"Good grief..." Mutsumi thought, resting her head on her desk while her classmates crowded around behind her seat. Rowdy, though that was to be expected when a new school year was ushered in, the entire room seemed filled with incoherent babbling as the five redheads were bombarded by their curious peers. Most of the class had arrived already, a headcount indicating one or two students unaccounted for.
It had been one week since she met up with Fuutarou at the cafe, and the weather's gotten quite nice with the gentle spring breeze and comforting sunlight. Not normally one to stop and smell the roses, but perhaps the company of her sisters mellowed her out a little because even the youngest sister found herself wanting nothing more than to take a stroll in a park or have a picnic somewhere. Unfortunately, she was confined to the school grounds as were the people she'd like to be with. Along with her sisters and Fuutarou, the class was filled with eager faces; eager to pester them until the teacher arrived.
A rough and tumble looking guy was seated nearby, his eyes seemed slightly more focussed than the rest of the class. Hair slicked back, brown in hue, he seemed to be muttering something to himself, seemingly testing himself with the quintuplet game. He shifted his gaze towards Fuutarou for a short moment, his grumbling drowned out by the others inside the room. "I think that one's Ichika-san..." He said, talking to another person in class while pointing to the redhead troupe; he was right, to his credit.
"Please move." A voice spoke louder than the rest, directed towards the crowd instead of the sextuplets. Stepping up with an uninterested look, Fuutarou left his desk for one reason or another. He turned his head to look at his students for a brief moment, the girls asking for assistance as discretely as they could.
"What's up? Are you curious about the Nakanos too?" A girl with long bangs, long enough to cover her forehead completely, asked as he continued walking, albeit slower due to having to finagle his way through everyone. Hair long enough to reach her just past shoulders, with her face framed by two long side portions of her hair.
"I need to use the washroom. You're in the way, so please move." The tutor said, gently pushing his arms ahead of his body to give him some more room to move. True to his word, he walked towards the door, accompanied the murmurs of the class carried by air.
"Fuutarou..." Nino tried to call out to him, but he just quickened his pace to vacate the premises. Not so surprisingly, the discussion shifted to the black-haired genius who was currently away. However, unlike with the sisters, the tone of the talk was largely negative, not malicious but instead one that warns people to keep their distance due to the fear of the unknown. Thankfully, Fuutarou himself wasn't within earshot of this, not like it'd affect him anyway.
"Hey, Nakano-san, you've experienced that, right? Like an out of body experience~" The momentary distraction caused by Fuutarou's exit subsided, bringing everyone back to pestering the sextuplets. The one that just asked that question was a boy with spikey black hair, his back turned towards Mutsumi so she couldn't see his face.
"Or being completely synchronized?" His friend followed up on his question, a boy with black hair that was straight, as opposed to his buddy.
"Where do you guys live?" Another person asked, earning Nino's ire and getting Mutsumi to sit up straight.
"Okay, that's enough..." Nino replied with a smile that was holding back all the foul things she could answer with. Her eyes visibly twitched as the people around her felt the pressure of her anger.
"Now, now..." Ichika tried in vain to calm her sister down as a set of footsteps approached Mutsumi's desk on their way to join the commotion.
"Everyone, let's give it a rest, yeah?" A light-haired boy said, getting everyone's attention. Dressing with a sweater vest over his uniform, accompanied by a striped necktie, he carried a nearly dazzling air around him. Mutsumi felt like she'd seen him before, but she couldn't place her finger on it; she also sensed that there was something more to him, that he was hiding something. "If you all bombard them with questions like that, they wouldn't know what to do." With only a few words, he had stopped the chattering of the class. He smiled confidently while giving them all a charismatic wink.
"Takeda-kun." A girl with long black hair exclaimed as he finished talking. Suddenly, everything began to click in the sixth sister's mind.
"Takeda...the director's son...that exam when I first got back..." Mutsumi muttered, standing up and walking towards her sisters. "Thanks for getting them to quiet down, Takeda-san." She looked back at him, glaring him with a scornful frown. "I wonder what he's hiding..." Mutsumi wasn't a fool; it's always the popular sons and daughters of authority figures that have something hidden, be it cheating, a horrible streak of bullying, or in the case of her sisters, absolute stupidity.
"It's just like Takeda-kun said." Another boy, this time with flowing black hair that parted to reveal his forehead, muttered while scratching his head.
"We went overboard...sorry." The girl standing beside him clapped her hands together silently, bowing slightly towards the Nakanos. Along with the uniform and the long-sleeved blazer that came with it, her next noticeable feature was her shoulder-length light hair that was tied into a ponytail that stuck out the side of her head and the bow she tied it with.
