RECORDING
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fire in Throat
The boy Tainaka wasn't the only one who was dismayed by the snow.
Upon exiting Sakuragaoka with her girlfriend, sister, and friends (Nodoka was now ranting about Japan's faulty top-bottom economy), Yui cried foul at the little flakes that dusted her coat.
"No! Why would it decide to snow today?"
"Maybe someone up there really has it out for you," Azusa replied with an uncharacteristic amount of lightness in her voice. The snow was already beginning to accumulate; brown grass peeped through like hair through a revoltingly thick cradle-cap. By midnight the town would be a marshmallow world, the very same one Darlene Love sang about. And just like in that song Azusa was taking a walk with her favorite girl.
That reminds me, she thought, absently poking out her tongue to catch a snowflake. Christmas is coming up, isn't it?
Yui, meanwhile, was poking her tongue out at the clouds, where she assumed that someone who had it out for her resided. She pulled her lower eyelid down, a pink crescent on her pale face, and called, "How would you like it if it snowed on your birthday?"
"I think that would be a 'white Christmas,'" Jun mumbled. Unable to help herself, she began singing in her wavering alto voice, "IIIII'm dreaming of a whiiii—"
"Beep beep, Jun-chan," Azusa interrupted. Whenever Jun cracked a bad joke it was the guitarist's wont to "beep" her. "Beep beep" could be interpreted as "not funny" or "shaddup." Ui didn't have the nerve to beep the bassist, so this had become an Azusa and Jun thing.
"Aww," Jun grumbled and quit singing. What had prompted her to sing that old favorite Christmas carol of hers was seeing Ui perk up when she mentioned the "white Christmas." The ponytailed girl had raised her snow-powdered head, and an odd smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. It was a very unusual smile thinly concealing some sentiment. Nostalgia, perhaps...?
Well, who doesn't feel nostalgic where Christmas is concerned? Jun admittedly pined for the '90s — the best decade, in her opinion, to be a rock 'n' roll-loving tot from a lower-middle-class family — when her father played cassettes of Christmas songs he recorded from the radio. The Pretenders, Low, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the Kinks. Keith Richards. God, if someone mentioned 'Run Rudolph Run' Jun would have brayed, "All I want for Christmas is an electric guitar~"
So she belted out 'White Christmas' the way she imagined Haruhi Suzumiya would have if she were to put out a Christmas album...Okay, Ui didn't care one way or the other about Haruhi. But the rendition was funny; Jun saw the ponytailed girl giggle before Azusa beeped her.
"Nodoka-chan!" Yui chirped, walking backwards (and swaying with almost drunk-like clumsiness) to face her friend since kindergarten. "I thought of what I really want to do for my birthday." Try would be a better word, but do was the word that had popped into the brunette's head.
"Oh? And what might that be?"
Yui giggled uneasily and fidgeted. "Well, y'know, Ginza market's on the way home..." Her heel caught an uneven block of sidewalk, and she stumbled. She was conscious of Ui and Azusa staring, and she knew the thing she wanted to try/do would horrify them. But she had to try it at least once...Once wouldn't kill her...It was her patriotic duty as an official adult in the eyes of the law.
It wasn't voting...
"I want to smoke a cigarette!"
"ONEECHAN!" Ui gagged.
Azusa blinked. She was looking at Ui convulsing like a parish priest who has heard "I want to tattoo 666 on the forehead of the crack-baby I made through premarital sex!" but she was seeing the tarry, blackened lung she and the other third graders at Alloway Primary had been presented with. The millennium was still fairly fresh when she had boarded a bus on a fieldtrip to Tokyo University to learn about the harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs. A professor had placed the lung of a deceased smoker in nine-year-old Azusa's tiny gloved hands; the pigtailed girl almost fell to the floor under its great weight. Its texture was firm, slick, and bumpy. The placing of this gunky lung in her hands had probably been done to send a dire message: Smoking is not cool. There is nothing cool about a grapefruit in your lung. But all Azusa could think was, Man, this lung sure is heavy.
"May I ask why you're asking me to help you buy cigarettes?" Nodoka's voice was as calm and level as always, but she looked a trifle uncomfortable.
"Because you're a connoisseur on them, Nodoka-chan," Yui responded in a pleading voice.
Ui almost swallowed her tongue. The memory of Nodoka flicking her Bic at Yui's cake flashed before her eyes. Yes, it all made a horrible sense. "ARE YOU A SMOKER, NODOKA-CHAN?" she gurgled, her brown eyes looking ready to pop out of her ashen face.
