Part One: Bolin

"Now you just push," Mako's fingers slip over slick, pink muscle, thumb at the pearl joint, tears of veins stuck to his fingers. There's a pop and a crack and the leg of the pig-sheep pulls out at an unnatural angle to lie flat. "And it falls. You try it."

Bolin doesn't immediately respond, and Mako looks up. His little brother is grimacing at the carcass before them, which they had only just begun to dress. He keeps twisting the twine around his fingers until the bound tips turn purple.

"Bo," Mako says, and his face snaps up to look at his older brother. "Give it a shot."

He hesitates and places the twine on the countertop. "But…it…"

"You know when you eat a pig-chicken wing, and you rip apart the bones?" Mako says, and Bolin's face turns a bit green. "It's the same thing."

"This is gross."

"No, it's nature, and I spent twenty yuans on this thing, and you're going to learn how to roast it whether you like it or not."

Bolin makes a sound like he's gagging, but his hands move to wrap around the leg, picking up the rectangular butcher's knife and pressing it against the taut skin of the joint. "You know I'll eat anything, bro, but actually seeing it is like…wrong. Like walking in on somebody in the shower or something."

Mako rolls his eyes and watches as the knife cuts through skin and muscle. Bolin places the knife on the counter and places his hands on the joint, elbows bent for leverage.

Mako leans forward and adjusts Bolin's thick fingers with his slimy ones.

"This is how all food starts out," Mako says. "You know why we leave the heads on fish and animals?"

"Because pig-sheep cheek is the best part of the meal, duh."

Pop, crack, and it's over. Bolin removes his hands and Mako nudges him out of the way, raising his knife.

"No," Mako says, and the knife whacks dully against the breastbone of the pig-sheep. Bolin makes more dramatic gagging sounds, and in retaliation, Mako throws more sounds and flare into splitting the ribcage. "To honor the life we're eating."

The words sound strange in Mako's eighteen year old mouth, far too wise and ancient for them sprout from his mind and slip down his tongue like dandelion seeds.

Mako kind of hopes his brother doesn't notice that he's speaking another language as he drops the knife and splays the carcass open by ripping the halves open to reveal freshly dead organs, all muddy browns and reds and purples, wet bones shining like ivory.

Bolin leans forward and looks inside with interest. "Mom said that, right?"

To keep his breath from hitching in his throat, Mako sighs. "Yup."

"And she taught you this, right?"

"Yeah."

Bolin laughs and forcefully bumps his head against Mako's shoulder, because his hands are slick from the meat and he knows Mako will throw a fit if he hugs him like that.

"Alright. I'll learn because you and Mom say I should."

Mako rolls his eyes just so they don't well with tears, because it's just a pig-sheep recipe, but he drops his head on top of Bolin's for a moment while he pulls out the heart.

"Good. Now help me with the stomach."

—-

Part Two: Asami

"Is there seriously nothing you won't eat?"

Mako thinks about Asami's question while he sniffs the canned coconut milk in his hand. It was five months past the expiration date, but it smelled ok, and he had no other options. He pulled off the rest of the tab lid and dumped it in, knowing Asami was too polite to say anything about it anyway.

"Jook," Mako says, and tosses the can into the trash. He steps away from the stove and points to the pot. "Watch that."

Asami's eyes widen and her head shakes. "Just watch, or…?"

He moves to the cutting board and goes back to splitting peanuts, which had been her job until she would rather learn real cooking, and Mako said he would cover it.

"Stir it," he says, and he hears a small huff behind him and he remembers he has to be on his best behavior. "Please."

"Much better," Asami chimes and he hears the wooden spoon softly scrape the bottom of the pan. He's in the middle of debating whether to cut the sweet potato, carrots, or chicken breast first when she speaks up again. "Why don't you like jook?"

Sweet potato goes in with the carrots, and he likes to cook the chicken outside of the curry, just in case he gets the timing off and doesn't want it to come out raw. He pushes the peanuts off to the side and slaps the chicken breast onto the bamboo cutting board before remembering onions.

"I've eaten it too much," Mako says, trying to brush off the conversation. "Did you remember those onions I -"

"In the bag on the table," she says. He pulls out one white onion and places it on the counter before cubing the chicken. "If you don't eat jook, then what do you eat when you're sick?"

