Chapter Text
Ren couldn’t remember when, precisely, he started seeing spirits. He had started young, and been continuously angrily dismissed by his parents as having an overactive imagination. His peers initially merely assumed he was playing make-believe and played along, not understanding the boy’s ire when they didn’t understand. Eventually, he had a reputation as crazy, and was shunned. Even his parents seemed disdainful.
It didn’t take long before he decided to stop talking to people out of fear they weren’t really there. He had been caught one too many times by a concerned onlooker talking to someone who apparently wasn’t really there, and vanished as he looked back at them.
Eventually, Ren’s previous habits were readily dismissed by all as the acts of an over-imaginative child. While he struggled internally and found himself unsettled by the spirits no one else could see, he grew up. Everyone eventually let it go and he was able to move past his label as “crazy.”
All of that came to an end one night as he walked home from school. The streets were empty and the sky was dark as he left from a drama club meeting, and was partway down the street when he swore he could faintly hear yelling somewhere nearby.
“Excuse me!”
The boy jumped and turned to his left to see a young woman in tears, who let out a relieved sigh as he turned to her. “Oh, thank God, you can see me!” She drew closer, prompting Ren to take an instinctive step back. She let out a frustrated huff. “Please, don’t ignore me! I need your help!”
“I don’t—”
The cries became louder, the boy turned his head down the street to the source. He felt a breeze slap his arm, and he turned to see the young woman had grown closer again.
“My sister is being abducted by a strange man! Please, help her!”
Ren’s heart sank, and with a quick breath, he nodded. “Lead the way.”
Following the spirit was the worst mistake of his life, he decided. The ghost had even absconded as soon as the police showed up and he was thrown in a cop car. Apparently, like her still-mortal sister, she didn’t stick around to defend him. He heard it all from the townsfolk— he was still crazy, and not just crazy, but violent. The worst of the worst.
As he was convicted and shipped off to Tokyo, he swore to himself he would never speak or even look at a ghost again. On his phone, he searched fruitlessly for a cure to what he decided was a curse.
As he yet again began a search for a cure on the day of his arrival, he noticed a strange app with an icon of a red eyeball.
Shujin Academy sucked.
Everyone knew about his record and shunned him as the criminal they thought him to be. The sole exceptions were Ann, Ryuji, and a talking cat named Morgana.
Apparently my life wasn’t weird enough, he mused to himself as he guided the team through a magical castle in another dimension to change the heart of a corrupt teacher.
Still, he couldn’t tell if it was by the sheer volume of people he had to learn to ignore or by dumb luck, but in either case, he only saw two ghosts. One was a hostile red-head; the other was a silent adult woman with a straight, shoulder-length black bob and glasses that he saw periodically in Leblanc looking sadly at Sojiro. Ignoring her was simple enough, though; he just pretended like she wasn’t there and didn’t look in her direction until she finally disappeared for the night. He couldn’t ask Sojiro about her, anyways; he knew he’d be met with suspicion and possibly be kicked out. He was on thin ice as it was.
Even with the lack of ghost activity, Ren felt great hesitation over accepting the nomination as leader of the Phantom Thieves.
“I don’t know if I’m the best choice.” he said apprehensively. Ryuji cocked his head to the side at the statement.
“Why’s that?”
“... Well... my reputation, and...” He couldn’t bring himself to continue, unsure of how to even express his feelings without revealing his secret. He couldn’t risk that. He didn’t end up having to continue, and wouldn’t have had the opportunity anyways as Ann shook her head.
“We’re not concerned about that, and you’ve already been leading us so far. It’s for the best; you’ll do great as our leader.”
With a sigh, he took the nomination. It only doubled his efforts to ensure his secret was a secret, fearful of losing the few friends he had. Ren couldn’t stomach the idea of them looking at him as if he was crazy. It nearly drove him to tears.
It only got more difficult, though, as they began investigating Ichiryusai Madarame.