Minako straightened, staring in at him in an entirely different manner than he was staring at her. He was so steady, so even, so everything she wasn't. He'd taken her off guard, disarmed her, and now left her speechless. She looked away after a moment and said, “It would be better if you forgot me.”
It was his turn to laugh. “You make it sound like it’s easy.”
Minako frowned, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Men before you have managed to forget me very easily. I fail to see why you should have trouble doing the same.”
“They were fools,” Takehiko said simply. “And I am not a fool.”
Minako closed her eyes. “I pity your wisdom then.”
Takehiko narrowed his eyes, leaning forward in his seat. “You would really rather be forgotten?”
“Logan remembered me,” Minako explained. “He wasn’t supposed to, but he did. It was my mistake.” She paused. “Then again, he’s cursed with too many memories as it is, so maybe this was all an inevitability. Either way, I didn’t help matters. I reminded him of his past, and I may as well have put him up on that bridge.”
“You didn’t,” Takehiko maintained.
“Well, I did tell him that he couldn’t even commit suicide properly and that I reminded him of his murdered girlfriend,” Minako muttered, pushing up her bangs with her palm. She could feel him staring, and she wondered if she’d actually managed to shock him. “It was a very bad day all around.”
“I see,” Takehiko said neutrally. “Well, you… helped him afterwards, anyway.”
Of course, he had initially meant talking Logan down, but Minako quickly realized that by bringing up the bridge, she was also indirectly bringing up the events after the bridge. She buried her face in her palms, thinking that she had never so desperately wished that she had Setsuna’s powers. “Oh, God; oh, God. I am an idiot.”
“It’s all right,” Takehiko said, trying to reassure her even though things were decidedly awkward. “It isn’t as if I expected you to be holed up in a nunnery.”
“I ought to hole myself up in a sewer,” Minako said miserably, her voice muffled by her hands. “I’d slap myself, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“Minako, stop it,” Takehiko told her, sounding a bit stern. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Oh, no, I’ve just done everything wrong,” Minako continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “With Logan, with you… My whole life has been one giant mistake starting with my conception.”
Apparently, Takehiko had decided that her self-deprecation had officially crossed over into the realm of insanity. He moved by her, his hands closing around on her shoulders. She almost expected him to shake her, but all he did was leave them there. “I said stop it,” he repeated, this time, his voice as harsh as he would allow himself to be with her. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because you both deserved better,” Minako said, looking up at him again, but not quite meeting his eyes. “He deserved better out of life and someone better to try and help him, and you…” she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. She blinked rapidly, the blur of her lashes making her eyes look dark.
“You did help him,” Takehiko insisted, knowing better than to turn the conversation onto himself. “You… saved him.”
“I made it so that he needed saving,” Minako countered. “What is that? A Hero Complex?”
Takehiko looked at her, the corners of his eyes turning downward. She couldn’t tell if he was studying her or pitying her. “How long have you been like this?”
“It’s something of a permanent condition,” Minako said, almost snapping. “It’s just worse right now.”
“Why?” Takehiko asked, still baffled by why she felt that way in the first place.
“Because you’re here!” Minako told him, her voice breaking from the strain again. She clenched her fists and shut her eyes, squeezing in hopes that something would explode and distract them from this conversation. She should have just stopped talking, but she knew better than to think that would solve anything. “Because you’re here and you’re hurt and I’m the one doing it and--"
It was yet another sentence she would never get to finish as the result of suddenly being kissed. She went rigid, shocked by his loss of control. If that was actually what it was. Still, she didn’t think long about that as her head began to swim and everything began to ache. The contact was painful, but she couldn’t stop herself from kissing him back. She’d never been able to. Even as she felt her heart breaking in her chest because she’d missed him without knowing it and that she’d wanted him without knowing it and that Logan could walk in at any moment and see them.
That was what made her pull away, and he seemed to realize it at the same time. He stared at her, once again silently questioning, perhaps wanting to ask her about why he’d just kissed her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, letting her go and moving away from her before she could ask him to or before he could forget himself again. “I… I don’t know why I did that.”
Minako looked down, saddened that she’d been right. “Neither do I.”
Takehiko shut his eyes, nearly sighing. “You know that isn’t what I--"
“You should probably go,” Minako whispered, cutting him off. But she was the one to get to her feet and leave the room. She didn’t know what stopped her from fleeing and slamming the door to her bedroom behind her, but somehow she remained somewhat in control, even as her hands shook against the doorknob as she pulled the door closed.
She didn’t move for a moment, pressing her back against the doorway, listening. She couldn’t say for sure what he’d do. He might come back to try and sort things out or he might do what she asked. Either way, she knew it wouldn’t be the end of it unless she disappeared again, and she had neither the energy nor the funds to do so.
Finally, she heard him turn and walk out of her apartment, finally giving Minako the opportunity to sink to the ground.
She started to cry again, resting her forehead on her knees and attempting to curl into a tight enough ball that she turned inward on herself and vanishing completely. It didn’t matter what Takehiko had said. She had done everything wrong, said everything wrong, and ruined just about everything. And now Logan was probably off poisoning his liver and Takehiko was regretting his inability to help her and ten other people were on the other side of the world waiting for her to come back to a place she could no longer call home. She couldn’t imagine how she could have made things any worse.
Then again, maybe this was how everyone acted when dead men knocked on their doors.
