One Step at a time: 16th Chapter

[freyjam]

Pairings: tetsu x hyde
Rating: n-17
Disclaimer: You're kidding, right? Don't own. As in, at all.
Summary: A (hopefully) enormously long story of L'Arc~en~Ciel as seen from the perspective of a Tetsuhai fan


This chapter is a bit later than expected. Sorry.

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Chapter 16

Stumble No. 2

Recording, Hyde figured, was not really all it was made up to be.

For the last few days the four members of L’Arc~en~Ciel had cooped themselves up in the recording studio, recording and re-recording parts of the two songs they were planning to release - a single and a c/w, the first one written by Tetsu and the other penned down by Ken in the couple of weeks he had for that beforehand.

The studio itself was not too bad as Tetsu had insisted they’d wait until they had enough money for something like this rather than rush into renting a cheap place, without considering the effect it might have on the quality of the recording. Thus, they had plenty of room to work in and not half bad equipment at their disposal. This quickly grew old, however, when they realized that if they wanted to create something good in the time that they had, they would have to push themselves pretty hard, to the point of hardly even returning home for sleep, preferring to catch an hour or two in the studio instead whenever they could. Fortunately, the studio was furnished with such a schedule in mind and they had a couple of couches to rest on.

Admittedly, Hyde’s presence was not as required as the others’ had been, since the vocals’ recording was saved for the second to last day - which was tomorrow - and whatever was left unfinished of the lyrics he would have been just as able to write at home. However, Hyde had no intention of being left out of all the ‘fun’ and stayed in the studio the whole time. This turned out to be a good decision as he was able to make quite a few suggestions about the arrangements of the songs and the recording turned out to be even more of a mutual effort than they had expected. Besides, with how many changes they were making as they polished the songs, some changes to the lyrics had to be made as well, as the music changed too much for the ones already written to fit.

However while all this meant that they more than managed to spend their time productively, it did not change the fact that by now they were tired, bored and sick of the stale air in the studio as the air conditioning just was not as good as they would all have liked.

This particular day was the guitar recording day, with some bass corrections thrown into the mix mostly for staving off boredom and monotony. It did help Tetsu and Ken, as the two of them sat and tried to straighten out the last glitches in their parts. Hyde, however, had been staring at the lyrics sheets for a couple of hours now, without changing a thing, whereas Pero lied on the couch just beside him, mechanically drumming out the already too familiar beats into the air above him with his hands and imaginative drumsticks again and again. Both of them had little else to occupy themselves with, so it was only natural that they began to talk with each other about random things after a while, their voices low so as not to disturb the two that were actually working.

“Have you heard from Hiro?” Hyde asked, in absence of other topics as the conversation ran the risk of running dry at the moment.

“Went to visit him the other day, just before recording,” the drummer answered, groaning as he moved to sit up after hours of lying in pretty much the same position, his bones and joints making noises of protest. “I thought I’d try to ask him about his reasons for leaving, since I didn’t really have any chance before this, but as soon as I mentioned it, he told me he’s done talking about that with us.”

“Done talking to us about it?” Hyde asked, a touch of annoyance entering his voice, “He hardly even said more than a couple of sentences about it to us,” he pointed out.

“Um, actually,” the drummer said, casting a glance to where Tetsu was still discussing something with Ken before continuing, “If I understood right, I think Tetsu went to talk to him. Dunno when, but it must have been quite some days before me.”

Hyde frowned a bit, hearing about this for the first time.

“He didn’t mention it to me,” Hyde revealed, confused as he glanced towards his lover as well. It was not like he expected Tetsu to report all of his moves to him, but the bassist should have realized that he would want to hear what Hiro had to say as well. Hell, all of them would.

“As far as I gathered, it didn’t go well,” Pero drew his attention back to the conversation, “Must have been why there was so much tension between the two of them in the last few practices.”

Which was true, Hyde mused to himself. There was tension between Hiro and all the other members during the last few practices when they were preparing for their last live together. But there was some even more evident bad friction between the guitarist and the bassist. It was hard not to notice it, but none of them mentioned it, as they figured it was because Tetsu, as the band leader, must have taken Hiro’s decision harder than the others. Now, Hyde wondered if he should have known better than that. But if his lover did not want to talk about it, he felt it was not his right to push. Not even after Tetsu admitted to loving him. Or maybe it was especially after that?

Hyde had to restrain a self-depreciating snort as he realized that, yet again, his thoughts went to the subject they hardly ever strayed from for the last week or so, even with the recording demanding all his concentration. The thoughts of Tetsu’s confession just did not want to leave him alone.

Not that he could blame Tetsu for this. In fact, the younger man made true on his word that things would not change between them. After that night, everything between them continued as usual. If Hyde was true to himself, he even felt a little deprived of attention as Tetsu now spent a lot of his time with Ken. Which was completely reasonable as they were good, if not best, friends and Ken needed all the support he could get at what turned out to be a really critical time in his life. But it did not stop him from sulking quietly once in a while, as he watched the two men spend so much time together.

