That evening, I was getting ready for bed after having had my bath, when my phone started buzzing madly. It was like it had gone wild, vibrating repeatedly against the floor as though possessed by a demon. Raiha stared at it from her futon in shock, and I fearfully reached towards the shaking monstrosity.

What the hell is going on?

I picked up the vibrating phone, and looked at the screen. I had seventeen new emails. One of them was from Yotsuba, from right after I had got into the bath. The other sixteen were from an address I didn't recognize. I opened Yotsuba's first.

<That didn't go how I'd hoped.>

I stared down at the message, confused. Then, trembling, I returned to the main page to see that another two emails had arrived from the other address. I scrolled down to the first one, and opened it.

"InsiderMay..." I said quietly to myself, frowning. "Who the hell is that?"

The first message just had one word.

<YOU>

I exited back out, and then read them all, more arriving by the second. Eventually, I had a full phrase.

<YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL FOR A BAR OF CHOCOLATE, UESUGI-KUN. AS PER OUR DEAL, I MUST HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW MUCH OF A WASTE OF TIME THIS TUTOR WAS.>

I read the full thing, and then shook my head.

"Are you kidding me?" I muttered to myself. "You blew up my phone for this?"

"Onii-chan? What... what is it?" Raiha whimpered.

"Itsuki being an idiot. One moment," I said, typing my response.

<Hey, Itsuki. Can you send that all as one email next time? You blew up my phone, and scared Raiha.>

I sent it off, and about thirty second, I got Itsuki's response.

<No.>

I scowled down at my phone, and then turned it off to avoid any more explosions. I put it away in my bag, and then turned off the lights and laid down in my futon.

"Apparently, their tutoring went quite badly," I said. "I'll probably get the details tomorrow. Itsuki decided to take out her frustration by blowing up my phone."

"Oh. I see. Are you going to tutor them instead, Onii-chan?"

"Me? Hell no. Not a chance."

"Oh... ok. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Raiha."

I stared at the ceiling, the dancing patterns of the shadows calming me down. Within a few minutes, I could feel myself drifting away... and before I knew it, I was awake and it was morning. I sat up with a groan, and stared around me. Both Raiha and my dad were awake -- Raiha was cooking breakfast, while my dad was reading a newspaper. Where he'd gotten it from, I had no clue.

"Oh, hey. You're awake, kid. Mornin'."

"Good morning, Onii-chan!"

I rubbed my eyes. "Good morning. What're you cooking?"

"Toast and eggs."

I eyed her up. "You're making toast... in a frying pan?"

"Yeah! I wanted to see if it would work! It does!"

"...Alright."

"What's with the skepticism, Onii-chan?! Try one!"

Skeptically, I picked a piece of toast up off the plate she handed me. I spread some butter on it, and had a bite. It was shockingly good.

"I apologize, Raiha. This is great."

"Right?!"

I glanced down at the phone that was laying on the floor near my bag. As I munched on toast, I realized that I had never responded to Yotsuba's text the night before.

Ah well. I'll get the full story from her today.

After eating the meal that Raiha had made, she and my dad departed for her elementary school, and I departed for my own school. As I was approaching the front gates, I was not remotely surprised to see a black car of foreign make rolling up. It pulled to a halt, and the door opened to allow five girls to get out.

"Morning!" I said, surprised at my own cheerfulness.

Ichika turned and gave me a small wave before walking into the school grounds. Miku gave me a nod before following suit. I watched the two of them go, and then suddenly realized that I hadn't yet received my customary glare from Nino. I turned to look at her to see that she had a completely absent-minded look on her face -- like she hadn't even processed that I was present. The look on her face could only be described as anxiety. She walked away without even acknowledging my greeting.

"That was weird," I said to myself quietly.

"Good morning, Uesugi-kun..."

I turned back to see Yotsuba and Itsuki both looking absolutely drained. I eyed them up and down, and then winced.

"The tutoring session was that bad, huh?"

"Y...yeah," Yotsuba said, her characteristic cheerfulness markedly absent. We began to slowly move towards the school as we talked.

"So... what happened?" I said.

