SECTION 3
GEKIRYUU [A RAPID CURRENT]

Kami o Ushinatte
[Losing Kami]

It was right before the beginning of summer. In the middle of a photoshoot, I suddenly felt something terrible. I was dizzy and I couldn't stand up. I thought it was something to do with my intuition. If something had happened to a loved one…

I called all of my friends and relatives. Everyone said nothing was wrong. Nothing was going on. But the weird sad feeling wouldn't go away.

When my friends and family left and I was alone again, a phenomenon occurred. I became really worried that someone had died. But who, I didn't know. It just was very painful. It hurt to breathe and my breathing became very irregular, to the point where I just couldn't do any of my daily activities.

I knew it was some kind of foreboding. After that, I called the members of Malice Mizer that I still talked to. "Is anything wrong with any of the members?" I asked frantically, confronting them, but they all said "I saw them today and they seemed to be fine."

But even then my fears didn't go away. I went to see some other people who were close to the Malice Mizer members. Though it was the middle of the night, I told myself that soon I was going to confirm if anything was going on with any of the members. But in the end, that confirmation didn't happen.

One week afterwards, the official announcement of Kami's death was made.

"June 21, 1999. Kami, the drummer of Malice Mizer, passed away of a subarachnoid hemorrhage."

Though I knew of this later, from the moment immediately following Kami's death, I already had a bad feeling.

In the end, I heard about Kami's death through the grapevine. The funeral was already over when the news got to me.

It was exactly in the middle of recording, and I locked myself away inside the studio. I couldn't keep my mind on anything. But I had to keep busy. I told myself that. If I didn't do anything, everything would become strange…

Too many regrets remain.

Why didn't I call Kami directly? All during the time when I was worried, why didn't I try to talk directly to Kami?

I still have not completely grown up. In becoming an adult, I've showed my feelings openly and gotten knocked around a little, and so I've wondered if I can ever be close to others people. Children don't think twice about hurting others. Because of this, their relationships are short-lived. But when the tempestuous feelings of adults pass, they look at the situation calmly, comparing things objectively, and then decide on the friendship.

At that time, I couldn't do that. We never found a good interpretation of the circumstances and confronted each other. Basically, I was hesitant to confront him.

Even before that, how many times have I had a bad premonition? And each time, though Kami and I were connected through other people, in the end, I still didn't call Kami directly. Now I wonder if we couldn't call each other because both of us were childishly obstinate and hesitant.

However, if I had called him back then…

Maybe I still couldn't have done anything. Maybe it's presumptuous of me to think I could have. It doesn't really matter now.

If, back then, we could have talked directly…


The first time I went to Kami's parents' house was the following year on his birthday, February 1st. I thought, "I want to see Kami again. I want to go to his grave." I wasn't able to go to his funeral. I wanted to clap my hands [note: I think this refers to Japanese funeral rituals], and anyway, I wanted to see him.

I knew what town his parents lived in, but I didn't know exactly where his house was. So I drove around and asked about the general vicinity of the neighborhood that they were in. After a while, though people would say "It's close by," it was a fairly large, rustic city, so I went to random houses and rang doorbells, asking things like:

"I'm looking for someone. Do you know these people? I heard that they live around here in this neighborhood…"

I left Tokyo in the morning and arrived in Ibaraki Prefecture around noon, and spent the rest of the day searching. Finally, I got directions to the place and managed to find my way to the house around 7 PM that evening.

I was asking myself, "When they open the door, will they recognize me?" Kami's parents have gone to a lot of lives, so they recognized me immediately.

"Come in, we're glad you came," they said, and they invited me inside. With this kindness, I started crying and couldn't stop.

Everyone in the house was sitting down to dinner, and as they shared food from the dishes, his parents told me lots of stories. I heard various stories of when Kami was a child. Afterwards, they said to me:

"Though we still cannot forget him, you've given us proof that he lived, and that has given us the will to continue on."

When I heard that, I felt liberated. The thing that has allowed me to continue on is proof that Kami lived.

After that every year, on Kami's birthday and death anniversary, I go to visit his parents. Since they said "Come over any time," I might abuse the privilege a little.

Though I think it would be good for me to go visit his grave a little more, in the end, I manage only to go on his birthday and his death anniversary every year.

However, with all that has happened, his mother and father welcomed me, and now I truly feel like they're my parents too. His parents also feel like I'm one of their children. I think it's like they see Kami in me.

That first year, there were a lot of people going to see his grave, both on his death anniversary and his birthday. It's been four years now, and little by little, people have stopped going…

If you go, don't go because it's the trendy thing to do. If you go see his grave, don't do it because you want him to come back to life.

But…

To me, thinking that people will be able to forget him, that is…so painful.

To this day, I have never stopped chasing after the dream that Kami left unfinished. That is proof that Kami existed on this earth, proof that he lived.

Even now, Kami is alive inside of me….