Chapter Text
There's a junkyard neighboring Uncle's new place, ugly silhouettes of crushed-up cars and scrap piles blocking the sunset above the wooden privacy fence. Weeds cover the rotting wood, spilling out of the seams between boards. There's a perfect view of it from Zuko's second-story bedroom window; how lucky, he thinks, to live somewhere that so perfectly encompasses everything he feels about this new life.
"Fresh start, my ass," he mutters to himself, pulling up a strand of ivy that turns out to cling to the fence for another twenty feet. The smell of the plant is overpowering, and he chucks it on the growing pile of weeds behind him with disgust. Dirt from the roots sticks to his skin with humidity, making him feel grubby and sticky all over.
He looks at the work he's done so far. Looks at what he still has to do. Sighs. He's going to be here forever.
"If Dad could see me now," he grumbles, smacking a mosquito on his arm and getting back to work. "Proud of me yet, Mom? I haven't forgotten who I am. Not that it's done me any good."
"You know, you shouldn't talk to yourself out loud. People will get the wrong idea."
Zuko looks around. The voice came from behind the fence, but —
"GAH!" he snatches his hand off the wood, staring at the brown eye peering at him through a gap in the fence. It disappears, and a moment later a brown, sunkissed face pops up over the fence, wiry arms propping up a lanky frame wrapped in unseasonable flannel. The boy grins shamelessly, an unlit cigarette between his teeth. His dark eyes watch Zuko from underneath a mop of brown hair.
"Looking like an insane person isn't much of a first impression," he says, which is fucking rich coming from a guy who was just watching Zuko through his fence. "What brings you to the neighborhood, psycho?"
"It's Zuko," Zuko snaps. "And it's none of your business." He turns back to his work, hoping the boy will get the hint and leave him alone.
No such luck. The boy swings his legs, clad in faded blue jeans and a pair of ancient motorcycle boots, over the top of the fence, dropping onto the ground next to Zuko. "I'm Jet."
He says it like Zuko should know who he is. Like he's that important. Zuko used to think that way, before the world showed him exactly how little he mattered.
"You with the old guy who came by last week to check out the house?" Jet asks, dusting off his fingerless leather gloves. Zuko grunts an affirmation, hacking at the base of an ivy stem with a trowel. "He seems nice. Your grandpa or something? Helping him get settled in?"
"Uncle." Zuko throws the tangle of vines on the pile, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I live with him. Are you gonna help out, or what?"
"Afraid I wouldn't be much help." Jet looks down at the pile of weeds. "I'm, uh, allergic."
It's a crap lie, but Zuko's past caring. "Well, I'd like to get this done before it's dark."
"Oh, say no more. I'll get out of your hair," Jet says. "Nice to meet you, Zuko. I'll see you around."
He waves, jaunty and cheerful, and climbs back over the fence. Zuko rolls his eyes. Douchebag. He gets back to work tugging vines off the fence, and tries to ignore the feeling of being watched that lingers even after Jet's footsteps fade out of earshot.
"The fence is cleared off," Zuko announces when Uncle comes in, without looking up from the sink. He's scrubbing the dirt out from under his nails, the water at the bottom of the sink turning browner than it already was from the rust in the pipes.
"Excellent work, Nephew. I'm grateful for the help," Uncle Iroh says, lowering himself into a seat at the table.
"Some weird kid came over from the junkyard next door. Jet," Zuko says.
"Ah. I did not know we had any younger neighbors," Uncle says cheerfully "I hoped you would make some friends here."
Zuko scoffs under his breath. "Right."
"It would do you some good to have company your own age," Uncle goes on. "It's not healthy to be around an old geezer like me all the time."
"Your company is fine." Zuko shuts off the sink, drying his hands on a paper towel since they haven't gotten the linens unpacked yet, and throwing it in the compost bin Uncle dragged with them — For the tea garden, as if they'll have any time for planting. Zuko starts school in a week, and the last thing he wants to deal with in his spare time is more plants.
