title: tipping point
summary: "We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. That's just how sinners go, Sakura, you can't change that." But she'll try. She'll try. — Sasuke/Sakura
dedication: to the irony of a thai girl only liking korean music.
notes1: let me just say this. this will be eventual sasusaku. note the word eventual. in bold, italic, underlined font. I cannot stress this enough, so please. don't bitch me out for there not being "enuf sazusak smex in d fist chappie!1!". dear lord.
notes2: though this'll probably be more team taka than anything else, lawlz.
notes3: yes, that means karin. and not karin-bashing. i love her, okay.

disclaimer: disclaimed.

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Karin was a lot of things — or so Suigetsu had told her — but if there was one thing she was not, it was stupid.

She was, in fact, an incredibly intelligible woman, she just preferred to flaunt certain assets than use her brain. There was a lot of knowledge between her ears, some more useful than others, some more important. There were trap-setting techniques and unambiguously memorised blueprints, battle methods and enemy titbits, names and faces and fact upon fact, stored in her mind for whenever it was needed.

That's what made Karin so special, her mind; it was exceptional. She had a knack for remembering, and a knack, some might say, for just knowing.

Sasuke was the exception.

"I don't understand what he's up to," she muttered around the rim of her bottle. "I don't get him."

Suigetsu and Jūgo looked up from their plates, first looking to their red-headed team mate, and then towards the fireplace, in front of which Sasuke was sat. He, like all of the other eleven evenings they'd spent in that dusty little inn, was brooding in his favourite chair, hands between his knees and head bowed slightly, eyes set firmly on the flames in the grate before him. The way his fingers skimmed one another, just joint but not quite pressed, made it seem to Karin like he was praying. Sasuke paid no mind to the others — his mind was elsewhere, dancing absently like the flames he so intently watched.

Suigetsu was the first to turn his attention back to the table. He scooped a forkful of rice into his mouth, chewing noisily as he spoke, "Meh, this ain't nothin' unusual, he's jus' broodin' like normal."

"Well, yeah, I get that, dead-last," Karin narrowed her eyes behind her frames and delivered a half-hearted kick to Suigetsu's shin under the table; he winced, "But why? This isn't his usual behaviour, this is his thinking phase. He's planning something."

The three watched their team leader in silence.

When both Suigetsu and Jūgo's plates were empty, and Karin's beer bottle lay discarded in the middle of the table, it was well past midnight. They left the table in its un-cleared state and took their own seats by the fire, Karin curling her legs beneath herself in the other armchair, Suigetsu and Jūgo filling the small sofa between. They continued to watch Sasuke — Karin took the most notice, carefully tracing the lines on his forehead with her gaze, trying to read his eyes with her own.

Before she could decipher anything, anything, he rose from his seat.

"I'm going to bed," he said plainly.

And so, he did. Suigetsu and Jūgo followed shortly after.

Karin remained by the fire. She watched it for heaven knows how long, quietly observing the flames jump around in the grate, never forming the same patterns twice, unique as the snow that fell outside the window. Her bright, intelligent eyes seemed sadly out of place in the dreary little room — a woman with a clockwork mind, an air of quiet confidence, should not be curled in an armchair in a run-down inn, trying desperately to work out where her leader's own thought trail led. It was infuriating not knowing, but something whispered in her ear, quietly soothing her —

— you know you'll get your crowning moment. He's planning something great, in which you will play the greatest role of all.

She smiled to herself, and took herself to bed.

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notes4: ugh, I love karin.