Chapter 1: Criminal of the Heart
AN: Hello, and welcome to my new story!
I don't think I've ever had a story that my heart has needed to tell more than this one. But before I get too sappy, just a couple of quick things:
I'm actually pretty terrible at drawing in real life, so I'm really hoping the art I create through writing comes across much better.
I don't drink coffee. At all. So if I mess up a coffee term or if some of the flavor combinations sound horrifying... I apologize in advance.
While this story leans into romantic comedy, there's something deeper woven beneath the surface—a quiet, poetic thread that I hope you'll notice as you read.
For those who've followed my writing journey, you may know that I lost my girlfriend of four years in a car crash. And now, we're less than two weeks away from the one-year anniversary of her passing. I could say a lot about the grief journey—how unpredictable, devastating, and transformative it's been—but one thing that's really stuck with me through support groups, therapy, and even random conversations is this: so many people have experienced something like this. The pain of losing someone you love is far more common than we realize, and yet the stories behind that pain often stay quiet, locked away.
That's what inspired The Art of Letting Go.
Yes, there will be Kataang. Yes, there will be humor, coffee shop shenanigans, and just a little angst. But I invite you to look deeper. To find the beauty in the grief, the quiet moments of healing, and maybe even the courage to share your own story one day.
Thank you, truly, for being here and for continuing to support my work. It means more than I can say. I hope this story speaks to you in the same way it's been speaking to me.
The city was still. Not silent—never truly silent—but still, like it was holding its breath.
Aang stood in front of the massive, gray side wall of City Hall, the cement so wide and so flat it almost begged for color. For life. He had passed it a hundred times, always feeling the itch behind his ribs. That feeling he got when something was waiting to be said.
Tonight, he finally had something to say.
He dropped his backpack gently onto the pavement, the sound of the zipper echoing down the empty street as he opened it. Inside, his tools waited. Spray cans in every color he could afford, gloves, rags, stencils he wouldn't end up using. And at the bottom, wrapped in a dark blue cloth, a folded paper—the only sketch he'd brought. He didn't need a reference. The image was already burned behind his eyes.
He shook the first can. The rattle was like a heartbeat. Familiar. Steadying.
The wall loomed above him, blank and cold.
But he could see it already.
He started slow. Broad strokes of deep, dusty blue arched across the left side of the wall—soft and vast, like an early morning sky. He let the blue bleed upward, darkening at the top into the deep violet of twilight. In the center, he added a wash of muted golden tones, letting them swirl through the sky like threads of memory.
The silhouette came next.
It wasn't detailed. A soft figure in the middle of the wall, standing with shoulders relaxed and head tilted slightly back—like he was watching clouds drift overhead. One hand rested casually in the pocket of a long, wool coat. The other reached outward, palm open. There was no face. Just warmth. He used burnt ochre and peachy browns to bring depth to the figure, layering the coat in strokes of warm yellow, like the one Gyatso always wore in the winter. A beat-up coat that never quite matched the rest of him.
Aang's hand trembled as he outlined it. Not from fear. From memory.
Then came the details that mattered more than any likeness.
Soft white lotus flowers spilled from the figure's open palm, floating upward like they were carried by the wind. Aang gave them faint outlines of silver and pale pink, their centers blooming into little suns. Around them, doves—simple shapes, wings outstretched—emerged from the background in quiet flight. Some small, tucked into the corners. Some large, wings spanning across the sky.
Below the figure, tall grass swayed in faint strokes, painted in grays and greens. Not a field, exactly. But something open. Peaceful.
There was a bench to the right, drawn in a ghostly line of charcoal, barely there.
And above it all, a single paper airplane soared across the wall, looping gently through the twilight sky.
Aang stepped back slowly, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm, paint still staining his fingertips.
The mural was done.
And for the first time in a long while… he felt something close to stillness.
The figure at the center wasn't just Gyatso. It was grief, shaped into the body of a man who had always known how to listen. It was the echo of stories told over late-night tea. The smell of turmeric on old sweaters. The sound of laughter that made everything feel lighter. It was the man who had held Aang's heart in both hands his entire life—and let go with a kindness that still broke him to think about.
The mural wasn't perfect. Nothing ever was. But it felt like him.
He reached into his bag one last time and pulled out a small note, printed and weatherproofed. He taped it carefully to the bottom corner of the wall.
Just five lines and a signature. Just words and grief.
