"Now planning to write more frequently, so expect more chapters"
is my favorite joke I can tell myself, among many others.
"Grab the water, Yotsuba, I've got my hands full here."
"Fork or chopsticks for you today, Nino?"
"Uhhh - fork."
"Should I turn off the stove here?"
"Yes, turn it off."
"How's your studying coming along, Itsuki?"
"Pretty good, actually, all things considered..."
Another day, another bustling morning for the quintuplets who now seat themselves at their penthouse's dinner table to have breakfast together. Having taken the time to draft up and agree to a steady, consistent study schedule throughout summer vacation, the girls have been treating their break from school as almost no different from a regular school schedule, getting up promptly or near promptly at seven in the morning to have breakfast by half-past seven, or by the latest eight o'clock. Having cooked with Miku's and Yotsuba's help another scrumptious breakfast of white rice, miso soup with tofu, fried tofu, and wakame, fresh lettuce and cabbage, sausage, bacon, and rolled scrambled eggs - something for every quintuplet to enjoy.
"C'mon, sleepyhead, wake up, it's breakfast time," Nino says in a slightly louder voice than usual, dipping her head down near that of Ichika, which is beginning to droop a little towards her right shoulder while Nino walks past her carrying the frying pan in which the meats have been cooked and still sit to be kept nice and hot. Ichika merely drags her head back upright and drowsily opens her eyes again before opting to rub her left eye a little bit.
"You've been busy with work recently, right, Ichika? Hopefully it's not getting in the way of anything," Miku says as Nino puts the frying pan down on the middle of the table before taking her seat and joining her four other siblings. "Take it easy if it's getting too stressful."
"Oh - don't worry about me, it's less stressful and more time-consuming, that's all," the eldest quint reassures Miku while taking a look around the table to see what's for breakfast. "Wow, Nino, you put a hundred and twenty percent on breakfast today, huh?"
"If you weren't busy napping at your chair, you would've heard me say that it's to motivate us to keep up our study schedule that we agreed to a week into summer break," the second quint explains concisely.
"Aha, did you. Sorry, didn't catch that, obviously."
"Give Ichika a break, Nino, she's kept up with our study schedule this whole time without cutting back on her part-time," Yotsuba tells the second quint.
"But she's gone to work a lot more often than usual the past two weeks or so," Nino points out. "It's great that she's keeping up with us; I'm just questioning why she feels the need to increase her own workload like this. It's already bad enough that we're studying this much over what should be our summer break, given how we were not even a year ago, but now Ichika's gotta go to work twice as much at the same time? And it's not like she's just now having this problem of dozing off at the dinner table or while we're studying, either."
"Her boss probably needs her to come in more often these days," Itsuki tries to explain in defense of their eldest sister before she directs a spoonful of rice into her mouth, followed up soon by a gulp of miso soup.
Miku nods after Itsuki. "Yeah, you shouldn't be so harsh on her about this. Clearly she must have a reason."
"And that's the thing, she hasn't given us one," the second quint points her fork back at her sisters before using it to pick up a sausage link from the frying pan. "So until she does, we're just left guessing. Not to mention, I find it funny that you think I'm the one being harsh on her when she's the one who chose to study as much as we do and increase her working schedule."
"Oh, it's not that big of a deal, really, you girls don't need to worry about me," Ichika reassures her younger sisters, having gotten started on her own breakfast finally to give her the energy she needs for the start of the day. "As long as I'm there for whenever we need to study together, it's all good, right? So don't worry about it. We've gone over this before, too..."
Wanting to divert the conversation at the table away to a more amicable subject, Itsuki clears her throat quickly and asks, "What is on our study schedule for today, again?"
"Mathematics, with all of us," Miku recites off memory, having been the one to draft their study schedule along with Itsuki, who provided some assistance. "Full length lesson today, with both a mock exam and review afterwards, so it'll be another two or three hour session."
"That means you need to be there, Miss Mathematics." Nino leans over to her sister slowly next to whom she is sitting, and Ichika can't help but give a small chuckle.
"I'm aware, I'm aware, don't you worry. I'll be here as scheduled - can't leave my cute sisters hanging when we're all studying so hard together, right? Mom would certainly be proud of what we're doing here, so we gotta keep it up."
"Yeah, she would be, wouldn't she?" Yotsuba beams quite brightly. "I almost forgot that she was a teacher. She'd totally get behind all the studying we've been doing!"
