like bluebells in the late december
Dec. 4th, 2013 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I have an idea.
It had started with that, the last time Naruto and Korra had gone out to the old pumpkin patch to practice. Naruto was getting pretty good at the air scooter. And pretty tired of constant chapped lips and leaking noses.
So he'd said, no, look, seriously, it's a good idea. They go to the local public gym, the one with the biggest pool that's open after hours, and they make sure the place is damn near empty. It's hot and humid in the natatorium, conditions Naruto is far more accustomed to, and it lets him peel himself out of the layers he wears constantly against Darrow's winter air.
They'll practice there. Korra can use her waterbending. Naruto can avoid her attacks. There's no better way, he thinks, to learn one another's reaction style in a fight. It's his goal, after all. He doesn't just like Korra as a friend. She's the closest thing he's got to a comrade, in the sense he best understands, in Darrow.
Although right now, he's feeling a little awkward as he sets his short stack of folded beach towels down on the bench by the pool and moves to stand at the water's edge. There's only one other person in the space other than the lifeguard, so the water is lapping only very gently. He can practically see his own reflection in it.
He hopes his slight butterflies aren't as noticeable to Korra as they are to him. He scrubs at the dark whisker marks on his cheek before turning to stare at the exit for the women's dressing room.
It had started with that, the last time Naruto and Korra had gone out to the old pumpkin patch to practice. Naruto was getting pretty good at the air scooter. And pretty tired of constant chapped lips and leaking noses.
So he'd said, no, look, seriously, it's a good idea. They go to the local public gym, the one with the biggest pool that's open after hours, and they make sure the place is damn near empty. It's hot and humid in the natatorium, conditions Naruto is far more accustomed to, and it lets him peel himself out of the layers he wears constantly against Darrow's winter air.
They'll practice there. Korra can use her waterbending. Naruto can avoid her attacks. There's no better way, he thinks, to learn one another's reaction style in a fight. It's his goal, after all. He doesn't just like Korra as a friend. She's the closest thing he's got to a comrade, in the sense he best understands, in Darrow.
Although right now, he's feeling a little awkward as he sets his short stack of folded beach towels down on the bench by the pool and moves to stand at the water's edge. There's only one other person in the space other than the lifeguard, so the water is lapping only very gently. He can practically see his own reflection in it.
He hopes his slight butterflies aren't as noticeable to Korra as they are to him. He scrubs at the dark whisker marks on his cheek before turning to stare at the exit for the women's dressing room.
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:18 am (UTC)She stumbles as quickly as she can through the dressing room, the bathing suits she'd purchased all tighter than she expected, which seems to be the style of the time. Opting to mimic Asami's style, Korra dons a spaghetti strapped bikini, exposing a little more midriff to allow for easier movement.
Staring at the mirror doesn't seem to help anything, so Korra only double-checks to make sure all of the fastenings are in place before she runs out of the dressing room, earning herself a shrill whistle from the lifeguard that she resolutely ignores. Feet slapping quickly against the tiled floor, Korra runs towards the pool, leaping up when she's close to the edge.
"Woohoo!" she whoops, somersaulting once in the air before diving immediately down into the deep end of the pool, her momentum taking her all the way to the bottom of the pool as bubbles rise up against her skin, tickling her as she resurfaces.
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:29 am (UTC)The way she looked in her swimsuit, the way she cuts through the water as neatly as a dolphin or something, her long, strong legs. He feels a little inadequate in comparison. Pasty and still very recently grown into his frame again, is a little intimidating.
Even the way he moves out to meet her seems a little unconfident, as he slips one foot, and then the other, onto the surface of the water, walking out to meet her still dry, riding the soft waves still rippling across the surface from her enthusiastic entry. Maybe his idea sucked, after all.
No. You're definitely here to have fun and to practice, he tells himself. You're not here to show off in the first place.
"Is it warm?" he asks, when her head breaks the surface. Even her hair seems graceful in the water, floating freely out of its usual three tails. He sighs.
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:37 am (UTC)Whens he spots Naruto coming towards her, his feet barely creating ripples as he walks out onto the water, Korra lets out a warm laugh, echoing through the hall as she quickly raises herself up onto the surface as well, not bothering to dry herself off after doing so. The strange look the lifeguard gives them both doesn't escape Korra, but she merely sticks her tongue briefly out at him before running over to Naruto, feet barely slapping against the surface of the water.
