Shooting stars, Ino had thought, were completely useless. It had been a year. A year of wishing for him to come home. A year filled with wishes varying from shooting stars, 11:11, or to birthday cakes (she had blown out Shikamaru's candles, too. Just to make sure.) But a year had passed of Sasuke being gone, and it didn't look like he would come home anytime soon.
In all honestly, only good things had come out of him leaving. Naruto had decided to go training, she and Sakura had mended their friendship, and she wasn't wasting her time chasing after him anymore. But her heart still tugged at the idea of him.
The idea of him. That was all she would ever be in love with. She had a dream that Sasuke would be her knight in shining armor. That he would save Konoha and everyone would fall in love with him, but he'd pick her. He'd pick Ino because she graduated top of the class with him and she came from a good clan and she was extremely beautiful. They'd argue all the time, she had concluded. They'd argue all the time because she was day and he was night.
So because she yearned for a happy ending with him, she kept on wishing. Wishing for him to come home.
"He's gotten taller," was the only thing she had heard from Sakura about him. Ino didn't press her best friend any further, she couldn't imagine how she was feeling. So close. So close and Kami, they just can't bring him home. (This made Ino's heart hurt because if Naruto and Sakura couldn't bring him home.. how would a wish from a silly little blonde girl who never really knew him bring him home?) As they walked through the busy streets, Sakura had only one other thing to say about her teammate, "He's not going to come back."
Everybody knows that Ino goes on those missions. They don't know that she only lets them touch, not look, but people don't see it that way. These missions have become routine for Ino, and she takes pride in knowing that she is doing this for her village, not because she's a slut.
In all honesty, everything is suffocating her, and as she goes into a bar to come and seduce another man, the same way she always has, but it's not the same. Something is terribly off. Her pale eyes are staring at the face of Uchiha Sasuke, and she curses at herself when she notices her heart is beating faster. Her breathing suddenly becomes ragged and she could create a scene if she wanted to. She could scream at him right now and rant about how he's so stupid to leave Konoha. There are so many things she could do and so many things she could say, but all she does is walk and take the seat next to him.
He doesn't spare her a glance, and they keep on drinking quietly. Her heart is beating fast and she doesn't turn to her right in fear that she'll look into that face and burst out in tears. As her target comes into the bar, she stands up and whispers in his ear, "You should come home. Naruto misses you. Sakura misses you. Everyone misses you." I miss you. He looks confused, because he doesn't know who she is and he doesn't know what made her think that she had the right to say that to him, but when he looks, she's sitting down with someone else, giggling and twirling her hair and biting her lip. She glances at him one more time, but no more after that.
When she came home from her mission, she sat on her bed, her eyes threatening to spill out tears, but they never come out. She promised herself a long time ago that tears weren't supposed to be wasted anytime she was sad. Her eyes gaze at the stars in night sky, and she spots it. She spots the shooting star and she almost wants to punch the next person she sees. A loud sigh escapes her mouth, and she figures it's better to release than the string of creative words that she had wanted to scream at the world.
So with a hurting heart and a screeching mind (because really there were so many other things she could've said. The possibilities were endless and she can't go back and change what she did.) she wastes another wish on the boy who will never love her back.