this is a story of how Time had once again slipped by us silently and stolen our years

I knew there was a reason why I hated Mondays, and after today, I will have another reason to.

In the middle of a design tutorial, I suddenly got a message saying; "Taiji Sawada is dead."

That literally felt like a slap in the face.

This is not the kind of news I want to read about at 10am.

It brought to mind the time when I read about The Rev's death so many mornings ago.

I don't think I was even listening to what Mr Redz was saying after that. All I could think of was the fastest way to go online and finding out what happened.

And (surprisingly), this is the second suicide attempt of another X-Japan member. I really wasn't expecting that. First, Hide and now Taiji. Come to think of it, Hide probably had the better deal.

According to the news, Taiji was hospitalised for 3 days before he was certified brain-dead and had his life support turned off. 3 days he laid dying, and I (we) didn't know anything about it.

It feels quite unreal.

I must have had a weird look on my face because people asked what's wrong, and I wasn't sure how to respond. Sure, I could say "There's this band I loved for so many years, well, their bassist passed away", but those words don't even begin to do justice to the depths of my pain and I don't want to hear what anyone else has to say about it because I don't believe anyone would understand.

There was that one moment I was so crushed after I read the news, I don't think I could have described how I felt. And it was for a really selfish reason.

After having cancelled their Bangkok live 3 years ago, my hopes to ever see X-Japan had been close to 0. Only until they signed on a 3-year contract and then (much later) announced they'll go back to Bangkok again to perform that I begin to harbor hope again.

I had forgotten that Taiji was an ex member, and hearing that X-Japan's bassist had passed away, all I could think of was that X Japan would once again disband and how unfair it was that my dream to see them was revived just to be crushed for the second time in a row.

RIP Taiji :(

X is forever.