"Until you realize she'd also know about all the studying we didn't do before Fuutarou showed up," Miku grins darkly in response, causing the rest of her sisters to give off awkward chuckles and smiles of their own. "So it'd be a bit of a mixed bag there, wouldn't it."
"Oh gosh, you're right. I'm sorry, Mom!" the fourth quintuplet exclaims and claps her hands together. "Sorry for not studying up until Uesugi-san showed up! But we're studying like heck now and we're slowly turning our grades around, so we'll be able to graduate high school, we promise!"
"If you're gonna do that, you might as well tag along with Itsuki the next time she goes to visit her grave," Nino points out again. "And we all know how much she asks us to join her when she goes."
"I'll do you one better. How about we all go next time?" Yotsuba beams. "So that way all of us can get Mom's blessings for our academic futures!"
"Ugh, there you go being all sentimental again..." the second quint groans a little, but Ichika nods pretty enthusiastically.
"Yeah, actually, why not? It's been a while since we've last gone as a group, all five of us. Itsuki goes during like the middle of the month, right? Maybe we can get her to make an exception so that we can go visit before school starts back up."
"That would be quite lovely, actually," Itsuki also nods back strongly, having clearly grown very excited at this prospect. "I shall take another look at our school schedule and arrange a day for us all to go visit."
The dinner table then becomes mostly void of talking and chattering, save for a few complements from the siblings to Nino about how good the food is as usual. Surprisingly, it is Ichika to finish her food first and get up from her chair to put her dishes and utensils away in the sink to be washed later.
"I'll get going now. And again, I'll make sure to be back home for our group lesson tonight," the eldest quint reminds her family as she heads out first. "See you all later!"
The four remaining quints all bid her goodbye as they listen to the front door close after the oldest departing for her part-time job.
"I just want you all to know that I still think there's something fishy going on with Ichika working a lot more than usual the past two weeks," Nino says to her sisters, now being the new eldest at the table since Ichika's gone.
"I mean, she's had busy weeks before; this shouldn't be anything new," Miku reminds Nino, who is busy wrapping a strip of bacon with a strip of rolled scrambled egg to eat the two together that way.
"Yeah I know, but all those past incidents were isolated cases. As in, she's never had two weeks in a row where she's gone in for work more than usual."
"But it is clear that she is not using her part-time job to avoid studying, because as we all know, she has been here to study with us every day since we all agreed to the study schedule," Itsuki chimes in. "So just what kind of ulterior motive would you think she has to be working this much? I cannot imagine that she is doing this willingly - or, rather, since that may be a poor choice of words, she must have a good reason to be working this much on top of studying the same amount as the rest of us."
"And like I said earlier, it'd be nice if she could tell us that reason so that we'd understand. Or, rather, so that I'd understand, since none of the rest of you seem that keen on knowing what's going on."
The three other sisters all glance at each other for a moment.
"Well...yeah, since Ichika's part-time's never really caused any trouble, you know?" Miku just shrugs before scooping some fried tofu up from her miso soup bowl up with her spoon, but she hesitates before lifting it all the way up to her mouth, taking a hasty glance over at Yotsuba, who notices her and looks back with a full mouth, in case Miku wants to talk to her about something. But Miku turns away again to choose her next words carefully: "Unless it's because of the stuff we've talked about before...?"
At first, Nino furrows her left eyebrow back at her younger sister, but then she understands. "No, it's not because of that, really. I'm just genuinely curious as to what Ichika's reason is here. And hey, don't you think that it's really weird how we've gone, what, a full year or so without Ichika telling us just what exactly her part-time job entails? I know we've asked her before she said it was just a boring part-time, and she made it sound like it was a part-time gig at like a convenience store or something, but it's weird how she's still yet to tell us what exactly she's been doing."
"You're not wrong, but, like...like Miku said, it hasn't been a problem before, so we never bothered pressing the issue," Yotsuba points out. "It's not like when I join a whole ton of clubs and extracurriculars and end up getting everyone else dragged into my problem."
"And it's certainly not like that one time not too long ago," Miku rolls her eyes at Nino, who frowns deeply back at her younger sister but manages to stay her tongue, opting not to bring up that incident in front of the blissfully ignorant Yotsuba.
"Funny you mention that, because I do want to get to the bottom of this anyway," the second quint scoffs anyway as she feeds herself another mouthful of white rice, cabbage, and bacon.
