Katara and Ai both turned towards the door, looking between the wood posts that separated the entrance to the room and the door.
"Mom! Do I have ANY clean underwear for tonight?! Don't forget, dad and I are staying at the camp in the camper tonight to go deer hunting tomorrow!"
He walked right past them, and into the kitchen, not even noticing the two girls staring after him with wide eyes.
'That must be the charmer from the picture, Zuko…. HOT!' Katara thought to herself.
"Yeahhhh… that's my brother… so sorry about that, but anywayssss…" Ai tried to cover up for her brother's embarrassment, turning back to the computer to continue with the conversation she had been distracted from.
"Ah I see… well it's all cool, so what's your BOOOO saying?!" Katara said, trying to shake the thoughts of her friend's hot brother out of her head.
Katara glanced every now and then in the direction that Zuko had gone, unnoticeable to Ai who wrapped herself into flirting with the guy from school. As Katara glanced up for the third time, Zuko came out of one of the rooms and into the hall holding a clean pair of underwear up to examine it. He held the briefs up to his face and took a big whiff of them.
"MOM! Are you sure these are clean??"
"YES ZUKO, GOSH DAMNIT, JUST WEAR THEM!"
"Fine!"
With that, Zuko walked into the room across the hallway from the one he came out of, still not aware that he was being slightly watched. Katara turned back to the computer with a smile on her face, trying to hold back a giggle that had formed in her chest and read the conversation Ai was having online.
"Hey, where did my sour patch kids go?!"
Ai and Katara screamed at the deep voice directly at their ear levels came from behind them. Neither of them had noticed Zuko sneak into the room, apparently looking for the candy kids that the girls had found and had been munching on for the past two hours.
"Sorry Zuko, we ate them," Ai said to her brother, turning her swivel chair around to face him with a large innocent smile plastered across her face.
"Ugh! Fine!" Zuko stormed out of the room muttering things under his breath about having no respect in the house, Katara and Ai laughing at the scene.
"Ok, I'm getting off, what do you want to do?" Ai said as she spun around to face the computer again and logged off of the instant messenger as well as shut off the computer.
"Well… when do we head out to the bonfire?" Katara asked after she looked out the window and realized that it was much too late to go exploring in the fields.
"Actually it should be a few minutes. Why don't we get our jackets out of my room and put on our shoes so we'll be ready when we have to go… I think my brother is going to have to drive us there. "
Katara followed Ai into Ai's room which was decorated with light pink walls and fake flowers vines that were stapled to the top of the walls. They gathered their things to keep warm in the frigid night air.
"Hey Ai. Who's your friend?" Zuko stood in the doorway, watching the girls run around the room, occasionally bumping into one another, trying to get their stuff together and looking in the mirror that leaned against the southernmost wall of the room to see how they looked for the bonfire. He had a large grin across his face when they noticed him.
"This is Katara. Katara that is Zuko." Ai pointed at each of them as their names came out of her mouth and continued to walk around the room, trying to decide what to wear.
"Hi." Katara said as she bent down to put her shoe on and tie it.
"Hi."Zuko's voice sounded to be amused by something.
Katara looked up from her crouched position to see that Zuko was staring at her.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a little bit of disgust in her words, looking down to see if she was showing any cleavage and that he might be what he was staring at.
"Nope." He composed himself.
"Hey Ai, be in the truck in two minutes or I'm leaving you two chicks." With that, Zuko walked out of the room into the one that was next to Ai's, and a minute later he passed by the room, glancing at Katara who was bending over and didn't, and walked out to his car.
"Ready?" Ai asked a few seconds later.
"Yep! Let's go!" Katara stood up with a hop and bounced out of the room wearing her baby blue jacket and hot blue gloves.
They both climbed into the truck, Ai first, so that Katara wouldn't have to sit by Zuko. With a slam of the silver truck's door, they pulled out of the driveway, the 15 year old Zuko behind the wheel. He turned up the music, letting it blare out of the speakers, singing along with it and dancing so that the car swayed, making Katara tense.
The truck headed up the driveway, towards the deserted road. Turning left onto the road, they took another sudden, unexpected left, where they ended up on a dirt road heading into a pasture. Katara watched out the window, and as they drove, she could clearly make out the dirt path in the in the ground. They went over puddles, stopped to open a few gates, as well as drive up two steep hills that if not gone up the right way, would lead to nothing but terror for those in the car going up them.
Soon she saw two single lights coming from the bleak darkness. They parked on the side of a shabby building. Katara and Ai jumped out of the car and headed to the small fire located between two campers that were parked in a right angle with a large slab of concrete in the middle to form a patio for the campers.
While warming up by the fire, Katara looked around. She peered behind her to where Zuko had parked the truck. Behind the silver vehicle was a one story building. The outside wooden walls looked to be stripping off, blue wallpaper that was underneath the ply board, was coming through, very clearly seen. But besides that and the porch that was falling through, the place had an interesting air to it and Katara wanted yearned to go inside.
"Hi!" a small voice came up to Katara.
Katara's concentration on the building was broken when she heard this small hi. She looked down to see where it had come from.
"Hiiiiii…." She kneeled down to become of equal height with a little girl that looked to be 4.
'This must be Elli… she's so cute!'
"Want to play?" Elli asked Katara.
"Sure I'll play with you… go get Ai and we'll all play together ok?" Katara asked the girl.
"OK!" and with that the small child ran off to find Ai.
Elli and Ai returned soon and Elli told them what she wanted to play. The two older girls laughed at the childish game, but agreed that it would be fun anyway. They all ran off in different directions.
Ai hid behind a red four-wheeler while Katara hid behind a large green truck and Elli hid behind her mother sitting by the fire in a camping chair.
They all saw their prey. Suddenly Elli jumped out, and that was the cue for the older girls.
They ran towards Zuko who still hadn't noticed anything was happening until Elli got to him and kicked his leg with all the force her body would allow.
"Haha, beat up Zukooo, Beat up Zukoo!!" She sang as they all playfully punched and kicked him.
He fell to the ground, all the girls falling with him, and they all laughed.
"Elli, bed time." Elli's mother walked over to the girls and picked Elli up in her arms.
"Bye Elli!" Ai and Katara waved night to her and watched as her family backed out of the campsite and drove away, the tail lights fading away in the blackness of the night.
Zuko had walked behind one of the campers by that time.
'This night is going to be SO much fun!' Katara thought to herself with a smile, a smile that didn't go unnoticed to Zuko who had come around from the camper's back and was staring at her from the distance.
Author's note: It has come to my attention that I misnamed Zuko's sister. I'm really sorry. Before I started writing I had the name Ai stuck in my head as one of the main characters and it slipped my mind that Azula was Zuko's sister. I really am sorry.
But thank you all so much for all of your reviews, and please, everyone leave my reviews, I love them… Thanks
Sugar Kitty