"Peace doesn't come from forgetting.
It comes from remembering gently.
Let it hurt,
let it breathe,
let it live on the wall."
— Moku
Aang looked up at the mural again, the doves caught mid-flight, the golden warmth in the coat, the open hand.
And for a moment, the ache inside him softened.
Not gone. But held.
He exhaled.
And he smiled.
The paint was still drying, the air still heavy with the scent of aerosol and something softer—like closure trying to take root.
Aang stood there for a long while, the coolness of the pavement pressing through his shoes as his gaze wandered slowly across the mural.
He let his eyes trace the paper airplane first.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, brief and aching. Gyatso used to fold them out of receipts, newspapers, torn napkins—whatever was around. He'd float them across their tiny living room and insist they were "messages to the universe." Once, he handed Aang one on the night before a middle school math final. "May this vessel carry all your correct answers." Aang had failed the test, but kept the paper plane for three years.
His eyes shifted to the bench drawn in charcoal lines—simple, almost invisible. That one was harder.
He could see them there: Gyatso with his legs crossed, oversized sunglasses perched halfway down his nose, offering half of a cream cheese bagel that he always insisted Aang "really needed more than he did." They'd sit there in the mornings before school, watching the neighborhood dogs try to chase pigeons, talking about anything but what hurt.
His throat clenched.
The doves came next. He'd added them last in his sketch, quick and instinctive, but now… now they pulled something raw from his chest. Gyatso used to say birds were reminders that it was okay to leave—as long as you knew how to come back. Doves had been his favorite. Not because of what they symbolized, but because of how unremarkable they looked until they took off. "Like people," he used to say. "Our wings never look like much until they're in motion."
Aang's vision blurred.
He blinked, then let his eyes fall to the lotus flowers, floating gently out of the mural's palm. They were delicate. Purposeful. A quiet miracle in every petal.
One night, months before the hospital, Gyatso had told him, "Grief is just love with nowhere to go, kid." That stuck. It still stuck. The lotuses were where he imagined all that love had gone.
Aang stepped closer, fingers twitching like they wanted to reach out—touch the edge of the mural, maybe find something warm in it, something alive.
But his feet didn't move.
Instead, his gaze lifted to the center. To the figure in the coat.
No face. No eyes. But the stance was so undeniably him. Relaxed. Curious. Always listening.
Aang's chest tightened until he could hardly breathe.
He remembered the way Gyatso used to hum when he washed the dishes—always a little off-key, but full of joy. He remembered how he'd throw open the window during storms just to "let the thunder feel heard." He remembered birthday mornings where pancakes were charred beyond saving, and hugs that were always a second too long but never unwelcome.
And then he remembered the hospital.
The beeping machines, cold and clinical. The white sheet pulled too high. The way Gyatso had smiled through the pain and said, "You turned out alright, huh?" before the light behind his eyes dimmed.
Aang hadn't let go of his hand until the nurses told him he had to.
A single tear slid down his cheek. Then another. And another.
He didn't wipe them away.
They ran silently as he stood in front of the man he couldn't save, immortalized in the colors of dusk and memory.
This mural wasn't enough.
But it was something.
A breath in stone. A heartbeat on concrete.
A place to put the love that still had nowhere to go.
Aang lowered his head and whispered to the mural, "I miss you."
And for a moment, in the quiet night, it almost felt like Gyatso whispered back.
The chill of the early morning clung to Aang's hoodie as he slung his backpack over one shoulder and stepped away from the mural, his steps slow and reluctant—like his body didn't quite want to leave what he'd made. The faint hiss of the spray paint still echoed in his ears, a ghost of movement and color that trailed him down the empty street.
The city was sleeping. The lamplight was soft. Every shadow stretched long across the sidewalk as he walked the familiar path home, paint still drying on his fingertips, the ache in his legs finally catching up to him now that the adrenaline was gone.
His backpack felt heavier tonight. Maybe it was just the weight of what he'd left behind.
He passed the silent storefronts, a row of shuttered windows that would burst to life in a few hours with the start of another morning. A traffic light blinked uselessly red on an empty intersection. Somewhere in the distance, a siren cried out and then faded into nothing. But here, in this quiet pocket of the city, all he could hear were his own footsteps.
By the time he reached his building, the sky had started to lose its darkness—just barely. That ghostly blue-gray before the sun had anything to say about it. He pushed open the rusting door, climbing two flights of stairs that groaned under his weight, and finally turned his key into the chipped lock of his studio.
