The digital clock on Uesugi Fuutarou's phone barely turns 23:21 when he slips it back into the right pocket of his jeans as he strides briskly down the street, next to the large sidewalk that grows more and more crowded the closer he draws to his destination. Young men and women, mainly of college and post-graduate ages, line the sidewalk for a respectable distance, though Fuutarou suspects that there are a few high schoolers hiding in the line, hoping to be admitted even when underage.
Not that Fuutarou himself is in any position to judge them, because he's about to do the same thing himself.
For this occasion, the young mage has chosen a fashion style that, again, does not quite suit him very well: form-fitting navy-blue jeans complete with a black belt to secure them in place, a black T-shirt with nothing but a curious logo consisting of two silver diamonds overlapping each other vertically printed on the chest, the smartwatch that Yotsuba bought for him during Golden Week, which Fuutarou repaired while recuperating from his wounds that he received from his duel with Rio, on his right wrist, and his usual black snapback cap with its odd six-line logo on his head. In addition, while he clearly won't need Presence Concealment for a setting such as this, he's made sure to cast a number of defensive spells on himself before heading out tonight, such as Presence Suppression, which is a weaker form of Presence Concealment that, while unable to render him unnoticed by non-magical personnel, will make it easier for him to blend in and disappear into crowds if need be, Runic Armor, which will protect him from being struck by blows that the runes deem malicious in intent in case he gets attacked unexpectedly in the venue, and Defensive Matrix, which is an invisible full-body spell that will protect him from incoming magical attacks that have a physical manifestation.
Normally Fuutarou does not bother casting such a number of spells on himself, as he operates alone most of the time and doesn't need them, and having all these spells active constantly drains him of mana much faster than he'd like, which can put him into dangerous situations if he's not careful. But given his assignment tonight, where he'll be operating in a setting that's much different than his usual solo escapades, he figures it doesn't hurt to be a little extra prepared.
As per his employer's suggestion, Fuutarou is looking to meet with one of his info-dealers tonight. While he has a few scattered throughout the city, this one that he's planning to meet is the one most likely to have intel on Shirazumi Rio, given the circumstances. The brief text conversation they had leading up to this night has given Fuutarou instructions to meet her at the city's downtown, in its famous entertainment district that's rapidly gaining infamy as a sort of red-light district, and with the rising problems of drug use and abuse in the city, its reputation should come as no surprise. Specifically, Fuutarou is headed for a large club, the biggest nightclub in the city, in fact, called the Night Crawler. Its name is in English, not Japanese, as the city has a surprisingly large international population thanks to all the foreign-exchange students studying at any one of the city's two freshly opened, state-of-the-art universities and the foreigners who have moved into the city to work for international businesses and companies like banks, hotels, high-class restaurants, tech firms, and biomedical groups that have established branches in the city. Combine this influx of primarily English-speaking foreigners with the city's own domestic population growth thanks to high-middle class and upper-class families moving in as a result of the city's rapid economic growth over the years, and the city's young adult population, perhaps contrary to the rest of the country's situation, is thriving and flourishing, and of course, the need for adequate entertainment for such a huge and thriving young population has given rise to the appropriate avenues of escape from the doldrums of their daily lives.
As he continues towards the venue, Fuutarou spies a few young men on the corner of a nearby street curb lighting up a few cigarettes. A quick second glance confirms that they're indeed just normal cigarettes, which are perfectly legal, assuming the men are of age, naturally, but Fuutarou darkly bets to himself that once he's inside the nightclub, he'll be seeing more than just tobacco circulating among these young adults.
The young undercover mage finally reaches the entrance to the large nightclub building. The main reason for its abnormal size compared to the other nightclubs in the city is the in-house stage that it features for its main dance floor; the building is fully equipped to host entire raves and concerts, and traveling musicians and artists frequently perform here, adding to the nightclub's wild popularity. Of course, tonight being a Tuesday night, it's nowhere near as crazy as if it were a weekend, God forbid a Friday night, but even still, given that there's apparently an overseas DJ visiting and performing for the rest of the week, attendees are already filling up the venue for some drinks and a good time.
The main entrance to the Night Crawler is, naturally, rather packed, so Fuutarou continues walking past the regular attendee entrance to round the building to reach the less traversed VIP back entrance, which is guarded by a pair of tall, casually suited bouncers. As the VIP line is not very long at all, with only a handful of people with VIP passes waiting to be admitted, Fuutarou gets in line himself and patiently waits until it's his turn to get checked.
"Good evening, sir. May I see your VIP pass, please?" one of the bouncers asks Fuutarou when it's his turn while the other bouncer allows the pair of girls before Fuutarou to enter the building.
Having prepped his phone, Fuutarou shows the bouncer the QR code on his phone, which the bouncer scans with his QR reader, which in turn blinks with confirmation.
"Thank God, someone who actually uses our QR code," the bouncer remarks with lighthearted amusement as he resets the scanner. "You wouldn't believe how many kids don't know that we have one despite us putting up ads all over the place about it."
"Kids like me're supposed to be up to date with the latest tech and stuff, aren't we?" Fuutarou jokes back as he passes.
"Yeah, exactly, you get it! We need more kids like you...it'll save us a whole bunch of haggling with the dumber ones, if nothing else..."
