Five Equal Angels

by Hieda no Akyuu

Alternate retelling of the original manga. With more than just tutoring skills at his disposal, Uesugi Fuutarou is hired to guide the Quintuplets to graduation, but this time there is more to it than just tutoring and more at stake than simply avoiding academic failure.

76. Just Be Yourself

"Why don't you go play with the others, Miku?"

Nakano Miku lifts her head up from her arms slowly; she finds herself sitting against the wall on the floor, near the front door. Her long, peachy-red hair drapes down about her shoulders and rests on the floor around her, and her small arms are clutching her legs up against her chest.

"...I don't wanna," she frowns back heavily, giving one glance upwards before sinking her face back into her knees again.

"Why not? Did something happen?"

The third quintuplet doesn't answer. She merely sits where she is, face buried into her knees and arms, listening to the rummaging of plastic bags, opening of cupboards, and gentle clamor of groceries being put away into the refrigerator. Miku listens to this household ambience until they slowly cease, and the footsteps return to her just as steadily as they entered. A soft sigh enters Miku's ears.

"...you must have gotten into another fight with Nino again. It seems like the two of you have been fighting more and more lately."

"It's not just with me, Mama. Nino argues with Itsuki too sometimes; you just never see it because Nino doesn't want you to see her bullying us," Miku clarifies, still with her face down.

"Then why hasn't Itsuki told me about what's been going on? Why is it only you who I see sulking here in the house whenever there's been a fight?"

"Because Itsuki doesn't want you to know that we've been fighting either; that's how she is."

"Hm. Then what about you, Miku? This is I think the third time I've found you here in the house alone when the others are playing outside? Can you explain to me what's going on? Since the only thing I know is that you do this whenever you've had a fight with Nino."

Miku raises her gaze just a little to set her eyes tiredly across the room. "...I don't want you to get involved, Mama. You're always so busy that we don't want you to worry about us on top of your work. Like I said before, we'll try to sort this out on our own."

"...if this was the first time this has happened, then I would believe you. But like I said, this is your third. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to believe you when you say that now, Miku."

The third quintuplet frowns suddenly, sharply looking up with fanged eyes that have grown swiftly venomous due to the way she's been spoken to.

"Mama, you don't have a choice. Not with how little time with you've spent with us for the past year or so."

Miku just gets a short chuckle in response. "Well, I suppose I should if you know how to talk to people like that."

The quintuplet says nothing back.

"What's been happening, Miku? Why have you been fighting with Nino? Is this something Mama can help resolve between the two of you? A girl your age shouldn't have the awareness to tell her mother that she can handle a problem she's having on her own."

Miku feels a much larger hand gently brush the hair from out of her face so that it can be seen properly.

"...you know how we play soccer a lot these days, right?" the young quintuplet begins to explain. "It's because Yotsuba had the idea to join our school's after school soccer club, and we've been playing on our own sometimes. Whenever we do, we usually play two versus two, with one of us sitting out to rotate in after each game. But whenever Nino and I get paired up together, Nino thinks I suck and makes fun of me if I mess up somehow. She treats Itsuki the same way since Itsuki and I aren't as good at soccer as Nino and Yotsuba are, but I don't like how Nino makes fun of us, so I argue back with her. So these days if we're on the opposite team, Nino tries extra hard to beat me and starts shoving me around and stuff."

"...physical contact, huh. That would explain these scrapes you have all over your arms and legs."

Miku tightens her arms around her legs, as though doing this will hide the various scrapes that have been mentioned that have since been covered up with band-aid strips and patches.

"I don't know why Nino's started acting this way, Mama," she hisses softly. "All five of us used to get along so well together; we never had issues at all."

"Do you remember when she started acting differently, then?"

"It's...been a little while now. I didn't mention it when Nino began acting like this because I didn't think she would keep acting like this. But I think it's been maybe a few months now. She only acts like that whenever we play, though, but...it keeps happening. And I don't like it."

Miku scowls heavily.

"It's like she's not even our sister anymore," the quintuplet seethes quietly under her breath. "It's like she's becoming someone completely different."

A moderate sigh is heard.

"It's not just Nino, I don't think. Surely you've noticed that Yotsuba started wearing a hair ribbon recently too? She was showing it off to me when she started wearing it a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, of course I noticed it. It's a little annoying since it just bounces around everywhere, but not anywhere near as annoying as how Nino's been acting lately."

"I'd imagine so. But you see, it's a bit more complicated than Yotsuba just deciding to wear a hair ribbon all of a sudden. Have you asked her why she started wearing it at all?"

Miku shakes her head.

"You should ask her, then. I'm not sure if she'll give you the same answer as she did for me, though...it seemed like an answer that probably won't sit well with you."

"...won't sit well with us? But why?"

"Like I said, you should ask her yourself. Didn't you say that you wanted to handle things like this on your own?"

The third quintuplet returns to silence, feeling even more miffed than before now that her own mother is regurgitating her own words back at her.

"But I will tell you the same thing I told Yotsuba then: as long as you all stay together, you can find it in yourselves to work together to overcome whatever problems you face. You girls are growing up - there may come a time when the five of you each decide to go down a path in life that may differ from the others. It's difficult for you to understand this because you're used to seeing your sisters one particular way, and the five of you have been that same way for years, but Yotsuba getting her hair ribbon and Nino having fights with you and Itsuki are signs that you girls are growing up, and that you're slowly beginning to find your own identities...though I do think that doing so through fighting may be crossing the line."

"But Mama, why would we want that? We all got along so well; we were all happy because we could be together like you want us to and because we wanted to be together in the first place. Why would we want to change what we are? Especially if Nino's just going to start fights all the time from now on, I just don't get it."

"And that's fine for now; you're not at the age where you can grasp that easily. I know that doesn't help at all, but unfortunately it's not something I can just tell you; you must learn it for yourself as you grow older. And as you grow older, again, you girls may want to follow your own paths, and it might involve you girls going your own separate ways."

"Separate ways? As in, we won't see each other anymore?"

"Maybe, if things get to that point. But no matter what happens, the most important thing I want you to remember is to stay together as a family...it's all I want you girls to do. It's the same thing I told Yotsuba when she showed me her hair ribbon, but knowing her, I'm not sure if she's going to take what I told her to heart. I would like to think that you'll listen to what I have to say a little better, but again, I don't expect you to know what I'm truly saying until later...much later."

"Yeah, I don't get it at all. I don't get how we can still stay together as a family if one day we won't even be able to see each other."

"And that's what you'll have to figure out on your own...especially given how I can't always be around. Or perhaps...that is how I am showing you. Only time will tell if I did a good enough job, but I daresay I already know my own answer to that..."

Miku then finds the same hand from before, along with another hand of equal size, gently lift her up from the floor so that they can cradle her in their arms.

"Oof, you're so big now...I don't know how much longer I can do this. But more to the point, Miku, I know that Nino is giving you trouble these days, but you mustn't let that stop you from seeing her as your sister. Yes, you might already know that without me having to tell you, but Nino might do something later on that will truly test you, and when that happens, always remember that she is your sister and your family first and foremost over all. The same goes for everyone else, too, and the others ought to treat you the same way, no matter what."

Miku blinks heavily, as though she's falling asleep, just as a pair of soft, familiar lips brush against her forehead.

"And always remember that I'll always love you as my precious daughter. Mama will always love you and everyone else."

---

Nakano Miku blinks slowly into the side of her quietly snoozing tutor's face. She's not sure when she woke up or how long she's spent staring at the side of Fuutarou's face like a closet creep, but worrying about whether or not she's being creepy isn't exactly high on her list of priorities to think about at the moment.

Ever since she began suffering her recurring nightmare, Miku cannot remember the last time she had a legitimate dream. She's sure that she once had the ability to have normal dreams like any other person before the nightmares began, though, and the dream she just had tonight now reinforces that belief which had been quite tough to believe before.

But what has the quintuplet stumped is not the fact that she had a normal dream for once in over three years or so, which is really weird in and of itself; had this happened without any other context, Miku would find this alone reason enough to be in good spirits for the whole day, and it would take a lot for her not to feel this way. But this is precisely what is happening now, because the nature of the dream she just had mystifies her to no end, and the more she tries to think about it, the more she ends up confusing herself.

Miku does not remember having that memory. She does not remember having such a conversation with her late mother.

Slowly putting a hand on her forehead, Miku squints tiredly. That dream - surely it must have been a flashback, right? A callback to an event or series of events that happened long ago; people sometimes have dreams like that. But Miku cannot for the life of her remember this dream ever happening in real life in the past; she can't remember saying those words she spoke, and she can't remember her late mother speaking what she said back to her, and the quintuplets, Miku included, all generally have a good grasp over their memories as kids back when their mother was still alive. And given the conversation that they had in the dream, Miku would think that she would consider this important enough to remember even years later, but for some reason, she's unable to recall any such conversation ever occurring.

