#if you like all for the game SEND ME YOUR HCW

[secretgamergirl]

We really need 1:1 time passage in games.

I play a lot of games. I particularly play a whole lot of RPGs, strategy things, survival games, and these all tend to be games that try to create an extra sense of immersion with hunger, thirst, and a day night cycle. And WOW do they ever end up doing the exact opposite with the implementation!

Like, let’s just start with food. If I am playing a survival game, and I choose not to eat for a while, my little hunger meter will bottom out, and I will start taking damage then eventually die. This tends to take like, one real life hour/in-game day, give or take to kick in, and then death comes within like, maybe 5 minutes if they’re generous? And I stave this off by... usually finding, killing, cooking, and eating, 2 entire turkeys per real hour/in-game day.

So... what the hell is any of that!?

So we have hunger, and we’re representing it as this slowly draining meter you have to keep an eye on. Already, that’s just weird. In my experience, you can go an entire day, not eating a damn thing, and not feel a thing out of the ordinary. But when you do actually get hungry, it can be overwhelming and impossible to ignore (have you eaten yet today by the way? My meal schedule’s gotten totally weird). Nothing about that makes sense to simulate as a slowly lowering bar. If you want realism, you have absolutely no onscreen hunger meter, and then like every 4-24 hours or so you have some incredibly distracting hunger indicator kick in and stay kicked in. Like, activate rumble packs and leave’em going at a steady pulse sort of annoying. And it gets worse when you’re actually preparing food.

Also feeling hungry is not an early indicator that you are going to suddenly die of starvation, or even that you’re anywhere near that point. I had dinner 6 hours ago, I’m a little hungry now. It varies a lot, but actually starving to death can take upwards of going TWO WHOLE MONTHS without any food at all. Like if we’re representing that as a meter, “hungry” kicks in when it drops to 99% full. Starvation is not a particularly common cause of death. If you’re dying of starvation, either someone is intentionally starving you to death, or some horrific catastrophe has just wiped out completely absolutely every potential food source in an area you somehow cannot wander your way out of even if you have months to do so. Relevant real world fact- Any time you see stuff about people dying of starvation, that’s never “farming just is not a thing that works in this area,” it’s “some malicious tyrant is actively preventing these people from accessing food in a deliberate effort to cause them to starve.” It’s really not actually a concern in any sort of survival story, unless we’re going real long term.

Meanwhile, have game designers ever actually, like, eaten food? Like I said, 2 whole turkeys per real hour/game day seems to be the going standard and like... have you had a turkey? I live in America, there is this tradition on Thanksgiving to go get a turkey, spend a day cooking it, and serving it as part of a meal served to one’s whole extended family. You’ve got that one turkey (granted, generally with a lot of side dishes) feeding like... a dozen people, easily. And at the end of the day, you’ve only MAYBE collectively made your way through like half a breast. You carve up a bunch more and send everyone home with a ton of leftovers. Then you’ve still got this giant mountain of turkey left, and you’re eating it for like the next week until you’re completely sick of turkey and throw the rest out, with plenty of meat entirely uneaten on the bird. Or hey, do you eat hamburgers? You know how the standard for a really kinda too big to responsibly be ordering it hamburger is “a quarter-pounder?” Which refers to the 0.25 lbs. of meat on the bun? Just quickly googling “beef weight” and copying the preview text from the oddly named first hit, on beef2live.com... “An average beef animal weighs about 1200 pounds and has a hanging hot carcass weight (HCW) of about 750 pounds.“ I can’t honestly say I know what “hanging hot carcass weight” is and I kinda doing want to, but I’m assuming that’s how much you have to work with after stripping out all the bones and organs and such. Multiply that by 4 to get how many oversized burgers you get out of one “beef animal” (why does it not say cow? I’m growing increasingly unsettled)- 3000 burgers. Give or take. You go smack that one Mnecraft cow with your sword, you should be fine for like 5 years. At least assuming we’re not simulating food spoilage. And if we are, HEY THAT TAKES SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER THAN ONE DAY, 2 IF YOU SALT IT!

And I mean, on top of that, we’ve got this whole standard I keep citing of 1 real world hour/1 in-game day. That kinda seems to be one of the more common standards for the passage of time video games use. That or 1 minute=1 hour. And I... really don’t understand why we have these scales?

