Episode 1: The Beginning of Smoke

The city lived in smoke. It hung in the air like a second skin cigarettes on every corner, exhaust from beat-up cars, the sharp burn of trash fires late at night. For some, it was suffocating. For Ethan and Damian, it was home.

They had been friends since they were kids, running the same streets, learning the same rules: don’t back down, don’t snitch, don’t show weakness. Ethan was the loud one, always talking, always laughing, always pulling trouble toward him like a magnet. Damian was the opposite quiet, sharp-eyed, the one who stepped in when things went too far.

People in the neighborhood never said one name without the other. Ethan and Damian. Like it was one word, one story.

That night, they sat together in their usual bar. The lights glowed dim and yellow, giving the walls a dirty warmth. Music played low, almost drowned out by the hum of voices and clinking glasses. Ethan leaned back in his chair, grinning, cigarette hanging from his fingers. Damian sat across from him, calm as always, sipping slowly on his glass of rum.

“You notice how people always stare at us when we walk in?” Ethan asked, smoke slipping past his lips.

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Maybe because you can’t keep your mouth shut for five minutes.”

Ethan laughed, the sound cutting through the bar like a blade. A few men at the other table turned their heads, but he didn’t care. “And you’re the saint, huh? You get into just as much shit as I do.”

“I don’t start it.” Damian’s voice was low, steady. “That’s the difference.”

That was always how it went Ethan stirring things up, Damian keeping it steady. They were different, but together they balanced. That was why no one messed with them.

The bar door opened, letting in a gust of cold night air and a couple of familiar faces from the block. Some were friends, some were enemies, but Ethan didn’t move. He leaned forward, waiting. Damian pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it open, the flame small but steady.

“You’re out,” Damian said, nodding to Ethan’s dead cigarette.

Ethan grinned and leaned closer, letting Damian light it. Their eyes met in the flicker of flame, shadows running across their faces. It should have been nothing. Just smoke, just habit. But the second stretched longer than it should have. Ethan inhaled, slow, then let the smoke out in Damian’s direction, watching the curl of it fade between them.

It felt different. He didn’t know why.

Marissa face flashed in his mind. She was his girl, always waiting when he came home late smelling of bars and cigarettes. She loved him more than he deserved. He should have thought of her now. But instead, he found himself looking at Damian, at the way the lighter’s glow faded against his sharp jaw, at how calm he always seemed in chaos.

Damian had Jenna . She was focused, career-driven, always telling him he should want more than this life. Damian never argued, but Ethan knew the streets had his friend’s heart. Jenna didn’t understand him the way Ethan did. Nobody did.

The night carried on. Drinks poured, friends drifted in and out. Ethan made the room laugh, spinning stories that were too wild to be true, but entertaining enough that no one cared. Damian stayed quiet, but he never missed a thing. He watched, he listened, and Ethan always felt safer when he was there.

Eventually, the crowd thinned. The noise lowered. It was just the two of them again, a haze of smoke between them.

“Your phone’s buzzing,” Ethan said, nodding at Damian’s cell lighting up on the table.

Damian didn’t touch it. “She can wait.”

Ethan blinked. Damian never ignored Jenna. Not like that. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Damian said simply, finishing the last of his drink.

The answer sat heavy in the space between them. Normally Ethan would joke, make a crack about Damian being whipped, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he leaned back, cigarette burning low, and stared at him.

It wasn’t like them to sit quiet. Usually, they were all noise, filling every gap with talk or laughter. But this silence… it pressed down like the smoke, thick and sharp.

“You ever think,” Ethan started slowly, “that maybe we’re not meant for this? The bars, the streets… the same old nights?”

Damian turned his head toward him, his eyes steady, unreadable. “No,” he said after a pause. “This is who we are.”

It should have ended there. That was the kind of answer Damian always gave firm, final. But something in his eyes said more than the words. Something Ethan couldn’t name, but couldn’t ignore.

Outside, a siren wailed in the distance. Inside, the smoke swirled between them, wrapping the silence, refusing to fade.

And for the first time in years, Ethan looked at his best friend and felt something shift small, quiet, but undeniable.

It was the beginning of smoke. The kind that doesn’t rise into the air and vanish, but lingers, sinking deep, impossible to ignore.

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