Chapter Text
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and it's peaceful in the deep, cathedral where you cannot breathe
no need to pray, no need to speak
The rain sticks her hair to her neck uncomfortably, but she keeps running until she can feel her legs giving out. The drizzle promptly grows into a downpour, complete with black clouds and thunder, but Katara can’t bring herself to care. All she feels is frustration and rage and she thinks she might just collapse on the sidewalk unless she keeps running, running, harder and away, but never quite escaping her racing thoughts, her inner turmoil always less than half a step behind.
It is only when she gets down too hard on her ankle that she has the presence of mind to slow down, an involuntary hiss of pain escaping her lips. She tries shifting all her weight to her left foot, but the effort causes her to wince, and she knows she better not tempt fate. Her jaw clenches and she begrudgingly slows her stride to a semi-walk, semi-limp, and makes her way back to the apartment.
It's still early enough for the streets to be relatively empty, but there’s people bustling out and about already. Some of them spare her weird glances as they pass her by, but she pays them no heed. She can only imagine the level of deranged she’s exhibiting right now, hoodie and navy nylon shorts drenched, white sneakers long gone muddy and splattered, hair ridiculous and breaths coming out heavy and ragged. She doesn’t care, but still can’t restrain the urge to throw a few of the walkers-by glares when their perplexed gazes linger a second too long and rub her the wrong way.
You’d think the people of Ba Sing Se have never seen an angsty university student before. Surely, they must have something more entertaining to focus their attention on this bleak Wednesday morning other than her public walk of rampage. Surely, their lives are at least a bit more interesting than her own.
Despite the throbbing in her ankle, Katara opts for the stairs of her building, feeling her energy is nowhere near exerted enough for her to have a peaceful rest of the day. She might have to go for another run again tonight.
The door of apartment 7G swings open and Katara is momentarily stunned into stillness, doing a double take as her eyes settle on her roommate.
God, she still can’t get used to him. It’s been two weeks already, but every time she sees him standing in her kitchen, doing something as mundane as drinking his tea while he hunches over his crossword puzzle, she still has the inexplicable urge to call the police and report a breaking and entering.
Gold eyes look at her perplexed and it is only when the look of bewilderment on his face is accompanied by an arched eyebrow that Katara finally remembers to step in from the doorway and shut the door behind her.
“Morning,” she says and throws her keys in the bowl by the hanger.
“Morning,” he replies, still looking at her as if she’s giving him more trouble than a confounding prompt in this morning’s puzzle.
She resists the urge to glare at him like she’d done to the unsuspecting people on the sidewalk outside and goes to hang her wet hoodie in the bathroom.
“You okay?” Zuko prompts when she reemerges, wringing her hair out over her wet T-shirt.
“Brilliant. You?”
“Fine.” He pauses and a crease in his forehead deepens before he looks away. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
He nods and stands up from his stool to get behind the counter. This is the third time he’s offered her coffee in the mornings when they happen upon one another in their shared space and Katara can’t help but find it a bit strange. He always drinks tea himself, so his offer supposes he doesn’t mind going through the trouble just for her. She doesn’t know what to chalk it up to, but it’s probably more out of novel roommate courtesy that he does it than anything else she can reasonably come up with.
She can’t blame him. Now that she thinks about it, she’d probably do good to make some semblance of an effort as well. Not that either of them has expressed any desire to get to know each other per se beyond the implied civility of their living arrangement, but she supposes it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if they could occasionally exchange a few less than strained sentences.
Katara’s absently glad her brother is away on one of his out-of-town swim meets again. He’d been the one to find the new occupant for their third bedroom, but he’d been making himself more and more scarce with the progressing of his relationship with Suki. Katara supposes that’s a good thing, and she’s grateful he’s still officially living there, as she’d have no way to cover half of the rent herself, but on mornings like these she’s glad Sokka’s not around. Had he seen her barge in so early, drenched and obviously livid, he’d scold her for risking a cold, and then force her to sit and talk about her feelings while stroking his imaginary beard until she could finally muster up a smile and convince him everything is fine. The excuse of her being on her period could only fly so often, and despite all the fun she likes to poke in her brother, he is far from oblivious.
Zuko puts a single teaspoon of sugar in her coffee and stirs it, before sliding the cup over to her.
“Thanks,” she says with a nod and sits on one of the stools. She should probably make note of how he takes his tea at some point.
“No problem.” He resumes his position by the counter and pulls the newspaper closer, propping his elbows on the surface.
Katara studies him for a few seconds. She still doesn’t know what to make of him. But for the most part, he’s a silent, if a bit broody, unassuming presence. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t make unnecessary small talk just to fill the lulls, and he doesn’t comment on the fact that she has a different coffee mug for every day of the week, all of them lined up neatly on the counter in the sequence of the rainbow’s colors.
She doesn’t pry into his life either. He’s her brother’s age, an English major in the university where she takes Psychology, he has a scar covering most of the left part of his face, and he drinks a buttload of tea. That’s pretty much the extent of Katara’s knowledge of Zuko, but considering they’ve only just met, it’s only natural. She’ll probably be fine to leave it at that, she thinks.
“To the point,” Zuko says suddenly and looks up at her questioningly. Katara blinks over her sip of coffee. “Five letters,” he elaborates and taps his pencil on the paper in front of him.
“Oh.” She looks away for a second in contemplation. “Blunt?”
Zuko looks down and frowns. “Hm.” He traces the boxes with his pencil, then shakes his head. “Doesn’t fit.”
Katara bites her lip. “Terse?”
He hums to himself, then writes the word in, a smirk on his lips. “You’re better at this than your brother.”
Despite herself, she laughs. “Don’t tell him that.” Her eyes dart over to the window. The rain is pattering against the glass loudly. A thunder rumbles ominously in the distance.
A tingling on the side of her head alerts her to Zuko’s gaze on her. She looks back at him and finds the crease is back on his forehead. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.” She sighs and gets up from the stool. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Thanks for the crossword wisdom.”
“Anytime.”
She feels his eyes on her back as she retreats to her room. She has a sudden and ridiculous urge to slam the door behind her, but manages to rein it in.
She’s definitely going for another run tonight, rain or not.
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