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Zuko loved poetry.
There were a lot of things that he liked about poetry, in fact. He liked that he was able to use it to express his feelings–the messy ones in particular. Sadness, anger, guilt, grief, joy… whatever emotion he was feeling, there was a way to get it out through poetry. No matter how incomprehensible his words seemed on paper, they were still art .
He liked reading and interpreting poems too. Poetry was fluid and flexible in a way that he never got to experience growing up. He could interpret poems however he wanted and no one could tell him that he was wrong.
Not only that, but poetry was open. It was a way to communicate with others, to reach out a hand through the page and hold on tightly. It was support, and it was a community. No matter what he wrote, Zuko knew there would be someone out there who understood what he was trying to say, even when he didn’t feel like anyone would.
But most of all, poetry was fun and it made him happy. He loved playing with literary devices and line breaks, capitalization and rhyme schemes, rhythm and syllables.
It was a never ending stream of life.
So, as a creative writing minor, Zuko assumed that he would enjoy taking a poetry class at Ba Sing Se University his junior year. The teacher was Professor Piandao–a teacher he’d had twice before and loved .
Never in a million years did Zuko think taking a basic level poetry class would fill him with so much rage.
The first five weeks of the class were online; filled with academic and poetry readings, poetry exercises, and Canvas discussion boards. It was a bit of busy work, but Zuko didn’t mind. He thought the readings were interesting and they helped reinforce his prior knowledge. Besides, he didn’t mind starting online.
The first discussion board (not including introductions) was about one of the readings. It was an article about formal v. free verse poetry. All they had to do was make a post discussing their thoughts on the article and then reply to one other person. It was easy.
Zuko made his post, explaining how free verse in itself was structured, just not to the same extent as, say, an Elizabethan Sonnet. He wrote about how, despite that, poetry does not need to be structured, and that was part of the beauty of it. It could be, should you choose, but, in the end, structure doesn’t really matter.
He was satisfied with his post, smiling happily as he pressed the “post” button. This was something Zuko felt like he could talk about for ages, something that he cared about and enjoyed discussing. He replied to the only other person in the class who had posted so far–writing a little less than a paragraph about how he agreed and found the specific quote they pulled from the article interesting as well.
Then, he closed the tab and continued working on his other assignments.
Zuko didn’t think too much about the poetry discussion board until later that night when he received an email during dinner informing him that someone responded to him.
Curiously, he set his sandwich down and opened his laptop. Getting replies wasn’t anything too exciting, but he liked when people agreed with him.
He was expecting to see something along the lines of how he had responded to someone else–just a simple reply about how they agreed and maybe a sentence or two about how they liked the fluidity of poetry as well.
What he wasn’t expecting was a one thousand word response completely disagreeing with him.
“Hey, Jet?” he called, his brow twitching ever so slightly. “Can you come here? I need your opinion.”
A dramatically loud groan came from the living room, and then his roommate, Jet, trudged into the kitchen, a fidget spinner whirling between his fingers. “What’s up?” he asked.
Zuko shoved his laptop in Jet’s direction. “Someone replied to my discussion board post in poetry, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’m kind of pissed. Tell me I’m justified.”
“You’re such a baby,” Jet muttered, but nevertheless, he plopped down in one of the chairs at their kitchen table and began to read.
If he wasn’t on the verge of bursting with fury, Zuko would have found watching Jet’s face shift from a tired look of boredom to his eyes opening wide and his mouth agape comical.
“What the hell!” Jet exclaimed, giving Zuko an incredulous look. “What kind of reply is this? It’s a Canvas discussion board! It really isn’t that deep!”
Zuko threw his hands in the air. “Thank you! Besides, who replies to a discussion board post with over one thousand words? I’m a lit minor and even I don’t do that!”
“Are you going to answer him?”
“I don’t know,” Zuko shrugged. “I want to, but would that be too much?”
“Just be all passive aggressive about it. If–” Jet cut himself off, glancing at the name on the screen, “–Sokka complains about you to Piandao, you can just say he interpreted your meaning the wrong way. Say something about issues with online communication or whatever. ‘sides, this dude sounds all uppity and holier than thou.”
Zuko snorted. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s not worth getting too upset about.” But, it is worth getting passive aggressive about. “I’ll reply just to prove him wrong. It’s not like he’ll look at the discussion board again or anything.”
He read through the (freakishly long) reply once more, cringing every time this Sokka kid tried to refute his statements. Idiot. All he did was go on and on about how structured poems are better and make more sense. Not only that, but he basically spent the entire time repeating himself but phrasing it differently. “Pssh, amateur,” Zuko muttered, narrowing his eyes and beginning to type away.
Jet stood up and walked behind Zuko, peering over his shoulder and providing (pretty irritating) commentary while he typed. “Mhm. Oh, that’s good. Yeah!” Jet said, doing his best to hype him up. “He’s going to feel so stupid if he even decides to look at the discussion board again.”
“Okay, we’re going for petty, not stupid, idiot.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
“Aaaaand, done!” Zuko breathed, smirking to himself. “What’d ya think?” he asked Jet, who was still lingering behind him.
His roommate squinted, his eyes scanning the words before him. “The end! That’s so good!”
He quickly read through his draft (how embarrassing would it be if there were any typos?) and then posted it.
Yeah, he felt pretty good about it. He was vindicated, he made his point in a polite but passive aggressive way (like the way one would email a coworker), and best of all, he was correct.
Smiling to himself, he shut his laptop and picked his sandwich up once more. That was fun–he got to indulge in a little passive aggressiveness. And he wouldn’t even have to worry about some other ignorant reply–his response was that thought out. He’d be sleeping well tonight.
[Hi, Sokka.
I appreciate the well-thought out reply, but I do still disagree with you. The point of poetry, according to the article, by the way, is not about structure and making everything make sense. Poetry is not about making sense. We use structure in poetry as guidelines, the way one would use a rather vague rubric. They are there to guide you along the way if you’re having trouble–we don’t need them.
I understand that some people, such as yourself, may prefer to follow said guidelines, and that’s fine, but insisting that all poetry needs and should have rules to follow takes the poetry out of poetry. If we add rules to all types of poems, then we have nothing left–we’re just writing shorter essays with fancy words and strange syllable counts.
In works such as or similar to Shakespeare’s plays, having structure does make sense. That is not always the case, though. Emily Dickinson is still regarded as an amazing poet today not because she conformed to poetry structure–but because she deviated from it.
If you spend too much time trying to make your poem fit into a box, you lose the true meaning of poetry. It is a fluid style of writing and needs to be treated as such. The more we try to enforce these “rules”, the less people actually want to write and engage with poetry.
If you want to write your poetry in that way, then by all means, please do. I just think that poetry does not inherently need rules. Maybe try writing a poem without following rules and then maybe it’d make more sense.]
When Zuko checked his email after waking up the next morning, he was expecting to delete some spam emails from sites that he forgot and continually forgets to unsubscribe to, maybe an announcement from Canvas.
What he wasn’t expecting was to get an email about another reply on his poetry discussion board posts.
Responses were due Sunday evening, and it was Sunday morning, so Zuko assumed it was someone else who replied–some student who had a late night and remembered that they had to respond soon. It happened all the time–there were always those kids who replied between midnight and four am.
Yeah, Zuko was right. Partially. The reply that he received was posted at 3:50am, but it wasn’t from another student. No, it was from Sokka freaking Amaroq. Again.
Zuko swore.
[Hey, Zuko,
I definitely see where you’re coming from. The issue is, though, that, as you said in your original post, that poetry is inherently structured. Even if you make the argument that it is fluid and doesn’t need structure, it’s still based on it.
