The Five Chain Links Of The Heart

Part Two: Five Petals Of The Same Rose

"I'll do it."

Fuutaro had agreed to tutor Itsuki. He silently cursed the lure of food for drawing him to return to the table. It was a difficult position to be in but since he hardly ate anything, his rumbling stomach had caused his downfall. It wasn't all bad. The offer of compensation was the real thing that swayed his opinion and Fuutarou was resigned to his fate.

"Thank you so much, Uesugi-San!" Itsuki exclaimed, clapping her hands for a second time, "I promise you won't come to regret your decision!"

'What a strange turn of events. I didn't see my day turning out like this.'

"Oh, and before I forget, Uesugi-san, it's probably best for you to call me by my first name. It's not like I am in a hurry to become so informal with you but you'll come to understand in a short while that it's necessary given my unique situation."

"If that is your wish, Itsuki-san then I shall honor it," though he was curious as to why the girl wanted him to refer to her by her first name, it wasn't really any of his business what the reason was and decided to respect the girl's wishes either way. Whatever they were going to say next was interrupted by a loud sound buzzing through the entire cafeteria and beyond. The lunch period had come to a close. Fuutaro bowed his head politely to Itsuki and stood again, "I must get going to class, but thank you for the opportunity. Shall we meet after school to discuss a good schedule for tutoring?"

"I would appreciate that a lot, Uesugi-san."

"Good! See you then!"

Fuutarou turned on heel, and finally was able to return his tray and leave the Cafeteria.

"Wait!" Itsuki cried out behind him, but it was too late. Uesugi Fuutaro had disappeared. She heaved a little sigh, puffing out her cheeks and turning a little red-faced. Her pout shining across her facial features, "He didn't tell me where to meet him and I don't know the school very well yet. I should've asked him to show me around. I'll just have to hope we run into each other again."

"And now, class, I'd like to welcome our new transfer student. Introduce yourself please."

To Fuutaro's surprised, the red-haired girl from the cafeteria was the one standing at the head of the class and he watched as she bowed her head, introducing herself as, "Nakano, Itsuki." She made her way across the room and took the only open seat remaining, which, coincidentally, was the one right beside his.

"I finally found you, Uesugi-san!" She whispered to him, "You were in such a hurry when you left the cafeteria that you never told me where you wanted to meet to discuss our studying session."

'Oh, right. I did agree to tutor this girl. Not a good precedent to set. I'd better apologi-"

"It's that girl who was sitting with Uesugi at lunch."

"Do they know each other?"

"Is she his girlfriend or something?"

Fuutaro's head dropped and a sigh flew from his lips. This was just the thing he needed to happen right now. He was used to others talking about him in this manner by now, but the last thing he and by extension Itsuki needed was for rumors about them dating to start spreading around the school.

"Now then-"

The instructor's voice sliced through the chatter like a blade through bamboo and the entire class, Fuutaro and Itsuki included, fell silent. Fuutaro switched his focus onto the lesson material. He slowed his usual pace of note-taking down, taking extra care to show that he was capable of doing so. If he was going to be tutoring Itsuki in the future then he wanted to show her that she'd made the right decision. The red-haired girl with star-clips in her hair for her part was taking notes as best as she could. Despite the amount of difficulty she was faced with, she managed to follow enough of what was being said.

Itsuki chanced a glance up at Fuutaro and a small grin curved up onto the young woman's lips. The boy's notes were organized, spaced evenly into sections with what she noticed as indentations where Fuutaro had made note of aspects on the topic that their instructor had not mentioned. The tidy and presentable outlines, the well-structured notes and the pace at which the young man had produced them made Itsuki realize one thing. Uesugi Fuutaro was the correct choice to tutor her and her sisters.

"And that brings us to the end of our lesson today," the instructor said, turning away from the blackboard toward the front of the class, "We'll resume the lesson tomorrow. Until then, collect your belongings. Class dismissed."

