HELLO HELLO HELLO.
Ohmygewdd how long has it been since I last updated? So sorry! And thank you very much for your review and Neikey for your favorite! Feels really good when people appreciate your work! , thank you for your comment and yes I have formulated the ways so the background stories for the characters fitted this story. I hope it won't budge you too much because of these changes. And yeees because the MakoJinora ship is so rare (so rare that I don't even know their pair name.. MakoJi? JinoKo? Pfft) I decided to make one fic myself! Hehehe.
Btw, enjoy. Disclaimer still intact; the Legend of Korra characters belong to Nickelodeon.
Eight Years Apart
Chapter 2
The first time Jinora tasted the bitterness of separation is when her age was three years old. Maybe even before, if we counted that time when her father had passed away when she was still a fetus.
Jinora was the only child of an economically challenged family. Her late father was only a teacher who had no tenure, and her now-single mother was a piano teacher in a small music course. Most of the time, Jinora's mother struggled to pay the bills and the taxes and others, thus the family had nothing much left to spend.
When Jinora started to age and she did not need much attention than she previously did, her mother took another side job as a waitress in a fast food restaurant and also a bartender at a country club. Still, the money seemed to come and go.
At a young age, little Jinora seemed to understand what problems her mother has been facing. Although she obviously did not get the whole point, she already knew how to restrain herself from buying too many toys or too many pretty dresses she did not need. Her mother noticed and tried to make Jinora spend more, and finally they decided to throw Jinora a birthday party.
They called it a party although the only people invited into were themselves and there was no clown. The pianist was Jinora's own mother, and the cake was barely enough for two people. Nevertheless, Jinora seemed happy because she did not usually eat pretty colourful candy cake (that was what she called the cake) and her mother asked her if she wanted another one as a birthday present for her mother has not gotten her one. With a big grin, flushed cheeks and tingling eyes, Jinora nodded enthutiastically. Her mother gave her a tight hug and a kiss on the top of her head then went away.
Only, she never came back. The only elder woman passed through Jinora's flat's door was a social service officer who took the little girl to the orphanage (where the orphans insisted on calling the place sunnyplace daycare as every one of them going to leave this place at some point) where she met Mako.
On the first week, Jinora still believed that her mother would come and get her. Mako, who has been advised by one of the caretaker to keep Jinora entertained, did not mention to her that this daycare was actually an orphanage and the mother who would come was not their birth mother. Everytime Jinora chattered about her mother, Mako would simply smile and change the topic into something else.
Then another week began and Jinora began to question about her mother's whereabouts. Her first interrogation victim was obviously Mako, the boy whom she spent a lot of time with. Jinora bombarded Mako with a simple yet had to answer questions like where is my mother and do you think she still love me because she should be worried if we haven't met for a long long time. Mako tried hard to invert Jinora's attention by allowing her doodle on his homework or telling her stories about dragons but Jinora insisted.
Mako could do nothing but ask the caretaker for help.
Of course, like any child whose mental and emotional condition still considered as normal, Jinora cried really hard when he heard that her mother has passed away because of a car crash on the way to the bakery.
Mako regretted asking for help to the caretakers and felt devastated every time he saw the tears falling down from Jinora's shabby, round eyes. The eleven year old boy felt all the miserable things Jinora now went through was his fault, thus he determined to make a smile formed on the little girl's lips again.
Mako spent a whole month being Jinora's shadow. He would rise early so he could prepare breakfast the way Jinora's mother used to (cut the sandwich to four pieces and add a smiley face on the sunny side egg—Jinora had told him on the first week she got in the orphanage). That way, Jinora would want to eat that although she still left a little tiny bit. Then he would only read whatever book Jinora asked him (usually Jack and the Beanstalk and Sleeping Beauty although Mako had read it to her like thousand times already). Also, Mako would tell her what he learned at school because apparently it made Jinora a little bit distracted from her sadness.
In no time, Jinora already as cheerful as she used to be.
However, Jinora experienced another partings when she was five.
The tirtheen year old Mako was deemed as too old to keep mingle around the orphanage. Thus, the head caretaker tried really hard to track families who were willing to take two pre-teen boys (as Mako would never leave Bolin alone).
