Not Quite Really In Love, Maybe.
A short story in which our characters wonder upon the nature of love.

Have you ever been in love, but not really in love with someone? It's really just the feeling of being in love. The silly wants and needs that come with being in love, but these wants and needs are directed to no one, making it even more maddening than regular love. Touch me. Feel me. See me. Hear me.

Naruto smiled. He liked it when Sasuke was sleeping. He could feel free to study the other boy as much as he wanted. Sasuke's eyebrows were relaxed, no furrows in his pale skin, his eye were shut so delicately, eyelashes fluttering like tiny butterflies, mouth open the tiniest bit, pink lips just barely twitched upwards in a smile. Was he dreaming? What was he dreaming about? Naruto would have been happy to stay like that forever, just watching Sasuke. Beautiful, any flaws that he had only made him more so, so pretty he could have been a girl, a perfect blend between male and female, an angel, nothing less. Everything Naruto wasn't. But, this was his Sasuke, no one else saw Sasuke like this. All his.

You're so in love but you don't really know who with. You look at everyone you meet, searching their words and faces for what you're looking for. But, what are you looking for? You don't know. You watch everyone, seeing all their beautiful features, the little streaks of gold in their brown eyes, the funny little quirk to the corner of their lips, the cute things they do that they don't know they do, curling their shoulders in when they laugh, looking to the side when they're shy. You take these qualities and put them all together into the person that you might be looking for. So you keep looking.

Iruka ran his fingers down Kakashi's face. Nose, lips, catching his fingers to kiss them, chin, slipping down to his neck, drawing back when Kakashi squirmed -Didn't you know? He's ticklish right there.- and finally coming to rest, splayed, over his heart. iruka could feel the steady heart beat coming from under his fingers. He likes this, despite his habit of reading Make Out Paradise, Kakashi actually enjoys just laying in bed and having Iruka doodle on him with his fingers.

And when you finally find the person you're looking for, they may not have all the qualities that you wanted, they may not like all the things you like, but you'll love them so much any ways. You'll love them 'til it hurts and you don't think you know why, but really, you do know why. You love them so much because something in them reminds you of something in yourself, they are your reflection and through loving them, you love yourself, in a round about way.

Sakura leaned into the long fingers that played with her shortened hair. She loved the way Ino's fingers would drag across her scalp and pull through her hair. Sakura lay back, her head landing on a rippling curtain of Ino's creamy yellow hair. Sakura combed their hair together with her fingers. Imperial silk shot through with cherry blossom petals. Eyes like leaves covered in frozen dew met eyes like frosted glass marbles, they share an identical smile.

Have you ever been in love?