Chapter Text
Body and mind were hard things to co-ordinate. The breadth of his shoulders that felt far too much, how his head was distant most days, only one step instructions forming in the cavity of his mind. The suspicious amount of spots that left tiny red scars on his face, those never used to be there. His head continually felt lagged, like a long summer vacation had come and blocked up every vestibule that lead to his brain, ceasing too much engaged thought. His body and mind were out of sync, indefinitely.
Seventeen had come and gone, and Jotaro had missed his body changing in the mirror. He had been preoccupied and hot under the Egypt sun. Waiting to return home with his mother.
Going to Egypt was a disruption, disruption was a bit of an understatement, but Jotaro was not in the habit of dramatics. At least he didn’t used to be. But Egypt was a distraction that left his brain, and body, and feelings, inside out. He sat staring at the mirror in the further corner of his room, the ashtray in front of it, almost filled. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t planned, and he had left in a hurry, in order to go and help sort out affairs with his family.
From his position on his nest of a bed, Jotaro could shift to wonder if family was parasitic- in the days he had been removed from his cloying peers and instead placed in the company of only his family, he had almost become a zombie. His free will and critical thinking striving to survive in his brain, as he tried not to claw at the walls every time he became part of the family unit's whole. It was like they tried to think as one, all agree, all care about only one thing, when as a cohort they varied in age and responsibilities. Families were weird, and his was all he had been given the liberty of thinking about for the past fifty days.
He felt relief to be back, to have his own personal respite and time to himself; to be locked away in his room. Have his own space to think, away from the pack, to be able to process feelings other than silence. Wasn’t it sad he felt good to be back in his jungle of a room? The room was as stale as he left it, smelling of cigarettes and the god awful reek of his negligent tidying of dishes. He had no time to clean up, open a window, or even prepare himself for coming back to classes like most students had the privilege of doing. He was back as quick as he left, with an extra fifty days after seventeen under his belt.
Jotaro stood from his zoning out on the edge of his unmade bed, and tried to sift through the piles of laundry still strewn in various heaps around his room, he pulled at what he assumed was a part of his uniform. He paused and stared at his form in the dark of his curtained room, holding the trousers loosely in hands. His body felt wrong- he wasn’t one to look at himself in the mirror a lot to begin with, but in the days he had been away from home, he had been beyond the point of existence. Beyond caring for much, bored and stuck and worried for his mother. His birthday had gone unnoticed in the cold winter months, only his body had taken note. His height had shot up, his arms stronger and lean, his birthmark on the back of his neck more prominent to him (and probably to no one else).
One of the problems with class had always been the attention he got, it would be even worse now than before.
Jotaro pulled his shirt on quickly and grabbed his bag, leaving the house as quickly as possible. Sleeping late cost him more than he liked to admit, but being lethargic was a passion of his at the moment. He let his step fall to an uninspired pace, ignoring the now alien movements of the people of his home town. People staring at him was one of the things he hated, he was unsure how it came to be that all his classmates stared at him in wonder, or why girls would approach him. He didn’t do much of anything at school at all, he turned up just to get out of the house, he paid vague attention to the teacher, he smoked and glared at anyone who looked his way. He thought he made himself the poster boy of ‘people who definitely do not want to be approached, questioned, or talked to’. But it was annoying, that was for sure, and now with the bulk that had been added to his arms and the strength of his glare, he was definite people would want him more. Jotaro knew it better than anyone, people only want things they know they can’t have.
Jotaro could see other students ahead of him running to try and not be late, he wondered what it was that spurred people to care so much for school. He hadn’t cared about punctuality before his little excursion, seeing people in front of him actually running to make time to class pushed him to pull a cigarette out and light it. Holding it lightly between his lips. He felt his lungs expand and hoped to make himself so late that no one could ask him the thousands of questions that were no doubt on their minds, all pertaining to the growing mystery that increased the want of those around him. If being an aloof figure was attractive, Jotaro was soon going to be chased after. Fuck anyone who asked him, the first person who spoke to him on his return was going to get a serious death stare or venomous answer. He didn’t know exactly what he would say, but he would be making sure people hadn’t forgotten he was the most dislikable person at their academy.
