Aang walked into the lunchroom nervously. He didn't know what to expect.
"You'll do fine, Aang. Suki and I will finish things up out here. Just stay calm," Katara said, clutching a large manila envelope. She disappeared behind the door. Aang managed to get into the line, preparing to buy his lunch. Someone pushed him from behind, causing him to stumble forward.
"Oops," Toph said smugly as she brushed past Aang, cutting in front of him. Aang reached for the last chocolate milk, put a pale hand reached out and snatched it before he did.
"You gotta be quicker than that, Twinkle Toes," she said, shaking the milk up in his face.
"Toph, why are you so mean to me?" he asked. He immediately wanted to take it back. He didn't want her to have any suspicions.
Because I'm wretchedly in love with you. "Because its fun. Why, are you going to go cry about it to your stupid girlfriend and her mindless brother?" she said, wishing so badly that she could say her true feelings.
"Forget it," Aang said looking down. You'll never want to see me again once this plan goes through, he thought. He moved quickly through the line, and sat next to Sokka at their usual set. He nodded without speaking. A sign that his part of the job was done. For a guy who obsesses over meat, Sokka was pretty brilliant with electronics. It was his idea to add a loudspeaker into their ingenious plot.
Katara and Suki entered then. Suki winked at Sokka. He sighed dreamily. Aang kicked his chair.
"Oh, sorry. Was that the signal?" he said, gaining his composure. "Yeah, I think so. Now we only have to wait. You rigged it to the loud speaker, right?" Aang asked, getting more nervous by the minute. Part of him wanted to back out. But the other part wanted him to see the look on Toph's face when she saw what they had in store for her.
"Yup. I cant wait to see how this plays out. It'll be worth it. Trust me," Sokka said.
"Sokka, are you sure we should be doing this? I mean, this is public humiliation were talking about."
"Don't tell me your getting cold feet," Sokka said, taking a bite of his meatball sub. "Just think of all the crap she's put you through over the years. Think, does a person like Toph deserve any less?"
Aang glanced over at Toph's table. She was looking disgustedly as the Hippo devoured some type of inedible creation that he'd packed for his lunch. He looked more like a Sumo wrestler, rather than a high school student.
Toph's eyes looked over at him. She was struck for a moment, then smirked and flipped him off.
"Oh, yeah. Toph totally deserves it," Aang said.
XXXXXXX
The rest of lunch passed in a daze for the four students. Aang kept glancing at the clock on the wall. Lunch would be over, including all the other classes that didn't have lunch that period. The entire school would witness Toph Bei Fong's humiliation.
Even though he was excited, Aang knew in his heart it was wrong.
"Phase two is complete," Katara said. She and Suki had the most risky part of Operation: Mean Green tiny Machine as Sokka liked to call it.
"I don't know guys. This just seems…..cruel." Aang said. A cold sweat broke out across his face.
"Aang, the entire school is sick of her crap. We'll be doing everyone a favor," Sokka said. His job wasn't as dangerous as he'd wanted it to be, but it was the most important. The timing was just right.
The bell finally rang, signalling the end of lunch, and other class periods. Aang felt butterflies churn nervously in the pit of his stomach.
"Here we go," Katara said, excitedly. After the bell, came a masked voice. The students filed out into the hall, confused at the sudden message. It said:
"Dear diary, Aang is so friggin hot! Today, when I pushed him, I accidently brushed his lips. Can you believe it? I touched Aang's actual lips with my hand! I thought I would pass out. I know he's the one. He's the first boy whose ever made me feel this way. He's the one I want to have my first kiss with. He's the one I hope I lose my virginity to. I know that when it happens, it'll be perfect. I can feel it. Deep down, I know I'm falling in love with him."
Toph froze. She felt her whole body grow stiff as an unidentifiable voice read her diary entries aloud. Over the intercom. To the entire school. Even the teachers. She made her way quickly towards the doors, to find some sort of escape. She was sick, afraid, and relieved all at the same time.
Sick, because the whole school knew a dark secret. Afraid, because every one would think she's a wuss. And relieved, because no one knew it was her diary being read aloud. The masked voice continued to read her more personal diary entries as she walked quickly out the crowded door, to the sound of cheers and laughter. When she exited the cafeteria, she stopped dead in her tracks.
