Work Text:
5:30AM
[Korra]: You up?
5:39AM
[Korra]: Mako?
5:41AM
[Korra]: Makoooo
5:42AM
[Korra]: If you don’t reply, I’m
5:42AM
[Mako]: Jesus Christ, woman
5:42AM
[Korra] coming over there to beat your ass
5:43AM
[Korra]: FINALLY. Don’t tell me you overslept...
5:44AM
[Mako]: Oversleep for what?
5:45AM
[Mako]: Oh shit
5:45AM
[Korra]: Oh shit? What do you mean
5:45AM
[Mako]: Uh, raincheck? :)
5:45AM
[Korra]: yOU ASS. yOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD HELP ME PREP FOR THE REPUBLIC CITY 30K
5:47AM
[Mako]: Sorry, Korra. I have a date.
5:50AM
[Korra]: It’s not even 6 in the morning yet, what do you mean you have a date?
5:51AM
[Mako]: I’m still on my date**
5:52AM
[Korra]: Oh, the girl from the station? OF ALL THE TIMES TO GROW A PAIR, YOU CHOOSE NOW WHEN I NEED YOU MOST?
5:53AM
[Mako]: You still have four more months, calm down.
5:54AM
[Korra]: F U MAKO. F U.
5:54AM
[Korra]: You owe me
5:54AM
[Korra]: Are you listening to me??
Republic City Park has a fuck-ton of weirdly winded paths that Korra will never be used to. It’s due to all the trees that practically sprout in the middle of roads that, anywhere else, would have been chopped down the moment it peaked from the cement like a zit in the middle of the forehead, but for some crazy ass reason, they’re the heart and soul of Republicers.
It isn’t all so bad, potential dangers aside. The roots that line every five feet of sidewalk has Korra convinced that she could try out for the hurdle races professionally one day, and technically, Korra doesn’t have to feel the shame of being the only one who doesn’t rake their leaves in the fall, because it’s not like she could actually rake all of it. After all, no one has a bitch fest every time someone has to drive through a foot of leaves, so she figures a little extra nature in her yard wouldn't do any harm.
In the one year she has lived here, she’s learned to appreciate the beauty, somewhat. Gardeners here seem to make the most money because they would turn these century old vegetables into tunnels that made the scenery nicer and allowed Korra to drive without the fear of having ‘Killed by Giant Twig’ in her obituary.
And it’s those aesthetics that makes the Republic City 30K so popular, because what more could an insane fitness freak want than to have to watch out for potential poisonous snakes in the trees or avoid falling flat on their faces after tripping over a fallen branch. Of course, Korra’s best friend back from high school as well as her equally competitive rival in everything but love—God bless Baatar—decided to provoke her into signing up for the damn race to see if adulthood has dampened her athletic skills at all.
“Stupid Kuvira,” Korra mutters under her breath in between pants. “‘30K is nothing’ my ass. How the hell does she always get me into these situations anyway?” She could feel the cramps in her lower abdomen begin to settle, but lunges forward anyway, turning the corner to see the same old man sitting at the bench for the fifth time that morning.
The old man waves to Korra for the fifth time and she tiredly waves back. She figures she should at least try a new route, maybe take a left instead of a right at the fork up ahead, but Korra’s only begun training and she only knows of two suitable jogging routes. Mako was supposed to have introduced her to a few more longer and challenging paths today, since he knew them like the back of his hand.
Right before she reaches the fork, Korra spots another jogger not too far ahead, whose ponytail bobs up and down as she ran, taking the left turn that has been taunting Korra for the past hour. She groans at herself before her body begins to angle towards the right end. It’s not that she’s scared of taking the unfamiliar paths, not even with Meelo having told her all the horror stories that have taken place in the park’s inner ring of trees during her babysitting sessions with him. It was more of a...fuss, to have to turn around if she couldn’t find her way out and risk being late for work.
Curse her eagle eye though, because the moment she reaches the fork, she spots a shiny silver key lying in the dirt. It causes Korra to halt her running, and she can feel the slight burn in the back of her throat from all the heavy panting. She crouches down with both her hands flat on her knees, eyes never leaving the sight of the key.
It must have belonged to the woman in front of Korra earlier. Then again, it could have belonged to anyone else who has used this path. But Korra had been the only one circling this particular route all morning aside from that woman, and she would have seen the key earlier if it was left by someone had dropped it before today.
