Chapter Text
tonight the city is glimmered (an august monsoon is heat & wet)
//
All you want to do right now is take a nap.
You’ve had 5:30 am practices for a week, and you’re exhausted—between those and how hard you’re having to work at Calc II, you don’t even want to bother walking back to your dorm when you can just nap in one of the big empty lecture halls they leave unlocked in the Bio building.
Despite the fact that you’re so tired, you really like it here: it’s way bigger than your old school, and your teammates are pretty cool; you’ve made some good friends in your Western Civ class already.
But you are tired, even if it’s a good place to be, and so you heft open the large door silently and almost just go straight to the back of the classroom, but then you’re caught off guard by the sound of someone writing on the blackboard, almost frantically.
You pause in the doorway, and you almost just leave, because you really do kind of want to sleep and you don’t want to interrupt whomever’s working, but then you glance just for a second—your mother’s always said you were naturally curious—and then you’re a little mesmerized, almost immediately: there’s a girl, maybe a few inches taller than you, about your age, scribbling frantically with her left hand.
She’s wearing huge headphones and black cutoff shorts that show a lot of her long legs—stretches of pale skin—and black ankle boots. When she stretches up to write more to—an equation?, you’re not sure—you see a watercolor tattoo of some kind of flower on her ribs through the slit in her maroon muscle tank. She has an undercut and long, shiny, wavy black hair, and—wow.
You’re in a plain blue v-neck from Gap, a pair of denim shorts, and a tan cardigan, your oldest pair of tan TOMS, your brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and you immediately feel a blush creep up to your cheeks.
You really shouldn’t watch her—it’s kind of creepy—but she’s beautiful, and you take a little time to try to understand what’s on the board, which, as far as you can tell, are about four anatomically sketched versions of human hearts and a few arrows and a lot of numbers. She rushes to write everything down, you think, frowning when she smudges a little bit with the outside of her hand, but then she stands back for a few moments, reads over things, and breaks out into a grin, goes back to the board and writes a lot of numbers really quickly. She’s engrossed in her work and you can hear a little tinny noise from her headphones, so you know she can’t hear you, and she definitely hasn’t seen you, and you should really leave now, but you can’t.
And then you can’t help but break into a grin, because she tosses down the chalk and claps her hands once, then actually hops up and down once. You laugh without meaning to, and finally she sort of turns to you, and—oh.
She’s scowling and blushing a little bit, but she has pale green eyes and she’s wearing red lipstick.
She pulls her headphones down to rest along her neck and you step a little further into the lecture hall, and she walks up to you a bit.
“Were you watching me?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh, well”—yes—“I came in here to, uh, do some reading, but then you were working, and I—so, what are you working on?”
Her mouth pulls into a reluctant smile, but then she says, “You wouldn’t understand.”
It makes you bristle. People have judged you for years because of your skin, because of where you come from. “Why do you say that?”
She shakes her head at your tone, eyes wide. “No, I didn’t mean that—I just, no one really is too interested unless you’re getting your PhD in biomedical engineering, which—you’re not in my program, so.” She smiles sincerely. “Although one day, if you want, you could!”
You leave your arms crossed because you’re still not sure if she’s being patronizing or not. “You’re getting your PhD?”
She nods, looks down to fiddle with her watch. “Yeah, I—um, am a little ahead in school.”
She’s shy about it, and you end up grinning. “That’s cool,” you say, and she breathes a little sigh of relief. “Is what you’re working on really that boring?”
She shakes her head. “It’s actually really cool, but—you said you had some reading?”
You scratch your forehead. “Uh, I was coming to take a nap in here, actually,” you admit.
She laughs, and it’s kind of wonderful. “I’m Asami,” she says, sticking out her hand.
It clicks. “Asami, as in, Asami Sato?”
She sighs, takes her hand away from your firm grip, and you frown. “The one and only.”
You can tell she seems sad and uncomfortable, but—really, her dad is like, the richest man in the world.
But: you stick your hand out again. “I’m Korra,” you say.
She smiles gratefully, gives your hand a shake, lingering a little bit. “It’s nice to meet you, Korra.”
“Likewise.”
“Even if you were stalking me.”
You laugh. “I was not.”
She glances down at her watch and then says, “Hey, I have to go soon, sorry.”
You don’t know why you do this, but you say, “I’m pre-vet, and I—you do math, right?”
She nods toward the completely covered boards with a gentle smile. “I do math, yes.”
You rub at the back of your neck. “My schedule’s kind of shitty, but, I could use some help in Calc II, if you—you know, wanted to do that?” You keep talking because she didn’t say yes. “I’m in scholarship, but it’s not, like, a lot of money, so I don’t think I can pay you, and I get it if you’re too busy, because—you’re getting a PhD, and like, you probably have a lot of friends—”
She frowns a little but then she cuts you off, “Korra.”
You take a deep breath while she takes her phone out of her back pocket, opens it, and then hands it to you. “I’m free tomorrow evening, if that works for you.”
