Words: 2,663 (Look, look! It's the longest chapter so far! OwO)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything that has to with it.
Warnings: Someone has a mental breakdown that leads to swearing. Like, near Hidan-class-swearing... Yeah, that bad. ._.
Hey, you!
I love you guys. You know that, right? You're so awesome and da da da da da I don't know what to say other than thank you more than words can describe for reviewing, favoriting and alerting! :D I've been high on reviews all week again and that made my week that much better.
I was at an anime convention today and yesterday! It was awesome with capitals even when my 'best friend' got mad at me because she ditched me to play In The Groove and then I didn't hang around her...?
Slight rant here, ignore if you want. Author's note continued afterwards.
Then she got all angst angst angst and wouldn't talk to me. It made me change my msn status to 'Bitch please', hoping she'll take the hint because she's been throwing all her angst on me for the last few months and I can't take it anymore I swear.
/God I hope she doesn't pick this exact moment to start caring about my beloved writing, as she never really has before/
Slight rant over, sorry but I had to get that off my chest OTL, go ahead and read on or skip straight to the story at the next horizontal line.
But still, it was awesome at the con. I got friends, I got yaoi, I got drawings, I got a new hat and other random stuff... I learned about Japanese Mythology and I'm learning Jumpstyle now because I was taught how to do it. *heart* You know.
And so, I only got the real time to write this chapter now (had a busy bee week), so I've been sitting here for the last two hours with Write Or Die. It's been really fun and relaxing, actually. :) And I got myself a pack of Moomin cookies after getting 2,400 words down (I already had 200+ when I started, haha), and I like them so it's a good thing.
And I liked this chapter. I don't know why, but I do. I liked writing it, and I liked what happened. Really hope you do too~
Go ahead, I'll stop blabbering now, haha. Chapter titled 'Broken' is go!
Deidara tugged at Deidara's sleeve eagerly, "We should go have some fun, un!" he informed the elder happily.
"We?" Sasori repeated irritably, "Since when have 'you' and 'I' turned into a 'we'?"
"Since I said so, un!" Deidara said dismissedly, "Just now!"
The red head captured the blonde's unoccupied with his hand, tightening his hold slowly. "And why in the world did you suddenly decide that you and I should go 'have some fun'?"
"Because," Deidara started, eyeing his wrist uncomfortably all the while, "You have nothing to do, I have nothing to do and I'm bored, un." Sasori opened his mouth to counter the statement, but Deidara quickly continued, "Either that or I'll follow you back to your home. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
Did Sasori want that? An air-headed, unpredictable stray knowing where he lived?
A definite no.
Getting impatient by the lack of an answer within a matter of a few seconds, Deidara tried to pull his hand free from Sasori's tight grip, with no success of course.
What did happen, though, was that Sasori felt the bones in Deidara's hand twitch with the movement, and suddenly there were thoughts like 'What if I tugged this the wrong way?' and 'What if I twisted this just a little too harshly?' roaming through his head.
Suddenly he found himself thinking about how close the bone was to where he was touching - he could feel it and move it slightly if he wished to - and how much it was forced to endure on a daily basis. He knew it shouldn't have been that way. It was just wrong; common sense had it, seriously.
This caused him to release his hold on the blonde, but judging by Deidara's smug, slightly happy grin, the clown probably thought that the reason was something else completely.
"I'll take that as a yes," the oblivious blonde told him, "So fun it is, un!"
"What does your 'fun' even include, brat?"
Deidara looked downwards, silent all of a sudden, not meeting Sasori's eyes as he poked at the stone tiles with his foot.
When he understood what this meant, Sasori couldn't help but groan,"...you can't be serious."
The blue-eyed blonde shrugged absently. "I don't plan forward like that, un. I thought I'd figure it out as we go." With this, he tugged at Sasori's sleeve impatiently yet again.
Sasori stepped back half-a-step. "I never agreed to 'go have fun' with you. And I won't, either."
