Early the next morning, Sasuke made a point of getting up early.
He obediently dressed himself. Today he was once again wearing his black top and black culottes, but he had purposely added a sky-blue bow tie at the collar. It sat right below his face, very close and very bright! It would definitely make Yuka notice him immediately!
When Yuka saw it, she would surely say: "Whoa, Brother Sasuke, you look so dazzling today! So pretty! So cool!"
At this thought, Sasuke's mood when dressing and matching his clothes became even more buoyant, and he picked out his outfit with even greater enthusiasm.
In high spirits, Sasuke quickly finished tidying up and scampered with his short little legs toward the dining room. He hurried along and finally caught up with the family's breakfast time. The moment he stepped inside, he saw his father sitting at the head of the table with a rather unsightly expression.
"Father." Sasuke paused in the doorway for a second, but quickly set off again, a joyful smile blooming once more on his little face. "How do you have time to eat breakfast with us today? I haven't seen you in ages!" (Clearly they had seen each other just yesterday, but Sasuke directly ignored that, since after all he hadn't spoken to his father yesterday.)
Upon seeing Sasuke, Uchiha Fugaku's expression improved just a fraction. A warm smile appeared on his face as he opened his arms toward Sasuke: "Sasuke, do you have any plans for today?"
"Um." Sasuke threw himself into his father's arms, thought about it, and replied earnestly: "I'll do my own training first, and when Brother gets back, I'll train with him... and at noon I'll come back to eat with Yuka and Mother."
As he spoke, he looked around.
Big Brother was setting the utensils, Mom was dishing out the soup, and Yuka... Yuka's seat was empty.
Sasuke was very puzzled: "Huh? Is Yuka still not up? The sun is already shining on her bum!"
As soon as these words were uttered, Uchiha Fugaku's face darkened by another eight shades instantly.
"She has already gone out. She said she was going to eat ramen with a new friend."
"Huh?!"
Now Sasuke's face darkened too.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!!
It must be that cat-faced kid!
***
On the other side, Yuka was holding Naruto's hand with one and Momoko's hand with the other as they walked toward Ichiraku Ramen.
"I've decided!" Yuka, standing in the middle, suddenly blurted out with grand ambition.
"Huh! Decided what!" Naruto's response was extremely prompt.
Yuka eagerly raised her hand, as if about to give a thumbs-up to the sky, but since her hands were holding Naruto's and Momoko's, it dragged their hands up along with hers.
All three of them raised their hands in unison, and they heard the shortest little girl in the middle make a grand, mighty announcement: "I'm going to get a membership card at Ichiraku Ramen!! I'm going to eat here every day! I'll make the delicious Ichiraku Ramen famous far and wide! I'll let everyone in the village know that Ichiraku Ramen exists! I'm going to become the King of Ichiraku Ramen!!! Roar roar roar!"
She shouted with great enthusiasm and didn't rein in her voice at all. Her chuunibyou laughter echoed across the entire street.
People on the street cast strange or appraising glances in their direction to varying degrees.
"Are the monster's friends idiots?"
"Shh, can anyone who makes friends with a monster be a normal person? Keep it down... don't let them hear you."
"Let's go, stay away. If you hang around monsters for too long, you'll get infected!"
The voices on the street came and went intermittently. Naruto instinctively lowered his head, avoiding those probing, appraising, or contemptful gazes, but Yuka turned her head without the slightest bit of care, a pair of pitch-black eyes staring right at the people who had spoken.
She didn't speak either, just stared at them with a blank expression, and when she saw them preparing to leave, she even stopped and stood in place to watch.
As she watched, goosebumps began to rise one after another on the back of the man who had just uttered the word "monster," a trace of embarrassment involuntarily hanging on his face, making his whole body uncomfortable.
"What are you looking at?!!"
