Thursday morning of the Nakanos' Golden Week vacation in Honolulu, Hawaii. First thing up on today's schedule is -
"He's gonna hit the gas, girls!"
"Okay, here we go, get ready!"
The private charter boat that the Nakano family, specifically Dr. Nakano before his premature departure back home for work, has booked for this time slot on Thursday morning revs its engine and accelerates quickly, taking its passengers for a thrilling ride at a safe distance from Waikiki Beach and offering a rare and exquisite sight of the beachfront from out on the ocean that only these kinds of private charter speedboats can offer in contrast to the standard cruise boats commonly taken by those not of higher incomes.
The quintuplets and Raiha all scream loudly but with delight at the speed and the thrill, taking in as much of the wonderful Hawaiian scenery as they can, with Fuutarou presiding over them as their acting "adult" wearing his Hawaiian shirt and aviators and standing next to their tour guide and boat driver, a man in his mid-twenties also sporting some Ray Bans and a tye-dye shirt.
After about five minutes of speedy boating, the driver slows down to a more manageable pace so that the girls can comfortably enjoy the shoreline of the capital city of Hawaii. Hotels, resorts, the beaches, the ocean, the spring sun, the pure white clouds, and of course, all the vacationers and beach-goers - everything and everyone is laid out in picturesque view of the private charter speedboat's passengers.
"Fuutarou-kun, Fuutarou-kun!" Ichika hollers over at her tutor so that he can hear her over the rush of the wind and the boat engine, and he looks over at her from gazing out at sea in the opposite direction. Once she's got his attention, Ichika holds up her phone. "Can you take a picture of us, pretty please?"
Nodding, Uesugi calls to the driver next to him and asks him to slow down so that he can walk over to the girls more carefully, and the driver obliges so that Uesugi in turn can oblige the eldest quintuplet. He takes Ichika's phone and tilts it sideways for a landscape shot as the girls bunch up together on one side of the boat at Ichika's guiding.
"Alright girls, three - two - one - "
A distinct shutter sound clicks from Ichika's phone as the cameraman snaps a photo of the group.
"Okay, that looks good. Here, Ich - "
"You've gotta take another, Fuutarou-kun! Okay, girls, change poses!"
Lowering her phone with a scowl, Fuutarou expresses his disapproval at the quintuplets as they decide on some different poses to make for their next shot.
"Isn't one photo enough? That was a good one, too. I don't know if I can take a better one."
"You don't understand, Uesugi-san, whenever you take photos, you've just gotta take at least a few!" Yotsuba hollers with a loud giggle as she and Miku rehearse themselves making a heart with their four arms combined, with Miku shying away after realizing that she's doing something quite embarrassing right in front of her own tutor.
"And why's that?"
"So that when we go back home, we can pick out the best ones to put in our photo albums and stuff!"
"Photo albums, huh?" Fuutarou sighs. "Fine. Get ready!"
So for the next half an hour, the young tutor goes along with the quintuplets' camera antics as they, having gotten into their camera moods, try out all sorts of silly, cutesy, and expressive poses for Ichika's phone at Uesugi Fuutarou's hands.
"Thanks very much ~ " Ichika smiles widely at her tutor as the latter returns the camera after a long half hour's work so that she and the girls can review their photos together.
"I wasn't aware that I was your cameraman, too."
"Haha - if it'll make you feel better, you're not the only one."
At this, Fuutarou tilts his head at Ichika questioningly. "Not the only one?" he repeats after her, causing her to jolt a little as she realizes what she herself has just spoken.
"I-It's nothing, don't think about it too much ~ " she hurriedly says with an equally rushed smile as she retreats back to her safe space with her sisters and Raiha, who are waiting for her so that they can review the photos together as is their tradition.
Sighing aloud, Fuutarou turns around to set his eyes back on the endless seascape underneath the bright spring Hawaiian sun. It's a beautiful sight to behold; he's never been much of a guy who openly appreciates stuff like aesthetics and nature, but admittedly, now that he's in a place where he has no choice but to appreciate such environmental beauty, he's pleasantly surprised to find such an experience to be quite fulfilling, and all they've done so far is enjoy the boat ride across the sea from the beach.
"Fuutarou?"
The gentle voice of the bunch calls out to him distinctly even through the chatter of her sisters' voices and the watery lullabies of the waves around the boat, and the boy in question turns around to behold Nakano Miku, now in a new solid sky-blue swimsuit with a side-tie bottom and a frilly top that's even come with equally frilly armbands that she also wears around her triceps, standing behind him with her own phone.
"Want me to take a picture for you too?" he asks, assuming the same request from Miku as well, but to his stifled surprise, she shakes her head.
"Can we - May we take a s-selfie together?" Miku stutters once while asking him.
Blinking in surprise that he can't keep to himself, Fuutarou shrugs awkwardly, unsure of what to say to such a request other than yes.
"Er...sure, I guess," he sighs, sitting down on the side of the speedboat so that it'll be safer for Miku to take their selfie together, and Miku promptly joins him on his side of the boat. "I'm just telling you now, I'm, uh, not very good at getting my picture taken..."
"It's okay, you don't need to do anything," Miku grins cheerfully as she raises her phone up. Fuutarou remembers to take his aviators off, figuring it'd be rude for him to wear sunglasses for a picture, and he simply stares back at the camera lens of the phone as Miku snaps the picture. "Thanks, Fuutarou."
"Sure, yeah..."
Pouting a little at the opposite end of the boat, Nakano Nino watches Miku step daintily back to rejoin her sisters.
"Since when did you get all chummy with him?" she asks her younger sister.
"And what is it to you?" Miku responds swiftly, not letting her sister's bad vibes check her so soon, not right after she's gotten a picture with her tutor.
