"If I would try to write such a complex story, I think I had to take at least a one-year-break from everything to manage such a task." Tbh this fic is actually kind of a break from my original story. But I gotta schedule myself some time to work on that lol. "The work (but fun) I have with my little story shows me this every day, so I'm really impressd of such a creativity and how you're dealing with this great amount of work." I'm glad you're having fun with your story! Once I get some time, I'm going to have to read more of it. Thanks, creativity is something I really cherish.

"You're doing a good job with leading them away from their old paths and creating new interactions for them." I feel like Teo and Azula in particular isn't a pair that gets a lot of attention. It's very obscure. I also feel as though Mai and Toph aren't worked with as much. "I think I see a possible reason, why these High School and/or Modern AUs can be so interesting for writers and readers. If you get a conection to the AU it opens up a wide field for such experiments and 'unusual'" I'd agree with you there and say that AU's like high school ones, allow for new opportunities.

"And a hard chapter for all of them (except Jet)." Lmao yeah, Jet's having a jolly good time. "Until now he's acting from a strong position and he's in control of the situation, which gives him so much power over Katara and TyLee too." Which is exactly the problem. The fact that he has the upper hand is very unsettling for Katara, Sokka, Suki, and TyLee. "You've portrayed the helplessness well within this chapter. Suki, Sokka, TyLee, Katara. All of them are affected by his actions and until the police or the principal keeps staying passive, all of them haven't got a legal chance to stop him." I was trying to show how it kind of impacts the family because I feel like that aspect of a stalking case gets glossed over sometimes. Sokka is definitly a character, who turns red in such a situation and Suki is right to remind him, that he has to think twice, before he starts to do something illegal."But Jet won't stop, I fear and things will escalate further unless they woudln't find a way to show him his limits once and for all." Exactly, one way or another, the group is really hoping to find a way to put a halt to his bullshit. " but as far as I know your stories, this still could take some time. And may or may not happen :)" xP Very true!

It had been such a long time since Azula had left her house for anything other than school; getting ready to do so for the first time in a while had such a bittersweet and nerve-wracking edge. Ultimately, she knew that it would do her well to leave the house. She still hadn't the drive or energy for it, but being around her father was becoming suffocating, more than it already had been. He had become blunter—and was growing more so as the days flowed on. Among other things, he began to refuse to buy her a new wardrobe. And he was cutting her money off, so she could no longer buy clothing for herself. A small thing, it was, but taxing no less. Most everything in her closet ranged from a little to snug for her to concerningly tight. Physically and emotionally it was growing harder for her to be comfortable in her own clothing. That in itself was one of the many reasons she tried to avoid leaving her house.

She found something that looked like it would still fit at least decently well. The skirt hugged her hips a little too much for security, but it would have to do, it was almost no different than her school uniform. Perhaps it was a little shorter, but the color—black with a fringe of red sequins—was more flattering. She next pulled a blouse over her arms. It was also black in color and bore the same fringe on the sleeves and at the collar. It pinched and cut unpleasantly into her wrists as she began working with the buttons.

She began to think that this choice in attire was a mistake. Tops with buttons were now on the list of things not to wear. Her fingers trembled as she fastened her shirt the rest of the way. She narrowed her eyes, finding a new thing to fret over as she held her hands in front of her face.

She didn't know if it was just her kicking herself down again, but she could swear that her hands were swollen. She stuffed them into her pockets and made a hasty retreat from her room. She was already running late.

Azula could hear her father yelling into the phone, from the sound of it, Mai's family was wanting to withdraw from, or at the very least, lighten their lawsuit claims. "We're in this together!" He shouted. "BeiFong Electronics needs to crash." She could practically envision his dramatic and sweeping gestures. Clearly, the man was already in a pissy mood. She considered, that it probably was a good idea for her to stay away from the estate.

She quickly gathered her keys and purse and slipped outside.

.oOo.

"I was beginning to think that you stood me up." Teo greeted as he sprung up from the park bench.

"I had to get dressed." She replied. "I had trouble finding something to wear."

He looked her over, she thought that his gaze lingered for too long but she made no comment on it. "You look nice." He said with a smile. But she couldn't find it in herself to agree with him. She didn't like how the skirt showed off her thighs. It took her a moment to come back to the present and realize that Teo was holding his hand out. She looked at if for a moment before deciding to take it. "So, uh, what do you want to do?"

It had been so long since Azula had been on a date, she struggled to come up with an activity. She had less money for shopping, so she would rather avoid that temptation. She didn't exactly want to walk around the park; the faint and dizzy feelings were growing worse and more frequent. A dinner date was completely out of the question. "You decide."

