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Noriaki almost died cold and alone on that hot Cairo night. He can just barely gather what happened, remember his fleeting thoughts of childhood memories and recent memories of newfound friends through these fifty days, to the barely registered gap in his abdomen to his untold feelings for Jotaro.
He promised. Noriaki promised to tell him after the defeat of DIO. He made a promise to go back with him, back to Japan and tell him, but it was all for naught as his last moments of life were fading out of him.
In that last moment of his life in that hot Cairo night, the air was freezing and his form was cold. He felt all and nothing at the same time, his mangled body’s gaping hole had long since stopped gushing a waterfall of blood, water, and the small sparkles of Hierophant Green’s last remnants of his own life.
He had one too many regrets to count, of missed opportunities and dreams never to come, a life with Jotaro never to come as he was soon to die and rot into nothing but bones, dead and forgotten, just an unassuming figment in the memories of others of a weird, redheaded high schooler who went missing just to be found alive, then die right after. But his topmost one was his hollow promise that Jotaro would never get to hear.
He didn’t even know if his friend would reciprocate. Jotaro was sweet, so caring and observant but to make him feel weird was the last thing he’d ever want to do. Perhaps it had been for the best he agonized somewhere off where Jotaro was not, save him the pain of seeing him like this and scaring him off with his feelings.
But fate didn’t agree. It didn’t seem to want to in these past fifty days of travel, for the slow thrumming in his chest and near lack of breathing was accompanied with the frantic, painful cries of his name. His first name.
The one person who used his first name was Jotaro. He wanted to look up, see him and tell him to please not come any closer— save himself this gruesome, gory sight but he couldn’t speak. Let alone move after blasting the clock tower with his last barrage of emeralds left in him in hopes to clue in Mr. Joestar of DIO’s powers regarding that awful The World .
Jotaro was next to him in seconds. How he’d even found him in such a short span of time was anyone’s guess, but the way he pried him out that water and took him into his arms, going to hell with his jacket that he took off in order to hold in what little blood he had left, to cover the hole of battered entrails and missing chunks of a spine just somewhat visible, to apply pressure in hopes to save him— It was too much. It was so unbelievably tender, so warm despite the lack of it against his now pale, cold skin.
“Noriaki. Noriaki please,” Jotaro said, his voice just above a murmur. The man in question could just about feel the hand’s press against whatever nerves were fading on his, unfortunate, wound just waiting to take the last of his breath. “You’re gonna be fine. You’ll— You’ll make it out alive, we’re gonna get you some help. Jiji called The Foundation,”
Noriaki was starting to tear up even if a smile just so softly grazed the almost vacant and fading expression. He would’ve liked to believe The Speedwagon Foundation would save him, but deep down he knows he wouldn’t be one of The Crusaders to make it out of this fight alive.
Jotaro discarded his hat to press his damp forehead against Noriaki’s cold one. His curls laced within Noriaki’s own pinkish hair, just a little touch brought immense comfort in his last moments. “...Please don’t go, Nori. Can you stay awake for me?”
Now that’d be a vain promise, as selfish as he wants to be to push through imminent demise and give DIO the middle finger, to live through this. He simply couldn’t make that promise come true with his eyelids growing heavy as they are, the usual shine to his amethyst eyes growing dimmer and dimmer past the pouring tears that were coming out of him and the ones that trailed above him, streaming down Jotaro’s face onto his own.
Don’t these moments have a good outcome in the stories his mom used to read him as a child? Where the protagonist would weep above their dying love interest, their tears fueled with so much love and wish that it brought their loved one back? If such things could work like that.
“..Jo..” It was so painful. So painful to get just a four letter nickname out. He pushed past the pain, past the blood that surged into his throat and swallowed it back down to the missing cavity. “Jo.. I lo—“
Jotaro answered before he even finished his sentence. He’d pressed his lips down into Noriaki’s, a touch so heavenly he hoped he would remember it once he came to pass. Jotaro cried above him, kissing him with a gentle desperation as if keeping him sealed in a kiss would prevent the inevitable. Noriaki appreciated the thought, dearly, as his numb lips could just process the feather light, warm lips and reciprocate the gesture, although even slower with close to no strength to move them.
When Jotaro pulled back, though hesitant, he held his face and was wracked with sobs after sobs. How could Noriaki had ever thought Jotaro would’ve disliked him? The two of them were glued to each other’s hips from almost the first morning of their meeting. He mustered all he had left. “I.. love you.”
“I love you. I love you too, Nori. Please stay. Please—“
At that moment, Noriaki’s heart stopped beating. His organs all but shut down, and his breathing was no more, falling slump in the arms of the man he will continue to love in the afterlife. His smile was still there, stuck to his features like he was still alive and unharmed.
At that moment, Jotaro’s heart was squeezed with one of the most painful forces he’d ever felt and couldn’t stop crying, begging his own love to please hold on even if the light in his eyes faded in their entirety.
Kakyoin Noriaki died in his arms that one accursed, awful night in Cairo full of blood, pain, and no hope, even after DIO’s lifeless corpse was carried off in the wind the following morning.
Kujo Jotaro sat in front of his beloved’s grave as sobs wrecked him just as always as it had for a decade. Each cry shook his form in a white coat with no control, he laid Noriaki’s favorite flowers with shuddering hands. Just like every day he visited his long dead love.
He died in his arms that night.