Chapter Text
They didn't mention it the next day. Any of it, and most pointedly not Rohan's request. Instead Rohan dropped it, he'd said what he needed to say. Jotaro could answer his request after his mother left. They had spent the Sunday as nothing less than family, Rohan included. With pancakes and coffees for breakfast, plates and mugs between the kitchen and living room that were left behind when Holy practically begged to be shown around her son's town. They hit the hotspots, around the interesting rock faces, small tat shops here and there, Jolyne showing all of them like she should be wearing a 'Morioh tour guide' hat. Holy was obsessed with everything. Stopping at every little place and asking for the long list of memories her son had formed here over the time of his stay, many of which he wasn't keen on divulging.
They hadn't meant to stop at the Owson. But the world stilled a little. Rohan could not help but visibly bristle, he held his arms tight to his side as Jolyne dragged his lifeline away.
"Are you okay sweetheart?" Seiko scooped her hand around his shoulder, squeezing it a little too tight. He tried to shrug her off politely by stretching his back, but she would not budge. She was stronger than she looked. "Absolutely fine," Rohan startled, in a suave kind of way. He kept his appearance bright and generally uninterested as it normally was, the only way you could tell he was on edge was the pace of his breathing. These were the type of things Seiko Kujo noticed, however.
"I'm sure you know all about it, but Jotaro has been through a lot in his life." She looked westward to where her son was crouched down, looking fondly at his daughter, instead of the bug she was showing him.
"I am aware. I didn't know you were." Rohan did the same thing.
"Oh, I knew all about that man before Jotaro and Papa went off to go save me. Out of all the things I'm most upset that he did, it's how much he affected Jotaro." Seiko's voice cracked a little. Rohan could see her swallow a thick uncomfortable lump in her throat. As he looked at the convenience store he tried not to do the same.
"I know he's been through more since then. I can tell you've been through it too. I can't imagine what it is but," she turned to look at Rohan, her eyes crinkled in such a loving way. He recognised that crinkle from Jotaro's eyes. "You can lean on me, even if I don't understand all of it. You're family now, dear."
He blinked. Hard.
God, the entirety of this horrifically fucked up family were actually attempting to mend the pieces of his shattered mind, weren't they?
Well the Kujo's certainly were at least.
Jotaro continued to get dragged along by Jolyne the rest of the way to Duex Magots. Many of the adults in her life had to lean at a crooked angle to be able to hook her arm, which was her preferred way to walk. Jotaro had to do it the most, a behemoth of a man who towered over everyone in the town, his young daughter one of the most, after Koichi of course. Rohan's eyes softened. He hated how soft his heart felt when he saw the father and daughter. Like some pathetic malleable dough. It turned back into obsidian when he rounded the corner and saw an idiot.
"Yo!" Okuyasu spoke so loud that Rohan's skull almost cracked at the sound. He waved large and loud as Jolyne ran over to give him a hug, Jotaro meandering behind. Rohan slowed his pace, trailing far behind Seiko. He wanted his time today to go to sappy, disgusting things like family. Not morons.
Rohan watched from the wall as Jolyne changed between hanging off her father's arm and Okuyasu's as they spoke, the younger man swinging her back and forth.
"Says he's comin' back in a couple weeks. Which is -he mouthed towards Jotaro- bullshit. Koichi's comin' down next weekend, why can't he?" The pout on his face was pitiful. 'Pathetic', is all Rohan could think. Okuyasu had been a state since the Higashikata boy left for university. Then when he took up work at the Speedwagon Foundation it was safe to say, Josuke wasn't down in Morioh often. Then again, neither was Koichi, in an identical situation. But you didn't see Rohan or Yukako complaining that much, both of which they had the right to do in Rohan's opinion. The couple would disagree.
"Between class and work, he's busy. Be proud of him, Nijimura. He's spreading himself thin at the moment. He's doing good work."
