Ren wasn't one to invite people to his room, he hadn't been since he'd moved to Japan. It wasn't as if he had a great secret to hide or anything—well, not any people would find with a cursory glance—but he liked to keep to himself. When he was required to let others visit as leader of the Phantom Thieves he had reservations. Severe Reservations. Even Morgana was weirded out at how averse he was to letting people visit the café attic and that was before the room became the Phantom Thieves' hideout. The totally-not-a-cat chose to hold his peace in that regard, though his other friends did not, eventually questioning him about it as they prepared for their most ambitious venture yet.
"Hey Ren, is something the matter," Ann asked, watching her classmate's expression clam up as Yusuke, Makoto and Futaba piled into the room. Ryuji had already claimed a spot on the teen's bed and Haru was running late while Akechi couldn't make it, citing work related business. Takumi and Akira were similarly busy, the odd duo busy looking into the increasing oddities in the Metaverse. Normally Ren would have accompanied them, but Takumi assured him that he and Akira would be fine: they were simply poking around, not looking for a fight. It helped that both of them were incredibly competent on their own, else he would have vetoed that decision without hesitation.
"Nothing," He replied after a few moments deliberating what to say. He couldn't exactly say he didn't like his space being invaded—they'd been using his room as a hideout for months now and he hadn't said anything then. "Just a bit worried about Takumi and Akira doing their own thing."
"Eh, don't worry about them," Ryuji chimed in. "Aiba-senpai has all of those weird moves an' stuff while Akira could probably beat up that freaky Shadow with the chains if she needed to."
"I concur, those two are exceptionally good at their jobs, even if Takumi doesn't have a Persona of his own to call upon," Yusuke nodded. "It may be best for you to sit and breathe for a moment, perhaps enjoy a nice warm cup of tea."
The glasses wearing teen offered a weak smile. "Maybe."
"I don't believe that's the issue," Makoto said a moment before the matter could drop. "No offense, Amamiya-kun, but you've always been a bit on edge when we've visited your room. You don't speak as much and after the Worcestershire incident, you're rather touchy about anyone getting near the things on your shelves."
Leave it to Niijima-senpai to call his bluff. Still he had a card or two he could play before things got too awkward.
"I think I'm a bit in the right after the Worcestershire Incident." The collective group grimaced at the memory of that day. Ren didn't lose his temper often, he was rather stoic and coolheaded more often than not. That he nearly lost his head over a near broken bottle of steak sauce had been an odd moment. It became even more odd when the bottle somehow managed to reveal that one of LeBlanc's was possessed by some malevolent Shadow and forced everyone still within the café into the Metaverse to deal with it. Ren had implemented a firm "Do not touch" policy on all of his shelved possessions because of that, especially items on the top shelf. He never explained why, but after a middle shelf bottle of sauce forced the group into Mementos the remainder of the Phantom Thieves didn't want to find out what the numerous objects two shelves about it did.
"That is a fair point, but it doesn't quite change the fact that it appears as if you don't want us here." He didn't. They'd ask less questions that way and they'd be safer. He couldn't exactly tell them that without telling them why they'd be safer, but they also didn't have anywhere better to meet. Their group was a little too conspicuous to have gathering in the middle of the rail line stations or in any random restaurant on a regular basis. That would draw unnecessary attention to them and they already had several things on their plate after their previous Change of Heart had been ruined by the Black Mask.
"You're imagining it," Ren dismissed. "Let's just get on with the meeting if you would. We've a lot to figure out, even if we've secured the route to your sister's Treasure."
"Yeah, like how we're gonna–" Morgana began. only for Ann to interrupt him.
"I'm with Niijima-senpai on this," she breathed. "Ever since we've started exploring palaces and the Metaverse you've been keeping things from us like that scary gun you sometimes use or the way you kinda just have an answer for everything. Heck, are we going to ignore how you cleared that rigged tournament in Niijima-san's palace after they summoned those Shadows immune to everything? You still managed to take them down without the other gun you sometimes use."
