2025-12-02: Ren's Annoying Silent Act
- Log: Ren's Annoying Silent Act
- Cast: Isabeau Fontaine, Ren Amamiya
- Where: Shibuya - Untouchable's Alleyway
- OOC Date: 2025-12-02
- IC Date: Sun, Aug 19 2012
- Summary: Isabeau happens to Ren, but she can't quite attack him without taking no splash damage back on herself given their shared history in Inaba. She gives it her best shot, though, coming at him with everything she can throw -- while he retreats deeper and deeper into himself, unable to even express empathy for the vulnerability he recognises without pissing her off even further. Isabeau swears revenge when he just walks away, but today, she has more important matters to attend to. (There's a cat.)
- Content warning: Racism
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Another day of summer vacation, another day spent working part-time. Today is special, even; it's the part-time job Ren doesn't advertise because they're not entirely sure everything they do there is legal. Despite what Iwai named his shop, Ren sure isn't untouchable, so any shady stuff they're doing in the name of getting better weapons for the team stick with them.
The day's shift is over; they went in for the late morningearly afternoon and did various plausibly deniable things for Iwai. Since Ichika--or rather, Ogre--doesn't have a gun of her own already, they figured it'd be a good idea to do a shift there, see if they can't grease any wheels before inviting andor sending her over.
For now, they've made a little headway in their relationship with Iwai... such as it is... and gotten paid for it, too. Right now, they lean on the wall of the corner just outside the store. One of the doors to the Velvet Room is just off their left, Caroline perched on top and kicking her legs slowly as she watches them mess with their phone, daring them to come close so she can drop-kick them into the Velvet Room. Ren carefully pretends not to notice. They've genuinely got something taking up their attention, anyway.
That is to say... their father's contact information.
If it weren't for what Shadow Kobayakawa had told them and their friends--about how "Ren Amamiya" had been one of the students he'd been instructed to take on by a shadowy organization--they wouldn't even consider trying to call their old man. But there's a possibility that there's someone in politics involved in that organization, and even if not... their father's the one who set them up to attend Shujin Academy instead of someplace like Kasugayama.
He must know something about this. It's too big a coincidence. But what could he possibly know? Would he even say anything if he did? Ren can just picture him blowing them off, saying he's too busy with important work to spend five minutes talking to his own goddamn child--
They bring their smartphone to their forehead and take a deep breath, in, out. In, out. No. If they're going to do this, they have to be completely calm. Not even a single miniscule slip-up. That's the only way their No Emotion, Facts And Logic Only dad will betray even a hint of anything.
...They're going to need to breathe for a little while longer. And hopefully not chicken out of calling... again.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Eeeehhhh?"
Where did that noise come from? It's high -- not just in horses or in pitch, but literally. Look -- up there! Up... on the awning of Untouchable?!
Dear God, how did Isabeau get up there. Why is Isabeau up there. Why is Isabeau here.
"Ren," his name said yobisute, becuse Isabeau has always scorned honourifics, "do not tell me you have forgotten how to use the phone!" Isabeau exclaims, in Japanese which is -- still a bit stilted and textbook, with very phrase said in full with no shortenings whatsoever. "Hmm, is this some stupid forgiveness ritual? I really cannot keep track."
Seriously, why is she up there. HOW is she up there.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
The sudden sound from above startles Ren, and they lower their hand with eyes wide behind their glasses as they stare up at...
Why her? Why here? Why now? For a moment, Ren can only stare at her, befuddled, as she mocks them and uses their name with an excruciating amount of familiarity for someone who has never been her friend.
They ignore that part. Engage with people like Isabeau on every single thing and you'll just exhaust yourself.
"Why do you think it's a 'forgiveness ritual'?" they ask instead, because that's something whose meaning is still opaque to them. The 'forgotten how to use the phone' part is easy enough.
(Ren, aren't you engaging with Isabeau by doing that? Yes. Yes, they are, and it's still better than calling their dad.)
