Hey, everyone! I'm sorry this took me so long, but I kind of didn't know where to go with this chapter, since I didn't want Katara's and Ozai's meeting to happen just yet. Anyway, I believe I made he chapter quite okay, at least, a bit funny.
Please let me know what you think!
I don't own Avatar The Last Airbender, nor its characters.
Chapter Ten
It sure felt strange to Katara having Sokka and Toph in her apartment for an initiation party, but not Aang. Well, Sokka was her brother, so of course he was here. After all, dad, mum, and gran gran were there, too.
It had been her mother's idea to have an initiation party. They had brought all the ingredients one needed to have a Southern province dinner, and Katara loved it.
Sitting at her new table with her family and one friend was really nice and fun. It were those moments when Katara felt very thanful to have such a good life.
But someone was missing. Katara knew that everyone felt it, but no one actually asked why Aang wasn't here. Her family knew that she had broken up with him, but she had told them that she wanted to stay friends with him. Thus he should be here. But of course Katara knew that having Aang here would only feel stranger, but she couldn't help but miss him. He was not the one she wanted to spend her life with in a romantic way, but he had also been her best friend and by her side since five years. She was mostly glad being on her own for the first time, since she thought she needed this to figure out who she was and what she wanted, but being alone with all this silence all this time felt depressing. At least in the last two days. She hadn't had a lot to do then, and had had to listen to the radio the whole time in order to not feel that alone.
She had even asked Toph if she could invite Aang, but Toph had shaken her head and told her that this was a dumb idea. Aang wasn't ready yet to treat her like a friend. Katara had been very sad at that, but it wasn't as if there was anything about it she could do.
But what would Aang think if the meeting with Kasaishi Ozai went well, and Katara would agree to become Zuko's fake girlfriend? All of her friends thought she hated him! Apart from Sokka maybe, but only because he had been there, when they had met at the coffee shop. And would Aang become jealous? Would it maybe destroy their friendship once and for all? That she would have a new "boyfriend" three months after they broke up? What would this say about her?
Trying to fight off those thoughts she tried to concentrate on the game they were playing.
Her parents and gran gran had left half an hour ago, and that was when Toph and Sokka had bright out the alcohol and the games.
Toph had come up with a term and they needed to figure out which one it was.
"So..." Sokka said. "You're not human, you aren't an alien from a film or book, nor a plant, or an animal."
Toph nodded in affirmation.
"Are you inanimate?" Katara asked, happy to be able to concentrate on her brother and friend once again.
"Yes!" Toph exclaimed. "Come on, Sugar Queen, you have to guess this one right! You can't let Sokka win!"
"Hey! Why not me?" Sokka asked with a lot of indignation.
"Because you're a bad winner," Toph said.
"Are you a rock?" Katara asked.
Toph frowned. "Not really."
"Are you made of rock?" Sokka probed.
Toph nodded.
"Oh, I know, you're a statue!" he exclaimed.
Toph grimaced. "Nope."
"Uh... a house?"
"Nope."
"Are you also made of other earthly materials than rock?" Katara asked.
Toph frowned and shook her head. "I don't think so. But guys, just because I'm inanimate doesn't mean I can't move!"
Katara only raised her eyebrows, smiling lightly, but feeling quite lost.
Sokka stroked his chin and furrowed his brows, making his "thinking-hard"-face. "Hmmm..."
"An earthquake!" Katara exclaimed.
"No!" groaned Toph.
"A rock slip!" Sokka said with utter satisfaction, thinking he guessed right.
Toph rolled her eyes. "Noooo!"
"Stop that, Toph! It's not like you picked something easy!" Sokka complained, and Katara nodded affirmatively.
"Okay, but one of you could still think unexpectedly about the right thing!" Toph huffed and crossed her arms.
"Moving earth..." Sokka thought again.
"Are you found on earth?" Katara asked, after they had thought of lava, magma, and a sandstorm.
"Normally not," Toph said grinning.
