Chapter 16
Luckily I knew what sort of ridiculous plan would work. I placed my hand on Yotsuba's shoulder and smiled. "Yotsuba, if you ran at full speed, how long would it take you to reach the school?"
She looked at me confused, "Ummm 10 minutes, I guess? Wait, you're not saying that I should run to school now and leave you all behind? No way!"
"It's for the sake of the plan, Yotsuba. If you don't show up on time, then none of us will take the exam. Just trust me on this, okay?"
Yotsuba looked back and forth between me and her sisters, and she nodded. "Alright, Uesugi-san. So all I have to do is make it before the gates close, right?"
I nodded, "Yeah. And make sure to stay in your classroom once you get past the gate. If the teachers see you anywhere near the gate the plan fails, now go! We'll see you at lunch."
And with that, Yotsuba nodded and ran out of the suite. Yotsuba's physical ability was top notch, as I looked out the window, I could see her zooming past everything, eventually becoming a small dot in the distance.
"Now that we've got the first part of the plan rolling, let's move on to the next. All of you have a copy of Yotsuba's ribbon, don't you? Bring those with you and meet me at the door as soon as you can."
The remaining quints looked at each other, confused, but went into their respective rooms to get their ribbons. Once everyone was at the door, I explained the plan as best as I could as we all rushed towards the school. We couldn't go that far though as Miku's stamina caused her to lag behind everyone else.
"Miku come on! We won't be able to make it if you keep stopping!" Shouted Nino as she impatiently looked at the clock on her phone.
"You all go on ahead then, just remember what I told you guys to do. I'll stay with Miku and catch up with the rest of you. Good luck on your exams!"
Ichika, Nino, and Itsuki gave us a worried look, but after a few moments of hesitation started running towards the school. Miku watched them run and shook her head, frustrated. She was already breathing heavily and showed no signs of letting up.
I stopped in front of her and turned around. "Hop on. I'll carry you to school, it's not that far away now."
"Huh? N-n-no! I couldn't burden you that much, Fuutarou! Just go on without me… it's not like I'll pass anyway."
I sighed and turned around. "You'll never know till you try, Miku. With all the effort you've been putting into studying the last few days, I'm sure you'll do decently. And we're pressed for time now, so…" without a moment's hesitation, I picked Miku up into a bridal carry and ran towards the school.
Miku let out a slight yelp as I carried her. "F-f-fuutarou?! This is embarrassing! Stop!"
"I'm sorry but this was the most effective way to get the both of us by the gate in time!" I say as I tried to weave through the people on the street, careful to not let Miku fall off, and eventually we made it to the school.
We approached the gate and saw that a teacher was just about to close it. I gave Miku a determined look, "Miku put on your ribbon, and don't worry, just follow my lead, alright?"
Miku nodded and put on her ribbon. We slowly walked up towards the teacher and gave us a mean look. "You're late! You better have a valid excuse, otherwise I won't let you in!"
"Sir we aren't late, actually. We were just given an errand by our homeroom teacher, but Yotsuba here tripped and sprained her ankle, so we need to bring her back to the infirmary."
Miku held her ankle and looked like she was in pain. "Sorry for leaving all the time, sir. But you know me… always wanting to help out a person in need!"
The teacher looked skeptical at first but saw Miku's ribbon. "Oh yes… I did see you come and go a few times this morning. Alright, you two get inside, but make it quick. Bring the girl to the infirmary, then head on to class, you're going to be late for your exams!"
Once we were inside and away from the gate, I let Miku down and smiled. "Mission successful, but now we're onto the next one. See you after lunch!" I say as we each ran to our respective classrooms.
I made it to my classroom just in time. Itsuki nearly jumped out of her seat in excitement as she saw me enter, seeing as how our plan worked her excitement was understandable.
After I sat down, I was given my exam paper. I skimmed through the pages and saw that everything I taught the quints the past few weeks was included in the exam. I was sure that we would succeed in the "pass at least one subject" mission I gave them, so I didn't bother to feel worried about them.
The exam went by pretty quickly, or, well, at least on my end. By the time I finished my exam I saw that everyone else was still struggling with the first few pages, Itsuki especially looked like she was having a tough time. She looked around and saw me looking at her, I gave her a quick thumbs up, and it seemed to help her calm down. The rest of the examination period flew by pretty quickly, and lunch time came around.
The quints and I met up at our usual table in the cafeteria. The looks on their faces showed that they barely survived the exams.
"Fuutarou-kun! Why do exams have to be so hard?" groaned Ichika as she sulked in her chair.
"Yeah! Those questions on the Math exam were torture!" Nino said as she angrily sat down. "I mean, why do we even need to know the Pythadragon Theorem anyway? It's not like I'll use it in the future!"
I sighed and smiled, "It's called the Pythagorean Theorem, not Pythadragon, and you'll never know when you'll need it, Nino. And I assume you didn't have much of a hard time with your English exam earlier?"
Nino stared at me, surprised at how I knew. "Yeah… English wasn't too hard for me. How did you know about that?"
"I've been tutoring you all for a while now, I saw how each of you do better in one subject. The funny thing is that in true quintuplet fashion, you all do better at different subjects. Ichika's better at math, Nino in English, Miku in social studies, Yotsuba in Japanese, and Itsuki in science."
"That's amazing, Uesugi-san! I didn't even know about this!" exclaimed Yotsuba, who seemed excited after discovering she had an affinity towards studying Japanese. "Anyways, Uesugi-san, there have been rumors around that you were carrying me around like a bride earlier, do you happen to know why this rumor started?"
