Title: The Moll
Summary: "I have a hot date and I want to look my best," or, the hot (and barely legal) date that Shin stood up.
Character(s): Shady Shin, OCs (IM SRY I LET MY IMAGINATION RUN WILD)
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Notes: I'm trash bc I came up with 3 OFC who end up with various men in LOK and they're all my ideal forever-girl. Post E206. Also on ao3!

By the time Shin gets back to Republic City, and to where he's supposed to pick up the date, it's hours past the time he told her he'd be stopping by, the air buzzing with the sounds of the city at night. The building itself is just barely silent, but up on the second floor of the tenement apartments there's a light on, throwing a shadow over a chair. A chair that, Shin is chagrined to realize as he nears the building, is currently being used.

As he climbs the stairs to get to the woman sitting there, he can see that she's not alone. The light is coming in through an open window, one that another woman—the roommate of the first, no doubt—is leaning out of, talking to her housemate. He gets just close enough to make out their faces when both look up at him. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply.

The housemate—Souza—bares her teeth. Shin glares at her, and she pushes off from the windowsill. It would be more impressive if she weren't still inside, but she snaps at him anyway, "Well, look who finally decided to show up." Her arms are crossed over her chest. He barely gives her a glance.

"Noi," he says, instead, to the young woman sitting, and she exhales with barely a sound, mouth forming a pout without her really meaning to. Her roommate huffs, says, "Holler when you're sick of him," then slams the window's shutters shut. Light from some candles inside still bleed through the gaps. Shin says, "Fire might catch, you two leave those on all night."

Noi doesn't say anything; her hands are folded neatly in her lap, hands deceptively soft despite her job and her talent as a waterbender. Shin thinks he's in love, sometimes.

"You eat?" he says, instead of saying what's whirring through his head out loud. There's silence for a good minute before she finally turns her head to look at him. She's got real pretty eyes, his girl, a shade of green so light they almost look gray. Those eyes aren't exactly shining for him how they usually do. She has a heart-shaped face, skin a few shades lighter than his own. In anticipation of their date she'd put on some of that lip-stain all the girls seem to love now; at least, that's what it looks like to Shin from where they're shrouded in half-shadows. She looks good.

Noi says, "No," the vowel curdling in her mouth. There's a firm line to it, one that rarely settles there; she's more light-hearted than anything else. The silent you were supposed to take me out is louder than Shin expected it to be.

"Doll…" he starts, and she cuts him off with a sigh. It's a deep, bone-weary sigh, wrought of something more than just disappointment in him. Shin can deal with disappointment, but this is different. This feels like she's giving up.

"Save your breath, Shin," she tells him, and stands up so that they're facing each other. She's dressed even prettier than how she normally is, collarbones showing over the fluttery, blue sheer slip of a dress she's got on. He remembers her talking about it some weeks before, fluttering her eyelashes at him while she described the open back.

In Shin's opinion, every part of Noi's skin ought to be put on display—not to be gawked at, no sir, Shin isn't about to share—but just so that everyone can see how much of a prize his girl is. That she's all his, no one else can touch.

Noi says, "I'm goin' to bed, Shin, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't come around no more," that subtle slip of country-talk enough to throw him off. He loves her accent—not many wander from the Foggy Swamp, but she'd followed her brother out a few years back.

"It's your birthday," Shin says instead, a bit numb, and her eyes glisten with angry tears.

"You think I forgot?" she says, and her arms are crossed, the subtle muscles of her arms catching in the light; "That's more your style."

He stiffens. It's one thing to be told off by his superiors, but Noi's supposed to be his sweetheart. She's supposed to be on his side.

"I told you I had a job," he says, voice low. He's trying to stay a little cautious, given that the tension between the two of them isn't the fun kind anymore, and he has a habit of getting nasty in a mean way when he's not careful.

"Yeah, Shin," Noi shoots back, mouth full and red and curled in a scowl, "but you've been talkin' about dinner tonight for weeks."