The space was small. Barely big enough for his mattress, desk, and the cluster of plants he always forgot to water until they started drooping in protest. But it was his. And tonight, it felt sacred.
He dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes without thinking, and shuffled toward the bed with heavy limbs. His hands smelled like paint. His heart felt like a sponge soaked to the brink.
The clock on his nightstand blinked 4:30 AM in harsh red lines.
He had to be up in four and a half hours for his shift at the coffee shop.
But he didn't regret it.
Not tonight.
Because tonight, he had told Gyatso's story.
Not the clean, polished one people like to tell after someone dies. But the real one. The one filled with humming off-key, too many bagels, crooked sunglasses, and a love that had never tried to be anything but unconditional.
Gyatso would live on now.
In brick. In color. In whispers passed between strangers who would stop to look at the mural and wonder who the man was, and what he meant to the boy who painted him.
The city didn't know him yet.
But they were about to.
Aang sank onto the mattress and let himself fall back into the pillows without bothering to change. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, where faint light crept through the blinds, drawing thin lines across the cracked plaster.
You live on, he thought, his chest rising slowly.
And with that, surrounded by the quiet hum of a city about to wake, Aang finally let himself drift to sleep.
The alarm on Aang's phone buzzed like a mosquito against the nightstand.
He groaned, dragging an arm across his face before squinting one eye open.
8:12 AM.
He had exactly forty-eight minutes to get to work, and yet… he didn't move.
Not right away.
His limbs ached, his back protested, and his eyes still felt heavy from the weight of last night. But something tugged at him—softly at first, then insistently.
He needed to see it.
Not because of ego. Not for praise. But because that mural was his goodbye. And he needed to see how the morning light touched it. Just once.
He got up with a slow exhale, threw on the first hoodie within reach, slipped into his beat-up sneakers, and left the apartment still tasting sleep on his tongue.
The city was awake now. The rhythm of life had returned—car horns, the squeak of bus brakes, snippets of laughter and the low hum of weekday monotony. But as Aang neared the alley that backed up to City Hall, something felt… off.
He turned the corner and froze.
There was a crowd.
A crowd.
Dozens of people gathered along the sidewalk, spilling into the crosswalk, some standing on their toes, others crouched to examine the details of the wall. Phones were raised. Strangers murmured to each other, gesturing toward the mural like it had fallen out of the sky overnight.
Aang's breath caught.
For a second, he thought about backing away. Disappearing into the current of morning rush and pretending this had never happened.
But he didn't.
He stood quietly at the edge of the sidewalk, half in shadow, and just… watched.
A woman with silver hair clutched her cardigan tighter around herself and pointed to the paper airplane. "He must've been someone free," she said softly. "Someone kind."
A teenage boy next to her nodded. "The birds remind me of my dad. He always said grief makes you fly crooked until you remember how to steer again."
A man with tear-glossed eyes stood silently in front of the lotuses, mouthing the words painted beside them like a prayer.
But it was the inscription—the one he'd written last, the one he almost didn't include—that seemed to hold the crowd's attention:
"Peace doesn't come from forgetting. It comes from remembering gently. Let it hurt, let it breathe, let it live on the wall."
People were photographing it. Whispering it to themselves. A little girl asked her mother what it meant, and the woman knelt to explain it in a trembling voice Aang couldn't quite hear.
But the way she said it made something bloom in his chest. Something slow. Something aching.
And then—
"Who is this Moku?" someone asked near the front. "No tag, no Insta, nothing. Just a signature."
"I heard it's a group, not a person."
"Nah, I bet it's one of those anonymous types. You know… like Banksy but with a soul."
"Moku," someone else repeated. "I like the sound of it."
Aang's lips lifted into a quiet smile. The name tasted familiar now. Like an old friend he'd finally found the right face for.
He let the moment linger—just long enough to feel it all wash over him. The warmth of the sunlight on the mural. The murmur of a city remembering someone they'd never met. The thrum of something real vibrating beneath the skin of the world.
Then, without a word, he turned.
The coffee shop was just a block away.
And as he walked toward it, the smile never left his face.
The bell above the café door gave a cheerful ding as Aang slipped inside, the familiar scent of roasted espresso beans and brown sugar greeting him like a warm embrace. The light filtering through the massive front windows bathed the rustic brick walls in soft amber, glinting off the glass pastry case and highlighting the hand-carved dragon motif etched into the counter's edge.
