Morning at the Daimyo's residence began with Chashu smacking Shin-chan awake with one paw.
"Meow."
"Five more minutes."
"Meow, meow."
"Three minutes."
Chashu stepped directly onto Shin-chan's face.
Shin-chan sat up and glared at the increasingly arrogant cat.
"You're fired. Starting today, you're demoted from Deputy Minister of Security to temporary security worker."
Chashu remained completely unfazed. It flicked its tail, jumped off the bed, and headed toward the door.
Shin-chan decided that Chashu would get no dried fish today.
That decision lasted all of five minutes.
Asuma came walking down the veranda carrying a plate of dried fish, and Chashu immediately began circling his legs and rubbing against them.
"You already bribed him?" Shin-chan's eyes widened.
Asuma crouched down and fed Chashu a dried fish.
"It's called maintaining good relations with your coworkers."
"He's a temporary security worker, and you're an unofficial staff member. The two of you getting along contributes absolutely nothing to security."
"You just said he was Deputy Minister."
"That was before he stepped on my face."
Asuma brushed the crumbs from his hands and stood, watching Chashu swagger away with a dried fish in its mouth.
He had already been at the Daimyo's residence for several days.
It was completely different from Konoha.
There was none of the noise from the training grounds, nor the smell of smoke that never seemed to leave his father's office.
It was quiet here.
So quiet that he wasn't used to it.
But it was also comfortable.
Almost comfortable enough to make him feel guilty.
"Asuma, you woke up really early today." Shin-chan yawned.
"Couldn't sleep."
"Missing home?"
"No. Not at all."
Shin-chan did not press him.
Instead, he pulled out the small notebook where he recorded all his strange ideas and opened it to the newest page.
"Today's mission schedule goes like this. First, routine inspection of the kitchen's snack inventory. Second, health assessment of the koi in the pond. Third, accompany Ai to her tea ceremony lesson. Fourth—"
"Wait." Asuma interrupted him. "Those count as security duties?"
"The snack inventory is directly related to maintaining security personnel stamina. The koi are the Daimyo's private property. And I accompany Ai to tea ceremony because the tea room is one of the areas in the estate with the most security vulnerabilities."
"What kind of security vulnerabilities could a tea room possibly have?"
"Too many windows." Shin-chan closed the notebook. "Also, tea ceremony lessons are boring, and Ai needs someone who can block the teacher's line of sight for her."
Asuma was silent for two seconds.
"I'm coming with you."
"To the tea room?"
"No, to the kitchen. I want to make sure my snack management fee isn't being misappropriated."
"You're questioning the professional integrity of the Head of Security."
"Do you even have professional integrity?"
"Of course I do. Security Regulation Number One: The Head of Security's authority over snack distribution is sacred and inviolable."
"You just made that one up."
"..."
Inside the kitchen, the cook was kneading dough.
When Shin-chan and Asuma entered one after the other, the expression on her face could be summarized in four words:
She had expected this.
"Lord Nohara, Lord Sarutobi, today's sweets aren't ready yet."
Shin-chan looked at what was simmering in the pot.
"What's that?"
"Red bean paste. It's for the dango this afternoon."
"If it's dango, can you make three flavors? Red bean, sesame, and matcha. Ten of each."
"Lord Nohara, last time you asked for twenty of each, and more than half were left over."
"That was because Chashu doesn't eat matcha flavor. This time, make his portion separately in sesame."
The cook sighed and added another line to the preparation list.
Asuma leaned against the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed.
He noticed that whenever Shin-chan talked to the people in the kitchen, he sounded like an old regular placing an order with a familiar restaurant owner.
"Lord Sarutobi, is there anything you would like?" the cook asked, turning toward Asuma.
"No. Anything is fine."
"He likes sweet things," Shin-chan cut in. "Yesterday, he finished the pudding and then pretended Chashu stole it."
Asuma immediately protested.
"That was because you ate my yokan first!"
"Yokan is shared inventory. Pudding is part of your personal allocation. Those are completely different things."
The cook watched the two boys—who together were barely twenty years old—arguing in front of her, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help rising.
Ever since Lord Nohara arrived, the Daimyo's kitchen had never been quiet.
Now there was another one.
It would probably become even livelier.
After completing the snack inventory inspection, Shin-chan and Asuma followed the veranda toward the pond.
Chashu had already claimed the best sunbathing spot on a rock beside the water.
Asuma crouched at the edge of the pond and stared at the plump koi for a long time.
"Have these fish... gotten even fatter?"
"You noticed too." Shin-chan crouched beside him. "The Daimyo said the biggest one has been raised for six years. I suspect it eats better than I do."
"That's impossible." Asuma glanced at him. "The amount of sweets you eat in a day could feed those fish for a month."
"That is slander against the Head of Security."
"It's a fact."
Chashu yawned nearby, sweeping its tail across the rock.
As a cat who had once tried to eat those koi, it had long since lost interest in patrols that involved "looking but not eating."
"These fish live more comfortably than we do." Asuma picked up a pebble and tossed it lightly in his hand. "No training. Someone feeds them every day."
"Do you want to be a koi?"
"Maybe."
"Then why did you come to the Daimyo's residence?" Shin-chan looked at him. "You were already a koi in Konoha."
Asuma fell silent for a while.
"But I don't want to be that kind of koi."
He tossed the pebble into the pond.
Ripples spread across the surface, startling several koi and sending them scattering.
"In Konoha, whenever people look at me, they see 'the Hokage's son,' not 'Sarutobi Asuma.' If I throw shuriken well, they say, 'As expected of the Hokage's son.' If I learn ninjutsu quickly, it's, 'The Hokage really has good genes.' If I do well on an exam, it's, 'A tiger father doesn't raise a dog of a son.'"
He gritted his teeth.
"Even when I lose a fight, they say, 'Lord Third lost fights when he was young too, so it's fine.' It's like from beginning to end, I'm nothing more than a footnote attached to that old man."
"So you came to the Daimyo's residence because you want to be a different kind of koi?"
"At least here, no one says, 'Sarutobi Asuma is the Third Hokage's son.' They just say, 'That unofficial guy who came with Nohara Shinnosuke.'"
"That title doesn't sound much better."
"At least I chose it myself."
Shin-chan scratched his head and pulled a chocolate stick from his ninja tool pouch.
It was the last of the three Rin had made for him.
He broke it in half and handed one piece to Asuma.
"Being a koi can still be pretty fun."
Shin-chan placed his half of the chocolate stick in his mouth.
Asuma looked down at the half in his hand.
"Are you trying to comfort me?"
"I'm sharing a chocolate stick with you." Shin-chan chewed. "When you're feeling bad, eating something sweet makes things a little better."
Asuma stared at the chocolate stick for a moment.
Then he put it into his mouth.
~~~
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