Rika

Rika is a beautiful, slender, pale-skinned young woman with waist-length wavy blonde hair that transitions to a lighter color with bangs hanging on the left side, bright lime green eyes, and is shown smiling most of the time.

On normal occasions, she is seen wearing a knee-length brown dress with a large cream-coloured bow just below her collarbone on the left side. She has also been seen wearing a formal suit with her hair in a high ponytail when hosting FRG parties.

In Another Story, she wears a black halterneck, open-breasted dress and a black masquerade mask.

In Secret 01, she is seen wearing a long-sleeved dress adorned with rather intricate and elaborate designs.

Rika was known to RFA members as a strong-willed and charismatic woman who wanted to help those around her to the best of her ability. Due to her incredible ambition to help anyone in need, she created the RFA to raise funds to donate to various charities and give money to those who needed it most. She touched hearts and improved the lives of countless strangers. She was also able to organize large parties and manage to invite a large number of guests from different backgrounds thanks to her tremendous influence on others and her splendid persuasiveness, which is mainly due to her phenomenal oratory skills, described by others as “having a way with words”, going so far as to say that she can make anyone blindly follow her in a matter of minutes simply by speaking to them.

Since being abandoned and repeatedly abused, tortured, and treated like a demon by her fervently religious adoptive parents, Rika still bears the scars of her upbringing and the countless traumas she suffered. This made her mentally unstable, paranoid, distrustful, angry, inadequate, and violent, giving her very low self-esteem. She believes that she doesn't deserve to be loved by anyone and that she is a demon who was born as a ball of darkness, and sees herself as nothing more than trash and a stupid, useless orphan.

Despite everything, she desperately yearns for the love of others. This led her to the photography work V, which is subtextually about the unconditional love that the sun brings, a kind of love she never experienced growing up and which she wishes to give to others so that they do not suffer like she did.

As she herself put it, it was painful to act like the person she wasn't, so she always found herself avoiding people who "lived in the light". According to 707 and Unknown, she always looked uncomfortable around people who didn't need her help and always seemed scared of people abandoning her, which is the main reason that led her to use other people's trauma as a way to brainwash them into thinking that Mint Eye is where they will find happiness, so that they will stay by her side.

Rika's childhood friend Mika took advantage of her dreams to help others and manipulated her into believing that her methods weren't good enough and that she should do more to save others from the cruel world they live in by feeding her insecurities, giving love to the strong and not abandoning the weak. Thus, the concept of Mint Eye was born.

Due to Rika's fear of abandonment and being unloved, she always doubted V's love for her. Her paranoia worsened when Mika made Rika believe that V is a liar who only needs a victim to "play savior" and that he will eventually leave her due to how dark she is. Her condition worsened after Sally's death, which she blamed herself for, only for it to greatly intensify with the death of Mother Choi, which completely shattered her mindset.

Following Mika's death, Rika becomes extremely paranoid that Mika was right and that V was a hypocrite and never actually loved her. Which led to a huge fight between the two which led to her injuring V's eyes before running off to pursue Mika's plan of starting the Mint Eye, in order to prove to herself and Mika that V will love her no matter what she does to him or other people.

Her fears have greatly diminished her morals and sanity. Subconsciously consumed by the anger and violence of the abuse she suffered growing up, she becomes abusive towards her own believers rationalizing it as a way to "save" them, due to her fragile ego. She inflicts her own trauma of abandonment and betrayal on Saeran, who she ends up manipulating and abusing to the hilt for her own goals, to use him as a weapon, a slave who will do whatever she wants.

Rika's fear-induced torture reached a greater degree in Ray's AE. She goes as far as to kidnap the twins and sell them to Saejoong Choi, the very person she was supposed to protect them from all these years, knowing how much trauma and pain he inflicted on her children. In exchange for robbing the twins of their freedom and keeping them as her "own children" to selfishly live a "happy family life" with them. After multiple protests from the two, she drugs and chains the twins up in V's house, replicating the same abuse and fear their mother and father had put them through.