"I'm just asking, no need to get all defensive on me," Nino hisses back. "Like, I know you've been taking lessons from him and all, but like, you're not the type to just go up to someone and ask them for a selfie, that's more something Yotsuba or Ichika would do, right?"
"I think we've known Fuutarou for long enough that taking a selfie with him shouldn't be weird or anything, right? Besides, we haven't had a chance to really hang out with him for the week so far that we've been here, so what's wrong with a little picture?"
"I don't even wanna hang out with him. Actually, why did he even follow us here in this boat?" Nino covers her surprisingly simple black bikini top, over which she's wearing a light, plain white hoodie.
"Because we technically need an adult with us on this boat, but since Dad's not here, Fuutarou-kun needs to fill in," Ichika answers in a timely fashion, having noticed Nino and Miku begin to slip into argument again.
"Wait, but he's not even old enough for that, he's the same age as us!"
"Yeah, but Dad already booked this charter boat, and we were all looking forward to it too. We're not just going to cancel it now, are we?"
"You let me know when you wanna head back, Nino, I can always tell our driver here that I'm not actually an adult, and so contractually speaking he'll have to take us back to shore," Fuutarou calls over to Nino in a moderate voice, since the boat itself is rather small and so anything the quintuplets or his own little sister say is easily audible to anyone up at the bow.
"Ah, Nino, please don't, the boat ride's been so much fun so far!" Yotsuba begs pleadingly, lurching forward and wrapping her arms around Nino's neck. Yotsuba's toned strength as the most athletic of the quintuplets once again kicks into high gear, and Nino soon finds herself almost suffocating with how strong Yotsuba's armlock is around her neck.
"O-Okay okay okay okay, I'll shut up, just l-let go of me, Yotsuba!" Nino chokes and promptly rubs her neck once Yotsuba relinquishes her immediately upon realizing that her strength is starting to hurt her own sister. "And could you, like, not choke someone out whenever you hug them?"
"Give her a break, Nino, Yotsuba has always been like that, no?" Itsuki calls over. She's munching on some delicious and freshly baked sausage bread that she's bought as part of a whole bag's worth of breads and snacks that she's purchased from a local bakery on their way to the charter boat pier. She stoops down and fishes out another sausage bread just like the one she's eating and offers it to Nino. "Here, take one. We did not eat much for breakfast, so you might be a bit hungry by now."
The sight of the sausage bread makes Nino's mouth water, forcing her to acknowledge and accept Itsuki's consideration.
"Also, when you are done, hand the plastic back to me so I can put it away properly," Itsuki makes sure to mention.
"Yes, yes, mother."
"Yes, yes, such a good daughter. Now make sure to go to town later after this and buy us more bread from that bakery I went to. Five of those melon breads for me, specifically," Itsuki plays right off Nino's sarcastic comment, now with a big, motherly smile that is anything but.
"Then I'd become your goddamn maid!" Nino raises her slender, sunscreened leg up to jab her big toe in Fuutarou's direction. "Tell him to do that! I know firsthand that he's got the experience!"
"If you're talking about putting up with the unreasonable demands of the people I'm with, very much so," he retorts.
As Nino and her would-be tutor go at it for a minute, Yotsuba turns to his sister. "Raiha-chan, how've you been enjoying this boat ride so far?"
"It's great! I never thought I could go boat-riding!" Smiling widely with the brilliance and innocence brighter than the sun itself, Raiha thanks Yotsuba. "Thank you, everyone!"
"Awwwww ~ !" Without warning, both Yotsuba and Itsuki, strangely, hug Fuutarou's little sister without warning, effectively dispelling the awkward situation that Nino has brought on them almost as soon as it appeared.
"Raiha-chan, you're so freaking preciooooooouuuuuus!" the fourth quint cries, unable to handle how much of an angel Raiha is. "You're an angel, Raiha-chan! An actual angel! Uesugi-san's soooooo lucky to have you!"
"You should see her while she's at home," Fuutarou calls over the cooing quintuplets. "Give her a ladle and she's got an iron grip over the household."
Raiha's face turns like a monster straight out of a horror film towards her brother.
"Oniiiiiiiiiii-chaaaaaaaaan...?" she asks in her same cheerful voice and tone, giving him the same wide smile but with absolutely none of the radiant innocence as before.
"Nonsense, Raiha-chan is a pure-hearted girl who must be protected at all costs," Itsuki maintains stubbornly. "Besides, she knows how to be grateful and shows it, unlike Nino over here."
"Sheesh, I said I was sorry, what more do you want from me," Nino gripes back. "And let me remind you who does all the cooking around the house normally."
"GAAAAAAAN!" Itsuki cries out an actual onomatopoeia at Nino's truth bomb, unable to refute this.
"Th-That's a low blow, Nino..." Miku mutters in a mock tone of horror.
"It's not a low blow, it's the truth! Facts don't care about your feelings, you know!"
"Raiha-chan, we'll be doing a bit of snorkeling pretty soon. It's safe to assume that this'll be your first time snorkeling, right?"
Raiha nods. "Yep! Are we really gonna be able to swim with turtles?"
"Uh huh, we sure are! It'll be tons of fun."
Squeeing with delight, Raiha lets her hands be grasped by Ichika's, and the two of them together laugh in delightful anticipation of a fun-filled cruise that awaits ahead of them. Watching the two of them be joined by Yotsuba, with Nino and Miku looking quietly on, Itsuki can't help but make a happy smile of her own.
"I did not imagine that our trip would be so much more fun with a guest," Itsuki thinks aloud to Fuutarou, who's since put back on his aviators.
"The more the merrier, is what the Americans say..." Fuutarou remarks.
"That certainly appears to be the case here, yes. Thank you for bringing Raiha-chan along, Uesugi-kun. She's made this trip a great deal more fun than it might have been."
