"WHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! ! ! ! ! !"
Six delighted cries of girls fresh on vacation ring through the air as the five Nakano daughters, joined by a surprise guest, stand on the sidewalk of the street directly overlooking a magnificent beach on a perfect sunny day at the end of April. The telltale and welcoming strides of waves rolling up against the sand before them, the Hawaiian beach music playing from stereos in the distance, and the healthy numbers of other tourists, vacationers, and beach-goers enjoying the world-renowned charm and dreamscape of Honolulu's very own Waikiki Beach only serve to add to the excitement of the girls as they stand at the stone divider between the street and the beach sand, feasting their eyes upon this luxurious sight as their elegant private black limousine and its driver await them next to the curb.
"I've always wanted to come to Hawaii ~ ! ! !" Nino just can't contain her joy and is already giddy with overloaded excitement like a small child trying desperately to contain his or her hyperactivity during a sugar rush. "Kyaaaaaaa, this is, like, so - so awesome!"
"And seeing that Hawaii's a pretty easy vacation spot, I'm surprised we didn't come here sooner, huh?" Ichika remarks. Even while on vacation, the eldest quintuplet remains the ever steadfast one, though she, too, is clearly enjoying the afternoon April sun and the stunning beach sight.
"I guess it would've happened at some point..." Miku adds, pulling off her headphones to enjoy the ambience of the beach and feel the ocean winds brush against her face, pulling back her bangs to let the breeze sift through her face better.
"I do hope that we can get to our hotel soon, though...it has been while since lunch..." Itsuki sighs, giving her stomach a little rub as much as she'd like to enjoy the sight to its fullest with the rest of her sisters.
"Ah, Itsuki, here, I kept the little Hawaiian bread they were giving away from the tour," Yotsuba says as she happily produces an individually wrapped piece of Hawaiian sweet bread to give to Itsuki, who gratefully takes it and opens it immediately to begin snacking. "What about you, Raiha-chan? How're you enjoying the trip so far?"
The elementary schooler with her eccentric hair style who's been unable to do anything but stare agape into the bluest waters she's ever seen in her life, brought back down to earth by Yotsuba's voice, spins around where she stands, and with almost literal sparkles flying from her big teal eyes, she puts up both fists and hollers,
"It's so amazing!"
The rest of the quintuplets look on with gentle smiles on their faces as Raiha practically jumps into Yotsuba's arms, causing the two of them to spin round and round in their mutual excitement of vacationing in Hawaii and giggling and making merry all the while.
"See, Nino? Raiha-chan's a good girl, she didn't cause us any trouble this whole trip," Ichika reminds Nino gently. "No need to worry about her. Besides, she's made our trip more fun too, hasn't she? Just being able to watch her reactions this whole time alone was worth it."
Pouting, Nino averts her gaze quickly, casting her eyes back out at the beach. "I-I was wrong about her at first, okay? Not to be rude to her or anything, but c'mon, you don't know how kids'll react. Kids are just kids, after all!"
"But we were her age at one point too, Nino," Miku adds onto Ichika's words. "That, and...we have more in common with her than you'd maybe like."
Nino clicks her tongue irritably. "Don't need to go any further than that, Miku."
"I know."
"Oh, and, speaking of which, I didn't get the chance yet to talk about this, but..."
Turning suddenly and jamming her finger in the direction of their private limousine, Nino irately locks her eyes onto a boy wearing the rather inappropriate clothes of a high school uniform of a clean white dress shirt and black slacks standing next to the shotgun seat of the limousine.
"What the heck are you doing here, exactly!?" Nino barks angrily at the quintuplets' tutor, who turns to face her once the former begins to yap at him. "Because, uh, hello? This's supposed to be our vacation?!"
"I thought I already explained this to you last week when I stopped by your place to tell you what your dad had in mind for Golden Week plans," Fuutarou answers in a straight deadpan tone. "If I recall correctly, you were just nodding your head and saying 'yeah okay whatever' the entire time that I was talking..."
"Th-That's because I didn't actually expect you to come with us! I thought it was some kind of stupid joke!"
"Nino, since when has Fuutarou said something that he wasn't serious about...?" Miku asks questioningly.
"Seriously. I know you haven't been taking Fuutarou-kun's lessons yet, but still, you've been hanging out with us a lot of the time, surprisingly enough, so you should have at least picked up on that by now, right?" Ichika giggles.
"But I didn't think Papa would actually let him come with us! All our vacations up 'til this point were just us five traveling around, wasn't it? Why's it gotta be any different this time...a...round..."
Yet another very awkward silence ensues following Nino's decelerated speech. Miku simply shakes her head quietly and Ichika gives a little bit of a half-amused, half-exasperated sigh.
"Safe to say that you answered your own question just now?" she gives her rowdy younger sister the kind of smile that doesn't fully portray sisterly tenderness.
"Try not to dwell on it, you girls are on vacation right now for crying out loud," Fuutarou calls over, having picked up enough of Nino's words before she eventually silenced herself to know what's going on. "If it'll make you feel any better, Nino, just pretend like I'm not here for the most part."
"I'd love to, thanks for the advice, but I kind of can't because of your sister over here!"
"What about Raiha-chan, Nino?" Yotsuba dashes up to her sister quickly with Fuutarou's younger sister riding on her shoulders.
