For the 52_Flavors community on LJ. It is 3 in the morning. I am not tired.
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Our Star is Fading
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And Kakashi remembers when they could have outshone the sun, done the impossible, won infinite battles and grown old.
But that time has passed.
He thinks that had the occasion called for it, the messy pencil-drawn maze on the back of a kid's menu that is life could have led them to an exit.
Once he could have stayed and learned the truth and been happy [andstayed. Andstayedandstayed] He could have. Because Kakashi knew two people who would settle for nothing less until the puzzle pieces aligned right for that boy just once.
They would have helped to carry the weight of worlds that a boy brighter that anything, than soul and love and happy. He was [is, still is] a child who's heart was just so big that it had a place for every single person who allowed themselves to be given the privilege. And even those who didn't. Who wasn't especially stupid enough to deny this very special boy a place in their heart as well.
He likes to think that maybe if things had been different he would have been the one to notice her. That she wouldn't have had to fight to be seen, that he wouldn't have had to [or even just could have] adjust [-ed] his eyes to see past the brilliance that was [is] Sasuke and Naruto. He likes to think that those boys would have realized that tragedies are not to be compared but commiserated. That she could have grown with them.
He knows that these things are pointless maybes fed by his need to believe that he isn't a total and utter [completely colossal] failure.
Hatake Kakashi has never been a particularly self-centered man, [egotistical and arrogant, yes. But he was never so foolish as to believe that the world turned because of the rotten decisions he made].
But he absently thinksknowspretendshedoesn't that the wars that every single one of these children are fighting are very likely his entire fault.
Kakashi would like to believe that in another life, another path, the road not taken…he wouldn't be standing here at four in the morning listening to the shallow breaths of half dead teenagers, trying to find something in this world worth what they are giving for all this fighting.
As a man and human being he knows it is natural for him to dwell on the turning points and circumstances that made up his life.
[and vaguely he wonders if this is quite possibly an early midlife crisis. And then he remembers that his life might be ending yet, so perhaps not quite so early.]
But when his eye crinkles in a half wince, half grimace and he can see again.
It is still four in the morning.
And there are still wars to fight.
Yes, I AM aware that the title has nothing to do with anything.
Thank you.