Archive of Our Own

And she’s wearing your class ring
There’s a last time for everything

- Brad Paisley, "Last Time for Everything"

Aang’s friend Toph has a cousin named Suki. She moves to town the summer of their twelfth year and promptly begins spending almost every day floating around the Beifong’s pool on a bright green float while Aang and Toph sit on the side, their feet dangling in the water.

Not long after Suki moves to town, it becomes rather evident that she’s fun and cool. Mr. and Mrs. Beifong ask her to come around every day and keep an eye on Toph while they’re at work. With the way that Toph complains about it in the leadup to Suki’s arrival, Aang expects the older girl to be rigid and strict. After the first day, though, Aang realizes that it’s not her cousin that Toph is complaining about. She’s upset that her parents still think that she’s incapable of taking care of herself because she’s blind.

No, Suki is not an issue for Toph. She doesn’t coddle Toph or sugarcoat things the way that Mr. and Mrs. Beifong do. If Toph makes up her mind to do something, Suki lets her do it without hovering behind her. The only thing that concerns Suki is that Toph won’t get in the pool.

“I’ve tried talking her into it for years,” Aang says to Suki one day after Toph has gotten frustrated with her cousin’s encouragement and stormed back into the house. “But she’s scared. Her parents wouldn’t let her take swim lessons.”

Suki, perched on her green pool float, sighs and shakes her head. “Spirits, Aunt Poppy and Uncle Lao are the worst. What’s she supposed to do if something happens and there’s no one to help her? She should at least learn how to tread water.”

“I don’t think you’re going to talk her into that,” Aang says.

Suki huffs another sigh and he thinks she might be rolling her eyes behind her big, dark sunglasses. Aang has never seen Suki without her sunglasses—she’s always out at the pool when he comes around to the Beifongs’ house—but he thinks she might be pretty in a cool, older girl sort of way and she seems smart. He finds it interesting that Toph loves Suki as much as she does because Suki is like the girls at school that Toph hates. The popular ones who are easily liked and have lots of friends.

Aang and Toph just have each other.

But when cool, auburn-haired Suki moves to town, that’s when everything changes.

It’s the summer that Toph finally dares to enter the shallow end. It’s the summer before they start seventh grade.

It’s the summer that Aang meets Katara.

At fifteen, Suki is a freshman at the high school down the block from Kyoshi Middle School. As soon as the school year begins, she stops coming around on weekdays, but shows up on the weekends like an inevitability, her chin-length hair in a sloppy ponytail, her dark glasses on her face. It’s the end of summer, but the sun beats down hot enough to fry an egg. Aang and Toph sit with their feet dangling in the water while Suki floats around on her raft, a can of cola in one hand and a paper hand fan in the other.

“So I already asked your parents,” Suki says to Toph as she floats past, “but I wanted to run this by you, too.”

Aang feels Toph’s shoulder go rigid against his arm and he looks down at her. She stares blankly, eyes unseeing, across the expansive, green yard, a frown ready to bloom on her mouth. Swallowing hard, he can’t help but wonder if Suki managed to talk Mr. and Mrs. Beifong into giving Toph swim lessons.

“What’s that?”

“Well,” Suki wedges her drink into the cupholder on her raft and reaches for the rim of the pool to pull herself closer. “I made a couple of friends and I was hoping it’d be okay with you if they come over with me sometimes.”

“Oh.” Toph relaxes, her shoulders drooping with relief. Still, Aang hears the grit she maintains in her voice when she continues. “What kind of friends?”

“The human kind,” Suki deadpans.

Aang laughs and it earns him an elbow to the ribs from his friend. “That wasn’t even funny, Aang,” she says with a scowl. “Seriously, Suki. Nobody lame.”

“Oh, no!” Suki says with a wide, brilliant smile. “You’re going to love them. Sokka,” her face flushes pink, “Sokka’s really funny—”

“You funny or funny funny?”

“Be nice or I’ll splash you.”

Toph sticks her tongue out and blows a raspberry.

“Anyway,” Suki pushes away from them and sets off on a lazy float around the sprawling pool once more, “It would be Sokka and his sister Katara. She and I are on the soccer team together.” Drifting past the waterfall at the edge of the pool, Suki laughs as the spray hits her face.

Aang likes how Suki doesn’t push Toph for an answer or try to press the issue anymore. He thinks that maybe she’s learned from her attempts to get Toph into the pool that there’s no use in pushing her cousin. The younger girl pulls one of her feet from the water and props her chin on her knee as she thinks. Droplets of pool water roll down her calf and plop quietly on the decking.

“I guess,” Toph says at long last. “But they’d better be cool. I don’t hang out with dorks.”

“Toph,” Aang says, “ ’m not cool and you hang out with me.”

This earns him another dig to the ribs with her elbow. “Shut up, Twinkletoes,” she growls. “You’re the coolest.”

Suki shows up the next weekend in somebody else’s car. For the first time ever, Aang is at the Beifongs’ house before she is. Toph’s parents are hovering by the door, eager for Suki to come in so that they might leave to go wherever it is they go on the weekends, when the car pulls up. It’s blue and beat up, and Aang watches it rumble up the Beifongs’ driveway with wide gray eyes. It’s not the kind of car that belongs in the Beifongs’ neighborhood. There’s a dent in the front bumper and two kayaks in a rack on the roof.

“What do they look like?” Toph asks, appearing at his elbow.

“I can only see the car, Toph.”

“Well, what does that look like?”

Aang pauses to consider this with a thoughtful tilt of his head. “Um…” he says. “Like maybe your parents won’t think they’re good enough to hang out at your house?”

A devious sort of grin spreads across Toph’s round face. She grabs blindly for Aang’s arm, her grip strong and sure as she tugs him away from the front window. “That’s a decent sign, at least,” she says.

Palm wrapped around Aang’s wrist, Toph yanks him through the ostentatious living room and towards the back door. He stumbles after her, craning his neck over his shoulder to get a glimpse of Suki and the newcomers.

“Wait!” he yelps, grimacing when he jams his big toe on the threshold. “Don’t you want to say hello?”

Toph scoffs. Their feet hit the grass and she finally comes to a stop, releasing Aang’s arm only to take off her socks. “I don’t want to sit there and listen to my dumb parents explain my blindness to two crummy teenagers,” she says. One sock gets flung through the air, followed soon after by the other. Aang can tell that Toph thinks she’s aiming for the deck off the back of the house, but her socks go flying in the opposite direction and land in a rosebush.

“I’m sure it won’t be all that bad,” he says, hoping to raise her spirits. He trots over to the bush and plucks her socks free, rolling them together before he tosses them to the deck.

“Hard pass, Twinkletoes.”

Taking slow, measured steps that Aang knows she’s counting, Toph picks her way across the yard to the pool. He dashes after her with a smile. When they’re settled in their usual poolside locations, feet dangling in the cool water, he takes a deep breath.

“Can you not call me that around Suki and her friends?” he requests.

“What?” Toph looks at him, filmy eyes wide with what he thinks might actually be hurt. The look drives a stake of remorse in his heart. “Why?”

“Toph,” he wheedles, pressing a hand to her slim shoulder, “they’re older kids.”

She pulls away from him with an annoyed puff of air that ruffles her dark bangs. “Oh,” she says. “You just don’t want to look like a baby in front of the big kids.”

Aang feels his entire head turn red. “That’s a really mean way to put it.”

“Whatever. Aang.”

He makes a face that he’s decidedly glad Toph can’t see. Though he’ll never admit it to her, he definitely likes her nickname for him better, especially if that’s the way she’s going to say his name, as if it’s something with oogies.

“If other people at school find out we’re hanging out with older kids,” he begins, “maybe—”

“Maybe nothing, Aang,” Toph says. She kicks pointed toes into the air, flinging drops of water over them. “Kids at school don’t give a hoot about that stuff. Not when it comes to you and me. To them, I’ll always be the blind girl and you’ll always be the blind girl’s friend. This won’t change that. You hitched your saddle to the wrong horse, kid.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Oh, no,” Toph sneers. “Color me offended.”

Aang frowns and scoots a few inches away from her. “You’re being mean today.”

“I don’t see why you want to be all buddy-buddy with these kids anyway. It’s not like we’re going to see them that often. And they’re just going to be dumb high schoolers who are obsessed with dumb high school things.”

“Toph! Aang!”

Turning around, Aang catches sight of Suki waving at them from the back door. For the first time in the month or so that he’s known her, he sees her face without her sunglasses. His assumption was right. She’s pretty.

But nothing like the goddess that follows her out the door.

Katara is fifteen years old, just like Suki. Her brother, Sokka, is sixteen and has his driver’s license. They both have bold personalities and vivid blue eyes set into brown faces. Both of them are lanky and athletic, though Sokka has the better sense of humor. Aang likes them both immensely, but Katara…

She’s whip-smart, soft brown hair pulled into a braid that snakes its way down her back. Together with Suki and Toph, she torments her brother as only a sister can. Everything she does from diving into the pool to stepping on light feet through the grass is perfect. Her laugh is a melody. Her lips are the loveliest shape. And she’s the nicest person Aang has ever met.

With wide, wondering eyes, he watches as Katara cuts a smooth, sleek line through the water and surfaces next to Toph. Water runs in little rivulets down her face, drawing liquid lines down each delightful dip and curve. At the opposite end of the pool, Suki is shrieking and laughing as Sokka attempts to dethrone her from her bright green pool float. Aang, though, only has eyes for Katara.

“Hey, Toph.” Katara rests her forearms on the stretch of decking between Toph and Aang. Her elbow nudges the side of his knee and his face burns. “Suki says you’re a little wary of the water.”

“So what?” Toph asks, stony-faced.

“I understand. I mean, it’s not the same, but Sokka and I… Our mother passed away when we were younger. There was a boating accident and she didn’t make it. After that, I was afraid of the water for a long time, too.”

Aang feels his mouth drop open. Poor Katara! His heart breaks for her.

“But if you’d like to give it a shot,” Katara shrugs. “Well, I’m a certified lifeguard, and Sokka and I are both strong swimmers. He’s on the J.V. swim team at school and I’m on the varsity. So you’re in good company.”

Suki and Sokka’s laughter is the only sound for a moment as Toph considers the offer. Katara uses a thumb to adjust the strap of her white bathing suit and Aang can’t help but stare. There isn’t an inch of her that isn’t flawless. It’s like she glows from the inside out.

“I’m not saying no,” Toph hedges and Aang turns his slack-jawed stare to her. She shifts where she sits, draws a circle in the water with her big toe. “Just not this weekend.”

A smile, bright and stunning, graces Katara’s face. Aang can’t help but learn and immediately memorize the dimple in her right cheek when it’s thrown into relief by the sunlight.

“That’s a great start, Toph!” she cheers. “I’m glad to know you’re open to the possibility!”

The water envelops the blue-eyed girl whole and she sinks fluidly beneath its surface. There’s hardly a ripple to disturb the surface of the pool. Like a mermaid, Katara’s form darts through the water towards the deep end where Sokka and Suki are still battling it out for pool float supremacy. Caught up in his mission, Sokka is so distracted that he doesn’t notice Katara’s proximity until it’s too late. He’s pulled beneath the water with a yelp and a sharp yank.

Aang’s laughter fades into a soft, wistful sigh as he watches brother throw cackling sister through the air and into the water once more.

“Ugh,” Toph says, pulling her feet out of the water. “Gross.”

“What?” Aang asks.

“You like her.”

His whole head coloring, Aang shushes Toph and shoots a surreptitious glance Katara’s way. Her face is screwed up in laughter while Sokka yells incoherent gibberish at Suki, his arms flailing about with abandon, water droplets spraying through the air in a glittering rainbow.

“So what if I do?”

“She’s fifteen, Aang.” Toph says his given name like it’s something with oogies again and he cringes.

“I’ll be thirteen soon!”

Toph snorts. “In six months. Even I’ll be thirteen sooner than you. No high school girl is going to look at a middle schooler and think, ‘Oh, yeah. I’d like to suck face with him.’ You don’t stand a chance.”

August burns into September, the good weather remains a while longer, and Katara and Sokka quickly become an integral part of the weekend routine. As much as Toph rolls her eyes at the concept of being friends with a trio of high schoolers, Aang can tell that she enjoys having her cousin and the siblings around. It’s easy for her to trick Sokka into forgetting that she’s blind, something that sends her off into raucous, devious cackles that Aang honestly finds a little disconcerting.

The fourth weekend that Katara and Sokka spend with Toph, Suki, and Aang, the gray-eyed boy is later than the rest, his chores having proved harder to complete on such a beautiful day than he’d first thought. Chores came first, though, in Gyatso’s house and so Aang’s guardian had refused to drive him over to the Beifongs’ sprawling mansion until the boy’s room was neat as a pin. When he breezes through the front door of Toph’s house, he can hear conversation floating in through the open windows of the living room. On his way to the bathroom off the kitchen, Aang passes by Suki who is sitting on the island in the middle of the room, peeling an orange.

“Hi, Suki!” he chirps.

Popping an orange segment into her mouth, Suki waves in response.

Aang closes himself in the bathroom and sheds his street clothes in exchange for his swim trunks. It’s been two weeks now since Katara has finally coaxed Toph into lounging on the steps of the shallow end with her. It’s no secret that Aang is delighted by this development. It means that, for the first time since he met his friend, he gets to use the Beifongs’ pool. He’d never wanted to go in without Toph. It hadn’t seemed fair. But now…!

Whistling to himself, Aang shoves his discarded clothes in his backpack which gets tossed into the corner of the bathroom. He’s excited by the prospect of spending some time with Katara. Maybe getting to know her one-on-one. The whistle dies on his lips, though, when he walks into the kitchen to find Sokka and Suki engaged in a very enthusiastic kiss.

