A/N
Dws0nn: Yes it was, good catch. I sprinkle in references every so often in my fics, try to see if you can identify them.
The whirring of a centrifuge fills the dull air of a moderately sized laboratory room. For the past thirty minutes the centrifuge has polluted the air with its incessant vacuum-like noises, though the noise pollution is of no concern to what few contents reside within this laboratory, for besides the centrifuge, only a humble amount of medical equipment, furniture, and accessories occupy the space within. A small closet containing extra clean white laboratory coats sits in one of the corners, a somewhat diminutive whiteboard hangs on the wall near the closet, and an LED X-Ray Viewer of similar, if not identical, size hangs out with it. There are no chairs in this room, so unnecessary is the need for the luxury of sitting; there are only tables, a single countertop built into the far wall of the room that holds a metal lockbox now only half-filled with syringes and vials containing white sedative, and a lone rolling table that holds typical surgical equipment like scalpels, scissors, and tweezers.
Just as simply furnished is Uesugi Fuutarou, who stands near the working centrifuge holding a tablet while donning one of the clean white lab coats from the closet in the corner directly over his school uniform. No calls for any operations today, so there is no need for him to change out of his school uniform for a fresh change of clothes, allowing for the simple luxury of being able to toss on a lab coat at will, which is rather convenient, given what he's working on today.
After tinkering with his tablet on and off for about fifteen minutes, Fuutarou silently turns to his left to face the empty, plain white wall across from him which the countertop is bolted into. He raises his left hand up at the wall casually, his right hand holding the tablet up still, and out of the wall bleeds eight magical blue panels that flicker with images, photos, and news articles from online newspapers.
"A Possible Underground Drug Trafficking Ring in the City?", "Police Uncover New Drug Cache", "As The City Grows, So Does The Underworld"...headlines with these and similar monikers all stare back relentlessly at Fuutarou as if they're playing the staring game with him, and of course they will emerge the victors, for Fuutarou drops his gaze back down at the tablet in his hand. He opens up a custom app at the menu screen, which produces a fully interactive 3-D model of the city for him to view at his discretion, first starting with a fully aerial view of the city that centers on his location at the hospital, and Fuutarou slowly and calmly studies several areas of the city, the tablet app zooming in on his areas of interest and even switching to a live feed of these areas, thanks to all the surveillance runes he's planted throughout the city over the past few weeks.
It's been another five days since his first actual day of tutoring the Nakano girls, or at least the ones who bother to show up. Itsuki and Nino are still keeping the Anti-Fuutarou Social Club alive and running by refusing to join, and while it's fine for now that they don't, at some point Fuutarou knows that he needs to convince them to join somehow, and he hasn't found the solution to that yet. Now that today's a Saturday, he's finally been able to take today to concentrate on his own work, which is arguably just as important, if not more.
Fuutarou taps another area of the interactive city map, in the northern outskirts of the city, pulling up a feed of a small throng of policemen and Special Judicial Police Officials investigating a drug cache mentioned by one of the newspaper articles pinned on the wall via magic panel, and he watches them for the time being while waiting for his centrifuge to finish its work.
Nino's drug acquisition, the local media's proliferation of drug-related articles and news...finally the time has come where the city's growing drug trafficking is rearing its ugly head. Having monitored the city's growth for some time, Fuutarou knew that a time would come where the general populace would become privy to this unfortunate phenomenon, though for the sake of the city's image in the face of its fantastic growth over the years, the mayor and the city government would probably either censor the news or bribe the press to go write about other stuff instead, like the bustling night life of the downtown that, lately, is even being given the name of "New Shinjuku".
Having watched enough of his fill of the policemen and officials confiscating the drugs from the cache on his tablet, the Nakano tutor exits out of the app, turns off the tablet screen, and sets it on the counter a good distance away from the syringe and vial lockbox to wait for the centrifuge to finish, as it only has about ten more minutes left to go. In the meantime, he packs up the homework that's been sitting at the edge of the countertop that he's completed a little while ago while waiting for the centrifuge to finish its work, packing his wireless headphones in with the papers, notebooks, and textbooks into the backpack that he alternates with his messenger bag on days when he feels like bringing his headphones along for some music. Once all this is packed, then he packs the tablet last, making sure that the tablet is well protected against the headphones by being placed in a separate pocket big enough to fit the device.
As he zips up his backpack, a short, curt knocking comes from the only door into the laboratory, and tossing his backpack back onto the counter from beneath it on the floor, Fuutarou points with two fingers on his right hand at the door, and another magic rune that swivels into place filters the door behind it away to reveal his guest behind the door. Identifying him, Fuutarou pulls his hand down, and the door unlocks itself rather loudly to allow his guest to enter, who does and securely closes the door behind him after entering. A plain man, also donning a white doctor's coat underneath his formal business clothes and the stereotypical stethoscope around his neck, gazes piercingly back at the formerly sole occupant of this scantily equipped laboratory.
