Chapter Text
“Checkmate.” Katara’s voice, drained of all emotion, cut through the chaos around her.
“What?!” Suki let out an exaggerated gasp. “Wow Tara, I can’t believe I was bested by your brilliant sober mind yet again.” The sarcasm nearly dripped off of her voice.
Well, Katara thought, I guess you can only convince your best friend to play so many games of chess during what she had been calling “the party of the century” all week.
Katara rolled her eyes, shaking her head in disbelief. “You just want to go make out with Sokka.”
“Yup, that pretty much sums it up!” She responded cheerfully bringing the solo cup to her lips once again. “But seriously,” suddenly she leveled her eyes with Katara’s, gripping her shoulder and leaning in close. “You need to let loose!”
If it was possible, Katara’s frown deepened even further. This—parties, socializing, generalized teenage stupidity—just wasn’t her scene.
“Aang is our designated wet towel tonight, so you don’t have anything to worry about anyway.”
Katara chuckled to herself. It wasn’t as if she never had fun. She just had a different definition than the rest of her friends. One that included a good book or a quiet beach, not making out on folding tables in some random person’s basement.
“You know what you should do?!” Suki screeched into her ear.
“What?” Katara asked with feigned curiosity.
“You should find Zuko. Maybe you two painful introverts could work on differential equations or something. I think he went upstairs a few minutes ago.”
At the utterance of that name—his name—Katara resisted the urge to punch her best friend. Even so, she let out a dramatic groan.
Zuko, the smartest boy in their class, and her sworn enemy at Ba Sing Se Prep. He was arrogant, egomaniacal and stupidly rich—a fact that was proven even further the moment Katara stepped into this party and his family’s mansion in the Upper Ring. Not to mention Azula, his sister, whose psychopathic tendencies legitimately scared everyone who crossed her.
“Don’t be mad at me, Tara.” Suki stood up on unsteady legs. “It’s not my fault you can’t see that you guys are perfect for each other.”
“SUKI!” Sokka’s voice echoed from across the gigantic room, and Katara had never been more grateful to hear that annoying sound in her entire life. Her friend skittered away, but not before contorting her face into a dramatic wink.
Honestly, the worst part of Suki’s incessant teasing wasn’t the fact that Katara despised Zuko on principle, or that they had been one upping each other for years to be top of the class. No, the worst part was that some part of Katara, a small, infinitesimally tiny part of her, knew, against all reason, that Suki was right.
Not about them being soulmates, of course. But, when she had seen him on the first day of their senior year, just a week before, she could no longer deny one painful fact: he was hot. Sure, he’d had the whole brooding, cocky academic vibe going for him for years. But now…well, it was getting harder to keep her eyes off of him, but no harder to hate him.
Katara stood up, and meandered along the back wall of the room, taking a mental tally of her friends as she walked. Toph and Aang were in the center of a crowd, demonstrating some dance moves to the surrounding throng. Then, she passed Suki as she practically tackled Sokka onto a chair in the corner. Spirits, she didn’t need to see that, she thought as she walked faster.
In her group of extroverted best friends, Katara often found it easiest to just disappear. She was there to help them through the tough stuff, and was the designated ‘mom’ of the group, but found that without fail, whatever drama they had in their lives overshadowed anything she had to say.
Of course she loved them, they were family after all, but when they dragged her out somewhere way beyond her comfort zone only to abandon her an hour in, well….
Katara just needed somewhere to hide out, where she could hear herself think, maybe where she could whip out the copy of Grapes of Wrath she had smuggled into her purse.
She climbed the stairs at the end of the room, and emerged into a long, miraculously empty hallway. She resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief at the welcome silence when she heard an unmistakable muttering from a room just ahead of where she stood. Katara took a few tentative steps toward the open door, an inexplicable curiosity seeming to drive her.
She could recognize that voice anywhere.
Low, raspy, conceited.
“Velocity of the center of mass…” the closer she got, the jumble of whispers formed into words. “Moment of inertia….integral of radius squared dx…”
She continued her stealthy approach, standing just in front of the door jamb, and craning her neck to get a glimpse of the room.
On one end, was the corner of a bed, and a desk beside it strewn with papers, open books and brimming binders. Another door at the back presumably leading to a bathroom, or an obnoxiously large walk-in closet. He stood on the side of the room opposite her, his back turned, scribbling furiously on a large white board that took up the majority of his wall.
Spirits, he’s doing physics right now. He’s working on a physics problem set in the middle of his own party.
Her eyes were instantly drawn to his work, and she mentally computed each step.
Integrate, derive, distribute…then, wait!
A cheshire grin spread across her face as she realized.
He had made a mistake.
A mistake that she had caught instantly.
She scoffed under her breath. Zuko turned his head suddenly.
Fuck! Katara swore internally as she practically lept away from the doorway, and out of his gaze. She knew it was no use, that he’d already seen her. He took a single step toward the door, and into full view of where Katara stood, a smug scowl painting his face.
“Not a good spy, I’m afraid, Katara.”
She cursed her stomach for flipping the moment her name fell off his lips, but stood taller as he continued his approach. She furrowed her brows above her own smirk, and she crossed her arms. Two could play at this game.
“Not a good solution, I’m afraid, Zuko.”
His face faltered for a moment as he cocked his head incredulously.