Sharing a quick laugh with him, the underage mage leaves the bouncers to their work and joins the rest of the attendees inside the nightclub. With the night still somewhat young, the party is only beginning to kick into high gear.
Doing his best to deal with the flashing lights and the blaring club music, Fuutarou wades through the throngs of people clogging the corridors to reach the central bar on the second floor, which is complete with its own balcony exclusively for VIP Pass holders to enjoy the scene below. A third bouncer, guarding the base of the stairs leading up to the central bar, asks for Fuutarou's ID to ensure that he is of legal drinking age, and the underage mage produces a fake ID that says that he is twenty-one, six years older than he really is. Normally his Presence Suppression spell should be enough to convince bouncers like these to just let him through without having to ask him for an ID like this, so maybe he ought to tune it once he returns home after completing this assignment. Either way, having passed the final boss, so to speak, Fuutarou climbs the stairs and seats himself at the large three-sixty bar on the nightclub's second floor. A tall column extends up to the ceiling, its interior glowing like an oversized lava lamp morphing with gentle colors to make the column easy on the eyes, with a small crew of bartenders serving customers all around the three-sixty bar.
"Good evening, esteemed sir, what may I get you tonight?"
A long, black-haired girl just a few inches shy of Fuutarou's own height, dressed neatly in dress slacks, a plaid vest, necktie, and puffy white dress shirt, with her long hair tied back into a high ponytail, approaches the young mage seated at his side of the three-sixty bar. Glancing up at her, the professional air with which she carries herself and that sweeping long ponytail already give her a striking enough impression, but to seal the deal, she wears a single hairpin on the left side of her front bangs.
"Orange screwdriver on the rocks. Go light on the vodka," Fuutarou says. "But only if it's on the house."
The bartender snorts with a wry grin. "Broke as usual, huh, Fuutarou?" she asks as she turns to grab a bottle of Sobieski and a carton of pulp-free orange juice to mix her customer a drink.
"You know me."
"Yeah, better than most people."
"Easy enough for you, given that I don't even know that many people to begin with."
"Bullshit, of course you do."
"If we take into account all the contracts that I've had, then sure. Problem is, most of them fucking hate my guts."
Having fixed his drink and even adorning the side of the glass with an orange slice, the bartender sets the glass down before her customer.
"Courtesy of the house," the bartender winks gently down at the young mage, who grins back with thanks before setting his five fingers over the rim of the glass. From his fingertips extends a small, dim blue rune that scans the contents of the glass for any impurities or foreign substances. "Oh c'mon, I've served you how many drinks now that you still act as if I've put something in it?"
"Can never be too safe. Not in a place like this," Fuutarou reasons calmly, waiting for his scan to finish.
"What, you're calling this place unsafe? I'll have you know that we're rated the best nightclub in the city for a reason!"
"And you know that's full of shit."
"No it's not, okay? As long as the city thinks we're all good, then that's all that matters!"
"Goddamn it, Takebayashi."
Having found no such foreign substances in his drink, Fuutarou raises his glass, gesturing it first towards the friendly bartender in thanks, before taking a long sip.
"Your screwdrivers are nice as always," he complements as he sets the glass back down.
"And thanks, as always," Takebayashi smiles back courteously. "Have you gotten over your dislike of booze yet? You've gotten enough free drinks off me by this point, right?"
Fuutarou scowls back at her. "Hell no I haven't."
"Then why the heck do you keep asking for screwdrivers every time you stop by?"
Shrugging, the young mage takes another long sip. "Tradition, maybe? You've always given me a screwdriver every time I'm here, after all. Wasn't it because back then, when you first started working here, screwdrivers were the first drink you learned how to mix?"
"That's right. I'm glad you still remember that, haha."
Takebayashi continues to watch her long-time customer drain the contents of his drink until the glass is about half-empty.
"It still doesn't feel that far off, back when I first started bartending," Takebayashi remarks, turning to lean against her side of the bar counter with the base of her back and setting her elbows against the edge, looking up at the brightly colored lava lamp column. "What about you, Fuutarou?"
"Feels like ages. I'm gettin' old over here, you know."
"Oh, there you go talking like an old man again. Girls won't like it if you keep talking like an old geezer."
"Since when have I ever cared about being liked by girls?"
"So, what, do you swing the other way, then?"
"I can't say I do, but just what made you jump to that conclusion, I wonder."
"I'm just saying. People can change, after all. Even if you seem like the same old Fuutarou ever since six years ago, what's to say that you haven't developed your own unique tastes and quirks?"
"Well, it's obviously because I'm too damn busy to be running around chasing girls like half the fuckin' idiots in this place."
Takebayashi laughs aloud. "I know I shouldn't be laughing at our customers, but yeah, you'd be surprised by how many idiots try picking up girls here. I know people come here for the music and concerts and stuff, but honestly, watching dumb boys try hooking up with the girls here is some of the best entertainment in the whole damn city."
"That so? I wouldn't really know anything about that..."
"I mean, you could be part of it if you tried."
"No thanks, I'd rather not embarrass myself."
After a quick laugh, Takebayashi swiftly turns it into a heavy sigh. "If only the rest of the boys here shared that mentality a bit more. Some of them are so thirsty, we need to have our bouncers kick 'em out if things get too cringe."
