Pov Narrator.
Some time later...
Isagi and Makima took their seats, not in the front rows, but not in the back either, rather somewhere in the middle. The theater was already almost full, and the lights slowly began to dim, allowing the enormous screen to illuminate the room.
The movie playing at that moment, in short, was about the typical red devil with horns facing, apparently, an angel. A fairly simple premise, although the audience seemed to be enjoying it from the very first minutes.
Isagi took a sip from his cup of soda with an expression that didn't change regardless of what scene was playing. He remained reclined in his seat, watching the screen with complete calm, while occasionally grabbing one of the churros he had brought in secretly. The people around him did seem to be having fun; laughter filled the theater every few minutes. The only ones who weren't laughing were Makima and Isagi, and that was despite the fact that Isagi's sense of humor was completely broken.
He could laugh at even a piece of bread falling over.
But maybe he didn't find this movie funny because he didn't understand Japanese humor.
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"Look, Makima, I'll admit that as long as there are explosions and fights, it's already a good movie for me, but this first one was... meh. I think the entire budget went into the questionable CGI." Isagi said as they were now sitting in a small café after the movie.
"That's a good observation. Although the special effects were well done, the story is just an attempt to make people less afraid of devils, and the comedy was very forced." Makima nodded, giving her own opinion with the calmness that characterized her. She then took a small sip of her coffee.
"I think it would've been way cooler if the one fighting the devil had been an old man using a machete and the battle took place on a hill." Isagi pointed out as a smile began to appear on his face. Little by little, he became more animated as he imagined the scene in his head. "Yeah, at night, and halfway through the fight it started raining, and then at the end the old man cut off its tail and the devil managed to escape for a second round. Whew, if it had been like that... simply Absolute Cinema, twenty out of ten and God."
Makima laughed softly at Isagi's idea. The image of an old man facing a devil armed with nothing but a machete was, to say the least, curious. She thought it undoubtedly would have been a much more interesting proposal to watch, although that wouldn't change her opinion of the movie very much. The attempt to minimize the threat of devils and reinforce the idea that an angel could be the hero who defeated them would still be obvious.
"A movie based on a Latin story?" Makima's comment made Isagi turn to look at her, since he hadn't expected her to understand where he had gotten that idea. "I once heard that, in countries like that, there's a rumor that sometimes 'grandfathers' have actually faced devils or, as they call it over there, 'the devil,' and won."
Isagi simply grabbed his chest with emotion. The fact that the story of the legendary battles between the devil and the grandfather had reached Japan made him feel incredibly proud. He came within an inch of shedding a tear; apparently, the feats of the machete-wielding grandfather were already crossing borders.
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In the next movie...
Isagi was sprawled out in his seat as if he were at home. The soft dark-blue light from the movie screen was the only thing illuminating the room, while he ate some candy. Every now and then he changed positions with complete tranquility, perfectly comfortable, as if instead of sitting in a movie theater, he were sitting on his own living-room couch.
The movie was about an animal. Did that mean Isagi was going to cry?
Absolutely nope.
Isagi only got sentimental over one movie: the one about the dog Hachi, which he had already watched with Makima. If the movie didn't have a dog, Isagi didn't care.
In fact, this might sound very edgy, but he actually liked watching fights between wild animals. So, when they showed a sad scene involving the whale, he didn't care too much.
What? Isagi had watched National Geographic and Animal Planet since he was little; it was the fault of those two channels that he liked watching that kind of thing. And his favorite show had been Bug Wars, where supposed experts would analyze and debate who would win between two animals if they ever faced each other.
So Isagi simply finished his candy while everyone else cried silently. Small sobs and the sound of several people wiping away their tears could be heard around him. However, Isagi and Makima simply watched the scene without changing their expressions, remaining just as calm as they had been at the beginning of the movie, as if both of them were analyzing the story from a completely different perspective than the rest of the audience.
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"I didn't like how it felt like they were trying to force you to cry." Makima said thoughtfully after watching the movie, mentally going over some of the scenes they had just seen.
They had returned to the café for a short break.
And so the hours passed, movie after movie. Both Makima and Isagi, at the end of each showing, gave their personal opinions about what they had just watched. Although, of course, Isagi sometimes said things Makima couldn't fully understand, such as when he called the person who wrote the script for the horror movie they had watched a "Foxy fan." No matter how hard she tried to make sense of the comment, she eventually accepted that it was probably a reference only Isagi understood.
Lots of sudden screamers and shit. Isagi had fallen for them more than once. No, man, for someone who fought devils almost every day, falling for a screamer had to be minus one hundred aura, and Isagi didn't like screamers.