Although Mako seemed happy with the prospect that he would have a family, he hated to leave Jinora all by herself. Both Mako and Jinora tought and hoped that the process would take like forever; families usually took younger children. It would give them more time to spend together for the last time.
However, they found the right family who was willing to take Mako and Bolin in only three days.
Mako was used to be alone and able to understand the cruelty of the world starting from a rather young age.
When he was five years old and his brother Bolin was only three, a group of robber broke into his family's house. They took every valuable items they could find and because Mako's father and mother tried to restrain, the robbers killed them both in front of Mako's eyes.
A social worker took Mako and Bolin and gave them to their closest relatives. They were originally enthusiastic of the prospect being in a family again, only to find that their relatives already have so many children and they could not take two more mouths to feed off. The first refusal that Mako has ever experienced was only a week away from his parents' passing.
Yet, it was not the last refusal.
For the first year of being an orphan, Mako and Bolin were tossed around like they were some kind of toys. They went to one and another relative, stayed with them for three months the longest, and then they packed their bags to ride the social worker's car again. Mako and Bolin even started on making bets and games on how soon the next ride going to be. Mako was so sick for their excuses (we got too much to feed! The boys did not do anything to help us! They are the cause of every sibling quarrell that ever happened since they got here and I'm not in the age to hear about it again!) that he stopped listening to it anymore.
Their last relative were two states away from their parents' house. It was literally and idiomatically the furthest relative they ever got from both sides of their parents. She was an old woman who lived alone and all her sons (including Mako and Bolin's father's cousin) were trying to make their life better by working in the big cities.
Little Mako and Bolin's first week was undeniably cold. They were pessimistic and was ready to get shipped back again to another relative's house. They were unresponsive and only did whatever they were told to when their grandmother raised her voice. They refused to have a 'bonding', to help their grandmother bake the cookies, or to help their grandmother feed the chickens.
However, when their grandmother remembered Bolin's forth birthday, and then Mako's sixth birthday, they started to believe that they were not going to go anywhere anymore. The back of the social worker's car was only a distant memory for them and the warmth of their grandmother's hug was a usual welcoming greeting.
They happily helped to feed the chickens with a humming until Mako's seventh birthday, when suddenly their grandmother's condition went kaput. She suddenly collapsed while cooking for Mako's birthday. A panick Bolin immediately called 911 and it was the last time they could see their grandmother's face other than the one they saw from the photo in front of her coffin.
On that day, Mako was terribly devastated. Upset and felt betrayed, he ran away without Bolin on his side. He went wherever his legs brought him. He did not want to go anywhere anymore and he felt he better lived alone as his own choice and not because others determined it for him.
He was so ready to really leave when suddenly Bolin's crying rang in his ears, and the sight of Bolin's shabby eyes was so clear even when Mako tried to close his eyes. He realized that he would be selfish if he left Bolin all by himself, and for all that count, he was never alone.
He and Bolin then, for the really last time, they were sitting on the back of the social worker's car and let it drove them to the sunnyplace daycare, where only a year later, Mako would met Jinora.
And only two years later, to leave.
"I don't want to go," a faint voice echoed through the darkness of a small room, "I suddenly want to stay here until I die."
"I don't want you to go too," replied another voice, a little higher than the former, "Who else will let me doodle on their homework?"
"Just grab whoever and don't let them see you doodling on their homework,"
"Why I can't go with you? Bolin go with you."
"He's my brother, I can't leave without him."
"Am I not your sister too?"
"You are, but—"
"But what?"
"You are a different sister, Jinora."
"How different?"
"Just different."
"I don't understand."
"Why can't you just understand? I thought the caretakers said that you are smarter than other five year olds."
"You are always bad at explaining, Mako."
"Speak for yourself.."
"I can't really go?"
"...I'm afraid no, Jinora."
"Can I see you?"
"Maybe, but I don't know how far my new home to the daycare. Maybe if it's close I can go here every week with Bolin."
"That's good. You have to tell me everything that happened to you every week!"
"You too have to let me know whose homework you manage to doodle on."
"Promise me not to forget me?"
"Of course. Promise me too?"
"Promise."
"Now can we sleep?"
"Yes."
"Nighty night, Jinora."
"Nanaight, Mako."