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“This is like a very horrid plot in a romance novel, JoJo, I do hope you know that.” Why he has to bring this up to Noriaki when he’s on a ladder, shelving books, is a total mystery. Except that this is probably a very embarrassing proposition for Jotaro to make and, in all likelihood, not his idea.
It was probably Polnareff’s. Noriaki’s going to murder him next time they meet.
Jotaro says “yeah” even though he probably doesn’t know and really just wants to get the conversation over with.
That makes two of them. “Why?” Noriaki asks, only when he asks it he gets off the ladder and does his best to stare into Jotaro’s eyes from underneath his ridiculous hat. It’s not an easy conversation for Noriaki, either, but he didn’t survive being made a donut to show weakness over something like this.
Well, and they will have to look at each other sooner or later. They are roommates, after all.
Jotaro attempts to shrug without upending his hat, but the attempt at nonchalance has never once pacified Noriaki, and it’s not about to now. So Jotaro sighs and yare yare’s under his breath. “Mom’s been nagging me to go out with someone.”
“So go out with someone.”
Jotaro makes, what is for him, an exaggerated grimace, and Noriaki knows what he’s going to say before he even says it. “I don’t want to.”
Noriaki hates it when he does things like this, looks and sounds so pathetic and adorable that he feels like he can’t say no, regardless of how asinine the request. “You know how my mom is,” he continues, tugging on the brim of his hat. “She’s so picky when it comes to my partners.”
Which answers the real question of ‘Why does it have to be me?’ Ever since Jotaro expressed an interest in dating, Holly had been very stern in her opinions of who she felt was right for Jotaro.
But she loved Noriaki.
“It’s just for the holidays,” Jotaro says, although what he’s planning on doing after that is anyone’s guess. He finally moves his hat out of the way and gives Noriaki a pleading look. “Please.”
Noriaki sighs. He is truly fucked.
Noriaki has been in love with Jotaro since, oh, the first time he saw him. Which is, he knows, an incredibly shallow thing to say, but he was seventeen and really gay and very lonely when they first met, and after his hormones calmed the fuck down he fell in love with Jotaro anyway, even knowing what a stupid idea that was. For a brief period of time he entertained the idea that Jotaro might have felt the same way, but as it turned out, Jotaro was just very awkward and did not particularly like most people.
He found this out as college freshmen when they started rooming together, Jotaro got a girlfriend, accidentally got her pregnant, had a nasty breakup, and hadn’t dated anyone since. Because he was still in love with her.
That had been, really one hell of a year for Jotaro, and also one secret hell of a year for Noriaki.
It simply wasn’t fair to keep your composure for so long, but there was really nowhere for him to break down. Jotaro was his roommate, and the mere suggestion – even from Marina – that they no longer room together, caused JoJo visible alarm. And since Jotaro could be every bit as stubborn as Noriaki, there was a horrifying chance that if Noriaki suggested it, he’d want to know why. And really, having the love of your life’s pregnant girlfriend ask you to be the godfather of their unborn child had been mortifying enough.
It’s not like he could say no. And he will, he is sure, totally adore Jolyne when she is older, and maybe he can even be the embarrassing uncle who tells her how he used to be in love with her father.
Thinking about it now makes his stomach hurt.
He’s not sure if Jotaro told Holly before they left that they started “dating” or if he’s saving it as some sort of surprise for when they arrive, but Jotaro doesn’t give him much of a backstory to follow. Or, like, any.
Noriaki guesses that makes sense. It’s not like he’s some total stranger or something. There’s going to be more Kujo-Joestar there than he’s met before, but it’s not like it would be a lie to say they met in high school.
But it would be useful to know other things, like when they’re supposed to have started dating or where their first date is supposed to have been.
Jotaro doesn’t seem too worried. It’s close to exams, so they both have other things on their plates, and Noriaki almost totally forgets about the whole thing until Jotaro reminds him, eyes never leaving his notes, to make sure he’s packed.
They drive to New York.
In the grand scheme of things it is not the farthest Noriaki has traveled by car (obviously) nor the worst, but he still feels an underlying anxiety about the things they don’t mention, like how excruciating this whole week will be for Noriaki.
Somewhere around the terrifying overpasses and off-ramps of northern Virginia, when they are passing the Pentagon, and Noriaki is doing his usual travel babble, Jotaro grabs his hand.
Noriaki stops speaking for a second, just staring at Jotaro’s hand on his. “For practice,” Jotaro says when he realizes Noriaki’s silence is a question.
Noriaki feels like melted butter when he says that. It’s so corny, such a bad excuse, the exact kind of thing Noriaki himself would say to hit on Jotaro if he thought that his friend was even a little bit interested.
And if it were anyone other than Jotaro, he might think that he was, that this was some subtle flirtation. But Noriaki knows Jotaro, knows he can get touch-starved and worried and hates to show it. So maybe when he says ‘for practice,’ it is a lie, but it’s not the kind of lie Noriaki wants it to be.
So he says, “Okay,” and leaves it at that.
Jotaro has a huge and obnoxious family that Noriaki knows and loves dearly. Joseph will be there with his wife, Suzy Q; Jotaro’s parents, Holly and Sadao; and then literally all of Sadao’s family, half a dozen of Joseph’s friends, Avdol, Polnareff, and Iggy.
Today, it’s just Joseph, Suzy, Holly, and Sadao. It’s rare for Jotaro’s father to get or take time off of work, but he’s standing in the main room with one arm around his wife when Jotaro and Noriaki enter. He opens his mouth to greet them, but is interrupted by Joseph, who even barrels over poor Rosas.