At this, Miku feels the need to narrow her own eyes deeply back at Nino. "If by chance you mean what you did last time, don't you even think about it," the third quintuplet warns her elder, but she makes sure not to add much venom into her voice so that it doesn't tip Yotsuba off and start making her worried about whatever they're talking about.
"Relax, relax, it's not gonna be like that again, sheesh. You don't think I learned my lesson?"
"Kind of hard to know that when Itsuki was the one who learned your lesson for you."
Itsuki in the meantime begins to eat more slowly and quietly, having caught wind of the direction the conversation has gone. All too aware of her youngest sister's reaction to this, Nino sighs exasperatedly.
"Well, Miku, if you don't believe me, you're more than welcome to tag along with me. That way you can't complain, right?"
"No, I still can. I still have a problem with you snooping around in Ichika's business."
"Oh come on, don't be like that. You remember the stuff we've talked about before, don't you?"
"I do, but that's that, and this is this. Like we said before, Ichika's part-time job's never caused any problems for us, outside of some scheduling conflicts. So I don't know how to feel about you saying you want to get to the bottom of this particular thing." Miku finishes the rest of her miso soup. "Oh, and I can't go with you today even if I wanted to, since I promised Yotsuba I'd help her study history this afternoon."
"But...how will you go about trying to figure out what Ichika's part-time job is? We do not even know where it could be," Itsuki reminds Nino.
"Which is why I told you not to worry about this one so much," the second quintuplet smirks a little as she reaches her hand into her pocket with some dramatic flair. "Because...I've got a secret weapon...and that's...to call - or text - Uesugi-kun!"
Whipping out her phone, Nino raises it high up into the air with the same kind of triumph that a JRPG character would with a powerful item earned from a particularly difficult boss battle while her sisters look on with varying degrees of approval - mainly disapproval coming from Miku, though.
"Please don't bother Fuutarou. You know there's no way he's going to agree to go along with whatever you're planning this time," the third quint sighs.
"Oh, but that's just what you think. All I need to do is tell him that it's an urgent matter of life or death and he'll come running instantly. Easy!"
"You're downright disgusting, Nino, you know that?"
"Relax, seriously, I'm not going to do that."
Miku merely rolls her eyes at this, finding Nino's previous statement difficult to believe for obvious reasons. "Then again, maybe that's to be expected out of you from now on, so..."
"Shut it already..." Mumbling under her breath, Nino has her phone auto-dial their tutor's number and even taps the speaker phone option on her phone so that the rest of the quintuplets can listen in, whether they want to or not. Nino's phone ends up only having to dial twice before the the call connects.
"What's up, Nino? Did you need something?"
"Yeah. Ichika headed out from home just now to go to her part-time, but she's been going to her part-time a lot more often the past two weeks. You probably already know that she's had her part-time job for a while now, but all this time she's never told us what it is or what she does there, so I wanna get down to the bottom of it and figure out what she's doing. I'm going to head out in a little bit, and I want you to help me so that I don't end up wasting a whole bunch of time looking around, since I figure you already have an idea yourself."
The four sisters hear a small sigh on the other end of the call, which the speaker phone picks up audibly enough.
"Fine, if it means you'll get back to studying sooner."
At this, Miku almost spits out bits of sausage as she scrambles up to her feet and wipes her mouth furiously to protest.
"W-Wait a minute, hold on, Fuutarou!" she cries out, feeling quite lucky she didn't start choking on something in her sharp reaction. "How on earth are you just going to agree to this so easily?!"
"Who is that...sounds like Miku. Because Nino's the type of person who, once she sets her mind to something, she'll be damned if she doesn't get what she wants. I've argued with her before on multiple occasions over the months, and you've witnessed some of our arguments firsthand, so you should have an idea of what I'm talking about. Personally, I've come to the conclusion that if Nino wants to get something of this nature done, it's best to just let her run her course until she's satisfied."
"But then - then what about last time? The time when - well, you know!" Miku blurts out. She's praying and hoping that, like how Nino understood what she's referring to earlier during breakfast, Fuutarou will understand too, and her luck holds up with their tutor's response.
"I get it, but this time is different."
"How so?"
"Because Nino actually took the time to call me up and tell me what her intentions are before she acts on it - she's even asking for my assistance on this. I much prefer a situation like this than, well, last time, and since Nino's gone ahead and done that, I don't have as much of a problem with it as I normally would. You girls have been studying though, right?"
"Yes, absolutely. You can even give me a pop quiz of any subject when we meet up!" Nino declares proudly.
