Love really is everything it's cracked up to be...it really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.

- Erica Jong

I'm coming after you.

You never told me the whole story. You never told me the whole of anything, really. You hid from me, to supposedly spare me. When I tried to talk to you, you would turn away, or change the subject. However, I know now. And I won't let you leave me again.

When we were younger, we were rivals. In our preteen years we were comrades and friends. We should have been lovers, me and you. But I never knew that you had the same feelings for me. I refused to tell you, because I was afraid. That sounds so strange to admit, that I was scared! But I was. I wanted to cling onto that fragile bond of friendship that we had, to hold desperately to your trust- why would I want to screw everything up? So I acted as if nothing was different, as if I never dreamed of you, as if I didn't love you.

I was so stupid.

There were times when I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could see that extra-soft light in your eyes, or you really did care more for me than I thought; but then you would push me away, snap at me. Every time you would do that, I just let you leave. I never followed you- not once.

Hokage urged me to marry a nice girl, to settle down. I just shrugged. The only person I wanted was the one person I could never get.

Over the years, our friendship grew tense. I pretended that I didn't feel hurt every time you yelled at me, or ignored me. I pretended I never worried about you on those dangerous missions. I pretended that I never dreamt of you, or watched over you when you were sick. I pretended I didn't care when you began to date that girl.

I pretended, when you walked down that aisle, that I didn't feel as if I had just had a kunai stabbed through my chest, and my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces.

I should have gone after you then, before you slipped that beautiful ring on that witch's hand. I should have grabbed you before even thought about proposing to her. I should have kissed you with all the passion in my soul, and told you that you were my light, my everything, that my world would crumble if you didn't stay with me.

Instead, I stood there, your best man, trying to look happy for you. I was such a coward.

Now, looking back, I realize that you were wearing the same strained look that I was wearing.

We still fought together, side by side, but instead of hanging out at my house or going out to eat, you had to go home, to your young bride. I watched her with envious and hate-filled eyes as she complained to her close friend that something was missing from her relationship. How could she say that? She was able to hold you close every night, to curl up at your side, to laugh with you, to eat with you, to discuss your deepest thoughts on life. The things I would never be able to do.

Then everything changed.

One mission gone bad. That's all it took.

You should have left me alone. I would have been able to dodge it- at least, escape it with only a wound instead of death. Plus, did it really matter if I lived or not anymore? For the first time in a long time, I turned my back. I heard the whistle of some weapon cutting through the air. I felt you push me down. I heard the thunk of steel connecting flesh not once or even twice, but multiple times. Although I disposed of our would-be assassins in only a few seconds, it was too late.

It felt like one of my nightmares come true. You leaned on me, and I let you lean, cradling you in my arms. I saw those kunai and shuriken in your back- blood leaking out of each one. And then you began to talk.

My blood never ran as cold as it did when you spoke those words.

You told me that you were sorry. Sorry that you had to keep me away, and sorry that he had caused me so much pain. You told me- as your eyes burned with an ethereal light- that the Hokage and Elders had forced you to stay distant from me, in an effort to make me marry. When even that didn't work, they made you marry, hoping I would give up and start a family.

You told me, as I watched that extra-soft look that I had always hoped to would see enter your eyes, that you only loved one, and to make that one happy you had done all those things. And that one was me. You attempted to smile, lifted a trembling hand to caress my cheek for the first and last time...before it fell into my lap, lifeless. Your soft eyes lost that glow. A ghost of a breath exited your lips.

I had never felt as alone and lost in the world as I did that moment.

My heart was filled with a pain so full of misery and anguish and hate towards the Hokage and love towards you. Why now? Why must it end like this? I kissed your bloodied lips desperately, hoping in vain to revive you, but you didn't respond.

But then I realized something. Life may be one journey, but death is just another.

And so, taking one of your precious kunai, I smiled with pure happiness, a smile wider than I had ever smiled before. I had only one last thought in my head. It wasn't about reviving my clan, or protecting Konoha, or killing my brother. I did not think of how I had failed you; you, who was the most important thing in my life, my companion, my protector, my love; the only person in whom I could put all my trust, the person whom I should have been protecting instead of trying to fulfill my own selfish dreams. But I thought of none of that. All I could think of was how I was going to do the one thing I had never dared to do before. The one thing that I had shrunk from (and been afraid of), your love, Iembraced with all my heart, andI would never in a million lifetimes or deaths letthatemotiongo.And, to tell you the truth, I felt nothing but pure joy from the cold steel, and all my eyes could see was you, my darling.

I'm coming after you, Naruto.