Uesugi Fuutarou stares down at their table in the school library. He's gathered the girls in the library once more for another after-school study session, though Nino and Itsuki are markedly absent due to their own circumstances; Nino is hanging out with her friends after school in the city, and Itsuki is consulting with one of their teachers about an assignment, so for the time being, it's just him with the original three stooges who've been working with him since Week 1.
"I'd like to ask...what the hell are you doing?"
Yotsuba, to whom he's directing this question, immediately draws her head back from being hunched over her spot at the table to reveal what she's working on.
"Ta-da! I'm making senbazuru!"
In Yotsuba's outstretched palms sits a single neatly folded paper crane made with green origami paper. Fuutarou simply stares down at it, though he does note that for as clumsy as Yotsuba is sometimes, it would appear that her paper crane-folding skills are pretty good...though she could use a little help in folding the wings properly.
Sighing irritably, Fuutarou also sits up in his own chair. "Even though I said we'd be meeting here to do your homework after school since Ichika said she wanted a change of locale one of these days?"
"But - but one of my friends' friend is in the hospital right now! Or so I hear!" Yotsuba insists, defending the pile of her precious origami paper cranes that she's folded up until now. "So obviously I wanna help! And they said that I could by doing this!"
"And let me ask, how many have you gotten done so far?"
"Uhhh...lemme count..."
Fuutarou looks on patiently as Yotsuba counts her paper cranes while Ichika and Miku are completing their homework, though Ichika does take a moment every so often to look over at the two of them.
"Forty-two! I've got nine hundred and fifty-eight left to go!" Yotsuba announces cheerfully.
"Then let's leave that for after we get your homework done and we get back home, yeah?" Fuutarou suggests, but Yotsuba's hair ribbon jolts upright, indicating that she's just thought of an idea.
"Oh, I know, I know! Uesugi-san, how about you do my homework for me, and I'll keep working on these paper cranes!" she counter-suggests.
"Then what the hell is the point of me being your tutor. And besides..."
Sighing with a sense of capitulation, Fuutarou reaches over and grabs a few pieces of origami paper himself, and to Yotsuba's and Ichika's surprise, Fuutarou swiftly folds a paper crane of his own, taking roughly only half the time that Yotsuba needs to fold one of her own, before sliding it across the table over to Yotsuba.
"I've folded a few in my time before. Your paper cranes could use some work on the wings, so if you do your homework, I can teach you how to fold a crane properly at your place."
"Geez, is there anything you can't do?" Ichika chuckles while Yotsuba, enamored with the elegant paper crane that Fuutarou's folded for her, picks it up and marvels at its fine craftsmanship before looking a little depressed comparing it with the ones that she's made, which admittedly contrasts the craftmanships between them rather noticeably.
"Of course, like getting you all to pass your midterms."
"Yellow card, yellow card! Unnecessary roughness on the field, Uesugi Fuutarou-kun!"
Cracking a wry grin of amusement, Fuutarou glances over at Ichika's and Miku's homework to see if they're having trouble with anything while Yotsuba quickly puts away her origami paper and finally pulls out her own homework, motivated now that her tutor's promised her origami-folding lessons of sorts.
"You must've folded a lot of paper cranes to get to that level, though," Miku observes quietly, having taken a quick peek through her long bangs to see what Ichika and Yotsuba were marveling at.
"Fuutarou-kun does work at the hospital, after all," Ichika nods. "So the question has to be, for whom you made paper cranes before. Was there, like, a patient you made paper cranes for, maybe? Maybe...a girl you cared about, so you made paper cranes for? Like your own Sadako Sasaki?"
Ichika begins to gesticulate with her arms, as if performing on stage in a play.
"Alas, our dense and headstrong tutor harbors a tragic past, a fragile secret! The love that he first found in the depths of the hospital, in the patients' ward, to which he could respond only by folding a thousand paper cranes! Or something like that ~ "
"Exaggeration aside, yes, I did fold paper cranes for someone in the hospital."
"Eh? Really? You did?" Ichika blinks awkwardly at Fuutarou, while Miku's pencil stops writing on its notebook.
"Oh, oh! Who was it for? Who was it for?" Yotsuba also chimes in.
At this, Fuutarou grins deviously back at the girls. "Well, like Ichika said, it's a fragile secret. I'll leave it to your imagination."
"Awwww, c'mon, you can't just blue-ball us like that!" Yotsuba whines, pouting indignantly back at her tutor. "I told you why I was making paper cranes, right? That's not fair ~ "
While Yotsuba is whining about Fuutarou's unfairness, their homeroom teacher, holding a tall stack of papers and walking through the library, notices them because of Yotsuba's whining and approaches them.
