A day off. The thought of it was almost surreal. When was the last time she let herself get to the point where her schedule was completely free? She could hardly remember. Even back in the Tribe, she was constantly moving from one task to the next, and if she ever reached the point where she ran out of things to do, it was easy enough to find something new to fill her time with. It proved to be a different sort of challenge here, where intel from beyond the walls of Ba Sing Se was difficult to come by, and her network within the walls was sparse.
She shook her head and set about changing into the outfit that she had decided on the night before. Something simple and easy to move in. She maneuvered her way around the slowly growing pile of presents from suitors she had no interest in as she went to do her hair and put on a pair of earrings. She wanted more books. Why was it that they gave her everything under the sun from a guzheng to a fire ferret, but they could not provide her with the one thing that she would actually be happy to receive? She sighed quietly and stepped out of her apartment, still mourning the loss of her usual flow of information and lack of reading material.
Things were a little too quiet now that she wasn't receiving a slew of reports every day, and it had helped her realize that she had become one of those people that lived to work, like her brother did, rather than worked to live. It was a rather startling realization, not that she could do much to change things. There was a time when she didn't have to keep herself moving from one task to the next just to keep her thoughts from straying to things that she would rather not ponder on, but that time was so far into the past, it almost felt like a different lifetime. A time when she learned things out of curiosity and not for profit or some ulterior motive.
She stopped by a food stall and picked up a light snack. Maybe she would stop by the tea shop and drop them off for Zuko and Iroh to have as well. She was about to head further down the street when she heard the sound of a guzheng being plucked. She felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips when she saw a girl plucking at the strings experimentally on the veranda. "You'll hurt yourself if you pluck at them with just your fingers like that," Miyuki called.
The girl jumped a little from her seat and flushed. "I just wanted to try. I heard that a really pretty lady played once at a tea shop and now she's really popular."
Ah. It was her. The girl was talking about Miyuki.
Miyuki cleared her throat softly. She'd never heard someone speak about her with admiration before. It was kind of embarrassing. "May I come in?" The girl nodded and Miyuki took a seat next to her. "Would you like me to play something for you?"
The girl nodded so enthusiastically, Miyuki worried for a moment that the girl would get dizzy from how hard she was nodding.
"Okay then, just a moment. I'll be right back." She stepped out and bought a set of turtle-crab finger picks and tape from a stall nearby before going back to the girl. The girl watched with rapt attention as Miyuki set about taping the finger picks to the pads of her fingers on her right hand one by one.
"Before you play, you need to put finger picks on to protect your fingers. Otherwise, the strings will rub against your skin while you play and eventually end up hurting you." Miyuki plucked at a string when she was done and the guzheng produced a bright, clear tone. She smiled at the girl. "Plus, it sounds better when you're wearing finger picks, doesn't it?"
The girl nodded rapidly. "It does!"
Miyuki couldn't help but chuckle at the sight while she thought of an appropriate song to play for a child. It needed to be a song fit for a child, one that she could teach to a beginner, but also sounded good enough to showcase. A memory of the old woman who had taught Miyuki to play the guzheng on her veranda flickered through her mind and Miyuki smiled softly. Ah. That was the one.
She began to pluck at the strings and build up the melody. This song was perfect. It was a relatively simple tune in essence, though it was normally played with more embellishment. She could teach the girl the melody. Her teacher, as expected, had chosen something very fitting back then. She had forgotten that she learned this song from her teacher as well.
She heard the girl gasp as the melody began to pick up, and when she finished, the girl tugged at her sleeves. "Teach me how to play! Please, please, please!"
She laughed. "Alight, alright. Settle down. I'll teach you to play this song, but in exchange, can I ask you something first?"
"Sure, anything!"
"Why do you want to learn to play?"
Years ago, Miyuki's teacher had asked the same of her after she had asked the old woman to teach her much in the same manner as the girl in front of her now.
"The sound is pretty."
"Not because the lady at the tea shop?"
The girl hesitated. "Well... I wanna be popular like that lady too, but when I heard the story, I didn't know what it sounded like. Just that the lady was pretty and the music was good, but now I do know what it sounds like. And, and, I like it cause it sounds nice!"
Miyuki hummed. She had replied with something similar long ago. 'Because I like the sound of it.' The old woman had smiled so warmly back then. "You have a good ear, little lady. Alright, I'll teach you to play."