“Jotaro!” he yells, smothering his grandson in an unwelcomed hug. “And Kakyoin!” he shouts again. He’s more cautious with Noriaki, probably because of the stomach wound. He’s grateful for it. “Not that I mind seeing Kakyoin, of course,” Joseph continues, “But what about your lovely girlfriend? You could have brought them both.”
There is a full, uncomfortably long second of total silence. And then Jotaro says, “We broke up over a year ago, old man.”
Noriaki is half-expecting one of Joseph’s boisterous, carefree laughs, but all he does is clear his throat and offer to help Rosas with the bags.
Jotaro’s heartache and discomfort must be really obvious, if Joseph picks up on it.
Holly is not one to leave things hanging and she rushes to them, embracing and kissing them both. “It’s so nice to see my boys again!” she says, overwhelmingly affectionate. Her husband, by contrast, nods at his son and shake’s Noriaki’s hand, assuring him that it’s good to see him again.
Joseph has returned now, clapping Jotaro hard on the shoulder. “We’ve put your things in your room – do you mind sharing with Kakyoin? I know you’ve roomed together before. We can always bring in an airbed –“
Jotaro grabs Noriaki’s hand and says, almost belatedly, “That won’t be necessary.”
It feels like Noriaki is swallowing something down when Joseph looks at them.
But he doesn’t quite make the connection. “You don’t mind sharing a bed?”
“Old man,” Jotaro says, testily, and waves their interlocked fingers in front of his face.
Noriaki feels like he’s going to pass out.
Joseph’s hands come up to his face in slow motion and he shrieks “Oh my god!” before punching his grandson lightly on the arm and queueing up a whole bunch of inappropriate jokes about their time spent as roommates.
Holly looks at them appraisingly, head tilted, eyes shifting from her son to Noriaki. It’s not a look he’s used to getting, but this must be the scrutiny Jotaro mentioned. She almost looks intimidating like this, and it occurs to Noriaki that this is where Jotaro gets it from.
It doesn’t take long for Holly to examine him, since she already knows him. It’s just a few seconds, and then she pats his cheeks and says, “I know you’ll take good care of my son.” Mostly with confidence. But a little bit of a threat.
It’s not like Noriaki has never been invited to their family get-togethers before. Before they graduated, he spent his holidays with his parents, usually abroad. They would have let him go with Jotaro, if he’d asked, but he figured there would be time for that in college.
He’d actually been looking forward to it. And then Jotaro found Marina, and Noriaki found an excuse to never be around.
He couldn’t say that he disliked her, but it was difficult to follow a boy to college and have him find someone else. Jotaro was totally, stupidly oblivious to Noriaki’s feelings, that much was obvious. He was never a malicious person to begin with, despite popular opinion, and him inviting Noriaki to tag along with them for every given holiday was an extension of his kindness. Noriaki had come with him to a country far from home, where he had no friends or family, and the least Jotaro could do was invite his friend to come with him for Thanksgiving and Christmas and whatever the hell else Americans celebrated.
Only the idea of watching Jotaro hold hands with and kiss and hold and be close to someone else kind of made Noriaki want to re-open the wound in his stomach, so he made sure that any stretch of time they had off, he had other plans.
Jotaro always looked quietly dismayed, but never fought it.
They are staying in Joseph and Suzy’s second guest bedroom, adjacent to the room in which Jotaro’s parents will be staying. It’s uncomfortably intimate, to be staying like adults in love next to adults who are actually in love.
Noriaki is dreading their sleeping arrangements, because there is literally no reason for them to not sleep together. It would be really dumb and awkward if Joseph walked in and they weren’t in bed together. Another thing that will be really dumb and awkward: Kakyoin’s feelings when they are in bed together.
They’re all adults here. Young adults, maybe, but still old enough to know the kinds of things that can happen in the morning. He’s not exactly thinking Jotaro will flip out if they wake up and Kakyoin is a little hard or that he’ll do something stupid while he’s sleepy like kissing Jotaro, but there’s bound to be a rush of adrenaline when he wakes up and sees Jotaro still asleep, where his heart will start screaming and his head is going to have to calm it down and remind him that this is all fake. This is just a show. This is just to get Holly off Jotaro’s back for a while, and next year, Jotaro will be on his own.
Or maybe not. Maybe by then, he’ll have moved on. He’ll take a different girl to New York for the holidays and Noriaki will sit by himself in their dorm room with the power off, making origami stars with Hierophant Green and eating melted ice cream by the pint.
God, he needs to get out more. Make some more friends. Have a life outside of his shadow.
Jotaro moves his suitcase onto the bed and starts rifling through it. “I brought the sweater my mom got you, for tomorrow,” he tells Noriaki, startling him out of his depressed haze. He still isn’t quite looking at him, all of his attention focused on rummaging through his supplies. “I packed an extra one, in case you forgot yours.”
Noriaki did forget his. He didn’t realize anyone actually wore those ugly things. He was just going to hang it up for decoration. He hovers a little by Jotaro’s shoulder and his friend hands him a sweater wordlessly. “It’s funny,” Noriaki says, watching Jotaro’s hands shuffle his belongings until he finds the other sweater. “I don’t think we packed this much for Egypt.”
Jotaro looks at him, very sharply, eyebrows knit so close together. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking when he makes this face, like he wants to say something, but can’t piece the words together.
It’s the mention of Egypt, probably. There’s a silent agreement that neither one of them will bring it up, although Noriaki still finds Jotaro staring openly at the scars on his middle where there used to be a hole.
Noriaki feels almost embarrassed for bringing it up, and turns his back to Jotaro to put the sweater closer to his side of the bed, so he won’t forget it tomorrow. He can feel Jotaro still staring at him, still processing his next sentence.
