How We Met Again

by Gazara12

In an alternative timeline where Uesugi declined the tutoring job, his past connection to the quintuplets is enough to slowly pull him into the midst of their lives. A Fuu/Yots fic... probably.

15. The Storm Strikes

Chapter 15:

The Storm Strikes

The next day was Saturday, and I arrived at the Nakanos' apartment fairly early - though not as early as the time a month prior. I was buzzed in by Yotsuba, and soon found myself set up on the coffee table with her sitting cross-legged across from me. As we got to work, I noted that the fantastic spread was smaller than it had been the day before - perhaps Yotsuba hadn't had the energy needed to develop a more opulent rendition, given how late we'd studied the night before.

As we plowed ahead with both social studies and English, I could see the forced concentration on Yotsuba's face. It had been a mere ten hours since we had previously parted ways, and I doubted she was fully recovered from the last session. Hell, my hand was still mildly sore, and I was used to this level of studying - though now that I thought back on it, my soreness was probably due to making an entire binder worth of material in one night.

As Yotsuba studied, I worked on developing a second binder of material for her. The contents of the first covered approximately up until the end of the second term of our first year, and so I had been hopeful that she would be able to finish that first binder by Monday or Tuesday evening. However, with the pace she was making...

"Hey, Uesugi-san, can you explain this bit?"

"Ah. Yeah, sure..."

Yotsuba pulled a strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear as she listened to my explanation, her eyes on me and nodding occasionally. As she nodded, her bow bounced over top her head as though it, too, were acknowledging my words. Somehow, that gave me a strange sense of satisfaction.

We're off to a slow start.

As Yotsuba flipped to the next page of the binder, she let out a yelp, and immediately stuck her finger in her mouth. She stood up, and pulled it out to look at it.

"Paper cut?"

"Yep. Ow..."

Yotsuba left the table and went into the bathroom, presumably to apply a bandage and some antibiotic cream. I was left there alone at the table, and I took the opportunity to continue working on the second binder for Yotsuba. It was a nice review for me - the material I usually studied was of a significantly higher level.

...Geez, why is my back so stiff?

Maybe my posture needed some work. I'd spent so much time hunched over on the couch the previous night and this morning that my back was beginning to get sore. I put down my pencil, gently closed the binder, and leaned back on the couch. I arched my spine and stretched my hands far above my head to their full extension; the relief it brought the muscles in my back and upper arms was enough to make me sigh with pleasure. I closed my eyes, basking in the sweet sensation.

I felt the couch compress slightly as someone sat down next to me, and so I opened my eyes again and glanced over.

"That looked like a nice stretch."

The girl with headphones next to me put down her cup of tea, and joined me in stretching. I wasn't entirely sure if she was showing camaraderie, or if she was just mocking me - but I decided to assume it was the former. It was just easier that way - plus, her face seemed completely innocent.

"Morning, Miku," I said, rolling my arms and then leaning forward again. "Yeah, it was - I needed that. My posture is... how do I put this? Hot garbage."

She leaned forward, picked her tea back up, and took a slow sip. I opened the binder for Yotsuba back up, and began writing again. There was an awkward silence as neither of us said anything, a silence marred only by the sound of my pencil scratching on paper.

Miku took another sip of her tea.

I flipped back to the outline I'd pasted to the inside of the front cover of the binder, and frowned.

Ah, shoot. I've lost track of what I was supposed to be working on in this section. Curse past me and his ambiguous wording!

"What are you two studying, Fuutarou?" Miku asked me quietly.

"Hell if I know," I growled, frustratedly flipping back to the section I was working on. "I've completely messed up compared to my outline I wrote. I'm going to need to restructure the binder so that I don't waste like ten pages of work."

"It's probably not a good thing if the tutor doesn't know what he and the student are studying, you know."

I sighed. "Right? Oh well, it's not a fatal error, we can handle it. I'm just annoyed at myself. I don't normally make sloppy mistakes like this."

Then I sharply looked up at her. "Also, I'm not a tutor - we're studying together, I'm just helping her study."

Miku nodded. "Oh. I see."

She quietly sipped her tea. We both sat there for a few moments. Then...

"So... what's the difference between that and being a tutor?"

I frowned. "Well, for one thing, there's no financial transaction involved."

"Friends tutor each other all the time, though. There's usually no money involved."

"Well, I..." I paused, and stared down at the binder, my pencil coming to a halt. "...huh. Maybe you're right."

There was a moment of almost smug silence from Miku. She sipped her tea again.

Then I scowled, and resumed writing. "I just don't like the term, though, at least applied to myself."

Miku frowned. "That's a bit of a weird hang-up, Fuutarou."

"It's not a hang-up. It's just... you know what, nevermind. I need to finish re-organizing this."

Miku leaned forward. "Now I'm curious. I want to know why you don't like being called a tutor."

