"A towel, my toothbrush, my notebooks, fresh clothes, and my pajamas. I don't think that I will need anything else, so I should be good to go." Fuutarou mumbles, gathering all the stuff he needed for today's sleepover at the Nakanos' place. It was his first sleepover in years but knowing that it was meant for studying and not for staying up all night doing whatever it was people did at sleepovers, he was in good spirits. He puts all the things he's gathered into a backpack and then walks into the kitchen.

"Onii-chan, don't you wanna eat something? I don't want you to arrive at Itsuki's place with a rumbling stomach!" Raiha asks, standing in front of the Stove and preparing dinner. "I'm currently cooking miso soup."

"Thank you Raiha, but I will be eating with Itsuki and her sisters. She told me that Nino would make dinner for all of us once I get there." Fuutarou explains while walking towards the entrance door. 'Although it's quite surprising that Nino agreed to cook dinner for me as well…I hope she won't drug me or anything. That would suck.' He could only wonder how Itsuki and the others convinced her to cook for him.

"Fine, but make sure you eat enough! Okay, Onii-chan?"

"Yes, of course. After all, I can't possibly teach them without eating something beforehand. Won't have the energy otherwise. Anyways, don't worry about me, I will be fine." Fuutarou slips on his shoes as he arrives at the door and was about to exit through it until he heard his father, who had been sitting at the dinner table, laugh.

"I still can't believe that you are going to a sleepover with five beautiful girls. You remind me of myself when I was young." He cracks open a can of beer and takes a couple sips before he turns to his son with a big smile on his face. "In my high school days, I was surrounded by girls who wanted to go on dates with me. I was so popular, in fact, that-"

Fuutarou tuned his father's ramblings out, choosing to turn to his little sister and give her a head pat whilst opening the entrance door. "Alright, Raiha, I'm heading out now. See you tomorrow!"

Raiha grins at his brother and waves to him happily. "Have lots of fun, Onii-chan. See you tomorrow!"

"Hey, don't you want to listen to-" Isanari couldn't even finish his sentence before Fuutarou slipped out and closed the door behind himself. "A rebel, just like his old man." Raiha sighs at their antics, returning to her cooking after one last glance at the door.

Arriving and entering the suite of the five sisters, he notices the only sister in the living room, Ichika, who was sitting on the couch and watching TV. She turned to Fuutarou as he closed the entrance door behind him. She grins and waves at him.

"Ya-ho∼." She was only wearing a large sweatshirt, thankfully big enough to go all the way down to the top of her legs. Still, he averted his eyes before he could be called a pervert.

"Hey there. Say, where are the others?" Fuutarou asks while looking around to find the sisters in question.

"What, don't you wanna spend some time with your Onee-san? Come on, sit down." Ichika avoids the question, answering with one of her own while patting the seat next to her. He narrowed his eyes, slightly suspicious. What was going on with her? Did she want something from him? Fuutarou walks towards the couch and lays down his backpack right next to it when he suddenly hears another voice.

"Itsuki, can you set the table with five bowls and chopsticks for everyone? The Donburi is almost ready!" Nino calls out while continuing to cook.

"Alright, I will set the table with six bowls and chopsticks for everyone," Itsuki replies as she takes the dishes out of a cupboard in the kitchen. She turns around just in time to see Fuutarou walking towards Ichika. "Uesugi-kun, you're already here?"

Fuutarou looks to the kitchen, noticing Itsuki and Nino. They were both wearing long skirts. Nino's was white, started at her waist, and ended only a few inches above her knees. On the other hand, Itsuki's skirt was grey, also started at the waist, and covered most of her legs. Additionally, Itsuki wore a red sweatshirt with white and grey stripes on it while Nino wore a crimson top.

"Yeah, I didn't want you to wait for me so I came a little bit earlier than the time we agreed on," Fuutarou explains before Ichika gently grabs his hand, taking advantage of his surprise to pull him onto the couch with her. "Ichika, what are you doing?"

"Nothing∼" Ichika grins at her little sister who instantly blushed, remembering what Ichika had told her just a few days ago. So this is what she meant by "spending some alone time with him".

