Campfire Stories

Summary: Boruto and his friends take turns telling stories around a campfire with their dads. The children and parents start trying to outdo each other in terms of scariness and, in some cases, pure lunacy. Zombies, body-swapping and more.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Boruto or its characters. This is a fan fiction written by me for fun. No profit is being made. Naruto, Boruto and its characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto and Mikio Ikemoto.

Chapter 1: Camping

"Ok, I got the marshmallows," Inojin said, holding up the bag he pulled out of his backpack.

"You mean the ones Chocho didn't eat?" Shikadai asked resting his head in his hands.

"Don't look so miserable," his father told him. "Let's try to have fun."

Inojin opened the bag and started to wedge a marshmallow onto a roasting skewer. "I question why we're doing this anyway. I mean, don't we go camping on missions? Is there a point to this?"

"I'm wondering the same thing," Sai admitted, sitting on a log beside the fire.

"Camping for fun is different than camping on missions," said Boruto, bringing out a big box of chocolate. "We don't have to have someone stand on guard or worry about danger with enemies and stuff like that. We can roast marshmallows, make smores…"

"Can't we just do that at home?" Shikadai asked, although he secretly wanted to go camping with his father and friends.

It was a week ago when Boruto brought this sudden idea to everyone's attention. With the majority of his friends on break from missions and a decrease in mission requests, now seemed like the perfect opportunity to entice them with a camping invitation. Not many of them showed any interest in going, questioning why they would want to when camping was so common with away missions. Frankly, many of them were sick of it.

Boruto was inspired after watching a scary movie about teenagers who went camping in the woods and were attacked by monsters. The plot was boring and predictable, but that wasn't what had Boruto's attention. It was all the fun activities the characters enjoyed before the action started. Eating junk food, telling scary stories around a fire. It looked like a lot of fun.

Mostly, it seemed like a good bonding experience. He knew children often went camping with their parents and he desperately wanted to do the same. He managed to convince his friends to tell their fathers in hopes of getting Naruto to join.

After badgering his friends for days, they finally agreed to ask their fathers to go on a camping trip. Just as with their sons, both Shikamaru and Sai questioned why they would want to. They even listed the same reasons. However, the more Boruto talked about it, the more alluring it became.

Finally, they made arrangements. They made sure to be done with work and gather materials for their trip. They told their wives about the idea and they seemed rather enthused to have a night to themselves. The fathers all made sure to make this trip their priority, scheduling nothing for the evening and the next day to spend time with their sons.

All except Boruto's father who was once again too busy with work to come join them.

Rather than complain about it, Boruto salvaged what was left of the trip to have fun with his friends. It would have been worse it he was going alone. Having friends around would make things fun. At least, that was what he thought. Looking around at his friends sitting beside their fathers stung more than he thought it would. Feeling singled out like this was unpleasant.

Having his friends complain and question the point of this wasn't helping.

"We could make a firepit in the backyard and roast marshmallows there," Shikadai said to his father. "We wouldn't have to come all the way out here."

"All the way out here, huh?" Shikamaru looked over his shoulder at the village gate he could see through the trees.

"It would make things easier."

"That wouldn't be the point of camping, though," said Inojin, understanding that being out in the woods was part of the experience. Understanding that and tolerating it were two different things, however.

"Marshmallows taste better when they're made over a campfire," Shikamaru commented, putting his skewer over the fire. As he said this, he glanced over at Boruto wrestling open the gram crackers from his bag, knowing how Boruto must have been feeling.

Shikadai held his marshmallow over the fire with a sigh. "Chocho tried to eat our marshmallows earlier. Got one whole bag. We couldn't tell her what they were for without ruining the secret because Boruto wanted this to be a guys-only type of deal."

"So don't ruin it for him," Shikamaru whispered to his son. "Don't you think he feels awkward enough being the only one here without his father?"

Shikadai frowned and whispered back, "Then why doesn't he call this off?"

"Because he clearly wants to spend time with all of you as well. Let's try to enjoy this."

Shikadai looked at his melting marshmallow which had already turned dark brown over the fire. He pulled it away from the flame before it could drip onto the ground.

Sai looked at Inojin roasting his lightly toasted marshmallow and commented, "I thought you didn't like marshmallows."

"I don't. But I like roasting them." Inojin smiled, watching his soft treat become gooey. "It's fun."

Sai mimicked his son, roasting his own marshmallow and found that it was very pleasant.

"Where are those gram crackers, Boruto?" Shikadai asked. "My marshmallow's trying to escape."

Boruto distributed the crackers to everyone. "Right here."

"And the chocolate?"

"Oh. Well, we don't have too many so we'll have to take it easy."

"You got a whole bag right behind you," Shikadai said pointing with a smile. "Don't hold out on us."

