"Hnnnnggghh...!"
Grunting a little while stretching her arms out, Itsuki sits up slowly in her bed in her hotel room, rubbing her eyes sleepily. The morning light is already pouring into the room, forcing her eyes to adjust to the new light levels, as the curtains around their room have been pulled back to reveal once more the charming and calming grandeur of their beachfront spectacle.
"Good morning, Itsuki."
Hearing her name called, Itsuki squints over to the table to find Ichika sitting there dressed in a bathrobe with a fashion magazine in hand and a cup of warm black tea prepared for her by Nino. Ichika's own short peachy-red hair is slick and somewhat moist, a clear indicator of a shower recently taken.
"...good morning," the youngest quintuplet replies slowly, taken back by the fact that Ichika, who's usually the heaviest sleeper of the sisters, has woken up and already been about before herself. Then again, after what she did in the middle of the night...
Now that her senses are slowly returning to her, Itsuki takes a better look around their hotel room. Yotsuba and Raiha are still snoozing peacefully next to her, while Miku is sitting up against the bedframe still with her legs underneath the covers, listening to music and looking down at her phone with her blue headphones on. Nino is nowhere to be found.
"Where is Nino...?" Itsuki murmurs, her voice still laden with grogginess as she begins to slip her legs out from underneath her own covers.
"She said she wanted to check out the department stores in the city and got a head start. We're going to meet up with her later at around noon," Ichika calls after Itsuki as the latter drags her feet into the large bathroom to wash her face and use the toilet. Once her usual morning bathroom routine is complete, Itsuki walks out of the bathroom much more alert, though her bed hair still needs some work.
"Want me to do your hair today?" Ichika asks gently, holding up a comb at Itsuki, who silently accepts her eldest sister's offer and takes a seat at the chair next to her so that Ichika can get to work after setting down her black tea and magazine. "How are you feeling now?"
"Feeling...? Well..." Itsuki hesitates. "...it...it was certainly a surprise...that Uesugi-kun appeared like he did last night before us and...Father..."
"Yeah, that was pretty surprising, wasn't it. It's like we have our own personal ninja, doesn't it?"
"I-I don't know if I feel so comfortable with that."
Ichika takes the time to focus on combing out some more difficult locks of unruly hair while dodging Itsuki's ahoge that bounces slowly from left to right with the shaking of the rest of Itsuki's hair.
"I am just glad that we were able to have dinner with Father before he left yesterday," Itsuki gives a small smile. "He simply could have cancelled our dinner plans entirely, but he made sure to make the time to fulfill his promise."
Ichika also gives a small smile of her own. "I guess so, if you put it that way."
"Do you disagree, Ichika?"
"Not exactly, since you're not wrong. Dad in the past would've just cancelled everything if something work-related came up and leave us under Ebata-san's care or someone else...but this time he made sure to at least spend some time with us before he left. So definitely an improvement there on his part."
Ichika gets up from her chair so that she can comb the harder to reach parts of Itsuki's hair.
"But after hearing you and Yotsuba talk to Raiha-chan about how she ought to ask her big brother to spend more time with her, I bet you wanted to do the same for Dad, right?" she inquires in a low voice, making Itsuki tense up.
"...I must be extraordinarily easy to read, I suppose..." Itsuki laments, both her posture and her ahoge slumping somewhat.
"Eh, it's not so much me reading you, it's just something that I feel you'd be inclined to do. Yotsuba also probably wanted to bring it up to Dad, but she's pretty timid when it comes to serious topics like that, and you didn't want to say anything because you were probably afraid that Dad wouldn't listen to you since you weren't attending Fuutarou-kun's lessons."
The mention of their tutor pulls up memories earlier that morning to Itsuki's eyes.
"...yes, that is...correct," Itsuki murmurs, still with her posture slouched. "As much as I object to Uesugi-kun's tutoring, the fact of the matter is that...I am not attending them as I should be, so...Father has no reason to listen to what I have to say."
"Maybe not, but...at least putting your thoughts out there for him to consider should be worth the effort, even if he ultimately doesn't do anything about it."
"Then...if he will never act on my words or anyone else's words, what would be the point of mentioning such things? If all he will do is take them into consideration and that is the end of story, why should we even bother...?"
"Hmmm, that's the difficult part, isn't it. But I think both of us can agree that making sure we say the things that we think are important has merit all on its own. That's why you talked to Raiha-chan yesterday, right?"
Itsuki corrects her posture as Ichika pulls up a handful of her long hair to make it easier for the latter to comb.
