Hey! Say! JUMP - Duet! January 2021 (English Translation)
Warm and cozy with two people.
A warm time spent together.
Hey! Say! JUMP talked about the theme of "together" this month. JUMP talked about the time they spend with the members, their family and friends, and their time spent alone.
Yamada Ryosuke
Before this interview, we had a recording of "School Kakumei!" and Chinen and I talked about playing games when we got home. Actually, I was able to get two of those new game consoles that are really popular right now, and I gave one to Chinen. And we're going to play together today ♪ The other day, something funny happened in our JUMP group chat. Yuya wrote, "When is the shoot for 'xx' (the name of the magazine)? It was Yuya's job alone, and he usually communicates with his manager privately, but he just wrote it in the group chat by mistake. In response to that, Yabu-kun said, "I'll check," and Dai-chan replied, "I don't know about (that job) yet" (laughs). After Yuya sent a message saying, "Sorry, I made a mistake!", I sent him one saying, "I would've misread the name of that magazine in the past." (T/N: It has an English title. I suspect it's Fineboys) Then Yuya said, "Thanks (for making fun of me)" and Hika said, "I've been laughing at this all morning!!" I don't get to spend much time with the members these days because of the new coronavirus, but we have fun like this.
For the first time in four months, I met my mum and we went to buy my sister a birthday present. But my mum had already prepared a present for her, so I was the only one who bought one. I wanted to give her what she wanted, so I had a video chat with her from the store and showed her all the different things and asked her which one she wanted, and I let her choose. But the video call was on speaker, right? I felt really embarrassed because everyone around me could hear our conversation (laughs). After buying her a present, my dad joined us and the three of us had yakiniku together. It's been a long time since we've had such a relaxing time together, so it was nice.
When I'm alone I play games. But I don't often have to sacrifice my sleep for it. For the last six months, I've been working on my body, going through a period of "adjustment" where I'm on a stoic diet, and a period of "rest" where I don't have to be so strict. During the adjustment period, I would boil chicken and vegetables without seasoning and eat it with wasabi, but now I'm free from that restriction and I don't cook for myself. I'm happy to be able to eat as much as I want these days.
Chinen Yuri
I went out with Daiki to eat for the first time in a while. To be precise, we went out with a mutual friend of ours for yakitori. At the time we talked about music. Our friend works for a music show, so we talked a lot about how interesting a certain artists performance was and how we could do something like that next time. This is a normal conversation for us, and we had a lot of fun with Daiki telling us what songs and artists he noticed. Other than that, Ryosuke and I play online games together. He's very busy at the moment and must be very tired, but he says that playing games is the best way to relax, so we played together yesterday. As you can tell, Ryosuke's much more experienced than me, and he's always so lively when he plays (laughs).
My mum sends me a text every day saying "good morning" or "do you have work tomorrow?" and I reply to her properly. I'm sure she's wondering if there's anything she can do for her son, so I don't just ignore it or reply with an emoji, I reply with words. Also, I mentioned in last month's issue that I met with a friend who I had met with in an online game for the first time, and after that, I met him again with more friends. Like last time, we were just "people who were already good friends online but we'd never met before", so we greeted each other in a relaxed way, like, "Nice to meet you~" We all hit it off and talked about going to an amusement park next time, but I couldn't make it. I just told them to have fun!
When I'm alone, I listen to music or play games. I'm still addicted to battle royale games, but rather than becoming better, I'm now more interested in using the keyboard on the computer than using the controller. Since it's originally a game for the PC, I thought it would be more standard to play with a keyboard. I've also been doing a bit of weight training and running outside. I've got some 5kg and 10kg dumbbells at home that I've been using to work out my arms and pecs, but even the 5kg ones are pretty heavy and tough!