We're gonna have to get Ui-chan a crash helmet, Jun thought, vainly attempting to placate the hysterical girl with a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm not a smoker," the kaichou sighed, her erubescent eyes turned upward to avoid watching Ui's sort-of anxiety attack. "My mother smokes. She's smoked for as long as I can remember..."
Nodoka was reliving a smoking memory of her own. When she was only six years old her mother had offered her her first — and only — puff on a cigarette. (Winstons, she believed the woman smoked. She heard from relatives that in reality a Winston did not taste good like a cigarette should.) Nodoka had eagerly accepted the offer, which she looked back on as simple childish curiosity. She grasped the warm papery stick in her right hand and closed her lips around the butt whilst Mrs. Manabe instructed, "Be sure not to inhale, honey," as if a six-year-old really knew how to inhale cigarette smoke. A complete novice in the ways of smoking, Nodoka sucked on the butt as she would a straw, and it wasn't bad...until she exhaled.
Mr. Manabe was coming in from the garage, wiping sticky car oil from his hands, and back-stepped in shock as his daughter tore through his path. Nodoka, her face beet-red, was making fast tracks for the fridge, where she chugged an entire quart of orange juice with so much gusto that juice slopped over her chin onto her shirt.
"You're just too young to understand these things," Mrs. Manabe had sighed, sticking the cigarette back in her mouth.
Nodoka also looked back on that as the stupidest thing she had ever done. She had felt pretty stupid, dashing gracelessly past her father to spill juice all over herself in an attempt to rid her poor throat of that stinging fire.
Now grimacing, she told Yui, "I don't think you're going to like it."
"Maybe I won't," Yui agreed. She was facing forward now, for walking backward was far too perilous, and walking between Azusa and Nodoka. "But I just want to see what it's like."
"That's a lot of money to waste on a one-shot thing."
"Not really...I mean, they only cost five hundred yen a pack, right?"
Yui's face radiated such open wonder and curiosity that Nodoka finally gave didn't have the heart to tell her best friend on her birthday that five hundred yen a pack was a more commonly-found price in Tokyo. In the 'burbs it cost a thousand yen to bust a pack of cancer sticks.
"What do you think of this, Azu-nyan?" Yui asked, taking her girlfriend's hand. The kouhai had remained thoughtfully quiet through all this, her garnet eyes glued to her shoes.
Azusa glared up at the senpai, her mouth a hard line on her young face. "I will not date a smoker," she said so firmly that Ui stopped reeling with shock long enough to give her an appreciative glance. "But if you want to do this once, I won't stop you."
Ginza market was awhirl with activity as usual. Mothers shopped like mailmen delivered mail: rain, snow, sleet, and hail would not hinder them. Carts rushed and kids screamed and self-checkout computers yammered and Billie Holliday's 'You're My Thrill' hummed over the intercom. Every thirty seconds the music was interrupted by a monotone reminder to sign up for a Ginza Preferred Card.
Tobacco was sold behind the customer service counter, which was right by the check-out aisles. Yui staggered on up to the counter, which was womaned by a middle-aged lady with glasses, with Nodoka beside her. When the guitarist expressed her wish to buy some cigarettes the lady gestured at the racks of packs they had on display. A novice in the ways of smoking, much like Nodoka had been at age six, Yui just called out the first brand her wandering eyes fell upon.
"Winstons."
Beside her Nodoka was coughing and shaking her head.
"Um, no...uh, Marlboros...?"
"What kind?" the lady dead-panned, her bony hand lingering near the Marlboros. They came in two different packs.
"The red ones."
Nodoka almost fell through the floor. The red ones, eh? The right answer would have been filtered or unfiltered. Incidentally, Yui had chosen filtered cigarettes, which the kaichou thought was probably in her best interest. Filtered wouldn't kill Yui's throat as badly.
The guitarist's ID was shown and the transaction was made. The cigarettes cost nine hundred and ninety-nine yen.
Too embarrassed to be seen near the cigarette counter, Ui and Azusa excused themselves. They didn't meander far. With no real shopping to do here, they found themselves scanning the impulse purchases in the check-out aisle with buyers' eyes.
"Bubble Yum is a most juvenile impulse purchase, yes?"
"Mm-hmm. Very. Me, I've always been a Wrigley gal."
"Wrigley, huh? An impulse purchase for one with a tender palette, indeed. Eclipse is the only respectable gum to chew."
Their faces were bright red. They were trying not to think of Yui buying cigarettes just twenty feet away.
"That is only one woman's opinion. Wrigley gum is like a Chanel suit — it'll never go out of style." Ui nodded, and her right hand plucked a pack of spearmint gum off the rack. "Yes, this shall be the impulse purchase I will indulge myself in."