Suki is still sitting on the counter! There are orange segments all over the floor and the peel is squashed under Sokka’s foot! The kissing is noisy and it kind of looks like Sokka is trying to eat Suki’s face!

“Eurgh!” Aang exclaims before he can stop himself. Immediately, he claps a hand over his mouth.

The two teens detach themselves from one another with a squelching sound. To her credit, Suki blushes and unlatches her arms from where they’ve been anchored around Sokka’s neck. Sokka, though, is completely unflustered. He only assesses Aang with cool, laidback eyes and says, “Oh. Hey, little dude,” before promptly turning back to Suki and reengaging her.

Scampering from the house and out into the sprawling backyard as fast as he can, Aang begs whatever spirits are listening to burn the image from his memory. Either Sokka is a really bad kisser, or the act of kissing itself isn’t as fun as his peers and the media have led him to believe.

“Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross,” Aang chants to himself as he scurries towards the pool. He splashes onto the steps next to Toph, heedless of the water he sends flooding her way.

“Hey!” Toph shouts. She shoves him. Hard. He topples off the bottom step and flops gracelessly into the water. “Watch yourself, Aang!”

“Sorry!”

Aang wades back to the steps and settles onto the same one the girls are sitting on. Toph huffs and glares a good three feet to his left.

“Who pissed in your fire flakes?” she snaps.

Katara’s mouth drops open and she sends Toph a vaguely horrified look. Embarrassment about his friend’s crassness has Aang turning twelve shades of puce.

“Nobody… Nobody went number one in my fire flakes, Toph,” he chokes out mortified. “I just…” He looks at Katara. “Um… Did you know about your brother and Suki?”

One of Katara’s eyebrows arches up. She flips her braid over her shoulder. It floats out behind her like a dark snake in the water. “What about them?”

“I just saw them kissing in the kitchen.”

Toph makes a garbled sound of disgust but Katara only says, “Oh. Finally.”

“What?”

“It’s about time he found someone to kiss.” Katara reaches for a bowl of fruit that sits at the edge of the pool and plucks a few grapes free. “Maybe now he’ll leave me and Jet alone.”

“Who’s Jet?” Aang and Toph chorus. Though there is glee in her voice, his echoes with hollow disappointment.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Toph presses in a teasing sing-song.

Katara shrugs and pops a grape into her mouth. “Sometimes? I don’t know. Between swim and soccer and debate team and model U.N. and… Well. Everything else. There’s a lot going on and I don’t really have time for a boyfriend.” She leans in close to the younger kids, blue eyes twinkling. “But he’s really fun to kiss, I can tell you that!”

Elegant and striking, she sinks into the water as if it’s a second skin and slices her way to the opposite end of the pool. As she levers herself onto Suki’s favored pool float, Aang can’t help the anguished groan that escapes his chest. Toph sniggers and digs a gentle elbow into his ribs.

“I told you that you didn’t stand a chance.”

The school year picks up with its usual demands. Some weekends Katara shows up at Toph’s house with Suki, others bring only Sokka and Suki. There are a handful of weekends that bring all three of them and another handful that don’t bring any of them, leaving Toph and Aang to their own devices as the weather cools and the pool becomes unusable.

Aang’s crush on the elusive blue-eyed brunette persists and intensifies. The margins of his class notes are filled with doodled hearts. He gets a kind but firm reprimand from Gyatso when the soles of his new sneakers are revealed to be tattooed with Katara’s initials in dark Sharpie.

Fall rolls into winter and, just before the first bloom of spring, Aang turns thirteen.

Toph grudgingly agrees to invite Suki, Sokka, and Katara over to celebrate Aang’s day. The two of them queue up a playlist of their favorite songs, raid the Beifongs’ excessively large pantry for the best snacks, and make sure the rec room is set up for a good time. Finally a teen and feeling confident, Aang selects his nicest, most favorite orange shirt for the day. Some small, unforgivable part of him delights in the fact that Toph can’t see his outfit and rib him for it.

But when Sokka’s beat up blue sedan comes to a standstill in the long driveway, the only people who emerge are Sokka and Suki.

Aang’s heart sinks to his toes.

“Is Katara coming later?” he tries to ask casually.

Though he’s methodically opening the gift Sokka chucked his way (he and Gyatso can recycle the wrapping paper for later use and a smaller environmental impact), Aang doesn’t mistake the fleeting flash of sympathy that flickers across Suki’s face. He turns red and averts his eyes.

“Nah,” Sokka says, popping open a pack of fire gummies. “She and Jet—” he says the other boy’s name with a derisive roll of his eyes “—are a couple now or whatever, so she’s not around much.”

“Sokka!” Suki hisses in a way that is loud and embarrassing for Aang. She digs an elbow into her boyfriend’s side before saying, “She asked us to tell you happy birthday, though! And the gift is from her and Sokka.”

“Not that she helped pick it out or anything,” Sokka complains.

“Sokka!”

But Sokka, chewing his fire gummies loudly and sloppily as he leans in to watch Aang open the box, ignores Suki and remains oblivious to the way the younger boy’s heart is shattering where it lays on the fine, fancy floors of the Beifongs’ mansion. His blue eyes are vibrant with eager joy and he makes a noise of excitement. Inside the box, Aang finds a wooden boomerang painted over in blue and white Water Tribe patterns.

“What do you think?” Sokka exclaims.

“It’s great,” Aang says. “Thanks.”

But his heart isn’t in the words. It isn’t in the little gathering of his friends. It is scattered in hollow, empty pieces of devastation.

And Katara has a boyfriend.

Aang will never admit it to her, but Toph was a little bit right. Hanging out with high schoolers does nothing to affect their standing with the kids at their own school. It also isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sokka and Suki are so attached at the lips that Aang and Toph avoid them at all costs whenever they show up together on the weekends. If Katara shows up, something which is a rare occurrence, she spends nearly the whole time texting her boyfriend.

Jet.

Dumb Jet with his dumb hair and his dumb personality.

Granted, Katara never brings Jet around, so Aang doesn’t really know all of that’s true, but Sokka seems to hate him, so that’s evidence enough that he shouldn’t be trusted with Katara’s heart.

She talks about him with Suki, though.

A lot.

And if Aang wants to start hanging out in the pool with Toph and the others again now that the weather is warm and the water is tolerable, then he has to hear about Jet.

Jet skips school to attend protests.

Jet has a dumb band he calls the Freedom Fighters and he writes anti-war songs. (And Aang is a pacifist, but the Freedom Fighters is such a ridiculous name.)

Jet tells Katara that if she grows up to become a lawyer or a politician like she’d like to, then he hopes that she’ll only use her platform to do good in the world. As if Katara would ever do something bad.

One rainy weekend, all three of the older kids show up and Toph wants out of the house so badly that Aang thinks she might start punching through the walls in order to break free. Katara makes a quiet suggestion to Suki and the next thing he knows, Aang is crammed between Katara and Toph in the backseat of Sokka’s car and they’re all heading for the mall.

The ride is a strange one highlighted by a soundtrack of Sokka’s beloved punk-pop music. He’s not the greatest driver and Katara, it turns out, is a horrible backseat driver who shouts directions at him constantly. The two siblings bicker and fight about who is the better driver: Sokka with his real, actual driver’s license or Katara with her learner’s permit.

“What would you know?” Sokka bellows at one point. “You drive like Gran Gran! ”

“I’d rather drive like Gran Gran than Uncle Bato!” Katara shoots back. “You’re being reckless, Sokka!”

“I am not! ”

Sokka takes the corner into the parking lot a little too sharply and Toph goes sliding into Aang who gets smashed against Katara. There is a hint of something fruity and floral that lingers under the scent of chlorine in her braided hair. Aang stockpiles this new fact away amongst the other things he thinks make her beautiful, like the dimple in her cheek and her blue, blue eyes.

The mall is teeming with teenagers itching for summer break and looking for a way to entertain themselves on a rainy day. Katara and Suki take the lead and Sokka and Toph lag behind, her arm looped through his so that she doesn’t need to use her cane in the crowded walkways. This leaves Aang to linger in the middle of the four of them, unsure of where to go. On one hand, he’s desperate to find a way into conversation with the girls, but on the other… Worry is creeping its way up his spine as Toph begs Sokka to take her to the arcade to play Skee-Ball.

Suki and Katara pause outside of a storefront just in time for Aang to overhear Toph say, “I’ll even pay for all the games!”

“Well…”

Aang whirls around. There’s enough concession in Sokka’s voice now for him to be okay with putting a stop to a very bad idea.

“Come on, Snoozles. What do you say?”

“Sokka!” Aang protests. “You can’t seriously be considering this!”

“I mean…” Sokka looks uneasy and rocks a little on his feet.

A devious grin sprawls its way across Toph’s round face. “Oh, he’ll do it,” she says triumphantly. “For science.”

Aang’s mouth hinges open as Sokka shrugs.

“She’s got me there,” the older boy admits. “I do like to test hypotheses.”

“Great!”

Before Aang can even begin to argue the point that there’s no way Sokka teaching Toph to play a game like Skee-Ball can be even remotely safe, the two of them are walking away. Briefly, he catches Sokka’s chatter of angles and geometry before his older friend’s voice is eaten away by the din of the crowd. He wavers, torn between wanting to make sure Toph doesn’t accidentally kill someone and wanting to hang out with Katara. It should be an easy choice. He knows that the Beifongs will go postal if Toph destroys public property in the name of science. However, this is the first time he’s been able to see Katara in a setting that isn’t Toph’s house and…

Katara laughs and any argument for putting a stop to Toph and Sokka’s antics goes flying out of Aang’s mind.

Still looking at the items on display in the window they’ve stopped near, the girls are debating whether or not they should go into the store so that Katara can try something on.

“I don’t know, Suki,” Katara is saying. “It’s pink. I don’t wear a lot of pink.”

Aang has never considered himself short. Perhaps, though, his view of this is skewed because he only ever hangs around Toph. Now, as he tries to peek over Suki and Katara’s shoulders to see what they’re looking at, he finds himself wishing he were just an inch or two taller so that standing on his tiptoes might offer him a glimpse over their heads. It’s only when they abandon their discussion of the mystery object and continue on to the next store that Aang can get a full-impact view of the shop window.

There isn’t much pink to be seen in the display. A white sweater with a soft pinkish-lavender stripe across the chest, a handbag that looks more red than pink, and a necklace with a pink flower pendant are all that Aang can see. He thinks of Katara who wears the same strip of navy fabric around her throat all the time and considers the necklace in the window. Surely this is the object she and Suki were considering.

Looking around, he sees that the girls are now a few shops away. If he’s in and out of the shop with speed, they shouldn’t grow too worried about his absence.

Aang darts into the shop.

It takes a good few minutes to locate the jewelry section and then a few minutes more to find the necklace displayed in the window. The cashier takes forever to count the money he hands over and even longer to make change. Aang is dancing on impatient feet by the time he finally has the bag containing Katara’s brand new necklace in his hand.

When he comes out of the shop, he sees that Suki and Katara must have looped around to the other side of the shopping concourse. Katara stands outside of a store selling athletic gear, a bag dangling from the crook of her arm while she talks to a tall boy with a shock of dark hair. His heart drops, a wave of queasiness washes over him. Is that Jet?

As Aang approaches, he sees the scowl on Katara’s face and watches her fold her arms over her chest. Despite the queasiness, he feels himself bristling with the need to protect her. Clearly she has a problem with the dark-haired boy.

“Katara?” he says quietly when he reaches her side.

The brunette looks at him over her shoulder and the boy leans around her to do so as well. There is an angry pinkish red scar twisting at his left eye and a scowl pulling at his mouth.

“Hi, Aang,” Katara says.

“Are you babysitting or something, Katara?” the dark-haired boy asks. His voice sounds sandpapery, as though his vocal cords have been damaged and never quite recovered. The grate of it sends a chill down Aang’s spine.

“What? No!” Aang yelps. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m thirteen!”

The boy’s only eyebrow slides upward.

Katara sighs. “This is Suki’s cousin’s friend,” she says.

An arrow of hurt pierces Aang’s heart. Does Katara not even consider him a friend?

“So… You’re babysitting.”

Drawing herself to her full height, which does nothing to put her even close to eye level with the boy, Katara glowers, her face pinking with ire. “Why do you always have to provoke people, Zuko?” she hisses. “Why can’t you just ever be pleasant?”

“It was a joke.”

“You were looking to irritate Aang and we both know it.”

The boy—Zuko—rolls his eyes. Their golden irises make the pupils look hauntingly like black holes. “Look, I just wanted to know where your brother was,” he says.

Katara glances towards the store, prompting both Aang and Zuko to look too. Aang can make out Suki’s auburn hair near a wall of running shoes, but what draws Katara’s (and thus Zuko’s and Aang’s) eye is a cluster of three girls who are inspecting boxing gloves with a sort of bone-chilling casualness. They’re all pretty. One of them, however, looks down her nose in a manner that is haughty and intimidating. Another is equally as haughty but looks almost comically bored beneath her dark, heavy bangs and eyeliner. The third is wearing vibrant pinks and a smile like sunshine, an eye-catching contrast to her darkly-clothed friends.

“Shouldn’t you be catering to your girlfriend’s every whim?” Katara snarks.

“Jealous?”

“I have a boyfriend,” Katara says, her voice going strangely shrill.

“Your boyfriend sucks, Katara.”

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Zuko. Maybe you’re the one who’s jealous.”

The dark-haired boy opens his mouth to spit out a retort, but never gets a word out. Instead, the girl with the eyeliner and bangs barks out in a voice that is dry and humorless, “Zuko! Go get me a smoothie from the food court!”

A series of tittering giggles erupts from the other two girls and the three of them saunter deeper into the store without waiting to hear his answer.

Zuko glares at Katara. “Don’t say a word,” he grumbles before stalking off.