Joseph, the king of bad timing, opens the door as Jotaro opens his mouth to speak. “Am I interrupting something?” he asks, eyebrows waggling cartoonishly. Jotaro mutters a good grief under his breath. “I just wanted to make sure you two are getting settled in okay – I know you had a long drive and no one would blame if you went…straight to bed, haha.” Something sails past Noriaki’s head, and Joseph ducks as a shoe escapes the door.
Jotaro is like a furnace when he sleeps. He’s draped halfway on top of Noriaki, who has one arm asleep under a pillow and the other, by contrast, freezing next to him. And his whole entire back is on fire from where Jotaro is pressed against him, breathing against his now-damp neck.
He thought it might be more romantic than this, waking up in Jotaro’s arms. It’s probably for the best that it’s not.
It’s pretty hard to wrestle himself out of Jotaro’s grasp, but that doesn’t surprise him. They’d stayed in several rooms together on the road to Egypt, and waking him up had always been something of a challenge. The first time he’d tried to shake his roommate awake, Jotaro had responded by gripping tightly onto Noriaki’s wrist and dragging him down, pinning him to the bed in his sleep. So this wasn’t, technically, the first time that he’d found himself in JoJo’s embrace, but it was the first time he’d actually signed up for it.
Today he’s going to be meeting Jotaro’s aunt and uncle on his father’s side, his four cousins, several of Holly’s friends high school and college, Suzy’s remaining family, Joseph’s mother and step-father, his friend Smokey and all of his family, several Speedwagon Foundation employees, and a bunch of people with the surname Zeppeli. Was he missing anybody?
Staying in Joseph’s massive apartment is more or less like staying in a hotel. And like when they stayed in series of hotel after hotel, Noriaki opts to take his shower while Jotaro is still asleep.
But he’s only in something like three minutes before their bathroom door opens and Jotaro steps in, still half asleep and bare-chested.
Jotaro knows he’s in here, right? Like, the shower’s pretty loud. There’s no way he can just not notice, no matter how bleary-eyed he is. And that it means Noriaki is in here, naked.
“How did you sleep?” he asks. So, like, he does know Noriaki is in the shower. “Didn’t think it was so late.”
Noriaki’s voice is caught in his throat for a moment, between the sheer embarrassment of being naked in the same room as Jotaro and Jotaro being in here too, half-naked, and also not leaving. The shower door’s a little fogged up but from what he can see when he tries to peek out, he’s fairly certain Jotaro is shaving.
It takes a minute for Noriaki to clear his throat. “Fine,” he says. “It’s only ten.”
“Yeah, but gramps wants us to get up and do family shit.” He hears Jotaro tapping his razor against the porcelain of the sink. Noriaki feels the need to nag him about it, but bites it down. “We do this kind of thing every year.”
Noriaki has to make himself look away from the foggy door, from Jotaro’s back, to concentrate on washing himself. “This kind of thing?” he repeats.
“Brunch, family pictures, last-minute shopping, dinner, party until about three in the morning,” he says. He sounds tired just saying it. “He likes us to be up at about eight so he can run us through the itinerary. I guess he let us sleep in as a way of giving us his approval.”
Approval. From Holly and Joseph both.
He doesn’t know how to feel about that. Guilty, a little, from lying to them. And another, a weird sense of pride. Smugness. The kind of toxic happiness he felt when Jotaro first told him that he and Marina had split up.
Noriaki can wash his hair to that, drowning out the sound of Jotaro shaving in the background. Jotaro doesn’t talk much in general and even less in the mornings, and the white noise helps to put Noriaki’s mind at ease.
Except that when he’s done, Jotaro is still in the bathroom, fiddling with stuff on the counter. Which is both unlike his incessant refusal to even comb his hair, and very embarrassing for Noriaki who is standing there, shivering, without a towel. But what is he supposed to do – walk out in front of Jotaro like this?
After something like two minutes, Jotaro seems to register that the shower is no longer running, and asks him, “Do you need a towel?”
“Yes, please.” In the mean time he rubs at his arms, trying to warm up a little. Which means, of course, the rest of his body is totally expose when Jotaro opens up the shower door to hand him the towel. Of course. It was expecting too much for him to pass the towel over the top of the shower like a normal person.
But was it really expecting too much to think he’d look at something other than Noriaki while the poor guy is trying to dry himself off? “Don’t forget to wear that stupid sweater my mom sent. We all have to match for the family portrait.”
Noriaki doesn’t have to be looking at him to know that he’s smiling. He knows that tone of voice. And even if he can’t put together the mental image of the Joestar-Kujo family all gathered around in tacky Christmas sweaters, the sadistic glee with which Jotaro makes his final statement is enough to make Noriaki mutter to himself, once his faux-boyfriend has left the room, “I think I know why Marina broke up with him now.”
Noriaki has made an effort to prepare himself for the wave of color he knows he’s about to be bombarded with, but just as he feared, the picture he made in his mind did not live up to reality. Holly, Sadao, Joseph, Suzy, even Rosas – they all look like walking tree ornaments.
And it dawns on Noriaki with ever more prevalent horror that their sweaters, put together, make up the lyrics of an American Christmas song:
Holly’s is a bright blue monstrosity with real Christmas lights sewn in, confetti adorning the background, written in gold yarn, “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!” Her husband, who looks far more relaxed than Noriaki had expected, is in a sparkling gold pullover with fake holly sewn into the ends of the sleeves. A Christmas tree decorates the back with atrocious green lettering, “It’s the best time of the year!” Suzy’s sweater is white with fake green fur around the collar, snowflake sequins sewn in with a pattern of snowmen in various costumes with gold lettering, “I don’t know if there’ll be snow!” Joseph’s sweater is a fakey-pumpkin orange (which, Noriaki notes to himself, does not make sense to the Christmas theme, but who is he to argue), rolled up to the elbows so his fake arm, colored in a candy-cane pattern, shows. His sweater has an overflowing mug of beer in the background, and in blue letters, “But have a cup of cheer!”