"Course I was!" he exclaims, "I'm wanted for a enough crimes in this city, I wasn't too eager to get fraternizations with a minor added onto that!"

"If you'd just marry me—"

"Let's not talk about that right now, doll," he interrupts her, because as much as he thinks he might love her, marriage is a whole other thing to be bringing up at a time like this; "how 'bout you tell me how to make this up to you?"

"It's my birthday, Shin," she says, and this time it's weak, "and I've had one awful day down at the market, and I ain't happy with how the night turned out neither, so I'm headin' in. I've been out here hours already. Souza said—she's always saying I should—look. Just. Don't bother stoppin' by tomorrow."

There's a sinking sense of panic in his belly. Shin says, "Not even for dinner?" She gives him a deadpan look. "C'mon," he says instead, "c'mon, doll, don't be like that. We'll do something nice this weekend."

"I work all weekend," she says, "I work every weekend."

"Take a day off," he says, jerks his head towards the inside of the apartment, "tell Souza to cover you. C'mon. Gimme a chance."

Her expression gets cloudy, just when he thought he was making some progress. "You get more chances from me than anyone else, Shin," she says, and her tone is flat in a way he's never heard before. He swallows.

"Baby doll," he starts, and she takes a step forward, gets in his space. She smells like lotus; must have used a bit of the expensive perfume he'd gotten for her a few months ago. Her eyes are outlined in kohl, and she looks older than the eighteen years she's barely turned. He's never wanted to kiss her this badly.

"Noi…"

"I'm tired," she says, and he gets that she wants to say of everything, but she won't. She won't, because even if she is, she's as in love with him always as he feels about her most days. They both know this; in a week it'll be like nothing ever happened. In a day, if Shin has it his way.

So he says, "Alright. Alright. Have a good night," and before she can step away from him, or say something, or do anything besides get a breath in, he kisses her.

She's a bit on the smaller side, but Shin kind of is too, and she fits real nice when he gets an arm around her impossibly tiny waist. One hand spreads out there, feeling her lungs expand in surprise, while the other comes up to cup the back of her neck, her skin warm in the lingering heat of the night. He always forgets how skinny she is, how tight for food they must be that all the bones in her body press back when he touches her. Her dark hair is soft against the back of his hand, pulled into braids that mix with what hasn't been tucked into a small bun. Her mouth is soft and slack against his, right up until his tongue gets past her front teeth. She pushes at his chest, then, and they separate briefly.

"You're so stupid," she hisses at him, hands clutching at the collar of his shirt, "I don't know why I even—"

"Love you," he says before he can convince himself not to, mouth ghosting along her jaw. She stiffens before pulling him forward again to slam their mouths together, fingers gripping his collar like a life-line. Shin's pretty sure he's tasting his own blood, but now he's got her tongue wrapped around his own and the hand that had been at her bony waist sliding low to paw at the delectable derriere his little dancer's got going. His eyes slip closed on their own accord, her chest expanding against him in a way he doesn't want to forget. One of her hands fists in his hair, and he takes that as an invitation to hitch their hips together.

She moans into his mouth just as there's a slam of pots and pans from inside her apartment. They jerk apart in surprise, panting, and Shin raises a hand to thumb at her swollen mouth. He grins: "Dinner tomorrow night?" They'll both have to ignore his little confession.

Noi fixes him with a dark look; "We'll see. Souza's got work," and she spins on her heel, sashaying away with a arch to her spine that makes Shin's mouth go dry, the implications of the following evening doing nothing to help with the flush steadily making it's way down his body. Noi pauses at the doorway, half inside the house. Her pupils are blown.

"Goodnight, Shin," she says, her smile too sharp for the sweetness of her voice, and then the door's slammed shut and the lights inside her apartment are dimming, Shin staring blankly at the window over the loss of his hot date.

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a/n: Noi is a Thai name meaning "Little." In my head she's Tahno's little sister but I mean that's just my backstory for her :) Moll is allegedly 1920's slang for a gangster's girl, which is fitting amirite. Feedback is much appreciated!