>>6338243The question doesn't surprise you. You've heard that smoking is like breathing for bounty hunters. You guess that when you're statistically unlikely to reach retirement age, you don't see any problems with ruining your health a little further. Personally you dabbled in smoking a bit with your friends, as a teenager, when it was a minor act of rebellion, but you don't have any on you right now...
The man reacts to this news not with any anger directed at you, seemingly, but with a growing antsiness, presumably a sign of nicotine addiction. He kicks the dust around him. "Shit! I really really wanted a cigarette before my bath!"
You ask him if he's going to the bath house. "Yeah, homie. (He pronounces this word awkwardly.) Let's go." He puts a hand on your shoulder--he is significantly taller than you--and gently, but firmly, directs you towards the entrance side-by-side. You find it unwise to protest.
The curtained entrance to the bath house gives way to a typical varnished-wood reception area with a vending machine and even a ping-pong table. At the desk, you both receive locker keys and towels. In the changing room, the man does not hesitate to remove the entirety of his clothing in one swift motion--something that puzzles you as to how it is accomplished--and wrap himself in a towel seamlessly with his other hand, though he doesn't seem like the modest type.
"Welcome to Saturn Apartments," he says out of the corner of his mouth, not facing you, but rather stuffing his track suit into a locker. You have done the same, and quietly changed into a towel when he wasn't looking.
The men's bath is a fairly traditional affair, with showers, hot pools, and a cold plunge. While the place has clearly seen better days, it at least looks clean and well-maintained. The steam gives you a momentary flashback of your train voyage from earlier, but now this is an entirely welcome feeling. As you walk in with the man following behind, you see a pair of figures lounging in the pool in the far back. It's hard to distinguish them, but one is large and the other is small.
"So? Changed your mind?" The small one speaks. He sounds like an evil, possessed doll from a movie you once watched.