With a roll of her eyes and a sharp exhale, Katara marches off in the opposite direction. Aang hurries after her.

“Who was that?” he asks.

“Sokka’s best friend.”

“The two of you don’t get along very well, do you?”

Katara mutters something that Aang doesn’t catch over the din of the mall. He follows her as she weaves her way through the weekend crowds, her long braid sweeping over her back. There definitely seems to be a backstory to her strained relationship with Zuko that Katara is unwilling to share. He’s intimidating, the scar and the rasping voice hardening the edges of his first impression. The thing is, though, Zuko seems to hate Jet in much the way that Sokka does. And as much as Aang would like to wholeheartedly agree with Katara’s assessment of Zuko, he clearly can’t be that bad if his assessment of Katara’s school-skipping jerk of a boyfriend is the same as Sokka’s.

On an escalator down to the ground floor, Aang rummages through the bag in his hand and extracts the necklace he purchased for Katara. He taps her on the shoulder and she turns, her pretty face open and questioning.

“Here!” Aang reaches for Katara’s hand and tucks his gift into it, unable to contain the eager smile that breaks across his face. “You’re always wearing the same necklace, so I bought you this one! Maybe it will cheer you up!”

Katara looks at the necklace with its pink plastic flower and her face comes over sort of funny before she shoots him a kind smile. “That’s so sweet of you, Aang,” she says, tucking the necklace into the bag that’s draped over her arm. “You shouldn’t have.”

Aang can’t help but peek discreetly into her bag as she drops the necklace inside. There is a hat in it. Embroidered across the front in orange thread are the words “Freedom Fighters.” Though he smiles and accepts the awkward one-armed hug that Katara gives him, Aang can’t help but think that maybe he really shouldn’t have.

Summer comes on slowly. The heat of it builds like a simmer. Toph remains willing to take a dip into the pool every now and then, though she’s more likely to do so when Katara and Sokka are around.

Those sweet, sticky, sun-baked days leading up to eighth grade mark further changes in the group. One day, three cars pull into the Beifongs’ driveway, Sokka’s beat up blue sedan leading the way. He and Suki spill forth, eager to sling their arms around one another, his face dark with a tan already, hers sprinkled with freckles. Behind them in a small, gray SUV that looks about as old as Sokka’s car, if not better cared for, is Katara.

“Why are there so many cars pulling up?” Toph asks Aang as they linger by the front window.

“Katara came in a different car,” Aang tells her. “I think maybe she got her license!”

His heart drops a little bit. If Katara has her license now, that means she’s turned sixteen and didn’t even bother inviting him and Toph to her party. There’s no point in pressing that issue with Toph, though. She’ll only tease him mercilessly about how he’s disappointed that a high school girl didn’t invite two kids barely out of seventh grade to her birthday party. It’s not a ribbing that he can deal with right now.

“Right, but is there a third one I’m hearing?”

“Yeah,” Aang says. “There is. It’s...fancy.”

The third car is sleek, black, polished to an almost absurd shine. It looks brand new. Aang doesn’t know much about car makes or models, but this third arrival looks almost at home in the Beifongs’ driveway. The windows are tinted so dark that it’s impossible to see who might be driving it.

“Do you think Katara brought her boyfriend?” Toph asks.

A cloud passes over Aang’s spirit and he scowls. “I hope not.”

“You know, you don’t even know this guy, Twinkletoes…”

Aang tunes Toph out as he waits for the third car to spill forth its occupants. As he does so, he watches Katara, looking positively livid, stalk over to Suki. She’s talking, her gestures short and stilted, her eyebrows furrowed over her sunglasses. Suki’s only response is to look at Katara, amusement written all over her face.

“...It’s probably not even him anyway,” Toph’s voice continues in the background. “I told Sokka…”

The driver’s door on the black car swings open and an equally dark head of hair pops up, followed by a face marked by an angry red scar.

“It’s not Jet!” Aang nearly shouts. Inexplicable excitement shoves the cloud of ire away like a beam of bright sunlight. “It’s Sokka’s friend!”

Toph makes a noise of exasperation and makes for the front door, her hand trailing along the wall so she can find her way. “That’s what I just said,” she grumbles. “I told Sokka he could invite him. If you’d listen to me…”

Zuko makes an interesting addition to the gang. He doesn’t talk much, but anything he does say is awkwardly put and said in a tone of voice that makes him sound like he wants the ground to swallow him whole. It gets worse when he tries to make jokes. They’re all terrible and center mostly around tea puns, which makes Aang wonder if Zuko has stolen all his jokes from a lonely, middle-aged man. He tries hard with the jokes, though, and earns honest laughter from Sokka, sweet smiles from Suki, and pity chuckles from Toph and Aang.

It’s Katara’s reactions, though, that seem to rile Zuko up.

Gone are her illustrious smiles and her bright laughter. Instead, she looks perpetually mildly infuriated. When Zuko lets Toph cling to his shoulders and tows her into the deep end of the pool, Katara’s upper lip twitches. She wrinkles her nose when he laughs at a joke Sokka makes.

The two of them bicker nonstop. Aang, having spent half of his life as Toph’s one and only friend and therefore almost always butting heads with her, thinks that this constant sniping feels familiar at first. One day, though, their back and forth takes on new overtones.

“Hey,” Sokka calls out to Zuko. He’s pushing Suki’s favored bright green float around the pool as though she’s an empress floating down a river. “Hey, Zuko! Buddy!”

“What?”

Aang, sitting on the steps of the shallow end with Toph, looks to where Zuko is stretched out on one of the lounge chairs. He has carefully put two empty seats between himself and Katara. The girl in question has her nose stuck in a book, one of many on her summer reading lists.

“Do you have any new jokes for us?” Sokka asks.

Katara freezes mid-turn of the page. It’s a blip that only lasts a second. Were it not for the fact that he was already looking at her, Aang might have missed it. He isn’t the only one that notices. Zuko’s eyes, bright as the summer sun that swelters overhead, slide towards Katara beneath the dark fringe of his hair. Uncomfortable, he shifts in his seat and clears his throat.

“Um… I’m not…”

There has never been an instance of Katara laughing at one of Zuko’s jokes. Not once. Aang has watched numerous times as her pretty face darkens and her mouth screws up in distaste. On more than one occasion, she’s stormed away. It’s not as though Zuko’s jokes are crass or anything, so Aang doesn’t quite understand why they upset her.

“Come on,” Sokka wheedles. “I know you’ve got one! You work at your uncle’s tea shop and he always has jokes.”

Zuko sighs. His fingers fly up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Sokka…” he hedges.

“Dude.”

Another sigh. “Fine.”

Katara’s book falters before sliding back up in front of her face.

“Why did the teapot get in trouble?” Zuko says to Sokka.

“I don’t know,” Sokka says, his voice gleeful. “Why?”

“Because it was naughty.”

Sokka reels with raucous laughter, the movement of it causing Suki’s raft to drift across the pool.

A strangled sound emanates from behind Katara’s novel. Her knees shoot upwards as if she’s trying to curl in on herself. From where he sits on the steps of the pool, Aang can only see her forehead, but it’s gone dusky with either a sunburn or a blush.

“Did Katara actually laugh?” Toph mutters in Aang’s ear.

Slow as a sloth, Zuko’s head turns towards the brunette. His unmarred cheek has gone a shocking shade of pink. His good eye is wide with surprise. Sokka and Suki remain oblivious to the goings on at the poolside. Sokka is still laughing and Suki is splashing water at him in retaliation for sending her adrift.

“I don’t know,” Aang whispers back.

Zuko’s mouth drops open as if he’s about to say something, but Katara is faster. She shoots to her feet, drops her book to the table next to her lounge chair, and stomps towards Toph’s house, mouth twitching with something Aang can’t quite identify. Her sunglasses are dark enough that the rest of her face is rendered pretty much unreadable.

“What’s with her?” Sokka asks the group as a whole.

Rising to his feet, pool water running off his swim trunks, Aang is prepared to chase Katara down and ask if she’s okay. He’s stopped, though, when Zuko, grumbling, “I wish I knew,” gets off his own lounge chair and follows after her himself.

Three of the four friends that remain watch as Katara and then Zuko disappears inside the Beifong’s sprawling house. The door slides shut behind Zuko. Silence ensues. A curious, pensive look furrows Sokka’s brow. Toph shifts in the water next to Aang’s feet. He tries not to read into the strange smile on Suki’s freckling face.

Summer bleeds into fall and Aang and Toph’s final year of middle school begins in earnest. Rainy afternoons are spent in clubs. Both of them join the school paper and collaborate as a team, Aang working as Toph’s photographer while she dictates articles into a handheld recorder. Together, they are an unstoppable force. The editor of the paper, Meng, lauds Aang’s pictures and talks up Toph’s writing to nearly everyone. It doesn’t have much of an effect on their standing with their peers, but Aang still feels somewhat flattered that someone has taken a liking to him and his only friend at school.

Weekends at Toph’s house are spent in the game room. Sokka and Suki engage in loud, highly competitive games of foosball. One Saturday, Zuko brings over a pai sho board specifically designed for those who are blind and offers to teach Toph how to play. Rather suddenly, Aang, who had been telling Katara about his most recent vacation with Gyatso, finds himself without a conversational partner. Her eyes have slid over to the low table where Zuko and Toph sit, tiles scattered between them.

In a low voice, the golden-eyed boy explains what each tile represents and does while Toph runs her fingers over the bumps on the flower-patterned surfaces. The pressure of Aang and Katara’s stares rouse his attention, though, and he looks up.

“My uncle knows someone who makes these boards,” he explains, sounding sheepish. “He thought Toph might like to learn.”

On long, lithe legs, Katara rises up from her seat and slips across the room. Aang watches her approach Zuko and Toph. Somehow, he can’t help but feel as though Katara continues to drift further and further out of reach. His dream girl is turning into a goddess that he will never be able to touch. It’s inexplicable that this moment would make him feel this way. Nothing has really changed between Katara and Zuko since the day she smothered a laugh at his joke. Whatever transpired between them afterward has remained a mystery to the group at large. The two of them still bicker and Katara is still particularly testy whenever Zuko is around.

Although, there are times where Zuko will look at Katara with a strange, small smile whenever he thinks she isn’t looking. And sometimes she catches it and bristles, asking, “Why are you looking at me like that?” That question always resets them back at square one. Zuko snipes something in return and they resume their tense, studious routine of ignoring one another.

Sometimes when this happens, Aang thinks that maybe Zuko likes Katara the way he likes Katara. But then he remembers that Zuko is dating the gloomy girl with the bangs and heavy eyeliner and realizes he’s being foolish.

“Can I watch?” Katara asks Zuko.

He shrugs. “Sure. If Toph doesn’t mind.”

It turns out that Toph doesn’t mind and so Katara settles in next to her, bright blue eyes trained on Zuko’s face or the board as he explains the rules of the game. Zuko engages Toph in a game, but she grows bored halfway through, throwing herself onto her back with a loud, heavy sigh. This catches the attention of Aang, who has been mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Other than some strange, awkward texts from Meng, he’s had no notifications.

“I’m bored,” Toph declares before rolling away from the table like a helpless rag doll.

Aang straightens in his seat on the couch, hopeful that he’ll get Katara back. As Zuko reaches to clear the board and clean up the mess Toph left behind, however, Katara throws a hand out. Her fingers, small and brown, land on his wrist and he goes very, very still. The air between them is thick with tension as he raises his eyes to her face. Aang thinks that maybe Zuko might snap.

But Katara only offers half a smile and says, “I bet I can beat you.”

A split second exists in which Aang thinks that Zuko might let loose a snarky remark and walk away. Instead, the tension between them cracks and almost seems to fizzle. The electricity of the moment raises stomach-curling goosebumps on the younger teen’s arm. He can’t help but feel that he’s borne witness to the death of any shot he had at nabbing Katara’s affections.

“You’re on,” Zuko says.

Together, they reset the pai sho board and divy up the tiles appropriately. Then, the game begins in earnest, quiet and calm in contrast to Sokka and Suki’s rowdy game of foosball.

It’s the last time they’re all together for a couple of months, but it’s the beginning of an evolution.

The next time the six of them are together in one area, the group dynamic is never the same again.

Meng assigns Aang and Toph the responsibility of covering the winter dance for the school paper. Having planned on avoiding the dance with every fiber of her being, Toph is irate over the assignment. It doesn’t get better when Aang shows up, camera around his neck, only to find that Mrs. Beifong has somehow wrangled her seething daughter into what is actually a very pretty dress and styled her hair. Mr. Beifong takes pictures of them.

“This isn’t a date!” Toph hollers the whole time. “We’re being forced to do this!”

But Mrs. Beifong is crying, a slightly manic smile on her perfect face, and Mr. Beifong is clapping a bewildered, wide-eyed Aang on the back and telling him that “Toph is not to be home any later than nine o’clock, son. And please keep an eye on her.”

Toph grumbles under her breath all the way down the driveway, the occasional curse hissing past her lips. At the end of the drive, she dives into a bush despite Aang’s cry of protest that she’ll ruin her pretty dress. From the depths of the greenery, Toph extracts a bag which she hugs to her chest.

“What’ve you got there?” Aang asks, eyeing the bag with caution.

Toph huffs a sigh and unfolds her cane with sharp precision. “I refuse to be seen in this monstrosity,” she says. “I’m changing the second we get to school.”

“It’s not that bad,” he says.

And it’s not. It’s green like sea glass and more feminine than anything Toph has ever worn before, but there aren’t lots of frills or sparkles that would cause too many people to stare. Then again, Toph Beifong showing up to a school dance in an actual dress might call more attention to the girl in question than she’d prefer.

True to her word as ever, Toph barges into the bathroom room just inside the school’s entrance to change. When she emerges wearing ratty jeans and a baggy tee, Aang can see that she’s shoved the dress into her bag in such a haphazard manner that it’s caught in the zipper.