Rika regained her moral compass in several instances and came to deeply regret what she did to Saeran. In V's AE, she is shown to be ashamed after seeing how her actions in Mint Eye were strongly disapproved of by the RFA and how much disappointment and pain it caused. In Ray's AE, she realizes her actions and that she should be condemned. In both After Ends, she turns herself in to the law to repent for her actions.

In Secret End 1, the shock of V's death shatters her irreversibly. His manipulation towards Saeran didn't save anyone, it was quite the opposite. It resulted in him killing one of the people she admired the most (despite her troubled relationship with him). And in the face of this horror, she loses all form of expression and most of her memories, and reverts to the state of a little girl. Yoosung takes her in, knowing nothing of her dark past or Mint Eye. However, it still stands out how she finally seemed to have found happiness, as she is no longer haunted by the countless traumas of her childhood. She mostly has the happy memories of the sunshine that V left her.

The name Rika is just a pseudonym and her birth name is only revealed to be Mina, later changed to Serena after adoption in the Rika Behind DLC.

In the Casual and Deep Story routes, the player ( MC ) has limited information about Rika. When the player first joins RFA, they are presented with the knowledge that Rika had passed away a year and a half ago due to committing suicide by jumping off a cliff. However, much like the place where she lives, the facts about her death were also highly secretive and easily triggered suspicions, such as no one seeing the corpse, V being the only witness to her jump, and her failing to answer some of the police's questions, etc.

Rika was the one who originally brought the RFA together and was the one who started the charity events for the RFA. Most of the RFA members are grateful towards Rika and view her with an incredibly favorable attitude. It is said that the other RFA members entered the chatroom much less after she "died" and the messenger only becomes active again when the MC joins.

However, more of her past is shown in Rika Behind DLC and Another Story.

Mina was orphaned after her biological mother was known to have committed suicide, not much is known about her biological father. At three years old, Mina was very docile, reserved, very innocent, and quite bright, as she learned to talk early, had separation anxiety, and rarely cried. At the adoption center, Mina was close to Mika, a six-year-old Christian girl who acted as an older sister to the other orphans and often looked after them, especially Mina. With whom she formed a strong bond. Mika was hinted to be jealous of Mina and the other children, as a teacher at the adoption center stated that she "always tried to stand out".

Because of Mika's previous experience with adoption, she established an idea that "adult love is strange", because no matter how much their children love them unconditionally, it is often not reciprocated, that the world does not run on love, but on conditions and comparisons. Later, despite protests, Mika was too old to receive funding and services at the adoption center and had to be moved to an orphanage, which did not sit well with either Mika or Mina, due to Mika's fear of not being adopted if she went to an orphanage, and due to Mina's separation issues and her love and attachment to Mika. Both girls ended up making a promise to be adopted together and live happily, away from the "bad parents".

A couple of months later, Rika’s mother visited the adoption center, looking for a child who could be a “devoted servant of God” to fit into her devout Christian family because “Heavenly Father” had given her a sign. She was introduced to Mika, who fit her requirements perfectly. The woman was mesmerized by how angelic Mika was, so she left after telling an employee that she needed to pray some more and bring her preacher tomorrow to confirm if Mika really was the sign God had given her. After limited interaction, Mika concluded that the woman is a “bad mother,” but that it was okay because “children need bad parents to survive in this world,” because parents “should not raise children with love but with conditions,” showing Mika’s ideology on how children should be raised. However, even though the woman preferred Mika, the pastor chose Mina over Mika, so Mina was adopted instead. Mika protested against letting Mina be adopted by such bad people, and begged them to adopt her instead, because they would abandon Mina if they didn't want her, just like what had happened to her before. However, according to Rika, she was glad that they had adopted her, because she didn't want Mika to end up in this family.

Mina thought that she would be happy once she was adopted, but she lived every day in fear. Rika's mother was shown to be extremely abusive towards Mina, who was named Serena after the adoption. She always yelled at Serena that God would banish her to Hell if she misbehaved, which only made Serena more and more timid and gave her a specific image of how cruel God is, which contradicts what Mika told her about how good and forgiving God is. Serena was afraid of being abandoned by God and her family, and as her fear grew, her tension around her father worsened. Serena's adoptive father was revealed to be a non-Christian hospital director and that he never wanted to be a father to Serena, however, the mother tried to reason with him by telling him that they cannot ignore God's sign and kept praying to convert the Father, as she wanted to go to Heaven with him.

