Disclaimer: I do hereby disclaim all rights and responsibilities for the characters in this collection. Kudos to Bryke, indeed.
Pairing(s): Tahno/Korra, Mako/Korra, one-sided Bolin/Korra
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Drama
Word Count: 2,273
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: The life and love of running, autumn, and high school cross-country. — Tahno/Korra, Mako/Korra. AU.
Author's Notes: 11/11/12. Yeah. I have no idea where this is going. This went from one-shot to two-shot to five, and now I suspect that it might be closer to seven because I am in too far deep, people.

Musical Inspiration: "When Can I See You Again" by Owl City. (Oh, yeah, I totally just saw Paperman and Wreck-It Ralph.)

3.5

The third Saturday she went to the park, he asked for her number.

Korra still didn't know much about social norms, but she was quickly catching on, and she definitely didn't want to say something stupid or awkward, but she was Korra, so she couldn't really help it when she asked:

"What, just in case you need a couple extra hours of harassment in your life?"

"Actually," he smirked up at her, leaning farther back onto his elbows, and Korra could hear the crunch crunch crunch as he shifted over the mountain of leaves they'd gathered. "I was thinking of starting the trash talk a little early. You're running on my turf next weekend, after all… or have you already forgotten?"

She had.

"Of course not," she said flippantly. "I just hope this isn't some way for you to finagle another excuse to talk to me."

"A cocky little thing, aren't you?" he noted, and Korra was near positive that the hint of appreciation in his voice wasn't just her imagination.

"No more so than my running partner," she elbowed his ribs, hard, though her smile lessened the brunt of it. "And besides," she said meaningfully. "After my race this morning, I think I've earned the right, haven't I?"

"Please. You may be getting better, but you're still a long way off. Make varsity before I retire, and then we'll talk."

"Arrogant prick," she shoved him, and then dropped back onto the pile of leaves beside him with a contented sigh. They remained like that for some minutes, quietly resting in the leaves, until:

"What's it like at your school?" Korra asked abruptly, overcome with curiosity.

"Like most schools, I guess," he shrugged, and if he was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. "A hefty dose of competition with a side of status and a little learning thrown in occasionally."

"Do you think you'll miss it?" she asked quietly, staring up at the sky. "When you graduate, I mean."

"Depends on which part of it you're referring to."

"How about your team?" she clarified, noting the reluctance in his voice. "The Wolverines, or whatever it is that you call yourselves."

"My team?" Tahno paused, strangely thoughtful for once. "I mean… I don't really talk to many of the others on my team."

Korra's brows furrowed. "Aren't you captain?"

"Yeah," he sent her a sidelong glance. "So?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her mind flooded with memories of Mako's grueling speed drills, Bolin's unflappable energy during hill workouts, Asami's peppy enthusiasm for suicide relays… and a memory from last night's Friday carb-loading team dinner at some fancy Italian restaurant in Central Square—one that she was positive couldn't actually be authentic, even if she'd never set foot in Europe—complete with Mako's team pep talk and Asami's cheers, all before the breadbaskets even arrived. She may not have liked Asami very much—jealous—and she may have liked Mako too much—smitten—but there was something that she was starting to realize about her team, even if she still didn't totally understand.

They were her family, too.

"What about… what about the two boys I saw you walking with at the first match?" Korra suggested, trying to make her voice sound like she wasn't grasping at straws.

"Meet," he corrected immediately. "They're called meets, new girl, not matches. And you mean Shaozu and Ming?"

"Yeah, whoever, the two jerky-looking ones."

He laughed, but he didn't disagree. "I don't remember there being many days before Ming and Shaozu and I partnered up. We all started together in middle school, we were all pulled up into J.V. from Modified at the same time… huh. I guess it's always been the three of us training together, too."

And for some reason, the way he said it—like he was only just realizing it, like he was only just starting to see—it made Korra's heart squeeze in a way that it shouldn't have.

"So, you guys are…" Friends?

