It was another steady day at the tea shop. Nava floated between tables on one side, taking orders and clearing away empty cups. Zuko worked at the other tables across from her, but with a little less purpose. Clearly he wasn't enjoying himself as much was Nava was trying to. She didn't necessarily like the work either but sulking all day wasn't going to make it better.
Zuko set a cup of tea down in front of a girl as Nava grabbed an empty one from the table over.
"Thank you," the girl said, smiling up at Zuko through her eyelashes. He turned to walk back to the counter, but the girl stopped him again. "What's your name?"
Nava wanted to smirk at the panic that flashed in Zuko's eyes for a split second but something uncomfortable knotted in her stomach at the same time. Ignoring the feeling, she left Zuko to flounder with the pretty girl while she took the cups back to the dish pit.
She returned to the counter as Zuko did he and pulled her and Iroh aside.
"Don't look now but I think the girl by the door is on to us," he hissed. "I think she knows we're Fire Nation."
Nava didn't have to look to know who Zuko was talking about and she almost wanted to laugh at how adorably obtuse he was being. "Really? She obviously has a crush on you." she said, and the words felt like dirt coming out her mouth. "She's been in here every day for the past week."
"What?" Zuko glanced over his shoulder at the girl, whose bright green eyes were watching him from behind the lip of her cup as she sipped her drink.
"Honestly, Prince Zuko, I am surprised you did not notice," Iroh muttered. "The green tea isn't that good for her to order multiple cups of it only when you're here. If Pao would just take my advice and brew the tea for less amount of time..." he stalked off to the back, mumbling to himself and shaking his head.
"Do you really think she has a crush on me?" Zuko asked Nava.
She laughed incredulously now. "The only time she stays for longer than one cup of tea is when you're working, and she only ever sits in your section. Do you not notice her staring at you the entire time?"
"I thought she was just staring at my scar, everyone else does," Zuko said defensively. "She doesn't even know me, how could she have a crush on me?"
Scoffing, Nava shook her head and left him standing there, going to greet two city guards who just walked in. Surely he can't be that clueless, she thought as she greeted the watchmen with a polite smile. As she took their orders, the girl got up from her seat and took her empty cup to the back, handing it to Zuko.
"My name is Jin," Nava heard her say as she came back around the counter, sidestepping past Zuko to get her orders for the guards. "Would you like to hang out sometime?"
The hot tea stung her hand through the cup while Nava tried to ignore the dropping feeling in her stomach. She brushed past Zuko again as he sputtered for an answer and walked back to the guards' table, putting their drinks down with more force than was necessary.
"Let me know if you need anything else," she said through a tight-lipped smile.
She cleared off some other tables — mostly to avoid having to go back over to Jin and Zuko — but his distractions were causing him to fall behind on busing his tables.
A moment later, she heard Jin say, "great! I'll meet you here tomorrow night after close!"
Nava looked up once Jin was gone to see Iroh standing beside Zuko, smiling wildly, while the younger of the two wore an expression of doubt.
"It will be fun, nephew, you'll see," Iroh told him as Nava made her way to the back room. As she passed the counter, she made brief eye-contact with Zuko and in the half-second they glanced at each other, he had an almost apologetic look in his eye.
///
Nava and Zuko got off work at the same time. It was their turn to close that day, and Iroh had left half-an-hour earlier. They bid goodbye to Pao as the sun set behind the great walls of the city, shrouding the streets in shadows but the sky remained a cacophony of orange, pink, and blue. The sun would not set completely for another twenty minutes. The two of them walked in silence, Nava walking a half-step in front of him, staring straight with a neutral, borderline annoyed, expression on her face. Zuko knew that look well, it was the face she wore when she was slipping back into the soldier version of herself. Cold, calculated, blocked-off. Something was bothering her.
"Hey, slow down, my legs are sore from standing all day," he said to her, to try and get her to walk beside him like she usually did.
She seemed to consider something in her mind by the way her eyebrow twitched before she allowed him to fall into step with her. "Sorry," she said with a half-smile, all traces of the mask gone. "I was just thinking about something."
"Thinking about what?" Zuko didn't look at her in fear of scaring her off, but he could see her in his peripheral. Her hair was longer now, wavy around her jaw, flicking out at the ends, and the ever-present single curl that fell down across her forehead. There were many times when they were together that he wanted to reach across and tuck it out of the way, but he would stop when she would twirl it around her finger when she was thinking, or when her hands were too idle for too long. Sometimes she would catch him staring and her face would slowly grow into a shy smile and he'd roll his eyes at her and turn away, hoping the heat creeping up his neck wasn't obviously showing.
He suddenly realized Nava was watching him, trying to read him, and then she looked forward once more. "Nothing," she responded. "Nothing important, anyway."
