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“What the hell do you want now?”
“Aw, didn’t mean to scare ya~”
A smug voice permeated the cold room as the door clicked shut.
“Why so paranoid? I was just here twenty minutes ago.” A chuckle bounced along the cement walls. “That’s cute.”
“You didn’t scare me.” Nimble fingers tucked away what she hoped he hadn’t seen. Red hair framed equally red eyes, which pierced him over the shoulders she hadn’t realized tensed as he barged in. “I already told you there’s nothing cute about you disrupting me when I’m conducting my experiments!”
“Geez, Karin...”
Suigetsu’s hair glowed like the moon in the dimly lit lab as he ran a hand through it, a box in his other hand. “I put my little travels on hold to be here for a whole grueling week, trying to help you pick up this hideout’s slack, and this is the thanks I get? Polite as always, I see.”
“Please.” Karin turned her back to him and her gaze again to her lab table. She scanned numerous test tubes and supplies before jotting data onto her notepad. “The end of the week couldn’t come sooner.”
“Ouch. I even brought the scalpels you wanted, y’know.”
She grunted dismissively, eyes skimming her notes. “Set them in the corner. I don’t need them right now. Leave.”
“Leave?” Suigetsu strolled around the room, looking at various things with little interest. “Orochimaru wouldn’t want that, now would he?”
Orochimaru sent Suigetsu to Karin for the week to help with renovating the hideout she was put in charge of. What used to be an experimental hideout dedicated to the advancement and restoration of life through questionable means had since been restructured through a more ethical lens, largely proposed by Karin as one of the only ways she’d stay affiliated with him. Greatly valuing her insight and research skills, he’d agreed.
Despite his apparently kinder ways, Karin wondered if the former Sannin developed a newfound interest this week in indirectly tormenting her by asking his water-bodied associate to “help.”
“Y’know something, Karin? We haven’t really had a proper reunion in like… three years.”
Karin brought a beaker closer to her face and picked up a dropper containing crimson. Some of her freshly drawn blood swirled into the bright chemicals of a healing serum she was creating.
“Well, aside from that one run-in we had after the war… Oh, and that other half-assed Taka reunion that was barely an hour last year. Point is…”
The box of scalpels hit the floor in the far corner of the room.
“Maybe I missed you.”
Karin's stomach churned faintly at those words, due to disgust or something else she couldn't say. Nonetheless, she kept working.
“… Or maybe I’m just bored and wanna be entertained. So, anyway…”
A single water droplet splashed against the floor in the far corner of the room.
Karin’s neck prickled—one moment she was cold, and the next, Suigetsu loomed over her from behind, warm breath ghosting her ear. His arm flanked her side as his watery hand held the handle of a drawer, now open. “… what the hell is that?”
“I-It’s none of your business!” Karin hissed as she shoved him back with her shoulder, slammed the drawer closed, searched frantically for words. “A-And I didn’t even ask for a box of scalpels! Why aren’t you at your station?!”
“I told you, I’m bored. Already finished up my duties for the day. Thought I'd help out over here, slowpoke.”
Suigetsu craned his neck to get a peep at the closed drawer. He rolled his eyes at her sharp stare and defensive stance, raising his hands in surrender.
“Chill. Just what kinda organ was that, eh?”
Karin studied her old teammate long and hard. What looked like a childish staring contest between two young adults was more like an extraterrestrial exchange. More profound.
In those moments of silence, her chakra fully evaluated him for the first time in years. The familiar waves of his chakra crashed along the shores of her perception, just as they had when they were teens.
But something was different. A subtle ripple passed through her when she sensed—something… had changed in his chakra, his aura, his very being.
Well, this change wasn't completely new. She’d first noticed it shortly after the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
The war only lasted two days, but it changed everything for all shinobi, for better or worse.
As for Suigetsu, it apparently brought something akin to faint maturity… and a mix of other things that Karin couldn’t quite name, according to what her chakra analysis told her. Back then, she dismissed his shift as temporary, or her own mind playing tricks.
