poly_chromatic | 二十一

[ A little after 10 PM, she'll get an address to a dinette. The place is tiny and narrow, a hole in the wall that's either trying for the retro look, or caught in a 1960s timewarp. Plate glass windows, mirrored booths, a counter with red vinyl stools repaired in duct-tape. Above the black-and-white tiles, a ceiling fan lazily twirls. ]

[ Hei waits at the rear booth, right by the neoned window. Apart from him, the place seems empty. He's already on his third tray of deluxe bacon-and-eggs. There's a pile of dogeared books resting on his table -- Asimov's I, Robot and the Ballbuster comic. ]

[ Perfect combo for the intellectual reader. ]

[So either some stranger is calling her out for a fight, or Li is being pathologically secretive jerkface. Either way, the address means trouble. But hey, trouble is what Korra does.

She shows up about 10:45, wearing clothes from her homeworld. She's comfortable enough in jeans and t-shirts, but between the Ballbuster nonsense and Li's anger at the previous curse, she's feeling vulnerable. Her outfit is both a comfort and a shield (even the heavy jacket she had abandoned and Li returned).

She catches sight of Li in the corner (too bad, she had been kind of hoping for a good brawl) and heads over to him. It's impossible to judge his mood, and she's not sure how to behave. If he had just ignored the card, she could have pretended the whole thing never happened (not pushing, right?). But he didn't ignore the card. Should she pretend their conversation from the other night never happened?]

[Seeing the comic on the table makes the decision a lot easier.]

What are you doing with that?!?

[ He glances up when she enters, eyes going from point-to-point, taking in her posture and get-up. He's stone-cold sober, but when she nears him, she may notice his clothes and hair smell punchdrunk, and everything about him denotes the heavy languor of hang-over. But his expression is flat and faintly bored as always (that's his comfort and shield, the same way her homeworld's clothes are hers). ]

[ He didn't call this meeting because of the card. But it'd certainly contributed a large chunk to his decision. He just knows that being confronted with it was like watching a time-bomb slip into the final digits. Slow-mo end-it-all explosion. He'd felt that kind of dread before. But not lately, and that was what made it so terrible now. The realization that some stopped clock inside him -- stopped so long he'd forgotten its existence -- restarting on a shrill Eeeeeeee of agony. ]

[ He is wide awake now. Wide awake, and wondering why he let this mess with Korra carry on so far. ]

[ At her question, he frowns a little, ] It was a free copy. The store-owner heard you and I knew each other [ Or that she and 'Li' did, anyway. ] He asked if I could get your autograph. [ Without meeting her eyes, he nudges the comic forward, ] You can burn it, if you want.

[You can burn it, if you want. Intentional or not, the words are a knife in her gut. She's made her peace with the loss of her bending, she really has -- she's learned to live with that gaping hole inside. But right now, all she wants to do is set every single copy of that awful thing on fire, and she can't. Not without a match. She feels pathetic and helpless, unable to do something that had once come so easily to her.

She snatches the comic and rips it once, twice, three times. But the pieces are still recognizable -- an eye, a deformed nipple, that hideous penis thing.

She doesn't sit down.]

So what do you want?

[If that's all he called her here for, she's leaving. Except of course that wouldn't be the only reason he called her, and she might leave anyway. Her head is throbbing, foreshadowing tears, and she refuses to break down in public. In front of him. She's not that pathetic.]

[ It wasn't intentional. Nor is it until the words, so wry and insouciant, slip out that he realizes he's dealing with this whole matter wrong. It might be another of the many mistakes he's made, one after the next all his adult life. Like someone who can't take a step without crashing facedown. Fine -- it is a mistake. He doesn't seem to know how to do anything else anymore. ]

[ In terms of relationships, his psyche is one big bruise. ]

[ He watches her rip the comic to shreds -- the picture is such a caricature of Korra, or, really, of a normal woman. But this little back-and-forth between them is such a caricature too. Tearing it up seems almost symbolic, although he tries not to think in those terms. ]

Sit down, first.

[ A polite request, not an order. From the kitchen, the waitress appears and sets a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee cup in front of him. He watches it steam, the black surface shimmering like it's going to reveal something to him. Or as if it's easier if he can pretend Korra's not really there, that he's rehearsing this to some figment of his imagination. ]

[She hesitates for a moment, then cautiously sits on the very edge of the booth. A wolf debating between fight or flight.]

[ Hei still doesn't meet her eyes. He glances at their reflections in the plate glass window instead. Two uneasy people slumped in their seats. Beyond that, superimposed, the neon signs reflect off the wet streets, smearing blood-reds and lime-greens across glittery tarmac. The same secondhand glow fills his head; his body is tense as wire. ]

I think -- [ He breaks off, shakes his head. He can't find the right words. Hilarious: a consummate liar, an IQ hovering in the Gifted, and he can't find words. Except he doesn't want to be brutal. Just honest. But when that isn't what the other person might be ready to hear, honesty tends to be brutal. Honesty sounds downright evil. The only other option is to lie. But that won't benefit him -- or Korra -- in any useful way. Trying to be honest without being brutal is like trying to swim without getting wet. He takes a breath, tries again, ]

I know I've done nothing but jerk you around from the start of this -- whatever it is we have. [ Had ] But I think -- [ Clarity and logic comes together, interlacing like cards shuffled into a deck, with an efficient mental thud. ] I think we should call it quits.

