[ Ryou's following question finally jumpstarts the part of the Ring-Spirit's brain that knows he doesn't want to do this here, with witnesses. He takes a hissing intake of breath through his teeth and untangles his hands from his hair, pressing one to his forehead.

...He can do this. He's just gotta. shut everything down until he can have a panic attack in private somewhere. He can't hide inside the Ring here, but he'll handle that later. He needs to handle this first. He can't think, so he needs to do - do what? Well, he was just asked a nonsensical question. Yes, start with that. ]

"Why" what? That's too open ended. You can't just ask - why am I here? I lost a Shadow Game! I guess I died! That tends to happen when you lose one! Why do you think I didn't want you playing!

[ Following this stream of consciousness style is helping organize his thoughts, make the information make more sense. What is Ryou trying to ask? What else had he said? That those randos with the Puzzle wanted to be friends, and that overrode... ]

Why would you assume people you'd known for two days were more... fuck, you couldn't hear me all that time.