MA CHERIE~This is definitely an alternate reality story, because here, Malice Mizer (in whatever form), Dir en grey, or X Japan never existed. However, you'll see members of them galore in this fanfic. By the way, I feel horribly about using Kami and hide in this work, because both of them are dead and deserve their respect, but I love them and wanted to praise them in any way possible. I'll be asking forgiveness this entire story for turning some characters into unfavorable people who they would NEVER really be otherwise. Oh, and please don't steal my work---if for some reason you want to use this or put this somewhere, then please ask me, because I�ll probably say yes anyway. Copyrighted Scarlet Kozi 2002. This is dedicated to Jess-chan (Xelyna) for all the support, the advice, and the extraordinary praise.
Disclaimer~I don't know any of the people whose names and likenesses I've used here, so all of my representations will be completely wrong. Also, this will contain shounen ai, some explicit yaoi sex, rape, some drugs, and some explicit language.
Feedback~Everyone says this, but please give me some responses! I'd like to know what you think of my writing, what I could do better, what touched people, and so on. So please take a minute for my sake. Any comments, questions, or compliments are welcome, and I wouldn't mind getting some nice pictures or links either ^.~ Please review! Domo arigato, minna-san. Enjoy the story.
Ma Cherie: Chapter One
Author: Scarlet Kozi
Klaha walked along the road, shivering a bit. It was getting colder. It was already October, in fact, and he should have worn a jacket over his school uniform, but had forgotten. Now he was on his way home.
'I wonder what they'll say now,' he thought bitterly.
He was infuriated with his parents. The previous night, he had gone out with a couple of his friends, two boys named Daisuke and Toshi. They weren't quite as wealthy as he was---not that that mattered to Klaha, because they were still nice enough. The three of them had gone around, just walking and talking, and all in all, having a good time, which was unusual for Klaha. But Klaha had returned home a bit late, thus irritating his straitlaced, stern parents.
'I can't believe they tried to tell me who I can and can't spend my time with,' he thought to himself darkly, becoming more angry with each step. Sometimes he hated them. He really did.
Something that had begun as a trivial argument had blown up into an explosive fight. Klaha's father had even started to become violent, but his wife had restrained him before he could raise a hand to his son. And all Klaha had tried to do was explain that those "lower people," as his father referred to his allies, were important to him. He didn't have that many friends, and he couldn't call anybody, not even Daisuke or Toshi, his REAL friends. Couldn't his parents understand that he wanted someone to trust? He couldn't trust THEM, not anymore. He couldn't trust anyone.
He envied his older siblings. Both his brother and his sister were long gone from the house, and Klaha was the only child left. Most of the time his parents hardly noticed him anymore, unless they wanted to lecture him.
They were somewhat snobbish. They insisted that he, like his brother and sister, attend an expensive private school, and they preferred to entertain guests and talk to strangers over tea than spend time with their own son. Yet they had the nerve to complain when Klaha looked for genuine affection elsewhere. He hated how unfeeling and insensitive his mother and father were. Now he was a senior in high school, and he still hated them, after seventeen years of being their child.
'No, I hate myself,' he thought resignedly, 'for not standing up to them better.'
There were so few ways that he could protest against them, or try to express himself. He got good grades and was respected in school, because although education meant little to him, he knew that his parents would be furious if he ever received a failing grade in anything. The others all considered him popular and someone to know, because he was good-looking and intelligent, and also because there was obviously something different about him than anyone else. But he didn't care to know many of the students around him. They were so shallow.
He'd found a small number of friends among them, but it was hard for him to even trust THEM completely. First, there was Daisuke, who was friendly and easygoing, and much nicer than many other students. Toshi's personality, meanwhile, always seemed to change. Klaha respected them both, but wasn't sure that he trusted them, even though he enjoyed spending time with them now and again.
Klaha sighed to himself. His friends were NOT trash. After all, they were wealthy enough to go to his school, but that didn't matter to him. It mattered to his parents. What mattered to him was the quality of their souls, but his parents didn't want to see that. Klaha knew that nothing would appease them, no matter WHO he told them was his friend.
He had been silent with anger the entire day at school, remembering his argument with his mother and father the previous night.
�I almost can't wait to see them again,' he thought resentfully.