"I'll hold you to it, then. Is it just you I need to meet up with, Nino, or is anyone else coming?"
"Oooh, ooh, I wanna come too! I wanna see you, Uesugi-san! I'll bring some lunch with us, too!" To Nino's irritated surprise that she quickly suppresses, the fourth quint chimes in from her corner of the table, with her naturally loud voice easily able to cut through the air and the phone to reach their classmate.
"No, Yotsuba, wait, you don't need to come with me. I can handle this by my - " Nino starts to say, but she's cut off by Fuutarou who goes,
"Nah, let her come with you, Nino."
Unable to hide her irritation at Yotsuba coming along, Nino raises her phone up practically right in front of her mouth to say loudly without fully shouting, "But - but I didn't plan on having anyone come with me! I'm the only one who's really interested in finding out what Ichika's part-time is, Yotsuba just wants to come see you!"
"But like...so do you, right?"
Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki are treated to a rare sight of witnessing their older sister's face flush bright red for a moment before she goes positively ballistic, beginning to grip her phone so hard that they're afraid she's going to crush it with her bare hand.
"W-W- " Nino even has trouble getting her first few words out, something she just as rarely does for someone who weaponizes words as skillfully as she does. "What the fuck are you talking about!? This is totally serious! I'm not doing just - just 'cause I want to, since I need to study with everyone like you told us to!"
"Then why aren't you? Why're you wasting your time asking me to help you with finding out what kind of part-time job Ichika's got?"
"Because Ichika's a lot more tired lately and her being sleepy all the damn time's disrupting our study sessions, smartass! Today's also her day to lead our group lesson since it's mathematics we're going over together tonight!"
"But it's not like she's sleepy while she's studying together with us, though..." Yotsuba thoughtfully reminds her sister.
"Maybe not now, but you can bet Fuutarou's lunch that it'll become a problem soon, what with how tired she is these days!" Nino gripes back. "Oh, forget it - meet me at the park near our place in ten minutes! You better be there!"
Still moderately red in the face, Nakano Nino storms out of her seat but makes sure to put her mostly empty dishes away in the kitchen sink before rushing to the bathroom to slap some water on her face and hands and clomping out of the penthouse, leaving the three sisters to finish and put away what's left of their breakfast.
"Well...at least this time Uesugi-san's going to be with her, right?" Itsuki awkwardly speaks up first to her remaining siblings, and Miku sighs yet again in reaction.
"I just hope Fuutarou talks her ear off about this," she says, getting up out of her own seat to put her own plate away. "If Mama were here, she'd have that covered."
"Uesugi-san scolds us too a lot too, though?" Yotsuba wonders aloud, but Miku shakes her head as she walks past to head to the kitchen.
"Not so much anymore. When's the last time we remember him scolding us for anything? Not much, if at all, ever since Yotsuba's club incident."
The fourth quint still hangs her head, though. "But I wanted to go see Uesugi-san, since it's been a while..."
"We can still make him something for him to take with him when he brings Nino back home," Itsuki suggests cheerfully to raise her older sister's spirits. "So instead of lunch, you can give him dinner to go."
"Or even better, have him stay to eat dinner with us so that he can see how our studying's going. I'm sure he wouldn't mind checking in on us if he's going to be stopping by anyways," Miku also suggests, calling over her shoulder while putting on an apron to begin washing the dishes.
"Yeah, good idea! Also, Itsuki, when you said 'we', did you mean that you wanted to help us cook?" Yotsuba turns back to Itsuki to ask her excitedly before immediately swiveling in her chair to relay the news to Miku. "Miku, Itsuki said she wants to cook with us finally!"
"Wha - hey, wait, no, I - I did not mean to imply such a thing! Yotsuba, wait, please!" Having just realized the words she's used, Itsuki hurriedly frets and leans in her seat towards Yotsuba, but it's too late.
"Oh, so Itsuki's going to finally help contribute to putting food on the table rather than removing it? About time," Miku chuckles. She is waiting for the water running from the sink faucet to turn warm to properly wash the dishes and is just giving them a quick rinse in the meantime.
"B-B-But I - I am no good at cooking!" the youngest quint cries in lamentation. "I like eating food, not making it! That I wish to leave to those who are more talented than me!"
"Excuses, excuses...prepare yourself, Itsuki. Today, Yotsuba and I will finally teach you how to cook something other than rice."