Like, the earliest example of a day/night cycle in a game is Dragon Quest 3, where 1 steps on the over world map=12 minutes passing, or 120 steps=1 day. That’s a weird scale I’m having to use, but that’s because as the most traditional of JRPGs, DQ3′s sense of both time AND space are super abstracted and walking a short distance across the world map is this super compressed and simplified conveyance of a big long epic journey through the untamed wilderness. The first games I can think of offhand to really do it as a real time elapsed ratio thing are like... The Sims and GTA 3? Let me look at each of those in turn in a bit here.

So, The Sims has to pass days pretty quick, because that’s like, the whole idea. We’re watching this little household drama unfold in a compressed time scale... but the scale is really messed up? Like, we start off pretty simple. Sims work their shifts of like 9-5 on the in-game clock, need an appropriate amount of sleep... but then MOST things have timing based off having animations play at a reasonable pace, which is to say, 1 to 1 time, not 1 to 60. It takes like 3 in-game minutes for a Sim to get up out of a chair, several more minutes to walk to the kitchen and even start cooking, altogether just getting up, making a meal, cleaning up, and sitting back down is going to end up being this hours long affair, most of that being travel time from one room to another. It’s weird, and practically speaking you end up having them eat one meal, use the toilet once, and take a shower once per in game day, because less than that problems occur, and more than that, it’s a huge pain. And forget conversations. Those are like 12 hour commitments.

And then we have GTA3, where 1 real minute=1 in game hour... and this isn’t tied to anything in-game at all really. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, nothing really has business hours to deal with, the whole day/night cycle is just there to give you a nice cycling change of scenery... and also again, breaks immersion, because the animation speed is 1:1. According to a video I just watched, walking end to end across the map of GTA3 takes a full 48 in-game hours (121 in GTA5). And I mean... there’s races, and high speed chases, and all this other stuff that according to the in-game clock are at such slow speeds you can barely tell anything’s moving. It’s weird and arbitrary! And also unnecessary! Like, I’m pretty sure I sank at least 80 hours into my first playthrough of GTA3. I definitely spent enough time cruising around any given island that if time passed in a 1:1 ratio, I’d still see what everything looked like at every time of day. And hell if you rigged it up to a real world clock I could plan around that, do all the cool missions right at sundown.

But I mean, also, there’s these things called movies and TV shows? You may have heard of them, because it’s where games get a whole bunch of terms they use all the time. Like camera, and scene. So the thing there is, when, say, a movie switches to a new scene, they’ll often arbitrarily jump the day/night cycle ahead by several in-movie hours, or even days, so the lighting is appropriate to what’s going to happen in that scene. You can actually just... do that in games, too. It’s OK. Nobody’s going to stop you or say it’s breaking immersion. I talk to this guy to start this mission at what’s clearly noon, then we fade to back, and I come back out onto the street late at night so I can do this daring nighttime raid. That’s.. OK. You can do that. Honest. No need to have the sun doing crazy fast laps in the background.

Anyway, other games since have all copied that time scale, because blindly copying things from GTA3 was kinda... how people made games for a good stretch of time (and yeah yeah yeah, Elder Scrolls was probably already doing it, whatever... hell so was Robinson’s Requiem I’m pretty sure, and Drakken I know was paced something like that). But anyway, we mixed that sort of time scale with Survival Gameplay and we’re just kinda mashing these problems together. We’re doing everything in this one to one time scale, but the in-game clock is running at like 60 times that, and our already ridiculous food intake needs are downright absurd, and suddenly we’re destroying absolutely all life on sight to sate our ever-present ravenous hunger (and possibly never sleeping).

And like... survival games don’t actually need that? Like the interesting bits of the angle are finding sources of things like clean water and shelter so you don’t die of exposure once the sun’s down and stuff. And these are things you really just need to do once and you’re set. You could... basically set up a whole game, running in real time, where these are early potential fail states. Get some kind of shelter set up within the first 5 hours or so, sleep to advance straight to the next day after pulling that off, then you have like 3 days total to find drinkable water, and... honestly at that point we’re talking like a good 45 minutes of gameplay and you could really end it there, or start your last goal. But instead, no, we’re making some kinda crude axe/bow and killing everything to eat.

Not only is it not realistic, not only does it take me out of the experience by checking the math, the whole affair feels kinda like I’m being put through someone’s weird hyper-masculine cargo cult fantasy of what it would have been like if they grew up Hunting With Dad and like.... OK people who actually do that still kill like one animal, then drag it home, throw it in a big fridge, and eat it for quite a long time, or sell it, or leave it to rot because they’re just really into ending the lives of innocent creatures and don’t want weird gamey meat at all.

