A/N
I planned to have this chapter out on the anniversary of this fic's release, which was on Christmas 2019. Looks like New Year's is my next best option. Here's to a better and more productive 2021.
The quiet hum of the hotel room door's hinges is followed quickly by a moderate, heavy click of the door closing. Uesugi Fuutarou follows Nakano Nino into the hotel room, the very same one that Fuutarou brought the second quint and her younger sister to in order to tend to their wounds.
"Pssssshhhhh...it's almost midnight, fuck," Fuutarou groans, exhaling heavily through his clenched teeth as he turns his left wrist to take a look at the time. He sets Nino's suitcase by the foot of one of the queen-sized beds, the one that Nino specifically slept in, while the quintuplet in question climbs up onto the bed to seat herself against the pillows after taking off her shoes.
"So? What're you gonna do now?" Nino asks.
"Great question, I'm glad you asked." Sighing tiredly again, Fuutarou runs his hand up through his hair, having taken off his cap momentarily to do so. "I think we don't need to worry about that Shirazumi guy coming back to attack you or your sisters again; I was able to confront him directly and it seemed to me like he needs some more time to recover, so we can actually just focus on your finals studying. The issue is that now, it's Wednesday, your finals are on Friday, and you and Itsuki are still pissed at each other."
The quintuplets' tutor leans a little against the corner of one of the room's walls, behind which is the hotel room bathroom, while folding his arms slowly. Watching him assume this kind of a pose, Nino realizes that Fuutarou's lean, along with the cap, black jacket, and reverse half-kilt behind his legs that give him the impression of wearing a trench coat or something, gives him some major cool guy vibes, and she forces herself to look away before her tutor can see the embarrassment she has on her face.
"Before I decide on how to handle this situation, I need to know where you stand in our next problem," Fuutarou says shortly. "We talked about this a little bit on our way back here, but I'll ask you again just in case you've changed your mind in the meantime: are you not willing to make amends with Itsuki yet?"
The gravity of the topic, thankfully, pulls Nino back down to earth, and she's able to look back up at her tutor without looking like a bashful schoolgirl.
"No, I'm not," Nino answers clearly. "Like I told you...this is a matter of pride now. I don't want to be the first one who comes back home, because that'll make it seem like I gave up first, that I can't handle being on my own."
Fuutarou nods slowly. "Yeah...figured as much."
The second quintuplet casts her gaze down at her feet on her bedsheets, the perturbed, troubled look on her classmate's face burned deeply into her eyes.
"...sorry for putting you through this, too. But...I already explained enough earlier today on our way here. So..."
A somber silence follows Nino's last words as the quintuplet herself begins to cringe a little at the situation that she's created. For whatever reason that Nino isn't sure of, her tutor decided to pay for a bus ride back to the city from the seaside amusement park instead of just teleporting them back to the city, or do whatever his magical powers can allow to take them back quickly, and the bus ride took a few hours. That, and they also grabbed a late dinner and ate before convening here in the hotel room as the last thing to do for the day.
Their itinerary aside, now that Nino isn't actively hating her own tutor's guts anymore, she has become acutely aware of all the shit she's dragged Fuutarou through in the past twenty-four hours. Ignoring all the crap that she's given him in the three months that they've known each other, Nino caused or is at least partially responsible for a big fight that led to her and Yotsuba being captured by a hostile mage that is after their lives, which then forced Fuutarou to come save them, heal their wounds, and protect them all the while. Even after all that happened, Nino still tried running away, despite knowing that her efforts would be proven futile, forcing Fuutarou to find her again and escort her back into the city, and that whole process took their entire Tuesday. Essentially, Nino has forced Fuutarou to burn a full day of potential tutoring for their finals when all five quintuplets desperately need that tutoring to ensure their successes, or at the very least make sure that they wouldn't fail.
So now the additional pressure that she's putting on Fuutarou with her lingering stubbornness against Itsuki has pinned her down against rock bottom, emotionally speaking. Nino had completely forgotten about her feud with her youngest sister, and with how she's finally made up with her tutor, she feels beyond awkward and uneasy that she needs him to deal with something like this, too, after all that's already happened.
"...okay then. So what're your plans gonna be in the meantime? Are you just gonna stay in this hotel until Itsuki comes back home first or what?" Fuutarou asks, pushing himself off the wall to stand upright.
