"...and this is the first one you ever sent me."
"You saved all of my letters, ever since then?"
"Yup," Korra proudly proclaimed. "Must be at least a dozen boxes filled with them."
"I'm impressed," Asami admitted, "but it's not nearly as extensive as my collection."
"...Care to elaborate?"
"I think you could probably fill up my entire closet."
"Your huge-ass, walk-in closet filled with expensive clothes? Wow, didn't think I sent that many."
"And I don't know how we made it for so long without meeting each other," Asami said and they shared a smile.
The two women had been repacking Korra's cardboard boxes for an hour, re-filling them with all the letters that lied scattered on the floor. A stack of them went spread out and unorganized when her friends came breaking-and-entering into her apartment.
"This' all for three years total though. Imagine if we'd kept going for three more!" Korra laughed and failed to notice how her new girlfriend also laughed, though less jovially, eyes slightly downcast. "Aww, look at this one, I remember this!" the girl continued, completely oblivious. "A poem you sent." Korra winked and read the lines, eyes scanning the page. "If only I'd known it was about me..." she sighed like the love-sick teenager she was at heart.
"Give me that!" Asami said, all of a sudden agitated and red-faced. Korra laughed again and let the embarrased woman rip it out of her hands. "Let's finish this so we can go out." She hurried cataloging the flowery letter back in its designated box labeled March, 2013. Two years ago she sent that, she kind of regretted it back then and she most certainly regrets it now.
"Are you asking me on a date, Sato?" Korra cocked a teasing eyebrow and grinned wry.
Asami blushed warmer, letting out a cough. "Well, we haven't even had a first date yet and we already fucked," she retorted.
That was Korra's cue to turn blood-hot. Pounding her chest and coughing, she recovered, sporting a small scowl in response to the challenging smirk on Asami's lips.
Exactly like she remembered it; that's how the dance club was, and Korra hated it, but now she also kind of liked it, which made her hate it even more. The crap music remained consistent and thumping throughout the dark, dingy basement-like interiors. This is where Korra got so drunk that she couldn't even walk, talk, but still be able to write 'I love you' in a confessional letter. Thank god Mako was sober enough not to send the letter to Kuvira or somebody else, 'cause that would've been a headache on top of the one she was then already enduring... That hangover was the worst one she'd ever had and she's already back here again, but with Asami. After finding out what Mako had done and then leaving him rightfully guilty in the dust, she ran home and cursed Bolin and Opal out of the apartment and threw up in the toilet again out of regret, fear, and disgust at herself for doing that to her friends, writing that to Asami, and for being such a failure.
But those worries were all in the past because Asami was here, grabbing her hand and confidently striding inside the club, then appropriately wrinkling her nose at the noise blasting from the speakers. Her hips carried her with an unconscious sway and thank god Asami reciprocated or Korra's life would genuinely be over. Pen pals like this girl don't really grow on trees.
They grabbed drinks from the bar whilst talking all the way. Korra confirmed, sadly, that this was the place that started it all. Even though the volume of the 'music' seemed to increase for every second they spent in there, her girlfriend's laugh always overpowered it with a sound much more symphonic than any of the crap that's ever played in this rat-hole. Korra wanted to hear it again, but in a much quieter, more peaceful and comfortable space. She wanted to hear this woman cry, guffaw, moan, groan, shout, scream, cheer, and roar. Especially when she was the cause, because Asami's happy sounds were things of beauty (on top of everything else like her smell, her taste, her face, her everything... God, what did I do in a past life to deserve her? And they should be recorded and kept safe for all eternity so as to not lose an important piece of history; how Asami Sato came to be Korra's. The flutters in her belly were reminders to treasure each moment with this, her girl.
"I love you," she blurted.
Asami just looked at her with open eyes, so before she could get lost in them, Korra repeated herself, hopefully just loud enough for her lover to hear but no one else. She kept receiving confused shakes of the head and raised shoulders. Her red lips were easy to read in the darkness: "I can't hear what you're saying." The shorter woman took initiative and bent forward, placing her hands gently over Asami's cheeks and covering her ears. The woman's stunned expression and heating face between dark palms inflicted on the athlete's heart the opposite of a skipped heartbeat. It made Korra's blood-pumping organ do something of a double-pound, and form a pleasant and fast tingling that spread throughout her entire being. Not sure how healthy of an effect that was, it still made Korra feel alive and want more, wanted to give as well. She placed a reverent kiss right on the flawless skin on the crown of Asami's head. The sentence was repeated:
"I love you."