"Whoa, whoa, Yotsuba, isn't - isn't Raiha-chan a bit big for that?" Ichika asks with some concern, looking up at Raiha as she towers over the rest of them.
"It's okay, I've got this! Raiha-chan trusts me, after all! Shi shi shi shi ~ " Yotsuba beams happily, and so too does Raiha act, mimicking her carrier.
"Actually, it's not that bad if Raiha-chan like holds onto your ribbon like they're a joystick or something, now that I think about it," Nino suggests nonchalantly, glad to have something distract them from their earlier awkward silence.
"Oooh, good idea, Nino-san!" Taking the second quint's suggestion, Raiha grabs careful hold of Yotsuba's hair ribbons and starts moving them around in her fists like she's operating a robot. "Yotsuba-san, let's go!"
"Understood, Captain Raiha! Let's gooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO! ! ! !"
Without hesitation, Yotsuba takes her new vehicular role with pride and starts zooming around on the sidewalk, jogging laps around her sisters on the sidewalk as Raiha giggles and laughs hysterically the entire time.
"Remember, Nino, if either Raiha-chan or Yotsuba gets hurt because of what they are doing, you will be held liable for the damages," Itsuki sighs, joining her sisters as she puts the small plastic wrapper of Yotsuba's gifted sweet Hawaiian bread into her pocket so that she can dispose of it properly later, as there are no garbage bins in sight.
"H-How is it gotta be my fault? I just gave them the suggestion, Yotsuba's the one who took it."
As the quintuplets enjoy the rest of their brief detour on the street to survey the beach and the view, Fuutarou, turning back to the open window of the limousine, waits on the passenger he's standing next to outside the limousine.
"Your father has deposited the amount just now, Uesugi-kun," the Nakanos' father, Maruo, informs him coolly from within the limousine's passenger seat, tapping away at his own tablet that was briefly displaying some online bank transactions.
"Good. Should I call the girls back?"
"Yes, please do. I would like to spend time with my daughters, seeing that I rarely get a chance to do so."
"Right, right. A'ight, everyone, let's get going again, we gotta make our check-in time for the hotel."
About half an hour later, after Fuutarou handles the hotel check-in for the Nakanos with his fluent English, the door to the quintuplets' hotel room at Moana Surfrider Resort and Spa clicks open, and as the girls shuffle in, followed by their special guest Uesugi Raiha, all six girls, especially Raiha, squeal in delight at the sight of their unbelievably luxurious hotel room.
It's not quite a "room" - it's more like an entire suite, not unlike their penthouse back at home, minus the separate rooms. Essentially their hotel room on the top floor of the resort is big enough to cover an entire half of the section of the floor where it resides, and all of the walls are tinted one-way glass windows instead, providing a large ninety-degree view of the entire resort complex, the streets down below, the beach, and of course, the magically blue ocean sprawling before them. Five individual queen-size beds sit neatly and majestically against the inner wall of the room, perfectly positioned so that the girls can fall asleep spectating the ocean view right before them. Paintings of iconic Hawaiian scenery and culture decorate the rest of the walls and even some of the furniture, as if it weren't already clear enough that they are in fact vacationing in Honolulu for Golden Week.
Practically beside herself with amazement and unable to contain her excitement any longer for a second time, Raiha dashes straight into the middle of the room like an elementary schooler in the middle of a candy shop with an unlimited candy pass and no idea what to start with, so she eventually belly-dives onto one of the queen-sized beds and snuggles up with the covers, physically unable to make the goofy wide smile on her face go away.
As Yotsuba too joins Raiha on the bed, giggling and laughing all the while, the four quintuplets gaze in awe of their spectacular room, walking further inside to set down their luggage.
"I'll say...this is quite the hotel room we got," Ichika is the first to speak up, as per usual. "I mean, we've been to some fancy hotels before, but..."
"...this is on another level. Even I don't know what to say," Nino scratches her forehead in an uncharacteristically stunned moment of hers. "When's the last time we had a hotel room that let us go to sleep while watching the beach?"
"Well, we have been to a lot of beaches before...tropical islands and whatnot, so it's not like this's the first time we've been in a setting like this..."
As Nino and Ichika discuss the merits of their new hotel room that will be their temporary home for the next five days of Golden week and try to make comparisons with all the other hotel rooms they've been in, Itsuki takes a seat down on the foot of one of the unoccupied beds, sighing rather deeply and gazing out to the wonderfully sunny afternoon beach before them.
"Don't like it, Itsuki?"
Itsuki glances up to find her sister Miku also taking a seat next to her.
"No, no...nothing of the sort. It is...this is quite the amazing experience. It is just a lot to take in, that's all..." Itsuki replies with a small smile. "Usually our hotel rooms are not quite this nice. They have been nice, but..."
"On another level, like Nino said, right?"
Itsuki nods.
"How about you, Miku? You do not really care for something like this usually."
"It's different enough that...even I can't help but notice," Miku smiles sheepishly.
"See, I told you it was a lot to take in."
"I know. We'll have to make sure to make the most of this for the next five days."
Miku glances to Itsuki now, and dropping her voice noticeably, she then asks:
"...how has your studying been going?"
Tensing up at the this sudden question out of left field, Itsuki immediately jerks her gaze back at Miku, her relaxed expression now rigidly locking up in response to Miku's inquiry.
