"Alright, that's it for the morning lesson." Teacher Ibuki clapped his hands and glanced at the sun outside the window. "Now everyone, go wash your hands. Lunch will be here in a moment."
The classroom instantly burst into excitement.
Shin-chan's eyes lit up. "Lunch!"
He hadn't gotten to eat chocolate sticks this morning, and after refining that chakra thing just now, his stomach had already been growling for ages.
While washing his hands, Shin-chan made a point of scrubbing them twice, and even washed his face while he was at it.
Uchiha Toru watched him in confusion and couldn't help asking, "Are you really that excited for lunch?"
"Of course." Shin-chan flicked the water off his hands. "I'm like a baby bird crying to be fed."
"You know idioms?" Uchiha Toru looked a little surprised.
"My mom taught me." Shin-chan swayed his head proudly. "She also taught me 'wolfing food down,' 'sweeping through food like a whirlwind,' and 'if you can't finish it, you'll have to pack it up and take it away.'"
Uchiha Toru was silent for two seconds. "I don't think that last one is an idiom."
"Really?" Shin-chan tilted his head. "But Mom says it every time she goes to a barbecue restaurant."
The two of them returned to the classroom and found that a tray had already been placed on every desk.
The wooden trays were divided into several small sections. One held rice, one had miso soup, one had fried fish, and one had...
Shin-chan's smile froze.
That section was filled with neatly sliced, vividly green bell peppers, giving off the very smell he despised with all his heart.
"..."
Shin-chan dropped into his chair, crossed his arms, and stared at the tray like he was facing a mortal enemy.
Uchiha Toru sat down beside him, glanced at his own tray, then at Shin-chan's. "What's wrong? You don't like bell peppers?"
"It's not that I don't like them." Shin-chan's voice turned grave.
"Then what is it?"
"They're my enemy."
Uchiha Toru: "..."
Pointing at the slices of bell pepper, Shin-chan wore the kind of serious expression one would use to analyze battlefield intelligence.
"They're all green and look harmless, but they are traitors to the vegetable world. They look like chili peppers, but they're not spicy. They want to be vegetables, but they smell weird. They've deceived everyone."
Uchiha Toru opened his mouth, but had no idea how to respond.
Staring at the pieces of bell pepper as if he were about to enter an arduous battle, Shin-chan took a deep breath, picked up his chopsticks, and lifted one slice into the air.
Under the sunlight, the bell pepper glistened with oil, as if it were taunting him: Come on, eat me.
Shin-chan's hand began to tremble. Then he turned to Uchiha Toru. "Have you ever heard the legend of the bell pepper?"
"What legend?"
"There was once a ninja who got poisoned during a mission. There was no antidote. The only way to survive was to eat a hundred bell peppers. That ninja would rather die than eat them."
Shin-chan set his chopsticks down, looking utterly tragic. "Later, people called him 'the tough man who would not eat bell peppers.' I think he was my long-lost relative."
Uchiha Toru's mouth twitched. "You made that up, didn't you?"
"It's true." Shin-chan looked completely serious. "I even know his last words: 'Tell my children... never eat bell peppers. If you do, you lose.'"
A soft laugh came from the corner.
Shin-chan turned his head and found Kakashi holding his tray and looking over at them. Though only his eyes were visible, they seemed to curve slightly.
"What are you laughing at?" Shin-chan asked.
Kakashi shook his head with a straight face. "I'm not laughing."
Shin-chan stared at him for two seconds, then looked back down at his tray, and his expression instantly collapsed again.
Beside him, Uchiha Toru whispered, "Why don't you just close your eyes and eat it? Pretend it's not a bell pepper, but something else."
"Pretend it's what?"
"An apple?"
Shin-chan thought about it, picked up a slice of bell pepper, shut his eyes, and began hypnotizing himself. "This is an apple. This is an apple. This is an apple..."
He opened his mouth and bit down.
Chewed.
Chewed.
Then opened his eyes and looked at Uchiha Toru expressionlessly.
"How was it?" Uchiha Toru asked hopefully.
Shin-chan slowly put down his chopsticks. "I just ate a bell-pepper-flavored apple."
"..."
"It's still a bell pepper."
Uchiha Toru covered his face.
Next to them, Rin suddenly leaned over, smiling gently. "Shin-chan, why don't you give me your bell peppers? I like them."
Shin-chan froze for a second and looked at Rin's gentle smile.
Then he shook his head and refused seriously. "No. I can't give something I hate to somebody else. Mom says people who do that are the worst."
Rin blinked, a little surprised.
This boy who seemed so odd could actually say something so sensible?
Shin-chan continued, "Besides, if you help someone eat their bell peppers, you'll have nightmares at night."
Rin: "..."
Uchiha Toru: "..."
Guy suddenly stood up, tears in his eyes as he gave a huge thumbs-up. "Shin-chan, this is youth!"
"Right?" Shin-chan also raised a thumbs-up. "Youth means never eating bell peppers."
The two of them stood there, thumbs pointed at each other, the scene somehow both bizarre and burning with passion.
Teacher Ibuki watched from the front of the room and rubbed his temples.
This kid... was he a genius or an idiot?
In the end, Shin-chan still didn't eat the bell peppers.
He picked them out one slice at a time and arranged them neatly along the edge of his tray, then ate every piece of meat, every grain of rice, all the miso soup, and all the fried fish.
Finally, he looked at the lonely little pile of bell peppers, pressed his hands together, and murmured solemnly:
"I'm sorry. I know you worked very hard to become vegetables, but I really can't eat you. May you find your true selves in the trash can."
Uchiha Toru watched the whole thing from beginning to end, his expression shifting from shock to numb acceptance.
"Are you like this every time?"
"Yeah." Shin-chan nodded. "Mom says that one day I'll eat bell peppers."
"Do you think that day will ever come?"
Shin-chan thought about it seriously. "Maybe after I become Hokage."
"Why?"
"Because once I become Hokage, I can order the elimination of all bell peppers."
Uchiha Toru was silent for a long time before finally saying, "Then do your best."
Shin-chan grinned. "Toru, you should do your best too. When I become Hokage, I'll appoint you Minister of Bell Peppers, and you can handle all the bell peppers for me."
"I don't want that kind of position."
"Then Minister of Chocolate Sticks?"
Uchiha Toru thought about it and decided that one actually sounded acceptable, so he nodded. "That one can be considered."
The afternoon sunlight poured through the windows into the classroom, falling over the two five-year-old boys.
One was mapping out his road to becoming Hokage, with the core of his platform being "the eradication of bell peppers."
The other had been forcibly appointed Minister of Chocolate Sticks and was now seriously considering the scope of his future authority.
In the corner, Kakashi finished his last bite of lunch, his gaze drifting unintentionally toward that little figure in red.
"Go farther than cleverness," he thought silently to himself. "What exactly was Dad talking about?"
But that figure... it seemed he had already remembered him.