A/N

Scriptura: I have pre-written chapters for other fics of mine before, but so far not for this one. As soon as I'm done with a chapter, I put it up right away. Thanks for your kind words so far.

The neat, scratchy etchings of pencil graphite against paper bounce about in the living room, not unlike sparks from a working blowtorch, from the small foldable table that the Uesugi household calls their dinner table.

"Onii-chan, can you help me with this? I don't get it..."

"Yeah, let's take a look..."

Stopping his own work on his side of the dinner table, Fuutarou shifts over so that he can get a better look at his sister's homework on which she is working, her class having been assigned homework over the weekend.

True to his word, Fuutarou has not visited the Nakano penthouse at the top of the high-rise for the rest of the week after the first three days that were, in his honest opinion, quite disastrous, both on his part and the girls'. Neither has he made much of an attempt to interact or socialize with them this week after his third day of "tutoring", only sparing a "hello" or "good morning" if their paths happen to cross and social interaction is demanded. Understandably, Nino and Itsuki have flat-out refused to speak even a word to him, ignoring his occasional greeting with fierce resolve, which Fuutarou does not care for, but Ichika and Yotsuba have at least been on talking terms with him, with Yotsuba giving him updates on the rowdier quints' mental and emotional statuses on the regular. Miku is the only true neutral, responding to his occasional greeting should the need arise but letting their relationship remain stagnant and standoffish as it has been.

While ostentatiously the days off he's given for both the girls and himself were meant more for the quintuplets so that they can have some breathing room to themselves devoid of his presence, Fuutarou's ulterior intention is to concentrate on putting together a cohesive, in-depth plan to tutor the quintuplets. It's already well-established now that not only do the Nakano girls either neglect or hate studying, or in Itsuki's case is just plain bad at studying, but they aren't quite aware of just how deep in shit they all are academically. Or, if they are aware, they don't care because they're all rich girls with a sugar daddy who can simply transfer to a different school if they don't improve their grades here.

And after dealing with them for the first three days, frankly, a part of Fuutarou wishes to see them flunk out and transfer again. Thinking about the situation, if it's gotten to the point where his main client, Nakano Maruo, has offered him a tutoring contract of all things whose main term is not to help the girls ace their tests, as would be the norm, but to merely drag them out of the pits of academic hell and dropouts and ensure their safe graduation from high school, the girls must be borderline hopeless.

Rich family problems...having worked for well-off clients in the past, the young freshman tutor has a solid grasp of just how annoying they can be to work for. And while this contract is by no means the worst he's accepted, if only for the fact that it is not immediately riddled with danger, the social interaction part of it is really making him work for his money. As a contractual mage, a magical mercenary, if you will, Fuutarou normally has little patience for things like this, as he himself specializes in the polar opposite of human relations. Therein stems the source of the small but simmering, bitter malice towards the quintuplets, specifically towards Nino and Itsuki who bear him the most ill will.

So since he now has a good idea of how his tutoring will go, Fuutarou is not looking forward to it. Since the quintuplets have demonstrated that they are either unwilling to or may simply be outright incapable of rectifying their own errors, he anticipates the same amount of resistance to his tutoring as this week, with perhaps only Yotsuba really willing to sit down with him and let him teach. Ichika is the only other quint who has at least a decent chance of accepting his tutorship, while Nino and Itsuki are immediate disqualifications. Miku is perhaps the biggest wildcard, since she doesn't seem immediately opposed to him as their tutor but clearly doesn't have the personality or attitude to secure herself under his tutoring wing; it's just rather difficult to get a proper read on Miku anyway, with how reserved and demure she is most of the time...with one unnerving exception, when the topic of her old school, Kurobara Academy, got brought up.

To put his situation in another perspective, 80% of his client base is not willing to work with him. Even if just one of the quints refuses to work with him, Fuutarou is immediately failing at his job, since the terms of the contract don't say to ensure any number of the girls graduates safely; it specifies that all of them must graduate safely. So the fact that Fuutarou cannot be certain about the majority of his would-be students on whether or not they'll actually take his lessons starting next week puts a daunting wall in the way of his progress.

