“He’s very attractive.”

The words landed without warning.

Every head snapped toward him.

Sokka blinked. Toph tilted her head. Even Katara faltered for a fraction of a second.

“What?” Zuko muttered, as if the reaction puzzled him more than his own statement. His eyes flicked across their faces, then stilled—on you.

“He is,” he added, quieter, as though clarifying something obvious. “It’s all in the bone structure.”

You blinked.

The words struck harder than they should have, sharp and disorienting, as though they had been meant for you rather than the unconscious man at Aang’s knees. You had never—never—considered that Zuko noticed things like that. Not in that way. Not so plainly.

Of course he would.

The realization came too quickly, too logically, and yet it unsettled something deeper.

You looked away.

The rest of the moment passed in a blur—orders given, the stranger awakening, the group moving as they always did. But something had shifted, subtle and persistent, like a thread pulled loose.

It followed you.

Zuko noticed.

He noticed when your responses came a beat too late. When your attention drifted somewhere just out of reach. When you startled under the lightest touch of his hand at your shoulder, his brow tightening faintly at the reaction.

“You’re not listening,” he said once, not accusing, just certain.

You weren’t.

And it only got worse.

Because the question refused to leave you alone.

If he could look at a stranger and say something like that—so simply, so without hesitation—then had he ever…?

No. It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.

But the thought lingered anyway, unwelcome and insistent, pressing itself into every quiet space you tried to ignore it in.

The back of the flying ship was quieter than the rest—just the steady rush of wind against the hull. Zuko found you there, exactly where he expected.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

No greeting. No pretense.

He stopped a few steps away, arms folding as his gaze settled on you—direct, unwavering. “And before you say you haven’t—you have. You don’t look at me when I speak, you answer half a question at best, and earlier you nearly dropped a bowl because I walked too close.” A slight pause. “That’s not normal for you.”

You didn’t turn fully, but he caught the shift in your posture—the hesitation.

Zuko exhaled through his nose, quieter this time. “This started after what I said about Tagah.”

A beat.

“…Right?”

The way your shoulders stiffened was answer enough.

He frowned, not irritated—focused. Working through it.

“I said he was attractive,” Zuko continued, tone flattening slightly as though restating it might reveal the problem. “Which he is. Structurally, at least.” A faint tilt of his head. “I didn’t think that would be… controversial.”

You turned then, not fully meeting his eyes at first, but enough.

Zuko watched you carefully. “You’re not upset,” he said slowly. “You’re… thinking. Too much.”

A small, almost imperceptible shift—confirmation.

“About what?”

Silence.

He waited.

He always did.

Then, quieter now, more deliberate, “You’re wondering if I notice that kind of thing in general.”

Another pause.

“And whether that includes you.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed slightly, not in confusion now—but recognition. He stepped a fraction closer, the distance narrowing without pressure.

“…You could have just asked,” he said.

You didn’t. Not directly. But the question was there anyway—hesitant, edged with something you clearly didn’t want to name.

Zuko studied you for a moment longer, then answered it anyway.

“Yes.”

The word came easily. Too easily.

“When we first met,” he added, unprompted, gaze steady. “I noticed.”