*You home? I'm gonna come over in a bit.*

It was glowing all over my face. I kept flicking my finger on my phone to keep the message lit. I hadn't seen Aang in years. Not since everything settled down in the capital. What was he thinking? I paced around the sitting room trying to imagine what could possibly the matter. Nothing could distract me from my thoughts. Not the hush of the oceans. Not the evening arrival of mosquitoes to greet me and the shining lamp in the beach house. Not the drumming rhythm at the door. "Does he even know I'm on vacation?" I asked aloud.

"Well, I sure hope he does," a sly familiar voice answered. I looked up embarrassed. Azula stood leaning on the door frame, with everything practically melting on her. Her posture. Her leather jacket. The two escaped bangs dripping down her face. "Zuzu, I thought you got over this monologuing thing after dad went to jail and dearest mommy came back," Azula continued with condescension leaking out like an oil spill.

"I just do it when I'm stressed," I grunted, ignoring her obvious bating, "And right now I'm very stressed and I'm pretty sure you won't be much help with this."

She walked over toward me without making a sound, avoiding the multitude of floorboards that I had been creaking symphonically for the past fifteen minutes. "Ouch! I know we haven't always been the Bennet sisters, but certainly we still retain some sisterly affection" Another bait I wouldn't bite. "Who needs to know your on vacation?" she asked cocking an eyebrow. I hid my phone to my chest.

"No one." I replied but just as quickly realized that my answer would inspire rather than satisfy a spy like my sister. I tried lying next. "It's just a dumb student diplomat from the model UN at school."

Azula was circling me like a shark now, and I spun around slowly to keep her in my eyesight. "Oh, you sweet pure cinnamon bun," she pouted, "even if you were any good at lying — which you most certainly aren't — who's to say I didn't already make my own correspondence with a certain prancing orphan about our current whereabouts?"

"The orphan thing is more complicated than that and you know it!" I exploded, then just as quickly froze. "You didn't," I demanded, although I don't know how since I could swear I hadn't moved a muscle.

"I couldn't resist. You know, I developed such a fondness for him while we were all fighting to the death. So few people really give me a challenge." She hooked the back of my leg with my foot and my knee buckled. I started to grumble, but she moved on with her explanation. "Besides, you have so much in common…" Through my t-shirt, she dragged her finger like a paintbrush around the scar on my chest. "I thought you should reconnect."

"It's just a weird coincidence." With a swipe, I threw her arm off of me. "And you couldn't have given me a heads up? He said he's coming over in a few minutes! The house is a wreck. I didn't wash my hair after swimming today." I chanced a look down at myself. "And I'm wearing my fucking pajamas!"

I started toward Azula trying to appear as angry and intimidating as possible and she backed toward the window on the ocean side of the house. The shadow of the night crept onto her mischievous expression. "Oh, Zuko. I thought you would be excited. After a quick skim, it seemed like your diary—" That was it. I squeezed my eyes shut and threw a perfectly aimed fist right for her face (this was what our sibling relationship was all about). But my punch made no contact, and when I opened my eyes, no one was there. I leaned out the window and saw her snickering to herself two stories down as she ran toward town. She was agile, I'd give her that. "Have fun with Aang, Zuzu!" she called back, "And don't tell mom I went to bed early. Please and thank you!" The proprieties faded into the evening, as I pulled up the text again.

I reared my thumbs to respond, typing and deleting in an attempt to craft a literarily competent response that still seemed casual. *Hey! I'm here! But I guess you already knew that. Sort of.* I stared like a hypnosis victim at my draft. Was it too vague? Too casual? Too wordy?

It didn't matter. Ellipses in their bubble popped up letting me know Aang was typing something to me. Before I could even berate myself over the fact that he might've seen bubbled ellipses on his end for the past fifteen minutes while I wrote my text (okay, so maybe there was enough time for that), he sent a one word message. *Here!* (Of course he used an exclamation point. Aang was a walking exclamation point.) The knock this time was farther away, but seemed like a top 40 song compared to Azula's earlier funeral march tapped out on the door frame. "Coming!" I yelled, sprinting toward the front door and trying to climb out of the gutter from thinking about the sexual connotations of what I just yelled.

