A/N: Hello, everyone! As the summary says, this is a sequel to Molotov. I don't really want to call it the sequel to Molotov. It's more like...fanfiction of my own fanfiction. This is a story that's been bouncing around in my head almost since I finished Molotov, and I just got around to writing it this summer. In essence, this piece, in conjunction with Molotov, forms most of my modern Maizula headcanons.
It was supposed to be a oneshot, but it's looking to be around 30,000 words, so I've decided to split it into three chapters. This is (obviously) the first of three.
I'm not sure how I feel about this piece, to be honest. Part of the reason I hesitate in calling it the sequel to Molotov is because I don't feel it really lives up to Molotov. But that could just be me; I am very fond of Molotov.
I hope you enjoy this, and please tell me what you think.
WARNINGS (spoilers, obviously): Repeated discussions of Ozai/Azula, a very suicidal Azula, a mildly suicidal Mai, mentions of self-harm.
Hollowpoint
"and we couldn't bring the columns down
yeah, we couldn't destroy a single one
and the history books forgot about us
and the bible didn't mention us,
not even once"
-"samson," regina spektor
She was almost home when her cell phone rang.
She expected a wrong number or maybe work. But when she saw the name on the screen, Mai felt a sudden tightness in her chest. It was shock and pain and nostalgia. It was confusion. What could she want after all this time? It had been two years since she had seen or spoken to the person on the other end of the line.
Mai had contemplated deleting the contact more times than she could count. Every time, something had stopped her. Maybe she was just tossing a bone to her memories. Maybe part of her, the part that had neither forgotten nor healed, had been hoping for something like this.
Her thumb hovered over the green button for several infinitely long seconds. She told herself she could decline it. But she wouldn't.
"Hello?"
"Mai?"
She sounded a little different over the phone, but God that voice was saying her name and the intervening time might as well not have passed for the effect it had on Mai.
"Azula?" The constricting feeling reached her lungs and her throat and her heart. Two years since she'd said that name. Two years since she'd seen her for the last time. And all the grief and confusion and helplessness was rearing its head again. The phone was not enough. Mai wanted to see her. Mai wanted to touch her. She didn't think she had ever stopped wanting that.
"You answered. I didn't know if..." Azula's voice trailed off. She sounded weird, Mai realized. Dreamy. Much less intense than usual. Surely the time hadn't changed her so much.
"Well, it was you." Mai closed her eyes and hated herself for saying that. She'd gotten away. She'd gotten out of it. She shouldn't still be thinking of her like that.
"I'm flattered." Azula laughed. Her laugh, too, sounded weaker. Mai started wondering. Her mind was racing ahead of her.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes...yes...I don't know." Azula sounded surprised, at herself or at the question, like she also would have liked to know the answer.
"Azula?" The unease. The dread. The horror. Mai remembered all of these, too. She remembered the secrets she had kept for Azula. "What is it?"
Azula took a slow breath and let it out before answering. "I've done something horrible, Mai." Her voice was still dreamlike, her tone all wrong for the words she was speaking.
"What do you mean?" Mai was gripping her phone tighter and tighter. Unbidden, anger had awoken underneath her other emotions. What right did Azula have to call her? Why did Mai have to tolerate this? It was over.
What had she been hoping for, anyway, some kind of reconciliation?
"I've...look, Mai, I'm very sorry to trouble you, but could you come over?"
"To your house?" It was disbelief now. What was this?
"Yes."
Mai tried not to think about what the invitation meant. She didn't want to think about the things she had let Azula do to her. She had cut her ties. Azula had twined her about her fingers and then discarded her. Mai shouldn't have wanted her. She shouldn't have answered the phone. But still she remembered what it had been like to be with Azula, to see her smile and hear every word that fell from her caustic lips, to taste heaven on her ashen tongue and ascend there when Azula was between her legs.
"I'm in Tokyo," she said finally. "Can't you call Ty Lee?"
"She doesn't..." Azula paused, audibly swallowed. "Mai, please."
Kyoto was three and half hours and a good ten thousand yen away and Mai was supposed to work tonight and they hadn't spoken in two years and Azula had told her she meant nothing to her and none of that mattered at all because Mai had been lost from the instant she had seen the name on her screen and Azula was begging her.
"I'm on my way," she said.
She hadn't been back in Kyoto since all of it had happened. The city felt forbidding now. She didn't belong here anymore. Getting off the train and remembering her life here felt dangerous. How easy it would be to slip back into old habits, old chains.
She could see her parents. They were almost certainly living in the same house. Tom-Tom would be old enough to start school soon, wouldn't he? A pang of sadness shot through Mai at the thought of her brother. He was one thing she'd regretted leaving behind. The last time she had spoken to her mother, a terse phone conversation at the New Year, she'd asked if Michi might send her some pictures of Tom-Tom.
"I don't think that would really be appropriate, Mai. If you hadn't run away, you'd still be able to see the real thing. And he misses his big sister."
Even across time and distance, her mother still had the incredible ability to make Mai feel horribly guilty. She had spent the first day of the new year brooding and alone and wondering if she'd made the wrong decision.
But she hadn't. It had been right. Maybe it was the first right decision she had ever actually made.
Now she was back again.
The train route was familiar to her. She had only been to Azula's house once before, and yet she remembered. She kind of hated that. Even when she left the station, when it was dark and she had to walk by the light of the streetlamps, she thought she knew the way.
She paid an undue amount of attention to her feet and the cracks in the pavement. Her bag swung from her shoulder, heavy and unwieldy. She focused very hard on everything around her, because she did not want to think about where she was going.
