Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mrs. Kujo originally brought up divorce as a threat in the midst of a heated argument, making the reasonable assumption that it was something her husband wouldn’t want. She soon found she was wrong. The ensuing divorce was swift and amiable and left the former Mrs. Kujo and her teenage daughter utterly confused.

Mr. Kujo, despite totally dipping on his family with no explanation, still wanted to stay in his daughter’s life and proposed a father daughter bonding trip to visit family in Morioh that summer. Said daughter was still understandably pissed off at said father and didn’t want to go. However, when she contemplated being trapped with him in Japanese suburbia for three weeks where she may be miserable, but also where her dad would have nowhere to run or hide, she realized it was the perfect opportunity to finally figure out why he left.

Three dots appeared next to Foo Fighter’s icon on Jolyne’s phone.

"You’re right. That was kind of a long story,” they replied.

Jolyne glanced around the airport gate. They were boarding soon. Jotaro was probably still stuck in the coffee shop line. She’d have to run and get him if he didn’t get back soon.

Jolyne typed out a reply. “So anyway, that’s why I’ll be offline for the next like fifteen hours.”

Foo Fighters reply this time was much faster. “Haha, okay. I hope everything works out.”

She glanced up to find her father suddenly looming over her. He handed her a drink wordlessly as she pretended she wasn’t almost startled out of her seat. He was deceptively quiet sometimes.

They boarded shortly after that.

Jotaro offered her the seat by the window and then started typing away at something for work. When an attendant asked him to stow his laptop for takeoff he just glared at her until she left. The plane rolled onto the runway, the engines began to roar and then tarmac blurred into trees and buildings growing smaller until the horizon was overtaken by clouds and endless blue. Jolyne put earbuds in to listen to music once things calmed down, but her eyes rarely left the window. She was surprised how much time she was able to pass just watching the landscape and letting her mind wander.

She thought back to the last time she’d tried to puzzle out this whole situation.

“Did he get with some other girl right away?” Hermes had asked, sitting next to her on the curb outside the convenience store. They always met there during Hermes' breaks. Jolyne had told her a story similar to the one she told Foo Fighters back when she was still deciding what to do.

“I don’t think he’s even dated anyone other than my mom and I really don’t think he’d cheat. I seriously don’t think he’s been seeing anyone. That’s what mom thinks but there’s just no trace of it. There’d be something!”

Hermes nodded, thinking over the problem. “Maybe he just wanted to focus on his work, not be tied down. Midlife crisis or something.”

“Why would he still be trying to spend time with me though? Why invite me on this dumb trip?” Jolyne kicked a small rock out into the street.

Hermes continued to think, then turned towards her suddenly. “Who named you?”

Jolyne straightened slightly. “My dad, why?”

“And that’s like Dolly Parton’s Jolene, right?”

“Yeah?”

Hermes squinted at the vending machine across the street, the gears in her head completing their revolutions. “Dude, maybe your dad’s gay.”

“What? My dad’s not gay.”

“Why not?”

”He’s…" Jolyne tried to convey with gestures what words couldn't describe. Her gestures failed to describe anything. "I don’t know, come on. You’ve met him. And he did marry my mom.”

“And divorced her. Liking Dolly Parton is gay, dude!”

“I like Dolly Parton.”

“Yeah but you’re named after one of her songs so it’s different.” 

Jolyne wasn’t totally sure how to respond to the strange line of inquiry, so she ended up just asking, “Do you like Dolly Parton?”

“Yeah of course.” She remembered being too scared to ask any kind of follow up after that. The conversation pretty much died out there.

She’d seen the effect the affair that brought her great uncle Josuke into the world had on the family, especially Grandma Holly. Doing that kind of damage again seemed like one of the last things her dad would want to do. A couple months had passed and her dad remained completely single with no evidence to the contrary. Even her mom was beginning to give up on the idea that there was another woman. They deserved a real explanation. Jolyne just wanted to be able give her mom some peace of mind.

It wasn’t that Jolyne resented that the divorce happened. She was actually kind of relieved and she figured her parents probably felt the same way. On some level everyone knew it was for the best. It was just the way it happened. It left too many questions in its wake.

Her dad was still working intently next to her with his eyes trained on the screen. She could hear his keyboard faintly clicking under the sound of her music. She thought he looked content like that—totally absorbed and distracted from everything else.

