“Mom. I’m home.” Ren called from the doorway.
“Welcome back.” Her voice came softly from inside the kitchen. It was accompanied by a muffled scream that sounded like “help!” and was definitely not his mother’s voice. Ren didn’t let that bother him, he took off his shoes at the entrance just like any other day and walked into the combined, kitchen-living room-dining area, dropping his backpack into the couch. His mom was in the kitchen preparing dinner, though usually she was mostly done by the time he got home. The reason for her delay was obvious. There was a guy tied up in a chair with a gag stuffed in his mouth, looking at Ren with desperate “please get me out of here” eyes. Ren ignored him and started setting the table.
As he moved around the house, he idly asked Idris. “Who’s this guy?” His mother had never brought anyone home before, but seeing as the guy was tied up, he wasn’t too worried it was someone important to her.
“He’s the one I mentioned before. I let him off the first two times, but he tried stealing Hina a third time, so I thought I should maybe teach him a lesson, so he doesn’t try again.”
Ren stiffened for the briefest of seconds, before casting a long glance at the man. “Hmmm… So he tried again, huh?” The man stopped struggling, quivering under the teen’s cold, emotionless stare. The look Ren was giving him was making him feel like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. Then, Ren looked away and went back to setting the table. “Where’s Takeo-jicchan?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t home when I got back.” Idris said with a shrug. Now, as ever, what Takeo did concerned her very little as long as it had nothing to do with the two of them.
“And Hina?” He asked, finishing the third setting.
“She’s safe, of course. If she wasn’t, that man wouldn’t be here, after all.” She had a point, Ren supposed. If the man had made off with her, Idris would be around the city still chasing him around, and if he had damaged her, Idris probably would’ve carved out his organs and packaged them to a correctional facility. Figuratively speaking.
The man had figured out, by this point, that Ren wasn’t going to be his savior, and had stopped struggling. Ren pulled up a chair in front of him and sat on it backwards, so that he could lean his head on the chair backing as he watched the man. He reached out idly and ripped the duct tape off of his mouth. Idris made no comment. She knew her son well enough to know he’d slap it right back on if the guy made any protestations. The man shrieked in pain, then asked, “What is wrong with you people?”
Ren blinked at him, nothing in his expression. “Many things, but nothing that has to do with you. Why do you ask?” His speech at home was more refined than when he was with his friends. He’d learned to be adaptive like that, just another one of the life-lessons Takeo had taught him when he thought Idris wouldn’t notice.
The guy stared at him like he was crazy. “Alright, alright. I’m sorry I tried to steal your diamond, but hey, if you guys are protecting it like that, it has to be valuable, right? I’m just a poor guy looking for something to help me out a bit, give me a break.”
Idris went on cooking as if he hadn’t said anything, letting Ren do the talking. “No. We don’t know if the diamond’s valuable or not. It’s big, sure, but that doesn’t guarantee its value.”
“What?!” The guy asked, disbelief in his voice, even though he saw truth in the boy’s eyes. “Then why the hell are you all getting up in my ass just because I tried to steal it?!”
Ren glared at him then, a full-on deluxe demon glare that would’ve frozen Napolean Bonaparte’s rage. There was no hate in it, simply a cold promise of unspeakable things to come. Takeo and Idris had taught him different versions of this one, but he’d always liked his mother’s version better. Takeo’s had too much fake smiling in it. “Do you really want to know?” He asked his captive, “I could tell you, but there are some things you really shouldn’t want to know.” The man’s eyes got really wide, fear showing plainly in them. Then Ren’s expression went back to calmly neutral and he asked, as if nothing had happened, “So, what’s your name?”
The man was thrown by that, blinking in surprise. “Uh… Jacob…. Why?”
“I’m Ren. It’d be cool to get to know you better, but I’ve got homework to do, so after we eat, I’m going to go into my room, and then my mom’s probably going to convince you never to try stealing Hina from us ever again.” He leaned forward and whispered in the man’s ear so Idris couldn’t hear. “And if you still haven’t learned your lesson, I’ll hunt you down myself, Jacob, and make sure those grabby hands of yours are no longer attached to the rest of you.”
Then, he let the man go, slapped the duct tape over his mouth again, and tucked his chair in, picking up his backpack and bringing it inside his room. He picked up the black diamond that held his sister’s soul and brought it inside with him, in case the kleptomaniac tried stealing it again before he left. Ren’s words had been an empty threat. He knew perfectly well that Idris’s version of “reteaching” someone was something more along the lines of telling them to fight her, then thrashing them in a humiliating fashion over and over again until they promised never to do it again. He also knew that he could do the same thing, but if it didn’t work the first time, it wouldn’t work the second time. And most importantly of all, while he’d grown up learning Idris’s moral values and would therefore never ruthlessly torture or kill anyone, he was very well aware that Takeo had no such qualms, and would gladly do either without telling Idris at all. After all, if Hina’s soul was damaged or came back, or Kronos was let out, who knew what would happen to the reserve of energy Ren, and by extension Takeo, had under his control. On top of which, Takeo had been bored lately, and out for blood. No, Ren had no intention of doing anything he’d told the man he would, but it hadn’t been just an empty threat. It had been a deterrent, because if the man went at it again, it wouldn’t be Ren hunting him, it would be Takeo, and Ren knew that Takeo would show no mercy.
(Original date written unknown as it was never publicly published.)