"I read in a book that only people with guilty consciences are afraid of being looked at by others. I have no guilty conscience, so naturally I'm not afraid of being looked at." Yuka seemed to have been waiting for the other party to proactively ask this question. Hearing this, she smiled sweetly, though her gaze didn't shift away. Tilting her head, her tone was utterly innocent and carefree: "Do you have a guilty conscience? Is that why you're afraid of being looked at by others? I see sweat breaking out on your head, you know."
After saying that, she looked up again at the azure sky. It was still early; even the sun had only just reached its zenith, and the sunlight hadn't yet spilled down through the clouds.
"With the weather so nice, you're sweating anyway. Your health must be poor, you should hurry to the hospital and get it checked out. Illness should be treated early."
Her expression and tone were full of concern, but the words coming out of her mouth sounded rather uncomfortable.
And uncomfortable was precisely the point.
Yuka couldn't have been happier watching the face of the person opposite her turn from green to white in waves. Humming a tune, she turned around and pulled Momoko and Naruto away, not caring at all how the other party was suffering a mental breakdown behind them, cursing angrily, or explaining to the people around him that he wasn't in bad health, but rather scared out of his wits.
None of that was Yuka's business.
There were so many people who talked about Naruto that she couldn't possibly go and speak up for him every single time; she could only pick out a couple of typical examples.
The kid who got beaten yesterday was one, and the man who was cursing today was another.
Since they were the first to take the lead in hurling insults at Naruto, they had to suffer the corresponding lesson.
However...
Yuka turned her head and tugged on Naruto's hand: "Naruto, from now on, if anyone talks about you again, you go right ahead and talk back boldly!"
"But..."
"No buts! Indecisiveness is not the style of a real man! You haven't harmed the village, nor have you done anything to hurt them. Tailed Beasts are Tailed Beasts, and you are you—these are two completely different things to begin with! Dummy! Don't let other people talk about you however they want. You don't have to talk back, but you must curse them right back! We are not going to take this lying down!" Yuka bent her finger and gave Naruto's head a fierce rap.
"Ow~!" Naruto cried out in pain as he clutched his head, shocked: "Yuka, you are so strong!"
"That goes without saying! Even though I haven't been training properly, I have the excellent genetic tradition of the Uchiha clan, and what's more, I've eaten properly every single day since I was little!" As she spoke, Yuka rolled up her sleeve, revealing an arm that wasn't particularly slender but definitely couldn't be called robust either, and tried her hardest to clench her fist, bulging out a tiny, tiny bit of bicep. "Look, books I've read say that this little bump here is called muscle! Only people with strong bodies have muscles!"
"Huh?!" Hearing this, Naruto hurriedly rolled up his short sleeve as well, clenched his fist imitating Yuka's posture, and exerted force. A little bump slightly larger than Yuka's appeared, and he instantly beamed with joy, delighted: "Yuka! Yuka, I have muscles too, hahahahaha!!"
Yuka's useless competitive spirit began to flare up again: "Hmph, how come your muscles are bigger than mine! That's unscientific! You hardly even eat proper meals!"
"Oh yeah, I always eat instant noodles... Could it be..."
The two children looked at each other, both seeing the truth in the other's eyes.
Suddenly they shouted in unison: "Instant noodles are the healthiest?!"
The topic was running further and further off track... Momoko looked up at the sky helplessly.
Yuka said indignantly: "Big Brother actually lied to me! He said instant noodles aren't healthy! He said instant noodles are fast food, and instant noodles definitely aren't as healthy as real noodles! So I've never eaten instant noodles... And yet Naruto, who eats instant noodles, is stronger than me! Damn it! Starting tomorrow, I'm going to eat instant noodles every single day!"
"Really, Yuka!" As an instant noodle connoisseur, Naruto was familiar with every single flavor of instant noodles, and he had tasted every last one of them! "Seafood flavor instant noodles are the best! Let's eat those for lunch today! They're super delicious!"
"Great! Then we'll eat them together at noon!!"