"You're a comet!" Katara cried out, just when Sokka shouted "An asteroid!"
Both looked eagerly waiting at Toph, both hoping to be the winner.
Sokka just couldn't win! Toph was right, he was a terrible winner!
Please be a comet! Please be a comet!
"Katara is right!" Toph cried and threw one fist in the air.
"Wuhoo! Yeah!" Katara cheered, dancing a bit on her spot on the couch.
"Nooooo!" Sokka cried and immediately started to argument about how his word was somehow also right.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Toph said. "You're even a worse loser than winner." She grinned evilly, while Katara tried to stifle her chuckles.
Sokka just glared at her, but drank from his drink anyway. Then he grimaced and pointed a finger at Katara. "This drinking game you came up with sucks. Everyone wants to win and it takes quite some time to actually take a sip! No one will ever get drunk with this game!"
Katara rolled her eyes. "Drinking games are not about getting drunk, Sokka."
He just blinked at her, while Toph groaned.
"Let me guess, Aang had been rubbing off on you, and you think drinking games are about fun!"
Katara frowned and fought the blush on her cheeks. "That's not true," she murmured.
Toph cackled loudly, while Sokka watched Katara with a frown on his face.
She felt uneasy under his gaze, and didn't know how she liked it that Aang had had such an influence on her.
"Don't tell him that!" she quickly said.
"Why not?" Toph asked.
Sokka rolled his eyes. "He'd think he might still have a chance knowing he was a big influence on her."
Katara groaned. "Yes, that's true, but I also think drinking is for fun, so when a drinking game is for fun, then just because it's for drinking!" She huffed indignantly and raised her nose up in the air.
"That's what we want to hear!" Toph complimented her, applauding.
Sokka smiled, but looked a bit sad.
"What is it, Sokka?" Katara wanted to know.
He took a sip of his drink again. "I just wondered... when Aang can hang with us again. I mean I'm still hanging with him! But all of us together?"
Toph remained silent, while Katara fidgeted and looked at the ground.
"I miss it, too," she said.
"Okay okay!" Toph shouted. "We get it! Now stop all this sadness, and let's party again!"
Kazara and Sokka stared at her in bewilderment.
"It's not like we held one hour speeches about that," Katara argued, crossing her arms and feeling pretty annoyed now by Toph. Geez, she had only said that she missed it, but apparently the littlest bit of emotions made Toph feeling unsettled.
Sokka sighed. "Okay: truth or dare!"
"Wuuh!"
Sokka emptied a beer bottle, made "Ah!" and put it on the floor in front of him. He spun it, and Katara thought about all the questions they could ask which would be overtly embarrassing.
Truth or dare with Toph and Sokka, two people who liked to embarrass others, but hated getting embarrassed themselves, had an extra rule. If someone didn't want to answer a question or dare to do something, they could just drink a sip of something alcoholic. Toph and Sokka were both every time the most drunk people after this game.
The bottle pointed at Katara.
Oh no.
"Truth or dare, Katara?" Sokka asked, grinning evilly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Dare."
He twisted his mouth. "I dare you to call a friend and tell him or her that you don't want to be friends with them anymore."
Katara groaned again, but decided to do it. She was pretty sure that Sokka and Toph would rather drink all the time, and one of them had to stay sober to keep thinking straight.
She decided to call Jet. It wouldn't do much harm, if he thought she didn't want to be friends with him anymore.
"Hello?" he asked after the third ringing.
"Hi, this is Katara. Look, I want you to know that I don't want to be friends with you," she said sternly.
She was met with silence, and thought about ending the call, since Sokka scowled at her, saying her without words that she could not say she was only doing this for truth or dare.
"Does that mean you want to be more than friends?"
"What? No!" Katara yelped immediately, feeling shocked.
"Katara!" Sokka said warningly.
"Good. It would have been very weird you and me being together, while you're faking being Zuko's girlfriend," Jet went on, but took a breath, as if a thought had come up. "You... Do you mean you don't want to have something to do with me?"
