kyungsoo holds a cigarette between his index and middle fingers, letting a few smoke rings escape his lips as the train rumbles by.

 

a little boy looks on in amazement, as if kyungsoo’s smoke rings were a magic trick. “this kind of magic is dangerous, kid. it’s called black magic.”

 

the boy’s look of wonder vanishes as he turns back toward his unattentive mother.

 

kyungsoo shakes his head and takes another drag. this time he just exhales one big cloud of grey smoke and watches as it blows away with the breeze.

 

~

kyungsoo taps his fingers on the table, waiting for the waiter to bring back his change. he hasn’t had a cigarette in almost two hours and it’s killing him.

 

kyungsoo quietly laughs at the irony of that thought.

 

he finally gets his change and hurriedly walks outside, not even bothering to put on his scarf after his coat. he huddles close to his lighter since the wind is blowing quite persistently that day.

 

kyungsoo’s exhale is more of a sigh of relief than anything.

 

“you know those things’ll kill you, right?”

 

kyungsoo looks up from the end of his cigarette. the stranger speaking to him is lithe and tall and tan. “yes, i am very aware.”

 

“then may i ask why you smoke them anyway?”

 

“you can ask, but i’m not going to answer you.”

 

the stranger smirks. “fair enough.”

 

“so i guess offering you one is out of the question, then?”

 

the stranger laughs.

 

~

 

kyungsoo learns that the noodle restaurant he dropped by that day was that stranger’s favorite spot to eat in town. also, the stranger has a name. it’s jongin.

 

jongin is a ballet teacher who lives two blocks over in a tiny apartment above a barber shop. he complained about how his apartment always smells like various hair products.

 

kyungsoo had laughed and agreed that must be terrible, but decided not to mention how awful his own apartment must smell. nicotine and ashes.

 

kyungsoo smells his shirt before he leaves the house, but there’s no obvious smell. he shrugs and throws a scarf on before going.

 

“fancy seeing you here again.” it’s jongin.

 

kyungsoo smiles and hides his fidgety fingers in his coat pockets. “well the ramen was just so good that i had to come back.”

 

jongin smiles back. “so that’s why you’re back.”

 

kyungsoo pulls out a cigarette and lets it dangle between his lips. “the only reason.”

 

~

 

per baekhyun’s advice, kyungsoo had asked jongin out. on a real date, not just meeting at their favorite noodle shop.

 

turns out, jongin’s mom had died of lung cancer three years ago.

 

kyungsoo hadn’t really known what to say after that, but jongin tried to smooth it over by saying she’d never smoked a day in her life.

 

kyungsoo had just nodded.

 

and now, a month later, as kyungsoo cards his fingers through jongin’s black hair, he thinks about that.

 

apparently jongin has been thinking about it, too. “do you remember the first thing i ever said to you?”

 

“of course, it was only a month and a half ago.” kyungsoo tries to lighten the mood.

 

“will you answer me now?”

 

kyungsoo sighs and lets his hand drop from jongin’s hair. “fine, but you won’t like the answer.”

 

“okay.”

 

“i figure, every day you live, no matter if you’re ‘growing up’ or ‘growing old,’ you’re also dying. even a five year old is getting closer to death with every day that passes. a seventy-nine year old is doing the same, he’s just farther along,” kyungsoo looks down, but jongin has his eyes trained on the black television screen. “and so why does it matter that i smoke? yeah, they’ll kill me. but so does just living. sure, i might live longer, but...”

 

kyungsoo pauses because his logic that he’s explaining now had all been formed pre-jongin. he chooses his words carefully “but i’ve never had anything to live for. my parents dropped me off at an orphanage when i was six months old. i went through so many foster homes, i don’t even remember half the ‘parents’ i had.”

 

jongin bites his lip, hard.

 

“and, you know, i just,” kyungsoo runs shaky hand through his own hair. “there was so much other that happened. i hated it. but i could never make the commitment. i could never just go through with it.”

 

jongin’s voice quivers as he asks “with what?”

 

“suicide.” kyungsoo says it with such definition that even he feels the weight of it on his chest. “i was always too afraid. so i got this idea in my head that smoking cigarettes was the next best thing. it causes so many health problems, one of them was bound to kill me sooner than later, right? i could still have a decent amount of time on this earth, but not too much time.”

 

jongin is quiet for many moments.

 

kyungsoo lets him be.

 

“i think you are the first person i’ve met that has wanted less time on this earth than they think they have.”

 

~

 

jongin pokes a finger through the first smoke ring. he pretends the second is a monocle.

 

kyungsoo laughs. “you know secondhand smoking is a thing, right?”

 

“right, but i can’t just say that i hate cigarettes and that they’re disgusting and that you’ll die sooner if you keep smoking them.”

 

“but all of that is true.”

 

jongin smiles. “yes, but if i did that, you’d never stop.”

 

“oh?” kyungsoo asks, throwing the almost gone cigarette to the snowy ground and squelching out the last of the burning embers with his boot.

 

“of course. my plan is to make you fall so in love with me that you’ll want to live longer and therefore stop smoking.” jongin takes kyungsoo’s hand in his own and laces their fingers together as they begin their walk back to jongin’s apartment.

 

“what a plan that is,” kyungsoo says. the taste of tobacco is sharp on his tongue. “are you sure it’ll work?”

 

jongin smiles and puts both of their bare hands in kyungsoo’s pocket to shield them from the biting winter wind. “well if that doesn’t work, i’ll just have to resort to magic. put you under a spell or something.” jongin tries to create faux smoke rings with his visible breath.

 

kyungsoo stares. white magic.

 

kyungsoo takes a deep breath and lets the fresh, cold air sit in his lungs a moment. when he exhales, a white cloud appears in front of him.

“i think that sounds like a fine idea.”

 

 

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lol hi don't shoot me. ik i haven't updated anything in a really long time and i apoligize but rn i'm just kind of writing when i'm inspired to. and lately, i've been very inspired, so expect more updates in the near future!!

thanks for reading xoxo