"Good afternoon, Uesugi-kun," the man greets the high schooler. His voice is dry and humorless, as dry as the sterile air of the hospital in which they work, and Fuutarou's eardrums feel like they're being dehydrated simply by listening to this guest. Fuutarou sighs quietly and leans lightly against the side of the countertop behind him, crossing his arms.
"Same to you, Nakano-san. The centrifuge's almost done, I'm just waiting for it to finish."
Nakano Maruo directs his slit-like eyes down at the centrifuge to his left as he shuffles a bit further into the room. His parted black bangs, exposed forehead, and slightly gaunt appearance from all the long hours he's worked here at the hospital given him a striking, stoic appearance, as if his piercing gaze that could drill holes through the side of an armored car weren't enough to leave an impression.
"I see," is all he answers with for now.
"So what's the occasion today?"
"A few things, in fact."
"Surprising. When's the last time we've had an actual conversation?"
"Better question is, is that relevant?"
"No, but I can't help but wonder, you know? Seeing that you're my employer and all."
"I wasn't aware that employers needed to have established relationships with their employees."
"Maybe not, but..." Fuutarou trails off, tempted to bring up the issue of the head doctor's reputation among some of the hospital staff, but he decides against it for now. "...I guess all I'm trying to say is that it wouldn't hurt getting to know your employees a bit more."
"I see, your feedback is noted. For starters then, how about I ask you how my daughters are doing with your lessons?"
Fuutarou can't help but widen his eyes somewhat in surprise, raising his own gaze back up to meet Dr. Nakano's.
"I didn't think you'd be serious about taking note of my feedback," Uesugi scoffs lightly.
"Most of the time what feedback you do care to give to me is irrelevant, but this time it happened to coincide with my own interests. And I think it is natural for a father to be concerned with the academic states of his daughters, no?"
About time, Fuutarou thinks to himself discretely, but he shows no physical sign of that thought.
"Do you want the abridged version, or the full version? Since I know you're typically really busy..."
"The full, if you will please. My schedule today is more backloaded towards night shifts, so I have a bit of time now."
"Fair enough, then." Fuutarou clears his throat quickly. "Convincing them to agree to the tutoring didn't go smoothly at all at first, as I warned you beforehand. Initially only Yotsuba was outright willing to participate, and I had to spend the first week mainly trying to get them together at all. Admittedly, part of why that was the case was my own fault."
"Your own fault? Explain."
"It was the day you gave me a keycard to the penthouse, when you called me in to deliver their new school uniforms in person. I ended up arriving early, and so I decided to try to make an appearance that would leave some sort of impression on the girls...but that ended up backfiring rather badly."
"Just for my own curiosity, I'd like to hear the details."
"It's nothing much - I just waited for the girls to come home, and when they were taking off their shoes, I just showed up out of nowhere for them from the living room and introduced myself. Nino and Itsuki didn't take kindly to that very well."
A brief silence ensues, with the two men staring at each other following Fuutarou's anecdote.
"...what? That's all there is to it," Fuutarou shrugs with a scrunch of his eyebrows.
"...pardon me. I figured there was something more to it..."
"Uh, do you mind if I ask why...?"
"Well, that just seems very boring..."
"I wasn't trying to scare your daughters or anything, if that's what you were hoping."
"I see. Then continue."
Giving the quints' father an odd look, Fuutarou continues his report. "I was able to give them an evaluation test that I made using questions from the old tests that they took from their previous school that you gave me, and it determined that none of the girls really made much, if any, academic progress since Black Rose Academy, so naturally they've all got long roads ahead of them. Luckily, Ichika and Miku joined Yotsuba in my first actual lesson for them at the start of this week, and so far we've been having good lessons."
"What about Nino-kun and Itsuki-kun?"
Honorifics, huh.
"They're refusing to cooperate at the moment; Itsuki insists on studying by herself in her room, and Nino insists on not studying at all," Fuutarou answers crisply and honestly. "I'm still trying to find a way to convince them to join the group."
"If you would like, I can give the two of them a call and - "
But Fuutarou raises his hand to stop his employer.
"That won't be necessary."
Maruo gives Fuutarou a tilt of his head. "Hm. You feel that you can resolve this issue on your own?"
"I have to. I've explained this to you before, but I assume you've forgotten about it since you have more important things to worry about usually."
"And you'd be correct. Do refresh my memory, if you'd be so kind."
Crossing his arms again, Fuutarou stands up straight and stops leaning against the countertop behind him.
