Chapter Text
Time trudged on… slowly.
Excruciatingly so, until they were only a week away from Zuko’s Birthday and the Kyoshi Warriors concert.
Zuko was sat at a lunch table with Toph and Suki like always and picking ideally at stale fries. Katara at the pier her and Aang had finally migrated back to sitting at the same table again, although they did keep somewhat of a distance.
They were discussing plans for the weekend and the concert, what outfits to where, what birthday cake to get.
“Did someone say birthday?!” a girl Katara was not familiar with, squealed as she passed their table. The girl in question was short, had a concerningly long pony tail, and wore an obnoxious amount of pink. Katara would have thought she was a freshman if not for the fact that Aang seemed to recognize her from his classes.
He smiled, lighting up at the questions. It hadn’t even been directed at him…
“Yeah! It’s Zuko’s birthday coming up!” Aang had replied excitedly matching her exuberant energy.
Katara tried not to glare and instead accidentally stabbed her fork into a piece of broccoli so hard it pierced through the styrofoam lunch tray.
Of course, the girl saw Aang's reply as an invitation to sit at their table. Right next to Zuko. This was not going to go well…
Katara tensed and looked over in shock as Zuko raised his head to peak over at the intruder. He sighed, and reached out to ruffle her hair a bit. She blushed, “Ty Lin, please do not make a scene about it, you know how I feel about birthdays.”
“Yeah Zuko is a real fuddy duddy about it…” Toph added smacking him on the back affectionately —well as affectionately as Toph could be.
Ty Lin laughed, and straightened her hair out from the ruffling, a faint pink still dusted her cheeks, “Tell me about it! I’ve been trying to get Zuko to tell me his birthday since we were kids! I can’t believe you told this whole table your birthday before me!”
Zuko gruffed from where his head was tucked in his arms. Suki kicked him under the table encouraging him to come out of hiding. He lifted his arms to glare at her through the opening, but obliged by lifting his head and placing it on top of his hands instead of under them.
“Oh he didn’t tell us,” Toph laughed and the rest of the table giggled.
“You have to tell me when it is!” Ty Lin gushed, “I’ve narrowed it down to sometime between December 3rd and 23rd, but I’ve never been able to get closer than that! He won’t even tell me if he’s a Saggitarius or a Capricorn!”
“Nobody tell her anything!” Zuko grumped using his serious voice.
They all ignored him. “I’m Ty Lin by the way, I know I’ve met Toph and Aang, and obviously Zuko, but I don’t think I’ve met you two before,” She smiled at Suki and Katara who introduced themselves.
“So how do you know Zuko?” Katara asked aiming for casual, but landing somewhere between guard dog and police interrogator.
“Oh uhh, were family friends I guess… My older sister Ty Lee is really close with his sister Azula, and they’d always watch us together when we were younger”
Zuko gave her a knowing look. She left out the part where their fathers were both currently serving jail time together.
Ty Lin made a great addition to the table, and even Katara warmed up to her a bit towards the end of the lunch hour.
⋆˚✿˖°
Before the final bell rung, Toph, clapped her hands together conspiratorily, “Alright Princess Poof, I am offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity,” She smiled wickedly in the direction of Ty Lin, “I will tell you Zuko’s Birthday, down to the minute, in exchange, I want your cafeteria chocolate chip cookie for the next two weeks.”
“That it?!” Ty Lin Squealed excitedly.
“Yup that’s it.”
“Deal!”
“No Deal!” Zuko interrupted.
“Yes Deal, I’m sorry Zu Zu, but I don’t remember Toph asking you…” Ty Lin smiled
“ZU ZU!? Zu ZU?! Oh my gosh Zuko that’s your nickname? This is the best day ever!” Toph cheered, reaching out a hand to Ty Lin for her to shake.
Once they pulled away she slid a piece of paper over to her. Zuko tried to intercept it but Ty Lin was quicker!
“Capricorn! I knew it!”
“I hate this table.” Zuko sulked and sank back down into the seat. Everyone laughed and he couldn’t help but smile just a bit.
⋆˚✿˖°
“That’s the most I’ve seen you talk in a while…” Toph said as her and Zuko walked around school courtyard. They were in photography together. Toph had to fight the school board to let her take it, and ultimately won, because they were too afraid to upset her big-time-donor parents, but truthfully she had only wanted to do it because she heard they got to walk the campus most of the period. Zuko just reviewed the photos she took before she turned them in.
“Huh I guess,” Zuko shrugged and moved to get a different angle for his shot, before abandoning his first idea completely and pulling toph along to the bleachers and an old oak tree.
“So you and Ty Lin are pretty good friends?” Toph nudged, trying to get more info out of him. She could respect him getting focused in on the task, she had heard his photos were actually really impressive, but this was some of the only time they really had that was just the two of them.
“Uhh I guess, she’s kind of like a little sister or cousin in a way… We spent a lot of time together as kids.”
“How come you never mentioned her before?”
“I didn’t know I had to mention everyone I knew… Do you want a list?” He snarked.
“Don’t do that, you know what I meant.”
