Chapter Six: The Danger Zone Shoes
In the high school hallway, Ty Lee's lips break free of her boyfriend's.
With an apologetic expression, he hastily says, "I've gotta go," and slings his backpack over his shoulder. He disappears down the cold hall and Ty Lee turns to face her locker.
She smashes her face against the metal three times, hard enough to make her head spin. Making out with Haru did not help anything. She had such high hopes, and now they are crushed.
Mai arrives in time to witness Ty Lee hissing at her reflection in the locker mirror. Now, Mai has seen Ty Lee do stranger things than that, but she cannot help but be curious about the source of her friend's frustration.
"Why are you doing that?" Mai coldly asks, dropping her backpack. Thud.
The intelligent and apathetic part of her wants to avoid getting tangled up in whatever trivial trouble Ty Lee is moping about, but the sadistic side of her desperately wants to know. Perhaps the friend part of her too, but Mai tends to dismiss that portion of her personality.
Mai does not even have to ask, because Ty Lee takes a deep breath and stares directly into her amber eyes.
"I can't look at Azula today," cries Ty Lee. She grabs Mai by the wrists. "Help me to not look at Azula. Please."
"I've never seen a day pass when you haven't gazed at her longingly," Mai says, uncertain how the tides could turn so suddenly.
Ty Lee blushes pinker than her hair ribbon. "I had such an uncomfortable night. I woke up at like three from this sex nightmare—"
Mai actually laughs. Ty Lee scowls at her. Of all the things for Mai let herself laugh about, it has to be something that is so super serious.
"What's a sex nightmare?" she asks, setting her book back in her locker and leaning against it.
"It's a sex nightmare when it's about Azula Shinohai," Ty Lee whispers.
Mai shrugs. "Understandable. Continue."
"That's the whole story." Ty Lee turns her palms up. "Well, I guess in the nightmare there was a lightning storm, and she had nothing on and—"
"Okay. Good story. Please don't tell it again," Mai hurriedly declares.
"You are so unsympathetic!" Ty Lee wails and two seniors turn to stare. Mai stares back and they swiftly look away.
"Thank you. I try." Mai grabs her textbook and sighs.
Ty Lee sticks her tongue at out Mai and vanishes down the hall… before walking backwards to pick up her bag. Once she has her backpack, she bolts with her cheeks on fire.
Mai never tires of Azula and Ty Lee. They might never act on their mutual feelings and keep this madness going for years. Could Mai tell them both that it is mutual? Yes. Will she? No way in Hell.
Azula arrives mere moments after Ty Lee fled.
She is wearing her danger zone shoes. The crumpled cardigan and skirt with the paint stain on it are omens on their own, but it is the shoes that stomp the nail into the coffin.
This is not a day to even make eye contact with Azula Shinohai.
Therefore, Mai wishes she were violently ill in bed at home right now. She has only two friends in her pointless life and today one is amped and terrified, while the other is moments away from turning Los Angeles into Pompeii.
"Stop staring at my shoes," Azula snaps. "I know they are hideous, like you and your soul and everyone you ever loved."
"Yeah. You're right." Mai is not touching the danger zone shoes with a ten-foot pole.
Ty Lee would do something bubbly and cute to distract Azula, or maybe she would be optimistic enough to ask her about her problems. Mai will fade into the walls until the day ends so she can leave this glorified ivy league preschool and take a nap.
Coldly, Azula says, "Where's Ty Lee? Why is she not waiting for me? Does she have no respect for the friendship I have gifted her? I mean, I am far too good for her and we are astronomically out of her league." Pause. "I asked you a question."
"She kis—she ran off because she had a nightmare." Mai sincerely wishes she had not even started to mention Haru.
Azula does not seem to notice. She must be too absorbed in herself.
"I will see you in class," she says in the most ominous way a person could say those six words.
Mai sighs.
[X]
Azula tries to hold it together today.
She does. Her artificial sugar is sweeter than pie, but her true attitude is sourer than lemon juice. It takes highly trained poise to remain utterly perfect for seven hours when she wants to curl up and cry or perhaps shove unpleasant people out of third floor windows.
She almost makes it through the day before she takes a dive down the spiral staircase and douses herself in Monster. It smells like candy vomited all over her, and her white shirt is drenched, revealing a blood red lace bra.
The stunned Azula Shinohai just lies there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and coaching herself in her head.
You are the master of your fate. You will not let anything best you, especially not stairs or whatever else life throws at her. You will not let your thoughts control you.