Rika suffered extreme mental and sexual abuse, which began after Mother doubted that Serena was God's chosen one, so she turned to the same pastor to make sure that she really was the sign sent by him, because Serena is "too useless, ignorant, and naive to truly listen to God." Serena always protested being left alone with the pastor. The reason was later revealed, as the pastor chose Mina over Mika at the adoption center just because he liked her more, and sexually harassed her whenever he was left alone with her, under the excuse that "Satan" had his eyes on her and that she needed to be purified. Serena voiced her problem with the pastor to her adoptive mother, but only received an invalidating response, telling her that they were just cleansing her of the demon living inside her and that no one would want to harass someone like her. According to Rika, she couldn't refuse the pastor because she was afraid of being abandoned, and came to believe that she had completely lost the power to protect herself, it was then that she realized that people will be abused and abandoned if they are weak, that there is no kind or helpful God, only a ruthless one who will cast her into hell if she does not obey.

At school, Serena couldn't keep up with the demands of the school. She was constantly bullied and faced only teasing, stonewalling, and rumors that she was "possessed by Satan." And even after telling her mother, she was invalidated and told that "no one would want to torment someone as stupid and dark as her." Serena was told to smile when other kids smiled, to follow them on playgrounds and offer them gifts first to befriend them, but no one ever told her how to survive while expressing her needs; the harder she fought to be loved, the more alone she felt. And because she couldn't let her heart speak for years, the devil inside her only grew bigger.

One day, when Rika was 16, her mother wanted to visit her husband's hospital and pray there for God to convert him. But the pastor told him that he should visit and pray there himself because there is a better chance of conversion if he did it himself, and insisted on taking Serena with him to "protect" her. At the hospital, Rika went off alone to look for her father, because she "would have rather died than stay with that monster." By coincidence, she passed by a ward, which was the ward of Mika, who was 18 years old at the time, and looked quite sickly and thin like a "corpse." A nurse is seen announcing to Mika that he will be discharged tomorrow and that there is nothing they can do about his condition. Once the nurse leaves, Serena walks in, astonished to find her childhood friend. It was said that the two had not seen each other since Serena's adoption. Serena missed her very much and felt very happy to finally see her again. It was revealed that Mika was still in the orphanage and was jealous that Serena had a family and attended a good school. Serena didn't have the heart to tell her how miserable she was because Mika seemed to be sick and she didn't want to add to her problems.

Upon finding Serena, the pastor interrupts their meeting and asks Serena to go home with him, saying that he is her guardian. Serena looks scared and uncomfortable, refusing to go with him and expressing how much she hates him. Mika then tells the man that Serena is his sister and that his ward is off limits to everyone except family, so he was not welcome. Mika then begs the nurse, as it was her last day, to take the man out as he is not Serena's actual father. The pastor leaves, visibly angry. It is then revealed that Mika was sent to the orphanage a year after Serena was adopted. Mika says that she has been doing community service as a hobby and wants to become a nurse who helps others and encourages Serena to help others as well. Serena then informs Mika that the God Mika has been telling her about was nothing like a loving God, and that he would abandon her for the smallest of things. Mika then breaks down crying and Serena notices how thin she's become. Eventually Mika brushes it off and says that it's because she probably has some tough days ahead of her, telling Serena that she's happy that Serena is receiving a lot of love, even the love that Mika should have had instead. Mika didn't know how to show her sorrows to another person as she was also afraid of being abandoned, Serena didn't ask any more questions to avoid provoking her. According to Rika, they were worried about each other but they couldn't be completely honest with each other, they had to pretend that they were okay because that was what the world had taught them, that Mika kept grabbing onto Serena's clothes, as a silent, desperate way of begging Serena to save her. And that if there was a God, he wouldn't have let them meet again in a place like this.