I stared down at the page in front of me. Unbidden, the barest hints of images began to form in the forefronts of my memory. Immediately, violently, I mentally swatted them away.

No. Shush. Silence. Shut thy piehole. I'm busy right now, brain.

"I most humbly petition that this subject be consigned to the realm of the past, and forbidden entry unto the present, lest it taint the here and now with its murky presence. Indeed, my lady, I most passionately request that thou acquiesce to my behest."

"So, does that mean you don't want to talk about it?" Miku said, an odd smile growing on her face, perhaps at my usage of archaic Japanese.

"It means that I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about what?"

I looked up to see that Yotsuba had returned, and was hovering over the table, a vaguely worried look on her face. Miku smiled.

"Fuutarou's... hang ups."

"Eh?" Yotsuba said, and for some reason her face got a bit red. "W-What sort of hang ups?"

I shot Miku a look. "Phrasing."

The middle child took a long sip of her tea, letting the question hang in the air.

"Terminology," she finally said, a half-smile on her face.

Yotsuba's face scrunched up in confusion. "Terminology? Uesugi-san, what is she talking about?"

"A body of terms used in a field, typically a technical one."

"I'm pretty sure she knows what the word 'terminology' means, Fuutarou." Miku said patiently.

I glanced away. "As I said, I don't want to talk about this. Let's get back to studying."

"Ah... alright," Yotsuba said, confusion still evident in both her face and her bow. She sat back down cross-legged at the table, and flipped her books back open. I looked down at her finger to see that it was firmly bandaged, and then glanced back up at her face to see that there was still a faint pink tinge to it.

...what the heck was she imagining about my so-called hang-ups?

A few more mental images attempted to find entry into my mind, but were held at bay by the firm iron walls of my willpower. Miku took another sip of her tea, and then sighed. I glanced over at her, and to my surprise saw that the half-smile was gone - if anything, she seemed a bit sad. We made eye contact, and then she glanced away. A moment passed, and then...

"Sorry, Fuutarou. I didn't mean to pressure you into talking about something uncomfortable. My bad."

I was caught off-guard by her sudden apology, but I managed to nod my head.

"It's fine, I'm not that upset - it's just not something I feel comfortable talking about."

Miku nodded, and went to sip her tea - but then found to her dismay that the cup was empty. Despairingly, she got up, and went to go make herself more, and Yotsuba and I fully resumed our studying. Our progress was decent, but still left something to be desired. I occasionally checked the schedule I'd written out for the two weeks, and did some mental math. If we added another half-hour at the end of today, we might be able to make up for missed time... maybe.

Our study session continued over the next several hours, with Yotsuba occasionally asking me questions, and Miku sitting next to me on the couch drinking tea and watching videos on her phone, her headphones for once on her ears instead of around her neck. At some point, Ichika emerged from her room, made herself a quick bite to eat after saying hello, and then hurriedly departed the apartment. Supposedly, her job wanted her in for something urgent. Itsuki also came down a while later, but she departed almost immediately as well for an undisclosed location. To our collective shock, she declined any food before she left.

"Suspicious," Yotsuba muttered. "Veeeery suspicious."

"Yeah," I said, staring at the door as it closed behind her. "That is weird."

Eventually, Nino came downstairs. She looked exhausted, as though she'd stayed up far too late. When Miku asked her what she'd been doing, she admitted to experimenting with the spices she'd received from my dad until the early hours of the morning. Apparently, there were a few "interesting flavour profiles" that she'd discovered that she wanted to use in her cooking for the day - though when she said 'cooking for the day', I glanced up at the clock which already read eleven-thirty in the morning.

Nino, thankfully, didn't notice my time check. She instead excitedly popped into the kitchen to experiment - and then stopped dead in her tracks.

"Ugh, did Ichika cook something here?"

"Uh, I think she made herself breakfast before she went to work." I said.

Nino sighed. "Great, now the kitchen looks like her room. Guess lunch is gonna have to wait."

Nino busied herself with tidying the kitchen, and about fifteen minutes later, she seemed satisfied. I was also satisfied, but for a different reason - I'd managed to finish rectifying the error I'd made with the ordering of the notes in the binder. It was now beginning to resemble the document I'd envisioned, ramping up in difficulty so as to serve as a runway to the material for the actual midterm.

"Hey," Nino called over. "I'm gonna start making lunch. Do you want some?"

"Oh, awesome," Yotsuba said, leaning back. "I'm just about ready for a break. I want some, Nino!"

"Me too," Miku said quietly.

Nino's gaze shifted to me, and she raised an eyebrow.

Huh, it's not an immediate dismissal, I mused. That's new. Alas...

"I'm fine, thank you. I brought my own."

From my bag, I pulled a small bento that I had prepared (with some contributions from Raiha) the evening before. I had intended to just come without, as I'd known Nino would cook - but my father had insisted I bring my own food. Personally, I thought it was a bit odd to bring a bento to someone else's house, but it was such an insignificant thing as to be not worth the energy required to fight him on it. As such, a bento I had brought.

