Chapter 83
At the press conference, after the production team lineup was introduced, the head of Toho announced on the spot that Toho would invest eight hundred million yen to produce and distribute Your Name. Makoto Shinkai, as director, then outlined the production schedule and a tentative release window. The project officially moved into preparation.
According to the plan, the production team would spend two months on early coordination, adapting the script, storyboards, and art direction. The main production phase — animation, compositing, effects, dubbing and editing — would take roughly ten months. If everything went to plan, the film would open next summer.
As the event drew to a close, Shinkai revealed the first official poster. It was instantly arresting: saturated colors, delicate linework — the director's signature painterly palette. In the image a boy and a girl in school uniforms stood with their backs to the viewer, the sunset splitting the landscape into two rooms of light. A comet streaked across the sky, but the tail fragmented in midflight; red shards scattered toward the girl. The composition balanced lyricism with a hint of danger, the colors rich enough to make the poster feel like a small, portable painting.
The audience and millions of live viewers reacted the same way: breath caught, a flutter of expectations. Makoto Shinkai announced that the poster's concept originated with the original manga's author — Whale.
Lucien, watching from the ward, felt a blush of embarrassment as the camera lingered across the poster and then on a short clip in which the director credited the original author. The poster idea, he knew, had come from him too — the same draft he'd sketched in the isolation of the ward. Hearing his pen name read aloud in front of an international audience stung in the best way: pride and a quiet astonishment at how far a story could travel.
Eriri, at home, stared at the image on her screen and swallowed hard. She had toyed with designing a poster herself, but the masterful richness of Shinkai's team made her feel small and fierce all at once.
"I'll work harder," she told the blank air. "I won't be left behind."
She resolved to level up her craft until her paintings could stand beside the kind of work Lucien's story was inspiring. The screen faded; the press conference ended, and Eriri loitered online, bouncing through readers' chatrooms to share the rush.
---
A system notification cut through Lucien's fluttering attention like a bell.
[Optional Task 1: Create a comic work and adapt it into an animation or animated film]
[Conditions for mission achievement: The work is completed, the adaptation project is approved, and the production preparation stage is entered.]
[Reminder: Mission completed! Congratulations to the host for receiving a 100-day lifespan bonus and Health +10!]
[Please check the latest panel!]
——
[Host: Lucien D. Blackthorn (Whale)]
[Remaining lifespan: 241 days]
[Health value: 40/100 (You may create comics 3 hours daily; exceed by 1 minute and 1 day of life will be deducted)]
——
The system's voice felt absurdly ceremonial in the tiny ward. Lucien pushed himself upright in the wheelchair and laughed, the sound half joy, half relief. The life-gauge numbers — small, arbitrary — had gone up. A warmth spread through him: blood running faster in the limbs, hope swapping its place with dread, if only for a morning.
Then the second notice arrived.
[Rewards are being drawn!]
[Congratulations — host received an additional 30 days of lifespan!]
——
[Host: Lucien D. Blackthorn (Whale)]
[Remaining lifespan: 271 days]
[Health value: 40/100]
——
Three hundred days felt like a silly, soft promise, but it landed steady in his chest. With Health 40, his permitted drawing time expanded by an hour. That extra hour meant one more page daily, one more beat in the long arc of finishing Slam Dunk and preparing the next story. For Lucien, the mechanical benefits were practical; more than that, the increase felt like proof: the treatment was working.
The next morning the ward routine changed. Lucien was released from quarantine and taken for a PET-CT. The doctor's expression was careful but quick to shine.
"The metastasis is suppressed. The lesions are not growing; some damaged tissue is regenerating. This is a positive response to the targeted therapy and radiotherapy."
Lucien heard the words and watched his mother's hand tighten around his with a gasp that turned into laughter and salty tears. The physician added more measured detail — the targeted drug had not yet shown resistance; while vigilance was required, the plan to continue the regimen for a year was reasonable. Home recuperation would now be an option rather than an ideal.
