Snacks with Daddy

Practice had been called off on account of, one: Cha had a nasty strain of the flu (which he claimed Gackt gave to him on purpose), two: You had some family “emergency,” which basically meant that his sister needed a babysitter and three: Gackt had a conference with Kai’s teacher in about three hours.

So, here he was, sitting in a coffee shop with Hyde and Ryu, nursing a drink made of nearly pure caffeine. Hell, he could’ve taken it intravenously and it probably would’ve been faster.

“I refuse to go to those parent-teacher conferences,” Hyde said before taking another swallow of his height-stunting beverage. “I had a bad experience with Reiko’s old kindergarten teacher. Now I just send Megumi.”

“Bad how?” questioned Ryu, his eyebrows quirking.

“Well, for one, I couldn’t get a solid sentence out of her. And then she would do this,” at this point, Hyde tilted his head slightly to the side, and imitated – quite well, Gackt noticed – the typical blank-faced, fangirl stare. Recovering almost as quickly, he said “It got really…I don’t know…either annoying, or unnerving. I’m still not entirely sure which.”

“I’ve never had a problem with it – not yet at least,” Gackt said. “Her teacher at the moment is wonderful.”

“Well that’s good. Let’s hope you don’t have to have problems like that.”

“Yeah…” In spite of himself, Gackt chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing, I just…thought of snacks.”

“Snacks? How in the Hell did you manage to get to snacks from parent-teacher conferences?” Hyde had taken to casually cursing when he was friendly company, as – like any responsible father – he restrained himself at home.

“Well…to tell you the truth, I don’t know.”

“Is it a cute story?”

“Oh, of course,” Gackt assured. Pointing to Ryu, he continued, “I think you’ve already heard it though.”

“If it’s the one I think it is, I think I heard it from a delirious Chachamaru, and therefore could afford to hear it again.”

The three laughed before Gackt began. “See, Cha introduced this new thing called a ‘snack’ to Kai.”

“That’s new?!”

“Hardly, but I never called it that before so she had no related word association, right.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I was sitting with her on…Sunday, I think. And she pops up and asks if we could make some snacks. So I’m like, ‘Yeah okay. What do you want to make?’ And she gets a little huffy, because in her mind, she already TOLD me what she wanted to make.”

“‘Cause that’s what Cha called ‘em.”

“Exactly. So I ask her to describe them to me.” Gackt laughed and shook his head, before shifting his weight on the chair so he could pantomime the game of charades he and Kai played for the better part of ten minutes. “So she tells me that ‘they’re on…something…it looks like this,’” he held his hands out to his friends, his fingers forming a small circle, “‘and you eat it.’” Dropping his hands to the table, he shook his head. “And all I can think is, ‘Well, that’s not going to help me much.’ So I tell her that I was going to call Cha to make sure I got it right, you know.”

“Because God forbid you don’t make them like Cha.”

“‘Cha-kun’s are better. Dad you suck.’”

They laughed again, before Gackt continued, “So I go to the kitchen and pick up the phone and I think, ‘Oh fuck – he’s sick. He’s probably not even awake.’ And so I battle with myself until I just say ‘Fuck it’ and dial. Oh, I felt so bad, because I woke him up, and he sounded awful but it was either disturb my co-producer or loose face in front of my daughter.”

“And that’s bad.”

“Very bad. So he laughs a bit and tells me this concoction of crackers and peanut butter and strawberry jam, and I tell him ‘Okay, thanks,’ and hang up. And then I realize that I can’t GET peanut butter here.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“We’ve had Yoshiki ship packs of it to us for tour season. Spoonful of that will keep you going for hours, but I usually refrain from it because it gets stuck to the roof of your mouth and does a number on your throat if you don’t clear it out in time for the show.”

“Because it’s sticky?”

“Yeah. It can be a real bitch.”

“So anyway, yeah. I call him back and ask if he has any more jars of the stuff left, and he does, so Kai and I make a run out to Cha’s house and then the grocery store to get the rest of the stuff so they can be perfect. Basically, snack-time on Sunday became an all-day event.”

“Maybe Ju-ken and I should con her into pulling these stunts on rehearsal days.”