While she's no psychologist or therapist, Miku contemplates the possibility that this dream is the result of how much she misses her mother. She might not show it often compared to her siblings, if at all at times, but Miku misses her late mom just as much as her sisters do, and she can only imagine how much having her mom around would have helped when she first started getting her nightmares, especially in the case where Fuutarou never became their tutor. Maybe this dream is because her mind is trying to cope with all of her mentally accumulated pain of not seeing her mother in many years?

The more she thinks about it, the more rationally she gets as her mind slowly but surely clears up from waking up - Miku realizes that the most plausible explanation for her dream tonight is because of whatever Fuutarou did - this "tuning" thing to get her eyes to calm down. He said that it was something that would ordinarily be quite risky to do, and that it was something that could only be done between people who had an intimate enough relationship with each other already. So remembering this, Miku would venture to guess that the dream she just had was a side effect or something like that of his treatment. As long as that's the only side effect that she gets, Miku is totally okay with this.

Well, not quite. The dream is still very vivid in her mind, just as clear as her usual nightmares are whenever she wakes from them after they're done. Her mother's words still echo in her ears, and Miku can recall the entire conversation as though she has photographic memory, which is something she can guarantee anyone in the world she doesn't have. Like eating ice cream on a hot summer day, Miku finds herself quietly longing for more time to spend with her mother, now that she's back to a reality in which she no longer exists physically. Miku was able to adjust to life without her more quickly than her siblings, and so the following years were easier to handle for her than the others could, but never did the third quintuplet expect in a thousand years to be in a position like this that she would lie in bed silently dwelling on a memory about herself and her deceased mother, and one that she doesn't even remember having in the first place at that.

These thoughts preoccupy Miku so that she briefly forgets that despite today being a weekday, they are all on summer break so there is no need to get up for school, and she tries to get up to check the alarm clock on her desk. In attempting to do so, though, she feels a hand on the back of her head, and Miku realizes that at some point while they were both asleep, Fuutarou has put his hand behind her head to tuck her in with him.

As her cheeks redden up, the middle quint's thoughts begin to pace themselves again. Miku is fully aware that having Fuutarou sleep with her overnight was her idea; she clearly remembers herself urging him to stay the night. Did Fuutarou mean to do that? Or was it just on accident, and Fuutarou just so happened to move his hand there while sleeping? Regardless of his intentions, Miku can't deny that this single gesture has kindled her heart in a way she hasn't felt in a long time, not since she first realized that she had feelings for her own tutor.

However, the kindling is dampened somewhat by more creeping thoughts that stalk those before it from the dark depths of her mind: Fuutarou spent yesterday going on a date with Itsuki, as Itsuki testified herself. While Miku didn't have any prior knowledge of this until Itsuki told her so, she still feels that yesterday should have been Itsuki's day to spend with their tutor, especially since Ichika made her feelings for him public ever since that one day. So the fact that she's sort of swooped in to hog him for herself for the past night sows a few seeds of uncomfortable uncertainty which cause her to ask herself if what she did was right. What would Itsuki think if she finds out? She very well could find out, can't she? While it's not likely that Itsuki would react as strongly as Nino would, Miku can't imagine that Itsuki would simply let this one go; she's sure that Itsuki would at least keep this in mind for future reference. And given the atmosphere among the five quintuplets lately, Miku is loathe to become the one to worsen their situation any further, especially not after the close call they had already between Nino and Itsuki.

And by no means is this Fuutarou's fault, either. Not only did Miku ask him to stay with her, but Miku is also fully cognizant of the fact that he treats all five of them equally, both academically and now emotionally. It's obvious that despite what he might say about the girls or what his attitude may be towards them sometimes, Fuutarou does care about them; he must also surely know that Miku has feelings for him too. He's never been the one to initiate romantic situations like this; he's only obliging whatever selfish requests that she or her sisters might ask of him, first with Itsuki and now with herself. And now that she thinks about it, he's done the same for Nino to an extent, and while she doesn't know any direct examples of his private interactions with Ichika or Yotsuba, she's willing to bet that he's spent time with those two as well. They've certainly known him for long enough where there'd be enough time for such situations to happen naturally.

While she's rummaging through these thoughts, Miku's physical senses have by now fully returned to her, and as such her brain is able to process her situation with more than just her vision that her tutor has corrected magically for her. Having been tucked in snugly with her tutor, Miku finds her face resting lightly on his shoulder, with her nose near the side of his chest, and as such his scent begins to take root in her head. Fuutarou did warn her that he wasn't able to take a shower yet, so Miku has no one to blame but herself for making him stay a little smelly, but she doesn't really mind that much. He just smells sweaty is all, but the musky scent that he gives off is one of hard, tireless work, much of which is dedicated to Miku and her sisters, she's sure. Maybe it's just her imagination, but Miku wants to say that she also smells a trace bit of blood on him too, though she wouldn't know where it's coming from. It's a solemn reminder to her that her classmate's work is dangerous and bloody, indicative of a side of him that should have never been revealed to them in an ideal world, but despite all their close calls and complications, Miku has grown to love Fuutarou the exact way he is, because any different and it would no longer be the Fuutarou she's come to know and fall in love with. More than just being a hard worker, her tutor is someone who has never shied away from the harder paths he's taken, especially when the girls are involved. His methods may be strenuous, time-consuming, and at times crude, but he appears to understand what exactly it is that he gets himself into and gets the job done, and just how he treats her and her sisters equally, he comes at his work, no matter what it may be, with equal effort.

Personally, Miku finds herself liking the part about Fuutarou where he doesn't back down from putting himself through the grinder the most about him; this part about him resonates within her the most. It's a kind of strength that she sees in him that Miku wishes she had a bit of herself; maybe if she had even a pinch of his strength he demonstrates, she'd be able to handle her own nightmares a little better and prevent it from becoming a big enough deal where her sisters are now involved. Maybe if she were anywhere near as strong as Fuutarou, she'd've been able to suppress her nightmares and conquer them handily so that they would no longer bother her as much as they still do. The most she can do now is be physically close to her tutor to pretend like she's siphoning some of his steadfastness for herself, but maybe one day, when she feels comfortable asking Fuutarou some truly personal questions, Miku might be able to learn a thing or two from him, on the off-chance that this strength of his is something that can be taught. Probably not, but it's worth a shot asking about anyway.

"...you alright there?"

By this point, Miku isn't even surprised by Fuutarou's sudden words indicating that he's awake; he's had his fair share of sudden moments, enough that Miku isn't too taken back anymore. Still, she quickly looks up at him, still with the blush in her cheeks, before nodding shortly.

"How long were you awake for?"

"Couple minutes. You seemed like you woke up, so..."

"What, you know if I'm awake or not even when you're asleep?"

"Long story short, yes. Especially when you're right next to me."

"I see..."

Miku pauses for a second before collecting her wits and snuggling up even closer with Fuutarou, who doesn't stop her from doing what she wants.

"I know it's summer vacation, but you shouldn't sleep in," the young mage reminds his student gently.

"I don't want to be told that by someone who stays up all night and sleeps in class all the time."

"Fair enough. I do wish that you'd at least've let me take a shower or something. You should at least put the covers in the laundry after I'm gone."

Miku frowns a little. "Do I have to...?"

"...don't tell me..." Fuutarou mutters back with a somewhat incredulous look.

"Tell you what?"

"That you're one of those weirdos who really, really like the smell of something."

"D-Don't worry about it, okay..."

"I do worry, though. Why the hell would you want the smell of a guy who hasn't showered in two days all over your bed? For God's sake, you didn't even let me take off my socks."

"...let's not talk about it."

"I wanna talk about it, though."

"Don't wanna."

"Want me to buy you some natto next time I see you, then? I'm sure that'll smell better than what I smell like right now."

"You don't smell that bad, what the heck."

The two high schoolers share a chuckle together.

"Is it alright for me to ask you more about what happened yesterday?" Fuutarou asks Miku, now that they've shared a giggle to lighten the mood a little, and Miku nods firmly.

"Sure. Basically, after Itsuki came back home yesterday after the date she had with you, I met her in the kitchen and talked to her for a little bit while washing a few dishes. Once we were done talking, Itsuki left and I was scrubbing a cup; then, all of a sudden, I saw a big, black line across the cup. I didn't know what it was or what I was looking at at first, so I just thought it was a really weird smear or something. But my thumb sank into the line, and since I didn't expect that at all, the force with which I used to push my thumb into the cup to try to scrub it made my thumb trace the line upwards, so I ended up somehow putting a big gash or something into the side of the cup. The cup should still be in the kitchen, though Nino or Itsuki or whoever did dishes tonight might've found it and tossed it into the trash once they saw what I did to it..."