"Want to go for some pizza, I know a good place."

"Absolutely not." She replied abruptly. With her stomach as painfully empty as it was, she knew that one slice would turn into the whole damn pizza. It wasn't a visual she wanted to provide Teo with. It wasn't how she wanted to ruin her good streak. So far she had managed to restrain herself for the entire week, only eating what her father permitted. And the few times at lunch where she had overdone it some, she had purged the damage in a timely manner.

"Okay, well how about we take a walk on the beach?" He pointed in the direction of the pier. "Though I'm gonna need some help."

"Too cold." She replied.

"Okay, how about we drop by the mall?" He tried.

"I didn't bring my credit card and I don't have much cash on me." She lied.

"We can drive to the amusement park?"

But she wasn't in the mood for walking around in close proximity to a bunch of overly excited children and loud noises. Even less so, she fancied the thought of being around so much cotton candy and popcorn and the collection of other wonderful smells that an amusement park teemed with. Besides, she couldn't imagine that it would actually be much fun for Teo. She was pretty sure that he had suggested it more for her than himself. "I'm not in the mood for an amusement park."

"We can stay here and walk in the park?"

"I don't know if I feel like walking for a long time…" Now she was just being difficult. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she genuinely didn't have the stamina nor the right energy for a date. "I think that I should just go home, Teo. Maybe we can do this some other time."

His face fell and she was almost certain that he was blaming himself. And then his eyes lit up again, "I can come home with you!"

"You don't want to meet my dad. Trust me." She grumbled.

And the light went out again. She didn't want it to. She didn't want to lose the one person who seemed to care for her. "We can go to your house."

His smile was back. "Yeah! I think that my dad would like to meet you." He actually looked pretty thrilled. "I don't think that he believed me when I said that I have a girlfriend. He thought that he was dropping me off to play dungeons and dragons with Haru or something."

Azula nodded and led him to her car, where he helped her to help him with getting into the car seat. It was an aspect of a relationship with him that she hadn't considered; she'd have to learn how to help him with tasks like that. Once he had buckled himself in, she squeezed the wheelchair into her trunk.

She wasn't much for conversation, only really speaking to ask him for directions. She caught him staring at her hands, likely taking note of the sores on her knuckles. Suddenly she wanted to make small talk, anything to take his eyes off of her hands.

Her puffy hands.

Why did they look like that?

She winced to herself and tightened them around the steering wheel.

"Another left." He spoke, the timing was merciful. But then he asked something less so. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine." She replied instinctively. She had to be fine. She had to, lest she lose what little control she had. She was famished and her muscles were cramping, even from just a short walk, and all she could think of was food; how much she yearned for it, how she would get it, and how she would get rid of it.

But she was fine.

She had to let everyone think that she was anyways. If she couldn't do that, if she couldn't maintain control, couldn't maintain secrecy, then her odds of getting back on the volleyball team would drop even lower.

And suddenly she thought that she was letting Teo get too close. He could very well pick up on her habits, see through her excuses. She could swear that he already was.

"Look for the house with the car shaped mailbox, that's mine." Teo instructed and then he returned back to the initial subject. "Are you sure? You seem so, tired."

"Yes." She agreed. "I sometimes think about my brother and that makes it hard to get sleep." It was only half of the truth. The other half was that her hunger pains kept her up. Her hunger pains and the fear that she'd never make it back to where she had been before her accident.

She pulled into the driveway and gave herself a moment to muster up the strength to get out of the car. Her entire body felt like jelly, and her head was spinning. She knew that she really ought to eat a decent meal. Eat it and keep it in her body. But her body can't afford the extra calories. She powered her way through the dizzy feeling. She unbuckled Teo and helped him into his chair, the effort sent her world spinning even further.

Blackness danced on the edge of her vision, she leaned heavily against her car and waited for the feeling to pass.

"This is what I'm talking about." Teo noted. It finally registered that his arms were on her waist, he was holding her steady to the best of his ability.

"Really, Teo, I'm okay." She insisted, feeling anything but.

Teo stared at the clock. "My dad won't be here for another hour."

She dropped herself onto the nearest couch and curled herself up, clutch a belly that was begging for food.

"Here, have something to drink." Teo offered.

She took the water bottle with desperate hands.

"I'm worried about you." He commented.

"You shouldn't be."

He took her by the wrists and held them up and she was faintly aware that he knew almost exactly what was going on. "Please eat something, Azula." He was practically begging and it chilled her.

"I will." She agreed. And she would. She would oblige and then she would rid herself of the potential damage.

He made his way to the kitchen and pulled down a box of cereal. "I'm not much of a cook. Do you prefer cereal or toast?" He asked.

