With every letter he sent her, she would trace the characters and hear his voice tickling her ear. Korra prepped the ink and flattened the paper, but her own words were jumbled in her mouth, and she didn't know what to say to him because when she heard his voice, she smelled his skin, and when she smelled his skin, she tasted his tongue. So she didn't say anything. Love, Korra. Love, Korra. Love, Korra.
Every day Mako passed his old desk and he remembered her standing there. It was impossible to forget. He remembered the way they yelled and the way he couldn't look at her and the way she stormed off, and now when she stood near him, he couldn't take his eyes off her. It had been three years with her gone but she had never really left, not really. Her laugh echoed in his mind every day, and he hoped she was being careful. He hoped she was healing.
"I'm sorry," she said. Because she had visited everyone else before him. Because she didn't know what he was going to do. Because no matter how hard she pushed away from him, she was always pulled back. Push, pull, push, pull. He smiled, and she realized just how much she missed him.
She jumped down the hill, falling into his arms with a burst of air. He was lifting her into the air, and her laugh was just the same as before. Her legs cut through the air as he spun her. It was summer in Republic City, but the cold winds of the Southern Water Tribe were on his face. He would never forget that moment, because that was when she allowed herself to love him.
She led him into her room and showed him the ball of earth that she kept in her side table, because she hadn't been able to tell him about it yet. She cracked it open, and the metal shimmered in a tiny pool. "You amaze me," he said, and she felt warm.
It was night and they were walking through the streets. She teased him, and he rolled his eyes. The streetlamp flickered and a car roared past, but this was their city now. There was nothing to fear, not even each other, not even what they had been denying themselves. So they stopped and felt their hearts pound, deep in their chests. He bent down, she tilted up, their foreheads pressed, and their lips met in the city that brought them together.
So with their second first kiss, they knew that this was it.
This was always.