"Ah, good timing, Uesugi. Take these worksheets and place them on everyone's desks, they're for tomorrow's homework; I've got a teacher's meeting to catch," he says hurriedly, practically dumping the worksheets right in front of him before scurrying off and out of the library.
"Mmmmuu...how rude, just dumping off all those worksheets in front of you like that," Miku complains quietly, her lips curling at their left sides.
"Calm down, it's not worth getting worked up over. I'll go be a good little class rep and do as he says; in the meantime, take these worksheets since you'll be doing them for homework anyway tomorrow and work on your own while I go take care of this real quick..."
Picking up the stack of papers once he's distributed copies to his own students, Fuutarou swiftly walks out of the library to go fulfill his class representative duties.
Watching their tutor and classmate vacate the library temporarily, Ichika slowly turns to Miku, who's returned back to her homework before her.
"...this is just...a hypothetical question, but..." Ichika murmurs aloud, "...but...what are the chances that...the person he made paper cranes for is...?"
Miku's writing hand once more stops in its progress as Ichika begins to speak. Yotsuba, overhearing as well, can't help but stare too.
"...no way," the third quintuplet whispers, shaking her head slightly, but her voice is quivering and both her sisters can hear it. "There's no way."
"I mean...it's Fuutarou-kun we're talking about here, isn't it...?" Ichika shrugs. "I'm just saying that there might be a chance. Because Fuutarou-kun said that he's been working as a mage for a while, right? We just don't know for how long exactly, but we could maybe safely assume that he's been doing mage stuff for a good couple years, and that's within the time when...you know..."
"And...and don't forget..." Yotsuba pulls over a blue origami paper crane from the pile of paper cranes that she's made thus far, showing it to Miku. "You brought back that one paper crane when you got discharged. It's still in your room, right? Underneath your desk light."
At this point, Miku's head is tilted downwards so far that she's not even properly looking down at her homework anymore, and her long peachy-red bangs are hiding her blue eyes from view for the most part.
Her memories surrounding her hospitalization during middle school are hazy at best, but what she does remember most clearly was the single blue paper crane that sat on the edge of her hospital bed next to her. She also remembers knowing that it wasn't always there; it hadn't been there from the start when she first got admitted, or at least when she came to in the hospital, so at some point during her hospitalization, someone deliberately left it there for her as a gesture of kindness; it's not like it could've been placed there on accident or to signify some other meaning. While it's not quite the whole thousand paper cranes legend that's household knowledge in Japan, even that single blue paper crane alone brought much more solace and comfort to her than she ever thought a single paper crane ever could; during her torturous fits of fading in and out of consciousness when she desperately wanted something to mentally cling on to, that blue paper crane that now sits in her room on her desk became the anchor that would at least give her a sense of existential consistency that she sought in those seemingly endless days in the hospital.
What if the person who gave her that blue paper crane really was Fuutarou?
"...no...no, that's...that's too..." Miku once more shakes her head slowly. "...that's too convenient. Fuutarou didn't know us back then, and we didn't know him. I don't remember...when I found that paper crane at the hospital, it was just...there one day. Even if he was already working at the hospital...he had no reason to care about me. I'm sure...I'm sure there were more urgent patients he would've needed to tend to anyway at the time."
Both Ichika and Yotsuba shift uncomfortably in their respective seats.
"...well, you're...you're not wrong, per se, but...saying it like that's a little..." Ichika mumbles awkwardly before inhaling somewhat sharply.
But Miku stands her ground, continuing to shake her head in denial. "We know what Fuutarou is like. He's the type of guy who's too busy to care about things he isn't directly involved in. That's how he's always been; we've spent so much time with him these past two months that we know more about him than the entire rest of the school; the only people who know him better are his own family, his papa and Raiha-chan. So if he was working at the hospital back when I was at the hospital, it's safe to say that he was already a mage back then, which means that he was most likely already the way he is now. So why should he care about a girl like me who had to go to the hospital just because some bitch punched me in the back of the head?"
"I mean, that's...that's still pretty serious, don't you think? Besides, maybe...maybe Fu - uh, Uesugi-san was the one who came in to treat you, right?" Yotsuba wonders aloud. "Maybe...maybe that's when Uesugi-san first began working at the hospital, and so because he was just starting out, they had him treat you because you're maybe one of the easier patients to handle? Compared to like, whatever goes on in the ICU or whatever..."
