Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anasui said that Weather died the happiest he could’ve. That he never truly felt free in the prison; that escaping gave him the ending he needed.

And yes, Emporio accepts that. He saw how enclosed the man looked as he sulked around the prison’s halls; how lost he appeared to the world. How he didn’t have anything to really live for.

But that statement. . . that Weather was the happiest in continuous danger, even dying. . . that always left Emporio with a bad taste in his mouth. He’s fully aware that it’s mostly from that tiny tinge of jealousy in the back of his mind, yes. From a sense of failure.

So I never made you happy, Weather? All that time we spent together suddenly means nothing the moment you leave those stone walls, right? It’s all I knew, Weather, and it was all you knew too. I thought we were together in that.

And yeah, maybe he resents himself a little for feeling so.

But that other part of him realizes that what Weather felt then in the prison is something that he can relate to. It’s a feeling that’s too familiar to the Emporio of now.

However, he has the opposite view on that cursed hunk of rock and metal that he’d spent so much of his life in.

Emporio Alniño hasn’t truly felt alive since he left.

February 17, 2021. Morioh, Japan.

“It’s still a little strange to me how the wheel’s on that side of the car,” Emporio says. “It gives me anxiety every time you drive on the left side of the road.”

Tsurugi smirks. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel menacingly.

“You’re not gonna wanna see me hit the streets on my grandpa’s motorcycle, then. That thing blasts right through anything and everything.”

Emporio sighs. “As long as I know you’re not going to hit Nicki Minaj, it’s fine.”

“I told you not to touch it and did you listen? No!”

He’s referring to their first meeting, circa one year ago.

Tsurugi, as the son of a rather wealthy family (even through the calamities that hit them a few years prior), was given the opportunity to study abroad in America, and boy, did he take it. He’d stayed in the ashes of said calamity far too long for his liking, and he felt it was in his best interest to take a break from it all and go somewhere.

So at one point, in this illustrious trip to America, he found himself sitting in the corner at a party, half-wasted, absentmindedly folding his unstereotypically blue solo cup into something. Was it a crane? A frog? A fucking scale replica of the Taj Mahal? Tsurugi didn’t know.

It was then that he was approached by this concerningly gentle-looking man, probably a year or two older than himself. He asked Tsurugi some question, but the question couldn’t be heard over the blasting of some Nicki Minaj song, so it was ignored.

The man knelt next to Tsurugi in the corner, to which Tsurugi asked him, 「And who the fuck are you?」

In reply, he only repeated his question. “What is that you’re folding?” and reached out a hand to touch it.

Tsurugi, in his drunken state, only realized what was happening when it was too late, and said “Don’t touch it!” when the man’s finger was but an inch from the folded cup.

But touch it he did.

And his eyes widened when he paused and looked around the room, only to realize that the faces of all the other people in the room had become that of Nicki Minaj herself.

“This is. . . a stand ability,” he said.

At the mention of this, Tsurugi recoiled, ready to deck the guy if he had to, but the man just put his hands up in a sort of surrender.

“I’m not your enemy. I just. . . want to talk to you. Is outside okay?”

Tsurugi squinted at this dude, but nonetheless shrugged and stood up to leave. He didn’t release the man from Paper Moon King, but still followed him outside of the house to sit together on the edge of the driveway. The guy was pretty damn unthreatening, to be fair.

“That is a stand, right? I wasn’t mistaken?”

“Yeah, it is,” Tsurugi slurred in response. He was interested in this mysterious American stand user, but he wasn’t ready to put all of his effort into the conversation just yet.

“You’re the first user I’ve seen in years,” the man said breathlessly. “Where did you get it?”

Now, that was a little weird.

Tsurugi raised an eyebrow. Suspicious.

“Not telling you.”

The man nodded, then with absolutely no warning reached a hand up the bottom of his shirt. When he pulled his hand out, it was curled into a fist.

Tsurugi really was about to deck this guy. What the absolute fuck was he doing?

All of a sudden, he opened his hand, and somehow, out popped a really old computer, complete with keyboard, mouse, and one of those thick-ass monitors.

“Shit, is that from the nineties or something?” Tsurugi asked, peering around to look at the screen.

“Earlier,” the man replied, and booted up the monitor. Somehow, the whole setup worked without plugging in to anything at all, which Tsurugi didn’t notice at the time but would definitely be haunted by for days to come.

The monitor turned on, somehow with perfect internet, and the man turned to Tsurugi.

“This is my stand, Burning Down the House. It allows me to take out and use these ghost objects. Couldn’t hurt you with it if I tried. Promise.”

Tsurugi slowly nodded at him, then pointed at the man with a slightly swaying finger. “You never told me who you are.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Emporio.” He extended a hand for Tsurugi to shake.

“Tsurugi.”

Tsurugi accepted the handshake, and now that he was looking straight at the man’s face, he noticed that his eyes under the brim of his hat were looking a little. . . red.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I. . . yeah.” Emporio said. He wiped his eyes with his forearm. “I just didn’t know other stand users were around, that’s all.”

Tsurugi never really understood that sentiment. He had been surrounded by stand users his whole life, and yet he didn’t know much about their stands at all. There wasn’t really anything to miss.

“You didn’t have to show me, you know,” he slurred. “My grandpa always said that showing someone your stand is like showing them your asshole.”

Emporio chuckled. “I’ve never heard that.”

“And I never understood it! If there’s people I want to show my stand to, I’ll. . . do it, all right!”

He let free an origami frog he had in his pocket, which hopped over near Emporio.

“Paper Moon King. And don’t you forget it.”

A wide smile appeared on the man’s lips. “Oh, I sure won’t.”

And from that moment on, their fates were set.

It was a strange encounter, for sure, but it was also the beginning of a great friendship.

What else were they really to do, both being stand users and all?

It’s great to finally have someone who won’t call you a witch for doing weird shit like controlling little paper frogs with your mind or pulling a whole book on the functions of human organs out of your pocket.

However, it was only after Tsurugi had to return to Japan at semester’s end that he had his most incredible idea.

If Emporio hasn’t seen that many stand users. . . then why not bring him to them?

Thus, he was geniously able to plan a little trip to Japan to coincide exactly with Emporio’s birthday in February.

