A/N: Been meaning to post this up on her for a while, but have been short on time. This was my entry to FC-Suika's Love-Hate Contest over on deviantArt. Really, this was tons of fun to write and when the accompanying picture is finished by the wonderful and talented jesterry on dA (CHECK HER OUT THAT'S AN ORDER), I will post a link on my profile.
Suigetsu was really annoying her lately. Not that usual kind of annoying he did; he was even more persistent nowadays. There were many days when she would glare at the back of his head, formulating plans to blow a hole straight through it.
It didn't help matters at all that Sasuke had ordered that the team split up to follow two different leads on his older brother, Itachi. And as luck would have it, Karin was stuck with Suigetsu, not, as she had hoped, with Sasuke.
Her irritation levels were sky-rocketing and it took all her self-control not to explode in the middle of the market square of the little town whose name wouldn't be on the map, but for one reason: the annual Sweethearts Festival. People milled about, chattering excitedly about the events of the evening to come. A muscle in her temple twitched. That really rubbed salt into the wound. It hurt. It really did. She was here and Sasuke was not. There was no clearer indication of his feelings (or lack thereof).
"It's my first year attending the festival!" a young woman squealed to a rather exasperated merchant who was desperately trying to turn her attention back to the fine satin yukatas on display. "My fiancé couldn't afford to bring me last year, but I made sure we were here this time around. I couldn't miss it. I feel sorry for those poor girls who don't have anyone to bring them here."
Karin hunched her shoulders, resisting the urge to tackle the girl and make her eat dirt. That would draw attention to her and the recon mission would fail and that would upset Sasuke if it so happened that Itachi had been lurking about. There had been rumours that the older Uchiha was in the area and they had since searched the surrounding towns and had been heading here before another tip-off had caught Sasuke's attention. He and Jugo had left Karin alone with Suigetsu to search the town while they followed up the other lead.
For a moment, she concentrated and searched through the chakra of the surrounding townspeople before broadening her scope. No. He wasn't here. But maybe he might show up at a later stage? She clutched her purchases of the previous hour to her chest and quickened her pace. In the crinkly brown paper wrapping were two yukatas, a beautiful white satin yukata with elaborate flower designs, her own, and a nondescript blue cotton yukata, obviously for Suigetsu.
When she got back to the inn, she shoved his at him and they each retired to their separate rooms to change, of course, after a few biting comments had been exchanged. Suigetsu wasn't happy about having to dress up and even Karin was reluctant, even though she was technically female and should therefore love being frilly and girly. But they stuck out like a sore thumb in the little town and the inn keeper, a loud-mouthed woman named Takara, had commented on their attire.
"You can't be wearing that to the festival." She had shaken her head and pointed her in the direction of the best vendor in town.
Karin got ready quickly, shucking off her travel worn clothes and, after a quick wash, diving into the cool satin of her yukata. She did nothing about her hair; some things were too broke to fix, and didn't apply any makeup. She had none. There was no need for it and it seemed as though Sasuke wasn't turned on by it anyway.
She cast her eye over the room. Her things lay on the freshly laundered sheets and she shut the door behind her and stepped out into the hallway. Suigetsu wasn't out yet. The door to his room was still closed, but she could hear him swearing loudly from inside.
Karin clicked her tongue impatiently and stared out the window at the lush gardens behind the inn they were staying at. Spring was almost here and winter was leaving reluctantly, struggling to maintain a foothold so far south and taking with it every chance to cuddle up to Sasuke with the excuse of being hypothermic.
"Suigetsu, hurry up, you stupid lump!" she hollered.
"Quit rushing me, bitch!" he yelled back. There came a violent curse and finally Suigetsu opened the door with a sour look on his face.
"You had to get the most fucking itchy and uncomfortable yukata there was, didn't you?" he demanded loudly as he tugged at the obi and scratched his shoulder.
Karin smiled broadly and stroked the delicate satin of her own white red-trimmed yukata. This was a victory she hadn't expected to get. "You didn't want to hand over the cash so you got the cheapest yukata there was. Don't complain, sharkfin soup."