"Because the truth of the matter is that someone like Uesugi-kun...has both the ability and the willingness to spend time with his younger sister, which would make her happy. Our father has the ability...but perhaps not the willingness. To add, Uesugi-kun is our age, and hence our peer...we do not have the same barriers of communication with him that we do with someone like our own father, and...not to mention, the degree of separation between Uesugi-kun and his sister is much smaller than that between us and our father."
"That's a good point. But still..." Ichika gently runs the comb down the locks of hair that she's holding. "...seeing you with that face at dinner last night...as your big sister, it wasn't pleasant to look at, you know? My cute little sisters shouldn't have to look that way."
Itsuki pouts a little as her older sister wraps her arms slowly around her thorax. "But we're quintuplets..."
"I'm still the oldest, though."
"Perhaps, but only by seconds!"
"You don't wanna let Ichika-onee-chan look after you, Itsuki? That hurts your onee-chan's feelings, you know ~ "
"You say that, but is it not in fact the rest of us who look after you?"
"Haha, you got me there..."
Pulling up another chair, Ichika reseats herself to comb the last of Itsuki's hair.
"Speaking of feelings, actually...since I probably won't have another opportunity to ask this later," Ichika murmurs, and Itsuki hears her oldest sister's voice drop a few decibels. "Where did you go earlier this morning?"
Itsuki's breath stops for a moment before resuming normally.
"...so it was you who left the door open for me when I returned," she concludes softly, lowering her gaze down to her lap, and Ichika nods, remembering the text that Fuutarou sent her in the middle of the night letting her know that Itsuki was on her way back to the hotel.
"You moving around in the room in the middle of the night woke me up, and when I realized that someone was going through one of the suitcases for clothes, I figured it was one of you girls, and once you'd left the room, I checked to see who it was," she answers.
"You woke up from me putting on clothes...? It is...tough to imagine that. Not to mention we were all quite exhausted from the rest of the day yesterday..."
"W-Well, you know, seeing Fuutarou-kun confront Dad like that was pretty surprising, right? And I could say the same about you, getting up in the middle of the night to go off somewhere." Having successfully deflected that line, Ichika sighs quickly to finish up the rest of Itsuki's hair. "So where did you go...? And why?"
Itsuki purses her lips, reluctantly but slowly recalling the events of the morning to herself.
"...I went for a walk on the street outside to talk to Uesugi-kun," she says, putting forward the truth.
"Fuutarou-kun, huh...I figured as much. Did you meet with him?"
Itsuki nods.
"That's Fuutarou-kun for you. But how did you know he'd meet you out there? You don't have his number, and it's not like any of us talked to him for the rest of the night last night..."
"Uesugi-kun himself said that he gave his reservation to Raiha-chan, so if she did not come with us for this vacation, we would have been spending the last few nights with him in the same room instead," Itsuki points out, shivering a little as she speaks. "But because she is here and not him, we can only assume that he must be doing his...other line of work during the night. I got the feeling that he is keeping eyes on our hotel room...so if I were to leave all of a sudden in the middle of the night, he would follow me to make sure that nothing happened to me."
"Wow ~ so all that studying you do really is paying off," Ichika giggles.
"P-Please do not make fun of me, figuring something like that out has nothing to do with studying." Itsuki pouts a little back at her sister.
"Anyways, go on? Why did you meet him, then? Given how you usually are towards him, I'm surprised you wanted to talk to him about something like that."
"I am aware that my actions this morning are not indicative of my usual sentiment towards him. But...to tell a long story short, last night at dinner...when we saw Uesugi-kun try to convince Father to stay with us a little bit longer - seeing that changed my opinion about him."
"Mhm. I'm assuming the stuff you talked to Raiha-chan with Yotsuba kinda contributed to that?"
"Yes, of course. Because of that, I saw Uesugi-kun doing what I wanted to do, what I should have done. Perhaps due to his...other work he has no problem doing something like confronting Father about something that bothered him, but even still, Uesugi-kun had the courage to point out a problem that he saw in a family that was not even his because he felt it was the right thing to do."
Itsuki lets the back of her head rest against the back of her chair.
"At least...that is what I believed."
Having become quite emotionally invested into this story, Ichika sets down the comb on the table so that she can give her youngest sister her full attention.
"What did he say?" she asks, subtly urging Itsuki on.
"Well...I must say this first," Itsuki clears her throat hesitantly. "The main reason why I wanted to talk to Uesugi-kun was to tell him that I would like to join his lessons starting next week, once our Golden Week vacation is over."
"Oooh, so Fuutarou-kun's managed to catch another quintuplet ~ "
"Please do not make us sound like we are all fish in a koi pond."
"Sorry, keep going?"
Itsuki's fingers curl as she prepares herself for what she must say next.