When you write free verse, you still need some form of poetic structure to make it poetry. Syllables, metaphors, repetition, some kind of rhyming scheme (even if it’s sporadic), yada yada yada… that all makes it structured. Emily Dickinson still used structure in her poems, just not in the same way that someone such as Shakespeare would. Every poem is born from structure.
If you really think about it, poetry is math–]
“Jet… I can’t do this,” Zuko groaned the second his roommate walked into the kitchen for breakfast (no, he hadn’t been sitting at the table, staring at Jet’s bedroom door until he came out so he could complain what, no, he wasn’t that dramatic…).
“It’s too early for this,” Jet yawned, grabbing a loaf of bread off of the top of their fridge and sitting in the chair opposite from Zuko. “What happened?”
Zuko opened his laptop, typed in his password, and shoved it at Jet once more. “Sokka. He responded to me. Again. It’s just as long as last time.”
That seemed to wake Jet up.
His eyes bulged as he stared at the computer screen. “Again, what the hell?” Jet exclaimed, eyes flickering between the screen and Zuko. “Is he comparing poetry to math?”
Zuko shrugged hopelessly. “Apparently! I tried reading his reply, but I checked out the second he mentioned math! Math and lit are two totally different things! Lit is the best and math is the worst! Why is he trying to combine them?”
Jet shook his head, letting out a low whistle as he opened the bag of bread and grabbing a slice. “Honestly, don’t even reply to that. He seems like the kind of kid who enjoys arguing. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere with him. I mean, look; his Canvas profile picture is literally just a picture of a boomerang! It’s not even a good picture–it’s blurry!” Jet gestured wildly, taking a bite out of the untoasted, unbuttered, plain bread.
All Zuko could do was helplessly stare as his roommate finished the slice of bread and started a second one. “You’re disgusting.”
“Says the guy who drinks his coffee black.”
“It’s better that way, you dimwit.”
“Eh, whatever. There’s no reasoning with morons.” Zuko threw one of the many pencils that was lying on the table at Jet. “You may think I’m disgusting, but I’m not wrong about that Sokka dude.”
Unfortunately, Jet was right. As much as Zuko wanted to argue back and say things that he probably shouldn’t say in a Canvas discussion board, it wouldn’t do any good. There was no reasoning with someone who thought that poetry was math.
Besides, he liked Piandao and would probably have him for a couple more classes in future semesters. It’d be better to stay on his good side. Sokka can look like as big a fool as he wants in front of their professor, but Zuko would rather not, please and thank you.
But as much as he wanted to forget about the discussion board incident, Zuko couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it the rest of the day.
He sat down to watch true crime documentaries with Jet, and suddenly, he was thinking about how Sokka tried to tell him that poetry really was like writing an essay in some respects (that happened sometime after the whole math explanation–Zuko didn’t read it, but he skimmed enough to stumble upon that sentence). When he sat down to work on homework for another class, he couldn’t shake the thought of Sokka explaining that if poetry didn’t have structure, then anything could be considered poetry, which was the point (besides: if that was the case / anything could be called a / haiku, you dimwit. See, he just proved his point! Haikus can be made out of anything)!
It was infuriating! There was absolutely no reason it should bother him as much as it does.
So, even though he thought about it for the entire day (which probably says more about him than it does that Sokka guy to be honest…), he decided to let it go. For all he knew, this kid was new to poetry and had no idea how he was coming across through the screen–Agni knows Zuko had done the same many times before.
At least, he was able to believe that until the second discussion board.
The assignment was to read an article about poetic devices, then read one of the great poet Roku’s poems and analyze it based on what they learned from the article.
Zuko, being a huge Roku fan, chose his favorite poem, The Dance of the Dragon, and wrote about how the poet used repetition and sporadic rhyme in his poem to create the illusion of the dance itself. Reading the poem was like participating in the dance with the two forbidden lovers: the dance as they fell in love, the dance as they fell apart…
Not to seem cocky, but Zuko was pretty proud of his response–this was something he thought about perhaps too much. So, imagine his absolute displeasure when he heard his email chime and saw that someone had replied to his post.
And by someone, he meant Sokka.
Again.
Thankfully, this response wasn’t over three hundred words, but Zuko still wanted to tear his hair out by the time he finished reading it.
“Jet!” he all but screeched. “He did it again! He replied to me again!”
His roommate cackled from the living room and offered neither pity nor advice. So helpful. “What’d he say this time?”
“Some crap about how my interpretation is unique but it seems like I’m trying too hard to find meaning in the whole readers dancing with the character thing!” Zuko explained, fists clenching at his side.
Jet just laughed some more.
“You’re just as bad as Sokka,” Zuko snapped, crossing his arms and pouting because he was very much so in the right to sulk. “Should I reply to him again? I can’t just let him tell me that my interpretation of my favorite poem is wrong, right?”
Jet sighed loudly then poked his head around the corner to look at him. “Dude, you wanna prove a point? Don’t respond to his comment–respond to his post.”
A smile slowly crept up Zuko’s face. “Oh. Oh. That is brilliant. My response is going to be so well-thought out that he won’t even know what hit him.”
Sokka wrote about the poem Hundred Year Love, because of course he would write about the Roku poem with the most blatant rhyme scheme. Not only that, but his interpretation of it was… interesting, to say the least.
(It made no sense.)
Coming up with something in his discussion post to (pick apart) respond to wasn’t that hard. Zuko wrote about how, while he saw Sokka’s point, he would argue that the rhythmic structure isn’t actually as important to the poem as a whole when compared to the overarching metaphor about how forbidden love ages. There were more literary and poetic devices in the poem aside from the ABABAB rhythmic format and that, maybe, his response would be more accurate if he wrote about more than just the basics and the obvious.
Yeah, it was kind of mean, but Sokka had essentially said the same exact thing to him on his post, just flipped around. Apparently, Zuko focused too much on the underlying message rather than format (which is untrue, by the way).
Twenty minutes after he posted it, there was another ding from his email. Another ding brought another reply from Sokka.
Deep down, Zuko knew that he shouldn’t have read it and should have simply disengaged from the conversation. In fact, when he told Jet that Sokka said something else, his roommate groaned and said that he just shouldn’t read it.
“As fun as it is to get in arguments with people online, this one is a lost cause, dude,” Jet had told him. “The more you respond, the more he’ll respond. It will never end. And then I’ll have to listen to you scream about it for the whole semester.”
“I won’t scream about it…”
“You literally scream all the time. Just last night, you screamed because you remembered that Sokka brought math into poetry.”
Logically, Zuko didn’t listen because he needed to know what Sokka said. It was very important.
And sure, maybe he shouldn’t have read it because the response did make him want to scream (he bit his lip so he wouldn’t give Jet the satisfaction of being right), and maybe he shouldn’t have typed out and posted a reply back to him.
It wasn’t very nice, but he did it anyway.
That’s how Zuko spent the rest of his Monday–arguing with Sokka over their poetry discussion board. When he was in class and had to turn the sound off of his computer, Zuko refreshed his email every five minutes, waiting for a reply that he knew would come.
Their argument didn’t end until Wednesday at midnight when Piandao closed the discussion board and turned off replies, which sucked because that meant that Sokka got the last word. That was not okay at all. He was in the process of saying some crap about how similes shouldn’t even be considered literary devices (look, they may have strayed from Zuko’s original reply just a little bit), and now Zuko couldn’t even tell him how wrong he was!
“What’d he do this time?” Jet asked at dinner after Zuko slammed his laptop shut and angrily started chewing on a slice of onion.
“Who?”
Jet gave him a Look and rolled his eyes. “Sokka.”
