On Tuesday evenings, after his feet were dry and cracked from his early shift running the rickshaw through the Financial District, after his pockets were stuffed and hollowed out, after the front porch lights were lit, Mako had friends.

The Triple Threat headquarters was located in the Leather District. A halo of ochre light spilled from under the eaves of the front door, where red paper lanterns were strung, golden dragons twisting atop the roof cutting into the purple night. It clashed violently with the uniform brick buildings where the acrid smells of tanning chemicals wafted in the air.

Two men were always standing guard outside the front doors, and they tugged them open for Mako instantly.

He let his eyes wander around the large room, staring up at the multiple tiers where men leaned over the railings with women, to other members sitting in the corners, stitching themselves together with tissues plugging their bloody noses. The lights were always dimmed, each reflective surface of pilfered silver watches and jade pendant necklaces and sapphire rings flashing gold with each shift of the wrist. A phonograph sang with a gritty smoker's voice near the pool table. It was slightly different now, dripping with garlands and flashy floral centerpieces, all for the spring solstice. Those members of the Earth Kingdom were swathed in silks of green and tan.

He fell into line before Arak, the man who always collected the numbers from the street kids running through town each Tuesday night. The kids in line pushed against one another, eager to get their pay, and to linger around headquarters before being kicked out. Mako let his thumb run over the smooth curve of paper slips in his pocket, ticking past his fingers, like a flip book toy Heng had shown him. Heng called it a kineograph, word bursting forth from his plump lips with a proud, scholarly air. Mako remembered a man and a woman dancing between the papers as they flipped past Heng's fingers. He imagined the numbers scrawled across his tickets would dance like a flip book movie, numbers racking higher and higher with larger sums of money.

"Hey, Mako, you gonna hand me the tickets or what?"

"Oh," he said, shaking his head and lifting the neat stack from his pocket, finding himself at the front of the line. "Sorry."

Arak's smile was meant to be warm and slight, but his wide mouth and thin lips offset his face to always give it a manic touch. His smile pressed the sides of his cheeks into long, sharp lines, like his brown leather skin had been folded hastily, tucked into a pocket and forgotten in the wash.

"You never seen the spring ceremonies before?" he asked, flipping through the tabs of paper.

Mako shook his head, letting his eyes wander around the Triple Threat headquarters. "No, I have. I'm half Earth Kingdom."

"You don't say," Arak said, licking his thumb to sort the papers into a box. "I never knew that. Hey, Heng, you know about little firebending Kun over here?"

Heng lifted his tan, bald head from his conversation with a pair of thin teenagers, shaking their skinny limbs clad in green like praying mantis. He narrowed his dark green eyes and clapped his thick hands to his waist. "Yeah, of course I do!"

"Kun?" Mako said. "My name's not -"

"- And don't call the kid that, Arak," Heng called.

Arak rolled his eyes. "Whatever. So, you want to stick around for a game of Liar's Dice?"

Liar's Dice was one of those adult games, the kind where the members of the Triad sat around a rickety table clouded in smoke, yuans and small shot glasses passed back and forth set in the same pace as the jazz they listened to while playing. Blue Lanterns, especially those as young as Mako, were never invited to play.

The spring festival honors children, Mako.

The younger boy behind Mako, waiting to cash in his tickets, kicking him in the heel with swift precision. He was accustomed to this behavior now; most other Blue Lanterns he knew disliked him for being friendly with the real members. His grit his teeth to force away the shock of the kick before lazily rolling his shoulders, the same way he'd seen grown men stretch after stumbling into headquarters late at night.

"Ah, yeah," Mako said, sniffing. "Sure."

Arak's cackle was hollow and cold, and Mako knew he was being laughed at. Heated embarrassment brightened his ears, the sticky air in the room no longer familiar and comforting, but jarring and trying to swallow him whole.

Arak knocked his sharp knuckles against Mako's hair, linger for a second before Mako twisted out and grabbing the older man's wrist. Arak laughed harder and Mako scowled, walking off to find a plush couch corner to sit on until Heng would find him for the game.

Heng reminded Mako of his brother.

Heng barely resembled the eight year old with a mop of black curls Bolin had grown to be; but both were earthbenders with shining smiles, which was enough to remind Mako of dusty knuckles digging into his shoulder paired with childish giggles.

He stared at the rounded curves of Heng's broad, tanned back, revealing the beer bottle green lines of his tattoos beneath the sleeveless cut of his shirt. His muscles bulged under a thick layer of skin, shifting like slow rolls of dirt pushed around at construction sites. He turned his face to Mako, all pancaked and mangled from brawls, and gave him a wink before revealing the numbers on his dice.

The table of Triple Threats let out a groan, and Heng leaned forward with a chuckle, raking in ceramic disks that flickered like real coins in the humming lamplight strung above the table.

"You're picking us clean, Heng," Nobu said, shoving his dice back into his cup.

"He always does," Fu leaned forward, pushing up his sleeves and shuffling his meager pile of coins away. "Now, we were talking about something important, here, so quit bitching."

"It's because he's got that fucking good luck charm, isn't it?" Nobu frowned, pointing two fingers at Mako.

Mako glared at him, and Fu snapped his fingers to spark a flame that spat into Nobu's drink. With a yelp, watching the purple flames eat away at his whiskey, Nobu knocked the drink back in a flash.

"I was saying," Fu said. "I was thinkin' about new break-in techniques. I hear the Agni Kai's are using explosive jelly, now."

