Hello! I managed to catch a break between study sessions, and I thought to myself "What better use of my time than to write a chapter 3 for this." One thing about this AU that I wanted to mention is that none of the quints are dumb in this universe. Since he made the promise with Yotsuba, Fuutarou has been studying constantly (with the quints to keep him in check so that he doesn't lose his sanity), and since moving in with the Nakanos, he's ensured that Yotsuba has kept her side of the promise by doing group study sessions constantly. The quints were against it at first but grew accustomed to it. Who knows? I may include it in a flashback of some kind. So, with that, let's not waste any more time.

As I've said before, don't hesitate to be brutal with your reviews; I'm always looking for feedback.

I'd also like to state that I do not own any of these characters (except for the OCs which I may introduce along the way, and even then, those are loosely based on already existing anime characters). All rights belong to the creator of Quintessential Quintuplets: Negi Haruba. With that, let's get right into the next chapter.

Chapter 3: Miku's secret.

Fuutarou's POV:

"How do you even play this?" Fuutarou kept questioning himself as he died once again.

Fuutarou was playing Super Mario Odyssey for the first time in his life (yes, he sucks at video games). Yotsuba had recently bought a new Nintendo Switch and invited Fuutarou to play with her. They started off by playing Pokémon Sword. Fuutarou was an avid Pokémon player, being drawn in over the past few years thanks to Miku and Yotsuba constantly telling him about it. After an hour or two, and a study session later because the two wanted to be productive, they went back to playing on the large TV installed in the living room. It was around 4pm on a Saturday, so everyone was busy doing their own things; Ichika was napping, as usual, Nino was out with her own friends, Miku was in her room being the reclusive hermit that she usually is, and Itsuki was out with Raiha for the day. Itsuki wanted to go to this buffet that had recently opened up about 20 minutes away, and Raiha was the only one who agreed to go with her.

Fuutarou and Yotsuba were about to resume their gaming session, when he decided that he wanted to play a different game. He approached the shelf containing all of Yotsuba's games and picked out a game which had caught his eye.

"Super Mario Odyssey? Hey Yotsuba, what's this?" He turned to face the girl as he lifted the item up in his hand to show the girl which game he is on about.

"Oh, that's Super Mario Odyssey! You've played platformers before, right? You might enjoy this!" The orange-haired girl beamed, her ribbon perking up aswell. She had a massive love for the Mario franchise, and she had not actually played Super Mario Odyssey yet, so this was a good opportunity to both play it herself for the first time, and to introduce Fuutarou, who admittedly wasn't the biggest fan of Mario games, to a game that he may actually like. Fuutarou had never given Mario a chance for whatever reason. Yotsuba always found it strange that he would opt to play Pokémon but not even touch a Mario game. Fuutarou, although hesitant because he despised Mario for reasons that he didn't know, loaded the game into the switch and they both played, Yotsuba playing as Cappy and Fuutarou playing as Mario.

Yotsuba and Fuutarou managed to make it to the Sand Kingdom after about 2 hours because of Fuutarou's incompetence. Despite his love for platformers, Fuutarou was so bad that he lost to the first boss twice before beating him and advancing onto the Cascade Kingdom. Just as he was about to ragequit from constantly dying all the time, the two heard footsteps heading towards them. They turned their heads to see that Miku was coming down the stairs. Miku then approached the fridge and grabbed a chocolate bar. She then saw the two look at her. She looked at the two then called out to Fuutarou.

"Hey Fuutarou, could you help me with something?" she asked meekly.

"What do you need?" He questioned her from the other side of the apartment.

"Follow me please." She then began to walk back to her room.

"Yotsuba, I'll be back. Do you mind if we play Pokémon after this?" Fuutarou asked the still-smiling girl.

"Sure!" She beamed back. She then proceeded to change the game back to single player mode.

As Fuutarou approached Miku's room, a weird feeling began to permeate in his stomach. It wasn't a feeling though… It was a smell. It was so bad that he almost felt like puking. Just then, he realised that he was standing adjacent to the door that led to Ichika's room.

"Of course, her room smells like that. I should force her to clean it when she wakes up… Not that she'll really listen anyways, but god, her room smells awful…" He thought this for a brief second as he approached the third quint's room. He entered to see the third daughter on a swivel chair. Upon hearing the door open, she turned to face him. She smiled at him.

"We really need to force Ichika to clean her room one day. I almost threw up when I went past her room." He chuckled.

"We really should. I don't know how she lives the way that she does." She replies, chuckling at the fact that her older sister was a slob.

"So, what did you need?" He questioned the girl with… wait a second. Where are her headphones? The girl in front of him was wearing a large scarf that wrapped around her neck.

