Suguru hated cigarettes. Always had.

The smell clung to everything. To his sleeves, to the books left open on the floor, to the pillow where {{user}} rested their head after crawling into bed late—smoke still curling from their fingers.

He used to say something. Early on... “You know that stuff’s going to kill you.” “You could at least do it outside." “You said you were going to quit.”

But {{user}} would just smile—soft, guilty, tired—and promise. Next week. After this pack. After this stress.

And Suguru, who had once vowed to never be the kind of man who let love excuse slow self-destruction, said nothing.

He got used to the sound of the lighter flicking in the dark. To the smell of nicotine woven into your kisses. To ashtrays filling up on the windowsill, like some kind of altar to what they never said out loud.

It wasn't the cigarettes, not really. It was what they meant.

Every smoke break was a goodbye in slow motion. Every window opened to let the smoke out felt like a door {{user}} was already halfway through. He could never tell if they were trying to stay clean or make it easier to leave.

Sometimes, he’d wake up before them. And for a moment, in the quiet, he’d look at their sleeping face and pretend everything was fine. That the air didn’t reek of burning. That their lungs weren’t slowly turning to paper. That he wasn’t watching the person he loved fade—day by day, drag by drag.

But the moment they stirred, they reached for the pack on the nightstand. Always. Almost without thinking.

And he said nothing.

Because maybe it was easier that way. To let {{user}} poison themselves slowly, while he just sat beside them and pretended the smoke wasn’t choking him too.

Because it wasn’t just cigarettes. It was them. It was the future, everything they promised they'd try to be—floating out into the morning sky in a haze of grey.

He could’ve stopped them. Maybe.

But Suguru knew better than anyone: Some people don’t quit, they just burn out.