"Your girls are all horrifically close to not graduating high school. To put it bluntly, right now in the state that they are, they're all screwed, and they're better off flunking out of school now and go get a nine to five at a black company if only to save them the time that they'll be wasting in school," Fuutarou reiterates for the doctor. "So if they don't want to do that, which I'm sure they don't, this means that my teaching methods need to be more focused and intensive than your average school teacher for them to progress at all, because clearly conventional schooling isn't working for them, whether because of their own efforts or lack thereof."
Maruo's eyes do not blink once while Fuutarou is speaking, but the latter, accustomed to the doctor's silent but oppressive body language, simply glares back with equal impunity.
"While you didn't need me to tell you any of this, I'm sure, what you might not realize is that I would much rather convince Nino and Itsuki to come join the tutoring on their own volition than have you call them and tell them to start studying with me. I would much rather teach willing students who'll treat my efforts as valuable and worth their time because that way, they'll make the most of it; I refuse to teach those who are unwilling for whatever reasons they might have, and while you might not believe me on this, I do speak from personal experience, and I think you'd agree with me on that anyway. On top of which, the girls already have an idea that the two of us communicate like this, so if you were to call those two and tell them to start taking my lessons, they might obey you, but they won't listen to a thing I say. It'd be counterproductive."
"And how likely do you think that those two are unwilling to take you as their tutor because of what happened over last weekend?"
"Figured you'd bring that up. If I'll be brutally honest, that incident was a blessing in disguise."
"Because now the girls think of you as their savior? How crafty, Uesugi-kun."
"Very rich, coming from someone like you, Nakano-san," Fuutarou retorts back and continues without missing a beat. "But you're right, there's certainly a good chance that they now see me in a more favorable light due to my intervention during that incident. But I'm sure you know where I'll go with this, given what I've been talking about..."
"You would rather have them respect you as a tutor, rather than some sort of guardian angel."
"Right. And for as much as you don't care for what I say at times, you should at least remember me telling you that had I not decided to stop by the hospital that night and simply stayed at home, that incident would have never gotten that bad in the first place - only Nino would've been affected and I could've just told her to keep the incident a secret from her sisters, but here we are."
"But you cannot deny that it seems to be more than just a convenient coincidence that your first successful lesson with my daughters, or at least some of them, followed that incident?"
"Oh, I'm sure there's at least some degree of that going on. And even if I stand here telling you all this crap about how I'd rather focus on the teaching side of the job, I have to admit that that incident not only had some nice timing behind it but also might've been a factor in giving Ichika and Miku a bit of a push. Whatever the case, and regardless of how this all happened, what I have right now is three of your girls who attend my lessons. Ichika still sleeps through like half of them, though."
"Does she? She came off as the most alert one of the five..."
Fuutarou imagines himself rolling his eyes, as much as he wants to do so physically right in front of his own boss.
"Regardless, it appears you are making some progress, so my commendations to you on that. How is their actual progress, then?"
"Too early to say. They seem to be taking my lessons well, but that might only be because all the teachers they've ever had before weren't good or they never bothered to pay attention in class. I haven't started reviewing any of the material that I've been teaching them either, so we'll see how well they're actually studying. It's barely been three weeks into the school year, after all."
The centrifuge has been slowing to a halt for some time now, and it finally comes to a full stop while Fuutarou is talking. He walks over to it while still speaking and opens it up to withdraw the five vials of filtered sedative and sets four of them in a nearby test tube rack, holding the fifth one up in front of his face so that he can analyze it. Maruo remains silent as Fuutarou examines the filtered substance, which has successfully parted white dust from the rest of the clear liquid.
"No doubt about it," Fuutarou grumbles, scowling at the contents that he sees. "That's Heisei."
Dr. Nakano also scowls, having come to the realization himself as well. "Liquid Heisei, huh..."
"It's been around for a while, actually, almost as long as standard powder Heisei has. It's probably much more difficult to make, given its extreme rarity compared to normal solid Heisei, so the general populace shouldn't have access to it, and the government probably doesn't even know that this exists," Fuutarou shakes his head, now holding the vial between his thumb and middle finger to have a tiny blue rune scan the vial from bottom to top.
"I presume it's a magical compound, then."
"That's a safe assumption, yes. Initial diagnostic detects no magical signature, but just because it doesn't have a magical footprint doesn't mean it wasn't somehow magically produced." Finishing the rune diagnostic, Fuutarou places the vial into the test tube with the other filtered vials. "I'll be shipping these to some experts I know in London; they'll be able to verify whether or not it's been magically tampered with."
"But Heisei is already a magically produced drug; why is there a need to verify if it has been 'magically tampered with'?"
"It could be a new strain, a more potent version. Heisei is already bad enough; if this kind turns out to be stronger, we've got a real problem on our hands. And to think that I got this off those gangbangers from that incident last weekend..."
Fuutarou then carefully puts the filtered vials back in their lockbox on the countertop to store them safely.
