A frantic morning met each of the Nakano sisters. Itsuki was in the middle of eating, Nino was haphazardly applying her lipstick, and Yotsuba rushed out of the bathroom with her toothbrush still in her mouth. The only ones ready for the school day were Miku and Mutsumi, both just waiting by the door for the others to finish up. "Hurry up, you're going to be late," Ichika called out, looking at the clock as the three girls just gave up on what they were doing and grabbed their things.
"See you later!" Nino said, wiping her lips with a napkin to get rid of her sloppy work. Yotsuba rushed by while simultaneously tying her ribbon. Mutsumi called an elevator for them, tying her hair into a ponytail before putting her hood up. The ride down still smelled of food. Now that she was left alone, Ichika sighed, walking back inside of the building to check their mail.
"Ah! It's already here." The eldest sister exclaimed, holding a flyer in her hands. "The school festival. They must be having so much fun..." She said, riding the elevator up back to their apartment.
"Ehh? You're going to be busy?" Mutsumi whined, walking up to Tsubaki as the girl with the side-tail. "How are we going to finish this?"
"We can continue filming after the festival. The broadcasting club and I will be going around and making reports on everything. Interviewing the guests and other things," Tsubaki said, walking into the club room to check on the microphones and cameras. "Sorry, Sumi-chan. But there's nothing I can do about it."
"Muu... it's fine I guess. I have been asking a lot of you all this time. Is there anything you need? I want to help you in any way I can." The redhead puffed up one of her cheeks, shifting her weight slightly to lean her weight on one side while crossing her arms.
"Let me think..." The broadcasting club member hummed before she shut the door to the club room.
"What will our class do?" Miku asked, turning her head to ask the class representative. She, Yotsuba, and Nino were leaning against the window while watching the rest of the students go about their preparation. Creating banners and posters, practicing with musical instruments or a dance sequence, moving boxes around; the school was a lot livelier than usual; classes were already finished for the day.
"I'll have to talk about it with the teachers and Uesugi-san. We might put it to a vote." Yotsuba looked out fondly at all of the students. "It's nice that we can participate this time since we transferred to school when this happened last year."
"That's true, but man... if it weren't for our university prospect test, then I'd be able to enjoy it to the fullest too." Nino groaned, reaching into her bag to pull out a sheet of paper that was handed out earlier in the day.
"Naka...err Yotsuba-san! Sorry, but can you help us move this drum kit?" A student called out to them, struggling to carry multiple drums in his arms. Yotsuba rushed over, taking half of the drums and walking away while leaving Miku and Nino to talk amongst themselves.
"So you decided to go to a university after all." Miku took a few steps away from the window, looking at the second sister as Nino ran her hand through her hair.
"Maybe I'll end up in the same university as Fuu-kun." Nino looked out, spotting their tutor talking with Maeda and Takeda out by the school's entrance stairs.
"Not a chance. Knowing him, he'd be aiming for a university that's way out of our league." The third sister smirked, walking away. "But once the festival is over, it's crunch time, isn't it?" The dread that the Nakano siblings knew well returned, though they were a lot more confident in their ability to pass them now. All of them would surely pass their exams without any worries.
"Actually, what is our class doing?" Nino changed the topic, not wanting to think too much about something stressful. The other members of their class were scattered around the school grounds. Club members were setting up, and those without clubs could be seen walking around aimlessly since their agenda for the festival had yet to be decided.
"Ah, Yotsuba." Itsuki exclaimed, walking out of the staff room just as the fourth sister came down the hallway.
"What were you doing in the staff room?" The class representative asked, wiping some sweat from her face as she placed her hand on the door. "I was called over since I was the class rep."
"I see. I was just asking for clarification on a question from earlier." Fixing her things, Itsuki carefully placed the papers in her hands into her bag. "Have you spoken with Uesugi-kun about the plans for the festival?"
"There's a tradition of third years running food stalls, apparently," Yotsuba said, looking at Itsuki curiously as the prospect of food seemingly did nothing to her. She decided to continue tempting her, finding her behavior strange. "Karaage, frankfurt, maybe we can go with buttered potato..."
"Sorry, let's continue this talk with the rest of the class. I have to go somewhere." Itsuki took a few steps to the side, going over to get her shoes from the locker. Yotsuba walked away, still wondering what happened with Itsuki until she happened across a certain someone.
"Fuutarou-kun!" She called out, running up to him as he walked in from the outside. "We need to talk about the festival." Slowing down to a halt beside him, she smiled up at him.
"Yeah, we don't have time to waste now. Do you have any ideas?" Fuutarou scratched the back of his head, sighing deeply. "I asked Takeda and Maeda for some advice, but they couldn't decide on anything."
"Maybe... no..." Yotsuba thought deeply, hearing footsteps approach them from behind. "Matsui-san? What are you holding?"
