A/N

Phospor: Thanks for the kind words. I'm hoping that maybe the second season of the anime will give the fanfic scene here some more exposure once it comes out later this year, but we'll see what happens. As for how I'm able to put out chapters like this, it's a combination of eight years' worth of fanfic writing experience, all the failures and lessons that they've brought with them, and a solid idea of where I want this fic to go - and of course, plenty of love for the source material, especially for all of the quintuplets, helps a little as motivation to write, I think.

As for why Fuutarou uses playing cards as a weapon, again with the issue of the lack of firearms that I addressed two chapters ago, this was something that I feel would have been discussed at some point in a future chapter but since I don't know when that time will come, I'll address what I can here. On the contrary, for him I would imagine that playing cards are on the easier side of things to obtain. The city that Fuutarou is living in, in my own headcanon, is a rapidly expanding and modernizing city, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for there to be a casino or two in the city. Casinos either sell, give away, or incinerate the playing cards they've retired from their tables, hence providing a supply of playing cards for Fuutarou to use as part of his arsenal.

I do agree with you that items with flat surfaces synergize very well with runes; for someone like Fuutarou who relies on runes to perform spells and the like, being able to rely on something like cards that are very easy to work with is critical, especially because as a young mage, he doesn't have that much experience applying his magecraft and runecraft in more advanced ways, and he certainly can't risk experimenting in high-pressure scenarios. The fact that casino playing cards are plastic instead of paper also helps, since they're naturally sturdier and will maintain structural integrity longer than paper ones will, so Fuutarou doesn't need to use as powerful Reinforcement spells on them to ensure their lethality.

Again, I'll explore this aspect of Fuutarou's character in further detail if I can in the story proper when I feel the time is right. If I don't end up forgetting, which unfortunately happens more times than I care to admit.

"Aaaaaand we're done ~ !"

Being the last one to finish, Yotsuba presents her English practice test to her tutor, with the rest of her sisters who all finished before her waiting on her. Since Fuutarou requested that everyone stay quiet for the sake of showing courtesy to everyone else who aren't done with their tests yet, Ichika and Nino are both on their phones, while Miku has her headphones in listening to music at a low volume and Itsuki glues her eyes to the edge of the glass table where she customarily sits during their group study sessions like tonight, reviewing the answers she's put on her own test in her head - however many of them that she can remember by this point.

The young tutor takes the paper from Yotsuba and groups it with the rest of the quintuplets' practice test sheets, having waited for everyone to be done so that he can grade it together; this is to prevent the girls from seeing how well (or poorly) they did so that they don't have reactions that will distract anyone else still taking their tests, and of course to prevent those still taking their tests from accidentally (or purposely) getting eyefuls of correct answers that they shouldn't.

Now that he's armed with all five practice tests, Fuutarou places them on the glass table that he's sitting at with his students, spreads them out before him, and begins grading with his usual red pen. Now that Yotsuba's done and Uesugi is beginning to grade their tests, the girls begin to pay attention, looking up from the table or their phones to see their tutor get to work. Uesugi has no physical answer sheet because he already knows all the answers to each question flawlessly, and so he's able to grade one question and then compare the answers of all five tests together, marking questions with his red pen with answers that do not match a correct one. At an alarmingly frequent rate, Fuutarou has no correct answer to look for because none of the papers have it...not that this is much of a hindrance to his correction speed. The girls all express their varying degrees of reactions as the crisp sounds of a red pen tip clicking and rolling against papered glass repeat themselves many times as Fuutarou goes down each of the five papers all at the same time.

"Haha...something about Fuutarou-kun grading our tests is pretty satisfying to watch ~ " Ichika giggles softly, leaning her head over onto Nino's shoulder, who glances to her left for a moment before begrudgingly letting her do so.

"I know, right? We've seen him do this a lot by now, but it's so addicting watching him!" Yotsuba says cheerfully too.

"You're trying to tell me that it's addicting for you to watch yourself get terrible test scores? Give me a break, Yotsuba," Fuutarou sighs lightly, causing Yotsuba chuckle awkwardly at herself.

"Ahaha...you got me there..."

Itsuki is also keenly watching her tutor grade their tests as swiftly as the wind. "...it is still quite the sight for me," she admits, in light of her and Nino's recent admissions into the quintuplet study group. "How on earth are you able to grade our tests so well like this? And without an answer sheet, too..."

"Yeah, Itsuki's got a point. Won't you make a mistake grading our tests if you don't at least have an answer sheet on you? You're that sure that you know all the answers?" Nino points out to her working tutor.

