Disclaimer: I no own. Bryke own.
Word Count: 7,100
Author's Notes: 10/29/13. All right. (ALL RIGHT.) DO NOT JUDGE ME, but I agonized for a while over the formatting of this chapter. To be honest, 4.97 and 4.99 were originally intended to be one complete chapter (similar to how 4.9 and 4.95 and 4.97 and 4.99 were all supposed to be one, complete chapter), but I really felt that the integrity of both segments would be best retained if they were posted separately. I hope the fact that I have posted them together, almost one immediately after the other, helps make up for yet another split.
I should be writing for NaNoWriMo, buuuuuuut I can't work on new projects until I've finished old ones and this is almost over, we're so close to the end I can actually taste it. (So.)
Musical Inspiration: "Elastic Heart" by Sia (ft. The Weeknd and Diplo).
Beta'd by ebonyquill, Chey, Rhi, & Heather.
(It was a bit of a beta-ing party in my inbox this weekend~)
4.97
This was by far, without a doubt, the stupidest thing she'd done yet.
Korra's feet pounded against the cold dirt as the chill of the wind rushed past her ears; the howlwas drowned out by the drumming in her head, as forceful and relentless as the cadence of her stride. Each step Korra took felt uneven and hard and shaky, leaving her unbalanced and jolting for the next leap as leaves and acorns were pulverized underfoot.
She'd heard shouting a few minutes back, and so they'd picked up their pace, but since then it'd been mostly quiet, save for the silence of the woods, in which the only real sounds were the uneven breaths of two people running for all their worth.
How big are these woods, anyway? Korra thought distractedly, gulping down a thick swallow of air. It did nothing to satisfy her lungs, and left her mouth drier than before, so she gasped down another—this time with more focus, more intention behind the inhale. She felt her head go light and her chest and ribs and stomach expand, and so she took another—before it broke off into a pant, and her ragged breathing resumed once more.
Tahno was right beside her.
She was trying very hard not to think too critically about what that might mean.
When she could take the silence no longer, Korra roared out a growl, guttural and broken and unrestrained.
"Stupid—trying to outrun—a frickin'—cross-country team."
Tahno didn't even spare her a glance. "Save your breath," he muttered, just loudly enough for her to hear, without breaking stride. She glared at him, and nearly stumbled over a gnarled root, but she noticed that he seemed rather out of breath himself. That wasn't like him.
They ran and, just as it was beginning to occur to Korra that she had no idea where they were going—there, at the front of the path, was the bluish light of an open clearing, the end to the shadowed trail. In the distant reaches of Korra's mind, the sounds of shouting voices rose up from the depths of the forest, spurring her forward; instinctively, Korra sped up, and Tahno quickly followed suit.
They burst from the trail in a cloud of dust, the rush of their bodies flying past untrimmed branches and sending a storm of dried leaves flying from their homes. Korra's eyes needed no adjustment to the light—three street lamps, no, five—but she didn't recognize the small, empty parking lot she'd ended up in, or why her feet were suddenly sinking and slipping in a pit of gravel.
Korra came to a shaky halt, trying to take in her surroundings, but Tahno showed no signs of stopping. She kickstarted her stride once more, hurtling her weight to the balls of her feet, feeling a shift in her steps with each press into the ocean of tiny stones, feeling it affect her muscles in ways so much differently than the dirt, the track, the pavement. Her head still felt light, and Korra wondered if she was getting enough oxygen—too much?—but Tahno was still running and Korra took off after him, before he could turn back around and tell her what she already knew she needed to do.
They quickly traded gravel for pavement, coming alongside a dark, lonely road, surrounded only by more trees, and it was not long before they passed by an open clearing, filled with dry, thirsty grass—the Foxes' old, abandoned baseball field!—and kept running on by, leaving the dark entrance to the trail and its small patch of woods behind. Korra glanced back, only once; the pathway was still, quiet and undisturbed save for a gentle breeze.
But that didn't mean she was going to trust it to stay that way.
After a half-mile up the road, they were still running, and Korra was beginning to wonder if Tahno really had run there after all, if he'd brought a car at all, or if he'd forgotten where he'd parked. Had he only said what he'd said so she wouldn't worry? (Would she worry? How did he know she'd have worried or not have worried about how he got home?) How long would he keep up a charade like that? How faraway did he park?