“A gift! For your birthday, y’know?” he’d phrased it, and at first Emporio was skeptical, but lo and behold, here he is now, in Morioh. He’d had to fly to S-City (coincidentally spending half of his actual birthday on a plane), from which Tsurugi drove him to Morioh.

Emporio, so far, is surprised at how different Japan is from America, which is understandable coming from someone who lived in a literal prison the first eleven years of his life. As they approach the orchard, Morioh’s signature Wall Eyes become visible, and he marvels at those most of all.

Giant rock formations that give you stands. . . he doesn’t remember anything like those existing back in the old world. They’re surreal, standing here in front of him.

They finally reach the Higashikata estate, and as Tsurugi rounds the corner into the long driveway much faster than he should, he has to slam down the brake so as to not hit a man who is standing there in the middle of it. Honestly, he should’ve seen this coming. Fucker visits like every other day.

Emporio, who has minor whiplash, isn’t as quick to recover once Tsurugi parks the car and swiftly swings the door open.

「Josuke!」 he yells at the man in the driveway, popping out of his side of the car. 「You’re here right now?」

The man in question turns to wave at Tsurugi. 「Yeah. Hey, Tsurugi.」

Emporio also emerges from his side of the car, holding his head in one of his hands. “So that’s Josuke? The one who you were telling me about?”

“Yeah,” Tsurugi replies. “But it doesn’t look like his wife is around right now, which is a shame, because she’s hot.”

“As you told me,” Emporio says as he walks to the back of the car to retrieve his suitcase. He squints over at Josuke. “Wow, he really doesn’t wear socks.”

“Yeah. Calls his toes free-range. But they let him as long as it doesn’t stink as bad as Uncle Joshu.”

Many facts about Josuke have been shared with Emporio, including how he has a really hot wife and a dog and the fact that he regularly wears tennis shoes without socks.

Tsurugi approaches Josuke and Emporio follows him like a lost dog.

“Where’s Yasuho?” he asks.

“Working. She’ll be off soon,” Josuke says. Now that he’s speaking English, Emporio notices he has a bit of lisp, probably due to the huge gap between his two front teeth. “I’m just here to give some messages from Rai. Also, who are you?”

“Emporio Alniño. Tsurugi’s friend,” he introduces himself and extends a hand to shake.

Josuke shakes his hand a little aggressively, but it still falls far within the range of an acceptable handshake.

“It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard about you here and there,” he says. “Is it true that you can see him?”

A tall, slender, white stand with a marble-like consistency appears between Emporio and the man before him. It leans in to do what Emporio can only assume is inspecting him despite its lack of actual eyes.

“I can,” Emporio says, trying to meet its gaze but failing on where exactly to look.

The stand gives him a couple of firm pats on the head with one of its hands before disappearing into thin air again.

“It’s settled, then,” Josuke announces. “You are officially approved by Soft and Wet, and therefore approved by me as well. Good choice, Tsurugi.”

With that, he waves goodbye and quite literally skips out into the orchard.

Tsurugi steps up next to Emporio, who is still trying to process what just happened, and grins. “He’s the most normal one. Get ready.”

“I’m not sure if I can be,” Emporio says. “This will be the most stand users in one place I’ve met in years.”

The tone of the conversation switches in an instant.

“If you. . . can’t handle it, then tell me. I’m not gonna force you to suffer.”

“I can,” Emporio replies, swallowing the emotions that have suddenly decided to resurface. “It’s part of moving forward.”

Tsurugi places his hand on Emporio’s shoulder in a show of support.

“Now, the rest of them don’t speak English like Josuke does, so I can try and make it so you can understand, if you want. I mean, if you want to hear them talking shit about you, cause that’s all they do.”

Emporio nods.

Sure, it was a little weird for him to go to his friend’s hometown and not be able to reliably communicate with his family, but for the most part, they weren’t aiming to interact with the Higashikata siblings anyway. Their main goal was to explore Morioh and introduce Emporio to its more hospitable stand users.

According to Tsurugi, his aunts and uncle didn’t exactly fall under the category of “hospitable.”

Quickly, Tsurugi reaches into his pocket and pulls out a 1000 yen note. With almost lightning speed, he folds it into a little crane.

“This might be a little. . . what’s the word? Disorienting,” he tells Emporio before placing the crane in the crook of his neck.

Emporio doesn’t feel any different, but then again, the first time he hadn’t felt anything physically before being slapped right in the retinas with visions of Nicki Minaj

He is a little shaken when the paper crane begins to shuffle around a little, but remembers that this is normal and Paper Moon King is supposed to move. It’s a stand.

God, it really has been a while since Emporio has interacted with a proper stand. Sure, he’s had Weather Report’s stand disc ever since the end of the world as he knew it, but didn’t have the heart or the courage to put the disc in. All he did with it was twirl it between his fingers, reminiscing about the time he’d had with Weather and Anasui back in the music room.

「Okay.」 Tsurugi steps back, satisfied with the placement of the crame. 「Can you understand me?」

Emporio understood. It just sounds like English to him.

“I can,” he replies.

「Good, good,」 Tsurugi says, grinning.

The crane on Emporio’s shoulder flaps its wings a little before settling itself in the collar of his shirt. It’s almost endearing for a literal piece of paper.

「Now we brave the beasts.」

Upon stepping into the house, Emporio finds every single sense he has overwhelmed.

「Ooh, he’s kinda cute! You wouldn’t mind if I stole him for a bit, would you, Tsurugi?」

「You can’t even see him, cheeky bitch! And he’s nothing. Nothiiiiing. 」

「Shut up! 」

「Anywho, this your boyfriend? I didn’t know you were gaaaaay, little guy. Huuh? 」

「No, he is not, and that’s not the topic at hand anyway,」 Tsurugi states.

「Liar.」

“Anyway,” Tsurugi turns to Emporio. “These are my aunt and uncle, Daiya and Joshu. They’re both fucking insane.”

They both stare at Emporio with scrutinizing eyes.

「I’m not very good on my English,」Daiya whispers to Joshu, who has no sympathy towards her.

「 Stupid bitch, 」 Joshu mutters in response. He then points a long, visibly slimy finger at Emporio. 「So who is he?」

「Joshu, Daiya, this is my friend, Emporio,」 Tsurugi says. 「It’s his birthday today, so be fucking nice to him.」

Emporio does an awkward bow at them.