"Good, that's how it should be."
"Don't you forget that you were like that too, six years ago. You and your dyed blonde hair back then - what kind of a nine-year-old runs around with dyed hair?!"
"Let's just say...I had my reasons."
"Oh, yeah, suuuuureeee you did."
"Doubting me's not gonna make it any other way." Fuutarou shortly slides the now-empty glass with the remainder of its ice cubes back to his bartender. "Now, enough banter."
Nodding, Takebayashi takes the glass to empty out its contents, clean it, and put it away before returning to her customer. In the meantime, Fuutarou discretely establishes a small bounded field, the same kind that he used during his conversation with Ichika at Starbucks.
"There's another mage in the city, name's Shirazumi Rio. Heard of it?" Fuutarou asks once he's got Takebayashi's audience again.
"Shirazumi...Rio...kind of a strange name, but no, that's a new one for me. What about him?"
"You know about my current contract with the quintuplets. I don't need to refresh your memory on that one, do I?"
"Nope. In fact, I remember seeing them in Kyoto six years ago, when we were all there for a school trip or something, right? I thought they were only quadruplets because I only happened to see four of them. So he's the guy whom you've been working to keep away from the quints, huh?"
Fuutarou nods.
"Finally got a chance to meet him face to face the other week. Blonde hair, red leather jacket. At least, those were the clothes he was wearing when I last saw him. If he's got any brain cells, he'll know to switch his appearance since I don't know anyone else in the city who wears an obnoxiously bright red leather jacket like he does, but on the off-chance that he doesn't, you'll know him when you see him."
"I've never seen anyone like that here. Do you know if he's slated to come in or if he hangs out in this area? I can have our perimeter bouncers do routine checks around the building to see if they can't get a glimpse of him or something."
"That's the thing, I don't know how he moves around the city, or where he plans to target next. Remember the huge drug cache that the police found in the middle of the city? That's his doing."
"Ah, so that was him. Why do you suspect that he'd hang out here?"
"Because from what I've been able to find about him, he most likely runs his own drug gang and drug ring in the city. All those deaths by drug abuse that you've been hearing on the news? A lot of it's because of him. He's been testing out a new drug by distributing it to his boys and having them drag random people away to test the drug out on them. I've been able to stop them a few times, but obviously I can't stop them all. Lately Rio's boys haven't been going around doing this, but I expect them to start up again at some point soon."
"So you think that there's a potential that he could show up here because the people here might be taking some of his drugs."
"Something like that, yeah."
"This isn't like a roundabout way of telling me that our place is full of druggies and crackheads, are you?"
Fuutarou shrugs. "I could be, but if I were, I'd have to say that about every single nightclub in this side of the city. This one happens to be where you work."
"Hmph." Takebayashi folds her arms a bit at her customer. "So you're telling me to keep an eye out for him?"
"I am. I was hoping you'd know him yourself, since that would mean that he frequents this place."
"I mean, if he's the leader of a drug ring, what makes you think that he'd ever come out of the shadows? From what little I know about the drug rings in the city, the people who're in charge of them obviously don't step out into the public sphere unless they're Yakuza, and even then the Yakuza don't really operate in this city. Or at least not on the same scale as the other drug rings."
"The fact that I fought him when I met him proves otherwise," Fuutarou says. "Of course, maybe that was his one-off exception. But he's a modern mage like me; he's fine with heading out there on his own to get shit done. He's also a dangerous one too, I got pretty badly cut up that last time we met."
"Cut up? Did he use a knife on you or something?"
"He's a knife-user, it seems like, yeah."
"But I thought you were a mage too."
"Knife-fighting gets complicated when the person you're fighting against can stab you even when you're not close to him."
"That does sound complicated, unless you're just talking about him throwing a knife at you."
"He didn't need to throw it. He uses a kind of magic that lets him choose where he wants to stab you, even at a distance."
"Yikes...that sounds rough."
"It is rough. I had my liver cut open while fighting him."
"Ouch. It seems like you're doing okay now, though?"
"Yeah, it's been like two weeks since then. I also hurt him pretty badly myself, so it's safe to say that our fight ended in a stalemate. It seems like we've both been taking the time to recover, which I don't mind."
"Just make sure not to push yourself too hard. You've always done that, ever since we were kids."
"Eh, some things don't change."
"With you, it's not just some things!"
Fuutarou briefly gazes off towards the strobe lights swinging around down around the dance floor.
"So you'll keep an eye out for Shirazumi for me if you can, right?" he asks.
"I can, sure, but do you, like, want me to call you or text you as soon as I do, or what do you want me to do, exactly? And do you want me to let the rest of the staff know so that they can keep an eye out too?"
"No, don't tell any of the bouncers about this, they might be aggressive with it and Shirazumi'll get tipped off right away that he's being tracked. You can maybe ask the other bartenders, though, I can trust them better to keep a low profile about this. As for what you should do if you happen to see him around this place, just text me that you've seen him, though I'll also need you to tell me the time that you saw him here. Use the security cameras in this place if you have to, you have access to them and their footage, right?"
