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“...If you want a boy to like you, just look at him and smile a lot, and laugh at everything he says, even if it's not funny.”
If you want a boy to like you. Azula watches Ty Lee smile. Want, she thinks, has very little to do with it, then banishes that thought, buries it deep. She does want this. She has to want this.
She's the princess of the Fire Nation. Boys should fall at her feet, and she should love it.
“Well, that sounds really shallow and stupid,” she says, because it does, and she hates it. But if it's what boys like, then she has to try. She can't just give in to being Azula, someone who gets laughed at because she's not what boys want. No one gets to laugh at her. So... “Let's try it.”
If she practises with Ty Lee (her skin feels hot at the thought, but she brushes that away) then maybe she can do better. Maybe she can burn away the sick, ashamed feeling inside of her that burgeons every time she thinks about love, and boys, and an inevitable future marrying some noble someday.
Ty Lee agrees readily, resting one hand against the column they stand beside, leaning in towards Azula. The hot feeling gets worse, rising up like a fever, and Azula swallows it back, ignores the bright brown of Ty Lee's eyes and the soft stretch of her arm and the fact that they're oddly distracting. She re-centres, tries to focus on the boys she's doing this for.
Ty Lee dips her voice lower and says, “Hey there, sweet sugar cakes. How ya likin' this party?”
It's silly. It's ridiculous. The burning gets worse anyway, and Azula remembers she's supposed to laugh and bursts out with it, so loud the whole room turns to watch. She resists the urge to fire-punch them all or dig her way under the floorboards. The shame blooms brighter in her chest, and if she weren't Azula, harder than nails, she thinks she might cry.
Something is wrong with her. Not just the sharpness inside, the monster her mother saw and despised. Not just the way reality sometimes splinters around her and she hides it, does her best to pack it all away because broken people do not belong in her father's army.
No, this is something else. Something she's spent her whole life suppressing without really knowing what it is. Something that swirls around her now, a mess of Ty Lee's brown eyes and the sick feeling she felt trying to flirt with Chan and the heat in her cheeks and the distaste of marriage and all the conventions she'll have to be part of, one day. Boys she doesn't like. Ty Lee, one of the few people she does. And there's a link there, just out of sight. Azula won't let herself see it.
She needs to get out of here.
Like a miracle, Ty Lee notices. “You want to practise some more outside? Less people watching?”
“I don't care about the people,” Azula snaps reflexively, always harsh, always defensive, then forces herself to soften. “But yes. That might sharpen my focus.”
Ty Lee grins and catches her wrist, pulls her down a corridor and out onto a balcony. It's quiet, and dark, two torches flickering and the blackness of the sea below. Ty Lee's hand is soft on Azula's wrist, and Azula feels that heat again. A flush like embarrassment, a burn like shame, and a softer warmth. Like... affection. Like emotions Azula won't ever admit to.
“Okay,” Ty Lee says, and drops her wrist, turns to smile at her in the torchlight. “Let's try again.” She drops her voice, puffs up her chest. “So, sugar cakes. How are you likin' the island?”
“It's... fine.”
“You come here often?”
“Not for a long time.”
“You haven't missed a lot. It's mostly sand.”
Azula remembers Ty Lee's earlier advice and laughs. It's not as hard as it should be. There's a twitch in the muscles of her face that feels like the threat of a real smile. If the boys act like Ty Lee, maybe... maybe it'll be easier.
The other girl moves closer, leaning on the balcony railing, and Azula mirrors her, looking across for her next cue.
Ty Lee hesitates for a moment, like she's thinking, then smirks and flexes her arms. They're slender but strong, wiry muscles under the surface from the circus training, Azula notices, then stops, flicks her eyes back out to sea. She doesn't notice things like that.
“Do you like my rippling muscles?” Ty Lee says, still in that dipped-low 'boy' voice, sounding like she's struggling not to laugh.
Azula should snap. Should tell her to start taking this seriously. But part of her wants to laugh, too.
Instead, she casts Ty Lee's arms another glance and says, “Yes,” light and thin and forced, trying to sound like the girl boys will want. “That's what I should say, right?”
Ty Lee smiles, her voice and posture relaxing back to normal. “Yeah! Or, you know, you could add even more of a compliment. Really flatter him. Chan seems like the type who'd like that.”
“Chan,” Azula agrees, fighting to stay on task. “Okay.” She clears her throat and shifts, fixes on a smile she hopes is flirtatious. “Yes. You look so... strong.”
“Glad you noticed, sugar bun.” Ty Lee flexes her arms again, puffing out her cheeks, and Azula giggles. Involuntarily. Lightly. She giggles.
Her face burns. Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, feared and revered... Azula does not giggle. Not for anyone. And certainly not for a circus girl.
But... “Good!” Ty Lee says, a grin lighting up her face. “See, you're doing so much better already!”
This is when Azula snaps. Tells Ty Lee it's not like she really needs her help and of course she could figure it out on her own and that Ty Lee is no one compared to her, certainly no one to be praising her like a proud teacher.
