Burdens of a Depressive Mind
Fire Angel

Disclaimer: I'll admit here that I do not own Gackt, Hyde, nor any other J-Rocker mentioned in this story, nor do I claim to know them. Their lives and actions are not mine, however, in this story I've taken them and twisted them to do my own free will. Therefore - their actions here, whilst based on things they've said in interviews and such, are not necessarily true. This is not gospel. It's fiction. Take it or leave it. ^^

Chapter 1

At twenty years of age, I was nothing but a bundle of warped brain cells, over-active sex hormones, and a deep passion (A.K.A. obsession) for anything related in any way to anything that even remotely resembled music. In other words, a manic-depressive horny musician with nothing better to do than sit at home and doodle out new tunes all day.

Which is pretty much what I did, most of the time.

I guess my neighbours thought I was a little strange: the tall, pale one with silicone in his cheeks (not that I will ever admit that to anyone), who spent his days training and composing, and went out with his close (albeit very small) group of friends at night, often returning home after midnight, piss-drunk beyond all recognition. No one ever questioned me about my rowdy night-time behaviour, though. After one rather nasty incident sparked by Tanaka-san’s huge fucking Rottweiler and what it did to my favourite neon pink party shirt (grrrrr… I still loathe that disgusting animal, even now), the neighbouring people of Kazuke Road simply learned to ignore one another – or rather, the inhabitant formerly and formally known as Satoru Okabe, but more commonly known as Gackt M.S. Camui. They never approached me, and I never approached them.

But they must have wondered. I know I would’ve, if I wasn’t me. After all, I was (and still am) a freak of nature, raised by unholy parents in a house that I gradually came to hate throughout my childhood; with scars marring my wrists from the thousands and thousands of times I’d desperately tried to end it (it being the catastrophic disaster zone generally known as my life); with a face disguised by makeup and surgery until no one can ever guess what I used to look like; with a sexuality that doesn’t prefer one or the other and doesn’t really give a flying fuck who sees and knows.

On one particular night, or rather, I should say, one particular morning, I arrived back home at I time I really don’t care to elaborate on after a drinking session with my friends-cum-bandmates (A.K.A. the only people who understand me – mainly because they’re fucked up too). Mana had been unlucky enough to draw the short straw and become our ‘volunteer’ driver for the evening/night/morning, so he was still sober enough to drive me home and walk me to my door while I blubbered and giggled and tripped and stumbled into his gentle grasp. (Another one of those things no one can ever know: I can’t handle alcohol. I love drinking it, but I get smashed way too quickly.)

Mana gently asked me for my house keys, and after a bit (okay, a lot) of fumbling around in my jacket pockets, I managed to find them and hand them over so he could unlock the door while I lounged around on my front step laughing like a hyena at something that was obviously funny to me at the time. In the dim reaches of my mind I noticed that old Nakajima-san (the neighbourhood prude) was watching me from her second-storey window, a disapproving frown on her wrinkled face. This only made me laugh more, and when Mana tried to give my keys back, I leisurely slipped my arms up around his neck and yanked him down for a sloppy, drunken snog. (If it’d been Közi or Kami, I probably would’ve asked first. As it was, Mana made a damn good drag queen and was probably gayer than even me, so asking, in my opinion, wasn’t really that important.)

“Mmmmmm,” I murmured sexily, brushing my lips along his chin, “You’re a gooooooooooood kisser, Mana.”

He pulled away, shaking his head, but there was a pretty smile on his face. “You’re cute, Gacchan, but you’re drunk. Go on, get inside and to bed.”

“Isthat,” I slurred, “an invitation?”

“No. It’s not,” he replied firmly. “Maybe it would be if I wasn’t afraid you’d regret it later, but as it is, no.”

“I won’t regret it… I have a spa bath, Maaaana-chan… it could be fu-un!”

I heard a dignified sound of disgust from Nakajima as she slammed her window shut to avoid hearing the strange, bisexual drunk begging for sex from his companion. I smirked then, even hearing my friend continue to turn me down. The whole situation had turned out quite humorous, I thought. Tomorrow the whole street would surely be gossiping about Gackt – moi – again. They always found some way to talk about me – all the while avoiding me in any day-to-day encounters that they came across.

Stupid neighbours.

