I'm not much of a "shipping week" fan, but I decided to try my hand on one of the "Maiko" prompts because I wanted to try to write Mai/Zuko (I said try, so don't bite me) and I liked the prompt "Flirting" or whatever it was. I hope I didn't offend any Maiko fans by writing this. Please don't bite me. I do not like being bitten.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender


Dilly-Dally

Mai found few things amusing and she found interesting things even less. Of course, there were a few exceptions that took the form of two people. Or rather, mainly one, nowadays. Sometimes she questioned why she even hung out with these people most of the time, because they weren't really her type.

Eh, well, there was always that "opposites attract" rubbish.

So, naturally, Mai wondered why she was sitting here in one of the Fire Nation's finest restaurants with her hands folded in her lap and her hair washed so cleanly that it shined even in the smoky light of the room. She had been invited here by her already-boyfriend, who also happened to be the Fire Lord. She wasn't sure why she had been taken here in a palanquin, because she had told him that they weren't really her style, but her dearest beau could be an awkward idiot at the worst of times.

It's a good thing she liked him or else she would have been walking down the street back home, or wherever she wanted to go.

"So, um…what do you want to eat?" Mai found it cute that her boyfriend of two years was still stuttering when she dressed up nicely. Zuko may have been Fire Lord, but he was still an awkward teenager outside the council room. "You can choose anything, you know. Like…um, whatever you want."

Mai looked across the table at him and blinked slowly, "I want something bland." She deadpanned, and if she hadn't been putting on a front, she would have smiled at the poor boy. "Plain rice is fine." Zuko looked surprised and she rolled her eyes upward.

"T-that's fine, too."

"I know it is."

A stiff silence followed and Zuko squirmed in his seat. Mai placed both of her hands on the table and looked down at her painted nails. She was aware of Zuko looking down at her hands and she was glad she was so skilled at masking herself, because she found this game amusing.

"After we eat, we can go dancing if you want. You know, when you're done eating." Zuko said and Mai raised her gaze to meet his.

"I don't dance."

Another silence.

"What about-"

"I don't do that either."

"What do you do, then?"

Mai smirked and folded her hands under her chin. "Oh, I throw knives. It's a hobby." Okay, maybe she had remembered a little bit of Ty Lee's One Hundred and One Ways to Flirt. The girl knew what she was talking about sometimes. "I heard you're Fire Lord," She said coyly, "What a job that must be."

"Yeah," Zuko replied and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Mai, this isn't working out…"

The younger girl allowed herself a brief smile, "Of course it isn't, you dork. You're already my boyfriend. It's a good thing I already like you, because you're horrible at flirting." She said and leaned over the table to give her silly beau a well-deserved kiss. "But I better be the only one you flirt with." Her gaze hardened and Zuko's eyes widened.

Zuko squirmed in his seat again and met her gaze, "You know it."

"I know I do."


Constructive criticism is welcome, even though there isn't much to construct...oh well.