"Asking a whole bunch outta me this time around, are we? And well, I don't ever have a reason to check the security cams, but I suppose I could ask my parents if I can check them for you, and since they know you, I'm sure they'll let me." Takebayashi sighs and rests her elbows on the bar counter, leaning in towards her customer, who sits still, unflinching. "You sure do like asking a lot of things out of us, you know? Not to mention, we do all this for free, just for you. On the house. How do you expect to pay us back for all this service, hmmm...?"
"Tch. You already know how," Fuutarou frowns darkly, causing Takebayashi to grin deviously.
"Of course I do. It's been a while since the last time, too," she says softly. "I'm definitely looking forward to the next time, I hope you realize."
"Won't Sanada have anything to say about this?"
"Oh, phooey, he doesn't need to know about it. Just let me know when you'll come here for real."
The young mage shakes his head. "Goddamn it, Takebayashi. Besides, I'm way too busy to stop by other than for something like this. Honestly, with how deeply I'm involved with this contract, I don't see myself doing it again for at least another year."
"A full year!? Oh, c'moooooon..." Takebayashi groans, reeling backwards a little in complaint. "You really gotta make me wait that long...?!"
"It is what it is. Honestly, I should've never gotten involved with all this, and you know it."
Takebayashi pouts down at her customer. "It's because of those quintuplets, huh? The five of them got you all wrapped up around their fingers or something? I don't need to go over to their place and teach them a lesson or anything, right? I hope you realize that I knew you first!"
"Bossy as always, are we now," Fuutarou sighs. "And no, please don't do that, that'll cause more misunderstandings that I don't need to deal with at the moment."
He then gets up from his chair, the conversation beginning to draw to a close.
"You're still keeping up well with school, right? Bartending's not getting in the way, I hope?" he asks his bartender. "Considering that both of us aren't even supposed to be in this place to begin with."
"Nope, I'm still going to school and being class president and all that. Honestly, that's a question I should be asking you, you and all that magework you do," Takebayashi points back at her childhood friend.
"Originally, I wasn't even planning on attending high school. So you have the quints to thank for that."
"Not really. If I'd found out that you're not going to school properly, I would've dragged you to my school myself."
"Yes, because somehow that's going to work."
Takebayashi begins to crack her knuckles menacingly. "Is that a challenge I hear, Fuutarou?"
"Yes, a challenge you can't do."
"Fine, if you're so confident, your drinks won't be on the house from now on."
Fuutarou laughs shortly, raising his hands up in a nonchalant shrug. "And nothing of value was lost."
Takebayashi pouts hard after her customer as he slowly makes his way to the stairs to exit the venue. "You're going to regret saying that!" she also hollers after him, and Fuutarou, cheekily smirking back at her, waves her goodbye as he slips out of view down the stairs.
As Fuutarou exits the nightclub, thankful that nothing has gone awry with his assignment tonight, he considers his options now. If Takebayashi, who works late night shifts like these at the most popular nightclub in the city, doesn't know who Shirazumi Rio is when she usually keeps a good eye on all the noteworthy figures in the Night Crawler, then he can safely assume that Rio just hasn't been by this place or this area at all. For as much of a creepy asshole he was acting like when the two of them faced off, Fuutarou thought that maybe there's a chance that Rio would be good at acting or conducting himself around other people; a little charisma goes a long way in helping bastards like him get around the city, socially speaking. Maybe he avoids high-traffic areas like the nightclub here because he doesn't want to attract too much attention? But that would be contradictory to how he set up an entire drug cache site in the middle of the city, right? Fuutarou can't seem to get a read on this guy at all...he came to pay Takebayashi a visit because it's difficult tracking Rio even with his rune network throughout the city in the hopes that extra pairs of eyes being on the lookout in the right place would be able to uncover something, but it's looking like even this plan may not bear fruit after all.
But unwilling to give up so easily, Fuutarou makes a mental note to himself to check back on Takebayashi; maybe he's bound to show up to a place like this, and it's only because Rio hasn't actually taken the time to come here yet. Takebayashi's promised to text him if she sees anyone like Rio too, so there's that. For now, he'll need to pay visits to his other info-dealers to see if any of them have any sort of intel on Shirazumi Rio. The night is still young, after all, and the young mage wants to make the most out of the time he's got.
As soon as it strikes midnight, though, his smartwatch's screen begins to blink, and checking it, Fuutarou reads a scheduled reminder, and he figures he'll stop by a convenience store on the way back home.
The striking of a match; the birth of a small star that gives way to a pleasing scent fit for the gods in the heavens.
Kneeling before the tombstone marked with the kanji denoting the grave of the Nakano family, Nakano Itsuki, making sure that the incense is burning properly, puts her hands together and closes her eyes to pray. A small bouquet of flowers, specifically red hibiscus, that she's brought rests besides the incense urn quietly as Itsuki prays, with a 12-piece packet of individually packaged red bean paste dorayaki beneath them at the base of the tombstone that sits with a small bottle of Sayuri sake.