"Again, no need to thank me, your d - "
"You already told us that, yes, I understand; we all know very well what our father has done for us. But I must give credit where credit is due: had you not asked Father to let Raiha-chan come with us, she would not be here to enjoy this vacation with us."
Smirking a little, Fuutarou glances back down at his phone, making Itsuki pout a little and lower her own hands holding her half-eaten sausage bread.
"What is it now, Uesugi-kun? What is so funny?" she demands softly, raising her hands back up promptly again to nibble on her bread a little.
"No, it's...it's just weird that you'd say that to me after our last conversation."
"Y-You do not need to bring that up!"
"Bring what up?" Yotsuba calls over innocently, but Itsuki immediately scrambles back with,
"N-Nothing, Yotsuba, nothing at all! I definitely did not have a run-in with Uesugi-kun the other night, nuh-uh!"
"Oh, then there's no problem then!" Smiling widely as ever, the ever cheerful fourth quintuplet who takes everything at face-value pulls out a sweetbread for herself from their bag of snacks.
"There's obviously a big problem!" Raiha shrilly rings out in objection. Wiggling out of Yotsuba's arms, Raiha carefully steps over in front of her older brother, who eyes her carefully in case the rocking of the boat compromises her balance. "Onii-chan, did you have an argument with Itsuki-san at some point this week?"
"We did, but that kind of stuff should be kept between me and her," Fuutarou answers honestly.
"Eehhhh?! Uesugi-san really did have a run-in with Itsuki! Itsuki, you lied to me!"
Shock writes itself all over Yotsuba's face as she turns, feeling betrayed, to her sole younger sister with the sweetbread she's taken now firmly held in her mouth with her front teeth.
"Itsuki, why did you tell everyone what you did like that?" Ichika chuckles aloud, unsure of what Itsuki was thinking behaving like that.
"I-I am not good at lying, Ichika, you know this! Yotsuba and I are like this, we always have been!"
"That's not true, you've done it before a few times. Of course, nothing compared to our resident master of disguise, Miku. You could take a few pointers from her, honestly..."
Meanwhile, Raiha is still reprimanding her brother for getting into a fight with Itsuki. "She's your student, Onii-chan! You can't just get into a fight with her like that, okay?" she nags at him like she's his mother rather than his younger sister. "No matter how smart you are or no matter how different our circumstances are, you must never get into a fight with your friends!"
Choosing to deal with his sister's miniature rant, Fuutarou nods absentmindedly, alternating glances up and down between his sister and his phone screen, and the quintuplets look on with various reactions on their faces ranging from mild amusement to genuine concern and worry.
"What did you even get into a fight with Itsuki for? Something regarding the tutoring stuff?" Nino calls over, halfway through her own sausage bread. Fuutarou glances over at Itsuki.
"Are you okay with me divulging that from the other night?" he asks her.
"I should ask the same to you. I figured you would be the one to worry more about something like that being revealed to my sisters," she replies curtly.
"I mean, I'm fine with it, so..." Fuutarou clears his throat quickly. "Itsuki came out to talk to me the night your dad left at like midnight or one in the morning to tell me, long story short, that she wanted to join you three for my lessons." He points at his current three students Ichika, Miku, and Yotsuba.
"Oooh! So Itsuki-chan's gonna come join us too, huh? Yaaay ~ " Ichika reaches over and clasps her youngest sibling's hands to shake them around in celebration while Nino, initially taken back by this announcement, has reduced herself to looking grumpy and standoffish. Yotsuba, for her part, also cheers with Ichika and glomps her younger sister from behind, nuzzling her lips against the back of Itsuki's long peachy-red hair.
"I-Ichika, we are not in elementary anymore, you do not need to call me 'Itsuki-chan'!" the quintuplet in question stammers in embarrassment. "And besides, th-that was what I initially planned to do! Uesugi-kun, you should tell them, as you were the one to say it yourself, no?"
"Sure, I guess. Itsuki told me that she wanted to start taking lessons from me because after what you all saw me do that night with your dad, she apparently changed her opinion of me. I promptly rejected her on that because I don't like the idea of her joining us for tutoring just because she saw me argue with her dad on a topic that's almost totally irrelevant from what my main job is, which is tutoring."
"Huh? Wait, Itsuki goes up to you and says that she'll take your lessons after all this time you've been bugging us to do that, and then now you're just like no?" Nino balks at the apparent hypocrisy of her would-be tutor. "How're you just gonna flip-flop like that? What was the point of you bugging us for the past few weeks then if you were just gonna end up saying that kind of crap?"
"I'd explain myself, but I don't really feel obligated to answer the other one who's never come to one of my lessons on that," Uesugi points out.
"Yes you do! Even if I haven't come to any of your lessons, you've still been bothering us as a whole just by being at our house every weekday for the past three weeks before this one. And not to mention I've been nearby at the dinner table hanging out at least, unlike Itsuki, who's holed herself up in her own room all that time like a hermit!"
"H-Hermit..." Itsuki repeats awkwardly, pouting indignantly. "I wish not to be labeled as such when you sit next to an even bigger hermit!"
"Itsuki, don't even start with me right now," Miku murmurs dangerously, her vivid blue eyes flashing subtly with a kind of assertiveness that Itsuki has yet to witness, and it causes the latter to shrink in posture, perhaps regretting trying to deflect the attention over to Miku.
"Okay, fine, I'll tell you Nino, since I'm sure Yotsuba wants to hear about it too, right?" Fuutarou glances over at the fourth quint, who nods hugely in anticipation. "But in exchange, you'll let me tell everyone what we did yesterday morning."
"Yesterday morni - " Gasping shortly, Nino manages to stifle it, but enough of it comes out that her sisters can clearly tell that was a gasp from her just now. "No, Uesugi, don't you dare, don't you dare!"
