Spacing Out

A silence had settled over the group since Ren started staring at the wall of another palace. For some reason, it was an unspoken rule that the group just sit around and wait while he does… whatever it was he is currently doing. The Metaverse was always eerily quiet if their leader wasn't there (mentally or physically) to give them directions. They all had no idea what to do, so most of the time they just settled on waiting in silence. Sometimes they would take in the landscape around them, it's not every day that you get to see a space station after all. And, most of the group did enjoy the little bit of downtime they got at the beginning of each palace... Except sometimes Ryuji got impatient and would've probably tried to snap Ren out of his daydream if the group didn't calm him down. Nevertheless, this was one of the moments were everybody was content to be left to their own devices in silence.

"What do you think he's thinking about?" Futaba's voice suddenly broke through the silence that had surrounded the group. The Phantom Thieves all look at their leader curiously, not even needing to be told who's thoughts she was questioning. After a moment someone comes up with the first idea in a long line of many.

"Maybe he's just focusing really, really hard!" Ryuji comments enthusiastically.

"From what I can tell he's always focused. Plus, what would he even be focusing on? The wall?" Futaba shoots back, clearly unimpressed.

"No!" Ryuji snaps back, "Maybe like… uh… plans and, um, important stuff?"

"Or... maybe he's thinking about... the safest way to get in?" Haru pipes up with her suggestion.

"But he does this in mementos sometimes too. Down is the only way to go there, so that doesn't make sense." Makoto shoots that theory down, and instead supplies her own, "Perhaps he's thinking of the best way to defeat shadows?"

"That's supposed to be your job," Futaba replies as she shakes her head.

"I know, I know!" Ann interrupts Futaba's soon-to-be lecture with her own theory, "He's thinking about how to strengthen his heart!"

"Why in the world would he need to do that?" Makoto reasons.

"Perhaps he's daydreaming about what he's going to eat for lunch tomorrow?" Yusuke decides to voice, his totally inaccurate, opinion.

"No, that's definitely just you Inari. Whatever he's doing, it doesn't have anything to do with food."

By now the group has moved so that they were standing in front of Ren. They all gave him a funny sort of look because they knew even though he was now staring straight at them, he definitely didn't see them. Ryuji waved his hand in front of their leader's face, Yuskue was probably thinking something along the lines of "how come nobody ever stays this still for portraits," Futaba decided to start monitoring his vitals for anything suspicious, Haru, Makoto, and Ann were all just staring at him as if they could telepathically find the answer if the looked at him long enough.

Morgana finally decided to put an end to all of their nonsense by supplying them with an accurate, albeit crazy, answer. "Well, he always comes back from spacing out missing some Personas, but gains a couple new ones, right?" The group nods, and Morgana continues, "Joker once told me before that to get new Personas he has to visit a cell and speak to 'magical' twin wardens. And, I don't quite understand the next part, but... they execute them with guillotines and then their 'spirits' fuse together to become a new Persona. He can also turn any Persona he doesn't want into items by putting them in an electric chair and strengthen them by locking them up in a cell. It all sounded very complicated, involved a lot of death, and I think the guy has serious issues he needs to work out with some therapists or something." He finishes his explanation rather manner-of-factly, as one does when giving a monologue. However, the manner in which he presented the group with the information did nothing to help the looks they gave him when he was done. The group had all turned to look at him as if he just suddenly turned into a human, and the responses he got made him wish he hadn't said anything in the first place.

"Wow, Mona, I thought you were the smart one."

"That does not make any sense."

"So... he's insane?"

"Are you quite sure that wasn't a dream?"

Futaba then blinks, and as if her world just came crumbling down, turns slowly to Ryuji and says, "Wow, Skull, I think you were more right then Mona for once..."

"Really?" Ryuji only looks stunned for a second before immediately celebrating with a fist pump. "YES!"

Ren, having snapped out of whatever stupor he was in while Ryuji started to celebrate, asks a very simple question. "What are you guys talking about?"

He got a very confusing mixture of "Nothing!" and "Not you!" and Ryuji yelling, "I beat Mona!"

Being the intelligent man he was, Ren decided to not even try to interpret the blurb of words that had come out of his teammates' mouths, and simply stated, "Well, let's go then!"

Nobody actually had the guts to ask Ren what he does when he is spacing out.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or Persona 5

Author's Note

So there it is. My very first fic, done, and hopefully not awful. I got the idea for this fic from a line of dialogue I'm 90% sure is in the game... (it's a long game ok, and I've played it a lot) Something along the lines of, "What were you just doing?" in reference to Joker being the Velvet room. I think in the game Joker was only in there for a moment, even though it was longer for him, but I would like to think that the time in the real world increases relative to the time spent in the Velvet Room, so theoretically he could space out for like 5 minutes? Anyway, either way, that was either in the game or I dreamt it. But I thought "Hey, what does everyone DO when Joker is just staring into space like a madman." So I decided to write about it? I hope it's not awful or too short. I've been told my style of writing is too much " to the point" without out enough "show don't tell" so I tried really hard to "show" (I feel like I failed). Please leave a review? Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!