In his mind, anticipating the moment when he walked back in the door, he dared them to try and challenge him as they had before. He'd avoided them that morning, so now he had to wonder how they were going to treat him.
Klaha got home soon enough. Even though his house was in the middle of all the surrounding civilization, from the slums to the parks, it seemed as though it was closed off from everything because of its wealthiness. The property was surrounded by black gates, and there was a wide lane leading up to the house framed with pretty foliage and nicely arranged flower plants. Nothing was blooming this time of year.
He went up to the gates and pressed in the private code that unlocked them. They swung inwards as though magically bowing to his command, and he slipped inside, closing them after him.
The walk from the gates to the house wasn't very long. Klaha's eyes roved from his own path to his property: the small but beautiful amount of terrain that was so well-kept by gardeners, the trimmed bushes, the stretching trees. The house itself was large and very ornate for a traditional Japanese house, almost looking like a sheltered creature as Klaha approached the front step.
He put his hand in the handle of the painted paper door and slid it open, stepping in and shutting it after him. "Tadaima."
No one responded.
Klaha wondered, blinking as he slipped off his shoes, whether he was receiving the silent treatment. He knew that his parents had to be home. His father's occupation guaranteed that he didn't have to work every day, and though his mother was usually out socializing, she was a housewife.
Klaha felt comforted by the warmth of the interior of the house. He set his bag down on the floor near the wall and waited, saying louder, "Tadaima."
"Klaha-chan, is that you?" a woman's voice called out.
Klaha halted. His mother.
There was the sound of footsteps from a room several doors away, getting closer and closer. Feminine footsteps, demure, and yet something unfeelingly rhythmic within them. Klaha waited and then looked up when he saw his mother standing in the hallway. She was a beautiful woman just approaching middle age, and was now dressed in a long silk kimono, with her black hair pinned up. When she saw Klaha, she merely smiled at him and folded her hands. "Okaeri nasai."
Klaha stared at her for a moment. He couldn't help but remember the cold contempt in her voice the previous night, when she had been telling him that it was a disgrace for him to socialize with those who were beneath them in the community. Why was she behaving so nicely to him, in her usual removed manner? She seemed puzzled that Klaha did not respond to her.
Then there were more footsteps, from a room in the opposite direction. Klaha stood there stiffly, his eyes leaving his mother and traveling to rest on the corner. A man appeared there within a few moments, who seemed about the same age but a bit older than Klaha's mother. His father, of course. He was well-dressed and very clean-looking, with slicked-back hair and a pair of intelligent-looking glasses. His eyes searched Klaha briefly as he stood there just beside his wife, but there was no anger in them, only a bit of lingering annoyance that he banished at his own will.
"You're home early." This comment was brief.
Klaha just looked at the man, his disbelief rising up inside him. What was going on? He realized with an inner jolt that his parents had apparently "forgotten" that their argument had existed at all. His mother was acting mock-friendly but internally coolly, and his father was as well. He could see the suspicion in both of their eyes, almost too well hidden, as they appraised him, and he could hardly believe it. He almost would have preferred that they had refused to speak to him, or that they had started yelling at him the moment he walked in the door.
For them to pretend that nothing had happened at all was the most grave offense to Klaha. It made the blood start to heat up in his veins, and a dark expression settled over his face as he gazed at them. They seemed to recognize that he was losing his control.
His mother seemed about to say something. "Klaha-chan ..."
But Klaha wouldn't let her finish. He didn't want to know what she had to say. Turning around, he wordlessly slipped his shoes back on. He then managed to remember the coldness of the early evening air outside, so he stalked over to the closet and opened it, almost violently. He yanked out his favorite coat: a long, heavy black one that he kept his wallet and most important possessions in. Feeling his parents' eyes on him, he put the coat on and shut the closet. Then he walked back the way he came, towards the door.
"Where are you going?" his mother's surprised voice rose up suddenly behind him.
"You aren't going anywhere," his father's voice, more stern, answered her question.
Klaha stopped in his tracks with his hand upon the door handle. A small smirk of what was almost self-satisfaction came over his face. So they remembered the argument after all. Apparently he had disappointed them also, for they'd been wanting HIM to start up again, giving them reason to yell at him. They were, of course, too elevated to begin the argument on their own. Klaha slowly looked back at them over his shoulder, his face blank.
