Korra never thought she'd understand Asami's love for driving. (Well obviously, with her not being able to for so long and all). But today she finally thinks she gets it.

They're driving - Korra for once, timidly at the wheel because Asami's dad had dinged the bumper of her car, and god forbid she drive anywhere in a vehicle looking like that- back home from the city proper.

They'd just had what Bolin would deem the most fabulous dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, where their server had titled their bibs KING CRAB (Bolin) QUEEN CRAB (Asami) I GOT CRABS! (Korra) and CRABBY! (Mako, obv.), and they'd purposely ordered each of their Shark Bowls separately in order to cause the most amount of disturbance possible in the restaurant. They thought it endlessly hilarious that Mako's had been free, because, as the waiter put it, it was "made for his kind".

Anyway, the boys had gone out after to meet Wing and Wei for a boys night, which meant Korra's house, which was usually the site of their late night Rock Band nightcaps, would be quieter than usual with only two band members, so they took the trek to Asami's. The estate is a good forty-five minutes away from Korra's- 28 minutes if you get no stoplights, which is Korra's record, with Bolin in a close second with 31 minutes (but don't you ever tell Mako how many yellow lights he had to blow through to make it). She wouldn't tell you even if you asked her, but the longer drive simply meant more time with Asami, and as she came up to the Mountain Crescent side of Asami's Road, she decided to keep going.

Her first favorite part about this decision is that Asami hadn't questioned it. Even though she'd blurted, after wondering if maybe Asami thought Korra had forgotten where she lived? "I don't feel like going home yet," to which Asami responded, wonderfully and in every way Korra ever wanted to hear,

"Me either."

Her second favorite part was that it was basically an acceptable (almost romantic? and not creepy?) way to keep Asami with her.

Usually, when she drives alone at night Korra's brain goes to a million different places and she doesn't like to interrupt it, which leads to long trips to nowhere. Tonight though, she's absolutely positive her brain is on the girl sitting next to her and the thought that after this summer, they'd be going their separate ways, and she didn't want to ruin the comfortable silence by pulling into the driveway and having to say the worst thing ever: "Goodbye".

So as they sit quietly in each other's presence, Asami humming the tune on the radio and Korra simply beaming at her excellent choice, she understands. She fucking loves driving. It's amazing.

Now Korra's thoughts on driving can be summed up like this:

One day, when you're feeling nostalgic and don't want to go home, or say goodbye to the person you may or may not love, that just so happens to be beautiful and wants to sit next to you for an undetermined amount of time, keep driving with them- with the windows down and the cool breeze of an eighty degree night slowly dropping into the seventies blowing- through the winding roads of somewhere you love (with someone you love,shh), with the radio crackling "Yellow" by Coldplay.

Do you know,

You know I love you so...

And, as you make the turns and the chorus catches you, and you feel whatever you had to feel- whatever was keeping you from not wanting to go home, whatever was making you scared of saying what you wanted to say to her- eventually, the roads will turn back into roads leading you to home instead of away from it. This same road you thought you wanted to go on forever turns into one infinitely longer, keeping you away from the one place you want to be, with the one person you want to be with. So by the time you'll have to pull into the driveway, it's like you went back in time and are driving her home in the first place, except feeling the welcome and comfort of knowing you could always come back, or that she'd trust wherever you took her, which you wouldn't have felt before. It keeps home (her) a place Korra always wants to go back to.

Not even a year ago, though, Korra would have never imagined herself feeling this way about Republic City- or her wonderful friend.

She hated its lights and the noise. And she hated the heat and the smell of horseshit and hay that lingered in the air of their small suburb right outside it.

Now Korra's thoughts on the city can be summed up like this:

It's the only place I want to be (because she's here).

For now.

She's proud all her friends love coming to her house. It's no cabin in the South Pole, but she can't blame them, they've never been there. At this place, you can still see most of the constellations from her driveway (though that streak that marks the galaxy is missing, as well as the Southern Lights). Sure there's a little light pollution from Republic City Car and Truck Company littering the nearby highway, but she prefers it that way-mostly because, it's what got Asami into staying over, and staying late.

Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you...

She also can't decide if she enjoys the fact that whenever they look at the stars together, they don't think about love, or if someone they love is looking at the same stars (which they are), or if they're really the stars, or if there's an alien somewhere doing the same thing- but of that ridiculous quiz they got in Freshman Science that was just paper full of dots that they had to draw the constellations in on. And how any two fucking stars could be Sirius Minor, because its JUST A LINE, NOT A SMALL DOG. And how the fuck did Asami get an A on that quiz becauseliterally… it was a just a page that looked like a pen had exploded on it.

Whatever the case, she's not the same person that moved here, (mostly cause now she can drive, and LOVES IT). Actually, she knows she's not. So that night when they drive together, she's not timid or shy, or the kid that didn't know what to say when Asami told her she was afraid of fire and of being left alone. That Korra didn't understand half the things Asami ever said, but this one does. This Korra loves her, and she's pretty damn certain about it. She just doesn't know how to say it. Or how to compete with the hunk of Fire Nation that Asami happens to be banging, and just so happens to tell her every excruciating detail about.

If there is one thing Asami obviously has never heard of, it's "don't kiss and tell". Because she tells Korra the shit out of it. Sometimes, even as its happening.

And if it wasn't all so preposterous and disturbing at the time, it might actually break Korra's heart.

But back to the being in love part.

She drops Asami off, and she only doesn't come in because she's got work in the morning, and the spirits know she wont ever go to sleep if she could be looking at Asami instead.

Also, if there's anything the drive has convinced her of, is that she's here for a purpose, and that she's going to go home and watch Lord of the Rings because all she can hear is Gandalf in her ears saying that "all she has to do is decide what to do with the time that has been given to her."

She's got the summer. And by the end of it, Asami will know.

It's true,

Look how they shine for you.