Noriaki looks down at his own sweater. It doesn’t follow the lyrics exactly, but it has a huge, fake, textured mistletoe sewn in as a bow tie against the frightening red yarn. In white lettering it reads, “Oh ho, the mistletoe, hung where you can see!”
And Jotaro’s, bright green and covered in bright lipstick marks, says, in orange lettering, “Somebody waits for you – Kiss ‘em once for me!”
Rosas, the lucky bastard, is just dressed as Santa Claus, and could not look happier. It’s not the nicest Santa suit Noriaki has seen – it’s still tackily decorated to hell and back, much like Jotaro’s old school uniform – but it’s not nearly as bad as what the rest of the group has on. Which would be because Rosas is the one taking the picture.
He’ll also be giving out gifts, later on. Joseph still insists on running down the itinerary as they eat a disgustingly huge brunch that leaves Noriaki a little nauseated. The family sweaters are to dictate their order in the family portrait – two serious, nice ones, three goofy takes – but they will also actually be heading out in them to do last-minute shopping. They’ll have an opportunity to shower and change before the party, but that kind of thing is frowned upon.
Well, the changing, anyway.
Noriaki’s not sure how he’s supposed to manage it. Rosas is allowed to take control and direct them all in how and where to stand, meaning that Noriaki winds up flush against Jotaro, his fake boyfriend’s arms curled around his stomach. They have to position it just right so that the lettering on the sweaters is still readable, but Jotaro’s lips are still against his cheek and he knows his face is burning up.
One of the sillier pictures involves reindeer headbands that requires thirty minutes of adjusting the Joestar men so that both them and the headbands fit into the picture. It’s a wreck, but kind of a nice one.
Noriaki doesn’t really have any last-minute gifts to buy. Like Suzy and Holly, he’s bought all of his several months ago, with the exception of the few he only knew about after being invited.
He doesn’t know if Jotaro actually needs to buy any gifts last-minute or if he just wants a chance to wander around on his own, but Noriaki sits with Holly and Suzy while the rest of their party wanders around the massive shopping mall in a panic. He doesn’t get to spend much time with Holly and has never really spent any with Suzy, but he doesn’t think about what could possibly go wrong until it starts.
It starts with, “So Noriaki-kun, when did you and JoJo start dating?”
A flurry of anxiety rushes through Noriaki’s head. He knew they should have talked about this – what if Joseph asks Jotaro and he says something totally different? They’ll be found out, and this whole thing will –
Will –
Well, what will it do? Nothing, he guesses. “Just recently,” he says. When both women stare, waiting for an answer, he says, “We haven’t actually gotten a chance to go on a first date yet. School, you know.”
“So this is your first date?” Suzy asks. She sighs, and shakes her head. “That’s just like a Joestar.” She smiles, and turns to look at Holly. “This one, in fact, brought Sadao to meet us for the first time when Joseph and I renewed our wedding vows!” Holly blushes. “That poor man, he was so overwhelmed. At least Noriaki knows us all already.”
“Well, not the people coming tonight,” Holly says. “But they’re all very friendly, honey, don’t worry.” He hadn’t really been. He won’t ever see them again.
He shouldn’t feel so bitter about that. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says.
“You know,” Holly continues, after a minute. “I had always been hoping that Jotaro would end up with you.”
“Oh?” he asks, because really, what do you say to that kind of thing?
“I always thought you would make such a good couple. Jotaro is so fond of you, and I can tell that you’re good for each other! Ever since he said to me, ‘Mom, I think I like boys –‘”
Noriaki tunes out around that time. It’s unintentional, but – Jotaro likes boys? It could be, maybe, just a misunderstanding on Holly’s part. Perhaps that wasn’t literally what he’d said, and she’d misunderstood and misparaphrased. If Jotaro liked boys, he certainly would have gone out with a boy. He seemed to always get along with them better than girls, like with the other members of their group –
“How about you, Noriaki?” Oh, shit. What was she saying. “Your parents, I mean. Have you told them?”
Noriaki tries not to stare at the table and its many sticky stains as he thinks of a way to answer. “No,” he says. “Not yet.”
Holly and Suzy exchange glances, and Suzy reaches out a hand to pat one of Noriaki’s. “We are so happy, Noriaki, that you would trust us with this, and so flattered you would come to us first. If you are ever in need of support, Joseph and I would be more than happy to help you.”
He’s not really sure what he’s gotten himself into, face luminous. “Thank you,” he says, and then looks at his watch for an excuse. “I should go find Jotaro. It’s getting late.”
It really isn’t.
Polnareff and Avdol. That is who Noriaki had been forgetting. Polnareff and Avdol are coming to the party tonight, and he doesn’t even remember that they are until Rosas answers the door and he hears an enthusiastic greeting in screaming French.
And he hasn’t told them a goddamn thing.
If he is right, and he’s sure that he is, this whole idea was really Polnareff’s to begin with. Noriaki really wants to hit him for it, but he can’t do that without explaining what else has been going on, and as stupid as this idea is he can’t just out Jotaro like that two days before Christmas in front of his whole family and all of their friends. So Polnareff, for once, has gotten lucky.
The bastard even manages to feign total ignorance when he walks in and sees Jotaro and Noriaki holding spiked punch in one hand and each other’s hands in the other.
