Leo

A gentle touch

"Ughh! I'm so fricking late!"

Chouchou ran at full speed through the semi-empty streets of Konoha hoping she would make it in time. On the regular, she wouldn't be that worried about being late since Inojin and Shikadai were already used to her antics, but today Moegi-sensei stressed they needed to be early, and oh boy, you didn't want to piss her off. Yesterday was Chouchou's birthday and she used every single bit of the day to spend it with her family and friends, she ended up oversleeping.

Getting closer to the Hokage tower, she could see her teammates crossing arms, Inojin, in particular, making gestures for her to hurry up before him and Shikadai turned over and run inside the tower.

"Ha... ha... Damn it all!"

Almost out of breath with droopy arms she slowly followed until reaching the tower, where she crossed paths with Team 7 which seemed to be in a hurry as well. They all nodded to each other and Chouchou heard Sarada say

"Hey, Chouchou! You can do it!"

"Ah... ha... Thanks, Sarada! Let's hang another time...!"

Sarada quickly nodded and followed Boruto and Konohamaru-sensei. Mitsuki who was at the back exchanged looks with Chouchou. She briefly waved at him when they passed by each other

"!"

Chouchou halted when she felt a gentle squeeze on her hand. She brought her hands to her chest and looked back at Mitsuki who already left to catch up with his team. 

"Huh...?"

She slowly opened her hand to find out a small paper bag with a round golden sticker that sealed it. Chouchou peeled it with curiosity to find out a brown butterfly-shaped hairclip together with a note written in white paper and ink that said

"Happy belated birthday, Chouchou."

Chouchou chuckled while looking at the note warmly

"What's with this old-fashioned handwriting...?"

Carefully, she placed the present inside her back pocket before she ran out to meet her teammates.