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 3

I’m more than slightly ashamed to admit that, had it not been for Shinji-kun, all of You’s fantastic plan probably would have gone to waste, as the instant I re-entered the restaurant, my insecurity veins kicked in again, and instead of throwing myself at Hyde like I should have, I meekly returned to my table and toyed with my newly-arrived food, glancing shyly across at my personal God every now and then.

Hyde called his fans Hydeists, a little like I called my fans Dears, I guess. It occurred to me then, sitting those (approximately) 2.547 metres away from him, that what he had effectively done was start a religion: Hydeism. He was God, and we were his followers.

And my, what a mighty God he was. Despite his extremely short stature and fatless, slightly muscled build, Hyde-sama had this presence – this aura – that brought everyone around him to a wide-eyed, jaw-dropped halt as they stared helplessly at his perfection. (And, in the case of some – like me – this halt was accompanied by a puddle of drool at the feet.) Even sitting hunched in a restaurant booth, muttering under his breath and stabbing his seafood dinner to Hell with his chopsticks, he looked perfectly perfect – innocent and powerful at the same time – a true demigod.

And I, Mr. Cheekbones and Vibrato, was too shy to approach him.

Too shy? Too shy? What happened to the Pop King who danced around on stage to ‘Vanilla’ as he openly flirted with (or humped) You and every single other member of his freaking support band? What happened to he who would quite gladly sprawl himself across a glossy magazine page completely naked? Or he who would pose naked in what was practically a daisy-chain with two of his aforementioned bandmates? What happened to him?

As I was pondering all these things, plus what was going to happen to me tomorrow at You’s hands if I didn’t approach Hyde-sama, Shinji slid into the chair across from me and tapped my hand lightly, scaring me out of my stupor and into dropping my chopsticks, which bounced off the table and hit the floor with a (surprisingly noisy) clatter.

“Jesus, Shinji! Next time yell ‘boo’ and make it real funny, okay?!” I snapped exasperatedly as I heard Hyde snickering from his table. Colour started to creep up my cheeks anew. “That wasn’t funny, man.”

“Hey dude, relax,” Shinji said soothingly, tapping my hand in a way which I assume was meant to be comforting. “You seem so highly strung all of a sudden. I just wanted to check that you’re okay.”

“What? Oh yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure? I mean, you and your friend were fighting just a few minutes before he left, I just thought…”

“No, no, You and I are fine now. It was just a minor thing, that’s all. One of those stupid fights. He’s just worried about his sister, after all. Just wants to make sure she’s okay. As for me… I’m fine, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

He nodded, his eyes clearly asking: Like what?

“Look,” I whispered, “I’ll tell you about it all later. But for now, Shinji-kun, don’t worry. It’s not entirely a bad thing anyway. Dakedo… I just don’t want you to worry today – it’s your birthday, after all, you should be worrying about your age, not someone else’s problems.” I smiled broadly. “Now fuck off and go have some fun. I’m going to summon the rest of my dignity and then retrieve my chopsticks.”

Laughing, my friend smacked me gently upside the head and moved on to some other guest, returning me to my silent, admiring, and terribly embarrassed stupor, and the dilemma of how long I should pause before reaching for my chopsticks. After all, I could still feel Hyde-sama’s amused gaze on me, and still hear him chuckling to himself at my expense. I was well aware that no one else was watching me or caring what I was doing, but one person (especially when that person was my own personal deity), was more than enough.

I was still trying to decide what to do when a clean pair of chopsticks was waved under my lowered nose.

“Haa?” I exclaimed, my head shooting up in surprise.

Hyde smiled down at me, waving the chopsticks around a little. “I saw you dropped yours,” he smirked, “so I thought I might offer you my spare pair.”

“…Oh. Arigatou,” I muttered, feeling my cheeks darken again as I half-bowed in my seat. “But… I already had a spare pair. My dinner partner ran away.”