“My, my, my, quelle surprise!” Polnareff says, booming. He claps one hand down on Noriaki’s shoulder and leans over, staring at their interlocked fingers with wide eyes. “Felicitacion! And here I thought the two of you would never figure out things without me.”
Noriaki is definitely going to kill him. “Up yours too, Polnareff,” Jotaro says.
“JoJo!” his mother scolds. “Be nice to him!” She turns to Polnareff, hurrying over and kissing him on both cheeks. “Jean-Pierre! And Mohammed – how lovely! I’m so glad you could make it!”
It’s a small consolation that neither man has escaped the tacky sweater requirement. Polnareff’s is black with striped sleeves, real ornaments dangling about from it. Avdol’s is a sort of grey color with an enormous red-nosed reindeer on the front, the antlers so big they poke out at the shoulders. And he’s got a clownish strap-on red nose on as well, bits and pieces of a garland clipped into his hair.
“I didn’t know you were so into the spirit,” Noriaki says. “Aren’t you Muslim?”
He smiles broadly. “I’ve found that Mr. Joestar celebrates the holidays as a time to get together and appreciate the things you have.” He gestures to the tree. “And I find the festivities irresistible. By the end of the night, someone will definitely try to climb that tree.”
Noriaki kind of wants to ask if that ‘someone’ will be Polnareff, but he finds he’s being pulled away from the safety of his friends and into the throng of complete strangers.
While he wasn’t paying attention, the whole place had filled up with guests.
He vaguely recognizes Joseph’s long-time best friend Smokey from an article he’d seen framed in the hallway, so proud of their friend and his election as Mayor of Georgia. He’s wearing a tacky lyric sweater himself with real silver bells. His wife is wearing a more demure one depicting a city – perhaps Atlanta – blanketed in snow. Their children and grandchildren are milling around, chatting, playing with a bunch of blonde kids Noriaki doesn’t recognize. Suzy’s extended family, perhaps?
They’ve been pulled over to another group of blondes who are introduced as Zeppelis, the siblings and children of siblings and grandchildren of siblings of a friend Joseph and Suzy had once. He remembers Joseph mentioning the name before, but never lingering for long. He’s a little tipsy now, having already drunk several eggnogs, and starts tearing up as he informs the man of how much he looks like his older brother Caesar.
“He does this every year,” he says, voice softly accented. “He’s quite a handful, but he must have been really important to my brother. He could be a bit of a hothead.” He smiles, and turns to Noriaki. “It’s funny, he says you remind him of Caesar. Tell me, do you practice Hamon as well?”
“Uhm,” Noriaki says, and is pulled away in another direction and introduced to a new group of people. Suzy’s nephews, Smokey’s grandchildren, more Zeppelis, Speedwagon Foundation employees, Joseph’s mother. The latter looks at Noriaki appraisingly and says, “good luck.”
It’s all so much for Noriaki to take in, and from what he can tell Jotaro is pretty overwhelmed too. JoJo pulls them aside to a less crowded section of the apartment and looks at him, eyes soft, waiting for him to catch his breath. “You okay?” he asks.
Noriaki finds himself squeezing Jotaro’s hand tighter as he nods. “It’s just – a lot,” he says. Jotaro nods back at him, and squeezes his hand in return. It’s kind of nice. Even if it doesn’t mean anything.
Jotaro opens his mouth to say something else to him, eyes kind of shining in the warm glow of the lights around them, but one of the blonde-haired Italians interrupts. “You have to kiss now,” they say, pointing above their heads.”
It’s cliché – horrible, really – but logic dictates that protest wouldn’t make any sense, and even if they tried, Polnareff would just make them kiss anyway. There’s a whole line of deduction like this that Noriaki would have followed had he been given even three and a half second, or even just half a second, before Jotaro kissed him.
But his brain, his stupid, gay brain, felt that soft and lingering touch, and thought, all bets are off. Were he an actor, he could say that his fingers on Jotaro’s jaw and his lips grabbing at Jotaro’s were a hammy over-action to keep their audience convinced. Unfortunately, he’s not an actor, and even if he were, overselling it would make things look so much more suspicious. So as much as his body is buzzing and desperate to keep the contact going, he makes himself stop after three or four chaste kisses, eyes moving to the floor to keep from looking at his would-be partner. “My apologies,” he says, mouth moving ahead of his brain, “I’m not used to being out.”
What a severe understatement.
It isn’t the last time they have to kiss that night.
Noriaki had assumed that when Joseph said party, he meant milling about and letting people do more or less whatever they wanted, as long as they stayed in the general vicinity of the goings-on. But Noriaki had of course, been wrong about that. There was actually an expectation that they would sit together, exchange gifts, play charades, and eat dessert together.
Dinner had been kind of conservative, but then they’d been preparing for the party. Noriaki had worried that they might have to launch into a detailed story about how they’d gotten together and pulled Jotaro aside to tell him what he’d said to Holly and Suzy, but then no one had asked about it. He had been, in effect, lulled into a false sense of security.
The table is mostly being used as an hors d’oeuvre and dessert buffet, but people drag the seats out to watch as all of Joseph’s friends and extended families unwrap the presents he’s gotten for them. For all of them. Noriaki, Jotaro, and the rest of the family will be opening theirs on Christmas Day, but Joseph likes to watch people enjoy the things he got them. And if you’re wealthy enough for it, well, why not?
Noriaki and Jotaro sit next to each other on the couch, pushed in so close together that Noriaki is more or less on his lap. Another young woman comes to perch on the arm of the couch, and Polnareff moves so that Avdol is in his lap and yells down the couch for Jotaro and Noriaki to “get closer,” which only serves to remind Noriaki of just how much he’s going to kill their French friend later on. Jotaro doesn’t protest it, even for the sake of decency, and lifts Noriaki up and onto his lap, head resting on his shoulder and arms warming his stomach.
