"Tadashi!" Hiro shot up from his bed.
"Chill out, it's not like you guys were snogging," he walked over and sat on a bean bag.
"I didn't mean to be ignorant towards your feelings. I just wanted to get this right," the youngest child blushed.
"We know. Things changed over the years you weren't here. I don't blame you for feeling pressured," Kenji walked in and sat on Hiro's bed.
"I didn't realize we had so much in common."
"It's okay. We'll still stabilize the firm for you to take over once we were done with this battle and wait for you to finish with your degree," Kenji explained.
"Yeah, I'm still waiting for my promotion anyway," Tadashi added.
Everyone laughed light-heartedly.
"But I'll beat you up if you don't take over right after you graduated," the middle child threatened and balled up his fist.
"Okay," my friend retreated.
"Tadashi and I were planning to visit mom at the restaurant. We wanted to ask if you two wanted to join us," Kenji interrupted.
"Maybe tomorrow, we were just there yesterday. Besides, I wasn't done with the orientation."
"Suit yourselves," Tadashi stood up and flicked Hiro's forehead before exiting the room.
"I'll see you again tomorrow then. Don't be too hard on my brother, Ren. He's not as tough as he thinks he is," Kenji winked and closed the door behind him.
"I can't believe those two are still embarrassing me," he rubbed his forehead.
"I think it's kinda cute," I smiled with satisfaction.
"It's only cute when it's not happening to you. And I never tried to act tough. What's he talking about," he opened his laptop and slouched on his bed.
"Well, you did act like you knew what you were doing even though you've never dated anyone either. I don't think I should listen to someone just as inadequate," I teased.
"Hey! That file hasn't been updated since I started university here."
"So, you've dated someone since?"
"I happen to take my mom on dates around town a lot," he folded his arm.
"Yeah, chores don't count. We are just as clueless. I'd appreciate it if we act that way."
"Whatever. But I know how to treat girls right, okay?" he frowned at his screen.
I walked towards him and patted his head, "you are such a gentleman. I'll give you that."
"Damn straight."
It was hilarious to see the son of a notorious law firm owner lose an argument and got flustered over the lack of a romantic experience. We spent the night going over more documents of staffs and suspected opponent agents. New suspicious people had been seen working in places where the family frequently visited.
Hiro wrote a new schedule for the family to monitor the changes made by the suspected agents. We also planned activities outside the house to bait agents into following and documenting our moves.
We lost track of time over the immaculate blueprint of our operation that I only realized it was almost midnight when I checked my phone's battery. We wrapped up the files for the day after Hiro finished typing them up. He made sure I didn't bring back any of the documents with me for safety purposes and he drove me back to my apartment.
We sent texts to each other from time to time just in case they tried to expose our fake relationship in court. He would send good morning and good night texts every day. Sometimes he would fake being upset if I didn't reply to his text within a time limit. I sent him flirty emojis to annoy him occasionally. He complained about it when we would meet up and said that it made him uncomfortable that he had to reply in the same manner.
He was really good at pretending to be a clingy boyfriend and reverted back as my friend when we were in his house. I spent most of my days in his house to help him work out plans for the family to decrease incriminating evidences once Roberto tried to bring the case to court. Sometimes we would have dinner at the family's hotpot restaurant with his brothers.
Tadashi did daily inspections for tapping devices or suspicious diners through the CCTV. Kenji came over mostly to visit his mom and made sure she was safe. And Hiro just came along for the food. I couldn't judge him because I was just as bad.
Over the first two weeks, more activities from the opponent were seen. More enemy agents were seen closing in on the family's daily life. According to Tadashi, they would try to resort to more violent actions soon.
One of his employees in the liquor business was revealed to be a mole for Roberto. He attacked a customer to damage the company's reputation. This had put more pressure on everyone as their safety and reputation were on the line.
Both of Hiro's brothers were rarely at home as they were working harder for the case. This was dangerous as they needed to communicate with each other via text. They tried their best to only share confidential information to each other face to face in the house.
Tadashi had sanctioned extra safety measure to ensure privacy. Kenji ran a background check on every employee of the many businesses the family owned. And Hiro had been busy trying to manage the operation of the law firm to perform as usual. That left me with the ultimate task of preventing a slip up on our part.
I hadn't been able to meet up with Clause and Claudia ever since and I had abandoned some of the secretarial work of our debate club. I was forced to give up some of the competition opportunities to our juniors. The debate club plummeted in ranking as we kept on losing the small competitions. Claudia had a tough time training the new recruits as they were only there to improve their CV instead of actually contributing.
Clause had been spending most of his time with Suze as she finally retired from being Team Alpha's debate coach. She would sometimes drop by Kappa headquarter to help. But the damages were done, and I couldn't tell anyone about my secret project. They thought that I had been flaking on them now that I was 'dating' Hiro. It hurt to see them think that I bailed on them to be with someone of a great family background. So, I asked Hiro for one day off to hang out with them at the restaurant.
He was reluctant to let me interact with other people while the case was still on-going. But after we reviewed their background, he agreed to let me have break from working. I organized the private dining area and prepared a list of things I wasn't allowed to tell them. Hiro eventually gave in and joined us for dinner after his brothers forced him to interact with the only few people he considered as a friend.