Miku clears her throat softly to continue.

"Afterwards, I went up here to my room and locked myself inside, and the longer I spent in here, the more my vision got cluttered with more and more of those same weird lines. I saw them all over my walls, my furniture, everything. I even saw them over myself too, just not as many as I saw on like my chair, for example. Looking at them directly really hurt my head, too...I couldn't handle looking at them for whatever reason, and it's not like I have trypophobia or whatever that's called - "

A loud rumbling groans from underneath the covers, and the blush on Miku's face returns with a vengeance as she ducks her face back into Fuutarou's shoulder so that he can't see her reddening face.

"...and you didn't eat dinner because of this, I take it?" Fuutarou reasons. "Guess that makes two of us, then."

"Look, just because I ended up not eating dinner doesn't mean you shouldn't, Fuutarou," Miku reminds him even through her embarrassment. "Make sure to eat properly."

Opening his mouth to deliver another one of his usual retorts, the young mage changes his mind suddenly to deliberate on another decision instead, and his lips remain parted for a second or two while he does this.

"...then how about you come over this weekend? Raiha's making curry for dinner then; you've had it once before I think, when I brought lunch over that one time for everyone."

"Eh? R...Really? You're okay with that...?" Miku can hardly believe what she's hearing. "I'd...love to, but..."

"But?"

"...w-well...like...um..."

Again, Miku's guilt of stealing Fuutarou for herself away from Itsuki is coming back to haunt her. Should she really take him up on this offer? And if she does, then should she at least tell Itsuki about it so that Itsuki doesn't find out later on her own somehow and end up thinking that Miku is trying to steal Fuutarou away while she isn't looking?

"...what's on your mind?" Fuutarou's quiet but firm words, like the anchors they are, help stabilize Miku's sudden surge of flying thoughts as Miku is reminded that the boy she's snuggling with is someone she can talk to about this very matter.

"Well...you went on a date earlier yesterday with Itsuki, right?"

"I did. Who told you about it, Itsuki or Yotsuba?"

"Itsuki, while we talked a little after she came back home."

"I see. So what about it?"

"It's...it's nothing about the fact that you went on a date with her, really. I don't mind that part. What's bothering me right now is, um...if I go have dinner with you this weekend, then, um...that's...kind of like a date, right? Since you're inviting me over to your house and all."

"...I mean, along that logic, every time I eat dinner with you and your sisters here at your place, that would that's a date every time, right?"

"But, like, it's just the two of us, so..."

"You're forgetting that Raiha and my dad will be there. Unless you don't mind my family crashing in on our 'date'."

Miku pouts at Fuutarou, which is his cue to shut up and let her talk fully.

"That's not the point, okay...my point is that, well, I'll feel bad for Itsuki if I go eat dinner with you at your place. Even you being here right now, I asked you to stay the night with me because of what was going on with my eyes before you showed up. This might've been an emergency, but still, now that it's been resolved for now, I still don't feel that great knowing that yesterday should've been a day for just you and Itsuki, yet I...it just doesn't sit well with me, that's all."

The third quintuplet looks up at Fuutarou again, only to find that he's also gazing directly back at her, and such close, direct eye contact is too much even for Miku to bear, especially in an intimate situation like this.

"...it doesn't...feel fair to her, I feel like," she mutters somewhat miserably. "And to be honest, it's not just about her date with you today that I feel this way. I don't know if Itsuki's told you this, but she's always studied really hard ever since Mama passed away so that she could do well in school and grow up to become someone who's just as reliable and dependent as our mom was, but she never could quite get the results that would reflect all the effort that she put in. On the other hand, I didn't really study all that much and still got generally better scores than Itsuki got, and it was like that up until you became our tutor and starting teaching us how to study properly."

Miku subconsciously wraps her arms around Fuutarou's left the longer she talks.

"The worst part about all this is that it's only relatively recently that I've been hanging out more with Itsuki. Generally speaking I usually keep to myself, and if I do talk to or hang out with any of my sisters, it's either with Ichika or Yotsuba. Heck, I'd even hang out with Nino more than I did with Itsuki, even if we'd just do nothing but bicker and argue the whole time; I just didn't really hang out with Itsuki until recently for whatever reason. But now that we have been spending more time together, I've admittedly been keeping her in mind more often, and I feel like if it weren't for that, then I wouldn't have even taken the time to consider how she'd feel about this whole situation."

"So you feel like you're doing Itsuki dirty by coming to eat dinner with me this weekend?"

Nodding slowly, the quintuplet falls silent, unsure of whether or not she was successfully able to convey her feelings about this subject, and the longer Fuutarou himself stays quiet, the less certain Miku becomes.

"...can I be honest with you, Miku?" her tutor says quietly.

"Like you weren't before?"

"Well, then don't mind if I do. I don't know if I can be a judge on what's fair or not in your situation. I think I understand what your concern is, but don't trust me to know fully because this isn't exactly my area of expertise."

Miku shakes her head. "Yeah, then...don't worry about it, I just...I was just saying what I was thinking out loud...sorry to bother you with that..."

"Well, hold on, what I will say is that I'm aware that some of you have feelings for me, and that includes you and Itsuki. I'm no counselor, like I said, but I know at the very least that you girls appreciate it when I spend some extra time with you outside of our usual tutoring, and like what happened with the whole incident that followed after Nino and Itsuki had their big fight, I've come to understand that making sure you're all happy and not about to explode like Nino did is pretty important in doing my job of actually teaching you. So that's why I went on that little date with Itsuki, and that's why I didn't just haul ass outta here as soon as I was done treating you earlier this morning."

Narrowing her eyes a little bit, Miku blinks slowly. "...okay, but...as much as I appreciate hearing you explain your reason behind this, what...does that have to do with my original question of me, um...feeling like this isn't fair to Itsuki...?"

Fuutarou shrugs. "Like I said, I dunno. I guess if I had to say, I think that any one of you girls' happiness is just as important as another's. So in your case, Itsuki's happiness should be just as important as yours, and if I'm ever involved somehow, which I usually am, I want to make it feel to myself at least that both of you are getting opportunities to spend time with me and be happy. I can't help you with what you feel in terms of being fair to your sister, but what I can do is make sure that Itsuki doesn't feel the same way."

It takes Miku a few moments to fully grasp the meaning behind Fuutarou's words, but when she does, she nods heartily and squeezes Fuutarou's arm a bit more tightly.

"...at first, I thought that maybe saying no to eating dinner with you would've been the right thing to do," she mentions. "That way, I'll feel like it's fairer to Itsuki, all things considered."

"...how would that be fair to her? More to the point, how would that be fair to you?"

"Well...just because she's, you know, studied more than me in school...whereas I didn't..."

"So in other words, it's less that you're trying to make things fair with Itsuki, but more so that you're trying to make the playing field more equal for you and Itsuki so that you feel like you're being fairer with her."

"I...guess so? Is there a difference?"

"There is, actually. Just a conceptual one, but one that I still find rather important. What you're doing is making things more equal by doing something that you feel will bring you down to Itsuki's level. While that'll certainly make things fairer like you want them to be for Itsuki, I'm not a fan of the idea."

Miku frowns a little; she's not sure of what to think hearing Fuutarou directly disagree with something she's said like this.

"Well, why don't you like it, then?" she asks, admittedly a little defensively.

"Because it doesn't take into account everything that's happened to get to this point. Making things equal works in some cases but not on a personal level like this, because it ignores Itsuki's effort that she put in to get to the point where she can go on a date with me, and it also ignores your own effort of getting to this point, too. I don't like that; I don't like thinking that all the time and energy you've spent on whatever you've done throughout the years just doesn't amount to anything. Maybe you aren't happy with some things you've done, or maybe even haven't done, or with how some things turned out, but regardless of how you feel about them now, they all helped pave the way to this moment in the present."

Fuutarou turns to glance down at Miku again to his left.

"All five of you, being identical quints at one point, had the same start, physically and mentally, so it's natural for you to think that equalizing the field for everyone is the way to make things fair. Even if you girls weren't quintuplets and were just sisters or even just friends not related by blood, I'd still say the same thing since we're all blank slates when we're first born and stuff like that. However, at some point you all began growing up in your own different ways, and there is value in those differences, no matter what your perception is of them. I don't want to deny the effort that you and your sisters have put in to become the people you are today. So rather than making things equal, I prefer making things fair, because that way it takes into account what you've all been able to accomplish and everything that's happened along the way."