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Do you people not push your foreheads to the ground to beg forgiveness?" Isabeau sniffs, nose turned up, and if you were to ask her the racism is defensive driving. "This is the same kind of motion."
There's no one for Isabeau to defend herself against up there, though. She's the one picking the fight. She is, in fact, a jerk. Who comes into someone else's country and just insults their customs like that...?
... she was no less insulting when the city was a small town, though. Even if there were more people she had to defend herself against there, by square mile, because few people were particularly eager to welcome a foreigner into Inaba either.
She grabs the edge of the awning and flips down over it, dangling for a moment before she drops a few feet down to the ground. (... that would make a pretty sweet move in a Palace.) Swaggering up in her blouse and her jean shorts, she puts a hand to her hip, gesturing the other to his phone. (Sorry, Ren. She still thinks of you as a dude. Hey, at least she's one-third correct.) "I wonder if you are really calling your illi-- illec -- illegal," she snaps out, her scowl deepening as she forgets and stumbles over illicit, "sources, though... you have them if you are walking out of a store like this, do you not?"
Isabeau draws her hand to her mouth, to veil her, "ohohohoho--", as she grins. "I have heard what they say now. You are a violent criminal. The son of the Mayor himself! You were not able to use father's money to defeat these, things they say," again, she can't remember the word 'allegations', do NOT @ her, "so I think they must even be true."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"...Oh, I get it."
It is of course not a 'forgiveness ritual,' but now that Isabeau explains it, Ren sees what she means. That lukewarm reaction is all they give her. They could point out that even if the motion is similar, they are not in fact putting their head up to the ground, so it's not the same. They don't bother, because they know Isabeau is not saying this out of a misunderstanding. She's just saying it to be a jerk.
She wasn't any less insulting in Inaba, either. Ren tried to reach out to her, unlike a lot of the other townspeople, but she lashed out at them because of a lot of the other townspeople, and they lacked the social awareness to understand which was the chicken and which was the egg. Maybe now they do... but they've already got it set in their head that she's a jerk and she enjoys being a jerk.
...That flip over the awning is cool, though. Ren pauses in bringing their phone down to mess with apps (because they're sure not going to call their dad while she's watching) to watch her.
"That's a weird thing to say when you're going around walking on rooftops," they point out, of how they must be calling illegalillicit sources because they just came out of Untouchable.
But then she repeats what the rumors say. It's absolutely zero surprise. Ren frowns anyway as they narrow their eyes at her.
Then they look back down at their phone. "Mm," they reply noncommittally, as if they don't really care. (They do care--more than they're willing to admit to themself. But coming from Isabeau specifically--she never liked them, and they don't like her, so it's hard to care too much about what she thinks. Now, if she brought up someone whose opinion they did care about...)
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Congratulations!" Isabeau applauds Ren, when he declares that he gets it. That she's applauding something absolutely flat 'goes over her head' -- which is to say, it absolutely doesn't, but she's pretending like he's engaging authentically.
You know. To hurt him. It's like that.
All these things in front of her are weapons, and Isabeau's the meanest girl on the block.
"It is not illegal to make another path around the city," Isabeau sniffs, nose turning up again. "However, you are jealous, I am sure." Stopped clocks: guaranteed to be right twice a day, or your money back! "Perhaps if you worked harder in physical education, you, too, could climb a basic wall."
She leans forward, scrutinising him. "Mm... perhaps not."
Her hand comes to rest on her hip, all cocked to the side, and she tosses her drills over her shoulder. (They bounce right back, of course.) "You are long way away from home," and she forgets an article but just IGNORE THAT we're MOVING ON she is NOT frazzled now she's down here talking to an Inaba boy and making more language mistakes because of it, "and with much messier friends, now. Does Yoshio know you have replaced him? Oh!" Her hand flies to her lips, to veil her gasp. "You will forgive me, I was not thinking! He replaced you after you began your life of crime, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Isabeau applauds!