You will not be offended when your best friend sees you lying there and runs in the opposite direction.
"Here," says some freshman girl, extending a hand.
Azula must have heard her name a few times in such a small school, but she never bothered to remember it. Yet, this nobody with poorly kept hair took time out of her day to help Azula clean herself up, and ran to the uniform exchange to steal her a new shirt and sweater, and told her extremely boring things about her life that she did not listen to.
All of that is Ty Lee's job.
[X]
Azula vanishes; Mai and Ty Lee are grateful. The two girls spend their afternoon on the lower school playground. They are alone save for some kids playing overly enthusiastic soccer on the nearby field.
Mai stands on the merry-go-round because she likes to live dangerously, and Ty Lee rocks back and forth on a swing. It is quite frightening to see Ty Lee looking so down. Mai should do something about it, but she will not.
"Can she read my mind?" Ty Lee asks, wringing her braid.
Mai tiredly replies, "Can we not talk about Azula for the first time in our lives?"
Ty Lee ignores her. "She's so pissed at me."
"Yeah. Because you ran off on her while she was wearing her danger zone shoes. She's probably really sad about it, or really angry, or both or something. You hurt her and she doesn't have her metaphorical bitch armor on today."
"I was just scared of taking her clothes off!" Ty Lee shrieks.
Mai sighs again. "You're pathetic."
Ty Lee breathes, "I know."
"Do you want me to make you a screwdriver or two when we get home?" Mai very kindly offers.
"Hot chocolate?" Ty Lee hopefully whispers.
"Yeah, no." Mai kicks off on the merry-go-round and lets herself spin.
[X]
Ty Lee does not think spying on Azula is weird. Azula was hurt and angry about today that Ty Lee is just being a good friend by watching from her window while half-hidden behind her pink curtains.
There is nothing wrong with making sure your best friend is okay, right?
When Azula finally enters her bedroom, Ty Lee can already see that she is not herself, or maybe is her true self under the perpetual mask of perfection. Slowly, Azula walks towards her dresser and stands there, very still, her hair down, masking her expression. It feels like the entire world has held its breath.
Then Azula seizes her lamp and throws it at the wall with an impressive velocity. The crash and shock make Ty Lee slip forward, forward, forward and now she is the crashing sound.
The pain when she hits the ground is indescribable.
Azula hears the screaming and forces her window open. She looks down and sees that horrible traitor half-mangled on her lawn. Azula decides to ignore it until she notices the blood. Sigh. Now she has to do something about it.
She walks down her gaudy spiral stairs and walks outside, climbs over Ty Lee's fence, and looms over her friend's body.
"You look… fine," Azula lies. She probably could have thought of something better.
"I'm not fine," Ty Lee squeaks. Tears roll down her flushed cheeks.
"Do you need to go to the hospital?" Please say no, please say no.
"Yeah. Probably. Are you gonna call an ambulance because I would be way too embarrassed —"
"No. I'm going to call my brother. I will be back," Azula bitterly says, as if saving Ty Lee's life is an incredible inconvenience.
To Azula, it is.
She abandons Ty Lee and clambers up the fence again. She walks leisurely through the endless mansion and arrives at the eighth bedroom – the furthest from her father's – to witness Zuko watching Netflix, as he always is. Maybe she should get suspended from school; it seems pleasant.
"What?" Zuko groans, looking up from his apparently very riveting martial arts movie.
"You need to drive Ty Lee to the hospital." Azula shrugs one shoulder. Zuko glowers.
"I'm not allowed to drive," he says. "Father loves his cars much more than he loves me, and I am not to touch anything that isn't necessary to my survival."
"Necessary to your survival, you say?" Azula says and Zuko's skin prickles. "I will murder you, and there will be no consequences, so do not take that threat lightly."
Zuko sees the panic on her face and sighs. He has never seen his sister look like that before, which means it probably is not an empty threat.
He groans and agrees, "I'll drive your girlfriend to the hospital."
"She's not my girlfriend," viciously snaps his little sister.
"Of course." Zuko rolls his eyes, gets up and finds his jacket.
[X]
Once Zuko gets Ty Lee over his shoulder and Azula opens all doors and gates, they see Mai waiting, seated on the shimmering black hood of a car Zuko is definitely not permitted to drive. He nearly drops Ty Lee when he accidentally meets her gaze.
"What do you need?" Azula snaps, yanking open the door of the car.