"I don't want any unnecessary messes," Heng said. He shifted his winnings over to Mako, who was incharge of stacking the coins in the order of their worth. He had long since given up playing the game after he managed to double his five yuan pay, and Heng suggested he quit while he was ahead. Now he was content to help Heng win, and listen to the adults.

"There won't be," Fu said. "I can get us a barrel of black powder for cheap. See how it goes."

"That sounds like a lot of powder."

"It won't when we keep usin' it."

"Take it up with the big man," Heng said, rattling the dice in his cup. "Now, can I continue robbing you blind, or are we going to keep talking about work?"

The other men at the table laughed, and Heng grinned back, eyes nearly shutting with the force of his wide smile.

Mako was briefly reminded of his brother, a spike of guilt shooting through his chest, but he willed it away. Bolin was safe under the stone hut he had erected in an alleyway close to Little Wugou, most likely asleep with sticky rice still clinging to his mouth and dirty fingers that Mako had left him for dinner.

Another round of drinks was passed around the table, a small shot glass landing before Mako, and all thoughts of Bolin left his mind.

"What is it?" Mako asked, looking up at Heng.

Heng tapped the side of his nose. "Sweet Orchid wine. C'mon, little man, you can't tell me you've never had a sip before."

Mako lifted the glass and sniffed the rim, finding a heady, warm smell billow off of the dark purple liquid. It felt like a warm blanket had passed over his eyes, finishing up with a slightly bitter sting that clung to his nostrils.

"Maybe we should get him a full glass," Arak said, words broken by cackling laughter.

"How about you shut your mouth?" Heng spat back, but his tone was ignored by the other men who were still chuckling. He turned to Mako, placing his hand across his small shoulders. "My father always let me have a sip for luck. It's an Earth Kingdom tradition."

"Oh." Mako looked down into the small glass again. It seemed inoffensive enough.

"Go ahead, and that's all you're getting."

Mako smiled at Heng's warning tone, finding it comforting and familiar, and he tipped his head back to swallow the whole glass. It was disgustingly bitter, the sweet smell and hints of flower petals biting at his tongue like a lie. He heard the men at the table laughing, felt Heng's hand clap him on the back, and he screwed his eyes shut to force the liquid down.

Face twisted, he put the cup down on the table and shivered, violently rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth to brush away the clinging taste.

"Aw, you don't like it?" Heng asked, smiling, taking a delicate sip from his glass. Mako jerked his head back and forth, and Heng chuckled. "When you get older, you will."

Mako liked that promise, and looked up at the Heng, wiping his face clean with the back of his hand.

"Are you sure?" Mako asked.

Heng nodded, eyebrows drawing together and corners of his mouth tightening, and there was no arguing with his resolve. Mako hoped that someday, he could look as sturdy and unmoving.

"Sure I am. You've got dirt in your blood."

Mako's dry lips cracked with the force of his grin, turning his head down to stare at the table in wonder as the men turned back to their game, hiding his happiness under his father's scarf. He knew the men smiled, but not like how he did at that moment; real glee and joy was masked with hardened faces carved with scars. Men hid their smiles, while boys and Blue Lanterns bared their gap-toothed grins to the world. And Mako wanted to be a man.

He kept his hands under the table, flat palms pressing together and gliding the rough skin back and forth. The small, grey blue bumps embedded in the heels of his hands could still be felt, a small memento that there was substance, not just bloody flames deep under his skin.

Little Wugou was a family Earth Kingdom neighborhood, the type of place where working class couples settled into an apartment to have children above the family shop. Only the street lamps glowed with weak electrical light, dimming low like bright orange embers before surging every so often with mango yellow. Beyond the buzzing of the lamps, the neighborhood was silent with sleeping families hidden behind black glass windows.

It was nice to meander down the middle of the street in the near dark, hands fisted in pockets, sweaty palm gripping wilted yuan bills with less ferocity than normal. Mako's fingers were glued together with sticky pear juice, his mouth working around the last bite and cracking through brown seeds. He let his eyes linger over the familiar marigold garlands twisting around the iron lamps, green banners softly lifting with the slight breeze. He remembered holding his mother's hand and the dirt under her fingernails, the dust that now puffed from his clothes from Heng's hand at his back, and Bolin's black heels.

Mako called at the mouth of the alleyway they had made home, "Bolin, I'm back."

When no response came, Mako continued into the dark, letting his shoes scuff the ground to kick up rocks and discarded newspapers.

He found Bolin curled up before a jagged mass of rubble that had been their shelter, head ducked under his arms and whimpering.

Mako felt his chest collapse into his stomach, kicking up acid, and he rushed forward, gripping onto Bolin's shoulders and shaking him roughly. "Bolin, what's wrong, what happened? Are you ok?"

Bolin slowly lifted his head and Mako held his breath, preparing to see black eyes and split lips, or bloody cuts slashed along his brother's rounded cheeks that he had worked so hard to feed and fill. Instead, the only thing marring his brother's face were fat tears that soaked his skin, leaving clean white lines that cut through the grime dusting Bolin's cheeks.

"What happened?" Mako repeated, eyes locked on Bolin's.

"I-I wa-was playing," Bolin said. His face twitched, begging to let the tears take over again and collapse into sobs. "And the kids wanted food and they knocked down the house when I said no and I tried to make them leave but you were gone, you said you'd be back!"

Mako frowned and pulled Bolin away from the rocks, afraid he would start thrashing and hurt himself. "Who were you playing with?"

Bolin's sobs stilled, eyes flying open, and Mako knew he caught him.