"He rejected me," she finally says.
Ichika blinks a few times at her sister, having an uncannily similar reaction. "He...he rejected you? Even though that's what he'd want? But why then?"
"He said he did not want me to accept his tutoring because of something...that was not related to his actual tutoring ability. He said that he wanted me to accept him as my tutor not because of what he did last night, but because I recognized that I needed his help...to get better grades."
Hearing Uesugi-kun's explanation through Itsuki, Ichika nods slowly.
"So that's why...yeah, that sounds like Fuutarou-kun, alright."
"You do not object to it, Ichika?"
"Not really, no. That's just how he is..." Ichika gestures calmly. "It's because you haven't spent as much time as me, Yotsuba, and Miku have, Itsuki, since we've been taking his lessons and you haven't. I'm not trying to knock on you for not coming to his lessons, it's just how it is. We've spent more time with him, so naturally we know more about him than you do, and likewise, he knows more about us than you or Nino."
Having put on a difficult look listening to her sister's counsel, Itsuki keeps her peace for now.
"That's just the kind of person that he is." Doing what she can to explain Uesugi's behavior for her sister, Ichika pulls her chair closer to Itsuki's. "When he tutors us, he's a very by-the-books kind of person. I know that sounds like he just teaches like any other teacher we've had in school, but the difference between him and all the others is that since he's working with just us three, he's able to make sure that we understand everything he's going over. That's why he's stayed late at our place so often, because he doesn't leave until we get what he's teaching us."
"You do not get annoyed or tired whenever that happens, though?"
"Mmmm, surprisingly, not really, no. Honestly, his lessons always feel like they go by pretty quickly; they never seem draining or anything. Maybe it's because he's got a lot of energy to him, surprisingly enough, when he starts teaching us, maybe it's because we actually enjoy his lessons..."
"I do not know...what if he is casting some sort of...magic over you guys?"
"Oh c'mon, that's just weird. He told us that he wants to keep his whole magic stuff separate from us, didn't he?"
"You never know...you ought to be careful around him, Ichika. Same with Miku and Yotsuba."
Ichika simply shrugs, knowing that she probably won't be able to convince Itsuki otherwise on that particular subject.
"Either way, I'm not surprised he said that stuff to you," the eldest quint nods. "He's the type of guy who wants to do things his way, after all. He just comes off like that."
"Then that makes him no different from our own father!" Itsuki asserts. "I even made it a point to make sure he understood that! And he even admitted it himself - what did he say, something along the lines of 'it takes one to know one' or something like that?"
"But surely you've gotta know that there is still a key difference between him and Dad, right?"
"There is not, Ichika. There cannot be - they both want to do things their way; they both want things to go in accordance with their wills, their plans, their intentions. That is why Uesugi-kun refused me as a student when I was trying to be considerate towards him, and why Father only has dinner with us once a year."
But Ichika defends her ground, digging in to weather Itsuki's critique.
"You're only thinking about his words at face value, Itsuki. You have to think about what else he could mean."
"But...what else could he mean by this...?"
Turning to gaze out the window at the warm morning beachfront, Ichika smiles a little.
"Fuutarou-kun wants you to come study with us with the mindset of wanting to study. While obviously you'll do that either way, he wants to eliminate the possibility of you being distracted by anything else," she explains thoroughly. "If he had accepted you as a student tonight when you used last night's confrontation with Dad as the main basis for why you wanted to start studying with us, then to him, you're not coming to his lessons thinking 'I want to study', but rather, 'I'm here because I think Uesugi-kun is a better person than I thought he was'."
Itsuki's eyes widen as she listens to Ichika's explanation, but they tighten up again in defiance.
"Even if that is the case, I cannot understand why someone like Uesugi-kun would even dare to turn me down. Not because of my own self-importance, but...he has it tough at home...! Ichika, you know that I have been to his house once, we have heard that story enough times, have we not? He has never kept it a secret that Father pays him per number of students he has at the moment. So what does he seek to gain by rejecting me? I just cannot fathom it...!"
"I mean, like I said, he's always come off as sort of like a person who sticks to doing what they know. Especially for someone like him, you know? And besides..." the eldest quint gazes directly back into Itsuki's own blue eyes. "The key difference between him and Dad is that the focus of Fuutarou-kun's work right now revolves around us. The same can't be said of Dad - so naturally, who do you think has a more immediate investment in us?"
Recoiling slightly from Ichika's words, Itsuki shakes her head again. "That is meaningless. If that is the argument you are trying to make, I can just as easily say that Father cares for us more because he is the one who allows us to live a life like this - Uesugi-kun cannot do that."
"You're right. But then in that case, why do you feel so strongly about Dad never spending time with us?"
