“Get off!” Ren shrugged Naruto off his shoulders with an exasperated irritation coloring his tone. “No way I am teaching you anything, Naruto!”

“Eeeh! Why not!?” Landing back on his feet, Naruto exclaimed with a wronged expression and big blue pleading puppy dog eyes that made Ren snort.

That might work on Sarutobi, but tough luck, Ren recently decided to convert to cat person religion. His boosted inclination toward cats nullified ninety-nine percent of Naruto’s puppy dog eyes, and the last one percent only made Ren think he was so adorable he wanted to kick him.

“I already gave Karin a scroll on shadow clones. Ask her. She will teach you.” Ren grumpily stated, subtly putting his hand on his knee to prevent his leg from involuntarily shooting forward because Naruto unwittingly positioned himself for a pretty nice nut kick straight to the balls.

And Ren was oh so tempted to…

But Ren inwardly shook his head. He doubted Karin, who was behind Naruto and giving him a very unimpressed look, would appreciate the possible malfunctions following said kick.

Naruto’s progeny was spared impromptu preventive execution for now.

‘Stupid brat interrupting my moe-moe time with Hinata.’ Ren inwardly complained like a little kid and resisted the urge to huff and cross his arms on his chest with a scowl.

“Wait. Really? I can learn that!?” Naruto exclaimed with a loud, excited whoop. “That technique is kick-ass!”

Ren almost fell from his chair hearing that, and gave Karin a questioning look, but she just rolled her eyes with a fed-up, tired smile.

“The idiot refused it because he thought it was not for him since you gave the scroll to me and never gave him permission to learn it.” She explained.

“Oi! Karin-chan.” Naruto weakly protested, with slightly red cheeks due to embarrassment.

The redheaded girl just fondly sighed and pecked him on the lips with a quiet, affectionate, “Idiot.” before she went to sit behind the counter of the ramen stand while Naruto was left standing in his spot with a silly grin.

Honestly, watching that, Ren could no longer find it in himself to stay mad at Naruto. It was hard to notice from behind a monitor, but the kid had this… charisma about him?

The Talk No Jutsu was frightening indeed. Ren briefly shuddered.

Naruto quickly shook himself out of his funk and was about to go sit beside Karin when Sasugai and Sakugai entered the ramen stand, both wearing Gai-approved green jumpsuits with their hair mercifully only henged into a bowl-cut.

‘I did that!’ Ren couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear as he felt immense pride in what he accomplished in this life so far.

“Oh. Hello, Naruto, Karin, Hinata, and…” Sakura awkwardly blinked at Ren while Sasuke scowled when he noticed Naruto. “The other person?” Sakura finished, and Ren just haphazardly waved at her in a greeting, far more preoccupied with Hinata’s hand that found its way underneath his shirt.

He idly wondered what happened to her hurt fingers. They seemed fine enough to touch him all over his torso.

At least she didn’t forget to layer a genjutsu over them to prevent people from seeing what she was doing.

“Sakura! Sasuke!” Naruto happily exclaimed, “You here to eat, too? The Ichirakus have the best ramen in the village! It’s the food of the Gods!”

Sasuke just took a deep breath and grumpily grunted, “Sure. Whatever.” He walked around Naruto and sat in a free chair before taking a menu in his hands.

Sakura’s eyebrows scrunched, and she looked between Naruto and Sasuke for a moment before giving Naruto a small apologetic bow before she went to sit on Sasuke’s left side, causing the boy to subconsciously shuffle a bit to the right side in discomfort.

Ren was a bit surprised the girl was so civil toward Naruto. Gai’s freaky ways were indeed mysterious.

But Naruto did not like how Sasuke ignored him, so, soon enough, the blonde boy hopped with his feet onto the chair to Sasuke’s left and crouched down, staring at the Uchiha boy from slightly above with narrowed eyes.

“What’s your problem, bastard?” Naruto frowned.

“Your youth is burning too brightly for my dark heart, loser.” Sasuke muttered with a thick tone of sarcasm that Naruto completely missed and started to sheepishly rub the back of his head.

“Ehehehe. Really?” Naruto bashfully asked, taking the sentence as a compliment, and Sasuke’s forehead hit the counter as he groaned.

“No!” Sasuke shouted and abruptly turned to face Naruto. He calmed himself down almost instantly, a very commendable feat, in Ren’s opinion. The boy had come far in the past few months. “I am okay with enthusiasm. I train with Gai-sensei and Lee. But you are just too much, Naruto.”

