Zuko had drafted extensive plans for how he was going to propose to his girlfriend of four years, because she's amazing and brilliant and gorgeous and deserves perfection. Really. So when he arranged a Very Special Breakfast to stage the event, her favorite foods and fire lilies in vases and no courtiers milling around, it was with the absolute best romantic intentions. Really.
His collar is itchier than usual, which is saying something. The rice on his plate lies lukewarm and forgotten. Has this room always been so humid? Why is she staring? Oh, who is he kidding, why would she ever accept?
"Are you okay?" Mai asks, waving an impatient hand in front of his face. "You've been twitching all morning. It's starting to freak me out."
"Can you pass the lychee juice?" he sputters— Mai, looking at him like she would at a particularly slow child, pushes it across the table. "And, um, do you want to marry me?"
His face grows very hot as his vision blurs, because that was so not part of the plan and Mai is still giving him that same look. "Sure," she finally says with a shrug, and picks up her chopsticks again to spear a dumpling. "You'd better buy me a good bracelet, though. I hate orange. And pink. And bright— you know what, just go with black."
Well, then. He doesn't know what offends him more— her complete lack of enthusiasm, or how she assumed he could ever forget her color preferences. "That was anticlimactic," he grumbles. "If I give you a diamond mine, will you at least smile for the wedding portrait?"
She rolls her eyes. "You should have tried harder with the proposal, lover boy. I've heard that some guys utilize chocolate and jewellery."
"Come on. Even you have to be excited about getting married. You'll become the Fire Lady?"
"I already get enough tension headaches from dealing with the idiots in your council. Adding that huge hairpiece to the mix is a recipe for disaster."
"We'll have a big party? With all of our friends, and the okonomiyaki you like, and dancing—"
"And plenty of alcohol, I hope."
It's good that he's got one last ace up his sleeve. "Your mother's going to have to stop sending us letters about how we're living in sin?"
"No more warning notes on how I'll never find a husband since your pistil penetrated my lotus blossom?" And then she does smile, and he swears her entire face lights up— she's so achingly, hauntingly beautiful to him, but happiness makes her almost impossible to look at straight. "You've got a deal."
"We don't have to do it if you're not ready," he says, suddenly propelled into seriousness. "I just— I love you, Mai. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I can't imagine not being with you."
She reaches over the table and presses her hand into his. "That's why a wedding isn't important," she says, her voice growing far softer. "We've been living together for years. Getting married is just telling the rest of the nobles things we told each other a long time ago."
"So—?"
"Yes."
He knocks over the juice pitcher trying to kiss her, but it doesn't matter.