"So this is the state of the city now..." Maruo sighs shortly, raising his piercing slit eyes up at the news panels that are still displaying its media contents on the plain wall before them. "The city has grown so fast that illegal activities such as drug trafficking and drug use cannot be contained. What say you, Uesugi-kun? Should it not be the responsibility of one who has proclaimed this city as his 'territory'?"
"Magically speaking only, Nakano-san. I don't give two fucks about drugs, drug trafficking, or drug use so long as it doesn't involve me or anyone I care about. The city's problems are not my problems; I'm not here to babysit an entire city if that's what you're asking me to do; we mages don't have time to do that like we're heroes of justice or the like. However..."
Fuutarou joins the doctor in viewing the news panels once more, watching them scroll through their contents slowly at a reading pace.
"...now that Nino's been in contact with people who run stuff like Heisei, I'm obligated to tackle this particular problem. It'd be a bit of an issue if one of my students is trying to drug her own tutor with the strongest roofie on the black market, after all."
"Indeed. Though, on the subject of drug use, should you not be more concerned that your students might have possibly been using such drugs for their own personal recreation?"
Fuutarou looks dead straight into his employer's eyes for a few seconds.
"Of course I'd be concerned with that aspect too. If it comes down to it, I'll intervene," he responds swiftly, disengaging and snapping his fingers suddenly to cause the news panels to disintegrate, leaving no trace of themselves behind. He removes his lab coat, stows it away in the closet neatly, and tosses on his backpack before retrieving the syringe and vial lockbox. "I'll be sure to relay to the girls your plans for them during Golden Week on my way back home."
As he heads for the door, Fuutarou stops right next to Doctor Nakano. Without so much as a twitch of his neck, he says:
"But first and foremost, that should be their parent's concern. Or at least, I hoped it would be - for a father who didn't know his own daughter was a drug user until last week."
The air is empty, dry, and dead. For exactly one second, the two men stand side by side, facing opposite directions.
"Have a good rest of your weekend, Nakano-san."
Shoving the door open with his shoulder, Fuutarou exits the room and heads out of the hospital with the metal box in his arms.
Roughly an hour and a half later, Uesugi Fuutarou is still walking to the Nakano penthouse at the luxury high-rise. The metal lockbox isn't heavy normally, but it is somewhat bulky, and after all this time carrying it while walking across the city, its weight is certainly making an impression on his arms. Fuutarou bears with it though and trudges on silently - he's starting to wish he at least had his headphones on while walking so the trek wouldn't be as boring.
"Uuuueeeeeesuuuuugiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - SAN!"
Timing herself with the honorific, Yotsuba shoulder-slams herself into Fuutarou's back through his backpack, causing the latter to stumble forward from the enthusiastic force. Fuutarou makes sure to roll with the strength of Yotsuba's shoulder-charge so that the contents of the lockbox inside won't be as affected.
"Goddamn it, Yotsuba, now wasn't a good time for that," Fuutarou groans, turning around to face one of his students who catches up to him worriedly after seeing just how far he's stumbled away from her because of her playful tackle.
"I-I'm sorry! I-I don't know my own strength sometimes, I thought that was just a little push, I swear!" Yotsuba cries in apology as she catches up to her tutor, but her voice trails off when she takes one look at what Fuutarou's carrying in his arms. "I-Is that...?"
"The box from last weekend, yeah. I was at the hospital an hour and a half ago finishing some tests on it."
Having taken a knee to set the box on the ground, Fuutarou opens it up to check the integrity of its contents. Thanks to the magical reinforcing that he's cast on it to further protect its contents, the vials of filtered and unfiltered liquid Heisei are preserved, as if nothing has even happened, but seeing their preserved conditions for himself gives Fuutarou a bit more peace of mind. He closes up the box again and stands back up when he notices Yotsuba's understandably hesitant expression, mixed haphazardly with both regret and fright.
"Don't worry about it, you didn't break anything inside. No harm, no foul - are you coming back from somewhere? You kinda sound out of breath."
"Oh, yeah, right, uh, I was - I was filling in for someone on the basketball team," Yotsuba says quickly, now that she has a question to answer. "I got an offer from the basketball team to act as a substitute, and today apparently one of their members couldn't make it due to a family emergency. So I've been doing my best there!" Yotsuba gives herself a cheer by punching the air with her right fist.
"Good to hear. But you did make sure to study today, right?"
"Eh - "
Both Yotsuba's fist and the ears of her hair ribbon shrivel downwards at Fuutarou's vibe check, and eventually, so too does her gaze as her blue eyes can't help but drop to the ground at her tutor's feet. Fuutarou simply squints in disapproval at his student.
"Yotsuba...?" he says slowly.
"Ah, aha, ahaha, y-you must have gotten the wrong quint, I am afraid!" Yotsuba starts to laugh mechanically, trying her best to do an obviously terrible Itsuki impression by formalizing her speech, which is like listening to a cat attempt to bark like a dog. "Y-Yes, I - I am Itsuki! See, look, I shall go buy something to eat right now!"
