Nino angrily scrubbed the latest plate clean and practically tossed it into the sink to rinse off. Her glare returned to the next in the group of dishes from the shop's first group of customers that afternoon. She hastily grabbed the next one and viciously expunged its food debris before tossing it too into the sink to her right, letting it sink down to the bottom of the water.

"Nakano! More customers!" the owner called from outside. That meant she'd have to drop all the backroom tasks until they were served, which of course was time she couldn't spend working through the backlog. If there were even more customers afterwards, they'd generate even more dishes to do and leave her completely overwhelmed. Rushes like that had happened quite a few times in the month or so she'd had this job, but they'd always been manageable due to one specific detail who was now conspicuously absent.

Nino felt like she'd been made a fool of. Anger, betrayal; these were becoming the norm for associating with Fuutarou. Right as she'd worked up the courage to confess, he'd up and quit his job at the cake shop for a better paying one somewhere else, and hadn't even told her about it. She at least wanted an apology for abandoning her, essentially doubling her workload. More than doubling, actually; he had been working very efficiently.

What stung the most, though, was that Nino had started to actually enjoy her shifts with him. Beyond her eventual goal of confessing and winning him over, to be accurate. Despite his complete lack of tact he'd actually started to feel like a friend, rather than the prize of whatever insane war of love Nino, Miku, and Ichika were waging.

She dried her hands on her apron and reentered the front of the store, counting three more people paying at the cash register. The owner called their orders to her, and Nino ducked below the counter to fetch the three pastries. Realizing she forgot new plates, she scowled and withdrew her head too quickly, bumping it on the top of the counter.

Stifling her cry of pain, she hurried back into the back room to get the plates and fix her facial expression. Customer service face regained and plates in hand, she brought the customers their pastries and returned to the sink to finish her dishes.

"You okay, Nakano?" the owner asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, of course!" she replied as cheerfully as she could manage. It was a lie. She was not cheerful at all.

She scrubbed the next dish with a strained smile on her face, the hot water doing nothing to calm her nerves. Tension reaching a critical point, she tossed the plate to the rinsing sink, overshooting and cringing as she heard it chip on the sharp metal edge.

Deep breaths, she told herself, calmly turning off the faucet and putting down her sponge. She closed her eyes, fists balled at her sides, and breathed in.

What escaped her lips could only be described as an anguished sigh. She couldn't take any more of this, it was the absolute worst!

"Why don't you take a break," the owner suggested. "I'll handle the next few groups of customers."

Nino turned and nodded, fixing her face and sparing him at least the brunt of her emotions.

"Thanks. I'm sorry, I'm just having a bad day," Nino said.

"Don't worry about it. We were too spoiled with Uesugi. Guess I should have paid him more," he joked. Nino agreed, and thought that while he was on that topic there were actually a couple other people he should probably pay more as well.

The owner waved her off to do whatever in the backroom for a few minutes while he handled the last of the rush. Nino closed her eyes and tried the deep breaths again. After a few, she sat down on the stool by the cake decorating table and took out her phone, idling scrolling through her social media feed to cool her head.

Her shift wasn't that long. She could definitely make it through, she reassured herself. Then tonight they'd have the study session and she could drill into Fuutarou how much of a dick move that was, abandoning her without even so much as a text.

She just wished she had someone to vent about it with! Before Fuutarou had shown up, she always could have relied on Ichika or Miku to talk about love stuff; the former to advise and the latter just to listen. But now, they were all embroiled in this dumb conflict over that stupid Fuutarou! She had started to accept him, but hated what he'd done to her family dynamic. She just wanted her sisters back!

Though, it wasn't really his fault three of them had fallen for him. Ugh, she wasn't even allowed to blame him! So annoying.

Maybe if one of them actually worked up the nerve to confess, and Fuutarou didn't misinterpret it or screw up in some other bizarre way, this would all end and the losers would eventually get over it. Nino wasn't even sure she wanted it to be her anymore; the guy just got on her nerves too much.

Sighing, she locked and pocketed her phone, getting back up to approach the sink. She may as well do a few more dishes while the store was mostly empty. She turned the temperature down, letting the cool water flow over her hands.

Perhaps it would be best if she withdrew from the competition for Fuutarou's affections. Sure, he was nice and all, but he would be much better suited for Miku, or Ichika. Nino had butted heads with him since the beginning, and now she was suffering no illusions that would stop if they magically started dating or whatever. Nino wasn't even convinced at this point that Fuutarou was into girls; she was sure she should have seen him checking out her or one of her equally beautiful sisters before, but he was always 100% focused on studying and didn't have time for anything else. If her sisters wanted to win that guy over, Nino wished them the best of luck.