「Ooh, what a nice name! And nice manners, too,」 Daiya swoons. 「You really are gonna have to let me borrow him.」

Something oddly screw-shaped hits her in the side of the head at the end of the sentence, giving Joshu an opening to step out in front of her.「Hold on. I’ve got this. Americans shake hands with people when they meet them, right?」

He holds out that left hand that Emporio noted was slimy before, and oh boy does it look even worse up close. Plus, two of his fingers are straight-up missing from the first joint, which makes the encounter overall awkward to carry out.

Emporio is about to genuinely accept the handshake when Tsurugi slaps the older man’s hand away from him and peers around his relatives at main room of the house.「Is Grandpa still at the parlor?」

Joshu gives an overly-pitiful whine, cradling his slapped hand.「Of course he is, dumbass. Who else is gonna man it?」

Daiya hits him on the shoulder. 「You would, if only you did something in your stupid life!」

「I’ll get you for that, woman! It’s not like you do anything around here either except take your stupid boys home when I’m trying to game!」

「Hey, at least I have an excuse! Some of us can’t see the fruit in front of us!」

The two continue yelling at each other rapid-fire in Japanese, seemingly forgetting that Tsurugi and Emporio exist.

“They’ll go on like this forever,” Tsurugi whispers to Emporio. “Wanna see the stag beetles?”

Now, Emporio has heard about the stag beetles, and while not an insect enthusiast himself, is quite excited to see them. He nods, and Tsurugi grabs his wrist to lead him down the hall.

“What does she mean by ‘borrow me’?” Emporio asks in a whisper.

“You don’t wanna know.”

They stop at a door that Tsurugi slides open to reveal a room resembling an office of sorts with many glass frames adorning each wall, each filled with various types of dead beetles.

“Oh,” Emporio says. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

Tsurugi notices his concern. “Relax, the live ones are in the next couple rooms over.”

He leads Emporio to another door off of this room, and the next one is smaller, with a little circular table and chairs in the middle and quite a few glass tanks lining shelves on two of the walls, many of which lit with internal lights and holding little plants. It’s not until Emporio puts his face extremely close to one that he sees the real, living beetles.

“Here, he used to train them to be strong and fight one another, but I haven’t really been keeping that up. Most of these are second or third generation from the ones my father owned, of course.”

“Hm. There’s a lot of empty ones, huh,” Emporio points out, gesturing to the half or so tanks that aren’t lit.

“I haven’t bought any new ones since I inherited them,” replies Tsurugi, kneeling down to open one of the cages. He then reaches in and fishes around a bit to take out the beetle. “And they do like to fight.”

He holds the iridescent-colored bug out to show Emporio. “This is one of the couple that were technically actually his. As you can see, he isn’t exactly the life of the party.”

The beetle just hangs there between Tsurugi’s fingers, not even flailing its legs.

“I see. Can I touch him?”

“Yeah, sure. Just keep away from the mandibles.”

Emporio joins Tsurugi in kneeling on the floor and gently strokes the beetle down its back with a single finger. It sits there patiently, 

“I’m not big on reading beetle emotions, but I think he likes it,” Tsurugi says.

He continues petting the beetle for a little while, then stops when Tsurugi asks:

“Soooo, wanna battle ‘em?”

The sudden suggestion causes Emporio to stop petting the beetle.

“I thought you said you don’t battle them anymore.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start again now. It’s not like I forgot how to do it.”

So they battle.

For the most part, Tsurugi aims to make it fair. He informs Emporio as to the trick using the female beetle’s pheromones on the brush end to get it riled up.

“It’s like that video of the beetle climbing up the tree and throwing the other males off, but then when he gets to the girl he mates with her quick and then throws her off too.”

Emporio has not seen this video, but he nods.

Of course, the golden beetle he ended up choosing is thrown out of the ring. It lands with a little clatter on the table, and Tsurugi quickly retrieves it.

He gives Emporio an apologetic look, but he clearly is proud of himself for winning.

“Just don’t tell Joshu I let you do this, okay? He’s been begging me to let him fight with the beetles for years and will probably actually kill me.”

“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

They play a couple more secret rounds (which Emporio inevitably loses most of) before Tsurugi suddenly freezes and tells Emporio, “Hey. Stand up.”

He grabs a beetle in each hand. They flail their legs at each other.

“What’s. . . happening?” Emporio asks, kind of concerned. He slowly stands.

“Oh, yeah. Remember how I said my dog can phase through walls?”

“Um. . . yeah.”

“Watch out. He’s about to do it right now.”

Emporio is very on edge, not sure exactly how this dog is going to go about literally jumping through a wall.

The conclusion is extremely anti-climactic, as with a little shuffling sound, a wet dog’s nose appears through the wall, and the rest of the animal follows, slowly stepping through the barrier to land right at Emporio’s feet.

He steps back a little out of instinct, but the dog simply waits there, sniffing the ground in front of him.

It looks up at him with big, soulless eyes.

Iwasuke, Emporio remembers.

“So, what do you think? That’s the ugliest fucking dog you’ve ever seen, right?”

Emporio crouches down to pet the dog.

“Yeah. He kind of is.”

Iwasuke is a little gray creature that Emporio hesitates to really define as a “dog.” He really resembles more of a tiny donkey, with his mane-resembling spindly black hair and a tuft at the end of a long, thin tail.

He does act like a dog, though, panting and leaning into Emporio’s touch.

Tsurugi crosses his arms, beetles still in hand. “I would’ve taken him to America, but there’s no way he was gonna make it through customs.”

That’s fair. Iwasuke does look like some kind of illegally-bred circus animal.

He puts his paws on Emporio’s feet.

Emporio sits down on the floor to better pet Iwasuke while Tsurugi returns the beetles to their enclosures, muttering “He really loves to eat them. I’ve lost too many beetles to this little loser.”

Iwasuke barks. The weird dog looks entirely too proud of himself.

After the beetles are all back where they should be, Tsurugi sits himself down on the floor to also pet Iwasuke. “Wanna hear my little plan for tomorrow? I actually made one.”

“Sure.”

