"Long Yan, Anna, come down and eat!"
As he watched the meat broth bubbling in the pot ahead, its mouthwatering aroma continually wafting into his nose, the Bearded Man, now knowing it was edible, called up to the boy and girl sitting on the branches overhead.
"We'll talk about the rest after we eat."
Hada Ryuhiko glanced at the Bearded Man, then said this to Hada Anna, who had already started drooling.
"Okay!"
Hearing this, Hada Anna, whose mouth had long been watering from the aroma drifting up to her, leaped straight down from the branch without a second thought. With a bang, she left two little footprints in the ground, then took the large bowl of meat broth A'ju handed her and began gulping it down.
She paid no heed at all to how scalding hot the broth was.
It was as though temperature simply did not exist for her mouth.
However, everyone seemed accustomed to her fearlessness toward piping-hot soup and showed no strange reaction.
A'ju quickly ladled out a second bowl and handed it to Hada Ryuhiko, who had slowly braced himself against the trunk as he landed.
"Thank you, Sister A'ju."
Hada Ryuhiko took the bowl and thanked her without thinking.
As if he had never said those earlier words at all.
A'ju, however, did not show any sign of caring. She ladled meat broth for everyone else one by one and passed it around.
Still, after the last person took their bowl, a trace of blush and panic ultimately flickered across her face.
But she concealed it in the end, and no one noticed.
That lord from Kumogakure...?
I never thought...
Someone like that would have feelings for Kazuha...
Holding her own bowl of meat broth, she sat quietly beside the pot, this uneasy thought