It’s embarrassing to be this affectionate in front of someone else’s family, especially as all eyes are now on them. People seem to take their turns glancing at them, smirking, whispering to their neighbors while never taking their eyes off of them. Noriaki doesn’t really fear violence – Joseph Joestar, of all people, would never allow it – but there’s a sense of foreboding in his stomach, aching at his wounds.
It comes to a head while they’re eating dessert, and Joseph proposes a toast. He’s managed to forget, warm and maybe a little buzzed, stomach full, that he’s been sitting on Jotaro’s lap, long after more space has cleared up on the couch. He’s comfortable, leaned back against JoJo’s stomach, almost natural where he should feel alarmed. He assumes the toast is going to be another teary-eyed tribute to his family, to the loss of his friends, giving thanks for the technology that gave both him and Avdol new arms, and Noriaki raises his champagne flute in preparation.
Then he says, “To the happy couple, who haven’t looked at anyone else all night,” and looks straight at Jotaro and Noriaki.
Holly yells “Here, here!” and hiccups and giggles. And one of the Zeppelis says, “Give us a kiss!” and the rest of the room hollers in agreement.
It’s so much more public than the last time, which Noriaki could survive only because there were about two people watching them and it only had to be one time.
Jotaro takes the flute from him and sets it down, Noriaki barely aware of what he’s doing. He shifts Noriaki around on his lap and puts his hands on the back of his head, fingers tangling a little in his hair. And without hesitation, he moves in and kisses Noriaki.
It isn’t an obscene kiss, but it’s less – innocent, than it had been earlier. It’s longer. Noriaki’s not even sure how long they’ve been sitting here, kissing, drowned out by how warm Jotaro’s face is and how soft his lips are and how good he smells until someone snickers and says “Save something for the mistletoe” and he pulls away, face flushed, staring down at his lap.
Noriaki doesn’t mind falling asleep with Jotaro burning him up this time. It may or may not be related to the scent of pine needles as he dragged one of the younger Zeppelis out of the tree, or the fact that he’d stripped off his shirt in the warmth at the end of the night and woke up kind of freezing at three in the morning, or the fact that tonight has done nothing to stop him from being kind of stupidly in love with the guy resting his lips against his neck.
Maybe, perhaps, this whole thing is not so bad after all. He can let himself think that for one night. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
Noriaki is the only one to wake at the sound of the doorbell ringing. His eyes blurry and unfocused, still exhausted and contemplating ignoring the damn thing until someone else gets up for it, but he can’t enjoy this fairytale when he can’t get back to sleep.
He makes it about halfway to the door before he remembers he doesn’t have a shirt on and thinks it would be rude to answer the door without one, regardless of how warm Joseph’s apartment is. His own shirt, his ratty set of PJs from Egypt, has buttons, and the doorbell-ringer is very insistent, so he grabs a shirt from Jotaro’s suitcase, assuming he won’t mind. It’s not like the person at the door will know.
They shouldn’t know. It’s only too bad for Noriaki that fate has never been especially kind to him, and when he opens the door with itchy eyes and a shirt far too big for him it’s to Marina. Marina, Jotaro’s ex-girlfriend.
They stare at each other in embarrassment for a moment. Then Noriaki asks, “What are you doing here?”
“I believe people answer the door with ‘hello’ these days,” she tells him.
“Hello,” he amends. “What are you doing here?”
She blinks at him, head shifting slowly to the side, taking in his appearance. She almost seems amused, but it barely scratches the surface. “I came over to wish you a Merry Christmas, and to see if Jotaro wanted to talk.” A finger touches her face, softly. “But I see that he’s moved on, and exactly how I expected him to.”
Noriaki is screaming at himself to open his mouth and tell her that it isn’t what she thinks, but as Jotaro often does, he finds himself at a loss for words.
Marina smiles, not unkindly, but a little sad. “I always thought something like this would happen,” she says. “You make him very happy. I’m glad for him.”
Again, Noriaki’s mind is trying to move, but is getting nowhere, eyes staring off into space transfixed until someone taps him on the shoulder.
It’s Jotaro. And he has no idea how long he’s been standing there, or how long he himself has been staring out into the empty hall. “Who was that?” Jotaro asks.
“Marina,” Noriaki says.
“Oh.” He pauses. “What did she want.”
Noriaki licks his lips. He doesn’t have to say a damn thing. He could keep their relationship like this, in ruins, and keep Jotaro to himself, at least for the rest of Christmas break. It would be selfish, and petty, but no one but him would ever know.
Except…It’s just not his style. It never has been. “She wanted to get back together, I think,” he says.
“Oh,” Jotaro says. And then he doesn’t move, just standing where he is, staring at Noriaki.
Noriaki, who is trying so hard not to grind his teeth together. “You should go after her,” he says.
“Why?”
“…Because you’re in love with her?”
“Am I?”
It would not be unlike the world to have Jotaro be taken over by an enemy Stand on Christmas but Noriaki prays, to any deity that is listening, that isn’t the case, because this is all hard enough on him as it is. Jotaro is still staring at him like he’s expecting something from Noriaki, like there’s something he should just know about this whole stupid situation, and between that and last night’s alcohol he’s developing a bit of a migraine. He rubs above his eyes, putting pressure on his brows, biting back a scream. “Yes,” he says, “You haven’t dated anyone since her.”
“I haven’t wanted to.”
“Then go after her.”
“I don’t want to.”
“If you don’t want to be with her, and you don’t want to be with anyone else, then why in the hell did you drag me out here?” Noriaki snaps.
