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 Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 1:17 pm
Yahya sat with a bowl of popcorn situated between his legs, picking up the individual kernels and thoughtlessly popping them into his mouth, one by one. He had a huge soda sitting in the cup holder next to him (the person he had dragged to the movies had accidentally taken a sip out of the cup already, but Yahya was nice enough not to mention or draw attention to the incident), the outside wet with condensation. He was watching the longest movie he had ever watched, and he could be proud of himself for not having to get up to use the restroom yet.
Avatar was playing vividly on the huge screen, the movie slowly drawing closer to its end. The 'action' was beginning to start, with all the explosions and gun-fighting that teenage boys enjoyed watching. Yahya didn't like it so much. He had liked the moments of the movie where he could watch all the new animals and plant-life, and those giant blue cats. The movie had been out for a while, and Yahya had just now found the time to go see it. It was nice, though. The theater was relatively empty, save for a few die-hard fans that were seeing the film for their third time.
No one ever went to the movies alone - it was embarrassment to show up all by your lonesome when everyone else was arriving in groups of two or more. He had invited his best friend, Sue, who seemed a little off. Yahya had no idea what was bothering his friend, and he made a plan to ask him once the movie was finished. If Sue thought Yahya wouldn't notice, he did not know his friend as well as he thought. Yahya cared for just about everything. It was why he took in so many strays.
Just a few days ago he had found a strange purple cat, and in the process of trying to find its owner, he had received more calls than he could handle. Luckily, the owner, a pretty girl, was the first to arrive at his apartment. Since then, he hadn't found anything new to take in. It was just Columbus, and tomorrow he'd be taking the baby deer back to the rescue center now that it was healthy.
Life, for Yahya Grant, was good.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 3:16 pm
It was funny how few words it actually took to navigate a jaunt out to the movies. There'd been sort of a grunt for hello; a shrug and nod for okay, let's get going. Sue had needed to at least open his mouth to get the tickets, but then the ticket lady had asked "Same movie?", nodding to his friend who had just bought his own ticket, so all Sue had needed to do was nod. The concessions were all too expensive for him, so he'd just stood by and looked embarrassed while Yahya had gotten his drink and popcorn. Just about the only word he'd said all night, in fact, was "Sure"; spoken in the theater when Yahya had been eagerly asking for his opinion on whether they should sit in this row or that row, after a few seconds in which Sue discovered that nodding his head in a darkened theater wasn't the most effective means of communication. The truth was, he'd been choking down a massive YAHYA, YOU IDIOT for days now. That travesty of a "found cat" caper had left Sue emasculated and humiliated in front of his Princess, and the anger hadn't gotten an outlet since. Sure, it made logical sense for Yahya to have done what he did. He'd been completely rational every step of the way, in fact, so far as Sue could see. And that was what pissed him off so much.Things could have gone badly! So badly! Yahya, handing out his address willy-nilly; for all Sue knew, there were Negaversers that were still sitting on it, musing over whether they should do something about the boy living there, just in case. Or just as a message to the Guardian Cat stupid enough to get himself locked up in a crate. Just by being himself, just by being Yahya - just by being Yahya in Sue's vicinity - he could have gotten himself killed. And whose fault would that be, then? Right, exactly. Sue's. Sue's for having an idiot friend who was there in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and acting in just the wrong ways to keep himself safe. Sue thought he ought to forget about it. Sit down, watch a movie. He wasn't really enjoying the movie as much as he thought he would, though, and with Yahya right beside him, he couldn't quite relax. Every tiny thing was irking him right now. The shakiness of the camera was beyond what he could stand, especially when everyone was dying. Somewhere in here, Sue began imagining zombies and youma on the screen, fighting against the schoolkids. And there Yahya was; just slurping at his drink as noisily as he could, looking utterly unconcerned as Na'vi were shot down left and right. He didn't even seem aware that his friend was watching him and not the movie, jaw working away on nothing, sort of a glazed, angry expression on his face. At the time, Sue didn't realize that he'd snapped. All he knew was that he'd suddenly made a decision to do something - something that had to be done - and he wasn't even sure how to set about it until he'd reached out and knocked the large-sized drink right out of Yahya's hands. It bounced against the seat in front of him and spilled onto the front of Yahya's legs, scattering ice and making a cold, dripping puddle to trickle down underneath the seats in the tier in front of them. Some eyes flicked over to the source of the sound, only vaguely, but then there was an explosion on the screen, and all eyes were occupied with the movie once more. Sue didn't say anything yet. He was still just staring with burning contempt at the boy beside him, as though challenging Yahya to react.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 3:36 pm
One minute Yahya was contentedly enjoying the movie, hands reaching out to take hold of his soda so he could take a sip... and the next moment the cup was flung out of his hands, spilling on his legs and most of his popcorn. It would take an idiot not to realize what had happened, and Yahya's head turned, wide eyes staring helplessly at his friend. What... had just happened? He knew something had been chewing away at his friend's brain, ever since they had arrived at the movie theater together... he just hadn't realized how big of a deal it evidently was.