Biting back a sigh, Zuko put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet. His foot nicked a stone and sent it skipping ahead of them, and he kicked it forward again once they caught up to it. They walked like that for a while, in silence once more.
"Are you excited for your date with Jin?" Nava asked a few blocks later.
"It's not a date," Zuko said automatically. "She just asked me to hang out."
She hummed at that, clearly unconvinced. "Well, are you excited for your not-date with Jin?"
No, he thought bluntly. In fact I would rather throw myself off the city walls than be alone with a strange girl in a city I don't know my way around.
"I guess so," he said instead, hoping he at least came off as nonchalant. The rock he was kicking hit another rock in the street and veered off to the side, ending his streak. He didn't bother restarting the game with a different stone. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea."
Nava was quiet beside him and he glanced up to see her eyes already on him, waiting for him to go on.
"What if she wants to go out again? What if she wants me to meet her parents?" he said before he could stop himself. "She's going to want to know about my family and where I'm from and I don't know what to tell her."
"Just tell her you were split up from your family in the war and it's just you and your uncle now," Nava said with a shrug. "She doesn't know anything about me, we could be just coworkers for all she's concerned. And you don't have to go out with her again if you don't want to. It's better to stop early before it goes too far."
"Do you think I should go out with her?" Zuko was having a hard time thinking before he spoke, it seemed. He hadn't meant to ask her that outright. He saw her face change for an instant before she gave him an easy smile.
"I think it will be fun," she said, although the look in her eyes told anything but. "Being out with someone who isn't me or your uncle will be good for you."
Zuko nodded, but he didn't believe her, and he knew that she didn't either.
///
The next evening, Nava gathered her things as soon as they were finished closing for the night.
"I'll meet you guys at home," she said, then turned to Zuko, who had been in a sour mood all day, and now suddenly looked very nervous.
"You're leaving?" he asked her.
"Yeah, I need to stop at the market before it closes," it wasn't a complete lie, she was seventy-five percent sure they needed some more rice.
Zuko looked like he wanted to say something, but he thought against it and nodded instead.
"Have fun tonight," she told him sincerely, despite the knot tightening in her stomach. "You deserve it."
The streets outside were still busy, Nava fell in with the crowd and wove through it towards the marketplace. Iroh had bought Zuko a new outfit that morning for him to wear on the date (to which Zuko again promptly denied it being such and refused to wear it), but Iroh insisted and they bickered for a minute before Zuko finally relented.
She stepped around a particularly slow walker with an annoyed click of her tongue and shouldered past someone else to step into the market block. She made a bee-line for the closest stall that had rice and got a bagful, and then was on her way home before she knew it.
The apartment was still (mercifully) empty when Nava arrived. She went to put the rice away and was pleased to see that the bag they had in the cupboard was nearly empty, so her hurried excuse to get out of the tea shop had paid off. She rinsed the rice off and left it to cook while she chopped some carrots, shallots, and the leftover cooked roast duck from the night before.
Iroh returned just as Nava was finishing the fried rice. She dished it out into two bowls and left his on the counter while she moved to sit at the small dining table tucked in the corner close to the ground.
"You were in quite a hurry to get out of there," Iroh said as he sat down beside her with his food.
"We needed more rice," Nava responded quickly. "I wanted to get to the market before it closed."
Iroh hummed but she knew he didn't fully believe her. "He wanted to follow you, he was worried you were upset with him. I almost had to push him out the door once Jin arrived."
Quiet hung between them as Nava put her chopsticks down. "I really want him to experience new things but this one just makes me feel sick," she said softly. "I don't want to sour it for him."
"I made him go out with her because I wanted him to experience new things as well, but I see now it is not a girl's companionship that he needs." Iroh was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction to his words but Nava couldn't bring herself to remove the carefully placed mask she'd spent years perfecting. He didn't pry further, and they ate the rest of their rice in silence.
Afterwards, Nava cleaned the dishes while Iroh made a pot of tea and sipped on it while he pruned the flower bush outside the main window, no doubt also keeping an eye out for Zuko. Once everything was clean, she poured herself a cup of tea and retired to the back room. She sat on the floor at first, skimming through a pamphlet they'd gotten when they moved in about the history of Ba Sing Se. Eventually she became restless and abandoned the program, instead going to the room's window and sliding it open enough for her to fit through.
Tea in hand and grabbing her cloak from inside the trunk, Nava slipped outside and climbed up the back of the apartment. It was easy work to get to the roof and she sat on the shingles, cloak pulled tightly around her shoulders, watching the stars overhead. She really did hope Zuko was having fun with Jin, whether it was a date or not, and she was pretty certain that if Iroh hadn't intervened, he would have told Jin no out of pure shock.
She leaned against the wall of the building next to her and pulled her knees up to her chest. But what if Zuko ends up really liking her? The thought had been bugging her since their walk home yesterday, and she shouldn't care, and it would be so much easier if she didn't, but despite her best efforts, she was worried. Worried that he would grow tired of her, tell her that he didn't want her to be travelling with him and Iroh anymore, and she would end up alone again.