“They’ve been at it for a while now,” Pero commented, gazing at the two guitar players as well whilst they were still talking, deep in their discussion, “Maybe they hit a snag? Should we go ask if we can help, you think?”

“I’m sure they would have asked if they needed advice,” Hyde answered after a moment of thought, causing the drummer to look back at him as he noted the vocalist's tone.

“You’re pouting,” he said, as if stating an obvious fact and Hyde blanched back in surprise at being called out on it. But Pero continued, “And you’ve been throwing strange glances at them all through recording. What’s up with that?” he asked, thoughtfully.

“Nothing?” Hyde tried to answer, but even to his own ears it sounded more like a question. Pero’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“You’re not… jealous are you?” he asked, a note of amusement seeping into his voice, but, thankfully, he was still keeping quiet and neither Tetsu nor Ken heard him.

“I am not,” Hyde denied, shiftily and Pero’s face broke out into a full blown grin.

“You are too. God, this is precious. I didn’t peg you for the jealous type.”

“I’m not jealous!” Hyde hissed, and quickly darted his eyes to check that the people in question didn’t hear him. “I’m just a little… confused.” He allowed and Pero raised his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Hyde curled into a ball in the armchair he was sitting on and stared at his knees while he tried to figure out what he meant for himself as well.

“It’s just that after Tetsu said he loved me, I expected to see more of him, not less,” he finally admitted, mumbling grouchily.

He was about to sink into thoughts of whether he was taking the whole “diva” act a bit too far and trying to remember if he had always felt so weird about not getting the attention he thought he deserved, when he noticed the lack of an answer from the drummer after his words. Turning to look at him, he saw the older man looking back at him with mild shock on his face.

“Tetsu said he loved you?” he asked, and Hyde felt like slapping his forehead with his palm. He forgot that neither he nor Tetsu have talked about the small fact with anyone.

“He did,” he confirmed at last after a moment. This made the surprise on Pero’s face morph into an expression of worry. He straightened out his back even further and was now sitting in a way so that he was completely facing Hyde, his eyes trained on the smaller man as if he was trying to see what Hyde was thinking.

“This isn’t really my business,” he said slowly, “but are you completely sure you won’t be regretting this? Taking this so far between the two of you?” his voice did not sound like he was judging them, but he was certainly troubled about something.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Hyde answered, certainty in his voice and, after another moment of looking at him intently, Pero nodded letting it go and letting Hyde go back to his own thoughts about the matter.

The truth was that if Hyde really thought about it, he could not say that Tetsu’s words a week ago had come as that big a surprise to him. After all, both of them must have realized a long time ago that their relationship was as serious as they came, whatever they might have said to the contrary. Even Hyde himself knew that for somebody who did not believe in love, and thus, did not fall in love, (like him) this was the most he could ever expect from a relationship, whether it was one with a male or a female. He was with a person that he liked, cared deeply about and was attracted to. He felt incredibly comfortable with him. So it was only to be expected that Tetsu, someone who had no qualms about falling in love, did just that.

He was not really sure how exactly he felt about how things turned out. He was a little frightened, for one. Mostly afraid that he would never be able to go back to the life his parents had hoped for him, but also afraid of how quickly the situation had spun out of his control. There was the thrill of doing something rather forbidden, and there was the calm he felt when he was enveloped in Tetsu’s arms. Was he, himself satisfied? Yes, more than satisfied even. Was he being fair to Tetsu? He had done his best to make sure the bassist knew his stance on this. Was he in love with the younger man? No, he was not.

These were the bare, cold facts. But at the same time, he knew that at this point, neither of them could insist that this was just an experiment or just a temporary arrangement between them. They have been together for more than half a year by now, and honestly, Hyde felt comfortable and happy enough with this that he would not mind it even if they continued like this for many times longer than that.

After all, Hyde thought, smiling, Tetsu loved him, and he liked he bassist. They just fit that well together.

And as for the current problem, Hyde mused further as he watched Ken and Tetsu finally decide on whatever it was they had been discussing for the last half an hour and the guitarist moving to the recording booth, there was just no way Tetsu would keep spending that much time with Ken for long. After all, it was only a matter of days before the guitarist would recover enough to realize that he was wasting time he could have spent teasing them. Unfortunately.

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To all of their relief, recording finished without any further problems. Satisfied with the product, all that was left for them was to wait until the final editing was done and the amount of copies they had requested were printed.

But even though Tetsu did feel it was his duty to go to Tokyo to look over at least a part of he editing process (which he did, without a glitch) the release date was not until months into the future. In the meantime, as soon as they finally left the studio they redirected all their energy towards resuming their live activities or, in Ken’s case, starting them.

