Author's notes: I am so, so sorry.

  “You know, if you weren’t being serious about this task, I could’ve easily imagined we’re on a date.”

  “If it were, I’d take you somepce more…appropriate,” Xing casually replied, his attention barely shifting to Asami.

  The heiress chuckled. “Please. A young man who worked his way from nothing, taking the rich girl he’s snagged out of her upper-css bubble to find real, vibrant fun and life amongst the real, down-to-earth people? It’s one of the more popur premises these days. For someone who just had selected Water in the Fire for reading the other day, I’m surprised you’re unaware of it.”

  Barely shifting his head towards her, Xing’s expression still barely changed. “It’d be…impractical trying to py out those tropes in real life. Besides, that would assume that you’re an ignorant, insuted, and helpless young dy whose only talent is fawning over the object of her affections.”

  “Well, I definitely enjoyed the helplessness and fawning st night,” Asami quipped with a smirk, and Ren and Kai shared a grimace as they rolled their eyes.

  Asami had been frequently spending nights with Xing ever since the ‘boating incident’, and while they were far from noisy, it was always unnerving when Ren joined them at the table for breakfast the following day. Asami would always have this…glow on her tired but immensely satisfied face, even as she fidgeted in her seat and unsubtly massaged her thighs every now and then. Xing would try but fail to conceal his own smug smirk as well, which fred whenever he reached out to rest his hand on Asami’s.

  Worse was the constant gnces they gave each other as they ate and talked over the breakfast. Ren had seen gullible fools shambling away from tea parlors radiating a simir air, but it was weird to see it come from a woman like Asami.

  Also disconcerting was seeing the heiress breaking out all of the sudden into soft giggles as she brushed her lips with a finger, or reached for the back of her head to tug at her hair, in the privacy of her office.

  Love, Ren decided, was a dangerously embarrassing thing.

  Still, it gave her opportunities like this, being able to leave the comfy but monotonous confines of the office with Asami to join Xing in scouting for new ‘talents’ for his radio station. From the bits of conversation the girl picked up between Xing and his own aide, a rather stern looking man called Mozi, they gave up trying to approach theater or established troupe performers due to the high costs they’d require to keep them with Future Media instead of running off for a chance to participate in the winter season pys.

  And that was just the performers who weren’t in the guilds.

  As far-reaching as broadcasting was, there was still no competing for the prestige of taking to the stage during prime theater season.

  Hence the little outing today, and probably for the next few days, visiting squares and main intersections to observe street performers. Unsurprisingly, Xing was targeting those who were just trying to make a living instead of looking to make it big, to minimize the chance of losing them to the theaters. So far, Ren had watched him approach a few musicians with questions after watching their performances for a couple of minutes.

  “How long have you been pying?”

  “Are your pieces improvised?”

  “Could you try?”

  “Do you think you could work with others in a band or orchestra?”

  “Do you think you could abide by an exclusivity agreement?”

  After the assault of questions, those that answered to his liking received an invitation to Future Media for a more formal briefing. Regardless of whether they were invited or not though, Mozi would offer the street performers a hefty donation for their time.

  And while that all happened, Ren would be with Asami and Kai, standing or sitting back at a distance to watch the scene unfold (depending on location), and snacking on whatever streetfood that caught Asami’s fancy. It was a nice break from having to read through stacks of paperwork, or deal with condescending adults.

  Thus far, Xing had managed to invite eleven musicians, including a couple of singers, though who knows how many would stick around after their visit to the main office.

  And it was a shame Xing was only recruiting musical acts; the sword juggler they were watching now was putting on a rather awesome show in the small clearing in the market square. The juggler kept cleavers and knives and sabers twirling prettily in the air with his eyes closed or head turned, and even used his feet a few times!

  Sitting around a table with only paper wrappings left on their ptes, Ren had little choice but to tune her attention back to the couples’ conversation as the performer’s act came to a close, though thankfully their icky talk seemed to have ended as well.

  “...research into competitive advertising fees.” Xing commented. “Are we going to maintain the pretense of exclusivity, or go straight for simply outpricing the city’s broadcasting?”

  “I’ll check in with Isashi tomorrow about that,” Asami replied, and Ren pinned that reminder in her mind, just as Kai no doubt did beside her.

  “So, are we moving on?”

  Xing shook his head, and then nodded at a trio of men maybe around his age, looking like they just came out from a dojo. However, the way they moved carried none of the care or discipline of martial training. “Looks like there’s another act.”

  “There’s always another act,” Kai remarked dryly.

  “True, but-”

  Ren interjected with her observation. “Is it because they’re theater people?”

  “Yep.”

  Asami gnced at Ren, and then to the trio. “Oh? How can you tell?”

  The girl gave her employer a light shrug, and then turned to Xing as she threw in her guess. “Their uniforms are too clean and shiny. And real dojos don’t use such tacky gold and silver.” His smile was all Ren needed to know she was right on the money.

  Surprisingly, Mozi also joined in with his own observation. “And judging from how that one’s limping, they’re probably not going to do any acrobatics.” Ren squinted at the figure he pointed out, and sure enough, she noticed the subtle discomfort in his gait.

  “Huh, missed that…” Kai remarked on her behalf.

  One of the trio - the thinner one - pced a cy bowl on the ground before joining his partners in the invisible space that defined the square’s stage. They stood side by side at attention, their eyes attentively fixed into bnk space as wide, hollow grins spread on their faces. It was mildly disturbing to look at them for too long, especially since they weren’t blinking.

  Asami broke into an amused huff. “Stage extras.”

  “Assuming they even managed to nd those roles,” Mozi added.

