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Chapter 10
Wastes
Students always seem to begin swarming as winter break draws in. Zuko can't help but think he's never seen half of these people for the entire semester, not until finals. At least the bustle on campus will keep him busy. The library is quiet yet crowded, but he manages to find a armchair in a distant corner to curl up onto.
Today's final is criminology, but Lombroso's atavism isn't sticking and he's running out of flash cards.
This will be his third break today, a hard followed pattern of walking around campus and stopping to study just about anything. He's only passed the coffee shop every time.
Things are just like before. He walks alone, eats alone, and finds himself alone in every sense of the word. That saying about feeling lonely in a crowded room rings out like nails on a chalkboard. On the fourth pass of the shop he gives in and goes inside.
In the two months since he's visited it still smells the same. A mix of hazelnut and french roast envelope everything around him. but the line is long, and someone's saying they're out of scones and it causes a slew of questions about substitutions. Leaving would've been easier but waiting is comfortable. Twenty minutes later Zuko finally orders a latte.
He sits in the same spots as before and does all of the same things. Every now and again he'll glance just off to the north wall of the room where she'd be and finds nothing.
"I thought I'd you'd be here."
Zuko jumps and has to pat out a few drops of coffee from his shirt after spilling. "What is it, Sokka?"
"Nothing. Just thought I'd—well...check on you."
Zuko smiles and glances at another seat not too far from the both of them. There's still about a half hour left before the test. Surprisingly, Sokka knows quite a bit about Lombroso.
After Zuko hands in his final not ten steps from the door of the classroom Sokka finds him again. He grabs a hold of Zuko's shirt and starts dragging him toward the large double doors of the building's entrance. The fabric isn't grasped tight, if he struggled just the slightest bit breaking free would take no effort. He doesn't, instead he allows his friend to pull him from one location to the next, thinking that if he doesn't at least someone else will.
"You need to get out of that place at some point." Sokka says when he lets go, "You're acting funny."
"Place?"
"The school—your head. You're not yourself."
Just a few block from campus there's an old wooden playground. Trees create a company for the clearing of woodchips, an old swing, and a jungle gym that really ought to be restored.
Zuko watches as Sokka starts scaling a net of chains, he settles in on top of a tunnel in the middle.
"You're worried about me?" Zuko asks.
"Well, yeah. We're friends, aren't we?"
Zuko doesn't answer.
The way up to the tunnel takes longer than it seemed to when Sokka had done it, there's too many places where his foot gets caught and the small set of stairs creak when he steps on them. Feeling the weight of the both of them makes him anxious, mindful of the subtle way the wood seems to bow underneath.
"I get it, man, trust me." Sokka sighs, "But you can't let this eat you up like it is."
"It's not. I chose not to talk to her. It's just—" Zuko looks at their shoes and the way that Sokka kicks as his legs dangle, "I don't think I did the right thing."
She'd called only a day ago and left nothing. He figures if it's important enough she'll say it. Another part of him knows that isn't true.
He forgets how quiet Sokka can be, but appreciates the silence nonetheless. It isn't often they spend time together like this, but why're both very aware of their different lives and only come together when things seem to be going wrong.
"How's your sister?" Zuko asks, trying to return any favors.
"She's okay. Not coming home for break, she got some internship up north. I'm proud of her. My dad is still on his tour so—I'll be staying with Suki. I'm fine with that."
He always seems to answer questions before they're asked, eliminating too much to room to continue.
They both stay on top of the tunnel until the sun sets and they make their way back to the dorms.
Sokka is kind in that he is only kind when he needs to be and not anytime before then. Misplaced jokes and sarcasm seem to leave him whenever things get serious, or Zuko broods for any longer than usual. In their room they pass out beers between the two of them and watch crimes shows on Sokka's old laptop. He waits until he's asleep on the other side of the bed before grabbing the keys. The computer screen makes the room flicker in a kaleidoscope of blues when the lights are out, he's lucky that the chatter of the show drowns out his footsteps.
"Sorry buddy. I owe you one." He whispers through the door.
Sokka's car is older than the laptop by at least a decade. The door groans upon entry and the gas pedal seems to stick. It's just fast enough to take the freeway though, even if the gear shift sputters in a jolt every hundred yards. He takes the route along the coast, something about the lights dotting the hills and the shoreline bring a sense of comfort. Each little pocket of houses is a different life somewhere else that he doesn't have to know about.
