I've been doing a repeat run of The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa alongside a friend of mine who's been playing for the first time, Discord streaming his playthrough. This particular friend sends Ringo to class every day without fail and pushes the mortal human's ability to stay awake just to cram in as much studying/exercise as possible. He is - by the game's standards - richer than god, and yet he routinely risks Ringo's wellbeing to loot random enemies in the world for truly pathetic amounts of money, usually less than 50 yen. He is as mystified by my playthrough as I am by his: if his Ringo is about making numbers go up, mine is about the intangibles. I have not purposely improved a single skill that the game measures. My Ringo is a voracious reader, but makes no special effort to dedicate time to employment or education - not unless it helps him buy books.

I suppose I'm the one with the aberrant playstyle. The experienced gamer knows that more often than not, filling every spare second with stuff pays off - more XP, more money, more NPC affection, etc. But I know how this whole thing ends. I know that Ringo Ishikawa is stubborn. You can study all you want, but he will never let his teacher read his essay to the class. You can make him read Anna Karenina and Rumble Fish and Winesburg, Ohio and Confessions of a Mask and by the time you reach the only conversation in the game where he discusses these books with someone else, it's pretty clear that Ringo is not "in it" to brag about what he read or watched or played or did. He speaks brusquely, frequently teases his closest friends, and maintains a kind of... firm kindness with acquaintances. It feels somehow appropriate to have this stubbornly principled teenage delinquent skip school to read The Brothers Karamazov in a single sitting before declaring "I'd need to re-read it a few times to let it all sink in. A powerful read."

The game is going to start laying out the hints pretty early - Ringo's friends are becoming their own people, and while the gang is ostensibly still together, nobody's heart is really in it anymore. With this, your time is limited.

With this - this realization - how do you spend your time? Watching my friend trek all the way to school and back feels like reaching that point in a conversation where you realize that your brain is just not wired in a way that allows you to fully relate to the other person. Their perspective is too alien, their values too different. Perhaps you can understand the thoughts that lead them to their conclusion, but the idea of your own brain producing those same thoughts feels... wrong. Improbable.

Why does my Ringo read? If I'm honest with you, it's not for him. When you make Ringo read, he sits down, a page counter appears above his head, and you watch it tick up as the day passes - no fast forwards, no special music. Ringo reads for the same reason that he and his friends will sometimes stop in the park, or in the rice fields outside of town, or on the balcony of his apartment, smoking and having conversations that only they can hear. He does it because it lets me linger in the empty space, because it makes me feel overwhelmingly present in those moments. And when you sit there with them, maybe you can push it to the back of your mind that Ken probably won't join any more of your fights, or that Masaru keeps asking you for money and never explains why. Those precious seconds where the gang is still together stretch out into minutes - but no more than that - and you have to move on.

As of the time of this writing, my friend still has not finished the game. It's actually been almost a month at this point, and there's a solid possibility he may not return to it. I won't push him. Maybe he didn't like to linger in those moments like I do. Maybe he moved on, moved past the gang, maybe his Ringo grows up. Perhaps he'll enjoy it better that way: as a little slice of life where everything was still just fine - not perfect, but fine. The last thing his Ringo does is drag his friends to support Goro's newfound passion for theater. My Ringo?

My Ringo boards the train alone.