Chapter 9

Normally, falling asleep would have been what I wanted the most, but this time, I regret letting my fatigue get the better of me. I was back in that hospital room, the day I lost my mother. My mother was right in front of me, lying down on a hospital bed and holding my hand.

My mother opened her mouth to speak to me, but nothing came out, all I could hear was a jumble of sounds I couldn't even comprehend. I smiled and nodded as I knew that in a matter of minutes, the beeping on the monitors would abruptly stop, I didn't want to show her how worried I was during her final moments.

We continued talking till I felt it, the warmth of her hands suddenly fading as she started dying, tears flowed down my eyes as I knew she was dying. I gently let go of her hand and placed it on her chest. She tried speaking to me one last time, but all I could hear was the same weird sound coming from her mouth, but I didn't need to hear her to know what she was saying. Her last words to me, both in reality and in my nightmares, always were those three words, "I love you."

And just as she said it, the beeping on the monitors stopped, and moments later several nursing staff and the doctor arrived. I stood there, frozen as I saw my mother die right in front of me for the nth time. I was powerless, and yet again I couldn't do anything to stop it. Everything around me started cracking, crumbling and eventually collapsing, I fell into an endless, dark void, waiting for the nightmare to end.

I woke up in a cold sweat, by the looks of it, it was already morning. I looked around and saw the quints all in the room, all fast asleep, aside from Yotsuba. The look of surprise on her face was obvious as she rushed to me. She leaned in and whispered, trying not to wake everyone up. "Uesugi-san! Nino told us what happened, I never knew you could fight! Are there other secrets about you we don't know about?"

She noticed the sweat that was going down my face, "Are you alright though, Uesugi-san? You seem to be sweating a lot, and the room we're in is pretty cold!"

I wiped the sweat off and shook my head, "No, I'm feeling alright, even better than last night even. I just had a nightmare is all. Don't worry about it." I then realized something was off, it was already morning, and they were here instead of being in class. "Wait… why are you all here though? Class should be starting any second now!"

Yotsuba looked at me, confused. "Why would be going to class on a weekend though?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. "Wait, weekend? Yotsuba, I know that you might not exactly be the brightest among you five, but even you should know that today's a Wednesday!"

Yotsuba shook her head, "Uesugi-san… you were unconscious for three whole days. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Your injuries were a bit too much for your body to handle, apparently."

"I… I see. I guess that makes sense. I may have played it cool in front of Nino, but I did receive a massive beating before returning the favor. So I missed out on three days of schoolwork, didn't I?"

"Itsuki said she took notes of what you missed the past few days, but knowing you, you probably knew all the material anyway. I mean, you made study materials for a class that both you and Ichika didn't go to after all."

"Ah, so she told you about it. But yeah, you're right though. I know most, if not all of the material for our year level, not trying to brag though."

"You definitely are though."

"Am not… fine, maybe just a bit."

She raised an eyebrow, "A bit?"

"Fine. I was bragging, you happy now?"

She nodded and smiled, unbeknownst to us, another quint was waking up. Itsuki was slowly waking up, probably due to the conversation Yotsuba and I were having. When she finally woke up, her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets, she immediately stood up and said "Uesugi-kun?! You're awake!" causing the other quints to wake up as well.

Soon, all the remaining quints, with the exception of Nino, surrounded me and bombarded me with questions. I explained everything as much as I possibly could, and fortunately, they stopped asking me questions. I sighed, "Anyway, what are you guys doing here? I'm sure you would all prefer staying at your home compared to a hospital room."

Nino stood up and stretched, 'We obviously came here because we were worried about you, for a smart guy, you really do lack common sense, Uesugi. And don't worry, we tried our best to study without you, sadly our grades in this week's quizzes can't vouch for us." She said, embarrassed.

I shrugged my shoulders, "Well we only just started, it's not like I'm expecting you to actually pass anything yet, I mean come on, you all are a bunch of I—"

Without even letting me finish my sentence, Nino had thrown one of her slippers right at my face. "We get it, no need to say it!" and with that, all of the quints were laughing at my expense.

After a few more minutes of catching up, Maruo Nakano had entered the room. "Good morning, girls. And Good morning to you too, Uesugi-kun. Seeing as you're already awake, I can assume you're fully rested now?"