Ren rolls their eyes.
Is it illegal to 'make another path around the city'? Maybe, maybe not. Ren genuinely doesn't know or care. "It does make you look shady," they opt to point out, because they do kind of want to do it too, even though their first example of real-life parkour is Isabeau "Fucking" Fontaine.
They keep their expression neutral when she mocks their athleticism, but can't quite hide the clench of their jaw. That one does get under their skin, because they trained diligently at skating for three years, only to fall sharply off after their arrest. Kasumi's helping them with training again, and there is the Metaverse where they can do things they could only dream of on the streets of Tokyo, but it is a sharp reminder of what they've lost. Something that Isabeau still has, clearly.
A long way away from home, sure--but with better friends, because they're messier. They don't smile at his face only to abandon him when something goes wrong--ah, yep, sure enough, that's Isabeau, homing straight in on Yoshio. Leave it to someone who knew you as a child (you're still children (even so)) to zero in on what you'd rather leave in the past.
They shrug brusquely, their thumb swiping aimlessly on the screen of their smartphone. (Yoshio had been so jealous of it when they got it for their birthday two years ago, had "joked" to their other, more casual friends about how he was showing off all the time whenever he pulled it out. Ren tried to avoid being obvious about it, but the only alternative was not using it at all, and they didn't want to do that either.) Yoshio had publicly denounced them rather than replacing them (though who knows? maybe he has replaced them by now), but they don't say that. Isabeau is probably just guessing, anyway. She left Inaba way longer ago than they did.
"How many friends do you have?" they wonder, keeping their tone and expression neutral.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Perhaps if someone has a small imagination," Isabeau hmphs, on the idea of her being shady.
(Besides, a little shade would not go amiss in this kind of heat...)
Isabeau's grin grows sharper, seeing the way Ren's jawline sets. "What? Does it bother you to point out how you struggle with the rope?" Isabeau counts anything less than her perfect score in the various physical tests of PE as struggling. "I am training for eight hours a day now vacation is now. You train for zero, no? Disappointing! Your dedication was the one thing respectful about you," because of course Isabeau never cared that Ren's father was the mayor, BEING THE MAYOR OF SUCK TOWN EARNS YOU NO POINTS, REN'S DAD. "However, I wonder if Yoshio has taken your coach to test his own ambition now you are gone..."
Isabeau is, in fact, just guessing. She's throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. She'd love one of those shotguns from Untouchable, apparently.
(She'd probably stick a cleaver on the front of it, too...)
Ren asks about her friends, though, and Isabeau barks out another, "HOH!" of laughter. "Would you not like to know? I have a whole band of friends, Ren. Of course I am much more mature than you and your delic-- delquiet-- messy friends," Isabeau is perfect at Japanese and everything else, "so I work with adults now."
Well, that's not the exhaustive list... Isabeau was, in fact, up on the awning to get a vantage point to look for the alleycat who lives around here, because the stray cat is also her friend.
She's not going to boast about that to Ren, though.
For some reason.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"You mean like a cop?" Ren remarks, raising their eyebrows to look pointedly over their phone at her. "Someone who'd love to buff his arrest numbers by taking in a weird foreigner doing weird things in weird places?"
It isn't even shit, at this point. It's a legitimate warning. They don't really expect Isabeau to listen, though. (Even if a little shade does feel good in this heat, absolutely.) Why are they even still talking to her instead of walking away? They already know they're wasting their time. (Maybe interacting with Akechi so much has turned them into a masochist...)
I wouldn't call it struggling, Ren thinks, rubbing their temples. Although they don't rise to that bait out loud... eight hours a day, huh... compared to that, yeah. It may as well be zero. They really fell off real sharp, huh... It's fine. They've got something else to be dedicated to now. Something that's about more than just training all day, every day.