Nakajima Yuto
It's not like we did it together, but I worked out in the same space as Yamada for just a few minutes (laughs). When I went to the gym and was signing my name at the reception desk, I saw "Yamada Ryosuke" written above, so I knew "Ah, he's here!" But he came in about 45 minutes before, so I thought he might not be here anymore. But he was still there, shirtless and working out hard. He looked really cool~ We didn't really talk to each other much as we were both training, but he noticed me and said "Hey~", and I asked him, "Why are you shirtless?" and he said, "Because I can see if I've buffed up or not". I thought that was the reason?! But you have to be a confident person to do that. I'm so skinny, I try my best to look at my body in the mirror over my clothes like, "Hey, am I getting a little fat?" (laughs).
I don't get to see my family very often, but my brother and I play a lot of online shooting games. It's a futuristic game where special forces fight with drones and modern equipment. We play in pairs, so we can use voice chat to say the enemy is coming from the west and ask each other which way should we attack. It's fun to cover for each other and I'm addicted to it!
I've developed a habit of buying things online in the middle of the night when I'm alone (laughs). I've been thinking that I'd like to play airsoft when the world settles down, and I wanted to be a bit obsessed about the equipment I'll use. I was looking on the internet for replicas of American and German military equipment, from clothes to airguns to accessories, and I found a lot of stuff in my cart that I had never seen before. I thought it was amazing. (laughs) I put it on hold and thought about it again the next morning and said, "I don't need this," and eliminated some of them before buying them. Also, since I started going to the gym, I've been buying more and more protein from foreign websites. I buy the protein that trainers at the gym and Yamada tell me about. Yamada is now a muscle expert who knows all about nutrients and supplements. I rely on him!
Yaotome Hikaru
You know that Yabu did a live broadcast of an international soccer match on WOWOW the other day on their secondary channel? I thought, "This is a first, and it'll be something special," so I signed up for WOWOW and even though it was late at night, I watched the entire programme and the match. Of course, on their secondary channel. Even for someone like me who doesn't know much about soccer, it was a lot of fun because the match was between two famous teams. Yabu was very knowledgable and easy to follow. So when I met him the other day, I said "I watched it. Your reporting was really interesting!" And I said to him, "When someone comes to score a goal, you say 'Oops!'" and he said, "I did, I did!" and laughed. He wasn't surprised that I'd watched the game myself as I'd written a little bit about it on my blog on Johnny's Web, so I guess he knew about it (laughs).
I play a lot of games with my juniors from Johnny's group. In terms of new friendships, I've started to play games with Fujii-kun (Naoki) from Bishounen and he really helps me a lot in games. Fujii-kun is good at everything, but he's especially good at battle royale games. The way he whispers when he says, "Yaotome-san, there's an enemy coming from behind" is really cool (laughs). Then I remembered that someone once told me "There's a Jr. that looks like you," and that was Fujii-kun. When the three of us including Takahashi Kaito were playing games together, Fujii-kun said "I was told I looked like Yaotome-san even before I became a Jr." Kaito and Fujii-kun also look alike, don't they? The three of us laughed and said, "We have the same facial structure, don't we?"
Before it got so cold I used to go camping by myself, but nowadays I tend to play games when I'm alone. I don't play online games, I tend to play mystery or horror games by myself. I also read the manga "Demon Slayer". Speaking of which, I recently went and saw the movie adaptation with a friend and the ending made me want to read a story that would make me cry, so I bought about four books at once and I just sit around at home and read them!
Yabu Kota
When I meet Chinen at work, the first thing we talk about is the latest soccer news. Today we were talking about "Did you see the Real Madrid game yesterday? Sergio Ramos scored his 100th goal, didn't he?" with real excitement. We're both Madristas, you know (laughs). Also, Inoo-chan seems to be addicted to the sauna these days. Dai-chan invited Inoo-chan to join me, Yuya and Dai-chan's sauna-loving group chat, so now there's four of us. We use it to say where we went today and to report on the crowds, and Inoo-chan posts pictures of the entrance to saunas and asks us quizzes like, "Where is this?" Yesterday, I went to a public bath and sent a message saying, "I came here today. It was really nice~" and Yuya sent one back saying, "I was there 10 minutes ago", and I was like, "Really?" I didn't expect us to just miss each other (laughs). These days, with the sauna fad, the public baths in town are all crowded. I've been going to public baths since I was about 20 years old, so I remember the days when you could go to a public bath and not find a single person. So even though it's crowded, I'm glad to see it's come back to life.