The girl leapt out of her seat and threw her arms around her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"You're welcome." She began to take the finger picks off and she laid them down one by one in a row for the girl. "Here, put these on. I can't say that I can teach you everything, but I can promise that I'll teach you this one song."
She watched as the girl fumbled a little with the picks. Ah. She'd forgotten that she needed to explain that too. "Ah, look here. This is how you put them on. First you line it up with your finger over here like this and then..."
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
It was long after lunch by the time the girl had mastered the simple tune. She didn't look quite as excited about it as Miyuki had thought that she would though. The girl pouted at her. "It doesn't sound like when you played it."
She nodded at the girl. "That's right, it doesn't. That's the thing about everything though. You can't become a master at it in a day. It takes time and practice. I started with this same song though, and it sounded just like you played it just now when I first finished learning it."
"It did?"
Miyuki nodded. "Later on, you learn how to add your own notes to it and make it sound better. There's no one correct way to do it, and it'll take some time before you figure out how to do it yourself, but you can help me play the song this time."
The girl's eyes lit up. "How?"
"Just start playing, and you'll see."
As the girl played the melody, Miyuki placed her hands over the guzheng and began to weave the harmony until it became more intricate than when she had played the song alone for the girl. Miyuki remembered her teacher doing the same for her. She was breathless when they finished, and it was one of the main reasons that she had practiced so much with the guzheng. There was something indescribably beautiful about it, and she wanted to be able to share it with others.
The girl looked as though she was on the verge of tears when the final note rang out, and Miyuki decided that the stinging at her fingertips from playing without finger picks was well worth it if the girl was going to react like this.
The girl started to cry in earnest. "Miss, that was so... so...! It was beautiful- I never even asked for your name...!"
Footsteps thudded from inside the house before the doors slid open. "Ning! What-"
The young man's jaw dropped at the sight of Miyuki. "You- You're her! Hana from the tea shop! Ning- how? What?" The young man's gaze flickered between Miyuki and the girl, Ning, several times as he tried to process what was happening.
Ning tugged at Miyuki's sleeve, cheeks still wet from her tears. "You're her? The pretty lady from the tea shop?"
"I guess I am." Miyuki patted the girl's head gently. "If you like playing the guzheng, practice hard, okay?" Miyuki picked up the snacks that she bought in the morning and stood.
"Wait, Miss Hana. Your finger picks."
The girl held out her hands for Miyuki, who smiled and shook her head in return. "Keep them. You'll need them to practice."
The girl ducked into a bow, tears spilling from her eyes. "Thank you. Will you come again?"
"Maybe." It was unlikely, but saying 'no' now felt as though it would be too harsh. She waved at the girl and made her way back to the street before the young man could snap out of his stupor and start chasing her. Miyuki stopped to buy a book on her way to the tea shop. As she browsed through the titles, she thought she might pick up a history book until she found herself reaching for one on old myths and legends. It wasn't going to be very useful, but she figured that it wouldn't hurt to read it on her day off.
When she walked into the tea shop she heard someone greet, "Good afternoon, Hana. Did you make lunch for Mushi and Lee?" She recognized the man that spoke, he was a regular here. If she remembered correctly, he was a retired government worker of some sort. His son had followed in his footsteps and he had begun dabbling in poetry recently.
She put on a smile and bowed a little. "Good afternoon, Mr. Xu. I'm afraid I'm not particularly skilled at cooking, so this is just something I bought on the way." She laughed softly and continued to chat idly as some of the regulars who greeted her while she waited for Iroh to come out from the kitchen in the back, only to find Zuko walking over to her.
His greeting was a gruff, "hey," to which she returned before handing the basket to him. His gaze flickered away from her when their hands brushed against each other.
She noticed the faint flush on his cheeks as he thanked her and retreated back into the kitchen. She left after saying goodbye to all the customers that greeted her before making her way to the park.
When she got there, she sat down under a tree on a hill. She saw a little boy and girl playing together as she reached for her book, and the sight left her feeling oddly forlorn, and it wasn't until she realized that they reminded her a little of herself and Kyo that she felt tears begin to well at her eyes. The boy was a little more on the quiet side and the girl a little more on the assertive side. It really did feel, for a moment, that she was watching a slightly different version of herself and her childhood friend.
The thought of her childhood and Kyo left her with some mixed feelings, admittedly, but they weren't necessarily bad. She wondered for a moment if she would have been happier if she had accepted Kyo's marriage proposal, but she dismissed the thought quickly. She wasn't one to make choices and regret them, and she wasn't about to change that now.