All over the walls, floors and lockers was every thing she'd ever written in that diarl. Blown up, then copied a hundred times over. Everything from her name combined with Aang's, to drawings of the two of them together. Everything was there, for eveyone to see.
Aang was being patted on the back and high fived by many students for winning Toph's heart. He was embarassed, but people werent laughing at him, they were cheering for him. He could tell that they knew he had something to do with this. He watched Toph's reaction as she walked out of the cafeteria, taking in the new 'decorations'.
She picked up a piece of paper from the floor, staring horrified at all her inner most secrets being out there for everyone to see. People laughed louder when she came out of the hallway. People waving the papers in her face. She ran down the hall way and disappeared around the corner.
"Phase three," Suki said. Sokka put his arm around her. "Mission accomplished," he added.
"Not yet. I added a phase four. Just for kicks." Katara said smiling. They walked around the corner, a mob of students had already began to follow Toph, trying to permently keep her mortified face in their minds.
As the large crowd of students gained on Toph, they found another hallway filled with more entries. This time, the hall was dedicated to her entries about the people she disliked, and all the mean things she'd done. Toph was at the end of it, trying to open her jammed locker, fighting back tears.
As more students surrounded her, laughing, she became frantic. She yanked her locker open. A tiny explosion released green paint all over her. The crowd laughed harder. She turned around to face them with no where to run, wiping green paint from her eyes.
"What?" Katara said. "She wears it all the time, so I figured it was her favorite color."
Toph Bei Fong, the shortest girl at Avatar High, and also the meanest, most stubborn students started to cry. The crowd swarmed around her, pointing and laughing at her humiliation. They would let her leave, she was trapped.
"Aww, she's crying! I think she needs her lover!"
"Not so tough now, are you shortie?"
"Green looks so good on you!"
"Great work. You should be a writer!"
Several jokes were made at her. She wrapped her rms around her paint covered body, and sunk to the floor, sobbing furiously.
"Leave me alone!" she screamed, her voice suprisingly loud for someone so small. Teachers and other faculty came to investigate the noise, and why no one was in there classes. Coach Kyoshi picked up one of the papers.
"I want to know exactly who is responsible for this!" she yelled, silencing the halls.
"It was Toph!"
"Yeah, she wrote it!"
"She couldn't keep it a secret any longer!"
"Check the handwriting!" students yelled, all of them to excited to blame Aang for finally getting back at the girl they all hated more than Azula.
"Several teachers began to send students off to class, making it easier for them to reach the still sobbing Toph. Kyoshi touched her on the shoulder. "Are you all right?" she asked. She helped Toph up, and walked her towards the nurses office, dodging paperballs from students irratated by the things she'd written about them.
Aang watched as Kyoshi and Toph made their way out of the crowded halls. Toph's shoe caught on his, causing her to fall to the floor. The crowd erupted in laughter again.
"GET BACK TO CLASS!!!!" Kyoshi shouted. Scared students rushed shaken to class, afraid of the gym teacher.
What have I done? Aang thought to himself. What on earth have I done?
XXXXXXX
Toph sat on one of the creaky cots in the nurses station. The nurse, and her creepy cat who she always carried with her, Miugi, always had ways of making students relax.
"Are you alright, dear?" the old woman asked.
Toph nodded.
"Do you know who did it?"
She shook her head.
"Would you like me to call your parents?"
"No!" Toph shouted. She'd die of even more humiliation if her parents came and made a fuss over this.
The nurse handed her a damp towel. Toph wiped the green off her face, out of her hair, and off her shirt. The persian cat jumped on the cot next to her and purred. Toph smiled slightly.
"I know high school can seem like hell, but just think about it. You only get to be a teenager once," the elderly nurse said.
"That doesn't make sense. I can never come back to this place ever gain," Toph said, wiping the sticky green paint on the towel. "Today is the worst day of my life."
"Yes, but this is the worst day of your life so far. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow will be even worse. Maybe this entire fiasco will be on the internet,spread all over the news like that video of the girl getting bet up by her friends. You'll be a star!"
"You're insane, arent you?" Toph asked.
"That's right!" the nurse said. "Keep the towel. It will be a gracious reminder of the best high school day you've ever had."
XXXXXXX
Toph walked into the deserted hallway. It was littered with copies of her entries. Poems, letters to Aang that she had been to chicken to send, everything she had ever had on her mind. There it was. All over the hallway. Now everyone knew her secrets, even the one who they were about.