Zuko’s eyes instinctively narrowed at the name. “How do you know he did something?”
“Because you’ve been arguing with him for like, a week straight now,” Jet said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (and, yeah, maybe it was, but with the discussion board closed, Sokka technically won so who can blame him for being a little out of it?).
“Oh, he knows what he did,” Zuko just muttered instead.
It was two discussion board arguments later (and Zuko realized that, at this point, no one else in their class responded to either of their posts anymore… oops), about a million rants to Jet about the idiocy of his classmate later, and about three weeks into the semester, when Piandao created a sharing discussion board. Each student was to write a short poem, post it, and then reply to two other people.
Naturally, the poem Zuko posted was a dig at Sokka.
Look, was it petty? Sure, but he didn’t care.
And really, Sokka started it–he was the one who started this whole thing. So, objectively speaking, Zuko was in the right here.
This was the first poem Professor Piandao had the class write outside of warmups. This was also the first one that they would be posting in a discussion board. The assignment was to just write a poem, any kind they felt like (and boy, did Zuko feel vindicated–‘any kind of poem they wanted’ went along with the whole theme of the first article which was basically supporting his discussion board statement). Naturally, Zuko wrote a free verse.
[i’m free
nothing is holding me back
now,
there is a beauty in the simplicity of
doing whatever you want–whatever your
mind can conceive and oh!
oh! yes, i am free!
when i’m free, 2+2=5 and when i’m
free, there’s no definition for being alive
because nothing is holding me
back and no one will hold
me back anymore
i’m counting on my fingers and
still the message i receive is
that i’m free, free, yes, i
am free!]
Was it his best work? No, it wasn’t, but that was okay because poetry doesn’t need to be perfect to be worth something.
Even though his poem was a slight dig at Sokka, he still believed every word he wrote down.
That’s just another thing that he loves about poetry–how freeing it is. How freeing it is to say what you want, capitalize whatever he wants to because nothing is holding him back and no one can stop him.
… and by no one, he means Sokka.
The best part about it all, though, was that the dig was small enough that no one could really prove that it was about Sokka, but Sokka would know that it was about him.
Ah, poetic justice.
He read his poem to Jet after he posted it, proud of his hardwork and word choice.
“Okay, I am officially reinvested in this rivalry,” his roommate laughed after hearing the poem.
“Reinvested?”
“Yeah. It got kind of tedious after a while . You do realize that you argue about, like, the same exact things every time, right? Every once in a while you throw something else in there to spice it up, but it still always goes back to structured v. unstructured poems. I got bored,” Jet explained. “But now you’re shaking it up a bit, making it more interesting. Can’t wait to see how Mr. High and Mighty feels about this one.”
Zuko smirked to himself because yes, he also couldn’t wait to see what Sokka had to say about this one. There was no way he could top him after this. Then, Zuko could declare himself the winner.
That’s how it played out in his head, at least. Not how it played out in reality.
A couple hours after Zuko posted his poem, he logged back on Canvas to reply to some other kid in their class (and to see if Sokka posted so he could reply to his. Agni, he probably wrote a limerick or something–not that limericks are bad because they aren’t, but Sokka just has limerick vibes- derogatory). He read the poem and responded to the person who posted right after he did, then scrolled down the page.
Sure enough, there was Sokka’s name with his stupid little blurry boomerang picture. He posted three minutes ago.
To be honest, Zuko was interested to see Sokka’s poem–to see if he could put his money where his mouth was.
But then he read the poem.
And then he screeched.
[Making Sense:
You do always come
Back: science and math, making
Sense of the senseless]
A minute later, and his computer chimed, informing him that he received an email. An email that told him that someone replied to his discussion board post.
Zuko didn’t need to see the name to know who responded.
He cracked his knuckles.
It’s so on.
Honestly, there were very few things that Zuko disliked about poetry, and even then, disliked was a strong word.
That, however, changed pretty quickly into the semester.
Zuko had never met anyone who was more of a menace than Sokka–this out of control boomerang-obsessed kid.
No matter what style they read or talked about, Sokka found ways to bring math into it. No matter what poem they read, he found ways to interpret them in the most ridiculous (and not even in a creative-ridiculous way) ways imaginable.
Zuko used to believe there was no wrong interpretation of poetry, but Sokka proved him wrong real quick.
Who reads a poem by Aunt Wu and says that her poems are implausible and then turns around and says that the infamous, anonymously published poem about cabbages is about food eating people?
Sokka does, apparently.
It was the Tuesday of week six of the semester and Zuko was walking with a purpose.
Finally, it was their first in person poetry class meeting, and Zuko was ready to find this Sokka guy and give him a piece of his mind. He was prepared, too. He found reputable websites that backed up his claims and everything.
There was no way he was losing.
The class was almost full when he walked in. He waved to Piandao, who was sitting at his desk and trying to get the computer to work, and then sat down in the back of the room–the best place to look at everyone without seeming like a creep.
Zuko scanned the room once he settled in his seat–searching for the creative-sucking vacuum. No one immediately screamed I have terrible poetry opinions and also love math, but you never know. Zuko learned a very long time ago not to make assumptions based on appearances. Any one of these kids could be Sokka.
There was about a minute left before class started when someone burst through the door, panting wildly.
Zuko’s gaze flickered to the door. He meant to only briefly glance at whoever it was, but oh. Oh. He was hot.
His brown hair was in a really messy ponytail–strands having already fallen out. He had a pair of thin, silver-wired glasses that were falling down his nose–his freckled nose–and eyes a shade of brown so dark that they almost appeared black. A large yellow sweatshirt almost completely covered his black shorts, and Zuko could definitely see a white collar sticking over the sweatshirt. To top it all off, he had a blue fannypack covered in pins (and Zuko noticed a bisexual flag sword pin…) wrapped around his waist and a pair of pink crocs on.
The kid was a mess of colors and clothes that shouldn’t look good together but somehow did.
And all Zuko could think was: he’s hot. And suddenly, Zuko had more important things to think about than Sokka and his stupid discussion board posts.
The kid quickly glanced around the room and saw that the chair by the door–the chair right next to where Zuko was sitting–was empty, so he plopped down in it with a sigh, closing his eyes.
“Made it,” he breathed, clicking his tongue a couple of times.
He must have felt Zuko’s gaze on him (Agni, he couldn’t tear it away no matter how hard he tried), and he opened his eyes. He sent Zuko a lopsided, wide grin and said: “Had to run here from the Omashu dorms. Overestimated how fast I could walk, heh.”
It wasn’t really funny, but Zuko found himself chuckling anyway, and the kid’s smile got even wider (and wow–the way that it brightened the room…). “That’s rough, buddy.”
The kid shrugged. “Got too comfortable with the online class, I guess. Forgot that I actually had to leave my room today. Was opening my laptop to see what the discussion board of the day would be when I got the reminder email.”
“Ugh, discussion boards,” Zuko groaned, his mood instantly souring as Sokka plagued his thoughts once more. “Those are the worst.”
“Tell me about it–people get so defensive in them too,” the pretty boy (who was sitting next to Zuko!!!) agreed, his smile dropping into a slight frown.
“For real! Like, all I did was say that I disagreed and then suddenly I’m the bad guy!” Zuko exclaimed. “And the people who argue with you are the ones who are usually the ones in the wrong!”
“Yes, exactly! I–”
Whatever he was about to say, he was interrupted by Piandao cheering as he finally managed to get his computer to do whatever he was trying to get it to do. “Sorry for the delay, folks. I’m Professor Piandao, and I’m your instructor for Intro to Poetry! It’s nice to finally see you all in person!” The class murmured in agreement, and the kid next to him sent him one more sheepish smile (followed by a neck twitch) before finally shrugging his backpack off and grabbing his laptop from it.