"Ah, well, funny you mention that, Nino...that's the same thing I brought up back when he first started tutoring us, and, well..." Ichika giggles lightly again. "Let's just say that Fuutarou-kun knows what he's doing."

Clicking her tongue out of annoyance, Nino diverts her eyes back down to her new phone, whose purple bunny-ears cover Miku bought for her to go with it.

"If you're so smart, why do you even bother tutoring people like us? I'm sure you'd get paid a lot more if you go tutor at an actual educational institution of some kind, right? At least a cram school or something," she suggests reluctantly.

"Remember, Nino, I'm not normally a tutor, I don't go out of my way to use tutoring as a way to earn money," Fuutarou says, glancing briefly up at the second quintuplet before dunking his eyes back on their practice tests again. "Though, you are right, I could try to go teach part time at a cram school...in fact, I think I saw an ad in the newspaper or something for one in the city..."

"Okay, okay, we get it. Now you're just bragging."

Fuutarou pauses his grading for a few seconds to hit Nino with a quick, wide shrug before resuming it fluidly. He's just about done with it anyway, and after checking the last four questions, he swiftly counts the number of questions each of the quintuplets got right, since there are far less correct answers than incorrect, and marks the tallies up at the top.

"Ichika, 24...Nino, 39...Miku, 9...Yotsuba, 11...how the hell did you score higher than Miku...and Itsuki, 20," Fuutarou announces, handing each practice test back to its corresponding Nakano quintuplet.

The girls all groan in unison as they receive their tests back, viewing their respective scores with varying degrees of discomfort.

"All this studying and only Nino's still able to get a passing grade?" Ichika sighs dejectedly. "Nothing's changed, I guess, huh?"

"Hey, Ichika, don't make it sound like Fuutarou isn't doing a good enough job..." Miku murmurs loudly over to her eldest sister in her tutor's defense.

Ichika bolts up in slight alarm, shaking her head quickly in denial. "No, no, no, I - that's not what I meant. I didn't mean to make it sound like that..."

"The question of my own tutoring performance aside, I wouldn't say that nothing's changed," Uesugi says, reaching over for his messenger bag and, after rummaging through it for a moment, pulls out a small stack of old papers - the quintuplets' old practice tests that Fuutarou has had them take over the weeks, to be precise. Itsuki, who immediately recognizes what they are because she's able to see the red numbers on them more easily because of her angle, furrows her eyebrows at the sight.

"You have been keeping all of their practice tests up until now?" she asks, which incurs a slight glance from her tutor.

"Yeah. Shouldn't I?"

"Er..." Upon second thought, Itsuki realizes that she's asked a rather pointless question, and as such, she shrinks a little in her seat on the carpet. "I-I apologize, that...that was an odd question for me to ask. I was just surprised..."

"I kept them so that I can show you the progress that you've been making. Well, not so much you two - " Fuutarou points briefly at the second and fifth quintuplets. " - but everyone else. I mean, I gotta say...even with the scores you're all getting now, you all still show definite improvement, even in, what, the past seven weeks that I've been tutoring you guys?"

Fuutarou spreads the practice sheets out on the tables before the girls to show them.

"So it's not like nothing's changed," the young tutor shrugs at Ichika, who smiles back in slight amusement.

"Looks like it. I stand corrected, Uesugi-sensei," Ichika raises a hand to snap off a casual two-finger salute at her tutor.

"Even still, it's not quite enough...considering midterms is literally tomorrow," Nino mutters, taking a look at all the scores and her sisters' progressions for herself. "And I'm sure I'll be the same way for all my other subjects..."

With a deep sigh, Fuutarou raises a hand of his own behind his head to scratch his hair. "Yeah, and that's the problem. I don't mean to be so downer about this myself, but at this rate, all of you are probably only going to pass your strongest subjects each and that's it."

Miku's expression grows sharply worried, even more so than before when they got their initial scores back.

"Fuutarou, will Papa still...still fire you if we don't all pass?" she asks as Yotsuba leans over to part her bangs a little from completely obscuring her right eye from Fuutarou's view.

"He hasn't told me anything about calling off the condition, so I'll have to assume so, yeah."

An uneasy silence settles among the quintuplets.

"And the other practice tests we took today were similar stories to this, with all of us failing them except for the ones whose strongest subjects were being tested," Itsuki notes somberly.

"That's why you should've started studying with us right away, Itsuki," Miku says. "That way, you could've made so much more progress."

"Me? N-No..." Itsuki quickly shakes her head. "I don't think I would have...made any more progress than anyone else."