I met with my grandma and grandpa after a long time. I usually shake hands when I meet them, but because of the world we live in now, I made it a fist bump (laughs). We only had about half an hour to talk, but I was surprised to hear that my grandpa was awarded an order by the Emperor of Japan in 2020 for his long years of service on the front line! He doesn't often brag about his work, but he was really happy about this and showed me the certificate. It was amazing and I really respected him for it. So I want to give him a proper celebration. But he's too old to eat out, so I'm hoping the world will settle down soon!
When I'm alone, I spend my time watching anime and sports videos. I'll watch a soccer match and look things up at the same time, or play a game on my phone. If I'm watching an anime, I'll think "Who was that voice actor again?" and I'll look up the voice actor and think, "Oh, that's the person who did that character!" "We're from the same place. If I met them, we could talk about the same things..." I have these delusions that I don't really understand (laughs).
Takaki Yuya
I'm the kind of person who likes to relax on my own when I have free time, even when all the members are together for work, so I don't stay in the dressing room, I go back to the van. That's why you don't see much of me in the making of JUMP's MVs when everyone's chattering away (laughs). On top of that, it was only until recently that we had to do magazine shoots separately to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and even now I'm alone in the dressing room for "Itadaki High Jump", so it's getting harder to spend time with the members. The four of us who like saunas, Arioka-kun, Yabu-kun, Inoo-kun and me, have been sending group messages to each other on a daily basis, saying "This place was great!" and "This time is open!" and we exchange information about saunas with photos. So yesterday I said that I went to a sauna, so I was talking with Arioka-kun in the make-up room about the sauna I went to yesterday (laughs).
In these times, I don't feel comfortable going out for dinner, so I meet my friends at home. Many of my friends are already married and have children, so we get together with a few families, and then us singles join in. Of course, we're very careful when we do that. So if we get together at my home, we pitch a tent on my veranda where the air doesn't get trapped and we have a barbecue. But really recently, one of my friends called me and said that he got a good dry-cured ham, so we went to his house. At the time I got him a melon as a gift. I didn't mean it like, "If you have dry-cured ham, here's a melon!" I just bought it because it looked delicious. My friend's wife served me melon wrapped with the dry-cured ham, and it was delicious!
When I'm alone, I tend to drive a lot. Basically, I drive every day. I don't have a specific destination in mind, but if I think "I've never been to the left of this road before", I go that way and sometimes end up in a place where I'm like, "Where is this?", or I just drive along the road that's easy for my car to drive on. I think a lot of people who love cars are like that. I also watch movies at home or go to the sauna. I go to the sauna four or five times a week, although I'm not always alone (laughs).
Inoo Kei
Recently I went to the sauna with Arioka-san. We had finished our work together and I had another job coming up soon, but I had some time to kill before then. I asked him "What are you going to do?" and he said "I'm going to the sauna", so I went with him. I'll tell you why I wasn't really interested in saunas later... but the sauna was nice. When you go to a sauna with someone who likes it, you have the impression that they're going to force you to be particular about things like how you enter, but Dai-chan's gone beyond that and has become understanding. He's got an open mind and he says, "Just go in freely," so it was really easy for me. Although the timing of entering the sauna and waterbath was somewhat the same, it didn't mean we had to be together all the time, and it was nice to be able to go at my own pace. I felt refreshed.
I hadn't seen my friend for a while, and when I asked him where he was, he said he was at the gym, which has a bath and sauna open to visitors, so I went there and joined him in the bath and sauna. I thought, "Ah~ this is nice". It's a "story where I spent time with someone besides the members", and this was why I started going to the sauna, because I never went to the sauna because I was a bit pervasive and I didn't want to follow the trends and don't like the hot or cold (laughs). The only other time I spent with anyone was with another friend and we went out for motsunabe.
