A/N
Red Glasses: For all the non-sequiturs you spam in a few of my stories, finally I've found something worth reading and taking into consideration. Chapter 18 has been slightly revised as per your feedback.
Will be taking another small break to work on other stories that sorely need my attention and other projects.
Nakano Ichika stands alone on the veranda of their hotel room, overlooking the Waikiki beachfront. Resting her arms folded across the flat wooden railing, she lets the salty sea breeze brush back her peachy-red hair as her sore, vivid blue eyes rest wearily on the pristine Hawaiian sunset laid out before her in picture-perfect form.
But she isn't alone for long. The sliding door behind her rumbles open and closed, and out steps her sister who'd been with her earlier this morning. Ichika doesn't turn to see who it is, despite the fact that Yotsuba doesn't make her presence known like she usually does, in part because the former already has a good idea who it is.
"Ichika ~ !"
Glomping her oldest sister suddenly, Yotsuba throws herself onto Ichika to hug her out of the blue.
"Figured it was you," Ichika is compelled to chuckle, letting Yotsuba do as she pleases. "You all ready to go?"
"Mhm! Miku helped me pick out my clothes for tonight," Yotsuba nods enthusiastically, gesturing down at herself. Ichika looks down as well to see her wearing a set of dark brown overalls over a clean white tee, in addition to her usual green hair ribbon that sways with the wind.
"Miku, huh...I can tell." Snickering, the eldest quint pinches one of Yotsuba's overall straps. "True to her style, she's never had a good eye for things like this..."
"I-I like it, though! Overalls makes me unique, doesn't it? You don't really see girls walking around in these, do you?"
"No, not really, but like...it's overalls, Yotsuba. Like, you don't wanna be known as that one girl who walks around in these, do you?"
"I think they're cute! And that's all that should matter!" Yotsuba purses her lips indignantly at Ichika who sounds like she's trying to diss her fashion style for tonight, and Ichika simply giggles some more.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You're right though, they do look cute on you - but that's only because all my sisters are cute too!" Ichika goes on the offensive a little herself and snatches up Yotsuba in her own arms to reciprocate her hug from just a moment ago.
"Y-You're not just saying that to call yourself cute too, right? I know you've done that a few times before..."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"So you are calling yourself cute! Who does that, Ichika?!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
Bursting into a much needed fit of laughter, Ichika and Yotsuba both naturally resume gazing out to sea, enjoying the panoramic beach view that will be their last for the foreseeable future.
"Did you enjoy everything so far, Yotsuba? Do everything you wanted to? Make all the memories you wanted?" Ichika asks her, her tone changing for the more melancholic.
"Yep. We played on the beach, went surfing - or at least everyone else tried to - got beachside spa treatments, ate tons of yummy Hawaiian food, went snorkeling, swam with turtles, sunbathed, went hiking..." Yotsuba rattles off everything that she and her sisters have done over the past week during their vacation to the best of her knowledge. "Oh, and we made sure Raiha-chan enjoyed everything too!"
"Raiha-chan really did make this trip a lot more fun for us, didn't she," Ichika nods sagely, brushing back some of her bangs that are whipping in her eyes from the wind. "At first I didn't know how the trip would turn out with her tagging along, but she's such a good girl, so sweet, too."
"It was a ton of fun watching her reactions to everything!" Yotsuba nods hugely in earnest agreement. "Watching her was like watching ourselves from years ago, back when Dad first started taking us on vacations."
"Got a point there. The good old days, back when we were just kids Raiha-chan's age, too..."
Yotsuba lets the early May seabreeze fill the silence between them a bit before speaking up again, this time with:
"...but...there is one thing that I haven't done yet..."
Ichika keeps her gaze locked out to sea, taking a deep breath.
"So you're going to give it to him after all?"
Nodding, but this time much more slowly, Yotsuba now sports a smile that has acquired a noticeable amount of uneasiness behind it.
"Even after what I said to him at the restaurant?"
"I did end up going around anyway to find something to give him, right? I can't just...buy him something and...not give it to him," Yotsuba reasons softly.
"I guess not."
"Do you hate him, Ichika?"
Despite expecting this question to be asked in some form at some point during this conversation, the first quintuplet is surprised at how hard it hits her anyway. Lowering her gaze down at the resort grounds below, Ichika rests her chin and lips into her arms that have resumed their place on the wooden railing of the hotel room veranda.
"...I don't hate him, no. Why do you ask?" she murmurs pensively.
"Because...it's not every day you say those kinds of things to people."
The final lines of conversation that Ichika exchanged with her tutor play back in Ichika's ears, as though Yotsuba's just hit a replay button in her memories with her words.
"You usually don't act like that, Ichika," Yotsuba states quietly. By this point, her pained smile is now gone - and only sadness is written on the normally jovial face of hers. "Telling people that they don't deserve something...that they ought to leave us alone. You've never said that to any of us, but you'll say it to people who bother us whenever that's happened over the years, whether it's bullies at school or...or boys around the city who try to hit on us. But today, you said that to Uesugi-san."
Wanting to defend herself, Ichika can't spit out the words she wants to say, instead opting to swallow them back down and listen to the rest of what Yotsuba's got to say.
"Did you, um...have a fight with him at some point over the last week or two, Ichika?" Yotsuba asks lightly, as if afraid to uncover what could be the truth. "Because...you didn't come to lessons for most of last week...I've seen everyone else, even Nino and Itsuki, hang out and talk with him at some point throughout this week, but I haven't really seen you talking much with him...so I kinda figured that maybe something happened between the two of you that would make you not really like him..."