Mai hops down from her perch. "A part in this."
"Get in," Zuko grunts before turning to Ty Lee. "Don't get blood in the car."
"Seriously?" Mai demands, almost driven to laughter. "Just shut up and drive to the hospital."
They make it inside, but definitely not as quickly as empathetic human beings would.
As for Mai and Zuko, Ty Lee wishes she were lucid enough to prevent the destruction of her matchmaking progress. She would kind of rather stay alive than get them to kiss, but it is still tragic.
As soon as Zuko starts driving, his palms too coated in nervous sweat to stay properly on the wheel, Mai turns to Ty Lee.
"So, how'd you fall out of your window?" she asks, trying to attract Azula's attention by staring at her. It does not work.
"I, uh, saw a spider," Ty Lee chirps, nervously glancing at the back of the passenger seat. Azula seems to still be livid about Ty Lee abandoning her today, and therefore ignores both of her best friends. Former best friends.
"You saw a spider… outside… on the second story of your house…" Mai drawls, waiting for Azula to catch on. Please; the girl can read strangers like books but she doesn't get this?
"Yeah. I did." Ty Lee blushes and tries not to look at the girl she was spying on.
Mai again glances at Azula and decides that Miss Shinohai has reached a new level of oblivious.
Chapter Six: The Wedding Dress Day
The inhabitants of Azula's apartment stand in the unused kitchen around the glistening island. Ty Lee thumbs through the tabloid of terror as Azula and her father hold some sort of war meeting. Mai leans back and watches from afar; no one will involve her.
Ty Lee breaks the silence with, "Oh! I read in this magazine about Zuko knocking his hippie girlfriend up that a good wedding idea is to have mismatched plates and silverware but make them all cohesive. I like it. Do you like it, Azula?"
"I don't care." Azula crosses her arms, her smoldering eyes locked on her father. "I have just realized that Zuko is obsessed with being honorable – and therefore will be a permanent failure – and that repulsive woman will be trapped in our family forever. Now, he has never had a tolerable girlfriend before in his life, but she is by far the worst."
"Your fiancée was his girlfriend," Mai casually points out.
"So were you," Azula snaps, "and I entirely stand by that statement. She is, however, one of the most despicable people I have ever met and I could barely handle a single holiday with her, much less infinite holidays."
"Are you gonna uninvite her from our wedding?" Ty Lee inquires.
"She was never invited in the first place," growls Azula Shinohai.
Ty Lee, oblivious as ever, says, "But we agreed people could bring dates, and if Zuko is dating her then—"
Azula turns around so quickly that she gives herself whiplash. "Then we will uninvite Zuko. And also my mother and all of your family while we're at it. We haven't even started on invitations yet so it should be easy."
Mai mockingly raises her hand. "Can I uninvite myself?"
"You can decline when I send you an invitation," says Azula through her bared teeth.
"Yeah, but, you could just not send me one," Mai offers. It feels like wearing a dress made of meat inside of a tiger cage.
"Why don't you want to come?" Ty Lee wails.
Mai explains, "I'm not coming if your mother and Zuko and Ty Lee's sisters aren't. I hate weddings, unless they're guaranteed to have gruesome catfights and more gruesome father-son fistfights."
Ty Lee shrieks, "No one is fistfighting or catfighting at my wedding!"
"I think we have forgotten our conversation," Azula crisply declares. "What do we do about Zuko's tragic sin? Do we disown him? I suggest disowning him and filing a restraining order. A three-thousand-mile one, if that's a legal option."
Ozai speaks for the first time since he threw that magazine onto his daughter's coffee table. "I would do both of those things if my father were dead and already gave me all of his money. Hopefully, this will go so horrifically wrong that your grandfather will disown him for us."
Azula's eyebrow twitches and she seizes Ty Lee by the arm. "I am going outside. Ty Lee, come to the balcony and split a cigarette with me while we try to figure out what to do about Zuko's plus two."
"Well, I really… okay, stop pulling on me, I'm coming!" Ty Lee stumbles after her fiancée.
Mai gazes after them before looking up at Ozai. "I don't want to say this about your children, but I think they might be in love with each other."
He does not have the energy to think about that, thank God. He just remarks, "Well, if you can prove it, my father will probably write them both out of the will."
[X]
In order to avoid further mention of Zuko, Ty Lee plans wedding dress shopping. Mai is given an imposition and does not have the energy to resist.
