Chapter 59 : Visitors II

Furihata smiles a little, a hint of amusement could be seen on his face.

His room that only one minute ago filled with chatter and laughter suddenly turned into a dead silent one, and Kise who seems very lively since the beginning now could only hide behind his senpai while glancing at Midorima with a wary expression.

Well, Kise's reaction is kinda normal in Furihata's book, considering how Midorima keeps shifting his glare from him to Kise every few seconds. Honestly, if not for the tense posture that the other Shutoku players have, he would throw some stupid jokes just to ease the tension.

"So…" He began to speak, breaking the silence. "What can I do for Shutoku players?"

"How about stay in your bed and don't play basketball again?" Midorima muttered loud enough that everyone could hear what he said.

"Midorima, don't be rude!" Otsubo smacked his kouhai a little before he turned back to Furihata and bowed. "Sorry about him. He is still bitter that we lose the game yesterday."

"Heh, sore loser." Kise snickered lowly from behind Kasamatsu, which was unfortunately not low enough for Midorima to not hear that.

"You have a problem, Kise?" He growled at the Kise. However, the blonde didn't even faze by his glare as he shoot back,

"I just couldn't believe you will lose against the team who doesn't have one of us. How do you think the other would react?" Kise replied with a mocking tone.

"You have the gut to say that? If I remember correctly, you also lost the game against them even before us, right?" His former teammate shot back with the same tone.

"Well, at least I was not beaten in my own game! You are even getting blocked by Kagamicchi!"

"You were, though. Furihata-kun blocked you twice when you were trying to copy him, and Kagami-kun stopped you twice too." Kasamatsu suddenly chimed in, eliciting a whine from his kouhai.

"Come on, Senpai! You are supposed to be on my side!"

Midorima just sneered at that.

"Of course, it would be like that. If they could stop me, there is no chance in hell you would be able to escape from their trick."

"Why, you!"

*Cough!*

Suddenly, the coughing voice from the door stopped their bickering for a second. They all turned back to see who is that, but regretted it immediately as they saw the nurse glaring at them all.

"This is a hospital, not a cafeteria. If you want to talk that loud, go outside!"

"We are sorry, Ma'am!" Everyone in the room bowed slightly, apologizing to the nurse.

"If you raise your voice again, I will not hesitate to kick you out of here. You got it?"

Seeing the glare from the nurse, there is only one proper answer they could give.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Good."

A few seconds after the nurse leaves the room, almost all of them released deep breaths they didn't realize they hold.

"That's… Scary.."

Furihata could only nod at Kise's mutter.

"Anyway, Kise, don't you want to visit Kagami before?" Furihata suddenly asked, snapping the blonde from his thought.

"Aaah! You are right! Come on, Senpai! Before Kagamicchi and Kurokocchi leave!"

Seeing the blonde leaving the room, Kasamatsu let out a tired sigh before he followed his Kouhai.

"I hope you have a speedy recovery, Furihata-kun. Goodbye."

"Yeah, thank you for visiting. See you later."

After both Kaijo players left, Otsubo let out a deep sigh as he said,

"Thank you."

Furihata just waved his hand nonchalantly and replied, "Don't worry about it. I know, and Midorima probably knows too, that sometimes Kise is a bit too much energetic and we wouldn't be able to have any civil conversation with him around."

Midorima for once nodded in agreement with what Furihata said.

"Anyway, let's go back to the business first." Then Otsubo turned his head to Kimura who straightened his back immediately. "Kimura, what do you want to say?"

Kimura struggles for a moment to form any words before he bowed deeply at Furihata.

"I want to apologize." He began to speak. "Even though the video replay showed me intentionally hit your head, please believe that I didn't have any intention to hit you like that. It was just because of the frustration in that heated moment that I snapped and raised my elbow that high. I know it is a lame excuse and didn't change anything at all. But still, I really am sorry to put you in this state."

Even though he knows the sincerity behind this apology, Furihata didn't faze even for a second as he saw this coming ever since he regained his consciousness. In the end, though, he could only sigh and say,

"Please be careful in the future."

As he doesn't really know what to say about it. It would be a lie if he says he doesn't mind about it, as he ended up in hospital. But what should he do? Should he ask for compensation? Would it be ethical to do that?

He didn't want to think about it too much and decided to just accept his apologies. He could see Kimura has his shoulder dropped a bit and a deep relieved breath was released by Shutoku's power forward.

"Thank you for understanding."

Well, Furihata can understand why Kimura would react like that. After all, almost murdering your opponent in a high school basketball game would definitely haunt you in your worst nightmare.

Otsubo also has the same relieved expression on her face, glad that Furihata didn't make a fuss about it.

"Nevertheless, we are still responsible for putting you in this situation. We have talked to our principal about it, and he agreed to have our school cover the bill of the hospital."

After hearing what Otsubo just said, Furihata suddenly remembered the reputation behind Shutoku High. Even though it is a public school, Shutoku is famous for accepting a lot of students from political families. Some people even said that Shutoku is where the future of Japan studies. And for them, public image is probably the most important thing in the world.

So, this incident definitely hurt them more than they expect, and this act of having them pay his hospital bill could be seen as their action to maintain their image.

