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Chapter 13 – Unavoidable Questions

Korin was lying with his back against the fountain, with Keisha sitting in front of him, between his legs. The two sat there in silence, completely oblivious to the eyes watching them. Finally one of them spoke, "We should probably head back," points out Korin.

"I know, let's go," sighs Keisha as stands, she turns to help Korin up off the floor.

With that they head back to the tea shop, still oblivious of the eyes following them, then the owner of the eyes turns and leaves. Keisha and Korin reach the tea shop hand in hand. They walk in forgetting that they were still holding hands, they here a gasp followed closely by an 'I knew it' by Milly. They looked at the adults in the room with a confused look. "What?" they said in unison.

The adults motion their heads towards their inter-twined fingers. The two children follow the direction they motioned and blushed crimson at what they were looking at. The quickly separated their hands and started mumbling incoherent things about not knowing what they were talking about. Korin recovers quickly and asks, "What did you mean when you said 'I knew it' Milly?"

"I knew something would happen on your walk, I just didn't know what that would be," she answers truthfully.

The two children blush further. "That's strange," mumbles Keisha.

"How is it strange, Keisha? I only thought something was going to happen on your walk, call it a woman's intuition, I also didn't know whether it would be good or bad," replies Milly matter-of-factly.

"Uh-hunh, what in the world is a woman's intuition?" asks Korin.

"It's when a woman knows something is going to happen," says Keisha.

"Oh, well, I think I know a little about that, mum seems to always know what dad's going to do and when he's going to do it," he replies.

"No, Korin, your mother just knows me too well, she can pinpoint what I'm going to do before I even have it fully figured out," says Zuko in slight frustration.

"Oh," says Korin before he starts laughing uncontrollably.

Keisha, finding his laughing contagious, joins in and starts laughing uncontrollably as well.

"I don't find it that funny children," Zuko growls.

"Zuko, you know that they are only children, something as strange as marital issues is funny for them, let them be," says Iroh wisely.

Zuko growls under his breath but let's the children laugh at his expense.

When they finally calm down, dinner is ready and they are sitting at the table stuffing their faces. The children keep eating to avoid the questions they know the adults are formulating in their heads. But that doesn't last long, "So, how was your walk?" asks Milly knowing full well the minors were trying to avoid that very question.

The two blush as red as the red robes the Fire Nation men are wearing. "Um, it was, good," says Keisha shyly.

"What changed that made you come back holding hands without noticing, or even holding hands for that matter?" asks Iroh.

"Um, nothing really, we must have unconsciously started holding hands for some unknown reason," replies Korin, still hiding the real reason.

"You know for a fact I can tell you are lying Korin, you are my son," says a now interested Zuko.

Korin sighs with annoyance, "You are right, you know I'm lying. If you really want to know then we will tell you, but only if Keisha is okay with that," he says looking in Keisha's direction, after her nod of approval, he continues. "We were sparring in a joking manner, when I had her pinned, she did the thing I least expected. She kissed me, after I regained control of my brain, I kissed her back. When we couldn't breath, we came up for air and confessed how we felt for each other. After that we just stayed near the fountain, with her in my lap till I remembered we had to come back for dinner," he said as he got redder with every word spoken.

As Korin got redder, the adults' eyes got wider, not believing that a 10-year-old girl would start a kiss with her 11-year-old best friend and then confess her feelings. I mean, they're only children, and what do they know about love and kissing? They shouldn't know anything, but the adults were proved wrong after the children's' little escapade. "Well, I'll admit we weren't expecting that, we were just teasing," whispers Milly.

Korin blushes at the realisation that he didn't have to tell them anything, he looks over at Keisha to see her in exact same position; looking uncomfortable. "You're telling me, I didn't have to tell you what happened on our walk?" he finally asks.

"Of course you didn't, we expected you to hide it, we'd respect that and find out on our own," replies Zuko, now out of his shocked state of mind at his sons tale, realising that his son is growing up, making him feel old.

"Well, it's to late know, you already know what happened when we left," says Keisha.

"Yeah, but I feel rather concerned, you're only children, and while you're away from the South Pole, you are under my protection. You know you can't go any further than a kiss, you are way too young to do anything else," points out Milly.

"Milly, please don't tell me you're worried we're going to have sex, we're aware that we are too young for something like that, what do you take us for? A couple of hormonal teenagers?" asks Keisha.

"No Keisha, that's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that, as your acting guardian, I don't want the two of you acting on your feelings in public. The people may feel that you are far too young to even love each other and may even think this is a scandal. Do you understand that you can't go further than holding hands in public?"

"Yes, we understand what you are saying, we promise to never do more than hold hands in public," says Korin before Keisha opens her mouth to say anything stupid.

"Good, now, it's getting late, have baths and then go bed, separately," orders Milly.

"You make it sound as though we're goin-" Keisha started, but was cut off when Korin covered her mouth with his hand.

"Okay, we're going to bed now, good night," says Korin.

I am soooooo sorry that I am late again, school is really annoying, too much homework, too little time. Also, I was having a slight writer's block, nothing too serious, but enough to hold me back. Anyways, you know what to do, R&R please.

Thank-you to all my loyal readers for waiting if you were waiting, and sorry again for being late. I'm not sure how good this chapter is since I haven't done anything to it since June, so comstructive criticism is welcome, no flames, I'll cry.

Thank-you kindly,

Anime-Angel-Seza. :)