Chapter Text
The sun rose agonizingly slow, seemingly restarting the world and launching a fresh beginning for those in Cairo, especially those witnessing the sun arrive. The blazing light meant not only the next day for Jotaro, but rather an entirely new life. Two months of tight, crushing dread and fear for the life of his mother released from his chest when the body before him finally crumbled to dust. The sun’s bright rays hit it and it shifted, giving him a jolt of apprehension, but of course the movement was just the body collapsing onto itself into a harmless pile of ashes. He didn’t see what the foundation officials did after that moment, the weight that had left his chest reformed at his shoulders, and his exhausted legs could no longer fight to hold him up. He swayed and the drop to his knees was a distant feeling. He had waited tensely through every hour of the night, only shifting his eyes from the unmoving body for a split second. Rest had loomed far above his head until the cover of caution dissipated and exhaustion crashed over him.
Still at the forefront of his mind was the rest of the team. The old man said Kakyoin had rescuers and EMTs on the way by the time DIO caught up to Jotaro and that his condition was extremely critical. Avdol had been recovered, injured but awake and coherent as ever… Polnareff and Iggy had already been confirmed to be dead— Jotaro hadn’t seen any of them since moving DIO’s body, and they would sit like a dense stone in his stomach until he could.
He could hear his grandpa’s voice, but only blurrily. The sparkling sand taking up his line of sight could have been stars glittering on the backs of his eyelids. The voices grew even more distant until it was quiet. When his eyes finally opened despite their weight, the light was stark white rather than the blooming gold reflecting off the desert. When he tried to sit up, he couldn’t, and the stone in his gut reminded him of itself.
“Polnareff.” His voice was a muddy grumble at the back of his throat. He grimaced at the sound and scrubbed his forehead with his right hand, his left wouldn’t move. His whole body ached dully.
“Sorry, Jotaro,” —his eyes snapped into focus on the deep voice— “we couldn’t spare the time to talk when we first reconvened. I wish I could relay better news to you but there’s no body to retrieve. I saw it happen… swallowed whole by Ice’s stand, we didn’t know what it was capable of yet.”
It was Avdol, standing at the edge of where he lay, a hospital bed, watching down on him despite the empty chair beside him and his bandaged state. Jotaro kept his mouth clamped shut, the slightly lifted angle of his bed allowing him to scan the room as Avdol continued to speak. The unreadable text proved this was still Egypt, probably still Cairo. Down at himself there was a stiff white cast holding his left arm at a permanent bend. The cast wrapped around his torso and left shoulder and went all the way down to his fingers, only his thumb and forefinger were unrestrained. They could just barely pinch together when he tried to move.
“Iggy… was found. I apologize again that you missed this while you were being treated, but he’s already been buried here. Mr. Joestar and I saw to it as soon as we could to make sure we had the chance. Mr. Joestar has gone to complete the necessary reports, I’m sure he will be back to see you before long. You were only out for a couple hours.”
Jotaro’s stomach twisted at the thought of everything that was already gone. “Fine.” He grunted, it was all he could get out.
Avdol nodded, seeming to take Jotaro’s tone for an aggressive desire to be rid of company, for he stepped toward the door.
Jotaro grit his teeth and the stone sank further. “Kakyoin.”
Avdol stopped in the doorway and turned toward the bed. “Right, of course.” He took a second, but Jotaro recognized the solemn look in his eyes with a strike of nausea. “He entered surgery as soon as he arrived here. We… we should receive news soon, his condition is serious as well as delicate. If all goes well he may be awake late tonight, perhaps tomorrow morning, it will have been over twelve hours of operating. Don’t worry,” He added upon seeing the look on Jotaro’s face, “the Speedwagon foundation had their best surgeons on call.”
Jotaro stared at his bound hand and said nothing, Avdol didn’t push things, and left quietly. His voice had sounded hopeful, but his eyes were so near pitying that he flushed with another wave of nausea and tooth grinding frustration. His shoulder had begun to ache more than anything now that he was fully waking up, but his exhausted muscles were still heavy, though no longer stinging from exertion.