She was tempted to ask, but she didn't dare speak. (Mostly because she was still furious, and she needed to figure out how to handle that without exploding, but also because she really, really did need to save her breath.) The lines of trees on either side of them eventually began to thin, and was punctuated every so often by a small home or an old barn, but Korra was beginning to recognize the curve of the pavement, and knew from her long runs with the team that they'd be coming upon a small residential areasoon enough.
"Goddammit, Tahno—did you frickin' park—in White Falls?"
This time he said nothing—no snappy remark, no scathing retort—but he did glare, fierce and impatient. Korra glared back, and ignored the butterflies that floated upward, trying to choke her from the inside. She snapped her gaze forward, and focused. Whether that sensation had been a rush of adrenaline—or stupidity—it'd snapped her senses back into place.
She was furious. She was furious for a thousand reasons, and her head was brimmingwith every single one of them.
"There," he said at last.
Korra's eyes jumpedupward. They'd reached a quiet intersection, and straight ahead was the first of many small side-streets, filled with the quaint cottage homes of a close-knit neighborhood. His car was well-hidden, casually parked in plain sight between two inconspicuous driveways, just one of many that ran down the line of cars that flooded the street. Inside the homes came loud music and television, the sounds of a small-town Friday night, and nobody noticed as two panting teenagers ran up alongside the doors of a small black car that didn't belong.
Tahno didn't stop to unlock the car so much as he practically rammed himself into it, as he tore his keys from his back pocket and jammed it into the door and twisted it into place. The rest of the keys on his ring jingled noisily, blending easily with the sounds of merry entertainment from both sides of the small street, and Korra gradually slowed to a stop, there on the sidewalk, a few feet from the passenger door.
He yanked open the door without a second thought and threw himself into the seat, only remembering at the last moment not to let the door slam too loudly. Korra could vaguely hear from inside the car as he jerkedthe keys into the ignition with a grunt, and the engine sprang to life.
She wasn't surprised when, a moment later, the passenger window rolled down and she found an unsettled Tahno staring up at her, leaning over the gears.
A wave of déjà vu rocked her so strongly that she nearly stumbled, but it was all wrong, it was all so wrong and so different and nothing was happening the way it was supposed to, everything was falling apart and it's all my fault and it's all messed up and I screwed it all up, all over again, just like I usually do, just like I always have.
"Get in," he ordered breathlessly; his words held a command, but his voice wavered like a question.
Korra shook her head.
Tahno looked up at her in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" he demanded after a moment, hissing through his stress. "Korra. We don't have time for this."
Her eyes narrowed. She didn't like the way he'd said her name—or rather, that he'd used it at all. (What right did he have? Like he was the exasperated one, the victim—the adult scolding a child.)
"After everything you've pulled tonight," Korra whispered tightly, then took a shuddering, steadying breath. "You really thought I'd still be willing to get in a car with you?"
Tahno paused, eyes still clear with disbelief, but there was hesitation in the line of his jaw. "I told you," he said firmly, in a calmer voice, much calmer than he appeared. "I had nothing to do with what they did tonight. I've got no part in that."
Nice to know, Korra thought blandly, though it was all she really knew. And it really had nothing to do with why she was still standing on the sidewalk.
"I know," she said.
Irritation surfaced to the lines of his brows, to the gaping mouth that curved down with a scoff. "Then get in."
Korra's jaw tightened, almost painfully. "And go where? Home?" she scoffed, herself. "A drive?"
"I don't know!" Tahno snapped impatiently. His shoulders jerked and his hands jerked and his head jerked to the side, and still he glared up at her, visibly uncomfortable. "Anywhere!"
She fisted her hands in her jacket's pockets and bit her tongue, tensed all over. With measured tones, Korra leaned over, dipped her head ever-so-slightly toward the open window and revealed, "Tahno, I can barely even look at you right now."
He was silent for a moment. She noticed when his hands tightened over the ridges of the steering wheel, but pretended not to. Coldly,he asked, "You'd rather go back? To that?"
Korra resisted the urge to swallow; at this point, she honestly didn't know. Her heart swelled with longing, with the need to make things right, but her feet were rooted to the spot.
"Why'd you even follow me, then?"
