gemsofformenos: Thank you. :D Unfortunately I know the American education system very well lol. I can imagine that cliques wouldn't work much differently in your country. Like you said, I would imagine that the social ladder wouldn't be too much different. Nice! This is the first serious attempt I've made at a high school AU. Tbh high school AU's aren't my cup of tea, they have to be done a certain way for me to like them. I feel like many of them involve a lot of shipping, but I actually haven't read many high school AU's myself; partly because (as mentioned) they aren't my favorite sub-genre and partly because I'm simply more of a fic writer than a fic reader. Someone did recommend this neat one to me though, I think that it was called 'Molotov' or something of the sort. I'm kind of looking forward to it myself, this is gonna be the first time I truly work with certain characters. Aang for one, I have written him before but I don't really do things from his POV very often. I don't think I've ever written from Jet's POV, but I plan to do it in this one. This is going to be one of my first Avatar fics that isn't 100% Azula centric. She and Katara are probably going to be the two we see through the eyes of the most, but there are probably going to be a few chapters that don't mention them much at all and focus in on Mai and Zuko or other characters. That is if I do things right and/or as planned. So yeah, I'm kind of happy to work with some different characters. Indeed, Katara is going to be going trough some tough things and she may or may not lose parts of herself along the way. This fics is going to be another heavy one. Thank you, it's going to be a tricky one because I've ever worked with this many plotlines before in one fic-each character is going to have his or her own story going on. This is kind of practice for my original story, which I have so many OC's in that it's hard to keep track. With this fic I'm trying to teach myself to better manage multiple character story lines. So in that regard, this fic is going to be very important. And you're welcome, funny thing is I had a sore throat myself all weekend lmao. So it's awesome to hear that I can help distract someone who is in the same boat!
An athlete since she was a child, Azula had come to expect breaking a bone at least once. Really it was hard to say what aspect of the breaking would be the worst; she always imagined that it would be the pain. A sharp, searing feeling. It was true, the pain was pretty horrible. The sensation that something was not right followed by the dawning and dreadful realization that there was an injury was equally as terrible. She imagined that the look of a broken bone would be nearly as bad the previous two aspects.
But it wasn't any of that.
No, it was the cracking sound.
That had been the worst part.
There was something about it, that sickly pop. It touched her ears in all the wrong ways. It echoed there and it still seemed to be stuck in her mind five weeks into the six-week healing process. Healing, is that what she was doing? It certainly didn't feel like it.
She thought that she shouldn't even be in school yet. It was the last place she wanted to be, she wasn't ready in the slightest for a plethora of reasons, some rational and some shallow. No she didn't think that she had done any healing. At the very least, her healing process has been ugly.
.oOo.
She was two months into the summer already and things were still running smoothly. That morning she had finally landed her first jump serve. She was proud of herself really, it was a move she had been practicing since the last season had ended. She supposed it helped that her father converted one of the larger rooms in their estate into a gym for her. Her own personal volleyball court. With it in place, she had finetuned many of her skills. It would seem that it was finally paying off. Her serve had been a success, evading Usha—who, for the time, was posing as someone on an opposing team.
It worked best that way, to pit herself against Usha. They were the strongest of their teammates, she couldn't see herself getting adequate practice if she wasn't facing someone of her own caliber.
It was Usha's turn to serve. Though she favored the very common, and rather easy overhand serve, she was an expert at it and could land the best of them. She tossed the ball and smacked it. Azula had to toss her some props, she almost hadn't been able to bump it back. It took dropping into a dive of sorts, but the ball was over the net where it belonged. She hopped that Innika could handle the next attack because she wouldn't have her bearings back on time. It wasn't Innika who filled in though, it was Kori. Timid Kori Morishita. The new girl—new to the team anyhow—whom Azula had her doubts about. Perhaps she was wrong, the girl was showing some promise. Her counter attack made it through Oni and Kazar.
Frankly they weren't doing bad for practicing in three-man teams. Coach Ming would likely be impressed.
A few more serves and spikes later, Azula suggested calling it a day. There was no sense in using all of their energy up in one day. "Next practice will be the two days from now. Does that sound good to everyone?"
"It sounds perfect to me." Usha declared. As it usually did, her agreement sparked a chain of yeah's and affirmative head nods. All except for one person was in agreement.
"I actually had plans to go to the beach with my family and Sneers." Kori confessed.
"Do you want to be a part of this team or not?" Usha scoffed.
"Of course I want to…"
Azula cut her off, "well then you better start taking it seriously." Azula added.
"I am. I just already had plans."
"You just made the team, don't think that we're going to bed our schedules for a newbie." Usha shrugged.
