A little over an hour later, Nakano Itsuki finds herself blinking into the dinner menu of a Korean barbecue restaurant. As the girls saw for themselves back at the hospital, there were only a few patients left at the time they had arrived, whom Fuutarou processed quickly and efficiently before setting off on the date that was arranged last-minute by Yotsuba. Due to how sudden this arranged date was, the two had a little trouble deciding on where to go, and out of respect for Fuutarou's busy schedule tonight, which isn't any different from any other night to begin with, they settled on having an early dinner at a restaurant of Fuutarou's choice, as Itsuki didn't want to impose too much on him. Thus, he settled on a Korean BBQ restaurant known as Buk Chang Dong Tofu House, or simply BCD for short, and now the two of them occupy a small two-seater table for dinner as Fuutarou himself quietly mulls over his own menu.

"...um, Uesugi-kun...?" Itsuki peeps softly over her own menu, still hiding the lower half of her face with it, however. "I'm...I am not very, um...familiar with Korean cuisine...I am not sure what to pick..."

"You don't?" Fuutarou lowers his own menu. "Then why did you say it was alright for us to come here when I asked you if you were okay with Korean food?"

"I-I did not wish to...to come off as demanding...!"

"...demanding? How so?"

"As in, um...!" Itsuki is beginning to sweat under the pressure. "Um...in...in choosing where to go for d-dinner..."

"I see." Setting down his own menu on the table before him, he leans forward a little and gently pulls Itsuki's menu down to point at the entrees. "So this is a Korean tofu house; their specialty is in their tofu meal sets, or combos, whatever you like to call them. You order one of the combos here, which combines an entree with an assorted tofu meal called soondubu. You can also pick a specific kind of soondubu here. What seems good to you?"

"Um..." Itsuki, while immensely grateful for her tutor's guidance, still feels largely lost at what she's seeing. "...is...is there anything you recommend? I shall simply go with that."

"Let's see...I believe the most popular combo is the Galbi combo with haemul soondubu, or barbecue short ribs with seafood tofu. I've had galbi a few times and it's good, I think you'll like it. You really like meat, right?"

Itsuki nods profusely.

"Then I say swap out the seafood tofu with the ham and sausage tofu, I think you'll really like that. Also for the tofu, you need to pick a spice level for it, and it says it goes plain, mild, medium, spicy, very spicy, and...whatever comes after that. How good are you with spicy food?"

"I can handle a little spicy, but not very much."

"Then maybe medium might be good. Unless you want to play it even safer, then just go mild, but personally I think soondubu is great with a little bit of spicy in it. Gives it a nice kick...then again, I've found soondubu to be really helpful in getting over a cold, and having it a bit spicy is what makes it be so helpful in that."

"Um...then let us go with medium."

"Alright."

Fuutarou places their orders with their waitress when she returns to their table with their beverages, water for Fuutarou and a tall glass of Coca-Cola for Itsuki, and the two high schoolers finally relax with their drinks as their wait for their food begins.

"So I take it that this date was not planned at all, correct?" Fuutarou murmurs to Itsuki across their table. He doesn't need to raise his voice much as this is a two-seater table, so his voice only needs to travel so far to reach Itsuki's ears, though the ambient volume of the rest of the restaurant's clientele intrudes on their conversation somewhat.

Fuutarou's sudden inquiry into the nature of their forced date causes Itsuki to jump in her seat a little as she quickly recovers and looks off to the side, nodding shortly.

"...yes, that is...correct. I...I never intended to ask for something like this..." Itsuki answers, then thinks to herself, at least not so soon.

"Hm. Pretty interesting then..."

"What is?"

"Because Yotsuba told me that the two of you came to the hospital because you intended to ask me out on a date, but both knowing you and judging by your behavior so far, I figured that wasn't really the case." Fuutarou takes a sip of his water through his plastic straw. "So that was a lie, huh? Yotsuba can lie when she wants to, I guess."

"Please do not be so harsh on her...she just put us in this situation because she wanted to...uh..." Itsuki hesitates, but she urges herself forward, even her cheeks start reddening as a result. "...she wanted to help me p-progress my relationship with you..."

"How considerate of her, then. Though if I'll be honest, I would've preferred if you were the one to take the initiative."

"A-As much as I agree, now that it has happened, please do not scold her or anything...she is simply trying to help me."

"I know. Old habits die hard, and I know that better than most, so I get where she's coming from...so enough about Yotsuba." Fuutarou takes a deep breath with an equally lengthy exhale to help himself relax a little. "How've you been? I know I stopped by your house for a little bit not too long ago, but obviously I wasn't there long enough to just hang out, so I'll take this opportunity to ask you now."

At this, Itsuki manages to crack a small smile. "I have been doing well, thank you. Minus the, um...the nightmare incidents, of course, but...other than that, I have finished my summer homework, and I have been studying on my own in your absence. I have also been trying to get the others to study with me, with...mixed success."

"Mixed success..." Fuutarou chuckles a little.

