#participating!

  At work people give him a wide berth, shaky smiles, an occasional, “I’m sorry. How’s Asami?”

“Well.” He says politely.

On his desk, he stares at a soft blue envelope that sneaked into his papers. He burns it on the spot. Someone clears their throat, the berth grows. No one scolds him.

Later as he pushes his lunch around, he is given a card, signatures from the entire department.  Hiromi is middle aged, nice, and keeps away from office gossip. “Maybe it helps.” She tells him, fiddling with the worn edges of the table.

“Maybe.” He lies.

__

He gets the rest of the day off and instead of stopping by the bending arena he goes straight home. Mako’s not sure he can face his little brother.

Asami’s in the same spot he left her.

He makes a thin broth, unplugs the phone when he notices it’s ringing, opens a curtain, does the laundry, goes about fixing their little home even though they’re both making enough money to get a mansion, get butlers, maids, have an entire home buzzing with energy.

Mako stops dead cold, chest pumping blood as he is rooted to the ground and feels somehow heavy and weightless. He almost can’t swallow through the knot forming in his throat, like someone’s shoved it in there and now’s trying to yank it back out. The tears he blinks back; Asami’s falling apart and he will be no help if he does too.

That night he traces her ribs, runs his thumb over each of her fingers, sweeps her limp curls from her face, places a careful hand on her hip, frowning at the deep wounds there.

“I love you.”

Tears roll down her face. He must look helpless because she buries face into his chest. He rubs wide circles over her back murmuring words he does not mean, making promises he cannot keep, and wondering if they’ll ever actually recover.

__

The ceremony is short.

It’s full of important people too, and Asami looks impeccable in her white dress. He hired someone to help her because she had refused. He’s not entirely sure how he got her into the public eye brief as it is, but it’s a quiet affair and everyone there makes a point to not coddle her.

For a few hours, it’s like she’s not even affected, like she’s handling another meeting. Ordinary, mundane. A lie because there is no flint to her eyes, no determination. She’s as lovely and vacant as a doll.

But when she kneels in front of Bolin’s daughter, smile too saccharine to be honest, “We will see you for your birthday. I have something special just for you.” The room seems to breathe in relief.

__

Later after everyone leaves and there’s enough food to feed a small army, Mako finds Asami in their apartment standing in front of a drawer. He slides next to her.

“Hey,” he says, pulling the small cup from her hand. He kisses her temple and sighs when she sags against him instead of pulling away.

They go to bed, though there are no new tears, the scars on Asami’s body do not heal like they should. Korra’s done everything to staunch the infection away, but—Korra’s eyes are sad and apologetic and guilty as all hell.

“I really did try,” she had said.

“I know,” Asami had responded. Her words had not been absolution.

__

The cupboards are empty, most their food is in the trash. Despite his insistence, Asami doesn’t eat much and he’s not any better. Mako’s thrown away, or given away, food his younger rails against. His younger self also shuts up when he understands the why.

He goes shopping, gets her favorite food, tea, white orchid spiced with white ginger and he thinks maybe it’s in bad taste and switches to jasmine, the kind that he rarely gets because it’s expensive and old habits die hard.

When pulls his wallet to pay, the card tumbles out with loose change. It’s frayed where he’s folded and unfolded it. He will not burn it, can’t. It’s his last safety line so he snatches it and pockets it.

He gets home, puts the food away and nearly has a heart attack when he sees Asami, blood spreading through the material of her gown.

“Asami—”

“I’m fine.” Her voice is faint, and her knees shake as she tries to keep upright.

He has them both under a shower in seconds as he claws her clothes off. “What happened?” His hands tremble when he pulls the stained fabric from her body.

“I don’t know,” her face is stark white, her lips are purple. Asami sways in his arms, buckles, and for a desperate second he thinks he’s lost her too.

  __

  “She’s fine.” Mako assures Bolin. Then Korra. Himself, inwardly. He smiles, grimaces really but its close enough, at the little five year old girl that shares Korra’s skin color and Bolin’s hair color. Her eyes are a lovely shade of blue that disguise her earthbending.