"It'll be fun, don't worry about it, Itsuki!" Laughing heartily, Yotsuba scoots over to the seat next to her where Miku once sat for breakfast and gives her sole younger sister a big hug, practically smushing cheeks together with Itsuki, who is starting to resign herself to her fate of being forced to learn how to cook.
"Ughhh...I'm so stupid...I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid..."
Having silently fumed her way to the park nearest to the Pentagon high-rise luxury apartments, the second Nakano quintuplet is sitting miserably on one of the many benches at the park with her face in her hands, her embarrassed anger having largely subsided at this point to leave behind the dregs of her kneejerk emotions known as regret. She's realized on her way here that she used "Fuutarou" to address her tutor, something she's done a mostly flawless job of doing to hide her own feelings towards him from her sisters, but now that she's called him that in front of three of her sisters, all that effort's probably gone down the drain - as if getting super embarrassed in front of everyone when Fuutarou so bluntly stated that Nino was also probably just using this whole situation as an excuse to see him, which admittedly was half the reason why Nino is orchestrating this whole thing in the first place. But now she's not sure if all the effort, which isn't really much but still, that she's put into arranging a meetup with her tutor and classmate ended up being worth it or not with the price she's most likely had to pay in the process.
"Grrrrrr...I hate him, I hate him I hate him I hate him - " Nino begins to grumble, tearing her face out of her hands to start stomping her right foot against the ground, only to find Uesugi Fuutarou standing in front of her and damn near getting a heart attack because of it, so little was she expecting to see anyone there, and let alone Fuutarou himself.
"I hope you're not talking about me," the young mage raises an eyebrow slightly while he watches Nino almost tumble backwards off the bench in her immense shock. "...what's with the reaction, you told me to get here in ten minutes, and so I did. What more do you want from me?"
"I want you to fucking tell me that you're here, not just stand in front of me waiting for me to notice you like a goddamn creep, you bastard!" Nino croaks as soon as she's regained her balance and pushes her hair out of her face to leap up to her feet. "And let me get the fucking record straight, bozo - I didn't get you to show up here just because I wanted to see you! This is serious!"
"That so? Then allow me to do the same."
"...huh? What do you mean?"
Fuutarou quickly scratches the side of his head. "Specifically, I'm here to tell you that no, I'm not going to help you find out what Ichika's doing for her part-time job. That's the part I'm serious about."
Instantly dropping all the remaining embarrassment and frustration she had up until this point since they're about to be replaced by a fresher coat of the same emotions, Nino feels her face contort in response to the rapidly proliferating jumble of confused thoughts going off in her head.
"...wait, what the hell do you mean? You - you said that you'd help me with this over the phone! And now you're saying no?"
"Mainly because I have no reason to help you after the stunt you pulled last time." Uesugi leans in closely to Nino with a keen look of disapproval written very clearly on his face. "Why on earth did you think I was actually going to help you out with this one?"
The combination of her guilt from the incident with Itsuki's brief kidnapping and Fuutarou's intense gaze of firm indignation repress Nino's growing relapse into aggression, forcing her to look away quickly while briefly at a loss for words.
"...but then...but then, why did you feel the need to lie to me?" Nino snaps back, though with nowhere near as much passion as before. "It's not like you to outright lie like that. You could've just told me no, and that would've been that. It's not like I would've been...like, actually mad at you for declining or anything."
"Well, I heard Yotsuba with you, so I didn't want to make it seem like there was anything bad going on between us. Last thing we need is to have Yotsuba start worrying over everything that's been going on, especially that other night, you know?" Fuutarou points out. "Your whole thing is to keep your sisters together. So what do you think's gonna happen if Yotsuba gets wind of the shit you pulled on Itsuki?"
Nino now fully turns her body away from her classmate. "Shut up already, I know. But it's not like you saying no over the phone would've given it away or anything, so why did you even bother agreeing to meet me, then?"
"Given how you reacted when I told you that you wanted to see me, I figured it'd be for the best if I showed up anyway. Or would you have preferred if we didn't meet up at all?"
"...shit, with how you've been so far, I'm leaning more towards the side of not meeting up at all." Crossing her arms and plopping herself back down onto the bench, the second quint irritably looks back up at her tutor. "Besides, now that you've told me you won't help me, I gotta go back home all awkward and crap. How am I supposed to explain to the others why I'm back so soon?"
"That's true. Don't you have friends from school that you can hang out with for a little while?"
