At first – 2
Smell
Later, he would also include "glasses" or "too fucking tall", but his first and strongest marker, the point above all that symbolized Kubota to him, was cigarettes. He could barely separate imagining Kubota's lips or his fingers without a small white stick held between them.
The first moment he remembered, the very first moment, since everything else was lost in a fog just out of his reach, was of him lying in a bed, his cheek pressed against a pillow, and a blanket on top of him. He felt tired, yet warm, which seemed strange at the time. A part of his mind still clicked "watch out", but he didn't know why. The part that was warm and tired though somehow blanketed the "watch out" part, quieting it just as he turned in the bed, his eyes still closed. As he breathed in, there was another click in his mind as he realized that there was something familiar about where he was.
"…It smells like cigarettes."
His voice was hoarse, but still working, and he repeated it a few times.
He didn't know where he had smelled cigarettes before, but he knew what they were, and he knew what they smelled like, and as he brought his face closer to the pillow, he breathed in, and the familiarity of it somehow comforted him, but he didn't know why.
Later, he would open his eyes, and see all the unfamiliarity that surrounded him, and he would feel cold, and lost, and alone. Later, he would meet the person whose bed he slept in, and whose clothes he wore. Later, when the door to the bedroom opened, and in walked someone, a stranger, very tall, with glasses, and between his lips he held a thin white stick.
Later, he would fight, and tear, and scream, because the unfamiliarity scared the hell out of him, just as his fucked-up hand scared the hell out of him. And each time he fought, each tear, each scream, he was confronted with someone who never fought back, who just sat there by him, always smoking a cigarette. And later, moment after moment, things changed. He couldn't explain why, but they did, and there was a whole new familiar where the cold, lost, and alone had been. It wore glasses, and was too fucking tall, and cooked curry too fucking much, but-
But that was later, and something he couldn't see, couldn't imagine seeing now. Now, he lay in that bed, too tired to move, and everything around him, from the pillow to the sheets to the shirt he wore, smelled liked cigarettes.
And he felt warm, and that "watch out" part of his mind lay quiet in his mind, and he forgave himself for that just as the scent of the one thing he recognized lulled him back to unconsciousness. He slept, and in his dream, his heard a door open, and felt a warm hand touch his face, the fingers of which carried a smell too familiar to ever forget.