Three-Color Dango and a Tsundere Mouth

After draping his outer robe over Anko's shoulders, it took her about three minutes to move herself off the rock and onto level ground.

Her legs were still weak. She walked with the unsteady air of someone who had survived a disaster, stumbling twice on the pine needles beneath her feet.

Chiba did not reach out to support her, and Anko did not turn around to ask him to.

A subtle distance remained between them—about an arm's length. Neither took the initiative to narrow it or widen it.

Wearing Chiba's oversized short robe, Anko sat down at the base of an intact pine tree beside the hot spring. Leaning against the trunk, she panted heavily and balled up her tattered trench coat beneath her as a cushion.

Chiba sat on a rock three meters away. He untied a small sealing scroll from his belt, rubbed it with his fingers, and a puff of white smoke rose. A square wooden box dropped into his palm.

"What's that?"

Chiba tossed the box over. Anko caught it one-handed, turned it over in her hand, and pushed open the lid with her thumb.

Three skewers of three-color dango were neatly arranged inside, their pink, white, and green colors clearly separated. The bamboo skewers had been wiped spotless, and the dango still gleamed with the fresh sheen of glutinous rice.

Anko's expression changed.

Not a slight change. It leaped straight from exhaustion and wariness to disbelief.

"You carry three-color dango around with you?"

"I bought them from an old shop on Tanzaku Street. They were sealed in a scroll to preserve their freshness. The taste differs from freshly made ones by no more than five percent."

Anko stared at the dango in the box, then looked up at Chiba, then lowered her eyes to the dango again.

"How did you know I like these?"

"Senior Mitarashi, every time you return to the village after a mission, the first thing you do is report to the dango shop on Tanzaku Street. It's clearly recorded in Konoha ANBU's dynamic patrol logs."

"You even read ANBU patrol logs?"

"The Senju Clan has its own information channels."

Anko's mouth twitched. She lowered her head, pulled out the first skewer, and took a bite.

The pink dango broke apart in her mouth. The sweetness of glutinous rice and the fragrance of red bean paste burst across her tongue. Her chewing went from cautious with the first bite to faster with the second, and by the third, she stuffed the entire dango into her mouth.

"Good?"

With her mouth full of dango, Anko gave a muffled one-word reply.

"Mm."

Chiba leaned against the rock and watched her eat, his eyes curving slightly.

Anko finished the first skewer in less than two minutes. With the bamboo stick hanging from her mouth, she reached for the second.

After taking it, she paused. Pulling the stick from her mouth, she tilted her head and looked at Chiba.

"Senju Chiba."

"I'm here."

"You're an interesting person."

"In what way?"

"First, you recklessly jumped into the hot spring and pinned down a jōnin whose curse mark had gone out of control. You pumped her full of chakra to suppress it. Then you sat beside her and pulled out dango to treat her."

Anko bit into a white dango and chewed a few times.

"Are you really not afraid of dying, or is there something wrong with your brain?"

"People who fear death wouldn't return to Konoha."

"Quit evading the question." Anko stuffed the second dango into her mouth, one cheek puffing out. "Tell me—when you had me pinned by the neck in the water just now, did your hand slide somewhere else?"

"Your chakra pathways form a straight line from the cervical vertebrae to the lumbar vertebrae. My chakra advanced along that line. My hand never changed position."

"Your hand might not have moved, but your arm wasn't exactly well-behaved. It was squeezing my waist, and it's not like I couldn't feel it."

Chiba's expression did not change.

"Senior Mitarashi, when you were convulsing and thrashing around in the water, if I hadn't held your waist, the back of your head would have struck the pebbles at the bottom of the hot spring. Would you rather have a concussion or be held around the waist?"

Anko's chewing slowed for half a beat, and the bamboo stick in her mouth turned the other way.

"I'll admit you have a point."

She ate the final green dango from the second skewer, tossed the stick into the grass beside her, and picked up the third.

"Senju Chiba, that proposal you mentioned earlier."

"Yeah?"

"Become your personal guard at the Senju Main Residence, and you'll handle suppressing my curse mark, as well as my supplies and salary."

"That's right."

Anko pointed the third skewer toward Chiba, its sharp tip aimed at his nose.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"I'm twenty-four."

"So?"

"I'm supposed to be the guard of a brat nine years younger than me? Where am I supposed to put my face if word gets out?"

Chiba rose to his feet and walked over. He reached out and nudged aside the hand holding her dango so the skewer would not poke his nostril.

"Senior Mitarashi, where is your face now? You're wearing my coat, eating my dango, sitting beside the hot spring I found. I just filled your body with chakra, and the curse mark on your neck has behaved itself for the first time in twenty years."

Anko opened her mouth, but could not find the words to refute him.

Chiba crouched down to meet her eyes, neither too close nor too far away.

"Instead of worrying about your pride, you should do the math. How much do you earn each month under the Hokage's direct command? After the compensation for damage caused by your curse mark episodes is deducted from your A-rank mission bonuses, how much is left? And the next time it flares up, will there be anyone beside you who can suppress it before you lose control?"

Anko stopped chewing.

Chiba held up three fingers.

"Come to the Senju Main Residence, and I'll solve all three problems. Your salary will double. I'll cover the compensation. I'll cleanse your curse mark regularly. You only need to do one thing."

"What?"

"Protect the Senju Clan's safety, and provide close-combat support at my side when necessary. You're an A-rank special jōnin. Close-quarters combat and infiltration are your strengths. This job would be as easy as breathing for you."

The dango in Anko's mouth was finally chewed through. When she swallowed, her Adam's apple visibly bobbed.

She stared into Chiba's eyes for a full ten seconds.

Chiba did not blink or urge her.

Anko pulled the bamboo stick from her mouth and wedged it into a crack in the pine bark beside her.

"You little brat."

"Yeah?"

"I haven't finished settling the matter of where your hands went in the water. But for the dango and the curse mark, deal."

Anko extended her right hand.

Chiba took it.

Anko's palm was dry and warm, and her grip was stronger than that of an ordinary jōnin. Calluses from years of using kunai and shuriken covered her palm.

"But there's one condition." Anko did not release Chiba's hand. "If you dare call me a 'wild mare' in the Senju Main Residence, I swear I'll stuff snakes into your pillow while you sleep."

"Deal."

Chiba released her hand and sat back down on the rock beside her. Leaning against their respective rock and tree trunk, they watched the last wisps of white steam drift away from the hot spring's surface in the gathering dusk.

Anko lowered her eyes to the left side of her neck and gently touched the curse mark with her fingers.

For the first time in twenty years, it was this quiet.

She did not say it aloud, but Chiba read it from the movement of her fingers and the relaxed line of her shoulders.