A/N: Sorry for the delay with this chapter! I've gotten quite busy with work (I'm a full time grad student), and also travelled to visit family. That combined with a serious case of writers' block made this chapter take forever to write. Chapters may be a bit more sparse for a while, but hopefully I'll be able to get back to a more frequent schedule in due course.

If there's a bit of a gap between chapters, have no fear! I'm not going to drop this fic.

Chapter 13:

The Calm Before The Storm

As I walked out of the classroom about three minutes later, I was still reeling from the fact that Nino had finally opened up about her problems - and that the tutor had managed to induce such a strong effect on her. I pulled out my phone, and sent an e-mail to Yotsuba.

{Nino is on her way home. She's probably going to chew out Second Place-san. Please try and defuse it and just get them separated. You can't afford to lose studying time.}

A few minutes later, as I was changing my footwear, I felt my phone buzz in response, and I looked at the e-mail to see that Yotsuba had just sent me a small stylized image of a smiley face saluting. I frowned at it.

Is this that thing Raiha called an... emoji?

Then my phone buzzed again.

{I don't have time to really talk right now because of the session, I went to the washroom to use my phone just for a minute - but why were you and Nino together?}

{Ran into her on my way home from studying. She was pretty upset.}

{Hmmm. Veeeeeeeery suspicious. You sure it wasn't a secret lover's getaway?}

{She hates my guts, remember? Also, yuck, romance.}

{Hatred is just the other side of love, Uesugi-saaaaan!}

{I can't use these 'emoji' things on my phone, but imagine I'm rolling my eyes at you.}

{Shock!}

I laughed, and put my phone away. Glancing back into the classroom, I shook my head.

I guess screaming at me helped more than I thought it would...?

At that thought, I frowned.

I don't particularly want to become her punching bag, though, so let's not make a habit of that. I don't actually like being screamed at.

I readjusted my bag on my shoulder, and left the room. The walk down to the footlockers was a bit of a blur - I was lost in a world inside my head, ruminating on my encounter with Nino. When I finally reached the lockers, I saw a flash of red hair leaving the building, and then the room was empty. I slowly changed to go home, my mind still lost in thought.

When I got back to my family apartment, I enjoyed a lovely dinner that my sister had made, and then got to work. My dad was working a night shift at the warehouse, and so it was just the two of us. I pulled out an old binder that I had, and removed all of the pages. I then painstakingly put together packages of material for Yotsuba to study. It was a lot of work both physically and mentally, but after about four hours of diligent effort, I eventually had a semblance of a guidebook for Yotsuba to work through.

"This should last her at least until I can make another," I muttered to myself, my hand mildly cramping.

Raiha popped down opposite me, a popsicle in her mouth.

"Whatcha doing, Onii-chan?"

"I told you that I'm helping Yotsuba study this week and next, right? I'm making some study material for her."

"Ooh, taking your tutoring duties seriously, huh?"

I scowled at her. "Please don't call it that. I'm not a tutor, nor do I want to be. I'm only doing this in my spare time, and I'm not letting it interfere with my own studies."

"Oh, ok. I won't then."

Raiha sat in silence as I continued to work, and then suddenly squealed as some of her popsicle fell out of her mouth on her overalls. She stood up in a hurry and rushed over to the sink, dropping the broken bit in so as to let it melt down the drain, and then rubbed water on her clothes to spot-clean the mild popsicle stain. I continued to work, ignoring the commotion, and she eventually came back to the table, a sad look on her face as she held her deteriorated treat.

"Why are you doing so much work to tuto- uh, to help Yotsuba-nee-chan?"

"Because she needs it," I said darkly, thinking about the amount of work awaiting me.

"Do you liiiiike her?"

"Raiha, how many times do we need to have this conversation?"

"You didn't say no, Onii-chan!"

"Obviously the answer is no! I don't have the time nor the inclination for love. You know this, Raiha, why are you giving me a hard time?"

"Onii-chan is in looooove!"

