NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Chapter 21
When Yuta opens the garden gate, he meets a girl who gives him a very familiar impression. As Yuta tried to remember who she was, she observed him silently for a while and opened her mouth.
"Good morning, I'm Shizune and you must be Yuta. I saw you at school."
Yuta looked at the cute girl with black eyes and black hair. Yuta wondered why Shizune wasn't there when he first started staying with Tsunade, but he was too busy pretending he couldn't speak and forgot about it later.
"Uh, nice to meet you. Are you here for Tsunade? She doesn't get up at this hour."
"I know, but I'll get her up." With those words, Yuta stepped back from the doorway and let Shizune in.
As Shizune walked towards the house, Tsunade came out of the house with disheveled clothes.
"Oh, Shizunee are you already here?"
Yuta saw that Tsunade was also waiting for Shizune. "Tsunade-sensei aren't you going to introduce me?"
Tsunade was preparing to use ninjutsu to dig out the bottles of alcohol she had buried in the garden on Yuta's advice when she heard Yuta's words and froze. "I didn't tell you about Shizune before, did I?"
"Absolutely no."
Meanwhile, Shizune joined the conversation in a barely audible voice. "Tsunade-same, when I found out that there was someone with the surname Senju at school, I investigated and found out who Yuta was myself"
Shizune's words betrayed her reproach, but neither her tone nor the way she addressed Tsunade showed it.
Realizing that she had forgotten to tell the two of them about each other all this time, Tsunade sighed and used a large amount of chakra to create an earth-type ninjutsu, which was not her specialty. Unfortunately, since earth-type ninjutsu was not her specialty, it cost a lot of chakra and in return did nothing but bring bottles of alcohol from the ground to the surface.
Of course, as soon as Tsunade picked up the bottle of alcohol, which was stored under the ground at the temperature it should have been, she decided that the chakra she had spent had been well spent. It was neither too cold, which would burn her hand to hold the glass bottle, nor too hot, which would make her feel the taste of medicine as she drank.
The agitation hiding in the depths of Tsunade's eyes was dissipated by the sensation of the bottle of alcohol. It was at this moment that Tsunade saw the plastic chairs, which were covered with hoarfrost because they were shaded by the garden wall.
As if this gave her an excuse, she forced her messy hair behind her head with one hand before turning around and telling the two kids standing side by side that it was too cold outside. "Let's go inside and have breakfast."
Yuta accepted Tsunade's offer and gave Tsunade one last look before heading inside with Shizune. He didn't have many friends from his previous life and was always advised by his relatives to be a little more humane, but that didn't mean he was too stupid to not see the sadness in Tsunade's eyes.
"Pretty ladies first," Yuta said with a shameless grin as he held the door to the house as if he hadn't noticed her sadness. Yuta even guessed that when she saw Shizune, she remembered her old friend who had died on her hands. Maybe he would have been much more than a friend if he had lived a little longer, Yuta thought, but he didn't dare to be happy about it. He had become a curse only in body, after all.
Tsunade heard Yuta's words as she passed through the door, so she took the alcohol in her left hand, which she pressed against her chest with both hands, while she raised her right hand to hammer Yuta's head and entered the house, ignoring the whining behind her. Tsunade's mood was greatly improved by this small gesture. At the same time, Yuta felt a small sense of accomplishment because what he had done was unexpected even for him. If he had seen such a situation in his previous life, he would have watched from a corner as a third person, not knowing what to do.
Fortunately, Shizune, the only real child in the room, was not aware that Tsunade was going through such a fragile psychological phase that she was upset to see her. If she had realized this, she would never have been able to muster the courage to look Tsunade in the face again, and she would not have been the one to discipline Tsunade again in the future.
Tsunade, Yuta, and Shizune sat around the kitchen's centerpiece, the small round dining table, and waited in silence for a while. The silence lasted until Yuta gave up and decided to crack eggs for breakfast. A silent battle of who will prepare breakfast...
Meanwhile, Shizune's tension level continued to rise every second, not understanding what was going on. Shizune had lived with Tsunade for a while after her uncle died, but when she started ninja school two years ago, she decided to live on her own in the house she inherited from her uncle. And even though her life was usually quiet, it was only because she was alone.
There were three of them in a small kitchen, but the only sound was coming from the hot oil. Finally, Shizune couldn't take it anymore. "Tsunade-sama, I came to visit you so early to ask if you're coming to watch me and Yuta in the competition today."
Of course, Tsunade, who never left her house as much as possible and didn't talk to anyone even if she did, was not aware of the competition and looked menacingly at Yuta's back out of the corner of her eye. She had already told Yuta to let her know when there was an important event, so why was she learning about this competition from Shizune now?