Smoke

By Ju

Tsutsui doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes.

He remembers exactly when and why he first started feeling this way, and even so many years later, he gets this tight feeling in his chest whenever he thinks about it.

His parents didn’t mean to leave him behind, of course.  But with all the relatives and friends and noise in the restaurant, they didn’t notice him going to the bathroom.  And when he returned to the empty table, and sat there as the restaurant staff cleared the plates, he could feel fear rising like bile in his throat.  The cigarette smoke that lingered in the air stung his eyes, and when his parents came back, worried and apologetic, that was the explanation he gave them for his tears.

Kaga’s uniform always smells like cigarettes.  He smokes before school, during the lunch period, after school, and sometimes when he should be in class.  He never smokes around Tsutsui, though, because he knows that Tsutsui doesn’t like it.

Tsutsui wonders how the other boy knows this.

But Kaga’s uniform always smells like cigarettes, and when he drapes his arm over Tsutsui’s shoulders, Tsutsui doesn’t pull away, doesn’t breathe more shallowly, doesn’t dislike the smell of cigarettes and aftershave and Kaga.

Tsutsui wonders how the other boy knows this, too.

~ fin