On that very special and torturous day, Mai wakes and enters the living room. Azula somberly watches television with her hair soaking and down over her shoulders. The only sound in the apartment is the voice of Gordon Ramsay and superfluous sobbing.
"What show?" Mai bluntly asks, seeking the coffee pot.
"Hotel Hell," Azula replies. "I'm almost done, anyway. We're about to get to the part when he makes everything better and everyone is happy."
"So, why do you watch the show?" Mai does the same, but feigning interest in Azula is always a wise move.
"Oh, I just like to watch people's dreams be crushed." Well, that is why Mai watches too. "It is satisfying in ways you cannot understand."
Mai does not point out that she can and instead says the first comment that comes to mind. "You should buy a hotel."
"My family has a hotel chain already. It's boring." Azula pointedly yawns.
"Not the Brimstone." Mai finishes pouring her coffee and walks to stand a few feet away from the sitting room furniture.
Azula airily retorts, "That doesn't count. It's not really a hotel. It's a resort and casino."
"With guests, and rooms, and other hotel bullshit," Mai mutters to herself.
Azula overhears. "Mai, God willing, I shall own the Brimstone one day, and if you keep arguing with me, I will ban you from it forever."
Mai is about to say that she has not argued once this morning, but then she sees a dreadful sight. "I didn't notice you were wearing jeans. I… I'm not sure you should go wedding dress shopping today."
"What do jeans have to do with that?" snarls Azula.
"Nothing. Nothing at all…" Mai dares to sit down near stepdaughter.
Ty Lee's cat flees Azula's lap and goes to rub against Mai again.
"Sparkle, you damned traitor! You are going to be an outdoor cat now until you get hit by a car and burn in cat hell." Azula sits down very calmly after that confusing outburst and changes the channel on the television.
Mai scratches the cat's neck. Poor Sparkle; he has no idea about proper Azula-wearing-jeans protocol.
Ozai enters and comments fluidly, "Those jeans look lovely on you, princess."
"Why does everyone care about my clothing choices?" Azula softly says. The quieter she gets, the scarier she gets. "I have not criticized you for wearing a suit at five in the morning and I have not criticized you for wearing something that does not even qualify as clothing in my home, in front of my cat and my Bunny."
"No one is criticizing you," Ozai calmly says. "They look nice."
Mai is not so confident. "I broke my necklace. I can't go shopping with you.
Ozai suggests, for the sake of everyone in his family, "We both can watch Bunny."
Azula has never heard such an absurd idea. "No, father, you are watching Bunny and bonding with your future granddaughter, and, Mai, you are going to be a buffer between me and Ty Lee on this horrid day. Your necklace doesn't matter."
Mai swallows and manages to keep stoic, despite her internal terror. "No, it's the necklace that had a USB in it, but I ripped the USB out and…"
"You. Are. Coming," orders Azula.
The conversation ends when Ty Lee claps her hands, enters the living room and declares, "It's my wedding dress day! And no one will ruin it!"
[X]
Surprisingly, it is not Azula who destroys the shopping trip; Ty Lee ruins her own wedding dress day because she asks Mai why she has a salt shaker in her purse, which was apparently a devastating invasion of privacy. Things go downhill from there.
"You don't ask people why they have drugs with them while shopping for wedding dresses," Azula hisses as they exit the sixth boutique of the day. Perhaps she should have repaired Mai's necklace beforehand. "She's miserable enough doing this." Pause. "Almost as miserable as me."
"You get to try on dresses too! And I didn't know it was drugs!" Ty Lee shrilly complains, taking Azula by the hand.
Their wedding preparations are jumbled and have been fumbled through for the past months. Azula and Ty Lee decided to look at dresses before choosing a day. Or season. Or year. The guest list consists of three arguments about Ursa Shinohai and stops there. But dresses? Dresses cannot go wrong… or so they believed.
"Just don't do that kind of thing," Azula says, failing to pull her hand away from Ty Lee's vice grip.
"There are so many smarter places to put that anyway," Ty Lee complains. She knows she is in the right. She knows it. "Like I can't think of a place right now but there definitely have to be like ten."
"Please just walk silently to the next boutique," Azula exasperatedly demands. "We are not making adequate progress."
Ty Lee stops Azula in the middle of the sidewalk. She forces disgruntled pedestrians to walk around them as she says, "We need to split up and find dresses separately, I keep saying. "This is such bad luck!"
Azula stares Ty Lee down, and Ty Lee averts her eyes first. All people do.
