A/N

I wouldn't call the past month and a half an actual break for me necessarily, but I did want to write a chapter just to let you guys know that I'm still trucking along fine, given the times we're in right now. That, and I've been itching to get back into this.

Unfortunately I can't fully commit myself back into writing just yet; IRL and other internet responsibilities demand my attention still. I haven't even managed to do the whole story-wide editing I'd intended to do, and this time I can't blame it on my own laziness. Expect me to continue taking it slow going into July; realistically I won't resume full-time writing until August by the earliest.

Clicking a few times as its owner's thumb presses against its bottom, Miku's lead pencil hovers slightly over her worksheet as she herself pores quietly over a question that she's found herself stuck on for a few minutes. She and her oldest sister Ichika are studying for today after school in the school library at their tutor's instruction, since today is the Friday going into their first trimester's finals week, and their tutor intended for today to be a solid tutoring session. At the moment, however, he is unable to join them since he's busy tracking down their sisters to get their excuses as to why they're not able to join them today, so Ichika and Miku are awaiting his return for the time being.

Also mulling over her own work quietly, working out of a supplementary mathematics textbook, Ichika prints her formulas on her notebook in her usual nonchalantly messy handwriting. She's starting to crave another frappuccino from Starbucks, and she's tempted to just get up and head out for one, since they don't know when their tutor will return, but following her better judgment, the eldest quintuplet decides to hold off on that idea.

That, and all of the quintuplets have noticed by now just how hard Fuutarou has been pushing himself. Yotsuba was the first to bring it up to them at dinner one night earlier in the week, how he was sleeping longer than usual in class and his reduced tutoring hours and number of tutoring days as of late. Fuutarou is a normally quiet person when he's not dealing with them quintuplets, and he hasn't been hanging out with them as much as he normally would; the banter that he'd usually have with them has been drying up, too, which was a big part of why Ichika enjoyed his company, and she's sure her sisters do too, to varying degrees of course. So Ichika would feel uncomfortable if she decides to walk out now and be unlucky enough to have Fuutarou come back while she's gone and be upset with her upon her own return.

That, and she remembers that this is the school library that they're studying in; drinks aren't even allowed here except for bottled water. Looks like she'll just have to wait off on that frappuccino until they're done with today's tutoring session.

The thought of the frappuccino's knocked her mental state off its balance, and now Ichika finds it suddenly difficult to return to concentrating on her work, so she glances over at her phone, which is sitting next to her on silent mode on the desk at which she and her sister are studying. It's been almost an hour and a half since they started studying here. That's quite surprising - it certainly doesn't feel like they've been here for that long already. Flipping over the freshly written pages of her notebook, Ichika realizes that she's filled up quite a number of pages with her practice problems, way more than she thought she'd done. Perhaps this is one of the signs of their hard work, both on the quintuplets' part and on their tutor's? Ichika begins to smile, but she stops herself quickly - she mustn't let something as trivial as this get her hopes up. After all, as nice as it is to know that their studying stamina has improved noticeably, none of it will matter if they still can't deliver results with their actual finals scores, and Fuutarou's been kind enough to remind the five sisters of this consistently over the past couple of weeks.

Speaking of Fuutarou, Ichika's somewhat fatigued mind wanders over to him, as if it's taking a quick mental detour to distract itself from the weight of the math problems before her. It's been about half an hour since he'd left them to their own devices to check in on their sisters; she and Miku pointed out to him before he left that now that he's got their numbers, he could just text the others to find out what they're up to, but Fuutarou said that would be the lazy way out and would track them down himself. For Yotsuba, everyone could guess what she'd be up to, but that wouldn't be the case for Nino and Itsuki.

Even still, this is another piece of evidence under the quintuplets' figurative and collective belt that they have to prove that their tutor has been pushing himself way too much lately. Couldn't it have been just easier and more convenient to text them to know what they're up to? If Uesugi's concern was that they wouldn't respond to him, then he could simply get either her or Miku to text them instead, and they'd be a lot more likely to tell their sisters what they're up to, though admittedly they could simply figure out on their own that Ichika is asking on their tutor's behalf anyway. And since he left an hour into their studying session, the other three could be anywhere in school, even off-campus, and Fuutarou would have to track them all down anyway.

Why? Why would he go so far to do that? Now that Ichika thinks about it, she should have questioned his motive for going out to find them physically like that. Because ordinary people don't just go find others in person like that when all they'd need to do is send them a text, right? Assuming they have the numbers of the people they want to contact. Even someone like Fuutarou should follow that same protocol, since he's all about being efficient and stuff like that, almost like a robot or personal computer. And yet he opted to head out and find them in person. Is it because he felt like they'd be in danger? Probably not; he would've acted with a lot more urgency if that were the case. Then was it just because of his whole obsession with taking his job as seriously as possible? Maybe, but...it doesn't quite feel that way.

It's weird; Ichika feels like there'd be a reason, but she can't seem to put her finger on what it might be for the life of her when normally she's pretty good at reading people. And now that she's dwelling on it, she silently realizes that she doesn't really know all that much about her own tutor; none of her sisters do. The sheer amount of time that they've spent with him in the past couple of months is having the unintended side-effect of making the quintuplets feel like they know their tutor very well, but that's absolutely not the case. Uesugi Fuutarou is just as enigmatic a person as he was when they first met; they've simply become more comfortable with him around because of his responsibilities as both their tutor and guardian.

The eldest quintuplet has to acknowledge that this fact puts a bit of uncertainty in her mind. All the things that Nino said against Fuutarou in the past, warning about the dangers of having someone like him around them for too long...it's not that she'll suddenly begin subscribing to them, but perhaps there really was some solid ground on which Nino made those accusations. And as the oldest quint, Ichika feels a responsibility of her own to get to know Fuutarou more, just to make absolute certain that it's safe for them to have him around - but she knows she can't do that, since Fuutarou will see right through her if she tries. That, and with all the days she's missed because of her part-time job, he certainly won't give her any wiggle room to get away with her own share of shenanigans. She hasn't even shared with him what her part-time job is, let alone with the rest of her family.

"...Ichika?"

Hearing her younger sister call out her name, the eldest quintuplet turns her head slightly, finding Miku gazing back at her calmly.

