Title: Drift into Love
Pairings: GaaLee
Rating: G
Description: 'Falling in love' sounded painful. Gaara didn't like pain. He would much rather 'drift into love'.

When I finally figured out the meaning of love, I was intrigued. I knew what it meant, how it felt, and how it affected the people around me. I started to see it all over my home village. I saw it within my siblings towards others and I saw myself exhibiting this feeling of 'love' towards several others as well.

When I finally figured out that I had fallen in love with a certain green clad, large browed chuunin, I was a bit surprised. It sounded painful, to say the least, and I was afraid. I was afraid of how he would take it. He… I had recently learned that boys were supposed to like girls… Not boys liking boys… But since when have I ever been normal?

Anyway, he… I loved this shinobi very much. He was strong, he was fast, he was caring, and he was unique. He was horribly ugly, but I've never been one to care about skin shape. Why would I care about how this wonderful specimen was born? It wasn't like he chose to be like that!

But, he was the one who started to knock some sense into me. He helped start the process of thought, that yes I am not unstoppable. He helped make me figure out that I was not ok in the state that I was in. He was the first one to touch my skin (sand skin, but that doesn't really matter) and leave a mark.

Not many people back then liked me, so they didn't even attempt at touching me.

He… He was so kind to me, even when lying in a hospital bed and staring at my while I had a threatening hand held up to him. He smiled, his large, fish-like eyes bright and sympathetic, and told me; "It is ok, Gaara-kun, I forgive you."

My chest hurt then. The sizzling pain of it was making me want to scream and break something.

It had taken me around three years to figure out that I had 'fallen in love' with a certain Rock Lee.

I wish I hadn't fallen in love. It was much too painful for me, I was alarmed and unready for it, and I was afraid he would reject me and leave me with a bleeding heart. He did love that pink haired girl… I can't remember her name.

I would have liked to drift into love: a slow gradual ease into the foreign thing of love. I would have rather had him tell me he loved me, have me reject him for a bit, and then discover I loved him, and break it to him at the crack of dawn on the balcony of the Kazekage building. He'd cry with joy and sweep me into a brisk hug, which I've needed desperately for years, and tell me with so much love and care that he loved me that I would feel like throwing up. I would not vomit, but rather repeat his words my way.

Of course, we wouldn't ride off into the rising sun and go to who the hell knows where. We would stay in my office and hold each other until Kankurou would rip Lee off of me and throw him out of the window, a stupid brotherly protecting remark falling out of Kankurou's lips quickly afterwards.

That would be magical… Or something.

I didn't want to tell Lee that I have certain feelings for him, but there was this nagging thing that kept on telling me to tell him. Half of that nagging thing was in my chest, while the other half was my dear sister Temari.

She always was very nosy.

I was surprised to see a certain chuunin standing at the door of my office one hot day in Suna. He had on a weak smile, his hands gripped around parched flowers, and his eyes pointed towards the doorframe rather than at me.

He pushed the thirsty flowers at me, forcing me to take them, and blurted out in a rather cute way: "I love you, Gaara-kun!"

I stared at him for a long while and then I did something that surprised me. I started to laugh. It was stressed and not normal, but a real laugh nonetheless.

He stared at me, large eyes shocked.

I took his limp, bandaged hand and put the small revealed part of his pointer finger into my mouth. I smiled, his finger still resting in there.

"I love you as well." I replied, which was somewhat difficult for his finger was in the way. But the words were spoken, and would never be taken back.

I don't understand why I have a fetish for hands (especially fingers), but I do, and that is why I found his appealing. They were rough and textured. They held history, some that dated back even before he and I meet.

Later I found scars on them, ones that spoke such epic tales that I had to marvel them for quite a while before he pulled them away in embarrassment.

He was so adorable when flustered and embarrassed. It makes me feel like laughing.

Several years later, I learned something new about this thing called love.

I figured out that I had indeed drifted into love with Lee. But I had actually fallen into curiosity before I had drifted into love with him.

I had not loved him way back, but I found him appealing, and that was why I had (not even knowing I did so) accepted him as one that I could love in the future. I had allowed myself to like him, even though I was set on not loving people.

Today, I laugh to myself when he's out getting dinner or on a mission, because my wish had come true. It really did. I had drifted into love with Rock Lee…