"D-Do not ridicule me...I was trying my best," Itsuki pouts back. "What, are you trying to make fun of me because of how our relationship first started four months ago? When Nino and I refused to join you for lessons?"

"Uh, I wasn't necessarily thinking of that...just that it's a little amusing that any of your sisters even bothered to study with you during summer break."

"Well, Miku studied with me; did you not think that she was a natural choice for this?"

"I suppose so, now that you put it that way. Did anyone else study with you?"

"Surprisingly, Nino did. I asked her to help me study English, and we ended up studying together the rest of that evening." Itsuki begins to smile again. "The advice you gave to us that we should also try to tutor each other in our respective subjects that we are good at was a great one - we are able to teach other even without you having to be at home with us."

"Cool, that's good to hear. So does that mean that I'm out of a job now? Or half of it, anyway?"

"N-No, it does not! We would still greatly appreciate having you as our tutor, so please do not leave so soon!" Itsuki yelps quickly.

"I know, your dad would kill me if I walked out like that."

"...um...what about you, Uesugi-kun? How have you been lately? I assume that you are doing well, but..."

"Busy as usual. The sky is also blue, did you know that?"

Unable to stop her lips from cracking into a smile again at Fuutarou's dry sense of humor, Itsuki manages to stifle a giggle as she answers with, "I did in fact know that. But have you been eating well ever since summer break began?"

"Yes ma'am, I have."

"How many meals do you have on average a day?"

"One if I'm lucky."

"When was the last time you sat down for a meal like this?"

"Four days ago."

"So you haven't been taking care of yourself!"

It's Fuutarou's turn to laugh dryly as Itsuki fumes a little at him from across the table, not like there's a whole lot of distance between the two of them to begin with.

"I told you to maintain a healthy diet! At the very least, eat more than just one meal a day!" Itsuki scolds her own tutor. "How is that even remotely healthy? Please be a little more responsible!"

"I'm being told to be more responsible by a girl who would've failed her midterms without my help? What's this world come to, seriously?" the young tutor jokes with a cheeky shrug, causing Itsuki to pout harder and harder with indignation by the passing minute. However, it suddenly hits Itsuki - if Fuutarou is in the kind of mood to joke around with her right now, then that would imply that her tutor is doing well enough for himself, even if his diet is not exactly as healthy as it should be for a boy his age.

"I'm glad you're doing well, though," she sighs with a relieved smile on her face.

"Well enough, thankfully. No nightmares since the last one on your part, though? Your eyes not giving you trouble?"

Itsuki shakes her head. "So far so good. Of course, it may not stay that way, but..."

The fifth quintuplet falls silent, and her tutor watches her passively for a bit.

"Something on your mind?" he asks, but as soon as he asks this, their food arrives with their waitress distributing both their main entrees, stone tofu bowls, and their side dishes from a cart, so he leaves the question hanging as the two high school students enjoy their piping hot dinner.

"Mmmm, that was so good...!" Itsuki cries gently after finishes eating, having completely cleaned out everything on the table - her short rib entree, her ham and sausage tofu, and even all the side dishes, even the ones Fuutarou himself didn't touch.

"Again, I'm reminded that your ability to eat far surpasses my capacity to teach properly," Fuutarou says, half sarcastically but also half in amazement as he surveys the damage on the table.

"Wait, was that supposed to be a complement or an insult?"

"Whatever you want it to be. I think Yotsuba told me that you two actually already ate before you met me at the hospital, but you still ate everything anyway. Is that what your Mystic Eyes do, Itsuki? Give you a bottomless stomach?"

"Th-That would be such a lame power to have! Why would it be something like that!" Itsuki barks indignantly again. "This is definitely an insult, Uesugi-kun! You're making fun of me again, I know it!"

"But I haven't even made a joke about your weight yet; you can't tell me that I'm making fun of you until I get to do that."

"That is simply even worse!"

Popping a smirk, Fuutarou takes another long sip of water to hydrate himself after his own meal. Itsuki watches him, her short-fused irritation with him and his propensity to ridicule her eating habits being defused rapidly. She can't help but think to herself about the intended nature of this date; Yotsuba clearly arranged this sudden date to set up an opportunity for her to get closer to Fuutarou, but like she feared would be the case, Itsuki finds herself at a loss for what she must do to accomplish that. So far, she's merely been following Fuutarou's lead when it comes to small talk like this; she has neither the content nor the willpower to take the lead on her own, especially when she's feeling the pressure of doing something that will take their relationship a little bit further than it is now.

"Something on your mind?" the young tutor asks, repeating his question from before they ate as he lowers his glass of water.

"Um...to be honest? Yes, there is something," Itsuki sighs quietly; she finds it impossible to try force a conversation when she's already got something so pressing on her mind right now, so she prepares herself to talk about it, though it still surprises her that she's okay with being so open like this. "Um...as you know, Yotsuba...set up this date for us so that, um...I could...I could maybe get a little...c-closer with you..."

