https://news.biglobe.ne.jp/entertain...941949369.html
Apparently the offer for the book came in August of 2018 (when TROUBLE came out basically) and the plan from the beginning was to make a drama but the book was to become the source material for the drama.
In the Discord, we'd been talking about the drama since it ended a little bit as well as the last few years of Ayu's career and it seemed a bit like there was a long game in action in releasing the book. Knowing that Max had scouted Kalen around then or the year prior, I think he had already found her to "become Ayu" by that time or in 2017 and that was what started this 'plan' to both debut Kalen and promote Ayu as well whenever the drama did come out. And it seems to have gone off exactly like they wanted to. Interest was piqued when the book came out in August of 2019 and then the drama came earlier this year with Kalen as the lead who had also debuted as a singer in May 2019. Sales of A COMPLETE have gone up as the drama continued to air and now that it's over, Kalen has been on MUSIC STATION with a new single and Ayu has her first music since 2018 when they began putting the book together along with MORE music to come. I get the vibe though that it was all sort of Max's plan and Ayu went along with it because there was nothing to lose really and there was more to gain if it did well which it did for the most part. Max also used the drama as a reason to step down as CEO after it 'reminded him of his old self' and go back to producing music, something that he had already been thinking about and tweeting about before the drama started.