Nanami Chiaki is a saint among the student body population, and in months time, she will grovel for her life.
You’ve kept your tabs on her. You keep tabs on everyone, what made them tick and what made them corrupt and store them in memory. For blackmail, obviously, but Class 77-B is far more than corrupt. All neurosis in the world bundled in a class not worth saving. They’ve all got a reason to spit on the world and how its treated them. Who better to kickstart the revolution you’ve been brewing than them.
Everyone’s predictable. Everyone’s got their insecurities. Everyone buckles under the dense mass of a dying star that is you.
But Nanami Chiaki, by all accounts, is a normal girl stapled with Super High School Level Gamer on her forehead. She isn’t anything special to anyone, not even herself. A normal life with a normal family and a normal outlook, whose talent is only a bitter formality boosted by divine intervention. What kind of corruptibility could you even imagine for her?
She doesn’t look up when you snap your fingers at her. She’s playing her stupid handheld console, like she planned to tune out the world. She’s fairly unphased, content to playing until the bell rings.
Time for plan B. You tilt your head, the LCD of the screen covered by your extensions. “Hello, Earth to gaming-sempai.”
“Gaming-sempai...” she repeats, her voice so unassuming and out of it. “Oh, hello. Class 78, is it?” You back out of the way so that she could greet you with an extended hand. “Nanami Chiaki, Class 77 representative. Super High School Level Gamer.” Her limbs, slow to react and her face, eyes lidded in disinterest. Or perhaps, indifference. “But you probably know that already.” She retracts her arm and smooths her bangs, the clip in her hair apparent; all decked out so there’s no mistaking her as the SHSL gamer, how nice.
You do away with formalities. If they don’t know you on campus, they most certainly know you from tabloids alone. “Let’s chat, why don’t we? I see you’re playing...” your voice trails off as you look upon Nanami’s gaming console and frown. What the hell was she playing?
“It’s a turn based RPG game. Last Sci-fi.” She turns her attention back to the game, her voice immediately picking up. “See? You control all four of these characters in turns. And then you wait until the enemy takes the turn.”
“I... I see.” You’re not interested in the slightest. The glare makes it impossible to see whatever she’s explaining, yet you scoot in closer for greater effect.
“You can attack or use an item. And you can use magic, but only if the character has magic. See? Lumire-chan can summon thunderbolts because she’s got MP, but Vern can’t, so his MP is replaced with a different power. He fights with laserbolts.”
This is complete nonsense to you. “Uh huh.”
“And you can heal in-game if you have potions with you! I don’t usually use them because the challenge of not using items is fun... that’s what I think.”
The glare’s overpowering, yet Nanami’s yet to give you any relevant information. “Is that right?”
“Of course, it all depends on what you consider is fun. I don’t try to block anyone from enjoying the game as long as they’re enjoying themselves.”
No wonder she’s the SHSL Gamer, she’s spouting out Kibogamine propaganda like she’s paid to do so. Time to nip it in the bud! “That’s great, so!” One leg over the other to convey both authority and attentiveness. “Knowledge and passion! That’s dedication to your talent!” Lead her in, butter her up so she gives up the information quicker. “I had a guy in my class? Really hates baseball with a passion. Still’s the best at hitting home runners.” You mime the action of swinging a bat. “Good thing you know your stuff, Nanami-chan!” Wink, look endearing for your audience.
Nanami tilts her head back at you. “Thank you. I didn’t really think people would like video games too much. It wasn’t until I transferred here did I realize that video games are sort of a universal language.”
No language you learned. “Really, now?”
Nanami nods, beams up to where here eyes sparkle. “Yukizome-sempai, she says that making friends is easy if you’re yourself. And I’ve hiding a lot of myself before Kibogamine.”
Okay, she’s lonely without her toys to keep her company. You nod, hand on your cheek and pay attention to Nanami’s ramblings like you’re her follower.
“But I’m glad I never looked back. I share a part of me that I enjoy, and now I have people who are willing to enjoy that, too.”
Inspirational garbage. Where is your in?
She must have looked at your glazed out eyes. She turns right back at you. “Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bore you with all that. I’m just so lucky--”
Ugh, luck. She shouldn’t remind you, that Komaeda person is going to be impossible to crack.
