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1.
Quite some time ago, when a boy named Jonathan Joestar was about seven years young, he decided to himself that he was going to go out exploring, as children are wont to do.
He was a fairly lonely child, being brought up without a mother or many friends his age, and so to make up for the fact that he didn't have regular contact with people he could be genuine friends with, Jonathan Joestar had an incredible imagination.
As he explored the forest, every overturned log was home to magic little fairies, or a hiding spot some villain was using for illegally obtained goods, that the hero would uncover just in time to save the day. Every low hanging, sturdy branch was a perch from which he could pretend he was much higher, hanging above an enormous drop like one of those Redwood trees he had heard about in America, or gazing down upon a city like some brave vigilante, prepared to fight crime, help damsels in distress and rescue fluffy cats from high places.
It would be no surprise for anyone to learn that Jonathan almost always played the protagonist in these childish fantasies. He was only seven, after all, and children often see themselves as the heroes of their own story, a trait that many people never grow out of.
Jonathan Joestar created such detailed stories in his head, to the point that his brain was bursting at the seams with colourful ideas spilling out like a liquid rainbow, and this was with the average, everyday sights. So you can imagine how he got when he came upon a small, flower-filled clearing, home to a picturesque scene.
Near a cliff, one that had a twenty foot drop into a flowing river, sat planted a tree. The tree was not on the edge of the cliff, rather it was several yards away, and around the roots of this tree sprung many, many daisies. Attached to a large, sloping branch of the tree were two bleached white ropes that tied around a sturdy board, creating a makeshift swing that hung just low enough for Jonathan to get himself up upon with no issue.
Seeing as Jonathan, like most children, operated on the logic of "if I can, I will," he rushed towards the seat, mind already spinning tales about the scenic view in the clearing, actions made with haste as if someone were to steal his spot, made redundant as the clearing was empty.
The seat was far too wide for him, but he managed to reach the ropes to hold them in both of his hands, and kicked off the ground slightly to get himself going.
It was when he was soaring on the swing, mind conjuring a vast story in which he could fly, that he heard a surprisingly loud snap coming from a branch behind him.
He tumbled off of the swing, landing head-first in the daisies that sprung up around the roots of the towering tree, a shocked gasp echoing from where the previous noise had come from. Surprisingly resilient, he was not hurt but merely stunned. He picked himself up rapidly, spinning around to face the source of the noise, and blinked in surprise.
It was a girl, long blonde hair held up in a high ponytail. She was wearing clothes similar to the ones he was wearing, pants and all. Her hands were pressed to her mouth, eyes wide in concern. "Are you alright?" She rushed out.
Jonathan nodded slowly. Her clothes were odd, but she seemed nice? "Are you the one who made this?" He asked, gesturing towards the plank-swing that was still swaying slightly from his unplanned tumble.
She lowered her hand from her face slowly, a smile creeping up and replacing the previous concern she held in her eyes. "I am, yes," she said with a giggle.
Jonathan flushed bright red. "It's not that funny." The boy mumbled.
"Well," the girl said, grin bright on her face, "I think that it is. Do you want to take turns?" She asked, head tilted slightly, and Jonathan was captivated, he thought people only did that in novels.
"On- on the swing?" He asked, "Yes, I would love to."
They stayed until sunset, taking turns upon the wooden swing, playing tag around the clearing. They tried a game of hide-and-seek but it quickly turned into both of them running around the tree, careful to avoid stepping on the daisies as they tried to catch each other.
It was only after Jonathan had arrived at home after dark, when he was on the receiving end of one of his father's lectures about safety, that he realised he had never asked after the strange girl's name.
2.
After that day, Jonathan had gone back to the clearing with the swing, although not as often as he would have liked. He never ran into the other girl, and after a couple of years, wherein he had made various friends, none all too close, the memories began to fade.
He still went, of course, it was a beautifully scenic spot, the lacquered board that served as the swing held firm throughout the years as the branch it was attached to tended to shelter it from rain. The ropes were only starting to fray, and Jonathan already had plans to replace them should they break during the times he found himself in the clearing.
It was one of these times, after Jonathan had gotten 'beaten up' for trying to uphold the gentlemanly values his father had hammered into his head, he was visiting the swing yet again and he ran into the girl from all those years back.
'I knew she seemed familiar.' Jonathan thought to himself, as he watched Erina Pendleton, the girl who he had rushed to defend earlier on, swing high and fast on the old wooden plank, golden hair flowing behind her.
He wasn't sure what to do. Should he stay? Or should he go? He had attempted to help her out, and failed, and then he had told her to her face that he wasn't doing it for her sake, rather, for his own set of moral values. Thinking back, that had been rather rude of him.
The words "Just stay on your own land, rich kid." Echoed through his head, and he cringed.
"It would probably be best of me to go," he muttered to himself, and Erina's head whipped around to face him, sky blue eyes meeting his. She craned her neck at an awkward angle as she swung backwards, and then dug her feet into the ground to slow her momentum. She sat up from the swing, dusting off her blue dress.
"You're the boy from earlier!" She exclaimed, a worried look on her face, and he was abruptly reminded of when they had first met here- if that had been her, but he was pretty sure he was correct- and she had given him that exact look of concern when he had tumbled off of the swing. "Are you alright?" She asked, and the parallels between the two scenes only grow stronger in Jonathan's mind.
"I'm fine," he says, then quickly, "Sorry about all of... that, earlier."
Erina smiles, it's a nice smile, he thinks faintly in some corner of his brain, he wouldn't mind seeing it more often. "Ah," she says blinking, "we never introduced ourselves, did we?" She asks, and her head tilts minutely to the right.
"Jonathan Joestar." He says, in lieu of anything else.