"Our formation is solid and our focus is unparalleled," he smirked. "There's a reason why we've brought the Wolverines to States three years in a row."

"Yeah," Korra nodded absently, feeling a little sick, a little sad, and a little hollow. "I bet."

She wondered if he called them friends. Did they consider him one? Who did Tahno hang out with on the weekends? Korra suddenly remembered the fan girls crawling through his troupe on the field grounds at the first meet, stalking his footsteps like hungry, man-eating vultures. She resisted the urge to cringe, but she couldn't help but wonder—were they the ones he spent his free time with?

"—but it's hard not to get impatient with people when you have Division I scouts breathing down your neck every day of the week about submitting applications."

Korra blinked; she hadn't heard much of what he'd said, but she'd heard enough. "So soon?"

Tahno paused, his eyes glued to the sky. "Well… I've only got a few months left."

"Oh," she said thoughtlessly, processing. How could I have not realized?

He was a senior.

"Yeah," he added quietly.

They sat among the leaves in silence.

"What was it like where you grew up?" he asked abruptly. "What with the tree-climbing and hunting and all the other crazy shit you talk about sometimes."

Korra blinked at the rapid change in topic, and then laughed, if only to break through the sudden tightness in her chest. "Dude, asking me where I grew up is like asking me to locate the Vanishing Isle. It changed all the time.

"But," she said emphatically, when she saw that he was about to interrupt. "What I tell most people is that I grew up in South America. I… I was born here, but I traveled a lot with my dad, who does expeditions all over with the White Lotus wilderness coalition. My mom would come with us most of the time when I was younger, but once I was old enough to head off with him with some measure of independence, she stayed behind to handle all the business and public relations stuff in Ushuaia."

"Ooh-what?"

Korra laughed. "It's a port town in the Land of Fire, in Argentina. People use it for trips out to Antarctica all the time… It's supposed to be the southernmost city in the world," she laughed again, this time to cover the gaping hole that suddenly tore through her heart. "I didn't really understand what people meant by the end of the world until I was older."

She let the words hang in the air for a brief moment, feeling the reminders of home sink in with slow, careful clarity—el fin del mundo—andshe thought of her mother and father and Naga. Korra knew that this was how far apart they all were, that it was true in every sense of the phrase, —at the end of the world—and she never thought that one person could hate geography so fully.

"What's homecoming?" she asked quickly, eager to change the subject again. She didn't talk about things like this very often, and she wasn't wholly prepared for the wave of emotion that rocked her.

Tahno paused, and this time, he was caught off guard. "Uhh," he collected his thoughts, shifting back from where he'd moved forward, having leaned toward her as she spoke. "It's a school pride thing," he explained slowly, strangely careful. "It's essentially a week leading up to the first big football game of the season."

"But... why would the football players get a whole week?" she asked. "What do we get?"

Tahno full out laughed. "Well, if your school is anything like mine, it means that you'll eventually have to work the concession stand at one of their games."

"Wait, what? That' so unfair! Why do the football kids get such special treatment?"

"Tradition?" Tahno shrugged, obviously amused by her tirade. "I mean, it's no big for us. Our high school football team sucks. We all know who the real stars are… Though I'm afraid I can't say the same for you."

"Whatever," Korra snapped, crossing her arms. "What else happens?" she grumbled.

"Well... The schools around here go all out. The big game happens on a Saturday afternoon, so every day leading up to it has a different theme or whatever for students to try to show their school spirit… athletes, especially. Then there's a pep rally on Friday night with a bonfire and then... there's a dance on Saturday night after the game."

"That seems like an awful lot just for some football kids."

"Again, welcome to high school."

"So how does the dance thing work?"

"Well... what do you mean?"

"Like, do you go alone or as a team?"

"Ah... It's usually for groups of friends," he explained noncommittally, shrugging into the crunchy leaves. "Or dates."

