🍺"Queens of the Gilded Cage" — Chapter One: Jiro’s Fury

The room was dim, the air thick with the scent of fried food and frustration. Jiro sat slumped in a reinforced armchair that groaned under her weight, a half-crushed six-pack of cheap beer beside her. Her cheeks were flushed—not just from the alcohol, but from the rage simmering beneath her skin.

She cracked open another can with a sharp hiss, took a long swig, and slammed it down.

“This is bullshit,” she growled, voice low and venomous. “We saved people. We fought villains. We mattered. And now we’re just... furniture in some creep’s oversized dollhouse.”

Her earjacks twitched erratically, sparking against the metal armrest. She didn’t care. She wanted noise. Chaos. Anything but the suffocating silence of captivity.

“I’m eighteen. I should be on stage, blowing amps and flipping off critics. Not stuck in this padded hellhole, getting fatter by the hour and drinking myself into a coma.”

She threw an empty can across the room. It bounced off a wall and landed near Mina, who was trying to squeeze into a beanbag chair that had clearly given up.

“Hey!” Mina chirped, unfazed. “Watch the merchandise, grumpy!”

Jiro didn’t even look at her. She grabbed another beer.

“You know what pisses me off the most?” she muttered. “It’s not the weight. Not the food. Not even the fact that I can’t use my quirk. It’s that I gave up. I stopped fighting. I stopped believing anyone was coming.”

She looked down at her bloated belly, her fingers curling into fists.

“And now I’m just... here. Drinking. Waiting. Rotting.”

From across the room, Ochako glanced over, her voice soft and unsure.

“Maybe... maybe they’re still out there. Maybe they’re just—”

“Save it,” Jiro snapped. “Hope’s a luxury I can’t afford anymore.”

She took another swig, her eyes burning.