To Mr. Tajima:

To everyone at the Q&A forum: I write to you as his representative. Yesterday, I witnessed my partner take his own life at Tojinbo. As he himself told you in his final message, he is no longer with us. He was a foolish man in many ways, but despite—or perhaps because of—his foolishness, there is no doubt that he dearly loved your club. His attachment to it was extraordinary. After spending his life burdened by loneliness and delusions, I believe it was like the home of the only lover he could finally let his guard down around, which he found only in middle age. It was a familiar sight to me that his love would often manifest itself in an aggressive tone, but I imagine it came as quite a shock to all of you. On behalf of the deceased, please accept my renewed apologies. I believe he was happy. During his time at your club. That is precisely why, whenever he came to his senses, he could not forgive himself. He was very clear about that. Yesterday, on the way to Tojinbo, I spent his final moments with him and listened to his repeated lamentations. He had fallen to the dark side; “People kill the things they love—by Oscar Wilde” (this slightly misguided tendency toward pedantry never left him); “I have no face to show Gozen-sama,” and so on… His lonely smile as he lowered his eyes and said, “The only way left to apologize is to die,” was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Along the way, he also told me many stories from his past. Objectively speaking, they were mostly rather unimpressive, inconsequential stories, but to him, each one must have been a sparkling experience that stayed in his heart. As his partner, I watched him gradually disappear into the dark waters of the Sea of Japan and reflected on his life. I had been his only friend since he first became aware of the world—or at least, if he could be said to have had a friend at all. His final concern before the cliff was this: “What if the club says, ‘If this kind of trouble is going to happen, we should just shut down the Q&A forum’?” I told him, “I understand. I’ll at least pass along the message so that doesn’t happen…” Easing his mind was the last thing I could do for him as a friend. If you would be willing to hear his plea, the deceased may finally be able to rest in peace. As the representative of the foolish man who is no longer with us, I have conveyed to you the circumstances of his final moments and the apology he entrusted to me. Please forgive the poor quality of this letter. Respectfully