Hyde didn't greet him by denunciating the unusual tardiness after the first time that he'd seen his bandmate in months. Instead, he wordlessly gestured for Tetsu to sit down in front of him, and called for a waitress, who was at their table in no time and took down their orders.

After the waitress had left, Hyde did a once-over on Tetsu's features and greeted him for the first time. "You look good."

"Thanks. So do you," Tetsu replied appreciatively, seeming to be unable to tear his eyes off Hyde's hair. "Blond sure is the best way to go."

"So I've heard. How's work?"

"Tough. How's Megumi?"

"Stronger than any hair fix you've ever seen. Nice hat, by the way."

"Thanks." Tetsu looked around his surroundings. "When was the last time we ever hung out here, anyway?"

"About two haircuts and five bleachings earlier, I think."

"There's so much that I want to ask you, Hyde." Tetsu folded his arms and leaned forwards on the table.

"Me too, starting with why are we sitting here having this stupid small talk when we should be arguing over whose solo album sounds crappier."

"Ah, the wonders of going solo," Tetsu mused. "You never realize the influence your bandmates have upon you before you start singing like them."

"I was wondering how I'd break that one to you. Luckily I don't play bass," Hyde retorted.

"You don't need any bass. Hell, you don't even need the last eight tracks on your album, seeing as how nobody ever got through Evergreen without nodding off in the first place." Tetsu grinned.

"Maybe I'll make like you and record sixty nonexistant tracks to sell on an empty CD."

"At least it saves our fans from the torture. We both know they'll ditch our CDs once they've managed to get the covers out of the casings."

Hyde shook his head, looking at Tetsu fondly. "You're still a sore loser. I was wondering when we'd be able to sit with each other within a five-foot radius without attempting to tear each other's throats out."

Tetsu burst out laughing. "Those were the good old days."

"Speak for yourself, ojisan. I'm not over the hill yet, and I don't want to sound like one."

"You must feel like you're forty next to that pretty one-shot you've been publicly acquainted with."

Hyde sneered. "When will you be able to say the word 'Gackt' in a sentence like any normal person?"

"Any normal person wouldn't be caught dead acting with that franchise even on the big screen. Much less on the big screen."

Hyde rolled his eyes. "You haven't even seen the movie yet."

"I went through four buckets of popcorn just reading through your press conference. And I thought we were overrated."

"Hail before the powers that are Gackt's publicity staff."

The two were momentarily silenced as the waitress came and delivered their orders. They ate and drank in silent acknowledgement, understanding well enough to not disrupt the silence before the cake, icing and coffee were well down their throats.

After finishing, Tetsu wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, "Listen, why don't you come over to my place? We can talk for a little longer and probably have lunch together."

Hyde shrugged. "Yeah, why not? Megumi isn't due out of her hairdresser's for probably another decade. You'd think she was being embalmed the way she can stand being in that place for so long." He called over for the bill and took out his wallet to pay.

"Be careful what you wish for, Hyde. They just might not come true."

"Yeah, wait till you get married to her in your next lifetime and get her leash fastened to your neck for all eternity."

"Frightening."

"You don't know the half of it." Still bickering, they walked out of the cafe together and entered Tetsu's car. Hyde didn't drive anything on the way over because a friend had dropped him off. All right, said friend was Gackt, and Hyde had freed himself from the devil's talons by lying on account of his life that he was there to see a relative. Or something. Anything that didn't connect to L'arc or another guy, for that matter.

He accompanied Tetsu to his apartment with the blind faith that good friends were always there to rescue you from the tangled rut that were your spouses and your inexplicable sex lives.

About one hundred and twenty minutes later, the faint hum of the air conditioner was the only thing that could be heard in the background of Tetsu's lavish bedroom. That, and slightly uneven, exhausted intakes of breath coming from two contentedly sated men; Hyde and Tetsu were a tangled mess in each other's arms and over the damp sheets of Tetsu's bed, smelling of sweaty cologne and sex.

Toying with Hyde's hair, Tetsu asked, "Why do we do this?"

Lighting a cigarette, Hyde replied, "Do what?"

"Wrapping fucked up crap to give out on Christmas at Shibuya. What do you think, Hyde? We always end up naked and not to mention sweaty as dogs in bed everytime we're alone for one second with each other."

Puffing smoke, Hyde said, "Are you complaining?"

"I'm not complaining."

