Of course Korra would miss her bus home on her first day. She plopped down dejectedly onto the curb as she watched the giant yellow blob fade into the distance. She was about to pull out her phone to call her mom—she wouldn't get off of work for another hour, but it was sooner than her dad would be available—when a hesitant voice spoke up behind her.
"Need a ride?" Asami had her arms awkwardly folded behind her back. She had made the split-second decision to offer assistance to the new girl, even though every part of her brain was screaming at her to stay away.
Korra's heart, meanwhile, had picked up pace considerably in response to Asami's presence. "I—uh—sure? I mean, no." She was stammering and stumbling, so she hastily shook her head at herself and got to her feet. "I mean… I don't want to be a bother," she finally sighed.
Asami couldn't help but giggle a bit at Korra's behavior. As much as she didn't want to admit it, the new girl was pretty adorable. "It's okay. If you end up not living in my direction, then I can help you find someone who does for the next time you inevitably miss the bus. Sound okay?"
Korra wanted to argue, but couldn't think of anything to say in rebuttal. She gave a small, grateful smile as she nodded. "I live on South River Street. I know it's out of the zone…."
Asami's heart stopped, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak. "That's actually just across the zone lines, I think, because I actually live on North River Street."
Korra's grin widened. "Oh, so you're just on the next street over from me! That's so weird, how we've lived so close but never met because of the school zones."
"Yeah, you would think I'd have noticed you before," Asami said before she realized she was speaking aloud, making Korra blush.
"Why do you say that?" Korra suddenly felt nervous and found herself rubbing the back of her neck.
"Oh, no reason in particular," Asami hastily covered herself. "You just… have that kind of personality, I guess."
That helped Korra relax a bit. "Well, thanks!"
Asami just nodded. "We should probably head to my car, now." She quickly turned to start walking toward the parking lot, mentally chastising herself with each step. She needed to avoid Korra, not offer to spend more time with her. This was already getting out of hand.
She needed to figure something out, and soon.
The next day, Korra woke up from an extremely weird dream. There had been a tall, white, balding man with a long goatee in strange red-and-yellow robes. He knew her name, but she didn't remember his. She did remember bending with him, although he seemed to be able to bend the air. He never used earth, or water, or fire like she did… just air, which she couldn't control.
He had also called her something… an aviator? Avant-garde? Something strange like that, and she couldn't remember why.
Now that she was registered, she took the bus to school. Since Asami and Bolin had been the only people she'd actually talked to the day before, she found a seat by herself and watched out the window the whole time. This was fine, she told herself. Eventually, she'd make more friends, and at least one of those friends was bound to be on the same bus as hers.
Then she noticed how much the other kids on the bus seemed to be whispering between glances at her, and she wasn't so sure it was fine, anymore.
Asami wasn't in physics class when Korra got there. She took the same seat she had the day before, but almost as soon as she sat down, she was approached by a spiky-haired boy.
Now he's cute, she thought, and she was too distracted by that fact to realize that he actually seemed kind of angry. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head, "what was that?"
He sighed heavily. "You're sitting in my seat. Could you get up?"
Korra's eyebrows raised. "Oh, uh… Dr. Varrick told me to sit here yesterday, so I don't really know where else to sit… You must be Mako. I'm Korra." She gave her best smile, but he didn't seem impressed; he just sighed again.
"Look, Asami isn't gonna be here today, so you can take her seat until you talk to Dr. V, I guess. Just—move? Please?"
Korra smiled again, switching seats as she talked. "Oh, you're friends with Asami! I am, too—or, I mean, I hope we can be, we just met yesterday, but I'd like to be friends with her, she seems really cool. Is she okay? She's okay, right? Sick or something?"
Mako raised an eyebrow at her. "You talk kind of a lot, don't you?" He set his book bag down before taking his now-free seat.
Korra blushed at the comment. "I mean, I don't mean to. Sorry. I just get nervous when I start at a new school."
He turned more toward her, seeming a bit more interested now. "You have to switch schools a lot, then? Is your family, like, military?"
Her blush deepened, and she could feel herself slouch down in her seat a bit. "Um, no, not military. I just, uh, get into some trouble, sometimes. But," she hastened to add, "I'm fixing that! No more trouble for me, no sir, just a good, honest, uh, good student." Idiot, she chastised herself.
But Mako had a small, amused smile on his face. "Uh-huh. Alright, Korra, was it?"
"Yeah." She relaxed a bit. "Korra."
The bell rang, and Dr. Varrick literally slid into the classroom and slammed the door behind himself. "Whew! Sorry I'm late, class; I had to escape from a huge pack of badgers! You wouldn't believe it!"