“At least you had a dinner partner,” he laughed as he slid into the booth opposite me, resting the chopsticks on the table. “No one wanted to come here with poor little old me. I’m Hyde, by the way. You probably don’t remember me, but we met some time ago.” He offered me his hand, and I shook it firmly, privately amazed. He thought I wouldn’t remember him?! I was more surprised that he remembered me!

As he released my hand I stuttered something to that effect, and he laughed. “Of course I remember you. It’s not every day a man in drag says his companion is interested in my penis.”

I felt like banging my head on the table. Thanks a bunch, Mana. “Well, yeah, he was just being stupid,” I managed to say through the spectacular blush on my embarrassed face.

“Stupid or not, I remembered it. So when I saw you were sitting on your own too, I thought I’d come join you so we can wallow in our lonely self-pity together. After all, I know your name, which is more than I know about anyone else here… well, apart from Shinji-chan, of course.”

“How do you know Shinji?” I asked curiously (I couldn’t help myself). “I was surprised to see you here, when I arrived… I didn’t realise you know one another.”

Hyde smiled. “Actually, I’ve known him for a while now,” he said, with an affectionate glance over in Shinji’s direction. He ran a hand through his wily blonde hair and explained, “……I tried to kill myself. It’s… a long story.”

I shrugged. “We’ve got all night.”

He nodded a little, as if contemplating whether he wanted to tell me or not. Then after hesitating a long while, he said quietly, “……When Sakura left L’Arc~en~ciel, it really messed me up. That guy, he was like… an older brother to me, ne… I really respected him – who he was, how he acted, everything. It was the first time I met someone, apart from my sensei, who knew everything there was to know about drumming and more… it just amazed me.

“When he… well, I guess you know the story, but… when it happened, I just got so fucked up. I’d stay out all night and drink myself sick, and stagger back to Tetsu’s around 4 a.m. and cry myself hoarse. My idol, the guy I looked up to most – they were threatening to lock him up and management told him he was out, and… I couldn’t cope.” He sniffed a little and looked down at the table, fiddling with the chopsticks almost anxiously. “One night, I slit my wrists in the restroom of my local pub. Shinji found me there, bleeding to death. He called an ambulance and refused to leave my side until I was better. Once I was, he sat down with me and let me cry it all out, and then talked with me about it… until I started to feel better.”

When Hyde looked back up, his eyes were filled with tears. “Gomen ne,” he muttered embarrassedly. “I don’t often get like this.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and then pulled a pack of smokes from his pocket, asking, “Cigarette?”

“Ha?… Oh, no thanks, that’s okay. I’m trying to quit.”

He paused mid-light. “……Oh. Do you mind?”

I laughed slightly and shook my head. “Not at all.”

“Okay. Ii yo.” He took an appreciative drag of the cigarette and then cocked his head slightly to the side. “So… Gacchan… how do you know Shinji?”

I must admit I was surprised at the sudden pull of my nickname from midair. Hyde seemed very comfortable in my presence, almost as if he’d known me for years. The thought almost made me blush again, and then it made me feel a little sad: what a pity I hadn’t known him for a long, long time. He was, after all, such a nice guy. (However, it was also a relief, albeit a small one… I don’t think my hormones could’ve handled it.)

Actually, come to think of it, I felt very comfortable around him myself.

“If you don’t want to say,” Hyde rushed on before I could speak, “then don’t… I know you may not feel comfortable enough to… e to… how do I say?… to share your story with a stranger. After all, I myself don’t usually talk about such things.” Then he frowned. “Actually… I don’t know why I felt inclined to tell you… to own the truth.”

I laughed. “Maybe you just sensed that I’m a good listener. Sometimes it feels good to let these things off your chest, ne?”

“Sou yo,” he agreed emphatically, nodding as he took another drag of his cigarette.