"You sound like you're complaining."

Tetsu gritted his teeth. "I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out to you how unwise our actions of engaging in this obscene rendition of reconciliation are when you already have a wife who you have to dutifully return to back at home."

"At the hairdresser's."

"Whatever."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch. You're making this into such a big deal. It's not like we just had sex or something."

"Two blowjobs and one dry hump isn't sex?" Tetsu exclaimed.

"Hey, give credit where credit's due. I blew you too, not to mention reward you with an utterly gratuitous handjob," Hyde protested.

"Oh, so everything about me is gratuitous now?" Tetsu demanded, annoyed.

"You were just greedy, damn it! You could have done without the handjob, you were just jealous because I got off thrice!" Hyde shouted.

"Friendship demands such equality at point or another. Besides, I still got you off more than you did me. The least you could do was to display a tiny bout of gratitude." Tetsu twisted his fingers in Hyde's hair.

Hyde threw his hand up in exasperation. "This is your bedroom, Tetsu, not your soup kitchen! I don't politely say 'Thank you' after you give me head!"

"Twice," Tetsu added quietly.

"Twice! Twenty times! Who cares? Jesus, you're starting to sound like Megumi. As if it were such a challenging manner in the world to get a guy off."

"It certainly doesn't take much to get you off. Extend, grab, tug slightly to expel fluid. Repeat if necessary." Tetsu leaned over and kissed Hyde's cheek.

Hyde turned his head and caught Tetsu's lips in a dry peck. "You make me sound like a soap dispenser. At least I don't give my lovers hand cramps from the non-stop succession of thirty minutes."

"Well, at least I know I last longer."

"Is that supposed to be a good thing?"

Tetsu rolled his eyes. "When you normally have to stick yourself into your partner and attempt to hold out until he or she is rewarded with equal pleasure, then yes, I suppose that's a good thing."

Hyde scoffed. "Look who's talking, Uke Boy."

"Hey, shut up. Nobody's been fucking me for ages now, you know," Tetsu snapped.

"I bet the only reason why we've stopped having sex was because you're too chicken to catch something from Megumi," Hyde speculated.

"Yeah, that, aside from my prediction that you wouldn't have the stamina to do anything ever since you married her. You weren't even capable of singing full-force in any of your songs, for crying out loud." Tetsu took the cigarette from Hyde's hand and stepped on it ala Love Flies... err, or rather, stubbed it out on the ashtray so as to save his platformless foot from such torture.

Hyde blushed, busying himself lighting another cigarette. "Who says I don't have the stamina?"

"Admit it, Hyde. You get off too easily. You're naturally the girl." Tetsu turned and rolled over to lie on his side on the mattress.

"Am not!" Hyde shrieked in a high-pitched voice. "I fuck more often than I get fucked! You are such an inconsiderate pig!" He turned away from Tetsu in a huff.

"Who?" Tetsu asked, blandly curious.

Hyde turned back to him. "Who? You are!"

"No, I meant who were the guys that you've fucked?"

Hyde began counting on his fingers and promptly lost count. "I'm not very good with names," he stalled.

Tetsu stared at him in disbelief. "God, you are such a whore!" He exclaimed. "Does Megumi even know about this?"

"I haven't cheated on her with any other women, and that's all that matters to her."

"That's because she doesn't know that you're flaming gay, among other things."

"Hey, childlike innocence is what I look for in a woman."

A silence occured between them, then Tetsu tentatively asked, "What about Gackt?"

"What about him?" Hyde said impatiently.

"Well, you two seem too suspiciously chummy to be just friends with each other..."

"Oh, so that automatically concludes that I sleep with him?" Hyde challenged.

"Hyde, I've been in a band with you for almost ten years. I can recognize gayness between associates when I see it."

Hyde didn't answer as he stubbed out his cigarette. "..."

"Did you sleep with him?" Tetsu went for the kill. "Tell me the truth."

Hyde shrugged a little and muttered incoherently. "..."

"Oh for crying out loud, Hyde, how could you?" Tetsu exclaimed, grabbing Hyde's shoulder to face him. "You told me just last year that I'd be your last. Now answer me, did you fuck him or didn't you?"

"No!" Hyde shouted. "I didn't, I... well, he..." More incoherent mumbling.

Tetsu was losing himself. "Well? Spit it out!"

"...He fucked me."

Tetsu couldn't believe his ears. "WHAT???!!!"