But now the change was undeniable. It didn't make sense.
She hated it.
She hated how his altered chakra made her feel—back then and now: disarmed, confused… begrudgingly more at ease for reasons she didn’t understand or ask for. More immune to the pain of his presence. An immunity that alarmed her, disgusted her, only barely intrigued, and infuriated her.
Yet, for the past couple of years now, tolerable was what the edges of her psyche had been labeling Suigetsu as whenever she looked at him, no matter how much she fought it.
“Hellooo? Earth to Karin.”
That voice brought her back to Suigetsu, accompanied by the faint upturn of his lips. “You’ve been staring me down just a little too long. I’ve gotten that hot, huh?” he mused, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
“As if, you conceited moron!” Karin shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose, willing the warmth in her face not to stain her cheeks.
Her eyes slipped back to the drawer. “Listen. No one else knows about this, not even Orochimaru. What makes you think I’d want to tell you anything?”
“Makes sense. I still don’t exactly trust the snake either, redemption arc or not.” Suigetsu grinned at her unwavering glare. “But you know, your secret’s safe with me.”
War, time passing, none of it mattered. Suigetsu was, and always would be, Suigetsu. Annoying. Unbearable. Intrusive. Gross.
Sure, he’d saved her, and their team, a few times during past battles. The last time she’d seen him, he made her lose it one less time than usual, yes. But there was no true room for nuance or growth with him. No matter what her faulty senses tried to suggest, he was not someone who changed.
But he had been in her life for years. And as much as she hated to admit it to herself, this new layer of his had made him… somewhat trustworthy.
Karin closed her eyes briefly with a silent sigh. “It isn’t an organ, by the way. It’s an umbilical cord.”
Despite wanting to gag at her own cognitive dissonance, she slowly reached for the drawer, gently gripping the specimen from its resting place in the metal bed. She laid it on the table beneath the incandescent lamp light.
“I’m sampling some of its DNA. Genes like this baby’s have boundless regenerative possibilities.”
“The baby. Hold up. You…” To Suigetsu’s credit, it took less than three seconds for his rapidly changing expressions to settle into one of epiphany. “Oh shit, it happened.”
Karin nodded once.
“Sasuke finally kissed a woman. Well, I knew he was married, but he never told me he got her pregnant …”
“A reasonable trajectory for a married couple,” Karin said snarkily.
“… Sasuke never tells me anything anyway, that tiger,” Suigetsu continued. “When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Ah.” He nodded. Then slowly slid her a suspicious side-eye. “Why were you hiding that thing?”
It was then that it dawned on Karin. She didn’t have a reason to hide it. Not a dignified reason, at least.
“Like I said: it’s very valuable. I can’t have just anyone seeing it.”
“You really do think I’m a dumbass, huh, Karin?” Suigetsu drawled, leaning forward theatrically like a bad actor putting on a show. “I can see riiiight through you.” He straightened again. “There’s no need to feel embarrassed about helping him. Love him or hate him, delivering an Uchiha baby—that’s pretty badass.”
“Who said I was embarrassed?” It was voiced more like an indignant statement than a question. Karin willed herself to remain level with Suigetsu’s purple gaze, until she couldn’t.
She turned, gingerly cut half an inch off the umbilical cord with a scalpel, before letting it drop into the same healing serum beaker. She then put the rest back into the drawer.
“It wasn’t a huge deal. I didn’t owe him anything, but this was one of the only places they could have the baby safely,” she finally said.
Suigetsu simply hummed, as if he were thinking of a thousand pleasant things.
The prolonged stillness eventually made Karin glance back at him.
And the way he was regarding her—silent, arms crossed, gaze sharp as if trying to peer into her soul… made Karin feel like she was giving away answers to a test.
She tore her eyes away, back to the table, with a glower. “Talk about staring too long,” she muttered.
“So,” Suigetsu said, stretching his arms behind his head as he moved for a better view of Karin’s work, “you still love him, don’t you?”