“We’ve spent the first six weeks of this class going over some of the more well-known or ‘basic’ forms of poetry, and now that we’ve moved to in-person class, we’ll be learning some of the more complex forms and really digging into how to analyze poetry while still leaving it up to interpretation,” Piandao explained. “Now, I recognize a couple of faces from previous classes and one or two of you from office hours, so I’m going to take attendance for a couple of weeks so I can start associating faces with names. Don’t worry, I won’t be doing any get to know you games or anything!”
The class laughed at that and a couple people verbalized their appreciation, Zuko included.
“When I call your name, raise your hand. You don’t need to give me a fun fact or anything. As most teachers are, I am terrible at getting names right. So, if I get your name wrong, please correct me!” With that, Piandao clicked on a couple of things on his computer.
Yes–finally! He would finally see who Sokka is! He’s probably one of the kids in the front of the room–probably with a notebook out instead of his laptop. One of Zuko’s legs began bouncing in anticipation. The kid next to him must have been excited too or maybe nervous, because he shifted from sitting in his seat to squatting in it and was rocking back and forth.
Agni, it was kind of adorable.
Zuko shook his head. Get over yourself! You aren’t here to pine–you’re here to get revenge… and learn, but also revenge! Get out of your gay little head and pay attention to Piandao or you won’t figure out who Sokka is!
Reluctantly, Zuko tore his gaze from the cute kid next to him and got his eyes at the ready. Sokka’s last name is Amaroq, which means that he’s got to be at the beginning of the alphabet, so he had to be vigilant right now or he’d miss the raising of his hand.
Luck, for the first time ever, seemed to be on his side. Piandao cleared his throat, squinting at his screen, then said: “Sokka Amaroq.”
This was it–the moment he’d been waiting for! Zuko pursed his lips, eyes zooming around the room to see who was raising their hand.
He wasn’t seeing anyone! He quickly scanned the first row, then the second, then the third, and then… oh no.
Maybe luck wasn’t on his side.
The cute kid to his left had his hand raised in the air, his fingers curling around one another.
Shit.
The cute boy–Sokka–put his hand down as Piandao called the next name, and Zuko could only stare helplessly at him.
Why?
Why, why, why, why did the most attractive person in the class, the one who sat next to him, have to be the most irritating and objectively incorrect person in the entire world?
Agni, he complained about Sokka to Sokka! Hell, Sokka was probably talking about him!
What kind of cruel joke was this? What did he do to deserve this?
Zuko zoned out as Piandao continued attendance, too busy combusting as he tried to put Sokka’s face to his name. It didn’t make sense! He was wearing a fanny pack for Agni’s sake… actually… that probably should have been a sign that it was him. It just had pins on it! There was a bisexual pin! Zuko was gay–okay? He couldn’t control his heart when he saw a pretty guy who also happened to be into men!
He vaguely heard Piandao call his name, and he noticed Sokka stiffen out of the corner of his eye, saw his eyes narrow.
Wearily he raised his hand, and Sokka blanched beside him.
Their eyes met, Zuko’s lips tightening and Sokka’s right eye twitching. Then, as if they had communicated this before (they had not, by the way), they each scooted their chair in the opposite direction.
A loud screech echoed across the classroom and everyone’s heads turned to see what the noise was. Usually, Zuko would be embarrassed and would not want everyone looking at him, but right now, he didn’t care.
The bane of his existence for the last six weeks was sitting beside him and he was hot. What else was he supposed to do?
Piandao paused attendance long enough to roll his eyes at Zuko.
Yeah. This was going to be a long semester.
“I am going to tear my hair out!” Zuko shrieked, slamming the door to his off-campus house behind him. “I am going to punch a hole in the wall and then kick a table!”
Jet, who was laying on the couch and playing games on his phone, jumped. “Jeez. If you break the door, you’re paying to fix it.” He sat up, stretching his arms. “So, I’m assuming it didn’t go well with Sokka today?”
Zuko dropped his backpack on the ground before slumping in the arm chair and crossing his arms. “Jet. He’s hot. And he’s bisexual. And we accidentally sat next to each other in class.”
That seemed to amuse his roommate, for Jet burst into laughter. “That’s what’s got you all upset? That he’s hot?”
“How would you feel if your mortal enemy was one of the prettiest people you’ve ever seen?” Zuko snapped, chucking a pillow at Jet and smirking when it collided with his face.
Jet rolled his eyes. “Mortal enemy? You’ve known him for six weeks.”
“Oh, he’s been my mortal enemy since the first time he replied to my discussion board post,” Zuko told him. “And when you know, you know. It’s not like I asked him to be my mortal enemy–he brought it upon himself. The idiot.”
“Whatever. Well, other than him being hot, did class go well?”
“Oh, it would’ve gone well if Sokka had kept his stupid mouth shut,” Zuko seethed. “You know what he did? Piandao asked the class a question about one of the Kyoshi poems we read and I answered because you know that I love her work, and he raised his hand immediately after I finished and said the exact opposite of what I said!”
“I see.”
“It was so stupid too!” At this point, everything Jet said went in one ear and out the next. “And he had this stupid little smirk on his stupid little face too! Like he knew what he was doing–and he did! He knew!”
“Sounds about right.”
“So then I had to respond because I wasn’t going to let him get away with such a crude and idiotic interpretation of Kyoshi’s poem, and then he kept going! It was like the discussion boards all over again!”
“Told you he wouldn’t quit.”
“And Piandao just smiled at me the whole time–the bastard. I don’t know why he didn’t jump in and say something about how wrong Sokka was! He just let it all happen!”
Finally, Zuko breathed.
“Agni, I’m surrounded by absolute fools.”
In person class with Sokka wasn’t too different from online class.
The main difference was that they always had to sit next to each other because no one else wanted to sit by either of them and that they could now stand up and slam their hands on their desks for emphasis if needed.
One discussion got so heated that Piandao actually interrupted and said that neither of them were allowed to answer any more questions for the rest of the class period.
Maybe it was his imagination, but Zuko could’ve sworn he heard the class sigh in relief at that.
That didn’t stop him (or Sokka, apparently) from muttering answers under his breath.
It was three weeks into having class in person when Piandao announced that they would be doing a presentation about a poet.
“I have a list of poets you can choose from,” their professor said, gesturing to the list displayed on the screen, “all of which we’ve read from this semester.”
Oh, Zuko was excited. He saw Roku on the list and he wanted more than anything to be able to do a presentation about his favorite poet and how he takes inspiration from his dreams and uses an overarching metaphor throughout all of the poems in each of his books. Plus, he’d be able to dispute everything Sokka had said in the discussion board, but that was just a perk.
“This will be a partner project,” Piandao continued, and Zuko couldn’t stop himself from groaning. “You can choose your partner for the project, but I want you guys to engage with each other more. You all can take a second and find a partner now.”
Well. This would be hard. The only person in class whose name Zuko knew was Sokka, and that was because he hated him and his stupidly pretty face.
Zuko craned his neck, looking around the bustling classroom to try and find a partnerless person, but every time he made eye contact with someone, they looked away immediately. Rude.
Yeah, Zuko wasn’t a fan of partner projects.
“Is anyone still missing a partner?” Piandao asked.
Reluctantly, Zuko raised his hand. Only one other person raised their hand too. And Zuko wanted to scream.
“Do we really need a partner for this project?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“Yeah, I’m fine doing it on my own, sir!” Sokka chimed in (copycat), glancing at Zuko with distaste.
Zuko fought back the urge to stick his tongue out at him.
