Chapter 7: Dysfunctional

I'm a little dysfunctional, don't you know?

If you push me, it might be bad.

Get a little emotional, don't you know?

Might fool around and make me mad.

Don't make me mad.

"Dysfunctional" by Tech N9ne

Katara was sitting on a bench shaded by a large oak tree when Zuko came striding up. She checked the time on her phone: 9:00 am exactly. She had left early, wanting to get there before he did, maybe to prove a point. To her surprise he was carrying two drinks in his hands. Katara appraised them with an arched eyebrow.

"Lavender and mint, right?" Zuko asked as he passed her one of the drinks.

Katara saw the familiar logo on the side. "You went all the way to the Jasmine Dragon for tea? There's coffee shops on campus."

"You did. Yesterday."

"I actually went there to study, but it turned out to be busier than I expected." Zuko arched his brow quizzically and she took a sip of her tea to distract herself. She didn't have to explain herself to him.

"Mm-hm." Katara looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. As usual, his expression was unreadable. "Are you ready to go in? I'd like to grab a room before they're all taken."

"Yeah, sure. Although I'm sure most of our fellow students agree with me when I say 9 am is too early to study on a weekend."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Yet here you are."

"Yet here I am." Katara's lips quirked into something like a smile as she stood up and slung her bag over one shoulder. "Thanks for the tea." She was pleasantly surprised that he had remembered her order.

Zuko gave a subtle half-smirk. "Don't mention it."

Katara followed Zuko into the library. She hadn't been into it yet, but it was clear Zuko was familiar with it. At this time of the day, the library was mostly empty. Katara had been right—clearly no one else wanted to study at this time of the morning, either. Especially not on the weekend.

He walked right over to the circular desk off to one side of the room where a middle-aged man with glasses sat with his nose buried in a book. Katara had to squint to make out the name 'Professor Zei' printed on his badge.

Katara looked around while Zuko signed them up for a study room. There were shelves upon shelves of books, each labeled with the proper genres and alphabetized. There was a computer pod on the right side of the room, and plenty of tables and cozy seating in the middle. There was even an electric fireplace on the far wall. But Zuko wanted a study room. Why? Katara didn't know. Maybe he just wanted the privacy to focus on their assignment?

Her eyes fell back on the conversation between Professor Zei and Zuko in time to see the professor peering around Zuko to survey Katara. She took an involuntary step back. His eyes sparkled with intelligence and they studied her as though she were a fascinating artifact. He didn't break away from his conversation with Zuko, but Katara felt her skin crawl. She stepped behind Zuko and effectively broke the gaze, as he was a head and shoulders taller than her.

Finally, Zuko turned back from the desk and started for the stairs. "I got us a study room reserved for the next three hours. That should be plenty of time."

Katara, thinking of how far she had already gotten on the assignment, nodded as she followed him. "Yeah, that should be more than enough." She glimpsed back at the front desk, but the professor had already stuck his nose back in his book. Katara frowned.

"Is everything okay?" Katara looked up, startled. Zuko followed her gaze back to Professor Zei. "Yeah, he's a bit of an oddball, isn't he?"

"You can say that again," Katara muttered.

Zuko led the way up the stairs and down a hallway to study room 27. The room was small and comfortable, with four chairs scattered around a round table, as though the last occupants hadn't set them straight. Photographs of the college through the years adorned the walls. There was also a well-worn loveseat beneath the window that looked out over the campus.

The window offered a view that spanned across the swatch of grass in front of the library and across the parking lot and campus. The sunlight glinted off of the gilded roofs and gave the college an appearance similar to a Post-Impressionism painting.

Zuko went over to the table and set his drink down. Then he pulled out a chair before moving to the other side of the table and sitting down in his own seat.

Katara sank into the chair as she set down her tea and pulled her backpack into her lap. She quirked a brow at him. "You really are well-mannered, you know."

"Why is that so surprising?" Zuko snapped. He was scowling at her.

Katara held up her hands. "Sorry. I was just trying to be nice."