“Auntie Asami is sick, that’s all. We—She.” He swallows, runs a hand through Senna’s hair. “We will visit uncle Tenzin soon.”

“Promise?” Bolin and his daughter ask. Their expressions a world of difference.

“Yes.” What’s another lie.

__

He extends another month away from work, eating right through his vacation, but it’s waved aside. Personal reasons someone quotes. Right he thinks, unsure whether it’s pity or empathy.

In that space he starts operating as Asami’s right hand, meets people from all over the world. They are gifted with condolences, sympathetic looks, and even heartfelt well wishes from the new Fire Lord, nearly all of the air acolytes for they had loved Asami in her short time living in the island, and even from chief Bei Fong though hers rings with more potency than the others.

In a short week he’s managing the company his girlfriend rescued from bankruptcy and the reputation of lunacy. In another week he’s unsure if it was the right decision.

Mako watches Asami slowly waste away, papers in one hand, ink smudges on the other, and the roiling push of something bitter tearing at the connective tissue between skin and muscle that takes only seconds to identify and a lifetime to forget.

__

  He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This isn’t like with Bolin and all those years ago. There is no immediate fear of hunger or lack of a roof over their heads, or warmth, or that nagging paranoia that someone is out there waiting to snatch them he curbed by getting stronger. That’s all he knows how to provide.  Food, shelter, warmth, and protection and none of it matters in the end.

__

  A few days later, he’s sleepless. There is that box in the hallway closet he always knocks about trying to get linen or store away blankets and decides maybe it’s time he got rid of it. He gathers it and all the unmarked boxes he had hidden away, frustrated and relieved to find they’ve gathered dust.

He carefully takes everything and wraps them up to donate. There’s no reason to keep it. Perhaps years from later, they’ll start again. For now, it’s too bitter a reminder and like any wound, they need to treat it before it festers. 

It is fast work. An inevitable of life, so quickly he’s pushed things into neat boxes, labeled them, and set it all aside. It’d be nice he could do the same to that endless empty spot in his stomach, the one that refuses to settle and becomes a roaring pit when he thinks of or even looks at Asami and what they could have had.

The task finished he stands, when something blue, white, brown, and infinitely small catches his attention. Mako grabs it and moves to tuck it away inside another box. Hesitates. Then squares his shoulder. He has things to do, so he hides it along with his scarf, then goes back to bed. Asami is awake.

Her eyes track his movements until he’s lying next to her so they face one another. The moon is out, and through the open curtains, a solid beam of light cuts the floor, bed, and her neck. One of her hands slides under his shirt, finding the space where his heart beats.

“Its punishment, isn’t?”

The world could not prepare him for that; not what it represents, what it drags forward until he’s chocking on his own emotions. Ugly, and so very raw, and already festered. He kisses her instead of answering. She replies in her own way.

Nothing happens, he doesn’t fall asleep, and she stares at the ceiling, breathing softly. In, then out, then again, until the moon dies and the sun dawns.

__

That morning he leaves Asami with a plate of food on the table he knows she will not touch. He talks with Tenzin and they arrange for someone to pick the boxes up. Charity, friends, anyone.

Tenzin asks with honest concern, his son is bustling around, asking his own questions, bursting with energy, while Mako’s heart twists with envy, “How is Asami?”

“Well.” Mako lies. It is easy now.

“And you?”

That he doesn’t know how to answer.

__

An entire day of work passes before Mako gets home. The more time he spends in the Future Industries building the more he learns to hate the sleazy smarmy assholes Asami makes her allies and pity the poor secretary commandeering the front entrance. The guards he makes nice with, just in case.

He walks home instead of using one of their cars, or motorcycles, or that stupid forklift Bolin wants made into a carousel, passing a woman scolding her braying child. It hurts, a sharp pain cutting through him. He is dizzy for a moment, sure he’ll topple over, but he stands stock still until the world realigns itself.    

He makes it home in record time but sits on the steps of his house for half an hour breathing sharply head between his legs before he climbs the first ledge up.