"Do I know them?" Mako asked.

"N-no."

"Bolin. You're only allowed to play with kids I know, remember?" Mako said calmly, squeezing his brother's shoulders when he tried to look away. "So stuff like this doesn't happen."

"They were nice!" Bolin said, tears returning and paired with shrieks. "And - and you said you'd be back! Why didn't you come back?"

Mako thought back to Liar's Dice, to Heng and Nobu and Fu, to Orchid Wine and the pear he had been given as he walked out the door. How the guards stationed on the front steps ruffled his hair and wished him a happy solstice. He had been inside a building for hours, far longer than Bolin had in years, and trembling guilt shook Mako's crumbling foundation. Smoke burned his throat.

"I - Bolin, I'm sorry," Mako said, lifting a hand to smooth Bolin's long hair. It curled over his eyes and ears now, stringy with grease. "I didn't mean to leave you alone."

"I was lonely," Bolin whimpered. He unfolded his arms, grappling forward through blurry eyes to latch himself onto Mako.

Mako's chest heaved with a sigh, which Bolin pressed his face against. Mako held onto Bolin, rocking him back and forth, rubbing his hand over his little brother's back.

"What did they take?" Mako asked quietly.

"The rice," Bolin said.

Mako bit his lip and thought of the money he had in his pocket; how he had planned to use it to buy them both new shoes after the winter had eaten at them. Bolin shuddered and a small whine escaped his throat, vibrating into Mako's chest, and his decision was made on the spot.

"C'mon," Mako said, moving to stand and pull Bolin up. "Let's go to that dumpling stand for dinner."

Bolin's face broke into a smile so wide that his raw, red eyes nearly shut with the force, yellowed teeth shining in the dark.

Mako leaned against the bright red wheel of his assigned rickshaw, juggling with the coins and bills in his sweaty, raw fingers. He was having a good day, picking up more tips than usual due to the first warm day of spring, having to tuck them into the hidden pockets inside of his jacket to keep them safe. The sun warmed his head, heat trapped in the long, black hair coarse and tangled on his head, flooding down his back and pooling in his gut. Energy buzzed through his body even as his legs twitched with exhaustion from running.

A shadow fell across his hands and he looked up, squinting against the sun to spot two finely dressed men before him.

One dressed in mustard yellow gestured to the rickshaw with his white satin gloved hand. "How much will it cost for a ride to the Financial District?"

Mako tallied the distance in his head, thinking of shortcuts and longer distances, adding in the fact that the two men were clothed in silk rather than cotton. A silver chain was slung across the potbelly of the man dressed in lilac, who was tugging out a matching cigarette case. The numbers racked higher in Mako's head.

"No less than fifteen yuans," Mako said.

The man in mustard nodded, the pair of them moving to the rough, faded cushion seat. "Good. Take us to Baenamu Bank."

Mako pursed his lips to bite back a smile, folding his yuans into his pocket, grabbing his hat from the top of the wheel and shoving it onto his head. "Sure thing, sir."

Baenamu Bank was located on Hakka Boulevard, off of Lanhua Street, a long, thin road that stretched out from a small Earth Kingdom burrow. It was usually the quickest route into the Financial District, but it was currently under construction.

Mako stretched his hands, feeling his blisters ignite with pain and dry callouses fracture under the stress. He bent forward to rub his palms into the fine dust gathered along the curb of the road, staunching the leaking blisters to keep his grip on the rickshaw handles from slipping.

Shoulders burning and feet scraping against the ground as he struggled to push off and gain momentum, Mako pulled the two grown men behind him all the way to Lanhua Street, and feigned annoyance at the yellow barriers placed at the mouth of the road. Grinning from ear to ear as the officer on duty guiding traffic away pointed him down a side street, Mako counted each step he took as a new brass coin to add to his singing pockets.

He knew not to test his luck and turn down even more winding side streets, racking up the price and risking the chance of angering his customers, causing them to stalk off without paying. He passed his time working by watching mothers with their children bundled in their arms shop at the fresh fruit stands, at businessmen sitting at outdoor tables with their tea cups tipped upside down, leaning back in their chairs. It was a normal afternoon where he would nod at the familiar bums sifting from trashcans he had bartered with before, the rest of the world passing by on silk slippers and wheeled rickshaws.

He dropped the men off in front of Baenamu Bank, the total coming to seventeen yuans. He received a tip of two yuans, thanked the men for their generosity, and lifted his empty cart to find the next rickshaw stop on Shiying Avenue.

Two other boys, one slightly older and the other younger than Mako, were stationed at the stop. They leaned against their rickshaws and spoke to one another with their chins tucked to their chests, shoulders curved as they tried to fold in on themselves. Mako's shoulders dropped and he slapped the loose soles of his shoes against the pavement as his arrival. They nodded their heads to him in greeting.

"Hey, Mako," the older boy said. His pale skin was unevenly tinted with a shining pink burn, eyes colorless and pale like a creature suited for winter, with hollowed cheeks and oval face taught like a mask.

"Lawan," Mako nodded, and turned to the younger boy. "Yen. You guys on break?"

"Nah, we're done for the day," Yen said. He protected his dust brown skin with a broad hat that swung low over his muddy eyes, causing him to always tip his head back to speak. All Mako ever saw of him were the two black circles of his nostrils, and the peeling thin lips of his mouth. "You wanna go with us to Ryouta's?"

Mako shrugged. "Sure. It's on my way home."

"Where're you living now?" Lawan asked.

"Down in Little Wugou," he said.

