In Memory of Tetsu, 2000.
  AC.

  The first time Tetsu tried a pure maraschino cherry without Black Forest cake was in New York. Since he was able to spend time at a normal café without getting Views from all sides, he actually took the time to enjoy the Forest ice blend, which consisted of cherry, whipped cream and well, ice and blend.
  The drink was presented well—brown sludge at the bottom, white cream on top, and a lavishly red cherry on top. Perhaps it was because he was all alone—that he actually examined it, and decided that the best way to have the cherry was to eat it first, because if he'd finished the blend first, the cherry would be stuck at the bottom.
  Picking it up with his two fingers, he popped it into his mouth. It was of high quality, and looked like a pitted heart.
  Ever since then, Tetsu got hooked to maraschino cherries.

  Hyde raised an eyebrow when he saw Tetsu carry a big bottle of pickled cherries from the fridge.
  "Cherries? Are you planning to open a confectionery, or what?"
  The brunette smiled, and opened the bottle. "Come here, Hacchan."
  "Nn?"
  Tetsu picked out a cherry from the preserving liquid with two fingers by its stalk, and said, "What does it remind you of?"
  "…A cherry?"
  "Besides that."
  Hyde racked his brains, and smiled, "Tetchan."
  "Why?" Tetsu laughed, as he dangled it over pink lips, and put the empty stalk aside.
  "Because you're red."
  "Red?"
  "Un… And the cherry is red, too."
  "Doesn't it look like a heart?"
  Hyde nodded seriously, "It looks like Tetchan's heart."
  Taken aback, "Why is that so?"
  "Because… Naa, it's such a lovely red, and the seed is gone."
  Tetsu blinked, and picked up another. He stared at it for a long time, and shrugged, before popping another into his mouth.

  In Memory of Tetsu…
  Radio
  Radio
  Two Thousand.
  I'm alone
  After Christ.

  Tetsu developed a study of his own. He called himself Dr Maraschino, and his speciality was maraschino cherries. During vacation time, after he'd gone online shopping and bought till he was deadbeat, he sat down with the huge bottle of cherries, and picked them out one by one. He would look at it, and pop it into his mouth.
  He wrote down his discoveries.
  Discoveries of a fake ID, but it was a real discovery.
  1) Cherries that usually fell off their stalks before you pluck them out are bigger, and tastier.
  2) Usually these stalkless cherries are pitted in such a way that it looks like a cracked heart on one side.
  3) The smaller the cherries are, the better they look, but they are not as chewy as the bigger ones.
  He wrote it down onto a piece of paper, and tucked it away safely.

  If Tetsu had to pinpoint which year his heart was pitted, it was year two thousand.
  After Christ.
  Swirling like the fog in the atmosphere, the essence of a song began to twirl.
  Tetsu didn't buy as many CDs as he bought nonsense. That was because he was afraid of being hooked to too many. Anyway, there was always the radio, and people liked to send him CDs.
  He had died officially that year, then.
  "I will always be Hacchan's bassist…"
  It was a lie.
  He wasn't Hacchan's bassist, not anymore.
  The official year that he died—two thousand and one, but that was faulty.
  There was a speculation that Christ was gay, Tetsu had heard about it, and it vaguely interested him. Christ had never indulged in non platonic love, except for the possibility of—amongst the semi-homo-erotic descriptions of his portrayal of "brotherhood" love—the night when he was gone with a disciple, which wasn't elaborated upon.
  It really was two thousand, when Hyde told him he wanted to be free.
  "Then, I am Tetchan's vocalist."
  But he never said he would be Tetchan's guitarist, because that was Ken's job, and Ken had never said it.

  I blow the dust off my guitars
  And so he picked up guitar. Because Hyde was a guitarist. And because he'd never said he would be Hacchan's guitarist, either.
  Fair was fair.
  In the attic with the stars
  If he could do the same thing… He could be as heartless as Hyde aimed to be. If he wanted to.
  But, "I will always be Tetchan's vocalist"
  I read your letter to feel better
  That phrase—it lingered in his head.
  My tears upon the fading ink
  I will always be—
  Tetchan's—

  Tetchan's rebirth was in 2002.
  That was, actually, a longer story than anticipated.
  A much longer story…
  Cause I'm home to die on my own
  In short, he'd struggled.

  In Evangelion, he'd once heard this.
  And was touched by it.
  "But, Shinji, I hope you'll remember, I've put my hopes and wishes on you. Others have done the same, too. Although we know that it'll only pressurise you, but everyone from NERV could only put their hopes upon you."
  As my radio
  Plays my favourite song
  He thought of… People.
  Many people. People whom he'd seen and never seen—
  And he knew he had to live. He couldn't die, because—
  Radio
  Please don't go
  And really, it was a long story. Behind smiling faces and strict rules, he was the one who knew all the tricks of the business industry.
  It was, after all, an industry, and yet…

  It's fine for me to go, but scary for me to return—

  Maraschino cherries taste better when they've already fallen off their stalks, because they're so big that they have to be split in half to get the seeds out.
  In Memory of Tetsu, 2000…
  Dr Maraschino was a stalkless cherry.
  I sit in the dark light
  To wait for ghost night
  But Fifteen Half was about… So many things…
  Besides, Hyde sang. He's no longer Tetchan's vocalist.
  So Tetchan no longer needed to be Hacchan's bassist.
  The new Tetchan, in his rebirth, could only be Tetchan's bassist—if Tetchan wanted to express himself, then the new Tetchan would play the bass for him.
  No longer Hacchan's bassist—
  Because he was the new Tetchan, reborn in 2002, reborn from everybody's wishes.
  To bring the past alive
  No longer Hacchan's—
  To make a toast to life
  Cause I have survived

  "I'm sure we all want to go solo, take a break, don't we?" Because Hacchan was a sadist and a masochist, and both of them knew that they couldn't live happily, together…
  Happiness for them was a concept too foreign to grasp. Not after they had, together, been involved in imprinting somebody else's life with stains, even if they didn't mean it.
  I can't lose to Hacchan, Tetchan thought. And so he decided… He had to live.
  Dr Maraschino was a big cherry. It could only fall off its stalk, because it was too heavy. And it had to be split in half to remove the inedible seed, so it ended up looking like a split heart—
  What is it you want
  But, in reality, it was this desire to convey its feelings that it fell off its stalk. Because the feelings were too heavy, the feelings of a split heart.
  Tetchan's heart.
  "It looks like Tetchan's heart." Hacchan knew, after all.
  And that, indeed, was the beauty of it all.
  What is it you want to change
  What is it you want to change
  Radio
 

Saturday, 21 December 2002 7:05:16 PM
voidofspace @ yahoo.co.uk

Linernotes:
1) Lyrics from "I Of The Mourning" by Smashing Pumpkins are scattered in this prose. It is italicised.
2) "I will always be Tetchan's vocalist" and "I will always be Hacchan's bassist"—somehow, I know I've read it somewhere before. In the end I sort of took it to be real, and now I sort of believe it's real. I'm not sure who came up with the original idea, or if it is real anymore. But this is the only HxT quote that remains questionable.
3) "But, Shinji… put their hopes on you" is from Evangelion, vol 6 (manga version).