Masked Mania

❥Chapter 5: Do what you want, as long as you stay here

A/n:
16K WORDS AND 1 HOUR ESTIMATED READING TIME HSKSJEJDJWW NAWW HELP MEEE

Not proofread yet as is typical of me, but PLS DO ENJOY LMFAO

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It had only been two months since Harumi had taken over, but everything was already upside down.

Crime had risen within the city because neither the ninja, nor the police were there to keep the citizens in check. Lots of shops were now closed to prevent thievery — which was becoming more and more common by the day — and most people were afraid to leave their houses, or to leave anything unguarded. What was worse for him, was that the more the city dissolved into chaos, the less Harumi would take him out to see the shops and the park. She'd always taken him to the best districts and tried to avoid closed shops — he could tell, it was obvious — but when practically every shop had started to close, it seemed their escapades in the city were over. If he'd felt stuck in the penthouse before, then he truly felt stuck, now. It had been three weeks since he'd left the place, and Lloyd had a hunch that he wouldn't be leaving again.

He still didn't know why Harumi had decided to take over the city; whenever he asked her about it, she muttered something about safety, the ninja being terrible, and having needed more time and that his "stupid" friends ruined everything, which made absolutely zero sense. He didn't even need to go outside to see that the city didn't exude safety in the slightest.

Lloyd figured she was just beating around the bush because she didn't have a good reason to ruin the city other than her simply being a shitty person. Whenever he would bring up a bad thing she did, she always got upset, as if he was the hateful and negative one for bringing up her hate and negativity towards his friends and this city in its entirety.

He let his mind wander further as he continued mincing garlic. Harumi loved garlic with her noodles, he'd learned. He'd known about her love for ice cream, cats, and noodles for the longest time, but had never paid attention to the details before, like how she only ever ate certain types of ice cream at certain times, how she preferred orange and black cats above all, and how she absolutely adored garlic on her noodles. Lloyd figured that he had been too busy with life before, but now, he didn't really have anything else to do or think about other than Harumi, all day, every day.

As he moved onto the next clove of garlic, he sighed out in frustration when he saw that he still had many more, other vegetables to go. This was ridiculous. He knew it was. Harumi could easily get a chef to make her food, with all the money from the Royal Family, and especially considering she had taken over the entire city and everyone feared her. Lloyd didn't understand why she had chosen to embarrass him by reducing him to some sick form of a lovesick husband, waiting for his dear wife to get home, instead of just treating him like another prisoner who she feared would rebel against her. Maybe she was just trying to prove that she didn't even need to fear that he would rebel against her or escape, because he was too weak and useless to actually get anywhere with it, anyways.

He supposed that his situation wasn't all too different from a prisoner, though, considering he wasn't allowed to go anywhere on his own, ever. He couldn't even walk out of the apartment building without being intercepted and guided right back to Harumi's penthouse. The escape attempt from two days after the original, failed attempt that had cost him his phone, had been the final one. Lloyd knew he couldn't outrun a robot that didn't tire, and that was probably watching him at all times, because it never needed sleep. Plus, he didn't want to have those creepy red again stare into his very soul again. He had a feeling that, if he dared to annoy the thing by making another escape attempt, the robot would just shoot him down, faster than Harumi had shut down his idea of ever going to the store on his own.