Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The feeling in your chest was heavy. Not something you could've put into words, but maybe an attempt wouldn't hurt.

Broken. Like you had lost something without having cherished it enough.

You were wrong. That attempt did hurt.

"He wanted you to have this." The young blonde with the most eccentric curls you had ever seen on one's head said as he held before you a pair of red earrings which you let fall on your outstretched palm. Although it had been in the sudden visitor's hands for quite a while now, the article unexpectedly felt rather cold to the touch, causing you to vaguely feel a sense of regret; you were not sure why.

"Signor Polnareff... Where is he?" The question came out of your mouth naturally. Having spent almost half a year with the mysterious Frenchman, it was obvious for you to want to know his whereabouts, now that you had become so close to the man with the funny silver hair.

"He... He..." The boy who had introduced himself as Giorno Giovanna stuttered for a moment. "Well, he -"

"Giorno."

The interruption from the second of the visitors silenced the blonde boy, and you noticed him holding the latter by the shoulder, perhaps trying to stop him from awkwardly trembling in front of you. Remembering correctly, you recalled him introducing himself to you as a Guido Mista, the one person who had almost got you to be alarmed by the presence of the firearm hanging out of his oddly tailored trousers. Were these two young men cops, you thought. While the taller, dark-haired Signor Mista did fit your idea of a poliziotto, the other made you worry about whether he'd been skipping school hours and hanging around somewhere kids his age shouldn't be.

"Mi scusi, Sig. Um..." Guido Mista stuttered as well. "I... Well... He... Didn't make it."

"Didn't... Make it?" You asked, confused. "As in, he won't be coming back to Sicilia?"

"He... Won't be coming back. He's..."

The feeling of the cold earrings sitting in your palm returned, this time colder.

"Signor Polnareff... You have to know, he was dealing with dangerous people. He died, a week ago," unable to keep up with the stuttering and uneasiness, Guido blabbered his words out as fast as he could, leaving the room to echo nothing but silence and sounds of random morning birds chirping outside the small cottage by the farmland.

Like a cinder block being thrown at your chest, your breathing almost halted, but your lungs felt like they would blow apart from the sudden gush of air inside. Not a single tear rolled down your cheek at the break of the news. There was no lying, you had anticipated that before a thousand times. Jean Pierre Polnareff was a dangerous man, you had said to yourself. Someone who had entered your village with gruesome injuries, ended up healed within a few months of meeting with an arcane group that somehow had everything for him whenever he asked, and had a strange aura surround him for most of the time you saw him; it was needless to say you had found his origins questionable for trustworthiness. Agreed, the two of you had soon gotten along, with you visiting his room just about every single day to the point that you would say it blankly to his face how you still thought he was a dangerous man not worth meddling, and maybe a rare occurrence, but almost always with you, his ever-stony face would manage to stretch out a subtle smile, and sometimes even a light cackle, earning you a sense of victory you didn't understand the reasons for. The time you had spent with him had revealed to you; Jean Pierre Polnareff was a dangerous man, but not because he was so, rather, because he was trying to protect himself from the dangers waiting outside for him, for the sake of keeping everyone else protected as well.

Tightening your grasp at the pair of jewellery, you took in the sensation of how the edges of the half-broken hearts on the earrings felt on your skin. "Okay. Grazie, signore," you somehow managed to speak, taking a substantial effort to bring your conscience back to the real world. "What about... His funeral? Is he going to have a funeral, by any chance? Or... Is it over already?"

The two boys looked at each other, then back at you.

"Um, I had restored the... I m-m-mean... T-the funeral's been done but, if you'd like, we can take you to the place he was... buried. We can wait till you get ready."

You nodded at the blonde and weakly smiled. "Okay, then. Please give me a few minutes, gentlemen. Grazie."

