"Glory" was stuck in his head. Adam Pascal's rasp filled his brain while images of dead girls and heroin needles flashed in his vision. He was thinking about addictions and death and Minako's favorite movie. It was all bleeding together until he could scarcely tell one thought from the next and his mouth was too dry for water to quench. He felt ill, but then she had that effect on him.
He'd been trying to get it out of his head, and that was probably why he had called her when he knew that she was on a date. She'd told him not to call. After all, it was date number three. But he called her anyway and she picked up on the fifth ring.
"Yaten?" she asked, her voice rather breathless. "What are you doing? I told you not to--"
"I'm leaving," he said abruptly, hanging up the phone before she had a chance to respond. He stood there for a moment, thinking about what he had said and wondering if it was true. He decided that it was, so he nodded and went to pack a bag. There wasn't much he wanted to take with him. There was too much of her in the apartment anyway.
She arrived fifteen minutes later, her dress wrinkled and her make-up smudged. She had let herself in with the key she'd stolen from him. He looked up from his work, a little surprised to see her. "You came," he remarked.
"What do you mean you're leaving?" she demanded, blue eyes iced over with outrage.
He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think it was one of those sentences that needed explaining."
She glared, stalking forward, her stilettos clacking against the wooden floor. "You jerk! You don't just call me and tell me that you're leaving out of the blue. It's... mean! And it doesn't even make sense. Why are you leaving?"
"Why would I stay?" he asked, making eye contact with her.
The question took her off guard, and she didn't answer immediately.
Yaten had never been very patient, so he sighed and closed his suitcase. He could have fit more into it, but there wasn't anything else he wanted. "Thought so."
"No, wait!" she yelled, stepping forward. "I don't understand what's going on."
"That's always been a bit of a problem with us," Yaten said, picking up his one piece of luggage. "One of us never quite understands. I don't understand why you think the next guy you sleep with will be fulfilling when he's just like every other one you've ever met, and you... you don't understand much of anything about me."
He brushed past her, but she was nothing if not persistent, so she went after him. "Explain it to me," she demanded. When he kept walking, she grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. “Now.”
“”Glory” is stuck in my head, Minako,” Yaten said cryptically. “A song about doing one last great thing before shuffling off this mortal coil is stuck in my head. It is stuck in my head because I have watched it with you upwards of three million times, even though I hate that movie.”
Minako stared at him. “What part of that is making me understand what’s going on?”
“I don’t watch movies I hate, Minako,” Yaten continued. “But “Glory” is stuck in my head. Think about it.”
She continued looking at him quizzically, not quite comprehending. Then everything seemed to fall into place as she blinked and straightened her posture. She blushed for what was quite possibly the first time in several years, unsure of what to say.
“Time flies,” Yaten quoted, pulling his arm free. “Time dies. And I don’t need to endure anymore.”
With that, he turned and continued to walk about of his apartment and out of her life forever. Of course, he had yet to figure out where exactly he was going to go, but it was away and that was all that mattered to him at that point. He just wanted to be away from her and the memories and so many thoughts and desires that had gone unfulfilled.
Seconds later, he heard Minako’s heels coming after him. He was fully prepared to keep walking even if she hung on to his leg or something else equally ridiculous. As it turned out, she threw her arms around his neck, pulling down on it from behind. The force was enough to send him spinning around. His lips crashed into hers with bruising force, their teeth knocking a bit. It was a few seconds before they settled into a position that wasn’t awkward and many more seconds until they parted.
“I didn’t think…” Yaten murmured trailing off.
“Did you ever think of asking?” Minako pointed out, still looking rather irritated with him as she delicately wiped the corner of her mouth.
That hadn’t actually occurred to him, at least not seriously, but he decided not to say that. “That was a bit better than I expected,” Yaten added.
“Someday, I will teach you how to compliment people properly,” Minako said. Then she kissed him again, and Yaten was very glad that ‘someday’ was not actually right then and there.
He didn’t pick the suitcase up off the floor.