Her pulse quickened.
She and Sasuke. They had been determined, foolish kids. She had been determined to chase after the heart of her true love; he chased vengeance at all costs. On one of the most painful days of her life, the part of her that clung to that love died. But ashes are forever as indicative of death as they are of a life once lived.
“I keep in touch with Sasuke and Sakura. They gave me the baby’s umbilical cord as a token of their gratitude.”
“Ahh, nice. So what you’re saying is…” Suigetsu looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You still wanna have Sasuke’s next baby? Gotcha.”
Karin’s grip tightened on a test tube and the table, eyes still fixed on its contents. “What I’m saying is, I’ve moved on. You should, too,” she said coldly.
“Are you kidding? Interfering with your plans to have Sasuke all to yourself was one of my favorite pastimes. Grieving the death of that joy is gonna take some time .” No one was better at sounding equally serious and unserious as Suigetsu.
“It’s been over three years, Suigetsu,” Karin said, his name suddenly sounding odd on her tongue. “How much longer do you need?”
“I could ask you the same thing. I’m surprised you still feel that way about him. After he tried to kill you that one time and all, if you remember…”
And there it was.
“He didn’t try to—”
“Yeah, yeah. You were in the way. Same thing.”
“Don’t go there,” she warned. “Shut it.”
“I was just trying to say—”
“You’re just trying to piss me off. I won’t tell you again. Leave.”
Her even tone masked the ache in her chest. It was a familiar yet rare throb that surfaced whenever that dark, masterfully repressed memory of her near-death returned—reminding her why she’d instinctively hidden the umbilical cord from Suigetsu, despite her senses falsely implying to her it would be okay, safe to disclose:
To avoid the questions. To avoid the pain she had been too prideful to admit to herself, was still very present deep within.
She took a deep breath, trying to pull her body and mind away from that dark day. A day still not far enough away from her. No matter how many nights had passed.
Three years ago, and yet…
“I’m just saying you dodged a bullet—”
“Dodge this fucking bullet!” She spun, seized his shirt in one fist, other fist flying—
But meeting his wild eyes made her pause. The fact that he hadn’t used his hydrification to slip through her fingers like old times gave her further pause.
Suigetsu frowned when she retracted her fist, mere inches from his face, and let his shirt go.
She pivoted back to the lab table, resuming her work.
“What? That was anticlimactic. Where’s the old Karin? My dodging skills are getting rusty,” he all but pouted.
“We’re not kids anymore. Quit acting like one.”
Why had she felt the pull to confide in him at all?
Why had her damned intuition—usually as sharp as a blade—taken over her better judgment like a mind-controlling parasite, setting her up for humiliation?
The birth had been just a couple weeks ago. Maybe she was still recovering, wanting someone to talk to.
And yes, the baby’s eyes had been precious, reminding her too much of Sasuke…
Maybe the whole debacle had left her feeling an odd range of things. Happy for them. Maybe a little envious. Happy Sasuke was happy. Faintly lonely.
Maybe it had even made her begin to question her life’s decisions, just slightly.
But why in the hell had she thought, even for a split second, that maybe, just possibly, telling him anything would bring her anything other than misery?
Some wounds never fully heal. Just like some things never truly change.
“Hey. Sorry.”
Those words brought her back to the room, and she tensed. Due to the disturbingly sincere tone in which Suigetsu's apology was uttered, or something else, was anyone's guess.
“I just thought, you know, after the… incident… and after you were captured by the Leaf, I just figured you’d be over him by now.”
Karin watched Suigetsu from her peripheral view. “You rejoined the team after all that, too,” she countered, annoyed that she was defending Sasuke, like muscle memory.
“Yeah.” Suigetsu smiled wryly with a shrug. “What can I say? We tend to choose what we know.”
We tend to choose what we know.
As much as she wanted to disagree with that sentiment, it was often an unfortunate reality of human nature.