"Some of the teachers asked to get some of the old records from previous festivals." She said, holding a thick folder filled to bursting. "You guys are busy enough, the rest of us have to do our part too."
"Hey, can I have a look at that?" Fuutarou asked, reaching out for the documents and scouring the contents for one thing in particular.
"So, we took a look at the records, and these were last year's best sellers." Fuutarou said, setting down the chalk after writing on the blackboard. "If there's something that you want that isn't here, feel free to speak up."
"Let's go with Takoyaki." Nino raised her voice, declaring her interests before anything else happened. Murmurs quickly followed, the class latching on to her conviction since there wasn't anyone opposing her yet. "It's the best seller last year, so it's pretty safe. In times like this, it's best to not do anything too out there."
"If we're doing takoyaki, then you can count on me. It's about time I get to show off!" Maeda grinned, his part-time job preparing him for what was to come. The other guys in the class were all for it, but the girls were a different story.
"Why not bubble tea? It's always the same things over and over again with each festival, I want to try something new." Those words were the spark that would eventually start a blaze in the class. They weren't even making preparations yet, but the divide was already forming before Fuutarou and Yotsuba's eyes.
"Miku, what about you? You look like you have something to say."
"Pancakes." She said. "I want to try making pancakes." She said, getting a confused and concerned glare from Nino. The girls of class 3-1 agreed with her, splitting the class clean in half.
"Wait, we're an odd number of students now that Ichika isn't here, who didn't vote?" Yotsuba asked, spotting the sixth sister staring out the window. "Mutsumi, what do you want to do?"
"I'm fine with anything." She said absentmindedly. "Are we done here? I have something I have to do." She didn't wait for an answer, packing her things and leaving the class with an even split. They spent a few more minutes talking about their stall before they changed topics.
"Yotsuba-san. Thanks for earlier. We were wondering if our band could participate in the concert too."
"Of course. You'd also want a place to practice, right? I'll ask the other musical clubs if any of them would let you guys borrow their room."
"Thanks."
"Nakano-san, do you have any extra invites?"
"The fashion design club made this, do you think it would attract people?"
The fourth sister was instantly swamped by the other students. In contrast, the other class representative was left on his own, watching the scene unfold helplessly.
"We're really are split down the middle. What a pain." Nino complained.
"Nino..." Miku started speaking but decided against it. "I'll ask you about it later." She said, getting the second sister to cock an eyebrow at her.
"Where do you think Mutsumi went?" Yotsuba asked, managing to deal with the torrent of requests. She looked around the classroom, finding another one of her sisters missing. "Itsuki left too?"
"Yeah. Anyway, aren't you working a little too hard?" The second sister asked, hearing a soft chuckle escape Yotsuba's lips.
"No. This is the last event we have before graduation. I don't want to have any regrets." She said with a smile. "So I have to keep going if I want to make sure that happens!"
Elsewhere, Mutsumi walked on the sidewalk while staring at her phone. "Fuutarou-san..." She muttered, her screen displaying a picture of all seven of them except it was zoomed in on him. She put a hand to her chest, then to her cheek before she sighed and pocketed the phone. She looked up at the building she was about to enter, smiling softly before she entered and rode an elevator up to a certain floor.
"Mutsumi. Come in. Is something the matter?" Maruo asked, opening the door for his daughter. Mutsumi said nothing, simply leaving him a flyer and an invite to the festival before she left. "That weekend..." The doctor muttered, checking his schedule.
"I wonder what Mutsumi-chan is planning..." Ichika said, her one-on-one session with Fuutarou reaching the early hours of the night. "If she's going to do something drastic for the festival..."
"I doubt that. I'm sure that even she just wants to have fun this time. That is unless another one of you guys has some nefarious plan too." Fuutarou joked, taking out some more notebooks.
"Did the university entrance exam test come back?" Ichika asked. "How did you do?"
"No! Don't look!" Fuutarou did his old gag, but the eldest sister wasn't going to fall for it. "You're no fun." He said, giving up and revealing his score.
"Fuutarou-kun. Please take care of everyone. Right now, everyone is going to be relying on you and Mutsumi-chan more than before." Ichika requested, knowing that graduation wouldn't be too far off once the festival ended.
"Don't worry about that." The tutor said reassuringly. "I'm sure that both the school festival and studying will go well. Just you watch. I'll make this the best school festival ever." He said with his voice full of confidence and pride. What Fuutarou didn't see were the states the others were in. Yotsuba's exhaustion was catching up to her after she accepted all of the requests for help, Mutsumi bit her lip as she mulled over her thoughts while staring at the picture of him, Itsuki clutched a sheet of paper in her hands with her face full of dread, and Miku and Nino were having a conversation at home on the sofas.