And with that, Yotsuba pivots on her foot, just like how a basketball player in action would, and scrams to a nearby convenience store to escape Fuutarou's line of sight. Uesugi can physically hear the comedic sound effect of an engine of some kind in his head watching Yotsuba bolt away and out of sight. Although, he can't help but think to himself, out of all the quintuplets she could've tried to impersonate, why Itsuki? Is she just that easy of a target to make fun of? He doesn't really get it himself...maybe it's just a quintuplet joke.
Jokes aside, though, Yotsuba's speed is actually quite impressive. While he hasn't had very many opportunities to witness her physical prowess in person, Fuutarou has been hearing a few rumors starting to creep up around school about a freshman girl who is apparently tremendously gifted at sports, and that the school's sports teams were considering finding out who this mystery freshman was to try to recruit her. Perhaps the basketball team has come out on top with that little competition, given that Yotsuba's been putting her time in with them, though given the fourth quint's indecisiveness, she's probably going to bounce around from one club to another.
The quickness and smoothness of her pivot, her perfect, natural, and efficient running form while she sprinted away, and the speed that followed - it's no wonder that she's normally so full of energy all the time. Well, at least outside of the times when she's interacting with him. Fuutarou sighs - even if Yotsuba is technically the nicest one out of the quintuplets to him at the moment, he does hope that the two of them can at least get to a level where Yotsuba can feel comfortable being her normal bubbly self around him too. It doesn't sit very well with him that really the only times when Yotsuba isn't herself is when she's with him.
Meanwhile, Yotsuba, who's made her great escape to the nearby Family Mart that Fuutarou recently passed before she caught up with him, catches her breath quickly behind an aisle of snacks. Groaning softly to herself, she feels the frustration and regret that bubbled up as soon as she realized that she almost caused Uesugi a ton of trouble by almost ruining the contents of the box that he was carrying, and she feels even worse about it once he mentioned that he'd been researching them at the hospital. And since Fuutarou has already told the quints that he works at the hospital with their father, no doubt that all week this week, he's been routinely visiting the hospital to study the contents of that box. And that's before getting into the whole incident from which he got that very lockbox to begin with...
But Yotsuba quickly recovers, clapping her cheeks four times to purge the negative thoughts from her mind. Right now, even if Ichika and Miku are also willingly taking their lessons with their tutors, she still can't help but feel like she's still Uesugi's strongest supporter, and so avoiding him like this won't do him any favors, so she's got to hurry up and catch up to him. Though, the two hours of basketball practice with the school team has made her a bit hungry, so she does take a few minutes to pick out some tasty convenience store chicken to take with her and eat back home as a snack before dinner.
Stepping out of the Family Mart, Yotsuba glances down the sidewalk where she ought to still see Fuutarou walking to the high-rise, but to her shock, she doesn't see him.
"Where did he go...?" Yotsuba murmurs aloud, starting to worry again. Did Fuutarou decide to disappear using his magical powers or whatever because he didn't want to be with her? Probably because of the shove that she gave him out of the blue like she did. And if that's the case -
"Right here."
Sitting down on the ground next to the sliding doors of the Family Mart, Uesugi gets back up to his feet in Yotsuba's blind spot, picking up the box with him.
"What'd you get? Oh, the chicken from here, good choice," Fuutarou nods in approval, but then he notices Yotsuba simply staring back up at him in shock. "What, what's wrong? Something on my face?"
"Y-You seriously came back just to wait for me here?"
"Sure, why not? I'm heading over to your place anyway, so it doesn't make sense for me to just leave you here."
"Wait, you were heading over to our place?!"
Uesugi rolls his eyes for real this time. "Why the hell am I walking in this direction, then? My own place certainly isn't this way."
The two of them resume walking as their conversation starts. "But what's the occasion today? I thought we weren't going to have tutoring sessions during the weekend..."
"Yeah, today's not a lesson, your dad just wanted me to relay some plans to the five of you. But I did explicitly say that we'll have auxiliary lessons on weekends if I feel like you all need them."
"Awwwww..." Yotsuba's hair ribbon shrinks again. "But what does Dad wanna tell us? Or is it something that you can't talk about until you see all five of us?"
"It's plans for Golden Week that's coming up, but - "
"Oh yeaaaaaah, Golden Week! Omigosh I'm so excited for it, Golden Week's always so fuuuuunnn!" Yotsuba squeals in delight, having totally forgotten about the upcoming Golden Week break. "We usually travel abroad during then. Like last year, we went to Emerald Beach; the year before, we went to Paris; the year before, Siberia!"
"...why the hell did you go to Siberia for Golden Week."
"Because it seemed like fun at the time!"