The heiress' red lips had literally paled in comparison to the rest of her face. She nodded quickly and appreciatively, smiling. "Love you too," she had mouthed. Korra grinned like a proper idiot.
The taller and older woman sat on her bar stool, freshly cut fingers grasping a shot glass in her left hand—the one she uses to write immaculate letters and design cars. The engineer flicked her pinky out as she drank, because even in a saucy place like this, her elegant mannerisms stayed. They were deeply ingrained in her genius brain; tendencies that the genial, yet sometimes crude, Korra, could and should learn. But maybe not. Asami loved Korra because she was a different breed than the boring status quo that populated formal socialite events, which the heiress had to attend at her father's behest. Besides, that drink appeared exquisite but holy crap it wasn't.
Korra instantly regretted ever asking if she could try it. Some tastes she's learned that you acquire over time, like drinking raw eggs every morning before going on a run. This concoction must have taken Asami at least a decade to even manage stomaching because holy hell it was making her internally convulse on the spot and where is the goddamn bathroom?! Really uncomfortable and really in an emergency, Korra leaned forward again and hastily declared she needed to find the water closet because such fine language was only appropriate for her queen.
For the third time this week, Korra vomited. I should become a pro at this instead, was one of the bizarre thoughts that floated through her head. Professional regurgitator, is that a thing? Wouldn't surprise me...
"Korra, babe? Are you okay in there?"
Apparently Asami had found her in the bathroom, located the stall in which she was currently kneeling in, and considerately asked about her well-being. I'm so lucky she thought, before violently retching once again. Asami made a face at the door before pushing it aside and seeing her poor girlfriend ungracefully sat at the bowl, coughing. You think there's a graceful way to hurl? Asami chided herself at the silly thoughts. She shouldn't have offered her drink to Korra. Her own reaction to the alcohol two years prior had left her bedridden for weeks, after which she vowed never to consume that devil-beverage again, then for some inexplicable reason she did so anyway, gradually developing immunity. Korra was showing a great amount of strength and resistance.
"I am never drinking that fucking shit again," she grumbled. Okay then, maybe not.
On their way out, two guys that had spotted them earlier stood in their way. Clearly, her hand on Korra's waist did not tell the boys what they sorely needed to know.
"Hey baby," his disgusting, slurred voice broke through the music. "I'm feeling lonely tonight—" Not this shit.
"Yeah, well why don't you go hang out with your boyfriend over there," Asami promptly responded, trying to push through but being stopped by thick arms and sausage fingers.
"Woah woah woah, hey...I'm obviously not gay—" he tried.
"But we are," Korra, still holding her stomach, reached around and wrapped her free arm around Asami's waist as well, staring down the two fools who looked dumbstruck at them. "Now get the fuck out of our way," she shoved them easily aside, bringing a slightly stunned Asami with her.
"Wh-What did you just say to me you fucking—!"
Korra was suddenly in his face, two inches and seconds away from knocking the lights out of him. "Finish that sentence and die," she threatened. Now even Asami was scared. She knew that Korra had temper issues, but it wasn't her fault, and slurs were something they'd both dealt with a lot in the past.
She spotted sweat forming on his forehead, but he kept up the cocky talk. "A fighter, huh?" He leered at Korra, looking her up and down, making Asami's stomach turn and Korra's teeth to grind. "In that case why don't you get on your knees and give me a blow to the head?"
That did it. A loud crack got everyone's attention turned in their direction. A couple loud screams sounded in the crowd over the banging music. In no time at all, the slimy creep lied knocked out on the ground, where his arms had swung around so wildly when Korra boxed him in the jaw that they looked broken in the way that they'd landed. His 'boyfriend' was crouching over him, shouting at them with hate in his eyes. "What the fuck! What the hell! Wh-what the shit...!" That escalated quickly... She looked over at her girlfriend, who's knuckles were bloody—not her own—face pale, like she couldn't believe what she'd just done.
"Korra," she spoke in her ear. "Korra. Let's go," but Korra wouldn't budge, her nausea from earlier now doubled, and Asami had to pull on the muscular woman with all her strength.
Still, she was too heavy, and Asami did whatever she could to get through to the woman, and kissed her.