Chapter Text
"You're up late." Holly cooed, draping a blanket over his shoulders, rubbing between his shoulder blades before handing him a warm mug of steaming liquid. "Couldn't sleep?"
Jotaro humms and took a sip of the mugs contents. Hot chocolate. This isn't the first time Holly has found him outside like this, late in the night, out on the deck. Every time, without fail, she'd appear with that same blanket, all but swaddle him inside it and hand him something hot to drink.
"Thinking about school?" She asked, kneeling beside him, leaning into his arm as she set her own mug aside to fuss with his hair. The astronomy book that HE had given him is by his side, Holly noticed. She picks it up, pats the cover before handing it to Jotaro. "You know you don't have to this year. You can take a gap year."
Jotaro sighs. "No. I... want to go."
Holly leans in closer. "Is there something the matter?"
He didn't say anything, didn't really need too, Holly pulls on his arm and points up at the night sky instead. "Do you remember the constellations?"
"The real ones or the ones you made up while I was at school."
"I'll have you know, The Space Unicorn-"
Jotaro cut her off with a laugh. "No, the one you're pointing at is Capricorn."
"I know." Holly counters. "Are you going to actually let me share with you what I've learned or are you going to just plow over me with those big brains of yours."
And so, Jotaro sits and listens.
****
It takes all of two weeks for Jotaro to find a good spot to view the stars once he got to Florida. Long sleepless evenings have forced him out of bed, out of the dorms and into the country most nights. He does his normal 11 pm coffee run, the waitress a classmate he vaguely recognizes and sits down at a table to pour the coffee into the thermos he's bringing with him.
"Fill this up two more times." He says. "Please."
"I'll do you one better." She replies, scans the nearly empty coffee house, and begins to pour straight from her decanter and into his thermos, and then tops off the mug he has in front of him. "Just.... hang out for a few minutes, we'll count those as refills."
Jotaro nods. "Thanks."
She doesn't linger after that, but he takes her up on the advice, staying for 10 minutes, leaving her a tip and heading out.
There's no light pollution from the city way out where he goes, just the light from the flashlight he brought with him to scan through the astronomy book Kakyoin had bought him back in Egypt. He thinks about him every night he comes out here. Lights a cigarette, takes a drag and takes a pull from his coffee and starts mapping the stars in the sky.
***
Marina had to admit, she was curious about the astronomy book tucked into Jotaro's backpack considering the heavy load in chemistry and biology his first year of college. She recognizes it immediately from nights he sat in the coffee shop, leafing through the pages. The way his hand rested on it's spine whenever he thumbed his way through his backpack before taking out his notebooks, the way his thumb ran along the warn edges of the cover when he did take it out. She only found out the nature of the book when he slid it across the table to her while class was winding down during their final class on an early spring afternoon.
"Since you seem so interested." He said, patting the cover.
"Why?"
"I like stars." He drawled. "Do I need any more of a reason?"
"I guess not."
She opened the cover, lose leaf paper tucked inside, she heard Jotaro's breath hitch before she turned the page. Just a standard astronomy book that was looking haggard beyond it's relatively young life according to it's publishing date in the credits on the first page.
"You must really like astronomy, Kujo," She said. "This book is barely a year and it looks like it's travelled the world with you."
There a pause, before he nodded. "You could say that. It was... a gift. From a friend."
She nodded back. "Is he into astronomy?"
"He was."
She didn't press more out of him, Jotaro tipping himself back in his chair and pulling his hat down over his eyes, his leg bouncing in time with the clock until the professor dismissed them. Marina pushed the book back to him, Jotaro gently closing it before tucking it back saftely between his texts in his bag.
Out in the hall Marina noticed the way Jotaro slowed down to her pace.
"You interested in seeing them?"
"Seeing what?"
Jotaro gestured. "The stars."
"Oh. Sure. I guess."
"I'll meet you out in front of the dorms tongiht then." He said. "Maybe around 9."
Then he was off, leaving Marina standing there as students milled around her.
***
"Is this private property, Jotaro?" She stops in her tracks, digging her heels in momentarily.
