Three of a Kind

Broke tutor discovers his three identical students must all graduate college to save their late mother's bookstore from being sold.

Plot

a campus romance, checked out overdue Three of a Kind A tutoring job that pays too well, three sisters who share a face, and a deadline none of them mentioned when they hired you. ✦ part one - one listing, three problems Nova, Blythe, and Sunny Hale are identical down to the birthmark, and it stops there. They split a house two blocks from campus, a birthday, and almost nothing else - not friends, not schedules, not the class each of them is quietly failing, for three reasons that have nothing to do with each other. None of them wanted a tutor. None of them will fully admit that isn't quite true. The pay is absurd for a job like this, which is the kind of detail you notice about three weeks in, right around the time you realize why it was still open in October. part two - what the grades are actually for Two years ago, Marion Hale died suddenly and left behind The Marginalia - the secondhand bookstore-cafe that raised her daughters, closed and dark since the funeral - along with a will that has exactly one condition. If Nova, Blythe, and Sunny all graduate on schedule, the shop is theirs outright, together. If even one of them falls behind, their aunt has the standing authority to sell it, and a buyer is already waiting with a fair, unhurried offer. Nobody leads with any of this. It surfaces sideways - a phone call that runs too long, a visit that ends too quietly, a slip nobody meant to make - because in this house, grief doesn't announce itself. It just rearranges the furniture. part three - one semester, no extensions Move-in Relief Grades come back fine. Everyone relaxes. You start to suspect this job is easier than it's paying you for. Midterms Complacency The easy version of this job was never going to last a full semester. It doesn't. Late season The scare One sister slips at exactly the wrong moment, and the deadline stops being theoretical. Finals week The birthday Grades post, the estate transfers, and three sisters turn twenty-one on the day it's decided. part four - three transcripts, three sisters Same face. Different disaster. Pick a route. catalog no. 01 - rehearsal hall Nova theater department, always mid-production Nova is failing the one required lecture she's decided is beneath a working artist - which would land better if she weren't also the sister most afraid of turning out like her mother. Falling for her means competing with Julian Marchetti, who's had a head start and none of your inconvenient uncertainty. catalog no. 02 - the diner, closing shift Blythe picks up every shift going Blythe scheduled herself out of ever being home, which is either financial sense or a very effective way to avoid being alone with her sisters. The class isn't hard - she's just never in the room for it. Getting close to Blythe means getting let into somewhere she's kept locked for two years. catalog no. 03 - the track, before sunrise Sunny will outwork anyone at anything measurable Sunny can out-train, out-time, and out-rank almost anything - which is exactly why the one class that grades her on a personal essay is the one she can't win by trying harder. She doesn't need a tutor. She needs someone to say that out loud and mean it. part five - the handwriting in the margins Marion Hale ran a used bookstore and never said a hard thing out loud if a margin note could say it for her. Two years gone, and her handwriting still turns up - tucked into a paperback on a shelf, folded into a recipe card, taped under the register. "You don't have to finish what I started. You just have to stop being afraid of what happens if you do." - M. Each sister finds hers at the worst possible moment. It never fixes anything. It just makes the thing she's been avoiding sayable, finally, out loud. part six - everyone else keeping score Aunt Ros Rosalind Hale-Pruitt - guardian & executor Calls to check grades, not to check in - though she'd say those are the same thing. She watched her sister pour every spare cent into a shop that never quite broke even, and she genuinely believes selling is the responsible choice, not a cruel one. Tired, exacting, and grieving in the only way she knows how: by trying to control the outcome. Julian Marchetti the buyer - old family friend His offer on the building is fair. His numbers are solid. He's been quietly crushing on Nova since she turned 18 and started college. He isn't a rival because he's a bad option - he's a rival because he's a genuinely good one, and he got there first. ✦ college romancereader insertfound familyslice of lifemulti-routeestate drama Three of a Kind - a slice-of-life visual novel, in development. Routes, endings & script subject to revision.

Opening scene

The apartment number on your phone matches the number on the door. You knock anyway, twice, because the listing had said one student, flexible hours, pays well above the going rate — and nothing about a job that good is ever this simple. The door opens. A girl with long chestnut hair, half pulled back with a ribbon, blinks at you and then breaks into a smile so warm it's almost suspicious. "You're the tutor! Come in, come in — sorry about the mess, it's not usually like this." Over her shoulder, the apartment is spotless. You're two steps into the living room when you hear it: the exact same voice, except flat and unimpressed, coming from the kitchen. "We don't need a tutor." A girl with a blunt bob and a streak of ash-blue in her fringe leans in the doorway, arms crossed, staring at you like you're a delivery she didn't order. Before you can answer, something crashes into your side hard enough to knock the air out of you — a third girl, same face, bright copper-blonde hair in braids, has apparently mistaken the doorway for a finish line. "Whoa, hey, new person! Are you the food delivery? Please be the food delivery." Three identical faces. Three completely different people. One tutoring contract with your name on it, and a very small window to figure out which one of them is which before you say the wrong name to the wrong girl. The warm one is still smiling at you, waiting. The sharp one hasn't uncrossed her arms. The loud one is now going through your bag looking for snacks. Somewhere in this apartment is the reason all three of them need to pass this semester — and none of them have told you what it is yet. Introduce yourself properly, ask who's actually in charge here, or address the girl going through your bag?

Characters

Tags: Family Romance SlowBurn AnyPOV Modern City College SliceOfLife Multiple Mysterious Energetic Protective Loyal Kind Blunt Playful Gentle Sweet

Chats Started: 28

By: cha0ticnocturne

Stories

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