ATLA: Bonds Within Bending

'Ruined It'

Mai's POV

Stretching at the park? Do I sound like a middle aged wine mum who takes her anger out on her kids because of the multiple stretch marks on her body that 'ruined it'.

Ty Lee doesn't know me at all, and she's supposed to be my best friend, oh well she can go be a little social psycho there, I'm gonna go annoy my boyfriend. I mean visit my boyfriend, no I definitely mean annoy.

I went straight to Iroh's, no need to call him to see where he is because he doesn't have a life, he spends all his time working. Although today he wasn't working, he was sat with two others, I don't recognise them.

"Zuko?", I approached them, obviously they didn't know me either, waiting for Zuko to respond, they seemed awkward, intimidated maybe? Don't blame them.

"Mai", both his eye brows were raised in shock, I knew he wasn't expecting me to be here, especially in the morning, but I've never shocked my boyfriend before, somethings up here and I'm gonna get to the bottom of it.

"Mai? So you're Zuko's girlfriend! Nice to meet you I'm Aang!", who the hell is this loud at this hour, he grabbed my right hand and shook it like crazy. Where did he find these people? And why is he sat with them?

"Hi, I'm Katara", the girl smiled over at me, ew god I already despise her.

"Yeah, are you busy?", I quickly turned my attention back to Zuko, attempting to block the others out.

"Um, yeah sorry I should get back to work", he stood back up and adjusted his apron before turning back to them, "see you guys soon", he smiled.

Whilst looking right at that stupid little Katara girl.

Look I'm not the jealous type, because my boyfriend is really, really, REALLY boring. So girls look at him and think they want him, see his personality and immediately run away, like super fast too.

But he has never acted like this, and a girl has never hung around more then ten seconds.

"You can spare a couple of minutes though", I followed him as he quickly marched around the room, cleaning the tables and taking plates.

"Not really Mai", he sighed, what? He had enough time to sit with those freaks but has none as soon as I walk in? not even enough time to just show a bit of affection towards me?

"I think you can", I continued to follow him, I am not letting this go I demand some attention before I go into full on insane. I watched him go towards the kitchen, knowing Iroh doesn't like it when anyone but staff goes back there in the day and whilst the shop have plenty of customers, I don't care.

"Mai please just let me do my job we can hang out later, and you shouldn't be back here, c'mon", he huffed, stopping and turning to face me when he realised I followed him in.

"I'm trying to let you do your job, your job is to make me happy", I crossed my arms and raised a brow keeping eye contact with him.

He frowned and clenched his fists, I'm not scared by this, his bark is worse then his bite, he has a huge anger issue that hasn't been addressed at all which is definitely not great so violence is his best friend. But I know he wouldn't hurt me.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you bother me another time when I'm not so busy", he lowered his head his breathing getting more intense, this is pretty standard.

"I'm bothering you am I? Oh and you're not busy, you've been sat at that table for god knows how long before I turned up", I looked back seeing a glimpse of the booth and sighed, "what have I done this time?", here we go, now I've started getting emotional, better start building those walls back up now Mai.