So yeah, just let time be time, and don’t ever actually make me eat if we’re trying for some kind of gritty realism thing. I really don’t get hungry nearly that often and fill up quick.

#game design #survival

[ravenchaitea]

HCW-ICT Update

For anyone who follows me for my fic writing a new chapter of my MuteProtagonist fic will be up tomorrow! In the meantime, preview under the cut. If you are a newbie, you can start reading by clicking right HERE. If you need to catch up on the previous chapter before the update tomorrow, you can do that here.  (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Thanks for all the support. Also tumblr really really messed the formatting of this up. Maybe I'll fix it someday....... But probably not. Lol  

Ryuji looked around the apartment in approval. He had spent the past week working on it. All the boxes had been unpacked. The furniture was arranged. It finally looked like a place he and Akira could call ‘home’. As an added bonus it had served as something to keep his mind busy. The first few days after the surgery had been quiet. Now that their communication had picked up in frequency again, he was eager to show off his hard work.

Akira would be finishing up his medical tests soon. They had a video chat planned for right after. Ryuji put some finishing touches on their bedroom before settling in the living room to wait. He glanced at his phone to check the time, his chest filled with nervous anticipation. He had just turned his screen off when the display lit back up. Akira’s screen-name appeared and Ryuji felt his heart leap up into his throat.

“Hey!” He greeted. The video took a few seconds to buffer. A side effect of bad hospital wi-fi. Akira’s face went from pixels to a clear image. Ryuji grinned.

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: What’s with that face?

For his part, Akira was smiling too.

“Ain’t nothin’. Jus’ glad to see you, man.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Me too.

And Ryuji did see him. His eyes drank in every detail. Though he was a little pale, Akira looked better than he had for a long time. His eyes were clear and bright and he looked well rested. His smile became more of a smirk when he noticed the rapt attention Ryuji was giving him.

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: See something you like?

“Shut up,” Ryuji replied sheepishly, averting his eyes away from the screen. They didn’t stray for long. “What’re you doing with your hair?”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Oh that? Lavenza did it.

**Akira reached a hand up to touch the elastic headband at the crown of his head. The material held his bangs back, taming the normally unruly curls. It gave Ryuji an unobstructed view of his bright gray eyes and the long eyelashes that veiled them.

“Don’t take it off. It looks kinda nice.”

“Yeah?” Akira signed, cocking his head to the side.

“I like seein’ your whole face,” Ryuji mumbled in a soft voice, running a nervous hand back through his own hair. He still hadn’t had a chance to deal with his rapidly encroaching roots. “Your hair got so damn long.”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Do you like it long?

**“C'mon man. Don’t ask me weird things.”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I want to know. **

“Please?” Akira pressed. His expression was so openly sincere that Ryuji couldn’t bring himself to deny him an answer.

“Fine, okay. Yeah, I like it long. Y'happy?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: :-)

“Dude. Stop with the smiley faces.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: :D

“Akira, jeeze,” Ryuji shook his head in disbelief but he was smiling in spite of himself.

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Hey ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I just noticed** ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Are you at the apartment?

**“Huh? Oh! Yeah, I finally finished unpackin’. Wanna see?” Ryuji had been hoping Akira would ask. In fact, he had specifically off centered his phone camera in the hope that it would grab the other man’s attention. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I want to see.

**“Alright. I’ll give you the grand tour,” Ryuji limped to the front door and made it his starting point. From the entryway, it was easy to see the entire expanse of the living room. He swept his phone in a large arc in front of his body, giving Akira a panoramic view of the apartment’s main space. They still didn’t have a lot of furniture but in the middle of everything was a large black table. Ryuji indicated towards it with his free hand. “I went by that second-hand shop near LeBlanc and they had a used kotatsu for sale. So I bought it with some of the money I made workin’.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You bought us a kotatsu?

“Hell yeah, man! You’ll be back before winter ends and we can probably use it in the spring some too. It’s not as nice as the one I had at my mom’s place but it’ll be fine for now. Right?

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You’re making me want to drop everything and come home right away.

“You haven’t seen nothin’ yet.” Ryuji enthused as he moved through the apartment toward the dining area. The table and chair set from Akira’s room above LeBlanc had been set up. In the kitchen Ryuji opened every cabinet and drawer, showcasing their neatly organized dishes and utensils. He had spent an annoyingly long time the day before removing the old paper cabinet liners. He had replaced them with clean new ones and Akira took notice. He complimented them and Ryuji’s chest swelled with pride.

