Chapter Text
The night Gang stopped trying to sleep, she went to Yue Bay. After an eternity of lying awake, it was only four in the morning. She sluggishly pushed her blanket off and forced herself to sit up, her muscles cramping in protest. Her studio greeted her with the same broken trophies collecting dust on her shelves or shattered on the floor. The same piles of fermenting clothes she meant to wash yesterday—or was it last week? A sink colonised by unwashed dishes from however many days or weeks it had been. She shoved them aside on the stove to find a glass she could rinse. She groaned, bending over to open the fridge, but a sour stench hit her like a fist. Rot. She slammed the door shut. The studio already reeked of stale sheets and sweat; it didn’t need this, too. Instead, she filled her glass with lukewarm tap water, pulled on her shoes and jacket, then left with the door unlocked. What was there to steal anyway? She just needed to escape that tomb most people called her home.
The night air was cold and crisp, thick with a fog that blurred the streetlights to halos. There was a gentle breeze that brushed against her skin. The full moon hung bright above the bay, competing with the city’s lights. Oh, how the waterbenders must be feeling, she thought. Gang walked slowly, her gaze drifting past the rails of the bay. She could just about make out Avatar Aang’s memorial statue and, behind it, the gentle glow from Air Temple Island’s lights. She stopped to take in the view and breathe in the fresh, cool air. It was soothing. Not enough to erase her pain, but just enough to make it bearable—even just for a moment.
After standing in silence for a while, staring at the vast ocean and glowing moon, she heard a sound. It was so subtle that she wasn’t even sure she had heard it. But there it was again. Soft. Muffled. Raw: sniffling. She turned to her left, and a few feet away was a person, seated on the ground with their face hidden in their knees, their shoulders trembling ever so slightly.
On any other night, Gang would have ignored it, but that night was different. She recognised that posture—the way a body folds in on itself after the ground had been torn from its feet. She’d sat like that, too. In her stuffy studio, in the locker room after a particularly harsh defeat, and after…
She walked up to them—to him—and sat next to him. For a moment, silence stretched between the two. She’d never been good with words—that, for certain, hadn’t changed.
“Hey,” she decided to say. “You alright?”
Obviously not, Gang, nice one.
The man lifted his head, resting it on the railing behind him. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he replied, wiping his tears. “It’s just been a day. Well, a night.” He sighed, his breath condensing in the air. When she didn’t answer, he continued. “I, uhm…I got airbending recently. Master Tenzin’s family said it’s because of Harmonic Convergence, whatever that is. Now they want me to practice, and master it, and rebuild the Air Nation, and all that, but what about my life?”
Gang stared back at Air Temple Island. That place had always seemed so mythical to her. How couldn’t it? It was the home of the last Airbenders. The children and grandchildren of Avatar Aang. “What was it like?” she asked. “Your life before this?”
“It was good. Not perfect, but I was happy. I was a chef at Kuang’s. I have a girlfriend—” he paused, rubbing his palm for a moment. “Or rather had a girlfriend, it’s still not clear at this point. I had a nice apartment in a nice neighbourhood. Things were good, you know?”
“It sounds like a nice life,” she said. “I did always love eating at Kuang’s."
“Were you a regular?”
“Not really, but I’d go there on special occasions”, she said.
“Like what?”
“I was a pro-bender,” she told him. “The Earthbender for the Sky Bisons. We’d go there with my team to celebrate victories"
“Were you good?”
“Great,” she smiled weakly. “We were close to the finals, but the Wolf-Bats cheated, as they do," she raised an eyebrow in contempt at the memory.
“That’s impressive!” he said, shifting his position to face her. “Shame about the Wolf-Bats though."
“Yeah, well…look at them now…”
The air remained silent for a moment, the weight of her words settling on the man’s shoulders. “I’d give anything to take their place,” he ended up saying.
“What?” The word came out sharper than she intended.
“Look, I didn’t ask to be an Airbender, I never asked for all this responsibility,” he pulled his knees back against his chest. “This has nothing to do with me. I never wanted all this practice and learning philosophy, and ‘being the leaf’. What on earth does ‘be the leaf’ even mean?"
Gang’s hand clenched into a fist against the ground, reaching for that comforting sensation of her element—soothing, grounding, centring.