Lucien let the diagnosis settle: he would still be observed for a few days, but discharge was no longshot. The nurses began the quiet flurry of checking lists and forms. Lucien's mother, overwhelmed, called a relative who lived in another city and booked a flight to Tokyo. Help would arrive.
Practicalities followed feelings. Lucien opened an apartment search tab on his phone. He wanted a proper space for recovery: at least three rooms, a small study. With the adaptation fee for Your Name and steady royalties, his budget could stretch — but location, foreigner approvals and Tokyo availability made the perfect place elusive. The neighborhoods around the university offered mostly compact one- or two-bedroom units; larger single-family homes required guarantors and proof of steady employment. Lucien had neither a local guarantor nor the certainty to promise long tenancies. He wondered aloud if he could ask Eriri for help—she knew the area and had family connections.
On Monday, Iida Ayano and Usami Mizuki visited the ward with bright faces. Both were thrilled about the announcement and relieved at Lucien's improving condition. Lucien spoke briefly about the apartment, and though both offered sympathy, their knowledge of Chiyoda's rental market was limited. Still, their presence lightened the room.
Before leaving, Usami had important news.
"Senpai, Subaru agreed to be your assistant," she said, cheeks flushed with the kind of excitement that made her grin wide. "When Subaru heard you were the author of Slam Dunk, he said he'd volunteer even without pay!"
Lucien laughed at the theater of it. "Not paying him would be labor law malpractice," he teased. "But seriously — thank you. When can he start?"
"There's the finals coming up," Usami said, a small frown clouding her face. "He can't start until summer vacation. He wants to study first."
Lucien checked a calendar and felt time blur. Finals would come up fast; Eriri had been visiting less often these days and it made sense. He told Usami that he would plan a training camp for assistants after the summer, and she brightened immediately at the idea of learning directly from him.
They added each other's LINE accounts then. Lucien set his display name as Whale, typed the message he'd been too shy to say aloud, and hit send: "I'll be discharged soon. Please tell Subaru to come by in summer."
Usami sent him Eriri's ID without hesitation — she'd already added Eriri as a friend with Iida. Lucien copied it, then paused before making the next move.
Back in class, Eriri was elbow-deep in homework when her phone vibrated. A LINE friend request popped up: Whale.
Her first thought was a fan account. Her small reader handle — the one she used on niche forums — often attracted followers. But the account had a note: Whale had messaged.
[Whale: Hello, Eriri. I'm Lucien. I have good news: I'm improving and will be discharged soon. Dr. cleared me to use my phone. Usami told me your account ID.]
The message landed like a quiet, warm stone. Eriri's fingers trembled; she knew the signature voice behind that pen name. Before she could respond, a second line arrived:
[Whale: By the way — volumes 101 and 102 of Slam Dunk are done. Come by after school. Bring dorayaki and I'll put the cost on my account.]
Eriri laughed and rolled her eyes. She typed and deleted a dozen replies before deciding on mischief.
[Eriri: Do you even know how to write "please"?]
[Whale: Of course I do. Please!]
Lucien's quick fingers returned another message almost immediately; he typed fast enough that the response arrived while her thumbs were still hovering. Eriri stared at the screen in mild awe. He moved faster than her two-finger typing method, and the speed made her smile in spite of herself.
[Eriri: Why are you so fast?]
The reply came with a playful tone that translated through text: [Whale: Lots of practice. And I like reading messages from you.]
Eriri's heartbeat jackhammered at the screen. In the small, ordinary exchange — a joke about dorayaki, a reassurance about discharge — a new layer of intimacy unfolded. It was steady and domestic, and it landed softer and truer than any grand gesture.
Outside the ward, the world had shifted a measure. Your Name's adaptation was now official; production teams were assembling, artists had their marching orders, and the animation world buzzed with new energy. For Lucien, that meant more work, greater exposure, and the odd, heavy weight of expectation. For Eriri, it meant another reason to push herself, to polish and refine the brushstrokes she'd sent to Kasumi.
They both had reasons to move forward. They also had each other, in small, steady messages, and that felt like progress worth sketching into the margins of every busy day
250ps=1 extra chapter and so on
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