Itsuki's voice grows smaller and smaller the longer she talks. Perhaps she wasn't as ready to talk about this as she thought she was, now that she's hearing for herself just how direct she sounds saying it out aloud.

"Yeah, I can see that," Fuutarou nods slowly.

"...um...but...my problem is...I do not know what to do or say...to do that," the youngest quintuplet mumbles, her face beginning to burn brightly again. "I hate to admit it, but...my social skills...are very lacking in this area. If I am to be alone with other boys my age, I would not know what to do or say at all and I would feel very uncomfortable. You are the exception because we have known each other for some time now, and you have already spent so much time with us for the sake of tutoring us that the idea of having a d-date with you is...is not as alien as it might have been otherwise. This is something I even talked about with Yotsuba and Miku...and in all honesty, I feel that either of those two would be much better at something like this than I."

Fuutarou merely shrugs, too.

"I mean, I'm not much better myself, you know?"

"What do you mean? You are taking this much more naturally than I ever could. At least, it sure seems that way, no?"

"It does, I'll admit, but that alone doesn't mean that my social skills are any superior to yours. Remember at the start, when I decided to wait for you and your sisters to come back home to introduce myself by letting myself into your house first? We've all known that my social skills are trash, and it's not like I ever have the time to improve them."

"Hold on, I do not believe that for a second. Say what you will about your social skills in other areas, but you cannot deny that you are very intelligent and perceptive. Those qualities of yours have allowed you to adjust to all five of us quintuplets, and you have since learned how to deal with each and every one of us. So while to you it may not seem like your social skills have improved at all, for the five of us, they have massively improved. How else would we have come to accept you as our tutor and become comfortable with the fact that towards the end of our first trimester at school, you were spending hours and hours tutoring me and my sisters?"

Fuutarou raises a finger at Itsuki. "Great deduction, but you're forgetting one small detail: I've come to learn how to talk to you girls as a tutor, and at most as a friend. We're on a date right now, which would mean that we would need to behave, or try to behave, more as girlfriend and boyfriend and not merely as friends, right?"

The words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" send a small jolt down Itsuki's back, and she watches her tutor sigh a little.

"I still don't have much of a clue when it comes to things like that myself, is what I'm trying to get at," the young mage shrugs slightly again. "Again, it might sound like I know what I'm doing just because I know how to make small talk when I need to, but what have I really done myself, you know? Besides, I told you before and I'll say it again: your dad will fuckin' lynch me if he finds out I'm going after any one of you in a romantic way."

"But you are alright with going out on a date with me? I know that there is a chance that you are only doing this because Yotsuba set this up for us..as a matter of fact, that must be why you are doing this at all, but even so..."

"Because technically I'm not the one who suggested this or initiated this, that would be Yotsuba, like you said. I never came up with the idea to go out on a date with you, so therefore your dad can't lynch me for doing this. I'm just going with what his daughters wanted."

Itsuki makes a disgusted face at her tutor. "Ugh...I forgot you are one of those types of people who justify their actions based on technicalities."

"People bend the rules to their advantage all the time whenever it's convenient; I can't be the only one who can be held responsible for that, can I?" Fuutarou pauses to take another sip of water. "Besides, I could ask the same about you: why are you okay with going out on a date with me when you were the one in the beginning who was preaching about how students shouldn't engage in romantic partnerships with their own teachers or tutors or whatever? Let alone have that kind of relationship while in school at all?"

"B-Because - people can change over time, I will have you know!" Itsuki blurts out quickly, yet again bursting into a furious blush. "People can change their minds! And for the record, it was not as though I intended for things to go this way! On top of which, even now, I still somewhat adhere to my belief that romantic relationships should only happen after high school."

"So what compels you to make an exception for yourself here?"

As Itsuki's mind works to come up with an answer to this, she finds herself slowly looking off to the side again, this time with a subdued shyness rather than a sudden rush of embarrassment like the previous times.

"...I think...it is not so much that I am making an exception for myself, but..." the fifth quintuplet murmurs shyly, "...but rather, I am making an exception for...for you."

"For me..." The young mage does not flinch at Itsuki's coy words. "And what have I done to deserve such punishment?"

"Puh - " The quint balks suddenly at her tutor's contrarian words, though. "Uesugi-kun, do you really hate me and my sisters that much?!"

"I was making a joke."

"But you are bad at making jokes! You even said so yourself!"

"Oh, so you still remember me saying that?"

"Of course! That was how you first introduced yourself to my sisters four months ago, at the start of your tenure as our tutor! Do not tell me that you have forgotten that!"

"Obviously not. What surprises me more...no, what disappoints me more is the fact that you remember something that old, yet you had the hardest time learning how to solve chemical reaction problems."

"Okay, that is because those problems are basically mathematics! And you know that I am nowhere near as good at mathematics as I am in science!"

"Not that you're all that great in science to begin with, but whatever..."

"I heard that, Uesugi-kun!"

