A/N
Managed to find the time to squeeze in a chapter, will still be slow with updates. Thanks for all the kind words so far.
"Uesugi-san, thank you for bringing us here tonight!"
Her own words and the lingering echoes of fireworks bursting in the sky overhead have both lulled her to sleep and woken her up as Yotsuba finds herself gazing up at the ceiling of her plant-filled room from her bed.
Slowly blinking, the fourth quintuplet lets herself lie in bed for a little bit longer than usual. Normally her seemingly boundless energy and active nature would provide her the will to escape the comfortable grasp of the bed that some of her other sisters seem to have trouble escaping from themselves, but today, it would appear that she is unable to call upon her usual strength to leave the confines of her bed.
The Nakanos' flight departed at 11pm sharp on Friday, and no thanks to time zones, such a flight meant that they landed safely back in Japan at roughly 2:30 in the morning on Sunday, with another hour's worth of driving back to their high-rise penthouse home in the city. Because the girls slept partway on their eight and a half hour flight back home, they were able to return home with enough energy to unpack their belongings, begin laundry, sort souvenirs, and share their freshly made memories and experiences from Honolulu over some snacks and tea before heading to bed to adjust themselves back to their proper time zone and shed their jetlag.
Share their freshly made memories and experiences, like a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Uesugi-san.
Thank you.
Uesugi-san?
There was no Uesugi-san.
"...Yotsuba...please...calm down..."
Such quietly spoken words crawl across her sheets, destined to stay confined within the walls of her self-made greenhouse that houses a miniature forest of indoor plants that she's watered before going to bed. Having squeezed her own eyes shut, Yotsuba slowly sits up and rests her back weakly against the bedframe behind her and just as slowly presses her palms against her closed eyes. She doesn't do this to rub them like one may normally would immediately after waking up, but rather to stop them from shaking erratically.
She can't stop the flashback of what she saw back at the beach. It plays in her eyes when they are open, and if she attempts to shut it out by closing her eyes, it plays in her mind's eye anyway with unrelenting impunity.
Or perhaps she is terrified of what she did not see back on that beach. By this point, she's not really sure.
After a few minutes sitting like this in bed, Yotsuba finally musters up the will to peel her hands off her eyes, and looking down at them, she notices moist, clear drops on her palms. She quickly rubs them away out of sight with the folds of her bedshirt and does the same for her eyes before pushing herself off her bed to get dressed. Her digital desk clock reads 13:41 hours.
Lacking the usual enthusiasm with which she gets ready for her day, Yotsuba puts on her clothes for the day in utter silence - a green short-sleeved t-shirt, a comfortable pair of red running shorts, and a blue hoodie with the numbers 428 stitched across the chest, one of her personal favorite hoodies. The fact that it's already almost about to be two in the afternoon certainly doesn't help to lift her spirits, for she usually prides herself on being able to wake up early to start her day off right. She thinks about her sisters - Ichika is probably still asleep, but the others she can't quite predict, as they've all shown that they can both wake up earlier than usual or sleep in later than usual.
It should still be fine, though - if she gets questioned, then all she needs to do is use the excuse of jetlag...even though that would be a lie, and her sisters would probably see through it instantly. So maybe it's not actually fine.
Not actually fine...
Gently resting her forehead against her dressing mirror, Yotsuba remains this way for a minute or two. She's not doing this because she's tired or sleepy...but in a strange sense, she supposes that she is, a little bit.
But she pushes off the wall and stands up tall before her dressing mirror. Gazing straight into her own blue eyes that peer back at her inquisitively, Yotsuba puts her index fingers on the corners of her lips and pushes up with them, letting go to let the smile that she's fabricated on her face to remain as they are. Given enough time, even fabrications can feel real if you want them to be.
And so, armed with this particularly familiar fabrication, Yotsuba turns to head out of her room and go downstairs in search of breakfast - which would really be lunch at this hour. Down in their penthouse's first floor, she finds Miku sitting alone at the empty dinner table with her laptop open in front of her and a mug of warm green tea at a safe distance beside it, with her Audio Technicas on to listen to a video that she's watching. The moment she hears someone climb down the stairs, Miku pauses the video and switches to another tab with far greater reaction time and speed than one would normally expect out of someone like Nakano Miku and turns to see who it is.
"Morning, Yotsuba. Or I should say afternoon," Miku greets her younger sister with a small wave. "Nino's already made us lunch to eat; it's in the kitchen, you just need to heat it up in the microwave."
"Okay, gotcha! But where's Nino? You sound like she's gone off somewhere," Yotsuba asks cheerily, heading straight for the kitchen. "And what about everyone else? Are Ichika and Itsuki still sleeping?"
Miku nods. "Ichika's self-explanatory, and Itsuki should be too. We all know she isn't the best at dealing with jetlag..."
"Yeah, that's true. Some things'll never change, huh..."
Grabbing one of the dinner plates with plastic wrap draped over it that's safely sealed a sizeable mound of fluffy but cold fried rice with peas, sliced green onions, scrambled egg bits, small carrot cubes, and mini-shrimp, Yotsuba peels off the wrap and sets it aside to dispose of it properly later as she sticks the plate inside the microwave to heat the food up.
"Did you already eat lunch, Miku?" Yotsuba calls over while she's punching in the numbers to the microwave.
"Yeah, I woke up at around the same time that Nino did, so we ate together."
"Got it, got it. And by the way, where'd Nino go again?"
"Oh, she left to go to a cake shop that she's been by a few times."
"Cake shop? But why?" Yotsuba turns to walk over to the kitchen counter to gaze back at Miku from the kitchen, and Miku returns her gaze solidly.
"...today's our birthday," the third quintuplet says plainly.
Yotsuba almost falls over in complete shock that she's forgotten that today's their birthday.