“Bathroom is next,” he announced, continuing the tour with as much grandeur as he could muster. He slipped inside through the living room entryway. It was an easy way to bypass the bedroom. He wanted to save the best room for last. He had stocked the bathroom with all their combined toiletries. New blue-grey towels hug from the walls. A matching rug was laid out over the tiles. “Futaba picked out the bathroom decor. I hope it’s okay.”

“It looks great!” Akira assured him.

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: We’ll have to do something to thank her.

**“Totally,” Ryuji agreed, nodding his head. “It’s weird to say this but it was fun shoppin’ for the stuff with her.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m glad you two have been spending time together.

“We’re actually gonna go to a game night thingy tonight.“

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: A game night?

“The weird guys at the tattoo shop have game night on Sundays. I mentioned it to Futaba and she practically begged me to go. So I’m gonna take her.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It sounds like fun. : )

“It got me out of my chess game with Akechi. So I’m fine with it,” Ryuji sighed, feeling a throb of annoyance settle at his temple. “I still haven’t beaten him. I don’t think I ever will.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: He’s still coming over to play? ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m surprised he’s dragging it out.**

“I thought he would lose interest but I guess not.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: He can become hyper-fixated sometimes. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Do you want me to talk to him about it?**

“No. It’s not that big of a deal. I just wish he wouldn’t come over every night.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: He’s there every night? ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: lol He must miss me. ;D**

“Don’t even joke about that, man,” Ryuji complained. “Did you ever finish that chess book he got for ya?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Oh yeah. Finished it within a couple of days. There’s not a lot to do here at the hospital.

“Can I borrow it?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You want to borrow it?

“It might help me beat him,” He explained in a soft tone. He shrugging his shoulders to try and play off his embarrassment. “I’ll try anythin’ at this point.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Wow lol ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You are desperate**

“You have no idea, man.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’ll send it off in the mail before I go to my parent’s house.

“Oh, speakin’ of, how are things going with all that? Your recovery and your parents?” Ryuji asked, watching Akira’s lips turn down at the corners. He reached a hand up to touch the crisp white strips of gauze wrapped around his neck. Briefly lost in thought, he itched the fabric.

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Recovery is going well. I’ll probably be out of here in a few days. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: My parents will pick me up and I’ll be stuck with them until Christmas. Maybe even New Years.** ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It all depends on what the doctors say.**

“Sorry if this is a stupid thing to ask, but can you explain it all to me? I don’t know 'bout all that medical stuff like you do.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s not a stupid question. I promise. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m happy to answer anything you want to know.**

“I want to know all of it. Well maybe not all of it but the real important stuff,” Ryuji explained, earning a soft smile from Akira. “Takemi said the surgery went well. What comes after surgery?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’ll need to do speech therapy in order to regain my tone and clarity. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I have to rest my voice before I can start on that though. It could be a few weeks before I’m allowed to attempt speaking.** ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m sorry again that I won’t be back for Christmas.**

“I understand, man. It’s not your fault.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s frustrating ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I want to come home

**“I know,” Ryuji agreed. “I want ya home too. What about the surgery trial? Are you don’t with it?”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Kind of. I still have to report my results. Right now it’s mostly a lot of medical tests and question sheets. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I also have to talk to Dr. Igor about my feelings. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Which is really annoying.

“They’re still makin’ you see that creepy guy?!”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Unfortunately. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Once I’m out of the hospital I’ll go see the doctor my parents picked out. And I assume a therapist too. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: They’ll send data back to the hospital. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I might eventually have to come back here for tests or if there are complications.

“What kind of complications?” Ryuji asked, his tone guarded.

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Obviously there’s still a chance that the surgery failed. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: We won’t really know until I’m able to start speech therapy

“And your breathin’?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s been better. I don’t wake up as much during the night. So that must be a sign that it’s better. [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: After the surgery, I was on oxygen for a while. They were pretty insistent about it. I’m at least past the need for that.

“Was it… Y'know… Scary?”

There was a short lull in the conversation after Ryuji’s question. The moment the words were out of his mouth he immediately regretted them. Akira’s eyes trailed away and he stared blankly off to the side. Ryuji could hear his fingers patting restlessly over the keys of his laptop. Tension set itself into the lines of Akira’s neck and shoulders

“You don’t gotta talk about it. I shouldn’t'a asked.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s okay.

Akira turned his attention back to the screen. His eyes weary.

