Chapter 3: The Nakano Residence

"My name is Nakano Itsuki. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Ayanokouji's eyes opened as he took a close look at the newest pupil in class, a red-haired girl with star-shaped clips on her hair, it was none other than his apparent student.

Ayanokouji, being the peaceful and uncaring individual that he was, sought to take a nap until the teacher began their lesson, only to be awakened by how noisy the class became when the transfer student arrived.

"It's a girl."

"Woah! She's cute..."

"That uniform is from Kurobara's girl school, right?"

"Damn, her folks must be loaded, huh."

Itsuki's foreign presence inside the class elicited various responses from the students, except for Ayanokouji, who was quiet the whole time the girl spoke in front.

Eventually, as the excitement died down, the teacher showed Itsuki her designated seat by pointing towards an empty seat near the back, and the girl complied by nodding her head before heading towards her desk. Along the way, she came across a familiar face, and Itsuki was quick to notice who he was.

"Ayanokouji-kun?!" she whispered in surprise, before sneaking in a quick hand wave at him as she walked by.

Ayanokouji simply gave her a small nod of acknowledgment, before returning his attention to the blackboard. He briefly wondered if he was being too cold, but didn't ponder too deeply about it.

------------------------

"Hey, I don't know about the rest of you, but I like our new school so far. Kurobara was super suffocating. No makeup this, No short skirts that, Can't listen to heavy metal. Waaay too many rules." Nino shrugs nonchalantly.

The mid-afternoon sun shined across the bright blue and partly hazy sky, casting its beams over the street Itsuki and her sisters are heading home from school. They decided to not take the car, and instead opted to walk home together.

"Yup... it's nice isn't it," Ichika remarks with a sigh, stretching her arms.

"I definitely need a facial and a manicure once we get back..."

"Oh, now that you mention it, I think I need one too," Ichika says as she glances down at her own fingernails. "Mind if I join you, Nino?"

"Really? Great! It's been a while since we did anything together." Nino gets excited at the idea of spending time with her sister.

Ichika lets out a yawn, before resting her head against Nino's left shoulder.

"Hey! Sleep when you get home, you are gonna fall at this rate."

"It's okay. I can count on Yotsuba to catch me." Ichika flashes her younger sister a thumbs-up as she beams as brightly as she can.

"♪ Ehehe. Yup, you can definitely count on me♪," Yotsuba says, as dazzling as the afternoon sun over their heads. "BTW Nino I'm impressed, it's only been the first day but you already made so many friends. Some things don't change, huh ♪ ~ "

"Well duh! I'm the only one here who bothers to talk to people!" Nino boasts. "Unlike you girls."

"Talking to people...is an unnecessary skill," Miku broods to herself.

"Hey, hey, I heard that!" Nino couldn't help but pout.

-

She casts a glance over at Itsuki, who is minding her own business by busily helping herself to a meat bun that she purchased from a convenience store just a few moments earlier.

Getting an idea, Nino slips up behind her younger sister, and swoops on her, teasingly squeezing Itsuki's love handles.

"Look at you and your lovehandles~ " Nino giggles, naughtily squeezing Itsuki's sides. Itsuki, as expected, almost drops her meat bun in surprise and lets out a short scared shriek before pouting and glaring at the culprit. "The boys won't be interested in you if you're always eating, ya know ~ "

"Knock it off Nino! Unlike you, I don't think of boys all day!"

"Ah mou. Can't even take a joke..." Grumbling to herself, Nino does comply and ceases her harassment.

"B-Besides, I, um, I d-did eat with one today, at, uh, at lunch! A boy I mean!" Itsuki blurts out, immediately following this up with a big bite of her meat bun.

"NO-FREAKING-WAY!" Nino almost slams into Itsuki as she gasps in amazement at the thought of her enjoying lunch with a boy.

"W-Why would I lie about something like that!" Itsuki complains, wondering if it was a mistake to bring this up in front of her sisters, especially Nino.