Piandao sighed loudly, as if their questions added ten years onto his life (dramatic much?). “No, it is a partner project. It says so on the syllabus and that’s how this project has always run. Since you two are the only ones without partners, you will pair up for this project.”
This was so stupid.
He and Sokka turned to face each other, and Zuko was pleased to see that Sokka didn’t seem too happy about this either.
Good. Anyone who thinks that math belongs in poetry deserved to be miserable.
“I’m going to give you and your partner five minutes at the end of class to choose a poet for the presentation. Thursday is going to be a work day, so instead of having class, that chunk of time is for each pair to meet up and work on the presentation. I’ll post sign-ups for presenting dates Thursday morning, so make sure to pick a date while you work. Are there any questions?”
“Yeah, why do we need to have a partner?” Zuko muttered bitterly. No one heard him except Sokka, who snorted. Agni, now Sokka was snorting at his sarcastic statements.
The rest of class went by without any arguments between Zuko or Sokka, both boys too busy sulking to actually engage with any material.
To be honest, Zuko spent the class playing games on his laptop. Not that he felt bad–Sokka was furiously doodling next to him. At least he tried to look like he was paying attention. Sokka was just staring at his paper. Amateur.
(Okay, so maybe Zuko was more bitter than he realistically should have been, but he was the innocent victim in this, so he was justified.)
“Alright. This is the last five minutes of class. Everyone get together with your partner and choose a poet. There won’t be any repeats, so first come, first serve,” Piandao announced.
With a sigh, Zuko turned around and gave Sokka the most unimpressed look he could muster. “Normally, I’d say that we should do Roku, but I already read how you interpret his brilliant work, so I’d rather not have to listen to that anymore than I need to.”
Sokka scoffed. “Please. I’d rather not be paired with someone who refuses to acknowledge the universal truth of math and science and how it relates to–”
“Yeah, whatever. Listen, let’s just choose a poet and then get on with life,” Zuko interrupted. He heard enough of the whole “math and science is everywhere” spiel from Sokka already.
“Jerk,” Sokka whispered, like the child he was. “Okay, well, who would you like to do our presentation on?”
Any of them, just not with you, Zuko thought. Actually, that was a good comeback, so he said it out loud too. Oh, how he relished the look of frustration that flashed across Sokka’s face.
“Alright, Roku and Rangi have been taken!”
Naturally they’d be the first two gone. That didn’t surprise Zuko at all.
“Okay, since you’re just going to brood in silence,” Sokka started, blinking thrice, “then I say we do Kuruk. He’s a great poet.”
“They’re all great.”
“Astute observation, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”
That was a stupid nickname. But, he wasn’t as emotionally attached to Kuruk’s works as he was to some of the others, so he supposed, if he had to do this, that Kuruk would be fine. “That works. Go tell Piandao.”
So, Sokka huffed as he got out of his seat, flipping Zuko off as he made his way to their professor’s desk.
Zuko was all packed up and ready to leave when Sokka returned. “Okay. Let’s meet at Caldera dining hall Thursday at the time we would usually meet for class. I’ll be sitting by the fireplace. See you then,” he said shortly, hitching his bag up his shoulders and flipping Sokka off in return as made his way to the door without waiting for a response.
Sokka stuck his tongue out at him. Pfft, what a child.
“Jet!”
His roommate was on his phone in the kitchen when Zuko burst into their house. “What’d he do this time? And make it quick–I’m texting Haru. Remember him? The guy from my geology class.”
Normally, Zuko would have teased Jet about Haru (his crush was so obvious), but he was livid. “Sokka and I are partners for a presentation!” he shouted, throwing his backpack on the ground. His laptop was in there so he probably shouldn’t have done it, but it was fine. He’d thrown his backpack hundreds of times before and it hasn’t broken yet.
Jet, as per usual, cackled.
“It’s not funny,” Zuko pouted.
“It kinda is.”
“You’re dead to me.”
Zuko had to spend the entirety of Wednesday mentally preparing for Thursday, which was pretty much a huge waste of his day, but whatever.
He was sitting at a table in Caldera at the time their poetry class would usually be, a plate of noodles and a pack of mike and ikes at his side.
Sokka was late, which didn’t surprise Zuko in the slightest. He was almost done with his noodles.
When he did show up, his bag was hanging off of his shoulder and he was eating a whole tomato like an apple. Disgusting.
“Sorry, I’m late. The line was longer than I thought it would be, so I just got a tomato and–actually, I’m not sorry. You just told me to meet you here then left. Rude.” He practically threw himself into the chair across from Zuko and slumped forward, taking a bite out of his tomato.
“Let’s get this over with,” Zuko sighed, massaging his temple. “I figured we could start with his earlier poems and then end with his later poems and talk about how his style changed over time.”
Sokka perked up. “Actually, I was already doing some research about him, and did you know that he drew some of his rhythmic patterns from the fibonacci sequence?”
“Huh?”
“You know, the fibonacci sequence?” Sokka reiterated, furrowing his brows and shaking the “rock on” symbol at his side. “Where you add the previous number to the number you–”
“Yeah, no, I know what it is,” Zuko interrupted (and, okay, he didn’t really understand it–the majority of his knowledge about the fibonacci sequence came from one of Jet’s favorite Criminal Minds episodes but he wasn’t going to admit that to Sokka). “How does he use it?”
Sokka’s kind of irritated expression morphed into excitement, and his smile grew wider than Zuko thought was possible. “So, it all has to do with syllable counts and the way it sounds. You know, it starts with one and then one again, then two, three, five, eight, etc… and, actually he did a reading of his poems followed by an interview before he died where he explained how he used the different numbers for emphasis on certain words in certain lines.”
Suddenly, Sokka had launched into a lengthy explanation about how Kuruk was actually a mathematical and literary genius and how exactly he used the fibonacci sequence in his writing. It was, as much as Zuko hated to admit, kind of interesting. Most of it went over his head, but Sokka was waving and flapping his hands in the air while he talked and Zuko thought it was kind of adorable. But it was only kind of adorable because Sokka was, objectively, a pretty person. Not because Zuko was slightly attracted to him. Nope. No way.
By the time Sokka finished, Zuko was left blinking in astonishment. All he could think to say in response was: “What’s your major?”
“Oh, uh, I’m double majoring in statistics and mechanical engineering and I’m minoring in mathematical modeling,” Sokka said nonchalantly, as if he were stating the weather.
Again, Zuko could only blink. “That explains so much,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Uh, I asked why you’re taking poetry then?”
“Oh.” Sokka’s face flushed ever so slightly and it was absolutely not adorable in any way, shape, or form. “I just thought it’d be fun, you know? I accidentally stumbled into a haiku club while I was looking for the engineering department, and I kind of got into it.”
How in the world did this kid have the time to take a poetry class for fun? What with a double major and a minor?
“What’re you majoring in? Creative writing?” Sokka asked.
Zuko shook his head. “I’m a theatre major and minoring in creative writing.”
Sokka muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “that explains so much”, but Sokka spoke up before he could ask what he said.
“So, that’s my spiel. As much as I don’t want to work with you on this, I actually really want to keep my 4.0 GPA, so I need to get a good grade in this class. I assumed that you’d want to talk about the way he used repetition to emphasize the metaphors in his poems, so I printed out a couple of his poems where it occurs and has significance.” At that, Sokka reached into his bag and pulled out a stack of papers. He handed half of them to Zuko. “See, I highlighted the metaphors and then underlined the repetition in blue. I also circled it if the repetition is also used as anaphora.”
Oh.
Maybe Sokka did have a brain after all. Like. A really big one.
“Wow,” was all Zuko could say as he scanned through the pages Sokka gave him. They were detailed.