When I'm alone, I'm always on my phone. I read the news, watch videos, look up things I'm interested in... but it's amazing because time flies when I'm doing that. Surprisingly, I watch a lot of music videos from our juniors, such as Sexy Zone, SixTONES and Snow Man. I think, "All the groups are going down an artist route nowadays, and their videos are so elaborate". By the way, what I've been looking up recently is breaking news about the US presidential election (laughs). Because that's something even Japanese people should be interested in, right?
Arioka Daiki
Recently, me and Chinen were doing our make-up in the make-up room. Then Takaki, who hadn't had his turn to do his make-up yet, came in and started talking to me about saunas. He said, "I really like this sauna" and "I'd like to go there". So, Takaki looked up images of saunas in the area on his phone and said, "Isn't this water bath amazing?" We were both getting excited the whole time I was doing my make-up. And then Chinen, who couldn't just sit by and watch us, yelled at us, "How much do you two talk about saunas?" (laughs). Then Yabu came in and said "I know I'm late, but I have a birthday present for you!" and gave me a book of coupons that I could use at various public baths in Tokyo. I was also happy that Yabu had put it in a bag with a picture of a cute character he had drawn himself. We've been doing interviews one by one for the past few months, so it's been a long time since I've had a chance to talk to the members while we're getting out make-up done, so it was a really fun time!
I went shopping in the Harajuku area for the first time in a long time with a friend who doesn't really care about fashion, and who wants to "coordinate his entire outfits". He's really stocky and only wears shorts all year round, so his options are limited, including his sizes. So I called another friend and we went to about 4 shops and with the help of the staff we managed to get it done (laughs). It suited him well and he was so happy with it that he wanted a second one! (laughs). It's the first time I've been to so many shops just for someone else without buying anything for myself. But it was a lot of fun. He only wears shorts, but he bought a pair of long pants that I recommended to him, saying "these are for mid-winter", which made me really happy.
Even when I'm alone, I'm still all about the sauna. I usually go to the sauna alone because I want to be able to relax at my own pace. I get a lot of ideas for work in the sauna. I find that thinking in the heat helps me to concentrate a bit, and after a water bath I can just let my mind go. After the water bath, I reset my mind to zero and then go back to the sauna to think. This repetition is very important for me.
A warm time spent together.
Hey! Say! JUMP talked about the theme of "together" this month. JUMP talked about the time they spend with the members, their family and friends, and their time spent alone.
Yamada Ryosuke
Before this interview, we had a recording of "School Kakumei!" and Chinen and I talked about playing games when we got home. Actually, I was able to get two of those new game consoles that are really popular right now, and I gave one to Chinen. And we're going to play together today ♪ The other day, something funny happened in our JUMP group chat. Yuya wrote, "When is the shoot for 'xx' (the name of the magazine)? It was Yuya's job alone, and he usually communicates with his manager privately, but he just wrote it in the group chat by mistake. In response to that, Yabu-kun said, "I'll check," and Dai-chan replied, "I don't know about (that job) yet" (laughs). After Yuya sent a message saying, "Sorry, I made a mistake!", I sent him one saying, "I would've misread the name of that magazine in the past." (T/N: It has an English title. I suspect it's Fineboys) Then Yuya said, "Thanks (for making fun of me)" and Hika said, "I've been laughing at this all morning!!" I don't get to spend much time with the members these days because of the new coronavirus, but we have fun like this.
For the first time in four months, I met my mum and we went to buy my sister a birthday present. But my mum had already prepared a present for her, so I was the only one who bought one. I wanted to give her what she wanted, so I had a video chat with her from the store and showed her all the different things and asked her which one she wanted, and I let her choose. But the video call was on speaker, right? I felt really embarrassed because everyone around me could hear our conversation (laughs). After buying her a present, my dad joined us and the three of us had yakiniku together. It's been a long time since we've had such a relaxing time together, so it was nice.
When I'm alone I play games. But I don't often have to sacrifice my sleep for it. For the last six months, I've been working on my body, going through a period of "adjustment" where I'm on a stoic diet, and a period of "rest" where I don't have to be so strict. During the adjustment period, I would boil chicken and vegetables without seasoning and eat it with wasabi, but now I'm free from that restriction and I don't cook for myself. I'm happy to be able to eat as much as I want these days.