You look down and her phone is open to the New Contact screen, and you grin.
You put in your name and number while you say, “Yeah, yes that works for me, yeah, I have practice until six but yeah, any time after that, that works.”
You hand it back to her and she says, “You play soccer, right?”
“Yeah,” you say, “how did you—”
She walks toward her bag and starts gathering a few things, sticks a pair of sunglasses on the top of her head. “I’m not the only one with a small following around here, you know.”
“I don’t—”
She grins. “I’ll text you later. Nice to meet you, Korra.”
She brushes by you. “You too, Asami.”
///
You don’t know why you’re stressing, because you’d only talked to Korra for exactly seven minutes yesterday, and you actually did want to help her with Calc II—you’ve loved Taylor Series since you were thirteen, after all—but you’re kind of lonely sometimes, and you just generally think she might be a cool person. Hopefully.
So you feel a little thrill when your phone buzzes.
Korra (7:42 pm): Hey I’m on my way back to my dorm and then I’ll head to the coffee shop so I’ll see you soon!! :)
You smile and straighten some of the notes you’d laid out on the coffee table in front of you; you have a meticulous but somewhat unorthodox way of saving notes, and these are from when you were fifteen, but you figure they’ll be helpful still—Calc II hasn’t really changed.
Korra lives in the dorms with other athletes, and they’re about ten minutes away from your favorite coffee shop in campus, so you figure she should be here in twelve to fourteen minutes, judging from your calculations. Sometimes you do them for fun when you’re a little nervous or upset; you have since you were six, kind of absentmindedly now, it’s become your habit.
You’re in your favorite black ankle boots and a pair of black skinny jeans, an oversized gray t-shirt that you bunch up around your shoulders, a maroon scarf—you’re by the ocean, so the weather is a little mercurial sometimes, and it’s always better to be prepared.
Korra you put on your headphones again when the six minute mark hits, and you listen aimlessly to some Blackbird Blackbird until fifteen minutes have passed. You’re starting to feel a little sad as another minute ticks by—undergrad in Republic City wasn’t the most enjoyable experience for you, because you were younger than most people, and it was hard to still live at home with your dad and make close friends, and talking about sex a lot with people isn’t your favorite thing to do, mostly because it’s completely boring, so friends weren’t the easiest to come by.
You’re almost about to start picking your stuff up when the door opens and Korra rushes in with a smile.
Her hair is a little damp and it’s long and wavy, and part of it is tucked into a big beanie, and she’s in jeans and a t-shirt, and you think you can see that she has actual abs, which is pretty impressive. Her backpack is hanging open and theres a notebook shoved in there as well as a large textbook, and she plops down on the couch next to you and says, “I’m so sorry that took longer than I meant—I had to take a shower, because I’d just finished practice and—yeah, I didn’t want to gross you out or anything.”
You let out a breath and say, “It’s totally fine, I don’t have other plans tonight. Just math.”
She groans with a little nudge to your shoulder and puts down her textbook on the coffee table with a pout.
“Do you want coffee? Or food or something? Have you eaten dinner?”
She eyes your espresso—you make a mental note to order tea next time, because your heart is beating a little fast—and says, “No, I’m okay, don’t worry about it.”
She seems a little uncomfortable, and you say, “They have really great oat bran muffins, we can share if you want.”
She smiles a little and your chest feels warm. “Oat bran?”
“Yeah, they’re—you know clean eating?”
She throws her head back in a real laugh. “Asami,” she says, “I basically run on pasta and whatever decent-looking meat the cafeteria serves each day.”
You grin and say, “Wait here,” and stand to order a muffin—they actually are really good—and you get Korra some sweet vanilla mocha iced thing your favorite barista, Maribel, recommends. You go sit back down and Korra’s getting out a graphing calculator that has certainly seen better days, so you rifle around in your oversized tote and grab yours too.
“So,” you say, “what are you guys working on?”
She points to some functions in her textbook and actually looks sort of interested. “It’s not that hard,” she says, “it’s just that my class is at 8 am, and my professor kind of talks at the board the whole time and we don’t get to ask questions.”
You laugh. “Math professors.”
Korra smiles and you scoot a little closer so that you can look at her notes.
Maribel brings your muffin and Korra’s drink, and you say, “If you don’t like that, feel free to immediately throw it away.”
She smiles as she puts her lips around the straw and then really smiles when she takes a sip. “That’s awesome.”
You grin. “Good.”
You cut the muffin in half and break off a little bite while Korra turns back to her notes, and then you flip back to a page in your notebook to find some similar examples of yours—because, honestly, this textbook isn’t exactly clear—and Korra looks at your notes for a second before saying, “You do math in pen?”
“Um, yeah.” You break off another bite of muffin and let your hair hide your face, and she looks at you critically for a moment before shoving about half of her portion into her mouth.
“That’s pretty impressive,” she says around half-chewed food.