"...are you okay? You were kind of...spacing out there," the middle quintuplet asks in a soft voice to meet library regulations. Ichika sits up a little in her seat.

"Yeah, I was, sorry about that. We've been studying a lot recently, even without Fuutarou-kun being here as much as he normally is, so..." she sighs quickly a little.

"Even you've been studying a lot lately. And you're still going to your part-time job recently."

"'Even'? What exactly do you mean by that, Miku-chan ~ ?"

"E-Eh...?" Confused, Miku backs away slowly when she finds her oldest sister smiling menacingly back at her. "Did I...say something bad...?"

"Well, not really. The way you sounded, you sounded like I don't normally study on my own."

"I mean, come on...seeing you study is about as rare as me and Nino actually getting along."

Snorting with amusement, Ichika rolls her eyes a little. "I didn't think you'd use that kind of an analogy, but I guess it works."

"But you have been going to your part-time still, right?"

"Well, yeah, obviously. In fact, Fuutarou-kun not tutoring us as much this week and the last meant that I've been free to commit to more of my part-time job obligations."

"And you're still studying on top of it...I just hope you're not pushing yourself too hard."

Ichika chuckles weakly in response to Miku's expressed concern. Just as she herself was worrying about the same thing in regards to someone else who's rather close to them...

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I take it that you've been handling this just fine?"

Miku nods shortly. "Yep. Business as usual for me...but..."

Setting down her own lead pencil, Miku pulls off her blue Audio-Technica headphones that she's been using to listen to a soothing lofi playlist that Fuutarou shared with her recently, letting the headphones hang around her neck like usual.

"...I am worried about Fuutarou, after all," she mumbles quietly.

"Haha...what a coincidence, I was just thinking about him too," Ichika smiles back at her younger sister. "I guess we really are quintuplets."

"We don't have any of that telepathy nonsense, you know."

"Not with that attitude, we don't!"

"C'mon, Ichika..."

Giggling a bit back at Miku, Ichika glances momentarily back down at her own notebook.

"What isn't a joke, though, is Fuutarou-kun's health. Like, it's no secret that he's been working harder than usual lately, and we still have this weekend to go too, and the last few days next week before our actual finals."

Out of the corner of her left eye, Ichika notices Miku's hand on the table slowly tighten up into a fist as she's talking.

"...I know there's probably nothing we can do for him, and even if we could, he'd refuse to let us help in any way, but..." Miku leans forward slowly and rests her head against her crossed arms on the library table, turning her head so that she can still face Ichika. "...a part of me still wishes that there could be something we could do to give him a hand. You know...make him...not as tired as he's been lately. Like...we're the reason why he's so busy, right? So - "

"Eh, I don't know, that's a dangerous way of thinking about it, in my opinion," Ichika interrupts Miku swiftly, raising her hand a little for emphasis. "Like, don't get me wrong, I feel for him too with how much he's been working his other job as of late. But it's not good if you think that you're to blame for why he's so busy. I'm sure he's the type of guy to tell you not to worry about him too."

"I know. But like...it's one of those things where...even if I do know all that, I still can't help but want to help out somehow, you know...?"

"Well, just studying like we are is helping him out. Honestly, the best way for us to 'help him out' is to keep doing what we're doing...studying and getting our grades up. The faster we get better at studying and raise our grades, the less Fuutarou-kun needs to worry about actually tutoring us."

Miku's blue eyes droop slowly down to the tabletop. "...but if we do that, then...if we get better at studying...if we raise our grades...then won't that mean that Fuutarou spends less time with us...? Because he wouldn't need to be with us as much anymore. Heck, if we get good enough grades and get good enough at studying ourselves...wouldn't that mean that Fuutarou doesn't have a need to tutor us anymore?"

Smiling weakly, Ichika nods slowly. "I guess so...funny how that works, huh."

"...I don't quite find it funny."

"Sorry, that was a bad way to put it." The eldest quint crosses her arms slowly across her ample chest. "I think 'ironic' is a better way to put it, yeah?"

"...sure, I guess so."

Gazing down at Miku next to her, Ichika decides to imitate her and rests her head against her crossed arms on the table, but she turns her head to the left to face her sibling.

"How much of what you said just now was because you care for Fuutarou-kun as more than just a friend, Miku?" she asks softly.

The thick blush that appears on Miku's cheeks is a sight for sore eyes, Ichika thinks to herself while she herself smiles with amusement at her younger sister's reaction.

"...you've been teasing me about this a lot these days, haven't you?" Miku grumbles back at her, but she still keeps her head facing the same direction, back at her sister.

"Sorry again, it's just a low-hanging fruit to tease you with. But that is the case for you, right? At least partially?"

After a whole minute, Miku finally responds with a tiny nod, with her blue eyes averted away from Ichika's own gaze.

"...it's not like I can hide that from you of all people," the third quint sighs softly. "You're the only one out of us right now...about how I feel about Fuutarou."

"Well, I'm sure Nino probably has an idea. The others, on the other hand, they're probably still oblivious, considering it's Yotsuba and Itsuki..."

Miku, having suppressed much of the initial blush from earlier, resumes her gaze with her oldest sister.

"Is it bad that I'm...starting to have feelings for him, Ichika?" she consults. "Since...this's the first time I've felt this way about a guy."

"Hey, I haven't ever had a boyfriend myself either, if that's what you're asking."

"Well, that wasn't what I was trying to get at exactly. And even if you haven't had a boyfriend yet, I figured you'd know more about something like this, just on the account of how different our lifestyles are..."

"Hm, I'll give you that one at least. But, hm...is it bad that you're starting to have feelings for him..."

Ichika scoots her chair a bit closer to Miku's, since their conversation is becoming a bit of a private one.

"I don't think it's bad, per se, it's just that our circumstances are...unique, let's just say. Should those circumstances stop you from having those feelings for him, or should they dictate that those feelings you have for him are ones you shouldn't have? I don't think so. I can't tell you firsthand, but...just from what little I know, I'm not sure if hiding those feelings you have for him is the best idea. But should they dictate everything about your behavior towards him from now on? Probably not either, especially not at a time like this when Fuutarou-kun is super busy with his own stuff outside of our tutoring."

"...so keep doing what I've been doing, basically."

"If that's what you want, sure. But are you okay with just sitting on your feelings like that? I did just say that I don't think that's a good idea."

