Chapter Text
Jolyne:Share my scarf with you half, so you won't be cold!
Haruno:silly…
That morning there was pouring rain, and the long-wearing engine hummed low, as if it would stall in the next second.
The man in the front seat, however, seemed unconcerned. He drove the car with a flourish, whistling a shrill tune that filled every corner of the car. Seeming to remember something, his face bunched up into a rare smile.
"We're going to visit Mr. Kujo today," he said in a slightly high-pitched voice to eight-year-old Haruno sitting in the back seat. "Haruno, you're a good boy, so you'll behave, won't you?"
"Yes, uncle. I'll be good." As if afraid that the man could not see him in the rearview mirror, Haruno kept nodding his head.
Since his mother's death, Haruno had grown used to being pushed around by his relatives like a burden, bouncing from one family to another. Living in these houses had taught him many things, such as reading people and being polite and understanding, burying any unrealistic ideas in the dirt. But above all, the most important thing he learned was to play the role of a good, obedient child.
The front and rear tires of the car had not been filled with air in a long time, so each was half flat, rattling on the unflat road. Haruno held on to the door handle but was still inevitably sent flying into the air, but the next moment, he was pulled back to the hard car mat by the straightened seat belt.
He tried to resist the urge to vomit, his whole face scrunching up in disgust. But in order to prevent the man from detecting his disgust, Haruno tossed his gaze out the window.
The scenery outside the car window gradually changed from familiar country roads to noisy neon streets, from small mounds where he played alone to skyscraper behemoths erected by steel and concrete, from sunny to rainy, from one place to another.
They drove so far.
The dark clouds cast a shadow over Haruno's beautiful lake-green eyes, reflecting the stream of strangers hurrying to and fro on the street. Haruno watched them aimlessly, but in his heart, he had dimly guessed what would happen to him next.
The car finally entered a villa area in the east of the city, where the tree-lined streets were spacious and neat, and even the lawn looked like it had just been carefully mowed. After they stopped in front of a three-story house, Haruno's uncle got out of the car alone and rang the doorbell.
A tall man in a white trench coat came out with a black umbrella. Haruno saw them start to talk, but the rain was so loud that he couldn't discern what they were talking about from inside the car.
Haruno looked closely at the man, whom his uncle respectfully called "Mr. Kujo"—he was as tall as a wall, and his brow under the brim of his hat was stern in a way Haruno had never seen before.
But before Haruno could try to identify him further, Mr. Kujo seemed to sense his prying eyes and looked back precisely.
Mr. Kujo's eyes were blue and green, which reminded Haruno of a calm, bottomless lake. Even though he knew Mr. Kujo couldn't really see him through the one-way window, Haruno still held his breath for a moment.
His uncle also noticed the man's gaze, so he began to wave sharply to Haruno, signaling him to get out of the car. Haruno stepped out of the car and was instantly drenched by the pouring rain. The wetness and coldness brought by the rain made him uncomfortable, but he continued to walk very slowly. Compared to getting wet from the rain and running a fever, Haruno was more worried about risking angering Mr. Kujo by splashing mud on him.
But Mr. Kujo still frowned. He walked towards Haruno, who was only handlebar height, with his long white hem creating a gust of wind. The tall figure that appeared in front of Haruno made him hesitate, unsure of what had upset Mr. Kujo about his behavior. Hence, he stopped walking and quickly began to organize his words of apology in his mind.
Mr. Kujo, however, neither became angry nor reprimanded him but simply crouched down on his knees and covered him completely with his large black umbrella. His expression was still cold, but with a bit of gentleness, he said, "Hello, Haruno. I'm Jotaro Kujo. This will be your home from now on, if you'd like."
Jotaro's voice was deep and low, like a cello playing unhurriedly. Haruno didn't notice the clumsy reassurance in Jotaro's voice, however; he just knew he was being pushed somewhere else, as had happened every time before.
Whenever someone took him in, they said, "This is your home now." But what good was that? It didn't stop them from throwing him away like garbage to another "home" when their patience ran out.
Haruno buried his head very low so that the tears would not cross his face but would fall straight to the ground. He told himself it was nothing, just another ugly lie from an adult, the type he had gotten used to.
By the time he looked into those deep blue-green eyes again, Haruno had recovered his usual smile.
"Thank you, Uncle Kujo," he said in a curt tone.
"Jolyne, this is Haruno, who I mentioned before would be coming to live with our family," Jotaro said to his daughter.
Haruno lowered his eyes and stepped into the mahogany-paved entranceway, his wet cloth shoes looking more worn than ever.
With just one casual glance, he realized that the girl in front of him was from a completely different world than he was. Wrapped in a blue princess dress, Joryne looked like a lovable doll, and the innate confidence in her eyes was as blinding as the sun, leaving him barely surviving in the gutter, with no way to escape.