Despite everything that happened. After the betrayal, she had been saved by Sakura, all to be placed in the hands of the Leaf's Torture and Interrogation Forces. Left to endure days and layers of physical and mental anguish. The kind of anguish that was carved deep, unspoken.
Sasuke's abandonment had been a painful reminder of the cycle she’d been caught in ever since she was a young child: the cycle of forever being an afterthought, being used for her powers, and then quickly discarded.
Her abilities cursed her with that fate for a long time. Suigetsu had suffered a similar life pattern, she knew.
For years, if they were not feared, hated, or targeted, there was capture, transactional bonds, inhumane experimentation, exploitation… and then being forgotten.
When Sasuke needed them and then left when his own quest was overtaken by insanity, they still returned. Same with Orochimaru. She and Suigetsu had decided to stay connected to him, albeit with certain conditions, as well as secret intentions to keep an eye on him in case he got any ideas to go completely off the rails again. But still…
We tend to choose what we know. For better or worse.
They were more alike than Karin had realized. It was a tragic phenomenon that was hard to process, to comprehend, even for her. But he understood.
Still, as she glanced at him once more, she found herself wondering, “What’s it to you how I felt about Sasuke?”
Suigetsu shrugged again, rolling a small piece of stray note paper into a ball between his fingers. “Seeing someone like you fawn over him again after we reunited during the war just… sorta sucked. He didn’t deserve… didn’t deserve anyone, really. That maniacal, bossy diamond in the shit…” he trailed off. “Annoying that you didn’t see it back then.”
Someone like you. A sarcastic remark was on Karin’s mind, but the way he examined the tools on her table, quiet, slow, stole her words.
Until she got her voice again. “Not that it’s any of your business, but like I said, I’ve since moved on. And for the record, since the war, I’ve realized a lot.” Her focus quietly sharpened on him, an unfamiliar question forming in her mind as she watched him unroll and re-crumple the paper ball.
“Cool. Welp. Guess I really will need a new hobby then,” Suigetsu said with a faint, re-emerging grin.
“Oh, yeah?” Karin scoffed. Her mind, not her eyes, briefly lingered on his pointy smile. A smile that a minuscule, mortifying part of her, beneath her rage and perpetual annoyance with him, had always considered… cute.
“Well, sounds like you’ve been bored for years then. What have you been doing this whole time?” she asked before her wits came back to her. Wait—why the hell do you care?!
“Oh, you know. Sword-searching. Soul-searching.” Suigetsu tossed the tiny paper ball up and down. “Helping the snake now and then. Looking for loooove,” he said nonchalantly.
While she arched an eyebrow, she couldn’t help but wonder if his last stated endeavor was true. “Never would've labeled you the romantic type.”
“Wait, so you’ve considered me in a romantic sense?” Suigetsu gasped with exaggerated bewilderment.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Karin’s nose scrunched. “As if anyone’s thought of you in that way.”
“Well, I’ve been all over the place since the team’s split. Let's just say you’d be surprised.”
The sound of his voice, one that was once like grating metal to her, Karin found wasn’t as irritating as it used to be. She couldn't pin down the reason. Was it because of the slightly deepened quality it gained since she last heard him? Was it the ease that came with the familiar inflections that she’d heard, and then hadn’t heard for a while? Maybe it was the…
The smell of something burning.
“No, no, no!” Karin cursed, seeing too late the healing serum rapidly bubbling and spilling out of its beaker—forgot to add the stabilizer—covering numerous tools and notes.
She grabbed for nearby cloths, hissing when some of the serum burned through her gloves, scorching her fingertips with surprising heat. “I need more rags!”
She berated herself. Never had she allowed anyone or anything to distract her to this degree during an experiment.
“Wait.” The source of her distraction was inches from her again as he reached over, his hand liquefying and letting a couple of water droplets fall into the angry beaker. “Needs this.”
“Hey!! You have to know the exact composition and chemical ratios before you—”
The bubbling abruptly ceased, calming down to a soft simmer and sizzling sound.
