The Five Senses: Scent (3/6)

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Scent

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Yamapi’s new dog, which Jin promptly starts calling Miles, leaving Yamapi little choice but to follow suit, is a big dog. He’s got long fluffy fur that feels soft when he rubs against Yamapi’s legs, weaving between them excitedly in the mornings as Jin feeds him scraps from the stove, and his nails clack excitedly against the hardwood floors as his big paws pad across the floor.

 

Miles also has a big, wet nose that eagerly explores Yamapi and his surroundings at all time. Yamapi learns quickly to expect that nose at any moment, cold against his ear or sniffling at his hands or nudging his feet and making him yelp, which makes Jin snigger in the kitchen.

 

“I hate his nose,” Yamapi says to Jin crossly, even as he scratches at Miles’ head, which lies commandingly on his lap. “It’s so big and cold.”

 

“Maybe we should have named him Shirota,” Jin says, and they both laugh good-naturedly. “He’s a really pretty dog,” Jin say wistfully, and Yamapi knows it’s because Jin wishes Yamapi could see him.

 

“That could mean anything coming from you,” Yamapi says to lighten the mood, and it works, because Jin is swatting at him.

 

“Oh, shut it, you.” Jin sits down on the couch and leans his head on Yamapi’s shoulder. “Pin is not an ugly dog.”

 

Yamapi, who spent a lot of time at Jin’s house as a kid, and saw that dog almost everyday for a period of a few years, wonders which one of them is really blind right now. “Um, Jin, that dog is really fucking ugly.”

 

Jin pinches a piece of skin on Yamapi’s arm threateningly. “Say it again,” Jin taunts. “Tell me my dog is ugly.”

 

Yamapi gulps and laughs at the same time, and it’s an ungodly sound that makes Jin chortle. “You’re dog is a fine example of dogkind,” Yamapi corrects diplomatically. “Quite a handsome beast.”

 

Jin pushes his face into Yamapi’s shoulder, inhaling deeply, and then he sighs contentedly, and Yamapi relaxes, because he’s escaped Jin’s wrath this time.

 

Then Jin pinches him viciously, and cackles when Yamapi screams. “Pin is not a beast,” Jin says haughtily, and by instinct Yamapi reaches for Jin’s collarbone, managing somehow to find it on memory alone, and Jin leaps backward, falling off the couch and landing loudly on the floor. “Ouch.”

 

Miles slowly rises and pads over to Jin. Clack clack. Miles smells Jin, and then sneezes, before plodding back over to Yamapi. When his head plops down in a smug Yamapi’s lap, Jin sighs. “He sure is your dog.”

 

“Don’t pout. You pinched me!”

 

“Fair enough,” Jin says, and he climbs back up on the couch and leans back against Yamapi. Yamapi is running his hands through Miles’ hair, and Jin sighs again.

 

“What is it now?” Yamapi asks.

 

“I’m jealous,” Jin replies softly, and Yamapi grins.

 

“Don’t worry, Jin, I’m sure Miles loves you too. Maybe he just doesn’t like the smell of cigarette smoke.”

 

“Not about that,” Jin says, and then he picks up Yamapi’s arm into the air and slides down under it, plopping his head down in Yamapi’s lap, alongside Miles’. He places Yamapi’s aloft hand on his head, and Yamapi feels a laugh building deep in his chest, but he fights it down, and instead starts stroking Jin’s hair in tandem with Miles’ fur. Both of them sniff contentedly, and Yamapi can’t fight the grin that spreads across his face. 

 

The scent of Jin’s hair, when Jin drowsily turns in his lap, drifts up to Yamapi’s nose, and it doesn’t smell like cigarettes at all. It smells like lilacs.


 

 

***

 

Yamapi’s mother smells like dish soap and optimism. Yamapi thinks optimism has a smell, and it’s the smell of printer paper and window cleaner, the smell on his mother’s hands when she gets home from work at ten at night and sneaks into his room, wakes him gently and asks him if he’s eaten.

 

“Don’t make plans this Sunday,” she says to him. “I’ve got the day off.”