“Don’t worry, Mana,” I laughed cheerily, “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII don’t need you, I can probably get me off better than you could anyway! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Mana’s eyes opened wide with indignation but he stood his ground and merely shook his head, handing me back my keys. “Get inside, you piss-drunk fool. Mata ashita ne.” With a grin he added, “Sometime I’ll prove you how wrong you are.”

“Maaaaaana-chan, mata ne.”

Giggling like a child, I stumbled inside, kicking my shoetupid neighbours.

“Don’t worry, Mana,” I laughed cheerily, “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII don’t need you, I can probably get me off better than you could anyway! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Mana’s eyes opened wide with indignation but he stood his ground and merely shook his head, handing me back my keys. “Get inside, you piss-drunk fool. Mata ashita ne.” With a grin he added, “Sometime I’ll prove you how wrong you are.”

“Maaaaaana-chan, mata ne.”

Giggling like a child, I stumbled inside, kicking my shoes off in the entranceway before blowing a kiss to my retreating friend and closing the door behind him. For a long moment I contemplated climbing the stairs to the second floor and indulging in a long, relaxing spa bath before falling asleep in my gratuitously large king-sized bed, but then I decided that I’d simply prefer to stagger to the loungeroom and collapse drunkenly onto my couch.

So I did.

In a business-like, extremely pissed off manner, I stormed into the kitchen and filled Runa-chan’s bowl (yes, that name does come from Sailormoon. So what. I like Sailormoon. It’s just another one of those things that I don’t tell people). Having done so I made for the bathroom, dutifully vomited the little remains of last night’s dinner and drinking binge into the toilet, gargled something that tasted like month-old mint and then returned to the couch in a post-drunken haze, dazedly picking up the remote and turning on the television.

It was then and there that my life changed forever.

MTV was on. Boring Western music mostly: some group that was said to be the number-one flavour in America at the time, consisting of five girlish men who danced like marionettes and sung so well that they surely would’ve made better strippers (well, the tattooed one had a good body). It was only every now and then that my Western-obsessed culture’s number one (and only) music channel granted us one or two of our own songs by our own artists.

Hence what happened about four minutes after the girly men commenced their groping of one another slash attempted fits of song, and about three seconds after God granted mercy on us poor musical souls and made them finish it: I was surprised (pleasantly) when the show’s DJ announced that he would now play the debut single by brand-spanking-new Japanese rock band, L’Arc~en~ciel (my second thought relating to this was: That’s French. For rainbow. Fucking pansies).

However when the PV started I had no time for further thoughts as my jaw hit the floor, my heart sped up, my (fake) leather pants tightened up as my blood rushed straight to my groin, and a soft flush of arousal heated my pale cheeks.

The singer of the group, was, if you judged by voice, undisputedly male. However, with his long hair in those gorgeous brown ringlets and the white powder highlighting his pale face and the mascara making his lashes look ten (million) miles long… And the dress – that fucking white piece of lace that clung to his svelte body like a parched man would to a proffered drink bottle (and I’ve always said that there is nothing sexier than a man in a dress, after all)… That’s when the dispute set in, and this androgynous creature really could’ve been either or. And the beauty of the whole scenario is that he could be androgynous with the aid of only a dress and a scant brushing of makeup. Whenever Mana dressed in drag it took him six applications of face to get even close to looking effeminate. Whoever this guy was… he was… he was……… beautiful. And, when I stopped drooling to think about it, he was a damn good singer too.

Okay, so I had a crush. I admit it.

By lunchtime I’d only just managed to peel myself away from my androgyny-induced high on the couch and was trudging upstairs to indulge myself in that spa bath I’d wanted the night before (and quite possibly a good self-servicing also, as my erection had not eased in the slightest since watching Mr. Rock God(dess) on TV), when the loud ringing of my doorbell assaulted my hungover eardrums, practically shattering them then and there.

I trudged back downstairs, grumbling as I went – it was all getting to be too much for my post-drunken brain and I was getting dizzy and after all who the fuck would rock up at my house at such an indecent time of morning (accepting that it was 12 p.m. but then I’d been home late and hadn’t slept so how dare they) it was just so rude and all – and opened the door, practically tearing it off its hinges as I glared at my doorstep’s occupant, half expecting it to be old Nakajima or something.

It turned out to be Kami, who looked equally dishevelled, equally hungover and quite possibly more pissed off than me. Before I had a chance to fake-smile and greet him with a cheerful: “Ohayooooooooou, Kami-chan, genki?!” I was pretty well asphyxiated with the cover of the magazine he was holding as he promptly shoved it under my nose.