"Huh? Uh...well...yeah, I guess...I guess I'll stay here..." Nino answers slowly. "But...but what about my tutoring? You're thinking about that too, aren't you?"
"Obviously. I'd really like you to go back home so that tutoring you all would be nice and simple, but since you sound pretty serious about this, I'll let you be. For now, I'll have to come here to tutor you."
"Wait, wait, you - you really don't need to go that far!" Nino raises her voice slightly. "I know you'll try to find a way to fix what's going on between me and Itsuki, I know you will! Why not just...y'know, focus on one thing at a time?"
At this, Fuutarou starts chuckling in a low voice. "That's rich. You, who kept bitching at me for the past three months about how I'm barging in on another family's business for no reason, are now telling me how to do my job?"
"Oh come on, now's not the time for snarky comebacks like this!"
"Hmph. Well, you're certainly on the mark about how I'm gonna try to resolve this situation. Like, you understand that I kind of have to, right? I don't want to have to come here to tutor you alone when I can get everyone back together and tutor you all together; it's simply too inefficient to tutor any one of you girls separately, away from the others, and especially not when finals is in two days, pretty much." Fuutarou locks his eyes with Nino's with a deep, serious look in his own. "What I'd like to ask you is why you're willing to let me handle something like this for you when you've kept telling me that this isn't supposed to be any of my business."
"Well - because, you know!" Nino starts fidgeting a little. "I...I told you, back at the amusement park...I know that you can keep us all together and keep us safe. You can do what I wanted to do but can't really."
The second quintuplet slowly pulls her legs to her left to seat herself on the edge of her bed rather than on the middle of it.
"...you can certainly do that better than I can right now, at least," she adds at the end.
Fuutarou continues to gaze thoughtfully at the second quintuplet, who does her best to refuse eye contact.
"But that practically goes against everything you've stood for, doesn't it? Like, why the change of heart all of a sudden?"
"Do you want me to go back to how I was acting towards you up 'til now, then?" Nino snaps suddenly. "I could ask you something similar; why are you not taking advantage of my change of heart to get whatever it is that you feel you need to do before I change my mind suddenly or something?"
Shrugging slowly, Fuutarou takes a slow, somewhat brooding exhale, and Nino uses his hesitation to get a few more words in.
"What, are you the sorta person who likes having the odds stacked against him or something or what? Like you'll feel more like a hero if more things get in your way or something like that? Or maybe you're just a masochist?"
"There are easier ways of being a masochist than doing what I'm doing now, and that's a goddamn fact and a half," the young mage growls back, also displaying a sudden shift in attitude that startles Nino back into submission, as she now thinks she's gone a little too far reverting to her own usual attitude towards her tutor and once more avoids eye contact. Seeing Nino shut up immediately like this, Fuutarou removes his aggressive tone from his voice before continuing. "Let's just say that whenever I meet someone who acts one way yesterday and then acts radically different the next day, I usually think something's wrong with them. Either...they're having a bad day, or...something must've happened. Especially with someone like you, I can't really be sure. So I feel the need to ask you if it's alright for me to proceed with what I have in mind."
"Someone like me...what's that supposed to mean," Nino grumbles in a light voice that lacks her usual anti-Uesugi Fuutarou venom.
"I mean, if I recall correctly, you've been pretty hot and cold towards me for the past several weeks...I'd say since the weekend where you had your run-in with Yotsuba. So you'll excuse me for double-checking that your friendlier attitude towards me right now isn't just a fluke."
"Oh come on! Do you even fucking remember what I did back at the amusement park? Even someone like you must know that someone like me doesn't just do something like that, only for it to be a fluke!"
"Again, just wanted to make sure. Can never be too careful, especially with what happened the other night..."
Turning towards the door to make his departure, Uesugi Fuutarou puts his back to the quintuplet and begins to head for the door. Nino turns to him the moment she hears him turn to leave, watching his back as he draws nearer to the exit.
"Wait, Fuutarou!"
Blurting out her tutor's name, the second quintuplet quickly bites her lower lip like that's going to somehow undo her words, words that reach the boy's ears and cause him to halt in his tracks to turn around again halfway to give her his attention briefly. Now that she has it, Nino, feeling her cheeks heat up, realizes only now that she didn't mean to blurt out like this, and now she feels too awkward to send him on his way. Not that she wants him to so soon anyway, since the reason why she called out his name was to have him stick around for a little bit longer, so her mind scrambles to think of something relevant to talk about. Luckily, she finds such a topic quickly.
