"Hi ladies, welcome to Narook's. Table for five?"

"Oh yes, please." Korra raised a brow at the gaggle of giggling girls making goo-goo eyes at her oblivious coworker. Grabbing five menus, Mako nodded curtly to the customers and led them to a table in the center of the restaurant. Korra leaned closer to get a better listen since the girls appeared to be speaking to Mako.

"So, what's your name?"

"It's Mako."

"Mako!" the girls parroted flirtatiously; Korra actually wondered if she should bring over a pitcher of water to quench all the thirst she saw. She watched wide-eyed as Mako continued to entertain their questions. She was only able to take her attention away from the group when someone dropped another set of menus next to her.

"This is a normal thing, y'know." Opal appeared beside Korra, tying the strings of her apron into place. "For some reason, girls are always in to him, even though Mako's a mess when it comes to women."

"He is? No surprise there." Mako having a girlfriend wasn't something that Korra could really imagine. 'She'd have to be someone equally as stiff, if not more,' she thought to herself.

Opal laughed, "He is! My boyfriend, Mako's little brother, always mentions it whenever he can. If Bolin was here…" the girl shook her head amusedly. "…Mako's a good guy, he just…he just needs some socialization with girls. He's doing well with you right now, so there's something. Although, I'm not too sure if I can count squirting fish broth at him as 'socialization.'"

"He's gotta start somewhere," Korra replied smugly, her smirk sending Opal into another fit of laughter.

"So, do you have a girlfriend, Mako?"

"Ah…no, I don't."

Opal and Korra ducked behind the register, holding in their laughter at Mako's obvious discomfort at the question. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Korra could imagine Narook scolding her for laughing at his expense, especially after she had promised to be nicer to him.

Harmless teasing wasn't exactly malicious.

"Should we save him?" Opal whispered.

"He's been hanging there for long enough," Korra allowed. "Besides, that's Hasook's section and he probably won't be out for another two or three minutes."

"Right," Opal agreed before calling Mako back to the register.

Thankfully, Mako bowed before the guests—all flushed pink and batted their lashes suggestively—and made a beeline for Opal and Korra. He took one look at their smug expressions and scoffed, turning away from them. He reached out for a pen and scribbled random characters in a blank piece of receipt tape. Korra and Opal grinned at each other before scuffling over to Mako, who was desperately trying to avoid their silent questions.

Korra waited another moment before reaching over to place a firm hand on Mako's shoulder, "Hey Makoooo…"

"What?!" he snapped.

"I didn't know there were so many people standing in line to get a piece."

"A piece of what?" Korra quite enjoyed the way her coworker's face pinched up distastefully. It made her want to send him back to serve those girls since Hasook still hadn't helped them yet.

"Oh, I think you know what."

"I don't though."

"Korra, forget about it. He doesn't know what you're talking about." Opal interjected, patting her boyfriend's brother's shoulder. Mako glanced over at Opal and rolled his eyes, "Don't you have dishes to wash or something, Opal? God."

"Aw, don't be like that, Mako!" Korra chided. "Opal's a waitress, you dingus. And besides, why wash dishes when we can watch you dish out some noodles to those girls, Mako-style?"

"If you ever say that again, I will drown you."

"Oh, come on! You can't tell me that you didn't see that they were totally scoping you out!"

Mako huffed and scribbled harder against the receipt tape, trying to block out the irritating leerthat Korra was giving him. To Korra, this whole thing was great; there were girls who were interested in that stick in the mud Mako and he didn't even realize it. Her wicked grin widened when she saw the tips of his ears reddening.

"They were not," Mako grumbled.

"God, Mako, could you be any more oblivious? I bet you haven't even kissed a girl, that's why you're so stupid about this!"

"I have so!"

"Your grandma doesn't count, cool guy!"

"…"

Opal watched in amusement as Narook's niece went at it with Bolin's stuffy older brother. She'd never seen Mako act like this before and, quite frankly, it was refreshing to see him get flustered; it made him more personable, Opal thought. 'Perhaps, this arrangement is good for him,' she thought to herself, making a mental note to tell Bolin about this after her shift. Her boyfriend would be ecstatic at the news that Mako was getting along with someone so well.

It's been a while since they actually made real friends.

"Okay guys, well, I'm gonna go serve that table!" Opal called over the bickering pair, who didn't so much as acknowledge her departure.

Opal's smile was a little brighter than usual that evening.

—

"I'll sweep the front of the house and you wipe down all the tables," Mako said to Korra three hours later. Stifling a yawn behind her hand, Korra nodded her assent and got to work.

She hadn't been working for her uncle for very long and she was already falling into a routine that she could get used to. As Korra scrubbed the old wooden tables clean, she recounted the past two months before her mother called, telling her that Narook was going to hire her for a bit.

She'd go to class; Go to practices and games; Study only the night before an exam, but in her free time? Nothing. Korra remembered the sleepless nights that she spent curled up on her bed, paralyzed by the crippling heartache that had dragged her into an inescapable void. She remembered rolling over, thoughts filled only of Asami, and completely surrendering to the misery that followed.

