come in.”

You toe off your shoes at the door because she's already staring pointedly at your feet. You get the sense this is not a house where exceptions get made. “Nice place.”

“It's a dorm room.”

“It's a nice dorm room.”

“It's the same dorm room as everyone else's. I just have string lights and better snack game.” She gestures at a spread on the desk that includes, inexplicably, three different flavors of the same chip. “I panic-bought. Don't read into it.”

“Too late. Already reading into it.”

“Read faster, then. So we can move on with our lives.”

Her roommate's gone, visiting someone, back tomorrow. Conveniently absent in the way that makes you wonder if it was planned. The room itself is small, warm, lived-in. A desk buried under notebooks. A rack of shoes by the door that outnumbers the shoes any one person should reasonably need. And, above the desk, thumbtacked at one curling corner like it's been there since move-in day.

You clock it before she even finishes closing the door.

Two guys in silver jumpsuits, standing in front of the Meteor Falcon. A ship that looks like it was built out of spare parts and spite.

“No way,” you say.

“What?”

“Is that—” You point. “Is that Star Bros?”

Yuna turns, follows your finger, and something shifts across her face. Surprised, then delighted, then something closer to suspicious. “You know Star Bros?”

“I own three of the movies on physical media. Who doesn't know Star Bros.”

“Most people. Most people do not know Star Bros.”

“Their loss.”

“Their—” She stops. Stares at you. “Okay, wait. Favorite one. Go.”

This is a test, clearly. And you get the sense a wrong answer here might end the friendship before it starts.

“Two,” you say. “Obviously two. It's the best one.”

“Correct. Objectively correct.” She looks almost offended that you got it right. Like she'd been fully prepared to fight about it. “Favorite bad one.”

“There's only one bad one that's actually good-bad. No Bro Left Behind.”

Yuna makes a sound that isn't quite a scream. More like the sound a smoke detector makes right before the battery dies. “Holy shit, nobody has ever said that to me unprompted. My roommate thinks I'm deranged for defending it.”

“Your roommate's wrong.”

“That's what I said! That's exactly what I said, and she just—” Yuna shakes her head, still stuck on it. “Sit down. We're watching it. Tonight. This is happening now.”

You don't argue. There's no version of tonight where you were going to argue.

She's got it queued up before you've even settled into the blanket fort. Remote in one hand, and for reasons unclear, a second remote in the other. “Fair warning,” she says. “I narrate. It's not optional. It's a service I provide.”

“Noted.”

“Also if you make fun of the visor flip I will end this friendship before it starts.”

“I would never make fun of the visor flip.”

“Everyone makes fun of the visor flip. It's the most-mocked thirty seconds of footage in the franchise.”

“I said I would never. Not that other people are wrong to.”

“That's such a Y/N answer.”

“Wow. Didn't know you were paying that much attention.”

“Hard not to.”

You file that one away too. Quietly. You're getting good at this. The whole noticing the exact moment someone says more than they meant to.

The movie starts. Cheap opening credits, synth score that's trying way too hard, a title card that takes itself far more seriously than anything that follows will earn. You love it immediately, and you get the sense you're not supposed to say that part out loud. So you don't.