  Before Ren could learn more, she was startled by her eardrums being pierced as the trio gave one sharp cp of their hands.

  The one to Ren’s left, the thin one, took a stiff step forward, thumping his chest loudly and earning another huff from Asami. “I am Park Hyul!”

  “I am Park Chooi!” the one in the middle - the shortest one, and the one with the limp - decred with simir loudness as he stepped forward, and from behind Ren she heard Xing snort.

  Ren winced when there was a sharp crack of stone as the st of the trio - the rounder one - stepped out to announce himself. Maybe all the foot stomping was why his colleague was limping?

  “And I am Yong Park! And we are-”

  The other two joined in with another thump on their chests. “-the Park Brothers!”

  “They don’t look reted,” Kai noted with some amusement as scattered appuse broke out among the spectators that had bothered to stop and watch.

  “It’s a schtick,” Asami helpfully expined. “Catchy names make you and your friends more memorable in auditions. For all you know, ‘Park’ is not even in their real names.”

  “It’s for the crowds, too,” Mozi added with a nod. “There was once an act called Tai, Lee and Mai, that drew a lot of people whenever they announced themselves,” he remarked without any amusement.

  Back in the clearing, the thinner and shorter ‘brothers’ were miming flutes to the tune of ‘Winter Willows’ while the round one began reciting a poem a bit too loudly.

  “Were they any good?” the heiress asked casually, as if already knowing the answer, and Xing’s aide shook his head.

  “Neither me nor Li Ming stuck around to watch them, but apparently not. Supposedly they broke up soon after because Lee couldn’t hold the hoops still and got Tai burnt one too many times, and Mai was a bad knife juggler.”

  “Why are they doing that?” Xing suddenly asked, disrupting the conversation and bringing everyone’s attention back to the performers. The Park Brothers were now shuffling back and forth with short cords binding them wrist to wrist, like prisoners doing a comical parade march, as they took turns to recite verses from py.

  “-to sy the enemy most debased! For homes and darlings steel our hearts!”

  Ugh, one of those very wordy pys, with people talking far too long about wanting to fight someone instead of actually fighting them. These acts rarely received good reception in the back alleys, and even here people were beginning to melt back into the market, even if the Park Brothers’ recital was a lot less obnoxious than their introduction.

  “Oh, that’s from ‘Road Out of Omashu’,” Asami answered. “It’s about three childhood friends joining Omashu’s army in the war against the Fire Nation. The binding is to show their close bond. It gets cut ter on, when two of them fight over a woman, and the third leaves them to their bickering. They’ll rebind themselves ter on when they’re forced to fight together in the army, and then…well, I won’t spoil it for you.”

  Showing little interest in the summary, Xing instead gave a short nod. Ren didn’t like the tug on the edges of his lips. “So for most of the py, they’re going around like that?”

  “Pretty much. It’s novel for the first act, but it’s not the best way to express brotherhood, and it limits the choreography. Makes the whole show rather boring in the end.” Ren didn’t need to turn her head to sense the frown seeping into Asami’s voice. “It’s also strange that they chose this act to start with, seeing how mildly received it is in the public circles.”

  “It’s one of the few pys that stars three men,” Mozi chimed in. “And it’s a lot of reciting.”

  Asami nodded thoughtfully. “To show off their lungs to any prospective talent seekers. Good point, Mozi.”

  “Do you think they can hold a tune?” Xing asked, and by now the creeping smirk on his face made even his girlfriend draw back in surprise.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out? Do I want to know why you’re interested in them?”

  Xing’s only reply was to grin before he stood up and beckoned Mozi to follow him to the Park Brothers who were now finishing up with their performance.

  There was a lot of negotiating when the director of Future Media approached them. The three not-brothers took on shades of interest, curiosity, and excitement, though there were fshes of disapproval as well that Xing eventually smoothed over. At one point, Ren was sure that the ‘brothers’ had broken into a song of sorts, judging by how their shoulders and Xing’s head bobbed, and how Mozi stiffened with either embarrassment or restraint.

  “Do you two have any clue what he has pnned?”

  The two aides exchanged gnces before they gave their wealthy and generous employer a shrug of their shoulders.

  “Not a clue,” Kai simply said, earning a sigh from Asami as Mozi could be seen offering the Park brothers sheets of paper, and Xing turned back with a troublingly bright smile on his face.

  “I’m not sure if you know how it feels,” the heiress warily said, “but for some reason, I feel like I’m missing something very important but also very stupid as well.”

  Ren gave the dy a look, and then looked back at her boyfriend. “Like…like the build up to a stupid joke?”

  “A very stupid joke,” Kai amended, and all three of them made a noise of agreement.

  A couple of days ter, as Ren received an update from Future Media about the talent hunting to pass to Asami, she and Kai made a quick scan of the list (Asami was still in her meeting with the marketing head anyway). Ren found most of the names Xing had brought on from the outing, but she did not find the Park Brothers.

  “Could they have changed their name?” Kai asked as he pointed at one of the unfamiliar entries on the list.

  The girl read the name, and nodded in agreement. Three male members, vocal talents, broadcasting and/or singing abilities… “Makes sense. Why the new name?”

  “Dunno, but I think it’s the stupid joke thing Asami was talking about the other day.”

  Ren had to agree. “Think she’ll get it?”

  “If we’re lucky. Wanna bet Gramps doesn’t either?”

  “No bet,” she quickly said, and then looked at the name again. “Well, I guess ‘Park Brothers’ sounds sorta me?”

  Kai shrugged in his seat beside her. “Maybe. But ‘Linking Parks’ doesn’t exactly sound too catchy either, does it?”