Disclaimer: I own neither the series nor the characters.
I'm also not a master on how one person addresses another yet so please forgive me if I screw up somewhere though I know it's important to the series.
It all began with a small noise, softer than even a buzzing of a bee.
It was supposed to be just another day at the Nakano residence. No, actually it was an obviously special day.
For once in a long time, all five siblings were gathered together around their table, doing different exercises from different classes. Their tutor had left them some exercises to do as he was busy studying for the mock exam. He said he'd try to swing by later so the girls made sure to finish before he arrived.
At this point, with how much there was still left, that seemed like a nice wish.
It was Yotsuba who noticed first. Her rabbit ear like ribbons even twitched as she looked up from her paper, hearing an odd sound. "Do you guys hear that?"
More wanting to take a break than actual interest, Itsuki humored her sister. "Hear what?"
"That." Unfortunately, she forgot it was Yotsuba. "There's static!"
"Static?" Miku too looked up. She was about to ask Yotsuba to elaborate when whatever Yotsuba had initially heard was increased tenfold as now it was like there was a jet engine in the room. "Wha-"
"What is that!?" Nino's sudden scream interrupted her sister, one nail polished finger pointing above the table. All sisters looked up to see what looked to be a white bubble that was sucking in air around it. Even the papers around them were being sucked in.
"Everyone get back!" Ichika's scream over the loud suction noise reached her sisters as all of them moved away from the table, partly in caution and partly in fear.
They could only watch in awe as the bubble grew larger and larger, the noise it made increasing along with it to the point some of them were putting their hands over their ears. When it finally reached the size of a small child, the bubble stopped along with the noise. Instead, it started to glow, increasing its intensity slowly until it was as if there was firecracker in front of them.
They all closed their eyes in reflex, the light too bright and daring to burn their retinas. Eventually, the light seemingly faded and all five opened their eyelids once more only to find a sight that left them all speechless.
In the air, was a girl with long dark flowing hair and a white dress. She couldn't have been older than thirteen. Her eyes were closed as if she was lying on the air itself. However, that illusion soon broke as gravity took a hand and she fell on the table with a thud.
Slowly, all five sisters surrounded the girl, questions flirting through their heads. They all looked over her, their bodies blocking the light. It was as if they had all travelled back in time. The girl before them wasn't just beautiful, she was familiar. If it wasn't for the girl's dark hair, she could have easily passed for any of them in their youth.
Dark blue eyes flitted open, cemeting the illusion of a dark haired sixth Nakano sister and yet sister was the last thing from the girl's mind. Instead, as she saw red silhouettes surround her, all the girl could do was whisper who she thought she saw.
"M-mom?"
The quintuplets exchanged looks with one another as the girl's eyes closed once more.
"Mom?"
"My name is Uesugi Mutsumi." was how the girl introduced herself. She sat before the Quintuplets, the look in her eyes strong yet couldn't hide the small amount of nervousness coursing through it. "As I may have said, I came from the future by accident thanks to one of Uncle Takeda's souvinir. I don't really know how or why though."
The idea that the girl had travelled through time widened the eyes of the sisters and yet that wasn't the detail their minds had latched on to. It wasn't that the Nakano siblings couldn't understand the paradoxes and impossiblities associated with time travel or how the girl in front of them had managed to do so. They were just simple girls, not really the type to think about such ideas. They weren't science fiction enthusiasts.
And it was exactly because they were simple girls that they only really caught on to one detail from the girl's initial introtroduction.
Uesugi.
The sisters exchanged nervous glances with one another, unsure on how to proceed. No, it was more like, a knawing feeling had started in each of their stomachs, an odd pressure that felt scary yet almost exciting.
While all five had used to be flunkees, it didn't mean that they weren't dumb enough to see the elephant in the room that needed to be addressed.
Itsuki pointedly coughed into a closed fist. Nino sent an arbitrary glare her way. Miku, next to her, lightly elbowed her. Yotsuba just sat there, tense and unmoving.
And so it came to (or more like it was pushed on) the eldest of the sisters, Ichika to ask. She had always been the responsible one but even she knew how much sweat was rolling down the back of her neck to ask the question on all the quintuplets' minds.
Ichika licked her lips, using all her ability as an actress to sound as casual as possible when she next spoke. "So, you say you're Uesugi Mutsimi but that must mean your father is..."
"Yes. My father is Uesugi Fuutarou."
With hard eyes, Mutsumi confirmed what all five somehow already knew. And yet, even after confirming such a detail, the room only grew even more tense. It was as if a bomb had been dropped that was just waiting to detonate.
The girl before them was the personification of Pandora's box.
"H-huddle!"
At Ichika's stutter, all sisters turned their back at once and gathered pushed their heads together, their voices low.
"Do you think she's telling the truth? I mean, time travel?" Itsuki whispered. "Maybe, she's just a relative of his?"
