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ninoexchange2012-06-24 10:22 pm
nino-mod.livejournal.com) wrote in ninoexchange2012-06-24 10:22 pm
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fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
harinezumi_kun (1/3)
For: harinezumi_kun
From:primroseshows
Title: Proper Etiquette for Nurturing Team Cohesion
Pairing/Focus: Ohmiya, Matsumiya
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: A little bit of cross-dressing.
Summary: What do a reluctant earthbender, a conflicted firebender, a generally clueless waterbender, and a non-bender pro-bending enthusiast have in common? A problem named Nino.
Notes: This fic is a fusion in the Legend of Korra universe, which means that: a) some people are benders who can manipulate the four elements (air, earth, fire, water), b) some benders use their skill and participate in professional tournaments (three members to a team: earth, fire, and water), c) some non-benders don’t like benders, d) a Satomobile is a type of car, and e) the world is home to a lot of weird hybrid animals. If you guys aren’t familiar with Avatar The Last Airbender, I would sincerely and perhaps hysterically recommend that series to you, but you don’t really need any more knowledge than what’s mentioned above to understand this fic. (At least this is my hope!)
Forharinezumi_kun. Jess, wow, so this is… uh. WELL anyway, it is something, so maybe it’ll be something you like!
And finally: thanks, endless thanks, the hills are alive with the sound of my thanks for my amazing beta.
1. AIBA
Aiba should've known better than to bring Nino to a pro-bending match. He should have, but he didn't. He had been too excited, too swept up in his adoration of the sport, awed at his own luck and circumstance that afforded him seats in the first place, so of course he had to share. This time last year Aiba had been merely one of an indefinable number of unremarkable riff raff that populated the more unsightly streets of the town, trying to scrape an honest living despite the constant influx of hurdles, pitfalls, and invisible strings that besieged every non-bender living in Republic City, especially to wayward orphans. Now he had an amazing job, a respectable income, and could afford season pass pro-bending tickets – it was too good to be true, except not, because it was true. Was it any wonder that Aiba had taken it as destiny that his success had followed in the wake of his favourite pro-bending team, the Fire Ferrets? Their long-standing members, Mako and Bolin, shared such a similar childhood tragedy to Aiba's own that sometimes Aiba would be moved to tears, listening to their chain of indomitable victories over the static-gushing radio in the back room of the kitchens where Aiba had worked for too many years. He'd spent nights upon sleepless nights, reliving in his head the play-by-play championship games between the Fire Ferrets and the White Falls Wolfbats: Mako's lightning-fast come-from-behind maneuvers, Bolin's earth-shaking roar of effort as he shook the entire stadium floor, and the narrator's ever-gratuitous descriptions of Avatar Korra, whose skill with waterbending was only second to her skill of never giving up. They lost the match, but everyone knew the Fire Ferrets were the best in the business. So of course pro-bending held a special place in Aiba's heart, providing entertainment, inspiration, and hope, all in one perfectly executed swoop. By believing in the sport, Aiba also nurtured his belief that one day, like the bending brothers who went from paupers to heroes to princes, Aiba could make his way in the world too.
"Boring," Nino had called it, that stupid utter jerk, so there was literally nothing for it: when Aiba purchased the tickets to this year's new tournament season, the only choice for his plus-one was Nino. Nino was Aiba's best friend, Nino was still living in the slums the both of them grew up in but only Aiba no longer called home, Nino had no interest at all in pro-bending and Aiba was determined to make him eat his words.
That Nino had the nasty tendency to not only avoid every life lesson that Aiba enthusiastically threw at him, intentional or not, but to flip them around and make them backfire right in Aiba's face, every single time, was unfortunately not something that came up in Aiba's mind between the moments of leaving the pro-bending arena's box office and slamming his officially-stamped tickets onto Nino's rickety all-purpose table, triumph lighting his face like a blaze.
Nino hadn't been impressed, but he'd still accepted Aiba's gift – not in the interests of keeping an open mind or anything so sentimental, but because it was physically impossible for him to turn down free handouts. Or at least, Aiba had never known him to do it, and Aiba had known Nino for a disturbing amount of time.
It wasn't until after open call team tryouts had started, the new sports season not quite yet underway, and them watching a qualifying match from their awesome reserved seats (Aiba practically vibrating with anticipation), that Nino had bemusedly asked Aiba to explain how the game worked.
After the two or ten minutes Aiba had taken to spew indignation at Nino for never paying attention during the last million or so times that Aiba had given impromptu oral dissertations about how great and wonderful and everything pro-bending was, he'd managed a deep, calming breath, and started fresh. But he didn't get far; he'd barely outlined the composition of each team when Nino had interrupted smoothly:
"So do people place bets? On who will win the tournament?"
Aiba blinked. "Oh. Yeah. I guess? I mean, there's got to be a winner, so... hey. Why?"
"No reason. Please, do go on, I'm fascinated." This was practically purred, Nino leaning forward with bright eyes and sharp grin. Aiba felt a trickle of fear leak into his stomach; the last time Nino had used that tone of voice, Aiba had ended up in the police department's jail cell overnight while he desperately tried to explain to the guard that the boarcupine hadn't even belonged to him.
"Nino," Aiba warned. "You're thinking of something."
"That's a fact that most people can claim, if you'd believe it."
"Hah, funny, no. You're planning something. What are you planning?"
Nino cupped a hand under his chin and gazed out at the game spread beneath them with the air of a grandmaster standing over a Pai Sho board, watching minions move his pieces on his instruction.
"I wonder what Jun-pon is up to these days?" he asked conversationally, and Aiba, in a flash of revelation that only hindsight can bring, thought: Huh, maybe it was a mistake to bring you here.
---
2. NINO
Okay, so it was half an opportunity and half an excuse. Nino had lost contact with that loser Jun a few months back, not-coincidentally around the time when Jun had declared himself a big ten on the douche scale and fucked off back to the richer parts of town, away from Nino and his apparently "marring reputation." Not that Nino gave a pigeon-rat's ass about what Jun (and the collective whole of the snobby elite that Jun's pampered existence represented) thought about the state of Nino's bank account (pitiful) and the amount of respect that supposedly equated him (none), but - well, it wasn't as if Nino liked getting dumped, was it? He'd been quite fond of Jun, inasmuch as a skinny, disheveled, cynical street urchin could be fond of a polished, entitled, conceited son of a millionaire; although it did, admittedly, help a lot that Jun was gorgeous and had a biting sense of humour that rivalled Nino's in its depravity. At least their relationship, while short-lived, had kept things interesting. Now that Jun was back to his old school, high class ways, Nino spent his workdays in the sweltering kitchens of The Giant Koi Grillhouse with much less to look forward to when he trudged home at night. It wasn't that Nino was pining – his liaison with Jun had been mutually useful but strictly casual in that friends-with-benefits kind of way, minus the friends part – but he couldn't help, through their brief time together, but gain a level of appreciation for having a man like Jun in his life. In baser terms, maybe it could be said that Nino simply missed him. Maybe. So he wouldn't mind getting the chance to see Jun's snotty, perfect little face again; sue him.
This situation wasn’t one Nino was familiar with. Pro-bending was as far away from Nino's cup of tea as fire was to a waterbender, or maybe even more so, because Nino much preferred to deal within the realms of science, hard facts, and numeral accuracy than waste his brainpower trying to wrap around how an earthbender could lift rock into the air and how firebenders could expel lightning from their body. Elements, chi-blocking, spirituality, all summed up into the great Art of Bending: he could appreciate the novelty of it, and its history in an abstract sense (especially since last year's anti-bender rebellion fiasco), but being as how bending played absolutely no role in Nino's own life, he could never find it in him to care that much about it. It was frankly baffling to him the amount of passion that the sport could inspire in people, non-benders included, Aiba most notably. Ever since Aiba had first caught the tail end of a pro-bending match radio program about two or three years ago, the guy had become insatiable in his addiction to the game. He followed the scores religiously, memorized the performance statistics of his favourite teams, and always spent what measly extra change he had earned that month on pro-bending magazines. Nino almost felt sorry for him, because anyone who was that obsessed about something that didn't result in any financial gain was, as far as Nino was concerned, a fool.
But Aiba always did prove himself a genius in the most unlikely of times. Take his job in New Materials Development at Future Industries, for instance. Not even Aiba had thought that his accidental chemical mixture ("Controlled! It was totally under control!") in the backroom of Giant Koi would cause that minor explosion, and result in the creation of a synthetic derivative of rubber, and no one could have known that Hiroshi Sato would be in the restaurant at the time, and upon investigating the new compound that Aiba had been covered in, from head to toe, decide to hire Aiba on the spot. Giant Koi had to answer to an immediate health inspection, but luckily (Nino refused to believe it was purposefully), Aiba had always kept the backroom's door firmly shut as he squirreled away stolen ingredients and fuel for his experiments, and thus spared the remainder of the restaurant from poisonous contamination. But it had led to this: Aiba "whoops I meant for that to happen" Masaki, unintentional inventor and miracle boy, was now taking advantage of his newfound wealth by purchasing season passes to pro-bending tournaments, and inviting Nino along. There was, Nino realized belatedly, a hidden blessing disguised under the madness, as was Aiba's wont. Just like all of Aiba's hare-brained schemes, this one at first sight was doomed to failure: pro-bending, no matter how much Aiba had tried plying him in the past, was simply not in Nino's realm of concern. Making money, however, very much was.
And apparently, there was big money to be made in pro-bending if you bet on the right team.
Nino liked that. He liked that a lot.
He also enjoyed taking advantage of things he liked.
Making the right team shouldn't prove too difficult. He needed an earthbender, waterbender, and firebender trio – perfect. Nino already knew exactly who he'd pick as the members.
---
"You have got some nerve," Jun said, after Nino finished outlining his simple proposal. They were the first words Nino had allowed him to speak beyond his initial, "How the hell did you get in my office?"
"You'll have to be more specific about what," said Nino.
Jun leaned back in his chair and stared witheringly at Nino until Nino removed his feet from Jun's desk. Underneath Jun's second story office, the roar of industrial sized sewing machines and the hundred people operating them sent a buzzing vibration through the floor of the medium-sized, austerely-decorated room. Perhaps Nino should have waited until the work day was over to catch Jun. Except then who knew where Jun would be – and there was no way Nino was going to venture into the rich northern districts of Republic City without appropriately-dressed accompaniment.
Jun didn't look really pleased to see him, either. Shame. "You sneak into my factory, barge your way into my office, offer me no explanation for your presence and don't let me get a word in edgewise—"
"Did you not listen to anything I just told you? I explained exactly why I'm here!"
"--and then you start talking about this insane idea of starting a pro-bending team with me as a member!"
"Right," said Nino. "So can I count you in?"
Jun threw a brush pen at him.
"No," he said vehemently. "You can most definitely not count me in."
“Come on! Why not?”
“You know perfectly well why not.” Jun picked up another brush pen and dipped it into his inkwell. “This conversation is over. You can show yourself out.”
Nino didn’t move from his seat. Slowly, one of his feet rose in the air. Jun paused in his writing to watch the gradual ascension of Nino’s leg. “Don’t. You dare,” he said.
Nino’s foot lowered again. “If you’re scared of your parents finding out that you’re a firebender—”
“Shh!” Jun hissed, slamming a palm onto his desk. A pile of papers shivered like leaves. “Don’t mention th—” He cut himself off, and forced his voice to calm. “It's not for discussion, Nino.”
“Sorry,” Nino muttered, grimacing. “Guess you guys never had that talk, huh.”
“No,” Jun said. “So I’d appreciate it if you keep your mouth shut so I don’t get fired from my family’s own company.”
“Hey, if it ever happens, then you could pursue your passion with none of this messy guilt you’re saddled with.”
Jun’s expression closed in, irritated. “I think I’ve put up with you long enough. You’ve got your answer, so you can go now. I’ve got work to do.”
Nino stood up and put on his hat. “Last chance to reconsider.”
“No.”
“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “If you change your mind, you know when to find me. Deadline to register a team is in a week, so don’t wait too long.”
