Chapter 2 - The Problem with Reina Kuroshima is that She Always Finds Solutions

Elsewhere in the same city, a self-conscious Akari hangs up the phone.

Shon...

But it's not just because of Shon; an unusual event occurred in the afternoon, and she made a mistake.

It's not a big one—a misplaced comma in a 50 million yen contract—but Akari doesn't make mistakes. That's just how she is. The perfect sister.

She stares at the screen as if the comma will correct itself out of embarrassment.

“Akari.”

Reina Kuroshima, 24, exactly my brother's age, is standing behind her. She didn't hear her approach. Reina moves like a corporate predator: silent until it's too late.

Damn, she noticed! If she came all the way here...

“I'm sorry, I'll correct it now—”

“It's not about the comma.” Reina sits down at the adjacent desk. “It's the third mistake this week. You don't make mistakes. You're the one who finds MY mistakes.”

Akari wants to lie. To say she's tired, that it's the end of the quarter, anything except—

“It's my brother.”

The words come out like a confession.

“The NEET?”

“The NEET, Yes.” Akari takes off her glasses and cleans them. Buying time. “He's 24. Your age. Remember what you said to me when I got promoted?”

“That you were too young, but talent can't wait.”

"Exactly. Shon has no talent. And even without talent, he allows himself the freedom to waste time. The only thing he's good for is staying at home and arguing with me, well, not arguing, something like that."

“Something like that?”

“Well, he's never really started a fight with me, it's just that he seems to have a terrifying memory for these things, he always has the last word and that makes me so angry.”

Reina listens silently.

Yesterday I told Shon that he needed his own money to buy his... things. Do you know what he replied? That money is a ‘collective fiction that only has value because we all pretend it does’. He quoted Yuval Harari, Marx, even an Austrian economist I'd never heard of. He ended with a reflection on how, as long as he had the internet, he existed in a post-capitalist state of informational abundance. Then he said ‘Namaste’ and closed the door."

“Namaste?”

"NAMASTE. As if he were an enlightened guru and not a NEET in pajamas. He is weak like a hamster but Is he... talented at verbal wrestling? Aaagh, thinking about Shon burns my brain cells.”

Reina processes this silently, her face inscrutable. In her head, the gears are turning. Selective memory. Defensive reasoning. And... Namaste?

At that moment, Reina's phone rings. 

“Ah.” Her expression shifts from ruthless CEO to exhausted daughter in 0.3 seconds. “It's Dad again.”

“Is he still insisting on the suitors?” Akari snaps back to reality, grateful for the distraction.

“Yes, and it's honestly frustrating.” Reina lets the phone vibrate without answering. “Every fool shows up thinking he's the love of my life. I have to waste my free time chatting with them, and even though I cut them off, but keep coming back. Like cockroaches.”

“The sharp-tongued Reina-sama, I've witnessed it too.” Akari smiles slightly, her stress momentarily forgotten. “It seems you don't have it easy either. Well, being so successful and attractive has its disadvantages.”

“Don't say it like you're not successful and beautiful too.” Reina plops down in the chair next to Akari, an unusually human gesture. “The men my father sends are just pretentious heirs who've never heard ‘no’ for an answer. They see me as a trophy with tax benefits. But not a single one to date has passed test one.”

“Test one?”

“Saying my full name when greeting that suitor, then asking a question.” She pauses to look at Akari. “What is the name of this company? They never fail, they even know about joint ventures, but...” Reina lets the air out of her mouth with a sigh. “I'll ask you again, my full name...”

“Not a single one? Honestly, that's so depressing that it shouldn't even be a test. I mean, your name is almost public knowledge,” says Akari.

“Neeeeeee,” says a tired Reina.

“The only thing those men think about is monopolizing me. I've heard them talking at Dad's parties,” Reina sways. “And at this point, I don't think I would mind.”

“Reina, no...” says Akari, more concerned.

“If they weren't so boring and self-centered,” says Reina, looking at Akari, who returns her gaze, saying, “Give me back my concern.”

“They don't care about anything but themselves. How many women have they been with? How much fame do they chase? One of them even gave me merch with his face on it,” says Reina, excitedly.

“Oh...” says Akari. “You burned it, right?”

“The second he left.”

“Men rarely think” Akari sighs. “I feel the same way, although they're not as invasive with me. You know, i don't have the curse of my father's blessing.”

Reina stares at the ceiling, her voice lowering as if confessing a crime. “If I could create some kind of filter... But the conditions would be impossible.”

She begins to count on her fingers, her tone increasingly defeated:

“First, it would have to be a real human. I can't hire a robot; the suitors wouldn't accept being rejected by a bot or AI, their egos are too big for that. That automatically makes it ‘someone.’”

Finger one.

“That ‘someone’ would have to be incorruptible by money, because they would definitely try to bribe them. But that's a paradox because I would be paying them, so...”

Finger two. Logic falters.

“So I would need someone I could trust completely. But any normal person would be intimidated by the threats from socialites, connections, implicit power...”

Finger three. Hope dies.

“Which leaves me with... someone who doesn't care about money, or social connections, or threats, or basically... people.”

Reina drops her hand, defeated.

“Basically, I need a modern misanthropic hermit who hates human interaction so much that even bribery won't motivate them.”