 

Yamapi has to MC a program on Sunday, and she smiles at him softly. “It’s okay, there’s always next time,” she tells him.

 

And then optimism smells like his mother’s bathwash, as she sneaks back into his room after her shower to press a gentle kiss to his forehead.

 

He always stays awake until that happens, but he always pretends to be asleep, or she might stop doing it.

 

***

 

Toma calls Yamapi on his cell phone. “Hey Tomohisa, I’m in the area. But I can’t remember where your apartment is, exactly. I mean, I remember how to get to the parking lot."

 

Yamapi sucks his lower lip into his mouth. There’s this need, in his stomach, to do something. “I’ll come down and meet you.”

 

“Are you sure?” Toma questions, a concerned lilt in his voice. “I heard from Koyama that you don’t really—You could send Jin.”

 

“No, I’ll come.”

 

“Great. See you in a few minutes, then,” Toma says hesitantly, but then he’s cheerful. “It’s been awhile, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Yamapi says. “It has.”

 

He walks to the kitchen, and hears Jin preparing tea, the kettle whistling while he whips milk into a froth. “Jin, Toma is coming to visit.”

 

“Great!” Jin says. “Can he remember how to find the building from the parking lot?”
 

“No,” Yamapi says. “So I was thinking of going down to meet him.”

 

“Okay, sure, let me just grab a shirt and we can go.” Jin turns off the stove—Yamapi knows because the kettle’s whistle fades slowly. Maybe Jin just took the kettle off the eye, but things are uncertain when you can’t see.

 

“Actually,” Yamapi chokes on the words, so he starts over. “Actually, I was thinking maybe Miles and I could just go.”

 

All motion in the kitchen stops. Yamapi wonders if Jin is staring at him, or if Jin is staring at the milk, or if Jin isn’t staring at anything. Maybe his eyes are closed and he’s thinking that Yamapi is crazy.

 

Finally, Yamapi hears the sound of Jin scrubbing his hands anxiously on his jeans. “Well, I feel silly,” he says, and his voice is wet and soppy, like he’s about to cry. “Like a mom on her kid's first day of kindergarten or something.”

 

Yamapi’s anxiousness pops like a bubble, and he reaches out to Jin with both arms. Jin walks into them, and sniffles against Yamapi’s neck. His hair smells like lilacs again. “I love the way your hair smells,” Yamapi says, and Jin stills in his arms.  “Like lilacs.

 

“Yours always smells like tangerines,” Jin replies. “I love the smell of tangerines.”

 

“Can you walk me to the door?” Yamapi asks, and Jin doesn’t release him, just starts pushing him backward toward the door. They stumble together, Yamapi trusting that Jin won’t let him fall, and Jin stops them right before the genkan.

 

“Come back safe,” Jin says, like Yamapi isn’t about to walk less than a block. Yamapi wonders when leaving alone became a momentous occasion, but somehow it is. It feels like he’s leaving Jin behind, somehow.

 

“I can’t do this unless you’ll be right here when I get back,” Yamapi says suddenly, and Jin’s fingers dig into his back, before his arms release him.

 

“I’ll be right here, in this spot,” Jin answers.

 

“Okay,” Yamapi takes Miles’ leash, which Jin presses into his palm. “Miles! Come here boy!” Miles comes running quickly. “Let’s go on a short trip, buddy.”

 

“He knows the way,” Jin says anxiously. “I’ve taught it to him over and over, and the three of us have walked it so many times, I’m sure…”

 

“Just be right here,” Yamapi says, and Jin nods. The lilac scent comforts him one last time.

 

He finds his way outside easily enough, and he stops in a place it will be simple for Toma to see him from.

 

“Tomohisa!” Toma calls, and Yamapi breathes a sigh of relief, waving in the general direction of the voice. “I thought Jin would manage to come with you, but you made it alone after all.”

 

“Not alone,” Yamapi retorts. “Meet Miles.”