There was a part of her she recognized, but refused to acknowledge, that was doing this for his sake too. A part of her was relieved when he asked her to come on this trip, relieved that he wasn’t planning on deserting her completely this time, relieved that some part of him still cared. She suspected he really was pouring all his extra time into work all along. He wouldn’t lie about that, because her dad was a bad liar. That’s probably why he was using work to get away. He was hiding something else . 

Her gut was telling her that her dad had a secret, maybe even an old one, and she got the sense that it was hurting him, now more than ever. It didn’t stop her from being angry, but it did move her feet with an extra urgency she almost didn’t notice.

The flight ended as even long boring things eventually do. Disoriented and tired they dealt with the airport, the shuttle, and the rental car company until finally they were in sunny Morioh with a car and an hour or two until their hotel check in time. They drove through suburban streets with lines of homes painted in a range of pastels. She spotted several stylish victorian houses interspersed with the others. It was prettier than she thought it would be.

When they reached the small downtown area, Jotaro asked, "Owson?" Once she got him to explain that was a convenience store, she agreed. She didn’t know what time her body thought it was, but junk food did sound good. The two of them had made it the whole day without any kind of argument breaking out and she was starting to feel cautiously optimistic that they might actually be able to get along.

And then Jotaro threw an utter fit in front of Owson when they got there.

“Why do I have to go in for you?!” She threw her hands up in frustration, triggering the automatic doors behind them. She knew it didn’t matter that much, but it was a ridiculous request. They were both already there. Why not just go in together?

“Just do it okay! I’m your father.”

“Don’t play that card now.”

But the man looked borderline desperate so she sighed and made the horrifying trek into the mysteriously un-enterable convenience store alone. If he wasn’t watching she might as well buy some extra snacks with his money.

The brightly colored aisles and packaged foods she found inside weren’t too different from the ones at home. It really was just some convenience store. What was so scary about this place anyway? She grabbed Jotaro’s awful preferred brand of slim-jim-whatever, which they somehow also sold in Japan, and a person down the aisle actually laughed. 

She cracked up a little herself. “It’s not for me, okay?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh aloud. I knew this guy, it was that and cigarettes, all he ever bought, absolutely terrible.”

“Gross!”

The stranger laughed. “Yeah.”

Normally she’d be kind of uneasy about some random person talking to her in a convenience store, but for one, making fun of gross old man jerky was fair game and also the guy gave off an okay energy. He was tall and wearing a comfortable looking trench coat despite the warm weather. He looked old enough that if he had a kid she wouldn’t be surprised, but she wasn’t very good at gauging adults' ages. He didn’t look like the type to have a kid, though. He had a cool like… probably-some-kind-of-artist vibe. It honestly made her feel better about being in nowheresville Japan. If there were weird creative types who could make fun of her dad without even meeting him, she figured she’d be alright.

Jolyne moved on to the important part, the snacks she wanted and then a drink. Iced tea… but which iced tea?

“Jotaro?”

She adjusted the pile of snacks in her arms and peered around the edge of the aisle behind her. 

The guy from before was stopped in the doorway, automatic doors frozen open, and past him she watched her father get into the driver's seat of their rental car and start it.

“Dad, what the hell?!” she shouted after him, but the son of an angel actually drove away. 

The man in the doorway swiveled around and stared at her. She stared at him. All she could think to say was, “Do we know the same slim jim guy?” The man looked a little shell shocked, but he nodded. The sunlight caught a cherry-shaped pin on his lapel.

“Um, I’m Jolyne.” She held out her hand, dropping a bag of something she had thought seemed funyun-like and trying to pretend it didn’t happen.

He seemed to respect the fact that it didn’t happen and shook her hand, “Kakyoin,” he said. She thought he almost looked a little sad when he said, “Nice to meet you.” Maybe he just felt bad about her dad up and abandoning her, but it’s not like it was the first time it happened. “Do you, um…”

“I have all his money. He’ll come back eventually.”

She kind of hadn’t registered her dad’s unexplained disappearance, because again, common occurrence, but as she picked up the bag of maybe-Japanese-funyuns off the ground she realized this one was especially weird. His frankly embarrassing exit combined with his refusal to enter the convenience store before seemed to suggest that he really did not want to interact with this man.

When she faced him once more she still didn’t see any reason to be off-put by him, but she wondered if she should steer clear as well. He seemed visibly shaken, enough that she didn’t want to ask him about whatever just happened. So, not knowing what else to do, she said she was going to grab a drink, check out and call her dad.