You two aren't even dating, get over yourself. Nava chided herself and tapped her head back against the wall a few times.
The streets were quiet while she sat up there for most of the evening, sipping on her drink and trying not to watch the road for Zuko to appear. Eventually, some clouds rolled in and covered the stars; she was beginning to consider going back inside when she saw him appear from around the corner. She stayed put, knowing that he couldn't see her from where she sat, and listened as he opened the front door.
"How was your evening Prince Zuko?" she heard Iroh ask.
There was a moment of silence, and then the back room door slammed shut. Another second of tense silence, and then Nava heard the door slide open again, Zuko muttering something, and then the sound of it closing. She waited with bated breath to see if he would come and join her, and he did eventually. He was dressed in his usual clothing so Nava assumed he had just gotten changed. His face was impassive, and she was reminded that he could put up a cold mask just like her at any moment. Regardless of title, they were both raised by high-ranking Fire Nation officials.
"Hey," she said softly as he settled down beside her.
"Hey," he muttered.
"How was it?" she asked him after a beat.
"It was fine. She's nice."
"What did you do after dinner?"
"She took me to a courtyard that had this giant fountain in the middle with lanterns all around it, but they weren't lit."
"And?"
"And I told her to close her eyes and I used my firebending to light them. She just looked so disappointed, I couldn't not do it."
"Was it pretty with all the lights lit?" Nava wondered. She could imagine what it looked like, how the flames would reflect off the water, and made a note to go and find it on her own.
"It really was. She was happy too," Zuko said. "I'm glad I did it."
Nava nodded at that, smiling gently. "Then I'm sure it was worth it. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."
He hummed and a cool spring breeze wound between them, causing her to pull the cloak tighter around her.
"She tried to kiss me," Zuko said quietly. "I don't know why, but I - I couldn't kiss her back."
Nava's heart skipped a beat. "Nervous, maybe?" she offered, but he shook his head.
"No, it - it just didn't feel right. When I closed my eyes all I could picture was..." he cut himself off, clearing his throat. "It doesn't matter. I left her standing in the courtyard after telling her I was late for curfew."
"You left her to walk home by herself?" she rounded on him, eyebrows furrowed. "You could have at least walked her back!"
"She said the courtyard was close to her house anyway!" Zuko exclaimed, hands risen in self-defence.
Nava squinted at him before readjusting to sit normally again. "I guess she won't be back in the tea shop for a while, then," she said. She pushed down the tiny victorious feeling in her chest and crossed her arms.
"I guess not. But maybe that's for the best."
He was watching her when she turned her head towards him, intrigued by his words.
"Why?" she breathed, suddenly aware of how close Zuko was sitting to her. She could feel the heat radiating off of him and forced herself to keep from nestling closer, and by the way he was looking at her, she knew he wouldn't have stopped her.
His eyes shot down to her lips and back up again and spirits, she wanted to throw all caution into the wind and kiss him.
"I guess we'll see," he murmured, his half-lidded eyes on her mouth again before he sat back, hand brushing against hers as he stood up. She watched him descend back down the building and heard him land on the tatami inside.
Nava took a deep breath to steady her hammering heart and ran her hand over her face. Once her nerves were steeled, she went the way Zuko did and jumped back in through the window just as he was coming back into the room.
"I'm going to the bathhouse," he told her. "I'll be back in a bit."
She nodded, secretly relieved that he was leaving the apartment because she wasn't sure she would be able to stop herself if he remained in close quarters for much longer.
He grabbed some toiletries and left the apartment a minute later. Nava took that time to quickly get ready for bed and bury herself beneath the thin wool blanket on the sleeping mat in the back room. She was still awake when he returned, she heard him talking to Iroh and then the door to her area opened. She had her back to him and listened while he quietly padded into the room and put the toiletries back where he found them. His footsteps stopped by her sleeping mat on the way back, but for only a second before they were going back towards the door. He shut it softly behind him and Nava immediately wished he'd stayed.
Instead of getting up to follow him, she rolled onto her back and forced herself to get some sleep, never mind the fact that all she saw when she closed her eyes were his eyes, golden honey in the darkness of the rooftop, half-open and totally unguarded -- for her.
Nava fell asleep thinking about how soft his lips would be on hers.
(a/n: hi lol. happy new year, hope you're well. things have been #wild but i randomly got some inspo for what Zuko and Jin's date would have looked like in the context of FIYE. i did think about adding it into the og fic when i first wrote it, but i couldn't decide if i wanted it to take place before or after Nava's one-shot so i never included it! my dilemma still applies with this one-shot, so i wrote it kind of vague on purpose. you can decide when it takes place :^)
anyway thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed!! <3)