"E-Ehhhh!? Wait, hold on, it's - it's really May fifth already?!" she cries, gawking back at Miku from the kitchen where she stands.
Miku pulls out her phone and turns on the screen to show the date to her younger sister, and with such proof, Yotsuba is forced to accept this reality.
"We even had a pre-emptive birthday dinner on our second-to-last night back in Hawaii. Remember? At the Korean barbecue house that Fuutarou took us to," Miku reminds her sister, who reels dramatically as though she's getting hit with a wave of memories that are coming back to her in droves like she's an amnesiac regaining her memories.
"I-I completely forgot about that! I like totally forgot - ehehe, my bad, guess I'm just being Yotsuba ~ " she playfully raps herself on the side of her head and turns to attend to the microwave once it starts chiming to indicate that its reheating task is done. Taking her big plate of homemade fried rice with her back to the dinner table, Yotsuba sits across from her only other sister present on the first floor, puts her hands together to give thanks for the food, and begins digging in, armed with the usual spoon.
"So how long have you been awake, Miku?" Yotsuba asks with a half-mouthful of chewed fried rice.
"Not that long...maybe only an hour or so. Like I said, Nino and I woke up at around the same time."
"Wow. Wouldn't Nino get like, mad or something? I don't know..."
"It's Nino, she gets mad at anything that even remotely looks at her funny. But I will say that I'm pretty sure the two of us are the best among us at dealing with all the jetlag we get for traveling around everywhere."
"How was she today, though? I'd imagine that she'd be a bit crankier than usual, even if you two are the best at dealing with jetlag..."
"Not so bad today, surprisingly. At least we didn't make you wake up from us arguing like we do sometimes."
Yotsuba cringes a little as she shovels some fried rice into her mouth, remembering some of the fiercer confrontations between her older sisters.
"Y-Yeah...I guess not, huh?"
The two sisters spend some time in silence, Miku continuing to watch her Sengoku-period documentary video on her laptop while Yotsuba finishes her lunch quickly. Once she's done with her plate, Yotsuba claps her hands together to deliver her post-meal thanks as per Japanese mealtime custom, but before she can get up from her chair to put her dish away, Miku swiftly but softly shuts her laptop and pulls off her headphones to look Yotsuba straight in the eye, the same eyes that she herself shares. Coincidentally, Yotsuba glances back at Miku just as she lowers her clapped hands so that the first thing she sees after finishing lunch is her immediate older sister gazing back at her with a kind of intensity she only really sees in Miku's eyes during certain moments like whenever the latter is cooking.
"Er, Miku? What's up? You look like you wanna talk to me about something," Yotsuba says uncertainly, unable to determine Miku's intent. Given her introverted nature, her oftentimes obstructive bangs, and the brooding look she has on much of the time, regardless of the situation around her, it's admittedly difficult to know what Miku wants or intends just from looking at her; not even Ichika, the eldest of the quintuplets and the most gifted at reading the rest of her sisters, has a perfect track record with deciphering Miku's behavior, though she still is the most accurate among them.
"Is something bothering you, Yotsuba?" Miku asks.
In the few times that Miku has expressed herself clearly, directness is a defining trait of hers, but Yotsuba physically reels from the sheer straightforwardness of Miku's five words.
"W-Wait, Miku, what's - what's the deal? Why do you - " Yotsuba tries to regain her composure, but Miku doesn't let her.
"You're not being you lately," the third quintuplet points out quietly. "It's to the point where even I can notice."
"Oh...c'mon, it's - you're just overthinking it, right?" Trying to pass off Miku's accusation, Yotsuba tries to work up her usual cheery smile, but that isn't fooling Miku.
"You forgot our birthday when you're the one who usually reminds the rest of us about it," Miku says as she begins to lay out the evidence like she's a prosecutor in a court case. "The entire time on our flight back home, you were pretty quiet when normally you'd be the most energetic one, helping out with all our luggage and making a ruckus up in first class, none of which you did this time. Even before we left, after the fireworks show, you didn't really say much, and you weren't as hyper as you'd normally be after one. You didn't even talk about which firework was your favorite, which you'd always do."
Each piece of evidence forces Yotsuba to droop noticeably more and more in her seat, both her figure and her hair ribbon, unable is she to refute anything Miku is saying. Watching Yotsuba carefully, Miku leans forward a little in her seat.
"Yotsuba," she says with an even softer voice, "what happened? Is it something you can tell me?"
Slowly looking back up at her older quintuplet, Yotsuba tries to pry her lips open to answer, but she can't get them to open. For a whole four minutes, she simply sits at the table across from Miku, unable to utter anything, though the reasons why she isn't quite sure of herself. Or maybe she does know, but she doesn't want to acknowledge them. All the while, Miku remains patient, vigilantly waiting for an answer that she faithfully knows will come with time.
"It's..."
Finally, Yotsuba manages to push a word off her tongue, rewarding Miku's patience, but the latter continues to wait, not wanting to interrupt Yotsuba's slowly awakening train of thought.
"...it's Uesugi-san," the fourth quint finally admits. Her own blue eyes are fixed down on the tabletop, not on her sister. "He's...well..."
"What about him? What did he do?"
"It's, it's - he didn't - " Recognizing that she's starting to get her words jumbled up, Yotsuba tightens her fists and takes a deep breath to mentally reset herself. "At the fireworks show...when it started, um...I noticed that...that he wasn't...there..."
"Wasn't there? What do you mean, he was the one who brought us to that place," Miku tilts her head a little, confused at Yotsuba's allegation.
"Well, I don't...I don't know for sure, but...while the fireworks were going on, I, uh...I turned to him during the middle of it..."
Beginning to fidget, Yotsuba lets her eyes wander off to her right side, something Miku can clearly see.
