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Monday. The bane of anyone's week, regardless of what you do. There is simply no joy to be held in waking up early, having to rush through a tasteless breakfast and getting dressed in stiff clothes before setting off into heavy traffic to get to a voluntary prison. But that was just Korra's interpretation.
She sighed when her alarm went off, and slammed on the clock to shut it down. Doing with all the grace and elegance of a 300-pound ballerina had cost her the snooze function two months ago, and would probably cost her the rest of the clock in the not too distant future.
Korra dressed herself in her only decent pair of jeans, a black Modern Warfare 3 T-shirt, and made sure to cover it with a grey hoodie, which had an unerasable stain in it, but she didn't care. Nobody did. Korra had always been a bit of a loner, and this made her an easy target in elementary. She had been bullied quite a lot, but when she went to middle school, where her classmates simply ignored her.
With no social circle to speak of while at school, Korra had procured herself a radiator near the gymnasiums, where no one would bother her.
Monday always started out with maths. What kind of planning is that? Everyone is already struggling to stay awake, and now I'm forced to sit through an hour of not wondering why anyone would spend a day rolling a dice twelve hundred times.
Next was history. They were discussing the circumstances that led to World War II, something that Korra already knew inside out. Not only that, but half of her class were such unbelievable half-wits that they only covered about half of Hitler's rise to power, stopping at the time he became Reichschancellor of Germany, in an hour. Are you fucking kidding me? Any semi-decent documentary can cover this in a third the time we've taken today! Even if World War II was Korra's speciality, this cannot be reasonably justified.
In the break, Korra made for her radiator, leaning against it, a nice source of heat. Winter does have its upsides. She was about to put on some music, when a familiar voice broke her train of thoughts.
"Hey Korra. Fancy seeing you here."
This is not fucking happening. "Asami?"
"You know what they say:" Here we go. "It's a small world after all."
"Ugh, I can't stand that song. Once you get it in your head, you're guaranteed that it will never leave." Korra said, faking annoyance.
Asami smiled. "You think you can move over a little?"
"Sure." Korra moved over, and Asami sat down, but the radiator was smaller than she thought. Asami had dressed herself with an immaculate fashion sense, with black skinny jeans, a different pair of boots, nonetheless very good looking, and a dark grey cardigan pulled over a burgundy blouse. Damn. Those jeans really bring out her ass - Wait, why do I keep having those thoughts?! They sat there, stiff against each other, and Korra was sure that if her skin tone wasn't naturally dark, she would be red as a tomato. Thank fuck for that. The heat was racing through her cheeks, almost impossible to miss. But Asami didn't mention it. Instead, she found a subject Korra was even less inclined to talk about.
"So why are you all alone here?"
"Guess." You. Giant. Fucking. Retard. One person in the whole world actually tries to talk to you and you shoot her down.
Asami was hesitating, probably regretting asking that question so bluntly, so Korra silenced her before she could say anything.
"I've never really had anyone to hang out with, and you know, after a while, it just stopped bothering me. So I just procured this fine radiator and everyone else stopped caring as well."
Asami didn't expect a response like that, and let it sink in for a while.
Korra, not really feeling like this subject, decided to try and act like a human being again. "So how'd your date with Mako go?"
She looked a little bit surprised. "He told you about that?"
"We've been friends for years, he tells me pretty much everything. Goes both ways." It was true. She probably told Mako more than she told her parents. Of course, this was because he wasn't judgemental about anything.
"Ah, well, it was actually pretty nice. He's a nice guy. Took me out for a drink and we just really hit it off."
"That's... great." Way to seem genuine, dumbass.
Asami noted her doubt. "You alright with this? I mean, I'd hate to come between friends."
Korra immediately backtracked. "No, no, it's not that." She fell silent for a little while. Why did I even say that? "It's great that you liked it so much," she lied through her teeth.
Another brief silence fell. Asami tried a different path. "Say, Korra, could you tell me something?"
"What?"
"Where I can find my next classroom. I'm up for that later on, and I only just made physics in time. I could follow some people afterwards, but I don't know where anything is. I was wandering around, deciding to use my time productively when I ran into you."
Korra couldn't help a small grin at Asami's methods. "Sure. Come on, bell's going to go any minute now, I'll show you the basics of the lay-out."
They walked through the building for a couple of minutes, Korra explained how the system worked. She never really thought about it, but now that she did, it was actually kind of clever. Five "wings", lettered A through E, floors listed with a hundred number, and the individual rooms numbered with a two digit number.