He thought he could wait until after the movie to bring it up, but clearly now was the time, in the middle of a movie, with people looking at them curiously. His eyes remained locked with Sue's for a few moments longer before he realized that he should pick the soda up off of the floor. He bent down, picking the near-empty cup up and setting it back in the cup holder. He was nervous, anxious.
He wanted to know what he'd done to piss his friend off enough for Sue to take such action towards him. Yahya wasn't so much angry as he was confused. It would be wrong to assume that he wasn't upset that his pants were soaking up spilled soda. His legs would be sticky and cold all the way home, and he wouldn't be able to finish his popcorn, or watch the rest of the movie.
Common sense would have him grabbing his friend's arm and dragging them out of the theater so they could talk, but Yahya was scared that if he touched Sue, Sue would hit him. Yahya didn't want to fight, he wanted to know what was wrong with Sue, so he could try and fix it. He was scared that if he said anything, Sue would explode, Sue would start screaming at him and he would have no clue why. Clearly he had done something wrong, but what that was, he had no idea.
He leaned over to Sue, putting himself in the danger zone, but he didn't want to speak over a whisper. Yahya was a little mindful of the other moviegoers. "What's wrong? Did I do something?" he asked. Something had to be wrong, something big. If it was something little, Yahya would scream with frustration. He didn't like this, not one bit. Sue was his friend, and sure he had done things to upset him in the past, but he was always able to SEE the reason, and if he saw the reason he wouldn't get upset as well.
He did not see the reason behind Sue striking out at his soda, and in essence, him.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:03 pm
"******** off." Sue wasn't whispering. He wasn't hissing, wasn't mumbling, wasn't doing anything that a decent person would in order to respect the people around him. His voice started loud and grew louder; as the sounds of fighting in the mpvie grew softer, with the lead heroine reflecting on the horrors of war around her, Sue's voice picked up to fill the volume gap. "Did you hear me? Did you get it? ********. Off."
If Yahya was expecting explanation, he wasn't going to get it. There weren't accusations to throw around. That was the problem, couldn't he see? It was because Yahya hadn't done anything wrong! If Yahya was doing things wrong, then it would be like that night with the youma. Sue could yell at him for doing things wrong, and maybe Yahya wouldn't do it anymore, and he could be safe. But because Yahya hadn't done anything wrong, it meant there was something more base that was dangerous. It was him, and him being around Sue - and Yahya couldn't be safe because of that, so....
So this was it. This was what Sue had to do. And he still barely knew what or why, but he'd never felt so damned sure of anything in his life until now. "I mean it, Yahya - <******** off. ******** the hell off and stay the <********> away from me!" Jabbing at his friend's chest, he was shouting just as loud as he could. The people nearest to where they sat were leaning away, staring in shock, wondering if they were about to be unwitting witnesses to a fistfight. People further away were booing, angry to have their movie-time disturbed. And for some reason, Sue shouting "Oh, shut up" at them didn't convince them to let the two quarrel in peace; instead, a bag of popcorn was lobbed, thumping against Sue's back.
Which just made him angrier. Which he was no doubt about to take out on Yahya.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:20 pm
He was stunned stupid. Sue wasn't whispering to him back, nor was he telling him the problem so Yahya could fix it. Sue was yelling at him, Sue was telling him to go away. It made no sense. This had no logic! What had he done? Why did Sue want him to go away? Yahya simply couldn't respond, not at first. He let Sue yell at him, still leaning slightly forward, as if the shock from being yelled at was too much for him to make a move back fully into his seat.
Yes, he heard him, loud and clear. No, he did not get it. No, he would never understand it. Sue was swearing at him for no reason! What about that was there for him to understand? He couldn't comprehend the clear message in Sue's words, he was too busy trying to understand why he was yelling at him. It was all he registered, for those first few moments.
Then it clicked.
He retaliated in that instant, lifting his hand to push Sue's own hand to the side so it would stop poking him in the chest. "N-n-no!" he stuttered. It was apparent that he was shocked, that he was finding it difficult to comprehend the situation. But, he knew one thing, and one thing only, he was not going to <******** off. He was not going stay the ******** away from Sue. Sue was his friend, and he didn't want to lose him. He was angry, but he would NOT lose Sue.
