The Unexpected Case of Bumi, Son of Avatar

Chapter 4

Next morning, Lin set out to work alone. Like any other normal day, yet it was anything but. She was so distracted, she almost caused two traffic accidents just from her apartment to the station. She couldn't get that photo of her- Of Kanto out of her head. She talked to him only a few times in her life, but she kept replaying those moments now, thinking what would have happened if she behaved differently. If she gave him one more chance. If she tried harder to connect to him.

Then she scolded herself, because the man was a horrible father and a pathetic excuse for a person. She could be damn sure he never spared her and what he did to her a second thought, so why should she care about him... Why should she feel guilty for still being angry at him?

Her thoughts spiraled like that until she finally arrived at the station and pushed them all down. There was work to be done, and people whose fates were not yet sealed. People who depended on her.

She made her way to her desk and was greeted by a pile of letters and a note addressed to her.

Cleaned out my desk at your request.

Turns out some of your letters were lost in the mess. Sorry.

Jun.

One look at the desk to her right and she could see he was serious. There was no more trash, no more endless piles of documents and most importantly, no more ants.

She sat down and got to opening the letters. Most of them were quite old and no longer important, which was expected since she couldn't even remember when she'd last seen her friend's desk clean. Probably when it was assigned to him.

There was an invitation to a party... Well, she wouldn't have gone anyway, this was just a good excuse. She threw it away. There were a few lovey-dovey messages from Tenzin from when he'd go on trips with his dad. Those she'd put away in her desk for when he was away again. And there was a letter from someone named Pei.

That sounded familiar somehow... The triple murder. She pulled out the documents in her case file onto the table. Pei was the name of one of the men killed. The oldest brother. But was it the same man? She compared the handwriting from the letter to the one from the contract for the store the brothers owned. It matched.

He was a Terra Triad member. What in the world did he want with her? Some deep part of her screamed this had to have something to do with Su, so Lin raced through the letter.

My little brother saw something. He can prove it.

We don't talk to cops, but we'll talk to Toph's daughter.

The Avatar needs to know.

Then it listed the address of their store and that she should meet them there as soon as possible.

Lin leaned into her chair as she realized she got a break in the case she wasn't even working on. It wasn't just a triad war breaking out. They knew something, those brothers. And they wanted to talk. People like that didn't snitch unless it was something serious. And he said the Avatar had to get involved.

"Working hard?" she heard Jun's voice from behind.

"Someone has to." Lin carefully folded the letter and put it in her pocket.

"Well, I hope you're not too busy to meet my girlfriend Kaji..."

"Hi," she heard a feminine voice say. With all the things this morning, now this...

Lin turned around, ready for a few minutes of pointless conversation, when she spotted the woman. She was a bit taller than Jun, had golden eyes, long, black hair and a very striking dragon tattoo going from her cheek to her neck. Seemed like Lin was getting major breaks in all the cases, since this woman looked exactly like the mystery woman from Bumi's party. She even looked a bit like Izumi, if you squinted.