Another Avatar University Story

Chapter Twenty

"You sneaky FUCKER! Camping little piece of SHIT! Come on Zuko.. really? I invite you over and this is how you repay me?" Sokka whined, slumping straight into the couch behind him, conforming and melting into it.

Zuko laughed his lungs out, slapping his new a few times while pointing at Sokka straight into his face. "That's what you get for choosing Tachanka out of all people to play as."

"He's the best operator out of them all!"

"Mhm, and I have a scar on the right side of my face."

"But you do- nevermind..."

Following the end of classes that day, the same day where Zuko was formally inducted into our rag-tag group of people, Sokka thought it would be best for us to start building a friendship with the man and invited him to play the latest games at Sokka's flat in the Water Borough, along with everyone else in our group just to hangout in general.

"So, you still want to play against each other or do you want to be on the same team this time?" Zuko inquired with a smug look on his face, playing around with the buttons of his controller.

Sokka, on the other hand, was livid and was fuming. Eventually, however, he calmed down and shook his head, smiling. "I think that's enough Siege for one day.. You guys want some snacks or something?" Sokka asked everyone in the room.

While Zuko and Sokka staked their claim on the couch with me sitting on the floor, resting my back along the front of the couch and in the space between Sokka and Zuko, Yue, Katara, and Toph sat on some tall bar stools which were placed along the two sibling's kitchen countertop engaging in some small talk which I couldn't understand. The apartment wasn't big enough for a full on dining table so the granite countertop was their next best option. I looked up at Zuko who was nodding to Sokka's idea for snacks and panned my head back to the counter and saw that the girls were also nodding and humming in agreement.

"Aight," Sokka started, getting up from off the couch and stretching, "We have chips and stuff in the pantry.. Barbeque? Sour Cream & Onion? I think we have some Jalapeno flavored chips in there somewhere..." He got up off the couch and walked over to one of the wall cabinets, which served as their pantry.

This just left me and Zuko on and next to the couch. "You know, Aang, I've only been here for like what? Two or three hours? And, like, ya'll have pretty much been treating me as one of your own.. Why is that?" Zuko asked as he put down the controller, and molded straight into the deep blue colored couch, squirming around to adjust for comfort.

I brought myself up off the floor and took Sokka's place on the couch and, turning my head to look at Zuko, I spent a couple moments crafting my response. It was true what he said; In the time between lunch and now, everyone here had, at least on the outside, come to accept Zuko being a part of our group. I guess Zuko's apologies helped to change our minds about him, that much was for certain as they were sincere which were confirmed by Katara's reactions to them all. She never was good at lying. But, it was also safe to assume that many of us still had some concerns about the dude. I mean, is it really realistic to forgive and forget all in one afternoon?

Finally, I thought of a response. "Well, I think everyone saw you were being genuine back there in your uncle's tea shop.. I think that's what did it for a lot of us, that you really did regret a lot of the things you did. I guess it helped show the rest of us you're not totally a douchebag- I mean, uh.."

Zuko raised on hand and shook his head laughing. "You're all good, Aang. No offense taken."

"But I mean like, I guess another reason why might be because of the nature of all of us. Some of us are just...a little... too nice, per say. Take Katara for instance."