Mako lined his rickshaw up with Lawan's, setting the handles down and looking at his palms. They were inflamed and weeping with pink blood, more flecks of glittering dust embedded in the raw flesh. He tenderly patted them across his shirt front, staining it with dappling stains, wincing slightly at the sting of cotton into wound.

The boys started walking down through the side streets, Yen bending the streets up to have them scale fences to avoid mangling their hands more than necessary.

Mako balanced on the rickety edge of a wooden fence, arms held out at his sides. He hated the feeling of freefall, of how his stomach rose up into his ribcage and dreaded the feel of it plummeting down into his pelvis. He drew in a deep breath, kicking off from the fence. The heel of his right shoe caught on a nail going down, ripping free from the threadbare canvas, and he landed with the blood that pooled in his feet splashing up his ankles, needles pushing into his bones.

"You sharin' the space in Little Wugou with anybody?" Yen asked.

Mako shuddered with the pain and bit the tip of his tongue, more angered at the ruined shoe than his injuries. "Nah. Just me and my brother," he grunted.

"You still with him, huh?" Lawan said.

"Yeah," Mako rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"I just don't get you," Lawan said, shaking his head, the crude pink dash of his mouth curving upwards. "It's not hard to leave 'em."

Mako pursed his lips together in a tight white line and decided to stay quiet.

In the alleyway next to Ryouta's Restaurant, the three boys managed to find some meat still clinging to a rack of pork ribs under a pile of old onions and peppers. They divvied up the ribs and sat against the cool trashcans, sucking away at cartilage and thick, gummy bone marrow.

After settling in among the bone littered alley, Lawan started digging into the heel of his right shoe, pulling out a dented cigarette case. "You want a cigarette?"

Mako wrinkled his nose, and his answer to decline was on the tip of his tongue before remembering his friends. How smoke permeated the tiers of the headquarters until it collected at the highest floor, hot and choking, light bleeding into the air like water into paper. The smoke would come from Heng's mouth on occasion.

He slowly nodded. "Yeah. Sure."

He watched Lawan gingerly pluck a mangled, hand twisted cigarette from his case, handing over the shortest to Yen and keeping the longest for himself. Mako was already accustomed to lighting cigarettes for others, finding it an easy way to pick up a few bronze coins when people struggled to find lighters and matches. Being at the other end of the cigarette for so long allowed him to learn how to smoke, how nostrils slightly flared to air to coax the fresh smoke in, puffing out like reeking factory smoke stacks.

He mimicked Lawan and Yen to light his own cigarette, preparing for a hacking cough like Yen had spat, only to find that the smoke dragging down his lungs felt familiar.

It tickled, and it felt like a rock had been placed on his chest, even when he blew the smoke from his mouth. He watched it turn to white wisps in the air, amazed that something so foreign felt so comforting.

With the money he had earned bulging in his pockets, Mako returned to Bolin after his meeting with Lawan and Yen with a five yuan bill waving between his fingers. He forced himself to not limp over the soleless shoe now clad on his right foot, ignoring the fact that he needed another.

He still saw Bolin's face streaked with clean white tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks every time he stared at his little brother. The guilt wrapped around his waist like Bolin's thick arms clinging to him at night, shivering in the cold, squeezing him until it was impossible to breathe.

Bolin stared at the purple flag in his brother's bloody hand and let his lips quirk into a hesitant smile. "Are we rich?"

Mako nodded. "We're rich."

"Can we - ?"

"- Yeah, c'mon. It'll take awhile to make it into Huangse Town, I want to be back before five."

Bolin scrambled to his feet and started clapping his hands free of the dirt he had been playing with. "Ok. I want to pick it out, though!"

"Yeah," Mako said with a smile, walking off at a slow pace so Bolin could keep at his side. "As long as it's under five yuans. And if it's the right shopkeeper." He reached up and roughly rubbed his knuckles into his hair.

"Mako!" Bolin said, wiggling away. "Your hands are dirty!"

"So are yours!"

"Mine aren't red!"

Mako darted his hand forward and tugged on Bolin's earlobe, Bolin whining and punching his older brother in the arm with a laugh. Mako laughed in relief, already feeling the stitches of his guilt being pulled out from his skin with a tickle.

They babbled as they walked down to Huangse Town. Bolin listened rapt with attention as Mako described all of his customers, the fresh flowers tucked into buttonholes and decorative hair pieces pulled out for spring. Mako spoke with his voice ringing in his throat, as if the riches he had seen belonged to him, and he was waving them like a flag to share with Bolin. Bolin told Mako what he did when he was off at work: playing with kids Mako knew were good, begging for change on a busy street corner.

Huangse Town was located on one of the older streets in the city, the thin roads more accustomed to ostrich-horse buggies rather than the rare Satomobile. The buildings were tall and thin, stretching into the sky so the afternoon shadows folded over the road, cloaking it in burnt orange darkness. Cracks of amber light dashed across the pavement from the bare cracks between the buildings.

Mako remembered his father taking him into Hibana Liquor's before, to purchase rice papers and cigars during the summer, along with small trick fireworks that snapped to the ground when thrown. The shop was stuffed with various general foods like dried noodles and packaged cookies claiming to be imported from the Fire Nation. Gold hookahs lined the back wall, shelves packed with sweet smelling tobacco that wafted out the door, mixing with the pungent spice aisle.

He had his hand on the door and glanced down at Bolin. The only green on his brother's body were his eyes - the rest was safe, neutral grey.

With a sigh, he tugged open the door, Bolin wandering inside with his head knocked back in wonder.

