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The attraction didn’t come with a bang, and it wasn’t as rosy as you’d imagine it to be. It oscillated between growth and recession, the former developing exponentially, eventually nullifying the latter. It started with an innocent hope that you would be friends with him.
The one, the only, Kujo Jotaro.
In such a situation, you naturally gravitated to one of the more economically popular of the groups in your class. You were at neither ends of the spectrum of popularity, and it was a fortunate position to be in as it allowed you to get better acquainted with the the others. You were a new addition to the class, freshly imported from your hometown, so you had a shy disposition and cheerily gave out hellos to everyone, especially to Jotaro, whom you were so terrified to speak with, that fear stemming from the sheer size of his pecs. You weren’t particularly close to him and would only talk to him on several occasions as he was good friends with your friend, Noriaki Kakyoin.
Towards the end of the year, you were handpicked by your teachers to be in the same group as Jotaro, for your end of year project work. You weren’t really interested in him at first and treated him of the same sex, often overlooking when his hand would linger over yours for an unnaturally long period of time, or that time when you took out your glasses and playfully made him stare into your eyes to “see” if you had astigmatism. A shadow passed over his face as he did so, his eyes softening and his visage contorting to one which you could only describe as weird, choosing to ignore the way his deep, blue, cerulean eyes drank in your countenance, the way his intense blue orbs brimmed with an emotion close to admiration. But that would be reading too far into things.
So you often stored these extra bits when you felt self indulgent. As the date for the oral component of your project work drew nearer, you began closely working with him, and being the softest and least whiny among your other female group mates, you managed to secure a spot on Jotaro’s soft side. You unleashed your rod if you had to, but rebuked him kindly if you felt that he had received enough tongue lashing from the others group mates, and he appreciated that dearly from you.
You knew that he probably didn’t mean anything, but there was a time when he needed a computer and you, out of the generosity of your heart and not out of your self diagnosed one sided pining, decided that you should share it with him. His fingers often brushed against yours, almost akin to that of a violent attempt to achieve skin-ship, or so you romanticised.
He would lean in towards you, chest almost brushing against your shoulder, so close that you could almost smell his shampoo. It was like nothing in the books. There was no musky or manly smell, but his shampoo smelt floral, teetering boldly on the verge of feminine. To you, it made him seem even more masculine, raw and real.
So beautifully and wonderfully male.
The next year, you both grew even more closer. On the first day of your 2nd year, he violently called your name, repeating it like a mantra that gave him a sense of security and to you an emotion that felt like he owned your very being and your name. He said it with such authority and meekness that you pretended not to hear him, just to hear her name rolling out of his mouth so smoothly and with such fervour. You looked forward to Biology Laboratory Practicals every week as that was when you would be able to see him at his prime, grinning and tittering about, displaying his prowess and his skill in materialising biological theories through experiments.
It was during one of the days in Lab lessons where you had managed to get yourself injured. While investigating the rate of enzymatic reactions, you had accidentally left the test tube with undiluted protease inside a boiling water bath for too long and it shattered in protest as you removed it.
The contents leaked out and the damaged test tube left a deep, long cut along the expanse of your palm. Intense, scarlet blood soon seeped out of the recesses of your palm and you rushed to the sink to wash off the blood but it just kept flowing and flowing. The accident was quiet in nature so nobody dramatically turned their head to witness it. However, Jotaro shared the same bench with you that day and nothing escapes his eye.
He watched silently as you nursed your wound, taking in your frame. He realised over the years that you were so, so different from the other girls he had encountered. You didn’t scream or howl in pain to garner attention, rather, you kept it to yourself. He visually gathered the tears leaked out of your eyes as you grimaced the pain away. He took a stride across the bench and gingerly wiped a tear away with his calloused thumb. Your bench now smelt like someone’s digested lunch as a result of the spilt protease and albumin solution, but nothing could ever destroy the tender look in his eyes as he wiped another tear off your face. His irises glazed as they primally consumed your face.
You wanted to shy away from his gaze but you also just wanted to drown and die in eyes that held the colour of the ocean. He made a movement to jerk forward but stopped himself. You didn’t know why but you gave a slight nod, and he jerked forward again before tenderly pressing a kiss at the corner of your eye.