Jotaro trudged into the school building and attempted to remember where his classroom was. The classroom he settled on wasn’t as quiet as his tutor was when Jotaro last attended, at least not what it seemed like from what he could hear as he stood outside it, preparing for his brooding entrance. His tutor class usually fell into uneasy silence as his teacher tried to corral them into the countless responsibilities and jobs they should be doing, they were a quiet bunch. Had his class changed room? Jotaro pushed his body through the door and tried not to make a scene, he practically shut his eyes in anticipation of the chorus of shocked gasps and stammered questions.
His eyes fell immediately to where his seat used to be, it was still empty, his little angst corner in the back of the classroom. Where he could stare out the window, ignore his peers, with the few spare desks around him. His table with his name carved into it was still free. Jotaro had known there would be people mourning in his loss. It was all so predictable, he stepped heavily forward, and went to sit. A stunned silence took over the class again, Jotaro sat and looked slowly up.
There was a boy stood at the front of the class beside his teacher.
He didn’t know the boy, he was sure of that much, he would remember his.. distinctive look. Maybe that what all the chatter in the class was about, the boy at the front had hair that was an almost violent shade of red. Jotaro's eyes almost stung from looking at it, it had volume to it and the longer, more mullet like, strands of it certainly made a statement.
The class was still shocked around them, even the boy at the front's mouth was hanging open lightly, his sentence being halted with the rest of the students' stupor. He blinked, twice, and then continued speaking at the front.
‘So, as I was saying, we need to ensure we submit our final suggestion with who will be working on what by the end of the week-‘
Jotaro was surprised, a little more than surprised. People had turned back around to face the front and listen to the boy. He was being ignored. Huh. That was odd.. a relief. Or Jotaro should’ve thought it was a relief, but he was more filled with a level of annoyance.
So, what, he could piss off for fifty days and some boy with a dodgy haircut and a wide upturned mouth could stroll in and steal all the strife that other people caused him? His classmates were more taken in by this new guy than their peer, who had been in school with them for years, going missing with no explanation or assumed return. Well, fuck all of them then.
Jotaro itched to smoke, he rolled his eyes and tried not to listen to whatever anyone else in the class had to say.
It was probably for the best. It was exhausting being sought after. Jotaro leant his chin into his palm and stared back out the window, over the courtyard and all the people in the school that had probably forgotten he had existed. He had forgotten he existed too, very little existed of him beyond his body. It was hard to muster an emotion much more than apathy or anger, possibly a volatile molotov cocktail of self-loathing flavoured guilt. He let the reflection of his new face stare back at him in the catches of light on the window, his face had shifted and moved with his age too. His eyebrows set angrier than they used to be, his chin jutting slightly forward more. He had begun to grind his teeth in his sleep. Hating everything, especially himself, had become a passion for him. In the moments he could think to muster distaste. He rolled his eyes and tried to occupy his brain for what would be a very long day, a tap on his shoulder pulled him back into the room.
The boy that was at the front, was now sat in the desk next to him. Clearly done with what ever useless project he was talking about. He had lavender eyes, and his face was an inch paler than Jotaro's own, it had freckles dotted about it, intermingling with the light bumps on his cheeks. He was leant towards Jotaro, whispering to him in a nonchalant sort of way, like he was charismatic. Jotaro wanted to throw up.
‘Hey, I joined late too- don’t worry about it.’
Fuck this guy. First person to talk to Jotaro on his first day back, and he was the new kid. He was trying to be nice to Jotaro, or what, make friends? He wasn’t some pity case; and the class president or whoever this new suck-up was, wasn’t going to be making any acquaintances today, not with him. Jotaro sucked at his teeth and made sure to lock onto the boys eyes with his own feral glare.
‘I didn’t join late. I bunked off for fifty days.’
