Zutara Week 2021/ Zutara Smut Week 2021

Day Four: Free Day

A/N This story was inspired by my current job. I work as a tour guide at the Witch History Museum in Salem MA and for the setting of this story, I made an Avatar-ized version of there. The story of Lao Bei Fong is based on the story of Philip English from the Salem Witch Trials (I'd look it up because it contains some god-tier pettiness.)
I imagine Zuko's tour guide uniform looking like his Lee the tea boy outfit and Katara's looking like the dress she wears during the balcony scene.

It was bad enough that Zuko had to miss one break because of a split tour, but now Little Miss Know-It-All was going to make miss him another one.
All Zuko wanted was to get this tour over with, so he could go across the street to Uncle's cafe for an iced coffee, but no, Katara just had to drag out the tour forever, leaving Zuko's half of the group backed up behind her's.
The Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se were a b-list tourist attraction that told the city's history in a series of eleven chintzy mannequin displays. It focused on the darker parts of the city's history, specifically the Dai Lee's purge of "cultural traitors" during the reign of King Kuei I. Zuko was at scene number ten: Lao Bei Fong.
"Now when you walked in here," Zuko said. "I'm sure you were all curious about this man and why he has a dead body in his house." The show area was painted to look like a luxurious home. A male mannequin dressed up as a wealthy merchant from the time of Kuei I stood guard over a corpse wrapped up in the shroud. "This is Lao Bei Fong, the richest merchant in Ba Sing Se. He has the nicest house in the Inner Ring, and he's said to be even wealthier than the Earth King. During the Dai Lee purges, having more money than the king is pretty much asking to get yourself accused of being a cultural traitor, and that's what happened to Lao Bei Fong and his wife, Poppy. Because of their wealth, they could bribe off their jailors to look the other way as they make a run for it. They laid low for a while in Gaoling until everything blew over."
The tale of Lao Bei Fong was typically a crowd favorite. Who wouldn't love a story about someone who gets revenge on the person who wronged them by holding their dead body hostage? But Zuko's half of the tour group didn't seem to know whether or not to pay attention to him or what was going on in the next scene.
Dammit, Katara's half of the group was still at the pirate cove. Shouldn't she be done already? But there she was, entertaining dumb tourists with their dumb tourist questions and guys trying to hit on her. Zuko had to admit that Katara was cute. She looked like a fairy tale princess in the yellow and green traditional hanfu she wore on duty. Still, he was going to strangle her if she didn't shut up already.
Zuko finished up the Lao Bei Fong Scene, and Katara was still going on and on about the pirates of Ba Sing Se. At this point, he would be lucky if he had enough time for a quick bathroom break between this tour and the next.
This was ridiculous. Zuko had to do something.
The skeleton pirate animatronic was a special effect the museum used only when giving special nighttime "Haunted Catacombs" tours during the autumn lunar festival. A tour guide could activate it by pressing a button behind a treasure chest at the entrance to the pirate cove.
Zuko pressed this button.
The lights in the pirate cove flickered. The skeleton's skull began to swivel on its spine. Its jaw fell open, and the cove echoed with drunken laughter.
A baby who's been sleeping peacefully in its mother's arms erupted into a piercing wail. The well-behaved service dog sitting by its owner's feet barked and pulled at its leash.
Katara glared at Zuko. Zuko met her gaze. "Oops," he said.
The skeleton pirate swung around the bottle he was holding and sang an old sea chanty:
     "It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se,
     but the girls in the city, they look so pretty.
      They kiss so sweet.
      You must meet the girls from Ba Sing Se."
A couple wide-eyed toddlers clung to their parents' legs, but everyone else chuckled. A singing skeleton pirate was more funny than scary.
Finally, Zuko stepped in front of the whole tour group. "And that concludes our tour for today," he said. "I hope you enjoyed your visit here at the Crystal Catacombs and will enjoy the rest of your time here in Ba Sing Se."  He opened the door leading out to the gift shop. "Have a wonderful day."
The tour group trickled out the door. A fuming Katara made up the rear.
"You did that on purpose," she said.
Zuko rolled his eyes. "Maybe if you weren't cutting into my break, I wouldn't have had to."
Katara scoffed and followed the tour group into the gift shop. Zuko closed the door behind her. Don't let it hit you on the way out.
Back in the gift shop, Katara and Joo Dee, the manager who smiled so much that her cheeks must ache like hell at the end of the day, were talking by the front desk.
"Do we have a tour?" Zuko asked them.
Katara furrowed her brow. "We're skipping this one," she said. "Now you have an extra-long break. I hope you're happy."
Instead of a half-hour off, he now had a full hour.
"I am. Thanks for asking."
Zuko grabbed his book and wallet from the break room and left. He didn't change out of the wide-sleeved robe and loose pants that made up his tour guide uniform. One of the good things about Ba Sing Se, you could walk around looking like you stepped out of a school production of Oma and Shu.
Uncle looked up from behind the counter when he walked into the Jasmine Dragon Cafe.
"Good afternoon, Uncle," he said.
Uncle smiled. "Your usual black iced coffee?"
Zuko nodded.
"Take a seat and I'll bring it to you."
After finding a comfortable leather armchair by the window, Zuko opened his book.
"Figures you'd be reading Catcher in the Rye."
Zuko looked up from the part where Holden Caufield hires a prostitute simply to talk with her to see Katara standing over him. He rolled his eyes. "Like you're not re-reading Pride and Prejudice or Little Women for the hundreth time."
"My favorite Jane Austen is Northanger Abbey by the way. It's seriously underrated. And I hate Little Women. Jo March fucking sucks. Team Amy all the way."
Uncle came over with Zuko's iced coffee. He also carried a lavender lemonade and a Manju bun.
"Your usual, Miss Katara," he said. "Will you be joining my nephew?"
He winked at Zuko.

A/N I had Katara drink lavender lemonade as a reference to day 4's original prompt: lavender.
I picked Catcher in the Rye for the book Zuko is reading because it was the most pretentious edge lord book I could think of.
Katara's opinions on Pride and Prejudice and Little Women are 100% my own.