...Not much to say here, other than this is a companion piece to "Quitting You," and is within the same universe as "This Old Coffee Shop," and "Of Epithets." Otherwise - GO KONEKO, GO! READ LIKE THE WIND! (No-one else bother trying to understand that. Because you can't.)
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't mine; it's Bryan and Mike's; Azuko, Zuko, and Iroh belong to them, too, though I wish I owned Azula times. Zhuo and Yue are mine, though technically Yue is Koneko's.
In all honesty, being woken up at three in the morning on Saturday by one of her best friends, and then having her parents and brother semi freak out about it, was certainly not how Yue had planned to start her weekend. Add that to the fact that said best friend had been one of the very first people called, when two of her other best friends lives had just gone to Hell in a hand-basket… Well, that just made things a hundred times worse. She hadn't even been calm enough, at the time, to laugh at Zhuo when she's shown up in pajama bottoms, sneakers, and a zip-up hoodie over her t-shirt, shoulder length black hair sticking up everywhere. She'd just stuck her feet in flats, grabbed her cell phone and a set of clothes, and reached for her keys; her older, taller friend wouldn't have it, though.
"No way," Zhuo had snapped, gripping her wrist and all but dragging Yue outside to her own car, "I'm not spending longer at the hospital because you crashed trying to get there in your current emotional state." Then she'd pretty much shoved the smaller, honey-brown tressed girl into the passenger seat of the sapphire Chevy Tahoe, and the fourteen (nearly fifteen) year old had had to wonder if either of them were in the right emotional state to drive anywhere period – let alone to the hospital one of their best friends had been admitted to at thee AM. Then she'd remembered that it was best to have Zhuo angry at the moment, since when she was mad, she tended to focus more on doing things right than usual.
The drive had been quiet, with Zhuo gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white, and with Yue trying not to freak out, or to think about how much Zuko might be hurt. Then, rather belatedly, she realized two things. For one, Zhuo hadn't said anything about Azula in all of this mess, and for two… Yue knew that the ravenette would rather have been rushing to be with Azula, had she not been the type to see to her friends before her own heart. Feeling slightly guilty, but mostly worried, she'd only been somewhat dismayed when her long-time best friend had shot down any attempt at conversation. Zhuo didn't want to talk, and when she didn't want to talk, it was like trying to get water from a rock to get her to open up. Then Yue looked closer, and realized that the older girl had the dark circles under her eyes that meant she hadn't been sleeping for a few days in a row, and wondered – more guiltily than before, but no less worried - how hard she was fighting to not go completely manic-berserk just then.
Even when they'd reached the hospital and been directed to the waiting room outside the ICU, Zhuo remained tense (well, about fifty times more tense than she normally was, anyway) and silent, and Yue… well, she was too busy worrying about Zuko just then to try and navigate the mine field that was her best friend's temper just then. One step wrong, and she'd be dealing with a manic and pissed off Zhuo, something she really didn't have the emotional capacity for at the moment. About two hours after they'd arrived, at sometime around 5AM, the two were allowed to enter the ICU, and it took everything Yue had not to sprint to the room they were directed to. She had enough presence of mind, even in that moment, to know that that would have been a bad idea. (She'd figure out what was up with Zhuo – besides the fact that she was having a manic streak – later. Unless Zuko knew? Hm…)
All other thoughts, however, were tossed from her mind unceremoniously, when she finally saw Zuko. There were bandages all round his torso and arms, and she suspected around his legs as well, since she knew that burns didn't discriminate. It felt like her heart had turned to lead and her blood to ice, as she stood there, in that hospital room. For one horrible moment, she was reminded of when Zuko had received the burn which had nearly cost him the sight in his left eye, and her parents had brought her to the hospital to see him. (Ironically, Zhuo had been alone at that time as well, three years ago, but then again, when wasn't the ravenette alone, if Azula weren't around?) She felt her knees give way, and knew that if said ravenette hadn't been there with her, she would have landed on the tiled floor hard. As it was, Zhuo caught her without a word and sat her in a chair. And then, a realization hit her hard, something that almost knocked the breath out of Yue.
Somehow, someway, somewhere along the line, over the years they had known each other, she had fallen for Zuko – and hard at that.
Thankfully, cruel as it sounded, Zuko woke then, and she was saved from having to further contemplate it. He was disoriented at first, but Yue put that down to the anesthetic still having some effect, combined with the pain medication that must have been coursing through his system. It took a bit, but finally, he was coherent enough to explain what had happened. As Zuko told the rather ghastly tale, it slowly became horrifyingly clear as to why Zhuo was acting the way she was, and why she hadn't said anything about the girl she loved. (Yue wasn't as scatter brained as some people thought; she'd probably known how the ravenette felt about Azula long before Zhuo even realized it herself.) It seemed that the older girl had concluded this, or at least something similar, when she had been called by Iroh, Zuko and Azula's uncle. Iroh had been called and informed first, but living in San Diego as he did, he knew that their friends were closer and would also want to be informed.
"And then she managed to pin me down," Zuko was recounting what he remembered extremely bitterly, Yue noted, and she got the feeling it wasn't just because his shorter-by-at-least-six-inches and lighter younger sister had always been stronger than he was, "but after the first few times she stabbed me… I don't really remember very much." Then he sighed, and winced as he shifted slightly. "Honestly, if there's anything I remember after that, I think it was when she set the house on fire." Well, there was less bitterness in that, at least; both siblings had had gone through far too much in that house (mansion) for either of them to feel too bad about seeing it go. Even – perhaps especially – Yue, who was more inclined to believe better of people than her jaded friends, understood that.
A tense, silent moment stretched, and then Zhuo muttered something about calling her parents, before leaving. A part of her mind registered that the black-haired girl would probably end up both fighting with and convincing her parents that she hadn't run away, but that was really nothing new, and a thought that was discarded, as her vision tunneled, and all she could see was Zuko, and the wounds that were the direct result of his little sister's complete psychotic breakdown. In a surge of bravery she couldn't quite fathom the root of, Yue reached forward and took Zuko's right hand in both of her own. They seemed both surprised by the action, but Yue was probably more surprised, when she spoke. After all, she was normally the shy one who blushed and stammered a lot; now… now she was calm and sure in her actions.
"This may be weird and random, but… God, Zuko, when Zhuo showed up at my house at 3AM and told me that you were in the hospital, and in critical condition… It left like someone had sucker-punched me." She paused for a moment, but didn't give herself anymore time to mull over her words; if she didn't say anything now… God only knew when she would have the courage to say something later. "I was so scared that for a minute there… For a minute, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think – my mind just kept playing it over and over again, what Zhuo had said: Zuko's in the hospital. He's hurt, really, really bad. And then… when my brain decided it wanted to work again… I…" Oh dear, she was starting to cry… "All I could think about, was what if you were hurt so badly that you died? What if you ended up in a coma and never woke up? And when I finally saw you… I… I realized… I lo – " Yue found herself rather unceremoniously cut off, but not in any sort of unpleasant way, when Zuko tugged her towards him, though it must have hut.
That was the first time he kissed her, and she knew she would never forget that moment for the rest of her life.