Slow steps led you out of the living room as you left two silent young men at the doorway, who were now making their way into the house to take seats on the couch. A few muffled voices did echo, unintelligible, but you didn't have to listen to it to figure what they probably had been talking about. Maybe they were clueless about the interaction between you and Signor Polnareff; just as clueless as you had been so far.

As you almost reached the door of your bedroom, you looked along the dusty hallway, the sweeping of which had been delayed due to the sudden arrival of guests that had brought you the grim news. On the far end of the corridor lay the guest room door half open, a pair of beat down crutches laying against the wall beside the headboard of the bed peeking from behind the door. With a heavy sigh, hesitantly your feet turned their direction towards the familiar corner of your house, the one you had by now grown a bit too enthusiastic of. The guests had come all the way from Roma to Sicilia. Waiting for thirty more minutes wouldn't be a big problem for them, you thought as an excuse to scour through Signor Polnareff's room for your own satisfaction.

As you pushed the door open, your nose crinkled at the smell of nothing, not even distantly hinting at his previous presence, something you were wishing for to linger around. While that was indeed a sad fact, the sight of the few belongings he had left did do the minimum to put you at ease that a part of him you could still touch; whilst also a sad reminder that you had failed to understand what you felt for the man until it was too late.

Pushing the door shut behind you, your fingertips traced the edges of the familiar runt down makeshift crutches you had so diligently made with your hands when he had once been bedridden. Only a month into his stay at your home, and he had already been provided with almost everything he required for his movement and accessibility from a certain foundation named "Speedwagon", later having you to learn that they were a mogul known worldwide. Subsequently, learning more and more from Signor Polnareff had led you to realise you had clearly been living under the rock for quite a while now.

And why not? Living life in the city was hard. There were increasing crime rates everywhere you looked. As a lone human with no one in your family, you did feel somewhat afraid and unsafe, as anyone would. It never did mean you were weak. But perhaps another excuse was to live in the countryside peacefully. Sicilia was beautiful, its remote villages even safer. What could be better than having a farmland and a house all to yourself for eternity and never be bothered by even a hint of fear and uncertainty?

That was the notion you had held to until the day Jean Pierre Polnareff had been discovered under that cliff.

Legs missing down his knees, an eye gouged out, ghastly gaping bruises all over his body, lungs practically quivering for the slightest bit of breath that could spare him even a second of life. What was it that had kept him hanging on so far? That was the very question you had wanted to ask him once he had recovered, but never did. With you being the ex-nurse, the people decided on you to be the best in charge until the doctors and police arrived to take full control of the situation. But before you could pull out your cell phone and make a call for an ambulance, the man had somehow managed to aggressively grab onto the hem of your shirt. Barely clinging to consciousness, he had uttered the words to you, and while you couldn't quite make out what he meant through his weak voice gargling through the blood in his mouth, you had understood that he didn't want to be taken away.