"Like I said, though, I don't remember seeing him. It's only been a few years, I wouldn't forget someone like Fuutarou if he really did take care of me back then. I only remember Papa giving me checkups and seeing if I recovered enough to go back home and go back to school...and the other nurses."
"Well, you can always try asking him directly," Ichika suggests instead.
"When he just said that it's a secret he'll be keeping to himself? Fat chance he'll tell me anything," Miku scowls slightly.
"Oh c'mon, don't be like that, Miku. Look..."
Ichika leans in over the table from her seat with her big sister aura and drops her voice.
"It's no secret to the rest of us that you've got a thing going for Fuutarou-kun. You're just a happier person when he's around; you talk so much with him, you laugh with him, you study hard with him - heck, you're even studying and working on homework all on your own even when he's not here. And as much as we call him a dense idiot sometimes, Fuutarou-kun isn't really that dense; he knows that you're probably the friendliest out of all of us towards him and I'm sure he'll reciprocate that. So why not at least give it a shot? See if he'll make an exception for you. And if he does, you don't need to feel obligated to tell the rest of us."
Miku doesn't say anything in response, and so silence hangs over the three quintuplets for a few moments before it's broken by the low buzzing of Ichika's phone, which Ichika fishes out from her bag.
"Oh, whoops, I've gotta take this call...gotta make it quick since we're in the library..." Ichika mutters to herself as she excuses herself from the table and answers her phone, looking around as she walks away to make sure there aren't any librarians around to catch her talking on her phone.
Yotsuba blinks down at her own homework that she hasn't even started, not knowing what to do in this situation, now that she's alone with Miku. What should she say? What should she do? She is the sole quintuplet who has met Uesugi Fuutarou in the past, and consequently the only one who remembers him. The problem is that she doesn't know if the Uesugi Fuutarou she met six years ago in Kyoto was already a mage, even that long ago. That would mean that he was a mage at merely nine years old, and while she doesn't know if that's supposed to be common or rare in the magic world, to her, it sounds pretty unbelievable, unless that was around the time that he first became a mage.
But perhaps the more relevant issue is whether or not he knew the rest of her sisters. She's met him for sure, but has he met her sisters? No, wait, he did, he absolutely did meet one of her sisters back in Kyoto; it was Ichika, who saw that she'd gotten a friend in Fuutarou when they met and decided to take her place at some point when Yotsuba wasn't looking and pretended to be Yotsuba, and Fuutarou, not knowing that they were identical quintuplets, was none the wiser, or at least he shouldn't have been. But of course that would mean that to him, the only quintuplet he's met in the past was her, not knowing he'd also gotten to know Ichika at the same time.
But then wouldn't that also mean that Ichika still remembers him? No, that probably isn't the case; Ichika would've made it obvious if she recognized him like Yotsuba herself did when they first met two months ago, because that's just the person she is. She probably doesn't recognize him because when they met as kids six years ago, Fuutarou looked much different, with his dyed blonde hair and ear piercings that made him look like a juvenile delinquent. That, and given how Ichika turned out growing up, she's met so many people and made so many friends that it's probably hard to keep track of everyone, so a boy she met six years ago randomly in Kyoto probably isn't going to be a high priority on her list of people to remember.
In any case, the fact that Yotsuba remembers meeting Fuutarou opens up the possibility that he's met her sisters in the past as well. Or, perhaps more accurately, just because Yotsuba's the only one who remembers meeting him doesn't mean the others might not have run into him on their own at some point in their own lives. While Yotsuba's been traditionally able to read her sisters pretty well, there's nothing that says that her sisters aren't hiding their own special little memories with him, much like she's guilty of doing, with Ichika being the other most likely suspect since Yotsuba is privy to the twin-switching that she did back in Kyoto six years ago. And with the added dynamic of Fuutarou being a mage and all that, the possibilities are endless.
Did Fuutarou meet Miku in the hospital two years ago?
Was he the one who gave her that blue paper crane?
Yotsuba shakes her head a little, but she realizes that her thoughts must be affecting her appearance and so quickly glances sneakily over to Miku to see if she's watching, which she's not - she's returned to doing her homework in silence. Judging by the look in her eyes, the one Yotsuba can see from her angle, her older sister seems to have her mind made up that it wasn't him, so maybe there's no need for Yotsuba herself to be thinking so hard about this.