“Let’s get this over with, Twinkletoes,” she says, slinging the bag over her shoulder. “Maybe we can get out of here early enough that we can swing by Sparky’s uncle’s tea shop for a cup of green tea and a snack.”

“I don’t know that we need to do that,” Aang says as they walk towards the gymnasium. A deep bass line is reverberating through the halls. “They’re supposed to have snacks tonight.”

But the snacks turn out to be packages of sugar cookies and watery lemonade. The fluorescents are all on and the decorations are student-made, the jagged cuts on the butcher paper standing out in stark relief beneath the too-bright lights. Nobody is dancing. Chaperones snake through the crowds with polar wolf-like eyes. Aang’s heart sinks just a little bit at the sad scene before him. Were he not here to take photos for Toph’s article, he’d be out on the dance floor, working to inspire his peers to express themselves to the music.

“Describe it to me, Twinkletoes,” Toph says.

“Um,” Aang replies reluctantly, his voice cracking on the sound. “It’s… Exactly what you thought it would be.”

Cackling loud enough to be heard over the pulsing music, Toph throws her head back. She grabs Aang’s arm and says, “Take as many pictures as you can. I want you to be able to tell me everything in vivid detail when I write the article.” A too-enthusiastic smile spreads over her round face. “Oh, I can’t wait to eviscerate this in the paper!”

A strangled noise of protest scrambles its way out of Aang’s throat. “Toph! We could get in trouble for that!”

“The only reason we got this assignment is because Meng thinks you’re cute but was too chicken to ask you to the dance.”

Aang pauses, camera in hand, the scene he was about to photograph momentarily forgotten. Frizzy-haired Meng likes him? He doesn’t even know what to do with that information!

“I don’t…”

“Oh, relax,” Toph says, waving a dismissive hand through the air and nearly smacking another student in the eye. “She’s not going to do anything about it. She knows you have a thing for Katara.”

“Could you not say that so loud?”

“Who’s gonna hear me? Nobody that Katara knows. We’re at a middle school dance, Aang.”

“Still!”

Toph groans and extracts her handheld recorder from her pants pocket. “Just go take some pictures so that we can get out of here as soon as possible.”

When they finally leave campus, Aang’s camera is chock-full of gloomy photos: Students standing around in clusters, talking to one another but not dancing; the fluorescent lights casting the decorations and peoples’ faces in garish shades of color; a DJ who looks like he’s wondering how his life went so wrong that he’s wound up in charge of the music at a middle school dance. None of it’s great. Aang knows he’s going to have to seriously spin everything to Toph so that her article in conjunction with his pictures doesn’t make the whole thing look like the dismal mess it was. Not to mention that he’d seen Meng waving at him from across the room and had been overwhelmed with such a feeling of crippling awkwardness that he’d turned away and acted as though he hadn’t seen her at all.

A terrible article just might get him and Toph booted from the paper entirely after that.

Toph pulls out her phone as they linger in the staff parking lot, her bag looped over his shoulder, the night air grown crisp and cool with the promise of a layer of winter frost. Glancing at his watch, Aang sees that there is still a good hour and a half before Toph needs to be home. She’s already speaking to the voice assistant on her phone, asking it to get her to some tea shop.

“Come on,” she says, groping for his arm and hauling him in the opposite direction of her house. “It’s only a ten minute walk.”

The streetlights are on and the roads are relatively quiet for a Friday night. With their arms linked together, Toph doesn’t bother with her cane. It dangles from her wrist, occasionally knocking into Aang’s leg as they walk. Every now and then, a robotic direction blares out from Toph’s phone and they follow it, taking a turn or crossing a street.

“How did you find out about this place?” Aang asks.

Toph sighs, the air fluttering her bangs. “I told you. Zuko’s uncle runs it. He’s a really nice guy,” she says.

“You’ve met him?”

“Sure. I do have a life aside from hanging out with you. I go places and talk to other people. Sparky’s actually become a pretty good friend of mine.”

Aang gapes at her, bewildered by this revelation. “But your parents—!”

“I sneak out sometimes, Twinkletoes,” Toph says. “It’s not a big deal. But if it helps you calm down, Suki brought me here the first time.”

“You sneak out? Toph, you’re blind!”

She groans and pulls her arm away from his abruptly. “Oh, don’t go all Poppy and Lao on me, Aang. I’m perfectly competent. Plus, I never go too far from home and I only go to places I’ve been before. It’s really not a big deal.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’m going to have to do it one day anyway. Why not start now?”

“Because you’re a fourteen year old girl wandering around the city by yourself!”

Toph comes to a stop and folds her arms over her chest. Her phone announces that they’ve reached their destination, but she doesn’t move. She only glares unseeingly at Aang’s left shoulder.

“You’re being a real jerk, Aang,” she snaps.

“I’m just worried about you.”

“Oh, yeah? Would you be this worried about Suki or Katara?”

He falters.

“Exactly.”

Shouldering her way past him, Toph scrambles for the door of the tea shop and stalks inside alone. Aang stands alone on the sidewalk for a moment, feeling like a terrible friend as he stares at the shop. Hanging on the plate glass window at the front of the building is a green teacup done up in neon lights. A little curling whiff of steam flashes above it in white. The door bears a stencil of a white lotus flower and the words The Jasmine Dragon. Aang watches as Toph approaches the counter and begins talking to a portly older man who stands behind the counter.

He’s half-tempted to just leave. Toph probably doesn’t want him hanging around anyway. Not when he’s shoved his foot this far into his mouth. But then he sees Toph turn away from the counter, her face pinched in quiet concentration. A familiar face pops up at a booth near the back of the tea shop, hands cupped around a mouth.

Sokka.

And the girl sitting opposite him has Suki’s unmistakable auburn hair.

Aang shoulders his way into the tea shop. The place smells of gentle herbs and a wide range of tea leaves. There is a case of pastries that look delectable and flaky beneath the soft lights hanging overhead. Toph has already joined Suki and Sokka in their booth, but the man behind the counter waves Aang over.

“You must be Aang,” he says. His voice is deep and soothing. There is a particular thoughtful cadence to his words. “Miss Toph says that her tea and snack is on you tonight.”

Groaning, Aang reaches for his wallet. “Yeah,” he says. “That sounds about right.”

He orders a cup of ginseng tea and an egg custard tart for himself and then pays for the lot. Iroh gives him the tart to take to the table but says that the tea needs time to steep properly and that he’ll bring it over when it’s ready.

“Aang!” Sokka calls as if the shop is bustling with customers. It isn’t. They’re the only four patrons there. “Over here!”

Sokka and Suki are dressed up, a tie hanging loose from the neck of Sokka’s collared shirt and the top of Suki’s emerald green dress glittering with golden sparkles. As Aang and Toph settle into the booth, the two older teens begin to chatter about the school dance they’ve left early. Sokka is midway through a description of the lighting of all things and how it could’ve been done better when Suki’s phone buzzes several times in rapid succession.

“Oh, no,” she says, a frown folding down the corners of her lips as she opens her texts. “Katara says she’s on her way here. It… doesn’t sound great.”

Next to Aang, Sokka goes rigid with anger and defensiveness. “What’s going on?” he grits out.

Suki shakes her head. “She says she’ll tell me when she gets here. I…” Wordless, she shrugs.

A pall falls over the table. Even Toph looks somewhat concerned. Sokka’s leg jostles Aang’s beneath the table as he bounces his foot around. When Toph and Aang’s cups of tea are delivered, Suki asks the man if she can bother him for a cup of chai and several of the shortbread biscuits and an order of cardamom buns.

“I’ve already started the water, Miss Suki,” the man says in his smooth, level voice. “My nephew texted me with the same order just three minutes ago. I believe we can expect him and Miss Katara at any moment.”

“Thanks, Iroh.”

“Wait,” Sokka interjects. “What’s my sister doing with Zuko?”

But Iroh only shrugs and bustles back to the kitchen.

“Suki?” Sokka asks.

Suki shrugs again. “I think it might have something to do with Jet,” she says. “But that’s entirely conjecture. She didn’t say.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Of course I asked, Sokka! She hasn’t answered.”

“What if something happened to her?”

“Nothing has happened to her,” Suki says, but Aang sees a shadow of skepticism in her eyes. “Zuko texted his uncle. They’re obviously coming here together. We’ll find out what’s going on, I promise.”

Gifted with a clear shot of the door due to the angle of their booth, Suki, Sokka, and Aang watch with sharp, nervous eyes for any sign of Katara. Toph pulls her paper cup close and rests her chin on the lid, hands tight around the cup itself. As they wait, Iroh comes by with a plate of warm cardamom buns and two more cups of tea. He says nothing, but returns to his spot behind the counter with a kind of serenity that doesn’t fit the moment.

Eventually, Zuko’s sleek black car materializes out of the night like a shadow and rolls to a stop outside the tea shop. He and Katara are both quick to emerge, slamming car doors and gesticulating wildly at one another. When Zuko steps onto the sidewalk, Katara gets in his face, a finger jabbing into his chest as she shouts something unintelligible. The neon lights in the windows of the shop refract off the sparkly, ocean blue dress she wears.

“This can’t be good,” Suki mutters.

Katara storms through the door of the shop, Zuko hot on her heels as he loosens the black tie around his neck.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset with me,” he’s saying. “All I said is that it’s a good thing this happened! Jet is terrible, Katara!”

“Oh, no,” Sokka squeaks.

Katara comes to a stop in the middle of the shop. The barette holding one side of her curling hair back glitters under the tea shop’s lights. She turns slowly, eyes spitting sparks, shoulders heaving. Something like a dreadful realization flickers across Zuko’s face.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not what I—”

“My boyfriend dumps me at my sophomore winter formal and you have the nerve to tell me that it's a good thing?!”

“If you let me explain—”

Katara takes two steps into Zuko’s personal space, her heels clicking on the polished floor. “You want to talk terrible?” she hisses. “Fine. Jet may be an arrogant jerk, Zuko, but at least he wasn’t stringing me along the way Mai does to you. That girl breaks your heart every two weeks, shatters you into a million pieces, and you take her back every time. So don’t give me shit about this being a good thing. You’re hardly one to give advice.”

The room goes deathly silent. Zuko’s entire face is red. Whether it’s red with fury or embarrassment, Aang can’t tell.

Finally, he says, “That was a low blow, Katara,” and then he stalks, long-legged, around the counter and through the swinging door into the kitchen. Iroh follows after him.

There is a dreadful moment where nobody in the group says anything. One of Katara’s shaking hands flies up to touch her face, but she doesn’t turn towards her friends. Aang can hear her drawing rattling breaths from where he sits, trapped in the booth by Sokka. A solitary, smothered sob fractures the silence and Aang’s spirit. Then, Katara is running for the bathroom.

Sokka makes to chase after her, but Toph rises out of her seat before he can, holding a hand out to stop him.

“I’ve got this,” she says.

“Toph…”

“Trust me.”

Toph heads for the restrooms, all confidence and surety as her cane sweeps across the floor. It’s a jarring thing that cements the reality that she has , in fact, been here before. Still, Aang can feel himself buzzing with the desire to be the one to help Katara. She’s single now and Zuko has upset her, this kind of feels like his moment. He can step up and show her that he can be the one to care for her in the right way, the way nobody else ever could.

Sokka isn’t budging, though, and so Aang is stuck with him and Suki.

“Think the two of them are ever going to work through this?” Suki asks and Sokka, face like a thundercloud, shrugs.

“Through what?” Aang asks.

Both of them look his way as though they’d forgotten he was there. Sympathy swims in Suki’s eyes.

“Aang,” she says quietly, “we don’t need to talk about this now.”

“Talk about what?” he asks, exasperated. “I’m friends with them too! They obviously don’t like each other.”

Suki’s mouth purses and her eyes go wide. With hasty hands, she reaches for her cup of tea and drinks.

“What are you talking about?” Sokka says. “Zuko doesn’t dislike my sister.”

“All they do is argue.”

“Look,” Sokka plucks one of the untouched cardamom buns from the plate and begins picking off pieces to eat, “Zuko’s never gonna outright admit it to me because Katara’s my sister, but he’s way into her. Plus, he knows it’s stupid to even bring it up. Number one: Sisters are off limits to friends. And B: Katara… Well, yeah. She does hate him. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance.”

Suki snorts and slams her cup down on the lacquered table as she begins to cough. “I wouldn’t…” She coughs again. “I wouldn’t put good money on that.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sukes. Katara’s my sister. I know these things.”

“Yeah, and? You’re a boy, Sokka. There are things she’d never tell you. I’m her best friend. I know things you never will.”

“Like what?” Sokka asks at the same time Aang says, “Does Katara like like Zuko?”

Suki’s starry grey eyes snap back to Aang and she sits up straighter in her seat. “What?” she says quickly. “No. She just doesn’t hate him, that’s all.”

Aang stares at her, suspicion tingling its way up his spine. But there’s no time for further questions because Zuko comes blazing back through the kitchen door, his hair ruffled, his mouth set in a grim line.

“Hey, man,” Sokka begins.

“I need to talk to your sister.”

In unison, Suki and Sokka point in the direction of the restrooms and Zuko walks away without another word. His departure heralds Toph’s arrival a few moments later. She sits, a smug sort of smile on her face as Suki arranges her cup and the plate of buns so that she can easily find both.

“Your melodramatic sister is going to be just fine, Snoozles,” she says matter-of-factly. “She knows she owes Zuko an apology and he knows he owes her one. Although, if I were you, I might do something to scare the crap out of Jet on her behalf. Y’know. As good brothers do.”

“I think Katara can scare Jet on her own behalf quite honestly,” Sokka says. “Is she still crying?”

“I don’t think so. I think maybe she’s just embarrassed. She says Jet dumped her right in the middle of the dance floor.”

