X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
13. Byoudoshugi
[The Principle of Equality]

When I look back, the time that everything began was the Blue Blood tour.

The five of us all had different ideas, and when we made a song, we wrestled amongst ourselves and those ambitions. As a matter of fact, whenever we had a rehearsal, we were made by Yoshiki to play the songs how he wanted them from start to finish.

At the time, I had a very big, very impudent mouth. "The other members are writing songs too. You really need to distribute the songs evenly among us. You're the leader, but that doesn't mean you don't make mistakes."

The staff would stop us, and we would end up not speaking to each other.

The members would just think, "They're fighting again," and the staff would side with Yoshiki.

So I was left behind to fend for myself.

In that case, I shouldn't have talked to Yoshiki but rather to the staff. The fact was that it wasn't Yoshiki, but the people around him, who were trying to carry this out.

But even though I understood this in my head, for some reason I kept fighting Yoshiki head-on. In those days, maybe I was lost somewhere in the people around me who kept exaggerating the circumstances and trying to intervene. It was a long year for me, and I fought with all my friends; even though things changed around me, I couldn't change a thing.

For a while after that, I was the only one with a special contract. It was a studio musician contract. It was a result I brought upon myself, because I continued to fight for equal shares within the band.

Truthfully, because what I was doing was just being hurtful to X, what happened next was a foregone conclusion. Even now, I don't know whose idea it was, but I pray it wasn't Yoshiki's.

We just kept digging the ditch deeper and deeper. So during a conversation about royalties, everything was decided.

Yoshiki said, "Please quit."

And I answered, "I understand. I'll quit."

That was all I said. Yoshiki had only one reply to me.

"I'm sorry."

My blood was boiling, but that one word immediately made me go very still. But truthfully, I believe that inside that one word, "sorry," were hidden many other words.

However, because back then I was a stupid idiot who only took things at face value, I couldn't read that deeply into Yoshiki's words.

So then, accepting the terms that I was to stay until the end of the three day Tokyo Dome live, I began the countdown for me to leave the band.