A Very Favorable Miscalculation

Zuko looks at the question paper in shock.

What the hell?

He discretely watches the professor and when her attention is focused elsewhere, he nudges the guy next to him.

'What is this?' he hisses, pointing to his paper. 'Today is the test on thermodynamics.' The guy rolls his eyes, irritated and says, 'No, that's next week.'

Zuko glares at his paper and wills it to blow up in flames. When nothing of the sort happens, he resigns himself to his fate. Zuko skims through his paper and cheers up when he spies questions that he knows. He quickly sobers up when he realises that they are far too few in number. He answers them carefully. A few seats away, Jet yawns, apparently done with his paper too. Great, I'm at Jet's level now. How much lower can I go? He clenches his jaw. Jet sees him and smirks at him and he quickly stamps down on his growing temper and nods at him. Jet places his head on his hands and nods off.

Zuko finds his eyes wandering and as always, his traitorous but oh, so wonderful eyes fall on her and see her frowning at the paper, a pen clutched between her fingers. He finds her expression deeply endearing and he continues to stare, err, observe her. He finds out that she sticks her tongue out while writing and his lips curl into a slight smile. She suddenly pushes a bit of her hair behind her ear and her blue eyes roam the classroom. He quickly drops his eyes to his paper. After alternate begging and ordering the universe to show him the answers, he gives it up as a lost cause. He decides to meditate to while away the remaining time. Soon, he gets bored and opens his eyes to glance at his watch, smirking triumphantly when he sees that there were only a little more than eight minutes to go before the end of the test. Again, his eyes flit away towards her...only to find bright blue eyes focused on him.

He stares back, incredulously, feeling his cheeks heat up. He finds that her cheeks have also started to redden and he likes it very much.

The professor's voice cuts through their trance, reminding them there was only five minutes left for the end of the exam. She starts and quickly reads through her paper.

Zuko sits there, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Katara, the girl he had been crushing on for months, had been staring at him. At him!

The bell rings and the professor collects all their papers. Katara gathers all her things and rushes out. Zuko rushes after her, his mind made up.

Zuko had been a coward all his life. The few occasions where he decided to be brave had all ended badly.

'Katara.' He calls out. She turns, blushing.

Want to grab a coffee with me?

He hopes, hopes that this would prove to be the exception.

Yes.

It does.

A/N: Based on a real life situation. Not all the romance stuff but the wrong topic part. I flunked that test. *siiiigh*