[April 3rd] Zippo and Lemon

"Hey, stop that."

He said, standing in the kitchen.

He said something about suddenly getting into tea one day,
went to the library to borrow books on the history of tea,
and since he had the financial means of an adult to buy the equipment,
his tea was exquisite.

Hot tea is delicious too, but
what I love is iced lemon tea.
When the season is full of sunshine, I crave something cold.
When I say, "I want to drink that," he happily brews it for me.

He puts tea leaves into a glass teapot, and the water coming from the kettle's spout is boiling vigorously.
I love the moment when I pour the hot water and the tea leaves start dancing wildly along with the fragrant aroma.
The more they dance, the more I feel like the tea is going to taste better.

Then, he sticks thin slices of lemon all along the sides of a large, transparent glass, breaks up high-purity ice bought specifically for the tea with an ice pick,
and once the glass is packed full, he pours the hot tea in all at once.

Creak, creak, creak.

Watching the ice melt and hearing the sound of it getting smaller is one of the things I look forward to,
and I wait for it to be finished while imagining the sourness of the lemon slices stuck to the glass.

He slowly touches the top ice with a muddler and gives it a stir.
The melted ice makes a clinking sound as it falls further down into the glass.
I loved watching him brew tea, and I used to watch him from right beside him, but...

Now, I am flipping through a weekly magazine while smoking a cigarette.

He came back from the kitchen holding the glass of my beloved iced lemon tea and a separate plate with lemon slices.

That.

The place he pointed to was my Zippo lighter.

"It's fine, what's the problem?"

The corners of the ice cubes in my iced lemon tea are gradually rounding off.

He took my right hand and
rubbed a slice of lemon against it.

"The smell of lighter fluid gets on your hands, doesn't it?"

He was working hard to rub the lemon onto my fingertips.
Lemon juice was dripping from my fingertips, about to fall onto the floor.

I watched him without any resistance.

3:00 PM.
A single streak of lukewarm early spring breeze blew in from outside.
From somewhere, a single cherry blossom petal fluttered into the room.

See, the smell is gone now.

Saying that, he put my fingertips into his mouth and
licked the juice off one by one, as if to check the taste of the lemon.

His eyes, looking up at me, were drawing closer and closer to my face.

A faint bitterness of lemon entered into me.

I can hear the sound of melted ice falling to the bottom of the glass, one drop at a time.

My feelings for him are falling along with it.

What will I do when all the ice has fallen to the bottom?

But today, I have no choice but to drink lukewarm iced tea.

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