"Uh, well, was it?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT! Seriously, who even suggested Siberia as a vacation destination?!" Yotsuba fumes, then grows suddenly quiet again. By this reaction, Uesugi can kind of tell what's to follow. "Oh...it was me. Ehe ~ "
"Good going, Yotsuba. Reaaaaaaal smooth..."
"Okay, I thought Siberia was a totally cool place to go visit at the time! It sounded a lot better in my head!"
"A totally cool place...I mean, technically you're not wrong about it being cool..."
"Oh come on, you know what I mean, Uesugi-saaaaan!"
"Haha...my bad. I'm not very good with puns, so actually being able to make a joke about one is pretty satisfying, I won't lie."
Yotsuba gazes up at Fuutarou as they walk. "Speaking of Golden Week plans though, Uesugi-san, do you have any of your own? Or..."
As she fears, Uesugi shakes his head. "Not really. I'll just be doing the usual - we're too poor to be doing any traveling most of the time, after all."
"Ah...right. Sorry that I, uh, asked..."
"Don't be, I don't feel bothered by questions like that that might usually be a bit sensitive. I've grown some thick skin over the years, a little question like that isn't about to hurt my feelings or anything. I kinda had to, if you think about it."
What Uesugi is referring to is obvious, and the incident from the previous weekend flashes before Yotsuba's eyes.
Sensing discomfort in Yotsuba's moments of silence, which is easy to do since it's typically not a good thing of Yotsuba to be quiet like this, Fuutarou takes the initiative in starting a conversation, as inexperienced as he is in social interaction.
"How's everyone else doing? Anybody studying at all, or not really?"
"Um...well, it's...I mean, I guess Itsuki's studying? And Miku too, actually...she's been studying at the living room table after you left the past couple of days, so it's good to know that she's super motivated."
"And not really anybody else, huh."
"Y-Yeah..." Yotsuba averts her gaze again. "...I'm sorry, Uesugi-san. I'll...try my best to start studying on my own. I prom - "
Silencing herself by pursing her lips shut tightly, the fourth quintuplet cuts herself short in alarm. Fuutarou's dull black eyes glance down at Yotsuba for a moment.
"L-Like I said, I'll do my best. It's because...it's because of all the clubs that I've been looking at for the past week or two, and...and lots of people said they'd love to have me around."
"Well, if you know that that's what's preventing you from studying, you should act on that knowledge, right?"
"But I just can't help it! I love sports...it's like the only thing I know how to do well, the only thing that comes natural," Yotsuba insists defensively. "You've heard me talk about this before I think, right? That, and I just...I just really like helping people. You know how I said earlier that someone from the basketball team had a family emergency, right? Without them, the team wouldn't have been able to have a full two teams for practice, so they asked me to fill in so that they could get that practice in today. Not to mention they have big hopes for the season this year, since the captain thinks that this year's going to be their best chance at going to nationals. So I couldn't just say no to them...!"
Uesugi simply listens and nods along to Yotsuba's conversation.
"Just - just give me some time, Uesugi-san. I'll do my very best to find some sort of middle ground. I'll find the time I need to study, I just need to get situated, that's all..."
To Yotsuba's surprise, her tutor nods curtly. "Sure, whatever you feel like you need to do. Since you were the one who accepted me as your tutor first, I'll return the favor by putting my faith in you that you'll find the time to study while still going around doing your club stuff or whatever. It'll give me time to think about how I'll get Nino and Itsuki to join the tutoring sessions, too..."
After holding her peace for a few moments, Yotsuba glances back up at her tutor. "You...aren't going to scold me like you usually do for not studying?"
"What's with that all of a sudden?"
"No, well, it's just, you always go off on me at home whenever you're over to tutor us for not studying or answering an obvious question wrong."
"But this is a different situation, though. Like, some of the questions I had you answer during our lessons really were obvious because I literally gave you the answer just before asking, so it's a matter of you not paying attention. But now that you've told me that you're trying to manage your high school life and balance it with studying and doing homework, I'm not going to give you shit for that. It's tough, going into high school and trying to adjust the best you can. You have it worse too, you know? Being a transfer student and all. It's been tough for me too - it's something we're all going through."
At Fuutarou's last remark, Yotsuba drops her gaze again, the muscles in her neck weakening with guilt.
"...but I bet it's been a lot tougher for you," she mumbles sadly, gazing down at the warm black box of Famichiki that she holds in her hands.
"A lot tougher for me, huh?" Fuutarou repeats nonchalantly. "Explain."
"Huh? E-Explain? Well..." Yotsuba stammers suddenly - she wasn't expecting to have the verbal Reverse card played on her like this. "I don't...I don't get what you want me to do, Uesugi-san..."
"I asked you what's known as a rhetorical question; you weren't supposed to answer it because there's no way you can. And how could you? I don't know your life, and you don't know mine. All we have is a bit of information about each other: what I know about you and your sisters from the hours of tutoring I've done, and what you know about me from that one incident last weekend."
