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Apparently, this was his life now.
Jae's barely seventeen years old.
Seventeen.
And somehow, in addition to being a secret fugitive—which was a problem in itself, considering absolutely nobody knew he was a fugitive because they all thought he was simply traveling—he had somehow become the teacher, babysitter, and reluctant parent of an eleven-year-old Avatar.
And her long-lost twin.
Who they had found only a few days ago.
Jae sometimes wondered if the universe actively hated him.
Right now, for example, he was standing in the middle of a market, soaked to the bone, trying to help an understandably furious cabbage merchant put his cabbages back on his stand.
"Careful," Jae said, catching another cabbage before it rolled into the street. "That's the last one."
"The last one?" the merchant demanded.
Jae winced.
"Okay. Maybe not the last one."
The merchant stared at him.
Jae gave him an apologetic smile.
"Sorry."
"This was a perfectly good stand!"
"I know."
"And now half my cabbages are halfway across the market!"
"I know."
"And whose fault is that?"
Jae glanced over his shoulder.
Pavi stood a short distance away, looking absolutely miserable.
"It was an accident," Jae elaborated while giving looking towards her with a raised eyebrow.
Pavi rubbed the back of her neck. "I didn't mean to."
"You sent a cabbage cart into a fruit stall."
"I was practicing."
"You were supposed to be practicing controlled airbending."
"I thought I had control."
Jae stared at her.
Pavi stared back.
"...I did not have control," she admitted.
"Correct."
A laugh came from somewhere behind them.
Jae turned.
"Don't."
Geet immediately stopped laughing.
Ruhi, however, was still grinning.
Nisha was nowhere to be seen.
That was never a good sign.
Jae looked around the market.
"Nisha?"
Nothing.
"Nisha!"
Still nothing.
Then he heard the unmistakable whine of his hoverboard.
Jae closed his eyes.
"No."
A blur shot between two stalls.
"NISHA!"
She laughed as she sped past, standing on Jae's hoverboard with all the confidence of someone who had absolutely no intention of giving it back.
"Catch me!"
"You stole my hoverboard!"
"It's not stealing if I give it back!"
"You haven't given it back!"
"Then catch me!"
She disappeared around the corner.
Jae stared after her.
Then he looked at Pavi.
Pavi looked at him.
"Should I go after her?"
"Yes."
"You're the teacher."
"And you're the one who sent the cabbages flying."
Pavi sighed.
"Fair."
Jae turned back toward the cabbage stand.
"Come on," he muttered. "One disaster at a time."
As usual, though, the universe had decided that concept was far too optimistic.
A deep rumble rolled through the sky.
Everyone stopped.
Jae just groaned as he slowly turned his head to look upward.
Dark clouds had gathered overhead.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Thunder cracked.
Rain came down all at once.
The market erupted into shouting as people scrambled for cover.
Jae barely had time to react before lightning flashed across the sky.
Nisha screamed.
She came running straight toward him.
"Jae!"
He barely managed to turn before she collided with him and wrapped both arms around his waist.
Jae froze.
Then his expression softened.
"Hey."
Another roll of thunder followed.
Nisha squeezed tighter.
"That was loud."
"Yeah," Jae said quietly. "It was."
He rested a hand on top of her head and gently patted her hair.
"It's okay. I'm here."
She peeked up at him.
"You promise?"
Jae smiled.
"I promise."
For a moment, everything was quiet except for the rain.
Then Pavi called from across the market.
"Jae!"
"What?"
"We're missing three cabbages!"
Jae stared at her.
Was it really that bad?
"You know what? I don't care anymore."
The merchant looked horrified.
Jae exhaled.
"Sorry. I care. I care a lot."
He picked up another cabbage and carefully placed it back on the stand.
Then another.
And another.
He glanced at the soaked children, the ruined stand, the stolen hoverboard, and the storm rolling overhead.
Then he resignedly pondered aloud to himself, “Yeah, both of my boyfriends are definitely going to kill me."
He'd left the apartment just a week earlier, right in the middle of training. He'd made sure nobody was looking, grabbed what he could carry, and left behind a note.
A vague note.
