Shin-chan found a ramen shop.
"Eight bowls of the house-special ramen, all with extra chashu!"
"Coming right up!"
When the ramen was served, the aroma of steaming broth filled the small shop.
The children lowered their heads and slurped away at their noodles.
Halfway through the meal, the Uchiha boy who had spoken first suddenly raised his head.
"Um... my older brother said the Senju all hate us."
The table fell silent.
The Senju children stopped moving their chopsticks.
"My father also said the Uchiha are all arrogant," a Senju boy quietly said.
Another silence followed.
Then Shin-chan raised his chopsticks.
"My dad says ramen has to be eaten while it's hot. It doesn't taste good once it gets cold."
The children froze.
"Right." The Uchiha boy picked up his chopsticks again. "Let's finish the noodles first."
"Mm!"
The sound of slurping filled the shop once more.
After they finished eating, Shin-chan took out his wallet. It contained the activity funds Tobirama had given him in advance, and he paid the bill.
By the time they walked out of the ramen shop, the seven children had already become familiar with one another.
Before they separated, the Uchiha boy suddenly called out to the Senju girl.
"Hey."
"Mm?"
"Next time... I'll treat you to my family's dango." The boy's face reddened. "The dango my mother makes are the most delicious in the whole world."
The girl's eyes lit up. "Okay. Then I'll treat you to my family's chocolate sticks too."
"Mm."
The children each returned home.
Shin-chan stood where he was, watching their retreating backs. He suddenly felt as though the taste of ramen still lingered in his mouth.
Sweetness mixed with saltiness, and saltiness mixed with savoury richness.
Just like this village.
"How did it go?" Hashirama's voice came from behind him.
Shin-chan turned and saw Hashirama and Tobirama standing at the entrance of the alley.
"It worked." Shin-chan made a victory sign. "Seven bowls of ramen in exchange for seven friends."
Hashirama did not speak. He merely stared for a long time in the direction where the children had disappeared.
"Do you think they'll still be friends after they grow up?"
"Not necessarily," Tobirama said. "Reality is complicated. One meal of ramen cannot change everything."
"But at least today, they were friends," Shin-chan said from beside them. "And as long as they remember how the ramen tasted today, even if they argue in the future, they'll think, 'That person once ate ramen with me.' Then maybe they won't fight."
Tobirama remained silent for a long time.
"Perhaps."
Hashirama patted Shin-chan on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go back and eat chocolate sticks. I heard they made pudding today too."
"Really?"
"Really."
That night, Tobirama sat inside his study for a long time.
A development plan for the village's future lay spread across the desk. Beside the words "Food Street," he drew a red circle.
Then he wrote a small line of text next to it.
Proposed compulsory ninja-academy subjects: Ramen Appreciation and Chocolate-Stick Diplomacy.
After finishing, he stared at the words, and the corner of his mouth moved slightly.
Almost as if he were smiling.
The moon outside the window was bright, and the sky was filled with stars.
Tobirama suddenly remembered something from many years ago, when he and his brother were still fighting on battlefields.
One night, Hashirama had looked up at the sky and said, "Tobirama, once the war ends, I want to build an observatory in the village."
At the time, Tobirama had asked, "Why?"
"Children should look at stars instead of the flash of blades," his brother had said. "Stars don't kill people. They only shine."
In the end, that observatory had never been built.
But now, Tobirama felt that perhaps they no longer needed one.
As long as they had chocolate sticks and ramen, the children could find their own stars.
Tobirama stood and walked to the window.
He suddenly understood why Shin-chan had travelled back to this era.
It was not because of how powerful the child was, nor because of how many ninjutsu he knew.
It was because he remembered how to smile, how to share, and how to find the possibility of reconciliation inside a bowl of ramen.
And those were precisely the things Konoha lacked most.
...
The following afternoon.
"Uncle Tobirama, have you ever thought about something?"
Tobirama lowered the scroll in his hands and looked at Shin-chan, who was lying beneath the veranda while chewing on a chocolate stick.
That opening line usually meant the conversation was about to sprint wildly in some unpredictable direction. After spending so much time together, Tobirama had learned to prepare himself mentally in advance.
"What?"
"You work, train, work, and train every day. You've never taken even one day off." Shin-chan rolled over. "In our era, that's called overwork, and it needs to be treated."
"I do not require treatment."
"You do." Shin-chan shook his head. "Symptoms of overwork include, but are not limited to, having a bad temper, a stiff expression, losing interest in sweets, and frowning whenever you see other people having fun. Uncle Tobirama, you have several of those symptoms."
Tobirama stared at him expressionlessly.
"See? You're frowning again." Shin-chan pointed at his brow. "That's a classic symptom of overwork."
Tobirama picked up his scroll again, but before he could read two lines, Shin-chan's voice drifted over once more.
"Do you want to go fishing?"
"What?"
"Fishing." Shin-chan sat up and gestured with both hands. "You throw a fishing line into the water, then sit there doing nothing. You keep doing nothing until a fish bites, then pull it up and go back to doing nothing."
"I know what fishing is," Tobirama said. "What I don't understand is why we should go."
"Because today is a rest day."
"There is no such thing as a rest day."
"There is starting today." Shin-chan stood up. "Grandpa Third said that people who know how to rest can work properly. People who don't know how to rest eventually become workaholics, and once they become workaholics, their hair starts falling out."
Tobirama instinctively remembered the few extra strands of hair he had found in his comb lately.
"Come on, come on." Shin-chan had already reached the courtyard gate and was waving at him. "I asked the kitchen auntie earlier. She said there are lots of fish in the river behind the mountain. She even gave me two rice balls to use as bait."
"Rice balls as bait?"
"One is bait, and the other is a snack." Shin-chan patted his ninja tool pouch. "The only difference between bait and a snack is how you use it. Fundamentally, they're both rice balls."
Tobirama wanted to say that those were completely different things, but experience had taught him that arguing definitions with Shin-chan was a waste of time.
He remained silent for several seconds, then put down the scroll and stood.
"Let's go."
Shin-chan's eyes lit up. "Uncle Tobirama has finally learned how to live."
"I'm only going to make sure you don't fall into the river."
The river behind the mountain glittered beneath the sunlight.
Shin-chan found a shaded spot beneath a large tree. He planted the two bamboo fishing rods borrowed from the kitchen auntie into the ground, then took two clumps of rice from his ninja tool pouch and moulded them around the hooks.
"Here's your fishing rod, Uncle Tobirama."
Tobirama accepted the bamboo rod and sat on one of the tree's roots.
It had been a very, very long time since he had sat beside a river and done absolutely nothing.
The last time had probably been with his brother. Konoha had not yet been founded then, and what they discussed by the river was not fishing, but their uncertainty about the future.
"The trick to fishing is not thinking too much." Shin-chan cast his hook into the water. "If you think too much, the fish will sense your anxiety and swim away."
"Fish cannot sense anxiety."
"How do you know? You're not a fish."
Tobirama shook his head, realising he had once again been dragged into Shin-chan's circular logic.
~~~
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