Even still, though, she can't help herself, because it just seems so convenient to believe that Uesugi Fuutarou was the one who helped Miku through her troubling days in the hospital back in middle school, even if it was only by giving her a single paper crane. It would be absolutely heartwarming to know that he has known them for all this time - not just herself, but all of her sisters. But obviously there's nothing concrete that supports that; all they have to work with are conjectures, guesses, and wishful thinking. Everything seems like they could fall into place nicely, but just because things seem one way doesn't mean that they are, and Yotsuba herself is a fine example of this.
So Yotsuba changes her mind on talking to Miku to encourage her like Ichika did and keeps her mouth shut, trying to focus on beginning to start her homework. If Miku herself chooses to believe that it wasn't Fuutarou who gave her that paper crane, then Yotsuba wants to respect that decision of hers. After all, Miku's the one who went to the hospital, not Yotsuba, so it's none of her business trying to convince Miku to believe otherwise when she'll most likely just be met with even more disappointment if she tries to.
Still...what if. What if it really was him. Yotsuba can't get rid of that nagging sensation that only the tiniest of the most improbable circumstances can have.
What if it really was him.
A buzzing noise comes from Yotsuba's own backpack, and it jolts her out of her thoughts. Quickly rummaging to get it out, she looks down at her phone to find that the basketball team captain is calling her.
"M-Miku, sorry, but - but I have to take this call too - it's the basketball team captain, and she probably wants to talk to me in their club room. Tell Ichika that I'm there for me, okay?" Yotsuba says hurriedly as she tosses her homework and school stuff into her backpack and rushies as quickly as she can within library limits out of there to head for the basketball clubroom - just as Ichika returns from her own call, in time to catch a glimpse of Yotsuba hurrying away.
"Oh? Does Yotsuba need to go somewhere too?" Ichika asks as she, too, puts away her homework and collects her belongings.
"Yeah...she said she needed to go meet with the basketball club president," Miku faithfully relays Yotsuba's message for her.
"That so. Fuutarou-kun's gonna get mad at her if she agrees to join the basketball club for good; she's been helping them out a lot recently, hasn't she?"
"Them and the track team. I assume you're headed out for your part-time, too, though?" Miku nods over at her oldest sister as the latter pushes her chair back in once she's gathered all her own stuff.
"Sure am. You're gonna have to let Fuutarou-kun know what we're up to, sorry about this."
"I don't mind, but Fuutarou will."
"I know, I know, I'll make it up to him somehow. Besides..."
Ichika takes a few steps over to her younger sister and leans in to whisper close to her ear:
"...this'll be a good chance to know if he's the one who gave you that paper crane, right? When no one else's around."
Giving Miku a soft pat on her shoulder for good luck, Ichika bids her sister good-bye for now and also vacates the premises, leaving Miku suddenly all alone in a matter of minutes. Not that Miku is unfamiliar to solitude.
As she returns to her homework, Miku feels her hand slow its progress again, now that she doesn't have the presences of her sisters to keep her anchored on her own work. Because like Yotsuba, thoughts once more invade her mind as she eyes a single blue paper crane that Yotsuba's neglected to take with her that sits on her side of the table. Eventually her right hand stops, and so she sets her pencil down and reaches over to take the freshly folded blue paper crane into her own hands, gazing down at it with her two blue eyes.
What if Fuutarou knew about her ever since two years ago? And if so, why has he kept his knowledge of her a secret from her?
Maybe he has his reasons, and if he does, they've got to be related to his magework. He strikes her as too smart and too intelligent to simply forget someone in just two years, and it's not like Miku's changed that much in two years, though she did have longer hair and shorter bangs back then.
The thought of Uesugi Fuutarou having known her beyond just their high school months clings to her mind like a parasite, and once it's latched on, Miku just can't expel it out of her head. Because if that's the case, if it really were him who gave her that paper crane while she was in the hospital, the fact that they've met again now, or two months ago, rather, might just be, as some may say, fate. And this is coming from someone who doesn't really care about that kind of stuff - that's more up Nino's alley with how she goes on about meeting her Prince Charming someday at times.
Miku finds herself smiling at this possibility. Even if it's not true, which most likely it isn't, the fact that it's a possibility itself warms her heart. Even if all it'll amount to is just a daydreamy delusion that she'll end up having to keep to herself...
"You wanna learn how to fold paper cranes too, later?"
Fuutarou's sudden voice almost causes Miku to jump out of her seat in surprise, so the paper crane that she's holding in her hands does it for her, jumping out of her hands as she clumsily tries to drop the crane as quickly as possible.