Evidently, she preferred both and then a good helping of ice cream. At the same time, she preferred nothing at all. So she shrugged, "it doesn't matter."

He handed her the bowl. "And no trips to the bathroom this time."

"I always—"

"Yeah, that's the problem." Teo replied and she knew ultimately, that he had her figured out.

"I'll eat when I get home, Teo." He didn't have to speak for her to know that he didn't buy it for a moment. "Do you want me to send pictures." She offered.

"You'll just stage them." Teo replied.

"I'll eat after I get back on the volleyball team." She didn't know why she was justifying herself to him.

"If you don't kill yourself trying…"

"I'll be fine. I have things under control." She replied dryly. Even if she didn't, she believed that she was, indeed, willing to kill herself in an attempt to ready herself to play again.

"You can still be on the team." Teo tried.

But she knew that she no longer had the skills to land herself a position. Even if she did she doubted that anyone wanted to watch a fat girl play. "Where is your mother anyways? You keep talking about your father but you never mention your mother." She supposed that, that was something they had in common.

With a sigh he caved and let the subject change. "She died three years ago."

"Oh."

What a dismal first date, they were having. Other than a simple acknowledgement that she had heard him, she didn't quite know what to say.

"I lose a lot of people. I had a brother too. You know what's funny?" He asked. "My dad owns a car repair shop. My mom and brother were killed in a car accident. I don't care how many cars he fixes, he couldn't fix the one that killed my mom and brother…"

Azula swallowed a lump in her throat. "Is that how…"

"No. I was born like this." He motioned to the wheel chair. "No one really cared about it either, until I started going to Wan High. At my old school, people respected me. They liked me." He paused. "I miss that."

"Me too." She admitted softly, he didn't catch it.

"Now all my dad cares about is running that stupid shop. I keep telling him that fixing cars isn't going to fix what happened. But he always goes out and does it anyways. It's like I don't have a dad anymore either. It's like he thinks he'll lose the shop if he doesn't have it open 24/7."

"I wish my father would stay at work longer."

"I'll trade your dad for mine." Teo jested.

She took it seriously anyhow. "You don't want that. You don't want that at all." Her mind wandered again. Exactly when had she started fearing and hating her father? She missed the praise and the respect. The positive attention.

All of it had been taken from her because of one simple mishap.

Teo looked at the clock. "I don't think you're going to meet my dad tonight. He should have been home already."

"That's fine." She wasn't much of a catch anyways.

.oOo.

When she got home she only wanted to sleep. She didn't know how she was going to keep this up. Teo had put questions and considerations into her mind that she'd rather not think about. But she dwelled upon them anyhow. For the first time, she wondered just how long she would be keeping her habits. Would she be eating little and throwing up for the rest of her life? She thought that Teo just might have been right. Her stomach muscles ached and her knuckles were raw. Between that and the searing burning in the back of her throat she was almost certain that she was breaking her body apart.

Not breaking it.

Corroding it.

For all her suffering, she was still no more in shape for volleyball. In fact, it occurred to her that she might just be in worse shape than before. At least when she was eating, she wasn't so drained. At least when she was eating, her body didn't cramp up. But when she was eating lost control. When she was eating was risking putting on weight that she didn't need.

Azula clawed at her hairline. She couldn't even recall the last time she ate without feeling guilty for it. She just wanted to put herself in that place again. In a place of comfort and genuine control. Because lately, her cycles were getting worse. She was withholding food from herself with more force and by extension, when she could finally bare no more, her binges were worse.

At least this time she could pretend that she was in control as she made her way to the kitchen. Earlier in the day she had heard her father talking about how he was going to head over to meet with Ukano about the BeiFong lawsuit. It was an opportunity to finally have a full meal. The full meal that her body had been begging for. It would be okay this time. It would be okay because she had planned for it. She would eat what she wanted, she would purge it, and she would bypass her next meal entirely.

She picked her way through the pantry, pulling items she didn't think her father would miss. And that night had made good on her promise to Teo. The floor was a mess of wrappers. Faintly, she wondered if she should send the pics. She laughed bitterly to herself as she wept. Planned or not, she had still lost control and she still felt every bit disgusted with herself.

That time purging didn't alleviate the guilt at all.

If anything, as she split her knuckles again, she felt more guilty.

She heard the sound of the door and hustled to clean her mess of wrappers. She noticed her phone buzz on her nightstand and fretted that it was from her father. But it was Teo. It was only Teo. She wondered what he was doing up so late, but she was thankful for the distraction.

She was thankful that she finally had someone to talk to, even if she had no intention of bringing up just how deep she had dug herself. At least she knew that the opportunity was there.