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Jolyne wakes up as she always does when she’s at her father’s house: still tired, a little uncomfortable, and with a glass of water on her bedside table that wasn’t there the night before. She takes a sip and finds it cold, matching the chill in the air of her room. A divergence from the norm: she spends the summers here. Right now, it’s winter—officially, as of a couple of days ago. This is the first time she’s spent any time in Japan outside of summer break.
Less than a week ago, December 19th, her father had remarried. It was a small ordeal; no one outside the family (Uncle Muhammad and J.P. count as family), and no one she wasn’t already familiar with—if Noriaki has any living relatives, she’s never heard anything about them, and they weren’t present. She’d left school a few days before it let out just for the occasion, and it was decided (not by her, but by her mother, of all suspects) that her winter break would be spent with her father and stepfather for the first time in her life.
The two of them had already agreed they didn’t want a honeymoon, so here at home they stayed. “We’ve done enough traveling together. I’d prefer to have a few weeks to relax with my family,” Noriaki had said. An odd notion. She’s spent plenty of time living alone with them, but never with the pretense of it being as a family. Perhaps it was as a family ever since the beginning of summer, the day that they told her they were engaged; or perhaps it was as a family the whole while and they just never bothered to inform her of it. But now, with or without the legal aspect of it, they’re married for real. Family, whether she’s ready for it or not.
She is quick to get up, water still in hand. She tries not to shiver against the cold, wrapping the softest blanket from her bed around herself like a cape to stave off the chill as she steps out of her room. The house is one-story—an accommodation for her stepfather—so it’s not a long walk. Her door opens into the same hall as her father and Noriaki’s (as well as a bathroom and a spare room that sees use as both an office and a studio), which ultimately leads to the living room. She’s greeted there by the trilling of their cat, a lean, steel-grey tabby named Maria. (Dad says she’s named after Mariya Takeuchi. Noriaki says she’s named after Maria Renard. Jolyne doesn’t know who either of those people are.) She reaches down to let her sniff her hand. Satisfied with whatever she finds, Maria rubs against her palm, letting Jolyne scratch behind her ears, purring loudly.
“C’mon,” Jolyne whispers, voice cutting heavy through the quiet morning air. She drags herself over to the couch, curling her knees tightly into her body to wrap the blanket around them, and pats the cushion next to her. Maria is happy to join her, a ball of warmth at her side. Noriaki must be awake—the water by her bed had to come from somewhere—but she and Maria are alone for now. She stays quiet and sips her water. Small sips throughout the day are the most effective way to stay hydrated, she recalls—Noriaki’s own instruction.
Speaking of—a door in the hallway opens, and the sound of a cane accompanying the incoming footsteps betrays who it is before he arrives. He peeks into the living room and smiles when he sees her. His hair is down for once, spilling over his shoulders in dark brown waves. “Good morning, Jolyne,” he calls gently. Dad must still be asleep.
“Morning,” she grumbles.
He laughs a little. “Your father is still sleeping.”
Right. “Mn,” she hums.
“Did you sleep well?”
She nods, which is sort of a lie, but she doesn’t like it when he fusses over her like Mom does.
“Cold?” he asks, coming nearer to run a hand through her hair.
“A little,” she confesses.
“I’ll turn the heat up. Just don’t tell your father. He’ll notice eventually, but we may as well take advantage of the warmth while we can,” he says teasingly. He leans over to kiss her on the top of her head before he goes. Another moment of shuffling, and then, from the kitchen, he calls, “Would you like me to make you hot chocolate?”
“Yes, please,” she calls back.
“Mmhm.”
She strokes along Maria’s back, and the purring picks up volume again.
She met Noriaki for the first time a few years ago; the second summer after the divorce, and the first after Dad had officially moved to Japan. He was introduced as a friend from high school who lived nearby. She recognized him, at the time, from an old photo from a trip Dad took to Egypt with some friends that used to be in his office at home—though Noriaki looked pretty different then, most notably with his hair being a bright red. When she was younger, she could never get a straight answer as to who he was. Everyone else, she already knew. Great Gramps (holding a dog), Uncle Muhammad, and Uncle J.P. were all familiar to her, and of course, her own father, albeit a younger version of him. But the red-haired boy remained a mystery. She couldn’t even get a name out of him.
