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“Oh? If it isn’t Rohan-sensei?”
“Hm?” the mangaka frowned, looking for the source of the voice, already getting sour for someone interrupting his thoughts. However, his expression softened as soon as possible when he noticed who called him. “Ah, Joestar-san. Good day. Out for a walk?”
“Yes, the morning sun is truly invigorating. Shizuka appreciates it too.”
“Shizuka?”
“This little girl here.” the old man replied, indicating the baby in his arms, a tinge of affection within his words. “It is a little sad to call her ‘invisible baby’ all the time. We never found her mother so I decided to take responsibility to adopt her and give her a name. Jotaro helped me choose it. It’s this kanji.” he took out a piece of paper out of his pocket to show the younger man a character meaning ‘quiet’. “Funny thing is, in japanese, it can also be read-”
“Jo.”
The old man chuckled, prompting the baby to squeal, animated.
“Presumptuous of me to try explaining japanese to a japanese person, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. Sorry for making it look like that. Sometimes I’m just ahead of myself. Excuse me for my rudeness.” Rohan replied, a little apologetic, before extending his hand, indicating the chair in front of him. “Why don’t you join me and order something for you and Shizuka? My treat.”
“You have nothing to apologize, sensei, but I accept the seat. My knees aren’t what they used to be. Ah, can I have a cup of coffee?” he asked for the approaching waitress, who bowed and left. “I really like japanese coffee. I don’t know why Jotaro laughs when I say this.”
Rohan, for a moment, tried to picture Jotaro laughing or having any kind of joyous emotion. He couldn’t. It was such an absurd and unpleasant thing to imagine, he almost felt physical pain for trying to do it. To cover the discomfort his imagination gave him, he took a sip of his glass of ice tea.
“So, your name is Shizuka now.” Rohan tried to distract himself from that rather cursed mental image by playing with the baby. “How are you doing, Shizuka?”
The girl opened a big toothless smile and squealed at him, making gestures like she wanted to be held by the younger man.
“Oh? Ooooooh, she looks really excited to see you, Rohan-sensei! She is rather timid with strangers. Maybe you’re her type?”
Rohan gave out a snicker while accepting the girl in his arms.
“I’m sorry, Shizuka-chan, but I prefer them way older.” he joked while the baby laughed, oblivious to whatever the two men talked between them.
Joseph, instead, fell into a deep silence, crossing his arm and humming pensively to himself for a moment.
“I really appreciate your feelings, Rohan-sensei.” he finally replied, blushing a little. “But I already have a wife I love very much.”
“Not so old, Joestar-san.” Rohan replied, unimpressed, while the old man laughed heartily.
“I’m just kidding, sensei. But I’m impressed though. Shizuka starts to yell and activates her stand as soon as someone she doesn’t know touches her. She seems to really like you. Like she knows you somehow.”
Rohan’s smile stiffened hearing that but luckily Joseph didn’t seem to notice due to cataract and senility.
“I must be a hit with kids, I guess?” he tried, a little awkward, praying for somehow the old Joestar to not remember the baby’s disappearance in late June, when he ‘borrowed’ her to fight that Rock-Paper-Scissor brat Oyanagi Ken.
“Oh, you’re definitely a hit with certain kids.” Joseph smiled at him before accepting and drinking the cup of coffee that arrived for him. Shizuka cooed, placid, on Rohan’s arms, her tiny hands grabbing the g-pen like buttons of his outfit.
Maybe Rohan was being a little wary but something in the old man’s voice and words stuck with him.
“Sorry, but what do you mean with ‘certain kids’, Joestar-san?”
The old man gave out a smirk so smug Rohan thought for a moment he was talking to another person. Someone much younger and cunning, much closer to the legendary man who fought valiantly against ancient beings he heard (and read, because he just couldn’t resist using his powers on every single Speedwagon Foundation employee and associate he encountered on the way) so much about.
It also reminded Rohan of someone else but he preferred to push this thought to the back of his head. He didn’t want to lose the respect he had for the old Joestar because the man acted like an eighty years old version of Josuke.
“What do you think about having this old man as your father-in-law, Rohan-sensei?” he asked doing a bold pose and wiggling his eyebrows.
Joseph Joestar sure made the task of holding any respect Rohan had for him quite hard.
“Joestar-san, this talk is getting creepy and borderline illegal. I’m not interested in kids, furthermore Shizuka-chan, who’s still in her diapers.”
