It wasn't that he didn't have an adequate vocabulary, no. It because he had too extensive of one. He found it hard not to meander into describing the delicate subtleties of a kiss, the divine pleasure. He knew that people would fail to understand him, and was afraid of it. Even though he was, at best, enigmatic in his interviews because he wanted to, in this matter he did not want to be misunderstood or misinterpreted by hoards of people, whether they were well intentioned or not. It was because that simple act was an important part of him, a part he didn't take lightly or for granted. He held it sacred. Nobody ever knew. Nobody ever understood.

How was it ever possible for Gackt to describe everything he liked about kissing into a short, witty sentence that would have some members of the audience in guffaws and the others in bewilderment? He didn't want to cheapen it. So he spoke little, hinted at more. That way, he'd keep audiences happy, but still keep a narrow margin of privacy for himself.

Because it was like that. Kissing someone was like giving the whole of himself away, mind body soul and trust. Trust in this industry, in his world, was rare. He would be utterly naked. Defenseless. Theirs.

He had told all that to Hyde one night, in a rambling monologue induced by a night spent by seeing how much alcohol he could swig down by sunrise. Hyde had laughed and poured him more sake. And then he had sobered down, and a strange solemnity overcame him, like a blanket of calm and he had said, "Sou ka."

And then Gackt was afraid, taken aback by the storm of emotions that swelled and ebbed within him. He knew that in that moment in time, he had fallen in love with someone who understood him so completely, and yet whom he could never ever completely share his world with.

Gackt's cell phone rang at approximately 2:41 am on Christmas Day. He knew, because he had checked and double-checked his call history to make sure that the call had ever existed.

They had said hello at the same time, they always did. It was some kind of telepathy, Gackt had said one day, to somehow explain the ferocity of their bond.

"Can I come over?" Hyde's voice was low, muffled.

"Yea." A million questions gone unasked, because their friendship was like that. Accepting. Trusting.

2 cases of beer and countless cups of sake later, Gackt lolled on the edge of his bed, fully dressed and tangled up in the silken bed sheets. He gazed out at the perfect sunrise, but not really seeing it. He was too lazy to get up and close the curtains that edged his wall-to-floor windows. After all, the view was still beautiful even if he failed to appreciate it.

His eyes flickered to the clock by his bedside then to the sleeping figure at the foot of his bed. He contemplated calling Megumi, but did not.

Gackt watched as a ray of sunlight inched across the sheets onto his outstretched fingers. Bemused, he lifted them to his lips as if to see what sunshine tasted like. Maybe he was still drunk.

"What are you thinking about, Gacchan?" Hyde mumbled. Gackt watched languidly as the bleary-eyed man half-crawled up to rest his head on the nearest substitute for a pillow; Gackt. Hyde sighed and cussed, lost in the depths of a hang over.

For once their telepathy had failed them. Because Gackt had shut himself off, because the sight of the lithe creature resting on his abdomen was too tempting. Not kissing Hyde was like denying a part of him was alive, or ever existed. To open up to Hyde, truly, would be to admit that he, Camui Gackt, wanted to do him, Takarai Hideto, silly.

"Hyde... do you trust me?"

"Of course."

"Even if I were mad?"

They kissed. Or so Gackt would have liked to believe, would like to imagine they had. His lips had hovered for a split second over Hyde's, his eyes lingering softly, tenderly on the visage of an angel asleep in his arms. Then the angel stirred lightly, half moons of lashes fluttering briefly against his pale cheeks like butterflies.

"Uh?"

The spell was broken. Gackt drew back a little, worried now that he had overstepped the unnamed boundaries that defined friendship and something more. But there was nothing but trust in Hyde's eyes as Gackt searched them.

"Nothing... Nothing..." Gackt leaned over slightly and brushed his lips against Hyde's forehead. He could have wept. To be so close to Hyde and yet... never allowed to get closer, never allowed to fulfill the deep yearning that hollowed out an empty pit in his heart.

"Go back to sleep, Haido," Gackt whispered.

"Mmm."

Hyde, blissfully and painfully oblivious, laid his head on Gackt's stomach, and curled up against him with feline grace. Sleep claimed Hyde within seconds, while it eluded Gackt like the insubstantial morning mist.

Gackt listened to Hyde's slow breathing with voyeuristic pleasure, until his hands that were tucked behind his head turned numb from lack of blood and the pain of clenching them in place. Finally, he reached out hesitantly, to smooth away strands of hair that obstructed his view of Hyde's face. His fingers inevitably swept across Hyde's brow, rounded the arc of Hyde's cheek, and traced their way down to Hyde's lips. Soft, inviting, ever so forbidden, they leaned into his caress. Gackt stopped breathing, and only started again long after Hyde had done tossing. Asleep. Only asleep. Gackt dropped his hand down to his side.

He turned his head to look outside the window and watched the city rush by below him in the sanctuary of his apartment, like a god. A silent, powerless god.