*lies down*
Especially during the events of 'Cross the Tracks' when Mako manages to smacktalk Shin out of his depressed wallowing and this little exchange happens after a rough and tumble fight:
“What is it that eats away at you more, Shin? The fact that I walked away or that I actually stand a chance at managing to make it without your ‘generous help’?” Mako managed to give the other man a light smirk, even from his prone and powerless position.
Well, doesn’t that just burn. Sadly, there was a lot of truth in those words. Shin began to laugh quietly, his mood lifting remarkably considering the spiritual grandstanding he’d been contemplating just a handful of minutes before. “You honestly think it’s about you, don’t you?” Shin spun the jar slowly between his fingers. “I’ve always liked you, but you like thinking about yourself a little too much. No, Bolin was mucking around in the street by himself and lookin’ for money. I had an opportunity and offered it. Anything he decided, he did it all on his lonesome. The kid’s got something we don’t got but he’s old enough, if he sinks or swim it’s entirely on him — I banked on him swimming. Maybe.”
Tilting the chair forward to balance on two legs, “As for the rest of it. You don’t get it, do you? You already got your help. Anything you do now’s built right on top of that. You think you did anything, got where you are without anyone liftin’ a finger? Really?” The chair came down with a thump and Shin set the poisoned alcohol down on the floor beside it. He stood and retrieved his razor. Flipped it open to admire the shape, the weight in his hand. “If you think I didn’t know some smart-mouthed kid, too big for his britches would be walking one day, well. Here’s life lesson one. Everyone leaves. There’s no use fussing about it. But just ‘cause you leave, it don’t mean you’re not connected still. Sometimes rot just sticks around until you kill it.”
“Try to keep shit brief this time, my arms and legs are falling asleep. Either cut the bullshit and let me walk or just beat the hell out of me and then let me stagger home- I honestly don’t care anymore, but stop trying to make me guess what the hell it is you’re trying to get at. This has been real great, you, our little heart-to-heart and all, but it’s more time than I would have liked to spend around here and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. So why don’t you cut to the chase, already.”
"I… honestly can’t say anymore. I forget." Shin blinked as he looked up from his fingers, his thoughts derailing and scattering uselessly for the third, fourth, fifth… however many times it’s been that evening. His mood was wobbling again, thoughts and emotions shifting uneasily beneath his skin in a wordless and confusing muddle. Stomach strangely hollow for no particular reason that he could figure, Shin asked curiously, "Is that what you think?"
Mako paused, looking unsure and cautious.
“… Is ‘what’ what I think?”
Great start. Now he couldn’t follow anything without Shin yapping on like they had been. He wasn’t sure if it was the fighting, the angry ranting, or the loss of adrenaline, but he just felt numb and exhausted. He wanted answers, but he felt more like just going home, curling up into bed and forgetting he ever came down here in the first place. It brought up too many feelings, too many bad memories, opened wounds he’d thought had long since scabbed over. He felt raw and exposed, tightly wound, but heavy and leaden all at the same time and the only thing he knew with certainty was that he hated feeling… this. Whatever it was.
“‘The feeling is mutual’. That part. Don’t go putting words and thoughts in my head that I don’t say myself.” Shin moved back toward the bed, feeling as if he were wading through breathable water. He sat beside Mako in much the same manner, lethargic even as his brain skipped around and settled on select pieces of their ‘conversation’. Argument. Just what have they been saying to each other? What had he been saying?
Three bottles of wine, a face full of fumes and a fist fight to boot. On a normal day, it’d have been par of course, but right now, Shin felt as if he were finally sobering up and he didn’t like it. He wanted back into that dark mental tunnel he’d been in just moments before. It was warm there and he’d felt alive, as if he’d had some sort of purpose even if it had been complete nonsense. “I was just thinking that it’s kinda like old times, but it’s not really, is it? It’s been awhile.” Too long, apparently. The gangly, shoeless youth of years ago was as far gone as the sullen little boy he’d used to argue with as if he were some pint-sized adult. Or perhaps as if he himself were some addled, over-sized child play-acting at adulthood.
