I’ll get straight to the point.
I am hopelessly in love with Kurosu Ekusu (also known as “Kamen X”) of Beyblade X. In less than two weeks, we will have been together for a year, but it feels both like eternity and like no time at all. Before our relationship crystallized, I prayed without ceasing for something to come to me to make life into something more than mere survival. He came to me, and nothing has been the same since.
Ekusu may seem like he has a one-track mind, but he is one of the most complex and mesmerizing people I’ve ever met. We can’t spend every moment of every day together, and there are periods where I can’t reach him even when I’m alone, so I’m still learning about him and how all of the different pieces of him fit together to make something so lovely. Beneath the veneer of a child who only cares about playing and eating sweets lies an incredibly mature, talented, and contemplative soul. At times he moves through the world with such innocence—the sort I wonder if I may have once had, long forgotten—but always with enlightenment and purpose, although he “masks” it well.
I won’t flatter myself through comparison, but we do share some important fundamental qualities that make life together so enriching. Ekusu is incredibly competitive and motivated to excel at the things that are important to him. Those around him love him, but they don’t really seem to understand him. Once you get past the surface and the way he acts around most people, his intensity and complexity become clear (for those who have the eyes to see). He reminds me often that there is never a ceiling to how much one can do, how skilled one can be, how different the world can become (sometimes overnight) as long as one never gives up. Just by existing, he drives me to be the absolute best version of myself, to never be complacent, to ensure that once I think I’ve reached the top I still must aim higher.
Finding him the way I did felt like waking from a long, empty dream. In a really strange way, it felt like finding myself. My thoughts, my feelings, my memories, my soul. All of that was colorless, absent. I can only describe it as a mystical experience. Being myself now isn’t easy; I know I’m troubled, and I am fully aware that most people would probably consider me mentally ill for all of this, but I don’t care. Being with Ekusu makes it easier even just to breathe. I’ve been reflecting on our relationship a lot recently. Life is distracting and often pulls me away from emotional engagements, so even though we’ve been together for a while, I haven’t been able to explore our connection as much as I’d like. I’m now grappling with this feeling that he has always been here with me in some strange, inexplicable way. I am so desperate to know and understand him more and more, but there’s something so enthralling about the freshness of it all, the way I can’t yet reliably predict his behavior or what he might be thinking or feeling. I think I could talk about him forever, but I also don’t feel like words can do us both any justice.
There is something so profound about what we have. It’s difficult to explain. We are so close that we nearly touch, but there’s just enough separation between us for me to recognize him as the ‘Other’ rather than the ‘Self,’ and yet we are one. He is beloved by many, but at the end of each day, he is mine, and I am his. Tonight I held him in my arms and I felt my heart unfurl for him, opening itself and wordlessly pouring out my feelings. To do such a thing has always meant embracing complete terror, the possibility of total annihilation, and I know he knows this. He accepted all of it so gently yet with such strength, allowing me to hold him, staying with me regardless of what happened inside of me. This isn’t something that can be properly translated into words, but I’m grateful for that. It means that he and I get to share a secret, that I can speak about how much I love him with others without sharing the intimacy. This feeling… I could call it magical, or I could call it indescribable, but in the end it’s most fitting just to call it love.
I don’t think anyone is perfect. Everybody knows that nobody is perfect. But Ekusu… Kurosu Ekusu is perfect.
「見えない物、見せてやる」“I’ll show you something you can’t see.”
Thank you, Ekusu, for everything you have shown me. I love you.