Yes, he was at a maid cafe and she was playing a character, but it is explicitly stated in chapter 12 that he has no idea she's playing a character. He was her regular before she played a mean character. One day she got a request from another customer to be mean to them and after that customer likes it, other people come in from his recommendation asking for it.

She gets popular from being mean to customers and incorrectly assumes all men like girls being mean to them. She then starts being mean to the main character to try and appeal to him and cheer him up since she thinks all men like it. When he uncomfortably smiles with her because of his low self esteem (from his girlfriend cheating on him, tr*sh talking him, then dumping him) she takes it as him liking it. She never once tells the main character it's an act and as the days go by she starts acting meaner and meaner because she thinks he'll like it better and that's when he blows up.

She wants the main character to show his emotions instead of bottling them up. She decides to tell the main character that they should break up because she's gonna date at model at her job who she actually enjoys talking to and she is comfortable with compared to him. Then when the main character gets sad and walks away, she is actually happy. She didn't say she was kidding right after like the other review would lead you to believe.

After she breaks up with him, she doesn't talk to him for a whole week to build up his emotions, making him think she's with the model then just shows up and says "I broke up with my boyfriend, so you don't have to keep a distance from me anymore." She never said it wasn't real. Then she wants him to explode with emotions so she never tells him she still likes him and even tr*sh talks him constantly for at least a year up to when the story starts.

After the main character changes himself because he's fed up with everything, she pats herself on the back that she helped him express himself and is finally gonna tell him that she never dated the model guy or meant any of the mean stuff she said. Before she even tries to give him any sort of explanation, she says that it's funny he changed his looks because it "doesn't mean anything".

Getting mad at the main character for not listening to her at that point is s*upid.

She could tell he wasn't ready for someone to confess to him and didn't want to ruin their friendship so she was taking jabs at his past to try and lighten the mood about it and to cover up how she felt, she was a little harsher than she meant to be, but took it too far for too long. She even admits she was doing it for too long for it to be something to easily move on from without a proper talk.

The reason her teasing is lighter when we see it is because she saw he changed himself and might have moved on from his painful past. This makes her think it's okay to make her feelings more known in her teasing which is seen when main character cuts her off from his life.

Maid Cafe Waitress: She becomes friends with the MC → takes on a "b*tchy girl" character → starts to be mean to the MC too. She doesn't understand why, but "guys like it when I treat them like this", so the MC will like it too, right?

It's just a character, it's a shame she never told the MC that :-/

All he knows is the waitress he was friendly with started treating him like garbage.

"Cheating" Girlfriend: She was insecure about their relationship and dumped the MC because she wanted him to get angry and fight for her. Plus, she wanted him to get angry and stand up for himself. With the emotional state he was in, it's like kicking out a guy's crutches because you want him to walk on his own two feet.

Junior (Kouhai) : Just a Tsundere. This is the only one that didn't do something truly terrible. With that said, she consistently beats him down. She knows he's emotionally wounded but does it anyway without considering what it would do to him.