"S-Sorry. I asked that...too suddenly," Miku immediately disengages, taking keen note of Itsuki's reaction and backing down accordingly. "Forget I ask - "
"Wait, Miku, hold on," Itsuki whispers, glancing around Miku to check on their other sisters; Ichika and Nino seem to be talking about maybe trying out the resort's beachfront spa later on that night, while Yotsuba is telling Raiha stories of their previous vacations. With everyone else sufficiently distracted, Itsuki focuses back on Miku. "Why did you ask that? I am not angry or anything, I just want to know your context for it. Is it because I have not been participating in Uesugi-kun's lessons yet?"
Miku nods slowly.
"The past couple of weeks he's been tutoring us, every day after we finish, Fuutarou asks us how you've been doing, if you've been studying on your own just fine," she explains in her naturally subdued and quiet voice.
"Ugh...is he still asking about me? He sure does not know when to stop," Itsuki groans lightly. "For the record, I still refuse to take his lessons, and I am studying well on my own. Please relay to him that he need not concern himself over me."
"Well, the thing is...we've told him that already, that you're probably determined not to take his lessons at all."
"And he keeps asking that anyway?"
Miku nods slowly, again.
Itsuki frowns deeply. "It must be because of his...other responsibilities, even if he denies it. Why else would he so persistent..."
This time, Miku shakes her head. "It's not just because of that. I talked to Papa just before we left for vacation about how he was paying Fuutarou."
"Y-You actually talked to Father about something like that...?" Itsuki stares back at Miku, visibly shocked by this rather brazen act from her normally reserved older sister.
"I just...wanted to know."
"Know what?"
"Fuutarou said a while ago that he needs to work on getting all of us together so he can tutor us all since otherwise, he wouldn't be doing his job completely. At first I didn't really think about it much since he told us not to worry about it, but the more he asked us about how you were doing, the more it dawned on me about what he might've meant, and eventually I got an idea of it, so I asked Papa to confirm."
Itsuki is able to put two and two together so she already has the answer in her head before Miku needs to even say it, but she lets Miku speak it regardless.
"Papa said that he was only paying Fuutarou for the three of us that he's actually tutoring," she reveals softly. "Fuutarou's been giving him regular reports on his progress tutoring us, so Papa uses that information to adjust his salary."
Slowly starting to bite her lower lip, the youngest quint finds herself squeezing her fists lightly on her lap.
"But...but Uesugi-kun could so easily lie about something like that to Father. We know what Father is like, and it seems like he and Father also have known each other for some time too, so he probably knows a lot about him too. It is not as though Father ever really bothers to check on us due to his work, though he is more of an armchair father with how he is around us, whenever he is with us."
"But he hasn't," Miku returns simply.
"And why would he not?" Itsuki repeats herself. "I have eaten dinner with his family - Raiha-chan and Uesugi-kun's father, you all know this. They are poor, so poor that they cannot even afford a proper dinner table to eat at. And...given his other line of work, would it not be entirely reasonable for him to employ more underhanded tactics...?"
"...what makes you think he works like that? With 'underhanded tactics'?" Miku repeats her sister's words calmly.
Slowly averting her gaze, Itsuki finds her eyes naturally dropping to the carpet beneath her and her sister's feet.
"...I mean...that incident...you remember it, do you not?" she croaks. "At that warehouse..."
Itsuki's hands on her lap are beginning to tremble.
"...you don't need to force yourself to remember, Itsuki. It was hard on all of us," Miku murmurs.
Clenching her fists harder to stop the trembling, Itsuki looks back up at her sister. "We all saw what he did back then. Uesugi-kun is a murderer, Miku. Knowing this - "
"He did what he had to do to keep us safe. We've talked about this before," Miku immediately responds, cutting her sister short. "The rest of us don't like how it all happened either, but...in that kind of a situation, what could we have done? We couldn't just tell Fuutarou to not kill anyone."
"Regardless, the fact still stands that he is a killer...! And the way he went about it - " Itsuki shudders terribly. "It's as if he - it's as if he were used to it, like he knew exactly what he was going to do even before he arrived. And so knowing that he's capable of doing things like that, horrible things like that...how can I trust him to have any sort of integrity with tutoring us? I refuse to believe that a c-criminal like him...a murderer like him has the gall try to treat his tutoring with any sort of integrity after what he showed us that time."
"But even if you say that, Papa already said that he paid Fuutarou for his work for this month before Golden Week vacation started, which was, in fact, only enough to cover three of us, and not you or Nino included."
"Then there must be some other reason. He has already shown us one dirty little secret of his, what is to say that he does not have a dozen more that we simply do not know about?"
Itsuki raises a hand to point up at Miku.
"Let me ask you this, Miku: what about him compels you to act like this? You would never act like this before we knew him - asking me how my studying is going, asking Father something as sensitive as someone else's salary," she points out. "Something has changed about you. What can you say that will convince me that it is not because Uesugi-kun is doing some kind of magic trick to get you on his side?"
"H-He's not doing anything of the sort...!" Miku stammers quickly, finding her cheeks flushing a little.
"Oh, is he not? Your face would suggest otherwise."
"That's just a-a reaction, it doesn't mean anything...and besides," Miku takes a deep breath to compose herself after Itsuki's accusation. "I explained this to Nino already, so I'll repeat it to you. I just want to cooperate with Fuutarou so that he can do his job. You said it yourself...his family's in a rough spot, and since he needs the money, he's taken up this tutoring job to help us go through our first year of high school without trouble. And especially now that I know for a fact that he won't take more money than what he's worked for, I'd like it if...you and Nino could join us as well at some point."