I swore loudly and pushed the magazine away from my face to avoid a) death by the intoxicating smell of magazine ink and b) paper cuts. “Jesus Christ Kami, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” I yelled loudly to no one in particular (despite the fact that I was, in fact, addressing Kami), aware of the fact that Takata-san across the road had just stopped weeding and was very conspicuously listening to our conversation in what she hoped was an inconspicuous manner. “If you want to kill me just…” I trailed off as I noticed the look on his face (one that I swear would’ve frightened Marilyn Manson to death if he had been on the receiving end), and changed my tack entirely. “Kami, what’s wrong?”

“Look,” he snarled, shoving the magazine back at me. “More fucking competition.” I stared wordlessly at the glossy cover as he continued in frustration, “Every time we start to get somewhere, someone new comes and pips us at the fucking post. Every single time, Gackt-kun, every single fucking time. And now look at these pansies. Look at them! They’re a bunch of girls!”

I admit that I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying. After all, he’d just shoved a picture of Mr. Erection-Inducing Rock God(dess) in my face (and, of course, the other members of the band, but at the risk of being brutally murdered by Tetsu, Ken and Sakura fans alike, I didn’t really care about them). I looked at his pouting, sexy face and felt my pants stretching into a scenario that had only two outcomes for me: embarrassment and extreme embarrassment.

Aware that Kami was seeking my agreement, I uttered something along the lines of: “Yes, they are quite girly, such a pity, we’ll have to work twice as hard to be recognised, shame on them and all,” and then asked directly, “Kami-chan, can I borrow this magazine?”

He looked at me in surprise and something akin to disgust. “Keep it, this filthy rag’s worth nothing to me anyway.” He looked like he wanted to ask why I actually wanted it, but then changed his mind and kept his question to himself. “So,” he said instead, “we’ll see you tonight?”

“Of course,” I said cheerily. “I’ve written some new songs, too.”

Normally he would’ve teased me something chronic: “What? More of that pop shit? Gacchan, you should write good music, ne?” but instead he just nodded and said, “Good. I’ll pick you up later, okay?”

“No problem.”

I closed the door and leaned against it, flipping through the magazine until I found the article I was looking for, sagging further against the door and clutching the page helplessly to my chest when I was (thankfully) successful, finding a small article and a poster-sized picture of my hormone-raising crush.

His name was Hyde.

The next few days for me were spent lingering within the blurred ups and downs (literally) of my hormones, with the occasional, dutiful visits to and from my bandmates who were by now thoroughly worried about the fact that I was effectively extremely horny every time they laid eyes on me.

They asked questions but I brushed them off – none of them were particularly fond of Hyde-sama’s band, especially not Mana, who said that they were stealing his thunder in a huge way “and it’s not fucking fair!”. I could only begin to imagine what they’d do to me if they found out my constant hard-on was all due to L’Arc’s vocal and his perfectly beautiful androgyny. (As you can see, even now I have due trouble discussing Hyde without throwing several positive adjectives before or after the mention of his wonderful self.)

My days had fallen into a general, quite possibly unhealthy, routine: I woke up at five a.m. after a very short nap-cum-sleep, fumbled around on my bedside table for a) light and b) Kami’s magazine, the latter of which gave me an instant erection and cause to jerk myself off. After spending a reasonable amount of time pleasuring myself I headed down to my personal gym and trained my fucking guts out until I was starving, drenched in sweat, too bloody sore to move a finger, or sometimes, all three. Then I headed up to have a shower, dropping my now-smelly gym clothes on the floor of my room, and engaging myself in another brief wank session over the magazine before allowing myself to wash the stench of sweat and semen from my body. After this I would head down to feed Runa-chan and myself, switching the television on as I waltzed past in the hope that MTV would play ‘Blurry Eyes’ again. Inevitably, they did, usually just as I finished breakfast, and I collapsed into a drooling, twitching heap on the couch, forced to get myself off once again (sometimes twice over the duration of the PV). After my daily viewing of L’Arc~en~ciel’s song, my day resumed its normal routine, with me curled up on the couch writing song after song after song, throwing away half of them, and occasionally dashing up to my room to relieve my constant horniness with the help of the magazine Kami so thoughtfully bestowed upon me.

I was obsessed.

