Karin's mom leaves the oven open in the wintertime and, as long as she doesn't stray too far away from where her mother huddles next to it, they both can keep warm.
"Zosui says they're expecting the temperature to rise next week," her mom murmurs, her eyes pointed down at the floor. It makes her words harder to hear, and her face harder to read. "It'll be warmer then, he says."
Zosui doesn't usually lie, Karin has learned, but the things he says and the way he says them are just as bad as lies. Maybe worse.
"I'm cold now," she grumbles. "I don't care about next week."
Karin shoves her hands under her armpits, where at least they'll be warm. Her back sweats under the three shirts she's wearing, but everything facing away from the oven is starting to go numb. Her mother's exposed hands are purplish, her fingers shiny and chapped from the cold.
She wiggles in closer to her mom regardless, trying to leech the warmth from her body. "You should stay home this time. You said you weren't feeling well." There's a lone chakra signature already heading their way, and it's hurrying in a way that Karin definitely doesn't like. "Tell him you can't go this time, okay?" she says, tugging her mom's sleeve.
"Mhm." Her mom has slept through the past few days, huddled up close to the stove while Karin feeds the fire. Even now, her eyes seem heavy, closed off and drawn. "We have to do our part, Karin," she replies mechanically. "They took us in when they didn't have to."
With that, her mom shakily pushes herself to her feet, stumbling a few steps before she's able to right herself.
"You said you weren't feeling well! Tell them you can't." Karin jumps to her feet and snatches her mother's sleeve, clinging to it as if she could actually stop her from leaving. "Tell them… tell them you have to stay and take care of me! Tell them someone has to make sure the oven stays hot!"
For a moment, she's almost successful. Her mom is so worn that even Karin's weak grip is enough to make her rock back on her heels and stumble back towards the oven.
"Please, Mom," she whines, digging her nails into the cloth. "I don't want you to go. I don't wanna be by myself."
"Stop it, Karin," her mom snaps, unusually sharp, as she bats her hand away. Karin draws back, and her mom's shoulders droop. Her entire body seems to grow smaller, and the dark bruises under her eyes seem to take on shadows of their own. "I'm sorry, Karin, but I have to go. I can't tell them no. Please don't make this any harder than it already is, alright?"
"Fine." She says it petulantly and jabs the heel of her shoe into the dirt.
"Be good while I'm gone. Watch the fire."
"Yeah."
Her mom pats her lightly on the head as she turns to go. "I'll—I'll speak to Zosui, okay? About the cold. I'm sure he can find us some spare blankets and clothes."
With that, her mom straightens her shawl around her shoulders and ducks out into the cold, her shawl blowing in the frigid air.
Karin follows her chakra until her mother's chakra meets with the man from Kusa. The hut grows colder, and Karin tosses three more logs into the oven, even though it's barely large enough to hold two, and it'll mean more work for her later, when she has to go chop wood again.
Though it means abandoning the warmth from the oven, Karin goes to wait for her outside and crouches down in the dirt, tucking her hands under her legs to keep them warm.
She waits for an hour, but her mom doesn't come back.
Karin continues to wait for her anyway, because there isn't much else she can do. She can't make her mom come home. She can't convince her to stay.
She isn't useful for anything else, so she sits in the cold dirt and waits while her fingertips grow numb and her nose begins to run, while the logs in the oven burn down into ashes.
Her mom will be mad if the fire goes out, but maybe that'll serve her right for leaving.
Her mind wanders, as it does often, and skims over the village, like a hawk circling overhead, except with her chakra sensing. It's the closest she comes to being a part of them—she doesn't know their names or faces or anything like that, but she can tell other stuff: if they're young, like her, if they're kind.
If they're alone too.
She searches for any trace of her mom to see whether she's on her way back home. Her sensing is like a rubber band—she can stretch her senses all the way to the village and then some, but if she stretches it too far, it snaps back at her and makes her brain ache.
After a while, though, even when she's gone as far as the hospital, she isn't able to find her mom. Karin scrunches her nose. Maybe she went somewhere else today, towards the border.
With no sign of her mom's return, Karin presses up against the oven, pretending it's her mom until her fingertips begin to burn and she starts to sweat beneath her shirt collar again.
Later that day, Zosui returns alone and stands in front of the hut until Karin drags herself from beside the stove to go outside. He doesn't meet her eyes at first, but he's never been the kind of person to waste a lot of time.
"You're coming back to the village," he tells her, his voice tight and eyes piercing. There's no greeting and no warmth in his tone either.
Karin sniffles. She's never gone to the village with her mom before, unless it's for groceries or other errands. "What about my mom? Where is she?"
Zosui doesn't answer. "Come on."
She shuts the door behind her.
Zosui turns and begins to walk back toward the village, but Karin isn't her mother. She doesn't automatically follow him. Without waiting for her to move, Zosui grabs her by her shirt collar and starts to drag her down the dirt path.
Her hands scramble and she tries to pry his hand loose, but his grip is strong as iron, and he leads her several feet down the road before he loosens his hold on her.
"The longer we take, the more lives we lose," he grits out as she chokes. "This is not a game."
Zosui tugs her further ahead down the road but finally lets go of her collar and lets her walk by herself. Still, Karin hurries alongside him - though not too close - so he doesn't try to drag her again.
She rarely comes into the city. She doesn't go to the Academy like the other kids do, and neither she nor her mom have any friends there, since they don't know anyone else besides Zosui and his men.
They pass small crowds as they walk through the village, including pairs and groups of children playing in the streets. It's hard to look away from them, when they seem so close to her in age, but so different from her.
"Don't lag behind," Zosui snaps.
"Yessir," she mumbles.
When she was younger, she used to come with her mom and wait in the nurse's lunch room for her to finish her work. She's done it less and less over the years, especially since she became old enough to stay at the hut herself for longer periods of time.
This time, though, Zosui continues to lead her down the hallways, and Karin assumes she's supposed to continue following him. She doesn't sense her mother's chakra anywhere, which is a first.
But then something catches her eye, just as they're passing down a row of dark rooms. Zosui is distracted for a moment by a nurse, and Karin uses the opportunity to sneak away down the hall, back towards one of the rooms they'd passed.
The lights are off and there's a bed in the middle, but no nurses or equipment are in there. There's a sheet covering her head, but she knows it's her mom, from the bright yellow shawl to the three dots that had once been her soulmark.
What she also sees - what Karin does not want to think about - are the bright red rings of teeth marks that spill down the sides of her mom's arms, all the way down to the tips of her fingers.
"Mom…?" There's no answer.
Karin understands the ebb and flow of chakra well enough to understand that there won't be one.
"Mom…" Her head and the rest of her body can't seem to agree—even as she thinks about running to her, throwing her arms around her neck just one last time, her feet are walking her backwards, back towards the doorway.
"We don't have time for this."
Zosui drags her out into the hallway by her arm, and Karin has only seconds to feel relieved when she realizes this means he can't be her soulmate.
That relief fades fast.