The old man looked disconcerted for a moment, losing the smug air he had to turn back into the senile old man he was before.
“I… wasn’t talking about Shizuka at all.”
“Then who was it about?”
Joseph looked a bit confused by the question. He closed his mouth, half open from the surprise, and blinked, before cupping his chin.
“Hmmm. Guess that beside being a late bloomer, he is also a bit shy, if he didn’t say anything.” he mumbled to himself before turning his attention to the puzzled young man. “But I will support him the better that I can. It’s the least I could do, don’t you think, sensei?!”
“Joestar-san, I don’t even know what you are talking about.”
The old man crossed his arms on his chest and lowered his head in what looked like a deep thought pose before turning to the mangaka.
“Hmmmm, I see. Then, Rohan-sensei, the next thing he will say will be ‘I need to talk to you about something important’ and if you’re honest with yourself you’ll reply with a ‘I’m not against it’. By the way, you could be more direct but you’re a whatwasit? The type who plays hard to get? Teesundayray.”
Rohan couldn’t stop himself from frowning with confusion. And from feeling vaguely offended.
“I’m sorry, Joestar-san, I don’t quite understand what you said or meant.” he tried to be the most respectful he could be, cutting himself from completing with an ‘and I honestly don’t think I should want to’, although the exasperation was getting the better of him.
“Maybe all this interaction with your son is rubbing off on you, you’re starting to sound like him.”
Joseph beamed hearing that.
“Do I?!”
“Yes, this mental exhaustion, I feel this exact way when I interact with him too.”
The old man was so happy for being compared to his son that the not even subtle sarcasm the younger threw off flew over his head.
“Speaking of my son, sensei, what do you think he is lacking right now?”
“Lacking…?” Rohan felt himself wrinkling not just his forehead but also his own brain with the question. Because it was, in fact, something he thought with frequency but never contemplated one day he would be asked to voice it out loud.
Josuke sure had an interesting character in him. It wasn’t because the mangaka hated the guy’s guts he was going to deny Josuke intrigued him. From his motivation in helping others to being defensive of his hair while being greedy and frivolous at the same time, Josuke was someone whose self was so complex he thought as fascinating and truly wished to observe more. He also wished all this complexity were in someone he hated less but alas this was the cruel reality.
“If I should say something that I think he lacks is ‘truth’.”
“‘Truth’, you say?” the old man hummed. “What do you mean exactly with this ‘truth’?”
“He is not honest.” at this point, Rohan’s tongue just got itself loose, for there wasn’t anything the man loved more than to slander the teenager. “I thought him being greedy was something bad but I think how he seems to hide something or how he truly feels is really unnerving.”
“Ooooh! Just like you then! A teesundayray!”
Rohan fought with all his might to not click his tongue in annoyance when he heard that word again. Shizuka seemed to be having the time of her short life when the mangaka started to cradle her rapidly in his arms to dissipate his nervousness.
“Joestar-san, I kindly ask you to not compare me to your son. Also don’t call me a-”
“Rohan-sensei, I was thinking… If what he lacks is ‘truth’, then the rest is okay, right?” Joseph started, lively, cutting the younger man without any ceremony.
Still dumbfounded by that non-sequential chat, Rohan tried to argue but his voice was overpowered by a younger, boisterous one calling somewhere in the distance behind the mangaka.
“Geez, finally we found you, old man! We already told you to not leave alone with Shizuka! What if you ended up in another bus to Hokkaido aga-!”
Rohan turned around just in time to see Josuke, with one of his hands up, go from an annoyed expression to a surprised one then turning red before running behind the bigger frame of Jotaro, who was accompanying him, like a shy little kid.
“Good day, Jotaro-san.” Rohan greeted the man in white, who nodded back. Josuke, however, still hid himself behind his nephew, his hair the only thing visible behind Jotaro’s shoulder.
Rohan squinted at that silly scene.
“I saw you hiding and, unlike Shizuka, I don’t have short term memory, Higashikata Josuke.” he said louder, noticing the teen’s pompadour jerk with a sudden movement that was probably flinching.
“Ehehe! G’day, sensei...” he finally revealed himself, smiling embarrassed at his own antics, one of his hands scratching the back of his neck.
“Hm.”
