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It wasn’t as though he didn’t know that friends could be good. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it on television, that easy camaraderie that seemed second nature to normal people.
It wasn’t even as though he’s never seen friendship up close. Azula had friends. Azula had two nice, real friends who hung out in her bedroom and read magazines and laughed too loudly. Azula had always been able to make friends.
But watching the group of kids laughing over a board game in the tea shop still made Zuko’s heart beat faster.
Watching them tease each other, watching the easy way they touched, made his throat ache.
He was on the outside, with a counter and an apron between him and the normal kids.
You don’t deserve that, the voice that sounded suspiciously like his father’s whispered in the back of his head. You’re not like them. You’re a freak, and a disappointment, and no one can stand to be around you.
Zuko shook his head a little. The voice was wrong, he pleaded with himself. Uncle wanted to be around him. Uncle wasn’t disappointed.
Iroh is an idiot, the voice bit back, and soon he’ll realize just how worthless you are.
Zuko hadn’t been paying attention to the group of kids by the window. He’d been staring at his hands for at least a minute, watching his finger tap rhythmically and quickly against the hard wood of the countertop.
So when the boy with the pony tail rapped on the counter, just beyond Zuko’s fingers, Zuko flinched back.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry!” The boy said easily, with laughter in his eyes. Zuko clenched his teeth, pulling a little of the inside of his cheek between them, biting down until his mouth tasted of metal.
He shouldn’t have flinched. Flinching makes it worse, he knew that. He knew what happened to freaks who couldn’t even hear surprise noises without reacting like a baby.
He wouldn’t even have been startled if he hadn’t been so focused on the stupid tapping.
And the boy wouldn’t have had to make a noise if he’d been paying attention, like a real human being, to the people around him.
Zuko’s eyes flicked up to the boy’s and flicked immediately away before settling on a point just between them, at the lines creasing the boy’s eyebrows into what Zuko could identify immediately. Confusion. Annoyance. Exasperation.
Zuko was painfully familiar with those emotions.
“You okay, buddy?” The boy asked, a little more softly.
He’d noticed. He’d noticed Zuko being weird. That was the first rule, the most important rule. Never let anyone notice just how fucked up you are.
“I’m fine,” Zuko snapped defensively. Shit, that was rude. Not being rude to customers was an Uncle Rule, and those were no less important than the originals.
“Okay, okay, I was just asking,” the boy grinned. “Can I get some more hot water?”
Zuko didn’t reply, but took the cup and turned to fill it up. The boy had a bright pink hibiscus blend. Not one of Zuko’s favorites, but it wasn’t sour like the green teas that always made his nose pucker unpleasantly.
“Thanks man!” The boy grinned again when Zuko passed him the cup. “Also, hi! We’re in the same Spanish class at school.”
“I know,” Zuko nodded flatly.
“Sweet! My name’s Sokka! I’m a junior.”
Zuko nodded.
“What about you?” Sokka prompted, and another little frown creased between his eyes. Zuko clenched down on his cheek again. He couldn’t even carry a damned conversation for two seconds without being prompted.
“Zuko,” he spat out, far more violently than he’d intended, “me too.”
“Nice!” Sokka grinned even more, the crease between his eyes smoothing out. Zuko couldn’t look even that closely at his eyes anymore, and ended up staring at the countertop. “When does your shift end?”
Zuko stepped back a little. Why did he want to know that? Surely Zuko hadn’t been rude enough to necessitate the boy wanting to hurt him?
Zuko shook his head minutely. That was stupid. Of course that wasn’t what he’s asking. Pathetic, the voice whispered, idiot.
“F-four,” Zuko said quietly.
“Great! We’ll be here until closing, come hang out with us when you’re done.”
“Um...” Zuko didn’t get anything else out before the boy turned away and went back to his friends, throwing his arm around a girl who looked shockingly similar to him and who threw him off playfully.
Zuko stared. He didn’t let himself tap any more.
He span out the end of his shift uncomfortably long.
He’d wiped down the counter three times when pony tail boy, Sokka, his mind supplied, came back to him.
“Hey! Want to come join us now? We’re about to start playing a new game, and it doesn’t have Braille pieces so Toph’s out. We’re looking for a fourth player.”
“I... uh...”
The boy spoke too quickly, and Zuko took too long to process the words as they ran together a little.
“Come on,” Sokka grinned, “it’ll be fun!”
Zuko couldn’t remember the last time he had fun. Or the last time he hung out with people his own age. He definitely couldn’t remember the last time he played a board game that wasn’t Pai Sho with Uncle.
“Uh... okay...” he said quietly, his words so much slower than Sokka’s. Sokka beamed at him and turned back to his friends.
Zuko followed at a more sedate pace. Do not run, you stupid boy, everyone will think you’re crazy.
