fuse_box | The good that I want, I do not do

WHO: Korra, Bolin & Hei
WHAT: Wherein Bolin gets into a pickle, and Korra learns the exact nature of Hei's 'work.'

[ Walking on his way to work -- his real work, not his factory-shift -- Hei buys a warm steamed-bun from a street vendor, enjoying the salty grease and hot dough. The sky is darkening, a filigree of dirty purple on the horizon. The lilac-gray cloudbanks remind him of a recurring dream in which skulls rain down from the sky like hailstones, millions of gleaming skulls covering him in a clattering drift of smooth bone and teeth. What's most puzzling is that the dream never disturbs him, as he imagines it would most people. At nights, sometimes, he closes his eyes wondering, with a sort of wistful curiosity, if it will come to him as he sleeps. ]

[ Crossing a warren of sooty alleyways, he feels the weight from the blades strapped under his clothes: an old Spyderco Clipit nestled in his front right pocket and his favored La Griffe with its two-inch spear point blade around his neck inside the shirt. The cold pommel nuzzles at him like an old lover. It's nothing to be proud of. Any fool can carry a knife. But it's a bigger fool who goes unarmed to jobs like his. ]

[ Funny, how he'd come to Republic City hoping for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do. That said, he can't say he's ever seen a place with a less honest look about it than this one. A deserted building. Heavy door and dirty bare windows. A dead juniper bonsai rests at the entrance. The sign reads: Moon-Queen. It's one of the newest Republic City phenomenon: the opposite of a tanning salon. Some young wife-to-be suffering from acne spots or sunburn? No problem. Fifteen minutes on a special bed, bombarded with whorls of therapeutic water-bending, and she's a dead-ringer for the Corpse Bride. The store is a front: drugs, guns, and stolen merchandise are hustled out the back. Half the beds aren't even plugged in. The others are actually tanning chambers. ]

[ One of Hei's contacts sits behind the reception desk. A posterboy for a bleaching salon: fat and fortyish, pale and hairless as a skinned lychee. He's a middle-tier triad guy, a pavement-pounder. He tracks high-ranking gangbangers, cons, cobblers, thieves and anyone too dangerous who winds up on the gang's blacklist -- an unhealthy list to be on. When Hei steps in, he nods, jerking his chin toward the back door. While Hei heads down the hallway, the man slouches to the door and, to the utter dismay of all albinism-worshipping females in the area, turns the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. ]

[ The parlor room walls, ceiling, and floor are draped in transparent plastic. One tanning bed rests at the corner, white with the dimensions of a coffin. Beside it, shackled to a chair and gagged tight, is Hei's target for the night. A rich kid: male, early twenties, working on some patchy facial hair that blooms in dark thatches at his chin and cheek. Hei's seen him in the line-up at clubs, wolf-whistling at girls from his fancy satomobile and slumming it up in seedy brothels. Not him exactly, but he looks like a thousand other guys in this city -- a type. ]

[ Not that it matters. All he is, to Hei, is a conduit for information on Bolin's whereabouts. And it's Hei's job to extract it -- a task which he's already proven, among all the triads whom he freelances for, to be chillingly proficient at. Not a very glamorous job, sure. But at least the pay is good. ]

[ Slowly, he slips out of his coat. Rich Boy watches him, his eyes a cloudy brown. His face is a mask of defiance but around the edges, like a corona of light silhouetting a solar eclipse, he sees fear. Good. Hopefully the extraction won't drag on tediously. He's hoping to leave early. Retrieve Bolin, get some groceries, head home, maybe surprise Korra with her favorite lychee-flavored mooncake when she gets back. A dully-domestic train of thought. But hey. The Black Reaper doesn't have to be a monster during his off-hours, too. ]

Threaded | Flat

[At some point, the door busts open. Wood screams in agony, splinters go flying, and hinges dangle, wondering what happened.]

WHERE'S BOLIN?!

[Let's rewind.

That morning, Hei had gone off to work, and Korra had gone to meet Jinora at one of the sights where the vines were at their worst. Jinora had volunteered to try and help Korra communicate better with the spirits and maybe figure out what was causing the vines to go out of control. But mid-morning, Mako had come running up, saying Bolin hadn't come home last night or shown up to the Fire Ferrets training session and nobody knew where he was. They'd split up to look for him, with Jinora using her ability to project her spirit to extend their search. The little girl's the one who heard some Triads talking about Bolin and gave Korra this location.

The door busting down part? Well, Korra doesn't handle worry particularly well, especially on little sleep. Her current mood, she's ready to level this entire place to the ground if that's what it takes to find her friend.]

[Korra doesn't come home that night. Ostensibly, she stays at Air Temple Island with Bolin, Mako, and Asami to make sure that Bolin is all right, and because Tenzin was furious when he found out she'd been attacked and hadn't gone to Lin. But she knows the real reason she doesn't want to go home: she doesn't want to face Hei, knowing what she now knows.

It was one thing to know about his past. It was one thing to know what he was capable of. But people can change. People can move beyond their pasts; people can resist the terrible things they're capable of. Hei is actively choosing to do evil. Nobody is forcing him. He's not a pawn of some larger, cruel organization. All the options in the world, and he's chosen to throw his lot in with the gangs, to torture and kill other people for money.

How is she supposed to live with that? She's the Avatar, and that is the exact opposite of everything she stands for.

She doesn't know the answer, but she can't hide forever. After breakfast the next morning, she reluctantly mounts Naga and heads for the house.]

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