"I don't want us to be friends," she said, feeling very uncomfortable and glaring at Sokka who was grinning now. "So bye." She ended the call and hoped she could text him later to tell him why she had told him that.
oOo
"Uh, that was Katara," Jet said from his place next to Zuko.
He raised his eyebrows. "What did she want?"
"She told me she didn't want us to be friends," Jet said, utter shock shown on his face.
For one moment Zuko felt anger rise in him, but then he just started to laugh out loud.
"What's so funny?" Jet barked.
Zuko couldn't help himself.
Katara hadn't even agreed to fake-date him yet, but she was already demanding who he could be friends with? Especially since it was now just the other way around as it had been in high school.
"I didn't do anything to offend her, did I?" Jet asked, now sounding a bit unsure.
Zuko stopped his laughter and let chuckles shake his shoulders a bit. "I don't know," he gasped.
"Would you now kindly tell me what was so funny?"
"I just thought that it was typical for Katara. You know, same thing as in highschool basically but the other way around." He shrugged, still smiling, although he knew he would have to talk to Katara about this.
Jet blinked. "Ey, she didn't say we couldn't be friends, but that she didn't want to be friends with me."
Zuko's eyes widened in understanding. Well, that was slightly better, but not better understandable.
"Well, then I guess you did something to offend her," he said, shrugging.
oOo
"Well done," Sokka applauded. "Who did you call?"
Katara huffed. As if she would tell him! "That was not part of the exercise! I don't have to tell you!"
Toph grabbed for the bottle on the floor with surprisingly good aim and shoved it in Katara's direction. "Your turn."
They play a few rounds, in which Toph and Sokka bothe don't want to answer embarrassing questions and rather drink. Katara had answered questions about her teenage years, the things she had done when she had hung out with Jet and his friends those few times, which embarrassed her quite a lot.
Toph just cackled, and while Sokka had first pressed his palms to his ears the alcohol seemed to make him forget that Katara was his sister and he was supposed to be embarrassed.
But mostly she had to do stupid things like going buy more beer, massaging Toph's shoulders and feeding Sokka with chips. At least it hadn't been anything worse.
"Truth or dare, Katara?" Toph asked.
"Truth."
"Are you currently dating someone new?"
Katara blinked. Er... Should she tell them that she was thinking about dating Zuko? Even if it was fake, which she wouldn't tell them, normally her friends were used to her talking to them about things like that. So if she resided to fake date him, then her friends should know before that she had thought about that.
She had never talked to them about every little detail, probably mostly because she didn't have a female friend who liked to talk about those things. Toph was all for independence from men and since she never told Katara anything about her struggles Katara tried to keep hers from their conversations. Aang had been something different, though.
"Not yet," she answered truthfully, very satisfied with herself at having answered the question correctly without giving anything away.
"So you got someone on your mind?" Toph probed.
"It's my turn to turn the bottle now, Toph. No more questions!" Katara demanded.
Toph's smirk should have warned her.
Next time it was Katara's turn she made the mistake at picking truth again.
"Who's that guy you are thinking about?" Sokka promptly asked, and Katara groaned, hiding her face in her hands.
"No! Sokka, no. Ask something else!"
"I have made my decision, little sister," he grinned, but his speech already sounded slurry.
She lifted her head to scowl at him. Great. Leave it to Sokka to ruin her nice evening!
"I don't know if you want to know," she finally said.
"As long as it is not Haru," Toph said, while Sokka said "As long as it is not Jet."
Katara frowned at Toph. "What do you have against Haru?" she asked. "He's nice."
"Exactly."
Sokka grinned, while Katara still felt confused. "So?"
Toph rolled her eyes. "That's all he is. Nice. That's boring. "You, Katara, don't need a nice guy. You're already way too nice yourself."