Miku starts pouting at Itsuki too. "You're not saying that it's because of Fuutarou not tutoring us well enough, is it?"

"No, no! I am suggesting nothing of the sort! Besides, I have only studied with Uesugi-kun a few times compared to the three of you, I cannot accurately speak of his tutoring ability, at least not as well as you three can."

"Well, even if you did have a professional tutor who knows what they're doing, the fact of the matter is that for you girls specifically, you all need way more than just six or seven weeks to really make solid progress; that's just my opinion," Uesugi inputs. "That's how bad of shape all of your grades are."

"Ah, Fuutarou-kun's doing it again," Ichika announces with her voice dragging a little. "He's bullying his poor students about how dumb they are."

"Well, it's still the truth, so..." Yotsuba shrugs with an uncomfortable grin of her own.

"Even still, this should be a time when he ought to be cheering us up, right? These poor girls, studying so hard and valiantly, yet unable to achieve the results that they so desperately need...times like these, Fuutarou-kun, you should try to do something to get our spirits up, you know?"

"Try doing something to get your spirits up? I'm a tutor, not a cheerleader," Fuutarou frowns over at her.

"C'mon, don't be like that. Look - everyone's tired, we ate dinner not that long ago so we're all probably gonna start getting our food comas pretty soon, and it doesn't help that all of us just flunked our English tests right now," Ichika points out to her tutor. "I'm not saying you should be a cheerleader, but..."

As she's talking, though, Ichika realizes that their tutor is gazing at her rather intently, and the look in his eyes isn't one of annoyance or doubt, but one of deep consideration. Even though she knows that Fuutarou is most likely taking her suggestion seriously, Ichika can't help but to avert her eyes a little - she can't help but feel a little shy knowing Fuutarou is giving her this kind of look, and she's not quite sure why she feels this way.

After a moment or two, by which point the rest of the quintuplets are also peering interestedly back at their tutor, wondering what he's thinking about, Fuutarou straightens his back in his seat on the carpet.

"...hm. I'm not confident that I can do that, but...it is already, what..." Fuutarou turns around to take at the big clock on the wall behind him. "...almost nine o'clock? And we still need to go over Language Arts and Mathematics before we go to sleep...so I can try a little something here..."

To the quintuplets' surprise, Fuutarou raises his hand again and snaps his fingers lightly, causing a small array of blue runes to appear around him whose sizes vary slightly. These runes are the size of small saucers, but they all have an English word written on each of them that slowly rotates in place within their respective runes like writing on a record disc.

"...uh, if your idea of cheering us up is to give us some kind of...weird new pop quiz to help us study English, then..." Ichika trails off awkwardly, just as confused as her sisters are at what Fuutarou is doing exactly as he raises his hands to each of the runes, checking them individually. As he does so, though, Nino, who eyes the runes for herself, reads the words in each of them. They are words such as "electric guitar", "bass guitar", "drums", "voice synthesizer", "audio mixer", and others. While she doesn't know what "voice synthesizer" is in Japanese, she does recognize the simpler words like "guitar" and "drums".

"You're gonna play a song for us or something? Laaaame, we can just listen to music on our own if we wanna," Nino groans a bit more obnoxiously loudly than she probably should.

"Admittedly I haven't done this in a while, so I might be a bit rusty. Honestly, if I'd known that there'd be a chance that I'd have to do this, I would've practiced up ahead of time..." Fuutarou murmurs, basically ignoring Nino's last remark. "But I'll try my best anyway."

"Practiced up? Wait...Fuutarou, you're not...?" Miku also sits up quickly, pulling her back off the front of the long couch behind her.

"Huh? Miku, do you know what he's doing?" Yotsuba asks with sharp curiosity, and her green hair ribbon also perks up along with its owner.

"Well...he, uh..."

Remembering the evening she spent with her tutor in Honolulu on the beachfront patio, Miku can't stop her cheeks from reddening with warmth, and she vocally disengages as she tries to hide her face with her hands, unable to finish her thought. Ichika, however, recalling that night and remembering that she heard some pleasant guitar being played from the patio area where Miku and Fuutarou should have been, pipes up with a guess, going off what Nino said:

"Fuutarou-kun, are you actually going to sing a song for us?"

Yotsuba and Itsuki both show marked expressions of surprise, turning to Fuutarou at the same time to confirm with him.

"U-Uesugi-san, you - you can sing?!" Yotsuba cries out first, naturally. "You don't seem like the type to!"

