Summary: Years have passed since Mako sacrificed his memories of Korra so she can get her bending back. All he wanted was a cup of tea to spare his thoughts, not the unexpected visitor. An unforgettable one-shot.
Setting: Jasmine Dragon, Ba Sing Se
For the last seven days, for the last seven weeks, for the last seven years, he had trouble living.
His face was always aloof in the looks of a scowling expression – eyebrows narrowing down, eyes glaring intently, and spine stiff of posture. Although quite charming, the aura around him had never been anything enlightening. He was mysterious and isolated from the gossiping herds of women occupying the tables beside him. Throughout the elderly women laughing away their daily dilemmas, he had been the only customer there near closing time all alone.
His amber orbs focused on the small cup of Jasmine in front of him and nothing else.
Customers had always kept an eye on him, conjuring up conspiracies of what goes through this man's mind. Wanted fugitive? Brokenhearted playboy? Psychologically dysfunctional student? In honesty, he would've told them if he knew. There were small memories irking his mind every time he visited the tea shop but the pieces were never put together.
"Why so glum?" The waitress teased as she poured in piping hot fragrant smell of fresh Jasmine. She swiped the menu away from him as her boss from afar cued that he was a frequent visitor.
Closing his eyes, he lightly picked up the beverage near his lips.
"Kid!" The waitress panicked in an instance and quickly unleashed a breeze of cold wind from the tips of her fingers, brushing off the steam from his tea out of sight.
Immediately, he shot her a mild glare. The faint stirrings of annoyance started to replace his lost emotions earlier. Even droplets of tea started to trickle down on his white collar much to his displeasure.
"Do you not have the decency to blow before you sip? Common sense, mister." She rolled her eyes and laughed as she vigilantly crossed her arms.
All he could do was wince in response, believing that this girl was truly a fool.
"Call me Mako. Leader of Triple Threat Triad, Republic City police officer, Fire Ferret master." He blatantly stated, trying not to sound too cocky.
For a second, the waitress paused at her actions before returning to the counter. Her cerulean eyes widened with her figure frozen, but she carelessly shook it off before the man in front would have suspected anything.
"Oh?" She forced a cough to clear her shattered voice. "Oh!" She forcibly put on a lopsided grin as she scratched the back of her head.
The temperature was getting increasingly higher by the minute. Well, to her. The high-tightened ponytail of her sepia hair now wasn't enough to keep the hairs of her neck from standing. The man in front of her didn't seem to pay any attention to anything she did, anyway.
"There aren't many firebenders here in the Earth Kingdom."
"My mom was raised here. This was actually one of her favorite places to visit back then...Tea holds the sanctuary that clears the mind." His lips curved downward and light cloud darkened his amber orbs.
She let out a nervous laugh in a worrisome manner. "Is that why you're always coming here? To get your head straight?"
"N-no, yes," He sighed in distraught. "I don't even know. Every morning I wake up with this strong tendency to come here. It's been this way for the last seven years. I don't know why but I feel like I have something here that's calling me."
The waitress placed the kettle down, knowing it was about to be the start of a long conversation. She cued her boss by swiping two trails of wind to signal her break time. If this was truly fate, she knew she couldn't take this opportunity for granted. It was too risky to spill out the truth so soon, but it couldn't hurt to hear from his point of view of what really happened. Or maybe she should just let go of the past.
These past seven years had felt so empty for the both of them, but she was the only one who knew why.
Much to her dislike, she had to act foolish enough to believe the man had a bad case of a short term memory.
"Maybe you've been waiting for your date!" She chuckled to herself in concern.
Strangely enough, he glanced back into her eyes and smiled with consideration. "Maybe you're right."
Now it was really getting hotter in here. She cursed at her flushed red face and blamed it on his strong firebending aura and the boiling row of teas meters away from where she was even sitting.
"The name's Korra." She grinned wider in hopes this conversation was getting anywhere.
He continued to drink his tea with his hollow filled eyes gazing out the window.
No response.
He didn't remember.
He didn't care.
"Airbender, huh?" He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "The only ones I know are part of Tenzin's family."
Korra stammered as she fiddled with her thumbs. "N-nah, but I'm just a good friend of theirs. I'm just," she paused as Mako started to look more curious. "Very lucky to be an airbender."
The brief pause that filled the conversation felt a minute too long, but strangely enough, the silence felt rather comfortable to both of them. It wasn't as awkward as she expected it to be and it did happen to re-cleanse the yearning she had for him over the past several years. It was as though she was closer to finding her solace to the burdens of the past buried deep inside.
"So I hear you're always coming here – same face, same expression, and sometimes even the same clothes." Korra laughed as she remembered the days she used to poke fun at her friends on a daily basis.
"Yeah, I used to be the man who had a clear memory of everything from all of the firebending tactics to win a match to every single word an enemy would whisper." He shrugged and took another sip of Jasmine. "After my friends and I helped the benders win from the revolution long ago, I was the only one feeling empty. I don't know why, but people told me I got into an automobile accident from a Satomobile purposing trying to kill me, so maybe that's why I don't remember anything. I just feel for certain I forgot something very special."
Korra gulped and felt as though she was swallowing a rock. "Special?"
"Yeah," he smiled. "Now that you mention it, it does feel like it'd be a person I'm waiting for and probably not a guy, either. So who knows, maybe it is a date I'm waiting for!"
Korra shook her head in disbelief, trying to wear away the dark blush creeping up against her skin.
It was her turn to say her side of the story.
"During the revolution, I actually made three of the closest friends I'd ever have. Amon managed to capture me sometime after and took my bending away. It sucked. Everything that happened was just plain stupid. It sucked even more that one of my best friends sacrificed his memories of me just so I could get my bending back. In the end, it turned out he didn't even have to go through that trouble just for me. Amon would've lost, anyway."
"I'm sorry to hear that..." He frowned in sympathy.
Korra crossed her arms and carefully tried not to look into his eyes before any waterworks would erupt. "He was very special to me, too."
The lights began to dim, motioning closing time. All of the gossiping clusters of the elders had already departed for their bed time.
Her eyes strayed to the empty counter, sighing that it was time to let Mako go. "Sorry your date didn't show up today. Maybe she'll come tomorrow."
As she stood out of her chair and started her walk towards the unwashed tea cups to her dismay, she stumbled as a hand tightly grip her wrist. To her bewilderment, she shot a confused look at the man in front of her who completely changed his stoic expression to something warm.
"She's already here."
Korra smiled as she looked to see his hand trailed down to hold hers. Gently, she sat back down on the seat across from him with hand still grasping hand and gazed into his glimmering amber orbs she missed so dearly.
"Sorry I'm late."
A/N: Please review! It'd mean so much to me. :)
This is my first fic in the LoK fandom and my first one-shot. Hope you guys got the pun in the description. (x
Oh and please keep note that one-shots don't continue...