"Well, like I said, the other option is I follow you home. It's not any better for you, y'know, un?"
After a moment of contemblating this, Sasori sighed in defeat. "Whatever, brat. Just figure out what your so-called 'fun' is and I won't leave just yet."
"Hooray!" Deidara cheered in an almost mocking way, grinning widely. "Let's go, then, un!"
"Where to?" he asked as the clown tugged at his sleeve again.
Releasing his hold on Sasori for a moment, Deidara stepped back, closed his eyes and spun around. "That way!" he then exclaimed, pointing at a random direction, or in this case, east.
"Not as far as to the woods," Sasori told him, shaking his head slightly in pure disbelief. Why in the world would someone go through all that trouble to get someone to come and fun with them if the location mattered so little to them, anyways?
"The woods?" Deidara questioned him, frowning as he did so, "What woods, un?"
Sasori too frowned at this, but he did it mostly because he would've presumed that Deidara would've known that. "The woods in the south-eastern side of the town. It's dark and very easy to get lost in there."
"Ah," Deidara acknowledged, "I understand, un. We don't have to go that far... if you're scared, un." He laughed like it was the world's joke that he told, just now.
Knowing the point of this comment was probably to get him agitated, the red head didn't want to give the other that satisfaction, instead settling with muttering annoyedly, "I'm just thinking rationally, unlike some."
It was Deidara's turn to seem annoyed now. "I can think rationally when I want to, you know, un."
"You just never feel like it," Sasori corrected.
Suddenly Deidara huffed, starting to drag Sasori towards west.
"I thought we were going east? Towards the woods and-"
"We aren't, I changed my mind, un," Deidara scowled as he spoke, "And we'll be heading west until you admit that you're afraid of it."
"Never going to happen," Sasori sneered, walking a little faster until his pace was quick enough so that Deidara didn't need to drag him along anymore, "Because I'm not afraid."
Deidara nodded, "Good, un. The Graveyard it is, then." Sasori couldn't help noticing that Deidara spoke the word with respect, unlike most people did. He spoke of it as a sacred place rather than a cursed spot being haunted by ghosts.
"What, no," Sasori disagreed, "Why in the world would you want to go there, of all places, to have fun?"
"I need to pay my respects before we can go anywhere, un," Deidara informed him, "I have to, un."
"Well I'm not-"
"Afraid, are you?" Deidara interrupted, effectively silencing Sasori, who was everything but afraid. "Thought so, un." With that, he was back to quietly walking towards his destination.
Sasori couldn't quite pinpoint what part about this bothered him, but he was absolutely certain that something did. Maybe it was because he couldn't really concentrate when Deidara's shoes made such a loud noise...
Okay, so the noise wasn't exactly loud. But given the fact that they were currently in one of those quiet, almost abandoned alleyways, this one even smaller than Deidara's new favorite place, it was otherwise quieter than in a room where someone had found a black feather - a horrible sign of bad luck.
And when everything else was utterly silent, the quietest of sounds could seem like a bang from a small (or not so small) bomb.
Sasori chose not to complain, though. Mostly because every conversation with the other seemed to end in a ferocious fight with the two people who, however different, both considered themselves to be 'artists', and he wasn't currently in the right mood to be purposefully starting one of those.
Deidara seemed slightly lost in thought, his expression changing from a concerned frown into a dark scowl and then a blank smile as he walked.
Not that Sasori was watching him or anything, because he surely wasn't. But it was sort of fascinating, and he would've paid a silver coin, maybe even a gold one, to know exactly what was going through his head right now.
Though Sasori was aware it was probably nothing worth even a bronze coin; there was no way that the blonde could ever be so complex. The most that might be going on in his mind was probably figuring out a suitable place for 'having fun' or whatever it was that he had wanted to do.
And so, Sasori knew for certain he should've stopped watching Deidara's expression and trying understand the meanings behind them.
