Nothing wrong with that

Uzumaki Hayashi took a deep breath and swallowed the angry words on the tip of his tongue.

Forget it. Why bother arguing with a little brat?

He turned, walked over to the shoes he had kicked off, and bent down to pick them up. He gave the soles a couple of firm pats, then, once they were clean, stood on one leg and slipped them back on one at a time. He stamped his feet a few times.

Over to the side, Sasuke Uchiha still had his head turned away, his neck rigid, not daring to move.

Only after a long while did he squeeze a few words through his teeth:

"H-have you finished getting dressed?"

"I've got them on," Uzumaki Hayashi replied irritably. "They're shoes, not clothes. What the hell are you thinking?"

Sasuke: "..."

"All right, you can turn your head back now."

Sasuke still did not move.

"I came out in the middle of the night to practice ninjutsu. This is all I'm wearing." Uzumaki Hayashi spread his hands. "I don't have any other clothes. Look or don't, whatever you want. If you don't want to look, you can turn around and leave right now."

Sasuke Uchiha froze for a moment.

He didn't have any other clothes?

By the moonlight, he took another look at the boy.

He wore thin sleepwear, its fabric washed soft. The sleeves were too short, ending barely two finger-widths above his wrists and exposing a stretch of slender arm. It clearly did not fit him.

He wore a pair of shoes with the heels trodden down, which slapped against his feet as he walked. He held a scroll against his chest. Beyond that, he had nothing else on him.

Alone, in the middle of the night, he had come to the training ground on the edge of the village to practice ninjutsu.

Sasuke was exactly that sort of person himself.

After the clan compound had emptied, he ate alone, slept alone, and went to the training ground alone, practicing until the moon sank toward the west before going home. He did not care whether the villagers looked at him with pity or unease. All he wanted was power.

And the boy before him had no parents, no clothes, and was still poring over a B-rank scroll in the dead of night-

The sheer weight of that chakra earlier had been enough to leave him struggling to stand.

Someone who did not seek power could never possess something like that, nor could they possess such strength.

As Sasuke looked at him, an indescribable feeling suddenly rose in his chest.

He suddenly realized something-this boy was exactly like him.

Neither had family. Both were alone. Both fought desperately to grow stronger in the depths of the night.

As though, if they ran fast enough and became strong enough, they could leave all that emptiness behind them.

Suddenly, he felt that shouting "Stay away from me" earlier had been a little too harsh.

Sasuke Uchiha pressed his lips together and slowly turned his head back. His neck moved stiffly, as though he had spent ages wrestling with himself.

For the first time, he intended to truly look at the boy before him.

The moonlight was just right.

Having just put his shoes on, the boy had his head lowered, lazily brushing stray bits of grass off his legs with one hand.

Red hair fell from his shoulders, its ends swaying gently with the motion of his hand. Moonlight settled over it, coating it in a thin, almost translucent sheen.

As though sensing his gaze, the boy stopped and raised his face.

His features were delicate, but his eyelashes were long. Moonlight fell into his eyes, making them shine like a spring deep in the mountains, clear to the bottom, yet touched with an indescribable chill.

Standing there, Sasuke met that gaze completely unprepared, and his heart gave a sudden, heavy thump.

It felt as though someone had tapped him through his chest, neither too gently nor too hard.

He did not understand what it was. He only felt the heat that had just faded creeping back up from the base of his neck.

He wanted to look away and think about something else. Training, that man-anything would do.

But those eyes shone beneath the moonlight, and no matter how he tried, he could not look away.

"You..."

Sasuke heard himself speak, his voice a little dry.

"What are you doing here?"

"Practicing ninjutsu." Without even lifting his head, Uzumaki Hayashi turned a page of the scroll. "The scroll the Third gave me today. Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere. That's it."

"Practicing alone?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't anyone teaching you?"

"I can learn it by reading the scroll. What do I need a teacher for?" Uzumaki Hayashi replied offhandedly, his voice full of impatience.

Sasuke Uchiha stood there, not knowing what to do with his hands or feet.

He could tell the other boy did not want to talk to him.

Fair enough.

If someone had thrown a kunai at him without warning in the middle of the night, then pinned him down and interrogated him, he would not have been pleasant either. He might well have fought back already.

Merely ignoring him was already showing mercy.

Sasuke clenched his fists and forced a few words out of his throat:

"About earlier..."

"I was wrong."

Having said those words, he seemed to have accomplished some monumental task. He turned and slipped into the shadows of the trees, walking twice as fast as usual.

After going quite a distance, he inexplicably glanced back once more.

The boy still sat where he had been, reading the scroll by moonlight, his fingers resting along its edge. He was quiet, as though the entire world had nothing to do with him.

A night breeze stirred Redhead's hair. The ends brushed his shoulders, then settled again.

Sasuke stared for two seconds. The sight filled him with an irritation he could not explain.

He abruptly tore his gaze away, as though dodging something scalding, then turned and walked off with quick, hurried strides, almost as if fleeing.

On the training ground, Uzumaki Hayashi's hand paused in midair as he turned the scroll.

He raised his head and stared in the direction Sasuke Uchiha had disappeared, taking a long while to recover.

He reviewed everything that had happened that night.

First, a kid named Naruto Uzumaki had told him he was good-looking.

Then the Third Hokage had arranged a whole roomful of dresses for him.

Then Sasuke Uchiha had shown up, first throwing a kunai, then interrogating him about his background. After staring at him for ages, he had suddenly apologized and run off.

Every last one of them was baffling.

Was there something wrong with Konoha that he didn't know about?

Uzumaki Hayashi thought about it for a long time without reaching any conclusion. Finally, he simply gave up, lowered his head, and went back to studying the scroll.

Just then-

[Ding-]

The system notification sounded without warning.

[B-rank ninjutsu scroll detected: Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere.]

[Analyze?]

Uzumaki Hayashi stared at the word "Analyze" and raised an eyebrow.

Analyze?

What was this supposed to be?

He asked the system in his mind, "What does analyze mean? What happens after you analyze it?"

[Please explore this yourself, host.]

"..."

Unbelievable.

That line again.

Whatever I ask, you tell me to explore it myself. Are you an incomplete system or a trial version?

The system ignored him after that. A pale blue screen hovered silently before his eyes, the two options, [Yes] and [No], blinking.

Uzumaki Hayashi stared at the two options for a long while.