"Alright, tell the others I said hello. Be sure to tell onii-san soon!" Raiha's voice echoed through the Uesugi household as an alarm clock began ringing next to Fuutarou's head. Stumbling out of his futon, the tutor rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he walked out to join Raiha at the door.
"Who was that?" He asked, peeking out into the street, but finding nobody walking around. "Who would come here so early?"
"Mutsumi-chan came by to tell me something." Raiha walked away, going to the stovetop to make breakfast for the family. "But she's super busy today, so she had to go to school early. By the way, what do you want to eat?"
"Anything's fine..." He mumbled, bringing a hand up to his cheek and feeling a few tiny gashes he sustained from his fall from the swings. "So it was real..." He thought, smiling as the scene vividly replayed in his mind.
"Alright! Get ready for school, you don't have many days left until graduation, you can't mess up your attendance now!" Raiha called him, pointing towards their bathroom with a ladle as Isanari watched his kids silently. "I won't be able to wake you up after you graduate."
"I know...you're right," Fuutarou said, sitting down and grabbing a piece of bread to sate his hunger. He took a few minutes to change into his uniform, tucking his hands into his pockets as he opened the door. "I'm off!" He declared, going on his usual route to school and running into the six sisters he knew so well.
"Ah, it's Fuutarou-kun!" Ichika called out, waving her hand in a friendly way as she caught sight of him. "Good morning! You look bad, did you have trouble waking up?"
"You shouldn't be walking while looking at your feet, it's dangerous," Miku commented, turning her head to speak with her tutor.
"Good morning, Uesugi-san!" Yotsuba yelled, slightly cheerier than her sisters, though she returned to her old way of addressing him since she was in their company.
"You were calling him Fuutarou-kun all-day yesterday, why'd you change back?" Nino asked, slightly irritated, though she just continued to walk in the direction of their school.
"'sup," Fuutarou said, picking up his pace in order to join their group. His attention instantly shifted toward the two sextuplets that seemed oddly silent that morning. He was about to ask Mutsumi for her reason to visit his home so early when Ichika's phone began vibrating.
"Ah! It's already this late." Ichika exclaimed, about to rush off for work. Sure enough, the eldest sister wasn't dressed in their uniform, didn't carry her school bag, and had more makeup on than her sisters.
"Itsuki, Mutsumi, Ichika's leaving," Miku called the two youngest sisters, who were quite a ways off. The fifth turned around, her hair straightening as she gave her farewells to her sister; Mutsumi kept her head down, simply waving goodbye in silence as she continued walking.
"What happened to you?" Fuutarou asked, taken aback at Itsuki's appearance. Sunken eyes, matted hair, and a delirious face, Itsuki was a mess that day.
"Whatever do you mean?" She replied, turning and walking with slouched shoulders. Gone was her usual prim and proper posture, replaced by a relax if not slightly irked stance.
"Itsuki pulled an all-nighter," Ichika said, pointing out the bags under the fifth's eyes. "Are you okay? You should take breaks too, you know." She turned, placing a hand on her sister's shoulders in order to straighten out her posture.
"I've come this far and I'm so close. I'll be counting on you again after school, Uesugi-kun!" Itsuki whined, slightly more irritable due to her lack of sleep. Fuutarou smiled, enjoying the exchange as they bid Ichika farewell. A lot of things have changed for the tutor ever since he started his job, his surroundings were more enjoyable, his outlook on life brighter. However, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
"Like I've said!" Fuutarou yelled in the school library, but he was fortunate enough to be there when nobody else was. "I've explained it to you hundreds, if not thousands of times. You don't eat lice! It's rice, not lice!" He grabbed the fourth's ribbon, pulling it tightly as Yotsuba apologized profusely.
"They're the same as always, how boring..." Nino commented. "It doesn't even feel like they're dating." True to the second sister's words, the young couple would appear as normal to anyone that wasn't aware of the development in their relationship.
"I agree. It was quite a shock to hear him propose, though." Itsuki, having taken some time to rest over the course of the school day, was back to her usual self and was studying religiously. "Honestly...he truly is inept when it comes to matters of romance."
"I think it's nice that they're both like this," Mutsumi said, her attention currently elsewhere save for having an ear out to listen to everyone else's conversation. "Not every couple is as lovey-dovey as TV dramas." She repeatedly tapped a finger on the table as she picked up Fuutarou and Yotsuba's voices carried through the air. Though she hasn't verbalized it, she was uncomfortable being there. Her feelings kept shifting whenever her mind wandered over to the couple. Joy, sadness, anger, envy, regret, doubt, and so on; she hated it, her turbulence on the situation.
