#and ryuji gets the two chats confused which very nearly gets them exposed. sadly not a bit that will work for the new version most likely

[fluxie]

maybe joker got kicked out because he kept crushing on him or sth

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

i believe they canonically do (or are at least implied to) have a text group chat without him, to communicate everything about The Plan without him seeing. the thing is, we never got to see it because the game was trying to pull one over on us as well and we aren't allowed to know about The Plan either, for the sake of preserving the twist.

so what i'm saying is that we have every reason to believe this 100% happened in canon. we just never got to see it for ourselves, which is a huge shame.