“Oh, spirits,” Suki mutters.

“I know.”

The three of them fall back into easy conversation and bypass the Katara-Jet-Zuko-Mai drama soon enough. As the minutes pass, though, Aang grows anxious about how long it’s taking Zuko and Katara to return. He more than half-expects another blow up to occur from the direction of the restrooms. Nothing happens, though, and he finishes his tea, something that gives him as good an excuse as any to do some snooping.

When asked, Sokka willingly slides out of the booth so that Aang can get to the bathroom. His departure goes mostly unnoticed as his three friends are currently debating the merits of the latest Blue Spirit movie. And so he walks, heartbeat thundering in his skull, towards the beaded curtain that separates the rest of the tea shop from the hall with the restrooms.

Zuko is alone in the hall, leaning against the wall next to one of the bathroom doors, head in his hands. He looks up when Aang slides through the beaded curtain.

“Bathroom,” Aang says, pointing at the door across the hall. And then he has no choice but to actually go in given the way Zuko won’t stop staring at him until he’s vacated the hallway. He’s turning to close and lock the door just as the other opens.

Locked into his farce, Aang closes himself off from the scene but lingers at the door, ear pressed up against the wood in an effort to eavesdrop.

“I’m sorry, too,” Katara’s voice says, muffled slightly by the door. “I shouldn’t have… I’m so embarrassed, Zuko. The fact that he did it was bad enough, but to turn around and see you and Mai standing there…”

“You know I’m not judging you, right?”

A beat of silence.

“Mai was.”

“Mai doesn’t matter in this situation. And what Jet did sucked. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Katara.”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah. I… Here.”

There is a lot of rustling, the sound of Katara sniffing.

“I just want to go home,” she says, voice full of misery.

“I’ll take you.”

“No, you should probably be getting back to Mai. I’ll just ask Sokka and Suki. Or I’ll text my dad.”

“It’s not a big deal, Katara. I’ll drive you.”

“But—”

“You made a valid point, okay? I’m not… I don’t need to get back to Mai. She’ll be fine with my sister and Ty Lee. You’re what’s important tonight.”

More silence.

“We said this summer that we were going to be friends,” Zuko says eventually. “That’s all I want—to be your friend. So… Let me. Please.”

Aang nearly snorts. So much for Sokka’s theory that Zuko has feelings for Katara! Comfortable in this knowledge, Aang makes a show of flushing the toilet and washing his hands to cover up his eavesdropping. A step into the hallway, though, has him nearly stumbling right into Katara and Zuko who are tucked into a rather close embrace. He’s got a hand tangled in her hair and she’s tucked her head beneath his chin. Aang’s intrusion has them springing apart like they’ve touched hot coals, a soft noise of surprise escaping Katara’s mouth.

“Hi, Aang,” she says, wiping frantically at red-rimmed eyes. “Hey, why are you all dressed up tonight?” Brown fingers reach out to fiddle with the collar of his sport coat.

“Um…” Aang glances between his friends. “Toph and I had to cover our winter dance for the school paper.”

“Oh!” Katara says. A too-bright smile crosses her pretty face. “That’s so fun! So the two of you had, like, a little date, huh? Good for you guys.”

“What?” Aang yelps. “No! Toph and I are just friends!” And then, not knowing what drives him to do so, he adds on, “Besides, I just found out that this girl named Meng likes me.”

Zuko’s eyebrow slides up his otherwise deadpan face. Aang feels himself turn pink.

“That’s great,” Katara says sweetly. “You’ll have to tell us all about her the next time we see you. Zuko was just about to drive me home because I’m feeling a little under the weather.”

Under the weather? Was that girl code for heartbroken?

“Okay,” Aang finds himself saying. “Have a good night.”

It’s not what he wants to have said at all. And as he watches Zuko escort Katara back into the main room of the tea shop, his hand on her back, Aang can’t help but kick himself for missing out on a prime opportunity to lend Katara a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on.

The rest of eighth grade slips by like a hazy, feverish dream, marked by odd momentous occasions. One day, Meng finds Aang at his locker after school and plants a kiss on his lips—his first kiss. She’s enthusiastic about it, a big grin on her face that lets the metal of her braces cut his lower lip.

“I know you like some older girl,” she says immediately afterward, “but I think you’re super cute. Let me know if you ever get over her.”

Toph ribs him about it for weeks afterward. She ribs him about it in front of Sokka and Suki and Zuko and Katara. And that’s worse than the cut lip because Katara thinks that Aang dating Meng (which he isn’t) is sweet and she has a million kind questions that he can’t answer because he doesn’t like Meng. Then, it gets worse when Suki offers up sweet, kind-hearted support of the idea that he should date Meng and gives him one of her knowing looks.

In the end, he ignores Toph’s jibes and the other girls’ niceties because he is fourteen and positive that Katara is it. It’s only a matter of time.

There is another day just before summer where only Katara and Zuko show up at Toph’s house and they spend the entire time in good spirits, laughing at each other’s jokes and getting along like a house on fire. It’s a whiplash sort of change from their old antagonistic tendencies, though Toph claims otherwise. Honestly, Aang is just glad that everyone is getting along now, even if he can’t get the way Zuko and Katara clung to one another in the back hall of the Jasmine Dragon off his mind.

Middle school graduation comes and goes. Gyatso takes about ten million pictures and then, miraculously, manages to convince Mr. and Mrs. Beifong to let Toph go to the same sleepaway camp he’s sending Aang to for the summer. Aang is sworn to provide Toph’s parents and Gyatso with weekly updates, something that requires some fibbing when Toph proves to be an unruly wildcard of a charge. There is an entire week in which he doesn’t see or hear from her, has no idea who she’s with or what she’s doing, and can’t track her down. She shows up again in one piece, though. After their argument outside Zuko’s uncle’s tea shop that winter, Aang supposes it’s the least he can ask for.

Camp drags on until the last moment. There is no time to reconnect with Katara, Suki, Sokka, and Zuko before the school year starts. There is only enough time to recount his adventures to Gyatso, grab a quick shower, study his schedule, and pack his bookbag before going to bed.

Hopes for an easy sleep are futile, though. He’s shot up more than a good few inches over the summer and, though this means all of his pants are now too short, he can’t help but feel like his status as an actual highschooler coupled with his newfound height might give him an advantage when it comes to getting Katara to notice him the way he wants. He can’t stop thinking about her.

Images of her fleck his dreams that night, her perfect face, her dimpled smile, the long braid in which she binds her hair. She appears to him as a celestial goddess, cloaked in mists of moonlight and laughing in tones of silvery bells. She hangs the stars in the sky one by one and draws darkness and light across the moon to cast it through its phases. Then, out of nowhere, golden sunlight flares across her face and she smiles wider than he’s ever seen in life, her arms held out to something that approaches with summertime warmth and sparkles in familiar tones of honeyed gold.

It’s a strange dream, something Aang has to shake off quickly when he hits the snooze button on his alarm one too many times. Still, the effects linger as he pulls on shorts, a tee, and his favored orange hoodie, all somehow just a little bit ill-fitting now. There are hints of something ominous and hope-defeating that he has to shove to the back of his mind.

For the first time ever, Aang bypasses the middle school on his morning walk and approaches the high school down the street. He tells himself that high school will be different. He stands a chance now. Katara might actually notice him as more than a friend. But the entrances are crawling with his new schoolmates and even though Sokka texted him to meet everyone in the southern courtyard, Aang can’t even figure out where that might be. Every passing period releases a veritable sea of students into the hallway. It takes him a full week to run into any of his friends let alone figure out where Katara’s locker even is.

When he finds her, finally, she’s exchanging her binders and books, all perfect curves in high-waisted blue jeans and a white collared shirt that’s tied at her stomach and rolled up at the sleeves. For the first time since her winter formal (that he’s aware of, at least), she’s wearing her hair loose. Just looking at her from the other end of the hallway makes him feel jittery and flushed. He watches her laugh while she slings her bag over her shoulder and can’t help but grin.

There’s no other girl in the world who holds a candle to Katara.

Aang takes a few steps forward and then falters as she closes her locker door. Standing on the other side is a familiar golden-eyed face framed by loose black hair. The grin on Aang’s face slides into a frown.

Zuko. He’s actually smiling. And he’s pressing his hand to the small of Katara’s back as they turn in Aang’s direction, too caught up in their conversation to notice him right away. The noise in the hallway turns to a strange, slow motion roar in Aang’s ears as Katara and Zuko stride down the hallway. He’s convinced they’re going to stroll right past him, positive that they won’t notice the small wave he sends their way.

But then Katara’s eyes, sparkling like sun on the waves of a river, leave Zuko’s face for just a moment and connect with Aang’s. His heart flutters in his chest.

“Aang! Hi!”

And then she’s pulling him in for a quick, one-armed hug as Zuko lingers behind her, completely unperturbed by the interruption. He rakes a hand through his hair as he waits, a ruby bound in gold on one of his fingers winking in the fluorescent lights overhead. It must be his class ring. All of the seniors have one, each stylized to their preference.

“Hey, Katara.”

“Hey, we don’t have long,” she says. “We both have to get to class and I don’t want to make Zuko late, but what lunch do you have?”

“Oh!” Aang says. “No, I didn’t bring my lunch. I’m buying today.”

Katara giggles and shakes her head, loose waves dancing around her shoulders. “No, I mean do you have A lunch or B lunch?”

He turns scarlet. “Right. Of course. Um… I have B lunch.”

“That’s great!” Katara’s face lights up in a way that tugs unfairly at his heartstrings. “We’ve all been wondering where you’ve been this week. You should eat with us in the southern courtyard!”

“I can’t find it,” he admits, hand drifting up to rub at the back of his neck.

“It’s easy,” Zuko cuts in. “The end of this hall? Over there? Just take a right. And then take the first right down that hall. If you keep heading straight, it’ll pop up on your left. You can’t miss it.”

“Will you be there too?”

“No,” Katara says. “It’s just me, Suki, and Toph. Sokka and Zuko have A lunch and they usually leave campus to get food. Seniors, you know?” She rolls her eyes and digs an elbow into Zuko’s side.

The warning bell cuts into the conversation and Zuko mutters a curse.

“We’ve gotta go,” he says. “Piandao won’t get pissed if I’m late or anything, but he’s my favorite teacher and I don’t want to be inconsiderate. Ready, Katara?”

She nods.

“Mr. Piandao?” Aang asks.

“Yeah,” Zuko says. “Why?”

“I have him for math.”

“He’s cool. I’ll give you some pointers later.”

And then Katara and Zuko step into the swarm of students flocking to class, slipping back into their pre-Aang conversation with ease as they disappear. As they go, Aang’s dream from the night before suddenly seems a lot more pertinent.

High school is a much busier time than its predecessor. Weekends spent at Toph’s house dwindle in number. Not only does Aang have homework and his own extracurriculars to keep up with, but Toph, Katara, Suki, Sokka, and Zuko are each involved in sports and teams and clubs of their own. There are always games to go to and friends to cheer on. As a group, they all decide that someone should show up at each game or swim meet or recital to show support. Sokka gets it into his head to set up a rotation and even though everyone groans and makes fun of him for it, they actually go along with it.

Aang can’t help but notice, though, that Zuko shows up at every one of Katara’s functions. It’s not that weird, he tells himself. Zuko is friends with Katara and Sokka, and the siblings are both on the school swim team. Plus, Zuko is friends with Sokka who is still dating Suki. Suki and Katara are on the same soccer team. It’s only natural for Zuko to show up to those games with Sokka, even if he isn’t on the rotation that week.

Remembering that Katara was on both the debate team and in Model U.N. in previous years, Aang looks into joining both in the hopes of spending more time with her. The problem that arises is that somehow the scheduling of all of her extracurriculars clashes with the scheduling of his. Her Mock Trial meetings are on the same day as his recycling club meetings. His volunteer work with elementary school students is in direct conflict with meeting days for both debate and Model U.N.

There is a bit of relief amongst all the frustration, though, and it comes in the form of a brightly-colored flier that announces the homecoming game and dance. Aang finds the flier tucked into his locker and can’t help prevent the delightful surge of hope in his heart. It’s perfect. He’ll ask Katara to Homecoming!

When he tells Toph about his idea, though, all she does is shake her head and ask, “Have you considered asking someone else, Twinkletoes? Maybe you could go with Meng.”

“Come on, Toph,” Aang says, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they descend the stairs from the first floor to the second in a swarm of students. “You know there’s nobody else I’d rather go with! It’s the perfect first date.”

“Aang,” she says, tone turning serious. “I think there’s something here you’re not seeing. Katara’s a Junior and she—”

“And she what?” Aang asks. He can’t help but laugh at her concern. “Come on! Freshman, Junior… It doesn’t matter! It’s gonna be fine.” The warning bell rings and he slugs Toph on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later!”

Friday night at Toph’s house, it’s just Aang and the girls. Sokka and Zuko had begged off from the usual hang out with some mysterious, half-baked excuses that everyone knows are just a bad cover for Sokka’s plans to ask Suki to the dance. Aang knows for a fact that they’re liable to show up at any moment with an ancient boombox and a hundred or so candles that Zuko had the foresight to tell Sokka need to be LED so that they don’t burn down the Beifongs’ mansion.

Their bumbling lends Aang some insight, though. Originally, he was just going to ask Katara to the dance. That’s what people had done in middle school. But now, seeing Sokka with his hundred candles or the banners that people make or the flashmob that one girl in pink had coordinated in order to ask a very familiar girl with dark eyeliner… Aang knows he has to rethink his plan. There’s no doubt in his mind that Katara will want some flash in the gesture, too.