"The tutor arrived, and it basically just went downhill from there," Itsuki sighed. "His name is Takeda Yuusuke. First of all, Miku, Ichika, and Nino all refused to join us at first -- Ichika said studying makes her sleepy, Miku refused on principle apparently, and Nino just said she refused to learn from number two. So the first hour or so was just Yotsuba and me. That... did not go well."

"That guy's so stuck up!" Yotsuba said, genuine annoyance in her voice. "The first thing he did was give us a small quiz to test our level, which was fine, but then he spent like ten minutes chewing us out for our level of preparedness. He said we wouldn't even pass the entrance exams!"

I frowned. "How is that even possible? Didn't you pass the entrance exams to transfer here?"

Yotsuba and Itsuki were both silent for a moment, and my jaw dropped.

"You didn't pass the entrance exams?"

"C... Correction," Itsuki said, not making eye contact with me. "We didn't take the entrance exams. We might have passed if we tried!"

'Hehe... Our dad is apparently friends with the principal," Yotsuba said, embarrassed.

I sighed as we approached the school doors. "I forgot how rich you lot are. Ok, so what happened after that?"

"So, I took up arms in our defence after that," Itsuki said, "and told him that his job was to teach us, so that we could pass the entrance exam if need be. He seemed a bit stunned at that, and then reminded us that his job wasn't to make it so that we could pass the entrance exam, it was to make sure we passed the midterm, which was significantly harder. He then started on a monologue about how he was the number two student in the grade, and so if there was anyone who could get us to pass, it was him."

"Conceited prick," muttered Yotsuba, her face dark.

I glanced over at her. I didn't think I'd ever seen her looking this pissed off.

"You're just saying that because of what happened later," Itsuki said, frowning. "I haven't even reached that part yet."

"Oh boy," I breathed in. "It gets worse, huh?"

"Yep," growled Yotsuba.

"Anyways," Itsuki said, "it was bad timing for him to give that speech, because Nino happened to have left her room to grab one of her magazines off the bookshelf downstairs, and she heard his little monologue."

I snorted. "Oh no."

"Yeah, she... did not take kindly to that. She started verbally laying into the poor guy, telling him that he thought way too highly of himself for just being number two, and that he only had the job because number one had declined it. Bear in mind, I actually hadn't yet had a chance to tell her the identity of number one in the grade. He didn't like that, and so he told her that he would soon unseat the number one student, who was his 'eternal rival', or something like that. He said it really dramatically, too."

"I bet he's a chuuni!" Yotsuba said, a little bit of her energy coming back.

"So," Itsuki said, blatantly ignoring Yotsuba's remark, "Nino said that she refused to learn from anyone except number one. At that point, somebody pointed out that she wouldn't learn from number one either."

"What?! It's true!" Yotsuba complained.

"Nino asked her what she meant, and Yotsuba spilled the beans that you were the number-one student. Nino got very angry at that, and started complaining that if number one and number two were useless, there was no point in learning from any of them. That set off the tutor, and they just spent the next twenty minutes yelling at each other, and absolutely nothing got done. Eventually, Takeda-san said that if Nino was so high-and-mighty that she could only learn from the top student in the grade, she should take the placement test he'd devised, and see how well she did. Ah, hang on -- let's break and keep talking in a couple of minutes."

We'd reached the footlockers, and so we each respectively went and quickly changed out footwear before reconvening.

"So, she did -- and she absolutely bombed it," Itsuki said. "She did worse than both of us, and he just let her have it after that, saying that she was in absolutely no position to be picky about who tutored her. So they kept arguing again, and eventually I had to remind him that Yotsuba and I were there too, and still wanted tutoring."

"This sounds like a nightmare," I sighed.

"Right?!" Yotsuba said, the pissed-off look having returned to her face. "It was a complete waste of time -- I usually get more done in a couple hours at the library with you than I did in like four hours with this guy!"

