With the lights of the island and the airships around it fading behind them, Asami and Xing settled into a…well, not comfortable, but decent enough silence as she drove the speedboat across the choppy waters of Yue Bay back to the mainland. Thanks to the interdiction of Tarrlok’s waterbenders earlier, there was a hole on the bow deck and a dent in the boat’s engine.
Thankfully, the damage didn’t completely kill the craft and none of the ice had seeped into the system, though the boat now sputtered a bit noisily across the waves. Asami would have to remember to bill Tarrlok a premium for repairs. It was a good thing that Xing managed to persuade Tenzin to rescue Korra, otherwise they’d still be idling on the waters with strained polite words while the Avatar got kidnapped or killed by the Equalists.
Asami sighed softly as she remembered watching Xing firebend for the first time. A powerful blast of white fire from his feet tore his shoes and the lower parts of his pants’ legs into smoking scraps, and sent him flying after the airbender master. Judging by the looks of the task force’s benders, it must’ve been a rare display indeed.
Though with how he was now sitting barefoot beside her, she could imagine why Xing didn’t bend so often. Come to think of it, it probably explained why he was hesitant to pay for decent clothes. Bah, she’ll just put in another spare change of clothes in the invoice to Tarrlok.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Xing said all of the sudden, breaking the silence and snapping Asami out of her musings.
The pulsing light from the boat’s dashboard painted his features in a warm yellow glow as she turned to smile at him. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it, Xing. I insisted on coming with you.”
“Yet I wouldn’t have made it to help Master Tenzin without this speedboat,” he smoothly replied, patting the armrest.
Yeah, right. He could’ve just rocketed over if he hadn’t gone along with Asami’s demands or cared to assuage her doubts. Of course Xing was too nice to bring up that fact of being burdened by having her alon-
Oh spirits.
Asami froze a little, and at the edge of her vision she saw Xing shift in concern. She quickly shook off his concern with a nervous smile before returning her attention back to the dark waves before her, while her mind reeled at a sudden revelation.
Was this what Xing endured before this? Having to bend over backwards for the Avatar and others while trying to accomplish his duties? Having to trudge on despite the skepticism and doubts of those he worked for?
Was…was Asami becoming like Korra? Was she starting to take him for granted?
That thought sent her skin crawling, and Asami found herself glancing back at Xing. “I’m sorry for making you bring me along,” she said regretfully.
At Xing’s confusion, the heiress drew in a breath before speaking again, her mind slowly revealing her pettiness even as she formed the words. “I should’ve let you head off without me. I should’ve trusted you. If things had gone bad, I would have been another burden to you…”
“You’re not a burden, Asami,” Xing firmly replied, a deep frown on his face.
“But I should not have doubted you,” she pressed. “I shouldn’t have let myself be so…so stupidly jealous.”
His head tilted to one side, and he dared to keep arguing for her. “You have a reasonable concern about my…commitments. We’ve only recently met, our stations are vastly different-”
“You’ve proven yourself already,” she cut in, her head almost snapping back towards him. “You’ve been kind, smart, patient… ”
“I’ve proven myself to Future Industries, maybe,” Xing corrected softly. “But I’ve yet to prove myself to you, personally.”
Asami blinked. “Why are you so…okay with…with this?”
“Being on the lower end of the relationship makes certain things more apparent,” he answered with a shrug. “I’m essentially a nobody in this city; It’s easy for me to become a parasite or a swindler, just as it’s easy for me to be…discarded once the amusement I offer wears off.”
A sudden petulant thought struck and Asami killed the engines to the boat. “Asami…?”
She turned to him with a bit of a petulant pout. “Xing, you seem to have no idea how much you mean to me. I know there’s a risk that you’re only with me for my wealth-”
And the revulsion that immediately flashed across his face even before she finished that sentence told her how little of a risk that was.
“-but I trust you. And I shouldn’t have let stupid thoughts about Korra affect that trust. You don’t have to dress up my mistakes.”
There was a pause, and then Asami made herself say it. “I’m not Korra or the White Lotus. I don’t want to be like them.”
Xing’s eyes went wide as he seemed to finally grasp what she was getting at. “I never…”
“I know,” she replied with a sad smile, as she brought a hand up to lightly stroke his cheek.. “But it doesn’t mean I couldn’t have ended up like them. You’re too capable, Xing. Too accommodating. You make it so easy to be relied upon.”
An awkward silence fell before Xing finally nodded. “I…don’t know what to say…”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Asami broke into a chuckle. “Good. I don’t want to keep hammering home how much I suck.”
She threw him a playful glare as he raised a finger. “Well…let’s just say that maybe we both have our biases…”
“Fine, that works.”
Another awkward pause fell between them, filled by the sounds of the waves rocking against the boat.
“Asami?”
“Yes, Xing?”
“Are you going to start the boat again?”
That’s a good question. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, did she really need to strand them in the middle of the bay?
Asami rose up from her seat and glanced up to the night skies, finding the distant lights of the police airships lazily floating over the city line and the memorial island. Too far away to notice an unpowered boat in the waters.
She felt his gaze follow her as she walked to the back of the boat while crushing down the spike of nervousness. “Xing… You said you haven’t proven yourself to me, right?”
Before he could nod, Asami quickly slipped out of her jacket, ignoring the biting cold as she stood challengingly before her boyfriend. “Would you like to do so now?”
She imagined hearing Xing blink at her as she started shivering before him.
“Wha- Asami?”
Asami threw him a speculative glare, putting her hands on her hips. “I said…would you like to prove yourself now?” She saw how his body shifted, and then sighed. “Forget Future Industries, forget everything else. Be selfish for once. Do. You. Want. Me?”