“Saa… I met Shinji-kun when I was 17,” I told him. “In a way, similar circumstances to you, only I was younger and really had no reason to be depressed.” I shrugged. “The doctors had diagnosed me as a depressive but my parents didn’t want to believe it, and so they didn’t do anything about it. I took up a drug habit… I liked the feel of being able to escape from everything I hated without physically hurting myself – although in truth, I did that sometimes too, when I was feeling at my worst. One afternoon I had this huge fight with my parents. I took some pills to calm me down and went for a walk. I guess I took too many, I don’t know. Shinji found me passed out near his house.” I smiled broadly. “But I’ve changed since then… Life’s been difficult, but good, ne.”

“Good, ne.”

The more times Hyde smiled at me, the more comfortable I felt sitting across from him. It was a little bizarre. I thought maybe it was just my hormones playing games with me, but my pants, while stretched, weren’t as bad as they had been when I saw him that time prancing around on screen in a dress and licking his lips erotically. He wasn’t my Rock God(dess), he was just Hyde – he was handsome and beautiful and perfect all at once, and he was an exceedingly amiable guy, too.

“Hyde,” I blurted suddenly, during a short period of silence, “how would you like to be in a movie with me?”

My new friend looked up and shot me an easy grin. “What? A porn movie?”

“No,” I laughed, blushing furiously. “An action movie.”

“Action? Sounds like porn to me.”

“Hyde-san!”

He grinned viciously. “For someone who was quite comfortable with being blown on stage, you sure do get embarrassed easily.”

“Bah! That was just fanservice!” Getting accosted by your idol about porn is something entirely different.

“Fanservice? Fanservice? The most I ever did,” he teased jovially, “was hump Tetsu from behind! That, my friend, is fanservice.”

“And so was this!”

Hyde snickered. “If you say so, Gacchan.”

“I… I do say so!” I spluttered.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“…Well… yes, but…”

“Case closed. It’s not fanservice, it’s Gacktservice.”

“What,” I asked sarcastically, “are you telling me you didn’t enjoy rooting Tetsu up the ass?”

He coloured. “I did not ‘root him up the ass’, as you so delicately put it. I humped his backside, thankyou.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“No!” he exclaimed, shaking his head emphatically. (But his features wavered a little as he said it.)

I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. “I knew it!” I yelled triumphantly. “You’re a closet gay! Fanservice, Haido-chan? More like Hydeservice!”

“It was not! It was… it was…”

Shaking his head, Hyde stopped his spluttering defences, folded his arms over his chest and asked very calmly, “What’s your movie about?” (If not for the red colouring of his cheeks, it would’ve been impossible to guess he was extremely ruffled. Excellent acting. Exactly what I needed.)

“A vampire.”

He raised a cynical eyebrow, repeating my words: “A vampire.”

“Sou yo, a vampire.”

“A… vampire.”

“His name is Kei.”

“Gackt, you do realise that vampires aren’t real, right?”

“Yes,” I said impatiently, “I know that.”

“…Right. Continue.”

I cleared my throat and told him the entire story of my movie. By the time I was finished he looked more cynical than a grown man thrown randomly into the middle of any Sailormoon episode (and that’s saying something).

“Right,” he drawled. “So it’s a bunch of characters set in a fictional town, the main character theoretically can’t even exist, every single person speaks a perfect mix of Japanese, Mandarin and English, except for one girl who doesn’t speak full stop, and we basically spend ninety percent of our time dodging bullets, except when, obviously, we’re meant to get hit, and then we drop down and fall dead.”

“Ummmm… when you put it that way…”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Gacchan… no offence but it all seems sort of farfetched to me…”

“Listen,” I told him, “I don’t like haggling. If you say ‘no’, it’s ‘no’, ne.”

“Yeah,” he frowned, obviously uninterested.

I couldn’t help it. Although I’d just told him from my own mouth that I wouldn’t haggle with him, I knew that my feeling of excitement was totally not transferring to him, and that I’d have to haggle with his interest level until he at least looked semi-intrigued.

“Look,” I told him, “in the scenario, there’s Kei. And… the image of Kei… Kei no imeiji wa… Haido doesu.”