Zuko let out a huff of frustration. "Forget it." He opened his backpack and pulled out his laptop.

Katara did the same. Her hand brushed over her Bluetooth speaker at the bottom of her bag. She always listened to music when she studied, and now she was wondering if what Aang had said about memory retention was true.

"Do you mind if I play some music?" Katara asked him.

Zuko looked up from his computer screen. A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. "Sure, as long as I can play my music next time."

Her eyebrows rose. "Next time?"

"It doesn't sound like this will be the last time we have to do a project together for Comm, Katara," Zuko drawled. The small smile was still playing on his lips. "Don't you think?"

Katara felt heat creep into her cheeks. "Oh, right." She pulled out her speaker and connected her phone to it. She scrolled through her playlists. "Any requests or preferences?"

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Play whatever you want."

Katara continued to scroll through her playlists, wondering what she should play. With a wicked smile, she decided to gauge his reaction. She shuffled Infinity On High. The first song to play was The Take Over, the Breaks Over. When Katara looked up at him, he was smirking crookedly back at her.

"Is this okay?" Katara asked with a faux-shy smile. Clearly, he was entertained by her choice of music.

The smirk was back on his face. "This is just fine." He grabbed his drink and took a sip.

Katara eyed it. Whatever it was, it looked good. It was a blended drink that was a mix of red, blue, and purple. "What is that?" she asked, nodding toward his drink.

Zuko glanced over at it. "It's a secret menu item. It's called Dragonslayer."

"Secret menu item?" Katara opened her laptop and typed in her password, frowning curiously. "We have a secret menu?"

"Nope. I have a secret menu. If my uncle knew I infused his jasmine tea with an energy drink, he would disown me."

At that Zuko chuckled. It was the second time Katara had ever heard him laugh, and she stared at him for a moment, a pleasantly surprised smile on her face. He caught her gaze and Katara looked away, blushing.

She recovered by letting out a little laugh. "I can't see Iroh doing that. He seems so laid back and chill."

"Don't let his happy-go-lucky persona fool you. He's as ruthless as a war general when he wants to be, especially when it comes to tea." Zuko fixed her with a hard look. "He nearly disowned me when I told him that tea is just hot leaf juice."

"I mean, it's true." She snickered.

Zuko stretched as he spoke, jerking his chin in her direction. Katara was rewarded with the sight of a sliver of pale skin above the waistband of his jeans, and Katara tried to ignore the way her heartbeat sped up in her chest. "I know that, but you go try and explain that to my uncle and see how far it gets you."

She was surprised to find that they were actually getting along, and that she was enjoying herself. That had been the last thing she had expected to feel today. But this light joking between them had seemed to break the remaining tension, and Katara found that she was grateful for it.

"So what is it, exactly?" Katara asked, nodding to his drink, as she opened up the outline she had typed up yesterday. "It looks good."

"Like I said, it's jasmine tea. I blended it with a blue raspberry energy drink and added raspberry and some blackberry drizzle." To her surprise, he slid it across the table to her. "You can try it, if you want."

"Yeah, sure."

Katara did want to try it. She grabbed it and brought the straw to her mouth, trying not to think about how his mouth had been on that straw. She took a small sip and was greeted with a pleasant, fruity flavor that had the sharp bite of an energy drink. She could taste the tang of raspberry, blackberry, and blue raspberry, as well as the soft flavor of jasmine underneath. It was delicious.

"Mm," Katara couldn't help but moan. She took one more sip. "That's really good, Zuko." She looked up to see him smiling genuinely at her. She returned the look as she passed the drink back to him. "I want one of those next time, if you ever bring us drinks again."

His eyes twinkled with amusement. "I'll remember that."

Katara smiled and dropped her eyes back to her screen, hoping he didn't see her blush. We are not going there, Katara. I don't care what Suki said.

She cleared her throat. "So I got started a little bit yesterday. I found a topic we both might be interested in and I started drafting our speech. Do you want to see what I have so far?"

"Sure."