"Please," Azula says, "I think I broke a funhouse of mirrors in my sleep shortly before I came home from a hospital to find my girlfriend dating my brother."
"Did you really?" Ty Lee asks, perking up.
"Sometimes I worry about you," Azula whispers, and Ty Lee takes it as a compliment. Azula realizes she has to explain herself. "No, of course I didn't, and I will continue pretending to forgive you for the cruel act of kissing Zuko in front of me more than once without properly breaking up in the first place. Now before we have a repeat of that incident, I would like to make our wedding planning slightly less maddening."
Ty Lee sighs and releases her Princess Charming.
"We should stick together," she admits. "We don't even know the color scheme or anything so we totally need to make sure the designs don't clash but fit us perfectly."
"Bad luck be damned?"
"Bad luck be damned."
[X]
Two boutiques later, Azula and her stepmother sit on stone steps. They both have lost count of both time and dresses, and demanded a break. Therefore, Ty Lee focuses on looking up somewhere to find lunch.
"I'm serious about those bridesmaid dresses. I will never wear that shade of purple," Mai insists, fanning her face with her hand. A New York winter is not enough to cool her down after a boutique that must double as a furnace.
"Mai," Azula scathingly orders, "just comply with the colors. It was a difficult enough battle to avoid a baby girl pink wedding. We settled on lavender, and I have seen you wear purple before."
"I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up at all. Why don't you get your damned brother to be your Best Man like a normal person?"
"Not normal people who hate their brothers. Or don't have brothers." Azula glares.
"She's not going to decide today. No one is going to decide today. This will be a waste of time." Mai sighs. "Like all things in life."
Azula cannot argue with that.
[X]
Azula decides to try on dresses next. She abandons Ty Lee and Mai, and currently is terrifying a dressmaker. Mai shakes her head at the jeans and wonders why anyone let this excursion happen in the first place. Ty Lee examines a few of the display dresses before sitting down beside Mai yet again. Her soon to be mother-in-law looks bored and displeased, like an annoyed cat.
Ty Lee promises herself not to ever look through Mai's purse again.
She sits there playing with her phone. Mai does the same.
Ty Lee cannot stand the silence anymore, so she turns to her old best friend. "So, I guess we can talk about bridesmaid dresses and stuff, since you're totally going to be something for Azula – I love you too but Azula needs you way more – and I am so torn between various shades of light purple."
"I already had this discussion with Azula an hour ago. I am not wearing lavender," Mai says. "I don't care if your wedding is lavender. It makes me queasy."
"Do you have a better suggestion?" Ty Lee says. "I want my wedding to be light and romantic like a daydream. Lavender is necessary. You may not wear a black bridesmaid dress."
Mai poses an excellent suggestion. "You could have a black and white wedding with accents of lavender."
"So my wedding could easily be mistaken for a funeral?" Ty Lee hisses, her eyes flashing viciously. The bridezilla in her roars, and she does not give a damn.
"No. I just would rather die than wear that color," Mai fearlessly replies.
"Then don't be in my wedding." Ty Lee returns her attention to her phone.
"It is also Azula's wedding, and she won't let me drop out of the wedding party. You go argue with Azula and her danger zone jeans. Go ahead." Mai won; she knows it.
Ty Lee looks up at Azula and her expression sours. She turns back to Mai. "Would you wear a darker purple?"
"Possibly." Mai sighs. "Can't I get away with wearing black and white if I'm Best Man? It's basically a girl-tux."
Ty Lee has no idea why Mai is so adamant about black and white. And so she cannot help but ask, "Did you have a black and white wedding?"
"Ty Lee, I eloped to Las Vegas after flipping a coin and went to a wedding chapel that had a misspelled sign declaring that it was open seven days a week until three AM. I didn't spend much time thinking about the color scheme in the roughly twelve hours between my engagement and marriage."
"I just can't imagine Azula's dad doing that." Ty Lee touches her fake nails to her coral lips.
"I have photos," Mai soberly states. "They offered them like the ones you get on roller coasters."
"Did you try ultra-hard to show no emotion in order to look like a badass like you do in roller coaster pictures?"
Mai shakes her head. "Unfortunately not."
Azula walks out of the dressing room before Ty Lee can question Mai further.
"You look like a princess!" Ty Lee squeals.
And Azula icily retorts, "I always look like a princess, sweetheart."
Ty Lee is far too blinded by love and afraid of those temporarily discarded jeans to disagree.