As she watched the children play together, she couldn't help but hope that they would lead lives much better than her own. She hoped that the girl would not find herself becoming cold-hearted and detached, and being faced with a life of most resistance because of it. She hoped they would grow up together and smile as wholehearted as they were now for many years to come. She knew that it was probably impossible, but even so, she hoped that they would not have to suffer as much as she did.
Eventually, they left, and in their place came a cat-owl that landed next to her and began nuzzling her hand. She couldn't help the soft laugh that bubbled up past her lips. "Hey there. I'm guessing you're only here for my food?"
She gave it the bits of meat from her lunch that she didn't quite have the appetite for, and when it finished eating, it purred and made itself comfortable next to her. She watched it for a moment before scratching it behind the ears gently and wondering just how much time she wasted today, lost in her thoughts. "I may have been even more lazy than you were today," she said softly.
Suddenly, someone put a hand on her shoulder and she jumped a little in her seat, causing the cat-owl to fly away. She looked up, half expecting to see an admirer of her's, but when her eyes met with a familiar pair of amber ones, she relaxed a little. "Hey."
His eyes flickered away as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry."
She shook her head and patted the space next to her. "It's fine. I'm sure the cat-owl will be alright, and I was just spacing out."
He took a seat next to her. "You're surprisingly absent-minded when it comes to yourself, you know," he commented. "Did you even finish eating?"
"I think there's still pa pia sod in there," she replied.
"It was good, you should have it," he told her.
She opened the basket and handed him one before taking one for herself.
"What were you thinking about?" he asked.
"I was reminiscing a little and thinking about the way that life seems to work."
"Is that why you looked so far off?"
She hummed in agreement. A part of her wanted to talk more about her thoughts, but another part of her felt as though revealing them revealed a point of vulnerability. She decided against it and bumped his arm gently with her shoulder. "What about you? What brings you all the way here?"
"Nothing," he replied gruffly. "My shift ended and I just..."
She hummed.
"It was quiet without you today," he said softly, "but it was also more tiring somehow."
She turned to him when she heard the weariness in his voice, but his eyes flickered away from her when their gazes met. She hummed and he cleared his throat. "So, uh, what were you reading?"
She felt her lips tug into a faint smile. "Well," she began, "I was gonna read this book on myths and legends, but I never got to it. Do you wanna read with me?"
"I didn't think you'd read that sort of thing. I know you're always saying that any sort of information is useful, but this really doesn't seem very useful at all."
"I just felt like it today." She passed him the book. "Here, you hold it. I hurt my fingertips today."
He glanced at her. "On what?"
"Sentimentality."
Zuko's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Do I even want to ask?" He held the book open for the two of them and she shifted close to him until her arm was right up against his and her head was practically resting on his shoulder. She caught a glimpse of his flushed face before she shook her head.
"It's a long story," she murmured.
"I have time for long stories. Sometimes."
She chuckled softly. "Let's finish this one first." She began to read in earnest after that. She nudged him a couple moments after she finished reading the pages the book was open to and whispered, "Hey, turn the page."
"You read too fast. I'm not done yet, give me a second," he whispered back.
She chuckled softly. She'd wait, but only because it was him.
Extra:
Zuko went over to a couple of low ranking officials that were regulars as they waved him over. Miyuki had their names down but he still couldn't quite get the names themselves straight. They were Fu, Liu, and Xu? Xiang? Fang? Liao? He wasn't sure. Besides, even if he was sure about the names themselves, he didn't know who was who.
"So you and Hana, huh?" one of them asked with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrow.
When Zuko didn't reply, the man sitting next to him nudged the first man who spoke. "I told you it wasn't official yet. You can tell by the way they couldn't look each other in the eye before."
"It's pretty obvious that there's something going on though," the other chimed in. "You do like her, don't you, Lee?"
The first man laughed. "What man in their right mind wouldn't?" He made a show of sighing and shaking his head. "If only I were twenty-five years younger."
The man sitting next to him guffawed. "Your wife would give you an earful if she heard that one!"
The three of them laughed before the first man continued, "Listen, Lee, now isn't the time to be shy. She likes you and you like her. Don't hesitate too much or some other guy will come out of nowhere and whisk her away. Go find her after your shift and show her you care before it's too late. You only live this life once, kid."
A young man dressed in fine clothes burst into the tea shop then, slightly disheveled and out of breath. "Hana... Is Hana here?" he managed to ask between heavy breaths.
The first man grinned at Zuko. "See?"