He was bathed in the floodlight, looking like some kind of holy icon. He had on the arrow hat his parents had given him before they passed and the orange sweater worn thin from use. He wore both what seemed like every other day. I could see his skin patches of skin through some of the more threadbare portions. But I stopped my scanning the moment he cheesed hardcore and said my name. His voice was familiar, but matured. Like before I had been swimming in a lake, but now I was in the ocean.

"Aang!" I'm sure my smile wasn't as big as his. Everything I did happily always seemed to come off like a simmering smirk. And who else could smile that big anyway? He went straight for a hug, sliding the brim of his hat across the top of my head and everything else coming in for a big smoosh. This wasn't some patty-cake guy hug. He meant it. I really meant it. I squeezed him harder. Maybe if I crushed him I could keep him here in a jar like someone's cremated ashes. A few years ago, that would've solved all of my problems. But now I just wanted to give this silly kid all the things that kept me alive so that he could live two more lives. I don't think I accomplished that with this hug exactly: he seemed to squeeze harder in response, so it probably all leveled out. Still, it was one of the best hugs I've ever had.

We pulled back in synchronicity. "Hey," I said, "How have you been?"

"It's so good to see you," he practically sang. He somehow seemed to answer my question while ignoring it at the same time.

I invited him into the house and grabbed him a beer. He used to be pretty straight-laced about this sort of thing. But I guess I was pretty intense about a lot of things, too. Now he seemed even more relaxed than before, like he was floating through the house. I kept trying to notice all the little things that had changed while we toured around the place and he investigated all the childhood pictures (Thank goodness we could replace the naked baby pics with some new happy family shots with mom.) We finished the tour in the living room, and while Aang checked out the pictures hanging on the walls, I popped a squat on the couch.

"So were you visiting Fire Island with your crew or a club or something?" This seemed like a safe way of asking. I knew from insta that Aang still hung out with Katara and Sokka despite the break up, and Aang kept majorly busy with all sorts of groups. High school greens. Veggie club. All the democracy now kind of stuff.

"Nope," he replied turning from my framed awkward teenage years to the current me, "Just made the trip to see you." I couldn't tell if the warmth I felt was a blush or the quick onset of Asian glow, but either way I tried to act more calm than I felt. Especially when Aang sat right next to me on the couch. Not in one of the chairs facing the couch. Not on the other end of the couch. It wasn't a thumb-pinky situation. It was a full-on extended ring finger and pinky cuddled up while the rest of the fingers got ignored.

"Okay," I said turning to face him, but also trying to pull back a little, "I guess I'm just a little confused." My voice went up at the end, hopefully implying that more explanation would be helpful. Then I did my best impression of a confused face for added effect. Aang looked back at me thoughtfully, although the rosy flush on his golden cheeks — like everything else about him — were a reminder of his hard-earned innocence.

"Well, I had all these reasons and signs pointing out what I needed to do," he played with a loose thread on the couch cushion by my shoulder, "why things would kind of inevitably fall apart or just not work out to begin with." Concerned, I placed my hand on his outstretched forearm. Before I could ask about it, he went on. "But Sokka and Katara and Toph all kind of said variations of the same thing." Drawn to the mystery, I leaned toward him. Then he leaned closer to me. I haven't often been inches apart from someone's face. Maybe the gravitational pull I felt (and was resisting in that moment with all the might of a satellite) happens every time. But I've never felt tied so tightly to anything else before. And when Aang asked if he could kiss me, I let the knot close.

It started off soft, like the pulsing of fireflies in and out of dusk. A lot can be said about lips. I'll say this about Aang's: I loved them from that first moment onward. They met mine and pushed and pulled like tides. And the sandy stubble on his chin! I never had thought about the difference intensely. I'll admit now that this might have been on my mind. And I had even thought about a few other boys. But it never occurred to me how the scratch of someone else's facial hair could validate your whole sexuality. I rubbed my hands up the fade on the back of his head for double the pleasure. And Aang, for his part, had one hand braided in my hair and the other testing friendly waters at the hem of my shirt.

Between the sighs, the sips, and the smiles, Aang reared back and grinned more wildly than he ever had before (though for the first time my happiness felt bigger and more uncontainable). (I definitely was letting Azula off the hook for tonight.) "So this is why you came?" I tried to teasingly chide, but my smile was much too excessive for that game.

"No, not exactly," Aang laughed and snuck in another kiss. "The truth is," he said, "I just missed you."