Karin blinked.
“Well then,” Suigetsu said.
”You… you probably ruined the serum!” She reached out for the beaker and what remained of the liquid. Sucked some into a dropper.
Her breath hitched when a few drops slid onto her burned thumb. But the liquid gave an almost immediate, cooling relief. The throbbing red pad of her thumb was calm again within seconds.
Hold on…
Karin held up her wrist—cautiously, experimentally. Slowly… she let a few drops of the chemical fall onto her skin. A place where an old bite mark scar was marred.
She gasped as an icy, needle-like feeling enveloped the flesh, and within seconds, the bite mark imprint that had been there for years completely vanished. She hadn't realized how much she hated seeing it until it was gone.
Her wide eyes drifted around the lab table’s ruins, drifted to the strange liquid, then to her old teammate. “Wha—h-how did you—?”
“I know my jutsu’s properties. Figured it would help, but damn.” Suigetsu whistled with a chuckle as he focused on Karin’s wrist. “I tend to have that magic touch, I guess.”
“You…”
Her brain was working in slow motion.
“Y-You got lucky this time! Don’t go thinking you’re some invincible magic scientist—you could’ve gotten both our damn heads blown off, you reckless idiot!” she screeched, this time unable to stop her rapid-fire swings at the man, getting met with large splashes of water and his laughter with each attempted point of contact.
“And stop getting me soaked!!” When she realized the sound of his laugh, chaotic as ever, but unexpectedly melodic, was, to her horror, making her stomach flutter, it only further fueled her onslaught. “Suigetsu!”
“Don’t wanna be soaked?"
Karin’s attack was halted when two cool hands grabbed her wrists—leveling them with her ears. And she no longer had anything to shield her from Suigetsu, who pierced her with frenzied eyes. “Stop hitting me then.”
His firm grip shot tingles up her arms and smoldering warmth up her neck, this time most definitely pooling her cheeks. Confirmed by his growing smirk.
After all their numerous scuffles throughout the years, not once had he ever touched her. Not so directly. The shock of the sensation effectively froze Karin, every part of her, regardless of her desperate will to move.
The sound of their breathing and the whir of the lab was all that was heard. His water dripped down her body, her clothes. Plastered strands of hair to her forehead.
Nonetheless, all she could see was the matured angles of Suigetsu’s face. Nose, lips, his eyes that seemed to search every part of her face rapidly, thoroughly, with enigmatic purpose. And…
… was he blushing?
Before she could ponder further, her wrists were again bare, colder, damp, as he turned away.
“Better get back to work,” he said under his breath, in the calmest tone she had ever heard from him. He was walking towards the door. “See ya.”
“See ya?” Karin echoed softly, her heart speeding now; she didn’t know when it started racing, trying to rise up in her throat.
She shoved her wet bangs back, out of her eyes. Adjusted her smudged glasses. He was already on the other side of the room. She hesitated.
“Before you finally go, there's no way you’re leaving without helping me clean up this stupid mess you made,” she ordered, pointing harshly at the lab table. But his back remained to her as he grabbed the door handle.
“Hah. You don't need my help. Lemme finally get out of your hair.” Suigetsu's words were drained of warmth, replaced by an icy edge. “It's what you always want me to do, anyway.”
“What is—what is with you?!” Karin exploded. Her nails dug deep into her palm, fist balled. Suigetsu still didn't turn to face her.
She sneered. “So that's it? You just want to push, and push, and push my buttons—make me feel a million fucking things—then you leave? And for what?! What do you even want from me?!”
A searing hot volcano, a crackling dam, erupted within her, bursting, burning every part of her, and she couldn't stop.
“I can't read you anymore, and I don't understand what you want! I don’t understand why you do this!”
Everything prideful within screamed for her to be silent, but something deeper, almost wounded and primal, desperately wanted answers, wanted clarity, wanted.
“I hope you were entertained. I hope you got what you wanted.” She spat the words like venom.
