hyde's clothes were torn from the unfortunate event that happened in
less than an hour ago. Tetsu could see the cuts and bruises on hyde's
delicate body and felt a million knives slashing his own flesh into pieces.
Hyde was too weak to move and speak. His eyes already exhibited the
great fear and hurt he was experiencing although he did not breathe a
word about it. As he was unable to bath himself, tetsu decided to do it
on his behalf.
Tetsu carefully laid him down on the bathroom ground. Unable to sit
upright, went behind hyde and let hyde leant his back on tetsu's chest
for support. Meticulously, tetsu removed the remnants of his clothes.
The sight of the numerous sores on his pale body caused tetsu to feel
intense pain and made his heart bled once more. `Why would such a
thing happened to hyde?' He cursed himself for not escorting hyde home
in the first place. Why would he let him work at such a place, knowing
that hyde would attract unnecessary attention. He wished to track down
that son of a bitch and kill him as his punishment for inflicting so much
suffering to his hyde. Hyde was shivering due to a mixture of coldness
and fear. With much care, tetsu washed hyde clean and dressed his
wounds. Then he wrapped him up with a towel and carried him to bed.
Not long, hyde looked peacefully asleep. Tetsu could not help but
admired hyde's sleeping form. `Like an innocent girl.' He thought and
then he scrutinized hyde's body searching for any visible wounds. There
was some clogged up blood at the left corner of hyde's mouth. Unable to
control himself this time, he reached out his hand and caressed hyde's
soft face. Then he noticed a tiny patch of dried blood on the left corner
of hyde's mouth. Using his hand to gently outline his lips, an intense
feeling swept through him. Unable to resist, he bent over in the attempt
to kiss away the clogged blood that spoilt hyde's perfectly sculptured
lips. Tetsu let his lips rested on hyde's for a long time. And then, quickly
retracted when hyde moved his lips.
In actual fact, hyde was not sleeping. He was so weary and weak from
the damned incident that he just shut his eyes. But he knew what was
happening around him. He could feel tetsu's hand feeling his face and
his warm lips against his. They were so comforting. He wanted to
reciprocate and try to move his lips but at that instant, tetsu backed off.
Hyde was disappointed but he felt candies and honey in his heart
because tetsu actually liked him. Nevermind, since tetsu was shy about
this, he would drop hints here and there when he recovered.
Unknown to hyde, at the same instant, tetsu vowed that this was the last
time he was crossing the line. Any such actions may cause hyde to
remember that incident and he did not want hyde to be emotionally
scarred forever. `I would ruin him. Maybe a girl was better for him. At
least, he would not be remind of this incident again.' Hoping that hyde
could lead a normal life, Tetsu painfully decided that the game was over.
Under tetsu's tender care, hyde recovered quickly and everything was
back to normal.
1 thing still puzzled hyde greatly. Eversince the kiss, tetsu seemed to
distant himself away from him. Whenever they talked, it was about the
band. Tetsu began to take on any chances for performing and accept all
invitations to perform at lives. So, the band became fully occupied with
work and had no time for other matters. Peru once asked tetsu why was
he so desperate to take up so many offers and tetsu's explanation was
to get more exposure, experience and attention. But hyde found these
reasons too superficial, he knew that tetsu was doing this on purpose so
as to set up an invisible barrier between them. Hence, they kept
themselves busy everyday and by the end of the day, they were too tired
to talk. During their not so hectic schedule, tetsu was writing songs
himself and was encouraging the rest to write too. There was not a time
where hyde shared some private moments with tetsu. He wanted to ask
him about the kiss that night but then it seemed very irrelevant since
everything now was focussed on the band.
Hyde shifted into the other room. Tetsu had it cleaned up and made
sure that there were no more spiders. Hyde attempted to look out for
ants, bugs or any other insects instead but they were nowhere to be
sighted. Alone and feeling unwanted in the cold room, he began to write
the lyrics of a song ken had written---taste of love.
After Peru left the band, they managed to recruit sakura. When tetsu
and hyde went to meet sakura for the first time, tetsu could immediately
recognized the expressions in sakura's eyes. They were the same kind
as his when he first saw hyde. Throughout the meeting, sakura's gaze
was placed completely on hyde. True enough, he was going through
what tetsu went through. He was intrigued with his bishouened before
his eyes. The way hyde fluttered his eyelashes was far more beautiful
than any girls he had seen. Hyde seemed to know about sakura's `crush'
on him and he began to make use of this to charm sakura into joining
the band and also to spite tetsu. Well, it went on smoothly and sakura
agreed.