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Honestly, yes. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It still sort of is. I won’t know for several weeks if it worked or if it failed. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: The uncertainty is frightening. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I was pretty out of it for the first few days so there’s a lot of big gaps in my memory. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m not used to getting so much sleep so I still feel kind of foggy. The past few days haven’t felt real to me somehow.

“Anyone would be freaked out by all of that,” Ryuji insisted in a soft tone. “Hell, just hearin’ about it makes me feel kinda weird. I can’t imagine what you’re goin’ through. I wish I could do more for you.”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You’re doing amazing, actually. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: This whole thing has been taxing on both of us. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You’ve got so much going on right now.

“Speakin’ of,” Ryuji leaned back against the bathroom counter. “I thought a lot 'bout what you and Ann said. This whole tattoo thing I’m doin’- I enjoy it and I’m learnin’ a lot, way more than I was learnin’ at Uni. It might turn into somethin’ great for me or it might turn into nothin’. Either way, I wanna focus more of my attention on it. So yesterday I went in and dropped my classes. Er, well I put 'em on hold or whatever. I can still go back next semester if I really want to. I got my scholarship and all still.”

**[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s like you said, ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You can always go back if you want to.

**“I know, it just feels like a failure or something’.” ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Don’t count it against yourself. ** **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Okay? ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You won’t know if you like something until you try it, right?

“It’s not my resolve that I’m worryin’ about,” Ryuji told him, grimacing. “It’s my mom. I don’t know what to tell her.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: The truth

“I know. I just-… She’s gonna be disappointed.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: It’s your life. You have to decide what you do with it. **[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I know that better than anyone. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Trust me, it’s okay to take risks.

“Man, when did you get so wise? It’s kinda creepy. You’re turning into Boss or somethin’.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: lol Sorry. I might have laid it on too thick. You get my meaning though. [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You never showed me the bedroom.

“Huh? Oh! Oh yeah!” A smile broke loose across Ryuji’s face. He had almost forgotten about the surprise in the bedroom. After adjusting his camera to allow Akira a clear view he entered their room. It was fully assembled, a clean mashup of the remainder of their possessions. Ryuji turned in a slow circle, stopping when he came to their sleeping area. What had once been two futons and a mess of blankets was now a neatly made double bed.

“You got us a bed!” Akira signed, his movements excited.

“Actually Ann and Shiho got us a bed.” Ryuji corrected, running his hands over the duvet to smooth a stray wrinkle. “Ann said it’s supposed to be a housewarmin’ slash Christmas gift.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: What?!

“I’m pretty excited about it. My knee ain’t a real big fan of sleeping on the futons.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Did you put it together by yourself?

“No way. Futaba and Makoto did most of it. Haru put the sheets on.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: lol I’m sure they made a huge spectacle out of it.

“You got no idea, man. It took them hours. Oh yeah! Speakin’ of Futaba and Makoto,” Ryuji trailed off suggestively. “How long have they…?”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Close to a year? ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: You really didn’t know?**

“I can’t know somethin’ like that!”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Don’t worry about it so much. It’s not any different from Ann and Shiho. Or you and me. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I can’t believe Ann and Shiho got us a bed.**

“I can,” Ryuji scoffed, despite the rush of heat running up the back of his neck. “Ann ain’t exactly subtle with that kinda stuff.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: She’s persistent. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Not that I’m complaining.**

“It totally gave me some ideas, y'know, for when you get home.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Oh yeah? [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Like what?

“Don’t ask for details. I’d rather show ya than tell ya.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Will you? ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Show me I mean** ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: When I get back**

“Of course,” Ryuji murmured, averting his eyes away from his phone screen briefly. “I can’t look at you when we talk about it.” _ "You’re cute,”_ Akira signed.

“Stop that!”

Before either one of them could say more, the door to Akira’s hospital room opened. Ryuji could hear someone speaking in the background but the words were too muffled to make out.

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I have to go now. I’m sorry.

“It’s okay,” Ryuji said, shrugging his shoulders lightly. “We can just text for now.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: Sounds good. ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: I’m glad we got to talk for a while.** ** [♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: The apartment looks great! Thank you for working so hard on it.**

“Of course, man. Go do your hospital stuff. I’ll talk to you later.”

[♣]]]Joker[♠]]]: TTYL

The video call disconnected, leaving Ryuji staring at their thread of messages.

#akira kurusu #ren amamiya #ryuji sakamoto #akiryu #pegoryu #pegoryu fic #persona 5 fic #persona 5