SO short.. but hopefully will keep you interested in reading more ;) i promise i will update this more often, i'm on break now! thanks all for the reviews, alerts, faves, messages. they are appreciated more than you know. remember to review! i swear it makes me update faster..
He didn't know why he didn't see it before. Blue eyes with a slight upward tilt near the temples, deep lids and high, sharp cheeks, as if carved. Brown, milky skin that reminded Aang of Gyatso's morning coffee. Lips of a well-fed fish. The coarse hair. The relative height.
Spirits! They were practically identical.
"Ugh," Aang moaned in disgust. "How could I be so stupid!" Out of breath, he stopped in front of a dorm building and looked up at the clock. It was already 5:12 pm. If Katara had received his note, she would be at the Kyoshi statue right now with her older brother. The image made Aang nauseous; he was suddenly overcome with great regret for ever approaching Sokka for help.
He was desperate and he looked around him wildly. He stared hard at the clock and then closed his eyes. He had to think of something, some excuse or exception that would get him out of this mess. Maybe there was a loophole. Maybe Katara was still in her dorm - maybe she had never read the note asking her to meet at the Kyoshi statue - maybe Sokka forgot to show up - maybe she hadn't even read the note yet. He decided to check her room first.
"No time for stairs," he said to himself. A neighboring couple holding hands on a bench looked up, thinking he was addressing them. They smiled when they saw Aang was talking to himself, and the guy - a little older than Aang - rolled his eyes and mouthed, "Freshmen." Meanwhile, Aang pushed both his fists towards the ground, and a huge gust of air lifted him up four stories to one of the upperclassmen balconies. The couple was left with swept hair and dry eyes, and the boy lost the Pro-Bending jacket he had hung loosely on his shoulders. Aang heard a cross "Fuck!" from behind him as the boy retrieved his jacket from the mud.
"I'm sorry!" Aang yelled from the balcony. "I've just got something really important I've got to check on! Sorry!" He pressed his fist to his palm and bowed before spinning on his heels and racing down the hall.
The note he had taped to Katara and Suki's door was gone. "First bad sign," Aang said with a sigh. Hesitantly, he rapped his knuckles on the door. He thought he heard someone shuffling inside, and he froze. What would he say to Katara if she was in?
He had excused himself from Omashu's and left Suki there - maybe Sokka had finished his talk with Katara too, and she was back home. Or maybe she had never left, and the note was taken down by the custodians. Aang wondered if he should knock again - but he didn't have the luxury of waiting and deciding. The door opened wide, and Aang stood face to face with the firebender he recognized on the school's Pro-Bending team, the boy Katara had argued with that night at Rough Rhino's. It was Dean Ozai's son, Zuko.
The sight would have been less of a shock if Zuko was wearing a shirt. Aang narrowed his eyes and peered over Zuko's bare shoulder as his heart pounded loud in his chest. Katara was on the couch with her naked legs tucked neatly beneath her, her fingers laced around a steaming cup of chai. She was in a large, long-sleeved night shirt - possibly one of Sokka's old ones - and had pulled the sleeves up to the elbows. Her hair was down and she looked peaceful. Aang swallowed. He had never felt so lost - and the lump rising in his throat, the knot in his stomach, his pulsing fists - was it anger or relief causing his body to react this way? Where was his note?
"Hey," Zuko said to the airbender. "Katara," he said over his shoulder, "it's Aang." It bothered Aang that Zuko knew his name. He had never met the boy; Katara must have talked about him.
"Let him in," she called out with a smile. "Hey, Aang, you want some tea?"