Finally, Ichika stands up straight to explain herself.
"I don't hate him, Yotsuba. And nothing happened between us...it's just..."
Yotsuba patiently waits for her sister to come up with an adequate answer.
"...it's just...when he said that part while we were waiting for our lunch to arrive," the shortest-haired quintuplet recounts slowly, "I remember feeling...angry. Like, actually angry, angry. You know I don't really get actually angry at a lot of things..."
Nodding again, Yotsuba confirms her sister's self-conscious words. "You've always sorted out things between the others whenever Nino gets into fights with Miku or Itsuki."
"Yeah, exactly. But what Fuutarou-kun said towards the end...about how all the magic stuff he told us about when we asked him about it was stuff he didn't want to share with us because he didn't want to bother us with it...that sort of...I don't know...it ticked me off a little."
"But...but why?" Yotsuba blurts out in confusion. "Uesugi-san clearly wasn't comfortable talking to us about stuff like that; honestly in hindsight I shouldn't have asked him something like that, because that's...that's his own business, and...it doesn't seem like something we should meddle in ourselves."
"But that's not your fault, is it? You said yourself when Fuutarou-kun asked you to explain why you want to get him a souvenir so badly that you wanted to put the most genuine feelings into that gift, and so learning about what he does for us outside of his tutoring job is important for that."
"Yeah, but...but like, why did that make you so angry...?"
"Because - ugh, I don't know exactly why." Ichika scratches the side of her head in muted frustration. "Something about it just did. My best guess would be...that...he just sounded so indifferent when he said that, when he said his whole 'oh, I shouldn't bother you with this sort of stuff' thing."
"I don't know...isn't that just the way he usually sounds?"
Grimacing at Yotsuba's point, Ichika once more finds herself stumped. Another awkward silence ensues between the two, but Yotsuba once again takes the initiative.
"Ichika, I appreciate the fact that you were just trying to look after me, to protect me and my silly, naive intentions," she speaks with words that go not through Ichika's ears, but through her heart instead. "But...if you'll let me say one more silly thing, it's that I would rather have let Uesugi-san reject my souvenir directly...rather than have my sister make him reject it for me."
As though she's just done the ice bucket challenge, Ichika freezes up, staring back in creeping horror into Yotsuba's own pair of blue eyes.
"...I...I'm sorry, I didn't...mean to come off like that," she apologizes slowly. "I didn't think of it like that when I told Fuutarou-kun to leave us alone, I swear. I just...wanted to make him understand that...that he was being a jerk for not thinking much about why you've spent all of this morning trying to get him something that'll mean a lot to him."
Merely smiling a little back at her older sister, Yotsuba averts her gaze this time as well.
"It's...not just you either, though. I'm also partly to blame...for how things turned out too," she admits softly.
"You? But how?"
"Well...if you think about it, isn't it a bit...selfish of me to give someone a souvenir even though they clearly don't want one...? Like, now that I think about it, when Uesugi-san's said multiple times today that I don't need to get him something, that he isn't interested in receiving a souvenir, why did we go off and drag him around with us for two hours anyway? And even after he left, why did I still spend another hour in that shopping plaza before I finally found something he might like?"
"It's not your fault, Yotsuba, not at all," Ichika says firmly, using her oldest sister vibes to their fullest potential. "Giving someone a souvenir because you want to give them one, there's nothing wrong with that, even if the person you're giving that gift to says they don't want it, because if that's the case, like you said yourself just now, they can always just turn it down themselves...even if it is a bit rude on their part."
"Maybe so...but that still doesn't explain the fact that I never took Uesugi-san's feelings into consideration, only my own. Maybe it could be that he really doesn't value the time we've spent together, either as his students or the time we've spent here on vacation or whenever."
"Oh c'mon, Yotsuba, you know he's only saying that just to stay 'humble' or whatever."
"Is he, though? Then if he is, what reason would he have to do that?" Yotsuba gazes back at her sister. "We've seen how he acts, both around us and at school, and he acts basically the same wherever he is. He says whatever he wants, whatever's on his mind, and he doesn't sugarcoat much, if anything at all. He even blackmailed our homeroom teacher during our first week at school. Not only that, but he's been doing his whole mage stuff for a long time, it sounds like. So I'm sure that means that we're hardly his first clients, and we won't be his last. Why should we expect any special attention from him? Just because we're quintuplets?"
"But you don't think it's a bit much for him to just flat-out tell you that he doesn't want anything from you? Even though you're the one out of all five of us who's done the most to cooperate with him and support him all this time, by far? You don't feel anything about that whatsoever?"
"...I do, and...of course it bums me out a little...but..."
It seems like Yotsuba is about to follow this up with something, so Ichika waits, but her sister ends up remaining silent.
"You still want to give that to him, though?" she apprehensively finishes Yotsuba's thought, and the latter nods in confirmation. "Then...I'd say to give it to him, despite what he thinks about it. Because if you think about it, Fuutarou-kun's the type of guy who's run into plenty of situations where he's had to do things he didn't like. While I'm not going to stand here and pretend like he's used to that kind of stuff, in comparison, you giving him a souvenir is the least of his worries. That, and Ichika-onee-chan'll make sure he keeps it around and doesn't forget about it!"
Flexing her right arm, Ichika pats her own slender biceps confidently, causing Yotsuba to finally break her silence and giggle a little.