"Although that is true, I'm sure it would be easier settling in at a new school with someone to show you around."
"I'll think about it," Zuko lies. He will certainly not think about it. "I'm going to bed. Good night, Uncle."
"Good night, Zuko. Rest well."
Zuko rolls his eyes as he climbs the stairs. In this place? Fat chance.
He looks out the window at the junkyard fence. There's no sign of Jet; he must have fucked off home for the night, having had his fill of harassment. Zuko drops onto his mattress, and tries to rest.
It storms that night, tree branches beating against the house until the wee hours. When Zuko gets up in the morning, the weeds he piled up the day before are strewn around the yard. He spends the morning gathering them, and walks to the end of the drive to dump them at the edge of the junkyard. Mercifully, there's no sign of Jet or any other talkative neighbors.
With ample time and nothing to do, he decides to unpack. The linens go in the old white chest of drawers in the corner of the kitchen; the plates and bowls go in the cabinet over the sink. Uncle's favorite tea set is carefully put away in the old-fashioned china cabinet in the dining room. Before long, the place almost looks like you could live in it.
He walks around the yard again, looking for the tree that kept him up half the night. It's a tall, sturdy oak, with a fork in the trunk at about chest height. There's a bird's nest situated in the fork, three perfect blue eggs resting inside. He snaps a picture with his phone.
He also finds a gap in the fence between Uncle's yard and the junkyard. That, he thinks, would explain the weird feeling he got last night, if Jet was still hanging around there. He picks up the fallen board to wedge it back in place. Before he closes the gap, he spots a flash of color on the other side, lying on the dead grass. Propping the board against the fence, he squeezes through the gap to inspect the object.
It's a set of old car keys, he realizes, rusted and bent, on a bright red braided keychain, a cluster of cheap monogram charms hanging off the end. He imagines the driver was probably someone's mom, probably with a ton of kids. There's probably a thirty-year-old minivan somewhere in the junkyard missing its keys.
Zuko fights the urge to pocket the keys, even if no one will miss them. He doesn't need them, and it was his sticky fingers that got him kicked out of his last school — even though it wasn't his fault his teacher had left the office unlocked, the test answers right there — and, honestly, a couple packs of gum and cigarettes from the gas station weren't that big a deal. But he's trying to change, for Uncle Iroh, so he drops the keys back on the ground.
He hears the crunch of gravel as Uncle's car pulls in the driveway, and steps back into the yard, replacing the broken board.
The week goes by quicker than Zuko expects, his time mainly consumed by yard work as he figures out how to work the push-mower in the garage and the weedeater in the decrepit shed out back. He spots Jet once, hanging out on the sidewalk when he's dragging trash to the curb, but he only nods in greeting as Zuko's passing by, before returning to blowing smoke rings at the sky. Zuko's weirdly disappointed; much as he told Uncle he didn't care, he isn't used to the quiet of the suburbs. In their old apartment, you couldn't step out to smoke without the elderly tenants harassing you for a game of checkers or commenting on the weather. Here, people nod from the sidewalk.
Uncle takes him back-to-school shopping after dinner one night, and the day before school starts, Zuko sits with him at the table and helps plant herbs in a small window box. Uncle drives him to school in the early morning; it's pouring rain, hot and muggy, when he climbs out of the car.
"Have a good day at school," Uncle Iroh says.
"Thanks," Zuko replies, holding his hoodie over his head so he won't get drenched. "Be careful driving home."
Uncle smiles. "Of course, Nephew."
He drives off, going a good five miles under the speed limit. Zuko's not exactly worried about him.
He turns to look at the school building, sighing. Here goes nothing.
Zuko's homeroom is on the second floor, with a view of the soggy football field from the window in view of his desk; right at the front of the classroom so he can see the blackboard, and so the teacher — a wizened man named Mr. Jeong — can keep an eye on him.