And for all the tough talk and the cringeworthy pep talk that he gave to the girls on the third day in the wake of his mock evaluation test, Fuutarou isn't so sure of himself now, after having processed the tutoring situation thus far. Nino and Itsuki in particular, while he hasn't shown such sentiments physically, get on his nerves quite a lot with their attitudes, not because the girls are being hard to work with, but more so because they themselves are fully aware of their own shortcomings yet insist on refusing help hired by their own father.

So because of those two specifically, Fuutarou has entertained thoughts of simply terminating the contract on his side, just to see the quintuplets sputter out and transfer once more out of school. He has envisioned the sight of himself watching the Nakanos leave their homeroom class in the middle of school, walking out with miserable looks on their faces, and shuffle out to the street on the other side of the school atrium, where their father will be waiting by their private car to take them away to another school, where he can only imagine what the girls must do to ensure their own graduation, if their father will even bother with such an impossible task any longer.

But he goes no further with such thoughts. For as satisfying they may feel to dwell on, Yotsuba is the sole reason why he cannot see that vision through, because she alone is totally blameless. Just because the others might be at fault, there is no reason why she should feel the repercussions of her sisters' shortcomings. If there were a way to modify his contract by making it so that all he needed to do was tutor Yotsuba and only Yotsuba, his job would be five times easier. Alas, that's not the case, either.

Not to mention, it would be terribly ignorant of him to exclude himself from the list of grievances he has about his tutoring situation. All these years of shunning most forms of human interaction are coming back to bite him; Fuutarou knows just how horribly inept he is at interacting with other people, and much less with those of the opposite gender. It's clear that direct, blunt honesty is seldom the correct path to take when talking to the Nakano quintuplets, at least, but that's all he knows in terms of communication skills, so what other choice does he have? It's either that or lying to people with a straight face, but clearly that won't help at all.

Throw in the shit he pulled on the first day, and Fuutarou comes to realize that he's just as disappointed in how awfully he himself has handled the situation as he is in the girls themselves, minus Yotsuba. And the worst part about it is that he doesn't feel like he conveyed that properly to the girls, which, while to be expected given his own lack of proper communication skills, still bothers him regardless. For all the faults he can place on the girls, his own poor social decisions towards them is not one of them.

"Oh, I get it! Then this is actually a lot easier than I thought," Raiha nods enthusiastically down at her algebra question, thrilled that she can answer the rest of the problems on her own now that her brother has explained the first such problem. "Thanks, Onii-chan!"

"Anytime. After you're done with your homework, wanna come with me to the bookstore in town? I want to search for some study materials for my students," Fuutarou offers to Raiha.

"Can we go to the arcades? We haven't been there in a while..." Raiha asks politely for the best chance at winning her brother's heart over.

"Mmm, maybe another time, I have to get ready for next week because of these lessons."

Giving her brother a pout that's mixed with both muted anger and tired dejection, Raiha lays her head down against her homework sheet on the table.

"Awww...it's been so long, though...and today's a Saturday..."

"If you'd've asked me last week, we probably could have gone."

"But last week Dad wanted me to stay home!"

"Yeah, I know. But since you asked me now, I'll keep that in mind and take you there the next opportunity I get. But if you come with me to the bookstore, I'll buy you a crepe from that crepe stall you really like."

At the mention of delicious crepes, Raiha bolts up in her seat at the table and immediately sets to work on her algebra problems.

"That sure got your attention. And take your time, take your time, it's still only two right now so you don't have anything to worry about. You're gonna make mistakes on your homework and we'll be here even longer since you'll need to correct them."

"Are you sure you're tutoring the right person, Onii-chan?" Raiha grumbles, pursing her lips in Fuutarou's direction that looks disturbingly similar to the one Itsuki has given to Fuutarou many times in the past.

"While you're not quite the student I'm being paid to teach, you're giving me a good chance to practice how to teach the actual students I'm getting paid to teach," Fuutarou answers honestly.

"Then all I am to you is a guinea pig!"

"You're also my sister, who cooks curry for me and gives me haircuts. So no, you're not just a guinea pig to me."

"Hmph. I'd like to see you cook for the family once," Raiha focuses back on her homework, taking heed to her brother's words about slowing down with her math.

