When they were out of sight, Yuna sighed, “Haaaaah. Why’d you have to poke your nose into this? You should have just let me deal with it and not gotten involved in all of this. That girl is definitely going to assume it was you even if she didn’t see your face.”
“Yeah. Probably. But she still has no proof that it was me.”
“What does proof matter? She couldn’t care less. If she thinks it’s you, she’ll come after you for sure. She knows where we work now. There isn’t anywhere to run or hide. Your only choice would be to quit working there.”
“Hmm… maybe, maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you forget?”
“Forget what?”
“The mascot costume. I could just keep wearing it inside while working and keep my mouth shut as usual. Nobody knows it’s me inside those mascot costumes at the moment.”
“Hmm… that is true.”
“Besides that, you only work at this location on Saturdays. She doesn’t know you work at that other one yet, right?”
“Well, that is true as well.”
“The biggest problem for you right now is that she knows where you live.”
“Haaaaaah. Yeah. There isn’t anything I can do about that if she stakes my place out and ambushes me like she did today.”
“Seriously though. What’s up with you and her? Something about someone who loaned you money?”
“You heard all of that?”
“Yeah, I recorded everything up until I acted. I was thinking I might be able to use it against them to keep them in check by submitting it to the authorities, but they seem like the types who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. How scary.”
“Yeah… that sort of thing wouldn’t work. They’d get some guy to dump your body in a river and make sure you sleep at the bottom of it forever.”
“... seriously?”
“Yeah. They’re a pretty dangerous group. She seduced a gang leader and he’s crazy about her. Willing to spend anything on her. They lure unsuspecting guys with a lot of money to somewhere dark and secluded where they ambush them with their gang. The guys who they took to the movie theater, they’ve likely already been extorted for a large sum of money.”
“As soon as they become reluctant to spend any more money, that’s when she disposes of them and milks every last cent she can out of them using violence. She’ll even get them to take out high-interest loans using this method.”
“She’ll record awful humiliating videos of them and go on to blackmail them with all sorts of terrible things she digs up on them as well. She’d do anything to destroy men. If they say anything to the police, she’ll target their families in retaliation.”
“Why the hell didn’t you stop me if she’s this bad?”
“Because… something even worse would have happened if I revealed you did that when you weren’t my boyfriend. If I went along with you acting as if you were my boyfriend… she might hold back a little… that was what I was hoping.”
Vicious and truly insidious.
“By the way, you didn’t answer my question. What’s with you and her?”
“We met purely by chance because of shared courses in university. I’d taken out a loan with a private lender to attend university.”
“Why not government-issued student loans?”
“It wasn’t enough to cover everything even while working part-time. It would have been a different story if my parents weren’t making everything so difficult for me. They really despise my decision to get an arts degree in literature instead of science. Haha… they were so against it that they even threatened to disown me.”
“With parents like that, it actually makes it even harder on me than if they were dead.”
“You hate your parents?”
“Hate? I don’t know. I don’t feel anything in particular towards them anymore these days. But I’d still rather not see them again, to be honest. I specifically moved to this city on my own to get far away from them after I finished high school.”
I didn’t actually know she wasn’t from this city, I always assumed she was. No wonder her finances were a mess and she was forced to get a loan from a private lender. Banks definitely wouldn’t give her a loan with her circumstances and as a student. Only the government would and it still wouldn’t be enough despite her part-time job. It sounded exhausting.
What could really be done though?
There was no way I could bring her back to Alicia’s place. If that psychotic woman starts stalking Alicia or Rosa and she discovers Yuna going to Alicia’s place, that'd be extremely problematic. They might even target Alicia, Irene, or Chris when they’re alone.
Shit. This is actually pretty bad. Someone could really die here. I didn’t sign up for this.
Do I have no choice but to… spill blood here? Rosa… or her parents, could I have them… deal with this lunatic? That might be the only choice. But the problem here was numbers. The gang behind that crazy bitch was the biggest problem, not that psychopath herself. If that gang investigated and discovered that her death was related to Yuna in some way… that didn’t solve the root problem at all. It’d mean massacring an entire gang, not just a single psychotic woman.
Was there anything else? Anything at all?
I felt cornered.
Angela? No... even if she has a few guards accompanying her around she would still be put in a good amount of danger as well. It’s a gang with numbers on their side that we’re dealing with here.
Wisteria… she could seduce the gang leader and turn him against that crazy bitch. But… she wasn’t around. It’d take pretty long for her to even get here on such short notice.
Who else was there?
Izora? What use would she even be in this situation?
Zale and Jass, yeah right. Also useless.
Really… it was looking more and more like eliminating her and hoping for the best would be the only option.