He only had a few minutes alone until his grandfather burst into the room. “Oh! You’re awake, good.” He shouted as if he wouldn’t have been awakened by his entry had he actually been asleep. “Avdol came and talked to ya, right?”
JoJo nodded, but the old man went on to tell him everything Avdol had already said anyways. Iggy, Polnareff, and Kakyoin who would remain in limbo for who knew how much longer… Jotaro was restless, not a bit of drowsiness left in him, but he couldn’t sit up because of the body cast holding his torso still.
Star Platinum. Of course. He summoned his stand and pushed himself by the back to sit up straighter.
“Ah ah!” his grandpa scolded him sharply, placing a hand on his uncasted shoulder, but he didn’t push. “Was a doctor not around to see you yet? You’ve got broken ribs, a broken shoulder, two stress fractures in your hand, and all those stab wounds. Lucky they were as shallow as they were, but you can’t get up yet. As badly as we all want to get the hell out of this place, just stay here, Jotaro and I’ll be back whenever I can tell you anything new.”
JoJo scoffed, the old man had been much closer to dying than he was, funny how he needed no rest at the moment. “Where’s my hat?” Right then, a stout nurse bustled into the room and greeted them both in English, she sounded American and she seemed to have met the old man before, probably from the Speedwagon foundation. The old man crossed the room and pulled his hat, now more torn than ever, from the small in-room closet. The rest of his regular clothes must be in there, he was dressed in a loose and thin hospital gown. The nurse then easily shifted to speaking in fluid Japanese. She began checking the screens monitoring him through the clip on his right finger. “Good to see that you’re awake, Mr. Kujo, how are you feeling?”
What a fucking question. His chest was getting tighter by the second, feeling suffocated by the white walls and obnoxiously patient smile of the nurse and the pointed stare of his grandfather. He felt the urge to hit something tingle at his free knuckles, sure that the old man caught sight of his stand glimmering around his fist as he held the hat for him to take. He tipped it onto his head and pulled the brim down as he released his stand and pushed the frustration down. “I’m fine.” he barked. He looked at neither the nurse or his grandpa, instead at his useless wrapped hand.
“Good, good. Now you need to stay here for about four days before you can fly home to Japan, just until we’re sure you’re healing well enough on the smaller injuries, but the foundation will be taking you back so you’ll have plenty of space to be comfortable since you’ll have to keep this cast on for six weeks.”
She tapped the cast lightly and he bristled. “Six weeks?”
He only flushed hotter in frustration thinking about the coming weeks at home, immobile and dealing with his mother fussing over him right after her own recovery.
“That’s normal JoJo, we’re lucky it’s not longer. Well, I’m lucky.” He nodded at the nurse and she took the sign to take her leave politely. The old man heaved into the empty bedside chair, his face more tired and aged than he’d ever seen it. “It’s my fault that DIO got to you before I could tell you about his stand. I should have gotten help to Kakyoin quicker, or—”
“DIO’s dead anyways.” He interjected. “Doesn’t matter what we didn’t do.” He didn’t say that there hadn’t been time on Kakyoin’s clock to wait, by the sound of whatever warranted over twelve hours of surgery.
The old man nodded, smiling fondly at the floor. “I suppose you’re right.” He put his hands on his knees and stood with a groan. “Well, I’m on my way to call Holly, it’s only afternoon in Japan, I’ll let her know you’re alright.”
Jotaro grunted as he left, his fingers tingled to hit something again. The clock across the room showed only 8:20am. He was alone for hours after, his leg bounced, he fiddled with the remote for the tiny tv that he reached with Star Platinum, but any program was as good as watching the wall. The noise posed some level of distraction for the dreadful hole opening up below his bed, but he was fast approaching stir crazy. He shifted in the bed, but he only slipped down further because of the cast’s restriction; he couldn’t bend forward.