"Quite the reaction there, usually you don't get as rattled as the others," Fuutarou notes as Miku quickly composes herself with a bright blush starting to creep up on her face. "By the way, did the other two bail on me again?"
Miku nods. "Ichika said she needed to go to her part-time, and Yotsuba said she needed to go meet with the basketball club."
"Ah, for fuck's sake..." Fuutarou groans with a sigh. "Ichika's been starting to prioritize her part-time these days, now that midterms are done for now. Same goes for Yotsuba, she's been missing a few days because she's been hanging out with the track team and the basketball team. I'll have to figure out what I wanna do with those two..."
"It's even at the point where we had some lessons with just me, Nino, and Itsuki, which is pretty funny if you think about how we got started in the beginning."
"You said it. But that'll be for another time, I guess. Is there anything with your homework that you have questions about? Wait, you're almost done, too..."
Miku shakes her head. "No. None so far..."
Fuutarou leans back in his chair with an annoyed sigh. "Shame that the others aren't more like you, at least when it comes to getting your homework done. You and Itsuki, actually. Everyone else just fucks around until it gets to the point where I basically have to jump down their throats just to get them to start their homework sometimes..."
"Doing my homework well is another story, though."
"That's true, but being willing to get your homework done is the first step towards getting better grades, or one of them. At least that way, even if you don't do it well, you can review your homework and more readily fix your mistakes."
"If only it were that easy, too..."
"I never said it would be easy, either. And I'll be honest, you shouldn't have ever thought it would be easy."
Miku nods slowly. "...that's true."
After another minute, Miku hands her tutor her worksheet, and Fuutarou quickly skims through it to check her answers, taking out a pencil from his messenger bag that's remained in his seat while he went off distributing tomorrow's homework assignment in their homeroom to mark incorrect answers. He refrains from using a red pen here since this is something they'll have to turn in to their homeroom teacher, and he'll get pretty suspicious if there are already red markings on the worksheets when he grades them.
"As usual, you got all the Sengoku period-related questions right," Fuutarou notes quietly, handing the worksheet back to her. "Frankly, I noticed that you're really good at those types of history questions, even back when I first starting tutoring you. So I've been meaning to ask you, now that it's only you here right now: is that like, an area of interest to you or something?"
Pulling the worksheet up to her face to hide the lower half of it that's slowly starting to redden up again, Miku nods so slowly that Fuutarou is reminded of watching paint dry.
"D-Don't tell anyone about that, okay...?" she whispers so softly that her graded worksheet blocks most of her voice; Fuutarou has to amplify his hearing magically with an invisible rune just so that he can hear what she's saying without having to lean in like a creep. "That I like...Sengoku warlords...and stuff..."
"I didn't, and I won't. I was going to bring it up at some point before midterms, but I guess I never really got a chance to; either that, or I just forgot to talk about it until now. And when we went over your midterms here in the library and I mentioned to you in front of everyone that your answers had a big bias towards Sengoku era questions, you seemed to get pretty embarrassed over that, so I decided to not talk about it until I got a chance to talk to you solo like this, when none of your sisters are around."
Miku lowers her worksheet while her tutor is talking to her and puts it down on the table before her.
"It all started when I played Sengoku Jidai...it's a turn-based strategy game that Yotsuba bought for me last year. Something about Sengoku-era warlords fighting and having grand ambitions of conquering Japan and all that...really appealed to me for some reason, I guess...so I started reading up on the Sengoku period on my own. History books, mainly, but I even started playing other games and reading historical fiction that featured Sengoku settings. It wasn't long before I realized that I was...legitimately obsessed with Sengoku stuff. And since that happened last year while we were still at Kurobara, all my classmates were into actors or models...you know, the ones you see on fashion magazines or on TV. And here I am, looking at pictures of old men with their mustaches and beards and sideburns and whatnot in my history textbooks..."
Nervously glancing over at Fuutarou and looking away quickly when she notices him paying keen attention to her, Miku sighs lightly.
"...I know, it's...it's weird, isn't it," she mumbles dejectedly.
"Yeah, that's hella weird."
Miku's forehead promptly hits the tabletop.
"...actually hearing that from someone else hurts a lot more than I expected," Miku admits miserably, her forehead still glued to the table on top of her graded worksheet. "And more so because it's you, Fuutarou."
"Maybe so. But still, even if it is weird, it works out for you because it directly contributes to your grades. Out of the five of you, you're the one who consistently gets the highest scores thanks to all the studying you've done. So at the end of the day, you get the last laugh for having an interest in something that's actually relevant to your studies."