"They're all off doing their own thing. That, and I already told them that I was gonna be busy with studying with my sisters over break to get our shitty grades up, so they've already made their own plans for the rest of break since we don't have much of it left. Only the summer festival towards the end and that's it, pretty much, before school starts back up."
"Surely there must be someone you can still hang out with, though? You're a socialite at school, for crying out loud."
Now it's Nino's turn to sternly gaze back at Fuutarou with firm indignation. "I'll excuse that comment since it's coming from a zero social skills workaholic loser like you, but I'll have you know that I actually don't have that many friends as you might think, okay? This attitude I got, it's what I come off as all the time. While it's gained me friends, it's also made me a whole lotta enemies - and even people who're neutral towards me don't see me in all that favorable of a light, either. And besides, it shouldn't surprise you that I prefer being with my sisters over anyone else anyway, as much as they annoy me sometimes, because at the end of the day, they're my family, the only ones in the world to understand the shit that I do. They're the only ones who'll stick with me even if I make a colossal fuck-up like I did with Itsuki; anyone else would've instantly dropped my ass as a friend like a bad habit. Does that adequately explain the situation to you, or do I need to repeat myself for you to get it?"
Fuutarou shakes his head. "Once is enough, thanks. Sorry for assuming, I just wanted to make sure that there really wasn't anyone else you could kill time with to keep up appearances to the others."
Twisting the right corners of her lips noticeably, Nino falls silent, not knowing where else to take the conversation, but to her silent surprise, Fuutarou takes a seat on the bench next to her.
"...so what, we're just gonna hang out here at the park?" she scowls a bit over to him, though she can't help but feel at least a little bit happier that she's sitting next to the boy she now likes.
"Well, I figure I've gotta make it up to you for that bad assumption I made just now," the young tutor concludes, pulling out his phone and accessing its photo storage. "So instead of helping you snoop around the city to figure out what Ichika does...I can offer you some alternate intel instead."
Understandably, Nino's countenance grows confused now. "What're you talking about? Alternate intel? The hell do you mean by that?"
Taking a deep breath to organize his thoughts first, Fuutarou leans forward a bit in his seat.
"So you'd think that I know what Ichika does for a part-time job. After all, I've known about it since early after I first meet you girls, and I've already told you all that I can monitor what everyone does. Well, there's a catch - when it comes to tracking down Ichika, specifically when she goes to her part-time job, I can't track her anymore."
Hearing this, Nino quickly leans forward to mimic her classmate. "Because Ichika's a mage!" she concludes swiftly. "She must have learned how to counter your monitoring!"
But Fuutarou shakes his head quickly too. "This is gonna sound weird because if I were to try to explain this to you in magical terms, you won't be able to make heads or tails of it. Ichika isn't doing that. She has some control over her powers as a mage, sure, but she barely knows how to use them in my opinion. So it can't be because of the few magical powers that she does have."
"...okay, then what else is it?"
Fuutarou turns his head towards the quintuplet. "To put it bluntly, Ichika has a clone of herself, and that's what's keeping me from investigating Ichika as much as I'd like to."
The young mage can swear he sees a dot-filled loading circle start rotating around Nino's head as the quintuplet begins to perform mental gymnastics in order to process his words.
"...Ichika...has her own...clone...?" Nino groans lightly and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Goddamn it, Fuutarou, you know I struggle to wrap my head around complicated shit in school, how are you gonna hit me with this one...? A fucking clone...? So...does that...make us...like...sextuplets or something...? What...?"
"Not quite, I don't think. Let me explain - this clone of hers is identical to her in everything except personality. Imagine how you talk to me and crank that up a couple notches and that's how the clone acts. That clone is the reason why I haven't been able to figure anything out about the original Ichika's job, because whenever I've tried investigating, that clone always seems to show up. She'd sometimes pose as the real Ichika or show up as herself, but every time I'd try to track down Ichika to where she's going, she'd show up real quick and tell me to go mind my own damn business. I'd tried asking her stuff to get her to divulge what Ichika does, but she wouldn't answer anything and would just keep telling me to get lost."
Fuutarou gives Nino a minute to both process everything he's saying and have a chance to say something back.
"...so...a clone..." the quintuplet murmurs, but then she fiercely rubs her head with both hands. "Uuuggh, I don't know where to start...so many questions..."
"Then I'll just keep talking so that hopefully the stuff I happen to mention can answer some of them for you," Fuutarou suggests. "For starters, I don't know very much about this clone, either. I don't know where she came from, what her exact relationship is with Ichika, and whether or not she's fully autonomous."