You smile again—Korra’s an easy person to be with, as it turns out, and it’s nice.
“Also—these muffins are okay, but, Asami, chocolate chip muffins—how are those not your favorites?”
You laugh and shake your head, then point toward and equation. She scoots closer to you and your legs bump.
She doesn’t move away once, and her hands, when she writes in her slightly-messy handwriting in pencil on her graph paper, are rough and calloused, and you wonder where she’s from, why she’s here.
You walk her through a few equations, and then she grins when she gets the fourth perfectly on her own.
“Let’s do another one!” She looks at you enthusiastically.
“See,” you say, “I told you math isn’t that bad.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, you have a lot longer to prove that.”
“Deal.”
She eats another huge bite of muffin and you turn the page.
//
Korra (5:14 am): Hey, thanks for the help again, class was way easier this morning
Asami (7:46 am): not a problem :) i actually do like math
Korra (9:30 am): Weirdo
Korra (9:30 am): Also good morning!!!
Asami (9:31 am): good morning to you too
Korra (10:22 am): And thanks for the coffee and the muffin although I definitely think we need to add some more chocolate chips to your diet
Asami (10:27 am): that’s probably a fair assessment lol
//
You text a lot, and it’s mostly funny stuff and sometimes songs; Asami listens to really interesting music that she sends you, and usually you just listen to whatever’s on the radio, so you like that she thinks of you. You tell her about your other classes, too, and she texts back pretty frequently, and sometimes you worry you’re bothering her, but she always responds, and you’re just glad. You’ve made some other friends, but Asami matters to you a lot.
And then she invites you to lunch later that week—which is good, because you have no idea how to go about this; at your best you’re funny, at your worst your almost painfully awkward—and you have to take a few seconds to compose yourself when you see her.
It’s warm today, sunny and lovely, and she’s sitting on the little outside patio of the restaurant near campus she’d told you to come to, and she’s wearing aviators and the breeze is pushing little bits of her hair around. She looks cool, too, which is something you’ve never really understood how people can do, but part of her head is shaved and she kind of slouches a lot sometimes, and she still looks like she walked out of a shampoo commercial or something. She’s Asami Sato, though, but she’s not like what you’d have ever expected from what you’d known about her. She has a skirt on today, some black floaty thing, and this t-shirt with the arms cut off that shows part of a lacy bra underneath, and you see her tattoo of a chrysanthemum, you think, again.
She grins when she sees you, and you sling your bag down and tug a little on the sleeves of your cardigan; if you actually cared about the fact that you only owned three of them, you might be embarrassed, but you try not to let stuff like that get to you.
“Hi,” she says, then gestures to the plate of food already on the table. “I got us some pita and hummus, if you like that.”
You nod—you’re not about to tell her that you have no idea what hummus is, but at least the pita looks pretty good—and watch as she rips off a little bit of the pita and dips it in the hummus before you do the same.
“And sorry about the short notice,” she says, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. “I was going to guest lecture but the class got cancelled, so I have a few hours to kill.”
You process the fact that she guest lectures, and also the fact that she says it like it’s nothing, and you really like that about her, you think. If you’re telling the truth you really like everything about her you’ve learned so far, but whatever. “That’s okay,” you say, “I don’t have any other classes today, and practice is supposed to be light tonight.”
She smiles. “Awesome.”
You smile and take another bite of hummus. “This is good.”
She nods. “It’s also healthy for you, which, you know, is good.”
You laugh and she pushes a menu in your direction and then picks hers up.
You take a few seconds to glance over her up close while she’s studying it with a look of really focused concentration, and it’s cute. She has another tattoo that you notice just now when she runs a hand through her hair for a second; it’s on the underside of her upper right arm, and all it says is Dear Forgiveness, in pretty, simple font.
You don’t ask—you know not to ask about things like that—and you look down at your menu quickly when she glances up at you. Apparently this is a Greek restaurant, and you’ve never had this before, and Asami seems to sense this.
“You’re not vegetarian, are you?”
You pull a face. “Oh, fuck no.”
She laughs. “You might like the gyros then.” She reaches over and points to a little picture on the menu of something that looks like a substantial amount of meat. “Also, this is my treat, because I asked you. You’ll pay for the next time we go out.”
Your face flushes a little, but you say, “So there’s gonna be a next time?”
Asami actually looks a little flustered, and you grin. “Well—I mean, if you—”
“Next time sounds good, Asami.”
She smiles and slumps back in her chair, and you’re a little disappointed, because she smells like spring the breeze and flowers and a little like smoke, and it was nice.
Your waiter comes and takes your order—Asami gets something that just sounds healthy, and you order the gyros because you hadn’t really even looked over anything else.
When they take your menus away, Asami folds her hands on the top of the table and asks, “So, how was Calc this morning?”
You don’t say anything about the fact that she apparently knows your class schedule. “Well, now that someone’s actually explaining things to me, it’s a lot less awful.”
