Nurse Aoi entered Satoru's room to see him standing without any crutches.
"You are recovering faster than the doctors predicted you would." She smiled, "Congratulations! You are free to go." She said handing him a card which handmade by several nurses.
"Sooo...my friends? You said they would come." Satoru asked, remembering what she said the previous day.
"The doctors were initially planning to keep you here till night time, but then, changed their mind after inspecting your body. So now, you'll be leaving earlier than planned."
Nurse Aoi, chuckled before pointing at the card in his hand, prompting him to open it.
Satoru opened the card and saw many things written by all the nurses who worked on it.
Some congratulated him for recovering quickly, some wished him well and hoped he doesn't hurt himself again.
Satoru found the message of nurse Aoi, he looked up at to see her with a wide smile.
"I hope you succeed in achieving all of your goals!" She voiced out the message in the card.
Satoru was slightly wide eyed before he bowed to thank her.
'I'm going to need that...' Satoru thought, before walking past her, through the exit.
As she saw Satoru's leaving figure, she said one more thing.
"Your brother is here to pick you up!"
Her words made Satoru stop before running at full speed towards the exit to meet him.
He stumbled many times, almost fell, even before reaching the exit of the hallway and meeting him.
The tall man leaned against the doorframe of the exit. The sunlight fell on his chunin vest and his forehead protector, which had many scratches on it...each could be traced to a battle.
The receptionist spoke, "So you will be checking patient Satoru out?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me your full name and your relation to him?" She said, pointing to a form.
"It's Mikumo Fushimi. I'm Satoru's brother...not by blood, though." He said, rubbing the back of his head.
"You're here!" Satoru said, making Mikumo 'Miku' smile ear to ear.
"You are breathing heavily." He had a mischievous smile, "Did you run all the way here on your broken leg? You missed me that much, huh?"
Mikumo laughed seeing that Satoru had no reply for that.
"I reinforced my bone with chakra, so it didn't even hurt." Satoru said, as they both walked out of the hospital.
They both walked through the streets, going from stall from stall, trying out whatever they laid their eyes on.
Satoru in particular was drawn to the food stall, trying to make up for all the cheat days he missed while rotting in the hospital.
Whereas Mikumo was drawn to games. "Hey, that stall has games! The prizes appear to be candy."
"Then we have to try it, won't we?" Satoru said, as they both visited the stall.
"Hey, old man! What game is this? How do we play it?" Mikumo said, rubbing his palms together, as he looked at the pool filled with fishes.
"You see these fishes? You need to transfer them from the pool into the container and you win prizes." The old man smiled while looking at the wallet with Mikumo took out.
"And if you want to make an extra buck...you can bet on it! So, you will not only win the chocolate directly from hidden Tea, but also fatten your wallets."
The old man handed Mikumo three paper nets to attempt.
"Come on Satoru, put some money on me. I'll win this easily!" Mikumo said, looking at the bystander smirk cockily while while against Mikumo.
"Nah. I don't bet on others." Satoru said, while prompting him to begin.
"Well then, your loss!"
Mikumo quickly went for the biggest fish, easily flinging it into the container.
The paper had a small hole, as he went for the golden one, flinging it into the container as well.
He went for the third fish only for the net to break.
"You need to get three fishes with one net to win. You still have two more nets, don't lose hope just now." The old man released the fish back into the pool.
Mikumo tried again, managing to send two fishes into into the container before failing at the third one.
"The fishes are breaking the paper when they move quickly. It's better to just send them flying into the container, before the notice it." Satoru chimed in, making Mikumo roll his eyes.
"Wanna have a go? I bet you can't win either."
"Fine then, watch me." Satoru said, placing a few bucks into the betting pool.
He took the third net and quickly sent all three fishes flying into the container, before showing that the paper, while wet, wasn't damaged.
"Damn it! I need add more rules, so try hards like you cannot find a loophole." The old man reluctantly game him the prize as well as the prize money.
"Sucks to suck, I guess, see ya old man!" Mikumo said, before they both walked away.
The moment they were out of the old man's range, Mikumo spoke, "You cheated, didn't you?"
Satoru munched on the chocolate before nodding.
"Hah! You couldn't have beaten my record honestly, could you?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. Believe whatever you want." Satoru said with a smile.
"You are hard to tease...you know that? Why couldn't I have a normal younger brother I could bully from time to time..." Mikumo said, patting Satoru's head.
Mikumo held the money won by Satoru when suddenly he was reminded of Satoru's gambling wins from chunin exams.
