Chapter 103: Squeezed dry

After moving, Naoki Nagayama hadn't stayed for 2 days before he was dragged by Yoshimura Otomo for a national tour promotion.

Starting from Tokyo, along the JT Tokaido Main Line to the south, he participated in promotional activities and accepted interviews in one city after another.

The first city was Yokohama.

He had also passed through Yokohama during his self-driving tour before, but at that time, he was leisurely, could enjoy delicious food, watch beautiful scenery, rest when tired, and sleep when sleepy.

But following Yoshimura Otomo for promotion, he realized the pain of being an artist.

Logically speaking, this kind of promotion should be before the film is released, but Japan in 1981 didn't have a unified national theater chain. Many cinemas in small cities were operated independently, and the release dates might differ by several days from those in big cities.

Perhaps the heat of the film in Tokyo had already passed, while Sapporo was just starting to exert its strength.

Large production companies like Kadokawa naturally had connections with cinemas in various places, and Yoshimura Otomo was able to arrange the itinerary and communicate the promotion.

There were at least 2 sessions every day, some in cinemas, some simply in malls, and they were held together with many other activities. He didn't even know if the people who came to participate were hired by the organizer.

The form of each promotion was about the same: interviews, activities, taking photos... but the rhythm was too fast. Counting the car time on the road, one city a day might not be enough, and some had to take a car overnight.

In short, after two weeks, Naoki Nagayama had almost run through all the cities in Japan, lost a circle, but only remembered stations, cinemas, hotels, bento...

One word—tired.

In the second half of November, in the car returning to Tokyo,

"Otomo-san, don't look for me for this kind of promotional activity in the future..."

Naoki Nagayama leaned back in the back seat,

his hair messy, his cheeks thin, his eye sockets deep, looking like he had been squeezed dry.

And Yoshimura Otomo in the front seat, although a bit tired, still had a calm demeanor.

"Naoki-san, what is this? You have to know that popular idols, when they are really busy, can live in a car for a whole week!"

"Artists are too hard, aren't they..."

"Sometimes they have to work continuously. It's normal not to sleep for a day or two."

"Capital really doesn't treat people as people~ I must never be like this in the future..."

Although Naoki Nagayama cooperated with the promotion during this period, he didn't like it deep down.

This was completely contrary to the life of poetry and distance he had imagined!

Yoshimura Otomo was speechless. Wasn't this trying to persuade you to work harder? Why did you just lie flat?

Am I not accompanying you everywhere at my age? And I'm driving~

Shuichi Ito in the passenger seat closed his eyes to rest. He and Yoshimura Otomo took turns driving.

Both of them were very caring about this underage little brother.

He signed a contract with a famous housekeeping company in Chiyoda, and housekeeping staff would come to clean every Wednesday.

After having money, he finally didn't have to clean by himself. The two-story small western-style building was really too troublesome to do by himself.

So even though it was a house he hadn't seen for two weeks, it was still relatively clean.

After Naoki Nagayama finished taking a shower, he lay directly on the big bed and started snoring after a while.

The next day,

fresh sunlight shone on the blue bedding.

The sleeping figure wrapped in the quilt turned over, back to the sunlight, and buried his head in the pillow.

But the grumbling stomach kept harassing the young man.

Naoki Nagayama still got up.

Looking at his stomach, are you really a stomach? Or do you have some unclear relationship with the alarm clock?

The temperature in late November was already a bit cool. Naoki Nagayama put on a shirt and went to the bathroom to wash up.

In the mirror, it was still a handsome young man. Naoki Nagayama thought silently in his heart, "Words like 'graceful as jade' and 'handsome and dashing' are not an exaggeration here!"

Two weeks of busyness made his face a bit thin, but after resting for a day, the young body had already regained its vitality, and his eyes were also glowing with spirit.

The refrigerator downstairs was naturally empty. Naoki Nagayama put on a jacket and hurriedly went out to satisfy his stomach, which was still protesting loudly.

The early morning in Chiyoda couldn't be called crowded, but there were also a large number of office workers rushing to the company.

The area near Sanying-in didn't belong to the residential area, nor was it an office area. There were no breakfast stalls like in Waseda,

the bread in the convenience store wasn't what he wanted to eat, and there were no restaurants like izakayas open in the morning.

He could only walk a bit further and came to a hotel restaurant before finally eating a decent breakfast.

The Western-style breakfast provided by this hotel—croissants, bread, sausages, fried eggs, bacon, nuts, milk... Naoki Nagayama ate very happily.

The old man at the table next to him looked at the fried egg and two small pieces of bread on his plate and couldn't help but sigh at the beauty of youth.

After eating breakfast,

Naoki Nagayama bought a newspaper and walked towards the small park along the way he came.

On such a good morning, since he was already out, how could he miss this great autumn scenery?

The Japanese maples in the park were so red that they seemed to be burning. Looking from a distance, they were like torches that were burning.

Some deciduous trees only had some bare branches left, shivering in the wind.

Fortunately, there were other evergreen tree species around, allowing the park's green clothes to be preserved.

Some chrysanthemums were blooming brightly. When other flowers had already withered, they uniquely displayed the dominance of "after my flowers bloom, all flowers die."

Naoki Nagayama found a bench under the shade of green trees.

While looking at the autumn scenery, while reading the newspaper~

"Eh, are there discussions about *Paranormal Activity* in the newspaper?"

Two weeks of busyness didn't give Naoki Nagayama time to pay attention to the media's trend. He didn't know that the discussion about *Paranormal Activity* in major newspapers and magazines was very heated because the total box office for more than a month had reached nearly 2 billion, far exceeding horror films and other films of the same period.

Discussions were conducted on all aspects of the film's creators, directors, actors, plot, and shooting techniques.

As a newcomer actor and newcomer director, the media naturally couldn't find too much dirt. The Wild Cat Group thing wasn't a big deal either.

The focus was on exploring the film's shooting techniques and plot. Some people thought that the film was more inclined to be a thriller than a horror film because it played with the audience's psychology and didn't have a real horror image; while some people thought that the ghosts and supernatural phenomena in it had fully expressed the existence of ghosts, which was exactly the characteristic of a horror film.

The discussion ended up becoming a quarrel about whether ghosts existed or not.

Of course, the shadow of Kadokawa Pictures was clearly visible in it.

Such a film that the president personally went to talk about was valued by the promotional department. After learning that Kadokawa had taken a stake in Tree Friend Films, they treated it as an important part of themselves for promotion.

Coupled with the film's performance, it was indeed okay. If it weren't for the end of the year,

Kadokawa would have wanted to nominate *Paranormal Activity* for some film awards. ===== CHAPTER 104 =====