Possibly the most Jotaro statement if there ever was one. One that Okuyasu nodded sadly to. One that Rohan didn't bother thinking about until he glanced at Seiko. He was in slight awe as he could see her tense, could see her eyebrows furrow and jaw tighten. Could see exactly where Jotaro got all of his angry tells from. Although, the woman wasn't actually intimidating. Not to Rohan at least.
Still, she moved to stand tall and firm in front of son, "That is nothing to be proud of." It was poignant. Personal. This is something she wishes she could have said around about a decade ago. Rohan was hooked, fighting the urge to pull out his book and sketch the pure look of determination on her face. He didn't see older women often enough in states like this. His fingers twitched as she continued. "This poor boy doesn't even have time to see the people he loves and you're encouraging it? Telling people to be proud?"
His eyes flitted to other people. Jolyne and Okuyasu pulled near identical faces, full of confusion and shock at a mothers scolding. Jotaro's face didn't change at all.
"You don't know who we're talking about mum, leave it."
The conversation could have continued, gone somewhere so interesting Rohan would have given in to the urge of paper and pen. But that loud-mouth was here.
"MUM? You're Mr Jotaro's mum?" Okuyasu looked between the two, catching flies. Despite his lower intelligence, he very quickly put together what it meant and blurted out, "He's fine, really. I'm just worryin' over nothin'."
The silent observer rolled his eyes into his hands. This reassurance meant nothing to Seiko, who looked very confused but still nodded, pitying the fool.
It went still, and everyone could hear the cogs in Okuyasu's head turning, maybe except for Okuyasu himself.
"We'll talk about it another time, Nijimura." Jotaro responded to the empty air. Okuyasu nodded unsurely, and Rohan took that as his sign to push off the wall as they entered the Cafe. Just before the family entered Jotaro took a look back, "Go visit him at some point, I'll pay for your fare. He could do with the company."
Saying goodbye to Holy the next day was hard. Jolyne switched so rapidly from overly stoic to teary eyed, Jotaro found it hard to keep track of. Especially alongside his mother who was not switching. She instead just cried. Heavily. Into Jolyne's hair, Jotaro's coat, a myriad of tissues that she kept on producing from her seemingly endless supply. Jotaro was the last to give her a long, all encompassing hug.
"Be safe mum, yeah? Call me if there's any trouble." It was a habit of his to worry now, so deeply ingrained.
"Oh I'll be fine JoJo." She smiled, patting the side of his face. "Call me if there isn't any trouble. You know me and your father would love to hear from you all."
He nodded, "Will do, we'll come down and visit soon. I promise."
He knew she didn't believe him, but they both liked to have hope.
They let the night pass. Then the next day. It felt so normal if you ignored the heavy question in the air. Waking up at early hours to drink coffee and have toast. Making Jolyne lunch as she dawdled instead of doing her hair. Jotaro had finally forced her out the house far too close to the Monday bell ringing. But she got to the Kawajiri residence in time, her and Hayato waved Jotaro off with differing levels of enthusiasm. Jolyne was the one shouting 'BYE DAD,' of course. From there he set off to work, papers to file, people to keep track of.
Rohan would be up by now. The bags under his eyes would yet to be covered by makeup, his hair yet to be straightened, his brain yet to be caffeinated. But he would be awake. Jotaro liked that he knew that. It brought him great comfort.
The two men sat in bed that night, after a good meal and a little girl tucked in.
"Jean Pierre Polnareff." Rohan had finally broken the silence. It wasn’t an overpowering silence, it was a normal one. One in which Jotaro was reading. "French. That's what your pages said."
He didn’t look up from his book, but he wasn’t reading it either. Just pretending to not really pay attention. He gave an affirming grunt in response.
Rohan stole the book out of his hands, and put a piece of scrap in it as a bookmark, refusing to dog-ear the already worn pages. It forced Jotaro to look at him. Forced Jotaro to draw his mouth into a tight line.