Korra looked up at the mysterious path that the woman took, contemplating the importance of returning the key. Technically, if the woman had gone through there, chances are she’s taking the longer routes and it would be hard to retrace her steps once she finds out it’s missing.
With a quick swing of her arm, Korra fished the key from the dirt and turned leftwards at the fork of the path. Eagerness to return the key has adrenaline pumping through Korra’s veins momentarily, at least enough to turn “fuck my life, fuck my life” into a slightly cleaner “dumbass vines, dumbass roots” with each passing breath and each leap over a pile of vines.
It isn’t long before Korra spots the black haired woman from before, her red shorts standing out from a distance, though Korra really had to exert a lot of her energy just to catch up.
“Hey!” Korra yells to no avail. The woman in front continues to run, and Korra can vaguely make out the earphone wires coming from a device on her hip to her ears.
Korra feels like she’s added three extra layers of sweat on her body in the past fifteen minutes it took to catch up to the other runner. The thought of seeing Kuvira’s beaten face when Korra sprints pass her in the race is enough to motivate Korra to run a little faster, shortening the distance between her and the woman up ahead.
“Hey, you! Wait up!” Korra calls again with arms outstretched and waving frantically. Thankfully, the woman up ahead heard, because she looks over her shoulder and pauses her strides.
Korra's abdomen feels like she’d been punched in the gut, not so dissimilar to her boxing training with Bolin. She manages to stand upright after a few moments of wanting to keel over, and whoa. How the hell has she lived in Republic City for a year and not met this woman?
In reality, Korra knows it was probably because she spent most of the time kicking Bolin’s ass at the gym or kicking Mako’s ass at his place playing video games, rather than going outside, but holy mother of Aang, if Korra had known someone as beautiful as this woman existed in the city, she would have taken up jogging earlier.
“Uh, hi?”
The stranger’s voice snaps Korra out of her thoughts and Korra looks at her with a straightened back and feels her blood rushing from her cheeks and down to her neck. The woman’s earbuds were removed from her ears and were hanging from the collar of her tank top.
“Oh, hi! Hello. Hi. I said that already, um,” Korra stutters and scratches the back of her head in embarrassment. Of all the shitty things she and Mako had in common, it would be the inability to talk to girls properly. “I wanted to give you this!” Korra held the key out. “You dropped it earlier when you were running.”
The jogger looks at the key and then pulls out lanyard attached to the band of her shorts from her pocket. Korra tries not to look at the soft flesh peeking from underneath the hem of her tank top or her neverending legs. What she does see, along with the stranger, is that the clip used to attach to the key is broken.
“You’re right,” she says and finally takes the key away from Korra. “It’s a good thing, or else I wouldn’t have been able to use my car.”
“You drove here?”
The stranger shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s a little counter-productive to go jogging in between drives, but I work at Future Industries, and I had to test run a bunch of their new models by the end of this week.” She uses her lanyard to knot it firmly to her key, before tucking it into her pocket. “Anyway, thank you again for returning this to me. I’m really grateful.”
Korra waves it off. “Oh it was nothing,” she says, even if her tongue is begging for a gulp of water and she feels like there’s a baby kicking her stomach from the extensive running she had to do to catch up. She ignores her body though in favour of checking out the girl in front of her, who smiles politely and is on the verge of sticking her earbuds back into her ears. Korra should ask her out. Or her name. Or both. Or—
“Well it was nice meeting you. Have a good day!”
Or before the stranger runs off.
Korra drops her face into the palm of her hands, already done with her day. Well there goes that opportunity, unless she chases after the woman again. With a sigh, she rolled her shoulders back a few times before glancing back at her jogging path...and it is definitely not her path. Korra turns around on all sides, seeing fields of roots and ugly trees and rodent animals she’s not sure should be native to the city.
“Oh, fucking...” she mutters. While chasing after the jogger earlier, Korra hadn’t paid attention to where she was going, and now she’s at an unfamiliar path in the middle of one of Republic City’s biggest parks with most effed up mazes. People got lost in these parks. There’s a reason why Lin made all her recruitments learn the routes off by heart and why Mako was supposed to show her this morning, the little shit. “Why the hell don’t they put up maps here?” Korra wonders out loud, willing herself to start running in a random direction, hoping to find some sort of exit eventually.
It doesn’t take her too long, after turning a series of rights and lefts and potentially circles, before Korra gives up and opts to scale a tree to see where she’s at. It doesn’t help. All she sees are more greenery and she wonders how long it will be before Mako notices she’s gone—if he can tear away from his date for long enough—and report it to Lin for a missing persons case.
