Chapter 13-

After the gala, the crew of friends seemed to separate from each other for a while. Korra was now committed to her promise to join Tarrlok's task force and the stories of her Equalist raids made the front page almost every other day. Mako and Bolin continued to train for the probending championship even without their third teammate while Mako and Asami started to frequently go out on more and more dates. Shinju started to become so buried in schoolwork and didn't have any spare time to check up with her friends.

When Mako was out with Asami, Bolin was confined to boredom. He and his brother always had been attached to the hip for their entire lives and Bolin wasn't used to being alone. It was especially hard not having Korra at practice. Mako was reading the newspaper after and saw the Avatar's face on the front cover for the 6th time while Bolin was cleaning up the gym. The earthbender hopelessly asked the question he knew the answer to, "No Korra for practice again?"

His brother answered with a scowl on his face, "Doesn't look like it."

Bolin threw the earth discs he was carrying onto the floor, not caring about the mess he made when he was supposed to be cleaning up. He was too upset about Korra's continued absence and his brother's absence from his life as well. But then he remembered there was another friend missing from his life recently, "Hey, what's Shinju been up to lately?"

Mako had forgotten about Shinju too and didn't have any sort of answer to his brother's question, "I don't know. I haven't seen her since the gala. Have you?"

"No. I think she's been really busy with school. Maybe I'll go to the university and see how she's doing."

"Yeh that would be nice. Even for you seeing as you haven't been out of the apartment much."

Bolin wanted to snap back about how his antisocial behavior was due to the fact that he was out with Asami every night, but he bit his tongue to stop himself, "Okay. Yeh, I'll go do that. Don't go and have to much fun with Asami tonight."

Mako blushed at his brother's comment and then buried his head back in the newspaper to hide it. Bolin packed his things from practice and went to shower and change to go to the university.

Shinju was spending the whole weekend studying for her mid-semester exams. She wanted to go see Korra and her other friends but it just wasn't possible to do that and also get good grades on her tests. The classes at the university were a lot harder than the ones at school back home. All the stress she was feeling really made Shinju second-guess her confidence to not fail out of school.

She just didn't like school at all. Even though they weren't as obnoxious, all of Shinju's professors were just as pompous and stuck up as Professor Proteus, but she couldn't through a temper tantrum and walk out of every single class unless she wanted to drop out of the school.

But at the same time she did want to do just that. None of Shinju's classes were interesting her and being at the university just felt like a huge waste of time. All she wanted to do was go home and work on the farm for the rest of her life. She knew she would be perfectly satisfied doing that.

As tempting as the thought was though, Shinju knew she would feel uncontrollably guilty if she dropped out. Her father worked too hard and invested so much money and effort to make it possible for all of his children to go to a university that it would just do wrong by his memory.

The things that kept Shinju sane while being at school were her new friends, even if she had not seen them in over a week and she was starting to allow herself to let Republic City feel like a second home, but it would in no way replace Anshon in her heart. She kept a calendar right by her bed where she was counting down the days until she left for winter break.

But Shinju tried as hard as she could to keep her mind off of these things this particular weekend and had to put it toward a six scrolls essay on the Harmony Restoration Project for another history class that focused on the founding of the United Republic of Nations. She was already four scrolls in, but she needed to make a trip to the library later to do more research. The paragraph she was on was about to be completed when a rock came flying in through the window. It landed right next to Shinju's ink but thankfully did not hit it. But after she took a sigh of relief, a second rock flew just a little bit farther than the previous one and smashed the ink jar all over the scroll.

Furious, Shinju threw the two rocks out the window. The first one missed but the second rock was followed by an, "Ouch!"

Shinju looked out the window and saw Bolin rubbing the top of his head where she had hit him, "Oh, no! I'm sorry! Do we need to hurt each other every time you come over to see me?" She was extremely happy to see a friend though to take her away from her studying.

"Well, I don't make it very easy to make my presence known. Can I come up?"