He nodded. As she walked away he remained there, frowning in thought.

When she checked out, the guy was exiting the store. And you know what? Screw this. Somebody else randomly abandoned by her dad was probably a friend. Once she had all her stuff together, she ran after him. “Hey! Kakyoin!”

He stopped and turned around with a bit of apprehension when she caught up to him on the sidewalk. “I, um, I just want to apologize on my dad’s behalf for, well, whatever the hell that was. That was really rude. My dad’s not so good with—well I guess if you know him you’d already know…” She paused to catch her breath, putting her hands on her knees and then looking back up at him. “How do you know my dad?”

“We were friends in high school. I guess he didn’t want to catch up.” He looked more amused by it now. There wasn’t a lot that could scare her dad, so it was kind of worth being proud of. “Is it just… you two here?”

“Yeah, we’re visiting for a few weeks.”

“Oh, you’re from…?”

“Florida, uh, in the States. It’s one of them.” She forgot sometimes that people in foreign countries didn’t necessarily know what the hell specific place in America you were talking about, because the rest of the world didn’t actually revolve around America like so many Americans would have you believe.

“Yes, Florida’s one of the ones I know. It’s the US’ largest peninsula.”

“Uh, cool, yeah. It’s surrounded by water, so my dad loves it.” 

He laughed. “Did he end up becoming a marine biologist?”

“How’d you know?”

“No shit! He always wanted to do that.” He paused. “Is your… mom… back home?”

She nodded. She didn’t really want to get into the recent divorce and awkward father daughter bonding trip situation. He nodded back at her. It was kind of weird, but didn’t go on long enough to be actually weird. “Thanks,” he said. “I do appreciate hearing how your father’s doing. I don’t blame him for avoiding me… like that,” He gave her a kind, if slightly melancholy smile. “I think I understand what happened, so don’t worry about it too much.”

I think I understand what happened. 

Nobody understands why her dad leaves. Nobody in her neighborhood, not her, not her mom, they never get it. They just wonder at his empty desk chair. But looking in this guy’s surprisingly green eyes, she knew, he really did understand. In the great mystery of Jotaro-divorcee-Kujo this was her first lead.

And she couldn’t let it get away. “Hey, I don’t know if this is weird, but should I get your number or something in case my dad does regret literally running away from you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to…”

“What’s the harm in it?”

He gave her a polite, if slightly rehearsed smile. “Alright, sure.”

And Jolyne’s investigation was in motion.

Telling your ex’s weirdly cool daughter about peninsulas—Kakyoin supposed it could’ve been worse. He could’ve been Jotaro. Witnessing a social failure that spectacular made him feel a lot better about the whole thing and frankly every awkward situation he’d ever been in, but it was probably best he didn’t dwell on it. He picked up his pace. That whole fiasco definitely made him later than he’d intended, not that it really mattered.

He was on his way to help Rohan with the color issue the man refused to admit he was falling behind on. Rohan had made it his whole career so far without hiring assistants or receiving help from anyone, something he made sure to tell Kakyoin every time he arrived. Kakyoin was always supposedly working under threat of having whatever embarrassing secrets Rohan’s stalker-ish tendencies led him to over the years revealed, but Rohan didn’t call for his help that often and Kakyoin was always at least paid his weight in gossip before he left.

If Rohan needed to pretend a man almost ten years older than him was his lackey, so be it, but the way Kakyoin saw it they were friends. And Kakyoin did favors like this for friends, especially when they gave him an excuse to put off work and draw for a few hours.

He arrived and was surprised to find he was right on time. The door was unlocked and no one greeted him when he entered, so he went upstairs to Rohan’s studio. “Where’s your little fan—Koichi?” 

“He’s busy with school. He’s very responsible, you know. I’m training him to be your replacement.” Rohan was at work at his desk. Kakyoin dropped off the canned coffee Rohan requested and he barely glanced at it. Kakyoin wondered if Rohan had slept.

“My replacement?”

“For when you die.”

“What if you die before me?”

“Impossible. I’m going to live forever—once I figure out how.”

Kakyoin smiled as he got set up to work. Most of the supplies were already laid out for him on the neighboring desk next to a small stack of pages with extensive notes about color choices. Make it look like dusk, an orange sunset, leaning more towards pink than yellow… It might’ve taken less time to paint than write all this. He was starting to wonder if Rohan just didn’t like coloring.

