The least confusing kiss in her life

The setting sun shone upon the faces of the two youngsters, their lips locked together and their eyes closed shut. The girl's arms were draped around the boy's neck; her hands pressing his head forward, and because she was slightly taller than him, up against her own. At the same time his arms were around her waist, pressing them together, maximizing the amount of contact their bodies had with each other. The kiss drew out while they softly caressed their counterpart, but eventually they had to breathe again. Their eyes fluttered open while they slowly drew apart, both a bit short of breath, but they kept their bodies intertwined. The young pale boy, clad in a monks yellow garment and tattooed with blue arrows on his head and arms, smiled while he looked into the blue eyes of the tan-colored girl in front of him.

"Are you still confused, then?" Aang, the twelve-year old Avatar asked, "because it would really be nice to know if could get my hopes up again."

"No, I'm not confused any longer," fourteen-year old Katara answered him, smiling too, "my head seems so clear right now, I hardly can believe I ever doubted at all."

Smiling, Aang reached a hand up to her head and tugged a stray brown hair behind her ear before he laid it to rest on the chin, his thumb gently caressing her skin. Katara closed her eyes and rested her head in his hand, savoring the feeling.

"What was it you were so confused about in the first place?" he asked. Katara grabbed his hand in hers and turned slowly away again, facing the city and the setting sun. She was quiet, her hair hiding her face, as if she was ashamed of it all.

"It's… it's really hard to explain, Aang," she started, "your feelings toward me; they confused me, a lot… I couldn't understand that I was capable of harboring such feelings, didn't understand what they meant, just because I was near you. The war… it had already taken away my mother… I couldn't stand losing another person so close to me, and you were going to fight the Fire Lord himself! I just couldn't face having my world destroyed again if you weren't to come back…" Her voice trailed off.

"It's okay, Katara, I understand," he comforted her, "I figured it could be something like that after the scene I made during that cursed play. I really shouldn't have pressed you into the corner like that." She chuckled at his discomfort of remembering that night.

They were quiet for a time, while they admired the sunset over Ba Sing Se. Sighing, Katara leaned against Aang.

"Sometimes I just feel too young for all this, Aang," she whispered, "we are all so young. This horrid war… to be caught in the middle of it like we all suddenly was. Our responsibilities towards everybody, especially your status as Avatar… everybody looked to you to save them, to end the war! We're kids, Aang. I'm just fourteen and you're only twelve, we should be laughing and playing and not have a care in the world. Even this thing, our feelings… we shouldn't feel like this, not before years from now…" Her quiet whisper ended in a sigh.

"Hey, it doesn't matter… Well, okay it could have been nice to have had a few more years to just goofing around in the temple… but people needed the Avatar, even though it was just a twelve-year old boy, so I had to grow up rather fast. Katara, most of us have lost someone dear in the war, we couldn't just ignore it and pretend to be the same children as we were before, could we?" he asked her, "besides, I would still love to go penguin sledding with you, play Pai Sho, ride the giant Koi or just help Toph annoy Sokka. I'm just a boy who knows how to be serious when the world needs the Avatar, and to have fun when it doesn't."

Kissing her head he said, "Besides, I'm really 112 years old; I'm old enough to do whatever I want."

Her sudden burst of laughter could easily be heard by the group inside the Jasmine Dragon, but even without it Toph would have had known that something had changed. She kept tabs on the movements of everyone in her vicinity, and had been aware of Aang leaving the tea shop immediately. It hadn't escaped her notice that Katara snug out after him, and she had subconsciously monitored them while she was drinking her tea and listened to Mai's and Suki's game of Pai Sho. She had noticed that Katara heart beat seemed quite flustered at first, while Aang's were very calm. Suddenly both of their hearts sped up, and only recently were they beginning to slow down again, and when they all heard Katara laughing, both their hearts were as calm as Aang's were to begin with. She lifted her head in their general direction as soon as she felt them enter the tea shop again.

"Well, you two seem very content right now, but I can say that was not the case the whole time you were out… What did you do to sweetness a couple of minutes ago, twinkletoes?" Naturally Toph couldn't see the small blush on both Katara's and Aang's cheeks, but everybody else certainly noticed and were equally curious.

"Whatever it was, you both seemed to be rather excited about it," she added with a grin.

"Let's just say we have proved the Ember Island Players wrong on more than Aang's fight with the Ozai," Katara answered, while her faint blush reddened, "they seem to have been wrong about me and Aang as well…"

"You mean, beside the fact that Aang was played by a gi-ARGH!" Sokka didn't even finish his joke before Suki pulled the chair out from under him.


A/N: A bit short, wasn't it? Don't worry, the next chapter should be a little longer, but hopefully just as sweet :)