Turning his head back up to stare at the ceiling, Fuutarou blinks a few times as if to refresh his train of thought.

"If you still want to stick to your guns and pass on eating curry with Raiha this weekend because you still think that's the way to make things fair for Itsuki, then fair enough, I can't the judge of things like that. But - " Unusually, the young mage pauses again in the middle of talking, as if to rethink what he's about to say next. " - I just figured you would be happy too, is all."

"...well, this much is already good enough for me," Miku says after another pause of her own, "so...are you sure about inviting me...? You were going on about how you prefer being fair, but I don't feel like I've done anything for you..."

"But you don't need to. I'm the one being hired here, remember? As strange as it is to think that part of my job description now involves going on dates with my own students, which normally I'd raise an eyebrow at without context, but..."

"But I'd rather do something else for you to make things fair between us than have our dad pay you and call it a day."

Fuutarou shrugs. "Then I'll leave that to you to think about; just know that you've got all the time in the world to decide on that."

"You make it sound like I only need to do one thing and that's it."

"Could be one, could be many. My point is, I'm not going to be picky. Also, how the hell did we end up going on this tangent all because I asked you to tell me what happened with your eyes?"

Blushing again, Miku drops her gaze and rests her forehead against the top of Fuutarou's left shoulder. "Uh...because my stomach growled and I said that I didn't eat dinner last night..."

"Oh, right. And I asked you to tell me what exactly happened. If you know where you left off, you can keep going, since I don't think you were finished, were you?"

"Well, there...wasn't much else, but...basically, like I said, I locked myself in my room and stayed here until I texted you earlier this morning and you got here to do your tuning thing." Miku slowly peels her forehead off her tutor's shoulder again. "I think I already told you, but since I was starting to see those weird lines everywhere, I didn't want to see them on my own sisters, because even I can tell that these lines...they can't be anything but bad news. I first saw them in my nightmare, so...to start seeing them out here, outside of my nightmare...I can't imagine that can mean anything good."

"Just in case, let me ask you if anything particular happened between now and the last time you had trouble with your eyes, or the last time your eyes gave you trouble like this, I should say."

Miku shakes her head. "Not...not that I can recall, no. What happened yesterday was just so random...that's why I reacted so strongly, because I just didn't expect something like that to happen at all. I didn't know what to do, so...I...I panicked pretty hard...I'm not sure if what I did was the right thing to do, and on top of that, I have to explain to everything else what's going on..."

"Do your sisters know everything that's going on? I know that Itsuki does...what about the others?"

"Nino does, too. In fact, Itsuki, Nino, and I have been keeping in close contact more and more often ever since we found out that we have these...Mystic Eyes."

"What about Yotsuba and Ichika? Are you talking with them much about this magic stuff?"

Miku shakes her head. "Um...don't tell them this, because...I don't want to make it seem like we're keeping this a secret from them, but - "

"...kind of sounds like you are, though, no?"

"Well..." The middle quintuplet enters another bout of silence, but this time strained and uncomfortable. "...we...we are, I suppose. But...our intent isn't like...malicious or anything. At least, not towards Yotsuba. She's just...I think the three of us would agree that Yotsuba's just too nice of a girl to have her involved in something like this. Not to mention, with her wanting to help everyone, I think she might be a little overbearing about this sort of thing."

"I'll agree with you on that one, though I don't know I feel about keeping her in the dark regardless. What about Ichika?"

Frowning at the mention of the eldest quint, Miku inches closer to her classmate. "...I'll be honest with you, Fuutarou: we've been sort of...keeping our distance from her."

Fuutarou grimaces back. "I think I can guess as to why."

"So you feel the same way about her too?"

"I don't know if it's the exact same, and I won't ask you to elaborate further as long as you girls can stay civil and not explode on each other like Nino and Itsuki did last time. I'll just say that things are getting a little interesting, at least on my end when it comes to handling Ichika. But back to you, you've been having a clique of sorts with Itsuki and Nino?"

"C-Clique...it's like we're at school all over again. And you know I'm not the type to join cliques or anything like that."

"You and me both. So I assume you've been keeping those two in the know about your eyes and such? Have the others been having issues with their eyes like you've been?"

"Not from anything they've told me so far. And I'll tell them truthfully about what happened today."

"You gonna tell them about the part where I spent the night with you, too?"

Fuutarou watches Miku's face positively detonate with the biggest blush she's had all morning before she dives underneath the covers, hiding her face from her tutor.

"Personally, I don't mind, but it seems like you still do," the young mage remarks dryly with a slight smirk, returning his gaze back up to the ceiling. It takes a minute for Miku to gather her senses enough to peek back out at him from underneath the covers.

"...I'll...leave that detail out..." she mutters shyly. "...unless they press the point, then...I'll be honest with them. But I won't mention it if I don't have to."

"Mm, do what you need to. How are you feeling now? I take it no problems so far?"

Miku slowly reemerges from underneath the blanket, nodding gently. "Yeah, everything's been back to normal."

Nodding back in confirmation, the young mage swiftly pulls back the blanket to swing his legs out of Miku's bed to get up, and the quintuplet with whom he's slept follows suit. As Fuutarou takes a quick whiff of his white dress shirt to see how bad he smells, Miku takes this opportunity to give her tutor a hug from behind, pressing her right cheek against his broad back.

"...it's hard to believe that we've only known you for four months," the quintuplet mutters. Somehow, hugging Fuutarou from behind is just as enjoyable as the other way around. Fuutarou merely chuckles in response.

"That's a big mood right there. We've both been having some long days as of late, haven't we."

"But yours are worse, naturally."

"Worse is subjective. You've been having it rough too with your Mystic Eyes giving you trouble like this."

"But I'm not the one who needs to stay up every night because of my work. I'm just a high school student..."

"Not an ordinary one, but point taken." Swiftly turning around in Miku's arms since her hug isn't too tight, Fuutarou puts a single hand behind Miku's back to press her gently in return against him. "I do feel like things are going to ramp up, though. Make sure to tell the others this too in case I don't, but be on your guard; try not to be out too late at night, and make sure you always keep tabs on your sisters."

Miku looks up as she receives these words of warning from Fuutarou, and she finds him with an icy grimace, staring off into the wall next to her bed. Sensing the calm but focused tenseness his expression gives off, the quintuplet doubles the strength she puts into her hug.

"...please stay safe, Fuutarou," is all she can really say.

Outside of Miku's door, Nakano Nino stands, leaning against it without a sound and with her arms crossed. With a stone-cold expression on her face, and now that it seems that the two of them inside Miku's room are either done talking or will be soon, Nino raises her phone in her hand up, eyeing the text message that's already typed in and ready to be sent to a certain recipient. It goes:

Meet me at the food court in the mall at 2pm. And don't even think about saying no - you had time to spend with Miku this morning, so that means you have time to spend with me, right? Don't worry about food.

Her eyes reading and rereading her own text, Nino watches her thumb hover over the button on her phone to send the text, but it lingers there long enough to the point where her thumb starts to quiver and shake. Taking a short breath and steeling herself, the second quintuplet taps the send button and quietly heads downstairs to get ready.

---

Tussling her hair, somewhat in annoyance, Nakano Nino sits at an empty table in the food court that she specified for her meetup with her tutor, with a reusable shopping bag holding several tupperware containers' worth of food that she made just for this occasion. It is a few minutes to 2 in the afternoon, but Nino finds herself feeling quite impatient, scanning her surroundings multiple times to see if she can spot Fuutarou approaching.

Nino is fully aware that this decision to call Fuutarou out like this is purely spontaneous. She found out about Fuutarou crashing with Miku for the night earlier that morning when she went up to check on her sister to see if she was in the mood to eat breakfast with them, but rather than interrupt them, Nino, perhaps uncharacteristically, chose to leave them be, but she couldn't tear herself away from that door immediately, opting instead to at least stick around and eavesdrop on them. Such a decision will probably bite her in the ass soon, since even though Miku apparently failed to sense her outside, probably because she was too distracted being with their tutor, surely Fuutarou should have had no problem sensing her outside.

Nevertheless, she stayed outside her sister's door, listening in on their conversation, what of it she could catch, at least. Nino wants to tell herself that she chose not to disrupt the two of them because she's fully aware that Miku has feelings for Fuutarou and that she's had such feelings for him for some time now, given her behavior towards him. That, and she and Itsuki figured that Miku was having issues with her Mystic Eyes again earlier yesterday, so it makes sense that either Fuutarou stopped by in the middle of the night because he was able to sense that there was something wrong with Miku, or Miku herself contacted him to tell him that something was wrong, and he was able to oblige.