“Goodbye, Nino.”
Nino smiled, just a bit. “It was nice to see you again, J. Don’t work too hard, okay?” He started to leave.
“Nino!” Jun’s voiced called. Nino turned, and for an instant, Jun’s eyebrows furrowed as something – regret? longing? – flashed across his face. “Thanks for considering me. It’s – good to see you haven’t starved yourself to death.”
“If I wanted to die,” Nino said, laughing, because it was so like Jun to worry about Nino’s eating habits, “I’d pick a much more efficient way than starvation. But even while dying I think I'd be having more fun than you. Later, Matsumoto-san.”
Jun's silence followed Nino on his way out, as thick as it was foreboding; Nino counted it as a win.
---
Next stop, the New Wan Shi Tong Library. Nino never really figured out why they called it the “New” library when there wasn’t an “Old Wan Shi Tong Library” to begin with, but it apparently had something to do with Avatar Aang, spirits, and deserts, in a story that involved lots of gesticulating from Aiba in order to tell it. Nino supposed he could dredge up the memory if he tried hard enough, but trying hard wasn’t really his forte. That’s what he had people like Sho for.
Sho was sitting at his usual desk when Nino strolled in, careful to tread lightly on the ever-threadbare carpet of the library. It wasn’t just the atmosphere of immersive study that kept Nino's footsteps silent; there was a solemnity to the interior of this building, with its high walls and thin, reaching windows, each one laid out with an intricate patchwork of stained glass, depicting key events to history. Images of avatars of long past and owl spirits of wisdom spilled light in kaleidoscope colours over the dusty bookshelves, blessing old and new pages with their sun-warmed kisses. The annals of history, entire lives, caught in time by ink and paper.
Nino itched like a platypus-bear with fleas inside here. The silence was too oppressing. It was like judgement day, every day.
"Some light reading?" Nino asked, sliding to a stop in front of the huge book currently overtaking Sho's face. The title was Historical Usages of Earthbending in Agriculture and Urban Development, and just that was enough to knock Nino out from boredom.
"Nino, hi," Sho grinned, head lifting out from the musty clutches of his book. Then he frowned. "What is this about? You're going to guilt me into buying you lunch again?"
"I'm hurt, Sho-san. You think I'd only visit you to extract food from you?"
"If not food, then money."
"In that case it'd be a win-win scenario!"
"Except you're the only one winning."
Nino grinned and leaned in, resting his elbows on Sho's desk. "Don’t pretend you don’t like it. You love watching me eat."
“I do,” Sho said miserably.
“This isn’t about money or food, Sho-chan. But it does involve gambling, kind of.”
Sho sighed, but obligingly put away his book. "Well. I appreciate your honesty, at least. Tell me that Aiba doesn't need bailing out of jail again."
"Our dearest Aiba-chan is fit as a fiddle," said Nino. "In fact, this whole thing was practically his idea the first place."
"What was?"
Nino waved him closer, hand cupped around his mouth, as if divulging deep secrets. "I'm going to win a pro-bending tournament."
Sho burst out laughing. Then he hushed himself, looking around guiltily. Not that it mattered. Sho's job as librarian was pretty much one of the most isolated in the city. Around this time, right before the end of the work day, there wasn't another soul around besides the two of them. "You can't even bend!" Sho whispered.
"No I can't," said Nino, slapping a hand onto Sho's shoulder. "But you can."
Sho balked immediately. "No. No way. Thank you but no. I'm an earthbender, but I'm really not great at it. You've seen me, Nino."
"You can train!"
"I'd need to train for years to get to a pro-bending skill level."
"How about you train for weeks to get to a non-embarrassing skill level?"
Sho's frown took up his entire face.
"Who else is on the team?"
Nino hummed. "Oh, you know. Toma as the waterbender—"
"Well, he's decent enough, I suppose, but he's got his job at the market that—"
"And, as the firebender... Jun. Matsumoto."
Sho stared at him. "Is that your idea of a joke?"
"It is, but I'm serious about it too."
"Matsumoto Jun, the son of the Republic's biggest textile merchant, whose family were known Equalist sympathizers last year? The one that you were dating on and off a few months ago? The one who hates bending? That Jun?"
"We weren't on-and-off dating," Nino scowls.
"That's the issue you're choosing to focus on out of everything I said?"
"Technically, he said he didn't want anything to do with us, but I'm pretty sure he'll come around."
"What us? You're already grouping me in with your madness? I don't even know where to start with you! Everything you're saying is up for heavy contention! And you're bringing up this whole stack of issues which each require due explanation in my silent library."
"Ah, but you actually haven't presented the key word to make me shut up."
Sho covered his face with his hands. "And what's that?"
For a moment, Nino almost pitied him. Poor Sho-chan, having to deal with people like Nino, who was inconsiderate and flippant when he should and did know better. Sho was an earthbender through and through, almost laughably typical in his ways: dependable, studious, dutiful… unimaginative. Was it Sho’s fault that he couldn’t keep up with the tornado-like personalities of Nino and Aiba, one of them prone to following his heart at the drop of a hat and the other with no loyalty to anything except money? Or was it Nino and Aiba’s fault for making friends with someone as dissimilar from them as Sho, never mind that they all got along like white on polar bear dog. Sho’s presence in Nino and Aiba’s lives obviously benefitted the latter two greatly, but the advantages on Sho’s side were less clear cut. Sho had grown up with the singular dream of joining the White Lotus Society, and to that study he devoted every spare moment of his day, when he wasn’t being dragged around town on stupid (yes, they were stupid) escapades (courtesy of Kazu and Masaki), which Sho always complained about, but never once bailed from. Perhaps it was just another mark of Sho’s earth-centred personality: once you put in the effort to shift his ingrained ways, it was even more difficult to convince him to change back. For better or worse, he would continue rolling down this path, like a steady boulder.
In any case, it meant that Nino always had an available patsy. The feeling of pity for Sho briefly intensified, then left as quickly with no trace.
“The word is no,” said Nino, smiling smugly. “No, Nino, I do not want to be part of your silly pro-bending team.”
Sho glared daggers at him. “No, I don’t want to be part of your crazy pro-bending team.”
Nino paused. “Wait, really?”
Sho let loose the most extravagantly deprecating sigh. “I don’t know why I always let myself get roped into these schemes of yours,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. Nino beamed.
“It’s because you love me. And because you’d be bored without me.”
Sho reached out to cuff Nino around the neck; Nino graciously let him.
---
3. OHNO
His sister had told him that he should be able to get at least 700 yuan for a pearl this size, and if he did his haggling right, maybe even 800. Ohno didn’t have much faith that he could haggle at all, but even 700 yuan would be more than enough to buy the things they needed back at home. The squid-whales’ migration to warmer climates had come earlier than expected this year and Ohno’s family hadn’t managed to catch any before they’d swam out of fishing waters; Ohno’s sister had had the good idea to go north to Republic City, the world’s industrial capital, to buy some metalwork to make up for the supplies they would’ve made out of squid-whale bone. Plus a few extras.
“Pots, pans, ooh, maybe one of those gas burners, Satoshi, if you can find one small enough to carry back. Knives! Hammers! A saw! I would love a saw!”
She’d written him a list. It was quite long. Ohno kept it in his pocket, next to his barter.
It’d taken him over two weeks on ship to sail to the Republic of Nations from the Southern Water Tribe Islands, and now, finally ashore, he was doing his best to find a reputable store in the marketplace that would give him a decent price for his pearl, the most expensive thing he'd ever possessed. Ohno had caught it himself – although he’d been aiming just for the lobster-clam at the time. The shiny, opalescent bead cushioned in the lobster-clam’s mouth had been the icing on the cake. He thought maybe, if there was some money left over, he could purchase a set of paints, or charcoal, or some high quality paper. Usually paper was shipped over from Earth Kingdom fishermen doing trade with his village, but Ohno always went for the larger packs of thin, coarser pages.
His stomach took the chance to emit a heavy, rumbling growl.
Okay, lunch first.
---
Across the street from where Ohno was enjoying his ramen, there was a market stall that was selling all manner of seafood. It’d attracted Ohno’s attention immediately because a lot of the fish that were on display differed from the species that frequented the ocean that surrounded Ohno’s village. Red-tailed pig-sharks, yellow- and white-spotted pickerel eels, the largest cat-tuna that Ohno had ever laid eyes on: he’d hung around the stall for almost a suspiciously long amount of time, but the young man serving the store hadn’t minded. He’d been busy serving other customers, but he’d tossed a wink to Ohno when Ohno waved goodbye without buying anything.
Now, while Ohno was slurping noodles at one of the restaurant’s outdoor tables, he was watching the fish stall again. There was a small man in a dirty overcoat and ill-fitting hat, who was arguing with the shopkeeper. The argument didn’t seem to be about fish.
“Toma, come on! I know you’d love to join,” the guy was saying.
“Yeah I would, but doesn’t change the fact that I can’t,” said the shopkeeper. Toma. “You can keep coming to ask me, but I won't change my mind. I’ve got the stall to take care of. Who’s going to sub for me if I’m always cutting out for practise?”
“Just pick someone off the street, who cares.”
“Hah, you’re funny. No can do, Nino. I’ll try to come by to watch your team play though, if you get me a free ticket.”
“Am I a free ticket dispenser?” Nino said, displeasure clearly marked across his face. “There won’t even be a team if you don’t join. I need a waterbender.”
Toma laughed. “Then just pick someone off the street, Manager-san.”
The guy named Nino grabbed a fish out of a water bucket and pretended to throw it at Toma.
Ohno watched the whole scene unfold with mild interest. The conversation sounded pretty exciting, though it was rather fast-paced for Ohno. He was so intent on keeping track of the snappy retorts between the two men that it wasn’t until a heavy shadow fell across his table did Ohno look up and see two other men were crowding his seat.
They were much larger and much meaner looking.
“Look what we got here, Ping," said one of them, with a bowler hat. “A Southern Water Tribe import. Wonder what he’s doing so far up north.”
“Seems to me that he’s taking advantage of our city’s hospitality, Yeung." He nudges Ohno’s foot. “Hey. Boy. You liking that ramen?”
Ohno said nothing.
“My friend asked you a question,” said Yeung.
“I paid for this food,” Ohno said, his jaw hardening.
“I’m sure you did! We didn’t say you didn’t! We were just curious what business you had up here, so far from your icebergs and snowmen. Usually, when we see Water Tribe folk fresh off the boat, it's because they have something valuable to trade."
"I'm poor, sorry," said Ohno.
"What a shame, what a shame," Ping tsked, shaking his head. "You're not a very good liar, are you, fella? Wasn't it you who down the street was asking people where the jewellery stalls in the district were located? Seems as if you've got some business with pearl buyers?"
Ohno stiffened.
"Just hand it over now, and we'll leave you alone to your delicious ramen."
Ohno's right hand slowly drifted to the lion-seal skin water pouch that he kept at his belt, but before he got the cap off, someone shouted, "Hey! Leave him alone!" and then Ohno was suddenly hit with a face full of water.
"Your aim sucks! You're not supposed to get the tourist too," shouted Nino, and Ohno caught sight of him and Toma by the seafood stall, an empty bucket in Nino's arms, and Toma with spheres of water surrounding his hands like gloves.
The two thugs turned slowly around. Both their backs were soaked through.
"You're picking the wrong guys to mess with," snarled Ping, as fire bloomed from his palms. Yeung cracked the knuckles on each hand and stretched out his hands, displaying sparks of lightning jumping spastically from finger to finger.
"Nino," Toma said warily, backing up a step. "Go get me some more water."
"You're not going anywhere," Ping said, and raised his arm. Simultaneously, Ohno uncapped his waist pouch and sent out a stream of water to freeze Ping's hands, just as Toma aimed a huge handful of water to quell Ping's fireball. Fire and water met with a loud, quick hiss, and water vapour exploded over all of them.
Yeung whipped back to Ohno, fury marring his face into an ugly grimace. "You're a waterbender too?"
Ohno called up all the water from his pouch, covering both his arms in a layer of liquid. "Looks that way."
