"Lady Miwa Masayo, good afternoon!"
"And a good afternoon to you too, meow, Shisui."
"Big Brother Yoru, good afternoon!"
"Good, good. Have you eaten lunch yet?"
"Of course not. Hehe."
"Then come help."
"Yes!"
"Young Master Shisui, let me help as well."
"Eh? Ehhh—! Steward Nobuyuki, sir! Please don't—!"
"Shisui! Take your old steward away, quickly!"
"Sir Nobuyuki, you're an elder from Uchiha Madara's generation. Please don't scare me. I'm only eighteen—I can't take this kind of pressure. Just sit and rest."
"Idiot Shisui, why did you bring this great deity here?" Yoru hissed under his breath, sounding furious but inwardly delighted that things had gone exactly as planned.
"Big Brother Yoru! Steward Nobuyuki insisted on coming. Could I possibly change his mind? We're both his great-grandchildren's generation. Besides, you're the eldest grandson!"
"Hah, nonsense. I'm just a side-branch nobody—that doesn't count. You're the direct-line eldest great-grandson of the fourth generation."
"That still doesn't mean I could persuade Steward Nobuyuki. Even my father couldn't when he was alive, so why would I?"
"..."
"How are this elder's teeth?"
"Big Brother Yoru… he's already eighty-two…"
"…Fine. Good thing there are some bananas at home. I'll prepare something soft for lunch too."
"What dish?"
"Tofu."
"…Huh? What's so good about that soft, watery stuff?"
"Not silken tofu. A firmer tofu that's been pressed further."
Uchiha Yoru fetched the silken tofu he had originally prepared for scallion tofu. He wrapped it layer by layer in cheesecloth, placed it in a draining box, set a cutting board on top, then brought over one of his weight blocks and pressed it down.
Under the heavy pressure, water streamed out of the tofu, gradually turning it firmer.
Strictly speaking, this was only medium-firm tofu. True firm tofu should have been made with brine from the start. But there was an old saying: life had three great hardships—digging coal, forging iron, and grinding tofu. Making tofu properly was slow, laborious, and troublesome. There was no time now to start from scratch, so this compromise would have to do.
Even casually pressed like this, it would still taste far better than tofu so soft it was nearly soy milk.
With the little time remaining, Yoru quickly prepared a ridiculous number of condiments. After all, the roast deer had been lightly salted to suit Miwa Masayo's taste, practically to the point of being plain meat.
…
Today's lunch included one extra person—
The oldest living elder of the entire Uchiha clan.
Even that certain man lingering half-dead in a cave somewhere was younger than this one.
And once an elder like that sat at the table, the style of the meal changed completely.
Normally, when the three of them ate lunch, the two humans and one cat would just crowd around the square table with absolutely no rules, devouring everything in sight.
Even Uchiha Shisui, usually such a well-behaved child, had no choice but to throw dignity aside and fight for food. Otherwise, Uchiha Yoru would swallow everything into his own stomach, and Shisui might not get enough to eat, which would affect his afternoon training.
Once Shisui had also become a proper glutton, the mealtime atmosphere in Yoru's house had grown even more lawless, completely devoid of etiquette.
But in front of Uchiha Nobuyuki—
The younger Uchiha did not dare act recklessly.
A long table was set out. Steward Nobuyuki naturally sat in the seat of honor at the north end. Opposite him sat the Cat Sage, Miwa Masayo. As the elder brother, Uchiha Yoru took the seat on the old man's right, while Shisui sat to the left.
Smiling, Uchiha Yoru sliced off the tenderest rib meat from the deer and respectfully offered it to the elder. Then he brought out the steaming firm tofu, ladling over it a brilliant red chili sauce and a fragrant chive-flower paste. The aroma briefly overpowered even the deer.
Uchiha Nobuyuki could not help but taste a bite.
Only six teeth remained in his mouth, all of them loose. But tofu was no challenge at all. At last, he tasted again the kind of fresh, rich savor he had nearly forgotten.