"Wh-What, what's so funny?"
"It just looks funny when you try to flex."
"I bet you can do it better, since you're the one who actually goes out there and actively gets exercise."
"Eeeehhh, but I don't know, wouldn't I just look dumb...?"
"Oh c'mon, we're all already book-dumb, it can't hurt to look the part from time to time."
"That's not very reassuring, Ichika!"
"C'mon, just try, I already did it, now show me your moves ~ "
"Fine, fine ~ " Giving in, Yotsuba uses both arms to flex playfully, flashing her signature toothy grin. "Howzat?!"
"Oooh, as expected of the most athletic Nakano quintuplet!"
The sliding door opens once more as the two of them goof off on the veranda, and Nino sticks her head out, giving both of them judging looks.
"Just what the hell are you two doing...?" she groans, scowling at them.
"Just the usual Yotsuba stuff. Wanna hang out?" Ichika offers, having Yotsuba in a light headlock while the latter waves eagerly at her other older sister.
"Not when you two are being weird. Besides, we need to meet Uesugi down at the lobby in ten, so we gotta go."
"Whoopsie, that's right, completely forgot about the time," Ichika gives a short gasp of surprise as she checks her phone. "You girls go on ahead, we'll meet you down there."
"Sure thing..."
Slipping back inside the room, Nino retreats from the scene, leaving the first and fourth quintuplets by themselves again. Turning to the younger, Ichika releases Yotsuba from her headlock and instead places her hands on her shoulders.
"Okay, let's start from the top: I'm sorry for chasing Fuutarou-kun away like that. I don't know what came over me when I said those things to him, and while I'm sure he doesn't care one way or another, both for me saying those things to him and for you who wants to give him a souvenir, I didn't consider your feelings regarding the matter at all," she declares to set things straight. "I'll apologize to him when I get the chance to be alone with him at some point if it'll make you feel better."
But Yotsuba shakes her head.
"If you want to apologize to him, I want you to do it for his sake, not for mine. After all, just because you told him to go away, doesn't mean I still can't give him what I bought for him."
"Yeah, fair enough. I'll still apologize to him though...I haven't shown it, but...it has been on my mind for a good bit today. Oh!"
Ichika claps her hands together, remembering something.
"We still need to give him the burger he ordered back at Red Robin," she thinks aloud.
"Yeah, you're right. I think we should give it to him after we've come back, since we'll have dinner before leaving for the airport."
"Good point, let's do that then. By the way, what did you even get him?"
Smiling brightly, Yotsuba leans in to tell her sister.
After those ten minutes that Nino warns Ichika and Yotsuba of elapse, the quintuplets, with the missing exceptions of Ichika and Yotsuba who are lagging behind, plus Raiha step into the hotel lounge next to the reception area, where they spy their tutor on his phone while drinking some free coffee.
"So you wanna tell us how much coffee you've drank while we've been here?" Nino asks him with a less-than-amused expression, and Fuutarou simply takes another sip from his cup in response, giving the second quintuplet a scowl of his own.
"As many times as you've gone to the spa here. So a number that you can't count with just two hands."
Nino immediately begins slapping Fuutarou on his arm. She wants to straight up punch him in his upper arm, but that would be inappropriate for the setting that they're in, so she has to settle for hard slaps instead. Ignoring Nino's harassment, Fuutarou surveys the group as Raiha trots up to him to give him a welcome back hug.
"Where are Ichika and Yotsuba?" he asks the others.
"Nino said that they would follow us shortly. Where were they, Nino?" Itsuki asks her older sister.
"Outside on the veranda. Those two seem to be hanging out together a lot lately, don't you think?" Nino mentions, thinking aloud now that the thought has properly registered in her mind. Ceasing her slapping, she turns to her sisters. "Just earlier this morning, they went off to some nearby shopping plaza or something together."
"What, we can't hang out with whoever one of us we want?" Miku points out.
"I'm not saying that, don't twist my words out of context. I'm just saying, Ichika and Yotsuba have wildly different tastes and interests most of the time, so I'm just surprised that they've been hanging out more than usual."
"Well, things like that can certainly happen. I do not think that is a bad thing, either," Itsuki nods happily at this. "That simply means we are all able to get along with each other, right? You two ought to learn from them."
Nino and Miku both glance at each other for a whopping two seconds before flicking their gazes away in opposite directions.
"Get along with her? Yeah, in your dreams," Nino scoffs condescendingly.
"I know you have high hopes, Itsuki, but high hopes alone never got anyone anywhere," Miku sighs to her younger sister.
"W-Will you two just listen for once?!" Fuming in place, Itsuki pouts at her two sisters, who maintain their standoffish stances, both at each other and towards their younger sister.
"Must be tough tryin'a be Team Mom of the bunch, huh?" Fuutarou remarks, spectating the three-way quintuplet free-for-all with Raiha.
"Yes it is, indeed! These girls have no idea how difficult it is to keep everyone in line."
"Oh, excuse me, Mom, I wasn't aware you were the one who does all the cooking in the house!" Nino challenges.
"B-Being Team Mom has more to it than simply c-cooking!" Itsuki hurriedly casts out to defend herself and maintain her position.
"Like what, Itsuki? Studying?" Miku attacks Itsuki from a different flank, exacerbating her embarrassment. "Maybe if you were the one who got the highest grades among us, you'd be able to use that, but I didn't know your name was Miku and not Itsuki."