To anyone who did not know the couple, if they looked in on the daily occurrences of Jotaro Kujo and Rohan Kishibe, it would appear they did not actually like each other. They spent most of their time in silence — barely paying attention to each other. Jotaro would read his expansive academic papers on oceanography. Rohan would read a novel of undefined genre. They wouldn’t utter a word. Then, at some point, they would acknowledge each other. This is where the assumption of general distaste would be validated, on appearance at least. Because Jotaro’s teeth would grind slightly, he’d give the lightest wince at the eye contact he’d hold, scratch at his hands to distract them, draw his mouth into a tight line.
When alone, without the prying eyes of others, this is how Jotaro Kujo expressed his love. His romantic admiration, his sexual desires, all of it. It was through an expression of pain, because it hurt. It hurt him a little to be in love. After everything, it reminded him of what it was to be human.
“Jean Pierre Polnareff,” Rohan repeated himself. The sentence never came out as a command, it came out as an invitation. A plea, maybe, although Rohan would never admit that. It was something deep down Jotaro couldn't help but answer.
“I hold him dear. He’s a good man.”
“I’ve heard I’m a harsh critic, but if your pages are anything to go by, so is he.”
Jotaro smiled at that, fondness filled him before it siphoned slowly into something unnamable to him. It was grief.
“The Speedwagon Foundation ceased tracking him in 1995. Our resources needed to be put elsewhere. Kira wasn’t on the radar yet, but smaller ones came from everywhere. We all thought Polnareff would be fine.”
“Would be?” Rohan pressed him to continue.
“I last heard from him in 1998. It’s safe to assume me and the old man are all that’s left.”
Rohan ruminated for a little, letting Jotaro sit with his own thoughts. This was not a good thing. Jotaro had many issues regarding his tribulations through the Middle East. His survivor's guilt dulled on good days and devoured him on the bad ones.
So, Rohan didn’t let him think about it for too long, “I doubt it.” There was no kindness or comfort in his words, only aggressive sounding fact.
Jotaro raised an eyebrow at the other man, slightly disgusted at the notion that Rohan was stating so casually. But then he knew the type of man Rohan was. One that didn’t work well with feelings. No that he couldn’t relate.
“Excuse me?” He responded.
“I doubt he’s dead. You are an illogical man sometimes, Jotaro. You truly assume he’s gone just because he hasn’t been bothered to give you a call?”
“Don’t speak so confidently on things you don’t know of, Kishibe.” He breathed hard to control his temper. “He didn’t travel the world on a holiday. It is safe to assume he’s- Jotaro didn’t want to say the D word- gone.”
Rohan didn’t heed this warning, “But you don’t know so for a fact? I’m sorry, but I don’t want assumptions. You work for one of the most powerful companies in the world. You have contacts all over the globe. You’re scared to look, but you might come out with something goo-”
“Enough. Stop.” Jotaro leaned forward, the sweat at his temples running to his eyes, he breathed heavily, his heart beat loud. His friend was dead. He didn’t need to go looking for his corpse to prove it.
He slept half of the night on the sofa. The other in a bed too small, holding his little girl close.
The next day could have been so normal. But it wasn't. Instead Jotaro slept through his alarm, like he normally did when he shared space with his daughter. Calm and rest towered over him whenever she tried to wrap him in a hug. Jolyne made very little attempt to wake herself. It wasn’t till Jotaro finally stirred that he realised just how late they were. He didn’t have time to make coffee, they didn’t have time to stop by at the Kawajiri household. He barely had time to make Jolyne lunch. He was half an hour late to work, but it didn’t matter. His heart wasn’t in it, not today.
He fiddled with the wire of the landline in his hands, a habit he picked up from Rohan.
The sound of an older American woman cut through the ringing, “Good Morning, how may I help you?” It was exactly who Jotaro hoped was going to pick up.
