A/N: This chapter is dedicated to all of you who wanted a Maiko chapter so bad, and also to a friend of mine, Shay, who hates Mai with a passion like the red-hot-intensity of a thousand suns.

Normal and Extraordinary

Zuko didn't really exist before Azula told me that she had a brother. For the longest time I just assumed that the royal family never had other sons, and that Azula was next in line for the throne. In a way, it made me admire her more for a conquest unimaginable—just being born lucky.

When I saw him walking with his mother some way off, I'll admit that I looked, and maybe even stared, longer than I should have. He turned his face, the smile gone, and somehow seemed more confused than before.

"What? What are you doing?" he asked me kindly. He looked down at his tunic and pants, looked back up to me, and then felt his forehead. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Please, leave my brother alone, Mai," Azula scolded from the background. "He's a foolish boy. I'm surprised father hasn't had him locked up yet!"

Zuko grunted something undecipherable. "Well, at least I don't go around staring at people," he snapped weakly. I could tell it wasn't in his nature to be truly, deeply evil—the way Azula was. He turned his attention back to me. "I'm surprised you're still alive, hanging around with my sister."

In all honesty, I had lost myself. It wasn't exactly love at first sight—to this day, I do not know if I really am in love with this rebellious prince—but I do believe that I had grown interested. He seemed so nice, so gentle...so unlike Azula in everything he did. And I couldn't will myself to stop looking at him, just as I couldn't will myself to stop thinking of him or asking about him.

I can't say my efforts went unnoticed.

"This is the fifth time you've asked about Zuko today," Ty Lee often teased. "Why don't you just get over with this crush of yours and marry him?"

"I never said I wanted to marry him," I answered calmly. "I just asked about him, that's all. No reason to get your hormones all worked up about it, Ty Lee. Calm down. We all know you have problems relaxing."

"Hm!"

Azula's insults weren't as easy to avoid.

"You seem to have taken to my brother," she would hiss, not once breaking eye contact. "It is obvious that you are infatuated with him and I should warn you that these emotions you are experiencing are far from normal. He is not a normal child, therefore it would be preposterous for you and physically impossible to have a normal relationship with him, Mai. Do you understand?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I would reply lazily, even though inside I felt like strangling her and Ty Lee both.

There was little that I actually did to Zuko, if anything at all, that allowed him to notice me. Mostly, I would spy on him, he would feel another presence and look around the room, I would sink further into wherever I was hiding, and then he would grunt angrily and return to his works—writing letters to his Uncle, drawing pictures of Ursa, and even (as I found out later) writing poetry on the art of firebending, although I knew as well as anyone that he wasn't exactly good at it.

Once, he wrote a number of haiku's on Ty Lee. I moved from my spot after he had left the room for a break and read the paper, trying very hard not to laugh.

Ty Lee is strange as they come.

Bends like a willow,

She laughs like a hyena,

Waiting for the kill.

Some days I wonder,

Where in the world my sister,

Found that bendy friend.

I suppressed the laugh from escaping only after I lifted both hands to my mouth. The style was simple and insulting, at the same time, innocent and childish. I think I was also laughing at his handwriting, which was far from legible. It pertained a certain boyish charm that found fairly entertaining to read.

Underneath the haiku on Azula's "bendy" friend, there were many others.

Strange! I remember thinking to myself. These can't all be his! Look how many there are, and how nicely arranged he's made them.

It was extremely abnormal for a 13-year-old boy to write any form of emotional pieces. But they were in fact a piece of work—marvelous, at that—and written on every member of the palace court. There were haiku's about his father and his mother. Numerous, numerous haiku's and descriptions were written on his sister, which (just by skimming over them) I gathered he detested grandly. His words ranged from "poisonous serpent that waits for the weary traveler and then strikes with venom poisonous enough to kill beasts one hundred times its size" to "a demon dressed in angel's clothes." I think I laughed at his imaginative writing, the way he added little pictures on the margins and little notes to himself. "Fix this line, AWKWARD," one said. "Remember to RYME," another noted. I felt as though, for the first time, I was actually getting to know Zuko, from the inside out.

Needless to say, I was deeply intrigued, and continued riffling through the papers carelessly, completely forgetting that Azula and Ty Lee were still waiting for me outside and that Zuko himself would be returning from his break soon. My papers stopped their busy fixture when I came across something of even more interest: a little, neatly organized book with the title "When April Showers, Bring Mai Flowers."

My heart must have skipped a beat, because I felt something pang against my chest, and before I could even open the cover—in that very instant—Zuko appeared in the doorway.

Imagine! Imagine, if you can, what a situation I was in. Of all the blasted things to happen, the worst had to happen, just when I was about to read a piece entirely devoted to me.

I dropped the papers, and the small ink stone Zuko used fell on the ground and instantly broke to pieces. The papers also managed to drop a rounded bottle of red ink to the floor, and so his works became thoroughly soaked with ink, just as I was thoroughly soaked with remorse.

I don't think he knew what I was doing, or that he knew that anyone was aware of his private study here in his room. In fact, he had always managed to hide the papers from plain sight, and here I was—reading them, as if they belonged to me. And now, I had also destroyed some parts of them, too.

"What?" he asked in a defeated tone, taking a step forward and grimacing when he saw the red ink soak into the white carpet. "What are you doing?"

It was then I realized that I still held one piece in my hand—the favorite piece, if you will—the piece entitled "When April Showers, Bring Mai Flowers." I looked down at my fingers as if they were strangers, because I had no idea what I was going to do next. Surely, had I been Azula, I would have thought of a clever lie. Had I been Ty Lee, I would have laughed the whole thing off as an accident.