He shouldn't have walked in, Haruno suddenly thought.
Seven and eight-year-olds were more possessive of their parents' affection than anything else. Haruno understood that no amount of reducing his presence would remove the notion that a stranger her age would take away her parents' "attention". So the question was, how could he wag his tail to this little girl who grew up with a golden spoon to prove to her that he was just trying to scrape by?
His memories of being dominated by the children of distant relatives as lowly people were still fresh in his mind, so Haruno did not expect Jolyne to unleash any extra kindness on him at all.
But when he shifted his gaze back to the girl, he unexpectedly met her eyes full of delight. Before he could fret and look deeper into the reason or finish his stumbling introduction, he was thrown against the door behind him, caught in a bear hug.
A clean, sweet, creamy scent instantly pounced on his arms.
"You're finally here!" the girl said. "I've been waiting for you for a long time!"
She seemed completely unaware that her dress was getting dirty and wet from his clothes due to the embrace, only continuing to express her joy.
Jolyne was too soft and warm, while his body was rain-soaked, cold, and stiff, two extremes of existence. Perhaps her tone was too sincere, or perhaps he had waited too long for a hug; Haruno's first reaction was actually not to panic or become baffled, but to have a strange feeling sprout from his heart, overwhelming him and disorienting him.
Jotaro noticed that Haruno did not even know where to put his hands, so he gently patted Jolyne's shoulder. "Jolyne, let your brother take a shower and change his clothes first, and then you can play with him afterward, okay?"
Only then did Jolyne let go of his arm, much to Haruno's relief. Not daring to look into her eyes, he turned around and grabbed the clothes that Mrs. Kujo had prepared in advance and headed for the bathroom. He deliberately washed for a long, long time, trying to use the time to wear down Jolyne's frightening interest in him.
But Jolyne Kujo's enthusiasm proved hard to cool; he never expected her to stand by the corner of the door and wait for him. The moment he finished washing up and went out, Jolyne caught him like a hawk at a chick's exit and pulled him away, though he had only taken half a step out of the bathroom.
Jolyne tugged Haruno's wrist and walked forward "forcefully" while humming a little tune softly, which Haruno thought was awkward. Unable to figure out what Jolyne was going to do with him, his mind even began to assemble the worst possible scenarios. Jolyne's words soon interrupted his thoughts.
"You know what? I've always wanted a brother. But every time I told my dad, he would only give me a perfunctory answer." Jolyne turned back to him with a sweet smile. "But now, that doesn't matter! Because you're here!"
Jolyne stopped in her tracks, and Haruno found that they had arrived at the door of a room on the second floor. Jolyne stood on her tiptoes and raised her finger high toward a small wooden sign hanging above the door.
"Tada!" she said as if offering a treasure. "This is your room, Haruno. I decorated it for you with my own hands." Her gaze shone as she surveyed him, like a cute puppy waiting for praise.
Haruno froze and smiled for the first time since he arrived at this new home.
False alarm. It turned out she was just taking him to see his room.
Not even three months after arriving at Kujo's house, Haruno seemed to be tied to Jolyne Kujo in one way.
He often couldn't keep up with the girl's thoughts. One minute, Jolyne would be sitting quietly with him in a tree watching the scenery, and the next she, might suddenly get up and say she wanted to go to the countryside to steal the watermelon Uncle Avdol had planted. She was always asking random questions, and when she didn't have a chance to annoy the busy Mr. Kujo, she would chase after Haruno for answers.
Haruno wondered how Jolyne could be so energetic. He didn't care about why the sun only rose in the east and set in the west, or how butterflies broke out of their cocoons. Sorry, he didn't really have time to care when trying to live a quiet and smooth life already took up all his energy.
Actually, her never-ending curiosity was quite bearable. Although playing with her wasn't fun, at least he wouldn't get hurt. What he couldn't handle, however, was the girl's clinginess.
For example, one night, thunder struck a bit fiercely and Mr. and Mrs. Kujo happened to be away from home on an expedition. He had only been asleep for a short time when he was awakened by a rhythmic knock on his door. When he opened it, he saw Jolyne standing there with a pout, as if complaining about him taking so long to open the door.
The cotton quilt in her arms shook; one of her favorite teddy bears was also clutched between her arms. "Can I sleep with you today?"
"No way!"
Even before a look of hurt surfaced in Jolyne's eyes, Haruno was surprised by his outright refusal to speak without thinking first.
"Why? I was worried about your fear of thunder, so I came looking for you!" Jolyne wondered, her tone a bit urgent.
'Because I hate it when people get too close to me,' he replied inwardly.