His mortal enemy shrugged. “Eh, I figured you wouldn’t really be into the whole mathematical concept of poetry–actually, what am I saying? I know you aren’t into it and as much as I want to fight you on that because you are absolutely wrong, I’m not willing to risk my grade.”
There it was.
“Please! Math is present in some poetry, sure, but take Kuruk’s poem ‘the face of my lost love’, for example. There is literally no structure to it! No math, no structure, just poetry!” Zuko contended. “He purposefully wrote it like that too.”
Sokka’s smile dropped, but not to an irritated frown or an angry snarl like he’d seen before. No, it was more of a thin line of shame. “Ah, see, I actually, uh, I actually don’t understand that one.”
What?
“I-I mean, I tried to figure it out, but none of it makes any sense! He doesn’t use any kind of structure or, like, any poetic devices! It’s basically just a speech but more dramatic!”
“Oh, um, well, do you have that one printed out?” Zuko asked before he could stop himself.
Sokka cocked his head to the side. “No?”
Zuko swallowed, pulling out his phone. “Okay, well, that’s actually my favorite of his poems. It’s one of his earliest ones, actually. He wrote it about his deceased fiancé. It’s kind of complicated and there’s a lot of personal references in there, but he leaves it mostly up to interpretation.”
With great reluctance, Zuko got up from his seat and walked to the other side of the table, pointedly looking at the chair next to Sokka. His project partner stared for a second, then nodded, giving Zuko the ‘okay’ to sit closer to him.
He opened safari and searched the poem, clicking on the first result that appeared. “So, this is kind of how I see it,” he began. “You see that first line where he talks about spirits and faceless beings? That’s actually him talking about how he’s forgetting what his fiancé looked like. That one was actually confirmed by him in an interview. In the third stanza, he talks about a ‘dark tunnel’ and ‘dreary forest’, and I kind of think that those represent the emptiness of his life. Like, at the end of the second stanza, he mentions ‘decaying leaves’ and then immediately after references his ‘heartless’ and ‘lightless body’. The leaves could be from the trees in the ‘dreary forest’ and the use of the word ‘lightless’ could relate to how there’s usually a light at the end of the tunnel, but this one has no end.”
He went on a little longer, describing how he saw the poem. “To be honest, the lack of structure in this poem almost seems like a metaphor for his life: broken pieces that are being stuck together to try to make something new, you know?”
When he received no response, Zuko looked up from his phone and at Sokka who was gaping at him, something akin to astonishment in his eyes. “Oh, wow. That’s deep, eh?” he finally uttered after a good minute of going back and forth from staring at Zuko and the screen.
Zuko snorted. “Well, yeah. It is about his dead fiancé, after all,” he replied, but there was no real bite behind his words. He didn't think he’d be able to add it even if he wanted to, not when Sokka was looking at him like that. Like he had just hung the stars or like he was the one who discovered the fibonacci sequence.
“That makes so much more sense!” Sokka exclaimed, his voice rising from a soft, almost disbelieving volume to an excited, loud one. “And actually, now that you’ve explained it like that, I changed my mind: there is math in that!”
“Aaaaand you ruined it, dude,” Zuko sighed, abruptly standing up and returning to his original seat. “Here I thought I managed to convince you that I was right.”
“Oh, please,” Sokka retorted, waving him off. “You’ll never be able to change my mind because I am simply correct. Math is in everything whether you want it to be or not.”
Agni, that stupid, irritating little smirk was back. Zuko wanted to wipe it right off his face.
“Ugh, STEM majors,” he groaned, shaking his head as he put his phone back in his pocket and taking another bite of noodles.
“Theatre majors,” Sokka huffed. He shoved the rest of the tomato in his mouth.
Absolutely disgusting.
The two of them talked about what they wanted to include in the presentation while Zuko finished his noodles. They even managed to do it with minimal arguments, which made the whole working together thing easier.
As much as it pained him to say, Sokka had some great ideas. While Sokka was not the partner he wanted, he did his fair share of the work and actually cared about getting a good grade on the presentation, so Zuko supposed that he would prefer working with Sokka than with someone who slacked off.
They came up with a pretty solid game plan and even stayed an hour after class would have ended to finish the making of the powerpoint.
Sokka, it turns out, has the worst taste in pretty much everything. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise as he was literally wearing a collared, plaid dress shirt and bright, flowery patterned leggings right now. Not to mention his fanny pack and crocs. But he was wearing sword earrings today, so he guessed that canceled out the crocs at least. Swords were cool.
To put it frankly, the powerpoint looked like a mess when Sokka was through with it.
Zuko finished his noodles shortly after they picked out what poems they were going to use as an example, and turns out while he was forced to revoke Sokka’s right to do anything in the powerpoint, at least he had good taste in Kuruk’s poems. He did have to explain a couple of them to him, but Sokka actually seemed interested in listening and learning which was a pleasant surprise.
They were analyzing one of the poems when Zuko finished his mike and ikes. Well, almost all of them.
“Do you like mike and ikes?” Zuko asked once Sokka took a second to breathe (he spent the last ten minutes rambling about how Kuruk used the fibonacci sequence in one of his poems; Zuko decided that, since Sokka listened to his wordy and rambly explanations about how to interpret poems that had no structure, it was only fair that he indulged Sokka in the presentation a little bit too).
Sokka pondered for a moment. “Sometimes. I like certain flavors, but I’m kind of picky.”
“Okay,” Zuko nodded. “Since you have terrible taste in literally everything–”
“Hey!”
“–I’m just going to assume that you like the blueberry flavored ones?”
“Well duh, they’re literally the best flavor!”
Of course. What horrific taste buds.
“Nasty. Okay, well, I was just going to throw them away, but if you want them…” Zuko held the box with four blueberry mike and ikes out to Sokka, who absolutely lit up and grabbed them. He paused for a moment, looking at the picture of the flavors on the box, when a mischievous glint lit up in his eyes.
Oh boy.
“So, there are five flavors in the box, right?” Sokka asked, leaning forward with a neck twitch and a cluck. “Well, there are approximately twelve in each box. So, if you do the math, the probability that you’d have four blueberry ones left in this box–”
“Nope. You are not bringing math into mike and ikes. Give them back.” Zuko put his hand out expectantly, knowing full well that Sokka would not give them back but wanting to be authoritative all the same. No one messes with his mike and ikes.
Sokka made eye contact with him, then poured the contents into his mouth. “You still want them back?”
What a disgusting pig, Zuko thought as Sokka laughed like the insolent child he is. Hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me.
Yeah, so, it definitely did awaken something in him, which is super unfair, by the way. He had a perfectly fine rivalry in place. Sure, it was with a hot guy, but it was a hot guy who was in math and who wore fanny packs and crocs.
Zuko always got anxious about presentations and always compared how he did in relation to everyone else who presented, and Sokka informed him that he had a bit of performance anxiety, so they decided it would just be best to present the first day. No one else had signed up for the day, so they got to go first. That way they could just get it over with.
“Do you want to meet before we present, just to practice?” Sokka had asked him, tapping his foot nervously, before they left the dining hall on Thursday.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Zuko replied. Reluctantly, they exchanged phone numbers so they could communicate more efficiently.
They met up Tuesday before class to go over some of the parts they were each nervous about, and turns out Sokka wasn’t exaggerating when he said that he had a bit of performance anxiety. No, he was under -exaggerating it. The poor kid almost threw up before class, and Zuko found himself rubbing Sokka’s back as he leaned over a trash can just in case.
