Chapter 83: Tears of Misunderstood Promotion
Watching Titanic for the fourth time, a film he'd already memorized scene by scene, Yukima Azuma didn't feel even a hint of boredom.
Bocchi's glistening, anxious eyes and her inner conflict made teasing her endlessly amusing. Eriri's progression from stubborn tsundere to bashfully honest, her lips as sweet as pear juice, lingered vividly in his memory.
In contrast, his movie dates with Kasumigaoka Utaha and Kato Megumi were far calmer. With Megumi, they hadn't moved past holding hands. But just sitting beside her, immersed in silence, was more than enough.
Utaha, on the other hand—well, with her, anything short of a scandal was fair game, even inside a cinema.
When Titanic concluded its theatrical run, the box office data came in. Yukima Azuma's "all-in" gamble had netted Laplace Corporation a staggering profit of $119 million. After subtracting the original capital, the net gain exceeded $100 million, a 1,000% return.
Converted to yen, that came out to over 18.2 billion yen.
It was such an absurdly successful investment that even Hayasaka Nao, ever composed, called him personally to report the numbers. She had followed Azuma's lead and invested a little herself—not "all-in," but still walked away a winner.
More than the money, though, she was floored by his timing.
It was as if—true to the name—Laplace's Demon had foreseen the future.
During the call, they casually discussed next steps. Azuma planned to allocate:
$20 million toward investing in a little-known man named Michael Dell, who had started a PC company with just $1,000 two years ago and was now on the cusp of product launch.