“Good Morning Valarie, It’s Dr Kujo.” He didn’t have the patience for American pleasantries, “I need you to do some research for me. Jean Pierre Polnareff, remember him?”
“Oh I could never forget his charming face,” She giggled to herself but Jotaro paid no mind to it.
“Right, do we have any recent information on his whereabouts?" He knew the answer. Still winced slightly as she said no.
“Oh we stopped looking at him years ago, didn’t you know?”
“I do. Do we think it’s possible to find any information on him? Anything at all past ‘98?” There was a desperation in Jotaro’s voice that he didn’t like. He swallowed it down hard.
She said she’d look, it’s all Jotaro could ask of her. Excluding an actual miracle. So he just waited. She was a quick worker, the strongest researcher they had bar Jotaro and his youngest recruit. Who he was hoping finished classes soon. He wasn’t exactly keen on having emotional dependencies on fresh faces but Koichi, and to some extent Josuke, helped calm his work-related stresses.
3 hours had passed, Jotaro was barely pushing paper when the phone on his desk shook and shrilled.
“Dr Jotaro Kujo speaking.”
“Well, you do know I love it when you speak English.” Jotaro had half the mind to hang up. He didn’t really know why.
“What do you want, Rohan?” He instead asked, teeth audibly grinding.
“So cold,” Rohan mocked, “I wanted to check on you, you left without a peep this morning. I wanted to make sure you didn’t die on your way to work.”
Jotaro closed his eyes and opened his mouth before the phone let an awful sharp noise out.
“Putting you on hold.” He heard Rohan protest, then hung up.
“Hello Dr Kujo, dear. It’s Val,” He knew it would be her as soon as it rang but his stomach still tightened.
“I have quite a groundbreaking update.” Then his lungs.
“Mr Polnareff was last spotted in Naples, Italy.” Then his heart.
It wasn’t long before Koichi arrived.
“Good afternoon Jotaro.” He beamed through tired eyes, he placed his backpack under his desk and faced Jotaro fully, clearly refusing to eye the pile of paperwork behind him. Lucky for him Jotaro had other plans.
“My office, I need your help with something.” Koichi didn’t need to be asked twice. Jotaro could actively see the relief on the young man's face. He needed to start hiring kids with better work ethics.
“What can you tell me about when you met Giorno Giovanna?” Jotaro appreciated that Koichi didn’t need niceties. He didn’t need to be pandered to, he understood that Jotaro was a man of action.
Jotaro was past the point of needing to know about Giovanna. He had all the information on the boy’s personality he needed, he knew Giovanna wasn’t a threat. That doesn’t mean he trusted the kid, but not being a threat had been good enough up until this point. For this, he needed to know, well, everything else. He needed to know about the people Giovanna surrounded himself with, the activities he did in his spare time. Everything about his life. Stand users attract each other after all. Naples, Italy? It couldn’t just be a coincidence.
It took some time to get Koichi to crack, apparently sworn to secrecy by the Italian boy. Which, to Koichi’s credit, he had kept to himself for some years. But crack he did. And it led Jotaro down the right path. He had heard rumours from his grandmother’s friends of friends about the seedy underbelly of Italy, he truly thought he forgot about all the old woman gossip. But no, the Naples, Italian mafia did in fact use a lighter as a part of their initiation. And apparently that lighter was a stand. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that DIO’S child had something to do with the Mafia. It should have been a surprise when Jotaro found out that child was now the Mafia’s head. But trust that scum’s sperm to be successful in its field. Jotaro would have to bite his tongue and swallow the bile in his throat.
“That’s really all I know.” Koichi assured, “I speak to him maybe once a year, he slipped his number in my passport when returning it, so I thought it would be decent to keep in contact.”
Jotaro visibly straightened every disc in his spine, “I need that number.”