It didn't help her much that whenever she left her apartment, she would carry the betrothal necklace she had planned to give to Asami; it added extra unnecessary weight to both her heart and her pockets. Out of habit, Korra reached into her pocket to seize the necklace, but was horrified to see that she came up empty-handed.

'Wait…I know I brought it with me,' she thought to herself, stuffing her hands into both pockets this time, shaking them for good measure. Only the sound of fabric rustling was registered; a panic came over the young girl and she threw her rag on the table, the task Mako had given her beforehand completely forgotten.

On her hands and knees, Korra crawled around the restaurant, her eyes peeled open for the small jeweled necklace. If she lost it…

'Well, it'd just mean that I'd lost Asami as well, now wouldn't it?' Korra thought bitterly, 'but that's already happened, so what's the fucking point of—'

"Is that a betrothal necklace?"

She could have gotten whiplash from how fast she turned towards the door. There, resting in the palm of Mako's hand was Asami's betrothal necklace. Korra lunged for it and snatched it out of Mako's hands without so much as a warning.

"Don't touch it, it's mine!" the words tumbled out of her mouth without her consent.

Mako observed the somewhat haunted expression on Korra's face, but decided not to comment. Her defensiveness over that necklace could only lead him to one conclusion and it was the one detail that Narook had never provided him with: Korra really was that serious about her ex-girlfriend.

He never could really understand love; after all, he'd never even kissed a girl before. His years on the street, working to support both Bolin and himself, did an excellent job at ensuring that Mako would never get the interest to emotionally invest in someone. Korra's current predicament was just another piece of evidence to confirm to him that falling in love was nothing but trouble.

You give everything you got and hope that it works out, and if it doesn't, you're left with nothing. You are a shadow of who you once were and Mako honestly did not have the time or patience to deal with it.

Korra didn't like the way Mako was staring at her.

She could feel him judging her and there was something in his eyes that made her want to stuff his head in the toilet around back. She clutched the necklace closer to her heart—it was throbbing again—and snarled at her coworker.

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

'Ah, she's mad again,' Mako realized, 'I wonder why?'

He huffed to himself and shook his head, continuing his sweeping; however, the action only seemed to fuel Korra's anger. She stuffed the necklace in her pocket and approached Mako, her intentions made clear to the 19-year-old. He stopped sweeping.

"I can feel you judging me," Korra hissed lowly.

"I'm not."

"Don't lie to me."

"Korra, I think you're overreacting…"

"Don't patronize me!" she burst, slapping the broom from his hands. It clattered against the ground; the sound rang in Mako's ears and Korra got closer to him.

Korra was fury was growing. How dare this jerk attempt to trivialize the situation? She was seeing red and nothing was helping to calm her down. She'd seen that same look before; from her teachers, her team mates, sometimes even her own parents had given her that same pitiful expression. Korra was so tired of it.

She didn't need anyone to look at her as if she were a wounded animal.

"Don't patronize me, Mako," she repeated again, this time lower.

'Is this really happening right now?' Mako thought to himself. Him, patronizing Korra? 'The one time I space out in the wrong place at the wrong time and I have someone ready to beat me up. It's so fucking presumptuous.'

"I wasn't," Mako snapped, his frustrations with Korra's moodiness taking over, "not everything is about you, Korra! Am I not allowed to think to myself?"

"No, you aren't, because when you do, you wind up judging people without caring about what they've been through, you jerk!" Korra replied nastily, "I can see, you know!"

"Not very well."

"Oh, fuck off."

Mako couldn't believe how quickly they regressed back to square one; however, he figured that part of that was his fault since he didn't keep his mouth shut in the first place. He could tell that if this escalates any further, Korra was most likely going to attack him. The best course of action would be to separate since neither were thinking clearly at the moment.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Look, neither of us are thinking straight right now. Do you wanna go home early?"

Korra didn't need to be offered her escape twice. She quickly grabbed her coat and brushed past Mako, slamming the front door behind her. Mako rolled his eyes hard into the back of his head before finishing up his work. The teen remained focused on the tasks set before him that he didn't even acknowledge when his younger brother entered the restaurant.

"So, Opal is telling me something about you having a new BFF? Bro, I'm kind of hurt you didn't mention this before."

"I don't know who the hell Opal is talking about, but I'm sure she's dead wrong anyway."

"My Opal?" Bolin asked incredulously, "Never! She was telling me about how Korra was teasing you for something about dishing out noodles Mako-style and—"

"Why are you here, Bolin?"

"I wanted to meet Korra myself!" the 17-year-old answered brightly. Emerald eyes zipped around the empty restaurant, hoping to catch a glimpse of his brother's newest coworker. "Where is she?"

"Home. She left early."

"Aw, why?"