Haruno understood that if Jolyne insisted, he had no right to refuse. This was her bed, her room, and her home while he was just an insignificant person who could be kicked out at any time, a stray animal who never dared to hope for tomorrow when he had today.
He didn't know if it was because Jolyne had been spending so much time with him, or if her request seemed so humble and her voice so soft, but Haruno glimpsed a hint of the possibility of bargaining.
"I'm not afraid of thunder, so you don't have to worry about me."
In a flash, he took off the mask called "obedience". Haruno hid his nervousness and watched Jolyne's reaction carefully, fearing that she would next turn into something he wouldn't recognize.
Fortunately, he made the right decision. Jolyne didn't become angry or continue to insist on sleeping with him. She just looked down and pursed her lips before disappearing into the doorway, dragging the covers with her.
Refusing to look at her disappointed back, Haruno closed the door. The large room had become empty again, Jolyne's disturbance seemingly just a small episode in his dream.
As he went back to bed to lie down, before he could taste the joy of the success of his experiment, his heart clenched uncomfortably for some reason, and he was no longer sleepy. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Jolyne's face on the verge of tears as she turned to leave.
Had her hand shook as she clutched the quilt? Was she the one actually scared?
Haruno pricked up his ears and heard an intermittent huffing and puffing next door.
He told himself that Jolyne's room was perfectly soundproof and that everything was just an illusion on his part. How could a six-year-old be scared and cry because the thunder was a little too loud? He had never cried before.
But an inexplicable uneasiness still entangled his heart, like a tight vine that bound him breathlessly.
Haruno lifted the bed covers and walked to the room next door. He slowly pushed open the door of Jolyne's bedroom and, through the narrow doorway, saw a ball of quilts on the bed that swelled and shook.
"BOOM!"
A thunderclap exploded, and this time it was not an illusion. He clearly heard a whimpering cry like that of a small beast come from the mass of quilts.
"Jolyne?"
He quickly ran to the bed and sat down before somewhat helplessly patting his hand on the comforter mass. The next second, Jolyne popped up from under the covers and tackled him on the bed.
The sudden closeness made Haruno's ears redden, and he subconsciously tried to push away, but the warmth and softness in his arms clung to him like a glutinous rice ball, denying him the opportunity to shake her off. He heard Jolyne's intermittent, sobbing words.
"Haruno, don't go! I'm scared... waaah..."
The girl's tears fell on the nape of his neck, burning him with shock. As Haruno froze and loosened his grip, Jolyne managed to arch further into his arms, and they finally clung to each other. Jolyne's strength was impressive, but her body couldn't stop shaking even more. Her voice was so desperate and pleading, as if she was going to die in agony the very next second if he did leave her behind.
It was a bit much, Haruno sighed inwardly. Even though he knew that coaxing her would make her fuss even more, his stomach sank heavily at how upset she was.
Well, it definitely was not because he couldn't handle her. He just didn't like it when people cried in front of him.
Haruno drew two pieces of paper to wipe Jolyne's tears, and instead of pushing her away from the hug, he gently patted her back and promised he would stay with her. After receiving Haruno's assurance, Jolyne then peeked her head out of the blanket to look at him.
The girl's face was flushed because she had spent too much time under the blanket, and her eyes were filled with crystals on the verge of falling, which was particularly endearing.
A little embarrassed by her teary-eyed stare, Haruno said in a stiff voice, "Go to sleep. I won't leave."
Jolyne smiled triumphantly. When Haruno's eyes wandered away, she quickly dropped a goodnight kiss on his cheek and hugged him comfortably. She rubbed her forehead against the crook of his neck and found a comfortable position to close her eyes. The next second, there was deep breathing, as if she had fallen asleep instantly.
As Haruno rubbed the drool off his cheek, his expression contained an indescribable awkwardness. He was consumed by the thought that his sister was such a strange and troublesome creature, failing to notice the tenderness that stretched between his brows.
He didn't know what Jolyne's fantasy of a brother was like. Maybe a person who could take care of her or a playmate who understood her.
But either way, Haruno didn't think that he qualified.
Rather than him taking care of her, he was the one being taken care of instead.
Jolyne would not eat apples because of the trouble of peeling them but would tirelessly prepare all sorts of handmade gifts for him, sometimes greeting cards, sometimes paintings, and other times clay figures that looked like him. The pattern changed three times a day, as if he was her "exclusive personal works storage box."
Although she loved to oversleep, looking klutzy in bed, and often lost things, she came over three times a day when he had a fever and asked if he took his medicine on time.
One time after school, Jolyne suggested going to a new ice cream store; she loved all kinds of chocolate-flavored desserts, with ice cream being no exception.
Along the way, Jolyne shared her invention of 18 ways to eat chocolate and gave a review of the common chocolate on the market. When she asked him what flavor he liked, he was so used to agreeing and concealing that he subconsciously blurted out some bullshit about also liking chocolate.