“Did you hear Josuke’s nephew is going to be in town?” Rohan asked.

“Who?”

“He’s his nephew, but he’s like twice his age. Tall, devastatingly attractive—I’m blanking on his name.”

“No, I meant who’s Josuke?” He began mixing colors on the pallet.

“You don’t know him? I feel like everybody here knows him. I think he’s going back to med school soon. Good riddance. Personally I can’t stand him.”

“He sounds nice.”

Rohan made a dissatisfied sound over the scratching of pen nib on paper. Kakyoin let a drop of pink fall into the pool of orange on the sketch’s skyline.

“The nephew’s daughter is here too, came all the way from Florida. Imagine living in Florida.”

“Oh. I know who you’re talking about.” He tried to keep his tone neutral. He didn’t really want to give Rohan more blackmail material. “I ran into… well, his daughter. She’s surprisingly cool. You’d probably want to turn her into a manga character.”

Rohan twisted around in his chair. Kakyoin glanced over on instinct and realized he was being studied. Rohan had a way of looking at people that sort of made his skin crawl. Kakyoin was used to keeping weird company, but even he had to admit the guy was kind of creepy. The dark circles currently under his eyes weren’t helping either.

“Why did you hesitate?” Rohan asked.

Kakyoin turned back to his work and sighed. The whole thing was pretty good gossip. “Technically I ran into Jotaro, but he ran away shortly after.”

“From you?”

“From me.”

“So then you were stuck making awkward small talk with his daughter?”

“Mhmm.”

“Why would he run away from you?”

Kakyoin just shrugged. Rohan’s eyebrow twitched.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said. It was a threat. Kakyoin nodded.

“You probably will.”

They worked for a while longer in silence. Then Kakyoin had to leave to do his actual job. The nice thing about being a programmer was he got to keep his own schedule, which meant he could put off work to do things like this. Though he did wonder sometimes what it might be like if he had a job he didn’t want to put off.

It was late afternoon when he stepped off Rohan’s porch. He tried to think over how he was going to structure his next batch of code when he got home, but his mind kept snapping back to the earlier events of the day. Did this mean he was going to hear from Jotaro again? How would that go? How the hell did Jotaro end up with a wife and kid? And would he have to keep telling that wife and kid he and Jotaro were just really good friends in high school? 

He’d spent the last fifteen years getting pretty good at not thinking about Jotaro. He didn’t really want to open that box of memories back up again. It was one of those messy things in life he was never going to get closure for. He’d accepted it long ago. He was never going to see Jotaro Kujo again.

But now what?

Jolyne leaned against the store’s front window and put her phone to her ear. “Hey. He’s gone now, you can come back.”

The silence on the other end of the line dragged on just long enough to be uncomfortable. “Sorry,” Jotaro said. Shortly after, her father pulled up in front of the convenience store, his hat mostly obscuring his face in the driver's side window. She climbed into the passenger seat, large snack bag and drink in toe.

They both remained silent. He seemed to want to pretend it didn’t happen and Jolyne, at least for now, decided to follow suit. She set his wallet down on the center console and watched Morioh blur by out the window as her father idly flicked through stations on the car radio.

They pulled up to the hotel to find a Japanese twenty-something with meticulously crafted hair waiting for them and waving exuberantly. A couple others stood next to him, more subdued but clearly happy to see them.

“Great Uncle Josuke!” Jolyne swung the door open before the car was even stopped and stumbled into a big hug.

Josuke beamed. “Hey good to see you! You’re a full on teenager now!” Disentangling himself from her arms, he stepped back and motioned to his friends. “This is Okuyasu and this is Koichi.”

Jolyne smiled. “Nice to meet you guys.”

“Good to see you Mr. Jotaro,” the shorter one, Koichi, piped up. Her father had emerged from the car and was walking over. 

“Hey, it's my favorite nephew! How you holding up?” Josuke paused to take in whatever Jotaro was wearing on his legs—Jolyne had stopped questioning it at this point. “Nice getup!”

Jotaro smiled at the three lined up to greet them. “Good to see you Koichi.” Josuke and Okuyasu snickered as Jotaro walked past them and into the hotel.

“Jolyne, you need help with your bags?” Josuke asked.