More importantly, for the first time in years, the old man felt the satisfying fullness of solid food entering his stomach. It was entirely different from the vegetable porridge and meat porridge he had lived on for more than a decade.
It was the happiness born of pure physical instinct.
A life that had once been gray and simply waiting for death suddenly became bright and full of color. All at once, existence seemed to hold new hope.
The old man, already past eighty, was not someone given to elegant words. He expressed his feelings in the simplest possible way.
"Delicious."
"Please, eat more."
He even tried a little of the rib meat. Even this, the softest cut, took effort to grind down, and in the end he only managed to sample a trace of its flavor.
"The firm tofu is still the best."
The two younger Uchiha said nothing.
They both understood that it was not because tofu tasted better than the meat. It was only that, in the face of what he could no longer do, tofu had become the most delicious thing available.
Even so, Uchiha Nobuyuki was deeply satisfied. As he ate contentedly, he did not forget to urge his two great-grandsons and the Cat Sage to begin eating too. He could not bear having everyone merely watch him eat alone.
And then—
It was time for the three gluttons to perform.
The charred outer crust of the deer had turned black over the fire, but the inside had been soaked through with the deer's own rendered fat. One bite and it was crisp, fragrant, and intoxicating.
Once the crust was gone, the deer meat beneath was revealed—golden, glossy, crackling at the edges, infused with the full essence of the spices. The aroma was unbeatable.
Cut away that outer layer, and the inner meat showed pink. These parts had been perfectly protected, effectively braised by the juices of the outer meat. They were soft and tender, easy enough to pull from the bone with nothing more than a light suction.
Chew just a little, and a clean fragrance filled the mouth. The venison carried a faint herbal sweetness, now fully awakened, so pleasant that it never grew greasy, only more and more irresistible.
The two humans and one cat ate with increasing enthusiasm, gradually forgetting their earlier restraint and no longer caring that the old steward was present.
Shisui stuffed his cheeks full, alternating bites of meat with crisp leaves of vegetable. He looked absurdly content, no longer wearing that prematurely mature expression that always made people feel sorry for him.
Miwa Masayo let out a low, satisfied rumble in her throat, one bite of meat after another, the bones cracking loudly between her teeth. Every time she swallowed, her eyes would narrow in bliss.
But the one who astonished Uchiha Nobuyuki most was Uchiha Yoru.
With a small knife in his right hand, he elegantly followed the gaps in the deer's skeleton, carving the meat with absolute smoothness. There was no scraping sound, no sense of sawing through hard material. Piece after rich piece came free, each one neatly offered to Miwa Masayo.
And yet he never neglected his own eating.
With his left hand, Yoru gripped the deer bones, lifted the meat and bone together to his mouth, and bit down.
Those white teeth closed lightly—
And both the venison and the bone inside snapped apart.
He shut his mouth, chewed twice, swallowed the meat—
And the bone as well.
In less than ten seconds, while Shisui was still chewing his current bite and Miwa Masayo had only just swallowed another piece of meat, Uchiha Yoru had already finished an entire rib.
Calmly, he carved off the next one, distributed the choicest tender meat to Shisui and Miwa Masayo—
Then ate the rib bone itself with a rapid series of sharp crunches, like someone devouring a puffed corn stick.
At this point, Uchiha Yoru's teeth were sharper than a bone cleaver.
And his stomach urgently needed hard dishes like bone to satisfy the demands of a body undergoing foundation-stage strengthening.
The old Uchiha was stunned.
Comparing those teeth with his own—
Was honestly a bit heartbreaking.
But there was no helping it.
When he had been young, it was the Warring States era. In those days, the Uchiha clan had almost no elders over forty-five. Even Clan Head Tajima Uchiha, dying in battle at forty-two, had already been considered unusually long-lived.
In such an age, how could he have imagined living past thirty-five?
And if he had never imagined old age, why would he have cared about preserving his teeth?
If he had known in youth that he would live into his eighties, Nobuyuki would certainly have protected them. Then he could still be eating meat freely now.
Perhaps he might even have lived another twenty years.
There was, admittedly, some regret.
Because in the end—
Meat really did smell better.
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