"...I wanted to thank him. I wanted to tell him thank you for taking us to see those fireworks that night because...it was something we didn't plan for because we didn't know about it at the time. And, well, not just the fireworks, too...all the work he's been putting in for us, whether it's the tutoring or everything else...I don't mean to sound like a broken record about all that, but...I just wanted to let him know what...what we all felt at the time, I'm sure."
Miku develops an uncomfortable look of her own. "...now that you mention it, we were all so busy watching the fireworks...I don't remember seeing him with us there either..." she mumbles with furrowed eyebrows. "I could say that we were all just so engrossed in the fireworks since, like you said, we didn't expect them because we didn't know about them prior...but..."
"I swear, I'm not lying about this. I really did turn to tell Uesugi-san thank you, but he wasn't there. I'm sure I didn't see him there with us!" Yotsuba insists.
"I get it, Yotsuba, I know you're not lying. You're the one who's the worst at lying out of all of us, after all."
That little bit of truth slaps Yotsuba in the face a bit harder than she would like it to.
"But when the fireworks ended, Fuutarou was there with us; that much we know for sure," Miku continues, recounting the events of their final night at Honolulu. "That's how we got back to our limousine and back to the resort so that we could eat dinner and head off for the airport afterwards. You don't think he might've just stepped away for a bit to take a call? He's done that before while tutoring us, you know, getting calls in the middle of our lessons and having to answer them real quick."
But Yotsuba shakes her head adamantly again.
"This time - this time was different. It didn't feel like he just walked away to answer a phone call or something," she claims sadly. "If that were the case, then at least I would've seen him off to the side or something on his phone. But...when I turned...and looked at where he was standing when the fireworks started, he just...disappeared. He was gone."
Miku gazes silently back at Yotsuba, who's managed to scrounge up the courage to look back at her sister after she's done talking but immediately relapses to looking away once their eyes lock briefly.
"And that's what's been on your mind since then?" she guesses correctly, evoking a short nod out of her younger sister.
"It felt like...it felt like..."
"Felt like what?"
Yotsuba swallows back a bit of her anxiety.
"...it almost felt like...Uesugi-san didn't want to be there with us...when the fireworks were going on," she finally concludes.
With Yotsuba putting the situation in this way, Miku, too, finds herself all of a sudden short on breath, and she, too, is forced to drop her gaze down at her closed laptop, briefly considering the truth behind Yotsuba's words.
"Uesugi-san initially didn't want me to buy him anything as a souvenir," Yotsuba confides with Miku. "I had to give it to him in front of everyone at the hotel where there were a lot of people around before the fireworks started just to get him to accept it. Honestly...he probably accepted it mainly because he didn't want to make me look like an idiot if he kept insisting on not taking it."
"That's...that's not true...he said himself that he was interested in smartwatches and that type of stuff, so..." Miku blurts out slowly, trying to convince both herself and her sister of their tutor's perceived intentions.
"E-Even if it isn't, there are other things to consider, too!" Yotsuba continues with a strained voice, the result of wanting to raise her voice but simultaneously being quiet enough so that she doesn't accidentally wake up Ichika and Itsuki still in their rooms. "Think about it, Miku! He's been working hard every day for the past month to tutor us and prepare lessons for us, us five dummyheads who can't get good grades to save our lives. And he isn't even able to teach all five of us like he's supposed to because Nino doesn't like him being here, and Itsuki isn't cooperating either. And now, as of late before we went on vacation for Golden Week, Ichika hasn't been showing up either, so he's only really been tutoring the two of us."
Now that she's got a firm train of thought going, Yotsuba assertively sits up in her chair to relay her argument to her quiet, attentive sister across the table.
"I'm not trying to pretend like I know how easy or difficult it must be to be a tutor; maybe Uesugi-san is just putting in too much effort into tutoring us. But it's not like he's tutoring regular high school kids who just need a bit of extra help to get a higher grade on their tests or something; he's got to work with the five of us who'll very likely flunk out of another school if they don't do something about their academics soon, so never mind what I said earlier, he has to put in way more effort in tutoring us than other people, right? He doesn't have a choice! And he has to deal with Ichika, Nino, and Itsuki not even showing up at all...!"
Yotsuba pauses for a moment to see if Miku has anything to say, but Miku looks like she's at a loss for words herself.
"And that says nothing of everything else he's doing for us. His work as a mage, what little of it that we do know. He told me and Ichika that he's spent a lot of time after he got his contract to protect us going around the city here to build some kind of, uh, magical surveillance system, I think he said? To make sure that he knows where we are all at times so that bad guys don't get us like that one weekend. And he was doing the exact same while we were on vacation in Hawaii for the past week! And we still don't even know where he was spending all those nights since Raiha-chan was sharing the bedroom with us, not him!"
"Yotsuba," Miku finally cuts her sister short, though Yotsuba was going to pause again there anyway. "What are you saying?"
The fourth quintuplet at first returns Miku's gaze intently before dropping it sadly.
"...I can't help but think...that...Uesugi-san...is getting tired of us." Murmuring pensively, Yotsuba once more looks back up at Miku, her eyes having traveled a good distance throughout the entire conversation. "I think he doesn't really want to work with us anymore."
Smiling awkwardly, she reaches up to scratch the side of her head.
"I mean...who would, right? Haha..."
Hearing these words, Miku feels pressure well up suddenly, without warning, in her chest. She recognizes that this is anger that she's feeling - but she's not exactly sure why. At least, not in this moment. And she certainly doesn't want to come off as sounding angry when Yotsuba is like this, but to keep this anger to herself would be more painful than the alternative.