The next few hours were relatively light, never more than three groups of customers in the store. Nino spent most of that time in the back room decorating the custom cake orders that had come in earlier. None of them were too intricate, and Nino determined she did a pretty good job on them, especially considering it was her fifth week on the job. Maybe this was a viable career path? She certainly wouldn't need good grades in math or history in order to decorate cakes; but then again she was learning from budgeting their tiny apartment right now that these kinds of wages couldn't get her all the nice clothes and other stuff she'd grown used to.

The doorbell jingled again, and she heard the owner greet the new customer. After a brief exchange, though, he called into the backroom for her.

"Nakano! Your sister's here."

Nino wondered who it was. Honestly she would have been fine with any of them, but she was relieved to see Miku standing by the cash register, wearing a coat over her bakery uniform. The middle sister greeted her with her signature shy smile, and approached her.

"Hey," said Miku.

"You get out of your shift already?" Nino asked.

"Yeah. It ends at 4:30."

"Lucky, I'm here until five," Nino said. She gestured down to the glass display case she was leaning on. "Did you want anything?"

Miku pressed her palm against the glass as she gazed intently into the case. After a few moments of silent contemplation, she pointed at a set of cupcakes.

"Could you teach me how to make these?" she asked.

"Yeah, of course! Cupcakes aren't too hard, and it should be easy for you to practice, 'cause you can make a ton of them at once. Well, we'd need a pan for it though," Nino said. A realization occurred to her. "Are these for our dear tutor's birthday?"

Miku nodded. "He told me he's never had a birthday party."

Nino attempted to mask her disappointment at finding out that this was about Fuutarou, and tried to look on the bright side. At least this would be an opportunity to hang out with her sister without being in conflict, like they had been so often recently.

Miku smiled a radiant smile. The innocent but confident way in which she handled her crush was pretty cute, Nino had to admit. She wasn't dishonest or scheming, and wasn't hung up on making some huge perfect confession. She believed love was a series of small consistent gestures.

"I wanted to throw one for him."

That would make sense. Nino had always afforded Fuutarou a bit of pity for his economic situation, and herself a bit of guilt because of the pity. He never complained about it, and right now was even teaching them for free. She could see why Miku would want to do it for him, even disregarding her crush. If Nino weren't so mad at him right now, she'd probably agree.

Miku looked around and tried to peer into the back room. "Is he here?"

Nino harrumphed. "He actually quit today. He found a better job somewhere else," she declared.

"Yeah, sorry to disappoint you two," chimed in the owner from over at the cash register. Nino glared at him, then turned her attention back to her sister. Miku was probably happy Fuutarou wasn't spending all that time working with her rival anymore, she thought. The idea her sister might be relieved about it didn't exactly sit well with her, but she stifled the seed of anger and tried to be nice.

"Oh…" Miku said, her smile fading into a pensive expression. Nino quickly realized she also might be taking this hard, given she'd taken the job across the street to get closer to him. She didn't actually look upset though. Typical Miku, always the optimist and ever so patient.

Just as Nino was about to change the subject, her sister spoke up again. "Sorry. It must have been nice. Working with him, I mean," she said. Part of Nino thought she was being condescended to, but she quickly reasserted herself; that kind of line just wasn't Miku's style.

"…Thanks. Yeah, it was fun," she admitted.

Miku gave her a smile, then returned to gazing into the display case. Nino was surprised at how nice Miku had been about the whole Fuutarou affair; in huge contrast to her other rival in Ichika. She'd never openly been angry with either of them for going after the boy that she had liked first. It reminded Nino of when they were little; Miku was always the first to share her things.

"Are you going to go after him? You might get a second chance to work with him," Nino said.

Miku shook her head. "No, I'm fine with the bakery. I'm learning how to make bread."

It hadn't escaped anyone except Fuutarou's notice how devoted Miku had been to her new hobby ever since that time he'd mentioned it was one of the things he looked for in girls. Nino hadn't put a ton of stock in it, he had been messing with them by describing his sister. Nino supposed she didn't have much to worry about though because she was already really good at it.

"Well, that's nice. At least the two of us are still together. Kind of," Nino said.

Miku smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Can I get one of the cupcakes?"

"Sure!" Nino said, reaching down into the case and grabbing it with a square of wax paper. Miku made a happy sigh as she took it in her hands and brought it to her face to examine. She brought it down to the cash register to pay for, and Nino noticed the owner had given her sister the employee discount. Lucky her; the stuff here was ludicrously expensive.

Miku took the cupcake to a seat and began the delicate process of consuming it. She was even patient when eating things, somehow managing to finish the top of the confection without getting any of the frosting on her face. It was honestly impressive.

