Hyuga Aokawa responded to each one with a smile, his expression gentle and natural.
"Ah! Aokawa-kun is smiling at us."
The girls immediately let out a small cheer.
Even after the two had walked quite a distance away, the vibrant laughter from that direction could still be faintly heard.
Hyuga Ryosuke looked at Hyuga Aokawa with a hint of envy.
How could he be so popular with the girls?
The two walked a bit further.
"Konnichiwa, Aokawa-kun." Two clear and pleasant female voices rang out from beside them again.
Two teenage girls, whose figures were already starting to develop, stood by the roadside with beaming smiles, their eyes focused on Hyuga Aokawa.
"Konnichiwa, Yui, Nanako."
Hyuga Ryosuke's envious expression began to turn into jealousy, finally becoming completely distorted.
After they had walked further away, he couldn't help but speak up:
"How do you do it? You can't remember a single piece of knowledge from class, yet you can remember every girl's name."
"Perhaps beautiful things always leave a deep impression..." Hyuga Aokawa mused.
Actually, he was also a bit puzzled; in the memories left by his predecessor, the parts regarding girls were always exceptionally clear.
"Didn't you say last time that if I couldn't pay back those thirty thousand ryo, you'd introduce a wife to me?"
Hyuga Ryosuke suddenly changed the subject.
"Yeah."
Hyuga Aokawa found it a bit strange: "Why bring this up all of a sudden?"
Hyuga Ryosuke took a deep breath and slowly squeezed out a few words.
"I want to get married..."
"You beast!"
Hyuga Aokawa looked at him in shock, "You're only twelve! Why are you thinking about getting married?"
"I... I'm precocious, okay!" Hyuga Ryosuke argued with a stiff neck.
Seeing Hyuga Aokawa staring at him without saying a word, he had no choice but to confess honestly.
"Fine, I've taken a liking to that Nanako from just now. Introduce her to me."
He blinked, giving an 'if you know what I mean' look.
Hyuga Aokawa breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this: "That goes without saying..."
He waved his hand, about to give a guarantee, when his gaze inadvertently swept over Ryosuke's massive physique again, causing him to swallow the second half of his sentence.
"I can definitely pay back those thirty thousand ryo," he suddenly changed his tune, his tone incredibly firm.
"Don't!" The fat boy cried out in despair.
But Hyuga Aokawa firmly shook his head.
He suddenly realized that even for an introduction, the conditions of both parties couldn't be too outrageously different.
Seeing that Hyuga Aokawa was unmoved, Hyuga Ryosuke had to switch strategies.
He leaned in and asked in a mysterious, low voice, "You're so popular with girls; do you have some exclusive technique?"
The fat boy's face was filled with a thirst for knowledge.
"What technique?"
"For pleasing girls?"
"Want to learn? I'll teach you!" Hyuga Aokawa raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, tell me quickly!"
"Help me with something in a few days!"
"No problem!" The fat boy patted his chest with a thud.
"So readily?"
"Stop talking nonsense and just say it!"
Hyuga Aokawa rubbed his chin, carefully recalling the process of interacting with girls in his predecessor's memories.
The fat boy was full of anticipation, his eyes shining, already starting to fantasize about a beautiful future with girls on both arms after receiving the secret teachings.
"First of all," Hyuga Aokawa began his teaching mode, "when you see a girl looking over, you must give them a smile."
"Looking over? What if they don't look over?"
"They will. The key is this smile," Hyuga Aokawa emphasized.
"A smile?"
"Yes, this smile must be sunny and warm."
As Hyuga Aokawa spoke, he demonstrated one himself.
Hyuga Ryosuke watched and felt it wasn't anything special; he usually smiled like that too.
However, he still muttered these keywords: "Sunny, warm... and a smile."
Recalling how Aokawa had just smiled like that and caused those girls to cheer with joy.
His eyes grew brighter and brighter, vaguely feeling...
It seemed... he had grasped a hint of the secret!
Hyuga Ryosuke took a moment to digest this and nodded thoughtfully.
Then he followed up: "And then?"
"And then? Then they'll swarm over very enthusiastically."
Hyuga Aokawa had an expression that said, "Isn't it obvious?"
"That's it?" The anticipation on the fat boy's face instantly froze.
"That's it. I've always been like this, it never fails."
Hyuga Aokawa said it as if it were a matter of course.
He searched through his predecessor's memories, and indeed, there was only this one step.
Hyuga Ryosuke's face slumped, and he gave Hyuga Aokawa a glare.
He waited all that time for this?
He was too naive to expect any actual 'operation' from a stat-monster.
He guessed that even if this guy did nothing, girls would still flock to him on their own.
At this moment, his heart was filled with nothing but envy, jealousy, and hate.
Fortunately, the heavens were fair; although they opened a window for Aokawa, they conveniently welded the door shut.
It had been three years, and he hadn't even fully mastered the most basic Three Basic Jutsu. Ryosuke himself had graduated two years ago, yet this guy was still repeating grades in school.
For the rest of the way, Hyuga Ryosuke was beaten down to the point of numbness.
He painfully realized that the window the heavens opened for Aokawa might not be an ordinary window, but a giant floor-to-ceiling window three or four stories high.
It wasn't until a girl with rare ruby-like eyes greeted them and left...
...that Hyuga Ryosuke seemed to come back to life and asked:
"Hey, did you and Kurenai Yuhi... break up?"
"Huh?" Hyuga Aokawa looked bewildered.
"I was about to tactfully walk away, but you just ended up giving her a greeting."
"Didn't I just give everyone a greeting?"
"How can that be the same?"
The fat boy's numb expression finally became animated, carrying a bit of excitement from watching a spectacle:
"You two used to be very close."
"What? The confession failed, so you plan to be strangers?"
He nudged Aokawa with his elbow, laughing gleefully:
"Even our great handsome guy has a day when he gets rejected..."
Confession failed?
What kind of cliché trope was this?
Hyuga Aokawa searched his memories for a good while before digging this memory left by his predecessor out of a corner.
It seemed he really had confessed to Kurenai Yuhi, and then was politely declined on the grounds that she didn't want to consider romance for the time being.
In the end, he was rejected because she didn't want to date yet.
He shook his head, noncommittal.
He was in no mood to care about these children's romance games; the Third Shinobi World War was coming.
Once there was a shortage of personnel, the higher-ups wouldn't care about who was at the bottom of the class; they would approve everyone's graduation and send them off as cannon fodder.
On the Battlefield, especially during the Third Shinobi World War where Konoha was 1v4, it was basically a meat grinder.
The lives of Genin and Chunin were like grass.
He had to reach at least the level of a Jonin before being sent to the Battlefield to have even a bit of self-preservation capability.
"People usually graduate before confessing. You haven't even graduated; how could the confession not fail?" The fat boy was still rambling beside him, analyzing away.
"Shut up!"