"He's not tired of us, Yotsuba," she says quietly, but the brief period of uncertainty that she was feeling before in the middle of Yotsuba's speech is now eradicated, replaced now with conviction. "He's not mad at us. And it's not that he doesn't want to be with us. It's not like that."
Taken back by Miku's strong, unwavering words, a tone which she rarely uses, Yotsuba finds her own train of thought halted yet again. "R-Really...? Well, then...how, um...how do you...know...?"
It appears that Yotsuba can throw verbal curveballs of her own, not that she'd be aware of them, for Miku, too, opens her mouth only to close it immediately afterwards like a fish out of water upon realizing that she's about to divulge a rather intimate moment that she's shared with their tutor. And it'd be especially dangerous to let someone like Yotsuba know about it because unlike Ichika, who can keep secrets, she probably wouldn't be able to do the same.
"It's...it's because...Fuutarou's the kind of guy who fully commits himself to a job once he's accepted one, right? Doesn't he come off that way to you?" Miku says quickly, saying the first thing that comes to mind the fastest. "You said it yourself, he's a hardworking guy. And he's been tutoring us even though not all of us have been coming to his lessons. He's the type of person who cares about the principle behind his work, not necessarily because of what he's getting out of it."
Yotsuba nods slowly at her sister's point, and Miku internally sighs with relief that her frantic thinking has paid off for now before continuing.
"Of course, obviously money is important to him and his family, but remember what he told us when we were on that private charter cruise? He said that he turned down Itsuki's offer to join us for his tutoring because he didn't like Itsuki's reasoning for wanting to do so, because he wanted Itsuki to recognize his tutoring ability, not because he stood up to Papa during dinner that one night, because that had nothing to do with his tutoring."
Miku leans forward a bit more in her chair towards Yotsuba.
"I don't claim to know Fuutarou all that well, either. After all, we've only known him for a month tops. But something tells me that he's not like that, Yotsuba. I don't think you need to worry about him feeling that way."
Somberly and somewhat hesitantly accepting Miku's reassuring words, Yotsuba stares down at her empty plate that once held her fried rice lunch.
"...okay. I guess I was thinking about...about this a bit too hard. Sorry, Miku," Yotsuba gives her best smile, given the situation. "But still, I just...can't help but keep wondering...where he went off to..."
"I still think he probably just stepped away to answer a call or something that night. And even if that weren't the case and he really did just disappear while the fireworks were going on, I think he just wanted to let us five - well, the six of us, since Raiha-chan was with us - enjoy the fireworks by ourselves. He's the type to keep his distance, right?"
"Yeah...I guess so." Yotsuba smiles again, having let herself be convinced by her older sister. "Thanks, Miku, for cheering me up. Want me to buy you something for our birthday? I'll keep a secret from the others ~ "
Miku snorts suddenly with amusement. "But you can't keep a secret, though. As soon as you buy something, you're gonna let the whole house know - "
"Aaaaaaa, no I won't! Not this time! I promise, I pinky-promise!"
"Otherwise swallow a thousand needles?"
"Y-Yeah!"
"You said that last time, and you ended up folding a thousand paper cranes..."
"You don't need to remind me!"
"Haha. Well, in that case, you don't need to buy me anything, since I can just get whatever I want myself. But there is something you can do for me."
"Whatwhatwhatwhat? What is it? Tell me, tell me ~ "
Miku leans in even more, to the point where half of her upper body is now hovering over the table and the laptop is directly underneath her chest. With a coy smile full of warmth, as rare as a blue moon, the third quintuplet lets rest her eyes on her younger sister.
"You can call me 'Miku-onee-chan' for today."
"Okay! Miku-onee-chan ~ !"
Getting out of her chair, Yotsuba speeds around the table to glomp her dear older sister as the two of them wind up in one of their old, nostalgic sisterly giggle fits on a warm, lazy Sunday afternoon.
A taxi cab pulls up to the small parking lot of Revival, a cake shop and bakery in the heart of the city. Nakano Nino steps out of the passenger's seat, giving the driver instructions to stay while she goes inside, and she quickly checks her Oyster Perpetual Datejust Rolex on her left wrist.
Given that they'd been treated to a hearty Korean barbecue dinner back in Hawaii, complete with a five-layer Neopolitan cake topped with wafers, pretzels, cookies, and small cinnamon rolls, Nino isn't in the market for another heavy cake like that. Just a small cake will do to share with her sisters...though as she walks through the door, causing the bell to ring out her arrival, she wonders to herself if simply baking her own cake wouldn't have been better. Then again, she's jetlagged, probably needs more sleep, and can't be bothered to cook at the moment - and not to mention that baking cakes isn't exactly her forte, though she isn't against trying her hand at it at some point.
"Hello hello! Welcome to Revival!" the cake shop owner enthusiastically calls out from the kitchen, stepping out to greet his first customer of the day. "So glad you've come to visit us! We've got the city's finest selection of cakes, scones, breads, cookies - you name it, we bake it! Customizable items and catering is also available if you're so interested, and - "
"I'm just gonna take a look at these, thank you," Nino bluntly says, not even making eye contact with the proprietor of the shop as she walks past him to the glass displays showing off their wares.
"By all means, madam! Seems like you've got an eye on what to look for," the shop owner beams, maintaining his aura as he tussles back his magnificently short blonde wavy hair. "Then allow me to give you the time you need. I will be in the back with some business, so do excuse me."
Nino surveys the interior of the store briefly as the shop owner ducks back into the kitchen. The shop itself is actually quite spacey and quaint, with plenty of empty tables like a cafe decorated with paintings of cakes and other bakeries on the walls, fake indoor plants lining some of the shelves and table dividers, and light jazz playing down into the store from speakers on the ceiling. It's a perfect place to come and hang out with friends for a snack after school or for a date. If the actual products of this shop are good, perhaps she'll bring her sisters here in person - though with the shop being as empty as it is on a Sunday afternoon of all times, she's a bit unsure if she wants to bring her family to a place like this that clearly isn't very popular.