While Itsuki sets up the table with the bowls and cutlery, fast steps can be heard coming from the stairs. He turns, noticing that it was Yotsuba, who was currently running down the stairs enthusiastically. He wondered briefly how she managed to make running down the stairs look enthusiastic, before focusing on the girl bouncing up and down in front of him. "Uesugi-san! It's good to see you again!" Yotsuba happily exclaims, smiling at him before moving to sit at the dining table.

She was wearing a white pullover with the number 428 written on it in red, accompanied by black trousers.

"It's good to see you too, Yotsuba…" Fuutarou mumbles as he tries to pretend Ichika isn't slowly inching closer to him. What was she trying to accomplish? What did she want to do with him? He had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate the answers to his questions.

"I hope we will have lots of fun together during this sleepover. How about we play some board games after dinner?"

Fuutarou sighs quietly. "Yotsuba, you do know that the whole reason we are doing this in the first place is that we can study for the upcoming midterm exams right? We are not here to play board games!"

While Yotsuba protests despite Fuutarou's explanation of why they wouldn't be playing games, Nino walked out of the kitchen with dinner. She puts some of the Donburi in every single one of the bowls and then piles the rest of the food on top of Itsuki's serving, much to his private amusement.

"Dinner's ready!"

Itsuki and Nino sit down at the opposite side of the glass table while Ichika and Fuutarou were still sitting on the couch. Ichika and Fuutarou quickly stood up from the couch to sit down at the table as well. Now only one of the sisters was missing from the group.

"Miku always takes way too long in the bath. At this rate, dinner will be cold before she gets to eat it." Nino sighs whilst taking her chopsticks, beginning to dig in despite the missing member.

"Shouldn't we wait for her? I am sure she is almost ready !" Yotsuba asks while looking at the door of the bathroom. "Eating together with everyone is much more fun, don't you think?"

Right on cue, the door leading to the bathroom opens and Miku walks out. She wore a top with a chessboard pattern of many different shades of purple. Just like Ichika's sweatshirt, it also covered the top part of her legs. Out of all the five sisters, she was the only one who was currently wearing tights.

"Ah, finally. We waited just for you."

"You didn't have to wait for me, you could have started eating without me." Miku takes the last remaining seat and grabs her chopsticks. "Itadakimasu."

The rest of the group quickly joins in and begins eating as well. Fuutarou hesitated for a few seconds but then proceeds to eat his Donburi too. He was almost one hundred percent sure that Nino had poisoned his bowl, but after eating some of it, he was quite surprised at how good it tasted.

"Nino, this is delicious!" He happily exclaims with his mouth still full of food.

"Didn't your parents tell you not to speak when your mouth is full?" Nino grumbles halfheartedly. "And of course it's delicious! I was the one who made it!"

Ichika chuckles and takes out a handkerchief while turning to Fuutarou. "Fuutarou-kun, you should stop eating that fast. You have rice stuck to your face now." With the handkerchief, she cleans the rice grains from his face and then picks up some of her Donburi with her chopsticks. "Come on, I will help you with it. Say ahh." She leans closer to him and extends her chopsticks so that the food was situated right in front of his mouth.

Somehow, this situation reminded him of when he and Itsuki first met in the cafeteria. Just like her big sister was doing right now, Itsuki had taken some of her food and fed it to him. He waited for a short moment, hoping that she would just leave him alone, but then relents and opens his mouth, reluctantly eating the Donburi Ichika was holding in front of him.

"See? It's as easy as that!" Ichika chuckles and withdraws her utensils. She turns to her sisters, who all had a different reaction to what she had just done. While Nino seemed annoyed by it, Yotsuba appeared to not care about what had just occurred. Miku turned away nervously, her cheeks flushed and Itsuki was pouting, looking…jealous?

"You don't have to feed me like that, Ichika. I can eat on my own." Fuutarou grumbles after swallowing the food he had been fed earlier. Ichika could only giggle after hearing this, leering at him. "Oh, don't you want me to feed you some more∼? Didn't you like it∼?"

Fuutarou edges away from her smug smirk while his cheeks began to take on a bright pink color. "Well…I…um.."

Suddenly, Nino interrupts the two of them by clearing her throat. Loudly. "Ichika, it's hard enough to sit here and watch this idiot eat the stuff I've made. So would you kindly stop doing that?"

