I used to watch the way he savored those sticks with such awe. He would light them with care, shielding the fragile flicker of fire within his palm and lightly touching the end of his cigarette with it, like brushing a burning feather up against ticklish skin.

He would take the first drag and closed his eyes while doing so, looking so perfectly serene and at peace. It was always a long first drag; he savored that smoke. It was like he was drinking it in rather than inhaling it, like it was wine rather than nebulous clouds of tar.

I knew how they caked your lungs with tar. How they impaired the breathing of lesser shinobi, and could incur potentially fatal diseases that even a medic nin could not hope to cure with the finest displays of chakra control and manipulation.

I told him so. But he would laugh at me and my naiveté, kept on smoking them anyway.

I was sure it would be those things that killed him in the end. His eyes bulging out, his veined aged hands gripping his chest in shock and sudden agony, crying out from a throat that would yield no scream and a heart that had beat its last. Such a strong fighter brought to his knees shaking and gasping though air would no longer fill his collapsed lungs, it was a sad end.

I imagined it with exaggerated, almost laughable dramatics, his arms flailing and his body shaking like a fish thrust onto the boat of its catcher. Asuma, going the way of a dried out fish. Hah-hah.

It was much more peaceful than that. Had it not been for the paling of his cheeks, the milky clouds filling his pupils like the smoke from his cigarettes, the red driblets of blood from the corners of his mouth, he looked almost alive.

Almost.

Even in his last moments, he had wanted to smoke those damn cigarettes. It was like he regretted the fact that he was killed in battle rather than flopping about on the floor clutching at his chest.

I was curious. He loved those sticks so much, I could tell by the way he savored them. What was it about them that was so enchanting?

I lit one in the rain, letting the rain soak into my vest and my tears follow them. I took a long laborious drag…

My lungs, begging for air, tried to expel the noxious fumes and made me cough violently. The few tears than had fallen turned to streams. It felt like another one of his tricks, making them seem so good…it was almost funny.

It tasted like burnt paper.