"...since you're going to go talk to Itsuki, I guess I should ask..." Nino says slowly, enunciating every words carefully to buy herself as much time as she can to elaborate on the rest of her conversation starter, "...you, uh...already talked to her, right? Because...because now that I think about it...you met up with me and Yotsuba yesterday night pretty late, when you said on our way back that you woke up a few hours before that. If you'd come straight for me and Yotsuba, it wouldn't have taken you very long at all."
Fuutarou snorts quietly, giving a single nod of confirmation.
"Nice deduction. You're right; I did in fact go see Itsuki first. I figured you probably wouldn't be in the mood to talk to me and that Itsuki might be, simply based on the histories of our relationships between me and your sister."
"You don't need to sound so methodical about it," Nino criticizes, but she lets up on the attitude again. "But anyways...what did you talk about with her? If...that's something you're willing to share with me."
"You're at odds with Itsuki, and yet you're asking me what I talked about with her?" Fuutarou questions, raising an eyebrow down at his student.
"She's...she's still my sister, you know! And...and now that I've...calmed down a bit from our fight, I..." Nino pauses pensively. "...I do feel bad for the shit I pulled. I know I shouldn't have reacted that way. Even I can feel a bit guilty about that too..."
"Then if you truly feel that way, why don't you make my job easier and come with me to go see Itsuki so that you can say sorry to her in person?" Fuutarou suggests.
As Fuutarou expects, Nino pouts back at him and crosses her own arms. "Nope! No way."
"Yeah, thought so..."
"Look, even though I did say just now that I still worry about her as a sibling, the thing is..." Nino pauses again, but this time with a somewhat frustrated tone as her pursed lips indicate. "The thing is, she...Itsuki...she wasn't able to do something like that before."
"Something like what, exactly?"
"Slap me. You said Miku told you the details about the fight we had, so you should know that by now, right?"
"Yeah, I do. I just didn't know that that was what you were referring to."
"She didn't just slap me, either. She fucking punched me," Nino continues, subconsciously raising a hand up to her face where Itsuki socked her. "Usually I'm the one who's known for punching people. Itsuki's never been one to retaliate in such a hostile manner like that, no matter how much the others or I tease her or argue with her."
"Well, I mean, apparently you did kind of punch her in the face first, so..."
"No, I get that, I really do! I'm not saying that she didn't have any right to punch me back; I'm saying that she's the type of person who, even in a situation like that, wouldn't resort to punching someone else back just because they got hit."
"...then obviously that means that whatever you said to her must've really tipped her off this time, right?"
"Well, I..."
Fuutarou's words force Nino to recall her own that she projected at her youngest sister during the heated moments of their fight, both verbal and physical, and those words cause her posture to droop, a shadow forming over Nino's face as she realizes the horrible things she's said to Itsuki.
"...judging by your reaction, it certainly seems that way," Fuutarou rolls his eyes quickly.
"E-Even still! Look, Fuutarou, I - I know Itsuki better than you do, alright? And I'm telling you; that shit from Itsuki still wasn't normal! I know it!"
Hesitating herself a little, unsure of whether or not she ought to bring this up, Nino decides to pull the trigger and blurts out again, but on purpose this time:
"Because - because Itsuki - she got her Mystic Eyes! Her Mystic Eyes literally woke up right there, while we were arguing!"
But to Nino's shock, Fuutarou simply nods back. "Yeah, I know about 'em already."
Gawking at her tutor, Nino finally snaps herself back to talking. "S-Since when!? Did Itsuki tell you herself when you went to go track her down first yesterday?"
"She didn't tell me herself, but remember, I've spent so much time with all five of you that I can tell if there's something off about you, at least magically speaking. Itsuki was practically lit up like a Christmas tree, so I already knew that she must've had her own Mystic Eyes finally awaken even without having to ask her. I did have her show them to me just to make absolute sure, though."
"Wait, then - then that sounds like you already knew what I was gonna say just now! About how Itsuki got her Mystic Eyes during our argument!"
"Correction: I didn't know that that was what you were going to talk about, but I did know th - "
"Okay, shut up, shut up, I get it already!" Nino waves her tutor down, definitely miffed that she felt so invested into revealing what she thought was going to be a dramatic reveal of sorts, only to have Fuutarou already know about it.