Jotaro’s expression finally changes, brows furrowing in confusion, lips pouting. “Why are you so angry about this?”
“Because I’m in love with you, you moron!”
“I know that,” Jotaro says.
Somewhere, deep inside Noriaki’s chest cavity, he hears, and sees, and feels glass breaking. “What?”
“I said, I know –“
If you dropped a book from a very great height, it would not have made a louder sound. Noriaki has never hit as hard as he has now. Not even Polnareff, with his elbow, and he was fairly certain he’d broken his nose that time.
Jotaro, incredulously, looks surprised that he just got smacked.
It doesn’t help that everyone who stayed the night is now standing out in the hallway watching them, as are several people who live in the apartment building, or that Noriaki’s eyes are stinging and he looks like a bigger tool than all of Dio’s henchmen combined. He doesn’t let anyone touch him, or even get close.
He’ll pay Joseph for the broken lock later.
The great thing about the limitless range of Noriaki’s Stand is that he does not have to face anyone in Jotaro’s family at all that day. He can literally leave through the back window and the height doesn’t matter. He’s fallen from higher, anyway. Probably. He didn’t really measure. But he manages to leave the lock on their guest room door broken and zoom off like in one of Joseph’s vintage Spider-man comics, and no one in the collective Joestar-Kujo family will have any idea where he’s gone. He can go anywhere he wants, at least within the state of New York.
Which is precisely the problem. He doesn’t want to be in the state of New York. He could probably make it back to Florida, but he doesn’t really want to go there either and have to eventually face Jotaro and deal with the fallout from him –
Using him.
He can’t figure out what it was all for. Jotaro has never been this cruel to him, or to anyone. He’s been mean before, always to girls – to his mom, to the girls who wouldn’t leave him alone at school. Was that what it was? Was this just Jotaro’s really shitty way of letting Noriaki know that he wasn’t interested, and never would be?
Well, message received. Jotaro wouldn’t have to worry about that again. Noriaki would just make sure all his stuff was gone before Jotaro got back to the school. They can pretend they don’t know each other whenever they pass by on campus, and Noriaki can go back to having no friends.
He doesn’t actually know where anything is in New York and so he winds up back at the shopping mall he and the Joestars had been at just yesterday, sitting in the food court in pajama bottoms and Jotaro’s shirt. He probably should have changed before he left.
He thinks to himself that he’s probably got a few hours to kill to think of what he needs to do to get out of this mess, but he doesn’t even really have the time to do that before he hears Jotaro’s big booming voice yelling “Noriaki.”
Oh. He has got to be kidding. Noriaki doesn’t even have a proper response for this, aside from what he hopes is an ice glare that says go-the-fuck-away. But even if that is what his eyes say, Jotaro ignores it, ridiculous white lab coat flowing out behind him. And he’s still bare-chested.
“Hey,” he says, taking a seat across from Noriaki.
Noriaki tries to glare harder.
“You left.”
“Yeah.” Jotaro keeps staring at him. “What did you want me to do, Jotaro?”
“Stay.”
Noriaki laughs, ugly and caustic. “You want me to stay so, what, you can keep humiliating me in front of your family?” He folds his arms over his chest. “This was just – horrible, Jotaro. The worst thing you’ve ever done, and you’ve killed people.”
Jotaro looks uncomfortable. “I wasn’t trying to…humiliate you, Noriaki.”
Something about the use of his first name – it sends a chill of discomfort over him. Jotaro usually just calls him Kakyoin, and it feels too informal now to have him addressing him like this. “Then why the hell did you ask me to do this? Jotaro, if you knew how I felt, you should have asked anybody else. Literally anybody! Polnareff would have been a better choice! Why would you do this to me? I thought we were friends.”
Jotaro shifts around in his seat, not meeting Noriaki’s gaze. “I. Want to be more.” Pause. “More than just friends.”
Noriaki blinks at him, slowly. “Are you just saying this because your mom is pissed at you?”
“No.” Pause. “Well. She is pissed at me. But.” He runs a hand through his hair and the coat falls open a little more, showing off his chest. “I want to be with you. But I didn’t know what to say.”
Noriaki can feel his eye twitching. “You didn’t know what to say,” he repeats. “So you thought – ‘fake relationship, that’ll do it’?”
“What was I supposed to say?” Jotaro grumbles. “‘I think you might be into me, and I wanted to start a relationship, can we maybe do that?’”
“Yes, Jotaro! That’s exactly what you should say!”
“Well that wouldn’t have been very romantic,” Jotaro argues. And then he kind of looks like he wishes he could backtrack and not say what he’d just said.
“Romantic?” He really is repeating a lot today. “You thought – asking me to be your fake boyfriend, knowing I was in love with you and how much this would hurt for me – would be romantic?” He feels something akin to hysteria rising.
“I might not have thought it through all the way,” Jotaro admits, voice barely over a mumble.
“No shit. Where did you get that idea from, Polnareff?” Jotaro looks even more panicked, but Noriaki isn’t about to let him out of it. He stares, watching Jotaro squirm, until he hears him say something under his breath. “Sorry, didn’t catch that?”
“It was a shitty Christmas movie my mom made me watch, alright?” His face and neck are scarlet. “Last Christmas. Something something…guy invites the girl over to pretend to be his girlfriend for his rich and snobby parents…something something, they fall in love.”
“You got this idea from a Hallmark movie?” He’s not sure if he’s shrieking for real or if that noise is just in his head.