“Well, first of all, you’re gonna have your official party at my mom’s house so Shizuka can be there -- she’s been dying to meet you ever since I said I was first bringing you over, by the way -- and then there’s this signing tomorrow that I’m going to make you go to because it’s the author of my favorite manga. After that, probably play some video games or something. Or walk around town. Whatever you want.”

Emporio smiles. “That’s. . . actually more of a plan then I expected, honestly.”

“Hey! I got one thing on the list! Is it so bad that I put my little sister into my plans?”

Shizuka, his sister, is nine years Tsurugi’s junior. Emporio has seen photos of her before and heard of her intense video game feats, and she seems like a really cool kid. It’d be a lie if he said he didn’t want to meet Shizuka.

“That’s not bad, no.”

Tsurugi grins at Emporio. “All I know is that you will be pulling a whole computer out of your ass tomorrow, whether you like it or not.”

“Alright.” Emporio nods.

The next part is almost whispered. “And tomorrow evening, we can. . . go to the gravesite. If you still want to bury her there. Or the next day, while you’re still here.”

Oh, right.

Emporio has never been very secretive about his mother’s death. You have to be on a certain high level of acceptance of it to give someone you’ve never met your dead mom’s pelvis, after all.

However, when he told Tsurugi he still had his mother’s literal skeleton, all Tsurugi had to say was, “Well, you can bury her at my family’s gravesite, if you want. Unless you just want to hold on to your mom’s bones forever.”

And Emporio had never really thought of that. That y’know. . . he could actually lay her to rest if he wanted.

Maybe he just hasn’t found the right place yet.

Besides, it’s not like graveyards are usually offered to you just like that.

“We’ll. . . see,” he replies with a small smile.

Tsurugi smiles back for a couple seconds before glancing over at the nearby clock and seemingly realizing something important.

“Oh, shit, wanna go see the orchard? There’s a really cool spot on top of the Wall Eyes out there, and I don’t want it to be too dark when we go.”

“Sure.”

The two leave Iwasuke, who seems suspiciously intent to stay in the beetle room, and tiptoe through the house to the back door, making extra sure it doesn’t creak too loudly on the way out. Tsurugi comes a little close to making a sound that would alert the more annoying residents as to their departure, but they manage to make it out unscathed.

It’s kind of chilly outside, being February and all, but not unbearably so. Emporio is wearing jeans and a jacket; just enough to keep the cold out. Tsurugi just has on a shirt and his many-pocketed shorts (in which he keeps his stores of origami), which leads Emporio to wonder exactly how the guy isn’t at least somewhat freezing.

Off of the house’s main yard, there’s a little path into the orchard. The beginnings of said path are lit with lanterns on poles, but as the expanse of trees goes on, Emporio notes, the lanterns stop, and while it may be sunset now, it won’t be light for long.

“Don’t worry,” Tsurugi says. He holds up a flashlight. “I have this, and if we do happen to run into any murderers, I have my paper and you have. . . your lighter.”

A little chuckle. “I don’t think a lighter would be very safe to use in an orchard.”

“Yeah, well, just throw something at ‘em, then. All that baseball-playing you do must be good for something.”

Emporio gulps.

They’re so gonna get murdered.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but he once again wishes he hadn’t left his gun in the ocean back at Cape Canaveral.

Tsurugi leads the way through the red-tinted trees, pointing out each different type, despite the trees all looking pretty much the same without any actual fruit on them. There’s a section of apples, of persimmons, of pears (which Emporio is surprised to discover are completely round here), and even oranges.

The way the sunlight creates these ominous branch shadows on everything is ethereal.

The cliff that Tsurugi has led them to really is the best spot on the property.

Not that Emporio would sell any of it short; all of the trees are beautiful. This spot simply outshines them all. A single large tree stands at the top of a Wall Eye cliff, casting a shadow behind it in the woods.

On the currently-sunlit side of the tree, Emporio finds a little carving of a frog.

“Don’t ask,” is Tsurugi’s only comment on the art piece.

A nod of understanding.

Emporio peers off of the cliff at the orchard below, only to find that it somehow looks even better from up here, with the sun on the horizon and reflecting off of all the trees below.

And then something. . . clicks in him.

He knows it’s finally time.

“Hey, Tsurugi, can I. . . do the thing? Can I. . . bring him out?”

Tsurugi purses his lips.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Emporio reaches into the side of his jacket, finding the item instantly. It’s thin and smooth in his hands, and strangely warm. Nothing he pulls out of the void of Burning Down the House is ever warm, despite the name.

Except this.

Weather Report’s stand disc.

Emporio holds the disc between him and the setting sun. It shimmers when he turns it, reflecting the light onto the grass before him. The image of the disc’s previous owner is faint through the iridescence.

“If he. . . does anything, please stop me,” Emporio says quietly to Tsurugi. “I don’t want him hurting anything.”

The last time this stand was let out, nine years ago, it killed a man.

Some of that hatred may yet remain.

Tsurugi seems critically unconcerned. He sits down and crosses his legs in the grass. “I don’t think I’ll have to. You got this.”

Emporio twirls the disc between his fingers once more before hesitantly sliding it into his left temple.

It’s not like he’s never put the disc in before. Sometimes, he’d wake up from nightmares in a cold sweat to find it, previously placed securely into his storage, wormed halfway into his head, with the room’s carpet saturated with orange juice that would dry up instantly after.

Weather and Anasui always talked about how stands reflect the user’s personality; their emotions. Maybe this is what they meant.

The sensation of having it in is weird at first, as it always is, but after the disc settles in, Emporio sighs. It feels a little wrong in his head, but that’s fine. He’ll get over it.

The wind blows over the cliff. Emporio isn’t quite sure if it’s because of the stand he’s just put into his head or the genuine Morioh weather.

Nevertheless, he’s able to relax just enough to consciously let Weather Report out.

The stand materializes on the ground near the left of the tree. In the light of the moon, surrounded by its little wispy clouds, it looks like a ghost. At first, it seems scared of its surroundings. It peers around and flinches when it sees Tsurugi.

“This is the stand you’ve had all this time?” Tsurugi asks Emporio, though he doesn’t break eye contact with Weather Report.

“Yeah,” Emporio replies. “He was Weather’s.”