(And then for reasons Korra couldn't explain, she was struck with memory: she remembered another weekend—something like a lifetime ago, four weeks prior—when she'd been given a choice, deep in the arboretum with a boy she hardly knew, with someone she already loved to hate. Things could have gone so differently that day, this month, and it'd all started with a single decision, a single choice—keep to the path, or to follow—?)
Korra bit her cheek, and met his gaze, feeling more than a little hollow. Quietly, she admitted, "I wanted to see where you'd go."
Tahno looked at her—really looked at her—and she didn't flinch away or avert her gaze as he considered her words. (Maybe he was thinking of that same Saturday, too. That first run in the arboretum. Maybe he was remembering the same decision, that moment when they abandoned the trail for the thick of the trees. When he abandoned the trail, and she followed.
When they became more than just a pair of rivals running in the same park.)
Slowly, Tahno leaned farther over the seat and reached down to the handle of the passenger door; one hand rose to the headrest for balance while the other gripped the handle tight, and yanked. Korra swallowed.
He looked up at her—not quite a command, not quite a question—and waited.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
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.
.
"Just don't—say anything," Korra bit out, trying to catch her breath as she collapsedinto the seat, as her back slammed against fabric lining.
"I didn't even—"
"Just give me like—two freaking minutes, okay?" she hissed, trying to breathe. "I need to—to put my brain back in working order, or something."
There was a moment of silence, rife with tension, as Tahno slowly turned to the road in front of him and shifted into gear. Great, she sighed. Korra swallowed heavily as he pulled away, out of line with the cars and onto the street, and then they were off and Korra was a passenger in someone else's car, again, and when the fuck was she going to learn?
"What did the Wolverines do?" she asked suddenly, voice quiet and tight with impatience and suspicion. They'd been driving in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the gentle hum of the engine as Tahno drove her who-knew-where, and she was just as surprised by her outburst as he seemed to be.
Tahno's jaw tensed, but he kept his eyes on the road. "I don't actually know," he replied quietly, almost a sigh, as if he were already tired of this question. "I talked them out of anything serious, but they were still bound to do something."
"Something?"
"Vandalism, or whatever," he brushed off dismissively, and Korra couldn't tell whether she should be irritated by his exasperation or relieved by it. "Ming and Shaozu have always respected my wishes, even if they bitch and moan, but that's just how they are."
Still, Korra frowned. "Why didn't you stop it altogether?" she asked, frustrated and disappointed and curious all at once.
This time, Tahno did sigh. "You can't just—you can't just end a rivalry like ours overnight, all right?" he snapped. "You can't just busybody your way into a new world and start swinging, and make everybody change their minds and get along. It just doesn't fucking work like that."
Well, why not? Korra wanted to ask, but felt stupid for even thinking it, so instead she said, "So you're not even gonna try?"
"Weren't you listening?" he snapped, truly irritated. "I did try—I even cut it down!"
"But they still—"
"Not everyone is as self-righteous as you, new girl. I'd have thought the fact that I even did anything at all might have meant something to you, at least, especially given the shit the Fire Foxes have put me through, and with everything I've been through this week, but apparently not."
Korra was still bristling at his self-righteous comment. "Jesus, Tahno," she scoffed. "So you did the right thing. What do you want? A gold star?"
"Is that what you give Mako?"
She flipped.
"Stop the car right now."
"Korra—"
"Fucking now, Tahno."
He veered to the side of the empty road, and though Korra's body only jerked slightly as his wheels rode halfway onto dirt, her insides were spinning. Before he'd had a chance to say anything else—to even look at her—Korra had unlatched the oppressive seatbelt across her front, and was out the door. She started down the road before Tahno could even get out of the car.
"Korra—where the hell are you going?" he asked from behind, voice thick with annoyance and confusion and sheer exasperation. But Korra still had too much energy, too much anger bubbling inside of her. She rounded on him, and stared him down, from ten feet away. The car was pulled over, hazard lights on, engine still running, driver's side door hanging wide open. He'd been running out to follow her, but stopped short, and now they were on the side of the road, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, just them and the trees and the car's thrumming engine.