"You weren't there for the full four hours, Yotsuba," Itsuki frowned. "Anyways, after that, we got back to studying, with Nino basically being held hostage against her will and forced to study. Eventually, the tutor got extremely frustrated, and asked how the hell we'd been wasting the last six weeks. I told him that there was a learning curve coming to this school compared to our old one, and Yotsuba said she'd been studying every school day with a friend for the last month and a half, and she wasn't wasting time."

I frowned. "I bet he took that well."

Itsuki snorted. "Yeah. Sure. He asked what pedigree this 'friend' had, and Yotsuba dropped that the friend in question was the number-one student in the school -- which wasn't a very mature thing for you to do, Yotsuba."

"He was being a jerk! He had it coming!"

"I agree, but it was still immature."

"Probably, but it was worth it to see his face." Yotsuba said. Then, her face scrunched up in anger at the memory. "After that, he just lost it. He went on a whole rant about how you had only won your position temporarily, and that it would soon return to where it rightfully belongs -- that a 'peasant' like you, his words, not mine, could never hold that kind of position long term, and that you were just keeping the seat warm for him. He said that, because of that, the tutoring we got from him was 'far superior to anything Uesugi-kun could possibly provide'. That smug bastard!"

"Yotsuba quit the tutoring session after that," Itsuki said disapprovingly, "leaving just me and Nino behind."

I stared at Yotsuba as we started to make our way towards Itsuki's and my classroom. She looked up at me defiantly, before suddenly looking a bit embarrassed, and glancing away.

"I... just didn't like how he was insulting you," she muttered. "Ah, I should head to my classroom. See you at lunch, Uesugi-san! Bye Itsuki!"

She dashed off, and I got a distinct impression of a rabbit running away for its life as her ribboned head bobbed into the distance. I smiled slightly, and then glanced back at Itsuki, who just shook her head disapprovingly.

"It's been a long time since I've seen Yotsuba that angry," Itsuki said. "She put up with it for about two and a half hours, but eventually she just snapped. After she left, I suggested that we call it a night -- but he declined, saying he had been contracted for a certain number of hours, and so he would go for a certain number of hours. So, Nino and I were subjected to another hour and a half or so of him attempting to teach us. It was awful."

"Geez," I said, shaking my head as I opened the classroom door. "If I'd known it would be that bad, I never would have accepted the chocolate bar. It was delicious, but it's not worth the liability for that."

Itsuki smiled. "I'm still holding you responsible. You're going to need to make up for it somehow."

I shrugged. "Alas. 'Tis the fate of a man who hath been damned for his sins."

She rolled her eyes as we walked over to our desks. "How dramatic of you, Uesugi-kun."

The room already had a number of people in it, and a few whispers started as we walked in together, but we both just ignored them. I saw the same group of girls as the day before whispering to each other as they glanced at us, but I just raised an eyebrow at them, and they shut up quickly. I sat down at my desk just as the teacher walked in.

The rest of the morning passed relatively quickly. At lunch, I ate with Yotsuba, and I studiously avoided bringing up the topic of the disastrous tutoring session the evening prior. My lunch partner, it seemed, was only too willing to oblige, and so the entire lunch break went by without any further elaboration on the topic. Instead, we just talked as usual. Yotsuba didn't seem upset anymore. If anything, she seemed to have over-corrected from her previous depressed state -- she was... almost hyper. It was mildly disconcerting.

"Hey, hey, Uesugi-san! Check this out! I made a tower out of karaage!"

I stared down at her plate where, indeed, there was a tower of balanced karaage about five pieces tall.

"Wait, wha-- how? No, hang on. I have a more important question. Why?"

Yotsuba laughed. "It's like exploring the stars, Uesugi-san! I must explore because it is there! I must build so that they will come! I must stack karaage!"

"That physically just shouldn't be happening. You don't have a toothpick through there, do you?"

"Huh? A... A toothpick? Of course not, Uesugi-san!"

I narrowed my eyes. "You know, I was joking, but now I'm suspicious."

Yotsuba looked away and attempted to whistle, but instead made a sort of fwwwwt sound with her lips. I stared at her, and then cracked up chuckling.

"What the heck?! Do you not know how to whistle?"

"Hey! I never learned! It's harder than it looks!"

