Chapter Text
Korra muttered a string of curses under her breath as she picked her way through the crowded library on the hunt for a free table. There were students sitting five to a table, elbows pinched in and necks craning towards laptops and textbooks; half of the floorspace was taken by freshmen camped out and five pages away from nervous breakdowns. How did people even get tables around finals? Two and a half years into her college education and she still hadn’t figured that part out.
After stalking through the entire library, she gave up and made her way across campus, swerving into every library in search for a place to study. She dug her phone out of her bag and shot an annoyed text off to Bolin as she circled around to the engineering library in a last attempt to find a quiet table to study at.
i hate you for not making me start studying sooner
Her phone buzzed cheerfully as she weaved through the engineering library.
NOT MY FAULT :)
“Bastard,” she mumbled at her phone. No less than four over-caffeinated engineering students jerked their heads up like whack-a-moles to glare at her for the sound, and she dove around a corner into the stacks to avoid them.
There. A table. An empty table. A huge, untainted, unclaimed, table. Korra stared at it, frozen for a short moment in her disbelief. A day before finals started and, somehow, there was an entire huge table in the engineering library with no one sitting at it.
Glancing over her shoulder, Korra tiptoed towards the empty table. The whack-a-moles would want to confiscate the table for themselves if they knew about it.
With a content smile, Korra settled down at the table, patting it fondly. She dug her textbooks out and shoved earplugs into her ears, propped her feet up on the table and book onto her legs, and resigned herself to cramming an entire semester’s worth of sociology class into 24 hours.
Two hours passed peacefully enough, right up until someone yanked her feet off the table. Korra flailed in her chair, powering it back down onto four legs before she tipped over and almost upending the entire table in the process.
“What in the--”
A girl was glaring down at her, arms folded over her chest and an unnecessarily enormous stack of books sitting on the other chair beside her.
“What the hell?” Korra half-shouted. She yanked her earplugs out, gearing up for a fight, and--
“This is my table,” the other girl said. Even with Korra standing at full height, the other girl was still glaring down at her and wow, was she unfairly pretty and intimidating and--
“It’s a table,” Korra threw back at her, the need to keep her grades up to keep swimming overpowering the fluttery twinge low in her stomach. “A table that was empty until I got here.”
“I’ve used this table every day for four years!”
“That doesn’t make it yours and it sure as hell doesn’t give you the right to try and throw me on the floor!”
“It’s my table and you didn’t hear me the first four times I tried to get you to leave.”
“I had earplugs in! And you still don’t get to--” Korra ground her teeth together, clenching her fists and glaring at the clock. “Look, can’t we just share, uh-- whatever your name is?”
“Asami,” she said, short and tight. “And you’re the swimming prodigy jock that no one will ever shut up about. And no. I need the space.” She waved a sheaf of rolled up blueprints in front of Korra’s face impatiently; the
“I don’t need a ton of space,” Korra said with a sigh. “I just need a little bit. And I have a final tomorrow at eight and I’m so far behind and I really--”
“If I say yes will you be quiet?” Asami interrupted. “You’re not the only one who has something to finish before tomorrow.”
“Quiet as a mouse,” Korra said with a smirk. “A mouse who only needs a tiny little bit of tablespace to take notes and--”
Asami had already slipped a pair of headphones over her ears and was unrolling her blueprints onto the table.
“Nice to meet you, too, prissy hot girl,” Korra mumbled as she replaced her earplugs.
Another hour passed, and Korra’s eyes were starting to droop shut. She glanced over to where Asami was-- doing something with a calculator and a ruler and who knows what else. With a yawn, Korra marked her space in the book and set it on the floor, standing up to stretch. Asami didn’t notice.
Digging her wallet out of her bag, Korra paused and opened her mouth to ask Asami if she wanted coffee; as she did, Asami muttered a curse and violently scratched out whatever she had just written.
Korra edged away from the table silently, leaving Asami to her frustrations.
“Hey,” Korra said, kicking the table lightly. “Crankypants. Come up for air.”
“What do you--” Asami’s head snapped up to glare at Korra and she yanked her headphones down around her neck before she cut herself off, her brow furrowing at the coffee Korra was holding out to her. “What’s that?”
“It’s a giraffe,” Korra said flatly. “What does it look like? Take two minutes before you break the table with your angry writing and drink some coffee.”
“Oh,” Asami said. “I-- thank you.” She took the coffee apprehensively and sighed at the warmth leaking out of it. “Do you have--”
Korra pulled a handful of sugar packets and creamers out of her sweatpants pocket, presenting them to Asami with a smirk.
“Thank you,” Asami mumbled again. She set to mixing the cream and sugar into her coffee, biting down on the corner of her lip as she avoided looking at Korra.
“So,” Korra said conversationally. “Five minute break. So you don’t end up killing the table in a violent manner, since I happen to need it.”
Asami blushed, slight but noticeable, and she flashed a small smile across the table at Korra. “Sorry about-- well, you know.”
“It’s cool,” Korra said with a shrug. “You’re pretty scary, but not as scary as the swim coach. And everyone’s on edge now. Finals, you know?”
“Right,” Asami murmured. “Does the team not have its own place to study or something?”
Korra shrugged again, blowing on her coffee. “Yeah, kinda, but it’s impossible to concentrate when you have thirty jocks hanging around the room. Even if they’re all studying, it’s just--way too much going on.”
“Hence the earplugs?”
Korra grinned broadly, snapping her fingers into a gun and pointing at Asami. “Bingo.”
“I’m sorry I called you a dumb jock,” Asami said suddenly.
“Technically you called me a swimming prodigy jock, which isn’t so bad,” Korra said. Her grin tilted to one side, going lopsided, and Asami rubbed a hand over her eyes, fiddling with her coffee cup with the other.
“Yeah, well-- sorry anyways. For the implication.”
“Well, you can make it up to me if you want,” Korra said, grin still in place. “Since this is your table and all that, how about you let me study here through the end of finals? I promise I won’t bring any weird gigantic blueprints to compete for table space.”
“Are you sure you want to share a table with me and my angry writing?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay,” Asami said. She leaned across the table, holding her hand out, and Korra shook it firmly. “Deal. And I’ll buy the coffee next time.”
“Score,” Korra said. She flopped back into her chair and dug her earplugs out of her backpack once more. Popping one in, she paused and raised her coffee cup towards Asami. “To finals.”
“Right,” Asami said, mirroring her salute. She watched as Korra settled more comfortably in her chair, earplugs in and highlighter between her teeth, for a few seconds longer than was actually necessary before she pulled her headphones back up over her ears.