Possibly the vaguest note ever written by a not-yet-adult who was trying very hard not to get himself, or anyone else, killed.
I need to see the world for myself.
I need to figure some things out.
I need to learn who I am and decide what kind of future I want.
Don't look for me.
That last part had been important.
He'd left nothing useful behind. No destination. No route. No hint about where he was going.
Nothing they could follow.
Nothing they could use to track him down.
At least, that had been the plan.
He did go through it in the end, though Jae had stared at the note for a long time before finally leaving it on the table.
"Sorry," he had whispered to the empty apartment.
Then he flew away and decided it was best to not look back.
After all, he probably wouldn't see them again for six months.
Maybe a year.
Possibly a year and a half.
He really didn't know.
Which meant that, when they eventually reunited, it was probably going to be fine.
Totally fine.
There would be no screaming.
No accusations.
No one asking why he'd disappeared without telling anyone.
No one demanding to know where he'd been.
And absolutely no chance that Jae would have to explain why he'd somehow acquired two children and an entire world's worth of problems while he was gone.
Yeah.
Their reunion was going to be fun.
The problem was that Jae couldn't exactly have written the truth.
Hey, guys. Sorry I disappeared.
I accidentally adopted the Avatar.
She's eleven and also a wanted fugitive.
No, nobody knows she's the Avatar yet.
Yes, she's a child.
Yes, I'm aware that's a problem.
Oh, and she has a recently discovered twin.
We found her a few days ago.
She’s also involved now.
Also, the previous Avatar saved the world by basically ruining it.
And now we're pretty sure there's something worse coming.
Anyway, I'll probably be gone for a year or so.
Love you!
There was no version of that note that didn't sound completely insane.
Jae had already tried explaining the situation to himself.
It hadn't helped.
Somehow, he'd gone from being a normal teenager with relatable growing up problems to traveling across the world with the Avatar and her twin while trying to keep said Avatar's identity secret.
Which meant Jae was now responsible for making sure an extremely powerful, extremely wanted child didn’t accidentally reveal that she was the Avatar, while also helping her understand how her powers worked—and somehow preventing the next great threat from destroying what was left of the world.
Jae had just finished living out the first sixteen years of his life.
He wasn't supposed to be doing any of this.
He was supposed to be worrying about school.
Or relationships.
Or whether he was making the right choices in order to gain a future career and be financially successful.
Instead, his current biggest concern was whether Pavi and Nisha, their animal companions, these cabbages, or anyone else were going to accidentally blow something up again.
And yet…he simply looked ahead at the road disappearing into the distance.
There wasn't really a choice anymore.
That was the part he initially had the hardest time accepting.
He could complain, panic, and wonder how everything had gone so catastrophically wrong.
But none of that was going to change anything.
This was the hand he'd been dealt.
So he was going to play it.
Somehow.
The others, however, had become much more interested in one particular detail.
"BOYFRIENDS?!"
Pavi practically shouted it.
The cabbage merchant had bellowed it, too.
Nobody was entirely sure why the cabbage merchant was participating.
He barely knew any of them.
He had met them approximately ten minutes ago while Jae was helping him retrieve several hundred runaway cabbages.
Still, somehow, he had apparently decided this was his business now.
Geet spat out one of the cabbages while making a loud shrieking noise.
From the other side of the cabbage stand, Ruhi stopped playing with the hoverboard and just stared in shock.
Jae stopped walking.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned around.
Everyone was staring at him.
Pavi looked downright delighted.
"You are in a relationship?"
"Can we please not do this right now?"
"No."
"Absolutely not."
Geet immediately moved closer to him, rubbing affectionately against his arm, despite looking partially offended by the hidden revelation.
Pavi meanwhile pressed onward with her interrogation, “Why didn't you tell us?"
"I didn't hide it."
"You never said anything!"
"Because I don't talk about my personal life!"
"That's suspicious."
"How is that suspicious?"
Ruhi nodded solemnly as Nisha unhelpfully added on.
"Very suspicious."
Jae stared at them.
"I have known you people for days."
"Exactly!" Pavi exclaimed. "And somehow you neglected to mention the fact that you have two boyfriends."
Jae rubbed his forehead.
"I didn't think it was relevant."