After pulling her head up and rubbing her forehead where it's hit the table, Miku frowns a little at her tutor. "But that wasn't studying, though..."
"Maybe at the time it wasn't, no. But the best kind of studying you can do is the kind that doesn't even feel like you're studying, just like how people say that the best kind of job you can have is one where you don't really feel like you're working. Because if you're having fun with what you're studying, you'll be able to retain that kind of information a lot more easily than if you aren't."
"Too bad I can't feel that way towards any of my other subjects, though."
"Yeah, that's the tricky part. And it's not like I can just magically force you all to suddenly like all the other subjects that you're not good at."
"You can't?"
"If magic were that convenient, I wouldn't even have this job."
Fuutarou reaches over and takes the blue paper crane that Miku dropped onto the table earlier to hold it in his own hands.
"That aside, even if I think it's weird, even if you think it's weird, I don't think that should affect what you decide to like or not. Having different tastes by itself is not a crime, and while you could call yourself a deviant against the norm, that by itself shouldn't pose any problems. It's the people who pride themselves on being different to an annoying degree whom I have a problem with, but that's another story, and I don't have to worry about that with you. I guess more to the point is how the rest of your sisters don't know about you liking Sengoku warlords when you literally have the Takeda crest as your phone home screen."
Yelping lightly as soon as her tutor mentions her phone's home screen, Miku slaps her hand over her phone that's been sitting on the side of the table near her and hastily stuffs it into her cardigan pocket, out of view from her classmate.
"H-H-How did you know...!?" she nervously breathes at Fuutarou in a hushed tone, a sweat breaking out on her scalp.
"You think I don't notice you girls being on your phones whenever I'm teaching you? We usually work on a glass freaking table in your living room, I don't even need magic to see right through it!"
Miku's lips are trembling hard in embarrassment as Fuutarou exposes her dark secret even more so than she herself did.
"But...I'd like to honor your request of not telling the others if you're not comfortable with them knowing. You liking Sengoku warlords and stuff is your business and I want to respect that," Fuutarou reassures her calmly. "I wouldn't like it if someone I knew went around telling other people about my secrets, either."
Fuutarou's steady and calm voice that she's grown to love listening to swiftly cleanses her mind of all the embarrassment up until now, and Miku nods firmly.
"Thank you, Fuutarou. I'm sure...I'm sure there'll come a day when my sisters know about this part of me, and I know that I'll have to be the one to tell them when it comes."
Then, after a pause that she spends gazing down at the blue paper crane that her tutor has set down on the table before him -
"...Fuutarou, you wouldn't...happen to remember giving me...a paper crane in the past, would you? One that...sort of looks like that one?"
The young mage also glances down at the crane.
"No," he says, shaking his head. "I don't remember. Are you talking about when you were hospitalized?"
Miku nods slowly again, which prompts Fuutarou to shake his head.
"Yeah, then sorry, I don't recall doing anything like that."
Blinking with a bit of melancholy down at her side of the table, Miku lets her eyes wander across the incorrect marked answers on her worksheet.
"Then tell me this, Fuutarou: is paper crane-folding to you like what Sengoku warlords are to me?"
"...as in, something I like doing that I'd rather not tell people?"
"Yeah."
"Mm...well, it's not that I mind telling people. And it's not like I like folding paper cranes, though I'm not against it, either."
"Then why did you learn how to do it? Because, just from comparing the one you made to the ones Yotsuba's been making, it's clear that you've practiced a lot in the past. I know this is rich coming from someone like me, but I can't say I know anyone who's folded paper cranes for fun."
"Yeah, maybe it'd be more believable if someone like Ichika or Nino were telling me that. Or maybe even Yotsuba herself."
"Y-You get what I mean!"
Fuutarou exhales deeply. "And besides, I already told you when the others were here, didn't I? I did fold paper cranes for someone who was in the hospital. Same thing as what Yotsuba was doing. Senbazuru and all that."
"Yotsuba doing it isn't surprising since that's just the kind of person she is, always wanting to help everybody," Miku responds. "But you're different, Fuutarou. You're not the kind of person who'd just learn how to fold paper cranes for the fun of it or because it's simple, no matter how easy it is. And since you also did senbazuru for someone, that someone has to be very important to you - "
"Miku."
For a split second, Miku feels like she's just lost the ability to speak, and that is more than enough to break her train of thought.