"I mean, you already have. And look how that turned out."

"But you can cook! You just need some more guidance, that's all."

"Now you're the one who's sounding like a tutor."

As the siblings banter back and forth, Raiha, armed with Fuutarou's advice and the prize of a delicious strawberry crepe that she can practically already taste, blazes through the rest of her algebra homework.

"Okay, Onii-chan, I'm done! Now let's go get that crepe!" the younger Uesugi declares, pointing in the direction of town through their office windows.

"After I'm done with this one last thing and I grade your math homework."

"Awww, can't you do that after we come back?"

"Nope, I gotta make sure you did your homework right before we leave. Your grades are just as important to me as my own students', if not a bit more."

"But you said that you're getting paid for teaching them, not me, so it shouldn't matter as much, right?"

"Whoa, whoa, since when did you get that smart."

"Onii-chan, that hurts, you know? I might decide to stop cooking curry for you - "

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Pretend I didn't say that."

"Fufufu ~ "

Raiha folds her arms and raises her chin victoriously as Fuutarou puts down his stubby pencil and picks up Raiha's homework sheet to grade it visually, as these are just simple algebra problems. But to his surprise, Raiha has answered all the questions correctly.

"Wow, you got all of them right. That's my sister for ya," Fuutarou puts down his sister's homework sheet and checks his phone quickly.

"Yaaaay! But it's mainly because you made it super easy for me to understand," Raiha smiles down at him, watching him as he gets up to his feet.

"Thanks, that gives me at least some confidence going into next week."

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I go back to tutoring Itsuki and her sisters next Monday. I just wish they were as smart and cooperative as you, though."

Raiha pats her older brother on the back. "The job must be tough, huh? Dad must be proud right now."

"I don't know exactly why, but I feel like you just dissed me..." Fuutarou glances over to the kitchen. "Oh, almost forgot, but do you think we need to hit up a supermarket on the way back? Is there anything we need to get for dinner, or...?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, Dad said he'll be picking up groceries on the way back."

"That...worries me. A lot."

"H-He's improved from before, seriously!" Raiha quickly pleads with her brother as the two of them step outside of the Uesugi consulting office and Fuutarou closes the door tightly to make sure the lock is enabled. "He's a lot better about getting the right stuff this time around. He even got everything for our curry dinner we had with Itsuki-san!"

"Oh, has he. Color me surprised..."

"Geeez! You and mistrusting Dad all the time!"

"Sorry, force of habit. He was a lot different back in the day."

"Don't talk like an old man, Onii-chan, you're gonna start sounding like Dad."

"Can't handle two Dads in the same house, huh?"

"Obviously not."

"Weren't you just defending Dad?"

"About the fact that he's improved at picking up groceries and not constantly buying the wrong stuff, yeah. Not the fact that he always goes off on his 'back in my day' tangents like he's forty years older than he really is."

"...has anyone told you that you talk like you're older than you are?"

"My teachers at school."

"That can't be good."

"Don't worry, they can't do anything if I just ace all their tests."

"'Atta girl. Doin' us proud."

"Ehehe ~ "

Because Isanari has taken out his motorcycle for work, and the public bus line has long ceased operating in the immediate vicinity of the run-down business park, the Uesugi siblings simply walk their way into town to their local Tsutaya Bookstore, which takes them roughly an hour and a half. When they arrive, the crepe stand that usually sits next to the bookstore to capitalize on the foot traffic that the bookstore naturally generates, Fuutarou and Raiha can plainly see that there are quite a few people lined up at the stand.

"Business really took off for them, huh? Guess it was bound to happen, them being right next to Tsutaya and all," Fuutarou notes.

"L-Last time we came, we were the only ones who bought from them, right?" Raiha reminds him breathlessly. "See, I knew that stall was super good! Now everyone knows about how good it is!"

"I thought you'd be more annoyed that there are so many people."

"Well...normally, I would be," Raiha smiles gently towards the small throng of customers lined up in front of the busy crepe stall, whose employees are working quickly and diligently to get the line moving. "But I want to say that I've grown out of that. After all, Onii-chan, you were the one who helped me learn what patience is."

