Work Text:
Zuko, 25
Photographer at Daily Gazette
Firebender
Bisexual
6’2” because that matters for some reason
I’m told that the “moody artsy boy” thing is attractive to some people so…let’s get dinner & you be the judge?
Inattentive ADHD so I’ll either reply in 0.2 seconds or 10 business days but that doesn’t mean I don’t care
Passionate & honest
3 out of 3 people who swiped right on me say my profile doesn’t do me justice!
Azula giggled to herself as she read over her brother’s Tinder profile, which she could only describe as so very…Zuko. If she were a kinder, more helpful sister, she’d sit Zuko down, give him constructive criticism, and help him edit his profile so that people would actually want to swipe right.
If she were that kind of sister, she wouldn’t have found his profile in the first place.
She’d spent an unnecessary amount of time considering the type of girl Zuko might be interested in and crafting a fake profile to match, using a few pictures of her childhood summer camp friend Hana - with her friend’s permission, of course. Azula and Hana had filled their free time at camp playing pranks on Zuk, and now they couldn’t resist trying one more. It had been about thirteen years since the siblings had seen Hana in person, and there was no way Zuko would recognize her as an adult.
Then, Azula had spent almost as much time swiping left through an endless assortment of men, her pointer finger aching, until she at last saw Zuko’s familiar face appear on her screen.
His pictures were nice, at least, if still predictably moody, most of them looking like intentionally artistic self-portraits. There was only one photo in which Zuko was smiling, and Azula recognized it immediately. It was from his small birthday celebration two years ago. He was flanked on his right by Aang, Toph, and Katara, and by Sokka on his left. Next to Sokka was none other than Azula herself. Everyone was grinning broadly, either drunk, high, or both. No one would even be able to tell from the photo that Zuko’s friend group had still been warming up to Azula at the time.
She smiled a little and swiped right. And then, she waited.
A ding immediately sounded from the bedroom next to hers.
Azula bit her lip to stop herself from giggling again and checked to make sure notifications for Tinder were turned off on her phone. Being Zuko’s roommate would make it a little harder to conceal her ruse - with Zuko working as a photojournalist and Azula attending law school, neither were raking in big paychecks, so sharing an apartment had always seemed the responsible option.
A second later, two red notification bubbles appeared in the corner of her app.
Zuko had already swiped right and sent “Sakura” a message.
Zuko:
Hey Sakura, that’s a very fitting name because you’re as pretty as a spring cherry blossom.
Unable to contain herself any longer, Azula pressed her round, squishy mint green fox plush to her face and laughed into it, kicking her feet against her bed. She drew in a few deep breaths and then set her thumbs against her phone’s keyboard.
Sakura:
I bet you spent hours on that very original, genuine, and not at all obvious opening message. I’ve never heard that one before!
Zuko:
Yeah, it’s lame, I’m aware. I’m horrible at first messages, but you already figured that out. Wait, doesn’t everyone say they’re bad at these messages too? Extra lame of me. You truly are pretty, though, and you just seemed like someone I wanted to get to know.
Azula stared at the message for a second. Its surprising sincerity stirred a phantom warmth from within the pit of her stomach. She didn’t linger on the feeling, though, before sending her next message.
Sakura:
Okay, let’s see where this goes! Tell me a random fact about yourself.
Zuko:
Well, I almost became a musician instead of a photographer! I played the saxophone. Now I request a random fact about you!
Sakura:
Almost? What made you make that change?
Zuko:
Hey! No fair! I didn’t get a random fact about you yet!
Azula swung her feet back and forth, fingers hesitating over her touch screen. Though her relationship with Zuko had improved by leaps and bounds in the past several years, there was still much they didn’t know about each other, much they yet lacked the courage to share. What could she tell him that wouldn’t sound evasive, but also wouldn’t get too deep? She bit her lip again. She hadn’t been prepared for this.
Sakura:
Okay, uh. I love stuffed animals. I have a small collection, but I keep them in my closet most of the time. I only get one out when I know I’m alone or when I’m going to sleep. I’m embarrassed that I’m an adult woman who still likes stuffed animals, but I do.
It was true. Azula dared to rest her cheek on her giant fox plush only because her door was firmly closed. Had Zuko knocked, she’d rush to toss it back in her closet. Her cheeks grew hot as she looked over her message. Then, her brother’s reply popped up.
Zuko:
That’s actually adorable. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed at all.
Sakura:
Yeah, whatever, now tell me about the saxophone!
