What is Tanabata?

Tanabata is one of five festivals which customarily signal the changing of the seasons in Japan. In old times, it was held on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar year, but now the official celebration date varies region to region, with the first festivities typically happening from July 7.

Also known as the Star Festival, Tanabata has its origins in a Chinese festival and concerns the romantic legend between two literally star-crossed lovers, Princess Orihime the Weaver and Hikoboshi the Cowherd. The pair are represented by the stars Vega and Altair, separated by the Milky Way galaxy, and can only meet on this day once a year when a flock of sympathetic magpies form a bridge for them across the river of heaven.

In Japan, Tanabata is celebrated by writing wishes onto strips of paper and hanging them along with colorful decorations on leafy stalks of bamboo. Additionally, each region boasts its own unique Tanabata customs so festivities will vary from region to region.

- Shamelessly copied and pasted from Rakuten Travel. See my tumblr for links

This story follows Neji and Tenten on Tanabata through the years.

Tanabata

It started when he was small.

His father's hand had been large and warm in his as he led him to the tree to tie his wishes.

She was there, then, in a red and gold kimono, her impossibly large eyes dancing about inquisitively. She smiled and waved at him, as her papa hoisted her up on his shoulder so she could hang her fortune. His father nudged him, and he waved back shyly, earning another smile.

"Do you know her?"

"No," he'd shaken his head, his cheeks warm.

"She looks to be about your age," his father watched with him. "Perhaps you will be classmates at the academy."

"Maybe," he shrugged returning another wave before she scampered off, hand-in-hand with her parents.

"Who knows," his father's voice had been carefully nonchalant. "You might even see her here next year."

His father had helped him tie up his wishes then, and Neji secretly added "I hope she's here next year."

She was there the next year.

But his father was not.

She caught sight of him and pressed paper into his hands.

"Take my wishes, too," she whispered, before running to catch up to her family. Her father took her hand, and her mother covered her mouth with a cough.

Several years later, there was no one with her, but she wrote her wishes and hung them just the same. They were both in Academy now – she was in his year. She didn't pay him any special mind, but he liked how she watched. She watched like she understood the value of hard work.

He was called a prodigy – some thought it all came so easily.

They had no idea.

But she did.

She watched like she appreciated the efforts that honed his genius.

It was Lee initiated the tradition of them meeting as a team to hang their wishes. He found out she had always gone with her family, and insisted they all go together, for a team that worked together should support each other in their dreams and ambitions. (There were multiple references to youth and other such things, but Neji and Tenten didn't bother listening to the arguments)

Lee didn't know that Neji and Tenten had been attending the Star Festival separately – but together – for years.

But as she smiled and laughed and that first time they hung all of their wishes together, he thought "It always has to be this way. Or else it won't be right."

And she was the last one to have seen him with his father and to understand the things that had changed under the boughs of paper and bamboo.

It was the first place he had kissed her. And she had impishly grinned. "Didn't expect my wish to come true so quickly."

It was where he asked to walk her home. It was where they were before they spent their first night together. It was there that he proposed. And later, where he lifted his child onto his shoulders to hang her own wishes.

That night, she settled into bed, and yawned widely while he stroked her hair.

"Do wishes come true daddy?" she asked, eyelids drooping.

"They can," he ventured.

"But not if I tell anyone, right?"

"I understand that is the protocol."

"I didn't tell anyone my wish," she drifted to the edge of sleep. "So I'll be a big sister next year, for sure."

His smile was faint.

"Perhaps."

That night when he and Tenten wound themselves together in their bed, he settled a warm hand on her abdomen, watching the new flicker of chakra dance about.

He told her about his conversation with their daughter.

"I wouldn't have told you," he admitted, letting his Byakugan fade, "if I wasn't certain that the integrity of her wish wouldn't be compromised."

"Looks like she'll get her wish after all," Tenten smiled, snuggling closer to him.

"And you?"

"I already have mine," she smiled into the crook of his neck. "Every year from the first time I saw you, I added on an extra wish – to see you at the tree the next tanabata."

"Strange," he leaned back to better see her. "I was certain you would've included something about dumplings or whatever that inedible concoction was that you had me fetch for you last week."

"Fine," she shrugged. "Next time you have the baby. I'll go get the food."

"That would be most unyouthful," Neji shook his head. "Best to leave things as they are."

Her chuckle was low and warm as he tucked her under his chin, and they said their good nights.

And as sleep drifted over him, he thought of the small girl in the red and gold kimono with the too-big eyes that had filled his heart as long as he had known her.

Neji wrapped his arms around Tenten, thinking that she was proof that dreams came true in the most wonderful and unexpected ways.