But still... as said, it was entrancing. He couldn't help looking, continuing looking, and continuing looking even after his sense kicked in and told him to stop doing that continuously.
Soon enough, they were there, and Deidara's expression settled at a proud grin for some reason or other.
Deidara looked at the high-ish gates iron to the place for a while before pushing them open, making little to no sound as he did, which could easily be counted as an accomplishment since its hinges were very rusty.
Sasori couldn't actually remember the last time he had been to the graveyard, though he was certain he had been there, and so he was sort of appalled to be staring at hundreds of graves on the ground, a few trees scattered around to provide them some shade, and many pathways criss-crossing around the graves.
Deidara took his hand - yes, his hand instead of just grabbing his sleeve, and scanning the graveyard with his gaze, apparently looking for the grave he wanted to pay his respects to.
"I like graveyards," Deidara murmured quietly, "They are peaceful, un. People never come to a graveyard without a certain sense of nervousness, fear and respect, un. I like that."
"I figured," Sasori muttered in response as Deidara started walking again, slowly and quietly. He wasn't even sure if he really had figured it out or if he just wanted to say that to seem smart.
Suddenly Deidara seemed to find what he was looking for, taking a turn to a path leading right and then continuing until the path ended, and then stepping into the grass, walking to the farthest corner and then kneeling down in front of a small, small grave.
Jokers never got graves like other people. Their graves were scattered all around the place, if they even existed in the first place.
Most of them didn't even exist, actually. The only reason for one to exist was that either someone had liked the Joker, which was impossible in itself, or that someone wanted them to have a grave so that people wouldn't forget how dangerous Jokers in truth were.
And even though Sasori had never seen a Joker's grave - or noticed one, anyways, he was certain he was seeing one when the blonde kneeled in front of the small excuse for a grave.
"That's... a Joker's grave," Sasori said slowly, almost thinking that Deidara didn't understand what that meant.
"Are you bothered by the concept," Deidara murmured, looking up at him behind his shoulder somewhat curiously, "of a Joker having a grave of his or her own, like everyone else, un?"
"Yes," Sasori said seriously, not feeling like he needed to explain it further.
Deidara shrugged. "I don't know... When I die, I would prefer having a grave too, un. Why wouldn't he, un?" He motioned at the grave at the last word, or the last word before his little speech habit, anyways.
"How do you know it's a he?" Sasori asked him, bending down slightly to see if it was stated anywhere.
"I don't. I just said that, is all, un." Deidara shrugged, "I pity them, un. I mean, yeah, they got a grave, but that's hardly enough to compensate having lived a really shitty life."
Sasori absently wondered if this was the first time he had heard the usually ever so cheery blonde curse. "What do you mean, 'shitty life'? They make everyone else's lives shitty, that's all they're capable of."
Deidara had the kind of weird expression that probably meant that he wanted to curse Sasori off loudly, and would've done so, had they not been in a graveyard. "You really never thought that maybe not all Jokers want to be mean and make shit happen, that maybe they don't all even do that, but they're so fucking hated that people fucking kill them after they're born and fuck-"
Suddenly it seemed like he again remembered that this was indeed a graveyard, and breathed in and out quietly before continuing, this time slightly calmer and a lot quieter. "-and fuck you, un. It's not a nice life to live at all, and they haven't done a thing to fucking deserve it."
Was Deidara really swearing like Sasori had only heard Hidan do...?
"Are you-" Sasori started, only to be cut off by Deidara.
"I knew him," Deidara admitted, or more like half-sobbed brokenly, "I fucking knew him, un. And he didn't deserve this."
Sasori had always been horrible, horrible with capital HORRI and BLE, when it came down to comforting people. Again he found himself cursing this fact as he watched the blonde tremble in grief before a grave of someone Sasori had just down-right mocked harshly.