"Well, it would've been nice to see something change between them..." Nino spoke as her eyes moved to look at Miku, who was keeping to herself while doing nothing with her time. "Is something wrong?" Everyone, even the couple who were playfully teasing each other a few steps away, turned curiously and faced the third sister.
"Ah well, since I won't be taking any entrance exams, I don't need to study anything. So I was wondering if it's okay for me to be here." Miku lowered her head. Though it was true that she needn't be there, her feet found themselves walking with the others into the school library of their own volition.
"Why would you need to worry about something like that? It's already close to the end of my tenure as your tutor, but even if our teacher-student relationship ended today, I'm sure we'd still meet up like this tomorrow." Fuutarou said, sitting down at the table with the others. There was an incessant scratching sound as Yotsuba sat down after him.
"Plus, it's reassuring to have you here, Miku."
"I concur. You're so knowledgable when it comes to Japanese history, so having you here allows us to ask for your guidance."
Fuutarou scoffed gladly, leaning forward to catch his breath before he spoke. "No matter what goals we have, I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to get this far if we were alone. More importantly..." He looked around at his students, also imagining Ichika in the empty chair that they had subconsciously left for her. "The days where we put our desks together like this have been the most enjoyable.
Everyone smiled, returning to their study session with renewed vigor after his speech. The hours passed them by as the day transitioned to the night on their way home.
"Hey, Ichika sent us something." Yotsuba exclaimed, checking her phone as a similar messaged arrived for each of them.
"It's about the drama she told us before." Miku examined the message. "Looks like she got the role."
"Wow! She passed the audition!" The fourth seemed to have even more skip in her step. She excitedly read the message over and over as she ran circles around her sisters to release some of her excess energy.
"Let's try our best as well," Itsuki spoke. "We can't let Ichika leave us behind, after all."
"There's something I have to tell all of you." Fuutarou clenched his fists, staring at the five sisters standing in front of him. "This whole time, I haven't...been able to tell you which university I applied to..." He paused, looking for the confidence to reveal his choice. "It's Tokyo U! After graduation, I'll be moving to Tokyo, and I won't be able to be with you all like this anymore..."
"Huh? We knew that already..." Nino said bluntly, dispelling any intensity that Fuutarou brought with his statement. "Even though you didn't tell us, we figured that it's something you'd do, Fuu-kun."
"Yeah." Miku joined in. "We're not bothered by that at all." The sisters nodded, turning to face him.
"Oh...really. So I was the only one worked up about this. How embarrassing." Fuutarou scratched his head, his face turning red from shame.
"Ahaha. It's not like we're saying goodbye forever. We'll be cheering you on no matter where you are, Uesugi-san, just like how you did for us."
"Do your best." Itsuki already started giving her moral support, her head bobbing side to side as he ahoge waggled around like an excited dog's.
"I'll come to visit you whenever you want." Nino crossed her arms, grinning cheekily. As she declared, she was still looking for an opportunity to have him to herself.
"..." Mutsumi paused, thinking carefully about what she wanted to say. "Do your best there. After all, you don't want to be left in my dust, right?" She joked, taunting him with one last challenge for the day.
"Thanks. I'm really glad to have met you all." He gave them a wholesome smile, turning the other way as their paths home diverged. "See ya." He waved as he watched the sea of red hair slowly shrink into the distance.
"It was just like we thought." Miku muttered as the sisters continued walking home. "Was it just me, or did he look kind of lonely back there?"
"I saw it too..." Itsuki said. "But he also seemed happy. Which is a rare sight, perhaps we were lucky to see that kind of face on him."
"I..." Mutsumi sniffed up a lot of air through her nose before she rubbed her nose with her hands. "I..."
"Mutsumi...you're such a crybaby..." Yotsuba teased, though her voice also seemed to be faltering like Mutsumi's. "We promised each other...that we weren't going to cry..."
"It's going to be lonely soon," Nino said grimly. "We'll be graduating soon, won't we?"
"A bit too soon..." Mutsumi commented, wiping away a tear that dripped down to her cheek. "It all flew by so fast."
The days passed by far too quickly. Maruo came to watch over them at home while they studied, also assisting Mutsumi with her arrangements for university. Fuutarou threw himself into his studies, working twice as hard in order to pass the entrance exam of Tokyo U with flying colors. Itsuki began sleeping at the dinner table, her hand almost always holding a pen or pencil as she slumbered after a long night of studying; Ichika and Yotsuba often make sure she stays comfortable before they went to their own rooms. Nino and Miku met with their respective restaurants' managers, getting praised by both after they were told of their choice of future.