"Anything?" Mako replies with a shrug. "I told you, I'm not a picky eater."

Asami sighs, as if fed up with him. "Look, this whole friendship thing isn't going to work unless you stop avoiding my questions and actually answer them."

Best behavior.

He looks up at the clock and sees that in twenty minutes, Korra and Bolin will arrive to his apartment with the Air Nomad desserts Pema makes to complete their meal. It's a short enough amount of time for them to get into a few details, and maybe she'll get the hint.

"For three years, all I could make, and all that we had to eat, was jook," Mako says. He pushes the cubed chicken off to the side and grabs the onion, cutting off the roots and top, peeling off the papery skin. "And when my parents were alive, we still didn't have much to eat, so we had it at least twice a week. Mondays and Wednesdays."

There's a quiet, tense moment where Mako slices the onion, and the curry starts to bubble in the pot, warm spices wafting through the air.

"Alright," Asami says, and that's it. He looks up and she's smiling, and maybe offering her cooking lessons to get their friendship right wasn't a bad idea after all. "It's turning yellow, is that supposed to happen?"

"Shit."

—-

Part Three: Korra

By now he's cooked her dozens of meals, but she says it one night when he's splitting open the belly of a fish with a whale bone knife her father gave him, chin on his shoulder to watch him work.

"You know, I can bend all four elements, but you can cook from all four nations," Korra says slowly. The fillet comes off and he flips it over, running his knife along the silver skin until it peels off. "How come?"

He takes care not to shrug to disrupt her chin, working with calm focus as he cuts the bony fish free of flaky meat. "I've worked in a lot of kitchens."

"So, training," she says, pressing her mouth and nose against the bare mound of his shoulder. "You trained. Like me."

"Well, I didn't so much have masters as much as I had to -"

"- Learn yourself?"

He nods. He picks up his knife and splices the vertebrae behind the head of the fish, separating it from the spine. He discards the rest and leaves the head, flipping it over for one moment to spread the gills apart. They look like feather lungs, and he reaches back, finds Korra's hand, and runs her finger along the red.

"In the Water Tribes, you save the head of every fish and cook it in a soup," he says, words he overheard years ago. "I like at least five heads in the recipe I know. They keep well in the freezer."

"My mom likes seven," Korra replies, smiling against his skin. "She says it's a lucky number."

He laughs lightly and stores the information away for the next time they visit her family, s
so he can try to impress her mother because he's only good at bending and cooking.

"The Fire Nation likes fish and seafood too," he says, reaching for the bottle of spiced, flavored oils she had purchased without even knowing what they were. Some of the finest flavors in all four nations, and Mako had to control his excitement when she handed them to him for the first time. "Since it's an island nation. They'd never admit it, but they steal some techniques from the Water Tribes. Like marinating fish before grilling it."

"Is that what you're doing?"

"Yup," he says, grabbing the waxy banana leaves and taking a handful of cooked rice in his palm, molding it into a rough rectangle to place in the green center. "But the banana leaf is something I stole from the central coast of the Earth Kingdom, where it's humid and tropical. They cook everything like this."

"That's a little boring."

Mako laughed and placed a fillet on the bed of rice. He guided Korra's hand again to wrap around the thin neck of an oil bottle, tipping the ruby red onto the fish. "It is. But I got really good at wrapping banana leaves."

"And Air Nomad?"

Mako sighs and stops the oils, and Korra places the bottle back on the counter herself. A round of lemon is placed on the top before wrapping.

"I was never very good at Air," he admits.

"Like me."

"Like you," he says, and both her hands slide under his so he can teach her to wrap the leaves. "But Pema said she'd teach me."

Korra laughs and kisses his shoulder, not really paying attention to the way their fingers fold and knot. "And the your training will be complete, and you can feed everyone in the world."

He laughs lightly and the small bundle of food is finished, and ready to be placed in the bamboo steamer. He has no interest in feeding the world; he's already taught Bolin, and Asami, but Korra will never learn because she's too busy. He'll cook for her.

"Alright. Now it's your turn to make one."

She groans and he laughs again, knowing full well he'll get a terrible meal, and for once, not caring.