Torifu was right, Mito did have emotions, but they were emotions of joy.
Amado didn't pay much mind to these things either; knowing that nothing came of it in the end, his heart also relaxed.
"Thank you, Big Brother. I ran into Anka on the road today; otherwise, I definitely would have gone."
Amado proactively brought up Anka, saving Torifu the trouble of initiating the topic himself: "Speaking of which, how are things progressing between you two? This meal should have brought your relationship a bit closer, shouldn't it?"
"Eh?" Amado was momentarily bewildered. He hadn't said anything, so why was Big Brother asking about their progress? Had his efforts to keep it a secret fallen short?
How did it suddenly come out?
"No... no... no, we didn't..."
Before Amado could finish his defense, Torifu's hand rested on his shoulder: "If I couldn't even see something like this, what kind of Hokage would I be?"
"Big Brother, you noticed long ago?"
Torifu nodded, not denying it: "That day when I mentioned Anka, your tone and expression immediately changed, and I knew something was off. Then I went and asked Anka, and she seemed to have a different sort of emotion towards you too. That's when I felt certain."
"Tell me, what's really going on between you two?"
Amado blushed deeply. He had thought he was hiding it well, but Big Brother had seen through it ages ago.
However, this was nothing shameful, and Amado wasn't someone with thin skin.
When Torifu asked, he told him honestly: "Speaking of today, it was truly fate. I was thinking of doing some shopping and unexpectedly ran into Anka..."
Amado recounted to Torifu how they met and went to the hotpot restaurant for dinner. After the meal, Amado escorted Anka home.
They were both very happy that evening.
"Although Anka and I haven't quite 'broken through the window paper' and officially defined our relationship, I can feel that Anka seems to be interested in me as well."
After Amado's description, it seemed the two of them were currently in the ambiguous 'flirting' stage.
Reaching this stage, Torifu was quite satisfied. He certainly didn't expect Amado to fast-forward straight to marriage with Anka.
Slow and steady was fine; from Torifu's observation, there was a high probability these two would end up together.
Although Amado was generally carefree, he was quite reliable in certain aspects.
It just depended on how he showed it.
"Alright, if you genuinely want a future with Anka, you'll need to put in some effort. I'll help create some situations where you two can be alone; you'd better step up your game."
Amado nodded vigorously: "Understood!"
After that, the two chatted about a few other things, and then Torifu stopped idle talk with Amado.
Outwardly, it seemed only he and Amado were chatting in the courtyard, but in reality, the house was full of eavesdroppers.
Minato, Yahiko, Konan were all diligently listening in, and even Naori was half-listening.
Amado's little secret was practically an open book.
However, when everyone came out for a stroll, they all tacitly kept their mouths shut, not discussing the matter.
It wasn't bedtime yet. With the conversation in the gazebo finished, everyone began to liven up again.
Some played games, others trained; everyone had their own activities, and the entire courtyard was bustling and pleasant.
If Anka could marry into the family, then the Kumotsuru Clan would gain another member. Although they were all unofficial members, not part of the regular force.
But that was merely not writing them into the family register; in Torifu's heart, they were always family.
The night deepened, and so the night passed.
The next morning, Torifu routinely went to the Hokage Building for an inspection.
Anka was preparing the official duties that needed to be handled that morning, while the puppet sat there foolishly waiting.
Seeing Torifu arrive, Anka immediately put down her work: "Hokage-sama, you came in person."
"I am very sorry about last night. Mito-sama must have been angry, please apologize to her on my behalf."
Torifu naturally knew what Anka was referring to. He waved his hand: "Mistress wasn't angry; you don't need to worry. Amado had made excuses to decline a few times before, so Mistress no longer cares whether he attends the gathering or not."
"Uh..." Anka was momentarily unsure whether to congratulate or how to react. The way it was put sounded as if Amado had been completely given up on.
But it seemed that was exactly the meaning...
"What about you? Were you happy last night? Amado said it was your first time eating hotpot, is that true?"
Anka's face also broke into a smile after hearing this: "I was very happy. It's rare to have a meal like that with friends. Yesterday really was my first time eating hotpot; I never wanted to go by myself before."
"If I hadn't met Amado last night, I probably would have just gone for Ichiraku Ramen, since I had an all-you-can-eat voucher."
Speaking of which, Anka's lifestyle and social circle had quite a bit to do with Torifu.
Anka wasn't introverted; on the contrary, she was quite outgoing and skilled at communicating with people.
Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to do the Hokage's secretary work.
The reason for this was mainly that work occupied most of her time, making it impossible for her to seriously make friends or maintain relationships with existing ones.
Over time, Anka stopped making new friends, apart from interacting with people for work.
After all, finding a like-minded friend could take a long time, but then Anka had to work every day and had no time to shop or eat with friends.
Before even a week passed, her good friends would become someone else's good friends.
"Is your workload too heavy? How about I hire an assistant for you? You'd manage and assign tasks entirely, which should help you share a lot of the burden."
It was a good idea and a decent proposal, but Anka decided to consider it further.
Torifu respected her choice as well.
The main reason Torifu hadn't offered Anka this option before was that Anka always insisted she was fine.
So Torifu hadn't paid too much attention.
Making a slight correction now was still not too late.
"Hokage-sama, please have a seat for a moment. I'll go make you some tea."
Anka finished speaking and was about to leave, but Torifu stopped her: "Don't bother. I'll only be here for a little while before I leave. Will this clone have any issues handling official duties? Like making errors in corrections, for example?"
Anka recalled, and it seemed nothing of the sort had ever happened.
"No problems have been discovered so far, Hokage-sama. Please rest assured, I handle all work matters very conscientiously."
Torifu nodded. As long as no mistakes occurred, it was fine. This puppet was hard-won, so it shouldn't be damaged.
.......
Chapter End
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[TL Note: I apologize for the unreliable chapter updates. I lost motivation for doing this work long ago and find it a chore. Right now, am just forcing myself to work for the paying members on patreon and chugging a couple dozen chapters once a week whenever i get free time. As of this day, the work at patreon is at 1344 chapters and around 260 chapters are left. I would really appreciate it if you guys could spare some donations if your situation allows it - Buy one time subscription of this fanfic collection, or a monthly subscription. One thing it occured to me was that due to my unreliable release schedule, it works better if you buy the whole collection, it saves fees in case of works that have too many chapters and relatively slow release pace. If you could help, that would be really kind of you. Meanwhile, I am trying to set up the auto release feature for webnovel here to around 3-4 chapters a day. ]