Those words echo through Itsuki's ears as her body is left frozen as they pass, but she also quickly recovers from this.
"That may be one thing, but trying to imply that Uesugi-kun is more responsible for us somehow than our own father is a bit much, Ichika. And...I suppose I would be taking after Uesugi-kun a little bit here myself, but...he would not want you to make that kind of comparison either."
"Yeah, that's true..." Ichika heaves out another moderate sigh. "For such a simple-minded guy like him, dealing with him is...complicated, huh?"
"Indeed. May I have a bit of your tea?"
"Sure, go ahead. Nino made us plenty before she left..."
So Itsuki helps herself to Ichika's cup of black tea. "Also, you sound as if you know what it is like dealing with Uesugi-kun."
The run-in the eldest quint had with their tutor earlier in the week comes to mind, and Ichika quickly suppresses that memory.
"W-Well, you know, I've been to enough of his lessons to know what he's like. I think I mentioned that before, right?"
"Mmm...I suppose also that since you are like Nino in that both of you are quite socially talented, you would figure out someone like Uesugi-kun faster than I."
"Yeah, that too. But just know that Uesugi-kun isn't a bad guy, Itsuki. He's just, like you said, stubborn at times, but we already know what it feels like dealing with someone stubborn, right? It's nothing new."
"I was hoping we would not need to deal with more stubborn people in our lives, but I guess that is a far-fetched dream by now." Itsuki savors the malty flavor of the black tea.
"Then...if your talk with Fuutarou-kun turned out like that, then what's the plan going forward? Fuutarou-kun wants to teach you on his terms, but because of that, you aren't willing to let him either even though you would've before. I don't think it's reasonable to think that you'll change your mind anytime soon..."
Itsuki lowers her sister's cup of black tea. "I...do not know. I do...feel bad for rejecting him like I did on my part; upon reflecting on my actions this morning, I do feel that...I should have at least tried to ask him to not be so rigid in his own terms, and without having to resort to using his sister as a means of argument. But I think he would not have budged..."
"And either way, we'd still end up in this position."
"Yes. And so because of that, I ultimately do not feel obligated to change my sentiment towards him now. Which means for the foreseeable future, I will continue studying on my own."
Ichika says nothing to this, but merely nods her head understandingly.
"You've got it tough, don't you, Fuutarou-kun?" she murmurs aloud, gazing up at their hotel room's ceiling. "Getting us together, teaching airheads like us - "
"Who are you calling an airhead?" Itsuki scowls over at Ichika.
"Am I wrong, though?"
"U-Uuuu..."
"...Nino, I've gotta ask, but...I don't think my job resume includes carrying bags for my own students."
"Shut up and just be a good lackey."
"Sure, but you'll at least let me ask you why I should do this."
"Because a certain someone crashed the dinner we were having with our Papa last night."
"And I'm to blame for that?"
"Yes."
"Tsk. Yeah, okay then..."
Uesugi Fuutarou is following Nakano Nino around the various department stores in the Ala Moana Shopping Center, carrying in total six bags filled with nothing but clothes that Nino has picked out in no less than eight different clothing stores. While the bags themselves are not bulging or in physical danger of bursting open due to their high volume of contents, they are quite hefty, and Fuutarou is starting to consider going to a nearby store to buy a cheap pair of gloves to spare his fingers at least a little bit of wear from holding onto so many layers of bag straps at once that are by now beginning to cut into his skin.
"You sure can hold out holding all those bags, huh?" Nino remarks, glancing over her shoulder as she struts in front of Fuutarou, leading the way to their next destination.
"I've done physical labor before, so carrying bags isn't exactly difficult, but we've been walking around for a while, so my hands are starting to feel it..."
"Physical labor?" Nino turns around and briefly walks backwards so that she can eye Fuutarou's frame. "You don't look like you do much, though. Well, I take it back, maybe your arms are pretty big..."
"I don't really work out, and obviously it's not like I can eat well all the time either. So my body doesn't have the opportunities to build muscle like other people can, I suppose, if that's how it works."
Fuutarou narrows his eyes back at Nino's blue ones.
"So are you gonna explain to me at some point why I'm with you right now? I don't mind the bag carrying part, why did you want me to come with you?"
At first, Nino does not answer him, just like how she's avoided all the previous times so far this morning that he's tried getting an answer out of her in regards to this, so once more, Fuutarou rolls his eyes and follows Nino silently, though this time he's contemplating not even bothering asking her again since clearly she doesn't want to for whatever reason.
Of course, as soon as he thinks this to himself, Nino turns to him again and points up at the sign of their next store: Uniqlo.