To his right, a girl named Suki Yokoya, with freckles, big golden hoop earrings and a green muscle shirt, studiously copies paragraphs from the history book. To his left, a boy with dark skin and a ponytail named Sokka Enuaraq folds paper airplanes with his notebook pages — which were already covered in notes when Zuko arrived, five minutes late after he got turned around in the halls. The airplanes are rather good, but Mr. Jeong doesn't seem impressed, giving Sokka a marvelous stink-eye from behind his desk.
"Ahem." Someone taps on Zuko's shoulder from behind; a bright-eyed girl with twin braids — Jin, he thinks her name was — gives him an apologetic look.
"Can I borrow a pencil?" she whispers. "I forgot mine. Sorry."
"It's fine." He hands her his pencil — Uncle sent enough extras with him that he won't miss it. "Here you go."
"Thanks." She smiles, glancing at Mr. Jeong before leaning in. "You're new here, right?"
He nods. "Yeah."
"Song said someone moved in next to the old scrapyard across from her place."
"Yeah, that's me," he says.
"What do you think so far?" she asks, playing with the end of her braid.
"It's nice." He shrugs. "Some weird neighbors."
"Ah, you've met Aunt Wu?"
"No, but there's —"
"Mr. Huo, Ms. Yu, if you cannot contain yourselves I will separate you," Mr. Jeong warns. "Return to your study."
Jin grimaces, pulling her notebook towards herself and flipping it open. Zuko turns around, digging out his spare pencil.
"So you're in the junkyard house?" Suki Yokoya asks him over lunch. For some reason she, Jin, Sokka, and another girl named Song all decided to cluster together at the same table as Zuko. "Song says she saw you moving in."
Song is a pretty girl with big eyes and dark hair in a braid. Out of the four, she's so far the one he's caught looking at his scar the most.
"People say that place is haunted," Suki continues with a grin, shoving a handful of chips in her mouth from the bag of Bugles she brought in, then offering it to Sokka. "Bunch of kids died in some big accident out front of it like, a zillion years ago."
"Ignore her. She tells every new kid their place is haunted," Sokka says, passing the bag on to Song so he can perfect the wings of his paper airplane. "She's full of shit."
"Well, it's creepy for sure," Zuko concedes. "There was this guy hanging around, Jet? He looked about our age. He seemed...weird."
"I don't think I know a Jet," Jin says with a frown. "Maybe he's a senior, though, I don't really know all of them."
Suki grins. "Or maybe you found a real gh-gh-ghooost." She wiggles her fingers in the air, wavering her voice. Zuko rolls his eyes.
"Knock it off, Suki," Sokka says, sharing a look with Zuko like Can you believe this?
Maybe, Zuko thinks, living here won't be so shitty after all.
When the bus drops him off at the house, it's still pouring. In spite of this, he spots Jet coming up the sidewalk, flannel tied around his waist and showing off a baggy black t-shirt. From the look of him, he's unbothered by the rain, his wavy almost-mullet still defying gravity despite being soaked.
Zuko also spots the exact moment Jet spots him, because he grins and flicks his cigarette butt out into the road. Zuko cringes with chagrin; he really didn't want a conversation out in the rain.
"Hey, Psych! School start already?"
"Yeah. Where have you been?" Zuko asks, more accusingly than he means, though Jet doesn't look fazed. "Didn't see you there."
"What, you think a high-society individual such as myself would slum it at a public school?" Jet clutches his heart, mock-offended, and digs another cigarette out of his pocket with the other hand. "I was busy. Didn't have time to get to school. You got a light?"
"Sure." Zuko fishes his lighter out of his pocket. "Busy doing what?"
"Thought you wanted me to fuck off and leave you alone," Jet says, lighting his cigarette, and blows out a cloud of smoke. Any smell is drowned out by the smell of the rain. "Now you're interested in what I'm doing?"
"So only you're allowed to be nosy?" Zuko counters. "Forget this. I'm going home."