"Doubt it," they mutter. Yoshio generally preferred to watch than do, then complain about the ones doing. ...As soon as Ren has that thought, they drop their eyes to the ground in shame. That's a really discourteous thing to think about someone who was their best friend for nearly ten years. Yoshio did things. He just usually did them second...
...Either way, they doubt Coach Himuro stuck around Inaba or even Okina City. He's got his own career to get back to, now that his would-be protege fell through.
Ren's dark eyes flash as Isabeau boasts about how mature she is and how she hangs out with adults--flash with concern, that is. "And they're... all adults? Who choose to hang out with a teenager?" they ask. "Exactly what kind of 'work' do they have you do...?"
It could be innocent; Ren has a lot of adult acquaintances--even ones they might come close to calling friends. None of them take advantage of them, except maybe as far as part-timing goes, but not anything more than that. Coach Himuro taught them a lot about queerness and sexuality, but he was never inappropriate with them. Ren's spent a little too much time in the proximity of shitty adults lately to just write it off, though. Even someone as hateful as Isabeau doesn't deserve to get taken advantage of, and no one deserves to get put to 'work' in a certain other way that's been on their mind lately.
Maybe it's that concern that gets them to do something they wouldn't have done even a moment ago--which is to wonder, "Do you still hang out with Fuyuki-san?" Fuyuki-san, and not Kanae-chan as they called her when they were classmates in Inaba. "Or is she giving you the cold shoulder too?"
The friends she'd been with that day had called associating with Isabeau a stroke of bad luck for her, too. If Kanae's snubbing her too, then maybe...
But it's that 'too'--it's that change of address--that says it all, doesn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Hmph," Isabeau hmphs enough that it gets verbalised, this time, a scowl passing over her face. "Should a police target me this way, my father will sort it out."
Ah. Her father. Isabeau had a different last name, in Inaba -- she went by Taikou, then, and her stepfather was indeed Japanese. The formidable Laurent Fontaine of myth, meanwhile, is a history professor at Tokyo University. He is also, apparently, quite wealthy, a trait her former stepfather Yutaka always lacked. (Her mother came from money, though...)
"Wow!" Isabeau gasps, hearing Ren mutter so darkly. "You would say such unkind things about a boy you were -- could not be taken away from? I think I had better warn your new friends how," 'fair weather friend' is an idiom oh fuck she only remembers the one about how Japanese people throw coins in front of cats to waste them, "easily your alliances change!"
NAILED IT.
"Of course they choose to hang out with me!" Isabeau insists. "It is not like I am just relaxing on my name, you know! I am as capable as any of them!" She puts her hands on her hips, with a huff. "We hunt," she insists, and Ren might know that you need to be eighteen for a firearms licence given his work in Untouchable (let alone growing up in Inaba), but that's escaped Isabeau, so she's merrily unaware of the red flag she's thrown up. Luckily, hunting doesn't sound like that kind of red flag, at least. "That is something which would go far above your head, though, so do not worry your little head about it."
Isabeau can't tell that Ren has any Resonance, after all -- though hers is pretty loud if he pays any attention to catching it. Her vibe... is waspish.
(Really, you couldn't pick a more fitting feeling if you tried. Isabeau is great at bugging people.)
Her nose wrinkles, though, as Ren brings up -- "Kanae!" And the scorn with which she says her name says it all: that yobisute isn't a vehicle for closeness, either. (Even though it used to be, years ago. Entirely on accident, but still.) "I am the one putting her out in the cold. I do not need her. I do not need anyone." Okay, she's getting way too honest for having come into this to torment Ren, but he pushed the Kanae button. "She should know what is good for her and shape up in tennis -- I am not so weak as to go back!"
Christ, get it together, Isabeau, it's not like he's your friend. Sure, he tried a few times, but if he really wanted to get away with it he should have stopped all his sychophants from telling her he was really just pitying the idiot bastard who couldn't even speak properly because he had to as the mayor's son!