The two started to bicker like children, and Ren glanced at Hinata with a questioning look. The girl just mildly smiled and started whispering, “Naruto really wants to beat Sasuke, so he challenges him all the time. Sasuke finds it annoying.” She shrugged in a ‘what can you do’ kind of way, ignoring the two bickering boys as if it were a common occurrence.

Which, to her, Ren realized it probably was, considering she went to the ninja academy with the two.

“Why are you so fixated on m-!?” Sasuke loudly exclaimed, causing Ren to look back at the boys just in time to witness history.

Naruto stumbled forward in his crouch.

Sasuke’s eyes started widening in horrified astonishment.

Naruto fell forward, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Their lips met.

Everybody in the ramen stand froze and stared at the boys. Until Ren burst into laughter, and time as if resumed, and the boys forcefully separated, coughing and spitting on the ground with disgusted expressions.

Karin looked pissed and Sakura just stared forward in horror, looking as if her soul left her body, muttering about how Sasuke’s first kiss was stolen from her as its rightful owner.

That’s when Ino burst into the ramen stand, grinning like a loon. Her eyes mischievously landed on Naruto and Sasuke, who glared at each other, and her eyebrows rose, “Hello! Did I miss something good?” She curiously asked.

“NO!” Both boys vehemently rejected the notion.

“Nothing happened here.” Sasuke gritted out.

“What the bastard said.” Naruto quickly nodded his head up and down several times in an instant agreement, causing Ino to giggle as she sat on Ren’s other side from Hinata.

Ren turned toward her, only to have her tongue shoved into his mouth as he received an enthusiastic kiss from Ino.

‘That was cruel.’ He sent her a mental message through his newest seal they worked on together.

‘Oh, you don’t need to be in one room with them for hours.’ Ino moaned into the kiss, ‘They both deserve it and more. Besides, my Yin clone just made Naruto stumble a bit. I wanted them to fall on each other. The kiss was unintentional but still funny.’ Ren could hear her mental giggle as they finally separated, both of them ignoring their onlookers.

Public affection was a big no-no in this Japanese-esque culture. But neither of them really cared.

‘The bimbo is right. The two of them can be really annoying.’ Of course, Hinata also had access to the telepathy seal. She was just polite enough not to interrupt their kiss with her thoughts.

Ino and Ren looked at her, and she averted her gaze with a small blush on her cheeks, feeling a tad bad about bad-mouthing Sasuke and Naruto.

‘Really?’ Ren asked, admittedly a bit curious. The relationship of Naruto and Sasuke in canon was always a bit dubious to him.

‘Yeah. I sometimes pity Sakura.’ Ino complained, ‘I’ve been in their heads. They have some sort of weird subconscious attraction going on between them. Dunno what it is.’ She shamelessly admitted without an ounce of guilt about her transgressions against privacy.

Ren inwardly winced.

Honestly? Canon Sasuke practically pumped Sarada into Sakura and then went on a village-sanctioned milk run for twelve-plus years, not showing his face even once.

That told Ren all he needed to know.

No man who loves his wife would leave her for twelve years unless it was absolutely necessary. But ‘that’ Sasuke had a space-time ninjutsu in his Rinne-Sharingan. What do you mean, he can not show his mug once every year? Or once every two years? For a weekend at least?

He can just freaking teleport back home!

Was taking one one-month vacation every two years too much for the broody boy wonder? Would the world end?

Yeah. He clearly cared about Sakura and his daughter sooo much.

Ren still believed that Sasuke was gay. There was simply nothing saying otherwise. He didn’t love Sakura. He took pity on her.

He probably realized he would need to restore his clan eventually anyway. And Sakura, the girl who was pining after him so much that she could forgive him even trying to ram a Chidori through her chest, was probably going to be as good a candidate to birth his children as any other woman.

The second she had a kid, a part of him she could redirect her attention toward, he decided he desperately needed to go and buy cigarettes.

It couldn’t be helped that all the stores all the way to Iwa were freshly out of stock, so he had to wander the world for over a decade. Such things happen.

Well, Ren could be wrong. But the conspiracy theorist in him was whispering to him that he was right.

After all, the canon Sasuke did not visit Sakura and Sarada even once. But he did have regular visits with Naruto.

At that point, Ren really had no idea what else to think. It’s not as if Sakura was ugly either. She was a very sexy girl in her own way and would probably have a line of simps long enough to reach Kumogakure if the internet existed here.

‘I pity Karin, too.’ Hinata shyly admitted as their ramen arrived. ‘Naruto loves her. I can see that. But… it just looks like she will have to share him with Sasuke for the rest of her life.’