Their presentation went smoothly, and they made sure to throw in a couple of snarky remarks directed at each other because they were rivals before anything. Piandao seemed pleased with their work, so Sokka’s shoulders had untensed once they sat back down and his breath returned to a normal rate.
The aftermath of presenting, however, is when Zuko’s anxiety got worse.
It was stupid–he could get on stage and act in front of hundreds of people without breaking a sweat, but when he had to try and justify his knowledge in front of twenty students and a teacher, Zuko could count every single time he stuttered or mixed up his words.
It happened about five times during the presentation about Kuruk. Agni, Piandao must think he’s an idiot. What kind of theatre major messes up like that?
What made matters worse is that the duo that went after him and Sokka were seamless. There was no stumbling over words or anything of the sort in their presentation.
And that's when Zuko started to panic.
“Eh, we definitely did better than them,” Sokka whispered to him once the presentation was over.
Zuko blinked. “What?” he hissed, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
“I mean, they only referenced one of Kyoshi’s poems. The rubric clearly states that we need a minimum of three poems by our chosen poet. Good thing you caught that because I wouldn’t have included the last one we used if you hadn’t said something about it.”
It’s true–Sokka had gotten so excited and invested in their analysis of how Kuruk uses or doesn’t use structure that he forgot about the minimum requirement until Zuko reminded him.
Sokka winked at him (like the little brat he is, who just winks at people like that?) then turned back to the front of the class where the last presentation of the class period was about to begin.
It was kind of a cocky and mean statement, but after a minute of wondering why in the world Sokka thought that was relevant to bring up (aside from the fact that he was an arrogant little know-it-all), he realized the significance behind his words.
He was trying to make Zuko feel better.
He must have been able to sense Zuko’s anxiousness (or maybe the way his foot was tapping against the ground was obvious enough).
Oh. That was… surprisingly sweet. You know, for a jerk like him.
Logically, that shouldn’t have made Zuko feel better because stuff like that never worked before. But then, Sokka leaned over once more and whispered: “You did a great job”, and suddenly, any and all anxiety that was festering inside of him left his body.
Stupid Sokka and his stupidly comforting words.
The final presentation was about Roku and was by some guy named Hahn and his partner Chan.
It was… it was one of the worst things Zuko had ever witnessed in his entire life. He needed brain bleach, he needed to ram his head against the wall, he needed to walk on up to the front of the room and dispute every inaccurate claim the two of them made.
That presentation didn’t even deserve the applause that it got, not when those two just tarnished Roku’s good and incredibly talented reputation as the best poet ever (look, Zuko may be a little biased…). Anyone who hadn’t done as much reading, research, and analyzing of Roku’s poems as Zuko had would think that Hahn and Chan’s statements were accurate- Agni, hopefully the class had enough sense to know how wrong they were.
Class was dismissed after that, and Zuko found himself walking in the same direction as Sokka.
“Are you also embarrassed on Roku’s behalf?” Sokka asked after a moment, and Zuko wanted to cry.
“Yes!” he whisper-shouted. “Basically everything they said was wrong!”
Sokka nodded. “Yeah! And even though I absolutely disagree with some of your interpretations of his poems because you refuse to look at them through the lens of math and science, at least you’re able to provide evidence from the texts in attempts to support your inane theories! It’s like they didn’t even do any research! I mean, who says that The Dance of the Dragon is about literal dragons, like, what? Obviously it’s about forbidden gay love and the repercussions of a lack of communication!”
… Zuko had never been more attracted to anyone in his entire life.
Wait what?
Sokka continued on until they had to split up, Zuko chiming in and adding his two cents about how bad their presentation was.
Even still, he didn’t add as much as was planning to before Sokka mentioned the true meaning of The Dance of the Dragons because Roku had never explicitly stated that that was what the poem was about, and although Zuko had briefly mentioned the themes of gay romance, he hadn’t even implied that there were themes about the consequences no communication. That was Sokka speaking from his own interpretation.
Everyone Zuko had ever talked to about this poem had left that out or told him that he was looking too far into the poem.
Everyone except Sokka.
“Jet!”
This time, his roommate was at the kitchen table. “How’d the presentation with your mortal enemy go?”
Zuko frowned, stomping into the kitchen and sitting across from Jet. “What? It went fine.”
“Then why’d you scream my name like an angsty baby when you walked through the door?”
How did he go about saying this? Eh, might as well just be blunt about it. “What do you do when your mortal enemy says the hottest thing ever?”
Jet stared at him for a moment. “Oh my God, he used a metaphor in front of you didn’t he?”
“What? No… he, uh, explained a metaphor and um… the theme of a poem…”
“And you agreed with him?” Jet gaped, actually looking genuinely shocked when Zuko nodded. “Wow, you’re whipped dude.”
“Okay, sure, but like. What do I do?” Zuko reiterated. “He’s my mortal enemy! I can’t find anything he says hot!”
Jet just shrugged.
“You are the least helpful person in the entire world.”
Later that night, he received a text from Sokka.
Sokka Amaroq: ayeeeeee
Sokka Amaroq: piandao gave us a perfect on our presentation!
He added a gif of a cat reaching for a hug followed by a gif of some cartoon character that Zuko didn’t recognize giving a thumbs up.
Zuko couldn’t help but grin fondly at the messages, and he sent a gif of someone cheering back.
Sokka Amaroq: told you you were great!
Yeah… Zuko was whipped.
The next three weeks, Zuko found himself texting Sokka more than he thought that he ever would.
In his defense, Sokka started it by sending him a poetry meme (it was actually really funny), and later that day, Zuko stumbled upon a fibonacci sequence joke that he had to send.
It accelerated from there, and soon, they didn’t go a single day without texting.
They even started hanging out a bit outside of class, mostly getting dinner together. Sokka didn’t have a car with him, but Zuko did, and he would occasionally drive the two of them to IHOP or KFC.
Of course, they still argued, especially during class. But, where Zuko had found their arguments annoying and worthless, he now found them endearing and fun.
He used to dread seeing what Sokka’s next ridiculous argument was, but now, he looked forward to it. It was a challenge, it was exhilarating, and Zuko was having the time of his life.
His feelings only grew and grew, despite his best attempts to keep them down because this was not how it was supposed to go. Who goes from considering someone an enemy for nine+ weeks and then suddenly finds themselves falling more and more in love with them?
“We’re like the Beatrice and Benedick of 2021,” Zuko explained to Jet during lunch one weekend.
“Who?” Jet asked as he munched on his bread.
“Are you serious? Beatrice and Benedick? From Shakespeare’s greatest play Much Ado About Nothing? You’ve lived with me for three years now, how do you not know who they are?”
As per usual, Jet shrugged. He did that a lot.
Zuko sighed. “They’re the two who argue a lot,” he said, dumbing it down as much as possible so that his roommate’s small brain could comprehend it.
“Wow, that is literally you guys,” Jet agreed, taking a huge bite out of his bread slice. “So, how do those two get their act together?”
“Well,” Zuko hummed, “Beatrice’s cousin gets set up to make it look like she cheated before her wedding day and then got humiliated during the wedding and then her dad goes on about how he wishes she was dead and then Beatrice cries and Benedick says that he’ll kill Claudio for her. Amongst other things. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, so maybe don’t do any of that.”
“No, really? I thought Sokka would simply swoon if I promised I’d kill someone for him.”
“Eh, I bet you could do it.”
“You concern me sometimes.”
Another week of talking to, arguing with, and thinking about Sokka passed when opportunity came knocking.
Piandao sent out an email Thursday morning saying that he had to cancel class due to being sick. He told them that the only assignment they had to complete was their weekly poetry exercise, but post it in the discussion board and respond to two people rather than just turning it in privately.