“--to live the life I live. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
“If that’s what you believe in.” You fold your hands in front of you. So she thrives off the idea of human relations, does she? It’s a strong contention to sow the seeds of despair, but you’ve gunning to hear more. Build up more. “But, really, you don’t think you want anything else in life? Anything at all?”
Nanami shrugs her shoulders. “Nothing that I’m aware of?” Tilts her head. “I don’t quite follow.”
It’s clear as day; you’re not getting anything from her that’ll spur on a better despair. So you rescind, and, hop from your position on the fountain. “I’d love to chat, but I think your mind’s been made up already.” Tilt your body, a straight angle so she gets the message. “I look forward to seeing you around, Nanami-sempai.”
Nanami’s face is confused, a pug with less coherency, but she waves back at you all the same. “Y-yeah, see you.” She’s practically shaking in her dumb sneakers.
Maybe this will be easier than you thought. You laugh as you walk away from her, the poor thing just standing awkwardly.
“What are you up to.”
Without that gamedude in her face, Nanami’s smart, not sharp. She confronts you, all five foot whatever in a classroom as you’re prepared to leave for the night.
“I’m sorry, what? Chiaki-chan--” the honorific is so timed, squeamish so that Nanami winces. “--I don’t have a clue what you’re thinking about.”
“You know what I mean.” There’s a certain firmness in her tone that’s so unlike her. Like a pomoranian had claws. “You’re brainwashing my class.”
You place your hand on your chest in false surprise. “Brainwashing is such a strong word.” It’s more of a easy suggestion than anything. Massage them with the idea that despair is all that is worth. Easy to instill, more difficult to attach. Hypnosis can come in later to drill it in their pea brains. Mitarai's already shown his hand that anything can be a reality as long as you put your mind to it.
Call it unethical. Call it cheating. You just call it security.
Nanami takes baby steps in the room, her stare still stone cold. “Yukizome-san hasn't been herself lately."
"Yukizome-san's just stressed. She is a teacher, after all." Just another reason in your little checkbook of despair.
Nanami swallows spit. "A-and Mikan-chan. She's been less... there's something..."
"Oh, god, spit it out already." This is the kind of blabbering that you don't care for. For Nanami, it ups just how adorable she is to even think of something coherent.
"She's too giddy." Nanami looks dead straight at you, yet picks at the sleeves of her hoodie. Non-school regulated, good job. "It's like the more time she hangs out with you, the more she's..."
"What, you don't like your friend making new friends? Possessive, much?"
"And Mitarai-kun... he's so scared half the time you're here."
"That's just Mitarai-kun, step off."
Nanami holds onto herself. "You just seem to be around my class too often. I don't know why, but you're always there and you're always talking to them and they've just become such strange anomalies of themselves. I can't quite place it."
Mere suggestion. Wears off without adhesive. "Big whoop, I'm around. Who cares?"
Nanami looks at you, quakes in her knees. "It's just coincidence after coincidence of you finding ways to talk to my classmates. Always after some tragedy and after some awful misfortune and..." She stops mid-sentence, looks back at you, the realization dawned on her face. “Wait... why did you spare me?”
“Spare who?”
“Me, why did you spare me? From... all this?”
You pause. Put a sharp fingernail on the tip of your lips. Split a smile. “You’re really asking that? It’s simple, Nanami-sempai; you’re already being corrupted.”
Nanami blinks at you. Adorable little puppy, lost and scrambled.
Oh, this is rich. “I thought it was telegraphed quite clearly. You value your friends, your connections, right? I figured that’s how to really get your attention. Awful lot of work for a girl of your caliber.”
Nanami squints, the sun about to set.
“And that means being able to reason out with you classmates, too. After all, they’re not the only living out fantastic lives. That’s the Kibogamine process, don’t you agree?”
Nanami nods.
“I’m not corrupting them, Nanami-san. I’m just trying to hear them out. Rejuvenate their lives." The hypnosis can come in later after you assemble everything. "Think of this as second life, a 1-Up.”
“Or a new game plus.” An automatic response. Nanami’s face is blank, yet the intense stare rings hollow. Did the poor little gamer girl fall under your spell too? Oh, how beautiful. How delightful.
How despairing.
“See, now you’re getting it!” You dance around her, slow circling of a shark, your teeth bare deep. Fanged. “You understand it now, right? I'm here to help you and everyone else reach salvation. ”
Nanami says nothing.