The quintuplets' tutor grimaces uncomfortably as well. "I can, yes. I would have rather kept this a dirty little secret of mine to myself, but since everyone's been studying and working hard, and since Ichika's right that you all might need a little extra push to keep studying for a bit longer, I'll embarrass myself in front of everyone for tonight."

"Oh my gosh, I was actually right," Ichika remarks, positively shocked that her little guess was actually right on the money. "Remember back when we used to sing and put on performances together at school? Itsuki, didn't you keep singing after the rest of us quit for like the first few months of middle school or something?"

At the mention of her singing experience, Itsuki, also blushing suddenly, clasps her hands over her ears.

"P-P-Please forget about all that! That was when - that was when I thought I was actually good at singing when I was not talented at all! Ooooh, even thinking about it makes me want to...ugh..."

"Aha, looks like she's still the same towards it..."

Miku, who's been watching Fuutarou tune his runes for past few minutes, sits on a question that she wants to ask him for the same amount of time before digging up the courage to ask it.

"Um...Fuutarou, was, um, singing...was that also something you had to do as part of your, uh, magework?"

"Yes and no; yes in the sense that I've worked with professional musicians who've hired me as their bodyguard when they stopped here in the city as part of their tours or whatever, and in exchange, and sometimes it'd involve me playing onstage with them to ensure their safety, if you can believe that. But no in the sense that I mainly decided to learn how to sing on my own. I do have to stay up pretty late at night, so it can get pretty boring sometimes. And since I like listening to music, I can just, y'know, sing along to whatever I'm listening to, I guess."

"Ehehe ~ Uesugi-san's just like the rest of us, singing along to our favorite songs ~ " Yotsuba giggles happily; she's quite relieved to hear that Fuutarou still finds the time to do something that isn't necessarily work-related.

"Doesn't mean that I'm any good at it, though."

"Oh, don't worry, we'll be the judge of that," Nino snickers deviously at her tutor, holding up her phone at him. "I'll be taking a leaf out of Ichika's book and record you the whole way, and you don't get a say in it."

Fuutarou shrugs. "Sure, go ahead. No one's gonna care for listening to an amateur like me."

"Sheesh! Talk about low self-esteem!" Rolling her eyes, Nino lowers her phone half-heartedly. "At least let me enjoy making fun of you!"

"Last time I checked, you didn't need the permission of the person you're trying to make fun of to do that."

"Ugh, just hurry up and embarrass yourself already so we can get over it and study and go to sleep!"

"Yeah, yeah...and we should be good to go."

Having finished tuning the last rune, Fuutarou lets it go and watches it float back up into its usual position around him. He then raises his right hand up to his array of runes, with his left hand up to his left ear, pressing his left index and middle fingers against his ear as though he's using an earpiece microphone, and the runes light up with stronger blue light. However, the quintuplets don't hear anything.

"Sorry, making sure that everything's working as they should. Like I said, I haven't done this in a while..." Fuutarou takes a deep breath once everything's set in place. "Alright...here we go."

At Fuutarou's cue, the small rune labelled "electric guitar" begins to play a series of chords, as the rune on the other side of it also begins to play back a recorded series of claps alongside it. Even Fuutarou begins to clap along with the synthetically generated clapping, which soon has drums join in as well. And then -

"One, two, one, two, three, four!"

The claps disappear, but the guitars and drums intensify to make up for their exit as the song gets under way. As Fuutarou prepares to deliver the first verse, Miku feels herself captivated by the music again, just like how she'd been when she first heard him playing that electric guitar back at Honolulu.

"Scream my name, hold your hand to the flame
Keep it there as long as you can stand but don't forget it's a game
Oh, it's such a shame that you bear the blame
But seize your opportunity to pounce and baby, I'll do the same, oh - "

Having closed his eyes, Fuutarou is singing in perfect English. Not only that, but his voice adopts a noticeably higher pitch than what the girls are used to hearing, which on its own is quite unusual, never mind his whole singing in English thing that he's got going on.

"Won't you tell me all your secrets about how you exploit their weakness,
I think you're a fuckin' genius, ah, ah -
So now my dear, it's just a matter of time
So buckle up, because you'll soon become my partner in crime, ah, ah - let's go."

By this point, it's not just Miku who finds herself unable to take her eyes off her tutor performing in front of them; everyone is reacting similarly, including Nino, who, right before Fuutarou began to sing, was about to go back to her phone to bury herself back in the timelines of her friends' social media feeds.

"She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~

She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~ "

Fuutarou doesn't sing while just sitting still; he gesticulates emphatically with his arms and hands like an actual lead singer performing live on a stage. With the lively guitars, drums, and bass supporting him, he exudes a kind of energy that, while it didn't really suit him for the first few moments, now gives his small audience the impression that he'd been doing this his whole life as he transitions into the song's second verse.

