loving him was red
/For Nuktuk/ Korra's thoughts throughout "Reunions". [Korra/Mako] A drabble.
Her first thought had been that his hair was ridiculous. Not that she voiced it. He was taller too, more mature. More grown up. Then again, the last time she had seen him had been when they were eighteen, three years ago. Now, they weren't teenagers; they were young adults, even if most days she felt much older than that.
But when she hugged him, it almost felt like the last three years fell away. It almost felt like when they had been together, and her fist would always close on the back of his red scarf. Her hand hit only his back. The scarf had been gone for a while now.
"Hi Mako," she said, not fully sure of what to say next. Asami was easier to talk to, but the truth was Mako had always made them complicated. He had riled her up and drove her crazy like nobody else. And a small part of her still liked that about him.
She couldn't help but feel a pang of hurt when he said, "Well, why didn't you ever write to me?" She knew the, "Or Bolin?" was a cover-up. The look in his eyes made her stomach twist itself into knots.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I guess... I didn't know what to say."
She knew it was a lie. On the contrary, she felt like she had too much to say, too much to ever put it into a letter. How could she explain everything she was feeling? How her heart had skipped a beat when she had first seen it, how she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge it when he was rude to her? How she had found herself falling for him, even when he was with Asami? How it had been seeing him, about to suffer like she had at the hands of Amon, had prompted her to do something she thought was impossible?
How she was being forced to choose sides, how sorry she was that she had ever forced him to? How they had broken up?
Like the hot-white anger, like the burning crimson of her cheeks, like the satisfaction of seeing his dopey face after kissing him, like the colour of his scarf, loving him - for she still was, had she ever truly stopped since that day in the park after jerking awake? - was red. And when she had walked away, holding back tears as her hand slipped out of his, the red had faded to a dull colour that bathed everything as she battled Zaheer, distracting, alluring, persistent. And when she had gone to the South Pole, the red was barely there, but still there. It would flourish and thrive whenever a letter came and give her bloodshot eyes when she could never put a single word on a page with Dear Mako on top.
Vaguely, she wondered if he had meant it when he had said always. She knew she had. But so much had changed, not just their hair or their jobs, but who they were. Were they still too different to ever work? Had he given up on her?
"A hello would have been nice," Mako said sourly, and a lump formed in Korra's throat.
Maybe this time the red could stay.
