The first time she went out holding Bolin's hand, she could feel their stares and hear their whispers. Naturally, it was all over the papers because the Avatar's relationship was far more important than the Equalist riots occurring all over the city. It wasn't that big of a deal at first—she was in the papers every day anyway, and she was used to people staring at her.
Then everything changed.
It started when she was signing autographs. The first match of the tournament was that night, and there was a customary get together at the park with all the teams, their sponsors, and the fans. The players got to mingle with the crowd, and they were ravenous for the celebrities' attention, so Korra was soon separated from Bolin, despite his arm around her waist.
"Avatar Korra! Can you sign my shirt?" a little girl giggled and held out the fabric. Korra grinned and reached for the shirt when someone else whipped the garment away. "He-ey! Neela! Korra's gonna sign that!"
"She's absolutely not. Why would you want some floozy to sign your good shirt anyway?" Neela, who was obviously the girl's older sister, sniffed haughtily. Neela led the girl away. Korra recoiled, stung. She was shaky with city lingo at best, and was unsure what a 'floozy' was, but the girl's tone made it clear that it was something unsavory.
Korra shook it off, telling herself that Neela was probably an Equalist supporter anyway. She grinned and began signing other articles of merchandise while fans complimented her on her unique style of waterbending, teased her about jumping into the competition so late, and questioned her about what she planned to do about Amon.
People begged her to give a little demonstration of firebending, so she obliged and shot a fireball into the sky, then did a roundhouse kick that sent of ribbon of fire over the spectators' heads. Everyone gasped appropriately and cheered. Korra smiled triumphantly and turned around to go find Bolin. She almost ran into the gaggle of girls behind her.
"Oops, sorry," she apologized, still beaming. "Want stuff signed?" The girls nodded consent, and Korra grabbed the first piece of paper offered to her, signing her name with a new flourish.
"Heard you're with Bolin now," the next girl said as Korra signed her Fire Ferret paper. "I remember when he took me out dancing." She smiled nostalgically.
Korra hesitated. "Oh, really? Well, I'm sure he's a fantastic dancer!"
"Oh, he is," said a third girl. "We went dancing too! And out to dinner a few times. Of course, he never called me after that." She took off her fiery red hat, brushed her dark hair back behind her ears, and put the hat back on. "What about you, Korra? Has he taken you out yet?"
"Bet he took you to that cheap place on Fifth Street," said the first girl, an adorable and petite girl with deep blue eyes.
"That's where he took me!" chimed the other six girls.
Korra flushed with shame because that was, indeed, where Bolin had taken her for lunch the other day. "Ah, I don't remember," she muttered. "I got to go."
"Wait!" said one of the girls, an extremely tall beauty with smoky gray eyes and full lips. "You forgot to sign my paper."
"Sorry," Korra mumbled, trying to sign the paper quickly and leave.
"Tell you what, Avatar Korra, girl to girl," the tall beauty said. "You ought to leave Bolin right now. He's done nothing but break hearts since he got to this city. Mark my words, he'll take you to dinner and dancing, and then he'll never show interest in you again. He doesn't care about us girls, just uses us so he has something to drape across his arm at parties."
"Here's your paper," Korra snapped, shoving the paper back at Tall Beauty. She whirled around and began to push her way through the crowd, ignoring the people who called her name.