"You're so vain,
But no one stares at your brain
So with that thought in mind
I think we banish any plans to abstain, oh -

Won't you tell me all your secrets about how you exploit their weakness,
I think you're a WHOOP! genius, ah, ah -
So now my dear, it's just a matter of time
So buckle up, because you'll soon become my partner in crime, ah, ah - let's go!

She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~

She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~ "

With the song entering its instrumental stage on its way to the bridge, the young mage begins clapping manually again, along to the synthesized clapping that his synthesizer rune plays over his shoulder. While he himself doesn't seem to take notice, some of the girls, specifically Ichika and Yotsuba, have joined in on the clapping, already fully vibing out to the groove of the music.

"So let's go light up the night, own the night, just you and me
Light up the night, own the night, just you and me
Light up the night, own the night, just you and me
Light up the night, just you and me - LET'S GO!

She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~

She got my heartbeat out of control
She had me at 'hello' and set my world to b-b-blow
So baby light it up and let it go, oh, oh
Oooooohhhhh ~ "

The young mage claps for the short rest of the song until the guitars and drums stop abruptly, signaling the end of his performance.

Immediately, both Ichika and Yotsuba cheer with a round of applause for their tutor, who hangs his head and holds his hand over his forehead like he's unsure of whether or not to facepalm.

"That was actually so good, Uesugi-san, you were amazing! You even sang in English too, that's even more amazing!" Yotsuba is clapping so hard that her hands are reddening, but she doesn't seem to take notice. "Not that I could understand any of it because I'm a dummy, haha ~ ! But I could still tell that you're a great singer!"

"Seriously, Fuutarou-kun, you were great. Don't be ashamed about that," Ichika reaches over and pats her tutor on the back. "Well, it might just be because I like listening to English songs a lot, even though I'm not the greatest at listening to them, but still!"

After a minute of sulking in his own embarrassment, Fuutarou finally pulls his face up to face the quintuplets, though not without one more heavy sigh of disappointment.

"Yeck...I messed up so much during that. Voice cracks, off-pitch..." Fuutarou grumbles to himself. "Yeah, definitely rusty."

This time, it's Miku who interjects to cheer her tutor up. "Even if you were rusty, that was still really fun to listen to, really," she insists.

"Watching you, I feel like you actually performed on stage before. Am I wrong?" Ichika leans in a little towards her classmate. "I got the same vibe watching you sing as I do whenever we watch concerts or something on TV. Nino sometimes watches those variety talk shows where sometimes their special guests even do small little shows for the program."

"Yeah, I said earlier that I've had to perform alongside professional musicians and stuff."

"Ah, yeah, right, you did, sorry I forgot for a sec there."

"Man, Uesugi-san's so multi-talented, it's not even funny anymore," Yotsuba chuckles. She rests a cheek against her hand, with its elbow planted on the top of the glass table. "You can ace all your tests at school, you can tutor, you're a super badass mage, and you can sing. Just what the heck can't you do?"

"Tutor the five of you enough to make sure you can pass all your midterms tomorrow."

Once again, the girls all relapse into a wave of groans.

"There he goes again," Nino rolls her eyes yet again. "Every chance he gets, he makes some kind of stupid comment on how we're all gonna fail..."

"While I won't deny that, remember that it's your grades we're talking about, not mine. Me complaining about your grades for you still won't change the fact that all this is about you, not me."

Once he's gotten over his disappointment at himself for being an embarrassment to his own students, Uesugi sits up straight again to address his students properly.

"On a more serious note, I have been doing some self-assessment of my own. As in, I've been thinking about the way I'm approaching tutoring the five of you. While we might've only had a month and a half working together, I feel like there are things that I myself can improve upon as your tutor, and I've come to the conclusion that I need to be more interactive and teach the material to you in more engaging ways so that you all can remember it better. My whole singing just now is part of the whole self-reassessment thing that I'm talking about."

At this, Ichika can't stop herself from squealing aloud lightly. "So, so, so, so that means - that means we'll be able to listen to you sing more, right? Right?"

"As embarrassing as it'll be for me, yes, it might. It's not something I'll do all the time, mind you."

But the eldest quintuplet is already trembling with excitement. "Yaaaay ~ ! I can't wait, I can't wait ~ by the way, can we have an encore?"

"No."

"Awwwwww, why nooooot? Pwwweaaaaase, Fuutarou-kun ~ ?"

