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Jet hates tea. Hates it. More than anything.
It’s just weird soup with flowers in it, basically. He could talk about this for hours, and probably has by now, judging by the way Smellerbee rolls her eyes whenever anybody mentions it.
So, yeah. Jet hates tea. It’s one of his many ideals. No one can deny that.
So what if he keeps sneaking off to sit around and do nothing at the Pao Family Tea House? It’s called having a hobby.
Some would argue that staring at some random teenager all day is a fucking weird hobby, but here’s the thing: This kid also hates tea.
Totally normal. Jet considers it an admirable trait.
But, this kid works at a tea shop. It just seems like the kind of thing that would stop someone from getting a job at a tea shop, is all. He just can’t wrap his head around it. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to figure out what the deal is.
“And you’re sure you don’t think he’s hot or something?” Smellerbee asks as soon as Jet pauses. He’s been explaining this all for what feels like the one millionth time, and she, quite frankly, sounds bored.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Jet snaps, even though, now that she points it out, he’s not actually all that sure.
Jet has never seen Tea-Kid outside of the tea shop, or wearing anything other than green, really, (which is sort of standard in the Earth Kingdom, but still, it’s the principle of the thing), and he has a huge scar on one side, and he’s got those brown eyes that sort of turn gold if the light hits them, and-
Okay. Sure. Fine. Jet thinks Tea-Kid is cute. Doesn’t change the fact that Tea-Kid is still weird.
Smellerbee doesn’t look convinced. “Right,” she says, “Look, whatever makes you feel better.”
Even Longshot snorts at that. Jet turns just far enough to glare at him from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t say anything.
“You’re both imagining things,” Jet says, ignoring how his voice sort of wavers near the end.
“Mmhmm,” Smellerbee hums, and Jet’s sort of grateful when she doesn’t push the topic any further.
____
Jet goes to the tea house the next day, and does not tell either of his friends that he is leaving. He tells himself that it’s because he wants to be subtle. If he’s going to stalk somebody, he’s going to do it right.
It’s busy, which Jet is learning is a common occurrence. Plenty of old women playing Pai Sho and kids clinging to their parent’s legs hoping to get a treat for good behavior. There’s a group of teenage girls chittering in the back corner, but Jet walks right past them to his usual table, crammed as far to the side as possible.
It’s almost unfortunate he considers it ‘his table,’ especially since he’s only ever been by two or three times. He’s only ever ordered water, which seems to irritate the waiter.
The waiter. Tea-Kid . Who hates tea.
Smellerbee theorizes that Jet’s just bored now that they’re safe in Ba Sing Se, with no group of kids to lead. She probably has a point. Not that Jet would ever tell her.
Tea-Kid walks out from the back of the shop, and his face falls as soon as he spots Jet.
“Hey,” Jet leans onto the table. Tea-Kid looks like he wants to forget all about customer service and kick Jet out.
“Are you going to get more than water this time?” Tea-Kid asks, looking a little past Jet’s shoulder.
This newfound revelation that Tea-Kid is cute might be an issue, Jet realizes, because as soon as Tea-Kid asks, Jet responds “I don’t know. Could go for your name.”
“I-” Tea-Kid sputters, “ What? ”
“Your name, ” Jet says again. “Or did you forget it or something?” Tea-Kid is still stammering and spitting and just in general freaking out, so Jet sighs. “Or not. Just get me something, I don’t really care what.”
Tea-Kid disappears into the back of the shop again, still red-faced and confused, leaving Jet to feel rather pleased with himself. He’d been told in the past that the ‘be sort of mean to someone’ method of flirting was ‘very teenage boy’ of him, but he never particularly cared.
Maybe five minutes have gone by when Tea-Kid returns. He’s got a few cups on his tray, definitely more than Jet ordered, which is briefly confusing, until Tea-Kid slams one cup down onto Jet’s table and stalks off with the rest.
The tea in the cup looks.
Anticlimactic.
Just green-brown water. Smells weird, too. He doesn’t think he’ll drink it, mostly because he hates tea, but also because it would piss off Tea-Kid. Jet sits there staring down into the cup when someone clears their throat somewhere above him.
Jet glances up. It’s Tea-Kid. He looks slightly less mad than before, but barely.
“Can I help you?” Jet asks.
“Why’d you order it if you weren’t going to drink it?”
Jet shrugs. “Never been a fan of tea,” he says, “It’s just, you know, hot leaf juice, or something.”
Tea-Kid blanks at that, but Jet notices the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Someone else agrees with me, then.”
