[secret‡letters)

misery | Neko-Chan

here we stand in ravishing rain
joy is like pain
it feels like a miracle
you can’t turn back, you’re in chains
never again
return from a cynical world

He was always like this after a concert.

Hyde ran his hands up and down Gackt’s arms and the taller man looked away, eyes downcast as he tried to avoid the lead singer of L’Arc~en~Ciel’s gaze. Hyde’s hands tightened on Gackt’s biceps, his grip bruising as his fingers dug into the skin.

It hurt.

But… he was always like this after a concert.

Not many people ever got the chance to see this side of Hyde—not many people wanted to. This Hyde was a darker side, a more sadistic Hyde, than the persona that he showed to his adoring public. This Hyde—Gackt still didn’t know if this was just another mask that Hyde donned for him to see, or if this was the true Hyde, the Hyde hidden deep within himself—was a cruel man, rejoicing in the pain that he caused others.

There was a reason why Hyde had originally taken his name from the story of Jekyll and Hyde. And there was a reason why the singer had chosen Hyde instead of Jekyll. Not many people knew this, saw this, realized this—and Hyde intended to keep it that way.

“Haido… please. You’re hurting me.”

“So what?”

~

if you feel you’ve loved me in vain
why not re-live your guilty love affairs
in the warm breeze will cry
again and again
that’s fate for a criminal

Hyde arched above him and Gackt closed his eyes to keep from glancing at the expression upon his lover’s face. It wasn’t a happy expression and it wasn’t a nice expression. Purposely not looking at it helped keep up the wall that Gackt had built up around himself, helped keep up the ‘image’ of Hyde that Gackt had formed in his mind. He knew that the Hyde that he had in his mind wasn’t the true Hyde; it was an imaginary one—the type of man that Hyde could have been if he had chosen to be nicer, kinder, more loving.

Gackt hated the Hyde who continuously pounded into him, not stopping, but he hated the Hyde that lived in his mind even more. He should have hated the real Hyde to a greater extent, but the knowledge that his imaginary Hyde was nothing more than a ‘could have been’ made him loathe it with a passion.

He wished that he was able to embrace the imaginary, but how could he reject reality when the bruises that it left scarred him for life—both physically and emotionally?

Life was made up of ‘could have been’s and ‘should have’s. The only regret that Gackt had was whenever he was with Hyde: he would always look up into his lover’s face, now etched with cruelty, and think, “if only…” But that was life, wasn’t it?

Close your eyes, wish upon a falling star, and then open them. Nothing changed—nothing ever changed. That was the situation that a person must always face; this was reality. And reality abhorred dreamers.

“Misery loves company.”

Hyde’s nails bit into Gackt’s thighs and the smaller man reached his climax with a cry. He collapsed onto Gackt’s chest, face cradled in the hollow of his lover’s neck. “No,” he whispered. “Misery doesn’t love company. Misery loves nothing at all, Gacchan.”

Unnoticed and uncared for, the blue eyed man’s tears slowly traced lines down to his temples, eventually becoming lost in dark brown hair.

~

good intentions lost in thin air
you were craving for affection
and a certain invitation
led you here to me in the cynical world

Hyde was hugging him lightly, slowly stroking his hand up and down Gackt’s chest. Gackt froze, surprised and shocked. This was such a rare occurrence, and the taller man didn’t know what to do, how to react.

So he stilled, waiting for Hyde to make the first move.

“I told you that I never wanted to have a child, didn’t I, Gacchan?” The question came softly, a murmur in the darkened room. “I was so upset when Megumi told me that she was pregnant. In the beginning, before we had gotten married, we agreed to have no children. She told me that she was on birth control. And I never thought about it ever again.”

“Why are you telling me this, Haido?” Gackt asked, his voice a whisper in the shadows.

“Ah, well… I’ll get to that soon enough, Gacchan. But did you know that every single time Megumi and I had sex, she always assured me that she was still on birth control? ‘Don’t worry, Haido,’ she would tell me. ‘I’m not pregnant and I don’t intend to be.’ So imagine my shock when Megumi came up to me one day and said two little words that changed my life forever. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she stated.”

The hand gently tracing designs up and down Gackt’s chest paused and Gackt shivered, a feeling of foreboding slowly gathering force in the back of his mind.

“I went through nine months of hell, Gacchan. Megumi was always so demanding—always wanting this and that. I was so happy when the baby was finally born; it meant that I could be free of her nagging, even if it was just for a little tiny bit. But… did you know that, when the baby was born, it looked nothing like me? It had some of Megumi’s features, but none of mine.”

Gackt shivered.

“One day, Megumi left me alone with the baby for me to watch. I took it with me to the doctor’s and, after a long discussion with him, he finally agreed to do DNA testing on it. Soon enough, all of my previous suspicions were proven correct: The baby was Megumi’s, but I wasn’t the father.”

“I… am sorry, Haido. But what do you want me to say?”

Hyde smiled slightly and dug his fingers into Gackt’s skin, small crescent wound marks appearing where his nails had broken the flesh. Gackt gasped in surprise and pain, trying to push Hyde away from himself—but the other man refused to let go.

“What do I want you to say, Gacchan? Well… how about a promise to attend your child’s first birthday party next week?”

~

“Misery loves company.”

“No. Misery loves nothing at all.”

~

no one but me, in this cold place
I will love and serve you, criminal
that’s your final consolation
now hang on to me, in the cynical world

END.