With a kick of his foot, Ohno flipped his table up, and his bowl of ramen, though only the soup was left, flew into the air. Ohno waved his hand and it all came splashing down on Yeung's head.
"Hah!" Nino laughed. And then the fight really got started.
~
Well, Ohno was in deep trouble.
His first time in Republic City and he got caught in a street brawl that might've escalated horribly had not their attackers heard the faint swishing hum of the metalbending police's airships. Right before the police showed up, the five of them – Ohno's spontaneous allies included – had degenerated into an out-and-out fist fight, and though Ohno was never one for fighting, these guys were going to mug him either way, and worse, they interrupted his lunch. It felt kind of cool that neither Nino nor Toma were backing down, so Ohno didn't want to either. Toma was doing much more of the fighting than Nino, but Nino helped by having good aim with his bucket. But they weren't exactly tough guys to begin with; they'd all gotten a few hits on them when Ping and Yeung finally made their exit, cursing waterbenders the entire way.
It wasn't until Ohno had given his statement to the police that he'd checked his pocket and found it empty of pearl and paper. Whether they both got stolen by Ping after all, or they were merely lost in the scuffle then blown away to other parts of the city, Ohno had no idea. His entire person was waterlogged, the tips of his hair were singed, and his stomach was growling, unhappy that Ohno had sacrificed his soup to decorate someone's face.
He was very disappointed so far with his trip to Republic City.
And how was he expected to get home now? Ohno touched his chin, worried.
"Yo, you okay?"
Ohno turned. Nino was still crouched on the ground, leaning against the wall of the building Toma's stall jutted from. Toma had hurried back to work as soon as the police let them go, desperate to reorganize the fish that had been toppled during their fight. It left Ohno and Nino together, and the other was holding his side, where he'd gotten punched pretty hard – actually, it might have been Ohno who'd punched him. In the fray, it’d been hard to tell sometimes.
"Yeah," said Ohno.
"Because you just stood up and sat down twice in a row. You look pretty confused. Did they hit your head pretty hard back there?"
"No. Wait, yes. But I'm fine. I was just wondering," he paused. "I mean. I can't get home. They stole my pearl."
"Oh, right. That sucks. Sorry."
"I think my sister might yell at me for losing it."
Nino's eyes narrowed in what Ohno assumed was interest. "Just how much was that pearl worth?"
"I didn't get a chance to find out." He held out his index finger and thumb curled into a small circle. "it was about this big."
"Are you kidding me," said Nino in shock. "You're a complete moron. A pearl that size and you didn't have anywhere safer to put it?"
"Where else could I have put it?"
"Tied to your body or something! Stuffed in your sock! Or up your butt! Not in a pocket, where it could just fall out."
"Up my butt?" Ohno thought about that. Maybe that was why his sister had been so adamant that he carry a purse around with him, kept under his clothes. But Ohno had refused because it sounded itchy, and he was afraid he'd lose the purse too. Looking back on it, clearly he was a complete moron, but stuffing the pearl up his butt probably wouldn't have been the best solution either. Travelling on too-steady steamer ships always, ironically, swished up Ohno's stomach in seasickness.
"So, what," Nino said, and Ohno wondered for a second if it was okay to think of him as Nino, since they hadn't officially introduced each other yet. "You're stranded here until further notice? No money at all?"
"I can maybe buy two more meals, or a night's stay in a hostel. But not both," Ohno admitted.
"That's not nearly enough to cover a ride back to the Southern Islands, huh," Nino said, and Ohno shook his head no.
"Hm," Nino said, staggering to his feet and wincing as his back straightened. Ohno shifted, hands curling at his sides.
"I can heal that for you," he offered. "If we can get some clean water."
Nino looked surprised again. "You're a healer?"
"I can only do basic stuff."
"You're a great waterbender too, though."
Ohno titled his head. "Uh, thanks. It helps, when you like fishing. I love fishing."
Nino stared at him for a moment; Ohno waited, wondering if he said something weird and old-fashioned.
"What's your name, by the way?" Nino asked sharply.
"Ohno Satoshi."
"Oh-chan," repeated Nino firmly. "I'm Ninomiya Kazunari. How do you feel about pro-bending?"
---
4. SHO
He was a bit late arriving at Nino's place, but he'd lost track of time, so engrossed with the newest release of the periodicals chronicling Avatar Aang's life and the hidden influence of the White Lotus Society in the events of the Hundred Year War. Sho hardly had been able to put the book down, and when he checked the clock and saw it was nearly time for his first ever pro-bending practise, he ran over to Nino's neighbourhood with renewed appreciation of the city in which they all lived. The existence of Republic City was drenched in history, and Sho couldn't help but feel part of Avatar Aang's legacy, to reside in this place that he and Fire Lord Zuko created as an embodiment for peace of all races. He didn't want to take it for granted that he was born in a well-off family, a bender no less, and one that remained relatively untouched from the anti-bender rebellion the previous year, if only because (or so Sho hoped) there was a universal respect for purveyors of knowledge – because earthbender or not, scholar was Sho's real job, not bending. ...Or, equally possible, no one targeted him simply because no one thought of him.
Sometimes it was tough, being a librarian.
Maybe this was why he always wound up participating in Nino's scheme-of-the-week, because being trapped in a musty old library every day wasn't stimulating enough for him. Sho loved learning, but he liked going out with friends too; he liked physical exercise and he liked bending. Nino and Aiba were fun people, so whenever either of them slid into his library, either just to talk or to try to pull him into some insane idea that always ended up working against Sho with negative payoff, Sho would complain, ask for mercy, but find himself following along regardless. Those two were very skilled at keeping Sho's life interesting.
Which is why when Sho let himself into Nino's tiny apartment, he was only a little caught off guard at the scene he was met with.
Aiba was in the middle of the kitchen floor with an absurdly thick layer of ice covered his feet up to his kneecaps, and he was chiseling away at it with a hammer while Nino and a new person held burning candles against it to help it thaw.
They all turned to look at him as he entered.
"It's an experiment," said Aiba solemnly.
"Of course," said Sho.
---
"So, Ohno-kun," Sho started, slightly awkwardly, as Nino and Aiba argued over some sort of drawing freshly spread on the table in between. "How long have you been in Republic City?"
Ohno Satoshi, sitting placidly beside Sho with a cup of lukewarm tea, scratched his nose with a fingernail before answering. "Um. Maybe about a day? I got here this morning. I was on Billy the Buffalo Yak."
"You rode a buffalo-yak all the way from the Southern Water Islands? Up here? They can swim?"
Ohno stared at him. "No, it's a boat. It was the name of the ship."
"Oh. My mistake."
But Ohno just smiled. "That's okay. I make mistakes like that all the time."
"What are you doing in Republic City? Oh," Sho amended hastily, "if you don't mind me asking."
A shoulder rose up and down. "I was supposed to trade this pearl for some money, and buy some supplies for home. Then Nino and I got into some fight by this ramen restaurant and I lost the pearl. Then Nino said I could earn money if I joined his pro-bending team. He said he needed a waterbender because Toma was too stupid to understand the value of his plan. That's it. And," he added belatedly, after a pause, "buffalo-yaks can swim. They don't like to though."
"I see," Sho said dubiously. He got the feeling that Ohno wasn't big on elaboration.
Across the room, Nino and Aiba seemed to be finishing up their heated debate. "Okay, fine!" Nino snapped, crossing his arms. "We'll do it your way, Master Aiba."
"Yeah, that's right!" said Aiba triumphantly. "Trust me on this, Nino, I definitely know what I'm doing."
"That's what you said about the ice boots and that led to the flooding of my kitchen floor!"
"I didn't know Oh-chan would be so strong!"
"You could have easily asked him to melt the ice for you!"
"But then the boots would be gone! Nino, seriously."
"You know what, we are going to stop talking about this now because I invited you over for your advice on fucking pro-bending, not on cold footwear. Sho-chan, Oh-chan," Nino waved them over, "come see the training regime Aiba and I made for you guys. Aiba even drew ugly pictures of stances."
Aiba looked like he had something to say to that but instead just glared at Nino as Nino revealed their illustrated project. Honestly, the drawings weren't half bad – at least by Sho's admittedly abysmal standards. But Sho's attention was immediately drawn by other things.
"Five hours of training a day?" he sputtered, pointing to a schedule written at the top of the paper. "Are you insane?"
"Look," Nino said. "The tournament registration date is in five days. There's a week of administration processing after that, then preliminary battles start for qualification in the top twenty-four teams. So depending on when our name is drawn out for our round, we might have to be in ready shape in eight days."
"Eight days?!"
"Eight days is doable, Sho-chan!" Aiba said, nodding vigorously, which put no doubt at all in Sho's mind whose original idea this was. "Some of the teams who register really suck; they just want to try to get experience, but they got knocked out really easily."
"But I assumed that we were exactly one of those sucky teams."
"Pfft, maybe we would have been with Toma," Nino said. "But Oh-chan here is practically a waterbending master! Aren't you, Oh-chan?"
Ohno shook his head. "Not really."
"Even if he were," Sho argued, "I'm certainly not that talented with earthbending!"
"You're good enough," said Nino, in what he must have thought was a reassuring voice. "That's the best kind of good, isn't it?"
"No! And aren't you guys overlooking the biggest issue here?"
"Well, Aiba and I have been trying to decide on a team name, and we made a list–"
"We don't have a firebender!" Sho interrupted. "Who's going to be the third of the team?"
Nino sucked in his lips. "Oh yeah. Where is Jun-kun, anyway?"
Probably at home, Sho wanted to say. At home, or working at one of his father's factories, or shopping, or at the park, or having dinner with his family, or any number of things that an attractive, wealthy young man could be doing in Republic City on an ordinary weeknight, because that's what Jun was. And maybe Matsumoto Jun was also a firebender, but was he also someone who would join the amateur "pro"-bending team of his ex-boyfriend (were he and Nino ever really boyfriends, even? Sho had no idea) under the guidance of a chemical genius who lacked common sense, a librarian who had no experience with the sport, and a newly immigrated Water Tribe bender who currently didn't have a single yuan on him? It seemed unlikely. There was also this gigantic problem that Nino seemed to have happily glossed over with minimal worry: the fact that Jun's family, owners of Matsumoto Textiles, despised pro-bending. The entire city knew about this since, after being bombarded too often with the question, Jun's uncle publicly declared that he was not willing to sponsor a team playing a game that, as he referred to it, "relied on a mishmash of barbaric combat methods and gaudy showmanship to celebrate a skill that played such a huge role in the City's unfair distribution of class wealth and privilege." The man certainly could express an opinion.
How on earth did Nino come across these people?
"He specifically told you he didn't want to join," Sho pointed out. "Maybe we should explore other avenues. We could put up ads. 'Firebending teammate wanted' or something similar."
Something was pulling down at the corners of Nino's mouth. "Maybe," he said. He looked irritated, not worried.
"And the team name?" asked Ohno.
With a flourish, Aiba pulled out a scroll of paper from his knapsack and unfurled it. "What are your opinions on gorilla-goats?"
"I find them large and terrifying, and I think their inherent aggressive nature to anyone but their owner seems unreasonably dangerous," said Sho.
"They're cute," said Ohno.
Aiba beamed. "Oh-chan, I think you're going to fit right in with us."
---
Sho had to admit it: when Nino said Ohno was actually a great waterbender, he wasn't kidding around. Ohno handled water like a magician handled coins: freezing techniques, whipping techniques, encasing techniques, Ohno could do it all – and looked amazing while doing it. It was like waterbending exploded Ohno out of his sleepy shell and exposed the miracle within. For him to show up to Republic City on the day that Nino was going to give up on badgering for Ikuta Toma's membership, and all but fall into Nino's waterbender-less lap, it was an incredible stroke of luck. Nino realized it and knew it too; he hadn't been able to take his eyes off Ohno all night.
Sho just wasn't sure if Nino was attracted to Ohno, or the potential Ohno brought for winning big in the pro-bending tournament.
