Leaning back into her seat, Naruto glares out the windshield as she says to Sai, "You just had to go n' eat Chouji's snacks, didn'tcha?"
"I apologized several times, but he didn't seem interested in listening," responds Sai as he doodles in a notebook. He doesn't seem at all bothered by the rookie assignment they have been given nor repentant of how he landed them in this position in the first place.
Shifting her gaze away from the evergreen trees standing tall in front of the parking lot, she side-eyes Sai and asks, "Did ya actually apologize, or did ya ruin it by insulting him somehow?"
Sai's pencil stops moving as he recalls the incident. He taps the tip of his pencil against the paper and theorizes, "I suppose he might have found my offhand comment about his weight interfering with his work insulting."
Naruto resists the urge to smash her face into the steering wheel, but only just. Instead, she groans, "You know how sensitive he is about his weight."
He merely shrugs and returns to doodling. "It must have slipped my mind."
Surmising that Sai was probably trying to bond with Chouji in his own strange way, but it backfired horribly, Naruto heaves a sigh and cuts the squad car's engine. "Come on, let's tell the owner we're here."
By the fifth loop of the Evergreen Christmas Tree Farm, Naruto has grown tired of trying to blow her breath out in puffs like a steam train. The farm is massive enough that she can't even see Sai on his rounds. They're maintaining radio silence, but Naruto is fairly certain they would hear the notorious Christmas Tree Thieves chopping down a tree regardless of whether they talked to pass the time. Why are two decorated officers even doing this—
The faint sound of a tree falling over breaks her out of her thoughts. Keeping as quiet as possible while trudging through the snow, Naruto follows the conspicuous noise of a tree being stolen until she comes upon a...lone man? Dumbfounded, she watches him drag a tree by himself several yards with little effort before shining her flashlight on him. She yells, "Drop the tree and put your hands in the air!"
The elderly man turns toward her before dropping the tree trunk and making a break for it through the trees. In between maniacal laughs, he yells back, "Try n' catch me coppers!"
Chasing after him, Naruto yells into her radio, "I've got eyes on the thief! He's an elderly man in a green bodysuit and he's heading toward the forest behind the farm! Cut him off—"
Running in a serpentine pattern through the trees, the thief yells back, "I ain't old!"
"Roger that," comes Sai's reply over the radio.
The old man refuses to give her a clear shot with her stun gun as he dodges between trees, so the chase drags on long enough for Sai to join the fray. After another failed attempt to cut him off, the perpetrator taunts them, "Aw, gettin' tired already, kids? I can do this all night!"
Unfortunately for him, his hubris is his own undoing. An energetic leap lands him atop an inopportune patch of ice. His arms flail out to find purchase and Naruto, taking advantage of the situation, grabs one and then the other. She slaps some handcuffs on him and they escort him to the back of their squad car before sharing the good news with the owner.
In their elation, they offer the two officers a parting gift.
When the elevator doors part on his floor, Madara doesn't think much of the tree sticking out of a doorway and into the hall. The closer he gets to it, however, he begins to notice the warning signs. The apartment numbers closing in on his as he approaches. The sound of swearing in a familiar voice. And finally, the smell of cheap take-out wafting from the room.
Madara stops outside his apartment, just short of the tree blocking the entrance. He clears his throat. Naruto and her partner, Soy or something, stop trying to force the enormous tree into the tiny apartment and turn to look at him. Contrary to her partner's blank look, Naruto's guilty smile betrays her. "He~y, honey bunches! You're home early!"
"The conference ended early," Madara explains while casting a displeased glance at the pine needles scattered across the floor.
Nudging her partner, they try to pull the tree through the entryway and into the living room once more as she responds, "That's great! You must be tired after your business trip, so we'll just get this outta your way—"
Madara blinks slowly and blows a breath out his nose. "Naruto."
"Yeah?"
He reminds, "You know that the landlord banned Christmas trees."
She pauses pulling on the tree trunk to reply with forced nonchalance, "Scrooge doesn't need to know."
"And when he does a sweep of our apartment?"
"He hasn't stepped a foot inside since a certain someone moved in, ya know," Naruto returns just as the tree finally comes unstuck and slides the rest of the way into the apartment. Stepping over the mess in their wake, Madara follows them inside to observe Naruto's latest project.
They stand it up in the corner of the living room hidden from the front door. The top of the tree is bent against the ceiling, but Naruto's sigh is content as she thanks her coworker for his help. Despite the supposed social quirks at the root of many of Naruto's anecdotes about him, he takes her thanks as his cue to leave. He replies to her thanks before nodding at Madara and disappearing out the door.
Naruto turns to him. The brightness of her smile dares him to tell her to get rid of the tree now. Gesturing to the pine needles everywhere, Madara sighs, "Clean this up after you're done."