Chapter 9

Hungry

Two bangs on her door made her jump. Her body was stiff from a weekend of inactivity. An audible grunt from her throat brought about more urgent-sounding knocks. Korra struggled to her feet and halted.

It could be them. They could be here for me. She backed away from the door and into her desk, knocking her light onto the floor.

"Korra? Korra, are you in there?" The voice was muffled. Korra's hands were shaking. She didn't even notice the chunks of glass in her foot. "Korra? Korra, it's Asami. Spirits, are you in there?" She ran to the door, flung it open, pulled the engineer in, and slammed it shut.

Asami's jaw dropped as she took in the scene: a broken light on the floor, several holes in the window, a crying, bleeding Korra. Before she could even react, Korra was wrapped around her. She brought the Southerner down to the ground and refused to let go.

"They're going to kill me, Asami."

She tensed. "Who's going to kill you?"

"I don't know."

"Korra –"

"Asami, I swear, I don't know." She squirmed to her desk and pulled out the threats. "I've been getting these in my mailbox, under my door, tied to rocks…"

She started shifting through the papers, reading through each of them. The raven couldn't even finish the third one before pushing them away. "You need to tell someone, Korra."

"Who could I possibly tell? If I tell anyone, if anyone finds out…" Korra had to catch her breath. "Why, Asami? Why is this happening?"

"Clearly Sentai has some network of people who actually like him. Otherwise, they wouldn't be so violent. They don't want to see him go." She looked at Korra's bleeding foot again. "Come on." She pulled the shorter girl up. "We need to get this glass out of your foot." The confused eyes that met hers made Asami point to the brunette's dripping sole.

Had she not even known she was bleeding?

Korra leaned against the engineer and hopped to the bathroom. She sat on the side tub as the raven took her gloves off and removed the shards with a pair of nearby tweezers.

"Where's your first aid kit?"

She pointed to the cabinet under the sink. Asami retrieved the antiseptic saline, some gauze, and a wrap.

"This is going to hurt."

Korra grit her teeth as her wound was cleaned. She let out a sigh once the cuts were wrapped.

"I was worried about you. You never came to dinner last night and you missed class this morning, including lab." She put a hand up to Korra's face. "Did you even sleep at all?"

Korra shook her head.

"When did this start?"

"Friday night. I came home to find some in my mailbox and more under my door. That's also when the rocks started. Saturday, there were more under my door. Sunday, the same. I haven't left my room at all, not even to check my mailbox. I don't want to open it." She paused and hid her eyes. "Maybe they're right. Maybe I should just leave and go back home."

"No." Asami's voice was fierce. "No, Korra. You have worked way too hard to get here." The fire in her green irises was sucked away when she met the pain in the blue ones. The rings under those tired eyes were the darkest she'd ever seen. Ferocity was replaced with passion as the engineer pulled her into an embrace. "You're almost through the semester. You're so close. And once you're done with chemistry, you won't have to cross paths with Sentai anymore, and this whole thing will be over with."

"I hope you're right." Korra relaxed in the arms around her.

I hope I'm right, too.

(-)

"Asami, I really don't want to."

"Korra, you can't stay here forever. You need to eat." As if on cue, the Southerner's stomach screeched. "You haven't eaten since Friday, have you?"

She shook her head. "Can't I just –"

"No."

Korra sighed and dropped her head. Asami was right, and she knew everything Korra was going to say before she could even say it. What she didn't expect were the pale palms on each side of her face. She brought her bloodshot blue eyes to the compassionate peridots.

"It'll be okay, Korra. I'll keep you safe."

She looked over her shoulder to her top desk drawer and stayed there. "Do you think you'll be able to take on all of that?"

The engineer removed her hands to cross her arms. "You're not the only one who knows how to fight, Korra."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Asami nodded. "My dad had me learn all of the combat styles that were offered in the City, including several private self-defense lessons by some of the best masters he could find." She continued her boasting smile until Korra had asked the question she wasn't prepared for:

"Why?"

Usually, people just gawked at her abilities and her father's wealth. No one had ever bothered to question the motive behind the lessons. She turned away and stepped off the bed. Instead of crossed arms, her fingers were gripping her elbows. The tan hand on her shoulder ushered her around. It lingered there and, at some point, found the side of her porcelain face.

"If it's too painful, you don't have to tell me."

Asami rejected this idea with a shake of her head. She steadied herself with a deep breath. "When I was young, back when my dad was riding the first upswing of success in his company, my mom…" She trailed, inhaled, and continued. "We had moved into our estate about a few months before everything happened. It was a lot smaller back then until my dad began expanding it. Still, it was a very nice place at the time. Much better than the apartment we had been living in before."

Her green eyes were glazed as she reminisced. "Things couldn't be more perfect. My dad was making breakthrough inventions that revolutionized Republic City. We were all so happy." Her face faltered into sadness. Korra's thumb caressed her cheek. "One night, when I was sleeping, I heard a crash. There were raspy and muffled voices of strange men. They were robbing us. The noise had awoken my parents. I heard my mom yell to my dad, telling him to call the police. Her footsteps told me she was running to my room. She called my name just as she reached the hallway."

Asami had to fight against her closing throat for breath. "I heard them growl at her. 'Get her!', one of them barked."

The sounds of a struggle and a blast from her memories filled her ears. The brief burst of light that crept from under her bedroom door was bright in her eyes. She recalled the details as she had so many times in her nightmares.

"Then, she screamed."

The thud of her mother's body hitting the ground echoed within her. It was almost as if she was that six year old child, cowering in her covers again. She shut her eyes to force away the memories.