Despite her best efforts, stray thoughts still pinged through her mind, bringing the rising tide of anxiety to the forefront once more. What if Ozai's there? What if this is all some stupid joke? What if it's not some stupid joke? What if she wants to make up?
Then she was there already.
She stood and stared at the hulking menace of a house. There wasn't a single light on in any of its windows. It was late, but it wasn't that late. There was a car in the driveway. What was she about to encounter? Was any of this worth it?
She could turn around and buy another ten-thousand yen ticket back to Tokyo and forget about all of this. And her pounding heart told her that would be the safest course of action, even as her feet moved her up the driveway and toward the front door.
She extended one shaking hand toward the bell. She had to close her eyes when she pushed it.
The sound seemed to ring in her ears even after she'd lifted her finger. Mai waited what seemed to have been a very long time but could only have been seconds. Her breath was irregular, her heart seemed to have pounded its way out of her chest, and she had absolutely no idea what to expect on the other side of the door.
She was psyching herself up to push it again when the door opened.
Azula had not changed.
Mai's worries were suddenly inconsequential. It didn't matter why she was here or if this was all an elaborate prank. Azula was standing in front of her, as real and solid and untouchable as the day they had parted, sharp eyes and silky hair and all the grace of a monarch.
Her expression was perfectly blank, but when she saw who was standing on her doorstep, her lips split and her face crumpled into a desperate sort of smile.
"You came," she breathed.
"I said I would," Mai said. She thought her heart might have stopped altogether. She didn't know if she had ever seen such an expression on a person's face before. Certainly Azula had never looked at her like that.
"You did," Azula said. She hovered in the doorway. Her eyes were distant. Her lips parted slightly. Mai waited, but Azula didn't move aside.
"Uh...can I come in?"
"Do you want to come in?"
Maybe it was the nearest streetlight, or maybe Mai's initial awe had faded, but she saw now that Azula did not look as she normally did...normally had. Her hair was slightly unruly. The color of her lips was smeared. But most disturbing was the vacancy in her eyes.
The question, too, was jarring.
"I came all this way, didn't I?"
"Don't you remember the last time you were here?"
Of course Mai remembered. How could she forget? The jumble of emotions she had experienced then was not so different from what she was feeling now. That time, though, there had been much more pain, and Azula had been smiling.
"Maybe I shouldn't have called."
"Azula, come on." Mai tried not to sound annoyed, but it was difficult. It was late, she was tired, and she'd just spent hours on the train.
"Fine. Come in." Azula stepped back to let her enter. Her eyes finally focused in on Mai, but they still had that unsettling vacant expression.
The house was utterly dark and silent. There wasn't a single light on anywhere. Mai followed close behind Azula lest she trip over some stray piece of furniture. All of it was very odd, and she found herself growing warier with each second that passed. There was a very strange, unpleasant odor hanging in the air, one that Mai didn't grow accustomed to no matter how many times she breathed it in.
The living room's broad glass windows let light from the street spill in as they were walking through, and for the first time Mai noticed that the dark patches across Azula's pale shirt, which she'd assumed to be a pattern, were some sort of discoloration.
"Azula, what is that?"
Azula stopped and half-turned, and realization struck Mai like lightning.
"Oh, my God. That's not...Azula, tell me that's not blood."
She turned all the way around then. For the first time she was wearing one of those smiles Mai had become so accustomed to, really less a smile and more of a smirk. But the furrow of her eyebrows and the look in her eyes made it different. They made it horrifying.
"I told you I'd done something horrible."
"Are you okay?" Mai reached out her hands without thinking, but Azula wasn't within reach.
She shook her head, still smiling that awful smile. "It's not mine."
Mai was starting to feel nauseous. This was so much like the last time. She could feel that awful apprehension building within her again. Azula held truths that Mai was neither prepared for nor desiring of, and unless she turned and ran now she would regret it.
"Whose?" she asked, barely more than a whisper.
Azula just turned and kept walking. And as much as Mai wanted to run for the door and leave all of this behind, she followed.
She'd assumed they were heading for Azula's bedroom, but her host bypassed the stairs and entered the kitchen. The awful smell was getting worse and worse, and Mai had a very grim suspicion now about exactly what it was.
There were no lights on in the kitchen, either, but Mai could still see the vast black stain on the tile floor. She could still see the huddled mass, dark suit and white skin and wide, staring eyes—
A hand flew to cover her mouth, but it made no difference. She retched. She thought she might have heard Azula make a noise of disgust, or perhaps it was only her imagination.
When she managed to straighten again, bile dripping from her nose and lips, one grace was that the stench of vomit managed to conceal the stink of the corpse in front of her. Mai's first instinct was to apologize for the mess, as if the splatter of her stomach's contents across the floor was a worse mess than the gruesome sight before her.
Azula, lips curled with distaste, handed her a towel. Mai silently wiped her face and steeled herself for a second look.
Ozai's mouth was sagging open. His skin looked ashen, grey, though perhaps that was just the dim lighting. All of the grandeur with which he'd carried himself was gone. His limbs were stiff and contorted where he'd fallen.
"Holy—"
Mai didn't know what to say or think. A sort of mindless excitement was thrilling through her. This couldn't be real. It was way too fucking out there. Azula's call, the train trip, and now staring at the corpse of the man she'd imagined killing herself so many times.
She fumbled for the light switch. The brightness was harsh and sudden against the shadows of the house, but she blinked away the stars from her eyes. Somehow color only made the scene that much worse. Her stomach lurched again.
Ozai's shirt was stained dark, dark red. With the contrast of color, Mai could see the handle of a knife still buried in his stomach.