Azusa's crimson eyes drifted around the rack. "And I will have...ohh, Skittles!" She snatched a red bag with a picture of a rainbow vomitting candy on it.
"That's not even gum..."
"No, but it is an impulse purchase. I chose it on an impulse!"
From the bagging area Jun called, "You guys sound like Lucky Star characters. Hurry up and buy something." The guy manning the register fervently seconded this motion; quite a lot of people had lined up behind the two of them. "Plus, it looks like Yui-chan's done buying fags."
"Beep beep, Jun-chan," Azusa replied, doling out ninety-nine yen for her bag of colors and sugar.
There were ashtrays just outside the automatic doors of Ginza — medium-heighted concrete cylinders, their gray ashes accented with crumpled saffron butts. So it was decided that Yui would smoke a Marlboro right here.
Nodoka, feeling a bit demoralized and guilty, flicked her mother's lighter. She knew Yui would not be able to smoke that entire cigarette. But the bespectacled girl still felt like a bit of a drug pusher, supplying the flame to light the guitarist's first and only cigarette. If Nodoka didn't have the lighter Yui wouldn't be able to complete this ridiculous 'rite of passage,' as she was doubtlessly thinking of it. What was more, the kaichou knew she should have adamantly refused to 'help' Yui buy cigarettes. The guitarist needed an ID and money, not Nodoka's involvement. Needless to say, she was having some doubts.
Yui-chan may not know better, but I do. I should have refused to do this.
Yui plunged the cigarette into the flame, and a silk ribbon of smoke curled up. And when she withdrew the stick, a hand placed casually on the butt Takahata-style, Nodoka thought of something. People didn't smoke cigarettes because they thought it was cool or because they thought it made them look cool. They smoked because they needed to. That was what her mother always said everytime her father tried to persuade her to stop.
"It's not cool," he would always say. "You're not going to think it's cool when you wake up in the morning and cough what's left of your lungs out."
"Cut the 'cool' bullshit, Nancy Reagan," Mrs. Manabe would always snap. Then once she followed up this command with something Nodoka would never forget. "I need cigarettes, Kazuki, the same way you need coffee. I need cigarettes, you need coffee, but you're the morally superior one? Don't give me that bullshit." And from the other room where she sat reading, Nodoka could hear the soft snap of her mother's lighter.
Nodoka was not a smoker, but she knew smoking in and out from living with one. And now, looking at Yui with a cigarette poking out of her mouth, she thought her friend looked neither cool nor uncool. Coolness has nothing to do with smoking, she thought. The only people who think it's cool or not cool are people who don't know what it is.
Yui pulled the Marlboro from her mouth and exhaled, and...nothing happened. No blast of smoke from her mouth, no heat in her chest or neck. Just the faint sour taste of tobacco in her mouth which she had been experiencing ever since she stuck the thing between her lips. She stared at the end curiously. "Nothing's happening. Is something supposed to happen?"
I sure hope so, Nodoka thought, or else a lot of cigarette companies are scamming people out of their money. "Did you inhale when you lit up?" she asked, feeling again like a creepy drug pusher.
Yui shook her head.
Sighing, Nodoka flicked her mother's lighter again. Yui stuck the Marlboro in, and this time they saw an orange light flare up at the end along with the tendril of smoke.
Ui stood nearby, clutching her pack of gum with both hands and trembling. Yui was always a step ahead of her, the first to do everything — smoke, drive, vote, drink, go see R-rated movies without adult accompaniment — and therefore inadvertently robbed Ui of these experiences' novelty. The pride the ponytailed girl felt at entering high school a year ago was shadowed by the knowledge that oneechan's already been through this. The smoking, like everything Yui did, was a vicarious experience for Ui. Had she decided to smoke a cigarette herself, it would not feel like the first time for her.
She did not, however, think Yui looked cool. Just older. The cigarette was another reminder that Yui was older, old enough to go to Japan Women's University — the alma mater of that famous author Ariyoshi Sawako — if she could pass the entrance exam.
Azusa leaned against the brick wall, eating Skittles, feeling more and more like a kid with each tarty burst of sweetness in her mouth. She tried to detach herself emotionally from this, but everytime she blinked she saw that oily black lung, felt its titanic weight in her hands and arms. She concentrated on her own great bellows pumping in air, imagining the sacs ballooning and crumpling like paper bags, and thought of what it would be like if they weighed that much. No wonder smokers couldn't manage going up a flight of stairs. Why the hell did Yui want to do this?
It's one cigarette. That was the mantra Azusa recited in her head over and over. One cigarette is not going to make Yui-senpai's lungs gain fifty pounds each.