Sho was in the middle of a few Aiba-supervised Rock Stances – questionable advice, seeing as how Aiba picked up all his knowledge of bending from sports magazines and his own imagination as he listened to matches on the radio – and they were both getting quite into it ("No, Sho-chan! You have to be the rock! Make the face of a rock!" "What the hell is that supposed to look like!") when there came a sharp rap at Nino's door, and after a pause in which no one made a move to answer it, the thin, elegant figure of Matsumoto Jun gracefully let himself inside.
"Hi, Jun-kun," said Aiba respectfully, but still eagerly.
Jun inclined his head. "Hello." He bore the pinched face of a man who was vastly conflicted about how life had brought him to this point.
"About time," muttered Nino. "You're late! That's something I won't tolerate again, as manager of the team."
The look Jun tossed over to him was truly blood-curdling. Sho wasn't even its target and he found himself resisting an impulse to take a step backwards.
"Maybe I'm not here to be on your team," he said.
"Please," said Nino. "Why else would you come?"
"Pay my respects for your loss of sanity, perhaps."
"Then you missed your chance; I lost that way back when I first started hanging out with you."
Jun laughed. Sho, unconsciously, breathed a sigh of relief. "Where can I put my coat?"
"Toss it anywhere," said Nino, whirling around to the rest of them who were mutely watching their banter. "So!" he said, clapping his hands together. "This is our team. Should we do some introductions?"
---
5. JUN
He should have known Nino would find some way to make him suffer. Never mind that it was Jun who was doing Nino a huge favour for joining his appallingly last-minute team, and it was Jun who was risking life and name to be even participating in the most widely publicized sporting events in the Republic of Nations – it was still, apparently, bad of Jun to arrive to team practise late (when Nino hadn't even explicitly sent word of a meeting time!), and therefore he had to work twice as hard to catch up to the other team members. It was why Jun was now drenched in sweat, panting like a pig-cow, while Nino ordered more push ups and firmly cemented himself on Jun's mental list of People I Will Kill One Day, with the addendum Slowly and Painfully.
"This is ridiculous!" Jun barked, heaving himself up to his knees. "I'm supposed to be practise firebending, not get acquainted with the floor of your apartment. We need to spar."
"Are you crazy? We're not doing any sparring in my apartment," Nino said. "Do you have any idea how much the damage would cost? Why do you think I haven't actually let Sho-chan bend anything?"
"Then find us an arena. We need to practise on an actual playing field."
Nino crossed his arms. "Hm. That's true. I hadn't thought of that."
"Nino, you idiot!" Aiba cried. "Arenas are booked months in advance! And now, with the tournament coming up, we're never going to find an empty slot!"
"How was I supposed to know that?" Nino said peevishly. "I only got into this dumb game last week."
Aiba scrambled across the room to whack Nino's head. "I could have done it! I could have booked us a spot but you didn't tell me!"
"I didn't tell you because I didn't know they'd all be booked up! Ow!"
Jun wanted to cover his face in his hands. What exactly was he hoping to accomplish here again? He must have been delusional. For some inexplicable reason, he'd convinced himself that it'd be worth it to come all this way to Nino's place to scope out Nino's team. A part of him had wondered if there was a team at all, or if it was some elaborate plan of Nino’s to seduce Jun back into his life – because, come on: no contact for months and then suddenly, hey come join my pro-bending team? Suspicious. Though being suspicious was practically Nino’s specialty. But real team or not, Jun hadn't intended to actually join it. He had better things to do with this time.
Well. That was partly a lie. Jun hadn't planned to join the team because he'd assumed that Nino would have found another firebender by now. And the thought of Nino spending excess amounts of time with a firebender that could have been Jun but wasn't had dug a sharp feeling into the crevices of Jun's stomach that Jun really hadn't cared for. He'd actually lost sleep over it. Once he woke up with the tips of his blankets singed with holes the size of Jun's fingertips. And it wasn't so much that Jun was envious of another firebender being with Nino, but that he'd be losing his own chance to be a legitimate firebender at all. Jun was envious of the freedom. The truth of the matter was that Jun enjoyed bending. Really and truly enjoyed it, but with his family being so staunchly anti-bender, he never had occasion to practise it growing up. He usually resorted to solo sessions in the dark of his factory office, after work hours, trying to keep his flames low and inconspicuous, but unsatisfactory was too mild a word to describe the experience. So when Nino had slithered into his office with that proposition gleaming on his curled lips, Jun had found it hard to ignore. Too hard by far. The fire inside him had lived a life of containment, and by age twenty-five, Jun was near desperate to burst it out with the full force of his body.
Jun hadn't planned to join the team because his responsibility and respect for his family held him back, but as soon as he'd stepped into Nino's place and saw two members of a team and not three, plus Nino looking exasperated at him as if he'd expected Jun to come all along... well. His brain had just clicked to "firebending, okay, yes" mode, like flipping a switch. They'd been waiting for him. Nino hadn't bothered looked for another firebender at all.
What that said about Nino's feelings towards Jun, Jun wasn't sure. It could be confidence in Jun -- or equally, it could be confidence in Jun's ability to play hypocrite.
"I've got the solution," Nino said loudly, grabbing Aiba's arm. "We'll go at night."
"What? But every arena will be locked—"
"So we'll break in. Easy as pie. Then we can practise for hours without interruption."
"I can't say I like this plan," Sho said.
"Let's vote," Nino said. "All in favour?" He raised his hand. He was the only one. "It's either this or nothing!"
Aiba exhaled a sound of pure frustration. "I can't believe you, Nino. You show no respect for the game at all! You're actually the worst."
"Yes," Sho added, "there are rules in place for a reason – what the, Aiba! You just said—"
Aiba winced but kept his hand in the air. "Yeah, I know, I know. But how else are we going to get to an arena on such short notice? It's bad, Sho-chan, but not having an arena to practise in is worse."
"No, no, we could get arrested for breaking and entering. I already sort of have a mark on my record–"
"Oh, that was wiped off and you know it," Nino said. "Stop worrying. How are we going to get caught? We'll clean up afterwards or whatever. It's just rock and water, honestly."
"If you'd look at this reasonably—" Sho paled. "Ohno-kun, you too?"
Ohno Satoshi – the one person Jun hadn't met before, and from his appearance alone, seemed a bit on the slow side – shrugged. "Well. It's a matter of giving us a chance in the tournament, isn't it? So I think it's worth it."
Nino grinned. "See! That's the kind of dedication we need. Good job, Oh-chan."
Jun frowned.
"Thanks," said Ohno.
"What do you think, Matsumoto-kun," Sho asked, turning to him, clearly hoping for Jun to inject a healthy dose of logic into the situation. "It's too reckless, isn't it?"
"It is," agreed Jun. Sho's shoulders slumped in relief. "But I think we should go for it." Sho's shoulders tensed again; he looked horrified. "When you think about it," Jun plowed on, "the biggest punishment they could give us is a fine. We're not destroying property or hurting anyone. And that's only if we do get caught. If we don't try, though, we could be the laughingstock of the tournament. If we're sure about entering the competition, we should take that seriously and try our hardest."
"We are though, right?" Aiba asked. "Sure about entering?"
Jun said carefully, "I suppose."
"Of course we are," butted in Nino. "I already paid our entrance fee." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red-stamped ticket.
Sho yelped. Jun sighed. Aiba's eyes bugged out. "Nino! When did you do that?"
"This afternoon. Oh-chan and I went to the registrar's office since we were downtown anyway. Before you ask, I'll pay you back the money once we start winning some games."
"I wasn't going to ask that! Wait -- you used my money? Nino!"
"For the greater good, Aiba-san. You can be team trainer and sponsor."
"Oh my god, this situation has spiralled away from me much faster than I was prepared for," moaned Sho, slumping down on Nino's bed, face in the blankets. He covered his head with a pillow and from underneath his voice drifted out, muffled and defeated. "I'm outvoted, okay, fine. Let's go break some bylaws, why not."
"That's the spirit," Nino said.
"Wait, wait a sec," Aiba said, eyes lighting up. "I thought of the perfect place."
---
The official pro-bending arena that sat by the harbour of Yue Bay across from Air Temple Island was a feat of modern ingenuity. With high, circular walls topped with a sea-green glass domed ceiling, and its circumference lined with beaming electric lights, it stood out as a bright jewel among the already colourful architecture of Republic City. At capacity it seated over 5,000 people, could withstand the battering of even the strongest pro-benders, and everything was always kept in impeccable working order, not a seat cushion or pulley wire out of place.
In comparison, the arena that Aiba led them to was a total hovel. It was tiny, and from the outside resembled a dirty box with cracked walls, lingering stagnantly at the edge of a huge metal waste dump. It was clear that the borders of the dump were originally much further away from the building, but over time and technological development, its size steadily grew until bent pipes and flat tires edged the side of the arena like shrubbery.
"I found it when I first came here scrounging for materials to use for experiments a while back," Aiba said proudly. "Neat, huh."
"It's pretty shitty," said Nino, in a tone Jun couldn't discern was approving or not.
"It's totally fine, though!" Aiba protested. "Neighbourhood kids come use it all the time! It only looks like crap because the custodian works like ten minutes a day. It's not his fault though; he has back problems. His name's Mayu. He's got a pet sparrowkeet, who's really mean, but Mayu is the nicest! I bet he wouldn't mind if we used his arena at night."
"It's not really him we have to report to, if someone calls the metalbending police on us," Sho said, eyes darting nervously to the towering hills of industrial scraps to their left. "We're basically sitting turtle-ducks here, do you guys realize that? Oi!"
Nino, Aiba, and Ohno had already hurried to the front doors. Aiba and Nino gave a few tugs on the handles, which gave way a little, but not enough to open. There was a padlock that clipped together a steel chain hung across the two door handles, and Nino quickly bent down to it, fingers fiddling with its shape, and something long and sharp flashed within his palm.
"Are those lock picks?" Jun asked incredulously.
"Don't give me that uppity moral face," Nino said, sticking two tiny prongs into the keyhole of the padlock. "I've never actually stolen anything like this. I had to learn it for survival for all the times that Aiba came home from work first and locked me out accidentally because we could only manage to keep one set of keys. If this guy starts snoring, he's deaf to everything. So I was either doomed to spend the night in the hallway, or force my way into the apartment."
Aiba looked apologetic, but he didn't deny it. "Whoops?"
"Your life is truly a model for all of us to aspire to, Nino," Jun said sarcastically.
"Don't flatter yourself," Nino smirked. He concentrated on the lock for a minute or more, then something clicked loudly, and the shackle of the lock popped open. "Ta-dah!" Another set of tugs on the rust-lined doors yielded passage inside the building, which didn't remind Jun so much of entering in a pro-bending arena as a damp, dank-smelling, lightless cave.
Inside, Aiba fumbled around the walls, hands swinging out blindly, until he found the light switch. With a grunt of effort, he lifted up the comically large switch, and the electricity overhead flickered into being, bathing the whole arena in a wan yellow.
Everyone stared.
"Where's the pool?" asked Sho.
"What do you mean," said Aiba. He pointed to the centre of the room, where most of the floor was covered with a shallow layer of murky water. "It's right there! Surrounding the arena ring."
"It looks less than a metre deep."
Aiba laughed nervously. "Okay, so I forgot to mention that maybe this place used to be a cat-fish breeding house or something? But look, look! Arena, stone tablets, a little bit of water—" he thrust out his arms. "We've got everything we need!"
Nino must have caught some displeased expression on Jun's face because he nudged Jun's side with an elbow, and said, "Beggars can't be choosers, Jun-pon."
"This could have all been avoided if you'd actually done a proper job as manager," said Jun.
"There's a learning curve, okay," Nino grumbled, and walked over to Ohno. "How do you like it, Oh-chan? Sorry there's barely any water."
Ohno said, "It's fine, I think. We're lucky Aiba-chan found this place."
"We're lucky I found you too!" Nino said, and Jun felt his gut give a strange, jolting lurch.
Abruptly, he thrust out a fist and expelled a huge fireball into the air in front of him, scorching hot; it was propelled with enough strength to hit the concrete wall at the opposite end of the arena, where the flames melted away into smoke.