“O-ore ka?” he asked, his eyes wide in shock. “Hontou da…?”

“Please… you don’t have to think of this as official work,” I practically begged. “It’s just fun, ne. I think we can work together well. It could be interesting, too. Maybe… if you agree… let’s work together.”

Hyde nodded thoughtfully and scratched his pale chin. “I’ll give it some thought,” he said finally. “I’d like to read the scenario first though.”

Shinji called us over then to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him and his awesomely-huge birthday cake (which I quickly decided not to eat because of the approximate fat content of the icing alone). I sang along, and in between words, shot a secret glance over at Hyde, watching the way his dark lips formed the words from his delicious white throat, and his lashes blinking lazily over his contact lens eyes (that night the same colour as mine), which looked up and over as he sensed me staring at him. He smiled then, showing his crooked white teeth, and then turned back to look at Shinji, finishing our birthday song with some delightfully high-pitched harmony.

He was so perfect. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

Hyde made off almost as soon as the song was finished, blowing air kisses to Shinji-kun and explaining quietly, “Megumi will kill me if I get home any later than this.” (It turns out it was Megumi who so politely refused to accompany him in the first place, Hyde later told me, because she was worried about missing her favourite soap. Moreover, he explained, she didn’t like Shinji in the slightest, and made that fact quite clear whenever they met with him.)

I walked him out to his car, helping him into his jacket and offering him my name card: “Boku no meishi doesu. Please call me.”

“Yeah, I will. I’ll speak to you soon, Gacchan.” With a smile, he tucked the card into his pocket.

“Hey…” I said, “thanks for keeping me company tonight. I had fun.”

He grinned. “Likewise. Although… it was weird, ne, that I could tell you that stuff so easily. It’s like…” he shrugged a little, “…I dunno. Like… whatever barrier was there… it’s gone. Like an eggshell. My self-eggshell disappeared.”

“Perhaps it’s fate.”

“What?”

“Our meeting.”

Hyde laughed, shaking his head. “Uh oh. Gacchan, you’ve drunk too much.”

“Actually,” I said slowly, leaning down so my face was inches from his, “I’m stone-cold sober.”

“…Oh,” he squeaked, leaning back against his car to put some distance between us, “really?”

To this day, I have no idea what I was thinking at that moment in time. Perhaps I was still wondering how it would feel to kiss him, I don’t know. But before I knew was I was doing, I was leaning against him, with my hands braced on his car, and my lips were on his and I was kissing him.

Oh. My God. It was real, it was bliss, it was pure… it was everything I’d ever fantasised about, and more. He tasted like a creature of God, like an angel – those wings on his back, I theorised, were real. When he gasped, he sounded like a woman, but his body was all man: all muscles and pouting eyes and bleach blonde hair. And deliciously kissable red lips.

Amazing.

It was over in three seconds – as I realised what I’d just done, I yanked myself away from him, licking my lips subconsciously and leaving him resting on the car for support, his eyes wide open with shock and his fingers tracing his mouth. I had just, I told myself, made a very forward move on my crush of ten years – a married man for Chrissake! Blushing, I took an unsteady step back, averting my eyes from his.

“R-really,” I managed to say. “I’m not drunk.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you believe in fate? I do.”

“Oh.”

“I should… be going back inside.”

“Oh.”

“…Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. Goodnight, Hyde-chan. Call me, okay?”

“Oh… okay.”

That night, when I left the restaurant, I drove straight around to see You, and gave him proper thanks for somehow getting me exactly what I’d always wanted.

So it wasn’t me getting rooted up the ass by Hyde – but I think he was happy with at, all the same.

I arrived home a few hours later, sucking fervently on mints to remove the awful combined taste of penis and semen from my mouth. (Yuck.) I gargled about three gallons of mouthwash, and then retired to my loungeroom to dwell over what had happened.

