She turns to him, the comforters pulled up to cover her breasts. He's still marveling at how beautiful she remains.
"Tell me about her," Korra asks, and Mako has to swallow the lump in his throat.
"You sure?" He says lightly.
"Yeah. I want to know about the person you'll be marrying." She should be sad but she has a smile on her face and Mako realizes that Korra is truly happy that he is happy. Even if it means that he will be married to someone that's not her.
Even if it means that this is the last time they'll be seeing each other.
She showed up at his door hours earlier, no warning or pre-call. "Don't tell anyone I'm here," she muttered as she plopped down on his couch, almost ignoring the fact that they hadn't seen each other for so long.
"What- Korra- hi," he breathlessly greeted, slowly closing the door behind her in shock.
"You haven't changed much," she laughed at Mako's ungraceful, dorky behavior.
"You've been gone five years," he replied after a pause. "I didn't…Korra, I never thought I'd be seeing you again."
He eyes the wedding ring on the side table across from them. It's his wedding ring.
He feels so wrong to talk about the girl he is marrying while he is lying in bed, naked with another.
"Do they deserve this?" Mako comments. "Do they deserve to have us?"
He's referring to their significant others, and he's referring to how he and Korra are such terrible people for sleeping with each other one last time despite the fact that they are both in other relationships.
"Don't we deserve this, Mako?" Korra replies, and her voice emits her sadness. "Don't we deserve a last time with each other?" He doesn't look in her eyes because the sadness will kill him.
It's not possible for them, anymore. Not possible to be together.
"Tell me about her," she asks again.
Mako sighs, shifting so that he can face Korra with his head propped on an elbow. "She's… she's a writer. Her hair's short." He takes a breath, and when he opens his eyes he meets Korra's blue ones again. "She's really patient. Sort of quiet, though. But when you get her talking, she can go on for days." Mako looks away. "Her name is-"
"Don't." There's a hollowness to Korra's voice, but when Mako looks back, she's still maintaining that calm and content composure. "Don't…don't tell me her name, please."
"Okay," he whispers back, swallowing hard.
They lie there in silence, and he reaches to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. Mako can't help but think of the night they just shared, the amazing night, where they took it slowly and lovingly- he could never feel so sated and blissfully happy with anyone else as he did with Korra. Last night was just a reminder of that fact.
She wasn't acting like herself and Mako didn't know what to do.
Apparently, five years had changed Korra. Made her calmer. More patient, more relaxed.
This wasn't the Korra that Mako knew.
"You know, right?" She asked him, and he just nodded numbly as they sit there in his couch.
"You don't wear the ring," Mako noted. "Oh- oh, yeah," Korra breathlessly remarked. "It gets to be a hassle with all the traveling and stuff, since it's so delicate and…" She put her teacup down, took a breath.
"Can we not talk about this?" She asked him after a moment. "Just for right now. Let's not talk about this." He nodded again.
"How about him?" Mako asks her, his hand still on her face. She noticeably tenses.
"What about him? Read the papers. They're mostly true," Korra replies.
The papers state that Korra got married at age 20 to a young fire nation ambassador in order to seal a political compromise between the water tribes and the fire nation. It was mostly arranged; the Avatar had only known the man for about two weeks before the marriage ceremony was held.
"I want to know about him. How he is. Does he make you happy?" Mako blurts out the question, his eyes softening.
Korra grabs his hand with hers. "He's nice. A real gentleman. Funny. Yes, he makes me happy."
Mako smiles, a sad smile that combines grief and content all in one. "That's good."
They're yelling at each other now and finally, finally, Korra is acting like herself.
"What do you fucking want from me, Mako-"
"Tell me why you're here! Tell me why you decide to ruin everything by showing up and- and showing me what I let go of-" "I'm just here to say hi!"
"Bullshit, Korra-"
Her lips pressed against his randomly, and he gave into the kiss because this is what he has wanted for so long now. Her. Just her.
Everything moved pretty fast and they found themselves on his bed, letting instinct guide them, throwing away rational thought for the moment.
"Do you love her?"
Korra's voice is so loving that Mako wants to hold her forever, and never, ever let her leave. If only.
His gaze locks on hers. "I do," he said. "I love her a lot." But his eyes convey what that truly means.
Korra nods, once, and he knows that she understands. She understands that while Mako loves his fiancé, it's nothing like how he loved- loves- Korra. Not even close.
"How about you?" He asks. "Do you love him?"
Korra sighs. "I…I love him, but just as a person. Like how I would love a friend." She looks down, smiling bitterly. "He loves me so much, and it's been two years now… but I can't see my feelings ever change for him."
It hurts so much for Mako because Korra is not completely happy. Maybe if she said that she loved her husband, maybe if she just left it at that, Mako could live on believing that she had found a love worth her time. That she had pieced together happiness, albeit artificial.
But he knows that Korra is being honest with him because he had been one of the only people she could ever spill her real feelings to.
"You realize that I can't ever see you again after this, right," she mumbles, picking at the comforters.
"Yeah," he responds, voice cracking.
When she leaves, she kisses him one last goodbye. Light and delicate. Filled with love and longing.
She doesn't cry, and neither does he. She closes the door behind her and he doesn't open it again. She doesn't leave a number to call and he doesn't ask.
But he slumps to the ground, wondering just how they ended up in this situation where they can never be together, and he has to ask himself why this happened to him. Didn't the world take so much from him already? Why did it have to take Korra, too?
Hours later, when he hears a knock, Mako opens the door. And a small part of him has this fantasy that it's Korra who's knocking, and that she's come back because she found a way for them to be together or she just wants another cup of tea with him or something.
But the girl at the door has short hair and an engagement ring on her finger.
"Hi, love," she greets, holding a binder. "I'm sorry I disturbed your day in, but we need to figure out some last-minute wedding plans." She grins up at him. "One more month until we're married," she breathes. "I can't wait."
He doesn't repeat her words and instead wishes it were someone else saying them.
She doesn't notice.