kamichan.com

山下翔央君へ

Dear Shoon. It’s just after midnight in Japan on the 20th December 2006, so it’s your 18th birthday, and I’m probably supposed to say something like Happy Birthday, best wishes, may this be the best of days for you, ganbare, have a great future and I’ll always support you bla bla bla. And I do. I’m sending out my best wishes to you from the bottom of my heart, and I’ll be always there somewhere looking out for you.

But to be honest, I’m a little bit cross with you. How come you never replied to my letter? The letter that I wrote here at home and then personally delievered to the office of the Tokyo Globe Theatre on July 24 2004, just a half hour before I saw you and the other guys in Stand By Me. Everything about this letter is so embarrassing. The letter itself is embarrassing, because I had started to learn Japanese only 4 months before (just because of you and Ya-Ya-yah), and it probably sounded very rude and didn’t make any sense at all. I still have a copy of this letter somewhere, but it’s sealed and I don’t dare open it because what I wrote to you is probably even more embarrassing than I can remember. Delievering the letter to the office of the theatre was embarrassing too, walking in there and seeing 6 people look up from their desks, wondering what that gaijiin is doing there, and handing the letter over to that young office lady, mumbling “this letter… Yamashita Shoon… give… please…” in broken Japanese, forgetting to say “onegai shimasu”, and forgetting to bow properly at least a half dozen times. Maybe you never received this letter. Maybe they just threw it away, laughing at that stupid gaijin who delievered it. Maybe JE management opened it and read it and didn’t think you should read it too. But maybe you did receive the letter, and maybe you did read it. I left my phone number and my email address and my home address in it so you could get back to me just to say thank you or something. But that never happened, so I guess you never read it because otherwise you would have replied, wouldn’t you?

People always say they remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Kennedy was shot or that two planes hit the World Trade Center. I still remember the moment when I first saw you. Thursday, February 12 2004, just after 8pm. Doing internet research for a novel I was (and still am) about to write, stumbling over what I later learned to be the Sekai ga Hitotsu ni Naru Made PV. Back then, when I first saw your face, I knew right away that my life was about to change forever, and I have diary entries to prove that. I never believed in love at first sight until that night. But I always believed that dreams could come true, and this belief was confirmed just five months later when I was at the Tokyo Globe Theatre, seeing you right in front of me, only 3m away. Two years ago today I went to see West Side Story at the Aoyama Theatre. Great cast. Sho, Ohno, Matsujun, Kazama, Toma, Toshin. But I didn’t care about any of them. I was there because you were there and it was your 16th birthday. It’s one of my fondest memories. Ever.

I have seen you on stage 9 times in 2 and a half years. You and the other guys from Ya-Ya-yah. I’ve seen you all from a very short distance, and I’m sure that Yabu, Hikaru and Taiyo have seen me. It’s not too difficult to tell if someone 4 or 5m away is looking at you or at the person next to you. They all have looked me in the eyes. You have not. I have fantasies about you guys coming back to your dressing room after a concert, and Taiyo says “That gaijin was there.”, and Yabu says “Again.”, and Hikaru says “I shook that gaijin’s hand once.” And then you say “What gaijin?!” But don’t worry. I’m not mad at you for constantly ignoring me. It’s not your job to recognize me. It’s your job to be adored by me. And you’re exceedingly good at that.

I love you, Shoon. I always have from the moment I first saw you, and I always will. And I’ll never give up that dream of mine that one day we’ll meet, and we’ll open the sealed copy of that letter that I wrote to you back then, and we’ll laugh our asses off at it’s awkwardness.

And I will always love your hair.