Today is June 14th...two months until the date of Nakano Rena's death. Yet the quintuplet most affected by the death of her mother does not let that discrepancy in timing stop her from honoring her beloved mother's memory: every single month since her mother's passing, on the 14th day, Itsuki has faithfully visited the grave of Nakano Rena. Every single 14th day of the month, without fail, for exactly half an hour each visit, Itsuki kneels with a standard seiza on a little red mat that she brings with her for this occasion to pray for her mother in the afterlife. It does not matter to her if it is windy, raining, hailing, or snowing. It does not matter if she has fallen sick with a fever or a cold. It does not matter if she has an urgent test later that week that she must study for. Everything short of the health of her own sisters becomes trivial in the face of this monthly ritual that Itsuki performs without fail, bringing flowers and incense for the one ritual that helps remind her of why and how she is the girl she is today.
The smell of the scented incense, due to the lack of wind today, slowly permeates the air around the tombstone, filling Itsuki's nose in an effort to distract her, but Itsuki is too well versed in her monthly ritual to let the familiar incense take her mind off praying for the sake of her deceased mother.
Finally finishing her prayer quietly, Itsuki pulls her eyes back open to gaze down at her offering in the name of her mother Rena, blinking calmly to match her steady breathing. This monthly visit to her mother's grave provides her a consistent escape from the oftentimes hectic and fast-paced life that she leads back home, in an unusual setting living with four other quintuplets and dealing with the shenanigans that comes as a result of it...and now, as of two months ago, the addition of a boy who's come out of nowhere to enter their lives and undeniably have the biggest impact on her life since her own father at the time her mother passed away. She unpacks her memories and lays out her thoughts before the tombstone, as though she's sharing everything that's happened to her mother in the hopes that she will be able to listen...even though Itsuki is fully aware that doing so for this expressed purpose is, for the most part, meaningless.
A small pang of pain jolts across her heart. Meaningless...no, it is not meaningless. If it were, she wouldn't find it in herself to pay monthly visits like this for the past six years. There is meaning to this; that much is for sure.
Even still, no amount of self-righteous meaning is going to change the fact that their mother is gone. Itsuki, the quintuplet who most adored their mother when she was still with them, always finds herself confronted with this awful truth, just as reliably as these monthly visits to the grave themselves. Because how better to remind herself of the fact that her mother is dead than to kneel before a slab of stone that says so?
Itsuki finds herself closing her eyes again, and to her muted surprise, she feels them moistening. She hasn't cried in front of the tombstone for a few years...so why is she crying now?
Quickly wiping her tears away and suppressing the rest that haven't managed to emerge, Itsuki manages to calm her aching heart. The fact that she still manages to get emotional before her mother's tombstone also reminds her of the fact that even after all these years, Itsuki hasn't changed from being the resident crybaby of the quintuplets.
And on the topic of not having changed, Itsuki's the only one among the quintuplets who hasn't shown the impression of progress. Ichika, Nino, Miku, and Yotsuba have all found things that they are good at, things that they can act on to give themselves futures after high school, assuming all goes well with their graduations. What does Itsuki have? Eating?
"...will I ever be able to be like you, Mother...?" Itsuki mumbles aloud.
"You should focus on being yourself first."
Jolting upright while still kneeling in surprise, the youngest quintuplet, with her lengthy ahoge also standing on edge in shocked surprise, quickly turns to the source of the familiar voice that she hears right next to her.
"...would be my advice, at least."
Also sitting upright from a small, silent prayer of his own, Uesugi Fuutarou blinks slowly at the tombstone in front of him, next to the Nakano family's tombstone. It's a much smaller tombstone by comparison, and there isn't even any kanji to mark it.
"U-U-Uesugi-kun...?!" Itsuki blurts out, still gripped by surprise. "W-When did you - ?!"
"You seemed to be busy there, so I didn't want to bother you while you were praying," Fuutarou says calmly, producing something from his messenger bag and placing it on the small tombstone before him. Itsuki blinks a few times at it: it's a whole loaf of sliced whole wheat bread from an artisanal bakery Komugiya. "I see you've got an extra stick of incense there. If you don't mind, I'd like to use it."
"Um...s-sure...please help yourself..."
"Thank you."
Itsuki watches her tutor who seems to have appeared out of nowhere with eyes that are having trouble believing what she's seeing as he lights the incense, sets it in front of the small tombstone, and bows his head and puts his hands together in another small prayer. The tone of his voice that he's used so far to talk to her is much quieter than she's used to hearing from him; there's a degree of solemnness that she's certainly never heard him speak with before, different from the tenseness in his voice in times of duress or the annoyance he conveys whenever she or any of her sisters give him a hard time.
Though his prayer is short, it still gives Itsuki enough time to reflect on what he's told her just now. You should focus on being yourself first. But isn't that what she's doing...?
"I think I speak for both of us when I say...fancy seeing you here, Itsuki," Fuutarou gives Itsuki a small grin once he's done paying his respects.
"Indeed you do. What brings you here today?" Itsuki asks in return. "...I do not mean to be rude, but unfortunately, that tombstone...has nothing on it..."
"Oh, right." Fuutarou reaches out with his hand, whose outline glows briefly with light blue mana, and as he pulls it back, kanji begins to etch itself into the tombstone properly, merely spelling out his family name of "Uesugi".
"You...keep the marker hidden?" the quintuplet asks quietly, still feeling a bit unnerved watching another one of Fuutarou's acts of magic.
