@antet
He looks like Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. Cowboy would’ve liked that. Still, he’s conspicuous. He sticks out like a sore thumb, dusty and grey and not Vietnamese but not American either. Joker thinks he might be French, but he doesn’t look French. It’s just one of those things over here - either you’re Vietnamese and you’re supposed to be here, or you’re American or French and you’re not, not really.
The discomfort of thinking that shows on his face in an awkward scrunch. He flattens out the expression and troops over. The rest of the squad is lunching on MREs in an empty, shelled-out pagoda and he thinks he’s the only one who’s noticed the stranger so far, standing tall and misplaced by a tiny, dirty stream, one of the tendrils at the end of the Perfume River.
“Yo.” He stops at a respectful distance and his free hand goes into his pocket, deep. The other is busy, supporting the helmet he has tucked under his arm. BORN TO KILL, drawn on in thick marker, is still visible; the ink is tougher than he feels, sometimes. Up close, the gun belts crossing his chest are equal parts comforting and the opposite, and he rolls his shoulder to remind himself of the comforting weight of his rifle slung over his back. “You’re pretty far out to be lost but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, man.”