She looked over at Azula again. She was ostensibly watching Mai, but her eyes retained that awful staring look that made it seem as if she wasn't actually seeing anything.
She was gorgeous in proper lighting. But that wasn't important.
"You killed him. You really killed him!" Mai was laughing. She could imagine the fucker staring at the knife sticking out of him, unable to believe what his daughter had done to him. Maybe in his last moments he'd realized what he'd done to her. Maybe he'd felt sorry for it. God, she hoped he'd suffered. And how could she do anything but laugh when there was no question in her mind that he absolutely, unequivocally deserved it?
"Mai," Azula said, very quietly, and Mai turned to her. Azula was not laughing. Azula was not smiling. Azula looked empty and cold and scared. For the first time since they'd met, Mai could really believe that Azula was younger than her. For the first time since they'd met, even if she was nineteen now, she looked like a child.
"I'm sorry," Mai said automatically. Her smile was gone. She didn't know what to do now. "Azula, he deserved it."
Azula looked like she was trying to smile. After a few seconds of silently moving her lips, she simply shrugged. Her eyes were overly bright. Mai had never seen Azula cry before.
"Turn off the light."
Mai obeyed. "It's going to be fine. Believe me, Azula. When they know what he did, no judge will—"
"No," Azula hissed. Her eyes were spots of brightness in the dark of the kitchen. She sounded more like her usual self, the self Mai had known. "This can't go to court."
"It'll be okay. They'll rule in your favor. They'll—"
"I told you no!" Azula's voice was shaking. She had wrapped her arms around herself. Mai moved closer to her. When she tried to rest a hand on Azula's shoulder, the other girl jerked away. "I can't tell anyone else. I won't tell them. I won't go to court and have them look at me like I'm a—" She mouthed silently, apparently lacking words. "Like I'm some goddamn victim." She spat it as if it was a curse.
Mai's stomach was rapidly sinking. Of course. She was remembering the day she herself had discovered the true nature of Ozai's and Azula's relationship. Azula had been the same then, adamant in keeping her secret, refusing anyone's help but her own.
And Mai did not know what to do.
"They'll be staring at me, undressing me with their eyes, imagining Father fucking me and feeling good about themselves for feeling sorry—" Azula cut herself off to sniffle. She looked nothing short of furious and disgusted, but Mai still saw the tears glinting in her eyes before Azula raised an impatient hand to wipe them away. "And why do you think they would believe me? Do you think people want to believe this? Do you think there's proof, Mai? Like he didn't burn every last note? You think they wouldn't look at me and think look at that cold spiteful monster look at how she walks and smiles isn't it obvious she brought it on herself?" The words fell from her lips like stones, laden with every last bit of scorn she could muster.
Azula was smiling. There were more tears now than she could wipe away. And just like last time, all Mai could do was stare, powerless and confused in the face of this blank, dominating horror.
Is that what you think? Mai wanted to ask it. The question was ready on her lips and tongue. But when she looked at Azula, the horrible hopeless smile on her face, she thought she already knew the answer.
"Just go, Mai," Azula said, before Mai had gathered herself. "You don't need to get mixed up in this. Just pretend you never saw anything and go."
Her eyes were blank again. Mai wished she would stop smiling. She had never seen Azula cry before. She had never expected to have to deal with anything like this. She had no idea what to say or do. The only thing she did know was that she wasn't going anywhere.
"I'm here," she said. The years of calmness and steadiness, never raising her tone or her brow, were finally coming in handy. She would be a rock in Azula's storm. "I'm not leaving."
Azula shook her head and looked away. If there was gratitude, Mai did not see it, but she hadn't particularly expected it anyway.
"Okay. No police. No courts. Um..." Mai's mind was racing ahead of her. She could feel her pulse. Was she really about to help Azula cover up her father's murder?
"I'm fucked," Azula said matter-of-factly.
"No. No," Mai said. The smell of the room was starting to overpower her again. She reached out a careful hand again to touch Azula's arm. This time, she didn't flinch away. "Let's go upstairs, okay? We're going to figure something out. I promise, we'll figure something out."
"Stop talking to me like I'm a toddler," Azula snapped, and that was close enough to her usual self that Mai almost smiled.
Still, Azula let herself be led out of the kitchen, up the stairs, until at last the two of them were in Azula's bedroom. Mai remembered this place. It seemed this house was doomed to be the epicenter of the most horrific scenes of her life.
But even with a corpse downstairs and the idea of what they were about to try to do fresh in her mind, Mai looked at Azula and thought maybe it wasn't such a terrible thing to be here after all.
Azula had slumped against the wall. It was alarming to see her so listless, but Mai refused to let herself be shaken. She had to be strong. She had to be. She dropped her bag and looked about the room.
A gleam of light from the desk caught her eye. When Mai leaned in, she saw the little blue lighter she'd given Azula on Christmas, years ago, lying there. Azula had kept it, used it recently. There was a sudden tightness in Mai's throat. She picked it up and then opened the desk drawers, gratified to find a pack of cigarettes hiding away inside.
"Here."
Azula looked up. She seemed surprised, but accepted both lighter and cigarettes without objection. Her shaking fingers managed to open the pack, and when she lit one and took a long, slow breath, Mai was relieved to see her face soften.
"Okay. Where are the others—your driver, the cook?"
Azula took another drag before answering. "I texted them from Father's phone and told them to take the weekend off. They won't be suspicious. He's done it before, when he wanted uninterrupted time with me." She smiled again, that awful smile, and Mai felt a renewed surge of vindictive hatred for the man lying dead in the kitchen.
"How long do we have before someone notices something's weird?"