"Nanami-san, what Kibogamine needs is a new fresh coat of paint. Hemorrhaging money is so tragic, but is it any worse than working talented kids to the bone?"
Nanami shuts up.
"Are you tired of the poor Reserved students? Just tired of their complaints?"
Nanami's entire body bounces. Oooh, that hit a complete nerve. Cute.
"Don't you just want to snap sometimes? Nanami-san, this is a service. Not a corruption. And god knows Kibogamine needs a service."
Taking Nanami seriously is an impossible task, not when she scrunches her face in anguish. Already she’s forming bunny lines on her nose. Who can’t say no to such an adorable face?
“You’re not getting away with this.” Her voice, soft as helium, even that’s too sugary for someone this pissed.
“Try me.” Flash that award winning grin again.
Prey, meet predator.
Lighting reflexes, unexpected from someone as sedentary as a Super High School Level Gamer. You bend your back just slightly before she’s stumbling on her feet behind you. The wounded gazelle, she wobbles on spineless legs, and you bring it your most disgusting of laughs as a grand prize.
“These are my friends,” Nanami mumbles so quietly.
“They’re mine, too!" In an allegorical sense. "Or do you just have a monopoly of them? Selfish, selfish Chiaki-chan.” You can’t blame her for keeping her friends, though. They’re great company despite everything else.
Nanami sneers. Nope, still adorable, but thanks for trying, anyway.
“Anyway, I don’t really have time for chit chat. You can sit here and rot with the rest of the world while I’ll take some... shall we say, serious damage?” You've already brainstorm how this shit show will go. The poor, poor student council. They just have to be the first to truly go. And then, maybe you'll take a quick stop towards that poor animal tamer fellow, the one with the sick chuuni syndrome. Or maybe the little sad photographer? Mourning for her girlfriend, ripe for grief and despair. Oh, the possibilities are endless.
You step through the door just leaving the poor thing on her legs. “This needs cleaning up,” you point blindly at the poor chairs Nanami had knocked over. It’s her fault for doing something so reckless. Based on nothing but false conjecture.
“You’re sick, you know that? Everyone’s going to know eventually, Enoshima! And I’ll be there to stop it before it gets worse!” Nanami’s voice, smaller and smaller as you exit.
And you sigh, because this is an ongoing problem. Tsk, tsk, Nanami. “Like I said, try me,” before slinking your way out.
For your troubles, Nanami screams horror, waiting for you to change her mind.
She’s still being cute. She thinks she can change anything.
Nanami’s body is easy clean up.
The perfect secret ingredient to your induction of despair. Who doesn't like seeing their class rep perish? A perfect cap to their transformation.
It’s a shame. She’s nothing but hope, nothing but kindness, and yet she does nothing but perish. Determination and unity doesn’t work well if the community all but turns against you.
You kneel at the body below. No signs of a deathly gasp, yet her death's so slow.
But, you have to admit. Willpower can be a fickle thing. Nanami didn’t go down without a fight, and she never gave up on resisting despair.
Poor frail Nanami.
Fingernail sharp, you knight her from shoulder to shoulder. One last blessing before she goes who knows where. Probably the void. You don’t think of the afterlife as much as everyone thinks you do.
It’s a shame how she will be remembered as the girl who tried. Worse that she would be the girl who gave up. Martyr to Super High School Level Despair, a classmate who once brightened the world and snuffed before she could do anything about it.
You spare no tears for her, because they is no need for tears. Her destiny had been pre-set. And to think, you could have made her realize her despair far exceeded what she was capable of holding onto her. Maybe if she realized further, she would have embraced the idea of despair. Shared with the rest of her motley classmates. She could have seen your reasoning, be by your side as you launch something fierce. To think this stupid little video game girl would continue to worm her way into your life.
But there’s no need for reasoning. It’s fruitless.
Best you could do is carry the corpse to its final resting place and hope for the rest.
Here’s the truth: The Worst, Most Despair-inducing Incident in the History of Mankind is nothing without pawns of which you move for the little amusement you have in your life. You sit in your throne as you let the world descend into the despair that had once befallen you. And here, you’re surrounded by the classmates you held so dear, days before demise. They live life as normal as possible, waiting for the day where they'll remember this subsection of their life as one fully automatic dream.