"Fully autonomous, what's that mean, exactly? Like, whether she's her own person or not?"
The mage nods curtly. "Whether it's just an extension of Ichika's own consciousness taking form in another physical body or it's its own being. I think it's safe to assume that Ichika and her clone've been together for a while but I have no way of verifying how long exactly. I'm guessing none of the rest of you knew at all?"
"N-No, not at all. In fact, I - I'm having such a hard time believing you that I'm not sure if you're just trolling me or not."
"I am most certainly not trolling you. I even have the proof here with me..."
Fuutarou pulls out his phone to access its storage, and he opens a short audio file and puts it on speaker for the two of them to listen to after fast-forwarding to relevant portion of the audio track.
"Just 'cause I helped ya out once doesn't mean we're cool, Uesugi. Stop tryin'a find out what Ichika's up to, it ain't none 'a your fuckin' business."
"What if I don't stop?"
"Then I'll just have to convince you to stop in other ways."
"If you think threats alone can dissuade me, I'd urge you to reconsider."
"Oh, I'll give you somethin' to reconsider, all right. Given how you slink around like a damn rat, it's clear to me that you wanna find out shit on Ichika without her knowing. Ichika doesn't know that you're tryin'a get all up in her ass about what she does for work. So if you keep makin' moves, I can just tell her what you're up to - not just with what you're doin' here, but also the cute lil' coalition you got goin' on with Nino, Miku, and Itsuki. So much for your covert ops then, huh?"
The audio track ends there, and Fuutarou pockets his phone afterwards.
"Not only am I not pulling your leg, but Ichika's clone is potentially extremely dangerous," he concludes quickly. "She - "
"What, you can't just get in there and beat her up?" Nino smirks darkly over at her classmate. "You can beat the crap outta ordinary guys all day, but the moment you come across another mage, you suddenly can't do shit?"
"Funny you mention that, because the first night I met Ichika's clone was the night when you and Yotsuba got nabbed by Shirazumi the first time, back when you and Itsuki stormed out of your house after that one argument you two had. That also happened to be the night when I had to fight Shirazumi to take the two of you back. When it comes to Ichika's clone, though, there are just way too many unknown variables for me to risk fighting head to head against her. Not to mention, something feels noticeably off about her..."
"Off? How so?"
"Unfortunately even if I were to explain that part to you, you wouldn't understand most of what's coming out of my mouth, so there's no point in bringing it up further."
"Isn't that just you not wanting to teach me magecraft?"
"Partly, but you legitimately wouldn't know what the hell I'm talking about. If you had better grades in school to imply that your intellect was higher than what it is now, then I'd maybe consider, but even then I'd still say you wouldn't know what the hell I'm talking about."
Nino sneers back. "Oh yeah? Try me, then."
"That's an obvious bait and I won't fall for it."
"Says the motherfucker who's desperately trying to trigger me into getting worked up over my shitty grades."
"Am I wrong, though? Your grades are still shit."
"They are, but not only are they improving, but them being shit doesn't bother me like they used to. Remember that you have yourself to blame on that one, ha!"
"Yeah? What's zero factorial?"
"One."
"Who was known as the Dragon of Echigo?"
"Uesugi Kenshin."
"What colors make up the color white?"
"Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple."
"Who is widely considered the greatest master of haiku?"
"Matsuo Bashou."
"Now read to me what this says."
Nino watches as Fuutarou pulls out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, which he unfolds to reveal some English words written on one of its sides.
"...Nino...is...a...big...dummy...HEY!"
Fuutarou slaps his hands together loudly once and pumps his right fist, paper in the other. "Got 'em!"
"Y-You bitch! Taking advantage of testing me like that just to make me call myself an idiot, I can't believe you, God!"
"Relax, we just do a little trolling around here. Can't take a little joke?"
"If you're gonna just troll me, then get your ass back to work or whatever it is you're doing these days!"
"Oh, so you want me to leave early, then."
Opening her mouth to confirm this, Nino stops, deliberates silently to herself, and slowly sinks back down onto the bench.
"...not yet," she mutters softly.
"Didn't think so." The young tutor leans back in his seat on the bench. "But...yeah, that's what I figured I'd tell you. Obviously, I'd like for you to keep that a secret from the others - I don't know how Ichika's clone's gonna react if she finds out I told you about her. So make sure to keep this just between the two of us, especially now that Ichika's clone knows about how you, Miku, and Itsuki are in talks with each other against Ichika in a way."