Maybe that shop owner's over-the-top personality has something to do with that.
Storing her thoughts about this cake shop relative to her sisters, Nino begins her self-imposed task of selecting a cake to take back home with her. Chocolate stripe cloud cream cake, Triple Delight Coffee Cake, Blueberry Yogurt Cream Cake, Green Tea Cloud Cream Cake, Mocha Buttercream Cake, Caramel Mocha Cream Cake, Red Velvet Cake, Vanilla Chocolate Heart Mousse Cake, Tiramisu Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake...the wide variety and types of cakes available certainly does not fail to leave an impression with Nino, who is immediately caused to ponder all these different kinds of cakes and wondering which one of them would fit all five of the quintuplets' tastes the best. Of course, there's always the option of buying five separate cakes, but then that would feel like the sisters are all celebrating their birthdays individually - something Nino knows wouldn't sit well with any of them, herself included. So it has to come down to a single cake - at least Miku's adamant dislike of chocolate narrows down the list of cake contenders significantly, so if there's anything to thank Miku for, it would be that.
Still, even with all the cakes containing chocolate as a majority of their compositions out of the way, a veritable number of cakes still remain in contention. Ichika would probably love the Mocha Buttercream cake, but Yotsuba would really like the Orange Caramel Creme Mousse Cake. She herself finds her mouth watering a little at the sight of the grape Tiramisu Cake, but Miku would go nuts over the Green Tea Cloud Cream Cake - and as much as Nino prefers black tea, she silently admits to herself that the Green Tea Cloud Cream Cake does look appealing due to its simple yet elegant presentation and the toppings of grapes, raspberries, cherries, and Belgian milk chocolate wafer sticks. Miku can just let the others take the chocolate wafer sticks.
As she continues to pore over the cakes, the cake shop owner steps outside the door to the kitchen again, calling out to her.
"Madam, I'll be busy working on some prototypes for more products for the shop. If you need me, just ring that bell you see on the counter near the cash register, and someone will be with you to assist you with whatever you need."
"Okay, thank you," Nino calls back without even turning her neck.
The minutes roll on, and recognizing that she's being too indecisive about what cake she ought to pick, Nino decides to ask the shop owner for his recommendations but then remembers that he's already told her that he'd be busy working on some prototypes. Even though he'd probably be more than happy to talk to her about the house recommendations, she'd feel bad for interrupting his work, as she's had her own sisters interrupt her while she's baking cookies or cooking food in general. Hopefully his assistant or whoever else is working here can be of use - though, strangely, other than the usual kitchen noises she's heard coming from the back, Nino hasn't heard much else the entire time that she's here...
Walking over to the counter, specifically the cash register, the second quintuplet presses the bell to ring it and waits for a response. She can hear the immediate reaction of the cake shop proprietor barking out at his employee to go help their customer.
"Yo, Uesugi, get out there, our lovely customer needs some assistance!"
Nino almost drops her phone out of shock when she pulls it out of her pocket to check her texts. But sure enough, as soon as she looks up, out walks from the back room none other than Uesugi Fuutarou, who is yelling back at his boss as he does so.
"I'm not even wearing the uniform, that alright?" he calls back.
"It's only one customer, don't worry about it. You're not even on duty anyway right now, so it's whatever!"
"Alright, then."
Having his boss's permission to attend to their customer in his usual school clothes of a plain white dress shirt and black slacks, the young Nakano tutor nods back at Nino as he plants himself in front of her, across the counter.
"Hello, welcome to Revival. What can I assist you with today?" he asks professionally, as if he really were on duty as an active employee.
"Y-You fucking work here...?" is the first thing that Nino is able to blurt out in shock. Fuutarou pulls on a difficult look, taking a deep breath and scratching the side of his neck.
"It's...complicated. I'm actually almost done with work here for today - in fact, if you'd like to wait for me, not that you'd even want to, I can explain this whole thing."
"I'm actually a bit curious, yeah. I can wait."
"Huh, surprising."
"What's surprising?"
"That you'd wait a bit for me to finish up here. I thought you'd just tell me to fuck off and go about your business."
Nino pouts back at him darkly. "You're gonna say shit like that to me when I took you around shopping last week back in Hawaii? Some gratefulness you show."
"I figured that was just a one-off exception. I didn't expect you to keep being nice to me."
"Do you think I constantly hate you or something?"
"...what else am I supposed to think of you?"
For as blunt as she herself is, Nino is once again stumped and irritated by Fuutarou's own bluntness, which consistently seems to be several degrees stronger than her own.
"J-Just help me find something to buy for my sisters, okay...? I don't wanna deal with your bullshit here," Nino hisses in a low voice, pointing in the direction of the cake displays.
"Sure thing. There's a big selection to choose from, and I assume you've taken some time to look through them, so did you want some house recommendations or something?"
Nino lets her jaw go slack to gape at him again.
"H-H-How did you know...?!" she asks hoarsely at him.
"It's not magic or anything," Fuutarou smirks back at the second quintuplet. "No, but seriously, it's a common question customers here ask. My boss back there loves baking all sorts of cakes and cookies and other baked goods, and he's always coming up with new products, and since this is a relatively new shop, the few customers we have had get a bit overwhelmed by the sheer variety of products we have, so they usually ask for recommendations. It's not just you."
Sighing with relief at Fuutarou's explanation, Nino heads over to the cake displays again, with Fuutarou mirroring her movements to assist her.
"So what do you recommend?" Nino asks in a low voice, becoming quite self-conscious about having to ask someone she isn't fond of, at least not on the surface, for help picking out their birthday cake. Fuutarou surely knows what this cake is for; he just hasn't made it known to her that he does.