"We're getting you some clothes now," Nino says flatly, with what Fuutarou swears is the world's tiniest pout etched on her lips, but he doesn't have the time to confirm this as she swings around and walks inside, holding the door open for her shopping partner as he comes in after her. "Let me guess, you don't really have much experience picking out clothes for yourself, do you?"
"No ma'am, not at all. I'll leave that responsibility to you."
"As I figured..."
So the two of them head to the men's clothing section of the Japanese clothing chain, where Nino gets to work carefully picking out some new clothes that she feels will be appropriate for Fuutarou.
"You don't need to spend so much time thinking about what'll look good on me," Fuutarou advises the second quintuplet, scowling in confusion at why Nino is spending so much time going through all this effort of buying clothes for him. "I don't really care what you pick so long as they don't look downright ridiculous."
"Shut up...geez, you always talk so damn much," Nino gripes, tossing him a Hawaiian shirt to start things off. "Here, you wanted something simple, right? Go try that, see if it's your size."
"Make sure to look after the bags."
"Yeah, yeah, just go."
Fuutarou and Nino spend about half an hour getting the former to try various clothes that Nino likes on him, and after that half hour, Fuutarou neatly stacks the clothes that she's picked out for him on an empty chair under which all their other shopping bags take shelter.
"Clothing stores are expensive as hell..." Fuutarou cringes just looking at the price tags on all the clothes. "And here I was only hoping to grab a pair of gloves somewhere..."
"Why do you need gloves...?" Nino asks incredulously, but her scowl drops immediately when she sees Fuutarou showing her his calloused hands. "Er...I can...I think there's a shop somewhere that sells - "
"I don't think I can pay for all this myself. If you're okay with it, I can pay you back once we get home," the young tutor informs Nino, totally talking over her consideration for his need for gloves, which irritates Nino, but she swallows her annoyance for now.
"Are you nuts? You can't pay for this, just let me cover it."
Fuutarou slowly straightens up and raises a hand to scratch the side of his head.
"I can't keep asking you to pay for stuff, though," he mumbles with a quick sigh.
"And just what exactly makes you think you're in any position to ask that?" Nino interrogates him with folded arms. "Or do you still remember that day when I bought that crepe for you that you were trying to get for Raiha-chan?"
"Obviously I do. I don't forget when people do me favors like that easily, given that they don't happen very often, and not to people like me and my family."
Nino opens her mouth to talk over Fuutarou and cut him off, but listening to the second half of his words forces her to have second thoughts, so she listens instead.
"Well...it's...it's not that big of a deal, you know..." Nino mutters softly, having already averted her eyes ahead of time, before pointing down at all the shopping bags that she's been making Fuutarou carry for her. "See, look, I've bought so much stuff that buying some clothes for you isn't really much in comparison. And it's not like you're freaking out over how much I'm buying either. I'm sure all this must make you think I'm just making it rain or something."
But to her surprise, Fuutarou just shrugs.
"It's your money, though. I don't really care what you do with your money," he says simply, tugging lightly at the collar of his new short-sleeve Riviera Hawaiian shirt to make it feel a bit less stiff. "If buying all these clothes is what makes you happy for today, then I don't have a problem with it. Even if I don't personally agree with it - but when it starts to involve me, that's when I start caring, which is why I don't easily forget when people buy stuff for me or my family. Even if it's coming from you."
"Hey, hey, what's that supposed to mean," Nino grumpily pouts back up at Fuutarou. "You do realize you're talking to the girl who's gonna be buying these clothes for you, right?"
"I know, but even with your generosity in consideration, I still feel the need to point out the fact that you're buying clothes for someone you clearly don't want in your house tutoring your sisters."
"Y-You don't have to point that out to me!"
"And you don't need to be defensive about that, that's just the truth."
"It's not about that!" Nino says quickly, pointing at the neat stack of clothes that Fuutarou has put on the chair seat before him, and he hands the clothes over to her so that she can take them up to the front register.
"Then what is it about? I was asking you this for the past hour now, once for every department store we've been to."
Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Nino gives Fuutarou another stink-eye look. "You really don't know when to give up sometimes, do you?"
"Neither do you when it comes to tutoring."
"Oh, shut up..." Nino turns around to head to the front register, but she stays where she turns with her back facing Uesugi instead. "I'm only doing this because Miku was talking yesterday about how she wanted you to at least have some fun of your own while you were here. That, and Raiha-chan was talking last night about how you're going to spend some time with her tomorrow. You're gonna look pitiful in clothes like that, so at least look the part when you go have fun."
"So you do care about Miku, huh?"
This prompts Nino to twirl around and glare daggers back at him again, which she does at some point almost every time they meet.
