The first time they'd met, Claude had been quite sure he liked girls.
Still, there had been something indescribable and definitely alluring about the older boy. When you're fifteen, after all, a senior is always so cool, especially when he wants to talk to you, and be your friend. (He hadn't realized, at the time, that Kei was hitting on him.)
"You smoke?" he asked nervously the first time they hung out outside of school. The law required a smoker to be at least eighteen years old. Kei was seventeen.
Kei shrugged, exhaling a thin stream of cigarette smoke. "Why not?"
"It's disgusting," he retorted. "And if there's something flammable around, the whole city could explode!"
"That's what we have the vents for, stupid," said Kei, taking the half-smoked cigarette from his lips and offering it to the other boy. After some hesitation, Claude took it and tentatively inhaled, then coughed and sputtered and felt sick. An 'indirect kiss,' though it didn't occur to him at the time.
"Well?"
"I still say it's disgusting," he said, throwing the stupid thing onto the cement and grinding it out with his shoe.
"You're cute," Kei said with a small smile, taking another cigarette from his pocket. Claude blushed as Kei lit the second one, felt himself reddening as the paper began to burn. Slowly, he began to understand...
Kei took one long drag and then dropped it, stomping it out. A waste, if ever there was one.
Claude's mind was racing; here he was, being hit on by this smoking, hair-dying, damnably attractive, "this-is-my-natural-eye-color," delinquent guy--but he didn't want to leave. The more he thought about it, the more horrified he became. Did that make him gay? Would his mother cry if she found out? Would his father look him in the eye? He'd never been so confused in his life!
He was still deep in thought when Kei turned to him.
"Hey," the older boy said softly. "Do you want me to kiss you?"
Claude was so flabbergasted, all he could do was blush harder and stutter. "Um."
Claude's first kiss tasted like cigarettes. It was awful and disgusting, but not altogether unpleasant.
"Was that so bad?"
Claude wrinkled his nose. "You taste bad."
Kei laughed, making Claude feel terribly naïve. "You get used to the taste, you know."
"S-shut up, don't act all cool!"
"Will you be my boyfriend?"
..
Seven years later, Claude couldn't rightly remember what he'd said to that. He must've blocked it out of his mind after Kei graduated and then vanished the following June. In fact, he'd done his best not to think about Kei at all since that time.
It was hard not to, though, since he'd come back and was living in Claude's apartment on orders from their boss.
"When you asked me to be your boyfriend, what did I say?" he asked one day, sitting next to the open window, puffing on a cigarette of his own. If one part of their old relationship had remained despite his best effort, it was his nicotine addiction. "I can't remember."
"You said you would never be with someone like me, that you would die first," Kei replied, not looking up from the novel he was pretending to read. "And then we started dating." His eyes darted from the page to Claude's face. "What would you say if I asked you now?"
"I would die first."
Kei put his book down and went to him, indicating the cigarette in the younger man's fingers. "At this rate, you will!"
Since Claude didn't look like he was about to go completely batshit insane and rip his ears off, or something like that, Kei decided to be bold and kissed him chastely.
Claude would never admit it, but it was true; he was used to the taste. And without all that distraction, he realized for the first time that Kei was an excellent kisser.
"Was that so bad?"
No answer.
"Do you want to go to bed?" Clearly, Kei just didn't get it.
But, what the hell.
"Yeah," Claude replied hastily, smashing the butt out in an ashtray.