TRPG Nights, Deadline Escapes, and Chihiro’s Divine Cooking
There is a sacred ritual among light novel authors signed with GF Bunko.
Whenever someone survives a brutal manuscript deadline — or whenever three or more authors simultaneously decide to procrastinate and ignore their phones on silent mode — we inevitably gather at Itsuki-senpai’s apartment.
The front door swings open. Shoes are kicked into disorganized piles. And for the next twelve hours, the real world ceases to exist.
The Dungeon Master with the Poker Face
Our regular Game Master is Haruto Fuwa (author of the dark fantasy juggernaut Bloody Chronicle).
Haruto-senpai takes tabletop gaming with the seriousness of a seasoned general preparing for siege warfare. He brings custom polyhedral dice sets, hand-drawn battle maps, laminated character sheets, and ambient dungeon background tracks queued on his tablet.
Here is the typical party lineup:
| Player | Character Role | Playstyle / Fatal Flaw |
|---|---|---|
| Itsuki Hashima | Paladin / Knight | Obsessed with protecting any female NPC younger than him; repeatedly sacrifices himself for narrative melodrama. |
| Nayuta Kani | Arcane Trickster Mage | Casts high-damage fireball spells indiscriminately; refuses to wear armor because “cloth reduces spellcasting agility.” |
| Miyako Shirakawa | Cleric / Healer | The only adult in the room; desperately spends all her spell slots keeping the rest of us from dying of our own stupidity. |
| Chihiro Hashima | Combat Medic / Chef | Quietly carries the entire party while simultaneously delivering hot plates of homemade karaage. |
Last session, Itsuki’s paladin spent three real-time hours trying to adopt an orphan goblin girl, while my mage accidentally incinerated the local tavern because the tavern keeper refused to give Itsuki a discount.
Haruto-senpai just rubbed his temples, sighed deeply into his craft beer, and murmured: “Why did I think writing a serious campaign with you people was a good idea?”
No matter how fierce the dungeon fight or how close the character is to a Total Party Kill (TPK), all dice rolling immediately halts the moment Chihiro calls out: “Dinner is ready!”
The Culinary Miracle of Chihiro-kun
Speaking of Chihiro: can we talk about how this boy is basically a national treasure?
Whenever I crash Itsuki’s place after pulling an all-nighter, I am essentially a zombie with silver hair tangled in knots and zero life force remaining. The moment I collapse onto the tatami mat, Chihiro quietly slides over:
- A steaming bowl of miso soup with scallions sliced with millimeter precision.
- Fluffy Japanese rolled omelet (tamagoyaki) with just the right balance of dashi and mirin.
- Freshly simmered beef and potato stew (nikujaga) that melts on your tongue like a summer dream.
I swear, if Chihiro ever opens a restaurant, every single editor and writer in Tokyo would move their desks into his dining room. Eating his food makes you feel forgiven for all your sins against deadlines.
Drinking Late with Mya-san
After the campaign wraps up and the dice are packed away, the boys usually collapse into food comas.
That’s when Mya-san (Miyako) and I raid Itsuki’s mini-fridge for canned highballs and local fruit ciders. We sit on the balcony, wrap ourselves in oversized fleece blankets, and watch the distant city lights of Tokyo glitter against the night sky.
Mya-san is a normal college student. She doesn’t write light novels. She doesn’t obsess over trope subversions or print runs. And that makes her company the most precious sanctuary in the universe. She listens to my wild, unfiltered rants without judgment, scolds me gently when I tease Itsuki too mercilessly, and laughs at my absurd jokes until her eyes crinkle.
Writing is an isolating pursuit. You sit alone inside your skull for weeks, carving out pieces of your soul to feed the printing press.
If I didn’t have this noisy, ridiculous, beautiful group of people waiting on the other side of the manuscript, I think the cold would have swallowed me whole years ago.