"Soheinsertedhimselfinsideofmeanddidallthework," Hyde rushed, blushing crimson. "What's the big deal? I thought you understood."

Tetsu was devastated. "What's the big deal?! Hyde, all those other guys you supposedly slept with before you got married, but you haven't gotten close with Gackt before the past few months!"

"So? You didn't make half this ruckus at my wedding."

"Yeah, because Megumi's a girl who can't randomly stick parts of herself inside of you!" Tetsu exclaimed. "Geez, Hyde, why'd you let him fuck you?"

Hyde shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. Why'd you let me fuck you?"

"Because you'd never let me get anywhere near your ass! Damn it, Hyde, you are such an asshole!" Tetsu angrily got off the bed and left Hyde's side.

Hyde tried to reach out for him. "Oh come on, where are you going?"

"I'm driving you home," Tetsu replied furiously as he reached out for his pants and began putting them on. "I'm not having some popstar-cootie-infested slut spending another minute in my bed."

"Oh, come on, Tetsu, don't be such a bitch. Look, I'll let you screw me if you're up for it," Hyde helpfully offered, absently stubbing his cigarette out on Tetsu's immaculately polished dresser.

"Oh, so now you're throwing yourself at me after having been thoroughly violated by that precocious manwhore? I won't even have any thoughts to touch you after this, what with all the corny diseases you can transfer to me from him." Tetsu threw Hyde's clothes at his face. "Get dressed. You're getting out of here."

"TETSU!"

Tetsu shook his head. "And to think that I've restrained myself from having sex with you after your wedding to try and give you some decent sense of fidelity to your wife. Hyde, you are impossible."

"Two blowjobs and one dry hump doesn't constitute sex?"

"SHUT UP AND PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON!!!"

The ride home was silent save for the occassional gritting of Tetsu's teeth and a cheesy remix of a Hamasaki Ayumi song in the background. Both Hyde and Tetsu hated it but were too engrossed in maintaining their self-dignity to disrupt the atmosphere and change the station. Finally when the car halted at a red light, Hyde snapped the power button on the radio so abruptly that it jammed inwards from the impact and shouted, "All right, what the hell is wrong with you, Tetsu? You were the one who asked me the goddamn questions and now you expect me to not have told you the truth. Are you pissed off at me or is your stupid ego taking over what remains of your rational intellect once again?"

"Both, whatever in hell that means!" Tetsu exploded. "I just found out that I chastised you after your marriage to Megumi only to have you fucked by a fruit who couldn't dance onstage if his life depended on it. Right now I'm having the time of my life figuring why I'd even bothered to associate myself back with you in the first place." Tetsu shook his head in disgust and drove as the light turned green.

"Um, because we're still in a band together?" Hyde tentatively replied.

"Screw the band," Tetsu muttered.

"Um, you already have?"

Tetsu stared at him hard for a couple of seconds, then briskly looked away, blushing profusely. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Or shall I say, the whole band's screwed you?" Hyde snickered. "It's surprising how you don't need Preparation H for lip balm seeing as how you suck the three of us off so often."

Tetsu's face was now officially crimson. "I-I don't understand."

Hyde grinned at him. "It's so amazing how far you'd go to keep talented musicians in your band, Tetsu. We really appreciate what you've worked so hard on your knees on for us."

"I-I-I ha-haven't gone down on each and every one of you to ensure that you'll stay in L'Arc!!!" Tetsu blurted.

Hyde scoffed. "Yeah. Right. I may have a habit of sleeping around, Tetsu, but at least I've seen less zippers in front of my nose during the time I've spent on earth since day one than what you regularly go through in an entire week."

"Are you implying that I'm a whore?" Tetsu shrieked, nearly crashing the car into a lamppost.

"No. Maybe you let numerous musically acclaimed dicks enter your every orifice on a regular basis just for the hell of it. I wouldn't know, I've never tried speculating." Hyde shrugged.

A long silence occurred in the car without anything in the radio waves to pollute it this time. Tetsu bit his lip, then finally asked in a small voice, "You knew the entire time, did you?"

Hyde threw his hands out. "Are you done chastising yourself yet, Tetsu? You make yourself sound like some goddamn nun. Hell, all I've remembered doing during tours with Ken and Yuki was to stand in line with our pants off to screw you inside any secluded corner you deemed was darkened enough."