Zuko:
I loved playing when I was in school, so I thought I might want to make a career out of it. But the pressure of my whole life having to be about music, of being expected to practice for hours on end, was too much in the end. When I decided to pursue photojournalism instead, my dad sold all my saxophones without asking or telling me. Said he paid for them, so he had the right. I couldn’t even play for fun anymore. Still kinda hurts tbh…
Azula knew Ozai had sold Zuko’s saxophones, but she hadn’t considered that her brother might still be upset over it. He hadn’t told her. She hadn’t asked. She sighed quietly to herself.
Sakura:
Well that sucks ass. You should buy your own saxophone. I’m sure you’ll become your neighbors’ favorite person in the world. You should play it at 2 in the morning. They’ll love you even more then!
Zuko:
Ha. Also, my sister would probably murder me in my sleep. She’s my roommate. Sky-high rents and all that. Anyway, gotta head to work, story to cover. But I hope I can talk to you more later.
Sakura:
You sap! Don’t forget to take the lens off.
Zuko:
Guilty. And I’ve only done that once!
Zuko’s bedroom door creaked open, followed by the dull thud of footsteps down the hallway as he approached Azula’s room. “Hey, Zula, you have an afternoon class today, right?” he called from behind the closed door.
“Yep. Tort law. Thrilling,” she deadpanned.
“Ooh, that’s rough. In that case…I’ll pick up wine and takeout on my way home?”
“Yes please! D-” The taunt “ don’t forget to take the lens off” lingered in Azula’s mind and nearly found its way to her lips. But she was better than that. “Go take good pictures and stuff, dum-dum.”
With that, Zuko headed out the front door.
Azula suffered through her tort law professor’s painful monotone, temporarily forgetting about her silly game as she poured all her attention into meticulous note-taking. Later, she and Zuko ate and drank together, and he regaled her with an unnecessarily long recitation of the remainder of his day, complete with grumbles about the writer he’d been working with. Then, she excused herself to go study.
Zuko kept his word. He sent another message to “Sakura.” Azula responded each time her eyes needed a break from the digital notecards she made and studied. Her brother matched each of her replies with another of his own. Zuko would say something dorky, she’d giggle to herself, and then she’d try to get a rise out of him. The drier parts of the law felt a little more bearable that night.
They kept talking over Tinder. As the days wore on, Azula forgot at intervals that she was supposed to be making fun of Zuko. He told “Sakura” things he’d never told Azula. There was something bittersweet about that. And somehow, she found herself sharing more and more bits of herself, too. Four days into her ruse, she got a message she ought to have expected, but somehow still didn’t:
Zuko:
What’s your biggest dream? What do you want your future to look like?
The message came as Azula was riding the metro to her morning class, a textbook balanced on her lap. She eyed the words on her screen, then shifted her gaze to the words on the page. She closed the book in slow motion. Did she really dream of being an attorney? For a moment, she watched the city drift by out her window, its variegated shapes rendered featureless in her mind. Streets she’d passed a hundred times were foreign to her eyes. She glanced back down at the phone in her hand and began to type.
Sakura:
Honestly? I’m not sure. All my life, I’ve been doing what’s expected of me. I pursue success because I feel like I have to. I don’t know if I really have a dream. But I want to find something I care about, and do it.
Zuko:
I get that. I kinda felt the same way after I quit the music major. Had no idea what I really wanted. I think you’ll figure it out, though. You have plenty of time. And I get this feeling you can do anything you decide you want to do.
Azula felt her lips curve upwards and her cheeks warm. She reread the message once and then twice, the textbook in her lap a forgotten artifact. Then, her smile evaporated. She brushed a lock of hair sullenly away from her face as she wondered if Zuko really thought that about her. Or, perhaps, those feelings were reserved only for the fictional creature she’d dubbed Sakura. She sighed audibly, caring little for the other metro riders, and began to type her next message.
Sakura:
Thanks. I hope so. What’s your dream? To win some photography Pulitzer?
Zuko:
I can’t say I don’t want that, because I haven’t gotten over craving validation & recognition for what I do. Daddy issues poster kid right here, heh. But what’s actually important is to tell a story through photos that nobody else is telling, to give a voice to someone who wouldn’t get one otherwise. I want to go places I wouldn’t normally get to go, see people I would never think to meet, and use my camera to bring readers around the world with me.
Lost in Zuko’s message, Azula hardly heard her stop being announced. The sign outside the window flashed across her consciousness at the last moment, and she leapt to her feet and darted out the doors just before they could close on her.
