The Pictures of my Heart ~part 2~

by elenity

"What the hell are you doing?", Gackt’s manager screamed. Gackt was ripping all the photographs into pieces. Now they would have to call the photo studio again and redo all the work…

"I just don’t like these photos"

The manager sighed and sat on a chair. "Ok, ok", after all, it was Gackt who payed him, so he was meant to agree with his decissions, "I will call the photographer again tomorrow"

"No", Gackt said while throwing away the pieces of the photos.

"NO?", the manager asked in astonishment, looking at the ripped gackts falling to the floor. "Don’t tell me now you don’t want pictures in the booklet!"

"I DO want pictures in the booklet. I just don’t like these photos. Too artificial"

"So on Monday you decided you don’t like "Dove", and on Thursday you decided you don’t like "Voulez Vous". Yesterday you decided you don’t like a 9-song cd, that you are going to make a 3-or-4-song mini cd. And today you decide you don’t like the photos!! What’s coming up next? You are going to thrown us all away like everything else?", the manager knew he gained nothing with arguing with Gackt, but he could not understand why he had changed his mood so fast.

"Calm down, it is not you who I am going to throw away", Gackt said and concentrated again on the lyrics he had in mind… mune ni kizutsuite mo….

"Huh?", the manager blinked.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Wha- what have you just said?", her eyes were wide open and red veins began to thicken in the inside.

"You know what I just said, Cindy"

"But WHY?", tears welled up and she bit her lower lip. "Aren’t we a happy couple? Maybe you think I don’t love you enough? No, no, I love you as much as I could ever love nobody, please believe me…"

"I know you love me, Cindy"

"So where’s the problem then?", her beautiful face reflected her astonishment and sadness with a painful intensity, "I can’t understand… Gackt, WHY do you want divorce if I love you?"

"It has nothing to do with you, but with me"

The truth struck Cindy as an earthquacke. "You don’t love me". She calmed down and breathed deep, then she closed her eyes. "You don’t love me", she repeated now looking at him, "In fact, you never loved me, did you?" She knew the answer, but she still thought he would lie to her. She needed that lie.

"No"

Blood tasted bitter inside Cindy’s mouth. Her dream was over, but she still loved him. "So why did you marry me?"

Gack had stood still from the very beginning of their conversation, but at that question his eyebrows frowned with anguish. "Please don’t ask me that…"

"I need to know"

"Please, no…", his hand touched the knob of the bathroom door. He had to go away from Cindy, to go away from that question he had been trying to hide during all this time, and the bathroom was the closest place where he could go.

"Gackt, open the door!"

At least he didn’t had to face her now.

"Oh, Gackt, please!"

He was being so cruel…

"Gackt, answer me!"

He looked at himself in the mirror, but he didn’t recognise the face he saw.

"Gackt…"

Next to the mirror stood the box where Cindy had all his make up: foundation, mascara, eye liner… There was a blue lipstick, too. Blue, blue, that color… He reached for the lipstick and took the top off, which fell to the floor. Blue… He turned the base and watched as the blue material rose. Blue…

"Gackt, what’s that sound?"

He approached it to his lips and painted them. First the upper lip, then the lower one… he had teached him how to do it. The mirror returned an old image…

"Oh no, don’t move, I’m going to miss the line"

"Stop you bitch, you know I hate your make up"

"And you know I love you calling me bitch"

The same blue lips… the lipstick fell from his hand as Yoshiki’s glass had, but this time broke into a million pieces.

"Gackt! You are scaring me…"

Gackt looked at the mirror with his eyes closed, that old image dancing in his mind with a mocking smile…

"MANA I HATE YOU!"

Silence fell, only broken by the sound his knees made when they met the floor.

Cindy froze at the other side of the door. "Mana?"

He looked at the mirror again. He hated his face. That was the same face Mana had known so well, and he just wanted to get rid of that feeling of being the doll Mana wanted him to be. The doll he had also wanted to be, but he wanted that no longer. He rummaged through Cindy’s make up set until he found what he wanted. Now he would not look like HIS doll anymore.

The door opened so suddenly Cindy jumped. "Gackt, let’s talk…What have you done?"

Gackt’s long dark hair lay behind him on the floor. Cindy looked at it first, then eyed his husband and tried to understand why he had cut his hair and painted his lips blue. "Gackt… Why…"

"No, Cindy, no… please!", he lifted his arms to hold his head and shook it hard, "NO!". He turned around and ran away, as he had when Yoshiki had made him feel the same way.

"Gackt, don’t leave me…", but her words remained unheard, Gackt had already gone away from the house and the door waved his goodbye.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Gackt could not remember when it had begun raining. He had been wandering around the city for hours, not knowing where he could go, but not wanting to stop walking. He knew he would break down. Why, why should Mana’s ghost be hunting him after so many months? He loved him no more, he was sure of that feeling, but it was impossible to take his image out of his mind.

"So you are leaving?", Mana had asked him with his unfathomable expression. "Then, go".

He gave him his back and waited for him to leave. He had wanted him to say something, to ask him not to leave, to PRAY him not to leave, but Mana was silent. And Mana remained silent forevermore.

Gackt looked at his reflection in the shop windows as he passed by. He stopped next to a street lamp and behind his now short hair saw his own blue lips smiling at him from the window.

"No, Mana", he lifted a hand and with it’s back wiped away the blue, spreading it all over his wet cheek, "I’m your doll no longer"

Soaked, cold and broken, he fell unconscious to the floor.

go to PART 3