"It'll do," Jun said. "Everyone into the ring."
Part 2
harinezumi_kunFrom:
primroseshowsTitle: Proper Etiquette for Nurturing Team Cohesion
Pairing/Focus: Ohmiya, Matsumiya
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: A little bit of cross-dressing.
Summary: What do a reluctant earthbender, a conflicted firebender, a generally clueless waterbender, and a non-bender pro-bending enthusiast have in common? A problem named Nino.
Notes: This fic is a fusion in the Legend of Korra universe, which means that: a) some people are benders who can manipulate the four elements (air, earth, fire, water), b) some benders use their skill and participate in professional tournaments (three members to a team: earth, fire, and water), c) some non-benders don’t like benders, d) a Satomobile is a type of car, and e) the world is home to a lot of weird hybrid animals. If you guys aren’t familiar with Avatar The Last Airbender, I would sincerely and perhaps hysterically recommend that series to you, but you don’t really need any more knowledge than what’s mentioned above to understand this fic. (At least this is my hope!)
For
harinezumi_kun. Jess, wow, so this is… uh. WELL anyway, it is something, so maybe it’ll be something you like! And finally: thanks, endless thanks, the hills are alive with the sound of my thanks for my amazing beta.
1. AIBA
Aiba should've known better than to bring Nino to a pro-bending match. He should have, but he didn't. He had been too excited, too swept up in his adoration of the sport, awed at his own luck and circumstance that afforded him seats in the first place, so of course he had to share. This time last year Aiba had been merely one of an indefinable number of unremarkable riff raff that populated the more unsightly streets of the town, trying to scrape an honest living despite the constant influx of hurdles, pitfalls, and invisible strings that besieged every non-bender living in Republic City, especially to wayward orphans. Now he had an amazing job, a respectable income, and could afford season pass pro-bending tickets – it was too good to be true, except not, because it was true. Was it any wonder that Aiba had taken it as destiny that his success had followed in the wake of his favourite pro-bending team, the Fire Ferrets? Their long-standing members, Mako and Bolin, shared such a similar childhood tragedy to Aiba's own that sometimes Aiba would be moved to tears, listening to their chain of indomitable victories over the static-gushing radio in the back room of the kitchens where Aiba had worked for too many years. He'd spent nights upon sleepless nights, reliving in his head the play-by-play championship games between the Fire Ferrets and the White Falls Wolfbats: Mako's lightning-fast come-from-behind maneuvers, Bolin's earth-shaking roar of effort as he shook the entire stadium floor, and the narrator's ever-gratuitous descriptions of Avatar Korra, whose skill with waterbending was only second to her skill of never giving up. They lost the match, but everyone knew the Fire Ferrets were the best in the business. So of course pro-bending held a special place in Aiba's heart, providing entertainment, inspiration, and hope, all in one perfectly executed swoop. By believing in the sport, Aiba also nurtured his belief that one day, like the bending brothers who went from paupers to heroes to princes, Aiba could make his way in the world too.
"Boring," Nino had called it, that stupid utter jerk, so there was literally nothing for it: when Aiba purchased the tickets to this year's new tournament season, the only choice for his plus-one was Nino. Nino was Aiba's best friend, Nino was still living in the slums the both of them grew up in but only Aiba no longer called home, Nino had no interest at all in pro-bending and Aiba was determined to make him eat his words.
That Nino had the nasty tendency to not only avoid every life lesson that Aiba enthusiastically threw at him, intentional or not, but to flip them around and make them backfire right in Aiba's face, every single time, was unfortunately not something that came up in Aiba's mind between the moments of leaving the pro-bending arena's box office and slamming his officially-stamped tickets onto Nino's rickety all-purpose table, triumph lighting his face like a blaze.
Nino hadn't been impressed, but he'd still accepted Aiba's gift – not in the interests of keeping an open mind or anything so sentimental, but because it was physically impossible for him to turn down free handouts. Or at least, Aiba had never known him to do it, and Aiba had known Nino for a disturbing amount of time.
It wasn't until after open call team tryouts had started, the new sports season not quite yet underway, and them watching a qualifying match from their awesome reserved seats (Aiba practically vibrating with anticipation), that Nino had bemusedly asked Aiba to explain how the game worked.
After the two or ten minutes Aiba had taken to spew indignation at Nino for never paying attention during the last million or so times that Aiba had given impromptu oral dissertations about how great and wonderful and everything pro-bending was, he'd managed a deep, calming breath, and started fresh. But he didn't get far; he'd barely outlined the composition of each team when Nino had interrupted smoothly:
"So do people place bets? On who will win the tournament?"
Aiba blinked. "Oh. Yeah. I guess? I mean, there's got to be a winner, so... hey. Why?"
"No reason. Please, do go on, I'm fascinated." This was practically purred, Nino leaning forward with bright eyes and sharp grin. Aiba felt a trickle of fear leak into his stomach; the last time Nino had used that tone of voice, Aiba had ended up in the police department's jail cell overnight while he desperately tried to explain to the guard that the boarcupine hadn't even belonged to him.
"Nino," Aiba warned. "You're thinking of something."
"That's a fact that most people can claim, if you'd believe it."
"Hah, funny, no. You're planning something. What are you planning?"
Nino cupped a hand under his chin and gazed out at the game spread beneath them with the air of a grandmaster standing over a Pai Sho board, watching minions move his pieces on his instruction.
"I wonder what Jun-pon is up to these days?" he asked conversationally, and Aiba, in a flash of revelation that only hindsight can bring, thought: Huh, maybe it was a mistake to bring you here.
---
2. NINO
Okay, so it was half an opportunity and half an excuse. Nino had lost contact with that loser Jun a few months back, not-coincidentally around the time when Jun had declared himself a big ten on the douche scale and fucked off back to the richer parts of town, away from Nino and his apparently "marring reputation." Not that Nino gave a pigeon-rat's ass about what Jun (and the collective whole of the snobby elite that Jun's pampered existence represented) thought about the state of Nino's bank account (pitiful) and the amount of respect that supposedly equated him (none), but - well, it wasn't as if Nino liked getting dumped, was it? He'd been quite fond of Jun, inasmuch as a skinny, disheveled, cynical street urchin could be fond of a polished, entitled, conceited son of a millionaire; although it did, admittedly, help a lot that Jun was gorgeous and had a biting sense of humour that rivalled Nino's in its depravity. At least their relationship, while short-lived, had kept things interesting. Now that Jun was back to his old school, high class ways, Nino spent his workdays in the sweltering kitchens of The Giant Koi Grillhouse with much less to look forward to when he trudged home at night. It wasn't that Nino was pining – his liaison with Jun had been mutually useful but strictly casual in that friends-with-benefits kind of way, minus the friends part – but he couldn't help, through their brief time together, but gain a level of appreciation for having a man like Jun in his life. In baser terms, maybe it could be said that Nino simply missed him. Maybe. So he wouldn't mind getting the chance to see Jun's snotty, perfect little face again; sue him.
This situation wasn’t one Nino was familiar with. Pro-bending was as far away from Nino's cup of tea as fire was to a waterbender, or maybe even more so, because Nino much preferred to deal within the realms of science, hard facts, and numeral accuracy than waste his brainpower trying to wrap around how an earthbender could lift rock into the air and how firebenders could expel lightning from their body. Elements, chi-blocking, spirituality, all summed up into the great Art of Bending: he could appreciate the novelty of it, and its history in an abstract sense (especially since last year's anti-bender rebellion fiasco), but being as how bending played absolutely no role in Nino's own life, he could never find it in him to care that much about it. It was frankly baffling to him the amount of passion that the sport could inspire in people, non-benders included, Aiba most notably. Ever since Aiba had first caught the tail end of a pro-bending match radio program about two or three years ago, the guy had become insatiable in his addiction to the game. He followed the scores religiously, memorized the performance statistics of his favourite teams, and always spent what measly extra change he had earned that month on pro-bending magazines. Nino almost felt sorry for him, because anyone who was that obsessed about something that didn't result in any financial gain was, as far as Nino was concerned, a fool.
But Aiba always did prove himself a genius in the most unlikely of times. Take his job in New Materials Development at Future Industries, for instance. Not even Aiba had thought that his accidental chemical mixture ("Controlled! It was totally under control!") in the backroom of Giant Koi would cause that minor explosion, and result in the creation of a synthetic derivative of rubber, and no one could have known that Hiroshi Sato would be in the restaurant at the time, and upon investigating the new compound that Aiba had been covered in, from head to toe, decide to hire Aiba on the spot. Giant Koi had to answer to an immediate health inspection, but luckily (Nino refused to believe it was purposefully), Aiba had always kept the backroom's door firmly shut as he squirreled away stolen ingredients and fuel for his experiments, and thus spared the remainder of the restaurant from poisonous contamination. But it had led to this: Aiba "whoops I meant for that to happen" Masaki, unintentional inventor and miracle boy, was now taking advantage of his newfound wealth by purchasing season passes to pro-bending tournaments, and inviting Nino along. There was, Nino realized belatedly, a hidden blessing disguised under the madness, as was Aiba's wont. Just like all of Aiba's hare-brained schemes, this one at first sight was doomed to failure: pro-bending, no matter how much Aiba had tried plying him in the past, was simply not in Nino's realm of concern. Making money, however, very much was.
And apparently, there was big money to be made in pro-bending if you bet on the right team.
Nino liked that. He liked that a lot.
He also enjoyed taking advantage of things he liked.
Making the right team shouldn't prove too difficult. He needed an earthbender, waterbender, and firebender trio – perfect. Nino already knew exactly who he'd pick as the members.
---
"You have got some nerve," Jun said, after Nino finished outlining his simple proposal. They were the first words Nino had allowed him to speak beyond his initial, "How the hell did you get in my office?"
"You'll have to be more specific about what," said Nino.
Jun leaned back in his chair and stared witheringly at Nino until Nino removed his feet from Jun's desk. Underneath Jun's second story office, the roar of industrial sized sewing machines and the hundred people operating them sent a buzzing vibration through the floor of the medium-sized, austerely-decorated room. Perhaps Nino should have waited until the work day was over to catch Jun. Except then who knew where Jun would be – and there was no way Nino was going to venture into the rich northern districts of Republic City without appropriately-dressed accompaniment.
Jun didn't look really pleased to see him, either. Shame. "You sneak into my factory, barge your way into my office, offer me no explanation for your presence and don't let me get a word in edgewise—"
"Did you not listen to anything I just told you? I explained exactly why I'm here!"
"--and then you start talking about this insane idea of starting a pro-bending team with me as a member!"
"Right," said Nino. "So can I count you in?"
Jun threw a brush pen at him.
"No," he said vehemently. "You can most definitely not count me in."
“Come on! Why not?”
“You know perfectly well why not.” Jun picked up another brush pen and dipped it into his inkwell. “This conversation is over. You can show yourself out.”
Nino didn’t move from his seat. Slowly, one of his feet rose in the air. Jun paused in his writing to watch the gradual ascension of Nino’s leg. “Don’t. You dare,” he said.
Nino’s foot lowered again. “If you’re scared of your parents finding out that you’re a firebender—”
“Shh!” Jun hissed, slamming a palm onto his desk. A pile of papers shivered like leaves. “Don’t mention th—” He cut himself off, and forced his voice to calm. “It's not for discussion, Nino.”
“Sorry,” Nino muttered, grimacing. “Guess you guys never had that talk, huh.”
“No,” Jun said. “So I’d appreciate it if you keep your mouth shut so I don’t get fired from my family’s own company.”
“Hey, if it ever happens, then you could pursue your passion with none of this messy guilt you’re saddled with.”
Jun’s expression closed in, irritated. “I think I’ve put up with you long enough. You’ve got your answer, so you can go now. I’ve got work to do.”
Nino stood up and put on his hat. “Last chance to reconsider.”
“No.”
“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “If you change your mind, you know when to find me. Deadline to register a team is in a week, so don’t wait too long.”
“Goodbye, Nino.”
Nino smiled, just a bit. “It was nice to see you again, J. Don’t work too hard, okay?” He started to leave.
