Chapter Text
Kakyoin was awake when it was still dark. He felt restless, which was unusual lately. He felt like he wanted, needed to do something. Yet he had no idea what. He tore an uneven piece of paper from the sketchbook he kept in the drawer of his night desk, ignoring the pages upon pages of sketches Jotaro (missing his jacket, usually) he kept there. He made sure that no one read that sketchbook, instead they only knew of his relatively public sketchbook, which was situated somewhere in the room.
But that was off topic. He scribbled “out for a walk, be back later” in the messy, fast written version of his handwriting that Jotaro always called perfect in comparison to his own normal handwriting. He smiled a little, tugging his mouth up. Leaving the note on the desk, he sneaked through the house and out the gate (but not without grabbing a jacket first).
He subconsciously let his feet lead him down the same winding path back to the park that Jotaro had taken him to yesterday. He walked slowly this time, the silence again surrounding him and covering the park like a soft blanket.
It was quite alone, since it was before dawn. He found the same bench against and sat down, before feeling a sharp edge poke into his side. ‘There’s something in my pocket,’ he realized, fishing around the dark gray jacket’s pockets before finding a small lined notebook, complete with a mechanical pencil. As he opened it, he remembered Mrs. Holly had given it to him as a present. He’d probably stuffed it in his pocket and forgotten about it for ages.
Shivering against the cold of the bench as the sky slowly began lightening and the stars disappearing, he began sketching what he imagined yesterday had been like. Blobs that were to become his and Jotaro’s shapes, the vague lines of the ground and sidewalk, omitting the bench because of its more complicated design, the trees roughly sketched out and lighting vague, he refined the sketch until the dawn was over and he had a cramp in his neck. He looked at his watch. 8:00 a.m. Jotaro was at his internship already.
He could imagine every crease of Jotaro’s clothes, how his hat was always just low enough to cast a shadow over his eyes and his hair that went almost down to his shoulders. He was sad that he couldn’t color in the trees along with his own uniform and hair, but Jotaro would look fine in grayscale, seeing his outfit was mostly black anyways.
He looked again at the full picture. The brick road they were walking upon, strides almost lined up as they walked side by side, Jotaro facing ahead and Kakyoin slightly looking over at him, watching his face. Some of the trees flowers fell, the sunlight was to the back of them. It wasn’t perfect, but he had made it as best he could.
He suddenly remembered the heaviness in the lids of his eyes, fighting to keep them open but eventually giving in to the sweetness of sleep.
He awoke at his shared room in the Kujo house with a start. Jotaro was sitting at the foot of the bed clutching something in his hand, giving a minuscule jolt and turning around as Kakyoin scrambled to prop himself up on his elbows.
“Jotaro? Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at work?” His voice came out a little shriller than he would admit.
“Took a sick day.”
“Why on earth would you? Your day off is the day past tomorrow!”
His response was only a shrug.
“Wait a minute, why am I in my school clothes? What’s my old jacket doing on the desk? And what do you have in your hands?”
“You were at the park on a bench, asleep. You had this notebook thing clutched in your hands like it was a lifesaver. Looked like a homeless guy, really.” Kakyoin knew Jotaro well enough to know he didn’t mean if, but he was still worried.
His eyebrows furrowed. That still didn’t cue him into how he’d gotten at the house. He told the other boy as much.
Another shrug. “I carried you.”
Kakyoin felt close to combusting but instead just pushed himself back into the bed, face down now. Maybe if he tried hard enough he would sink into the mattress? He groaned. This was so terribly embarrassing. How had he even found him there?
But Jotaro actually felt more confused than anything. “Kakyoin… what’s wrong?” He moved over to put his hand in Kakyoin’s shoulder as a sort of comfort pat.
A barely audible “Nothing” was the only reply.
Jotaro held his breath. It was now or never.
“Kakyoin…. I’m really worried about you. Do you need to see someone? Are you sick? Is it something I’m doing? When you got off the bench so suddenly yesterday… it was really abrupt and I was- no, still am confused about it. Can you tell me please, Noriaki?”
To say the redhead was surprised would be an understatement. Not only had Jotaro just opened up his emotions fully to him, he had used his first name too, which he only ever did if he was serious. It was probably the closest to a heart-to-heart conversation he was gonna get at this time.
“No, I’m not sick.” He chose his words carefully. “I’m pretty fine, it’s just that I’m thinking about things I don’t know how to deal with. I’m sorry I got off the bench, I was a bit overwhelmed and I’m sorry I made you confused.” A breath. “But Jotaro, I have a question: What did you think of the paper in the journal you found that I was holding?”
Jotaro fidgeted with his fingers while he processed the information, a sign that he was thinking hard. ‘Another thing I’ve picked up on over the years.’ He surprised himself with the realization.
“It’s about yesterday, when we were walking. You did the cherry trees very well. My hat is a bit lighter than usual but you did the jacket pretty much perfectly. You forgot your own earrings.”
Kakyoin was a bit surprised that he had noticed that much. How long had he spent looking at the picture?
“Thank you, jojo.”
Jotaro pulled his cap down as if to say “it’s nothing.”
But it was something, something Kakyoin felt in his heart and his stomach and his soul, as cheesy as it sounded. He wanted Jotaro to see that he cared so much about him. He wanted Jotaro to think Kakyoin was cute, he wanted him to notice how much time Kakyoin tried to spend with him. Kakyoin was sure that Jotaro noticed- but he never said a thing. Would Kakyoin have to be the first to talk? He hoped not.
But looking at Jotaro, with his head facing down sitting in the middle of the bed, cap shadowing his eyes, he felt like he wanted to be ever so closer to him, to hug him and maybe even kiss him. God, this was pathetic.
But then he waved the thought away. He was just a normal person, he needed to focus of whether he got accepted into art college or not, not his fuck-all feelings. And so he rest his bed back on the pillow, and drifted off to sleep.