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Jotaro sighed slightly as he kicked off his shoes, closing the door behind him, and immediately flopped down onto one of the (dull, ugly, probably ancient, but still a godsend) hotel beds. He was sweaty, and dirty, and otherwise generally gross, but he didn’t care; He just wanted to lie down, stretch out, and rest on something that was at least softer than a car seat.
The days when they weren’t being attacked by enemy stand users, Jotaro thought, were almost worse than the ones when they were. At least when he was fighting he got to be active and move around, but the past day and a half had been nothing but excruciatingly uneventful driving. They’d left the previous town (he didn’t know the name, as they hadn’t even been there long enough to bother learning it, and frankly he was so tired he’d forgotten which country they were even in) the day before, drove for several hours, slept in the car while Polnareff and the old man took turns driving, and stopped several times along the way for crappy, barely-even-filling packed meals before finally making it to a town with a hotel.
In other words, Jotaro had suffered through approximately 30 hours of being scrunched up in a cramped, hot, uncomfortable car; 30 hours of the same twelve goddamn songs played over and over and over, because his grandfather didn’t like driving without music but evidently had neglected to bring any tapes other than Diamond Dogs and Get Back; 30 hours of doing absolutely nothing other than talking or staring out the window; 30 hours of listening to Polnareff and the old man sing absolutely awful karaoke; 30 hours of listening to them ramble on and on about random nonsense and stories Jotaro had heard his grandfather tell twenty times over, at least four of which had been on that very trip. He wished Avdol had been there, because as much as he appreciated all of their group, Avdol was far less infuriating to be in close quarters with for an extended amount of time than those two.
Needless to say, he was glad to finally have some peace and quiet. And a bed. Oh, how he missed lying down.
“God, I’m so glad to finally be out of that car,” Kakyoin muttered, echoing Jotaro’s unspoken sentiment. “Do you mind if I shower first? I feel gross,” he complained.
“Sure,” Jotaro replied with a flat, tired, uninterested voice; Frankly, he was so absorbed in just enjoying being able to stretch out his arms and legs that he barely even noticed how sweaty he was. He was perfectly happy to delay showering in favor of just lying there, on the bed, in the blissfully quiet hotel room.
And lay there he did, barely moving at all, even as he heard the sound of shuddering pipes and drizzling water from the bathroom. He felt almost sort of numb, detached- but in a good way, like floating in a pool on a hot summer afternoon. He stayed there like that for some time, silent and unmoving and blissfully zoned out, listening to the steady sound of the water running on the other side of the wall, until time seemed to lose its concreteness and his mind began to wander.
He found his thoughts revisiting conversations from the car ride. With so much time and so little to do, they’d wound up talking about everything from stands, to world culture, to music, to childhood memories… Of the latter, there was one particular variety that Jotaro couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.
There had been one conversation- one Kakyoin had slept through, lucky bastard, while Jotaro himself had only managed to pretend to be asleep while reluctantly being forced to listen to the whole thing- in which the subject was young romance. The old man had talked about the many reasons he’d gotten dumped by girls as a teenager, his record most short-lived crush (an attractive new transfer student from Portugal who, three days after school started, had let it slip that he hated Zorro, thus losing all of young Joseph Joestar’s respect), and of course, the endlessly repetitive story of how he got married, while Polnareff talked about the beautiful women in France, his dreams of finding true love, and how much his little sister had cried when the boy she’d liked when she was little moved to another region. The two of them had laughed knowingly at each others’ tales, bonding over the common experiences that always seemed to be a human constant in any culture, and yet…
And yet... Jotaro had yet to live any of these experiences. It seemed meaningless, almost as if it would have been out of character for him to care, but somehow, it stung. He couldn’t deny that.
He sighed and reluctantly dragged himself off the bed and over towards the window, reaching for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.
Growing up, he’d always assumed that he would experience his first crush by the time he hit puberty. Everyone else did, it seemed, and for as much as he often didn’t fit in with his (average height, fully Japanese, boring, obnoxious, overly conforming, unintelligent and uneducated, two-faced, clique-y) peers, he had figured that romance, at least, would have been one thing he would have in common with everyone else. He’d heard so many stories from his family, watched so many of his classmates confess their love to each other and begin dating just like that, watched couples around town shyly hold hands, or even boldly steal quick kisses when they thought no one was looking… Hell, he’d received more confessions than he could count, yet never felt even an inkling of any feeling other than discomfort and annoyance.
(He’d tried, though. There had been a few occasions throughout high school when he’d met girls he didn’t find terribly annoying, who maybe even had some admirable qualities about them, and thought that maybe this was “it”. That maybe he could will this passing interest into developing into a crush, and finally gain that badge of honor that meant he had entered the next phase in life. But it always failed before it had even begun.)