On the fifth day of my hormone crisis I was greeted in the early hours of the morning by Mana, who showed up on my doorstep while I was waiting for MTV to play my daily viewing of Hyde. Grumbling to myself, I trotted obediently to the door and opened it for him, giving him a wide, albeit extremely fake, smile and saying cheerily, “Mana-chan, ohaaaayou!!”

He smiled back and clasped me gently on the shoulder. “Gacchan, genki?”

“Genki da yo. Kimi wa?”

Mana didn’t answer my question: his eyes were fixed on the now-permanent swelling that had formed over my groin area. He shook his head. “Gacchan…”

So. Dr. Inconspicuous wanted to know what my problem was. And I wasn’t going to tell him. (After all, I had a television to get back to.)

“Mana-chan, it’s a tad cold out here,” I replied, hurriedly brushing off his concern. “Why don’t you come inside for a while?”

He eyeballed me with those huge, lantern-like eyes of his that I would kill to have, and glanced curiously at my crotch again. Then he sighed daintily and nodded his defeat, walking past me and kicking his shoes off in the hall before proceeding to the loungeroom, with me following closely behind. He sat on the couch and looked up at me as if about to talk, but by the time his mouth was open, I’d caught sight of the TV and the PV – which was about three quarters of the way through – and was swearing loudly before I could stop myself.

“Shit!” I yelled, stomping my foot on the floor like a child having a tantrum, at the same time focusing very hard on not losing my control and entirely destroying the thong I was wearing, and trying to keep my unsolicited moans of arousal to myself. (Meanwhile, Hyde-sama pranced around on the merry-go-round with not a care in the world, licking his lips and pouting sexily at the camera.)

Mana looked at the TV in mild amusement, a smirk tweaking up the corners of his lips, and then a frown quickly destroying the sexiness of that smirk. “I agree,” he said slowly, effeminately twirling a strand of his hair around his pointer finger as a pout slowly graced his lips. I swear I nearly fell over – Mana was crushing on Hyde-sama too!! – but then my friend shook his head in disgust and said, “What a load of absolute shit. It’s so disgraceful that people like this can get their ugly faces on the terebi.”

(Oh, I realised, he’d been agreeing with my comment as opposed to my raging erection.)

I nodded hastily. “Ye-yes,” I agreed, mentally kicking myself for being such a charlatan. “Kami-chan’s so angry about it and I don’t blame him, I mean now we’ll have to work so much harder than before, and…”

“I didn’t mean that,” Mana snapped. “It’s disgusting that they can get away with dressing like that. That’s my image. Fuck, I should’ve had it copyrighted or something. I mean… it’s just fucking rude.”

Maybe, I reasoned mentally, Hyde-sama doesn’t even know about Mana. But I nodded feebly and said, “Of course, Mana, you’re so right… it was so rude of them to take your image and… But look, don’t worry, you look so much better in drag anyway.” (Blaspheme! I decided quickly to strangle myself as soon as Mana was gone.)

My friend looked up at me, his eyes watering. “Gacchan, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

Great. So I’d made my friend happy at the expense of hating myself for the rest of all eternity.

I smiled fondly and ruffled his hair, trying to stop him from looking at me lovingly with those doe-eyes of his. “Oh, it’s nothing really Mana-chan, I was just…”

He stood up, ignoring my spluttering, and gently placed his arms around me, resting his head against my chest. “Gacchan, I think it’s time I made good on the promise I made you the other night. After all, you seem to be…” He paused, looking down at my ever-tightening crotch, “…in need of some help.”

I stared blankly at him, aware that I hadn’t the faintest idea of what he was blathering about. “Promise?”

He giggled like an embarrassed schoolgirl. “I see. Perhaps you were too drunk to remember. That’s okay, what was said is… not important, ne. Just… let me help you with…” Smiling, he cupped his hand between my legs and squeezed gently, laughing as a strangled moan emitted from my throat, “…that.” Then he stood on tiptoe and forcefully closed his mouth over mine.

Half an hour later, we were lying, naked, on my couch, held together in a tangle of hot, wet kisses and loud, demanding cries and flying limbs. However, all I could think of was the magazine sitting lonelily on my beside table, and the beautiful brown eyes that stared at me from within its pages.