Fuutarou lets himself crack a rare smile of amusement as he tips his glass of water back again, a grin that Itsuki beholds in full and causes her to immediately relinquish any amount of annoyance she would have had towards her tutor for teasing her about her overall weakness in her strongest subject at school. She takes a deep sigh - she begins to wonder to herself how on earth it was that she managed to develop feelings for a guy like this. While she still doesn't have any particular preferences for boys like several of her other sisters do due to her previous lack of interest in such things, she could have never imagined that a situation like this could become reality. Well, she only thinks this for now, because the moment she looks back up at Fuutarou, she realizes that while his amused smile is gone, in its wake is a face that she seldom sees her tutor have - a face of contentedness.

"I should ask, since I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at all interested in hearing about this," he says suddenly, almost making Itsuki jump at his sudden words, "but why do you like me? I can understand you having a different opinion about me over the months, but even still, that's a pretty big jump in our relationship, to go from hating my guts in the beginning to now, this." He gestures about himself, indicating their date right now.

"Um...it is...a little embarrassing, but..." Itsuki quickly picks up her own tall glass of water to take a drink from it, but she continues holding it in front of her face as though she's trying to hide behind it, though only her lower face gets partially obscured as a result.

"We got time."

"D-Do you not have work tonight? Why not today of all days?"

"I do have work later tonight. It's just that I'd like to hear you talk about this because this interests me a little more than my other responsibilities at the moment."

Itsuki lets slip a small whimper, knowing that she won't be able to leave without telling her tutor what he would like to hear about. So she takes a deep breath to help herself gather her thoughts in an effort to ward against the inevitable embarrassment that she's going to be inundated with once she's done.

"...it was the night when Nino and I first barged out of our house. The day we fought at the beginning of finals week," Itsuki reveals slowly and quietly. "It was when you tracked me down to your own home and found me staking out there since I had forgotten my purse and thus could not book a hotel room for myself."

"Yeah, because you were too embarrassed to go back home for your stuff."

"Y-You do not need to remind me of that...!"

"Sorry, couldn't help it. Continue?"

Itsuki scowls a little bit across the table at her date before continuing.

"It was our conversation outside after we had eaten dinner together. If I remember correctly, when I asked you why you cared so much about bringing us back together, you said it was because you cared for us as a family first and foremost before anything else."

Gazing down into the water in her glass as though attempting to lose herself in its tiny ripples, Itsuki blinks slowly.

"At first, I could not believe that someone like you, who is literally always working to the point where he forgets to eat and otherwise take care of himself regularly, was telling me something like that. At first, I wanted to ask you why you were not taking your own advice in regards to your own family first, but then I realized that I could not say such a thing, especially when I am probably the one among the five of us who knows your financial situation the most. So I had no choice but to recognize that your words were genuine, and that you cared about us as more than just your students, more than just an avenue of income."

She finally glances back up at her tutor.

"Would...would I be correct in this deduction...?"

Fuutarou gives her back a single short nod, as he always does.

"I think I'd be lying if I said otherwise, right? I'm certainly not being paid enough for all the shit I've dragged myself through for the five of you," he snorts quickly.

Itsuki purses her lips at Fuutarou again. "So we are nothing but mere cash flow to you!"

Fuutarou throws up his hands. "Guilty as charged!" he cries, amidst a round of groans from Itsuki, but she recovers more quickly this time, having built up more tolerance for her tutor's bad humor.

"The circumstances that went into that conversation we had that night...all contributed to me finally developing these feelings for you," Itsuki says, her voice growing softer and softer as her own spoken words go into her ears to let her know exactly what she's saying out loud, but she fights as best she can against the inevitably mounting embarrassment to continue her train of thought. "But...it was not as though I simply decided to have f-feelings for you..."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, I - I..." Exhaling with some difficulty, Itsuki pulls on a somewhat perplexed expression. "Basically, it...I...my opinion of you improved dramatically after our midterms of first trimester. Once I accepted your tutelage and I saw the amount of work you put into teaching us, it was like...it was like a...a snowball effect. I already knew your situation, the debt that you have and...and the kind of situation your family is in right now, which is something my own family knows too because we were also poor much of our own lives before our mother married our father; you kept me safe from that Shirazumi Rio person that one time when I was walking back home from the library late at night, and you even got hurt because of my carelessness; you also kept my sisters safe from other attacks around the city as well."

"I see. So all those things set the grounds for this happening, so to speak."

"Yes, precisely..." Itsuki pauses uncertainly. "...Uesugi-kun, may I, um...confide with you a few things?"

"Only if you trust me that much. More importantly, only if you trust yourself enough, too."

At this, the quintuplet smiles sadly, rather than giving her usual reactions of reservation.

"Actually, that...my inability to trust myself in a situation like this is exactly why I must confide these things to you."

Fuutarou leans forward just a tiny bit, letting Itsuki know silently that she's got his attention.

"Even before Ichika told you that I had feelings for you after you brought us all back together, I had some moments where I thought about all the things that you were doing. Specifically, I dwelt a lot on the fact that you were working so hard to support your family and to pay off your family's debt."

