Chapter Text
It seemed that the summer was making out to be sweltering in Republic City again, and Asami Sato was relieved she would be avoiding most of it. Despite technically being part of the Swamp, the woods just south of Omashu stayed cool even as the rest of the continent heated up, owing partially to the sea breeze and partially to the higher elevation. It was a perfect refuge from the burning summer farther north. That was probably why Toph Beifong had decided to start a small summer camp there a few decades ago, originally hoping to capitalize on her bored, wealthy academy students. In her youth, Asami’s mother had attended, and had recounted to Asami in whispered bedtime stories her adventures there. When she passed away, Asami was already registered for her first summer, and camp became the only way she could connect with her mom.
The community at Camp Omashu had evolved a lot since her mother’s days, welcoming campers from beyond just the nearby cities (there was even a Northern Water Tribe family who sent all four of their children down from the north pole every summer), but one constant throughout the years had been the presence of the Beifongs. Lin had taken over the camp when her mother retired, and had been careful to mantain the rugged, outdoorsy culture Toph had established, meaning that the camp was also a welcome escape from Asami's gleaming Republic City future.
She had just finished her final year at Tienhai Charter and, thanks to her father's connections, had gotten into Ba Sing Se University without even applying. Not that that was exactly a point of pride for her, but getting to ignore the hubbub of college applications had allowed her to spend evenings at Future Industries during her senior year (as well as weekends, which had been devoted to the company since she started high school). Hiroshi had been pleased, but unsurprised, at her dedication.
Which was irritating.
Why did he so easily assume this was her future? (Future. It seemed to Asami as though the company had been named to taunt her.)
He had talked about her path to running Future Industries with the same assuredness for as long as she could remember. The truth was, Asami didn't particularly know what she wanted to do with herself, but she wished her father would ask. She sure as hell knew that she didn't enjoy the long days and late nights at the company, shadowing her father as he schmoozed with investors about hedge funds and projections, or led multi-hour meetings that surely could have been substituted for a few concise emails. The actual work of the company, the engineering and innovation, the work of “sharpening the cutting edge”, was interesting to her, but it turned out that the CEO was scarcely involved in that hands-on work. Her father's job consisted of mostly paperwork and managing public perceptions of his empire. This did not appeal to her.
What did appeal to Asami was the remote, tight-knit world of camp, which was why she had applied to work there for the first time over the winter. She had submitted her application as soon as the staff call was put out in December, successfully booking her summer before her father could trap her in an internship. The timing of the job acceptance had worked out, and Asami was officially otherwise committed before her father could bring it up. As controlling as Hiroshi was, she knew how to manipulate him a little as well, and honoring all commitments made was a Sato family principle, so Asami knew he wouldn't be willing to make her back out.
And now she had one golden summer to look forward to before it was back to her studies. A summer of backpacking and camping in the woods, getting to spend time with old friends and energetic campers. No phones, no email, no education, no future to build towards. Just her and the kids and the woods. And the stars.
(There was a part of her that hoped she would be able to reach some mysterious form of clarity about her life out there—some sort of revelation way out in the woods that would give her all the answers. But she knew that wasn't likely, and that the next two months would likely be simply a respite, not a cure. She was excited regardless.)
Asami deleted the last of the lingering school tabs off her laptop, finally starting to feel cleansed from finals earlier that month. She had done excellently, of course. Academics and tests and the like had always come easily to her, to the point that she didn't even learn to study until her senior year (AP Fire Nation History had nearly beat her ass; all the old Fire Lord names sounded the same to her and her burnt-out brain couldn't be persuaded to remember them. Nearly beat her ass though—she scraped by with a B+, the lowest grade she had ever received. It didn't matter—it wasn't like Hiroshi had time to care about something as trivial as her report card. As long as she kept up with her company duties, her father trusted that she was doing the same with her grades.) But now she was finally free from all of that, and wouldn't have to think about school for quite a while. She spun in her desk chair languidly, reveling quietly in her liberation.
A sudden chime startled her upright, and her fingers lept to her keyboard reflexively—god, probably another email from her father’s assistant with some reports that her father insisted she be kept up to date on; he seemed determined to keep her working until the day she left. But no! She grinned as she saw the name Beifong under the subject line, which simply said “Staff List.” Since most of the counselors at camp were high school or college aged, their summers could be unpredictable, so the finalized staff list wasn’t sent out until shortly before pre-camp trainings began.
