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Some days, the only thing keeping him going were the four words written unassumingly on his wrist. His soulmate’s first words to him were probably the most romantic thing that anyone had ever seen. Zuko’s mother had cried when he turned three, and in messy writing, came his lifeline. Even his father had taken a look. It was probably the only time his father had ever paid attention to him.
It was the only thing he had ever had that Azula didn’t have better. Her wrist was blank, void of any handwriting, although he noticed that she would occasionally check her empty wrists when she thought no one was looking. Despite that she seemed determined to make it up by being better at him in every other aspect of life. She maintained fantastic grades, had a wide array of friends with rich fathers to match her own, was the calculating, beautiful, socialite daughter that his father had always wanted. For years, he had felt embarrassed for being so pathetic compared to his younger sister.
Ursa had died when he was seven, and although the true logistics of it weren’t clear in his seven-year-old mind, he remembered the black procession, and the dawning realization that he was completely alone. He remembered crawling under the bedsheets, old ones that she had forgotten to wash, and desperately trying to memorize the fading scent of his mother. He remembered spending the whole night curled up staring at his wrist, eyes locked religiously on the words, You are so perfect. He wasn’t alone.
When his father had spent the evening screaming to him over an eighty-four on a math test, staring down in embarrassment and only managing to keep the tears in by looking at the four words on his wrist. You are so perfect. He’s not worthless.
When he looks into the mirror and sees a mottled scar over the side of his face, from where his father had pushed him to the ground, and refused to get medical care until an infection started bubbling up. When the glances at his face become overwhelming, he looks at his mark, the tattooed words he’s imprinted on his soul. You are so perfect. Someday, someone would look at him and say that he was perfect.
The constant reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel. Every single step moving slowly towards somewhere safe and warm. You are so perfect.
So when he finally left that horrible house filled with horrible memories, after his father finally got arrested for fraud and extortion, with his uncle and his sister, he was still alive to see his father glare as he was led, handcuffed, back into the jail cell. He was still alive to see his sister become a person who wasn’t dependent on their fathers conditional love, and even embrace her lack of mark. She would always be smart, and strategic, without the coarseness of a teenage girl desperate for validation, in any way that she could receive it. He lived to sip tea in a greenhouse with his uncle, to look in the mirror without wincing, and make friends with the cool emo girl and her bubbly girlfriend.
“Oh, ew, what the hell,” Ty Lee exclaimed, before tilting the phone up to show Zuko. There was a set of vile Instagram messages, from a lol.its.sokka. This included the douchey “holy fuk that pictur of u in a bikini??’’, the extremely creepy “*fapfapfapfapfapfapfap*”, and the concerning “lol you should call me… ***-***-5578.”
“Hold on… is that the one guy in my physics class?” He points to the icon. Ty Lee clicks the icon to show the guy’s Instagram which seems to be full of pictures from when he was in high school. What the hell, the cute guy in physics is a total creep. “Oh shit, it is .” Before Ty Lee can pull her phone away, he snaps a picture of the DM’s.
“What are you doing ?” She whispers, trying to wrestle the phone from his hand.
“Well, first I’m going to tell Mai, and then I’m going to fight the asshole in my physics class,” he said, wrenching the phone out from her hands.
“Do not tell Mai.”
“Why?”
“I cannot afford to be a jail wife, Zuko, can you imagine what that would do to my aesthetic?” She gestures dramatically at her outfit.
Promising not to tell Mai, for fear of an actual murder on their campus, Zuko manages to go to class the next day. When he enters the classroom, he makes direct eye contact with Sokka McCreep, with a silent mourning that he never should have trusted his taste in men, and marches over in front of the man.
“ You are a fucking disgusting person. ” He slams the picture down on the table in between them.
There’s a pause as the guy looks up, mouth agape looking up at Zuko from his seat. He looks down at the phone for a few seconds before his eyes squint in an almost frustrated anger yet a fondness he doesn’t understand.
“ You are so perfect.” He lets out a weak smile, as Zuko’s brain stalls. “Also, this is from my high school account that got hacked two years ago by some assholes.”