I stretched and got out of bed, the pain that I felt on my first night wasn't there anymore, and I smiled, "Yes sir, I think I'm ready to get discharged now, I wouldn't want you to spend any more for my sake."

A small smile showed on his face, but as quickly as it appeared, it also disappeared. "I see, well I can sort it out in a bit, but I would still suggest you refrain from any strenuous activity, you may seem fully healed, but we can never be too sure."

"Understood, sir. I'm pretty sure I won't be doing any sort of activity like that, anyway, seeing as how your daughters need as much help as they can with their studies." All the quints looked away as I said this, hoping to not have any eye contact with their father.

"I hope it really isn't as bad as you say it is, but I will trust you for the meantime. However, I will be expecting results on their coming exams, if I'm not mistaken your midterm exams are a month from now. Make sure they all pass their exams, I'll let you think of what punishment will be brought upon you if they don't." He then exited the room, leaving a tense silence as we all stared at each other.

I shuddered at the thought of the punishment he mentioned, sure I knew he was intimidating, but the way he so casually threatened me just made a shiver go down my spine. I looked at everyone and sighed, "Your father… is intimidating, to say the least.'

Ichika had let out a breath she was keeping ever since her father had entered. "Yeah, no kidding, Fuutarou-kun. Guess we'll have to do our best so that dad doesn't give you any punishments unless you're into that kind of thing too?" She asked teasingly.

Itsuki sighed and pulled on Ichika's cheeks, "Ichika! Now's not the time for jokes! Uesugi-kun's job is on the line, we have to study as much as we can to let him continue to be our tutor!"

"Now, now, there's no need to fight, guys! Ichika was just trying to lighten up the mood! You all know how dad makes us all anxious, right?" said Yotsuba as she tried to stop[ Itsuki from pulling Ichika's cheeks.

Miku walked up to me and tapped on my shoulder, "Fuutarou, don't let what father say get to you, alright? I'm sure all of us can pass with your tutoring. We have a month to study for midterms, after all."

I smiled and patted her head. "Thanks for worrying about me, Miku. I really appreciate it, and I won't stress over what your dad said. I know each of you has the potential to pass, I just need to help you guys tap into that potential."

Ichika saw me patting Miku's head and smirked. "Is Fuutarou-kun playing favorites? That's quite unfair of you to spend more attention to Miku and leave the rest of us behind…"

Hearing that, I stopped patting Miku's head, much to her disappointment and walked my way towards Ichika. I held her by the chin and leaned in close, "Well, if you think it's unfair, then should I spend some more one-on-one time with you? Even with the time, we spent together a few days ago?''

She was at a loss for words with how I teased her, and I noticed I was a little bit too close to her face, so I stepped back to let Ichika fall down to the chair behind her. Nino smacked me on the back of the head, a scowl on her face. "Are you seriously hitting on us after being threatened by Papa? You're the worst, seriously!"

Rubbing the back of my head, I sighed. "I was just giving Ichika a taste of her own medicine. The only way to fight against a tease is to tease them back. Trust me, I don't plan on hitting on any of you when my job is on the line."

Nino lowered her hand as I said that and sighed. "Good, so what's the plan now? We have a month left till midterms, I'm sure you and that big head of yours already had a plan made for this situation?"

All the other quints stared at Nino's motivation to study, out of all of them she was the one they least expected to want to study. After a moment of silence, Itsuki spoke up. "Nino… are you okay? It's not like you to be this motivated to study, especially with Uesugi-kun as our tutor."

Nino looked at me for a second before responding to Itsuki's question. "I've just come to realize that we really need all the help we can get, and Uesugi would probably be our best bet if we really want to graduate. Plus, don't you think that it would be great to actually show Papa that we can meet his expectations? I know that you all have mixed feelings towards him, but you have to admit that it would feel really good to show him how good we can be."

The quints all looked at each other, and all of them nodded in agreement. Miku walked towards Nino and smiled. "For once I actually agree with you, Nino. It would feel great to show Father our skills, but it will all rely on Fuutarou's plan for the next month." She then looked at me, "So what's the plan, Fuutarou?"

