I remember the night when I sat in my hotel room, eating pizza I'd got from U.S. Pizza, staring at the wall, and lying down patting my stomach when it was full. I remember wondering what the hell I was doing when the recording people went away after I'd done my backing vocals. I remember saying that the company had good intentions when they refused to book a recording room for that part but thinking deep inside that they were leeches.
  Whatever.
  I was wondering what the hell I was doing at the end of it all.
  It was almost transcribed on the wall—Tetsu's doing solo. Tetsu from L'Arc~en~Ciel's now a solo artist. I was wearing all those stuff that alternative rock bands wore, held a guitar in my hand, chatted with Kaz a little, and generally being something that I didn't think I was.
  Usually I wore what I liked, but when it came to the concept of TETSU69 it just appealed to anyone who wanted 69 with Tetsu. I was… a new idol singer. It was almost like real-life RPG. Of course, I didn't really succeed in this endeavour. I think maybe it's because my charm only lies in L'Arc~en~Ciel.
  Or maybe my charm's only there when Hyde is around.
  Now you see, maybe I'm the one who's sold out to packaging, what with the double image of the two promotional videos themselves. But Hyde… He's different. And it doesn't matter to Yukihiro because he was doing what he's always been doing before he joined us.
  Sometimes I wonder if it's his face, or the image. Every time when I went to Shibuya, this huge screen with his face was staring at me. He looked like a vampire leeching upon this entire city. Like he fed on the actions that everyone made when married guys went out with women other than their wives and vice versa. Like he was there because everyone else was doing what he or she was doing, and he was the Armageddon.
  Maybe he's God or something. He's already many people's God. I know many people would die for him, if he wanted them to. Because he had the face of a devil's, the body of an angel's, the image packaging of Hell and the voice of God's.
  When I saw the sales figure for my single, I almost fell flat on my face. It was pointless, I decided. Nobody would listen to me because I was just another mortal, and because I was too old to be a pop idol.
  …But would anyone die for me? (hido: I would! *wavewave*) I know they would die for Hyde, because he is their God.
  And I would have died for him too, once upon a time. Because I was a human, too.
  But now… even if I died for him, it wouldn't have mattered, because he didn't need me. I need him. I needed him since the beginning, since I saw him. I knew that I needed him to succeed, to conquer the industry, and to be… a Godling.
  Still, even after nurturing a God, time always takes its toll. Things change. He changed.
  "Tetchan… Let's go solo," it had been a bright afternoon when he said that. Like two PM in the afternoon, when all of us were just getting warmed up for work. "I'd already written two songs for it, see."
  A mortal who's put all his trust in God would have died when God betrayed him.
  I wondered if "BETRAYAL" was written on my face in neon letters when I'd heard it. And he was smiling, the way a devil would.
  "I've told the company, they said okay." He smirked, knowing that I couldn't stop him if I wanted to.
  "…Okay," I'd said, "Then, let's all go solo."
  People say that going solo is the death of all rock bands. So is releasing a "Best" album, and we'd done both of that. Maybe he wants the dream that both of us came from to die and wither away, simply because he is God. And because I'm not God, I'd never survive that ordeal. Simply because as a God, he controls our destinies, our fates.
  My destiny, my fate.
  Yes, he fits Shibuya so well. That place…
  That place is where Christian evangelists hold their signs saying, "Christ will cleanse your blood" while looking like they were cold and miserable. Shibuya in general isn't very evangelist itself in the first place. Shibuya is… Almost frivolous, almost image-full. In Shibuya if anyone really wanted to cleanse people's blood they would have asked a pretty, sexy girl dressed in skimpy Santa suit to stand there and wave those signboards with a plastic cheerfulness. And even if people did want to cleanse other's blood, they would have an ulterior motive behind it.
  After all, it is a place where people who obviously are already married walk around with some other girl or boy while flirting openly with anyone else.
  In fact, he's almost like Tokyo. They built Meguro, only to become dissatisfied with it and then build places like Harajuku and Shibuya. Then they forgot about Meguro, and perhaps one day, they will ditch it totally.
  I'm like a jigsaw puzzle in a wrong set. Maybe the loud noisy cheerfulness of Osaka suits me better.
  Osaka's where things aren't so complicated. Where the nurtured Gods wouldn't destroy the very humans who'd created him with their dreams.

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