Klaire acted bubbly, fragile, and lost; the perfect catnip for men who mistook kindness for permission. She ignored the blatant predators and selected a subtler specimen instead, one still under construction. Someone malleable. Minutes later, she was hitching a ride to the Tooth Fairy Café, where everything was too sweet to be healthy and, allegedly, good for your teeth.
Upon arrival, Klaire greeted Tsuna with practiced ease, both of them committed to the fiction that nothing had transpired. She donned a kitty costume, ears perched obediently in place, and returned to waitressing as if it were just another role.
Her ride had completed the transition from creeper to customer, settling in with the others, ready to tip his life away for the promise of another fleeting glimpse of her.
Klaire had plenty of waitressing experience—experience in separating customers from money they hadn't planned to give. With her current skill, one day's work paid for a month of survival. It could have stretched further if she hadn't funneled most of it into the supernatural. But then again, what else was worth buying?
"What's the new crazy record?" Tsuna asked, scrubbing the counter with a rag that looked like it had already lived a whole, disappointing life.
Klaire snorted at Tsuna's very reasonable concern, picked up a clean rag, and immediately erased whatever crime scene the owner had just smeared across the surface. "Thousand dollars in fourteen hours."
Tsuna froze, then calmly folded her rag with ritualistic precision, opened the money counter, stuffed the rag inside as if it were evidence, slammed it shut with a thunderous THUD, and walked straight out of her own shop without another word.
The café fell silent.
Slowly—painfully slowly—the stunned customers turned their heads back toward Klaire, food still hanging out of open mouths, syrup dripping, jaws locked mid-chew.
Klaire blinked at them.
"…Geez! Relax," she said, forcing a grin. "I do have a plan B!"
Tipping was a foreign custom to most folk, nd Klaire wasn't one of the entitled whiners common to her profession; though she suspected only she recognized the difference. She came from the streets, where respect is earned the hard way, and nothing is handed out for free.
Tsuna was fond of saying that wages were meant to be paid by the business owner, not by customers who came to relax and enjoy themselves.
Naturally, she followed that philosophy by underpaying her staff and selling them a different gospel: Tipping is an art you must master. Mesmerize, dazzle, give them something unforgettable. Make them loyal. Make them tip. Make them come back twice a day just to see you. That culture, Tsuna insisted, was, and remained, the proper way of things.
Like Tsuna, many savvy business owners twisted the system, teaching foolish, entitled workers to live off tips while never paying minimum wage. Plenty tried the same trick on Klaire and failed. Degrees, status, and intimidating physiques meant nothing to someone raised on the streets. She always got what she considered fair, whether that meant proper wages or putting wealthy creeps behind bars for forgetting how subtlety worked.
"Seriously—learn from Creepy Carl," was Klaire's favorite piece of advice.
Her idea of justice, however, didn't align with the laws written by the rich. Yet she prevailed, as Mr. Ass-Up-My-Head Tom could attest.
Klaire's arrival drained the color from the other waitresses, while customers eagerly phoned their people to spread the word.
"She's here…" came the giggles. "Hurry. Bring everyone."
Klaire swept through the twenty tables like a practiced storm, taking orders, clearing plates, and coaxing forty-percent tips out of patrons while serving them dishes they never planned to eat.
She shifted masks with ease, playing the damsel for tables of knighted men; a cheerful reminder of a grandchild to the elderly; a smooth talker for couples, flattering the man without threatening the woman; a wingwoman to the almost-lovers; a cauldron of clever cruelty for the rat-race weary; and an invisible goddess to introverts who wanted nothing more than silence.
The tips climbed as tables sabotaged one another, each attempt an effort to keep Klaire at their side a little longer. Klaire didn't have a personality of her own. She became the missing, irreplaceable thing each table needed to finish their day. And what socially starved creature wouldn't pay to feel complete at the end of the day… every day?
"Reserve this table as mine forever," half her customers pleaded. At the same time, the rest offered her jobs, one-night stands, their hearts, and, on occasion, their entire property, provided she signed a marriage certificate first.
"Let's start with smaller forms of appreciation," Klaire said, nudging the bill forward and tapping it with a mischievous wink.
When another waitress spat the word hoe, Klaire didn't raise her voice. She counted partners instead, pointing out that she had none to date while they had plenty. Not to mention the drama of begging, whining, the desperate outfits, cheap theatrics, and painfully obvious sabotage plots executed for pennies.