Chinen Yuri
I went out with Daiki to eat for the first time in a while. To be precise, we went out with a mutual friend of ours for yakitori. At the time we talked about music. Our friend works for a music show, so we talked a lot about how interesting a certain artists performance was and how we could do something like that next time. This is a normal conversation for us, and we had a lot of fun with Daiki telling us what songs and artists he noticed. Other than that, Ryosuke and I play online games together. He's very busy at the moment and must be very tired, but he says that playing games is the best way to relax, so we played together yesterday. As you can tell, Ryosuke's much more experienced than me, and he's always so lively when he plays (laughs).
My mum sends me a text every day saying "good morning" or "do you have work tomorrow?" and I reply to her properly. I'm sure she's wondering if there's anything she can do for her son, so I don't just ignore it or reply with an emoji, I reply with words. Also, I mentioned in last month's issue that I met with a friend who I had met with in an online game for the first time, and after that, I met him again with more friends. Like last time, we were just "people who were already good friends online but we'd never met before", so we greeted each other in a relaxed way, like, "Nice to meet you~" We all hit it off and talked about going to an amusement park next time, but I couldn't make it. I just told them to have fun!
When I'm alone, I listen to music or play games. I'm still addicted to battle royale games, but rather than becoming better, I'm now more interested in using the keyboard on the computer than using the controller. Since it's originally a game for the PC, I thought it would be more standard to play with a keyboard. I've also been doing a bit of weight training and running outside. I've got some 5kg and 10kg dumbbells at home that I've been using to work out my arms and pecs, but even the 5kg ones are pretty heavy and tough!
Nakajima Yuto
It's not like we did it together, but I worked out in the same space as Yamada for just a few minutes (laughs). When I went to the gym and was signing my name at the reception desk, I saw "Yamada Ryosuke" written above, so I knew "Ah, he's here!" But he came in about 45 minutes before, so I thought he might not be here anymore. But he was still there, shirtless and working out hard. He looked really cool~ We didn't really talk to each other much as we were both training, but he noticed me and said "Hey~", and I asked him, "Why are you shirtless?" and he said, "Because I can see if I've buffed up or not". I thought that was the reason?! But you have to be a confident person to do that. I'm so skinny, I try my best to look at my body in the mirror over my clothes like, "Hey, am I getting a little fat?" (laughs).
I don't get to see my family very often, but my brother and I play a lot of online shooting games. It's a futuristic game where special forces fight with drones and modern equipment. We play in pairs, so we can use voice chat to say the enemy is coming from the west and ask each other which way should we attack. It's fun to cover for each other and I'm addicted to it!
I've developed a habit of buying things online in the middle of the night when I'm alone (laughs). I've been thinking that I'd like to play airsoft when the world settles down, and I wanted to be a bit obsessed about the equipment I'll use. I was looking on the internet for replicas of American and German military equipment, from clothes to airguns to accessories, and I found a lot of stuff in my cart that I had never seen before. I thought it was amazing. (laughs) I put it on hold and thought about it again the next morning and said, "I don't need this," and eliminated some of them before buying them. Also, since I started going to the gym, I've been buying more and more protein from foreign websites. I buy the protein that trainers at the gym and Yamada tell me about. Yamada is now a muscle expert who knows all about nutrients and supplements. I rely on him!
Yaotome Hikaru
You know that Yabu did a live broadcast of an international soccer match on WOWOW the other day on their secondary channel? I thought, "This is a first, and it'll be something special," so I signed up for WOWOW and even though it was late at night, I watched the entire programme and the match. Of course, on their secondary channel. Even for someone like me who doesn't know much about soccer, it was a lot of fun because the match was between two famous teams. Yabu was very knowledgable and easy to follow. So when I met him the other day, I said "I watched it. Your reporting was really interesting!" And I said to him, "When someone comes to score a goal, you say 'Oops!'" and he said, "I did, I did!" and laughed. He wasn't surprised that I'd watched the game myself as I'd written a little bit about it on my blog on Johnny's Web, so I guess he knew about it (laughs).
