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

The rest of my detention passed in a state of hyper-aware paranoia. Every time Reina turned a page in her book, I flinched. Every sip of cocoa she took felt like a judgment. The two leftover cookies on my plate mocked me with their blatant favoritism. I ended up wrapping them in a napkin and shoving them into my bag, unable to eat them under her watchful, analytical gaze. It felt like hiding evidence.

When the clock on the wall finally, mercifully, signaled the end of the school day, I packed my bag with the frantic energy of a man escaping a sinking ship.

"My sentence is up for the day, right?" I asked, already halfway to the door. "I've been observed. I can go home now. Alone." I added the last word with desperate emphasis.

Reina closed her book with a soft, definitive thump. "Our arrangement has not changed, Tanaka-kun," she said, rising from her throne. "My supervision is not concluded until you are secured in your residence. We will walk."

A groan escaped my lips. "Kujou-san, after today... after that text message... don't you think that's a spectacularly bad idea?"

"On the contrary," she replied, a faint, sharp smile touching her lips. "I think it is an excellent idea. Hamasaki-san has deployed surveillance. It is strategically vital that we give her something to surveil. A consistent pattern of behavior is easier to analyze and, eventually, to counter."

"I am not a piece on your personal chessboard!" I protested, my voice cracking.

"Aren't you?" she countered, her eyebrow arched. "You stumbled onto the board all on your own. All I am doing is watching the game play out." She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Now, let's go. I have a kendo practice to get to."

Defeated, I followed her out of the Student Council office. It was official: I was no longer a person. I was a social experiment with legs.

The walk was, if possible, even more fraught with tension than the day before. I was acutely aware of every shadow, every passing student, imagining them all to be Yui's secret agents, whispering into their sleeves like pint-sized spies. 'The targets are on the move. I repeat, the targets are on the move.'

As we turned onto my street, my heart began its familiar panicked rhythm. I scanned Yui's house for any sign of life. The curtains were drawn. The front door was closed. It was quiet. Too quiet.

"This is me," I said quickly as we reached my driveway, eager to end the ordeal. "Secured. Supervised. You can go."

Reina stopped and performed her now-customary survey of the battlefield. Her gaze lingered on Yui's house for a long moment. "The lack of visible activity is… disconcerting," she mused, more to herself than to me. "A passive strategy. Interesting."

"Or maybe she's just doing her homework!" I hissed. "Maybe the world doesn't revolve around our insane high school drama!"

Reina gave me a look that clearly said she doubted that very much. "Nevertheless. My duty is done." She gave a curt nod. "I will see you tomorrow, Tanaka-kun."

She turned to leave, and I felt a wave of relief so powerful it almost made me dizzy. I was safe. I had survived another day.

But the universe, in its infinite cruelty, had one more card to play.

"Oh, Kaito! Perfect timing!"

The voice came from my own front porch. My dad stood there, holding a toolbox, a cheerful smile on his face. "The railing on the Hamasaki's back porch has been wobbly for weeks. I'm finally heading over to fix it for them. You can give me a hand."

My blood turned to ice.

"Now?" I squeaked. "Right now?"

"No time like the present!" he boomed, oblivious to the delicate geopolitical crisis unfolding on his lawn. "Come on, it'll only take twenty minutes."

Reina, who had been about to walk away, stopped dead in her tracks. She turned back around slowly, a look of pure, unadulterated academic fascination on her face. She had just been about to leave the laboratory, and a new, unexpected variable had just been introduced. This was better than kendo practice.

"Going... into the enemy's stronghold?" she whispered, her eyes wide with clinical interest. "Bold. A very bold move."

"It's not a stronghold, it's my neighbor's porch!" I whisper-shouted at her, my panic rising. "And I'm not being bold, I'm being conscripted by my own father!"

"Kaito? You coming?" my dad called, already heading around the side of my house towards the Hamasaki's backyard.