"I'll teach you. You've gotta do a better job than that."

"Huh? Wait, really? Ok, I'll do my best!"

"Ok," I said, putting down my chopsticks. "The first thing you need to do is round your lips, like this."

"Like this?" Yotsuba said, pursing her lips like she was going in for a smooch.

"No, not like that, that's way too much. Like... like you're trying to play a clarinet."

"I've never tried to play a clarinet though..."

"Me neither, but try it anyways."

Yotsuba attempted to make a face like she was wrapping her lips around the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument, but given her lack of experience, her face just looked a little silly.

"Ow, that kind of hurts my mouth..."

"You've got to develop your embouchure."

"My what?"

"Your ability to train those muscles to hold that position. Try it again, and blow air out."

Yotsuba tried again, and a piercing note came out, a high C. Her eyes lit up, and she started blowing harder.

"Uesugi-san, Uesugi-san! I whistled!"

"Good! Now, try moving your tongue around while you do it, and adjusting the speed you blow at, so that you can make different notes."

Yotsuba tried, and was able to make a few other notes, though it was still a bit rough. She seemed pretty happy though, as she made different noises.

"Shi shi shi, I bet I can probably whistle better than you now, Uesugi-saaaan!" She said, grinning at me. I raised an eyebrow.

"I sincerely doubt that."

"Let's hear it then!"

I leaned back in my chair, smirking. Unbeknownst to Yotsuba, this was something I was actually quite good at. I closed my eyes and begin to whistle the theme to Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show that I had watched with my dad many years prior. I included the various trills, and was entirely on-pitch the entire time. When I finally opened my eyes again, Yotsuba was staring at me.

"Well?" I said. "Still think you can whistle better than me?"

"No," she sighed. "I bow to your superior skill, Sensei."

I grinned. "Ah, the words I love to hear most in the world. Please, give me more compliments."

"Your whistling is amazing, Sensei!"

"More!"

"It was truly spectacular, Sensei!"

"Yes! Lay it on me!"

"Fantastic, incredible, sensational!"

Yotsuba and I both started laughing, and Yotsuba accidentally bumped the table. As she did so, her whole karaage tower fell, and landed on the tray -- and stayed together instead of falling apart. I stared down at it, then looked up at her with a knowing smirk on my face.

"No toothpicks, huh?"

Yotsuba immediately grabbed it, shoved the whole thing in her mouth, and then turned away from me. There was the sound of something wet being moved, and then she turned back to me, her mouth full of karaage. I noticed her surreptitiously hide something in her bag as she did so. Then, she chewed, and swallowed.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Uesugi-san!"

"Liar," I said, laughing.

"Hurtful! Disgraceful! Shameful!" Yotsuba cried.

"Yes! Lay it on me!"

We both laughed again, and then the bell rang to return to classes.

"Ah, boo," Yotsuba said. "I guess I need to go. Are we still good for the library this afternoon?"

I smiled. "Yes, of course."

"Great! See you then."

Yotsuba departed, and I stayed behind a few more minutes to finish up my food. I glanced over at the table where the rest of the quintuplets usually ate. To my surprise, Nino was still there by herself. She was sitting facing me, and I could see that she was just staring down at her food with a dark expression on her face. Not angry, just... dark. I watched as she moved it around with her chopsticks, but didn't seem to move it up to her mouth at all.

I'm surprised the others left her alone...

I got up to dispose of my tray, carrying it to the rack where staff members would eventually take it to be washed. I started walking back towards the doors, and as I did so I glanced back over at the quints' table. Nino was hunched over her food. I debated going to talk to her, but... I figured that I was the last person whose presence she would appreciate. Also, her issues were none of my business. So, I decided to just leave.

I got back to the classroom a few minutes before the bell rang. Most of my classmates were already at their desks, the room full of the chatter of bored teenagers. I set my bags down on my seat, and then went over to Itsuki's desk, where she was reading over her notes.

"Hey, Itsuki," I said, "I have a quick question for you."

At the mention of her name, Itsuki jumped almost a foot in the air, and then turned to look back up at me.