She laughs and you grin.
“What were you going to lecture, by the way?”
“Um—so, I design hearts, right?”
You nod—it’s one of your favorite things about her.
“So this was for the medical school, just some stuff about advancing technology and engineering and medicine.”
“That’s so cool that you do that.”
She glances down and picks at her nails.
“I mean, like—your dad designs cars and stuff, right?”
She nods and meets your eyes again, and you have to take a deep breath, because something tugs at your stomach when you look at how green hers are.
“So—uh, you could’ve done that, yeah? Inherited the family business and everything?”
She smiles a little—it’s sad; you know sad smiles—and says, “I could’ve, yes. Mechanical engineering and design are quite useful.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She bites her bottom lip and takes a deep breath, then lets it out. “I’m hoping Sato Industries will expand to move onto biomedical technology.”
It’s not not an answer, but you’re pretty sure that’s not at all what she really means. But—“That’s cool,” you say. “You’ll run that, right?”
Her smile reaches her eyes this time. “Yeah, I will.”
“That’s so cool—I mean, I think I’ll probably play soccer for a while, or, you know, I hope I will; the U-18 World Cup was really fun—”
She grins and sits back; you don’t often talk about that, because girls at your old school were kind of shitty about being jealous, but you’re pretty sure Asami has nothing to be jealous of you for.
“Yeah?”
You nod. “Yeah, so, you know, hopefully I’ll at least get to play in the U-21s, or maybe even make the roster for the actual one, and the Olympics too, and that means I have to get sponsors and train a lot and all of that stuff.”
“But you love it, right?”
She’s very earnestly concerned, and you smile and lean toward her a little. “Yeah, it’s one of my very favorite things in the world.”
“Good,” she says. “I don’t know any other professional athletes, so this is excellent networking for me.”
You boom a laugh, and it’s louder than you mean for it to be, and you look around quickly because a few people are looking at you.
Asami just sticks her sunglasses back on and grins.
Your waiter brings your food and the gyros are amazing, which you try to tell her as gracefully as possible, but you still end up spilling sauce kind of everywhere and have to eat a few pieces of the meat with your hands because they fell out, but Asami seems to not care at all while she eats some very green mix of vegetables and some kind of fish incredibly neatly. She eats about three quarters of it and then sets the rest aside, thanks the waiter politely and genuinely when he asks if she wants it boxed up.
You don’t really eat out often—or, like, at all, because your budget basically allows for ramen—but you never go to places that put your food in to-go boxes for you.
Asami catches you staring at her, which apparently you were doing, and her eyes are wide when she asks, “Do I have something on my face or—”
“No,” you say, “your face is perfect.” You cringe internally at that one but keep talking. “Sometimes I just, you know, forget that you’re, like Asami Sato.”
She looks confused.
You shake your head and sit back, wipe your hands as best you can on your napkin. “Not that I forget who you are or anything, just, like, sometimes people I play soccer with, like, girls or coaches or whatever—they know me, they know who I am before I start playing, and it changes how they play around me, or with me, or even against me, I guess.”
She fidgets with her hands but nods a little.
“Like, they know about me, Korra, who plays soccer, who everyone expects these really important things from when I’m playing—control the game, communicate, organize, defend, score, all of that stuff—but like, not too many people I play with know me as just, like, Korra.”
A little bit of understanding dawns on her face.
“So I know, like—we don’t know each other that well or anything,” you say, “but sometimes, you’re just helping me with my math, or we’re texting about, like, Gilmore Girls or something, and it’s like—you’re just Asami.”
She stares a little and you have no idea if what you said was completely offensive or something.
“Does that make sense?”
She nods, then swallows. “Yeah,” she says, “that makes sense.”
You change the subject to talking about something funny your Intro to Bio prof said earlier about drosophila, and Asami laughs warmly with you, and when the waiter brings the check you watch her put down what you’re sure is way too much money, and then grab her box of leftovers and stand. She stretches a little and you have to look away, smooth out your shorts.
“Well,” she says, “that was much better than talking about the possibilities of synthetic skin for two hours, I have to say, which means you’re pretty great company, Korra, because I actually really like talking about synthetic skin.”
You laugh and it’s so natural to lean forward and give her a hug. She stiffens for such a short amount of time you don’t know if you just imagined it or not, but then she wraps her arms around your shoulders and it’s a really, really great hug.
She smiles when you step back, and she grabs the huge leather purse she carries around and slings it over her shoulder, then says, “Text me later if you want.”
“I will,” you say. “And Asami?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for lunch.”
//
You flop down on Jinora’s bed, fresh out of the shower after practice, and you laugh a little when she doesn’t move at all from where she’s reading at her desk.
“She’s gorgeous,” you say. “Like, really, really, beautiful.”
Jinora hums.