"I understand their feelings though. Since you're sextuplets, everyone wants to know more about you. Yeah?" He said, accenting his words with an overdramatic gaze upwards and his arms out as if receiving a blessing from the heavens; immersion was slightly broken by another wink, accompanied with a grin this time. "Actually, I have a question of my own, if you don't mind." All eyes were on him. "Mutsumi-san..." He paused, hearing the door slide open with the arrival of the teacher and the return of Fuutarou; he looked to be thinking about something before flashing a content smile. "...why did you change your hair?" He asked, looking at the sixth sister with more curiosity than his question would imply.
"I do not want to answer that. I'm going back to my seat." Mutsumi said, refusing not because of shame or embarrassment but because of her distrust of him. "What is he after?" She thought as she looked to the front to see what they were going to do. Now that the teacher had arrived, a semblance of order had appeared as they made their way through introductions.
"You're all third-year students from today onwards." The teacher began the usual spiel that comes from teachers on the first day. Everyone seemed to be zoning out as he continued, Ichika was already starting to lean forward from drowsiness. "Furthermore..." He said as the sound of a chair sliding on the floor interrupted him. Yotsuba had shunted hers backward as she stood up with her hand raised. "What is it?"
"I would like to volunteer to be the class representative!" The ribbon wearing sister exclaimed, charged with her usual spirit of unstoppable selflessness. The statement shook the life back into the room, though most of the muttering were some simpleminded comments.
"Nakano-san...err...Yotsuba-san. I mean, I wasn't going to volunteer..." A female student whispered to her friend. She had brown hair that reached down to her shoulders, the right side of her hair braided and wrapping around to the back while the left rested near her shoulder; from introductions earlier, her name was Matsui. She wore a purple sweater over her uniform. Aside from her conversation with her friend, she occasionally shot glances at the rough and tumble boy from earlier; Maeda.
"Well, I remember Yotsuba san from last year's field trip...maybe she just likes working. I heard she helped Uesugi-kun since she felt bad that he was alone." Another girl with a ponytail, this time tied with a scrunchie and placed to her back instead of to the side, replied while drawing everyone's attention to the fourth sister once more.
"Uesugi, huh? Now that you mention it, why wasn't he interested in the sextuplets?" A boy sitting nearby asked. He had scruffy brown hair and wore the blazer with his uniform. "Do you think there's something up with them?"
"Them and Uesugi? That's probably nothing. I heard Yotsuba-san just enjoys helping people, so her helping Uesugi-kun isn't too weird." The girl with the scrunchie answered as the teacher cleared his throat.
"Might as well figure out the male rep while we're at it..." The teacher mumbled, his plan thrown out of the loop with the fourth sister's antics. Almost unanimously, the males in the room were muttering about the director's son.
"They're not even trying to hide the bias..." Mutsumi sighed, putting her bag on her desk while searching it with one hand. Among her notebooks and pens were wires and a few tiny contraptions like small cameras and tiny batteries; she couldn't secure everything by soldering them in place, but testing if her code works by just wiring everything was enough for her to do in her free time. "Found it!" She smiled, putting her face near the zipper and placing her lips on something inside the bag. Bitter liquid entered her mouth as she smirked.
"Sensei, I know someone who's perfect for the position!" Yotsuba beamed, smiling like a kid who just unwrapped a present. "It's Uesugi Fuutarou-san!" The nomination shocked everyone that heard it. Erupting into senseless chatter once more, the class' voices morphed into unintelligible mumbling save for the mention of Yotsuba and Fuutarou's names. Mutsumi quickly sat up, covering her mouth with her hand as she reached for a handkerchief from her bag; a bit of brown liquid dribbling down to her chin.
"See, I told you something was going on between them!" The scruffy haired boy whispered to his seatmates. He looked somewhat proud, but the main thing showing on his face was curiosity.
"Is Uesugi-kun a safe choice?" The girl with long bangs asked her friend with the side ponytail.
"Can't believe she'd pass over Takeda-kun..." The one with the side tail commented, her sentiments shared by the majority of her fellow students. Nearly everyone aside from the sisters and Fuutarou was wondering if he was the right choice to be in charge; the only others were Maeda, who was sitting next to the boy in question and looking back and forth between him and the sextuplets, and Takeda who was surprisingly expecting this. Moving forward, Fuutarou went unopposed as the class rep, even though he refused to accept the position. The officers were decided soon after as the bell let them out for a bit of recess.
"Takeda-san!" Mutsumi called out as the rest of the class departed. "I know you wanted to ask me something different earlier. Why did you change your question?" She walked up to him slowly, forcing out a smile.
"I just thought that it was a matter to be discussed privately, yeah?"
"Well, we have a bit of privacy now. Ask your question before I change my mind and leave." Mutsumi said, tapping her toe impatiently as she fiddled with her bag that was slung over her shoulder.
"How do you feel about assisting Uesugi-kun with teaching your sisters?" He asked, standing up and facing the blonde sister. She quickly pulled her arms out of her bag, using them to pull on his sweater vest. She didn't have much strength, especially when compared to Yotsuba, but she used her head to push him back and pin him against the wall of the classroom; tipping their center of gravity to the point where he had to backpedal in order to stay on his feet. "Let's just calm down, yeah?" He was a bit startled by Mutsumi's actions, the girls arm now pressing against his neck.
