So the movie just dropped, eh? Fuck that, I don't give a shit about something that ruins characters! We're here to celebrate QQ THANKSGIVING, everyone! Last year, me and the guys at the server celebrated the first Thanksgiving and now here I am, celebrating the second annual Thanksgiving! Forget about the movie, and focus on harem fluff! If you're here to talk about the movie, then stop reading right now and get out! We only want fluff here! As the Ace of this archive, I declare that we DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE MOVIE AT ALL. We only want fluff and love for the girls, and we're getting that right now! Now let's get this started!

Discord link: [discord . gg / 4y5QVPj]

Disclaimer: I don't own the Quintessential Quintuplets, or any of its characters...

"You're not going to the cafeteria yet, Uesugi-kun?" Itsuki asked, raising an eyebrow at her tutor who was going to the opposite direction instead of walking with her.
It was now lunchtime, and it should be spent by eating at the cafeteria with friends.

Fuutarou threw her an apologetic look. "Sorry, I have to deal with something important first."

Itsuki frowned, thinking of a more viable reason that he might have. "Is it regarding the… uhm… rumors regarding us? Did something happen?" she asked out of worry.
He quickly shook his head to shoot that notion down. "No, no, it's not about those. It's about academics. One of our classmates invited me up to the rooftop to talk about comparing grades with me. I think it's a bit petty from the other guy, but I don't think he'd stop bothering me if I didn't do what he wants."

A look of worry flashed through Itsuki's features.

"Uhm… does he—"

Fuutarou quickly waved his hand to ease her worries. "No, no, nothing like that. I don't think the guy's planning to do anything bad. But just in case, I'll make sure to run away if he does anything. Is that fine with you?"

"Well, alright," she relented, releasing a sigh of defeat. "I don't really think comparing grades is something appropriate to do for a student, but I trust in you, Uesugi-kun."

"Comparing grades isn't appropriate? Didn't you do the same thing when we first met?" he smirked.

"T-T-That was different…! I was genuinely curious about your score in that exam you took! I wanted to know if you could help me with my problem!"

"Relax. I'm just messing with you," he patted her head, which wasn't enough to quell the redhead's growing anger as she pouted at him. "Seriously, thanks and don't worry. I'll catch up to you as soon as I'm done."

Without bothering to wait for an answer from her, Fuutarou walked out of the room and shifted his attention to something else, which was the person who wanted to meet him at the rooftop for something important. No, this whole thing is surely not about his grades, but something else entirely.

"Wonder what she wanted to talk to me about?" Fuutarou thought, before mentally shrugging. "Oh, who am I kidding, it's obviously about what happened between us yesterday..."

He could only hope that this 'meeting' goes well, even though he wasn't counting on it.

~~XoXo~~

"So… you came."

Miku Nakano stood in the open area of the roof as if the whole place belonged to her like some kind of lord, before turning her head slightly the moment she heard the door open.

Fuutarou made sure to close the door behind him first and waited a few moments to see if someone had followed him out here. After he was sure that it was only the two of them up here, he turned his attention towards the girl before him.

"I did as you asked. Now what did you want to talk to me about, Miku?"

Miku turned around to face him, but kept herself from looking at him directly. Surprisingly, Fuutarou didn't avert his gaze this time and locked his eyes on her and her alone.

The two teens stood across one another, almost giving off the vibe that they were about to fight to the death like real warriors during the feudal period of Japan.

"I'll go straight to the point. I didn't appreciate you avoiding looking at me yesterday. I was trying to be a good person to you and you didn't even look my way. Do you know how that feels? And I'm not even someone who normally cares about things like these," Miku was the first to speak, although she kept herself from looking at him the whole time.

Her action didn't go unnoticed by the young man, who could only bow his head in shame. He had no excuse, other than the fact that he didn't want to activate the soulmate shock for the second time yesterday. Yeah, it was a stupid reason and isn't enough to explain why he had to avoid meeting Miku's gaze but then again, it's not like he could tell her that either.

"I know, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful towards you or anything! I just wanted to focus solely on teaching your sisters that I didn't want to think about anything else…" he replied, which made him feel uncomfortable due to the fact that this was a stupid excuse.

Miku puffed her cheeks in a big pout.

"Whatever your reason is, what you did was still insulting. All I did was try to be a decent person, and how did you answer me? By ignoring me like I didn't even exist."