"We can manufacture a vacation, I suppose," Azula said. Smoking seemed to be helping her. Her eyes were still distant, but her voice was calmer, and the redness around her eyes was the only sign of her tears. "But even when we went away, he'd answer calls, emails...and he'd always take me. Maybe a week at most?"
"Well, you should probably call the police in a day or two and tell them you think something's wrong." Mai joined Azula in sitting against the wall. Their shoulders were brushing, but Azula didn't move away. "You know, to deflect suspicion."
"And where exactly will the...corpse be when I make this call?"
Mai hesitated. "I don't suppose you have any lye, do you?"
Azula paused. She turned her head slightly toward Mai, and for the first time that evening something like one of her old smiles came across her face. Her eyes were still overly bright, but they were focused. Mai felt her heart speed. She was very aware of Azula's heat.
"God, you're sick," Azula murmured. "I don't think we have any, though. Everything's closed by now, but tomorrow..."
"Let's put him in the bathtub overnight. For the smell." Mai couldn't believe that she was actually saying the things she was saying. She couldn't believe that Ozai was dead in the kitchen, that she was in Kyoto again, that Azula's face was just inches from her own and it was as if no time at all had passed.
Azula gave a slow nod and then pushed herself up. Her smile was gone. She was unsteady on her feet. Before Mai could anticipate or attempt to stop her, Azula was stubbing out the end of her cigarette on her wrist. A low oath ripped from her mouth, and then it was over, she was throwing the butt away, and Mai was left staring.
"Let's get this over with."
"You don't have to look at him again. You can stay up here."
"Can you drag him up the stairs by yourself?" Azula snapped, and Mai had to concede the point.
The stench in the kitchen seemed much stronger now after a few minutes away from it, and Mai felt her stomach churning once more. She was determined not to throw up again, but resolve meant little when she was confronted with the ashen color of the dead man's face and the stiffness of his limbs. Again she wondered whether any of this was real. Perhaps it was a mannequin, a practical joke, nothing real and nothing lasting.
She'd wanted him dead, hadn't she? She'd dreamed and fantasized and longed to do the deed herself. And here he was, a pathetic huddle of limbs and skin and clothes on his own floor.
Azula seemed relatively unbothered. She strode to the body and wrenched the knife free. Seeing the blade in her hand forced Mai to envision it as best she could. Had Azula been angry? Had her face been as cold and still as it was now when she plunged it time and again into her father's torso?
The knife clattering into the sink disturbed her from her thoughts. Azula was staring at her expectantly.
"What do we do with the clothes? Burn them?"
"I guess," Mai said, and then, when Azula bent down to fuss with the buttons of Ozai's shirt, "Oh, God, can we not?"
Azula straightened. "I don't think lye will dissolve clothes, you know. But, fine, Mai's feeling squeamish, so we can just fish them out when he's—gone." Her voice broke a little. Mai watched Azula's mouth twitch, her eyes darting about the room and resolutely avoiding her father on the floor.
"Let's just get him upstairs," Mai said quickly. She didn't want to force Azula to spend more time thinking about what she had done. She was already imagining Azula standing alone in a darkening kitchen in the hours between the call and Mai's arrival. Had she been there the whole time, staring at her father, grappling with her sins?
"Fine," Azula agreed, her face blank and cold.
They wrapped him in plastic trash bags to contain the mess, and with Azula at his feet and Mai at his head, began the difficult work of getting him up the stairs. Even with both of them, the body was nearly too heavy, and the plastic kept slipping under Mai's fingers. After they'd somehow managed to hoist him up to the second floor, they rested. Azula stood where she'd stopped, neither moving nor showing any interest in anything other than the horrible package they'd dragged up the stairs. She was looking dangerously hollow again, but Mai could see nothing for it but finish the gruesome job and worry about picking up the pieces later.
In contrast, Mai found it hard to keep still. She wandered around the landing, looking in each doorway. The rooms seemed so vast and so hollow. This house had been much too big for two occupants, let alone for one. The silence was overpowering. It was easy to forget there was a world outside.
There was Ozai's office. Its owner would never sit in that chair again, never answer the emails arriving on his computer,
never rape his daughter again.
Mai closed the door with a sharp snap. Anger and fierce delight and again the wish that she could have killed him were rising in her once more. The emotions were almost overpowering. She'd forgotten what it was like to feel this way.
That was what her brief relationship with Azula had been: highs and lows, pain and pleasure, more one than the other.
"Are you ready?"
Azula's low voice disturbed her. Mai set her expression back in its careful neutral lines, turned, and nodded.
The second flight of stairs was harder than the first, and Mai very nearly dropped her load more than once, but soon enough they had hauled him into the bathroom. When Azula turned on the lights, the bright whites and turquoises of the room were unpleasantly harsh after so much darkness. Mai rubbed her eyes while Azula turned on the water to fill the bath.
It seemed to take forever to fill. Neither of them spoke. Azula was staring into space, and Mai was leaning on the marble counter and thinking about what they had done, what they were doing. She wondered what her mother would say if she knew Mai had come back to Kyoto to help her ex cover up a murder.
They were going to get caught, weren't they? They couldn't not get caught. Mai didn't have anywhere near the legal knowledge to imagine what kind of trouble they would be in. Would she go to prison?
Somehow, even with being found out seemingly inevitable, Mai was glad she'd answered her phone.
When the bath was full, they dragged the body a final time and dumped it in. Mai hesitated, then reached in and pulled the bags off of him. Ozai looked even more eerie in the water. His skin was greenish. His hair floated.