"Don't forget all the times he just stares at a wall and zones out then comes back with new Personas," Ryuji added, rummaging through his backpack for a few snacks.
"Or the odd children he occasionally takes for walks," Futaba piped up. "Not to be that guy, but you're hiding a whole lot Ren. Do you mind telling us about it?"
"Yes." The rather nonchalant way he answered took the group off guard. "It's better in this case to let me keep my secrets. If they ever become relevant, I'll let you know a bit more about them. Until then, it's best to ignore things that really really shouldn't be your concern."
"Nah," Ryuji belched. "We're friends and friends don't keep big secrets from friends."
"They do if it would keep them much safer to leave them in the dark," Ren retorted testily. "I would really rather not talk about this when we have a traitor to oust and several steps of planning that need to be gone over. Those are much more immediately important than anything else and have a more direct impact on us as a whole."
"Is it because you don't trust us," Futaba asked after a silence filled the room.
"No, it's just I'd rather keep the lot of you safe and–"
"Amamiya-kun, we fight Shadows every few days and we enter a world intersecting our own that is ready to kill us at a moment's notice. I think 'safe' left our vocabularies a long while ago."
"Indeed," Yusuke hummed. "Certainly we try our best to mitigate any risks that may lie in wait for us, but we still risk our lives each time we enter the Metaverse. Surely you can see how unsafe that is?"
They had a point, but they also were underestimating what he meant.
"You don't understand."
"Then tell us about it." Ryuji.
"No, it's better to say you wouldn't understand, even if I explained," he sighed, rubbing his temples. A headache was coming. "You all lack the fundamental knowledge and required information to make heads or tails of anything I would tell you and giving you that information would take months at the very least. Without that, I cannot and will not explain anything to you unless it becomes relevant and if it does, the less you know the better. You're less likely to end up dead or worse if you don't know how to call untoward attention to yourselves."
"It won't hurt to try and explain."
"It would. The best case scenario would be the lot you you dismissing me like you did when I mentioned the doors I see that you all evidently cannot. The worst case scenario would be you believing me without proof. So please, drop this topic."
A loud thump shook the café as something heavy fell down below.
"Don't worry about that, everything's just fine," Sojiro called from below. "Just moving a few big things out to the other storage room. That was likely the rice and assorted spices that would need to be sorted, measured then moved to different containers over the weekend. That would be good exercise and a nice way to destress, but just in case.
"Call me if you need help, old man," Ren yelled.
"I'll do more than call you if you call me 'old man' again, brat." That was their way of communicating. If Sojiro needed anything, Ren would be there and vice versa. The two had a steadfast bond, even if he liked to heckle the older man from time to time. In spite of that, the glasses wearing teen did wish his guardian would stop moving heavy bags and crates on his own, he was more likely to hurt himself in the winter months than he was any other time of year.
"Uh, hey Ren," Ryuji called. "Who's the girl in that picture?"
"What picture?" The teen whipped around in time to see a familiar image that he kept on his top shelf. Unlike everything else up there the picture was benign and incapable of harming anyone but him, the memories it brought being painfully fresh. "I... that's..."
He gently picked up the picture and held it for a time. He would have said no one, but Ryuji wasn't a person to accept that sort of answer and neither was Ann when it came to girls he hung around with—even if he wasn't dating anyone—because she wanted to get a better read on him. She hadn't had much luck with that thanks to her rather indirect form of questioning.
"She was really pretty," the blonde girl said. "Like super pretty and you can tell she isn't wearing any makeup or anything. Were those contacts she had on? I've never seen anyone with eyes like that."
"No, those were her natural eyes," Ren said quietly. "A golden eye that appraised all things and a rubellite eye that cherished anything beautiful."
"So... who was she?" Ryuji poked.
"My best friend back home," Ren breathed. "My best friend and my only friend before I moved to Japan."
"Huh... Wait, your only friend!? You're joking right?" When Ren didn't laugh or crack a smile, the blond teen withered a bit. "Oh, uh, sorry."