"Eh? Uesugi-san, you have a bento? What's in there?"

I shrugged. "I'll show you when I eat it. I'm not entirely sure - part of it was made by Raiha. She refused to let me see that part, she indicated that it was, and I quote, a 'surprise'."

"Raiha-chan made that? I have to try some!" Yotsuba exclaimed. I raised my eyebrow.

"Excuse you, I made the majority of it, so I made it."

"Ah, I see. I want to taste the part Raiha-chan made though!"

Ouch.

I glanced back over at the kitchen to see that Nino had a completely unreadable expression on her face. She turned back into the kitchen, and made a quick lunch. While she cooked, we finished studying. We were on the social studies section, and were briefly discussing Sengoku warlords again, as the material we were currently covering was pre-requisite to the subject. I could see that Miku was doing her best to pretend to not be focusing on our conversation - but in reality, it was very easy to tell we had her rapt attention. As Yotsuba got all sorts of names and dates wrong, I could practically feel Miku squirming in her seat.

Actually, she's right next to me, so that probably is her squirming in her seat.

I was saved from the wiggling of the girl next to me by Nino's announcement that lunch was ready. We put the books away, and moved over to sit at the kitchen table. Nino brought out food on plates for her two sisters, some type of sandwich with all sorts of meats and cheeses in the middle. It looked amazing.

Damn you, dad!

I sadly opened up by my own bento-

-and immediately slammed it shut again.

I could feel my face reddening against my will, and I put my head in my hands.

Raiha, why?! What the hell were you thinking?!

"Eh? Uesugi-san, what's wrong?"

I lifted my head out of my hands. "I think," I said through gritted teeth, my left eye twitching, "my sister and I are going to need to have a niiiiice long chat."

I'm gonna kill her.

"Huh? Did Raiha-chan put something weird in there?" Yotsuba asked. "Did she cover everything in pickled radishes? Is it uncooked squid? Man, that would be strange!"

"She definitely put something weird in there," I said, refusing to make eye-contact with her.

"Is that so? I wanna see, Uesugi-san! Open up!" Yotsuba said, cheerfully reaching for the bento. In a hurry, I pulled it away and clutched it to my chest. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to describe the feeling in my chest as panic; but rather... it was a very strong desire for Yotsuba to not see what my idiot sister had drawn on my rice.

Very strong.

"Not a chance. You're not getting within ten feet of this thing until I undo what my sister hath wrought."

Then I looked at where I was, where Yotsuba was positioned - that is to say, sitting right next to me - and re-appraised my statement.

"Scratch that. I'm not letting you within... uh, one and a half feet of my bento until then."

"Curses," she said, shaking her head. "You foiled my plan of staying exactly one and a quarter feet away! How dastardly, Uesugi-san!"

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, sure."

She playfully snatched at the bento again, and I held it at arm's reach over the table, angled away from her. Despite my mortal peril, I found myself with a faint smile beginning to cross my lips as she playfully snatched at it.

"Cut the flirting," Nino scowled, "I'm trying to eat here - my sandwich doesn't need to see this."

"This isn't flirting, this is self-preservation," I scowled back at her. "Also, your sandwich doesn't have eyes. I need to go get rid of this."

I stood up, but immediately felt the bento wrenched out of my hands. I looked down to see it was gone, and then I looked at Yotsuba. She didn't have it either. I scanned the table until I realized that it was none other than Nino herself that had reached across and grabbed the bento.

"Give me that. God, it can't be that bad - you're being dramatic."

She flipped the lid open.

Ah, shit.

As she stared into the bento, a strange look crossed Nino's face. I'd never seen an expression like that on her face before - it almost looked like she was trying to contain peals of laughter. I could see her sides shaking, and her lips trembling as she tried desperately to hold it in. She took a deep breath, and managed to close the lid again with only the slightest of gusts of air escaping her lips.

"So, Uesugi... your sister is quite the artist, isn't she?" Nino said, her lips twitching again with mirth.

"Uh... you... could say that? I guess?" I said, wondering how much the fare across the River Styx was these days.

"Interesting," she commented, her tone about as nonchalant as possible given the situation.

"Hey, Nino, I wanna see Raiha-chan's art!" Yotsuba complained, reaching for the bento. Nino pulled it away from her, looked at me, and raised an eyebrow slightly. Then it seemed like another wave of almost-giggles hit her, and her hand tightened on the bento, her knuckles turning white.

"I'm- I'm gonna cover for you, Uesugi. You owe me one."

Nino reached across the table, and grabbed my chopsticks. She then held them together to form a (slightly) thicker implement, and began vigorously stirring my rice - thereby destroying the image that Raiha had created on the top out of basil leafs and ketchup. A barely-contained smirk lingering on her face, she handed it back to me.

