AN: Another impulse fic, written very quickly. OI FFN, WE NEED MORE GENRES HERE.
My work can't even hold a matchstick to Joseph Heller's Catch-22. I apologise, but that book really did inspire and heavily influence this fic. =wry smile=
This fic also happens to have a potty mouth. Or at least, Yasuo does. I've toned it down a little, 'cause even though all that swearing is under the big bright banner of context and characterization and all, it isn't the main point of the fic.
Cynical, vulgar, and brief. Oh my, what a combination. Ain't it strange that C V B are happy little neighbours on my keyboard. =snorts=
"Oh well, what the hell."
.
.
.
.
.
He's a pathetic coward who can't even hold a miserable matchstick – never mind a candle – to the heroes of war.
Whatever.
Not like he wanted to be one, anyway. That title was for dead men and lucky men.
He didn't believe in luck. He only believed in unluck.
.
"Let me go home."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Yasuo-san."
The slow, hard grind of his teeth dragged across the silence.
"Take me off duty. I don't care how you do it, just frigging do it. Say I'm crazy or something. I don't care."
"Everyone's crazy here, Yasuo-san. I'm sorry but you'd have to find something better than that."
"I ain't needed here. There are plenty of other idiots who are fine with being border guard when the enemy's going to attack and plough right through us any moment. What's the point of border guards anyway?" He tilted his head insolently. "We're just some pathetic fodder. And we let those elite bastards sitting nice and safe back home know when enemy bastards are attacking, and if we die it means the enemy's strong enough for them to send a few upper-ranks over to deal with it. I ain't needed here to be some stuck-up asshole's effin doorbell."
"Yasuo-san, your duty dictates that you stay here. My duty dictates that I keep you here."
"Look," he snarled, losing patience. "I don't give a shit about duty. The whole effing world is out to kill me so you'd better get me effing home before I die out there 'cause – "
"Now then, Yasuo-san. What could possibly make you think the world wants to kill you?"
He snorted, loudly. Derisively. "We're in a war, you dumbass, everyone's out to kill me even if they don't even know my name. And I don't care 'cause I don't wanna know their names either. I just want you to put that whiny voice and that sissy handwriting of yours to use for once and take me off duty so I can go back home where no one's gonna be able to try and kill me. And if you don't – "
"Yasuo-san, it isn't nice to threaten people."
" – will you shut it with the 'Yasuo-san'! – and if you don't send me back I'm gonna die out there which you won't care about anyway, but oh you will regret it when I come back as a ghost and haunt the hell out of this stinking place." He smirked, or tried to, but all that came out was a twisted, half-terrified-half-crazy snarl. "And I'm not gonna give you a single moment of peace. Or a single moment of peaceful piss. Whatever."
There was a brief pause, during which the mousy brown-haired man just stared at him with calm, flat disdain.
"Well? Are you gonna get moving or are you gonna keep staring at me with your stupid shit-coloured eyes? Eh? What? Some mangy old cat got your t—"
"You haunting me isn't going to be a problem, Yasuo-san, so your threat is ineffective."
"What, you actually gonna quit this lame-ass job of yours? Funny, seeing as it's the last thing they have for a disabled ex-genin like you. Pah!"
His jibe was ignored. "It is, after all, impossible for a ghost to haunt another ghost."
"...The hell?"
He stared, again, and suddenly felt like punching the man's face in. (Not like he didn't always want to, but this time he meant it. He was gonna punch that guy's face in. All the way in 'til he inverted the bastard's too-smug face so he'd be seeing backwards.) He shook with fury, inexplicable, burning fury, and slammed his hands flat on the desk – the only thing which stood between them.
"You can't be serious," he hissed. "You can't be effing serious."
"You can't believe we're gonna lose this war, can you?"
There was no change in the other man's expression.
"Fine," he snarled, giving the desk a shove before letting go. Stationery and various documents rattled, rolling onto the floor.
"If that's what you think, fine."
He turned abruptly, and stormed away. "You'll wish you never doubted our village, coward."
"I'm not the only one." Was the cool reply. "Misery loves company. Apparently, so does cowardice."
He spat, and slammed the door.
.
He stayed, and he was an idiot.
He stared at the explosive-tagged kunai sticking out of his chest.
Well, shit.
.
They won the war, eventually.
.
boom.
.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand SNAP goes that miserable matchstick.