You take a deep breath and think about Asami, really think about her long hair that should probably be in a shampoo ad or something, how she’d comb it over her shoulder when she was waiting for you to work through a math problem. You think about how when she stretched at lunch the other day you could see the outline of her ribs, the lace of her bra; you think about her long legs and her light skin and her bright eyes, the way her laugh lilts, how her perfume is kind of totally magic.
And then you think of how she seemed sad sometimes, and how she designs things to help individual people instead of building cars like her dad; you think of how patient she is when she’s helping you with your math (and how your grades have dramatically shot up), how she looks really proud when you get a problem right all on your own, how she gave you a really tight hug when you showed her your last exam—you got a 92, the highest in the class—and seemed maybe even more excited than you were, how you’re pretty sure she overtips outrageously whenever you go out.
“No,” you say, sitting up, “she’s like—Jinora, I—”
Jinora puts down her book with a small sigh and turns toward you.
You keep thinking of Asami’s hands. “I think I—like her?”
Jinora smiles softly. “Well that’s good.”
“Well, yeah, but—what does that mean?”
Jinora grins. “What do you think it means?”
“Um, well, I don’t not like boys, I mean, yeah, boys are fine.”
Jinora nods.
“But I think—if she wanted to back, I’d like to kiss Asami.”
Your cheeks burn red when you say it aloud. You don’t really know why; your parents had never made a big deal out of sexuality, mostly because it was viewed really differently in your native culture, so you know they wouldn’t care.
Jinora moves from her chair to the bed softly and smoothly, like she always does, and she stays quiet but takes your hand.
“I’ve—I guess I’ve thought girls were pretty in the ‘I might want to kiss them’ way too, now that I look back on things.”
Jinora says, “That’s perfectly understandable.”
It makes you laugh a little and she grins. “So that means I’m, what, bisexual?”
“It can,” Jinora says, scooting back and crossing her legs. You do the same. “It’s totally, totally great if you feel like that term fits for you, first of all. There’s also stuff like pansexual, which means you like people of many genders, but, just so you know, bisexual doesn’t mean a binary necessarily.”
You’re still learning about all of this, but you nod. “It’s okay if I—I like bisexual?”
Jinora grins and pats your hand. “Bisexual is awesome, Korra. If it fits for you, then that’s fantastic.”
You nod—Jinora is from Air Temple Island, which is super progressive and awesome, and even in a few weeks she’s taught you so much. Her boyfriend, Kai, is (you’ve worked hard to remember the right terms, even written them down and read about them on the internet after Jinora had talked to you) ftm trans, and he takes testosterone to help him transition. He’d been really patient and cool explaining it all to you, and it made a ton of sense really quickly, because you can totally see how gender is a social thing.
Briefly you kind of think about how Asami must be so educated in all of this, because she’s from Republic City, which is one of the coolest places in the world, you think, even though you’ve never actually been there.
“Also,” Jinora continues, “there’s a difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction.”
You nod.
“So, you think boys and girls are attractive and you would want to maybe have sex with them under consensual circumstances you were comfortable with, right?”
“Yeah.”
Jinora looks really pleased at how easily you answered; it feels good, though, to be able to understand parts of yourself that have felt a little confusing for a few years, because you were kind of around girls changing their clothes all the time, and you’d never do anything—you have a hard enough time formulating conversation with people when they’re fully-dressed—but it still didn’t always make sense to you, but now it does a lot more.
“Great,” she says, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “And—you dated Mako in high school, and you had romantic feelings for him, right?”
“I guess?”
“Different from how you felt about your friends?”
“Yeah,” you say, “yeah, I did.”
“Cool,” she says. “But—with Asami, do you feel the same about her than you do about, like, me or Opal?”
“Definitely not.”
“So there’s the same kind of stuff for romantic orientation as their is sexual orientation.” Jinora waves her hands around. “Panromantic, biromantic, aromantic, lots of stuff like that. And if it helps you to know this too, you know—”
“I’m biromantic too?”
Jinora laughs. “If that feels like it fits for you and helps you understand stuff, sure! But you know, only you can define yourself, and it can change, all of that good stuff, of course.”
“Yeah,” you say. “But—okay. Okay. Bisexual and biromantic.”
Jinora launches forward in a gentle hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she says.
“Thank you,” you say. It’s not the first time you’ve thought that you got really lucky when Jinora got placed as your roommate, but you feel especially lucky right now.
“You’re welcome, Korra.”
There’s a knock just as Jinora is about to go back to reading, and you look at your phone—there are a few missed texts from your friends and one from Asami, which you’ll look at later. “Sorry, that’s Bolin and Opal, they’re here to study for our English 102 quiz, but—I can tell them to leave or we can go somewhere else.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I was just reading for fun.”
You smile at her and then open the door, and immediately Bolin wraps you in a hug. “Hi, Bolin,” you say, and you laugh as he spins you around.
Opal rolls her eyes and gives you a hug too after Bolin finally puts you down.
“How are you guys?”
“Ready to ace this quiz!” Bolin says.