She started out of the building and into the school parking lot. She reached her car and stopped when something caught her eye. Aang was standing right behind her.
She wanted to scream and run away, but she couldn't. She knew she needed to take things head on. Like a rock. But the way Aang looked at her, sad, confused, and slightly amused –probably at how she was covered in paint. She really wanted a shower- still made her want to crawl to the bottom of the ocean and stay there.
"Hi, Toph," he said. It looked like he was in pain about something. She shifted on her feet.
"What, you here to laugh at me to?" she said, looking at the ground.
"No, I wanted to say something. What happened back there was really…..bad. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to go that far. But Sokka had this idea and I-"
"Wait, you made that up? IT WAS YOU WHO DID THIS TO ME?!?!?" she screamed.
"Well, the paint was all Katara. But I didn't do anything. Suki read it over the intercom, and Sokka rigged it and made the copies. I didn't do anything! I found your diary the other day and-"
"How could you do something like this? Why would you do something like this?" she yelled at him.
Aang was getting impatient. He was trying to explain himself but he could barely get a word in.
"It wasn't my idea! I wanted to put it back but-"
"Oh, I get it. This was for your little ego trip, huh? Now you're mr. popular, arent you? You pull a prank, so everybody can worship you, huh? 'Oh, look at me! I'm the perfect model student at Avatar high! I can humiliate people in a desperaate attempt to boost my social status!'"
"Listen to me!" Aang yelled. He grabbed Toph's shoulders and pushed her up against her car, looking strait into her eyes.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I only came out here to apologize. The only reson I let it go this far was because I'm sick of you. We're all sick of you. Nobody likes a mean person. Now you know what it feels like to be somebody that you always pick on. You know what it feels like to be me." Aang turned and walked away. He heard a car door open.
"Aang?" Toph called. He spun back around to face her. She was holding some sort of package. She shoved it towards him. It was a new lock for his bike. Instead of using a key, this one had a combination.
"The last one was too easy to pick. Your bike was behind the school shed the whole time. I wanted to teach you a lesson." She opened the front door of her car and threw it into drive, sppeding away from the school.
XXXXXXX
Toph wore a hood and shades to school that following week. She had sipped school for a while, but decided to return, convincing herself that she wasn't afraid of anyone. Now that the truth was out, she didn't care. She heard people whisper as she walked down the hallway. She threw her books in her now green locker and stormed off to class without saying a word or bothering anyone.
"Today we will be examining different cells. Each of you has slides. I want you all to record wha you see," the science teacher said. Toph hadnt said a word to anyone, and so far, no one said a word to her. She sighed when the lunch bell rang. She couldn't bring herself to enter the cafeteria, where she would definently hear all conversation stop once she entered. So she hid in the bathrooms. Waiting until the dark period ended. When she entered the halls again, she was almost relieved that no one spoke, or even tried to laugh at her again.
Maybe they all forgot. And I was worried. This blew over pretty quickly, she thought. She noticed the halls were a little too quiet from its usual buzz. When she rounded the corner to her locker after school, she saw several people standing by it, snickering. They all scattered when she arrived. It was left over pictures from her diary. She still had to find it, then burn it, cursing the person who invented the stupid things anyway.
She continued to walk away from the lingering laughter that chased her down the hallway. "Hey, Toph," Aang said when he walked past her. She stared at him, awestruck. Why is he talkin to me? she thought.
"Listen, thanks for the bike lock. I knew the whole lock-and-key thing would fail one day," he said.
He's smiling. Aang is smiling at me. A real smile! Its not forced or angry or sarcastic or anything! She thought to herself. Why is he being so nice? It must be another trick.
"Uh, no problem. I…yeah." She paced away as quickly as possible. She tried to fight back a smile of her own as she walked out of the building.
"Hey, there's miss casablanca now."
"Awww, her romeo just rejected her. How sad."
"Hey kid, I don't appreciate the stuff you wrote about me in that little journal of yours."
Toph spun around and said "It wasn't for you to see!"
"Yeah," the guy said. She recognized Jet. "I know. Only a loser would write like this. 'I want to tell him so badly, but I'm really afraid'" he recited.
"Stop it." Toph said between clenched teeth.
"I see the way he looks at other girls, and the way they sometimes look at him. I'm not the only one who feels this with him. But who can I trust?"