“Y-you-” Zuko stammers trying to get a bearing from this buck-wild situation. You are so perfect. This was his soulmate. Who was apparently not a total creep.
“Wait, I could never find out who had my account,” Sokka looks at him with a startlingly beautiful grin on his face. “They just put their number here. I can totally find out who it is with their number.” He opens up the computer on the desk, typing rapidly into the search bar.
“I’m -uh, I’m Zuko, by the way, your uh- soulmate?” he finally manages to choke out.
“Chill! I’m Sokka. Just give me a second, and I’ll find this weirdo using my name to sexually harass people,” He grabs a paper to the side and starts writing down something with a blue pen. “Okay, so the area code is from around two towns down and with AT&T, which means it’s probably Travis Evans, who is like 21 and goes to PCC which is like five minutes from here?”
“That’s…” Was he supposed to find that hot?
“Yeah, I know, kinda creepy but he did use my face to harass people so?” Sokka looks at him with a sense of vicious glee in his eyes. “If you want to, you can totally make sure that he never gets to pull that shit again without it haunting him forever.”
“Thanks…” he says in a daze looking at the slip of paper he was just handed.
“I’m gonna get my insta back, and then delete it.” Then he turns back to sitting in class, and opens up a new tab for notes.
“Wait! I- um can I get your number?” This shouldn’t be embarrassing, they are literally destined for each other.
“Why?”
“I just thought- you were my soulmate and-” Zuko frowns suddenly. “Wait, do you not?”
“No! No, I just never thought my soulma-” Sokka cuts himself off.
“What?” What if he really doesn’t believe in them? What if I’ve been hoping for someone who really doesn’t even exist.
“I didn’t really think- well, that my soulmate would wanna be with me.” Which is an absolute bonkers sentence coming from the most attractive person he has ever seen. Warm, brown skin, and startling blue eyes in a well built body.
“Wha- why?”
The boy pushes his hand out so Zuko can look at his wrist. There’s a wristband wrinkled and pulled up higher on his arm. And there on his wrists, are the words, the words his soulmate had for his whole life, the words he gave him, “ You are a fucking disgusting person.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” These angry, vicious words in his handwriting on his soulmates arms are so jarring, it hurts.
“Oh, no it’s not your fault!” This perfect, kind asshole!
“A- and you gave me such perfect words.” He doesn’t start sobbing in front of his soulmate, but it’s a near thing. He imagines having those words on his arm during the worst parts of his life, and knows without this golden lifeline he was given, with those horrible, scathing words, he wouldn’t have made it here.
“I- Yeah, I’ve had it for a while, and I just kinda wanted to give my soulmate a gift if I could? Like even if they didn’t want me, I didn’t want to be a dick about it?”
“Oh god, I’m such an asshole!” Zuko whisper-screams into his sleeves.
“No, you couldn’t have known! Look, I’ll give you my number, and maybe you can give me a call. A- and we can go for dinner!” Sokka said, almost desperately. Was he just trying to appease him?
“I- Thank you. But you don’t have to feel obligated to do this just cause we’re soulmates.”
“NO! No! I- I was just super surprised! I wasn’t prepared for my soulmate to want- please take my number,” Sokka pleads, sticking out the piece of paper.
“Okay,” Zuko grabs the slip, “but you have to tell me at any point if you don’t wanna hang out with Mr. Called-His-Soulmate-Disgusting-As-His-Soulmark, because I will fully understand.”
“Thanks, Zuko,” Toph says from the seat next to Sokka, leaning in between their conversation. “-but class started two minutes ago. Please finish this rom-com somewhere else.”
“Huh-” He looks around with the embarrassing realization that even the professor was watching their conversation like it was a reality-tv show. He looks down, cursing quietly before looking up and addressing the rest of the people in class. “Sorry!”
He climbs into an empty seat as the classmates around the benches break out into giggles and murmurs. But Zuko didn't really care about the clamoring around him.
He has a soulmate! He was perfect!