Mika gave Serena an address and contact number of the orphanage she stayed at before letting Serena return home to her father. Serena found out from her father later that Mika had eye cancer, which was nearly untreatable. And that she would likely die prematurely if she didn't get treatment. Serena implored her father to pay for Mika's hospital bills. However, while trying to find her after she was discharged, it turned out that both the address and contact number were fake, making it impossible to find and help her. That made Serena doubt whether she grew up in an orphanage and wonder why Mika didn't ask her for help knowing that she was the adopted daughter of a hospital director. Rika blamed herself for being helpless and not picking up the signal from Mika begging Serena to save her.

Ever since Serena and Mika met again, Serena couldn't sleep, thinking about how miserable Mika was, walking into death's embrace all alone. And she started to think that maybe that was what would become of her. Convinced that Mika was already dead. And seeing how abandoned Mika was, Serena vows to never abandon anything in hopes of giving her "true love." Serena rescues Sally, an abandoned puppy that was wandering around her house alone. Her mother isn't too happy with her decision to help the dog and kept ordering Serena to send it away. Serena then tells her mother about how the pastor keeps sexually harassing her whenever they're alone, even after she told him many times to stop. To which her mother dismisses it as "a ritual to damn Satan out of her," and that "there's nothing sacred about her body, so there's no need for him to touch her." Serena refuses to abandon Sally and insists that if Sally is gone, she will be gone too. Only for her mother to tell her to leave because she is “not the lord’s daughter.” Rika realized at that moment that her family wouldn’t care if she left, that the true love Mika told her about is that real families never abandon each other, no matter how much they hate each other. But Serena’s family was nothing more than an empty case. And that there is no choice but to make a contract with the devil breathing inside her.

Serena and Sally run away to the local church, where the pastor is giving a sermon. Her foster mother chases her, much to Serena's amusement, seeing that her mother couldn't even speak out loud, afraid of drawing attention from her neighbors. According to Rika, once she decided that it didn't matter if her family abandoned her, she broke free. Once she arrived at the church, she expressed her disgust towards everyone and blamed them all for Mika's lonely death, shouting that God, who abandons people, is bad, parents who abandon their children just because they've done something wrong are bad. And she accused the pastor of being a criminal, telling him to never use God to do his horrible deeds again. She wondered if she and Sally would end up like Mika when all she ever wanted was to love, to love her family, and to love her friends. Rika knew that neither her parents nor God would protect her. The only option for her was to let the devil inside her protect her so she could love.

Serena was dragged back home, where Sally was forcibly thrown out. Serena did everything in her power to convince her mother to let her keep Sally, offering to be practically nonexistent, that she wouldn't let the people from the church see her again, that she could move somewhere else, that she wouldn't do anything in this house except sleep. When none of her pleadings worked, she resorted to threatening her mother, telling her that if she kicked Sally out of the house, something bad would happen in the church. That Satan lives inside her and is telling her that if she kicks her out, he will close her mother's path to heaven. Her mother trembled and believed every word that Serena's devil made up. Then Rika realized that she could protect herself and compensate for her weaknesses by stoking fear.

Serena dropped the name “Serena” and adopted a new name, Rika. She then began visiting a cathedral in a poor neighborhood far from her home to perform community service. She did her best to offer support and kindness to abandoned people, no matter how old they were. She saw how their eyes searched for help and love, just like Mika’s eyes. She wanted to be a loving mother to them. However, she didn’t know how a loving mother should behave, as she had signed a contract with her devil not to dare become one. So she prayed, prayed for a sign to show her what a good mother looks like.

Two years later, when she turned 18, her relationships began to follow a pattern. Because of her charisma and compassion, it took her less than a couple of days to win the hearts of the people she could help and care for. She was sympathetic to the hurt and traumatized, and considered herself a good friend to them. She kept her distance from people who didn’t need her help, as she felt anxious around them, noticing their every word and move, afraid of them seeing her flaws and fears.

