Chương 246: Chapter : 246

Ira turned her head toward him.

"The Silent Witness. A detective thriller. Runtime, one hundred and twenty-three minutes. Audience anticipation rating, eighty-seven percent." Ken's open eye narrowed slightly.

"Does it have a lot of explosions?"

"Affirmative," Ira said.

"The trailer features thirty-seven distinct explosion events." Ken considered this for approximately two seconds. Then he closed his eye and went back to sleep.

"Not interested," he mumbled into the cushion.

"Too much effort. Tell me how it ends." Before Ira could respond with a statistical breakdown of the film's plot structure, another voice cut through the room. This one came from the doorway leading to the upstairs hallway.

"WAIT!" Luna appeared at the top of the staircase. She was wearing an oversized sleep shirt that hung past her knees. Her silver-blue hair was a wild mess, sticking up at angles that defied gravity. Her eyes were barely open, still puffy with sleep, but they were wide enough to show something that looked dangerously like excitement.

"Is that The Silent Witness?" Luna asked, her voice cracking with sudden, unexpected energy. She gripped the stair railing and leaned forward, her half-lidded eyes suddenly sparkling.

"I have been waiting to see that movie for months! Months!" She stumbled down the stairs with the coordination of someone who was still eighty percent asleep but one hundred percent determined. Her feet shuffled against the wooden steps. She nearly tripped on the third stair, caught herself on the railing, and kept going.

"Luna, you just woke up," Sayma observed, watching the lightning user descend with the grace of a newborn deer.

"You do not even have shoes on." Luna did not care about shoes. Luna did not care about anything except the poster in Ira's hands. She crossed the living room in three wobbly strides and grabbed Ira by the shoulders, staring at the glossy paper with the intensity of someone who had just found the Holy Grail.

"Ira," Luna said, her sleepy voice suddenly filled with a warm, buzzing energy.

"We are going. Together. Right now. This is not a request." Ira blinked. This was, in Ira terms, the equivalent of gasping in shock.

"I had intended to attend alone. Social interaction reduces my enjoyment efficiency by approximately twelve percent."

"Nope," Luna said, shaking her head.

"No way. I am not letting you sit in a dark theater by yourself like some kind of weird movie ghost. We are making this a group outing." Her tired but determined eyes swept across the room. They landed on Sayma, who quickly raised her book like a shield. They landed on Zinia, who suddenly became very interested in resuming her push-ups. They landed on the sofa. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. They landed on Ken.

Luna's face broke into a warm, sleepy smile. She walked over to the couch and grabbed Ken by the arm.

"Ken, you are coming with us," Luna declared cheerfully. Ken's eyes opened. Both of them this time. He looked at Luna's hand on his arm, then at her determined face, then at the ceiling as if asking the universe why this was happening to him.

"No," he said simply.

"Yes," Luna said, pulling gently.

"Absolutely not," Ken said, anchoring himself to the couch like a barnacle on a ship.

"I have a very important schedule today. It is called sitting right here and not moving." Luna tilted her head. Her half-closed eyes softened, and a gentle warmth spread across her sleepy features. She was not going to use force. She was going to use something far more dangerous. She was going to use gratitude.

"Ken," Luna said quietly, her voice dropping to a soft, sincere tone that was completely different from her usual lazy drawl.

"You stayed by my side the whole time I was sick with the Blue Decay. You were there when I could not breathe. You were there when I was scared." She squeezed his arm gently.

"You gave me moral support when I needed it most. This movie ticket is my way of saying thank you." Ken stared at her. His lazy expression flickered for just a moment, like a candle in a draft. Then he looked away and scratched the back of his head.

"That is... yeah, okay, fine," he mumbled, his ears turning slightly pink.

"But I am not happy about it."

"He is coming!" Luna announced to the room with a triumphant grin. Ken slumped his shoulders, crossed his arms, and let out a dramatic, world-weary sigh that suggested he was being forced to march into battle rather than walk to a movie theater.

"Wait," he said, holding up one finger. His dark eyes narrowed with sudden, intense seriousness. The kind of seriousness that people usually reserved for life-or-death negotiations.

"I have a condition." Luna raised an eyebrow.

"A condition?"

"A family-sized bag of sour cream and onion potato chips," Ken declared. His voice was firm. Unshakable. The voice of a man who had drawn a line in the sand and would not cross it.

"The big one. Not the small one. Not the medium one. The one that says family on the bag. If there are no chips, there is no Ken." Sayma sighed from her armchair. Zinia rolled her eyes. Even Ira's blank expression seemed to deepen, if that were possible. Luna stared at him for a long moment. Her tired eyes searched his face for any sign of a joke. She found none. Ken Eliot was dead serious about his potato chips. Then Luna laughed. It was a warm, musical sound, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.

It filled the living room and made even Sayma crack a small smile. Luna threw her head back and laughed with genuine, uncomplicated joy.

"Done!" she said brightly, wiping a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye.

"You get your chips, Ken. The biggest bag they have. I promise." Ken nodded slowly, satisfied that his terms had been accepted. He was a businessman, after all. A lazy, snack-driven businessman with a very specific set of priorities and an unshakeable negotiating position.

"Then we have a deal," he said, offering his hand to Luna with the gravitas of a noble signing a peace treaty. Luna shook it happily. Her grip was surprisingly strong for someone who looked like she might fall asleep standing up. The deal was struck, the terms were clear, and there was no turning back now.

"Alright, let us go!" Luna said, grabbing Ken by the arm again and pulling him off the couch with a surprising burst of energy. Ken's body went limp like a rag doll, making himself as difficult to move as possible. His feet dragged across the floor. His arms hung loose. He let out a long, pitiful groan that sounded like a dying whale.

"My kingdom," Ken wailed dramatically as Luna hauled him toward the front door.

"My beautiful, beautiful kingdom. I will miss you most of all, couch."

"You will survive," Luna said, dragging him through the doorway.