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Look, there are some people you're just always going to be a little bit in love with. Your high school sweet heart, your college sweet heart, Prince Zuko, the first significant other you live with. Just accept that it's normal and move on.
Sometimes those aren't four different people, sometimes your high school sweetheart is Prince Zuko.
Sometimes you grew up in a noble family important enough to be able to go to the Royal Academy for girls, despite being a non-bender. For Mai, that lead to meeting the Princess Azula, befriending her alongside Ty Lee and getting to visit the palace during school breaks. She was top of her class in knife throwing and cold-hearted attitude, two of the things Azula valued most. Ty Lee was good at jumping around and doing what Azula said. Mai didn't hate their games enough to put a stop to them, it was a welcome distraction from her dull life at home and in school.
She was never searching for an adventure, just to not be as bored as before, to have something move her just a little bit. So, when she saw Zuko angry at his sister, saw him showing his emotions openly, not because he wasn't taught not to but because he was boiling over with it, she was a little moved. When a few years later, she saw her hatred of the world spill over in rage and anger so different from her calm carelessness, she was moved, drawn to the only person who had always shown himself fully despite everything he was taught and she didn't hate him so much, she started to care enough to do something about it. She never cared for his morals or righteousness but she would fight Azula if it meant he would keep it, keep fighting with his hatred that was so much like hers and so different at the same time.
She expected to die that moment, and she was fine with that. She never cared about her life all that much, never as much as his. But she did not die, because Ty Lee, who had always followed Azula's every order, always hung from her lips, always admired her in anything she did. The Ty Lee that had loved Azula all throughout their school years and tried so much to move on from her after, she turned her back on her and saved Mai. They spent hours in their prison cell just talking, well Ty Lee talked, Mai mostly listened. But Ty Lee had liked Mai for a bit by then, she would always love Azula in a way, maybe the same way Mai would always love Zuko. She would never want to be with him again, and Ty Lee would not blindly follow Azula anymore, but there would always be a part of them left loving them.
A much larger part, though, had started loving the other. Nobody would ever be able to understand Mai as much as Ty Lee did, and nobody would know just how to get her out of that place she hated, and find new ways to make sure she would not be so endlessly bored again for the rest of her days.
Sometimes, though, you're born into the war in much a different sense, sometimes the Fire Nation takes your parents when you're too young and your friends are the only family you can rely on anymore. For Jet, the Fire Nation was his enemy, the purpose of his life was to fight and kill as many Fire Nation people as he could and free his land of them. When he met the Avatar, he knew it was his destiny to win this war, alongside the Avatar, his friends, and Katara, who he knew understood his fight. Her mother was killed by Fire Nation, he knew she would understand his need to get rid of all Fire Nation people who had set foot on his people's land. The two of them would save the world with the help of the Avatar and their friends and they would rebuild the world with no place for anyone to shoot fire and burn down houses and towns. But Katara did not understand him, her, the Avatar, and her annoyingly suspicious brother didn't care enough about the war. They turned their backs on him and a small part of him left with Katara as she continued on without a single glance behind.
He moved on, really he did, he didn't need someone to save the world with him. He went to Ba Sing Se with his friends and he met Lee, a guy just his age, obviously hurt by the Fire Nation and filled with the hatred he himself felt, with that sense for justice and the same hunger he had. They raided the Captain's quarters together and Jet knew, this guy would stick around, Lee would follow him, he would fight with him, he would do all it took.
And when he kissed him and Lee kissed him back he knew the deal was sealed and they would take on Ba Sing Se together.
And when they stepped foot on land and Lee didn't go with him and stayed with his uncle instead, he felt a little betrayed. A little enough to want to figure out his deal. And enough to figure out that Lee was not Earth Nation. Lee and his uncle were fire nation, they were enemies of his. And as such, they were to be destroyed. He thought a lot about how Lee had helped him, had worked with him, had seemed to love him just as Jet had loved him. He thought about what a two faced weasel-snake he had been and how he still could not shake the feeling that Lee had been on his side, had almost been ready to fight the world with him. In the end Jet died loving more the thought of the people he'd hoped would fight the world with him than the people they had been. But he died fighting along side them and, in a way, that was what he had wanted, wasn't it?
