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bellatrixobsessed1 · 6 years

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Wan High Weeping (Part 3)

This chapter was interesting being as I don’t often work within Mai’s POV.

Mai hadn’t planned on spending that day, or any day in the Jasmine dragon. But Azula was just as much of a fan of demands as Mai was of avoiding arguments. Anyways she had gotten more than her fill of those through the duration of the summer.

Summer, summer, summer. Mai hated summer because Zuko hated the season. Summer was when he was more or less stuck at home. At home was when he was stuck with their father.

A waiter came around and dropped a single black coffee in front of her. Black coffee, TyLee would have gotten a kick out of that one. But she wasn’t in the mood for TyLee right then, the girl was too perky for her. Mai felt around her pocket, until her fingers grazed the item she was looking for. The urge is very strong. She squeezes her eyes shut and clenches her fists. Not here, not now. She told herself. But she was losing her grip quickly. She was both thankful and vexed by the buzzing of her phone. She hadn’t even picked it up but she was already annoyed. It could only be from one of two people and both of them bothered her.

Frankly she hoped that it was Azula as opposed to Zuko. That late into the summer, Azula was the lesser of two evils. Reluctantly but quickly, she withdrew her hand from her pocket and unlocked her phone. ‘Are you already at the Jasmine Dragon?’ Mai sighed to herself. Azula had a habit of expecting people to leap when she demanded it but had no concept of jumping for anyone else. She replies with a simple, ‘yes’ regardless.

She supposed that it would be good to try to explain things to Azula. She wasn’t in the mood for people much these days, but she didn’t want to cut ties entirely. Perhaps the truth was the best thing to tell in this case. She took a prolonged drink of her coffee. It was so much easier to keep things inside. So much easier to release them in one thin red line.

Her hand goes to her pocket again.

“Not here.” She mumbles to herself. “Not here.”

She was trying so hard to break the habit. How long had it been since the last time? She thought that it was maybe back in February when Zuko had his Valentine’s Day meltdown. God forbid they just act like a normal couple for the holiday. No, he always had to go out throw his money around—try something elaborate and over the top that always didn’t quite work out as he planned. He’d get frustrated and things would derail from there. She pinched the bridge of her nose, the man was much too intense for her. All she wanted was to stick with her stoic moods and her quiet time. A novel would do her well, maybe something like Carmilla…but that reminded her too much of TyLee in some dark way. She’d find herself a novel, hell, at this point she might even be willing to stoop to stereotypes and throw in some Evanescence and Black Veil Brides. But then, the band didn’t really matter so long as she had something to drown out her own thoughts, lest they overtake her, climb up to the surface, and claw their way out.

She was growing impatient, she looked at her phone. With nothing else to do it began to settle and she found herself going to Zuko’s text window. Her fingers hovered over the buttons. She promised herself that she wouldn’t do it, that she wouldn’t go crawling back, not after what happened just before the summer’s start.

She became once again aware of the object in her pocket. It suddenly feels so heavy.

It was not like Azula to be late and she was beginning to think that she just got stood up. Petty vengeance was in Azula’s nature, she thought that it might be in the girl’s blood. Mai didn’t know what she had done, maybe she had given a bigger cold shoulder than she had thought. Azula didn’t take well to being snubbed.

She tossed back the rest of her coffee. She needed something to dull her mood because she could feel a creeping anger churning within. She felt it stirring in her belly and beating behind her eyes. Just when it was beginning to reach its peak she hears her text tone. ‘I won’t be meeting you after all…’ She should have felt pure unsaturated rage right then. But all she feels is a hollow and cold sense of indifference; if Azula didn’t want to hear it then that was fine. It was fine. She didn’t need Azula. In fact, it would be just dandy in Mai’s world if Azula severed ties with her. That way she wouldn’t have to deal with the woman and her edgy, uptight moods nor the higher odds of running into Zuko, but she could also pretend like the burned bridge wasn’t of her own doing.

And then the volleyball star texted her again and she knew that she would still have to blame herself because Azula explained that she was on her way to the hospital. A part of Mai feels bad that she wasn’t there for her. Most of Mai feels a wild lack of care as per usual.

She didn’t know what possessed her to do it. Maybe it was roll over agitation and impatience, the remanence of thinking that she had been stood up. Maybe it was some undetected, underlying resentment—the kind the existed only at an unconscious level. Whatever the reason, she texted ‘pics or it didn’t happen’. As soon as she hit send, she had a vague sense that she just broke things off with Azula without trying.

Yet she received a picture.