"Yeah, I know, right? Maybe if you write your 5's messily enough, you'll turn them into 3's, but you'll never do that since your handwriting's too good," Nino continues to tease in tandem with Miku.
At this point, Itsuki, unable to defend herself against two avenues of attack at the same time, pivots swiftly to her would-be tutor to request his assistance in the war.
"Uesugi-kun, please tell these two to settle down and stop being mean to their own sisters! Including me!" she cries, her face almost as red as her hair.
"But you won't even show up to my lessons," he tells her dryly.
"Th-That's because now you won't even LET me!"
"But you did say that you changed your mind because of it."
"And whose fault is THAT?!"
"Besides, you two seem to get along better than Itsuki makes you two out to," he points out to Nino and Miku. "Or is it only because you two have a common enemy for now, and after tonight, it'll go back to being a quintuplet battle royale?"
At this, both Nino and Miku glance at each other uncertainly.
"Th-This is only a truce for now. Afterwards, anything goes!" Nino declares first.
"Fine by me. I'll take you on any time," Miku retorts, assuming a rather poor wing chun fighting stance with the straightest of faces. "I'll have you know that I've won the last three out of four chopstick fights we've had, and that I'm the undisputed Suma-Bura champion of us all."
"That's because the rest of us don't play Suma-Bura like nerds like you!"
"Sounds like your problem, honestly. Feed me more salt, Nino, I'll need it for dinner later tonight."
"Oh, yeah, lemme just get you some salt real quick, don't mind me..." Nino sidesteps her way over to the coffee table to grab a handful of salt packets, but Fuutarou steps in just in time to check her by firmly grabbing hold of her left wrist.
"As much as I'd love to watch the two of you throw salt at each other, it's gonna be my ass that they'll roast once hotel management gets here and starts asking who's responsible for you all," he hisses in a low voice with his face mere inches away from Nino's. "So drop the salt, please."
Reluctantly, the second quint complies, rubbing her wrist a little once she's done so and Fuutarou releases his grip on her wrist immediately afterwards.
"Ehehe, Onii-chan, you sure get along well with everyone," Raiha smiles up at her older sibling, having watched everyone's interactions as a bystander.
"Get along with everyone? I'm not so sure if you can call it that..." Uesugi ponders, his face contorting with doubt written all over it.
"Yeah, Raiha-chan, we don't get along at all. You couldn't be more wrong about that one!" Nino also claims. "If there's one thing the two of us can agree on, it's that."
"Well, compared to how Onii-chan usually is around other people he works with..." Raiha begins to wonder, but Fuutarou places his left hand carefully over her mouth.
"Mmkay, that's enough outta you. Where're the others, anyway? It's five past - "
"We're here, we're here!"
Ichika's voice calls across the lounge as she and Yotsuba, the last two to show up, jog hurriedly out of the elevator lobby to rendezvous with the rest of their family and friends.
"Okay good, that's everyone then. Nobody's forgetting anything? Room card, wallets, purses, phones? No? A'ight, let's - "
"U-Uesugi-san, wait, before we go - !"
It's not just Fuutarou who turns to give Yotsuba the attention that she apparently demands; all of her sisters, with the exception of Ichika, and Raiha also turn to her, wondering what is the matter. Once she's got everyone's attention, the fourth quintuplet raises a small but sleek and clean black case with an apple emblem blazed on the center.
"I didn't have the time to get it wrapped, so...I have to give it to you like this," Yotsuba confesses. "I know you kept telling us that we didn't need to get you one, but - but if I don't give it to you now, you might just ignore it altogether."
His eye twitching down at the black case, Fuutarou can do nothing but simply shake his head.
"I didn't know you could play dirty too, Yotsuba. Giving me this in front of everyone so that I'd feel worse about it if I say no now," he grumbles off to the side.
"I-I'm sorry! But I had to, please forgive me ~ !" the ribboned quintuplet apologizes profusely.
"What is this? You're making her apologize for giving you a gift, Uesugi?" Nino thunders aggressively, crossing her arms judgingly as she glares up at her would-be tutor. "You're the worst, the absolute worst. You don't deserve anything from any of us, let alone Yotsu - "
"Nino, Yotsuba isn't done," Miku snaps back at her to give Yotsuba the room she needs to finish what she was saying.
"A-Anyways! This is - this is from all of us," Yotsuba continues, once more stretching out her arms with the black case in offering to her tutor.
"All of you? Including these two?" Fuutarou points back and forth from Nino and Itsuki.
"Hey, Yotsuba, you never told us we were a part of this!" Nino also cries out, shocked at Yotsuba's intentions. "I hate to say it, but Uesugi's right, you are playing dirty right now!"
To her sisters, however, Yotsuba gives back her signature toothy grin.
"And so on everyone's behalves, please accept this!" Yotsuba hops forward and practically shoves the case right into Uesugi's hands, which have no choice but to take it from her.
"Ugh...I...really don't..." Grimacing hard down at his reluctantly accepted souvenir gift, Fuutarou looks up at the quintuplets. "I'm telling you, I haven't done anything worth thanking like this."
"Now, now, Fuutarou-kun, while you might not think so, there are in fact some of us who value all the time and effort you've put into teaching us and spending time with us," Ichika intervenes gently. "That was what I was trying to get at earlier today. Even if you don't think of it as anything special, there are still some of us who really do appreciate everything you've done for us so far, both the things we've seen you do and the things we haven't. It's time to step out of your comfort zone and learn how to accept the feelings of others, don't you think?"