"But you also just said that I shouldn't act on them."

"Yeah, not now. But at a better time, when he's not as busy and he can invest more time into hanging out with us like he used to. As a matter of fact..."

A light bulb goes off in Ichika's head as she's speaking, and she grins another one of her mischievous grins that Miku recognizes, which means Ichika's thinking of something no good.

"Remember that one weekend back before midterms when we got Fuutarou-kun to stay the night with us? I think it was for midterms, right? I can ask him to stay the night with us again, to make up for all the missed sessions that I skipped out on. And if he agrees, I can get him to spend the night in your room again. How about it?"

"E-Ehhhh...!? N-No, that - that first time was an accident, I even said so...!" Miku hisses quietly, the blush hitting her cheeks again with a sharp vengeance. "Remember? I said that I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night that night and I accidentally went straight back to my own room because I was so sleepy!"

Giggling, Ichika waves Miku down a little to get her to compose herself.

"I know, I know. But do you remember what happened afterwards? Fuutarou-kun seemed really refreshed, you know. Like he actually had a good night's sleep. And it could have been because you slept with him. Nothing lewd or inappropriate, of course. We keep things family-friendly in the household."

"That can't've been because of me, though. Fuutarou always sleeps at his desk in homeroom; he probably was only like that because he was able to sleep in an actual bed for once."

"Either way, whatever the real reason, he had a good night's sleep following that one sleepover we had. So why not let him do the same thing? It'd be weird for him to do that with anyone else."

"It'd be weird if that same thing happened again, you know!"

"Hahaha, that's also true. It's okay, you can just, y'know...make it an accident. Oh, I know! Make it so that Fuutarou-kun joins you in your bedroom late at night or something, and then Fuutarou-kun wakes up on his own early in the morning and leaves your room before anyone realizes what he's been up to."

"Y-You're making him sound like some kind of interloper, Ichika."

"Well, the others'll certainly think of him as one if he gets caught. But he's a mage; he won't get caught or anything, right? He's too good for that, surely."

Miku closes and opens her eyes slowly in unison.

"...but why try to go so far for me like this, Ichika?" she murmurs back. "Do you actually want me to hook up with Fuutarou or something? Or are you just suggesting this because you think it's funny?"

"Ah...haha..." Ichika pulls her head off the table to scratch her right sideburns. "I know I can act that way sometimes, but not for this. I genuinely do support you going for him, as long as that's what you want."

Miku's pensive blue eyes track her older sister as she sits back up. "Is that all, though? Don't you have any other thoughts besides just 'oh I think that's great'? You are the oldest, after all. And we all treat you as such whenever we get into arguments with each other."

Ichika's small but cheerful smile fades a little in response.

"Obviously I do, Miku, because the more I think about it, the more of a problem I have with it."

Running a hand up through her short, straight peachy-red hair, the first quintuplet slowly eyes her mathematics textbook while the third quint also slowly sits up in her own seat, sitting at attention now that Ichika is about to voice her discontent.

"Because when we take a step back from this whole situation, right..." Ichika raises her hands somewhat to gesticulate alongside her words. "At the risk of sounding like Nino, we have to realize that we're talking about a guy who wasn't a part of our lives until a little over three months ago. A guy who...basically just came out of nowhere for us with a tutoring job that was covering up his other job that we now know to be a safekeeping job, with us as his clients. Well, technically Dad is his client, but that's being pedantic."

She clears her throat briefly, wondering if she should've just taken that trip to Starbucks for that frappuccino after all.

"At the end of the day that doesn't really matter; we have spent a lot of time with him, and he's not a bad guy by any means, so when we met him or for how long we've known him isn't that important. What I'm more concerned about, naturally, is what happens when you do decide to, you know, commit to these feelings you've got for him."

"I mean, I've been thinking about it too on my end. About...what might happen if I do want to pursue them...my feelings for Fuutarou, that is," Miku says quietly. "But after thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that...it's not like much is going to change, right? He's already working himself to the bone tutoring us and he's already putting himself on the line to keep us safe. Heck, he was already doing that before he even got to know us all that well. So - "

But Miku stops when Ichika raises a finger towards her slowly.

"I know where you're going with that. I get it, and I actually agree, it's not like our situation at large is going to suddenly change much depending on whether or not you start gunning for him. But that's not what I'm worried about."

"...then what are you worried about?"

"What'll happen to you if something bad happens to Fuutarou-kun."

The combination of Ichika's somber, mature voice and the weight of those words hits Miku hard enough to vocally stun her for a few moments, which Ichika uses to continue her thoughts on the matter.

"We all know that Fuutarou-kun leads a dangerous life. We've seen him injured and get injured for our sake, even if it was something as mundane as getting us to school on time for our midterms. So there's always a chance that one day, something really bad will happen to him and, to put it bluntly, he dies. What will you do then?"

Miku manages to turn her eyes away from her sister after their eyes meet for a split second.

"...I have thought about that, I really have," she mumbles weakly, sinking her head back down into her crossed arms again. "And the more I think about it, the more it worries me sick, especially these days with him working so hard. Ever since midterms and ever since Itsuki told us about that night when he fought off a bad guy for her or something, I've been more and more conscious of the fact that every tutoring session we have with him could be the last."

The middle quint raises her head slightly to peek her eyes out from her arms.

"That's why I'm so torn. On one hand, I don't want to be a nuisance to him and be a distraction to his work. But on the other hand, we don't know how much more time we have with him before, like you said, something bad happens to him."

"No, Miku, I...I don't think you get it. What I'm trying to say is that I'm worried about how you'll react to a situation where Fuutarou-kun isn't with us anymore after you decide to follow your feelings for him. Like, we've already lost someone close to us in our family in the past; what's going to happen if you lose another?"

"I know we have. And...you're right, I don't know how badly I'll react if Fuutarou does end up dying. That's why I wanted to ask you what you felt about all this...because maybe you could point me in the right direction."

Now that she's feeling the pressure of Miku's request weighing down on her conscience, Ichika forces herself to chuckle a little to help alleviate the mental weight.

"Geez, you're really putting me on the spot with this one, aren't you. I'd just like to remind you that we're quintuplets here, and we're basically the same exact age."

"Doesn't matter, you're the oldest. Our birth certificates even say so."