“Also known as over-caffeinated,” Opal says, getting out her laptop.
They say hi to Jinora, who puts in headphones and leans back on her bed while you situate yourselves on the bed, Bolin in the floor.
Opal starts pulling up the syllabus with practice questions on it, and all of a sudden, you really want to tell them, because they’re some of your best friends here, and it feels like a really great thing to know about yourself.
“So,” you say.
They both look to you expectantly when you don’t say anything.
You take a deep breath. “I’m bisexual,” you say, “and—uh, biromantic, too.”
Bolin springs to his feet as Opal says, “That’s great,” and you catch Jinora grinning before she goes back to her book before Bolin almost tackles you in a hug.
“Opal’s right—”
“—as always—“
“—that is totally great!” Bolin ruffles your hair when he lets you go. “Because I’m pansexual, and Opal just doesn’t really identify as anything, but anyway, we go to LGBTQIA+ events all the time on campus, they’re super great.” He frowns for a second, and then hurriedly says, “If you wanted to come, I mean—we won't tell, of course, if you don’t want to be out or just told us or something.”
You squeeze his arm with a smile—he and Opal are really awesome, and you’re glad they’re your friends too. “That sounds totally great, Bolin. Thanks.”
“Yeah! And there are tons of great people there, too, if you wanted us to introduce you or whatever.”
You can’t help your smile, and you think of Asami. You have no idea what she thinks of you, but you’re more than willing to give it some time. “I’d love to meet friends, but, um, I might be interested in someone else. Or—I like her, and I guess I’m just going to wait and see how it goes.”
He nods with a grin, and Opal kisses him on the cheek really quickly, and then she starts reading practice questions like nothing’s really changed.
And, you think, in the best way: it really hasn’t.
//
Tenzin is calmly shouting something which you think is encouraging toward you, but you just did a header and you’re exhausted, so everything is buzzing a little bit, but you make your final run to the corner flag and hold off the defender trying to take the ball away. There’s one minute of stoppage time left in your first game—you’re winning handily, 3-0, and you’d had one assist and one goal—and you’re just riding out the final seconds, rolling the ball carefully under your foot, letting your legs carry you like you’ve grown so used to, and then the whistle blows.
You immediately relax and shake the hand of the girl you were playing against, who tells you some form of congratulations pretty sincerely, you think.
You’re a first year, so you’re kind of a big deal, and you walk toward the halfline, shaking hands with people and wiping your face on the bottom of your jersey. You can already feel a knot forming on your ribs—you’d gotten elbowed pretty hard at some point—but your gladly lean into easy embraces from your teammates.
Tenzin hugs you to his chest and pats your back. “Fantastic game, Korra.”
“Thanks, Tenzin,” you say, and it means a lot to you, because you like Tenzin better than the coaches at your high school for sure, even if he’s a little strict and has some weird methods for stretching that feel an awful lot like you have to do yoga twice a week, but you’ve never been playing better, so you try to get into it. Or at least pretend.
You sit down and drink some gatorade while the fanfare dies out—thankfully, no people from the newspaper have come and tried to talk to you today, even though you don’t mind when they do, this game had just been a lot of running; you like when you play a 4-3-3, but you’re sure it’s a couple of extra kilometers for you.
But eventually it’s time to go into the locker room, and you grab your bag and head in. You love the way it smells, how your cleats sound against the cement floor, how they’ve always been the places in the world that make you feel at home, like you can do something powerful—with your body, with your brain.
Tenzin gives a speech about focus and perseverance and graceful football, and you smile and only half pay attention, because you’re just really happy; a lot of universities had offered you scholarships, but you’d really wanted to play for Tenzin, and the year’s already turning out to be great for the most part, even though you miss your parents.
After Tenzin is done, you let Lin, one of your fitness trainers, take a look at your ribs, because apparently she’d noticed you flinching in the “final 48 seconds,” or so she said.
You take your jersey off and lift your arm, and there’s a little bruise forming, but nothing too bad. She presses surprisingly gentle fingers along your ribs and nods with a satisfied expression.
“Nothing’s broken,” she says.
“Cool.”
She claps you on the back. “Tough tattoo, kid, by the way,” she says before walking off to check on someone else, you assume.
“Thanks,” you say, and then you smile a little, because—yeah, maybe it’d been a brash decision to decide on a full back tattoo of Raava when you were 16 in a little under 24 minutes, but you’re proud of where you’re from and you still really like the way it looks, how the ink almost moves with your muscles. Plus you can only see it when you have your shirt off, so it’s not really controversial or anything. You stuff everything in your bag as successfully as possible—it almost closes, so that’s good enough.
//
You trace the tattoo on your right hip absentmindedly—it’s a sketch of a humanoid you’d done when you were fifteen, and you’d kept it around for a while; something about it has felt comforting, and you’d gotten it kind of on a whim a few weeks ago, so it’s finally pretty much healed—and then stare at the diagrams you’ve tacked up on one of your chalkboards. Your dissertation is already coming along nicely—and you really do like Varick and Zhu Li, or, really, you love Zhu Li and tolerate Varick because he’s brilliant but also because, unfortunately, Zhu Li seems to really care for him.