My stomach was turning as I rode mindlessly into the night.
Logically speaking, isn’t the most obvious answer the choice here? Just hand Yuna over to the police. She can explain things to them and they should be able to keep her in protective custody. But she probably wouldn’t be able to go to work that way. Her finances would go from shit to even shittier if she can’t work because of it.
“Hey… Ran.”
“What is it?”
“You can just drop me off here. You don’t need to involve yourself in a problem of mine that has nothing to do with you. I can figure out what to do from here on my own and where to go.”
“You can? What’s your plan then?”
“I’ll go to the police.”
“What’ll you do about work?”
“I probably won’t be able to go since they’ll probably keep me in protective custody.” So she realized.
“Won’t your finances go from shit to shitter?”
“I’ve got a bit of money saved up in case of emergencies thanks to those girls who helped me out in the past. It should last a little while.”
“Liar. You really think I’d buy that?”
“Haha. You could at least play along with the lie and not call me out for being a university student on the edge of poverty.”
“It’s really fine though. You helped me out enough. I really don’t like owing people.”
“If you don’t like owing people, how about you sell me your soul and I’ll find a way to help you out in return?”
“Sell you my soul? What are you, a devil?”
“Would you believe me if I said I can become one if I have to?”
“You should really stop trying to play superhero. It doesn’t fit you.”
“How insulting. Did you not hear me? I’m playing the devil’s advocate, not a corny superhero in some tights.”
“You have a girlfriend. She’s the one you should be worried about the most. What’ll you do if she’s targeted?”
“Laugh.”
“Huh?”
“I’d laugh.” Like… are they stupid? Did they have a death wish to target her? She’d kill them. But let’s say they did somehow get one over on her, the people Rosa’s parents have keeping an eye on her would obviously reveal themselves and butcher them. They’d also report everything to Rosa’s parents and a bloodbath would ensue.
I was trying to avoid that scenario since it’d be pretty chaotic. People close to me could inadvertently get wrapped up in it and die if things got really messy.
“I was wrong about you. You’re really the worst type of guy. Just let me off here. I don’t need help from someone like you who can’t even show the slightest concern for his girlfriend.”
“Look, don’t misunderstand. I wouldn’t be laughing at Rosa, I’d be laughing at the dumbasses who targeted her. Her parents are very scary. That’s all I’ll say.”
When they were out of sight, Yuna sighed, “Haaaaah. Why’d you have to poke your nose into this? You should have just let me deal with it and not gotten involved in all of this. That girl is definitely going to assume it was you even if she didn’t see your face.”
“Yeah. Probably. But she still has no proof that it was me.”
“What does proof matter? She couldn’t care less. If she thinks it’s you, she’ll come after you for sure. She knows where we work now. There isn’t anywhere to run or hide. Your only choice would be to quit working there.”
“Hmm… maybe, maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you forget?”
“Forget what?”
“The mascot costume. I could just keep wearing it inside while working and keep my mouth shut as usual. Nobody knows it’s me inside those mascot costumes at the moment.”
“Hmm… that is true.”
“Besides that, you only work at this location on Saturdays. She doesn’t know you work at that other one yet, right?”
“Well, that is true as well.”
“The biggest problem for you right now is that she knows where you live.”
“Haaaaaah. Yeah. There isn’t anything I can do about that if she stakes my place out and ambushes me like she did today.”
“Seriously though. What’s up with you and her? Something about someone who loaned you money?”
“You heard all of that?”
“Yeah, I recorded everything up until I acted. I was thinking I might be able to use it against them to keep them in check by submitting it to the authorities, but they seem like the types who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. How scary.”
“Yeah… that sort of thing wouldn’t work. They’d get some guy to dump your body in a river and make sure you sleep at the bottom of it forever.”
“... seriously?”
“Yeah. They’re a pretty dangerous group. She seduced a gang leader and he’s crazy about her. Willing to spend anything on her. They lure unsuspecting guys with a lot of money to somewhere dark and secluded where they ambush them with their gang. The guys who they took to the movie theater, they’ve likely already been extorted for a large sum of money.”
“As soon as they become reluctant to spend any more money, that’s when she disposes of them and milks every last cent she can out of them using violence. She’ll even get them to take out high-interest loans using this method.”
“She’ll record awful humiliating videos of them and go on to blackmail them with all sorts of terrible things she digs up on them as well. She’d do anything to destroy men. If they say anything to the police, she’ll target their families in retaliation.”
“Why the hell didn’t you stop me if she’s this bad?”
“Because… something even worse would have happened if I revealed you did that when you weren’t my boyfriend. If I went along with you acting as if you were my boyfriend… she might hold back a little… that was what I was hoping.”