Since sakura was from Tokyo, he would have to lodge into tetsu's house
for the time being. On the way to tetsu's house, hyde and sakura were
chatting so happily and sakura even placed one of his arms across
hyde's shoulders. tetsu wanted to fling that arm away and nearly made
tetsu turned red but he managed to conceal it.
Tetsu was even more irritated when hyde volunteered to share his room
with sakura. He told sakura but throwing a glance at tetsu, `I am afraid
of spiders except for purple spiders. With you here, I know you will help
me kill all the stupid spiders. I need not be afraid anymore.' He said that
aloud as if he wanted the whole block to hear about his spiderphobia.
Sakura just grinned.
tetsu smiled forcibly, `so you guys help yourselves, I am going back to
my room.'
Sakura was busy shifting his luggage and hentai thoughts kept flashing
in his mind so was unaware of tetsu's earlier speech. Hyde heard it but
he pretended not to take notice on purpose.
From that night onwards, tetsu developed this habit of grinding his teeth
in his sleep.
When L'Arc~en~Ciel turned major, they all moved to Tokyo. They
rented a unit and there were 3 rooms where hyde and sakura took 1
room, ken and tetsu the other and the last one was the meeting room
cum song writing room cum band practice room.
Hyde and sakura were already very good friends and they did many
things together. During lives, tetsu could see, actually everyone could
see hyde seizing every possible chance to steal a look at sakura. Even in
the backstage, one was feeding the other when himself was getting his
hair done. Frequently, hyde would stick out his tongue naughtily at
sakura. Then tetsu began to hate sakura out of jealously. In fact, sakura
was the intruder, hyde was his officially and sakura came along and
stole him away. Tetsu channeled his energy into the band and he was
pleased that his devotion and hard work paid off, L'Arc~en~Ciel was
getting more popular with each day. Singles and albums are selling like
hotcakes and were out of stocks quickly. Although he hated sakura to
the core, as the bandleader, he had to discard all his personal grudges
aside. He had a very miserable life and he balanced it off writing more
cheerful and catchy tunes.
Throughout the years, hyde did evolute a lot and he changed the most.
His hair turned shorter and shorter with every released. He started to
shed off his girlish clothes and makeup. He began to take up a liking for
more punkish/rockish looking clothes. he never ask for the reason and
since it did not bother the fans or affect the sales, then he got no right
to question hyde. Perhaps he was under the influence of sakura who
wore nothing but black. He was more confident as a vocalist. They had
begged sakura to get his hair colored but he just refused. It was always
sakura and hyde. The situation got out of hand during their heavenly
tour. Hyde ran around with sakura with a leash. There were too many
fan services between them. The leash thing was impromptu and tetsu
swore that they had not included it in the rehearsal and he wondered
where that damned leash came from? He was bitter but he could see
that the fans liked it and were enjoying it. They were screaming their
hearts out when they saw that scene.
Sometimes when fan services got out of hand, tetsu would often watch
with great despair. Once, while playing taste of love during `kiss me
deadly, heavenly', he went towards hyde and jammed with him but hyde
ignored him and turned towards sakura. To save him from
embarrassment, ken came forward and jammed with him. Tetsu was
completely lost after that. Due to unspeakable sorrow, he got sick. It
was serious and no medicine could cure him and the doctors diagnosed
as overworked and stressed. Their next concert had to be postponed
until 2 weeks later. Hyde did not do it on purpose. He wrote that song
for tetsu in while in that tiny house in Osaka and went tetsu came
forward, he was reminded the past and the feeling of writing that song
overwhelmed him and he wanted to cry on the spot. Hence, he turned
towards sakura to divert his thoughts.
No one paid any notice to the poor tetsu on stage. He did not know why
this hyde-sakura relationship appealed to almost everyone so much.