This particular drive takes an hour and when he gets to the destination he knows it's past visiting hours and if he wants to see her he'll have to call first.
"It's late."
"I know, but you said you'd rather—just come out, Azula." Zuko sighs.
"Fine, give me a moment."
Everytime he sees his sister she tends to look worse for wear. Her hair is put up into a bun, or what could be assumed to be one. Her hair sticks out of the tie in all directions and she's cut herself bangs since the last he saw her.
The door slams which causes him to jump.
"What?" Azula huffs, "You came to see me, Had you given any warning I might've tried looking decent."
"I just needed someone to talk to."
Azula can't help but laugh. The echoes of her cackle boom in the car's cabin. "You came to the wrong place, brother. What do you expect to gain from talking to me? Advice? A shoulder to cry on? Pathetic."
"Perspective." He says plainly.
"Perspective." Azula repeats, "On what?"
He should have realized on the drive that she would hold no answers for him. That this example is not the example he needs and that coming here was only to seek comparisons where they do not exist.
"I see now." Azula smiles. Her nails tap on the dashboard while she thinks, choosing her words carefully, "Who is it? Is it mother? You have to tell me now, you came all this way after all. You're wondering what this is like for me because someone else is experiencing it too, and you're scared. So who is it, Zuko?"
This is what he's always hated about visits, always seeking some form of closure but instead she reads him like a book.
"You're afraid someone's gone crazy and you came here to see what a real crazy person looks like!"
"No, that's not—"
"But it is! Oh, it is. Are you satisfied, Zuzu?" Azula's smile turns into a scowl, all teeth and crooked lips, "Am I putting on a good enough show for you?"
Azula leans in, minimizing the space between them. All he can think about is how she smells like old linen and generic soap. It makes him nauseous. He's only visited a handful of times but the event always goes on in a pattern—she analyzes, gets angry, and slips back into whatever far off place she's learned to run to.
"If it's mother, she can rot." Azula snarls, "If it's not mother, they can rot too. Bring them here, like you did to me."
He tries to ignore how badly it stings, and the quiet sobs she tries to hide that cause her to tremble.
"It's a girl. You don't know her." Zuko says, "You're right. I came here to see everything that i've done wrong."
"Pathetic." She says again, "Just like her. You think you can just come back and fix all of your mistakes, and poof! They're gone?."
"What are you talking about?"
"Mother. She talks to me, you see. She says how sorry she is. What bullshit."
"Azula, she's dead."
"She's not!" She yells, her fists make a loud thump on her legs. "She can't be, because she won't leave me alone. Not even here. Not like you said."
"I was just trying to—"
"Stop it! Stop helping! All you do is ruin things, you know that, I know that, everyone knows that. You've been a waste ever since you came into this world, and that's not going to change because you want to help people."
Azula's breathing heavy, each breath blows more loose strands of hair from her face. Headlights light up the cabin every few seconds from a nearby street, he can see the blood where she's dug her nails into her palms.
"Go back." Zuko says, and she listens with a slam of the car door. He expects her to make a turn for the road. Even if she had he doesn't think he'd stop her.
When he gets back to the school Sokka is still asleep right where he left him except he's missing his left sock and his hair has completely fallen out of his ponytail. Zuko cleans up the beers cans and turns off the nearly dead computer.
Settling in always comes easy on nights like this. Just before sleeping there's always a finalization, a sort of closure to the day that just can't make room for itself anyplace else. Just as he begins to drift, finally drowning out Sokka's snores, he can hear a shuffle just outside the door. It stops and starts again, the sounds of fabric and someone's shoes pacing. It goes on for more than a minute.
He wishes he hadn't cut off the noise from the laptop, but the thud from the drop of the loft bed doesn't do him any favors. The shuffling stops and the steps start to fade down the hall. Zuko's quick to open the door before they recede completely and manages to catch her just before she's able to turn the corner.
It isn't difficult to tell that she didn't mean to end up here. In fact, Mai looks angry, her glare cutting through right through him. He grabs her hand in case she thinks to turn again and disappear. It's then that she collapses into him pushing her face into his shoulder, her hands snake up to his chest. And it's here that he knows he's not a waste.