Numbers had a way of ending arguments, as no one spoke after that logic.
"Hookers have more self-respect and dignity than you lot," Klaire said, as if reminding them of a basic fact. "They also earn more." She turned and high-fived Tsuna, making sure they knew she had a higher backing.
"Does that come from experience?" A waitress taunted while the rest piled on, abusing Klaire's parents instead of her.
In the beginning—nine years old, according to her discharge file—the only subject capable of breaking her composure was her parents. But the streets corrected that quickly. Pain was either fuel or protection, never a weakness. Once she learned the difference, no parental comment could bait her into an unwinnable fight.
Unable to touch Klaire where it usually hurt, the girls turned to their boyfriends, unaware that those men were already on a short leash. The ones who wanted more but lacked the spine to confront Klaire themselves obeyed their girlfriends' wishes instead. But Klaire had anticipated that outcome too, as a brief flash of genuine street menace sent the pretenders fleeing.
Out of moves, the girls threatened to quit, dumping the problem on Tsuna, along with Klaire, who appeared when she pleased, and the lone male waiter whose devotion to Klaire far outweighed his usefulness.
"How's the hiring market for hore—waitresses," Tsuna said, stopping herself at the nick of time. She gave the girls a long, judgmental look before turning back to Klaire. "Who are—ehh!" she muttered, hesitation leaving her conscience.
"Excuse me!" the girls chorused.
Behind her back, Klaire subtly wiggled her fingers, signaling a shortage, while saying the opposite aloud. "Plenty," she said. "Way too many to keep track of—even for Creepy Carl."
Tsuna decided to test her luck as she turned back to the waitresses and waved them off. "You're free to leave. Seems I can always find others willing to work for even lower wages."
"That's not fair," they protested.
"Life doesn't care," Tsuna said, shaking her head. "Klaire keeps me solvent for a month, while, thus far, you have only managed to raise my Blood sugar level."
Tsuna hushed them before the sweets could be brought up.
Thus far, Klaire mouthed, equal parts awe and delight.
Going with the flow, Tsuna replied without missing a beat.
Tsuna took her sweet time, enjoying their spirits drain from their faces. She lets it settle to a calming low before leaning in, ready to twist the knife.
"So... shall we discuss your pay slips?"
"What! WAIT—"
"—Keep talking in unison, and I'll consider a single pay slip for all of you."
The room fell into eerie silence until Tsuna clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels, humming as she'd just remembered a tune from childhood.
All the waiters froze. Glanced at each other, slowly, painfully.
"…You go," one whispered.
"No, you go," hissed another.
The third opened his mouth, saw Tsuna's eyebrow twitch, and immediately shut it again, teeth clicking like a mousetrap.
Tsuna smiled. "Oh, good," she said, pleased. "Progress. We've moved from choir practice to interpretive silence."
She reached into the register and pulled out a thin stack of papers, fanning them like cards.
"Now," Tsuna continued, "according to these—" she tapped the papers once, twice, "—one of you worked eighty-seven hours last week."
Three of them nodded.
"Another worked ninety-two."
Two nodded. One hesitated, then nodded harder to compensate.
"And the last," Tsuna said, squinting theatrically, "worked… ah. Negative six."
Klaire blinked. "That's not possi—"
Tsuna slid the paper across the counter.
Kalire leaned in. "…Oh, makes sense. Was at the Mansion."
"Congratulations," Tsuna said, clasping her hands. "You owe me money."
A chair scraped. Someone swallowed.
From the corner, a customer watched with open fascination, chewing on a breadstick like it was popcorn. "Is this the part where someone cries?"
Tsuna didn't look away. "We're approaching it." She said with confidence, leaning forward, palms flat on the counter, voice dropping to a gentle, lethal calm. "Now here's the fun part. You can either explain why these slips look like they were filled out during an earthquake…" She straightened, snapping the papers together. "…or I can explain them to the labor board. With diagrams."
She allows the room a moment of dead silence before relaxing and letting one waiter raise a single finger.
"…May we speak," he asked, "one at a time?"
Tsuna beamed. "Oh, look at that," she said. "They do learn."
Klaire snorted, well aware they were taking another pay cut—yet again. "This is officially a monthly ritual."
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Fifty-Six. ———<>||<>———