Yotsuba went to visit the university that reached out to her, getting interviewed in order to see if she was compatible with the school. Itsuki took the entrance exams of the university she wanted, taking one more step towards her dream. "Dreams and goals, huh?" Nino was washing the dishes with Miku in the apartment's kitchen. "Do you think I can be like you girls too?"
Miku turned her head, looking at her sister to give her a response. "If it's you, I'm sure you can... If it's us, I'm sure we can."
"Hmph. I guess I'll let you have a bit more of my time." Nino grinned, moving an advertisement for a culinary school out of the way of the running water.
"Yotsuba-san! Uesugi-san! Are you ready?" Tsubaki called out to them, holding out a copy of Mutsumi's script. "If you guys get hurt, just say okay!" The scene they were recording was one where Fuutarou had to carry a log.
"Alright! Yotsuba, do you remember your lines?"
"Yeah!"
"Ready? Action!" With the clap of those striped movie things, Tsubaki switched on the camera. The scene was from the part of the movie where they were on a school trip. In the background were a couple of their classmates, who pretended to also be doing work in order to not have the awkward absence of bodies in the shot of a packed camp. They had been working with Tsubaki and the rest of the broadcast club to record the movie in the days where their schedules were loose, though some days were meant for the movie from dawn 'til dusk. "Maybe you should ask Sumi-chan to add a kissing scene?"
"Ah, that's..." Both of them turned red from something other than the fatigue of carrying the log.
"Ugh...furisode..." Mutsumi groaned, looking down at her clothing as she and her sisters went to visit a shrine one snowy winter day. "Not again..." She turned red the moment she stepped out of the apartment, ashamed of her figure in the kimono. History repeated itself, the Nakano family meeting the Uesugis.
"Nakano-san, you're on." A voice called out to Ichika a few days after, the first sister ready to shoot for her new role.
At the same time, on the campus of a nearby university, Itsuki looked up at the board of applicants that passed the entrance exam, a small smile forming on her face as she struggled to contain her joy. And in their apartment, another sister was keeping herself busy inside her room, currently on her knees while looking at all the clothes in her closet.
"Are you sure you're not pushing yourself too hard?" Ichika asked the fourth sister as the two stood out on the apartment's veranda.
"Ahaha. You're such a worrywart, Ichika." Yotsuba chuckled, looking towards the inside of the apartment at the aftermath of a small party they threw to congratulate Itsuki, before turning her gaze up at the night sky. "I'll be fine even if we're apart. I mean, we're all..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought, staring off into the sky.
"Thanks for dropping us off, Mutsumi-san." Takeda said, shutting the door of the black car of the Nakano family. He and Fuutarou currently stood outside of a train station, with Mutsumi sitting shotgun with her window down. "So, I guess this is goodbye."
"For now," Mutsumi replied, putting her hand out to point at her intellectual rivals. "I better not hear anything about you two flunking out! And you!" Her gaze narrowed on Fuutarou, brows furrowed as the tutor just looked back at her. "If I hear anything from my sisters about you treating Yotsuba badly, I will get on the first plane to Tokyo to personally kick your ass!" She said, grinning as she gave a playful salute to the two of them.
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Good luck, Mutsumi." Fuutarou replied as he and Takeda entered the station to wait for their train.
"Ebata-san, let's go to the airport." Mutsumi shut the window, bowing her head solemnly as they continued on their route.
"Uesugi-kun?" Takeda turned to his rival, his friend, seeing his face express something that was seldom seen in school. "Are you feeling nervous? That's not like you."
"Maybe I am. But I'm not alone." He turned his gaze up, the cherry blossoms falling down from nearby trees dotted the serene blue sky with splotches of pink. "And I'm sure that they...Nah, nevermind."
Fuutarou gazed up at the sky from the station.
Ichika looked up as the script directed her to.
Nino lied down and glanced up at her phone.
Miku pried her eyes away from a book to stare at the passing clouds.
Yotsuba reached out towards the sky after a tiring jog in her tracksuit.
Itsuki leaned back after some mid-day studying.
And Mutsumi gazed out the plane window, the city of Tokai below and the clouds above as she ascended into the sky.
"Ah, a contrail."
A/N: So Mutsumi's gone. I was on the fence about doing this, but that plane in the latest chapter made me make up my mind. I wonder if I should write the story following Mutsumi overseas, or leave it with our main cast and watch the ripples of her actions affect them, or maybe both. I guess we'll see once the next chapter comes out.