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“I sent a present to Tom-Tom from us.”
Mai’s hands still.
“Just the other day.”
Azula gestures vaguely in no particular direction, before returning her fingers to the hem of her shirt.
Mai turns around.
Azula glances up from her fingers to meet her eyes.
“That fire truck,” her fingers attempt to lift themselves from the hem of her shirt, but get tangled, and fall back to her lap. Her eyes fall with it. “The one we saw last month.”
There is a long moment of silence, and Mai turns away.
“Remember?”
“Yes.”
She stares out the window.
“You said he’d like it.”
A bluebird settles on the windowsill, and Mai’s eyes settle on it.
“He will.”
The bluebird starts to preen at it is nether regions, and Mai turns back to Azula.
Azula is not looking at her.
“Thank you.”
Azula’s eyes flicker from the corner of the room to meet hers before drifting to the boxes behind her.
“Yes, well.”
Her gaze drops to the impeccably clean floor.
“I was going to tell you on Wednesday, but—”
Her eyes skitter around to the various conspicuous holes in the bookshelves.
“Yes,” Mai interrupts her, turning back to the boxes behind her.
She opens the closest one, and glances inside.
“You didn’t have to pack for me.”
She closes it again.
“No,” comes the hoarse response from behind her. “I figured it would be easier this way.”
Mai opens the box again.
“Easier for who?” she mutters under her breath into her impeccably packed belongings.
Azula responds regardless.
“Me, of course.” Azula reclines further into her chair, and delicately crosses her legs.
Mai reaches into the box, and carefully extracts a familiar figure.
“Liar.”
“Shut up, Mai.”
Mai holds the snow globe up to the light.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Azula continues haughtily.
Mai shakes it and laughs under her breath.
“You’re so full of shit, Azula.”
Azula redistributes her weight on her chair, and the chair beneath her groans.
“Do you want to take any of the furniture?”
The snow in the orb settles again.
Москва, it proudly proclaims.
“I can have whatever you want shipped to you by tomorrow.”
Mai returns it to the box, and Azula mutter under her breath, “I doubt it will go with Zuzu’s horrible—”
“No,” Mai interrupts her, closing the box again.
“You can keep it.”
Azula leans over the edge of her chair to pull a glass from the hardwood floor beside her with a pop.
“Yay,” Mai can hear Azula say into her glass. “Just what I always wanted.”
Mai doesn’t respond, her eyes darting around at the impeccably stacked boxes, and then at the conspicuously empty places on the wall.
Azula returns her glass to the ground, and then resettles herself into her chair.
There is a long moment of silence before a loud crash echoes through the apartment as the front door opens to their right.
“Oh, hi guys.”
Ty Lee bounds into the room, flopping into the space between them.
“Looks like I came just in time, huh?”
Mai turns to face her.
“Oh, yes,” Azula comments drily as Mai says, “Apparently.”
Ty Lee glances between them with a bright smile on her face.
There is a long moment of awkward silence, before Ty Lee bounces over to the boxes stacked against one wall, reaches down, and picks up an entire stack.
She turns her head so her cheek is pressed flat against a box and smiles at Mai.
“Well,” she says brightly, “let’s go!”
She vanishes back into the hall, and then out the doorway.
Mai stares after her for a long moment as Azula stares at the opposite wall.
After a moment, Ty Lee’s voice comes echoing from outside the house.
“Mai! I don’t have your keys!”
Another pause.
“Come help!”
Azula makes no move to stand, so Mai gathers two boxes into her arms, and follows after Ty Lee.
Fifteen minutes later, the living room is empty, Azula is standing awkwardly on one side of the room as Mai stands awkwardly on the other.
“Well, I think this is going to be great for both of you,” Ty Lee comments from between them, lips stretched over her teeth in a happy smile.
“No one cares what you think, Ty Lee,” Azula mutters in the general direction of the television.
Ty Lee huffs a laugh out of her nose, and begins sliding on stockinged feet towards Azula.
She reaches out to brush her hand against Azula’s arm, and Azula knocks her hand away with a jerk of her shoulders.
“Look,” Mai says, turning away from the wall, “I—” she stumbles over her words, her throat bobbing once before she opens her mouth again.
“I want us to still be friends, Azula.”
Azula’s gaze snaps to Mai, and her lip curls in disgust.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Her gaze slides off of Mai and back towards the blank television.
“Oh wait, you don’t have to, you’ve got—”
She’s interrupted by Ty Lee’s hand over her mouth.
“She’s just saying that,” Ty Lee says as Azula pulls back from her hand with a sneer.
“She’ll come around”
Azula turns away with a snort.
“What, so you’re on their side, then?”
Azula’s voice breaks, and Ty Lee slides closer to her, sliding her fingers into the loose hair falling from her messy ponytail.
“Yes, Azula, that’s me,” she says softly, fingers curling in Azula’s hair, and leaning towards Azula’s ear.
“Always on everyone’s side but yours.”
Azula doesn’t shake her off.
After a long moment of Azula not turning around, Ty Lee leans back, turns her head to Mai, and smiles.
Mai fingers twitch at her sides, picking at the sides of her skirt for a moment before falling limp at her sides.
She meets Ty Lee’s eyes for a moment before her eyes glance to the window and back again.
“I—I should probably get going.”
“Yes.” Azula’s shoulders tense.
“You should.”
Ty Lee’s left hand raises to rest on Azula’s shaking midsection.
“You’re welcome back any time,” Ty Lee says with a smile.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Azula makes a growling sound, but doesn’t protest again.
There’s a long pause.
“I’m—”
“If you say I’m sorry, I will light you on fire.”
Mai’s jaw clicks shut, and her gaze drifts to the wall again.
“It will not only kill you, but it will hurt while you die.”
There is another pause.
“Okay,” Mai says to Azula’s back.
“I’ll go.”
“Good.”
Mai’s jaw muscles flex briefly before she turns to the hallway.
She glances back.
“Goodbye”
“See ya, Mai.”
Ty Lee’s hand peeks around Azula’s body and wiggles its fingers at Mai.
Mai waits a moment before sighing and turning back to the doorway.
“Goodbye, Mai,” Azula mutters.
Mai pauses.
She blinks once, amber gaze focused on the doorway before her, then takes a deep breath, and proceeds through it.
A moment later, the door closes behind her.