'Sweet or salty?'

That's the question. The biggest dilemma Seulgi has to face everytime she's here at the concession stand in the cinema, with a few minutes left to spare before the movie starts playing. Why does it have to be so complicated? She absolutely hates making important decisions.

A voice greets, "Good evening, how may I help you?"

"Good evening," she greets back absent-mindedly without taking her eyes off of the puffed up corn kernels in front of her. It takes a good few seconds before she realizes how formal that greeting was. She is a regular here at the cinema and never has she ever been greeted so formally.

She looks up to see the person attending to her, expecting either Minhee or Eunjung due to the female voice; it's neither of them, not even Junsu - the third and last concession worker she knows - who she pretty sure she just saw a few moments ago when she entered this establishment. Instead, a new face is standing in front of her. A new, unrealistically beautiful face.

"U- uh.." she stutters.

She wonders how a person could have such a perfectly-sculpted face; the hypnotizing eyes, the long eyelashes, the sharp eyebrows, the beautiful nose, the charismatic jaw line, the small face and the pale skin. She's the epitome of the country's beauty standard. Not to mention that smile; the smile that reaches her eyes, her unrealistic twinkling eyes. It truly feels like her teenage dream comes to life. Young Kang Seulgi would have had her breath taken away seeing this beautiful creature. Apparently, Adult Kang Seulgi is not that much different either. 

"Can I get you anything?" the new face asks again, determined to help her make a decision. "Would you like some popcorn? Or maybe something heavier? We have hot dogs, corn dogs, pretzels, fries, nachos."

"Uh.. I'd like some popcorn," she says, trying really hard not to stare.

"Great choice. Would you like it in a small, medium or large size?" The girl smiles politely, moving to where they arranged the boxes and buckets neatly.

"A small, please," she answers with no hesitation. The size is never the problem.

The girl nods and goes to grab the small-sized box and readies the popcorn scoop. "Sweet or salty?" she finally asks the damned question.

"Ssssss..." She hisses like she's speaking in parseltongue, buying herself some time.

The girl chuckles but doesn't rush her.

"Sweet." She makes the decision, not only for the flavour but also for how that chuckle sounds. ".. please," she adds a second later, for politeness purposes. She watches the girl work, eyes travel to above her chest, searching for the name tag but finding none. She admires her hair colour instead; a darker shade of pinkish blonde that might be a bit much on other people but looks just perfect on her.

The girl is definitely still inexperienced as Seulgi witnesses her hand getting too close to the seemingly still hot popcorn kettle, which resulting in her nearly getting her arm burned. Thankfully nothing bad happened. She then drops a few popcorns on the floor and then struggles on pumping the butter from the butter dispenser before realizing that she's serving sweet popcorns.

Seulgi watches everything from the other side of the counter without making any comment. Honestly, this girl could mess up her order all she wants and she would still thank her.

"Any drinks for you?" Nameless New Face asks casually after the whole popcorn fiasco like nothing happened. 

"Just a regular Coke, please," she answers. This too, is an easy question.

Putting a cup in front of the dispenser and pressing a few buttons doesn't seem like a hard task as she watches the girl does it well this time, unlike the popcorn. The transaction then happens and the stranger tells her to enjoy her movie, to which she shyly thanks her for before rushing to the designated auditorium.

She can't focus on the film that day as her mind keeps wandering to the new concession girl, which is terrible because she's not only watching this particular film for entertainment, she has a whole damn essay to write on it. 

-

'Sweet or salty?'

Here she is again two days later, at the same cinema and the same concession stand. A ticket for the same film has already been purchased online the night before. What a waste of money.

"Hi, Seulgi! What is it today?" Junsu, the concession boy, asks with a small-sized bag already in hand.

She looks at him and answers, "Salty."

"Coke or Iced Choco?" he asks while scooping the popcorn expertly, unlike the new concession girl.

She settles for the latter and waits for him to fill up the plastic glass.

"Are you here for Parallel Mothers?" he asks after checking the time. "You haven't watched it yet? I'm pretty sure your friends came here for it last week."

"I.." She pauses before continuing, "Yeah, I was busy last week."

"Oh. Here you go." He passes the popcorn and iced chocolate to her. "Enjoy!"

She watches the film this time with a new kind of distraction; excitement over the probability of meeting the concession girl again at the end of the day. Fortunately, she's able to force herself to control her mind with particular motivation of not wanting to waste more money to watch the same film for the third time.

When she passes by the concession stand again after the film ends, the girl is not there. When she comes again the week after, the girl is still nowhere to be found. She starts wondering to herself if the new face was only the figment of her imagination.

She contemplates asking the other workers about the new concession girl but decides not to in the end, afraid of being too obvious even though it should be a perfectly normal question to ask since she's a regular there and the place is not one of those large movie theatre chains. On the contrary, it is an arthouse cinema with only two auditoriums and a few workers she could count with her fingers. She's even acquainted with the cleaning lady and the security  guard outside.

The Arthouse.

That's what it is called. Simple.

It's one of her most favourite places in Seoul. One, because she loves films. Two, because she's a film student. There are only four cinemas that specialized in screening independent films in Seoul - films that don't usually make it to the large movie theatre chains because of the low commercial value - and this cinema in particular is the closest from her campus. Coming here is a must for her and her classmates. To sum it up, this is the place if you're a nerd or a pretentious film student. Or in Kang Seulgi's case, a little bit of both.

-

'Sweet or salty?'

This time round Seulgi doesn't really care about popcorn flavours because the nameless new face is back and she's still nameless because she still doesn't have her tag. She wonders if the cinema really doesn't make profit to the point that they can't afford to give this new girl a name tag and a proper uniform. Not that she's complaining because the girl looks so good in those jeans and a simple white t-shirt. Her hair is also tied up nicely in a perfect pony tail, which makes her look even more attractive, if that is even possible.

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