Ichika starts laughing and then turns to her fuming sister. "Alright, I will stop feeding Fuutarou-kun since you asked so nicely."

And just like that, the dinner went on normally. When everyone was finished eating, Nino and Itsuki grab all the bowls and bring them into the kitchen where they were put into the dishwasher.

"Now that the dinner is over, how about we start with today's lesson?" Fuutarou asks while taking out his notebooks and a pen. Looking up, he realizes that the only girls who were listening to him were Ichika and Miku, though he doubted that Miku would join them anytime soon, even with their whole heart-to-heart.

Nino and Itsuki were busy cleaning up in the kitchen while Yotsuba had jumped up and was currently walking to the big cupboard under the stairs, ignoring whatever he had said. "I will look for a board game we can play!"

"Didn't I already tell you that we aren't here to have fun? We are here to study for the midterm exams!" Fuutarou sighs, slightly disappointed but more exasperated than anything else. This was going to be a lot harder than he expected.

"We have enough time to study so how about we take a break and have some fun for once∼? That doesn't sound like a bad idea." Ichika suggests and then turns to her younger sister, who was running across the room, carrying a lot of games. He looked at the precarious pile suspiciously, wondering if it was about to fall over.

"Alright, how about Monopoly?"

"No…"

"Then how about Risk?"

"No."

"Ok but what about The Game of Life?"

"No! We can play as many board games as you want once the exams are over but for now, we should be focusing on our studies!" Fuutarou exclaims, annoyed, and crosses his arms.

Itsuki sighs and walks into the living room. "I agree that we should start studying soon, Uesugi-kun, but I think that none of us are really in the mood to do so right now. So how about we make a deal? We play one game and then study for the rest of the evening?" Itsuki suggests and then takes one of the games Yotsuba brought, examining it. "How about Cluedo?"

Fuutarou sighs and looks at the box to see how long an average game would last. About 45 minutes? It was 6pm right now, so after this one game, it would be around 6:45pm. After that, they could easily study for about 2-3 hours, or even more depending on whether they were prepared to sacrifice some sleep. "Alright, we can play one game. But after that, we instantly start studying, okay? No exceptions."

"Yippie!" Yotsuba happily exclaims while opening the box to set up the game. The other girls, except Nino, gather around the table again. She instead sits down on the couch and grabbed her phone, presumably to chat with some of her friends.

"My theory is that Professor Plum killed him with a wrench in the kitchen!" Yotsuba exclaims proudly and then opens the envelope containing the right answer. Her enthusiastic, triumphant expression quickly turned into a sad look as she deflates, leaning across the table. "I lost…" she mumbles.

"Of course it's not Professor Plum, Yotsuba. You yourself have his card, so how can it be Professor Plum." Fuutarou sighs, disappointed that Yotsuba wasn't paying attention to the game despite being the one who wanted to play in the first place.

"Huh? How do you know what cards I have?" Yotsuba asks, confused as Fuutarou resists the urge to shake her in an attempt to jumpstart her brain. "You yourself showed them to me…"

"Alright, it's my turn now," Itsuki states boldly and then takes the envelope. "I think it was Colonel Mustard with the wrench in the kitchen." She opens the envelope and then stretches out her arms happily. "Yay, I've won!"

"This was so much fun, how about we have another round?" Yotsuba happily suggests and then turns to Fuutarou, whose expression was akin to a brewing thunderstorm. "We agreed that we would start studying once the game is over. So now, please take out your notebooks."

"Uesugi-san, that's no fun at all! I want to play some more!" Yotsuba protests, whining like a little kid. Fuutarou releases another drawn-out sigh, feeling his irritation building. "I gotta grab some fresh air real quick. In the meantime, you girls prepare for our lesson, okay?"

Fuutarou stands up and walks towards the door leading to the balcony. While it wasn't that late yet, the sun was beginning to set.

Fuutarou closes the door behind him and sighs. "These girls are really going to be the death of me…" He mumbles while walking towards the railing. He leans forward and places his arms on the railing, looking into the distance.

Suddenly, he hears the door behind him open. He turns around and sees Ichika walking towards him. "Hey, you good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What about you? Isn't it a little bit too cold outside to be walking around with only a sweatshirt on?"