"Then what was the point of you asking me how my studying was going in the beginning?"
"W-Well, that's - I just - didn't know how to start the conversation, I guess..." Miku redoubles her efforts. "But even if you say all those things about Fuutarou, he's not like that. And I'm not saying this because he's done anything weird to me, he really is a decent guy. He's strict and harsh on us while he's tutoring us, but he's always fair. He's always patient with us too, whenever we don't get something that he's teaching us - remember that one time last week when you came down for dinner and Fuutarou was still at home with us, trying to get us to memorize a math formula? He's had to do that a couple times since we're dummies, but...every time, he's never gotten mad with us or frustrated or anything."
Miku turns away from Itsuki to face forward, though her own eyes drop down to the floor like Itsuki's did a short while ago.
"We might not like the way he acts towards us, and...certainly it doesn't exactly help that he's shown us a side of him that maybe we could've lived without knowing, but even still...he works hard, Itsuki. If nothing else, he's a hard worker. And I don't want him to feel like his efforts are going unrewarded. Because we all feel that way too, don't we?"
"...what do you mean by that?"
"We've all studied for tests before. Those final exams we took at Black Rose...that's all I need to mention, right?"
"...I wish you had not."
"Sorry. But...I felt like I had to bring it up, because...we all studied for it really hard. And yet..."
"...and yet, here we are." Itsuki lets her head roll back so that her eyes meet the ceiling for a moment before correcting her posture. "However, I cannot agree to join you and the others with Uesugi-kun. And you need not worry about my studying - I am confident that I will be able to study on my own and make sure that my grades support my ability to study alone. Perhaps you feel that getting tutored by Uesugi-kun is the right choice for you, and I shall respect that. But it is not the same with me."
"...you won't at least do it for Raiha-chan?" Miku asks, a bit desperately as she pulls out the last card in her depleted arsenal.
"Please do not play that card on me, especially when she is here with us," Itsuki hisses quietly, visibly disgusted with Miku's last-ditch tactic. "But for the sake of answering, clearly Uesugi-kun is a decent enough person to look after his sister and make sure that despite being poor, she is at least as happy as she can be. I suppose I can give him credit for convincing Father to let her come along with us for this vacation. But in the end, my participation in his lessons do not seem like they affect Raiha-chan's well-being - and on that topic, the money that Uesugi-kun will generate teaching me as well will simply not make a difference in her life. Do you think that just because Nino and I decide to join him if only for the sole purpose of allowing him to earn his full pay will suddenly improve his family's situation? I think not; you would need much more money than that to pull that off."
"E-Even if...even if it won't make an immediate difference..." Miku stays in the ring for as long as she can, "...every little bit counts, wouldn't it? Especially for someone like Fuutarou. And besides...if you're right about that...if you're right about the fact that, even if Fuutarou does manage to teach all five of us at once that he won't be able to change his situation still, then...then why does he keep insisting on getting you and Nino together with us?"
"That's...well..." Finding herself on the back foot now all of a sudden, Itsuki struggles to come up with her own counter-response.
"Why does he try so hard to teach us? Why is he putting in so much effort into something that, if you're right, clearly shouldn't change his situation very much?" Miku cashes out on her newfound advantage as much as she can.
"B-Because he is trying to put up a front! Would it not be natural for someone like him to pretend to care about this kind of job?"
"...but what kind of reason would he have to deceive us?"
"How should I know? Perhaps he wants something more from us?"
"Like...what? If there were something else he wanted, along your logic, wouldn't he have already taken whatever he wanted from us by this point?" Miku frowns indignantly, starting to become peeved by Itsuki's constantly antagonistic "he's a criminal!" attitude towards Fuutarou. "You saw what he did to those bad guys during that incident. If people like them couldn't stand a chance, what's stopping Fuutarou from taking whatever he wants from us?"
"He is merely biding his time. He probably wants to get close to us, and then strike when we least expect it."
"Itsuki, has Yotsuba been making you watch too many spy movies with her or something?"
"N-No! What gives you that idea?!" Itsuki pouts back at Miku. "The last thing we watched together was that one Korean drama that Nino is a big fan of. And besides, given that Uesugi-kun is, what did he call himself again, a mage? You do not think that mages are not also capable of deception?"
"But Fuutarou already said that his powers mainly focus on medical practices..."
"And you will trust his words and his words only? Miku, please...stop being so naive."
Having had enough of this fruitless conversation, Itsuki gets up to her feet.
"You may feel comfortable having Uesugi-kun teach you, so if that is what you feel is best for your studies, then I will respect your decision. However, I do not feel the same level of comfort as you do, and so I wish to conduct my studies alone. I appreciate your concern for me, I really do - but when it comes to Uesugi-kun, I do not think we can see eye to eye."
Leaving Miku sitting alone at the foot of their bed, Itsuki retreats into the large and spacious bathroom to wash her hands and her face. Ichika, having noticed the two of them having what looked from afar like a rather serious conversation, steals quick but sharp glances over at her every so often while she's chatting with Nino - Miku's long hair and blue headphones do much to cover her face from the side, so Ichika can't get a good read on her face.
"Yo, what's up. Not missing us much, I hope?"