"And why wouldn't I care about her?" she demands, keeping her voice low.
"Because I've been in your house long enough to know that you two don't get along all the time. That's not exactly a secret either."
"Hmph..." Nino turns away again. "That's none of your business. You even said it yourself last night, didn't you? To stay out of stuff in our family."
"Fair enough, I got nothing to say to that..."
So Fuutarou gathers up the spare clothes that Nino has picked out for him that they will not be buying to put their hangers back on and return the clothes back to where Nino first took them, while the Nakano quint herself goes to the register to pay. Unfortunately, Nino has pulled out so many clothes for Fuutarou to try that in combination with the fact that the line at the registers is quite short, Nino ends up having to return to Fuutarou because she's realized that he hasn't met her at the exit like he was supposed to.
"You know you can just...leave that for the employees here to handle, right?" Nino sighs exasperatedly, watching her would-be tutor arrange the last of the clothes to return to their respective racks.
"I'm aware. It's a habit, though."
"Habit? Habit of what?"
"Cleaning up after myself. It's important in my, uh...other line of business, let's say."
Frowning deeply, Nino sets the new bag of Uniqlo clothes down next to all the other bags that Fuutarou will have to carry back.
"Really now. You didn't do much, uh, 'cleaning up' when we were involved, though."
"I hope you realize just how bad that sounds."
"Bad? What do you - geh!"
It then hits her, and Nino slaps Fuutarou on the arm quickly in embarrassment.
"What the hell, you sick pervert! I wasn't even trying to - !"
"Sorry, it's just that if people overhear you saying that, they might get the wrong idea."
"Even still - !"
With a permanent scowl on her face because of that last exchange, Nino grumpily watches her courier finish returning all the extra clothes and pick up their bags, waiting for her lead, which she employs and walks out of the clothing store with him in tow as usual.
"There anywhere else we need to go?" Fuutarou asks after her.
"No, that's it. We're gonna head back now, I don't feel like shopping anymore." Pausing for a moment, Nino then begins to look around the shopping mall. "Actually, I know we passed by a bubble tea shop somewhere..."
"There was a shop called Twinkle Brown Sugar, I think it was," Fuutarou mentions, digging through his memories of the past few hours of their routes through the shopping mall.
"Yeah, I think that was it. Do you remember where it was?"
"I think so, it was...near where we first entered the mall."
So their roles reverse, with Fuutarou taking the lead and Nino in tow as the two of them cruise down the central lane of the Ala Moana Shopping Mall.
"So, about before, before you made that dirty joke..." Nino pouts irritably, "...why did you go through all that hassle putting back all those clothes? Don't tell me you did it because of me or something lame like that..."
"I didn't, you wouldn't care even if I did say that was the reason."
Even though Fuutarou takes the words right out of her mouth, Nino still feels irked by that comment nonetheless.
"Like I said, it's because I have to clean up the mess I make in my other work," he continues. "Well, I had to a lot in the past. I don't have to do it as much these days since I have dedicated clean-up crews like the one I called in for that night, since that was a situation where getting you and your sisters to safety was the top priority, so I couldn't just stay behind and clean everything up myself. But in other situations where I don't have an immediate priority of some kind, I do stick around to clean up whatever situations I get involved in."
"But even if you say that, that doesn't explain why you'd do something like that back at Uniqlo. That wasn't a mess you made, those were clothes that I pulled out for you, but you still put them back anyway like you were the one who took them out."
Fuutarou simply shrugs at this. "Force of habit, I guess? I mean, I didn't bother doing that for the other stores that we were in. I put those clothes back at Uniqlo since you were picking out clothes for me."
"So you do still feel some sort of obligation since I'm buying you some clothes."
"But you were the one who told me not to worry about it."
"I don't think you're being very truthful with me."
"I've got no reason to lie to you."
"So you would lie if you did?"
"Yes, but there's nothing worth lying to you about."
Yet another comment that irks Nino a bit more.
"You're really annoying to talk with, you know?" the second quintuplet gripes harshly, not bothering to filter her tone. "I get that you don't really interact with people a lot, but seriously, do you always have to sound like a smartass every time I talk to you?"
"Such is the life of a poor contractor; you're not gonna get any flowery language out of this karoshi warrior. Not to mention, weren't you the one who called me out here to come along with you so that you wouldn't have to carry all these bags yourself? I'd feel bad for your sisters if you put them through this; you don't make them do this either, do you?"
"No I don't! We all carry bags equally, okay? It's just a pain in the ass!"
"Oh, so you do know what this feels like." Fuutarou lifts up his handfuls of shopping bags. "Why not just pay for someone to carry all this shit around with you? You're rich enough for that, I'd imagine?"