"What did Nino make you do for her yesterday...?" Miku asks urgently, glaring a little at her sister next to her.
"I was wondering what Nino would've been doing all by herself yesterday morning at the shopping mall. Normally we'd all go together, but this time was a little different, and maybe you can explain why, Fuutarou-kun?" Ichika asks coyly, giving a bit of a devious smile to Nino, who frets back at her with eyes of small panic.
"Well, it's...not much, really. Nino just dragged me around the shopping mall yesterday early in the morning while the rest of you were still back in your hotel room," Fuutarou shrugs slowly. "That's all. She just wanted me to carry around all her bags for her."
"Ah, that's mean, Nino!" Yotsuba also cries, pointing her finger like a certain ace attorney at her older sister accusingly. "You can't just have our guest carry around bags for you like that!"
"He's not our guest, he's our – our - " Nino hesitates, trying to mentally grope around for the correct word to use to describe Fuutarou. " - our bellboy!"
"A bellboy who also teaches the entire school curriculum and then some? Some bellboy that is," Fuutarou remarks to the other quintuplets' amusement. "But she was kind enough to buy me these clothes and a drink, so I don't mind too much."
"You are quite the cheap person, Uesugi-kun, if you agreed to Nino's contract just for some clothes and a drink," Itsuki offhandedly comments while taking the last bite of her sausage bread. "Knowing Nino, it must have been a cup of bubble tea, yes?"
"Yep. You sure know her well."
"I-It's not some kind of top secret that I really like bubble tea, okay?!" Nino yowls like an angry cat. "Besides, I'm hardly the only one of us who really likes it! Ichika always gets one with me whenever we stop by a place back home!"
"Yeah, but, I don't like...go out of my way to pick some up. Besides, you know me, I like my frappuchinos more," Ichika giggles. "Actually, Fuutarou-kun, if Nino's treated you to some bubble tea, maybe I should get you a frappuchino at some point. You like coffee enough, right?"
"Sure, I'll take you up on that. Do I need to carry around bags for four hours like Nino did?"
"Aha, probably not."
"Deal. Free coffee's free coffee."
"You just love free stuff, don't you?" Nino sighs, and Fuutarou raises out his arms in response.
"Welcome to the rest of the world outside your own little bubble! I'll be your tour guide to the outside world, Uesugi Fuutarou, and my assistant today will be Uesugi Raiha, who'll teach you how to be frugal and penny-pinch literally everything under the sun for a true and authentic lower-income family living experience!"
"Yeeees! My name is Uesugi Raiha, and I'll do my best to teach you how to cook good, cheap curry on a tight budget for three weeks while also not making everyone in your house sick of eating curry for three weeks!" Raiha squeaks out, causing everyone on the boat to laugh, including even Fuutarou himself and the usually grumpy Nino.
"You should come over and help me teach these dunces how to actually cook at some point, then, Raiha-chan," Nino says in a markedly gentler tone to Fuutarou's sister. "None of these girls know how to cook for themselves to save their lives."
"I-I know how to cook, Nino!" Miku pouts to her nearby sister before quietly adding, "...a little."
"Hmmmm? Sorry, I couldn't quite catch that last part there Miku, mind if you say it just a teeny bit louder?" Nino jokingly mocks her sister, leaning in with her hand cupped against her ear.
"Actually, Fuutarou-kun, before I forget to ask, Miku wondered where you were staying this whole time," Ichika, remembering to ask her tutor this crucial question that Miku indeed brought up the night of their family dinner, pitches to Uesugi. "Since you told us that Raiha-chan took your spot on the plane ride and the hotel room."
"I found a cheap room nearby. There's a lot of cheaper motels and such behind the resorts further into the city here," Fuutarou explains quickly. "So don't worry, I'm looking after myself properly."
But Raiha again pouts up at her brother. "The last time you said that, Onii-chan, we found out you were sleeping standing up while leaning against a tree in a park!" she declares, exposing her brother's past lies. "You're not doing that again, are you?"
"I'm not, I'm not, calm down, Raiha. Unlike our dad, I actually listen to what you have to say."
"That's only because Dad's a dummy sometimes and doesn't know how to listen. But you'll do the same sometimes too, you know!"
"Right, but not this time."
Looking up from his sister, Fuutarou finds, to his awkward surprise, most of the quintuplets looking on pensively at him and his sister.
"We can, um, get you a room in the resort if you want..." Ichika offers slowly, trying to remember if the resort had any rooms open.
"Like I said, I'm not just - "
"Uesugi-san, please don't sleep out in the cold at night!" Yotsuba hollers in fright, scooting over to Fuutarou and taking hold of his left hand too as if to check his body temperature. "That's just too sad, and I don't want that!"
"I'm not, don't worry about it!" Fuutarou insists a bit louder.
"Eh, what's the big deal? Clearly he can handle it, let him be," Nino waves her hand dismissively in her would-be tutor's direction.
"Maybe so, but – but considering this situation, where he had Raiha-chan take his spot and we only learned about it because he told us the other day, you can't blame some of us for being concerned about it now, can you?" Ichika points out.
Then, a light bulb brightens up inside Raiha's head, and the younger Uesugi sibling leans in towards her quintuplet friends.
"How about we just have Onii-chan stay in the same room as us?" she suggests innocently.
Nino, who is taking a drink of water from a plastic water bottle, blasts the water in her mouth out like an exploding water balloon without warning the moment she registers Raiha's suggestion. She tries to lurch straight downwards so that she won't hit anyone in particular, but she can't react fast enough to her own reaction and thus ends up spraying Fuutarou with the brunt of her spit-take. Slowly lowering his aviators that have shielded his eyes from the incoming mist, Fuutarou scowls heavily as Miku hurriedly wipes her sister's face down for her with a nearby towel.