He said nothing, and they just stared at him. Because of their silence, he snorted a bit. Then he opened the door and walked out of it, hearing their angered protests behind him. He ignored them and shut the door behind him, then started to walk back down the path, down the lane toward the gates, without much of an intention of coming back anytime soon. It was a foolish, temporary outburst, but he couldn't help it.
As the sun set, he walked into town.
It wasn't so very far away, after all. His entire life, he would have been able to just walk down into the darker areas of the city, without thinking a second thought about it, but he had never done it. After all, his parents wouldn't have approved. Now, he didn't care. He went where he pleased.
Klaha wandered around the shadowed streets and alleys for a while, even after it became dark. He purposefully investigated places that he knew his parents would be shocked to even think of, in their bourgeois way. Of course, he didn't enter any of the apartments or large buildings, but curiously took the time to pause on corners and looked at people dressed shabbily or holding bottles, slumped against walls or staggering down the street. He had never met people like that before. In fact, he was a bit afraid of them. He was so sheltered ... not naive, but sheltered. He felt strange eyes on him wherever he walked, but that didn't matter. He wasn't quite afraid enough to go back home.
But after the sun set and he had been wandering for quite some time, he realized that he'd cooled down quite a bit.
He silently resolved to himself, 'My parents are just the way they are. As my brother and sister did, I just have to tolerate them until I graduate from high school. Then I can leave them both behind me, and find people who are genuine. It's so hard to do that these days ...'
He was about to go home, resignedly, when he heard the sound. At the time, Klaha was walking down an old broken-down street, towards a traffic light.
But he slowed down when a certain noise rose to his ears, making him curiously want to know what was the cause and source of it. A soft, muffled sound ...Gasping breath? That was what it sounded like. At first, Klaha wasn't going to search it out, because he'd heard strange enough noises like yelling and cursing and moaning in these dark alleys and slums, and some of them were a bit unsettling to him. But there was something different about this noise. It was young, broken, and miserable.
Klaha finally forced himself to look around, gradually becoming overtaken with concern. He felt very small in this immense place of high black apartment buildings and clouds of smog that were more evident in nighttime, but he searched anyway without moving. His eyes performed the examination, traveling over every shadow and every unfamiliar object, until they at last fell on the figure across the street, against a wall.
Without meaning to, Klaha stopped breathing. His breath caught in his chest.
Sitting there, propped up against the chipped brick, was a slender boy of medium to slightly height, most likely around Klaha's age. He was dressed in a kimono, an atypically feminine garment, but one which was slightly worn. It was of a dark rich red color, with a landscape demonstrating shining waters and a white moon down beneath his knees, along with a slightly brighter obi.
Befitting to the way that he was dressed, the boy's physical frame was slender but also strong. He had his face buried in his hands and was merely sitting there. Crying? Klaha couldn't tell at first look. The boy's shoulders were shaking a bit, almost angrily, but he was only breathing oddly, not sobbing. His chin-length hair was a rich brown color with darker roots, strands hanging down like a shade, framing his soft features. His slender eyebrows and long eyelashes were the same color. Klaha could see his face through the fingers and could tell that he was upset. What confused Klaha, however, was that such a boy, who was clearly a boy, was wearing a kimono like that and sitting on the street.
'Who is that?' ran, astonished, through Klaha's mind. 'What's he doing HERE?' After all, he seemed so young, barely older than Klaha himself, if that. Klaha couldn't picture people that young in a place like this.
Unable to stop himself, Klaha found that his feet were carrying him towards the boy, away from where he'd been standing at a distance before. Just to be careful, he glanced both ways first and then crossed the street, but no cars were around right now. Once he was on the opposite sidewalk, he slowed down, almost a bit hesitant. The boy didn't notice him.
"H-Hello ...?" Klaha said softly.
There was no reaction. The boy didn't move.
Klaha couldn't stop at that, though. He was genuinely worried. He hurried over to the young man, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and looked down at him for a moment. Then he knelt down beside him, watching him with concern. "What's wrong?" Klaha asked him, in a low tone of voice. He couldn't help but feel, from the boy's silence, an indication that he was intruding somehow, that it was none of his business.
Again, the boy in the kimono said nothing.