"For security purposes. Let's just say that I've made lots of enemies over the years while I've been working as a mage," Fuutarou sighs deeply, "people who'd stoop to any level to hurt me somehow. One of the easiest and worst ways to hurt someone is to target their family, people they care about. In my case, while I can keep my own family safe for the most part, there was one time when someone actually tried going after this tombstone because they knew my mom's ashes was interred here."
Unable to help herself again, Itsuki gasps lightly when Fuutarou mentions this.
"Th-That's...that's terrible...! How could they even...that's horrible..."
"Yeah, it's...it's pretty low," the young mage agrees, nodding his head slowly and broodingly. "Though I'm not surprised you're not worried about the fact that your mom's tombstone could've also been damaged in the crossfire."
Itsuki naturally cringes at the terribly uncomfortable possibility that her classmate points out to her. "Urk...um...I'm...I'm glad both of our mothers' tombstones are safe..."
"Yeah, same. That's why I keep the tombstone unmarked, and I even keep a few spells here to make sure that they'll be left alone, at least by people who aren't also mages who can break my runes."
The two classmates fall into an empty silence. The air is not tense, and somehow, it doesn't feel awkward - at least, it doesn't feel that way to Itsuki, perhaps because the two of them are paying respects to their respective mothers.
"...I never knew..." Itsuki speaks up again softly, "...I never knew that your mother was...interred here as well."
"Well...this is the more popular of the two cemeteries we have around the city. The other one on the other side from here was only built last year," Fuutarou explains. "Is that even the right word to use? Popular? Doesn't sound right..."
Itsuki looks around. "The cemetery is quite large. I suppose I should be more surprised at the fact that our mothers' tombstones are right next to each other."
"Yeah, I'll agree with that. And I don't stop by here that often, either. How about you?"
"Er..."
Hesitating, Itsuki wonders to herself if she should divulge such information to Fuutarou, but reasoning that if there's anyone she could feel comfortable talking with outside of her own family on this matter, it would be her tutor, the youngest quintuplet gathers her resolve to talk.
"...I come visit my mother's grave every month. Specifically, every 14th day of the month...because that was the day when Mother died," she explains softly. "August 14th was when she passed away. Her death affected me greatly...to the point where I made it a point to come visit her every month."
Fuutarou gazes over at her.
"...forgive me if I sound like I'm prying, but judging by the fact that none of your sisters are here, I take it that you come visit by yourself often?"
Itsuki nods. "My sisters got over our mother's death after a few months. Nino was the one who used to come with me to visit, but eventually she got tired of constantly traveling out here every month, so it is just me most of the time nowadays...though we all still do come out on the anniversary of our mother's death."
"So it's safe for me to infer that out of the five of you, you probably looked up to your mother a lot?"
A weak smile forms over the quint's lips. "Correct analysis as always, Uesugi-kun. Yes, out of the five of us, I believe it is safe to say that...Mother's death had the most profound effect on me. It is not to say that my sisters did not also love Mother either; we all took her passing very hard."
Itsuki looks up at the sky. It's a cloudy day, which is rather unusual for a day in the middle of June. Come to think of it, she can't seem to recall a day when she's visited her mother's grave that wasn't cloudy...
"...it is just that...to this day, I am the one among us who still has trouble...coming to terms with it."
"I see. Then...it is also safe for me to infer that you looked up to your mom the most out of your sisters, too?"
"Yes, though...that was not how it was at first, not when Mother was still with us. It was only after she died that I began to realize what she had gone through."
Turning to Fuutarou, Itsuki gives him a very weak smile, even weaker than the one from before. At this point, it only barely qualifies as a smile.
"We were very poor growing up, my family. When we were born, my mother was all by herself, as far as I am aware...and we never knew who our father was, and Mother never spoke of him, either. So she had to raise all five of us on her own. There were entire days and nights when she would be unable to come home because of work, and whenever she would come back home, she would be too tired to talk to us, though she always made us food and pancakes whenever we had the ingredients for it. She never showed us how tired she really was, and as kids, we were none the wiser because we had no idea what she was doing, and she always told us to not worry about her, that we should live our lives out to the fullest because we were still kids.
"But she could only keep doing so for so long. She could only look after the five of us, who were identical quintuplets back then and caused a lot of trouble for her, for so long. Naturally, she wrecked her own health doing everything she could to support us, and finally, six years ago, she had to be hospitalized. She died soon afterwards."
Itsuki, whose head has been drooping little by little as her monologue goes on, lifts her chin up again.
"Once she died, I started to grasp the sense that she had put herself through so much just to take care of us. Of course, as kids, we quintuplets could never have fully understood exactly everything that it was that she went through, but I did not want to use our youth as an excuse. After all, without our mother, we were basically on our own; even back then, we understood that we would need to fend for ourselves, since Mother was the only one who took care of us, and without her, we had nobody. That was when I decided to become our new mother, or at least become the mother among us, to take care of and guide the rest of my sisters. During that time when Mother's death was still fresh on our minds, when I saw all of my sisters around me crying as we were mourning her death, I resolved to fill Mother's shoes."
"That so, huh," Fuutarou nods slowly, having patiently listened to Itsuki's anecdote. "I'll be honest, though, Nino seems more like Team Mom to me."
Breaking into a few giggles, Itsuki lets her weak smile return briefly. "I...cannot refute that. I do agree that Nino is certainly doing a better job of being our mother. Compared to her, I..."