Sometimes you don't die for the people you love, sometimes you lose them and there's nothing you can do about it. Sokka met Yue on his travels with the Avatar, he knew her for just under a week and call him stupid he was over the moon for her.
Back in the South Pole, Katara had been the only other kid his age. He had never met a nice girl his age he liked that he could meet alone and gift a little fish he had carved. Well, he had met Suki, but he had been too prideful and Suki too intimidating and their time had been too short for him to do anything with her just yet. But Yue was his - almost his - for this one week while Katara and Aang trained water bending so he savoured the time they had together and wished they could be something, wished he could stay, send her letters maybe, at least know she was his. But Yue was not his, he could not stay and he would have trouble writing her. So he spent as much time with her as he could, wishing there had never been a war and promising himself he would come back for her after they won this war. When the Fire Nation attacked the North Pole, he spent the entire day trying to keep her safe, chasing Zuko around, saving Aang, protecting the Moon Spirit. Well failing to protect the Moon Spirit. And yeah, Aang went into the Avatar state and fought the Fire Nation, but the Moon Spirit was still dead and the water benders were permanently weak. And when he felt the most hopeless, Yue stepped in, gave her life back to the spirit that had saved her and he felt helpless. He felt like the world being saved would not be enough to make up for it's costs. The war could not be won. It could only be ended. And any attempt to end it would bring about more losses and they needed to succeed soon so nobody would have to feel that pain of having their loved ones fading in their arms again.
He never really moved on from Yue, not fully, but he did find love again. He loved Suki not the same as Yue and not for the same reasons as he had loved Yue but he loved her. He had wanted to protect Yue with all he could and he had failed, but Suki didn't need his protection, didn't need him to look out for her any more than he needed her to look out for him. She was a fighter much more skilled and experienced than him. She could stand her ground and the fact that she loved him despite that made him the happiest he had been since he lost Yue. Well that and that time he scored that awesome bag for really cheap at some market in the Earth Kingdom.
They traveled together and he loved her and she loved him and every time they parted ways they fought for the same cause and they found together again on another battle field at a later date. And after the war she went back to Kyoshi Island and he went back to the South Pole and they met again at the Fire Palace a few times and in the Colonies but there was too much to do and they were not meant to do it together. Sokka missed her of course. He loved her after the war just as he had loved her during it, but the passion that had driven them together before now went different directions and he had too much to do to properly mourn their relationship.
Rebuilding the Southern Water Tribe included a lot of trade and support from the Fire Nation as it turned out, so while his father and grandmother were at the South Pole leading their people and Aang and Katara were traveling the world doing Avatar things, Sokka found himself traveling back and forth between the South Pole, the Colonies and the Fire Palace, working closely with Zuko, sparring together when the debates fried their brains and every now and then they would sit by the turtle duck pond and chat about nothing and everything and even sit in comfortable silence that Sokka would break with a stupid pun before breaking in a run with Zuko hot on his heels, wrestling him down and then breaking out in laughter at their childish ways. It was just one of those things, a way to release stress, some good fun between close friends in their early twenties with the weight of their nations on their shoulders.
Well it was just that until one time when Zuko wrestled him down he ended up with his face just ye much away from Sokka's own and Sokka could watch as Zuko's eyes dropped to his lips and snapped back up as his cheeks reddened. He scrambled to get up but Sokka's legs were still wrapped around his and he brought his arms up quickly to hold him down and see him squirm a bit more. He flipped them over leaning into Zuko's space impossibly more. He had spent hours by that pond and in the conference rooms getting to know Zuko the Fire Lord and Zuko the guy who could talk about turtle ducks for at least as long as it took for the shade of the tree above them to move to leave them exposed to the burning sun. And with every part he had learned about Zuko he had loved him a bit more. So when he searched Zuko's eyes while he leaned in and found nothing but hope he could do nothing to mirror it and when they kissed, closing the gap between them halfway, he felt giddy like he was in love for the first time all over again.
After that, a part of him stayed in the Fire Nation every time he went home and a part of him cried every time the moon lit up the streets and a part of him felt a little safer with red on his eyes and a fan in his hand just like the part that lit up when he saw a turtle duck just walking through republic city.