I’d met Hyde, my idol-cum-crush-cum-orgasm-inducer of the last ten years. I’d had a heart-to-heart with said idol-cum-crush-cum-orgasm-inducer about suicide and friendship, and he had, he said it himself, found his ‘self-eggshell’ disappearing when he talked to me. I had, in turn, been equally surprised to find that I could talk to him easily, too. Our conversation had moved to films, in particular mine, and after some haggling and teasing on my part, he’d agreed to at least look at my scenario. He’d smiled at me. I’d given him my name card. Then I’d kissed him.

Ah. That was it, the fundamental flaw.

I’d fucking kissed him and I still expected him to be sane enough to want to join my movie project!

I was a fucking idiot.

But… I considered, would I give up the chance to have him star in my movie for that one kiss?

Yes, I realised. Yes, I would.

You, Camui M.S. Gackt, are a very strange young man.

After forcibly removing myself from my ‘Eek I kissed Hyde Oh my God’ moment of fangirlishness (because no fanboy jumps around on his dining table screaming, “Eek! I kissed Hyde! Oh my Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd!”), I came to a sensible and serious realisation that there were ten new messages on my answering machine.

Oops.

Trotting over to my phone, I pressed ‘play’ and then sunk back gratefully into my dining room chair, the shell of my body naught but obediently listening ears, tingling lips and flaming erection.

“Gacchan, you’re never home nowadays.” Mana. “I wanted to talk to you. I miss you still. It’s weird… now that I’m not seeing you every day, I feel so lonely. I know I told you this before, but… well… I just wanted to tell you again. It’s just… bizarrely quiet here without you. Do you feel the same? Well, probably not. After all, you have your new friends. Közi-chan’s busy with some project too. But… I’m alone here, now. I feel so helpless. Gacchan… please call me back. Please.”

Click beep scroll.

“Gacchan, where are you?” Mana again. He sighed. “Please call me back. I need to talk to you.”

Click beep scroll.

“Gacchan!” You. “Hey, as soon as you get home, call me, all right? I wanna hear the gossip, every last bit of it. Who was bottom, huh?” He laughed. “Okay. So… call me, ne? I don’t care how late it is. I’ll be waiting.”

Click beep scroll.

“Gacchan…” Mana again, crying this time. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop calling now, okay? I’m just… such a fucking mess.”

Click beep scroll.

“Yo, dude! Long time no talk!” I felt my cheeks lift in a smile as I recognised Leehom’s cheery Mandarin Chinese. “How are you? Well, I just thought I’d tell, I’m in Japan for the week, so if you’re free, I’ll drop by sometime. Give me a call on my cell phone – you know the number, right? Okay dude. Talk to you soon, kay? Bye.”

Click beep scroll.

“Gacchan, hi.” You again, sounding shaken. “Umm… just thought I’d call and say not to call, ne. After all… you were here so… I know what happened. Ja… I just wanted to say ‘thankyou’, anyhow. It was… good fun… ne? So… umm… thanks. Call me when Hyde phones, okay? I still wanna know the gossip. Okay.” He chuckled. “I’m off to have a cold shower. Dream sweet, all right, Gacchan? I know I will.”

Click beep scroll.

“………” Mana sighed delicately. “You’re still not home, huh? Either that or you’re ignoring me. Gacchan… call me back, all right? Please.”

Click beep scroll.

“Gacchan, do you realise what the time is? Where are you?” Eri-chan, my older sister. “Here I am, calling to see if you’re okay after that episode last week, and you’re not even home, you rude thing.” She laughed her tinkly laugh, and I smiled. “Well, call me back, ne. I look forward to hearing about your conquest for the night, otoko-chan. Night.”

Click beep scroll.

