"Argh, where are they? It's been so long already!"
Honoka groaned, collapsing onto the living room couch and burying her face into one of the pillows. Yukiho glanced up from the textbooks she had been busy setting up on the table. She rolled her eyes at her sister's typical display of childishness.
"Honoka, they said they'd be here in 30 minutes. It's only been 20 so far."
"I know, but, but I'm so excited! I've never gotten to teach someone before! I want them to be here! Why can't Russians be able to travel through time and space?"
"Do you even realize how stupid that sounds?"
"Hmph! You can't blame your big sis for being anxious," Honoka grumbled. She rolled over onto her side, so her back faced Yukiho.
Several minutes later, the doorbell rang. Honoka immediately leaped off of the couch and onto her feet.
"It's them!"
Honoka ran straight for the door, nearly tripping twice along the way. She swung the door wide open, seeing Eri and her little sister Arisa standing there.
"Eri!"
"Honoka!"
The two fellow school idols embraced. Arisa could only stand there awkwardly and watch as Honoka's and Eri's hug lingered far longer than any normal hug should have. Yukiho walked over to the front door to greet the Ayase sisters as well. When she saw Arisa, she waved, and Arisa, glad to see her fellow middle-schooler, smiled and waved back. When Eri and Honoka finally separated, the two of them literally breathing heavily from that bone-crushing squeeze, they all decided to move into the living room of the house to discuss the matters at hand. There was a very important reason for why Eri and Arisa were both here.
The blonde dropped her bag next to the living room table. She began unloading the textbooks from inside. "Okay, Yukiho, we should get to studying right away. Best to start as soon as possible."
"Okay." Yukiho opened her math textbook and flipped through the pages until she came upon the problems that her teacher had recently assigned her.
"Aw, you two are going to start already? We didn't even get a chance to talk yet, or share some sweets first!"
"Honoka..." Yukiho started to say, but Eri stepped in for the younger Kosaka.
"You have your own work to do as well, don't you, Honoka? Arisa has been telling me for days how excited she is to learn how to make manju with you. Please, don't keep my little sister waiting any longer than you have to."
Honoka looked over at Arisa, who stared back at her with child-like anticipation. The second-year suddenly felt a deep hole of guilt in the pit of her stomach.
She threw her hands high into the air. "O-Okay! I got it! Let's go, Arisa! To the kitchen! We need to wash our hands, tie back our hair, put on our aprons, and get to work! Let's do it! Fight-o!"
Arisa was taken aback by Honoka's exclamation at first, but she pumped a shaking fist over her head as well. "A-Aye! Fight-o!"
Honoka led Arisa away. Yukiho and Eri looked at one another, and then they sighed and shook their heads. What silly siblings they had.
"So...why don't you show me about that problem you were telling me about? The one that you couldn't understand at all?" Eri said as soon as they knew that Honoka and Arisa had gone out of earshot.
"Huh? Oh, um, it's this one..." Yukiho pointed at a math equation in the center of the page. Eri leaned in to get a better look, brushing some strands of her golden-blonde hair back behind the curve of her ear. Yukiho stared at Eri out of the corner of her eye. She was struggling to keep a noticeable blush from creeping up onto her face. Eri was seriously pretty. Like, insanely pretty. Not even just insanely pretty, but the sort of pretty that could probably drive most men, and women too, down to their knees and collapse into piles of sweating, jibberish-babbling mush.
Yukiho had seen the third-years of Otonokizaka before, Honoka had invited them along with the rest of her friends from school to their house many times, but she'd never been in such close proximity to one of them like this. At such a minimal distance, she could really see everything. She could see the glossiness shining on the surface of Eri's pert, pink lips. She could see a faint hint of red blush adorning her smooth, unmarred cheeks. Every single hair on her head seemed like it had been expertly designated to fall into the right place. Yukiho could even smell a hint of some sort of perfume arising from her tutor's collar. Yukiho sighed inside of her head. She couldn't believe she'd get this flustered so easily, all because of some good-looking older woman. She was glad that her sister had such attractive friends around, but it didn't help that none of them were so far from her age. Suddenly, Eri looked over at Yukiho, and the younger woman immediately flared up upon staring into those alluring, cerulean-blue orbs.
"Yukiho, were you listening to me?" Eri asked.
"H-Huh...?"
"I said, were you listening to me? I think this problem is a lot easier to solve if you look at it from a certain angle." Eri continued.
"What?"
Eri frowned. "Please, Yukiho, I know you're much better at this than Honoka is. I believe you can do. Let's just stay focused. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed!"
"I'm...I'm sorry..." Yukiho definitely had a reason to blush now. "I'll pay better attention..."
Eri's lips curled into a proud smile. "Harasho! So let's figure this out together!"
Yukiho nodded, and when Eri had returned her attention to the open textbook, the younger woman couldn't help but let out an exasperated sigh. She hoped that Arisa was handling this much better than she was right now. She also started to wonder if she would ever have any sort of chance with the blonde herself.
Yukiho placed her hand onto the book. Eri's hand grazed against hers as she moved her fingers over to point at the problem she was indicating to the younger girl. The younger Kosaka felt the hairs on her neck start to tingle. She really, really did hope that she could make it through this tutoring session in one piece.