"Look, I'm sorry, alright?! I'll do what I can to make it up to you! In fact, I'll be glad to look at you now!" he spoke in an unusual pleading voice, something that he could never see himself doing before. But now, things were different. "Here, I'm looking at you! Is that enough for you?"

He tried to emphasize his actions by waving his arms as an invitation for her to look his way, but all it did was make the third quintuplet shake her head in refusal.

"No, it isn't."

He blinked.

"Huh?"

"Don't look at me. If you do, I will never forgive you."

Fuutarou was sure that the temperature of the area around him just dropped several degrees from how cold her voice was, which made him think about his next words carefully.

"Uh… why? Isn't that what you wanted to happen?"

"Yesterday, maybe. But not anymore. Not after what you did."

Fuutarou could feel himself beginning to sweat out of nervousness from what she had in mind, and he knew that it was all because of him and his stupidity. He had pride in himself in being the smartest student in this school, but he couldn't say that he was anything like that right now.

"W-What are you talking about?" he asked nervously.

"Consider this a challenge, Fuutarou. If you think you're too good enough for me that I'm not even worth looking at, then you're wrong. I'll get you to look at me through my own actions, so you better not turn to me just because you feel bad for what you did. I don't need your pity.

"He had nothing to say at all.

"You wanted this war? I'll be glad to give it to you, then. You better not back out of this, Fuutarou, because you started it."

With that, Miku began walking towards the door, while still averting her gaze so that she won't look at him. The girl halted just beside him, where she finally turned towards Fuutarou right when he wasn't looking at her.

"How cute," she remarked, feeling amused that he was left silent after everything she said. He must be thinking about this challenge she gave him, which was a good thing. "You should go to the cafeteria now. I'm sure my sisters are waiting for you there."

After leaving him with those words, Miku finally left, leaving the young man all alone out on the roof. He had not spoken a word ever since the girl laid out her 'challenge' because his mind was going through a lot of things right now, mainly disappointment and frustration in himself.

"Oh, dear… what have I done? I thought I was doing the right thing, but I ended up making everything worse…"

The young man fell to his knees and grabbed his head in despair, as if he was having a panic attack. Well, if one was in his current position right now, they would understand why he was feeling this way and it's anything but pretty.

"Now, Miku's angry with me and I don't think she's going to forgive me anytime soon…"

Fuutarou felt like crying.

What he never intended to happen just did and now it was all coming back to him.

The words of the old god that cursed him.

He and Miku were soulmates and should he turn her down, she'll die from unknown circumstances. While he didn't really turn her down, it could be said that he actually did. From the moment he began avoiding her gaze, he was actually preventing that familiar shock from happening, which could mean that he didn't want it to happen. Of course, it was his fault that things turned out like this, because he was too selfish not to let things happen naturally.

And now Miku gave him some crazy challenge where he has to prevent himself from looking at her while she tries to make him do so, or something like that… it was kind of confusing, if he had to be honest…

Anyway, if he doesn't activate the soulmate shock with her soon, she's going to die!

And it'll be because of him!

Somehow, he could feel that old god laughing at his misfortune right now. Why wouldn't he? He was the one that made him go through this in the first place…

~~XoXo~~

Something was wrong, Itsuki could tell.

Ever since Fuutarou got to the cafeteria, all he's done was order his usual meal, find the table where she was, sit down, and eat like a slug. He wasn't even responding to her questions when she tried asking him how did his meeting at the rooftop go, and continued to eat his food slowly.

Heck, if that wasn't enough, it looked like his mood had taken a solid blow because of his downcast expression.

"Is something wrong, Uesugi-kun? It seems like there's something troubling you."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about me, I'm just thinking about the consequences of a wrong decision I made."

Itsuki stared at him weirdly for a few moments. She didn't believe him one bit, but it was obvious that her tutor was having a hard time at the moment. She didn't know what it was about exactly, but if he didn't want to talk about it, then she's not going to push it.

"I-If you say so…"

Before Fuutarou could take another spoonful of his soup, a pair of hands covered his eyes from behind and cut off his vision completely.

"Guess who!"

That cheerful voice was a dead giveaway, so it didn't take Fuutarou a second to figure out who it was.

"Yotsuba?"

"Correct!" Yotsuba laughed as she went in front of him and smiled brightly. Her smile alone was enough to power the whole town for an entire year. "Wow, Uesugi-san, you managed to figure out it was me! Does this mean you can tell all five of us apart from each other now?"

"I don't know about that…" he muttered, still feeling depressed from his encounter with Miku earlier.

