Basic Trope: A kiss without any means of physical contact.
- Straight: Alice and Bob (who have Unresolved Sexual Tension) share a cigarette. Alice gets flustered over their lips having touched the same thing within a short time period.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob's relationship is based around indirect kisses such as bottles, cigarettes, and food.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are kissing the same sheet of glass from opposite angles, so there is barely any symbolism.
- Justified: Alice and Bob cannot show their affection openly out of shyness or trying to follow local societal norms, and settle for indirect contact when in public.
- Inverted: ???
- Subverted: Bob asks if Alice would like one of his cigarettes. Alice thinks he means sharing one and nervously accepts... Except Bob pulls out his packet and offers her one he hasn't used himself.
- Double Subverted:
- For some reason Alice's cigarette won't ignite properly, so they end up sharing one after all.
- Bob then stubs out his cigarette (it was burnt out) and then takes a drag of Alice's cigarette.
- Parodied: Alice gets flustered about holding on to the same rope as Bob because that would be indirect handholding.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob simply kiss each other on the lips.
- Alice and Bob don't share cigarettes or bottles.
- Enforced:
- The executives go by a No Hugging, No Kissing mindset, but allow writers to show Alice and Bob's more intimate bonds this way.
- The executives would allow other characters to kiss... But either Alice and Bob's actors are relatives and/or there is a significant age gap that would make recording a proper kiss awkward.
- Alice and Bob smoking the same cigarette symbolizes how unhealthy their relationship is even though they both obviously need each other.
- Lampshaded: "Alice, do you get weird about having to share cutlery with your roommates as well?"
- Invoked: Bob deliberately decides to wait with his cigarette break until Alice is around.
- Exploited: Alice finally asks Bob out, reasoning that he evidently is fine with this kind of physical contact with her.
- Defied:
- Alice rejects the cigarette.
- Alice recognizes the gesture as an indirect kiss and straight up makes out with him.
- Discussed: "So you two are close enough to share those things, huh... When's the wedding?"
- Conversed: "Oh boy, they shared it. If this were a shoujo anime Alice would be like 'I-is this an indirect kiss?!' right now."
- Implied: The scene is filmed in such a manner that you only see Bob for a while. He is holding a cigarette, and so is Alice once the camera finally cuts to her, but when she puts it out with her foot you can't see any other cigarette near Bob.
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob are so into each other that they share their chewing gum, disgusting everyone more than a normal make-out session in public would.
- Played for Drama: Bob and Alice are in a Secret Relationship that mustn't be revealed to the public, but they have trouble hiding their affection. Their precious moments alone are spent doing this because they don't want to risk getting caught doing something harder to explain away. The work goes into great detail about how it just makes their mutual longing worse to be so close, yet so far.
- Played for Horror: Bob is actually an assassin who is specialised in poisons that he himself has built an immunity to. Coating his lips with poison and then handing the residue to Alice happens to be the most subtle way to kill her off (especially since her smoking habit already put a strain on her lungs), while making him seem affable to any onlookers.
Back to Indirect Kiss.