It occurred to me around that time that I was a sick ecchi.He’d be

The next night I was attacked by my bandmates. Obviously Mana had passed on the news that Gackt – me – was, quote: “still refusing to explain why he is having constant hormonal problems and is, in fact, avoiding the topic altogether”, unquote. (I was relieved to find out later on that he didn’t mention the torrid fuck we’d shared over my couch. Thank God.) But when I arrived at the studio, all three of them (Yu~ki was otherwise engaged for the night) stood from their cigarette cloud at the table and moved over to me, looking at me inquisitively – first at my face, then at my vinyl pants (which were, it goes without saying, stretched beyond all belief. I was not coping well at all).

“So,” Közi frowned, his hands poised girlishly on his hips, his eyes flicking between my face and my erection, “what’s the problem?”

“What?” I looked down, pretending I’d only just realised the problem, and then laughed. “Oh, silly me, looks like I got a little excited over nothing again…”

“Don’t brush Közi-chan off, Gackt,” Mana warned me, shaking his head so his lustrous, permed curls bounced around his face. “You know, we are all worried about you.”

“What’s to worry about?” I laughed, clapping Közi on the back. “You’re all overreacting.”

“Overreacting?” Kami said scornfully. “Gacchan, you’ve had a constant hard-on for the last week.”

“And we wanna know why,” my friends chorused together.

“What the fuck? Did you rehearse this or something?” I asked incredulously, shaking my head. “Fuck off why don’t you. I’m fine.”

“Fine and horny,” all three snapped back at me.

I stared at them. How like the three of them to get together and gang up on me like that, when there was really nothing to worry about. They’d done it since we were way younger – as teenagers, I was the shortest, the scrawniest, and the girly-est. Luckily, at twenty I no longer held any of those titles – however, old habits die hard and the three of them still enjoyed giving me shit about… well… anything really.

I folded my arms across my chest, getting pissed off now. “Look, it’s not important, really, so why don’t you just fuck off and let me continue my quiet arousal in peace?”

Közi put his hand on my shoulder, saying quietly, “Gacchan, we’re just worried about you, you know that.”

“Yeah I know, Mana just said so,” I snapped back, “but there’s no need to worry anyway. I’ve said so already so give it up.”

At that moment the television tucked away in the corner of our studio started emitting a noise that had gotten to be very familiar to me: Hyde-sama’s singing.

I looked up in horror, the blood rushing to my face, to be greeted with the sight of my pouting, pale Rock God(dess) and the sinking feeling in my stomach that told me my libido had just reached the peak of excitement (again). I could feel my pants ballooning further outwards and was well aware that my friends were watching with undisguised emotion on their faces.

“Oh,” I said belatedly, struggling to keep my voice and face deadpan. “Not this shit. Quick, someone, turn it off before their pansy J-Poprock fumes invade our brains and eat us from the inside out.”

There was no answer, no movement from my bandmates.

We stood like that as the PV continued, my face getting hotter and hotter, their eyes lingering continuously on my swelling erection, the soft strangled noises coming from Mana and Kami’s throats getting louder and louder, Közi’s breathing getting quicker and quicker, Hyde-sama looking sexier and sexier, all with every second that passed. By the end of the song I was hornier than ever, and also extremely embarrassed.

And Mana was gone altogether.

After what seemed like an eternity of stony silence, Közi spoke, prompting me to look at him. “I can’t believe you, Gackt. Those… freaks… you like those… those…” I nodded dumbly, fixing my eyes on the floor as he continued, “But they’re freaks, I mean, look at them, they’re feral and…”

My head shot up in anger. “You don’t like them because you think we should be where they are right now!” I yelled, my fists clenching, my eyes burning. “That’s the only reason, Közi! There’s nothing wrong with them! Their music is good; they’re all talented musicians! Just because they beat us into the mainstream market doesn’t mean that they automatically suck!”

“They’re disgusting freaks.”

“Why? Because they cross-dress? Fucking look at Mana. Fucking look at all of us, you fucking hypocrite! So what if I like them? So what if I like him?”

My bandmate just shook his head. With a loud sigh of disgust, I stormed from the room, yelling back at them, “Fuck you all if you’re going to ditch me because I have a crush on someone you don’t deem worthy. You can find a new fucking singer, you hear me?”

Mana was outside, sitting on the stairs leading to the studio complex and smoking like a train. I perched next to him and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shied away, murmuring something like, “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Not you too,” I said with a groan, shaking my head. “Forget it, I’ll go.”