He took your palm in his and kissed it whilst looking into your eyes.
“It should feel better now. I kissed the pain away,” he murmured, face erupting into a unique shade of scarlet.
“M-my lips hurt too,” you risked. Your ears pounded in embarrassment, but that too went away when Jotaro let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding in and let out a low grunt before pressing his lips onto yours and encircling his arms around your waist. Your mouth opened in shock and Jotaro mistook it as a sign to deepen the kiss. His tongue grazed yours before you gently extracted yourself from his arms. He managed a quick apology and a pitiful look was etched on his face. Mustering whatever courage that remained in you, you took his face between your hands and caressed it shyly, relishing in the texture of his unblemished yet crater-like face against your palms.
Your palm was still bleeding and it left a red discolouration that could rival the red dusting his cheeks. You stroked his bottom lip with your thumb and smiled.
“Thank you, “ you whispered. Jotaro offered you a sincere grin before offering to clean and dress your wounds using the first aid kit at the back of the laboratory.
He pulled out saline solution and sterilised the wound before patting it dry with a gauze. He led you to sit on a stool before wetting a cotton pad with iodine solution and placed it along the gash. He deftly dressed your wound before returning the kit to its shelf. He took your injured hand in and intertwined it with his, marvelling at how dainty your fingers were. At that moment you wondered how quickly it took for him to manifest his feelings towards you, whereas you hid you attraction towards him very well.
You went out with him on the last day of school before your Mid-Year Examinations. You ate ramen together in a small shop with a faulty air conditioner that summer, while slurping down hot, thick and creamy pork broth. You both travelled on foot to a nearby mall to gush over the latest release of Toshinobu Kubota’s Limited Edition LP. Whilst you were there, you both decided that the time was ripe to do a grocery run.
You were walking along the dairy aisle when you took the liberty to study his back profile noticing how his hair grew around the top of his neck and his gait as he walked. There was nothing much for your unexperienced eye to deduce from just his back, but you pondered at what it would feel like to wake up next to him every morning, being able to nuzzle your face into the small of his back, feeling his thick, calloused fingers ghost over you hair as both of you basked in your groggy and disoriented state. It felt wonderfully domestic to be roaming grocery aisles with him, momentarily under the false pretence that you were shopping for household necessities like a newlywed couple who had just moved in into a small apartment located at the fringe of the city.
Now, Jotaro lay his head on your lap, immersed in a book regarding something along the lines of the evolution of mammalian marine creatures and their blow holes. Your fingers ran across the expanse of his scalp while you stared out of your window of your home on a snowy mountain near Odawara. Amidst the crackling of the fireplace, you could hear Jotaro’s breathing in the pace of a steady staccato, complementing the silent ticks of the analogue clock that sat on the mahogany coffee table.
You slowly reached forward to grasp the porcelain teacup that held your tea but was stopped when you caught your wedding band glinting under the light of your drawing room. A small smile carved its way onto your face as you recollected these events of the past that you stored. Jotaro, sensed your hesitation and begrudgingly got up from his comfortable position against your soft pillowy thighs and held your hand in his.
“If there’s anything, you could always talk to me,” he said, drawing stars, hearts, squares, octagons with his thumb along the base of your palm.
“I love you,” you grinned, turning to him and caressing his arms, biceps, shoulders, yielding in the feel of his muscles flexing underneath his black, cashmere turtleneck.
He was startled at such an intense statement but soon relaxed as he shifted you, so that you leant against his chest. His arms encompassed you and you felt the cool metal of his wedding band against the skin of your waist. He nuzzled his face into the curvature of your neck and breathed in the scent of your skin.
The scent of the new Persian rug that you both sat on may have permeated the air, but Jotaro swore that at that moment he could only smell you and you alone. He drunk in your scent again, holding you tighter in his arms and said, “I love you too,” before pressing his lips behind the shell of your ear.
You both held each other that night, revelling in each others presence and proximity before sleep got ahold of both of you, drawing you both into a dreamless abyss, satiated by each others embrace, only to discover that the next morning, you would both be finding delight in each other’s groggy and disoriented state.