“Nino!” Jun’s voiced called. Nino turned, and for an instant, Jun’s eyebrows furrowed as something – regret? longing? – flashed across his face. “Thanks for considering me. It’s – good to see you haven’t starved yourself to death.”
“If I wanted to die,” Nino said, laughing, because it was so like Jun to worry about Nino’s eating habits, “I’d pick a much more efficient way than starvation. But even while dying I think I'd be having more fun than you. Later, Matsumoto-san.”
Jun's silence followed Nino on his way out, as thick as it was foreboding; Nino counted it as a win.
---
Next stop, the New Wan Shi Tong Library. Nino never really figured out why they called it the “New” library when there wasn’t an “Old Wan Shi Tong Library” to begin with, but it apparently had something to do with Avatar Aang, spirits, and deserts, in a story that involved lots of gesticulating from Aiba in order to tell it. Nino supposed he could dredge up the memory if he tried hard enough, but trying hard wasn’t really his forte. That’s what he had people like Sho for.
Sho was sitting at his usual desk when Nino strolled in, careful to tread lightly on the ever-threadbare carpet of the library. It wasn’t just the atmosphere of immersive study that kept Nino's footsteps silent; there was a solemnity to the interior of this building, with its high walls and thin, reaching windows, each one laid out with an intricate patchwork of stained glass, depicting key events to history. Images of avatars of long past and owl spirits of wisdom spilled light in kaleidoscope colours over the dusty bookshelves, blessing old and new pages with their sun-warmed kisses. The annals of history, entire lives, caught in time by ink and paper.
Nino itched like a platypus-bear with fleas inside here. The silence was too oppressing. It was like judgement day, every day.
"Some light reading?" Nino asked, sliding to a stop in front of the huge book currently overtaking Sho's face. The title was Historical Usages of Earthbending in Agriculture and Urban Development, and just that was enough to knock Nino out from boredom.
"Nino, hi," Sho grinned, head lifting out from the musty clutches of his book. Then he frowned. "What is this about? You're going to guilt me into buying you lunch again?"
"I'm hurt, Sho-san. You think I'd only visit you to extract food from you?"
"If not food, then money."
"In that case it'd be a win-win scenario!"
"Except you're the only one winning."
Nino grinned and leaned in, resting his elbows on Sho's desk. "Don’t pretend you don’t like it. You love watching me eat."
“I do,” Sho said miserably.
“This isn’t about money or food, Sho-chan. But it does involve gambling, kind of.”
Sho sighed, but obligingly put away his book. "Well. I appreciate your honesty, at least. Tell me that Aiba doesn't need bailing out of jail again."
"Our dearest Aiba-chan is fit as a fiddle," said Nino. "In fact, this whole thing was practically his idea the first place."
"What was?"
Nino waved him closer, hand cupped around his mouth, as if divulging deep secrets. "I'm going to win a pro-bending tournament."
Sho burst out laughing. Then he hushed himself, looking around guiltily. Not that it mattered. Sho's job as librarian was pretty much one of the most isolated in the city. Around this time, right before the end of the work day, there wasn't another soul around besides the two of them. "You can't even bend!" Sho whispered.
"No I can't," said Nino, slapping a hand onto Sho's shoulder. "But you can."
Sho balked immediately. "No. No way. Thank you but no. I'm an earthbender, but I'm really not great at it. You've seen me, Nino."
"You can train!"
"I'd need to train for years to get to a pro-bending skill level."
"How about you train for weeks to get to a non-embarrassing skill level?"
Sho's frown took up his entire face.
"Who else is on the team?"
Nino hummed. "Oh, you know. Toma as the waterbender—"
"Well, he's decent enough, I suppose, but he's got his job at the market that—"
"And, as the firebender... Jun. Matsumoto."
Sho stared at him. "Is that your idea of a joke?"
"It is, but I'm serious about it too."
"Matsumoto Jun, the son of the Republic's biggest textile merchant, whose family were known Equalist sympathizers last year? The one that you were dating on and off a few months ago? The one who hates bending? That Jun?"
"We weren't on-and-off dating," Nino scowls.
"That's the issue you're choosing to focus on out of everything I said?"
"Technically, he said he didn't want anything to do with us, but I'm pretty sure he'll come around."
"What us? You're already grouping me in with your madness? I don't even know where to start with you! Everything you're saying is up for heavy contention! And you're bringing up this whole stack of issues which each require due explanation in my silent library."
"Ah, but you actually haven't presented the key word to make me shut up."
Sho covered his face with his hands. "And what's that?"
For a moment, Nino almost pitied him. Poor Sho-chan, having to deal with people like Nino, who was inconsiderate and flippant when he should and did know better. Sho was an earthbender through and through, almost laughably typical in his ways: dependable, studious, dutiful… unimaginative. Was it Sho’s fault that he couldn’t keep up with the tornado-like personalities of Nino and Aiba, one of them prone to following his heart at the drop of a hat and the other with no loyalty to anything except money? Or was it Nino and Aiba’s fault for making friends with someone as dissimilar from them as Sho, never mind that they all got along like white on polar bear dog. Sho’s presence in Nino and Aiba’s lives obviously benefitted the latter two greatly, but the advantages on Sho’s side were less clear cut. Sho had grown up with the singular dream of joining the White Lotus Society, and to that study he devoted every spare moment of his day, when he wasn’t being dragged around town on stupid (yes, they were stupid) escapades (courtesy of Kazu and Masaki), which Sho always complained about, but never once bailed from. Perhaps it was just another mark of Sho’s earth-centred personality: once you put in the effort to shift his ingrained ways, it was even more difficult to convince him to change back. For better or worse, he would continue rolling down this path, like a steady boulder.
In any case, it meant that Nino always had an available patsy. The feeling of pity for Sho briefly intensified, then left as quickly with no trace.
“The word is no,” said Nino, smiling smugly. “No, Nino, I do not want to be part of your silly pro-bending team.”
Sho glared daggers at him. “No, I don’t want to be part of your crazy pro-bending team.”
Nino paused. “Wait, really?”
Sho let loose the most extravagantly deprecating sigh. “I don’t know why I always let myself get roped into these schemes of yours,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. Nino beamed.
“It’s because you love me. And because you’d be bored without me.”
Sho reached out to cuff Nino around the neck; Nino graciously let him.
---
3. OHNO
His sister had told him that he should be able to get at least 700 yuan for a pearl this size, and if he did his haggling right, maybe even 800. Ohno didn’t have much faith that he could haggle at all, but even 700 yuan would be more than enough to buy the things they needed back at home. The squid-whales’ migration to warmer climates had come earlier than expected this year and Ohno’s family hadn’t managed to catch any before they’d swam out of fishing waters; Ohno’s sister had had the good idea to go north to Republic City, the world’s industrial capital, to buy some metalwork to make up for the supplies they would’ve made out of squid-whale bone. Plus a few extras.
“Pots, pans, ooh, maybe one of those gas burners, Satoshi, if you can find one small enough to carry back. Knives! Hammers! A saw! I would love a saw!”
She’d written him a list. It was quite long. Ohno kept it in his pocket, next to his barter.
It’d taken him over two weeks on ship to sail to the Republic of Nations from the Southern Water Tribe Islands, and now, finally ashore, he was doing his best to find a reputable store in the marketplace that would give him a decent price for his pearl, the most expensive thing he'd ever possessed. Ohno had caught it himself – although he’d been aiming just for the lobster-clam at the time. The shiny, opalescent bead cushioned in the lobster-clam’s mouth had been the icing on the cake. He thought maybe, if there was some money left over, he could purchase a set of paints, or charcoal, or some high quality paper. Usually paper was shipped over from Earth Kingdom fishermen doing trade with his village, but Ohno always went for the larger packs of thin, coarser pages.
His stomach took the chance to emit a heavy, rumbling growl.
Okay, lunch first.
---
Across the street from where Ohno was enjoying his ramen, there was a market stall that was selling all manner of seafood. It’d attracted Ohno’s attention immediately because a lot of the fish that were on display differed from the species that frequented the ocean that surrounded Ohno’s village. Red-tailed pig-sharks, yellow- and white-spotted pickerel eels, the largest cat-tuna that Ohno had ever laid eyes on: he’d hung around the stall for almost a suspiciously long amount of time, but the young man serving the store hadn’t minded. He’d been busy serving other customers, but he’d tossed a wink to Ohno when Ohno waved goodbye without buying anything.
Now, while Ohno was slurping noodles at one of the restaurant’s outdoor tables, he was watching the fish stall again. There was a small man in a dirty overcoat and ill-fitting hat, who was arguing with the shopkeeper. The argument didn’t seem to be about fish.
“Toma, come on! I know you’d love to join,” the guy was saying.
“Yeah I would, but doesn’t change the fact that I can’t,” said the shopkeeper. Toma. “You can keep coming to ask me, but I won't change my mind. I’ve got the stall to take care of. Who’s going to sub for me if I’m always cutting out for practise?”
“Just pick someone off the street, who cares.”
“Hah, you’re funny. No can do, Nino. I’ll try to come by to watch your team play though, if you get me a free ticket.”
“Am I a free ticket dispenser?” Nino said, displeasure clearly marked across his face. “There won’t even be a team if you don’t join. I need a waterbender.”
Toma laughed. “Then just pick someone off the street, Manager-san.”
The guy named Nino grabbed a fish out of a water bucket and pretended to throw it at Toma.
Ohno watched the whole scene unfold with mild interest. The conversation sounded pretty exciting, though it was rather fast-paced for Ohno. He was so intent on keeping track of the snappy retorts between the two men that it wasn’t until a heavy shadow fell across his table did Ohno look up and see two other men were crowding his seat.
They were much larger and much meaner looking.
“Look what we got here, Ping," said one of them, with a bowler hat. “A Southern Water Tribe import. Wonder what he’s doing so far up north.”
“Seems to me that he’s taking advantage of our city’s hospitality, Yeung." He nudges Ohno’s foot. “Hey. Boy. You liking that ramen?”
Ohno said nothing.
“My friend asked you a question,” said Yeung.
“I paid for this food,” Ohno said, his jaw hardening.
“I’m sure you did! We didn’t say you didn’t! We were just curious what business you had up here, so far from your icebergs and snowmen. Usually, when we see Water Tribe folk fresh off the boat, it's because they have something valuable to trade."
"I'm poor, sorry," said Ohno.
"What a shame, what a shame," Ping tsked, shaking his head. "You're not a very good liar, are you, fella? Wasn't it you who down the street was asking people where the jewellery stalls in the district were located? Seems as if you've got some business with pearl buyers?"
Ohno stiffened.
"Just hand it over now, and we'll leave you alone to your delicious ramen."
Ohno's right hand slowly drifted to the lion-seal skin water pouch that he kept at his belt, but before he got the cap off, someone shouted, "Hey! Leave him alone!" and then Ohno was suddenly hit with a face full of water.
"Your aim sucks! You're not supposed to get the tourist too," shouted Nino, and Ohno caught sight of him and Toma by the seafood stall, an empty bucket in Nino's arms, and Toma with spheres of water surrounding his hands like gloves.
The two thugs turned slowly around. Both their backs were soaked through.
"You're picking the wrong guys to mess with," snarled Ping, as fire bloomed from his palms. Yeung cracked the knuckles on each hand and stretched out his hands, displaying sparks of lightning jumping spastically from finger to finger.
"Nino," Toma said warily, backing up a step. "Go get me some more water."
"You're not going anywhere," Ping said, and raised his arm. Simultaneously, Ohno uncapped his waist pouch and sent out a stream of water to freeze Ping's hands, just as Toma aimed a huge handful of water to quell Ping's fireball. Fire and water met with a loud, quick hiss, and water vapour exploded over all of them.
Yeung whipped back to Ohno, fury marring his face into an ugly grimace. "You're a waterbender too?"
Ohno called up all the water from his pouch, covering both his arms in a layer of liquid. "Looks that way."
With a kick of his foot, Ohno flipped his table up, and his bowl of ramen, though only the soup was left, flew into the air. Ohno waved his hand and it all came splashing down on Yeung's head.