“Parallel Axis Theorem” Katara stated in a matter-of-fact tone as she strode past him, right into his room and to his formula on the board. “You’re not calculating for the correct axis of rotation,” she pointed to the board and looked back to find him standing just behind her, his eyes darkening by the second.
Spirits, she was going to enjoy this.
“What? You’re not used to a girl telling you that you’re wrong?” She contorted her face into a taunting pout, and raised her sarcasm-steeped voice.
“No, I’m not used to being wrong, period.” He spoke in a low growl and stepped even closer, his hot breath ricocheting off of her neck, sending waves of goosebumps across her skin.
She turned on her heel, attempting to banish the warmth seeping through her veins, but instantly regretted it as she came face to face with him.
Well, face to chest. He towered over her, and the black henley that stretched across his broad, muscled torso filled her view.
“Maybe I got distracted…” he rasped. His voice was little more than a whisper. That was all it took to reach where she stood only inches away.
“Distracted?” Katara’s traitorous voice wavered. Spirits, she needed to get it under control.
This is Zuko. ZUKO! She hated him. Period. End of story.
“Yes—” he started. “Your ammeture espionage skills betrayed you.”
“Admit it, Zuko, I’m just smarter than you.” She spoke in a cutting whisper.
A low rumble of laughter seemed to emanate from deep in his throat.
“I’m not going to concede that easily. You’re going to have to try much,” he ate the remaining space between them with a single step “much harder than that.”
That asshole.
“Careful, Zuko, that almost sounds like a challenge.” she let out a huff of breath at him as she spoke. “And you know how competitive I can be.”
After her final retort, they stood still for a seemingly endless moment, her neck craned up to meet his glowering gaze.
Then, he lifted a hand so close to her hip that she was sure he was reaching out to touch her.
Her stomach fell once again, her heart thundering in her chest. She could have sworn that his fingers whispered against her waist as he reached behind her and grabbed an Expo, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Here, show me.” He held the marker out in his hand between them. Maybe this was a peace offering. So why did her whole body burn when she grabbed the marker from his grip and turned to face the board once again?
“Well, the rotational axis is half a radius away from the center…” she trailed off as she reworked his solution. Erasing a few terms in his equation, replacing variable values and simplifying her own work along the way.
As she revised the board before her, she could almost feel his eyes drilling holes into the back of her head. She always felt calm when doing math, like working toward the right answer was her own type of meditation, but now, as she worked, the tension in the air somehow grew even more palpable.
Katara heard him scoff in contempt behind her, presumably in criticism of her work.
She turned to shoot him daggers, and was instantly drawn into the dark intensity behind his eyes. She had really gotten to him.
Was it strange that that realization sent a wave of pride through her?
“See, it’s just applying the laws for the rotation of rigid bodies.”
She took a step back to admire her own work mixed with his, but he must have stepped closer as she was writing because in an instant, her back was flush against his chest, their bodies perfectly aligned for a split second. She felt the stiff, strong planes of his pecs against her shoulders, and his abdomen lined up against her spine.
Both of them took a step apart simultaneously, but even that brief contact had adrenaline coursing through her once again. She felt her breath catch in her throat and she tried to will away the heat that rose to her cheeks.
“Yeah,” he agreed with no acknowledgement of the prior moment. “You’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right.” She said as she turned to face him once again.
A smirk and a slow shake of his head from side to side was his only response.
“Oh, you don’t believe me?”
“No, that’s not it.”
He raised one hand to the back of his neck, and let it rest there. And was that—was that a smile that glanced across his face? He seemed to snap out of this moment of ‘normal’ in an instant, returning to the hard, sarcastic exterior she knew, his hands falling into twin fists at his sides.
Katara held out the marker between them, waiting for him to take it.
“Well, let me know if you need any more help. I mean, I finished that set days ago so—” she stopped as she realized he had grabbed the other end of the marker, and she still gripped her end.
“I’ll be sure to do that, Katara.” A low rumble of laughter from him dissipated the awkward moment, but there was her name on his lips again.
Why was that suddenly so exciting?
Was she under some sort of Jedi mind control? Or did she somehow become possessed since she walked up those stairs?
Spirits, she just needed to get out of this room.
She immediately made a beeline for the door, her mind already beginning to race.
What had she been thinking?
What was this—this banter?
What was she thinking just waltzing into her rival’s bedroom?
A rival with whom she had shared years of competitive glares, but very few actual words ever.
And now she’d seen his bed?
Where he SLEEPS?
To be fair, she had really only gone in there to fix some bad math. That was reasonable, right?
No, not reasonable. Not reasonable at all, especially when she knew that there was that little piece of her that knew that one little objective truth about aforementioned rival's physical attractiveness. Not reasonable when for a moment, she saw that glimpse of humanity in him—
Katara was pulled out of her thoughts as she felt his hand grasp her wrist.
His fingers wrapped around her pounding pulse, and she looked back to meet that darkening gaze, that devilish smirk.
She looked up to meet his gaze, his eyes trained directly to hers, and neither of them moved a muscle, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist.
Suddenly, his hand lept to glance over her waist, applying a steady force that whipped her around. She braced herself at the sudden impact with a hand outstretched that met his chest.
She felt her heart racing, pounding furiously against her ribs, the heat of their contact sending waves across her skin. Then, she saw his eyes unmistakably dip to her lips.
Spirits, this is real.
In an instant, his lips crashed into hers.
And every thought left her mind.
Except for one: Checkmate.