A/N: There could be some accidental spoilers for a book called '1000 Paper Cranes' in this chapter. I apologize in advance if this the case.
Mrs. Paddywhacker was droning on and on in her usual monotone. Sokka texted Aang, She's worse than Mai with that monotone, isn't she? Aang suppressed a snort. She certainly was. She could take something interesting, and make it sound boring as hell with minimal effort. It had been almost a week since he'd gone to visit Zuko and caught him crying. That sight had just about torn his heart out. He had wanted to run in there, pull Zuko into his arms and kiss away every single one of his tears, then kiss Zuko until he kissed back. But that would, most likely, have literally killed Zuko.
He was still debating whether or not to tell the others Mai was cheating on Zuko. Mai and Jet were keeping a low profile at school. Yeah. At least Mai manages to say something interesting once in a while, though, Aang texted Sokka back.
"Aang Watanabe. Is there something you'd like to share with the class, by any chance?" Aang looked up, startled. He would be the one who got caught. He wasn't as good at stealth texting as Sokka was.
"Oh, no, ma'am." He quickly shoved the phone in his pocket. Hopefully Mrs. Paddywhacker wouldn't confiscate it. She stared at him for a long moment then went back to droning. She was telling some kind of anecdote at the moment.
"Sadako was two when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, where she lived with her family. She survived, but years later was diagnosed with leukemia. Someone who visited her in the hospital told her that if she folded one thousand origami paper cranes, then made a wish, it would come true. She made it to six hundred and forty-four before she died." The story gave Aang an idea. It probably wouldn't work, but if it didn't it would go about as far as modern medicine had towards saving Zuko's life. He knew his uncle loved origami, and could probably teach him how to fold an origami crane pretty easily. A thousand cranes would probably take him a few months, since he had school, homework, visiting Zuko and the sock puppet story already on his plate.
"How does that have anything to do with the end of the war, Mrs. Paddywhacker," Jet asked.
"It has to do with the end of the war as it demonstrates the horror of atomic weapons."
"And the millions of people who were vaporized when the bomb went off don't demonstrate that point?" That question was from Ty Lee. Mrs. Paddywhacker was saved from answering by the bell ringing.
"Uncle Gyatso? Will you teach me how to make origami cranes?" His visit with Zuko had gone well. He'd introduced several new sock puppets, and killed off the Admiral Zhao puppet. Neither one of them had liked that puppet. Zuko hadn't mentioned Mai or Jet once, much to Aang's relief.
"Certainly, Aang. Any particular reason you want to learn how to make cranes?" Aang had already decided not to tell anyone about his plan to make one thousand paper cranes so he could make a wish for Zuko to get better.
"No, no reason. Just wanted to learn how to make cranes is all." Gyatso came in carrying an armload of origami paper.
"Any particular color of crane?" Aang picked up a piece of origami paper.
"Nope." Gyatso spend the next two hours teaching him how to fold an origami crane, and Aang's attempts were still coming out deformed. They were less deformed than the first one, which had looked like a malformed walrus, but they were still deformed. Gyatso patted his hand, smothering a smile.
"Keep trying, Aang. I'm sure you'll get it." Aang kept at it, and after another hour finally got one to come out right. 'Well, that's one down, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go,' he thought. This was definitely going to take several months. Aang had a horrible feeling that the cranes had to actually look like cranes for the wish to come true.
It had taken him almost three months, but he was finally able to get the origami cranes to come out perfectly every time. He had also started numbering them a while back, and he was up to two hundred and ninety one cranes. That meant he only had seven hundred and nine more to make before he could make his wish for Zuko to get better.
"Hi, Zuko. How's everything going?" Zuko had lost a little weight over the last month or so, and Aang was worried about him.
"It's going about as well as can be expected, under the circumstances." Zuko was also starting to sound a little depressed. Which, after nine months in the reverse isolation ward, Aang could understand. He still wasn't happy about it though.
"What's on your mind? I can tell something's bothering you, so don't you dare say 'nothing.'" Zuko was a horrible liar, could barely convince a toddler on a good day. That never stopped him from trying, though.
"It's just this stupid illness, that's all." Aang snorted derisively. "What?"
"That might be on your mind, but it's not what's bothering you. And we both know how bad you are at lying, so don't try that again." Zuko sighed.
"Relationships. And I don't want to go farther into it than that." Aang nodded, letting the subject drop. He would mention it to Iroh, though, and hope the older man managed to get Zuko to open up about it.
"Ooh, I just had a wonderful idea! When you get out of here, before your hair grows in, we should get some light blue face paint and paint an arrow on your forehead so we match. If we have enough paint, we could put ones on your arms and hands, too." Zuko smiled at his suggestion, which was one hell of an improvement over the funk he had been in when Aang arrived. "Do you think we can convince Iroh they're permanent tattoos?"
"I doubt it. He knows the hospital would never let you bring a tattoo gun in, much less use it on me."
"Ah, well. It was worth a suggestion, though. His reaction when he comes in and sees you with blue arrows will still be worth it. Especially if he has no idea they'll be there ahead of time." Zuko snickered.
"We're not going to tell him about this idea?"
"Nope. Wasn't planning on it."
"You had better have a camera ready. I want pictures."
"You can always use them as leverage, too." Zuko was laughing so hard it took him a few minutes to respond.
"That would only work one time. He would never rest until he found those pictures.
"What are the sock puppets doing next?" Zuko's abrupt change of subject caught Aang off guard.
"Um. They're in the Earth capital right?" Zuko nodded. "I remember now. Prince Zuko's been acting weird, and he has a big decision coming up. If I tell you more than that, it'll wreck the story."
"You'll bring them tomorrow, right?"
"Of course I will."
"You'd better."
"Ha. What are you going to do if I don't?"
"I'll ask Song not to let you visit me for a week."
"You'd get bored and beg her to let me come back within a day."
"I would not."
"You most certainly would, and you know it. You'd miss my pretty face too much." Zuko laughed.
"I don't know about your pretty face, but I'd definitely miss you." Zuko's admission that he'd miss him made Aang's heart skip a beat. He knew full well that it would never go anywhere, that Zuko was straight and would never return his feelings, but he just couldn't seem to get over him.