"You fucking nuts, kid? I already miss you two! The office feels so goddamn empty without either of you runnin' around!"
"Neither of us do much running around the place, though. And stop being so lonely, what're you gonna do once Raiha moves out."
"That won't happen, I swear to God! I'll keep her here with me until the end of time!"
"I'll have to file a police report out for you if you're actually serious about that."
"Ah c'mon, kiddo..."
"What? I never know if you're actually being serious or not with the way you talk."
Overlooking the beachfront at the roof of the resort, Uesugi Fuutarou, still in his school uniform, surveys the dreamy paradise landscape with his phone up to his ear, connected via international call to his father Isanari.
"Speaking of Raiha, actually, how's she doing? This should be her first time outside of Japan, you're making sure to keep her safe too, right?"
"Obviously, no need to even mention it. But she's enjoying it a lot - I'm glad we were able to convince Nakano-san to take her along with us."
"Yeah, I'll have you know that it wasn't easy convincing him to take her too. You know how he is, that stubborn son of a bitch..."
"And I'm the guy who has to work with him."
"Hey, I went to fuckin' school with him back in the day. We were even classmates, y'know?"
"Yeah, you told me that one before."
"It's true this time, I swear!"
Fuutarou chuckles a little, enjoying the hearty high-altitude ocean breeze that blankets his face. The early evening sun has painted the sky a translucent pearl blue with stripes of red, yellow, and orange near the horizon, and Fuutarou's weary eyes feel as though they're being rejuvenated just looking at this incredible view.
"So...did the guy talk yet or no?" Fuutarou asks, dropping his voice somewhat even though it won't matter where he's standing.
"He did, finally. Managed to break him the night you all left."
"Why, taking your anger out on him because you won't be seeing us for the next week?"
"Of course not, whatever makes you think that?"
"Dad, your voice just dropped by a lot when you said that."
"Did it? I almost didn't notice. Anyways, I've got good news and bad news."
"Bad news first, like always."
"Bad news: apparently they're not the only drug runners in the city who've got liquid Heisei. In fact, he said there're quite a few of them out there, but he doesn't know the exact number."
"Shit...then this's worse than I thought. Isanari, you've been keeping eyes on the news lately, right?"
"Sure am. News stories about drugs, police raids and seizures...even the local talk shows had an episode discussing it and such. Drugs are on the rise, no doubt about that. What do you think?"
"Some drug trafficking is normal; it's to be expected of the city with how much it's developed over the years. As the city grows, more people want to move in and live there, get good jobs and whatnot, but with more people, naturally you'll also have the vultures and the human trash who move in with them, wanting to capitalize on them and the new markets they present. If it weren't to this scale I probably wouldn't even have cared..."
"But with drugs being so prevalent right now..."
"...and the fact that one of my tutoring students even had a sample of Heisei on her..." Fuutarou sighs audibly, raising his chin to look up at the evening azure sky. "It's a big concern now. You didn't ask the guy if he knows why drugs are on such a big rise right now? I feel like he'd have an idea."
"That's a negative. His crew was apparently a small-time crew, nothing like a big gang or anything."
"Problem is, the city's so new that there hasn't been enough time to build up well-established drug gangs or drug rings even. Add in the city's own aggressive anti-drug campaigns, and it's been difficult getting any sort of organized crime up in the city."
"Well, that and you've been intervening to make sure they don't get anywhere either."
"That too."
"Not Yakuza either?"
"The Yakuza's at least got honor - that's much more than I can say about most mages. And it takes them time to move into a new territory like our city - they make sure that it's a territory that they can take over with as little hassle as possible. If there's already someone who controls the territory, then depending on who they are, they may be quicker about it, or take even more time..."
"Or in your case, don't even bother at all."
"I guess."
"Hmm...it's gotta be because of some mages then?"
"More than likely. Since organized crime doesn't really exist in any true fashion in the city, that means drugs are being trafficked on small-scale operations, small enough and numerous enough that the police can't possibly catch everything. Gangs like the one we got our man from, basically, all over the city and doing small-time jobs. Normally small-scale stuff like this doesn't turn into anything big unless there's some kind of major dynamic shift in the city of some kind, something extraneous that happens first that has a domino effect throughout the rest of the city, but nothing like that's going on. So while we have no evidence right now, one of the more likely answers right now is other mages coming into the city, trying to claim it as their own. And since it's Heisei we're talking about..."
"They're trying to expand their hegemonies by selling drugs?"
"It's happened before in other places, but just not on this scale to the point where even the general public has an idea of what's going on. Now that I think about it, in recent years the city downtown's been a hotspot for foreign tourists, and their demographic is usually young adults, college students or college age, but they're not enough to explain this level of growth..."
"And you said that it's the mage creed or whatever that mages act in secret and not let themselves become known or anything?"
"Right, so this directly violates that. But we have to prove that there are in fact other alien mages who've come into the city doing this shit. We know there's another one in the city, that's for sure, but we can't make any assumptions right now that they're directly involved in this matter. It's likely that they are, but we have no proof..."
"And that's where I bring in the good news - our guy revealed who his crew's been working with."
"Nice, hit me. You could've told me that a while ago, I think."
"Hey, what's wrong with wanting to talk with my son for a little bit?"
"This is an international call, motherfucker, I'd rather use this money to pay off our own fuckin' debt."
