SCRIPT

TASTE

     the sensation of flavor perceived in the mouth and throat on contact with a substance.

DECEMBER SECOND, TWO THOUSAND & EIGHT.

Blankets of ivory snow covered the ground with light, rushed footsteps grazing the perfection of its surface. As the snow fell from the sky, dancing with the brumal air of midnight, the heavy scent of sinsemilla fluttered along the sounds of the night trains. Streetlights cast rutilant gold halos around Yosei's head and Taiga's ushanka, its light pulsating at every breath of their laughter.

Yosei hadn't lived in Jan Santico long enough to familiarize himself with how freezing it gets out here and being that sirens are especially used to the feeling of heated water against their scales, he hadn't had the time to get used to the weather. He pocketed his hands into his jacket, his teeth holding the poorly rolled blunt, his tongue pushing it aside outside of his mouth as he makes way for his words to leave.

"I thought your mom grounded you," Taiga suddenly says, walking hand in hand with Yosei as she raises a brow to look at the teenager beside her, taking the blunt from his mouth with her free hand.

Yosei shakes his head, shivering. "She did," Yosei huffed, clenching her hand in hers, "But I told her I was going to the bodega for a heating pad, some tea, and some cold medicine."

The girl opposite him stopped in her tracks, mildly amused, her brow raised as her feet sank into the thick snow. "And Mrs. Yuuto believed that?" Taiga asked, exhaling her smoke through her nose before taking another puff of the marijuana.

Yosei shakes his head, this time with more force as he tries to warm himself up by scruffing his hands against one another. "Hell no," he replies, clenching his teeth as his face buries deeper into his lavender scarf that his mother had bought him. "But she didn't stop me neither." He adds.

Taiga's lips purse as her slender fingers searches quietly for Yosei's hand, her eyes on the road as the sound of night dances among the flickering streetlights. Laughter from people who knew how to be happy waltzed with the scent of late night pastries that the two would have stolen to cure themselves of the munchies. Snow fell on Yosei's long, dark eyelashes, snowflakes paraded their way down, and time had seemed to move faster than they could walk.

"My dad's sending me to my grandma's house tomorrow, Yu-chan." Taiga suddenly says, squeezing Yosei's hand as he looks at her with a surprised expression. The wind rustled his parka jacket as snow melted on his jacket, as if it was crying for him. Yosei's eyes were already full of the lack of sleep, his bags were deep and filled with something way older than seventeen years old.

His free hand grabbed for the blunt in between her fingers, the marijuana scent heavy on his tongue as he inhaled like there wasn't such a thing as time, like tomorrow had ceased to exist at the moment of her words. Yosei turned his head away from her person, exhaling the tainted carbon dioxide towards a streetlight with lights that batted with angry flashes. Once he was done being dramatic, he said quietly, "For how long?" Yosei wasn't stupid. He already knew the answer.

The girl shrugged. "Until he wants me back. Daddy says I need 'structure' and 'discipline' but he fucked a prostitute to have me. My grandma is in some gated community in Soldel, so at least I'll be living large out there." Taiga elucidates, her words in the tone she always donned whenever she tried to hide her sadness, but her face was such a beautiful and emotional piece of art. Her eyebrows scrunched as her nose contorted, her ears fell slightly as her bottom lip quivered.

Yosei's lips released a dry, stiff laugh, one that explained the cold he was feeling significantly better than his words did, his body shivering. His cheeks felt colder than usual, instantly warming as his face turned into a light shade of cerise.