Jotaro spat the words back at the boy, his face went from what Jotaro might have perceived as amicable to indignant. He pulled back into the space of his own desk, Jotaro had never considered how rude his tone could be, he was rather proud of how effective it was. The boy half rolled his eyes, but turned back to face the front, his voice was passive. Did he really think it was cutesy to pretend to not be hurt?
‘Sorry, no one mentioned you is all, I didn’t know you went here.’
Oh, ouch. Jotaro seethed at that. He didn’t care about people liking him, remembering him, he really didn’t. But how fake did the people around here get? Did no one bring him up, or ask? Jotaro felt more pissed off than ever- and this kid, he hit the mark in an instant. He had no way of knowing that would rile Jotaro up.
‘Fucking dick, I didn’t ask you, did I?’
The prick smiled at him, his teeth glinting from the tightassed smile he gave, ready to retort. He was sour, and smart-assed too. Jotaro was going to fucking slam his head into the table.
Their tutor coughed loudly from the front of the classroom, the attention had been drawn to the back now, where the two were arguing. It wasn’t arguing really, that would mean Jotaro cared, and of course he didn’t fucking care. Not about school, not about his classmates, not about this fucking redhead jerkwad that didn’t even seem to be all that upset about Jotaro's distaste towards him.
‘Kakyoin, save the introductions for later- and Kujo-‘
Jotaro wished desperately that he could remember his teacher's name (he swore he had known it once, it mildly concerned him he couldn’t remember it now, maybe Egypt knocked any sense of the real world out of his head), but the teacher raised her eyebrows emphatically. He turned his attention away, Jotaro knew what the unfinished sentence meant. There would be questions and there would be answers after everyone had left. Jotaro looked briefly at the scowl on the redhead's face, he was not dignifying him with a name. Still, he looked genuinely pissed off they had been reprimanded for talking. Loser.
Jotaro let the class continue, he thought about what he would have to say, all the make up classes he would have to do. Would they make him repeat a year ? Surely they would force him to. No way, no way on god’s green earth was he staying in this establishment a second longer than he needed to. That meant one thing, he would have to be working overtime, making sure he played the model student card. Extra assignments, extra credit, extra lessons, anything. He would have to be on his best behaviour, and actually prove something of it.
Jotaro didn’t like acting, he was never one to be a suck up, but this was equivalent to life or death for him. Besides, if he got good grades that could at least substitute for some of his attitude, there would be nothing worse than being a bitch to everyone and then not proving himself to be worth the trouble. Jotaro leant heavily on his desk and let the rest of the class file slowly out of the room, being far more chatty than they used to be. Surely the presence of one person couldn’t inspire that kind of talk.
‘Jotaro, I am going to assume with such a long absence there was a reason, and not just you deciding you couldn’t be bothered to come to school everyday, but, you didn’t file it. It wasn’t an authorised absence, and it still isn’t until you can give us some form of good reason, and prove it.’
Jotaro stayed silent, he didn’t exactly know what his answer would be if he did talk.
‘I’ve never had a student stay off as long as you, there is not going to be much of an option, if you’re not kicked out permanently, you’ll have to retake this year.’
Jotaro shut his eyes for a moment and tried to breathe through his nose. He was not gonna lose his shit now and permanently get kicked out.
‘No. I promise. I’ll take extra classes, I’ll do extra assignments. Just let me sit the exams. I’m not a moron.’
He kept his eyes trained down and tracing over the own scrappy letters of his name carved into the desk.
‘I’m not saying you’re a moron, I’m saying other people have been here, shown commitment and know all the ins and outs of the lessons that you missed, and you missed a lot. I hope that whatever kept you away is better now, and nothing is wrong. But neither of us have much of a say in it.. look, just go to classes today and I’ll keep you updated. But you better be prepared to work, Kujo.’
Well, it seemed like he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? He wondered if maybe he was a moron, he didn’t like the notion that he was. But the idea of the time he would have to dedicate to it all. He had no idea what he would do if he failed, there's no guarantee the school would even let him redo the year. He could be kicked out. What would he do?