But what you don’t ever really tell anyone—which may be part of the problem—is that being Asami Sato is lonely. People want to know you because of your money, or because of your brain in the sense of the technical things it can do, or because you're the kind of beautiful that can sell magazines. You’ve never really resented these things in any inherent way, because they’re just things about you, but you resent the way people use them; the way people try to use you.
You try to give away as much money as possible, although you splurge a little on rent for your apartment: it’s a beautiful artist’s loft you stumbled upon when you were looking for a place a few weeks before you moved from Republic City, and you’d fallen in love immediately. It was bright and airy and the walls were brick, a little run-down, and you had to put in a bathroom—you don’t half-ass bathrooms, though, and this one is gorgeous, with a huge claw footed bathtub and a walk-in double-headed shower and heated hardwood floors—and you redid the kitchen, although you don’t really ever cook. When you were really small, you vaguely remember that your mom had taught you a few recipes, but no one taught you much after she died.
So you have a lot of prepackaged salads, some organic yogurt and a few cheeses, and a fair amount of leftovers from your favorite places.
The rest of your apartment has a few spaces that are kind of designated by open bookshelves that you’d put a few keepsakes from your various trips places on, and you have an old phonograph you’d found and rewired last year, and you have a few shelves of records.
You sigh and decide to give up on your models for the day—it’s almost 6:30, and you’re getting hungry, and you’re tired, and you don’t want to cry again.
You trace your tattoo again and haphazardly go sit on your couch and prop your feet up for a minute. You think about Korra—and you remember You’re just Asami.
You sigh and get up and walk into the kitchen, check and see what food you have—as it turns out, you need to go grocery shopping tomorrow—and check your wine cooler. It’s the only thing you spend a ridiculous amount of money on; you’re fairly modest with your clothes and shoes; you like wearing a lot of slouchy things and scarves and sometimes a really great fitted blazer, and there’s no need for those to be inordinately expensive.
You get out a really fantastic bottle of chardonnay and wonder what you want to have for dinner, and then you kind of think that maybe Korra will be different, that you can let her in, because, really, in the past two weeks, she’s just seemed genuinely glad for your help in math, for when you pick up the tab at lunch; she laughs when you make jokes, and you can tell she actually tries to listen when you talk about your projects.
You’re just Asami; you’re just Asami.
You put down the bottle of wine and go put on a new shirt, straighten the couch cushions, make sure your bed is neatly made—you make it every day, but whatever—and then pick up your phone.
//
You start to walk back over to your dorm so you can shower and grab dinner before putting on any random documentary from Nat Geo Wild in your Netflix queue and probably going to bed early when you get a text from Asami.
Asami (6:47 pm): hey, what are you up to?
Korra (6:48 pm): We just won our first game! :) So I’m heading to my dorm and then probably sleeping early lol
Asami (6:48 pm): congrats, i’m proud of you :) and okay, get some rest!
Korra (6:48 pm): Did you have something you wanted to do?
Asami (6:49 pm): not really, it’s fine
Asami (6:51 pm): actually i don’t have any plans and i was wondering if you wanted to come over? i have a big tv and we can get delivery or something.
Asami (6:51 pm): but if you want to just do your own thing, i completely understand
Korra (6:52 pm): No! I’d love to come over!
Korra (6:53 pm): Can we order pizza?
Asami (6:53 pm): sure :)
Korra (6:54 pm): You sure it’s healthy enough for you? :P
Asami (6:55 pm): i know a place that has healthy pizzas, don’t worry at all about that
Korra (6:55 pm): Oooookay, then. I’ll see you soon!!!!
Korra (6:59 pm): Also where is your apartment?
//
Asami buzzes you up to her apartment—it takes you a few minutes to figure out which button to push and finally you just give up and call her to tell her you’re there—and you go to the third floor and then knock on the only door you see.
She opens it with a smile and gives you a warm hug, and you don’t really look at her apartment until she lets go.
It’s huge, and it’s really awesome, with records and, like, six chalkboards in a corner, a bunch of diagrams and sketches pinned to them right now, this ridiculously elaborate kitchen, a really high ceiling with exposed beams and everything.
“It looks like this came out of a magazine,” you say.
She laughs but it’s a little strained. “If you want to have a look around, you can. I ordered pizza already, it should be here pretty soon.”
You feel a little out of place in your sweatpants and old t-shirt and TOMS that are really kind of falling apart, but Asami is in bare feet and leggings and a big white v-neck that she’s rolled up the sleeves on, and her hair is in a bun on the top of her head, and she’s wearing her glasses, which she does sometimes when you can tell she’s tired—and right now, she looks pretty relaxed.