"You want to know why I can't stand to look at you?" she demanded, feeling the truth of it burn from her very bones. "I can't fucking handle being even this close to you because I realize now just how stupid I've actually been. That really—when it comes down to it—you're still the same arrogant, condescending, selfish asshole you've always been," she accused, breathless with emotion, hot and blinding. "And you don't even care—you don't care enough to change, because you like being this way, and you don't give a fuck the way the world looks at you, because you've never needed any opinion but your own, so much that you won't even try to let other people see that you're not always such a sleaze, or a jerk, or cruel, or—"
"I've never cared for anyone else's opinion because I already knew what to expect!" he hissed, nearly snarling beneath his breath, which curled and vanished in the dark. "Not caring about what anyone thought of me is what's gotten me this far!"
"And where are you now, Tahno?" Korra hissed, staring him down, because she truly wanted to know. "How far have you really gotten?"
Tahno paused, his expression overcome with darkness. "If this is your way of trying to pry into my plans for the future, or what's in store for college—"
"I hadn't seen that side of you in weeks!" Korra interrupted him, voice tight with burgeoning realization and memory. "Not since the first meet, with your trash-talking games and your little troupe of doting fans, and your intimidation tactics, and it's all one big fucking facade."She nodded, even if only to herself; she'd almost forgotten. "And you don't care to change it."
"Why should I?" Tahno demanded. "So I can lose sight of myself—like you did?"
Rage burned at the back of Korra's throat. She opened her mouth, prepared to unleash it, a breath of fire—
But something halted her. An old memory, so old she barely knew it existed; the words with her father's, and her uncle's, and a thousand others', full of wisdom that she could only hope to one day attain. And they asked her: How do you expect to find yourself, if you don't get a little lost along the way?
Korra's brows pulled downward, tight with realization. "Look," she said, much more softly. "I don't have any right to ask anyone to change," she conceded. "I don't really have the right to ask anything of you either, so I won't. I just..."
Tahno shifted, unsure. "What?"
"I just can't understand how you could act one way with the others, so—malicious," she licked her lips, hugging her arms around herself, trying to block the cold. "And how you could act so differently with me."
Korra sensed, rather than saw, when Tahno stepped closer. There came a point when he was too close, when Korra could feel his warmth, when she could see his breath curling into the air before her, and she panicked. Heart dropping, fingers clenching, Korra stepped back, abruptly, and rushed out, "It's like... it's like with your innocence."
Tahno stilled. "My—my what?"
"You didn't do it," she whispered, feeling her blood boil all over again. "You didn't fucking do it, and yet you—you didn't say anything! Everyone was blaming you and accusing you—and you just—let it happen. You just stood there and watched, and essentially let your world came crashing down—and you knew you didn't deserve it! You didn't even put up much of a fight!" she hissed. "And even now—when Mako accused you, again, of—"
"I don't give a damn what that ferret thinks of me."
"Tahno, that's not the point!"
"What point?" Tahno demanded. "Your point?" Korra stared at him curiously, feeling her heart pound rapidly in her chest. "Don't you get it?" he asked her, quietly, urgently, but no—she didn't.
She didn't understand at all.
Tahno leaned back. Swallowing heavily, he looked down, and Korra realized, just how close they'd gotten, once more. Her next breath shook, and she held it, desperately, when he looked back up, and she saw him—not the Wolverine King, or the Captain, or even Pretty Boy.
Just Tahno.
"What this whole thing has made me realize—what this whole fucking mess made me realize—is that I can go anywhere I want," he hissed, short of breath and eyes wild and hair brushing into his face. "I'm the best fucking athlete in this town, and I'll be a damn fine competitor wherever I go—any college would be fucking lucky to have me, and if they don't want me—fuck them. I've been training my ass off—waiting all these years for this one race, this one escape ticket out of this stupid town—only to realize that I could have left anytime I fucking wanted. That I could still leave," he admitted, chest heaving. "I could do that," he said, eyes deathly serious. "And if anything, this whole shit-show—this major fuck up—it's made me freer than any scholarship offer ever could have."
Korra watched, speechless.
Tahno licked his achingly dry lips, and breathed deeply, blinking himself back to the present.
"Don't you get it?" he asked, more softly. "It's not the failed race or the season suspension or the track record that pisses me off the most," he hissed, stepping closer. "And I am pissed, don't you doubt it for a second. But the reason that I am so fucking furious is that I—is that I finally get it. I finally get it now. For so long, running was the only thing I defined myself by, and being the best, and having the best, but it was always about getting somewhere else, about becoming something better. And it was pointless. It was all fucking pointless—not the training—but the waiting and the wanting, because I could have done it all along, and now—now, I finally have everything I need to leave this fucking town," he scoffed, but it was a painful sound, like a cough, choking his throat. His mouth opened, and he cleared his throat again, his panting breaths filling the long moments before he was able to speak. "But I'm not sure I want to."