"Warm by my standards, but maybe not by yours," she giggles, bending down as she gets close and trying her best to splash Naruto the old-fashioned way. He looks good, clearly built after all that training Korra assumes he's done in the past, tall and lean and with an attractive silhouette. That said, while dry, he comes off as a bit too hesitant for her taste. She prefers when he's loud and raucous, and isn't sure what's holding him back today.
"You can't come to a pool and expect to stay dry, if that's what you're doing," she points out, grinning as she tries to splash him a second time.
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:53 am (UTC)He gives the lifeguard an unimpressed look before turning back to Korra, already circling her slowly, keeping his shoulders low, by instinct.
"It's gonna be cold," he claims. "I just don't wanna get shocked by it all of a sudden by jumping in like you did. It needs to be gradually. More gradually. So I can get used to it."
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:58 am (UTC)Waving both of her arms up, Korra pulls a large portion of water out of the pool, snaking it around her body a few times before sending it looping towards Naruto.
"So, how do you want to do this? Freestyle, or are we setting rules because you want to get used to the water gradually?" teases Korra, narrowing the diameter of the watery ring.
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Date: 2013-12-04 09:12 am (UTC)"Don't tease," he says, backpedaling a little, wondering if he can jump faster than she can lasso him with it.
"Just because I don't like being soaking wet for hours doesn't mean I'm a baby. I'm not a tadpole anymore," he tells her, determinedly, though she has no way of knowing all that it means. "So I say freestyle, every time. Rules are for people interested in following them."
He punctuates the decision with a leap, using the elasticity of the pool's surface tension to slingshot the jump faster than it ought to be.
The lifeguard picks his whistle up again, blowing long and loud, but doing more watching then shaking his head.
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Date: 2013-12-04 09:20 am (UTC)"Hey, don't knock the rules. Sometimes limits can be fun but just remember, you're the one who decided not to have them this time," she calls out, and with another wave of her arm, she's created a path of water underneath Naruto's feet that she quickly freezes over. Hopefully, the slick surface will be enough to send him shooting straight into the water.
For good measure, she coats the surface of the icy path with a constant, steady stream of water.
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Date: 2013-12-04 09:33 am (UTC)Walking on water is easy as balls. Provided he actually lands on water.
What he's expecting to be the smooth, even surface of the pool is instead a steady rush, like a conveyor belt. And below that, there's an even more unexpected layer of ice. Even as his feet pedal uselessly for grip and balance, he chastises himself a little for not realizing that one. Idiot, Kurama offers, ever helpfully. You fell for the same terrain issue again.
His tailbone hits the ice hard, sending a loud crackle through the echoing natatorium, before Naruto slips backward into the water.
He comes back up gasping for breath, and looking very much like a surprised and soaked tomcat as he crawls back out and onto the surface. The lifeguard stands, worried, but Naruto tosses him a thumbs-up over his shoulder, and the man decides to sit back down, expression still confused.
"I'm gonna fall for that one more time," he decides, wiping his still grinning face off with the back of an arm. "Third is the charm, after all."
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Date: 2013-12-04 09:46 am (UTC)Catching the lifeguard's movement on the edge of her vision, Korra smirks and waves an arm dismissively in his direction. If Naruto ends up having any trouble with water or injury, Korra's convinced that she'd be able to take care of it faster than that lifeguard, anyway.
"I am sticking to water for your sake, but you never said it had to be liquid," Korra points out with a cheeky grin, raising another wave of water and smoothing it out into a flat, icy surface in front of her. Using it as her level, she shoots her arms across the ice, sending frozen discs hurtling in Naruto's direction. They're too brittle to seriously injure, but solid enough to sting.
"Now this, you should be familiar with!" she points out, knowing Naruto has a decent background in bladed items.
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Date: 2013-12-04 09:54 am (UTC)He flips easily to avoid the ice projectiles, from hand to foot and back again, until her firing speed catches too far up to him. Plucking one out of the air with practiced precision, he turns it on end, using it to deflect the last two neatly.
It makes him miss Sai a little, actually.
"I'm being good too, you know. You don't see any clones out here yet, do you?"
Which, to be fair, is more for the sake of the lifeguard, and the transfixedly silent old lady, more than anything.
"What in stars," she offers finally.
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Date: 2013-12-04 10:03 am (UTC)She tilts her head in consideration, imagining what she'd try to do. Probably pull the ice up over all of them, in the way that Master Katara had shared with her in stories about her childhood. The difficult thing about water is that breath doesn't work for bending unless someone's completely surrounded in the element. And as much as Korra's managed to master it, she can't exactly breathe underwater.
