Good Company
Asami Sato, the recently appointed CEO of Future Industries, sat at her father's old office desk, reviewing large paper stacks of confidential company records. Mid-day sunlight poured through the office's expansive windows. The view of the clear blue skies and the people frolicking outside mocked Asami as she thoroughly scanned the documents before her, trying to ascertain just how deeply Hiroshi Sato had involved Future Industries in Amon's Equalist movement.
Two months have passed since she, Korra, and the rest of what Bolin had dubbed as "Team Avatar" returned from the South Pole. Upon Asami's arrival, she was beset by forfeiture notices from the Republic City Attorney's Office threatening to seize all of Future Industries' assets due to its involvement in Amon's illegal terrorist activities. Although she could have easily washed her hands of the whole affair due to her innocence of her father's machinations, she nonetheless chose to stand by the company he built. She hurriedly retained the best attorneys she could afford from what remained of her rapidly dwindling trust fund to salvage what was left of Future Industries.
By some miracle, her attorneys were able to hammer out a settlement with Republic City that allowed Future Industries to remain in business. In exchange, the city would receive eighty percent of all future profits generated by technologies derived from Future Industries prototypes that Hiroshi Sato had provided to the Equalists. Asami's attorneys explained that the City Attorney viewed the settlement as a win-win proposition for Republic City. The city expected to collect almost all of Future Industries' profits over the foreseeable future while simultaneously bleeding the company dry.
The only way Future Industries could stave off financial ruin was by developing a whole new line of technologies completely independent of Hiroshi Sato's old Equalist designs.
No one in the City Attorney's Office expected Asami Sato to be able to pull it off.
She was dead set on proving them wrong.
But in order to do so, Future Industries needed to survive long enough for Asami to utilize her engineering prowess. As a result the company's short-term future depended on her ability to conclusively prove that enough of its existing products had nothing to do with the Equalists, thus sheltering the resulting profits from the city's clutches. That was why Asami and her lawyers spent endless days and nights poring over all of the company's documents.
Throwing herself into her work also allowed the young CEO to distract herself from the shambles of her personal life. Her father was a bigot and a terrorist who tried to murder her. Now that he was in jail, she had no family left.
Then her boyfriend Mako strung her along before leaving her for the Avatar. To make things worse, she thought that she and Korra were on their way to becoming actual friends before everything happened. After the initial awkwardness caused by Mako and Korra's new relationship, the three of them found a way to be on good terms with each other. But there was still the unavoidable fact that Asami's friendship with Korra or Mako would always take a back seat to the fledgling couple's relationship.
Through it all, she was thankful for Bolin. The young earthbender helped the transition greatly, serving as the optimistic glue that held "Team Avatar" together. He did his best to organize get-togethers and reach out to Asami. Despite Bolin's best efforts to make her feel included, however, she slowly drifted away from the group as the struggles with her company intensified. She began to use work as a distraction from dealing with the fact she had no one left to go home to.
Asami was in the midst of burying her loneliness once again under stacks of paperwork when she heard an unexpected knock on her office door.
"Come in," she called out.
The door cracked open imperceptibly. A set of blue eyes topped by a high ponytail hesitantly peeked through the opening. Although the visitor's nose and mouth remained obscured behind the wooden door, Asami would have recognized those sapphire orbs anywhere.
She was surprised to see the Avatar in her office. Even though the two young women made many vague promises over the past few weeks to "hang out" and "have some girl time," they never managed to make it happen.
"Are you really busy?" asked Korra, her voice somewhat muffled by the door she was still sheltering behind.
It seemed as if most powerful bender in the world was timidly hiding from her behind a wooden door. Asami found the image so ridiculous that she giggled for what she thought was the first time in days.
"What are you doing hiding behind that door?" she chuckled.
Korra's entire head finally popped into view, encouraged by Asami's laughter.
"I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being a bother."
"Of course not, come in!" she reassured her younger friend.
The Avatar's face lit up at the invitation and she walked in with a large paper bag in her arms.
"So what brings you to this neck of the woods?"
"No reason in particular," smiled Korra, "I just wanted to see how you were doing. Plus, I came bearing gifts!"
Korra walked up to her seated friend and proudly placed the paper bag in Asami's arms before flopping into the empty chair across from her friend. The raven-haired brunette felt a familiar warmth radiating from the package.
"Is this hot food?"
The water tribe girl nodded enthusiastically.
"Well, Bolin told me you tend to skip lunch because you're so busy, so I decided to get you some takeout from Kwong's Cuisine!"
Asami shot her a puzzled look.
"But Kwong's Cuisine doesn't do takeout."
Korra nonchalantly put her hands behind her head and leaned back in her chair, smirking at the confused CEO the entire time.
"Normally they don't, but they might have made a special exceptions for the Avatar."
Widened emerald eyes looked at Korra, then back at the bag, then back at Korra again. Kwong's was her all time favorite restaurant. Their soup dumplings were legendary.
