"Fine." Zuko mumbled, gripping Sokka's arm to help him hoist himself out of bed. "I'm up." Sokka smiled happily.

"What should we do today?" he asked, walking over to his bed. "I mean, we only get weekends twice a week."

"I dunno." Zuko said, stripping to his boxers. "I was thinking that we could maybe explore the school or something. It's so big I'd like to see what it really looks like."

Sokka wasn't listening, Zuko realized as he turned to face the suddenly quiet boy. He was gaping at Zuko's chest. Zuko slid on a shirt in embarrassment, mixed with some pride that he could get another boy to look at him like that.

"Yeah…yeah." Sokka said, released from his captivation as the object of his affection went away. "Exploring sounds good."

Zuko went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and when he came back out Sokka was standing at the door, talking to Aang, who looked especially adorable without his fire nation attire.

"Ok, where should we go first?" Aang asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily. In excitement, Zuko rushed up to the small boy to hug him tight against his chest. "The west wing." Sokka said mysteriously. "It's the furthest away from here and I really want to see what the upper upper school looks like."

"West wing it is." Aang said, his voice slightly muffled by Zuko's chest.

They began walking down the corridor, to the first floor, through the huge French windows and out unto the lawn.

"We can cut across here and get there much faster than if we'd walked through the whole school." Sokka said, proud of his discovery.

Zuko, who was holding fast unto Aang's hand, looked around. "Are you sure we won't get lost or something? Those trees we'd have to cut through look pretty thick."

Sokka shrugged. "Sure I'm sure." He said. "Once we cut through this little forest, we'll be right on the other side of the school."

"Are you sure Aang can make it?" Zuko continued.

"Zuko, I think your overprotection of me is really cute, but seriously, I'm not a baby." Aang said, used to getting this, if not to this extent, sort of attention from bigger boys.

"Sorry." Zuko said, still not letting go of Aang's hand as they began to cut through the thick trees at the back of the East wing of the school.

Sunlight streamed through the leaves and branches high over head and Sokka kept pressing forward as if he knew exactly where he was going, burning a couple branches that got in his way.

"Why do you think there is a forest right in the middle of the school?" Aang asked curiously.

"This was once two different castles that were separated by this forest, long before that part of the school connecting the East and West wing's existed." Zuko said, well versed in anything that had to do with king's of the past.

"Interesting. Sometime's I forget that you're a prince and you're a part of all this stuff from the past." Sokka said. "It's gonna be cool to tell my kids that I knew Prince Zuko."

"It's going to be cool telling my kids that I knew Sokka." Zuko said kindly.

Sokka wasn't facing him, but he could tell that the dark-haired boy was blushing by his embarrassed silence.

After a few more minutes of walking in comfortable silence, all three boys yelled when they heard the sounds of rifle shots. Some birds over head screeched as they fell.

"Oh God." Sokka said. "Some people are just so sick, killing bird for fun like that."

"And what's worse, rifling is actually an activity at this school." Aang interjected.

Zuko didn't say anything, his stomach sinking as his presumption turned out to be true when they got past the last tree and out unto the grassy field again.

Hakagi and Yuro were holding shiny new rifles in the middle of the field, aiming for another set of helpless animals. BANG! Zuko shut his eyes, not wanting to see whether they had missed or not. He wanted to turn back, go to his room, go back to his bed and never wake up again.

"Zuko don't!" Hakagi screamed as Zuko was about to step on an ant that had bitten him. "You know it only did that out of self-defense.

"Meh." Zuko said dispassionately. "But it bit me. And it hurt."

"Please don't." Hakagi begged, clutching to Zuko's arm. "His family needs him."

"It's an ant!" Zuko said, stepping down on the tiny creature. Hakagi burst into tears, looking at Zuko as if he were a monster. "How could you?" He kept screaming, over and over, his voice ringing in Zuko's ear. "You killed it! You killed it!!"

"I didn't." Zuko said. "Look, I missed."

Hakagi sniffled as he looked down, watching the ant still made its way along the beaten path of garden soil.

Hakagi covered his mouth in happiness, eyes still glistening in ten year old eyes. "I'm so happy."

"You idiot." Zuko said, heat rushing to his face, loving how sweet Hakagi looked, how loving.

"I love you." Hakagi said, grabbing Zuko in a gentle. "I knew you wouldn't, you would never."

"Shut up." Zuko said as the heat became stronger, as Hakagi held him closer and began crying yet again.. 'I love you too you little sap. Don't every change.'

Zuko bit his lip, seeing the person he'd once knew, laughing as the bullet shot out of the death machine he was holding. He felt hot tears forming in his own eyes. "I don't want to go anymore." He said. "You guys can keep going. I want to go back."

"We can't let you go through the forest again. If you really don't want to go past those guys we can walk around the long way." Aang said understandingly, noticing the way Zuko's eyes glistened.

"But we're so close!!" Sokka said in annoyance.

"We'll take the long way." Aang insisted.

Zuko's mind was numb with pain the whole way back.

"It's much bigger than our side of the school." Sokka marveled, looking at the high ceilinged marble that decorated the upper upper school. "Yeah, this is where all the people in fraternities or sororities of high standing live, regardless of age." Aang said, noting how much more….rich everything looked.

Zuko hadn't said anything since he'd seen the boy that he had loved more than anything, shooting, killing birds. 'He's just like all those people I hate so much.' Zuko realized with bitterness. Hakagi had been the one to teach him that all life was precious, that he shouldn't hurt anything regardless of size or importance. 'What did this school do to him?'

Not that many people are reading this, but yes, I know this chapter is half the length of my usual. Yes, I'm really sorry, but I just had to. This is a continuation of the last chapter, it's closure, you can almost think of it as one chapter (which would mean it was longer than usual, AH HA!). Also, I couldnt think of a better place to end, so I'm really sorry. To compensate, the next will be longer than usual for sure!

Thank you:

RueBroadway

Bluetiger

avatarfan1111

By the way, though this is not one of my most popular stories, I realized how long all your reviews were as I was idly going through them, and I'd really like to thank you for taking the time to leave me reviews that motivate me!