I play a lot of games with my juniors from Johnny's group. In terms of new friendships, I've started to play games with Fujii-kun (Naoki) from Bishounen and he really helps me a lot in games. Fujii-kun is good at everything, but he's especially good at battle royale games. The way he whispers when he says, "Yaotome-san, there's an enemy coming from behind" is really cool (laughs). Then I remembered that someone once told me "There's a Jr. that looks like you," and that was Fujii-kun. When the three of us including Takahashi Kaito were playing games together, Fujii-kun said "I was told I looked like Yaotome-san even before I became a Jr." Kaito and Fujii-kun also look alike, don't they? The three of us laughed and said, "We have the same facial structure, don't we?"
Before it got so cold I used to go camping by myself, but nowadays I tend to play games when I'm alone. I don't play online games, I tend to play mystery or horror games by myself. I also read the manga "Demon Slayer". Speaking of which, I recently went and saw the movie adaptation with a friend and the ending made me want to read a story that would make me cry, so I bought about four books at once and I just sit around at home and read them!
Yabu Kota
When I meet Chinen at work, the first thing we talk about is the latest soccer news. Today we were talking about "Did you see the Real Madrid game yesterday? Sergio Ramos scored his 100th goal, didn't he?" with real excitement. We're both Madristas, you know (laughs). Also, Inoo-chan seems to be addicted to the sauna these days. Dai-chan invited Inoo-chan to join me, Yuya and Dai-chan's sauna-loving group chat, so now there's four of us. We use it to say where we went today and to report on the crowds, and Inoo-chan posts pictures of the entrance to saunas and asks us quizzes like, "Where is this?" Yesterday, I went to a public bath and sent a message saying, "I came here today. It was really nice~" and Yuya sent one back saying, "I was there 10 minutes ago", and I was like, "Really?" I didn't expect us to just miss each other (laughs). These days, with the sauna fad, the public baths in town are all crowded. I've been going to public baths since I was about 20 years old, so I remember the days when you could go to a public bath and not find a single person. So even though it's crowded, I'm glad to see it's come back to life.
I met with my grandma and grandpa after a long time. I usually shake hands when I meet them, but because of the world we live in now, I made it a fist bump (laughs). We only had about half an hour to talk, but I was surprised to hear that my grandpa was awarded an order by the Emperor of Japan in 2020 for his long years of service on the front line! He doesn't often brag about his work, but he was really happy about this and showed me the certificate. It was amazing and I really respected him for it. So I want to give him a proper celebration. But he's too old to eat out, so I'm hoping the world will settle down soon!
When I'm alone, I spend my time watching anime and sports videos. I'll watch a soccer match and look things up at the same time, or play a game on my phone. If I'm watching an anime, I'll think "Who was that voice actor again?" and I'll look up the voice actor and think, "Oh, that's the person who did that character!" "We're from the same place. If I met them, we could talk about the same things..." I have these delusions that I don't really understand (laughs).
Takaki Yuya
I'm the kind of person who likes to relax on my own when I have free time, even when all the members are together for work, so I don't stay in the dressing room, I go back to the van. That's why you don't see much of me in the making of JUMP's MVs when everyone's chattering away (laughs). On top of that, it was only until recently that we had to do magazine shoots separately to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and even now I'm alone in the dressing room for "Itadaki High Jump", so it's getting harder to spend time with the members. The four of us who like saunas, Arioka-kun, Yabu-kun, Inoo-kun and me, have been sending group messages to each other on a daily basis, saying "This place was great!" and "This time is open!" and we exchange information about saunas with photos. So yesterday I said that I went to a sauna, so I was talking with Arioka-kun in the make-up room about the sauna I went to yesterday (laughs).
In these times, I don't feel comfortable going out for dinner, so I meet my friends at home. Many of my friends are already married and have children, so we get together with a few families, and then us singles join in. Of course, we're very careful when we do that. So if we get together at my home, we pitch a tent on my veranda where the air doesn't get trapped and we have a barbecue. But really recently, one of my friends called me and said that he got a good dry-cured ham, so we went to his house. At the time I got him a melon as a gift. I didn't mean it like, "If you have dry-cured ham, here's a melon!" I just bought it because it looked delicious. My friend's wife served me melon wrapped with the dry-cured ham, and it was delicious!