"Hah!" Nino laughed. And then the fight really got started.
~
Well, Ohno was in deep trouble.
His first time in Republic City and he got caught in a street brawl that might've escalated horribly had not their attackers heard the faint swishing hum of the metalbending police's airships. Right before the police showed up, the five of them – Ohno's spontaneous allies included – had degenerated into an out-and-out fist fight, and though Ohno was never one for fighting, these guys were going to mug him either way, and worse, they interrupted his lunch. It felt kind of cool that neither Nino nor Toma were backing down, so Ohno didn't want to either. Toma was doing much more of the fighting than Nino, but Nino helped by having good aim with his bucket. But they weren't exactly tough guys to begin with; they'd all gotten a few hits on them when Ping and Yeung finally made their exit, cursing waterbenders the entire way.
It wasn't until Ohno had given his statement to the police that he'd checked his pocket and found it empty of pearl and paper. Whether they both got stolen by Ping after all, or they were merely lost in the scuffle then blown away to other parts of the city, Ohno had no idea. His entire person was waterlogged, the tips of his hair were singed, and his stomach was growling, unhappy that Ohno had sacrificed his soup to decorate someone's face.
He was very disappointed so far with his trip to Republic City.
And how was he expected to get home now? Ohno touched his chin, worried.
"Yo, you okay?"
Ohno turned. Nino was still crouched on the ground, leaning against the wall of the building Toma's stall jutted from. Toma had hurried back to work as soon as the police let them go, desperate to reorganize the fish that had been toppled during their fight. It left Ohno and Nino together, and the other was holding his side, where he'd gotten punched pretty hard – actually, it might have been Ohno who'd punched him. In the fray, it’d been hard to tell sometimes.
"Yeah," said Ohno.
"Because you just stood up and sat down twice in a row. You look pretty confused. Did they hit your head pretty hard back there?"
"No. Wait, yes. But I'm fine. I was just wondering," he paused. "I mean. I can't get home. They stole my pearl."
"Oh, right. That sucks. Sorry."
"I think my sister might yell at me for losing it."
Nino's eyes narrowed in what Ohno assumed was interest. "Just how much was that pearl worth?"
"I didn't get a chance to find out." He held out his index finger and thumb curled into a small circle. "it was about this big."
"Are you kidding me," said Nino in shock. "You're a complete moron. A pearl that size and you didn't have anywhere safer to put it?"
"Where else could I have put it?"
"Tied to your body or something! Stuffed in your sock! Or up your butt! Not in a pocket, where it could just fall out."
"Up my butt?" Ohno thought about that. Maybe that was why his sister had been so adamant that he carry a purse around with him, kept under his clothes. But Ohno had refused because it sounded itchy, and he was afraid he'd lose the purse too. Looking back on it, clearly he was a complete moron, but stuffing the pearl up his butt probably wouldn't have been the best solution either. Travelling on too-steady steamer ships always, ironically, swished up Ohno's stomach in seasickness.
"So, what," Nino said, and Ohno wondered for a second if it was okay to think of him as Nino, since they hadn't officially introduced each other yet. "You're stranded here until further notice? No money at all?"
"I can maybe buy two more meals, or a night's stay in a hostel. But not both," Ohno admitted.
"That's not nearly enough to cover a ride back to the Southern Islands, huh," Nino said, and Ohno shook his head no.
"Hm," Nino said, staggering to his feet and wincing as his back straightened. Ohno shifted, hands curling at his sides.
"I can heal that for you," he offered. "If we can get some clean water."
Nino looked surprised again. "You're a healer?"
"I can only do basic stuff."
"You're a great waterbender too, though."
Ohno titled his head. "Uh, thanks. It helps, when you like fishing. I love fishing."
Nino stared at him for a moment; Ohno waited, wondering if he said something weird and old-fashioned.
"What's your name, by the way?" Nino asked sharply.
"Ohno Satoshi."
"Oh-chan," repeated Nino firmly. "I'm Ninomiya Kazunari. How do you feel about pro-bending?"
---
4. SHO
He was a bit late arriving at Nino's place, but he'd lost track of time, so engrossed with the newest release of the periodicals chronicling Avatar Aang's life and the hidden influence of the White Lotus Society in the events of the Hundred Year War. Sho hardly had been able to put the book down, and when he checked the clock and saw it was nearly time for his first ever pro-bending practise, he ran over to Nino's neighbourhood with renewed appreciation of the city in which they all lived. The existence of Republic City was drenched in history, and Sho couldn't help but feel part of Avatar Aang's legacy, to reside in this place that he and Fire Lord Zuko created as an embodiment for peace of all races. He didn't want to take it for granted that he was born in a well-off family, a bender no less, and one that remained relatively untouched from the anti-bender rebellion the previous year, if only because (or so Sho hoped) there was a universal respect for purveyors of knowledge – because earthbender or not, scholar was Sho's real job, not bending. ...Or, equally possible, no one targeted him simply because no one thought of him.
Sometimes it was tough, being a librarian.
Maybe this was why he always wound up participating in Nino's scheme-of-the-week, because being trapped in a musty old library every day wasn't stimulating enough for him. Sho loved learning, but he liked going out with friends too; he liked physical exercise and he liked bending. Nino and Aiba were fun people, so whenever either of them slid into his library, either just to talk or to try to pull him into some insane idea that always ended up working against Sho with negative payoff, Sho would complain, ask for mercy, but find himself following along regardless. Those two were very skilled at keeping Sho's life interesting.
Which is why when Sho let himself into Nino's tiny apartment, he was only a little caught off guard at the scene he was met with.
Aiba was in the middle of the kitchen floor with an absurdly thick layer of ice covered his feet up to his kneecaps, and he was chiseling away at it with a hammer while Nino and a new person held burning candles against it to help it thaw.
They all turned to look at him as he entered.
"It's an experiment," said Aiba solemnly.
"Of course," said Sho.
---
"So, Ohno-kun," Sho started, slightly awkwardly, as Nino and Aiba argued over some sort of drawing freshly spread on the table in between. "How long have you been in Republic City?"
Ohno Satoshi, sitting placidly beside Sho with a cup of lukewarm tea, scratched his nose with a fingernail before answering. "Um. Maybe about a day? I got here this morning. I was on Billy the Buffalo Yak."
"You rode a buffalo-yak all the way from the Southern Water Islands? Up here? They can swim?"
Ohno stared at him. "No, it's a boat. It was the name of the ship."
"Oh. My mistake."
But Ohno just smiled. "That's okay. I make mistakes like that all the time."
"What are you doing in Republic City? Oh," Sho amended hastily, "if you don't mind me asking."
A shoulder rose up and down. "I was supposed to trade this pearl for some money, and buy some supplies for home. Then Nino and I got into some fight by this ramen restaurant and I lost the pearl. Then Nino said I could earn money if I joined his pro-bending team. He said he needed a waterbender because Toma was too stupid to understand the value of his plan. That's it. And," he added belatedly, after a pause, "buffalo-yaks can swim. They don't like to though."
"I see," Sho said dubiously. He got the feeling that Ohno wasn't big on elaboration.
Across the room, Nino and Aiba seemed to be finishing up their heated debate. "Okay, fine!" Nino snapped, crossing his arms. "We'll do it your way, Master Aiba."
"Yeah, that's right!" said Aiba triumphantly. "Trust me on this, Nino, I definitely know what I'm doing."
"That's what you said about the ice boots and that led to the flooding of my kitchen floor!"
"I didn't know Oh-chan would be so strong!"
"You could have easily asked him to melt the ice for you!"
"But then the boots would be gone! Nino, seriously."
"You know what, we are going to stop talking about this now because I invited you over for your advice on fucking pro-bending, not on cold footwear. Sho-chan, Oh-chan," Nino waved them over, "come see the training regime Aiba and I made for you guys. Aiba even drew ugly pictures of stances."
Aiba looked like he had something to say to that but instead just glared at Nino as Nino revealed their illustrated project. Honestly, the drawings weren't half bad – at least by Sho's admittedly abysmal standards. But Sho's attention was immediately drawn by other things.
"Five hours of training a day?" he sputtered, pointing to a schedule written at the top of the paper. "Are you insane?"
"Look," Nino said. "The tournament registration date is in five days. There's a week of administration processing after that, then preliminary battles start for qualification in the top twenty-four teams. So depending on when our name is drawn out for our round, we might have to be in ready shape in eight days."
"Eight days?!"
"Eight days is doable, Sho-chan!" Aiba said, nodding vigorously, which put no doubt at all in Sho's mind whose original idea this was. "Some of the teams who register really suck; they just want to try to get experience, but they got knocked out really easily."
"But I assumed that we were exactly one of those sucky teams."
"Pfft, maybe we would have been with Toma," Nino said. "But Oh-chan here is practically a waterbending master! Aren't you, Oh-chan?"
Ohno shook his head. "Not really."
"Even if he were," Sho argued, "I'm certainly not that talented with earthbending!"
"You're good enough," said Nino, in what he must have thought was a reassuring voice. "That's the best kind of good, isn't it?"
"No! And aren't you guys overlooking the biggest issue here?"
"Well, Aiba and I have been trying to decide on a team name, and we made a list–"
"We don't have a firebender!" Sho interrupted. "Who's going to be the third of the team?"
Nino sucked in his lips. "Oh yeah. Where is Jun-kun, anyway?"
Probably at home, Sho wanted to say. At home, or working at one of his father's factories, or shopping, or at the park, or having dinner with his family, or any number of things that an attractive, wealthy young man could be doing in Republic City on an ordinary weeknight, because that's what Jun was. And maybe Matsumoto Jun was also a firebender, but was he also someone who would join the amateur "pro"-bending team of his ex-boyfriend (were he and Nino ever really boyfriends, even? Sho had no idea) under the guidance of a chemical genius who lacked common sense, a librarian who had no experience with the sport, and a newly immigrated Water Tribe bender who currently didn't have a single yuan on him? It seemed unlikely. There was also this gigantic problem that Nino seemed to have happily glossed over with minimal worry: the fact that Jun's family, owners of Matsumoto Textiles, despised pro-bending. The entire city knew about this since, after being bombarded too often with the question, Jun's uncle publicly declared that he was not willing to sponsor a team playing a game that, as he referred to it, "relied on a mishmash of barbaric combat methods and gaudy showmanship to celebrate a skill that played such a huge role in the City's unfair distribution of class wealth and privilege." The man certainly could express an opinion.
How on earth did Nino come across these people?
"He specifically told you he didn't want to join," Sho pointed out. "Maybe we should explore other avenues. We could put up ads. 'Firebending teammate wanted' or something similar."
Something was pulling down at the corners of Nino's mouth. "Maybe," he said. He looked irritated, not worried.
"And the team name?" asked Ohno.
With a flourish, Aiba pulled out a scroll of paper from his knapsack and unfurled it. "What are your opinions on gorilla-goats?"
"I find them large and terrifying, and I think their inherent aggressive nature to anyone but their owner seems unreasonably dangerous," said Sho.
"They're cute," said Ohno.
Aiba beamed. "Oh-chan, I think you're going to fit right in with us."
---
Sho had to admit it: when Nino said Ohno was actually a great waterbender, he wasn't kidding around. Ohno handled water like a magician handled coins: freezing techniques, whipping techniques, encasing techniques, Ohno could do it all – and looked amazing while doing it. It was like waterbending exploded Ohno out of his sleepy shell and exposed the miracle within. For him to show up to Republic City on the day that Nino was going to give up on badgering for Ikuta Toma's membership, and all but fall into Nino's waterbender-less lap, it was an incredible stroke of luck. Nino realized it and knew it too; he hadn't been able to take his eyes off Ohno all night.
Sho just wasn't sure if Nino was attracted to Ohno, or the potential Ohno brought for winning big in the pro-bending tournament.