They walked to the car together and Josuke immediately started peppering her with questions about starting high school, Florida, her favorite places to shop, what music she liked. Despite all the questions she still felt like she was doing less talking. “I’ve had to cut back on shopping to pay for school, but it sucks. Okuyasu and Koichi banned me from the mall entirely. I miss it so much.” Josuke said. “I miss high school. I was so carefree!” She laughed and they got talking about their friends, barely paying attention to the fact that they hadn’t gotten any further than opening the trunk.

Josuke’s expression slipped briefly into a more serious one. “How’s your dad doing?” 

She gave the question some thought before answering. “I think he’s okay. It’s hard to tell.” Josuke nodded. “Something kind of weird happened earlier, so if he seems off it’s probably that. He’s been kind of impossible to read on the whole divorce thing.”

“Something weird happened? What do you mean?” Just then Koichi appeared to offer another pair of hands for the luggage. He glanced between them, grabbed one of Jolyne’s bags and then began walking towards the hotel.

Feeling like they’d been caught slacking off, Jolyne and Josuke both grabbed bags and followed.

Once they got into the elevator Josuke turned to her. “So did somebody give you trouble in town? Was it Rohan?”

“We ran into somebody named Kakyoin.”

“Huh, I think he hangs around Rohan sometimes. I’ve never met him. Koichi has.” She’d have to talk to Koichi later. “He must be bad news too, especially if your dad—”

The elevator doors opened. Jotaro faced them waiting for a down elevator. They looked back sheepishly for a beat, then sped their luggage into the hotel room.

Josuke and his gang left shortly after all the luggage was squared away, saying they’d meet up again soon once Jolyne and Jotaro got a chance to rest and settle in. Josuke had visited them in Florida once years ago when she was only in elementary school. Even then she remembered him as warm and friendly. Knowing they were part of the same family still made her heart swell. She was starting to see what made her dad so partial to this place and its people… well, most of its people.

Jolyne crashed on the hotel couch and listened to Jotaro begin to fuss with his unpacking in the bedroom. Their room was nice. There was a TV, a view of the ocean, a small kitchen and a table by the window. It would be comfortable for the next few weeks.

She pulled out her phone and sent her mom a text to let her know they were all checked in. She considered texting Hermes something similar, but couldn’t quite put together the words. Anasui would probably be convinced she died on the plane if she didn’t text… but he’d probably somehow construe it as flirting if she did.

Was that a bad thing? It should feel good that a guy liked her right? They could probably even go out if she wanted. She’d been so committed to playing hard to get that she was starting to wonder if she actually wanted to be impossible to get. It made her feel sort of cold and dead inside, the way his affection hit her and just stopped. What was her problem, anyway?

Jolyne opened up a chat with Foo Fighters instead. She didn’t know who “Foo Fighters” really was—assuming Foo Fighters wasn’t their real name, which seemed like a fair assumption. The two of them had never actually met in person. However, despite only existing in her life virtually, Foo Fighters had integrated into Jolyne’s friend group surprisingly well. 

She sent a simple, “I’m in Japan!”

Their reply was almost immediate. “Hey, nice! Your plane didn’t crash.” It was followed by another message. “Though you would’ve been more likely to crash on the car ride to the airport since cars are way more dangerous than planes.” And another. “Do you miss Anasui yet? He told me to remind you how great he is indirectly and also figure out if you miss him.”

“He’s still trying to get you to play wingman?” 

“I have to. He’s blackmailing me.”

Jolyne squinted at her phone. “With what??”

“It wouldn’t be blackmail if I could tell you.”

“Should I be worried...?”

“It’s actually not a big deal. It’ll just make me look bad, which is inconvenient because I’m completely trustworthy!”

Jolyne felt like it was probably just something petty. “Okay, well do what you need to I guess. I trust you of course.” She leaned back and stared at the hotel ceiling, then sent another message. “Do you think I should miss Anasui?”

“You’ve been gone for a day so probably not.” The message was followed by several in quick succession. “Also he sexually harasses you. He’s trash. You shouldn’t miss him.”

Jolyne stifled a laugh. “Sometimes I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

“I don’t think you should overthink it. That’s not usually a part of being true to yourself is it?”

Jolyne smiled, replying “No, it’s probably not.” 

She could hear frustration building in her dad’s movements. When she glanced over she watched him fold the same shirt three times. Finally he just set it down and asked, “You want to go see the ocean?” She nodded.

