Model Behavior
Summary: Modern/AU. Korra thought it was an ordinary day of art class at Republic School for the Gifted. But then, the art model Asami Sato walked into the room... Korrasami
Chapter 8: Multiple Choice
Asami sniffed before rolling over to her side. Her chest moved up and down as she breathed deeply. Her mouth hung open a bit, allowing a little dribble of drool to seep out onto her bed pillow
She sniffed, a bit harder this time, before flipping to the other side. A soft grunting sound followed. A few moments later perspiration began to drip down her back. Asami mumbled before moving onto her back. She squirmed in her sleep, trying to get the feeling off.
With a gasp, Asami's eyes snapped open. She breathed deeply while sitting up in bed. Asami looked around the room, chuckling a bit to herself. A few seconds later a bitter, albeit familiar, smell entered her nose. "Smoke?" she muttered.
Asami flung the covers off before slipping out of her bed. She yanked her bedroom door opened and rushed into the living room. Her eyes widened when she noticed smoke pouring out of the kitchen. "Not again," she muttered.
"Did I wake you?" Korra asked as she emerged through the smoke. She quickly waved her arms in the air. Asami placed her hands on her head to keep her hair down as the Avatar airbent the smoke into a ball. "I wanted to surprise you." She walked over to a window and opened it before pushing the smoke out of the room.
"By burning my apartment down?" Asami rushed into the kitchen and turned the embers off under a pot. The boiling water quickly receded. She peered into the pot as Korra shuffled into the room behind her.
"By making you breakfast in bed," Korra explained.
"And that would consist of?"
"Noodles, noodles, and more noodles.
Asami lifted her head out of the pot before grabbing a pot holder. She grasped the handle and tilted it slightly so that Korra could see the yellow, brown, and black food at the bottom. "It's burnt," she commented.
"No, it's an added flavor." Korra took the pot out of her hands before grabbing a pair of tongs and filling up two small bowls.
"But it's kind of burnt," Asami insisted.
"Taste it first before you comment on it." Korra turned around and motioned with a jerk of her head for Asami to sit at the table since a bowl was in each of her hands. Asami chuckled a bit as Korra kicked her lightly on the backside as she made her way across the room. "Trust me. This is big in the Southern Water Tribe."
"So is pickled sea urchin noodles." Asami collapsed into her seat and rubbed her eyes. She smile thankfully as Korra placed a bowl and a pair of chopsticks in front of her.
"Trust me, if you can keep that down, this will be lighter on your taste buds," Korra said. She took her chopsticks and started to shovel her noodles into her mouth. Asami smiled as she watched the girl's cheeks puff up after every passing second.
Asami shrugged before eating a bit of her food. She smiled as the flavors hit her tongue. She gave Korra thumbs up as she continued. "Were you okay in the guest room?" Asami asked after raising a hand to cover her mouth as she chewed.
Korra swallowed her mouthful of food. She picked at the noodles sitting at the bottom of her bowl. "I didn't sleep in the guest room, I slept on the couch," she answered.
"Why?"
"The guest room was too far." Korra shrugged.
Asami stood up and looked through the entryway that connected the kitchen to the living room. She gazed back and forth between the couch and the guest bedroom door. "It's about ten feet away," she explained.
"Exactly, after our late night dance party, it was too far." Korra loudly slurped the rest of her food. "I was out the minute I sat down."
Asami grabbed a napkin from the middle of the table before dabbing around her lips. "Well I hope you're rested enough to get some studying done today," she reminded her.
"Oh, right." Korra waited patiently for Asami to finish her food before taking their bowls and placing them into the sink. She washed them with her waterbending before heading into the living room. Asami was seated on the floor with her back resting up against the couch and her laptop sitting on the table. Korra plopped down next to her and started to rummage through her bag.
"Do you have skype?" Korra asked as she placed her chemistry text book and a notebook onto the table. Asami made a sound of confirmation as she clicked through files on her computer. "Find Opal. I want to hear how her date went."
"We have to study," Asami said while plugging in her wireless mouse.
"We have all day to do that." Korra snatched the mouse out of her hand before dragging the cursor over to the Skype icon on the desktop. Asami reached out to grab the mouse back but Korra stuck out her tongue and held it an arm's length away.
"Then how about a compromise?" Asami asked. "We study for an hour and then we can video call Opal."
"Fine." Korra tossed her the wireless mouse. She tapped her fingers on the notebook cover as she watched Asami pull up a chemistry program on her computer. "Why did you get so nervous this morning?" she asked. Asami looked at her with furrowed eyebrows. "About the smoke?" she pressed.
Asami chuckled. "I didn't expect that to be your second question."
"It isn't. It'd technically be my third question."
"Then what's your second?"
"What happened last night?" Asami looked over at Korra in disbelief. The Avatar crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged her shoulders. "You have a choice between the two questions. You do also have a pass and a throw out. Choose wisely," she joked. Asami clicked her tongue before gazing down at her fingernails. She still had a few bits of leftover polish left on her thumbs. She started to pick it off. "Oh, it's serious," Korra said quietly. "Forget it."