"Then… there was nothing."

Korra's arms were around the engineer in an instant. Her tears were quiet as they slid from her painted lids onto the bare shoulders of the woman embracing her.

"I don't know what scared them off, but I saw them running away through my window. They were long gone before the police arrived. I'll never forget that man's face. I knew he was the one who killed my mother."

The sight of her mother's corpse under her trembling fingers pushed its way into her mind. She gasped against Korra. It was all too real. She felt too vulnerable, too weak, too enraged.

The Southerner accepted the sting of Asami's nails digging into her back in silence. This was not the time to complain about pain.

"It turns out he was a member of the Agni Kai Triad, one of the gangs of Benders in Republic City. The man who killed my mother was a Fire Bender."

Korra's face drained. A Fire Bender killed Asami's mom? Fire Benders did this? All this time that I had been talking about how much I loved Bending and wanted to be a Bender... She vowed to herself to never bring up Bending to the woman crying in her arms ever again. Instead, she tightened her hold and pulled the engineer towards her bed. She couldn't ignore Asami's quivering knees.

"My father changed after that. He became a bit colder to the world and for a while, to me. He enrolled me in all of the combat courses he could, once he decided it was time when I was old enough, so that I could protect myself from Benders and Non-Benders alike." She rested her head against the woman cradling her. She had no idea how they had gotten onto Korra's mattress, but she accepted the opportunity to sit regardless.

Asami never really got the chance to talk about what happened to her mother with anyone; her father insisted on circumventing the subject whenever she had reached to him for comfort. From that, there were few, if any, she felt she could trust with something so personal. She had blocked the emotions she felt altogether and buried them amongst walls inside her heart. She learned to mend herself. The solution might have been crude in the beginning when everything was still raw and she was too young to know how to handle her feelings, but she picked up her own pieces so she could do the same for her father. She fixes things; that's just what she does (or at least, tries to do).

But if her defense classes taught her one thing, it was to never let yourself be vulnerable, and she refused to be seen as weak in any aspect of her being. So she learned how to do everything better, including protecting her own self without relying on others. This avoidance of her mother's death by her father was the only way he would be able to heal, and the only way she could foster a good relationship with him. After years of sadness, she began to pool his broken shards together and they had been close again. Although she exuded a positive, pleasant persona to those she met, her inner mechanisms prevented outsiders from getting close enough to hurt her.

At least, she thought she would be able to keep people out.

Things were different with Korra. She felt relief and consolation as she released her pain. Every other time she had attempted to express her feelings with someone and step out of her barriers, fear had brought her right back in again.

Why? What makes Korra special enough that I feel… I feel…

What did she feel? It couldn't be pleasure with the weight she felt bearing down on her sobbing chest.

Confusion? Well, that's a given.

Anger? Was she angry that this Water Tribe girl had been able to break down her defenses without even realizing it? Or was she upset at herself for even allowing this to happen, permitting her to get so deep through her means of protection? These forcefields that she had spent so much time and energy to build up – and Korra just walked right through them.

Comfort. This resonated with Asami. Korra had brought her comfort. She relaxed a bit more and melted into the Southerner's body. The younger woman had not spoken in quite some time. Maybe she wasn't good at these things, but the engineer was convinced otherwise. She was sure that Korra could see the effect her presence had on the raven. She didn't speak because she didn't have to.

Little to Korra's knowledge, Asami appreciated the silence. She didn't want to hear apologies about her mother being killed. That wasn't going to bring her back.

Nothing will bring her back, she added. That didn't mean that she should suffer her entire life because of it. Mom… she wouldn't want that. She felt those somewhat-toned arms tighten again as she heaved.

Security. Was this much different than comfort? It had to be. Soothing was easy, but shattering that feeling of vulnerability? She had never known anyone who removed that sense of danger and allowed for her exposure without threatening her person. She felt protected. She felt safe.

Trust. Yeah, there is definitely a lot of that. Asami gave a soft smile and hummed in a light tone as Korra's fingers traced invisible patterns on her back.

There's something else here. Understanding? Had Korra lost someone too? She tried to recall any stories of deceased family or friends but found none.

A feeling of loss. She couldn't quite explain it, but Korra understood. She had known that emotion somehow, Asami was sure of it, and was sharing it with her, as if she was right there beside that little girl listening to her mother's murder and crying over her body in terror.

Warmth? It was true, the Southern Water Tribe Native was always warm. 'Spirits, it's so hot here, Asami. How do you deal with this heat!?' She chuckled under her breath at her mental imitation. Her tears were fading. But there was another kind of heat growing, one that the engineer felt whenever she was around Korra.

Friendship? She was pretty sure that if there wasn't a sense of friendship between them, then she would not be opening herself up to this woman and her arms definitely wouldn't be holding her so tight. Still, she struggled to find a word to describe the sensation. Everything just felt like more with Korra. Closeness? Devotion? Harmony? Love?

Nothing else could come to her mind after that.

Could it be? What was love? Did she even know what it was? What it felt like? Was it too early for love? Love? She repeated in her head. She hadn't known this woman for very long at all. It couldn't be.

Or could it?

Her face perplexed. Asami had never actually sat down and sorted out her feelings towards the Water Tribe girl.

Who are you, Korra?

A growl filled the engineer's ear as she asked the mental question.

Hungry. She was hungry.

Asami rose from her curled up position to meet Korra's eyes. She didn't fail to notice the hint of red on those perfect tan cheeks. A small smile drifted onto the raven beauty's lips as her fingers brushed against that blush.

Maybe I'm hungry, too.