"Noooo, Raiha-chan's art!" Yotsuba cried in despair.

"Uh... thanks, Nino," I said awkwardly.

"You're welcome," she said, a sadistic glint in her eyes, "but, you know, you're going to have to live the rest of your life knowing that I saw that."

"...There's no chance you would perhaps consider forgetting, right?"

"Absolutely none."

"...Drats."

Yotsuba pouted next to me. "Aww, I wanted to see, Uesugi-san! I bet it was interesting art!"

Nino turned her head away from all of us and put her hand in front of her mouth, and I could tell that she was on the verge of losing it.

"You... could say that," I said awkwardly.

"Tell me what it was!"

The image of what Raiha had drawn flashed unbidden before my eyes. A drawing of a girl made out of ketchup, with a giant heart around her. The girl's intended identity would have been completely indiscernible - had it not been for the basil leaves serving as her bow. At the bottom, in huge letters, Raiha had written in English, 'LOVE'.

I can never, evertell her.

"I'm going to take this secret to the grave," I said solemnly.

We finally got back to eating after I managed to quell the ribboned girl's protests, and as we ate Yotsuba eyed the wreckage of my bento.

"Hey, Uesugi-san, why don't you bring bentos to school? Since you can make them and all."

I sighed. "Believe me, I would if I could. I'm not sure if you noticed this particular rule in the student handbook, but we're not allowed to bring our own lunches. Do you really think I'd be spending money at the cafeteria otherwise?"

"Wait, is that really true?!"

Nino frowned across the table from me. "Yeah, it sucks. I'd been wanting to make myself home-made lunches, but we're not allowed. It's basically just a money grab."

"Ugh, that's the worst," Yotsuba complained. "Who thought that one up?"

I shrugged. "I think there was a complaint about allergies. Our school is a bit odd. What else is new?"

"I... guess that's true."

After we had finished our lunches, we got back to work. Over the course of the afternoon, I noticed that, contrary to our previous sessions, Yotsuba's energy levels seemed to have (temporarily, at least) decoupled from the level of fantastic spread remaining on the table. Her speed also seemed to have ticked up a bit, though still not nearly enough to completely make up for our slow start.

By the end of the day, we'd nearly covered all of the things I'd hoped to reach during the study session, so I was happy. In particular, as I'd hoped, I only needed to extend the session by about half an hour to make up for lost time. As I left for home at around seven o'clock, I could see that Yotsuba was exhausted, but proud of herself.

When I reached our apartment, I was supremely ready to give Raiha a telling off, but I walked in the door to find her asleep on top of her homework. She had the peaceful look of an angel on her face - and it almost seemed a shame to wake her. I decided to let her sleep. My dad was, again, taking a late shift, and so it was just the two of us. After rummaging in the fridge, I found a small container of food left over from dinner, and I heated it up over the stove. About an hour later, I gently woke Raiha. When she asked me how my day was, I recounted it to her - but left out the bit regarding Nino destroying her art.

No need to upset her.

Nevertheless, when she asked to help with my bento for the next day, I gently declined.

Sunday morning, I returned to the Nakanos' apartment bright and early once more. This time, when I arrived, Itsuki was sitting at the table with Yotsuba, helping her set up the fantastic spread - but Yotsuba seemed absolutely exhausted. Given the exhaustion was probably my fault, I felt a bit guilty; but we'd ended significantly earlier than I would have had it just been me studying alone. It had, after all, been nearly fourteen hours since I'd left. More than enough time to recover.

I set up my books at the table, and Yotsuba sat cross-legged across from me, her textbooks and the dips intermingling, the line between spread and spread blurring. She seemed... significantly more tired than I would have expected. I wasn't sure if the long studying the day before had simply taken a greater toll on her than I'd thought, or if something else was going on. I shook my head, and opened the binder I was preparing to start the day's work.

The rest of the morning could only be described with one word - gruelling. Yotsuba was unfocused due to her fatigue, and it took twice as long as usual for her to grasp the concepts that she was covering. It also didn't help that her tiredness led her to forget things that she had already learned. It felt like a huge backslide, one that made me immensely nervous. All we could really do was keep pressing forward, and hope for the best.

It doesn't feel like a good strategy. If the foundations are weak, the edifice built afterwards will easily crumble.

The time gains we'd made via Yotsuba's speed and the slightly extended session the previous day were wiped out almost immediately. By eleven o'clock, we were a solid two hours behind schedule, and I could tell that it was only going to get worse. I snapped my binder shut, and sat back. The loud noise startled Yotsuba, who was hunched over her notes, and she reeled back, her eyes wide.

"Eh? Uesugi-san...?"

"You," I said, pointing at her, "are going to take a break now."

"Eh?! I can keep going though..."