"No, it's okay." Asami pushed her laptop further back on the table. She turned towards Korra and rested her elbow on the couch. She propped her head up with her hand. "I ran into my ex-boyfriend last night. Apparently he's dating Rika and she was flaunting it in my face," she admitted.
"Is that why you ran out?" Korra asked.
"Among other things. She brought up something I kind of regret."
"Oh." Korra quickly grabbed her chemistry textbook and flipped it open. "So, chapter one. Welcome to Chemistry."
"I may as well tell you," Asami said while rubbing her forehead. "His name is Iroh, he is the grandson of Lord Zuko and the son of Fire Lord Izumi." She looked up at the ceiling in thought. "We had met and started dating in my freshmen year and he was a junior. At first, I only dated him to make my father mad."
"Why?"
"Long story" Asami shook her head and waved her hand in the air. She took in a deep breath before continuing. "Eventually, I grew to genuinely like him. In fact, I was in love with him. Or at least I thought I was. He decided to join the United Forces and he dropped out of school to pursue it. I waited for him, because I felt that we'd be together forever. Around this time we started fighting and I really wanted things to work out. The Forstival is a carnival event held at my school, and I wanted to go with him. I basically had to convince him to come out. A few days before the, carnival I knew things were getting bad between us, but I just didn't want to let him go. He was going to be shipped out again after the carnival so I wanted one more weekend with him."
"That's understandable," Korra said quietly. She had pulled a pillow off of the couch and held it to her chest.
Asami shrugged. Her bottom lip jutted out and started to quiver. "We got into another fight, it was about something stupid, I don't really remember. Looking back, I knew it wasn't worth it. Iroh and I just decided to break up and he wanted to leave a day early to go back to where he was stationed, but I begged him not to break things off until after we had a great last night. Then, I got carried away and I slept with him.
Korra gasped. Asami looked over at her in confusion. The Avatar blushed and quickly dropped her head. Asami smiled softly before continuing. "I thought it would make him stay, but he still left. I still went to the Frostival but I didn't pay too much attention to it. I was waiting for him to just tell me he made it back to where he was stationed safely. I was basically made fun of for being anti-social."
"They just look for small reasons don't they?" Korra interrupted.
"If only I knew the real reason, but yeah. He emailed me and said he got back and that he'd always care about me and we ended it. Then, two years later I see him at the club with Rika and she throws it into my face that Iroh cheated on me around the time of the Frostival with her."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"She basically called me a slut for sleeping with him, but I was in love. Or at least, I thought I was. There's just something about him. He's really good looking and gentle, sweet, and kind. He will stand up for anything and anyone. Maybe I was blinded by the uniform or his heroic actions, like the idea of him saving people. He kind of saved me in a way."
"It takes a real creep to cheat on someone," Korra commented. She pulled the pillow away from her body before giving it a hard punch. A seam popped open and feathers flew out in the air. Asami raised an eyebrow at her, as Korra smiled sheepishly and tossed the pillow back onto the couch. "How great could he be?"
Asami looked at Korra for a second before reaching for her laptop. She clicked the mouse a few times, before pushing her laptop in Korra's direction so she could see the screen. Asami waited patiently for her reaction.
"God damn, he's hot!" Korra exclaimed.
"I know," Asami said with a shrug.
"Well, you're better off without him." She placed a hand on her shoulder and lightly jostled the engineer. Korra smiled brightly as Asami started to chuckle. "Someone better will come along."
"I think they already have," Asami said quietly while brushing some hair back behind her ear. She grabbed a pencil from the wire spine of Korra's notebook before ripping a piece of paper out of it. She rapidly scribbled a few things down after reading something from the chemistry program on her computer screen.
Korra smiled slyly. "So, you're that interested in Mako?" she asked. Asami bit the inside of her cheek. She turned towards Korra and started to twiddle a pencil in between her fingers.
"I have a question for you," Asami said slowly as Korra opened her textbook again. "It'll be my second."
"Shoot."
"Do you love Mako?"
The room was silent except for the soft hum of Asami's laptop fan. Korra slowly lifted her head and looked over at Asami with confusion. "Yeah, of course," she said sharply.
"I'm not talking as a friend," she added.
"Oh," Korra said simply. "Then, no."
Asami blew sharply out of her nose. "I don't know. I just kind of get the feeling that something else I going on," she said slowly.
"No, we're just best friends." Korra closed the textbook with a snap. "We are argue way too much to be together."
He told me that exact same thing, but he actually admitted that he loved her, Asami thought while continuing to mess with the pencil in her hands.
"Don't worry. You and Mako seem to work pretty well together."
"So, you won't mind if I continued to date him?" Asami asked. Where did that come from? We basically broke up last night. At least, I think we did. It wasn't too clear. It was my intention, though.
"Who am I to stop you?" Korra asked. "And for the record, I love all of my friends. Mako, Bolin, Opal, Tenzin, his kids, Pema-"
"Oh, so you don't love me?" Asami joked. She couldn't help but holder her breath as Korra took a few moments to respond. Korra placed the textbook onto the table before leaning back against the couch and lacing her fingers behind her head to cup her neck.
