"It's your birthday, too?!"
Naruto runs to the kitchen so fast that she clips the wall. Her festive socks offer little traction against the kitchen tiles, but she maintains her balance as she slides toward the cupboards. After bumping into and tearing through half of them, she remembers that she has some pancake mix. She calls out to her flabbergasted neighbor sitting in the living room, "Hang on, I'm gonna make a cake!"
A stack of pancakes kind of looks like a cake and she'll stab a candle into it for him. It's the best she can do on such short notice.
Had Naruto known that the gloomy guy living in the adjacent apartment didn't have any family to come visit him on Christmas Eve—his birthday—and Christmas Day, she would have invited him over long before now. If her flight to her hometown hadn't been delayed due to inclement weather, he would have been alone this year, too.
Even under close supervision, some pancakes end up a tad charred and misshapen. Unsure of how much syrup he likes on his pancakes, Naruto tries to write 'Happy Birthday Madara' on top, but runs out of space, so it ends up reading 'Happy Birthd.' Lamenting her subpar culinary skills, she carries the plate out to him.
Madara looks all kinds of uncomfortable and out of place in her untidy living room. He changed out of his expensive suit, but somehow he just seems too posh for her secondhand couch. It still baffles her that he actually accepted her invitation to spend Christmas Eve together. His birthday! She spares him her "awful" rendition of the birthday song and hands him the plate. She reassures, "I'll getcha a better cake once the snow clears."
Unsure of how to react, Madara accepts the plate. Her expectant stare prompts him to cut into the stack of pancakes and sample it. Despite its appearance, the makeshift birthday cake is passable. He tells her as much and she slouches in relief.
The young woman confuses him. They haven't spoken a word to each other in the years they have been neighbors, but she suddenly invited him inside her apartment. Most wouldn't care if a stranger didn't have any special plans for the holidays, let alone invite said stranger inside their apartment. Stranger still, he accepted.
A vibrant smile greets him when he happens to look at her. He supposes there are worse ways to spend an evening.