"You're kidding," Asami whispered in disbelief.
With her victim on the ropes, the Avatar went in for the kill.
"And I might have asked the chef to prepare your favorite dishes."
"Are you serious?" exclaimed Asami as she abruptly stood and placed the bag on the table, not caring about the documents she displaced.
She excitedly opened up the package and inhaled the vapors that wafted up towards her nose. The undeniable aroma of soup dumplings made her salivate. Oh, how she had missed the simple pleasure of Kwong's perfectly prepared dim sum. To top it off, she couldn't believe that Korra personally went out of her way to deliver this food to her. Her friend's simple act of appreciation felt like a balm for the loneliness she tried so hard to ignore. Asami beamed at her blue-eyed friend with an inner glee that she hadn't felt in months.
"This is amazing! I could kiss you right now!"
Distracted by the exquisite food in front of her, the engineer failed to notice the blush spreading on Korra's cheeks in response to her statement. The waterbender fought through her embarrassment and struck a triumphant pose on her chair.
"What kind of Avatar would I be if I didn't at least make sure that the coolest member of 'Team Avatar' doesn't starve to death?"
Asami snorted at Korra's proclamation.
"I highly doubt I'm the coolest member."
The Avatar shook her head at Asami's dismissive statement before launching into her counter-argument.
"Let's see. You're a girl, you kick butt, you're good at driving, and you're the only one of us not afflicted with foot-in-mouth disease. So that kind of makes you the coolest member by default."
The waterbender's strange logic caused the engineer to chuckle some more.
"Who am I to go against such sage logic?" Asami answered with a sarcastic grin.
In response, Korra stood up and schooled her face into a serious expression. She deepened her voice and did her best Tenzin impression, mimicking the distinctive inflections of his voice.
"You are cool, Asami. The Avatar has deemed it so. Be the leaf."
Korra then immediately broke into a sloppy caricature of an airbending stance and clumsily stumbled on her own foot. She lost her balance and fell to the floor, accidentally knocking over a stack of papers on Asami's desk with a flailing arm.
Asami howled with laughter. Korra apologized profusely for scattering Asami's documents, but the CEO assured her through her guffaws that the mess was well worth the entertainment.
"That was perfect!" Asami said, clapping.
The Avatar sat on the floor, smiling at her friend's good mood.
"At least I didn't knock over the food," Korra mused.
"Speaking of food," Asami said as she grabbed the box of dumplings, "we should eat it before it gets cold."
The green-eyed brunette quickly snatched a dumpling with a pair of chopsticks and offered it to the Avatar.
"Are you sure about splitting your food?" asked Korra uncertainly. "I got it for you."
"Nonsense," countered Asami, "you're a Kwong's soup dumpling virgin. It would be a travesty not to initiate you."
"If you insist," Korra shrugged in acquiescence. "Besides," she grinned playfully at the raven-haired engineer, "it's not everyday you get hand fed by the Asami Sato."
Asami returned the Avatar's grin with a flirty look of her own.
"Today must be your lucky day, then. Now say ah."
Asami held out the dumpling towards the younger girl, but she was a bit out of her reach.
"Come closer," Asami commanded.
Korra scooted towards her chopstick-wielding friend. Besides her parents, no one had ever fed her by hand before. Feeling slightly self-conscious, she tentatively opened her mouth.
"Come on . . . " said Asami, encouraging Korra to open her mouth wider.
Korra complied.
" . . . I don't bite . . ." Asami continued saying as she placed the dumpling on Korra's tongue.
Korra bit down, releasing the soup inside. It tasted divine, and she savored it greedily.
" . . . much." Asami concluded in Korra's ear.
Caught off guard by Asami's final provocative statement, Korra inadvertently inhaled the soup in her mouth. It went up her nose and she started spluttering. She covered her nose and mouth, unwilling to let the soup dumpling go to waste.
"Oh no, are you okay?" Asami apologized, but couldn't keep a grin from emerging on her face.
"Sthop thlaughing! Thnot fthunny," protested the now coughing Avatar.
Asami did her best to deny her friend's accusations. And failed miserably.
"I'm not . . ." Snort . . . "laughing . . ." Snort.
The Avatar, still covering her nose, sent a betrayed glare at her supposed friend. Korra watched as Asami's face contorted in an attempt to contain her laughter. At that moment Korra decided that Asami, with her makeup, somehow resembled a constipated badger mole.
Korra laughed, spewing soup all over the paperwork on the floor.
This only caused Asami to lose control completely.
"My papers . . ." she coughed out between wheezing chuckles, "I can't . . . I can't . . . breathe."
"Justice! Ha!" choked out the Avatar through her own snorting cackles, in celebration of her Pyrrhic victory.
Asami crumpled to the ground. Her stomach muscles contracted in pain from laughing uncontrollably. For once, happy tears rolled down her face.
Korra joined her on the floor shortly thereafter.
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