"She has realised you are no good, though, is that it? Oh, I see!" Isabeau snaps her fingers, smiling again. "You are -- you are deflecting!" It took her a second, but she remembered the right word, shut up.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
The name change had been a surprise, when Ren had first heard it. He'd never been close enough to her to know the details of her life and so thought at first it must be a different Isabeau--it's not that rare a name overseas, to their understanding--but then they heard a little more and nope, definitely the same person. Good for her that she found her 'real' father, they suppose, but they could almost scream from the irony of her going 'MY FATHER WILL SORT IT OUT' of any possible legal trouble to The Mayor's Son Who Got Arrested And Convicted.
Maybe that's the point, though. Bragging that her father cares enough about her to bother. Ren looks away for a moment as their grip tightens around their smartphone.
...Their smartphone, which was a birthday present from their parents after they started pursuing skating seriously. An unimaginable luxury by the standards of most of the kids of their country hometown. The bitterest irony here is how they let that convince them for a while that maybe their parents cared about them after all.
Of course, then Isabeau snipes about their brief comment on Yoshio just as they're thinking that. "He cut ties with me," they snap, and immediately regret it. In for a penny, in for a pound: "So whatever. I doubt he cares anymore."
That was the point, wasn't it? Of their parents agreeing to their probation in Tokyo. To get them away from town so everyone could stop caring and forget about what happened...
...
...isn't it kind of weird that the court said they had to have their probation in a completely different city so far away? Where they just happened to end up at a school influenced by some shadowy Persona-based conspiracy?
Was that really the court's decision, or did their dad just tell them so and they were too numb to read into it at the time...?
Faced with another nasty aspect of an already nasty question, they tuck their phone in their pocket and keep their hand there. They've been caught up in their own thoughts, but the more time they spend actually talking to Isabeau, the more it becomes clear that the bad vibes they get from her are more than just vibes. Is this... Resonance...? And when she claims that she "hunts" with her adult friends, Ren gives her a wary, confused look. "'Hunt'?" they echo.
But she's obnoxious about that too, and they rub the bridge of their nose, just under the frame of their glasses. "I don't know why I bother with you," they mutter, which might unintentionally only underscore the lies certain members of Ren's old friend group told Isabeau about why they tried to be kind to her.
Of course, then Isabeau literally says, 'I don't need her, I don't need ANYONE,' and Ren goes right back to that concerned look. That's the kind of thing deeply wounded people say--something they understand now with a little more life experience compared to before. That's why they aren't fooled by her claiming she's the one who's done the rejecting, that Ren must be deflecting Kanae's rejection onto her.
"...Sure. Whatever," they murmur, hunching their shoulders as they dig their other hand into their pocket. Isabeau clearly isn't interested in commiseration, so they intend to leave it at that.
"Pathetic!" Caroline barks then, SLAMMING her police baton onto the frame of the Velvet Room door. "How much longer are you gonna let her abuse you, inmate?! Show some backbone!"
Irritation flashes across Ren's expression as they can't quite manage to pretend not to hear her in time. This is the greatest irony of all, but they're not going to have a conversation with her in front of Isabeau of all people--especially if she's a Persona User. No amount of cute kitties in shoulder bags would save them from that.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
A little of column A, a little of column B. Isabeau is both rubbing her father's affection in Ren's face and boasting over the fact that she actually has a father.
"... well! Yoshio and I have something in common!" Isabeau sniffs, folding her arms. "I was the one who cut off Kanae, too! I do not care any more, either!"
... man, she's really loud for someone who doesn't care, though.
Isabeau, mercifully, can't read minds; she can just see the way Ren acts as his mind goes there. She elects to believe it's proof that her attacks are all hitting the mark. What other explanation is there?