"...That's done," Mai said, pulling the cover on and slamming it shut. Then she turned to Azula.
In the light, it was much easier to identify the dark red-brown splotches across her shirt. Undoubtedly it had bled through to her skin. Mai could see dried blood crusted on Azula's neck as well. And now that she was really looking, she could see the shadow of a bruise rising dark and ugly on her cheekbone.
Bastard.
"Azula," Mai said. The other girl turned her head and stared expectantly. She looked very tired. She looked very unwell. "Do you want to wash yourself off?"
Azula shrugged. They both looked at the covered bath.
"In the shower, I suppose," Mai said awkwardly.
Azula blinked, and just when Mai was starting to worry, she nodded.
"I'm going to go downstairs and try to clean up some. I'll be back."
Azula nodded again. Mai waited a few beats and then started for the door, when at last Azula spoke.
"The closet off the kitchen has a mop, I think."
"Thanks." Mai hesitated a moment longer. The two girls stared at each other. Then, with nothing else but to go, Mai left Azula and closed the door.
She waited on the landing with her hand still brushing the doorframe. She was afraid that Azula would simply continue standing there, staring at nothing, thinking of her father dead in the bath. And the thoughts made Mai worry that it was a mistake to leave Azula alone. She stood there, silently deliberating, each second stretching into an infinity.
Then, much to her relief, Mai heard the shower, and she felt comfortable in heading downstairs.
A clock in the living room ticked each second by louder and louder. This wasn't a busy neighborhood, and anyway it was too late now for many people to be out, so there wasn't even the comforting sound of cars rushing past outside. There was just the clock and Mai's footsteps.
The house was terrifying in the dark. Without Azula there, Mai tiptoed down the stairs and the hallway and tried not to let herself be heard. She didn't know exactly what she was afraid of. It was like being a child again, certain the darkness contained something horrific, not knowing exactly what that nameless terror was.
It was silly. She gave her head a firm shake. The only monster in the house was the dead man upstairs. The only horrors here were the things Ozai had done to his daughter.
Maybe that was what lent the air its miasma, the crimes building up and up until they became palpable. Mai remembered Azula telling her the house had been in the family for generations, and if what little she had seen of its perversion was representative of the ages past, there was more than enough sin here to stain it for ages to come.
But it was just a house, just wood and stone, and the ghosts within it were only her imagination. The important thing was the future, not the past.
The kitchen was as they'd left it, dried blood and fresh vomit marring the tile. Mai turned on the light and went in search of the closet Azula had mentioned.
According to the clock above the stove, it was almost midnight, but Mai doubted she could sleep if she tried. As she ran the mop over the floor again and again, wringing it out and watching the water turn redder and redder, she found herself wondering what exactly had happened. The brutality of it, Azula's shock, seemed to suggest a lack of premeditation.
After everything else, after so many years of living under her father's thumb, what could Ozai have done to make Azula kill him?
At last the tile was white and spotless, and the bucket of water was clouded and murky. The stench of something rotten still hung in the air, but Mai didn't know what else she could do about that, save purchasing air freshener.
When she poured the water into the sink, she saw the knife again. She supposed she'd have to wash it too. Or maybe it was better to get rid of it? Couldn't they identify the weapon based on the stab wounds?
But there wouldn't be stab wounds, not when Ozai was gone—
What if she couldn't get all the blood off? What if a single spot persisted, enough to turn a missing person case into a murder investigation?
There were an infinite number of possibilities. All she could do was focus on the task at hand. Mai found dish soap under the sink, heated the water to searing, and watched blood come off the knife. It was all dry and flaky under her fingers, and though it took some scrubbing she was relieved when the knife shone silver again.
It reminded her of cleaning her little razorblades. Blood and steel and soap. But her cutting was cutting to live, and this had been cutting to kill.
She hadn't left the habit in Kyoto, wish though she might. In her tiny Ogikubo apartment, a blade sat on her nightstand, the need for hiding it gone along with the life she had left behind.
In the two years since she ran, Mai had found herself grappling with problems that she had never even dreamed of before. She hadn't expected or wanted her parents to support her, and they didn't. An eighteen-year-old who had dropped out of high school only a few months before graduation found her job opportunities horribly limited. More than once she'd been forced to spend nights in manga cafes. Before, her future had seemed set in stone, predictable, easy. Then it had become as terrifying and uncertain as her own search to find somewhere to call home.
But never, not once, had she regretted turning her back on her parents and her old life. She had wrested control with her own hands, and she had reminded herself of that at every shitty waitressing job she'd attempted before she settled in bartending.
She had regretted other things. She regretted the jagged hole that her relationship with Zuko had once occupied. She regretted having to leave her little brother behind.
More than anything else, she had regretted leaving Azula in the clutches of the dead man upstairs. Her remorse, her disgust and hatred, the nagging thought that surely there was something more she could have done, had been an almost constant companion for the past two years.
No matter how their truncated relationship had ended, Mai had been plagued by the thought that she had exited Azula's life just as Ursa had years ago.
The knife was clean. The water was red. She pulled the drain open and watched it swirl away, then replaced the blade in the knife block where she thought it must have come from.
It was long past midnight now; she'd spent almost an hour downstairs. With a last look around to reassure herself that there were no more visible bloodstains, Mai put the mop back in its closet, turned the kitchen light off, and made her way back upstairs.
The bathroom light was still on; the shower was still running. Unease verging on panic gripped her. Had it been a mistake to leave Azula after all? Would she open the door and find two corpses in the bath rather than the one?
She knocked, got no response, and opened the door.
