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‘It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way.’
‘Why?’ she said.
‘To make up for it,’ I said. ‘To make up for the fact that it’s me.’
Suzanne Rivecca
Growing up, Azula had to be perfect.
She’s not the same person she was when she was living under her father’s roof, but that sentiment follows Azula no matter how far she runs. The word has branded itself into her mind, wrapped itself around her lungs, and it will not leave her alone.
Azula has to be perfect.
And for the most part, she’s done a good job of it.
The other thing Azula had to be growing up was better. She had to be better than Zuko at every turn. And while she knows it isn’t necessary for her to be better than Zuko now, she still is. That’s just how it’s always been.
Which is why, when Sokka tilts his head and asks Azula when the last time she went to the eye doctor was, Azula snaps that she has perfect vision, thank you very much, and just because Sokka needs glasses doesn’t mean he has to project his bad vision onto everyone around him. Sokka looks taken aback, but Azula can’t find it in herself to feel bad about her outburst. It’s Sokka’s fault for even suggesting that she might not have 20/20 vision, as far as Azula is concerned.
He puts his hands up in defense. “Okay, sorry.” He points back at Azula’s textbook with his pen. “So I think the reason the problem wasn’t working for you was because you plugged in a two instead of a three. We all misread things sometimes, though, so it’s no big deal.”
Azula narrows her eyes, studying the problem. Now that Sokka’s pointed out what number is actually in the problem, Azula has no trouble reading it as a three. So, clearly, her eyesight is perfectly fine. Like Sokka said - sometimes you read too fast and your brain glitches. Like a computer. It happens. Azula won’t beat herself up over misreading a number - she’s past that, at least.
“Thank you,” she says sharply. It feels forced when it comes out of her mouth, but she thinks she’s spent enough time around Sokka that he knows she’s being genuine.
“Yeah, no problem!”
And if Azula pushes her textbook just a bit farther away from her, making the equations just a bit clearer, that’s no one’s business besides hers. She’s just a little tired, really. Everyone’s eyes go a little blurry when they’re functioning on only four hours of sleep because two of their professors decided to assign an exam on the same day.
They’re situated in the back corner of the library, half studying and half waiting for Jin’s class to be over so they can all head to the Jasmine Dragon together.
Or, well, Azula spends the time studying and doing homework. She can’t say the same for her brother and his boyfriend, who are professionals at distracting each other. Technically, Sokka has his textbook open like he’s pretending to work on homework, and Zuko has probably read at least a few pages of whatever “literary classic” his professors are forcing him to read, but Azula can hear them whispering and giggling, which means they definitely aren’t getting as much work done as they could be.
(The traitorous part of Azula’s brain - the one that still lives with her father - wants to chew the two out for not being as productive as they could be and wants to gloat about how much more progress she’s made than them, but she pushes it down. Zuko and Sokka are allowed to give themselves a break, whether or not Azula feels like they deserve it.)
They’ve been in the library for about an hour when Jin shows up, her cheeks flushed from the cold, panting slightly from having to climb up four flights of stairs because the elevator is broken. She’s wearing the scarf Ty Lee crocheted for her a few weeks ago, and her hood is pulled up over her head, faux fur framing her face. She smiles brightly at Azula, causing butterflies to flit around Azula’s stomach.
Azula first met Jin last semester; the first semester of college for both of them. Jin started working at the Jasmine Dragon in mid-September, and to everyone’s surprise, she and Azula worked well together. A week in, the two had realized they were in the same psychology lecture, and Jin had suggested they study for the tests together.
For the first time in her life, Azula hadn’t wanted to immediately turn a friendship down.
Azula and Jin are polar opposites in a lot of aspects. Jin is probably the sweetest person Azula has ever met, and Azula is-- well. She’s Azula. She’s the girl who’s father twisted her mind around until she’d finally broke at sixteen, and when Uncle Iroh had come to help her, she’d screamed at him to go away and claimed she would never stoop to Zuko’s level. She’s the girl who stood by and watched her father burn her brother and then lied on her father’s behalf when asked about it, the girl who’s own mother couldn’t even love her. She’s the girl who went through ten different therapists before she even made some semblance of progress. Mentally, Azula is a mess - she’s come far enough to admit that. She’s not even sure why someone like Jin would even want to be friends with her.
Jin is also beautiful. And Azula isn’t self-deprecating when it comes to her appearance. She’s the sort of girl who will pass by a mirror and stop to admire the outfit she chose or how nice her makeup looks. She knows she’s pretty. But Jin is ethereal without even trying, which is a little not fair but mostly infuriating for the sole reason that Azula just wants to kiss that pretty smile of hers and see what happens.
