#eri is still a party member rgg

[overdevelopedglasses]

Tojoctober Day 20 - Phone

(Please select an item to be printed)

Alt title is from “Trials” by Starset

The LaD gang talk about mobile games.

(no spoilers!)

—-----------------

“Hey, Zhao-san, what are you doing?”

Joon-gi Han walks up to the Chinese man, who’s deeply engrossed in his phone. 

“Oh, this? Just a little game I like to play sometimes. You know, I have this thing on me all the time, don’t want it to be all for business. I don’t know if you’d understand that, would you, Han-kun?”

Zhao shows his phone to the other man, and Joon-gi Han sees the game he was referring to: a yellow bird was face-first on the ground right in front of two green pipes, and the English writing for “Game Over” was written on the screen, with two buttons hovering below them.

“I don’t have games on my phone, since I never thought about doing something like that… How does this game work?” Joon-gi Han asks, trying to mask his curiosity. Zhao gives him a mischievous grin.

“Well, it’s skill-based. You have to get this dumb little bird through the pipes and up your score that way. You just have to find the right rhythm to make the bird fly, in a way.”

He hands his phone to Joon-gi Han, with the title screen now visible.

“Just tap the button on the left to play.” Zhao says with a smile, taking a sip of his drink.

Joon-gi Han does so, and soon becomes engrossed in the game. The pattern he has to tap in becomes a weird bit of second nature to him, so he quickly is able to rack up his score with another few attempts. A few minutes pass before a voice cuts into his concentration.

“Wait, Zhao-san, how’d you get Flappy Bird on your phone?”

The voice belonged to Eri, the young secretary walking up to stand behind Joon-gi Han. He tilts his head so that she can see him play. Of course, this small action takes his focus away, which means the bird slams into the ground once again. He looks back and curses under his breath. His score was so high, too. 

Zhao gives the two of them a chuckle. “Well, I have my ways, and my connections.”

“No way, you have Flappy Bird?” Adachi pipes up, and Joon-gi Han sees the older man swivel on his bar stool away from his drink. “I heard that the game had been taken down from the application store a while ago?”

“Yup. What games do you have on your phone, Adachi-san?”

“Glad you asked!” Adachi jumps up from his barstool and shuffles over to the trio, pulling out his phone and turning it sideways.

“It’s this game called Genshin Impact! It has a really rich story and some great character designs.” Adachi flips his phone around to the group and shows off a somewhat small girl with blue hair, manipulating ice magic.

“What… the hell is that?”

“Don’t give me that!” Adachi replies, nudging Joon-gi Han in the shoulder, producing a chuckle out of Zhao.

“Well, why is this character the one you want to show us?” Zhao asks, arching his eyebrow.

“Well, I really like her story, for once. It’s really compelling. And she’s really powerful in battle. There are more characters than just her!”

“Maybe I should give it a try…” Eri says, outwardly pondering the thought, but Joon-gi Han can tell she isn’t very serious about the statement. He chuckles to himself.

“Hell yeah! Join me, Eri-chan. Maybe you can help me convince Nanba to start playing it, although that requires him to get a phone…” It was Adachi’s turn to become lost in thought, but a new voice flows into the main room of Survive.

“Really, Adachi? Of course you’d play Genshin.”

Saeko emerges from the stairway, leaning against the wall with a smirk, drawing laughter from Zhao and Eri. Joon-gi Han simply grins.

“What’s that supposed to mean!?”

“I just expected someone like you to play the game.” she retorts, causing Joon-gi Han to join the laughter. It’s a weird feeling, genuinely laughing in front of people, but he also has a growing trust in his friends. He can let a couple walls down, can’t he?

“Well, what games do you play, Sa-chan?” Adachi asked with a bite of confidence to his tone.

“Candy Crush, of course.” Saeko replies, and Adachi lets out a shocked gasp. 

“What’s Candy Crush?” Joon-gi Han asked, and Saeko gave him a look that just said “really?”

“Wow, the Geomijul really have you really living under a rock.” This earns her a returning glare from the man. “You match different colors together and they clear a board. It’s a puzzle.”

Joon-gi Han’s ears perked up at that. He always liked puzzles. “Candy Crush, right?” He grabs his own phone, one that the Geomijul only recently let him take outside of the territory, and begins to search the application store for puzzle games, finding many different varieties of puzzles. Mysteries, things like what Saeko described, and an odd one about a grandmother? He shakes his head and puts his phone away, filing the browsing of games as something to do later.

“What games do you have, Eri?”

“Oh! I play this game called Chicken Evolution! I really like it since it’s so simple, and it runs in the background, so I only have to check it every few hours.” Eri pulls up the cute looking game, with…

“Are those… mutant chickens?” Zhao asked, with a weird expression on his face.

“Well, the game is called Chicken Evolution, Zhao-san.” Adachi replies. “I’d expect there to be some weird ass designs.”

“Hey! That’s not nice. Apologize to Omelette Junior and Omelette the Seventh right now, Adachi-san.”

The group starts to laugh, but Joon-gi Han swivels in his chair as he hears the door to Survive open. Thankfully, the figure standing there is not one that sets off Joon-gi Han’s danger alarms, and he lets himself smile. 

“Wait, what’s this about games on your phone?” Ichiban steps into the space, a few grocery bags in his hands. He walks over to the bar, setting some down, and the bartender takes a couple of the bags from him, beginning to put some of the things away.

“Oh, hey Kasuga. Yeah, we’re showing each other what games we have on our phones. Do you have any games downloaded?”

“You… you can have games on your phone?” Kasuga asks with wonder and amazement coating his voice.

“Yes…?” Zhao replies, then remembers “Oh yeah, you were in prison since 2001. But yeah, technology has come a long wa-”

“CAN I GET DRAGON QUEST ON MY PHONE!?” Ichiban shouts with excitement, interrupting Zhao on accident.

This causes the whole party to burst into laughter. 

“I mean, you probably can?” Saeko taps away on her phone, then smiles. “Yeah, it looks like there’s a bunch of them on here.” She shows the group her screen, which has many of the Dragon Quest games on the store. “They seem to be a few hundred yen, but there you have it.”

Ichiban lets out a shout of excitement, hurriedly pulling out his own phone from his pocket.

“Or… I could probably get something special working on your phone, where you don’t have to pay…” Joon-gi Han winks at Ichiban, who lets out a small gasp and smiles.

“Han-kun, that’s piracy!” Zhao says sternly, poking him in the side jokingly.

The group starts to laugh again, calming down after a couple seconds.

“What about you, bartender? What do you play?” Eri asks the man who owns the establishment.

All heads turn towards the bartender, who had just finished putting away the groceries Ichiban brought in. He grabs a glass from the dish rack and begins to dry it, before responding cooly,

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

This draws groans, and then laughter, out from the party. They continue to debate the games until Nanba comes downstairs, which then makes everyone berate Nanba into getting his own phone.