"Among the cream cakes, I think the Chocolate Cloud Cream Cake and the Green Tea Cloud Cream Cake are by far the best; they're the ones my boss spent the most time working on perfecting to build up his experience working on cream cakes," Fuutarou explains, clearly and rationally. "Same with the Caramel Mocha Cake; there's been a big trend of coffee drinking lately in the city, and a corresponding number of coffee shops opening across the city, so he's made this one to take advantage of that trend. The Tiramisu cakes are also great - you might like the grape one."
"So the Tiramisu is good, huh..." Nino's voice trails off somewhat, as she feels a bit reassured that the cake she personally was looking to get to suit her own tastes is a house recommendation. Still, she exhales tiredly, resting her head against the glass display. "There's just so many options...and all five of us have different preferences, too...I didn't think a trip to the cake shop would have me this stressed out..."
"Yeah...I've tried telling my boss that making too many products is a bad thing, especially when the shop itself hasn't been open for that long, like only two months or something," Fuutarou nods in agreement. "I've been telling him it's part of the reason why he hasn't been able to establish a consistent customer base, because people don't know what they want since there's too many to choose from, and they don't know where to start."
"Honestly, a good way to solve that is to let customers have some small samples. That way they can see for themselves how good something is," Nino suggests.
"That's true. I'll bring it up to him later, though having to make samples of everything is gonna be a big pain in the ass..." Fuutarou grimaces, looking down at all the cakes.
"You sound like you're the one baking all these," Nino giggles, teasing Fuutarou with a playful grin that's half-malicious and half-joking.
"I mean, when my boss's usually got his hands full working on prototypes and new product ideas, someone's gotta bake the actual products," Fuutarou shrugs.
"Yeah, I know right."
Nino pauses.
"Wait, YOU'RE THE ONE BAKING THEM!?" she bursts out in even more shock.
Fuutarou nods matter-of-factly, as if Nino's revelation were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Didn't you hear my boss earlier? I'm an employee here. As in, I actually work here."
"You didn't need to explain to me what an employee does."
"Sorry, I have to tutor you somehow to make up for the fact that you d - "
"Shut up. Shut up, Uesugi, shut up, shut up."
Sighing exasperatedly, Fuutarou gestures down at the cakes. "I don't mean to be rude then, since you still are our customer at the end of the day, but I've given you our recommendations. Unfortunately I can't give you any samples since that's out of my jurisdiction as an employee."
Nino looks back assertively at Fuutarou behind the displays.
"Then do you take custom orders?" she asks.
"We actually do. Though it'll cost you extra, and obviously it'll take some time," Uesugi swiftly answers. "What did you have in mind?"
About an hour later, both the proprietor and Uesugi walk out of the back kitchen, the latter holding a basic two-layer cake but with five unique and equally sized sections, with each section representing a different flavor that suits each quintuplet: mocha caramel for Ichika, grape and Belgian chocolate for Nino, green tea for Miku, orange creme for Yotsuba, and strawberry-cherry creme for Itsuki. Each individual section is divided by sweet graham crackers, and all this topped with whipped creme, chocolate sprinkles, small cubed brownies, and lemon wafers, as Fuutarou places the luxurious cake before Nino and begins gift-wrapping it carefully for Nino to take back home.
"This was quite the cake you've had us make, madam," the cake shop owner and head baker chuckles heartily as he rings her up on the tablet register. "I'll admit, for all the cakes that I've whipped up for this place, not soon would I've imagined a customer request that I basically take five of the cakes I've made and put them all together into one."
"Sorry if it was a bother," Nino says quickly, handing him her credit card.
"No no no, you have nothing to apologize for. On the contrary, it was quite the rejuvenating experience!" he says just as quickly, as if overriding his own customer's consideration. "Going through a lot of my old recipes like that, you've given me the idea for new fusion-style cakes. I'll have to write them down quick before I forget...this old man's at that age where he'll forget everything he thinks of if he doesn't write them down within five minutes..."
"Boss, you're not even thirty years old yet," Uesugi replies in a flat voice, tying the red ribbon on top of the cake's carrier box to finish the wrapping. "Save the old man talk for later, in about another twenty years."
"Oof! Uesugi with the harsh words as always - but it's okay! This old man will always offer you a job here!" The shop owner puts a hand on Uesugi's back and flashes him a thumbs up.
"As always. Let me know when you need me again."
"You got it." The shop owner then hesitates, raising a hand up to the stubble on his chin. "Actually, now would be a good time to test out our delivery service, Uesugi. How about you deliver this cake to our customer's place? Of course, if you're alright with that, madam."
"We were about to head back together, actually," Uesugi says plainly, pointing at Nino.
At this, the head baker flips his shit and reels backwards like he's been shot through the heart, stumbling and stopping himself against the counter behind him holding an assortment of cookies and breads.
"Y-You - " The shop owner slowly raises a wobbling, trembling arm with a single extended index finger to point at Uesugi. " - you - you TRAITOR! ! !"
Both Uesugi and Nino stare back at the shop owner, then at each other, then back at the head baker again.
"Boss," Fuutarou says clearly, "what in the actual fuck are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb with me, I know you're too smart for that!" the shop owner emphasizes, pushing off the counter to gesture wildly at his own employee. "You're going back home with a girl your age?! That can only mean one thing - you've got a girlf - "
"Boss, please do not make our customer uncomfortable with your ramblings about how you're still single at twenty-eight years old," Uesugi again says flatly, instantly silencing his own boss. "Besides, she's my classmate, and I've been tutoring her recently so we know each other a little bit. Is there anything else you'd like to ask about our relationship, whatever it is that you perceive of it?"