“Uhh… Gacchan.” Hyde. Whaaaaat? “…You’re not home yet, I see. Ano… nan daro?… Ja… thankyou for tonight. I know I already said so, but it was fun. And, about the scenario, could you phone me back? I’m free all next week so if you want I could come over and read it or something.” I heard a smile in his voice as he lowered it to a whisper. “Anything to get away from the dragon lady. But anyway, yeah, call me back sometime. Probably not tonight because Megumi’s asleep and she’ll castrate me if my friends start ringing at all hours. Don’t laugh,” he admonished as I did just that, “she will. And then I’ll be penisless and you’ll have nothing about me to be interested in.” He laughed then. “God, I must be tired, listen to me-”

Click beep scroll.

“Damn your answering machine, it cuts you off if you talk too long,” Hyde laughed. “Anyway, the whole point of that last message was to give you my phone number: 075-462-6489, and to tell you – call me when you’re free. I don’t really care when it is, as I said. Any time is cool. Okay?” (Was he babbling, I wondered, because he was embarrassed? Or was he babbling because he was a natural babbler?) “Okay, that’s cool. I’ll speak to you then, then. Bye, Gacchan, and… sweet dreams.”

Click long beep rewind beep.

Sweet dreams, you say, Hyde-chan??

Oh, they will be.

Early the next morning I crawled tiredly into bed wearing naught but a huge smile and a straining erection, and dreamt of Hyde.

I was awoken rudely a few hours later by the incessant ringing of my portable phone handset, which was sitting about three centimetres away from my ear in Bell’s smelly gob. (What a delightful creature, she’d brought the phone up for me when she heard it ringing… Stupid fucking bitch.)

Grumbling something that would’ve surely made Jesus plus all the Disciples turn in their graves (and probably my Grandmother, as well), I reached out sleepily and snatched the handset from my pet dog, demanding into it, “What the fuck do you want?”

“Good afternoon to you too,” chirped Shinji.

“…Oops.” Sitting up in my bed, I ran a hand through my sleep-mussed hair, muttering embarrassedly, “Sorry Shinji-kun, I thought you were someone else, ne.” I could feel my cheeks heating up already, and it was only first thing in the… Wait. “Konnichiwa da no?!”

“It’s 2 p.m.,” my friend told me, confirming my worst nightmare was in place and happening then and there.

“Oh shit. That’s half my day – gone!”

Shinji chuckled. “I gather you only just woke up, Gakkun.”

“Yes, thanks to a combination of your phone call and my dog. Thanks,” I said grudgingly.

“No problem.

“Saa… did you enjoy yourself last night?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” I said, grimacing a little as Bell leapt onto my lap and started nosing at my crotch (the perverted little thing). “Hyde-san is very entertaining, ne. I must admit I was surprised to see you know one another… I’ve wanted to meet him for years now.”

My friend started laughing. “He said the same, you know.”

“Really?” I asked in surprise.

“Really really.” (Despite my sleepiness, I had a sudden urge to get up and jump around like a celebratory maniac on the bed.) “He told me this morning that he’s always viewed you as a very interesting person, and that given the chance, he wanted to meet you. Weird, ne.”

“Sou yo ne. Hen da yo,” I muttered, glaring at Bell as if to say: get the fuck off me, you perverted bitch. She looked back and sniffed delicately at me before returning to the nasal attack on my naked form.

“Are you okay, Gakkun? You sound distracted.”

“My dog is trying to blow me.”

“Ahhh. ………Ha?!”

Jerking my hips slightly, I sent Bell flying and returned my full attention (sans the part that reminded me constantly that I was fucking freezing) to Shinji. “Don’t talk like that,” I laughed, “it’s okay now. She’s sitting on the floor glaring at me.”

“Why?”

“Why else? She wanted a taste of my indescribably large cock, like every other mortal on Earth, that’s why, Shinji-kun,” I teased laughingly, quite possibly my first real laugh since I’d seen Hyde on TV ten years before. “And of course, I wouldn’t give her one.”

I felt real again.

“I don’t know what your ego’s telling you but I for one don’t want to go anywhere near your penis,” I was informed by my best friend.