"Pas la police, s'il te plaît..." he had said, you still remembered the tormented yet calm tone of his voice, one that you had grown to wish to never hear from him again.

~~~

Lying motionless on the bed of the guest room of your house, the stranger tilted his face to the window on the side. From outside the cabin, you noticed the his face move, touching with his hand the wrapped bandages that went over his right eye move, realised he was awake and decided to walk inside to check on the 'patient'.

Perhaps he hadn't realised, despite the loud clicking of your shoes, that you had made it into his room, judging from the lack of any behaviour that signalled his awareness.

"Um, Signor-"

"Merci," he said rather stoically.

Maybe he was aware of his surroundings after all.

"You're a... turista?" you uttered the question uneasily after his delivery of such an inexpressive thank you in what you recognised as French.

The Frenchman turned around and raised his eyebrows at you.

"Er, I mean," you stuttered, followed by silently mumbling to yourself, cluelessly staring at the blanket that covered him down his waist, mentally pitying the lack of his legs, "what was it in your language... Si! Tourisme, I think."

"O capisco l'Italien. Anche... Anglais" he said, while you humoured mentally at the way he spoke.

Noticing you giggle, he frowned at you, perhaps taken aback by the negative response, which you quickly picked up on and attempted to clear yourself, only to end up giving in to the sudden loud cackle, earning a stronger frown.

"It's Italiano, not Italien," you corrected him on the usage of the French nouns amidst the funny-sounding Italian he had managed to speak. "And yes, I think English would be a better idea. I'm Y/n L/n."

Taking a seat on the chair placed about two feet away from him, you continued to speak to the man. "So, Signore... Er"

"Jean Pierre Polnareff." Another stoic response.

"Signor... Polnareff... How are you feeling now?"

That sentence was followed by a feeling of dread over you as you cursed yourself on asking the man who had lost two legs and an eye just how he had been feeling after that agonizing loss.

"Alive?" he grimly commented.

"I... see..."

A few long moments of unnerving silence was broken by the man himself. "Doctor... L/n..."

"I'm not a dottore."

"You're... not?"

"No," you repeated yourself, "but I am a nurse. Not that I work anymore... But, I'm only here as an attendant for you."

The statement brought on his face the slightest expression of confusion, his faint wrinkles on the outer corners of his eyes becoming a little more prominent.

"Some people found you below the cliff in a very... bad condition, is all I'd say. I would have called an ambulance and sent you to the nearest hospital but you kept on begging me not to do that."

Not to mention, the strange force that had prevented you from making any calls by disintegrating any remotely phone-like device you had tried to take hold of to make a phone call, you thought in your mind. You never mentioned it though, fearing that the Frenchman would call you crazy if he heard your bizarre paranormal experience which you had been linking to his arrival.

"I did?" he looked at you, somewhat bewildered. "Thank you, I guess."

"What happened to you?" you placed him the question, expecting an explanation just as you had provided him one.

He, in fact, never did explain a thing to you.

Sig Y/n?" the call interrupted your privacy and caused you to shudder. Wiping off the wet trails on your cheek that you hadn't realised had been falling for a while, you stifled your shaky breath and turned away from the badly carved crutches.

"Ye-Yes? I'll... I'll be there... In ten... Ten minutes..."

"You okay in there?" The voice behind the door seemed to belong to the one named Guido. "We thought we heard your voice."

"N-no... I... I'm okay... Please wait for a while, I'll be out soon." You managed to stutter out.

"Okay. Please take your time, Sig Y/n." You heard the young man respond as his footsteps faded away from the door's proximity, leaving you feeling safe to let your breath out of your lungs.

Guido Mista walked into the living room where Giorno had been sitting with his legs crossed, an elbow on the knee, chin supported by his hand as he pensively stared at the floor almost resembling The Thinker.

"I hope they're alright. Do you think it's okay to take them to Roma? I mean, we don't know anything about them."

"Signor Polnareff said he trusted them the most outside of our team," Giorno responded without batting an eye. "They didn't have any relations to the gang... Or Diavolo... If he says he trusts them, I think it's safe to say they are quite trustworthy after all. It's not like they are a stand user either."

Sighing in an unnerved tone, Guido Mista blankly stared outside the open door that allowed the generous view of the flower fields outside your home. Reminiscing sadly on the major losses of life the week had left them with, he mentally imagined you, trying to comprehend what it was that actually made you so important to Polnareff; or the other way. How important could you be that you would want to mourn his death when you were barely aware of how he had sacrificed his life to their cause from the very start?

"They do look like they're doing fine. I hope they are."

Breathlessly attempting to muffle out your whines and cries, you wrapped your arms around the pillow, wildly digging your fingernails into it as you pushed its downy surface against your face. The silent waterworks had left the pillow casing stained like the shape of your lips from the drooling of your open mouth that wanted to scream, but had to succumb to the aid of only biting the cushion as a form of comfort. Your lungs desired to explode as they screamed out his name, the name that you had never once taken to your lips.

It was always Signore Polnareff.

Sometimes even Monsieur, as a joke.

But never Jean, something you now regretted waiting to say.

Arching your back out to cower your head into yourself, you violently trembled and crouched down to the floor against the bed behind you. Your shoulder knocked the crutches, noisily clattering them to the floor, meanwhile you using the sound as a momentary cover for the little cried grunt that had forced itself out of your throat. No amount of exasperated crying, no extent of clenching your fingers into sheets and pillows, no amount of rivers of tears could bear the weight of your heavy heart. It literally pierced you from within. Was that how a heartbreak felt, you wondered.

Grasping his pillow so close reminded you of the fact that it was the exact thing that used to be the closest to his face. As if instantaneously, your hands turned to hold it more softly, eyes staring at it in a blank adoration. You brought your wet, shivering lips close to it and pushed them against it as tenderly as you could, hoping to feel what it would have felt had it been his skin instead of the cotton cover of the pillowcase.

But the feeling of loss was too grave to let you feel anything, and once again you fell into the breathless stifled whimpers, digging your teeth into the pillow to silence your cries, trying to make sure the guests outside couldn't hear any of it.