She tried asking her mother once. “That’s Dad’s best friend,” she’d said. When Jolyne pointed out that she would have met her dad’s best friend, she’d corrected herself, “That’s Dad’s old best friend.” As a little kid, Jolyne assumed that meant he was dead and finally dropped the subject. Then, when she was 7 or so, she was suddenly introduced to him, as if whatever had happened between them that made Dad so evasive about the topic had never happened at all. It wasn’t talked about, and she didn’t ask.
Beyond that, she isn’t exactly sure when it was that their relationship went from “old high school friends” to “engaged”; or, rather, she knows they got engaged earlier this year, she just isn’t sure when the relationship began. Noriaki had gone from living nearby to moving in and sharing a room with Dad some time between the summers when Jolyne was 8 and 9. Before then, she supposes. Maybe all along. She’d liked him, at first. He was nice, and she was young enough that that was about the only expectation she had. But then, suddenly, he was the most important person in Dad’s life, and she realized maybe Noriaki wasn’t nice to her because he wanted to be, or because he was simply a nice person. Her father has never once indicated to her that she’s anything beyond a moral obligation to him, so at this point, she can’t imagine her stepfather holding genuine fondness for her either. More likely, he's just better at faking nice than Dad, who was a hopeless case long before she was born.
Still—it does mean she gets to sit and watch as he brings hot chocolate right to her, the cup rested on a saucer held in one hand. “Apologies if I spilled any.” A wasted apology. He didn’t spill a drop. Everything he does is fairly immaculate. Even his sneezes seem neat and tidy. “It’ll be a bit hot. Give it a moment, okay?”
She nods and takes the saucer, folding her legs into a crossed position so she can more easily hold it over her lap. In exchange, Noriaki takes her water and places it on a side table, then disappears into the kitchen again.
He returns only a moment later with his own glass of water. “Shall we use the kotatsu today?” he asks.
She tries—mostly fails—not to smile. “Yeah,” she says. Heated tables are one of her new favorite things about winter in Japan. She turns to find Noriaki smiling back at her and averts eye contact as soon as it’s made.
“I’ll set it up, then. Maybe Dad will join us when he wakes up. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
She shrugs.
He doesn’t try to get anything else out of her on the subject. He knows plenty well that she's not entirely happy with her father’s absences; with the way that he feels like little more than a ghost of a presence even when he’s right in the room with her. It was yesterday that he’d warned them (well in advance for once, but still) that he’d be out for work for the entire month of July, so they’d have to get used to being alone together. Jolyne had been too privately dismayed to notice Noriaki’s reaction.
“What do you think about Dad leaving for a month next summer?” she asks, earnestly curious.
He sighs. “Well, I’m not happy about it,” he admits, voice going flat and crisp in a way he usually avoids when talking to her. “He’ll come back, though, so I can’t be too upset. I’m used to it, anyhow.”
She thinks back to the old photograph and the mysterious red-haired boy. “Why? Because he left you before?” she asks, realizing a bit belatedly that she probably should have outgrown this sort of bluntness by now.
Noriaki’s hands pause midway through plugging in the kotatsu. “I meant that I’m used to him traveling when I’m not free to go with him. But... yes,” he says.
“For a long time.” Too late to bite her tongue, so she may as well double down.
“Jolyne,” he sighs. Not entirely scolding. More like tired.
“Sorry.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll tell you about that, if you’d like to know. We’re married now, after all, and sometimes I feel like you barely know anything about us.”
She refrains from saying anything snappy about that being on them for constantly keeping secrets from her. Instead, she nods. “When I was a kid, Dad kept a photo with you in it in his office, but he never told me who you were.”
Noriaki laughs, the tone of it not entirely humorous. “You’re still a kid,” he says. “And I’m not surprised.” He smoothes the quilt under the tabletop out a little and turns the heater on. “Come sit,” he says, seating himself with a huff. He reaches to grab her hot chocolate, which she willingly gives up. He places the saucer on the table.
She joins him at the opposite side, sliding her drink closer to herself, stretching her legs out underneath while avoiding contact with Noriaki’s. It isn’t warm yet, so she keeps her blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“I met your father when we were 17. I transferred into his school about halfway through our third year. Neither of us had ever really had friends before, but somehow, beyond all reason, we ended up getting along.” He smiles at the memory. “We were inseparable within the span of a month, though no one could figure out why. The reason was pretty simple, though. At least, I think so. We were just a lot more similar than we seemed on the surface.” He runs a finger along the rim of his glass. “Back then, your father had a really awful reputation. The classic bad boy type. Got into fights, caused problems with teachers, girls from school thought he was irresistible no matter how much he told them off, you know. All that. But no one bothered to look close enough to notice he also had top marks in his classes and was quiet more out of awkwardness than anything else.”
