Being a waitress isn't good for you

After the strips of cloth over her eyes and in her mouth were removed, Ririko found herself in a room.

The room was decorated like a fairy-tale princess's bedroom, but with cheap princess stickers, damaged teddy bears, and yellowed lace curtains...

She sat on a double bed covered in pink sheets, her right hand cuffed to a bedpost.

She was still wearing her long green dress, but her heels were gone, along with the bag containing her phone and the ring on her finger...

She took a deep breath, and the fury inside her erupted like a volcano.

"Jerome, you redheaded bastard! You filthy liar! You played the fool in Arkham and screwed me over by using a cliff as an escape route. Now you're stealing my stuff, too! You son of a bitch!"

The two Clown Army members guarding the door exchanged looks.

One of them held a pen and notebook. "Should we pass that on to the boss? He told us to write down everything she says."

The other said, "If the boss hears that, he'll probably tear your fingers off one by one and toss them into a salad."

They fell silent for a moment.

The first put his notebook away. "Good point. Let's leave that out for now."

Once Ririko wore herself out cursing in the room, she flopped onto the bed, bouncing a teddy bear with a missing eye onto the floor.

She picked up the teddy bear and saw an amusement park supplies label on it.

She checked the pillows, the quilt, and the enamel mug by the bed... They all bore the name "HappyLand."

She remembered an amusement park by that name in Gotham's Lower East Side. It had later closed for some unknown reason.

Had it closed because Jerome and his people had taken it over?

And now Jerome had installed her in a dilapidated castle like a fairy-tale princess, leaving her to live, ironically, in a broken fairy tale.

She didn't know whether the Iceberg Lounge had been blown up.

Thinking of the money she'd painstakingly saved in her dormitory, she swore that if Jerome really had ruined it all, she would make sure he could never get it up again.

Thinking of all those colorful bills that had belonged to her, she cursed Jerome and slowly fell asleep.

Ririko opened her eyes and saw a head of red hair very close to her.

Then came that pale face, with its dark circles and slightly broken look.

He really did look rather handsome like this.

Ririko decided she must be dreaming.

That noisy idiot Jerome would never wait so quietly for her to wake up.

She closed her eyes again and concentrated hard on Bruce's face-

From his sharply defined brow to his high nose bridge, to his exquisite hair, like rippling waves of wheat.

She hoped that the next time she opened her eyes, she would see Bruce Wayne's face.

[Jerome Valeska has entered effective range.]

[Current infatuation value: 8/100.]

The system reminded her that it was too early to start dreaming.

She snapped her eyes open. Jerome's nose was practically poking her in the eye!

She raised her knee, aimed between his legs, and drove it upward.

Jerome twisted aside, neatly dodging her "fatal" attack.

He sat on the edge of the bed, utterly unfazed by her assault.

"Why do you always use that move~? I came to play some fun games with you."

Ririko said angrily:

"You cuffed me up. What kind of adults-only BDSM games are you planning?"

Jerome tilted his head, letting his red hair fall over his forehead.

He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and shook them in front of her. "You mean these?"

Ririko raised her right hand and discovered that the handcuff had been unlocked at some point.

She got up from the bed and rubbed the red mark the cuff had left around her wrist.

"Where are my phone and ring?"

Jerome looked at her teasingly.

Startled, Ririko instinctively shifted toward the foot of the bed.

"What's that look for?"

Jerome clicked his tongue and said disdainfully:

"Your phone and your ring both had trackers in them."

Ririko hadn't expected that bird man to remove her tracking bracelet, only to plant so many trackers on her afterward.

Was that guy some kind of control-freak yandere?

She stared at Jerome, her gaze moving from the strand of red hair hanging over his forehead to his amber eyes.

"Then why did you bring me here?"

Jerome brushed back his bangs.

"Didn't you want to escape the Iceberg Lounge?"

Ririko hadn't expected him to have done it to get her out of the club.

"I didn't need... Why would you do that?" she asked.

Jerome looked away, as though embarrassed to answer.

"Being a waitress... isn't good for you."

Understanding dawned on Ririko. Did he not want her carrying a tray every night, being ogled by those sleazy men who thought money could buy everything?

Even so, when she thought of the bills hidden in her pillow, she couldn't feel happy about it.

"That doesn't mean you had to blow up the club."

Jerome's eyes lit up, and a sly smile appeared on his face.

"Did I ever say... the club blew up?"

Ririko's lips moved slightly.

"Didn't you plant a bomb there? You said it would explode if we didn't find it within five minutes?"

Laughter spilled from Jerome's throat, as though he'd heard a brilliant joke.

"I planted a whole bunch of stink bombs in the club." His eyebrows rose high, as though he were showing off his prowess. "Now it stinks so badly they can't open for business. Surprise! Didn't see that coming, did you?"

Ririko: "..."

She imagined Oswald discovering the unbearable stench in the club and stamping his bad leg in fury. That really was a joke straight out of hell.

"You went to all that trouble," Ririko said, her voice softening a little, "just to get me out?"

Jerome's smile didn't change. He merely tilted his head, as though considering an interesting subject.

"I could've gotten you out without doing that, but this way, I got to make that stupid penguin so mad he had steam coming out of his head. That's more fun."

Ririko couldn't make any sense of Jerome's guiding principles.

Call him smart... and he was always doing stupid things. Treat him like an idiot... and he was terrifyingly cruel.

"Well, thank you, then." Having figured out the situation, she rose from the bed. "Can I leave now?"

Jerome's eyes darkened briefly, but then he smiled again.

"This place is really fun." He was like a dog wagging his tail, waiting for his owner to play with him. "I've prepared lots of games."

Ririko didn't want to play any games with him.

Surrounded by tacky pink wallpaper, faded stickers, and battered teddy bears, she spent every second in that room wanting to leave.

But Jerome had a gun, who knew what dangerous things in his pockets, and who knew what going through his head...

Her experience as an NPC told her she couldn't afford to make him angry.

"Can I leave once we've finished the games?" she tried to bargain.

Jerome sprang up from the bed.

"Once you've played these games, you won't want to leave."

He strode toward the door on his long legs, as though he couldn't wait to show off the little games he was so proud of.

Ririko had no choice but to gather up her long skirt and follow him barefoot.

The two of them arrived in the castle's main hall.

Men and women dressed as clowns were scattered around the hall in small groups.

When they saw Jerome, they raised their heads almost simultaneously, revealing smiles that made her skin crawl.

But when they saw Ririko, their laughter stopped as though a knife had sliced right through it.

Everyone had heard she was the one who'd kicked Jerome in the crotch, then called him a "redheaded bastard" and a "son of a bitch" in her room. They all wanted to see how the boss would deal with this brazen woman.

Jerome approached a prop throne and sat sideways across it.

He pointed at a little stool beside the throne and told Ririko, "Sit here."

Ririko narrowed her eyes at the tiny folding stool-the kind anglers used-and rolled her eyes.

She folded her arms. "I'm not sitting on that little stool."

The hall fell silent.

None of them had ever seen anyone dare speak to Jerome like that-not because it had never happened, but because everyone who had done so had been tied to bricks and thrown into the Hudson River.

Those eager for a show snickered, while even the timid ones looked excited, waiting for Jerome to explode in the next instant.