"Don't need to, now that we have you."
"True, but this isn't what I'm being paid for."
Once more, the discourse between the quintuplets and Doctor Nakano surfaces to Nino's attention.
"But I bet you're being paid either way, which means it's just as good as if we're the ones paying for you."
"That's the most rich spoiled girl logic I've ever heard in my life, and I hope to God I don't ever have to hear that again."
"Just shut up and take me to that bubble tea place already, then!"
"What do you think we're doing right now..." Uesugi gives an exasperated sigh of his own. "Besides, if you hate having me around so much, other than using me to carry bags for you, why not just bring your sisters along next time? This is your vacation, after all, you should be spending time with them."
"Says the guy who hasn't spent any time at all with his own!"
"What do you mean, I did yesterday evening while you were all at dinner with your dad, and I'll be hanging out with her later tomorrow."
"And my sisters said they'd meet up with me here at noon, so I was gonna hang out with them here anyway."
"Oh, I didn't know that. So what's the plan after you get tea, just have me truck back to the hotel?"
"Yeah, just drop off the stuff in our room."
"Why didn't you just do all your shopping with your sisters? I'd imagine it's more fun going shopping with them than me."
"Didn't I already mention it? I don't wanna make my sisters carry all these bags. Might as well have you carry them since we know you're hanging around."
"So you won't have me as your tutor, but you're okay with me being your bellboy."
"I see nothing wrong with that."
"I do."
"Deal with it, Uesugi."
"Dealing with it harder than I've ever dealt with before, ma'am. There's the shop."
Locating the shop, Fuutarou opens the door even with his hands fully occupied with bags for Nino, who holds the door open in turn for him so that the two of them can enter and stand in line.
"Is there anything you want? Have you even ever had tea like this before?" Nino asks her courier.
"Nope, I have no idea about any of this, though I've seen lots of young people like us stand around drinking stuff like this back home. Must be some sort of trendy drink, I guess?"
"It's not just trendy, it's good, too, I think even someone like you'll like it. I'll just pick whatever for you."
"Just to make sure, I don't need to pay for this either, do I?"
"Do you want me to make you pay for it, then? If that's all you ever concern yourself with."
"If that's the case, don't even bother offering me anything."
"God, you're fucking annoying, shut up and let me buy you something."
"Hello, welcome to Twinkle, are you two together?" the young clerk asks Nino, briefly pointing at both her and Fuutarou.
"No, he's not my boyfriend!" she snaps at him, causing him to apologize quickly and Fuutarou to roll his eyes and wait on her to order for them a pair of drinks. The heavy but pleasant scent of bubble and sugar tea hangs in the shop, alleviated by the air conditioning blowing through the shop to ensure that there is at least some air flow.
After placing their orders, Nino and Fuutarou sit down at one of the corner two-seater tables to wait for their drinks.
"I can't imagine you carrying your drink back with you to the hotel with all these bags," Nino points out to her would-be tutor. "What're you gonna do? Stay a bit to finish your drink and then leave?"
"Nah, I can keep it in my other storage."
"Other storage?"
Fuutarou puts out his palm facing up before Nino, who looks down and spies a glint of faint blue light etching a small handheld rune directly above his palm.
"Must be nice having stuff like that, huh?" she remarks dryly, not looking very impressed.
"Now you know what I feel whenever I look at you and your sisters."
"Wait, if you have that, then why not just keep all the bags in there too?"
"Too much volume; this isn't meant to hold all this crap," Fuutarou gestures down at the bags surrounding his chair. "It's only really meant to hold individual items and such. So a drink is fine."
"Hmph. Magic isn't as convenient as it seems, huh."
Fuutarou shakes his head, a wry grin appearing on his lips. "It's really not. And I try to keep my own magical usage down to a minimum. The more you use it, the more at risk you'll be of being detected by other mages, and the more likely normal people will notice it. It's a lot more inconvenient to use than people realize, honestly."
He pulls out his phone to check the time.
"It's about half an hour to noon; just curious, where are you meeting up with everyone else?" he inquires within.
"Where..." Nino thinks to herself, but Fuutarou sees her facial expression change from calm to silently panicked as she slowly realizes that she's made the mistake of not telling her sisters exactly where they ought to meet up, so she whips out her own phone too. "Oh crap, I didn't tell them! I gotta text them real qu - oh, what the hell!"
"What's wrong?"
"Battery..." Nino shows Fuutarou her phone, which she's trying to turn on but the phone is refusing to comply, staying dead with a black screen. "I forgot to charge it before going to sleep yesterday..."
