X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
12. Kawarenai Jibun
[Myself, Unchangeable]

I think I'm an "unchangeable man."

Even after becoming famous, I didn't change. Even after our major debut, when my life underwent a 180 degree turn, that didn't change the core of who I was.

Surely, when I think of the old days where we had trouble scraping together the "Indies 5,000 yen," I think that my attitude towards money has changed since then. Because the figures I am making have changed, it was probably inevitable.

When you become prosperous, you start to become greedy.

Of course, you buy high-class foreign cars, houses, and designer clothes, and you receive VIP treatment and start leading a rich lifestyle. Maybe this is a kind of dream that people who were born rich can't understand: a kind of proof that your dream really did come true.

X's members were unusual in that we didn't do that.

The objects of our interests differed, but individually, we each caught hold of the "proof" that defined us.

I thought that this was all right. Because we were in a rock band, it couldn't be helped that these things caught our eye. The image of success that each person sketches for himself will be different...

However, to me, "success" was a little unique. More than a high-class car, I wanted a bike, and more than a personal chauffer, I wanted a team.

Yes, my dream was to create a biker gang, and to arrive with them on our bikes all at once at whatever place we were having our live.

Once, we had a Harley team in one of our videos, and the image of that time has always stayed strongly with me [trans note: Taiji must be talking about the Celebration PV long version]. I have always thought this is what "rock" is.

My attitude didn't change either when we went on Kouhaku [trans note: NHK's "Red and White Battle" show on New Years' Eve].

There were singers who bought tons of clothes, but I always dressed in leather. Also, when we were recording for TV, the other members would bring out the flashy expensive clothes that they bought, but I would stand off to the side and dress in regular clothes and it didn't bother me.

Ever since I was young, I've always hated doing the same thing as someone else. I discovered that it was meaningless and thoroughly avoided it.

So I think that I was always regarded as an annoying "bump on the forehead" by X. Though I realized that they thought about me in this way, I still couldn't change. There was nothing around me that could sway me.

This is because I have always lived spontaneously. I think that I have kept the "spontaneous body" of human beings' original nature, since I didn't change at all from when I first joined X...