Raiha's words resonate deeply within Fuutaoru, enough to cause him to put his hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry about that," he sighs heavily.

"Ah! W-Well, um, I'm - I'm just glad that the crepe stall is so successful now! They deserve it, really, their crepes are that good," Raiha quickly changes the subject back to the crepe stand. "But since there're so many people, we can come back later once you're done with whatever you need in the bookstore."

"Yeah, good idea."

So the brother and sister walk around the crepe stand line and enter the bookstore. Appropriately to match the city's rapid growth in recent years, this Tsutaya bookstore is built with the latest in modern architectural trends and interior decoration, with the traditional rows and isles of books, magazines, newspapers, and other paper-based mediums coexisting in harmony with indoor plants, reading sections, a fully equipped indoor cafe, stationery corner, and even a small bar built next to the cafe, with the second floor having video games, movies, e-books, and other such electronic mediums of entertainment.

The bookstore basically looks like the lobby of a 5-star hotel, the likes of which you'd perhaps only find in big cities like Tokyo or Kyoto, but while there are certainly lots of customers inside, the layout and atmosphere of the bookstore help alleviate the possible sense of crowdedness. People seem to move more slowly inside the bookstore, taking their time with books as they read them standing in the isles or sitting down at a desk or chair, enjoying a cup of coffee from the Tsutaya cafe.

"I'll be in the manga section, Onii-chan!" Raiha says excitedly, waiting on her brother to give her permission to go.

"Okay. I'll probably take like thirty minutes, maybe an hour. I'll meet up with you if I need more or less time."

"Okay!"

Seeing Raiha off, Fuutarou heads to his own objective, the isles that contain supplementary material for high school students, and upon reaching them, he takes his time picking out good reference books and other such materials to take with him back to a seat somewhere, finding one at the cafe and sitting down to begin poring over his books. The bookstore has a strict no photography policy, so as much as he would like to snap photos of the books themselves since he cannot afford such expensive books, Fuutarou would rather not make a scene out of himself getting the boot from the bookstore's staff.

Instead, when he finds a section that he feels will help him with the lessons he's crafting for the quints, either by contributing directly to the lessons he's coming up with for them or by being questions he could give them for homework or as quizzes, Fuutarou gazes down at the material and concentrates deeply on it, using his left hand to plant a small, almost invisible rune into the pages. The runes, the size of a drink coaster, triangulates with his eyesight and magically saves what Fuutarou is looking at and concentrating on, and by storing this rune, Fuutarou can pull it up later when he's safely back home to go over the reference books' contents. To passersby, it will simply appear as if Fuutarou is engrossed in the material, and his high school student uniform only reinforces his studiousness, so it is the ideal scenario that Fuutarou can exploit to do his job.

For the next half-hour he clandestinely studies the reference and supplementary books, magically saving various questions and entire sections at times out of them. He is going to move on to the next book when he hears a familiar voice:

"Let's just take a seat here."

That's Nino. Even without turning around to visually confirm, Fuutarou can tell by the way she talks that Nakano Nino is in the premises of the bookstore. His brain working swiftly to eliminate the possibilities that it might not be Nino, Fuutarou deduces that the only other possible quints would be Ichika, Yotsuba, or Itsuki, but judging from the conversations that he's overheard the girls have at school, Itsuki prefers to study at the library if she isn't already studying at home; Yotsuba wouldn't really know what to do in a bookstore like this; and Ichika would be taking her afternoon beauty nap at around this time anyway, though admittedly Fuutarou isn't sure if that still applies on the weekends. Regardless, the tone of this quintuplet's voice and the trendy setting of this neo-modern bookstore mainly point to Nino as the correct quintuplet, though Fuutarou is ready to correct himself in case he's identified her wrongly.

Fuutarou continues to busy himself with his books, making sure to maintain his air of studiousness to ward against detection, though his only problem is that it sounds like Nino and whoever she's with are taking seats at a table close by, directly behind him somewhere, perhaps two tables down, so Nino could recognize him, namely by the two tufts of hair on the back of his head. But then again, it sounds like Nino is here on some kind of serious business, business that Fuutarou himself may have an idea about, and so if that's the case right now, Nino wouldn't have time to call him out. Besides, he hasn't given any reaction to their arrival, so Nino should be under the pretense that Fuutarou simply hasn't noticed them there.