"Geez, Uesugi-kun, you scared the heck out of me! Let me know you're there first!"

"I... did."

"...Oh," she said, her face going red. "Uh... what can I do for you?"

"I was just curious. Is Nino ok? She looked really distraught as I was leaving the cafeteria."

Itsuki sighed. "I'm not really sure. She won't talk about it. Clearly, the tutoring session last night really upset her, but she doesn't want to open up about it. Maybe she just doesn't want to expose her weakness... but it's ok to expose it to us, you know? We're sisters."

I frowned. "That's surprising. Hopefully you can sort it out."

Itsuki smirked. "Maybe you should go talk to her about it? That'll piss her off, and then she'll be distracted."

"Yeah, no. I'm not a masochist."

"You know, for someone who claims to not care about love or relationships, you seem awfully interested in our feelings."

"What can I say? I'm a caring guy."

Itsuki snorted and rolled her eyes, and I took the opportunity to return to my desk. The class soon began, but the thought of the depression on Nino's face kept percolating through my mind. I wondered how, if at all, I could attempt to rectify the problem -- but nothing I could think of seemed reasonable, save for putting myself in the firing line, which I was somewhat averse to do without good cause.

By the end of the day, I was no closer to having any ideas than I had been before. I just decided to give up. As I was getting ready to leave, I took a small detour to Itsuki's desk.

"Hey, before I go--"

Itsuki jumped about a foot out of her chair again.

"Seriously?!"

"I wasn't paying attention! You scared me!"

"Ok, that one was, perhaps, just slightly, my bad. Anyways, I was wondering if you could pass on a message to Nino? I figure I'm less likely to get my head bitten off if you deliver it."

"So that I can get my head bitten off?"

"Precisely!"

"Thanks, Uesugi-kun," Itsuki said drily. "That's true friendship right there."

I just smirked. "Obviously."

"So, what's the message?"

"She shouldn't let that jerk get her down. He's not number one for a reason."

Itsuki looked up at me in surprise. "Weren't you the one singing his praises just yesterday? All that about how the number-two student has 'more fire for learning', or something of that sort? Where did that go?"

I glanced away from her. "Let's just say I'm not very impressed with his pedagogy."

"Is that your way of saying that you don't like him because he upset Yotsuba?"

I whipped back around and stared down at her in shock. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Itsuki looked back up at me innocently. "Nothing."

I scowled. "Well, whatever. Hold onto your pre-conceived notions. Just please pass on the message."

"Fine, I will. You owe me one, though. She's going to kill me."

"No, she won't." I said. "...Probably."

"Yeah, really reassuring, Uesugi-kun!" Itsuki yelled after me as I walked away from the desk. I chuckled to myself as I grabbed my bag and left the room. Hopefully the comment would distract Nino enough that she'd stop looking so depressed. It really didn't suit her.

As I walked through the halls, I pondered. Obviously, the guy's pedagogy is garbage, but is that really all it is? Maybe I'm just mad that he insulted my intelligence. That's typically not a front where people insult me...

I reached the library door, and opened it to find a few students having a fairly loud conversation right by the checkout desk. They seemed to be arguing about who had a reservation for some particular fantasy novel. I frowned, and walked past them into the lines of shelves, walking towards the tables where I usually studied with Yotsuba.

I peeked around the last bookcase to see that said ribboned girl had already arrived. Due to the loud argument by the door, she hadn't heard me come in. She was sitting in her usual spot with her textbooks spread out, a pencil twirling in her fingers as she attempted to solve an exercise. Her face was resting on one hand, and her green ribbon seemed to be slightly wilted, thought whether that was due to the unyielding effect of gravity, or a reflection of her emotional state, I wasn't sure.

Then I saw her face, which resolved the issue.

Her face seemed almost like a mirror image of the face I'd seen Nino making in the cafeteria... yet it was also different. Nino's face had seemed like it was a mixture of depression and anxiety. Yotsuba's was a much more explosive mixture -- her face was like if the hopelessness had been doped with rage, the inserted impurities enabling the conduction of emotion on her face. I noticed that her knuckles were white as she held the pencil.