“I see,” Tsurugi says. He takes an origami frog out of his pocket and lightly sets it on the ground. It hops over to Weather Report in a sort of show of peace.

The stand looks at the frog that is settled before it and crouches down. It pokes at the paper creature with a pale finger, flinching back when it moves into the touch.

Weather Report stares intently at the frog, unblinking.

Emporio stares at Weather Report, afraid.

Tsurugi stares at Weather Report, excited.

Gently, the stand cups its hands in front of the frog. Sitting, waiting.

“I’m gonna do it,” Tsurugi whispers.

Emporio doesn’t say anything to persuade him otherwise.

And the frog jumps swiftly into Weather Report’s hands.

Weather Report stands back up and with the frog in hand, tiptoes over to the edge of the cliff. With a burst of wind, he hovers just above the drop, perched on a solid cloud of his own.

“Aren’t you. . . aren’t you worried he’s gonna fall? Do you die if he falls?” Tsurugi asks.

For some reason, Emporio feels that Weather Report is more comfortable there, standing in the air just off of a cliff, than it would be anywhere else.

“I. . . don’t think he will.”

The stand whistles into the evening. It’s an eerie sound, like the howl of the wind on a dark autumn evening. He’s calling to someone, Emporio knows, and will never receive an answer.

Suddenly, the chirping of locusts is replaced by a more prominent static. Emporio looks around for a second as the sound gets louder. Is he finally breaking down? What’s happening?

Then he realizes that it’s raining.

Maybe it’s because of how he entered this world, but Emporio has hated rain ever since he’s come here. Everything about it, from the way it leaves him shivering to how it reminds him of tears that have never really dried.

It all feels so empty without those light footsteps accompanying it; without the tap of a murderer’s untrained fingers on piano keys that haven’t been tuned for thirty years. Without the lingering taste of orange juice that never runs out; that can’t keep you alive.

As those pink eyes look silently back at him, Emporio curls back in on himself, walking backwards to press his spine almost painfully into the bark of the large tree behind him.

The rain falling through the empty branches is warm, somehow.

Weather Report remains perched there on the cliff’s edge, taking more daring moves than Emporio had ever in the years since the reset. He’s always been scared of things with no possible way to explain why.

The kids at school always laughed at him for not wanting to go swimming.

Whenever a helicopter flew overhead and everyone marveled, he ducked.

What do you mean you don’t know what it’s like to be up there; to feel every pulse of the blades in your veins, the same as the blood in your ears?

Emporio Alniño hates crying.

It reminds him of rain.

One night, as usual, the three sat in the music room in a comfortable silence. Even through the time-space boundary that Burning Down the House provided, the dull thrum of rain could be heard hitting the building’s metal roof.

“I don’t miss being out there, for one,” Anasui scoffed. He laid sprawled out on the carpet, holding a book over his face. Everyone present knew that he wasn’t really reading it.

“I’ve never been in rain,” Emporio, who sat on the piano bench looking at his computer, admitted. “Or snow, for that matter. Not that you’d find any in Florida. . .”

He trailed off at seeing Weather and Anasui’s incredulous expressions on the subject.

“Really?” Anasui asked. “How?”

“Well. . . I’ve never left here. How am I supposed to get outside?”

He chuckled to himself for a little before being swiftly thrown over someone’s shoulder.

Judging by circumference and general distance from the ground, Emporio figured it was Weather whose shoulder he had been so rudely hoisted over.

“Hey! Where are you taking me?”

Anasui, who stood behind Weather, shrugged. “To see the rain.”

Through all the stealth two men and a ten-year-old boy could muster, the three made their way up to the prison’s rooftop. This included using a certain stand to warp a wall and allow the three to clamber up and outside.

None of those fabled stars were visible, being in the middle of the great state of Florida on an extremely well-lit prison rooftop and all, but you take what you can get.

Emporio didn’t care. He merely looked around in awe at everything.

Weather used his stand to keep the water away from the three of them, even going as far as to dry off a small section of the roof so he could sit there under his own personal cloud.

The other two joined him under it, letting Weather surround them with more of his little clouds. The night air combined with the rain made the rooftop a little too cold for comfort, which Anasui made extremely clear to the present company.

The pattern of rain shifted and morphed, coming ever closer to allow Emporio to reach one of his hands out and touch it.

It was so cool.

So cool, in fact, that Emporio didn’t even realize when the first tear fell. Or the second, for that matter. Or the third.

Maybe he just thought it was. . . rain getting in his eyes. Or something.

Anasui noticed, however. His expression immediately turned worried.

He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Oh shit. Oh fuck. Kid, you okay?”

Emporio withdrew his arm back into the clouds and gave a teary nod.

It seemed Anasui didn’t quite know how to respond to this.

“Just. . . tell us if you want to go back down, got it?”

Another nod. An understanding.

Completely returning into their little eye of the storm, Emporio laid his head back on Weather Report’s chest. The man gave a little huff, but didn’t make any moves to deter the boy, or Anasui, for that matter, who put his own head on Weather’s shoulder, long hair draping over the man’s arm.

Anasui was always very proud of his hair. Emporio didn’t blame him.

He always admired Anasui’s pride, even in the face of being sentenced to twelve years for murder.

It was something he always hoped to have.

He’s sure, now, that he never was able to get it.

That night, as he slowly grew more tired in the rhythm of the rain, there was one thing that young Emporio was sure of in that moment. It was that he wasn’t crying because he wanted to go back.

He was crying because he wished he could stay.

Now, as he sits on the top of one of those oh-so-beautiful Wall Eyes next to a huge tree and the single person he’s come to trust most in this fucked new world, Emporio Alniño holds back the biggest sob of his life.

The rain sparkles like diamonds in the moonlight as it falls onto the orchard below.

So do the stars.

Emporio wishes those would fall too.

Next to him, Tsurugi also seems to be in awe at the sight. He inches closer to Weather Report and the edge, where the stand cups the little paper frog in the rain.

The rain.

Paper.

Emporio glances worriedly at Tsurugi. “Your frog! Isn’t it going to fall apart?”

“Don’t worry. I laminate some of ‘em. Should be fine.”

He sighs.

Of course.