Just past eleven the doctor came with nothing new to share. Foundation taking care of things, don’t move too much. Jotaro grunted and quit listening. No one had bothered to tell him just what happened to Kakyoin that made things so dire. For surgery so long, he couldn’t imagine past the countless stab wounds that he himself had gotten to conjure what condition Kakyoin was in. Avdol, the old man… They were both up and walking. He could be too with a simple push from his stand, but he was too tired to muscle through the inevitable scolding from whomever caught him first. He wouldn’t even know where to go. He couldn’t go home. Kakyoin would be out soon, but Avdol was patient: his soon could mean hours. Jotaro was not so virtuous.
Though his body was heavy, he was not nearly tired enough to sleep away some of this endless wait.
His grandpa returned as noon passed. His mother was clearly feeling better by the way he described her gushing over the phone about how she just couldn’t wait to see her baby. JoJo scoffed in the old man’s face, but that news had considerably loosened the knot tied around his throat.
Avdol entered as the old man laughed loudly from retelling the conversation with his daughter. Jotaro’s attention was immediately torn from his grandpa’s rambling.
“Have you been resting?” Avdol asked, unpleasantly nonchalant. Jotaro only grunted, but his attention was immediately recaptured with a sickening drop in his stomach. “I spoke with one of Kakyoin’s surgeons; he’s finally out of surgery. Everything ended as planned, but the transplants put his body through a lot of stress.”
Jotaro’s brow puckered. “Transplants?” He blurted.
Avdol seemed surprised and his attention turned to the old man. “You didn’t tell him anything about the operation?” His grandpa mumbled about it slipping his mind. Avdol sighed and returned to Jotaro. “He sustained a large wound all the way through his torso directly from DIO, he had two transplants today. Stomach and… spinal.”
JoJo’s face twisted in rage, or possibly disgust. His tense jaw was keeping him from saying anything, but his teeth might suffer if he kept clenching them so tightly. It must have been a punch directly through his abdomen. His own fingers itched to bludgeon something again.
“It is… entirely unprecedented, this kind of spinal prosthetic. That’s the major cause for concern, but the technology is directly derived from your latest prosthetic hand,” He shortly addressed his grandfather again, “it's been in development for over a decade. There is hope.” He finished with such sudden sympathy in his voice that Jotaro wanted to be sick.
The same relief from before did not come from this news, and he drowned out the other two until they as well made their leave. Instead he was even more restless than before, there seemed to be no option left than to remain in this room. The muted buzzing of the machines to his side seemed to get louder, or perhaps just deeper into his ear and a headache began to build in his temple. He honed his patience as best as he could, and waited.
He ate enough of the food the nurse brought to get her off his back and then returned to idling impatiently. The hours stretched by and with each one the restlessness in his legs ached more strongly. He drowned out his thoughts with the only sports broadcast he could find on the little tv, but he was sick to death of plain white walls already.
He woke up when light was no longer streaming through the window. He didn’t know at what point sleep had claimed him, but discounting the couple fleeting hours he had been unconscious that morning, rest had not calmed his mind since the day before.
His grandfather was on the chair, snoring loudly with his head craned back. A night when he’d be rid of that couldn’t come soon enough. He used Star Platinum to take the crumpled book off the old man’s lap. It was clearly some American crap, but attempting to read English was better than nothing. He could handle simple stuff with little trouble, but a novel had complexity that street signs couldn’t familiarize him with. Kakyoin would have been the one to translate for him. Any of the rest of them might have known English more fluently, but he would never have sought out their help. He wouldn’t ask Kakyoin either, he just seemed to sense that Jotaro wasn’t the best with it. Either that or he simply liked sharing anything he knew.
His lips pressed together. Kakyoin was supposedly out of surgery now but no one had mentioned when he could wake up— where he would be. He tried to focus on reading but it was dull, and he had a feeling it had nothing to do with how many words he didn’t recognize. He was almost taken by exhaustion again after a few hours of little to do, but he began to see a strip of pink along the horizon out the window. He could not see the sunrise from his angle, but he watched the band of color widen and turn to orange as the rest of the sky began to pale. The stars faded into it and the city began to brighten and appear gilded.