"Well obviously..."

Grunting a little as she pulls in her chair that's been slowly scooting back with how many times Ichika has been sitting and slouching in her chair, the eldest quintuplet turns ninety degrees left in her seat towards her younger sister.

"I'll say this much, Miku. As your older sister - no, just as your sister, period, it doesn't feel right for me to tell you that you shouldn't act on the feelings you have for a boy you like. Of course, as long as that boy is a good person and we know he's the kind of person who can both take care of you and be someone you can take care of. That's what I'd like for all of us eventually at some point, right? And even in a situation like this where Fuutarou-kun isn't exactly an ordinary guy and there's someone or some people out there who have their eyes on us, I still don't know if it's right for me to tell you that you shouldn't go for him, to eventually let him know that you have feelings for him. The smart thing to do would be for you to not get more involved with him than what's necessary, like our tutoring stuff. But I don't know what kind of a position I'm in right now to be able to tell you that. I just don't know at all, if I'm gonna be honest."

Listening to her oldest sister's uncertain advice, Miku lets her expression become increasingly pensive before it culminates in a small pout at Ichika.

"Hmph. I thought you were supposed to give us solid counsel as the oldest among us," she declares softly, also sitting back up for good in her seat.

"Heh...reality is oftentimes disappointing. But really, what can I say? I'm...I'm not really in that kind of a situation, you know? Like I said earlier, I've never really had a boyfriend or a guy I've had feelings for. Maybe if we didn't have anything else to worry about and we were all just normal high schoolers, I'd be able to point you in a more solid direction, but..."

"I can give you a more solid direction to follow: are you two done with your work yet?"

Hearing a familiar voice speak out suddenly to them that admittedly brings a subconscious degree of relief to the two quints, Ichika and Miku turn in their seats to find their tutor, Uesugi Fuutarou, step past them to slip into the seat he was previously occupying before he'd gotten up to go track down the other quints, seating himself again across from his two current students.

"I've gotten most of my work for today done, if that counts," Ichika declares while spinning her notebook around to show him her progress for today. "I don't know about Miku, though."

"Same here. I just have a few more questions left on my worksheet," Miku nods, raising her worksheet up for her tutor to see.

"Oh, good job. When I came back into the library and saw you two chatting it up, I thought you two weren't getting any work done, but I guess I didn't need to worry," Fuutaoru nods curtly, peering at the work the two quints are showing him. "Ichika, you might wanna check your formulas for questions 74 and 77. Miku, oxygen has two bonds, not three."

Upon receiving some verbal corrections, the two quintuplets pull back their work to see where they've been wrong.

"It'll never cease to amaze me how fast you grade our work," Ichika chuckles helplessly as she gets to work correcting her formulas. "Actually, it feels like you've been getting faster at it, somehow..."

Fuutarou snorts a little under his breath. "It's nothing impressive, I assure you. You girls all have a tendency to make certain types of mistakes, and even if I tell you to take note of them, it's hard for you girls to break your habits. So an easy way for me to grade your work is by looking for those certain categories of mistakes first if I need to grade your work at a glance."

"So how did it go with the others?" Miku asks.

"As well as I expected. Yotsuba's committed to helping out the track team, since school protocol forces club activities to shut down for midterms and finals weeks, and today's basically the last official day they have to practice as a team. Nino and Itsuki had tickets to go see a movie that Nino got from a friend, and it's not like they could choose when to go see it and Nino didn't want them to go to waste, so they're off to the movies right now."

Miku gazes at Fuutarou, who pulls out a half-drunk bottle of water from his messenger bag that's been waiting for his return on the seat next to his to take a drink.

"It'll be alright, Fuutarou," she says softly, subconsciously trying to reassure him. "We have this weekend to catch up, and we'll make sure everyone's at home to study."

"Yeah, that'd be nice. I guess it makes sense that you girls will listen to each other more than your tutor..."

"That's a family for ya, alright," Ichika grins. The mention of a movie causes her to remember that she's got movie tickets of her own, and she produces them from her skirt pocket to wave in front of her companions, one for each of them. "Aaaah, what're these? I suddenly have two tickets for a movie that I got from a friend of my own that they didn't want! You two should go see it together, ha, ha!"

Blinking with subdued surprise, Fuutarou awkwardly takes it from the eldest quint, as does Miku.

"...a movie, huh...? When was the last time I watched a movie, I wonder..." he grumbles under his breath, gazing down at the ticket with narrowed eyes that, to Ichika, almost looks as though he's glaring at it.

"If that was meant to be some kind of pity-mongering attempt, I don't buy it," Ichika says flatly.

"It wasn't, I was genuinely trying to remember what the last movie I saw was." Fuutarou looks back up at Ichika. "And there're only two tickets..."

"Obviously Miku's gonna go with you!" the eldest quintuplet gestures to her sister next to her, who turns to her sharply, questioning her with her own set of narrowed eyes.

"What, we're not all gonna go watch this together or something? Why's it gotta be just me and Miku?"

Rolling her eyes incredulously at Fuutarou's denseness, Ichika sighs exasperatedly as her younger sister lets out an awkward chuckle of her own.

"You sure he's the one...?" Ichika mutters over to Miku. Fuutarou, meanwhile, is scanning the movie ticket he's obtained from her.

"...some kinda zombie movie, I guess," the young tutor says, raising his ticket so that the girls can see. "I feel like Yotsuba would be down to watch it, but I don't know how much Miku cares for zombie movies."

Upon getting a second look at the movie ticket, Ichika's eyes snap open with alarm, and she swiftly yanks it out of Fuutarou's hand - at least, that's the plan, if Fuutarou's practiced reflexes didn't pull his hand back in time before she can.

"...s-sorry, but...I'm gonna have to ask you to return that," Ichika says a bit breathlessly, still lurched over the table at her tutor who peers deeply into her blue eyes, as if contemplating whether or not he ought to question her motives, but he says nothing and slowly returns the ticket to her.

"...eh? Wait, why're you taking it back now?" Miku asks as her oldest sister retracts her ticket too.

"I forgot that, uh, I actually promised these to these other friends I know!" Ichika smiles widely. "I just had a, uh, lapse in judgment, yeah, let's go with that!"