~~~

"All done?" The younger of the two asked you.

You quietly nodded with a faint smile and walked towards the open door of the car that the one named Giorno had opened for you. As you made yourself comfortable in the seats, pulling the hem of your pullover close to your legs and tucking them underneath, he pushed the door shut and walked over to the front to sit next to the driver's seat where Guido Mista had been sitting.

The revving engine hummed a scratchy noise while you looked out of the vehicle's window through the glass pane. It had been a whole year of since you had locked the front door of your house; there never appeared a need. Signor Polnareff was always home - doing his usual activities - most of which you had no idea of. Research, he used to say. What could a strange man with a strange hairdo and strangely originated injuries and even stranger affiliations have to research on an artistic yet rusty looking arrow? Was that arrow the very reason why he was in hiding in your village, as he had mentioned? Did he not have friends and comrades outside Sicilia or even outside Italy to help him out of his miserable situation? Perhaps he was an archaeologist - in possession of an artefact so priceless it had to be protected with his life.

~~~

"Like Indiana Jones! You've seen the movie right?"

"Indiana Jones?" The silver-haired man questioned your excited squeal.

"Mmhmm!" You hummed a response with the piece of banana in your mouth as you peeled the rest of it in your hand. "You know, you're probably an archaeologist trying to protect that historically important arrow. Where is it from anyway? Have you found out anything about it from your research?"

"Indiana Jones? Really? Is that what you made up in your mind?" He scoffed mockingly as he sat on his bed, trying out the new fancy-looking eye patch for his prosthetic eye that had been delivered 'secretly' along with durable metal crutches, a heavy-duty wheelchair and mechanical legs by the Speedwagon foundation a few hours ago.

"Well, I mean, you were the one who told me how you've been doing a long research on this arrow, and that it's an old artefact, and that knowing more than this will put me to danger. Of course, I'd assume something as silly as that... If you think that it's silly, that is..." You finished, almost pouting your lips.

A chortle escaped the fair-skinned Frenchman's throat, taking you by surprise.

"It's the best thing someone has called me so far. Indiana Jones, huh? I'll take it as a compliment."

It was one of those rare moments where he only subtly smiled. And also one of those frequent moments you would oddly find yourself feel a strange warmth on your ears.

While the gentleman didn't quite like talking and joking around, you somehow could tell that he definitely enjoyed your company; never complaining about your presence, rather always welcoming you without saying a word.

"The best thing someone has called you?" You leaned a little forward on the shelf beside his bed, accidentally nudging the wooden crutches that you had made for him, long discarded yet safely propped up in the corner. The sticks clattered to the floor, knocking the arrow sitting on top of the shelf into the narrow space between the furniture and the wall. Before you could clumsily attempt to grab onto the ancient artefact, the fruit on your hand slipped off your grasp and fell to the floor, splattering into two small chunks.

"Ah Merda! Sorry!" you apologized for your heavy-handedness, bending along the wall and stretching your arm out to reach for the object of his utmost interest you had dropped.

"Non, arretêz!"

The first aggressive scream from Jean Pierre shocked you.

"Signor Polnareff?" you asked, frozen in your stance on the floor.

"No... I mean... Er... You don't have to... I'll do it myself."

It was valid, his concern. The arrow was a priceless artefact anyway. You wouldn't have wanted to damage it in any way, even on accident.

Dragging your arm out that had already reached halfway behind the shelf, you removed yourself from the spot and bent down to pick up the pieces of the half-eaten banana that had fallen to the floor. "I'll clean this up in just a bit, let me just..."

