"What do I think?"
Facing the earnest gazes of the three men, Chiba blinked. His chopsticks paused slightly as they reached for the special grilled meat. He looked up and spoke.
At a time like this, he was still playing dumb?
The three of them were speechless.
They had thought that since Chiba had brought up the subject, he would at least discuss it openly. They had not expected him to keep pretending not to understand even now.
That was a little unreasonable.
Even if he was Chiba, he did not need to be this annoying.
"Yes! You already figured it out, so we won't hide it anymore. What do you think?"
After a series of thoughts flashed through their minds, the three of them did not bother with any tricks and asked directly.
"What do you think of our students' performance?"
At the end, as if afraid Chiba might not understand, they added another sentence.
They knew very well that this was no time to beat around the bush. They needed to be open and straightforward, to put things in the plainest possible terms. Ideally, they would write it out in katakana with detailed annotations. Otherwise, Chiba might very well play dumb and brush them off.
Now that they had put it so plainly, without a hint of pretense, even Chiba could not change the subject or find a chance to fool them.
"Uh..."
Faced with such open, blunt words that did not even care about saving face, just as the three had expected, Chiba could not come up with anything to brush them off besides surprise.
To be honest, he knew perfectly well that when Kakashi and the others had asked what he thought, they meant their students' performances. He had indeed been deliberately playing dumb, even expecting