At that moment, I finished making the last page of the booklet, and slammed the binder shut a little harder than I intended, startling Raiha.

"Drop it please."

"O-ok..."

I immediately felt guilty, and sighed. "Sorry Raiha, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm just a bit tired."

"It's ok..."

"Do you want me to grab you a new popsicle?"

Raiha perked up. "Sure!"

I popped the freezer open to see that we only had one left. I grabbed it and brought it over to Raiha as an apology, which she happily accepted. Feeling spiritually cleansed, I went for my bath. When I got out, Raiha had already fallen asleep. I swiftly followed suit, my hand mildly aching.

The next day at school, Itsuki seemed absolutely exhausted as she collapsed into her chair in the classroom. I wanted to ask her how the tutoring session had gone, but I wasn't afforded the chance - as soon as she lifted her head up from flopping, the teacher walked into the room. I made eye contact with her, and she just grimaced.

Well that'snot a good sign.

Throughout the first half of the day, whenever I happened to glance back towards the back of the class, Itsuki seemed like she was in a daze. Her eyes seemed half-open, and her note-taking seemed erratic. It almost looked like she was sleep-deprived... and maybe she was?

When classes finally ended for lunch, I got up, and walked over to her desk, where she was slowly packing up her things.

"Hey Itsuki, do you want to walk to the cafeteria together? I have questions."

She looked up at me, blinked a couple of times, and then nodded.

"Sure, just give me a moment."

I stood there awkwardly for about thirty seconds as she finished packing up her bags, a few of the people around us whispering. Finally, she was finished, and we began walking towards the cafeteria.

"How did the second session go?" I ventured.

"Well, on a purely academic level, it was better than the first one..."

"I... see."

We walked in silence for a moment, and then Itsuki sighed.

"Not by much though."

"Ah. That's not good."

"No," she murmured, "It's not. When he arrived, he seemed pretty upset that Nino wasn't there, but it was just Yotsuba and me. Yotsuba was very determined to make the session work - something about 'kicking ass', which seemed a bit uncharacteristic of her. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"

I glanced away. "Not a thing."

"Hmm," Itsuki said, squinting at me intently. "That doesn't sound believable at all."

"You know, I hear that from Yotsuba a lot."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, she'll squint at me exactly like you're doing right now, and go 'veeeeery suspicious'."

"I... see."

"Anyways," I said, shifting uncomfortably under Itsuki's gaze. "What happened?"

"Oh, right," she said as we turned a corner. "The tutor arrived and after a little bit of complaining about the 'lack of work ethic' from the other, we got started. It was pretty good at first, because any time he started getting off track, Yotsuba would ask him a question about the material and distract him."

"Huh," I muttered to myself, "That's a much less confrontational solution than what I came up with."

Itsuki gave me a strange look, and then continued. "Anyways, then Yotsuba went to the washroom, and when she came back she seemed a bit upset about something. She threw herself into studying - I don't think I've ever seen her that quiet in her life. Maybe the only other time was when she got stung on the lip by a wasp, and it hurt for her to talk. That's an exaggeration, but the tutor seemed pretty happy, regardless."

I snorted. "Well, I'm glad Second Place-san found something to make him happy."

We made our way into the cafeteria, and started walking to get food.

"A few hours after the session started, Nino got home, and immediately went up to her room. The tutor followed her up, and tried to convince her to join us, but she slammed the door in his face. He then pounded on her door, telling her she needed to come out and study, or she would fail."

"Uh oh," I muttered.

Itsuki nodded. "Indeed. The door opened again, and Nino went full... uh, how do I put this?"

"Nino?" I suggested.

"Yeah, that."

I shook my head. Whoops. Did I do that?

"Anyways, then - oh, one second. Hi, could I have..."

I zoned out as Itsuki ordered her lunch. A wisp of a thought was percolating in my head, an irritant that I couldn't quite filter out. It scratched at the edges of my mind, begging to be let in like a vampire in the night. And yet... I didn't quite know what it was. I frowned, trying to identify what the hell was bothering me.

