X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
14. Saigo no Steeji
[The Last Stage]

There were three days left in the countdown until I withdrew from X. It was 1992, January 5, 6, and 7 of TOKYO DOME 3 DAYS. After the last stage, I would no longer be in X.

When Yoshiki told me that he wanted me to leave X, the truth was that he only wanted me to stay till the end of those three days.

Perhaps the reason was that in the middle of our conversations when I would turn belligerent and try to pick a fight, I would mistakenly say too much.

But still, I wanted to stay and play till the end of the three days. "When the three days is up, then I'll quit," I said to Yoshiki, and when I said that, Yoshiki told all the people he was talking with to go outside, and we had a one-on-one talk.

Because of that, I was able to stay till the very end.

All throughout those three days, I played my bass with the thoughts of "quitting" whirling through my head.

I was prepared. From the time that Yoshiki had whispered to me about joining X, I had had to live my entire life for the sake of X.

X was my everything.

Many thoughts were running together. I expected everyone else to feel the same way. No matter how everything would end, up on that stage we were comrades-in-arms who had gone through a long year of battle together; we were best friends.

The last day at Tokyo Dome--- Upon that stage, everything truly ended.

That day was the only time where, though I tried and tried to hold them back, the tears kept coming. Toshi and hide and Pata and Yoshiki were also crying.

Until the last, I embraced them one by one and cried.

And then I faced Yoshiki with honestly and held him and wept.

With that, it was over.

As I left the stage for the last time, I thought: "I love Yoshiki. As one man to another, truly, I wouldn't let Yoshiki go for anything in the world."

In that moment when everything I had vanished, those were my true and honest thoughts.

Surely, Yoshiki was tired. On top of having to keep making music, he had all these disruptions come into his life one by one, and I suppose he was tired of me insisting upon equality within the band. And so maybe he cut me out from his life because he was tired of it.

We were different; Yoshiki was the leader who held all the responsibility.

Perhaps even to something like this, he was being forced repeatedly to do it against his will by other people for "the sake of X."

Because Yoshiki's memories are more painful than anyone else's, it doesn't matter if you call him was "extraordinary" or a "king." Now I can clearly say that because of the things he did, he's now received his true reward, the reward that he deserves.

On January 7, 1992, 15,000 people came out to see us at TOKYO DOME 3 DAYS and left us with a miraculous record, and I informed them that I was leaving X.

In a way, it was also a way of summarizing the past 6 years.