Itsuki's voice trails off.
"...is that why you're the only one among the five of you who speaks in keigo?" the young tutor asks in an attempt to shift the attention away from Nino.
"Sheesh, there really is nothing you do not know, huh?"
"Okay, that time was mostly a guess, I'll admit."
"But surely you must have been led to make that guess with a solid reasoning?"
"No, not...not really. Most girls I've ever run into don't speak in keigo, so I'd noticed from the beginning that you spoke differently from your sisters and assumed that was because you all came from a private school setting thanks to Kurobara. But after listening to you talk about your mom just now, it just...makes sense to me that you must've decided to speak in keigo because of her. And if Kurobara was the reason why you talk in keigo, then more of your sisters would be speaking the same way. Sorry, I don't really have, like, any good reasoning for this."
"Is that so. Either way, yes, your guess is correct; I began speaking in keigo after she passed away. I did not always sound like this, believe it or not."
"Yeah, I know."
"...you do?"
"Sure. Remember that time when you tried acting like Miku to me?"
"Aaaaauuu..." Itsuki whines softly, unable to stop her cheeks from reddening out of embarrassment as she recalls that particular incident. "I-I did not want you to think of that...!"
"If it'll make you feel any better, Nino really popped me a new one."
"It really does not...!" After pouting a little, Itsuki lets her face grow disturbed. "...I feel bad enough being the reason you were hurt the other week..."
"Please don't, there's no reason to be, now that I'm all better."
Fuutarou shifts his gaze back to his own mother's tombstone.
"So you study hard to take care of your sisters, right?"
"Yes, that is correct. After Mother died, the doctor who treated her came to our apartment and told us that she had arranged to have him take care of us once she died, so we fell under his custody."
"Doctor...don't tell me..."
Itsuki smiles again. "That doctor was, in fact, Doctor Nakano Maruo. I am under the impression that you know him as well?"
Scowling over at his student, the young mage watches her smile brighten with amusement at his reaction.
"Kinda wish I didn't."
"Just 'kind of'? After how you were acting towards him?"
"Not much of a choice I have, but anyways, go on."
"Yes. So Dr. Nakano...Father, that is...began taking care of us. Unlike now, though, he did try to spend some time with us in the beginning..."
"And that's why you and your sisters act that way towards him? Because you want him to act like how he used to?"
Itsuki nods. "I understand that you do not have a positive outlook on him, and I am sure you have your reasons. But...I earnestly do believe that Father is a kind person. After all, you have to be a special kind of person to be willing to take in orphaned quintuplets like us, right?"
"Hmph...I suppose that's true."
"Indeed. And so in the beginning, when he did spend some time with us, I confided with him my feelings about Mother, and I asked him how I would be able to best follow in her footsteps, and he told me by studying and being a good student. And the rest is, well..."
"Yeah, I know the rest."
"Y-You do!?"
"Just by looking at your test scores, of course."
"Oh geez...I keep forgetting that Father gave you literally all of our test scores from throughout school..."
Fuutarou briefly checks his smartwatch for the time, which reads 5:18 PM.
"Though, even after I have said all this, I know that I still do not know everything that Mother went through because of us. I am also painfully aware that for all the studying that I have done, for all the aspirations I have to be a good student, my results have been...subpar, to say the least. Truth be told, I am the exact opposite of a good student, and Father did not need to hire a tutor to show me that."
"And that's why you were saying that before you realized I was here?"
It's Itsuki's turn to turn to her own mother's tombstone, and she nods slowly right after.
"...is there perhaps...something you do not like about what I said?" she asks back.
"It's more of a personal gripe. I don't want to sit here sounding like I'm judging you for the decisions that you make, especially when it involves your mom who's passed away."
"I do not mind; please let me hear what you have to say."
"Sure, but it's going to sound harsh. I think you're going about it the wrong way - I don't agree with studying hard or aspiring to become a good student just because of your mom. While I'm sure she was a great parent who did everything she could for her daughters, like you said, her death should not mean that you should focus your future for her sake."
Fuutarou turns to Itsuki fully this time, still seated on the cemetery path in front of his mother's tombstone.
"Remember how in the beginning, when I first started teaching you girls, I didn't try to force you or Nino to come join us for lessons? It's a bit like that, I guess; I wanted you girls to want to study, to let me tutor you. So let me ask you this, Itsuki: are you studying for the sake of becoming a good student? Or are you studying because you want to become a good mother, or in your case, someone who can take care of the rest of your sisters in the absence of your real mother?"
Having turned to him earlier, Itsuki averts her gaze again.
"Because if your motivation is to be like your mom, then there are plenty of ways to go about doing that, not just studying - in fact, studying's a pretty roundabout way to do what you're intending to do, honestly. More relevant to our situation, though, is the fact that your motivation's in the wrong place, in my opinion. If replacing your mom's role in your family is your primary motivator for studying and not becoming a good student, then it's not really a mystery why you keep getting bad grades all the time, right?"
Fuutarou is met with a long silence, so he continues on without her.
"I'm sure the others are like this too, in their own quirky ways, so don't think I'm singling you out or anything. I'm just saying this since you're kind enough to take the time to explain your situation to me," he clarifies calmly. "Sometimes, the problem in achieving a goal isn't the methods of the means by which you achieve it. Sometimes, it's the reasons why you go for that goal in the first place, and oftentimes those are the hardest problems to find."