They got in the car and drove out to a beach where he said there were never any tourists. When she saw the thing she realized it was probably because the “beach” was mostly just rocks. The sun was beginning to set and filter orange into the light. With nobody around the only sounds were waves and seagulls. Scrambling around looking at barnacles and tide pools and watching the ocean was actually pretty nice.

She found a spot on the rocks that she could decently recline on and pulled out a book as Jotaro continued to poke around the rocks. They’d been doing this since before she could remember. The beach was a place where they could always seem to coexist in peace. She heard him stop to look at something nearby and she put her book down on her chest, squinting through the dying light to look at him. “Are you alright dad?”

He looked back at her. “Right now or… in general?”

She honestly wasn’t sure which she meant. “I guess I mean about what happened earlier.”

He paused, staring at the rocks in thought. “High school wasn’t easy for me. Seeing people from that time… is hard. I didn’t think I would ever see that person again.” He looked out at the ocean and then back at her. “I hope you have a better time being a teenager than I did.”

She paused, took in the words. “Would you want to talk to that person again if you got another chance? You could apologize.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It was really rude.”

She laughed and he gave her a dissatisfied look, which didn’t help her stop laughing.

He sighed. “It’s too late now.”

“I have his number.”

That surprised him. His eyes widened, just slightly. “You talked to him?”

“A bit. He’s nice, didn’t seem mad at you or anything. He knew where Florida was.”

It was starting to actually get dark. Jolyne got up and they began walking back towards the car.

“Yeah, he knows everything.”

“What?”

Jotaro paused contemplatively. “Well, at least I thought he did when we were teenagers. Seriously, ask him a question. He’ll know the answer.”

“No one knows everything, that’s ridiculous.”

“He does.” She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. The man had a PhD. He couldn’t seriously think that some guy he knew in high school was omniscient, but she stopped pressing it. 

“So do you want to call him?”

“No.” He paused. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to call and set up a playdate?” He looked at her like he was actually considering it. “I’m not doing that! It was a joke!”

“I’ll apologize.” He finally said. “I will.”

Jolyne watched the last dying embers of the sunset out the car window as they drove. The day's memories were still swirling around in her mind, now an amorphous blob her brain had grown too tired to order properly. There was Josuke’s look of compassionate worry, the goodbye kiss from her mom that morning a world away, her dad busy with his laptop, his unpacking and looking at the sea, and Kakyoin’s eyes, with that layer of understanding she couldn’t make sense of, but that felt like the key to everything. She’d learned more in a day than she knew what to do with right now, but she had three weeks to make it all come together. She could do that, right?

She didn’t notice herself falling asleep until the car was stopped and a tentative hand was shaking her awake. She opened her eyes to meet her dad’s, something she realized didn’t actually happen very often. He looked… nervous. She didn’t expect that.

Then the moment was over. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

Chapter Text

It had been a while since Kakyoin last rode the bus. He could walk to most places he needed to in Morioh, but the only good art store was a couple towns over and he had some extra time today.

Kakyoin only realized after he took a seat that he forgot a book, so he was stuck with nothing to do but watch the world go by outside.

Maybe it was because his mind had nothing better to busy itself with or maybe the rare times he was driven around just reminded him of his teens. It probably had the most to do with a recent convenience store encounter, but he was trying not to think about that. Either way, what rose up in his boredom was a voice from the past.

“I like being in vehicles,” a teenage Jotaro said. “So I don’t really need entertainment. I just look out the window.”

A teenage Kakyoin narrowed his eyes.

“What?” Jotaro asked, undeterred.

“That’s just a weird fucking thing to say. Who enjoys being in vehicles?”

“I do. Especially boats or planes.”

“That’s weird. You’re weird. Read a book or sleep like the rest of us.”

“No.”

Kakyoin sighed, tentatively leaning his head on Jotaro’s shoulder to look out the window with him. Jotaro stiffened slightly, but no one else was paying attention and soon his shoulder began to relax.

“What do you see out there?” Kakyoin asked.

Kakyoin remembered descriptions of trees, birds, weird signs and roadside attractions, trucks with strange cargo and under it all a profound feeling of not-loneliness welling up in his teenage heart.

Kakyoin's box of memories had fallen open.

There were a lot of things about Joseph Joestar’s Road Trip from Hell that he would be eternally grateful for. He met Polnareff and Avdol. He was able to learn that even if he didn’t need friends, he wanted them and they were worth making. He learned courage.