Itsuki looks up again at her tutor.

"I suppose I should ask just in case, but do you remember the conversation we had when we ran into each other at the cemetery that one time? The time when we shared stories about our mothers?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Okay, then that saves me a little explaining, because I was going to talk about the part where I resolved to fill our mother's shoes to become the new mother figure for my sisters. So when I began to grasp what you were doing for your family, I realized at some point that what you are to your family is basically what I always wanted to be for my own sisters."

The quintuplet again smiles weakly across the table at her classmate.

"You are able to take care of your family by supporting them financially and by protecting them if need be. You excel in in all areas of expertise that are necessary for you to do so, and if there is something you are not good at that you deem necessary to learn, you will take the time to learn it or practice it until you are good at it. You do not hesitate in doings things your own way, even if it may cause some friction in the beginning, but at the same time you are still considerate enough to care for others around you. And even if things don't go your way at first, you either work with your circumstances or work around them to reach whatever goals you have set before you. Do you see where I am trying to go with this?"

"...mhm, I sure do."

Itsuki smiles weakly again. "You are everything that I always wanted to be, Uesugi-kun. Let us ignore the magic side of our lives since I think you will agree that trying to compare the two of us magically is rather meaningless, but even with that out of the picture, there are so many other parallels that I can draw between the two of us...and in each and every one of them, I fail where you succeed. I think...that is also a substantial part of the reason why I now look up to you so much, to the point where I would even dare to have feelings for you. And now that I have told you about this, here I am thinking to myself if I should even be allowed to compare myself to you."

Fuutarou slowly pushes his glass of water aside as Itsuki is laying out her sentiments before him, and once she finishes, he waits a moment in case she has anything more to say, which she doesn't for now.

"I've told some of your sisters this too separately, but it's dangerous for you to try to compare yourself to someone like me, because just like what's happening with you, most people who try doing that will end up feeling a similar way. I don't say this to sound like an arrogant fuck, but because it's simply not reasonable for two completely different people like us to ever compare our lives like this. Sure, we have some pretty substantial things in common, right? Like us being poor, or used to, us both having dead moms...but even still, our lives are just too different for either of us to come to a conclusion about ourselves relative to others."

"I understand, I - I really do. I know that this is not a healthy mindset to have, and that I really ought to just focus on my own work and things that I can do for my own family. But it is very...difficult, and I do not mean to come off as rude here, but...you do not make it any easier for me."

"Because I've spent so much time with you all before summer break, so I'm always reminding you of this whole situation, right? Yeah, I get that."

"Exactly. As much as I know I should not think about things this way, I cannot help it." Itsuki moodily gazes into the water in her glass. "A part of me even wants to say that if...if we are together, than I can sit here and pretend like I can do everything that you can; I can pretend like I am as capable and hardworking as you are, when that will most certainly never be the case."

"Well, you say that now, but keep in mind that I wasn't always the omnipotent high school mage that you probably think of me as. Like, it's not as if I was born a strong mage right out of the gate, right? Everyone has to start somewhere, and that was the case for me. Back when I first became a mage, that was the same thing that I told myself, that I'd never get as strong as some other mages whom I'd run into even all those years ago. I still don't think I'm as strong of a mage as some others I know since I can always get better, but it's certainly a different story now than it was nine years ago."

Fuutarou briefly raises a hand towards Itsuki to point at her gently.

"There is something that you've done that I couldn't, though. I don't know how much you'll take note of it, but it's important enough that I felt it was worth bringing it up."

"Really? You are not saying these things just to try to cheer me up, are you?" Itsuki asks with a small sigh.

"Not particularly, but if it does, then that's great," Fuutarou replies quite simply. "It's true that I work and train a lot to be able to take care of my family and my clients at the cost of my health sometimes. But what you don't factor in is the cost to my time, specifically the time I should be spending with my own family - my own little sister, that is."

It takes a second for Itsuki to let this sink in, but when it does, she looks back up yet again at her date across the table.

"I've succeeded at becoming a good enough mage to oversee this city, to protect my family and clients and to make a living out of it to support my family. But the cost that I'm paying for this success, among other things, is time that I should be spending with my little sister and dad so that we can even be a family in the first place. I've asked myself a few times over the years: is everything that I'm doing worth it? Does it make sense for me to do all this mage crap to support my family if I can't even be part of it as much as I'd like to, or at least enough to justify all the work that I put into supporting my family? It's a question I still struggle to answer properly, even today, and I think you can tell."

Itsuki wants to say something to reassure her tutor, but she utterly fails to come up with anything to accomplish this, so she helplessly sits with her mouth shut.

"I'm not trying to insinuate that you somehow have a better life than I do, since again, I was the one who said that comparing our lives isn't going to accomplish much. However, I'll admit to being guilty of the same thing that you are, Itsuki - and in my case, it's whether or not it was worth sacrificing the time I could have spent with my family in order to secure a future for them, specifically for Raiha, of course. And I'll freely admit that there've been times when I'm tutoring the five of you, and I see you all having fun and talking and being a family together, and I think to myself, yeah...something like this, I could be doing more with Raiha. It's certainly strange, now that I think about it further, that I've probably spent more time with you and your sisters, be it for studying or any other reason, than I have with my own little sister so far this year."