The sight was almost as disturbing as it was relieving. Azula was sitting, fully clothed and absolutely sopping, against the wall, water pouring onto her. She didn't look around when Mai entered, or even when she walked carefully across the room.
"Azula?"
Mai stretched out a careful hand to place on her shoulder, but yanked it back a second later. The water she'd expected to be scalding was, instead, icy cold.
"I thought you liked hot water!"
Azula looked at her then. Her hair hung around and in her face, half-covering her eyes. Her shirt was now entirely transparent, Azula's skin and black bra standing in contrast to the insistent stain of brown-red on the fabric.
"I do."
"Well, what are you doing? Why are you wearing all of your clothes?" Now expecting the frigid blast, Mai carefully reached through the water to turn the knob to hot. Azula made no objection. Her face was absolutely empty. She didn't move even when Mai brushed her hair from her face or made an attempt to scrub the dried blood from her neck.
"I've figured it out," she said.
"Figured what out?" Mai was now impatiently fussing with her shirt. It was difficult to peel the wet fabric from Azula's skin, though she was limp and offered no resistance as Mai tugged at her sleeves and collar. Finally the damned thing was off, leaving Mai free to wash the brown splotches on Azula's torso. She left Azula's bra on, telling herself it was for Azula's comfort but knowing it was for her own.
None of this was arousing. She couldn't be thinking about Azula like that at a time like this.
"I'll just let them find me. I'll tell them I killed him in cold blood, and then they'll lock me up. Maybe they'll even hang me. God, Mai, I hope they hang me."
She was smiling. Her voice was warmer, happier, than Mai had almost ever heard it before. But she could see Azula's hands shaking, and whatever her own revulsion and terror and uncertainty, she had resolved to be a rock for Azula. It didn't matter that those words made her want to throw up again, to hold onto Azula and never let go, to take her hand and jump from the roof together—
"That's not happening," Mai said, forcing her tone to remain businesslike. She used her nails to pick away a particularly resilient patch of blood. "For one thing, I don't think you'd get the death penalty for this. That's like...serial killers. For another, we've already committed to this, and I wouldn't testify against you. But aside from that, Azula, I'm not letting that happen to you."
"What can you do? You ran away." Her voice was silken now. She smiled up at Mai, a very cold smile. "You only ever made it worse. Do you remember my rib? It was your fault he broke it, you know. All that time away from home, all those meetings with friends, and for a man who was jealous enough when there wasn't evidence I was cheating on him..." Her smile was only widening, growing loose and disturbed around the edges, fracturing as surely as she was. "I'm sure you can't imagine. My dear brother was so sweet and gentle with you, after all, wasn't he? But Father liked to mark his territory."
Mai could imagine. She very much wished she couldn't, but she could imagine. But every word from Azula's lips, as horrifying and painful as they all were, only made her more determined.
"Yeah, I ran," she said, voice as cold as Azula's. "But I'm here now. You called. I'm not leaving."
Azula gave a semblance of a smile, then reached around and unfastened her bra. She pulled off her skirt, panties, and tights, dropping the whole wet mass onto her shirt. Then she stood, brushing Mai's hands away, fetched the soap from its shelf, and began washing herself.
Mai averted her eyes. She was relieved that she'd gotten Azula to express something, relieved that now she seemed to be interested in taking care of herself.
She gathered up the sopping pile of clothes and brought them to the sink to wring them out. The shirt was definitely a lost cause, and Mai could see stains across the skirt too. The undergarments were too dark to see blood on them, but maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of all of them, just in case.
She didn't know what else to do. She leaned against the counter and tried not to glance Azula's direction. It was a relief when the sound of water finally stopped. Azula crossed the room, her wet feet loud against the tile, and fetched a towel. She stood directly opposite Mai as she lazily wiped herself off. Her hands lingered at her breasts and neck. Her mouth was unsmiling; her eyes very direct.
It was much harder to look away at this angle, but Mai forced herself to turn her head. Azula was doing it—whatever it was—on purpose, and as much as Mai wanted to devour every inch of her dripping skin with her eyes, she restrained herself.
Azula smiled. She abandoned the pretense and finished the job in a quick, businesslike manner. When she was done, she hung the towel once more and walked to the door.
Mai followed. Somehow Azula's nakedness made her more uncomfortable than if she herself had been nude. But then, her erstwhile lover always had been notably immodest. It made an ugly sort of sense, Mai supposed, just like everything about her.
Out on the dark landing, Azula walked toward and opened one of the doors that Mai was unfamiliar with. Mai paused.
"Azula?"
She turned. Her eyes were wide, her lips half-parted, as if she was surprised to see Mai standing there.
"Aren't we sleeping in your room?"
Azula's eyebrows briefly furrowed. "Oh. Yes. Of course." She gave a quick little laugh, closed the door, and strode back across the way.
Her room was as they had left it before, smelling of cigarettes and Azula's preferred perfume. Mai fetched her bag, very glad she'd had the presence of mind to bring sleeping clothes and a toothbrush.
"Do you mind if I change in there?" She gestured toward the little washroom.
Azula smiled again. "Don't want to do it in front of me? Suit yourself."
Mai didn't know how to respond, so she didn't. When she was safe in the small room, she leaned against the sink and rifled through her bag.
Being around Azula made her feel like no time had passed. And even though Azula had been the one to end their affair, still she was flirting with Mai, giving her that smile, flaunting herself. She had called. And even though the crooked edges of the wound from last time were still throbbing with pain, even though she knew that Azula was much more poison than she was medicine, though there was a corpse just a few rooms away, Mai found her heart beating much too fast. She found herself stupidly, illogically hopeful.
