Chapter 84

After learning about the specific situation of self-publishing from Imamura Yuto, Akiwara Yuto rejected the other party's proposal to go play pachinko together, waved his hand, and left the cafe.

He walked while thinking.

Now it seems that the funding gap is a full 5.5 million yen, which is almost equivalent to the half-year salary of a senior white-collar worker.

This money is not much, but it is not small.

If he is willing to ask acquaintances like Imamura Yuto and Seto Tamae, it is conceivable that he can borrow it.

But he didn't want to borrow money from the bottom of his heart. After all, once he borrowed money, his relationship with the other party would also change subtly.

What's more, because of the remarks made by Seto Tamae at the awards ceremony, he already owed a lot of favors, and it was even more embarrassing to disturb the other party.

Apart from this, what other channels are there?

At this time, he suddenly saw a billboard for a host on the side of the road, on which 5 men dressed like non-mainstream were using postures they thought were handsome to show off their "male color."

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he suddenly remembered the reports he had seen, which stated that the income of RB hosts was tens of millions of yen a year, and many people even had millions of yen in one night, which was much more than his manuscript fee.

Akiwara Yuto complained in his heart, and then saw a bank under the billboard, and a thought suddenly popped up.

By the way, can he borrow money from the bank?

Although because of the contract, his "ZOO" series can only be entrusted to Mantanshe for publication within 3 years, the copyright of the work is still in his hands.

In other words, he can ignore Mantanshe and directly mortgage the copyright in his hand to the bank, and use this to exchange for the funds he needs.

He lowered his head and thought, the more he pondered, the more feasible he found it.

After confirming, his mood relaxed, and then he walked to a nearby post office and sent a letter he had written at home before.

The recipient of this letter is Asano Aiko, and his purpose of sending the letter is to let the other party understand his determination to work hard together.

To be honest, doing so is just a last resort. After all, now whether it is a phone call or a message, he cannot contact the other party.

Hope the other party can understand his meaning from the content of the letter.

After sending the letter, he hurried back home.

Next, he has to consider which work to write.

After returning home, Akiwara Yuto simply ate a bowl of instant noodles, sat in front of the table, spread out the paper, held the pen, and began to think.

Before this, his purpose was to serialize, so he was always wondering whether to write a short story collection or a long story.

But now, if he wants to self-publish, there is no need to consider. It must be based on long novels, and it must be based on books that have had bestseller results in Nihon before.

After all, adapting foreign works not only takes a lot of time and energy, but also doesn't know if it will encounter symptoms of water and soil incompatibility in the Nihon market.

Akiwara Yuto thought for a long time, wrote down "Train," "The Devotion of Suspect X," "Journey Under the Midnight Sun," "The Zodiac Murders," and "The Decagon House Murders" on the paper. After thinking for a long time, he crossed out most of the works' names, leaving only "Train" and "Suspect X."

Leaving these two works, he naturally has his own thoughts.

"Train" is a work by Miyabe Miyuki, published in 1992, which is not much different from the current time, and has received very high evaluations.

"The Devotion of Suspect X" is a work by Keigo Higashino. Although it was only published in 2005, the background he depicted was the 1990s, so there is no need to worry about readers feeling abrupt when reading it.

So these two works can both sell well, right?

But speaking of which, which one should he choose?

Akiwara Yuto thought for a while, and finally decided to write "The Devotion of Suspect X." After all, in terms of economic benefits, although "Train" also has film and television adaptations, the box office and the number of remakes are far inferior to "Suspect," and this is a not-so-small income.

Recalling the content of the books he had read in his past life, Akiwara Yuto began to write stumbling.

"At 7:35 in the morning, Ishigami left the apartment as usual. Although it was already March, the wind was quite cold. He buried his chin in his scarf and stepped out. Before walking onto the road, he first glanced at the bicycle parking lot. There were several cars parked there, but there was no green bicycle he cared about."

Akiwara Yuto kept recalling while writing. After all, the memory was a bit long ago, and he could only imitate a general idea. Some plots were supplemented by the content of the film version.

By the next morning, he had only written about 10,000 words. According to this progress, if he wants to finish the whole "The Devotion of Suspect X," it will take a full 2 weeks or so.

In order to facilitate his "seclusion," he rejected all invitations to go out, making the outside world think something had happened to him. Even Seto Tamae called to comfort him, which made him cry and laugh for a while.

8:00 AM, Asano's home.

Lady Asano looked at her daughter who was eating breakfast, wanting to speak but stopping, a trace of worry revealed in her eyes.

Recently, her daughter seemed to have changed into a different person, becoming much more silent, and even didn't say much, as if she had encountered some problem.

Could it be that the relationship with Akiwara has encountered setbacks?

You must know that the other party has been calling recently, but Aiko has been finding excuses to avoid answering.

Sigh, what should I do?

Lady Asano thought for a long time, but still gave up the idea of comforting. After all, for this kind of thing, it's better to let the parties involved think clearly for themselves.

Just when she was uncertain, the sound of a bicycle bell came from outside, followed by a "clatter" sound. Lady Asano knew that it was the sound of the mailbox cover at her door being opened.

She was a little puzzled for a while. Didn't she receive all the newspapers she ordered today? Why is there still a postman delivering things?

She walked out the door, opened the mailbox, and was surprised to find a letter addressed to Asano Aiko. In the sender column of the envelope, the four characters "Akiwara Yuto" were clearly written.

Holding the letter, Lady Asano fell into confusion for a while.

Why would Akiwara-kun write a letter?

Should I give it to Aiko to read? It seems she doesn't want to contact Akiwara-kun recently~

On the other side, Asano Aiko finished breakfast, packed up the tableware, walked out the door, and saw her mother holding a letter in confusion, so she asked suspiciously: "Mom, who sent this letter?"

Lady Asano hesitated for a while, but still handed the letter to her daughter, "Aiko, this is a letter from Akiwara."

After saying this, she returned to the house, and at the same time sighed in her heart: Forget it, for young people's affairs, let young people solve it themselves.

Asano Aiko took the letter, saw the name "Akiwara Yuto" on the envelope, and a complex emotion suddenly surged in her heart.

After Takei Kohei's words, she had decided not to be a "burden" that added trouble to Akiwara Yuto, so she hung up the phone after telling the other party the truth she knew, and disconnected the contact with Akiwara after that.

But to her surprise, for her behavior that could be considered a bit of a "betrayal," Akiwara not only didn't mind, but called every few days.

Although she asked her mother to politely decline these calls, she had to admit that her heart was touched quite a bit.

Despite this, she still held firm to her thoughts—if it weren't for her, Akiwara would definitely be able to climb higher in the literary world!

Asano Aiko stood and struggled for a while, and it was not until a long time later that she opened the letter and read it.

On this letter, there were only two short lines of text:

"Faint thunder, cloudy sky, but hope for rain, can keep you here; Faint thunder, cloudy sky, even if there is no rain, I will stay here."

Just these two simple sentences, Asano Aiko read them several times, and her heart could not be calm for a long time...