"Then if you get it, am I right in guessing that you said some real mean shit to Itsuki to make her snap like that?" Fuutarou asks, only to be met with Nino's silence. "...I won't bother forcing you to tell me exactly what you said, but it seems like you already know why Itsuki snapped the way she did."
"Like I fucking said, that isn't the point! The point was - "
" - that Itsuki wouldn't normally act like that, yes, I get that too. But the same can be said of you right now: you're not acting the way you normally would towards me. Why are you being so nice and cooperative with me for the past several hours, ever since we met up at the amusement park? This is going both ways, at least from my perspective."
Sighing exasperatedly, Nino lets herself flop backwards across her bed horizontally, letting the stress of the situation course through her head.
"...geh, never mind that, then. The real point I wanted to make was that Itsuki almost...almost sorta feels like a stranger to me now," Nino says quietly. "That's why I can't go to her to talk things out, even if I wanted to."
"You've been with Itsuki for all your life, and one bad fight and it all falls apart? Weren't you the one who was all family first and stuff?" Fuutarou points out.
"I know, and that's the other weird part! I shouldn't let this change how I see my sisters, right? But like I said back at the bridge...I've felt like all my sisters have been leaving our nest, so to speak. I guess maybe all these feelings combined have made me start thinking of Itsuki almost as someone else, as an Itsuki I don't recognize..."
"Well, I'm sure if you go talk to her now, both of you have had enough time to calm down and reason things out with each other."
"And how are you so sure? You're not the one who's lived with her all their life."
"Maybe not, but I have talked to her more recently than you have, and in an actually relevant context. So as of right now, I do say that I'm a little more informed about her position than you are, especially when you're sitting here saying that Itsuki feels more like a stranger to you than an actual sister when she doesn't feel that way to me."
Fuutarou waits for Nino to talk again, but the latter fails to find anything else that she can use to extend their conversation, so she silently resigns herself to having her tutor leave.
"In any case, again, I'll go to Itsuki and see if she's willing to come here to apologize to you instead, though I highly doubt she'll do that either. If worst comes to worst, I'll tutor you separately here until you feel like going back home. I just have to hope and pray that your finals will go as smoothly as it can go at this point."
Nino, sensing her tutor's imminent departure, sits up briefly, to turn to him.
"But...but what if it doesn't?" she asks quickly. "What if...what if we still fail? Will you still be our tutor afterwards...?"
Clasping a single hand around the door handle, Uesugi Fuutarou pauses one last time for Nino for tonight.
"Don't worry about that - because frankly, that's none of your business. I'm not saying that to antagonize you on purpose; it's because worrying about something like that does you no good at this point in time. I'll deal with that problem when we've dealt with this bigger one that's your finals first, adequately or not."
Nakano Nino watches the door to her hotel room close quietly but firmly, and the muffled footsteps of her tutor fade away into silence out in the Marriott corridor. The quintuplet remains as she is for a few moments, with only her neck slacking somewhat to lower her gaze naturally, before she returns to lying across her queen-sized bed.
Man, Nino hasn't felt this shitty in a long while. The fact that her mind right now is some unidentifiable goop of blurred thoughts, residual emotions, and battered memories that have been mixed with a metaphorical ladle that is the overarching feeling of frustrated helplessness that she's overwhelmed with certainly doesn't help either, so maybe sorting out her thoughts first will help, even if only a little bit, and even if doing so is going to be the most painstaking thing she's ever done. But then again, it's not like she's got anything else to do right now.
Where to start? Ah yes, her new attitude towards her tutor...for as much as Nino calls Fuutarou dense, the latter has most certainly understood that the former has finally given up her hostile stance towards him from here onwards. Not much else can drive that point across than to run up to him and literally begin crying into his arm, though given who she's talking about, Nino feels like she won't be surprised if Fuutarou still doesn't get it. But for now, she'll assume that her classmate at least knows that she's going to stop acting with such a confrontational manner towards him from now on.
The mentally drained second quintuplet slowly drags her hand over her forehead to rest the back of her hand against it while she stares up at the ceiling of her room with empty eyes; luckily, the hotel lights aren't too bright, so she doesn't need to spend the energy to get up and dim them herself.