This was The Dragon's Roar—Zuko's pride and joy, named not just for its fire-themed menu and sleek black-gold décor, but for the fierce, almost comical way Zuko defended every bean roast like it was a sacred art form. And somehow, in its mismatched mugs, sulking lo-fi playlists, and early morning regulars, it had become a second home.
Aang exhaled and stepped behind the counter, slipping his apron over his hoodie with the ease of routine. The espresso machine was already humming low, like it, too, had been up since dawn. He clicked it on fully, then started aligning the fresh croissants and banana muffins in the display with focused, rhythmic movements.
"About time," came Zuko's voice from the back room.
Aang grinned. "I'm early by five minutes."
Zuko emerged holding two ceramic mugs, one steaming with dark roast and the other with… whatever it was he called his 'experimental' blend today. He wore a black fitted T-shirt and an expression that said he hadn't slept but was still somehow three hours ahead of everyone else.
"Yeah, yeah," Zuko said, sliding one of the mugs toward him across the counter. "You see the new mural?"
Aang stiffened just slightly, hand pausing above a tray of almond scones. "I did," he said carefully, then added with a soft smile, "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Zuko snorted. "Beautiful? It's amazing." He leaned on the counter like he couldn't even hold it in. "And even better… City Hall is pissed."
That made Aang's head whip around. "Wait—what?"
Zuko smirked, taking a sip of his drink. "Yeah. Like, steaming. Some city official was quoted this morning calling it an 'egregious act of vandalism' that 'defaced a historic government building.'"
Aang's heart stumbled in his chest. He looked out the café window, across the street where the crowd still lingered around the mural like pilgrims circling a shrine.
Zuko went on, unaware of the silent storm churning behind his friend's calm eyes. "Word is, they want it painted over immediately. There's even talk of a task force forming to crack down on the artist behind it. Can you believe that? Like some underground vigilante with a spray can and a heart."
Aang blinked slowly, forcing the breath back into his lungs. "Do they know who did it?"
Zuko shrugged. "Nah. Just a name signed at the bottom—Moku. No one knows who they are."
Aang turned back to the pastries, adjusting a muffin that was already perfectly aligned. "Huh," he murmured. "That's wild."
Zuko raised an eyebrow. "Right? I mean, look—I'm all for creative rebellion, but tagging City Hall? That's ballsy. Still… I gotta admit, something about it feels more personal than political. You know?"
Aang gave a small nod, letting Zuko's words settle around him. He could still see the paper airplane in the corner of the mural. The birds. The quote. He wasn't sure if his heart was swelling or shrinking.
Gyatso's story was out there.
And the city had heard it.
Even if City Hall wanted it silenced, someone had seen it. Felt it.
And that was enough for now.
Aang glanced at the clock—8:58 a.m.—then turned back to Zuko with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You ready to open?"
Zuko rolled his eyes but mirrored the grin. "Of course, dude. Half the city's across the street staring at that mural. We better capitalize on the foot traffic while it lasts."
Chuckling, Aang made his way to the front, flicked the OPEN sign to face outward, and unlocked the door.
Within seconds, the first wave began to trickle in—people wrapped in scarves and curiosity, murmuring about "Moku" and snapping photos of the mural as they passed. It wasn't long before the line stretched toward the door, the low hum of conversation rising like the tide.
Aang ran a hand through his messy hair, tightened his apron, and slipped behind the counter like a painter returning to his canvas. The espresso machine hissed to life. Milk steamed in the pitcher. Beans cracked in the grinder.
But to Aang, this wasn't just a job.
It was his favorite thing in the world.
Not because he loved coffee (he did), or because he had a favorite mug for regulars (he absolutely did), or even because he got to play with the foam art (which, to be fair, was the best part). No, it was because of the people.
They weren't customers to him. They were humans. Stories.
Each one carried something—a glimmer in their eye, a shadow behind their smile, something unsaid—and Aang found magic in the way those little pieces unraveled with every small conversation. Some of them just needed a warm drink. Others needed to be seen.
He made it a point to ask questions. Real ones. Not just "how's your day?" but "what's been on your mind lately?" or "what's something you're looking forward to?" The answers stayed with him, sometimes clung to him like morning fog—and occasionally, they planted the seeds of inspiration for something far larger than foam.