"No means no."

"But, Daaaaaaad ~ "

"Absolutely not. Also, don't call me your dad, that's weird."

"Oh ho ho? Fuutarou-kun, does that tickle your fancy?" Ichika creeps up next to her tutor in a suggestive manner. "Does being called Daddy make you feel some type of way, hm? Tell Ichika-onee-san more about it ~ "

"I-Ichika! Please refrain from such behavior with U-Uesugi-kun!" Itsuki hollers lightly, her own face acting up for her oldest sister at the sight of her advances.

"Yeah, listen to your sister for once and let's get back to studying. The faster we can go through these, the faster we can all go to sleep," Fuutarou agrees as he reaches over for the Japanese Language Arts books sitting close by.

"Hear, hear! God, I wanna go to sleep," Nino drawls out loudly.

"But you don't sound that tired, though," Ichika counters. "Admit it, Fuutarou-kun singing like that got you all pumped up to study more, didn't it?"

"L-Like hell it did!"

"Alright, alright, settle down. Everyone get your Language Arts textbooks out and let's review the stuff that'll probably be on your midterms tomorrow..."

Suddenly finding herself awake, Nakano Nino inhales sharply, blinking into the dim blue light that is the only one of its kind still left in the living room.

"Good morning, Nino."

At first ignoring the greeting from her tutor, the second quintuplet slowly raises her hands up to her face to give it a good rub to clear her senses from their slumber, grunting quietly while doing so. She must've fallen asleep while studying at some point...even though the quintuplets completed their late-night tutoring session with their classmate, the others insisted on sticking around to study on their own for a little bit longer, making good use of Fuutarou's own advice of studying together before going to bed, and Nino, not wanting to feel left out, reluctantly stayed with her sisters to study together. It would appear that all of them ended up falling asleep here in the living room, with Ichika, Yotsuba, and Miku dozing peacefully at the glass table and Itsuki sleeping on the long couch. Nino herself was apparently napping on the short couch, and while her memory is a bit hazy leading up to when she dozed off, Nino is certain she wasn't sitting on the short couch when she fell asleep. And neither did her sisters all have blankets on them at the time they started falling asleep themselves.

Nino reaches her hands up before her eyes again - her contacts have been removed for her at some point, judging by her incredibly blurry vision, and again, she doesn't remember taking them off before falling asleep. Lowering her hands a second time to peer over in her tutor's direction in the dim blue lamplight, Nino sits up in her seat on the short couch.

"...what time is it...?" she mumbles softly. Though she's still woozy from sleepiness, she doesn't want to wake her sisters who have been studying hard over the course of the night.

"Four thirty, just about," Uesugi-kun reports back, also keeping his voice low, but he's still speaking clearly and articulately. "Do you need your contacts?"

"...what did you do with them? Did you take them off for me when I fell asleep?"

"Yeah. I believe you're not supposed to go to sleep with them still on, so I took them off for you. Sorry if that bothers you."

Nino can barely make out her classmate's silhouette in the dim blue light over his shoulder shift, nearing her and handing her something, so she extends her hands, lets him place her contacts case in her hands, and takes it from him this way. However, it's only when she takes it from him that she realizes her next big problem.

"...I need to go to the bathroom..." Nino mutters, feeling her cheeks heat up against her will.

"Oh...right. Here, take my hand."

"..."

Nino glares back up at Uesugi-kun, who sighs back at her in response.

"Don't give me that. Unless you're okay with trying to find the bathroom by yourself in this darkness."

"Tch...o-okay, fine. I'll...let you...take me there."

Taking Uesugi-kun's extended hand with extreme reluctance, Nino carefully gets up from the short couch and walks slowly with her tutor over to the bathroom, where Uesugi-kun taps on the lights for Nino to see and be able to put her contacts back in for the time being, but first she washes her hands and face, brushes her teeth, and uses the toilet before finally putting her contacts in.

When she's done, Nino emerges from the bathroom to find her tutor absent from the area, only to hear some soft clinks from the kitchen. She promptly joins him in the kitchen, still in complete darkness with the exception of a small shoulder rune that provides the dim blue light that she's been seeing floating around Uesugi-kun ever since she woke up. He hands her a cup of warm hot chocolate that he's made quickly for the two of them, offering it to her.

"Hot chocolate," he clarifies when Nino narrows her sleepy eyes down at the cup that's being held out to her, and she takes it and takes a whiff of the heavy chocolate scent.