"Oh dear me, my sisters grow up so fast ~ " Ichika puts a hand up to her cheeks and tilts her head in a dramatic fashion. "Still I never expected Itsuki to be the boldest one among us...!"

"Don't misunderstand! H-He is not my b-boyfriend or anything! We just ate that's all!" Itsuki aggressively bites into her meat bun again. ''B-Beside we are still in high school. We shouldn't focus on r-romance.''

''Are you crazy? That's the best time to try romance.'' Nino retorts.

"~Huh? Now that I think about it~,'' Yotsuba put a finger on her chin. ''Doesn't that mean Itsuki is the first of us to talk to a boy~?"

Itsuki blushed again at the implications of Yotsuba's statement.

"Exactly, Yotsuba. C'mon, tell us the whole story!" Nino leans close to Itsuki again. "So? Who was it? Another first-year? An upperclassman? ~GASP~ Don't tell me it's a sensei? You into forbidden romance Itsuki?!"

Itsuki hides behind Ichika to get away from Nino.

''Fine run away, see if I care,'' Nino pouts. ''But don't think you got a head start. After all, We're quints, so--''

"Whatever one of us can do--'' Ichika continues.

''~♪ We should all be able to do~♪." Yotsuba pumped her hand in the air.

''Pretty sure that's not how biology works, but you do you.'' A monotone voice reached their ears.

''Aaaahhh!!'' The Nakano siblings screamed from getting jump scared.

A sixth voice, foreign to the Nakano household, joins the quintuplet's walk home.

Looking behind them, Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki saw a young man clothed in their new high school uniform, carrying a backpack and a Starbucks coffee in his right hand. He sipped his coffee nonchalantly as if he hadn't simply appeared out of nowhere.

Shock of varying degrees etches itself into each of the quintuplets' faces.

-

''What the hell is your problem dude!? What, do you like creeping onto girls or something?'' Nino was the first to snap out of it.

''~WOAH♪ You came outta nowhere! Are you perhaps a Ninja♪ !'' Yotsuba asked with sparkles in her eyes completely ignoring Nino's comment.

''Much to your disappointment, I am indeed...,'' Ayanokouji did a dramatic pause with his poker face before the grand reveal. ''Not-a-ninja.''

''H-Hey it's him.'' Itsuki pointed her fingers at the intruder. ''He's the b-boy I was talking about!''

''What! T-Thats the guy!?''

Ayanokouji simply took a sip of his coffee and shrugged his shoulders. He simultaneously gave the vibe of a ruthless CEO climbing the corporate ladder, as well a lazy boss who just wants to go home.

''Hi! My name is Yotsuba ♪!~Nice to meetcha ♪~,'' Yotsuba was shaking Ayanokouji's free hand up and down in a cartoonishly fast motion.

''Well, you are quite the energetic fella aren't you.'' Ayanokouji briefly wondered if she was perhaps under the influence of crack, but he pushed the thought aside.

''YESSIREE ♪'' Yotsuba giggled with a beaming smile.

''Hey! Don't just casually introduce yourself to the eavesdropping creep.'' Nino pulled Yotsuba back.

''Wasnt my intention to eavesdrop, you girls were simply being too loud.'' Despite Nino's harsh glare, Ayanokouji showed no sign of discomfort. ''Just pretend I'm not here.''

He casually took another sip of his coffee before striding ahead of them, as if to prove his point. Slowing down only when they were at a safe distance and he couldn't hear anything from them. With his back now turned to them, the quints started whispering to each other.

Even though he was walking ahead of them, Nino couldn't help but notice they were walking in the same direction.

''I'm telling you guys there is no doubt in my mind, that guy is definitely a creep. 100%''

"Let it go, Nino, Don't just automatically assume a random stranger is a creep," Miku observes Nino's tough look through her luminescent blush, which is as dazzling as her hair.

"Oh ho? Look who finally decided to talk," Nino sneers back. The second quint tilts her head at Miku bossily.

"Care to explain how you know he's not one? You don't even know how to socialize properly."