Vicious and truly insidious.
“By the way, you didn’t answer my question. What’s with you and her?”
“We met purely by chance because of shared courses in university. I’d taken out a loan with a private lender to attend university.”
“Why not government-issued student loans?”
“It wasn’t enough to cover everything even while working part-time. It would have been a different story if my parents weren’t making everything so difficult for me. They really despise my decision to get an arts degree in literature instead of science. Haha… they were so against it that they even threatened to disown me.”
“With parents like that, it actually makes it even harder on me than if they were dead.”
“You hate your parents?”
“Hate? I don’t know. I don’t feel anything in particular towards them anymore these days. But I’d still rather not see them again, to be honest. I specifically moved to this city on my own to get far away from them after I finished high school.”
I didn’t actually know she wasn’t from this city, I always assumed she was. No wonder her finances were a mess and she was forced to get a loan from a private lender. Banks definitely wouldn’t give her a loan with her circumstances and as a student. Only the government would and it still wouldn’t be enough despite her part-time job. It sounded exhausting.
What could really be done though?
There was no way I could bring her back to Alicia’s place. If that psychotic woman starts stalking Alicia or Rosa and she discovers Yuna going to Alicia’s place, that'd be extremely problematic. They might even target Alicia, Irene, or Chris when they’re alone.
Shit. This is actually pretty bad. Someone could really die here. I didn’t sign up for this.
Do I have no choice but to… spill blood here? Rosa… or her parents, could I have them… deal with this lunatic? That might be the only choice. But the problem here was numbers. The gang behind that crazy bitch was the biggest problem, not that psychopath herself. If that gang investigated and discovered that her death was related to Yuna in some way… that didn’t solve the root problem at all. It’d mean massacring an entire gang, not just a single psychotic woman.
Was there anything else? Anything at all?
I felt cornered.
Angela? No... even if she has a few guards accompanying her around she would still be put in a good amount of danger as well. It’s a gang with numbers on their side that we’re dealing with here.
Wisteria… she could seduce the gang leader and turn him against that crazy bitch. But… she wasn’t around. It’d take pretty long for her to even get here on such short notice.
Who else was there?
Izora? What use would she even be in this situation?
Zale and Jass, yeah right. Also useless.
Really… it was looking more and more like eliminating her and hoping for the best would be the only option.
My stomach was turning as I rode mindlessly into the night.
Logically speaking, isn’t the most obvious answer the choice here? Just hand Yuna over to the police. She can explain things to them and they should be able to keep her in protective custody. But she probably wouldn’t be able to go to work that way. Her finances would go from shit to even shittier if she can’t work because of it.
“Hey… Ran.”
“What is it?”
“You can just drop me off here. You don’t need to involve yourself in a problem of mine that has nothing to do with you. I can figure out what to do from here on my own and where to go.”
“You can? What’s your plan then?”
“I’ll go to the police.”
“What’ll you do about work?”
“I probably won’t be able to go since they’ll probably keep me in protective custody.” So she realized.
“Won’t your finances go from shit to shitter?”
“I’ve got a bit of money saved up in case of emergencies thanks to those girls who helped me out in the past. It should last a little while.”
“Liar. You really think I’d buy that?”
“Haha. You could at least play along with the lie and not call me out for being a university student on the edge of poverty.”
“It’s really fine though. You helped me out enough. I really don’t like owing people.”
“If you don’t like owing people, how about you sell me your soul and I’ll find a way to help you out in return?”
“Sell you my soul? What are you, a devil?”
“Would you believe me if I said I can become one if I have to?”
“You should really stop trying to play superhero. It doesn’t fit you.”
“How insulting. Did you not hear me? I’m playing the devil’s advocate, not a corny superhero in some tights.”
“You have a girlfriend. She’s the one you should be worried about the most. What’ll you do if she’s targeted?”
“Laugh.”
“Huh?”
“I’d laugh.” Like… are they stupid? Did they have a death wish to target her? She’d kill them. But let’s say they did somehow get one over on her, the people Rosa’s parents have keeping an eye on her would obviously reveal themselves and butcher them. They’d also report everything to Rosa’s parents and a bloodbath would ensue.
I was trying to avoid that scenario since it’d be pretty chaotic. People close to me could inadvertently get wrapped up in it and die if things got really messy.
“I was wrong about you. You’re really the worst type of guy. Just let me off here. I don’t need help from someone like you who can’t even show the slightest concern for his girlfriend.”
“Look, don’t misunderstand. I wouldn’t be laughing at Rosa, I’d be laughing at the dumbasses who targeted her. Her parents are very scary. That’s all I’ll say.”
