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The taste of cigarettes is the first taste Nacht has of individuality. A special kind of freedom; it hovers in the immediate air around him, billowing out in plumes, and here he gets to exist as just Nacht, no longer just Nacht-and-Morgen.
Nacht loves his brother, he does; couldn’t conceive of a world without him, in fact, when they came into this one as part of a set, tethered by the indisputable string of fate. Unequivocally inseparable. But here, in this liminal space between twin and not-just-twin, is Nacht’s sense of self.
And it’s held together by curls of smoke floating around him. Accompanied by the overwhelming scent of peroxide, fresh bleach sitting comfortably in his hair. Eyeliner on, nails painted, both stark black against his otherwise pale skin, and then comes the finishing touch of cold pressing against his neck when the leather choker goes on.
Nacht sucks another taste in between his teeth, letting it settle in his chest, warming him right at his core.
He can almost hear Yami’s teasing, calling this his ‘Bad-Boy Phase,’ the words rattling around in Nacht’s mind, gruff timbre of the man who spoke them and all. As though Yami has any right to pester Nacht over this very thing when the two of them wrought havoc on the streets of the Clover Kingdom as a duo.
But then, that was back before Yami grew a moral compass. If he ever needed to grow one in the first place. Maybe Nacht has always been the odd-one-out, despite what Morgen thinks.
‘Punk,’ is the next word that Nacht hears reverberating in his thoughts; can almost hear it clear as day, as though Yami was in the room with him, his boorish-infused fondness seeping through the mere one syllable.
It blooms something warm in Nacht’s chest, partnering with the remaining embers of that last cigarette drag.
Maybe Nacht is a punk. Maybe he is having a bad-boy phase and lacks the moral compass of his peers, but maybe it’s none of that at all; Nacht smiles around the cigarette dangling loosely from him all the same.
♧
The taste of cigarettes is Nacht’s first taste of incomprehensible grief. Bitter and cold and lonely, suffusing all his senses and then some.
Nacht takes his last drag at the foot of Morgen’s grave; the rain washes away the smoke, leaving only the dour taste to fester horribly in the back of his throat. The crumpled packet lies wetly discarded beside him, waiting to be confiscated by Yami when he inevitably shows up, because of course he does, always one for inserting himself into spaces too small for him to fit.
Yami talks to him—talks at him, when this is nothing Nacht wants to be a part of—tells Nacht his plans to set up a brigade of his own one day. Nacht simply lets the rain wash away that conversation, too. Yami’s words are too gentle, anyway, the lack of cutting remarks and missing playful insults speaking far louder than Nacht can bear, as though he would break apart if Yami even remotely tried to act as if this was their normal when it’s anything but.
Nacht doesn’t budge an inch, doesn’t even offer a grunt of acknowledgement in Yami’s general direction, and eventually Yami takes the hint and leaves.
But not before taking his first drag of a cigarette, mere minutes after Nacht’s last.
The taste still lingers something vicious in the back of Nacht’s throat, bruised and raw, and Nacht doesn’t have it in him to feel regret that Yami chose this moment to start smoking. He doesn’t have anything in him except the taste of bitter and cold and lonely, and he can’t swallow it down no matter how hard he tries.
♧
The taste of cigarettes, now secondhand but still just as vile as Nacht’s final drag, acts only as an unwanted reminder.
A discarded half-finished cigarette sits wrinkled in the ashtray on the bedside table; Nacht can only just about see the last few wisps of it disappearing before him, dark as it is, but very few things are able to escape his notice when shadowed. He blinks a few times, watching the wisps curl horizontally in his vision, his head pillowed on his hands. The more he watches, the more nauseous he feels, discomfort likewise curling in the pit of his stomach when Yami sleep-shifts behind him, the bed moving with the bulky action, his breathing evening out.
‘Why did you start smoking?’ Nacht had wanted to ask Yami when first showed up at the Bulls base, but he could already see the answer to his unasked question waiting in Yami’s dark but gentle eyes—the man nothing but a walking contradiction—and Nacht wasn’t quite ready to hear the answer spoken aloud. It didn’t stop his legs from unconsciously walking up to Yami, to seek the comfort Nacht had deprived himself of for the last few months. It hadn’t stopped him from falling into Yami’s bed, between his sheets, under his weight; sweaty and messy and so irrevocably stupid.
Yami didn’t stop him either, but Nacht wishes he had.
The last wisps of smoke fizzle out and all Nacht can taste is the despair that they leave behind, inhaled through his nose, down the back of his throat, joining with the horrible twisting happening in his stomach. This wasn’t how he and Yami were supposed to do this. This wasn’t how he was supposed to accept the role of Vice Captain.
Nacht carefully coaxes his way from Yami’s bed—oh so quietly, like a shadow in the night—picking up the Black Bulls robe intended for him on his way out the door, leaving only his old leather choker and personalised lighter in its place.
♧
The taste of cigarettes—still secondhand but no longer as sickening as it once was, the notion tempered with the passage of time, so much time—becomes something Nacht yearns for.
Nacht inhales it when Yami’s lips press against his, and the man is so big that he comes with his own gravitational pull, so Nacht has no option but to lean into the kiss.
A rough, calloused hand moves to cup the back of Nacht’s head, fingers tucking in at the pulled back hair, scratching at his nape, and forcing Nacht to tilt up ever-so. His lips intuitively part that little bit wider with the movement, making just enough room for Yami to slide his tongue past, warm and wet and tasting of cigarettes, and Nacht no longer recalls when his hate for the taste stopped. When it became so enticing again. Weakened; a soft, breathy sound slips from him when Yami’s tongue softly presses into his, and Yami—so fucking smug, that he is—lets his lips turn up into a smirk at the corner knowing full well that he has Nacht in the palm of his hand. Literally, one hand steady on the back of Nacht’s neck, the other cupping the small of his back and pulling him impossibly closer.
Yami is anything but sweet; he’s rough around the edges, boisterous, all too loud and self-satisfied, a constant air of smoke puffing out around him, and Nacht wants him anyway.
‘Punk,’ Nacht had called him, a flicker of nostalgia sparking to life once they had some semblance of their old selves back together again. Once they had something new entirely, where they kiss and share a bed and call each other ‘partner’ in place of ‘Captain’ and ‘Vice Captain’. And then, because he was finally ready to know the answer, the question ‘Why did you even start smoking, anyway?’ fell from his lips.
Yami smirked at him, in that infuriating way that he does that twists Nacht’s insides something terrible—something exciting—and then, Yami kissed him. Like he is now, but instead with Nacht’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifted so lips could meet lips, lingering cigarette taste and all.
‘You’re stupid, but not that stupid,’ is all Yami said to him in response, voice warm against Nacht’s freshly kiss-slicked lips. ‘You know why.’
Nacht figures, in the end, it doesn’t matter who started it. Not when he’s willingly chasing it again, albeit only secondhand, his lips constantly betraying him, willingly parting like putty under Yami’s warmth.
Nacht sneaks it in every chance he gets, because otherwise—
A crashing sound breaks through, regrettably pulling the taste away from Nacht, but Nacht can only bite his lip in amusement when he sees the dark aura billowing from Yami in place of the cigarette smoke, the anger at being disrupted clear on his face.
“Oi!” Yami yells, fully detaching himself from Nacht and heading in the direction of the irrefutable Black Bulls' ruckus.
Nacht remains, listening fondly as Yami joins said ruckus, telling those assholes to keep it down, followed by the predictable sounds of Yami being piled on, ever eager for his company.
Nacht can’t blame them, and he’d be chagrined to share, but he knows he won’t have to wait too long until next time—cigarette taste and all.
♧