The morning looked just like it had the day before, yet it was not the same at all. It felt like time had been reset, though he couldn’t tell from which point he was intended to start. He felt distinctly out of order, like he was a presence unlike what he’d been before, more like himself and more human. It was disquieting.
His grandfather awoke and pulled him out of his own mind once the sun had fully risen and there were stringy wisps of clouds in front of the blazing blue sky. The rest of that day was a replay of the one before, not enough agency and too much laughter from the old man. He’d be loath to admit he had developed some kind of fondness for a well-timed shitty joke from his grandpa, but the irritation rising in him from his inability to escape made them grating.
Avdol came by again, though he had no news. The next day was the same other than that the old man had planned to fly back to New York that evening, leaving him with just one more night to spend in Egypt.
His grandpa stood tall and gave him a fatherly smile as he was saying goodbye. “You did well, Jotaro.”
He hid his eyes under his cap and said nothing, but his face softened. He nodded. “Later, gramps.”
He left after a pat on Jotaro’s shoulder and a handshake and a half-hug from Avdol. The rest of his night was deeply quiet when both of them had left him to his own devices. He suddenly felt ashamed and angry for accepting praise from his grandfather, it was undeserved when two of their six lost their futures because of this battle. They’d given their existence up for a battle that should have been only Jotaro’s.
Avdol was still there the next afternoon and accompanied him as he was discharged, but he had to sit through the process of rebandaging all the wounds they checked. Avdol, as always, was patient. Though, Avdol wasn’t waiting in a stuffy foreign hospital to be able to go home, Cairo was his home and somehow JoJo had only just processed that. He now considered Avdol a dear friend, but selfishly hoped he never had reason to spend another day in this city again.
He had been able to wash his hair and painstakingly wash up around the cast, which he was warned thoroughly about getting wet, but he felt slightly better despite the frustration. Just venturing down the hall was more walking than he’d done in the past four days, and the stretch was welcome despite the persistent aching of his muscles and shoulder. Only one arm could fit into his jacket now, it had to be rested over his injured shoulder, but his tank top thankfully stretched easily over the thick cast.
Avdol halted in the middle of the hall, Jotaro’s attention was drawn to the closed room he was staring at. His low voice was rather quiet, but still calm when he spoke up. “He was awake briefly last night. He may not be now, but I figured you may wish to see him before you go.” He reached to open the door, but paused. “He’ll have to stay here much longer before he can go home.”
Avdol opened the door and Jotaro entered ahead of him, face hard and hands clenched deep in his pockets. The room was as plain white as his had been, but many more steadily beeping machines crowded the floor around the bed. He stepped closer cautiously, eyes trailing across every tube and cord, but their multitude made it impossible to discern where they all connected to Kakyoin’s motionless body. Another step closer confirmed his eyes were closed, unable to acknowledge the sound of the door or Jotaro’s presence. When he stood just a step away from the bedside, he could see the slight rise and fall of his breaths, and the stark paleness of his face. His hand rested atop the thin blanket, but it hardly stood out against it. He didn’t dare reach for it. The mechanical beeping confirmed he was alive, blood still pumping through him, but he feared the coldness he might find against his fingers.
“Kakyoin.” he muttered. He wasn’t entirely sure why, he knew he wouldn’t wake, didn’t even stir. His mouth twisted as he looked into his pale face, somehow thinner. He looked papery; one strong gust or a single strike away from collapsing inward. His hair, though lank, looked even brighter against his dim surroundings, but there was nothing to show what that color usually said about him, that he was alive— unique and fearsome. Jotaro’s stomach wrenched and he spun away, striding purposefully past Avdol who had waited by the door. He pulled his hat even lower over his eyes.
Avdol sent him off with another handshake and quick hug, but he held onto Jotaro’s hand with both of his own before they parted. He tried to pass off more words of pride, and thankfulness for what he had done, but JoJo couldn’t bear to listen.
“Bye, Avdol.” And he got on the plane.