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

The rest of the evening was spent in the solitary confinement of my own making. Fueled by lukewarm convenience store coffee and the Nikujaga my dad had reheated for me, I hunched over my desk, a literary soldier slogging through the trenches of my thousand-word punishment essay.

Title: Classroom Safety and Personal Responsibility: A Treatise on the Dangers of Improperly Stowed Belongings.

It was, without a doubt, the most mind-numbing, soul-crushing piece of writing I had ever produced. I waxed poetic about the tripping hazards of errant bag straps. I analyzed the kinetic energy transfer of a multi-person fall. I quoted imaginary safety experts and cited non-existent studies. By the time I wrote the final, glorious word, it was nearly 2 a.m., and my brain felt like a sponge that had been wrung out and left to dry on a radiator.

Sleep was a brief, dreamless abyss. The alarm clock's shriek felt like a personal attack. I dragged myself out of bed, my body aching, my mind still fuzzy.

My morning ritual was different. There was no cheerful call from the window next door. When I looked across, Yui's curtains were still drawn. Our ceasefire was real, but it was a cold one. The easy, comfortable warmth of our friendship had been replaced by a fragile, tentative truce.

I walked to school alone.

The solitude should have been peaceful, but it felt... empty. The walk was shorter, quieter, and infinitely lonelier. I missed the weight of her arm linked with mine. I missed her chatter about a new cake recipe or a funny TV show. I missed the simple, grounding presence that had been a constant in my life for as long as I could remember. The hole she had left in my morning routine was vast and echoing.

At the school gates, I saw Reina arrive in her black car. Our eyes met for a fleeting second across the sea of students. She gave me a curt, almost imperceptible nod—a silent acknowledgment from a warden to her prisoner—before sweeping into the school, her Praetorian guard flanking her. I was on my own.

The first few classes passed in a haze of exhaustion. During a break, I made the trek to the faculty office to turn in my essay. The office was a chaotic hive of ringing phones and harried-looking teachers. I spotted Ms. Sato at her desk, marking papers with a vicious-looking red pen.

"Excuse me, Ms. Sato," I said, approaching her desk with the trepidation of a man approaching a sleeping bear.

She looked up, her sharp eyes narrowing. "What is it, Tanaka?"

I held out the stack of papers. "My essay," I said meekly. "A thousand words. On classroom safety."

She took it from me without a word, her expression unreadable. She flipped through the pages, her eyes scanning the text. I braced myself for a sarcastic comment, a dismissal, anything.

Instead, a faint, almost microscopic flicker of surprise crossed her face. "You actually did it," she said, sounding genuinely shocked. She looked up at me, a new, strange light in her eyes. It was a flicker of grudging respect. "Most students would have ignored it or turned in a page of garbage. This is... thorough."

"I take my punishments very seriously," I said, my voice deadpan with fatigue.

She let out a short, sharp huff of air that might have been a laugh in a different person. "Fine. You're dismissed. Now get out of my sight and try not to cause any more multi-person pile-ups."

As I turned to leave, my eyes fell on another desk. It belonged to Ms. Ayako Fujii, our gentle, kind-hearted homeroom teacher. Her desk was a mountain range of paperwork. Stacks of ungraded tests, piles of forms, and leaning towers of student files threatened to collapse at any moment. In the center of it all sat Ms. Fujii herself, looking utterly exhausted. Her usually warm face was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She was staring at the paperwork with a lost, overwhelmed expression.

My stupid, kindness-cursed brain fired off its one and only directive.

I walked over to her desk. "Ms. Fujii? Are you okay?" I asked softly.

She jumped, startled, as if woken from a trance. "Oh! Tanaka-kun. Yes, of course. Just... a lot to get through," she said, forcing a weary smile. "The joys of being a homeroom teacher."

I looked at the chaotic mess on her desk. "This seems like more than the usual amount."

She sighed, a sound heavy with fatigue. "We have a new district-wide evaluation system they just rolled out. Every student file needs to be digitized and cross-referenced with their academic and extracurricular records. It's... a lot of data entry. And it's all due by Friday."

It was Tuesday. The mountain on her desk suddenly looked less like a week's work and more like a life sentence.

"Can I... help?" the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. 'No, you idiot! You have your own problems! You have detention! You have a cold war to navigate! Abort! Abort!'

Ms. Fujii's eyes widened. "Oh, no, Tanaka-kun, I couldn't ask you to do that. It's teacher's work. It's my responsibility."

"It's just sorting, right?" I pressed, ignoring the screaming alarms in my head. "If I just put these files in alphabetical order, or sort the tests by class number, would that help a little?" I saw a stack of freshly printed tests that needed to be collated and stapled. "I can at least do that."

I pointed to the simple, mindless task. It was something, a small gesture.

She looked at my pointing finger, then back at my face. She saw the genuine offer, the simple, uncomplicated kindness. And in her exhausted state, it was like a lifeline. A small, sad smile touched her lips.

"That... would actually help a lot, Tanaka-kun," she admitted, her voice soft with gratitude. "Thank you. You're a very kind person."

She pushed the stack of tests towards me. For the next ten minutes, during the rest of my break, I stood at the corner of her desk, methodically collating and stapling, creating neat, orderly piles out of the chaos. Ms. Fujii worked beside me, a little of the tension leaving her shoulders. We didn't talk much, but the shared, quiet work was comfortable.

When the bell rang, I had finished the entire stack.

"Thank you, Kaito-kun," she said, and this time she used my first name. Her smile was genuine, reaching her tired eyes. "You have no idea how much that helped."

"It was nothing, sensei," I said, feeling a small, warm glow in my chest. It was the first genuinely positive, uncomplicated interaction I'd had in twenty-four hours.

I hurried back to class, just sliding into my seat as the teacher walked in. I glanced over at Yui. She was staring straight ahead, but I saw her eyes flick towards me for a second, a question in them. Where were you? The cold war continued.

The day dragged on, a slow march towards my inevitable after-school detention. As the final bell rang, I packed my bag with a sense of grim resignation. This was my new reality.

I walked to the Student Council office, the imposing double doors seeming even more menacing today. I knocked and entered without waiting for a response.

Reina was already there, seated at her throne, a book open in front of her. She looked up as I entered.

"You're on time," she noted. "I'm impressed."

"I've accepted my fate," I sighed, slumping into my designated prisoner's chair. I pulled out a textbook, ready for another few hours of silent, awkward study.

But we weren't alone for long.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Kujou-san? It's Fujii."

Reina and I both looked up in surprise. Ms. Fujii stood in the doorway, holding a tray. On the tray were two mugs steaming with what smelled like hot cocoa, and a small plate of cookies.

"I was just making some for myself to get through the afternoon paperwork," she said, her smile warm and genuine as she walked into the room. "And I thought you two might like some. As thanks for all your hard work on your 'special project'."

She placed a mug and a couple of cookies on the table in front of Reina. Then, she walked over to my end of the table and placed the other mug and a small pile of cookies in front of me.

"And a little extra thank you for you, Kaito-kun," she said, her voice soft enough for only me to hear. She gave my shoulder a gentle, appreciative squeeze before turning back to Reina. "Don't work too hard, you two."

And with a final, warm smile, she left, closing the door behind her.

I stared at the hot cocoa, steam curling up into my face. Reina stared at her own mug, her expression a mixture of shock and utter confusion.

She looked at me, her crimson eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What did you do?" she demanded.

I looked back at her, a steaming mug of kindness my only defense.

"Absolutely nothing," I said. And it was the honest truth.

But I had the sinking feeling that, once again, I had done everything. I had just accidentally opened up a new front in a war I was desperately trying to survive.