"Hey Miku, where are your headphones? Also, why are you wearing a scarf inside?"

He questioned the girl, to which she replied "Oh, my headphones are charging, and it was cold, so I just wore this." The girl shrugged. As Fuutarou questioned Miku's weird choices, he looked around her room. Her room has always been quite dull. It just had a bed, wooden flooring, blue walls, and a desk with a computer and a couple of games stacked next to it. There was nothing else in sight.

Miku then called out to him, grabbing his attention. "Fuutarou, what exactly are you looking at?" She questioned, turning her head a bit in confusion.

"O-Oh, sorry. I forgot how dull your room was." He joked, only to see a pout forming on the girl's face.

"So, what did you need?" The pout scribbled on her face quickly turned into a smile as she loaded up a document on her PC.

"I need help with my history homework. Would you mind reading this and telling me what you think?"

Fuutarou replied with a submissive tone. "Sure." Fuutarou then approached the girl when her eyes opened wide. Miku was hit with a sudden urge to go to the bathroom.

"I'll be right back! Please read it and tell me what you think when I get back!" She stated in a hurried tone, as she rushed out of the door and downstairs to where the bathroom door was.

He held himself back from laughing, even though he wanted to, as he approached the monitor and began reading. Much to his surprise, this report was phenomenal. Fuutarou, being the history buff that he was, was amazed that Miku was able to recall and include this many facts in her report. Some of these facts were so obscure, that he wasn't sure whether they appeared on sites like Wikipedia, or even some well-known history sites. Fuutarou was always the one with an aptitude for history, with Miku always seeming like she had an aptitude for science, like Itsuki. The two would always chat about things linked with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, with astrophysics being a common topic that was always somehow present in their conversations. Fuutarou also tried to join in on these conversations, but Miku and Itsuki became bummed out by how much their brother would talk, so they always tended to exclude him from these conversations. Don't get any of them wrong, they don't mean anything when they do it, but even Fuutarou knows that he can go on for hours without stopping, so he made it a habit to try and not include himself in their science conversations, for the reason that he knows that he will go overboard if he does get involved.

Anyways, back to the history report. It was extremely well-written, to the point where not even Fuutarou could properly recall some of the facts that Miku had written down until he read them.

*PING*

Fuutarou then saw a notification for Amazon. He couldn't believe his eyes. Miku had ordered 5 visual novels. He clicked on the notification page to see what she had bought.

"Holy shit!" He thought.

His eyes widened even more when he recognized the titles of these visual novels. These were all dating sims. Not only that, but these were history dating sims. Was Miku a history-con? (A history con by my definition is someone who is like a loli-con or shota-con, but for important figures in history). Curiosity then possessed Fuutarou as he instinctively loaded up Miku's Steam account. He couldn't believe his eyes. Her whole library was filled with games relating to history!

"Ahem…" He heard a voice which made him turn his head slowly in shock.

Standing there was Miku, who had returned from the bathroom.

"W-What are you doing?" She asked in the most angered tone she can muster, while still sounding like her timid and meek self. Fuutarou could only stand there in shock as he looked at his foster sister like she had just murdered a puppy. Okay, that may have been exaggerated, but seriously, he was shocked.

"F-Fuutarou, please leave." She stammered, extremely embarrassed and kind of angry.

"B-But…" He couldn't really think of anything else to say. What could he say? His foster sister has a thing for what? Historical figures? Warlords? He wanted to assume that it was warlords due to the fact that a lot of her games seemed to be based in the sengoku period.

"Does she perhaps… have a fetish for these sorts of things?" He questioned to himself, alluding to the fact that a lot of her games were historical dating sims.

"F-Fuutarou, please leave!" She pointed towards the door, her face blushing a red that was more saturated than the red in Itsuki's hair.

"F-Fine…" He got up and quickly fled the room. As he left, he heard sobbing coming from her room. Wanting to comfort her, he instinctively tried to go back to her room, but stopped dead in his tracks. As he was technically the cause of the problem, he decided to step away in shame. He went downstairs, only to be greeted by Yotsuba, who had somehow gotten to the wooden kingdom in the span of 20 minutes.

"Hey Fuutarou! What happened? Why do you look so glum?" The orange haired girl asked, twisting her head in confusion.

"Nothing…" He looked down at the floor, not wanting to tell Yotsuba what he had discovered.

"Hey… don't look so glum… Come, let's play some more Super Mario!" She cheered, trying to cheer the boy up.

Fuutarou wasn't downcast because he was in shock about what Miku had been hiding all this time, but he he was feeling sorrowful because he heard Miku sobbing. Usually, when she started to cry, people would find her in a morose state for days to come. Fuutarou reluctantly joined Yotsuba, and they played for another hour before everyone had arrived home, and Ichika woke up.

