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“I can’t believe Future Industries is making board games now,” Korra said, rotating the rectangular box in her hands, “Mono-poley-?”
“Monopoly,” Asami corrected, plucking the box from Korra’s fingers, “I need you guys to help me test it. Y’know, see if its fun.”
“Yeah game night!” Bolin yelled excitedly, giving Korra a high five, “Let’s do it but I’m going to need someone to read the rules really really slow.”
“Yeah where’s the instruction booklet?” Mako said, “This looks complicated.”
“Right here,” Asami said, opening the box. She pulled out a thick booklet and slapped it down onto the table. Korra, Mako, and Bolin stared at Asami incredulously, their eyes sweeping over the fat booklet.
“You’re kidding me right?” Korra said, looking deflated, “We have to learn all of that?”
“It’s really simple I swear,” Asami said defensively, “We can just play as we go don’t worry about the instructions.” She pulled out four metal pieces (one had been taken by Pabu) and let them choose their characters. Korra dove for the polarbear dog, giving Asami a swift kiss on the cheek in thanks. Bolin grabbed the pro-bending helmet, Mako chose the Satomobile, and Asami settled for the mecha tank. She set up the board, placing the card stacks in their respective squares and all the characters on Go.
“Let’s start out with an example round and we can go from there.” Asami suggested, “Just to get the feel of the game down.” They began slowly, Asami reciting the rules in an easier way to understand and then passing out a stack of colorful fake yuons for each person to start with. They found themselves actually enjoying the game so they placed all their play pieces back on GO and started the game for real.
An hour later, tempers were running extremely high. Even Bolin, who didn’t even seem to have a temper, was looking cross. Korra shook the dice between her hands and threw it a bit more roughly than normal. She let out a frustrated yell as it landed on the 2-dot side. She slid her polarbear dog game piece across the board and shoved 600 of her fake yuons into Mako’s chest.
“Easy!” He yelped, patting out the small flame on his shirt, “Control your firebending a little!”
“Stop cranking up the prices on your spaces!” Korra snapped.
“Stop landing on them then!”
“I’ll land on them if I want!” Korra and Mako were standing, flames sprouting from their fingertips and steam hissing from their mouths. Asami stood and pulled Korra back down onto the floor, patting her understandingly on the back. Bolin tentatively rolled the dice, moving forward four spaces. He hesitated before landing on the last space, looking guiltily at Korra.
“You owe me 450 yuons…” He said quietly, playing with his fingers. Korra looked murderous as she leafed through the colorful bills, flinging them into Bolin’s face. They began to bicker and Asami was beginning to regret asking her friends to help test such a high stress game, especially since 2 out of 4 of them absolutely hated losing. She looked at Mako but found him joining in on the argument.
“You just can’t admit that you’re terrible at business!” Mako said hotly.
“How is that my fault?” Korra snarled, “I’m the avatar not a CEO!”
“Your girlfriend is a CEO!” Mako said, jabbing a finger at Asami who had her face hidden in her palm. Korra’s retaliation died in her mouth. Instead she glared at Mako in furious silence, crossing her arms tightly. They continued on like this for about ten more minutes before the game finally ended. Mako had grabbed a handful of Korra’s money and burned it between his fingers. Korra retaliated by metalbending Mako’s Satomobile game piece into a rude hand gesture. The arguing reached a boiling point which resulted in the game board being charred to a crisp and the rule book flying out the window thanks to Korra’s airbending.
“Well,” Asami said, watching the book sail into the water, “That was an interesting test run.” Mako and Korra looked sheepishly at the floor, embarrassed by their childish actions. (Though she gave him a rough shove when Asami had her back turned).
“I hope that wasn’t your only copy of the game.” Bolin said, also watching the manual sink below the surface, “I don’t think we’ll be able to fix this.” He held the smoldering game board between his fingers, looking sadly up at Asami.
“It’s okay, I have a couple more,” Asami said with a nonchalant hand wave, “I figured this would happen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Korra said, breaking away from her glaring match with Mako.
“Come on,” Asami laughed, “Playing a high stress business simulator with two complete hot heads? Do the math.” Korra rolled her eyes while Mako broke into a small smile. “Oh you know I love you.” Asami swooped down and gave Korra a quick kiss while Mako and Bolin started to clean up.
“I know,” Korra finally grinned, “Sorry about your game though.”
“No worries. I’m putting this one down as a successful test run.”
“But we almost burned down a building.” Korra said.
“Then you know exactly what it’s like to run a business.”