Woo a long chapter c: Enjoy!

Changed

Chapter 15

~Dates~

~Mai's POV~

I went dress shopping with the girls yesterday even though I don't have a date. TyLee insisted that she wasn't going to let me miss homecoming so I really have a choice but pick out a dress anyway. I'm not usually into shopping, I'm usually bored the whole time, but for some reason I was actually into finding the perfect dress. I suppose that all girls have the girly side inside them somewhere, I just don't usually let mine out.

But there I was at the mall, actually excited that I was going to get a dress. I didn't like the feeling of being the only dateless one and I kept thinking about yesterday at lunch. One of my brother Tahno's friends came up to us and asked me to homecoming. I'd been rather cold towards him when I answered, and honestly I don't think I should have been. Tahno's friend's name is Zuko, he almost seemed shy about asking me. He's tall, about my height, he has a scar on his face, but I think it looks kinda cool. He also has a dark aura to him, like me.

A lot of people consider me emo or something since I am usually quiet and wear dark colors a lot. TyLee tells me that it's because I'm anti-social for the most part and I sigh a lot. I don't really care what everyone thinks of me, I'm fine keeping to myself. I somehow wonder how TyLee and I became friends in the first place. We're polar opposites. I guess it's like they say, that works out because opposites attract.

Anyway, I kept thinking about how I don't have a date, and don't want to be left awkwardly when the rest of the girls go off with their dates. Zuko really isn't that bad, he comes over our house all the time with Tahno, and I've talked to him a few times. He's not like Tahno, and really I don't get why he hangs around with my brother. I'm actually not too sure why I turned him down, and then told the girls that I wouldn't go to homecoming with one of my brother's friends.

I saw Zuko in the hallway, and decided I wouldn't really mind going with him if he still didn't have a date. He was at his locker so I walked up to him. He looked at me.

"Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday." I said.

"Oh, it's nothing. I guess it wouldn't make sense to go with one of your brother's friends anyway." He said like he'd heard me say what I'd told the girls after he walked away yesterday.

"I know it sounds probably sounds selfish to say this now, but I don't have a date...I don't know why I said no yesterday so if you still want to go with me I would." I said, pretty sure I was sounding awkward now. I felt myself start to blush for some reason and cursed myself inside. Why on earth was I blushing? I clutched my books in my arms.

"Really? I don't know, now it just sounds like you are desperate." He said but I think I heard of hint of sarcasm in his voice. This was a stupid idea... I thought to myself. I bit my lip and turned away.

"Hey, Mai..." I heard him call behind me.

I looked over my shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, sure I'd like that." He said.

I nodded and walked away, feeling a bit relieved. I also had another feeling bubbling inside me, excitement? I smiled a small smile to myself and tried to deny the inner me that I was excited to go to homecoming with Zuko. I saw TyLee walking down the hallway towards me talking to Korra. The look she gave me as we walked toward each other said she'd just seen me smiling. I don't smile much.

"You look happy, Mai." She commented.

"I usually don't?" I said, answering my own question in my head.

"Nope." Korra said. "Makes me think something just happened. We'ren't you just talking to the guy who asked you to the dance yesterday?"

Damn, busted. I thought then sighed and nodded. "Yeah, his name's Zuko. I asked him if he still wanted to go since I don't want to go alone while you all have dates. That sounds boring." TyLee giggled and threw her arm around my shoulders.

"Yay! We all have dates now. I think that's great you gave him a chance, he's kinda like you. You should look more happy about it." TyLee sees Zuko a lot at my house since she's hanging with me there a lot too. I didn't say anything to that as we all walked down the hall.

~Korra's POV~

I was excited for school to end since Mako and I had a date. He was taking me to the paintball arena in downtown Republic City. I haven't been there in a long time, and it sounded like fun when he suggested it so I agreed. Mako was waiting outside by his car right after school, since there was no football practice since the season was over. I was glad that football was over in a way so we could spend more time together, but I could tell he missed it already.

I hopped in his car and we took off downtown. I'd almost forgot where the place was it had been so long, but I don't doubt I'm going to win against him in the rounds. We decided we were going to be playing against each other, since it sounds a lot more fun that way. Mako thinks he's going to get me the most but we'll see about that.

When we got there we went up to the front desk, paid, and signed up for the next match and the guy behind the counter gave us our safety gear and two paintball guns with three rounds of ammo each. We geared up and then sat down and watched the match going on.

This was going to be a blast, I could already tell. It was a indoor arena that was pretty well. The battle field wasn't all that big but there were lots of obstacles in it. There didn't seem to be many spots to really take cover behind but it looked awesome. I looked over at Mako and he grinned.

"What?" I said laughing at the silly grin on his face.

"Oh, I'm just thinking up my strategy, gotta have a plan to get you covered in paint don't I?"

"So that's what you think will happen? I think you don't got a chance at winning against me. I'm pretty good at this." I said challenging him with a smirk.

"Let's see your skills then." Mako said chuckling.