Just in case, Fuutarou raises his right hand up to his ear, pretending to rub it nonchalantly when in reality he's creating a rune inside his ear canal that will record what he hears.

"Okay, look, missie, like I said earlier today when we first met up, we don't have enough," a man's voice speaks next, lowered to attract less attention to him and Nino. "We have to serve our other customers first because they ordered first, it's a house rule."

"But I was one of your first ones!" Nino hisses quietly. "We've known each other for the past three years; I've always paid highest prices to make sure that I can get my hands on it. You can't just shift the queue around like this!"

"But this time, you didn't contact us in time. You missed the cut-off point, so you have to wait for the next cycle."

"Look, I didn't anticipate having to contact you today either. It's just that I must've misjudged how much I had left recently, since I didn't have quite as much as I thought I did when I checked earlier this week. I was one of your group's first customers, remember? You have to do me a favor here! You can say 'first come, first served' all you want, but I know for a fact that you boys like to play favorites!"

The person she's talking to sighs deeply. "Look, as much as I do sympathize that you were one of our first buyers back then, which I do appreciate, there's nothing we can do about this cycle; all the purchase orders are already processed and finalized. It's not even about playing favorites by this point, it's more that our supplier won't contact us again until we have another batch of orders to send him."

Nino lets out a small groan of frustration, and a chair creaks, probably from Nino leaning back in it in annoyance.

"You can't do anything? Anything at all?" she argues quietly with her companion.

"Missie, normally I don't ask personal questions like this, but what's your deal exactly, anyway? Girls like you shouldn't even know about this stuff that you're tryin'a buy."

"What does that matter? I give you straight cash, you give me what I want; that's how it's always been. Why're you asking me this shit now?"

"You can't blame me for being curious, you know. Most our clients...let's just say that you're an outlier in the usual demographic that orders from us. And yeah, I've let this slide for the last three years because your business was valuable to us back then."

"And it still isn't?"

"Well, no, it still is, but - "

"Then like I said, as your long-time client, you should be able to do me a special favor and do something about this so that I can restock. Don't play dumb with me, I know how these things work. And what I do with it's none of your business; that's also part of your 'business' model, isn't it?"

Fuutarou hears Nino's chair (probably) creak a little again as she is perhaps leaning forward in her seat.

"And it's not like your 'business' is exactly entirely legal, either. So here's what I'll suggest: either you make this deal happen, or I'll let my dad know that there're a bunch of shady dudes in the city who're up to no good. How's that sound?"

"Fuck...you're really playing that card? Ugh...alright, fine, fine. Just...give me a minute...I'll see what I can do..."

A pause ensues after the man relents and agrees to Nino's demands. Fuutarou, having already established a passive rune inside the bookstore, still senses Raiha in the manga isle, meaning that she's still safe and probably enjoying her sweet time.

After about five minutes of silence, it's broken by the guy Nino is with.

"Okay...today's your lucky day, I managed to convince the other guys to get you your share. Like you said, this is a special favor - we aren't doing this for you again."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to put in more orders on time in the future."

"Yeah, please do...anyway, our shipment's gonna arrive tomorrow at nine in the evening. Because we're taking your cut directly from the shipment, you have to come out and meet us instead at our warehouse."

"That's fine, where is it?"

"It's on the other end of town. It's like an hour and a half away from here if you walk..."

"Other end of town? Oh, that side..."

"Yeah, where else did you think we'd be? It's perfect for me and the boys. Have you heard of Daikazoku Business Park?"

"No...?"

"Look it up, it should still be around, though I think there's only one office still running there...some dumb consultants for something, I dunno. But it's near there; it's the only nearby landmark that I can think of since, y'know, that part of town's mostly abandoned nowadays..."

"...you can't just send a courier or something to drop it off at my place?"

"The fuck do you think we are, Amazon? We don't do delivery services, missie, we're already running a huge risk operating out of this city as is. Because of this favor we're doing you, you have to be there at our warehouse in person if you want your cut; that I can't dick around with for you. Either show up or stay home; girls like you shouldn't even be doing this anyway, and I don't care what your reasons are."