He seemed a little disturbed after the delivery of his harsh scream at you, looking like he wanted to speak yet holding back.

"It's alright. I know I shouldn't be touching it," you stated, standing up with the food particles on your palm. "I'll leave that thing to you then."

Turning around, when you proceeded to walk out of his room, the feeling of his eyes glued to your back just wasn't going away, so you brisked along the short corridor and quickly reached the kitchen.

"Che maldestro che sono!" with a whisper you scoffed at yourself as you tossed the soiled banana into the garbage bin and walked over to the sink to wash your hands.

The sight of the clutter of dirty cutlery caught your attention and you clicked your tongue at it. Might as well get done with these, you thought and picked up one of them, beginning to rinse them under the running tap water.

As soon as your hands got wet, you instantly retracted your arm, hissing at the stinging sensation on one of your fingers, and pulled it close to your eyes to assess the source and site of it.

The tip of your middle finger had been bleeding, not profusely, however. A tiny drop of blood trickled down its length, some of it pooled between the nail and its bed. You shifted your gaze towards the sink and noticed the chopping knife among several other pieces of cutlery, and concluded that the scary blade was responsible for the wound, deciding on patching it up with a band-aid later once you were done washing the things.

Without a warning, your eyes began to water, which you tried to wipe off using an uncoordinated motion of your shoulder, while a deep breathy yawn left your lungs and your eyelids began to feel unbelievably heavy.

'That is weird. I did get enough sleep last night. Then why...'

As your knees gave up and had you crash onto the floor, the last thing you heard before your eyes forced themselves shut was the distant voice of Signor Polnareff calling out your name, if you had heard it correctly.

The sight of something green and dark brought you back to the present. From the backseat of the vehicle, you tilted your chin up, trying to get a glimpse of the object the blonde young man had been holding, soon widening your eyes as they met with another pair staring back at you intensely, turning you apprehensive.

"Oh, this?" the kid turned around and said on noticing you stare at the shelled reptilian sitting on his hand. "This... is... uh... a pet tartaruga of ours."

"It's a testuggine, actually..." you corrected him, noticing a strange gemstone embedded on top of its shell. "Strange to be carrying around a pet of this kind during journeys. They like to stay in calm places, you know."

The boy let out a nervous laugh as you continued to speak. "It's adorable. What have you named it?"

"Um... Po... I me- Er C-Coco... Jumbo... He's named Coco Jumbo," Signor Guido on the driver's seat chimed out almost anxiously.

"Coco Jumbo?" you responded interrogatively, raising an eyebrow at his stuttered reply. "That's an unusual name. So it's a he."

The two boys in front chuckled even more animated while you kept your eyes glued to the tortoise, still unable to shake away the feeling of the animal watching you somewhat too intently.

"If it is alright for me to know, can you tell me who you people are?"

The men in front looked at your reflection in the rearview mirror.

"Two young men," you continued, "one of them looking suspiciously young to be hanging out with a man who carries a gun. You people aren't criminali, are you?"

Letting a moment of brief silence delay his response, the one in the driver's seat replied to your question almost cockily. "You still have the option to get down, Sig. We are not here to hurt you."

No, they weren't going to hurt you. Being well-acclaimed with the prime concerns of the French guest who lived under your roof, you could very well confirm that the people who he had entrusted the duty, however he had, did not mean you any harm. He had always been particular about that very statement, every time you asked him questions out of curiosity that stepped a bit too far from the line.

"No, non fa niente, I will go with you. Seeing his grave is the only thing I can do for his sake."

"Do we get to know who you are? What was your relationship to Polnareff?"

