"Eh? Hikigaya-san is actually a writer?"
Ever since joining the Service Club, Yuigahama Yui had found that the club was unusually quiet on weekdays. The club president, Yukinoshita Yukino, would read a paperback silently, only standing up from time to time to pour some tea for her classmate, Hikigaya.
And this classmate, Hikigaya, did only one thing every day he came to the classroom: he would take out his laptop and start typing on the keyboard. Yuigahama, who couldn't help but be curious, finally voiced her doubts a week after joining. The answer she received surprised her.
"Yes," Hikigaya Hachiman said, picking up the teacup that Yukino had just filled and taking a sip with satisfaction. "So you can probably feel it, Yuigahama-san. The atmosphere of the Service Club is very suitable for my creative work."
"So that's it... That's really amazing. Hikigaya-san became a writer at sixteen," she sighed, though she didn't seem particularly interested in what books he had actually written.
As a typical Japanese high school girl, Yuigahama spent most of her spare time with friends. When she was alone, she would look for various topics that could be used as conversation starters. For example, she was currently browsing Twitter trends; any topic that appeared there might become something to talk about with her friends tomorrow.
"Ah, it's Okada Masaki! He's going to star in a new movie," she said in surprise. Okada Masaki was a young male star that two of her friends were very fond of; they could probably talk about this for a long time tomorrow.
Hearing the name, Hachiman thought for a moment. He remembered that an Okada Masaki seemed to have been one of the male actors who passed the audition for Confessions that day.
Hachiman also opened Twitter, and what caught his eye was the official cast announcement for the Confessions movie, which had completely flooded his screen. Fans of various idols were celebrating that their favorites had landed a role in the highly anticipated film.
The Okada Masaki mentioned by Yuigahama looked very much like a member of a boy band but had actually debuted as an actor. Although he hadn't played many roles yet, he already had a strong fan base. Most importantly, because of his limited experience, his appearance fee was very cheap.
The actress playing Mr. Moriguchi's daughter, Manami, was the famous child star Ashida Mana. Just how amazing was she? She had appeared on the Kōhaku Uta Gassen, Japan's prestigious New Year's Eve music show, at the age of seven, and in the same year became the youngest TV drama star in Japanese history, generating excellent ratings. Of course, because she was a child star, her fee was also very cheap.
As for Kimura Yoshino, Hashimoto Ai, Miyoshi Ayaka, and others, they were all artists who had achieved high popularity in other fields of entertainment but were still in the rookie stage of their film careers. They were also very popular, but their appearance fees were not high.
In short, the entire cast of Confessions was very well-known, yet they didn't need to be paid a lot. Considering that appearance fees for Japanese actors are relatively meager to begin with, Hachiman even suspected that the actors in the Confessions crew were all performing on a voluntary basis.
However, there was indeed one actor in the crew who was performing almost voluntarily: Hoshino Aqua.
In the Confessions movie from his original world, the actor who played Watanabe Shuya had also been a little-known boy. Even after the movie was released and gained huge popularity, his acting career never took off like the other leading actors. Frankly, his performance wasn't a failure, but the other actors were so outstanding that they overshadowed the brilliance of this important role.
Hachiman hoped that Hoshino Aqua could interpret the role of Watanabe Shuya more successfully. He had the ability and was humble and studious enough; he shouldn't repeat the mistakes of the actor who played the same role in Hachiman's previous life.
"Eh, hey! Hikigaya-san, you're the original author of Confessions?" Yuigahama, who was standing by, saw something on Twitter and looked up at him in surprise.
"Uh... yes, Yuigahama-san. Have you read Confessions?"
"I'm sorry, Hikigaya-san, I haven't read it yet," she praised, a little embarrassed. "But I've heard a lot of people talk about this book, and now it's going to be made into a movie. That's really amazing." She decided that when she got home tonight, she would search on YouTube for one of those "finish reading a book in 15 minutes" videos to catch up. Although it would mean losing a lot of the fun of reading, it would be more than enough to use as a topic for conversation.
Hikigaya Hachiman and Yukinoshita Yukino exchanged glances and said nothing more.
"A set visit? Is that necessary?" Hachiman was on the phone with his assistant, Sakamachi Kinjiro. Except for the people he was close to, all other official cooperation calls and emails were sent directly to his assistant.
"The Confessions crew is planning to shoot a behind-the-scenes vlog to mark the start of filming," the assistant explained. Of course, he was just relaying the crew's original words; as an assistant, he wouldn't make any suggestions unless his employer asked. "If they can include a clip of you, Mr. Hachiman, 'coincidentally' visiting the set, it will definitely attract more attention."
"Okay," Hachiman agreed. "After all, the box office is linked to the money I'll make in the future, so I should contribute to the publicity. It just so happens that I also want to see what a real filming set looks like, so please reply to them for me."
"Understood, Mr. Hachiman."
Hachiman was still very curious about the filming process of a regular crew. Since he would be providing scripts to NHK in the future, it would be very useful to understand some of the crew's work.
It was also a perfect opportunity to go to Sakuraba Publishing House and deliver the revised manuscript of The Clockwork Museum Incident and the illustrations Eriri had given him. With that, the final version would soon be published, and Hachiman planned to ask the publisher for a few copies to give to his friends and relatives in Chiba.
After completing the creation and revision of The Clockwork Museum Incident, Hachiman felt it was time to consider a new work.
His arrangement for his own creation was as follows: to serialize social mystery novels in All Readings while continuing to write orthodox mystery novels during the serialization process, publishing them directly after completion. This would maintain a pace of two to three novels per year.
Frankly speaking, even a certain best-selling author from his previous life wouldn't have been able to match this frequency. Hachiman was just a little worried about Haruno; as the financial director of Hachiman Studio, she would probably be very busy.
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