"She doesn't really look like him or his little sister. If anything..." Miku swallowed audibly, unable to finish the sentence. There was a faint buzz in the back of her mind that she was finding hard to ignore.
"...she looks like us from back then." finished Yotsuba, her head was bowed and her gaze was stuck on her was sweating like crazy, trying to keep herself still.
"Maybe, Papa had...maybe she's our sister?" Nino bit the bottom of her lip, knowing how little what she said made sense. That girl looked nothing like either of their fathers. Besides, their mother had passed on and was who they got their looks. "This isn't making sense. What about a blood test?"
"Those are expensive." replied Ichika with a shake of her head. "Unless...you want to go to father about this. But on the off chance that this girl is telling the truth..."
All five shuddered at once.
They all glanced back to the small girl who shuffled awkwardly under their gazes. Dark blue eyes narrowed, a shadow going over them, as she averted their gaze to the side. One hand went up to play with her dark bangs over her forehead. Such a tense desperate expression was one all five knew to heart.
Such a pitiful tense face could only belong to one person and yet here it was reflected in front of them.
"That's totally him!" exclaimed-whispered Yotsuba, her mouth wide open in shock.
"It...It really is like him." Itsuki consented. Her hands shook in her lap as she tried and failed to unclench them.
"Maybe...she's just that good an actress?"
Miku narrowed her eyes at what Ichika said. It seemed that lines were starting to focus. "...what are you saying, Ichika?"
"N-nothing!" denied the eldest sister, feeling her face slightly heat up. She didn't mean to imply that...right? That hadn't been adressed yet. A thought that none of the sisters had put up no matter how more and more obvious it was becoming. Still,
"We shouldn't jump to conclusions!"
"...And what conclusion could you be talking about?" was the small murmur that came from Nino. To Ichika's dismay, the second sister hadn't taken her eyes of Mutsumi. She could practically see the gears turning in Nino's head.
The Nino express looked ready to leave the platform and would drag the rest of them with her although it felt like everyone else were there as well with how tense their small hurdle had become.
It seemed that there was no way to ignore the elephant any longer. The girl who had looked like she had come straight out of the past yet claimed was from the future.
"""""Let's ask her."""""
Five voices spoke up to the four next to them. Unsure, scared, curious, nervous, and hopeful sets of eyes stared back at each other, each one finding the other four perfect reflections of thier own.
There was no way out of this. Sooner or later, they had to know or else they all may go crazy from leaving such a thing unquestioned.
Such simultaneous desire was impossible for anyone but these five even if four then landed on one, the clear message of "We'll leave it to you!" obvious.
The one, Ichika, couldn't help but sigh inwardly as they all turned back to the girl in front of them. Seeing that the attention was back to her, Mutsumi immediately straightened up, her back straight and eyes hard.
The image was just so odd, as if someone had stuck their tutor's face on their younger body besides the two small tufts of dark hair sticking out on the top of her heda.
Ichika swallowed, already feeling light headed. She didn't think her heart could take hearing the answer to the question on her lips yet also not be able to take her waiting this out.
Still, she tried to relax, imagine herself as anyone but a Nanako sibling, when she stared back at eyes she had fallen in love with.
"So Mutsumi-san...you told us about your father but...what about your m-mom?"
"Her name is Nakano...Nakano..."
Five breaths were held. Ten fists were clenched.
"Huh? Why can't I remember?"
The girl held one hand to her forehead, clear distress etched on her face. Her brows scrunched together in hard concentration, her expression glaring as if she was trying to scare the information to the front of her mind.
"I know she's one of you but...I can't remember which of you she is and which of you are my four aunties. You all normally look ao alike yet it's all mixed up now."
The girl squinted her eyes together in clear strain before shaking her head, eyes oddly glassy and frighteningly sad. "M-maybe it's because I time traveled but I...I can't remember my mom. Sorry, can I use the bathroom? I think I know where it is."
Without even waiting for an affirmation, the young girl left the five sisters by themselves, already oddly familiar with the apartment. Everyone was motionless until they all heard the door shutting behind the girl.
And for a moment, a rare silence fell throughout the apartment the Nanako's all shared. Not one of them spoke, it was hard to say if any of them were breathing. Perhaps, with all the talk of time travel, time could have actually stopped in their small living space and no one noticed.
Eventually, one of them finally spoke up.
"Should we should call Uesugi-san?"
Yotsuba's sudden declaration caused the rest of the sisters to jump out of their stupor, almost literally. The girl's mouth was wobbly as she raised her hand to ask the question.
"Th-that's right," agreed Itsuki, she didn't know why she was so nervous in the first place. Her stomach hurt but she ignored it. "Maybe, she really is his younger cousin or something and he'd know..."
"And if she isn't?" Nino asked, elbow on the table and chin on her palm. Her words froze her sisters' blood yet it couldn't match the intensity of the half-lidded stare she was directing at the rest of them. "If she's really the child of Fuu-kun and..."