The young tutor scowls back at the eldest quint, wanting to point out her contradicting behavior from earlier at lunch and now. Ichika herself senses this intention from him and braces herself to confront him when he does point this out, but to her mute surprise, Fuutarou does not say a word back to her and simply gazes down at the box that Yotsuba has handed him.
"Th-That looks really expensive, Onii-chan, what did she give you...?" Raiha asks breathlessly. Even she can tell just from looking at such a sleek box like the one her brother's holding that whatever it is that Yotsuba has gotten for her brother, it shouldn't be something that can be rejected so easily.
"That's...what I'm about to confirm..."
By this point, all the quintuplets notice an uncharacteristic shaking from Fuutarou's hands as he is unable to do anything but stare down at Yotsuba's gift.
"Ah, Uesugi-san's nervous!" Yotsuba observes aloud.
"Wooooow, who knew that the cold, mean Uesugi would be scared of taking a little gift like that?" Nino snickers maliciously.
"...are you really that unused to getting stuff from other people, Fuutarou?" Miku asks with a genuine touch of concern.
"If the gift is really something you absolutely cannot accept, then we can try to do something about it..." Itsuki also speaks worriedly, though she's looking more at the gift rather than Fuutarou himself.
"Are we popping your souvenir cherry, Fuutarou-kun? It's okay, it's not as bad as it seems, haha ~ " Ichika teases her tutor, as per usual.
Already having somewhat of an idea of what this could be, Fuutarou cringes one last time as he slowly opens it to reveal its contents for good, and the quintuplets and Raiha all crowd together more to see what Yotsuba's gotten for him. Inside the sleek black case sits -
"...a smartwatch?" Nino scoffs loudly, unable to believe it. "That's it?"
"All that suspense just for that..." Miku also sounds a bit disappointed and physically deflates, feeling awkward for having gotten her own hopes up for no real reason.
"Er...maybe..." Seeing all the negative feedback from her sisters, Yotsuba begins to have second thoughts about the souvenir she's gotten her tutor and starts wishing she got something else that she had in mind. "Is it...not that good...?"
"Why did you even get him something like that anyway?" Itsuki asks, curious to know her sister's rationale, if there is any.
"I mean, like, I figured since Uesugi-san's a busy guy and he's super smart and stuff, he might appreciate something like a smartwatch," Yotsuba tries to reason nervously, finding herself put on the spot again. "But then again, I don't really know much about this super high-end tech stuff since I'm just a dummy and I don't know half the stuff they even do. I just thought it might be something he could find useful...but...I guess it's no good..."
"Actually, Yotsuba..."
The quintuplet in question looks up back at her tutor, as do her fellow siblings. Fuutarou, still wearing that uneasy look on his face, keeps his eyes glued to the brand new smartwatch that gazes back up at him with crystal clarity.
"...this was..." For once, Uesugi is having a hard time finding the proper words to speak. "...this was one of the things that I probably would've wanted..."
At this admission, Yotsuba throws off her nervous look immediately and fills herself instead with glee.
"Then - then that means - ?!"
"Yeah. I'll..." Closing the box, Fuutarou averts his eyes and scratches his scalp with a single finger. "...I'll take it. Thanks."
"See? It wasn't so hard!" Ichika laughs out loud at how amusing it is seeing her own tutor awkwardly accept a gift like this, and she pats him on the back in congratulations as though he'd just finished a triathlon.
"Wait, wait, wait, you actually wanted a smartwatch? I thought only techies and nerds liked that kind of stuff!" Nino gripes back at her would-be tutor.
"He doesn't come off as one to you, Nino?" Miku points out calmly.
"Well, it certainly doesn't help that the only electronic thing we've ever seen him work with is his own phone! And besides, don't you already have like a really good phone to begin with? What is your phone?"
"Google Pixel 3A, but it's a bit of a budget phone. There are better ones out there, and as much as I'd love them for what I do, obviously cost is a big concern for me..."
Itsuki frowns up at Fuutarou. "So...when your hands were shaking just now...was that because...?"
Fuutarou is nodding even before Itsuki can finish speaking her peace. "Yotsuba got me a Double Tour Stainless Steel Hermes from Apple's Series 5," he mutters, as though merely saying the name in full will charge him an arbitrary fee of some kind. "I don't know how much Yotsuba ended up paying for this, but...last time I checked, off retail, it's supposed to go for at least fourteen hundred US dollars...so something roughly like a hundred and forty thousand yen."
"What, only that much? That's nothing," Nino rolls her eyes.
"To you, I'm sure. But for me and my family, this thing alone's enough to pay for up to three months' worth of rent and utilities."
"Should we call Dad, Onii-chan? I think he mentioned one time that he knows a couple of pawn shops back at home..." Raiha mutters, she herself also shuddering in awe at the sleek black case that her brother's holding.
"Yeah...we might have to keep this as a contingency plan in case the debt collectors come knocking..."
"Like brother, like sister, huh?" Ichika chuckles once more while simultaneously delivering karate chops to both Raiha's and Fuutarou's heads. "I get that you aren't exactly well off, but is that really what you should be thinking the moment you get something like this from one of your students?"
"Sorry, just some poor people instincts coming up there."
"How do you know so much about that smartwatch, Fuutarou?" Miku asks. "Since clearly you can't normally afford something like that."