“You work at a tea shop,” Jet points out, as though Tea-Kid could’ve forgotten.
“Not my idea,” Tea-Kid mutters, and then someone in the back of the shop shouts and Tea-Kid rushes off through the door again.
Jet sits there for another ten minutes, hoping that Tea-Kid will come back out and be forced by the laws of customer service to keep interacting with Jet. His patience is eventually rewarded when Tea-Kid comes back out and drops off more drinks.
He stops next to Jet’s table, “Are you done?”
Jet glances outside. He’s probably been gone for an hour by now. “Yeah, actually. How much?”
Tea-Kid gives Jet an amount, and Jet sticks his hand deep into his pocket to find the coins.
“Lee,” says Tea-Kid.
“Huh?”
“My name,” he says. “You asked, earlier. And you hate tea as much as I do,” he adds, as though that explains why he’s telling Jet.
Jet grins. “Alright, then, Lee . I’ll see you around?”
Lee turns incredibly red, and doesn’t respond, going all straight-backed and stiff before running to the safety of the back.
____
Jet learns that irritating Lee is probably the most entertaining thing on the planet. He doesn’t spend much time doing anything else, even if it annoys Smellerbee. At least Longshot thinks it’s funny. Jet’s seen him almost smile one too many times while Smellerbee is telling Jet off.
“He’s just some random teenager,” she’s telling him, and Jet has to stop himself from sighing. “You said it yourself, we’re trying to lay low. I don’t think bullying some kid is the way to do it.”
“I’m not b ullying him,” Jet snaps. “We’re. Friends, I guess.”
Smellerbee raises her eyebrow.
Yeah. That’s right, Jet thinks. “I’ve made a friend, Smellerbee, honestly, you should be happy for me.”
“Hm.” She’s still looking at him like he’s crazy. “Fine, then. If you’re friends.”
____
After another two weeks, Lee doesn’t even react to seeing Jet anymore, let alone force him to at least pretend like he’s a normal customer.
Jet stands near the counter most days, chatting with Lee whenever the shop is empty enough. His spot is in the way, though, which they learn after Lee bumps right into him one too many times.
Lee grabs Jet by the shoulders and drags him through the door to the back of the shop. It’s smaller than he thought it would be, but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, because Lee is pushing him down onto a short little stool.
“Just,” Lee sighs, “ Sit here. If I have to remake anybody’s drinks again, I’m going to lose it.”
“Okay,” Jet replies easily. “Works for me.”
Lee pauses in the doorway for a moment, giving Jet a funny look that he can’t even begin to decipher, before going back out into the shop.
There’s a door in the back that Jet didn’t know about, leading right into the alley next to the shop. That’s good to know, in case he ever wants to come bother Lee without going through the rest of the shop.
The door is pushed open by an old man that Jet assumes is the mysterious ‘Uncle’ Lee's mentioned before. Uncle closes the door and gives Jet a very knowing smile.
“You must be my nephew’s friend,” he says, and there’s a strange sort of emphasis on the word ‘friend’ that makes Jet very nervous.
“Uh,” Jet nods, feeling more than a little stupid, for some reason. “Yeah.”
Uncle doesn’t say anything else, instead laughing quietly to himself, and disappearing back out the side door.
Did.
Did he just meet the parents?
____
Jet was right. The side door does come in handy, especially for when Jet wants to wait out there and surprise Lee in the mornings.
Smellerbee thinks he’s a weirdo. Jet thinks he’s opportunistic.
“I really wish you’d stop appearing places,” Lee says one morning. “It’s strange and off putting.”
“You’re still friends with me,” Jet points out. “Can’t be that off putting.”
Lee does that funny thing where he turns all red and stiff. “I- Wha- You-”
Jet can’t keep himself from laughing at that, and the longer it goes on, the more frustrated Lee seems to be getting. “For an Earth Kingdom refugee,” Jet says, catching his breath, “You’re severely unsocialized.”
“You’re awful.” Lee's voice sounds a little strained, but that could just be all the stammering from earlier. “The worst, actually, and I never want to see you again.”
Jet manages a straight face for one, long second before he starts laughing again.
____
Jet’s crush on Lee is escalating. Quickly, too.
It’s terrible.
Jet sees Lee more than Smellerbee or Longshot most days, and he honestly can’t even find it in himself to feel bad about it. The three of them have been through a lot, they’ll all snap back together eventually, and it’s not like the other two don’t have their own shit to get up to.