"Just for the record, before you even say anything to me, I never planned to stay in the same room anyway," he pre-emptively states as Nino, blushing furiously at her own embarrassing reaction, takes the towel from Miku so that she can do the job of drying herself on her own while her other sisters look on with bewilderment. Fuutarou himself wipes the water off the rest of his face with the back of his hand while Raiha simply looks dumbfounded that her suggestion could even draw such a reaction from anyone. "I would've taken the same plane ride, sure, but not the room. You and Itsuki would kick me out to the streets either way."
"So you are just wandering around out on the streets, then!" Yotsuba pouts the hardest Fuutarou has ever seen from her personally. Seeing this, the young tutor is immediately reminded of all the pouts he's been given from the rest of the quintuplets - further reinforcing the fact that all five of them are, without a doubt, identical quintuplets.
"I'm not. Forget I said that already."
"Well, I know one person here who wouldn't mind sharing a room with you, Fuutarou-kun," Ichika suggests with a touch of naughtiness, her eyes slowly creeping over in Miku's direction, who sits up straight as soon as she feels Ichika's eyes begin to leer at her. "And maybe, just maybe, a little bit more than just the room, too ~ "
"Ichika!" Miku whines, pouting back at her.
"Yeah, that's exactly what Nino doesn't want," Fuutarou agrees. "If I did that, next time, she'll do this..."
Fiddling through his phone, Fuutarou pulls a certain image off the net and holds up his phone to the girls so that they can see. On his phone screen is a photo of a pair of gloved hands holding an inflated pufferfish spitting out a solid stream of water, and as soon as the girls see this, every one of them, with the sole exception being of course Nino, explode into laughter; Itsuki, the other half of the anti-Uesugi Fuutarou faction of the Nakanos, cannot resist the contextual hilarity of Fuutarou's joke and betrays Nino in favor of facepalming in a feeble effort to try to hide her own savage fit of giggles.
"Maybe I should just go ahead and do that right now, then?" Nino threatens with a tremendously false smile, grabbing her water bottle again and untwisting the cap for added emphasis.
"You'll be wasting water, so don't. Also, this's just payback for those four hours yesterday when you dragged my ass around the shopping mall."
"But I got you those clothes and some bubble tea, what do you mean, this's 'payback'?! I already paid you back!"
"Yes, Nino, because any person in their right mind would want to follow a bratty girl like you around for four hours carrying six bags at once the entire time, just to be compensated with some Uniqlo clothes and a cup of tea."
"Shut up, Uesugi! Shut up, shut up, shut uuuuuppp! ! !"
After a fun-filled morning and early afternoon of snorkeling, sealife viewing, and cruising, the girls have dispersed to carry out their own vacation agendas for the day: Ichika and Nino have retreated to the resort's spa for another round of beauty treatments; Miku, having had no real plans after their private charter cruise, has opted to tag along with Itsuki to keep her company as the latter visits a luxury eyeglass shop back in the Ala Moana Shopping Mall that she'd seen the day before while all the quints were out shopping there to see if they might have a pair of new eyeglasses for her farsightedness.
Yotsuba, on the other hand...
"There they are...!"
Having almost lost track of them for a few brief moments, the fourth quintuplet who also does not have her own agenda for the rest of the day renews her stealthy pursuit of Uesugi Fuutarou and Uesugi Raiha as the latter two spend the afternoon together at the Ala Moana Shopping Mall. The Nakano girls were kind enough to give Raiha some spending money of her own as part of her time she's spending with her older brother. Because both of them have been through this shopping mall, Fuutarou with Nino the previous morning and Raiha with all the girls together during the previous afternoon, both brother and sister are able to navigate their way through the mall with surprisingly comfortable ease. In fact, so easily do they weave through the existing foot traffic and the layout of the mall that Yotsuba, who herself possesses somewhat below-average directional abilities, begins to wonder how on earth the two of them have been able to learn the layout of this shopping mall as quickly as they seem to have.
But determined not to lose sight of them, Yotsuba continues her less-than-stealthy chase through the mall, stalking her perhaps knowledgeable prey as they frequent the shops that Raiha has already planned to visit with the help of her brother beforehand at their hotel room. Taking cover behind palm trees, trash cans, signs, and corners, she watches them with a keen eye that her sisters, from experience, know is perhaps not so keen as it seems.
"...Yotsuba, what in the world are you doing?"
"Eep!"
Jumping a little from the sudden voice of one of her quintuplet sisters, Yotsuba zips around to find Miku, her direct older sister, narrowing her eyes at her.
"M-M-Miku! How di - "
" - I find you? Easy, you literally walked right by me."
Yotsuba looks horrified that her stealthiness was clearly not good enough. "I-I did...?! But, but I was doing my best to stay incognito and stuff!"
"Incognito...?" Miku scans Yotsuba's outfit, which consists of a bright lemon-yellow shirt with the blue numbers 428 blazed across her ample chest and half-jeans that have a few clean cuts across the bottom of the pant sleeves for fashion's sake. "Yes, Yotsuba, because what you're wearing right now will really help you with that."
"Uuuu, Miku's bullying me! Besides, you're starting to sound like Uesugi-san from earlier today, too!" Yotsuba pouts, flicking her face away and pressing her arms against her chest sullenly as she crosses them.
"Me sounding like Fuutarou aside, seriously, what're you doing?"
"Er..."
Her arms weakening and dropping down so that she can hold one arm with the other hand in a somewhat submissive stance, Yotsuba lets her green clover-shaped hair ribbon droop down onto her scalp expressively.
"D-Don't laugh at me, okay? Can you promise me that, at least?" she asks uncharacteristically timidly, as Miku notes. Normally Yotsuba wouldn't bother asking her something like this beforehand...
