Masami Kugimiya

Masami Kugimiya

According to the official website, Kugimiya Masami is one of the main characters, Tatara's rival and occasional training partner. His style of dancing can be described as elegant, strict, and traditional or old fashioned. He hides an insecure, sensitive, and overthinking personality behind his calm and contained persona. He trains under Marisa Hyoudou ever since he had his spine injury. Masami's dancing partner is Tamie Idogawa.

Appearance
Masami is a gentleman with an elegant height. He still styles his hair the same way he used to as a child, wavy, long bangs, short at the back, and shaved on the sides. He tends to pull it all backwards, or pull only one side of it depending on occasion, but lets it down to his face when he's at home or inside. He wears graceful suits usually with suspenders, and Derby or Oxford shoes of some sort professionally, but tasteful and fashionable in his day to day life; scarfs, boots, cloaks, ragged or ripped skinny jeans, necklaces, fur collared jackets, skinny long sleeved shirts, etc.

Story
Masami underwent an unpleasant childhood. His parents dissed him about his grades and compared him to his two elder brothers all the time. His teacher noticed that he was never attentive in class, in comparison to his brothers who were talented and successful, and wondered whether his parents payed much attention to their youngest son. Because his parents thought him a failure useless kid, Masami grew up insecure, shy, and lonely. He even carried a bad habit of not making eye contact with people specially when they speak.

Whenever he met his brothers, Masami felt oppressed and unaccepted. He avoided meeting them in Vol.10 Chapter 42 following a black stray cat with a twisted tail, which he thought funny, or interesting. He was a curious person since he was a child. Following the cat represented Masami's both loneliness and childlike behaviour, and that despite of his lifestyle, he was a loving and caring boy. The cat led him to a dancing studio owned by an old man, Kunieda Tadashi, the old man who has changed Masami's life since the first time they've met, and saved him from his drowning into nothingness.

When the man invited him to in, Masami neither greeted nor talked to anyone. He even refused to go back home, which the old man thought troubling. The old man asked him to stand straight for he hated to see kids with bad posture, and that was when Masami's eyes first met with the stranger. The grandpa patted his head, and with a gentle smile asked for his name. Masami's eyes brightened with happiness. It was the first time someone was so nice to him, interested in him, and pleased to meet him. Masami replied with a stutter, but gratefully. Masami asked the man about a photo hanged on the wall that day, and when the man replied that it was the younger him in a dancing competition in England, Masami asked if he could also travel to England one day, and that was when he was first introduced to the realm of ballroom dancing.

Masami's family noticed the difference in him ever since. He was more cheerful. The moment they asked him why or what happened at lunch time, they cut him off claiming that it was "not important" and that he should "keep quite". Unlike the old man's praising to Masami, his family found neither point nor use of him. Because he was different, they thought him untalented and shame to the Kugimiya family.

In Masami's first year of dancing, he hesitated in his first competition, overwhelmed by anxiety and fear of the failure his family engraved in his head to believe, he could not pull his self together until he saw the old man there encouraging him and smiling warmly. "I'll make the scary things invisible", he thought since then. Everything unpleasant was noise, that was Masami's own way to help him succeed. The old man thought him very special, and that he was actually a fast learner. His rivals and peers, who've been dancing their whole lives, were beat by a first year dancer. His parents never came to watch his performances, but the old man was enough support to Masami.

In his third year, the dancing team at the old man's studio realised Masami's learning speed was going too fast that they did not know what to teach him anymore. And since they discovered his love for children, and that he was better than those teaching the kids how to dance at the studio, they allowed him to stay as a teacher.

In his fourth year of dancing, and when he met Sengoku Kaname, Masami overheard a conversation somewhere between the audience complementing Masami's dancing, then claiming that he however had a hopeless coach, which he's got upset about unknowingly but ignored. He thought the audience a bunch of ignorant people who knew nothing of dancing.

In his seventh year, when he met Hyoudo Kiyoharu, he, yet again, overheard some people in the audience -which he hated so much at this point- speaking about how Hyoudou was the "real deal". Annoyed, Masami mumbled frightening comments against them within himself hatefully, for they have judged Hyoudou according to only looks. Due to the dark childhood he lived, Masami contained a dark side as a left over within him and behind the gentleman he has become. Around that time, Masami was looking for a new partner, and he was introduced to Tamie Idogawa.

Masami's life at home was still the same as it was before, just a bit more dull and agonising. His parents threatened to do something about his dancing before it's "too late" because his grades were hopeless. "If I stay here any longer, I'll go crazy", he stated to himself. Masami felt so lonely he called a cat his "only ally". In Vol.10 Chapter.44, he was shown a sad and depressed character who forced himself to wear a friendly and smiley mask in front of his team at the studio.

In Masami's tenth year, training in a camp with the other top dancers and away from his coach and teammates, Masami appeared to be the shy, aloof, and nervous character he used to be as a kid again, while the other dancers including Sengoku were friendly and surrounded by one another, and loud.