It's the old woman's exclamation that pulls Korra out of her trance, shooting a grateful wink over in her direction before breaking off more discs from the ice. This time, she doesn't let the throw do its own work; sending multiple discs out at once, Korra manipulates their movement with her bending. It requires close diligence, Korra's eyes wide and smile vanishing as she tries to shoot them all at Naruto, reserving a couple to run along where she suspects his blind spot most likely is.
"Come on," she mutters to herself, willing one of them to land.
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Date: 2013-12-04 10:17 am (UTC)Seamlessly trading places with the copy, he sinks silently below the water's surface, making as quickly as possible for Korra's feet above him. He only makes his move in the moment after she must be realizing she's been had, wrapping his hands around her legs and pulling his face out of the water to bob behind her.
The smile on his face looks satisfied and slightly wild, even if the effect is ruined by plastered pale hair.
"Swarming you would've been the plan, actually, yeah," he says. "One Naruto for each limb. That's the best way to cripple most low-level shinobi. It's gotta work on bending, too, right? Then again, you're the Avatar. You'd be able to do something about it anyway. So I'll save myself the trouble of trying."
And okay, maybe he'd been talking strategy with Shikamaru too much over the last couple years. He fully expects a pounding from Korra for being a sneaking sneak anyway.
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:25 pm (UTC)"I'm not a low-level shinobi," she points out, even though Naruto's already acknowledged that in his own way. "And there are a lot more ways for me to bend than just moving my arms and legs. But you would have had me there; I didn't expect you to go under. Not with your wind affiliation."
Taking a deep breath, Korra blows a frigid wind down towards her legs, freezing the droplets running down her body, as well as the immediate vicinity of Naruto's arms. Standing on the surface, it's easy enough for Korra to tug herself away, laughing brightly as she darts a few yards away, standing between the two copies of Naruto. Gaze darting to either side, Korra decides to be nice to Naruto — the real one — by melting the ice first. Hardly a second passes before she's looping both arms over her head again, raising waves of water that quickly loop into a large ball, with air and both of Naruto trapped inside.
Knowing that the water would distort her words too much, Korra simply snickers, waiting to see Naruto's next move. She finds that she's looking forward to it.
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Date: 2013-12-04 10:52 pm (UTC)Once tired of reacting, he starts actually thinking. There are a couple plans he could use to his advantage, the foremost being to create shadow clones until the thing just bursts from the inside. But that's too chaotic, and anyway, too much like the way he'd have solved all of his problems years ago.
There are better options now.
There's air in the prison too, and maybe he can use that to his advantage. Actually, he knows he can. She shouldn't have been so kind as to give him breathing space, not with his affinity. His training with Yamato comes suddenly to mind, having trained for days with as many clones as they could both manage to use his wind chakra to slice a wide waterfall entirely in half. The training had been all about power and sustained duration, which is exactly what he needs here.
Cut, and wedge, and expand, he tells himself, pressing his palms flat against the ball of water and concentrating, It works. The air slices through the water's barrier, giving him just enough time to blow it wider like driving in a climbing wedge.
Although it leaves him tumbling out in a messy tangle of limbs to land painfully on his stomach against the water below. He winces as he bobs to the surface again. Something about hitting the water at just the wrong angle.
"One element against one element," he shouts over at her, if a little wetly. "I'm pretty sure turnabout counts as fair play!"
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Date: 2013-12-05 01:10 am (UTC)"I thought we said no rules!" she shouts in return, quickly brushing her palms over the surface of the water, building up a layer of ice as she skates across the pool, driving herself as quickly as possible around Naruto, although she leaves him with an open space for now, waiting to see whether or not he'll want to stand on the water again.
Off to the side, the lifeguard shivers, pulling a couple of towels tightly around his shoulders.
"In which case there's no such thing as fair play," Korra adds, before taking a deep breath and blowing bright red flames across the pool. The fire leaves behind just enough water to skate on as Korra races about, melting the entire top layer of the ice about a centimeter in before growling under her breath, concentrating deeply and raising the thin layer of liquid all at once.
A few waves of her arms and a clap later, the water turns into snow, poofing out in all directions and obscuring everyone's view.
"Think you can catch me?"
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Date: 2013-12-05 01:35 am (UTC)"Aw, shit," he says. The powdery snow is just as bad as the water was, making his ability to use his chakra to stick to any surface pretty much moot. He'll just have to get his muscles themselves accustomed to handling his body on the ice.
