The fat man with an aquiline nose greedily savored the drink he had just been served, accompanying it with the fresh sardines in the plate in front of him.

«So, can we talk about business, tub of lard?»

The Joker, elegantly sitting on the leather sofa, stared at the other man with an amused expression as the latter licked the residues of fish from his fingers.

«I'm here for this, clown» he replied, caressing the little soft head of one of his initiate, unaware transporter of the explosive device tied on his dark back.

The King of Gotham grimly laughed, throwing his head back. He had always liked The Penguin, with his macabre sense of humor and the tendency to blow up anyone who hinders him.

«What do you need?»

«The usual: TNT, detonators, shit like that» he dismissed him with a shaken gesture of his hand, almost like the question annoyed him.

«Prices have gone up, but if you lend me one of your trained pets, I could give you a discount» he smiled viciously, intertwining his own fingers and bringing them under his chin.

The corpulent man almost growled, slamming his palm on the table and jingling the dishes above.

«Never!»

«It's just a beast! You have hundreds of them, all destined to die. What difference does it make if by your hand or mine?» he mocked, aware that he had prodded him enough to make him lose his temper.

«I feed them. I take care of them. I love them, from the first to the last. They are mine.»

«Calm down, you stink like a putrid cod and when you get nervous it's even worse!» the Joker chuckled, bringing a glass of champagne to his lips.

«Your greatest merit is also your biggest flaw: you do not feel any sentiment, for anything or anyone...» the plump criminal said, settling himself better in the armchair.

At those words the disfigured face of the other contracted in a hilarious grimace, while the lights in the room below changed.

A big steel ring, firmly anchored to the ceiling by a strong metal cable, descended toward the center of tbe track. The tool shone thanks to the colored headlights that illuminated it and, above the crowd, a small and pale hand reached out towards it. The fingers tightened around the object and the figure they belonged to jumped gracefully performing a split in the air, legs wrapped in black and red cloth spread and stretched out.

At that sight, the Joker stood up approaching the balustrade, a serious expression on his face for a moment. The Penguin, also distracted by that out of program, leaned far enough to get a better view.

«Is this a new number? I know you're a freak show, but I did not think you'd decided to open a real circus» said the man dressed in a tuxedo.

«Oh, trust me, it's much better... » the Joker whispered licking slowly his lips, badly dyed of a red so intense as to ask if it was just makeup or the blood of one of his unfortunate victims.

The figure, athletic and slender, whose shapes were leaking through the thin fabric that dressed him, arched his body so as to sit on the edge of the hoop, crossing his legs and looking at the green-haired man who was looking back at him.

Harley, with a mischievous light illuminating his icy-eyes, smiled at his man, letting himself fall.

The audience below him screamed in panic, then applauded and reached out to the hands of the jester who was balancing, suspended in midair, grasping his ankles on the cold metal of the ring. The crowd touched him, grazed, while the unnaturally pale-faced man, marked on his cheeks by the colors of madness, giggled greeting his admirers. The former psychiatrist, with a stroke of kidney, sat down again at the center of the hoop, chaining his irises with those emeralds of the King of his heart.

With sinuous, languid and precise movements, he modeled his body to take the form he wanted, like a snake wrapping its coils around steel. His eyes were constantly looking for the Joker's ones that, whenever saw him descend to those unknown hands, quivered with rage and excitement together: Harley was clearly defying him by allowing those mediocre beings to touch his precious figure, enough for irritate him but never enough to expose himself completely. The man with the silvery locks wanted his attention, and he had certainly obtained it.

The one who had once lived under the name of Eren Yeager called his own creature, which didn't hesitate for a moment to give himself the momentum necessary to go near the balustrade. A pale palm grabbed the handrail, while the other tenderly stroked the criminal's nape, their lips so close to feel their mutual warmth.

«Puddin'!» he smiled ecstatically and the Joker, grabbing his hair, kissed him with ardor and possession, dying him with crimson.

«What are you doing?» he asked and Harley frowned.

«I'm bored without you. Will it take a long time with that horrid old bird...? » he answered, his voice low and soothing, full of promises and desires.

«Unfortunately yes, sweetie.»

The King of Gotham rubbed his lips, spreading his taste on that soft and inviting flesh, breathing his intoxicating scent that smelled of insanity. The Penguin, on the other hand, straightened out, resentful.

«But in the meantime you can do something for me...»

Harley's eyes shone with impatience, Levi's voice inside him choking to please the man for whom he had given up on himself.

«Whatever you want, Puddin'» he said, following the gaze of the other who had settled on the crowd below. One person, in particular.

«Do you see him?»

«Yes, Puddin'.»

«I do not like him» he said disapprovingly, and Harley knew for sure what to do.

He licked his beloved lips one last time, then let go and hover in the void, whirling the circle. He entertained his audience a few more minutes, looking with insistence and malice the poor unfortunate man who, receiving such attentions, first felt flattered, then powerful: the Joker's man wanted him.

Poor fool.

The Penguin watched the tiny figure of the jester throw himself back, grab the base of the hoop and whirl in a hypnotic game of black and red. When the cable dropped him to the unwelcome guest, Harley slid his legs over the man's shoulders with calculated slowness. His fingers found his brunette hair, sliding through and caressing his rough face.

The Joker smiled and snarled at the same time, panting expectantly. He saw his own creature put his pale hands on that insignificant body. The jade irises of the one set in the celestial ones of the companion, who wheezed in return to see what reaction could provoke in him.

Levi wanted to please him right away and intimated Harley to end it, but his dominant alter-ego did not allow it. He still wanted it, that sick and insane light who illuminated the irises of his man. It thrilled him to the extreme, while grabbing the chocolate-colored strands of the stranger at his mercy: he could feel his heavy breathing, the heat rising, the pulsing vein on his neck.

And when the stranger called him, defiling his name by pronouncing it with his filthy tongue, he saw the Joker stiffen and knew that the time of the games was over.

«Harley...»

The jester's hold tightened and, covered by the bustle of deafening music that echoed through the hall, the dry snap of his broken neck went through him from head to toe.

Harley and the Joker in unison emitted a liberating moan, the life of the poor fool who had dared to lay his eyes on the property of the criminal slipping away, before the former psychiatrist quickly clung to the hoop and that lifeless body fell to the ground .

The laugh of the King of Gotham, chilling, crossed the ether and the Penguin recalled what he had said to the accomplice of many wrongdoings shortly before. Perhaps the Joker really felt a feeling for someone - or something. Against every odds he had found a person as ill as himself, mad enough to stand by his side and share the same thirst for blood and chaos that moved him. A person who, it seemed, was the embodiment of his innermost desires, of his most perverse appetites. The personification of his fears, even.

He swallowed another sardine, while Harley Quinn moved gracefully on the stalls, touching them without ever allowing himself, because he was only and exclusively the Joker's and, in the same way, the Joker was his only.