Warnings: language and smoking, future domestic abuse mentions and possible mature content throughout.
AN: Hello Hello~ It's been a while since I've started anything new, and I figured why not try for something other than the main timeline. My intention is to try and practice dragging out scenes, developing characters differently and hopefully trying my hand at something that could become a larger than just a few chapters.
Modern AU
Chapter One
ALMOSTS
The mirror doesn't grace her with any compliments, only the reflection of tired eyes, darkened circles and the matted tresses of hair that stick to her forehead and neck.
The sink runs, soothing despite the alarm blaring in the background, the present reminder that there is still a day to be had, to be lived, or just settled for. She lets it beep through the hour, shedding her shirt and pants like snake's skin.
She hates the morning, but not the showers that come with it. Mai starts with the water cold, hanging her head as the shivers set in, turning the dial slow, until the warmth is comfortable.
Afterward, she slips from her room to the kitchen, brushing her hair and trying to set up the coffee pot all at once. The cat's curled up just underneath the mail slot on the pile of envelopes, no matter how many times she's asked the mailman to just leave them outside the door.
It's all junk, mom's likely written again, but that might as well be considered junk too. While the coffee brews, she plucks the cat from the mail pile, setting it in a nearby chair as she fishes the bills out, discarding whatever's leftover.
After one too many cups of coffee, she pours the rest into a travel cup, rushing to grab her keys and refill the cat's food and water on the way out the door. It's a fast bolt from the apartment, through the short hall, ignoring the neighbor as he waves, cigarette in hand always out on the balcony, until she can reach the car.
Mondays tend to feel like wading through mud. College was supposed to be a godsend. It created a nice chasm between her and her controlling parents, which only caused ridicule at holiday dinners over all of the unanswered letters and conversation about future endeavors she had little to no idea about.
When she's finally set free from her upper division english class, she's met with only a vaguely familiar face and a voice she can only remember when she thinks about the taste of tequila and the lime afterward. Still, it doesn't help with names.
He's tall, almost the epitome of everything mom would want in a man—-had he bathed, combed his hair, and possibly hadn't smelled so strongly of weed. "Mai, long time no see."
Maybe, it'll be effective if she waits for him to say his name first. "Morning." She sighs, walking past, adjusting the bracelets on her wrists when he tries to hold her hand.
"You missed the party." He says, and she breathes out in relief when he puts his hands in pockets.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it was my best yet. Would have been even better if you showed up."
"Next time." Mai smiles, and it almost hurts from how forced, "I'll call you—-" A quick glance upward and back down,and luckily there's a sharpie mark on the side of his shoe that rings enough of a bell. "Jet."
He finally walks off, only after giving her a quick wink.
She has no intentions of calling.
Alone again. She makes her way to the coffee shop on campus, pulling out her laptop and opening several documents she's named but has yet to even begin to write.
Maybe, it'd be easier to observe. Watch the customers order their drinks and pastries, make their pasts and presents as they sit and read, or lounge, stare blankly at empty computer screens just like her. Mai settles on a boy on the corner, fidgeting and looking up from his text book, making eye contact before shooting back down again, running a hand through his hair, nervous.
Instead of the laptop, she pulls out her notebook, jotting down hand movements, and little snippets of moments she imagined he could have gone through while getting in line. How he almost ordered wrong, almost forgot to pay, almost dropped the cup on the floor during the hand off. The boy full of almosts that he somehow, someway, always got through no matter how much the day tried to shit on him.
By the time she leaves, her coffee is cold.
Outside, there's a nice wall just behind some trees that line the main walkway. It's a nice smoking spot, devoid of human life, perfect. Mai pulls out one stick of her Marlboro's fishing through her purse as she silently promises herself next time she'll quit.
"I—you kind of dropped this."
Mai jumps, deadpanning when she realizes it's the same boy from the coffee shop. He pushes through the low hanging branches of the trees, snapping twigs, reaching out with the lighter balanced between his fingertips.
He's disgusting. If disgusting was equivalent to nauseatingly endearing and hopelessly clumsy. "You followed me?" She asks, quirking a brow as he continues to noisily prop himself up against the wall beside her.
"Yeah, I—I thought you might need it. For something. Smoking?"
"Smoking." Mai nods, "Light it for me, would you?"
Again, he fumbles just a bit, finally flicking on the flame and bringing it up to the cigarette sitting between her lips. "I see you there, at the coffee place, a lot."
From that, she wonders how often. Was he there during spring, or summer where she spent the vast majority of her time there hiding tears or chewing on the end of ballpoint pens, whispering 'fuck' repeatedly to herself. "Interesting."
"Not really. I just kind of noticed you...looking at me today, and—-" He says, tapping the butt of the lighter against the wall.
"I look at a lot of people."
"Yeah, but you looked at me a little longer, and I just…"
"You just what?"
"I just wanted to get to know you."
She almost laughs, but it comes off as a bit more of a scoff. You stare for longer than a few seconds and suddenly someone wants to get to know you? Hardly. Mai takes a long drag at the thought, her head spinning and picking at all of the potential ulterior motives. "Why?"
"It's just—we've had a couple of classes together, and then the coffee thing, and I just thought...I thought maybe, maybe we should just be friends? I mean, because we keep bumping into each other." He says, looking up at her, honestly flooding the light color of his eyes—-confusing.
"What's your name?"
"It's, just Zuko."
He's waiting for an answer, she knows, and all she can think of is her lists of fidgeting movements, how his hand is doing the same thing where he runs it through his hair. All of his almosts. Almost ruining it, almost not following her, almost not gathering the courage to even begin his approach. How he somehow, someway, found himself here, among the low hanging trees, leaning up against the wall with some girl he just met that happens to like cigarettes.
How...she almost lets him in.
"Well, Just Zuko." Mai smiles lightly, snuffing out the rest of her cigarette against the wall just beside him. "Prove to me that you're worth getting to know."