When she came out again, Azula was sitting on her bed. She wasn't naked any longer, but for the decency of the silk and lace she was wearing now, she might as well have been. It was too dim to make out the color of her lingerie, but enough light came in through the window that Mai could see where skin ended and cloth began.
"That can't be comfortable." Mai was very grateful for the darkness to hide her blush. "Where are your pajamas?"
"Believe it or not, I sleep like this," Azula said. She stood. Her lips were dark, and Mai realized that she must have applied lipstick again. The thought didn't do much to make Mai more comfortable. Her heart was now firmly lodged in her throat, and it showed no signs of moving as Azula closed the distance between them.
"Um," Mai said intelligently.
"Well," Azula corrected herself, smiling, "usually I sleep naked."
Mai didn't want to think about that too much, but then Azula's hands were snaking up the back of Mai's loose sleeping shirt, and she didn't have to.
"You'll be obliging enough to take them off, won't you?" Azula wasn't smiling any longer.
"Do you really want to do this?" Mai managed. She had to ask that, though her mouth was dry and her underwear inappropriately damp.
"I don't do things I don't want to do," Azula said. Her nails were digging into Mai's shoulderblades. Their faces were very close together. Mai smelled cigarettes. "And I know you've never stopped wanting me, so what's the problem?"
Mai found none, so she closed the distance and seized Azula's lip in her teeth. Then the bed was underneath them, Azula was raking scratches into her back, and Mai was wrapping Azula's wet hair around her fingers.
She had longed for this. She had woken before from dreams of screaming Azula's name. In the past two years, on those occasions when she was so inclined to pleasure herself, it had been thoughts of this girl that had occupied her and brought her, gasping, to climax.
And the guilt, always the guilt, for using Azula the same way Ozai had.
But there was no guilt now, just the bitter taste of smoke and the feeling of silk sliding against her bare skin—when had her clothes come off?—and the unstoppable moans and swears that poured uncontrollably from her lascivious tongue.
"God, you're wet," Azula whispered in her ear.
There was a hand between her legs, all sharp nails and skilled fingers. Mai was certain she was going to orgasm more quickly than she ever had before, especially when Azula trapped her aching clit under a brutal thumb. The other girl was suckling at her neck with all the force of a vampire. There were fingers sliding into her cunt, another hand teasing her nipples, and Mai's legs tensed involuntarily and her hands gripped Azula's hair as a lifeline as hot waves of pleasure swept over her.
"I'd call that premature," Azula snorted, but Mai was too busy panting to answer. The hand pulled out of her with a disgusting squelch, and then Azula's nails were playing along Mai's upper lips.
Mai hesitated. She had never done this before. But she swallowed her indecision and opened her mouth, gagging on Azula's fingers, tasting herself there and not finding it disgusting. She obediently wound her tongue around each digit, sucking Azula clean, until the other was satisfied and withdrew.
"I want—I want to taste you," Mai said. Embarrassment was a long way away now when she stared up at Azula. The other girl was still much too clothed; Mai trailed her fingers down Azula's shoulders to pull the straps away and expose her breasts.
"Don't tell me you've been missing my cunt all this time?" Azula said. There was something harder in her tone, something colder in her smile. If she hadn't been so addled by lust and adrenaline, it might have been enough to make Mai realize that this was a mistake.
As it was, it wasn't.
"Please."
Azula smiled. One hand pulled her panties down her thighs slowly and teasingly. She pushed Mai back against the sheets and then turned herself around to straddle her face. Mai didn't understand immediately why the repositioning had been necessary, but the sight and smell of Azula's pussy, red and brown and wet, was enough to distract her. Tentatively at first, and then more eagerly, she extended her tongue.
It smelled like sweat and musk. The taste was thick and salty. Mai couldn't get enough. She found Azula's clit, her labia, and she sucked and bit and licked like an eager dog, rewarded when the thighs tensed about her head, when honey leaked steadily onto her tongue.
Then suddenly she felt wet hair brushing the inside of her own thighs, and Mai understood why Azula had moved. She could hardly focus on her own duty then, when Azula's mouth was on her, certainly more talented than Mai.
Her second climax came harder and longer than the first. Mai's moans were drowned into Azula's skin as she distracted herself by pushing her tongue harder into the girl atop her. There was nectar on her tongue and smeared on her nose and dripping down her chin, but Mai didn't care.
Azula's hips ground against her, rocking in search of friction, and Mai gave a last long suck to her clit before Azula collapsed off of her.
"Yeah, I missed that," Mai managed. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.
Azula did not respond. She was sitting up again, pulling the sheets back and sliding underneath them. Mai turned to look at her. Azula was facing the wall. Her back was resolutely to Mai.
"Azula?"
Mai touched her shoulder. She gave no verbal response, but a moment later she shifted to press their bodies together, her back pressing against Mai's breasts, their legs entangled.
Reality was coming slowly back to Mai. The warm afterglow was fading. Azula's skin against her skin now felt less arousing and more uncomfortable.
"Are you okay?" Mai didn't know what to say. She was remembering guilt now. But she'd asked...
I don't do things I don't want to do.
Had that really been an answer?
"I gave you two. Surely that's enough," came Azula's voice, slightly muffled. "I'm tired."
"What?" It came out angrier than Mai intended. She should not have done that. She should not have done any of that. Azula was fracturing and vulnerable and desperate and—
can't she fucking take care of herself?
It was really a very small movement, but Mai saw the way Azula curled in on herself, shoulders hunching, knees inching toward her chest.
"Fine, once more," she said, rolling over to face Mai again. She was smiling in a way Mai had never seen her smile before, and her eyes...they were horribly wide. Like an animal cowering.
