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6. Hakketsubyou no Kanojo to no Hiren [The Sad Love between Me and a Girl with Leukemia] I am a frightening person. When I was married, that was what I thought. Whenever I feel that a certain person is important to me, I feel like I can't tell her that I love her. If I did say that, both she and I would become mere "things." A feeling that the one I love is a possession. I can't stand that. From the moment that I think I want to monopolize this person, I believe that she begins to break and change. To me, is the specific life of a person special or not? There was a girl who embodied all of this, who was restricted and broken by me. I did it until it was too late. In the messages that she left on my answering machine and in everything that she did, she became really strange. I was correct in asking about this. However, this particular girl said: "I can't stop by myself. I know this in my head, but no matter what, I can't stop…" A desire to monopolize things breaks people. Because of associating with the ones I love, because I break them down, I'm really very frightening. I was very demanding towards her, she told me clearly. For example, she would say to me with great emotion, "I just want to be with you for one second longer." And then I would usually respond, "I can't do that. I've got to work, and then I have a mountain of stuff piling up that I have to take care of. So we can't see each other much." If someone is praying her hardest to be with someone she loves, that person isn't me. There are things that can only be done by me, and then of course there are also tons of things that I cannot do. If I wish for things that only I can do, I'll bet my life on them and I'll be given an answer. However, it's only natural that if I pray hard about the things that I can't do and someone around me can do it and grants my wish, I would want to be with that person. It's not that I don't understand why I want to monopolize people. I used to really want to do that. The desire was strong that it was almost a disease. Even now, I still have it. However, because I know that monopolizing people makes them unhappy, I suppress my intentions. I control myself. If I love someone, even if she loves someone other than me, I still consider her a loved one. I can't help it. If she can love someone more than me, that's all right. As far as she's concerned, she needs that person. The reason that I say that is not because I want my love for that person to go away. The strong feelings I have for that person were feelings of my own selfishness. If the person didn't return my feelings, I could curb my own feelings. Even though my love might end, we would still be attached to each other. That is how I love people. When I enforce my will upon people I love, there are naturally people who don't appreciate that. That is a completely sad love, though… A long time ago, I had a sad love affair that came and went. It was when I was about twenty years old. The girl I loved was around two years older than me, and we dated for about 4 months… Suddenly, I was told this. "Let's start over with a clean slate." [lit: blank sheet of paper] Of course, that's not what she really meant. When she said that, I became really weird and I couldn't stop myself. You could say that I was weak. I was so weird that it was almost laughable. She had leukemia. From the first time we met, she told me this. However, we still thought that we could have a relationship without a problem. If she got sick, no matter what happened, the love I had for her would not change. We knew that it was a matter of life or death. However, because she was much sicker than I had ever thought she was, she was thinking of me. I feel that my inability to understand this was the biggest reason we broke up. More and more often, she was collapsing in front of my eyes. Often, I had no idea what to do. More pressing was the answer from her: "We could no longer be together. It's not that I hate you. But we can no longer be together…" She told me these parting words over the phone. I went to see her. No matter what I said, we couldn't come to an agreement. In order for us not to hate each other, we had to break up? Why was that? Is that even a reason? I completely couldn't understand. However, the only thing she could say was that that was what she had decided. Her personality was like that. She was the kind of person whose decisions you couldn't overturn easily. So I said I understood. I felt that nothing could be done about it. Then, as if crazed, I got in my car and went recklessly driving. Though we had just talked earlier, first I did some serious damage to my car, then I vaguely remember smoking a cigarette, and then I got a call from her. "What the hell are you doing?" she said, and then started to cry, and my eyes were opened. From the depths of my heart, I felt utterly ashamed of myself. I was a child who could only think of himself. Before meeting me, she had had a fiancé. She said that he would always go pick her up in his car. However, one time while on the way to pick her up, he had an accident and was killed. She would always think about this and worry. Do you know how it feels to have someone you love taken away from you? I don't want you to ever experience that… She tried with all her might. She told me about her feelings. The basis for her words came from the loss of her fiancé and her resolution to continue battling her illness, and in both of those was the fear that she might die. However, at the time I was very inexperienced, and I didn't understand her true intentions. Going my own way like that just led to me being reckless in my car. When she cried for me, I realized that I had hurt her. "Just what have I done….?" After that, I never went driving recklessly again. I also never played around with my life again. She keeps me informed of her condition. Sometimes, she contacts me. A happy occurrence is that her illness has gotten less severe. I think she will keep getting better. There is much in this world that is gentle on the surface. In this surface gentleness, it's not that we don't hurt our loved ones, but even though we might hurt them, afterwards if they push us forward, being able to realize that it doesn't matter what we think is wonderful. Even though a long time has passed, finally I am able to understand her thoughts. Even though there was a misunderstanding, I thought of her and I was able to trust her. Though pushing the one you love forward is a decision that the other person doesn't seek out….That is the essence of gentleness. I think that is something that she taught me.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES He used DA GA about 23095273507 times in this chapter, by the way. Da ga, I have given up trying to count them. Da ga, I am going to go translate a chapter in the first section so I won't have to deal with them. XD Uh...that's about it on this one. I'll have another chapter out shortly - probably something in section 1 or 5. Again, if you didn't get my note, thanks for commenting on the last chapter that I did, and sorry that I never got around to replying to everyone. This was the most stressful week that we had here at school yet, but luckily it's all downhill from here so I should start having more free time again (no more tests). I'm glad everyone seemed to enjoy Gackt's writings on his car and his "dark thoughts." XD To whoever asked about the Hyde chapter, there were two chapters in this book that mentioned Hyde, and I've translated both of them. You can find all the chapters of Jihaku that I've done so far archived in my LJ memories section under "Gackt: Jihaku," so go back and search through those. I think they're the "Cars and Women" chapter (Hyde is mentioned in about two sentences) and then the "Sex and Love" chapter. Thanks to rebirthdream for helping me with the grammar in the last chapter.
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