That evening, dinner with her brother felt unexplainably different. His daily moody monologue simmered with buried passion. His golden eyes glimmered, reflecting multitudes Azula had not before noticed.
“Hey. Hey, Zula!”
Azula stopped absently twirling her noodles around her chopsticks. “What?”
“You seem really…distracted tonight,” Zuko commented. “And you keep smiling like a weirdo. You okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered nonchalantly. “I absolutely destroyed opposing counsel with my arguments today! Well, a classmate. You know. I guess I’m just in a good mood, thinking about how I absolutely burned him to the ground.”
“Wait, you didn’t actually burn him to the-”
Azula interrupted her brother with an amused huff. “Oh, Zuzu, don’t be ridiculous! No! I haven’t lit anyone on fire in at least two weeks! It was simply so satisfying to see him walk out of the classroom looking like he was days away from dropping out of law school.”
Zuko shook his head and chuckled briefly. “Only you would come home from making some poor unsuspecting law student your bitch, with a look on your face like your crush finally noticed you.” He went back to shoveling noodles into his mouth.
Six days into Azula’s ruse, she got a message that made her throat tighten.
Zuko:
I really like you, and I kinda hope you feel the same way. Want to meet up for dinner someday soon? I should be free on Friday unless the world explodes and I have to take a picture of it.
She stared blankly at the chat window. She quit Tinder, relaunched it, positioned her thumbs against the keyboard, typed nothing, and dropped her phone onto the desk in her bedroom. It hit the wood with a disturbing clatter. Azula flopped down onto her bed, groaned, and squeezed her fluffy puppy plush against her chest until she felt like its head might pop off.
For a day, Azula avoided launching Tinder. Each time she considered it, the thought of Zuko’s message looming unanswered in the chat section clawed at her insides.
Zuko was listless and agitated. He scolded the corner of the countertop for getting in his way, cursed a beer bottlecap for taking half a second too long to come loose. Once, Azula asked if they had any more lychee soda left, and Zuko responded by shouting that it wasn’t his turn to babysit the Ramune. After that, she at last unlocked her phone and sent a message to Hana, asking for advice.
Hana, now living and working halfway across the world, likely had another couple hours until she woke up for the day. So Azula tried to put it all out of her mind, to refocus on studying until her friend was able to send some brutally honest but insightful response. After spending an hour transferring the day’s notes onto her digital flash card set, she got up to grab a snack, clutching her phone in one hand without thinking about it as she walked into the kitchen. She set her phone on the countertop, made herself a fruit sandwich, and took her plate back to her bedroom to review statutes.
Fifteen minutes later, Azula heard a loud crack.
She jumped. Her elbow knocked into the plate holding the remaining half of her fruit sandwich. She dove to grab the plate, saving it with only seconds to spare from meeting its ultimate doom on her bedroom floor. She whirled around to find Zuko standing in the entryway, fire blazing in his eyes. He shot his hand out to stop the swinging door in its path before it could ricochet back off of him. Then, he stomped across the floor and shoved Azula’s phone into her face. “What the hell is this?” he snarled.
“What… what the hell is what?”
Zuko poked the phone’s screen until it lit up, and then jabbed his pointer finger at a text message notification bubble. It was from Hana. It read, At this point you have to tell Zuko that Sakura isn’t real.
Azula froze and fell silent.
“Did - did you make a fake profile?” Zuko demanded.
“Yes,” Azula answered numbly.
“You sent all those messages?” Zuko’s voice rose to a shout.
“Yes.” Azula’s voice got smaller.
“You led me on!” Zuko accused, no longer questioning.
“I-”
“And for what? To fuck with me? To make fun of me to your camp friend? It was fine when you guys were eight, but fuck, twenty-three!”
“I mean, okay, maybe it started that way, but then I started-”
Started what? Azula didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to consider before Zuko cut her off again: “You know how much this hurts right now? The things I told you - all the things I told you! I thought I was sharing them with someone who doesn’t even exist!”
Azula’s cheeks stung as though an invisible hand had slapped her. Why couldn’t you have told me those things for real? she pleaded silently. Is it my fault we don’t talk like that? “I never meant for it to go that far,” she said at a near-whisper.
Zuko flung his arms into the air. Tiny flames erupted at his fingertips. He waved his hands rapidly to put them out. “Then why the fuck did you?”
