AN: ASSKDJASASKD;SAJDK. THANKYOUALLSOFUCKINGMUCH. You don't even understand how much your feedback means to me, really! So here. Here's a follow up to Harmony. Just for you, you awesome people. XD

This might start out a tad slow, but please stick around until the end. I always tend to like (and for some reason write better) the endings of my stories better than the beginnings/middles.

Peace out, my fellow Makorrians~

A little past midnight, violent thunder had began to roar overhead like an angry beast in the sky; the occasional flash of lighting illuminating the night.

The majority of Republic City was fast asleep; thousands of minds caught in the land of dreams. But the lights still shone brightly from the probending arena. And in the training room, a different kind of storm was brewing.

"No, Korra, focus! You're still going about this all wrong. Your attacks need to be quicker and more brutal. Water bending might be about smooth, fluid movements outside of the arena, but if you take that long in the game, you'll be knocked out of zone three faster than you can say Fire Ferrets. Do it again."

"Okay, okay, Captain. I'm doing my best, you know! It's hard for me to get used to this!" She made sure to put the sarcastic emphasis on 'captain', letting him know just how displeased she really was.

Mako quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah. I can see that."

Clenching her fists so hard the knuckles turned white; she had to physically restrain herself from launching her next attack directly at his face.

Why does he always have to be so infuriating? No matter what she does, it's always wrong in his eyes. Never does he stop to consider actually helping her find a way to overcome her problems, no no, that would be too kind of him. He just yells, yells, insults her, and then yells some more.

She was going to end up pulling her hair out before they even made it to the championship tournament.

And to make things even worse, thanks to the incident that they had at the park last week, not only was he insulting her, but he was now doing it in an extremely cocky manner that made him even harder to deal with than usual. Everything would have been so much easier had she never gone for that walk.

Korra got back into her stance, reluctant but ready to attempt it again. She could feel him scrutinizing her every move, just waiting for something to pick on. And if anyone asked, her face suddenly became flushed at that moment because she was exerting herself; she was hot and sweaty, and that's what had created the warmth in her cheeks. It had nothing to do with the way he made her feel when his eyes raked over her body like that, she told herself. No, not at all.

After she threw a couple of attacks, and heard nothing out of the firebender, she began to think he was done ridiculing her for the day.

She thought too soon.

"No no no, now your aim is off. You're supposed to hit the target, in case you've forgotten."

Oh, she was gonna show him how good her aim was, alright. When she hit him smack in that pretty little—

"Hey guys!" Sensing the tension, Bolin's voice was hesitant as he poked his head into the training room. "I'm back home, now. Just thought I'd let you know. I'm gonna, uhh... go upstairs. So, umm... Good night!"

His head disappeared, only to reappear a second later. He looked back and forth from Mako to Korra, narrowing his eyes and adding, "And for the love of God, don't KILL each other while I'm gone!" Then he shut the door and disappeared for good.

There was a moment of silence as they listened to Bolin's retreating footsteps; eyes still on the empty space of air where his head had been. When silence overtook them once more, Mako's golden orbs snapped back to Korra. "Again."

It was going to be a long night.

Mako didn't get any less relentless as the night wore on. If anything, he got even harsher as he became groggy from lack of sleep.

"Do that one again, it looked sloppy."

"Well of course it did, Mako! I'm tired as hell! Doing this any longer isn't gonna make me any better! It's only going to get worse. Can't I just go to bed, now?" She could hear a pang of something similar to whining beginning to slip into her voice.

He was starting to get impatient. Being sleepy didn't help, either. "No. You can't keep missing practices just because you're the avatar. If you want to stay on the team, you need to make up for the time that you lost. Do it again."

She was sick of his attitude. She wasn't about to stand there and obey his every command if he was going to be such a damn jerk about everything.

"No."

Mako's eyebrows shot up."Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I'm done practicing for tonight, we can do it tomorrow if you want, but right now I'm going to bed. Whether you like it or not."

Neither of them moved an inch, and the silence was almost deafening as each bender's eyes remained menacingly locked on the other's.

Korra was the first to break it out of desperation. She was tired of practicing, tired of fighting with him, and just plain tired. "Come on, Mako. We're both exhausted, so let's just go to bed. We can do this in the morning." Her eyes were almost pleading with him now, though she wouldn't go quite that far. She would never beg.

His lips parted slightly as a harsh sigh passed through them, and she knew that she had won. "Fine," he said at last, "But you're continuing tomorrow."

"I will... Let's just get some sleep."

She gathered her bag from the floor while he did the same, and their footfalls were as heavy as their eyelids as they clambered to the door.

Korra grabbed the handle, but when she pulled, expecting the door to open and it didn't, her hand slid from the brass structure and collided with Mako's stomach as he stood behind her.

"Quit messing around," he scolded, "Open the door!"

"My hand slipped! Calm down, would ya?"

Impatient, he pushed by her, and she tried to ignore how close his body was to hers for a split second. The warmth crept back to her cheeks again, and she willed it to go away before he noticed. She really didn't want a rerun of what happened at the park. The thought made her shudder.