It was so dark. Almost hard to see the expression on the stranger's face, but Klaha could tell that this person didn't trust him. Didn't want to trust him, really, didn't want to acknowledge that he was there. In fact, it seemed as though he was trying to silently will Klaha away from him. As though by wishing very hard and remaining very still he would get Klaha to stand up and walk away. He hadn't even looked at him yet, but didn't want to. Recognizing all of this, Klaha felt his curiosity, and his worry, becoming even greater for this person he didn't know. He tentatively lifted his hand and reached out, as though to touch the person's arm and try to catch his attention.
Immediately, as though shocked, the stranger pulled away from him, glancing at him one time almost with fear, mostly with wariness. Klaha was surprised, and let his hand fall. Why did this young man seem so timid about him? There was no real expression in the stranger's eyes anymore, but he refused to meet Klaha's gaze.
Klaha spoke, staring at the boy without touching him. "Do you need any help?"
There was a long silence.
Slowly, the stranger managed to lift his eyes. He gazed back at Klaha hard, staring into his face and then into the depths of his eyes. Klaha felt a little shiver. No one had ever looked at him like that before. The boy searched his expression, his features, any emotion that was in his eyes, with such swiftness that Klaha felt as though he was being stripped without any defense. Then the boy shook his head. "No," he whispered expressionlessly.
Klaha blinked. The stranger's voice was rich, almost musical, and deceptive considering his appearance.
What was it about him? Klaha was already astonished by him and the strange aura that he emitted, and it was impossible not to feel overwhelmed with apprehension for him. Klaha wanted suddenly to ask a million questions about who he was, why he was so upset, why he lived in a place like this, what school he attended, why he looked at Klaha so strangely. But he couldn't.
So Klaha just knelt there for a long moment and stared right back into the stranger's eyes. The two of them regarded each other wordlessly for a few moments, the stranger blankly and Klaha uncertainly.
Then, a chilly breeze swept through.
Klaha was sufficiently bundled up, and didn't really feel it. But the other boy, of course, should have been wearing a jacket or a scarf, or at least some gloves. He wasn't, and when the wind blew through, his body was taken by shivers as he cursed under his breath.
Klaha's eyes widened. "G-Gomen!" he apologized immediately, and then started to take off his coat, which was very warm and should certainly have been enough to calm the stranger's trembling. But when his hands rose up to start undoing the fastens, the boy's eyes fell on him immediately, almost suspiciously, but mostly curiously. He watched Klaha unclasp his jacket methodically and then start to slide off of his shoulders.
"What are you doing?" The words were soft-spoken, wondering clearly whether Klaha was out of his mind.
However, Klaha gave no answer. He didn't know what to say, and he didn't have to say anything, because his actions spoke for themselves. He finished taking off the coat, not noticing that a look of surprise came onto the stranger's face to see his school uniform, which was elaborate, flattering, and a clear indication of his wealth. The boy was inwardly wondering what someone like Klaha, someone who had probably never seen poverty before, was doing in a place like where he lived.
But Klaha was busy with his coat. He placed it around the boy's shoulders, tucking it down around his form and trying to make him as warm as possible. "You're freezing," he only said, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.
The stranger was too surprised by this show of kindness to protest. "I ..."
There was a single small beeping noise, and Klaha stopped. He pulled back his sleeve and looked down at his watch, which betrayed that another hour had gone by. He cursed once to himself and sighed, pressing one hand against the wall as he rose to his feet on the sidewalk. It was late. He had wandered away from his home a long time ago, and if he stayed out for another hour, his mother would most likely call the police. Either way, his parents would be enraged when he got back, and the longer he stayed out, the more irritating the lecture and punishment would be.
Reluctantly, Klaha looked down at the boy, who was staring at him as though about to ask him another question. "I'm sorry," he just said, quickly. "I have to go ..." No other words came to mind, as though he was suddenly shy.
Then Klaha turned and hurried to run back to his house.
[Gackt]
Gackt didn't stay there on the sidewalk for much longer. But at first, he was too stunned to pull himself up off the pavement, and so he just sat there gazing after the young man who was in the process of hastening to get home.
When the stranger had vanished completely, he rose to his feet, and then looked down. Suddenly he blinked.
The coat. What was he going to do now? The boy had forgotten it ... or maybe it hadn't been by accident. But no, that was ridiculous, Gackt told himself. No one would ever give their coat to a complete stranger with no intention to reclaim it. It must have just been forgetfulness that had led the boy to rush off like that without his coat. Gackt felt badly all of a sudden, knowing that the stranger would be cold right now as he went home, but he had already left, and there was no way to follow him.