"I didn't ask you to." Kori defended. "I was just saying that I couldn't make it."
Usha opened her mouth to argue, but Azula held up a hand. "Thank you for letting us know. We'll find someone to fill in for you. The least you can do for us is play a game of beach volleyball with your boyfriend."
"I—"
"No excuses." Azula cut in. "I expect the best from this team. You don't get special treatment because you are new. Unless of course, you consider being pushed harder to be special treatment." And that was the end of it, Azula would hear no more. Kori could go screw around as much as she'd like so long as it didn't impact the team's chances that year.
She waved her goodbyes and went on her way, blissfully unaware of how diligent karma could be. She didn't think she had been that cruel to Kori, certainly she had said worse things before. And maybe it was those things that she was paying for.
The incident itself was almost comical if it hadn't done so much damage.
She was on her way to talk with Mai. The girl had grown distant and she had this nagging desire to find out if it was something she had done or if it was just another one of those things that TyLee had dubbed as a 'Mai-ism'. TyLee had giddily explained that a Mai-ism was any mannerism unique to Mai. She missed TyLee, but apparently bullying Katara was too much for her. After years of teasing and gossiping many classmates, apparently Katara was where she drew the line.
Azula sent out a quick text, asking if Mai was at the Jasmine Dragon yet. After sending that one, she added that she was on her way—of course that was code for, 'you better be there already.' As she walked, she re-tied her ponytail. Her phone buzzed and she took a look at it. In this aspect she blamed herself for what happened. If she had been paying attention…
All she heard was an abrupt cry, a sharp warning delivered too late. She only had a chance to look up and see a weighty extension ladder toppling. The thing was much heavier than it looked. The construction workers moving it had underestimated its weight as well, they didn't have a good hold on it, and it fell. Or so she was told. The how's didn't matter. And their profuse apologizing meant less.
She could barely hear them because the pain was so intense. It had taken them awhile to remove the ladder. When they did, she wished that they hadn't. Maybe if they would have left it to the professionals, she would have come out with only a bruise—albeit a very large and harsh one.
Instead they tried to help. They shifted the ladder in just the wrong way and there came that sickly snap. Azula dared to hope that it wasn't as bad as it sounded. She wasn't a woman of reactions, but she cried out, her vision going fuzzy and dizzy for a second.
Her father was going to have a riot. He'd have their careers and their futures in one merciless lawsuit and she would help him every step of the way. She thought that she would anyways…
The trip to the hospital was frantic. She remembered texting her father first. She then sent Usha a rather strongly worded account of the event and a resentful instruction to cancel their practice—boy Kori was going to get a thrill there. Finally, she got around to Mai, stating that she wouldn't be able to make it after all with a brief explanation.
'Pics or it didn't happen.'
It was just the kind of sardonic response that Azula wasn't looking for. But she snapped a picture of herself in the ambulance anyhow. For it she was scolded by the paramedics who had, had it up to there with her texting as they scrambled to help her.
She sincerely doubted they could do anything at all until they were in the hospital.
Until then every little bump and rock was jarring. No, the bumps were downright agonizing, no matter how hard they worked to keep her stable. Every breath hurt to hell and back. She found that she couldn't move without feeling as though she were making things worse.
Oh, God, she was going to have her father ruin those men…
.oOo.
She was sent home with a bottle of painkillers, a bag of ice, and instructions to breathe deeply—lest she get a case of pneumonia on top of it all—and not exert herself.
It turned out that there wasn't much they could do for a set of broken ribs.
So she found herself frustrated, quite literally, to tears. She had never been useless before. But, lord, if she wasn't then. She couldn't even walk properly, much less carry on with her volleyball.
Six weeks.
That stole from her, her last month of summer. Her last month of practice.
Six weeks, that stole from her the first week of the official volleyball season.
Six weeks, and that was only the 'average healing time'. There was always the possibility of a slow recover or another accident.
Six weeks. That didn't factor in a seventh week just to make sure she was safe to resume her regular activity.
And those first five weeks were horrible to her. It was excruciating to sit around doing nothing. It was more so to physically feel herself getting weaker and losing all of the progress she had just gained and then some. Even if she made a full recovery, she wouldn't be in the same place. By the third week all of her hard work was gone, wasted away and she was helpless to stop it.
Even if she wanted to go spike the ball a few times or go for a run, or even a walk, she couldn't. Her ribs couldn't take it yet. She couldn't risk hurting herself worse, so she let herself waste away.
Somehow, she managed to sink lower still. By the fourth week three things had become apparent; Usha was unbelievably unsupportive, Kori had some fire in her and a good set of balls, and her lack of activity had begun to catch up with her.