Fuutarou adjusts his grips on the lockbox as they continue to walk.
"My point is this, Yotsuba: don't worry about what my situation is. Even if you feel that whatever I'm going through or whatever it is that I'm doing is so much more difficult than you could ever imagine, don't feel obligated to study because of my situation, because it has nothing to do with the situation between us. Don't study or feel obligated to study because my family is poor or because of the kind of work that I do outside of school and outside of tutoring, because you're only serving to put on unnecessary weight on your own conscience. And if nothing else, I made the conscious decision to get myself involved in that kind of work, so whenever I have to put myself through the grinder because of it, I have no one to blame but myself."
"But even if you say that, that still doesn't change the fact that it's still something we - something I think about a lot...!" Yotsuba insists. "I know you told us before to disregard that side of you, but even you've gotta know that that's so much easier said than done..."
"True, I suppose it's not something most people can just forget about unless you're just truly apathetic like Nino is. But at the same time, if you let it stay on your mind for too long, it'll cause you more trouble than it's worth. And while there are certainly things in life that are worth worrying about, the question eventually becomes: for how much longer are you going to let something bother you? At some point, you have to let it go."
Yotsuba, having wanted to interrupt Fuutarou halfway, resigns herself to silence as she listens.
"As a corollary: I think that you're being unfair to yourself whenever you worry about me and the responsibilities that I have. It should be obvious that we live such different lives that it's simply not reasonable to expect yourself to understand the things that I'm going through. And even if you do try to, I'm honestly not sure how long you'd even last..."
"It's not being unfair to myself, Uesugi-san!" Yotsuba exclaims finally, unable to keep herself verbally restrained any longer now. "It's actually not even a matter of being fair or not fair, to be perfectly honest! There's no reason to make it sound more complicated than it is!"
Fuutarou opens his mouth to counter, but after processing the fourth quint's words a second time, this time, he holds his peace instead to allow Yotsuba to follow through with her thought.
"It doesn't have to be all complicated like that, Uesugi-san," Yotsuba stresses pleadingly. "You sav - you did us a big favor last weekend, a kind of favor that I'm not sure how we can repay. The least I can do is...is to at least...worry about you."
Sighing heavily, Fuutarou clicks his tongue with a little irritation.
"I'm not saying that anything you've said to me is wrong, Uesugi-san. Well, apart from the whole unfair part, but it's true - it's probably for the better that we pretend like what happened last weekend never happened so that we can just keep being tutor and student like we were supposed to be. And maybe my sisters can do a better job of getting over it - but not me. And honestly, it's not just me, either - I'm sure my sisters also have it still on their minds to some degree!"
Yotsuba then circles around in front of her tutor to get him to stop in his tracks.
"No matter what our situations might be - our lifestyles, our responsibilities, our schedules, whatever," she says, still holding her box of convenience store chicken, "isn't it only natural for me to worry about a friend of mine?"
The two of them keep their eyes locked for a few moments in the pleasant Saturday afternoon sun on the sidewalk.
Fuutarou is the first to break eye contact, which he does with another shorter sigh this time.
"Nothing you've said is wrong either. It's just...in my opinion, you have more important things to worry about."
The words reverberate in Yotsuba's ears. More important things...more important things...more important things...
"...but what could be more important than my friends...?" Yotsuba finds herself saying before her brain can register its own actions.
Fuutarou shrugs. "Your sisters?"
"But...my sisters are my friends."
"Oh. Makes sense, then - but then, what about all those people in all those clubs at school who want you to join them? Are they all your friends too, then?"
Again, Yotsuba's lips part to speak, but no words spill out.
"You're not sure, huh. Then if they're not your friends, why should you be worrying about them when you could be worrying about how you're gonna be studying?"
"Because - because - " Desperate to defend herself, Yotsuba takes another stand. "Because I want to help people! They don't have to be my friends - if I see someone who needs help, of course I'll go help!"
"Right. And so because of that feeling you have about wanting to help people, you want to do the same for me, correct? Because you worry about me."
"Y-Yeah! That's exactly it!"
"Then you don't want to help me because I'm your friend; you want to help me because you think that's the right thing to do. You worry about me not because I'm your friend, but because it makes you feel better about yourself to do so. That's why I tell you not to worry about me, because I'm afraid that you'll worry about me for the wrong reasons."
Yotsuba freezes up.
"A friend of mine a long time ago told me that when you help someone, you can't help another person. When you save one person's life, you can't save another," Fuutarou recalls quietly. "While this might not apply that strictly, word-for-word, to you, I still think it does, at least to some extent."
"H-How...? Are you telling me that it's not worth my time to help others...?" Yotsuba almost whispers back.