I got back to my feet and was about to stalk sulkily off when Mana said sadly, “Yesterday…… Gacchan… you agreed with what I said about them. You told me I’m a better… that I………… But it was a lie, wasn’t it. That… that Hyde, he makes you… he’s put you in a constant state of… for the last week and… I can never do that for you… I know……… otherwise being in Malice would be a bitch… we’d never get any work done. So… why did you say it?” he asked, anguished.

I looked back at him. “Mana, I didn’t want to hurt you by saying that I thought… well, you know what I think now, I guess. But… I didn’t want to say it because it would’ve hurt you. I didn’t want to do that. So…” I shook my head. “What else can I say other than ‘I’m sorry’? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“What about… what happened?” he whispered weakly. I saw tears welling furiously in his eyes but he brushed them away so they wouldn’t destroy his make up. “You know… what about… us?”

I bit my lip and looked away, closing my eyes and practically feeling the pain he was feeling. “I’m sorry, Mana-chan.”

There was a flurry of movement as Mana stumbled to his feet and flew down the stairs, past me and away into the distance, his hands dramatically over his crying eyes. Shaking my head, I sat down on the stairs and buried it in my hands. What a fuck-up, what an absolute fuck-up. I was so angry, and so disgusted in myself for hurting Mana, and so fed up with that fucking tosser Közi…

“Yo, Gacchan.”

I looked up in surprise as Kami sat down calmly next to me, a grin spread handsomely over his face. “You know, if you had just told me you liked Hyde, I wouldn’t have been so nasty about them the other day.”

“Huh?” I managed ungracefully, blinking unbelievingly at him.

“You were right. Közi and I are just pissed because… well… we wanna be them, yeah, we wanna be up there and on MTV and… well, you know, that’s not important now, really, what’s important is that we keep trying, yeah?”

“Yeah, that’s right but…”

“Don’t quit, it’s the last thing we need, Gacchan. You’re the perfect vocal for Malice. As good as that Hyde guy, if not better.”

“Oh no, I could never be better than Hyde-sama…”

“Hyde-sama?” The grin got bigger. “Wow. Respect, dude. R.E.S.P.E.C.T..” I couldn’t help it. I started laughing, leaning on Kami for support as he continued, “Well at least I know why you wanted that magazine now. How many times a day do you ogle at him, Gacchan? Six? Seven?”

“Seven hundred,” I choked. (It was probably true too.)

Kami laughed with me and then gave me a bear hug. “Look, Gackt, just go home and relax. Közi will chill after a while.”

“What about Mana?”

He shrugged. “He’ll cope.” Then he patted my shoulder and got back to his feet. “Go on, gay boy. Scat.”

Kami was such a great friend. He was always so good to me. Even when I’d disgusted him completely by falling for a singer-cum-drag queen.

I miss him.

The bitter resentment between Közi and myself lasted until Malice Mizer finally hit it big and he decided to forgive my ‘mistakes’ because “after all, since then, L’Arc~en~ciel have proven themselves to be a band of worthy musicians”. However, it was still dangerous to mention the words “Hyde” or “Laruku” within a fifty-metre radius of either him or Mana, and so our group outings (rare as they were then) cautiously avoided the topic of music altogether, and focused instead on things like women (in Közi’s case), men (in Mana’s case), both (in my case), or how many bottles of alcohol I’ve drunk tonight (of course, Kami).

Therefore, the night Gackt and Mana Malice bumped into Hyde and Sakura Laruku at a pub was a grim night indeed.

I’d spent the time since the debut of that dreaded PV forcibly immunising myself against the seductive lure of Hyde-sama’s beautiful eyes and pout, and while I’d lasted quite well through repeated watchings of their latest single’s clip, I found that it was a different thing altogether when I pretty much smacked straight into him upon his exit and my entrance of the same lavatory door.

We both babbled some form of apology, but I couldn’t help it if my eyes were too focused on his too-red lips as his tongue nervously probed them apart, on his wide brown eyes, filled with surprise and apologies, on his small, pale build, so dainty, so perfect. I felt my cheeks heating up in a blush and an erection starting anew – anxiously, I pushed past him and locked myself in a cubicle until I was sufficiently jerked off.

Hyde – his name still tasted sweet on my tongue, and his smouldering gaze still left a terrible impression on my libido. If we were going to share this industry, I was not going to cope very long without finding myself in some sort of extreme embarrassment involving too-tight pants and thongs and me bursting out of my pants when we shook hands on Utaban or something.