"Sheesh, kids these days...but alright. He confirmed that his client, the person who ordered his crew to bring him the quintuplets, is in fact a mage by the name of Shirazumi Rio. Apparently it's some sort of nickname, our guy doesn't know his actual name. Does that ring any bells?"
"Shirazumi Rio...? It doesn't sound familiar right now, did you run it through our database?"
"I did, but nothing's coming up."
"Then he's probably a newbie on the block. Wants to get his name out there or something, and the city's a perfect springboard for notoriety - imagine all the reputation you can earn for yourself in a new city that's practically a blank slate, for now."
"Right...the details about him the our guy gave me matches what we know about him so far. Uses a knife, tends to stalk people and act all creepy and shit..."
"Great, another one of those crazy fuckers."
"You're goddamn right. Never liked them myself either, mainly because I live with one."
"I'm gonna tell Raiha that you insulted her cooking behind her back."
"Please don't."
"Then is there anything else you have to share?"
"That's it for now. I've extracted as much info as I could outta our guy, he's pretty much squeezed dry by this point."
"Would've liked it if he gave us more intel on this Rio guy..."
"Yeah, but I work on him any more and he'll be braindead the next time you see him, and might I remind you that you're the one who doesn't want me doing that. What do you want me to do with him?"
"Drop him off at the hospital like usual. How badly did you break him?"
"Pretty bad, but he's a resilient motherfucker. He held out as long as he could, I'll give him that."
"Then yeah, drop his ass off at the hospital and let the ICU handle him. Just make sure to give him the slip before you leave."
"Yep, yep. Send Raiha my regards."
Tapping off the call, Fuutarou pockets his phone. He would love to have a cigarette right about now, but he doesn't want to risk getting caught by Raiha, especially not around the quintuplets since that'll just cause him nothing but even more trouble. That, and the winds on the roof of the resort don't make it easy to have a nice, relaxing smoke overlooking the beach. Maybe at some point when he's got some time to himself, he'll head down to the beachfront somewhere, find a smoking section, and light up - who knows when he'll have the opportunity to smoke with the beach in plain view again.
Uesugi more or less figured that the mage who was responsible for killing the Nakanos' butler Ebata-san was the one who hired Nino's dealer and his crew to try to kidnap the quintuplets; more or less the only reason why he'd hesitated on assuming the connection was true was to account for the small chance that maybe it could be a different rogue mage who might be after the Nakano girls, but thankfully it's not that complicated of a situation. And if there really were more than a single mage targeting the Nakanos, he'd know about it with the extensive surveillance network that he's put down throughout the city, and they would have immediately alerted him to signs of magic being used throughout the city, which, ever since he's planted his security rune network, he has detected none of, meaning that this Shirazumi Rio mage is laying low for the time being.
Because of the lack of activity from Rio, Fuutarou's been able to get away with these last few weeks not having to worry about him, but now that they have confirmation of Rio's involvement in the incident from that weekend, it's about time that he give him some attention. A knife user with the ability to infiltrate a vehicle without even entering - possible displacement magic, or perhaps small-scale teleportation magic. It's difficult to diagnose his abilities properly with the lack of information outside of Ebata-san's murder case, so he needs to be on his guard - while Fuutarou himself is no fledgling mage, he still considers himself largely inexperienced, though that could be attributed simply because of the lack of modern mages in this day and age. Perhaps that's for the better, but it does mean that whenever an encounter with another possibly hostile mage is inevitable, for the most part, he must fend them off alone.
Perhaps for this one, since he's got many more clients on his hands than usual, he'll give one of his old friends a call. Who knows if he'll pick up, though.
A few hours later, once the sun has fully set, Fuutarou walks into the resort's main front lobby and directs himself over to the lounge, where he can help himself to a free cup of coffee that he'll need for the night ahead. Since this is their first day in Honolulu, the girls haven't been very active due to their minor jetlag, so they haven't gone swimming yet or done anything noteworthy other than having a luxurious dinner in the resort's in-house restaurant and enjoying a relaxing outdoor spa. On second thought, perhaps those things are noteworthy...
By this point, because of their jetlag, the girls should be fast asleep in their room so that their bodies can adjust to the local time here in Hawaii. Fuutarou is used to adjusting to jetlag frequently, so it doesn't affect him as much, though the cup of coffee that he pours for himself will certainly give him a little boost that he can appreciate.
As he finishes pouring the coffee and the live band playing in the lounge for the moderate number of guests that are socializing here pauses its music to begin playing their next song, Fuutarou hears what sounds like a familiar voice as he brings his cup up to his lips to drink.
"Chief, I told you, I'm on vacation right now, this wasn't something I could exactly avoid...!"
That type of speech, the fact that she called someone "Chief"...it must be Ichika, regarding her part-time job that he still has no idea about, mainly because he's never asked Ichika about it. None of the other quints are likely to call anyone "Chief"...with the exception of maybe Yotsuba if she's feeling playful while addressing him, which, admittedly, happens a lot. Nevertheless, Fuutarou concentrates on eavesdropping, making sure to get closer carefully without attracting attention to himself by moving with a casual, almost lazy gait and putting up an appearance of enjoying his coffee.
Ichika sounds like she's nearby, and sure enough, Fuutarou locates her talking to someone over the phone and standing out in one of the side corridors, near a window that allows visual access to the huge swimming pool outside that is one of the prides of the resort. He leans against a nearby wall as close as he can get to Ichika without looking terribly suspicious, raising a hand to his left ear and planting a tiny rune behind it that amplifies Ichika's words specifically when his left eardrum hears her words.