“Sounds like you guys are good friends,” Lee says, when Jet pauses in his explanation. That’s another new and strange thing- Jet can talk to Lee.
Not in a way that he can’t talk to his other friends, but considering he’s known them for what feels like forever, and he’s only known Lee for like, a month, it’s kind of scary.
“I dunno,” Jet shrugs. “It’s just different, I guess.”
Lee's awkward, Jet knows by now. He often doesn’t know the right thing to say, or he does the wrong thing, and sometimes he’s overly formal in a way that sort of freaks Jet out, because it makes him wonder where Lee was that taught him to act like that. Lee is awkward, so Jet doesn’t take it personally when Lee doesn’t reply to what he had said.
“Do you have any other friends?” Jet asks, and hopes it doesn’t come out accusingly.
Lee blinks for a moment like he wasn’t expecting the question. “A couple,” he says eventually, sounding almost unsure. “I haven’t seen them in-” he stops and then says, “It’s been a long time, anyway.”
“Not in Ba Sing Se, then?”
Lee thinks this is funny, for some reason. “ Definitely not. I knew them before,” and then he waves with his hand in a gesture that Jet understands. Before Ba Sing Se. Before whatever made him and his uncle run. Before whatever had probably given him that scar.
“Yeah,” Jet says, not really in response to anything Lee had said, but more as an acknowledgment.
“I have you, though,” Lee adds after a moment, face sort of red.
Jet grins. “Yeah,” he says, “You do.”
____
He’d ended up being right about Smellerbee and Longshot. They were stuck with each other for forever, that much was clear. A few weeks of relative independence wasn’t going to change that.
Of course the one time they can all hang out the three of them, Jet has to nearly start a fight.
The other group of teenagers are on the opposite side of the street. There are four of them, which could be an issue, except that none of them really look interested except for the one that had said something in the first place.
Smellerbee is tugging on his sleeve, “Jet, c’mon. It wasn’t a big deal.” But it was a big deal, wasn’t it? Because this random, angry looking kid had called Longshot stupid and whispered something to his friend about Smellerbee, and Jet hasn’t had a chance to blow off some steam in a while.
There’s a taller girl, standing at the back of the other group. She’s picking at her nails, very pointedly avoiding eye contact. The others are all acting similarly. Very clearly uninterested.
The one in the front, though.
Smellerbee pulls on his arm again, harder this time. “No, Jet. I’m serious. We aren’t doing this, come on,” she says, and then gives one big final pull that knocks him off balance enough so that she can drag him away.
The other boy looks like he might try and go after them, but then his own friends are tugging him along, and then the crowd fills back in, and then he’s gone.
___
Jet’s just come through the side door at the tea house when Lee walks through the door out to the shop and walks right into him.
Lee almost slips and falls, but then Jet grabs his arms, and Lee twists his hands around to grab Jet’s wrists to steady himself, and then they’re faces are inches apart, just staring at each other.
Lee's really close.
“Oh, uh,” Lee says after too much time has passed, forced and awkward, before he straightens himself up and brushes off his apron.
Jet runs a hand through his hair, and hopes his face isn’t as red as he thinks it is. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t see you coming.”
“Whatever,” Lee is staring at Jet with a weird look. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Jet does worry about it, actually. For the rest of the day.
____
The next time Jet runs into the kid, they’re both alone. Jet doesn’t want to fight him this time, and actually thinks his plan to act like he’d never even noticed the other boy was there is quite good. It’s not his fault that the other boy didn’t get the memo.
“Hey,” he says, and Jet groans. “Where are your other two idiots?”
Jet can handle someone calling his friends idiots. There’s some truth to it, after all. “Can we do this some other time?” Jet asks, deadly serious.
The boy doesn’t notice, of course. “No.”
This kid is just another stupid teenage boy who wants to punch something. Jet gets it, he really does. What he doesn’t get is why it has to be his problem.
Jet knows he could run. Find somewhere to hide and avoid the whole situation. It’d be humiliating, sure, but at least he’d save his own ass. Unfortunately, Jet also knows that he’s too much of a prideful little shit to do that.
The fight is quick. Jet’s not particularly invested, and it’s not like he’s made a habit of carrying his swords around with him everywhere.
Jet looks away from the other boy for a half second, enough to make sure the space behind him is clear, and when he looks back, he sees a fist right in front of his face, and then nothing.
____
The first thing Jet thinks to do is find Lee. The growing crowd must’ve scared off the other boy, because he’s long gone by the time Jet can form a coherent thought.