I mean, he did like seeing other people get scared by them, but he didn't like having them happen to him. That was a very important distinction.
At the end of the day, night arrived, and with it came the final movie of the day. Isagi, for his part, stretched lazily, making his back crack slightly after spending so many hours sitting, while Makima checked the reviews for the next showing.
"It doesn't really have any bad reviews, but they say this movie is difficult to understand. Should we watch it?" She asked as she walked along the sidewalk toward, once again, the movie theater.
Difficult to understand? Ha. Makima was talking to someone who had watched Evangelion. Had Isagi understood the plot?
Not one damn bit.
He hadn't understood a damn thing, but he already had experience surviving complicated stories. At most, he would leave the theater even more confused... but with a clear conscience knowing he had tried.
Isagi, for his part, let out a sigh as he stopped for a second. He looked at the huge movie poster in front of the theater entrance and then turned his gaze back toward Makima.
"I guess so, although I'll give these last ones a five out of ten and... zzzz. I don't think I'm really into movies or movie marathons."
"Mmm, I suppose that's a fair point. The movies so far have been merely passable, but we have to see if this one makes up for the last few hours." Makima suggested with a small smile, as she understood Isagi's boredom. After all, he was much more into practically working than sitting around for so long.
"Alright, the bad thing is that I already ran out of food, but I can survive the last movie without it." Isagi said as he nodded and walked toward the final theater once again.
He let out a small resigned sigh when he checked one last time and confirmed that there wasn't a single churro left hidden in his inventory.
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Silence was the only thing reigning over the empty movie theater. Maybe it was because of the time, or because the movie's reviews were so confusing that people preferred to watch something else. So the only two people present in the entire theater were Isagi and Makima. The enormous screen faintly illuminated the rows of empty seats, creating an atmosphere much quieter and more intimate than that of the previous showings.
Both remained silent as they watched the final scene. Even Isagi was slightly hunched forward, with his hands clasped in front of his face, completely focused on the screen. He no longer had that relaxed expression he had worn while watching the other movies. There were no explosions in the scene, no fights, no action whatsoever; just a man slowly walking along a path.
Apparently returning.
And yet, for some reason, neither of them looked away from the screen.
The scene continued. The man reached the entrance of a village, where a somewhat older woman was calmly sweeping the entrance of her house. Neither of them said a single word. The woman simply set the broom aside and hugged the man the moment she saw him, as if she had been waiting for that moment for an incredibly long time.
The scene didn't seem like anything special. That's what someone without all the context provided by the movie would think, which, in short, was: he left, he came back... and someone was still waiting for him. Isagi remained silent for a moment, without taking his eyes off the screen. For some reason, that simple scene had managed to capture his attention much more than any explosion or fight from the previous movies.
Home... returning home and having someone waiting for you, someone who hugs you when they see you.
It was something Isagi had never experienced, neither in this life nor in his previous one. Not at the level shown in that final scene. It wasn't some grand or dramatic reunion; precisely that simplicity was what made it feel so real.
Isagi didn't cry, but he did feel a strange sensation in his chest.
"(Cardiac arrhythmia?)" he thought, bringing a hand to his chest to make sure he wasn't about to have a heart attack. He remained like that for a few seconds before convincing himself that he was still alive.
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"I think this last movie was actually worth it. It made up for the price of the others." Makima said as she walked along the sidewalk, with Isagi walking beside her.
Night had completely fallen, and the city lights calmly illuminated the streets as the two of them left the movie theater.
"Honestly, this last movie wasn't that difficult to understand. Its concept is simple, but difficult at the same time." Isagi replied after a few seconds of silence. He kept his eyes forward, still thinking about the last scene, as if he were trying to put the ideas the movie had left him with in order.
"Is that what you think?" Makima asked with interest, slightly turning her head to look at him as they continued walking at the same pace. "Could you tell me?"
"I don't know how to put it... give me a moment." Isagi replied as he absentmindedly scratched the back of his neck. "From my point of view, I think it's about returning... returning home and seeing that someone is waiting for you with open arms, being able to return to a place knowing that someone is still waiting for you." Isagi said as he put his hands into his pockets, adopting a much more solemn expression than usual.
His steps became a little slower as he spoke, as if he were carefully choosing each word.
"Although, well, I can't say I know what it feels like. It's been a long time since anyone has waited for me. I simply go home, eat, maybe do some exercise and watch something on TV... No one waits for me at home anymore."
For an instant, the noise of the city seemed to fade into the background. Isagi didn't sound sad nor was he looking for sympathy; he was simply describing a reality he had been accustomed to for so long that he had eventually accepted it as something normal.
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End of the chapter.