The moment I stepped through the apartment door that evening, the silence that greeted me was more menacing than any shouting could ever be. The air was thick with unspoken accusations. I took off my shoes and walked into the living room to find all three of them sitting on the sofa, arranged like a panel of judges at a supreme court hearing.
Ayumi was in the middle, arms crossed, her face set in a theatrical pout. Hina sat to her right, a thoughtful, analytical expression on her face, her fingers steepled in front of her. Izuwa lounged on her left, scrolling through her phone, but I knew she was listening to every sound, absorbing every detail with that devilish smirk of hers playing at the corners of her lips.
"Welcome home, Onii-chan," Ayumi said, her voice deceptively calm.
"I'm home," I replied, dropping my bag by the door. I decided to play dumb. It was my best and only defense. "What's this? Some kind of intervention?"
"We need to talk about the girl," Hina said, getting straight to the point as always. Her tone was serious, like a CEO discussing a hostile takeover.
"What girl?" I asked, heading to the kitchen to get a glass of water, trying to project an aura of casual indifference.
"Don't play dumb with us, you traitor," Izuwa chimed in without looking up from her phone. "The cute one. Nami Tanaka. We looked her up. Second-year, Faculty of Engineering. Top of her class in Advanced Programming. Seems you have a type."
Of course, they had already run a background check. I should have expected nothing less. I took a long sip of water, my back still to them. "She's a classmate. A friend. That's it. She wanted to see the rehearsal, so we went. End of story."
"Friends don't look at each other like that," Ayumi declared, standing up for dramatic effect. "She was looking at you with big, sparkly eyes! And you just let her hold your arm! You never let me hold your arm in public!"
"That's because when you hold my arm, you try to permanently fuse it to your body," I shot back, turning to face them. "And I don't 'let' anyone do anything. She grabbed me. It's not a big deal."
"It is a big deal!" Ayumi insisted. "You're supposed to be our brother, our guardian! You should be focused on supporting us, not getting distracted by some… some campus girl!"
I stared at her, dumbfounded. "My entire life revolves around avoiding the chaos you three create. Forgive me for having one single friend who isn't a national celebrity. Is that allowed? Or do I need to submit an application to the sister council for approval?"
Hina held up a hand, silencing Ayumi's impending retort. "Takeshi-kun, we aren't trying to control your life. We are simply… concerned. The world we live in is complicated. We have to be careful about the people we associate with. For our safety, and for yours."
It was the classic Hina approach: framing their overbearing meddling as a matter of professional security.
"Nami is not a threat to national security," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "She's just a normal girl."
"And that's the problem," Izuwa said, finally putting her phone down and looking me dead in the eye. Her expression was surprisingly serious. "Normal girls can be the most dangerous. They're unpredictable. They don't understand the rules. They could leak your identity, cause a scandal, or worse."
"Worse than what?" I asked, exasperated. "Worse than you three turning my life into a twenty-four-hour reality show?"
The argument went in circles for another twenty minutes. Ayumi accused me of abandoning them. Hina raised concerns about media exposure. Izuwa painted a dozen different lurid scenarios of how a friendship with Nami could lead to our collective doom. I defended, deflected, and denied until I was blue in the face. Finally, I'd had enough.
"I'm done with this," I announced, heading for my room. "She is my friend. You will not interfere. You will not 'investigate' her. You will leave her alone. Is that clear?"
I slammed my door shut, the sound echoing the finality of my statement. I knew, however, that it was a hollow victory. I hadn't convinced them of anything. I had only issued a challenge. And I knew my sisters- especially Izuwa- never backed down from a challenge.
The next day at university, things were… strange. As I walked to class, I felt like I was being watched. I'd catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye- someone ducking behind a pillar, a head disappearing behind a newspaper. It was clumsy, amateurish, and utterly infuriating.
When Nami and I sat down for lunch in the crowded cafeteria, it became even more obvious. Three girls wearing oversized sunglasses and floppy hats- despite it being an overcast day- sat at a table across the room, pretending to be engrossed in their menus. One of them had stylish purple hair peeking out from under her hat. Another had long, unmistakable blonde hair. They weren't even trying to be subtle.
"Are those…?" Nami whispered, leaning closer to me and gesturing with her chopsticks.
"Don't look at them," I muttered through a mouthful of rice. "Don't engage. They feed on attention."
"Are they spying on us?" she asked, a giggle escaping her lips. "This is insane. They're acting like characters from a bad spy movie."
"To them, this is a deadly serious intelligence operation," I said grimly. "Code name: Operation Nami."
The twist came when Nami's phone buzzed. She looked at it, and a thoughtful frown crossed her face. "That's weird," she said.
"What is it?"
"I just got a friend request on my private social media account," she said, showing me the screen. The profile picture was a cute, cartoon cat. The name was 'K-chan'. "I have no idea who this is. My account is locked down, only people I know in real life can even find it."
My stomach dropped. I knew that cartoon cat. It was the same avatar Ayumi used for all her private gaming accounts. They weren't just doing physical surveillance. They had gone digital. Ayumi was trying to catfish my friend.
"Just… ignore it," I advised, my voice tight.
But Nami had a mischievous spark in her eye. She looked from her phone to the ridiculous spy trio across the cafeteria, and then back to me. A slow smile spread across her face. "You know what?" she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I think I'm going to accept it. Let's see what 'K-chan' wants to talk about."
And just like that, the tables were turned. My sisters thought they were the master spies, the puppet masters pulling the strings to protect their brother from the "normal girl". They had no idea that their target wasn't just aware of their clumsy machinations- she was amused by them. And she was about to play their game better than they ever could. Operation Nami was no longer their mission. It was Nami's. And I was trapped in the middle, a helpless bystander in a war of wits I wanted no part of.