"Of course! Hold on a second."

Shinju grabbed her key and rushed downstairs to let Bolin inside the building. When she opened the front door, Bolin greeted her with a huge bear hug, "Shinju! How have you been! I haven't seen you in literally forever!"

Bolin's dramatic greeting surprised Shinju, but appreciated his enthusiastic hello, "I've been good," it was easy to detect the sense of hesitance in her voice, "How have you been?"

"Good, but just absolutely bored lately. Mako is always out with Asami and I'm stuck by myself. And Korra hasn't been around for practice in a couple of days so I figured I'd come see you."

"Aww. Well thank you. I would have come over to see you guys, but I've been pretty busy with school lately," Shinju said this just as she was opening the door to her room. Bolin could now see the piles of books stacked up or laid out on top of her desk and all over her bed. He then noticed the scroll that was covered with ink on the desk as well and the rock next to a tipped over inkbottle. Putting the pieces together, Bolin figured out that he was the cause of this.

"Did I do that?" he pointed to the mess on the desk.

"Oh… well, yes, but don't worry about it. I can…" Shinju couldn't help but add in a sigh, "… write that page out again."

The stress and frustration from school started to boil up her eyes and it was obvious to Bolin now how miserable she felt. He had to reach out, "Hey, is everything okay?"

Shinju hadn't talked to anyone about how she really felt yet and she knew if she kept it in it would only damage her more, "I'm just… under… so much stress…" saying this made the tears start to come. Bolin reached out and pulled her in for a hug and then the tears turned into sobbing, "School is a lot harder than I thought it would be and I'm just terribly homesick and the people here are not friendly and I miss my dad so much and I have nobody here."

Her worries came out in a long run on sentence. Bolin caught her last comment at the end though and called her out on it, "Whoah! What do you mean you don't have anybody here? You have me and Mako and Korra and Asami! You have plenty of people here. Now I don't know about here at the university, but you definitely have people who care about you in Republic City."

"I know. I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I did mean I have no one here at the University. I'm just tired of being here. I hate it here."

Bolin then decided to ask the obvious question, "Well, why don't you just drop out?"

Shinju sat up and repeated out loud what she had been saying to herself all week, "I can't just drop out because my father worked my entire life to get me here today. His dream was for me to go to university. If I dropped out, it would dishonor his memory."

Bolin's line of thinking went on a different pattern though and came up with another important point that Shinju hadn't thought of before, "But wouldn't he be upset to know that you're not happy here? I bet he would be fine with whatever decision you made as long as you were happy."

"I never thought of it that way before."

"He would want you to do whatever you want to do and be great at it! If you don't want to go to school, what else do you want to do with your life?"

"Well, I mean right now, just going home and working on my family's farm sounds nice," Bolin then started to get nervous that Shinju would leave Republic City then and that's not what he wanted, but was saved by her following words, "But I don't have the money to go home right now and I would want to do something else great before I told my mother I just dropped out of the place I've been working my whole life to get to."

"What about your bending? Didn't you say you always wanted to master waterbending?"

"But I don't have the money to get to the North Pole either."

Bolin was then hit with a brilliant plan, "Well what about Korra?! She's mastered waterbending and plus you'd be learning from THE Avatar! It would be like learning from a hundred thousand past masters from her past lives all at the same time!"

"But where would I live? If I drop out then I'm homeless here."

"Hmmm… You could ask Councilman Tenzin if you could live on Air Temple Island because you would be a student of Korra's and if they say no, then you could live with Mako and me."

Shinju was over flattered by the offer, but didn't want everything handed to her if she quit school, " That's too nice of you. If it came down to that, or even if I live on Air Temple Island too, I would find a job to help contribute some kind of rent."

"That's responsible of you," Bolin was then reminded of how Mako has pestered him to find a job for some time now.