Korra and Mako glanced at each other before sharing a chuckle at their teacher's antics. "He does this kind of thing a lot," Mako whispered. "You'll get used to it."
Korra smiled before turning back to the front of the classroom. Mako was super cute, and she smiled a lot with him. So she liked him, right? Right, must be. No big deal, she would just wait a little bit to see how they got along before she asked if he was interested. She nodded resolutely to herself before finally tuning in to what Dr. Varrick was saying.
Asami wasn't in math class, either. Bolin was already sitting in his seat, murmuring to his backpack. Korra was slightly confused before she remembered the ferret that had popped into her face the day before. She walked right over to him and took the chair beside him. "Hey, Bolin. You know where Asami is?"
"Oh, Mako said she's not feeling too good today. Asami never gets sick, though, so she should be back perfectly healthy tomorrow!" He was absentmindedly petting Pabu while he spoke.
"Oh, you know Mako, too?"
"Yeah, he's my brother!" He perked up even more than he normally was. "He's like my best bud! Besides Pabu, of course," he quickly apologized into his backpack.
Korra's eyebrow raised. "Wow, you guys seem nothing alike."
Bolin just shrugged. "Yeah, we get that a lot."
She shook her head. "So, Asami's okay, then?"
"Yeah, she should be." He looked up at her curiously. "You seem awfully worried about her, huh?"
Korra felt her cheeks burning. "Well, I mean, she was just so nice to me lately, of course I want her to be okay. That's perfectly normal... right?"
Bolin shrugged again. "Whatever you say, dude. Hey!" This shook Korra out of her haze of insecurities. "Would you wanna hang out after school today? Mako has lacrosse practice, so I gotta stick around until he's done. I usually go down by the lake and chill, if you know what I mean." He wiggled his eyebrows so that Korra couldn't help but laugh.
"I mean, I can't really risk getting into trouble right now," she said sheepishly, "but I would love to just hang out."
"Oh, yeah, no prob! It's not for everyone, I get that. Good, sober fun is always… well, fun, too." He grinned, and Korra could tell that he meant it.
"Well, then sure. I have nothing to do, anyways."
The lake was hidden in the woods behind the school building. The trees opened up to the sky beautifully, and there was green grass all around. Korra smiled as she noticed a mama duck and her ducklings swimming up to greet them.
"I always like to bring them a little something," Bolin said sheepishly, digging through his backpack. Pabu jumped out while he was searching, and Korra made to grab him so he didn't run away. "No, it's okay! Pabu knows this place. He won't run away. He just likes playing with the babies," he laughed. He finally pulled out a tiny baggie of chopped-up grapes. At Korra's questioning look, he said, "When I started coming here regularly, I looked it up, and you're actually not supposed to feed them bread. It's bad for them. Grapes are better! Long as they're chopped up so they don't choke." He pulled one out and tossed it on the ground by the water.
Most of the ducklings swarmed around the fallen piece as the mother watched from her place still in the water. One, however, chirped as it walked up to Korra. She looked up at Bolin with wide eyes.
"Here," he said, handing her a piece of grape.
She tentatively took the food and slowly bent down, holding the grape out in her fingers. She chuckled when the duckling grabbed the food from her, quacking up at her happily. "It's really nice of you to feed them like this."
Bolin shrugged. "It's what I do." He scattered the rest of the pieces around before walking closer to the shoreline. Korra followed him and watched as he picked up a stone, tossed it into the air for a moment, and threw it so it skipped across the water.
An idea sparked in her head. "Wanna see a trick I learned, uh, from my uncle?" Bolin held his arms out to welcome her beside the water. She picked up one of the rocks and, feet planted firmly on the ground, sent it skipping onto the water. Twitching her hand ever-so-slightly so Bolin wouldn't notice her bending, she made the stone skip around in a large circle and jump into the air before finally plopping into the water.
She turned to see Bolin with his mouth hanging open and staring at her in awe. She shrugged her shoulders as she fabricated a story. "Yeah, it took a really long time for me to learn how to do it. I can try to teach it to you, but it's gonna be years probably before you can—"
"Korra," Bolin interrupted.
Korra raised an eyebrow as he bent down to pick up another stone. "Bolin, I promise you won't be able to…"
She could only watch with her mouth agape as Bolin recreated the exact trick she had just done. She turned back to him once the stone had fallen into the water, only to see him, palm open, another stone twirling in mid-air above it.
"You can… earthbend?"
Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed! It means a lot to me! I know this chapter is kind of shorter, I'm sorry. That's just where I felt it ended well. Let me know what you think, please!