“I…”
For a moment, as another heavy veil of silence seemed to manifest, Asami feared that her gambit had failed in an embarrassing manner. As she began regretting making a fool of herself though, Xing got up and slowly walked towards her. His amber eyes seemed to glow under the starlight.
“I would like to,” he finally answered in a near whisper. She could hear the question hanging to those words, and answered it with a resolute stare.
“Then come and prove yourself.”
*****
Having been night fishing up until now, it was still taking Lidai some time to acclimatize to going to bed before the sun rose. But rather than struggle too much against it, he instead used the sleepless nights to study for his new job.
Being in the secure comfort of his own room, which itself was within a private apartment, and having an electric light that could be turned on or off at leisure, really helped with that.
Lidai carefully pored through the manual Xing, Ren and Kai had prepared for him. He sticked scraps of paper onto the pages to remind himself of important bits like template responses, shorthands, and maintenance of fountain pens.
He might only be a humble typist, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t take his job seriously. The whole operation of the pens especially took a lot of annotation, as Lidai had been used to the more traditional calligraphy brushes of the Earth Kingdom. The methods of wielding the instruments, along with how non-dispensable pens were compared to brushes, made for an interesting experience. Lidai’s current goal was to end his first month of employment without using half his salary to replace broken pens or stacks of blotted paper.
Still, sitting behind a desk beat squatting over rocks, and despite having to wait for the end of the month to receive it, the pay was good. Lidai only had to ignore his insecurity of earning less than the two kids…
Eh, still better than Ba Sing Se politics.
Lidai shook himself out of those distracting thoughts and returned to the manual, focusing his attention on the topic of employee privileges. Then he heard the apartment’s door creak open, followed by more than one pair of cautious but heavy footsteps entering.
Strange, Ren and Kai were already asleep, and Xing would’ve padded in more confidently, nevermind the fact that he was only one person…
Carefully, Lidai slowly got off his bed with as little sound as he could. He silently stalked toward his room’s closed door and reached for his retired fishing pole nestled in the corner. As he grabbed at the tool, he slowly opened his door to snatch a peek at the intruders outsi-
There was a soft thud as the fishing pole fell back to its place and the door opened, with Lidai staring disbelievingly. Before him, the light spilling from his room highlighting them like a spotlight, was not only Xing, but Asami as well. Like in the street plays, both froze mid-sneak as they stared at him in surprise.
Lidai also picked up the heavy waft of sea salt, and noticed that both Xing and Asami were completely drenched.
“Uh… Sorry for disturbing your sleep.”
Lidai mutely stared at Xing as the two young adults hastily composed themselves before him, their wet-darkened clothes squelching softly while Xing straightened his posture and Asami pushed the clinging strands of hair away from her face.
“There was an…accident as we returned from Memorial Island, and the speedboat overturned.”
The heiress nodded jerkily to back up Xing’s explanation.
The awkwardness was heightened as the boy cleared his throat. “Considering the time, we thought it best that Asami rest in my room for the night… I’ll be sleeping in the living room, of course.”
Again Asami nodded along, until Xing mentioned the sleeping arrangements. Then she snapped her head towards him in surprise.
“What?” she hissed, eyes wide.
“It’d be…improper,” Xing calmly explained.
“After wh-” Asami stopped herself, and Lidai did not miss the look that the two exchanged before she relented with a nod.
“I’ll…go help her settle in,” Xing finished, while gently pushing his accomplice onto his room. “Get her dried up before she gets a cold.”
Lidai simply watched as the two of them disappeared into Xing’s room. Then he blinked once, twice. He glanced at the trail of wet droplets on the floor reflecting his room’s light, proof that what had happened truly did just happen.
Then he remembered that Xing, for all his competence, was still barely an adult, one that had the attention of a pretty girl like Asami. And Lidai remembered his own indiscretions when he was their age, and he sighed, not knowing if this was a good development for Xing or not.
“This is all a dream,” he muttered to no one in particular, as if it washed himself of any involvement. “It was too dark to see what I thought I saw, I’m too tired to hear what I thought I heard.”
And then he returned to his room, packed away the books on his bed, then turned off the lights and tried to sleep as quickly as possible. Thankfully, in his attempt to accomplish the last task, he didn’t hear any sounds from outside. Not a thud, not a squeak, not a murmur.
In the following morning, Lidai awoke to the sound of Kai and Ren being lively, and left his room to find them questioning Xing who was sitting against his room’s door.
Did he truly spend the night out here?
Shit, he really didn’t dream it all up, did he?
“-othing from the radio. What happened last night?”
He slowly rose up before giving Kai a light shrug. “I’ll leave it to the official report before commenting, to be safe.”
“Aww.”
Ren threw a mild glare at Xing. “Why were you sleeping out here again?”
Lidai caught the slight color that crept into Xing’s cheeks. “Well, there was an…encounter with the task force last night, and-”
The door behind Xing opened with a soft click, and the sleepy-eyed face of Asami peeked out mid-yawn. “Xing, is breakfast rea-”
Silence crashed into the apartment as everyone froze. Lidai could almost hear the blinks everyone gave as they stared at each other. He himself felt the urge to shrink back into his room, but his own eyes remained glued to the scene.
“-dy.”
“Asami?” Ren asked.
“Xing?” Kai followed up.
Lidai caught the panicked look from Xing, and decided that his best option was to give the young man a silent shrug of his shoulders before retreating back into his room. He sat on his bed and reached for the manual to wait out the excited noise outside.
Let the young ones have their fun.
And don’t get dragged into the awkwardness.