The midday sunlight streamed through the windows of the Hokage Building, making the wooden floor gleam.
Shihōin Naraku finished the last document, stretched, and stood up to go have lunch.
He opened his office door and happened to see Shikaku Nara coming down the corridor with a thick stack of documents in his arms.
Naraku frowned. "Haven't I already told you, Shikaku? If you can handle the documents yourself, there's no need to submit them all to me."
He certainly didn't want to waste all his time on complicated, boring administrative work. With so many subordinates, why not squeeze some work out of them?
So seeing Shikaku approach with a huge pile of documents made him quite unhappy.
"Lord Hokage, these need to be reviewed this afternoon..."
Shikaku stopped halfway through his sentence when he saw Naraku's expression and sighed helplessly. "All right, I understand."
Having a superior who cared nothing for power was certainly a good thing.
At the very least, as Advisor to the Hokage, he didn't have to worry about being regarded with suspicion.
But a Hokage like Naraku, who didn't care at all and even took the initiative to delegate his authority, was also quite a headache.
Shikaku had forgotten the last time he had left work on time.
Especially when he saw Naraku getting ready to have lunch while he still had documents to deal with, it felt even more troublesome.
"This really ticks me off."
"What did you say?" Naraku leaned closer, seemingly casually, but his gaze turned dangerous.
Shikaku's lips moved before he finally said, "Nothing. I was just wondering whether you were going home for lunch, Lord Hokage, or..."
"Oh, I see."
Naraku looked enlightened and put away his ill-intentioned gaze. "It's been ages since I ate out. I'm going to try