Shinju was now thinking everything over carefully in her head. Weighing the pros and the cons and also taking her gut feelings into account as well. The only thing that was keeping her from reconsidering school before were all the feelings of disappointing her father's memory and letting him down for everything he had worked for, but now she seriously took Bolin's point of view into account.

And he was right. If she was not happy there, what was the point of putting herself through something that made her so miserable and be part of an institution that she didn't care for? She didn't feel like she had any place where she belonged at the university, but when she was with her new friends, it didn't feel exactly like home, but it gave her a feeling of belonging that felt just as right.

Intan was the one who flourished at school and Shinju felt wonderful for her sister that she was happy there, but now Shinju realized that she wasn't her sister and that she should go and have her own different adventure to grow and succeed from. She also realized that her father would follow her and watch over her in full support as long as she was happy like Bolin said he would.

Shinju wiped away her tears and sat up strait on the bed. She took a glance at all of her schoolbooks and the ruined essay on the desk. She then saw all of it just disappear in her mind and a wave of relief rushed over her with the thought of just letting it go. That and her previous reasoning helped her to make the final decision, "You know what, I think you're right Bolin. I think Republic City University just isn't the right place for me. Maybe I should try something new and something that I really want to do."

"Really?!" Bolin's face lit up when Shinju announced her decision.

"I'm going to drop out of school and learn waterbending from Korra, which is what I always wanted to do!" Shinju stood up tall to express her newfound confidence.

"That's awesome!... Now how does one drop out of a university exactly? I know I dropped out of primary school when I was little by simply not going anymore."

"Well, if I don't drop out officially and just stop going to classes, my mother's money will just keep going to the university which will be a waste because I'm not learning here. I could probably get back some of the money she already sent for the year and give it to whoever I end up staying with."

"Okay! So off to the main… official… register placey office then?"

"Yes, but first, there is one professor I do want to… 'thank' for teaching me something while I was here," Shinju put a small smirk on her face.

They headed in the direction of the main building for the school of history. On the way, Shinju filled Bolin in on her first and only world history class at the beginning of the semester. When they got to the building, she looked at the directory for Professor Proteus. Shinju found him on the second floor and started to make her way up with Bolin following. His office was at the end of the hall and she saw the door open, meaning he was inside.

The professor was seated at his desk, grading papers using a pen with the ink on the side in a bottle as well. The floor was made out of cement so Bolin gave the ground a small rumble to feel like a small quake. Professor Proteus stopped grading the essays and looked around him for a minute before concluding that nothing was wrong and went back to his work.

Then, even though it was hard for Shinju because she couldn't see the ink, she bended it to splash over just enough that the bottle tipped over and spilled ink all over the papers, most of which the professor had already given failing grades too. Professor Proteus stood up with disgust and also because some of the ink had spilled onto him as well. He went to the cabinet to get a towel to dry himself and then proceeded back to his chair. Right before he started to sit into the chair, Bolin shifted the floor from under the chair so that the professor would miss it and fall onto the floor.

Shinju and Bolin couldn't help from laughing when Professor Proteus' bottom hit the ground, which told the professor that someone out in the hall was the cause of his misfortunes. He got up and bounded for the door and that signaled Shinju and Bolin to run away as fast as they could. They could hear his voice yelling after them as they ran down the hall, but the adrenaline was pumping that their get-a-way was too fast for the heavily opinionated Professor Proteus to catch up and give them a yelling lecture to their face.

Shinju and Bolin ran out the building laughing and breathing hard. Shinju came to the top of a hill and lost her footing, causing her to stumble and roll down the hill like she did when she was little. Deciding it looked fun; Bolin followed her by lying down on his stomach and chased her. Shinju was stopped, still laying in the grass and couldn't get out of the way fast enough so Bolin barreled in and landed right on top of her. There was an awkward moment, but then their laughter continued harder.

The two got up when they finished getting their amusement out of their systems and started to make their way to the administrative building to handle Shinju's official business to leave Republic City University for good.