this is short; comment anyway; proof that i am alive & thinking of you.. xoxo. scorpiaux
Rough Rhino's was not a place for girls like Mai.
The club was located a floor above the local pharmacy, about three miles away from campus. Mai and Ty Lee rode in Azula's car, a cherry red number she had acquired on her own birthday just a few months back. Strangely enough, she had also brought Zuko a present, perhaps in an attempt to show off her own large allowance - money that she and Zuko collected from the same pocket. Just this morning, Azula had visited a famous clothier in downtown Kai Zhu, a man named Youngling Ching who specialized in men's clothing. She had purchased Zuko a navy Y. original for his upcoming interview at the Boiling Rock Graduate Program, wrapped it up in sparkling gold paper, and tossed it in the trunk to reveal to him later that night.
Mai was definitely the more conservative of the three. She had elected to wear a gray and black dress, form-fitting and low cut at the chest, but she also wore a pair of cloudy tights and a simple heel. The ensemble was complete and classy with a black lace jacket that zippered up to the neck. She looked good. Azula and Ty Lee would have agreed if they weren't so busy poking fun at her decision to cover her legs.
Azula and Ty Lee, meanwhile, went red. Azula in black skinny jeans and a red lacy shirt that was almost a bra; Ty Lee in a ruffled crimson ballerina skirt and high boots. They rode in the front seats of the car with their heads high - crimson, rust, and blood colored. They were gorgeous, their youth spilling from their bare limbs, and Mai - although she couldn't put her finger on it at first, exactly - felt a form of power. It was good to be out late and have friends as rich and absurd and beautiful as Azula and Ty Lee. She felt a closeness with them but also a distance, as if she would be doomed - or blessed? - enough to remember this night forever.
Her primary thought was Zuko. Although she wasn't sure if she would talk to him tonight, she was excited to be in his company, to see him outside of his regular class schedule. Her arms were dotted with goosebumps the entire drive here. But when they were admitted to the club, their hands stamped and their IDs checked, she almost forgot Zuko in his entirety.
She had never seen anything like Rough Rhino's before. The music was loud and rhythmic, the lights flashing and colorful. There were drinks on high tables, drinks on low tables, drinks on the bar counter in front of full stools. In the corners, young women - some she recognized from the university - smoked slim cigarettes, their fingers fussing in the air about some random detail, some gossip gone unnoticed. She saw young women and men on the marble dance floor, their shoes new and leatherette, swaying and bouncing to the music.
Couples kissed with tongues and hands. Young men surrounded the beautiful girls like sharks, their hair slicked back with oil, their button-down shirts tucked in and clasped tightly at the waist. What caught Mai's breath the most was the togetherness and simultaneous disjointedness. Everyone was dancing and moving, some to their own song, but together it looked like the most elaborate dance Mai could imagine. They smelled like sweet alcohol and fresh sweat and citrus cologne. Mai didn't have to drink at all to be thoroughly intoxicated with the scene. In the flashing light, in the deafening music, everyone looked good and young and full of life. She didn't notice it herself, but she was smiling.
"I can't wait! I can't wait!" squealed Ty Lee, voicing Mai's own thoughts. "This is going to be one for the books!"
"Don't get wasted," Azula warned in a dangerous monotone, removing her sunglasses. "I'm not cleaning up vomit or semen from my backseat tonight."
"You won't have to, I promise," Ty Lee returned brightly. How the flexible girl was always able to dodge Azula's negativity remained a mystery to Mai. Ty Lee rummaged in her handbag - a small, sparkly piece dotted with purple sequins - and unleashed a few gold pieces. "Drinks on me, ladies!" she announced, hugging both of them tightly before slinking her way to the bar.
Azula went after her, murmuring, "Wait, Ty Lee, you don't know what I want. We have to find Zuko first." But the girl was deaf to the firebender's musings, and Mai smiled lopsidedly as Azula chased after her.
Aside from admiring the club scene, Mai realized she didn't know where to start. She had brought Zuko a small gift, and as it stayed clasped in her clammy hands, she realized she should find him first and give it to him. She wouldn't feel too out of place, she imagined, if she was walking with a final destination in mind. The thought gave her peace as she searched for him, but in the light, it was hard to distinguish the finer facial details of the patrons. Everyone looked the same, the lamps casting just the right shadows on the eyes and jaw. She thought about joining Azula and Ty Lee at the bar, but then decided against it. She wasn't interested in drinking tonight, afraid of going too far or doing it wrong, or having some other impossible stupidity occur accidentally and embarrassing herself in front of her friends - or worse, Zuko! No, no. No drinks tonight.
But Rough Rhino's was not a place for girls like Mai. And she didn't have to look too hard or too far to find the object of her desires and daydreams, the boy she had loved and cared for deeply since her youth, standing at the far corner of the club with a bottle of Spirit Water in his hand and a woman wrapped carelessly about his neck.
Mai blinked and refocused, the gift suddenly feeling heavy in her arms. She stole away to the wall, dotted with lamps and ink drawings and old graffiti and looked at the couple more closely. The woman was dressed in silver and blue, a white halter top snug around her torso and a glittering shawl around her shoulders. She had a tight pair of skinny jeans and heels that wrapped up her toes to her small, tan ankles. Her hair was long and wavy. She couldn't tell the color because the light made everything look red and gold, but she could see it was thick and tangled, and she thought "sex hair" and hated herself for it. Her arms were thin - they fit about Zuko's shoulders and neck perfectly. She had one hand cupped on his cheek and - after someone in their group of four said something funny, and Zuko smiled that shy, knowing smile of his - the girl turned his face and kissed him long on the mouth. His eyes opened wide and he grabbed her waist. Someone hooted and the girl flicked them off, her finger manicured and deadly.
This is how the club went from having a sense of wonderment to immediate misery. Mai couldn't close her mouth. It was as if she had visited the circus for the first time, fallen in love with the sounds and the tin horns and confetti, the elephants and the zebras and the lion tamers, and suddenly - very suddenly, before she could finish her popcorn - the car full of clowns turned the corner and ruined the night with red, red lips and toothy grinning.
For whatever reason, she had never imagined Zuko to be in a relationship - or, if not, never to be so comfortable in this public display with a girl whose body symbolized perfectly what men feared and adored. Mai blinked again, unsure what else to do. Afraid that Zuko would look her way, she made a path quickly to the bar. Zuko, she thought, his name a distant, unreachable thing. Zuko. How was it possible? This wasn't the boy she knew.
Then she realized she didn't know him at all. The possibility of Zuko being very different than the ideal she had painted since she was seven made her queasy. Without thinking, she requested a drink and took a seat near Ty Lee and a brawny pro-bender who had lost his shirt.