These issues are my business.

I noisily stepped around the corner, and Yotsuba's head snapped up, the look on her face instantly vanishing.

"Oh, Uesugi-san! Hey!"

"Hi," I said, putting my bag down in my usual spot. I sat, and began to pull out my textbooks. Then, after I splayed them out, I just looked at her. Yotsuba went back to her exercise, but I continued to stare at her. Eventually, she looked up, registered my gaze, and then immediately glanced downwards again.

"...What is it?" she said quietly.

"Did something else happen?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said, not looking up. "Something else?"

"Apart from the tutoring session last night."

"...Oh."

I stared at her silently, but her eyes didn't rise to meet mine. The silence extended, and I could feel the thickness of it -- but perhaps that was just in my head. Perhaps I was imagining things, and there was nothing else that had happened. Maybe I was just projecting.

"Yeah. Something did happen."

I need to stop second-guessing myself.

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know. Maybe? It's just..."

Yotsuba leaned back in her chair, and stared at some fixed point above my head. For a brief moment, I was tempted to look up and see if there was something there.

"So... turns out Takeda-san is in my class. I never noticed before. During the morning periods he left me alone. I think he didn't notice I was there, maybe. After lunch, though, he basically took every opportunity he could to remind me I needed to work harder, and telling me I probably needed extra study sessions with him, and that if I continued just hanging out with you, I would fail the midterm. It just brought back all the feelings from last night, the anger. It made me feel really... small. And hopeless."

Yotsuba took a deep breath. "I know I need help. I know I can't do this alone. I... know that I'm an idiot. But I don't need the help of someone who insults my friend, and someone who thinks he's that much better than me. I don't need it. I can't need it."

Yotsuba looked away, and wiped her eyes briefly. She then turned back to me and did her best to grin, which somehow looked ghoulish with the anger and hurt that was so evident on her face.

"Anyways, you don't need to hear me complain about this. Sorry, Uesugi-san. Let's get back to studying."

I stared at her in disbelief. Then, I grabbed one of my paperback reference books, and gently bonked her on the head.

"Huh? Why...?"

"Idiot." I said forcefully.

"Yeah, that's what I said..."

"No, that's not why you're an idiot." I said. "I'm not talking about your test scores."

"Huh? Then...."

"Yotsuba," I said, my eyes narrowing. "Pop quiz time. Are we friends?"

"...Yes?"

Bonk.

"Not confident enough."

"Y-Yes!"

"Then why the hell would you think I wouldn't want to hear about something that's clearly upsetting you this much? You're furious, and on the verge of tears. Do you really think I wouldn't care about that, and want to just get back to studying? Is that actually how you see me?"

"No..." Yotsuba mumbled. "Sorry. It's just... it's embarrassing."

"So then be embarrassed. Don't hide how you're feeling though, not from your friends. It'll just get repressed and repressed and repressed, until it bursts out when you can't control it... and by the time that happens, it's too late."

"Wow," Yotsuba said, sniffing. "Very wise, Uesugi-san."

I smiled. "Naturally. I'm a genius after all."

Yotsuba snorted. Then, she stared down at her textbooks.

"Do you think I can pass the midterm, Uesugi-san?"

"I... don't really know. I haven't actually tried to assess how strong or weak you are in each area, since I'm not tutoring you. Do you want me to try?"

"I... would appreciate that. Thank you."

"Alright. Give me forty minutes to come up with a practice test for you."

"That's a lot! Are you ok giving up that much study time?"

I smiled. "It's fine. Coming up with practice problems is actually a form of studying in and of itself. If you can come up with complicated problems and then solve them, that shows that you have a good grasp of the source material."

I pulled out some paper, and I began trying to come up with questions that would gauge her abilities. As I started working, my mind drifted back to what Itsuki had said in the morning -- that none of the quintuplets had even taken the entrance exam. I thought back to the difficulty of the exam I had taken a year prior, and decided to start at that difficulty level, and then slowly ramp up the difficulty until it reached midterm level.

Wherever she starts getting things seriously wrong is about where her level is.

