Night fell.
Yanbai sat in his own Hot Springs pool, staring blankly at the scene before him.
The artificial hot spring soaked his skin, and steam blurred his vision.
Yanbai never took his eyes off Madara Uchiha, who sat a short distance away, likewise soaking in the Hot Springs pool.
Amid the gentle sound of running water, Yanbai asked Madara Uchiha a sincere question.
"Madara, ever since you returned to the shinobi world, you've joined me in the bath every day whenever I bathe. Don't you feel any shame?"
"Didn't you say you were a man? What's there to be ashamed of between two men?" Madara Uchiha looked at Yanbai calmly, his gaze lowered, taking in the view as naturally as could be.
Yanbai was speechless.
For several days now, Madara Uchiha had calmly bathed with him like this, showing neither disgust nor any other reaction. The way he looked at Yanbai was like someone admiring a beautiful work of art.
"So, are you trying to tell me you're not actually a man now? Do you feel ashamed when I look at you like this every day?" Madara Uchiha lowered his eyelids, never meeting Yanbai's gaze, as though unwilling to look him in the eye.
"Yes. I don't like it," Yanbai said honestly.
To tell the truth, being stared at by Madara Uchiha like this made Yanbai feel nothing at all.
"What a surprise. You don't like it, but you still stubbornly insist you're a man." Madara Uchiha cupped a handful of water in both hands and let it trickle slowly through his fingers.
Yanbai: "..."
It was truly frustrating when no one believed the plain truth.
And to think he had taken such pains to hide it back then. Had he known, he would have broken with Madara right