Rika wanted to be light, to show everyone the dazzling light of love. And while she was enthralled by that thought, her prayer from two years ago was finally answered. By pure chance, Rika got a ticket to a small photography exhibition and laid her eyes on a specific picture of the sun. Rika saw the picture and thought that this is what a perfect parent is like. Bathing all lives in a warm light, wanting nothing in return. Leaving no life form abandoned. Embracing everything and everyone on this earth, both the good and the bad. Rika doubted that she could ever be a loving mother like the sun, as they are different by background. How to have been abandoned at birth, to be adopted by abusive parents, and to use Satan and his devil to protect herself. She can't be light. She can't run away from the fact that her devotion to abandoned people is just an unhealthy attachment to Mika stemming from the darkness. She saw what she wanted but felt her heart sink knowing that she would never have it, so she tried to forget the images she saw but couldn’t. The more she tried, the more the image of eternal love and light that the images would portray stuck in her mind. In the end, she did some personal research to find out that the image was taken by V, a 17-year-old photographer who had just debuted. Falling in love with the light of love that shone through V’s works, she began to admire him and seek out his exhibition.

The following year, Rika met an abandoned boy sneaking around the cathedral. The boy was thin and cautious. He wore faded and tattered clothes, and looked old enough to be in high school, but she was confused as to why he wasn't in school at this time of day. Rika approached the boy who turned out to be Saeyoung, who was 12 years old at the time. Saeyoung was wandering around the cathedral because he heard chanting. He asked Rika what kind of place a cathedral is and began consciously looking around, to see if there was anything that could harm or threaten him. Rika told him that a cathedral is a place where you can gather together and gain God's teachings and general knowledge. Saeyoung was particularly interested in the songs, as he wanted to sing for his little brother. Rika thought that maybe he wasn't skipping school, but maybe he was being neglected at home. She thought that if she didn't take care of him, he would end up like Mika. So, she started teaching him basic subjects and discovered that he was very talented in math, which surprised everyone at the cathedral. Saeyoung's visits were irregular, and he didn't talk about his family. Whenever he was asked to bring his brother, he said he couldn't. Saeyoung enjoyed his time at the cathedral, but he was always worried about his brother. Rika began to see herself and Mika in him, and grew fond of him.

Because of her devotion to community service and to Saeyoung, who was attached to Rika wholeheartedly, the people there held her in high regard and called her "Rika the angel." However, at home, Rika's foster mother would claim that she would get rid of Rika's room in two years and kick her and Sally out. Because by then, they would have no legal responsibility for her, that they are the victims of having to raise her, and that they should have brought the angelic girl instead of her. Rika was disgusted that the angelic girl they speak of ended up abandoned and dead in her father's hospital. Rika found their behavior and lack of knowledge on how to properly love pathetic and poor, and that whenever she is around bad people like them, her devil naturally comes out.

When Rika first met Yoosung, who was her adoptive mother’s nephew, she could picture him as a forsythia in full bloom. A boy who grew up enjoying the love of his parents. Rika felt that his constitution was very different from hers. She only belonged with people who had weaknesses and holes in their lives, so she felt comfortable and familiar with Saeyoung, a boy full of wounds. Rika felt nervousness stirring within her whenever she was around Yoosung, flustered by his darkness. Rika felt jealous of him and amused by the fact that two sisters from the same family could treat their children so differently. Rika was sure that this bright boy would be ruined and tainted with darkness if he stayed around a demon like her. She was sure that he could be a shining light for someone else, something she could never be. She doubted that he needed her salvation, so she wondered why he always followed her around and smiled at her. Since she didn't know how to handle him, she could only act confident around him, which made her feel uncomfortable, so she sometimes avoided him completely. She thought that the day she could give him more than what her parents could offer, maybe she could feel comfortable around him.

