Hi! I'm actually on winter break now and I thought I'd try to while away the time creatively this year. This is "inspired" if you could call it that by "Twelve Days of Christmas" song. I had remembered it a few days ago and thought to myself -- Why not try to write a Christmas fic with a chapter a day until the 25th? So here's my first try at a multi-chapter fic. Hopefully I can keep my ideas flowing (which is why it's so difficult for me to start a multi-chapter normally).

Enjoy and tell me what you think. :)

Naruto stared at the inside of his apartment in shock. He knew he had left in a hurry that morning but he could have sworn that the door was locked and the windows were shut tightly -- most definitely the windows. It was the middle of December in Konoha for Christ sake. The temperature was always near freezing at this time of the year; who would leave the windows open.

But there it was. Someone had broken into his humble apartment. But from what he could see, there was nothing out of place save the trash which was thrown out. Heck it even smelled pine fresh.

His one bedroom apartment was now sparkly clean and the few random empty ramen cups were gone from the counters. The oak coffee table was shiny and clean of months of dust and weeks of newspapers. He had been so busy working on this new promotion his company had for the holiday season; he would just come home, heat up one of the TV dinners he swore he would never touch and sleep, only to wake up and repeat the next day.

Naruto stepped back and closed the door with a loud snap and shook his head, hoping that it would clear the illusion in his head. A deep breath and he opened the door again…to the same image. A growl sounded under his breath as he marched into the room. He picked up his phone and dialed the number to his landlord, whom he had yet to meet as the previous one was bought out.

"Good evening Ooya-san," Naruto greeted when the person picked up. "I'm Uzumaki in 3B. I'm sorry to bother you but someone has broken into my apartment."

He nodded as he was talking, "No, it looks like nothing's missing. No, I have yet to call the police because of the oddity. Yeah, the oddest thing…the burglar cleaned my apartment and left me a Christmas gift. Mhmm. Okay then. I'll report anything missing to the police. Again, sorry to bother you. Good Night."

After taking a quick survey through his apartment, he determined that nothing was missing and decided to leave it be for now and take a quick shower. Grabbing sleeping pants from his room, he wandered into the bathroom; already his mind was far away from the mystery and back towards the final touches of the promo that he was in charge of.

***

The bathroom door opened and steam billowed out of the small room. Naruto stepped out, towel drying his hair as he wandered towards the kitchen. He paid no more attention to the Christmas gift in the corner of his living room as he poured a cup of water. A quick glance at the clock told him it was close to ten when the music started in the living room.

Strains of Christmas music from the local station played on the small radio he had in the living room. The hypnotic voice of the DJ was reading out the letter of the hour before the next song started. But Naruto didn't pay attention to any of that. He was still wondering about how the radio turned on.

Finally heading into the living room, he looked at the vibrant green Christmas tree in the corner decorated in shiny blue and gold tinsel and twinkling multi-colored fairy lights. The ornaments looked like they were hung with care and atop the very tip was a gold star. Below the boughs of the tree was a single gift wrapped in robin blue and nestled in the boughs was a single card. Padding over, towel draped over his shoulders, he reached out to take a look at the simple design on the card. Inside written in fine calligraphy was :

Do you remember the song we used to sing together?

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me~

Enjoy the first of many Naruto.

So what do you think? It's not coming out exactly how I wanted it to, but I wanted to post it up by the 14th. Hopefully it'll get better as I keep writing.