The ribbon-wearing girl noticed his distress and was quick to offer him a look of sympathy, sitting beside him with her food tray in front of her. "Uesugi-san, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, just… thinking about some things…"

"So this is where you two were! We were trying to look for you two at our usual table, but you weren't there!"

The new voice quickly caught Yotsuba and Itsuki's attention, as they turned their heads and saw their three other sisters standing before them. Fuutarou didn't turn his head, but he could already tell that it was Nino who just spoke, and she was surely with Ichika and Miku as well.

Even though his eyes were focused only on his food, Fuutarou knew that Miku was sending him a serious frown, as if to say that if he as much as turn his head in her direction, there's going to be consequences.

"What am I supposed to do now?" he thought, feeling tempted to slam his head to the table out of frustration at his own stupid decisions.

See? This is why he shouldn't have been 'blessed' by that oji-san! He was hopeless when it came to social situations like this, and now he was trying to figure out how to make this right.

While Fuutarou was left in his own world, Nino had a serious frown on her face, which was directed to her two younger sisters. She wanted answers from the both of them and from how Yotsuba was sweating bullets from her gaze and Itsuki didn't seem like she was affected one bit, they weren't going to give her what she wanted.

"W-Wait a second! I was sitting at our table earlier, but none of you were there yet. So I thought of sitting next to Uesugi-san!"

Nino sent her a sharp look. "We just got there, Yotsuba. Couldn't you have waited for us a little bit?"

"I wanted to eat with Uesugi-kun today, Nino. I wasn't able to eat with him yesterday, after all. Is that a bad thing?" Itsuki answered, folding her arms under her chest and returning her sister's expression with a frown of her own.

"I mean, sure, but—"

"I honestly have no problem eating here with Fuutarou-kun today. He's going to be our tutor from now on, so it wouldn't hurt to get to know him, right~?" Ichika cut in, a gentle smile on her face, as she took a seat on one of the chairs.

With the three of them being on the same side in this issue, the decision was clear. They were going to spend their lunch here with Fuutarou, not that that was a bad thing in Nino's mind.

As a matter of fact, she would like nothing more than to eat lunch with the boy whom she had fallen for once again, if only things happened differently.

"Fine. But only because I want to eat lunch already," Nino groaned, although her inner thoughts were a completely different story. "Damn it! I wanted to be the one to sit next to Fuu-kun!"

Admitting defeat for now, Nino took her seat beside Ichika and said a quick prayer, before beginning to eat. This left Miku, who was still just standing there with her food tray, as the only one who had not taken her seat yet.

"Do we really have to?" she asked her sisters if they were sure about their decision.

Of course, it's not like she was going to eat her lunch at another table if this is where they truly wanted to eat, it's just that she felt a bit uncomfortable with Fuutarou in the same table as her. Their conversation earlier was still lingering in her mind, and Miku wasn't sure if she was fine with him just a meter away from her.

"You don't want to sit with Uesugi-kun, Miku?"

"I-It's not that, I…" she tried to say, only to realize that the attention of her sisters was directed towards her now, and she was put in the spotlight.

She needed to find a way to get out of this situation, quick.

"Fine, then."

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, the third quintuplet sat down as well, while sneaking a glance towards Fuutarou. She was inwardly pleased when she saw that he was complying with her demands by keeping his gaze away from her.

On the other hand, she did notice that Fuutarou looked sad about something, and she had no doubt that it was because of what they discussed at the rooftop earlier. He may be feeling down after that 'declaration of war' that she did…

Miku could only hope that she wasn't going too far with this 'challenge' that she gave him but then again, it was Fuutarou's fault why things had to be this way.

If only he acted like a decent person and looked her in the way when she was talking to him, then this wouldn't happen.

Let the Mikuism conquest begin! Fuutarou really messed up big time, huh? He was clearly an idiot, because ignoring a quint is always a bad idea! NEVER IGNORE A QUINT, because look at what she's gonna do if it happens! She gave Fuutarou some kind of 'challenge' that he has to follow, or worse things will happen. Kek, imagine if it was Nino whom he ignored. Or Itsuki? That would be much more chaotic, in my opinion. Anyways, the road to the Miku shock is on, and we are getting closer than ever! With Miku's challenge of trying to get attention in her own way, how will it go? Can she get Fuutarou to look at her with her own actions? Will she have a hard time? Let's see in the next chapter!

MINASAN, YONDE KURETE ARIGATŌ! AISHITEMAAAAASUUUUU! *starts playing air guitar*

-Lance