Asami already knew that Bolin, and by extension Mako, would be working there with her (Bolin had called her as soon as he got his acceptance email, ecstatic at the prospect of working together), but they had no idea who else would be on staff that summer. Bolin and Asami had theorized over coffee earlier that week, and one name had come up that Asami now hoped to see on that list so badly it made her stomach flip…not that she had let on to Bolin in the cafe, of course. She’d never hear the end of his teasing, not to mention the fact that he couldn’t keep a secret from Mako to save his life, and this was a bit of information about her personal life that she definitely didn’t want making its way back to him.
Her short, well manicured nails hovered over the touchpad for a moment before she opened the file. It was a spreadsheet with the name, age, years on staff, and (in a bizarre but admirable attempt by Lin at coming across as friendlier to new staff) a column containing the favorite animal of each of the counselors. Asami skimmed over her own name (18, first-year, owlbear) and Bolin’s (17, first-year, fire ferret), and was looking for Mako’s name, preparing to roll her eyes at his choice of animal, when the name that she hadn’t (but had) been looking for jumped off of the screen at her.
Korra. (18, Polar bear dog.)
Heart racing, Asami scrolled through the rest of the document, hoping that there would be more than the paltry information provided, anything actually important (did Korra remember her? How was she? Would they be counselors for the same unit? Did she look the same as when they were 14? Was she excited to see her too?) but the rigid lines of the spreadsheet yielded nothing beyond its four icebreaker columns.
Asami sank back into her chair again, releasing a breath she hadn’t meant to hold in, a suppressed grin determinedly working its way across her face. She would be able to get answers to those questions firsthand next week, when, for the first time in four years, she would get to speak to Korra.
Korra had taken up residence in the back of Asami’s mind a long time ago, and her whole existence had been an unanswered question since then.
The two girls had met at the beginning of their final summer as campers—somehow, despite both starting at Camp Omashu in the youngest unit, they had never managed to attend camp at the same part of the summer until that year. Their unit was larger than usual, and the girls had been friends, but never close—Korra was loud, and energetic, and popular. Asami usually elected to sneak off whenever she could with a book and read by the lake. Of course, Unit 1, the oldest campers, were basically forced to bond over the course of their monumental 10 Day graduation backpacking trip, but Korra and Asami never had much more intimate interaction with each other than a pleasant fireside conversation, which was always shared with at least Mako and Bolin.
Early on in that summer, though, Asami had noted in herself an abnormal desire to know Korra.
She was a solitary 14 year old, never picked on but with few close friends, and no need for more, in her mind. Their first summer, Bolin’s exuberance combined with her homesickness (an afflicton that only plagued her the first year, after that she was more fond of summer camp than of home) meant that she had given in to his insistence on friendship. They had started staying in touch outside of camp one summer too, providing Asami with access to a little portal back to her beloved, carefree summers whenever they made time to hang out during the school year. He had been a welcome addition to her life in contrast with the bitchy, snobby charter school girls, and she secretly felt superior to them for spending her summers in the wilderness with him, rather than in a beach house on Ember Island.
So by the time she was 14, camp had certainly become a safe space for her, and she was content with her role in the chaos—slightly detached, not too bought in to the “camp spirit” that the counselors insisted on, not too close to anyone save Bolin, but content. The value of the experiences she had at camp each summer had everything to do with her mother and with nature and with herself, and just because there happened to be other people around didn’t mean she was obligated to share those experiences with them.
But Korra. Asami was fascinated with the easy way she strolled around the grounds, as if she lived in the woods year round. She seemed to have no reservations about getting dirty or sweaty or bitten by something, unlike even some of the most outdoorsy campers. On the first night of their Unit 1 year, Korra had strolled into the cabin with a massive snake draped over her shoulders, causing a general mayhem among the girls as they shrieked and tried to get as far as possible from a laughing, taunting Korra. Asami, safe in a top bunk, had accidentally caught Korra’s eye, and received a raised eyebrow, as if the brazen girl was daring her to scream, too. Asami didn’t, though. She raised an eyebrow right back, earning an amused smile. Korra turned back to the snake after that, but Asami’s gaze lingered, watching the careful way Korra supported the snake as it drifted its head curiously towards her hands, and then she whispered something to it. Asami wasn’t sure, but the subtle way Korra shielded the snake from the bright flashlights darting across the cabin (held by the screaming girls) seemed to suggest that she only found the prank fun as long as the snake was calm and content.