"Shut your mouth, bitch. Or I'm gonna shut it for you." he growled warningly as he scratched at the most incessant itch in that awkward place just between his shoulder blades. Karin smirked and turned the corner into the reception area of the inn. Takara was at the desk and Karin tried to duck out of the inn without that woman spotting her.
"Oh my God. You have bedhead." Too late.
She turned to look at Takara, her eyes narrowed as she debated whether the quick death of the innkeeper would be justified. Suigetsu stood leaning against the wall, clearly shaking with silent laughter. Karin nearly crossed the room to punch his face in, but the innkeeper caught her shoulder and held on. Despite being shorter than she was, Takara was terribly strong. Maybe it was all the linen laundry she did. That had to strengthen the biceps.
"Come. I'm going to do your hair for you." she said cheerfully, her blue eyes twinkling. "Don't worry it won't take long. You'll be out of here in a flash."
She had her sit down on one of the chairs and pulled out a box from a drawer behind her desk. Inside were enamel decorative combs in a myriad of colours and a brush with what was presumably her clan symbol on the back.
Karin glared at her, but the brush looked unused so she allowed Takara to come at her with a wicked gleam in her eye. While she pulled through the vicious knots in Karin's hair, she glanced at the young man leaning against the wall who glanced at Karin and then away before she could notice him looking. They barely spoke to each other and Takara picked up the underlying current of tension between the two. Perhaps they had had a lovers' tiff?
"Are you here with your boyfriend for the festival? Oh, silly question! Of course you are! A boy and a girl from out of town here on this day; it's no coincidence. Lovers from all over the five nations visit this tiny little town for the Sweethearts Festival."
Karin's eyes widened. "Oh no, we're not..."
Suigetsu swivelled around, seizing the opportunity to make Karin feel awkward and, if he was being honest with himself, allowing his emotions to have a free rein. "Yes, I heard about this festival and I knew I had to bring my snugglepie here."
"Awww!" squealed Takara. "That's adorable!"
Indignation flashed across her features. "Suigetsu, what are—?"
The grin on his face grew. "Don't be so shy about us, babe. After all, we've only been together two years now. We're practically married."
"Suigetsu!" she hissed. "Don't—" Karin didn't get another word in edgeways because Takara just about exploded with excitement and wouldn't stop talking about the beauty of young love.
A man came in as Takara chattered away. He didn't say anything, didn't announce himself, but Takara turned from Karin's hair, put down her weapons for a moment and threw herself into his arms enthusiastically.
They kissed briefly, a barely there kind of kiss, but it made Karin and Suigetsu both very uncomfortable. Neither met the other's eye.
"Oh! I'm sorry. This is Atsuko, my husband." Takara announced. The man nodded and smiled, but said nothing more. It seemed he was definitely the yang to her yin.
"Suko, love, maybe you could take Suigetsu with you. He brought his girlfriend here for the festival, but he's probably unfamiliar with the customs. Do you know? When they came this morning they didn't have yukatas!"
Atsuko nodded and beckoned to Suigetsu who followed without complaint, anything to get away from the man's noisy wife.
The dark-haired waif continued to make small talk after they left, chatting away at high speed, to which Karin merely responded with a non-committal noises, deep in thought about the uproar in her stomach. Him and her? Her and him? What? No. She wouldn't think about Suigetsu. That was one topic that was forbidden. After all, wasn't he the bane of her existence? She was startled out of her thoughts by a tap on her shoulder.
"What?" she nearly barked. Her irritability was finally breaking the surface. There was only so much one girl could take after all.
Takara beamed cheerfully. "So tell me more about Suigetsu... He's very cute you know. If I didn't have Atsuko..." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "But of course, I'd never."
Karin turned and stared at her. Her cheeks began flaming almost as violent a red as her hair and a picture of Suigetsu holding her like Atsuko held Takara flitted through her mind and made her feel strangely warm. Takara mistook her embarrassed pleasure at that thought for indignation and hastily reassured her with: "Relax, honey! Suigetsu is a bit young for me anyway." She giggled and pulled back Karin's hair with a carved enamel comb.
