Chapter Text
Aang prided himself on his ability to notice everything.
Gossip? He knew about it. Yesterday.
The pop quiz? He knew about it, just didn't tell anyone.
Aang prided himself on these observations, and if you had his favor, you wouldn't be surprised by the things he knew that were supposed to be kept secret.
Another thing Aang prided himself on was that he had never met a stranger. That is to say, he always interacted with everyone he could. Which is how he, who was a teacher's pet in freshman year, ended up ostracized in his sophomore year.
It wasn't different teachers, and it really wasn't a sudden attitude from him, he just ended up interacting with the 'wrong' kids.
Sokka and Katara were siblings, and they weren't the prestigious heirs that everyone else was. That was their only wrongdoing.
Aang brought it upon himself to make sure they weren't always sitting, just the two of them, at lunch, poking Mystery Meat and silently staring at each other.
It was a quick transition from teacher's pet and everyone's favorite, to the friend of the two poor kids. And that's unfortunately what many of the kids still see him as.
He'll take it with a grain of salt. He had been the outcast enough when he was growing up, (monks are supposed to take an oath of celibacy but his parents didn't get the memo), he can take more than a little bullying.
So, Aang became their friend, and really they were a nice little chaos trio.
They stayed like that until the day it all changed.
~~~~~~~~
Normally kids didn't start in the middle of a semester. Unfortunately Zuko was not a normal kid.
Well, for one, he was a prince.
You'd think in a modern world, that princes and hierarchy, and kings, were a thing of the past.
You'd be wrong.
Zuko was *painfully* aware of how important his family was to the Fire Nation.
The Fire Nation was a place where people could live happily, according to his father. And that happiness was earned with time and energy from their leaders.
Zuko had heard many stories of the leaders of the past. Zhao: who took the nation into, and brought the nation out of, a war. Ozai the first: who brought them out of a recession that nearly killed the entire military. And of course, Ozai the second: who finally brought in a council of people who he could talk to about steps forward for the country.
All the while, the people got to live happily, as though nothing was happening behind the scenes. Even now the people wouldn't, or rather couldn't, know about all the effort that made sure there wasn't another war imminent.
The Earth Kingdom was knocking on their door, and waiting for them to answer, but that's a conversation for another time.
Now, Zuko found himself raising a hand, to prevent the sun from blinding his working eye, as he looked at EmberCrest Academy.
It was Azula's idea to get him out of the palace, and into a 'real' school.
She was a sophomore here, and had been going since she started high school. It was probably the most prestigious school in the country.
The king was delighted at the chance to send the heir apparent to the same place he graduated from. It also got Zuko far enough away from the palace they could discuss things that really weren't for a room that had a teenager in it.
Nobody talked about the fact that it would get him away from court after the Incident.
Nobody mentioned that it was the first time Zuko will be seen outside of the palace since the Incident.
He was used to it at this point, you can only avoid something you see in the mirror every day for so long, until you have to come to terms with the fact that it's permanent.
His aide nudged his shoulder, bringing him back to the present.
The sun was very bright, and seemed to have something against him this morning. It prevented him from looking up at the entire school, so he could only see the doors in front of him, emblazoned with the EmberCrest...crest?
The grammar of that didn't sound right, but he nudged open the door anyways.
His aide guided him through the halls, talking about curfew and dorms, and sharing rooms. He had assumed he would just have a room to himself, but apparently he got a roommate.
He couldn't quite catch the poor guy's name, since the aide wasn't looking at him anymore, far more focused on getting them through the jam packed hallways that made up this portion of the school.
Zuko really wasn't looking forward to the fact that he'd have to face this crowd every morning just to get to class.
It was hard enough starting in the middle of the year, the middle of a semester too. Now he'd have to face not only social interaction, but the fact that he can't really hide from anyone.
He really hoped he wouldn't have any enemies here.
Knowing his family, (Azula), there were probably people that would refuse to associate with him. He'd learn, and if he didn't, he'd live through it anyway.
There really was nothing that he could go through just short of death where he hadn't faced down worse.
He was surprised people weren't already staring, though he couldn't be so self centered as to think he was the only important person in the room.
This was a prestigious academy, he was far from the only kid who grew up with a camera in his face before he understood the concept of "no."
He had to pay close attention to make sure he didn't trip on anyone. He narrowly sidestepped a young woman wearing blue, who's startled eyes met his for a second.
She opened her mouth to say something, but his aide noticed he had fallen behind and grabbed his arm.
His bad arm.
He barely managed to not wrench it free and snap at the guy. He instead let himself by led away from the crowd, and only when it was finally quiet, did he shove the man's hand off of him.
His hand massaged his shoulder out of habit, and it slightly relaxed under his touch.
"So as you can see, this is a highly public school, you can't expect us to direct any media attention away, you see, we can't really control the media that comes in and out." He could only hear him because the guy was looking at him sideways, finishing what he had started before.
Hopefully it wasn't important, because Zuko missed at least half of the beginning of that one.
"Don't touch me." Zuko managed, once he was sure the aide had finished talking. "You had no right to grab me like that."
"You weren't listening—"
"That's not your problem." Zuko snapped. "Don't. Touch. Me."
"I, uh—S-sorry, sir." It wasn't the aide's fault—he was nineteen, and got scared of a sixteen year old so easily.
Clearly he wasn't a graduate of EmberCrest.
Useless.
Zuko huffed, shoving the door to his dorm open.
"Prince Zuko, I'm not done-"
Zuko turned away from him, effectively silencing him.
It wasn't that he was actually quiet, Zuko just wouldn't pay enough attention to listen.
The room really wasn't bad, a window in the middle, the two beds separated and against the far walls. An entire half of the room looked lived in, a backpack at the foot of the bed, two suitcases under the bed, and a surprising amount of clothes on the floor. The desk on that side was covered in paper, and a few little knick knacks, but it wasn't terribly disgusting. Lived in.
Zuko walked inside, avoided stepping on a pair of pants, and sat on his bed.
His suitcase would be coming later, when his sister came back from her impromptu break. Really all he could do was get more comfortable with the school itself before his first class.
At least the aide had decided to leave him alone. With luck he wouldn't mention any of what had happened to anyone. For any reason.
The last thing Zuko needed was someone else thinking he was just a crazy stuck up prince.
Azula did enough of that for the both of them.
Zuko stretched himself out on the bed, not even bothering with sheets. Maybe he could sleep for a little while? Chances are he wouldn't have to go to classes for the first couple of days, so the first person to remember he existed would be his roommate or Azula, and either of them probably wouldn't care anyway.
His shoulder was aching, so he tried to stretch it out. And he shut his eyes. That's really all it took for his body to decide sleep was inevitable.