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[resistivity]

( he strokes her hair. it's so much shorter than he remembers it that the ends almost jar him, he's expecting to continue on, fingers threaded in the deep tangle of rich earthen brown. they've changed. grown up. grown apart, maybe, in some ways. he's still sore she never wrote him. she said she needed space but it seems like all that space brought her was misery. he should've insisted. he should've gone with her. who lets their friends walk out the door and never tries to. find them. help them, hold them?

it's telling, that of all the people in his life, korra was his very first friend. bolin doesn't count, he's family. mako would do anything for him, but that was never a choice. that was an instinct, a duty. something born of love. but he picked korra. he fell in love with the searing fire in her eyes, the hard line of her jaw, the callouses on her palms. the way she was always battle-ready and eager to fight. he even loved the dark spirits in her, the shadows that clung as the light got low, the horrors of what they've all endured crowding in close. he just. he loves her. wholly, completely, without compromise.

it's probably why he doesn't kiss her. he wants to. of course he does. but she's water in all the places he's fire, she's earth where he's air. they are all about checks and symmetries and balances and it isn't in their stars. they've made that mistake. they've made it time and time and time again and he wants to kiss her so badly that the phantom taste of her mouth is on his tongue.

but he doesn't. their world is cyclic. maybe they'll circle back around. maybe this cycle is broken with that last kiss they ever had, and there are only fresh beginnings. mako heaves a breath, and presses his lips down against the crown of the dark halo of her hair. )

No. I don't think things do happen for a reason. That's too easy. You get to just throw your hands up and say 'hey, I couldn't have changed anything, it was just meant to be'. Bad things happen and you deal with it, but I don't think it was your destiny to have Amon take your bending. Or to have Zaheer poison you. I think it was a choice they made that you had to live with.

( he tucks her hair behind her ear. )

Korra. Korra. You have made the world better. Where would we be right now if no one had stopped Amon? Or Unalaq? We'd be right back in another Hundred Years' war if Kuvira had taken Republic City. You've done so much. You just can't see it because you're too close to it. Take a step back and look. Really look. I mean it. And don't talk.

( he pulls back from her enough to tap his hand against his chest. over his heart. )

Start here. Just with me. If I hadn't met you, I would've — done what? We never would've made it to the tournament without you. So that would've been it for me and Bolin. We would've been back on the streets. And the only thing either of us would've been good for would've been crime. We were too old to rely on the tricks that kept us alive as kids. So... what, then? I'm the new crime boss of the Triple Threats?

( there wouldn't have been a choice. he would have done it if he had to. to protect his brother. he'd tried so hard to keep out of crime, but if there'd been no other recourse? of course he would have. and anything mako puts his mind to, he excels at. )

I would've been a horrible person. But you showed me there was another way. You gave me all the best parts of yourself without ever asking for anything in return. You're the one who made me realize I could be more than what I was. That I could be better. You gave me that. Just by being you. And I'm just one person. You made that difference.