X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
16. Yoshiki

It has been 16 years since I first met Yoshiki.

Yoshiki, the one who introduced me to X. Yoshiki, the one who made me quit X. Yoshiki has always been the one holding the key to my life. I think that perhaps he is the most intelligent person I have ever met.

He founded X with Toshi in Chiba's Tateyama City. Then obviously they advanced to Tokyo, and by the time anyone noticed, he had already sucked into his own band all the great names from the bands around him. Such great timing and his skill at choosing people could be called "genius."

After the five of us had joined X, we grew so quickly it was frightening. Yoshiki's musical conceptualizations flowed out shockingly one by one, and brought about such a pleasant feeling that I had never ever felt before. But at the same time, I wondered if I was the only one who thought that maybe we were trying to live a little too quickly…? With such a rapid speed, floating adrift, it was also repellant. Every day was both tense and uplifting.

The relationship between me and Yoshiki isn't something that I can speak about. So let me continue to give examples of how I see him.

He was a selfish, spoiled child but still lent an ear to the opinions of people around him; he was actually only worried about what happened to himself but still was a kind parent to others; he was innocent to anything outside music but he carried a kindness within himself; he was exceptionally proud, a sore loser, and a hard to like man.

Furthermore, he was an action man of foresight, and an idea man who would act upon even the most outrageous idea. If that could be put together easily, wouldn't we get a hardworking man, a legendary man, a very human, masochistic, sort of man?

If I try to put it like that, then to this day I think that because I also kept trying again and again to reach my goal, mightn't we be considered two people who greatly resemble each other?

The face of a beautiful angel and the face of a grieving devil. I believe that those two faces, so hard to live with, make up the human being that is Yoshiki.