Only the playbook's burned up tonight. Azula doesn't feel like herself. (Maybe because she's pretending not to be. Maybe because being herself, right now, is just too much, and she wants to be a girl who goes to house parties and plays ball on the beach. A girl who flirts with boys and doesn't have danger in her head. A girl who's normal.)
So she says, “All right. What next?”
Ty Lee hesitates. Blushes. Twists her fingers together. “It... depends,” she hedges.
“No,” Azula snaps. “Tell me.”
“It really does depend,” Ty Lee says. “But if the boy likes you, and you like him, and you've been flirting... then you might kiss.”
Kiss. Azula's never kissed. She doesn't know how to kiss, how long or how much or if you open your mouth or what you should do with your hands. Her breathing comes too fast, that sick feeling dragging her under. She doesn't want to kiss Chan. She doesn't want to kiss any of these boys.
But she has to want it. She must. So maybe she just doesn't because she isn't sure how.
“How...” Her face is burning, and she knows she'll have to shut Ty Lee out for weeks after this. Azula is never this vulnerable with anyone. She can't let Ty Lee get used to it. Can't let her push her way through any more of the cracks in the armour round whatever burned ember Azula has in place of a heart. “How does that... work?”
“What, kissing?”
“Obviously,” Azula snaps, acerbic, embarrassed, cursing the world that made boys a necessary part of her life.
“You just... kiss,” Ty Lee says. “I'm not sure. I haven't done it much. I know all those boys like me, but... I don't always like them too.”
“But you have done it,” Azula says, angry, desperate. “So tell me. I'm the princess of the Fire Nation. I can't be the subject of some boy's story about the worst kiss he ever had.”
“You just... you touch lips, and...” Ty Lee shakes her head, a trace of panic in her wide brown eyes. Part of her is scared of Azula, just like everyone is, and right now, that, too, makes Azula feel ashamed. “I don't know. I can't explain it. Unless...” She swallows, bites her lip, then looks back at Azula, a new layer of nervousness in her expression. “I could show you.”
Azula's skin blazes up, and she's sure the red is colouring her face and silently thanks the dark. The world feels like it's swaying under her feet, the deck of a ship in a storm. “Show me?”
“For practice,” Ty Lee adds hastily. “For boys.”
“For boys,” Azula echoes, and feels that crest of shame again, hot and sick and acid. She'll do anything to get rid of that feeling. If she can kiss a boy and not fail, maybe it'll leave. Maybe she'll feel like enough.
And she can't kiss a boy and succeed if she doesn't know how.
So... “All right,” she says, trying to sound matter-of-fact, even as her lungs squeeze tight, her stomach filled with something almost like fear. “Show me.”
Ty Lee looks behind them. They're alone, the only sounds the swish of the waves and the muted laughter of the party.
“Okay,” Ty Lee says softly, and she shifts a step closer, slides one hand to brush Azula's hair back behind her ear, and leans in.
Her lips are soft. Her touch is gentle. The world stops.
Azula reaches a tentative hand forward, round the back of Ty Lee's neck, like she's seen lovers do. Draws her closer. Kisses back.
The sick feeling is gone. Lightness takes its place. There's still fear, but it's got a different shape. She's not afraid she hates this. She's afraid she likes it.
At that thought, the shame is back, and she moves her hand from Ty Lee's neck, brings it to her shoulder, pushes her away.
Ty Lee blinks at her for a moment, long lashes sweeping against her cheeks, warm eyes catching the firelight. Azula swallows, the shame cresting into terror. Here, now, in the dark with Ty Lee, she's more scared than she ever has been before.
This wasn't supposed to be like this. This was supposed to make her normal.
“Don't worry,” Ty Lee says, after a moment, her voice a little breathless, a little less bright. “That was good. As a practice, I mean.” She twists her hands together nervously, then grins, and it doesn't feel real. Azula knows shields; her sharpness is one. Maybe Ty Lee's smile, right now, is another. “You'll kiss Chan fine.”
“Chan,” Azula says, and the nausea hits worse, her head spinning. Kissing Chan won't be like Ty Lee, her mind supplies, unwelcome. Chan is all hard edges where Ty Lee is soft, all ego where Ty Lee is kindness. “Yes. Well.” She smooths her hands down over her dress, and the fear is so loud. Her heart is slamming against her ribcage like it's trying to escape, and right now, she half-wishes it would. Gone, maybe it wouldn't betray her. Gone, maybe it wouldn't want things it can't have.
This is the Fire Nation. Girls like boys. Boys like girls. Azula has no room to be different.
“We don't need to do this again,” she tells Ty Lee, sharp, like it's Ty Lee's fault Azula's all wrong. “And we don't need to speak of it. I've got what I needed.”
Ty Lee straightens her shoulders and nods. “Good luck with Chan.”
She leaves, and Azula waits till her hands stop trembling, then goes inside. She should find Chan. She should find Chan, and laugh at every pointless thing he says, and kiss him till she forgets Ty Lee ever touched her at all.
But when Zuko breaks a vase and storms out, Azula takes the escape gladly and follows her brother to the beach.
Because she's not sure she could kiss Chan and survive it, not now, not till she's burned every trace of Ty Lee from her heart.