"...how the hell did you know where to find the hot chocolate?" Nino wonders aloud, grumbling softly as she takes a cautious sip of her hot drink. Even when speaking with a small voice, her words are as biting as ever. "And not to mention, I just brushed my teeth."

"Just brush it again afterwards, then. And...hmmm...I guess it's okay for me to tell you now. Back when you drugged me with that Heisei you had, I spent a night afterwards going through the house to make sure you weren't hiding anything else from me. That's how I knew where to find your contacts case from that one night...and where to find the hot chocolate too, I guess."

"...motherfucker, you know that's fucking trespassing on someone else's property?"

"And you think someone like me gives a shit about something like that? Especially not when one of the people who lives on that property tried drugging my ass the night before."

"That's still trespassing. Not to mention creepy."

"Psh. Fucking excuse me, then."

The two of them take sips from their cups of hot choco in silence for a moment, before Nino suggests:

"...we might wake up the others. Let's head out to the veranda."

Uesugi-kun opens his mouth to tell Nino that he's put runes on everyone else that prevents them from hearing their voices or any of the immediate ambient noise going on in the living room, but he decides not to and follows Nino out to the veranda, angling his rune light in front of Nino so that she can see where she's walking. Nino lets herself out onto the veranda, and Uesugi-kun closes the large sliding door behind him. Once outside, he reconfigures his rune to turn into a magical speaker, which begins to play some relaxing, ambient lofi for the two of them to listen to while enjoying their cups of hot choco.

"Do you have to play music right now?" Nino scowls at him when she first hears the lofi.

"Well...after I embarrassed myself in front of everyone earlier last night, I've been in kind of a vibing mood; I've been listening to lofi all night while studying on my own. The volume isn't that loud..."

"It's not about the volume, you idiot..."

"Then what, you don't like it? I can turn it off if you want."

"Ugh...just...whatever, keep it on, it's fine."

Rolling his eyes, the young mage also adds a sigh to it, which he stops with a sip of his comforting beverage.

"...how long were you studying for, after we all fell asleep?" Nino asks, holding her own cup with both hands to warm them up in the chill of the night. She's starting to regret deciding to talk to Uesugi-kun outside like this, but she doesn't feel like inviting him into her own room to do it either.

Noticing Nino beginning to tremble and shudder at the cold, the young mage pulls up his storage rune, pulls out his black hoodie jacket that he wears during his magework-related business, and drapes it around Nino's shoulders.

"I didn't ask for this, you idiot," the second quintuplet hisses back at him, but her hiss is lacking its usual venom that Uesugi-kun has had to get used to whenever he needs to talk to her.

"Whether you asked for it or not, I'm not letting you catch a cold the day of your midterms on my watch," he fires back. "I guess it's a good thing that I decided to fix some hot chocolate for the two of us. How is it, by the way? I've only ever made hot chocolate like this a few times before..."

Nino takes another sip. She's always loved sweet things, and chocolate is no exception.

"...it's delicious..." she mumbles softly. "...thanks."

And she coyly glances to her left to see how Uesugi-kun reacts.

The boy puts on the smallest little grin she's ever seen. It's so small, Uesugi-kun is basically doing nothing other than make the right corners of his lips stretch just a tiny bit. But make no mistake, that is still a smile, a smile of...relief.

A boy her age, who lives a double life as a high school student by day and a mercenary mage by night, is relieved...all because he was able to properly fix a good cup of hot chocolate.

"Good to know," he says quietly back, taking a silent sip of his own drink with her.

As the two of them gaze out to the city skyline under the dark, empty sky, time seems to blur. Hot chocolate, the city skyline, and the relaxing, lofi beats that could put Nino back to sleep if she weren't standing outside with her classmate's jacket over her shoulders...Nino slowly brushes some of her sideburns aside to take in the view...and this experience that she's never felt before, something that not even her sisters can make possible. The setting is so simple, so crude...as an elite teenage socialite who wears all the freshest clothes and eats at all the chillest restaurants, Nino shouldn't be as content as she is in this situation. But she finds no motivation to muster up any such discontent, any anger, any dissatisfaction. How could she, when she's got a boy with her who's happy all because he was able to make a good cup of hot chocolate.

"By the way, you never answered my question," Nino reminds her tutor, lowering her cup now that it's been emptied of its contents.

Uesugi-kun pauses briefly while taking another small sip. "I think you all went to sleep at around midnight? So ever since then."

"Do you even need to study? You just ace all your tests anyway, I thought."

"Hey, c'mon, even I need to study. I might know the material already, but it's never a bad idea to review. My biggest problem is that usually I don't have the time to do it."

"And yet you score perfects on everything anyway."