The interjection from the one named Guido Mista had you shift your gaze at him.

Your relations with him? That was a question none of the two of you had ever dwelled upon; at least not you. Where was even the time to ponder on that? Him being a busy man with a crucial research and his disabilities to think of; you being occupied with chores, his caretaking, and your small business for most of the day. What kind of relations had you maintained with him amongst those?

"Signor Polnareff? How old are you?"

"Now you're asking me my age?" the man let out a vague giggle. "Run out of questions?"

"Signore! You keep telling me I can't ask this, I can't ask that, that it's dangerous for me to know beyond that," you threw him an annoyed glare jokingly.

As he sat on his wheelchair next to you in the balcony, Polnareff sighed exhaustedly and shut the laptop on his thighs that he had been working on. "Thirty-five, as of now."

"Davvero?! Thirty-five?" you exclaimed in surprise, bending over the balcony and widening your eyes dramatically.

"I know, I look older than that."

"Haha! Scusa scusa scusa! I didn't mean to be rude or anything. But you don't look that old. I did guess about forty."

He only chuckled at your statement, followed by him speaking. "So, any other curiosities that intrigue you?"

You looked at the Frenchman with the silver mullet, the jewellery on his ears reflecting the sunlight as they dangled by his neck. "Actually, yes. About these earrings."

He looked at you and raised his brow. "My earrings?"

"Mmhm," you hummed. "Why the broken hearts? Is it a reminder of someone? Like... a lover you had?" you giggled mockingly.

Visibly a little flushed on his pale skin, Polnareff cleared his throat. "Not really. It's just... well, I had it made."

"Had it made?"

"Yes, it's hand-crafted with glass," he replied, almost proudly. "One of the best glass artisans in Paris. It reminds me of... my sister, that's all I can tell," he glumly looked down as he finished his sentence.

Looking away from the man, you recalled him saying once that he had lost his sister to a vile incident that he did not wish to bring up. Deciding not to push the topic further from there, you proceeded to blankly reply to him. "They sure look beautiful on you."

From the corner of your sight you noticed a hand spread itself out before you. As you turned around, you saw the him hold out one of his earrings in his palm, offering it for you to take a glance at. With one of those faintly visible smiles, he uttered, "Do you want to try them on? They would suit you too, I think."

With your hand still clenched into a fist, you tightened your fingers again, letting the skin feel the edges of the article you had been holding for hours since you had left Sicilia. Reluctantly, you spread your fingers open, revealing the familiar pair of glass jewellery. The corners had chipped off, scratches were present all over its surface, yet the structure of it overall had thankfully still been intact. One of them had a tiny splotch of a darker red, possibly the stain of dried blood, you thought. As you stared at the two broken hearts under the flickering street lights that had been entering the moving vehicle, you pursed your lips trying to stifle a whimper, having failed to prevent the single tear from falling out of your eye, however.

"Siamo arrivati."

You almost jumped at the voice of one of the men that had been in the car with you. Bringing yourself to the now, you looked around and noticed the skies turning a darker shade of orange. The blonde kid pulled the door open for you to step out of the car.

"We aren't late but we don't have much time," Guido Mista spoke with his hands placed on his exposed hip. "It's almost sunset."

Wordlessly, you followed the two men through the cemetery gates as they talked about convincing someone regarding visiting hours despite the dusk. A few minutes of strolling around and before you had realised, the three of you were standing in front of the grave, practically unmarked. Spontaneously, your eyes began blurring the view before you as you read the name.

The two men politely returned a subtle bow to you as the darkness following the sunset enveloped the sky.

If only you could see him one last time.

