"Hey, Korra—now that the championship is over, we really should go shopping together. Come on, it'll be my treat." Asami's smile was perfect, but in the hesitation the Avatar showed, that flash of uncertainty and secret guilt on her face, Asami's suspicions were confirmed.

It was silly to think Asami wouldn't notice. She wasn't a child, and this was not her first relationship. It would be silly to think she was incapable of noticing her boyfriend taking special notice of the Avatar.

"Um, sure," Korra said after some discomfort and trying not to look at the boys. There, in the muscles of his neck, signs Mako was wondering if she'd pieced it together.

"I've been meaning to ask you for a while, but with Councilman Tarlok's task force and the Championships, I didn't want to put anything more on your plate," Asami said as she led Korra out of the rec room.

From what she could tell, Korra was guilty but not… too guilty. She was sorry for something she didn't want to admit, rather than being eaten up for doing something really wrong.

Asami had had one or two previous boyfriends (she hesitated to even use the term) who had sneaked around behind her back. But they were fellow university students. The signs she saw in Mako weren't even masked. The way he noticed Bolin talking to Korra after that semifinal match, watching them in peripheral vision so Asami had had to pull his face back to look at her. Lacking in subtlety. The way he promised to take her to Kuang's Cuisine of all places after the championship? That showed guilt—disproportional repayment always showed guilt.

Asami chattered about which Satomobile they were taking, which shops they would visit and where to have lunch while Korra walked quietly by her side. Mako showed guilt enough that he'd probably kissed her, but that was also an unknown—whether he had kissed Korra, or whether she had kissed him (if they had kissed at all, maybe it was something else).

The good news was that they weren't showing any signs of being together behind her back. Korra was obviously way too inexperienced to pull off hiding a relationship. In a way, that level of inexperience was adorable—Asami had had confessions of love when she was seven, her first illegal boyfriend at nine, her first father-approved boyfriend at fourteen, and a string of attachments since then. Korra seemed totally green, so in a way the sealpuppy-dog eyes she made at Mako when she thought people weren't looking was in a way cute. Asami couldn't actually remember the last person she'd made eyes at, except for Mako.

But more than that, Korra seemed too honest. That was why Asami thought that most of her guilt was for not coming clean about whatever had happened, not that it had happened. A girl in love could make some stupid choices, and Asami didn't want to hold stupid choices against someone who seemed to be a pretty decent girl. And the Avatar.

As the driver took off in the direction of Oolong's Finery, Asami chattered on about shopping. She did this when she was trying to cover up her thoughts, and a number of people took it for materialism. She let them. But she did decide to give it a rest when she saw that the rich girl talk wasn't setting Korra at her ease at all.

In business, there is a time to let someone underestimate you, and then there is a time to unexpectedly attack. Asami decided to attack.

"Korra… I hope things don't have to be strange between us," she began, gauging what words would serve best. "I've seen the way you look at Mako sometimes, and believe me I understand—"

"Whatnoit'snothinglikethat, whywouldyoueventhinkthat—" the Avatar started, and Asami gave a disarming chuckle.

"It's okay, Korra," Asami said, channeling a motherly warmth into her eyes. "I've got eyes. I was his fan before I ever hit him with my moped and we met. If anyone knows just how popular he is, it's me."

Not as direct as she could have been, and more relatable than simply declaring herself Mako's girlfriend. Political, useful, accurate.

Korra's toes pointed to each other, knees together, hands in individual fists knuckles down on her knees, staring at her wrists. Asami had never seen Korra looking so feminine or so insecure.

"…But I trust Mako," Asami added. "If I let myself think all the time about all the beautiful girls who could be waiting outside the dressing room or the gym to see him, I could tear myself up thinking about where he might be when I'm not with him. So I made the decision that if I'm going to trust him with my heart, I'm going to trust him with himself. I have to trust him, or I'd tear myself up with wondering."

There was still guilt to Korra's posture.

"But that's enough of that. I just hate having something hanging in the air when people won't mention it, you know?"

Korra said "right" but her heart wasn't in it.

"Ugh, that's enough about Mako," Asami said. "I asked to spend the day with you because I wanted to get to know you better, Korra, not because I wanted to talk about Mako. So, come on, tell me about what you think you'd like to to take a look at when we get to Oolong's."

And it was true that she wanted to get to know Korra for herself. The rest of the day, through shops and escorting a girl who in many ways was more of a boy than a couple guys Asami had dated, at the cafes where they stopped for lunch and refreshing cups of tea, Asami did focus on Korra like a little sister, made her laugh, made her feel beautiful in a night blue silk dress, complimented her, dared to take an eyeshadow brush in her own hands to highlight Korra's eyes with a shade of dark brown, just a touch of blue, and a bit of warm gold shimmer under the eyebrows. She spoke warmly, and she didn't mention Mako again. As the day went on, she watched the tension bleed away, and it seemed like Korra's guilt went with it. By the seventh pair of shoes, they were comfortable enough to trade insults and became Rich Girl and Tomboy to one another.

By five o'clock in the evening when they returned to the mansion for dinner with the boys, they were laughing together like the sisters that each lacked.

As they walked out of the den to go wash up for dinner, Mako looked to Bolin with a face full of suspicion.

"…Why do I feel like absolutely nothing good can come from this?" he asked.

"Karma?" Bolin replied, beginning a new game of snooker with Pabu, and Maku snapped his paper back and buried himself in it.