She wasn't sure she wanted to know why.
"And—" Tahno cleared his throat again, harsh and sudden enough to make Korra start. His spine was rigid, hands clenched into the pockets of his hoodie. He must be freezing, Korra realized, feeling her breath quicken once more. He must be— "And I don't even know," he rushed out, tongue stuck on the words. "If it's all something I actually want back."
Shock washed over Korra like an ice-cold wave. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Tahno sighed. His mouth opened, but for a long moment, no sound emerged. "I mean... I wasn't so sure," he revealed slowly, very seriously. "I wasn't sure what my answer would be, when I got their decision." He licked his lips and said, "Even afterwards."
"And... now you know?" Korra whispered finally, ignoring the white dots that danced across her vision. She took a breath, long and deep, and repressed a shiver against the cold. "Their decision?"Tahno bit the inside of his cheek. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
(Korra thought to the three missed calls from Tenzin. He knows.
He knows.)
"Will you get back in the car if I tell you?" he asked.
Yes, her mind cried. "Maybe," she whispered.
Saying nothing, Tahno merely considered her, and then with a nod of his head, turned on heel to make his way back to the driver's side. She hesitated only for a moment. And then Korra swallowed uneasily and followed him. Her fingers were beginning to shake.
And even when she was back in her seat, the pounding silence deafening in her ears, as Tahno pulled back onto the road and drove them away, Korra couldn't bring herself to ask.
"They finalized everything this afternoon," he informed her, with the same sort of detached calm one might use to describe funeral arrangements.
Finalized? Korra swallowed. She was dying to know, but also terrified. "And then you came over, after you found out?" she clarified, feeling ever the let out a small huff, like her question was funny, or held an obvious answer. She didn't think it was either.
"I was planning on being here tonight, anyway," he stated, voice so level he almost sounded bored. "Whether I got any decision or not."
Korra swallowed again, thickly. "Stupid," she whispered, though it was growing increasingly difficult to keep the vehemence in her voice, to keep the emotion at was silent for a moment, but Korra couldn't bring herself to really consider the nature of it. She was still trying bring herself to ask what would happen to him. (She was trying to figure out how to not let herself get caught up, like she had before.) "What were you planning to do if you couldn't find me?" she asked abruptly. "Or if you'd found me with my team?"
"Yeah, I don't plan that far ahead."
Korra smiled, a little wry, a little wistful. "I thought you were supposed to be some great strategist or something?"
Tahno gave her a strange look, as if surprised by her tone; don't worry, she thought. (It'd thrown her off, too.) "Does it matter?" he asked quietly, a gentle attempt at sarcasm that didn't quite reach. "I make the best decisions with time constraints and a little pressure."
Korra sighed, her single shred of hope crumbling. "Like you did back there?" she whispered, thinking of their almost-fight. "After that little fiasco?"
Tahno merely bit his cheek in silence. Again.
Korra huffed, and let her head roll to the side. Better that she stare out of the window, rather than at his profile, where she already knew what'd she see. This car ride was going to end soon anyway; true to her accusation, Tahno was driving her home.
"The suspension has been lifted," he offered quietly. Korra's gaze dropped, briefly, to the dashboard of his car, but quickly returned back to the window, before she could allow her eyes to travel any further; she gave no other indication of having heard him. "The charges have been cleared, and my name is back on the roster."
She'd expected to feel relieved. She'd wanted this, known that it was supposed to happen, but still, she couldn't get past this feeling of numb. "Will you be there tomorrow, then?" she asked. "At the race?"
He shook his head, hands tight on the wheel. "It wouldn't be worth it," he acknowledged. "Tonight was the first time I've run all week."
Korra lowered her head, letting that sink in. "How did they figure it out?" she whispered curiously.
"I don't even know," he responded dully, a little resentfully. "A bunch of investigatory stuff they weren't about to share with a high school kid, apparently. Like I'm not already familiar with bureaucratic shit enough as it is."
"Are you ready to come back?" Korra said quickly. (She'd meant to ask if he wanted to, but the words got switched around, somewhere in her throat.) He didn't respond immediately.