One day at the cathedral, Rika asked Saeyoung if there was anything he would like to do. Saeyoung mentions that he has to go back home in 3 hours, so Rika offers to go to an exhibition together, knowing that V’s photo exhibition would be taking place that day. Saeyoung agrees. And while he was getting tangled up in a science exhibition, Rika visited V’s exhibition and lost her heart in his works. Enchanted by his work, as if she had found the loving parents she never had, and if only she could give Saeyoung that much love. Then a man approached her. Rika could tell at first glance if the person in front of her was bright, completely different from her, or dark, like her. But she couldn’t tell for this man. She felt like an empty vessel, lacking any kind of characteristics. The man introduced himself as V, he decided to say hello to her since he saw her visiting the same photo yesterday. Rika admits that she is a big fan of his works. She wonders why she can't sense anything from him whether he's a bright or dark person. Just as V was about to leave, Rika stopped him, not wanting to leave his curiosity unanswered. She inadvertently began to talk about her secret impressions. She explains that the sun is the mother of everything, flowers would never be able to bloom if it weren't for the energy the sun constantly provides. She can feel this constant light of love and warmth from all of V's works. And when she looks at them, she feels like this fear inside her is gone, albeit temporarily. She asks him if he'll ever find himself in a world full of love and warmth, like the one he finds in his works, where everyone can be the sun and asks if that's what he thinks about when he takes pictures. V replies that he doesn't think about such a grand vision when he takes pictures, as he doesn't believe he's capable of something so grand. But he has a small hope of making people feel love through his works.

Surprised by how Rika views his work, V offers to give her the picture as a gift. V tells her that if she can feel love when looking at the picture, it means the picture belongs to her. She declines because she hates receiving something for free, something so priceless. V then offers to buy her a coffee after the exhibit ends in exchange for the picture. He states that the impression she gave him was intriguing. And he would like to hear what else she thinks about when she looks at his works, and he would like to know what life is like in her eyes. Rika was taken by surprise, she couldn't believe that he wanted to know about a walking ball of darkness like her. He asked her name and asked if "Rika" was her real name. So she told him her real name first; Jihyun Kim. Anyway, she never told him her real name.

Later that day, V and Rika sat down at a cafe and began to chat. V told her that he realized he needed her as soon as his eyes met hers because he had never seen someone with such deep and honest impressions as her. Rika was deliberating about the love embedded in his photos, asking him if she could enjoy that love. Rika thought that he wouldn’t hate her for telling her something like that, that he wasn’t judging her by any standards. V told Rika that she deserves to be loved and that he would like to help her believe that she deserves it. Rika realized that they are predestined. That maybe there is a God who loves her enough to have sent him to her.

Rika became V’s model and visited his home studio regularly. V seemed like he would give her love and affection. But once she became his model, the two of them didn’t talk much. He would just watch her, take pictures, and then develop them. V was so mysterious that Rika started to believe that someone as cool as him wouldn’t need someone like her. So she hid her darkness from him thinking that maybe she had the wrong idea about him. Maybe it’s because he’s an artist that she couldn’t fathom what he was like. She thought that once he knew what she was really like, he might want to forget everything about her. In her presence, she would pretend to be a bright person who grew up with a lot of love. And the moment her modeling was over, she would leave as soon as she could. As her modeling sessions continued, Rika lost confidence, as she returned to who she really was. Dark, gloomy, distraught.

Two months after becoming his model, she was kicked out of her house and Sally found herself a temporary home in the cathedral. Rika was glad that there was still a place for someone like her. The only people who have never abandoned her are people like her, unlike V and Yoosung, the people her demon can't get close to. Rika wondered why she still dreams of being loved, why she can't stop admiring the light. She wished she could be friends with people like the light, get close to the light at least once... which she didn't deserve. Three-year-old Mina was still breathing inside her, being protected by her demon. Mina breaks out of her prison upon meeting V. She screamed at him to love her like he promised when they first met her. But if she asks him to give her endless love, he'll treat her like a madwoman and abandon her. Rika wished she had never seen his photo, never met V. So she stopped visiting his studio altogether.

The same week, when V noticed that Rika wasn't visiting his studio, he decided to visit her home. He asks her foster mother if she was home, she tells him that she left a long time ago, that she was a pagan who made God angry, and that they've been practically strangers. Meanwhile, at the cathedral, Rika and Saeyoung were discussing about getting her a new teacher, a nun interrupts them and tells them that there's a man looking for her. Seeing V, he froze. She asked him how he found her. V replied that he can't let go of what once won his heart. Rika was confused so she asked him why he didn't come back. She said that she thought she'd be better off with another model, that she's not the bright and happy person her photos portray, that she's a dark and tragic person.