She jumps off the tree and lies down the least bumpiest part of the path spread eagle. This is it. This is how she’s going to die. Mako’s going to bring the hounds and they will find carnivorous flying lemurs feasting off her flesh. They’re going to have to have a closed casket funeral because her half rotting face will be too unsightly for squeamish Tenzin and the hot jogging girl will read her obituary and it will read Killed by Republic City’s Vegetarian Fauna before flipping the page to do the daily crossword puzzle and Kuvira’s going to win the 30K and brag at Korra’s grave.
“Hello?”
Korra’s field of vision of the sky is suddenly darkened by the jogger from earlier. A few strands of dark hair fell out of the woman’s ponytail and barely tickles Korra’s nose. Korra still gazes dreamily up at the confused stranger up above her.
“Are you okay?” She asks.
“Shit, I am dead,” Korra mutters, because what else would her heaven consist of but the sight of the hot jogging girl...who looks confused? Wait. What? Korra suddenly springs from her position, narrowly missing headbutting the jogger’s nose and she looks around at her surroundings again. At the sound of laughter, Korra turns around.
The jogger is trying hard not to appear like she’s laughing in Korra’s face, and Ozai’s fiery hell, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world even if it’s directed at Korra herself. She’s this petite, delicate looking girl, but Korra bets all of Mako’s action figure collectibles that she’s pretty feisty too.
“I’m sorry,” the stranger says. She’s knelt on the ground just a few feet away from where Korra’s sitting in the middle of the path. And she asks again, “Are you okay?”
Korra nods and feels embarrassment well up in her cheeks again. “I’m, uh, sort of lost.” She grins sheepishly, flashing her whites and hopes she’s endearing enough to be pitied on.
The black haired beauty smiles at her and Korra wonders if she would be going against Tenzin’s code of ethics if she kisses those cherry lips right then and there. “Would you like to jog with me? I’m about to head home anyway.”
“I would love to go home with you!” Korra shouts excitedly, almost too loudly, and it echoes in her thoughts. Her eyes widen, mirroring the stranger’s expression. There’s a cute blush on her pale face too, and if Korra wasn’t so busy mentally planning her trip around the world a la Firelord Zuko to regain her honor, she would wax poetic about how adorable the stranger looks.
“I mean, I would appreciate your help and would gladly join you on your jog,” Korra says.
The stranger just nods, the broad grin still glued to her face which makes Korra think that at least she’ll be memorable enough now not to be passed for some crossword puzzle in the obituaries.
“Right, I’m Asami by the way.” She pushes herself up from the path before extending a hand to help Korra up.
“I’m Korra.”
“Nice to meet you, Korra,” Asami says and then she nods along the rest of the jogging path. “Come on, let’s get out of here and maybe we can go out for drinks before I take you home with me.” With that, Asami winks at Korra and begins jogging away.
Korra only stares at her back with astonishment, sending a silent prayer to ancestor Kyoshi for giving her the best luck with the ladies, before sprinting off to catch up with the hot jogger girl.
4:11PM
[Mako]: Yo Korra, I got the rest of the day off. Wanna hang out?
5:02PM
[Mako]: Hey, you there?
5:20PM
[Mako]: KOrrrraa
5:59PM
[Mako]: Pick up your frigging phone. I thought you promised no more afternoon naps
6:23PM
[Mako]: I’m coming over to wake you up. We can go for an evening run. I still owe you from this morning.
6:45PM
[Mako]: Open your door! It’s pouring out here.
6:45PM
[Mako]: Korra
6:45PM
[Mako]: korra koraa korra kora korra
6:46PM
[Mako]: Korra, it’s raining really hard out here. Wake the fuck up and open your door
8:42PM
[Korra]: Sorry dude
8:43PM
[Korra]: Did you get out of the rain? ;)
8:50PM
[Mako]: I hate you
8:50PM
[Mako]: I think I have a cold
8:51PM
[Mako]: Why didn’t you come to the door?
8:51PM
[Korra]: I was on a date
8:53PM
[Mako]: What? With who?
8:53PM
[Korra]: My new jogging buddy. She says hi, by the way. She’s really happy to replace you
8:53PM
[Mako]: What do you mean new jogging buddy?! She’s with you right now?
8:54PM
[Korra]: Yep! So I’m still on my date
8:54PM
[Korra]: And I plan to be on my date all night
8:54PM
[Korra]: And all morning
8:55PM
[Korra]: Have fun with your cold!