The wind continues blowing, chilling the air even further, and the rain is warm where it lands on Emporio’s hands.

Weather Report is at least a little content, for now, and that’s all that matters.

They’ve survived.

All seems to be calm for a moment before the silence is broken by someone approaching.

「Hey,」 the person calls. 「Tsurugi, are you up there?」

It’s Josuke again.

The rain stops.

Weather Report looks up, eyes narrowed.

This is the worst time.

「Don’t come up!」 Tsurugi yells back. 「We have a situation--」

Josuke crowns the hill and suddenly, Weather Report is gone.

He does stop moving, though, arms still part-way out, and looks around.

“He won’t hurt you,” Emporio reassures the general public, but mostly himself.

Tsurugi puts a finger up to his mouth. 「Just stay still.」

He complies, and notices as the air around him becomes slightly foggy.

“What is it?” Josuke asks in a whisper. He doesn’t look too threatened, just confused.

“Don’t attack him, he won’t hurt you,” Emporio repeats.

If this goes wrong. . . he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

With a white puff of steam, the top half of Weather Report materializes behind Josuke and inspects the base of his neck near his left shoulder.

It lightly runs its fingers over a spot there, and Josuke sighs. He seems relatively unfazed.

Emporio and Tsurugi look at each other.

“Is there something there?” Emporio asks.

“There’s a. . . mark. All of Holly’s family has one. That’s why they were called the Joe- stars, after all,” Josuke says. “He seems to like it. Think he has a thing for stars?”

Emporio blinks in disbelief.

“You have a star?”

“I do,” replies Josuke. “You don’t?”

Emporio honestly can’t tell whether the man is joking.

“The Kujos might have them too, though I was never able to contact them, so I’m not sure on their status.”

Emporio’s heart leaps in his chest.

“Did I hear you correctly? Kujo?”

Jolyne Kujo, Japanese-American. Why hadn’t he considered before that there was another connection; another branch of the family that could exist.

“Yep.”

He looks to Tsurugi and then back to Josuke, who is trying to pat Weather Report on the forehead. He is unsuccessful in this, as the stand recoils every time he tries.

“Can I. . . meet these Kujos? That name reminds me of someone,” he says.

“Sorry,” Josuke shrugs. “I don’t know of any who aren’t. . . dead.”

“Ah. . .” Emporio sighs. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Josuke says. “I’m wrong all the time.”

He hums.

“Anyway, Joshu unclosed one of the beetle cases and now it’s on the loose. They want you to come get it or he’ll kill it.”

“Dammit,” Tsurugi mutters. “He always does this. And with only one arm too!”

He stands angrily.

“Sorry about this,” he says to Emporio. “We can come back out if you want, or--”

Emporio joins to stand with him. “No. It’s fine.”

Weather Report looks back at him, pose stiff. It slowly reaches down and sets the little paper frog on the grass before returning to its rigid stance and then vanishing into a puff of mist.

The mist clear

Emporio taps his head twice and the disc comes out. It stings a bit, but he remembers it always being a little painful to let go of a disc.

“Woah. . .” Josuke marvels. “Your stand is on a CD? That’s so cool! Hey, what happens if you put it in a player?”

Emporio shrugs. “Yeah, it’s. . . it was another guy’s stand. He wouldn’t want me playing it.” He turns the disc between his fingers a couple times before shoving it back under his shirt.

He’d been tempted to try it out when he was younger; to play the forbidden CD, just pop it right in the player and let it roll; but showed admirable restraint. It was the last of its kind, after all.

He’s always wondered if it would sound like rain.

Tsurugi clasps his hands together awkwardly. “Well, I think we should go solve this beetle problem, right?”

The other two men nod, and the three awkwardly begin their trudge back through the forest together. It’s a lot less magical now, lit only by Tsurugi’s flashlight.

“So,” Josuke begins awkwardly, “what’s your home like, Emporio?”

“Well, it’s. . . nice.”

It really is, to be honest, but it’s not. . . home.

At first, he clung to Annakiss and Irene as much as possible, and they were nice people, yes, but it just felt wrong. He’d kept claiming, “Oh, I’m just lost! My parents will call, I’m sure they will!” without any truth to his words.

Emporio knew that the last thing a young, engaged couple should be doing is looking after some ratty kid they found crying on the side of the road one day. A kid who just sobbed harder every time another passenger left their car.

They were able to find Emporio someone to properly adopt him, though: an old rich man by the name of Speedwagon. He was their family friend, apparently. Always a nice guy; had helped them through numerous problems since Irene’s grandfather befriended him years ago.

Emporio never really felt that he gave the two enough thanks. Their wedding the year following, 2013, was the last time he saw either of them.

Mr. Speedwagon had been planning to move across the country from Orlando to Los Angeles for a while by that point, and after the wedding that was that.

They sent letters, of course, but haven’t made a physical appearance in Emporio’s life since that year.

He’s not really sad about it anymore. This world began without him in it, and it’ll continue on likewise, after all. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t mess up their lives any more than he could.

“That’s good!” Josuke says. “I’ve never been to America. Is it true that people leave their shoes on while inside the house there?”

“Um. . .” Emporio isn’t really sure how to answer that. “Sometimes?”

“That’s cool. Maybe If I moved to America, Yasuho wouldn’t scold me all the time for forgetting to take my shoes off.”

Tsurugi snorts. “You, at thirty whole years old, forget to take your shoes off inside the house?”

“Yeah! I get so excited to see Yasuho and Prince that I just. . . forget!”

“Prince is their dog,” Tsurugi whispers.

Of course.

The group makes it back to the house, where screaming can be heard from inside. They quickly head in the back door and down the hall to the beetle room.

In the room is an old man that Emporio assumes is Norisuke Higashikata. He appears to be frantically searching for the released beetle.

Of course, upon merely entering the room, Tsurugi finds the bug instantly. This one is the largest beetle that Emporio has ever seen, leading him to believe that Joshu somehow purposefully let loose the most gigantic one he could find.

The man sighs as Tsurugi places the beetle back in its enclosure. 「Thank you, Tsurugi. I never understood how Jobin handled them.」

“They’re not that bad, once you get to know them, really.”