"Oh," she murmured, staring into the sky and licking her lips. Out of nowhere, Korra was overcome with the notion that making any sort of movement, making any sort of noise in the leaves, would be classified as a bad idea. She cleared her throat gently. "Do you ever go?"

"It's not really my thing," Tahno said, a tad coolly.

"You?" she asked incredulously, looking at him to the side. "Mr. Gaudy and Flamboyant Spotlight-Lover?"

"You're hysterical, as always," he droned.

"Seriously," she poked him the shoulder. "I would have thought that you'd be all over something like this. Lots of people to admire you, lots of minions to do your bidding…"

"They do plenty enough of that during daylight hours," he waved a hand dismissively. "I must allow them occasional rest if I have any wish for acceptable service."

"You're despicable."

"You're catching on," he praised, smirking from across the huge pillow of leaves. She lashed out to swat his shoulder, but this time he was prepared and swat it away with his own. "Explain something to me. Sometimes it feels like you act like you don't know what the hell is going on in the world, and other times it feels like you understand a lot more about human nature than you claim to."

Korra froze, suddenly very much aware of the dry, crispy leaves against her bare legs. "So?" she demanded defensively, completely unsure of what she was even defending. "What are you trying to say?"

Tahno was considering his words carefully and—the thoughts are churning away in his oversized hairdo, Korra tried to think meanly, distractingly, but—his eyes drilled into her own. "Have you ever really hung out with people your age?" he asked seriously.

"Apparently not," she jibed. "Even now I'm still stuck with an old man. Some huge-ego, tyrant, superstar senior bound for college within mere—"

"Oh, please, you're like, what, one year younger than me? Two?"

"I'm a junior, thanks," she confirmed snappily. "And not that I didn't fight for it either, what with all the administrative crap—"

"You still didn't answer my question, new girl."

She glanced to him at the side, trying to get a read on his tone, but all she saw were pale blue eyes, waiting. Korra sighed.

"Only the locals of the villages we passed through," Korra explained slowly, hesitantly, after a beat. It wasn't like she was used to talking about things like this… but for some reason, now that it was out in the open, it wasn't as uncomfortable as she thought it would be. "I was never really in a position to stop and make friends."

But Tahno only laughed, a bitter edge sharpening the sounds.

"Being stationary doesn't automatically put anybody in a position to make friends."

Korra floundered for a moment, halfway prepared to deny his cynicism, halfway ready to curl into a little ball and agree, halfway across the pile of leaves to—

"You ready to run?" he sat up sharply, and by the time she'd registered the tired brusqueness in his tone, he was already brushing the leaves off his opposite shoulder. Her mouth was still hanging open, even as he sighed and stood, and she was so curious, and so confused, but he was already up and she was still down, and it was time to run.

"Yeah," she murmured, wiping the debris off her knees. "I guess so." Unthinkingly, she grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled herself up and onto the open grass. She stood and stretched, long and lean, and the realization of what she'd done hit her only after the warmth of his hand had already fallen away.

"Come on," he nodded toward a particularly dense cluster of trees and took off at a slow, easy pace. "I know another path that's killer on the quads."

"And that's supposed to entice me how?" she asked, falling into step.

"With inclines like these, not even a hill like Double D will be able to stop you."

"Double D?"

"Wow," Tahno mused, picking up the tempo. "You really are new, aren't you?"

"Listen, pal—"

"Double D is the most outrageous hill on any of the local courses. What it lacks in distance, it makes up for in slope… and it belongs to yours truly."

"But Double D? I mean, where the heck would you get a name like—"

He sent her a meaningful look.

"Oh… Oh, seriously? Of all the crude, sexist—"

"Just think of how many fewer seconds of wall sits will be spent in pain," he lured, and as they crossed over the line of pine trees, he tossed another haughty smirk back over his shoulder. "If that isn't enticing enough, then I don't know what is."

"Ugh," she groaned.

Because, strangely enough, it was.

She ran alongside him into the trees, hand still tingling.