[Wow murderschool isn't even in SESSION yet Ren, give it another year and a half or so.
Hajime rakes a hand through his hair, exhaling a sigh through his nose. It's not like this is a secret or anything; it's just yet another reminder that talent, the thing that matters most in his world, isn't... universal. And of all the SHSLs who could possibly have shown up on this station, he got Gundam Tanaka, who isn't exactly what he'd consider a shining example of an elite.]
Talent has everything to do with it where I come from, Amamiya. Hope's Peak Academy isn't just a school; if you graduate from there, you're set for life. You can only attend the Main Course if they scout you for having some kind of talent. That's how you become someone, a member of society people actually care about.
It's because people in the Reserve Course aren't talented that security just... didn't care what happened. The first girl who was murdered, my... [friend? It seems weird calling Natsumi a friend, when he'd barely known her. Barely gotten the chance to know her. Maybe they could have been friends.] Her family is the Kuzuryu Family. You have them where you're from, right? The biggest yakuza syndicate in Japan? I'd have thought they'd do something to investigate. Or maybe they did, since the most likely suspect was... also found dead. I guess without any other leads, security didn't see any reason to investigate further, or something.
This is bullshit, dying for something as nebulous as talent is doubly so. Set for life? Granted he can survive three years of high school without getting murdered - that is goddamn stupid -
Or. Or it's the other way around? He isn't talented so according to security, someone like him isn't worth investigating the deaths of. Are they even trying to keep KIDS alive? Shitty adults. Setting kids up to fail, setting them up to trade their lives for the chance at the good life. ]
No. No, I haven't heard of any of this, not the Kuzuryu Family, not Hope's Peak Academy. What kind of place lets that exist? What kind of people?
Hinata-kun. [ Ren leans closer, bracing a hand against the cold floor. ] A school isn't worth your life. None of that is.
[Hajime flinches back. He's almost -- almost -- used to reactions like this to Hope's Peak itself. Neither Ryuji nor Haru had ever heard of the most important thing in his life, so he wasn't expecting Ren to magically be the only one who knows. But he's not... expecting such vehemence, enough that he leans back, holding up both hands in front of his chest to try to create some distance between them.]
You don't get it. Hope's Peak is... it's...
[Maybe he's still tired, but it's hard to reconcile the school of his dreams, the people he'd admired for so long, with the same people who refused to do anything to uncover the truth behind Natsumi's murder. If he were someone talented, if he were influential, someone who was seen as a member of society, maybe he could have done something.
Maybe two normal girls wouldn't have had to die.]
Hope's Peak has been around for decades. They study and research talented people from all around the world. The people who graduate from that school, the Super High School Levels, they-- they become the leaders of society. Not just politicians, but artists, doctors, even people with talents for animals like Tanaka, [because that fucking weirdo is somehow talented, thanks Obama,] They... anyone would look up to them, back home. It's not just about being a Hope's Peak student, it's about... feeling like you fit in, in the world.
[At some point he'd lowered his defensive hands to his lap, staring down at the floor. It's a knee-jerk reaction to defend Hope's Peak, even after everything he'd seen before arriving on this station. Even knowing what they wanted to accomplish, using him...]
Kuzuryu wanted to be someone talented, so she could feel worthy to stand beside her brother. I...
[He opens his hand, looks at his palm as if imagining himself taking hold of his fate with his own hands.]
It's fine to say that people like us, normal people, should just be content to live supporting them, but... is it really so wrong to want something more than that?
[ Ren's history of righteous anger spouting up at appropriate times is well-documented with people that have known him long enough. Ryuji's is closer to the surface, a little immature, ready for the slightest hint of complete bullshit when he smells it, and Haru's is deeper, comported into a proper and elegant smackdown when she sees injustice. Ren's anger is primal - hard to provoke, everlasting and inimitable when finally drawn like first blood.
It's only by the grace of Hajime's increasingly passionate insistence on behalf of Hope's Peak that Ren can curb the worst of it, but he still sits and quietly fumes at Hajime referring to himself as normal like it's a curse while lauding a place that lets them die and stay buried. Taking your place in a society that is stocked with "talented" people like a vending machine just... just isn't worth it. Not like that.
Ren's expression closes off, leaning back to curl his hands into his lap, but the energy flowing off of him is far more thoughtful, troubled. ]
No, it's not wrong to want to belong. I mean, that's why the Phantom Thieves were started.
But we were already cast out. Society'd turned its back on us and we had to do what we could to hold on, and we found each other and operated on a common goal.
We had to work outside of the system in order to change it and make things better - for everyone.
[ Trying to do it by playing by their rules? Yeah, no thanks. The corollary of course being that Hajime shouldn't try that either, but he suspects that the lynch pin is this "talent" stuff and how seriously everyone seems to take it. The existence of Personas and the Metaverse were what made it possible.
Mindful of Hajime's dilemma Ren's elbow bumps his, a serious look waiting for him, broken once by a flickering grin at one side of his mouth. ]
You don't need to live to support others if you don't want to. Ambition's good. Find your place in the world, just maybe try to do it your way?
Don't... try to be what someone wants you to be. Am I making any sense?
He can't work outside the system. Maybe the difference is that for Ren, he has his whole group. The Phantom Thieves who were all cast out together. Hajime... had never really gotten along with the other students in his high school, even before attending the Reserve Course. And even then, it was all a bunch of rich kids who were only interested in the brand Hope's Peak could offer, piggybacking off those with talent to try to secure something for themselves, while he...
