The road wasn't very long, and the two of them soon arrived at the entrance of Ichiraku Ramen. At this time, Uncle Ichiraku still looked quite young, and Sister Ayame was just a little kid like herself. Strangely, though, Hiatohi had never seen Uncle Ichiraku's wife.
"Uncle, one large pork bone ramen split into two bowls, please!" Hiatohi called out with practiced familiarity. She really wanted to eat a whole large bowl by herself—that would be much more satisfying—but at her age, there was simply no way she could finish one. She had to admit that the ramen here was seriously amazing; otherwise, how could Naruto love this place so much? Her own mom was also a huge fan of the ramen here. Ah, what a wonderful coincidence.
"Little Momoko, oh, alrighty." Uncle Ichiraku looked down at Hiatohi, then stepped out from behind the counter, preparing to lift Hiatohi onto a stool when he noticed Itachi standing beside her.
"Oh? Is this little Momoko's little boyfriend?"
"What?" Hiatohi was completely dumbfounded. Uncle, could your words possibly be any more absurd? They were just two pint-sized kids, and you're already talking about boyfriends and girlfriends? Uncle, you really have quite an imagination. You should quit this gig and go open a restaurant; I guarantee you could outdo New Oriental and start your own culinary empire.
"Boyfriend?" Itachi tilted his head in confusion. What did that mean?
Hiatohi hurriedly stepped in front of Itachi and said to Uncle Ichiraku, "Uncle, hurry up and make the ramen, don't go corrupting little kids here."
"Huh? Alright, but little Momoko, are you sure you don't need my help? Can you get up onto the stool by yourself?"
"I can, I can!"
Hiatohi waved her hands and pushed Uncle Ichiraku back behind the counter. Uncle Ichiraku walked back looking half-convinced. Hmm? Come to think of it, it was strange that little Momoko had come here all by herself today, and that boy looked like he belonged to the Uchiha clan—that fan crest on his back was far too obvious.
"Hiatohi, what is a boyfriend?" Itachi blinked his big eyes, looking at Hiatohi with pure curiosity.
Hiatohi slapped a hand to her forehead and patted his shoulder. "KAMISAMA, the Immortal Realm does not permit romantic relationships, so you probably don't have a chance to be anyone's boyfriend anyway."
That was the absolute truth. According to the mentality of shonen manga authors, someone who looked this cool, handsome, and overwhelmingly powerful would never be assigned a canon pairing—otherwise, how else would they attract the gaze of female fans? It was just like celebrity hype in the entertainment industry. If you had a girlfriend, how could you manufacture scandal? Without scandals, how could you stay popular? Besides, to broaden their readership, the authors would definitely resort to fanservice, and things like *bl* were practically inevitable.
Lately, forbidden family tropes seemed to be all the rage, along with age-gap dynamics—if you could think it, fanfiction writers could ship it. Lin Daiyu could fall in love with Voldemort, so why couldn't Uchiha Itachi engage in a little incestuous subtext?
"Hiatohi, could you please not call me KAMISAMA? It just feels rather strange." A deity—yet he was no god.
"Well, I can't really call you Itatchi-chan either; it feels like we're super close or something."
Hiatohi wasn't lying. Although she hadn't studied much Japanese, after watching so many years of anime, she had picked up a thing or two. In Japanese culture, people who weren't close wouldn't use each other's given names; they generally addressed one another by their surnames. But here in the world of Hokage, if you yelled out "Yo, Uchiha!" on the main street, a whole crowd would turn around, which was why people started calling each other by their first names instead. Besides, everyone here grew up together as childhood friends, so naturally they could use first names when they were close. But Hiatohi felt that she and Itachi weren't close at all. Moreover, given how tragic Sasuke's fate would be, she could never bring herself to call him "Itachi" or "Itachi-chan" with any degree of intimacy.
Does she not want to be close to me? Itachi furrowed his brow slightly.
"The noodles are ready, Hiatohi. Are you really sure you don't need me to lift you up?" Uncle Ichiraku looked down at the two little toddlers who were still shorter than the counter.
"Thank you, really, I don't need it." Relying on sheer stubborn willpower, Hiatohi grabbed the crossbar of the stool and painstakingly hauled herself up. Just as she was about to show off to Itachi beside her, she found that he had already been sitting there quietly for goodness knows how long.
"You—how did you get up?" Hiatohi was completely speechless. She had considered herself quite an expert at climbing onto stools, but this little brat was somehow even more impressive than her. Tell me, how much real money did you spend on this game!
"I jumped up," Itachi said with a deadpan expression. "Is something wrong? Was it difficult?"
Hiatohi turned her head away and snapped her chopsticks apart. A wave of indignation washed over her—it wasn't fair to bully people like this! This Uchiha Itachi was simply a walking cheat code, there was no way to win against him. She took a deep breath. "I'm digging in." And she certainly wasn't going to hold back. She was about to channel all her sorrow and frustration into pure appetite; this world was simply too unfair.
Itachi glanced sideways at Hiatohi, who was making quite a clatter beside her. Only then did he notice the red birthmark under her left eye. It looked strangely familiar. Was it because they had slept on the same futon earlier? For some reason, though, Itachi thought that birthmark looked quite pretty.
"It's pretty."
"Huh? What?" Hiatohi raised her head, looking at him in confusion with a strand of noodles still dangling from her mouth. What was pretty? Was he talking about her? Well, that was actually a bit embarrassing, though she didn't really feel it.
"That... it looks nice." Itachi reached out and touched the area beneath his own left eye, then, as if suddenly remembering something, said in a flustered tone, "Sorry." He wasn't very good with words, it seemed.
Hiatohi didn't mind too much. "I'll just take that as a compliment. Hurry up and eat, or it'll get cold and won't taste as good." So please don't talk to her while she was eating noodles; every single second wasted could cause this half-bowl of meticulously crafted Ichiraku Ramen to lose its value.
"Yeah." Itachi began to eat as well. For some reason, he felt that this bowl of noodles was the most delicious one he had ever tasted. Perhaps it was because Uncle Ichiraku's culinary skills were truly exceptional, or perhaps it was because the person sharing the noodles with him was Namikaze Hiatohi.
Perhaps this was what his mother called an affinity at first sight.