He paints an odd picture. She’s always known, in theory, that Dad used to be like that; yet still, she can’t even imagine him with a cigarette between his lips.
“I was sort of the opposite. I was quiet, too, but I seemed less problematic. I got top marks, and people noticed it with me. Everyone was so busy praising me for being so smart and talented that they didn’t see much more than a kind, obedient honor student. It was a good cover, at least.” He smirks mischievously, and the expression almost seems to suit him better than the gentler smiles he usually offers. Something about it is off, though—something in his eyes isn't entirely behind it. “We seemed like very different people from the outside. We are very different people. But we’re very similar people, too. We spent most of our lives alone up until then, albeit for different reasons. We had common interests. We each liked listening to what the other had to say, not out of obligation, but because we wanted to. We took the time to understand each other. Or at least to try. And, of course, we had a few secret things in common, too. Things no one else did. Plus… hardships have a way of bringing people together, I suppose.”
She thinks she knows what he means, maybe. Noriaki has no problem with saying out loud that he’s gay and transgender, or, at least, not to her. But Dad doesn’t like to talk about that, even though he is, too, so maybe the vague statement is some kind of respect for that discomfort. She can’t think of anything else they’d have in common that they had to keep secret, or else that could cause “hardship,” as he’d called it. Then again, from what Mom has said about it, Dad didn’t quite allow it to sink in that he’s gay until well into his 20s, so she’s at a little bit of a loss as to what exactly Noriaki could be referring to.
Unless that part was about another unspoken thing. Then she might have some clue.
She doesn’t interrupt to voice her confusion, knowing by now that it won’t actually get her any meaningful clarification, so he continues. “We never talked about where we stood. I thought we both just knew already. But then, during our trip, I was in a couple of accidents, and, well, I don’t know. We slowly fell apart.” He sighs with the weight of it. “My eyes were first, and that wasn’t so bad. I was left blinded in the hospital for a while, which was awful at the time, but thanks to the Speedwagon Foundation I was mostly fine within a couple of weeks. It was miraculous. Then, of course, just after that, I had my spinal injury, and it got… worse.” He slumps forward, leaning his elbows on the table and cupping his hands under his chin. “At the time, the grief of almost losing so much at once was too fresh in your dad’s mind. He was very sensitive, though I’m sure he never thought of himself that way. The circumstances of the incident weren’t any help, either. He blamed himself for it, I think.” He gives no further specification. No one’s ever told her what the injury was from. The only time she ever asked, Dad quietly informed her Noriaki doesn’t like to talk about it. From what she’s hearing now, she wonders if it isn’t more like the other way around; wonders what else it was he was at risk of losing (on a supposed vacation, no less).
A saving grace—Maria, noticing their current arrangement, joins them under the kotatsu, curling up, once again, right next to Jolyne’s leg. She seems rather attached, though she and Jolyne have only known each other for one summer. Her renewed presence is a welcome distraction from the heavy topic.
Noriaki closes his eyes. “When he was young, Jotaro’s emotions often came out as anger. The more obvious ones, like sadness and fear, but sometimes even love and worry. Your grandmother fell gravely ill once, not long after we met, and he yelled at her whenever she exerted herself too much.”
(Jolyne has never known her father to be one to yell or lash out; the rare occasions she’s seen him truly angry, it was always a quiet, simmering thing. Maybe that means he’s gotten better. Maybe it’s worse.)
“Miss Holly didn’t mind it. She’s always been such a sweet woman, always so understanding with him. I wasn’t quite that forgiving. Suddenly that worried anger was being turned on me, and suddenly we were fighting more than we were getting along, and suddenly I had no idea where we stood anymore. I suppose if I had been more patient, if I had kept myself from being cruel in retaliation when I knew he was really just scared for me, things might have been different. I could have helped him confront the root of his problem. He could have cooled his head and let me have a little more space to breathe. But we were still just teenagers, after all. We weren’t the most mature, emotionally or otherwise, even if we thought we were. Or, at least, I thought I was.” He opens his eyes and blinks a few times. “He didn’t tell me that he was attending university in America. I found out from his mother after he was already gone. I was very angry with him for a long time.”