He gave an awkward wave when he arrived at the table. With a quiet cough to clear his throat, he opened his stupid mouth and let words tumble out.
“Hi,” he croaked slightly, “Zuko here.”
“Hi Zuko!” The chorus came from all around the table, and his heart skipped a beat. They were so loud.
Sokka pointed them out, one by one. The girl who looked so similar to Sokka himself was Katara. The smaller boy with a bold blue arrow tattoo across his head was Aang. The shorter girl was Toph. Zuko thought he might remember her from some high society party he went to as a child, but she looked much too relaxed, much too splayed out across the bench to be the child of anyone who’d show up to those events.
“Sit down then,” Sokka grinned, kicking a chair towards him as he sat next to Toph. Zuko flinched a tiny bit as the chair scraped on the ground, but he sat anyway.
There was a moment of silence, and the voice piped up to fill the gap, awkward, stupid little loser. They were all having fun before you butted in. Zuko tapped his finger pad against his thumb nail under the table in fast, soothing patterns.
“So, Zuko, you work here?” Katara broke the silence. Zuko frowned down at his Jasmine Dragon branded apron, then looked up at her shoulder, confusion clear on the side of his face that actually moved.
“Obviously,” he said plainly. Katara frowned right back at him.
Sokka let out a whoop of laughter.
“Way to state the obvious, Kat,” he giggled, poking her arm from across the table, “we just watched him make tea for three hours.”
“True,” she shrugged. “No need to be rude about it, though,” she muttered under her breath, shooting an annoyed look at Zuko.
Zuko felt the clench in his chest.
Rude, obnoxious little shit.
It’s fine. They’re just kids. They don’t mean anything by it.
That was new. The voice that sounded more like him than like his father preened a little under his scrutiny.
“Sorry,” he rasped quietly, “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Katara frowned a little, cocking her head to one side as she considered him.
“No worries, man,” Sokka grinned again. Did he ever stop grinning? Didn’t it make his face ache at some point? “So, you’ve been kinda in and out of school the last couple of years, what’s up with that?”
“Sokka!” Katara scolded, her eyes flicking to the scar. Zuko looked away, scratching the back of his neck.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sokka put his hands up in surrender. There was a moment of quiet, and Zuko debated what to say.
He could tell them about the hospital trips.
Or the fact that he’d bounced between Uncle and Father, and each time had necessitated time off school.
Or he could lie. Tell them he’d been sick, which was almost true, or that he’d been traveling, which was false unless you counted fifteen minute drives between Father, Uncle and the hospital.
“It’s been a weird few years,” he settled on.
“Yeah, high school’s the worst,” Aang piped up for the first time.
That got a murmur of agreement from around the table.
“Are you dumb asses gonna actually play this game, or are we just gonna sit here?” Toph rolled her milky eyes and threw her feet up on Sokka’s lap.
Sokka chuckled and pulled the board game across the table, pulling pieces out of the box and setting them up.
He explained the rules, mostly for Zuko’s benefit, and Zuko watched his hands as he pointed everything out.
He had nice hands. Bigger than his frame would suggest. Calloused, like he’d done some manual labor. A little scarred, like he’d done something dangerous. His tan somehow showed his blue veins better than Zuko’s pale, pasty, sun deprived skin.
Zuko wondered where he was from. The blue eyes suggested Caucasian, but his build was a little off, his skin a little dark, his accent a little heavy.
He was pretty. Zuko clamped his hard down hard on his thigh. Unacceptable. The voice raged in his ear. You will never think about boys again! Don’t make me teach you twice.
Zuko kept the tremble inside his body, locking it away so it wouldn’t erupt in his limbs. He dug his nails into his legs. Inflicting punishment.
“Got it?” Sokka tilted his head to meet Zuko’s eye, and he looked away immediately.
“Got it,” he replied, despite having only really heard half the rules, lost in his own contemplation. He forced himself to let go of his leg, forced his voice to be steady, forced his shoulders to release the tension. He grabbed the instruction manual and flicked through it as Sokka handed out bags of colored pieces to each player.
Zuko couldn’t help smiling a little as he was automatically handed the red bag. His favorite color. Sokka smiled back.
“Hey, you always get blue,” Katara rolled her eyes at her brother as she flourished her bag of green pieces.
“Yeah, cause I’m older,” Sokka stuck out his tongue.
Zuko tensed, ready for them to blow up at each other. If he’d spoken to Azula like that...
Katara gave a deep sigh and shook her pieces out of the bag.
“Well, we all wish you’d act like it,” she huffed, smiling playfully and kicking him gently under the table.
“Nah, you’d get bored instantly,” Sokka laughed, stacking his blue pieces into a sturdy tower.
Aang stacked his white pieces vertically, making a tower reaching his shoulder that was absolutely guaranteed to fall at any moment.
“All right,” Sokka clapped his hands. “Let the game begin.”