Like the mural outside.
A middle-aged man with a navy scarf stepped up to the counter, glancing back at the mural through the window. "Hey, uh… what do you recommend?"
Aang smiled. "How adventurous are you feeling this morning?"
The man chuckled. "Surprise me."
"Got it." Aang got to work. He steamed the oat milk just right, layering it into a honey-cinnamon latte, then swirled his wrist with quiet precision as the foam formed something recognizable. When he handed the cup over, the man blinked in surprise.
"It's a dove," Aang said, smiling. "Peaceful mornings only."
"That's… incredible," the man said softly, eyes flicking from the cup to the barista behind it. "You did this?"
"Every cup," Aang said with a wink.
And that was the rhythm of the day.
People came in drawn by the mural, but they stayed for the warmth—of the drinks, the space, and the strange serenity of the young man who remembered their names and painted their drinks with dragons, hearts, koi, and cranes. Some took pictures. Some laughed softly. Some said thank you in a way that meant more than the words themselves.
And Aang?
He soaked it all in.
Because even though they didn't know it, this was how he chose who to paint next.
The morning rush had finally dwindled into a soft lull. The espresso machine hissed one last time before going silent, and the shop settled into that rare, golden hour between the crowd and the calm. Zuko disappeared into the back to catch up on inventory, leaving Aang alone behind the counter, hands wrapped around a warm ceramic mug of his own.
Then the bell above the door jingled gently.
A middle-aged woman stepped inside, her coat still buttoned, cheeks pink from the cold. Her eyes were glassy, a kind of quiet heaviness settling around her shoulders like a second skin. She glanced around, a little uncertain, before stepping up to the counter.
Aang straightened and offered a soft smile. "Good morning."
She gave a small one in return. "Hi. Um… just a small vanilla latte, please."
"Coming right up," he said, turning to start the shot. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable, just delicate—like a moment that hadn't decided what it wanted to become yet.
The woman broke it first. "I didn't actually mean to come here."
Aang blinked, glancing over his shoulder. "No?"
She shook her head. "I was just walking around on my break… and I saw the mural across the street. The one on city hall." Her voice faltered for a second, and her eyes dropped to her gloves. "I don't know why, but it just stopped me in my tracks."
Aang's hands slowed on the milk pitcher.
"It's beautiful," she said. "So full of… sorrow, but not in a heavy way. It felt like someone was saying something I didn't even know how to put into words."
He looked at her more closely now. "Can I ask what it made you think of?"
She hesitated, then nodded slowly. "My dad. He passed a couple of weeks ago." Her voice broke on the word weeks, but she didn't look away. "He was my person. You know? The one who made the world a little softer."
Aang's chest tightened. "I'm sorry."
She swallowed. "Thank you. It's… been strange. Everything feels like it kept going without him. But when I saw that mural, I don't know—it was like I could stop for a second and just feel it all. It made it okay to miss him."
Aang said nothing for a beat, then reached for the milk again, this time with a quiet kind of reverence. He poured the shot and layered the foam with slow, intentional movements.
"But…" the woman continued, a shadow flickering across her face, "I think someone from City Hall came out to look at it. They didn't sound happy. I heard someone bark into their phone to 'call an emergency meeting immediately.'" She sighed. "It'd be a shame if they painted over it. That piece… it helped me. Even if just for five minutes."
Aang kept his expression neutral, but the words echoed in him like thunder. He steadied his hand and finished the latte art—a final flourish, one more gentle curl of the wrist before he slid the cup across to her.
She stared at the surface of the drink and gasped.
Foam, honey brown against white, formed the shape of an open hand cradling a small, blooming lotus. A symbol of peace. Of healing. Of holding grief softly, like something sacred instead of something to push away.
Her fingers curled around the cup with trembling care.
Aang met her gaze and smiled, warm and steady. "For him."
Her lips pressed together, eyes glistening. "Thank you," she whispered.
"No," Aang said softly. "Thank you for sharing his story."
The woman stepped out of the coffee shop with her latte cupped tightly in her hands, cradling it like something precious. Aang watched her go for a moment, feeling that familiar ache stir in his chest again—but it was softer now. Muted. More like warmth than pain. She had needed that. And he had needed her.
The bell above the door jingled again as it shut behind her, and Zuko finally emerged from the back room with a clipboard tucked under his arm and a smudge of flour across his black shirt. He looked around, eyebrows rising at the calm.
