Chapter 3:

Shikadai leaned back on his hands, looking up at the sky. "You know, I thought us having the day off would be better than this."

For the last half hour, no one could decide what to do.

"They have lunch specials for Valentine's Day," offered Denki.

"It's too early for lunch."

"I'm sure those things are for couples anyway. There's no way I'm going anywhere near those places today."

Inojin sighed, leaning on his hand. "There's got to be something we can do."

"I want to stay out of the shopping area because of the holiday," said Iwabe. "It's going to be crazy."

"It's crazier on White Day because everyone's buying for girls."

"And that whole stupid unwritten rule about how it has to be two to three times the expense of the thing she gave you." Iwabe scoffed. "Who thought that rule up?"

"And what's the exchange on something like that anyway?" asked Denki. "If a girl makes you something, how can you possibly get her something worth twice that?"

"It's a dumb rule made to make guys frantic and get us all in trouble if we don't go all out on a girl, no matter what she gives you," said Shikadai. "If a girl has to look at a price tag in order to make sure it's worth twice what she gave, then it defeats the meaning of the gift."

"Unless the meaning was to make us feel terrible."

"Inojin's got it right," said Iwabe. "If a girl has to see the price tag to measure her worth then the whole holiday's just a load of crap."

"You want to talk troublesome," said Shikadai. "Chocho was hassling us about Valentine's Day. She brought up last year and made a huge deal out of it. It didn't bother her before but when the holiday came around this year, suddenly it was all she could talk about and made it our fault."

"Your fault for what?" asked Iwabe.

"Something stupid. I don't know. I think she was pissed because we stiffed her on White Day."

"Did she give you chocolate?" asked Denki.

"Well, yeah, but…"

"Then aren't you obligated to give her something?"

"Not all guys do, though. Only couples."

"Hey, last year we were all still at the academy," pointed out Iwabe. "You guys weren't teammates yet. If you had given her a gift, she might think you were accepting an invitation to go out with her or something."

"Exactly! Thank you!"

"At least she didn't give you anything this year," said Denki.

"Actually, she did." Shikadai pulled out the box from his bag.

"Seriously? After going on and on like that?"

"Is it poisoned?"

"I doubt it," said Inojin. "Chocho would never poison food. It's just not her."

Shikadai looked at the chocolate in his hand. "I bet she gave it to us to guilt trip us. That might also be why she went on and on before. She wanted to drive it home that she wanted something if she gave us something."

"You kind of have to now," said Denki.

"Why? Just because of some unwritten rule? A gift given just to repay a debt isn't a real gift. It has no meaning. I'm not giving her something that's so hollow even she would be able to see through it."

"You just don't want to go through the trouble," Iwabe teased.

Shikadai thrust the box out towards him. "Then you take it."

"Me? Why?"

"She gave it to me so I can do what I want with it. And this is better than throwing it away."

"She'd take offense to that anyway if she knew," commented Inojin.

"After all that talk about an empty gift, you're giving it to me?" Iwabe scoffed. "Come on."

"At least I'm not expecting anything in return. Just take it."

Iwabe took it. "You just don't want to go through the trouble of getting her a gift."

"Damn straight."

Denki pointed up the road from where they were sitting. "There's supposed to be something going on in the square right now if you guys want to check it out."

"I want to avoid the crowds, Denki."

"Don't worry. It's not a sale or anything. They're announcing something. I think it's a movie. They're premiering the trailer in the square real soon. Might be cool to see it on the big screen."

"Better than sitting around here doing nothing."

The boys walked to the busy area of the village where many villagers had their heads turned up, but not at the big television screens. They were staring at the monument.

"What the hell?"

The carving of Naruto's face had graffiti all over it, complete with several unflattering features scribbled over his mouth, ears and forehead.

"Who would do a prank like that?"

"Didn't Boruto do that a while back when all the Kages were meeting here in the village?"

"It was the one time and he hasn't done that since."

"There are other ways to get his old man's attention. It's probably someone else."

"Who else would do that and why? There are no meetings today, are there?"

"If there are, it's so secret even we don't know about it."

Shikadai frowned. This seemed like something Boruto would do but he hadn't done this sort of thing for quite some time. It must have been someone angry at the Hokage or a copycat trying to get Boruto in trouble.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"All over your face, Seventh."

"Should we haul Boruto in here?"

"No, no," answered Naruto. "We can't accuse him without proof. No one saw him do it and it's not that big a deal."

"Who's going to clean it?"

"It's not priority. Find somebody or locate the person who did it. I don't care right now."

The shinobi left the office and Naruto returned to the paperwork.

Shikamaru looked over at him. "You don't think it's Boruto's doing?"

"It's not fair to accuse him without proof. He hasn't done that sort of thing in a while. Don't see why he would suddenly go back to it, especially if there's not an important summit or something going on to embarrass me."

"It's Valentine's Day," said Shikamaru. "Could he be upset about that for some reason?"

"I don't see how. I'm even trying to get all this paperwork done so I can come home early tonight to spend it with them."

"Kind of hard to do when you gave a lot of people the day off today."

"I wanted them to enjoy the holiday."

"But that just adds to your workload. If you give everyone the day off, in order for the work to get done, you'd have to do it. I know you're trying to make people happy but you're just taking on more work and that means you will be leaving late yet again."

"I know, I know." Naruto didn't stop writing, trying to finish on time.

"Don't spread yourself too thin," Shikamaru warned.

"Don't worry," assured Naruto. "I stayed late yesterday to finish the stuff I needed to get done today so that's one less thing on my plate and I got a couple people handling the other stuff now that it has my signature. I just have to get through this pile and get to those two files and I'll be done."

In truth, Naruto was making good time. He might actually pull it off.

"And the graffiti?"

"It doesn't really matter. Someone will clean it."

Shikamaru sighed. "Defacing your monument. It was just your face, too. The others weren't touched. Hard not to think it's personal."

"If it is Boruto, it's more reason for me to get this work done." Naruto handed Shikamaru a folder. "These are taken care of. Would you mind?"

He took the papers. "I'm on it."

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