(She won’t. But it gets tempting sometimes, during late night study sessions when they’re seated a little closer than strictly necessary, to just lean over and close the distance between them.)
“Azula?” Zuko’s voice brings her back to the present.
She shakes her head, clearing her thoughts. “Yeah?”
“Are you going to pack up and join us, or are you planning on staying here to study some more?” There’s no malice in Zuko’s voice, which Azula is grateful for. But when she looks over, Sokka is standing next to him with a knowing smirk on his face. Azula shoots him a glare that doesn’t do anything before she quickly puts all her stuff away so Jin and Zuko aren’t late for their shift because of her.
--
The walk to the Jasmine Dragon happens in the same manner it always does: Zuko and Sokka walking ahead, holding hands and talking in hushed voices, while Azula and Jin walk several paces behind them, keeping quiet for the most part. Occasionally, when Zuko and Sokka are talking loud enough to allow for eavesdropping, Azula and Jin will exchange looks when the boys are being particularly stupid or ‘oogie’ (a word originating from Sokka’s friends that Azula thinks describes most of Zuko and Sokka’s interactions perfectly).
Today, Azula focuses on her footsteps and her breathing in the hopes of shutting out the cold. She watches her breath puff out little clouds of smoke. Azula has never been particularly fond of the cold. That was half the reason she didn’t want to move in with Iroh and Zuko. It hardly ever snowed back in Caldera. But Ba Sing Se has frigid winters and biting winds. Zuko doesn’t seem to mind, but he’s lived here for almost a decade, and this is only Azula’s third time experiencing an actual winter.
The one thing she misses about Caldera is the lack of drastic changes between seasons. Caldera is always warm, and because it sits so close to the equator, the seasons don’t really have much meaning attached to them. It’s just hot, slightly less hot, hot but also rainy, and The Big Hot™. Azula loves it.
But, she has to admit, everything about Ba Sing Se besides the weather is definitely superior to Caldera. Besides, Ba Sing Se has Jin. Azula can deal with her nose feeling like it’s going to freeze off when Jin is next to her.
(Also, Ba Sing Se winter is supposedly nothing compared to winters in the South Pole, according to Zuko. Who has, coincidentally, spent an entire break with Sokka in the South Pole during winter.)
(Loser.)
Jin bumps her arm against Azula’s, and Azula looks over at her, silently asking if she wants to say something or if it was an accident. In response, Jin unwraps the scarf from around her neck. She stops walking, and Azula follows suit on instinct. Jin leans forward and wraps the scarf around Azula’s neck, then, and Azula’s mind short-circuits at how close Jin’s face is to hers.
“You look cold,” Jin says. She tugs the scarf up over Azula’s mouth and nose, putting a shield between them and the wind, which Azula is instantly grateful for.
“Thank you,” Azula mutters, and it comes out muffled from behind the scarf. She prays that Jin doesn’t realize a soft, mumbly, thanks means Azula is flustered. She’s also grateful that between the scarf and the fact that Azula is sure her cheeks were already pink from the cold, there’s no way Jin will notice her blush. Jin’s face is still strikingly close to hers, but at this distance, the details blur together. Her pupils blend into her irises and Azula can’t make out the freckles she knows are there.
Much to Azula’s dismay, her brain reminds her of Sokka’s question from earlier - “When was the last time you got your eyes checked?” And he hadn’t even said it to be mean; he’d seemed to be actually concerned. Like he actually, genuinely, thought there might be something wrong with Azula’s eyesight.
There can’t be, though. Azula won’t entertain that idea. Zuko is the one between the two of them with eye problems - he’s blind in his left eye, for Agni’s sake! Azula’s eyes are fine. Zuko’s are not. That’s the way life has been since Zuko was thirteen, and that’s the way life will stay.
Besides, everyone’s vision blurs when they’re looking at something too close to their face. That just happens. Azula’s eyes are fine.
--
Azula spends the next two weeks adamantly ignoring any issues with her vision. Really, she hadn’t noticed anything wrong before Sokka asked her, so her brain must be faking it. And obviously there’s no way that she’s only noticing after it was pointed out to her because she thought her sight was normal and it never was. That isn’t the case. Azula does not consider that it might be, not even for a moment, not even when she’s staring at her textbook at midnight, trying to push it far enough away that she can read it while also keeping it close enough that she can… well, so that she can read it.