"What was her name," Ann asked. "Unless you'd rather not answer."
She didn't sound catty or rude, just a touch concerned. Did she... No, it was best to not think about that at the present.
"Estelle," Ren said after a moment. "She was a good person, even if she often pretended not to be. A bit demanding and needy at times, but she was also fair and kept her word, even to her own detriment at times. She's also the reason I have that bottle." He gestured to the Worcestershire sauce. That had been an odd gift to receive on this thirteenth birthday. No one expected to get a bottle enchanted steak sauce that happened to bear an 'eldritch loanword' as she'd called it. It hadn't been his real gift from her, more a tool he was told to hold onto wherever he went as a sort of good luck charm. He hadn't questioned it then, especially when she gave him his real gift before his mother chewed her out for giving him a proper spellbook. She'd argued that him summoning her a year prior without one was proof enough that he needed one and hadn't budged on the matter. Said spellbook was also on his top shelf and thankfully it hadn't fallen from the tiny quake.
"Was she just a friend," Futaba asked, a goblin smile crossing her face. "You looked more like an item there to me."
"Yes." No. Friendship was odd for him. He infinitely cherished people, but he'd cherished Estelle more than anyone else aside from his mother, aunt and uncles. His mother and her both doublechecked to make sure that he hadn't been unknowingly bewitched by her, but it hadn't been that. Sure, somewhere there had been budding love there, but she was his best friend first and foremost and he wouldn't have changed that if he could have helped it. "She was close to me and I deeply cherished her company."
"May I ask what happened to her," Yusuke murmured. The blue haired teen often appeared absent minded or thought of things in abstract manners, but he could read people and rooms far better than he let on.
"...She died nearly a year ago," Ren said, fighting back the pinpricks he felt at the corners of his eyes. The room fell silent after that. "We were in an accident, we were caught in a house fire and... and... she didn't make it. She made sure I got out, but succumbed to severe burns shortly afterwards."
It was a lie, but that was the story he'd been told to tell anyone who asked. No one would believe him if he talked about crimson gates opening in the air and invisible beings attacking humans through them. They certainly wouldn't believe him if he talked about how he'd nearly died and how Estelle had given her everything to keep him alive—even though that in itself cost her her existence.
"I'm sorry," Ryuji said. "I shouldn't have..."
"You didn't know," Ren replied quietly, feeling small. He took a seat and stared at the picture for a long while. It was from a year and a half ago. On the right side was his younger self, back when his hair had been tied into a messy bun and his glasses had been taken, allowing the then dull ruby coloration of his eyes to stand out. He'd been wearing a poet shirt and tight black pants that day, a goofy grin splayed across his face as he faced the camera. On the left had been Estelle—rather Hastur, the King in Yellow and lady of Carcosa—smiling devilishly at the camera. Hey mismatched eyes shined brightly behind Ren's glasses in the picture, the black sclera of the green tinted golden eye white as she had perfected her human guise. Her usual pigtails had been replaced by a long, ornate braid that fell across her shoulder as neatly cut bangs framed her face. She wore a cropped beige riding coat with ornate golden embroidery over her own poet shirt and pure white breeches. An ornate cutlass hung by her side—a real one rather than a prop, while Ren had a prop rapier just outside the picture's view—completing her look.
He recalled Estelle wanting to dress like characters from a movie they'd watched a few days prior and they found the time to do so once winter vacation began for them. It had been a cool, but snowless day, one of five that entire Winter, so they had been rather lucky to get such a good picture. There had been a few others, but Ren had tucked those away elsewhere before his move and hadn't seen them since. Still, this brought back memories.
"If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to start the actual meeting," Ren said after some time.
"R-right," Makoto nodded, far more quickly than she likely meant to. "We need to make sure our plan is foolproof if we plan on tricking the Detective Prince."
The rest of the group made sounds of agreement and thus the meeting finally began. Ren was happy they'd dropped the topic, the less they knew about Daemons and the things that fought them, the safer they would remain for the time being. He'd make sure of it.