I sighed, "I'm glad that you all want to study now, but for now the plan is for you all to rest." A look of surprise was plastered on all of their faces, and I continued to tell them about my plan. "Now hear me out. Studying is important, that's for sure, but studying too much would leave you all burned out. So what I want you guys to do is to rest for the meantime."

Yotsuba relaxed and sat down at the thought of not studying yet. "Wow, never expected that our tutor would ever tell us to NOT study"

"Even I wouldn't force you to study 24/7, Yotsuba. I know from experience that studying too much won't benefit you."

"So what do you want us to do then? Sure you don't want us to study but knowing you and your scheming I'm pretty sure you had already planned an activity for us to do." Said Nino as she sat beside Yotsuba.

"Pretty ironic of you to say that when you tried to drug me the night I first met you. But you're right. There was something I wanted to do with all of you. Fireworks. You guys just moved here, right? So I'm sure you guys haven't experienced the fireworks festival that's happening later tonight."

Ichika had stood up, worried. "Wait, you want us to go to a fireworks festival tonight? Can't it wait? I've already got plans for tonight!"

I shook my head, "The festival only happens once every year, it would be a shame to miss out on it. And I'm sure your job can wait, can't it?"

"Wait... how did you know?"

"It's just a hunch. Out of all you sisters, you and Yotsuba would be the ones to be the most excited about this, and the only thing that came to mind that would make you miss out on it would be the job Itsuki told me about."

Yotsuba suddenly appeared behind Ichika, and bear-hugged her, "Awww are you seriously skipping out on this because of your job? I'm sure you can make up for it on another day though!"

Ichika struggled to get out of it but gave up as she couldn't escape Yotsuba's monstrous strength. "I… I guess I can stay for a bit."

After Ichika agreed, all the girls started talking about their plans. Itsuki had already ordered their yukatas, Nino had already reserved a space where they could watch the fireworks, and Yotsuba messaged their father regarding their plans.

A couple of hours later, I was finally discharged from the hospital. I said my goodbyes to the quints and told them I'd meet up with them at their suite. I eagerly made my way back to my home to see my family, surely they were worried about me being unconscious for so long after all.

I wasn't even inside yet when I heard Raiha running down the stairs to greet me. "Onii-chan! Welcome home!" She hugged me with strength nearly similar to Yotsuba's and I rubbed the top of her head.

"I'm glad to be back. Did you manage yourself well while I was gone? I'm sure having to handle Pops on your own must have been a hassle on your part."

She shook her head, "To be honest he wasn't much trouble. He was actually… tame, believe it or not. I guess you being in bad shape brought back memories of mom. Onii-chan… I was really scared when you didn't wake up when I came back from the cafeteria that night. I thought… I thought that you left to join mom." Tears were starting to roll down her cheeks as she told me how she felt.

I knelt down, placed my forehead on hers, and smiled. "Don't worry kiddo, your Onii-chan isn't going to bite the dust any time soon. I promised that I'll always be there to protect you, didn't I? I intend to keep that promise, so I'm never going to die."

"Promise?"

"I promise, kiddo. So why don't we head inside? I have some news for you, and I'm sure you're gonna like it."

I explained everything to Raiha, and just as I expected she was really happy about the idea. Especially as she got to know the quints a little every time she visited me at the hospital. She hurriedly put on her yukata and we made our way to the quint's suite.

We arrived at the suite around an hour before the start of the fireworks festival. Miku had already given me a spare keycard so that I wouldn't have to buzz in to let me in. Once Raiha and I made it to the door, I experienced a weird feeling in my gut, which I ignored and proceeded to open the door.

"Hey, we're here! You guys ready y—"

It was then I knew what the gut feeling was, with all my encounters with the quints in the past, my body had already started developing warning signals, and right in front of me was one of the quints, only in her towel and her hair kept up.

"Ah yes, this seems familiar... projectile coming in three… two… one…" I thought to myself

And just as I predicted, she turned bright red and screamed, "P-p-pervert!"

She threw whatever she had on hand, which in this case was a stack of papers. After throwing it away she quickly went upstairs, I didn't see which room she entered, but I was sure I could figure it out if I check what was on the papers she threw.

I picked up the papers and scanned them, noticing that they were scripts for a bunch of different roles, and I immediately knew who I saw just now, it was Ichika, and she was still planning on ditching her sisters for an audition.