I was trapped. Utterly, completely trapped. If I refused, I'd have to explain my bizarre, unbelievable situation to my dad in front of Reina. If I went, I was walking directly into the lion's den. And Reina was still standing there, watching me, her expression like a scientist about to witness a chemical reaction.

"Go," she urged, her voice a low, excited whisper. "I need this data."

"You are a terrible person," I muttered under my breath.

"I am a thorough researcher," she corrected. With a final, amused smirk, she turned and finally, finally walked away, leaving me to face my fate.

With the heavy heart of a condemned man, I followed my dad. We slipped through the hedge that separated our yards and entered the Hamasaki's backyard. It was a familiar, homey space. A small garden, a perfectly manicured lawn, a swing set Yui and I had spent countless hours on as kids.

And standing on the back porch, holding a tray with two glasses of lemonade, was Yui.

The moment she saw me, her face, which had been set in a neutral, polite expression for my dad, froze. The temperature in the backyard dropped ten degrees.

"Dad said he was fixing the railing," she said, her voice tight. "He didn't say he was bringing... an assistant."

My dad, bless his oblivious heart, just chuckled. "Kaito's my best assistant! Good for carrying things and moral support." He patted the wobbly railing. "Alright, let's take a look at this."

He immediately got to work, leaving me and Yui standing in a bubble of suffocating silence on the lawn. She wouldn't look at me. She just stared at the lemonade on her tray as if it held the secrets to the universe.

I had to say something. Anything.

"The cookies," I blurted out.

Her head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. "What?"

"I, uh... I brought you the cookies," I said, fumbling in my bag. I pulled out the napkin-wrapped evidence. Two of the four cookies were slightly crumbled from their journey. "Ms. Fujii gave them to me. There were extra. I thought... you might want them."

It was a clumsy, pathetic peace offering. A couple of slightly-squashed cookies against the emotional turmoil of the last two days.

Yui stared at the cookies in my outstretched hand. Her expression was a warring mix of emotions. There was anger, hurt, suspicion... but underneath it all, I saw a flicker of her old self. The girl who loved sweets. The girl who appreciated small, stupid gestures.

She reached out and slowly, hesitantly, took the napkin from my hand. She didn't say thank you. She just looked at the cookies, then back at me.

"Why?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Why are you trying so hard to make things even more complicated?"

"I'm not trying to make them complicated!" I insisted. "I'm trying to make them simple again! I'm trying to go back to the way things were yesterday morning!"

"You can't," she said, her voice laced with a sad finality. "Because she won't let you. And because... I saw you again, Kaito. I saw you walk home with her. Again." Her voice trembled on the last word.

So she had been watching. Of course she had.

"Yui, I already told you, I don't have a choice in that—"

"I know," she interrupted, surprising me. "I know that's what you think. But you always have a choice. You just... chose the path of least resistance. You chose to let her win." She looked down at the cookies. "Is this what this is? A consolation prize?"

"No! It's... it's just cookies!"

"Okay, Kaito, I've got these loose bolts out!" my dad's voice suddenly boomed, shattering our tense bubble. "I need you to hold the post steady while I hammer in the new supports. Get up here!"

Saved by the bell. Or in this case, by the hammer.

I scrambled onto the porch, grateful for the excuse to do something, anything, with my hands. I gripped the wooden post, holding it steady as my dad worked. Yui remained on the lawn, a silent, watchful observer.

The work was simple, physical, and a welcome distraction. After a few minutes of holding the post and listening to the rhythmic bang of my dad's hammer, I started to relax.

And that's when I heard it. A faint, almost inaudible sound coming from under the porch.

A soft, mewling cry.

I paused. "Dad, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" he grunted, focused on lining up a new bolt.

There it was again. A tiny, pathetic mew.

Curiosity overriding my sense of self-preservation, I crouched down and peered into the dark, latticed space under the porch. My eyes adjusted to the gloom. And then I saw them.

Huddled in a corner, shivering and small, was a litter of newborn kittens. Their eyes were barely open. And lying beside them, looking weak but purring softly, was their mother.

A scruffy-looking stray with one torn ear.