𝑺𝑬𝑬𝑫 𝑶𝑭 𝑰𝑪𝑯𝑶𝑹 •𝒃𝒙𝒃•

21 ~ melancholia

AN: Surprise, surprise, the queen is back.

There was hope before. Just a tiny flicker against the wind. With the heart of a child, desperate for warmth, he had reached out, fingers extended. And in that moment, Zuko had a choice of cruelty or kindness; it took no time at all for him to decide.

How was it that he saw suffering and chose to make it all the worse?

Betrayal was a conscious choice for cold indifference, to take a personal gain instead of a loss that would have saved the other. Zuko made himself beyond saving, even the littlest parts. It was his choice. His crossroad. His destiny.

And Guren was left to pick up the pieces.

How many times was his heart meant to break? Be it out of betrayal, out of sadness, or out of this horrid thing he found out was love. How many times? Was there even an answer? Was he supposed to find one himself, while trapped between four walls he couldn't scale? Once again his emotions would turn jagged and his insides tight. He'd wait, wide eyed, heart stuck in his mouth, hoping for a slither of something, but the door would remain shut and nothing would change.

He'd swallow the pain of that realisation, eat it up in his stomach, and hope for it to disappear. It didn't. It never did before. All it did was turn into anger, only for bitterness to follow suit. It tended to linger more, bitterness, than anything else.

Yet, at the end of the day, everything would become nothing.

Over and over and over and over again, he'd go through this cycle. One thing after another, and end up at the same empty feeling of loss. What did he lose now? He didn't lose anything. There was nothing to lose to begin with, right? This thing he named love was a mistake. It was something that arose due to the situation, nothing more, nothing less.

A past he wanted to forget, yet reached out for with open arms. A stupid, stupid mistake, and he paid the price for it. A price that may have been too high.

Aang.

Over and over and over and over again, Guren would visit him. He'd walk into the darkened room with hesitant steps and with hope in his heart, yet walk out feeling heavier than ever, for Aang was far too still and far too pale and far too silent. Those were the things Guren never would've associated with him. Things that never seemed possible.

Aang, the Avatar meant to save everyone, was just a boy in the end. A boy Guren failed to protect for he chased after a past he was meant to forget. A past he ran from. A past he...regretted.

A past he wished he could've changed.

But that was not how the world worked. The things you choose not to do end up as regrets. The words you choose not to say end up as regrets. The actions you do not take end up as regrets.

Hesitation led to regret.

Should he...not hesitate anymore?

_

He remembered how it was before, when they were children, unaware of what went on behind closed doors. While Azula had her lessons, Zuko, inevitably, had Guren. They'd wait for her to finish, for hours at a time, passing time together while doing anything to speed up the process. They'd sit at the pond in the palace and feed the turtle duck family. They'd play catch which Guren would always win. He had a thing for underhanded methods like climbing up a tree or scaling the side of a wall.

Zuko could never catch him, yet Guren ended up getting caught in the end, years down the line.

_

He was him one day, quietly sitting in the courtyard with paper spread around him. The white covered the vibrant grass and blooming flowers as if it were always there.