"I don't know you that much," she said dismissively.
"I just told you I lost my virginity when I was sixteen," Asami shot back. She made sure she smiled wide enough so that Korra would know she didn't mean to be taken too seriously. "Right now, you know plenty. I don't know too much about you.."
"What do you want to know?" Korra asked.
"What was it like growing up in the south?"
Korra let out a bark of laughter. "You're going to waste your third question on that?"
"I started with two hard questions, I figured you would like a break." Asami winked.
She chuckled while shaking her head. "Well, I grew up in the Southern Water Tribe near the South Pole with my parents in the White Lotus Compound. Here, I have a picture." Korra rummaged through her backpack before pulling out a crumpled photo. She handed it over to Asami. "That's my mom Senna and my dad, Tonraq. They're amazing and two of my favorite people in the world. It was just the three of us as I grew up and trained to be the Avatar. Of course, that is until Naga came along."
"Wait, the three of you?" Asami looked up from the photo.
"I didn't have many friends back home," Korra said quietly. Her blue eyes turned a darker shade. "Or any, really."
"Why not?"
"Because of the compound." Asami tilted her head to the side. "Oh, so Mako never told you," Korra deduced. "If I wasn't training in waterbending with Master Katara, or healing with Master Kya, her daughter and Tenzin's sister, then I would just have other people come to me to train me in earthbending and firebending."
"So how did you come to Republic City?"
"My parents thought it'd be great to get some more education outside of the South Pole and this way I could learn airbending from Tenzin." Korra stretched her arms above her head. "I watched over his and Pema's children somewhat as a trade. Then I met Mako and Bolin and we've been close friends since."
"I'm sorry," Asami blurted out. "That you didn't have many friends," she added.
"Some parents thought I'd be a danger to their children. I can be a hot head sometimes. I just wanted one friend, a girl who I could hang out with and talk about stuff guys wouldn't understand. I mean I love my mom, and Master Katara, and Master Kya, and Pema, but there's just something's I don't want to talk to them about. Do you know how embarrassing it was to have them try and teach me about…our monthly visitor?
"I don't think I want to know, but things have worked out now. You have me and Opal
"Yeah, I do." Korra smiled. Asami smiled gently in return. The two sat, looking at each other, in silence before a notification popped up on the computer screen. Korra sat up and peered at the small font. "Opal accepted your contact request," she explained before the Skype ringtone poured from Asami's computer.
"Hey guys," Opal said cheerfully once her video camera turned on. "Did Bolin leave a shoe there?"
"Haven't seen one," Korra answered.
"Wait, a shoe?" Asami repeated.
"Long story." Opal rolled her eyes and shook her head. "How do you not notice that you're missing a shoe?"
"Don't girlfriends usually check up on a guy's things for them?" Korra asked with a half smile. Opal groaned and hid her face in her hands but not before a light blush raced across her cheeks.
"How did your family date go?" Asami changed the subject.
"It was good," Opal admitted, "and then bad, and then embarrassing, and then super embarrassing, and then great."
"What made it great?" Korra asked.
"We held hands," Opal said excitedly. Asami placed a hand over her mouth to hide her smile as scratched her head. "And, I thought he was pulling away because he didn't want to hold my hand but he was just wiping the sweat off."
"Leave it to a freshman to be excited about hand holding," Korra snickered.
"Hush, Korra." Asami picked the pillow, that Korra had destroyed, off of the couch and tossed it into the Avatar's face. "It's sweet," she insisted. "Besides, I don't think she should rush into anything. She's still young."
"I'm not that young," Opal said with a scowel.
"So are you officially boyfriend and girlfriend yet?"
"No, but I could as you the same question." Asami furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Bolin says Mako won't stop talking about you. He keeps muttering about something under his breath and your name always pops up."
"Really?" Asami asked in disbelief. "After our talk last night I didn't think he would-"
"What talk?" Korra wondered.
"Nothing. We were just mentioning where we see this going."
"Well he seems to really really like you," Opal explained. "Bolin is already calling you his girlfriend and he hasn't denied it once."
"He hasn't?" Asami and Korra asked at the same time. Opal looked in between the two of them as Asami quickly turned to face the darker girl.
"Does this bother you?"
"No, why?" Korra questioned.
"No reason, just curious." Asami continued to keep her gaze on Korra until her cell phone started to ring. She plucked it off of the table and looked at the caller i.d. "Oh, he's calling. I'll be right back." Asami climbed to her feet and headed towards her bedroom before pressing the ANSWER button. "Hey, sweetie," she said a little loudly.
"Sweetie?" Korra repeated.
"I think it's cute," Opal gushed.
"Yeah, cute," Korra said as she rolled her eyes, "in a makes me want to vomit kind of way." She looked over at Asami's opened bedroom door. Her light laughter floated out into the living room.
Korra frowned.
AN: So, I think it was obvious, but I changed Iroh's age to make him fit into this story more. I made a reference in this story about how Korrasami will start to play out. See if you can spot it, but try not to spoil it for anyone else if you do! ;)