Maybe he isn't that different from them, as he wanted to believe. But he still wanted to belong, to be seen on the same level as those with talent. He wouldn't even know where to start a movement like that.
Besides, it's too late for him. Ren's words bring a strange twist of a smile to Hajime's face, like he'd tasted something just slightly bitter and was doing his best not to show it.]
Yeah. I get what you're saying. You guys... really are incredible, you know that? All of you.
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Hajime rakes a hand through his hair, exhaling a sigh through his nose. It's not like this is a secret or anything; it's just yet another reminder that talent, the thing that matters most in his world, isn't... universal. And of all the SHSLs who could possibly have shown up on this station, he got Gundam Tanaka, who isn't exactly what he'd consider a shining example of an elite.]
Talent has everything to do with it where I come from, Amamiya. Hope's Peak Academy isn't just a school; if you graduate from there, you're set for life. You can only attend the Main Course if they scout you for having some kind of talent. That's how you become someone, a member of society people actually care about.
It's because people in the Reserve Course aren't talented that security just... didn't care what happened. The first girl who was murdered, my... [friend? It seems weird calling Natsumi a friend, when he'd barely known her. Barely gotten the chance to know her. Maybe they could have been friends.] Her family is the Kuzuryu Family. You have them where you're from, right? The biggest yakuza syndicate in Japan? I'd have thought they'd do something to investigate. Or maybe they did, since the most likely suspect was... also found dead. I guess without any other leads, security didn't see any reason to investigate further, or something.
no subject
This is bullshit, dying for something as nebulous as talent is doubly so. Set for life? Granted he can survive three years of high school without getting murdered - that is goddamn stupid -
Or. Or it's the other way around? He isn't talented so according to security, someone like him isn't worth investigating the deaths of. Are they even trying to keep KIDS alive? Shitty adults. Setting kids up to fail, setting them up to trade their lives for the chance at the good life. ]
No. No, I haven't heard of any of this, not the Kuzuryu Family, not Hope's Peak Academy. What kind of place lets that exist? What kind of people?
Hinata-kun. [ Ren leans closer, bracing a hand against the cold floor. ] A school isn't worth your life. None of that is.
no subject
You don't get it. Hope's Peak is... it's...
[Maybe he's still tired, but it's hard to reconcile the school of his dreams, the people he'd admired for so long, with the same people who refused to do anything to uncover the truth behind Natsumi's murder. If he were someone talented, if he were influential, someone who was seen as a member of society, maybe he could have done something.
Maybe two normal girls wouldn't have had to die.]
Hope's Peak has been around for decades. They study and research talented people from all around the world. The people who graduate from that school, the Super High School Levels, they-- they become the leaders of society. Not just politicians, but artists, doctors, even people with talents for animals like Tanaka, [because that fucking weirdo is somehow talented, thanks Obama,] They... anyone would look up to them, back home. It's not just about being a Hope's Peak student, it's about... feeling like you fit in, in the world.
[At some point he'd lowered his defensive hands to his lap, staring down at the floor. It's a knee-jerk reaction to defend Hope's Peak, even after everything he'd seen before arriving on this station. Even knowing what they wanted to accomplish, using him...]
Kuzuryu wanted to be someone talented, so she could feel worthy to stand beside her brother. I...
[He opens his hand, looks at his palm as if imagining himself taking hold of his fate with his own hands.]
It's fine to say that people like us, normal people, should just be content to live supporting them, but... is it really so wrong to want something more than that?
SORRY I TOOK SO LONG, I SUCK
It's only by the grace of Hajime's increasingly passionate insistence on behalf of Hope's Peak that Ren can curb the worst of it, but he still sits and quietly fumes at Hajime referring to himself as normal like it's a curse while lauding a place that lets them die and stay buried. Taking your place in a society that is stocked with "talented" people like a vending machine just... just isn't worth it. Not like that.
Ren's expression closes off, leaning back to curl his hands into his lap, but the energy flowing off of him is far more thoughtful, troubled. ]
No, it's not wrong to want to belong. I mean, that's why the Phantom Thieves were started.
But we were already cast out. Society'd turned its back on us and we had to do what we could to hold on, and we found each other and operated on a common goal.
We had to work outside of the system in order to change it and make things better - for everyone.
[ Trying to do it by playing by their rules? Yeah, no thanks. The corollary of course being that Hajime shouldn't try that either, but he suspects that the lynch pin is this "talent" stuff and how seriously everyone seems to take it. The existence of Personas and the Metaverse were what made it possible.
Mindful of Hajime's dilemma Ren's elbow bumps his, a serious look waiting for him, broken once by a flickering grin at one side of his mouth. ]
You don't need to live to support others if you don't want to. Ambition's good. Find your place in the world, just maybe try to do it your way?
Don't... try to be what someone wants you to be. Am I making any sense?
no subject
He can't work outside the system. Maybe the difference is that for Ren, he has his whole group. The Phantom Thieves who were all cast out together. Hajime... had never really gotten along with the other students in his high school, even before attending the Reserve Course. And even then, it was all a bunch of rich kids who were only interested in the brand Hope's Peak could offer, piggybacking off those with talent to try to secure something for themselves, while he...
Maybe he isn't that different from them, as he wanted to believe. But he still wanted to belong, to be seen on the same level as those with talent. He wouldn't even know where to start a movement like that.
Besides, it's too late for him. Ren's words bring a strange twist of a smile to Hajime's face, like he'd tasted something just slightly bitter and was doing his best not to show it.]
Yeah. I get what you're saying. You guys... really are incredible, you know that? All of you.