Norisuke looks back at the doorway to the room, where Emporio stands, and walks over to shake his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Emporio,” he says. “I was glad to hear that Tsurugi found a friend. We’re not sending him to America for nothing, after all, ha ha ha!”

His chuckle is hearty, and Emporio gives Tsurugi a side glance to ask if he should be laughing too. The teen shakes his head.

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Higashikata,” is all he manages to get out.

Norisuke grins. He walks around to give Emporio a slap on the back.

“Tsurugi, I like this one! He’s polite, unlike a certain rest of your family.”

Tsurugi nods.

“Anyway, food is ready now, so would you three like to join us to eat?”

Josuke shakes his head. “Sorry, Norisuke. Yasuho and I are eating at home.” He turns to leave the room. “Goodbye!”

“Bye,” Emporio bids him, and as the man walks out of the room, he can see the star over the top of his strange sailor outfit.

Emporio isn’t entirely sure what he just bore witness to.

Each of the adult members of the Higashikata family yelled at each other intensely throughout, and halfway through the meal, Tsurugi grabbed some of the food off the table and whispered to Emporio, “We’re bolting. Get some food and c’mon.”

The two ended up eating their stolen food in a sort of basement annex to the main house, structured almost like a bunker. Emporio doesn’t ask what it’s for, but Tsurugi explains with a simple “Rock disease,” anyway.”

“Yeah, my family is kind of. . . like that. I know you’re here to see stands, but if either of them show you theirs, run and scream.”

Emporio nods.

He knows that stands can be used like that; for less-than-noble purposes. It’s nothing new.

He’d probably be wary of them regardless, stands or not.

Down in the basement room that the two ended up in, Tsurugi has a Nintendo Switch. They play Mario Kart on it for a while before he breaks the question:

“Sorry for asking, but. . . I kind of want to see the piano.”

Emporio looks at Tsurugi, who immediately takes it back.

“I mean, like. . . you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to!”

“No, I. . . I will.”

Emporio takes a deep breath and reaches into his pocket to grasp the piano. He releases the instrument from his closed fist, it instantly reaching full size on the floor.

The piano looks unbearably big in the room, but Emporio knows it’s not really that huge. Since the reset, sometimes he’s gone back to sleep in it to comfort himself and always finds the space smaller than he remembers.

Though, six-foot Weather Report managed to fit in it just fine.

He’s that tall now, Emporio has realized. Those top-shelf books in the music room are no longer out of reach; previously available only with the help of the piano bench.

He fell off that bench once. Trying to get the book on piano instruction down, ironically enough. The fall left him with a scar on his palm from slamming it on one of the drawer handles. After that, Anasui told him that he should always ask him or Weather to get things down from there.

Emporio flexes his hand. There’s still a scar there, if you look close enough.

It’s the first real scar he got before the whole Jolyne incident.

Tsurugi also has scars from his bizarre past events. A collection of stone stripes all up and down his arms and torso.

“Equivalent exchange is a bitch,” he’d always remarked about them.

Stand users are attracted to other stand users, yes, but they’re equally as attracted to trouble, and it seems no one comes out unscathed.

Like young, innocent Shizuka, who apparently has trouble moving her arms due to some incident before she was even born.

Stand users are unable to live in peace, and so they suffer for it.

“Woah,” Tsurugi gawks. “It really is a. . . a piano, huh?”

“Yeah.”

The teen walks up to the keys and tentatively presses a note. It’s a high C that rings out throughout the room.

He doesn’t really seem to care that the piano doesn’t have strings.

“You can. . . get in it, if you want,” Emporio offers.

“Really? Sick! Uh, hold on a second. You get in it. I’ll be right back.”

With that, Tsurugi runs out of the room and up the stairs to the basement.

Emporio is a little confused, yet he steps into the back of the piano and sits there cross-legged on the wood for a couple of minutes. Eventually, Tsurugi’s quick footsteps come running back, and when he runs into the room, he slaps the lightswitch off and jumps into the piano.

After Emporio’s eyes adjust, he notices that when Tsurugi re-entered, he came bearing quite a few objects, though the only one he can see at the moment is a small glowing sphere that looks suspiciously like a certain 44th president of the United States.

Tsurugi shrugs. “Dad got it in America.”

Seems legit.

“Alright,” Tsurugi says. “Tonight is obviously gonna end with us laying here and being sad, we could at least make it fun, right?”

He pulls out another one of the objects he holds, which happens to be a large green glass bottle that clunks on the wood of the inside of the piano when Tsurugi sets it down.

Emporio squints at it. “Is that. . . alcohol?”

“Yeah! Technically I’m not old enough to drink it, but, well, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve committed a crime.”

He unscrews the bottle and drinks straight from its mouth, then cringes a little.

“Good stuff,” he chokes out. “Want some?”

Emporio is doubtful, yet he retrieves the bottle from Tsurugi. He takes a hesitant sip of the drink, and still almost spits it out.

“That tastes like. . . how acetone smells.”

“I know, right? Great. Anyway, I got this for you. Happy birthday.”

He’s placed in front of Emporio the third item he brought into the room, a rigid bag about a foot tall. It’s clearly sparkly, even in the low light.

“You didn’t have to--” Emporio begins, but he’s quickly cut off.

“Shut up. Just open it.”

Tentatively, Emporio reaches into the bag, and the first thing he finds a flat, hard surface. He feels around the item to find that it’s a box, and then pulls it out of the bag. Opening the box by the light of the sphere, Emporio finds that it contains a small, paper piano. He gingerly holds the piano in his fingers, finding it entirely crafted by means of origami folds.

“How the. . . how did you even do this?”

Tsurugi smirks. “A magician never reveals his secrets. Now get the next thing.”

The second thing Emporio finds in the bag is another box, smaller this time, that opens to reveal a necklace inside. The charm is a fruit with one slice taken out, revealing the mismatched inside of the fruit.

“Okay, this one is just Higashikata propaganda. Grandpa made me put it in there.”

Emporio chuckles. It is pretty cool-looking. He takes it out of the box and puts it around his neck. “Well I guess your grandpa has pretty good taste.”

Tsurugi snorts. “Tell that to his face. He’ll love you forever.”

With a grin on his face, Emporio reaches into the bag for the third time. The thing he finds this time is soft, as opposed to both of the literal boxes he’d retrieved before.