"Aw gee, thanks for worrying about me, asshole. Rich coming from people like you."

"Hey, you're the one buying from us, I'm just trying to look out for you since it's for your own good, but business is business, as they say. Then if we're done here, I gotta get going."

Fuutarou continues listening vigilantly as the man Nino is talking to gets up from his seat and leaves, his footsteps fading out into the background. Nino, however, stays where she is for whatever reason - Fuutarou can't imagine why she would continue to hang out here, and as much as he would like to stay to see what she'll do, the tutor senses his sister move from her usual spot in the manga isle slightly. Within a minute, his phone vibrates in his pocket, indicating an incoming text, and Fuutarou pulls it out to check; Raiha is asking where he is now.

The big brother seizes his chance and quickly texts back that he's sitting at the cafe and that Raiha can find him there; if Fuutarou himself gets up from his seat, Nino would more than likely glance over at him, recognize him, and think that Fuutarou was intentionally eavesdropping on them all this time, if she hasn't recognized him already. So the only safe way he can leave, other than waiting for Nino to get up first, which he's not sure if she'll do since she hasn't left by now, is to do so with a strong enough alibi, and Raiha is the key to providing such an alibi. In another minute's time, his sister pops out from behind a few shelves and rendezvouses with her family member.

"Onii-chan! Are you done yet?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Let me go put these books away and we can get you that crepe..."

Getting up from his table, Fuutarou minds his manners and pushes his chair back under the table, gathers his reference books, and carries them back to the isle where he found them to put them away, with Raiha tagging along. As he leaves, he can feel a gaze on him for a brief moment from Nino's direction, so Fuutarou puts on the impression that Nino is now aware of his presence in the cafe - hopefully she doesn't also conclude that he was listening in on their conversation.

Once the books are properly returned, Fuutarou takes his sister outside again to the crepe stand, where as predicted, the line is much shorter now, so they take their places in line.

"You aren't gonna buy those books, Onii-chan?" Raiha asks curiously.

"Oh gosh, no, of course not. Books are super expensive, especially those study prep books," Fuutarou shakes his head with a bit of a chuckle. "Buying even one of those books is basically like buying dinner for four days."

"W-Wow...studying is expensive..." Raiha looks deeply disturbed at such an enormous price tag.

"Hey, don't twist it in a way where you can get out of studying."

"I know, I know...I'm just saying..."

"Riiiight. Which one did you want again?"

"The strawberry one!"

Nodding, Fuutarou waits until it's his turn to order next.

"Next person in line, please! Hello, what can I get for you today?" the crepe stand clerk asks politely, though understandably he sounds quite out of breath.

"One strawberry crepe, please. With chocolate chips."

"You got it. One strawberry crepe with choco chips, please!" the clerk calls to his coworkers behind him manning the crepe grills. "That'll be 850 yen, please."

Even as the clerk is informing him of the price, Fuutarou's heart sinks as he opens up his wallet: there are no bills inside. With how busy he's been managing his tutoring work for the quintuplets and his own work throughout the city, he must have forgotten to take cash out of his bank account.

"I'm so sorry, I, uh, don't have any bills on me, do you by chance take card?" he asks the clerk directly, but to his dismay, he shakes his head.

"Not at the moment, no. Since our business's gotten really popular, we've been getting lots of requests to get a card reader, so we're working on getting one," the clerk replies, "but not right now, we can only take cash."

Nodding in understanding, Fuutarou considers his options quickly. Knowing this area, there isn't an appropriate ATM where he can go to withdraw money and return within reasonable time. He briefly dwells on the possibility of asking Nino inside the bookstore for money, but that would most likely not end well. If that were any other quint than her or Itsuki, then he'd actually take the chance, but it's Nino he's talking about. After the debacles of this week, there's no way she'll be willing to give him a hand out of the blue like this -

"I'll be paying for him."

Speak of the devil. Fuutarou glances to his left, and there stands, sure enough, Nakano Nino with an outstretched hand that offers the clerk a clean, crisp Noguchi Hideyo banknote.