"Like I said before, I'd...actually been thinking about saving for a smartwatch like this, though obviously something a lot cheaper that doesn't have me staring at it for what it's worth," Fuutarou darkly chuckles to himself. "Having a smartphone is really nice - I can check my emails on top of texts and calls wherever I go, but after I finally got one recently and started learning about all the things it can do or I can have it do, I started realizing that there's so much stuff you can do with things like phones and other modern tech devices like smartwatches and tablets."
Taking a quick glance around, Fuutarou leans in a little and drops his voice, but he makes sure to keep himself audible to the girls.
"Stuff like smartphones are also really easy to work with magically, for those of us who know both magic and technological stuff. So while having a phone is super nice and helps me a lot, when I found out that smartwatches were a thing, I looked into those to see what they can do, and I've been thinking of all the stuff I could do with one if I got one eventually."
"Really? Doesn't a smartwatch just like, keep track of your heartrate or whatever? Doesn't seem that useful," Nino says.
"Well, if we're talking ergonomics, a smartwatch is actually superior to a phone in the sense that I don't have to keep pulling it out of my pocket and unlocking the home screen over and over whenever I want to use it. With a smartwatch, though, I can just go like this - " Fuutarou mimes wearing a watch on his left wrist and brings it up to his mouth as if to talk to it. " - and have the watch do what I tell it to instantly. Long story short, it'll let me do stuff more efficiently, and just more stuff in general."
Watching her tutor talk briefly about this tech-related stuff, Yotsuba can't help but smile happily at the fact that Fuutarou is behaving more animatedly now that there's a topic at hand that he clearly finds enjoyable to talk about - and of course, the fact that her gift ended up being appreciated. As a matter of fact, just seeing Fuutarou's reaction to her gift the entire time was well worth all the trouble and anxiety surrounding the circumstances of giving it to him in the first place.
"But anyways, that's enough of that, we're gonna be late at this rate." Fuutarou turns to the quint who's given him this extraordinarily generous souvenir that is perhaps a bit more than just a mere souvenir. "I know you've all got stacks to burn, but this's pretty up there. You sure your dad isn't gonna see this on your bank statements and wonder why you bought this?"
"Oh you don't need to worry about that at all, Dad lets us buy whatever we want!" Yotsuba smiles widely again, exuding her usual "Shi shi shi shi ~ !" chuckle.
"...and here I was, thinking Nino was the spoiled rich girl of you lot."
"I can hear your dumb ass, loser," Nino growls at him from no more than a meter and a half away.
"I know. But well...if I don't need to worry about your dad jumping down my own throat for accepting something like this..."
Fuutarou takes a deep breath, holding the box with both hands, now that Yotsuba notices when she glances down at the smartwatch case she's given him.
"Thank you, Yotsuba. I still don't think I'm quite worth dropping this much money for, but in spite of that, I'm sorry for saying all that nonsense earlier today about how I don't want anything and that you don't need to bother with it," he exhales formally, making it quite apparent that he is inexperienced in properly conveying his thanks. "I'll definitely put this to good use and make sure the money you put into getting this for me isn't wasted."
"You won't pawn it off later once we get back home, now, will you?" Ichika coos mischievously, leaning over next to her tutor.
"I already said I won't!" Fuutarou snaps, starting to look annoyed, and all the quints and Raiha break into a smattering of giggles.
The only one to show no such laughter of camaraderie, Nakano Nino looks on with a surprisingly calm and expressionless face, as if she, too, is a mere bystander like Raiha was earlier. Watching Ichika continue to tease Fuutarou about his newly received souvenir, Nino soon turns away and watches the live band nearby briefly until they depart the hotel for their final scheduled event of their Hawaii vacation.
"So where exactly are we going?" Itsuki calls over to her would-be tutor, who's up in the front passenger seat next to the limousine driver. The same limousine car that the Nakanos have used to arrive at their resort at the beginning of the week is now taking them to their final event of the week.
"There's another resort further up along the beach; it's called the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort," Uesugi explains, having to raise his voice so that everyone in the limousine can hear him from up in front. "Like I said back at the hotel, your dad scheduled one last thing before he left. I guess he did this as an apology for not being able to stay the entire time with you all."
The quintuplets all glance at each other with funny looks at this.
"...pretty sure Dad's never done something like that before," Ichika remarks with a shrug. "Wonder if that's really the case."
"It is certainly possible. He has done a few things like that in the past," Itsuki reminds her sisters. "For example, that one time when he bought us all cakes from a bakery we visited in Paris when we went there the first time and found it closed."
"I don't know...it doesn't feel quite the same, but I guess they're similar enough. Doesn't fully sound like him, though..."
"Do you think Fuutarou could be the one who scheduled this for us, then? And not Papa?" Miku suggests quietly, eyeing the passenger seat to see if Fuutarou is able to overhear. "He is technically our guardian now that Papa's gone back home ahead of us. Wouldn't he be the one scheduling events for us?"
"But I bet Papa had everything planned out already before he left. We all know how meticulous he is to a fault," Nino gestures dismissively.
"Yeah. That, and..." Ichika hesitates, recalling the events at Red Robin earlier that day and deciding to paraphrase a little. "When he told us about it earlier today, now that I think about it, it kind of sounded like it'd already been planned a good while ahead of time. So as much as it doesn't sound exactly like what Dad would do, I don't think Fuutarou-kun's behind this."
"I mean, why would he? That's not within his jurisdiction, I bet," Nino shrugs. "He's the kind of guy who's going to act strictly within his boundaries of operation, so to say. I really don't think coordinating stuff for our vacation is something he'd do."