"Maybe," he admitted. "Though probably not for the reasons I would have thought a week ago."
A week ago, Korra's mind echoed. Was that all it really was? She felt like she was a different person from a week ago. (A month ago.) And Tahno, too... If she hadn't known him before, how much could she really say that she knew him now? Even less, she thought purposefully, and wondered if it was true.
"I did see your call, you know," Tahno admitted unexpectedly. Korra turned to look at him, surprised.
"What?"
Tahno swallowed, but most of his expression was obscured from her view, hidden behind his hood. "Sunday night," he clarified, needlessly. "I wasn't doing much, and my phone was sitting right next to me when you called. I could have answered you."
Korra frowned. Quietly, she asked, "Then why didn't you?"
He paused. "I guess... I didn't know what to say," he said, and a ball of indignation swelled in Korra's chest, suffocating and overwhelming, until, "For all of my anger over you not calling me sooner, I was too much of a coward to actually face you when you did."
Korra closed her eyes, but opened them again almost immediately; she had the strangest feeling that she might miss something, if she did. She wasn't even looking at him.
"What did you think I was going to say?" Korra asked, chest heavy with curiosity and the strangest sense of grief.
His open palm rose into the air and fell back onto the wheel, heavy and flat. She glanced its way, just in time to hear him say, "I don't know," into the quiet of the car.
Korra bit her lip, watching bitterly as the world passed on by. (She felt like she'd been cheated, somehow; like she'd seen the start of something really meaningful, but was watching it slip through her fingers—and that was it, really. She'd been holding onto something so tight, refusing to let it go, and now it was time to step back and inspect the damage.)
"I don't know," Tahno repeated, breaking Korra from her somber thoughts. "All I know is, that, in my entire life, I have never felt as sick," he told her. "As I did the night before that meet." He hesitated, then let out a breath, self-deprecating and accusatory all at once. "At least, of course, until the night after it."
Korra swallowed. She didn't want to, but she remembered it—feeling the same way, that same night. Nightmarish visions of Homecoming dances and crowns and oh god, she couldn't see it all—not again.
"I don't owe you an explanation," Korra stated clearly, though her stomach was still in knots. "But I'd like you to know... nothing happened. Between Mako and me."
Tahno was silent. She could hear him swallow from the other seat. "I'd gotten a different impression."
Korra scoffed, thinking back to the brawl she'd nearly torn apart in the woods not an hour before. Thinking back to that horrific phone call. "I could see that."
After a long silence, Tahno asked, "How much do they really know?" He paused, then clarified, "That girl, Sato. And his brother."
Korra sighed heavily. "They knew how I felt," she answered honestly, still somehow unfazed by the sheer significance of what she was revealing—of what she'd already revealed. Maybe that's why it's so easy, Korra thought to herself, as Tahno waited in stunned silence. Because I've already gotten it off my chest. It was already out there on the table, so why not lay it all out?
Right?
Tahno swallowed uncomfortably. In a strange tone, he admitted, "I'm not really that happy that any Fire Foxes think of me any other way."
Despite the pain this very line of thought brought her—and the pain she'd voiced, not more than twenty minutes before—and despite the very strong feeling she had that perhaps Tahno had originally intended to say something else, Korra couldn't help but smile, even if only a little.
"Bolin sassed you," she reminded him, another wry smile parting her lips. "He actually back-talked you."
"I preferred it when he merely quivered in fear."
Korra rolled her eyes, and prepared to strike back, then paused when he added, "I was surprised by how willing they were to vouch for me. Actually. No, I'm not," he said quietly. "It's not me they were doing it for."
Through a sigh, Korra ignored his latest comment and said, quite plainly, "The only thing people should fear about you is your stupid haircut."
And the worst part, Korra decided, was that she actually got him to laugh.
She bit her lip, feeling a curious wave of sadness wash over her. It was there again—that sensation of holding on too tight, of feeling it slip through her fingers, like razors made of ice.
"We shouldn't see each other anymore,"she told him.
The quiet laughter died on his lips, trailing into silence.
It was then that Korra actually took the time to take note of where they were. They'd apparently been on the highway for quite some time, for they were already nearing the exit that would lead to her uncle's house and, ultimately, the end of her evening. She knew that she could say something else—anything, to explain—and there were many things that could be said on either side, but as always, it was a game, a never-ending question as to what would be shared, by whom, and when. And, a little selfishly, she wanted him to go next.
