A/N: Private Fire wanted something involving a Maiko first kiss. Who am I to deny her?
There's a First Time for Everything
He could recall his parents kissing. He could recall them laughing together too. They loved each other once. Zuko was convinced of it. And once, when Zuko was a small boy, Ozai had loved his son too. But those memories were faint fragments, little bits of happiness that Zuko held onto with boyish naiveté.
That was before everything went bad, before his family was shattered by a growing distance between his mother and his father, conflict over his sister, Azula, and his mother's eventual disappearance.
Since that terrible day, Zuko had known only the briefest of joys. His Uncle Iroh was a bright spot in his life, someone who guided and encouraged despite his own heartbreak. The young prince couldn't get those things from his father, Fire Lord Ozai. No, he got other things from his father; disdain, disgust, dislike. Or he got nothing at all, a stretch of days in which father never once acknowledged son, a stretch of days that exacerbated the boy's already profound sense of abandonment and his wavering self esteem.
Zuko would wander the palace during those days, listening for his father's powerful voice, hoping to catch a glimpse of flowing Fire Lord robes, desperate for those eyes to rake over him, making him shrink in on himself, feel tinier and tinier until he almost vanished, an insignificant bit of human flesh good for nothing much but to walk over. The prince hated himself for needing his father. A part of him, some deep, hidden part that no one had yet discovered, knew that he and Ozai would never be a true father and son. He knew that the man did not love him. Yet the need for his approval gnawed at him, chewing and chewing, a ravenous sewer rat that was never satisfied and never full.
Maybe I'll give him what he wants. Maybe I'll run away and never come back. Maybe then he'll miss me.
No, he knew better than that too. But Zuko fantasized anyway and in his sweet, private dreams he was everything that his father wanted.
The prince often wondered what was wrong with him, what he'd done to earn such disdain from his father and his sister. Was he really that worthless? He understood that his bending was weak compared to Azula's and that she was a better student. And yes, she was two years his junior. He didn't need the facts beaten into him daily, making him feel like some pulverized bit of meat, bruised and bloodied.
Zuko was his own harshest critic. He practiced out in the courtyard, biting his lip in concentration, chastising himself for making mistakes. Then he would try again and then again and when he was too tired to try anymore, Zuko crumbled to the ground in a soggy, boneless heap. He quivered like some abandoned baby animal. And enraged, frustrated and dying inside, Zuko wept.
It was on a day like that, one of his worst, that Zuko first kissed Mai.
~~~~0000~~~~
It was early evening and the shadows stretched, getting longer and longer. The tiny courtyard felt like a world unto itself; no one ever used it but Zuko. Bushes and flowers, once tended with care, had spread beyond their beds, become wild and free, a pleasing contrast to the restraint inside the palace walls. The flagstones needed replacing. Many were broken and sharp bits littered the ground. The fountain was dry but for an inch or so of rainwater. A few birds stopped for a drink and then flew off again. Not many ever seemed to stay.
Zuko had been bending for hours and the frustration and anger had built up inside, a volcanic force that needed an outlet. He blasted a bush with his flame, letting it burn to ash, careful not to let the fire spread to the other plants. Zuko picked up a piece of stone and flung it down. The sound of it breaking into little pieces and scattering to unknown hiding places satisfied something in him. But it wasn't enough. He kicked at another piece. It rebounded off the fountain and traveled back toward him.
"Stupid stone." Exhausted now, he sat on a rough hewn bench and let his tears fall.
Mai, drawn first by the sound of firebending and then the sounds of temper, pushed open the courtyard's door and stepped inside. Zuko dragged his sleeve across his eyes. He didn't want Mai to know that he'd been crying.
"Your eyes are red."
The black haired girl, so delicately pretty, one of Azula's two playmates, sat down beside him. She was quieter than anyone he knew, an introvert to the extreme. Azula's other friend was talkative and perky and always so positive. Ty Lee made Zuko nauseous. He preferred Mai. He liked Mai.
"Oh." He wiped at them again.
"What were you crying about?" Mai stared down at her hands, tucked together in her lap. Once every few seconds she peeked up at the prince, all shy and unsure.
Zuko couldn't help himself. He didn't want Mai to think he was weak. So he shouted his response. "I wasn't crying."
"Right, so you got some dirt stuck in both your eyes then. I get it." The eleven year old was annoyed and hurt. She got enough yelling from Azula. The prince was different; gentler, nobler, kinder. She saw his pain and it made her ache. Mai wanted to make him feel better. She cared. And Mai didn't care about much, not beyond a superficial level. But, Zuko, he inspired a tempest of emotions in Mai. She kept them hidden and secret. Secret things were special.
Panicked now, not wanting to drive away this girl, this other bright spot in his life, Zuko reached out and put a hand on her arm. He let it linger there and unconsciously called up his inner fire, warming her through the fabric of her sleeve. "No, you're right. I was crying."
"Duh!" Mai was taken aback by the gesture and she felt another kind of warmth, a sweet connection with this boy she'd liked instantly upon seeing him for the first time. When she first heard him speak, she liked him even more. And when he first made a point of talking to her directly, his words a fumbled, adorable mess, Mai was lost. "So why?" The heat was still inside, as if she'd been branded, marked irrevocably by Zuko's touch.
"I try so hard, Mai. I try and try and I'm never as good as Azula."
"You're not Azula." The statement was simple and obvious, and made without any cruel implications. "You're Zuko and you're unique."
Her pale gold eyes held such wisdom for a little girl. And when the prince looked really deeply, almost jumped into their depths, he saw pain too and anger. "I'm Zuko and I'm different." He gave her a smile. "I get it."
'It's hard to be yourself. Most people want you to be something else, something they wished that they had been. I try really hard." She pulled a blade from somewhere inside her tunic. "This knife is me."
Zuko examined the blade and handed it back. "Maybe you're stronger than I am."
"I don't think so." Mai shrugged. "Give it a try. Find something that's you."
The prince was thoughtful for awhile and the silence between them was easy. "Azula doesn't deserve a friend like you."
"Playing with Azula gets me over here."
Zuko's pale cheeks flushed. It was his turn to feel warm and connected. "You mean…."
"Yeah."
He recalled those tender moments between his mother and father, so long ago now, harder to conjure up as more time passed. And he wondered if by kissing Mai he was somehow dooming their relationship. Zuko hesitated, but decided it was worth the risk.
Not sure what to do exactly, the Fire Prince leaned closer to Mai and placed his lips against hers before jerking his head back and flushing crimson.
"S, sorry," he stammered, sure that Mai would hate him.
"I'm not." Mai kissed him back, equally awkward, before taking hold of his hand. "I'm not sorry at all."