Nureki Chimuo Archive

First, I’d like to explain something.

There’s a reason why I’ve used somewhat confusing katakana names like Terushi and Shingo, and why I’ve kept the details of the circumstances surrounding their activities vague rather than using easily recognizable proper nouns.

There are people (and it’s safe to say most of them) who, just by looking at the commonly used names, immediately conjure up the conventional, popular stereotypes circulating in society and fall prey to facile prejudices.

It is my hostility toward such frivolous people, who refuse to see the reality of these individuals with their own eyes, that compels me to write this way. I don’t want those philistines to understand who they really are.

Even if I make a sincere effort to help them understand, it usually ends in futility.

Some even grimaced and said, as if spitting out the words, that they had seen something terrible.

Yet within that “terrible thing” they speak of exists something wonderful that sparkles, but there’s no point in explaining that to such philistines. They wouldn’t understand anyway.

(Ah, so this person’s capacity was only this limited after all.)

I feel disheartened and think, “I can’t continue associating with this person any further.”

No matter how much you show it to them or explain it to them in the most detailed and careful way possible, those who don’t understand simply won’t get it. That’s right, in that respect, it’s similar to the world of SM.

In fact, many scenes common to SM psychology appear on Terushi and Shingo’s stage (to be honest, both Rakka-san and I always go to see them with our hearts racing, hoping to encounter just such scenes).

To be even more blunt, compared to today’s commercial SM products, which clumsily imitate the form without any regard for the deep psychology of enthusiasts, Terushi and Shingo present us with hot scenes that perfectly resonate with our sensibilities as enthusiasts, making our hearts ache with that familiar pang.

(What I find wonderful is that they act out these scenes within their stories without being consciously aware that they’re doing SM at all.)

Well, what do you think? Rather than SM that’s proudly displayed with a “Look, this is SM, isn’t it amazing?” attitude, it’s the SM scenes that are performed suddenly and effortlessly, without any hint of it, that really send shivers down a fan’s spine.

What do you think? Do you understand, everyone involved in the SM industry?

Huh? You don’t get it?

Hmm, well, I suppose that’s to be expected.

It’s okay if you don’t get it.

That’s just how the world works. If you did understand it, that would actually be a problem.

Why is it a problem? Because it would affect the rarity and value of the genuine SM experience. It would mean that what’s rare would no longer be rare.

How could we possibly let something so precious and rare, something we hold close to our hearts and can never let go of for the rest of our lives, be so easily replicated? Don’t you think? We have a little pride of our own, after all.

Oh, I’ve gone off on a tangent.

I need to get back to the topic of Terushi.

So, the tension I felt when I showed them to Rakka-san for the first time, it was truly overwhelming. What if, after showing them to her, she said “You’ve shown me something awful” or something like that? What if she showered me with words of contempt?

My trust in her, or rather, her trust in me, might be severed right then and there.

It wouldn’t mean that all trust would be severed, but the thickest thread connecting us would snap clean through.

So on that day, at that moment, that is, once I found myself in that situation, the entire time I was traveling from Ariake Pier at Tokyo Big Sight aboard a Tokyo Waterfront Line steamboat, sailing up the Sumida River via the Ariake Canal to reach them, I was constantly nervous and worried.

(I’d like to explain why I suddenly ended up at Big Sight and boarded a steamboat, but since writing that out would make this too long, I’ll omit it here. This episode at Big Sight was also a decisive incident that vividly illustrates the essence of Rakka-san’s sensibilities and way of life, so I’ll write about it later.)

It was six or seven years ago that I took a boat from Tokyo Bay and traveled upstream on the Sumida River.

On that day, the person I asked Rakka-san to look at was neither Terushi nor Shingo. It was neither Takeya nor Kyoka. It was neither Narunojo nor Kyonosuke. It was neither Sentaro nor Noru, nor George, nor Tsuyoshi, nor Ryotaro.

I don’t remember exactly who it was, but in any case, she was moved after seeing him just once. I don’t think it was sarcasm or mockery. It was pure emotion.

She felt the same kind of emotion, and to the same degree, that I usually get from them. It must certainly have been a kind of culture shock for her.

I think she simply couldn’t believe that something like this existed in this world. She was born and raised in an environment completely unrelated to things like this.

As for me, I’ve been breathing and living under the same roof as things like this. I think that’s why I have this inescapable sense of inferiority.

What made me happy was that she embraced their unique sense of SM with warmth, without a shred of disgust or contempt.

It is actually very difficult to accurately describe the emotional reality and psychology between her and me in this regard. My clumsy writing skills are simply not enough to do it justice. But I cannot help but write about it.

From that point on, she came to love their performances even more than I did. If I hesitated even slightly, she would slap my butt and drag me over to them.

She and I would enjoy the scent of SM wafting from their stage, drawing our hearts closer together and pressing our bodies tightly against one another.

I’d like to write about this in greater detail and with more precision but my limited expressive ability prevents me from describing it well, which is a great regret. Still, I’ve written about it, albeit only a tiny fraction, in this “Talking Theater” and other manuscripts.

And now, I’ll talk about Terushi’s recent illness.

Even though I’ve been rooting for him with such deep feelings, hearing that he’s sick, there’s nothing I can do for him. No matter how much I talk about this and that, as a poor and powerless person there’s nothing I can do. It’s a heartless world. Or perhaps, it’s a world of impermanence.

Perhaps the reason I walked into “Harukan,” a coffee shop I wasn’t particularly keen on, was to distract myself from the shock of Terushi’s illness.