Izumi did not know how these three years passed so fast. Graduation was approaching, and soon all this would be but a memory. The springtime of youth! How fast and ephemeral!

He took a long drag on his cigarette and held it in his lungs. He had cut back considerably since he left the bozoko, but the past few months were so stressful with studying and researching universities, he found himself going through a pack a day. Slowly he exhaled, letting his whole mind relax with the smoke, all worries float away and dissipate.

"Here you are! Shinagawa-kun said you'd be on the roof."

He recognized the voice, but he wanted to watch the smoke drift away with the breeze. Himeji walked up beside him. Some people might be annoyed at being ignored, but they had known each other for two years, worked closely together, battled school politics and school bullies, and then that silly summer rafting race.

He glanced down as she stood beside him, rested her elbows on the railing around the roof, and leaned over to watch the street traffic. He liked standing beside Himeji. It made him feel taller.

"It's almost over," she sighed.

Izumi knew just what she meant. Her gaze turned further down, no longer on the street, but to the front of the school. A group of first years were heading home, laughing, carefree, so small it was impossible to think they were once that young.

"You know," she began, "I thought I was all that in middle school. 'The Bloody Pantheress!' Bah! I must have looked so fucking immature."

Izumi took another drag. "You still do." She elbowed him hard, knocking the smoke out of his lungs and causing him to cough hard. "What the...? You bitch!"

She laughed it off and nodded at the cigarette. "Y'know, I'm a Yankee and all, but I've maybe smoked three cigarettes in my life. Love the smell, just can't afford 'em. You mind?" She held her fingers out in request.

Izumi arched an eyebrow. Her huge eyes looked up with a pleading beyond a simple cigarette. She needed solace, something to take her mind off the inevitable future. He pulled the cigarette from his lips and handed it over. She took it like she truly knew how to smoke it. He watched as she put it to her pouty lips and puffed. Not a huge drag like Izumi preferred, but a cute attempt to make a smoke ring.

"All cyclical," she muttered. "Chiba-kun said something about that today. Growing up, graduating, passing the torch of the Student Council to Kagawa-kun and the rest ... just like Akita-san passed it to us. I wonder what ran through his mind when he did that, if he felt this sort of sadness. It was so annoying when he came to the retreat with us this time, but ... I don't really blame him for not wanting to let it go. I ... also don't want to lose all this." She glanced back to him. "I don't want to lose my friends."

He smiled with a light understanding. "You don't want to lose Shinagawa-kun."

She turned away in a fury. "Shut the hell up! He ... has someone else he likes. I can't compete with her. I would but ... I can't. It's all immature anyway, isn't it? I mean, look at us. Chiba-kun is the most cowardly, but at least he asked Makoto-chan out. Shinagawa-kun can't just tell Hana-san how he feels. Even when I try to be blunt, baka-Shinagawa doesn't see it. And you ... Chiba-kun told me how you acted around Shinagawa Kairi-san." She snickered at that. The great, fearless, former bozoko reduced to squeaking and sweating bullets! She wished she could have seen it.

"Kairi-san ... yeah, I'm ... pretty much over her," he muttered, glancing at Himeji as she took another cute puff.

"Oh yeah! So who's the unlucky lady this time?"

He smiled sadly and looked away. "She likes someone else."

"Just likes him? Not dating? Well," she grinned, whipping her hair back with vapors creating a halo around her face. "Give it your all, Izumi-kun! Don't let a petty crush ruin it for you. Just grab her, kiss her, and tell her."

He hardly even realized he had moved, yet he suddenly had one hand around her back, another holding her arm to make sure she did not run away.

She was too stunned to even yelp. Izumi was immensely strong. Although with his glasses and haughty airs, anyone could mistake him for a mere honors student, she had seen him fight. His head lowered to her. His bangs hid his right eye, but the left eye gleamed menacingly.

"Tell me, Himeji-san," he said in a low voice, watching the astonishment and slowly creeping blush. "Is it really all right just to grab a girl and kiss her? What if she's never been kissed? Should I so rudely steal that first kiss?"

She was speechless, staring at his eyes, so intense it was as if only his glasses held him back.

"Tell me ... Himeji-san," he whispered into her ear, tickling her and making her flushed, "have you ever been kissed?"

She suddenly pulled away, but his grip held strong. As he leaned in close, she whimpered in panic.

"I take it you haven't," he grinned cruelly. "And at your age? Shocking! So how would you feel if a man stole that first kiss, a kiss you've obviously been holding onto until you meet the right guy?"

He slowly leaned in toward her lips with half-lowered lids. She shoved at him hard. She knew she was far weaker, so when she broke free and stumbled back against the ledge of the roof, she realized right away that he must have let her go.

He had a smug face. "I can't be so forceful on a gentle girl like that," he said in conclusion. "And now you've dropped my cigarette." He pulled out his pack, tapped another out, and lit it. He inhaled deeply, letting the smoke clear his mind of how much he really had wanted to kiss Himeji just then. If she had given in, he would have done it in a heartbeat, but he anticipated her terror. At least this way, perhaps her mind would stop fixating on Shinagawa.

Himeji touched her cheeks, hoping to cool them off. Her mind had been drowning in sorrow for her dear Yankee-kun, but now when she fantasized about arms that held her from behind, it was black hair and a flash of glasses that she saw, not the scarred eyebrow.

She glanced back at Izumi. Smoking was meditative for him. She uncertainly raise her fingers to her lips. An indirect kiss! That cigarette had been in his mouth, then in hers. It was childish, but perhaps, even facing graduation, she could hold on to a little bit of youthful optimism.

"Can I ... share your smoke?"

Izumi's eyebrow raised in delight. Nervousness! It was the first step. He handed the cigarette over. She looked at where his lips had crushed it slightly and placed her lips over that same spot. This time, she took a long drag, held it boiling in her open mouth, then let it out slowly. Thoughts of unrequited love floated away and dissipated with the smoke.