Random one-shot, somewhat-but-not-really tied to "This Old Coffee Shop," by Koneko (go-ahead-and-try); kinda not random, since it was based on a prompt she gave me, but still mostly random. Yeeeaaahhh... I have nothing else to say. Oh, wait - "OH MY GOD IT'S MORE FULFF! SOMEONE SHOOT ME NOW!"
Now I'm done.
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't mine; it belongs to Mike and Bryan. Yue is only somewhat mine. The prompt isn't mine either.
Prompt Set #1 - Prompt #6: Only Yue can get away with calling him Zuzu.
Nicknames, pet names, in all honesty, are just a part of human relationships. Well, a part of close ones, at least. Usually. Mostly. In the better sense. But then, you have the nicknames that come from ridicule, animosity, and just plain, juvenile meanness. And then some, well, some others just end up being monikers applied to your by other people with think they know you, but really don't know the first thing about you. In his eighteen years of life – eighteen years of making choices dictated to him, choices he thought others wanted, and finally (after much trial and error and a few wrong turns) making his own choices – one Zuko Agni had found himself graced with many, many nicknames.
Some of them – "Banished Prince of Business Empire," "Scarred Rebel," and other such – were applied by those that didn't know him, mostly the media; others, such as "Hothead," "Sparky," or even the extremely childish "Wannabe Prince," were from a mixed group of people who knew him and liked to tease him, and people who thought they knew him and also liked to tease him. And then there were the ones given him by his family. He was "Nephew," to his Uncle Iroh; "My Boy," to his Mother, Ursa; his Father's silence was enough of an address, if Ozai chose to even acknowledge him at all; and his sister –
Well.
Azula, she liked to call him the ever-infuriating nickname that had begun as simply her one-through-four-year-old inability to say his name correctly, and then over the years from the time she was four into something simply malicious.
She called him, of all things, Zuzu.
And he hated it with a passion hotter than the one with which said sister claimed to hate their Mother (he didn't believe it, but now wasn't the time for that discussion).
"…Zuzu?"
Oh.
"Hm? Yeah, Yue?"
Maybe…
"Stop spacing out, okay? We'll never get this English project finished if you don't."
Just maybe…
"Right. Yeah. Sorry."
Maybe, just maybe, he didn't quite hate the nickname as much as he had thought.
Or, at least just when his sister – or anyone but Yue – used it.