Well, although he did not hate it, he didn't particularly like it either. The flavor he preferred was...
"Pistachio!" Jolyne's voice suddenly came.
Haruno felt his heart "bang". He knew his face must be full of incredulity, but he still could not help but look at her in a daze. The girl, on the other hand, seemed to have become more certain, a pleased expression on her face at having guessed his mind.
Jolyne cleared her throat and proudly repeated herself like Sherlock Holmes who had deduced the beginning and end of the case after tracing the clues.
"Haruno, you like pistachio ice cream, don't you? I noticed you unconsciously looking at that bucket of pistachio-flavored ice cream."
Smiling with a mouthful of white teeth, she quickly used her pocket money to buy a double scoop of pistachio ice cream and shoved it into his hand.
The ice was cold but strangely hot as well, almost melting his heart.
Instead of accompanying her, he was the one being accompanied.
His withdrawn personality made him instinctively resist making friends. He chose to keep to himself in order to reduce the probability of getting involved in disputes. So even with a new identity and being in the widely-known "Kujo family", no one wanted to get close to him.
Of course, the exception was Jolyne, his sister, who always worried about him.
Seeming to decide that he was lonely without friends, every recess, she ran across two floors to get to his classroom door. Sometimes it was to ask some insignificant homework questions, other times it was to stuff him with snacks. She was like a little tail that always stuck behind him. He had already explained to the girl that he didn't need company, but Jolyne was unconcerned, saying she just liked to play with her brother.
This made him mistakenly think that Jolyne was being bullied by her classmates. How else could he explain why she would leave her adoring friends that always surrounded her in order to come to him, the brother that was not even close to her?
Of course, Haruno knew that no one dared to bully Jolyne Kujo because no one could beat her.
While other children went to play hide-and-seek and hopscotch in groups, Jolyne called him up alone and rushed to the nature park to catch stag beetles with a feeding box and a butterfly net.
The equipment for the expedition was personally provided by her doting Uncle Kakyoin, and her bug-catching skills were also taught by Uncle Polnareff. Haruno believed that Jolyne might even be able to handle the wild snakes in the park if it ever came to it.
When she returned with the prey, the eyes of the students around her would burn so bright that they almost glowed.
As expected, several children immediately begged Jolyne to bring them along next time, but Jolyne only shook her head apologetically.
"Sorry," she said coolly, "I only catch bugs with my brother."
Her pretty eyes shone with pride at having a brother, and she turned her head to throw him a wink, as if she cares only about him.
He couldn't resist responding to her warm smile.
Haruno believed that it was not difficult to accept the fact of going with the flow
slowly as long as he did not have any delusions about fate. But then, just before he sank and drowned, he saw the driftwood within his reach.
Jolyne Kujo squeezed in dominantly and forcefully into a world where he was alone—a world that had taken him a long time to get used to. This was certainly a bad thing. Lies and malice could not seriously hurt him but betrayal and abandonment could easily do so.
Her unexplained passion was so apprehensive that he took a passive role, afraid that he would be burned by this flame. While resisting the thirst inside, he could not suppress the anticipation rising up from within his heart.
When he began to unconsciously relax in front of her, revealing his soft flesh like that of a clam shell, it also meant that he simultaneously handed Jolyne a sharp knife, which she could use to slash his vital organs at any time.
This was a big gamble with no deadline, staking it all. There was no audience, and there were no chips to win, and even the game was won or lost by Jolyne alone. If there was only one thing that was certain, it was that he would never get off the gambling table. Because every day he stayed at the table was one more day he could possess the precious warmth she brought.
So as far as he was concerned, just being able to stay at the table was already a win. The only thing he had to worry about was Jolyne suddenly getting tired of playing brother and sister one day and taking everything he had put on the table.
Luckily, time proved that Jolyne's passion was not a whim. Single-mindedness was the most gentle force in the world; this was a lesson Jolyne taught him.
And it wasn't a bet from the beginning, it was just Jolyne always holding his hand wholeheartedly, telling him over and over again that he didn't have to be afraid of going back to a colder and lonely world.
Hence, Haruno knew that from then on, he couldn't refuse any more of that girl's pampering and capriciousness.
Mass was not proportional to volume.
This girl, as small as a violet and as lightly swaying as a flower petal, attracted him with a mass that far exceeded that of the earth.
Plop, plop.
He fell uncontrollably at her feet like Newton's apple. From the sky to the earth, his heart continuously made a dizzying swing.
He was no longer obsessed with exploring her strange fondness for him. Perhaps, as she had said, it was just as simple as her wanting a brother. Then there was no doubt that he would carefully integrate into that role.
And from then on, protecting her and loving her unconditionally became the sole purpose of his existence.
END.