"I don't know why you're looking so deeply into this, but for the record, unfortunately, I really did learn paper crane-folding for the hell of it because I overheard some of the nurses at the time talking about how some visiting family members of patients would sometimes bring in their own paper cranes and stuff. There was one patient whose family couldn't come in, so I decided to fold some cranes for them in my spare time. It took a while, since I didn't exactly have much free time, not even back then, but I did get it done. It's just something I decided to do on a whim, and I happen to have paper-crane folding as another skill under my belt because of it, for as much good it'll do me nowadays."
Miku turns away slightly.
"...sorry. I...got ahead of myself there," she mutters back. "Forget I asked."
"Sure thing." Fuutarou turns to Miku. "Wanna head out? You've already done your homework, and everyone else's off doing their own thing, so we don't really have much of a reason to be here anymore."
Nodding, Miku packs her own backpack, and she leaves the library together with her tutor and classmate to walk home, taking the same usual direct route.
"This might be none of my own business either, but I've noticed that you and Nino aren't really getting along that well lately," Fuutarou notes to Miku as they once again wait at a crosswalk to turn green for them. "If you don't want to talk about it, then you don't have to, but I'm asking because whatever's going on between you two has the potential to disrupt our lessons whenever I'm tutoring you girls."
Miku raises her head. She's been walking this whole way from school with her eyes down on the sidewalk.
"Nino and I had an argument right before we got our midterm scores back...earlier that morning, I had another one of those...panic attacks that woke me up in the middle of the night. This time, though, Nino sensed that I was having another panic attack and came into my room to check on me, and we decided to head downstairs to have some tea - well, Nino had some hot chocolate for some reason, even though it's practically already summer. We started chatting a little, and then...and then we started talking about the possibility of you teaching us magic, or magecraft, or however you say it."
"Huh."
"Nino was against it, as you might imagine. She already doesn't like the fact that you're our tutor teaching us school material, so she wasn't going to like the idea of you teaching us magic either."
"Then I take it that you're the opposite of Nino in this case?"
Nodding again, Miku turns to look up at her tutor.
"I've been thinking about it ever since you told us about our Eyes, Fuutarou. About how we're mages too, whether we wanted to be or not, because of them. And after seeing you get injured like you did during midterms week, keeping Itsuki safe and getting us to school on time so that we could still take our midterms, I decided that if possible, I want to learn more about magecraft...I want someone to teach me magecraft. And...the only one I know who can do that is you."
The crosswalk sign turns green, and Miku and Fuutarou proceed on their way back to the Pentagon high-rise.
"You already know what I'm going to say, though," Fuutarou says finally after about a minute of silence.
"I do. You don't want to teach me."
"Yet you decided to ask anyway, huh."
"Yep."
Fuutarou gives a rare chuckle. "Nino's probably right after all, I guess I am spending too much time with you guys."
"I can't speak for her, but I don't mind if you keep spending time with us like you have been," Miku smiles back at him softly.
"I'll have to anyway, so you're in luck."
"Mhm."
Running a hand up through his hair, Fuutarou gazes off into the distance, eyeing the high-rise that is growing taller and taller with each step that they take towards it.
"Why don't you want me to learn magecraft, then?" Miku asks. "Is it because you think that we're too dumb to learn it? I'd like you to be honest with me."
"Like I haven't ever been...but actually, no, that's not the reason. Magecraft and magic in general isn't based on your intelligence or how smart you are; that would imply that the human brain itself has a whole slew of Magic Circuits, which, while it does have some of its own, they're obviously not enough most of the time to create any meaningful amount of mana to adequately produce magic. Obviously intelligence and knowledge will affect magecraft in terms of what kinds of magic you can use if you take the time and effort to learn them, but if we're talking about just the raw ability to us magecraft in any form, then no, even the dumbest idiot in the world can use it to some degree because all you need for that is a set of Magic Circuits."
Fuutarou turns to peer down directly into Miku's blue eyes.
"Take this for what you will, but I believe that you can learn magecraft."
Blinking in surprise at her tutor, Miku at first begins to smile happily, but then it fades just as it begins to brighten, like an incandescent light bulb being switched on just as its filament sputters out and dies.
"...then why do you not want to teach me?" she asks, and Fuutarou turns away to look forward again.
"It's not magecraft itself that's making me not want to teach you, it's the magic world itself. The magic side of the world, the part of the world most people don't know about and will go their entire lives not knowing anything about, is an ugly one, and even more so in this era where it's no secret to use mages that magecraft is on the decline...hell, it's been on the decline for centuries, but in recent times, things have gotten so bad for mages in general that the disappearance of magecraft is a very real possibility in the next couple of centuries to follow, and it doesn't help that people becoming mages nowadays are nowhere near the quality and caliber of mages of old, mages who would have the power to keep magecraft as an institution alive or at the very least preserve it for posterity.