"Well damn," he said, nodding toward the empty line. "You survived the rush."
Aang grinned as he wiped down the counter. "Yeah, well. I've got a pretty good manager."
Zuko snorted and narrowed his eyes. "Don't start with your positivity crap. It's too early in the day."
Aang laughed and reached for the milk pitcher, rinsing it. "You love it."
"I tolerate it."
Zuko wandered behind the counter and glanced at the tip jar—once nearly empty, now nearly full. His eyes widened. "Okay, whoa. You did pretty good for yourself today."
Aang glanced over and blinked. "Oh wow. Guess people were feeling generous."
"They were feeling something," Zuko muttered, clearly impressed as he leaned on the counter. "Maybe I should let you open more often."
Aang opened his mouth to reply—but the sudden ping of the TV's emergency alert tone interrupted everything.
Both of them turned as the screen flickered from the soft jazz playlist to a sharp, red banner reading: "Breaking News – RCNN (Republic City News Network)."
The camera shifted to a sleek, modern news desk. Haru sat tall in a slate blue blazer, his long hair neatly tied back. Beside him, On Ji smiled with that perfected anchor expression—polished and neutral. Behind them, the news graphic pulsed: CITYWIDE CONTROVERSY: MYSTERY MURAL STUNS PUBLIC AND OFFICIALS.
Haru's voice came through first. "Good morning, Republic City. I'm Haru."
"And I'm On Ji," she added, "bringing you this breaking development from City Hall."
The screen cut to aerial shots of the mural on the side of the City Hall building, the soft morning light making the paint glow like stained glass. Below it, a growing crowd had gathered, phones raised, voices murmuring in awe.
On Ji continued, "What started as a mysterious, anonymous mural appearing overnight on the City Hall building has now captured the attention of the entire city. The piece, which many are calling 'a tribute to grief,' has quickly gone viral online."
"It's also sparked intense debate," Haru added, his tone cooling. "Just moments ago, officials from City Hall released an emergency statement declaring that this type of public art, while emotionally resonant, is officially being classified as graffiti and vandalism."
Aang's chest dropped.
"They've announced," On Ji said, voice clipped, "that any individuals caught creating similar murals—no matter the intention—will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Effective immediately."
Zuko swore under his breath. "They're serious?"
Before Aang could reply, Haru's voice returned, sharper now with urgency. "We're now going live to City Hall, where city officials are set to announce the creation of a brand-new task force dedicated to combating the growing issue of graffiti and vandalism."
Zuko and Aang both turned toward the coffee shop's wide front window. Just across the street, the mural—Aang's mural—was now being roped off by public workers with yellow caution tape. A podium had been wheeled to the front steps of City Hall, and it was swarmed with cameras, microphones, and the low hum of city press.
Back on the screen, the live feed flickered to life.
Toph Bei Fong stood at the podium, her small frame sharp with presence. Her dark hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and her usual scowl looked perfectly natural in front of a hundred microphones.
Behind her stood two figures: a tall man in a pressed navy shirt with his arms crossed over his chest—Sokka—and next to him, calm, collected, and utterly commanding in a midnight blazer, stood Katara.
Zuko leaned over the counter and pointed. "No way. Those three are my best friends!"
Aang blinked and turned toward him. "Wait, what?"
"I wondered if they'd be part of this," Zuko said with a little grin. "Guess they're taking it seriously."
Aang raised a brow. "Your best friends are leading the city's anti-graffiti task force?"
"Yep," Zuko said with an unapologetic shrug. "Toph runs security at the city courthouse now, Sokka works for the federal department, and Katara… she's kind of a rising star in city enforcement. Super smart. Scary organized. You'd like her."
Aang stared at him, dumbfounded.
Zuko smirked. "What? You didn't think I had friends that high up, did you?"
"No," Aang said smoothly, "I just didn't think you had friends."
Zuko burst out laughing and tossed a rag at him. "Rude!"
Aang couldn't help but chuckle, even as his eyes drifted back to the screen.
Toph cleared her throat and leaned toward the podium mic with the kind of unapologetic swagger that could silence an entire street.
"Alright, listen up," she said, her voice carrying cleanly through the speakers, crisp and commanding. "Apparently, people think it's fine to slap a couple cans of paint on government buildings and call it art. Well, news flash—just because something looks pretty doesn't mean it belongs on public property."