"It's for your sister, right?" Nino reiterates for him, giving him a look of hesitant unwillingness. "Don't worry about it, then."

"...thanks, Nino," Fuutarou nods quickly, and the clerk receives the 1000 yen note, thanking Nino for her generosity. Fuutarou and Raiha move aside so that the other customers behind them can place their orders too.

"Is she one of your students too, Onii-chan?" Raiha asks, gazing up at Nino whose face she's seen before earlier this week, just on another person.

"Yeah. Easy to tell, huh?"

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean," Nino grumbles, taking a quick and irritated sip of her bubble tea that she holds in her hand.

"Well, Itsuki was by our place the other day, so it's a bit funny to me that my sister was able to tell who you were because you two're quintuplets," Fuutarou shrugs. "Oh, by the way, this is my sister, Raiha; she's in elementary school. Raiha, this is Nino; Itsuki who you met a few days ago is her sister, her youngest sister."

"Hello, Nino-san!" Raiha waves adorably up at Fuutarou's student. "I hope my brother's doing well in his tutoring thing. I told your sister this, but he's a super nice person and does his job really well! Even if he's a big jerk sometimes."

"Big jerk...yeah, that's one way to put it," Nino remarks, her look of subtle irritation kicked out in favor of a look of justified smugness in a blink of an eye; she even lets out a small "heh!" of victory to the side.

"If you have any qualms about my services, you're free to let me know. It's not like you haven't been doing that already anyway," Fuutarou darkly suggests.

"Oh, yeah, I will, don't worry about that." Nino gives her hair a quick tussle - Fuutarou wonders who started that habit of theirs first, Nino or Itsuki. "Anyways, fancy seeing you here. I'd never've thought that a tactless and plain guy like you would ever have a reason to come to a place like this."

"I mean, this is a bookstore after all. And I've been to the library already, and while it's got a few reference books, they're all really old and not up to date. So I figured a trendy and super-modern bookstore kinda like this would have more updated material, and sure enough they did."

"Sure taking your whole tutoring job seriously, huh?"

"Need you even ask? I have to earn my pay somehow, and that's the way I prefer it. Otherwise, I won't be able to buy my sister crepes like this."

Nino glances down at Raiha, who smiles happily back up at her.

"You still weren't able to, though," Nino snickers.

"I know, you don't need to remind me. I just forgot to withdraw some cash beforehand, that's all."

"Strawberry crepe with chocolate chips!"

With his order complete, Fuutarou collects it from one of the grill workers and gives it to Raiha.

"Yaaay! Thanks, Onii-chan!" she smiles even more radiantly as she opens up the crepe and marvels at its delicious contents.

"Don't thank me, thank Nino."

"Okay - thank you, Nino-san!" Thinking for a moment, Raiha momentarily hands her crepe back to her brother so that she can give Nino a big hug. "I love you!"

Unable to hide her embarrassment, Nino lets a blush slip through and looks away, not wanting Fuutarou to see her reaction.

"Th-That's enough, Raiha-chan, you don't...you don't need to thank me," Nino blurts out. "I was just - "

"Oh, oh, I know! You did it because of all the hard work that Onii-chan's been doing, right?" Raiha looks up at Nino with expectant eyes wide with admiration.

"Er...uh...y-yeah...that..." Nino finally looks back over at Fuutarou, who, to her extreme chagrin, is giving her a big, smug grin of his own. "W-Wipe that stupid grin off your face already!"

"No. This is fun."

"You big jerk! Using your sister like this to get all chummy with me - you're such trash!" Nino cries, but she's unable to either throw her usual profanities at her tutor or disengage from Raiha's incapacitating bear hug.

"Alright, that's enough, Raiha," Fuutarou calls after enjoying the sight of Nino struggling to resist his sister's amiable charm, and Raiha finally relinquishes the second quintuplet so that she can finally enjoy her long-awaited crepe. "I'll be sure to pay you back on Monday, by the way."

"Whatever, I don't care. I did it for your sister's sake, not yours," Nino mumbles, looking down at Raiha joyfully munching on her crepe. "Since I know the feeling of wanting to take care of your siblings and all..."