"But enough with the backstory. The short answer is that I don't want you or your sisters getting involved with the magic side of the world, and I'm pretty sure I've already told you this back when you all first found out that I was a mage on that one weekend. It's too dangerous, it's too filthy, it's too miserable. The mages I've met ever since becoming a mage myself make me fucking wish magecraft would die out as soon as possible; hell, that's not just limited to mages, I extend that to a lot of people I've met as a result of my magework, whether they're mages to begin with or not. People are already nasty enough when magic isn't involved, but when it is, their bullshit and degeneracy hits levels that shouldn't be possible for the sake of humanity as a whole. Things like power and money already corrupt people as they are, but magic corrupts people in ways not even those can. And if the magic itself doesn't, the people whom you start to meet after you begin to get involved will certainly try.
"I'm not saying that you aren't strong enough to resist the temptations that magic may bring. I'm not saying that you won't be able to handle the difficulties that being a mage brings. But speaking from my own experience, thinking back on all the close calls and narrow misses I've had working as a mage, I don't want anyone following the same path that I did. Sure, I probably didn't have any other choice at the time that I decided to become one, but that doesn't mean I can't think back and say I hated it, because I do."
"You hate being a mage..." Miku repeats quietly after him. "If you could stop being a mage, you would, huh."
"Hell yeah. I've had more than my fair share of magecraft; while I'm still obviously pretty young compared to a lot of other mages out there, I think it's fair to say that I've seen and done shit that kids my age shouldn't ever see or do. And by extension, I certainly don't want anyone I know and care about experiencing those same things."
Fuutarou points gently at Miku, specifically at her eyes.
"You want to learn magecraft because you want to become proficient with those eyes of yours, right? To learn about what they do and how to control them?"
"Well...not specifically because of them, but...yes, eventually, I'd like to know more about them..."
"Right, so either way, if you begin to study magecraft, it's inevitable that at some point, you'll come to know what your Mystic Eyes are and what they do. However, this is where I also need to mention that studying magecraft is potentially dangerous on its own too, depending on what you're learning and studying, and I consider Mystic Eyes to fall underneath that 'dangerous' category."
"...they're really that dangerous?"
"I told you before that Mystic Eyes are generally incredibly powerful conduits of magecraft for mages who have them because once you get the hang of them, they're extremely intuitive to use and, depending on what type they are, their power can be immense. But they can sometimes be a double-edged sword in that their immense power has a price of some kind, side-effects or whatever. If we're using you and Nino as examples, since I know the two of you have them, Nino lost most of her vision when her Mystic Eyes first awakened, and you're suffering panic attacks in the middle of the night as a result of yours awakening. And those might not be all that's bad about them."
"There could be something even worse than what's happening to me now...?" Miku wonders aloud, as she finds that rather hard to believe.
"Could be. As long as we don't know what your Mystic Eyes are, all we can do is guess, or wait for them to fully awaken, if they do. And I'm saying that it's in your best interest to leave your Eyes as they are in case they end up causing you even more trouble. These are Mystic Eyes we're talking about...ones that haven't even fully awakened yet, either..."
"But then...but then what if they fully awaken on their own? Then wouldn't it have been better for me to learn how to make use of them instead of after?"
"If that happens, then yes, in hindsight it may have been worth it to have taught you how to handle your Eyes, or whatever I can teach you as guy who's never dealt with Mystic Eyes before. But that's only if - and I said that I'd rather your eyes never get to that point at all."
"...because you don't think I'd be able to handle them?"
"The odds are not in your favor, no."
Miku hesitates.
"So you won't teach me magecraft."
"No. Not only is that not part of the terms of my contract that I signed with your dad, but I also don't want to teach you in the first place."
"...it's not because you think you know what's best for us, is it? At least tell me that much..." Miku's voice has turned quiet and dark. "...it's bad enough we have Papa telling us that a lot, too."
"No, it's not because of that. As much as we might act and sound similar at times, please don't confuse me for your dad, that's a goddamn insult if I've ever heard one."
Finally a small smile breaks out on Miku's face.
"You really don't like Papa, do you?"
"I don't even like my own dad all that much, what makes you think I'll like yours?"
"Why? What's wrong with your dad?"
"Well, for starters, he's a beer-chuggin' masochistic idiot who likes it when my little sister slaps his ass with a kitchen ladle..."
"Pffft."