It was dinner time. Ichika had just woken up (she had slept all day because her job required her to be at the studio overnight. Everyone knew about Ichika's dream to become an actress and everyone fully supported her). Everyone was about to eat dinner and Nino went to call Miku down. Just then, she came back and marched down the stairs, picked up a whisk, and went straight to Fuutarou.

"What did you do to Miku?!" She asked, pointing the whisk at him as she walked in a fast pace towards him.

She was now only a few inches apart from him. Fuutarou was still somewhat regretful for making Miku cry. He was about to answer her question, but he didn't think it was worth revealing Miku's secret to the others. He was actually surprised that Nino would approach him with a whisk like that, but then again, that was the first thing within her line of sight that she could grab. Imagine if the first thing she grabbed was a knife. Fuutarou then remembered how Nino was. Even though she loved Fuutarou like a brother, she wouldn't dare hesitate to hurt him if he were to hurt any of her sisters.

"U-Uh, I may have done something which I shouldn't have, on accident." He stammered, trying to get his words out as best as he could.

"And what would that be?" He heard Ichika ask back at the table.

"Ugh, you know what? I'm gonna go and talk to Miku. Save my dinner!" Fuutarou declared as he ascended the stairs towards Miku's room.

Nino just looked at him with her arm folded in disappointment, as she saw her foster brother approach her sister's room.

"Oi Nino, what do you think could have happened between the two?" Ichika asked, stuck in a state of perpetual confusion, much like the rest of her siblings and Raiha.

"I don't know, but if Fuu-kun doesn't make up with her, me and him are gonna have a lot of problems." She said with a stern tone, almost similar to Maruo's.

Ichika just shrugged and continued to eat her dinner as Nino joined her at the table.

Suddenly, Itsuki perked up. "Hey, you don't think Fuutarou walked in on Miku doing something weird, do you?"

"He could have, but who knows?" Ichika replied back in a sort of manner that sounded like she was both teasing the situation and a tone that expressed that she was legitimately concerned.

"Oh, Miku called Fuutarou up for something. That may have had something to do with it." Yotsuba perked up.

"Well, whatever it is, let's hope that Fuu-kun can help her." Nino retorted.

Feeling apprehensive about entering, Fuutarou arrived at Miku's door. With all the willpower he could muster, he knocked on the door. Miku didn't respond, so being the chad anime protagonist that he is, barged into the room to see Miku sitting on her bed, head in her arms, silently sobbing.

"Miku, are you alright?" He asked her.

She looked up at him for a second before looking back down. Fuutarou then approached Miku's bed and sat down next to her.

"Listen, I'm sorry for being so nosy."

She then replied with a bit of a stutter while sobbing. "I-It's not y-your f-fault. I-I'm n-not cryi-ing be-because I'm a-angry at y-you." She said, albeit a bit muffled since she was looking down.

Fuutarou then lifted her face up to see that her face was red. Her eyes were also red from all the crying. Fuutarou then proceeded to manually wipe all of the tears off of her face. He then wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

He then asked "If you're not angry at me, then why are you crying?" He asked in a tone that soothed her conscience.

"D-Do you know how weird my h-hobbies a-are?" She asked Fuutarou. "W-What if the o-others find out that I l-like h-historical figures?"

Fuutarou then tightened his grip. "So?" This response shook Miku a bit.

"We're your family. Just because you like something that may seem weird to others, doesn't mean that we won't accept you. That's what family is for. We love you, Miku."

Hearing this, Miku began to tear up more. "I-I love you guys too." She began to cry even more.

"This reminds me of the first time Miku opened up to me..." He thought.

Flashback

One night, a 12-year-old Fuutarou went downstairs to get some milk. As he passed by one of the rooms, he heard crying. Fuutarou, being the curious 12-year-old that he was, knocked on the door to check it out. Much to his expectations, no-one answered it, and he continued to hear wailing coming from the otherside of the door. Normally, he wouldn't bother checking up on anyone because he saw no reason to. Whether someone was crying, or they were upset, Fuutarou wasn't the type to care about any of this. He, however, had become part of a family of 7 siblings. It was now his job to care, considering that he was the oldest too.

He knew whose door this was, since it was the third door from the stairs. This was Miku's room. Fuutarou's impression of Miku at the time was that she was really creepy, and he would usually stay away from her, but alas, they're siblings now or whatever, so Fuutarou decided that he might aswell go and check up on her. Fuutarou just decided to open the door and peeped through the crack. There was a pink haired girl, sitting there, crying her eyes out. Fuutarou went in as quietly as he could and sat on the bed. He patted the girl's back as she cried, only to stop crying and look in shock at the boy that had sat next to her. She tried to wipe her eyes as best as she could before questioning the boy.