And there it was, ticking him off. The fake coy pose, the ‘excessively amicable but timid’ smile made him remember when the younger tried to cheat his money away in Cee-lo, that infuriating ‘Ehehe!’. In fact, he didn’t like Josuke’s attitude at all. Hiding something or faking his disposition around Rohan was what it looked like. It was exactly what pissed the mangaka off.
If he at least acted with some honesty, the older would consider be less hostile towards him. Maybe.
“Oh, Josuke-kun, were you looking for me? Isn’t he a responsible boy, Rohan-sensei?”
“Is he really now, Joestar-san?” Rohan replied, still throwing daggers with his eyes at the younger.
“I-It’s only natural, old man. You shouldn’t go out without telling anyone.” Josuke sputtered, flustered, not really reciprocating the mangaka’s intense glare but obviously aware of it.
“And he helps looking after Shizuka.”
“You don’t say.” Rohan’s voice was flat but it was clear how irritated he was at the other’s pretended shyness.
“He also was of great help to Jotaro!” to that, Jotaro nodded in agreement, making Josuke puff out his chest, proud.
“Was he?” this time Rohan couldn’t help but show some interest at that. For the powerful and reliable Jotaro to need someone’s help then Josuke must be someone he was seriously underestimating. “What did he do to be of great importance, Jotaro-san?”
“Josuke” Jotaro started in that imposing voice of his. “helped me kill two rats.”
Not a muscle in Rohan’s face moved.
“Make it more impressive, Jotaro-san!” Josuke protested, impossibly red. “The way you said made it look like we just did some pest control!”
“They were stand users, the rats.” Jotaro added, unfazed.
“Don’t add it after like a detail, it’s the most important part!” the younger complained, fussy.
Jotaro inhaled deeply and slowly, grabbing his hat’s brim, and released a ‘good grief’ under his breath.
The mangaka couldn’t stop rolling his eyes.
“He also helped me with Shizuka the other day-”
“Joestar-san, I don’t know if this is how a parent tries to show off their kids but this is not working for me.” Rohan interrupted, fed up, getting up and giving the little baby he was holding back to the old patriarch. “I’m sorry but all of this sounds very fake to me knowing who you’re talking about.”
Joseph, disconcerted, still opened his mouth one more time but was interrupted once again.
“Hey, old man, Jotaro-san said you two have somewhere to go. I think it’s better for you to, y’know, go.” Josuke’s voice sounded, uncharacteristically downhearted.
Rohan crossed his arms and clicked his tongue in annoyance at how Josuke, at that point, wasn’t even trying to make up a decent excuse.
Joseph seemed lost for a moment, watching his son so crestfallen, before the broad hand of Jotaro came to his shoulder, silently urging the old man to give him the little baby so he could have his hands free to use his cane to get up with ease.
“So, we’re going.” he declared, getting up, self-conscious of being responsible for the uncomfortable atmosphere, before accompanying Jotaro. However, after some steps he stopped and gave out a warm smile to the two. “Don’t worry, everything is going to work out.”
Jotaro gave them a thumbs up before resuming walking beside his grandfather.
“What the hell is going to work out, he’s really getting senile.” Josuke mumbled, sitting on the chair his father occupied previously.
“I don’t know what just happened but I have to give you congratulations, Higashikata Josuke.” the younger turned, confused, to look at Rohan. “I never saw a son being such a bad influence on his parents before. You should be proud at how great you are at something.”
Josuke stuck his lips out in that duck-like pout he always gave out when exasperated.
“Why are you so mad everytime? Is this still about when we met? Or the dice game? Or, let me guess, because I saved your sorry ass at the Futatsu Mori Tunnel?”
“Can I choose all the alternatives?” Rohan replied, absentminded, calling the waiter.
“Anything more, sir?”
“Ah, a cola would be nic-!”
“The bill.” Rohan cut in, taking his wallet out his pocket. “I’m not paying anything for this guy.”
The younger was the one to click his tongue this turn, waving to the waiter he didn’t want anything anymore.
“Wow. You do hold a grudge.”
“You know what, Josuke? I do hold grudges. Because you don’t live up to all the expectations I created from knowing your backstory. It frustrates me how you could be so much better as a person, you could be a heroic protagonist in a shounen manga and you chose to be a coward pushover who expects others to gush over you so people can excuse your faults.”
‘It’s not like I want to be some protagonist’ was visibly what Josuke wanted to retort but something in Rohan’s words shook him from his annoyed state straight into panic territory, his thick eyebrows shoot up his face while his pupils shrunk in fear.