When Aang walks through the front door of Toph’s house, fresh out of a session with his science tutor and more than ready for the weekend, he can hear the girls’ voices coming from the direction of the kitchen. He toes his shoes off and then ditches both them and his backpack by the front door. Katara and Toph are sitting on stools around the sprawling island, paper cups and a white bag stamped with the Jasmine Dragon’s logo littered across the surface. Suki is perched on the island itself, something that makes Aang turn scarlet and avert his eyes when she greets him. The image of her and Sokka is still burned into his memory.

Katara, typing furiously away at her phone, smiles at Aang and then turns her gaze to Suki. “You know you don’t have to go along with this, right?” she asks.

“Go along with what?” Aang says. There are dozens of delectable cookies spilling out of the white paper bag. He grabs a couple.

Toph snorts. “Suki caught on to Sokka’s scheme to ask her to Homecoming. We’ll all understand if you dump him, you know.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Suki says with a soft smile. “Someone who puts that amount of effort into something like this is really special.”

“Well, if you’re dead set on going along with it, that was Zuko.” Katara casts her phone aside and pries the lid off her cup of tea. She snags one of the cookies and dunks it. “Toph and I are supposed to distract you with a movie so that you don’t see anything.”

And that’s how Aang finds himself, nearly two hours later, bored out of his mind by a flowery, overdramatic version of Love Amongst the Dragons while it plays on the projector in the Beifongs’ home theater. The girls aren’t even watching. They’ve pulled out the pai sho board that Zuko gifted Toph and they’re playing two on one. And Katara and Suki are actually losing to Toph! Entirely over the situation, Aang has finished his weekend homework, read ahead in his novel study, and has even responded to several texts from Meng. He doesn’t know why he texts her at all. He knows it’s not fair.

Katara’s text tone chimes through the air and she snags her phone up with her free hand as she places a tile down with the other. The light from the movie and the phone illuminate her eyes. Whoever has contacted her elicits a noise of irritation and a shake of her head.

“What?” Toph asks.

“Just Sokka.” Katara tosses her phone aside. “He says he needs help with something.”

“Don’t you think you should help him?” Aang can’t help but say. “It is Sokka.”

“Oh, I will,” Katara says. “In a couple of minutes. I think Suki and I are about to turn this game around.”

Toph laughs. “You keep telling yourself that, Sugar Queen.”

The girls continue to play and Aang rises from his plush velvet chair. If Katara is in no hurry to help Sokka, maybe he will. At the very least, it’ll provide him an opportunity to pick the older boys’ brains for ideas on how best to ask a girl to a dance. It will also allow him to get away from Love Amongst the Dragons.

When he steps into the hallway, the door to the Beifongs’ extravagant home theater swinging closed behind him, a movement in the game room catches his eye. The door to that room is cracked and a light is on. Aang pauses, waiting for further movement.

A shadow passes in front of the door again.

“Mr. Beifong?” he calls, hoping the tremor in his voice is only perceivable to his ears. Maybe Toph’s parents just came home early. “Mrs. Beifong?”

The door to the game room swings open with an abrupt motion. Before Aang can cry for help, someone— Sokka , he realizes in the ensuing scuffle—hauls him into the room and closes the door again.

“What are you doing?” Aang bellows.

Sokka shushes him loudly, slapping a hand over his mouth. “What are you doing?” he counters.

Glowering at his friend, Aang shoves the older boy’s hand away from his mouth. “I asked first,” he challenges. “You were just telling Katara that you needed help downstairs.”

“And she sent you in her place?”

“No. She and Suki are playing pai sho against Toph. She said she’d help you in a few minutes, so I thought I’d see if there’s anything I can do.”

Shaking his head, Sokka mumbles something that sounds like, “Stupid, annyoing sisters,” and opens up the text messaging app on his phone. Aang watches over his shoulder as he types out a message to Katara.

“‘As Suki’s best friend, I need your approval?’” Aang laughs. “Sokka, you know Suki’s going to say yes.”

“Don’t be such a dunderhead.” Sokka eases the door to the game room open a crack, just enough to peer out into the hall with one eye. “Suki already asked me to Homecoming.”

Aang snorts. “What?”

“What?” Sokka looks over his shoulder, face daring the other teen to make light of what he’s just said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Of course not! It’s just… Why are you going to all this trouble to...ask her too?”

As he says it, the sentence just doesn’t make sense to Aang. The entire situation doesn’t make sense.

Sokka lets out an odd squeak and closes the door just as Katara’s heavily amused voice fills the hall. She tells the other girls that she’ll be back in a few minutes and then her footsteps disappear down the hallway. An inexplicable black hole of something that feels like the precursor to heartbreak opens up in Aang’s stomach.

“Sokka, what’s going on?”

There’s no time for Sokka to answer the question, though. Suki and Toph barrel through the door of the game room. The older girl’s face is lit up with a thousand-watt grin. Even Toph’s mouth is quirked up at the corner in what might be interest.

“Did it happen yet?” Toph asks.

Suki doesn’t stop to talk, just continues blazing a trail around the foosball and pool tables. When she gets to the windows that overlook the Beifongs’ backyard, she throws open the curtains and perches herself on a window seat, face nearly pressed up against the glass.

“She just went downstairs, Toph,” Sokka says dryly. “How could it have happened already?”

The two of them fall into an easy, sibling-like bickering match as they move to join Suki at the windows, Aang following behind them as dreadful curiosity creeps its way up his spine.

It’s just past sunset, the sky is dark, but Toph’s backyard is awash in the warm, welcoming glow of fairy lights in the trees and a hundred or so false candles flickering in the grass. In the middle of it all, is Zuko’s lone figure, thrown into faint relief by the lights. For a long moment, perhaps due to a large amount of denial he doesn’t want to acknowledge, Aang can’t process the scene. But then the sound of the back door opening and closing shatters any illusion he had regarding Zuko and Katara’s friendship.

Toph reaches out to grab Suki’s arm. “Tell me what’s happening!” she urges.

Aang turns away from the scene, feeling breathless and a little lightheaded. He wishes that Suki wouldn’t describe what’s taking place in the backyard. He wishes that Toph didn’t sound so eager.

A small spear of anger flares in his heart.

“There’s Katara!” Suki says.

Aang squeezes his eyes shut.

“She’s looking around at everything. Sokka, did you convince him to nix that stupid boombox?”

“Of course I did!”

“ Hey! Blind girl who wants to know what’s going on right here.”

“Okay, okay…” And then Suki starts narrating again. “Zuko’s pacing as he talks and he’s gesturing a lot. Aww! He must be really nervous.”

The room feels stifling. Aang doesn’t know how Suki’s finding the air to talk because he can barely scrape together enough to breathe through his broken heart.

“Oh! Oh. Katara’s grabbed his hand and he’s stopped pacing around.”

“Should I be watching this?” Sokka asks. Suki and Toph shush him.

“I think he’s asking her.” Suki’s voice is little more than a squeal of excitement.

Aang wants to tell her to shut up. He wants to flee. He wants to cry. He wants to yell at his friends for betraying him.

Somebody should have told him!

“Ew!” Sokka shouts rather suddenly. “Don’t kiss my sister while I’m watching!”

And that tips Aang over the edge.

He bolts for the door, knocking over a chair as he runs, the sound of it interrupting his friends’ commotion at the window. “I gotta… I gotta go,” he mumbles, unsure if anyone hears him. His heart is pounding in his throat. He feels like he might get sick all over the polished floors.

Someone calls his name. He thinks it might be Suki, but he can’t bear to stay for her sympathetic looks and kind smiles.

“Feel sick,” he calls over his shoulder, choking back hot, thick tears.

And then he’s barreling down the never ending staircase, sprinting for the front door. Vision hopelessly blurry with tears, he shoves his feet in his shoes and snags up his backpack. He trips on the last step out front and comes to a crashing halt in the gravel walkway, rocks cutting up his palms and knees.

“Twinkletoes!” Toph’s voice calls. Aang hears her come to a stop at the top of the front steps. She must not have her cane. “Twinkletoes!”

Aang gives a mighty sniff and rises to his feet. He scrubs his hands over his damp cheeks, but it only serves to smear both blood and tears across his face.

“Were you ever going to tell me, Toph?” His voice shakes, it sounds broken. When he turns to face his friend, he finds her glassy eyes wide with fright and concern behind her dark bangs. Light spills out the front door, turning her into what is hardly more than a shadow that looms above him.

“Suki thought you knew,” she says rather helplessly.

“I’m not asking what Suki thought. Come on, Toph! You knew I wanted to ask Katara to Homecoming. You should have said something!”

His ire triggers hers. She folds her arms over her chest and scowls at him. “I tried to tell you not to get your hopes up the other day, but you just blew me off!”

“You should have told me they’d started dating.”

“But they’re not,” Toph says, sounding exasperated. “Or they weren’t. If they even are now. And even if that’s the case, it’s not my news to go around blabbing about. It’s theirs! I’m no gossip, Aang.”

“And you’re not a good friend either,” Aang snaps.

It’s not fair.

He knows it’s not fair.

Toph is a great friend. She’s his best friend.

But now the words have been said and Toph’s face has fallen. He thinks she might be crying. So he does the only thing that makes sense at the moment.

He runs.

Aang doesn’t talk to his friends for a while.

He sulks. He keeps his head down. He buries himself in homework. He loses himself in extracurriculars. He turns the other way when he sees Zuko and Katara walking hand-in-hand down the hallways at school.

Some nasty, traitorous part of him thinks that they look nice together. It’s the same part of him that tells him he should recognize how happy they are when they’re together.

In his desperation to avoid this part of himself, Aang asks Meng to the homecoming dance. He does it without ceremony. He does it over text.

Are you over Katara? she replies.

Definitely, he tells her.

And it’s a lie.

Meng deserves better than that, but he feels ill-equipped to give her better when who he is at the moment is all he has. She likes him. He knows that for a fact and takes comfort in it. There is no questioning, no getting his hopes up, no idiotic blindness to what’s been going on right in front of him for weeks or months.

Her dress is pink, she says. And she’d love to go. Her aunt will be happy to drive them.

Aang and Meng do not have fun at the homecoming dance and he knows that’s his fault. He can’t stop looking at Katara. She’s so pretty in her dark red dress with her hair in a cascade of curls that sweep over her back. She and Zuko and Suki and Sokka all look like they’re having so much fun, laughing and dancing amongst a crowd of their various teammates.

Meng puts up with it for maybe an hour before she finally leaves Aang standing by the wall all alone and goes off to dance with a cluster of girls from their shared phys ed class.

That’s going to be awkward next week.

Left to his own devices and feeling the weight of his self-imposed exile from his friends, Aang sticks it out for just a few more minutes. They’re agonizing minutes, though. Minutes in which he feels entirely too jaded for his age. Minutes during which Katara and Zuko manage to vanish from the dancefloor right before his very eyes.

The knowledge of that makes him sick and green with jealousy.

He hates Zuko. And he hates Katara, too.

Except that’s not entirely true.

He loves her.

Eyes pricking with tears, Aang begins to weave his way through the throng of students and celestial decorations, eager to get out of the dance as soon as possible. He’s nearly at the door when a soft hand catches his. When he turns around, he finds himself looking into Suki’s kind, grey eyes.

“Aang!” she says brightly. She gives his hand a squeeze and smiles. It’s full of sympathy and, in that moment, Aang hates her a little bit, too.

He doesn’t want Suki’s sympathy.

“I’m so glad that you’re here. You should come dance with all of us!”

“I don’t want to dance with you guys,” Aang says, pulling his hand free of hers. “I want to go home.”

Suki’s face softens. “Aang…” She reaches out for him again and he dodges her grasp.

“Just… Just leave me alone, Suki.”

He pushes through the gymnasium doors and out into the hallway. The air is cooler out here, less humid, and it doesn’t smell of hundreds of sweaty bodies and a cacophony of perfumes and colognes. The lights in the hallway are off, but the emergency backups are on, one lit every twenty yards or so, and the cold gloom feels fitting. Aang wraps his heart in it as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes for the front doors of the school.

October drapes itself like a blanket over the school, night air nippy and bringing on the scent of fading foliage. Sending off a text to Gyatso to please come pick him up, Aang plops down on the hard cement steps to wait.

“I think maybe it’s time we talked about this,” Zuko’s rough voice says. He settles next to Aang on the front steps of the school.

“About what?” Aang growls. He folds his arms over his chest and refuses to look in the older boy's direction.

“Aang.” And now Zuko’s words are filled with kind pragmatism. He rests a large palm on Aang’s shoulder. “I know you have a crush on Katara.”

Aang scoffs and shrugs Zuko’s hand away. That just goes to show what Zuko knows. And it’s apparently very little. How Katara has chosen someone with so little depth of feeling for her, he’ll never understand.

“I love her,” he spits.

Frustratingly, Zuko remains calm, unruffled. “Oh?”

“I’ve known her longer than you have. Of course I love her.”

“I’ve actually known Katara and Sokka since I was ten. Our moms were friends. And my uncle is in a club with their dad. But,” Zuko shrugs, “that doesn’t really matter. Time doesn’t give someone a claim over another person’s heart.”

This new knowledge stings. Rather suddenly, Aang feels as though he’s somehow missed out on critical parts of the entire group’s friendship. He feels as though he’s not as intrinsic to the group chemistry as he thought he was.

“Did you know that my dad was the one to burn my face?” Zuko asks.

Aang freezes.

“Yeah. I was thirteen when it happened. Before that, I was kind of closer with Katara than I was with Sokka. When our moms were alive, they’d make jokes about the two of us. How they hoped we’d end up together. Stuff like that. It annoyed us so much.

“And then my dad did what he did and my mom died and I just...shut down. Katara was so nice to me. She was the only person who wasn’t afraid to make eye contact with me for a long time. She tried to help me and she was always offering a listening ear.”

“Katara’s the nicest person I’ve ever met,” Aang mumbles, feeling somewhat mortified at the reveal of Zuko’s secret.

