"Th-thank you for your patronage. P-please excuse us."
Several minutes after the screams erupted, Chiba, his expression slightly stiff, raised his umbrella again and left the shop he knew best in Konoha with Yukina. Behind him came the proprietress's still-disbelieving farewell.
This...
Did I... scare them? I... I didn't mean to! I'm not a ghost either! Once he stepped into the curtain of rain, Chiba's mouth twitched involuntarily. Beside him, Yukina gave a quiet chuckle. Though she could not see, she could still guess what had happened from the reactions of the shop owner and his wife.
"Honestly..."
Meanwhile, after watching Chiba and Yukina leave, the proprietress turned around and walked helplessly into the room where the steamed buns were kept. Looking at the tower-like man standing there completely frozen, she could not help but sigh.
Scenes from the moment she had seen Chiba flashed through her mind.
At the time, she had heard a customer arrive, and the voice had sounded vaguely familiar. Thinking it was a regular customer, she hurried out to greet him. But while he was indeed a regular, he was also one they had thought they would never see again.
When they had received news of this regular's death in battle, her husband had gone days without eating and lost a considerable amount of weight. Their steamed bun shop had even closed for a time.
When she saw Chiba standing there alive and well, she did not know whether she felt shock, wild joy, or panic. Forgetting that he was a customer, she immediately called out for her husband. She had been so excited that even her voice had changed.
But when her husband came out and saw him, he had instantly become like this. As though struck by lightning, as if he had seen