In that picture she found a new sense of guilt. The girl didn’t look angry at all…okay so that wasn’t strictly true, she looked absolutely and fantastically pissed even for Azula. But there was a sort of franticness about it. She could see fear. Fear and pain and a lot of it. She was laying down with her stomach exposed, it was swollen and bruised at the ribcage. A closer observation of the image had her quickly closing out of the texting app and shoving her phone into her pocket. She was never good with body horror; ‘Saw’, ‘Body Melt’, those were not on her to watch list by any means. So noticing the way Azula’s ribcage was protruding in some places, jutting at an awkward angel, had her squirming.

She should have said something. Something supportive and comforting. But her stomach was lurching and she didn’t really want to see the picture again. She couldn’t be mad at Azula though, she did ask for it. In retrospect it was painfully stupid. Ambulances always meant body horror.

Her squeamishness at the sight of broken bones and massive amounts of blood only made her actions more confusing. It was different somehow, she justified, when it was her own blood. She got up from her chair and muttered a thank you to her server.

Her phone buzzed again and she full expected a scathing remark from Azula about being ignored again. What she found was worse. ‘Mai, I’m sorry. Please talk to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do…’

She stole herself away in the bathroom and drew the razor out of her pocket.

.oOo.

By the end of the summer her arm had the texture of a cracked mirror. After her initial relapse in the bathroom of the Jasmine Dragon things had nosedived. Had made her way back to an empty home that seemed that much more so with her parents off on business trips, the one that they constantly complained of. Apparently, they weren’t done with the Beifong’s yet. Between their lawsuit and Ozai’s competitive company, she didn’t see much of a way out for the other family. Once upon a time she would have been longing for them to come home. If she were still in middle school she’d be begging them to come home and spend the summer with her. By now it has settled in that, that just wasn’t a realistic wish.

She gave her arm another slash for her loneliness.

She indulged herself in her destruction twice more that summer. The first of which was just a perfect storm. Tom-Tom was pitching up a good fuss because she didn’t fancy a trip to the pool. With skin so pale she didn’t do anything but burn.

“You never take me to the pool.” He accused. “You didn’t take me last summer either and I want to go.” It would only be a matter of time before he started wailing.

And Mai couldn’t take it, not one more minute of the screeching and whining. She wasn’t angry with Tom-Tom, he was a kid, he just wanted to enjoy the summer with the other kids. No, she was furious with her parents. They should have been there. This was their job. “Why don’t you swim in our pool.” She suggested, at least that way she could sit on the porch, in the shade, or watch from the inside with the a/c pumping.

“I don’ wanna play alone no more, I wanna see Fifi.”

Mai winced. She winced because she knew that by being so introverted, she was depriving him of a healthy social life. But she couldn’t putt on a bikini with her arms all crisscrossed. That would earn her too many questions. “Either swim in our pool or find a new way to have fun, Tom-Tom.”

Just like that he was bawling and she felt horrible all over again.

Later she tried to get him to eat but he refused. Just like he refused to change out of his swim trunks and into his pajamas. He cried through the night and she wondered if this temper tantrum would ever come to pass.

Just when she was feeling alone in her stroke of ill luck, she got the text. She would rather be alone than hear from Zuko. She couldn’t handle his slew of problems that night, his begging and crying made Tom-Tom’s sound like music. Awful, half-assed screamo songs, but music no less. She swiped the message notification away and powered the phone off.

She took pride in her self-control, in her ability to leave it powered off for another three days.

When she did turn it back on she found an onslaught of awful things. The last several were scathing messages from her mother and father. Tom-Tom must have complained to them about being housebound for so long. She opted not to reply, she was already in three days deep, responding then would be a waste of text.

Zuko, as expected, also helped to blow up her phone. ‘I just want to talk.’ ‘I won’t do it again.’ ‘Please, I really need someone to talk to.’ ‘Azula’s hurt you know?’ He must have been getting desperate if he was willing to toss in a faux sympathetic message regarding his sister. She swiped those away too, wondering why she didn’t just block him.

Because she is a stupid bitch. A tried and true idiot.

She was that person.

Zuko wasn’t the final straw.

Scrolling up she came to find that it had been Azula. She was the one who had texted her first. The message itself wasn’t even that bad. It was rather mundane, almost pleasant actually. The Azula version of an apology for skipping out on her. She decided that Azula must have been lonely or desperate. She had texted again after that, asking ‘Mai are you there?’ And then an, ‘believe it or not, I don’t know what I did.’ And finally after three days of being cold shouldered, ‘fine, don’t talk, there are plenty of other goths around.’

It would seem that she was replaceable. She felt like she deserved it. If she hadn’t jumped to conclusions, if she hadn’t assumed it was Zuko then she might have had some company in this lonely house. Well, that was not strictly true; she and Tom-Tom would have gone for a drive to Ozai’s estate. Instead she further isolated herself.