Nino definitely has feelings for that guy. The guy she so opposed from tutoring her and her sisters, the classmate who's all work and no play and thinks of nothing but what kinds of lessons he'll be administering to her siblings for tutoring later in the afternoon - that very same guy who she used to hate and resent with all of her heart? She certainly can't find any of those negative emotions towards him now. That's why she was trying to stall him, keep him hanging around in her hotel room for a little bit longer because she simply didn't want him to leave so soon, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him that directly. She's already gotten in his way so much over the past several months, whether she meant to or not, and asking him to stick around a little longer would only serve to irritate him even more.
Was that the real reason, though? Was the reason why she couldn't ask him to stay with her for a little bit longer because she'd feel bad that she's holding him up from going to meet with Itsuki in an effort to mediate this situation for the two? Or was it because Nino herself isn't sure of what to make of these feelings she's got for him?
Because Nino isn't sure if this is genuine love that she now harbors for Fuutarou. She's not sure if it's really that, or simply that her innate infatuation with delinquent-type boys and/or white knight types is kicking into full gear with what he's done for her for the past twenty-four hours or more. Perhaps most surprising, though, is that Nino isn't really flustered or anything by the fact that she has these feelings; she's just having a hard time deciding what it is that she feels towards her classmate, now that she feels compelled to confront this issue. But even this isn't so surprising, because all Nino has to do is think back over the past several months and recall all the moments and memories that she's had with Fuutarou, good or bad. Everything from ordinary, every day occurrences like his tutoring sessions, cooking together, and bantering between them back and forth to the more life-threatening incidents like the warehouse incident and the attacks made on her and her sisters - they've all built up a bond between her and her tutor without her realizing it up until this point.
Naturally, the quint's first reaction is to feel bitter or angry towards Uesugi Fuutarou, but she can't bring herself to do that anymore. Enough is enough; any more of this destructive behavior and she'll be putting everyone she knows in even greater danger. So the most she can do is helplessly recognize that despite all the nasty behavior she's demonstrated to Fuutarou over the last twelve weeks or so, Nino was always building up these feelings for him, to the point where now that the filter of antagonism has been ripped off, she's left with no choice but to see Fuutarou for what he is: a boy who's been doing everything in his power to manage two ridiculously tough responsibilities at the same time. To think that all this time, all she's ever been doing was making his job even more unbearable...though Nino does wonder a little to herself why someone like Fuutarou would ever bother to keep putting up with someone like her for all this time.
But for all the guilt and regret that's clogging up her chest, Nino does alleviate her rotten vibes somewhat with her newfound feelings of comfort. The past several hours that she's spent with Fuutarou alone have been unlike any other, and she can't quite describe it other than, dare she say, magical. It's not like they really engaged in any act of intimacy; the only hug that they shared was the one-armed one Fuutarou gave her on the bridge back at the amusement park and that was it. It's not like they went around holding hands like a real couple or anything; the most couple-like thing that they did was eat dinner together. For the rest of the day until they returned to this hotel room, they were just...together.
Yet for some reason, just being with him today gave her a sort of vibe that she can't describe with just one word or even phrase. It was both a sense of comfort and security - not necessarily that things were going to be all right, since their finals at the end of the week would have the final say on that matter, but...more that Nino could settle down mentally and emotionally with him by her side and at least give herself a hard reset to look progressively towards the rest of the week.
If she's being more specific, Nino got this sense of comfort and companionship from Fuutarou today that she's never really experienced before. It was different from hanging out with her sisters, and it was different from hanging out with her friends at school or dealing with guys around the city, whether they were friendly or not. Was that love? No, probably not exactly...Nino would be disappointed if that's all she felt if she really was in love with Fuutarou.
Maybe it was just her feeling safe with him? But could it really be something that simple? Because it really isn't; it has to be a little more than just having a bodyguard looking after her and protecting her life. It's the knowledge and the feeling that there is someone who will be there for her and her family when she's in trouble, whether she's aware of it herself or not. Ever since their mom died, even as a kid, Nino felt vulnerable, and she's sure her sisters felt the same way even back then, too, as they knew that without their mother, they were at risk of being separated and sent to different foster homes if their father hadn't intervened at the time that he did. And even then, their dad wasn't exactly a great parental figure and still isn't, so for the past six years, the Nakano quintuplets have had to grow up on their own, a little more quickly than the rest of their peers.