"You can go home after you restock the front, Nakano," the owner told her on his way back to the staff room. "Only today though. Don't start planning on leaving thirty minutes early."

"Will do. Thanks," Nino said, making her way to the fridge. Going home early was a welcome surprise. She could get a head start on dinner and the rest of the chores, and maybe she could get to bed earlier. Or stay up a bit longer on her phone. One of those was a lot more likely than the other.

She brought out a new cupcake to replace the one Miku had bought, as well as a few others that had been missing from the display. Her sister still hadn't finished the cupcake, though the teal blue frosting was all gone leaving only the boring, cake part.

Returning to the back room, she hung up her apron and traded it for her purse. She waved goodbye to the owner and went back out to the lobby, joining her sister just as she finished the last bites of the cupcake.

"How was it?" Nino asked.

"It was really good," Miku replied. "Did you make it?"

"Yep! Why, could you tell?" Nino said with a smug expression that went largely unnoticed.

They got up from the table. Miku crumpled the paper the treat had been wrapped in and disposed of it properly in the trash can by the exit.

"Not really. I was just hoping it was yours, I guess."

"Aww, thanks, sis. Oh shoot, we need that pan if you're gonna make these for our dear tutor's birthday!" Nino said, abruptly turning around. "I'll go get it."

A moment later, she'd returned from the back room with not only the pan but a container of the proprietary top-secret frosting they used here. If Miku was going to make these for a party, then Nino would probably be eating one too, and so she didn't want to settle for the garbage they sold at the grocery store. The owner hadn't batted an eye at her pilfering supplies, evidently confident she'd return them.

"Thanks a bunch," Miku said upon her return. She outstretched her arms, offering to carry it for her. Nino obliged, and in turn held open the door for her sister.

"See you around, Nakanos!" the owner called. Nino gave him a polite wave as they left and headed home.

It wasn't too far a walk back to their house. The neighborhood around here was completely different than their old apartment near the center of the city. It was actually starting to grow on her; it had a certain charm about it that was absent from their previous enormous skyscraper.

"I'm glad we don't have to take the bus home from work anymore," said Miku.

"I'm with you there. I hate public transportation," Nino quipped.

"Yeah…" she replied. "Is the budget going to be okay?"

"Oh yeah, we'll be fine," Nino said. "Though, there isn't a whole lot of room for luxury, and we still can't really pay Fuutarou…"

"We'll pay him back eventually. After we graduate," Miku said confidently.

Nino nodded. "For sure. I honestly have no idea why he's so devoted to helping us, even though he's not getting paid right now."

"That's just the kind of guy he is," said Miku with a smile. "He's too stubborn to give up on anybody."

"Yeah."

They walked in silence for a while, and turned the corner toward their neighborhood.

"You like that about him?"

"What?"

"How stubborn he is."

Miku paused. "Maybe it's not because he's stubborn. Maybe it's because he makes me feel important."

Nino was always surprised by how honest Miku was about her feelings. She'd never known her sister to lie, even for the sake of convenience. It seemed to signal just how confident the girl was.

It almost made Nino jealous.

"What about you? What do you like about him?" Miku asked, immediately derailing Nino's train of thought.

"I don't! He's an unaware jerk! Sure, he may be a good tutor, but he's also so rude about it."

At the back of her mind, Nino expected Miku to be relieved, or even smug, but once again Miku's generous heart proved to be above such petty emotions.

"I guess he can be rude sometimes. Though, I don't think he would have been able to get all five of us to study otherwise. When he's being forceful, it's because there's something someone is missing. Something important that they shouldn't live without," Miku said.

Their home had come into view now, up on the second floor of the much more modest apartment complex. Nino thought on Miku's words as they walked, but didn't have anything else to say.

She couldn't really deny it. Fuutarou had invested so much of his time into their academic success: constant tutoring sessions, reviewing practice quizzes, helping them with homework. Whenever some problem appeared that would have an impact on that, he devoted himself fully to solving it. Nino could definitely understand the appeal.

What she couldn't understand was how stupid he was about girls. He had never once acted in a way that gave Nino even an inkling of hope that he had any understanding of romance whatsoever. Miku was completely doomed- Nino had even watched the girl straight up confess to him and he still hadn't gotten it!

"You're gonna have a bit of trouble getting through that thick skull of his," Nino said.

"He'll understand eventually," Miku said, looking to her sister. "The cupcakes should help."

Nino nodded. "Then they'd better be really good."

This is a fic I wrote. I have a lot of chapters saved up so updates will be pretty regular for a long time. I love reading really slow-building romance fanfictions and wanted to write my own, and picked this pairing on a dumb whim since they didn't have anything yet. Every ship deserves a long fanfic with pining and angst and a happy ending!