...hide December 13th 1964 -May 2nd 1997...

Prologue

I fell back on the huge bed which I occupied alone in this lonely city of LA. I didn’t feel like sleeping but my tired eyelids felt extremely heavy and the weight was pulling it down. The soft mattress was inviting…comforting as my loosened my limbs and relaxed to sleep for the night.

Hi, Yo-chan…

I snapped out of my sleepiness. It was that voice again. Immediately I straightened myself into sitting position.

" Go away, I’m tired!" I covered my ears but the soft feather-like chuckle filtered through.

I dreaded these nights when his voice came back to haunt me. No, I always hear him in my mind, telling me to do this, to do that. But the voice seemed loudest in this darkness. Sometimes, I felt as if I miss this voice and wished it would come and accompany me…

But that’s crazy, ne? Dead people don’t talk. And hide was nothing…nothing but dead. Perhaps I should take a break from work…I’m getting too tired that I’m hallucinating. Perhaps it was what this lonely solitary life was doing to me…This is bad.

Yo-chan, why are you so quiet?

" You’re not really here, hide!" I heard myself wail. "I don’t talk to dead people!"

Then what are you doing now??

" You’re not real; just a figment of my imagination!"

I am real.

" Then why can’t I see you?" I asked at the air around me cause I couldn’t see hide if he was there. My eyes felt watery. No, I don’t want to cry now. I blinked until the moisture dried, refusing to let in to my frustration.

Cause you don’t believe in me…

I held his head in my hands, willing the voice to go away. But that particular sentence repeated itself in my head. Maybe it was anger that spoke from me then?

" How can you want me to believe in you? I believed in you when you were alive but you lied to me. You left me alone in this fucking world to rot! Each time I think about you, I feel as if a part of me dies too…Do you know how it feels to die slowly?"

Somehow, the dried tears came back and this time I couldn’t force them away. They fell form my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. The droplets wet the bed as I sprawl on the sheets and tried to stifle my sobs, my sadness. The voice in my head was silent; I thought maybe hide had kindly left me alone before I became insane.

Stupid, stupid hide!

Yo-chan…don’t cry.

" If you wanted to leave so much, why come back now?" I hid under the blanket as if it would protect me from the ghost inside myself. I found the bleak darkness cosy, warm, I didn’t want to leave. Surely, everybody would think I’ve finally broke down and gone crazy from overwork.

I came back to see you…I can’t leave until you let me go.

I bit on my lips as I spoke. "Until I let you go? I’m not holding to you."

I can’t go when I can hear your voice calling out to me…

" Why did you leave without saying goodbye, hide?" I asked the question buried in me ever since the day I knew he had gone away forever. But that didn’t mean I accepted his death. No…far from it. I was too angry at his stupidity. I am still.

…I dunno, Yo-chan…it was just…

" Just what?" To hell if people wanted to lock me up in a white room with padding and metal bars! I wanted hide to answer me!

…just time for me to go, that’s all.

I stayed quiet for a while, digesting his words one by one. I had wished maybe hide had died to save the world…but not just because it was time. But time had always been the enemy, had always been against me. Why should it be different for him? If only I had known before that he was going to leave me…if only I had known…

" I miss you, hide…" I said softly. I saw nothing that could prove the existence of the voice in my head. "I want to see you…"

If only I had known…but I didn’t.

You have to believe that I exist first…you can’t see what you’re not willing to see…

" I don’t know how…"

I’m right in front of you…think of my face…

I closed my eyes, brows knitting in concentration as I tried to bring back the pieces of memories of this pixie-like pink-haired guitarist. It tore at me, these fragments of memories, like sharp razors of steel. Nothing changed when I opened my eyes.

" I don’t see you, hide," I frowned and reached out with a hand. Maybe I was trying to touch hide but nothing came to the tips of my fingers but cool empty lifeless air.

I am here. Don’t think too much; just about me…

" I can’t!!! It hurts too much!" I screamed, hearing my own voice reverberate against the walls. " All I want is for you to be here with me! Why did you have to die?! Stupid! Stupid!" I scolded hide the way I did when he was still alive.

My outburst hung in the air; in the cloud of my head. I could almost hear the heavy thudding of my own heart in his chest. Alive…alive and beating…unlike hide… I sat there, not sleeping, not talking to myself…I just sat there, waiting for hide’s voice to return, until my heartbeat resumed its normal pace.

Normal…yes, I’m normal…nothing but my wild imagination…yes…hide’s dead and he’s not here with me…