"I don't know what I would have to laugh at, to begin with."
"Well, I'm...I'm just trying to make sure that, um, Uesugi-san and Raiha-chan are, well, you know, having...fun...?"
Miku snorts before she can stop herself, and now she knows what Nino tried doing earlier that morning on the speedboat.
"Ah, there, right there! You laughed at me!" Yotsuba yells out, jabbing a finger in Miku's direction in catching her red-handed. "You said you wouldn't laugh at me but you did!"
"Th-That was just...just a reaction...sorry..." Miku mumbles, embarrassed at herself and pulling her signature blue Audio Technicas around her neck a bit more tightly. "Honestly, though, I didn't...expect you to have that kind of an answer."
In full pout mode, Yotsuba refolds her arms across her chest with a big ol' frown on her lips. "I know I can end up doing stuff that looks pretty ridiculous in hindsight, but to go on and laugh even when I asked you not to...you're the worst, Miku! Hmph!"
"I said I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you somehow, if you'll let me." Miku puts her hands together in apology, but also because she's got an idea. "I know...I can make you some croquettes once we get back home."
"That's a punishment, Miku, not an apology!"
"But Ichika said that they were good the last time I tried them..."
"Because she was just trying to be nice to you!"
Miku's head droops as rays of despair begin emitting from her head. "So they really are that bad, huh..."
"They're nowhere near as good as you think they are, no."
"Ouch. And you of all people are telling me this..."
"I-I know I don't usually say stuff like that, but..." Also beginning to feel bad for putting down Miku's cooking ability, Yotsuba slowly drops her pouting act. "It's just that I've eaten enough of your croquettes before to know that my stomach doesn't like it whenever you give me some. I don't want our bathroom to suffer from stuff like that..."
"That's a very...roundabout way of saying my cooking is bad..."
"That was just the first thing that came to my head, I'm sorry!"
Sighing to reset the conversation, Yotsuba pulls herself together and stands up tall before her sister.
"So really, how did you find me?"
Miku turns to point to the luxury eyeglass shop directly behind her. Yotsuba, following her lead, also spies Itsuki sitting with one of the staff members inside who is currently peddling a wide selection of glasses for her to choose from.
"Geh, of course I'd end up right outside the shop that you and Itsuki were in," the fourth quint groans miserably. "I guess you were pretty bored in there, huh? So that's why you came out?"
Miku nods. "Only so much I can do in there. It's not like I have any interest in glasses."
"Speaking of glasses, though, you ever wonder if that might be one of Uesugi-san's fetishes?" Yotsuba giggles teasingly, leaning in towards her older sister.
"F-Fetishes?! Er, wait, why're you bringing that up now..."
"You don't have to hide it, Miku ~ ! You were being all friendly and stuff with Uesugi-san today, weren't you? Even this normally ditzy Yotsuba knows!" The self-named quintuplet points with both index fingers up to her clover-shaped hair ribbon that now stands up proud and tall on her head. "There's love in the air, Miku, and I can just smell it!"
"And since when were you a professional in this sort of thing?"
"I'm not. It's just sister instinct ~ !"
"Just because we're quintuplets...?"
"That too, but more because we're sisters!"
Miku gets hit with a small wave of deja vu.
"Anyway, don't you think Uesugi-san's the type of guy who would like girls in glasses?" Yotsuba wonders aloud, raising her hand up to her mouth to appear at least somewhat more intelligent as she discusses this matter.
"He's never told us his preferences...honestly, I don't think he's very interested in stuff like that," Miku answers frankly.
"But everyone's got stuff that they like, don't they? Even if he acts all stiff and cold all the time, even he's got to have stuff he likes seeing girls have, I bet!"
"And so that's why you think Fuutarou has a, uh, glasses fetish?"
"I mean, it makes sense, right? Uesugi-san is like super smart and stuff, he tutors us diligently and he even works with Dad at the hospital. Don't you think it just makes sense for someone like him to have a thing for girls who wear glasses? I can tell you for a fact that Itsuki looks way smarter whenever she's got her glasses on."
"Looks smarter, yes."
"I wasn't trying to comment on her actual grades, Miku. Besides, I'm the last person who can do that."
"I know..."
Yotsuba lightly kicks a small pebble near her right foot off to the side. "So...you don't think so?"
"Don't think what?"
"That Uesugi-san has a thing for girls with glasses."
Miku briefly entertains herself with the thought, picturing herself wearing glasses. Before she can stop herself, her imagination then seizes this opportunity to drift her mind off to a parallel world in which she wears glasses regularly, or at the very least like Itsuki where she would wear a pair whenever she needs to do homework or study, and Fuutarou noticing a newfound kind of beauty to her that is only drawn out whenever she dons her glasses.
"Errr...yeah, I don't...I don't know about that..." Miku has to cut off her imagination before it can begin to get dangerous for her own heart and shakes her head to clear herself mentally, but Yotsuba pounces on her vulnerability just now.
"You were imagining yourself in glasses, weren't you? Weren't you? Weren't you?" she teases her sister who feverishly denies it by shaking her head back and forth, her own peachy-red hair whipping back and forth.
"Then how about you, Yotsuba? How would Fuutarou feel about you in glasses?" Miku returns fire, playing the reverse card and flipping the question back to the original source.
"E-Eh!? M-Me...? Well, I..." Letting her voice trail off awkwardly as she herself is forced to consider the topic, Yotsuba feels her face pop just like Miku's a moment ago, and she begins to giggle just as awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head while doing so. "I don't know, um...I-I don't feel so confident that I'd look any good in them..."