“What?! I never-! Did Joestar-san told you something?!”
“Oh, he did.” Josuke seemed to become several shades pale when he heard that. “How great his son was for doing the most menial of things like it was something worth of praise.”
And panic became confusion, notable from how Josuke’s eyebrows, deeming safe to come back from under the pompadour to their righteous place, formed a baffled frown.
“Wait. He just said that?”
“I just told you that. Are you bad at hearing, bad at thinking or are you trying to call me a liar like you?”
Hearing that, Josuke put a hand over his ample chest and released a long sigh of what seemed to be relief.
“Sheesh, calm down. Why are you always on your toes for a fight?” he sounded irritated but also gave the impression of having some worry of his alleviated. “I thought he said some… other things…”
“No, I don’t think there’s much of note about you.”
Rohan’s curtness visibly vexed Josuke if that frown and ducky pout of his were any indicative.
“But… you also said I could totally be a heroic protagonist...” the younger still tried to argue with a hesitant smile that crept out the pout and something that resembled anticipation in his voice.
“Yes, you ‘could be’. Notice the auxiliary verb. It expresses conditional possibility, not an affirmation. You ‘could be’ but you aren’t because your sleazy ass chose to not ‘be’.”
The smile was gone.
“I really hate how little you think of me.” he grumbled, resented, looking the other way.
“Hate, huh? I’m finally seeing a little of truth in you today.”
His words made the younger to click his tongue in frustration.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I don’t care, Josuke. If you’re offended, then you tell it at my face but you don’t even have the balls to look me in the eye.” grudgingly, Josuke proved the older right, face still turned aside and stuck out lower lip. “See? Not a gram of pride at all in you. Not only you’re a cheating bastard, you’re also a big coward.”
“I just don’t want to hurt you!” he replied, peeved, before adding quietly an “And my pride, if that matter...”
The older expected Josuke to defend himself loudly, like he usually was, but all he got was a frustratingly weak excuse.
“How will you hurt me? Are you going to punch me again?” the mangaka inquired, clearly ignorant of the complement.
“Not like this! You don’t have a bit of awareness! Why do you have to have your head so far up your ass?!” Josuke finally seemed to have reached his limit, his reply every bit exasperated by something Rohan couldn’t grasp.
“What are you talking about?! What do you mean with awareness?! What am I not aware of?!”
“So many things, Rohan! You’re so infuriating, man! You-!” he cut himself before taking a deep breath, leaving the older man again with the unpleasant sensation he was hiding something. “I’m not gonna fight you.”
Rohan still expected something from Josuke, some empty threat accompanied by a hand grabbing him by the collar for intimidation’s sake, but nothing came. Josuke just stood in front of him, his cheeks puffed like a kid throwing a tantrum.
Anticlimactic.
“What a coincidence.” he replied, fed up, already turning his back to leave Deux Magot and that overgrown rascal behind. “I too am not in the mood to fight a lying brat-”
“Wait! Rohan!”
-like you, the mangaka would complete if he wasn’t yanked by the hand to stay in place.
By a mortified looking Josuke.
“The hell you think you’re doing, dumbass?! Want to break my arm?!”
Josuke looked terrified of what he just did. Apparently, he wasn’t aware he used Crazy Diamond’s strength to make the man to stay, which really was effective to stop him, although a little too rough, but also tore off his sleeve from his shoulder to his elbow. His teeth immediately went for his lower lip and quickly used his stand’s power to fix the shirt before the man noticed, but didn’t waver and didn’t let Rohan’s hand go.
“I-I didn’t finish talking to you, Rohan!”
The older frowned, his eyes going to their hands linked before turning them to Josuke’s scarlet face.
“We don’t have anything to talk! Get off! If you want to fight then make it fair, asshole!” the older demanded, trying to shake his hand away from the other but Josuke just didn’t release him.
He shook one more time but the teenager just didn’t let him go. He noticed people around them whispering with their hands over their mouths before diverting their eyes, judgingly. Even someone with no social tact like Rohan knew this was a situation he, most famous and well paid mangaka of Shounen Jump, shouldn’t be in.
“I’ll kick you in the balls if you break my hand!” he hissed one more time, looking around and praying that nobody recognized him holding hands with another guy, hoping for the other to realize how awkward the whole situation was.
Instead of releasing him, Josuke’s grip intensified.