Nothing.
She felt nothing.
The silence of her element was deafening, like a phantom pain. She felt helpless. Naked. A lump swelled in her throat as reality slapped her with that reminder.
She took a deep breath, forced the lump down, and finally spoke. “Well, I never asked for my bending to be taken, but here we are."
Silence fell again, thick as the fog, only filled with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The man looked as though he’d summoned a dark spirit. In a way, he had, hadn’t he? Gang’s gaze remained focused on the asphalt. Maybe if she just stared long enough, she could trick herself into feeling that comfort again.
“When?” the man asked.
“Sorry?”
“When did it happen?”
“It was only a few months ago, but it feels like it’s been forever,” she chuckled—hollow and humourless. “I stopped seeing my teammates, my girlfriend can barely stand the sight of me anymore, and I couldn’t tell you when I last saw my family.”
“I’m really sorry about what I said.”
“It’s fine,” she told him. “You couldn’t have known.”
The lump in her throat was still there, despite her best efforts to escape it. She clenched her fist to the point where her nails dug into her palm as she pulled her legs closer to her chest. “This is so stupid,” she sighed, biting the side of her lower lip. “I don’t know why I can’t just get over it already. It’s been months now. Months.”
“Well…You lost your life, didn’t you?” the man weakly replied. “You don’t just get over losing someone.”
Gang sighed. “I guess not.”
The wind blew a little harder for a moment.
“I never asked your name, by the way,” Gang said.
“Haiyan,” he replied.
“Sea Swallow, very funny.”
“Yeah, I guess my parents wanted me to be free and fly with my own two wings. I doubt they knew I’d literally have to learn to fly a glider, though.”
“I suppose not,” Gang said, offering another weak smile in comfort.
“What’s your name?” Haiyan asked.
“Gang. It means strong and reliable, like the Earth. Wherever you walk, you’re supposed to know the Earth is under your feet, supporting your every step.”
“It’s still there, though. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, it’s still there,” Haiyan told her, loosening his grip on his legs.
“Trust me,” she said, sharper than she meant to. “It’s not the same. When you start listening to the element you were given, the wind won’t feel the same as it used to. It probably already doesn’t. You just haven’t noticed it yet. I couldn’t tell you what it’s like for an Airbender, but for me, the Earth always felt… alive? It was like a benevolent presence that followed me. Like when your parents help stabilise you when you’re learning to ride a bike. Always comforting. I always felt safe. But that’s gone now.”
Haiyan lowered his gaze, his cheeks flushing a little in shame. “I never knew bending was so… personal”.
“Most non-benders don’t. A lot of benders forget it, too.”
He fidgeted with the cloth of his yellow sleeve for a moment. Gang heard him take a breath. Then he spoke again. “Do you think maybe you could…teach me?”
Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think you could help me understand all of this bending stuff? Not how to bend air, but maybe just how to listen, like you did?”
She didn’t answer.
“Look,” he started, searching for his words. “None of this Airbender stuff makes any sense to me. I’ve only been able to blast doors down in frustration, and even then, that’s been really inconsistent. But what you said just now? That made sense. More sense than ‘be the leaf’ ever will. So I’m asking you to consider: help me understand.”
Gang didn’t reply at first. She’d never thought she’d be getting pulled back to bending so soon, let alone teaching it. Her loss still felt fresh. She wasn’t ready—she knew she wasn’t ready. But it did feel good. But talking about how it used to feel made her feel…connected again. Not in the same way as before, but it soothed the phantom pain, if only ever so slightly.
“Can I sleep on it?” she asked.
“Of course,” replied Haiyan. “We can meet back here tomorrow at the same time, and you can tell me what you decide then.”
“Alright.”
“I need to head back to Air Temple Island. I’ll be in terrible shape for training tomorrow,” he said, pushing himself off the ground and stretching his back.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night then,” Gang told him, standing up too. “I’m gonna stay here a little longer.”
Haiyan reached a hand out to her. “It was nice to meet you, Gang. Even if you say no tomorrow, talking with you did me a lot of good.”
She shook his hand. “Yeah, this was nice.” She meant it.
Haiyan walked off into the fog. Gang stayed, staring at the bay. The light of the moon no longer taunted—just comforting a little.