"Yeah, I told you a full week ahead of time before I left, and you said okay, so even if you found another audition for me, it's not like I can just fly back right away, you know...yes, I understand, I'll come in double time to make up for this week...thank you, I'll enjoy myself while I'm here. You too, Chief, have a good night."
Fuutarou waits for Ichika to walk out of the corridor back to the lounge, and when she passes him without noticing him standing against the wall that she's just walked past, he takes a loud sip of his coffee to get her attention, which succeeds and causes her to glance briefly behind her and double-take at the sight of her tutor standing against the wall like he is, sipping coffee.
"F-Fuutarou-kun? Fancy seeing you here..." the eldest quint chuckles awkwardly, caught off-guard by his sudden appearance as Fuutarou stops leaning against the wall to greet her properly.
"Yeah, I just came down to grab some coffee."
"Coffee at this hour...? Oh, is it for a long shift tonight...? If you can even call it a shift, haha..."
"Might as well call it a shift. Though it's what I usually do anyways."
"I've never seen you drink coffee before, though."
"In part because normally I'd have to pay for it."
"Oh..." Ichika smiles awkwardly too. "So that's why, huh..."
"Naturally. I'm a mega-cheapskate, I thought you all knew this. Free stuff is the best stuff."
"Mega-cheapskate, huh? It seems like you know your way around a resort like this just fine, though. You even knew that there was complimentary coffee around here and found it."
"Well, the coffee counter's not exactly hidden, you can even see it from the main lobby at a certain angle."
Fuutarou drains the rest of his coffee.
"You know what I'm about to talk to you about though, don't you?" he mutters to Ichika, who immediately averts her eyes.
"...so you were listening in just now, right?"
"I only caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to pique my interest. You've never told me about this whole part time job thing that you've been working at."
"I mean, you never asked about it, so..."
"Because it was none of my business, and you've been attending our lessons, so I didn't feel obligated to ask you about it. At least, not until recently."
Fuutarou slowly sets his right hand into his phone pocket.
"And, probably most importantly, I didn't think you'd tell me truthfully even if I did ask you. Especially not around your sisters."
Ichika blinks back at Fuutarou.
"...how did you know...?" she asks weakly.
"A couple things, actually. For starters, every time you needed to leave for your work, you'd always do so in a hurry, like you're always late. Why would a girl like you who's normally super relaxed and chill most of the time, narcoleptic even at times, all of a sudden get all alert and hurry around the time she needs to go to work? Every time one of your sisters asks you where you're going, you always reply with 'work' and that's it, while if you're going somewhere else, you usually tell your sisters exactly where you're going, like the supermarket, the coffee shop, or the department store. And lastly, and most importantly, for the past week, you've skipped out on four out of five of the days I've been over."
Ichika can't stop herself from swallowing back a bit of her saliva in nervousness as Fuutarou lays out the facts before her.
"The first two days or so I let slide, since you'd been attending lessons diligently with Miku and Yotsuba, and you'd only go to work after lessons were done. Now, you've been skipping them outright. If you only skipped like one lesson last week, I probably wouldn't have given it much thought - like, you girls have your own lives and agendas, I get that, and I've been doing my best to be as accommodating as I can. But four lessons in a row...you can't blame me for getting a bit curious as to what your job is, especially not after I heard you promising whoever you were talking to just a little bit ago that you'd come in for double the work shifts or whatever you two were talking about."
"W-Well, it's - it's a pretty intense job, what can I say ~ " Ichika gestures a little.
"Pretty intense job, huh? Doesn't really sound like a 'part-time job' to me, then."
"But it is, though! Who says part-times can't be tough?"
"And what sort of part-time job could you be taking as a freshman in high school where your employer asks you to come in to work double shifts? I wasn't aware you were working one of those stereotypical office jobs at some rich company downtown or something."
"I-It's not like that! Just don't worry about it, Fuutarou-kun, I can handle it on my own. You don't need to worry about me."
"Then I won't, and instead I'll worry about what my salary's gonna look like when I have to tell your dad that all of a sudden, I'm only teaching two of his daughters instead of the three like I have been. You don't think he's gonna look at that and think I've been slacking off on my own job?"
"But like, can't you just...not tell him that I haven't been showing up? Is it really that big of a deal?"
Fuutarou simply raises an eyebrow down at Ichika.
"...I may not know what your relationship is exactly with your dad, but what I know is that he isn't someone to lie to," he responds simply but quietly. "So what makes you think I'll risk losing this tutoring gig by lying to him about your attendance?"
The two of them lock eye contact for a few moments, but Ichika can't hold out against the subtly icy glare of Fuutarou's dull, almost lifeless black eyes and is forced to disengage.
"All I'll say is...it's a job that's very important to me. It...it means a lot," she confides somewhat reservedly, which is unlike her usual big sister-like aura. "And right now, I'm almost at the point where I can take the next big step. I know I've had to sacrifice some of the lessons in order to concentrate on it, and I didn't mean to hide this from you."
"That's fine, I don't mind that part and I won't ask you about your job if you're not comfortable with sharing that with me. But I am at least obligated to ask you if this's going to keep happening, which it sounds like it will."
"Y-Yeah, probably."