“Because after a while I started to feel like maybe…maybe I-”
“You know what? Don’t.” Zuko’s voice had settled to a normal volume, but somehow the cold resignation burned more than the yelling had. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. Save your breath.” He turned on his heel and shuffled out the door, slamming it behind him.
Azula abandoned her studying for the rest of the night. Her insides ached, but she found herself unable to cry. The waves of pain trapped inside her without release churned on themselves, strengthening into a typhoon. She scrolled through social media for hours on end. The pointless listicles and stupid video reels chased the worst of her thoughts away until she could no longer keep her eyes open.
The next day passed in a haze. Her professors’ lectures drifted in and out of conscious perception. Azula would jerk back to reality, glance down at her notes, and rush to catch up. She ate only about a third of the lunch she’d brought.
At home, Zuko did not speak a single word to her. When they passed in the living room, he dropped his gaze to the floor. Azula heard him hastily and noisily preparing dinner, then he slammed the door to his bedroom. She laid motionless in bed, face pressed against her fox plush, for what felt like forever. The door hung open. It didn’t matter anymore.
She dragged herself to her feet and into the kitchen, where she retrieved a bottle of red wine that looked like only one small glass had been poured from it. Clutching it like a little raccoon surreptitiously stealing food, she took it back to her bedroom. And she drank it straight from the bottle. She drank until her vision hazed over. She drank until it didn’t hurt anymore. She drank until there was nothing left to drink, and then she tossed the bottle aside and picked up her phone.
Azula opened Tinder. It felt safer that way, somehow. Somewhere within her fuzzy head, it made sense to reach out to her brother like this. She started typing, without thinking.
Sakura:
Zukoo i jsut wanted to say im rly sorry for what i did i didnt mean for it to go that far irelaly didnt the only reaason i didnt stop is bc i liked learning abut the real zuko. I liked telling ypu about the real azula. Profile wasnt real but eevrything else was. i. I started falling for you. maybe. maybe the whole rson i did this is because i just wanted to flirt with you and I thought this ws the only way. but I’m not ashamed t have feelings for my brother anymore, and i feel like i want to be more than just your sister. Even if you don’t feel that way… i hope you can fprgivw me anyway because it feels like we're teenagers fighting again and i cant stqnd that again…
A ding sounded from Zuko’s room. He hadn’t deleted Tinder, or unmatched, or turned off notifications. Dull hope stirred within her. But then it died when silence followed. She sent a single heart emoji. Another ding sounded, followed by more silence. Azula buried her face in the comforting softness of her fox plush.
Azula’s bedroom door creaked open. Zuko strode across the floor toward her as swiftly as he had the day before. He stopped beside her bed, tipped her chin up, and cupped her face in his hands. “All of that… that was the real you?” he demanded as he stared intensely and unyieldingly into her eyes.
Azula nodded stiffly. “Well, I mean, I’m not secretly named Sakura, because that would be silly, but-”
“You meant everything you said to me?” Zuko pressed.
“Yes.” Azula nodded again, this time more emphatically.
“Every word?”
“Yes,” Azula whispered. “Every word.”
“Never stop being real with me,” Zuko breathed. Then, he pressed his lips passionately to Azula’s.
For a second, Azula froze, stunned. But when Zuko’s arms encircled her waist and pulled her against him, she came back to life and kissed back desperately. She wound her arms around his neck, and he gripped her hips and kissed her again and again. When they finally pulled away to hold each other’s gaze, Zuko pressed his lips tenderly to Azula’s forehead. She shut her eyes against the surge of warmth that overtook her at the sweet gesture.
“You know,” Zuko said softly, “when I first started talking to Sakura, I thought, ‘she reminds me a lot of my sister.’ And I still fell hard for her. Well… for you. I guess that should have been very telling.”
Azula giggled. “It should have been very telling that I tried so hard to find and match with my brother on Tinder.”
Zuko laughed, too, as he rested their foreheads together. “We were fucked from the beginning, weren’t we?”
“We were so fucked,” Azula answered. “Can we cuddle now?”
“Of course.”
They settled down facing each other, scooted in close, and wrapped their arms around each other. Zuko reached over to retrieve Azula’s plush fox and brought its cute stitched face against hers, making a kissing noise. Azula giggled like a preteen with a classroom crush, grabbed the stuffed animal, and made it kiss Zuko in return. “Is this your favorite stuffed animal?” he asked
“Yeah. It’s really squishy.” Azula poked its fluffy body to prove it.
“It’s adorable. You’re adorable.”
Azula barely had a chance to giggle sheepishly before Zuko kissed her again.