"Indeed, that...does not seem like something he would be interested in," Itsuki agrees.
"But there sure is a bit of mystery going into this, isn't there?" Yotsuba says. "Uesugi-san hasn't told us anything about this final event that we're going to, and we can forget about Dad telling us anything since he never mentioned anything about this. What could it be?"
The quintuplets plus Raiha all postulate the possibilities of their final event of their Golden Week vacation.
"Raiha-chan, you wanna try asking your big brother where he's taking us?" Leaning in towards the elementary-schooler, the eldest quint smiles deviously down at her.
"Hey, Ichika, no cheating, bad Ichika!" Yotsuba protests this underhanded move. "We should figure it out by ourselves!"
"It's probably just going to be some kind of lame Hawaiian dance or show or something. I've already looked through most of the shows that the hotels around here put on for their guests," Nino rolls her eyes somewhat. "Live bands, Hula dancers, you know, that kind of stuff."
"I mean, we are in Hawaii..." Miku snorts a little.
"Actually, come to think of it, we haven't ever tried Hula dancing while we were here, right? That's a shame," Ichika sighs at the opportunity missed.
"I am not Hula dancing, you can't make me!" Nino exclaims suddenly.
"And that's a shame too. I'm sure all of us would look absolutely fabulous, don't you two think...?" Ichika sneakily points to both Miku and Yotsuba.
"Wh-Why are you pointing at us in particular...?" Miku asks, starting to feel rather defensive at Ichika's point.
"C'mon, Miku, don't you wanna dance for Fuutarou-kun ~ ? I heard from him earlier that he played some guitar for you earlier this week, you should pay him back with something, you know?"
Her face popping with another fierce blush, the usually reserved third quint is forced to imagine herself in a Hula getup, dancing horribly awkwardly with a Hawaiian shirted Fuutarou strumming a guitar and immediately plunges her face into her hands.
"...I'd rather die..." she mumbles.
"Oh c'mon, it's not that bad, you get used to it. See, even Nino's done performances before, right? Remember, Nino? Back in middle school, you participated in that one school idol competition?"
"F-Forget about that, I was just super into idols and stuff at the time just because some of my friends back then were..." Nino tries to brush the topic off, but Ichika doesn't relent.
"Just teach Miku how to sing. You teach her how to cook already, you can even teach her how to sing while also teaching her how to cook! See? Two birds with one stone!"
"She doesn't need me to learn how to sing, and I don't even want to teach her! I've got my hands full trying to make sure she learns how to properly crack open an egg and not just smash it against the side of the frying pan and let half the egg spill out onto the side!"
"I-I'm trying to get better at not doing that..." Mumbling dejectedly, Miku reburies her face back into her hands.
Scowling but with less intensity than before, Nino continues to bark at her younger sister, "Look, you listen to plenty of music, right? You carry around those headphones all the time, I'd expect you do. Just try singing on your own, that's how I taught myself!"
"Yeah, but like..." Miku once more peeks up from her hands with her dulled blue eyes. "...I'm not as naturally talented as you are. There's a reason why you're teaching me how to cook and not the other way around..."
"Oh for f - for crying out loud, don't give me that crap. We're quintuplets, okay? We can do whatever each other can do, is there any doubt about that?"
Miku blinks at Nino's words, as they give her a strong sense of deja vu.
"...what's with you? Why're you smiling at that?" Nino recoils a little upon seeing Miku give off a small but happy smile, having expected a bit of a different reaction from her sister.
"No, it's...it's nothing. I'm just realizing...how right you are," Miku answers softly.
"That's right! That means that everyone here can go on weekly five-kilo runs around the city with me too!" Crashing the conversation in spectacular Yotsuba-esque fashion, the fourth quint laughs jovially as the rest of her sisters all groan in unison at her ridiculous suggestion.
"Here, take Ichika, she shall be our sacrifice!" Itsuki says hurriedly, reaching over and tugging on Ichika's shirt towards Yotsuba's direction. "You go on morning jogs every once in a while, do you not?"
"Y-Yeah, but - but not full-blown five kilometer runs like the ones Yotsuba does! Do I look that athletic to you?!" Ichika shrieks a little, laughing all the while too. "I only do that to keep fit, not because I'm trying to become some kind of marathon runner!"
"Then how about push-ups?" Raiha suggests playfully. "Onii-chan lets me sit on his back while he does push-ups sometimes."
"He - he does that...? You aren't trying to lie to us to make him sound strong, are you...?" Nino stutters a little in the beginning, eyeing Raiha suspiciously, but his younger sister nods wholesomely.
"It's true! Since he doesn't have a gym membership, he'd sometimes work out a little at home or at the park. Sometimes Onii-chan and Otou-san have push-up contests to see who can do more push-ups with me sitting on them!"
"Haha, that sounds just like in those shounen animes Miku and I used watch back in middle school, where the main character would train like that, but with one finger pushups!" Yotsuba says.
"Ah, he does those too," Raiha says without batting an eyelash. "With me sitting on him still."
"What is he, a freaking anime protagonist...?" Nino wonders aloud under her breath.
"And not just any shounen anime protagonist, a harem anime protagonist," Ichika giggles vibrantly at the thought.
"Ew, what the heck, Ichika? Have you been watching those kinds of anime lately?"
"No, no, it just kinda came to mind. But am I wrong? Think about it, Fuutarou-kun's tutoring, or is supposed to tutor, all five of us, all five of us beautiful, gorgeous identical quintuplets. Don't you think that's the perfect setting for something like that?"
