Chapter 8: Supermarket Showdown - The Grocery Gauntlet

By Sunday, the house looked like it had been hit by a localized famine. The combined appetite of five girls, three of whom were professional idols with surprisingly non-idol-like snack habits, had decimated our food supply. The refrigerator contained nothing but a single, sad-looking lemon and a jar of pickles. It was time for drastic measures.

"I'm going to the supermarket," I announced to the living room at large.

It was a declaration of intent, not an invitation. A fatal miscalculation on my part.

"I'll come help you, Onii-chan!" Ayumi chirped, instantly appearing by my side. "You'll need me to help you pick out the best brand of mayonnaise!"

"Me too! Me too!" Inoue bounced off the sofa. "I can help carry things! And I need to see the Japanese snack aisle! It's for research!"

"I suppose I should come along to ensure you purchase nutritionally balanced items," Azuwa stated, not looking up from her phone but already slipping on her shoes. "You can't live on instant noodles."

"I'm out of my special organic green tea," Izuwa added apologetically. "If it's not too much trouble."

"The lighting in the produce section is surprisingly good for selfies," Hina mused, already checking her reflection. "Fine. I'll go."

And so, my solo mission for sustenance turned into a six-person convoy. This was not a grocery trip. This was a tactical operation, and I was horribly outmanned.

The moment we walked through the automatic doors of the supermarket, they scattered like a pack of wolves released into a field of sheep. I felt a massive headache bloom behind my eyes as I grabbed a shopping cart.

Inoue made a beeline for the snack aisle, her eyes wide with wonder. Within minutes, she was gleefully tossing bags of brightly colored chips, chocolate-covered biscuits, and gummy candies of every imaginable shape into my cart. "Oppa, look! These are shrimp-flavored! And these ones are shaped like little octopuses! Can we get them? Please? It's for cultural exchange!"

As soon as she put something in, Ayumi would discreetly take it out when Inoue wasn't looking. "Onii-chan doesn't like all this junk food," she would whisper to me, as if sharing a state secret. She then replaced the offending items with multiple boxes of my favorite curry roux and three different kinds of instant coffee. "It's important he stays stocked up on the essentials."

The cart became a revolving door of groceries. In went Inoue's snacks, out they came. In went Ayumi's "essentials," only to be questioned by Azuwa.

"Why do you need five boxes of the same curry?" Azuwa asked, picking one up and inspecting the ingredients with a critical eye. "The sodium content is atrocious. We should be buying fresh turmeric and grinding the spices ourselves." She placed the box back on the shelf and put a bundle of organic kale into the cart instead. Inoue and Ayumi both looked at the leafy green vegetable as if it were a venomous snake.

The first major battle erupted near the dairy section. Ayumi reached for a carton of rich, creamy ice cream. "Onii-chan, remember this? It's the special vanilla bean one you like! We should get it for dessert tonight!"

Azuwa materialized beside her, plucking the ice cream from her hand. "Absolutely not," she declared, her voice firm. "This carton contains over a thousand calories. It is pure sugar and saturated fat. It's bad for Takeshi-nii, and it's certainly not something you should be eating, Ayumi-san. An idol-in-training needs to watch her figure."

Ayumi bristled. She wasn't a professional idol like them, just a member of a popular school idol club, but Azuwa's comment hit a nerve. "For your information, my metabolism is excellent! And I'm not a 'trainee'!"

"Is that so?" Azuwa said with a condescending smirk. "Then you won't mind if we get this instead." She gestured to a sad-looking tub of sugar-free, fat-free, flavor-free lemon sorbet.

Ayumi's face turned a dangerous shade of red. The ice cream became a symbol of her honor. She snatched it back from Azuwa. "We're getting the ice cream!"

"We're getting the sorbet!" Azuwa snatched it back.

They were now engaged in a cold war over frozen desserts. Izuwa tried to mediate by suggesting a fruit platter, but they both shot her down with a synchronized glare.

Seeing her direct attack failing, Ayumi switched to her favorite tactic: sabotage. Her eyes lit up as she spotted a massive display of twenty-kilogram bags of rice on sale. A truly diabolical plan formed in her mind.

She skipped over to Inoue, who was trying to convince me to buy a box of cereal that came with a cartoon mascot on the front. "Inoue-chan!" Ayumi said with a syrupy sweet voice. "I just remembered! Onii-chan said he needed a new bag of rice, and it's on sale! Could you be a dear and grab one? You said you wanted to help carry things!"

She expected Inoue to struggle, to make a fool of herself, and to give up. She had severely underestimated the competitive spirit of a K-Pop star.

Inoue's face lit up with determination. "Of course! I can do it! I'm super strong! My dance training gives me legs of steel!"

She marched over to the rice display, bent her knees in a perfect squat form, and with a powerful grunt, hoisted the massive bag onto her shoulder. A few shoppers stopped to stare at the small, orange-haired girl casually carrying a bag of rice that was half her size.

"See, Oppa? I'm helpful!" she declared proudly.

However, in her triumphant turn to face me, she misjudged her momentum. The heavy bag swung wide, clipping the corner of a meticulously stacked pyramid of canned tomatoes.

The result was catastrophic. It was a slow-motion disaster film. Cans tumbled, rolling across the floor in every direction. One can hit a display of olive oil bottles, which then tipped over, creating a slick, greasy mess. People slipped. Carts crashed. It was utter pandemonium.

I looked at the chaos. The tomato-and-oil-covered floor. The five girls standing frozen in the middle of the disaster, looking utterly horrified. My shopping cart, filled with a bizarre assortment of kale, coffee, and octopus-shaped snacks.

I had reached my limit.

Silently, I abandoned the cart. I walked over to the express checkout lane, grabbing a wire basket on the way. I put three essential items into it: a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of milk. I paid in cash, took my small plastic bag, and walked out of the automatic doors without looking back.

I could hear the store manager's frantic voice over the PA system as I left. I didn't care. For the first time all day, I felt a sliver of peace. They were on their own.