~~~

The hotel room that the two men had booked you for the night before they dropped you back to Sicilia was unbelievably pricey for your liking, causing you to fret yet again at the possible links of the duo that had visited you uninvited and uninformed that very morning. And that was only one of the few things baffling you. Turning the shower tap off, you pulled the bathrobe over you, whilst recalling what the young kid had said to you in the car right after leaving the cemetery.

"It was Signor Polnareff's wish to let you have whatever properties he owned in his home country. The selling of his land and the documentation shall take some time, but we will be contacting you soon when it is done."

Of course, you had tried to reject, but the kid remained eerily adamant, repeating his statement in an oddly cold yet determined voice. Something about the young boy's aura was off-putting; not completely in a creepy way, however intimidating nonetheless.

"Well, if that's what he desired," was what you had said on losing the debate with him.

As you stepped out of the shower, you caught glimpse of the familiar pet of theirs crawling slowly on the floor, next to your bed. Coco Jumbo, you remembered its strange name. The boys had left it in your care for a while as they had gone outside the hotel for a quick an important work.

With a sigh, you walked towards the reptilian critter to pick it up and gently place it on the coffee table nearby. It didn't react, unsurprisingly enough, but while you continued to look at it, you still couldn't grasp why it seemed as if constantly staring at you. Sure, animals stare at things and people, it was a random action. But something about its stare appeared too... conscious.

Feeling a little too uncanny about the interaction with a simple-minded tortoise, you shifted your gaze towards the earrings you had kept on the same tabletop. Sitting on the edge of the downy surface of the bed, you glanced at the pieces of jewellery and reminisced how they looked on the one who wore them originally.

"No, no, please, Signor Polnareff, it's embarrassing! Put it back on, please, I don't want to try it!"

You smiled at the recollection of your memory and picked up the earrings.

Standing before the dresser next to your bed, you watched your form in the bathrobe and quietly put on the trinkets. A warmth was developing on your ears, making you wonder whether that was from you tugging on your earlobes or from the flustering because it once belonged to someone who you secretly loved.

Yes, you had mentally agreed to that statement.

Your eyes glistened in the mirror's reflection as you witnessed yourself wearing a part of him, wishing he was here to see you as well. With an unsteady voice, you whispered to yourself.

"Je t'aime, Jean."

Chuckling in embarrassment as you noticed the flush of pink on your cheekbones, you thanked the lords for the absence of people around you. For an adult like you who had not once experienced what romance felt like, saying something as such even to yourself was mortifying. You thought you were lucky that for the first time you had uttered those silly words, no soul was there in that room; other than the tortoise with the funny name.

'The tortoise...?'

What you saw in the mirror almost had you choke your heart out in stupefaction.

Behind you, in the reflection of the mirror that you could see, was the reptile, sitting idle on the table.

On top of it, on the gemstone of its shell, stood a tiny humanoid figure, watching you.

"Cradle!!"

The scream left your throat the instant you saw it; something you didn't want to believe, yet had to. There was something - no, someone; someone was standing and peeking out of that tortoise, and watching you. As much as you wanted to brush it off as hallucination, the fact that you possessed an entity far more unnatural wasn't going to help the case.

The ethereal-appearing spirit-like being materialized and towered itself before you, covering your front in an attempt to defend you from whatever was there in that room with you. Fearing for your life worse than the times you had watched late night horror movies, you chanted in anticipation of what kind of ghost was about to pounce at you.

"Oddio oddio oddio oddio oddio oddioooooo!!!"

"Y/n?"

The voice that called out your name silenced you.

The spirit that you had affectionately named Cradle disappeared as you hesitantly pulled your arms away from your face to see who it was that had spoken to you.

Although you knew who it sounded like, you didn't want to believe it.

"You have... a stand?" the tiny being sitting on top of the pet spoke again.

At this point, confused out of your controllable wits, the only thing you could do was blankly scream.