He hadn’t worried about it too much at first; After all, people developed at different rates, and he was still young. But as time went on and graduation grew slowly closer, and he grew closer to both adulthood and the ceiling, and his voice seemingly got deeper by twenty goddamn octaves and his dad somehow took this as a reason to start giving him weird, sappy well-meaning-but-unsolicited dating advice, and his mom started making occasional cheeky comments about his hypothetical future wife, and the other delinquents his age talked in groups about which girls were hot and bragged about their (almost certainly mostly made up, he thought) sexual encounters, and the girls who followed him around argued in whiny voices about when he was going to just “pick” someone already, because surely by this point he had to have some girl he liked, or maybe he had a secret girlfriend from another school...
He exhaled slowly, watching the curls of smoke drift out the window.
Yeah, it was impossible to lie to himself about this.
As much as he would have liked to pretend it didn’t matter, he had nonetheless started worrying more and more about his apparent emotional delays with every passing year since junior high. Maybe it wasn’t even so much the romance itself that he cared about- He didn’t really want a relationship, they always seemed like more trouble than they were worth- but he couldn’t help but worry that maybe there was something wrong with him.
Deep down, he knew, just somehow knew, that the chances of him ever developing those kinds of feelings was next to none. On the rare occasions that his lack of a first crush had come up in conversation, he’d always been told that he was just a late bloomer, that he still had time, that he’d “know” when “it” happened. But how late was too late? Why couldn’t he “know” that that wasn’t who he was, that he wasn’t like everyone else?
...Of course, there were other ways he wasn’t like anyone else. Those things had been hard to figure out too, he thought, as he watched the shimmering, awe-inspiring entity he called his stand hover beside him, looking around the room and out the window with a scrutinizing gaze, ready to protect Jotaro at a moment’s notice as always. He wished some knowing adult would march into his life and tell him what was up with him this time, too, yet from what he recalled, his grandfather always just laughed and said that he was just looking in the wrong places. He always said he just needed someone who shared his personality and interests- someday he would meet some attractive punk rocker or sukeban or something, and then before he knew it he’d be a blushing mess, or so the old man claimed.
(God, how he hoped that wasn’t true, slim a chance as it was; He’d seen romance make complete embarrassing, senseless idiots out of otherwise normal people plenty of times before, and if that ever happened to him he’d shoot himself in the head, Star Platinum be damned.)
Deep down, though, he knew the truth about himself. He knew. He’d known for some time now, if he was being honest, but maybe he hadn’t quite fully admitted it to himself. He still didn’t really want to accept it, always feeling a pang of anger and disappointment and fear whenever he thought about it, but he couldn’t deny that at some point along the line he’d started thinking of it as less of a possibility and more of a straight fact.
“I don’t like anyone,” he said calmly, yet with conviction, as he heard the bathroom door click shut.
He wasn’t sure who he was talking to, really. The words seemed to come out without much thought. Maybe he was talking to Kakyoin, or maybe he was talking to Star Platinum (although the latter seemed to have already disappeared). Maybe he was talking to himself, or maybe he was really talking to no one, simply acting on a deep need to just say the words out loud and make it real.
But regardless of what deep self-reflection he’d been in the middle of, or how poetically he framed it, the fact remained that he had just randomly announced his lack of attraction out loud, completely unprompted. A fact that he was rather alarmingly reminded of by the way Kakyoin stared at him, still-wet hair framing thin eyebrows that furrowed slightly in confusion.
“What?”
...Fuck it, Jotaro thought as he let himself be carried onward by some wave of spontaneity, too tired and wound up for impulse control or regrets.
“I don’t like anyone. Romantically, I mean. Never had a crush on anybody, never will,” he explained further, flicking some ashes out the window, voice terse and flat.
Kakyoin blinked in surprise and stood still for a brief second, slightly taken aback. “Oh. Well… Alright,” he said simply. He then just continued about his business, as if Jotaro’s statement had been completely mundane, reaching into his bag and digging around for a comb.
“What do you mean, ‘alright’? That’s it?” Jotaro practically demanded. He’d been so prepared to defend himself from the inevitable “surely there must be someone you like” or “you’re just young, you’ll change your mind when you get older” dismissals that such a simple, unconcerned answer felt unexpected, even suspicious.
Kakyoin raised an eyebrow at Jotaro. “Was I… supposed to say something different?” he asked, confused by Jotaro’s reaction.. “It’s none of my business who you like and who you don’t. What, were you expecting a dramatic shoujo manga love confession or something?”
(Meanwhile behind him, Hierophant Green inspected the battered old hotel blow dryer suspiciously, shaking it a few times before then peering into the wall outlet as if to look inside; They’d all learned by now that you could never trust anything in a hotel to not be an enemy stand in disguise, including the hotel itself.)
Jotaro gave a mild snort of amusement, both at Kakyoin’s sarcasm, and the ridiculous scene behind him. “I mean, don’t you think it’s weird? Aren’t you going to tell me I’m too young, or whatever?”
“...Maybe it is weird, I don’t know, but I’m the same way, so…” Kakyoin shrugged.
Jotaro paused.
“You… what?” he said hesitantly, wondering if maybe he’d misheard. Surely he couldn’t mean..?