Ichika chuckles and then stops right in front of him, leaning forward. "What? Don't you like it∼?"

Fuutarou blushes a little bit and turns to the side to avoid eye contact. "I, uh, didn't mean it like that…"

"So you do like it, after all." Ichika giggles and then inches closer to him, smile growing. With nowhere for him to escape to, the distance between the two of them began to shrink. "There is something I wanted to ask you, Fuutarou-kun."

Fuutarou hesitantly turns back to Ichika and looks down at her. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Say, why do you do all of this for the five of us?" Ichika asks. Fuutarou blinks in surprise at the question, considering how out of the blue it was. He scratches his head, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Why do you spend so much time trying to get us to study? Why did you put so much effort into gathering all of us at the festival so we could watch the fireworks together? Why is it that you care so much for us even though you don't even really know us? Why do you put up with us?" Ichika asked him with a calm and soft voice. It didn't seem like she was angry or annoyed over whatever he had done. She just wanted to know why. He blinks once more, then shrugs, nonplussed.

"It's because you are my friends. And friends care about each other, am I right?" Fuutarou replies without hesitating which leaves Ichika stunned by the confident answer.

After a few seconds of silence, Ichika giggles and looks up at him. "Yeah, you are right. Friends do care about each other." Suddenly, Ichika carefully wraps her arms around the other teenager.

"I-Ichika?" Fuutarou asks, puzzled, and starts to blush once again, crimson dusting his cheeks.

"You know, Fuutarou-kun, you've been stuck in my head for a while now∼ Ichika mumbles whilst running the tip of her finger across his chest. "You know...what you tried to do to bring me back at the festival…that was pretty manly of you∼" Ichika gently puts her hand on his cheek and looks up at him.

"I'd like to get to know you better, Fuutarou-kun∼" She stretches upwards and gets up close and personal, so close that he could even feel her breath on his skin. Fuutarou's heart started to beat even faster and he didn't know how to properly react to this.

Her hand felt so soft on his skin, and her eyes shone in the setting sun, the beautiful pink color of her hair standing out wonderfully against the darkening sky. She really was beautiful, meant to be a model.

What was going on right now? Was she really going to kiss him?

Suddenly, the door to the balcony opens once more, causing Ichika to immediately withdraw. "But that can wait for another time." She chuckles and then turns towards Yotsuba, standing in front of the open door.

"Hey, we're ready to start studying now. Wanna join us?" She asks to which Ichika nodded. "Absolutely, we can't possibly start without our tutor, can't we?" She turns to Fuutarou again who was still reeling from whatever had just happened. "Uh…yeah…you can't start without me…hehe…"

Together, the three of them return to the living room, sitting down at the table where Itsuki had already prepared her notebooks. "Ah, there you are. Can we start now? We have to begin or else we won't stand a chance at the midterm exams!"

Fuutarou takes a deep breath to calm himself down and then clears his thoughts so he wouldn't think about what had just happened between him and Ichika. "That's what I've been saying. Anyway, let's start with our lesson."

Fuutarou turns to Miku, who was currently sitting on the couch. While she didn't seem like she wanted to join the four of them, she also looked a little nervous. Normally, he would have asked her if she wanted to join them but after his defeat, he promised to never ask her again. For now, he could only wait and hope that she would decide to join them of her own free will. Spinning his pen while figuring out what he was going to start with. He stops when an idle thought crosses his mind, smiling slightly. But maybe, he could convince her to join in another way.

"How about we start with Japanese History?" He suggests and then opens up the book on Japanese History. Miku looks curiously at Fuutarou, wondering if this was due to her presence. She really wanted to join them, and it seemed like fun, but she hasn't apologized to him.

She couldn't possibly just join them, especially after fighting so hard to get out of his tutoring sessions…

But how could she possibly apologize to him? There was no opportunity to…

Author's Note:

Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

I just wanted to say that some of the future chapters could get delayed because I have some troubles writing right now, but I will still try to publish at least one chapter per week.

If you want, you can join the discord I and some other QQ Writers usually hang out on: discord . gg / V54pcwA

But most importantly:

Why is Fuutarou stuck in Ichika's head? Or was she just teasing him? Will Miku be able to apologize to Fuutarou? Find out in the next chapter!