Azula ignored her tears; she didn't even notice them. She was too busy pulling her thoughts together to answer Ty Lee's question- to give an answer that was thorough and truthful through-and-through... and exactly the sort of thing that Ty Lee would never believe if she wasn't under the influence of this infernal virus.

"Imagine this. You discover that your boyfriend-" Ugh. Already this was coming out wrong- perhaps in the past she could have used Mai as an example, but obviously that wouldn't do now. "All right, fine, not your boyfriend, but... well, it's the best comparison I can think of at the moment. But imagine that you discover that your boyfriend, whom you care about, only likes you back because of some virus that has addled his brain. In addition to this, you find that this virus is going to wear off in a matter of days. When that happens, he'll suddenly stop caring for you- in fact, he'll start to fear you immensely. And while fear is certainly an extremely useful tool, on some people it just makes things more complicated, and really, sometimes you just want things to be less..." her voice trailed off. She hadn't meant to go off on a tangent.

"I suppose what I'm saying is, wouldn't that make you... well... hurt?"

Knowing Ty Lee, the only thing she would get out of that whole tirade would be Azula comparing herself to her boyfriend. Wonderful.