"Fuck you too," Jet says, almost pleasantly. "I was just making conversation."
Zuko rolls his eyes. Whatever.
It's not until he gets inside the house that he realizes he didn't get his lighter back. When he looks out the window, Jet's gone already.
"Well, fuck."
School gets easier as he settles in a routine, learns names and room numbers and how to stay on the asshole gym teacher's good side. He still doesn't see Jet in school, but figures Jin was right, and Jet's in some other grade or lesson plan.
He hangs out in the junkyard a little bit on weekends, watching Jet tinker with the engine of a pickup truck that he swears only needs a little spit and polish before it'll run, and becomes somewhat endeared to the cussing and rudeness and the loud, off-key singing that happens when Jet's into his work, like he forgets Zuko is even there. And he's not oblivious to the way Jet looks at him when he is aware of Zuko's presence; it makes him feel a little lightheaded.
(He never thinks to ask for his lighter back. After a while, he doesn't care so much.)
After a while, Zuko starts to feel almost normal about living here.
That is, until October begins, bringing mercifully dry, cool weather and the smells of dying leaves and overripe apples from Aunt Wu's yard.
"Come on, Sokka, are we going to Zuko's Uncle's swanky tea shop, or what?" Suki asks, twisting the strings of her pine-green hoodie around her fingers.
"Hang on," Sokka says, pushing open the door to the school library. "I need to get these books out before fall break, it'll just be a minute."
Suki shares a look with Zuko, rolls her eyes, and follows Sokka inside.
"Come on. When he says 'a minute' he means twenty." She beckons Zuko over to a shelf. "Here, check this out. These old yearbooks are a better history lesson than anything Mr. Jeong teaches."
She picks up the Senior Class of 1975 — Donated by K. Enuaraq yearbook, and opens it to the tawny inside cover, cluttered with black marker signatures like graffiti.
Unlike Mr. Jeong's class, Zuko doesn't have to pretend to look interested as Suki turns the pages to show him the asshole gym teacher's dorky haircut.
"No wonder he's such a dick when his parents sent him to school like that," Zuko murmurs, pulling another book off the shelf. This one's a lot more recent — Junior Class of 2006, to be exact, donated anonymously, and unmarked. He opens it to a random page, expecting similar things to the '75 yearbook; unfortunate haircuts, tacky clothes, braces.
Instead, he finds a familiar face looking back at him — the same curly hair, dark skin, black eyes, pierced ears. He's wearing a plain black Henley and leather jacket in the picture, but it's still, unmistakably, the very same person Zuko spoke to not two days ago when he was taking out the trash.
"Suki?" he says. "What—?"
"Hey guys, I got my books. Let's go," Sokka interrupts, shouldering his bag.
"C'mon." Suki takes the yearbook from Zuko's hands, putting it back in the shelf. "We're gonna miss the bus, and I am not walking, no matter how good your uncle's tea is."
She and Sokka lead the way out of the library, and Zuko follows, trying to act like he's fine and that his understanding of the world didn't just turn on its head.
"Hey," Jet calls, when Zuko gets back to the house. He's back in the flannel today, open to show the t-shirt underneath. When it's not pouring rain, the faded Nirvana logo is a lot more visible. He has a lit cigarette in his hand — no smell, the wisps of smoke vanishing in the air above his head rather than fading away. How did Zuko not realize?
"Hello? Earth to Zuko." Jet waves his hand. "What's eating you?"
Zuko's unable to form a response, so he doesn't. Instead, he goes inside the house, making a beeline for his room.
He opens his laptop on the bed, hesitating over the keyboard. Jesus Christ, what do you Google when you think your maybe-friend has actually been dead since before you were born?