Expecting him to hate her after admitting his nature, she was shocked when he asked her to show him how dark and tragic she is. She refused because once she does, he will hate her and stay away from her. V says that he thinks she is tired of thinking before acting and tells her to stop thinking and just tell him. Rika started to think that he is looking straight into her heart. Can she stop thinking and show him what it is like? She wished that he wouldn't abandon her once he did. Rika gives in to his warmth. She tells him that she is tired because she is afraid of being abandoned. That she always wanted to be loved, but she was afraid to ask people for love because she didn't want them to hate her. And once they hate her, she will be alone when she leaves the world. And she will end up like Mika. V asks her to please tell him what she wants, to tell him her heart's desires without thinking and to let him be her sunshine. She fell into his arms, not believing in his world. She wanted to trust him, to never leave his embrace. She begs him to never leave her, even if he does something that is beyond human understanding, even if he turns out to be a bunch of flaws and throws a tantrum. Not believing that he would do so, she doubted him and asked how she can prove herself. V tells her that he would marry her if she wants. Rika then heard Mina laugh for the first time in her heart. Because she had finally met someone like her, far from the ordinary.

Rika had lived much of her life with paranoia, depression, anxiety, and psychosis, which then worsened when Sally (Rika's dog) died, which is three years before the events of the game, and Rika blamed herself for her death for not having the surgery and choosing the "natural" path. At this point, V sends her to see a therapist to help her deal with her mental illness, who Rika only sees for three weeks before stopping.

Before Sally's death, Rika felt suffocated around V, she was paranoid that her darkness would melt and perish around his light, that the devil that protected her since childhood would melt with her, leading her to ask V for his own apartment under the impression that he needed it to focus on his charity work. This was later shown to be an excuse for her and Mika to have a place to stay and plan for Mint Eye.

Rika always had a dream: "to make abandoned people happy." She was also afraid of being abandoned herself, feeling lost about what she should do to be loved. Mika used that to her advantage, by offering to make a plan for them so they could survive in this world without being abandoned. To not be the people who struggle to find love, but to become people who give love.

He gives Rika the idea to use Unknown to steal all of RFA's information. At first, Rika disagrees because she feels like she can't use a child who needs to be saved. Mika then tells her that she's saving him by using him, that she needs to be strong enough to use harsh measures to truly save people and keep herself protected. Because they find love one day and find hate the next, there's no point in being a "good child", so she needs to be strong enough to be the person who judges who's a "good child".

Later, Rika agreed to Mika's plan after her mental state escalated impossibly due to Mother Choi's death. Her death led Rika to feel that she needed to save Saeran one way or another, even if it means hurting him in the process. According to Rika, her fear of being abandoned made the "Mina" inside her trust and follow Mika's plan. Rika knew how wrong Mika was and that they were both abnormal to go through with it, but they were both devils and devils can't abandon each other. Rika let Mika take over her because she wanted to let Mika protect her, because she knew how desperate Mika was and how much she needed Rika.

During Secret Ending One, Rika is revealed to be the founder of the Mint Eye cult (regarded as a 'savior') and is shown to be deeply disturbed and obsessed with 'cleansing' the world and saving people. Players also learn more about Rika's backstory and how she ended up the way she is now. Rika then reveals that she originally planned to bring all of the RFA members to Mint Eye.

At this point, Rika seems to despise V, calling him a traitor for being involved with RFA and stating that she is glad he is blind because he will be free to do whatever he wants. However, V is still insanely obsessed with Rika and claims that he can "destroy" him all he wants.

Later in the first secret ending, Rika hopes that she can brainwash Seven, implying that she is much better than her brother, Unknown. As well as stating that she had no plans to kill Seven despite promising him that she would. This greatly angers Unknown as he was totally against it, as he wanted to kill him to get revenge for "abandoning" him. Rika then scolds Unknown for not agreeing with her, implying that he is of no use to her now, causing great mental damage to him.