After the teacher turned away, Fuutaro closed his notebook and slid it into his backpack. A tap on his shoulder drew the young man's eyes up from what he was doing. He was met with a smiling face of Itsuki, looking at him expectantly, "Shall we get going, Uesugi-san?"

Fuutaro stood from his desk and pushed his chair underneath it. He slung his bag over his shoulder, then looked over to his companion, "Let's get going then, Itsuki-san."

Together, the two new acquaintances departed from the classroom together. They were amidst a lot of muttering, Fuutaro catching the ends of what was being said and a sigh fell from his lips once again. It was more of the same from earlier about the strangeness of Fuutaro talking to anyone, let alone a girl.

"Oh, before we go, we'll need to meet my sisters by the front entrance. They're waiting for me there."

'Sisters?' Fuutaro did not give this thought aloud, but instead said, "That's not a problem, Itsuki-san. Let's go ahead and meet with them then."

"You'll also learn why I told you to refer to me by my first name when we meet with them. Oh, but can we stop by the school store first? I need to grab something."

"Sure thing, Itsuki-san, let's go."

The hallway outside the classroom was laden with many students. Chatter flew in all directions and laughter could be heard amongst it all. Fuutaro and Itsuki moved through the crowd, they expertly weaved their way through the group and descended down the stairwell, finally reaching the first floor of the school building.

"Wait for me here a sec?" Itsuki asked Fuutaro, "I won't be long."

Once Itsuki had stepped away, Fuutaro leaned back against the wall, looking around the room. His mind fell into a contemplative state and he once again allowed the bewilderment to sweep through his brain acknowledging the incredibly strange day he was having. There's no way it could get any worse, right?

Riiiiing! Riiiiing!

The sharp sound encompassed Fuutaro's hearing and he glanced down toward his pocket for a moment. Seeing a small beam of light shining against his pocket, the young man slid his hand into it and hauled the cellphone inside out, tapped the 'answer call button' and then pressed it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Onii-Chann!"

The dulcet tones of Uesugi Fuutaro's younger sister rushed down the phone-line and he couldn't help the grin that came to his lips, "Hi, Raiha!" he said immediately, "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, dad just found a really good job for you. There's a wealthy family which just moved here recently. They're looking for a tutor for their daughter. The job's going to take place at their home and pays five times as much!"

"That sounds kind of shady, Raiha."

"So is selling a kidney, but people still do that."

"Did you just tell me to sell my kidney!?"

"Just kidding, but listen to me. They aren't pleased with their daughters grades and if it's you, then I believe you can do it."

"Hang on a minute, I haven't said that I will-"

"Guess this means we can finally afford to buy decent meals, onii-chan!"

That was the moment that whatever thin resolve Fuutaro had remaining evaporated on the spot at the sound of his sister's voice. A sizable rumble inside Fuutaro's stomach reverberated through the area and a slight blush coated the boy's cheeks. Curse his stomach for defeating him once again. Still, he was going to need to come up with a plan, since he had already agreed to tutor Itsuki.

"What kind of girl is she?"

"It's a high school student. She'll be transferred to the same school as you. What's the name again? Nakano?"

The second the name his sister mentioned came through the phone-line, Fuutaro's eyes popped open wide, a memory flashing in his brain at that very moment from his encounter with the red-haired girl in the cafeteria during lunch.

"How rude of me to not introduce myself! My name is Nakano, Itsuki."

What were the odds that he'd met his student already?

"Onii-Chan?"

"Sorry about that Raiha, was distracted for a second. I am going to be meeting with my new student about our future tutoring sessions after school, so I might be a little late home. Don't wait for me with dinner, okay?"

"Sounds good, Onii-Chan! I hope it goes well with your new student! Bye!'

"See you later, Raiha!"

The phone line went dead barely a second after Fuutaro had pulled the phone away to his ear. Since it had been hung up from his sister's end of the call, he had no need to press the end call button himself. He had just finished slipping his cell phone back into the pocket of his trousers and yet again, he was interrupted by a tap to the same shoulder as earlier.

