Chapter 22

Zhong's POV

Startled by the young girl's abrasiveness toward my title, I glared at her.

How dare she mock my standards? How am I not Katara's fiancé, am I not good enough or is she merely toying with me?

Staring into the girl's eyes, I noticed that they were vacant, and although she had a sarcastic look on her face, her eyes gave away to nothing.

Is she…

Katara spoke up, "What do you mean there is no way he is my fiancé?"

The girl scoffed, "He doesn't act right. In fact, he doesn't act at all like he is YOUR fiancé, he acts like he is Ma-"

I interrupted her before she could finish, "I think it is best that we follow after the Fire Lord's wishes and go back to the palace now for some lunch."

Katara's brother, Sokka, I think, nearly just about ran to the carriages, exclaiming something like, "I agree with the sister stealer, let's get some food!"

As we were walking to the carriages, I looked back to see the girl staring at me. She walked up toward me, and I don't know why, but I felt terrified as to what she would do.

Whispering very quietly, she said, "I don't know what game your playing here, Jumpy, but I am warning you," lifting herself up to her full height, and jabbing me in the chest with her finger, "If you dare hurt Katara or Zuko, there will be Hell to pay. You got me?"

Before I could answer her, she walked off in the direction of the Avatar, latching onto his arm.

Turning back over to where Katara was standing, I saw that she had her arms crossed and staring a little amused at what just happened.

"So I see that Toph 'really' likes you."

I scoffed, "Oh yeah, she and I are going to get along great…"

Toph's POV

Something isn't adding up right with this Zhong guy, I don't know but he isn't acting like he is going to be getting married to Katara. Feeling the two couples' reactions to different things, I don't see how he isn't really happy being with Katara. Normally when we were growing up, I could see that any guy would want to be with Katara, but it's like with this guy he just doesn't like her.

Wait, I did feel the only time that his emotions would spike was when I threatened him, and then when he was standing next to…

There is going to be a whole lot of shit going on the next couple weeks.

I barely noticed it when Aang unraveled our arms, and he wrapped his arms around mine. A large amount heat came to my face, and I could feel my heart pounding hard against my chest.

Things were definitely going to get interesting…

Katara's POV

"Oh my La, I have died and gone off into the spirit world. This meat is amazing!"

I hardly tried to contain my eyes from rolling at Sokka. His mouth was stuffed with tons of food, and I don't think that anyone was willing to have a conversation with him right at this moment.

"Princess Kat-… I mean, pardon me, Katara, how are the wedding plans doing? I heard that you only have a few weeks before the ceremony commences."

Turning to look at the wise man, I said, "Oh, well the plans are getting along wonderfully, I already have my dress getting started. I felt really bad for the dress makers having to do this at such short notice, but Zhong and I-"

Before I could ever finish with my sentence, Zhong interrupted from my right, "We just wanted to be married as soon as possible."

I smiled gravely, "Yes, yes we did."

Toph snorted from where she was sitting diagonal from me, "Sure doesn't seem like it."

Feeling anger well up inside of me, I froze her soup inside of the bowl under my breath. Zuko however sitting on Zhong's other side took notice of this and quirked his brow at the blind girl's soup. Then when he looked over to where I was sitting, I forced my head to look down into my bowl of soup.

This however did not stop him…

"What is that suppose to mean Toph?"

"It means," she said, "That Sweetness over there doesn't want to get married, and neither does he."

I felt like my heart just about died right now, and that I was just an empty corpse on the floor.

Suddenly someone spoke up above the entire loud silence that had taken over the room, "Well of course they don't want to get married!"

I looked over to see that Mai was standing up, fuming, "They don't want to get married because they are being forced to by their nations' leaders."

Glancing over at Toph, I saw that she was giving a rather devilish smirk…

Zhong by this point had risen up from his seat next to me, his face infuriated, "What the Hell Mai? You don't think that we can make a few decisions by ourselves? Well I'll have you know that I can decide things for myself, without your input on every little thing."

And I thought that Mai couldn't show any emotion, but here she is livid and looking just about ready to kill, "Oh yeah? Well you have made that very clear with all of the crap that we have been through ever since those 'savages' came here. Oh but I know that you don't mind marrying her, I mean, she is so frickin' beautiful and you could easily fall in love with her. Plus she is probably so frickin' easy to get into bed."

The world turned red by this point…

I felt the bowl in Toph's bowl melt back into liquid, and pretty soon I also felt all of the water in the room rocking heavily against the glass bowls and cups.

"Shut up you bitch! Why don't you look in the mirror before you start pointing the finger at anyone!"

Mai was unfazed by any of the glassware shaking against the wooden table, "Oh whatever! Says the boyfriend snatcher, like you have never slept with a guy before."

"I have not EVER been intimate with any man!"

"That is the biggest lie that I have ever heard!"

Before either of us could say anything more, Toph got up as well, "Actually she is telling the truth, I can tell by feeling the vibrations in the room," and then she sat down in her seat again, taking a bite into a dumpling.

Mai just let that roll off of her, "Fine then she has never slept with a guy, but she has stolen guys from me before."

By this point, Zuko had gotten up with the three of us as well, "'Guys'? Just how many to be exact?"

Mai went pale and started stumbling with her words, "No, I meant 'guy', she has only stolen one guy from me, but I got you back."

Toph didn't even bother with getting up this time, "Now THAT is the biggest lie I have ever heard. Even bigger than the time that Katara told me that that guy Jet wasn't her boyfriend."

You could feel the heat rolling off of Zuko right now, "So who are these other guys? I mean, last I checked you told me before we ever got together that you had never dated anyone, so who on Earth could it be?"

I don't know if there was anyone who was more obtuse in this very moment, but everyone stared hard at Zuko.

Toph got restless with the silence that once again took over the entire room…

"Sparky, sorry to say this, but are you really that much of an idiot?"

His eyes snapped in the direction of the young earthbender, and I could see that would have killed her right now, but then his eyes widened, and he looked directly at Zhong.

"You?"

I looked to where Zhong was trying to make himself look smaller, but before he could say anything, a flash of deep red pounced on him, and the two "friends" were fighting with each other.