"Yeah, but these are midterms. They're a step up from all the other tests and quizzes we've been dealing with."

"Hmph."

"Also, you're already done with your hot chocolate? You weren't kidding when you said you handle hot stuff easily."

Nino gives a bit of a smug look over at her tutor. "Guess there's something I can beat even you at, huh?"

"Since when did we make hot chocolate-drinking a competition?"

"Since right now."

"Real shit, huh."

Nino quietly listens to Uesugi-kun take yet another careful sip of his hot beverage.

"Tell me what happened on the night Itsuki came home late," she asks. Her voice is quiet, yet steady and firm.

Uesugi-kun lowers his own cup.

"I managed to run into the guy who I think is trying to come after you and your sisters," he answers solemnly without looking back at Nino. "I've confirmed he's the guy who killed Ebata, your butler. So we got into a fight in the middle of the city, basically, and since Itsuki was studying at the library that day, she accidentally walked right into the street we were fighting on on her way back home."

"Oh. It wasn't like you had to go save her from trouble or anything?"

"Not really, no. She literally just walked right in on us; that guy I was fighting, his name is Shirazumi Rio - he wasn't after Itsuki or anything, or at least that wasn't his intention at the time we first met. Though once she did walk in on us, I had to make sure she got out of there safe."

"Hm. And let me guess, you got hurt again?"

"Yep. Got more cuts - one of them even reopened the one you saw from last week. Most serious one was right on my liver, though."

"Y-Your liver...?" Nino cringes a little at the mention of an internal organ being damaged.

"It's fine, it's healing up. But in case you were wondering why I was looking pretty rough the past few days at school, that's why."

Uesugi-kun took the words right out of the quintuplet's mouth, so Nino's hands tighten around her empty cup.

"Uesugi-kun, can I ask you something?" she asks softly.

"Sure. What's up?"

"Why...do you work so hard? Why do you...do all this dangerous stuff as a mage? Why did you study for the past four hours or whatever while the rest of us were asleep when you of all people don't need to? Why do you even bother going to school when clearly you don't have to?"

Nino turns to her tutor, who doesn't reciprocate.

"You're clearly smart enough to have a good-paying job, even at your age. Hell, you even told me that you were able to work at a super young age because you looked older than you were, so it's not like a lack of working experience's stopping you. But here you are, getting yourself into bad situations and putting yourself in harm's way for our sake. Is being a mage really that worth it to you? To the point where your desk at school becomes your bed, even? Maybe it's...maybe it's just because...I don't get what it's like being in your shoes at all, because our lives are just so different that I can't even begin to know what it's like. Maybe I just wouldn't understand. I mean, shit, I don't even know why I'm asking you something like this when I was the one who told you not to butt into our business like I did before."

Finally finishing the rest of his hot chocolate, Uesugi-kun lowers it down by his side.

"All I can say right now is that I've got my reasons," he replies slowly. "You're right, there's probably a better way I can go about helping my family get out of debt that my stubborn ass is failing to grasp because living as a mage is all I've ever known, pretty much. I guess if I had to say, it's because I do like this city a lot, and all the stuff that's been happening here lately...the drug rings, the kidnappings...it gets to me, I guess. I'm not a fan of all this bad shit happening around the city. And I know enough about all that bad stuff that I know the city by itself isn't going to be able to solve it all. All that, and I know I'm someone who can take matters into his own hands...a vigilante, basically."

He sighs deeply.

"Sometimes it's not always about me and what I want. Sure, I prioritize my family and the debt that we're working to pay off, and obviously that's very important to me...but over the years, I've come to realize that there are some things that are even more important than them."

Nino finally turns away.

"...I guess that's why I just don't get you. I don't think I can ever put anything higher than my family."

Her companion nods slowly in agreement. "It's best if you leave things like that. Life gets...complicated, let's just say...if you do."

"Yeah, if you're any indication."

Nino hears no response from her tutor. That's because he doesn't speak his response.

A heavy hand rests softly on top of Nino's head.

"Normally I'd say to not worry about me," Fuutarou mutters quietly, "but Ichika's gonna kick my ass if she finds out I said that to you. So...thanks for worrying about me. It means a lot, especially because it's you."

Because it's you.

Nino's eyes begin to feel warm. But it's not the alarming, scathing heat that's tormented her on several nights before. It's just a warm feeling in her eyes that matches that which she feels in her heart.

That's all it is.

Just a warm feeling.

That's all...

A/N

The relaxing lofi Fuutarou plays is Schoolgrounds by Sleepy Fish. Enjoy.