Potato December 2009 Yaotome Hikaru x Yabu Kota

Potato December 2009 Hikaru x Yabu Pg. 8
Sadness and happiness to the member’s growth?!
We want to do more work with the ten of us!

Yaotome: The one that changed from Debut to now is Keito. And then Ryuutaro, Chinen…
Yabu: Yuto changed too. Yama-chan is relatively an adult, but even so he changed.
Yaotome: So basically 7 all changed. First of all, when they talk to us, it changed from formal (Keigo) to casual language. It’s a good change.
Yabu: In the first place, before we formed, I don’t think I had a chance to talk to Keito.
Yaotome: For me, I actually had some times when we would go home the same direction.
Yabu: Do you remember when you were nervous thinking “It’ll just be the two of us going home today.”? (Laugh)
Yaotome: I’m bad with silence or tension in the air, so I always nervously thought about what kind of things to talk about (laugh). I think it took about a year to be able to talk normally.
Yabu: My conversations with Keito were filled with caution points and commands like “It’s better if you did this.”
Yaotome: He also frantically taught choreography.
Yabu: Ryuutaro is like that too. There was a lot of things to be taught, but he was definitely despised because the way he said things was sometimes strict. (laugh)
Yaotome: When we’re nice we’re not taken seriously, and yet when we’re strict we’re destined to be despised. (laugh)
Yabu: But there’s also the responsibility that comes with a group’s formation, so it all can’t be just fun. As I’m serious(literally ‘desperate’) about this, even I become strict at times.
Yaotome: And for some reason, the two of us ended up getting the big brother positions. I had thought that we could just continue working as we were, but the others were like “you have to be getting things together since you’re older.” It was a harsh start.
Yabu: Because we’re scattered. To be honest, I was anxious whether we could keep things going with the ten of us.
Yaotome: Actually it was only anxiety back then (laugh). And we became irritated because of that. For BEST, even if our ages aren’t that different, the things they think of for the concerts are so different. We would be thinking about “What do we do for MC?” “I wonder if everyone is nervous?”, but Dai-chan’s just eating his bento as if nothing’s wrong (laugh).
Yabu: And then we’ll be angry. We’ll think, “Do you know how much we’re worrying over the concert!” If you think about it, everyone really changed.
Yaotome: Yeah. We worry less about the MC, and for the concert, everyone thinks about it on his own.
Yabu: Because we’re together all the time, we don’t notice the change, but when we talk about it likes this, it certainly changed.
Yaotome: Talking about the MC, Dai-chan often cried about it (laugh). Even introducing the songs, he’d be stumbling with his words.
Yabu: When there is a time for everyone to talk, there’s only a short reply like “yeah” (laugh). That just shows how much improvement we’ve made.
Yaotome: Now there are times where I would wanna insert tsukkomi like, “What kind of character was that supposed to be?” In the concert’s game corner or something, if anyone makes a mistake, everyone talks noisily, and then suddenly say “Because of this, the game is more fun” or something like that to conclude it!
Yabu: We’ve been able to be more conclusive about things (laugh).
Yaotome: But it seems like this has become a talk about troubles/hardships (laugh). Of course, there were tons of fun stuff that happened. Like being Volleyball supporters was fun. Right after our debut, all of our work made us nervous, the supporting side was able to overlook things, and able to relax a lot. The waiting time was long and the member were able to chat leisurely.
Yabu: That waiting time was valuable. There were members who were doing homework too (laugh).
Yaotome: Because it was our first live broadcast or relay experience, everyone independently practiced.
Yabu: We decided the assignments. Not only follow the script, but add something yourself or something.
Yaotome: How nostalgic. Now that you talk about it, Yabu took the Tsukkomi position, but wouldn’t you say that he’s now more Boke?
Yabu: You’re probably right. Sometimes I Boke and nobody Tsukkomis so I would think that oh, I shouldn’t be the one to Boke. But now Hikaru and Yama-chan follow up with Tsukkomi so I’m pretty relieved (laugh). Hikaru was initially a Boke, but now I would say that you’re more of a Tsukkomi.
Yaotome: You’re right. But you know, when we’ve all matured like this and they don’t need our support as they did before, wouldn’t we get a bit lonely?
Yabu: Probably. Somehow I feel like a parent (laugh).
Yaotome: Even when if we say that it’s all troublesome/exhausting, there might be a part of us that enjoys taking care of the others. And I think that that ultimately gives us more experience and we mature because of that.
Yabu: For sure. The fact that the two years went by so quickly shows just how fun and fulfilling this has all been. I hope we can begin to tackle new projects. It’ll be interesting if we did a movie with the ten of us, right?
Yaotome: Sounds fun. In the end, I want to do more work with the ten of us. Because besides concerts, there’s not that much things we do as the ten of us. When we stand on a different stage, I want to see what it’s like.