It’s midnight. She’s tired. She should be going to sleep soon anyways, before Iroh walks by and sees the light shining from the crack under her door and tries to have a heart-to-heart with her about if her homework is stressing her out too much or something.
Just as Azula is shutting her book and moving from her desk to her bed, her phone goes off. She picks it up, blinking at the screen until Jin’s name comes into focus, and Azula can’t help but smile.
jin: [attachment: 1 image]
jin: this is you
It’s not until Azula is typing out her response that she realizes how far she’s holding her phone from her face.
Azula is a people watcher, mostly because if she’s watching people, she doesn’t have to talk to them. She knows how close most people hold their phones to their faces. But Azula is holding hers at arm’s length so she can see the keyboard as she types.
(Has she always done that?)
She sends off her reply and shakes her head. She’s tired. It’s past midnight. Surely she would’ve noticed the fact that she holds her phone so much further from her face than the average person does if that were a normal occurrence. Which it’s not. Because it can’t be.
--
As things tend to do, Azula’s silent war against her own eyes comes to a breaking point. Said breaking point happens on the top floor of the library, a little past midnight, when she and Jin are studying for midterms. Their table is littered with empty coffee cups, various food wrappers, and crumpled up pieces of paper.
Jin is typing fervently on her computer, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Azula has been staring at the same page in her textbook for the past thirty minutes at least, struggling to make out the words. She keeps having to readjust the book’s position, trying to get it in that sweet spot between too close and too far. Her head is pounding, and trying to read is only making the pain worse. And she keeps telling herself she’s just tired, she’s just tired but Agni. It’s getting to the point where Azula doesn’t think she can keep up this charade with herself for much longer.
Her breaking point isn’t the textbook, though. It’s the sound of Jin’s computer shutting and Jin - voice gentle and concerned - asking, “Are you okay?”
And spirits. Azula just--
She breaks.
Her father’s voice is pounding at her skull, screaming things like, “Look how weak you’ve become,” and “You’re pathetic,” and “How could anyone love you?” but it’s not enough to stop the tears. The floodgates have already burst open, and no matter how hard she tries, Azula just can’t stop crying.
She hates herself for it, really. She’s come too far to be crying over a stupid homework assignment. She’s come too far to be crying over her stupid eyes. She’s come too far to be beating herself up for not being better than Zuko in something as arbitrary as eyesight - she knows this. But, but, but--
But there’s still that voice in the back of her head. It sounds like her father, most of the time. But sometimes, it sounds a lot more like her mother, cradling her cheek and whispering, “Azula, you will never be as good as your brother,” in the softest voice known to man.
Through the storm, though, there’s another voice. Another hand - this one coming to rest on her shoulder. Azula can’t make out the words the voice is saying, but they feel like nice ones. They feel soft in a sincere sort of way, something genuine and kind, sweet like honey in tea.
They guide Azula back into herself, back into reality, back into the top floor of the library with--
Jin.
Azula yanks herself backwards, away from Jin, like that will erase what Jin just had to witness. Like that will repair the damage Azula has caused, the damage Azula’s mind is telling her is irreversible. Jin will walk away, will avoid eye contact with Azula from this point forward. Maybe she’ll quit her job at the Jasmine Dragon in order to avoid Azula altogether. Azula wouldn’t even blame her, really. No one wants to be friends with someone as broken and damaged as Azula, let alone allow their feelings to twist into something deeper than friendship.
Unfortunately, in her haste to put distance between herself and Jin, her chair topples over backwards, taking Azula with it. She squeezes her eyes shut and braces for impact. Maybe, if she’s lucky, she’ll hit her head hard enough to pass out and she won’t have to deal with this right now.
“Sorry!” Jin exclaims. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you.” She reaches her hand down towards Azula, but then pulls it back like she’s been burned. Azula lets her eyes close again. Maybe she can just fall asleep, and she’ll wake up and realize this was all just a bad dream.
She’s expecting Jin to pack her things and leave, but instead, she hears Jin sit down on the floor next to where Azula is laying. “Can I help you sit up?”
Azula nods. Or, she must nod, because Jin’s arm is wiggling itself under her back and pushing her upright, into a sitting position. When Azula opens her eyes again, Jin is looking at her with big eyes, full of concern. “Do you know where we are?”
Absentmindedly, Azula reaches up to rub the back of her head. “The library.”
Jin nods. She asks a few more questions - What’s my name, What’s 2+2, How old are you, and Azula thinks that will be it, until Jin lifts her hand and asks, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
She can clearly see that Jin is holding up two fingers; that’s not an issue. The issue is that Azula feels pretty wide awake right now and her tears have dried at this point, but she’s staring at Jin’s fingers and they’re too close to her face. They’re blurry.