Yui felt a startling warmth suffuse her collarbones, and when she exhaled a little shotgun kicked at the bottom of her throat. She watched in amazement as a cloud of gray smoke gusted out before her eyes, her mouth full of the Marlboro's hot, bitter flavor. She had seen cigarette smoke before, but this time it had come from her own mouth, and that was the novelty she was looking to experience when she said "I want to smoke a cigarette."
"Well?" Jun piped. "How is it?"
"Not bad," Yui responded, somewhat blandly. She was watching the white paper recede, exposing a crumbly line of gray ashy paper.
"I won't date a smoker," Azusa reiterated.
Nodding, Yui let herself meet her girlfriend's sober gaze. Azusa had remained silent and totally unobtrusive throughout this whole thing, which the older girl could not understand. In a situation where the kouhai would normally admonish Yui she had actually been rather complacent. But when the brunette saw Azusa's eyes, darkly staring at the green Skittle in her hand, she thought she saw it. Fear. Just a dash of fear on the pigtailed girl's face, beetling her brow and tightening the corners of her mouth. Azusa would not date a smoker because the idea of smoking frightened her so much that she couldn't even speak of it, not even to argue about it. To scare Azusa, her girlfriend and an underclassman, like that made Yui feel like the lowest vile wonder. And thus her decision was made.
"Then you won't, Azu-nyan."
Her eyes bright with surprise and radiant delight, Azusa looked up, right at Yui, who nodded to confirm what she had just said.
"Y-Yui-senpai..." It wasn't the 'fag' in her hand that made Yui seem older to the kouhai, but that uncharacteristic sturdiness in her face — a hardness that spoke of how strong Yui's love for Azusa was. The senpai was not just an adult — she was Azusa's adult. And she was an adult the kouhai could count on.
Nonetheless, Azusa thought it was fair to say, "You don't have to. It is your birthday."
But Yui was shaking her head; her mind was totally made up. She gestured at the cigarette. "It's not bad, but it's not worth scaring you over."
The younger girl blinked, feeling warm blood tingling in her cheeks. Not for the first time, Yui had left her at a loss for words. Her face reddened a bit more as she took stock of Ui, Jun, and Nodoka glancing at the two of them. Yui-senpai's declarations are never complete without an audience...
Yui had turned toward the ashtray to snuff out the Marlboro — a thousand yen for one puff — when she decided she might like to see those winding braids of smoke gusting from her mouth one last time. So she took one final long drag, held it, ground the cigarette into the ash, and exhaled.
And then her throat seized up.
If Yui ever imagined what swallowing a lit match would be like, this would be it. The bottom of her throat charred and stung with the cigarette's formidible heat. The smoke, caught up in her mouth, prickled the poor thing with its Trojan horse-like chemicals. Tears sprang into Yui's throbbing eyes.
She couldn't breathe. Every exhalation felt like jabbing a hot needle through her throat. Her chest had tightened, as if invisible iron bands had clamped around it and was squeezing mercilessly. Red flowers of light burst and flashed in her blurring, darkening vision, and a frightening numbness descended over her head and ended at her feet. The last she remembered before falling into complete darkness was a gentle thud and, she thought, Azusa's voice, soft and faraway: "Yui-senpai...!"
She came out of darkness moments later and sat up.
A little wind had picked up, blowing the new snow under the overhang. Yui's shoulders rose and fell with every shallow breath, her inflamed throat screaming everytime she exhaled. Her mouth was dry and tasted sour. Smoke. A wave of dizziness buffetted the guitarist's head before she remembered that she had tried to smoke a cigarette and passed out. Her hand tightened around something, and when she looked down she found it holding a pack of Marlboros.
Nodoka, Ui, and Jun were crouching around her. The ponytailed girl was convulsing again, sobbing with relief, and muttering thanks to that someone up there who might have had it out for Yui so rapidly that she sounded like a 45 rpm record at 55 rpm.
"And I thought my smoking experience was bad," the kaichou sighed, her eyes wide and worried. "Are you alright?"
With a feeble cough, Yui nodded. Her eyes looked haunted — wide, but the pupils were eerily dilated — the face of a drowned child. "How long was I out?"
"Not long," Nodoka assured.
"Long enough for everyone to break down and fall apart," Jun added. Even she looked spooked. "The cigarette was that bad, huh?"
"Oneechaaaaan!" Ui wailed, diving into her older sister, arms outstretched for a hug. Yui dimly put her arms around her.
Her hand still clutched the cigarette pack, which Azusa deftly snatched. The kouhai glared at it so hotly that one might think she may have been able to light up the nineteen remaining sticks with that glare. Her red eyes simmered furiously, and her mouth was scrunched up into an upside-down V.