Tentatively, he types in jet andal corvo county obituaries and filters to results before 2009. Nothing comes up. Zero results on FindAGrave either. There's a tentative hope that maybe he's wrong and it's just a bizarre coincidence — the guy would be old enough to have kids of his own by now, god knows Zuko looks enough like his own dad for it to be confusing if he didn't have the scar —
Then he finds a news article. Corvo County Teen Missing. He clicks on it, clicks out of the join for free subscription box, and reads.
When school resumed after the end of fall break on October 16th, teachers were not initially alarmed by the unexcused absence of high school junior Jet Andal in the classrooms. Andal's attendance record was described as "patchy", and him being absent was no cause for concern. However, after two days without Andal's attendance, Corvo High Principal Yukari Yokoya contacted Andal's foster family, and was informed that he had not been present at the house since two days after fall break began. The family have been trying to reach Andal through his cell phone since, but had no luck, and reported him missing to the police department on Friday. No word yet on whether foul play is suspected, but Officer Long Feng at the Corvo County Police Department offered this opinion:
"We see this all the time. A kid that age gets rebellious, decides to run away, realizes how good he has it at home and comes running back. He'll be back in no time."
Anyone who has information on the whereabouts of Jet Andal can contact the police department through the website at -
Zuko closes the article without reading the rest, holding his breath, and searches for any follow-ups. The only thing he finds is an update saying Jet's vehicle was found abandoned in an alley, there had been no further leads, and the case was still open as of December 2006. After that...
After that, nothing but speculation on message boards, and Zuko will be damned before he trusts true crime buffs with anything, but...
He sighs. What other choice does he have? Biting the bullet, he clicks on the top Reddit thread.
r/UnsolvedCrime 5y. ago
u/backupjunebug
Re: Corvo County missing teen Jet Andal, possible connection?
Anyone remember this case from 2006? I went to school with that kid. Always thought it was weird how the cops never really investigated far into it, and how the family didn't really push for anything.
Anyway, I was looking at something unrelated and came across this article that set off some alarm bells. Give it a read.
EDIT: the dumb site has it behind a paywall, and fuck that, so here's the gist - body found in the neighboring county around May 2007, bad condition, foul play, time of death the previous fall. No ID ever made, but the guy was around the same age and height, and some personal effects were found that makes it seem more likely in my mind. I don't know, just thought I'd share in case anyone had thoughts on it. To me, it lines up too well to be coincidence.
Edit 2: to the fucknut that keeps commenting all "b-b-but the cops didn't pursue it as a lead-" I will find you and slam your genitals in a car door. fuck cops and their mishandling of cases involving brown, queer poor kids. That shouldn't even be hard to understand.
Edit 3: muting comments and no longer replying. You people are sick.
Archived post. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.
Zuko scrolls to the comments, scowling at what he finds that hasn't been deleted.
u/ unlqvtu666 3y. ago
Lmao I remember that case too, don't know why you care so much. He wasn't that special.
u/hidenseek 2mo. ago
Some cases don't need to be solved lol, you're thinking too deep about someone who, realistically, OD'd in a back alley.
u/gingerstardust 5y. ago
For fucks sake give it a rest you've been blabbing about this shit since graduation j. the cops did all they could, some people just don't wanna be found. time to move on from your old boy toy. and get a better burner name, there's exactly one june from our grad class.
u/backupjunebug OP 5y. ago
🖕
u/15738393 5y. ago
Give it up. This case was cold as soon as it began. Stop looking for connections where there aren't any; you are not a professional investigator. Do not mess in areas beyond your understanding.
u/bebeabear 1mo. ago
you sound like a cop. L+ratio.u/kaybatgirl 1mo. ago
tell me you're the murderer without telling me you're the murderer
10 more replies
Zuko sighs and shuts the laptop. Looks out the window, and there's Jet, perched on top of that old truck and breathing smoke out into the air. He glances toward Zuko's window, dark eyes lit by the sunset. Zuko looks away.
"Fuck," he breathes out, pushing his laptop away, and stands up, because there's really only one thing he can do now, no matter how little he wants to do it.
He's gonna have to talk to Jet.