There were even rumors of hyde being gay with sakura. Even tetsu did
not know the truth and he dared not ask hyde because he was afraid to
hear what he did not want to know. Looking at all Laruku groups photos,
he felt that he was the most compatitble was hyde. Tetsu was very
disappointed when in the most recent voting booth on the Laruku
webrings, there was a 80% votes for hyde-sakura and a mere 19% for
hyde-tetsu and of course 1% for hyde-ken. Ken was amused and
laughed at this voting booth, he just did not care. Worse still, all
doujinshi found in the market were sakura X hyde and none were tetsu
X hyde. To matter tetsu wanting to commit suicide, he happened to saw
1 on ken X hyde!!!! Even there was one ken-hyde pairing and yet he got
none! Least but not least, in most of the fanfics, the paring was hyde X
sakura. Often tetsu was the pathetic character who loved hyde who in
turned only loved sakura and whose love was not returned. Sometimes,
he was often brutally portrayed as a dumb battered wife of ken whom
later left him for another. Although, he was still wearing the necklace
(from hyde), he felt that the bond was weakening.
Then it was common knowledge to all that hyde and sakura was an
item. The people at SONY always put the pair into one room when they
traveled. He felt sick. Every time he had that thought of them together in
the hotel room across, he would grind his teeth more vigorously. Ken
always begged him to stop and demanded to change room.
Something had to be done to deter him from feeling so miserable.
Taking a pair of scissors, he cut off his orange long hair until slightly
below the chin. he took a broom and swept away the bunches of
oranges strands wet with tears on the floor. Since hyde had already
shed his long time ago, he should have done it long time ago too.
Memories of himself and hyde faded away from his mind with every
stroke of the broom. At an instant, he felt fear. He did not want the
memory to go away. It was beautiful. Nothing can replace the
experience he had with hyde in the indies days. Too many things
happened. He grabbed a tiny bunch of the hair and tied them into a
bunch and kept them securely. The memories still remained with him
vividly.
Everyone was shocked when they saw tetsu with his new hairstyle. It
was unlike of tetsu to cut his locks away since they were his most prized
asserts.
`Look sakura-chan, tet-chan cut his hair!' hyde told sakura in his usual
spoilt brat tone while tugging at sakura's hair.
No one came over and asked why he cut his hair, only ken. Tetsu was
disappointed at hyde's response or lack of reaction since he had taken it
so lightly and made no more comments after that.
In fact, tetsu's sudden hair change made the news that evening. The
media speculated that it was due to a failure in a love relationship. But
they were only half-correct since they guessed that the other party
involved was Hinano. Tetsu wanted to laugh at this piece of news. The
reporters were so stupid and they had never written an accurate report.
The reason why hinano's name was dragged into the story was because
hinano was interested in hyde. She had attended all of larc's concerts
since `the sense of time 94' because she wanted to see hyde. But hyde
always ignored her and rejected all her invitations for dates. This hinano
was thick-skinned and she had even begged him once to date hyde out
on her behalf! There was a misunderstanding that hinano and he were
together. It was a joke. Recently, hinano had found a new guy and
stopped going to laruku concerts. The media twisted the facts around by
saying tetsu cut his hair due to hinano dumping him for another guy. Ken
called him up and laughed throughout the whole conversation at tetsu's
misfortune. That did not bother tetsu at all and he did not clarify to the
press and neither did hinano.
Life carried on as usual. Over the years, he had watched closely and
with quizzical interest, hyde had grown matured and independent. He
was totally different from the frail kiddish girl next door, he was not
afraid of spiders and the dark anymore and able to protect himself. His
male gender was getting more apparent with each hair cut though a bit
of femininity still lingered around him. It was interesting. To much relief,
they were able to communicate effectively without any awkwardness
and on one ever brought up the dark secrets they once shared. Tetsu
thought that it was better this way. In a few of the recent interviews,
hyde had revealed that he enjoyed being a vocalist. Tetsu was glad that
he had made the right choice and `hyde was a natural vocalist.' He
thought with pride.
Much to the female's fans delight, all of L'Arc~en~Ciel were still
unattached. Occasionally, they would get offers and dates from fans
who were from more influential families, only ken was interested.
Once again, he almost got knocked out when hyde pinpointed sakura to
do the backup of a new song he wrote. The song was, `I'm so happy'.
The fans were screaming their hearts out during the performance of this
song. Tetsu watched when hyde sang the part, `I love you, I love you,
……' so emotionally as if he was really deep in love with someone but
the accompanied anguished told tetsu that hyde might not be so happy
with love.