Miku and I jolted at the mention of what happened earlier. "Oh that! Yeah… um Miku was lagging behind, so we arrived at the gate later than everyone else… As a last minute effort we decided to fake an injury. That's all there is to it." I had decided to leave out the part that I had carried Miku all the way to the gate since splitting off with Itsuki and the others, this would have made Miku feel uncomfortable after all.
Yotsuba seemed to have believed what I said, and lunch went by pretty quickly. We all just went over the parts the girls had difficulties in, and a little scolding here and there for messing up on easy questions, then the bell rang which meant we needed to head back to our respective rooms.
Itsuki and I walked to our classroom. She seemed a bit more confident in herself since science was going to be our next exam. She looked at me and smiled, "I forgot to say this to you, Uesugi-kun, but thank you for giving me a thumbs up earlier… I was panicking because I forgot one of the formulas you taught us, but that small gesture of yours helped me calm down and remember what it was!"
I shrugged my shoulders, "No problem, Itsuki. But still though, you looked like you were about to cry earlier." I teased
Her cheeks immediately reddened, and she gave me a pout. "You had no idea how stressful it was, Uesugi-kun! One wrong move and we might have lost you as a tutor, and I didn't want that to happen…"
Itsuki really cherished me being her tutor… and I've gotta say this was completely different to how our relationship started in my previous life. Before we sat down on our chairs, I patted her head softly, "Don't worry about it, Itsuki. I'm not going anywhere, and besides I have complete faith in you girls, you're all going to pass… well, at least in one subject that is."
And with that, the remaining exams of the day carried on, I went through the exam in record time and was confident I 'd get straight 100s on all exams. While everyone else continued to have a difficult time, although based on what I could see, Itsuki was doing quite a decent job.
A few days later, we all gathered in the library. Each of us were given slips of paper containing our test scores, and this was going to be the first academic milestone the quints were going to accomplish. "I'm not going to lie, but this is really making me nervous." I said as we all sat down.
"You're guaranteed 100s though, Uesugi, although it would be funny if our grade levels smartest student failed a subject or two!" teased Nino.
I smirked and flashed my paper towards them. The grades on my paper spoke for themselves:
Uesugi Fuutarou
Japanese – 100; Math – 100; Science – 100; Social Studies – 100; English – 100
"Now it's time for the moment of truth. All of you, show your grades please!" I said with a shaky voice, hoping that the worst case scenario wouldn't happen, but luckily enough, it didn't! The girls scores were even better than what they had in my previous life.
Nakano Ichika:
Japanese – 23; Math – 44; Science – 31; Social Studies – 20; English – 33
Nakano Nino:
Japanese – 24; Math – 24; Science – 33; Social Studies – 19; English – 48
Nakano Miku:
Japanese – 30; Math – 34; Science – 29; Social Studies – 73; English – 18
Nakano Yotsuba:
Japanese – 36; Math – 14; Science – 23; Social Studies – 27; English – 21
Nakano Itsuki:
Japanese – 32; Math – 27; Science – 61; Social Studies – 25; English – 28
I looked at their grades and pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. "You girls did so much better than I expected… I've got to say that I'm proud of you all, but this is far from your best! I'll make sure you all will pass each of your final exams this semester.
Each of the quints hugged each other. This was the first time they did a decent job in an exam, and clearly all their work paid off. Just as everybody finished celebrating, Itsuki's phone started to ring.
"Hmm? Why would father be calling at this hour?" Asked Itsuki
"He probably wants to find out how well we did on the exams" said Miku as she smiled at her paper.
I should probably answer it for you then, would that be alright?" I asked as I reached for Itsuki's phone, which she excitedly handed over to me. I tapped on the green button and answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Ah, Uesugi-kun, that saves me the trouble of asking for you. I assume you know why I called?"
"I can only guess that you wanted to know how your daughters did on the exams? If you are, then be glad, they passed all the subjects." The girls looked at me in surprise, they knew that they failed a few subjects and Nino was about to say something when I gestured for her to be quiet.
Although very faint, I heard a small sigh of relief come from Maruo. "I see. Well, I look forward to them getting better grades." And without much of a warning he had already hung up the phone.
Nino pinched my cheek as hard as she could. "You dimwit! How could you blatantly lie to Papa like that? If he finds out that we failed, then all of us are in trouble!"
"O-Ow! Technically I didn't lie. I worded it that way because the five of you as a group really did pass all the subjects, just think of it as clever wordplay or something." I said as I caressed my probably swollen cheek.
"You know… Fuutarou-kun does have a point though. And besides, I'm sure dad won't really check our scores anyway, he's too busy to check them." Said Ichika as she laid her head down on the table.
"Ichika's got a point, and with our school trip coming soon I'm sure you guys wouldn't want to miss out on it."
All the girls' eyes lit up at the mention of a school trip.
"Did I not mention that there was going to be a school trip in a few weeks?" I asked as I could already imagine the chaos that will ensue…
Author's Note:
Hey there! It's certainly been a while since I last updated this fanfic. Unfortunately, IRL stuff caught up to me so I didn't have much time to write. But after seeing reviews asking for a continuation I decided that I would spend a few minutes every weekend to write, and after roughly 2 months I finally finished the next chapter! Hopefully, it'll take me less time to complete the next chapter lmao