"What's wrong, Shizune? You look so listless."
Inside the dango shop, several young women sat together.
Shizune merely sighed at that. "Sigh..."
"What, did you get dumped?"
"If it were just a breakup, that would be good enough."
Rin asked thoughtfully, "What exactly happened?"
Shizune looked hesitant, as though she were debating whether to say it.
Seeing this, the other three exchanged looks.
Anko rested her cheek on one hand propped against the table. In her other hand was an empty drink, its straw still in her mouth as she made a gurgling sound.
Only then did Shizune stammer, "It's just... our family owes someone a lot of money."
"How much?"
Shizune slowly held up an open palm.
Kurenai asked, "Five hundred thousand ryo?"
Shizune shook her head.
Only then did Kurenai's eyes widen in shock. "Five million ryo? That much?!"
Rin could not help asking, "What did you do?"
Shizune fell silent.
Kurenai and Rin began calculating. "Five million ryo... If everyone chips in, we should be able to scrape it together."
Anko said, "Kakashi's pretty rich. We can borrow from him. He hardly spends money anyway."
Shizune spoke again, "Actually... it's fifty million ryo."
"..."
The moment she said that, the three girls froze.
Shizune lowered her head and took a sip of her drink to ease the awkwardness.
After a long while, Kurenai finally could not help asking, "What did you do to owe so much?"
Shizune explained quietly, "Lady Tsunade loves gambling, doesn't she? Back when we were traveling outside, she lost a lot of money and borrowed a lot too."
Rin clicked her tongue. "But that's way too much. Even if we sold all of ourselves, we couldn't raise enough. Kakashi only got one million ryo for that S-rank Mission he did before."
Shizune sighed