Seraphic|민윤기

ONE

I'm sitting on the subway with my arms folded across my chest and my legs crossed. The smoke coming from a cigarette is overwhelming me, so I turn to see where the source is. Right next to me, a guy that looks like my age has a cigarette clamped in between his lips, a very dull expression on his face. Smoke is emanating from the little white cigarette, which looks like long gray ribbons flailing in the air. Two long white cords are protruding from his ears and are plugged into his phone. Earbuds, I think.

I curl a fist and try my hardest to ignore it. I've seen him before, I think. I've seen him at the subway before. But somewhere else, I think. Perhaps in one of my classes?

Finally, I begin to cough an awful lot. I begin to curl a fist. I've been tolerating it up to this point, but now I can't stand it.

"Do you mind?" I ask him. He pretends not to listen and scrolls down on the screen of his phone. Of course he can't listen, he's listening to earbuds. "Do you mind?" I say louder. He once again pretends not to listen. After three more tries, I've had enough. I yank an earbud out of his ear. I put the earbud close to my ear. There's no music coming out.

"So you could hear me! You were just ignoring me!" I say, pointing to him. He looks at me with a annoyed expression on his face. "You know you're not supposed to smoke inside, right?"

"Yeah. I know." He says, looking at his phone.

"Then can you not smoke in here? You're giving me lung cancer." I say.

He looks at me and blows a puff of smoke in my face. "Anniyo (no)."

I cough and wave my hand in front of my face. "Then can you at least point in the other direction?" I say.

"Anniyo."

I feel my eyes well with tears from the smoke, and I hang my head down to try and block out the smoke. After another ten minutes, I've had enough. I look at the cigarette that's in between his lips and I snatch it out from his lips. I curl my hand in a fist, crushing the cigarette in my hand. Ew, his saliva's on my hand.

I open my hand which contains the contents of what was once a burning cigarette. My hand is burned from touching the burning part of the cigarette, but it's worth it. I smirk at the crushed cigarette in my hand, now nothing but bits and pieces and ashes.

The smoker looks at me with eyes wide open and his jaw unhinged. There's a
surprised yet disgusted look on his face. "Wh-what the f***k was that for?!" He yells at me.

I look at him. "Oh, yeah, here's your cigarette back." I wipe my hands on each other, the little crumbly ashes of the cigarette falling on his lap. I take out hand sanitizer from my backpack and squeeze a large amount on my hand. I lather it over my hands and put my hands on my lap.

"That was my last cigarette!" He exclaims.

I smirk. "Even better."

"F*** you." He says in a low voice.