Not seeing her tutor yet, Nino takes a brief break scanning for him in the food court and sighs heavily, picking up her phone again to pull up her text messages, specifically the one that she sent to Fuutarou earlier today, which has received no response from him. Realizing this makes Nino's heart twinge a little, and the second quintuplet absolutely cannot ignore that, as much as she'd like to.

Because truth be told, being considerate towards her younger sibling wasn't the only reason why she left the two alone in Miku's room this morning; if it really were the only reason, then Nino would have just left them alone and skipped the whole eavesdropping part. The part that really gets Nino is that she knows she really would have left them alone, but hearing the two of them have what sounded like a normal conversation piqued her interest, and the rest is history. Because the more she listened, the more Nino found herself quietly wishing she could do what Miku was doing - just having a normal conversation with Fuutarou. Of course, the stuff they were talking about ranged from normal to not so normal, but it's less the content of their conversation and more the nature of it that Nino cares more about. Her own history of interactions with Fuutarou is riddled with antagonism on her part, and even though Fuutarou does his best to not let that influence how he goes about his job, he's had his fair share of moments of cheekiness when talking to her; at the very least, he's firmly prepared to handle Nino like a bomb defusal expert prepares to defuse a live explosive.

Now that she's cultivated feelings for him too, Nino understands fully that it's her fault for causing Fuutarou to build up such a mindset towards her, and that it's no one else's fault but her own. And after hearing Miku and Fuutarou talk together and hearing just how differently their tutor talks to her sister compared to her, Nino finds herself regretting treating their tutor badly the first two months or so even more than she did after he helped the quintuplets resolve their falling out incident between her and Itsuki. Because the first time around, Nino felt bad only because of what she'd done in the past, but now she feels progressively worse because she's seen how she may have ruined her own future with Fuutarou, because she would like to talk to Fuutarou and hang out with him just like Miku did this morning but isn't sure if she really can anymore. And Nino out of all her sisters ought to know what happens when you damage relationships, seeing how many bridges she'd burned in her middle school years; she just didn't expect the one she had with her tutor of all people would end up turning out like this.

Slowly drooping her head down a little, Nino presses her phone screen against her forehead for no particular reason other than because her mind is trying to cope with everything that's running through it right now. Of course things would turn out this way - Fuutarou is too objective a person, too fair of a human being for things to be any other way. Of course he would treat Miku well, because she was one of the three to accept his tutoring right away, and she's never done anything to obstruct his responsibilities. She's always been at most, if not all of Fuutarou's tutoring sessions, she's never gotten herself into any dangerous situations, and in general she's always supported him, especially after he revealed to them what the true nature of his job was regarding the quints. You get out what you put in, as they say, and Fuutarou is the living proof of that statement. So it makes total sense that he'd stop by overnight to help out Miku with whatever was happening with her.

Nino finds herself slowly grinding her teeth together, and alarmed at herself, she quickly stops. Why? Why was she grinding her teeth like that? Well, that should be obvious too, right? She's frustrated. She's angry at herself for acting poorly towards Fuutarou for all that time. She's mad at herself for getting mad at herself, because she's already spent enough time being angry over something like this, back when Fuutarou found her at the amusement park with the big Ferris wheel, yet she's doing this shit all over again because it's clear that she isn't fully able to let it go, as much as she wants to because old habits die hard. It's not that she's never been angry at herself before now, but this is the first time for Nino where she's genuinely upset about something and wants to vent about it but can't since she'd only further beat herself up, thus creating a vicious loop of getting angry, trying not to get angry, and getting angry anyway because she shouldn't get angry.

"Everything alright, Nino?"

The familiar voice almost makes Nino jump, but just like Miku before her, the second quintuplet has grown more accustomed to Fuutarou just showing up and talking to them without warning sometimes, so she pulls her phone off her face to look up and find Uesugi Fuutarou sitting across from her at their table. Scowling at him at first, Nino manages to force herself to drop it and merely sighs instead.

"...should be," she mutters back, setting her phone down on the table in front of her.

Fuutarou purses his lips slightly as he scoots in his chair closer to their table. "If you're upset that I spent the night with Miku, then sorry about that. She texted me in the middle of the night saying that something was really wrong with her Mystic Eyes, so I went over to check on her."

Sitting up and crossing her arms slowly, the second quintuplet continues to give her tutor a judgmental look. "Yeah, and somehow that lets you also spend the whole night with her? How many times is this now, might I ask?"

After briefly counting in his head, Fuutarou answers with, "...twice, I believe. The first time was when you punched me in the face for teasing Itsuki when you tried getting her to act like Miku to go wake me up."

"Uh huh. You're not doing anything funny with her, are you?"

"If what you mean by funny is being forced to sleep with my own student without even having a chance to take a shower or clean myself up for a night, then sure, that sure is funny."

Nino makes a face of disgust. "That's fucking disgusting, not funny."

"Tell that to Miku, she made me do it."

"You could've just told her no!"

Fuutarou raises an eye back at her. "As much as I would love to be that cold-hearted, Nino, I'm not sure if I had that luxury at the time. You knew what what going on with Miku too, right? Not an exact idea, but still."

"Hmph. Yeah, something about her eyes, right? Giving her trouble again, I bet."

"Right, so I couldn't just leave her be, just in case they flared up again during the night."

"So what was wrong with them this time? And is she okay now? She seemed alright so far today." Nino reaches into her shopping bag and pulls out the tupperware containers. "Also, I made some food for the two of us. I'm betting you didn't eat anything so far today."

"I was actually going to stop by a place to pick up some food, but once I got your text I figured I'd just wait for this," Fuutarou shrugs, opening his own tupperware and finding it filled to the brim with warm, homemade curry pork rice. "This doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I invited Miku to come eat curry with us at my place this weekend, right?"

"Who the fuck knows," Nino scoffs lightly as she produces her pair of chopsticks. "So? What was wrong with her eyes this time? We didn't talk to her about it since we didn't want to bring it up, so I figured I might as well call you out here and ask you what happened, since I found you talking to Miku in her room earlier this morning."

"Put simply, her Mystic Eyes are slowly growing stronger, it would seem," Fuutarou answers directly. "I'm not sure if Miku would appreciate me divulging the finer details about what's going on with you; I think that's something she should tell you and the others about herself. So for now, just know that it's gotten to the point where I feel like I need to seriously research what your Mystic Eyes really are."

"But I think I remember you saying that last time, no? Or did you only that you'd monitor us and that's it?"

"I did say that, but at the same time I thought that I had time to spare because I didn't anticipate Miuk's Mystic Eyes, for example, getting as potent as they are now. There's always a chance that it's just Miku's eyes that are having an issue because hers are in a league of her own compared to everyone else's, but in case you or the others start having similar issues, I want to be able to identify what exact kinds of Mystic Eyes they are and know how to treat them or at least handle them when they do start giving you problems." Fuutarou takes a bite of curry-lathered white rice. "An old friend of mine who's more familiar with Mystic Eyes should be getting back to me later today with some intel, so I'll see what he says."

The two high schoolers eat in silence all the way until they both finish their food, with Fuutarou finishing first as usual, given how fast of an eater he usually is. Once Nino is done, Fuutarou, surprisingly, asks his student a question of his own:

"So what's the occasion for this? Knowing you, if you're only upset that I spent the night with Miku earlier today, then you would've just barged into Miku's room when you were standing outside, but you didn't and instead had me meet you in the mall like this today. So I take it that there's something more to this than just meeting up in the food court to eat curry rice?"

Giving a quick laugh, Nino wipes her mouth and puts the empty tupperware containers back inside the shopping bag from whence they came.

"Perceptive as always, aren't you. That's right, there is in fact a reason why I called you out here."

"And that is?"

Taking a deep breath, Nino slowly gets up from her chair and suddenly thrusts her right index finger at Fuutarou to declare,

"You went on a date with Itsuki yesterday and you spent the night with Miku. So now, you're gonna go on a date with me!"

Fuutarou simply stares back at his student with zero reaction. Even though Nino should have expected this out of someone whom she's always accused of having no emotional awareness, she still can't help but slowly go red in the face with each second that passes and yields no change in reaction from her tutor.

"...that's it?" he finally asks, as though he can't believe that that's all Nino wants from him.

"W-What...you sound like you're fucking disappointed or something, come on..." Nino mumbles, her hastily erected spurt of self-confidence that came with her declaration of a date crumbling faster than Yotsuba can find a club at school to join.