Sighing a breath of sweet relief, the shop owner resumes patting his employee on the back.
"Good, good, I knew you wouldn't betray the club. In any case, I've got more prototypes to work on, so Uesugi, why don't you, uh, give our delivery service a test run by delivering this product to our customer? That way we'll know how to organize our delivery routes later on once we're ready and business is booming."
"Work on your advertising first, damn it!" Uesugi calls after his boss as he ducks quickly back into the kitchen. "Ugh, that idiot...brilliant chef and a great baker, but goddamn, he doesn't exactly know how to run a business..."
He glances next to him at Nino, who isn't too sure herself what to make of what just happened.
"Here - as an apology for Boss's dumb behavior..." he stoops down beneath the counter and pulls out a box of toffee macarons that are half-dipped in chocolate. "This one's on the house."
"Er...sure, thanks, I guess..." Nino hesitantly receives the free box of macarons from her would-be tutor. "So, uh, are you like...off your shift now or something?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Not many customers today, and I've already done what I had to do here to help out. Do you have a ride back?"
"Yeah, I've got a taxi waiting outside."
"I don't need to pay for it, do I?"
"Do you want to?"
"Of course not."
"Then don't bother asking." Nino notices Fuutarou pull out what appears to be some sort of hardcover book, also from behind the counter. "What's that?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just a book I was reading when I got here."
"You study while you're working? I seriously can't believe you right now."
"Not that I would ever ask you to."
Bantering as usual, Nino and Fuutarou, both carrying their respective items, exit the Revival bakery with their products and head to the taxi that has been diligently waiting for Nino to finish her business in the store. Explaining to the driver that she'll be paying for an extra passenger's fare, Nino climbs into the back seats with Fuutarou, sitting on opposite seats next to their respective windows. As the taxi begins to get a move on, Nino glances briefly over at Fuutarou.
"So what were you doing there?" she opens up.
"For today, I was helping out with some IT stuff. That's my primary responsibility as an employee there, IT management," Fuutarou explains. "Like I said, my boss is a great baker, and his stuff's top-notch. Studied at and graduated from one of the top culinary schools in the country, came here to the city to work culinary jobs and then eventually, as of recently, opened up his own bakery since he loves baking cakes and other stuff the most. But since he's so focused on baking, he kinda neglects everything else that should go into running a business well. IT, advertising, etc. Though I guess his interior designing skills are okay."
"I thought the shop looked fine, layout and aesthetics-wise," Nino shrugs. "This is coming from the one girl in our family who actually bothers to give a shit about looks and appearances."
"I'm not surprised."
"See, you get it."
"Surprisingly, I do, yes..."
"Why 'surprisingly'?"
"Since we usually don't get along, y'know?"
"Why do you feel the need to keep reminding me of that? I know full well how much I fucking hate you."
"It's a bit weird, isn't it, then? Talking like this."
"Who says I still can't at least talk to someone I don't like if I feel like it?"
"I'm just not used to that. That's a bit of a foreign concept to me..."
"You should be a bit more flexible-minded, then. Wouldn't kill you to consider that, would it?"
"I could ask the same of you and coming to my tutoring even though you clearly don't like it."
"Sh-Shut up..."
The two of them listen to the engine of the taxi purring away, watching their respective sides of the cityscape pass by.
"Just out of curiosity, and nothing else," Nino begins to hiss, throwing daggers with her blue eyes over in Fuutarou's direction, "did you bake this cake? Or did you have your boss help you?"
"He helped me with it. I can bake cakes just fine; it's also part of my employee responsibilities in case there's an emergency and he can't be there at the shop for whatever reason. It's just that this one was one I'd never done before, baking a cake with five separate sections to it, so I consulted my boss for advice. Seems like it turned out okay, though we'll find out if it's any good once you girls actually start eating it."
Nino turns away again, casting her gaze out of her own window.
"...so you do know how to cook and bake," she concludes quietly. Her voice bounces off the window so it's easier for Fuutarou to hear her despite her lowered voice.
"I do. I don't often cook, so I'm a bit rusty at actual cooking, but I do a decent enough job of it. I definitely can't cook better than you, though, since I'm sure you cook every day for your sisters."
"Of course not. You think I'll let a guy like you be better than me at cooking, of all things?"
"Hey, you never know, guys can be good cooks too. Just look at my boss."
"I didn't mean it that way, I just meant it as in, someone like you who always seems to be busy with something and can't possibly have the time to cook consistently can't cook better than me."
"Oh, that's what you meant. My bad - then yeah, of course not. That's...kind of what I implied earlier, though."
"You didn't make yourself clear enough."
Fuutarou just rolls his eyes and ignores Nino.
"On that subject, though...you seem like you're a busybody all the time. How the hell do you have the time to also work a part-time at that bakery?" Nino wonders aloud. "That's about the last place I expected to see you at, let alone learn that you're a part-timer there."
"Normally I wouldn't work there, no," Fuutarou shakes his head in agreement. "But I've known my boss for a good while now. That's why, as you saw when we were talking, I was being super casual with him even though he's my boss there."
"Hm, how so?"
"So remember how I said he attended culinary school, graduated, and then came to this city to find a cooking job? He got started first at a Korean barbecue restaurant called Gen; it's actually not that far away from the bakery, in the heart of downtown. I also happened to get a part-time job there at around the same time, so we were coworkers at one point."
"Coworkers..." Nino does some quick math in her head, math that she can actually do and not school-level mathematics. "Wait a minute...when was this exactly?"
"Hmmm...by now...this was probably five years ago...?"
"You were working a job at ten years old?"
"Bills and rent don't pay themselves, do they? And the family debt doesn't give a shit, either."
"No, I get that, you don't need to tell me, but like...isn't that kind of...illegal? How did that restaurant even let you work when you were that young?"