He doesn’t think he got knocked out, but if he’s being honest, he’s not really sure.
Jet pokes a little gingerly at his nose, and the sensation is anything but pleasant, so he decides that he just won’t do that anymore until he figures out what’s wrong.
The Pao Family Tea House is busy, as it normally is, especially in the middle of the week, and Jet stumbles into the little alley that he and Lee had been in before. Lee will come out eventually, and then he’ll tell Jet he’s stupid, and then.
Jet’s not actually sure about what would probably happen after that. He doesn’t really care. Getting punched in the face does wonders for a person’s decision making skills.
Five or ten minutes go by when the side door opens and Lee walks out into the alley, immediately leaning against the wall next to the door, sighing. He looks tired.
Jet makes a coughing noise into his hand, and that makes his face feel worse, so he follows it with a groan.
Lee looks up. “What-” he starts, cocks his head a bit, and then starts again, “What are you doing? ”
“Oh, you know,” Jet waves his hand in the air. Judging by the look on Lee's face, he does not know. “Just figured I’d come say hi.” He’s a little dizzy, and his face feels weird, and Lee's looking at him like he’s insane. “Hi.”
“Is your nose broken?” Lee says suddenly, apparently having just noticed.
Jet sort of forgot about that. “Uh,” he says, “It’s not not broken.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” Jet swipes a hand under his nose, and sure enough, it comes back red. “Huh. Guess I am.”
Lee looks very much like he has no idea what to do. “Should… should I go and find your friends?”
The idea of Smellerbee chewing him out gives Jet a preemptive headache. Or maybe his head already hurts. He can’t really tell. “No,” he says eventually. “I think I’ll just hang out back here and wait until your shift’s over.”
“Your nose is broken,” Lee says again, sounding more than a little helpless.
“You keep reminding me,” Jet replies, feeling slightly irritated, “It’s not like I can get myself un-punched.”
“No, that’s-” Lee sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, “I know that, my point is that I’m not gonna let you just sit out here for an hour with a broken nose. It’s going to start hurting soon, if it doesn’t already.”
As if on cue, Jet’s face suddenly hurts. A lot, actually. He’s been breathing out of his mouth for a little while now, but he thinks that if he tries to breathe through anything else, he might die. Maybe. Do people die from broken noses?
Lee's still staring at him. “Go serve tea, Tea-Kid,” Jet tries to seem cool and bored. “I’ll just wait here.”
“You’re being an idiot,” Lee says, but he does turn around and walk back into the shop, so Jet considers that to be a win.
Less of a win is when Lee comes back outside almost immediately, holding a box under one arm. He looks mildly annoyed, if Jet squints, but squinting somehow makes his face hurt even more, so he decides that he’ll deal with whether or not he’s pissed Lee off later.
Lee shoves a wet rag into Jet’s hand. “Clean up your face. I’d do it, but I don’t know where it hurts.”
“My nose hurts,” Jet says, and is only slightly embarrassed when he hears how miserable he sounds.
“Thanks,” Lee sounds sarcastic. “Wouldn’t have guessed.”
The rag had been sort of gross looking before, but it’s pretty solidly disgusting after Jet wipes his nose off on it. “That’s. A lot more blood than I thought there would be.” Not to mention that it’s still bleeding. It’s slowed down mostly, but Jet has to keep wiping at it.
“You missed some,” Lee says, only looking up for a second. “Left side.”
‘Left side’ isn’t very useful, Jet wants to say, but his head still feels sort of funny, and Lee already seems a little on edge, so he keeps it to himself. There’s a sort of clean corner left on the rag, so he rubs at his left cheek a little wildly. “Did I get it?” he asks.
Lee glances up again and frowns. “No,” he says before he licks his thumb and reaches up to deal with the spot himself.
Jet’s not really sure how he’s supposed to deal with Lee's hand on his face, but it’s over just as quickly as it started, so he tries not to seem too disappointed.
“Thanks,” Jet mumbles. The adrenaline of someone trying to smash his face in must be wearing off, because he’s very aware of his current situation. His cheek feels warm where Lee had touched it, and Lee's still wearing his apron, because Jet practically jumped him while he was on his break, and Jet’s face fucking hurts .
He’d never broken his nose before. Jet had seen it happen, of course, but that comes with the title of ‘delinquent teenager who hangs around in the forest with swords’ so it had never been particularly memorable.
Something about having his own nose broken is more interesting. Especially since the guy who he’d been maybe crushing on for weeks is the one dealing with it.