Nino herself developed her aggressive, confrontational personality as her way of providing herself and her sisters the sense of security and protection that she felt like they needed, and as it turns out, she ended up becoming acclimated to that since that was what worked up until recently. But hanging out with Fuutarou today made her remember how nice it feels when she could rely on someone else to take care of the scarier things in life. Growing up was a difficult and scary process because she had to venture into the vast unknowns of modern-day life, and not only did Nino venture out, but she cannonballed herself into them, oftentimes with mixed results. This goes against her usual feelings of fierce independence and normally strong will, but in this situation where she knows that she lacks the power to protect her family, the next best thing is to have someone else who does possess that power shoulder that responsibility. Because it's either that, or watch her siblings get torn apart, either metaphorically or literally - or possibly even both.
In any case, whatever that feeling was, Nino is well aware that it certainly isn't something she's going to feel with anyone else. And because of that, Nino doesn't think she can ever bring herself to hate him anymore. Has she fallen in love with him though, as she suspects that she might have? It's too early to tell, especially when Nino has never had a relationship quite like this before, but...at least Nino isn't against seeing how this new stage in her relationship with Uesugi Fuutarou will unfold.
Now that she's been able to mentally sort all that out, the second quintuplet pulls her hand off her forehead, but the slightly troubled look on her face with its furrowed eyebrows still persists. There was one question that she wasn't able to ask her tutor when she easily could have but chose not to - the question of magecraft. The conversations she had with Miku, who is an advocate of asking their tutor to also teach them magecraft, are echoing in the back of Nino's ears like empty whispers. Now that she isn't totally hating Fuutarou's guts anymore, what's stopping her from seizing the initiative away from Miku and asking him to teach her magecraft, especially with everything that's happened in the past day or two? Because despite her acceptance of Fuutarou's past efforts and current ability, Nino isn't quite fully able to let go of her desire to do things on her own, in this case protecting her loved ones. She wouldn't have those embers still burning away at the bottom of her emotionally tired heart if it weren't for the fact that she herself is a mage, what with her Mystic Eyes and all.
Nino's royal purple Mystic Eyes flash silently through her contact lenses, the so-called "Mystic Eye Killers" that are now currently failing their task of keeping those Mystic Eyes hidden from view. If she didn't have these eyes, then she'd have no choice but to let Fuutarou handle everything - but she does, which means she does have a choice, a say in this matter. It also helps that apparently these Mystic Eye things are supposed to be pretty powerful in the magic world according to Fuutarou, so that adds to Nino's confidence a little bit. Not by much, though, since there is inevitably going to be a whole host of obstacles to getting Fuutarou to teach her magecraft to begin with. Would he even say yes? Most likely not, given his stance on exposing them to magic. Even if he did agree to teaching them magic, how long would it take for them to become actual mages capable of defending themselves and each other? And what if her Mystic Eyes wasn't the hot shit that Fuutarou implied them to be and instead ended up being hot garbage instead?
And as the rotten cherry on top, Nino doesn't even know if she wants to ask Fuutarou to teach her magecraft in the first place, so sure is she that he'll simply reject her. He has his plethora of reasons to not do so, all of which the quintuplet would understand. Even still, she isn't some kind of docile pushover who's fine with letting everyone else do the work, especially if she's only ever on the receiving end and not putting in any effort in herself. She's carved out a proactive life for herself and developed her own way of doing things over the course of the past six years; she's not about to suddenly let it all go just because of what's happened. But the indecision that she's experiencing between holding herself back so that Fuutarou doesn't need to constantly babysit her and staying true to herself and doing what she can to help - or at the very least not feel like a liability - eats away at her conscience like Itsuki plows through an entire rice cooker's worth of fluffy white rice.
Nakano Nino continues to lie on her bed, just as she had ever since her tutor left. Her eyes are beginning to feel tired, so she obliges them by closing her eyelids for a few moments.
She almost can't believe she's thinking this to herself, but...for the first time ever, Nino misses Fuutarou's tutoring lessons. Because back then, at least she was blissfully unaware of how much of a piece of shit she's been to everyone around her, especially to Uesugi Fuutarou. Maybe the boy in question was able to look past her transgressions today, but would her sisters be able to?
Would she herself be able to?
Groaning loudly, Nino forces herself to get back up to her feet, off the bed and away from its physical comfort. She heads over to the suitcase that Fuutarou has left standing against the wall, and she opens it to fish out her school bag. Setting it on the side of the bed, she then pulls out a messy pile of torn scraps of paper and a roll of Scotch tape, both of which she takes with her to the table.