“Yeah.” The older boy lets out a raspy half-laugh. “She is. But I was a huge jerk to her and Sokka after all that. Sokka, he just...held me accountable. He was really honest and upfront with me about how I was acting. Katara, though…” He sighs. “She was younger than us and a little more sensitive and I ruined our friendship for a really long time.”

“Is that why you two were so mean to each other at the mall?”

“The mall?”

“Yeah. You know…” Aang gestures vaguely. “With the smoothie and… Jet.”

Realization lights up Zuko’s eyes. “Oh! Um… Maybe? It probably was on Katara’s part. But I… Well. By that point, I knew that I liked her. A lot. I had for years. The thing was I was mad at myself for it. Out of the two of us, I was always the one who took our moms’ jokes a little more seriously. I think…even back then I liked her. However much you can like someone when you’re that small. But by the time I was able to admit it to myself, this had happened,” he points to his scar, “and I’d fucked things up really bad. I never thought she’d be able to see past all of that and...reciprocate.”

They are silent for a moment.

“I know you like her,” Zuko says.

“I love her,” Aang corrects him.

Zuko just blinks. “Right. Um. Okay. Well, I just… I hope you know that I’m happy and she’s happy. And I just… Well, I hope that you can get to a place where you’re happy for her. Because isn’t that what’s most important? Katara’s happiness?”

“Who’s to say she’s happier with you than she’d be with me?” Aang snaps. “Why is she walking around school holding your hand? You said it yourself that you were mean to her! I’ve never been anything but nice to her! I’ve been a great friend all the time! I deserve—”

Zuko stands up abruptly, shaking his head. “I’m done with this conversation,” he mumbles.

“What? No!”

“Yes. I am. Because if you think that being a good friend to someone makes you deserving of their heart, then you’re not mature enough to be talking about this.”

The words hit Aang like a punch to the gut. All he can do is stare up at Zuko, eyes wide, mouth ajar. There’s a frown cutting across Zuko’s pale face. It makes his scar look all the more severe.

“Katara really values your friendship, Aang. She doesn’t understand why you haven’t spoken to her the past couple of weeks and it’s hurting her. I didn’t ask Katara to this dance to hurt your feelings. I genuinely care about her and I see this working out for a long time. I think she does too. So it’s something that you’re going to have to get used to if you still want to hang out with all of us.”

Aang scowls. He refuses to dignify Zuko’s words with an answer. He doesn’t need to get used to anything just because Zuko tells him he should.

“Whatever,” Zuko says. “Ignore me. That’s your choice. But you need to at least apologize to Toph. You’re her best friend in the world and whatever you said to her that night broke her heart. So fix it. She doesn’t deserve your petty attitude.”

Folding his arms tighter over his chest, Aang listens as Zuko walks back up the stairs and into the school once more. He sits there in silence, waiting for Gyatso’s car to pull up and is left with Zuko’s final instructions.

Toph.

His own heart still smarts from what he said to her. To be honest, he misses talking to her in the halls and he misses hanging out at her house after school. Though they’ve certainly bickered over the years, they’ve never fought. He’s never spit vitriol at her without remorse. This is the longest he’s ever gone without talking to her and it’s entirely his fault.

Aang groans and buries his face in his knees.

He’s the worst friend.

A gentle half-honk of a horn and the crunch of tires over asphalt alert Aang to Gyatso’s arrival. He stands, dusting off the seat of his pants, and waves to his guardian before descending the last of the steps and climbing into the car. As he reaches for the seatbelt, movement at the doors to the school catches his eye.

Zuko and Katara emerge into the cool autumn evening, smiles on their faces, oblivious to the world around them. And as the car rolls away, Aang’s heart bottoms out in his stomach once again because he then bears witness to the final nail in the coffin that holds any hope he had of winning the blue-eyed girl’s affections—Zuko reaches out with one pale hand to touch Katara’s face and she leans in to kiss him right on the lips.

It’s one thing to have his back turned and hear Sokka whining about Zuko kissing Katara. It’s another thing entirely to witness it himself. Oddly enough, Aang doesn’t feel as though his entire world has shattered. There’s heaps of disappointment to be sure, and he feels battered and bruised. But it doesn’t feel like something he can’t get over.

What that means about him or his feelings for Katara, Aang isn’t certain.

Thankfully, Gyatso doesn’t ask any questions on the way home. He remains quiet and patient. When Aang asks him to turn down Toph’s street, he doesn’t question it.

There are only a couple of lights on in the Beifong’s mansion. They glow soft and golden like sunlight and spill forth across the front steps when Mrs. Beifong opens the door. But while the light is warmth, Toph is cold and unyielding. She comes to the door, face flat and neutral, and stands there with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes cast to the side in what feels like indifference.

“What do you want?”

Aang swallows hard around a lump in his throat. One hand drifts up to rub at the back of his neck. “I… I wanted to apologize, Toph.”

“Oh, yeah? For what?”

He groans. “Come on, Toph. You know why I’m apologizing.”

“Do I? Huh. I don’t think I do. Maybe you should actually say why.”

“I was a jerk, okay?” Aang blurts out. “I was the one who was being a bad friend. I never should have accused you of that. That was mean and it was wrong and I’m sorry.”

There is a hideous, horrible moment of silence. Toph sniffs a bit and her mouth softens for the briefest of seconds. All too soon, the glimpse of fragility is gone. She pulls her spine straight and tilts her chin up.

“Thank you,” she says.

Aang blinks at her, taken completely aback. “I… What?”

“I said, ‘Thank you.’ What did you expect me to say? ‘Oh, that’s okay, Aang! I forgive you!’” Toph snorts. “It wasn’t okay. It was really mean and you hurt my feelings.”

“But…” Aang takes half a step back, floundering. “But I apologized.”

“So what? I accepted your apology. What else do you want?”

“You're supposed to forgive people who apologize.”

“Says who? I’ve accepted your apology, but I’m not ready to forgive you. An apology doesn’t erase what you said.”

Speechless, Aang stands there on the front steps of the Beifong estate, gaping at his oldest friend. He’s at a loss.

Toph being Toph, she doesn’t wait long for him to gather his wits and try to think of what to say next. She only shakes her head and reaches to close the door. “I’ll see you at school on Monday, Aang,” she says.

The door clicks shut and Aang is left standing in the glow of the car’s headlights, stunned.

The first week after the homecoming dance is hard. It’s like the universe is punishing him. No matter what hall he walks down or what corner he turns, it’s like Aang is always running into Zuko and Katara. What really adds salt to the wounds he’s licking, though, is the necklace hanging around Katara’s neck.

She still wears her mother’s pendant, of course, but it now has a partner in delicate links of gold that bear the weight of a thick gold ring inlaid with a ruby and emblazoned with the school crest. Aang realizes with a sickening jolt of his heart that he’s seen that ring on Zuko’s finger many times. It’s his class ring and it hangs on a chain just below the heirloom, a stark contrast to the white tee Katara wears. Aang doesn’t miss it. The significance is glaring. He’s seen boys give girls their class rings before. If Zuko and Katara hadn’t been a couple when he asked her to the dance, there’s no mistaking them for anything but now.

Aang wants to hate them. He thinks part of him still does. The thing is, they look so happy together. He’s never seen Zuko smile as much as he seems to these days and Katara is absolutely radiant.

Zuko was right, as much as Aang hates to admit it to himself. Katara’s happiness is the most important thing.

So when she casts him a small, uncertain smile one day during a passing period, he does his best to smile back. The way she brightens up in response fills him with bittersweet longing.

One Friday during lit class, Toph, who is decidedly not working on her group project, leans into Aang’s personal space and says, “So are you hanging out with all of us after school today or not?”

Aang looks up from the notes he’s been consulting, startled, and looks over his shoulder at her. She’s leaning casually back in her chair, balancing it on its back legs, and not looking in his direction in the slightest.

“Do you want me there?” he asks.

Toph shrugs. “I guess. Everyone misses you or whatever.”

He supposes that that’s the best he’ll be getting from Toph for the foreseeable future. Whether or not she’s willing to forgive him still remains to be seen, but being invited to hang out with everyone again seems like a step in the right direction.

“Okay,” Aang says.

“Okay,” Toph agrees. Then, she rights her chair and returns to not being part of her group project.

Integrating himself back into the group of friends goes smoother than Aang expected. Nobody makes a fuss outside of Toph’s frostiness and even that eventually thaws. The hard part is being around Zuko and Katara. Though they aren’t exactly the type of people to flaunt their relationship in the gross way that Sokka and Suki do, Aang still has to deal with the mortifying ordeal of seeing the two of them kiss and flirt.

Still, he thinks, it could be worse. Despite the passage of time, he still hasn’t managed to scrub from his memory the image of Sokka and Suki in Toph’s kitchen and that poor squashed orange on the floor.

Aang knows that the best thing to do is move on. Especially when Katara and Zuko attend winter formal together and, a few weeks later, seem to have no problem saying I love you in front of all their friends. The thing is, some vengeful, angry, stubborn part of Aang knows that Zuko will be leaving for college come fall and that means he might finally stand a real chance with Katara. Zuko, however, remains true to his word.

Months pass, the school year comes to a close, Katara and Suki attend prom with the boys, and Sokka and Zuko graduate from high school. Despite the passage of time, however, Zuko does not budge in his relationship with Katara. All throughout that summer, the two of them are as close as ever. They team up against Sokka and Suki during games of chicken in Toph’s pool; Zuko always has one arm slung affectionately around Katara’s shoulders or waist; Katara’s fingers begin to drift more and more often to play with the ring she wears around her neck as opposed to her mother’s pendant. One weekend, the two of them show up at Toph’s house and Zuko’s wearing a wide whalebone bracelet around his wrist. The ivory is carved with swirling Southern Water Tribe designs and each piece is separated by beads of blue glass. It reminds Aang of the necklace Sokka wears and he knows, without needing to ask, that Katara has made it with her own two hands.

Which is why it stuns absolutely everyone when Katara shows up to the final get-together before Sokka and Zuko leave for college red-eyed, pink-nosed, and alone.

“It’s fine,” she sniffs when Sokka, eyes narrowed, face furious, begins to make a beeline for the door. She reaches out to grab his wrist and pull him to a stop. “Really. I swear. It wasn’t his fault.” Her eyes, so blue and so emotive, well up with tears and her lower lip begins to tremble. “He’s perfect and I… I love him so much, but…” The next few words are unintelligible.

Wordlessly, Suki leaves the game room and comes back a few moments later with a box of tissues. She pulls one free and shoves it towards Katara who accepts it with a quivering smile.

“Start again,” Suki says kindly. She sits on the coffee table and lays a hand on Katara’s knee.

Katara gives a great, snotty sniff and Aang tries not to cringe at the sound. “I broke up with him,” she says quietly.

A thundercloud passes over Sokka’s face. “Why in the name of Tui and La would you do something like that?” he snaps.

In retaliation, Toph delivers two sharp blows of her elbows into his ribs and sneers, “This isn’t about you, Snoozles!” over the sound of his protesting yelps.

“I… I didn’t want him to be tied down to some high school girl while he’s in college, you know? He deserves to ha-have freedom and all the experiences everyone el-else is having.” Katara blows her nose rather indelicately into the tissue and reaches for another. Suki offers her the box silently. “I was just trying to do what I thought was best for everyone.”

“Best for everyone? Fucking Tui, Katara! You think this is something Zuko actually wants?” Sokka is up on his feet and pacing now. His sneakers squeak on the polished wood floors. “Aw, man! And I have to live with his sulky ass next year!”

“This isn’t about you!” Toph barks again.

“Well, it is and it isn’t,” Sokka says. “Because she’s my sister, but he’s my best friend. And I know—I know—this is not something either of them want. Spirits, Katara! What were you thinking? I know you like to be selfless, but this was not selfless. This was just stupid.”

Abruptly, Sokka spins on his heel and jabs a finger between Aang’s eyes. “You,” he says, “and Toph, talk to her. I’m going to call Zuko. Maybe this can still be fixed.”

He stalks out of the game room and his thunderous steps echo down the hallway before disappearing down the stairs. Suki gives Katara’s knee a sympathetic squeeze.

“You okay for a few minutes?”

Katara shifts on the couch and nods. The green cushions seem to engulf her body. She looks smaller than Aang has ever seen her. He feels useless and stupid in the face of her broken heart.

“Okay,” Suki says. Her voice is calm and soothing. “I’m going to see if I can talk Sokka down, okay? If you need anything, I’m sure Toph and Aang have your back. And when I’m done with Sokka, you and I can go to my house and hang out, okay?”

“Thanks, Suki,” Katara says, offering up a feeble upward twitch of her lips.

The other girl’s exit is swift and silent and leaves a few beats of awkward silence in its wake. Aang doesn’t know what to do with his hands or his voice. He can’t even bring himself to look at Katara directly. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Zuko’s class ring is still hanging about her neck.

Toph rises from the chair she’d claimed earlier in the afternoon and clears her throat. “I’ll, um…” She fiddles with her cane before unfolding it. “I’ll go get you some ice cream or something. That’s what we’re supposed to do in these kinds of situations, right?”

Katara smiles gently. “That’s really nice of you, Toph.”

“Yeah,” Toph says, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Um. Okay.”

She all but flees the room, leaving Aang alone with Katara and the impression that Toph’s search for ice cream is probably just an excuse to get away from an emotional situation. He lowers himself into the chair next to the one Toph vacated and exchanges an awkward glance with Katara.

“You don’t have to stay here with me if you don’t want to,” Katara says after a few beats.

“I don’t mind.” Aang cringes. His reply sounds too quick, too unconvincing.

She nods and brings her hand up to fiddle with the ring, working it between her fingers like a worry stone.

“You, um…” Aang clears his throat and feels himself turn pink when Katara turns her eyes back to him. “You still have his ring.”