“Really?” I sighed fake-sadly. “That’s okay I suppose. But… if that’s the case, and you were only calling to see if I had a good time at your party last night, yes I did thankyou but I have to go, possible fuck opportunities are waiting for me to call them back.”

Shinji laughed. “Yes, that was why I called, also to thank you for the present…”

“…Oh, did you like it?”

“When I find a use for a life-sized Gackt poster, I’ll let you know.”

“Ha ha, very funny. …No, seriously.”

“Seriously, I look forward to reading it. It looks interesting, ne.”

“It’s a wonderful book. It made me cry,” I admitted freely. “I hope you can enjoy it too.”

“I’ll call you once I’ve finished it,” he promised. “In the meantime I’m dying to know who the possible fuck opportunities are.”

“And for now,” I answered primly, “I’m going to keep you in the dark – at least until one of the fuck opportunities metamorphoses into an actual fuck.”

“And in the meantime there’s always Bell-chan.”

“Bell-chan? Beru-chan?! Fuck you and bye bye,” I said cheerily in bad English, before hanging up on him.

It was only then that I realised I still hadn’t exactly told him the truth about my feelings for Hyde.

That night I gave into Mana’s pleading and finally agreed to meet him at a local restaurant for dinner, which in the end turned into me sitting alone for two whole hours while I waited for him to show his miserable face. After that time and three glasses of vodka had passed, I excused myself (if you can call leaving an otherwise empty table ‘excusing oneself’) and headed for the bathroom with the intention of returning home afterwards.

The room was occupied by a young man puking his guts into a basin as he cried pitifully, clutching at his stomach as if it were hurting like a million knives were stuck in it. His face was gaunt, and his chest was heaving in and out with each breath he took.

That image, I swear, will be stuck in my mind forevermore…

It was awful.

I gasped in horror and compassion and ran to his side, putting a hand on his shoulder and running the other comfortingly through his long, glossy hair.

“Hey… hey…” I murmured softly, “it’s okay, ne…”

“Ga-Gacchan,” he gasped out, turning into me and throwing his head down on my chest as he burst into loud, echoing sobs. “You came…”

“…E?! Naaaan da?!” What the fucking fuck is happening here? Who are you? How do you know me? Let me go! Now!

He looked up at me then, his brown eyes wide and innocent-looking save the tears that streamed freely from them, his hands clutching childishly at the front of my white shirt. “Gacchan,” he whispered again, reaching up like a dying man and stroking his fingers across my parted lips. “Gacchan…”

When he shot up and kissed me, his arms flying around my neck in a haphazard embrace, I realised.

It was Mana.

He looked different without white powdering on his dark cheeks, without his usual cover of fishnet stockings and flimsy, girlish dresses. But his lips still tasted the same, and his body felt the same, pressed against mine in the way it was. For a moment, I was caught in nostalgia, and my hands wandered their way over his skinny back to tangle his hair between my fingers as I kissed him back softly but confidently, letting him back me up against the cool, tiled wall, his fingers seeking their way across my chest and stroking, and touching.

“Maaaaanaaaaa-chaaan,” I groaned as his kisses wandered tenderly to my neck, his tongue reaching out and finding my jugular to play with, “why are you doing this? Why am I letting you do this?”

“Please,” he gasped fervently in between long kisses, “don’t… tell me to stop. Don’t make me stop… Gacchan. Too… ohhh God, Gacchan, it’s been too long…”

“Maybe,” I agreed, “but… Mana, I’m a different person now…” Am I? Am I really? I’d let You kiss me like this. And Hyde. Oh God… Hyde-chan. Ohhh… “I’m a different person. You… you don’t really know me now.”

“That’s not true. You can’t have changed that much,” he whispered, tugging at my shirt until he could suck gently on my collarbone.

“You’ve changed,” I pointed out on a moan. “Since when did you dress like a man anyway?”