They shouldn’t be blurry. They shouldn’t be blurry. Objectively, they aren’t that close to her face. She’s pretty sure, at this distance, anyone else (Zuko) would be able to see them crystal clear. Even with his single working eye, he can see better than Azula can.
“You will never be as good as your brother.”
Azula doesn’t notice she’s started crying again until Jin’s eyes widen in worry. Halfheartedly, Azula wonders if maybe she can blame this all on sleep deprivation.
This time, when Jin reaches out for her, Azula leans into the touch. She lets Jin wrap her arms around her in an awkward hug on the library floor. Jin runs her fingers through Azula’s hair, and then she rubs circles on Azula’s back. She doesn’t try to talk to Azula; she just holds her. For some reason, that realization makes Azula cry even harder. She cries into Jin’s shoulder until she doesn’t have any tears left to shed, and then they sit in silence until Azula finally manages to pull herself off of Jin.
Jin reaches out and brushes a stray tear from Azula’s cheek, letting her hand linger longer than is probably necessary. Azula’s brain screams that Jin is looking at her with pity, but she knows that isn’t right. “Do you want to talk about it?” she whispers.
No, Azula wants to say. No, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.
But her mouth betrays her brain, and she ends up saying, “I can’t see.”
Jin frowns. “Huh?”
“I mean,” Azula quickly tries to correct herself. “I can’t see things when they’re close. I thought, if I just ignored it, it would go away. But… I don’t think that’s happening.” She sniffs. “I’m supposed to be better. I’m… I’m supposed to be perfect.”
Jin sighs, and it cuts Azula to the bone. But once she starts speaking, Azula realizes it wasn’t a mean sigh, and Jin isn’t mad. “Azula, your eyesight isn’t something you can control. Needing glasses or contacts doesn’t make you imperfect. It’s just a part of you.” Azula opens her mouth to respond, but Jin presses a finger against her lips, cutting her off. “And if you’re comparing yourself to Zuko, because I know you are, I’m just asking that you remember that no one is expecting you to be better than him in every single aspect of life anymore, especially not ones you can’t control. The only one insisting you have to ‘win’ against him is you.”
She’s right. Azula knows she is, even if she doesn’t want to agree. “Zuko--” she starts to say, but she doesn’t really know where she’s going.
Jin raises an eyebrow. “Azula, let me ask you this. Do you look down on Zuko because he’s blind in one eye?”
Azula shakes her head. “No. Not anymore.” She looks down on Zuko for other reasons, because he’s her brother and that’s what younger sisters do, but it’s not like it’s his fault their father burned him. Azula knows better than that now. She knows he didn’t deserve it.
“Do you look down on Sokka because he wears glasses?”
“No.”
“What about Toph? Do you look down on her because she’s blind?”
“No!”
“So why are you looking down on yourself for bad eyesight?”
“Because--” Azula snaps her mouth shut. When Jin puts it like that, Azula sounds pretty hypocritical. Of course she’s never judged Zuko or Sokka or Toph for their eyesight, even when Sokka has explicitly joked about the fact that he brought his nearsightedness upon himself by the amount of time he’s spent hunched over designs and equations and looking at his phone and computer screens. So why is Azula holding herself to different standards?
“Because everyone else has held me to higher standards for my entire life,” she finally answers. “Because my parents made me believe that if anyone could fight something you can’t control and win out of pure determination to not be anything less than perfect, it would be me.”
“Your parents were wrong for that,” Jin responds simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re just as human as the rest of us, Azula.” She smiles the sort of smile that’s meant for only one person to see. “And, for what it’s worth, I think perfect is a subjective idea. No matter how many flaws you might have, you’re perfect to me.”
Azula knows she should say something to that; she should respond and let Jin know that she’s grateful for her, that she’s so happy Jin is in her life. But the words get stuck in her throat.
“Why don’t we call it a night?” Jin suggests. “And whenever you’re ready, I can help you talk to Iroh about seeing an eye doctor, if you’d like.”
Azula manages to nod. “Yeah. That would be… I’d like that. Thank you. For… for everything.”
“Of course!”
Jin doesn’t walk out on Azula. She stays, they clean up their mess, and then they walk back to the Jasmine Dragon together.
--
In the morning, Azula tells Iroh that she thinks she might need glasses. Iroh, of course, somehow knows an eye doctor in Ba Sing Se, so he sets up an appointment for her.