It was something Itsuki said... think, what was it?

"...and you?"

I snapped out of my daze.

"Oh. Uh, right. Yeah, could I get the barbecue meal minus the barbecue?"

The cafeteria server gave me a pitying look, and then typed in the order. I turned to see Itsuki studiously not looking at me.

"What? It's a great deal!"

"Uh... right."

I scowled at her. "You just don't appreciate the power of savings."

Itsuki looked uncomfortable at that statement, perhaps reminded of her own wealth relative to my situation. I felt a little bit guilty, but brushed it aside.

"Anyways, continue your tale, oh tale-spinner."

Itsuki rolled her eyes. "Right. Anyways, Nino came out and decided to be Nino, but extra. She told him to screw off, and that he had no right to bother her. When he reminded her that he was being paid by our father to tutor all of us, she asked him if he was being paid for school hours too. He seemed a bit stumped at that, and she told him that he needed to leave her, and I quote, 'the hell alone at school'. He stammered out some kind of response, and she told him that if he talked to her at school again, she would make a point to get him fired."

I breathed in shallowly. "Wow, she really went the whole nine yards."

"Yeah. Actually, the word she used wasn't 'talked', it was 'harassed'. She started yelling that he had been demeaning her, and making her feel like an idiot, and if he kept it up she'd make his life hell. He seemed fairly intimidated, and left her alone after that."

I shrugged. "Well, she definitely made her point. Maybe if he leaves her alone at school, she'll start studying at home."

"Well... maybe." Itsuki said doubtfully. "Oh, our food is here."

We both respectively grabbed our trays off the counter where they'd been placed, and then began to walk towards the seating area.

"So, did anything else happen?"

Itsuki shook her head. "Not much. We went seriously over time, though, I don't think we finished until around eleven. The tutor was in a foul mood the rest of the evening, which just made life really miserable for Yotsuba and me. He'd go off on tangents way more often, and the occasional monologue - and Yotsuba's technique of distracting him stopped working too. By the end, she was pretty annoyed, but there's not much we could do."

"Yeah," I said, "she was worried that would happen. Hopefully she still got a decent amount done."

Itsuki shrugged. "No clue. Anyways, I'll see you later, Uesugi-kun."

I started as I realized that we had reached the table which she normally shared with her sisters. Ichika, Miku, and Nino were already there.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. See you later, Itsuki."

I left and went over to my own usual table, but to my chagrin, it had already been taken. I frowned, and looked around... but I couldn't see any empty tables. With a mild sinking sensation in my chest, I realized that unless I located a table soon, I'd be relegated to loading my food up into my arms and eating in a hallway or stairwell.

I'd prefer to not resort to that if at all possible.

Finally, I spotted an empty table in the opposite corner of the room. I made my way there, and placed my tray down gently, careful not to spill any of the precious soup. I glanced back at the quints' table, and noted that Yotsuba still wasn't there. I frowned, the rogue thought at the periphery of my brain nagging at me.

Shut up, brain. You have studying to do.

I slowly began to eat my food, pulling out my flashcards. The formulas that governed celestial mechanics seemed to all blend together before me as the cards flitted by. I cursed to myself as I got the same card wrong a number of times - for some reason the Tsiolkovsky equation just wasn't sticking in my head despite its simplicity. I threw my cards down on the table in annoyance, and took a sip of my soup.

Something was bothering me.

What the hell was it?

Where's Yotsuba?

I glanced back at the quints' table. The familiar green bow wasn't there. I frowned down at my flashcards, and began to gather them back up.

Am I just worried about her? That's moronic. If that's all the issue is, I can easily resolve it.

I pulled out my phone and sent her a quick email asking if she was alright, since she wasn't in the cafeteria. I put the phone down, and frowned down at it, puzzled.

I don't feel any better.