You smile and hold out the package in your hand. “I got us cookies. But they’re like, organic pumpkin chocolate chip shit.”
She smiles so big you think you’ll probably be happy bringing her cookies for the rest of your life, because you feel really great about how joyful she looks.
“I’ll eat the whole box if you don’t want any, though, so definitely don’t worry about it.”
She laughs. “I’ll eat some, don’t worry.”
She pads into the kitchen and you follow her, and she sits on a bar stool and asks, “Do you want some wine? It’s totally fine if you don’t—I just like it, but I definitely don’t have to have any.”
You shrug—you’ve drunk since you were fifteen at a few parties and stuff. “Sure.”
She smiles and nods and takes a bottle out of a very expensive-looking and cool fridge thing.
“This is a vintage chardonnay, if that’s alright?”
You laugh. “Asami, I know, like, nothing about wine.”
She smiles and goes about uncorking it. “It’s good, you’ll like it.”
“I trust you.”
She pours two moderate glasses and hands one to you with a really sweet smile, and she says, “Tell me about your game today, oh victor Korra.”
You roll your eyes. “Well, everyone played well, and we played a 4-3-3, which—”
She looks confused for a second, and so you say, “Uh, can I draw on one of your boards?”
She nods. “Yeah, totally.”
You take your wine and walk over to her engineering space, or whatever, and take the chalk, hand the wine to her. You start diagraming various formations, and she lights up when she starts talking about game theory and geometry, standing next to you and explaining why each formation works the way it does. You know she basically knows very little about soccer, but apparently this is math and she loves math.
She’s close and soft and she smells so good, and you’d kiss her if you thought she might want to kiss you. But you’re just not sure, because Asami seems really happy to just be your friend, but she kind of also flirts with you? Or maybe?
She’s legitimately interested in the things you have to say about everything, though, and that matters to you right now way more than wanting to kiss her.
You’re in the middle of getting excited about the versatility of a 3-5-2 when the doorbell rings, and she laughs and jogs to grab cash and then answer the door for the pizza, and you walk to the kitchen with your wine and sit down at the island.
“We can sit at the table,” she says, and gestures to a dining table in the corner, “but, to be honest, I pretty much never use that.”
“I like it here,” you say, and she smiles and opens the boxes.
There’s one pizza with some green sauce and white cheese and nuts on it, and then there’s what’s quite obviously a meat lover’s, and Asami points to the first and says, “This is pesto pizza with a whole wheat crust, goat cheese, and pine nuts.”
She must see how you scrunch your nose—you don’t mean to, it just happens, because why would you even eat that—and then points at the other one. “This has, like, every sort of meat on the menu on it, I think.”
You grin and take a piece immediately and just start eating, and she laughs.
“Do you want, like, a fork or a knife or a plate?”
You carefully coax the piece away from you without pulling the cheese off and chew for a few seconds before answering, “Nah, this is great.”
She sits down and delicately picks up a piece of the special pesto pizza, and you can tell that she’s probably not used to eating pizza with her hands, which is actually kind of cute.
She looks over at you when you’ve finished three pieces to her one. “I ran, like, fourteen kilometers today,” you say.
She laughs and shakes her head. “I was just going to say that I’m glad you’re enjoying it, because I didn’t really know what to order.”
You nudge her shoulder. “Obviously this was perfect.”
She nods to herself and picks up another piece.
You move to the couch when you’re done and she gives you the bottle of wine and the box of cookies, which makes you laugh, and you pour another glass for both of you and eat a cookie—they're pretty good—while she’s putting the leftover pizza onto a plate and into the fridge. She sits down next to you and picks up her glass of wine before she puts her arm around your shoulder like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and maybe it kind of is, because leaning into her a little is wonderful.
“So,” she says, “what do you normally watch on Netflix?”
“To be honest, National Geographic Wild documentaries, mostly.”
She laughs. “Sounds perfect.”
//
You watch two documentaries about leopards and finish off the bottle of wine and half of the box of cookies before you realize how sleepy you are, and Korra’s barely keeping her eyes open.
“Come on,” you say, and she looks up at you with her wide, pretty, big blue eyes, and something tugs a little in your stomach that you’ve never felt before. It’s a good feeling though, so you smile and stand up. “Let’s go to bed.”
She nods and you pull back the sheets while she stands there and yawns, and you take your hair out of its bun before gesturing toward the bed. She climbs in a little clumsily and you follow, and you’re a little drunk and very exhausted—and also really, really happy and comfortable—so you don’t think twice before you rest your head against her chest.
She wraps an arm around your back loosely and starts to play with your hair gently, tracing over the soft stubble and then tangling it in the long hair at the back of your head, and you tug her a little closer to you.
She sighs and says, “‘Night, Asami.”
You smile and say, “Goodnight, Korra.”
Her hand stays wrapped up in your hair, and hearts are kind of your thing anyway, so you fall asleep listening to your favorite part of her body beat away so strongly beneath her breastbone.