That was getting ridiculous! What was his plan, to make Rohan look foolish in front of some random passersby? Well, if that was his plan he needed to do worse, he already submitted himself to worse with that backpack stand he once was made to carry. He could take any stupidity from Josuke.
“I won’t let you go!”
Rohan felt something inside him snap. Forget it, his tolerance around Josuke’s bullshit was always low.
“You release me right now or I will use Heaven’s Door on your sorry ass!”
“I won’t! I-I-!”
“You’re asking for it, Josuke!”
Rohan started drawing the face of his little stand in the air. He was going to send that idiot flying the way he did at the Futatsu Mori Tunnel.
“I’m serious, Rohan! I know you’re not a fan of me but-! Can I-!”
The hell is he up to, it almost looks like Josuke is going to straight up confess his feelings to a guy he hates-
“No, I need to talk to you about something important!”
His hand stopped mid flourish.
… what.
Rohan didn’t move for several seconds, his eyes staring at nothing while he processed what left the younger’s lips, making Josuke look more and more anxious.
All the blushing, the nervous lip biting, the heartbeat he felt through the hand clenched around his own, so fast it reminded him when he held that flemish giant rabbit Cindy-chan.
Was Josuke in fact confessing his feelings to a guy he hates…?
Actually, no. That couldn’t be it. He must’ve been hallucinating.
He refused to accept something like that. It wasn’t coherent with Josuke. It wasn’t coherent with reality. That must be some kind of tasteless prank, of course. There’s no one on earth that could considerate an outcome like this one...
‘The next thing he will say’.
No.
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Not that.
The old man couldn’t be talking about Josuke.
Was he actually trying to show off his son to Rohan in the guise of gushing over him? Of course not, that sounded ridiculous.
It was so absurd he couldn’t stop himself for giving out an incredulous smirk.
“What did you just say, Josuke?”
Josuke swallowed hard but repeated his words in a clear tone.
“I need to talk to you about something important.”
Then his blushing intensified, which was enough for Rohan to reach the only logical conclusion.
Josuke had a crush.
On him.
The guy Rohan hated the most.
And, to make things worse, it didn’t bother the man as much as he wanted.
Actually, he was quite fine with that outcome. And he hated it so much he preferred the other just flat out punched him instead. It would be so much easier to deal with.
Because it made Rohan feel something flutter that spread warmth inside his chest. Unfortunately, he knew it wasn’t heartburn but something he wasn’t used to and couldn’t precise what exactly it was.
The only thing he could infer it was… hope?
And knowing exactly what he hoped for made him so anxious he wished he never reached that conclusion.
And, on top of that, while they were holding hands!
He despised how it made sense how that senile Joestar could see it clear.
The old man inquired exactly what Rohan thought Josuke lacked because he knew that despite that flaw he actually considered the teenager interesting, even at that moment when he looked ready to pass out and their tightly clasped hands felt gross from all the sweat produced.
He wished to still be ignorant to that (until that moment) dormant feeling, that he wasn’t seeing Josuke under some positive light after all that time for another reason beside of an artist obsessed with reality and complex characters.
Yet he failed. He knew the other piked his interest not as a subject but as a person. A very attractive one, with all his flaws and strengths.
‘What do you think about having this old man as your father-in-law, Rohan-sensei?’
Sly geezer. He sure was something else.
As was that stupid son of his.
“Rohan…?” he heard Josuke call him, his other broad hand waving in front of him to get his attention.
“They’re getting clammy, our hands.” he said blankly.
“A-Ah, yeah, sorry! But if I release you, you’re going to flee.”
“I’m not running away. Don’t you dare to ever think of Kishibe Rohan as a coward.”
“Okay, then...” Josuke relaxed his hand a bit, which was enough for Rohan to finally free himself but not to calm his nerves.
Josuke still fidgeted but, true to his word, the mangaka didn’t move at all.
Instead, he grabbed a handkerchief in his pocket to wipe the sweat from his hand and buy himself some time to put his thoughts in place.
Just some minutes before he badmouthed Josuke for not being sincere and now this blushing teenager was making him eat his own words for being the most audacious and authentic Rohan ever saw him be, even if the teen’s palm were sweaty and he looked pathetic squirming and almost hyperventilating in place.
He never thought of catching a glimpse of genuineness in Josuke nor that he would feel so captivated by it to the point of craving for more.
He just needed to be honest to himself and admit it.
So he let himself be.
“I’m… not against it.”
But not too honest.
He had to play hard to get afterall.