The living room of the Nakano apartment hung in a state of suspended animation. Saki and Nino remained locked in their absurd, intimate tableau.
"Don't move. And close your eyes." Nino's command was breathless but absolute, a queen attempting to salvage her dignity from utter ruin.
Saki complied without argument, slowly shutting his eyes. He heard the rustle of fabric, the soft pad of bare feet on the floorboards, and the rapid, shallow sound of her breathing just inches away.
"Okay. Open."
He did. His gaze, following a natural trajectory downward, immediately snapped back to a neutral point on the far wall. His expression remained meticulously blank.
"…What? What's wrong?" Nino's voice was a study in forced nonchalance, doomed from the start.
Saki offered no reply, his silence more eloquent than any words. He turned his attention back to the cabinet, a model of focused efficiency. Fortune, perhaps taking pity on them, intervened: the very next door he tried revealed her contact lens case and, beside it, a pair of black-framed glasses that looked charmingly out-of-date.
He placed the glasses gently onto her face, his fingers brushing briefly against her temples. The world, for Nino, snapped back into sharp, mortifying focus.
Saki retreated to the sofa. A few seconds of profound silence passed before it was broken by a low, strangled sound from behind him.
"Ughhh…"
It was a noise of pure, unvarnished defeat, as cute and pathetic as a drenched kitten.
In a state of complete surrender, Saki thought, a little uncharitably, Nino is arguably the most adorable of the five.
Nino stared down at herself. In her flustered squat, she had wrapped the towel with the strategic precision of a drunkard. The crucial coverage was… debated. A hot wave of shame crested within her, only to be met by a towering wall of stubborn pride.
Play. It. Dumb.
If she pretended not to notice, it didn't happen. This was now the unshakeable law of Nino Nakano.
Snatching up her contact lens case, she scooped the hairdryer from the couch as if she'd come downstairs for exactly that purpose and marched towards the stairs, her towel-clad ascent a masterpiece of feigned normalcy.
'This. Never. Happened.'
Only once her footsteps faded did Saki finally let his composure crack, dropping his face into his hands.
Every. Single. Time. Every visit to the Nakano residence came bundled with some form of improbable, anime-grade 'fanservice' incident. At this rate, he'd have a full anatomical survey of all five sisters completed within the fiscal year.
He desperately wanted to compartmentalize—tutoring here, private life elsewhere. But this bizarre romantic… luck? Was it luck, or a cosmic joke? He lacked the stereotypical harem protagonist's density, yet the universe seemed insistent on casting him in the role. Why did the gravitational pull of absurdity only affect the Nakano quintuplets?
After several minutes of fruitless existential analysis, he cleared his mind. The rain continued its relentless percussion against the window. Class tomorrow. A stayover was inevitable.
Time for a bath.
In the changing area, his gaze, entirely of its own volition, drifted to the laundry basket.
Black. With a small, lace-trimmed bow.
Likely Nino's. The style was surprisingly… modest. Cute.
This wasn't a conscious observation; it was a passive, instinctual scan. An immutable law of physics, really. Had Newton been inspired by lingerie instead of fruit, the fundamentals of the universe might have been drafted very differently.
He undressed quickly. A clean towel, as promised by Itsuki, waited on a shelf.
The bathroom was a cavern of steam. As the hot water hit his skin, a familiar presence emerged from the shadow at his feet, surfacing like a blonde, ethereal seal.
After a perfunctory wash, he was unceremoniously dragged by Shinobu into the deep bath. For the next half-hour, she treated it as a personal play pool, her antipsy powers creating tiny, shimmering vortexes in the water.
One had to concede: vampires possessed a sublime, evolutionary lack of shame regarding communal bathing. A shared soak was no more significant to Shinobu than sharing sunlight.
Strangely, Saki realized he felt nothing particularly notable during the bath. It was only upon stepping out, wrapped in a towel, that the oddity of the situation struck him. A troubling realization: he was being culturally assimilated by a vampire's sense of propriety.
Padding back into the living room, he found Nino. She was sprawled on the couch, the hairdryer clutched loosely in her hand, fast asleep.
She probably meant to return this.
Though tomorrow would have been fine.
Or perhaps… she'd waited to ensure he could dry his hair? The bathroom did only have the one.
He approached quietly. Her breathing was deep and even, lashes fanned against her cheeks. He gave her shoulder a gentle shake. Nothing.
With a soft sigh, he carefully slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her in a practiced princess carry. He'd seen a tutorial once—proper leverage made it effortless. As a Superpower user, her weight, barely 50 kilograms, felt negligible against his enhanced strength.
She nestled unconsciously into the warmth of his chest, still deep in dreams. He carried her up the stairs, his movements deliberate and smooth, and deposited her onto her bed with a care that bordered on reverence.
…
Back downstairs, he retrieved a book from his bag—a pre-sleep ritual. Tonight's selection was a half-finished light novel, a quintessential harem comedy love-triangle affair. The literary equivalent of a candy wrapper, but it had one saving grace: the female lead was compellingly written. For a well-crafted heroine, Saki could tolerate a milquetoast protagonist.
