It was an unusual day today. No enemies in sight to fight. The area they were in was well known for its commerce. Many shops lined up the streets, selling a wide range of products, from food to clothing, anything you wanted you could find it here.
Chief Bei Fong offered a special to show the 3 of them around personally. And since the team was now well known for having won a difficult Pro-Bending match, being friends of the Republic City's Chief of the Metalbender cops and most importantly, having the Avatar with them. It was not unusual to have many gawking at the group in awe.
The Chief received news from her cops. It's was an unusual and lucky day today. No Equalists around the immediate area. The team decided today was their day to enjoy and split up to look at the shops on their own. The Avatar decided to turn her focus onto shops offering pet products while the brothers decided to just wander around to look-see.
The brothers passed by a bookstore. Now usually only Mako would be interested in books but one particular book on display caught Bolin's attention and interest: How to be a man. On the cover was a picture of Avatar Aang, Korra's previous life.
"Hey I wanna see this book." Bolin said to Mako, giving him a light smack of his hand against his elder brother's arm to catch his attention. "It says 'How to be a man" and has a picture of Korra as a man monk so it should be good." Bolin continued with a light snigger in his tone. Mako raised a single eyebrow. That's as much as you could see from him for expressing shock.
Bolin made a skimmed through the book and quickly decided on getting it. Apparently, the author and him had much in common which was easily recognisable in the way the book was written.
"How much for the book?" Bolin asked. "Oh it's on the house" replied the cashier girl who was dreamily staring into Mako and Bolin. It would seem they had some fans in the store. Bolin was oblivious to this fact and just heartily replied 'Thanks' to the cashier girl with a huge smile and exited the bookstore with his brother. Mako just kept his serious demeanour, making it near impossible to figure out what he was thinking.
"Oooh, this book is good!" Bolin exclaimed excitedly. Mako couldn't really be bothered. This was Bolin after all and one of his many skills was entertaining himself with his own humour which was 100% effective, only on him.
A group of girls spotted the two. Almost immediately the girls started giggling and talking excitedly amongst themselves and pointing at the two brothers as they went along.
"OOH OOH! MAKO, MAKO! Now is the time to test out what the book says!" Bolin said excitedly but kept his voice to a hushed level so as to not 'screw up' what he had in mind. Bolin quickly flipped the book and showed Mako a page titled: SOKKA teaches you how to get the ladies.
"Says here in the book that if you're as popular as this Sokka was, which obviously, I am," Bolin gloated "A simple yet effective technique can be used to get the ladies"
"Here hold this for me." Bolin pushed the book into his brother's hands. He clapped and rubbed his own, similar to how he does when he gets all pumped up for a challenging Pro-Bending match. His face had an expression of cheeky excitement with his eyes narrowed and a grin on his mouth.
"Hey ladies! I can't help but notice you-" Mako stopped listening to his brother's words. Instead he decided to flip through this book on his own. It was a pretty large book with a high amount of content. Every page started with the author's name. He had a pretty huge ego. He made a quick glance at his brother, who was now letting the girls feel his arms, smiling all the way. They all seemed to enjoy themselves. Mako sighed and turned back to the book.
'SOKKA's guide to your personality! Read here to find out what kind of MAN you are what kind of IMPORTANT INFORMATION you WILL NEED from MY book' This chapter caught Mako's attention. In this segment of the book the author describes various type personalities men could have. He also referenced many famous people in the book, including the 2 famous founders of Republic City, Avatar Aang and Firelord Zuko.
The author describes Zuko as a man who's serious and reserved and apparently full of angst. Also a portrait of a person with ridiculously spiky hair and a fierce expression covered the top right portion of the article on the Firelord, that portrait presumably being Sokka's depiction of Zuko.
"If you think that you're like Zuko, all serious and strict, turn over to page 139 of this book to get MY HELPFUL TIPS that you can use to be a better MAN" Mako read at the end of the subject page. The man in the book had a very relatable personality to his own, just without the angst. Mako flipped to page 139. Mako skimmed through the book until he found some stuff on dealing with girls. He read the article. He was impressed. The ideas conveyed were all very useable for him and could help a great deal in dealing with a particular woman on his mind.