This image, of Korra and the snake, was one of the many that had stuck with her for the several years since Asami had seen her last. Asami never did manage to act on her secret desire for Korra to consider her a friend, a real friend, not just one that made for a quiet, nondescript member of a group activity. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had mustered the courage to admit her desire for friendship to the other girl anyways. Korra ended up occupied that summer—about halfway through the month at camp, she and Mako started dating.
Asami had heard rumors that Mako liked Korra from Bolin, though the stern boy wouldn’t give his brother any confirmation, but after dinner one day, on the way back to the cabins, Mako and Korra stayed back (Asami noticed because it seemed for reasons unknown that she had an internal compass pointing to Korra at all times that summer). Asami heard the whispered conversations in the cabin that night between Korra and her friends, the other two athletes in the cabin, pretending to be asleep in her bed so she could eavesdrop. She had never had much interest in boys, but when she heard Korra, flustered, describing the chaste peck on the lips he had given her, she felt a pang of something that couldn’t be jealousy, certainly not, because Asami didn’t want to kiss Mako at all. She wrote it off as FOMO.
Mako and Korra were inseparable for the rest of the summer, and beyond. Asami had never heard of a camp relationship lasting outside of camp, and justified the disdain she felt as logical, since they were clearly naive for trying to bring the transient magic of summer outside of summer. So she scoffed and rolled her eyes when, several months later, Bolin reported casually that the two were going strong, that Korra was convincing her parents to pay for visits between Republic City and the small town a couple hours away where Mako and Bolin lived at the time. Bolin furrowed his eyebrows at her quizzically.
“Why the attitude? I thought you and Korra were chill. I guess I don’t really know what she sees in my brother to be fair, but I don’t think I know anyone who has a problem with her…oh my god are you jealous?!” he said with exaggerated shock.
Asami knew that he was kidding; it was a favorite joke of his to explain how he was certain that Asami was only friends with him for his hot brother, but she couldn’t help but wince internally at the question. No, of course she wasn’t jealous, it was none of her business. She wasn’t close with Mako, and even less so with Korra. She laughed it off, and only subtly pressed Bolin for updates every couple of weeks.
She felt a sick satisfaction when finally the update came that they had broken up, shared offhandedly by Bolin between anecdotes about Pabu and horror stories from his extremely unremarkable football team with a standard-issue verbally abusive coach. From the little he shared it sounded like it had been a messy breakup, which made sense; they had been dating for almost nine months, a lifetime in teenager years. Asami felt especially guilty for the pleasure she felt at this detail—a messy breakup made it less likely that they would get back together, right?—and chastised herself for the accompanying excitement—what did she care about Mako and some girl she’d probably never see again? And if anything this breakup had severed the tenuous, one-sided connection they did have, because Mako and Korra breaking up meant that the I.V. drip of secondhand news from Bolin would be taken out of her arm. Which it was. And eventually Korra ceased to be anywhere near the forefront of Asami’s mind, as the intensity of high school picked up and as time passed and as feelings faded into the background.
But there were still images that intruded like a light-drunk moth, flapping erratically across her field of vision, demanding her attention. She saw Korra in a classmate who wore the same shade of blue nail polish as she had, keeping up the color even in the muck of the outdoors. She saw Korra every time she went swimming, picturing the way she would routinely hide behind the dock on the lake, fingertips hanging off the edge, trying to stay in the water even after the lifeguard had left. (Asami, also hiding, would watch this song and dance between Korra and their counselors from her superior hiding spot among the cattails, glancing up from her book occasionally, until Korra was finally retrieved from the water and reprimanded. The counselors never seemed to notice that Asami was hiding, too, so she was free to trail unseen behind a sullen Korra and an irritated counselor back to the dining hall or the cabin.) And she especially saw Korra when she encountered snakes; occasionally harmless rat snakes would drop from the trees in the park by her house, and she would make an effort to coax them out of roads and pathways, remembering the deliberate way Korra had cared for the one she had found.
Asami had spend years frustrated with herself that she couldn’t seem to let go of this…what was it, even? Obsession was too strong of a word, because it wasn’t like she was consumed with thoughts of Korra every waking moment, but fascination? Regret? A missed opportunity. She settled on that because it was professional, a pragmatic way of viewing the odd course her thoughts liked to run. She had missed an opportunity to make a good friend, that was all, and she must still be so fixated on it because of how starved she was for a social life.
“Well,” she told herself, “you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make friends this summer.” Really, one friend in particular.
She closed out her email and flopped into bed, trying to suppress the completely disproportionate excitement she felt. In exactly a week, she would see Korra, and this time she would talk to her, really talk, and make quiet the tiny voice in the back of her head asking “What if? What if? What if?”