Therefore, Gackt started to go home ... but he hated calling that place home.
It was a shabby apaato on the second floor of a run-down apartment building, probably not even suitable for living in. It was even more broken-down than the street it was built on. The building itself was made of chipped, stained brick, and had graffiti of all colors sprayed on it everywhere like some eerie, profane rainbow. There were garbage cans turned over here and there, with some litter spilled in places, and piles of broken glass from beer bottles and windows were evident on the sidewalk.
As Gackt stood in front of the building, gazing up at the darkened windows on the second floor that he knew were his own, he winced. It was almost ironic how much work he had to do, how much it cost him, just to pay for a place that he hated so much.
At least he didn't live alone. After all, he still had Yoshiki.
Yoshiki was his pimp, his lover, everything he had left. He didn't love Yoshiki, and he knew it, but that wasn't too bad, because Yoshiki didn't love him either. Gackt could still remember times when Yoshiki had been a better man, back when they hadn't been lovers, but more like father and son. Yoshiki wasn't even that old now, but he had lost control of his life, and now resented that he had to live at all. He took out most of his frustrations on his prostitutes, but Gackt was the only one that lived with him, the only one that he hit. Yoshiki's second-best prostitutes, as he sometimes referred to them, were Mana and Shinya, too young men who were so very lovely that they seemed impossibly feminine. Gackt felt badly for them, because they were just as young as he was, but sometimes they seemed more cold, more cut off from what they did, as though it didn't affect them. And they were actually feminine, as opposed to Gackt, who considered himself too boyish for this sort of thing.
Gackt had never really wanted to start being Yoshiki's lover, but there hadn't really been a way for him to escape it. Now, all he could do was be resentful about it. Yoshiki was supposed to be faithful only to Gackt, wasn't he? If he was so possessive of Gackt, so insistent that Gackt always remain loyal to him despite his career having sex with others ...
After all, Gackt worked the hardest for him. But Yoshiki seemed to spend more time on the others, not only soliciting them but having sex with them freely as though they were actively involved. Gackt hated how Yoshiki assumed that he had such freedoms, while he would beat Gackt whenever he thought that his younger lover was being in any way traitorous. Gackt didn't love Yoshiki, but he still didn't like being cheated on either.
He also worried for Yoshiki, much as he was sometimes convinced that he hated the man. Yoshiki sometimes acted in ways that frightened Gackt. He almost never showed any affection anymore, but Gackt had grown used to that. The only thing that was the most hard to cope with was the fact that Yoshiki used him as a claw-sharpener, as a punching bag, as something to work out his anger on. Gackt didn't like being beaten, either. But on top of that, Yoshiki had degenerated over the years into a drunk, and a drug addict, and to pay for all of this and to keep a roof over his head, he demanded that Gackt and the others earn the money they needed to keep going. Yoshiki had been like this ever since hide had died ... ever since Gackt's foster "mother" had gone ...
Gackt swallowed painfully. He banished all thoughts of hide from his mind.
He unlocked the batter door at the top of the front steps, and this brought him away from the ghetto into a small indoor hallway. There was trash littered here and there on the floor and close to the main stairwell, graffiti sprayed in places on the walls leading to the second floor, and it seemed as though someone had taken a knife to the walls ... Yoshiki, of course. Gackt could still remember the night on which Yoshiki had left those deep gashes and scratch marks in the plaster above the stairs. Sometimes in nightmares, Gackt would see those walls bleeding ...
Gackt went up the stairs and stood in front of the door that led to everything he worked for, but everything he feared, and everything that repulsed him.
He went inside. It wasn't as dirty as he expected. After all, he'd spent a lot of time cleaning up after Yoshiki a couple of days ago, so it was looking better. But it was still a place to be ashamed of. Dirty clothes everywhere. Battered furniture. Scarred walls, empty boxes, and various suspicious substances from Yoshiki's collection scattered here and there, waiting to be consumed.
Yoshiki was laying on the beat-up couch. Actually, he was sitting there. He had dozed off.
"Yoshiki," Gackt said softly as he came in and shut the door behind him, but knew that such a quiet sound wouldn't wake the man up.