"How do you know about that?" The girl held an impromptu interrogation, pressing her arm against his Adam's apple. She looked at his face, gauging his reaction to the question. "I remember you being the one to give me those exams, did dad tell you?"
"Who else would? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." He said with an earnest smile, placing his hands on Mutsumi's arms while gently trying to push her away. "I'm honestly just curious; after all, it's our school's number one and number three working together."
"One and three? Who's number two?" Mutsumi asked, freeing him from her wrath due to her curiosity. Takeda simply answered with a smile and a wink.
"Actually, I'm not number two. I'm also number one."
"We tied, huh?" Mutsumi sneered, analyzing the features of his sneaky smile. "So I have a target on my back now, huh?" She leaned back, furrowing her brows at him. "So that was why I felt something was off..." Mutsumi reached for her bag, pulling out a small metal flask and taking a swig from it. The aroma of coffee spread in the immediate vicinity, reaching Takeda's nose and assuring him that it wasn't alcoholic.
"Well, you never answered my question, yeah?" Takeda fixed his clothes, rubbing his neck to help soothe his pain.
"I don't really feel anything about it. There's your answer." Mutsumi said, returning to her seat and pulling out a circuit board and hooking it up to her phone. Takeda, satisfied, went about his way and headed towards the restroom. Testing some code she wrote in an app, she sent the signal to the board and a notification appeared on her phone. "Well, that part works." She thought as another notification got her attention.
The day went by as one would expect, mundane introductions to the various teachers of the subjects, getting to know the class, etcetera. The only thing of note that happened after the encounter with the director's son was Fuutarou getting dragged around by the arms by the girl with the side ponytail and her friend with the long bangs. Finally free of the confines of academia, the six sisters returned home after a leisurely constitutional with the wind blowing the scent of a nearby flower store; though, after their tiring day of answering sextuplet related questions, they were far too exhausted to enjoy it to the fullest. "Ah, that's right. I asked Fuutarou for his six wishes." Miku said as they all returned home. After changing out of their uniforms, they all held a meeting to discuss Miku's findings.
"Become rich, improve his strength, sleep better, more energy, improve his luck, worry less...How are we supposed to do that?" Ichika scratched her head, leaning backward while supporting her body with her arms.
"I can't see how to go about this at all..." Yotsuba chuckled, her ribbon twisting around themselves as if it were sentient; perhaps it was.
"What do we do?" Nino contributed to the conversation, looking at the calendar on the wall. The faint smell of curry still hung in the air; they had just finished eating dinner.
"In any case, we should probably act fast." Itsuki followed the second sister. "It's coming up soon."
"Fuutarou-san's birthday...whatever we decide on, nobody's going to tell him, right?" Mutsumi asked, getting nods from everyone else. The silence of the night as they slept contrasted with the noise of the class the next day, though this time it was Fuutarou who was bothered by it the most.
"Class rep Uesugi, there's something I wanna talk to Miku-chan about." A girl with her hair tied into a bun ran up to the tutor. A wide smile on her face as she approached only made them raise their eyebrows since Miku wasn't the type to attract that type of people. In the end, it was only about Miku's choice of music; they were curious since she always had her headphones around her neck.
"Class rep, could you give this to Ichika-chan?" The boy with spikey black hair handed him some paper, not knowing that Ichika was the sister who was standing right there. The moment Fuutarou turned and handed it to her he turned slightly red from the embarrassment.
"This is for Nino-chan. This is for Itsuki-chan." Mutsumi mimicked her classmates, teasing the tutor who was growing increasingly frustrated by all of the disturbances to his free study time. Fuutarou leaned in his chair after he finished cleaning the chalkboard, panting due to mental exhaustion.
"What a pain!" He groaned, getting a brief respite during lunch break as everyone was in the cafeteria, except for the two of them. Mutsumi, working on yet another gadget of hers, sighed and cleaned up her things
"Maybe we should change their hair color too because nobody seems to be bothering you about me..." Mutsumi smirked, playing with her platinum blonde hair while putting in her hair clips to keep her bangs out of her eyes. Pulling down the hood of her hoodie, she touched her head around where her roots started to show, the red and white making it look like her hair was matted with blood. Tying it up in a messy tail, she brushed it to over her shoulder then pulled her hood back up to hide the crimson.
A/N: Trying a different style of writing this chapter, I think (can't really tell...), by going into more descriptive paragraphs instead of just relying on conversations, meaning this chapter is slightly longer than the others. Might not post for a while, a volcano erupted and the ashfall is pretty thick where I live so I'm going to stay with relatives until that subsides, sorry about that.
Here's a little game: Every one of their classmates was based on a character design from chapter 70. Takeda, Matsui, and Maeda are obvious; can you get the others? Anyone who gets it right will get like...an honorable mention when I adapt "Advantage"