Midterms were finally over three days later and ever since the first day, Kite stopped contacting me.

"Why are you no longer hanging out with Akihito?" Paula asks as we drive to her place that afternoon.

"I don't know with him," I say sounding defeated.

"You seem fond of him," she says.

"What does that even mean?" I ask, one of my eyebrows raised.

"Just take it in whatever sense you'd like to," she says as I swat her arm.

She just chuckles before finally parking in the parking lot of her apartment building. We got out of the car and rode the elevator to her unit.

"I can see that you've already seen it all," she suddenly says as the elevator doors open.

We walked out and turned to her door. She sticks in the key on the door knob and swung it open.

"Seen it all?" I say, really confused.

She gestures at her body from her chest to her legs and that's when it hit me.

"Oh," I just say as she laughs her ass off.

"Caught you!" she exclaims before opening the door of her room and inviting me in.

I jump on the bed with her as we both keep silent, staring at the ceiling.

"So, you're a smoker now, huh?" she says as I turn to face her.

She was still staring at the ceiling like we were star gazing.

"Kind of," I say sheepishly suddenly remembering the first time I met Kite.

I even remember how his lips were chapped and dry the first time we kissed, how his warm breath always made my skin prickle, and how his long dark hair covered his pretty face.

"Wanna do some?" she says, sitting up and grabbing a box of cigarette.

"Sure," I say, sitting up and grabbing one of the cigarettes from the box.

Paula lit hers and tossed the lighter to me afterwards.

"I can't believe the self-proclaimed cigarette hater is now smoking right here, right now in my room," she comments.

I recall how Kite taught me how to lit it, how he went behind me and put his arms around me. I can even remember how much he smelled like cigarette and men's perfume.

"I can't believe it either," I say as I light my own cigarette.

I hand her the lighter as she stuffed it inside one of her drawers along with the box of cigarettes. She opens the window for exhaust as we both smoke our cigarettes.

"You want some beer?" she offers but I shake my head right away.

She gets up from the bed and heads outside of the room. She soon returns with a can of beer in her hands.

"Are you sure you don't want some?" she asks as I blow off some smoke.

"Affirmative," I say as she rolls her eyes.

"Does your mom know about this?" she suddenly says, opening her can of beer.

"About what?" I say, inhaling as much smoke as I can.

"About you smoking, duh?" she says, bringing the can to her lips.

"Hell no," I say as I watch her gulp a good amount of beer. "Does your dad know?" I give her the question back.

She almost choked on her beer and started coughing real hard.

"Are you stupid?" she says, laughing while coughing.

"Why?" I say as I notice my cigarette almost halfway finished.

"Of course not," she replies hastily.

"Well, we're just even," I tell her.

"You have both a mom and a dad," she says.

I look at her with confused eyes.

"My mom's dead," she says, sticking out one of her fingers. "And, I barely talk to my dad," she adds, sticking up another finger.

"Meaning?" I say.

"Meaning, we're not even. You're close with both of your parents," she explains further as I just kick her lightly.

We both just keep silent once again as I stare at her drinking the beer like it is water. She noticed me staring at her so she sticks up her middle finger at me and at first, I was startled but I found myself sticking mine back at her.

"Woah," she says, laughing. "You learned a lot of shit from Kite."

"You bet," I say, remembering all the stuff we did in the span of three days we were together.

"You probably know how to blow someone now," she says and I just laugh it off. "Don't laugh this off, young woman!"

She swats me on the arm as I continue to laugh.

"May I have some?" I say, pointing at the beer.

She looks at me with wide eyes before finally regaining her composure. She shakes the can to show me that there's none left.

"Finished it already," she says with a pout.

"That's sad, then," I say, finishing my cigarette.

"Fortunately," she says, standing up. "I have a hundred more in my fridge."

She winks at me before leaving the room. I heard her burp loudly from the living room and I can't help but laugh. She returns and looks at me with a suspicious look.

"Why the hell are you laughing?" she asks, tossing the can to me.

I barely caught it and it was so cold against my warmed up hands.

"I just heard you burp like an ogre earlier," I tell her as she narrows her eyes at me.

She jumps on me, removes the cigarette from my lips, and places it in the ashtray before starting to torture me by tickling. She starts wriggling her fingers at my waist and all I can do was laugh. I tried stopping both of her hands with mine but she was much stronger than me.

"Forget what happened and I'll let you go," she says and I just shake my head teasingly. "I won't stop then."

She lunges her hands on my waist and continues to tickle me with all her might.

"O-okay! I-I'll f-forget about i-it!" I finally say, finding it hard to catch my breath.

She finally gets off me and retrieves the can of beer that I dropped the moment she started tickling me.

"Is this your first time tasting?" she asks, handing it to me.

I open the can of beer and sniffed it. It smelled really bad and I started having second thoughts.

"Yeah," I reply, still sniffing the content nervously.

"Just try it if you want to. If you don't, you don't have to force yourself," she says as she watches me get disgusted with the scent.

"I'm drinking this whole shit," I say with a firm voice.

"Oh yeah?" she says with an amused face.

"Hell yeah," I say before finally bringing it to my lips.

Here goes nothing.