The first live with the cheerful man as their guitarist was nerve wrecking for them all. None of them had any illusions that the change would go completely smoothly. After all, Hiro had gathered fans of his own and they knew it would take time for Ken to get their fan base to warm up to him. And though they were all confident he would succeed, they still knew the first live would be trying for them.

Of course, Ken went out onto the stage with the attitude of “I’ll just go out there and do it”, not letting himself get too nervous and true to his usual laid-back outlook of life. But despite his effort. there was still a clear change in the atmosphere at the live house compared to the previous lives. The other members did their best to perform as usual, but the audience was still a little subdued on Ken’s side of the venue and all of the fans were throwing curious glances in the direction of the new guitarist, as if trying to size him up.

Fortunately, the slightly cold welcome was not enough to throw Ken off balance. He did not seem to be even the slightest bit discouraged at the end of the live. He did, however, swear that it was the first and the last time he wore the hair extension that the other members had made him wear to make up for his otherwise short hair. The comment alone made them all break down into giggles in the backroom and as the mood lifted, they concurred that, all in all, the live was far from a failure.

And so, one live at a time, Ken’s skills found their place in the hearts of their fans and, before they knew it, their fan base did not only retain its numbers, but continued to increase as, slowly but surely, their fame grew bigger all through Osaka.

True to Hyde’s fears, however, it took months before Ken got tired of teasing Tetsu and him. It was not as annoying as it could have been as it was all done in good nature and more often than not, made them laugh as much as anyone else. Hyde could admit that they made an easy target, with the way they played it up for the fans sometimes. As their audience warmed up to Ken, Hyde tried to take some fan service to Ken’s side of the stage as well and was infinitely amused when the guitarist got flustered as soon as he got too close to him. The same happened when Tetsu went to jam with him as well. In the end they decided that the older man just did not know how to deal with things like that on stage. But they still continued doing it just so they could watch how he always tried to run away from them as soon as he could. In his mind, Hyde thought it was almost adorable.

It was soon apparent that they could not have made a better choice by asking Ken to join them. Aside from his wonderful guitar skills, he also had the ability to write wonderful songs, most of which quickly became crowd favorites as they appeared on their setlist and one of which was included in a compilation album that they decided to participate in quite spontaneously and which was released in October. And that was not counting the good mood that the guitarist normally brought with him wherever he went, making all of them feel more relaxed even as they were buried under a seemingly unending flow of work.

By the time November came - the month of the release of their first single - they were famous enough that the thousand copies that they released of it were sold out in no time. They were all rather ecstatic at the news, the only bad thing that they could make out of that being the fact that they had very little time to marvel at their own single being sold in record shops they themselves bought other artists' music at.

Before they knew it, another year was drawing to a close. For the first time in his life, Hyde almost felt like he was at the very top of the world. L’Arc~en~Ciel was becoming more than just successful, he was in a happy relationship with Tetsu and to finish it all off, it was actually shaping up to be white Christmas, and, for someone who loved snow as much as Hyde did, it was the definition of happiness to gaze out the window of his lover’s apartment and watch as the white petals of winter covered the normally snowless city. It seemed like nothing could go wrong.

Tetsu should have, from experience, told him that this was always the wrong thing to think.

Tetsu, however, was not there at that moment. The bassist had called in to say he had some unexpected business to take care of and would be late coming home. Hyde had to smile at the thought. The two of them did, theoretically, still live separately, both for convenience’s sake, as it was rather useful to have two places to return to in different sides of the city, and to avoid uncomfortable questions from the people they did not want to know about them. Despite that, they more often than not spent their time together now, both of their belongings spread over the two apartments so they would always have what they needed at hand. That was why calling each other to inform about a change of plans was the norm by now.

Today they were supposed to be staying at Tetsu’s and that was why Hyde had let himself in quite some time ago, occupying himself as he waited for his lover to come home by fixing up something to eat for them before settling by the window to look at the falling snowflakes. It seemed like it was starting to snow even stronger, so he was a little relieved when he heard the apartment door open and close, signaling the return of his lover.

Hearing the younger man enter the room he turned around with all the intentions of greeting him with a smile, but words stuck in his throat when he saw the pained look on Tetsu’s face. The bassist had only removed his shoes and was still standing with his coat on, the thin layer of snow quickly melting on his shoulders and back as the warm temperature of the apartment did its job. Something made Hyde keep quiet and just wait for Tetsu to speak and explain what had happened to make the band leader so obviously shaken. He did not have to wait very long.

“Pero asked me to meet with him, said he has something to say, “ the bassist finally said, as he seemed to struggle even with the simple task of removing his gloves from his hands. Hyde patiently waited for him to continue, which he did after no short period of silence. “He said… Pero said he’s leaving the band, Hyde.”

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Some things in my life have been doing some muse-killing lately. I hope they're gone by now, though...

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Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20