Koichi had been banished back to his desk. Jotaro tried not to feel pity at the fact the paper-pile had probably gotten higher. He instead sat at his desk, burning a hole through his phone with his intense stare. His fingers curled tight around the paper Koichi had given him with the young Italian man’s number. This could wait until tomorrow, he could peel himself away from his desk, go home and eat dinner with his daughter. Instead Rohan had to pick her up from school. He hated when he couldn’t be there. But he was here. With the telephone. With the paper. And with his hand punching in the numbers before he even registered what was happening.
It rang out for a long time. For too long. Every second felt like an hour and Jotaro could feel the phone start to lose grip in his hands from the sweat. Instead of playing with the tangled wire, he gripped it like it might tie him back down to earth. The phone went silent. He felt a mix of relief and grievance. Then fear when it spoke Italian.
“Hirose, it’s a pleasure to hear from you so soon.” From the voice alone Jotaro shouldn’t have been able to tell that this, in certainty, was the spawn of DIO. But he knew. He chalked it to either the Joestar connection, or a deep unbridled fear.
He didn’t speak for a second, to the point where he wondered if Star Platinum had an adverse affect to his stress, but no. Time was moving forward, and he was just still.
“Hirose, that is you, yes?”
Jotaro breathed in, out, in, out. He straightened his back, held his head high. “Hello Giorno Giovanna, my name is Dr Jotaro Kujo. I am a relative of yours” He stopped for a beat, enough time for Giovanna to register but not for him to speak. “There is a lot I should discuss with you, but I’ve called you today for only one reason.”
He could hear Giorno huff through the phone, “And what would that be, Doctor?”
“You know Jean Pierre Polnareff.” It wasn’t a question, it was a fact. Jotaro was beyond questions now, he instead was assertive and harsh. This kid would tell him what he wanted to know.
The Italian boy stayed quiet for a while, then Jotaro heard some ruckus from the other side of the phone. It was muffled by what Jotaro would assume is Giorno’s hand. He made out very few words, the Italian being so fast and quiet that he couldn’t keep up. He caught the bitter end of Giorno’s voice saying, “Please shut up.”
Seconds of silence passed, “Kujo was it? Would you mind telling me how you got this number, Dr Kujo?”
“Contacts, Giovanna.” Is all Jotaro replied, “Now, Jean Pierre. I would like you to tell me what you know.”
It felt like after every sentence, the mafioso was taking the time to ruminate. To calculate every word he said. This wasn’t the style of DIO, Jotaro noted. Whose charisma trickled off him like a poisonous parasitic honey. Instead Giorno was awkward, a little stilted, but incredibly well thought out.
“You are assuming I know who this man is. I may well have never heard of him.”
He was irritating too. Jotaro grinded his teeth, “Don’t fuck around, Giorno. I’m no threat. He’s my friend and I-... he…” In, out. In, out. He couldn’t lose himself on the phone to DIO’s adolescent son. “Stand users attract each other, Giovanna. I know you know that. Just tell me if you know he’s okay.
Please.”
Jotaro’s stomach gurgled and lurched. He could hear how he sounded, pathetic.
“You’re in Japan, yes, Dr Kujo? Could you give me an address.” There was a passive tone in Giorno’s voice. Like all the venom had dissipated and it was now just, human. A cold human, but human nonetheless.
“Why?”
“This is something that is best discussed in person, I believe. You are correct however, I do know Jean Pierre.”
Jotaro could feel his body shake. Hard.
“Is he…” The words caught in his throat. “Is he alive?”
He heard Giorno chuckle through the speaker, sickened. That boy’s laugh sounded just like his fathers, “It is better not to think of him as alive or dead, Dr Kujo. I cannot disclose anymore than that over the phone.”
Jotaro pulled his hair on his head, hat hung in next to the door of his office. “So he is alive?”
“He is not alive, or dead. There is not much else to say. Address please, Doctor.” He heard the shuffling of papers and pens.
“Morioh, S-City prefecture.”
“Expect us Friday Dr Kujo. Don’t dwell on this too much, it will make sense in time.”
God it better.