"So...should I stop studying, then? Or what should I do?"
"No, I'm not telling you to stop studying, your dad's gonna fire me the second he fucking hears that. I just want you to think about why you study. While I can sit here telling you that it's a flawed reason that you have, it's still a reason nonetheless, and I can't stop you from continuing to believe in what you always have. I just want to convey to you that if you've been doing all you can to reach your goal and it doesn't seem like you've been able to make any improvements, maybe it's a good idea to step back and take another look at the big picture, to make sure you have your bearings straight."
Fuutarou points over to the dorayaki and sake sitting at the base of the Nakano tombstone.
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask, but...did you bring that?"
"Huh? The...the dorayaki? No..."
"Oh, right, because you would've eaten them all on your own by now..."
"U-Uesugi-kun!"
"Sorry, sorry, I hadn't made a joke about you eating for the past week, so I had to get it out there."
Still pursing her lips at her tutor, Itsuki grumbles back at him, "No, I did not bring them, they were already here when I arrived."
"Huh. So I guess there's someone else who visits your mom's grave, then."
"It is quite strange, though..."
"What is? The snack choice? I don't really know anyone who eats dorayaki with sake..."
"No, it is not about the food...or the choice of them. It is this..."
Reaching over to the dorayaki pack, Itsuki picks it up and flips it over. On its back is a little Sticky note, written with red ink: "For the quints"
"As far back as I can remember, someone has been leaving these gifts of snacks at my mother's tombstone, and the snacks are always addressed to me and my sisters; I assume that whoever it is, they intended for us to take them home to eat, though I am not sure what to do with the sake in this case."
"Maybe someone who also cared a lot about your mom," Fuutarou suggests. "Maybe your dad? He's the only one I know who could possibly do this."
"Perhaps. I have never seen who it is, either..."
Opening the dorayaki pack, Itsuki pulls out two individual packets, one for herself and one for her tutor.
"Would you like one?" she asks, and Fuutarou nods, accepting her token.
"Since you told me about your side of the story here, I'll tell you mine, if you'd like," Fuutarou offers as he begins to bite into his dorayaki. "I hope our moms don't get pissed at us because we're eating in the cemetery."
"Er...that's right...I am sure they would...not mind...I think..." Itsuki mutters nervously as she begins to nibble on her dorayaki.
"My story isn't as long as yours, though. My mom also died when I was young, but in my case it was eight years ago due to a traffic accident. My dad had her body cremated, and we keep her ashes here. We couldn't afford any fancier tombstones, so we just went with the smallest one we could find." Fuutarou points at the loaf of bread from Komugiya. "My mom loved baking bread, and she was really good at it, enough to the point where she even sold leftover bread she made to markets and shops that would resell them. Eventually, my mom was encouraged by her success with baking that she looked to open her own bakery and took out loans to rent out a place where she could establish it - and then the traffic accident happened."
Itsuki gazes at the loaf of bread still sitting in front of the forlorn, tiny Uesugi grave marker.
"Half the debt that I sometimes talk about having to pay off is that, the loans that she took out to get her bakery started; the other half's the money that my dad borrowed to get his office up and running. But anyways - that's why I try to bring along a loaf of bread whenever I stop by."
"Your mom loved making bread, huh. Ours loved making pancakes," Itsuki smiles again, nostalgically. "Looks like our mothers had something in common."
"I guess so."
After finishing his dorayaki, Fuutarou glances once more at his smartwatch.
"It's getting pretty late; I must've held you up for way longer than I should for a day when we wouldn't have any lessons," the young tutor sighs. "Do you want me to take you back home, or are you fine on your own?"
"Um..." Itsuki hesitates again, but she breaks out of it swiftly and answers, "...if you do not mind, please take me home."
"Sure thing. Though, I wonder what we're gonna do with that sake..."
Fuutarou points down at the small Sayuri bottle.
"Well...we are both underage...I doubt either of us will have any use for it," Itsuki wonders aloud.
"Yeah, maybe not us. But I know my dad can knock that all back in a heartbeat."
"...so you are just going to take an offering...?"
"It's either that, or the cemetery staff're gonna get rid of it when they come by. Maybe whoever brought the dorayaki also brought the sake for you girls to take home?"
"Again, we are underage, Uesugi-kun!"
Chuckling to himself, Fuutarou picks up the Sayuri bottle and stashes it away in his messenger bag.
"If you want, though, I'll give this to you too," Fuutarou says, offering the loaf of artisanal bread to Itsuki. "We already have two loaves of bread back at home; we don't really need a third one, otherwise we're gonna be eating sandwiches for dinner for the rest of the week."
"Er...we also already have loaves of bread at our place too...and besides, you said you would treat us to those parfaits you promised us after midterms this weekend."
"Oh yeah, that's right...hm, then I guess I'll hold onto the bread. Just don't run my wallet dry when we go in for parfaits."
"Ehehe, no guarantees, Uesugi-kun ~ "
"For fuck's sake, Itsuki."
The youngest quintuplet's giggles accompany the young mage's groans as the two of them depart from the cemetery.