The air above is densely foggy from the evaporate now, and still dotted with snow. Not penetrable for Naruto's senses normally, but he knows how he can even the scales a little. He pulls chakra not from himself, but from Kurama; not enough to cloak him entirely, but enough to turn his irises the rosy pink of their combined eyes, pupils thin slits. He doesn't need the extra chakra pool to draw from, but he does need the benefit of Kurama's superior senses.
In a few breaths, the thin, whispery cracks of the ice over the water are clear, her breathing and heartbeat there for him to stalk with his ears.
He still struggles to move after her without slipping, and after ending up on his ass for his protracted third time, Kurama finally speaks up again to his advantage. Claws, he counsels, and it takes a minute for Naruto to get the hang of actually putting that into play, but once he does, on four legs is the way to go, the ice simpler to navigate with sharp grips and a low center of gravity.
"You are so screwed," Naruto announces, followed by an ill-advised bark of obnoxious laughter.
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Date: 2013-12-05 01:48 am (UTC)Kicking strongly, Korra waits until she's at the far end of the pool before turning to stare in his direction, briefly bending the bubble to the side in order to better see through all the water.
Your move, she thinks, and wonders when she started to enjoy playing defense so much.
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Date: 2013-12-05 02:06 am (UTC)He can think of only one thing to do to get at her down there, at least, one thing that will let him do it without entering the water. The water is her territory. Up here, in the open air, it's his. It would be as foolish as going after Gaara on a beach, or Yamato-sensei in a forest.
He could reach out with a shroud of chakra and snatch her. But he's worried. It's the first time he's worried, actually. That he might do something that will honestly disturb Korra. If she freaks, he finally decides, she'll either get over it or she won't.
Without further hesitation, he pulls one arm back, pounding it forward until it breaks through the thick ice and into the crisp water below. Immediately, the arm keeps reaching out, his reach extended by the dull red glow of a limb made entirely out of Kurama's chakra.
It grasps the small of Korra's waist, intent to reel her in as Naruto's free hand works to tear away chunks of surrounding ice to widen the hole.
"Sorry," he mouths, honestly a little apologetic.
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Date: 2013-12-05 02:15 am (UTC)Coughing as soon as her head's above water, Korra slumps over onto the ice, spitting up chlorinated water and trying to subdue the burning sensation in her nose, shoulders shaking for a few seconds. As soon as she's caught her breath, she turns her gaze onto Naruto, for the first time fearful. Of him.
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Date: 2013-12-05 02:27 am (UTC)He groans, holding his head in his hand for a second while trying to get a grip of himself. It's difficult between Korra's fearful expression and Kurama's grumbling disappointment.
He's sorry, but he's going to have to stick up for himself. Nobody else will.
"I should have told you I could do that," he says, firm. "I'm totally comfortable using Kurama's power like that. But I still should have told you before that things were like that between the two of us. Still, I don't want you to look at me," he finishes, raising his voice a little louder. The old woman is already scurrying for the women's dressing room, but the lifeguard holds his ground for whatever reason.
"With those kind of eyes, Korra!"
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Date: 2013-12-05 02:36 am (UTC)"Why are you yelling at me?" She asks, voice raised and tone accusatory as she briefly grabs at her stomach, suppressing another cough. She can feel the water in her throat, and maybe she could bend it out of there, but not while she still has words to give him. "Yeah, you should have told me that you could do that! You should have warned me that you've got this big power that can yank people without your body moving at all. I know that we're training and trying to make each other better, but how much can I really learn from suddenly getting hit by something I didn't know existed in the first place?"
Taking another shuddering breath, Korra coughs again, but this time gets to her feet, cheeks red in embarrassment. It's not losing that she minds, but losing like this just makes her stomach twist.
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Date: 2013-12-05 02:54 am (UTC)Standing, he trails miserably after her, arms gripping at his shoulders to try to calm the shivers away. He's more acutely aware of the scrape of clawed feet against the surface of the ice now than before, when he'd just ... been being Naruto.
"Everyone in the village has known what I was capable of practically since I was born. Actually, it's a relief to them, to know I can use those powers at will now and not just when I lost it. All the people I've known have always known exactly what I was. I'm not great at forethought, so it never even occurred to me to ... sit you down and explain all this jinchuuriki stuff to you like we're in class or something. Korra, please. I didn't scare you on purpose or anything, I just got caught up in the game. I really like you. So I just ... want to know how to make up for screwing up like that to you."
