SECTION 4
IROKOI [AFFAIRS OF LOVE]

3. Kuruma to Jousei no Soukan Kankei
[The Correlation between Women and Cars]

Next are cars. If you were to describe in one word the car that I drive now, it would be "spaceship."

The first time Hyde (L'Arc~en~Ciel) rode in my car, the first thing he said was: "What is this?"

I said, "A car," and he said "Gacchan, you're an alien."

Certainly, you can't find another car like this anywhere. If you take my feelings on it seriously, I even think that it might fly.

Though it's a spaceship, the interior is not metallic, but rather has a "Hermes" feeling. It's not gorgeous, it's "Hermes."

I think the interior goes ten years ahead. After all, I change it every 8 months or so.

To me, my car is a moving office – no, a moving living space. I have been very thorough in picking it out.

Talking about car models, these past few years I've been driving an American car. It's the 4th or 5th one out of the cars I have [#1, see note at bottom]. It's red. I've had a white one and a blue one, but my basic color is red.

If you ask me why an American car, I say that only the new rich who flaunt their money buy Mercedes Benzes, and Ferraris make you look like a famous personality who has sold out.

Originally, the Ferrari was my favorite car. However, if successful people sell out, they have a tendency to buy Ferraris. So then, I started really hating them.

A Ferrari is really hard to ride in – it's difficult to drive. So only within the group of people who have sold out and bought a Ferrari, there are people with horrible driving skills.

When I came to Tokyo, I really felt that way. So, all the people driving Ferraris began to look very uncool. To people who truly love Ferraris, that's inexcusable.

With all of that, all things considered, I felt in my heart that an American car suited me. Not a German car, not an Italian car, but an American car.

I feel that my standards for choosing a car and my standards for choosing a girl are very similar. The kind of car that I like and the kind of girl that I like are very close, I think.

Selfish, bold and saucy, but sexy with a great body. A girl like that. Sometimes when I'm feeling sad, I don't want to talk to her. However, if I'm feeling gentle, I want her to return my feelings. That's the feeling that American cars have.

Japanese cars are no fun. They're always good girls.

Girls don't ride in my passenger seat very often. I can say that my car gives off a girlish feeling by itself, so to speak. If I'm giving a girl a ride, I feel like my car gets in a really bad mood. Probably because it's a moody car, it gets more guys than girls riding in its passenger seat.

In my car, there's the romance I look for. To put it in other words, my car is that important to me.

However, most girls don't understand that. So I don't want them riding next to me.

When they see my car, they say to me lightly, "Oh, how pretty!"

"They say it's pretty so easily," I think to myself.

I wish they wouldn't treat my car in such a careless way.

And then, they usually slam the door with a bang! If they do that, privately I swear in my heart, "She's never getting another ride in my car!"

I want them to treat my car like it's important. It's very important to me. When I shut it off quietly with a click, it always gets a thank you from me.

My father liked high-class cars too. When I was a child, if I slammed the car door, he would make me shut it over and over. Because of this influence, I am sensitive to how people close the car door.

I can tell what kind of personality a person has from the way he or she closes the car door.

For example, let's say I'm taking a girl back to her house in my car.

The girl closes the door gently with a click. When she gets out of the car, she says something outside the window. I open the window, and she says "Take care," and waves with a smile.

While thinking, "wow, she's great," I start the car and leave. I make a U-turn and try to return back around to the front of her house, and she is still there waving.

"I want to take her home again…." I think honestly.

However, there are surprisingly very few girls like her. Ordinary girls go, "Bye, take care, thanks!" and as soon as they wave from the car, they slam the door with a hard bang, and then briskly walk away.

I can't forgive that kind of attitude. While she's grasping the door handle, these dark words flit through my mind.

"I'm going to run her down!"

Though it's probably because she doesn't know anything about cars and driving, if a girl doesn't know how to put on her seatbelt and noisily keeps pulling on it, she honestly seems very plain. There have been girls that I've taken around who have no idea where to buckle their seatbelt.

Though it's all right to ask me, they don't ask. There have also been girls who took their own seatbelt and buckled it to my seatbelt on the driver's side.

What makes me the most angry is girls who lean forward in the right passenger seat and look out at the right side of the road when I go around a turn. I really don't understand why they do such an unnecessary thing, but they do it a lot.

"Your head's in the way. Don't look around like that," I want to shout in spite of myself.

That really makes me angry. Am I not trusted by you? I feel like saying.

With a passenger in the car, a partnership is necessary. I don't feel like the other person is being given a ride, but rather we are both riding together. Trusting in my driving and not being a hindrance are the main principles. To ride in the passenger seat, you need to be prepared to do it.

If I take a girl out in my car, I always see a part of the girl that I don't like.

Since this is the case, I rarely take girls out for a drive.