Thank You For Smoking

So. The Heavenly Embassy, huh?

It was nice enough, Yoshino supposed. Just another fancy neighborhood, all told. Yoshino had seen plenty like it before, but the residents and the little touches here and there that distinguished it from most Burrowgatory neighborhoods made a stroll around the place interesting enough, at least for the first visit.

They didn’t have a particular objective in coming here; they had the day off and wanted to check it out because they’d never seen the Embassy before, that was all. They’d wandered for a bit, browsing the little strip of shops and buying some snacks before coming to the greenhouses. There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment once you’d gotten a good look at the place.

That made sense to Yoshino; the Heavenly Fields or whatever that the cherubuns originally hailed from sounded unimaginably boring, and Burrowgatory had all the forms of entertainment that you could ever possibly want. It stood to reason that the Embassy wasn’t looking to innovate on that industry anytime soon.

The flowers were pretty, though; there were a lot of varieties in the greenhouses that Yoshino had never seen before. After doing a couple rounds inside the nearest one, they stepped back outside to rest and have a smoke. It was comfortably warm, with only a slight breeze stirring the grass and ruffling Yoshino’s fur, so they had little trouble lighting their pipe and brought it to their mouth for a slow drag.

No sooner had they started to breathe in than the peace was shattered. “Ex-cuse me! You can’t smoke here!”

Yoshino sucked in a deep lungful of smoke and glanced around for the interrupting speaker. (Look, they’d already been inhaling, and startling them only made them inhale more.) They quickly identified the culprit; a fluffy, cream and yellow-furred cherubun who was moving towards them at slightly alarming speed, with a look of absolute determination on his face.

“Did you hear me?” The cherubun demanded. “There is no smoking in this area.”

Yoshino looked at him and exhaled a long, slow plume of smoke into the air.

Now, seriously, they weren’t doing it to be a brat. The smoke had to go somewhere, and they weren’t about to swallow it and then cough themselves sick. Though maybe that would have been a fitting punishment to this guy for their apparent trespass.

Anyway, he looked even more worked up after they graced his general vicinity with a great big smoke cloud, so Yoshino chose their first verbal response accordingly to defuse the situation.

“I didn’t see a sign,” they said coolly.

Strangely, this didn’t make the cherubun less incensed. Also, maybe saying that their intent was to defuse the situation with that response was just a lie. The lack of a sign was true, though.

“A sign?” The cherubun echoed, sounding much more incredulous about the concept than he ought to be.

“Yeah, you know. A ‘No Smoking’ sign?” Yoshino traced the typical circle with a slash through it with their free hoof, the universal symbol of “DON’T.” They glanced around the area just to make their point really clear. Not a sign to be found, besides the ones distinguishing the greenhouses from one another. Not even a “Keep Off Grass,” which Yoshino might actually have obeyed, because who the hell knew what sorts of pesticides were used on the plants up here.

“Why would you need a sign to tell you not to smoke around the greenhouses? Do you have any idea how many rare, irreplaceable plants are in there?” The cherubun demanded.

“Oh come on, I’m outside.” Yoshino rolled their eyes and reflexively brought the pipe back to their mouth for another drag. So maybe they weren’t really helping their case there. The cherubun looked ready to pop a blood vessel watching them exhale another thin plume. “It’s not like I’m going to dump my ashes all over your plants, okay?”

“Are you really- ugh. This is- completely inappropriate, do you just go around smoking wherever you please in Burrowgatory?” The cherubun, for his part, seemed to be losing the ability to string sentences together the more Yoshino stood before him, mostly unmoved by his offense.

“Uh. Yeah? Because, like I said, there are signs that tell you where you can’t. So most other places outdoors are fair game.” Yoshino’s normal speaking voice was not quite monotone, but they didn’t typically raise their voice much; as this conversation carried on, they felt their tone getting even flatter and more deadpan.

The interloper didn’t really have an argument for their logic; after spending a few moments looking like he was barely resisting the urge to flail in frustration, he whipped out a small book and began furiously flipping through its pages while muttering under his breath. Yoshino squinted at the title, pausing with their pipe halfway to their mouth again.

“...Is that an etiquette lesson book.” They couldn’t even make their voice lift into a proper questioning tone.

The cherubun did not deign to answer the question directly, but he most definitely gave them an answer when he cleared his throat and began reading aloud.

“When visiting the residence of another, or a new locale with which one is unfamiliar, it is best practice to educate oneself beforehand on the local customs, including expectations and taboos concerning public behavior-”

“Bruh,” Yoshino said.

He continued, undeterred. “Failing that, one should either politely ask or observe the behavior of those around them in order to discern appropriate behavior in any given location. Now, I understand that the social expectations in Burrowgatory may set a… different standard-”

“By which you mean no standards, right?” Yoshino snarked.

He ignored them again and kept going. “-but while you are in the Heavenly Embassy, I must impress upon you that there is. Absolutely. No. Smoking. In any areas that are not explicitly designated as such.”

Yoshino squinted at him for a few moments before giving in and asking, “Are there any areas that have been designated as such?”

“No,” the cherubun said, snapping the book shut triumphantly. 

Yoshino spitefully took another deep drag from their pipe and blew a smoke ring towards him, which earned them a very satisfying offended noise and the sight of him quickly clearing the smoke away by waving both arms.

“Well, either way, you should consider putting up signs,” they said, figuring that was as good (or bad) a note to end the encounter on as any. They pushed away from the greenhouse wall where they had been leaning, and they did the cherubun the bare minimum courtesy of moving a few feet away from the building to dump out the pipe’s ashes.

“And you should consider reading this,” the cherubun retorted, striding forward and shoving the etiquette book into their free hand.

“What- I don’t want this-” Yoshino had half a mind to fling the book away, or at least shove it back into the cherubun’s grasp, but he was already moving off with his head held high, possibly more so that they couldn’t get any other last words in rather than because he felt like he’d really won the argument.

Yoshino huffed and glanced down at the book. Unfortunately, they had perfectly good material for their pipe left, and they didn’t know what inhaling burning ink might do to their lungs, or else they’d consider shredding it and using it for tinder.

Well, whatever. It was kind of a funny souvenir, and they’d had enough of the Heavenly Embassy and its residents for now. It was time to head home.