She counted the texts, four from Azula, six from her mother, three from her father, four from Zuko.

Her arm had seventeen new cuts.

Small things. Small, thin dripping things. Slashes that had just as much depth as her decidedly bland personality.

She couldn’t answer Tom-Tom when he asked why she was wearing long sleeves in the summer. God forbid he take a chapter from her book in his later years.

.oOo.

Her arm has taken so much abuse already but she runs the razor across it again. It was not her usual razor. No, this time she drew blood in the shower, telling herself that she was ‘just shaving’ like a normal teen.

“Showers are good for you, they help you relax.” Claimed every magazine ever. Claimed all of the internet sources. Showers were apparently the ultimate self-care. She momentarily forgot that she wasn’t a typical teen. For her, showers were time to think. Time to realize just how foolish her actions had been.

Zuko had texted her again, a long and detailed spiel about how his father had only been home for a little while but had already slammed him into a wall among other things. About how his dad was hollering to a magnitude that even Azula was flinching. About how his dad had flown completely off the handle this time, reminded him that he was a ‘sad, useless sack of shit’ and stormed off to go on his third?—Mai didn’t know the exact number—business trip that summer. He sealed the message off by telling her that he hit up Chan again. That he would stop if she talked to him.

So she did.

She pressed the razor down harder and dragged, removing not just hair, but a few layers of skin. She cried out. She heard Tom-Tom’s little voice calling her name. “You ‘kay, Mai?” He asked.

It made her feel even more awful, she was failing as a sister just as she was failing as a friend for Azula and a girlfriend for Zuko. Not to mention as a daughter. She dragged the razor down her other arm with just as much force, that time keeping her cry muffled. But Tom-Tom called for her again so she replied, “I’ll be out in a moment and then you can get your bath.”

Without the water to wash it away, the blood was flowing free. It was a fight to get it to stop and she feared that she had dug too deep that time.

“Hurry up Mai, I wanna get squeaky clean!” He sounded so joyful. He didn’t know and that made her allt he more desperate to make it stop. She unraveled more than half of the toilet paper trying to soak the blood. She had underestimated how much damage a simple shaving razor could do.

“Just a second Tom…” she was fighting back tears as she pressed her towel to her arm. “I’ll be right out Tom…”

.oOo.

She was a rare breed in that she was excited for the school year. She couldn’t dwell on her demons if she was pouring all of her brainpower into her studies. Last year her problems had her one A away from the high honor role. This year she could see straight A’s and a hollow sense of meaningless accomplishment that her parents wouldn’t pay any mind to.

So far though, it has been all gossip. By lunch time, she knew all about Katara’s little sex scandal and about Suki’s surprise. She knew without having seen Azula, that the volleyball captain was no longer so. That apparently, she was no longer the pinnacle of beauty. Just as apparently the girl hadn’t even set foot in the school yet and people were just taking Usha’s word for it. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Azula had a very large and long bitch streak, but Usha. That girl was all bitch with no redeeming qualities.

She hadn’t even gotten to finish her spaghetti when her phone rang. She stole a glance around the cafeteria, deeming the coast clear, she picked it up. “I’m going to need you to come over tonight.” Zuko requested.

“Zuko, I have to watch Tom-Tom, you know that.”

“You can bring him over.”

“Can I? Your room is the last thing I want him to see.”

“I’ll…” He paused, trying to find the right way to phrase things. “I’ll clean up a bit.”

“Zuko, I promised Tom-Tom I would take him to a friend’s house.”

She knew that he was going to snap before he did and held the phone away from her ear. “I’m your boyfriend! You can’t make time for me? I really need you right now and you’re just going to leave me by myself. Mai I need you. If you don’t come over—”

That time she decided that she has had enough. "You know what, Zuko? No, I have my own things to deal with…" She paused. "How about this? How about instead of…” She could feel a pair of invasive eyes on her. Could sense a set of curious ears listening in, ready to bring fresh gossip to a talkative mouth. “Hold on."

She fixed her glare at the eavesdropper. She was relieved to meet the gaze of Katara, the girl wasn’t a gossiper, she was one of many topics of gossip. Still, Mai didn’t apricate the intrusion. She saw her mouth an apology, wincing and squirming under her own intense stare.

"Whatever." She picked up her phone again. Her retort for Zuko was well and lost on her. She had the mind to mutter a quick, ‘thanks a bunch’ to Katara, but the girl had already picked up her silly backpack and fled the scene. “The answer is no Zuko, do what you want in your alone time.”

He always left her to her destruction, why should she do him any different?

#Avatar #Mai #Azula #Zuko #Katara #Sokka #Suki #TyLee #Toph #Aang #Fanfiction

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