"You're still mad," he concluded.
"No," Korra corrected tiredly. "No, I'm not. At least, not as angry as I was before. I just... I can't do this anymore."
Tahno's brows pulled downward. "Do what?"
Korra swallowed, deliberating. Just say it. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, until—
"I'm leaving."
Tahno went very quiet. Carefully, he asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean... I'm going back," she said. "Home."
"When?"
Korra tried to keep breathing. It was turning out to be more difficult than she expected. "At the end of the year," she explained quietly, focusing on the facts, and not the truth behind them. "I'm going back to South America, to finish up my degree and start training to take over my father's company. I'll probably attend a college somewhere in Argentina, where I can do the research I'll need."
There was another heavy pause. Tahno blinked, shocked. "Ah," he said.
"I just don't think it's a good idea," she said, a little abruptly, and hated that she had the sudden urge to cry. She breathed deep, feeling the air sink all the way into her lungs, until she'd soaked up every last drop and said, "I mean, what can we really hope to gain from a few months? It'd be, what—six? Eight months, tops? There is a very Barcelonian-sense of culture in certain parts of Argentina that dictates that friendships may only last a single night and that kind of mentality might work there, but here, it's different, and while it might have worked for me there, sort of, it doesn't work for me here. And if all I'll be doing is going back there, anyway, then the point is pretty much even more moot than before—"
"New girl."
"—and I don't know, really, how long it'll be before I come back to visit—if I even visit at all—or where I'm going to travel, or how long it will take me to achieve my degree or complete my research and—and it's not like I have the internet available at every hut I stop in along the way, or a satellite phone that allows for video chats in the mountains—"
"Korra."
"—and you'll be somewhere up here, running for a fancy Division One school and making elite teams and winning Championships and—"
"Korra—"
"I can't," she swallowed.
(I refuse to.)
There was only silence, charged with determination and regret and frustration and things said too late. And, as Korra had not failed to notice...
Some things still not said at all.
"So, what?" Tahno huffed, a few moments later, when he'd regained his voice. "We're just supposed to forget about the last month or so? We're just going to avoid one another at our meets? For the rest of the year?"
God. "I don't know," Korra replied uneasily. "It's not like I'm... going to ignore you. I mean. I'll still wave to you."
Tahno scoffed. "Right... You'll wave," he repeated slowly, and took a deep, shaky breath. "And what about the arboretum?" he asked suddenly. "I shouldn't plan on running there anymore?" And then he added, somewhat scathingly, "We make a schedule?"
Korra frowned, feeling her insides clench. "I'll find a new place to run," she said, determined and hollow. "I don't mind."
This didn't seem to help.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tahno shifted; he rose one hand to his face, lightly dragging a knuckle along the bridge of his nose. At the last moment, it slipped, down towards the curve of his cheek. It was the eye that'd been hit, she realized, and knew that it was probably very sensitive, and probably very sore. He's just rubbing some of the ache away, she told herself, feeling her insides twist. That's all.
"Tahno, I didn't see you or hear from you for almost a whole week, and I didn't know what to do with myself," she revealed, and Jesus, she was really laying it all on the table now. "I'd only known you for a month, and I was already a mess." I don't want to think about what it might be like, after a year. "I just don't see the point of prolonging the inevitable," she admitted quietly.
Tahno bit his cheek. "The point, huh?"
Korra swallowed; they were coming to the exit ramp now, slowing to a halt, and Korra was distracted by the way he gripped the gears, the way he moved the car. His hand was very close.
"It's just that—within the year—neither of us will even be here anymore."
Tahno nodded slightly. He licked his lips, and flipped his turn signal, and pulled into the lane. "That sounds like an excuse."
"Maybe," she admitted quietly. "But that doesn't make it any less true."
Tahno had nothing to say to that.
"And it's not the only reason," Korra went on, before her nerve failed her. "I don't really know how else to explain it, how much it bothers me that you can have such completely different sides—so much that you're almost a different person, depending on who's around."
Tahno frowned, and shifted—dare she say, uncomfortably—in the driver's seat. "You've only seen me with other people, what—twice?"
Yeah, and each time you nearly got in a fight. "It's just—after everything that's happened, I'm just... not fully convinced you're someone I can trust."