“I didn’t know how you’d react if I just told you flat out,” Jotaro says, eyes looking everywhere but at Noriaki. “I introduced you to a girl I liked once and you avoided me every chance you could after that.” Oh. So. He had noticed. “I got so scared of losing you that I spent all of my time trying to get your attention. She started thinking I was more interested in you than I was in her…”
Oh. Oh. He’s starting to get a clearer picture now, of why Jotaro and marina might have broken up, of why Jotaro seemed to spend all his time in the dorm room once they were no longer together, why he looked so conflicted and upset. “I ruined your relationship.”
Noriaki covers his face with his hands. “Yeah. Kind of,” Jotaro says flatly.
“You should – You should go and find her. Talk to her –“
“Jesus. I just told you. I don’t want to be with her, I want to be with you.” His face is almost purple. “I thought, like, if you didn’t freak out about this, then like, I could just sort of casually say something on Christmas –“
They’re both silent, sitting in their pajamas in a mall in New York City at nine in the morning on Christmas Eve. People are starting to flood the food court and stare at them, probably because Jotaro is both bare-chested and barefoot.
Someone’s apparently told a security guard about them. For once, they don’t seem intimidated by Jotaro’s stature. Then again, if Joseph frequents this mall, they might be a little used to it by now.
“We should get going,” Noriaki says, standing up.
“Going?”
“Back to your grandfather’s.” He can feel Jotaro looking at him, giving him that same look again, like he thinks Noriaki should know what he’s thinking. And this time, he does. “That security guard is going to come tell us to leave because you don’t have shoes or a shirt on, and we have to spend Christmas Eve with your family and then Christmas Day and the rest of break with your family, and you have a lot of explaining and apologizing to do, not to mention washing your feet because this floor is disgusting, Jotaro.”
Jotaro snorts, and looks kind of bashful, but he seems a little more relaxed. “What are you, my mother?”
“Stand up and take my fucking hand, Jotaro.”
Holly lets Noriaki know in no uncertain terms that she is not pleased with her son, and also that she thinks Noriaki can probably do better. Once again, Noriaki is reminded of just how much Jotaro takes after his mom.
It takes Jotaro a good two hours to explain everything, mostly because Suzy and Holly and even his own father will not let him rest without letting him know what an ass move this whole thing was. “And that greeting card channel cannot take all of the blame,” Sadao says. Rosas shakes his head sadly on the side.
Joseph is the only one who doesn’t shoot Jotaro dirty looks for the rest of the day, although he does take Noriaki aside to ask him if he’s really comfortable sharing a bed again with Jotaro. “I can make him sleep on the couch,” he says, and Noriaki wonders if he’s just saying this for Suzy.
“No, it’s fine,” Noriaki says, patting Joseph’s arm. He can feel Jotaro watching them, and doesn’t really know what to do under his watch now that everything is the way it is.
“He gets his stupidity from me,” Joseph blurts out. “I’ve done lots of stupid things like that, in my time.” He looks misty-eyed and embarrassed. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.”
“Okay,” Noriaki says. He doesn’t tell Joseph that he already knows about Caesar. Everybody does.
Joseph lets them all stay up until 12:05 and open one very, very small present (a watch for Suzy; a bracelet for Holly; some kind of arm warmer garment for Joseph, hand-knit; a PDA for Sadao; new pins for Jotaro’s jacket; new earrings for Noriaki) before insisting that they all go to bed so Santa Claus could bring them the rest. Jotaro rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t protest. If anything, he hurries up.
They prepare for bed side-by-side, Jotaro looking over every couple of half-seconds to gauge Noriaki’s reaction. They’ve been cautiously affectionate since they got back from the mall, Jotaro still stuck between embarrassment apology, and trying not to lay it on too thick.
But Noriaki is vibrating, happy if still annoyed. “So what were you planning on doing?” he asks. “To confess to me. Your big, romantic gesture.”
“Mm.” He stares at the shirt in his hands, the one Noriaki had been wearing earlier. “Sing.”
“Sing?”
“Yeah.”
He can’t imagine that. He’s never heard Jotaro sing before. He’s barely even heard him hum. “Did you get that from your Christmas movie too?”
“…No.” He scratches his chin, face getting red again. “My dad serenaded my mom once. She thought it was romantic. I thought. Hm.”
“Come on, JoJo. What song?”
“Just this song gramps used to play all the time,” he says quickly. “Not a Christmas song. But it’s, ah. He has a karaoke machine. And he drags it out on Christmas Day.”
Noriaki smiles at himself, shaking his head. “I guess that is pretty romantic. But how would I have known it wasn’t just part of the act?”
Jotaro stops with the shirt half over his head. “I didn’t think about that,” he says. “I just thought about how cute you would be, sitting there and realizing – uhm.”
Noriaki giggles and tugs at the hem of Jotaro’s shirt, pulling it the rest of the way down. “Sing me that song, JoJo.”
Jotaro doesn’t look any less flustered, but he starts half-mumbling, half-singing anyway. “Do I want you for my baby… Do I want you by my side… Do I want to run and kiss your lips… Say you’re my loving guy…”
He stops and his eyes roll up to where Noriaki has covered their heads in the stupid sweater he’d had to wear the other day. His eyes focus back down to Noriaki, questioning without words. “It’s mistletoe,” Noriaki answers, smirking. He pulls Jotaro’s face down to his and kisses him softly, carefully, like he’s still trying it out.
But the training wheels come off without much effort, someone’s tongue pressing against someone else’s lips.
The sweater falls off their heads and to the floor softly, and Jotaro uses it as an excuse to catch his breath. “We should probably get to sleep,” he says. “Santa Claus won’t come if we don’t.”
“That’s nice, tell that to Jolyne sometime,” Noriaki says, hands slipping down to his neck. “But I don’t really need Santa Claus to come. I already got what I wanted.”