A palpable silence was in the air for what felt like minutes. The only sound was the eventual click of the door handle as Suigetsu let it go.
“Not quite,” he said quietly, barely audible.
After a greater stretch of silence, Suigetsu gave a long sigh, an equally tense and contemplative one.
“Look. I've… I've wanted more. More of… What I mean is—dammit, I suck at this—”
He sighed sharply this time, turning to face her with a hand in his hair and an expression that Karin had never seen.
“I've wanted more of you, Karin. I mean more than just the anger. You know… I could see that you needed it, too—not the anger, well, also that, but… underneath it all. It was obvious.”
“What?” Karin’s mouth had gone dry.
Suigetsu huffed humorlessly as he dared to meet her eyes again from across the room. “Come on. One look at you and I could see that you had a lot pent up. Thought you could use a hand.”
It was then it hit her.
Suigetsu was an emotional catalyst. An emotional catalyst to be reckoned with.
He truly did make her feel, and quickly.
The “more” he was seeking was more than anger, but something deeper. Something vulnerable. Honest.
Getting under her skin had always been one of his favorite hobbies. But had there truly been a deeper motive behind it? And for who knew how long?
As an unconventional emotional catalyst, he had made her unearth, confront, and begin to process truths she had been hiding from even herself for years.
And though the effects were often a painful whirlwind that she didn't want to be left alone with… there was no denying the slight weight Karin had sensed lifting from her chest, something she didn’t know she needed. Something that came with being more open to even just herself, regardless of how exposed she felt as a result.
And he had caused it in a single evening. A matter of moments.
Maybe her senses hadn’t been completely wrong.
“Guess it’s only natural to eventually wanna see more from the person you've got a… thing for,” Suigetsu said as if the word “thing” were rotten meat. “Looks like I’m finally starting to see that glimpse of more after all these years.” A small, smug smile tugged at his lips. “Y’know, it doesn't look half bad on you.”
“How long?” she said, almost a whisper, so low it could have been mistaken for the lab’s hum.
“Huh? Oh. Well...” Suigetsu shifted on his feet, hands in his pockets.
Maybe a tiny part of her had sensed inklings of something, something from him, long before now.
“A while,” he finally said.
But maybe his words were needed to confirm….
“Back then, when we formed Hebi, I thought it was just a dumb little crush. It pissed me off.”
… to confirm that she hadn’t been delusional for all that time.
There he was. Suigetsu. Annoying. Unbearable. Intrusive. Gross. The emotional catalyst...
“I thought it'd go away, but like a stubborn rash, here it is rearing its ugly little head again.”
… and again, he was going to make her do something stupid.
“Why else did you think I enjoyed making you mad?”
“Because you’re a sadistic asshole,” Karin said, matter-of-fact tone grounding her again to the present. She smirked slightly when he gawked.
“Partially. But hey now, I’ve changed some of my ways.”
“Right. Still an asshole. And a hypocrite. Like you've been an open book this whole time.”
“Well, I thought I was pretty obvious, but—”
“Bull.”
Karin moved forward, closing the space between them in just a few strides across the room, eyes narrowing.
“You can’t just expect me to lay my soul bare while you stay clammed up,” she shot, poking him firmly in the chest.
Suigetsu stiffened at her touch, breath hitching in a sound too close to a gasp before he caught himself.
Karin paused, suddenly too aware of their proximity, the way their eyes locked, the electrical current that passed through her. “What?” she pushed, jabbing him again.
“Nothi—hey—!” Suigetsu’s voice cracked, and to her shock, he actually flinched this time, twisting slightly, a barely suppressed smile flickering.
“No way.” Karin’s shock gave way to a smirk. “You've been annoying the hell out of me for centuries…” She advanced, now poking at his stomach and side, intrigued by his widening eyes and the choked laughter he tried to contain as he backed into the door.
“Hold on—K-Karin—!”
“… and you’re telling me this is all it takes to stop you?” The mischievous glint in her eye cracked her serious front.
