Captain Blues: Time for the first official chapter. A little short for my tastes but it's still good. I hope everyone enjoys!

Syndicate of Phantoms
Chapter One: Welcome to Shibuya, Caged Trickster

Tateyama Ren sat alone on the bench, waiting for the train that would take him from his home in Sotenbori to Shibuya. All things considered, Ren knew something like this was going to happen. He had overheard his mother and father arguing for the past few nights, with the fights growing each night.

When it finally came time for his father to reveal it, Ren had taken the guilt off of his hands and told him that he would easily accept. His mother looked devastated. He understood he had let her down. She fought so hard for him to stay but he wanted the fighting to stop.

Not for his father's benefit, but for his mother's.

His father was never really there growing up. He was always at the hospital so he didn't relationship with that man to begin with. But that gulf grew during his time in America.

The day he saw his father with another woman.

He wanted to surprise his father at his clinic after school with his first-ever girlfriend, a cute American girl named Kori Anders. But instead, he watched his father kiss a woman farewell as she was leaving. Ren always suspected his father saw him because, for the next two weeks, his dad gave him anything he wanted.

Most likely to buy his silence.

While Ren milked that once he realized it, Ren also realized that his father had lost what Ren had easily given him which was his respect. It also made Ren far more protective of his mother, to the point that he would fight kids at school if they so much insulted her.

His mother meant the world to him, and he wanted to make her proud. It was one of the reasons why he did what he did that night. When he saw that woman in danger, all Ren could see was his mother in her place.

He only tried to do what was right and stop it.

He wanted to make her proud.

Ren snorted.

Fat chance of doing that now, considering he was shamed in Sotenbori after that frame job.

Fat chance of ever doing that after the things he had seen in that detention center. The fights he had gone through, the solitary confinement after those fights.

He was such a fool and now, he was paying for it.

The only way to make her proud was by casting himself off to save her the embarrassment of having such a lowly wretch of a son like him and walk out of her life.

So, there he sat, on a bench at five in the morning at the train station with his head hanging low, with a single suitcase, with his next destination being some rinky-dink place in Shibuya that's three and a half hours long.

"Ah well," Ren whispered as he took out his headphones and plugged them into his ears as the train arrived. As the song he often heard his mother play when she was in a down mood, Ren stood from his chair, grabbed his suitcase, and walked onto the train, where the doors closed behind him.

Maybe he shouldn't have fought so hard to keep his mother away from seeing him leave.

But like everything else, he was a fool.

But had he turned to his left, he would have seen his mother's saddened eyes watching him board the train.

[馬鹿みたい 子供なのね…
Baka mitai kodomo na no ne…
I've been a fool, and you've been childish…]

The sun was high in the sky as Ren stepped out of the train station and out into the massive Shibuya crossing, the headphones in his ear blaring Heart Break Mermaid as he looked around. Well, one thing for certain, this place seemed far busier than Sotenbori could ever been.

And it was so much bigger, at least in Ren's opinion.

But that didn't change the fact for the next year, this city would be nothing short of a prison to him.

After taking a deep breath and adjusting his fake glasses, Ren gripped the handle of his suitcase and walked onto the crossing,

And into his new cage.

As he walked through the crowd of people, he quickly found himself annoyed. This place was so damned crowded, he could hardly breathe.

But as he walked, he caught something out of the side of his eye.

A flash of blonde hair.

Ren turned his head and through the crowd of people, he saw the owner of that blonde hair.

The girl looked around his age with wavy platinum blonde hair that was styled in bushy pigtails with parted side bangs on the right side of her face, where she had a single yellow hair clip above her left ear as well as small circular earrings on both ears.

She wore a black blazer over a white varsity-like hooded sweatshirt that covered her plaid skirt. Her sweatshirt has a red stripe between two blue stripes at the bottom, an "S" symbol near the front bottom on one side, and a green four-leaf-clover symbol on the back of the hood.

She also wore red tights, brown boots with yellow laces, and a gold necklace with a clover pendant hanging from it.

But what Ren noticed was her distant bright blue eyes. The world seemed to slow as she turned her head and for a moment, their eyes met through the crowd of people.

In that split moment, Ren felt like their minds had melded somehow but as quickly as it happened, it ended, as she bowed her head and walked away.

And he did the same.

But had he looked again, he would have noticed that the girl, through the crowd of people, had turned around to stare at his back.

After the train ride to Yongen-Jaya, Ren found himself in the backseats of one of the more populated residential areas. "Alright, Café LeBlanc should be somewhere around here," Ren muttered to himself as he looked around the area.

He spotted a surprising amount of places during his short tour of the place. A clinic named the Butterfly Kiss, a supermarket, a second-hand shop, a sweet potato vendor, and several vending machines. It also encompasses several activities: a public bathhouse, laundromats, a batting center, and a movie theater.

But still no Café LeBlanc.

As he continued to look around, he heard the voice of a small child groaning in pain. Ren looked around and followed the sound to see a group of teenagers, with one of them holding a child that looked no older than ten in a full nelson.

The child had sleek dark blue hair with side-swept bangs and blue eyes and he wore a gray jacket over a dark beige scoop neck shirt, alongside a thin yellow necklace. He also wore white jeans with a black belt and black sneakers with white shoelaces, soles, and toe caps.

"Let me go!" the child squirmed as the teens that surrounded him, looking no older than Ren, snickered.

"No chance, Monnie," one of the teens taunted. "Not until you give us back my wallet."

"I don't have your wa—" the kid was cut off by a fist slamming into his stomach. "—llet," the kid wheezed.

"You know, we would believe that if you hadn't been acting like some fucking thief," the teen who punched him commented with a blasé air, as if punching a child was as normal as buying milk.

Ren growled and for a moment, he thought about stepping out to stop it, but then hesitated.

Didn't he just learn his damn lesson for trying to help other people?

But as the sound of another punch landed on the kid, Ren closed his eyes and let out a breath.

His mom would be ashamed if he allowed this young kid to be wailed on by people his age.

Damn it…

Ren grabbed his suitcase, blew out a breath, and without further hesitation, he stepped into view and chucked his suitcase, nailing a kid in the side of his head. All of the other teens whipped around, with the one holding the kid loosening his grip enough for the kid to elbow him and run off.

"If you want to pick on someone, how about doing it to someone your own size," Ren suggested with a small smirk.

He was a fool.

But damn it, he still wanted to make his mother proud.

Even if she wouldn't be around to see it.