When I'm alone, I tend to drive a lot. Basically, I drive every day. I don't have a specific destination in mind, but if I think "I've never been to the left of this road before", I go that way and sometimes end up in a place where I'm like, "Where is this?", or I just drive along the road that's easy for my car to drive on. I think a lot of people who love cars are like that. I also watch movies at home or go to the sauna. I go to the sauna four or five times a week, although I'm not always alone (laughs).
Inoo Kei
Recently I went to the sauna with Arioka-san. We had finished our work together and I had another job coming up soon, but I had some time to kill before then. I asked him "What are you going to do?" and he said "I'm going to the sauna", so I went with him. I'll tell you why I wasn't really interested in saunas later... but the sauna was nice. When you go to a sauna with someone who likes it, you have the impression that they're going to force you to be particular about things like how you enter, but Dai-chan's gone beyond that and has become understanding. He's got an open mind and he says, "Just go in freely," so it was really easy for me. Although the timing of entering the sauna and waterbath was somewhat the same, it didn't mean we had to be together all the time, and it was nice to be able to go at my own pace. I felt refreshed.
I hadn't seen my friend for a while, and when I asked him where he was, he said he was at the gym, which has a bath and sauna open to visitors, so I went there and joined him in the bath and sauna. I thought, "Ah~ this is nice". It's a "story where I spent time with someone besides the members", and this was why I started going to the sauna, because I never went to the sauna because I was a bit pervasive and I didn't want to follow the trends and don't like the hot or cold (laughs). The only other time I spent with anyone was with another friend and we went out for motsunabe.
When I'm alone, I'm always on my phone. I read the news, watch videos, look up things I'm interested in... but it's amazing because time flies when I'm doing that. Surprisingly, I watch a lot of music videos from our juniors, such as Sexy Zone, SixTONES and Snow Man. I think, "All the groups are going down an artist route nowadays, and their videos are so elaborate". By the way, what I've been looking up recently is breaking news about the US presidential election (laughs). Because that's something even Japanese people should be interested in, right?
Arioka Daiki
Recently, me and Chinen were doing our make-up in the make-up room. Then Takaki, who hadn't had his turn to do his make-up yet, came in and started talking to me about saunas. He said, "I really like this sauna" and "I'd like to go there". So, Takaki looked up images of saunas in the area on his phone and said, "Isn't this water bath amazing?" We were both getting excited the whole time I was doing my make-up. And then Chinen, who couldn't just sit by and watch us, yelled at us, "How much do you two talk about saunas?" (laughs). Then Yabu came in and said "I know I'm late, but I have a birthday present for you!" and gave me a book of coupons that I could use at various public baths in Tokyo. I was also happy that Yabu had put it in a bag with a picture of a cute character he had drawn himself. We've been doing interviews one by one for the past few months, so it's been a long time since I've had a chance to talk to the members while we're getting out make-up done, so it was a really fun time!
I went shopping in the Harajuku area for the first time in a long time with a friend who doesn't really care about fashion, and who wants to "coordinate his entire outfits". He's really stocky and only wears shorts all year round, so his options are limited, including his sizes. So I called another friend and we went to about 4 shops and with the help of the staff we managed to get it done (laughs). It suited him well and he was so happy with it that he wanted a second one! (laughs). It's the first time I've been to so many shops just for someone else without buying anything for myself. But it was a lot of fun. He only wears shorts, but he bought a pair of long pants that I recommended to him, saying "these are for mid-winter", which made me really happy.
Even when I'm alone, I'm still all about the sauna. I usually go to the sauna alone because I want to be able to relax at my own pace. I get a lot of ideas for work in the sauna. I find that thinking in the heat helps me to concentrate a bit, and after a water bath I can just let my mind go. After the water bath, I reset my mind to zero and then go back to the sauna to think. This repetition is very important for me.