"But didn't we have that kind of conversation a long time ago back when Nino and Itsuki needed to get glasses? Nino said she didn't want glasses to make her look like some kind of nerd, so she went with contacts, while Itsuki went with glasses instead. Itsuki ended up looking just fine with her glasses."
"B-But Itsuki has that, uh, she's got that air about her that makes her fit well with glasses, you know? I don't have anything like that," Yotsuba protests. "At least Itsuki can pull off looking smart. I can't do that."
"I mean, if you're unsure, we can always go in and see for sure," Miku suggests, pointing back at the glasses shop that Itsuki is visiting.
"I-I-I-I'm okay, I swear!"
Yotsuba gasps in fright as she spies a glint of light flash from one of Miku's eyes and barely dodges a sudden grab from her as Miku attempts to seize her to drag her against her will into the glasses shop, but contrary to her nefarious plans, Yotsuba, bar none the most athletically proven quintuplet, with the added motivation of fear and potential embarrassment, banks left and right to spot-dodge all of Miku's grab attempts. Soon enough, Miku is out of breath and is forced to call off her attempts just so that she doesn't end up collapsing from the exertion.
"Ugh...of...of course...it was...going...to end up like...like this..." Miku pants with her hands on her knees as Yotsuba looks on worriedly for her sister's condition.
"I don't mean to be rude about it, but what made you think you could catch me?"
"That's...what I'm...trying to figure out..." Miku recovers enough to at least be able to look back up at Yotsuba. "...being in all those...sports clubs and such...they really did...pay off for you, huh...?"
"Yeah, but like...they don't help me get smarter." Yotsuba awkwardly scratches her cheek a little. "Being good at basketball isn't going to help me graduate high school, I don't think."
"It could...if you were really good at it...enough to get a scholarship, maybe..."
"Ehhhh, I doubt it though, I can't be that good..."
Having finally caught most of her breath again to the point where she can stand up properly, Miku clears her throat first before asking,
"So you were following Fuutarou and Raiha around all this time...just to make sure that they're having fun...?"
Yotsuba nods timidly, which is uncharacteristic coming from a girl who's known to give hugs to her sisters capable of mass destruction.
"Uesugi-san and Raiha-chan are...like how we once used to be like, you know...?" she murmurs pensively, and Miku nods in understanding. "We know this is Raiha-chan's first ever vacation outside of Japan, and to have to spend all of it without her brother, even if he's here with us in person, would just be...really sad. And because of Uesugi-san's work stuff of making sure nothing happens to us while we're here, this is the only time that they'll have to spend together."
"So you've been following them around to make sure that they're having fun?"
"Yeah...something like that."
"I don't think you need to worry about that, though. Fuutarou is a good person - even if he doesn't have all the time in the world to spend with his sister, he'll make the most out of what little time he does have."
Yotsuba's pensive look brightens up slightly as the corners of her lips slowly reverse into a small smile.
"...I know this might sound weird coming from me, but...I wish I were that confident, Miku," she confides in her older sister. "I followed them around for the past hour because I wanted to see for myself that they were enjoying themselves here. It would break my heart to think that neither of them had as much fun as they wanted to have while they were here."
Gazing sadly back at her younger sister, Miku takes two steps towards her to close the distance between them so that she can whisper audibly back to her:
"...you don't feel this way because you think this is your fault somehow, is it...?"
And to Miku's alarm, Yotsuba says nothing and merely keeps her gaze locked down at her feet.
"Yotsuba, please, talk to me," Miku urgently whispers again. "What did you do to think that those two not spending time together was somehow your fault...?"
"Two nights ago, when Uesugi-san confronted Dad," she answers truthfully, raising her eyes back up again. "Or rather, after Dad left."
Miku's face tenses up in reaction. "Let me guess, when Fuutarou said that he'd given up his plane ticket and his hotel room to Raiha-chan?"
Yotsuba gives her a tiny nod. "I felt...horrible, hearing that initially. We'd gone all that time...we'd gone for three days not even knowing what the original plan was. He let his sister be with us up in first-class while he had to sit in the back of the plane in third, he let Raiha-chan stay with us in our hotel room so that she'd have a great time with us while he spent all this time sleeping wherever the heck, and he's spent all this time working to make sure that nothing would happen to us and that we wouldn't have to worry about anything. I couldn't even tell if Uesugi-san was lying to us earlier this morning, when I asked him where he was even staying if Raiha-chan was the one staying with us..."
"It's not your fault that things ended up this way, please don't think that it is," Miku urges quietly. "It's no one's fault."
"I get that, Miku, I really do. But even still, I just can't...shake off this feeling that we at least should've known all the things that Uesugi-san was doing, both for us and for his sister."
"I get that too, I would like to know what Fuutarou is up to so that we can ask him to come join us for whatever we did this week. But...Fuutarou isn't the type of person who would join us normally like that anyway. He probably wouldn't have even joined us if Papa were still here, because in that case, he would just stay back while Papa came with us as our guardian for the cruise."
Yotsuba goes back to gazing straight down at the ground, and so Miku puts a hand on her sister's shoulder.
"We've been through the same thing that Fuutarou and his sister are going through; seeing them in that position must hurt you a lot," she says quietly. "But we can't change any of that, or anything that's happened in this trip so far. But at least now, Fuutarou is spending time with Raiha-chan; that much you should be sure of."
Nodding slowly, Yotsuba twists her lips pensively once more - and then immediately bolts up, her deflated hair ribbon also standing straight up. Miku, blinking at Yotsuba's instant transformation, takes a step back in surprise.
"Y-Yotsuba...?"
"You said it, Miku! You're right, we can't change what's already happened," the fourth quintuplet says, whipping out her phone and immediately beginning to text the two sisters not immediately within her vicinity, Ichika and Nino. "But - ! We still can change...the future!"