"Right. And for how much longer?"
"I don't know. But I'll try to get everything sorted out as fast as I can."
Fuutarou raises an eyebrow at the eldest quint. "Can I trust you with that?"
"Yeah, you can! Just leave it to Ichika-onee-san!" she points her thumb at her bosom confidently, but Fuutarou notes the small little sweat that's popped on her scalp.
"Then I'll leave you be. But I do hope that you can sort out whatever it is that you're working on - as much as I'd love to just let you do whatever, as your tutor I will step in if I feel like your part-time's interfering with your grades."
"It won't get to that point, I promise."
"Alright, then..."
Shrugging with acceptance, Fuutarou heads back to the coffee table to dispose of his empty coffee cup, with Ichika in tow.
"Actually, now that you're here, there's something I'd like to talk to you about, Fuutarou-kun, if you're not too busy at the moment," she chirps up, trying to shake off the sudden shock of meeting Fuutarou here in the lounge like this so unexpectedly.
"That's rare, you having something to talk to me about," he remarks, turning to give her back his attention after he tosses away his cup. "What's up?"
"I saw Miku having a pretty serious conversation with Itsuki earlier today when we first got our hotel room. Miku doesn't usually do that; it's usually one of us who has to go over to Miku to have a serious talk, since she's pretty introverted. So I asked her what was up, and she told me that she was trying to get Itsuki to come join our lessons with you."
"Hm, yeah, that's certainly not like her, I don't think."
"Right? So I asked her why, and she said she feels like you've been putting in the work, and so she just wants to try to help you as much as she can."
"By trying to convince Itsuki to come join us, huh...I guess she might've done the same to Nino at some point, then."
"Maybe, I didn't ask her if she tried talking to Nino yet or not."
"Honestly, I don't want her doing that."
"Why not?"
"Because it'll make her seem like she's got feelings for me or whatever, trying to get those two to come over. I don't want her to get accused of that, I'm sure that's not even the case either."
"Oh ho ~ you care about Miku like that, huh...?" Her eyes growing leery and predatory, Ichika seizes her opportunity to pounce on Fuutarou...figuratively. "She's definitely been your best student among us three, so I guess it's only natural that you'd feel biased for her, right ~ "
"Like I said, it's not like that," Fuutarou frowns in annoyance. "I've dealt with people enough to know that that's a possibility, and it's even more applicable here since you're all sisters. The last thing I need is to tutor you girls while you're all on less than ideal terms with each other. Not to mention, getting Nino and Itsuki to take lessons with everyone is supposed to be my responsibility."
"Maybe so, but now that I think about it, isn't it because she might have feelings for you that she feels compelled to go to Itsuki asking her to join us?" Ichika suggests rather teasingly. "Because you even said it yourself right? That this doesn't feel like something she'd do normally. Not to mention, I've noticed that over the past few weeks that you've been tutoring us, she's been opening up to you little by little. She almost never does that for anyone else."
"Well, I have been seeing you girls basically every day for the past three weeks. I'd hope that this were the case, right? We should be at least on good terms so that I can do my job as effectively as I can."
"Aww, c'mon, just admit it if you have feelings for her too, Fuutarou-kun."
Rolling his eyes, Fuutarou groans softly. "I guess it is like you to fuss over something like this. I don't think that's the case, you're probably just overreacting."
"Hey, I'm her sister, you know. Sisters just know this type of thing!"
"Fair, but Miku was pretty neutral towards me in the beginning, wasn't she? I'm not saying she couldn't have had a change of heart since then, but she's just trying to help me, I'm sure. Not because she likes me or whatever."
"Aha, I know! It's because you're embarrassed that a girl likes you. I bet you don't normally get to hang out with cute girls like us, huh?"
"Calling yourself cute...you've got some guts, don't you."
"But am I wrong, though?" Ichika blows a small kiss at Fuutarou, who physically banks to his right as if to dodge it.
"I'm not the best person to ask that. Like you said, I don't hang out with people in general if I can help it, let alone girls like you."
"Ooohhh, so I get it, since you don't hang out with girls really whatsoever, we're cute because you don't have any other idea of what cute is. I see!"
"Wow, and here I was thinking you were a nice girl. Turns out you've got some spice to you."
"I do like spicy food every once in a while, so that makes sense." Ichika takes a step towards her tutor. "But back to being serious, I think you should talk to Miku at some point this week, just you and her. Because when I talked to her earlier today, it seemed like she was trying her best to help you out, and she wasn't having a lot of luck, it didn't seem like. The whole feeling situation aside, you should at least talk to her about it, since there was no way for you to've known about what she's been trying to do for you unless one of us told you about it, and it sure as heck isn't going to be Itsuki. And it's not like Miku's going to tell you herself either, right?"
Scratching the back of his head, Fuutarou gives back an expression of uncertainty.
"I don't get why I'd need to, but...if nothing else, I could probably tell her to stop trying to convince her sisters and just let me handle that on my own, I suppose..."
"I can hook you two up. We're going to be pretty busy for the next two days, but afterwards our schedule should be a lot lighter. I can have Miku meet you on Wednesday or Thursday."
"Today's what, Sunday? Sure, just let me know, I guess."
"I'll give you my number real quick. You should really get everyone else's numbers too."
"Nah, not now, that'd be a bit weird..."
"Then later, okay?"
"I'll think about it."