Jet is snapped out of his thoughts by the realization that Lee has been staring at him. For a while now.
“Uh,” Jet says right before Lee's got his finger on Jet’s nose. It’s not even hard, barely even any pressure, but Jet still yelps and bats Lee's hand away. “ Fuck. ”
Lee's face is a little red. “Oh, uh. Sorry.” He points on his own nose instead. “It’s all bent, is all.”
Oh. Fuck. Jet was sort of hoping he could get this all sorted, and keep Smellerbee and Longshot from ever finding out. “Of course it is,” Jet groans. “Now my good looks are ruined forever,” he adds, because there’s nothing else to say.
“You look basically the same,” Lee replies, and Jet tries not to react too much to the fact that Lee didn’t disagree with the ‘good looks’ part of that. “I’m going to get you something cold. It should make it stop hurting for at least a bit.”
“Okay,” Jet says, even though Lee's already gone back inside. His head still feels funny, even without the adrenaline. Something about this entire situation is admittedly pretty hilarious. No one can ever find out.
Lee comes back out of the door and walks right up to Jet, which is exciting and terrifying all at once, but then Lee holds up another rag, this time soaked in freezing cold water, and lightly pushes it onto Jet’s nose.
And then Lee's grabbing Jet’s hand and moving it to hold the rag on his own, and Jet has never been more grateful for the fact that Lee is an unobservant idiot, because he knows he’s blushing.
“Is that any better?”
Jet nods as well as he can. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay,” Lee says.
The silence drags on.
The water from the rag is dripping all over Jet’s hand. His hand is cold, but at least his nose is numb. Lee is still staring at Jet, with the expression of someone trying to make a decision. Jet’s not sure he likes it.
“Are you okay?” Jet asks eventually.
“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Lee replies, clearly confused as to why Jet is asking. “I’m not the one who got my nose broken.”
“You keep mentioning that.”
Lee glares. “ You keep acting like it’s fine.”
Jet stands up and tries not to wince at the way his head sort of spins. “Look, aside from the whole, you know, broken thing, I am fine.”
Lee rolls his eyes. “ Please, ” and he sounds angrier than Jet’s heard him in a while. “You can stop acting like you’re so cool for one minute, it won’t kill you.”
“I do not act like that,” Jet snaps, even though he definitely does, “I don’t see why you’re so worried about it, anyway.” Jet’s not really sure what they’re fighting about all of a sudden. But Lee is snapping something right back, and Jet notices that the two of them are actually quite close to each other.
Like. Really close.
“You’re being ridiculous, honestly,” Lee says, “I don’t know what your-” and then falters. Jet thinks that Lee's just realized the same thing.
Lee's got really nice eyes , Jet thinks to himself, and then he can’t think at all, because Lee takes a deep breath and then Jet can’t stop himself from leaning in the last two inches or so.
Jet’s never been happier that he’s a fairly average height. Any taller and this whole kissing thing would’ve been more difficult.
Lee takes a step forward so they’re closer, and that accidentally bumps their noses together.
“ Fuck,” Jet yells, because he sort of forgot his nose was broken. “Ow, shit, fuck, damn,” he starts listing every single curse he’s ever heard because shit his nose fucking HURTS.
“Oh shit ,” Lee says and keeps repeating, while he grabs the rag that Jet had dropped and runs inside. When he comes back he sticks another cold rag on Jet’s face and then they’re standing there in almost silence, aside from Jet’s hissing.
Lee starts laughing, and Jet realizes he’s never seen Lee really laugh before. It’s a loud thing that changes his entire face.
“ What is so funny,” Jet demands. His face is still warm and his nose is on fire and he’s sort of a mess because these past two minutes have been a lot.
“Nothing,” Lee manages eventually, but doesn’t say anything else.
Jet’s nose still hurts, but it’s calmed down enough that he can move the rag and give Lee a glare. “I don’t even know why I like you,” he says, without much venom.
Lee goes red. “Really?”
“I don’t know if you remember the past minute or so,” Jet says slowly. “But I’m pretty sure there was that part where I kissed you.”
“Oh.” Lee’s mouth twitches up. “Yeah.”
Jet rolls his eyes. “I’d do it again if it wasn’t for the broken nose,” and then since Lee still looks unsure, “Just for future reference.”
Lee nods stiffly, and then someone shouts his name from inside the tea house. He stops at the door. “You should come sit inside. Your nose is still broken, and you can keep me company.”
“Okay,” Jet grins. “Works for me.”