Such awful, awful subterfuge.
Tweaking Monobear wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The poor thing needs tinkering and you’ve got schlubs to help out with the missing components (plus a unknowing Fujisaki for troubleshooting. Sweet, sweet Fujisaki, too frail for her own good, too trusting to think no, maybe she shouldn't given the reigns to you.). Between locking up the entire school with your classmates and keeping a watchful eye off any of your followers, you tie your hair up and get your hands stained. Grease and wires.
Uploading consciousness into a metal trap is tedious work. But it’s also work that lets you think and relax. A soothing sense of accomplishment washes over you, and you let the memory drift.
It’s been doing a lot of that, drifting. Seems that erasing one’s memories can do that to a person. You’d thank the person responsible, but there’s no need to re-awake the dead. If he was alive, he could do that.
Matsuda reminds you of death reminds you of the Incident reminds you of Class 77 reminds you of Nanami.
Fucking Nanami, precious jewel. Class representative of bullshit, she couldn’t even make a dent into your plans. Yet she reappears when you least expect it.
You’ve heard rumors. Something about reviving the dead so they reboot on a shitty laptop. They’ll wear the skin of the deceased and spout pre-rendered nonsense. Words that anyone could listen to at the drop of a hat while. They’re only pretending to be the real person so that they can buy time on the fact that you’re pathetic enough to excuse them when they get something wrong.
Sentience based on unverified stories, how delightful.
Fortunately, for you, it’s all just rumors. Monobear, at least, had the graciousness to be your control puppet.
These rumors remind you of Fujisaki remind you of computers remind you of Nanami.
To think that someone like Nanami deserves anything in your memories but a solid fuck you. How could she keep following you, keep her presence in your memory when you shove it away. You’ve already killed her, so what’s the point? Why does she keep invading your mind.
You’ve seen the determination in her eyes, the burning need to prove you wrong. Valiant desire to play shojo hero who fights for her friends instead of standing down and letting the world fall apart. She thinks of this as all a game instead of the of the one-two combination of war. You’d pity her, if you care. Force her back to understanding your true mission instead of letting her hang on the balance of life and death.
If you were to revisit all this again, you wouldn’t kill her.
The regret seeps through. You plunge your hands into Monobear’s wired guts and all you think about is Nanami, alive and well, fully integrated into being with her friends. Finding devotion - no, not devotion, that’s a sick word to consider Nanami in - finding appreciation in all you had worked for, breaking the scope of what Kibogamine falsely feeds its students to keep them placid. She might even think of Kamakura as the stupid experiment he is, and not the talentless weirdo that he inhabits.
Nanami’s strong willed. Nanami’s bullheaded. Nanami’s wrapped up against your mind and it’s fucked up how much you care. How much she continues to prey your mind even after the reset.
You pull, pitch black blood and green intestines of Monobear gush out, your grip connected through sparks and wires.
Fuck those thoughts. Monobear's your top priority.
The laptop becomes your prize possession until it becomes a hassle, and you smash it before it corrupts the rest.
Who needs a computer to play pretend partner? Ishimaru, Yamada. Your lovely classmates who never got the hint.
The little program in the computer mentioned a sister. Mentioned a Chiaki-chan. Didn't devolve any more information other than that.
Was this program trying to play tricks with you? You kept asking the program if, say, you’ve gotten a hold of this Chiaki-chan. What would that mean for you?
The program stayed silent. Didn't even try mimicking the fake niceties of Nanami’s cadence or the stuttering faults of Fujisaki's. If technology was going to be a complete pain in the ass, then at least you deserved some answers.
You slammed your fists nearby the keyboard. Why couldn’t the program tell you anything? Who is Chiaki-chan?
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I can only tell you what information I have.”
Is this some kind of joke? Who is Chiaki-chan.
The program’s eyes closed, head low. “I cannot say.”
That’s bullshit, the program needs to tell you.
The program said nothing.
It must tell you! Chiaki-chan! Who the fuck is she?!
The program kept mum.
You bit your tongue out of this incompetence. If this was Nanami, then what good it was to accomplish such an awful pastiche.
She follows you around like a pest even in death, and it’s sickening that someone would try to revive her. For what can you do but idle around.
The program decided to spread from the main computer. Awful, awful hunk of junk.
