Phew. So I was listening to "How" by Maroon 5 the entire time I wrote this. Go listen to that song. It's fantastic. It has such raw emotion that just... yeah. I was trying to capture the feeling of that song in this fic. You tell me how successful I was. This is that piece that pretty much every Kataang writer has to eventually write: a Kataangsty one-shot about that infamous scene in The Ember Island Players.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to expand on this, so I decided to post it as is. It is tentatively marked as completed, but if there is demand for more (and if I can come up with something decent to write), I may add. So yeah, I love feedback.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or its characters. Bryke/Nickelodeon does. I just own this thing you're about to read.

Many thanks to LexiPlexi, my beta. :D

For all the happiness that love was said to bring to one's life, there were days that he felt like it could kill him.

Today in particular was one of them. As Aang stood on the balcony at the theatre on Ember Island, only seconds after Katara had stormed away, head pressed to the railing, he replayed the scene over and over in his head. What just happened?

'I screwed up, that's what happened.'

He lifted his head and dropped it back onto the railing a couple of times, punishing himself for his idiocy. Why did he go and kiss her right after she said she was confused? What was that supposed to accomplish anyway?

He groaned as he quickly recognized the familiar wrenching feeling in his chest, his heart twisting itself into knots, trying to survive loving her without having her. He felt this every time he snapped back from a blissful daydream. He felt it every time he watched her waterbend, every time she touched him, every time she smiled and all he could think about were those stunning eyes and those gorgeous lips how he wanted nothing more than to capture them with his own… The longing alone could make him wince in pain. He loved her. Everything about her. He needed her. He didn't know when his childlike crush had grown into such utter adoration and devotion and desire and pain, but he could no longer remember what it was like not to love her.

But now he may have just sealed his fate.

She was clearly unhappy with the kiss, and he couldn't blame her. He supposed he thought… if she got swept up in the moment her confusion would melt away… or something. 'Stupid…' He should've listened to her instead of being so… selfish.

And now what?

He played out in his mind what he wanted to do. He wanted to chase her back into the theatre and tell her the complete and unfiltered truth, paying no mind to who heard. Tell her that he loved her, that he always would, that even if she continued to reject him and it felt every day like she was taking his heart apart piece by piece, he wouldn't stop. Doing that would be… so liberating.

But who was he kidding? If a kiss scared her off that much, she'd probably head for the hills and never look back if he told her all of that. Even if… even if she did love him back.

For now, he was stuck with this. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to regain some level of composure. He wouldn't be able to pretend all was fine and dandy, but "okay" was something to strive for.

Confused.

She slid down the wall to sit on the floor as soon as she was out of sight of the crowd. She needed a couple of minutes to herself before heading back to the play. She sighed heavily and let her shoulders slump forward, her fingers moving back up to touch the lips that still tingled from Aang's kiss only moments before. To say that she was confused would be a colossal understatement. She was… much too young to be in love, so certainly Aang was too.

Then what in the world was this?

She couldn't deny that there had always been moments when she could almost think of him… that way. Lately though, something had shifted. Everything felt different to her. She would hug him for some reason or another and a part of her brain would protest when she let him go. He would catch her eye and smile at her and her heart would flutter while she tried to quiet it down and write it off as nothing.

'I am not in love with him.'

This had, somehow, become her mantra over the last few months. She had repeated it more times than she could count. But what she never considered until now was… why should she need to keep reminding herself of it if it was actually true?

"I can't be falling in love with him…" she whispered. Saying it out loud only made it more frightening. With each passing day she knew that Aang was coming closer to having to face the Fire Lord. It was what he had been preparing for since the day she met him… but she still wasn't sure he was ready. She had always believed in Aang, but she also didn't want to see him go off to fight Ozai unprepared and not…

No, she couldn't even think that. This was Aang. He survived 100 years in an iceberg; he has to survive this. 'He has to.'

But, if she was going to be honest with herself, that fear was what kept her from falling in love with him. She reached up to her neck, out of habit, forgetting that she wasn't wearing her mother's necklace. Ever since she had died, Katara couldn't shake her fear of losing those she loved. She couldn't love Aang because she wouldn't be able to stand it if… things took a turn for the worse. When she almost lost him in Ba Sing Se… she'd been a nervous wreck until he woke up.

She just… she couldn't think about this now. The war, it was… too much to handle. There wasn't time to fall in love with her best friend. She shook her head and stood up, trying to appear as if nothing had happened, and walked back into the theater.