Winter Scarves [Mako]

04

𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑, I reached forward to grab my glasses. I stared at Mako's scarf, frowning, as I fumbled for my glasses. This scarf was making me mad. I figured it would be an easy job, but it was proving me wrong. I usually never worked on projects from work at home, but I needed to fix this scarf for Mako. I knew how much it meant to him and I needed to give it back to him as soon as possible. 

"You're working?" Tahno asked, stepping into the living room. I tore my eyes away from the scarf to look at my desktop, trying to find my glasses. They weren't on the wooden desk. "Oh, are you looking for these?" I looked up at him to see a grin on his face and my glasses pinched between two fingers. 

"Are you for real?" Hopping out of my seat, I launched myself at Tahno. He swiftly stepped back, evading my quick fingers. "Tahno!" He let out a chuckle as he moved away from my hands, but I grinned when he ran into the bookshelf on the other side of the room. He dropped my glasses and spun around, throwing his hands up into the air. Racing forward, I snatched my glasses off the floor. "Ha! I knew putting that bookshelf there was a good idea!"

"I nearly knocked it over because of you," Tahno said shortly. I straightened up and slid my glasses into my skirt pocket. "We should have bought a better bookshelf, Raya. This one was cheap and dingey."

"Nora gave it to me," I said, sniffing. Shifting my weight from my left foot to my right one, I shrugged. "It has sentimental value."

"Everything has sentimental value to you." Tahno crossed his arms over his chest, lowering his head to look at me. His dark bangs fell into his bright blue eyes, but he didn't move to brush them away. "I swear, Raya, you're terrible at hoarding things."

"No, I'm not," I said, taking a step forward. "Things that I find important have special memories attached to them. For example," I said, pointing to the painting on the wall, "Lia painted this for me back at the Northern Water Tribe. It may not be my favorite painting, but we had an amazing time telling stories and laughing our butts off. So, yes, I do hoard things that are important to me."

Tahno sighed through his nose, and since I was so close to him, it blew my hair back away from my face. "Fine," he said, nodding. "I'm going out with the Wolfbats tonight, so don't wait up for me."

"But the radio special is on tonight!"

"I know, but we had a good match the other night and we want to celebrate." Tahno spun on his heel and headed toward the front door, grabbing his jacket from the coat rack. He slung it over his shoulders and stopped at the front door. He turned his head and looked over at me. I pushed the disappointed look off of my face when he said, "I'll be back later. Don't stay up for me, Raya."

"Okay." Forcing a smile onto my face, I said, "Have fun. Be safe!"

"I always am," Tahno said, nodding once. "Love you."

"I love you, too." I watched as Tahno left the house, collapsing onto the cloth couch that was situated by the bookshelf. Of course, he would leave me when we finally had a nice routine. We had just started listening to this radio special a couple of weeks ago, and it was nice to do something with him. Leave it up to Tahno to mess something up. 

I pushed myself up from the couch and headed over to my desk in the corner of the room. Grabbing my glasses from my pocket, I inspected them to make sure they were okay. A frown graced my face when I saw a huge scratch on one lens. I cursed under my breath. That freaking boy! He scratched my good glasses! I gently set them on the pair of glasses on the desk and moved back to the couch, plopping down. Unfortunately for me, my other pair of glasses was at work and I wasn't about to walk to the shop to get them. I'd just have to work on the scarf in the morning. 

I reached out and flipped the radio on. There was a soft song playing on the radio, so I leaned back against the back of the couch. The radio special was going to start in a couple of minutes, but this song continued to play for the next couple of minutes. It didn't seem like the radio special was going to start anytime soon, so I stood up again. I walked into the kitchen and the tea leaves from the cabinet. I set it to the side and picked up the teapot from another cabinet and headed toward the front door. The one good thing about the location of this house was that it was on the shore of Yue Bay, which meant that I could get plenty of water for tea. Our house was on the older side of town, so it didn't have any of the new amenities, and Tahno didn't want random people coming into our house to install the appliances. He wanted to fix it himself, so I had to agree with him. 

I kept the door open as I walked down to the sandy beach. The night air was cold and there was a slight wind blowing through my dark hair. There wasn't much snow here near the beach. It was normally warmer at our house than in the city, which was sad because I loved the snow. The moon shone a path toward the water, and I stooped low to drag the teapot through the water. It didn't matter if there were gross things in the water; I was going to boil the water to make the tea, so that meant all the bad things would be boiled away. 

The walk back to the house was a short one, and I shut the door behind me. I walked back to the kitchen and picked up the tea leaves, and then headed back into the living room. I was thankful that Tahno lit a fire in the fireplace with the spark rocks. Setting the teapot on the stand, I pushed it into the fire. I placed the tea leaves into my cup and sat back down on the couch. 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There had to be something I could do with Mako's scarf. Why was I stumped? What was the deal? This should have been an easy thing to solve, but I couldn't think of anything. Maybe I was thinking too hard. I just needed to stop thinking about it for a while and then I would probably get the idea to fix it. Yeah, that's what I needed to do. 

I slowly opened my eyes and spotted my pipa across the room. Maybe playing music would help me come up with ideas for that scarf. I stood up and crossed the room, picking the pipa up. Sitting down in the chair next to the pipa stand, I draped the pipa across my lap. I strummed at the strings, my eyes fluttering shut. The sweet, delicate notes poured from the strings of the pipa, instantly soothing my bad mood. 

The first time I picked up the pipa, I was five. My parents wanted me to learn an instrument, and it was the instrument they chose. I wasn't very good in the beginning, but over time, I learned to hone my abilities. Soon enough, I was one of the best pipa players in my school. It was something I was proud of, and I was glad that I continued to play for years afterward. 

My fingers glided over the strings of the pipa, and the notes increased in volume. They lulled me into a trance, one where nothing was going through my head. It was a welcome relief from the hours spent thinking about that silly little scarf. If I didn't hear the water boiling over the teapot, I would have stayed in that same spot forever. 

The fire fizzled before my eyes, and I realized what was happening. I set the pipa down on the ground and ran forward, picking up the fire poker stick. I reached forward with it and pulled the little table out of the fire. The lid had been blown off by the force of the boiling water and was somewhere in the flames. Yet again, I cursed under my breath. This was our only teapot, which meant that I would have to go and buy a new one tomorrow. Great. 

The radio was whispering something softly, but I shut it off. My focus was completely shot now that I ruined the tea. I flopped down onto the couch and pulled the fuzzy blanket over me, wrapping it around my shoulders. The candles Tahno had lit earlier were nearly gone, so I let them continue to burn. No need to get up now that I was comfy.