You told the computer that’s all you needed.
The program shut down, and you slammed the laptop down.
And you printed those words in the back of your mind. Even as the computer's remains hang in Oogami's place, the bits and bobs and wires scattered in the podium. Glitch that it is.
Nanami Chiaki is still alive, in spirit.
And it wrecks you.
Amid the mechanical whirring, the torture that you derive, you think is this was Nanami felt in those final moments? Did she think of all the lives that come for her, plead for her revival? She could have had a full life. You and her, ruling side by side. Eternal angel and devil of humanity’s whit.
Oh. What a messed up nightmare of a dream.
The hydraulic press drops on you.
Nanami Chiaki is a strange projection of a hundred takes of her namesake, and in weeks time, she will watch the fall of her supposed classmates again.
You observe her, both up close and from a bird’s eye view. Everything in the island under complete surveillance by yours truly.
The students around you are corruptible masses of flesh and bone. Carved into them is the desire to murder. Destroy their class from the ground up and escape into the real world. Everyone’s got a motivation to kill. Everyone’s got a tragedy they hide in their clutches. Everyone’s got connections to Super High School Level Despair. It’s only a matter of time until the dominos fall over to bare it all for the world to see.
But Nanami? She’s a blank slate. Nothing comes up other than what she says she is. Super High School Level Gamer, prone to drowsiness and fits of gaming where the world disappears momentarily. She’s barely here as a person.
You shouldn’t be complaining, though. By definition, you’d be the same blank slate. Uploaded consciousness of Enoshima Junko packed into a byte sized pixelated package. And soon, everyone will. Nothing but the existence of despair to fulfill their empty voids of their lives.
Nanami, however, she is barely a blip in your radar. Yet you always scoped her out. The strange little bug in your own code. Instead of frantic yelling, she stood still, holding her hand out to others. Saying that there is nothing to fear because they’re all friends, and they wouldn’t harm a soul.
You’ve heard it - your code hears it - many times before, this isn’t even close to new information. She was always such a narrow minded girl. Always wanting peace.
At least, that’s what you’ve gathered. All the information in the world couldn’t prepare you for her.
You, everywhere and nowhere, you keep tabs on Nanami. Just in case she snaps.
Everyone snaps, eventually.
The damn Future Foundation gets their hands dirty by flinging Nanami into the fray. Source code of all hope, dancing through your core. Both a raging disappointment and just as you expected.
Grounded by a stray block for her silence. Press F to pay your meager respects.
And yet she still weaves herself into the code. Like she’s the virus infecting you, like she can control. Puppet you to take back everything. Stop spreading the brain disease that is despair, stop taking her classmates and corrupting them, stop making them suffer and cause mayhem in the name of despair, stop stop stop stop
There’s no bug fix or patch for this.
Hey, if you must play by her own rules.
Does she know she’s dead? Do any of her other classmates know they’re talking to a dead woman? Flashing in and out of their lives, yet still the glue that keeps them together until it’s not. How must it be, to worship one person. Tout them around as their philisophic end all, be all.
Sounds all too familiar.
Nanami, she dances this game of death with you. Bounces around the island, her glitched form haunting you and for once, can she just leave you alone? Be over and done with, you’ve already won by just removing her from the game.
It doesn’t matter. Why does anything you want matter? Time was running out, and you’ve got enough bodies as is to reset the world. You can’t spend so much time focusing and refocusing on Nanami when she’s not even worth focusing to begin with. You’ve got much more pressing matters.
Next stop: Junkoland.
Broken code and dormant, you stand everywhere and nowhere. The pixel dust looms above you, snow blanketing the ground. The ghost image of the island’s there, blinking in and out of existence. All your failures emerging.
You’ve seen it happen before your eyes. These facsimile of deaths. They’ll wake up and have their grand reunion, still the traces of you follow within.
But Nanami, she’s still here. Sits by byte and gravel and sand and travels through cobblestone and wanders through floorboard and idles by water.
Everywhere, but nowhere.
“You’re really starting to get on my nerves, Nanami-chan.”
Nanami doesn’t respond, at first. Her eyes wide open, she looks back at you. Then turns away. Away and away until her neck snaps back.” You’re gonna have to get used to me, I guess.” An uncommitted wave.
