[attr="class","header2"]APPEARANCE

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TW: violence, taxidermy, stalking

Renka's childhood, while important to understanding how she grew up into what she is now, is dark and depressing, and often only repeated to satisfy humanity's natural morbid curiosity. In summary, consider the convergence of parents caught in a loveless marriage, an unloved and unwanted child, and an environment where that child was taught that reckless fights and loud arguments was what love was all about. Given that context, it's easy to understand why Renka thinks about love the way she does today.

Her home life was bad, but her social wellbeing also fought for the right to be the worst thing in Renka's life. Throughout school, she was relentlessly bullied, sometimes for her strange ways of speaking or her shy nature in childhood, and sometimes for her quirk, which garnered fear and resentment from her classmates. Come high school, Renka had developed signs of antisociality, and only ever interacted with her peers when it was in the name of toxic, ill-fated relationships. Given the state of her home life and her status as a social outcast in school, the warning signs went under the radar, and by the time Renka had dropped out of high school early, she essentially fell the wayside, no longer considered by the general public at all.

It was at this time that Renka was kicked out of her parents house and began a long string of couch surfing, often living with romantic flings for weeks at a time until they got sick of her. It was only when Renka picked up work as an escort and hostess that her life began to stabilize, wherein she was finally earning a livable wage to warrant her own apartment, and finally getting the attention she had been deprived of for so long.

Unfortunately, Renka simply isn't suited for such an industry, and frequently curated relationships with clients, a practice forbidden in hostess and escort circles. It was through this practice that Renka met her very first victim, a young, pretty, lonely woman, Itomi Izumo. From the moment Renka laid her eyes on Itomi, she was infatuated. Drunk on the high of limerence, Renka's every waking thought was consumed by Itomi, to the point that she could no longer focus on anything else but her love for the other woman. Though the two very briefly entered into a romantic relationship, Itomi soon saw the red flags hidden beneath Renka's facade, and attempted to break off the dalliance during a nice dinner. Renka was, of course, panicked, sent into a spiral of severe grief and depression at the mere idea of abandonment and betrayal. Renka broke into hysterics during dinner, and though Itomi attempted to make a swift getaway, Renka followed her, eventually cornering the young woman in an alleyway, begging Itomi to take her back. Renka would do better, she swore. She would do anything to have Itomi.

Then, when it became clear that Itomi was not going to return to Renka's suffocating embrace, Renka's mental state only broke even further. Though she can't remember the exact events of that night, Renka does remember returning to her apartment covered in blood, and she does remember unearthing Itomi's lifeless body from a bag.

Terrified, filled with guilt, and grief-stricken at her own actions, Renka's addled mind struggled to come up with a solution to what she had done. The only solution that came to her was a gruesome one. Mustering up all the strength she had, Renka set to work on taxiderming Itomi's body. Renka would make her into a doll that was forever beautiful, forever hers, and one that would never abandon her.

Though the process was difficult, Renka was satisfied with her handiwork. Itomi now sits in an extra room in Renka's apartment, and every so often, Renka enters to sit down and have gentle, quiet discussions with her, laughing and smiling as if Itomi were still there. Every so often, Itomi is joined by another doll, another one who tried to escape Renka but couldn't manage it. Every so often, Renka sits in the doll room and sobs, wondering why this keeps happening.