hotpants are an illusion

It was easy; his eyes were quiet but expressive, she thought, and since they looked at her, sometimes, she figured that it must have been because he loved her. And it was easy to fall for him, almost too easy—his hair looked soft and his smile was nice (forced, usually, but nice anyway), and his arms were strong. Nice. He was very nice looking, Zuko. She’d pictured the two of them together more times than she could really count, pictured them walking down flowered paths hand in hand, laughing and smiling and being in love. It was the most idealized idea of love she’d ever had, but she clung to it, because Zuko looked beautiful when he held her eyes for just that one second he always did.

There was Jet too, of course.

In her most secret fantasies, she pictured Zuko and Jet fighting each other over her. They both seemed the type; they were hotheaded and angry and handsome, both of them. Usually, it was Zuko who won, but sometimes she liked to picture Jet winning too, holding out his hand to her and smiling with all of his teeth and his lips curled back, like she remembered him always doing.

But mostly, she just pictured Zuko.

When she’d been busy thinking about Zuko kissing her, Zuko was in the courtyard, training with Jet. It was good for them to work together, Zuko had said, because Zuko had formal training that Jet had never had, and Jet had sharp instincts that Zuko didn’t have. “We’re good for each other. In that sense,” Zuko had told her in short, halting, awkward sentences. She didn’t think anything of it. But once in a while, she would go and watch them, and pretend they were sparring for her hand.

She usually didn’t see the way their eyes met and held, and the way that Zuko’s hands stayed on Jet’s dark skin far longer than they ever stayed on hers.

So really, thinking back and thinking about all of that now, she really should have realized it long before this.

Katara stands there in her best clothes, the corners of her mouth pressed up into the smallest of smiles (forced, this time). Sokka is next to her, and Aang on her other side. It’s hot, and the Fire Nation court is beautiful. There’s a hard, bitter feeing curling in her chest. 

It’s Zuko and Jet. Zuko is in his sweeping, deep red robes and Jet’s in clean, pressed Earth Kingdom robes that look far too elegant for him. His hair is brushed, and he barely even looks like the Jet that Katara knows—but he’s wearing that smile, the one with all the teeth, something wicked and devious glinting in his eyes. She knows it. She knows he’s wicked, standing there with Zuko like he is.

Katara watches them, and tries to remember everything she missed, tries to pull all the pieces that she’d turned a blind eye too, back when they were still fighting in a war and back when she thought Zuko loved her. Zuko and Jet training, Jet always sitting next to him, always keeping in step—Zuko hardly ever looking away from him, Zuko frowning and picking leaves out of his hair, touching the bandages on his fingers and asking him if he was alright. 

They were in love, Zuko in Jet.

They’d been in love for such a long time.

Katara swallows and watches Jet put his hand in Zuko’s.

It’s a big ceremony—of course, the Fire Lord getting married is always a big deal, and getting married to someone with absolutely no noble blood is so incredibly uncommon, so almost everyone in the Fire Nation has turned up to see how this wedding will turn out. It’s beautiful. It’s bitter. It feels both sweet and terrible, to her.

She’s not listening to the ceremony, the words feel like a dull drone in her ears, but the drone stops and Zuko pulls Jet closer and then they kiss. In front of everyone. Jet puts his hands on Zuko’s beautiful, carved face, and the tips of his dark fingers brush the rough edges of his scar and Zuko doesn’t move his hand away.

It’s such a quiet, intimate kiss that Katara almost feels like she has to look away, to give them space. She feels sad, and she doesn’t know if that’s because she wants Zuko or what Zuko has—if it was really ever Zuko, or just what Zuko represented.