Itsuki cannot bear sitting motionless anymore listening to Fuutarou talk about this. So in her unbearable urgency to act, Itsuki does the first thing that her brain comes up with - and that is to reach halfway across their two-seater table to place her hands on her tutor's.

The high school mage glances down at his hands for a second before looking back up at his student.

"...and this is?"

"Ah - "

Only when her tutor points this gesture out to her does Itsuki's face promptly explode with embarrassment, as it's prone to doing quite often this evening. But surprisingly, she bears the brunt of it to keep her hands steady over his.

"...I...I know that I...I am in no position to say anything that could comfort you or reassure you about something like this," she stammers, fighting to keep her quivering voice steady, "but...what I can say is...thank you for all the sacrifices that you have made for us. Obviously I...I can't tell you whether the choices you've made in regards to your own family are right or wrong. But on the slight chance that my words might mean something to you, I want you to know that...that we appreciate everything that you've done for us, and everything that you will do for us more than you might realize. And...and I'm not saying this just because of...you know, the...the fact that I...I..."

Her embarrassment peaking right at this moment, Itsuki can't bring herself to finish her sentence. She can't bring herself to pull her hands away either, since that would be even make the atmosphere even more awkward, so she's stuck in a terrible emotional limbo of being unable to finish her thought but still holding hands, kind of, with Fuutarou. Thankfully, he doesn't make a big deal out of it by picking up where Itsuki leaves off.

"Yeah, I get it. And thanks for telling me that, actually - it helps more than you might expect, too." Fuutarou casts his eyes back down onto Itsuki's small, delicate hands that are placed over his on the table. "Hopefully you understand a bit better why I felt so strongly about bringing you and Nino back together during finals week."

Itsuki nods slowly. "...I pray that you can find more time in the future to spend with Raiha-chan, Uesugi-kun. If there is something that I or my sisters can do to help, anything at all..."

Her words slowing, the fifth quintuplet suddenly gets hit by a small epiphany that she decides to capitalize on.

"Oh, I know, I know! What if at some point during a weekend, the three of us can go to an arcade? Raiha-chan told me that she loves going to arcades the last time I was at your house!" Itsuki mentions excitedly. "That way, it will be a great way to spend a weekend with her!"

"Okay, that's great 'n all, but why do you have to be there?" Fuutarou raises an eyebrow back, which catches Itsuki quite off-guard, and she struggles to come up with a response for a moment before answering with,

"B-Because - because otherwise, you will never find the time on your own to do so!" Itsuki reasons quickly, though her verbal stumbling doesn't do much to help her cause. "Just consider it a, um, a protection mission or something, yeah!"

"I appreciate you trying to think about the situation from my perspective, but really, you don't need to push yourself that much."

"Mmmmmuuuu! Come on!" Itsuki pouts the hardest so far tonight at Fuutarou. "I am trying to help here! Or do you not value my assistance at all for things like this?"

Giving a sigh of his own, Fuutarou takes his turn to cast his eyes sideways away from the table. Off at another table not too far away sits a group of casually dressed men, one of whom is a tall bald man with a well-kept but thick beard and mustache gorging himself on some bulgogi and beer while chatting jovially with his company.

"It's not that I don't value it, but it's more that I would rather handle my own family matters on my own. I feel a bit awkward having someone else help me with stuff like that..."

"Oh, so now you know how we feel whenever you do something that impacts us!" Itsuki puts on a smug, victorious look to badger Fuutarou with. "Oh, how the tables turn, Uesugi-kun!"

Fuutarou awkwardly smirks back, with a kind of sheepishness that he seldom shows - which Itsuki now finds oddly somewhat charming, much to her quiet chagrin.

"Yeah, it's like when you crashed at my place. I can't say that I'm used to having people who aren't my family stay over, so..."

"R-Really? You felt that way about me staying at your home back then?" Itsuki starts feeling a little awkward herself. "Um...I-I apologize, I did not know that I made you uncomfortable by doing so..."

"I don't blame you, though, seeing as I never showed it or told you how I felt about it."

"But you should have! It was your home I was staying at, after all. And uninvited, too."

Fuutarou shrugs nonchalantly, brushing the notion off. "And what, force you to sleep outside? Your dad'll kill me if he finds out I did something like that."

"I feel like Father would probably kill you if he ever found out that I stayed a night at your home first."

"Hmph, well, that too."

The two high school students share a short laugh together.

"Forgive me for asking this, as I might come off as insensitive when I ask you this, but I just want to be perfectly clear about this whole situation," Fuutarou says, retrieving the conversation where Itsuki had left off before they went on their usual tangents, "but it sounds to me like you might not be entirely sure if you like me because you look up to me, since you said that I'm basically what you've always wanted to be but for your own family, or because of some other reason. Is that right?"