Contrition.
"I don't want to do it again. Azula, what's—do you know who I am?" Mai was thoroughly unnerved and more than a little sickened.
She'd been foolish to feel such glee at Ozai's demise. The man was dead in the tub, but his hold was cemented on the girl lying next to her. And of all she had seen of Azula the last time, there was only more to come. She wasn't prepared for this. How was she to hold Azula together when she could barely keep her own jagged edges stitched shut?
How many more sickening surprises?
Selfish selfish selfish selfish—
Maybe she shouldn't have answered the phone.
Azula's eyes narrowed with impatience or contempt; Mai couldn't tell which.
"Yes, Mai, I know who you are," she snapped.
"Fine. Let's just go to sleep." Mai didn't know what she was supposed to do. It was the middle of the night and she was helping cover up a murder and all she could think about was her distant bed in her own tiny apartment.
"That's what I was trying to do." Azula rolled onto her side once more, and both of them fell silent.
Mai knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep much. She was tired, but her mind was wide awake. The room was too warm, the wetness between her thighs too uncomfortable, and all of this much too wrong for comfort.
She focused inadvertently on Azula's steady breathing. With nothing else to distract her, Mai's mind lingered on all the things she didn't want to think about. She supposed it was habit for Azula to fall asleep this way, clothes stripped from her body by lustful hands, used for someone else's satisfaction. Had he talked to her? Had he ordered her to do unspeakable things?
Hadn't he felt guilty at all?
Ozai or Mai, did it really matter? She'd taken what she wanted too, ignored her better judgment in favor of her own fantasies. She should have known better. She should have...
Mai angrily rolled over to stare at the wall. Why should she feel guilty about that? She'd asked Azula. She'd come to help Azula. And whatever Ozai had done, Azula wasn't a child. She'd proven herself to be more than capable of looking after herself.
There was a tiny blue light blinking from where Azula's laptop sat on her desk. Mai watched it flick on and off, on and off. Ozai was dead, Azula in pieces, and the world went on.
...and off.
On...
...and...
...off...
"Mai?"
It could have been ten minutes or an hour, but the sound of her name roused Mai from her reverie.
"Yeah?"
"Did I wake you?"
"No, I don't think so. What is it?"
There was a very long pause. Mai was still watching the little blue light as if hypnotized, as if unable to look away.
"Never mind."
Neither said anything more. Mai felt cold and very, very tired. Still her eyes refused to close. She stared at the light and wondered what came next. And somehow, her wonderings became less and less coherent, her breathing deeper and deeper, and she slipped into an uneasy sleep.
She was relieved to find herself at work. The bar was packed, her manager even crankier than usual, but Mai had the distinct feeling she'd left something worse behind. She poured drink after drink, glancing at the clock every few minutes and noticing that it displayed drastically different times with each glance.
One of the waitresses came by to collect a tray of beers.
"I think the clock is broken," Mai said. The waitress laughed and didn't respond.
The door opened. With a jolt in her stomach, Mai recognized the two people who came in. Azula's dress barely covered her panties. Her red lips were smiling. Ozai was guiding her with a firm hand on her shoulder.
"I think we should call the police," Mai said, but the waitress was gone.
Mai kept pouring drinks, but her attention was all for the pair of newcomers. They were dancing. His hands were all over her. Mai wanted to look away. Mai couldn't look away. Then Azula turned her direction and their eyes met.
Azula had a black eye. There was something wrong with that. There was something very wrong with all of this. Ozai was kissing her, and Azula was laughing, and it was the only sound Mai could hear despite all the noise of the bar.
Azula looked at Mai again. Her face was red. There was blood dripping onto the floor. But her lips were reddest of all, and she was still smiling.
Mai needed to get to her, but there were customers all along the bar and suddenly no way to get out from behind it. There was blood running down Azula's arms and legs and drenching her tiny black dress, and Mai needed to get to her, but she couldn't even move.
The waitress was back.
"I really think we should call the police," Mai said. She was aware that her voice was shaking. The waitress looked over at the scene, at Azula bleeding out and Ozai's hands covered with red as he touched her.
"Why should we call the police?" she asked, and laughed, and collected the tray, and then she was gone again too.
"Somebody needs to help her," Mai screamed. The people at the bar ignored her. They were all laughing, drinking, with no idea of what was going on behind them.
Azula was still looking at Mai. She was still smiling. Then she spoke, and though there was no sound, Mai read the words on her lips.
"I'm okay."
"You're not okay!" Her voice sounded and felt like broken glass. Mai was crying.
Azula was lying on the floor. She wasn't moving any longer. And Ozai, hands still dripping blood, was advancing toward the bar.
Mai woke.
Her breath was still coming very fast. She didn't recognize the room around her. She wasn't wearing clothes; why wasn't she wearing clothes?
The little blue light was still blinking on and off. And as she slowly calmed, Mai remembered where she was. She wasn't at work, Ozai was dead, and when she rolled over, she saw Azula still lying next to her. She was at Azula's house in Kyoto. They were okay. They were going to be okay.
Mai's breath came slower and deeper. Her ears stopped ringing.
Then she heard the very faint sound of sniffling and sharp gasps for breath, and she saw Azula's shoulders shaking.
Mai turned the other way. She wished she hadn't heard it for Azula's sake as well as her own. A leaden weight settled in her stomach. She didn't know what she was going to do. She didn't know how any of this would end. Some tiny, traitorous voice in the back of her mind wondered if it wouldn't have been better for Ozai to be alive after all.
The horror of Mai's dream faded as she lay there. The horror of reality crept back into her.