Burnt Out - Zuko x OC

Late, In Love, And A Little Drunk

Zuko watched in agony from a hidden corridor of the temple. It was daylight, but he remained concealed by the shadows; save one sliver of light that shined across his scarred face.

His heart beat as wildly as a caged bird against his ribs as he admired Kai from afar. She sat leaned back against a pillar with her knees drawn to her chest, a book resting atop them. Her nails scraped along the gritty pages as she followed whatever it was she was reading with her finger.

She looked peaceful, he thought. She looked content with life, the way she had when they met and before he'd muddied everything up. Her head turned sharply from a sound that she could likely feel, but Zuko couldn't hear. His eyes followed the motion of her head.

A boy approached her. He leaned against the pillar where she sat and said something that was out of Zuko's earshot.

What he did hear was the sound of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears as the unknown boy offered her his hand.

She won't take it.. He thought to himself.

Kai wrapped her long fingers around his and he hoisted her up. She let go of him once she was steady on her feet, but Zuko noticed the way the boy's fingers remained splayed out midair for an extra second, hoping that she'd find her way back to him.

She tucked the book under her arm and they walked together, hands to themselves, out of frame.

Zuko held his forehead to the white washed stone walls in frustration.

Kai followed Haru to the top of the cliff, through the rolling hills of the meadow that hid the Western Air Temple from the rest of the world. The dandelions were starting to wilt. It wasn't their season anymore and soon, it would be as if they'd never existed at all.

Haru had asked her to read to him like she used to when they were barely teenagers. He'd always adored the subtle inflections of her smooth voice and Kai had always appreciated the way he listened silently, saving his questions until she was finished with each verse or chapter.

And all that time, you thought golden-armoured braggarts could storm my heart into surrender.
Oh, mama.
What did I care to be a bride,
when I could be a queen?
I wasn't afraid, mama; I wasn't taken.
I left.
If only you knew how his hair is softest
when he's on his knees,
coaxing spring from inside of me.

The words dripped off of her lips like sweet lemonade on a hot summer's day. They made Haru blush with slight embarrassment as the two of them laid opposite each other in the weeds — his head resting by her feet and vice versa.

"Heavy. Who knew air nomads could be so romantic?" He responds after considering the poem's meaning.

Kai scoffed. "More like horny." She rustled through the pages of the hand written poetry book she'd found in the library. "Here's a shorter one — 'I hope to arrive to my death late, in love, and a little drunk'."

"Now that sounds like it was written by you." He pinched the back of her calf, forcing both a whimper and a giggle out of her and she nudged him in the side of the head with her knee.

Kai supposed in those moments of simplicity that she loved Haru, too. More so than she did Aang or Katara, but not as suffocatingly as Sokka or Zuko.

Not at all like Zuko.

Rustling grass alerted them in the distance. Haru sat up while Kai kept her nose buried in the pages, breathing in that musty old smell of a book that hasn't been touched in a hundred years.

It was Katara trotting full speed ahead while Sokka stumbled clumsily behind her.

"What's up with her?" Haru asked.