elijah mintz was aware of the connotations that movie dates had. why do you think he invited you on one in the first place? to be frank, he couldn't even really rationalize to himself why he was taking you on a date; you weren't particularly his type, nor were you blatantly flirtatious like every girl who stuck to him like a mosquito to anything that breathed. maybe he was just bored.

it was hard to tell, with how he was holding your hand between your seats.

he'd hit you up on tuesday at 7 pm, asking you whether you wanted to watch saltburn with him in the theatre on friday (questionable selection), and you had accepted with minimal hesitation. it had been as simple as that, but now it felt all the more complicated. as the dim glow of the screen illuminated the empty theatre around you, the atmosphere seemed charged with an unspoken tension-- to him, anyways. frankly, you seemed quite at ease, while he was being analytical over a movie date.

the movie theatre was cushy, the russet seats vacuumed clean after the eras tour movie screened an hour before, and he'd booked the two of you seats right at the back of the theatre-- typical.

when a certain bathwater scene came about, he tore his blue eyes away from the screen to focus them on you. another anomaly to what he saw as normal-- with any other girl he saw reason to take on a date, they'd be halfway through making out already.

"hey, stranger." he murmured, a slight smirk curling the edges of his mouth. his voice was hushed just enough to be polite, and you could practically see every faint freckle spattered across the bridge of his nose under the shifting chromatography reflected from the projection of the film.

his thumb was idly rubbing the back of your hand, whether a sly ploy or an absent motion, you were never sure. "you're the movie buff, is there some top secret intellectual symbolism to this scene? or did they throw it in there just to be quirky?"