Chapter Text
When Katara showed Sokka this game, at first, he hadn’t thought much of it. It was a fun game, sure, but it wasn’t exactly thrilling. Then Katara mentioned that her and Aang were dating in game, and when she said that, an idea crept into Sokka’s mind. Slowly but surely, he started to think of a plan.
See, he had had a crush on his roommate, Zuko, for the past year now. He thought, maybe he could make himself and Zuko in game. If their miis got together, it would plant the idea in the other’s head and then make him realise he was madly in love with Sokka and magically, they would end up going out in real life as well.
Perfect plan, 10/10, no notes.
Sokka the genius was at it again.
So he spent 60 bucks ordering the game, was it reasonable? Absolutely not. Was it worth it? If everything went according to plan; yes. Plus, it wasn’t that bad honestly. He’d stop drinking coffee for a month –his dedication to fancy coffees with over-the-top decorations was a problem anyways- and he’d be good to go.
He shared his switch with Zuko, now it wasn’t that hard to keep it for himself, Zuko barely touched the thing anymore, but it was hard to try and hide what he was doing without making it seem too suspicious. Spending all of his time in his room was not an option, that would just make the other worry and that simply wasn’t acceptable.
So he’d have to play in the living room, and then, Zuko would ask what he was playing because he knew he had finished every single game they had, and what would he say then? “Oh, I’m trying to make a miniature version of you fall in love with a miniature version of me. Nothing fishy here.” That was definitely not the way to go.
He could simply explain the game, there was no way Zuko, cool and badass Zuko would be interested in this kind of games anyways.
***
Everything had gone perfectly, he had received the game, set it up, and, as he had predicted, Zuko had been surprised to see him settle with the switch in his lap. It’s when he approached and recognised the loading screen that Sokka’s whole universe exploded. He knew the game. Worse; he liked it, he had wanted to buy it for some time, he wanted to ₚᴸₐʸ ᴵₜ with Sokka.
Now they were both squeezed onto the couch and Sokka was very aware of how close he was to Zuko, how, in some places, their skin was touching.
“So who do we-” His voice cracked. FUCK. Zuko looked at him weird, but didn’t seem to pay that much attention. He tried again; “Who do we make first?”. Thank whoever was up there he was still able to formulate a sentence, he would have thought he had forgotten how to, with how much brain capacity he was losing from being close to Zuko.
“It’s your island make yourself first!”
“You’re right. You’re right, let’s do that.”
Sokka spent twenty or so minutes struggling with the mii editor before Zuko eventually had enough.
“You do not look like that!” He sounded utterly shocked, like Sokka’s masterpiece had personally offended him, he reached out his hand, silently asking for the controller.
Sokka handed it over with reticence: his creation wasn’t that bad. Was it? “Okay, if you think you can do better, go ahead, I’d love to see it.” Zuko laughed a little at that, then smirked.
“Just you wait.” Heavens. Calm down Sokka, you’ll be okay, you will probably end up in hell but that’s fine, it’s honestly worth it.
It was like watching a master swords-man defeating an entire garrison of guards, quick, efficient, precise. Zuko got every tiny detail right, from the shape and length of his eyebrows down to that one tiny little mole next to his eye, in a minute, it was done.
“Why- This has to be illegal somehow right? How do you know my face better than I do??” It truly was frightening actually, flattering, but still, frightening.
“We can’t forget your army of earrings.”
“ARMY? Come on now, you have more piercings than I do!”
“Whatever you say beautiful.”
“What.”
“What? Now let’s get these earrings on your mii shall we? Which ones do we draw, the little stars you wear all the time?”
Despite the fact he had no right to move on from this this quickly, he sure did. He carried on, acting as if he hadn’t just short-circuited Sokka’s brain right there and then. Zuko nodded to himself, taking the absence of answer as approval. He started drawing little stars on top of his ears, more focused than ever.
He’d done almost everything on his own, and, as Sokka had watched him in silence, he’d taken a silent, mental note that Zuko actually noticed all the little things. He knew him. It shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it had been, it was obvious, Zuko was his best-friend before anything else, but, the way he just knew, there was something about it that made him feel special.
A satisfied sigh escaped Zuko’s mouth, he had even taken the time to shade and highlight the “metal”, it was shining as real earrings would. He proceeded to turn the head around in the preview and noted;
“They’re floating. That kind of sucks, with the budget they have at Nintendo you’d think they’d do a better job at this.” Then just finished creating the mii.
For the rest, he carried on alone, unbothered. They argued on the size of Sokka’s miis (Zuko insisted on making him the smallest possible, while he clearly was pretty tall), messed around with his voice and ended up settling on one of the default ones, they both fell quiet when the moment they had been waiting for arrived. The screen coloured itself in green “Reserved strategist”.
“Creative, thinking outside the box... I think we nailed it.”
“You bet your ass we did, I’m a genius, and you’re huh... Well you’re you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” He sighed, then handed the other the controller again, defeated. He was still smiling though, good to know Sokka hadn’t completely killed the vibe.
He realised, actually, it wasn’t that bad. A few minutes ago, when he was realising that he would have to spend the rest of his afternoon squished against the other, he thought that he would implode, and, a bit earlier, before even that happening, he had been scared of spending time with Zuko.
During the time following the very sudden revelation that he actually wanted more than just being roommates –it had been seven months now he knew, but far longer since he had been crushing on him-, Sokka had taken his distance, forgetting why he liked him in the first place.
This was a nice reminder. He was enjoying this more than he had thought he would, this game was really nice. Despite the fact that he still felt hot as a burning flame and also the fact his hands were clammy and he was so scared of messing up when he talked he might actually die drowned in his own worry, yes, despite all of that, it was nice.
He felt good. As if, for a fraction of time he could pretend they weren’t friends. As if, he could reach out and kiss him, and Zuko would lean in.
They got through the tutorial pretty quickly, then came the time to make a second mii. Sokka immediately said he’d make Zuko. A bit too fast maybe. Zuko’s eyes went wide for a moment, then back to normal.
If only Sokka could have known then, what had happened in his mind, maybe they both wouldn’t have wasted so much time.
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