Hey guys! It's been a crazy year, and considering that we're all pretty happy for it to be over, here's something to celebrate that one of the worst years ever is finally coming to an end. Also, I should probably let you guys know that this is not a continuation of the Christmas stories, this is a separate timeline. Thank you guys so much for reading my stories and for all the support, you have all been great this year! God bless and Happy New Year!
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Aang smiled as he and his friends walked through the city streets, enjoying the sounds of people cheering and having a good time as they partied all over the place. He loved seeing people come alive like this, and he too couldn't help but be excited for what the new year might bring.
Not that the year had necessarily been bad for him. He always tried to look for the bright side in life no matter what, but the last year had been rather good to him. He had gotten to spend a lot of time with his family and friends, he had a rather good year at school, and he had even gotten his driver's license.
There was just one thing that he wanted that he had yet to get, however. One thing that he knew could not be put on a Christmas wish list nor could he get it himself. Well, at least not without there being some risk involved, anyway.
Katara. His best friend and crush since he was a kid. When he had met her at the young age of five, he had immediately taken a liking to her, though he had not understood that his feelings for her ran deeper than friendship until he had reached the age of twelve. Once he had finally understood what that meant, he had tried his best to hide the truth from her. Even though most of the time he felt as if he was being rather obvious with how he felt.
At any rate, he had wanted her for quite some time, but had never had the courage to tell her how he felt. And though he very much would like to, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin their friendship if she didn't feel the same, and thus had decided to keep his feelings a secret for as long as he could.
No matter how hard it got whenever she was around.
She was just so beautiful and kind and amazing. Frankly, he was surprised he hadn't already blurted out his secret to her. But, knowing that he could potentially ruin their friendship from telling her how he felt, he made it his mission not to say anything until he had evidence that she felt the same.
And so, he put a smile on his face and continued walking with his friends as they made their way through the city, all of them excited for the coming new year. Though, as he looked to his right and saw that Katara was there, he couldn't help but wonder why she always seemed to stick at his side.
Sure, they were best friends and everything, but for as far back as he could remember, she never seemed to want to leave his side. Could that mean…
"Aang?"
Quickly snapping out of his thoughts, he blinked in surprise and forced himself to focus as the sound of her sweet voice continued to ring like a beautiful melody in his ears. "Yeah?" he finally replied, albeit a bit nervously.
Katara laughed as she noticed this, even though she didn't understand why he seemed to be nervous. "Are you alright?" she finally decided to ask. "You kind of looked like you were spacing out there."
"Oh, yeah," he chuckled nervously as he rubbed his neck, not noticing the way that Katara smiled warmly at him from seeing him do this. What he didn't know, however, was that Katara certainly did like him as he liked her, and had since they were little. And one of her favorite things about him was the nervous neck rub he did occasionally. It just showed that he wasn't like any other guy in the world, and that was one of the things she loved about him. "Sorry. I was just thinking."
"Thinking about what?" she asked curiously with a raised brow.
Laughing nervously again, he tried his best to not show the blush that was currently betraying his nervousness as he looked away. "Um… Nothing." Katara gave him a look of clear doubt. "Nothing important," he amended quickly.
Just as Katara was going to interrogate him further, a familiar snort came from her right, saving Aang from any possible questions as they both looked at her. "Leave him alone, Sugar Queen," Toph snickered as they continued walking towards their destination while holding hands with Satoru. "You know there's a reason why I call him 'Airhead', right?"
Although Katara looked like she wanted to keep questioning her best friend, she knew that it wouldn't do her any good to keep going like this, and reluctantly decided to drop it. "Okay," she finally sighed in resignation.
Aang couldn't help but let out a bit of a sigh of relief. Though he had to say, he was quite surprised that Toph had helped him. She had already told him that she had figured out that he had a crush on his best friend, and usually she would jump on the chance to tease him about it in front of her, but not this time. It almost made him suspicious as to why she hadn't tried to make him squirm.