It’s a frog. A green stuffed frog with a yellow stomach.

“Okay, hear me out here: frogs have always been there for me, and so, I figured, why shouldn’t you share in the wealth too? So I got you this good boy to, uh. . . absorb your problems?”

Emporio nods. He looks the frog in its beady little eyes.

It does look like a friend.

“Okay, there’s one more thing in there,” Tsurugi says.

Emporio sets the frog on his lap and gets the last piece of the gift.

It’s a thick piece of paper in a plastic sheet. He takes a single look at it and recognizes it instantly.

The Liechtenstein from the music room.

Emporio clutches it in his hands.

He has it again now.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Don’t worry about it! You deserve things. I’m just the one who decided to take up the task.”

Emporio nods slowly.

“I. . . I was afraid I’d forget this,” he continues in a whisper. “And this looks exactly like it.”

“Yeah, I get that, y’know?” Tsurugi says quietly. “All my memories of my dad are half a lifetime ago, and they’re only going to get further, so I’m glad that I’m able to. . . help you with some of that feeling, I guess.”

“Yeah, I. . . thanks.”

Emporio stares up at the piano's lid.

He doesn’t remember his mother. At least, not clearly. The most prominent figure in his childhood memories is definitely Weather Report.

That’s just because he’s older now, he tells himself. The longer he goes on, the farther away Weather Report will seem.

What if he forgets his face?

He sets the Liechtenstein with the other boxes and holds the frog in his arms. 

They both knew the conversation was going to get dismal at some point, and it looked like that point was now.

The two are silent for a little bit before Tsurugi speaks again.

“Sometimes I think about how I was born when my parents were 22. My dad was out here fuckin bitches, getting beetles and all that and what have I done so far? Not that, let me tell you.”

“That precedent is a little rough, yeah. Well, if it. . . if it makes you feel any better, half of my role models were in prison by the time they hit that point. You have a one-up on them.”

“Ouch.”

Emporio doesn’t say the second part: and then half of them were dead.

Twenty-one, he reminds himself. He’s older than Jolyne Kujo ever will be.

Twenty-one. By this point, Hermes was already in prison.

Twenty-one. The year that Anasui snapped on his lover and signed his fate forever.

Twenty-one. Weather’s life ended five years ago. His own personal circle of Hell would continue for twenty more.

Twenty-one. How do you count age in plankton?

Twenty-one. He’s unlocked every buff now. Is there really anything more to do in life after this point than die?

Maybe if he does he’ll be able to reunite with his old world friends again.

“I can never really picture myself being with anyone,” he confesses. “I just. . . don’t see how it’s supposed to work out.”

“I get you. Girls are scary. I don’t see myself ever being able to be with one for a long time,” Tsurugi agrees.

He pauses a minute before continuing:

“Besides, I feel like it’d be cruel of me to have a kid. If they just have to go through the same suffering I did, then what’s the point, really? If my cousins want to take that responsibility on themselves instead, they can be my guest.”

Emporio nods.

He’s tried to blame Jolyne for everything that happened. Tried to rework the events of 2012 in his head so everything became Jolyne’s fault; that she was the villain and everyone else was fools.

He saw how Anasui changed after Jolyne came to the prison. How the man paced the room as she was confined in solitary; how he suddenly neglected everything else, not even coming to mention FF’s death.

And Emporio felt. . . jealous. Somewhere in himself, he wished Anasui would go back to forgetting Jolyne even existed.

But he just. . . can’t make it work. He can’t bring himself to make Jolyne Kujo the unwilling villain in his story.

Because he knows that the priest would have succeeded if Jolyne never showed up. Emporio’s own life is a gift from Jolyne Kujo, and he doesn’t deserve it.

Maybe that man and Weather Report’s faces have melded together a little too much in his memory.

He takes another swig of the alcohol. It still burns just as bad.

The conversation has died down at this point, but the feeling of dread is still there, a little. He and Tsurugi both lay in the piano, Emporio long-ways with his head at the back, and Tsurugi perpendicular to him, laying on one of Emporio’s ankles.

It’s nice, being there in just the light of the sphere.

And now that the anxious feeling in his stomach has gone down, he can actually focus on being excited for the next day.

He’s looking forward to meeting Shizuka tomorrow and maybe seeing the fabled Higashikata fruit parlor.

His mother will finally get the rest she deserves after all these years.

And while Emporio will never truly move on from the world he left behind, maybe he can learn to let just a little of this world into his heart alongside it.

“Woah, Emporio, so okay,” Tsurugi says. He’s been looking at something on his phone for the past few minutes, sharp blue light illuminating his face in the dark. “The signing I told you I’m taking you to tomorrow? It’s for this famous mangaka from here in Morioh. His most famous series is Shine On! Have you heard of it?”

Emporio shakes his head. It does sound a little familiar, though, but he can’t really place where he’s heard that story.

“It’s about this guy who can fix anything he can put his mind to and all his weird friends! I read it all in high school. It’s pretty good. Anyway, he’s having a signing tomorrow! Wanna go? Just for the fun of it.”

“Sure. We do it after the party, right?”

Tsurugi stretches out to cover as much vertical area in the piano as possible. “Yeah! Thanks for. . .  agreeing to go with me. There’s something about that series that always reminded me of me and the stupid shit my family always gets up to with our stands, you know?”

“It’s your plan. I’m not just going to not go with you when you’ve. . . done all this for me.”

Tsurugi looks up from his phone to stare at Emporio’s face.

“Friendship doesn’t have to be transactional, you know.”

“. . .I know.”

He’s given a suspicious eyebrow-raise before Tsurugi returns to his phone.

“Anyway, this guy. . . I always wanted to tell him how much I liked his series, but he never had any public events or anything. Stayed hidden until right now, I guess, which sucks because I bet he’s really fucking cool. Like he’s made public statements sometimes and he seems like such a vibe and--”

Tsurugi takes a second to breathe before speaking again.

“I just really never thought I’d see the day I got to meet Rohan Kishibe.”

Emporio freezes.

Now he remembers why it sounds so familiar.

It was a memory he blocked off. One that he’d thought he’d never need again.

Jotaro Kujo’s memory disc.

“I. . . I never thought I’d see the day either.”