"Um...sure, yes, let us go with that," Itsuki agrees after a brief deliberation. "As...as embarrassing as it is for me to say this aloud, I...do not think my feelings for you are...are just a spontaneous matter; I do believe that there is substance behind them, and...and I wish to take them seriously, or as seriously as I can for someone with no prior experience in things like dating or...or relationships or things of this nature."

The youngest quintuplet slowly and bashfully gazes up at her tutor across the table, her soft, uncertain blue eyes locking with Fuutarou's dull black ones.

"I hope that...I am not imposing an even bigger burden on you than I already am being your student."

Fuutarou shakes his head, bringing sweet relief to the quintuplet.

"May I ask you another question?"

"Sure, what's up."

"Um...I am just curious...now that I have told you how I feel about this matter, I cannot help but wonder how you must feel about all this. We have all heard you state on multiple occasions that your social skills leave something to be desired, something that I myself feel guilty of too, especially...especially right now, haha. But even so...how do you feel about everything so far? With Miku, Y - "

Itsuki immediately catches herself before she can cross that line.

"...with Miku and I declaring our feelings for you like we have?" she hastily finishes.

"Well, it's...certainly giving me a bit of whiplash, since it hasn't been that long that we've known each other. I still vividly remember the times when you and Nino had a vendetta against me, and fast-forward four months, here I am with a date with you, and Nino's been significantly nicer to me these days as well."

"Naturally, but...I was asking more about...how you..." Again, Itsuki blushes furiously, her eye contact with her tutor faltering strongly as she ducks her gaze down for a fourth time or however many times it's been. "...um..."

"Take your time," the tutor says calmly, so Itsuki does with another deep breath and a drink of water.

"...I would like to know...how you feel about...me," the youngest quintuplet murmurs shyly. "...if...that is alright with you...Uesugi-kun."

"How I feel about you specifically..." Fuutarou begins to rub his chin like an old man. "Hm, for starters, ever since you began cooperating with me and started showing up to lessons on your own, you've been the easiest student to work with. Even though you might've not been able to produce academic results on your own, with all the studying that you have done, you learn new material the fastest out of everyone in the group, even faster than Miku, as a matter of fact, though your retention of what you've learned could still use a bit of improvement. And that was reflected in your midterms, where you scored the highest out of everyone."

Itsuki feels a bit miffed at the fact that Fuutarou is starting with her performance as his student first, but she doesn't have it in her to interrupt him. Besides, this is completely in-character for him to respond with something like this anyway, and normally she herself would actually prefer an analysis like this in any other situation.

"I've also noticed that unlike everyone else, with maybe the exception of Miku from time to time, that you've never once complained about a difficult lesson or learning a tough problem. The other girls might complain and bitch a little bit before they get to work on it, but no matter how tough things got, no matter how long we'd been studying for that day, you'd always jump right on it, and you wouldn't stop until you solved that problem or memorized a formula, at least for that night. While I'm not saying that your sisters don't also have this quality themselves, your work ethic stands out more so than everyone else's, and as someone who, uh, has a roughly similar kind of work ethic, I find myself relating heavily to that, and as a result, I admire it a lot. It's funny that you told me earlier that you look up to me as a sort of...role model, I guess, if that's the right term to use here, because...I do think we have that in common."

This is Itsuki's first time hearing Fuutarou praise anything about her to this degree, and understandably, she is kept in silence as she basks in her own mixture of intermittent embarrassment and happiness.

"You can be pretty hard-headed and uncompromising about certain things sometimes, but now that I've known you for four months, I've gotten used to that part of you, and so now I think it's an essential part of your personality."

"I-I am having some trouble telling if that was meant to be a complement or not..." Itsuki suddenly grumbles, finding Fuutarou's wording a little suspect.

"It was meant to be a complement, but take it however you want, since I genuinely feel that way about you."

The bluntness of Fuutarou's genuine words strike Itsuki's heart true.

"I know you probably wanted to hear something more, uh...intimate, I guess would be the word, but I'm afraid I don't have anything like that to say since I don't really, uh, consider myself a very intimate person," Fuutarou explains curtly, but Itsuki shakes her head.

"That is alright; I much prefer you being straightforward and honest with me. And I am grateful that you can remain that way no matter what the situation."

Right as she's finishing this thought, Itsuki's phone, which she's left on the table since she texted her sisters what she was up to earlier during dinner, vibrates and toots with a brief notification, interrupting the intimacy between the two of them. Quickly blushing at this as well, Itsuki excuses herself to check her phone, thinking that it might be another text from one of her sisters. Out of curiosity, Fuutarou lets his eyes gaze at Itsuki's phone, whose screen has lit up with a text notification of some kind, which he reads upside down quickly before Itsuki can take her phone and look at the notification that she's got.

"...'May'...?" Fuutarou wonders aloud; he makes note of this because it was written in English, and it seemed like the text was addressed to Itsuki, as if "May" were some sort of alias.

