Present in Dr.Huan’s house were only Luc, Tuta, and the doctor himself. Futch, Bright, and Sasuke had left a while ago to deliver the medicine and they still haven’t returned yet. The doctor was tending Luc’s injured ankle and nothing was said between the three of them. Thought, the mood was not tense since both Dr. Huan and Tuta were sporting their usual smile.
“The ankle isn’t as bad as it could’ve been,” the doctor finally broke the silence. “You said that a bandit gave you some medicine before, right. You should be glad that he had given you the real thing.”
“…uh,”
The uncertain response of agreement was all that Luc managed to utter out, but it didn’t really matter since the doctor had said all this without ever pausing from his work. It was a true indication that the doctor was merely trying to strike a light conversation as a distraction.
Even so, Luc didn’t mean to not pay attention to the doctor, but it was just that he had been getting this weird feeling. It was tangling up his emotions, making him feel very uneasy. He didn’t know what was causing him to feel this way, but it had started ever since Futch and Sasuke had dragged him into town.
‘I’m probably just thinking too much,’ Luc tried to shake off the feeling. The uneasiness didn’t go away so he tried concentrating on what Dr. Huan was doing instead.
The doctor was diligently working on his ankle. Luc looked up at the doctor’s down-turned face. His mind became blank for a moment as he just sat there blinking his eyes. He then thought of his rudeness from before and decided to make up for it by starting a new conversation.
“…I wonder what’s taking Futch and Sasuke so long.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Done and done,” the young shinobi patted his hands together as he turned a corner and away from the street where he and Futch separated.
After they had finished delivering the medicine to Dr. Huan’s patient, which was an old man, Sasuke was able to convince Futch to part ways with him by lying that he had wanted to sightsee. Naturally, being the practical person he was, Futch refused to go with him and decided to go restock on supplies instead of waste time with Sasuke.
“And now to go get Kasumi-neechan’s necklace.”
The shinobi quickened his pace. As he marched towards the intersection, he noticed that a large crowd of people was gathered on the other side of his street. It was the same crowd they had seen before around the hilltop entrance. He slowed down to take a look as he reached the intersection, but didn’t remain to check it carefully. Instead he walked away, towards a different direction, and said to himself, “It doesn’t matter, I need to go south anyway.”
He walked assuredly down the second street. Even though he had never been to Muse before, he and Futch had passed by the item shop earlier, when they were delivering the medicine. He was sure it was in the direction that he was going.
He finally spotted the item shop and ran the last few steps to the front door. Sasuke pulled it open and leaped inside. Once he was in there and the door was closed, the noise of the people on the streets dwindled down to a small murmur. The loud mixture of people’s voices had been buzzing in Sasuke’s ears for a while. Suddenly walking into a quiet room did put him a bit off balance.
The ninja took a deep long breath and sighed. In his mind, he decided that this was the first time he’s seen a large crowded city and that he didn’t like it. Even Gregminster wasn’t as noisy as this, but Sasuke would really pick the quietness of Rokkaku over anything at anytime.
Sasuke slowly walked around the store. The aging wooden floorboards creaked under him as he did. The room was dark compared to the brightness of outside so he blinked his eyes as they were getting adjusted.
“How can I help you?” the storeowner said when Sasuke reached the counter. Sasuke moved his head around and looked over the items that the man had to offer. He stopped when he finally located what he was looking for.
“That,” Sasuke pointed at a box of wooden amulets on a shelf behind the counter. The man smiled as he reached over to grab the box.
“You’ve got good eyes, son. These are specially-crafted amulets made here in Muse,” he settled the box onto the counter and Sasuke began picking through the contents.
“You can only get them in Muse.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sasuke replied as he held up an amulet into the light to see. He examined it for a while. After finding no problems with it, he clasped the amulet in his hand, then placed it on top of the counter, away from the rest of the amulets in the box.
“I’ll take this one,” Sasuke said to the man with a satisfied grin on his face.
“That will be 120 potch.”
Upon hearing the exact cost of the amulet, Sasuke’s face lit up with immense joy.
‘120 potch! That’s exactly what I have. Even one potch less will not do.’
The overexcited ninja reached his hand into his pocket, preparing to pull out the 120 potch the man had asked for, but the action never got executed. The 120 potch that Sasuke was supposed to have was…
“Gone!”
Sasuke began to panic, “W..where is it?” He searched himself all over but couldn’t find it. “WHERE DID IT GO?!”
“You really don’t remember using it, do you?”
Sasuke spun around. Even though he had shouted out his last question, he hadn’t really expected anyone to answer him. Smiling smugly, Futch was leaning against the doorway with none other than Bright, his baby dragon, in his arms. He pushed himself up and began walking towards the confused ninja.
“You really really don’t remember?” Futch asked with the same smile unchanged on his face.
“N..no,” Sasuke replied. His eyes followed as the other boy began circling around him.
Futch would’ve enjoyed prolonging Sasuke’s confusion by continuing to withhold the answer, but it’s just that Sasuke’s face looked so tortured so Futch finally gave up the answer.
“We needed a boat, back when we were in Banner, to get to Radat so we rented one, but we all had to pitch in to cover the cost… You gave exactly 120 potch.”
“Noooooo!!”
Sasuke grabbed his head and screamed as soon as Futch finished the last sentence. He collapsed onto the counter and began to sulk. The whole room was silent. After a while, Sasuke thought he heard Futch walking up to him, but he didn’t care until a hand laid out 120 potch onto the counter in front of him.
Sasuke earnestly looked up and stared at Futch—at a lost for words. Futch adverted his eyes and started scratching his face with a finger.
“I’m not doing this for you. You see, we were going to the market to get some dragon food for Bright, but they didn’t sell any over there so…since I have some extra money…”
“Oh, thank you so much!”
Sasuke threw his arms up, ready to hug his savior. Futch quickly thrust a hand into Sasuke’s face, just in time to stop him. After some calming down, the two were finally able to purchase the wooden amulet. They stepped out of the item shop, back into the bright sunlight, except it had turned bright orange from the approaching dusk.
“Thank you,” Sasuke repeated again.
“You have to pay me back, you know.”
“Sure,” Sasuke replied swiftly, “of course I will.”