The fallout from "Operation Nami" poisoned the atmosphere at home for the next two days. Ayumi treated me with a suffocating level of concern, constantly asking if I was feeling okay, if I needed to talk, or if I wanted her to make me hot cocoa. It was like living with a hyperactive guidance counselor. Hina, meanwhile, had printed out brochures for public speaking workshops and left them on my desk. My crime of having a friend had resulted in my being diagnosed with a severe social disorder.
Only Izuwa seemed to operate on the same plane of reality as me. She watched her two bandmates fuss over me with an air of detached amusement.
"You know she was playing you, right?" Izuwa said to Ayumi on the third morning, as Ayumi was trying to spoon-feed me a piece of tamagoyaki, claiming I looked "too stressed to lift chopsticks."
"Nonsense!" Ayumi retorted, narrowly missing my eye with the egg. "Nami-chan is a kind person who is worried about Onii-chan! She sees his inner turmoil!"
"His inner turmoil is caused by you," Izuwa deadpanned, taking a sip of her coffee. "That girl is a shark. A cute, smiling shark. She saw your ridiculous spy game from a mile away and decided to have some fun."
Hina, who was reviewing her schedule at the table, looked up with a frown. "Izuwa, that's not a very charitable interpretation. It's more likely that Tanaka-san is a perceptive and empathetic individual."
I couldn't take it anymore. I stood up from the table. "I'm going out."
Three pairs of eyes snapped towards me.
"Out where?" Ayumi asked, her voice filled with suspicion. "With… her?"
"No. Just out. For a walk. Alone. To a place where no one will diagnose me with imaginary illnesses or try to force-feed me breakfast," I said, grabbing my keys and wallet.
I needed to clear my head. More importantly, I needed to talk to Nami and declare a ceasefire before my sisters signed me up for a group therapy session. I sent her a quick text: "Cafeteria. Lunch. We need to talk. This is a matter of life and death."
Her reply came back instantly: "Ooh, dramatic! See you there. :)"
When I met her, she was already sitting at our usual table with two lunch trays. One held a standard curry set. The other held a picture-perfect plate of omurice, with a heart drawn on top in ketchup. She pushed the omurice towards me.
"My treat," she said with a cheerful smile. "A peace offering for all the trouble I've caused."
I eyed the ketchup heart with deep suspicion. "This feels like a trap."
"It's just lunch, Takeshi," she laughed. "Now, what's this life-or-death situation? Did they schedule your lobotomy?"
"They're planning a 'healing family weekend' at a hot springs resort," I told her grimly. "The itinerary Hina showed me includes trust falls and a mandatory group sharing circle. You have to call off your psychological warfare campaign before I'm forced to share my feelings while wearing a yukata."
Nami took a bite of her curry, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Hmm, but it's so much fun. I've learned so much. For instance, I now know that your sister Ayumi's online handle is a variation of 'Onii-chan's #1 Angel', and she spends an inordinate amount of time photoshopping you into pictures of famous landmarks."
"How do you know that?" I asked, horrified.
"'K-chan' and I have become quite good friends," she said breezily. "I told her I was an amateur photographer and asked to see some of her work. She was very eager to share."
I buried my face in my hands. Ayumi was leaking family secrets to her own intelligence target. My sister was a terrible spy.
"Okay, look," I said, sitting up straight and fixing Nami with the most serious gaze I could muster. "I'll make you a deal. You stop messing with my sisters. No more catfishing, no more mind games, no more feeding them disinformation about my non-existent social anxiety."
"And what do I get in return?" she asked, leaning forward with a curious glint in her eye.
This was the part I had been dreading. I had to offer her something she wanted more than the sheer entertainment value of tormenting my family. What did a girl like Nami Tanaka want?
"I… will help you with the final project for Advanced Systems Architecture," I said. It was my trump card. The project was notoriously difficult, a nightmare of coding that made most students weep. I was one of the few people who actually understood it.
Nami's eyebrows shot up. She looked genuinely tempted. "That's a very generous offer. That project is supposed to be brutal."
"It is," I confirmed. "But I'll help you. We can work on it together. In exchange for you signing a permanent, binding peace treaty with my family."
She stirred her curry, considering my terms. "So, if I agree, you and I will have to spend a lot of time together, working late in the library, huddled over a laptop, fueled by caffeine and desperation?"
"That's generally how it works, yes," I said.
A slow smile spread across her face. "Deal," she said, extending a hand across the table. "The People's Republic of Nami agrees to a cessation of all hostilities against the Kitamaki-Ojori-Manasaki Alliance."
I shook her hand, a wave of relief washing over me. "Thank you."
"But," she added, her grip tightening slightly. "This means you have to officially introduce me to them. Properly. Not as a suspicious person of interest, but as your friend and project partner."
My relief vanished. "What? Why?"
"Because that's how you de-escalate a conflict," she explained patiently, as if talking to a child. "You open diplomatic channels. Right now, I'm a mysterious variable. They're scared of me because they don't know me. If they meet me, talk to me, and see that I'm just a normal person who happens to be your friend, they'll stand down. Their surveillance state will be dismantled."
Her logic was, as usual, annoyingly flawless. The only way to stop them from treating her like an enemy spy was to prove she wasn't one. And that required a formal introduction. A meeting. A summit.
"Fine," I sighed, defeated. I took a bite of the omurice. It was surprisingly delicious. "I'll arrange a dinner. But if Ayumi tries to check your bag for listening devices, I am not responsible."
"Don't worry," Nami said, her smile bright and confident. "I can handle them."
I wasn't so sure. She might have won the covert war, but a face-to-face dinner was a different battlefield entirely. It was one thing to outsmart them from behind a screen. It was another thing to sit at a table with them and survive the full, concentrated force of their collective protective insanity. Nami thought she was going to a simple dinner. I knew she was walking into the lion's den, and the lions were my sisters.