Someplace Like Home |n.j

14.

Our lips detach with a soft sound, and I look to her with a gulp. Her eyes as usual refused my gaze as she dug out a lighter. I slugged my shoulders when she put a cigarette to her lips and lit it up.

"What was that?" My throat was dry as I asked.

Nami took her time to puff out the smoke, then looked at me, finally. She was so beautiful, even with the eye bags, the tousled hair, and the tired expression on her face.

"What?"

"Why did you kiss me?" Or maybe I should ask another question. Does she know what that kiss meant to me? Would she still kiss me if she knew? I swallowed my saliva as my lips retraced the softness of her lips, how they moved in rhythm to completely engulf me.

"...you don't just ask people why they kiss you."

"Is it because you don't have an answer?"

Do you just kiss someone when you feel like it, fuck someone when you feel like it? Does it not matter how they feel? Does it not matter how I feel, Nami?

Her eyes showed of guilt when she looked back to the ground and took another inhale from her cigarette. I waited for a reply that never came. Nami just kept dragging on the silence, intruding it once in a while with quiet exhales of smoke.

My eyes followed her every move and watched even closer when she was finished with the cigarette and proceeded to light up a new one. I don't know why watching her smoke today annoyed me more than usual. I grab the stick of death from her lips and stuff it in the pocket of my coat.

Finally, she found a good enough reason to respond to me. Nami turned around, eyes wide with her lips apart, "What are you doing?"

"You don't need another."

She looked at me for a second, then another, "I thought you didn't care if I smoked or not."

"How could I not?" I thought I wouldn't mind too, I know I'm not one to tell people how to live. No one is. But I couldn't help myself as I watched her breathe in and out. I watched the smoke disappear into the air and couldn't help imagining it in her lungs. I don't want her to live like this, I want her to live better, with me.

"I don't want to watch you live like this."

"Like what?"

"Like you don't care about yourself."

"I do care about myself," Nami responded fast, not having put much thought to it, "I do a lot of things for my own comfort. I smoke for my own comfort."

"Comfort isn't always good."

It was bound to happen anyway, I thought as I watched her pull out another cigarette and repeat the same routine. I didn't try to take it away this time. I know these things cost money.

"It's almost lunchtime." I sighed, letting the topic slide for the time being. She nodded as she took out her phone to check the time.

"Would you want to eat? We could do my place, I have leftover pizzas." I didn't expect Nami to invite me, I thought today's conversations would've made her not want any more of my company.

It's still slowly getting to me that Nami actually wants me around. It's hard believing it when her actions and her words seem to face different directions. I can't tell if she's actually happy when she's with me, but she keeps coming around. Nami visits the bar sometimes now, and I occasionally even see her outside the door when I finish my shift. We never talk much when she comes over, oftentimes we're just sitting by the curb silently as she smokes.

So Nami likes smoking better when it's with me. I guess that's something.

And other days she walks directly back to her studio right the second she sees me exit the bar. I always take the cue to follow her, and we end up having sex on her bed. It pains me that I don't know what we are and that Nami never wants to talk about it, but I always find myself following her anyway. I always find myself abiding and going along with it, just so I can see her again.