Jotaro didn’t like caring, he didn’t like how anxious he felt about it all. He nodded, and silently left the classroom, he didn’t have another class for ten minutes. Good. He really needed to smoke, he felt sicker and more pent up than he had expected. Why did the world not cut him some slack? He paced down the corridor and through the hall filled with seating, other students waiting for next period.
He could see Avdol and Polnareff sat and placidly chatting between themselves. Jotaro knew the pair of them. They were the type of people that just decided they were friends with you and made themselves just that. They weren’t really friends, not to Jotaro. He didn’t really have friends, but they were insistent on not letting Jotaro be alone whilst doing things. They would sit with him if he ever stopped in the hall, they would invite him to things. They would be excited to see he was back. He watched as Avdol caught sight of him, his eyes wide, his expression clearly alerted to Polnareff that something interesting was going on- as the boy who had once had his back facing him slowly turned around. His eyes going from confused to.. slightly more confused.
‘Jotaro, man, I thought you were dead.’
Jotaro grunted and paused at the head of their table, he wasn’t going to sit down, he was going to leave as soon as he was sure they weren’t going to bother him further, and then have a super hardcore, not emotional, panic-stress, smoke.
‘You’ve gotten taller, wider.’
He glared at Polnareff for that, who immediately relished in any reaction from Jotaro at all. He patted by his side and placed the bag that was on the chair next to him under the table.
‘Come on, sit down, tell us where you went! Why didn’t you tell us you were off fighting bears or something, I would’ve taken extra notes for you.’
Avdol couldn’t help but jab at Polnareff, he never bothered to tell Jotaro off, Jotaro liked that.
‘Polnareff, we both know your notes would have been useless.’
The pair began to talk between themselves, that usually meant it would be safe for Jotaro to escape, to silently walk off and not be interested in whatever they were saying next. He turned, eyes on the exit, but stopped suddenly as he heard someone else approach the table.
‘Polnareff, they didn’t have any of the drinks you wanted so I got you a water.’
The voice was deadpan, unimpressed with Polnareff's requests. The tone was half amusing with its snarkiness, he turned to appraise who had given it out.
Redhead was stood, passing a bottle of juice to Avdol, and chucking a bottle of water at Polnareff's head. He looked up, and his lavender eyes locked onto Jotaro. He pointed towards him and looked down between Avdol and Polnareff. His other hand flicked up to shield his mouth from Jotaro, he was clearly doing it for the show of it, the bitch. His eyes were animated, they lingered with the want to push Jotaro's patience.
‘That’s him, the jerk I was talking about.’
Avdol and Polnareff looked up at Kakyoin. Damnit, Jotaro acknowledged his name. They looked up at Kakyoin, who gave Jotaro his own appraising glare and sat down. The pair looked back towards Jotaro, Polnareff began to half whine.
‘Our Jotaro? He’s the rude one who joined your class?’
Polnareff leant out and grabbed Jotaro's arm, gesturing delicately about him like he was his son. Jotaro pulled his arm back violently, spitting back at Polnareff.
‘I’m not yours.’
Polnareff acted violently hurt, falling back dramatically with his arm across his forehead into Kakyoin's side, who promptly pushed him back.
‘Yeah, he’s the one I don’t like.’
Kakyoin's glare slid up to meet his own, it was icy. He was really about to hold a grudge with Jotaro? It seemed like he got on fine with everyone else. Double fuck him then. And he had stolen his.. acquaintances. Avdol and Polnareff seemed like they got on with Kakyoin perfectly.
Jotaro turned and walked away from the table, ignoring any comment Polnareff might have been about to make. He didn’t care. He just needed to smoke. He pulled the box out from his jacket and tried to assess what his next motions would be. He would have to talk to all his teachers, probably the principal. He rolled his shoulders out as best he could, his new grown up's body was already taking its knocks. He thought of how often his grandfather commented on how he still wished to be as young and spritely as Jotaro was, if only his grandfather saw the packs he smoked a week. Or his fucked back because he slumped over every desk he sat at, and how his knuckles were red from the occasional want to punch things. Mainly out of boredom. Was he wasting his youth? His body?