I shook my head. "You're unfocused and tired. We're taking an hour's break. Use the time how you like - if you want to take a nap, take a nap. If you want to just relax and eat some of the snacks, do that. We'll be taking a separate break for lunch, so don't bother with that now."

"But... but the schedule..."

I raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather you rest and be in a mental state to tackle the afternoon's work than get an extra hour of exhausted studying in that you may not even remember tomorrow. Relax."

"But-"

"Itsuki, back me up here."

I turned to look at the youngest quintuplet, who was sitting on the couch at the end of the table. She froze, a tortilla chip sticking out of her mouth, and she stared at me for a moment like a deer caught in headlights. Then, she nodded her head. With a loud crack, she bit through the tortilla chip, and chewed and swallowed the bit that had been in her mouth.

"Uesugi-kun is right, Yotsuba. You're completely out of it. Take a break."

Yotsuba sighed. "I... guess you're right."

Itsuki put the rest of the tortilla chip back in her mouth. Yotsuba flopped on the floor, staring at the ceiling. There was a moment's silence, broken only by the sound of Itsuki chewing.

"By the way," I said, glancing at Itsuki, "did you think I wouldn't notice that you were sitting there eating Yotsuba's snacks?"

Itsuki froze again, and then her face reddened with embarrassment. "H-Hey, I'm studying too!"

"Is that so?"

"I am! Look, I have my textbooks and everything!"

I smirked. "I know. I'm just giving you a hard time."

Itsuki scowled. "You're an ass sometimes, Uesugi-kun."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Only sometimes?"

Itsuki muttered something into her tortilla chip, and got back to studying. I was pretty sure it wasn't complimentary, but I couldn't actually make out what she had said. Yotsuba sat back up, and looked around the apartment like she was lost.

"I... don't know what to do during my break." She said mournfully.

"Maybe go rest for a bit?" I said. "Why are you so tired, anyways? We didn't finish that late last night."

"Uhh... I... don't want to say?"

I blinked. "Oh. Alright. You don't have to, if you don't want to."

I wonder what I'll need to do to get her to tell me...

There was a moment's awkward silence, and then Yotsuba blurted out, "I tried to keep studying after you left."

Well thatwas easy.

"I see. How late did you stay up studying?"

Yotsuba bowed her head. "T-Two in the morning."

"Wow. Well, that certainly explains why you're so tired. So... how far did you get?"

Yotsuba's head dropped even further. "...Not far at all."

I furrowed my brow. Even with her distinct lack of studying acumen, that was almost eight hours of studying after I'd left. That was almost a complete school day worth of studying.

How did she manage to not make any progress?

"I... see. What was the problem?"

Yotsuba, her head bowed, squared her shoulders. "Well, without you there to answer my questions, I started going down a lot of rabbit-holes to try and figure out the answers, but then I just got more confused. Also, since you weren't there to keep me on track, I got distracted a lot. Have you ever seen a hydraulic press video before?"

"A what?"

"A hydraulic press video! It's just a video of stuff getting squished by a hydraulic press. There's something weirdly satisfying about it, y'know? Anyways, I was doing some of the science notes and I didn't really understand how pressure worked, so I googled some stuff about pressure and surface area and then I found a video of a guy squishing stuff in a hydraulic press and then I got super distracted..."

"By a video of some guy squishing stuff really hard."

"...Yeah."

"For eight hours."

"No! I got distracted by other stuff too. That was only like... four hours."

I sighed. "I can't leave you alone, can I?"

Yotsuba's head, if possible, drooped even further. "I'm sorry, Uesugi-san."

"You don't need to apologize to me for what you do in your own time. It's just... you can't study if you don't take care of yourself. You need to be well-rested so that your brain can process and store new information."

"...Right."

I pointed up to the rooms on the second floor of the apartment. "I strongly recommend that you go have a nap."

Yotsuba seemed to have a conflicted look cross her face, like she wanted to refuse, or like she wanted to claim she didn't need it. Then, silently, she nodded, and got up. She brushed some chip crumbs off her lap, and then trudged up the stairs. I couldn't quite see her from my position down on the couches, but I heard a door open, and then close. I leaned back on the couch, sighed, and rubbed my temples.

"You've got it rough, huh, Uesugi-kun?" Itsuki said sympathetically.

"It could be worse," I said, closing my eyes. A slight headache was beginning to develop behind my eyes.

"True. You could be having to deal with all five of us at once," Itsuki said. I opened one eye to see a hint of a smirk on her face.

"Now that sounds like a headache. I'll leave the rest of you to Second Place-san."

Itsuki nodded, and then a slightly worried look crossed her face. "I hope the session tomorrow goes better than the previous ones."

I shrugged. "He'll realize eventually that what he's doing isn't working, and will take action to rectify it. You don't reach number two overall by being an idiot. It's a matter of when, not if."

"I hope you're right," she said, the concerned tone not leaving her voice.