They’re quiet for the space of a few breaths before she speaks. “You needed him,” she concludes, “and he left you.”
He looks up at her and smiles, soft and sad. “It was more complex than that, but sort of, yes. That was how I felt at the time.”
She looks down at the quilt. Picks at a stray thread. “I’m sorry,” she offers, not sure what else to say.
“It’s okay, baby. Don’t worry, we’re alright now. I’m sorry.” He smiles. He always calls her baby in English, though they rarely use Jolyne’s native language around the house. “As a teenager, when I was all starry-eyed and newly in love, I always figured Jotaro and I would get married someday and have a child together, through adoption or otherwise. He always wanted to be a father, I think, even if he wouldn’t say it out loud, and I wasn’t certain, but I was willing to do it for him.” That doesn’t sound right to her. Dad has never done anything to make her believe that. “Figured that was a dead dream for a while, but it wasn’t, was it?” He puts his hand over hers on the table for a lingering moment.
Something about the way he phrased that… “You didn’t want kids,” she says, not entirely sounding like she’s asking a question.
“I’m not sure. I was only 17, I didn’t know what I wanted. After that I just didn’t think about it. But I’m glad to have you now.”
She isn’t sure what to say. She isn’t sure what to make of that at all.
He seems to pick up on her hesitation. “Jolyne?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re both very proud of you, you know. Your father is happiest when you’re here, and for as nervous as I was about suddenly having a daughter, particularly one too old to ever really see me as her dad, I think it turned out very well. You’re a wonderful person.” He reaches under the table to run his fingers through Maria’s fur for a moment. “Even the cat loves you. Animals are good judges of character, after all. I’ll bet Maria can tell how kind you are.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t understand where this is coming from. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” he says, letting her hand go.
She stares into her cup. “When did you and Dad meet? For the second time, I mean. I know it was when he was out on work, but…” She barely remembers it, except what Mom has told her. Something about a job that was so important he couldn’t be bothered to come home even when Jolyne was so sick she was hospitalized. Asking is probably a waste of time if neither have bothered to offer up the information on their own, but she may as well give it a shot.
“Ah. That was…” Noriaki hesitates; a rarity for him. “It’s not a very nice story. The circumstances weren’t ideal. We met by chance, actually. I guess fate has a way of drawing people together. I only wish it had been during easier times... though, honestly, I’m not sure I would have bothered sticking around long enough for anything to change if things had been different. Your great uncle, Josuke—it was when Jotaro came to Japan after the family found out he existed. We got caught up in other business, something tangential to that, you might say.” He sounds strained when he says, “I can't say I'm comfortable giving my daughter all the gruesome details as to what made that job so terrible, and I’m sure you don’t actually care to know about how we came to forgive each other, so I’ll just tell you what you need to hear. He was sick with worry over you. It takes a lot for him to admit something like that out loud, but he went so far as to confess that much to me. I know he meant it. He wanted to be with you more than anything, but it just wasn’t possible. I know that’s unfair, and I’m sorry. If anything had happened to you, well. It’s hard to say what he would have done. But he certainly never would have forgiven himself, even if it was out of his hands.”
She can’t tell if he’s lying. He doesn’t seem to be, exactly, but she can’t think of any particular time when he lied to her and she figured it out, so either he’s generally an honest person or he’s just a good liar.
Her father's alleged feelings aside, though, one thing is definitely clear: even if he isn't lying, he's at least hiding something. He plainly admitted to that much. A marine biologist and a freelance artist don't really have reason to be working together in the first place, much less on a job that is apparently as troubling as he makes it sound. There's something more to that situation. Just another vague part of her family history that gets brushed under the rug. Egypt is the same way. Most vacations don't end in one of the traveling parties being hospitalized twice in the span of two weeks, the second time leaving them paralyzed for over a decade—and that’s just Noriaki’s injuries. Uncle Muhammad is missing arms he definitely still had in the photo. Dad has scars littering his entire upper body that he refuses to elaborate on. She's perfectly aware of the glaring reality that that's not normal. The trouble is, she also knows plenty well that if she tried asking about it, she wouldn't get any answers. That's just how Dad and Noriaki operate. They tell her as much as they want to and nothing more. She's allowed to stick around, but she can't expect to be a real part of their lives.