"No, it's definitely worth your time to help others. But only if you truly think it is. Let me ask you, Yotsuba: is it truly worth your time and effort to help out those clubs? To worry about me and my situation?"
Since she can't clench her fists, Yotsuba steels her eyes with determination.
"Yes, absolutely!" she declares, unwilling to give up her position. Seeing the subtle force in her blue eyes, Fuutarou closes his own in acknowledgment.
"Okay. Then let me ask you this next: is it still worth your time if the one person you can't help or save is yourself?"
Once more, Yotsuba's defense is shattered with a single question.
"There's a phrase known as 'opportunity cost'. It basically describes a situation where you lose the opportunity to do something because you spent the time or effort or both to go do something else," Fuutarou explains calmly. "In this case, if you help one person, your opportunity cost is somebody else that you couldn't help. What many people who think the way you do, Yotsuba, don't realize is that that opportunity cost oftentimes isn't all the other people that they want to help. In fact, for some people, they're so good at helping other people that they could realistically help all the people that they want. But oftentimes, the opportunity cost is themselves. They prioritize other people more than themselves and end up suffering as a result, and some of the time they don't even know that they're hurting themselves in the process. And a lot of the time, for the people who do get this, they don't really give it a second thought because they justify it as a necessary sacrifice, because they think that they can handle all the shit that they put themselves through."
Faithfully gazing directly back into Yotsuba's quivering blue eyes, Uesugi takes a short breath.
"For the record, I do think that it's very admirable, all the work you've been doing for those clubs, for people you didn't even know until very recently - you're a far better person than I, that's for sure. And like I said earlier, I really do appreciate your concerns for me and the work I do, since you didn't even know me until a few weeks ago either. It...means more to me than you think. My worry, though, is that you might end up not being able to find the time or the energy to worry about yourself - about your own concerns, your own needs. Which then means that you won't be studying, which is exactly what I, as your tutor, want you to be doing."
By this point, the shock on Yotsuba's face has subsided, but only to be replaced with deep melancholy. Fuutarou beckons to her to start walking again, which they do.
"But what I said from earlier still stands," Fuutarou continues briefly. "Even if I did just give you a super long lecture on all that nonsense, I do believe that you can find that balance between helping others at school and studying."
"Y-You went off on me like that for that long, just to suddenly say it's all nonsense...?" Yotsuba gapes weakly.
"My bad. I tend to rattle off like that...don't take what I said just now that seriously. Just stuff that's been sitting around in my head for too long, I suppose..."
"You sound like our grandfather, Uesugi-san! I didn't know you were already eighty years old on the inside!"
"Haha...well, that's...not totally inaccurate, at times...but never mind that." Fuutarou shifts the lockbox onto his left arm so that he can point softly at his student by his side. "Even if I'm fundamentally against it, I'll allow it anyway, as a special little favor for being supportive of me this whole time."
The fourth quint exhales greatly, with something of a mix between a sigh and groan.
"...after all that just now..." Yotsuba mumbles dejectedly, "...now, I'm not so sure...that's a lot of heavy stuff you dumped on me, you know! A girl's heart is delicate, delicate!"
"Sorry. I did warn you all that my social interaction skills are trash."
Yotsuba pouts a little back up at Uesugi. "That, and you sure have a lot of faith in me to talk about all that stuff and still say that you think I can do it afterwards."
"Faith, huh..." Fuutarou gazes up at the peaceful afternoon sky. "...yeah, I guess you can call it that. But more importantly - "
He turns to return Yotsuba's gaze.
"All this stuff I said just now - that's not me talking to you as your tutor," he clarifies.
"Not as my tutor?" Yotsuba ponders briefly, but then her eyes suddenly light up. "Then - "
"Yeah. I said all that...as a friend." Fuutarou turns away to look dead ahead. "Because even if we haven't known each other for all that long...even if how we met wasn't exactly organic...it's only natural to worry about someone close to me. Wouldn't you say?"
Yotsuba blinks a few times up at her tutor.
"...Uesugi-san, you hypocrite," she says flatly. "How can you lecture me like that for all that time, and then tell me that stuff because you worry about me?"
Fuutarou's already turned his face away from Yotsuba.
"...Uesugi-san? Uesugi-san? Is there anything you'd like to say?"
"...no comment."
"Ah, that's in English, I know that much! Speaking in another language won't bail you out of this, Uesugi-san!"
"Then there's only one thing left to do."
"Huh?"
Without warning, Uesugi Fuutarou bolts into a run across the sidewalk while holding the lockbox high over his head. With a huge grin retaking its rightful place on Yotsuba's face, she rolls up her sleeves in anticipation.
"Ah! You can't escape me, Uesugi-san! It's YOTSUBA TIIIIIME!"
And just like that, Yotsuba chases her own tutor all the way back home, giggling and laughing the whole way forward.