Just as he finished the article, Bolin came back and as he was Bolin, he quickly asked Mako what was he reading. "N-Nothing!" Mako tried unsuccessfully to close the book, for Bolin had quickly placed a finger on the page he was reading and snatched back his book. Bolin turned away from Mako to prevent him from snatching back the book.
"Ooooh, so this is what you've been reading, eh bro?" Bolin said while smirking. Mako refused to answer, and was blushing a little right now. "OH I WAS RIGHT!" Bolin shouted excitedly at his brother whom he was now facing. "And this stuff on…..her right?" Bolin had an evil smile.
"Korra?" Mako replied quickly and without expression but still with a hint of blush in his cheeks "Please, it's not even worth trying, she's a hot-headed pugnacious arrogant whiny annoying girl who thinks that everything is not right unless done her way-"
"AH HA! I KNEW IT! YOU LIKE KORRA!" Bolin exclaimed in happy excitement while pointing at Mako almost accusingly.
"I DO NOT LIKE-"
"Who don't you like?" Mako was interrupted by a familiar female voice. Korra.
"Oh sheee…" Mako tried hard not to swear.
"You haven't answered me, who don't you like?"
"How much did you hear?"
"Just the part where you go all angry and shock like and shout I DO NOT LIKE. So who don't you like?"
"W-who said it was a person that I don't like? I was telling Bolin over here how much I hated corn and why he should stop making me eat corn!" Mako replied defensively
"You don't like corn?" Korra and Bolin said together, both with a surprised tone.
"But I saw you gobbled a corndog the other day from the soup we had"
"That's, that's because Bolin added a special ingredient which made the corn more savoury than usual." Mako stumbled on his sentence.
"Erm, Mako, Korra made that soup that day and I'm pretty sure I never seen you not finish up your corn whenever you had been given one." Bolin whispered, making the situation more awkward than ever.
"Quiet, you idiot. You've given me enough problems already," Mako whispered back with an annoyed tone.
"Actually all I did was pass you a book." Bolin replied, forgetting to whisper, and Korra undoubtedly heard.
"What book?" Korra asked, her hands on a hips and head tilted at an angle and a slightly impatient look on her face.
"Corn is awesome, yeah that's the book," Bolin quickly answered without giving a single hint that he was lying. "Don't worry bro I'll help you with this," Bolin whispered with a smug look. "I mean…her, hehehe"
"What! What do you mean help! W-"
"You're acting all weird today Mako, what happened? Bought a sex toy?" Korra said flatly, with a very unimpressed look on her face.
"WHAT! I DID NOT BUY A SEX TOY! You see what I mean, i mean I have to deal with Bolin!" Mako said quickly changing his words to prevent Korra from getting any more details about their conversation.
"Whatever, I'm outta here. The amusement park's just over there. You can follow if you want" Korra got bored and went off on her own again.
"There's an amusement park?" Mako asked.
"Yeah, chief told us about it when she was giving us the tour. Weren't you listening?"
"Well no" Mako admitted.
"Well then what the heck were you doing? Wait, you were walking behind Korra the whole time," Bolin's face changed from an expression of curiosity to that of excited realisation. "OH YOU WERE LOOKING AT HER THERE."
"What 'THERE'" replied a blushing Mako, feigning ignorance, knowing Bolin was onto him.
"Her…" Bolin took a hand and casually reached for his behind, pretending to take something from his back pocket. "THERE"
"Gargh, I don't have to listen to your crap" Mako quickly walked away from his brother.
"DOUBLE AH HA!" Bolin laughed, now running and trying to catch up with his brother. "Don't worry bro, I'll help you out, this book here has a ton of crazy ideas that just might work for you and her' Bolin purred on the word 'her'. He quickly flipped open the book and started looking at the page entitled: SOKKA's advice on getting the ladies for the quiet type.
"Oh ho, this is gonna be good. Bolin said as he prepared to help his brother with his 'girl issues'.
To be continued….