‘Yeah,’ Ino interjected with a scoff and gave Ren a meaningful look before separating her chopsticks, ‘You should have thrown her on the bed, grabbed her by her ankles, spread her legs, and screwed her senseless her first night in the village when she stayed at your apartment. I know that she wanted that to happen back then, too.’

But Ren only mentally huffed at her as he dug into his food. ‘I distinctly remember you scowling and hissing at her like an angry cat. You say that now, but back then, you’d be pouting for at least half a year if that happened.’

‘Besides, you share, too. Don’t throw stones from your glasshouse, girls.’ He chuckled.

‘That’s different. I share with Hinata, who is like a sister to me. Not with… another man.’ Ino sniffed before pausing, ‘Wait. Huh? Could be kinda ho-‘

‘Don’t get any ideas.’ Ren dryly thought and gently stepped on her foot, banishing that idea into the pits of hell where it should remain.

Konoha had enough gay couples. He didn’t wish to be counted among Kakashi and Gai, Naruto and Sasuke, Sarutobi and Danzo, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Hashirama and Madara, Hiashi and Fugaku, or Sakura and Sasuke.

Suddenly, he felt his right side being poked and looked there, only to see Hinata giving him a precious, overly innocent look, “My fingers are hurt. Would you feed me, please?”

Seeing it, Ino cooed beside Ren at how adorable it was, but Ren, despite wanting to kiss the Hyuga girl to find out if she tasted as sweet as she looked, only deadpanned at her. “So, that’s why you don’t want to heal yourself.”

Now it all made perfect sense. She had planned this.

“Oh! I want the same!” Ino excitedly exclaimed from Ren’s other side.

“Please.” Hinata said with quivering lips, weaponizing her cuteness.

“Please~.” Ino also said, but coyly as she put her hand on Ren’s knee and leaned closer to him. ‘I will make it worth your while.’ She added through the telepathy seal with a seductive undertone.

‘That’s cheating, bimbo.’ Hinata’s dry thoughts protested.

But Ino just mentally snorted. ‘Me kunoichi, bitch.’

Looking longingly at his ramen, Ren was caught between a rock and a hard place. But his expression suddenly turned resolute as he figured out a solution.

“Shadow Clone Jutsu!” He called out to divert the girls’ attention as two clones popped into existence behind them and embraced them from behind.

“Don’t worry, lass.” The clone behind Ino, one who appeared wearing a straw hat and chewing on a stalk of grass, spoke, “You shall be fed like a fat pig before butchering.”

Ino froze, and the atmosphere in the ramen stand instantly turned awkward. Even Sasuke and Naruto stopped arguing as they stared in disbelief at the carefree clone.

Teuchi, behind the counter, almost spilled the ramen he was filling into the bowl, and Ayame had to lean on the table in order not to fall on the ground as she tried to stifle her laughter.

Ino’s right eye started twitching, and the chopsticks in her hands creaked, but before she could say anything, the other clone who stood behind Hinata spoke.

“This is clone abuse, and we all know how that turns out.” He spoke as he shook his head while clicking his tongue, “Don’t be foolish enough to imitate this Sith wannabe, young padawans. Respect the clones. Praise the clones. Clones are good boys! Clones-!”

Ren preemptively dismissed both clones before they could say something outrageous again. With a sigh, he gave an apologetic glance at the people who looked at him with their jaws on the floor.

“Sorry. The technique malfunctioned. Let’s try it again.” Shrugging, Ren created another clone, cursing his luck. The chances of getting a faulty clone were like one in a hundred. And he had just pulled two at once?

Said clone looked at Sakura and lifted his eyebrow at her. “Is that some kind of filthy Xeno that needs to be purged with holy flames?”

“Why?” Sasuke couldn’t help but reflexively ask in curiosity.

And the new clone smirked, “Well, her forehead looks like an orangutan’s as-.”

He puffed back into smoke before he could finish, and Sakura was now giving Ren a very unhinged forced smile while Sasuke was smirking into his palm.

“I swear, my clones are screwing with me.” Ren mumbled to himself before carefully looking at Ino, and… he quickly looked away. Yeah. Too soon.

He donned an amiable smile, pretending nothing happened as he nodded at Hinata. “So, anyway. Sure, Hina. I will happily feed you.”

…

That day, Ren’s wallet wept Ryo as both Hinata and Ino had beaten Naruto and Karin in a ramen-eating competition before Ino made Ren pay for all of their ramen.

Only Teuchi was left grinning at the end of the day.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep