I Accidentally Built a Harem of Girls Who All Hate Each Other

The silence in the Student Council office was now punctuated by the soft, tantalizing aroma of chocolate. It was a scent that should have been comforting, but in this room, with this person, it felt like evidence in an ongoing investigation. My investigation.

Reina Kujou stared at the mug of hot cocoa on her mahogany table as if it were an alien artifact. Her perfect, analytical mind, accustomed to transactions and calculated moves, was struggling to process this random act of kindness. People didn't just give her things without an agenda. There was always a motive, a desired outcome. Ms. Fujii's simple gesture of gratitude was a variable that didn't fit into any of her known equations.

Finally, her crimson eyes snapped back to me, narrowed and sharp. "I will ask you again, Tanaka-kun. What did you do?"

"I told you, I did nothing!" I insisted, raising my hands in surrender. "I helped her staple some papers during break. That's it. She was stressed, I had a free ten minutes. End of story."

Reina leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her gaze intense. It was the look a predator gives a particularly confusing rabbit. "You 'helped her staple papers'," she repeated slowly, tasting the absurdity of the words. "And in return, she brought us—us—hot cocoa and cookies."

"Apparently," I shrugged, gesturing to the undeniable, delicious-smelling evidence in front of me.

"That is not a proportional response," she declared, her voice laced with suspicion. "The social contract has been violated. A ten-minute, menial task does not equate to a personalized beverage delivery service for two."

"Maybe she's just a nice person!" I argued, my voice rising in exasperation. "Maybe she saw two students working late and decided to do something kind! Does every single action in your world have to be part of some grand, strategic power play?"

Her silence was a more powerful answer than any word could have been. In her world, yes. Yes, it did.

A flicker of something—was it frustration? Envy?—crossed her face before she masked it again with her usual icy composure. She looked from her mug to mine, and a new thought seemed to strike her. Her eyes narrowed even further.

"She gave you more cookies than she gave me," she stated, her voice flat.

I looked down at my plate. There were four cookies. I glanced at hers. There were two. My blood ran cold. She was right.

"I... I didn't notice," I stammered.

"I did," she said, her gaze pinning me to my chair. "An imbalance in distribution. It's a clear indicator of preferential treatment. Why would she show you, a common student, preference over me, the Student Council President?"

'Because I don't treat people like they're pawns in my global domination simulator?' I thought, but wisely kept it to myself.

"I have no idea!" I said, my voice cracking. "Maybe she just grabbed a random amount! Maybe you look like you're on a diet! How should I know?"

Reina recoiled slightly at the word 'diet,' as if I had personally insulted her ancestors. "I do not 'diet'," she sniffed. "My nutritional intake is perfectly balanced for optimal cognitive and physical performance."

"Great," I sighed, burying my face in my hands. "Look, can we just drink the cocoa before it gets cold? My brain is already operating on about two hours of sleep and a thousand words of nonsense about bag straps. I don't think I can handle a full-blown cookie-based conspiracy theory right now."

I picked up my mug. The warmth spread through my cold hands, a small, welcome comfort in the midst of the madness. I took a sip. It was rich, sweet, and perfect. For a fleeting second, everything felt okay.

Reina watched me, her own mug untouched. She observed my reaction, analyzed it, and after a long, tense moment, she seemed to come to a decision. With a delicate, hesitant motion, she picked up her own mug and took a small, cautious sip.

Her eyes widened slightly. A faint, rosy blush spread across her cheeks. The taste was clearly not what she had expected. It was better. It was the simple, uncalculated taste of kindness, and it had caught her completely off guard. She quickly composed herself, but I had seen it. Another crack in the ice.

She cleared her throat. "It is... adequate."

We drank in silence for a few minutes, the tension slowly bleeding out of the room. The hot cocoa worked its magic, a temporary truce in a cup. I was starting to think I might actually survive the afternoon.

And that's when my phone, which I had foolishly left on the table, buzzed.

We both looked at it. The screen lit up with a new message. From Yui.

Yui: Heard you were getting cozy with Ms. Fujii in the faculty office this morning. Making new friends?

My heart stopped.

The message was right there, on the screen, in plain sight. Reina, sitting only a few feet away, leaned forward just enough to read it. I saw her eyes scan the words, her expression shifting from cautious neutrality to sharp, renewed suspicion.

'How?! How does she know already?!' The Aobadai High School gossip network was faster than fiber optics. It was a terrifying, omnipresent force of nature.

Reina leaned back in her chair, a slow, dangerous smirk spreading across her face. It was the first time I had ever seen her look genuinely amused. It was not a comforting sight.

"'Getting cozy'," she repeated, savoring the words. "It seems your reputation precedes you, Tanaka-kun. First me, now a teacher. You are moving up in the world."

"It was ten minutes of stapling!" I whisper-shouted, snatching my phone off the table. "This is insane! The whole school is insane!"

"No," Reina corrected me, her crimson eyes glinting with a strange, predatory light. "The school is a predictable ecosystem. You are the anomaly that is disrupting it. And it is... fascinating to watch."

She took another sip of her hot cocoa, her eyes never leaving mine. The truce was over. I was no longer just her prisoner. I was her lab rat. Her new favorite TV show. She wasn't just supervising me to protect her secret anymore. She was supervising me because she was genuinely, intellectually, and perhaps a little sadistically, interested in what I would destroy next.

My phone buzzed again. I didn't need to look. I could feel the interrogative energy radiating through the plastic casing.

I had survived the direct confrontation with Yui, but I had been naive. The battle was over, but the war had just evolved. Yui wasn't going to confront me with tears and shouting anymore. She had moved on to a new phase: surveillance and psychological warfare.

And I was trapped in a cage with a warden who was actively enjoying the show, a warden who was currently nibbling on one of her two cookies with a look of profound, calculating satisfaction.

The afternoon detention stretched before me, no longer just awkward, but charged with a new, terrifying dynamic. I wasn't just Kaito Tanaka, a normal high school student anymore. I was an international incident. A diplomatic crisis on legs.

And my hot cocoa was getting cold.