The phone buzzed, and I picked it up to see Yotsuba's response email.

{Got kidnapped by some dastardly teachers who wanted me to help photocopy handouts. Were you worried about me, Uesugi-san? Shi shi shi, have no fear - it takes more than that to take me out!}

I rolled my eyes, but I smiled despite myself. I put my phone down, and picked the cards back up, and started attempting to work through them again. The weird distraction that was buzzing in my head hadn't dispersed in the slightest, but through sheer willpower I suppressed it and forced myself to study. It was difficult, and my retention felt distinctly sub par - but imperfect recall was better than no recall.

That was a bust. What the hell is my problem?

I glanced over at the quints' table again about ten minutes later, and saw the familiar green bow was now present, waving back and forth as Yotsuba animatedly talked to her sisters. I finished my bowl of rice, and then suddenly the bell rang for us to return to class. Annoyed at my own distraction, I drank the rest of my soup, and packed up my bag.

The rest of the day went fairly quickly, and I soon found myself in the library waiting for Yotsuba. I pulled out the binder I had prepared the night before, and quickly perused its contents, reacquainting myself with the material I'd prepared. My eyes skimmed over the lines, and I nodded to myself subconsciously.

This should be enough for now.

I was interrupted in my refresher by a certain ribboned redhead popping around the corner. Yotsuba sat down across from me, and immediately flopped down, sprawling across the surface of the table like some sort of beached fish.

"Uh... you alright there, Yotsuba?"

In response, she just let out a groan.

"I don't speak groan, but if I had to guess based on my limited translation knowledge, that would be a 'no'?"

Yotsuba, face still plonked directly into the table, raised a thumbs up.

"Does that mean I'm right, or that you are in fact alright?"

Yotsuba raised up her pointer finger, presumably to indicate that it was the first option.

"Ah. Gotcha."

Yotsuba lifted her head off the table to look up at me, crooking her neck to sit her chin on the wooden surface.

"Uesugi-san, studying is haaaaard."

I just raised an eyebrow at her. "You sound like Raiha."

Yotsuba pouted at me. "That's not a bad thing, Raiha's adorable."

"That is, indeed, true."

Yotsuba reached her arms out to their full extension in front of her, her hands arched back towards her head. For a moment, she almost looked like a cat, stretching in a sunbeam.

"So, did you manage to get anything out of the session with the tutor?" I ventured.

A frown crossed her face. "Well... I definitely got some stuff out of it. At least before Nino came home. I was able to keep him mostly on track by asking questions to redirect him, and so I got through at least some of the stuff on the list you gave me..."

Then she sighed. "But after Nino came back, he was just impossible. I think her yelling really shook him, because he was terrible after that. Nino seemed pretty upset too, though I think she got a lot of satisfaction out of venting at him."

"Yeah, she has a penchant for yelling at people," I said drily. Yotsuba just looked at me confusedly.

"That's... true, I guess? Sometimes. Nino doesn't really yell that much at home. Anyways, I think what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't a complete waste of time. I took lots of notes, see!"

Yotsuba pulled back to sit up in her chair, and reached down to lift up her bag. From its depths she retrieved an orange binder, which she carefully placed on the table. As she opened it, I noticed amusedly that there was a sticker on the front which seemed to be a chibi-esque drawing of her bow.

"Look, look! I even colour-coded the notes by subject!"

I looked down at the set of pages that Yotsuba had thrust in front of me. The handwriting was about as sloppy as I'd come to expect from her, but reading over the notes (as best I could), I could see that she'd covered a not-insignificant range of topics during the tutoring session. As I flipped through the pages, my left eyebrow slowly started to rise of its own accord.

Second Place-san... isn't doing a good job teaching them, but his choice of subject material to cover isn't bad. He's definitely at least putting some thought into it.

"Eh? Eh?! Uesugi-san, why is your eyebrow rising like that? Is it that bad?!"

I started, and then looked up at her anxious face.

"No, no, it's fine. I was just thinking about the subject material itself."