But, seeing that he wasn't going to figure it out any time soon, he decided to just be grateful for it and looked around, seeing Zuko and Mai whispering to each other to his left with Suki and Sokka on the end. Suki appeared to have a look of disgust on her face, and judging from how Sokka was shoving down a few last minute snacks as they walked, he could guess why.
Chuckling a little at his friend, he felt eyes on him and was surprised to find that Katara was looking at him, a blush quickly covering her as she laughed nervously and looked away. Finding that he too was blushing, he couldn't help but wonder why she had been watching him.
Before he could get the chance to ponder over it for long, however, the sound of his friend's voice pierced through his thoughts. "Aang."
"Huh?" he responded as best he could despite the fact that his mind was elsewhere as he looked at Zuko who had turned his attention to him.
"Are you going to do it?" was his only question, making Aang laugh nervously as he glanced over at Katara to make sure that she wasn't paying attention.
"Can we not talk about this here, Zuko?" Aang whispered with a clear look of annoyance on his face. "She's right there."
Zuko rolled his eyes and couldn't hold back a smirk as he enjoyed his friend's nervousness. "She's talking to Toph. She can't hear us," he pointed out, watching as Aang looked back to see that he was right before looking back to his friend. "So, are you going to do it?"
"I thought I already told you I wasn't," was Aang's only reply as he kept his eyes trained on the path ahead of them.
"Oh, don't be such a chicken," Mai drawled as she joined in on their conversation, a look of complete boredom on her face as she did so. "What do you have to lose?"
"Our friendship," Aang shot back at her, making both Mai and Zuko laugh, although he could tell that it was more of a sarcastic laugh than anything.
Once Zuko finally stopped laughing, he shook his head at his friend. "Aang, even if she doesn't like you that way, you're not going to ruin your friendship," he reminded him. "You two have been best friends before I even met you. So, what do you have to lose?"
Aang frowned as he thought over this, and before he could have the chance to reply to his friend, the sound of a familiar gasp interrupted their conversation. "Aang, we're almost there! Come on!" came Katara's voice as she moved over to him and took his hand, making him blush as she started dragging him away from the group.
Zuko and Mai shared a knowing smirk, Toph took on a devilish grin, and Suki smiled as Sokka rolled his eyes, all of them knowing just what was going on between the two best friends and Sokka being the only one grossed out by it.
Katara had been right, however, as they were very close to their destination: The old tower. Ever since their parents had started letting them go out on their own, the group had always gone to this place for their New Year countdown. No one else ever used it, and it gave a great view of the large screen in the center of the city where the Times Square ball drop would be displayed. It was a tradition of theirs to come there every New Year's Eve and bring in the New Year with their friends.
Though, as they had all gotten older, there had been a noticeable change in how they did things. Instead of all of them counting down together, the group had started splitting up into pairs. Most likely because the people in their group had finally started asking out the ones they liked.
It all started with Zuko and Mai, who Aang had figured would be the first people to pair up in their group, which had then left the rest of them to celebrate while Zuko and Mai celebrated in their own way. Then, the next year it was Sokka and Suki, leaving just him, Katara, and Toph to do the countdown together. And finally, with Toph starting to date Satoru, that left this year with just him and Katara.
And knowing this, Zuko had asked him a serious question. One Aang had been wondering himself. Should he try to make his move tonight? Should he risk it all and see if Katara might see him as something more than just best friends?
Zuko seemed rather confident that Katara did feel the same, but Aang wasn't so sure. Granted, there were some things that she did that made him wonder what was truly going through her mind and heart, but there was never anything enough for him to feel confident in revealing how he felt for her.
Although his friend knew that it wasn't easy, Zuko had been nearly insistent that Aang try his luck this year, and Aang couldn't really say he blamed him. It was the perfect chance to tell her how he felt. With the two of them being completely alone for the first time ever, it could be one of the best nights of his life, or it could be one of the worst.