Her gaze drops from Aang’s face to the piece of jewelry in her hand. “Oh.” She bites her lower lip and blinks a few times in rapid succession. “Yeah. Zuko, um… Zuko didn’t want to break up.” Her voice goes oddly breathy and high-pitched. “He thought we could make it work this year. And I… I didn’t want to either, but… He just shouldn’t have to think about his high school girlfriend while he’s off at college. He’s going to have other more important things to worry about, you know? Internships and finals and papers. I didn’t want to weigh him down.”

Katara drops the ring and draws her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. As the two of them sit there in silence, she looks so despondent that Aang offers up his first ever verbal support of the now-defunct relationship.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Zuko sees it that way at all.” Aang cringes as the words come out of his mouth.

Too little too late.

So much for the claim he’d made to Zuko that he’d been a good friend to Katara. A good friend wouldn’t have waited this long to offer up support. A good friend wouldn’t have held out hope that something like this would happen and he’d be able to take advantage of the situation when it did.

No, he’s been a terrible friend to Katara.

She sighs. “It’s really for the best,” she says. “It is. He’s going to CU and I’m early-decision for pre-law at SPU.” A little sniff. “It’s for the best.”

Toph and Aang don’t see much of Suki and Katara the following school year. With Zuko and Sokka away at college and the girls busy with extracurriculars and intense senior year workloads that the average students don’t seem to share, weekends at Toph’s house mostly revert back to the quiet affairs they were before Suki drifted into their lives on her favorite green pool float.

When the two of them do manage to show up at the Beifong estate, it’s for short bursts of time only. Little spaces between games or meets or matches, half hours where they aren’t studying or dashing off to some meeting or another. Both of them seem excited yet frantic, eager yet exhausted. Underneath it all, though, Katara remains somewhat sad, always wistful, not quite who she was before she broke up with Zuko.

One Friday in April, Suki plops down in their usual plot of grass in the courtyard and tosses her sack lunch to the ground with a sigh. “It’s complete bullshit,” she tells Katara, pulling her sunglasses off her head and jamming them onto her pretty face. “I’m really pissed off about it.”

“What’re we mad about?” Toph asks around a mouthful of her sandwich. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for being pissed. I’d just like to be well-informed before I get invested.”

Suki only grumbles and rips open her paper bag, dumping a pop can, a bag of chips, and three packs of fire gummies onto the lawn. Aang catches a green apple that rolls through the grass towards him and offers it back to her. She declines with a wrinkle of her nose. No healthy food for Suki today, apparently.

“Suki’s mad because she’s not allowed to bring Sokka to prom,” Katara supplies helpfully. “No guests over 18 if they aren’t enrolled in high school.”

“It’s a bullshit rule,” Suki repeats, biting violently into a chip. Her grey eyes are bright with fury. “But it’s fine. Whatever. I just won’t go. Katara and I’ll hang out that night.” She turns her gaze to her best friend. “Unless she’s managed to find herself a date without telling me.”

Katara sighs and snags one of the packs of fire gummies off the ground. She rips open the pack and dumps them into her chocolate pudding before giving the whole disturbing concoction a savage stir.

“I told you,” she grumbles. “I’m not going if I can’t go—”

“With Zuko,” Suki finishes with a soft smile of understanding. “Yeah. I know. Have you talked to him lately?”

Aang watches Katara shrug. “We try sometimes, but it’s hard. It just...makes me sad.” A dollop of chocolate pudding drops onto her jeans and she curses. “I’ve gotta go wash this in the bathroom. I’ll be back.”

Suki watches for Katara to vanish back into the building before scooting close to Toph and waving Aang over with frantic gestures.

“What?” Toph whines. “I’m trying to eat my lunch.” She takes a large bite of her sandwich and proceeds to chew in an obnoxious manner that has Aang sniggering into his bottled water.

“You two can’t breathe a word to Katara,” Suki begins.

“Then why are you telling us?” Toph says.

“Watch yourself, little cousin.”

Toph sticks her tongue out. It’s covered in macerated sandwich, a fact which Suki artfully ignores.

“Zuko’s transferring to South Pole U next year!”

Aang freezes, shock furrowing his brow. “What?” he asks. “Does Katara know?”

“Obviously not, Twinkletoes.” Toph rolls her eyes. “She wouldn't have told us not to tell otherwise.”

“And you guys can’t tell her. He wants it to be a surprise.”

“That’s going well so far.”

Suki ignores her and pulls two white envelopes out of her bookbag. She passes one to Aang and Toph each. “Katara and I are having a joint grad party at her house. Zuko’s going to drop by so he can tell her then,” she says. She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder in search of Katara. “I’m telling you about this now so that the two of you leave them alone once he shows up. They deserve this.”

Aang runs his thumb along the edge of the envelope and ponders it with curiosity. The knowledge that Zuko is transferring to Katara’s school of choice doesn’t come with a wave of jealousy. Anger doesn’t climb up his spine and perch like a red demon on his shoulder. In fact, he’s kind of... excited for Katara. She’s spent so much time mired in misery and heartbreak, hating herself for ending things in the first place that he can’t help but imagine the look of joy on her face when Zuko walks into the party.

Smiling to himself, he tucks the invitation into his backpack.

Katara deserves to be happy. And if Zuko, the world’s biggest sourpuss, somehow makes her happy… Well, Aang can support that.

The day of Suki and Katara’s graduation is sweltering and sticky. Having been invited by Suki rather than Katara, Aang finds himself sitting amongst Toph and her parents and finally learning that Toph’s mom and Suki’s mom are sisters. To be honest, he doesn’t see much of a resemblance between Mrs. Beifong (who is always sleek and polished) and her sister (who is rather warm and round and bright-eyed).

“Do you see Sokka?” Toph asks. “Maybe we can sneak away and go sit with him instead.”

Aang scans the crowds of seated people and finds Sokka and his dad seated a few rows up and to the right. He’d know Sokka’s wolftail anywhere at this point and he’s heard the Water Tribe siblings’ dad’s laugh enough times through the phone to recognize its booming quality in the packed stands. But Toph’s hopes of escape are dashed, however, when Aang realizes that there are no seats near Sokka. Instead, there are two familiar heads next to them in the masses.

“Zuko and Iroh are sitting with Sokka and his dad!” Aang reports to Toph. He rises up out of his seat for a better view.

All four men are dressed up for the day, but Zuko seems to have gone to extra effort in a sharp black suit. He’s even pulled half of his hair back into a knot at the back of his head. Levering himself just a little more and craning his neck, Aang catches a glimpse of a large bouquet of flowers laying in Zuko’s lap.

He reports all of this to Toph as the ceremony commences and her answering smile is brilliant and delighted. Her eyes seem to sparkle behind her bangs. She even listens to Katara’s valedictorian speech with a raptness that Aang thinks she otherwise wouldn't have.

Katara talks a lot about hope and hard work. When she mentions her mother, she has to pause to dry her eyes and Aang sees that Sokka is furiously wiping his hand across his face while his father presses a hand to his mouth. Zuko reaches out to pat Sokka on the back and the gesture has the siblings’ father reaching around to clap him on the shoulder in a silent gesture of gratitude.

The ceremony itself takes forever, but it’s all worth it when Katara’s name is called and she crosses the stage to accept her diploma. As she reaches out to shake the principal’s hand, her father, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh all rise to their feet to cheer her on, their voices loud and booming over the smattering of polite applause. She pauses at the sound, searching for the source. And even though he’s sitting far from the floor and the stage, Aang doesn’t miss the sheer joy that radiates from her face when she realizes who all has shown up for her.

“So,” Toph drawls as she sidles up to Aang. “You’re taking Zuko’s reappearance much better than any of us anticipated.”

They’re standing on the back porch of Sokka and Katara’s childhood home, two lone soon-to-be high school juniors in a sea of Katara and Suki’s friends, family, teammates, and family friends. Over the years they’ve known each other, Aang has only ever been to the siblings’ house twice and never further than the front entryway. It’s nice to finally see the backyard. Lush and green, it’s well-kept, the lawn mowed in neat diagonals and dotted with towering trees of all kinds. Folding chairs and card tables are littered throughout the space and Sokka has one of his playlists blaring through a powerful wireless speaker.

Overhead, the sun beats down hot and relentless, but doesn’t manage to deter the festivities. Katara and Suki, dressed in white sundresses, circulate amongst the people they’ve invited, careful not to trip over any chair legs or the coolers full of ice-cold drinks sprinkled at convenient intervals. Balloons in the school’s colors of maroon and navy shine in the light.

“What do you mean?” Aang asks.

Toph shrugs and turns her back to the railing, leaning her elbows on it. A bottle of pop dangles from her hand. “I expected you to be a green monster of envy,” she says. “You’ve carried a torch for her since we were kids basically. And you never really did accept the fact that they were dating.”

He turns scarlet from the tips of his ears to the top of his nose. “I did so!”

“Doesn’t count if you finally showed support after she broke up with him.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“You only think that because you know I’m right.”

Aang sighs and shakes his head. “I thought I would be upset,” he admits quietly. To her credit, the smirk slips off Toph’s face as she tilts her head to listen. “But I’m not. I’m not jealous or disappointed or angry. I’m just…happy for them.”

Toph makes a noise that almost sounds derisive.

“It’s true! Katara hasn’t been herself this year. She’s been so sad. And…” He swallows hard. “And she and Zuko really seem to make each other happy.”

“Huh,” Toph says.

“What?”

“Color me impressed. You’re actually growing.”

Aang frowns, a retort on his tongue when a flash of ruby-tinged light momentarily blinds him, bringing him to a halt before he can even begin. When he blinks the resulting spots from his vision, he looks for the source of the light and finds it beneath an oak tree.

Zuko and Katara sit on a bench, bodies angled towards each other. Zuko holds his class ring between his thumb and forefinger. It winks again in the light of the sun. The chain it hangs from wobbles when he gestures. Katara’s whole being has gone soft and ethereal. In her clean white dress as she sits next to Zuko is his sharp black suit, they almost look...

Stifling a snort of laughter, Aang shakes his head. That’s just absurd.

In the back of his mind, he knows that he shouldn’t be watching them. They’re seeking a moment of privacy in an otherwise busy event and even though Katara’s father and Zuko seem to get along well, he doesn’t exactly strike Aang as the type of parent who is okay with his daughter taking a boy up to her room.

The girl in question has an orangey-red lily tucked behind her ear. Aang strongly suspects the bloom has been snagged from the bouquet of flowers Zuko brought with him. With wide eyes, she’s listening, seemingly enraptured as Zuko speaks. He places the ring back in her palm and cups her hands in his. His words can’t be heard over the din of the party, but his manner of speaking is earnest and sincere. Though he spent so long confused as to what Katara ever saw in Zuko to begin with, Aang thinks he can see it now. The two of them share a level of compatibility he hasn’t seen in any other teenage couple, except maybe Sokka and Suki. This is definitely not a relationship founded solely on mutual physical attraction.

Zuko reaches into his jacket, extracting a white envelope from the inner pocket. The corner of his mouth quirks up as he holds it out to Katara. She takes it with nervous hands and looks from the address labels to Zuko’s face.

“I think he’s showing her the acceptance letter right now,” Aang says to Toph.

“Sorry, what?” says an unfamiliar voice.

Looking to his right, Aang sees that Toph has vacated her spot and another girl is there, reaching to pluck a drink from the nearby cooler. For a moment, Aang is struck dumb. The girl is pretty with brown hair that looks incredibly soft and eyes that sparkle beneath a thick swath of bangs. He blinks at her, confused and at a loss.

“Um,” he says. “My friend’s ex-boyfriend… Or? Maybe he’s her boyfriend again by now? I don’t know.”

The girl quirks a questioning but amused eyebrow.

“Anyway,” Aang lets out a nervous chuckle, “he’s telling her that he’s transferring colleges to be with her next year. I think.”

“Oh! That’s so sweet. Where?”

Aang points out Zuko and Katara to the girl and they watch on in silence for a moment as Katara reads through the letter in the envelope. She presses a hand to her mouth shaking her head. Zuko’s face begins to fall. Before he can try to start backpedaling, Katara has thrown her arms around him, a brilliant smile breaking across her face as they hold one another tight. Unseen and unimportant, Aang watches on with a smile of his own and it dawns on him, eons too late, that it’s time to let Katara go. He never stood a chance. Not really. And that’s okay. Because Zuko was right. The most important thing is Katara’s happiness.

“They look so happy,” says the girl.

“Yeah,” Aang replies with a grin. “They do.” He turns to her and offers his hand. “I’m Aang by the way.”

She reaches out to shake his hand with a wry twist to her mouth. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “I’m On Ji. You and my friend Meng went to Homecoming together freshman year. She had a terrible time.”

His face seems to simultaneously drain of color and flush bright red with shame. “Oh,” he says, voice small.

“Yeah.”

“I was a real jerk to her.”

“You were,” On Ji says. “But I think we all have low moments. They don’t necessarily define who we are as people, you know?” She clears her throat. “Did you ever get over the other girl?”

Thinking of Katara and Zuko beneath the tree, smiles of excitement spread across their faces as they talk about the future, Aang feels a sense of calm acceptance roll over his body like a steady, soothing breeze.

“Yeah,” he says, honestly this time. “I did.”

“Well, then,” On Ji says, holding out a folded napkin. “You should text me sometime.”

Stunned, Aang accepts the napkin and watches as the brunette saunters away, a bottle of pop in her hand as she vanishes into the crowd of party goers. He unfolds the napkin and stares down at her number. She strikes out her zeroes and draws hearts over the i and j in her name.

His heart light for the first time since he laid eyes on Katara, Aang pockets On Ji’s number and chances one last glance at the happy couple.

Then, he takes a deep breath in and lets Katara go on the exhale.