So Fuutarou pulls out his own phone, unlocks the screen, and pulls up a new text to send to Ichika.
"Where you do want them to meet? I'd suggest the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, that way the taxi they take here can pull up easily and drop them off. Unless you have somewhere else in mind."
"Coffee Bean? Is that some sort of coffee shop?"
"Yeah, down south from here. It's one of the first buildings near the parking lots."
"Uh...sure, tell them to meet us there, then."
"Alright, but we'll probably have to head down there ourselves so that you can meet up with them too."
Nino pouts again. "What's with you all of a sudden, acting like our travel agent or something."
"And that wouldn't be the first time you're making that joke."
"I know it was a joke before, but now it doesn't really seem like a joke. Have you actually been a travel agent before or something?"
"No, but I do know how to coordinate properly. Events, people...it's a good skill to have."
"Doesn't sound like a skill someone like you would have."
"Just because I don't deal with people on a regular basis or I don't know how to socialize properly with people doesn't mean I don't know or shouldn't know how to manage them if that's what I have to do."
"That's like the most anti-social thing I've heard all day. I should've gotten you one of those shirts that say 'Anti-Social Social Club' or whatever."
"Funnily enough, I think I do have a shirt like that back at home...I think my dad picked it up somewhere saying that it sounded cool and he wanted me to wear it."
"Your dad has quite the sense of humor."
"...yeah, let's just leave it at that."
Nino hears her name called by one of the staffers who's come out with their drinks, which she fetches for them as Fuutarou picks up his usual wares and waits for her at the door, holding it open with his back against it for Nino, and once they're outside the shop, he sets down one handful of bags to take his sugar tea, slips it discreetly into his magic rune, and picks back up his bags to guide Nino over to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop.
"How'd you even get Ichika's number, anyway?" Nino asks after a long sip of her delicious brown sugar milk tea.
"I ran into her on the first night or so this week, and while we were talking, she decided to give me her number."
"Tch, why would she do something like that...?"
"Beats me, ask her. Though, I'm pretty glad she did because it's already come in handy a few times so far, like now."
"Hmph. What did you talk to her about?"
"Well, mainly about that part-time that she's got. Remember last week, how she was absent for like four days straight?"
"Oh yeah...I guess you'd care about something like that."
"Naturally, I'm losing out on four days' worth of pay for one of my students; you don't think I'd go talk to her about something like that?"
"Speaking of pay, now that I think about it, don't you technically have two contracts? One for tutoring us, and one for, uh...making sure nothing happens to us, I guess?"
"It's actually just one contract; the tutoring I'm doing, or in your case, the tutoring that I'm supposed to be doing, is just an extra clause that got added. That's all I can really say, though."
"I'm still not letting you tutor me, though."
"I'm well aware. Your dad's gonna make me extra aware of that whenever he gives me my first paycheck for the tutoring."
Nino pensively takes another sip from her milk tea.
"...what's even the relationship between you two? I didn't quite catch what he told you towards the end right before he left, but...it sounds like the two of you have some sort of beef going on."
"We don't like each other, that's all. Clash of personalities, I guess."
"Clash of personalities? But you two seem like you act the damn same, if not pretty similar."
"Alright, then maybe not clash of personalities. But we don't really get along, that's for sure."
"Yet you two work together at the hospital or something? That's what Papa told us at dinner, I don't know if you overheard that part."
"We work together since each of us have something we can benefit from one another. I mentioned it briefly back when I first told you and your sisters that I was a mage - his hospital has high-end medical equipment that I want access to, and your dad needs my medical expertise at times."
"So that's why you were able to offer Papa to go in his place to the hospital back home?"
"Right, but I guess he felt he didn't need me to go back."
Snorting under her breath, Nino nibbles a little on her straw, a bit of a habit she's had ever since she was young. "Sounds like a recipe for disaster."
"Too real. You saw a bit of it at dinner last night."
The two of them now arrive outside the rear of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop at the southern end of the Ala Moana Shopping Mall with about ten minutes to spare.
"Do you want me to stay with you until everyone gets here, or should I just get going?" Uesugi asks Nino, who's about halfway through her milk tea.
"Just get going, I don't want my sisters to realize I'd been out shopping with you," Nino scowls back at him.
"Won't your sisters ask you just what exactly you were doing for the past couple of hours, then?"
"That's for me to handle, buddy, now shoo, shoo!" Nino flicks her wrist at her courier, who chuckles a bit as he nods in confirmation and begins his pedestrian trek back to the hotel.
Nino quietly watches her lackey trudge across the parking lot and out onto the sidewalk of the streets. Only when he is out of sight does she think to herself aloud,
"...how far away is the resort again?"