Itsuki and I sat there chatting and lightly studying for the next hour or so - at some point, Nino came downstairs and started reading a magazine at the kitchen table. Eventually, I glanced up at the clock on their wall, and noted that it was time to resume. Given Yotsuba hadn't come back down, I could only assume that she had, in fact, fallen asleep - as intended, of course.

When I mentioned this to Itsuki, an almost mischievous look crossed her face, which seemed distinctly out of place on her normally serious face.

"Well then, Uesugi-kun - you should go and get her."

I frowned. "Me? Why? I don't even know which room is hers."

Itsuki waved her hand dismissively. "They're numerically ordered from the landing. You'll figure it out, Genius-kun."

"Numerically ordered...?"

I got up, and made my way over to the stairs. I ascended, and for the first time stepped foot on the second floor. Carefully, I made my way over to the second door from the end, and knocked on the door. There was no response, so I waited about thirty seconds, and then knocked again, louder.

No response. She's out like a light.

"Yotsuba?" I called, knocking even louder this time. "It's time to get up and keep going."

From the depths of the room, I heard a groan, and shifting inside. Then, about twenty seconds later, a very groggy looking Yotsuba opened the door. Her shirt was dishevelled and hanging low over one shoulder, and she'd apparently forgotten to take her bow off before sleeping, because it looked as messy as she did. For some reason, my vision was briefly drawn to her exposed collar-bone, but then my brain kicked in, and I looked back up at her face.

"Time to keep going."

"Oh, 'kay. Give me a sec, and I'll be back down."

Yotsuba retreated back through the door, and as she did so, I got a brief glance into the room behind her. One thing immediately struck me - how clean it was. The whole place was in absolutely perfect order from what I could see, with not a single object out of place. There were also at least three plants in my field of view - before the door swung shut, that is.

I want to go in there some day.

The thought surprised me, and I shook my head to clear it away.

You have no business in there.

The door swung back open a couple minutes later, and a significantly less dishevelled Yotsuba came out of the room.

"Ready to get back to work?"

Yotsuba yawned, covering her mouth. "Yeah, I guess. I really needed that nap. I should probably also have some water too, I'm pretty groggy."

"Does water help with grogginess?"

Yotsuba shrugged. "Dunno. It helps me, though."

The two of us walked back down the stairs together. For some reason, Itsuki had a smirk plastered all over her face. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she just looked away innocently.

What the hell is that about? Was that her idea of revenge for my comment earlier? Not much of a revenge.

We got back to studying, and I could already see the benefits of the unplanned break. After drinking some water and stretching a bit, Yotsuba was a lot sharper than she had been beforehand. We accelerated to a slightly faster pace than the one I had set out in the original schedule, a pace something akin to the speed of the evening before. While we certainly wouldn't make up for all of the lost time, we could possibly at least make up for the hour-long break.

"Lunch time," Nino called an hour later. "Can someone go get Ichika and Miku? I'm gonna start cooking."

"I'll do it," Itsuki said, getting up from the couch. "I think that the less Uesugi-kun sees of Ichika's room, the better."

To my surprise, both Yotsuba and Nino blanched.

"Good point," Nino said. Yotsuba nodded in agreement.

Eh? What kind of hellscape does she have going on up there...?

As Itsuki walked up the stairs, Nino turned to me. "So, am I including you, or did you bring another bento?"

"I brought another bento."

Nino shrugged her shoulders, a slight scowl crossing her face. "Keep that up, and I'm going to start to think you don't like my cooking."

She turned away to get to making lunch, but I just sat there dumbfounded.

Wait, doesn't that mean she wants me to eat her food, and she doesn't resent cooking for me as well as her sisters? I'm so confused. This isthe queen of mixed signals we're talking about though, so should I even be surprised about this?

My jaw must have dropped, because Yotsuba started sniggering. I turned sharply to look at her, and she grinned at me.

"Shi shi shi. That's a very interesting look on your face, Uesugi-san!"

I frowned. "I have no idea what look is on my face, I don't have eyes outside my body."

"Like this!"

Yotsuba furrowed her brow and stared off into the middle-distance. Her jaw dropped slightly open, and her eyes narrowed slightly.

"I definitely do not look like that."

"You do, you do! Tell him, Nino!"

"I'm busy cooking, leave me out of this please," Nino growled from the kitchen.

"Boo," Yotsuba said, pouting. "You seriously did look like that though, Uesugi-san."

"Let's get back to work," I said, shaking my head. "We have a lot of time to catch up on."

A few minutes later, both Miku and a very-sleepy looking Ichika came downstairs. Itsuki followed down after them - and for some reason, her face was beet red. I raised an eyebrow at her inquisitively, but she just shook her head at me. The message was loud and clear:

You don't want to know.

As Miku and Ichika sat down at the kitchen table, Ichika yawned. Then, she put her head down on the table, and closed her eyes.

