Character	Saeran/ Ray
Appearance	Mystic Messenger
Media	Otome Game
Type	Yandere
Love Interest	Protagonist/ You

Saeran is a genius hacker that is responsible for your introduction into the RFA. He is also known as “Unknown” in the chatrooms, and Ray in Another Story.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

Straight off the bat Saeran became obsessed with you. You two came to know each other when you downloaded an app that he created to your smartphone, and he initiated a conversation with you in the app’s chatroom. Using “Unknown” as his alias, he told you that you were the first person to enter the app. This made you special. He felt that you were meant for him.

Unknown introduced himself as a game developer. He persuaded you to test out his newly-made game. Due to the confidentiality of the game, he cannot send you the game file. You must go down to his location for him to install it into your phone himself. He also called you to talk over the details to prove his credibility.

So, some random stranger just messaged you, called you when you never gave him your number, and asked you to visit this shady place to test out his game. FOR FREE. No compensation whatsoever for your effort.

And you agreed.

You (or the protagonist) must be the greatest simp to agree to this without even knowing this guy other than what his voice sounded like.

He proceeded to tell you that you are not even allowed to get the address and go there by yourself, since the place is again, confidential. A car will be sent down to drive you there instead.

When the car arrived, the driver requested that you put on a blindfold. You aren’t allowed to know the way to the test site. If you aren’t a fan of blindfolds, you can also take their pills to sleep soundly until you arrive at the destination. Sounds legit. So you rolled with it.

When you arrived at the site, still blindfolded, Unknown came to welcome you, and introduced himself as Ray. He led you to a princess-like room, and made sure you were comfortable during your stay there while you tested out his “game”, which he claimed to revolve around chatting with AIs in the RFA, discovering secrets, and holding a fundraising party with them.

Naïve as you were, you believed him and proceeded to stay in this room for the next few days. During these times, he made sure to remind you that the game you were playing is just that. A game. Those characters were not real, and you should pay more attention to him.

Despite Ray’s busy schedule, he took time to look for you whenever he could. Bringing you breakfast, gifting you fresh flowers, and even inviting you out to a beautiful garden together.

Ray had suffered from abuse since young. He thought he was rescued by Rika, who had brought him away from his abusive mother. However, he simply left one hell and jumped into another. Rika forced Ray to take huge amount of drugs (which she termed “elixir”) to make him compliant so that he can work endlessly for her. As a result, the poor boy was constantly deprived of care and love, and grew to be self-depreciating. Nevertheless, Ray remained kind and tender-hearted. As time passes, your kind nature moved him, and he began to long for you to always stay with him.

In an innocent attempt to keep you with him, Ray thought of converting you into a member of their organization, which is in fact a cult headed by Rika. However, the process of conversion required the person to drink the “elixir”, which was obviously dangerous. Worried that you may hate the taste of the elixir, Ray even tried to make it sweet and tasty for you so that you would not suffer during the conversion process. If you enter his route, he gave up the idea of giving you the elixir altogether. He will choose to lie to Rika that you had consumed it so that you can continue your stay without going through the pain he had went through.

During these days, you had continued to interact with the RFA members via the “game”. Needless to say, the game was a lie, and the RFA members were real people, not AIs. Ray was made to lie to you by Rika. Due to your communication with the RFA, V, the leader of RFA picked up what was going on. He attempted to rescue you from the cult, but that set Ray into a frenzy. He clung helplessly to you as if his life was on the line. In the end, Ray managed to keep you with him. But from then on, his attachment towards you angered Rika. She increased her abuse towards him, and brainwashed him into compliance again.

The brainwashing proved to be too much for Ray to handle. With the continuous torture, Ray succumbed, and his second personality emerged. This personality is named Saeran. Unlike the delicate and gentle Ray, Saeran was filled with rage and vengeance.

He mocked and belittled you when he could visit you. He starved you and denied you water. At the same time, he locked you in your room so that you can only interact with him. He also installed camera inside your room, and claimed that it was so that he can “get some entertainment from his toy when he gets bored”. Saeran was so possessive that he even encrypted the camera so that no one else could see you from his computer.

Increasingly, Saeran started to hack into the RFA chatrooms to monitor your conversation with them, and to talk to you through the application. Eventually, he disconnected you from the rest of the RFA so that you could only enter chatrooms with him or Rika. This was probably done to prevent you from leaking information about their cult to the RFA. Nonetheless, Saeran’s possessiveness could be detected from time to time throughout his route.

Despite him treating you so, you did not give up on him. Instead, you encouraged him to see the truth, You gave him the courage to start anew, away from Rika and the cult. In reality, Saeran’s rage-filled personality is merely a defense he relied on to avoid being hurt yet again. He hurt you so that he wouldn’t get hurt, mocked you so that he would stop belittling himself. He was afraid that you would leave him. This insecurity ate at him.

Gradually, he began to open up to you, and listened to your advice. As he was dosed with drugs and brainwashed by Rika, it took much effort from the both of you. Nevertheless, he began to dream of a world where he was free, where he can choose who to love and what to pursue. As he gained courage and confidence, Saeran and Ray slowly merged into one. He broke you free from your room, and the both of you escaped the cult together, ready for whatever that may come.

Please note that a whole lot of important backstory, plots and storyline were going on in the background that I totally omitted out of this review, since my focus is on his yandere-ness. I have debated for quite some time on whether he is to be considered obsessive or yandere. I finally decided to classify him as yandere due to the things he did as Saeran.

Normally, I would prefer the yandere scenes compared to obsessive ones. It’s just that much more thrilling, y’know? But for this case, Ray’s scenes and his tender personality stole my heart. He was so vulnerable, yet he still gave his all to protect you, and give you the best he could. He way he depreciates himself, and the abuse that he had received from the very people who should have loved him just broke my heart. Just smiling at him would make him feel happiness, a small touch of kindness would move his heart. Ray is a personality to be cherished and protected.

Plot-wise though, I have to say that many things didn’t make sense. The scenes were too ridiculous to even think such things can ever happen in real life. The romance is good though. If you can look past the giant plot holes and enjoy the romance, I definitely think you should try Ray’s route.