Jotaro was knee-deep in the feeling of Monday, of a teenage slump, of everything. He did not want to be here, he didn't want to be at home.
He flicked his cigarette onto the floor, mainly because he felt like being a bit of a dick, who was going to stop him? The first teacher on his list was his biology teacher, if he was going to actually get a career and need subject knowledge it would be to do with that, then maybe his chemistry teacher.
It wasn’t an easy task, convincing all his teachers that he was actually a devoted student that had fallen victim to circumstance. All those years of him acting cold had certainly come back to bite him in the ass, he had to do some serious boot licking to get his teachers to even consider him. And after hours of grovelling, now he had to go home and do the work. Hours on weeks of missed notes, projects that would not further his knowledge on subject matter at all. He had sworn to complete it all as quick as possible too. That meant full-on evenings of work, early mornings into the bio lab.
At least he was back, he could sleep in his own bed, have his own thoughts, not be stifled by the location and the company. He stepped forward into the house, his bag (which before this had never been a degree beyond empty) heaving onto the floor, he walked towards the kitchen and began to pour himself a coffee. His mother was sat at the table, happily writing whatever column she wanted to submit to the local paper next. His mother was like that, happy to live a relatively boring life, so long as she was busy with hobbies that made her happy and meals to cook. Jotaro wondered if she even thought much about the time she had spent sick. She was far from herself, it was like watching a cat grow old, scarily out of its nature. His mother had lied motionless where she had once loved to bustle. Now she was back to normal, content to ignore Egypt as much as Jotaro was. He didn’t want to prod, he felt like he was an audience member of a piece of theatre, if he broke the fourth wall, the little actors and characters within their world would freak the hell out. What if his mother just suddenly broke down or lost her shit if he brought it up?
He wondered if his internal monologue would ever mature either.
‘Jotaro, how was school? I still can’t believe you managed to keep up on all your studies, such a clever boy.’
The naivety made Jotaro want to scream, but he kept silent, sipping his coffee and letting the disgusting taste of black caffeine and cigarettes mingle to the marshy feel in his throat. Of course he hadn’t kept up on his classwork, of course he hadn’t even told the school he wouldn’t be attending. But sometimes, families lied to each other because it was for the best. Jotaro knew it wasn’t his mother's fault, some part of him did. But that also didn’t stop the part of himself that loved to just hate things and be angry. It wasn’t his mother's fault, but who else was there to blame? If the bitch just went to the doctor more and stopped parading herself around to every mother's meeting and community fundraiser she could make herself useful for, maybe they wouldn’t be in the situation they were in now.
He didn’t hate his mother. But he had very little people left to have any feeling toward, very little energy, and love felt a lot to muster. Especially for the next eight weeks he was going to have to grind through.
Holly was used to her son ignoring her, she let Jotaro slip away and back to his room, of course it was untouched. He knew he would’ve been pissed if his mother came in to clean, but somehow it made him equally as angry she had let it fester the same way he had. One of them was meant to be responsible, weren’t they? Jotaro pushed the door back as best he could, the pile of clothing on the floor was buffering a degree of his entrance. He stared at the stacked surface that should’ve been his desk. Maybe the first step was cleaning his room, he needed to open a window, let some air in, something.
He kicked his way through to the window and let it swing open, the air was cold but Jotaro was not going to shut it again after breathing air that was actually comprised of nitrogen and oxygen, instead of whatever primordial soup of air he had bred in his lair. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, his arms overladen with clothing he was going to dump into the wash. He could see the ridges of his body, the edges of his spine, the tint of his birthmark, and the unruly length his hair had gotten to.
He was almost as bad as the redheaded idiot he had met earlier that day. Was this his lowest point? Looking like he was dragged through a hedge backwards, not even pulling off a hairstyle better than the most dick-hatted guy he’d met that morning.
His hair didn’t suit his face, his mind didn’t match his body. He was still juvenile, irresponsible, not at all ready to be given any amount of responsibility over his education; he knew that given the choice, nine times out of ten he wouldn’t do it. Even his hair was a mess, how was he going to sort his life out?
Jotaro hated being seventeen.