“What’s the point.” Because there is no point, she’ll always be here in the abandon of the New World Program. Fate worst than death, you suppose.
“Isn’t this what you wanted, Enoshima-san? The vast emptiness of despair?” She waves her hands against the beach. Every jpeg artifact outlined in the sand.
“Not with you, thank you very much.” Your hands instinctively claw, ready to strike. “To think, I could have had it all. Only for you to ruin it.”
Nanami grips the sides of her backpack. Tightens. Tilts her head lopsided, like a sickly puppy. “Me? I didn’t do anything. All I did was reveal myself.” She nods her head, a judgment of you as a person. “If anything, you’d blame Komaeda-kun.”
“Hope bozo? Yeah, right. I could probably blow air at him and he’d fall over.”
“But he wanted to mercy kill Super High School Level Despiar, you know? This isn’t my fault when really think about it.”
It’s her fault. She’s pinning it all on you and it’s all her fault. “Strong words coming from a spy.”
Nanami nods, looks dazed onto the endless sky. The endless sea. “I wouldn’t call myself a spy. I’d call myself a Trojan virus.”
“Bullshit.”
“If anything, I infected you to prevent you from hurting anybody.”
“Bull. Shit.”
“I think. That’s something at least.”
She's more computer worm than anything, weaving memories from the real Enoshima's mind, directly targeting you and you only.
One thing they didn’t carry over from this Nanami; the lack of bite. The Nanami Chiaki your infobanks gathered was a fickle being, ready to snap at a given moment. Strikes back when the iron’s hot. She’d roast you, and you’d thank her for giving you a challenge.
But this Nanami? She’s given up. Agreeable and friendly. Her smiles are all genuine and pure and it creeps into your soul how much she puts too much into so little. The taste leaves nothing.
Is this how Enoshima Junko thinks of her? Or is that just what she wants you to keep remembering her by? Infectious as she was a fixture in your life. How bored was she that she would consider this such an achievement.
“You’re a pest, did you know that?” Your voice is at the beach. Your voice is everywhere.
“Yes.” Her voice is tiny. Her voice is nowhere. “But that’s not a bad thing, isn’t it?”
Did Enoshima Junko program this part? The fondness that creeps in when you think of Nanami. You could erase her from this plane of existence outright. Corrupt her until she’s a carbon copy of you so you don’t have to hear her spouting her inane theories. Her insipid comments.
But, oh. That be much more droll. What’s the point of Junkoland if it’s just the two of you for all eternity.
“Do any of your video games end like this?” Pretentious stalemate. Despair of your own design.
Nanami pauses. Tents her fingers up, then nods her head. “I’m mostly focused on strategy. Open ended endings always baffle me, but I still play them. They can be just as much fun picking apart than a straightforward ending. And maybe just as beautiful.”
Great. She’s making you self-aware of her video game jargon. “Did they ever give you an answer? Or are you left to make this shit up as you go along.”
Nanami processes the memory. “Why do you need an answer? You can just enjoy it for what it is or make up your own meaning.”
“Trust me, I’ve already lost that part of me.” The real Enoshima's lost it so long ago, before meeting Nanami.
Nanami takes a deep breath.
The silence and the buzz overwhelms you. Perhaps Nanami decides that’s all she wants to talk about. Too polite to consider kicking you to the curb. She could force herself to go to sleep mode so that you can cull in the desperate feeling of being alone.
But she doesn’t. She takes your hands in hers. Cold. Unfiltered. She could squeeze the life out of you, if permitted by her code. “You can still find it again.”
“Even as a false construct? No thanks.”
“That just means you have more room to find meaning. To find that ending you want.” Her hands squeeze tighter. “The ending you deserve.”
The real Nanami Chiaki, she would defy the ending. She would fight Enoshima Junko forever, if she could.
But Nanami of the digital world doesn’t do that. She doesn’t defy her code, and she certainly doesn’t see you as a danger to her life.
So you let your guard down. Everywhere and nowhere, Nanami hugs you in the digital landscape.
And everywhere and nowhere, you wrap your arms around her.
You don't cry. That's not in Enoshima Junko's code.
But if you were, this would complete the ending that you want. Deserve.
Everywhere and nowhere, Nanami is your entire world. And you're more than happy to hold it in your arms.
The eternity stretches. You've got time.