At this point, Rika sends her disciples to brainwash Unknown some more, but Seven steps in between the two, electrocuting Unknown before he passes out due to his injury. Unknown then pulls out his gun and finally shoots V, causing Rika to snap back to reality (sort of) and grieve for V.

At the end of the first secret ending, Rika is away from V's funeral. Yoosung mentions that ever since his "suicide", she had stopped talking. However, she starts talking about how V is the sun and that he is always with her.

In Secret Ending Two, Rika is now being cared for by Yoosung, as the doctors believed it was better for someone from her family to take care of her, rather than a doctor 24 hours a day. Yoosung and Zen observe her inside her shared apartment with V taking photos and smiling, stating that she is similar to that of a child because of how happy she is.

After a while, Zen has a prophetic dream about her and tells Yoosung to send Rika somewhere without informing Jumin and Jaehee. It is implied that they are doing this for her own good and that she will be better off wherever they send her.

Relations
V
V was Rika's fiancé; it is seen that they loved each other very much in previous flashbacks. Right before his "suicide", V proposed to her and the two became engaged. Truthfully, their relationship is built on mutual codependency, to the point of being unhealthy. Due to Rika's instability, she assaulted him with an object, causing him to go blind. Afterwards, she created a religious cult and blames V for everything terrible that happened to them in a twisted ideology she developed to "save" people. When Rika told V that she might hurt him in the future, he received words of comfort as V didn't care about himself or his status. Over time, in the duration of V's route, V ends up admitting that he never loved Rika, realizing that everything between them was simply an obsession from both ends. Before that, however, V assured Rika that what they feel in the present is true love, no matter how they see it later on as their lives progress. Rika, similarly, frantically told V that even if she comes to hate him, she loves him in the present.

Yoosung
Rika is Yoosung's cousin by adoption. Although they didn't meet until later on, Yoosung feels that they became close. The two worked together in community service. After the death of her puppy, Yoosung vowed to become a veterinarian. Yoosung ends up taking care of Rika after V's death. While Yoosung was very fond of Rika, it is revealed in Secret Ending 01 that she hates pretending to smile and act a certain way around him.

he.

Jumin Han
Jumin, Rika, and V are seen to be close friends. Jumin trusts and respects Rika as seen most of the time, such as when he heard that there was a bomb planted in Rika's apartment. He said that he felt as if "she was the only woman who understood him, could see right through him with just one look" and also felt that "he could trust her" and that "she was the only woman, until MC came along, who didn't like him just because of her money." Jumin's feelings for Rika can be interpreted as being deeper than friendship, considering that he states on several occasions throughout his route that Rika was never supposed to be his.

Zen
Rika is one of Zen's earliest fans, who is also seen admiring his works and performances. In Zen's route, it is shown when she gave him red flowers as a congratulation.

In the second and final part of the secret ending, Zen had a psychic dream in which Rika would be interrogated and possibly imprisoned. But since Zen was unaware of Rika's actions in being "the leader of Mint Eye", the person who brainwashed Saeran and caused V's blindness, he instead strongly suggested to Yoosung that she be sent to Alaska to recover from her aphasia and mental illness. At first, it took some convincing for Yoosung, but he was eventually able to send Rika to Alaska believing that it was best for her to go there for treatment and hopefully recover.

recover.

707
Rika discovered 707 when he was a child, uncovering the unimaginable abuse he and his twin brother, Saeran, faced at the hands of their mother. She ended up converting Seven to Catholicism and helped him get baptized with the name Luciel. She also "rescued" Seven's twin from his abusive mother and cared for him until her breakup with V. Following this, she used various brainwashing techniques to distort Saeran's view of his brother, forcing a rift between the two. At the end of the Secret 01 route, Rika revealed that she wanted to brainwash Seven into joining Mint Eye.

Sally
Sally was her pet dog, but when she was seven years old she developed cataracts in her eyes and Rika refused to pay for the operation, which led to Sally's death (she went blind and was hit by a car). Rika is very depressed about this and regrets not allowing the operation, even going so far as to blame herself for the dog's death.