"This was the cause of all this!" she snarled. "I'm getting rid of it!"
Her right arm whooshed powerfully, almost pinwheeling in the strength of her throw, and the Marlboros went flying into the Ginza parking lot. They came to land before a homeless woman who was just thinking about how good a hot cigarette would feel on a cold day like today, if only she could afford it. Her rough, callused hand closed around the pack, and she turned her shining eyes upward at the sky from whence they seemed to fall. "Th-thank you..."
HIRASAWA YUI
November 27, 1991
Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21)
Duality: Masculine
Triplicity: Fire
Quadruplicity: Mutable
Sagittarius is energetic, ambitious, generous, freedom-loving, and a seeker of challenge, open to new ideas and exploration.
Ruling Planet: Jupiter. The most important Roman god, ruler of the heavens. In astrology, Jupiter is the planet of luck, optimism, expansion, and abundance.
Symbol: The Archer. Representing directness, high aims, a love of outdoor activity and the chase.
Polarity: Gemini. Sagittarius is the sign of philosophy, higher learning, and broad concepts. Its natives are happiest discovering new ideas and exploring distant places, and not getting tied down with personal commitments. Gemini is the sign of personal expression and communicating one-on-one. Gemini people are extremely verbal, love to give advice, and tend to try to guide (even control) others' lives.
Parts of the Body Ruled by Sagittarius: The liver, hips, and thighs. Sagittarian natives need lots of outdoor exercise in order to stay healthy. They have sensitive livers and are susceptible to overuse of alcohol and hepatitis.
Birthstone: Topaz. Releases occult powers and brings serenity to mind. It also protects from enemies and illness.
Special Color: Purple. Uncommon color of royalty and the artistic.
Danger: Sagittarian people are susceptible to accidents of fire and explosion, especially while travelling. Their strong desire for freedom may also incite jealousy and possessiveness on the part of a lover.
Famous Sagittarians: Woody Allen, Jane Austen, Ludwig van Beethoven, William Blake, Dale Carnegie, Winston Churchill, Emily Dickinson, Charles de Gaulle, Walt Disney, Jane Fonda, Pope John XXIII, Billie Jean King, John Malkovich, Harpo Marx, Charles Schulz, Frank Sinatra, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Dick Van Dyke, Eli Whitney, the writer of this fic.
NAKANO AZUSA
November 11, 1992
Scorpio (October 23 - November 21)
Duality: Feminine
Triplicity: Water
Quadruplicity: Fixed
Scorpio is imaginative, passionate and emotional, subtle yet extreme, persistent, intense, obstinate and unyielding.
Ruling Planet: Pluto. Ancient god of the netherworld and of the dead. In astrology, Pluto rules regenerative forces and the beginnings and ends of phases of life.
Symbol: The Scorpion. A secretive, deadly creature than can poison its enemies. Its sting is often fatal.
Polarity: Taurus. Scorpio is the sign of inheritance and legacies. Its natives are given a sense of purpose and destiny to go with their cat ears and pigtails, and find truest happiness in dispensing their life-force to others. Taurus is the sign of possessions and owning, and people born under this sign want to collect and have. They will not easily let go of what belongs to them.
Part of the Body Ruled by Scorpio: The genitals. Scorpio people are susceptible to infections of the urinary system and venereal disease. In addition, their volatile emotions are often the cause of ill health and exhaustion.
Birthstone: Topaz, same as Yui's.
Special Colors: Crimson, burgundy, and maroon. The glowing colors of passion, and of Azu-nyan's eyes.
Danger: Scorpio people evoke anger in others by their secretiveness and jealousy. Their sharp, stinging tempers can also enrage others to the point of violence.
Famous Scorpios: Marie Antoinette, Richard Burton, Walter Cronkite, Marie Curie, Feodor Dostoevski, Michael Dukakis, Billy Graham, Katherine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther, Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keefe, Pablo Picasso, Sylvia Plath, Emily Post, Dan Rather, Will Rogers, Theodore Roosevelt, Hermann Rorschach, Jonas Salk, Leon Trotsky, Voltaire.
A/N
As soon as I got my state ID (this was shortly before Halloween, 2010; I was eighteen) I bought a pack of cigarettes. I had no intention of making smoking a habit. I just wanted to try once and see what it was like. I hated it. It felt like a hot rake in my throat. I wasted ten bucks on a pack of Marlboros and four bucks on a pack of lighters just to smoke one damn cigarette. I did, however, get an idea for a chapter.
And to dispel a really lame myth, smokers do not smoke because they think it's cool.