"Cut it out or I'll-"
"last night I had a dream about him. It felt so real. We were on a beach- someplace tropical. He told me he loved me and then he said that he's never even look at another woman. He said I'd be his until my last breath. It was so romantic. In the dream, I was so close to giving myself to him, but- like always, my stupid alarm woke me up and I had to take a cold shower. That's the second night in a row. I wonder if tonight I'll-"
"STOP IT!!!" Toph screamed. She lunged at Jet, kicking and pulling at him. Her fist connected with his eye, and again with his jaw. Some of his friends pulled her off, when a crowd formed.
"How does it feel to know the whole school hates you?" Jet asked, rubbing his jaw. "Now everyone knows your pathetic little secret. If I were you, I wouldn't come back." It sounded like a threat. Jets friends pushed her to the ground and walked away laughing. People in the crowd looked at her with pity, then walked away. She gathred her books. A pair of hands were helping her stack them into a pile.
"Don't listen to Jet. He's just a big jerk. He's been even worse since Katara dumped him a couple months ago," Aang said, picking up Toph's books for her.
She mumbled a quiet 'thanks' and reached out for her books. Aand started walking towards her car instead.
"He thinks he can get away with everything, and he's kind of a know it all because he went to jail. All he stole was some jelly candies, but its not exactly grand theft, am I right?" he said beaming. Toph just staired at him like he was an alien.
"I-it was a joke. See, stealing is a misdemeanor, you hardly get any time for it. He was bragging about how he spent the night in jail, but the local news paper said he was in there for like an hour, begging to be let out," he said smiling again. Toph continued to stare at him.
"I get it. It was funny," she said quietly. She opened her car door and took her books from him. Her heart skipped a beat when his fingers brushed hers. She turned and looked at him. He was wearing an expecting look on his face.
"What?" she said, wondering why he was staring at her that way.
"N-nothing, I'll see you tomorrow." He said, walking away.
"Hey, Aang?" she called. He turned around. "Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked. He walked back towards her.
"What do you mean?" he said.
"Arent you mad at me?" she asked puzzled.
"No! why would I be mad at you. You havent done anything wrong."
"But the whole……" Toph sighed. She didn't want to bring it up again. Ever. "The diary thing. I thought you would be mad. People are spreading rumors, and……" she trailed off. She didn't know what else to say.
"Toph listen. What happened last week was wrong. I'm not saying you didn't have it coming-" she scowled "but it was still pretty harsh. And I'm really sorry. I'm just trying to make amends. Besides, friends do nice stuff for each other all the time. You, with the bike lock. Now, no one will ever guess the combination," he said enthusiastically.
"You set it to your birthday, didn't you?" Toph asked stepping into her car.
Aang's face fell. "How'd you guess?" he asked stunned. Toph burst out laughing. It was the first time she'd laughed in days, and it felt good, for once. It wasn't at someone elses expence. Well, sort of. Aang shut the car door for her and drove away. One word stuck in her head.
Friends, she thought. He siad we were friends. Well, it's a start.
She was right. They were inseperable from then on. On their first day of college, Aang asked Toph out. She said no to get back at him for making her wait so long. He was crushed, but she surprised him by showing up in his room with pizza, candles and a whitney houston cd she stole from her room mate. They turned it off and chucked it out the window after listening to 30 seconds of it because Toph decided it was time for their first kiss.
They only went out when she wanted to, which was about 10 minutes after Aang asked her. They kissed when she wanted because Aang was too nervous. But Aang surprised her one day by grabbing her in between one of her classes. He'd run all the way across campus so he could tell her he loved her.
Almost ten years after that horrifying day in high school, Toph was in the bathroom of a hotel in Cancun for her honey moon. She thought about a diary that she used to keep, something about a dream she had with Aang on a beach, it was tugging at her memory. She sifted through clothes and other items for the one thing she'd always carried when she was traveling away from home. An old padlock, and a towel with green paint on it, permanently stained.
~*~*~*
Sooooo, what do you think? its the longest thing i've ever written!!!! i think it turned out pretty good. And of course, its totally taangy!!!!! this is the last chapter in the conflict mini series. i'll make another in a few days when my carpal tunnels stops flaring up. see what i go through for you guys? i want more reviews. if i dont get 10, you'll never see me again.