"Well, I didn't think you would call me out here just for a date. In fact, I thought you wanted to meet up because you wanted to hear from me what's going on with Miku."

"I do want to hear about that, but I figured we could do that while we go on a date, you know? Besides, Yotsuba let it slip earlier today at breakfast that she made you and Itsuki go on a little dinner date. If it were just Itsuki, then I probably wouldn't have done something like this, but you even spent the night with Miku, so don't blame me for feeling a little, uhh..."

Nino wants to say "left out", but that carries several huge implications that would make her feel like dying out of pure cringe if she said that out loud.

"...a little pissed, okay?" she finishes instead, relieved that she was able to find an alternative outlet to avoid such cringe.

"Pissed about what? I wasn't the one inviting them, they were, for the record," Fuutarou clarifies, but he's already out of his seat, taking Nino's reusable shopping bag's worth of tupperware and carefully slipping it into his magical storage rune after making sure his Presence Concealment rune is active so that bystanders and passersby don't witness his casual act of magecraft out in the open.

"Just...just shut up and follow me already," Nino gripes, but her words lack the usual venom that Fuutarou's gotten used to hearing out of her. So the young mage trails closely behind Nino as the two of them exit the food court and deeper into the rest of the mall.

"Just to make sure, I'm not here just to your bellhop again like last time, right?" Fuutarou asks nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets.

"If I need you to be, then that's what you'll be. Got a problem with that?"

"I do, actually, but I doubt you'll care."

"Exactly. So just shut up and follow me."

So the two of them walk in sharp silence across the mall to a particular men's clothing store that Nino knows. It's no small distance from the food court, so the travel time takes long enough for Nino to once again realize how awkward it feels for her to have the boy she's trying to go on a date with to just walk with her without saying anything. Of course, for Fuutarou, this is perfectly natural, and on top of which, she even told him specifically to shut up and follow her, so he's only following the instructions she's given him. Once again, Nino begins to feel miserable again, kicking herself mentally for just acting like she usually does and not acting more appropriately for a girl who's just invited a boy out to a date with her. Why is it so difficult for her to just play it nice? Is it because Fuutarou is the first guy she's ever had genuine feelings for and thus it's throwing her off her game? Then again, now that she thinks about it, this is actually the first real date she's ever going on, because all the "dates" she's been on before were actually group dates with friends from school and their male friends who were from other schools or just neighbors or something. All this on top of all the thoughts she has in mind about listening to Fuutarou and Miku being able to just hang out and talk normally, too. If someone like Miku who is clearly Nino's inferior when it comes to relationship stuff or social experience can act naturally with Fuutarou, then surely Nino should be able to as well, right? Right?

Plagued by these swarming thoughts that continue to pester her all the way to the clothing store, Nino finally reaches the United Arrows store, and as they're entering, Fuutarou finally breaks the silence by remarking,

"So you do want me to just carry shit around for you."

"No, you dumbass, we're here so that I can buy you clothes again," Nino corrects for him quickly, dropping her voice now that they're inside a store.

"But who asked? Because I sure didn't."

"No one needs to ask. You're not gonna go to the summer festival later this month in your usual school clothes, are you?"

"I mean, I would have. And who said I was going?"

"I did."

"Since when?"

"Since right now." Nino spins around swiftly to stick another finger up at Fuutarou. "Or else I'll tell Papa that you're not doing your job properly."

To both Nino's surprise and startled chagrin, Fuutarou merely chortles back. "Ah, yes, tell your dad that I'm doing my job by going to the summer festival with you instead of tutoring you like I'm supposed to. I guess in a sense, that would work..."

"S-Stop making fun of me, I'm fucking serious!" Nino twirls around again and stomps off angrily, embarrassed that her threat got so easily parried; she, for her part, should be used to Fuutarou effortlessly deflecting any insult or retort that she throws his way, but this one for some reason in particular manages to guard-break her in a way she doesn't expect.

Figuring that picking out some more clothes for Fuutarou will help take her mind off things, Nino dives deeper into the clothing store, eyeing the wares for clothes that she thinks will look good on him for the summer festival later this month. Her tutor tags along close behind, perusing the clothes himself, though his eyes always gloss over the price tags with each article he scans.

"You know, I still have the clothes you bought for me last time when we went to Hawaii," the tutor mentions to his student.

"You do, huh? That's surprising."

"How so?"

"I thought you would've, like, thrown them away or something. You spent all that time telling me that I didn't need to buy you them, after all. I don't see why someone like you would bother keeping them when you walk around in our school clothes all the time anyway."

"As correct as you are for the most part, those clothes were hella expensive. I'm not about to just toss perfectly good clothes away, even if I normally wouldn't care to go out of my way to wear them on most days."

Nino snorts incredulously. "But you weren't even the one who paid for it, so why do you care?"

"Sorry, is that too rich a mindset for a broke-ass plebeian like me to understand?"

"What? What the hell does that have anything to do with the fact that I spent my own money for that?"

"Not much, admittedly. But what is relevant is the fact that you still bought it for me, so just throwing it away after only wearing it once is, hm...it just doesn't sit well with me."

Nino freezes up where she stands, her eyes locked onto a small pile of polo shirts.

"...why does that have to make a difference?" she tries to retort back while playing it cool, but her voice comes out much quieter than before.

"I think I told you this before, but in my head, those are clothes bought for me by a friend who, despite her usual attitude and propensity to treat me like a piece of shit most of the time, did so out of consideration for me and didn't expect me to pay her back for them. I know I don't look like the type of guy who would care about sappy stuff like that, but I do remember these kinds of things as best I can. I think they're worth the extra bit of effort remembering..."

"I don't treat you like a piece of shit anymore. Not most of the time."

"You have been improving on that, yeah."

Nino brings over a sky-blue polo shirt to drape over Fuutarou. "How do you like this one?"

He simply shrugs. "I don't mind. It's nice."

Smirking, the quintuplet pulls the polo shirt away. "You're just gonna say that to everything I suggest, won't you?"

"You know it. I have negative fashion sense, so what I end up getting is gonna be totally up to you. Just don't make me end up looking like a complete clown."

"I didn't the first time, and that was back when I really hated you, so what makes you think I'm gonna do something like that now?"

So the two classmates spend the next hour in the United Arrows store as Nino carefully browses the store's selection of designer brands while using Fuutarou himself as a model to help her settle on a set of summer clothes that she thinks would look good on him. She eventually settles on a set of Remi Relief, and with Fuutarou's usual approval, they go stand in the short line to pay for the clothes.

"Now that I think about it, since it's a summer festival we're talking about, why didn't you just tell me to go get a yukata or something?" the tutor mentions, now that the thought hits him.

"I'm trying to be considerate towards you here. Who knows if something might happen during the festival and you need to get back to work, right?" Nino points out.

"Huh. I didn't think you would be quite that considerate, but I appreciate it anyway."

"No big deal. Remember, you're talking to the girl who needs to keep four sisters' worth of food preferences every day whenever I cook for them." Nino gives off a light sigh. "At least you're easy to work with; since you don't have any preferences for the most part, I can just pick out whatever for you. My sisters can be too nice to the point where if someone were to do the same thing to them, they wouldn't be able to decide on anything since they'd always second-guess themselves. It's kinda like when my friends and I go out somewhere to eat, but when we meet up, everyone's like 'oh, I don't care where we go, I'm down for anything' and so literally no one has any idea where to go and we spend like five or ten minutes deciding where to go because of that."

"Indecisiveness is a bitch and a half."

"You're telling me! God, I hate that shit sometimes...like, yeah, sometimes you can't really avoid it, but times like that..."

The cashier calls up Nino and Fuutarou, and the two of them walk up to the cashier to pay. As the clerk rings up the clothes and recites the amount owed, Nino reaches into her pockets to grab her purse - which is not there. Puzzled, with a sense of dread creeping slowly up her back, Nino turns to Fuutarou and whispers quickly,

"...hey, can you check if my purse was inside the shopping bag?"

So Fuutarou quickly swoops down behind the counter so that the cashier can't see him magically conjure the shopping bag with the empty tupperware out of his storage rune. But a quick search of the bag produces no positive result, and Fuutarou shakes his head back at Nino, whose heart sinks and while her expression turns pale. How did she forget something as simple as her purse? She never forgets things like this, unlike Itsuki who forgot her own back when she and Nino stormed out of their house. In fact, Nino can't remember the last time she's made such a silly blunder like this, and thus the embarrassment of forgetting her own purse back at home for the first time grips her with a kind of force that few other social pressures can to a veteran socialite like Nino. It's made all the worse by the fact that she's at a high-end clothing store like this, where it would certainly be strange that anyone who dares enter this establishment is expected to be able to pay; not being able to because of leaving one's purse or wallet back at home on accident would be so awkward and embarrassing, yet Nino is about to experience what this must feel like.