"You need to be good at socializing in order to have common sense? I wasn't aware of that," Miku tilts an eyebrow, not backing down.

"Oh, Ironic! Dontcha think! I had no idea folks who liked matcha soda had any commonsense, to begin with."

"That has nothing to do with common sense; it's just personal preference."

There was imaginary lightning flashing between Nino and Miku, while they glared at each other.

"Hey, hey, let's not quarrel now," Ichika eventually intervenes, now that Miku and Nino are arguing again.

The girls are now reaching the foyer of their luxurious highrise apartment, having passed the entrance sign. The tall building made every other construction in the vicinity pale in comparison.

However, it was exactly now that the quints noticed something out of the ordinary. Ayanokouji stood in front of the entrance, inputting the password pin to open it. And, surprisingly, the automatic doors slid open to welcome him through.

''~Woah♪, I didn't know Ayanokouji lived here too. Did you Itsuki~?''

''I d-didn't either...''

''Great, just great. We are neighbors with a creep.'' Nino grumbled under her breath.

-

The quintuplets wait for other occupants of the apartment to exit the elevator in the lobby so that they themselves can enter to go up to their floor. The five of them stood there silently listening to the classical elevator music as it continued moving up.

"It's almost four right now, the tutor should be on his way?" Itsuki comments.

"That tutor thing again? Tch, I'm gonna pass. He can get kidnapped for all I care," Nino groans.

"Oh boy...now that our tutor is going to arrive, I'm a lot more nervous than I thought," Yotsuba chuckles awkwardly.

"You? Nervous? You're usually the one running all over the place," Nino asks.

"OK, f-fair enough, but what about my grades?" Yotsuba tries to give Nino her normal cheerful smile, but instead, she shied away slightly. "Our tutor is probably going to think I'm a complete idiot."

''If it makes you feel any better we are all idiots,'' Nino tried to cheer Yotsuba up.

"Then if that's the case, Nino, why not accept this tutor we'll be having later today? That way, we can stop being idiots." Miku said with her eyes closed.

"Geh...." Nino frowns deeply back at Miku.

"Geez, learn to live a little, Miku! This's why you will never be popular in school."

"Never had an interest in being popular, to be honest."

"Tch, fine, I guess. When you are old and alone don't say your sweet sis 'Nino' didn't warn ya."

"Aha, even if we become old and alone we would still have each other," Ichika comments from afar.

Nino's eyes widened as her lips curled to a small smile.

''True...'' Nino agrees quietly, her gaze naturally falling down to the elevator floor at her feet, but she quickly snaps out of it.

-

"♪Home sweet home♪," Yotsuba happily spins around out of the elevator before freezing up like a statue.

Noticing her sudden change the sisters tilted their heads in confusion, bringing their attention to her line of sight. And just like Yotsuba they too froze into place.

There was a boy wearing their school uniform, just casually standing in front of their apartment door. The same boy whose been the center of their thoughts today.

Kiyotaka Ayanokouji had a bored expression on his face, his left foot tapping impatiently on the ground. He appeared to be waiting for someone.

Or more preciously-

Waiting for five girls who were way past their designated time.

''He's just standing there...'' Yotsuba comments ''...menacingly.''

Perhaps noticing their presence, he gazed at them from the corner of his eyes. His expression was impassive as always.

''You ladies sure took your time.''

''I KNEW IT!'' Nino points her fingers accusingly at Ayanokouji. ''Not only are you a creep. You are also a stalker. A stalker-creep! A creeper-stalker!''

However, Ayanokouji paid no heed to Nino's harsh words. Taking one last sip at the coffee he finished its contents, before placing the now-empty container in the pockets of his backpack. With a sharp gaze, he approached the quints, only stopping a few meters short of them.

He bowed with his back slightly bent.

"Allow me to properly introduce myself, my name's Kiyotaka Ayanokouji. I'm a first-year like the rest of you, and I'll be your tutor for this year going forward.''

Bringing his dull eyes back to them, he continued. ''Please take good care of me.''