"What are you kids up to?" the shopkeeper asked.

He was a thin man, face sagging with translucent, greasy skin, sunspots and blue veins popping forward, his black mustache hanging long and limp before his mouth. His shoulders bowed in such a high arc that it was clear that he had spent most of his life leaning against the counter of the shop.

Mako cleared his throat and stepped forward. "We'd like to buy some -"

"Mako!" Bolin whispered loudly, knocking his elbow into Mako's ribs. "I wanna do it!"

Mako winced, not from the pain, but from the narrowing brown eyes belonging to the shopkeeper. "Right. Go ahead, Bolin."

Bolin stepped closer to the counter, keeping ample distance so he could still see the man behind it, chin and nose sticking high into the air. "We want to buy some incense, please!"

"What kind?" the shopkeeper asked.

"Ihai kind," Bolin said.

The shopkeeper's face fell with surprise before drawing back to skepticism. "Why do you need Ihai incense?"

"For our par-"

"- Any kind will do," Mako blurted. "We just need some incense."

Bolin frowned. "Mako, we need it for Mom and Dad."

"Oh," the shopkeeper said, standing from the counter. Mako grimaced. "Fine. Which brand?"

"It doesn't ma-"

"- White Lily, please!" Bolin said brightly.

The shopkeeper nodded, and turned around to the rows of incense lined behind him, kept safe behind a locked glass case along with lottery tickets and pre-rolled cigarettes. The long, cardstock packet of incense was decorated with a twisting white lily, held by a female spirit clad in a white robe, a red circle placed in the center of her forehead. Her small black eyes were soulful and pitying.

"That'll be seven fifty, boys," the shopkeeper said, sliding the packet to the lip of the counter.

The panic that had been ballooning into Mako's chest burst with a crack. "We only have five yuans to spend," he whispered sharply to his brother's ear.

The shopkeeper glared at him, but Bolin stepped forward, grinning, hand dipping into his inner coat pocket.

"It's ok, I have money!" Bolin said.

His dirty, chubby hand clutched two purple yuans, folded neatly as if they had come from a wallet. Mako watched in disbelief as the money was handed to the shopkeeper; Bolin's hands took the incense and the change with a business man's confident smile of bottomless pockets.

Bolin tucked the incense away into his jacket and Mako grabbed his wrist, tugging them both from the store.

Once outside, Mako knit his face together in an attempt to mimic his mother's disappointed pout, hand still wrapped around Bolin's wrist as he tried to squirm away.

"Where'd you get that money?" Mako asked.

"Mako, let go! We've gotta go see Mom and Dad!"

"Where'd you get that money?" he repeated. He paused and Bolin's strength weakened. "Did you steal it?"

Bolin pouted and shrugged, looking away. "S'not hard. Nobody pays any attention."

Mako shut his eyes and groaned, stomping his foot on the pavement. "Bo, I told you, you can't do that when I'm not around!"

"Nobody knows it's me!"

"It's not safe, what if something happened to you?"

Bolin's thick eyebrows simply puckered together harder, bottom lip revealing more bright red tissue as he jutted it forward. The staring contest lasted for only a moment before Mako rolled his eyes with a sigh, and Bolin sheepishly grinned with his victory.

"Just -," Mako started, turning and holding his hand out for Bolin. Bolin gingerly took it to keep the barely dried wounds from marring his hand. "Just, be safe, ok? If you're going to keep doing it."

"I will, Mako."

The walk to the cemetery brought them into the nicer parts of the city, where the streets were shaded with trees rather than unsound brick buildings that painfully stretched into the sky. Here, wrought iron fenced in small patches of gardens, new flowers creeping through the gaps to spill into the sidewalks. Those flowers that did were roughly snatched between Mako's bleeding palms to form a free, quick bouquet of mainly tight buds and pebbled, premature flowers. Bolin dawdled behind and took his time to reach between the metal gates for the perfect blooming carnation, tucking it into Mako's hand for safe keeping.

Mako wished he were able to do the same, to take the time and piece together a good bouquet, one his father could have purchased with real money for his mother. He wanted to take the time and laugh as soft petals tickled his thieving hands, but the stretching of the shadows only told him that they were wasting time, that he had a job to do by five that evening. He swallowed down his heart as it leapt into his throat, pushed forward as his knees shook, calling to Bolin and reminding himself that his mother always accepted his bouquets of weeds before with no complaints. He hoped she wouldn't mind another now.

The grave was small, both in height and in plot. The grey stone fronts were unpolished, names cut evenly into the faces with no character - not in the familiar scrawl of their father, or the classical style done by their mother. Soggy brown leaves clung to the corners, and Mako rushed to clear them free.

"We haven't been here in so long," Bolin said, pulling the incense from his pocket, looking at the rows and rows of graves. "I wish we could come more."

Mako bit his lip and nodded, tossing the leaves away. He remembered the bouquet and fluffed it together, tiny stems stabbing into his palms. He angled the petals towards their mother's urn, and sat back on his heels. Bolin silently fell into place beside him.

"I can pickpocket more," Bolin said, leaning closer to Mako.

He shook his head. "Nah, Bo, not here."

"What?"

"Let's not talk about it here," Mako said quietly, staring at the weak bouquet, at the cheap graves. "I don't think Mom and Dad would like it."

"Oh. Ok."

A moment of silence passed, the boys staring at the graves, plucking at the dead grass and wet ground.

"But we should come more," Bolin said. "We don't always have to bring the incense, right?"