"Hey, that's not even true! I can be mean!" she objected, stemming her hands on her hips. First she was accused for being mean, now for being too nice?
"Oh, really?" Toph drawled.
Sokka chuckled. "Have you forgotten how she treated Jet's friends, especially Zuko, in highschool?"
Katara blushed furiously. His name had been mentioned!
Toph frowned. "Oh yeah, I guess I really forgot. Man, you were a bitch back then!" she said to Katara.
"Gee, thanks, Toph! That's so nice of you!" she smiled through gritted teeth.
"No problem!" Toph lifted her drink in Katara's direction.
"So who's that guy now?" Sokka asked grinning, and Katara grimaced again. She had thought they had forgotten about all that other stuff!
"Yeah, don't distract us!"
Katara cringed. Oh boy, what would they say if she said the name?
"Do we know him?" Toph asked.
Katara nodded, biting her lip.
Sokka looked kind of disgusted at that thought and Toph looked confused.
"Do we really know him or is this one of those guys we saw you with only once?" Toph wanted to know.
Frowning Katara thought about guys they had only met once before. There had been Hun from the university, but she hadn't met him since months.
"Uh... You haven't just seen him with me once," she said.
Toph groaned. "Come on, Sugar Queen, we are not playing 'Guess who Katara's dating'. Just spill it!"
"I'm not dating anyone!" she exclaimed. "I'm only thinking about dating him!"
"And can you please tell us his name, dear sister?" Sokka smiled widely with closed eyes at her.
She glared at him, then sighed. "Uh... It might sound strange or crazy, but it is... Kasaishi Zuko."
Toph gasped and Sokka choked on his own saliva.
oOo
"I hope she won't be like this if we do start fake dating," Zuko sighed, leaning backwards.
Jet nodded. "Yeah, when I proposed her to be your fake girlfriend, I forgot about how nasty she can be."
Raising an eyebrow Zuko turned his head towards Jet. "I still think you did something to offend her. We are not teenagers anymore, and I don't consider her that immature."
"Well, she must be, because I didn't do anything to offend her!" Jet replied, snorting.
Zuko tried to hide his amusement, when he leaned forward again to continue to read a book about buildings and architecture. He had always liked drawing and had been interested in how the manner of building houses had changed over time. Sometimes he scribbled houses, apartment buildings, even palaces and temples on free spots of his law notes.
"I'll ask her about that," he quickly promised. "Tomorrow," he added, taking a sip of his tea.
Narrowing his eyes Jet turned the television louder.
Zuko looked at him dryly, took his book and tea, and left for his bedroom.
OoO
"Zuko?" Sokka spluttered.
Toph looked thoughtful, while Katara wished she could disappear in a hole.
"But why, how, why?" Sokka spluttered on.
Katara sighed. "Remember when we met him and Jet?"
Sokka nodded.
"Well, we stayed at the coffee shop a little longer and then we went eating dinner, and we walked a bit together, and well, we met again," she explained, feeling like a spotlight was shining on her. A very uncomfortable spotlight.
"That makes sense," Toph suddenly said.
Katara raised an eyebrow. "How does that make sense?"
"You hated him so much in high school that I couldn't take it seriously. I knew the whole time you secretly liked him," Toph declared, as if she had something to boast about.
Katara already wanted to object, when Toph just went on.
"And I know for a fact that he liked you as well!"
"He did?" Katara asked curiously, leaning forward, and noticed that her heart... was suddenly beating faster.
What? No, stop that!
She tried to calm herself by leaning back again. "I mean, uh... well, that is..." While she kept stammering Sokka seemed to have recovered, and after a large sip of his beer he sighed.
"Okay... That is... Dammit, Katara, you know who his family is, right?" he gasped. "His ancestors, he could be a prince, and his family... And our ancestors!"
"Yeah yeah yeah, one second," Katara interrupted her rambling brother. "What were you saying, Toph?"
The expression on the blind girl's face was smugger than smug. "Zuko liked you back in high school. Before you yelled at him for making Aang cry," she defined.