"You didn't go to collect your winnings from back then, so I collected them for you. That guy was so happy to hear that you won, he went out of his way to give you the best stuff."
"What? I thought it was swallowed up by those guys because I didn't collect it."
"The operator of the gambling hall to me that you confidently declared, 'keep betting what I win on me till the finals.' That he actually bet his own money on you."
"Damn. What did he give?" Satoru asked,
"It was mostly properties and land...why the frick would anyone use that instead of money?" Mikumo asked in confusion.
"Money moved in scales of billions. If they had bet using cash it would crash the economy by having so much money moving into society.
When using properties, people can just declare them as donations when they lose, and become a beneficiary of a donation when they win. It helps with tax and keeps the police off their asses." Satoru explained.
"You know you won around a hundred million worth of stuff, right? How did you get that much?" Mikumo asked, remembering the long list of properties which were signed as donation to Satoru.
"My opponent was the son of the third Raikage. Public beliefs were skewed in his favor. In fact, I was booed when I won."
"I see...I would beaten them up for booing you. They are blessed that I wasn't there." Mikumo took a handful of Satoru's chocolate and stuffed his mouth with it.
"Why didn't you *munch* bet on me?" He swallowed, "Or on others in the chunin exams? You knew which of your friends would win.
"I already placed all my money on myself and forgot about it. I low-key thought you wouldn't be able to win without cheating, back then." Satoru said, his tone became more apologetic by the end.
"Why bet at all? Are you addicted or something?" Mikumo asked, cleaning his teeth of the chocolate with his tongue.
Satoru looked away for a second, before replying, "Man's gotta pay rent! My sensei was suspended for the last three months and will remain that way for three more months, so there's no missions to go on."
"I've been so broke I stole kunais from Shinichi-sensei's stash whenever he would visit mitsuki-sensei." Satoru said, showing a kunai with Shinichi's trademark.
"Finally! Found some blackmail material!" Mikumo grabbed the kunai and began running away.
"No! You wouldn't dare. Give it back!" Satoru shouted at the running Mikumo, before running after him.
"Hahahaha, stop me if you can!"
Satoru gave chase for all long as he could, reinforcing his leg to keep up with Mikumo. Who suddenly turned his head to look at a bystander, before stopping.
Satoru, unable to stop himself, crashed into his back, using Mikumo to stop his momentum, making them both fall.
"Are you okay?" Mikumo asked, looking at satoru who was on the floor.
"Your back is surprisingly soft...are you skipping gym?" Satoru asked making the guy next to Mikumo burst out laughing.
"He definitely is! This guy has been skipping training for a while now! What was the reason miku~" mikumo didn't have time to reply, "Yeah, he has a little crush on somebody and skips training to meet her."
"Hehehehe...your teammate is smoking your ass right now!" Satoru smirked, Mikumo go red.
"I'll be taking him with me, if you don't mind me, little man! He'll be back by dinner, I promise." The man said as they both began going back through the path they came from.
While leaving Mikumo spun the kunai on his finger while mouthing, 'Sorry. later!'
Mikumo left with his friend, leaving Satoru all alone.
"I'm getting in so much trouble because of this. Wait a minute...his mom said he's not allowed to date till he's twenty." Satoru's gears spun as a devious plan came to his mind,
Satoru smiled as he looked around to see a shop which sounded a familiar.
"Kaito usually talks about this shop, his house must be nearby." Satoru muttered, looking around the residential area.
'He once mentioned that his house is very near to a barbershop, I'll finally be able to visit him after a few weeks.'
Satoeu found a barber shop and went inside, a blonde woman was cutting a lady's hair. She turned to see Satoru looking around and frowned.
"There's not much to cut when you have a buzz cut. Don't even think of asking of something unrealistic."
"I'm not here for that, I'm looking for a person named Kaito. He lives around this area, is he a regular here?" Satoru asked, making a glint of recognition appear in her eyes.
"Last time he came here, he told me that he had to attend a funeral and wanted to know where the cemetary was located." She said, before going back to cutting hair.
"Soooo...he's there?" Satoru asked,
"Maybe. I dunno." She replied
"Okay, thanks."
Satoru left the barbershop and headed for the cemetary.
---
The cemetary was not left desolate. Both living and dead inhabited the place, but contrary to expectations, none spoke.
Satoru walked past several tombstones, and the people who washed them with their tears.
The ones who didn't cry, simply had red puffy eyes. They had share of crying, but not of mourning.
Satoru found Kaito near a tombstone, he was crouching and his palm softly traced the named engraved onto the stone.
"Sup." Satoru said, making Kaito's empty eyes to fall on him.