Despite all this, he still had decided against it. No matter what, he didn't want to lose Katara's friendship. Even if that meant that he would never get to tell her how he really felt about her. Though, seeing her practically yanking him towards the tower that wasn't too far away, he couldn't help but wonder if he really should just tell her how he felt.
He didn't get to think about this for long, however, as Katara had already gotten them to the tower and was dragging him up the stairs, knowing that the elevator there hadn't been working for a few years. Truthfully, even if it was working, she still wouldn't want to take it. It was the oldest elevator she had ever seen, and she trusted it about as much as she trusted her brother not to eat her leftovers.
Fortunately for them, the tower wasn't very tall, meaning that they only had to go up a few flights of stairs to reach the top. Once they did reach the top, Katara finally let go of his hand and turned back to smile at him.
"Wow," Aang couldn't help but chuckle as he looked around them. "I guess you were excited to get here."
"You have no idea," Katara murmured under her breath.
"What was that?" Aang asked cluelessly, making her laugh nervously and smile sheepishly.
"Nothing," she finally replied as she took his hand again and started walking over to the ledge closest to them. "Come on. I want to get a good view of the screen."
Before long, the two had found the perfect place to be to see the rather large screen ahead of them, the footage showing that the ball was being raised up in preparation for the countdown.
"Hey, Sugar Queen!" came Toph's familiar voice as their friends emerged from the stairs and started making their way over. "Why did you ditch us?"
"I didn't ditch you," Katara argued with her hands on her hips, though her friend knew full well why she had indeed ditched them. "I just wanted to get here faster is all."
Toph rolled her eyes and blew some hair off of her face. "If you say so, Sugar Queen. Now come on, there's only a few minutes until midnight."
"What do you mean, 'come on'?" Katara asked with a raised brow.
"We decided that we were all going to countdown together this year," Toph informed her with a wolfish grin, knowing that her friend was not going to like hearing this.
She was right, because as soon as these words registered in Katara's mind, her eyes widened as a look of fear came over her face. "What? But you guys have been splitting up every year since this started!"
"Well, we decided that we wanted to start doing it as a group again," Sokka spoke up, unable to hide a bit of a smirk as he saw that his sister was not very happy with this.
"Yeah," Zuko agreed, making Aang look at him as if he was crazy. It wasn't ten minutes ago that he was trying to get him to tell Katara how he felt, and now he was wanting their whole group to do the countdown together? What was going on?
Before he could think about this for long, a very annoyed-looking Katara crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her friends except for Aang. "Why now? Why change things now?"
"Why are you so upset about this, Sugar Queen?" came Toph's laughing reply, enjoying seeing her friend get angry because her plans were being challenged.
Katara frowned, and although she very much wanted to yell at her friends for the trouble they were causing her at the moment, she knew it wouldn't do her any good and tried to think of something. Her plan was already in motion, and though she didn't know why her friends were doing this now, she couldn't allow it to be hindered by their random decision.
After a moment of thought, Katara smiled as an idea came to mind. "Well, if you guys want to count down together you can, but Aang promised me that we would do this one on our own this year."
Aang's eyes widened as he realized that she was right. A few months ago, back when Toph had first told the group about her dating Satoru, Katara had asked him to promise that he would just countdown with her this year. She never gave any reason, nor did he understand at all why she had asked him to make this promise, but he had never been able to turn her down before, and he certainly wasn't about to start that day. Thus, he had promised her that he would do the countdown with her, even if he still hadn't understood why she had wanted him to promise her that he would so badly.
Snapping out of his thoughts, he looked at Katara and noticed that she was giving him a pointed look, and knew what she was asking as he nodded. "Right. I did promise that I would just do it with her a few months ago," he told his friends, earning a few knowing smirks and a roll of eyes from Sokka.
"I wonder why that is," Toph smirked, not faltering for a second as Katara gave her a glare that would have put her in the ground if it had any power in it. "Fine, fine. If you guys are going to split up, we might as well, too."