Yoshiki was dressed a bit sloppily, but enough to be presentable if he fastened up his shirt and ran a hand through his hair. He was leaning heavily on one of the cushions, his eyes closed, a steady breath rolling in and out of him, but his face, even in slumber, showed his constant unrest. His hair had fallen slightly over his face, but it could still be seen. He would always be attractive, no matter what he did to himself.
Gackt crossed the room and sat down on the couch next to Yoshiki, carefully. He just gazed at the man for a long moment.
---a flash of Yoshiki, sitting next to hide, kissing hide passionately, on this very couch---
Gackt halted, blinking. Why had he just thought about that?
His heart sank at the mere memory. It had been years ago. Probably when Gackt had been about nine or ten. Yoshiki had been an adult, but relatively young at the time also. So had hide. Gackt remembered sitting on the floor engrossed in a book, in this very same apaato that had seemed less disgraceful back then just because it had been a happier home. Gackt remembered glancing up and seeing Yoshiki and hide cuddling on the couch, so happy, so content, it seemed, with Yoshiki so different than he was now. A look of pleasure, almost, in Yoshiki's eyes as he leaned down and kissed the person who meant so much to him.
But those days were gone. Gackt shook his head and looked at Yoshiki again, seeing the tiredness on the man's still-beautiful face, the stress, the grief, the anger. Things that dominated his life in past years since hide had died.
Slowly, Yoshiki stirred.
Gackt didn't notice until he heard a noise and glanced over, seeing that Yoshiki was now sitting up again and was looking at him with a frown of fuzzy surprise. "Where were you?" he asked.
Gackt shook his head. "Nowhere," he said shortly.
"Exactly. You should be working." Yoshiki was getting frustrated already with him. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, but he seemed a bit uncertain, his gestures lazy. His eyes fell on Gackt again and they suddenly became suspicious as they searched his body. Gackt didn't figure out why, until Yoshiki asked him roughly, "What is that?"
Gackt blinked.
Yoshiki leaned closer suddenly, putting a hand on Gackt's arm. Gackt was about to pull away, but Yoshiki felt the fabric of Klaha's jacket and frowned deeper. "Whose is this?" he demanded.
Gackt halted, remembering suddenly. "I don't know," he admitted, looking away.
"You don't know?"
"No. He just gave it to me and left."
Yoshiki's eyebrows lifted up, and he looked at Gackt with a different expression. Then he asked, "How much money did you get from him?"
"Money?" Gackt's brows drew together, and he shook his head again. "No money."
After all, that boy hadn't been a customer. He hadn't been someone who wanted Gackt's body, so desperately that he would offer any amount of money just to have him, to have anyone, for an hour, for less, for more. He had just been a stranger, an abnormally kind stranger, but a confusing one. All Gackt had to remember him by was his coat, now.
Yoshiki was suddenly on his feet, glaring down at Gackt incredulously. "No money?" he repeated, his voice strangely loud.
"No ..."
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Yoshiki reached down and grabbed ahold of Gackt's shoulders, pulling the younger of the two to his feet. He stared fiercely down into his face, taking Gackt so much by surprise that Gackt couldn't remain expressionless anymore. "You're wasting my time!" Yoshiki accused viciously. "You let a good fuck go to nothing! I know you can bring in a lot of money when you really try, and you're giving it away for free?"
Gackt struggled to regain his composure. "I ... I didn't," he managed, without getting a chance to explain.
Yoshiki's fingers were digging painfully into his skin. "Who do you think you are? You aren't anything! If you think you can get away with fucking someone for free because you're worth it, then forget it! And if this happens again, you'll wish---you'll---"
But either he couldn't think up a good way to end that threat, or he was too overtaken with his fury to try. He brought his hand up, and then down, releasing Gackt at just the right moment before he hit him sharply across the face. Gackt bit his lip hard and stifled a cry as he fell backwards, sitting down suddenly on the couch again, sinking into the cushion as he gazed up at Yoshiki. He knew when to keep silent.
"Damn it," Yoshiki swore under his breath. He didn't say anything else. He was almost cold, in fact. Like he was ignoring Gackt entirely.