"I'm sorry," was all he could say, and even this came to him after he had been standing there for at least five or ten minutes, "For saying that. I didn't-"
"Let's just go," Deidara murmured, getting on his feet and hastily wiping his seemingly dry eye on his right sleeve as he did. "Let's go, un."
Sasori caught sight of something black on Deidara's sleeve and mentioned this to the blonde since the latter now held brief similarity to someone who had never seen a night's sleep when his eyes were shadowed by black.
"Damn," Deidara cursed as they headed off, then proceeding to wipe his eyes clean with his other sleeve instead. "Still there?" he asked, looking at Sasori.
"Nope. What was it, anyways?"
Deidara raised his sleeve in front of Sasori's face, showing how uneven the edge in reality was. "Burnt it, un," he offered simply as an explanation.
"Burnt it...?"
"Yes." Then suddenly, Deidara's usual, happy grin was back, and it seemed like he was going to act like the whole scene at the graveyard had never even taken place. Though Sasori couldn't just forget about it; it bothered him. Deidara had never struck to him as a person who just lashed out like that, so his best guess was that this whole thing had really hit a nerve.
Could a happy-go-lucky person like him really have a person they had once cared about that much?
In a way, of course it was possible. No matter what kind of a person they were, mostly everyone had someone like that, someone important enough to give up the world for. (Just not Sasori, but he had always considered himself more or less emotionless.)
The reason why he found it weird was that if Deidara had had a person like that, how come he could still tug that smile on his face at all times?
(Was it even real?)
"Hey, are there any bars around here?" Deidara suddenly asked.
Now contemplating on the skill of Deidara asking completely random question at a time like this, Sasori shrugged. "Bars as in beer? I don't drink."
Hidan, like most people, considered drinking to be a classy activity; Sasori considered it to be legal torture and destroying brain cells.
"Damn..." Deidara murmured quietly. "I've got nothing, then, un."
"So your first choice is a bar and your second choice doesn't exist?" Sasori scolded him, "Think of something or you definitely aren't worth my while."
"Am too worth your while, un," Deidara insisted, "Once I think of something. This town isn't in my comfort zone, un..."
Sasori suddenly got the idea he had been needing. "We should eat. Yours wrists are too thin and I bet you are too."
"No way. That's not even remotely fun, un," Deidara disagreed, "Besides, I ate just before you got there. So that was about, two hours ago. I'm not hungry, un."
"There's nothing worth visiting in this town, brat," Sasori muttered, "And most definitely nothing fun."
"There has got to be something..." Deidara whined. "Hey, what about a café, un? Or a bakery? Your treat, un!"
Sasori sighed, "Okay. Whatever as long as I can get rid of you."
"So there is a café some around here, un?" Deidara asked him happily, "Take me there!"
Suddenly, Sasori knew what it was about all this that had seemed suspicious at the back of his mind.
Deidara didn't know about the woods - and everyone, absolutely everyone, who had been living in the town for at least a while, everyone knew the woods. They absolutely had to.
Which meant that there was no way Deidara would've lived there before. But then, how come he knew where the graveyard was, so accurately, too, and knew the exact location of a certain grave. Well, knew the exact location after a few moments of doubt, but still.
All of that sounded suspiciously like a part of it was a lie; actually, a part of it almost had to be a lie since it didn't make any sense otherwise.
But what part of it was the lie?
^ If you're wondering, Deidara was referring to the European 'café', because if this thing took place in real world, it would be in Europe. Also, my knowledge on America is below average, so... An European café is the place where they sell coffee and stuff. Light meals, sandwiches, baked thing and sometimes alcohol. In case anyone was wondering, thought I'd mention it.
And oooh my Goood, the plot keeps thickening in every other direction but the one I had in mind. We'll get there... sometime, I hope. Meanwhile, hope you're enjoying it. Like I mentioned before, I liked writing this chapter~
I have to ask; do the chapter names make any sense now? OwO
And if you have the time... A review, as you know, would make my day... They always do~ (anddontwanttowriteifyounoread)
See you~