Sho was in the middle of a few Aiba-supervised Rock Stances – questionable advice, seeing as how Aiba picked up all his knowledge of bending from sports magazines and his own imagination as he listened to matches on the radio – and they were both getting quite into it ("No, Sho-chan! You have to be the rock! Make the face of a rock!" "What the hell is that supposed to look like!") when there came a sharp rap at Nino's door, and after a pause in which no one made a move to answer it, the thin, elegant figure of Matsumoto Jun gracefully let himself inside.
"Hi, Jun-kun," said Aiba respectfully, but still eagerly.
Jun inclined his head. "Hello." He bore the pinched face of a man who was vastly conflicted about how life had brought him to this point.
"About time," muttered Nino. "You're late! That's something I won't tolerate again, as manager of the team."
The look Jun tossed over to him was truly blood-curdling. Sho wasn't even its target and he found himself resisting an impulse to take a step backwards.
"Maybe I'm not here to be on your team," he said.
"Please," said Nino. "Why else would you come?"
"Pay my respects for your loss of sanity, perhaps."
"Then you missed your chance; I lost that way back when I first started hanging out with you."
Jun laughed. Sho, unconsciously, breathed a sigh of relief. "Where can I put my coat?"
"Toss it anywhere," said Nino, whirling around to the rest of them who were mutely watching their banter. "So!" he said, clapping his hands together. "This is our team. Should we do some introductions?"
---
5. JUN
He should have known Nino would find some way to make him suffer. Never mind that it was Jun who was doing Nino a huge favour for joining his appallingly last-minute team, and it was Jun who was risking life and name to be even participating in the most widely publicized sporting events in the Republic of Nations – it was still, apparently, bad of Jun to arrive to team practise late (when Nino hadn't even explicitly sent word of a meeting time!), and therefore he had to work twice as hard to catch up to the other team members. It was why Jun was now drenched in sweat, panting like a pig-cow, while Nino ordered more push ups and firmly cemented himself on Jun's mental list of People I Will Kill One Day, with the addendum Slowly and Painfully.
"This is ridiculous!" Jun barked, heaving himself up to his knees. "I'm supposed to be practise firebending, not get acquainted with the floor of your apartment. We need to spar."
"Are you crazy? We're not doing any sparring in my apartment," Nino said. "Do you have any idea how much the damage would cost? Why do you think I haven't actually let Sho-chan bend anything?"
"Then find us an arena. We need to practise on an actual playing field."
Nino crossed his arms. "Hm. That's true. I hadn't thought of that."
"Nino, you idiot!" Aiba cried. "Arenas are booked months in advance! And now, with the tournament coming up, we're never going to find an empty slot!"
"How was I supposed to know that?" Nino said peevishly. "I only got into this dumb game last week."
Aiba scrambled across the room to whack Nino's head. "I could have done it! I could have booked us a spot but you didn't tell me!"
"I didn't tell you because I didn't know they'd all be booked up! Ow!"
Jun wanted to cover his face in his hands. What exactly was he hoping to accomplish here again? He must have been delusional. For some inexplicable reason, he'd convinced himself that it'd be worth it to come all this way to Nino's place to scope out Nino's team. A part of him had wondered if there was a team at all, or if it was some elaborate plan of Nino’s to seduce Jun back into his life – because, come on: no contact for months and then suddenly, hey come join my pro-bending team? Suspicious. Though being suspicious was practically Nino’s specialty. But real team or not, Jun hadn't intended to actually join it. He had better things to do with this time.
Well. That was partly a lie. Jun hadn't planned to join the team because he'd assumed that Nino would have found another firebender by now. And the thought of Nino spending excess amounts of time with a firebender that could have been Jun but wasn't had dug a sharp feeling into the crevices of Jun's stomach that Jun really hadn't cared for. He'd actually lost sleep over it. Once he woke up with the tips of his blankets singed with holes the size of Jun's fingertips. And it wasn't so much that Jun was envious of another firebender being with Nino, but that he'd be losing his own chance to be a legitimate firebender at all. Jun was envious of the freedom. The truth of the matter was that Jun enjoyed bending. Really and truly enjoyed it, but with his family being so staunchly anti-bender, he never had occasion to practise it growing up. He usually resorted to solo sessions in the dark of his factory office, after work hours, trying to keep his flames low and inconspicuous, but unsatisfactory was too mild a word to describe the experience. So when Nino had slithered into his office with that proposition gleaming on his curled lips, Jun had found it hard to ignore. Too hard by far. The fire inside him had lived a life of containment, and by age twenty-five, Jun was near desperate to burst it out with the full force of his body.
Jun hadn't planned to join the team because his responsibility and respect for his family held him back, but as soon as he'd stepped into Nino's place and saw two members of a team and not three, plus Nino looking exasperated at him as if he'd expected Jun to come all along... well. His brain had just clicked to "firebending, okay, yes" mode, like flipping a switch. They'd been waiting for him. Nino hadn't bothered looked for another firebender at all.
What that said about Nino's feelings towards Jun, Jun wasn't sure. It could be confidence in Jun -- or equally, it could be confidence in Jun's ability to play hypocrite.
"I've got the solution," Nino said loudly, grabbing Aiba's arm. "We'll go at night."
"What? But every arena will be locked—"
"So we'll break in. Easy as pie. Then we can practise for hours without interruption."
"I can't say I like this plan," Sho said.
"Let's vote," Nino said. "All in favour?" He raised his hand. He was the only one. "It's either this or nothing!"
Aiba exhaled a sound of pure frustration. "I can't believe you, Nino. You show no respect for the game at all! You're actually the worst."
"Yes," Sho added, "there are rules in place for a reason – what the, Aiba! You just said—"
Aiba winced but kept his hand in the air. "Yeah, I know, I know. But how else are we going to get to an arena on such short notice? It's bad, Sho-chan, but not having an arena to practise in is worse."
"No, no, we could get arrested for breaking and entering. I already sort of have a mark on my record–"
"Oh, that was wiped off and you know it," Nino said. "Stop worrying. How are we going to get caught? We'll clean up afterwards or whatever. It's just rock and water, honestly."
"If you'd look at this reasonably—" Sho paled. "Ohno-kun, you too?"
Ohno Satoshi – the one person Jun hadn't met before, and from his appearance alone, seemed a bit on the slow side – shrugged. "Well. It's a matter of giving us a chance in the tournament, isn't it? So I think it's worth it."
Nino grinned. "See! That's the kind of dedication we need. Good job, Oh-chan."
Jun frowned.
"Thanks," said Ohno.
"What do you think, Matsumoto-kun," Sho asked, turning to him, clearly hoping for Jun to inject a healthy dose of logic into the situation. "It's too reckless, isn't it?"
"It is," agreed Jun. Sho's shoulders slumped in relief. "But I think we should go for it." Sho's shoulders tensed again; he looked horrified. "When you think about it," Jun plowed on, "the biggest punishment they could give us is a fine. We're not destroying property or hurting anyone. And that's only if we do get caught. If we don't try, though, we could be the laughingstock of the tournament. If we're sure about entering the competition, we should take that seriously and try our hardest."
"We are though, right?" Aiba asked. "Sure about entering?"
Jun said carefully, "I suppose."
"Of course we are," butted in Nino. "I already paid our entrance fee." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red-stamped ticket.
Sho yelped. Jun sighed. Aiba's eyes bugged out. "Nino! When did you do that?"
"This afternoon. Oh-chan and I went to the registrar's office since we were downtown anyway. Before you ask, I'll pay you back the money once we start winning some games."
"I wasn't going to ask that! Wait -- you used my money? Nino!"
"For the greater good, Aiba-san. You can be team trainer and sponsor."
"Oh my god, this situation has spiralled away from me much faster than I was prepared for," moaned Sho, slumping down on Nino's bed, face in the blankets. He covered his head with a pillow and from underneath his voice drifted out, muffled and defeated. "I'm outvoted, okay, fine. Let's go break some bylaws, why not."
"That's the spirit," Nino said.
"Wait, wait a sec," Aiba said, eyes lighting up. "I thought of the perfect place."
---
The official pro-bending arena that sat by the harbour of Yue Bay across from Air Temple Island was a feat of modern ingenuity. With high, circular walls topped with a sea-green glass domed ceiling, and its circumference lined with beaming electric lights, it stood out as a bright jewel among the already colourful architecture of Republic City. At capacity it seated over 5,000 people, could withstand the battering of even the strongest pro-benders, and everything was always kept in impeccable working order, not a seat cushion or pulley wire out of place.
In comparison, the arena that Aiba led them to was a total hovel. It was tiny, and from the outside resembled a dirty box with cracked walls, lingering stagnantly at the edge of a huge metal waste dump. It was clear that the borders of the dump were originally much further away from the building, but over time and technological development, its size steadily grew until bent pipes and flat tires edged the side of the arena like shrubbery.
"I found it when I first came here scrounging for materials to use for experiments a while back," Aiba said proudly. "Neat, huh."
"It's pretty shitty," said Nino, in a tone Jun couldn't discern was approving or not.
"It's totally fine, though!" Aiba protested. "Neighbourhood kids come use it all the time! It only looks like crap because the custodian works like ten minutes a day. It's not his fault though; he has back problems. His name's Mayu. He's got a pet sparrowkeet, who's really mean, but Mayu is the nicest! I bet he wouldn't mind if we used his arena at night."
"It's not really him we have to report to, if someone calls the metalbending police on us," Sho said, eyes darting nervously to the towering hills of industrial scraps to their left. "We're basically sitting turtle-ducks here, do you guys realize that? Oi!"
Nino, Aiba, and Ohno had already hurried to the front doors. Aiba and Nino gave a few tugs on the handles, which gave way a little, but not enough to open. There was a padlock that clipped together a steel chain hung across the two door handles, and Nino quickly bent down to it, fingers fiddling with its shape, and something long and sharp flashed within his palm.
"Are those lock picks?" Jun asked incredulously.
"Don't give me that uppity moral face," Nino said, sticking two tiny prongs into the keyhole of the padlock. "I've never actually stolen anything like this. I had to learn it for survival for all the times that Aiba came home from work first and locked me out accidentally because we could only manage to keep one set of keys. If this guy starts snoring, he's deaf to everything. So I was either doomed to spend the night in the hallway, or force my way into the apartment."
Aiba looked apologetic, but he didn't deny it. "Whoops?"
"Your life is truly a model for all of us to aspire to, Nino," Jun said sarcastically.
"Don't flatter yourself," Nino smirked. He concentrated on the lock for a minute or more, then something clicked loudly, and the shackle of the lock popped open. "Ta-dah!" Another set of tugs on the rust-lined doors yielded passage inside the building, which didn't remind Jun so much of entering in a pro-bending arena as a damp, dank-smelling, lightless cave.
Inside, Aiba fumbled around the walls, hands swinging out blindly, until he found the light switch. With a grunt of effort, he lifted up the comically large switch, and the electricity overhead flickered into being, bathing the whole arena in a wan yellow.
Everyone stared.
"Where's the pool?" asked Sho.
"What do you mean," said Aiba. He pointed to the centre of the room, where most of the floor was covered with a shallow layer of murky water. "It's right there! Surrounding the arena ring."
"It looks less than a metre deep."
Aiba laughed nervously. "Okay, so I forgot to mention that maybe this place used to be a cat-fish breeding house or something? But look, look! Arena, stone tablets, a little bit of water—" he thrust out his arms. "We've got everything we need!"
Nino must have caught some displeased expression on Jun's face because he nudged Jun's side with an elbow, and said, "Beggars can't be choosers, Jun-pon."
"This could have all been avoided if you'd actually done a proper job as manager," said Jun.
"There's a learning curve, okay," Nino grumbled, and walked over to Ohno. "How do you like it, Oh-chan? Sorry there's barely any water."
Ohno said, "It's fine, I think. We're lucky Aiba-chan found this place."
"We're lucky I found you too!" Nino said, and Jun felt his gut give a strange, jolting lurch.
Abruptly, he thrust out a fist and expelled a huge fireball into the air in front of him, scorching hot; it was propelled with enough strength to hit the concrete wall at the opposite end of the arena, where the flames melted away into smoke.
"It'll do," Jun said. "Everyone into the ring."
Part 2
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READING +_+
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