At the moment, Karin decided to try to set the story straight. "Look here, he's not really… I mean, we're not really…"
"I noticed that you weren't talking when you arrived." Takara commented vaguely as she placed little flowery clips into Karin's flame red hair. "Don't worry; lovers' quarrels are soon over."
She gave up then. Clearly this woman was deaf. Or blind. Or retarded. Or maybe all three to think that Suigetsu was telling the truth about them.
"There! You're ready." She produced a hand mirror with a flourish and held it steady as Karin blinked at her reflection. Her hair, at best, untidy, and, at worst, a rat's nest, was twisted into an over-the-shoulder style, held in place by the red enamel comb. She wore no makeup, but her hairstyle now showed off her face to its best advantage. Makeup wasn't necessary.
Takara smiled. "Go find your boyfriend now. The festival will be starting soon. Oh, you're going to have such fun! I can still remember my first festival."
The small woman had a look of dreamy nostalgia on her face and Karin offered an awkward thank you before dashing off to find Suigetsu, but not for the reason Takara believed. They had a mission to return to and the past few hours had been spent dawdling.
The small town square was bursting at the seams with young men and women, holding hands and laughing. Karin scowled. The buildings were draped with bright colourful flower chains and the smell of sweet nectar and frying dumplings filled the air. Later, she decided, she would go get something to eat, alone, without Suigetsu. Her blood was boiling beneath her skin. Stupid jackass. Stupid big fat mouth that she should sew shut.
"Why the hell did you say you were my boyfriend?" she hissed when she finally caught up with him away from the throng of revellers on the outskirts of the square.
"Pretty good cover story, huh?" he shot back. "I mean it coulda worked if Jugo or Sasuke were here, but then I'd have to pretend to be gay. Just play along. Just for one day."
"As if Sasuke would even look your way." she sniffed.
"Well, he's sure as hell not looking your way!" sniped Suigetsu. "Hell, I don't even know why you even…"
Karin glared at him and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and cut him off sharply: "Shut up. We've gotta get on with this."
At that moment, a loud cheer went up. Karin and Suigetsu turned to see red petals drifting through the air. At the windows of all the buildings facing the square stood bright-eyed children who were tossing handfuls of the stuff on the couples below. In more than one instance, a young woman was snatched up by her man and treated to a rather enthusiastic kiss. Karin looked away. Suigetsu watched, turning over and over in his mind the thought of wanting to do the same to the girl standing by him.
"You know, we can't get caught up in this frilly stuff, idiot." she bit out, lashing out at him quite unnecessarily, in a way to compensate for the fact that she had been thinking about him and her... together. "We're looking for Uchiha Itachi, remember?"
He scowled. "Ah, who cares? Saucegay can suck it. Besides, why the hell would Uchiha Itachi be here? It's not like a seasoned criminal would take time out to bring his lady friend to a hick village festival like this."
"Don't ask me! Do I look like I have all the answers?" she demanded, but snorted at the thought of the badass clan killer with a woman or two draped over his shoulders.
Suigetsu smirked. "Maybe stupid Sasuke needs to stop taking the most ridiculous leads so seriously."
Karin opened her mouth to demand that Suigetsu take back that remark, instinctively, but she couldn't quite get the words out. She was inclined to agree. Only last month he had ventured further north than they had been prepared for and they all had spent three days shivering in a frigid inn whilst a blizzard raged outside. And the month before they had ventured into a small shanty town that was infamous for its many... rather indecent back-alley citizens, on the mere whisper of Uchiha Itachi's presence. She would never be rid of the sight of the women flashing their wares at them and beckoning to them, herself included, to join them for the night.
"Come on. We've got to get moving." she commanded.
With a grumble, Suigetsu followed, knowing Sasuke would bust his chops if it so happened that his older brother had been here and had left while they were bickering. The pair searched the crowd, weaving their way past couples who were slow-dancing in the middle of the square. Karin searched through the chakras of the townspeople and was disappointed to note that many of them were normal civilians. Some were shinobi, but they hardly had the wicked chakra levels of an S-rank criminal.