"Oh," Mako said, turning to find the packet of incense bobbing up and down in Bolin's hands. He took the box and tugged out two sticks, setting them into the small holes above each urn, and pinching the tips between his fingers to light. The smoke rolled off of them in lazy, curling grey lines. It found peace as the sky claimed it as sunset orange, just a mark of lily wafting through the air. "I don't know. I think it makes them happy."

"Seeing us makes them happy."

Mako didn't reply. As he curled his fingers close to his chest, the rough, dry edges of his wounds caught on the threadbare fabric of his father's scarf.

The raw red of his hands looked angry, the black dirt embedded there pulsing as his skin tried to force the foreign rocks from his wounds. It was inflamed with unnatural heat that ebbed from his skin rather than his stomach. The soft fabric of the scarf was calm, deep like berry stains in fresh cotton shirts, cool and promising something sweeter than the vibrating red of his hands.

Bolin tried to hold his hand, but Mako tugged it free to loop the scarf around both of their necks, tucking his head onto Bolin's shoulder.

Mako pretended to dodge a punch, twisting low to pivot on his ankles, springing up seconds later with a volley of flames in his hand surging forward. As they fizzled out with the smell of blackened brick, he sent out a kick with flames licking ten feet up the wall. Grey and orange newspaper embers swirled around each cut of white knuckles through the air.

He knew someone stood at the back door to the Triple Threat's headquarters, watching him and smoking a cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the embers cherry at the tip of the person's mouth, but they were content to watch Mako kill time before Heng returned to start another game of Liar's Dice.

"Who taught you that?"

Mako looked up to find that it was Nobu. His whiskey colored eyes stared at the slow curls of his cigarette smoke rather than Mako, slouching against the doorframe.

"I taught myself," Mako said. He sparked a flame in his palm and started tossing it back and forth between his hands.

Nobu raised a slender eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You're good," Nobu shrugged. "You just run numbers, right?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Nothin'. Just thinking; you're one of our fastest kids, right?"

"I'm the fastest."

Nobu snorted out a laugh, smoke forced through his nostrils. "Yeah, alright, kid. I think I've got a job offer for you, it you're interested."

Mako narrowed his eyes. "What's the pay?"

"Shit, you're on your way, ain't you?" Nobu laughed. "It's better than what you're making running numbers, that's for sure."

"What's the job?"

"We've got a...shipment to pick up, down at the docks," Nobu said, smile spreading low and words slipping from his mouth like black oil slicks. "We know the cops've got us bugged, so we gotta get some kids to run messages back and forth to everybody. Easy work. You in?"

It sounded simple, even easier to understand than running numbers, and with a higher pay. Mako took his time to answer, tossing his flames back and forth through his hands, pace slowing as he thought of Bolin, of what could go wrong -

"Heng will be there," Nobu added. "If it makes you feel safer, or somethin'."

"Yeah. Ok. I'll do it."

Nobu's smile stretched in a jagged line across his face, fingers plucking the cigarette butt from his mouth to stab the embers dead on his tongue. Mako grimaced at the action, following the trash as Nobu flicked it from his fingers, hitting against the side of a trashcan and landing to the ground.

"Great. Now c'mon inside, I got something to show you." He turned and disappeared into the dark doorway to be swallowed by the sounds of smokey voices and clinking glasses. Mako extinguished his flames and followed after him.

Inside, the usual group of men that joined in the games of Liar's Dice sat around a small, cramped table. Heng had just arrived, a gunny sack half full puckered between his fist. Blackened dirt smudged across his face and shirt front, looking darker and rougher than Mako had ever seen before. When Heng lifted his head to find Mako entering the room with Nobu, his stony face fissured into a smile.

"Hey, kiddo, how's it goin'?"

"Good," Mako said, struggling to climb onto a chair. He placed his hands on the surface of the table, leaning forward and sitting high on his heels to reach. "What's that?"

Heng lifted the gunny sack and scowled, dropping it roughly to the table. "Black powder. Fu's idea."

"Oh," Mako said. He glanced across the faces of the table, to Arak and Nobu, who bit back tight smiles. "Where is Fu?"

The chair whined under the force of Heng's weight as he collapsed down. "Jail."

Men came and went with minor jail stints, usually lasting no longer than a single night. Mako relaxed, knowing that Fu would be back shortly. Some of the men even liked the time behind bars, as they were given meals and found time to relax and sleep, avoid paying rent on another night in a shitty, crowded apartment.

"Heng, you gonna use this?" Nobu asked, grabbing the gunny sack.

Heng shook his head, hand clapping down over his eyes and rubbing at his brow. "Nah. I don't want to see another speck of that shit again in my life."

"Good."

Nobu's chair squealed against the hardwood as he dragged his chair closer to Mako's, ripping open the mouth of the gunny sack, and digging into his pockets. He tugged out a squashed, black box with a roaring tiger on the front; the same brand of rolling papers Mako's father used to buy. He laid them out on the table, placing one in front of Mako, before pinching powder between his fingers.

"Here, kid, I'm going to teach you how to make fireworks."

"Hey, Bolin!"

The rice paper had grown sweaty and limp in Mako's tight fist, the gunny sack slapping against his side as he ran to the alleyway in Little Wugou. Bolin crawled out from the thin crack that served at the front door to their triangular shelter of rocks, pushing his long hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah?" Bolin asked, looking around in a daze. "Why're you back so early?"

Mako held out the sack with a triumphant smile. "I left early because I wanted to show you something. C'mon."