Usha was her first problem. The girl had come over once or twice, offering what Azula ultimately decided was faux sympathy. She was a very glib girl, much more than Azula herself, which was saying something. She brought her some flowers, a get well soon card, and a muffin. She stopped by a thrice more after that, one time was strictly business. Azula told her to resume practice without her, instructions that left a hollow feeling in her mind and an unpleasant tickle in her stomach. After than Usha hadn't stopped by once. When she realized that Azula truly was in deep, her texts stopped coming too.
No doubt, Usha made quick work of sharing her condition with the rest of their circle. She received well wishes from the rest of the team and then from Chan and Jet's lot. They wouldn't have done so if they saw the state that she was in.
They would soon.
Conversation with Chan grew tiresome after a while, less because of his own words, and more because she was tired of seeing his social media filled with parties and summer festivities that she was too unwell to attend. She was particularly bitter to miss his end of summer party. The one that always got the most talk. Chatting with Jet was much the same.
So she tried texting Mai, who was terribly uninterested. The girl had her own problems, the main one was a few doors down the hall, smoking a cigarette. She wouldn't be surprised if Mai cut ties with her to avoid Zuko. TyLee was the next person she tried to contact, but the girl had well and blocked her. She didn't think she had been that mean to TyLee.
In a last ditch, wholly pathetic effort, she tried Kori. Timid Kori. Timid Kori who essentially told her to fuck off after a very snide, "you're not taking practice very seriously, maybe you should get off your lazy ass and join us sometime." There was a smiley emoji in there somewhere. She had to admit she was impressed with the teeth on that girl, but was irked to the extreme no less.
Evidently, this was also what kickstarted her first bought of insecurity. What lead her to notice the third evident thing. The implication that she had grown lazy hit hard. She didn't want to think so, but she believed that it was true. At least so some degree.
Mostly because of her injury and partly of her own doing, she realized that she hadn't exactly been taking care of herself. Even something as mundane as a shower had become a task so she admitted to neglecting them on some days. She hadn't really made any effort to exercise any. Granted, she truly was reluctant at the thought of breaking her ribs further. Still, she wasn't doing herself any good simply lying in bed eating her feelings, and wallowing in her self-pity.
No one was really around to remind her of that.
She wished her father were there, he would have.
She didn't know when exactly her physical appearance had begun to diminish, if she had to guess she would have thought somewhere around the third week—it would explain why Usha was acting different. But the when's didn't matter. What mattered was that she was a wreck. Her bedbound state had paled skin that used to sport a very pleasing tan. Her bedbound state had left her hair untamed and unclean. Above all else, her bedbound state had taken from her, her lean, athletic figure. That is what she was struggling to come to terms with more than anything else. She had taken a large degree of pride in her toned abs and arms. There was something satisfying about beating Jet out in that department. And now? Now it was just gone. Perhaps it wouldn't have been quite so bad if that was as far as it went, but somewhere down the road her body began to go in the exact opposite direction. The change was rather slight, but painfully obvious after years of having the same build. She was growing softer in the most unflattering way and curvier in the exact wrong places. She didn't know how she hadn't caught it sooner.
Her father was going to kill her just as well as he ruined the workers who had her bed-ridden in the first place. He was going to kill her for tossing her volleyball career away. She almost more afraid to face him when he got back from his business trip than she was of facing her schoolmates in a week.
For the first time she was truly afraid for herself and truly embarrassed by herself. For the first time she felt out of place in a body that didn't seem so familiar anymore.
There was a bigger sense of helplessness, an overarching loss of control, in that she still had two weeks left of her recovery period.
A whole two weeks for her to stumble in her newfound insecurities and ruin herself more.
.oOo.
Karma was still not done with her. In fact, it seemed to be taking joy in backhanding her at every opportunity. She had come to school late, a move made to draw less attention to herself—not that it was going to work very well—and the first person she got to spend one on one time with was no other than Katara.
Katara who stood with her locker just having been opened as the bell rang. It would seem that her rival was having a dreadful day herself, she couldn't imagine the girl being late for the first time ever on a good day. In one hand she was holding her ridiculously childish ocean-themed backpack. Last year she probably would have kicked the thing over to reveal equally as kiddish pens, notebooks, and erasers. That day, Azula simply stared at her, waiting for a deep and deserved emotional jab. She was fighting another round of that sickly, crawling feeling. The longer Katara took her in, the more overpowering it became until she picked up her belongings and hustled away as quickly as she could; which, evidently, wasn't very fast with her ribs still mending themselves.
If the school nerd-gone-slut was judging her, then she could only imagine what Usha and Chan had in store.