The reporters murmured among themselves, jotting down notes. Toph didn't care.
"Look," she continued, jabbing a thumb back at the mural without even turning to face it, "I get it. Emotions. Loss. Grief. Big picture stuff. Yay, catharsis. But this isn't an open canvas, people. It's a government building. Next thing you know, someone's gonna start tagging baby announcements on crosswalks or spray-painting their favorite breakup quotes on cop cars."
Zuko snorted behind the counter. "That actually sounds like something she'd support."
Aang grinned, but didn't take his eyes off the screen.
Toph kept going, crossing her arms. "Bottom line: It's illegal. Doesn't matter if you're Picasso with a sob story—if you vandalize city property, we will come for you. And trust me, this team? We don't miss."
She stepped back with a shrug, letting the mic swing a little, and Sokka jumped in to take her place.
He adjusted his collar, cleared his throat twice, and offered the cameras a smile that was probably meant to look confident, but came off more like someone who'd been up all night watching procedural dramas for inspiration.
"Citizens of Republic City," he began solemnly, "I want to emphasize that this isn't about stifling creativity. We understand that art is a powerful tool for healing. It reflects our humanity, our struggles, our—uh—inner turmoil. And as someone who once painted a full mural of a penguin on my bedroom wall as a child—"
Toph leaned back into the mic. "That was crayon, genius."
Sokka shoved her gently aside with his elbow. "Anyway. What we're doing here is preserving the integrity of public spaces. This is a matter of order, of justice, and of—not letting people randomly deface buildings because they had a feeling."
He looked momentarily proud of himself—until the wind caught the corner of his speech paper, yanked it up into his face, and caused him to flail wildly for a good five seconds trying to detach it from his mouth.
The microphones absolutely caught it all.
Toph cackled as she took her place beside him again, whispering way too loudly, "Real professional, Sokka."
Zuko nearly doubled over in laughter behind the bar.
Aang just shook his head and watched as Sokka—cheeks flushed—tried to recover.
"Anyway," Sokka mumbled, straightening his papers, "new rules. New task force. You've been warned."
And that was the moment Aang realized exactly who he was up against.
A stone-faced security enforcer who never missed, and a well-meaning dork who wielded policy like a double-edged sword.
And standing between them, waiting her turn to speak next, was the woman who, unbeknownst to her… was about to change everything.
Katara stepped forward with the kind of poise that made everyone else on the stage feel like background noise. Her deep blue blouse fluttered slightly in the breeze, but her expression didn't move. Calm. Commanding. Like the ocean right before a storm.
She leaned into the mic, her voice firm and unwavering.
"My name is Katara, and I'm the head of this newly formed Public Preservation Task Force. I want to start by making one thing very clear—we do not take acts of public defacement lightly in Republic City."
The reporters quieted as the cameras zoomed in, catching every word, every tight line in her jaw.
"We understand that for some, murals like the one outside this very building might feel like a form of expression. We understand that art has power—art can inspire, console, even heal. But this—" she gestured behind her to the mural now roped off with harsh yellow tape "—was painted on city property, without permission. No matter the sentiment, no matter the story it tells, it was an act of vandalism. And that is against the law."
In the coffee shop, Aang stood completely still, one hand on the edge of the counter, his chest rising just a little more sharply now.
Katara's voice rang clear.
"Our team was assembled to restore balance to the way public spaces are used. We are not here to destroy art. We are here to protect the boundaries of the law. And our number one priority…"
She let the words hang in the air for a breath, and then her eyes narrowed, piercing through the lens of the camera like she knew someone was watching.
"…is to catch the person behind this. The individual responsible for the mural—and the person we believe is behind several others rising across this city. He calls himself Moku."
Aang's heart gave a sharp, involuntary kick against his ribs.
"This person is not a folk hero," Katara continued, her tone sharper now, colder. "He is not a saint. He is a criminal. And no matter how moving the message, crime is still crime."
Zuko glanced sideways at Aang, but Aang didn't move. Didn't blink. Couldn't.
"And so," Katara said, taking a single step closer to the mic, her gaze locked directly into the camera lens, steady and certain, "Moku—wherever you are out there—we are going to find you. And we will catch you. And we will make sure that you are held accountable for your crime."
The words landed with a finality that made the room go silent.
And just like that, Aang wasn't just a grieving man telling his father figure's story anymore.
He was one of the city's top fugitives.