"I thought we were all making stashes before we started."

"How would that make sense?"

Inojin's marshmallow started to melt off his skewer and his father rescued it with the gram cracker in his hand. Inojin smiled at him in gratitude. "I need some chocolate, Boruto," he called out.

Within minutes, everyone was sitting around the fire enjoying their snacks, any negativity long forgotten. Inojin tried his smore but no matter how a marshmallow was cooked, it was still a marshmallow and didn't care for it. So instead, he made a cracker and chocolate sandwich, enjoying that. Sai had the same, also not caring for marshmallows. Shikadai and Shikamaru debated what was the right order to stack a smore in and tested the results over and over again.

"Having the chocolate on the bottom is best," Shikadai told him, chewing. "It's the first thing you taste after your cracker's broken and it melts on your tongue."

"But it's easier to get the marshmallow off the stick if it's placed on the cracker first. The chocolate then goes on top and the heat of the marshmallow melts it all the same," said Shikamaru, holding up his half-eaten smore.

"You can still do that and turn it upside-down," argued Shikadai.

"True. I suppose it's whatever you want to taste first."

"You're going to taste the cracker first," said Sai.

"After the cracker," Shikadai and Shikamaru said at once and chuckled.

"Shouldn't we roast hotdogs or something?" asked Inojin. "Or is this all we're having for dinner?"

"Oh, I forgot." Boruto pulled out the pack of hotdogs from a different pocket in his backpack.

"You forgot or you wanted to start with dessert?" asked Shikadai, teasing.

"Why can't it be both?"

"What's wrong with that?" asked Inojin.

"That's a good idea," said Sai. "We can start backwards."

"Give me a hotdog," said Shikadai. "I wanna roast one."

"Me, too," said Inojin. "And a bun so I have something to put it on."

"Uh…" Boruto rummaged around with his other hand. "I forgot the buns."

"Typical."

"That's alright," said Sai, standing. "I can go back to the village and…"

"No," the boys whined.

Confused, Sai raised his brow and stared at them. "Hm?"

"When you go camping, you use what you bring. You can't go back and get supplies."

"Why not?" he asked. "The village is right there."

"We're in the wilderness. We have to treat it like it is. It's part of the experience."

"They're right," said Shikamaru, resting his chin on his hand while he held his marshmallow over the fire with the other. "On a real mission, you wouldn't be able to turn around to get something you forgot. Let's treat it like that."

"Alright." Sai sat back down. "Jeez, all these rules…"

"There's nothing wrong with eating them as they are," said Inojin, taking a bite out of his hotdog. "It's good."

Sai smiled, happy to see his son enjoying himself. Other than missions, Sai had never actually been camping for fun like this. It was new territory for him.

"Well," he began, facing the group, "what else do you do when camping like this?"

Boruto grinned fiendishly. "Well… we can tell scary campfire stories."

"Yes," Shikadai said happily. "Oh, this is going to be awesome."

"Campfire stories?" Sai questioned.

"Yeah, it's great," said Shikadai. "You sit around a campfire like this and tell stories."

"Do the stories have to be camping-based or will any story do?" asked Sai.

"Mostly scary stories," explained Shikadai. "That's tradition."

"Huh," said Sai, intrigued. "And are these stories real?"

"That's part of the fun," said Boruto. "No one knows," he said in a spooky tone.

"Basically, they leave it up to interpretation on whether or not the story is real," Shikamaru told him in a lazy tone. "But they're mostly made-up. Mostly."

"They even have a whole book of campfire stories to tell while camping," Inojin told his father. "I saw them on sale in the store."

"Ah, so these must be well-known and retold for entertainment."

"But the best ones are the ones you make-up yourself," said Boruto with a huge grin. "And I got a good one."

"You want to go first?"

"Why? Do you have one, Inojin?"

Inojin bit his lip, eyes moving slowly from the ground to his hotdog turning black over the fire. "Come back to me. I need time to think of one."

"Ok, cool." Boruto sat on the log behind him, facing the group and the campfire. "Here's one that's based on a true story."

"No, it's not," said Shikadai with a smirk.

"Is so."

"Is not."

Boruto pouted. "Come on, how would you know? I haven't even started telling it yet."

"I know you," Shikadai told him. "You'd say that to get people's attention and add to the scare-factor."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

Shikamaru intervened before the conversation could take a turn, despite the fact that both boys were smiling when they spoke. Shikamaru also had to admit to a certain level of curiosity. He wanted to know what sort of story Boruto would tell.

"Ok, Boruto. What's your story?" he asked.

"Does it have a title?" asked Inojin.

"Yup," said Boruto and leaned closer to the fire so his face illuminated eerily. "My story is called… '28 Snacks Later'. And it takes place right here in the Leaf Village."