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Azula was about ready to break up with Aang.
In the year that she had known him, Azula had rarely gotten angry with her boyfriend. Nobody did. Sokka claimed that it was something called “hot boy privilege,” but Azula disagreed. Not that she didn’t think that Aang was attractive, but there was more to it than that. He was just so naturally sincere and charming, the perfect balance of confident and self-deprecating. He was good at reading people, and quickly acknowledged his mistakes. You didn’t want to be mad at him.
Aang was so likeable, in fact, that at the end of the school year, she had offered to have him move into her apartment. She had even been fine with his pets moving in with him, however unhappy they seemed with the situation. For whatever reason, most animals tended to dislike Azula. Normally friendly dogs would bark and growl, cats would hiss and run away. They made it work though, and Azula delighted in getting to spend so much time with Aang. Everything was going great.
Until the thing with the shirts started.
Azula had returned home from class, exhausted and cranky, only to find that Aang had inexplicably unfolded a bunch of his clean T-shirts and thrown them on the ground. Silently fuming, she had picked them up and refolded them with her usual precision. By the time Aang had gotten home, she had cooled off, assuming that he had been frantically searching for something to wear before he had gone to school and hadn’t had time to clean up the mess. As long as it didn’t become a habit.
After the third time she had found their room in that state, she had confronted him. Aang had insisted that it wasn’t him, which drove Azula absolutely insane. Of course it was him. Who else could it be? They were his clothes! Unless he was suggested her apartment was haunted, or that someone was breaking in just to mess with them. They had ended the argument with neither side conceding, and Azula had refused to even look at him the rest of the night. It was so, deeply frustrating to be told she was wrong, especially in Aang’s calm, soothing tone.
Because neither of them would admit to the deed, it went largely ignored. A frostiness had grown between them, built on distrust and suspicion. Azula’s paranoia began to whisper cruel things in her ear: Aang had only been dating her as a prank, this was a joke that he was laughing about with his friends. That idea hurt more than anything. It was embarrassing how much she already loved Aang. Nobody had ever been that good to her before. Azula was at the end of her rope.
Wednesdays were particularly rough for Azula. She had classes from eight in the morning to seven in the evening, with very few breaks in between. Before, Aang had made it a habit of having dinner ready and waiting for her when she got home. Since they had started fighting about the shirts, he had been doing it less and less. So it wasn’t a huge surprise to come home and find that he was just sitting on the couch, reading.
“There you are!” he announced, sounding happier to see her than he had in a while. Despite herself, her heart melted at his warmth, and a small, stubborn smile appeared on her lips.
The smile vanished at his next words. “I figured out what’s going on with the shirts.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Azula’s hackles were raised. What did he mean by something was “going on” with the shirts? He was throwing them on the ground. That was it.
“Just come here,” Aang beckoned for Azula to sit next to him on the couch. Despite finally discussing the dark cloud that had been hanging over their relationship, he seemed light and cheerful. It was disconcerting.
“I forgot my laptop for class, so I had to run back here to get it,” Aang began explaining, pulling out his phone and opening a video. “And I saw this.” Without another word, he passed the phone over to Azula, who tapped the play button. It took her a second to realize what was going on.
“What is your stupid cat doing?” Azula demanded. Momo, Aang’s Siamese cat, was actually one of the few animals that Azula liked. The creature was vocal and intelligent, and when they were alone Azula found herself talking out loud to him. Though he had been hesitant about Azula at first, he seemed to appreciate that the two of them could quietly exist in the same room together. Sometimes, Momo would even join Azula in her study to escape Aang, who was an aggressive cuddler to both humans and animals whether they wanted it or not.
In the video, Momo was laying on top of the dresser. He had somehow worked the top drawer open, and was lazily hooking his claws into the T-shirts one at a time, then shaking them onto the floor.
“Buddy!” Aang’s voice on the video rang out, clearly trying not to laugh. Momo froze, eyes wide, before scrambling off the dresser and escaping under the bed. The video ended there.
Silence. Azula turned to meet Aang’s eyes, unsure of how she felt. She was relieved, she supposed, that it wasn’t actually Aang trying to mess with her. She was also mortified at being manipulated and tricked by a cat. The criminal in question wandered into the living room, meowing expectantly.
“There’s the homewrecker himself!” Aang scooped the protesting cat up in his arms. Momo yowled and wriggled free, jumping over Azula to curl up on the other side of her, warm body pressed against her leg. Aang turned to Azula, his expression growing solemn. “Seriously, I’m sorry I was so mean about that whole thing.”
Azula’s heart swelled in her chest. She had been falsely accusing Aang of doing something wrong, and he was apologizing to her? “Stop that,” she said, more harshly than she intended. “It was my fault. I thought…” she trailed off, then blundered ahead. “I thought you were playing a prank on me.”
The next thing she knew, it was her turn to be bundled up in Aang’s arms. She molded herself to his chest, breathing deep. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. “I would never do something like that to you,” he murmured against her hair. “You know that, right?”
The weird thing was, she did know that. She trusted Aang, who loved even the bad parts of her. That was part of what had made their fight so difficult. Azula still had a hard time saying the words, but each time they came a little easier. “I love you.”
He tilted her head up towards him so he could kiss her on the mouth. “I love you too.”