"What the hell?" He was tugging on the handle with every ounce of strength he could muster, to no avail. "It's locked! Don't tell me the cleaning crew locked up for the night without even knowing we were in here. Damn it, what are we supposed to do now?"

Mako was looking at her with his brow furrowed, and she could almost hear the gears turning in his mind. "It's not like we can just break down the door or burn it; it's steel. And too huge, anyway." He felt a headache coming on, and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Korra desperately wanted to tease him about this being karma for making her practice so hard and being such a jerk, but she was too exhausted to even think of a good insult.

So instead, she plopped her bag back down on the floor and retrieved her jacket from inside; folding it up and placing it on the ground to make a pillow.

"What, you're just gonna sleep, then?" Mako asked her almost incredulously as she settled down onto her makeshift bed.

"What else can we do? In the morning they'll unlock the door and we can get out, but for the night we're stuck in here. So yeah, I'm going to sleep." He had an odd expression on his face that Korra couldn't identify. She studied him, searching for a sign of the emotion he might be feeling; but as usual, there was none.

Though he seemed to have accepted her idea, because he made himself a pillow, too, and shut the large overhead lights off before he laid down quietly about five feet from her.

The darkness was nice, she thought, as she lay staring at the ceiling. Even though moonlight shone through the windows on the far side of the room, it made it much more difficult for her to see anything, including Mako. Which was a good thing. Because if she let herself think about the fact he was laying beside her in the same room, the blood might rush back to her face again. She tried to ignore him.

Korra let her eyelids flutter close, attempting to direct her thoughts away from anything that had to do with the firebender. It should be an easy task, because after all, she didn't care that he was such a jerk to her all the time. She didn't care that he pushed her too hard in practice. Hell, she didn't even care that he caught her staring at him in the park. Nope. She didn't care about him one bit, she reassured herself.

But then why was she still thinking about him?

She unwillingly let her mind replay the day's events. Including the way he insulted her and teased her while she tried to learn the more complicated aspects of probending. Even if she didn't care, which she didn't, he still didn't have to be so rude to her.

She couldn't control the sudden force of a single thought that made itself into words and flowed out of her mouth.

"Why do you hate me so much?"

She sensed, more than heard, him shift uncomfortably somewhere to her left. Following her outburst, dead air filled the darkened room for such an extended period of time, that she thought she was never going to get her answer.

But finally, his voice struck out; almost harsh although he was speaking softly.

"You..." He hesitated. She had never heard him hesitate like that before. "You think... that I hate you?" She almost thought she heard pain in his voice, but she must have been imagining things.

Still staring at the ceiling, hands folded over her stomach, Korra remained quiet. Partially because she thought silence would speak louder than words at that time, and partially because she wasn't sure if she'd even be able to talk. She didn't even intend to ask that question aloud, let alone face the answer.

Her eyes began to feel an unfamiliar stinging sensation, but she blinked it away as quickly as it came.

Beside her, she heard Mako let out a shaky breath that didn't quite qualify as a sigh. "I don't hate you, Korra." She wanted so badly to look over at him then, but forced her eyes to remain fixed ahead. "I know I might act like it sometimes, but I promise, I don't hate you... Not even close."

She couldn't help herself. She let her head drift to the side, and allowed her eyes to wash over him in all his moonlit beauty. He was truly breathtaking tonight, more than usual, with the soft light playing across the more hardened contours of his face. He was staring at the ceiling as she had been, and seemed intent on staying that way, even though he had to know she was staring; had to know how gorgeous he was. Especially right then.

She felt her cheeks heat up at this, and vaguely wondered if she had always been so prone to blushing. Or maybe it was just him that caused it... He always made her feel so different than she did around anyone else.

He didn't appear to want to say any more, and Korra didn't wish to add anything either. Who knows what might come out of her mouth while she was feeling like this. She inwardly cringed just thinking of the possibilities.

She shifted so she was facing the opposite direction, so she wouldn't be tempted to stare any longer. She knew it had to be late, well past midnight, and she had a long day of training ahead of her tomorrow. So with his words in her head, she let her tired eyes close once again.

Sometime during the night, or more accurately the early morning, Korra recalled feeling cold. Oh, so very cold. She remembered shivering and curling into a ball on her side while she tried to keep warm. And if her mind had retained the hazy memory correctly, she also remembered something warm being suddenly draped across her body, and something soft briefly touching her forehead.

She had fell back into unconsciousness quickly and easily, not entirely sure of what had happened, or if anything had happened at all. Maybe it had been a dream and nothing more.

However when she finally did wake in the morning, the sunlight peering through the windows and warmly lighting the inside of the training room, she found a certain firebender's jacket carefully tucked around her body, and said firebender still passed out beside her, suspiciously closer than she had remembered him being.

She couldn't contain the giddy smile that spread wide across her face. Maybe she was starting to get used to this feeling. And maybe, just maybe, she might actually like it.

AN: Please ignore the many run-on sentences in this. OTL

And please review! Any type of feedback is welcome~