"How is your romantic life not relevant?"
"Because we're being hunted!"
The words came out sharper than he intended.
Everyone went quiet.
Jae immediately sighed.
"Sorry."
He looked away.
"Just...not everything is easy to talk about."
His voice had gone a bit more solemn.
There were things about home he didn't talk about including his childhood, growing up in Allora, the people he'd left behind, and the people that might be waiting for him to come back.
And, his relationships were only one small part of it.
So, he hadn't been keeping secrets from them.
Not really.
He just hadn't known how to explain a life that felt increasingly far away.
Nisha glanced thoughtfully at him.
"Oh."
Jae glanced at her.
"None of us are really upset."
"I know."
"You could've told us, though."
"I'll consider it."
She narrowed her eyes for a second before once again softening.
"Good enough, for now.”
Pavi snorted.
Jae pointed at her.
"And you are never allowed to bring this up again."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Okay."
Pavi paused and titled her head to the side.
"Can I bring it up tomorrow?"
"No."
"Next week?"
"No."
"The reunion?"
"Especially not the reunion."
The cabbage merchant cleared his throat.
"So...how long?"
Jae looked at him.
The man shrugged.
"What? I'm curious."
"You’re supposed to be focused on selling those cabbages."
"I contain multitudes."
Jae stared at him for several seconds.
Then he sighed.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."
Another rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
Nisha flinched.
Her smile disappeared.
Jae noticed immediately.
He stopped joking.
"Hey."
Nisha looked up at him.
Another flash of lightning lit up the clouds.
She grabbed his sleeve.
Jae didn't hesitate.
He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's okay."
She buried her face against his chest.
"I don't like storms."
"I know."
His hand gently moved over her hair.
"You're safe."
Nisha nodded.
Jae held her a little tighter.
And somehow, in the middle of the rain, the ruined cabbage stand, the explosions, the secrets, and the complete disaster his life had become, Jae found himself smiling.
Not because things were easy.
They weren't.
In fact everything has been very terrifying.
He’s barely seventeen, running from a life he'd barely had time to understand, carrying responsibilities that should never have belonged to someone his age.
And these kids...
They hadn't exactly chosen any of this, either.
Pavi was the Avatar.
An Avatar who was still just a kid.
Nisha was her long-lost twin, someone who had only recently learned how much of her own life had been kept from her.
They had been thrown into a world that expected them to understand things they hadn't even had the chance to process.
And Jae?
He had been thrown into the middle of it with them, and yet it could be the reason why he isn’t able to resent it.
Because he had seen what life in Allora had done to both himself and other people.
He saw what happened when everyone waited for someone else to make the first move.
Everyone waited and hoped.
They told themselves that change would come eventually.
But eventually had a habit of becoming never.
So maybe all of them really did have to leave in order to create the change themselves.
Because, there wasn't anyone else coming to do it for them.
Jae looked down at Nisha.
Then at Pavi.
Then at Geet and Ruhi.
They were all exhausted.
Soaked.
Confused.
Probably completely unprepared for whatever came next.
Honestly?
So was he.
But that was okay.
They all had each other to figure it out with.
Jae took a slow breath.
"All right," he said.
Pavi looked at him.
"All right what?"
Jae smiled.
"Let's keep going."
"Toward the explosions?"
"Unfortunately."
Pavi grinned.
Nisha finally lifted her head.
"Are we going to save the world?"
Jae paused.
He looked at the storm clouds.
At the road ahead.
At the strange little group he'd somehow become responsible for.
Then he smiled.
"Yeah."
Nisha smiled back.
"We can do that."
Jae laughed softly.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
He squeezed her hand.
"First, we survive the weather."
"And then?"
"Then we figure out how to save the world."
Pavi nodded.
"Sounds easy."
Jae laughed.
"Sure."
For the first time in a long while, he actually believed they might manage it.
Not because they were ready.
Not because they had all the answers.
But because they had each other and everything needed to change.
Not tomorrow.
Not someday.
Not when someone else finally decided to act.
Yesterday could have been better.
But yesterday was gone.
So they would start today.
And if today wasn't good enough?
They'd start again tomorrow.
Together.