"Speaking of a lapse in judgment, I should've just stayed with you two so that you did all your work today...though to be fair, you two've done most of it while I was away anyway. That being said, Ichika, didn't you say you had something to do soon? It's about to be four," Fuutarou reminds the eldest quint, raising his phone out of his pocket to show her the time.

Seeing the time, Ichika gasps a little, having failed to realize just how much time had passed even though she had her own phone sitting on the table in front of her.

"Oh my gosh, it's - it's almost four already!? Ugh...sorry about this, Fuutarou-kun, I really am, but I gotta go take care of that right now!"

"It's something to do with your part-time, right?"

"Yeah, it is..." Hurriedly packing her things into her own messenger bag, Ichika pauses in the middle of it. "Well...I guess...it's not actually that urgent, but...it is kinda urgent at the same time..."

"...the hell's that supposed to mean," Fuutarou tilts his head in confusion.

"Let me explain..." Ichika pockets her phone and clasps her messenger bag shut before she straightens up next to the table. "So my boss at work had to go on an urgent business trip that came up last-minute. He has a young daughter, but since he'll be out of town tonight, he asked if I'd like to look after him since he couldn't find a babysitter on such a short notice. He said that he'll take a taxi with her to drop her off at our place, and she'll be staying the night with us for tonight. I'm actually supposed to meet them at 4:30, and I can still make it if I go right now..."

"Oh, it's just babysitting? In that case, why don't we go together," the young tutor suggests, also getting up from his seat. "You two've been studying here for the past hour or so, and we were gonna leave at some point soon anyway."

"Er...well...?" Ichika hesitates, glancing down at Miku because she was intending for just the two of them to hang out in the school library for a bit, and Miku glances back emptily for a moment, herself unsure of what to do.

"I can take you girls home 'quickly'," their tutor adds, using air quotes to let them know that he intends to teleport them all directly to the luxury high-rise. "It's probably better not to rush that kind of thing too. Unless you insist on still going on your own?"

"Uh...well, now that I think about it, it's not like there's anything wrong with having you two come along, it's just...are you sure you wanna deal with her?" Ichika asks. "She, uh...can be a bit of a handful."

"As if I don't know what it's like dealing with the five of you."

"Hey, that's a low blow!"

"Can't be enough of a low blow if it's the truth. Besides, I'd rather tutor you girls all together, so just having the two of you here admittedly kinda kills my vibe, and not to mention today was already basically a self-study day for you two so far anyway. Miku, get your stuff together and let's go."

"O-Okay..."

About an hour later, after teleporting the girls and himself directly to the rooftop of the Pentagon so that they can put away their school bags and receive Ichika's boss's young daughter, the four of them now hang around in the sunny living room of the late afternoon.

"So she really does exist..." Uesugi remarks nonchalantly, at the risk of sounding like a complete jerk. Indeed, this remark nets him a quick eye-roll from the oldest quintuplet.

"What, did you think I was trying to get out of studying by lying to you about this? Why would I lie about something like this?" she questions him a bit indignantly.

"I wasn't necessarily doubting you..."

"Either way, Kiku-chan is amazing since she listens to everyone so well," Miku says with a small smile, watching Ichika's boss's small daughter sit on the living room floor drawing on a wide sheet of drawing paper while gripping a red crayon tightly with her tiny right fist.

Noticing that the high schoolers are talking about her, Kiku, a small girl with her hair tied in two large braids, gets up from her small little drawing desk and marches over to them with a surprisingly adult-like gait before planting her socked feet near the corner of the low glass table, pointing her right index finger up at the boy almost twice her height, and demanding in a shrill voice:

"You - play with me!"

Fuutarou blankly blinks down at her for a few moments before turning to the girls next to him, swinging his view from one quintuplet to the other.

"...she's talking about me, right?" he asks, as if for confirmation.

"It looks like she's pointing at you, so...yeah, it must be you," Ichika says, again in a flat voice.

"Well, I'll admit that babysitting isn't in my job description, but...I dunno, you got any dolls or something? We could borrow a few from Nino's room - "

"NO! Don't treat me like a kid!" Kiku shrieks suddenly, as if she were a firecracker going off in front of the high school students. "Don't you idiots know? Playing with dolls was soooo last year! The trend right now is playing house!"

Fuutarou is about to question why an elementary schooler like Kiku who's even younger than his own sister has any business knowing about trends and such, but perhaps he's not the best person to be asking such a question, so he keeps his lips shut. He definitely knows now what Ichika meant from earlier about how Kiku could be a handful.

Kiku doesn't give them a chance to argue, as if she already knows how to manipulate people much older than herself. Again she points back up at the high school first-years, back at Fuutarou again.

"You! You're gonna be the papa, and I'm gonna be me," she orders with as much imperative as a young girl like herself can wield with her voice alone.

"Ah, then in that case, I'll be the mama!" Miku volunteers quickly, raising her hand as if she's in class.

"Well, hold on. I don't have much parenting experience outside of my own little sister, so I'm not sure if I've got the qualifications to assume a Papa role here..." Fuutarou alerts Kiku. He figures that if the kid's going to have the guts to talk to him about trends and such, she shouldn't have an issue if he himself goes on about job qualifications.

"I already know that; just one look at your delinquent face is all I need to know that you're going to grow up to be a terrible papa, so this right now is the only time in your life when you'll actually be something of a responsible parent," Kiku spits back with a kind of savagery Fuutarou hasn't heard in quite some time, coming from an elementary schooler of all people.

"N-Now, now, Kiku-chan, let's - let's not outright insult people like that, your actual daddy won't be happy that you're talking to people like that..." Ichika intervenes as well now that the kid she's supposed to be looking after for the day is starting to go off her rails.

"Hmph. Besides that, we don't have anyone else who'd fit the job description of 'papa', so you'll have to do either way," Kiku scowls back up at the high school tutor with crossed arms that could earn her a cover page on the Time magazine if she were posing with a suit and tie. She turns to Miku now this time. "And there is no 'mama' job role here, since my cheating mama left our house a long time ago with her lover."

The incredibly sassy and bossy attitude of the small child almost succeeds in distracting the high school students away from the humbling content of her words, but they continue to play along, opting not to press the matter.