 

Toma greets Miles, then rests his palm on the small of Yamapi’s back. “Hey friend,” Toma says, and Toma’s always had a voice that makes Yamapi feel lighter. It’s why, even after all these years, they’re still so close—Toma has this effortless charm that makes Yamapi feel completely at ease. Yamapi feels comforted. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

 

“I haven’t seen anything for a while,” Yamapi says with a soft grin, and Toma laughs at the unexpected joke. He pulls Yamapi in for a quick hug, and his cologne is sharp and expensive. “Fancy cologne you got there,” he jibes.

 

“You’re doing better than I was led to believe,” Toma responds, and Yamapi clicks his tongue at Miles to take them back up. “But I still can’t believe Jin was willing to let you out of his sight.”

 

“We had a tearful goodbye at the door,” Yamapi replies, and sheepishly shrugs his shoulders. “And he’s probably standing exactly where he was when I left to come get you.”

 

Toma laughs and nudges Yamapi’s shoulder with his own as they enter the building. “Then we’d better not keep him waiting, eh?”

 

“I missed you,” Yamapi blurts out, and then feels himself blushing.

 

“I’d give you another hug,” Toma says in response, “But you smell like dog.”

 

***

 

Yamapi hates the smell of Jin’s ‘going-on-a-date’ cologne. It smells cheap, like cloves and vinegar, and Yamapi just hates it.

 

One night, Jin gets all dressed up, then takes one look at a miserable Yamapi, who’s just had one of those days, and flips open his cell.

 

“I have to cancel tonight, sorry,” Jin says to whoever is on the other end of the line. He hangs up as Yamapi looks up at him in surprise. “Of course I’m not going out when you’ve got that Wet Wednesday face.”

 

They retreat to Yamapi’s bedroom, and Jin loosens his tie and collapses on the bed.

 

“What’s wrong?” Jin says simply, pulling Yamapi’s head into his lap as they sit on Yamapi’s bed. Jin’s hands toy with the hair at the nape of Yamapi’s neck, and Yamapi feels the tension in his shoulders start to bleed out.

 

As he spills his story, Jin leans back to rest on his elbows, and his hair falls behind him in waves of black. It’s gotten long, Yamapi notices. Longer than it’s been since he returned from Los Angeles the first time.

 

Yamapi crawls up the bed to lie at Jin’s side, and he faces Jin, who is staring at him, just listening. He breathes in, and Jin’s awful cologne fills his nostrils, except that tonight, it doesn’t smell bad.

 

“You smell good,” Yamapi whispers, and Jin looks at him surprised.

 

“You hate this cologne, though,” Jin replies, one eyebrow lifted interestedly. “You’ve never said anything, but you always make this face…”

 

“Not tonight,” Yamapi says. “Tonight, it’s not so bad.”

 

Sometimes Yamapi wonders whether he actually hates the cologne, or the fact that Jin is going on a date.

 

Yamapi doesn’t like to be alone at night, because he is afraid of the dark.

 

***

 

Yamapi’s sister smells like gingersnaps. Even when she was a baby, Yamapi wanted to hold her close because she smelled like Christmas.

 

***

 

Yamapi wakes to the smell of burning.

 

“Shit, shit, shit!” Jin yells.

 

“What have you done,” Yamapi asks groggily, more stating than questioning.

 

“I have managed, somehow, to burn toast, AND eggs, AND bacon while on the phone with my manager,” Jin replies.

 

“Your manager?” Yamapi asks, because sometimes he forgets that Jin has a job.

 

“Oh yeah, she’s pissed at me about—Well, nothing you need to worry about,” Jin says hastily, and then he turns on the sink and the garbage disposal and Yamapi can’t hear anything above the grinding of the burned food.

 

***

 

Jin smells like cigarettes and leather and green apple life-savers. A lot of the time, he also smells like pizza, and beer, and sweat. He used to smell like women’s perfume a lot, especially when he stumbled in early in the morning, but that hasn’t happened in a long while.

 

Mostly, all Yamapi can think lately is that Jin smells like lilacs, and the smell haunts him even when he dreams.

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