Nino didn't finish, trailing off to silence. She didn't need to, the blush on her face and the faraway look in her eyes speaking more than anything she could have said.
Miku shook her head at her sister's words. The image of the supposedly time travelling girl was paradoxically something that represented both her dreams and her nightmares. She was something Miku wanted to desperately deny yet accept, hug tightly yet shove away.
However, she was too much of a coward to confirm what would either capture or break her heart. So, she instead sent a silent pleading look to Ichika who actually recoiled.
"Then we'll look after her until we find a way she gets back to her own time. Family is family. It doesn't matter who her mother is." said Ichika, a smile on her face and her eyes closed. She wouldn't be able to tell such a lie to her own face, after all. Not even she would believe her words. "Family is family."
"...Yes." Miku immediately agreed, settlling down a little even if her shoulders remained rigid. "Maybe, she'd feel better seeing Fuutarou."
"Well, in the movies, its bad to learn about future information." brought up Itsuki, one finger in the air in a lecture pose. "It would probably be bad to ask her about future stuff like lotteries or how we ended up. I mean, what if one of us..."
"Fine, fine, we'll give her some space." huffed Nino, still leaning on her palm. "No need to get so grim, Itsuki."
"I didn't mean..." The star clip wearing sister tried to deny but failed. In the back of her mind, the age their mother had died flashed, one that was still considered rather young. Her lips pursed for a moment before whispering, "She did say she knew the five of us..."
"A-anyways, let's just be careful what we ask her. There's no need to rush, right? She's probably just as confused as we are." concluded Itsuki with a clap. Miku and Itsuki nodded, their expressions serious and stern respectively. Nino hummed back, ther look in her eyes faraway once more.
"It's just like that time travel movie we saw last week! I'll leave that stuff to you guys as I didn't understand it that much." Yotsuba rubbed the back of her head, mouth open yet no laughs escaping. "I'll go get some drinks then! I'm sure Mutsumi-chan is thirsty. Anyone want any?"
None of her other sisters replied, all clearly still wrapped up in whatever was in their heads. The fourth sister was thankful, needing the alone time to supress a certain emotion in her chest.
Hope.
She didn't need hope. Hope would just lead her to pain when the inevitable happened and she'd be rejected again. Hope was better left to her sisters who deserved it more. Hope was ferris wheels and swings and a future she didn't dare embrace even could be right in front of her.
"Yotsuba?"
The ribon wearing girl stopped. Two whole seconds passed before she dared to turn, hoping there was a regular smile on her face.
"Can you get me some tea?"
"Sure!"
LINE
The moment she entered the bathroom and locked the door behind her, Mutsumi sighed. She raised a clenched fist to her chest, her face shifting from the innocent girl that the quintuplets had met to one that belonged to someone older than her age.
She reached into her white dress to withdraw a gold locket. Opening it revealed the picture of a beautiful red-haired woman, a small smile on her face. She closed her eyes and grasped the locket in one hand as if it could fill her with some sort of strength.
'Mom...'
Dark blue eyes opened once more, resolution burning within them. While it was true she hadn't expected to travel to the past, she felt that she had been allowed to do so for a reason. There was no way she'd forget her memories.
To give her family a better life.
At this moment, Uesugi Mutsumi made a promise to herself that it would be her mother who would marry her father before her aunt did.
There would be no first marriage to that aunt her father had shared a kiss with under the Bell of Vows.
There would be no messy seperation because of an incident that forever drove a wedge between the Nanako sisters.
There would be no need to attend her mother's own wedding long after she had been born out of a night of regret and drunken mistakes.
And if Uesugi Mutsumi had to lie to her aunts, her father, and even her own mother, then so be it.
She'd become the biggest liar of them all.
LINE
You can't do QQ/5-bon with out a mystery. Just felt like doing this after seeing that there was now an archive for these fics. The idea just sparked into my mind when I read this. I've done something simiar with Yomeiro but this and that are different.
And if you're wondering if I have this all planned out then you should read my other stories.
Unrelated thoughts on the manga that won't influence the story (spoilers for anime only folks):
I'm really enjoying this manga. I'm still convinced Yotsuba is playing 4D chess and hope she would win after many tiny manipulations though I think Itsuki's going to slam dunk this bowl.
My heart tells me Yotsuba is the one he kissed because Nino would make you know it, Itsuki still doesn't have feelings for him (probably), and Ichika wouldn't have the balls to go through with it. Yotsuba's the tragic type who would be a big enough of a cuck- I mean- coward to try to kiss him under Itsuki's disguise but just as a rare selfish moment before letting his sisters have him.
My brain tells me Miku as she knows (or thinks) he could distinguish her and she's had a good amount of flags. Or just Itsuki because she's Rena and it may be her way of having him for now and First girl wins.
Well, either way, Yotsuba hasn't been putting any effort so I wouldn't hate if she loses. She and Itsuki did pull off Rena so that helps out.