He turned and jogged to the mouth of the alleyway, kneeling down on the sidewalk, Bolin walking after him. The sun had nearly set, ebbs of dull yellow light still fading into the sky as the purple night set in, thick and opaque as streetlamps cut into the stars. A few people still mingled on the street, taking their time outside of small shops and dessert carts before returning to their homes for the night.

In the shadows, dull eyes turned bright with the springtime warmth of evening, fellow street children crouched among trashcans. They hid until the streets were clear of adults and threats, but they edged closer to spot the pair of brothers freely kneeling on the pavement.

Mako laid out the rice papers as flat as possible, pinching black powder into their centers.

"Mako? What're you doing?" Bolin asked.

"Just watch," Mako said, tucking his tongue against his lip, focusing on the precise twisting Nobu had taught him just moments earlier.

Bolin shook Mako's shoulder. "No, what's going on?"

Mako looked up and flashed his nervous brother a toothy grin, all apprehension leaving his face to be replaced with a dimpled smile.

The rolled black powder was complete, held between Mako's finger and thumb. Bolin stared at it while Mako kept his eyes locked on Bolin, making sure he would catch his little brother's reaction.

Pinching his fingers together, he felt the tip of the roll burn, and Mako tossed the firework into the air.

It exploded in a bright bang!, popping and throwing white and yellow sparks above their heads, and Bolin screamed with surprise before it split into loud, high pitched laughter. It echoed across the street and called more hidden kids out of the alleys. Mako laughed, tossing more fireworks into the air to bloom with fizzling petals that Bolin stretched up to reach, dirty fingers palming softly at the purple sky.

The job running messages was easy. The difficult part was the sharp lumps slamming up into Mako's right foot through the remaining canvas lining his shoe. The left sole was coming undone, slapping against his foot as he darted across the wet asphalt to the next rendezvous point.

He barreled into the metal shipping crate carved out as a meeting point, three Triad members including Heng crowded around a peep hole punched through the side. His footsteps echoed sharp and loud against the walls and one of the men hissed for him to keep quiet.

"Sang says that you need to move up now," Mako panted.

"What?" Heng said, frowning. "We can't move now, we can't see a fucking thing and there's no firebenders with us."

Mako shrugged, leaning against the cool mouth of the crate. "He said now. And I'm a firebender."

"Nah, no kids," Heng said, standing up and rubbing his head.

"But, Heng -"

"No," he said, squaring his shoulders, his eyes just glinting white pinpoints in the dark. "Get back to Sang and tell him we aren't moving yet."

"But I can -"

"Mako. Get the hell out, we don't have time."

Mako stepped back, heart dropping into his stomach as he skipped the height of the lip and panicked into free fall, before his foot collided with the ground. The men curled together in the dark with just the faint outlines of their bowed shoulders stringing together, until it was impossible to tell where one body began and one ended. Their whispers threaded together to drown out Mako entirely.

Biting back his disappointment, Mako dug his feet into the ground, the rocks under his feet popping as he kicked off.

The air was thick with water, hazy fog streaking across the bay like it had been boiling and shooting off layers of steam. It rolled over onto the docks, Mako disrupting the uneven lines as he rushed past them, air turning cool against his burning face. He darted between the stacks of metal shipping crates in different patterns as Nobu had told him to, never passing the same track as he had before.

Sang wouldn't like Heng's answer, and Mako knew he would be yelled at again. He didn't like the way his friends no longer rubbed their calloused palms against his shaggy hair for completing a run.

He paused between a tight alley of crates, pressing his back against the frigid metal to catch his breath. In the shadows, he could shut his eyes and only feel the cool crate against his flat palms and neck, hear his breathing dry and rasping down his throat. He remembered Bolin's face just before he left for the night, his eyes wide with confusion because Mako, you go to work during the day, not at night, where are you going, really? Guilt spread out from his core until he swore he could feel himself sink into the metal at his back. He had no body in the pitch dark; just silence and guilt and his heart pounding away in his chest.

A crackle of earth ripped across the ground, vibrating up through the thin canvas of Mako's broken shoe. He snapped his eyes open and deep voices rang across the docks.

More thundering vibrations traveled across the ground, police sirens and roaring flames echoing across the crates until he couldn't tell where the voices were coming from. He stepped out from the crevasse, only to find that the weak dock lights had been cut, the world before him collapsing into black. He could only feel his fingers gripping the sharp lip of the crate he leaned against and the wet caress of fog slip over his eyelids.

Blooms of fire lit up pinpoints on the docks, light bleeding into the haze, each bloom of flame followed up with more shouts and footsteps.

It clicked in the back of his mind that he had to run, that when the cops showed up, that was always the plan. Without a second thought, he barrelled out of the alley and tried to remember where he had traveled before.

A gust of wind tore past him - a body, and he couldn't hear clinking metal or the soft shuffle of running shoes - so he took a sharp left away from it. His right heel came down hard on a sharp rock and he knew a blood blister would form there, and he bit his tongue to keep the pain from slowing him down.

His broken left sole folded under his foot, and with a squeal and a rip Mako tripped forward. His palms stretched out before him and flames erupted to push against the ground, to keep himself up, to keep running away because jail was not an option -

A heavy hand slammed against his bony shoulder, knocking him flat to the ground.

"Aw, fuck -"

"- What, you got one? Who is - ?"

"- It's just some kid!"

Mako's cheek was stained with wet grit against the ground as the frozen handcuffs were dragged across his back and locked tightly against his wrists.