"Because Korra likes to blow everything out of proportion," Mako gritted out between clenched teeth, anger coursing through his veins again, "I help her find the betrothal necklace she made for her ex-girlfriend and then she gets angry at me because she thinks I'm judging her for hanging onto something that's obviously hurt her very badly. God, what the hell is the point of carrying it around if you're just going to hurt in the end?"

Bolin observed his brother's reaction very carefully. Opal was right. It was unlike Mako to investthis much raw emotion in someone he had just met before and the fact that he was doing it now made Bolin hopeful of the future. Maybe Mako would find a friend in this Korra, even if Korra needed his help right now and wasn't willing to accept it at the moment.

"Y'know, bro, sometimes all you need to know is that she's hurting," Bolin perched himself on the stool next to his brother, gauging Mako's reaction as he spoke, "You may not understand what Korra's going through, but it's important that you're there to listen to her. Without making any judgments because, face it bro, you do have a bad habit of judging."

"What? No, I don't!"

"…" Bolin pointedly looked at Mako, who sighed in resignation.

"Maybe I do, but it was the only thing that got us by all this time."

"Yeah, but counseling someone through their relationship problems doesn't really call for cold, hard street smarts. You gotta be more sensitive towards her, bro. Narook wanted you to help her right? That's how you do it 'coz a broken heart really sucks."

"So, I've heard." Mako grumbled. Bolin laughed and punched his brother's arm affectionately.

"You'll get it."

"I hope so."

—

The next day, Mako found Korra eating lunch outside in one of the university's main courtyards. Despite autumn closing in on Republic City, it was still warm enough for the students to enjoy their lunches outside. Mako wasn't surprised to find that Korra was alone, reading out of a second-hand textbook while picking the sashimi off the tops of her sushi.

Remembering Bolin's words to him the night before, Mako decided that now was as good as any to make an attempt at clearing the air with Korra.

Taking one last deep breath, he stood up straight, squared his shoulders, and strode towards Korra. She didn't seem angry at all when she noticed him standing in front of her. Instead, bright blue eyes ran over his figure, almost as if she were sizing him up.

"Can I sit?"

Korra thought briefly about it before nodding, scooting over to give Mako some room. Nobody seemed to notice the university's resident lone wolves actually sitting together during lunch. Mako was thankful for the lack of an audience. He turned to Korra.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," Korra blurted out before Mako could even say anything. He frowned.

"Sorry? For what?"

"I snapped on you when it wasn't your fault," she explained, "I shouldn't have acted so defensively and I'm sorry for being so rude to you."

It was the first time she had ever apologized to him. Mako decided to celebrate the momentous occasion by returning the same sentiments to her. It wasn't quite as difficult now that Korra went first.

"Well, I was being insensitive towards you and I know it's been a rough few months for you, so I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was trivializing your feelings. I really didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't," Korra replied, beaming, "but thank you for apologizing anyway. You know, with how I've been recently, I am really impressed with how you've been handling everything."

"What do you mean?"

"I know I can be a pain in the ass," Korra admitted freely, laughing at the look of utter shock pass over Mako's face. "But I think it's pretty cool how you've been able to keep up with me, Mako."

"Keep up?"

"Yeah, like, deal with me," Mako noticed the smugness in Korra's face melt into a very bittersweet type of sorrow. For a moment, Mako was able to catch just a glimpse of the sorrows Narook had told him of before. After weeks of arguing and being tossed over and over into the pit of fire, Mako was starting to see something that he never thought Korra would reveal. She laughed bitterly, "The last person to ever deal with me was…"

She paused, hesitant to whether or not she should even mention the unspoken name resting on her quivering lips. Mako waited patiently.

"The last person to ever with me so well was very important me," Korra whispered after a few beats. When Mako glanced over to look at Korra, he wasn't surprised to see the girl holding the most heartbreaking expression he had ever seen. Looking at how her eyebrows drew up together, with her eyes wide with unshed tears—it made Mako feel the need to actually try to comfort her. He felt a new kind of frustration when he realized that there was not much he could say to help mend a brokenheart; he had seen it way too many times with his younger brother and knew that these things passed with time.

Mako cleared his throat, "You know, Korra. If you ever need to talk about it, I'll listen to you."

Mako wasn't her best friend.

But Korra could definitely see him becoming one just because he said that he would listen to her when she was ready. This whole time, her family had been trying their best to force her out of thisphase—if you could even call it that—and now, there was someone who was willing to wait for her for when she was ready to shed those sorrows. The fact that there was someone who was waiting made her as if she were one step closer to letting Asami go. A pleasant warmth erupted in the pit of Korra's stomach, soothing any twisting pain that she had felt over the past two months. She didn't recall the last time she had ever felt so…actually, she didn't recall the last time she had felt anything other than pain. Korra welcomed this new feeling that Mako had brought to her.

Reaching over to take his hand in hers—Korra was momentarily mesmerized by how easily her hand disappeared into his warm grasp—she squeezed gratefully.

"I'll be looking forward to that day. Thank you, Mako.