"Ichika, it's past noon! You need to get up!"

She opened her eyes again, and stared blearily up at the disapproving Itsuki.

"You're so strict, Itsuki. Let me just sleep until lunch is ready..."

"I'm not letting you sleep at the kitchen table with Uesugi-kun here! You'll..."

She trailed off, and her face got red again, and then she leaned down to whisper in Ichika's ear. Ichika's eyes opened again, and she sat up straight, stretched, and then sighed.

"Alright, alright, fine, you're right. Wouldn't want to give him too much of an eyeful, now would we?"

I turned to Yotsuba, and frowned. "What the hell are they talking about?"

Yotsuba glanced left and right like she really didn't want to answer the question. "Uh... uh... Sorry Uesugi-san! I'm not gonna tell you!"

I blinked. Yotsuba's ears were bright red.

There's clearly some very important context here that I'm missing.

I stared Yotsuba down, waiting for her to crack under my gaze, but this time she stayed surprisingly resilient, though she refused to make eye-contact with me. I leaned across the table a bit closer to her, and she leaned back, her face getting a bit redder.

Fascinating.

"Lunch is ready."

"Tch."

She was saved by the Nino.

We both got up and moved over to the kitchen table. Itsuki sat down, and Nino brought over five plates with the girls' lunch - and for the very first time, all six of us were eating a meal together.

It was, for lack of a better word, raucous.

The five of them were, throughout the meal, bantering and squabbling and arguing and laughing. It was practically too much for me to handle - I almost felt like I was experiencing some kind of sensory overload. In the midst of all that, I gently opened my bento, and was relieved to see that it remained as I had made it: devoid of art from my sister.

Nino smirked at me from across the table as she saw me tenderly place the lid on the table.

"Safe this time?"

"Thankfully."

The rest of the afternoon was mostly uneventful. The steady pace we had been working at began to lag at around four o'clock, and eventually started resembling the morning session before Yotsuba had slept. I could see the exhaustion slowly creeping back into her face. Part of me felt bad for making her continue to study - but if she wanted to stand a fighting chance of passing the midterms, she didn't have a choice.

By the time six o'clock rolled around, the fantastic spread was long gone, and getting Yotsuba to focus was like pulling teeth. I sighed, and shook my head.

"Alright, let's call it for the day there."

Yotsuba blearily looked up at me.

"Ok... sounds good."

"Yotsuba, no more studying for the day. Make sure you go to bed early so that you're rested for your session with Second Place-san tomorrow."

Yotsuba mutely nodded. I looked over at Itsuki, who was sitting on the couch reading a book. She had stopped studying after lunch, and seemed deeply engrossed in the novel.

"Itsuki, please let me know if she keeps studying after I leave."

The star-spangled girl looked up at me, and raised an eyebrow.

"You want me to rat my sister out to you?"

"Yes."

"You want me to become some kind of snitch?!"

"Yes."

She looked back down at her book. "Alright."

"Traitor," Yotsuba said weakly. Itsuki stuck her tongue out at her, a gesture which was so un-Itsuki like as to make me laugh. I packed up my bags, and after bidding goodbye to the girls, went home. I reached our apartment just in time to actually eat dinner with Raiha, who had made a delicious stir fry. Then, I spent the rest of the evening working on the second binder for Yotsuba. By around eleven o'clock, I was starting to get tired, and so I put the work away, and went to bed.

As I lay in my futon staring up at the dark ceiling, I could slowly feel my consciousness slip away, but it was a long time before I actually fell asleep - a dull pain was throbbing in the palm of my hand the whole time.

The next day, I happened to run into the quintuplets as they were getting out of their car. Yotsuba seemed fully recovered - she was at full strength and full energy, greeting me enthusiastically as she exited the vehicle. I glanced at Itsuki inquiringly as she got out, and she shook her head: Yotsuba had rested after all.

The school day was a bit of a blur, but the dull pain in my hand wasn't going away. I registered blandly that it was probably a consequence of the fact that I had been writing for almost sixteen hours straight the previous day - a stretch even by my standards. Nevertheless, I simply continued writing my notes as normal.

A little bit of hand pain wasn't an impediment to studying.

Following the end of the day's classes, I found myself alone in the library as Yotsuba went for her mandated tutoring session. After having spent the last two days intensely studying with Yotsuba, there was something almost... disconcerting about being alone again. The silence in the library was broken only by the sound of my pencil scratching on paper, or the occasional flip of a page.

I hope the session goes well.

At one point, I paused to roll my shoulders and loosen the tension in my shoulder blades, and then I leaned forward to inspect the binder in front of me. Compared to a few days before, it was significantly more full. The Yotsuba-bound binder had been designed to hold approximately the same amount of content as the previous one. I intended for it to cover all of the material up until the beginning of our second year, back in April. Of course, the handwriting in some of the later bits was somewhat shoddy due to my hand aching - but it was certainly legible.