"Erina Pendleton, thank you for helping me out, earlier on."
Jonathan smiles, and it's a small, hesitant thing. "Do you want to be friends?" He asks.
Erina beams back at him. "I'd love to."
3.
Jonathan and Erina began to talk more, began to see each other quite often. One thing leads to another and Jonathan finds himself carving JOJO+ERINA into a tree. They go out into town together, always sticking to the busy streets, dozens of warnings given to them by their parents ringing in their heads as they go out of their way to avoid certain places.
They still meet up in the clearing, to the point that Jonathan goes there almost twice as often, now that he knows when Erina will be arriving.
"Erina," he starts, a short while after they started meeting up regularly, but long enough for him to be absolutely smitten.
She turns her head back towards him, from where he's pushing her on the swing. "Yes Jojo?" She asks quickly, before he pushes against her back and she soars away from him again.
Swing. "I was wondering," push, swing. "If you would wish to," push, swing. "Date me?" He knows its sudden, but he's a boy in love for the first time and he doesn't want to lose this, not with Dio making every other moment of his life a living hell.
Erina turns back to look at him in shock, craning her body so that she can face him fully. The swing starts to sway from left to right forebodingly. "Jojo, I-" she starts, and then the board snaps underneath her.
"Erina!" He cries, and she tumbles from the air, and the two halves of the swing flying out to the sides wildly, and he rushes forward and lets out an 'oomph!' As she lands on top of him.
"Are you alright?" He asks, Erina continuing to lie still on top of him.
She starts to laugh. She starts to laugh and Jonathan knows it's the most beautiful laugh in the world, and he follows her lead shortly after, and then it's just the two of them lying on the ground, surrounded by daisies at the roots of an old, old tree laughing to their heart's content.
.....
..........
.....
It's a while after that, however, that Erina starts to avoid him.
He keeps going to the clearing on the day that they had arranged to meet, but time after time she doesn't show up.
He waits at the site of the tree until the sun had set and the stars are out. He watches at one of the hanging ropes from the broken swing sways in the wind.
He remembers the other boys taunting him, taunting Erina about some even that was apparently so bad she won't speak to him over it.
He hugs his knees to his chest.
'Dio.' He thinks, with a sense of anger that should be unfamiliar to him, as young as he is.
4.
It is shortly after Jonathan has recovered, thanks to Baron Zeppeli and his odd, magic-breathing way, that Jonathan and Erina find themselves in the clearing yet again.
Neither of them had been there in quite some years, and the broken wood of the home-made swing that Erina had set up her as a child has long rotted away. A single faded, worn rope sways in the breeze, still tied firmly around the largest protruding branch. Its sister rope must have fallen off, at some point in the past.
Jonathan and Erina sit at the tree, surrounded by the daisies that seem to push through the soil three out of four seasons of the year, and they talk. About everything.
They talk about what they've been doing with their lives, Erina more so than Jonathan, because whenever he thinks of bringing up the subject of him studying archaeology, all the can think about is that damned mask, and what it had resulted in.
Erina talks about how she has been a nurse-in-training, and how she's recently been granted more leeway to deal with patients, finally trusted by the older, harder-than-stone nurses that have been working in the hospital for decades.
They eventually start to talk about Dio, about everything he has done, about why Erina stopped talking to Jonathan all those years ago, about Dio killing his father and burning his house down.
(Of course, Jonathan was the one to actually start the fire and all, but it's the spirit of the whole thing.)
He doesn't tell Erina about the things that Dio could do, can still do, if Baron Zeppeli was correct about him still being alive. Or whatever state of unlife that vampires resided in.
Instead, they talk about Hamon, and the implications of what it could do. At some point Erina makes a joke about Jesus Christ and magic sun breathing and Jonathan laughs so hard he almost loses track of the breathing rhythm Baron Zeppeli had been trying to install into Jonathan's subconscious mind.
('This is nice,' he thinks, and his resolve to defeat his wayward brother grows stronger and stronger still.)
5.
It is at that very same clearing, and of course it's there, where else? After Dio has finally been defeated at Wind Knight's Lot, that Jonathan proposes to Erina.
The daisies are in full bloom, and he feels slightly bad about kneeling on then as Erina's back is turned towards the cliff, the young woman gazing out at the beautiful countryside view.
He clears his throat, and she glances backwards curiously, and gasps.
She can't say yes fast enough, and hes fairly sure that he's crying. They both are.
They hug each other, holding on for what seems like hours after Jonathan slips the ring around her finger. Speedwagon discretely applauses in the background, having come for moral support, and Erina spies him and laughs.
Jonathan Joestar and Erina Pendleton-pending-Joestar know that they'll come back here again, back to where it all started.
They don't.
+1.
Erina sits on the edge of the small cliff, looking down into the slowly moving water flowing below. It's the middle of the night, and it's also the first time in over a year that she's been able to drag up the will to come back here, after almost half a bottle of wine.
The stars twinkle in the night sky, handing suspended like a billion billion dots of paint upon a midnight black canvas.
It was a mistake coming here. She thinks of how they first met, when they were such small children, she thinks of all the times that they had sat laughing, underneath the tree standing tall and still in the middle of the grass, uncaring to the world and what she had lost. She thinks back on how he proposed to her, how he had brought along his friend who had quickly become a fast friend to them both, how Robert Speedwagon had fled in a manic haze across the oceans, searching for someone Erina knew, despite all her hopes, was dead. She wonders if she'll ever see him again, someone who loved Jonathan just as fiercely as she did without the gentle-natured man ever realising it, or if he's been taken from her by the uncaring ocean, too.
She thinks back to the child she had left behind in the house for the night, sleeping soundly, never to know his own father, and softly, she weeps