Boruto was livid.

Once again, his father, Konoha's well-respected and beloved Nanadaime Hokage, had prioritized his Hokage duties before his family. Of course, Boruto understood why his father always worked himself to the bone: It was to ensure Konoha's safety and prosperity, as well as the citizens' well-being. But yesterday was his eleventh birthday, and Boruto had been looking forward to Naruto coming home for his birthday dinner (though he didn't act like it). Needless to say, he was upset and furious when his mother gently told him, after getting a call from the Hokage's right-hand man, that Naruto had to deal with an emergency at the office and wouldn't be able to come back home at all.

Boruto was livid at his father, but he was also mad at himself. Yesterday was not the first time Naruto had missed his children's birthday, but every time he did so he would apologize for not being able to make it beforehand, and gradually Boruto had learned to never get his hopes up. This time though, Naruto had looked Boruto in the eye and promised to come back home for his son's birthday dinner, that he would finish all his paperwork before dinner time, so he could come home on time and they would get to blow out the candles and slice the cake together. Although initially Boruto did think the promise was too good to be true, he had believed in his father's promise. He had thought this year, everyone would be there for his birthday. As it turns out, the village urgently needed its Hokage on the day of his birthday, and his father treasured the Hokage duties more than him, responded to the village's needs more than his needs. Boruto was mad at himself not only for believing in his father's words, but he was also mad at himself for selfishly hoping Naruto would choose him over the village, over the emergency, whatever it was.

It hurts.

It really hurts.

Boruto would never admit this to anyone, but sometimes, sometimes he wished his father was never Hokage.

He let out a long-drawn sigh and stood up. From the rooftop he was lounging on, Boruto looked up to the Hokage Mountain, where he could see his father's serious face carved into the cliffside alongside the previous Hokages. He entertained the idea of vandalizing the Hokage Mountain again; at least when he gets caught, he would get to see his father. Then, Boruto told himself, he would give the workaholic Hokage a piece of his mind about being a no-show on his birthday –

A flash of pink darted across the edge of Boruto's peripheral vision, instantly halting his internal rant. The boy whipped his head around to where the bright color appeared from, but he could no longer see anything out of the ordinary. He did notice though, that the flash of pink came from the direction of the Konoha Hospital's old wing. It was an odd place for such a vibrant color to show up, and this intrigued Boruto, who have always had an adventurous streak in him. So out of curiosity (and boredom), he decided to go and investigate, all thoughts of vandalizing the Hokage Mountain forgotten.

xxxxx

As he climbs the stairs that lead to the hospital rooftop, he wondered what could the pink thing possibly be. Perhaps it was some sort of a toy a child brought up to the rooftop to play with, considering that the Konoha Hospital's old wing currently serves as a pediatric ward and a children's mental health clinic. But Boruto doubted it. He was pretty sure the rooftop is off limits to children. Besides, rumors of a merciless, vengeful spirit haunting the hospital old wing had been floating around the village since, well, since he could remember.

The most well-known version of the rumors is where a woman had planned to commit suicide with her lover, but her lover backed out at the last second and didn't jump off the building, leaving the poor woman dead and full of wrath, who ended up haunting the hospital till this day, placing curses on innocent children in the hope that one of the unfortunate cursed children belongs to her ex-lover. Other versions include a murder victim being killed and her corpse hidden behind the hospital's walls, and an airheaded chuunin who tried but failed to execute the Spirit Transformation Techinique, resulting in her soul being bound to the hospital building forever. Some even claim they have seen wisps of red clinging onto unsuspecting patients, or they have heard disturbing cackling ringing across the corridors in the middle of the night.

The possibility of the rumors proving to be true and actually encountering the rumored vengeful spirit did somewhat unnerve him, but Boruto reassured himself that supernatural beings such as ghosts and spirits don't exist. The rumors and the so-called ghost sightings must have been made up and then exaggerated by gossipy housewives and brainless kids.

Once he reached the doorway, Boruto rattled the doorknob to see if it was already unlocked. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. It didn't faze him though, because he had a neat trick up his sleeve. The blonde gathered a miniscule amount of chakra in his fingertip and sent a spike of it though the lock. It was a useful lock-picking technique he picked up from Kakashi, when they had been accidentally locked out from the ex-Hokage's apartment, though Boruto was sworn to secrecy, because Kakashi didn't want to get into trouble with Naruto, or worse, Hinata.

The chakra did the work. The door creaked, before swinging open slowly to reveal…Nothing out of the ordinary. The dull grey cement floor was not dyed red with blood as some of the rumors had suggested, though the wired fences were caked with rust and the green paint was peeling off. Boruto moved towards the fences, trying to see if he could find the source of pink that drew him to this rooftop. He could see a couple of people below milling around the hospital's entrance and he could discern some movement in the residential buildings across the hospital. Someone seemed to be having a heated argument in one of the rooms, but he couldn't really hear anything due to the steady churning sound coming from the water tanks behind.

Guess there's nothing here. What a waste of time.

Boruto turned to leave, a little disappointed in the lack of findings, and it was then that he realized the flash of pink he saw earlier was indeed not a figment of his imagination, because a young girl, dressed in red, with petal-colored hair, was sitting on top of the water tank above the doorway, swinging her legs languidly and gazing off into the distance.

Boruto paused in his footsteps.

The girl, who seemed to be lost in her own world all this time, finally sensed another person's presence on the rooftop. She looked down at him, and Boruto was startled by how green her eyes are and…How strangely familiar she looked.

Then, she spoke.

"Naruto?"

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! 3

I did think it might be better if Boruto had met ghost Sakura after his twelfth birthday, because it makes more sense with the canon conversation he had with Naruto before Himawari's birthday. But I really wanted to have him meet Sakura while he was still in Academy, so in this chapter I kind of tried to delve into why Boruto said "You're super busy with Hokage business, right? I never had my hopes up anyway." (Boruto episode 66)

P.S. Spirit Transformation Technique a.k.a. Reika no Jutsu is a trademark ninjutsu of Dan (Tsunade's dead lover). It popped up in my mind when I was editing this chapter, so I just decided to throw it into the mix.