"No, I get it, though," he said as he reached back over to where he’d left his pipe and went about relighting it. "I just never figured I’d get so old that I’d manage to be nostalgic and senile at the same time." Shin set the pipe back down. "I’m realizing what a mistake I made drawing the line for you. Bleeding for someone else makes it so —." Makes it so…
Bleeding was as good as branding. Like that stupid red ribbon of fate that the girls were always going on about, but with a rage and permanence and sometimes even hatred that no flimsy ribbon was ever able to contain. They’d been a pair of snot-nosed little kids with no parents, no home, and nothing to their name. It didn’t settle well that he’d somehow become owned so thoroughly without realizing it.
Later succession plans for the boys aside, a younger Shin and baby thug Mako were thrown tumultuously together over some photo negatives that could have gotten Zolt in heaps of trouble. Mako impressed Shin with his street hustling in forking said negatives over (for a price, naturally), but their chance encounters did not endear them to one another until much later. Not until all of their rage and sadness over their isolation and exclusion from 'normal' society eventually turned into this comfortable acceptance, because they were partners. Shin never really saw Mako as a child nor an adult in those days, but some weird mix between- partially due to his own personal history and finding that he could relate to what the boys had to go through. Bolin was solidly in the 'good people' category, but he and Mako knew the ins and outs of street life and saw it for what it really was.
Shin didn't expect Mako to make it big, maybe even a tiny, unacknowledged part of him hoped he would- but there's a considerable amount of bitterness and jealousy towards what Mako pointed out. It's always been our headcanon that Shin and Mako are two sides of the same coin- merely separated by the choices they made and perhaps the difference in family dynamics that established their values fueling said decisions.
They found solidarity in their shared misery, who was Mako to throw that back in Shin's face? Despite leaving, as well as having very real reasons to (a near-death experience and breaking of trust between them being the catalyst for Mako walking), Shin still 'draws the line' for him. At the time, it could have been to solidify Mako wasn't a part of his sphere anymore, but maybe it was also because he expected Mako to back one day. Much like he holds onto that future possibility that Mako will come to his senses and they can get right back into the good old days of their partnership, in the webisode.
Part of what makes their 'current' interactions in RP so rife with tension is the fact that Mako had decidedly attempted to excise Shin and his fond nostalgia involving him- being presented with a 'wet blanket' confession that their camaraderie was a mutually felt bond just makes him question the belief that his 'brotherhood' with Shin was no more than youthful idolatry and wishful thinking, at the time. They keep toeing the line between coexisting due to shared memories and past experiences Vs. struggling through the present anger and resentment that saturates their chance encounters. Now that they've started orbiting one another again and don't plan on leaving anytime soon, they don't know how to deal with all of the extra baggage that comes with it. Is it better to remain 'separate' (Shin's still a made man, so they're definitely not partners anymore- which he reiterates several times during 'Let's Get Hurt') and put those ghosts to rest, or can they manage to find a normalcy to their interactions again- this is what they're constantly waffling between in the present.
Whether they know it or not, something's keeping them connected and unable to completely remove the other from their lives- which makes me think of the Buddhist-related concept of yuanfen:
Yuanfen: A relationship by fate or destiny. This is a complex concept. It draws on principles of predetermination in Chinese culture, which dictate relationships, encounters and affinities, mostly among lovers and friends. From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the “binding force” that links two people together in any relationship. But interestingly, “fate” isn’t the same thing as “destiny.” Even if lovers are fated to find each other they may not end up together. The proverb, “have fate without destiny,” describes couples who meet, but who don’t stay together, for whatever reason. It’s interesting, to distinguish between the fated and the destined.
This binding force could be anything from past connections made in previous lives keeping them 'fated' to meet again, to shared interests, compatible personalities, or similar passions they unwittingly share that creates a certain amount of yuanfen- thus leads to two seeming strangers having a chance encounter that brings them together. Whether or not this keeps them linked by love or friendship isn't predetermined, just that a certain magnetism will make them cross paths again and again- spanning even future lifetimes.
With Shin and Mako, the connection is definitely there and frequently becomes a source of contention (as well volatile emotional reactions), but it's still ultimately up to them to decide what the worth of their yuanfen is in this lifetime.