Jin agrees to go to the appointment with her for moral support, and one week later, Azula is sitting in an exam chair while Jin waits and watches, offering smiles and thumbs ups whenever Azula glances over at her.
At the end of the exam, the doctor informs Azula that she is, in fact, farsighted and she does, in fact, need glasses. She can feel Jin’s concerned gaze on her, but Azula feels strangely okay with the diagnosis. She thought she would feel worse, but at this point, it sort of just feels like a confirmation of what she already knew.
The doctor leads them to pick out frames next, and Jin links her arm with Azula’s, leaning in close and whispering, “I’m proud of you.”
Warmth washes over Azula at Jin’s words and she doesn’t even bother trying to hold back her smile.
She picks out a pair of thin, golden, frames that Jin says compliment her eyes. If anyone else had said that, Azula would have shot back a snarky response. But since it’s Jin, she turns away as she feels her cheeks heat up.
Azula was going to pick those frames anyways, but after Jin’s compliment, any inhibitions she might have had vanish completely. She schedules a time to pick up her glasses next week, and that’s that.
“How are you feeling?” Jin asks as soon as they step outside. A chilly spring breeze sweeps her hair up and Azula’s brain short-circuits for half a second because even though Jin isn’t very in-focus, she’s beautiful. Azula doesn’t need to see properly to know that.
“I’m okay,” Azula responds once her brain turns back on. “I thought I would be doing worse, but… I really think I’m okay.”
“Good!” Jin holds out her hand, and Azula takes it without thinking. “How about we get some ice cream to celebrate?”
It’s pretty cold out, but Azula isn’t going to turn down ice cream with Jin because the weather isn’t ideal.
--
Azula doesn’t notice a change right away, really. She puts her glasses on and some things are a little clearer, but it’s not until she pulls out her phone that she can clearly tell the difference. She no longer has to strain her eyes or hold her phone away from her face in order to read what’s on the screen.
She notices it, too, when she meets Jin in the library later that afternoon. Jin is seated on the floor today, absorbed in a book. Azula plops down across from her, and Jin looks up and freezes. Which, Azula thinks, is a little odd.
“What?”
Jin had said she’d liked the glasses, right? Right??
Jin’s eyes rake across Azula’s face, and feels like an eternity before she finally blurts out, “You look really pretty.”
Azula blinks.
What?
“I-- I mean--”
“Thank you!” Azula interrupts. Her words come out too eagerly, too fast, too ardent. She tries again, toning herself down. “I mean. Thanks.”
Jin nods, her face flushing. “Mmhmm.”
And that’s what catches Azula’s attention - the color in her cheeks. It brings to attention the fact that Azula can now make out the individual freckles on Jin’s face, the flecks of green in her dark brown eyes, the light dusting of eyeshadow on her eyelids, the way her eyelashes curl. She feels like she’s truly seeing Jin for the first time. She’s never been able to see Jin so clearly this close before.
If she had, Azula’s sure she would’ve given into the temptation to kiss her at this point.
Azula hears Jin set her book down, but her eyes are glued to Jin’s face, trying to memorize it in case her glasses working is a fluke, in case her vision suddenly goes back to how it was without glasses, in case she never gets to see Jin like this again.
“Azula,” Jin whispers. There’s something desperate in her tone - something pleading. She reaches out for Azula, cupping her cheek in her hand. “Can I--?”
Azula closes the distance between them, cutting Jin off.
The collision jolts Azula just enough that her glasses slide down on her nose and bump into Jin. Jin chuckles into the kiss, and Azula thinks feeling Jin’s smile against her mouth might be the greatest thing in the world.
In the end, they’re both laughing too much for their kiss to be considered much of a kiss at all, but Azula will stand by the fact that no matter how awkward or clumsy it might be, this is the happiest she’s ever felt.
Jin pulls back and pushes Azula’s glasses back up into place. She lets her hand linger on Azula’s face, thumb tracing over Azula’s cheekbone. Her face is even more flushed than it had been before Azula kissed her, and her eyes have a new sort of sparkle in them.
“I should’ve gotten glasses sooner.”
Jin giggles, and then she’s leaning in and kissing Azula. It’s gentler this time, so Azula’s glasses don’t slide, and it’s definitely more of an actual kiss.
Azula knows that if her father could see her now - wearing glasses and kissing a girl on the floor of a university library - he would have a lot of nasty things to say. But his voice isn’t in Azula’s head right now. The only voice in Azula’s head right now is her own, taking in every aspect of this moment, and reveling in the fact that she even made it to this point, where she can kiss Jin without guilt and she can wear glasses without feeling like they’re a mark of being imperfect.