"So you're going for reality TV here, huh..." Ichika murmurs thoughtfully while rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

"More importantly, you should tell us a bit about yourself, Kiku, so that we can play house more effectively," Fuutarou suggests. "What grade are you in right now?"

"Grade? Kindergarten."

Maybe this is one of those child prodigies that Fuutarou has heard a bit about.

"Such a young age and you already know how to speak like this? Impressive, in ways more than one."

"Yeah, so is your inability to talk to a kindergartner."

"Yikes, you went there, huh? Hmm...okay, how about this, then: you must have friends at kindergarten, right? Why don't you tell Papa about them?"

Kiku looks like she's about to vomit at the mention of friends.

"No freakin' way. They're all just snobby little brats, after all, no way I can make friends with kids like them."

Perhaps she doesn't really see herself as a kid. Then again, Kiku said as much when Fuutarou brought up the idea of giving her dolls to play with.

"The fact that you talk like a snobby little brat yourself aside, how about your studies, then?" he suggests as an alternative. Fuutarou isn't much for conversational topics, admittedly, especially not with kids, so studying is the next most convenient topic he can mentally grab, given that he and the two quints beside him have just come from school following what was essentially a self-study session today. "Is there anything Papa can help you with? Papa tutors his classmates on the side, after all."

While she doesn't look as disgusted, Kiku still sticks her tongue out in muted repulsion at the mention of studying.

"Nuh-uh, I'll just forget it all in the end. School teaches you a whole bunch of nonsense that you aren't even going to remember or carry with you into your professional life after school," Kiku snorts.

Fuutarou curtly turns to Ichika. "You're sure she's in kindergarten, right?" he asks bluntly.

"Er...she's...supposed to be..." the eldest quint chuckles awkwardly, looking away from her tutor. Fuutarou promptly turns back to Kiku, since his question to Ichika wasn't meant to be serious.

"Well, even if that's the case, Kiku, you shouldn't be like that. Hmm, how should I put this...if you don't want to study because, let's say, you're scared of getting bad test scores or something, just know that that shouldn't be the case at all. You shouldn't be afraid of failure - as long as you don't give up and keep trying, then surely there'll be a day when all the hard work you put in will pay off. Don't say they that failure of the mother of success or something like that?"

The kindergartner merely squints back up at the young tutor, who isn't sure if going for the idealistic approach was the right play to make, and sure enough, Kiku flatly responds with,

"...tch. Another idealistic idiot."

Fuutarou simply throws his hands up into the air. "Well, great. At least I tried."

"D-Don't give up so easily yourself, Fuutarou," Miku reassures him, coming to her tutor's defense. "If nothing else, I...I do think it was a great motivational speech."

"You think so? I'm not very good at those, just for the record; I figured I'd give it a shot, though."

"Anyways! Enough of this boring idle talk, let's play house already!" Kiku stamps her foot once against the floor that grabs the high schoolers' attention like paperclips to a magnet. "I'm going to start off, okay? Follow my lead."

The three first-years watch the kindergartner take a few steps back and clear her throat, like an actress about to perform her part in a scene. With a commanding gait, she strides slowly across the living room, pretending to open a door when she reaches the side of the glass table and making appropriate rattling noises for the onomatopoeia.

"Hmph. so this is where Papa works, huh?" Kiku says, looking around.

"Looks like she's trying to go for some kind of...office scene?" Miku guesses.

Kiku, hearing Miku talk, glances back at her and quickly points up at her and Ichika.

"By the way, you two are gonna be the two office workers here," she declares, as if the two quints have no say in the matter.

"Office worker, huh...?" Ichika sighs with relief.

"Oh, we're actually gonna be part of this..." Miku blinks down at Kiku, who nods back curtly.

"Right. And you two are in love with Papa."

Both Ichika and Miku almost jump out of their socks at Kiku's bold directive out of left field.

"...what's with that kind of a setting? You're kinda putting these girls on the spot here, Ki - " Fuutarou says, but he's interrupted by someone who turns the corner in front of him and leans her fists against her tutor's chest.

"Kaichou, when are you going to take me out to dinner like you said you would?" Miku gazes up at Fuutarou with her usual listless blue eyes, but the boy spies something of a small sparkle in them that normally isn't there. "How about tonight? I'm free tonight. You're free tonight too, right? Please...?"

Suddenly becoming self-conscious of her own acting and the conversation she had with her sister earlier at school, the middle quint turns around discretely to glance past the side of her shoulder to Ichika nearby, who simply grins in acknowledgment before walking out next to Kiku. Getting down on her knees next to the kindergartner to be level with her, Ichika leans in with a motherly front before asking,

"Kiku-chan, don't you want a new mama, dear?" she asks rather seductively, seduction that goes way over Kiku's head but not over her peers'.

"Aaaah, I-Ichika, that's - that's not fair...!" Miku pouts a little, realizing what kind of tactic her oldest sister is trying to go for. "I'm gonna be Kiku-chan's new mama!"

"Hahaha ~ are you sure you're up to it?" Ichika returns with a bit of playful competitiveness, getting back up on her feet to face her younger sister properly.

Again crossing her arms emphatically, Kiku then points a third time, this time at the girls only. "At least you two seem like you're taking this seriously. Then both of you, tell me what part of Papa you love."

Again, the two quintuplets almost jump out of their socks at another one of Kiku's unexpected questions, but they regain more quickly this time to take the kindergartner's question seriously.

"Uh...er, wh-what part about him, you say..." both Ichika and Miku mutter in different variations with their eyes averted, coincidentally in the same direction, before they both turn around shortly to take a cursory glance at their tutor, who blankly stares back at them.

Ichika is the first to respond, which is perhaps to be expected, but unlike how she is usually, her words don't come out smoothly. "Well...uh...what was it again...? I'm not quite sure at the moment, but...if I had to say, it might be because...he's...he's got a bit of a...m...manly side...to him...I guess? Even if he does look like a delinquent..."

"Very encouraging, thanks," Fuutarou says flatly, just as flatly as the kindergartner giving them orders.

The person who is encouraged by the others talking first is Miku, who's able to deliver her answer more confidently with, "He's smart...reliable...tall...cool..." Then, after a slight pause, she adds, "...and strong."

"Ehhh...my papa isn't tall. And he definitely isn't strong either," Kiku drawls, almost in a bored voice.