They finished searching the town as the lights came on. The warm glow of the paper lanterns illuminated the square. Karin looked up at the clocktower. It was well after eight now. She released a frustrated sigh.
"Didn't I tell you?" Suigetsu muttered. "I told you he wouldn't be here. Hell, you're stupid."
Karin responded by a swift attack on Suigetsu's head, nothing too flashy because they were still in public and they were supposed to be a couple.
Clearly, Suigetsu was thinking the same thing. "What was that for, babycakes?"
"Shut up." she snapped. "And leave me alone."
"Can't do that, now can I? We still haven't properly celebrated our coupleness." he smirked.
Karin rounded on him with her fists clenched. Suigetsu stood his ground before plucking a flower from one of the numerous large floor vases and handing it to her. She looked from it to him and then back again.
"What's this for?"
"I'm supposed to give you a red flower, as a symbol of my love." He grinned cheekily. "And you're supposed to accept it, to say you return the feeling. Atsuko told me so."
A little whisper of excitement danced across Karin's skin before she remembered this was Suigetsu. She wasn't supposed to be feeling like this because of him.
"No." She turned on her heel and made to head back to the inn where there would at least be a wall between herself and this infuriating boy. But, Suigetsu caught her wrist.
"Play along, Karin." he murmured. His voice was strangely soft and husky and, dare she even say it, sensual. And she wanted to obey that voice.
Turning around, Karin faced Suigetsu. He offered up the flower again and with a shaky hand she took it. He smiled widely. "That's part one."
"Part one?"
Wordlessly, Suigetsu plucked another flower, a white rose, and snapped its stem neatly, leaving the full-blown bud behind. Karin froze when he touched her hair, when his fingers brushed her ear, but she didn't pull away as she might have earlier in the day. What was with this place and its lovey-dovey pheromones? She was reacting to the wrong person's touch!
"There."
He stepped away, admiring the sight of a red-cheeked Karin. Karin reached up and touched the flower placed island-girl style above her ear.
"Now, you're wearing my love for everyone to see." he murmured, not a trace of mockery in his voice. If she didn't know better, she would say he was being sincere.
"Are we done?" she asked abruptly. Her heart was thumping in her chest, threatening to leap out her mouth. What was this? What the hell was this?
"I'm hungry, babe." he replied teasingly. "Let's get something to eat."
He slung his arm over her shoulder and steered her in the direction of the food stall. Karin didn't fight it. She couldn't quite push away the overwhelming feeling of pleasure by his closeness. They were only ever physically close when she beat him up. Would it have been like this if she'd just paid more attention?
"Hey, can I get some yoghurt and okonomiyaki over here?" he called to the vendor, a portly man with a big smile.
Karin looked up at Suigetsu, blinking as the cogs in her mind whirred. "That's my…"
"Favourite food? Yeah." he finished as he plonked down in a seat by the bar. She sat down beside him, never shifting her gaze not even when the vendor asked her for her choice of toppings.
"But how did you know?"
"You always order the damn thing when we're in a town." he answered. "Kinda hard to miss."
"Still. I didn't think you'd notice." she muttered.
Suigetsu turned his purple gaze on her, making her shift uncomfortably in her seat and wonder if she looked any good in this yukata.
"I notice a lot, Karin."
She swallowed hard and looked down. Luckily, then the vendor passed them their food. Her okonomiyaki was steaming hot and she rearranged the toppings before finally starting to dig in. Suigetsu chugged down his yoghurt and ordered another one and then other one in the time it took Karin to finish.
"Done, cupcake?" Suigetsu asked before standing and paying the vendor. He offered her his arm and she took it. She knew exactly what she was doing, but the why part was confusing her thoroughly.
"Yeah."
"Karin! Suigetsu!" Both of them cringed when they caught sight of Takara and Atsuko.
"Are you enjoying it?" she enquired excitedly. "Suigetsu, have you taken her to the Tree yet?"
He shook his head. Karin looked from the one to the other. "The tree?"
"The Tree of Years. It's said to have the ability to keep the flame of love alive even after the initial sparks are gone. Oh, you simply must go now!"