Mako had been shoved in between the two metalbending police officers that had arrested him on the drive to the station. He had seen Nobu loaded into the back of the cruiser, shooting him a nasty glare as the officers gently lead him to the front seats. It was embarrassing how they spoke to him with flat, disinterested voices, as if they were reading comforting lines from a book. They had to pick him up from under the armpits to help him into the seat.

He let his locked hands rest between his legs during the ride, thighs pressed against the metal plates of their uniforms. The trip was silent save for the crackle of the police radio squared away in the dashboard.

He had never ridden in a car before.

When he was booked, he stood at the edge of a desk and watched an officer command thin metal strips across an I.D. board, fingers poised at the edge as he asked for the characters in his name. It took him a moment to remember the fuzzy shapes. Once complete, it was shoved into his hands and he had his first picture taken.

During the interrogation, with another officer and a woman dressed in civilian clothes (nice ones, Mako made a note of the embroidery and simple ring on her finger), they pulled out two manilla files. It took a moment, but Mako finally read the small, boxy characters of Bolin's name on the second one.

"It says here you have a brother that was also sent to the orphanage with you when you were eight," the woman asked slowly, as if he were stupid and unable to understand. "Do you know where your brother is?"

Mako's face scrunched together. Bolin was never going back to an orphanage unless he was there to sift maggots out of his food for him to eat. "No. I ditched him."

The woman's eyebrows tilted upwards with pity, and Mako hated her for it.

Two more officers guided him to a wooden bench before an iron door with characters written on the front that Mako couldn't read. They stared at him as they hesitated before it.

"You just, uh."

"Wait here."

"Right. Take a nap or something kid, you look beat."

Mako's lips curled up in a sneer and they shook their heads at him, muttering something, before stepping into the room.

He looked down at the bench and with a sigh, curled up onto his side, tucking his frigid cuffed hands under his father's scarf. He never had the luxury of sleeping on a bench before - spending a night in the city park without being arrested was close to impossible. How the officers didn't know the significance of this evaded him.

He shut his eyes and Bolin's grimey face crashed into his mind, twisted with wide eyes overflowing with tears because Mako had said he would come back and he was as good as a liar now.

You still with him, huh?

Yeah. Of course.

I just don't get you. It's not hard to leave 'em.

Siblings abandoned each other just as easily as their parents had, telling them to stay put like a good kid and never returning to the small space in the world that had carved out for their own. And now Bolin sat under a rocky shelter Mako had crudely taught him how to build, sleeping with sticky rice clinging to his hands and face, only to wake up in the morning alone.

Mako forced his sweaty, mangled palms into his eyes to staunch the heavy flow of tears leaking there, back bones digging into the hard bench with each uncontrollable shudder. He allowed himself to cry until the singing whoosh of the door slid open and the officers spilled out to collect him.

It was too late to drop him off on the doorstep of another crowded orphanage. He was escorted down to the bender cells, and Mako was unsurprised to find them stuffed with grown men and women stretching their arms between the bars to find more space. He caught the flashy red silk of the Agni Kais and the deep blues of the Red Monsoons littered among his friends that had been arrested with him. A few people yelled at the injustice of a child being tossed in with them, heckling the mask-faced officers who never cracked under their jeers.

When Mako found himself in a cell only to find Heng's broad frame curved into a corner with Nobu, Arak, and Fu, he charged to them.

They lifted their heads and Heng started a smile, but it fell quickly as Mako felt sparks fizzle in his palms and smoke push up against the roof of his mouth, forced out of his nostrils with a burn.

"Mako, what the hell are you doing here?" Arak asked.

"Did they interrogate you? Didya say anythin' stupid?"

Heng frowned. "Hey, kiddo, you can't bend in here or else -"

Mako swung his leg out so a raging curve of fire licked at their ankles until the heel of his foot collided with Nobu's calf. Deep yells twisted together from the other criminals and the Triad members whose expensive leather shoes he had scorched, and he looked down at the charring laces and stinking skin and he started yelling before he even realized it.

"I nearly got away! You shoes were fine and you still got caught! What the fuck is your problem?"

"Mako, calm down -" Heng said, flat palms barred to him in warning.

Mako punched flames at them quickly, catching the green silk sleeve of Heng's jacket. "What about Bolin? What am I supposed to do about -?"

"- Kid, shut the fuck up!"

A foot belted against the side of Mako's head and he felt a crack ring out as his skull hit the ground. The cell grew quiet with only a thousand whispers floating through the air, all about Mako, but none ever raising their voice to give him a name. Not even to call him kiddo, to latch a dusty hand under his arm to pull him up.

As shapes and violent colors bloomed across his eyelids, Mako realized he had no friends.

His elbows shook as he lifted his half-dead weight up from the ground, cloth soles finding little purchase on the floor. He pulled himself up to stand and felt a tickle travel fast down his cheek, and he pressed his hand up to his temple to draw it back and find hot, sticky blood ink his palm.

He managed to focus his eyes on Nobu long enough, swaying as he struggled to stand. Rocking his foot forward, he landed a flaming kick at Nobu's weak knee, his pants quickly catching fire.

Not bothering to watch Nobu beat the flames from his burning leg, Mako turned and walked back to the barred door. He sunk against the wall as people cleared space for him now, like the bouncers at headquarters tugging open doors for him, some knocking their knuckles against his shoulder like they knew his name. Like they were proud of him.

He pressed the end of his father's scarf against his cut temple and buried his face into the soft fabric for his own comfort, and shut his eyes to remember wide green ones begging him to come back home.