"I'm back!' Itsuki declared proudly. In the girl's hands, she had gripped some kind of packaging and, upon closer inspection, Fuutaro discovered that it was a meat bun. No doubt the item that his new acquaintance had gone to purchase from the school store, "Let's go and meet up with my sisters!" As soon as she had finished speaking, Itsuki pulled a second packaged meat bun from behind her back and deposited it directly into Fuutaro's hands. Her pale cheeks were splayed with crimson and she grinned at him, "For you."

The young man was slightly taken aback by the gesture, but he smiled at her nonetheless. His first instinct was to decline the offer, but remembering the force of the pout he'd seen when he tried to walk away during their encounter at lunch, Fuutaro had no doubt he'd receive the same look and privately was already powerless to it. There was no harm in accepting offers from time to time, right? He peeled away the plastic from the top of the packaging and split the top of it open. Together, he and Itsuki both raised the buns to their lips and though unplanned, took their bites at precisely the same moment.

'It's so good!'

Looking over toward the starry-eyed girl, Fuutaro offered her another smile, "Thank you for this."

"It's my pleasure! You're really helping me out and have been really nice to me today, so I don't mind sharing with you! I was worried you might think of me as someone who eats too much."

"It's not a big deal to me," Fuutaro said honestly, "And you were nice enough to offer to share your food with me. Whether I was going to accept it or not, such offers shouldn't be met by rudeness and insults."

"I agree!"

"Itsuki-chan, there you are! Of course we would find you with food!"

At the mention of her name, Itsuki's attention was temporarily drawn away from her post-meat bun bliss and her eyes widened slightly. Four girls were standing just across from her and Fuutaro. All of them had strikingly similar appearances to Itsuki, the only differences being the way their hair was styled. The girl in the center had short hair, stylized with bangs. The girl just to her left had hair grown out to about half-way down her back and clips that looked resembled to butterfly wings clipped in either side of her hair by her fringe. The third had long hair that covered one of her eyes and headphones sitting around her neck. The final of the girls had short hair half-way down her neck and a green ribbon that resembled bunny ears tied into her hair.

"There's four Itsukis'," Fuutaro said faintly, "Why are there four Itsuki's?"

Itsuki smiled brightly, looking back to the stunned boy, "This is the reason I said it would make more sense for you to refer to me by my first name. These are my sisters. We're quintuplets!"

"WHAAAAAAT!?"

Laughter rang out from the girl in the center, she stepped forward a little and leaned forward slightly, grinning across at the boy in front of her, "My name's Nanako Ichika. You need anything and you come to your onee-san, alright?"

"We're in the same year though, aren't we?"

Ignoring the question entirely, the newly identified Ichika pressed on, "I've never seen Itsuki attach to anyone so quickly before. Could you be aiming for her? Fufu~"

The red-haired girl in question paused mid-bite and puffed out her cheeks, sending a frustrated pout in her elder sister's direction. "He's not aiming for me, Ichika! This is our new tutor!"

"What she said," Fuutaro said faintly. While he did think Itsuki was rather cute especially when she pouted like that, the two of them had only met this very day and that was far too soon to be going and catching feelings. Besides, dating in high school instead of pursuing scholarly endeavors was an utter waste of time. He went to open his mouth to add his opinion to the mix, but a voice sharply cut through anything of what he wanted to say.

"I refuse."

End Chapter.

Okay, so I'm feeling good about that length, so we'll call it a chapter here. Fuutarou has come to meet the Quintuplets and also received notification that he'd be tutoring all five girls. Okay, so I have some ideas on how this story's going to go. I did say all the quints were going to have better introductions with Fuutaro and I do intend to stick by that. However, I couldn't have Nino accept him right off the bat without a little struggle.

So, my question for everyone is this. Once Nino figures out that Fuutaro isn't there to steal her sisters away from her, should she switch to being just as protective of him as she is her sisters? I'm interested in writing this concept myself and was wondering if anyone else would want to see this being their dynamic in this fic?

Next Time: Rivals! Fuutaro versus Nino!

See you next time!