Chapter Text
My eyes slowly flutter open.
I lay on a California king with white sheets strewn carelessly to the side. The coolness of silk makes contact with my skin, as sunlight and an unfamiliar bird call float together in harmony through the open window.
“Kakyoin.”
I turn over to see my long-lost love gazing at me. “I’m not dreaming, am I?” I sleepily mumble. You let out a muffled chuckle and reach over to slide your hand over my body. I gaze upon your muscular, thinly-obscured build. Your calloused, yet warm hands slide over mine. Our fingers interlace as you stare into my soul with those beautiful, rugged green eyes. I run my free hand along the side of your face, feeling each groove, each scar, each line, then make my way down to the nape of your neck.
“I missed you, cherry boy,” you breathlessly murmur, stroking my scarlet locks.
In the soft glow, we laze.
“Did you ever love me, Jotaro?”
A question I’ve been wanting to ask for ten years slips haphazardly out of the corner of my mouth, cracking the stillness of the morning.
You stare at me, a sly smile quickly spreading across your face. “What do you think?”
I see a glimpse of the once sarcastic teenager again - the one who I’d fallen in love with - and feel a sense of nostalgic desire creep into my veins.
“Then, let me stay with you,” I plead softly. “Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Please,” I beg. “I’ve spent ten years without you, wishing that I could be by your side. Fighting with you. Protecting you with Hierophant. I want nothing more than to be with you, even if I can’t love you. Let me do this for you, please.”
You sigh, sitting upright. “Kakyoin, you need to find your own happiness. Without me. I’m leaving my wife and child not because I want to. I have to let them go for their own good. It’s no different from why I left you after Cairo. It’s no different for why you can’t be with me now.”
“Then, why did you ask to see me?” Desperation bleeds through my words.
“You could call it a moment of weakness,” you answer. “I selfishly fell in love and started a family when I knew I shouldn’t have. I figured that I may as well be selfish one last time before I disappear for good.”
I lay there in silence, trying to find another way to convince you, grappling with the reality that there really is no changing your mind.
The bed shifts as you swing your legs over the side and grab a pack of cigarettes from the bedside drawer. I watch you light one between your fingers and take a deep drag. “I missed watching you smoke.” I wryly smirk.
“It’s an old habit turned new.” You take another deep exhale. “I stopped when Jolyne was born. There’s no point of hiding from my old ways anymore.”
I lay in bed inhaling in the smoke-tinged air and watch you for a bit longer.
The most wonderful things in life are ephemeral.
I find myself, over a quiet breakfast of eggs, toast, and black coffee, grappling with this realization once again. Am I fated to have short-lived happiness forever? I look over the rim of my cup, meeting your tired gaze.
“Don’t come looking for me,” you say, as if reading my mind.
“Does that mean that you’ll look for me?” I counter playfully, though my words are laced with a visceral pain that spreads through my body as I struggle to accept your rejection.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“You’ll never come back to Japan?” I dig into you hopelessly.
“No,” you adamantly utter, looking away.
I know you’re lying. For an emotionless man, you’ve never been good at hiding it; but I realize that trying to ask any further is a futile exercise.
After our third cup of coffee, you call me a cab. You join me on the welcome mat as the afternoon sunlight streams through stained glass.
“This is it, then,” I sigh and look up at your face.
“It is.” Quiet falls between us again, as two old lovers struggle to find the right words to fill their last seconds.
“Kiss me one last time,” I whisper.
You oblige, leaning in to greet my lips with yours as you pull me into an embrace once again. I hold you tightly, breathing in your warm scent, my heart encapsulated in a veil of melancholy.
When we stop, I give you a sad smile.
“At least I finally got to say goodbye.”
“Live well, Kakyoin.”
Your last words ring in my ears as the car speeds away from the sleepy suburbs and the rows of white picket fences become a blur.
I close my eyes, savoring the feeling of your hand intertwined with mine. The softness of your lips. The warmth of your body as you held me gently.
Basking in the realization that my dreams had become reality, even if for only a moment.
Perhaps, one day, I’ll learn to forget you.