Zuko didn’t really want to respond to anyone else. No one else actively engaged him in the class like Sokka did. The discussion board wasn’t worth that much, he was willing to miss a few points for only responding to Sokka
The prompt for the poetry exercise was to write a poem about something that makes you happy. Agni, it was like Piandao could see right into his heart and was toying with him.
“Jet?” he asked, knocking on Jet’s bedroom door and opening it without waiting for a response. “How cringey would it be if I confessed my feelings for Sokka via the poetry exercise in the discussion board for the day?”
Jet looked up from his laptop. “That would be the most disgusting and cheesy thing you could possibly do,” he said truthfully. “And I think Sokka would love it.”
Well, that did it.
It was a bit poetic, wasn’t it? The first poem he shared in the discussion board was one that made a dig at Sokka’s terrible opinions about poetry (and he has no regrets about that, actually), and now one of, if not the last, poems he posted would be a declaration of love.
Kind of funny how that works.
Zuko thought that trying to put his feelings about Sokka into words would be hard, but they came naturally to him. It was a little overly dramatic and silly, but authentic and true.
His hands trembled a little as he posted it, but somehow, he wasn’t scared.
He knew that it would all somehow come together in the end for better or worse, as cliche as it sounded.
[ biting blades
the tip of your blade under
my chin, the sharp edge
biting and fearless. you
lean close, breath whipping
against my ear like the
wind carrying rain, wet and
heavy. “checkmate,” you
whisper, a game i didn’t
even know we were
playing, a game i didn’t
realize i knew the rules
to. the blade is still there,
tickling my skin and i can’t
stop staring at the fire in
your eyes and i don’t know
if i’m the queen or the knight
because all that matters is
the ghost of your fingertips
against my cheek and you
thrust the blade forth and
i’m okay with flying into the
sun if you’re the one to greet me]
Not even an hour later, he got an email that someone had replied to him, and there was only one other person that could be (at this point, he was positive that no one in the class was particularly fond of him or Sokka, which was stupid because they were clearly the most competent ones there).
Just as he suspected, Sokka was the one who replied to his post.
[Hey, Zuko.
I hear what you say
And I get what you mean, so
KFC at five?
P.S. look at my post ;)]
If Zuko shrieked a bit at the response, no one needed to know.
Zuko immediately began scrolling through the other posted poems. There weren’t too many posted yet, so it didn’t take him long to find Sokka’s.
[ honey
sun shining through the blinds
illuminating the ink you left on my skin
words like honey,
sticky and sweet,
drip from your mouth—the rays
—and capture my heart because
nothing is holding you back, now
the heat is deafening
and the honey-dipped words
melt, encasing my fingers
but i don’t need to hear to know
the way you whisper and gently cradle
my left with your hot breath
is more than enough]
Zuko couldn’t stop the smile that began to take over his face.
Sokka hated writing free verse poems. He went on a countless number of rants about how hard it was for him to think outside of the box. And that’s exactly what he did–he wrote a free verse just for him.
No, he wasn’t crying, but he was pretty darn close to tears.
Well, if Sokka could reply outside of his comfort zone, then so could Zuko.
[Hello, Sokka
KFC sounds great
I can’t wait to see you at
five. Don’t make me cry]
Zuko got to KFC at 4:30, unable to contain his excitement and nervousness.
Turns out, he wasn’t the only nervous one, because Sokka was pacing back and forth in front of the entrance when he arrived.
“Sokka?” he called, nearly leaping out of his car and running towards his friend–enemy–possible boyfriend(?).
Sokka visibly perked up. “Zuko!” He jogged to meet him halfway, and practically threw himself at Zuko, engulfing him in a tight hug.
This was the first time they’d hugged, and the feeling of Sokka’s arms wrapped around his neck and his cheek pressed against his own cheek was one that Zuko will never forget.
It was magical.
(Or, as Sokka would say later, poetic.)
“How’d you get here?” Zuko asked once they (reluctantly) pulled apart, which was a pretty stupid question considering that Sokka had been the one to invite him to KFC and hadn’t asked for a ride in his haiku, but he was so happy and excited that he blurted out the first thing he could mentally process other than Sokka hugged me. I was just holding Sokka. We were hugging.
“Heh,” Sokka chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck and clicking his tongue thrice. “I asked Suki to take me. You remember her, right? She’s the RA on the floor below me that I was telling you about.”
“Oh, well, um, that was very nice of her.” Agni, Zuko’s cheeks felt super hot. He was blushing, wasn’t he? Why was he even blushing? It was just Sokka. Just the Sokka that sparked an argument during the first discussion board. The Sokka who found a way to relate literally everything in the world to math (he once told Zuko that he could calculate the exact angle that he needed to throw a plastic water bottle at to get it into the recycling bin and he was right). The Sokka who had trouble looking outside of the literal. The Sokka who felt the same way about The Dance of the Dragon. The Sokka who thought that tomatoes should be eaten like apples and that blueberry mike and ikes were the best flavor (they weren’t, but at least now Zuko didn’t have to throw them away). The Sokka who made him happy.
“I really liked your poem!” Sokka cried out suddenly, grunting between a couple of the words. “I… do you really want to, um…” he trailed off, swallowing as his usual bravado slipped into something more personal, something more gentle and vulnerable. “Do you really want to fly into the sun?”
Yes. Agni, yes. He wanted nothing more than that.
Instead of saying that out loud, though, he smiled warmly, taking a hold of Sokka’s hands with a confidence that he didn’t know he had.
"You know," he murmured, leaning his head closer and closer to Sokka’s until their foreheads were touching, "there's a whole lot of power in every little word.”
"Mmm," Sokka breathed, tilting his head so their noses were now touching. "Is there?"
Zuko could practically taste the mint gum that had previously popped against his lips. "Yeah, and I meant every single word I said, if you meant yours too.”
Sokka chuckled softly, his lips vibrating against Zuko’s. “I wouldn’t write in free verse for just anyone.” He paused, shuffling closer still. Zuko could practically feel the heart beating inside his chest. “You think there’s power in every word?”
“I know there is.”
"Then, how powerful would it be if I said that I love you?"
Zuko didn’t even bother with a verbal answer. His heart was bursting with energy and love, his lips aching with the need to press them against Sokka’s.
So, that’s what he did.
With Sokka’s lips against his, their bodies pressed close together, and their hands intertwined, Zuko couldn’t feel the cool November air biting against the back of his neck. The sounds of people talking and the busy roads around them were drowned in silence. All that mattered now was that he had flown into the sun–into this burning mass of terrible poetry opinions and petty discussion board responses–and he was burning. They were falling together.
“Jeong Jeong! Come here!”
Piandao was at home, wrapped in a warm blanket, surrounded by tissues, and drinking tea while his husband made him soup. His laptop was open, resting on the arm of the couch he was laying on.
“I’m cooking–can it wait?” Jeong Jeong called from the kitchen.
“No!”
He heard his grumpy husband’s grumbling under some clanging as kitchen appliances were being set down or moved. “What?”
Ever dramatic, his husband was.
“You know those students I’ve been telling you about?” he asked, sniffling. Jeong Jeong nodded. “They finally got their act together! I knew this poetry exercise would push them in the right direction!” He turned his laptop around so it was facing his husband.
“For real?” Jeong Jeong grabbed his reading glasses, which were hanging on his shirt, and put them on, squinting at the screen. “Wow,” he finally said, sounding slightly impressed. “Can’t believe you did it. I thought for sure they would hate each other till the end.”
Piandao rolled his eyes, slapping playfully at his husband’s stomach. “You have such little faith in my matchmaking abilities. I told you that they were the Beatrice and Benedick of 2021.”