"F-Fuutarou, what are you doing h-here?" She asked, trying not to cry.

"Don't mind me. Let it all out before you start asking questions."

"B-But..."

Miku suddenly fell into a state of shock as Fuutarou suddenly wrapped his arms around her.

"Listen. I don't care about anything right now. You sound like you need someone to listen to you, right? Well, I'm here!" He boldly exclaimed.

The girl, conceding to the hug, also reciprocated and wrapped her arms around Fuutarou. She began bawling her eyes out again. When Miku had calmed down, Fuutarou began to question the girl.

"So, why were you crying?" He asked with a questionable look on his face.

Miku, having calmed down a lot now, but still possessing bloodshot, red eyes from crying so much, said with a bit of a stammer: "T-Today marks e-eight months o-of o-our mother's d-death."

Hearing this, Fuutarou mentally sighed. "Oh, so that's it?" Fuutarou questioned the girl, leading her to develop a pout on her face.

"W-What do you mean, t-that's it?" She asked with a shocked and a bit of an angry tone. "D-Do you k-know what i-it feels like t-to lose a p-parent?"

She then wanted to retract her comment as she suddenly saw the insensitive boy look down in sadness.

"O-Oh, s-sorry. I d-didn't m-mean it like t-that." She quickly tried to retract her statement.

Just then, she was quickly pulled into a hug. Miku could suddenly feel tears on her shoulders. Tears started welling in Fuutarou's eyes as he said this. "I know what it's like. In fact, as you may know, I lost both of my parents. I've had to endure a ton of crap just to be here, and I live with these scars every day. I had to bear the responsibility of caring for Raiha growing up, and I was stripped of my childhood because I never had loving parents. The one loving parent I had died. So of course I know what it feels like to lose a parent." He began venting, only loud enough for the third sister to hear.

Miku returned his hug as Fuutarou began venting even more. In a sudden turn of events, the situation had turned from the boy comforting the girl to the girl comforting the boy. "You should be lucky to have your sisters, you know? You have people who care for you. I, on the other hand, have always been by myself, with only my sister by my side. I can't begin to fathom what I would do if something were to happen to her." He vented once again.

He then stopped as the girl whispered something into his ear. "You have us."

Those words made him freeze. He then began to cry even more. "How so? 3 of you can barely tolerate me, Yotsuba keeps bothering me because we met prior to all of this, and Itsuki just latches onto me constantly." Fuutarou became visibly distressed through all of this. This sudden change of events was overwhelming. What had been a burning sense of curiosity had turned into Fuutarou hugging a girl who didn't really like him.

"W-Who s-said th-that I d-didn't l-like you?" the girl suddenly stammered. This caused Fuutarou to widen his eyes a bit. "It's n-not that I-I don't like y-you. I-I'm j-just s-shy around p-people w-who aren't my s-sisters." She continued with a stutter.

Miku then loosened her grip around Fuutarou, signalling for him to loosen his grip around her too, although, he didn't want to. This had been the first time that he hugged someone in a while, so he didn't want to let go, but he reluctantly did. Miku then looked into the golden eyes of the boy in front of her.

"L-Listen, I d-don't know a l-lot about y-you. Y-You are, h-however, a p-part of our f-family now, o-okay?" She said to the boy, who just stared at her large, cerulean eyes, trying not to cry anymore. "W-We may n-not know e-each other that well, b-but let's get to know e-each other better. Y-You can t-talk to me a-any time." She said with a smile. Itsuki was the one who proclaimed that she wanted to be like her mother, but as it turns out, Rena had left a piece of her in all of her sisters. Ichika was the leader, Nino was the domestic, caring one, Yotsuba was the one who bought joy, Itsuki was the motherly one, and Miku had found her place among her sisters; she was the empath of the group. She may be shy, but it doesn't take much to crack a hardboiled shell. Fuutarou began to hug her again, and she hugged him back.

The next morning, when Nino had gone to wake up Miku, much to her disgust, she found a blonde boy sleeping in the same bed as her sister; not only that, but hugging her too! Fuutarou proceeded to get a roundhouse kick from Nino that day, as well as an earful from her as-well. Miku then approached Fuutarou from behind that day and handed him a chocolate. It was from that day forward, that the two became not only the best of siblings, but the best of friends.

Author's note:

A bit of a short chapter, but I was bored, so I just wrote another chapter for this. I hope yall enjoy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my friend is going to shout at me if I don't get back to studying. See you all next time ;)