A mouthful of air, a prayer to the moon, he opens the door. Finds Asami in her nightgown, there is no blood pooling at her feet, no gasping panic. She is on the kitchen chair, tired, solid, real, and unharmed. He lets the tension on his shoulders go.

He greets her, she returns the gesture and somehow it feels like loss.

They were never quiet people, there is, was, something to recall, a funny story about Bolin, or a joke she overheard from one of her assistants. They had plans, so many of them. He had not minded silence before and now it feels oppressive.

He considers turning on the radio just for the white noise, but he tossed it out in a fit and had not gotten around to replacing it.

“Are you hungry?” He asks. It’s a rhetorical question, he’s already pulling out pans, and pots, and vegetables starting to wilt.

In little time Mako has dinner in front of them, enough rice for two, meat helpings for three. She picks at it, pushing it around. He doesn’t do much better, but she’s here, with him, and that must count for something.

The cycle is set, and it endures. He goes to work while she sleeps.

__

The cycle breaks.

“Where are the—the,” her face is drawn. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He knows exactly what she's asking for.

“I gave it away.” Something dark passes over her face, anger, or grief, or disappointment or hurt.

“Why?” She glares at the space between them. His mind blanks, he feels like he’s about to topple over.

“I didn’t think you’d—”stops, tries again. “I needed to—”

“Where’s your scarf?” Asami interjects, shocked fingers dancing on his collar, the space between suddenly gone. He grasps her wrist, thumb under the hum of blood. Her skin is translucent there; he can see the paper thin veins crawling down her arm, to her fingertips. It feels like they’re learning each other all over again.

“I took it off.” She finally meets his eyes.

“Oh.” Something clicks.

That’s all it takes, that sudden understanding. Everything he had forced aside pushes back and rushes to the forefront. For the first time in weeks, he’s allowed to mourn. He feels Asami’s body pressing against his. He’s missed this, the intimacy, her. He crushes her to his body, afraid this is all an illusion he’s created for himself.

“I’m sorry,” Asami speaks softly, her breath spreading over the sensitive skin of his neck, across his collarbone. He tightens his arm, buries his head on the crook of shoulder. When she brushes her thumb across his cheek it comes back wet.

“I’m so sorry.”

__

The next morning Asami walks into the kitchen, newspaper in one hand, a pile of papers in the other. They sit in less-than-usual-strained silence, and he’s elated she eats a small bowl of rice prepared just like the air acolytes had taught him, it has honey and dried fruit and he had slaved for weeks perfecting it.

They weren’t dating yet, they had not even thought to date, not after what he had done, not even after Korra had announced her engagement to his little brother. It had take seven years of friendship, dates, relationships good and bad, and the intervention of this air nomad recipe that they finally ended together again.

It hadn’t been easy, it had taken a long time for the trust they had for each other to finally morph into the trust necessary for a committed relationship, and it had taken even longer for them to accept perhaps their destinies did not lie in an Avatar or a Fire Lord.

It’d taken her father’s death and his brother’s infamy in the probending ring before they actually acknowledged it. Longer still to act on it.

But there is hope, as she dips her spoon into her bowl, as her lips quirk a little when she finds extra pieces of dried papaya and mango, as she looks up and he finds the warmth of her green eyes dancing with gratitude—the pressure on his lungs eases and for the first time in weeks, he breathes.

__

Mako takes the small bundle from its hiding place and gives it to Asami. He’d admitted wanting to part with it, but had not mustered the will to do so. She nods, her eyes glazing over for a brief second before she straightens and unwraps his scarf.

“You sure?” He murmurs, a strange heaviness settling over them as she hands his scarf back.

“Yes.”

From across the table Asami meets his gaze. They’re not okay, not really, but they’re getting better, one day they will be. It’s the best they can hope to do at this point.

He writes a quick note and asks the local newspaper to publish it. The clerk he speaks with agrees after an uncomfortable pause and with too apologetic a voice.

__

The newspaper publishes this: For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

    A young couple calls hours after the printing with an inquiry.

      (“We should visit Tenzin.”

“And your brother.”

“Him, Korra, Senna, and the new baby too.”)

*

end