Trying to keep her nerves in check but not really succeeding at doing so, Nino shakily decides that she doesn't have a choice but to be honest to the clerk and tell her that she forgot her purse back at home and that they'll need to put the clothes back where they found them, so she looks up to -

"Thank you very much, sir."

"Same to you, have a good one."

Slipping his own credit card back into his wallet, Fuutarou takes the bag of neatly folded clothes from the cashier and beckons to Nino to follow him out. Completely flabbergasted at this unprecedented act of financial loss on her own tutor's part, the quintuplet quickly trots after him out of the store, and once they've sufficiently distanced themselves from it, Nino lets loose and hisses loudly at her self-proclaimed date,

"F-Fuutarou, are you out of your fucking mind? That shit was thirty-five THOUSAND yen!"

Grimacing painfully, the young tutor manages to grin through the mental pain down at Nino. "Yeah, I'm aware, thanks for reminding me."

"But...but...s-so then...why?!" Nino stares with her jaw slack on her face. "I could've just - I could've just, you know, told the clerk that I forgot my purse back at home, and that we'd come by another time!"

Fuutarou doesn't answer; he just stands there with the same painful grimace on his face, silently prepping himself for the fat amount he's going to see later this month on his credit card bill.

"Besides, you - someone like you can't be spending that kind of money, right?!" Desperate to get him to give her some kind of answer, Nino, now approaching the verge of tears for reasons she isn't quite sure of herself, continues to pressure her tutor. "You keep going on and on about how you're always broke and your family's in deep shit financially, so - so why did you do that? You didn't need to! I said that I would be the one paying, so...so..."

With all that's gone through her mind today, Nino can't hold back her tears and furiously begins to rub her eyes, feebly trying to hide the fact that she's crying. She shouldn't be crying over such a dumb reason like this, but now that it's happening, there's not much she can do other than do her best to not draw attention to the two of them by crying out in the middle of the mall like this. Thankfully, she manages to get rid of what tears did crop up rather quickly, and she fiercely raises her reddened eyes back up at her tutor.

"...why did you do it?" she finally croaks, unable to hold her fierce gaze for long as the consequential guilt of making Fuutarou pay for his own expensive clothes catches up to her. "You didn't have to. You didn't even ask for them. All this...me calling you out here, for this...'date'...me dragging you to that clothing store...and then you ending up paying all that for a bunch of clothes I wanted you to wear just because...so why? Was it because you felt sorry for me? Be honest with me, Fuutarou!"

Again, the young mage smirks. "As if I haven't been before?"

"Then answer me, damn it! Why did you buy those clothes when you didn't need to?"

"Force of habit, I guess?" Fuutarou shrugs. "Nah, probably not. I just didn't want you to feel embarrassed in there. I could tell by the look on your face when I told you your purse wasn't in the bag that you haven't been in this kind of situation much before, since you're usually good about not forgetting your purse whenever you go out, right?"

Nino continues to gawk at him. "...but was that really worth the kind of money you just spent?"

"Here's a better question: why are you so concerned about my money? You didn't blink twice at any of the price tags in that store."

"You fucking idiot, that's obviously because that's my own money I'm spending! I can afford dropping thirty thousand, forty thousand yen on a single trip to a store! But the same can't be said of you, the guy who told us that his whole family's in debt and had run-ins with loan collectors in the past because of it! And don't even think about telling me it's Papa's money; the point is, you shouldn't have paid for that when you could have used the money on more important things!"

"I mean, I could say the same to you here, can't I? This is my money I'm spending, so why concern yourself over something that isn't yours?"

"Normally I'd agree, but seeing you have that painful look on your face after you just sank thirty-five thousand yen with one credit card swipe doesn't help your case!"

With an amused smile still riddled with financial pain, Fuutarou raises both hands as though Nino is a policewoman demanding to see some hands. "Got me there."

"God, I can't believe you!" Nino stomps her foot once, but she doesn't have the spirit to that again. "You're such a fucking dumbass sometimes! Did you seriously think you'd make me feel better by doing that? Come on!"

"...not necessarily, but now that you mention it, I do know a better way."

Before Nino can respond, Fuutarou gathers Nino with his free arm that isn't holding his bag of designer clothes and pulls the second quintuplet in close before raising the same arm that pulled her in up to her head so that he can pat her head reassuringly.

"What do you think? Not bad for a dumbass, huh?" he chuckles shortly, and Nino, unable to resist the familiar comfort he's provided to her before, silently glomps him tightly, to the point where Fuutarou is afraid she might squeeze the air out of his lungs altogether.

"You're still such a dumbass, Fuutarou," she says under her breath.

Having already cast his Presence Concealment spell the moment he went in for the hug, Fuutarou patiently waits for Nino to recover herself, keeping an eye out for passersby who might be walking into them on accident due to the effects of his concealment spell. He can sense Nino's progress of recovering by how tightly she's hugging him back, and so once she begins to loosen her arms, Fuutarou clears his throat a little.

"I would venture to guess that part of the reason why you've been acting this way today is because you knew I spent the night with Miku, right?" he asks the second quintuplet, and he feels Nino nod her head slightly into his chest.

"...I wasn't going to eavesdrop on you guys at first, I swear," she admits softly. "I just...couldn't leave once I realized that the two of you were just talking normally like you were. Never mind the stuff you were talking about, I just...wanted to do what Miku was doing too..."

"And that is?"

"Be able to talk normally with you." Nino sniffles audibly. "I'm the one besides maybe Ichika who should be able to talk to anyone normally. So why can Miku do that but I can't...?"

Fuutarou frowns a little. "...so what we've been doing isn't just talking normally?"

"See, that's the problem...!" Sniffling again, Nino goes back to gripping her arms around Fuutarou tightly as though she's a boa constrictor. "I've treated you like shit for all this time that even you've come to see this kind of talking as normal! I just want us to talk and hang out like normal people, without having to talk to each other all sarcastically or with some kind of attitude!"

Exhaling slowly, Fuutarou adjusts his grip on the bag handles in his right hand.

"Try not to get pissed at me for saying this, Nino, but...I actually enjoyed this little dynamic we had between the two of us. But I guess you never really saw it that way."

Blinking in confusion, Nino slowly looks up at her classmate. "...wait, what? S...say that again...?"

"I said that I actually liked the way we've always talked to each other. All the banter, specifically, obviously there've been some things that you've said or done that've gone too far. But ever since I got you girls all back together from finals week, I really did look forward to hanging out with you whenever I had the option to. With the rest of your sisters, for the most part I can approach them all in a pretty similar manner, but with you, since you're the only one now who'll still give me shit, the dynamic I have with you is different. And since I know now that you don't exactly hate me anymore, or at least I don't think you do, it made for a nice little change of pace, since I don't always have the chance to just stand around and waste time spouting nonsense and garbage. I used to with a few guys I know, but...not so much these days, we're a little too busy to hang out much anymore."

At first smiling, Fuutarou slowly transitions his wistful grin into a pensive frown.

"But I guess you didn't feel the same way. I know that you've had a change of heart since the time I found you at that amusement park, but I didn't think it was to the point where you wanted to change the way we talked. I should've at least asked you what was going on instead of just assuming this was how you wanted things to be, and that's my mistake. Then again, you could've just told me straight up that you didn't like talking the way we did, but I'm not going to pin that on you. So now that I know this, if you still want me to, I can talk to you the same way that I do to everyone else; I don't mind either way."

Plagued by a surge of indecisiveness, the very same thing that she complained about her friends from past years having a problem with, the quintuplet remains silent for a few more minutes.

"...I don't know. I really don't know," she shakes her head finally. "I didn't know that...you actually liked all the shit talking between us. I at least know that some people like trash talking, but I didn't know you'd be someone who enjoyed that either."

"It's a kind of...quick stress relief for me. Work gets pretty tough sometimes for me, and I don't mean just the five of you, obviously. Being able to talk like a sarcastic dick sometimes and otherwise talk like a normal dumbass my age helps take a load off my mind, and it's pretty fun on its own, too. But enough about me - as long as you know for sure that this is what you want, Nino, I'm fine with whatever it is that you want to change about us talking to each other. I just felt that our usual way of talking was how you truly are, since it's been this way for as long as I've known you."

Nino is still uncertain, though. "But what if you get sick of me talking like a bitch all the time? Then what?"

"Well, maybe not all the time, then. My point is, Nino, just be yourself. I can work with whatever gets thrown my way; that's part of the point of my job, too, after all. Changing because you want to is one thing, but changing because you feel like you have to is another entirely, and in this case, I'm not sure if I'm okay with the latter."

