I don't own Avatar. Or Zutara (or whatever the hell you want to call them.) Neither do I own the modern world (yay for modern day!AU!). However, I take credit for bastardizing it; it's the modern world, but Air/Fire/Water/Earthbending all exist. Katara and Sokka live with their grandmother, Aang lives with his foster father, and Zuko lives with his Uncle Iroh. Okay, onto the fic. (I'll be using this plot-ish-thing a lot). I also don't own Ani DeFranco or "Not A Pretty Girl".
It didn't take Zuko long to realize the girl next door left her window open in the summer.
He hadn't wanted to move in with his uncle. Not by a longshot. Sure, the old geezer was fun to hang around, but to live with? No. No no no. But it was better, he mused, than living with his crazed father. That was an upside...sorta.
His first year in school had been akin to tripping over the many rocks in the road of life. Many big, hulking, unnecessary rocks that sort of chipped off when he tripped over them and scratched him up. The guidance counselor wanted to be his best friend (ew), the school food was made of rubber (public schools, honestly), but at the very least, they taught bending to the kids they concidered "gifted". That was nice.
Until she came along. The Waterbending brat that the coaches put him up against. He'd have liked to believe that he knew his limits, and wasn't cocky.
Sometimes, people don't always get what they want.
She beat him. The little wench beat him. Not by a whole lot, but still. From that point on, it might as well have been all-out war between them; Zuko refused to give up, and the girl - Katara or something - was more than willing to meet his challenges. Sometimes he won - and sometimes he didn't. The duels became his drug, his addiction; the only escape he found in a strange, "lowerclass" place.
Needless to say, he grudgingly missed his opponant during the summer holiday. He even began missing the way she'd send a scowl or a taunting grin his direction after every duel before running off with her bald-headed airbender friend and her dorky brother.
Until she moved right next door. At first, he'd balked, naturally; who really wanted their school enemy next door? Sure, he missed fighting with her, but not that much. It hardly stopped him from doing nothing but hanging around the house all day (friends, you say? No, Zuko didn't have friends. Not here.) But still.
One morning, however, Zuko found himself up at the oddest hour: 7:30 on a Saturday. There wasn't much to do, and he certainly wouldn't wake his uncle. It was a nice morning, nice enough to open the window, and after a few minutes of reading, he completely forgot how early it really was.
He was mildy irritated when the sound of blaring music pushed into his illusion of the Great War soldier - it was a really good book - and was compelled to look out his window. The music was coming from the house next door; her house.
"I am not a pretty girl...That is not what I do...I ain't no damsel in distress..."
Pushing aside his curtains, he was ready to yell across the painfully short distance, but the sight that met him was rather difficult to yell at. There she was, his school enemy, dancing around in her pajamas and singing along to Ani DeFranco into her hairbrush. She obviously hadn't entertained the possibility of someone watching; some motions were jerky, or clumsy, but they made her all the more real. Slowly, as if hesitant to catch her attention, Zuko backed away from the window, frowing to himself; was she supposed to look that pretty? (No, no, of course not; that wasn't how it went. Enemies weren't supposed to be pretty.) Pretending he really wasn't sneaking looks out of his window - he hadn't bothered to close the curtain again - he went back to his book, feining indifference.
Those curtains didn't close very much for the rest of the summer. And when Iroh caught his nephew humming Ani DeFranco one day, purely by accident, he said nothing; simply grinned and took a look out the window.