“Sorry..” Zuko hunched, squeezing Toph's shoulder in apology, “ I don’t know… She was homeschooled until this year and usually has cheer practice or something after school now so it’s not like I see her much, her lunch period must have got changed or something…”
“You're a bad liar.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Well then you're not telling me something.”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT!?”
“ I just do. Now, spit. it. out. “
“I just didn’t know if she’d want to pretend like she didn’t know me that’s all… It’s not like I have that great of a reputation.”
“Ah I see… and that’s all?” she asked, prying a bit more.
“Well…”
“Well?”
“MydadiskindofthereasonherdadisinjailandidkIthoughtmaybeshewouldn’twanttoseeme…”
“Good Job! Okay now say that again in english please”
Zuko groaned, but relented, and went on to tell Toph how Zuko's Father roped Ty Lin's father into doing some of the dirty work for the white collar crimes portion of his crimes. At least her dad would be out much sooner than his. Mr. Hayashi was actually a very nice man, and Zuko can only imagine what his father did to get him to assist in any part oof the scheme he was running…
ᨒᨒᨒ
“Zuko please come talk to me after class.” the math instructor said as she handed his paper back, the room snickered. Zuko nodded and shoved the test into his bag without looking. One bad test score wouldn’t kill him. He wasn’t going to do anything math related anyway. He hated math. Though he had been struggling a lot more with it since his boyfriend and number one study buddy ditched him and blocked his number.
It didn’t help that he was a little preoccupied lately. His uncle and sister and their attorney had just asked him if he would testify against his father in the most recent case brought against him… and… and well he didn’t even want to think about it. He had told them ‘no,’ but they asked him to just think about it… but he didn’t want to think about it that’s why he said no.
Then his therapist tried to talk with him about it, and he already didn’t like talking to her. She made terrible assumptions and always took everyone elses side, and he just stopped telling her things at a certain point, but his Uncle would be worried if he wanted to quit going so he couldn’t do that.
He just couldn't win no matter what he did.
It all came to a head when he, Suki, and Toph were sitting in the grass after school one evening, and Jet decided to grace them with his presence yet again.
“Are you ladies fighting over which one of you gets stuck with taking Zuko to homecoming?” he huffed doubling over at his own joke.
“For the record Jet, I don’t think were going to the dance, but if we were I for one, would feel honored if Zuko asked me to go with him.”
“Ha! sure you would… You're just saying that cause you're not going… No one would want to go with scar face here, can you imagine having to live with that in your photos for the rest of your life?”
Toph swung her guide stick and grinned through clenched teeth when she felt it land against something soft and human like. Her smile broke out even further when she heard the yelp that came from Jet.
“Get a leash on your fucking guard dog what the fuck?!” He spat, rubbing his arm.
“Get a muzzle for your personality dickwad,” Toph spat back
“Why did you come over here anyway, just to bother us, because if that’s all, go away Jet,” Suki stated firmly.
Jet lit up, like he’d been reminded of something, “Oh I just wanted to see how Zuko would feel about me and Sokka getting lunch this weekend,”
“Excuse me?” Suki asked after a long pause.
“I wanted to see how Zuko would feel about me and Sokka getting lunch--”
“Yeah Yeah we heard that part asshole, what do you mean you and Sokka are getting lunch this weekend?”
“Yeah I asked if he would get lunch with me since I’ll be in town checking out the college, and he said sure, and I just wanted Zuko to know, so maybe he could get the closure he needs and move on.”
“What are you even saying, There’s no way Sokka agreed to get lunch with you.”
“Want to see the messages?”
“No, we don’t want to see anything, just go away Jet,” Toph began replying, but unbeknownst to her Jet already had his phone to display the messages, and sure enough there was Sokka name agreeing to get lunch with him.
Zuko started crying.
And he couldn’t stop.
Jet went to say something, but the look Suki gave him scared him, and honestly he was thrown off by the response. He expected anger at least, a fight at best, but crying was not on his bingo sheet, and so he put the moment into his pocket for fuel for a later fire and left out of there with haste.
Suki and Toph tried to comfort Zuko, but he was just getting more and more worked up. He told them everything that happened with Sokka, and how he ghosted him, and didn’t even say goodbye, and against his better judgment he told them about the court case against his dad for abuse and how they wanted him to testify that his dad was the one that burned him, how his dad had in fact been the one that did it, and how his grades were slipping, and his math teacher told him he was lazy and not trying hard enough, and how he hated his therapist, but didn’t like how his uncle looked at him with sad eyes when he tried to protest going, or even when he didn’t protest going, and just everything.
“Do you want to have a sleep over at mine tonight?” Toph asked, squeezing Zuko’s hand. She knew better than to baby him, it wouldn’t help it would just make him feel worse.
“Your parents won’t mind? It’s a school night, and well, Zuko is a boy…” Suki asked.
“No they don’t care, but even if they did they aren’t home tonight, they are at some fundraiser in Omashu.
“ It’s okay… You don’t have to do that,” Zuko began closing off again.
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to, and besides it will be nice to have more people home, I hate how quiet it is when my parents are gone.”