"No!" he replied firmly, though his voice was still low, as if they weren't already disturbing the rest of the people in the theater. "You're crazy! No. No, no, no. I won't, you're being stupid to think that I would! What is your problem? Is it something I did? TELL ME. Tell me so I can fix it!" Was... Yahya Grant yelling?
Yes, yes he was.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:54 pm
This would probably be the perfect time to storm off, scream that he never wanted to see the boy's ugly face again, maybe make some vague threats about killing certain baby squirrels. That would give Yahya pause for thought, for damned sure! Just one problem here: They were sitting damn near in the center of the aisle. Even in the near-empty theater, there were still two people blocking Sue's escape one way - and he wasn't going to go shoving past Yahya to get out the other. So until he got angry enough to start pushing people aside, he was effectively trapped.
Which might be great for his goal of pissing off Yahya so bad that he never tried talking to Sue again, but sure wasn't doing good things for his blood pressure just then.
"You - ******** - YOU," seemed to be about as coherent as Sue could manage for a moment. When his hand was knocked aside, that was an obvious trigger - he went up to his feet then, getting the height advantage on bullying the poor boy next to him. "You can't fix it, god damn it! IT'S YOU. That's the ******** problem, YOU ARE. You don't get it, I don't expect you to get it, because you ******** can't! But it's ******** everything you do, everything about you, and it's--"
The theater was starting to get really noisy at this point, filled with shouts and jeers and some obnoxious kid in the back that was shouting woo, take your top off! Kiss him already!, which really seemed to be pissing Sue off. All the commotion had caught some attention from the theater staff, too. The kids at the end of the aisle were standing to make way for a pair of theater workers, just barely older than Sue and Yahya themselves, who were moving in concert with a second pair on Yahya's side of the theater to break up the conflict. Just as Sue was building up to his crescendo of, "I don't want to see you at school, I don't want you to ******** call me or text me or whatever the hell else, I swear to God that the next time you so much as try to TALK to me, I am going to go out and drown a sack of baby squirrels," a hand caught his elbow and jerked him back.
As one Sue Gottschalk was forcibly evicted from the Regal Cinema on Blues Street (and, he would later learn, banned from that establishment for life), there were many wild cheers from the audience. Yahya Grant, of course, was escorted to the exit on the opposite side of the building, to no less fanfare or lifelong consequence, despite his role as the victim in these cruel affairs.
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Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 5:18 pm
He was shrinking down into his seat like a coward, because in the end, he really couldn't fight against Sue. He could get angry and scream and yell just as well as his friend, but he'd always be the one to back down first, the one to be cowed into submission. Sue was towering over him, yelling at him even louder than before. He couldn't hear anything else but Sue's yelling, could see nothing else but the boy poised above him.
Finally he learned what the problem was, and he was crushed. "W-what?" he asked helplessly, as if he had not just heard the words that had spilled from his friend's lips. He couldn't even retaliate now, couldn't even plead his case. He was the problem, and he couldn't fix himself, he couldn't change, and he really did not want to. He liked being him, and he liked Sue being Sue... so it was the simple truth that Sue did not like him.
Sue had hung out with him for weeks, and had not liked him one bit. Sue had made him believe that they were friends when they weren't. Sue had given him Columbus, but did not like him. Sue did not like him. "Sue!" his voice was small, uncertain.
This couldn't be true. This wasn't true. It didn't make sense. "B-but," he tried to interject, tried to let his voice be heard over Sue's. It didn't work, and he tried again to no avail. Sue was emotionally shoving him away with all the brute force of a truck speeding at fifty miles per hour.
His eyes were wet with tears, but he didn't cry. He wouldn't cry over this! Oh, a tear might have slipped there, but he didn't think Sue could see it - Sue was too busy being angry at him, Sue was too busy hating him. "D-Don't even joke about hurting them!" he was aghast. Sue knew how to hurt him, knew how to hurt him bad.
Sue was suddenly being forcibly dragged away, and Yahya wasn't even surprised that hands were encouraging him to walk out of the theater. He didn't struggle, he didn't have the strength to. He didn't care about the theater, he cared about his friend, who he couldn't see anymore, who he knew he couldn't call because Sue would never answer them.
He had lost him, though really, if he thought about it, he had never really had Sue at all.
Yahya slumped down onto the grass, limbs heavy, heart aching. Just for a little while he'd sit there, just enough time for him to recover some composure for the trip home.
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