"Ah, that's right, haha..." Ichika lightly facepalms. "I totally forgot...we were supposed to be talking about my boss, weren't we..."

"Well...if you had to choose, Kiku-chan, which one of us do you think is better?" Wanting an answer from the small child before them, Miku leans towards Kiku gently.

The expression on Kiku's face distorts curiously. She appears annoyed, but there's much less of the sass and attitude that she had previously.

"...I don't need a mama. I don't care to have one anymore," she declares. The volume of her voice has adjusted as well, and it's shed much of its shrillness since the beginning of their house act.

"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that, Kiku-chan. Why not...?" Ichika asks in return. She senses that Kiku is starting to let the details of her and her papa's personal lives bleed into their play-acting now, but Kiku continues.

"Because I just don't need one! I won't get lonely even if I don't have one! I've been managing just fine on my own, anyway!" she defends herself as assertively as she can, but much of her young hardass facade has bled off with her eyes glued down to the floor now as they are. "And not only that, but it's because of Mama that Papa's had such a hard time...and I won't let another woman do Papa dirty like that again! So I'm happy enough just to have him with me!"

The sudden heaviness of Kiku's words once more take control of the living room, though in a much different way than before. Both Ichika and Miku are left reaching for words, unable to find anything appropriate that they could say - at least, not in the moment's time that it takes their tutor to commit to his response.

Stepping over to Kiku's side as well, Fuutarou reaches down to put his right hand gently but firmly against the top of the kid's head.

"It's better if you don't force it," he says simply while Kiku tries to duck out of the way, but too late for her, she can't get away since Fuutarou already has a firm grip on her head.

"H-Hey - ! Leggo 'a me - just what are you - stoppit, geez!" Her voice becomes shrill again, but it isn't a good enough deterrent against the boy whose hand is now on her head.

"I don't know anything about what it means to be a parent. So you might be right, I might actually grow up to be a terrible dad one day," he continues, "but if there is one thing I can say, it's that there's no way a kid like you isn't lonely without your mom or dad with you."

Miku and Ichika watch the scene unfold before them, their two sets of blue eyes flickering back and forth from the boy they're supposed to be in love with and the kid who's made it that way. And as they watch, Fuutarou turns Kiku around with a slow turn of his wrist to make her face him so that he can kneel down, put his hands underneath the kindergartner's armpits, and almost effortlessly pull her up into the air. The quintuplets' eyes track Fuutarou's arms; with the sun beginning its descent in the late afternoon sky, its bright rays shine warmly through the large glass doors, past the young man and the small child.

"So try not to push yourself into being an adult a decade and a half too early, alright? You're much better off being a snotty little brat with the rest of your friends."

Kiku's eyes, having been tearing up against her will, once more pin themselves down at the floor, at the feet of the boy who holds her on high.

And speaking of eyes, Miku's, having taken note of the kindergartner's, decide to slide to the right a little, over at her tutor. His eyes are closed - and perhaps this is on purpose, because the clearly brighter feature on his face is the small smile on his lips, far brighter and warmer than any of the rays of the sun trying to obscure her view of it.

That's it, right there.

For all the blunt things he says, as dense as he can be sometimes, and as dark as his life must get at points, ever since Miku has gotten to know him, Uesugi Fuutarou has always had an atmosphere of reassurance, of...comfort. There isn't really a good word that she can use to describe the exact kind of presence Fuutarou provides when he's with them...it's akin to a house building built on a solid, sturdy foundation that can resist whatever adverse weather or environmental conditions that it must face, that no matter what happens, even if he doesn't say it explicitly himself, Fuutarou will be there to make and keep things right.

For as cold and brooding of a person he can be, he possesses a kind of warmth that can organically fill the gaps left in people's hearts...a warmth that Miku has never felt anyone outside of her family exhibit. And he probably isn't even aware of this himself...well, course he isn't. After all, a flame can't see how bright it is until it's about to die.

More importantly, Fuutarou can't see how the warmth he radiates managed to melt the coat of ice that's been building over Miku's own heart for the past several years.

As the young mage sets Ichika's boss's daughter back down on the floor after a few moments, Miku finds herself right back next to his side again. She doesn't know how she got there, and neither does Ichika, apparently, given her growing look of confusion.

Reaching out and tugging lightly on the left sleeve of Fuutarou's plain white school dress shirt, the third quintuplet, her heart spurred into action to take advantage of the opportunity created by this warmth she feels, looks up at him straight in the eyes as they turn to see what she's up to and speaks,

"Go out with me, Fuutarou."

Inhaling sharply, Ichika barely manages to stifle her surprise at the sheer degree of guts Miku is demonstrating right now as Kiku, too, backs away over towards Ichika's direction, her adult senses telling her that the moment between Fuutarou and Miku is something she ought not to get in between. This is about the most out-of-character thing Miku's ever done, yet somehow -

"Go out?" Fuutarou narrows his eyes down at Miku, somewhat puzzled. "What're you on about?"

His words drag Miku down from cloud nine like a bunch of anchors, as they tend to do. "Ah...! Er, well, I mean, uhhh..." The middle quintuplet, having been stripped of the courage that she was imbued with just a moment ago, finds herself at an embarrassing loss for words as she takes a step back in a feeble attempt to escape this pitfall she's built for herself. But Fuutarou doesn't let her off so easily.

"I think you mean..." he leans in slightly towards Miku, "Let's get married."

Miku's mind shuts off completely for a millisecond as soon as her eardrums register these words into it. Uesugi Fuutarou, the last person on earth who'd say such a thing, the boy for whom she has feelings, the first boy for whom she's ever had such feelings, saying those words to her? And with such a serious look in his eyes?

The screaming in her head doesn't let itself be contained in the confines of her skull; within another couple dozens of milliseconds, Miku's lips part to give way to a shrill cry of embarrassment of her own as Ichika subconsciously pulls Kiku close at this dramatic development, with Kiku's cheek being pressed against the side of Ichika's left breast - but Kiku isn't complaining for the moment.

"W-W-W-Wait, wait wait wait!" Finally catching herself mentally, but only just, Miku stumbles backwards a little, having covered her burning face with both hands. "That's - that's just so - this's so sudden, I don't - I - wha - "

Perhaps as expected, though, Fuutarou himself completely ignores Miku's embarrassed reaction to strut over to Ichika, who releases Kiku when he gestures to her, and Fuutarou proceeds to give the kindergartner a bit of a noogie after taking a knee next to her.