"I-I-I didn't want you guys to be stressed out during tours because your deprivation of sex got in the way," Tetsu stammered.

"And am I complaining about anything? Nooo. Did I barrage you with stupid questions and patronize you on who you should and should not be fucking with when I heard you were going solo? Nooo. Did the notion of you having sucked off so many dicks nauseate me in the least while I'm with you? Nooo, I mean kind of, which is why I prefer fucking you instead of being sucked o--"

"Okay, okay, I get the point, all right?" Tetsu hastily interrupted. "You're no more a slut than I am. Happy?!"

"For the past ten years, yes," Hyde replied smugly. "At least that's what a certain part of my anatomy tells me."

A long silence occured again, then Tetsu blurted, "At least tell me why it had to be Gackt. He used to be in a band with Mana, for crying out loud! He's probably got drag cooties all over him."

"For someone with an approximately higher sperm count than an entire storage room for artificial insemination, you sure give way too much damn about cooties, Tetsu," Hyde shot back, growing irritated.

"Cut with the insults and just tell me why it had to be him, will you?" Tetsu demanded, struggling to keep his attention on the road.

Hyde shook his head, pressing a hand on his temple. "I-I don't know. Something he did just made me feel good about the entire thing. I've never taken a liking to being bottom before, Tetsu, you know that. But somehow, with him, everything just seemed to fit in so... perfectly."

"Okay, that was way more information than I needed to know, thanks," Tetsu cut in hastily.

"I meant the last sentence figuratively, you dork." Hyde exhaled loudly. "But it's never the same. It would never amount to anything that I've had with you. It would never be the same with having sex with a person you've known so well over years on end."

"Are you referring to me?"

"No, to my mom. The fuck's wrong with you, Tetsu? Of course I'm referring to you." Hyde scowled, looking out the window. "We had something between us, Tetsu. Between L'Arc. You're a different part of my life, away from Megumi and my family and all the publication shit I'll be enduring with Gackt."

"I wonder how many more months will it take before Gackt publishes a photobook of the two of you naked. You know he's a slave for the press."

Hyde sighed resignatedly. "You just never take me seriously, do you? All you ever do is bitch about--hey, wait a minute, where're you going? Megumi's hairdresser is at that turn..." Hyde looked beyond the car seat at the neglected turn.

"I'm taking you to Ken's," Tetsu replied, hands firmly on the steering wheel. "The four of us have an appointment for a steak dinner together tonight."

"We do?" Hyde asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Tetsu muttered. "I figured that a band reunion was the least I could do to prevent you from being Megumi's wife or Gackt's sufferable uke."

Hyde promptly smacked him on the back of his head. "OW! What'd you do that for?" Tetsu exclaimed.

"Don't call me that, asshole!" Hyde snarled.

"What, your wife's lapdog or your fellow actor's bitch?"

"That's not what you said, but BOTH!"

"Okay, geez. Touchy." Tetsu rubbed his head.

Hyde glared at him. "You know, I've known you for more than ten years, and there's something that I haven't quite gotten around to ask you the entire time we've known each other."

"And what's that?"

"Does it ever ring a bell to you that your fashion tastes from era to era, album to album, continues to scream only one thing aside from you being a self-inadequate rockstar with a complete and utter disregard for a decent taste in fashion whatsoever and not to mention shoes with colors that would put a blind man to shame?" His gaze burned through Tetsu's head furiously.

"Actually, no. But what would that be?" Tetsu urged.

Hyde turned and folded his arms in annoyance, pouting. "That you're a total loser."

Tetsu gaped at him for a long while, not believing that he'd hear such a lame comeback from his bandmate. "Well thanks, Hyde, I love you too. Now if you don't mind, I'd like you to dress up properly at Ken's yourself so you won't bring shame upon members of your own band in the restaurant tonight."

"Screw you, Tetsu."

"I'd love to, but it seems that every goth-retired popstar in the world has already beat me to it."

"Shut up."

And so they drove into the sunset... or rather, into the middle of frickin' daylight to greet the blissful reunion of their former lives together which awaited them. After all, good friends were always there when you needed them, or needed good sex, or anything appertaining to both.

Notes: Man, this was fucked up. But not to say that I didn't have the time of my life writing it. The real members of L'arc would undoubtedly fry my ass if they ever got around to seeing this, not to mention hurl me with way more insults than I can ever possibly fit in this fic. Phew.