Katara turned her laptop around and pushed it toward him. Zuko pulled it closer and started skimming over her work. She watched his expression go from neutral to angry in less than ten seconds. He spun the laptop around and shoved it, rather hard, back across the table at her. Katara startled at the abrupt display of anger.

"No. We're not doing that topic," Zuko said, his voice low and angry.

Katara frowned. "What? Why not?" She had thought he would like it. She wondered what had triggered his temper.

"Because we're just not."

Katara narrowed her eyes at him. Who did he think he was? "I'm sorry, who put you in charge? This is a good story to do a speech and a report on, given both of our majors. And I already put some work into it. I spent practically all afternoon on it yesterday!"

"That's not my problem. We're supposed to be working on this together, and you didn't even ask my opinion. And my opinion is that I don't want to do this topic."

Katara clenched her hands in frustration. She didn't want to fight with him, but he was being unreasonable! And she didn't like the way he was talking to her, like she was an insolent child and he was the frustrated parent telling her off. Maybe she should have asked him first, but she didn't understand why he had to be so angry about it.

"Why the hell not?"

Zuko's eyes flashed to hers. They were like twin flames. For several moments he didn't respond. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, and she could see the tense set of his shoulders. Katara knew she was heading into dangerous waters, but she was also sick of him acting like he had the final word. Before she could question her resolve, she scowled at him.

"Give me one valid reason why we shouldn't do our project on this issue with Sozin's Corp.," Katara said.

Zuko leaned across the table toward her. "I don't have to give you a reason. I'm not doing it. We can find another topic."

Katara growled in frustration. She gestured angrily to her laptop. "This topic is perfect. It literally works for both of our majors. And I already started working on it!"

"You should have waited until today so we could come up with a topic together," Zuko spat back at her.

"If you can't give me a reason why we can't work on this one, then there's no good reason not to do the report on Sozin's Corp!"

His tone was flat. "No."

Katara gave him a scathing look. With an irate huff, she slammed her laptop closed and shoved it into her backpack. When he didn't react, she jammed her finger onto her speaker's power button. The silence was heavy with the music gone, but Katara didn't care. She threw it into her bag. Zuko glowered at her wordlessly as she stood up and shrugged her backpack onto her shoulders.

"Since you've decided to be so damn unreasonable, I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my Sunday," she snapped at him. She reached for the doorknob and yanked it open with more force than necessary. "Call me when you're done with being a total jerk, Zuko. Though I doubt that will ever happen."

"Yeah, don't hold your breath."

The tone of his voice made her look back over her shoulder at him. There was no heat to his words, no malice. He had gotten to his feet, and he was leaning over the table, his fists pressed against the tabletop. He wasn't looking at her, but rather, his gaze was fixed on his whitening knuckles.

He didn't look angry anymore. He almost looked...regretful.

Katara hesitated in the doorway, feeling a sharp tug on her heart strings. Her first reaction was to be frustrated with him for the way he had talked to her. But, as usual, she could hear Gran-Gran's voice in the back of her mind, telling her to be forgiving and that people deserved a second chance.

With a heavy sigh, she finally spoke up. "Zuko?"

He raised his head to look at her. His face was stoic again, but his eyes burned bright. He exhaled and straightened, running one hand through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be a jerk, and I'm not trying to disregard the work you put in, but I really can't do the project on that particular subject."

Katara crossed her arms over her chest as she appraised him. "Can you at least tell me why?"

"No." She arched a brow at him, and he growled low in his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Not right now, okay?"

She scoffed. "Seriously? You blow up on me, and expect me to be okay with it, without an explanation?"

He looked at her. He almost seemed to be pleading with her with his eyes. "Yes." He rapped his fingers on the tabletop and let out a heavy sigh. "Look, after we're done here, I'll tell you. Okay?"

She could hear the word he didn't say in the undercurrent of his voice: please. He was trying. That seemed to be the most he was willing, or able, to compromise.

"Okay," Katara said after a moment.

She sat back down at the table, and Zuko seemed to relax. He dropped into his seat as well, and then the two of them began to work on their project.