Suigetsu made another strangled noise as he squirmed under her needling fingers, twitching limbs, and rather clumsy coordination. “Karin—c-cut it out!” he yelped, breathless, eyes squeezing shut. And then that laugh—chaotic, even more raw and real than the one from earlier—burst out of him… making something in Karin feel a little let in, despite herself.
“What, no water tricks?” she teased, but his hand shot out for her waist—she narrowly dodged.
“Maybe it was part of my trap,” Suigetsu warned, breath ragged, wicked grin flashing as he lunged.
Karin jumped back, nearly knocking into a shelf, barely escaping the attack of his fingers as they grazed her side—sending a tingly jolt, a rare kind of adrenaline, through her. “Watch it—lab, idiot!”
“Hah! Don’t pretend to care now!”
They circled each other, weaving between cluttered tables and equipment, snickers and insults tangling in the air.
Until Karin’s foot caught the leg of a stool. “Dammit—”
Her glasses slipped from her face, bounced off the stool cushion, flew feet away from her.
Suigetsu’s hand shot out, arm extended by water, liquefying just enough to catch them mid-fall. Droplets beaded around the lenses in his palm.
“We’re in a lab, y’know, clumsy,” he said. Karin didn’t miss the soft edge.
Huh. New.
We tend to choose what we know.
She was drawn to the familiar, yes, but also to the unknown. The mystery, unanswered questions, discovering.
She had always sought the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the world around her. Playing with fire, seeking all that made her feel a mix of things, be it fury, joy, pain, curiosity, longing, passion, was all she had ever known.
Despite her damaged walls often resisting, warning her of the past, deep down, she still craved eternal reminders that she was growing, evolving, feeling. Alive.
She approached him again, slowly. Took her glasses from his hand. “Ew. You got them all gross.”
“Oh boy. You can never be satisfied, can you?”
"You know I’m going to need some of this for a new batch of of my serum, right? You owe me," she said, studying the water speckles as she wiped them from the glasses.
"Sure. I’d be happy to assist, for a fee.”
When she looked at Suigetsu through a hazy scowl, that shift in his chakra became evident again. It was evident he sought similar things. Truth. Honesty. To see and be seen. Searching in the only ways he knew how. Looking at him was like looking into a mirror that was simultaneously a complex puzzle.
There was still so much of him that she didn’t know.
As she slid her lenses back on, her blurry gaze sharpened back into focus. She saw a man who had never failed to get under her skin in a way no one else had. Helped in a way no one else had. And all the while, she had only known perhaps a portion of his entirety.
He was a million questions she wanted answers to.
Damn cheesy, she thought faintly, futilely as the questions continued to build.
… What else made him tick—his true fears and desires? Beyond his cheeky remarks, beyond his lust for chaos and battle. Besides his sharp tongue and pursuit of even sharper and deadlier accolades. What other pieces of him were there?
Through the years, she'd seen glimpses of something beyond the surface, mere flashes of light and care, suppressed. Now she couldn’t help but wonder what else she could pull out of him, what else he was capable of showing her, telling her, making her feel to an infuriating degree.
Oh fuck.
Like an inevitable sneeze or the fate of a slowly blooming flower, her curiosity unraveled within her, invaded all logic. It was a strong, warm pull.
This pull was cautious, not obsessive. Very much present, but not blindly all-consuming like the feeling she’d once had in her youth with Sasuke.
This pull was new.
Call it an experiment, a revelation, desperation, or the effects of mere exposure…
“What?” Suigetsu said with a hushed voice, a smirk, eyes that slowly trailed hers. “Staring again. Do I have something in my teeth?”
“Shut up,” Karin murmured, continuing to lean towards him, not knowing when the leaning began. Silently satisfied when the faintest color appeared in his cheeks… and he, too, began helping close their distance.
This pull was stupid. She knew it was. Fast, reckless, something years in the making, all in one. And for once, she didn’t care.
She wanted a closer look.