Wish

Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now
B.O.B. feat Hayley Williams – Airplanes

They were a broken generation of Shinobi.

Of course, every generation of Shinobi would end up broken in their own way. But theirs was fated to be broken, with Naruto being an outcast with a clown-mask, Neji a lonely boy that only ever wanted to be free and Sasuke haunted by demons and monsters that kept him awake at night.

They'd end up all right, their parents and teachers claimed. But the small shadows that would cast over their faces after they'd spoken the words showed that even they didn't truly believe that.

It made believing in something – something positive, a happy ending – even harder.



He'd always guessed that such a lack of faith in your own happiness was what made people make a wish on a falling star.

Falling stars were enchanting, beautiful in their fall and an enigma in their rarity. Perhaps it was the attraction to something unobtainable, something so far away that one was unable to fully understand its meaning, that attracted people to falling stars.

Whichever was the reason for people's longing to wish upon a shooting star for their most important wish to come true, Shikamaru couldn't help but find it unnecessary.

Falling stars – which were actually meteors, and not stars at all – couldn't change anything in your life or your future. They couldn't talk to the one you cared about most, the one that was hurting from a past so dark that every dream would turn into a nightmare. They couldn't console your secret love from his pain nor could they soothe him as he woke up from yet another nightmare.

No, wishes made on a falling star were hopes, prayers even, that only you could make happen.
So that's why every night Shikamaru would keep Sasuke company as the Uchiha sat outside to escape the confines of his own empty home.

Because if the stars couldn't care for Sasuke, couldn't love and console him, he would.

Their backs were always pressed against one another, uncomfortably at first but so very familiar and comforting by now. They never spoke, almost as if both were afraid that if they did the moment would be ruined.

And while he himself always looked at the sky – because star-gazing was so similar to watching clouds – Sasuke's eyes were always lowered. It made him wonder, if maybe Sasuke had once wished for something – a better life? A happy ending? – but had been let down by such a superstitious thing as a falling star.

Little did he know, that while Sasuke always looked down thoughtfully, almost grimly, it wasn't because of a wish not coming true. In fact, the one wish he'd placed upon a falling star not too long ago – someone that cares, please – had come true.

The stars had gifted him Shikamaru, after all.