Akari processes this. An image of a bearded, smelly old hermit on a mountain pops into her mind.

“That something is... a mountain monk?” Akari tries to joke. “If someone like that existed, I wouldn't want to meet them.”

The mental image of the hermit suddenly wears flannel pajamas. His hair is greasy. He is writing in a forum about the inconsistency of daily bathing.

Namaste

The memory of a shon looking down from the sky with his namaste makes Akari laugh, so much so that the laughter escapes before she can stop it.

“Spontaneous laughter?” Reina lifts her head from the desk where she had rested it. “That's... weird, for you, or me.”

Akari speaks without thinking, still processing the horrible epiphany: “No, it's nothing. It's just that ‘person from the mountains who makes others want to run away’ sounds like a bad caricature of Shon saying namaste—”

Reina can't stop laughing after remembering namaste.

They both laugh.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Definitely weird, as they continue laughing.

Slowly, they stopped laughing as they looked at each other and smiled.

.
.
.

They look at each other.

Their faces turn serious.

The silence lasts too long, the tension is palpable, Reina doesn't even blink.

No.

No.

Please, no.

“Tell me it's not true,” Akari says.

Reina has that look. The same one she had when she discovered she could deduct taxes by buying art that no one understands.

“Akari...”

“Reina, no.”

“Think about it objectively—”

“NO.”

“He doesn't care about money because he doesn't go out and spend it. He doesn't care about threats because he already lives as if he were socially dead. He doesn't care about people because—”

“Because he's a NEET who perfected the art of making others feel bad about their life choices. I know. HE'S MY BROTHER.”

“Exactly.” Reina's eyes shine with corporate fervor. “Don't you see? He's perfect. The ultimate anti-suitor. The kryptonite of the male ego. A black hole of social energy that sucks the will to live right out of you.”

“You're not thinking of using my NEET brother to—”

“To scare off suitors while reviewing contracts. Two birds, one misanthrope.”

“That's—”

“Brilliant?”

“I was going to say sociopathic.”

“The best business plans usually are.”

“The best business plans dont envolve Shon!.”

“It's a brilliant idea. Think about it: a NEET with no social filters and an eidetic memory for other people's flaws. The perfect anti-suitor.”

“Shon isn't... sociable.”

“All the better. He won't feign politeness.”

“He's apathetic.”

“He won't be impressed by money.”

“He lives in his pajamas.”

“A visual insult to their egos.”

Akari buries her face in her hands. “I can't believe we're considering this, even if we do, Shon won't leave the house for this.”

A silence that seemed to kill the idea appeared. It's true, Shon had no reason to show up here just because. Wait, Reina thinks, Akari always gets what Reina asks for, so maybe if she pressured him just a little...

“Would your brother refuse to do this under any circumstances? Not even if you asked him as a favor?”

"Shon? Never. He doesn't—" Akari stops.

She searches her memories. She looks for a single time that Shon has ever refused her anything.

When she was 7 and asked him to help her with her homework. He did it while complaining about the absurdity of the education system.

When she was 15 and needed someone to pretend to be her guardian because her parents were away on a trip. He went. In his pajamas, but he went.

Today when she wrote to him about the family reunion he HATES...

...And so hundreds of memories like this one came flooding back.

“Akari?”

“It's... it's weird. Shon complains about everything. He criticizes everything. He hates everything. But...”

“But?”

“He's never said no to me. Not once. Not when we were kids, not now that he's a professional NEET.” The realization hits her like a train. “He'll complain. He'll philosophize about the absurdity. He'll make me feel bad for asking. But in the end...”

“In the end, he'll do it.”

“In the end, he'll do it.”

Reina smiles huge and sincerely for the first time in years. 

“Then it's decided.”

“Wait, I haven't—”

“Akari.” Reina uses her CEO tone. Then she softens, barely perceptibly. “I trust you. And if you trust him enough to know he'll say yes... then I'll trust him too.”

Damn. The trust card.

“If this goes wrong Reina i—”

“If it goes wrong, we'll blame Yamamoto somehow. It always works.”

Reina stands up happily, as if her energy has been renewed.

“OK! LET'S GO WIN SOME CONTRACTS!”

Her heels echo like a sentence.

Akari watches the scene unfold, only having one plan when things go this way: to write to Miki, her most trusted person and her sister:

“We need to talk about... Nii-san.”

“Nii-san, did he say he would wear headphones again?”

“No, no, more serious, Reina wants... to use him.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” and emoji of a panda open his mouth appear

“It's complicated. It involves unwanted suitors and his ability to make people feel uncomfortable.”

“...”

It took a long time before she answered, which was strange for Miki.

“Miki?”

Then of anywhere she replies.

“I also wanted to tell you something about nii-san.”

“He didn't wash his dishes again? When I got home—” An emoticon of an insecure deer interrupts her.

“No, no, it's not that. Well, he didn't wash them, but this is more urgent!”

“Oh, not this feeling again.”

“Haruka-san...”

“Don't tell me—”

“He saw how tired I was, we talked and... he came to the conclusion that you need nii-san.”

For a few minutes, Akari held the phone to her chest.

“Two CEOs want—”

“Nii-san.”

Akari looks up at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the city, a sneeze interrupted someone's Peak NEET performance.

Namaste, or was it bless you? he thought as he opened Twitter.