"And there you have it, we've got you a new mom. Just while we're playing house, though," the young tutor grins in amusement as the front door to the Nakano penthouse opens in the background.

"We're home earlyyyyy ~ !" Yotsuba's immediately recognizable tone tumbles into the first floor of the penthouse as she, flanked by Nino and Itsuki, hops into view to find the others in the sunny living room. "Whoa, wait, she's so cute ~ ! What're you guys doing with a cute little girl at our place?"

"Wait, what's going on exactly...?" Nino barks shortly as she, too, hurries into the living room after hearing Yotsuba report what she sees. "And I thought today was supposed to be just a self-study for Ichika and Miku, why're you back here, Uesugi-kun?"

"It was, but Ichika said that she had an obligation of sorts to look after this kid who's the daughter of her boss at her part-time," Fuutarou explains swiftly and concisely, patting Kiku's head one last time before getting back up to his feet. "Her name's Kiku."

"So what were you all doing just now?" Itsuki asks, gesturing about the living room with how they were all positioned at the time she, Nino, and Yotsuba arrived.

"Playing house at Kiku's request, which was more like a demand but that's besides the point. Kiku's looking for a new mom, so I decided to marry Miku to give her one."

"No, like, seriously, what the f - what the heck were you doing?" Nino holds her tongue just in time to replace her usually foul language with something more kid-friendly.

"That sounds super fun, actually! It's been forever since we last played house, right?" Yotsuba laughs as cheerfully as ever, hopping over to the rest of the occupants of the living room to join in.

"Yeah, no wonder, since we're not kids anymore, Yotsuba. Unless you find it fun because you've still got those kiddie panties like Ichika says you do?"

"Aaaaaaaaaah! W-We don't talk about those, c'mon, Nino - !" The fourth quintuplet swiftly pivots over to Kiku beside her in an attempt to change the subject. "A-Anyways, Kiku-chan, was it? What kind of role should I have?"

"A dog. You're the family dog!" Kiku orders, pointing up at Yotsuba, who immediately begins to bark like one. Having secured that role, Kiku moves on to the rest of the quintuplets to assign them roles too. "And you two can be my two grandmas."

Nino's right eye twitches hard upon hearing this. "Oh ho? That's so kind of you to let us play too, Kiku-chan ~ "

Kneeling down before Kiku with a smile false enough to break a lie detector, the second quintuplet reaches over and takes hold of Kiku's cheeks to begin tugging on them lightly.

"So what kind of a role should I have again? Care to repeat that for me?" she asks nonchalantly while slowly pulling and retracting the kindergartner's cheeks like a slinky.

"G...gran...gramma..." Kiku struggles to speak, but obviously she can't say much with her cheeks being played with as they are.

"I can't hear youuuuu ~ "

Having retired to the long couch nearby, Ichika and Miku, slouched into its seats while watching the newcomers playing around with Kiku in their stead, let out deep sighs of mixed feelings as Fuutarou joins the others in more of Kiku's house shenanigans.

"Talk about one hell of an unexpected development, huh?" Ichika chuckles to her younger sister by her side, who wipes off one last nervous sweat from her brow.

"You're telling me...I panicked so hard that I literally didn't know what to do..." Miku whimpers helplessly, her cheeks still refusing to let go of a few last blotches of embarrassed warmth. "Then again, I should've known that he was just acting that out...of course he's not the type of person to say that with actual seriousness..."

"Yeah, I guess not, huh..."

"You're Kiku's maternal grandma, huh? Well, nice to meet'cha, mom," Fuutarou sighs to Nino, who frowns back up at him.

"I don't even wanna be your mom, that's weird!"

Ichika and Miku continue to watch the rest of their family mess around with each other and Kiku amidst laughs and banter for a few minutes.

"...but a good thing about what happened just now is...it's helped me decide that I want to act on these feelings I have for Fuutarou," Miku smiles over to her oldest sister, then towards the rest of her family and her tutor in the living room. "Even if it ended up kind of falling flat, I'm going to be serious about him in the future."

Observing the look on her younger sister's face this time, Ichika remains quiet for a moment. There can be no doubt that Miku is dead serious about this; she's clearly made up her mind. And unlike some of her other sisters, once she's made up her mind, Miku won't be easily convinced to stop. Ichika doesn't even have the option to convince her to stop either, given what she said to her earlier at school while Fuutarou was out.

Then why does she feel a slight twinge in her chest when she ought to be giving Miku her full support?

Miku begins to speak again, which comes as a welcome and timely distraction for Ichika to focus on other than the pang of discomfort in her own heart.

"But...even if I ought to start going for him right away...I still want the six of us to go on like this for as long as possible," Miku says quietly. "I still want to enjoy as much of this as I can. You always told us that we've only got so much time as middle school students, and then as high school students...so I want all of us to stay just the way we are."

Noticing that her oldest sister hasn't said a word in a little while, the third quintuplet glances shyly to her left at Ichika.

"...I'm not weird for thinking that now, am I...?" she asks under her breath.

Ichika finally manages a smile of her own as she leans forward in her seat on the couch, shaking her head.

"Nope...not at all," she replies calmly. "I don't mind if things keep going on like this for a bit longer, like you said. And despite what I've told you girls before...it would be nice if things went on like this for more than just a little bit."

A/N part 2:

In regards to the editing that I mentioned in the first Author's Note of this chapter, I actually plan to do it live - I'll be reading over the entirety of this fanfic on stream over on my Twitch channel, TouhouSniper98, beginning on Friday, July 10, 2020 at 8pm PST. I hope this sort of self-advertising isn't frowned upon, and if it is, I hope it's not something I can get monkaTOS'd for, since I don't know how else to get this information out there to people who actually read this fic.

In any case, this rereading of Five Equal Angels on stream will not only help me refresh my memory of everything that's happened in the story so far but also force me to do my intended editing and revisions to fix grammatical errors, potential plotholes, and inconsistencies in the story, though it's obviously not something I can do in just one stream; it'll have to be a long-term project of sorts. If you decide to join me, you can pass me your feedback about the story directly and ask me questions about the fic in ways that story reviews perhaps can't.