"I am bothering with you," she points out, a touch petulant, because she'd just decided he was devastated and here he is acting like he's the one in charge here?! "Normally I hunt much grander things, but now it is a holiday, I do not want to fall out of practice crushing the youth around me. For you, it is too bad. Have you tried being a less obvious target?"
Ren hunches into himself, and Isabeau -- well, Isabeau is examining him as carefully as any Quarry, so she sees the irritation in his eyes, but of course she assumes it's for her. "Pathetic," she says, and there might be a moment of oh-shit-IS-she-psychic -- but no, she's just on the same wavelength. "I cannot stand you people who want to fight and just sulk into yourselves instead. Well?" She asks, as she steps forward, into his space. "You have something to say, no? Are you going to spit it out, or shall I grab your tongue and yank it out of you?"
It's a hollow threat; for all Isabeau is (reflexively?) vicious to the people at Shujin, she doesn't really get physical most of the time, outside of the kind of harmless wrestling and hair-pulling one expects of girls who can't fight. But she looks intimidating. She's even tall for a girl, though Ren still has a few inches on her. At least she doesn't have to crane her neck quite as much as a lot of girls.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
REALLY loud. Ren gives her a steady look and says nothing. They feel genuinely sorry for her, and they can never tell her that, because it'll only make their relations worse.
For a moment, Ren feels intensely lonely. Why do so many of their childhood relationships have to be like this? At least Hibari's different... because she ended up getting convicted of a crime too, but still.
"Hmm," they murmur. Less of an obvious target, huh... They look themself over. They are pretty hunched in on themself, huh... They always had lousy posture growing up. Skating practice improved it by leaps and bounds--and then after their conviction, it was like time turned backwards. She even has a point about them sulking instead of fighting back. They frown when she too calls them pathetic, but it's rapidly apparent it's just a coincidence.
It's a hollow threat for her, which is just as well, because Ren can't afford to get into fights. Kawakami was able to cover for them when they got their shit beat by the Black Mask, but if the school starts seriously thinking they're fighting--if they actually get into a fight in the real world--they have no doubt they'll be expelled on the spot. Maybe that's why Isabeau's trying to start something. Wouldn't that be delicious for her, getting the 'mayor's son' kicked out of school a second time?
So as she gets in their space, they give her their best poker face. Then they roll their shoulders in a shrug, which straightens out their posture enough to make their body line more unyielding.
"Nah," they reply, and turn to walk past her--walk past Caroline--and return to Central Street proper.
That doesn't mean Isabeau will let them. At least Caroline doesn't give them further shit though, even as she keeps watching them from her perch.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"That silent act is really starting to annoy me!" Isabeau snaps, and she can't quite say it's pissing her off because the way she'd say that, in context, is by saying the sentence in a less polite register, and she's having trouble remembering all the stupid little rules around that. Stupid Japanese with its stupid language that makes her look stupid she hates this stupid country.
(Maybe, one day, she'll realise the racism which she thinks is entirely justified as self-defence gives her more in common with a certain secret society of fascists than anyone she'd actually want to share a room with, despite the fact that they're all fiercely pro-Japan. ... but since the secret conspiracy is a secret, Isabeau doesn't reflect on her prejudicial thinking one little bit.)
At least Ren straightens up. Maybe she can goad them into a fight -- though if she was looking to get them kicked out, she'd have picked this, well, not in a shady alleyway which no one legitimate comes down. She doesn't have a plan, just an attack of opportunity.
But Ren just decides nah and walks past her, and Isabeau turns, her hands curling to fists. "You think you can just walk away from me?! I will make you sorry!" She calls after him, but, ultimately...
... she doesn't follow him.
If Caroline stays manifested long enough, she'll see her pulling a can of cat food out of the bag over her shoulder, once Isabeau turns away from Ren's retreating back. "`Ugh,`" she grouses, to herself, in French, "`he'd better not have scared her away...`"
The cat, she means. Not Caroline, who she still can't see.
At least she's happy to see the cat.