“I believe your father is awake now, Jolyne,” Noriaki says softly.
She nods. She didn’t hear him get up, but Noriaki can always tell somehow, as if he has eyes in the other room. She knows he must be right.
A minute passes in silence. A door in the hall opens, then another closes. She sips her hot chocolate to the sound of him brushing his teeth. The cup is almost empty now, the drink gone lukewarm.
Dad joins the two of them a moment later. He’s without his usual hat and coat for the moment, dressed in a black turtleneck and sweatpants. At the sound of his approach, Maria gets up from Jolyne's side again and pads up to greet him. (Traitor. She always liked him best.)
“Good morning, dear,” Noriaki says, beaming. That one took a while to get used to—the pet names. It didn’t completely sink in until last summer that you doesn’t always just mean you, though the image of her father gruffly yelling hey, you across the house to get Noriaki’s attention was certainly something. It’s almost funny considering how inexpressive and lacking in initiative her father is in almost every other facet of their relationship.
“Morning,” Dad grumbles. He bends down to pet Maria, fingers gliding delicately across her fur. She purrs loudly enough to be heard from across the room.
“Sit with us.” Noriaki pats the top of the table.
“Mn.”
Light on his feet for a man of his size, he makes his way over to the kotatsu, slow and gentle in his approach, Maria following at his heels. He squeezes in next to Noriaki, easing an arm around him and pulling him in close. Perhaps it’s just that he’s tired, but he takes a moment, as if making up his mind, before he leans in and presses a kiss to Noriaki’s temple, like he still has reason to be hesitant around his now-husband.
Jolyne supposes it’s more open affection than she’s used to with the two of them, if still a bare minimum. She’s never quite thought of her dad as acting in love or anything, but she knows he’s always been a little bit touchier with Noriaki, always had a few more minute smiles ready for him than Jolyne has ever seen him offer anyone else. Still—they barely seem married half the time, and the other half it feels like Dad is reluctant to even hold hands. If nothing else, they seem to understand each other well without having to communicate much verbally, like they've found a method of instinctively knowing how to navigate each other’s thoughts (in a way that utterly confounds Jolyne, who can’t understand either of them). It’s a far cry from the sappy dramas and romantic comedies that Mom favors, but there’s a certain subtle closeness, physical and emotional, that Dad shares with Noriaki in a way she’s never remotely seen in him elsewhere.
It is, at best, uncomfortable to witness.
Noriaki reaches up to squeeze his hand. Jolyne notes their matching rings—a platinum band with an inlaid emerald. Noriaki had said they were made custom. Her parents’ old wedding bands had been plain gold, dull and unimpressive by comparison.
“Tea in a bit?” Dad asks. He’s always the one to make it. Noriaki claims his tastes better. Jolyne thinks it makes no difference, since it’s all the same thing anyway, but she doesn’t like tea, so maybe she wouldn’t know.
“Yeah,” Noriaki hums affirmatively. He turns to kiss Dad’s cheek in return, reaching down to pull Maria into his lap. Then, “Go sit with your daughter,” he chides, a little harsh, shoving him away hard enough to nearly topple him over.
Dad takes it in stride, righting himself easily. “Your daughter, too,” he says. (Jolyne feels a protest rising in her throat, but she tamps it down.) He gets up onto his knees and scoots around to the opposite side of the table, right next to Jolyne. “Good morning,” he says, and he pulls her into his arms and kisses her hair.
She leans against him awkwardly, not trying to hug him back. “Morning,” she says weakly. She can’t remember the last time Dad held her like this. She suspects Noriaki must have said something about being more openly affectionate with her some time earlier this year, because Dad’s been a little less cold with her ever since last summer, but it was never a very big effort on his part, so this is still a shock.
(She hates it—this elaborate charade the two of them are always playing at. If she could make herself believe it, the reimbursed affection might be nice. But she can’t. She just can’t. She’s already learned where expecting any genuine warmth from her father will get her, and she won’t be caught falling for it again. He and Noriaki keeping each other on script means little to her when she’s aware of the act.)
Dad’s embrace is steady and grounding.
He’s very warm, and the air is still cold.
It should be a welcome respite.
She’s not quite sure that it is.