Flicking through my textbooks, I started getting some ideas for some of the trickier questions to put near the end of the test. In particular, I wanted to see how good her quantitative understanding of various concepts were -- it was all well and good to be able to explain something, but you also needed to be able to put your nose to the grindstone and compute things. I smiled to myself as I wrote down one of the more beguiling questions I'd thought up.

There was a noise, and I glanced up from my work to see that Yotsuba had her phone out, and was filming me.

"...What do you think you're doing?" I growled at her.

"I promised Miku I would send her footage of your demonic giggle! It finally came out!" she laughed. I glared at the phone, but I smiled on the inside to see her cheering up. Then, I got back to work. Eventually, my masterpiece was complete. I neatly shuffled the five pages of handwritten questions into a neat pile, and then stood up, and ceremonially delivered them to Yotsuba, bowing as I handed them over. She stood up, and bowed as she received them.

"Alright, time to get to work!" she said.

"No. Vetoed." I said.

"Eh?! Why not?"

I pointed at the test. "You're not going to be able to finish that before we need to go home. Better to spend the time that we're studying actually reviewing stuff, when I can help answer any questions you have. You can do the test tonight or tomorrow, and then I'll mark it for you."

Also, I think you're still not in the right head space to take this test right now.

Yotsuba sighed. "Yeah... you're probably right."

She lowered her head to her hands, and stared into nothingness. "This whole thing just has me down. I really don't want to go to the next tutoring session on Thursday."

I shrugged. "Then don't."

"I can't do that! My dad's paying the tutor money, the least I can do is show up!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Didn't Nino, Miku, and Ichika all skip?"

Yotsuba glanced to the side. "That's... their choice..."

"That is their choice. You can make yours. You don't have to go."

Wait. Why am I encouraging her to play hooky? Even if it's playing hooky from studying in order to study... wait, now I'm confused.

Yotsuba sighed. "I should probably at least give the guy a second chance. If it goes as badly as the first one though, I'll definitely consider quitting."

I nodded. "Seems more than fair. I probably would have already quit"

Yotsuba glanced up at me. "Yeah, but you don't need tutoring."

I looked away from her. "That hasn't always been the case. I had some tutoring myself. That was... a long time ago, though. Before I knew how to study on my own."

The ribbon-head raised an eyebrow. "Really? You had tutoring?"

I scowled as I turned back to her. "I don't know whether to take your surprise as a compliment or not. Yeah, I used to be a terrible student. Now I'm not though. Mostly through my own hard work. A little bit because of the tutor though."

"I want to know more about whoever was able to tutor the genius Uesugi-san!"

I frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't really want to talk about that. It brings back some unfortunate memories. I just mentioned it because I wanted you to know that there's nothing shameful in needing a bit of help. The shamefulness only comes if you use that help as a crutch, and avoid putting in the work yourself."

"Ah... ok."

Yotsuba seemed to retreat a little, and I felt a little badly.

I don't want to talk about her, though.

"Uesugi-san..."

I looked down at the redhead, who had her face buried in her arms.

"...will you help me study? If I have to rely on someone else, I don't want it to be him."

Despite myself, I smiled. I gently placed a hand on her head, and tousled her hair a bit.

"Sure. You've got it."

Yotsuba's ribbon twitched, and I thought I could see her ears turn a distinct shade of pink. Slightly embarrassed, I removed my hand and sat back in my chair. Yotsuba took a deep breath as if to steady herself, and then looked back up at me, and then her face broke into a grin.

"Alright. I'm gonna kick ass, and show Takeda-san that I don't need him!"

"Good. Let's get back to studying. If you want my help, though, I'm going to put you through hell."

Yotsuba gulped nervously. "Th...Through hell?"

"Yep. You're gonna be dreaming of trigonometric functions."

"Wait, I don't even know what a trigonometric function is yet, Uesug-"

I smacked my hand on the table.

"Get to it, Private Yotsuba! You've got a promotion to earn!"

Yotsuba was speechless for a moment. Then, her eyes widened as she processed what I'd said, and a massive grin crossed her face.

"Sir, yes sir!"