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Date: 2013-12-05 03:06 am (UTC)The only difference is that she's the one who was scared this time, and what a world of a difference that seems to make.
Punching the center of one palm with the knuckles of the other, Korra exhales, utilizing her firebending to melt the ice until both of them sink back down into the water, warmer now than it was when they first arrived. Warm enough to start and soothe aching muscles.
"I don't need you to make it up to me," Korra says, her shoulders square even as she bobs in the water. "I'm... not used to being surprised like that, that's all. I hate not knowing things, because every time there's something I don't know, I end up in trouble. Sometimes more than others." She wraps her arms tightly around herself, thinking of Amon, scarier than any other time while he was behind the mask.
"Just... warn me. When you think you're about to do something I might not have seen before. Show me before you, I don't know. Use it against me."
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Date: 2013-12-05 03:26 am (UTC)"That was actually," he explains, wincing slightly, "The smallest thing I could probably do with that chakra. Your world seems kind of similar to mine in a lot of ways so I guess I get ahead of myself. You really ... don't have anything like me where you come from, do you? You don't have any jinchuuriki. Maybe that's a good thing? I'm not smart enough to be able to tell. Those arms are made of Kurama's manifested form. I could turn myself fully into him if I wanted to. But something like that is only practical for certain kinds of things. It wouldn't fit inside this building."
He shakes his head. "That's why jinchuuriki were originally made. Because we're ... scary. Countries could use as as threats against one another. But I don't want to be that kind of a thing. Neither does Kurama. So I'd do anything to just ... make sure you could look at me and never feel that way again. Whatever I can do to make you confident in me."
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Date: 2013-12-05 03:58 am (UTC)"We don't have anything like you where we're from, no. Actually, most spirits have been closed off from us, and live instead in the Spirit World. We don't try to have spirits and people combine or anything. I feel like... we don't understand spirits well enough for that to happen, and maybe the spirits wouldn't want that, anyway," Korra says, wrinkling her nose momentarily. Everything that she's saying is just a guess, really. "But I do know that I would never feel right about using spirits to make someone into a weapon. That's not right. Maybe it happens anyway without spirits, you know, people becoming soldiers because they don't feel like they have a choice. But that doesn't make it right."
She closes her eyes, letting her body float slightly in the water.
"It's not that I find you scary, Naruto. But, what you do, sometimes I don't know how to respond to it. I just... have to learn, I guess. About you."
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Date: 2013-12-05 04:38 am (UTC)Still, one of his hands still finds its way uncertainly to his belly, spreading over the dip of his navel.
"So ... we'll understand each other," he decides. "And until that happens, I'll try not to give you a heart attack. Alright?"
Smiling a little shyly, Naruto lifts his hand out of the water again, holding it dripping out to Korra, balled into a fist.
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Date: 2013-12-05 04:47 am (UTC)Struck with a sudden whim, Korra darts forward with a quarter turn, hand breaking contact with Naruto's as she reaches fingers out to skate and dart over his abdomen, trying to encourage a laugh with the light scrape of rounded nails.
"Tell me, you aren't ticklish, are you?" she asks, grinning broadly and kicking at the water underneath her feet.
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Date: 2013-12-05 05:01 am (UTC)"What would give you that impression? I'm a highly trained warrior. Wouldn't being ticklish be a hugely dumb weakness to have?"
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Date: 2013-12-05 05:07 am (UTC)Personally, Korra thinks that he should just give in already.
"People have dumb weaknesses all of the time. That's what makes us human," she points out, wheedling as she brushes a hand up to tickle underneath his arm, snickering all the while.
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Date: 2013-12-05 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 06:41 am (UTC)Well. And a still confused lifeguard.
"You're not going to drown," Korra says with a snort, rolling her eyes for good measure. "You'll never drown, as long as I'm around."
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Date: 2013-12-05 06:59 am (UTC)"Really?" he asks, voice smaller, and rougher, to cross only the small distance between them. "I guess I need a little help keeping my head above water."
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Date: 2013-12-05 07:09 am (UTC)And really, she shouldn't be thinking in those terms at all, not when she's not sure that she should be drawn to anyone like this, and certainly not when it's easier to think of Naruto as just a friend. Their friendship is one that she dearly values the stability of with how much he reminds her of home.