"What else do we need?" I mused out loud. "The current pace isn't enough. We'll need to push harder on the off days..."

The ticking of a clock somewhere in the room permeated the atmosphere, and as I put my pencil down, it became the only sound. As I stopped writing, I became aware of other small sounds. My own breath. The sound of footsteps in the hallway. The creak of the table as I leaned on it. The faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights above me. It suddenly felt like an overwhelming tide.

Maybe I'm the one not getting enough sleep.

I shook my head. I picked up my pencil. I got back to writing. After all, I needed to finish the binder. I needed to keep on schedule. I needed to work as hard as I could. I needed to support her, to not abandon her.

I was needed, at least in one small way.

So, I needed to work.

I continued writing for an indeterminate amount of time. Before I knew it, my phone buzzed, and Raiha was telling me to come home. I stared down at the papers in front of me, and then checked the time on my phone in surprise. Indeed, it was time for dinner. I had gotten a large amount done - but I remembered almost none of it. It was like the last two hours hadn't even existed.

Moderately disconcerted at my own capacity for operating on autopilot, I packed up my bags, and I left the library. I briefly stopped to change my footwear, and then I went home.

That evening, I finally finished the second binder. It was rough, but I was happy with it. With the material for Yotsuba done, I pulled out my own study material, and got to reading. Time seemed to blur by on its own again, and before I knew it, Raiha was pulling on the collar of my shirt and insisting I take my bath and go to bed.

It was past midnight already. Sleep did not come easily.

Far too early the next morning, I woke up to light streaming through the window, Raiha making breakfast, and my dad reading a newspaper. I felt sluggish, as though I hadn't gotten enough sleep - which I hadn't. Regardless of my fatigue, I got up and helped my dad put the futons away, and brought out the table. After a quick breakfast, my dad took Raiha to school, and I left on my own.

The journey there wasn't particularly long, and yet I felt myself zoning out the entire time. Before I knew it, I had arrived, and was standing in front of my footlocker changing my footwear. I looked around to see if there was any sign of the quintuplets, but they seemed to not yet have arrived. Closing my locker, I re-adjusted my bag on my shoulder, and trekked to the classroom.

When I entered the room, there were a surprising number of people already present - but Itsuki wasn't one of them, as expected. I'd wanted to ask her about the tutoring session, but it would have to wait.

I also probably shouldn't keep pestering her about it. It could give the wrong impression, after all. I can just ask Yotsuba after school today.

I went and sat at my desk, and checked my schedule for the day. I began getting my relevant notebooks prepared, and had just finished when Itsuki entered the room. She was followed shortly thereafter by the teacher. There was no opportunity to talk with her, as he almost immediately launched into our first lecture of the day. Before that, however, he began by admonishing us to study for midterms, as they were just over a week away - a deadline of which I was already painfully aware.

The rest of the morning was the same sort of blurry haze. Lunch eventually arrived, and I made my way to the cafeteria. On the way, however, I pulled up short next to a vending machine, and made a snap decision. The situation was bad enough - I was going to commit a cardinal sin.

What was it I called it? The penultimate sin? My, I've gotten rather sinful, haven't I?

Chuckling to myself, I pulled out some coins, and spent money on something other than lunch - specifically, a milk coffee. As I walked away from the vending machine, I pulled the tab, and took a long swig. I didn't normally like the taste of coffee - but desperate times called for desperate measures. It... wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I finished the thing as I entered the cafeteria, and put the empty can in a bin before going to get my food. As I waited, I could feel the coffee hitting my bloodstream - my senses seemed to all perk up, and the sluggishness that had been plaguing me since I woke up temporarily retreated.

Wow, coffee is magical. No wonder people call it brain juice! Actually, wow, that's... a really lame name for it, now that I think about it.

I received my food from the cafeteria worker, and made my way over to my usual table, which was thankfully unoccupied this time. After setting my tray down, I took my seat, and pulled out my flashcards, as usual. I started flipping through them, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my recall rate was about par for the course - it hadn't particularly suffered from my poor sleep the night before.

As I finished my last flashcard of the set, I detected some movement in my peripheral vision, and I looked up. I had half-expected it to be Yotsuba, but standing in front of me instead was a blond boy wearing the school uniform - but instead of the usual blazer, he had a waistcoat and tie over top of the uniform shirt. My first impression of him was that of some sort of ritzy aristocrat.

The second impression was that I didn't like him.

"Uesugi Fuutarou," the boy stated. It wasn't a question.

"That is I," I responded, keeping my face entirely neutral. "Can I help you with something?"

The boy sat down across from me without asking, and he placed his hands firmly down on the table, almost as though stabilizing himself. His green eyes made piercing contact with mine, like he was trying to stare me down.

"You and I," he said, "need to have ourselves a little chat."