"A-Aaaaah! P-Please pay it no mind, it - it - it is a private matter!" Itsuki stammers the hardest she's stammered all evening as she quickly ducks her phone down below their table. However, it is too late, as the name gets Fuutarou's mind working, and it works swiftly.

"Huh...that actually makes sense...I never thought about it that way..." the high school mage nods to himself sagely, as though he's just figured out the killer in a mystery novel.

"W-W-What? What did you f-find out...?" Itsuki asks nervously, beginning to sweat bullets at her tutor's monstrous deductive ability.

"So...I have a small part-time job at a bakery called Revival; I think I told you about it before, or if I haven't, then Nino probably might've. Anyways, I'm good friends with my boss, who's the owner and the main chef there, and we talk about all sorts of random stuff while we're working or when we have no customers to attend to, which is a lot of the time, actually. I remember having this one conversation with him where he talked about how there was this godlike food critic in the city whose critique and ratings were so accurate that she's built a sort of cult following online, with other food critics and people in general in the food critiquing community holding her up in really high regard, so if she gives a restaurant or shop that she's been to good ratings, they're guaranteed to see a spike in business soon after."

Itsuki is definitely sweating bullets now.

"Out of curiosity...you wouldn't happen to be that food critic who calls herself 'MAY' online, would you...?"

Fuutarou watches with growing amusement as Itsuki slowly inches herself lower and lower in her seat in a futile attempt to hide from her tutor's view.

"You're going to slip off your chair if you go any lower," he warns her with a short chuckle, and Itsuki heeds his words to sit back up, sighing all the while.

"Uuuu...another great embarrassment today, it would seem..." she relents helplessly. "Yes, your deduction is correct as always - I am in fact the online food critic who calls herself 'MAY'. Please do not make fun of me for making that my username on the forums..."

"I'm more surprised by the fact that you even know what forums are, let alone the fact that you have a following online, even if it's more or less an anonymous one."

"Miku was the one who suggested the idea to me," Itsuki explains. "Since, well, you know, I have such an affinity for food, I remember one night during middle school after a particularly good dinner that Nino made for us, Miku suggested to me that I should try giving food reviews online and went ahead and made me an account on some food critique forums and food review sites. I did not mean for it to become a thing, but it just kind of did on its own...just please do not tell anyone else about it, I think I would actually die of embarrassment if anyone from school found out..."

"Naturally. On that note, though, there is a favor that I'd like to ask, if you don't mind."

"Favor?"

"Yeah. I've been helping my boss at Revival with a lot more things than just making cakes and whatnot; I've also been taking care of the place's advertising to try to bring in more customers, but there's only so much I can do, especially with the kind of schedule that I have. But I was thinking that you could bring some traffic into the store for us by leaving a good review in for us. For the record, I'm asking you this favor more on my boss's behalf, since he'd always dreamed of opening his own bakery one day and now he was finally able to earlier this year; it's just that we're unfortunately having a bit of a slow start, so we could use a bit more exposure."

"I-I see..."

"So if you'd like, we can stop by there later this week, either on a weekday or weekend, whatever you prefer. If you can give me an exact date, that's even better since I can let my boss know and he can prepare some samples for you ahead of time for you to try."

"Are...the samples free...?"

Fuutarou nods. "I'll make sure that everything you have will be on the house. Just don't eat everything - and stop drooling, we literally just ate dinner."

Itsuki swiftly wipes the corner of her mouth. "W-What else did you expect when you mention something like dessert to me!"

"Goddamn it, Itsuki."

"It is not MY fault, Uesugi-kun!"

"Suuuuureee it isn't, Miss Bottomless Stomach..."

"UESUGI-KUN...!"

Chuckling dryly, Fuutarou pays for the dinner bill despite Itsuki's offer to pay it instead, and once the payment is processed, the two high schoolers get up from their seats to prepare to leave. Fuutarou turns to take another look at the table a short distance away, and the bald man with the equally bottomless appetite is still there, sharing yet another round of beer on draft with the other men who appear to be his colleagues.

As Fuutarou and Itsuki exit BCD to head back to the quintuplets' high-rise, Itsuki looks up at her tutor with a shy but warm smile.

"I...I really enjoyed today. I know it was something last-minute that Yotsuba came up with, but..."

"Yeah, don't worry about it. If anything, make sure you thank her properly."

"I will. And...since you insisted, I am willing to go to Revival with you to help your boss out."

"Sweet. Again, just give me a date that works with you and we can go from there..."

As they begin to walk back home, Itsuki, continuing her trend tonight of doing things that she would otherwise not due to the amount of embarrassment she would subsequently suffer, boldly but slowly holds her classmate's left hand. She doesn't hold it properly, though; she merely presses Fuutarou's palm and and the back of his hand lightly with her thumb and index fingers. Fuutarou merely looks down at his hand that Itsuki is gingerly holding and gives her a quick grin but otherwise lets her do as she pleases.