Mana stopped his assault on me suddenly, looking up at me with those lantern eyes, which were quickly filling with tears again. “I thought… perhaps… perhaps it would make you love me more,” he said sadly. “After all – you only ever had eyes for Hyde… and he’s a man, ne… I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you looked at him that night… your beautiful eyes… filled with so much… devotion…”

He tried to plant a soft kiss on my cheek but I averted my face, craning my head away from him. “I… I really respected Hyde,” I told him. “I still do.”

“Why?!” he screamed then, stepping away from me and stamping his foot on the tiled floor, fresh tears flooding his dark, gaunt face. “Because he looks prettier than me in a fucking dress?! You don’t even know him! He was just someone you saw on TV one day! How can you respect him, Goddammit, how?! HOW?!”

As fate would have it, at that moment the door swung open and a little man of five foot nothing strolled in, his longish bleach blonde hair swishing across his shoulders as he moved.

“Oh, hey Gacchan,” he greeted easily as he saw me. “You never called me back last night.”

I laughed a fake laugh. Mana stood next to me and gawped at Hyde, before swinging back to face me, his dark eyes demanding answers. Ignoring him, I turned to my new friend. “I didn’t get in until extremely late,” I said truthfully. “And then this morning… well, rather, this afternoon, I wasn’t awoken until Shinji-kun called. So from then, I’ve been busy.”

“Dining with your friend?” Hyde asked politely, gesturing to Mana. Then he bowed. “Hi, I’m Hyde.”

“Whatever,” Mana snapped. “I’m going home.”

“Huh? Mana-chan…”

“Fuck you, Camui Gackt. Fuck you to the depths of Hell,” he snarled, turning on his heel and storming out of the bathroom and, quite possibly, out of my life.

“Mana?” Hyde asked disquietedly. “Sono hito wa… Mana deshita no?”

“…Yeah.”

“But he was… like… clothed like a… he looked like…”

“A man? He said it would make him more attractive to me.”

“…Oh. He…?”

“Apparently so.”

He shook his head. “…Wow. That’s…”

“I know,” I muttered. “It’s sort of embarrassing on my part… especially because… well, you know… the feeling… isn’t… reciprocated and all. It’s… complex, ne.”

“Sou yo ne…” he said sympathetically, reaching up and patting my shoulder. “But it’ll turn out okay, I’m sure. Why did he storm off?”

I shrugged. “I really don’t know,” I lied softly. “He… he gets jealous of my other friends… that may be it.”

“Hmm… it must make life difficult,” Hyde replied. (Was it me, or did I see pity in those fake blue eyes?)

I grinned, winked, and blew him a kiss. “Sure it does. I’ll cope.

“Oh, by the way, when shall we meet to discuss the scenario?”

Hyde smiled (as if he knew I didn’t want the topic pressed any further), and said cheerily, “Let’s meet tomorrow night for some drinks or something. You can give me a copy of your scenario then. For now, if you’d like, you can join Sakura and me… now that Mana’s run out on you.”

“I’m not having much luck with my dinner partners nowadays,” I sighed dramatically. Then I smiled wanly. I was tired. I wanted to go home. But who turned down an invitation from their idol? No one, that’s who.

So, I said bravely, “I wouldn’t want to intrude, and I am a little tired…”

“Hey, who said anything about intrusion?” my friend said kindly. “Come on, Gacchan, what do you say? Sakura’s good fun once you get to know him.”

“No… I really shouldn’t.”

He laughed. “Too bad, I’m not taking no for an answer.”

I protested all the way back to the table, all the way through my introduction to Sakura (“Saku-chan! This is my friend Gackt. He’ll be joining us tonight, okay?”), all the way through Hyde’s discussion with the waitress about what I would be eating, and all the way through his argument with his friend about which wine to get for the three of us. But when Sakura put his hand on my shoulder with a laughed, “Calm down, Gackt, anyone would think you had a Russian model waiting for you back home or something,” causing Hyde to break up in a fit of sweet-sounding laughter, I stopped.

Anything, if only to see that beautiful smile directed at me once more.