Ba Sing Se Boarding High

Why This Idiot

*Zuko POV*

It's eighth period. I'm lucky that my Uncle is the principal and my guardian because he told me about this peer tutoring thing already. I'm ready to deal with the grade nines. I'm unlucky that I ended up with the one guy in the entire world that I would love to have nothing to do with. Heck, I would do this with Azula over him! Wondering who? Jet. The guy is a complete jerk. I liked him for a while, yeah, and he was the reason I got the scar, but I don't blame him for that. No, I blame him for the constant cheating and when I was about to break up with him, he tried to yank off all my clothes. He's disgusting. Looks like he's got a girl this time. She has long brown hair and blue... eyes. She looks a little too much like Sokka for my liking. This must be his sister Katara. Crap. I'm not going to interfere, but I'll mention it to Sokka when I figure out how to make him not hate me. 

Piandao was the teacher. He taught me how to swordfight when I was younger because I sucked at firebending. Well, not sucked. I was at the same level as some fifteen-year-olds when I was ten, but I should've been at twenty-year-old level as a royal firebender. Azula had surpassed pretty much everyone at that point. She'd just figured out blue fire. And I was weak compared to her. So my father got me to learn sword fighting so that could at least show that off. It had been fun. I'd learned how to use dao, and I was a fast learner. Not that it would make the firebending disgrace any easier, but it was something. My peer tutoring partner was a girl named Jin. She'd asked me out one time and my uncle had made me go. I hadn't come out yet. She was still convinced I like her, but I didn't. I'd have to explain eventually. This was going to be horrible.

Class started with Piandao explaining the peer tutoring thing. I'd had firebending last period, and I already knew this, so I kinda zoned out. We got paired up, and Jet purposefully told the girl to try with someone else, so that it would look like he had no partner. And I got stuck with him.
"So babe how have things been? Still hung up over that?" oh yuck. Why'd we have to do partner volleyball today? I heard the other class was doing running. 
"Shut it Jet. You don't even need to do this class," 
"Yeah, I kinda do. The dumb teacher from last year gave me some weaklings marks because he wasn't paying attention. Now I gotta redo it," yeah, that adds up. Piandao was one of seven gym teachers, and Jet had the eighth. The teacher got fired because he was too much of an idiot and kept getting marks messed up. I think his name was Zhao. (I am creative) I would feel bad for Jet if he didn't totally deserve it. That guy failed at least half his students, not caring whether or not they were athletic. He also hated Earth Kingdom kids. This would be a long period.

After school was done, I got back to the dorm and fell back onto the bed. Maybe I shouldn't have asked for a bunk. That hurt my head. (He hit his head on the wall) I'm laying there for a few minutes when Aang walks in. He's got his fake ass smile on but drops it when he walks in the door. When he sees me it's right back on. This kid seriously needs to get some help. He climbs up to his bed and dangles upside down.
"So how was your day," He asks.
"It was fine till gym. My ex is one of the students in my peer tutoring class,"
"Oh. You were dating an eighth-grader last year? That's a little weird dude,"
"No, he was in ninth last year. He failed gym because of a broken teacher. Some jerk named Zhao," normally, the moment I say he, people look at me weird. Aang didn't even stop for a second.
"That sucks. Why'd you break up?"
"He was just an all-around jerk and he kept cheating and trying to get me to do things I didn't want to do. Speaking of that, Sokka's sister Katara is dating him now. I should let him know that Jet sucks. But Sokka hates me. He'll never listen to me,"
"Why does Sokka hate you?" he looks at me. This guy ruffles my scales. He's a little weird. No mention of me being gay, but he cares that Sokka hates me? Weird.
"Because I was a jerk so that I could keep up my dad's image. Now I'm just a banished prince with a massive scar on my face who is done being a bully,"
"Prince?" seriously. Most people would take this as an opportunity to ask about my scar, but he zeros in on the most random thing.
"Yeah. My dad is the Fire Lord. He hates me though. He always did, he just found an excuse to let the world know,"
"That doesn't sound great. So what was the excuse?" He doesn't say scar, but it leads to it. He'll hate me if he knows. And I explained it to Sokka and he still hates me, so what's the point? 
"My ex 'girlfriend' who was just a cover caught me making out with Jet, so she told my sister who told my father. And then I talked out of turn and he tsked at me and said that he was going to let the whole gay thing slide, but I had lost my final strike. So he burned my face and sent me out on the street. If my Uncle Iroh hadn't taken me in, I'd probably have starved to death,"
"So your father burned your face, because you're gay. That's just messed up dude. The monks always said to love who you love. I can't wrap my head around why someone would hurt another person because they were slightly different than them," that was different. Most people just looked at me disgusted. Aang has to be the most progressive person on the planet.
"Soooo, are you straight?" I was curious.
"Nope! I'm pansexual!" He points to his section of the room, where he has a massive pansexual flag. I don't know most of the flags, just the gay flag. (This is before Aang knows he's ace. On Ji and him have to date first. That will happen in the next Aang POV chapter.) He smiles brightly at me, and I can tell this is a real one. Then a look crosses his face. "You don't have a flag! You have to come to town with me and get one. If you do, I promise I'll help you with the Sokka problem," well, I kinda wanted both, so that's a win-win. 
"Sure, I kinda wanted both so...." He cuts me off.
"Okay! Let's go!" He jumps off his bed and grabs my hand. Once we get out of the school, he looks around.
"You don't know your way around Ba Sing Se, do you?" he shakes his head.
"I've wandered around where Gyatso and I live, but I hadn't even checked out the school. But it's okay! If we go to the closest shopping district, we can go exploring!" He gets excited over the smallest things, but sometimes there's nothing big to get excited about. That's a good outlook on life. I smile and start leading him to the shopping area. He looks absolutely baffled. "Zuko! Did you just smile? Yay!" his happiness is infectious (definitely better than contagious in a pandemic. Sobs into a pillow), at least when it's real. 

We spend the rest of the day exploring the shopping district. We manage to find an LGTBQ+ shop called Pride And Rainbows. He quickly marks the location on his phone. He'll probably want to come back.