Wondering how I’d worm my way out of said extreme embarrassment if that happened, I wandered back to a glowering Mana and was terribly surprised to find a very animated Hyde (plus a stoned Sakura) chattering cheerfully away, admiring my bandmate’s “gorgeous” frock and mentioning that “I could never look as beautiful as you, although I try so hard…”

“Really? That’s nice,” Mana sulked.

When I reached the small group, Hyde-sama turned to me and bent his waist in a slight bow. “Hey, you’re Gackt, aren’t you? From Malice Mizer? I’m Hyde, L’Arc~en~ciel no vokaaru da.”

I bowed back politely and then offered my hand, saying, “Hyde-san, I’ve heard much about you.”

“What,” Mana commented scathingly in my ear, “only Hyde-san now?”

“Fuck off,” I snarled back, and then turned back to my idol-cum-crush with a warm smile, (probably visibly) fighting a new erection. “Your song ‘Blurry Eyes’ interested me very much. Since then I have followed your band’s music – your changing style interests me…”

“…as does your penis,” my bandmate cut in from behind me.

Hyde raised an amused eyebrow at Mana and drawled to no one in particular, “Maji… If it interests you that much, you can have a look…” and feigned the unzipping of his fly (much to my enjoyment and distress).

“Mana,” I said as gently as possible, turning briefly away from my hormone-inducing Rock God (he was definitely male tonight) and his miniature striptease, “shut the fuck up and go eat some sushi or something.” Then I turned back to Hyde-sama. “Sorry about that,” I drawled scathingly. “He’s jealous. Just because I turned him down…”

Mana stood suddenly, his brown eyes burning in pure, unrestrained anger. “How dare you,” he spat. “You used me to… and then you… you bastard!”

He stormed off. When I went to turn back to Hyde (and of course Sakura), he had fled, clearly not wanting in on our domestic battle.

Damn.

Things changed after that. Malice broke up, Sakura left L’Arc after being busted for drug abuse. I started on solo work, Hyde and the others found a new drummer: Yukihiro. My new friends and I spent our days apart and our nights partying madly, Hyde and his bandmates spent their days recording and their nights performing. I was jealous and still desperately wanted Hyde-sama, he probably hadn’t given me a thought since the night we’d met by chance.

I rarely talked to Mana or Közi anymore. Kami and I hung out regularly until he died, and the remaining members of Malice Mizer faded into the background as I – their one-time vocal – formed a new (supporting) band, made new friends, loathed the fact that I wasn’t within constant glomping range of Hyde, (cried when he started dating Oishi-fucking-Megumi), and just generally continued on with life.

By 2001 I was a sensation of my own, L’Arc had semi-split in order for Hyde to work on a solo project (once again, at risk of being murdered, I think the others might’ve too but I don’t know and or care), Hyde was married, I was single and lonely and bitter at the world, and You, Masa and Ren were consistently cracking onto me (which would’ve been much more fun if their names were Hyde, Hyde and Hyde but as it was they weren’t Hyde and it was fun but my dreams – usually wet ones – were better).

The one highlight of my life was that ‘Shallow sleep’, a song of Hyde’s that I once heard Tetsu deem “boring enough to put a musician to a slow, peaceful slumber” (the stupid, inconsiderate prick), made me irretrievably horny. It gave me something to do for the three hours of the day that should have been reserved for the extreme pleasuring of my appendage by someone other than me (but in the end generally wound up being me anyway).

I was twenty-seven (four-hundred and sixty to the general public, thankyou), horny, and sexually frustrated in a major way.

I wondered whether my life would be so permanently shit if I hadn’t made the awful mistake of falling for my fellow singing superstar. I wondered whether I would’ve just dated Mana and been content with that, whether I would’ve left Malice in the first place, whether this whether that. I was depressed and playing ‘what ifs’ and it was only making my life worse. (On a public front I was, however, a cheery, humorous guy who more often than not was bored by anything that didn’t centre around him.

None of this is entirely true – I just spent those moments trying not to cry. When I was acting up for the camera, I felt truly at peace, because it was the times I didn’t feel or act real that I didn’t have to break down in tears, either.)

Hyde’s star had sort of levelled out. Mine was constantly on the rise. But at least he was happy with what he had.

Something that I certainly was not.