Tahno leaned back in his seat, his eyes glued to the road. His expression was unreadable. "With what?" he asked, stonily.
She refused to say it aloud.
My heart.
Korra sighed again, feeling the gravity of the situation rest upon her shoulders. She wasn't sure what more she could say that hadn't already been said. I'm not sorry I met you, she wanted to say, but didn't, for fear of sounding trite. I learned a lot from you, and I hope you might have learned something from me, too.
"I get attached really easily," she said quietly, by way of explanation. "And for the most part that's okay, but a lot has happened this last week, and I've made a lot of really important decisions about how I'm going to prepare for my future. Decisions that I'm happy with." She took a deep breath, and took the plunge. "And as much I feel like I've started to like you, probably more than I should, none of those decisions... really include you."
The car was silent, after that.
It was quiet all the way off the ramp, and all the way onto the backroads to Temple Street. Her breath shuddered as he passed under the willow tree, but he passed right on by, instead bringing his car to a stop just before the edge of her driveway. Inside, the house was dark.
Blind panic gripped her, then, as it occurred to her that this was it. She was about to get out of the car, and he was going to drive away, and that would be it. (She couldn't breathe.) She'd see him at meets, occasionally, and probably around town, barely, and she wouldn't text him or call him or see his face smirking at her in the arboretum after a four mile run, or at the Falls, or at school, or anywhere at all.
She was making a horrible mistake.
"Korra," he blurted, turning toward her so quickly that his hood nearly flew from his head, that his long bangs tangled at the ends. "I—"
Her hand slipped under the wall of his hood, reached for the back his head, and pulled. By the time her other hand slid onto his cheek—the bruised one, ever-so-carefully—she was kissing him.
Almost. The movement had been quick, thoughtless—but now that she was here, almost here, she was frozen. A sound escaped him, soft and pained, and Korra's brows dug deeper as her lips parted over his. Terrified, Korra remained still—lips touching lips, fingers threaded through his tangled hair—and then his mouth pressed closer, and stopped, chin trembling with anticipation, and small noise escaped her own throat, breathless and small, and he jerked forward—she gasped as long fingers cupped her face, as a warm thumb pressed close to her cheek, and his lips finally, finally sealed over hers.
A hand slipped behind her neck and Korra's head tilted to the side, moving of its own accord—he leaned forward, pressing deeper into the kiss, and she welcomed it, holding tighter to the small hairs at his nape, reaching the hand on his cheek farther back to join the other, digging all ten fingers through thick waves of dark hair. The hood fell to his shoulders and her heart swelled in her chest, and his tongue darted across her bottom lip, as heat curled in her belly and stars exploded before her eyes. As her mouth moved around his—as her breath caught in her throat—she felt it—the rock in her chest. The stinging in her eyes.
Slowly, Korra stilled, letting her mouth fall away, and her forehead drift forward, onto his. His neck was warm beneath her fingers. His hair brushed along her cheeks.
He was panting slightly, as was she, and when he tried to swallow, Korra could feel it, in her fingers, and all the way down to the very marrow of her bones. And he asked her, breathlessly, "What if I said I didn't want us to stop seeing each other?"
Korra's face pinched, and a sharp pang shot through her chest. It was silent as he waited for an answer, save for the deafening sound of his breath mingling with hers. The current—the feeling of space between their lips—was nearly tangible, so close and yet so far, so Korra did the only thing she could.
She could feel the tendons in his neck as her fingers trailed down, over the warm ridges of his collarbones, and further, until they caught the sharp, cold edge of his zipper, and fell away. They slipped down, not quite to her lap, but to the seatbelt that locked her in.
Tahno went very still, and the click of metal as it unlatched struck through Korra's brain like a bullet, one that she felt all the way down to her very core. She swallowed, unable to lose that lump in her throat completely, and when she pulled back and the strap withdrew, leaving her free and unhindered, Tahno merely looked at her, breathless and blank and disbelieving.
Korra smiled sadly, small and apologetic, and knowing.
Slowly, her fingertips trailed down the length of his bangs, gently moving them from his eyes. Her fingers lingered there, on the swell of his cheek. And then they fell away.
For good.
"See you around, pretty boy," she whispered.
Her fingers closed around the handle of the door and pulled, and when she stepped one foot out onto the pavement, then two—heels solid, knees weak—she shut the door firmly behind her, and she didn't look back.