Sighing heavily, the second quintuplet closes her eyes tiredly, snuggling with Fuutarou for comfort in a way that reminds him of her own sister.

"I just want to spend more time with you, that's all..." she admits softly. "I'm pretty sure hearing you in Miku's room spending time with her made me feel this way. I know it's not your fault, okay? But...it just made me realize how much I already miss you."

"So that's why the date today, and then the summer festival later this month?"

Nino nods. "You are coming with us to the festival, right?"

Fuutarou sighs back. "Well shit, at this rate, I guess I don't have a choice, do I?"

"If you're going to be too busy during that time, then - "

"No, don't worry about it, I'll make some time. We'll see how long I can stay with you, though, it'll depend on what I've got going on." Fuutarou finally pulls his arm down from Nino, though Nino doesn't let go of him just yet. "But for now, let's at least finish this date we got going on right now, huh? I don't know what we're gonna be able to do without spending anything since I ain't touchin' my credit card again for the rest of this week at the very least, but..."

At the mention of their date, Nino is finally able to relinquish her classmate.

"Oh, then let me show you the ways of window shopping. No one's better than me at that in our entire school, let me fucking bet'cha," she declares with a confidence she certainly didn't have a few minutes before.

"Ah yes, window shopping, the predominant date activity for teenagers our age. Do tell me more about all the secret techniques of window shopping."

Laughing at Fuutarou's obvious sarcasm, Nino takes Fuutarou's hand.

"Then don't mind if I do! C'mon, you don't have all day, do you?"

---

A/N

Well anon, you asked for it. Normally I do my best to keep my IRL life separate from my life online because I believe what I do offline is none of anyone else's business but my own and those of others I care enough to share it with, but since you thought that my last A/N was me "being a dick", I guess I can be one now. So I'm going to make an example out of you by throwing the entire book at you; try not to get smacked in the face by a corner.

This past year has been one of the most stressful years of my life; I had to move not just once but twice in a span of about ten months, both of which were decisions I had to make just a month or two beforehand. The first time was because I was living with my parents after graduating from college in order to save money by not having to pay rent by having my own place because student debt is much more of a dick than I'll ever be; without going into too much detail, the years leading up to that first move saw a steady, deteriorating relationship between me and the rest of my immediate family to the point where I felt like I no longer belonged in the home that I'd grown up in, and finally I decided it wasn't worth the saved rent money anymore blowing my brains out on a near-daily basis over frayed relationships that had no hope of being fixed and got my ass out. The second move, thankfully, was for more benign reasons but a move is a move; it's still going to be stressful no matter the context.

Some of you may also be aware that I create content for my Youtube and Twitch channels. The main reason why I stopped writing for a stretch of a few months was because I was working on the biggest video project in my decade-old Youtube "career" that took me six months to complete, the last two of which demanded the most effort that caused me to stop writing in order to focus all the spare time I had. And then there's the whole me having a full time job that I work so I can be a dumbass and pay for pixels in whatever gacha game I've gotten myself into.

Perhaps more relevant than my otherwise irrelevant IRL history is the tone that I used for my previous A/N. On my Youtube channel, my small claim to fame is a series of "How To" videos I make about ingame characters in a gacha game called Fate/Grand Order, and over the years I've managed to build up a small community of people who've come to enjoy them quite a bit for whatever reason. However, a number of them have gotten into a nasty little habit of pestering me about when I would upload the next video in the series, and this exacerbated heavily during those few months when I wasn't writing, because I also wasn't working on other videos other than the super big one that I mentioned above. On the few videos that I would put up on the channel that I had time to make, I'd get comments asking me when the next How-To video was going to be done, and occasionally whenever I'd stream, I'd get a comment in chat asking a similar question, and they'd always be from people who weren't regulars in my chat and only tuned into my stream just to ask that one question and get the fuck out once I gave them an answer of any kind.

Worst of all, when I finally finished my super big video project and uploaded it, one of the first comments I received on it did nothing but complain about how I wasted the past half a year working on some stupid video they didn't want and how I could have used that time to make so many more "How-To" videos instead, and about how disappointed they were that they had to wait all that time just to get a video that they had no interest in watching. Keep in mind that I have always treated all my outlets of online content creation the same, as in I maintain the same mentality of "I will do what I want, when I want" for everything, be it making videos about video games or writing fanfiction; I guess it also helps that I started doing these two things at around the same time a decade ago by now. So given the context of the past year, the amount of work that went into that big video project of mine, and the fact that it culminated in me getting a comment from a dick telling me that I'd wasted my time, it's certainly an experience I won't soon forget. So while I won't be asking for forgiveness for the tone I used in my last A/N, I will ask you to try to understand the fact that I've had enough of people asking me when I'm going to do something that they want me to do.

I can also pull the "I've always been this way" card on your ass too, both in terms of my IRL personality and my behavior speaking online. At least with Five Equal Angels, I know for a fact that several of my previous A/N's have been more negative in tone, ones that you would probably also consider me "being a dick", but I guess you wouldn't know because you clearly didn't bother reading them, given what you said in your own review; it makes me wonder why you decided to read this one, then. If you want to go even further back, you can go take one look at the review section of my Ambience: A Fleet Symphony fanfic and see what I had to deal with before this fic. Not only that, but for your information, I was considering being even more blunt and rude in my last A/N because I typically don't give people I don't know online the benefit of the doubt that they're speaking with good intentions, since people on the internet love talking with at least fifteen levels of irony and say "it's just a prank bro" whenever they get called out for their bullshit. Thankfully I decided to keep it as civil as I could while still making my point clear - God forbid you see what I would've said and think even worse of me; I wouldn't want to lose a potential reader in you, now, would I.

If you want to view my last A/N as me being a dick about a certain issue, then fair enough; that on its own is, at least to me, a tolerable reaction. But you see, this A/N didn't need to happen; if you just decided to keep your shitty opinion to yourself, then this issue would have resolved itself without a hitch, especially now that Mr. Tom, unlike you, decided to be the bigger man, a "gigachad", as the meme goes, and leave a very kind and understanding response to my A/N that was addressed to him when he could have reacted just like you and given me a very defensive response. But you did the opposite - you took the extra step and left an irritated review nitpicking the tone that I used for that A/N like the pathetic virgin you are, all because your fragile little ego couldn't handle someone on the internet talking in a manner that you didn't like. Unlike him, you didn't bother to stop and consider the possibility that there might be a reason or two behind the tone with which I used to write that previous A/N. Ironic, that by complaining about how I was being a dick to Mr. Tom, you ended up being something worse - a bitch. Because if you truly like this story and support me and my writing, why are you letting an Author's Note that has nothing to do with you dictate what you say in your own review? It's one thing for Mr. Tom to act the way you did, but why are you getting defensive on his behalf? You insult Mr. Tom by using "we" in your review, as though you think that you support me as a writer the same way that he does, and if there's one thing about this whole thing that I won't tolerate, it's that.

Tl;DR I've had my fair share of shit to deal with recently that might explain why I sounded like a dick to you in my last A/N. But while I appreciate support/enthusiasm from my readers just as much as the next fanfic writer, unlike most I don't need it to continue writing, or in my case, stop writing and then pick it up again once I'm able. So go fuck yourself, anon. I'd much rather be a dick than a bitch like you.

For everyone else, I sincerely apologize for having you read this. I have written pretty nasty A/N's in the past; as I've gotten older I've learned that this way of responding to reviews is usually not worth the time and effort spent on them because it may create more enemies that I have to deal with in the future, and sometimes out of the few readers that I do have. However, for reviews that are especially ignorant or are clearly written by types of people I dislike, I will make an exception and roast the ever-living shit out of them as I've just demonstrated, not just for the sake of roasting but also to make it clear to the rest of you that certain kinds of reviews will not go unanswered if I think they're dumb enough. That, and I'd rather that you know that this is how I can be sometimes, even though I have shown shades of this behavior in previous A/N's throughout this fic. If you are like anon and you don't like how I've written these last two A/N's including this one because you also think that I've been too much of a dick, then you will not enjoy your time reading the rest of this fic because this will influence your opinion of this fic too much for you to enjoy it properly, and I can only go off the rails so many times before this begins to bother the rest of you guys too. I don't intend to continue this topic in the future, so if you must talk about it in reviews for this chapter, do what you must, but let's drop it here and focus on the fic from now on.

Edit: I will once again be spending much of my time working on some more videos. I will try to write a little with whatever spare time I get, but in case this doesn't happen, I made this chapter longer than usual.