He was halfway through a chapter when a damp, blonde head burrowed into his lap. Shinobu peered up at him, her hair leaving a dark patch on his sweatpants.
"My Lord. Please dry my hair."
He recalled the way she'd shaken herself dry earlier, a perfect mimicry of a small, spirited dog.
"Your hair does feel a bit shorter," he mused, running a hand through the silken strands. "Can you control its length?"
"Hmm," she hummed, considering him with luminous eyes. "Do you have a preference for short hair, My Lord?"
Sakurai Saki plugged in the hairdryer. "I don't have a particular preference for hairstyles," he clarified, his voice a low murmur. "Whatever suits the individual is fine."
Testing the heat against his palm—a perfect, gentle warmth—he began to dry Shinobu's hair. Her golden strands flowed like a waterfall of silk through his fingers, impossibly smooth.
"My Lord… it tickles~" Shinobu's voice was a soft, fluttering thing, her cheeks tinged with a delicate pink.
His technique was standard, efficient. Yet, the sensation it produced was undeniably… intimate. And, if he were to analyze it objectively, carried a faintly lewd undertone.
"Ticklish here?" His fingers gently brushed the nape of her neck, lifting the damp hair there to let the warm air reach her skin.
"Mmh~" The sound escaped her—a tiny, breathy gasp that was undeniably cute.
A few minutes later, her hair was fully dry, fluffy and radiant.
"..."
Without a word, Shinobu's entire face flushed a deep scarlet. In the next instant, she dissolved into the shadow at his feet, vanishing completely.
Saki stared at the empty space on the sofa, utterly perplexed. It was just drying hair. Was there some vampire cultural taboo I'm unaware of?
Shaking off the thought, he returned the hairdryer to its place and retrieved his novel. The quiet of the living room settled around him once more, broken only by the distant patter of rain.
Minutes later, a new set of footsteps, soft and shuffling, approached. He glanced up.
One of the Quintuplets. The tentative gait, the quiet presence…
It should be Miku.
She rubbed her eyes with a small fist, her expression one of profound, sleepy confusion. "…Hm?"
Saki remained still, observing. She was clearly still in the hazy borderlands of sleep, her mind likely struggling to compute his presence in her living room at this hour. He watched as she bypassed him entirely, drifting on autopilot toward the bathroom.
He returned to his book.
The quiet stretched. Then, he saw her emerge from the bathroom hallway, swaying gently like a ship in a calm sea.
'It… should be Miku, right?'
He had to admit, among the five, Miku, Nino, and Itsuki formed the "Long-Hair Trio" of maximum visual confusion. Without their signature accessories, they were a perfect test of his observational skills.
Nakano Miku navigated back to the sofa. And then, with the unerring instinct of a sleepwalker finding her pillow…
She lay down, her head coming to rest squarely in Sakurai Saki's lap.
Sakurai Saki: "..."
There has to be a biological limit to sleepiness.
"Hey. Miku. Time to wake up." He reached down and gave her cheek a gentle pinch.
"Ugh~" Her eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused, registering his face for a half-second before closing again with a sigh. Soft, rhythmic breathing resumed almost immediately.
Saki came to a realization. Beyond their shared academic struggles, the Nakano Quintuplets each possessed uniquely troublesome daily habits.
Nino: Pathologically averse to wearing her glasses in public; vanity as a core personality trait.
Ichika: A sleepwear nihilist and a dedicated agent of romantic chaos.
Miku: Transforms into an affectionate, clingy creature when half-asleep.
Yotsuba: Incapable of saying 'no,' a doormat with the heart of a golden retriever.
Itsuki: A stomach with a girl attached, her love for meat buns a thermodynamic wonder.
They were, collectively, a management nightmare.
With an internal sigh, he bookmarked his novel. It seemed his job description was expanding in real-time: from Tutor to Emergency Lap Pillow to Nighttime Transport.
Well, I've already carried Nino.
His movements were practiced now. He slid one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, and lifted her with ease. She nestled into his chest with a soft, contented murmur. He carried her upstairs, pushed open her bedroom door with his foot, and carefully laid her on the bed…
"…."
Her hand, small but surprisingly strong, had fisted tightly in the fabric of his shirt.
"Miku. You're awake, aren't you?"
Silence. Her breathing remained deep and even—a masterful performance.
Left with no other option, he resorted to the cheek pinch again. This time, she reacted. Her face puffed out adorably in her sleep, like a hamster indignantly storing seeds.
So, they can express annoyance while unconscious. Noted.
After a brief, careful struggle to disentangle himself, he finally slipped free and exited her room, closing the door softly behind him.
Standing in the dim hallway, he processed the night's events. His résumé had unofficially gained a new line: On-Call Quintuplet Babysitter & Logistics Specialist.
Somehow, this felt like a lateral move from tutoring.
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