"Yeah," she says distantly, without remembering what it is that they're talking about in the first place. Her cheeks redden quickly, and Korra can only focus on the pedaling of her feet as she wonders if he's always been this tall, or if it's just her bending that's pushing him up a little and highlighting the difference in their height. "I guess so."
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Date: 2013-12-05 07:32 am (UTC)It's boyish and mortal urgency that presses his lips against Korra's. They're wet, and soft, and it's even more than he expected. He pulls away only to take a shaky breath, not willing to move even more than an inch away.
He presses their mouths together again, wincing his eyes slightly as his sense catches up to his instinct. He expects retribution for taking this graceless liberty with her. A telling off, an I'm not speaking to you for a week, maybe even a slap across the face. If it makes him able to accept that she just doesn't want any of it like that, if it lets him forget about it and really move on, maybe it's worth it and he can't regret it.
Her mouth tastes a little like the chlorine of the pool, and mostly like sweet water.
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Date: 2013-12-05 07:44 am (UTC)His lips are softer than she expected, but warm, the shock leaving her breathless for a moment when he pulls back. Only just. Not even enough for her to meet his gaze.
Yet it's enough pause for her to be ready for him the second time. Korra's never been shy about kissing a boy, even if there had only been two in her life before him, before this overgrown kid with his stupidly matured smile and wide palms. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, anchoring her as her pulse runs fast, and her teeth bite briefly down on the curve of his lower lip, boyish and full. The other hand traces clumsily over the whisker lines on his cheek, brushing in their same direction until fingertips meet with the line of his jaw.
Before he pulls away, Korra lets out a small hum, nervous and tightly wound, yet somehow content.
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Date: 2013-12-05 08:10 am (UTC)He breathes when they pull away, wishing a little that he could have managed to be cooler about it. Maybe said something, or done anything but keep staring at her pretty face framed by dark hair with a stupid expression and the light fuzzy in his eyes. He wonders if he should admit he's never actually kissed a girl until now. That she's his very first and he likes it that way, kind of.
She might laugh about it. Then again, he thinks that's where she and Sakura might truly differ, the thing that made him kiss her instead.
Korra's never told him he had to try to be anyone but himself. With words or otherwise. And she isn't doing it now.
"I liked that," he tells her. "I'll remember it. You're good at it."
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Date: 2013-12-05 08:20 am (UTC)It's not that simple.
It quickly becomes clear in the next several seconds as a weight sinks in her stomach, barely there but noticeable. Something like disappointment, or the unease that comes from contained affection. She remembers it well from her early days in Republic City.
She keeps her lips tightly shut on the topic for now.
"Of course I am," she says with a mostly confident raise of her chin, crossing her arms over her chest. "As you get to know me, Naruto, you'll find that I never like settling for only being average. If I'm going to do something, I'll do it well."
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Date: 2013-12-07 03:10 am (UTC)"I was worried they were totally gonna kick us out after that, but ... " he nods to the lifeguard, who's gone back to reading a magazine from his post in the high chair.
"So ... maybe we could do this again. I don't mean this exactly necessarily, just, you know, you and me, swimming. At the pool. Or whatever. I mean we could just chill out together, too, right? It doesn't have to be a whole thing, right?"
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Date: 2013-12-07 04:05 am (UTC)"I assumed we'd hang out again," Korra admits, pressing her lips tightly together. "I've only shown you waterbending and airbending. We still have two more elements to go."
After a pause, she adds in a quieter tone, "And if you want to grab lunch or dinner sometime, we can do that. Or watch a movie. I don't believe in all work and no play."
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Date: 2013-12-07 04:16 am (UTC)She loved him, but it felt more like the way you'd love a brother, than what Naruto wanted out of things. And she didn't always like him much.
But Korra wants to do stuff. Just stuff, normal people stuff. Not that he's not normal, which he isn't, but whatever. It's just that, he's been focused so much on his work as a shinobi and the goals he's set for himself, he doesn't think he's ever just ... gone to see a show with someone. Anyone.
Pretty girl or otherwise.
"I've never been to a movie before," he admits, finally working up a smile with a little more wattage in it. "So you'd be my first again. Keep it up and we can call it a pattern."
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Date: 2013-12-07 05:01 am (UTC)As much as he comes off like a kid, there's a part of Korra undeniably drawn to that abandon, to a willingness to chase after one's goals without too much worry about the how.
"Come on," she says, waving for both of them to head towards the shower rooms. "Let's get out of here. After all of that bending, I'm starved."