He was so gentle, so loving, so pure. He touched her like she was sacred. This was something he had wanted and yearned for for so long. But, he couldn't help but feel like something about the way he was with her was so wrong. But, he had been in love with her since he was seventeen, and his five, long, painstaking years of waiting had worn him thin, and when she came to him, offering him what he saw intangible, he didn't have the self-control to deny it.
She had just broken up with Aang, the avatar, his closest and dearest friend. This was what made everything feel so wrong. It had been only yesterday, and she was there, claiming she loved him, and had wanted him. It was a revelation that seemed to him was urged by devine intervention.
But, he never meant for it to go that far. She took it there, but he was too in love with her to deny it. He was so hesitant, so wary to do it, but she persisted, and he couldn't resist her. He couldn't say no to her, not Katara. But, Zuko had been broken one too many times; he was afraid of encoring the same scene, giving his body and soul, to have it spit at and rejected in return.
But, Katara touched him so gingerly, so amorously, had been his close friend far too long to hurt him like that. Zuko trusted her with his life. He loved her after all. Before they went all the way that night, he told her a million times how much he loved her, how sorry he was for not speaking up sooner. But, Katara- she said nothing in response to that, just a compliment in return, never a mutual reciprocation.
He'd unclipped her neckless, her mother's neckless, carefully placed it on his nightstand as she affectionately removed his crown, unpinning his topknot with care. And, she touched him. Touched him like he'd never been touched before, not even by Mai. It made his heart do that thing, and made him want to lie there with her forever.
There still was Aang, the peculiarity of the scenario. How deeply in love Katara had seemed to be with him only a week prior, how she told him about their fight, her envy of the fangirls. It was only until he woke up the next morning alone did he put those pieces together. He didn't wake up to her touch, like he wanted to, naively expected to, rolling over, hugging the air. He woke up to a crumpled note instead.
"I'm sorry, Zuko." It read.
He was a fool. He'd been used. The gentle touches meant nothing. She loved Aang, she wanted to get back at Aang, and Zuko had helped. Nothing had quite hurt like this. He felt weak, he felt broken, he felt useless— again. He touched his own face, burying his hand against it, letting the stream of pathetic tears fall, ashamed of his weakness. His heart cracked as he spotted the necklace left over on the nightstand. But, nothing cracked his heart more than the missing semblance of her gentle touch that he thought embodied everything, when it was hollower than the crevices of the moon.