In Mikasa cup finals, and while performing Quick Step, Masami's vision of the "noise" excluded Sengoku while competing. Overwhelmed by the fear that over took him, he felt vulnerable and broke down throwing up at break time. Overhearing some people from the bathroom stall wondering why Masami seemed a bit off, he wondered what was it he was even doing in that place from the start, on the edge of giving up. He thought he was fooling himself with fake happiness since he met the old man, which ended him up in the realm of dancing thinking the path was wrong from the beginning.

When it was almost Masami's birthday, and when he went back to the dancing studio, he started to show his indifference inattentively now, moreover with a slight disgust towards the old man who brought him to this sort of life. He lacked the energy and enthusiasm for both dancing and teaching all together, and told himself that he was being killed by his self-consciousness, and not only thought to quit dancing -which he thought he would never be able to explain why to anyone- but also his pointless life as a whole.

Masami appeared to go meet the cat later, "his only ally", but no sooner has he reached he took his leave hurriedly after the sight of it mating with another cat, feeling betrayed by his ally or perhaps lonely at the fact that even a cat has found itself a partner. He has a special relationship with cats.

Pitiful as it is, he walked down the street with a cigarette in his mouth (which psychologically corresponded with his state of mind) and added to himself that he hasn't even got the courage to kill himself, and wondered if there's anyone who would kill him. He thought his own sayings of not having courage to kill himself was a lie, an excuse to stay alive perhaps. Not too long after, he was struck by a truck while crossing the street, by which he smirked at and thought that God really did exist and granted his wish, however found himself alive when he opened his eyes later, thinking that he was cursed.

Masami cried the moment he opened his eyes, because he was still alive in his ominous life. He called the doctor and his nurses "demons". They thought him crying happy tears.

Days later, and when the old man payed him a visit at the hospital, Masami claimed that it was shame he can't dance anymore after the accident. However, the old man sternly responded that he knew it wasn't because of the injury he wanted to quit, adding that he himself lied about being a true dancer, and felt ever so regretful and shameful to the point of weeping. Traumatised, Masami battered the bed and started sobbing in disbelief. His dancing partner told him later in her visit that the dancing studio he cherished so much was closed. It is thought that the old man died, for he neither appeared nor was mentioned in Masami's life ever since.

After few weeks of healing, in a rainy night on the white bed, Masami's weight started to visibly fade. He looked withered and tired both physically and mentally, looking like a living dead. He's even developed anger and lost his temper. Annoyed by his long and distressing stay at the hospital and his hopeless life, he broke down and shouted once at the nurse asking her questions like when was he to go out, start rehabilitation, and for how long was he going to be kept. Gladly, his friends were there to stop him and support him that instant.

When Marisa Hyoudou visited him few more months later, Masami confronted his feelings for the first time to her and told her that he wished he's never danced. He giggled at every little sentence they exchanged in regard of the judgement of winner and loser in dancing, until he burst with an awkward "I'm sorry" then said that such topics made him want to puke. He trailed his ghastly whimpering with laughs and random thoughts like "What was he fighting against", that the dance he and the old man liked was already dead, and then ended it with "It is hell" as the tears caressed down his cheeks finally as he grinned.

"I need to go back there", he concluded, clinging to the one and only excuse for him to live; dancing. The workers at the rehabilitation stated that Kugimiya (Masami) had a fearful expression on his face since he arrived. He was able to walk with the crutches's help soon after.

Around this time, Masami's partner decided to wait for him to heal instead of finding a new partner, practising dancing by herself ever since his accident, she stated that her bond with strangers wouldn't be as strong as it was with him. Masami was very protective of his partner in return.

When Masami was staying at what appeared to be Marisa's place (he'd perhaps disowned his family at this point, they didn't even visit him at the hospital), he was watching a live recording of a dancing tournament on TV, Marisa asked him whether losing in tournaments felt like hell to him or not. When he responded with the same gloomy reply he offered her in the hospital and she cut him off, he thought for a while thoroughly and wholeheartedly after apologising to her; he admitted that his eyes go black when he thinks of for how long and far dancing would take him. He added that the world of results is so cruel, and that he felt envious of those dancers with a better fortune to get to the top. Marisa poked his forehead, and told him that those people he envies have "their own personal hell", too, which helped him to get up on his feet again. Marisa watched over Masami since his accident. They developed a close relationship, like a mother and son.

After nine years, when he was finally able to dance, Masami's body was still stiff because of his long avoidance of dancing. His muscles has already forgotten what and how dancing was. This was also noted in Chapter.45 when Gaju Akagi was helping Masami with his hamstring stretching, "You're like a teddy bear!" he exclaimed to him brightly which he hushed.

Masami and Idogawa's comeback coincided around the same time Tatara Fujita began his journey. Masami appeared to see Tatara as his younger self, which annoyed him the most. In Chapter.44 of the tenth volume, he grabbed Tatara's head fiercely out of the blue, "If it becomes tough, it's okay to stop. Dance makes your life crazy" he told the clueless boy as if he was advising his younger self before cracking an insane chuckle to cover his awkwardness.