"I got the impression that you're the one who does most, if not all, the cooking at your place for your sisters," Fuutarou nods in agreement.

"And you're right, I basically do everything if they're not already eating out or something. I've tried getting my sisters to start cooking for themselves, but..." Nino sighs heavily, taking another sip from her half-filled bubble tea. "They're all hopeless at it."

"Just like their studies, huh."

"Did you really need to bring that shit up now? God, I can't believe you right now..."

"I mean, given that it's my whole job to worry about it..."

"It's the weekend, what gives! It's bad enough we had to run into each other here!"

"Well, it's not like we meant to, and I already told you why I'm here, along with buying my sister a crepe since she hasn't had one in ages. In fact, I should be asking you why you're here; you certainly didn't come here to study, did you?"

Upon being confronted with this sudden reversal, Nino tenses up for a moment, confirming Fuutarou's suspicions.

"I-I was just talking with a buddy of mine! We hadn't talked in a while, and - and this was the only place we could meet up at after I got my bubble tea!" Nino says quickly.

"That so, huh. I get that this place is pretty trendy and all that, but a bookstore of all places? Certainly not very romantic."

"He's not my boyfriend, okay? Just - just someone I know. That's all!"

"Fine, fine. Just stay safe out here."

"I can take care of myself just fine, thank you," Nino retorts angrily. "Just mind your own damn business."

"You'll yell at me for that too, since part of minding my own business is minding a bit of yours, too."

"Sh-Shut up!"

Chuckling, Fuutarou bids farewell to Nino as he and Raiha begin walking away, but they're immediately stopped by Nino calling out,

"Hey, wait, are you walking back home?"

Fuutarou turns around to see Nino hurrying over to them to catch up to them.

"...yeah, what about it? What's it to you?"

"But...but where do you live? There aren't any residentials anywhere in this part of the city in an hour's range from here!"

"Makes sense, 'cause it'll take us about an hour and a half get back home."

Gawking at him, Nino is at an immediate loss for words.

"If you're thinking about giving us another hand, we don't need it," Fuutarou shakes his head slowly. "You've already done enough for me and Raiha buying that crepe for us and telling me I don't have to pay you back for it."

"But that's an hour and a half you'll be walking! At least let me call a cab for you or something!" Nino emphasizes. "You can't be serious right now!"

"Aren't we? Then how do you think we even got here in the first place?"

Whatever Nino had planned next to say gets caught in her throat as she's forced to accept the relatively unbelievable truth that Fuutarou is laying out before her.

"Wh-What about Raiha-chan? You're seriously gonna make her walk all the way back?"

"Don't worry, Nino-san! Onii-chan and I used to walk a lot everywhere because trains and taxis are too expensive. I've got strong legs!" Raiha pipes up reassuringly.

"See?" Fuutarou shrugs again. "Raiha's a strong girl, and I have confidence in her that she can handle things like this since I've known her for so long."

"I mean, duh, she's your sister..." Nino sighs with exasperation. "Okay, but, then - just - just where the hell do you live that makes you walk all the way here?"

"Daikazoku Business Park. Though I don't know if you know where that is, since that's not in a part of town that you should be going to in the first place."

Again, Nino freezes up. Perhaps that's a bit of a tic of hers.

"Yeah...yeah, I don't...I don't know where that is," she fumbles with her words haphazardly.

"Then don't worry about it and let us mind our own business. That's what you told me to do a few moments ago, right? And I told you that you'd get angry at me regardless, and look at where we're at now. This is just like you, Nino - saying one thing and then doing another. I'll see you next Monday."

Turning his back to Nino one last time for the day, Fuutarou beckons at Raiha to follow, and the two Uesugis head off down the sidewalk on their long journey home on foot, leaving the second quintuplet standing where she's been left.

Finding herself gritting her teeth harder than she's ever done, Nino forces herself to relax her jaws, lest she actually ends up damaging her teeth somehow.

"...Yotsuba told us how you apologized afterwards...and so I try being nice to you today, and...and this's what I get?" Nino seethes under her breath, her teeth-clenching anger instead transferring to her hand, which now begins to crush her cup of bubble tea. "...go fuck yourself, Uesugi...! God, I fucking hate you so much...!"