The Sound of a Silent Life

Naoka was a little afraid to look directly at her dazzling smile. After seeing her take the coat, she hurried back to her seat.

When she returned to her seat, Shouko's words flashed through her mind. If it had been Shouko at that time, would she have helped? Most likely not. At most, she would have directly told the four-eyed bastard, and then it would have been none of her business.

Seeing that Shouko had no intention of returning the coat to her, Tsuna suddenly wanted to tease her. He chuckled and joked:

"Shouko, why are you holding my clothes all the time? Ueno washed it, so just give it back to me. That saves me from taking it home to wash." He stretched out his left hand toward her.

Shouko slapped his hand away, squinted her eyes to observe his expression, and when she couldn't read anything, she wrinkled her nose at him.

"I don't think it's clean enough. I'll take it back and wash it again before returning it to you." After saying that, she chose to ignore him and instead took out the notes he had written while tutoring her the night before and began reviewing them.

Time passed quickly, and it was soon noon.

"Take a break at noon, Ishida. Pay attention!" With this sentence from Teacher Takeuchi on the podium, the previously quiet classroom suddenly became lively.

"Get up, Tsuna. We're going to have lunch with Miu and the others." Shouko put her textbook back into the desk compartment and gently shook the person next to her, who was chatting with the Land of Dreams.

"Ha~ Let's go." Tsuna sat up and yawned, rubbed his sleepy eyes, picked up the black lunch box from the compartment, and got ready to go with Shouko.

"Take me with you, take me with you." At that moment, a voice interrupted them. Tsuna didn't even need to look back to recognize that it was Sahara.

The two had no reason to refuse, so the three of them went to Class A to find the Girl with pigtails.

Pah pah pah...

As soon as the three of them reached the back door of Class A, they heard the sound of snapping fingers coming from inside. As expected, Tsuna saw several boys in the back row of the classroom competing with Miu to see who could snap their fingers louder.

"Tsuna, why are Miu and the other boys rubbing their thumbs and middle fingers together?" Shouko stood aside, watching the weird scene, and couldn't help but ask curiously.

Before he could answer, Chika's voice interrupted him: "They're competing to see who can snap their fingers the loudest."

"I know that!" Sahara said excitedly, and seeing everyone's eyes focused on her, she slowly explained:

"This is the finger-snapping game that became popular in Class A about a week ago, but I haven't seen anyone in our class doing it yet."

After she mentioned it, Tsuna also recalled something, not about the snapping itself, but about little games that had been popular when he was in elementary school.

Back then, students didn't have electronic devices to play with, so at school, they would either talk about the anime episodes broadcast on TV the previous night or play small games that became inexplicably trendy.

As for the origin of those games? They were simply passed around by word of mouth, evolving over time into more refined versions. They were just little amusements to brighten up childhood.

"Miu, let's go downstairs and find a place to eat lunch." Tsuna quickly gathered his wandering thoughts and called out to Miu, who was still caught up in the game.

Miu waved her hand at them without turning around and smiled softly, "You go ahead. I'm about to win, and I'll catch up soon."

"Then let's go first."

"Okay."

The four of them found a brown bench on the first floor and sat down to enjoy the lunch their parents had prepared early in the morning.

——————

"Sorry to keep you waiting, everyone." Miu walked briskly over with her lunchbox and sat down on the edge of the bench without any hesitation.

As soon as Miu sat down, she started bragging about how amazing she was and how the boys in the class couldn't compare to her.

Tsuna, a little tired of her boasting, suddenly thought of a mischievous idea and interrupted her in a gentle voice: "I know a way to snap fingers louder than anyone else."

As soon as he said that, the eyes of the other four were drawn to him. Of course, the clever Miu didn't believe it and looked at him skeptically, waiting for him to continue.

Tsuna noticed the doubt in her eyes, but he wasn't flustered at all, because he actually did have a method to make finger snapping louder.

Heh~

"Miyamura, you can do that? I thought you always looked down on playing with those boys," Sahara was the first to ask, curious.

"When did I say I looked down on them?" Tsuna expected her to ask about the method, so he responded, speechless.

Next to him, Shouko ignored what Sahara said and asked seriously: "Yeah, Tsuna, I've never heard you say you could do that."

Tsuna tried hard to keep a straight face and not laugh. "I learned it from TV before, but that's not important."

He quickly changed the subject, looked at Miu, and asked with a chuckle, "Miyu, do you want to know how?"

Of course, he couldn't tell Shouko that he'd been pranked in Hawaii in his previous life.

Miu swallowed the food in her mouth and urged impatiently, "Hey, Tsuna, don't keep us in suspense! Tell me already!"

As for whether he could make the snapping sound louder, she had some doubts at first. But then she remembered how smart he was—able to make things like handmade kites. Maybe he really could.

After everyone finished eating, Tsuna began teaching slowly, and the others listened carefully.

"Stretch out your dominant hand, then use the other hand to hold down your ring and pinky fingers tightly. Then snap. It'll definitely make a loud sound." Tsuna demonstrated with both his hands.

After explaining, he added, "But don't hold the other hand too tightly—I'm afraid it might snap too loudly."

Just as he saw everyone begin to try it, he quickly reached out to stop Shouko's hand and shook his head at her.

Shouko was confused as to why he stopped her. When she looked up and saw the expression on his face, she realized he was probably playing a prank. She hurriedly tried to warn the others, but was interrupted by a scream.

The other two were about to start snapping too, but were stopped by her shout. They turned to look at her simultaneously.

"Miyamura Tsunayoshi!"

Shouko saw Miu glaring fiercely at Tsuna. In the blink of an eye, Miu clenched her fists and rushed at him.

After punching him two or three times to vent her anger, Miu stopped and sat back down on the bench, still glaring at him.

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