He sighs, mutters a good grief as he places a hand between her shoulder blades and guides her off the road. She rarely comes this far off into the country. She regrets the clothing choice she made for this. The skirt is way to short for trudging through back country. It's getting dark out and they're now just getting to the mouth of the trail. JOtaro swings his backpack off his back and pulls out a flashlight and hands it to her before getting one himself and flicking it on.
"Stay close, okay?" He says, but when he steps forward and she doesn't join him, he turns to her and she sees his face soften through the glow of her light. "I've been up here before." Extending his hand. "I promise the view is worth it."
It's not a far walk at all, 20 minutes down a beaten trail, 10 minutes off the path and into a field. He stops and hands her his flash light before reaching into his pocket and retrieving his lighter and cigarettes.
"You smoke?" He asks.
"No."
"Don't." and he takes a long drag before exhaling, slides his backpack of his shoulder and places it on the ground, gestures around him. "So this is where I am when you see me come back to the dorms late at night."
He lowers himself to the grass and rifles through his bag before pulling open that astronomy text Marina had seen him lovingly pour through between study sessions. "Joining me or not?" He asks, raising an eyebrow in the dim light.
Marina swallows, cautiously working her way around her skirt and folding her legs carefully under her frame.
"Get in closer, you won't be able to see the page from there."
She leaned in as comfortably close as possible, Jotaro pushing the the book slightly towards her, running his finger along a section of the sky on the pages laid out between them.
"These aren't the same ones my mom took me to see when I was a kid, but I've been trying to find this one right here."
It's hardly visible among the rest of the stars cluttered on the sheets, drawn together like a connect-the-dot with a barely visible line. She realizes how close their heads are as she looks over to meet his gaze. He makes no inclination that he wants her out of his space, but she draws back anyways, looks up at the sky.
"Where do you start?"
He leans into her and points to the sky just off to the left of her. "North star is easy to locate, we're looking for a few brighter stars up from it."
***
If she's honest about it, she agrees that the relationship moved fast, but it's comfortable. They found their first apartment and move in after 9 months of dating, slipping into a familiar routine of school and part time work. Jotaro's job often takes him off campus, a company his grandfather owns from the sounds of it.
Marina finds herself pouring through one of the Astronomy books Jotaro has tucked into his book shelf. The book has seen better days, she remembers Jotaro idly thumbing through it days after he got it a year back. She traces her finger over the constellations seen in Japan in the winter months, commits them to memory. One of the neighbors kindly lent her ladder and she carefully climbs it, and tears open the first pack of glow in the dark stars.
It takes her 4 hours to get through most of the night sky on their shared bedroom ceiling, the constellations mapped out across the entirety, it's only a matter of filling in the gaps.
He's been gone all week, a trip with his grandfather across the states. Something about wanting to show him the sights of America before he settled down to much. He'll be home in an hours time, the sun is beginning to set.
She must have fallen asleep sometime after laying back in the bed to admire her work because she feels Jotaro's weight settle onto the bed. The light from the hallway is pouring into the room and when he realizes she's awake, he curses under his breath, apologizes. She notices his near nakedness, starkly aware of his bare skin in the dim light.
"Welcome back." She says through a yawn, pulling herself over to him and laying her head on his lap. He runs his hand over her hair, down her back. They stay like that for a moment before Jotaro leans back and gazes down at her.
"Mind if I join you?"
She pulls back and lifts the blankets. "I have a surprise for you."
"Oh?"
She nods towards the door. "Deal with that first, then get under here."
He complies with urgency and gets back to bed with ease and presses himself in close to her, presses his lips to her neck, to her jaw line. "Look up."
She feels him turn, hears his breath catch. "Oh."
She rolls partly onto him, resting her head on his shoulder and tucks an arm around him as she listens to him murmur the names of the constellations, he pulls her in close to him. Thousands of glow in the dark stars shimmering on the ceiling. "You can see them now, whenever you want. Spare the book. It's looking worse for the wear anyways."
"Thank you." He says thickly. "I love it."
She feels his lips on hair, her forehead, her temple, his fingers finding hers as he sighs. At some point she drifts off again, Jotaro murmuring the constellations he's finding scattered among the ceiling and waking with Jotaro pulling her tightly into his arms sometime around midnight as he rolls over to sleep.
"Thank you." He murmurs into her hair. "Again."