Katara's eye twitched a little as she saw that her friends were messing with her, but knowing that it wasn't going to help her to yell at them right now, she decided that it would be best to yell at them later. "Okay. Come on, Aang," she once again grabbed his hand, dragging him over to another part of the roof so that the others wouldn't bother them.
The others just laughed and shook their heads at their friends, knowing that they could be rather clueless when it came to each other. But, then again, they always had been, and thanks to their effort, they had ensured that their cluelessness would go away. With that satisfaction, they all split up into their pairs and went to different parts of the roof, making sure to give each other enough distance as they did so.
Aang was rather confused as he watched Katara look out at the city ahead of them. Katara had never really acted like this before. Well, not never, but very rarely had she acted like this before. And though he very much wanted to at the moment, he couldn't quite figure out why she had been acting so strangely.
He wasn't allowed much time to figure it out, however, as Katara turned and smiled at him as she pointed to the screen. "Aang, look. It's starting."
Aang smiled as he saw that she was right and, deciding that his questions could wait, walked up next to her and leaned on the railing with her, feeling their arms brush as he did so and tried not to think about how close she was.
"Ten, nine, eight," the people all around them started counting down as the ball began to go down, making Aang nervous as he thought about what Zuko had said. It was now or never. Should he do it? Should he kiss her?
Turning to look at her, he was surprised to find that she was already looking at him, both of them blushing as they looked into each other's eyes. She was so beautiful, so kind, so amazing. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was the most incredible girl he had ever met.
"Six, five, four…"
Unable to help themselves, the two started leaning into each other, their eyes slowly closing as their lips got within inches of each other, neither of them caring anymore about anything or anyone else in the world. There, in that moment, it was just them.
"Three, two, one!"
Their lips finally met as the people around them cheered out. "Happy New Year!" The city came alive with the sounds of people cheering and noisemakers ringing throughout the area. Aang and Katara, however, were far too busy kissing to join in the celebration as Katara wrapped her arms around his neck as his went around her waist, pulling her as close to him as possible as he savored the taste of her lips. Something that he had been dying to taste for a long time.
Finally, after a couple minutes of kissing, the two started running out of breath and reluctantly pulled apart, staring into each other's eyes with heavy blushes on their cheeks.
"Well, it's about time," Toph remarked from behind them, making them look quickly to see that their friends had all gathered in the group around them and were watching them with amusement clear on their face. "You two sure took your time."
If Katara hadn't been so giddy from finally getting to kiss Aang and him kissing her back, she likely would have yelled at Toph, but instead just blushed more and smiled to herself as the two let their hands go back to their sides.
"Oogies!" Sokka shuddered, making Katara roll her eyes. Sure, she knew that Sokka probably would end up being disgusted from seeing her with Aang, but she hadn't invented a word for when he kissed Suki. Ever since he had found out that she liked Aang, he had been saying that whenever he so much as thought about them together.
"Congrats, you two," Zuko smirked as he put his arm around Mai's shoulder. "Though Toph's right. It did take you long enough."
"Better late than never, though," Suki added with a smile, making Katara smile appreciatively at her. At least one of their friends wasn't going to tease them about it.
Once they all had their fill of teasing the two best friends, they all went back to their separate pairs and left them alone, making Katara happy that she was being given more alone time with Aang.
Aang was feeling rather happy as well, as he finally had found out that the girl he liked felt the same, making him the happiest he had been in a while as the two moved back to the railing to look at the city in front of them.
Though he couldn't help but be a bit surprised as Katara leaned her head on his shoulder. It was definitely a pleasant surprise, but still a surprise as he looked down at her.
"Happy New Year, Aang," she let out a content sigh as she took his hand in hers, making him smile as he placed a kiss on top of her head and squeezed her hand.
"Happy New Year, Katara," he whispered back to her, both of them smiling as they enjoyed this new closeness they shared. And though Aang certainly hadn't expected this to happen, the two couldn't help but be excited for what the New Year might bring. But, they supposed that no matter what happened, they would be fine as long as they had each other. And they both knew without a doubt that the New Year would be brighter because of their midnight kiss.