Yotsuba breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought I'd majorly screwed up!"

I shook my head. "No, but don't think you're off the hook. You still need to make up for time lost to that buffoon."

Yotsuba's shoulders sagged. "Y... You're right..."

I reached across the table and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's ok. You've got this. We just need to get to work."

I felt her square her shoulders, and then she nodded at me, a look of determination replacing the anxiety temporarily. I let go of her shoulder a moment later when I realized that my hand had remained in place longer than I'd intended. As I withdrew, I noticed a faint redness in Yotsuba's face, which I processed, and then immediately put out of my mind.

It's just a shoulder, after all.

"Oh, by the way," I said, pulling my bag into my lap and taking out my own textbooks. "Were you still wanting me to come by to help you study tonight and over the weekend?"

"Yep!" she said, pumping her fist and grabbing her bicep. "We're gonna kick some ass!"

"Your sisters are alright with it, right?"

"Yeah. Even Nino limited things to just grumbling. Actually, it was kind of odd - normally she would have thrown a fit about it..."

Yotsuba's eyes narrowed, and she leaned over to table until she was mere centimetres away from my face.

"Staaaaaaaare."

I shifted uncomfortably. "What?"

"Veeeeeeery suspicious," she said at point-blank range. "Are you sure you and her weren't off on a secret lovers' tryst when you were with her yesterday?"

I glanced to the side, my hand unconsciously rising to the fringe of hair that dangled down across my forehead. "Given she spent the majority of the time yelling at me, I'm pretty damn sure."

Yotsuba leaned back. "Ah, a lovers' quarrel then!"

I scowled at her. "It was a lovers' nothing. You sound like Raiha again, by the way. She was really pushing about it last night."

Yotsuba frowned. "Why was she yelling at you, anyways? I mean, apart from the usual."

"Why do you make it sound like her yelling at me is a daily part of my life?"

The girl across from me just snickered. I rolled my eyes at her, not particularly liking what she was implying.

"I asked her to?"

Now that answer caught her by surprise. Yotsuba's eyes widened, and she leaned forward, the confusion in her mind written like letters in a book across her face.

"You... asked her to?"

I nodded.

"Uesugi-san..."

I waited.

"...are you an 'M'?"

I planted my face in my hands.

What the hell kind of question is that?!

"No," I said through my fingers. At least I don't think so. "She just seemed really upset, so I tried talking to her about it, and eventually I decided that the only way I, someone who she clearly doesn't like, could help her was if I just let her scream at me. I don't have any plans to do it again."

"I see, I see. So you helped her relieve some stress!"

"I guess so? It was more so she could vent her frustrations over Second Place-san."

"Is that so? You were helping her vent her frustrations, huh?"

"Yes, that is what I believe I said...?"

"I seeeee, so you were just being a nice guy, huh?"

I raised my head. "Yeah, I said that alre-"

Yotsuba had a giant smirk on her face.

My eyes narrowed.

"Hang on, are you just messing with me?"

Yotsuba laughed and stuck her tongue out at me.

"Well, congrats, you got me," I scowled. "Let's get to work."

"Ah, sure."

We both began to get to work, Yotsuba working off the study guide I had previously given her. The library grew silent, save for the occasional sound of pencils grinding against paper, the flip of pages, and the rubbing of erasers against graphite to drive away my (occasional) and Yotsuba's (frequent) mistakes. I was so focused on my work that I almost missed it when Yotsuba quietly spoke.

"You're not actually interested in Nino like that... right?"

I looked up to see that she was intently focused on her math worksheet, and for a moment, I thought I had just imagined what she said. I looked back down at my page.

"Obviously not. I told you, I have no interest in romance. Especially not with someone who hates my guts."

There was a moment of silence...

"...Ok."

Yotsuba's reply was again so quiet that I almost missed it. I frowned to myself. There was something here that wasn't clicking for me... but I wasn't sure what it was. Frustratedly, I realized that whatever it was, it was related to the nagging worry that had been plaguing me since my conversation with Itsuki in the morning.