"Oh," Katara mumbled and looked down at her feet. Imagining Zuko liking her felt very strange to her. Because what about her would someone like him like?
She remembered the first time she had noticed him, though. It had been in her first year in high school, the only one she had known was Sokka, and she didn't have any friends there before. After her first day, which had been totally weird and frustrating, and Katara had thought about dying her hair black, ripping holes in her clothes and starting to wear make up, she had been in need of sugar. The high school had been awful, and her parents didn't see what they were doing to them by moving there. In an empty hall had been a sweets automat, in front of which a boy had been standing, hands in his pockets and head hung low. She hadn't seen him clearly, not even when she had stepped to the side to see which sweets actually were available in the automat. There she had realised that the boy in front of her had just bought the last of her favourite chocolate bars.
She couldn't help the groan-sigh which had espaces her then. The boy had turned around, looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
His hair had been a bit longer than the style all the other boys wore, but it had stopped above his eyebrows. His piercing golden eyes had made her heart stop for a second, when she thought she looked into a dragon's eye, and his face... Her heart had started beating even faster. He was one of the most handsome boys she had ever seen, and so interesting with his pale skin and raven black hair.
He turned around again, picking his chocolate bar from the automat, throwing her a sideway glance, and walking away.
She had stood there, staring after him, her heart beating fast, until she had finally bought something else from the automat. This should have been a warning to her. He hadn't shared his chocolate bar then, and later she had noticed that he was just an idiot, and that nobody liked him.
How was it possible that he had liked her then? This couldn't be!
"But he hadn't behaved any better!" Katara huffed, crossing her arms again and putting her nose in the air. "I don't believe he liked me, or he hadn't been such an idiot!"
"Well, he was shy," Toph explained.
Sokka started chuckling, but Katara could tell that her brother had just started getting drunk. He would chuckle now a lot more.
"But how do you know that?" Katara asked.
"Well, we talked once, and I told him he shouldn't take you seriously, because you were mean to him then, and I told him that you were even nice once one got to meet you, and he just nodded and said that he knew your other sides, and that he even liked how you were."
"And you remember this that well?" Sokka giggled.
Toph made a shut up hand gesture in his direction. "Shush."
Katara rolled her eyes. "That doesn't mean at all that he was into me."
"And I never said that."
Katara rolled her eyes at Toph's grin. "Well, either way. We are okay with each other now. I don't think he's an idiot anymore, and he asked for a date, but... I mean, what Sokka said. His family. His father's running for president!" she shrieked, tugging at her hair, letting out a bit of desperation and frustration. "I can't just accept that. It feels like betraying my ancestors, my culture, my home, and what if his father is an asshole?"
"Presidents tend to be that," Sokka agreed, causing Katara to roll her eyes.
"But he's not president yet, Sokka!"
"Man, Katara! This is messed up," Toph said dryly.
"I know!"
"I wish I could tell you that it doesn't matter, because you're going to be with Zuko, and not his family, but I don't think that you wouldn't meet them at one point," Toph stroked her chin.
Now Katara just stared at the floor. Yeah, she couldn't exactly do anything with their advices since there was more to the situation. Way more!
"But you like him, right?"
Katara nodded and quickly added "Yes, I do". It was funny realising that this was really true. She had liked him before he had told her about this stupid plan of his father's, and even now, when she thought about the two times she had spent time with him lately, she still liked him.
"Then you should definitely try it."
"I don't know," Sokk interjected. "I still think he's a jerk."
"No one asked you, Snoozles."
Answers to reviews:
To IDidn'tSignUp4This: Yep, it really was! Oh, okay, well the author should become one then!
To BumiCat: Thank you! I'm glad, too, although I still cough once in a while. It won't leave me alone!D:
To Smckoy929: Thanks, well here it is! Not much happening, but I wanted a bit more Toph and Sokka, and because I'm the author I did just that, haha! :D