The match we were watching ended then, and we met up with the rest of our teams. There were six of us on a team. Mako was on the red team, and I on the blue team. Everyone set their face masks into place and each of our teams got ready for the starting call from the ref. I stretched out a little and then hid positioned myself near the red team entrance, behind a short wall.

The match started then and everyone started running around. The only rules of this match was no head shots allowed, and you had to go to the safe zone when hit by a player of the opposte team. The end of the round, which was timed, and ended with a buzzer and a call from the ref, unless all the players from one team were eliminated first. I didn't really care if my team won or not, I just wanted to nail Mako with as much paint as possible. That was our plan, to play mostly against each other.

I spotted Mako and ran around an obstacle on the field, I aimed my gun and shot in his direction, he dodged and I shot again, making contact this time and leaving a bright red splatter on his chest. I whooped in victory and got hit by another member of his team in that moment. I groaned and held my gun above my head and went to the safe zone to watch the rest of the match. I didn't have to wait long since the guys on Mako's team got hit pretty fast after I was eliminated. The buzzer rang and the ref called the end of the round.

Everyone went back to their team's entrance and then the ref started round two. I quickly ran around and squatted behind an obstacle and looked around for the guy possibly responsible for shooting me. I spotted him and aimed and hit him straight on. I peek around my hiding spot and spotted one of the blue team's players as he spotted me. I just barely dodged his paintball and one of my team members shot him after a few seconds.

I grinned, and yelled thanks to my team mate. The round went on with each of our teams losing a player every one in a while, and both Mako and I got eliminated before one of us got the other. Whoever got me ignored the rules of no headshots because I got a splat to the back of my head. The round ended with the Red team announced as the winner this time and Mako's team whooped in victory.

"You are pretty good." Mako said

"Told you." I smirked.

"I've gotta redeem myself, so I'm not gonna go easy on be watching out next round, I'll be going for you first." He said. I scoffed and pointed to my eyes with two of my fingers and then pointed at him, signaling the 'I'm watching you,' gesture. Mako laughed and shook his head. I smiled back. I didn't think he was going easy on me, or at least I hoped he wasn't.

My team grouped up together and I joined them. One of the guys, who I figure considered himself the 'captain' of our team explained a strategy to take the red team out quickly. Apparently he was really into winning.

The ref announced the third round was about to start so we headed over to our starting zone once more for the last round. Mako hadn't got me yet, and I wanted to keep it that way. I'll admit, I like to win, and I can get pretty competitive. The ref started the round and like Mako said, he was right on me. He shot in my direction but he narrowly missed me. I ran the other direction and nailed two of Mako's teammates from behind.

I stopped around a wall the crouched there. I glanced around the edge of the wall and saw Mako running my direction. As I predicted he turned the corner and I shot at him. I shot, but didn't hear anything, nor did a painball splat onto his armor. Mako shot me and then we both started laughing like crazy. One of my teammates got him in the back in the middle of our laughter. He helped me up and we walked to the safe zone together.

We returned our gear to the guy at the desk and I picked at the paint in my hair, which was already drying. There was so much of it that I just decided to leave it and pulled my hair up into a better ponytail. We grabbed two drinks from the vending machine and headed out. When we got to my house I gave him a hug leaning across the front seats of his car. I kissed his cheek.

"That was a ton of fun. I haven't been here in like a year, forgot how much a liked it. We've definately got to do this again." I said.

"Definately." Mako agreed.

~Asami's POV~

After school I went home without waiting for Korra, who was on a date with Mako. Iroh texted me earlier that he'd pick me up about four-thirty for my "surprise" He also said to wear something nice. I only found myself growing impatient as the day went by to find out what he had planned. I spent nearly an hour rummaging through my closet looking for something to wear, while thinking of where he might be taking me. By the time he showed up I had run out of ideas of what it could possibly be. My door bell rang and I answered it.

"You ready?"

"Yeah." I said grabbing my purse off the table by the front door and following him to his car. Iroh reached into the back seat and pulled a tie off his back seat. He handed it to me, and I gave him a confused look.

"For a blindfold. It's a surprise remember?" I sighed and shook my head smiling as I put it over my eyes. I ended up not being able to get it tied right away so Iroh reached over and helped me tie it snugly over my eyes. After that he started the car up and I reached over to the radio and somehow found the knob blindly to turn it on.

"So...no hints?" I asked.

"Nope, you're just going to have to trust me."

After what seemed like forever, which probably had to do with the fact I couldn't see, we came to a stop and Iroh told me to stay in my seat for a minute. I did as I was told and he got out and then opened my door. He undid the blindfold and then helped me get out of the car like a gentleman and I realized where we were. We were at Kwong's Cuisine, an upper-class resturant on the more 'wealthy' side of the city. It was a pretty expensive place to eat. I stared at Iroh for a few seconds.

"Kwong's huh? I used to come here all the time with my mother. I wonder if their food still tastes as good." I told Iroh.