"I mean, you haven't really been helping with encouraging that yourself."
"Maybe not, but my job's still to protect all of you and I intend to uphold that."
Straightening her back to lean it against the back of the bench, Nino lets her gaze drift forward towards the rest of the park.
"So you basically can't figure out what Ichika does for her part-time because she's got a clone looking out for her doing its own thing. I mean, I still have to ask how that's stopping you from being able to figure out, though."
"Because like I said, there's just too much I don't know about her. I don't know how magically capable the clone is, I don't know what kind of a stance she has towards me or, more importantly, towards the rest of you, and I certainly don't know what exact kind of relationship Ichika has with her own clone, considering it seems to be acting out of its own free will. Too many variables at play here that I'm not willing to mess with, because if I do, there's no telling what the clone's gonna go off and do as a rogue agent of sorts in this situation. And there's the whole side of, if the clone turns out to be very strong magically, I'd like her to be on our side rather than anyone else's in particular, since we kind of have a bigger enemy in the big picture to deal with."
"...fine, then. I'm just amazed that we've - as in me and my sisters - we've gone all this time without knowing. But then again I guess you can just chalk that up to us being magically inexperienced..." Nino leans in to nudge Fuutarou's arm with her elbow, who merely smirks back.
"Nice try, but it still isn't happening."
"Fuck." Nino is compelled to retract her elbow. "...then how about you? You still gonna show up to the summer festival?"
"That's still the plan, yes. Been going full crunch time to make it happen but so far there hasn't been anything yet to suggest me skipping it."
"Good. I'd hate to have to yell at you for ditching us when we've already spent God knows how much time over our yukatas and such."
"Oh noooo. I'd hate to have to get yelled at again by Nino of all people...anyways, time for me to start another fourteen hour shift at the hospital..."
"Do you really, though?"
"What, the fourteen hours? Yes, they happen often enough to tell you about 'em, both for me and your dad."
Nino frowns slightly. "...you two work too damn much, you know that?"
"You've told me that one before." The mage kicks one leg over the other and lets out a great big yawn, holding his hand over his mouth in doing so. "Not a lot we can do about it - we work at a damn hospital, after all. People aren't just gonna save themselves."
In the middle of him talking, Nino suddenly gets a small idea and hops up off the bench, causing Fuutarou to glance up at her.
"You headed off somewhere?" he asks, noting the sudden change in Nino's physical behavior.
"Yeah, but you're coming with me."
"To where, though? I already told you I'm not taking you to Ichika."
"I didn't say I wanted that, though. Just come with me to the nearest milk tea place."
"Why, what's the occasion?"
"Well, since you're already out here, I figured that means you've got some time off. So while I've got you all to myself, I'm gonna drag you off with me to somewhere so I can make sure you can enjoy your time off."
"I'd prefer to spend this time doing something more productive, though."
"But you are? You're protecting me. That's your job, right?"
"...but does it need to involve going to get milk tea?"
"From what I know, your contract doesn't say that you can't have some fun while also doing your job."
"But you didn't write my contract, though, your dad did."
"Oh, fine." Nino then assumes a sarcastic facade as she steps daintily away from her tutor. "I guess poor ol' me's gonna have to go to the milk tea store by myself! What am I gonna do if someone attacks me or kidnaps me on my way there? Oh nooooooooOOoooOOooooo..."
"I'm going to tell Itsuki about this."
"Hey, that's fucked up! Fuck you!" Nino immediately swings around stomps back to Fuutaoru to slap him across the face with the sleeve of her black cardigan.
"Yo, I wasn't the one who came up with whatever the hell you did, what're you slapping me for...?"
"Oh, just - just shut the hell up and come with me, I'll buy you whatever you want! You got a cute girl asking you to come with her to go get some milk tea together and you're trying not to go? You know how many other guys our age would fucking kill to be in your position?"
"Personally, I'd disagree with the cute part, but - "
Fuutarou is painfully cut off by a karate chop by Nino, who aims right for the middle of his face and strikes true.
"Just - just get your butt off this bench and let's freaking get going already. You keep delaying this and I'm gonna make you pay for your own drink."
"Then I just won't buy anything like I was planning to."
Groaning loudly, Nino takes matters into her own hands and, with surprising strength, heaves Fuutarou off the bench and onto his feet and almost starts to drag him with her, and Fuutarou takes note of Nino's subtly monstrous grip that she's got on his left wrist.