"Hard pass, Ichika, you can miss me with that lame crap."
"I-I refuse to participate in that. Such things are - should not be allowed for our age...!" Itsuki blurts out, feeling embarrassed just from Ichika suggesting such a thing.
"Aww, you two are no fun. Then how about you two right here? I'm sure maybe you two might be interested ~ " Ichika turns her attention to Miku and Yotsuba.
"Ichika, harem animes are so 2012, get with the times," Miku bluntly states.
"W-Whoa, I guess I shouldn't have challenged our resident otaku here. What about you, Yotsuba?"
"Eehhh...U-Uesugi-san's just a friend, and besides, he doesn't really care for things like that..."
"Well, maybe a bit of Hula dancing can change things ~ "
As Miku practically slaps her hands back onto her face, Nino scowls at Ichika. "You're really into that whole Hula thing. How about you give it a shot, then? See how much of an idiot you can make yourself out to be in front of Uesugi."
"M-Me? Er, uh..." Suddenly realizing that she can't quite back up her own words, Ichika backs down from her own suggestion. "I mean...if...if it's just in front of a random crowd, maybe I'd be okay with it, but..."
"See? You'd feel awkward as heck too!" Miku pouts back at her oldest sister, seizing the opportunity to hit back verbally.
"Hey, I can't help the fact that doing something like that in front of my own tutor is super weird!"
As the girls continue to banter, talk, and laugh, the limousine slows to a stop just outside the parking lot of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort. Giving the driver instructions to wait for them so that they can return to their own resort once the event is done, Fuutarou opens the door for the girls, helping the girls and his sister out of the limousine.
"Look at you, being all nice and gentleman-like," Nino smirks at him as she lets him take her hand to help her out of the vehicle.
"I was just given what's basically three months' worth of living costs in a single gift from one of your sisters. This is the least I can do, even if it's for someone like you," Fuutarou retorts back without missing a beat, just like his little sister.
"Gee, thanks a lot."
"As you should. Is everyone out? Okay, follow me."
Fuutarou guides his all-female entourage past the hotel through a side path that leads directly down to the beach below. As they follow him, the girls notice the considerable concentration of people who have already gathered down at the beach, with many more standing in their own hotel room verandas from the towering hotel buildings sitting on the beachfront.
"This must be quite the event for there to be so many people here," Ichika remarks, also taking a full three-sixty look around them. "So are you going to keep us in the dark forever about this, Fuutarou-kun, or are you going to tell us what this's all about?"
"If I were to just straight up tell you now, Nino's gonna yell at me for not having enough delicacy," Fuutarou snorts back.
"Ah, you're right, that does sound like Nino all right."
"You just love picking on me, don't you?" the second quintuplet smiles with her left eye beginning to twitch with anger.
"You bring that shit on yourself. Follow me, I think I see a free spot on the beach over here. And hurry it up, it's gonna start really soon."
Fuutarou spearheads the way, carving out a path through the people already waiting on the beach until he reaches a relatively unoccupied stretch of the beach where the Nakanos and his sister can comfortably stand without feeling crowded or boxed in. While they're wading through the initial throngs of people, Nino, the most well-versed in English, picks up some bits and pieces of conversations going on around her.
"Yo, I heard tonight's is gonna last a lot longer than usual. You know if that's true?"
"I dunno, it's just a rumor until it starts. That's why there're so many people tonight compared to usual..."
Checking his phone for the time once he arrives first at his designated spot, the young tutor conducts a head count to make sure everyone's here.
"Alright. Just wait here until it starts, I guess," he nods with satisfaction at a job well done.
"So what exactly are we supposed to be watching here? Even if it is for the sake of being delicate, telling us about this surprise event we need to attend right before our own flight back home on the day that it is supposed to happen is a little bit much, no?" Itsuki scowls up at her would-be tutor.
Pocketing his phone, Fuutarou looks Itsuki dead in the eyes.
"Fireworks," he finally divulges - with a soft smile. "Enjoy."
A telltale, distant pop confirms this - and instinctively, like it's second nature, all five quintuplets immediately look up at the darkening sky, and after a few seconds, the first firework pops in the sky, illuminating the Hawaiian evening with its brilliant pink and red hues.
Thirty minutes of joy.
Thirty minutes of sorrow.
Thirty minutes of anger.
Thirty minutes of love.
Thirty minutes of life.
Light, color, thunder, breeze, and cheers dominate the beachfront ambience. Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki, along with their special guest Raiha, feast their eyes upon the unexpected, but always welcome, lightshow that spreads across their final evening here at Waikiki Beach. With each explosion, with each gunpowdery flower that blooms in the darkening night, memories wash over each of the girls - warm, delicate memories long passed, rarely visited, but never forgotten.
At some point during the fireworks show, Yotsuba turns to Fuutarou. The smile she has on is brighter than all of the fireworks being launched into the sky for the entire beachfront to see, only meant for and visible to exactly one person not just on this entire beachfront, but in the whole world.
"Uesugi-san, thank you for bringing us here tonight!" she laughs exuberantly.
As if on cue to put emphasis behind her words of joy, another rocket detonates, once more illuminating the beach and the adjacent ocean waters. Yotsuba opens her eyes to rest them on the person to whom she's delivered her pure, unfiltered, and heartfelt sentiments.
Uesugi Fuutarou is nowhere to be seen.