"Let's see." He said flashing me a handsome smile and taking my hand as we walked to the entrance of the resturant. He opened the door for me and said a somewhat awkward 'Ladies first,' which made me laugh a little, and we walked in. A busboy at the door took our coats from us and a waitress came up and lead us to a table by a window and handed us our menus while asking what we would like to drink. I said iced tea and Iroh asked for Dr. Pepper.

After we had ordered when the waitress came back to our table, I found myself talking about my family after he asked me why me and my mother don't come to Kwons anymore. I told him that I lost her when I was twelve years old due to an accident. I usually don't tell the story or really talk about her since I still miss her and it hurts to talk about it, But for some reason Iroh had something about him that made me feel comfortable, and I didn't mind spilling the sad story to him. He felt kind of bad about asking but I told him it was okay, and held his hand across the table.

Iroh told me about his family after that, I think to make up for bringing up a sad memory of mine, that I guess I really brought up when we first got to the resturant. Anyways, he told me about his parents and his younger sister. He even talked about football, and how he couldn't wait for next season. I found myself getting lost in his voice a lot, he has such a deep melting voice that I could listen to forever. I listened to him until the waitress brought us our food.

Our conversation switched from family to hobbies to movies we liked, things we didn't like, and so on. I smiled a lot throughout our dinner. It was really nice to spend time with Iroh and made plan to thank Korra for making me go on that ice skating double date later. If it wasnt for her, I wouldn't have met Iroh after all. After we finished eating, he paid for our dinner and we got our coats back at the door.

When we got in the car Iroh told me the surprise wasn't over and we had one more place to go. He also asked if i minded putting the blindfold on again. I shook my head and he wrapped it over my eyes again and we drove off to surprise number two. When we stopped this time he opened my door and had me hold on his arm as we walked out of the car. He made sure to walk slowly so I wouldn't trip. I stepped onto a curb and then we walked up a hill.

"Where are we going?" I said, getting really confused since we were walking up the hill for what seemed like forever, again probably since I was blind at the moment. Iroh assured me that we were almost there and after about a minute we stopped. I reached up to take the blindfold off and he stopped me.

"Just a sec, okay?"

"Kay." I said. He let go of my arm and then about 10 seconds later he untied the blindfold. We were at a park that had a hill. It was a really pretty park with a lot of trees. I figured the reason I hadn't been able to guess were we were before is because we walked up a concrete path that when I looked around, saw that it circled the whole park so you didn't have to walk in the grass.

On the ground he had a blanket laid out on the grass. I looked at him a little bit confused.

"We're going to watch the sunset, I thought you would like it. There's a great view from up here." He paused at looked at the watch he wore on his left wrist. "We have a few minutes till it sets."

I smiled at him and sat down on the blanket. Iroh sat down next to me. He had really planned this out and I thought it was really sweet of him. The clouds today were purple and blue like cotton candy and really pretty. I leaned against his shoulder and he wrapped his right around me. The sun started to set and then it went down. I looked up at him.

"Hey." He said.

"Hey, thanks for today. I really loved dinner and this beautiful sunset."

"I'm glad." He said. We didnt say anything else for a minute and I laid backwards and he did too. I was truely happy. I couldn't remember being this happy since I was little, and maybe before I turned into a vampire. That thought lowered my mood a bit as I looked at the sky, there were a few stars starting to poke out.

I wished I could tell Iroh about my vampire side, but I was still scared of what he would think or say. I had just had a great time with him so it wasn't the right time anyway. I really like Iroh, but I just don't know if I could tell him something like that, I wouldn't even know where to start.

I felt horrible hiding it from him. He seemed to sense something was wrong.

"You okay?" He asked.

I sat up and he did as well. "Yeah, I'm fine." I said, lying. The look on his face didn't seem like he believed me, but he didn't push the subject. Instead he put his arm around me again. I smiled, I really liked it when he touched me. It felt nice. I scooted a little closer to him.

"Iroh-" I said looking to the side. He look in his eyes made me stop my sentence and I forgot what I was saying. He smiled and I smiled back, feeling a blush creep to my cheeks and I think I saw one on his face too.

He whispered my name "Asami". I felt a little chill run though me and he leaned closer to me. My insides paniced a little but I relaxed after a second and leaned in too. He kissed me, a short kiss, but sweet. I smiled bumping my nose to his accidently and he chuckled and I kissed him back, longer this time.

"You were right." I said when we broke apart the second time. "In your text message you sent last night, I did love it."

I moved so I was half sitting- half laying between his legs."I'm glad." He said pulling me so my back was against this chest. He rested in chin on the top of my hair.

Soo fluff fluff chapter tehehee c: I thought I should throw one in since its been a bit serious. The next one will be back on story plot though, so no worries.

Thanks for reading and thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story up till now. Don't be afraid to press the follow/favorite button so you know when I update next! Press the button! It takes 2 seconds!

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Until next time,

Razumi3 out! xD