I'll either figure it out, or it wasn't worth figuring out in the first place.

Yotsuba peeked up from her notes, and I noticed a faint tinge of red in her face again - but it wasn't like she was blushing some deep crimson or anything of the sort. I came to the conclusion that she had just embarrassed herself with the love talk, and had decided to back out of the subject, which was completely fine in my books.

"Uesugi-san, what's that binder? It has my name on it."

I snapped out of my thoughts, and looked down at the binder I'd put on the table before she even arrived. In the midst of our discussions, I had completely forgotten about it.

"Oh, right. I was going to mention it, but somebody distracted me."

Yotsuba squirmed under my gaze.

"Who... who could that be, I wonder?" she said, glancing away from me.

"Indeed, I wonder," I said drily. "Anyways, I put together this guide book for you to study off of, in addition to the material you already have from our classes. I figured, the more practice questions and study material you have, the more likely the information is to stick. The key to recall is repetition and association. I can't do the second one for you, but I can help with the first by providing you with the raw materials you need."

I picked up the binder, and handed it over to Yotsuba. She took the thing, and it immediately sagged in her hands.

"It's heavier than I thought!" she said with surprise.

"I would think so, it has over a hundred pages in it," I said. "Regardless, I hope you're able to work through it this weekend. I can make a second one while you do so. We'll get you as far along as we can."

Yotsuba nodded wordlessly, and then flipped open the binder. She started leafing through the pages, looking over them. I watched her face go from mild anxiety to extreme anxiety, and then suddenly her eyes widened, and she looked up at me.

"Hang on... Uesugi-san..."

"Yes?"

"These pages..."

"...Yes?"

She frowned. "They're all hand-written."

"...Yes."

"Over a hundred of them."

"...Yes?"

"Did... did you do all of these by hand? All one-hundred of them?"

"It's actually one-hundred and sixteen, but yes, I did. I put it together last night."

Yotsuba looked down at the page again, and I could almost see the gears turning in her head. Then, she looked back up at me.

"...Thank you."

I smiled. "You're welcome. Make sure you work through all of it."

Yotsuba nodded wordlessly, and then flipped to page one. I also continued with my own work, my pencil scratching against the paper. We continued studying in this fashion for the next hour or so, Yotsuba occasionally pausing to ask me questions. After about an hour, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see that I'd received an e-mail from Raiha.

"Hey, Yotsuba."

"Hmm?"

"Raiha says that my dad wants me to come home before heading over to your place. Shall we take a break now, and I'll head over to your place for about seven? I'll just have dinner at my place."

"Oh, ok. Sure. Sounds good."

We both put our textbooks away, and packed up our bags. Yotsuba attempted to put the binder in hers, but then realized it wouldn't fit, and simply stowed it under her arm. We walked down to the footlockers together, and I was moderately surprised to see that there were still students milling around.

I guess this is a bit earlier than we usually leave.

After we'd both changed our footwear, we walked to the front gate together. Yotsuba pulled out her phone to call a cab to go home.

"Ok, so you'll be at my place at about seven?"

"Yep."

"Ok, sounds good! Ah, Uesugi-san, please give me your hand for a moment."

Confused, I extended my hand out. Instead of taking it, Yotsuba put her own hand on top of it.

"Alright. Our mission - reconvene at nineteen-hundred hours! Our goal - to study lots of stuff! Our motto - kick ass!"

"Uhhhhh..."

"Right!" Yotsuba yelled. "Three, two, one - DISPERSE!"

She immediately moved her hand under mine, and then threw it up over her head, causing my hand to shoot up as well. Then she laughed, and ran over to the spot where she normally waited for her taxi. I watched her go, and despite myself, I could feel a smile sneaking its way across my face. I shook my head, and turned to start my journey home. As I walked, I laughed quietly to myself.

"Idiot."