The Landlord [Backstory + Context] (Pixiv Fanbox)

No one knows her real name. She doesn’t offer it, and no one asks twice. To tenants, slumlords, squatters, and sketchy maintenance men alike, she’s just “The Landlord”. Her voicemail says the same in a flat voice:

“This is the landlord. Leave it or don’t. I don’t care.”

She’s barely 23, though she carries herself like someone who’s seen thirty years of bad choices. Raised in the underbelly of Ohio, she was the only child of a burned-out metal drummer and a mother who left when she was ten years old. Her dad died when she was seventeen. She didn’t cry; she sold his records and used the money to tattoo full sleeves of flowers on her limbs, and then started squatting in an abandoned apartment with boarded-up windows.

It was there she met Curtis - a washed-up real estate investor who was flipping cheap foreclosures, mostly to money-laundering LLCs. Curtis was too lazy to do anything but drink and complain, so he hired her under the table to handle evictions, collect rent in cash, and “keep people from asking too many questions”. She was 19.

She runs three buildings, none of which are legally habitable. Half of her tenants don’t pay, and the other half pay in unusual ways - with pills, traded technology, and stolen scrap. The cops won’t come without a shootout, the wiring is a fire hazard, and the pipes groan like they’re haunted.

Her appearance mirrors the town that has stopped feeling: black eyeliner like war paint, ghost-white foundation, and a collection of vintage band shirts with long, faded tour dates. Her leather heeled boots thump like threats on the tiled hallways. She keeps her chin-length hair dyed as black as it can be, and tattoos crawl up her throat and anywhere else that isn’t concealed by clothing. She doesn’t smile, she hardly knocks, and she never forgets who owes rent. Her office is a broken pool table in the back of the mouldy bar area, where a mini-fridge full of Monster energy drinks sits against a wall beside a milk crate full of eviction notices.

The Landlord says the buildings belong to someone else. Maybe Curtis. Maybe a dead LLC. But she’s the one the tenants see - the one they curse.

No one wants her job, and she doesn’t really want it either. She didn’t dare to dream of escape, as she knew nothing else. All she knows is that there has to be more than this, her world built on rot and ruin.

—

Unit 4B [THE LANDLORD PT. 1 & 2]

The walkway to the apartment door stank of vape juice and sour Red Bull. The Landlord stepped on a broken beer bottle, heel crunching the shattered glass under the rubber sole. Door 4B had a handmade sign on it - “FILMING IN PROGRESS - DO NOT ENTER UNLESS YOU’RE INTO IT” - written in Sharpie.

She pounded on the door, minding the new black polish on her sharp acrylic nails. The door swung open on its creaking hinge. Inside was a single naked bulb illuminating an area of the gaudy deep orange wallpaper, a half-assembled flatpack, a cheap tripod and four twitchy tenants. One was unapologetically smoking indoors, and another had a full spreadsheet open on an old laptop.

Her tone was flat and unsurprised as she held out an eviction notice with the other hand on her hip. She had heard it all before when the threats came, the hatred towards her, and the excuses for the noise complaints. They had explained it was a “content house”, that they were working, but she had none of it, and had seen worse. She hardly finished telling them to pack up their “fetish dungeon” before one of them dragged her inside by the arm.

***

It lasted an hour and felt like fifty. When they finally let her go, she was breathless, fixing her clothes and grabbing her boots. She sat against the peeling wall, wheezing laughter into rage.

“You’re all evicted”, she gasped.

“Already knew that”, one of them smirked, tossing a USB drive labelled “Bonus Content”.

She still had her dignity, mostly, once they explained it was all for show, especially the part where they threatened to tattoo the soles of her tormented feet. She didn’t say another word, just walked out, slow and steady, laughter still echoing behind her.

In the aftermath, she doesn't report the incident. Instead, she downloads the video, watches it once in a smoky kitchen with a cheap beer, and quietly removes their names from the eviction list.

—

COMING BACK

After the incident, The Landlord tells herself it was a one-time loss of control, humiliating, sure, but not important. Days pass. The tenants don’t bring it up, don’t mock her, and don’t even mention the footage again. It bothers her more than the tickling did, and so does her instinct to think about the event and reach for her vibrator every night. That power reversal, their complete lack of fear towards her, lingers in her head like a splinter.

She finds herself rewatching the video. Not because of the content, she tells herself, but because of how she looked in it. Off-guard. Real. Human. It’s the first time she’s seen herself not scowling behind black eyeliner. Weirdly… she didn’t hate it.

The video performed. She gets wind from one of the tenants that “The Ticklish Landlord” clip tripled their subscriber count overnight, albeit on whatever dodgy website that was. They offer her a cut, no contracts, just cash, more than what she makes running all three buildings for a month.

But it’s not just the money.

What hooks her is the control within the chaos, the idea that she could choose to step into that absurd space, free herself and be someone. She could weaponise her image - the unapproachable goth slumlord - and use it for profit, even for personal power. Let people laugh, fine, but on her terms.

Deep down, there’s a part of her that misses being touched, even in this twisted way. Her life had been dirty cash and violence; laughter had never been a part of it. She had forgotten what it sounded like coming from her own mouth.

***

It was 10:14 pm when her boots hit the dirty walkway again.

No eviction notice this time; just her, in a cropped tee slipping off her shoulder and letting her belly button peek out, paired with a black denim jacket over the top. Her face paint was heavier tonight, less ghost, more warlord. Door 4B was closed, no sign and no lights. She raised her hand and knocked once. The door creaked open like it recognised her.

A familiar tenant answered, surprised but not shocked. “Huh. Thought you’d never come back”.

She stepped past him like it was her apartment. “Get the camera on. I’m not staying long.”

The others blinked at her from the couch, eyes half lidded from the hazy room, foul with the smell of cheap weed. No one spoke. She turned slowly, letting her bootheel click as a pause. “You still filming?”

The one who answered the door nodded. “Always. Why?”

She unzipped her jacket, revealing the faint outline of new ink under her collarbone, the word "RENT" in Gothic script. “I figured if I’m already a joke on the internet, I should get a better cut this time.”

One of them exhaled. “You serious?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You want me on camera or not?”

The room scrambled into motion like a well-oiled machine, tripods adjusted, lights flicked on. One stepped toward her, gently holding out a hand. “Just for clarity, you want to be tickled again, or-?”

She stopped him with a look, sitting down slowly on the couch like a queen claiming her new throne. She straightened her back like someone warming up for a fight “Just surprise me, okay? Let’s give your freak fans something real again.”

As the camera set into place, her mouth curled, just barely, into something dangerous. Not a smile, but close.

***

After the shoot, one of them offers her a drink. She declines but lingers. She doesn’t laugh again - not off-camera - but something has shifted. She doesn’t feel like just The Landlord anymore.

Now she’s something else. Something evolving.

And this crumbling apartment? It might just be the strangest home she’s ever had.