But I wasn't either of them: I was Mai. I was plain, normal, boring Mai.

"I'm just—I was just walking by when I—when I saw this," I stammered quietly, holding out the book to show him. His face turned the color of the ink on the carpet. "I shouldn't have—I didn't read anything, really, I didn't. I—I didn't even—I didn't know you wrote, Zuko."

He took the book away from me fiercely, a trait that I guessed came from his father's side of the family. With a flick of the wrist, it was on the floor with the other papers, the ink covering it from the bottom to the top.

I couldn't understand: there was no way he was just going to destroy such great pieces of literature. Thoroughly confused, I looked up at him, willing hard for my volume to remain uniform. "What are you doing?"

"None of your business," he muttered. "If I'm not mistaken, this is my room. And right now, Azula and Ty Lee are looking for you."

Again, I couldn't stop staring at him. His features were dark and hollow, and at the same time, I could detect the smallest amount of sadness. I had seen him labor over all of these writings, and suddenly I felt so guilty that I nearly collapsed.

"Why are you still staring?" he asked loudly, looking down at his clothes. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No!" I exclaimed, feeling my temperament narrow. "There's nothing on your face but stupidity! You're just a great writer and now you've ruined everything you've written. Those verses were amazing, and look what you've done! "

"How would you know that if you didn't read anything?" I could tell he detested people prying into his personal life, but I wasn't about to give up without a fight.

"Because I did read something, most of them," I admitted shamelessly, picking up the pieces that weren't as wet as the others. "There's no reason for you to...to be this way."

Absentmindedly, and perhaps out of the fine manners the court had forced into him, he started helping me. "What way?"

"I don't know!" I responded. We both reached for the little book at the same time, and my fingers danced nervously on the edge of the slightly moistened paper. I found the courage to look Zuko in the eye, and it was only then that I realized that I had indeed fallen completely infatuated with this boy. "I don't know—to be so much like...so much like..."

"Like what?" He let go, and I took the book and left the mass of papers and ink on the carpeted floor. Later, I would tell myself that the stain was blood—not ink—and that Azula had fought a brilliant battle against her brother there, and died doing it. I hated her. So much, I think, that I often let my imagination roam on what could happen to her body.

"Azula," I breathed, sucking in my lower lip. "So much like Azula."

He glared at me, shrugged, and then picked up the rest of the papers. He must have known what I meant, because he didn't refute nor comment on the answer: just nodded (ever so slightly) and continued cleaning up. "You are well aware that they are looking for you?" he asked finally.

"Yes," I said, still holding the book shut because—for some reason or another—I wanted his permission to read this. "I don't care."

"Neither do I."

"Can I read this?"

His face peered over at me from his place on the carpet. Now, I tell myself that I saw him smile, but in all truth, I do not remember. He might have smiled, I'm sure, but there's no way that I know that, and no way of going back in time and checking. In my memory—and for your sake—I'll say he did: smiled shallowly but noticeably, not showing any teeth but some how smiling to an affect of friendliness.

"So you...really think that I...uh, that what I wrote..."

"They were nice," I said simply, maybe sporting a smile of my own, maybe not. I can't remember. Zuko was returning to being a 13-year-old boy, fumbling about his work as if he needed to get it done. I returned to being the plain girl he saw almost every day, running with his impetuous sister.

His brows furrowed crossly. "Hmm."

"Yeah," I replied. "Can I read this or what?"

"Whatever you want, I guess. I mean, it's not..." He stopped mid-sentence and snatched the book from me, his face flaring into shades I had yet to identify. From the looks of it, it seemed as though he had remembered something that he had confessed into the pages of the little piece. I felt my heart sink.

"On second thought," he started, "you shouldn't read this."

"Why is that?"

"Because it isn't completed!" he finished hastily, flinching. "It's not done, and it's not for you either, so don't think that...It's just not finished, hear me?" Utterly fuming, he pointed to the ebony doors behind him. "And do me a favor—don't sneak into my room like this again."

I left, part of me wanting to grab him and smack some sense into his senseless brain, and the other part wishing dearly that I could have read it before I had asked him. Now, instead of feeling guilty for ruining the carpet and also his works, I felt so curious that I was about to explode. What in the world had he written on those pages that he didn't want me to see?

The next day, he was banished. And, for three years, I never saw him again.

In that time, I went back into his room (sneaking was no longer needed), and riffled through his drawers. I found the book, half red and half cream colored, with that glorious title beaming from the top. Vaguely, I wondered if he had ever finished.

I opened it and began reading.

"This girl, who walks around with my sister every day, is bleak and gross."

I grimaced.

"Her hair looks like a mushroom exploded and she doesn't look friendly. Sometimes, she stares too often."

I bit my lip and turned the page. Zuko had written a note: Find socks.

"There are too many weird things going on in the house, and—for some reason—I think she's the norm of it all. Ty Lee is too happy...I have my doubts about Azula being normal...my father changed the day my mother left...and the Fire Nation is changing. I think I am too."

I stared into the words, looking for more. I turned it to the last page, where the red seeped up and covered everything else. There was only one line after that, and I was saddened, because it never came true. Because, when Zuko wrote it, he was looking towards a future free of war.

"I think, when it starts raining in April and the fire-red roses poke their heads out of the ground, I will give Mai one, and thank her for being normal in the midst of this all."

A.N.: Is everyone in character enough for you all? Please let me know, as I've barely written on Zuko and Mai before. There relationship has always hit me as strange.

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