"So that's how the rooms work. Where's your next class?"
Asami quickly flicked through her phone, pulling up her schedule. "A212, HST, CHO."
"That means you have Chou for history, in the A-wing, second floor, room 12. Tough luck, he's an asshole."
Asami's face fell a little. "Really? Is he at least good at teaching?"
Korra shook her head, feeling almost bad for Asami. "Hate to disappoint you, but no. I have him too, that guy can fuck up telling you who won World War 2. Completely incompetent as far as teachers go."
Asami was about to tell her something, but was stopped by the bell. Korra knew she had to go. "Asami, I'm really sorry, but I can't be late for economics, otherwise I'm in trouble."
The Sato nodded understandingly. "You go, I'll find you again later on."
Korra went off to her class, followed by an hour of French, but found herself unable to concentrate on either subject. As soon as the bell indicating lunch rang, Korra went back to "her" radiator, and Asami soon found her again, just like she said.
-"Gotta hand it to you Korra, you were right."
"'Bout what?"
-"Chou. How that guy ended up in front of a class is a mystery to me."
Korra smiled. "Doesn't take long to figure that out, does it?"
-"No it does not."
It feel silent for a little while. Then Korra remembered that Asami wanted to say something in the last break. "Asami, right before the bell went, you wanted to tell me something, what was it?"
-"Well it's just that, I'm hopeless at history. Had to find myself a tutor in LA, and I'll think I have to do the same here, but I'll see how it goes for now."
"Ah."
They spent the rest of the break talking about nothing much, until the bell rang again. After two more hours of biology and PE, Korra made her usual beeline for her car, and it wasn't until she was home that she realised she didn't wait for Asami. Must be a force of habit. Regardless, Korra felt kind of guilty about it. Gotta apologize for that tomorrow. She spent her free time with your sorry ass and you're not exactly being grateful about it.
Korra sighed, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She just decided to do her homework, play some Call of Duty, eat dinner and go to bed.
The following week went roughly the same. Korra noticed just how... nice it was to have someone to hang out with. Tennis practice on Saturday morning consisted of more fun than Korra had in every lesson before combined, mostly because she actually had someone she got along with. Right before practice was over, Asami stopped Korra from making another mad dash for home.
-"Korra, got a minute?"
"Sure."
-"Good! Then we're staying for a drink."
Damn. She's good. "Really? Do I have to?" Korra groaned.
-"Yes you do, I have a proposition for you. You'll want to hear this."
They walked to the cantine, and sat down, where Korra made sure to avoid Adi, Umi and Ula. Asami bought them both a cup of tea and sat down across from Korra.
"What was this proposition?"
-"You remember how I told you I'd probably need a tutor for history?"
"Yeah..." Korra had a sneaking suspicion where this was going, but didn't say it out loud just yet.
-"I'd like to ask you to do it."
On the one hand, she was surprised, but on the other, she wasn't really. "Me? What would you want me for?"
Asami smiled. "Well, you've told and showed me that you have a knack for history, and I've had multiple tutors in the past and liked none of them."
"Doesn't really make me a qualified tutor."
Asami brushed this comment off, much to Korra's surprise. "Look, I'm not asking you to make me the greatest historian of all time. I just need to pass my exams. That means I have to master World War II and the Civil War before June, but I'm not going to be able to do that on my own. I'll pay you properly, if we can make it work."
"I have something of a job, I wouldn't do it for money."
-"And I'm a Sato, I don't need handouts."
Korra thought for a while. Weighing the pros against the cons wasn't much of an issue, since there were no real cons. Helping out a friend with something she could do in her sleep sounds appealing to say the least. Plus, the money's good, the hours are flexible and it's always dry. Why not?
"Sure. I can give it a shot."
Asami flared up at this. "Thank you. I really appreciate this. Like you said, Chou is an absolute mess, so I'm basically in your hands."
Korra wasn't that enthusiastic. "Whoa there, before you get too excited, World War II is something of a specialty to me, but the Civil War is pretty vague to me as well. I can't promise you anything on that. A bunch of racist jackasses shooting each other over slavery."
Asami smiled. "You're being sarcastic here. That's my entire knowledge of the Civil War."
Korra laughed. "Looks like I have my work cut out for me then."
They sat there for a little while, but Korra didn't bring any spare clothes, and soon found it too cold to go saty any longer. Quite satisfied with her choice, she drove home to a warm shower and a lazy Saturday afternoon.
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