The two were herded toward an alley that opened up to a small courtyard. A tree laden with orange blossoms and strips of paper stood in the middle. A few people were tying their papers to the branches. Karin walked closer.
"Mizuki and Rei. Sayuri and Kenji. Nami and Aoki. Takara and Atsuko." she read aloud.
"Yeah, they write their names together and tie it onto the tree. They believe it will keep them together forever." Suigetsu shrugged.
That was easily the most romantic thing she had ever heard before in her life. Slowly, she reached for a slip of paper from the basket beside the tree and a pen. For a moment, she stared at the paper. Unsure of what to write, she looked up at Suigetsu. The expression on his face was one of hopeful curiosity and as much as she was tempted to write Sasuke's name in tandem with hers, a voice was whispering Suigetsu's in her mind.
With a shaky hand, she obeyed the whispering and formed her name and then began slowly, painstakingly spelled out his. His breath caught as he read his name.
"Karin and Suigetsu." he repeated the words aloud.
Karin turned to tie the slip to the tree. Suigetsu came up behind her. For a moment, they just looked at each other before she averted her gaze and mumbled under her breath: "Playing along, Karin? Doesn't feel like it anymore."
"So, what now?" she asked bluntly.
Suigetsu smiled toothily. "There's fireworks later."
"Okay. What're we gonna do in the meantime?"
"We could dance." he suggested.
"No."
"Or we can stay here." he offered.
They sat on a stone bench for a while, watching other people come and go, leaving their love marks on the Tree. The tension between them was so thick that Karin was almost convinced she could feel it pressing down on her. Suigetsu was burning to take her into his arms and pretty much kiss the life out of her. It was strange being around each other without the bickering.
She glanced up to see him smirking down at her. Bizarre really, the reactions she was having to that cheeky grin. Sweating palms, increased heart rate, a stomach that was intent on following a career as an acrobat. Suigetsu frowned before reaching out to adjust the flower in her hair. He was so close and his fingers smelled like roses and soap and all these other things she had never noticed before. Sasuke was beautiful, painfully so. But right now Suigetsu was the one she couldn't take her eyes off of.
"You know, I never got what you see in that Uchiha anyway." Suigetsu muttered. "He is so obviously not into you. I heard he was still into some chick from his village back home. You deserve better than him anyway. You should be with someone like me."
Karin blinked. "Wha—?"
"I like you, Karin." he hurriedly interjected.
This was news to her, even though he had been getting different vibes from him all evening. She wanted to fall off the chair and do a victory dance at the same time. "Like me? I thought you hated me!"
"I saw how much you liked Saucegay and I thought you were into guys who weren't into you." he shrugged and played with the loose end of her hair. "So I pretended. I'm a fucking good actor, huh?"
"Yeah..." She didn't care anymore that just this morning she wanted to snuff him out. She wanted to kiss him. And she wanted him to kiss back.
His hands ran down her sides, settling on her hips. She twisted in his arms and pulled him to her fiercely. Their lips met, sweet and promising, fiery and searing all at once. Warmth spread from Karin's fingertips to the rest of her body. His touch was infinitely better than what she had imagined Sasuke's to be. She was certain his would never in a million years feel as good as this. Cautiously, not wanting to move too fast, she moved her arms around his shoulders, fingers through his hair that she found with surprise was extremely soft. His hand was settled in the hollow of her back and his other tilted her chin up.
"Do you know how long I've waited to do that?" he demanded when, finally, they pulled apart. Karin breathed out heavily and removed her fogged-up glasses, tucking them safely away in her pocket. Suigetsu fleetingly thought to himself that she was even more beautiful without them.
"From the moment I met you." he answered for her. Karin found herself incapable of words, rude or otherwise; she just wanted him to kiss her some more. She liked kissing him. She liked holding onto him, feeling the muscles in his arms tighten around her body possessively.
And he did. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers once more. She smiled against him. This was good.
"So, about your thing for Sasuke…" he broke off.
"What thing for Sasuke?" she wanted to know and pulled him to her again.