Haru + Ty Lee: Mister 'Stache

Mister 'Stache

[For Sunstruck-Nymph]


Haru liked his moustache. It made him feel manly.

He didn't understand why everyone else seemed to think otherwise-and judging from what he'd heard last night, Ty Lee was the most recent as well as the most vocal of the little group of dissenters. And today, he decided as he strode into the open circus-like clearing where she trained, it was time they had a talk about it.

"Ty Lee," he began formally, and the former acrobat spun around with a grin, tossing her red gold-embroidered handkerchief high into the air and nimbly catching the spinning cloth with her toe. "Ty Lee," he repeated after a moment when it seemed like she hadn't heard him. Still he received no response, as she only continued to twist her body into impossible shapes while maintaining her balance and... Spirits, was she flexible.

"Ty Lee!"

"Hold your ostrich-horses, I'm almost done!" she called, flipped in the air and swung off the horizontal pole she'd erected for the purpose, pulling her arms and legs in tight as she tumbled. After about two and a half turns she dropped neatly to the ground, arms outstretched, and with as much precision as a cat landing on its feet.

"Sorry handsome, was in the middle of my routine. You called?" Stretching with her hands behind her head, the lithe Fire Nation girl turned her dazzling smile on him. Haru felt his resolve weaken for a moment, before he recalled himself and stiffened. His manhood was at stake here!

"Ty Lee," he began (for the fourth time), "I wanted to talk to you about some remarks you made during yesterday night's dinner."

"Mm? What remarks?"

"The ones about my facial hair," he answered and added pointedly, "But you knew that, didn't you?"

"Oh, Mister 'Stache?" Ty Lee grinned fondly, and leaned back to do a handstand. "What about him?"

...Him?? Haru struggled not to lose his composure right then and there.

"You said... that you felt sorry for any girl who would go after me while I had that 'yucky hair circle in the middle of my face'. I would like an explanation, as well as an apology."

"Aww, I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's or anything, Haru," she said sympathetically, looking up at him with a sheepish smile. Slightly appeased, Haru nevertheless kept his deeply injured expression in place as Ty Lee got back to her feet, dusting off her palms.

It was then that she added (most unnecessarily, in his opinion): "But it's plain as the hair on your face that Mister 'Stache is leeching away all your luck with the ladies."

"…What?"

"Well, I think you'd look downright pretty without that parasite there," she said matter-of-factly. "I mean, wouldn't you think that it looks kinda affected? You don't really have the face for it, either."

"I do not WANT to look pretty, on the contrary," Haru said jerkily, unsure whether to be more horrified or impressed by her honesty. "The moustache is the ultimate show of masculinity."

"Really?" Ty Lee looked at him with wide eyes, then clapped a hand over her mouth with a muffled giggle. This, under Haru's sullen gaze, quickly escalated to the point where she finally dissolved into helpless, side-clutching laughter.

"Oh, oh gosh… sorry! I'm sorry… but you just sounded so FUNNY saying that!"

"How wonderful that I amuse you," he said with bad grace, feeling the remnants of his dignity fall away into pieces. "But we are wandering off-topic. The point is, the moustache makes others see me as more of a man than if I didn't have it."

"But Haru, you're a man whether you have one or not," Ty Lee said, pointing out the obvious. "Look at Zuko, HE doesn't have a moustache. Neither do Sokka or –"

"People think I am effeminate without it!"

"Well, you kinda look dorky WITH it." Placing her hands on her hips, the brown-haired ex-acrobat looked at him with what seemed like genuine concern. "Haru... do you know what all the other guys have that you don't?"

"…What."

"A girlfriend."

This observation essentially hammered in the final nail sealing the coffin, and Haru staggered back slightly. He couldn't deny it, he realized… mainly because, well, it was true.

"And you're saying that… that, with this mustache-"

He really wished she would stop giving him that half-pitying, doe-eyed look of absolute sincerity. If it weren't for the fact her eyes always sparkled like that, he'd have suspected her of secretly laughing at him.

Haru expelled a deep sigh, and struck the ground with the bottom of his heel. A large rock rose up from the earth immediately, and he sank down on it, burying his face in his hands.

"What can I do? Before, nobody would take me seriously as an adult. And now…"

"Well, you're just going to have to prove them wrong. You don't hafta be so sensitive to the kinds of things other people say, right? I was half-kidding…" Sitting down next to him and drawing her slender calves up as she spoke, Ty Lee patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. Then winced.

"Yikes… you're so tense. No wonder your aura looks like a little raincloud."

Too depressed to think of a proper rejoinder, Haru said nothing.

Just then he thought he registered a series of swift prods, and yelped in shock as the arm closest to her suddenly went slack and fell to his lap.

From that side he saw Ty Lee with both hands in the air, index and middle fingers together like she was about to shoot lightning from them- looking surprised, as well a bit guilty.

"Oops. I think I overdid it… maybe?"

"How did… what did you-?" Haru sputtered incoherently, cradling his arm. Though he could still feel things, it seemed utterly unresponsive to his efforts to move it. "This… you attacked me!"

"What? Oh, well what I was *trying* to do was help you relax… but I think it worked a bit TOO well." She raised his arm gingerly by the wrist, and waved his hand so that it flopped limply back and forth.

Her hand is warm, he realized after a moment. Then he quickly reminded himself that ALL hands were warm, or if not warm, then at least lukewarm depending on the temperature. Although he'd never had quite this experience before…

Ty Lee had pretty, slim-fingered hands, but it was only through touch that he noticed the hardened spots on her palm, calloused by her time grappling with bars and ropes and other gymnastic props. He also noticed a faint pinkish gloss-she paints her nails?-and the slightest suggestion of a flowery, feminine scent. Jasmine, perhaps. He didn't know.

"I have a question for you, Ty Lee," he said aloud, quashing the subsequent urge to try to remember the last time a girl had touched his hand who wasn't his mother. "You're… single?"

Ty Lee looked at him squarely, eyebrows quirked and eyes bright with merriment. "I guess that depends on who's asking."

Haru blushed as he realized how that had sounded, and nearly tripped over his tongue as he hastily tried to correct himself: "Oh I'm not… I mean, I just-"

"It's okay, 'Stachey, I was kidding. And yep, I'm single, but that's more out of choice than anything. Not to mention having to deal with my siblings… my life in the circus… and being Azula's friend… I just haven't found anyone yet who'd want to be my boyfriend. And I've been happy so far without one."

"…Oh." Haru cast his eyes downward in embarrassment, and tried to think of something to say.

"At the same time, it's kinda a shame. I was thinking-" Ty Lee leaned over and traced one of the meticulously trimmed downward curves that framed his mouth with a slender fingertip, looking almost pensive.

"I was just thinking that you'd be pretty dateable, otherwise… if it weren't for that the last guy I remember wearing this kind of style was a creepy old geezer who helped us take Ba Sing Se. Back when me and Mai were, y'know. Bad." She shrugged, and let her hand drop with a lively, teasing smile.

"Just a thought."


FIN.