Not that he would protest though, as having those people pay his bill would help his mom a lot.

"Furihata-kun?" Otsubo's voice suddenly snapped him from his thought. He blinked in confusion for a second before asking,

"I am sorry, Otsubo-san, but can you repeat what you just said? I am not paying attention before."

Otsubo stares at him strangely before he shrugged.

"As I said before, our school would cover all the medical bills for you. Do you find it acceptable?"

Furihata nodded slightly at him.

"Yeah, I don't have any problem with that. But you better discuss it with my mom."

Otsubo mirrored his nod as he replied,

"We will discuss it with her after this."

They exchanged conversation for a while, yet no one touched the last game topic. Furihata wouldn't mention it if Shutoku players didn't do it first as it would be insensitive on his part to brag about his win against them, especially when they came with good intentions.

However, the cycle broke when Takao suddenly asked,

"Do you know how many threes were in the game yesterday?"

Suddenly, all of Shutoku's players shifted their eyes to their point guard, glares were thrown at him.

"Hey, after all his amazing play yesterday, he might be curious about his statistics, you know?" Takao tried to defend himself. However, it didn't convince his teammates as all of them are now glaring murderously at him.

If looks could kill, Takao would be six feet under right now.

"Takao…" Midorima growled, trying to restrain himself from strangling the point guard to death. However, he was stopped by Furihata's question.

"Yeah, I am curious about it. How many threes we made yesterday?"

"See! That's what I mean!" Takao grinned smugly at Midorima. The shooting guard just clicked his tongue before he stands up from his seat and leaves the room without saying anything.

"What a rude guy.." Furihata muttered lowly. Takao nodded slightly as he also frowned at Midorima's attitude. However, he decided to let his senpai deal with Midorima later as now, he opened his phone, scrolling through the tournament's official website to see the final stats.

"Let's see…" He hummed for a while before handing his phone to Furihata. "In total, there were 36 three points made yesterday, and you, Shin-chan, and your captain were the players who contributed the most to it. In total, you made the least three with nine, your captain comes in the second with ten threes. Shin-chan broke his own records with thirteen threes, but because we lost, his achievement was overshadowed by yours. However, it still caused a huge commotion on social media as it was the most three points made in a game. Some YouTubers even made reviews and reactions about this game. Here, look at this."

Furihata accepted the phone from Takao and began scrolling through it, once again seeing the news about himself.

36 Three Points Made! The Most Insane Game Ever!

Crazy! Are These High Schoolers Belong to NBA?

Revenge for the Fallen! Seirin Won the Most Dramatic Game of the Century!

Top 10 Facts You Need to Know about Kouki Furihata, Seirin's Fallen Hero!

Reading the headline on the internet, Furihata couldn't help but roll his eyes. "The amount of clickbait here is amazing." Takao snickered at his mutter.

"Yeah, that's internet for you. It can make you smart in one night, yet it could also make you stupid just with one article." Furihata nodded in agreement. "Anyway! What do you think about it? How do you feel to be the newest celebrity here?"

"It's good." Furihata smiles, ignoring the teasing tone in Takao's voice. "Especially because we won the game against you. You all are a bunch of tough bastards."

"Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Hero!" Takao snickered when he saw Furihata cringe at the nickname.

"That's the worst nickname I could get here. Why won't they give me something cool like Midorima? I mean, 'The Sniper'? Come on!"

Surprisingly, all Shutoku players except Midorima snorted at that, clearly amused by the nickname too.

"You have no idea how he hates that nickname. I still remember how he snapped and almost punched Takao in the face after getting called with that nickname for almost a week, and it was just a week after they joined the team."

"Wow, you are a terrible person, Takao-san." Furihata exclaimed in a mocking tone. However, Takao just rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"I would also say the same for you. Just by the look your red hair gives to you, I bet what you did was worse, right?"

Both point guards looked at each other for a moment, no words were thrown at all. However, it changed in a second as they both grinned widely.

"I think we will get along pretty well, Takao-san."

"Yeah, I am sure we will."

The other people in the room just shifted their eyes from Takao to Furihata back to Takao again with confusion. They couldn't help but wonder how in the hell two players who stood toe-to-toe yesterday could act like best friends in less than one hour since they meet.

It seems like a fox would always recognize the other fox no matter where they are.

They keep talking and bickering for another ten minutes before they were interrupted by the sound of someone opening the door rudely. When they all turned around, they could see a strange group consisting of the grinning Kagami walking with crutches, Kuroko with his usual blank expression, Kise with his sunny smile followed by Kasamatsu, and behind them, all stood Midorima with a sour expression as if someone just punched his gut.

Furihata's eyes meet with Kagami's for a second before they grinned at each other, and suddenly, Kagami breaks the silence with his question,

"Yo, Bastard! How is your condition?"

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Author note :

This is just a filler arc that I made to break the tension after 20 chapters full of action. I am aware that it would be boring for a lot of you, but please bear with me.

If you want to support me more, you can visit my Patreon page on patreon(.)com/ZetaFaes

You can also read this fanfiction up to chapter 79 on that page. Thank you! :)

-Zeta Faes-