He merely calmed himself down, still under some mysterious influence, and then started doing up the front of his shirt. He made himself presentable again, adjusted his hair, shoved a small bag full of something into his pocket, and then grabbed his jacket. Gackt stared at him the entire time from the couch, but Yoshiki didn't even look at him again. The man finished getting ready and headed for the door, opening it, not looking back, disappearing out of it, closing it, locking it. As though Gackt wasn't there anymore.
Gackt fought his tears. "I don't cry," he admonished himself. "Kuso ... Stop it!"
And so, the tears slowly went away. As he sat there in complete silence, his body stopped shivering. He realized suddenly, when he was still again, how warm the coat was. He almost smiled bitterly. At least someone in this world was kind. He started to take it off, to put it away and think of what to do about it, but as he did so, something slipped out of the pocket.
The unknown item, followed by Gackt's eyes, slid down the side of the couch and onto the ground. Gackt stopped with the coat around his elbows, not finished taking it off yet. He leaned down and picked the item off the floor quizzically.
"What ...?" he murmured to himself.
It was a wallet. Gackt held it up, observing it. A nice wallet, too. Real leather. It had a pattern embossed into the dark brown fabric, around the edges. Gackt gazed at it for a moment. For some reason it reminded him of something. Then an idea suddenly occurred to him. 'It should have an I.D. in it!' he thought. 'If I can see the name, then I should be able to find some way to return this jacket to that boy. I don't know where I'll find him, but there might be an address in here, somewhere.'
Therefore, though he felt a bit hesitant about doing so, he opened the wallet. The first thing that was contained in a transparent pocket was, indeed, a plastic-coated I.D. card of some kind.
'That's him ...'
The photograph depicted the boy that Gackt had seen earlier, the boy who had given him the coat. In this picture, he looked a bit sad, a bit withdrawn. His eyes, as they stared at the camera through his long black bangs, were wary, almost guarded. As though he didn't trust anyone. But why not? He couldn't possibly have the reasons for being distrustful of the world that Gackt did. No, no one like that boy could have reasons like that ...
Gackt was holding a student I.D., he realized. It said that the boy was a senior in high school, and when Gackt did his calculations by the birth date, he figured out that the young man had turned seventeen back in May. Gackt blinked. 'That means that he's less than a year younger than I am,' he thought. 'I turned eighteen in July.'
Gackt's eyes traveled up the card.
NAME: Masaki Haruna (Klaha).
Gackt immediately committed this to memory. An unfamiliar name, but an interesting one.
Maybe there would be an address in here somewhere, Gackt thought to himself again. He flipped past the I.D. card and passed the other ones without any interest, such as membership cards and social security cards, and midway through there was a small flap. Gackt peered into it, and then stifled a gasp of surprise. This so-called Klaha had about 10,000 yen in his wallet!
'I could tell that he was wealthier than me, but I didn't actually think that he was RICH,' Gackt thought to himself, calming himself down.
He had seen amounts of money much larger than that up close, of course. People shoved it into his hands, into his pockets, onto the bed beside him as he caught his breath, every day. But there was a difference between carrying money like that to bring it back to Yoshiki and carrying it in his wallet, as his own, as something he could spend however he pleased without having a care in the world. Without having to worry about being poor.
Gackt left the money alone. Remembering how he got his own money made him not want to even look at it.
At last, he found a card that he had accidentally passed over before. It included information like Klaha's phone number, the names of his parents, and his address. It was most likely just in case Klaha lost his wallet and wanted to have it returned. This time, he hadn't exactly lost it, but must have forgotten that he kept it in this coat. Now it was in Gackt's hands, and Gackt was determined to return it to him.
'I'll give it back,' he thought to himself then, clutching the coat. 'All of it.'
[Klaha]
Klaha blinked as he got into bed.
'Damn it!' he thought. 'I left my wallet in that coat!'
NOTES~Firstly, I'm sorry for 1) making Gackt be a whore, 2) making Yoshiki be an addicted bastard, and 3) bad writing. Trust me, I have no grudges against any character in this story, because if I didn't admire them I would not put them in here. Yoshiki actually seems to be a sweet person, in the few interviews I've read with him. Anyway, respond to this, ne? Onegai?
Glossary
shounen ai: boy love, or homosexuality
(domo) arigato: thank you (very much)
minna-san: everyone
tadaima: I'm home
okaeri nasai: welcome back
kuso: shit
gomen (nasai): I'm sorry
onegai: please
apaato: apartment
To Be Continued
To the next part