“I’ve also… never had a crush on anyone,” Kakyoin repeated, a little more quietly this time, a little more solemnly.
Jotaro let out a breath in disbelief. “No way. You can’t- I mean, I always thought it was just me,” he stammered slightly, his eternal poker face failing somewhat as he couldn’t help but feel a spark of excitement, a sort of hope he’d never felt before.
Kakyoin smiled slightly, with a hint of a laugh. “So did I,” he admitted- and then his smile faltered again, as he looked away for a moment, ashamed.
“...I used to think that it must be because of… you know… Me being me,” he confessed quietly, gesturing to the stand that now hovered protectively behind him, having abandoned the hair dryer. “After all, if I can’t even connect with other people enough to make friends, how could I ever fall in love? But lately, the more I think about it, the more I feel like… Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d be able to have those kinds of feelings for a stand user, either,” he muttered worriedly, almost too quiet to hear.
“I know I couldn’t,” Jotaro replied, somewhat bitterly.
“How do you know?”
It wasn’t a sarcastic or mean-spirited question, really. Jotaro could hear the difference in Kakyoin’s tone, not at all condescending or accusatory; No, Kakyoin sounded more like someone who genuinely wanted to learn. Someone who was searching for answers.
Jotaro sighed. “I don’t know, I just… I just do, somehow. I guess, because… I just hate the whole goddamn idea of it, you know?” he explained. “I always have. For some reason I swear, every goddamn girl I meet hits on me, and I just… It always makes me so fucking uncomfortable and so angry, I hate it. For a while I thought I must be gay, since clearly I’m not into girls, but…” He shook his head. “Either way, I feel like I’d rather die than date someone. But I guess I’m going to have to eventually, and then get married, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?” he snapped, gritting his teeth in frustration.
Kakyoin tilted his head, looking thoughtful for a moment, before replying. “Maybe… I guess? I mean, sure, that’s the general social standard, but… I don’t know. For me, I’ve always been so used to the idea of being alone all my life that I feel like I almost forgot marriage was a thing people do. What’d be so bad about just… Not getting married?” he wondered.
“Disappointing your parents.”
“Eh, I’ve probably always been a parental disappointment anyway,” Kakyoin said with a vague hand wave, turning around to plug in the hair dryer. “What’s one more flaw? I’ve never been like the rest of humanity, I don’t see any reason to start now,” he said, voice drowned out slightly by the sound of the dryer warming up.
Jotaro went quiet for a moment, thinking this over. Thinking over… everything, really. It was a lot to take in, knowing that suddenly, he wasn’t alone.
Finally, he laughed. A real, genuine laugh this time.
“You know what? You’re right. Fuck humanity,” he decided, extinguishing his cigarette in the ash tray and flopping down on the bed again, arms crossed behind his head. “At least somebody doesn’t think I’m crazy. God, you and I are too alike.”
“Isn’t it funny, though? I always thought I’d never find anyone who was at all like me, and we both thought we were the only ones who didn’t like anyone, but… Here we are,” Kakyoin commented thoughtfully. “It feels… kind of unreal, honestly, but I guess that’s serendipity for you.” As he spoke, he combed through his still-wet hair, holding the comb in one hand and the dryer in the other.
Jotaro hummed vaguely in response, staring at the ceiling as he thought about it.
“Maybe… I dunno, maybe it was like… Fate, or whatever,” he mused distantly.
Kakyoin snorted in amusement. “You think so? Wow. In that case, I’ll have to thank the gods for making sure I got brainwashed by a vampire cult leader and almost murdered you,” he joked.
“The whole world’s a cult, really,” Jotaro replied. “A cult of romance, complete with an annual tithe in the form of chocolate.”
“You make a good point. I wonder if maybe if we kill Dio, everyone else will stop being so obsessed with romance and actually act somewhat sane for once.”
“Fuck, I wish,” Jotaro agreed with a sigh.
“Hey, speaking of which… I think we’re supposed to be leaving pretty early tomorrow, so you should probably shower before it gets too late,” Kakyoin pointed out, growing slightly more serious again as the ever-present knowledge of their mission resurfaced.
Jotaro frowned, similarly sobered by this reminder. “Yeah… Can’t wait to spend another several hours stuck in a car with those two,” he grumbled as he reluctantly sat up.
“Just be glad you weren’t awake for their romance reminiscing session,” Kakyoin mumbled in dismay.
Jotaro paused at this, narrowing his eyes in suspicion at Kakyoin. “Wait, you… Weren’t you asleep for that?” he recalled confusedly.
“No, I was just pretending so they wouldn’t start interrogating me about my love life,” Kakyoin admitted, shaking his head. “Wait, you don’t mean- Oh my god, you were doing the same thing, weren’t you?” he realized with a gasp, staring at Jotaro in wide-eyed surprise.
For a moment, Jotaro simply stared back, both of them at a loss for words. Finally, Jotaro shook his head in disbelief and smiled slightly, turning away.
“Yare yare… I give it a week before we start developing telepathy,” he announced, before shutting the bathroom door behind him.