I've been stuck in the valley of constant motion

[mortemscintilla]

 WHO: Yin & Hei
WHAT: Yet more awkwardz.

[ Hei doesn't do well with stagnation. But it's something he's been able to sideline during his time here. ]

[ Too much else to focus on: settling in, acclimating himself to the environment, learning the languages, absorbing the culture. In the beginning, he and Yin might as well be living in different cities. With the segregated domiciles at Air Temple Island, glimpses of her are few and far in between. Even then, their timings are so off that they might as well have dropped into different orbits. During the days he does chores at the island. During the nights, he works late shifts at the factories -- one of the many 'lightning-benders' trying to earn quick cash by supplying energy to the city. Commuting to there from his narrow dwellings at the island, it's possible to go for weeks without meeting Yin anywhere. Most of the times he sees her is between errands: when he's stretching out the sheets with raw-knuckled hands after a wash, bustling gleaming-faced in the steam and clamor of the kitchen, swabbing floors, doing scut work. (Perhaps if he washes and dries a million sheets and dirty dishes, whips up a million meals, he will finally make amends to Tenzin for his original crime -- sleeping with the Avatar). ]

[ Even so, at odd moments, something simmers through him -- a low-level restlessness. It's that feeling of not waiting but being on the precipice of something. (It's not nerves, it's not anxiety; it's aimlessness. He supposes everybody feels unprepared when they don't know where they're going.) He wants to see Yin. To have more than a desultory chat with her -- preferably when not peeling fruits to feed to the flying lemurs as part of his evening duties. This was not quite what he'd intended, when he'd chosen Korra over her. But that seems -- in Yin's silence, her coolness -- to be how she took it. ]

[ A fortnight remains before he departs from Air Temple Island -- to explore the territories beyond Republic City, and gain a better understanding of this new world. For that, it's necessary to see Yin. Whatever the rift between them, they're still teammates. And her safety is still one of his main priorities. ]

[ The evening sky darkens from pink to a pale purple as he approaches her spot -- a pool fringed with weeping willows. His shadow stretches in a long black slash, and his footsteps are cat-quiet. Even so, he's sure Yin will know he's there. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ How strange, that with Korra, this conversation might have veered sideways like a train sliding off its tracks. Devolving into a chaos of self-doubt, suspicion, recriminations, reassurances, and ultimately culminating into a messy quickie behind some alleyway, or in a tacky motel, because physicality is the best way they knit themselves together. Speech always threatens to fall askew. It's not the same with Yin. Her eyes glint a semaphore of patience and clarity, and he accepts her words as fact. Dimly, it makes him realize -- you can't have it all in a relationship. Constancy and trust versus the ability to thrill and stimulate -- these rarely dwell within the same person. So you take the best of what you can reasonably expect, make your choice and hold to it. It's why he'd been at a crossroads between Yin and Korra -- and why he'd ultimately chosen what he did. ]

[ After a beat, he reaches out. Touches her shoulder, just a light skim of fingertips. But his expression shutters into something honest, almost an intangible olive branch. ]

We're also friends.

[ As if that needs clarifying. (Perhaps it does. Neither of them are the type, after all. Or a better descriptor would be -- neither of them were the type. These days ... it's all too easy to wrench free from the formulaic prisons that once outlined their lives. Dolls don't feel. Contractors are always rational.) ]

[moonlitrequiem]

[ Friends. ]

[ It's something precious and rare, but the word gives Yin an unintentional pang. She turns away, eyes burning. What Hei mistook as upset with him was simple hurt. ]

[ Yin musters a nod of her head, not wanting to throw away his attempt. She has to reach back, because while it might cause pain, she wants to remain friends. It's what she wanted from the beginning, but was too inexperienced, too repressed to understand the outcome. ]

Friends. [ She repeats it in a small voice, but at least looks back at him when her eyes are dry. But she has to pull back again. Everything has to shut down again. It's the only way her mind can keep functioning in the way she feels is expected of her. ]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She turns her face away, and there's something in Hei's gaze, sparking dim but soft, before it fades. He's too well-trained not to read the distress she's telegraphing. Subtle as Yin is about these things, he knows her too well -- her moods, her kinetics, the shimmering flux of sub-rosa distress under her skin, as if she's caught between a wash of emotion and the instinct to impede the flood. He's been in that position before. Not often, because as a matter of basic survival he's developed a professional detachment to the frailties, grotesqueries, and fateful idiosyncrasies affecting the human psyche. Emotional scar tissue. That doesn't, however, mean he's impervious to its ache. ]

[ His palm rests a moment longer on her shoulder, fingers warm and light against the delicate slope. It's both steadying and comforting -- an implicit Yes. Friends. I promise -- without his having to say anything at all. He glances away then, and the glowing streetlights and multicolored blurs of traffic play geometric patterns across his profile. ]

[ When he speaks, the tone is businesslike again, but there's still a warmth at the fringes, ]

There's a flat not far from here. I'm planning to rent two rooms there. You not under obligation to move there if you're comfortable on Air Temple Island. But when you're in Republic City, think of it as a safehouse.

[ Granted, this new world is less dangerous than their own. But that's no reason to abandon precautions and contingencies. ]

[moonlitrequiem]

[It's a position she was hardly ever in, especially before the City. It's presence should be more alarming, but once it has passed she cares too little to consider that fact. Her expression is calmer, closed.]

[Yin takes in everything he says without comment, but even she understands this means Hei still intends to keep her in his life. She's still a part of it. For now, she's content to stay on Air Temple Island, but maybe later she will find a use for this flat, other than just a safe house.]