"I looked older than I was at the time, so I was able to convince the managers there that I was old enough. They didn't buy it at first though, if that makes you feel any better. They initially didn't want to hire me because of that reason, but at the time they were low on staff members and business was booming faster than they could manage, so they hired me in the end. I did the best I could, so they couldn't really complain, and they were kind enough to keep my employment there on the down-low."
Fuutarou pulls out his phone to check it briefly.
"So yeah, that's where and when I met my boss. He knew my situation, and as eccentric as he comes off as sometimes, he's a good person. He looked out for me when I was young, helped me sneak some food out if I wasn't able to get dinner for the family otherwise...eventually after about a year or so, he quit the job so that he could get jobs he preferred at bakeries around the city and some catering jobs on the side in the hopes that eventually he'd be able to open up a bakery of his own, and when he left, I promised him that I'd give him a hand at that bakery that he'd open whenever it came time for that. Fast-forward five years, he finally accrued enough capital to open up his own place, and after I got wind of it, I came down to see through my end of the deal."
Nino listens quietly, watching the city blocks cruise by inside the taxi.
"...how did you know he'd finally opened up that bakery? Did he call you or something? 'Cause it doesn't sound like you two kept in touch much," she asks, still watching the city zoom by.
"No, I just kind of...stumbled upon it by accident as I was making my rounds around the city. It barely opened like two months ago, like I said...I usually notice whenever there's a new shop in town or if a store closes for good. So I noticed this one, and the kind of bakery that it is, specializing in cakes and stuff, sounded like something my boss would do because he used to gush about how much he loved baking, and sure enough..."
"Sounds like some kind of janky reunion story."
"Well, I will say that it was nice to see him again. He helped me through some bad times five years ago...so being there in that shop means quite a bit to me. I want it to do well, so that's why I've been helping out with all sorts of stuff, from actually baking with him to doing IT stuff. We do need to hire more staff at some point and figure out how we're gonna start advertising the place..."
Trailing off, Fuutarou raises a palm facing upwards slightly, gazing down into it to mentally list out all the things that the bakery needs to get done in order to keep going. Nino watches him for a moment as he contemplates bakery responsibilities silently before turning away slowly for the last time, pretending to look out the window like usual but instead resting her gaze down at the door handle instead.
"Ah, welcome back, Nino - oh, you too, Uesugi-san! Welcome ~ !"
Greeted by the ever expressive Yotsuba, Nino and Fuutarou, having taken off their shoes, get escorted by Yotsuba into the comfortably familiar living room of the Nakano penthouse, where the rest of the quintuplets are already gathered. It is already early evening, with the sun beginning to set in the horizon, and the clear glass table between the couches is already set with plastic forks and knives, napkins, beverages, and small store-bought party candles.
"Fuutarou? Did you run into Nino on the way here?" Miku asks, surprised to see their tutor join them.
"I work at the bakery that Nino happened to visit. It was pure coincidence," the young tutor explains.
"'Pure' coincidence, huh? Do tell Ichika-onee-chan more about that, hmmmm ~ ?" Ichika teases suggestively.
"Ichika, it seriously was a coincidence! Neither he nor I even expected to see each other there! How the hell was I supposed to know he works part-time there? He doesn't even look like the type of person to part-time at a bakery of all places!"
"Now, now, don't fret, today's our birthday so let's just have a good time instead. Fuutarou-kun, would you like to join us?" Ichika invites their tutor.
"It's fine. I've already bothered you all for long enough last week during your vacation, I think today you all should celebrate this by yours - "
"Fuutarou-kun, it's not polite to turn down an invitation from a girl, you know?" Ichika presses the issue, so Fuutarou just blankly stares right back at her.
"...and since when have I cared about being polite again?" he points out.
"Could not have said it better myself!" Itsuki agrees wholeheartedly, nodding her head in self-righteous fervor. "Uesugi-kun doesn't need to be here for our birthday party."
"He's right, and Itsuki's right too, Ichika. This guy's just here to deliver our cake, nothing more," Nino gripes. "We've already dealt with this guy for all of last week during our vacation. We should just do this among ourselves!"
"But he cooked us dinner at that Korean barbecue restaurant for our birthday dinner a few days ago; you girls seriously don't want him to stick around? He doesn't have to stay for that long, what with him being so busy all the time..." Ichika asks with a sheltering tone only a big sister like herself can provide.
"Yeah, that's also true, I've gotta get going here pretty soon..." Fuutarou checks the time on the large clock on the wall above the living room TV.
But as Fuutarou is checking the time, Miku begins to get up from her seat at the couch to ask him to stay -
- but Yotsuba is faster, not surprisingly. Clasping her hands around Fuutarou's free right hand, the fourth quint looks up at Fuutarou dead in the eye when he turns to look down at her.
"Just have a slice of cake with us before you go, at least!" she asks, almost pleadingly. "If you're working late tonight, don't you think you'll...need some energy before you go?"
Put in a difficult spot, Uesugi hesitates uncomfortably, allowing Nino to object.
"He can take care of himself just fine, Yotsuba, you don't need to worry about him. Now get going, you! You've overstayed your welcome for today anyway, with today being Sunday and all. Shoo, shoo!"
Nino begins to try to push Fuutarou out towards the door, but to no one's surprise, she can't budge Fuutarou one bit. Sighing, Fuutarou waits until Nino wears herself out and is forced to take a breather to say,
"...fine. I'll stay for some cake. But I won't be long."
Amidst mixed cheers and groans from the quintuplets, Fuutarou sits down with them at the glass table and sets down the hardcover book that he's brought with him on the floor next to him as the girls prepare the cake and light the candles to bring a sweet and cozy end to another Golden Week vacation.