[ The words seem to hang in the air. Crackling like a lit fuse. ]

[She stares at him. She's not surprised, but at the same time, she doesn't understand it at all.]

Because I said I'd listen if you wanted to talk?

[There's nothing of anger or hurt in her voice, only confusion. It'd just been an offer. Not a demand. Not an ultimatum. Not even a plea. What was so wrong with that?]

[ He turns his head then, meets her eyes. He looks so weary. It's already making him queasy, all these undertones of sentimentality. His reflex is to build an argument. Establish a solid foundation. Turn an emotional moment into one of cold logic. He wants to tell her, You shouldn't be here. Shouldn't even be talking to me. I don't know how to relate to people at all. I blow hot when I should blow cold, cold when I should blow hot, and when I should be real, I slap on fifty shades of fake. ]

[ He doesn't mean to speak; his tongue and palate are dry. The words fall out like moth-balls. ]

Because I shouldn't have started this in the first place.

[ Minimize the issue. Keep it simple and clean. It's what he should've done from the beginning. Not let it carry on until he's waking up and looking around him and seeing loose-end after loose-end in the map of skin and veins and capillaries. ]

Excuse me?

[He started it? It had been her decision too. She had chosen to have sex with him in the shed, to go home with him from the park. She had initiated it the third time. How dare he act like she's just a game, like she was something he'd done and not a person he'd been with.]

You heard me.

[ He drops his gaze, drinking his coffee in small sips, showing no sign that he's really taking in her reaction, or even her presence. But he can practically feel the energy pouring off her. He knows he's being cowardly. The reality of their situation has sunk in -- and it unnerves him. He clings to distance because it protects him from honest dealings with people. But even he knows that stance is getting a little shopworn. ]

[ At the same time, he's trying to accept his own irresponsibility and irrationality. He slept with her because he needed a painkiller. Because he'd been chasing ghosts for so long he'd gladly accept any substitutions in his life. That's a poor basis to get mixed-up with someone. Especially when it's based on deception and misrepresentation. It takes away your ability to choose. ]

Say it again.

[Treat her like a child again. Erase the choices she's made again.]

[ She's going to go there, isn't she? She's going to force him into a corner, make him be cruel. He wants to tell her that he doubts she's ever had attention -- the attention she craves -- given to her in a healthy way. That he suspects she confuses emotional abuse for affection. That it's reason#999 on why this is a bad life choice. At the same time he wants to plead with her, not to torment him, not to challenge him. Not now, while he feels so raw, still steeped in the memory of losses and failures from back home. ]

[ His mouth opens and he speaks like an automaton, ]

Fine. I'm saying this was a mistake. We're both aware that there are certain [ deceptions ] disparities between us. There's no reason to prolong something we'll just continue to be uncomfortable with.

...................so basically, you're running scared. From one little gesture of friendship.

[Because he certainly hadn't seemed uncomfortable when he slept with her, or when he flirted with her, or when he pulled her onto his lap. This "uncomfortable" feels like a pretty recent development to her. (Conveniently forgetting the knots he's tied her in from almost the beginning.)

She gets up.]

Fine. If that's what you what you want. [The words are understanding, but her voice is more than a little resentful.]

Do what you have to do.

[She told him she wasn't going to push. If he wants to run away, she'll let him. She has her own life to worry about.]

If that's what you want to call it.

[ Because he wouldn't call it a gesture of friendship at all. More like the beginnings of a very poor judgement. The situation is rife with that already. And Hei hates it, because he once had an orderly brain. Precise little boxes to categorize his thoughts, emotions, experiences and plans. Pai had her own box; so did Amber. The rest of the his team were lumped into a separate box, while the Syndicate in general had a whole honeycomb all its own. When he needed something, all he had to do was open the lid of the applicable box, fish around, take out what he required, and move on. ]

[ But now all the lids are gone and the locks are shattered, and everything is mixed like a Technicolor cocktail in his brain. He wants to loan her a portion of that feeling. Make her understand why he's made the choice to do this. ]

[ Things were so much simpler when all they were interested in was killing each other. ]

[Except she's never wanted to kill him. All she's ever really wanted, from the moment he hurled that canister of gas at her, was to understand him. To stop him, if necessary. But never to kill him.

She'd love to have some snappy retort, but words have never been her strong suit. So she just leaves, to lick her wounds in private.]

[ Hei waits until she's gone before he exhales, as if the booth is suddenly filled with space. His fingers are curled a degree too tight on the mug; he spreads them out, almost willing the tension to settle. In his head, a toneless spiel that is equal parts cognitive dissonance and rehashed logic is unspooling. ]

[ But he can't decide if he's made a nick-of-time extrication, or just shot himself in the foot. ]

二十一

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