"Er...those are some big words coming out of you right now," Miku says hesitantly as she wonders what Yotsuba could be texting.
"I know! But even an idiot like me can say smart stuff every once in a while!"
"Anyways, what are you even texting?"
"I'm texting Ichika and Nino. Once Itsuki's done with her stuff, I'll let you in on this."
"Sounds like you've got some sort of plan."
"Yep!"
"For what, though? Something involving Fuutarou?"
"Yeah!"
"A plan involving me, huh? Fill me in on the details."
"Sure! I'm gonnaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! ! ! !"
Screaming with the realization that the one person she doesn't want to notify about her hastily-made plans is talking right over her shoulder, Yotsuba stumbles forward and whips around, grasping her phone with both hands and hiding it behind her back as bullets of sweat come pouring from her scalp. Uesugi Fuutarou and his sister Raiha are standing where Yotsuba was, waving hello to the quintuplets.
"Something involving me, huh?" Fuutarou repeats, stepping ominously towards Yotsuba, who yelps and hides behind Miku for shelter. "Suspicious, very suspicious. What could the normally bouncy and bubbly Nakano Yotsuba be hiding from the brooding, mysterious, and enigmatic Uesugi Fuutarou, I wonder? Isn't that kind of behavior supposed to be my job?"
"I-I-It's top secret, Uesugi-san, you can't know about it yet, it's against the ruuuuules!" Yotsuba hollers as Fuutarou stops before Miku, who awkwardly smiles back up at him.
"Rules? I don't play by the rules, you should know this - "
"Onii-chan bad!"
A seal plushie bounces off the side of Fuutarou's head, which he catches on reaction before it can hit the ground as Raiha rejoins them.
"You shouldn't throw stuff like that out in public, Raiha," Fuutarou warns her lightly.
"Yeah, but you shouldn't bully girls like that out in public either, especially when they're your own students!" Raiha counter-scolds.
"So you're saying that I can still bully them, just not out in public?"
"Geeez, stop twisting my words out of context!"
"Where did you get all that stuff, Raiha-chan?" Miku asks, noting the old reusable bag with the recycling emblem on it, the same one that Fuutarou used the other day to deliver food to the quints at the beach. It is now filled instead to the brim with all sorts of stuffed animals, plushies, and other miscellaneous prizes.
"The arcade! Onii-chan won a lot of it for me," Raiha smiles hugely in happiness, and she points behind her at the Round One Arcade building behind her.
"She loves going to arcades. I've been meaning to take her to one but I couldn't find the time, but we both saw this one here separately yesterday, so we made sure to stop by here."
"American arcades are a lot different from Japanese ones," Raiha nods sagely, mentally noting the differences. "But there were a lot of Japanese cabinets and stuff there, so it felt a little familiar."
"I think that particular arcade chain makes it a point to try to import authentic Japanese arcade machines, last time I read up..." Fuutarou adds.
"So did you have fun today, Raiha-chan?" Miku asks, nudging Yotsuba a little.
"Yep, lots! And with Onii-chan this time, too!" Fuutarou's little sister smiles with weapons-grade cuteness. "Thank you for letting me borrow him for today! Oh, and thank you for the spending money, too!"
Raiha turns to hand her brother the bag full of prizes that he's won for her and then flattens herself against Miku, throwing her arms around her abdomen.
"I love you lots, Miku-onee-chan!" she joyfully laughs.
The sisterly honorific is super effective against Miku, who doubles over from the cannonball that is Raiha's preciousness and returns the elementary-schooler's hug twofold, stifling a bit of a squeal from herself. She does eventually come back to her senses after a few moments of hugging, and the first thing she does is look up at Fuutarou and ask,
"Fuutarou, can I trade sisters with you?"
"No," is the immediate response.
"I can trade you Nino, Fuutarou!"
"Hell no. Nino's gonna rip my eyes out the moment she hears about this. Why do you want her so badly anyway?"
"So that she can call me 'Miku-onee-chan'!" Miku blurts out before she, once again, can stop herself.
"Just get Yotsuba or Itsuki to say that to you," Fuutarou suggests dryly.
"Yeah, all you needed to do was ask!" Yotsuba giggles at Miku. "Isn't that right, Miku-onee-chan?"
"Hnnnng - !" Miku immediately relinquishes Raiha and glomps Yotsuba, much to the latter's delight. "Yotsubaaaaaaa ~ !"
"What on earth are these two doing...?" Fuutarou hears Itsuki's voice and turns to see her approaching them, having done her business at the glasses store and coming out to rendezvous with them. "Miku hardly acts like that even in the house; did you do something to her, Uesugi-kun?"
"That's what I should be asking; you didn't spike her food or anything today to make her act like this, did you?"
"I would not! Why would I do such a thing?"
Before Fuutarou has a chance to retort, Miku dashes over to Itsuki, much to the latter's shock, and asks her plainly,
"Itsuki, can you call me - 'Miku-onee-chan'?"
"W-What the heck are you asking me to do all of a sudden!?" Itsuki yells out, embarrassed at such an odd request.
"It shouldn't be too hard, right? You used to call the rest of us with 'nee-chan' back in the day when we were younger!" Yotsuba laughs.
"Th-Th-That was a long time ago, Yotsuba! I have grown out of it now! Miku, please snap out of it, I will take you to the hospital if this keeps up!"
"Onii-chan, I didn't awaken something in Miku-san on accident, did I?" Raiha asks her brother as he, she, and Yotsuba watch Miku and Itsuki go back and forth on why Itsuki should or should not call Miku "Miku-onee-chan".
"If you did, I might be in danger of losing a sister real soon," he sighs.
"We'll still take her, though!" Yotsuba beams, stooping down and hugging Raiha as well.
"No, bad. Bad Yotsuba."
"Awww ~ hahaha!"