Chapter Text
Music blared wildly across the student recreation field, where students buzzed about from booth to booth. They all carried a sling bags and post cards and free candy they’d collected from student organizations as they bounced like pinballs from table to table. Most were completely uninterested in the group itself, but were always in the mood for free food and free stuff.
In the midst of the crowd, three friends aimlessly wandered through the hoard of first years. Korra, Mako, and Bolin weaved deftly through the masses, as this was their fourth time coming to the first year event, sheerly for the fact that they could rack up on free t-shirts and energy drinks. Bolin rushed forward towards the Club Boxing table, which was just a few feet ahead. The spunky junior flung his arms around some well-toned guys who were sporting t-shirts with the college’s mascot, the fire ferrets, who happened to be wearing boxing gloves. Bolin immediately launched into an upbeat conversation with his teammates. Korra threw up a hand to the club trainers who nodded back as she and Mako continued onwards through the tables.
Mako raised his hand pointing to a towering obstacle at the far end of the field, the fluorescent lights of the sports field catching the neon hand holds nicely, “Hey, sweet! The climbing rock wall is back this year. Want to have a competition to see who can get to the top fastest? Hardest section only!”
Korra smirked, “Oh, you’re on, Mako! There’s no way in hell you’ll beat me this year.” In an instant, Korra launched into a quick-paced walk, dodging between unsuspecting first years, as she and Mako rapidly approached the climbing wall. Korra arrived just seconds before Mako at the line for the climbing wall. “Loser has to buy coffee for Beifong’s syllabus lecture tomorrow, deal?” Korra declared, ripping off her sneakers and socks and slapping her hands into the chalk bin.
Mako grinned a toothy smile as his followed suit, “Gotcha. Large size, because we’re gonna need it to get through Beifong’s word for word reading of the syllabus.” Mako let out a small groan and eye roll at the thought of the next day’s boring class. Korra chuckled in agreement.
The attendant for the climbing wall signaled Mako and Korra over, yawning a little as he handed them the harnesses. Korra quickly slipped her legs through the climbing harness and cinched the straps with relative ease. She was a regular at the climbing gym during their rookie nights. She wasn’t the greatest at this, but she did it more frequently than most. And her muscle mass from the intense five-times weekly boxing training added to her odds a little. The only downside to that was, Mako and Bolin also participated in those training sessions so it did not necessarily give her an advantage. Her only edge going into this was her speed.
However, Mako had an advantage. He was much taller than Korra, giving him much farther reach with his arms. Korra frowned. This yearly competition was set two to one, with Mako eeking in just a higher score than her. Mako volunteered to go first since he was currently the reigning champ, much to Korra’s aggravation. Mako handed his phone to the climbing attendant with the stopwatch app open. “When I start climbing, could you start the timer? My buddy and I are having a competition. Could you stop it when I press the buzzer?” The attendant nodded questioningly, but took the phone nonetheless.
With that, Mako rocketed up the side of the wall, his long arms languidly jockeying from handhold to handhold. Before Korra could even get too worked up in anticipation, the buzzer rang. Mako had hoisted himself to the top of the tower, rang the buzzer, and was triumphantly repelling down the wall. He slipped out of the pulley and harness system and held up his time. “37.4 seconds, Korra! Beat that!” He shouted as Korra stepped up and hooked in to the harness system.
“Start the timer,” Korra shouted more aggressively than intended at the attendant as she took a mighty leap, skipping the first two climbing grips and going straight for the third. Korra grunted as she strained against her own weight, willing her muscles to propel her forward. Within seconds she was ten, twenty, thirty feet of the ground and climbing. Suddenly, in her haste to beat Mako, her right hand slipped, costing her her lead on Mako. Korra gritted her teeth, recovering quickly and rapidly assailed the last ten feet, smacking the buzzer with a massive grin plastered against her already sweaty face. She had a feeling in her gut that her time has just been quicker than Mako’s. Korra turned down at the ground, hanging from the harness at the top of the wall, to glance at Mako with a gloating smirk. However, Mako was not standing at the base of the climbing wall where Korra had left him less than a minute ago.
Instead, Korra saw him adjacent to the line, talking to a long-haired figure she did not recognize. Frowning, Korra repelled down the wall, her heart still pounding from her race up the wall. Unlatching from the wall and exchanging the harness for Mako’s phone with the attendant. She smiled slightly, seeing her 36.2 second time. But, since Mako clearly had not been paying attention, the victory felt a little bittersweet. Pushing through the crowd towards her friend, Korra emerged to see Mako and girl who was nearly as tall as Mako with beautiful, wavy dark hair. Korra hesitated before approaching them. Korra had never met this girl. Korra knew all of Mako’s friends since they were always practically together. Who is this girl? She interrupted our competiton, Korra thought with supreme agitation.
She held back at the edge of the climbing wall, looking this girl over, trying to piece together who she was. The new girl wore a velvety maroon dress, which was a bold choice for the sweltering and humid August heat, and dark heels which put her height over Mako’s. Korra couldn’t help but laugh at this. Korra’s eyes wandered further to the girl’s hands. The new girl was holding small, round balls in her hands that seemed to be dripping. About the time that Korra noticed this, the girl also noticed that it was dripping on the concrete as well. Her face went from pleasant to shock and embarrassed in no time at all. Korra could just hear the exclamation the girl made, “Agh, sorry, the Bailey’s chocolate my roommate gave me is melting. I should go.” The girl held up her left hand, showing the melted chocolate stains. Turning around quickly, the girl said to Mako loudly as she walked away, “It was good to see you, Mako!” With that, she disappeared into the crowd of students.
Frowning, Korra took this as her opportunity to sidle up to Mako. “Who was that?” Korra asked, folding her arms.
Mako jumped as Korra entered his personal space, having completely forgotten that she was with him apparently. “Uh, that was, um that was Asami. Asami Sato. I’ve told you about her before,” Mako said, suddenly fumbling over his words.
“No, you haven’t,” Korra stated, raising an eyebrow.
“Sure, I have. That’s the girl who asked me to the formal last winter and the one that always talks to me during ENGI classes.”
Thinking back to the previous semester, Korra did vaguely recall Mako going on and on about this girl from one of his classes that had asked him to their major’s formal but was hesitant to go with for some reason that Korra could not recall to save her life. “That’s the girl who asked you to the formal? Why didn’t you lead with the fact that she’s hot as hell?” Korra asked indignantly.
Mako frowned, “I don’t know, Korra, I didn’t realize I had to mention hot girls to get you pay attention to the things I am saying.”
Korra threw up her hands, “You don’t – I -- Nevermind.” Korra’s agitation peaked and she decided to stop talking before her and Mako started bickering in the middle of a crowd. That had gone so well in the past. She didn’t know what had come over, but she suddenly fealt this strange jealous wave that had flooded her senses seeing Mako talk to someone she didn’t know. Korra frowned, knowing that wasn’t fair to him at all. Just because they had dated once upon a time, didn’t mean they still were. Mako could make his own friends. She started walking back into the crowd, “Whatever, let’s go get Bolin and get some freaking seawood noodles already.”
They found Bolin right where they’d left him and departed for a delicious late-night meal. Korra was quiet for most of the night. She couldn’t help but recall the tall, dark-haired girl she had seen but for a few seconds and not even spoken with.