But he preferred to look at those things abstractly, without the messy emotional details. 

The following morning Jolyne and Jotaro went to a cafe to meet up with everyone again. Jolyne had thought their only family in Morioh was Josuke, but it seemed like that wasn’t quite right. Josuke’s friends were clearly also part of the deal. Jotaro was asking Okuyasu questions about his job and listening intently. Then somehow he ended up answering Okuyasu’s questions about sharks. Koichi arrived a bit later with a woman he introduced as his girlfriend Yukako—who was gorgeous. Jolyne was momentarily stunned. They were an unexpected, but cute pair.

Okuyasu, Josuke and Jotaro were still pretty engaged in their conversation. Josuke was jabbing Okuyasu with his elbow for some reason now. She wondered momentarily if they were a couple. The idea made her feel… strange, and she decided not to ask about it.

Seeing an opening while her dad was distracted, she turned to Koichi. “Hey, do you know someone named Kakyoin?”

Koichi’s face lit up. “Oh, yes! He’s Rohan-sensei’s other assistant. I haven’t talked to him much, but he’s very nice and great at drawing. He’s the only person I know that’s allowed to touch Rohan-sensei’s manuscripts.” That lined up with Jolyne’s impression of him pretty well.

“Rohan’s a creep, but Kakyoin’s fun. We’ve only talked a couple of times, but I think we really hit it off,” Yukako chimed in, smiling. Jolyne nodded. She was hoping to learn something new about Kakyoin, but that all sounded disappointingly normal.

“Oh, Rohan-sensei,” Koichi said.

Jolyne looked up from her pastry to see a man with a camera, portfolio case and an… outfit. She actually thought it was cool, but it didn’t necessarily inspire confidence that this would be a normal interaction.

“Who invited Rohan?” Josuke sounded openly displeased.

“No one.” The man—Rohan—said. “I come here every week to tell scary stories from my travels until it convinces my editor to quit.”

“I thought you liked your new editor,” Koichi said. 

“She made me take a hike. I had to buy hiking clothes,” Rohan said, as if that answered anything—well actually it kind of did. “But she seems to actually like my stories so she’ll probably stick around. She’s better than the last guy, at least.” Rohan scanned the table and suddenly zeroed in on Jolyne. He looked at her like she suspected one of those birds that kill people—a cassowary—would look at a person. It was cold, calculating and alien. She squared her shoulders and stared back.

“You’re Jolyne,” he said. She cut a bite off her pastry without looking down. Rohan paused, something seemingly just occurring to him. “Is that after Dolly Parton’s Jolene?”

“I guess,” she said. Why did people keep asking her that these days?

He squinted at her.

She arched an eyebrow, raising the bite of pastry to her mouth.

Yukako punched Rohan in the arm. “Stop being weird. Go sit in the corner like you usually do and stop bothering us.”

“Why should I listen to you?” He turned towards her. “Who invited you anyway? You barely know Jotaro.”

She smiled, grabbing Koichi’s arm. “This is a family gathering and Koichi and I are family.” She picked up Rohan’s hand gingerly and looked at him with intensity, her smile still unchanged. “And did you know it’s actually very easy to break a human pinky? I heard it’s about the same as breaking a carrot. I assume your manuscript would be hard to finish on time with a broken pinky… or do you want to suggest again that I don’t deserve a spot at this table here with Koichi?”

“Yukako, let him go.” Koichi said it with little urgency, as if this kind of thing happened any day. She dropped Rohan’s hand and Rohan rolled his eyes and walked to the corner table.

Alright. So these people were not normal. If Kakyoin got along with these people he was probably actually terrifying. Maybe her dad did have reason to be scared.

Jotaro glanced in Jolyne’s direction. “Oh, did I miss Rohan?”

“You missed a lot,” she said.

“Josuke said Rohan’s mostly harmless, even if he talks big.” Frankly she was more worried about Yukako, but it seemed like she was at least on their side.

The group split up after breakfast, though tentative plans were made to meet up at Okuyasu’s house for tea that afternoon.

Jolyne and Jotaro walked back to the rental alone. “Dad, what do you think about inviting Kakyoin over for dinner?”

Jotaro paused to consider it. “You’d want to come too, right? You two got along?”

Jolyne hadn’t expected to be invited, but it was even better for her investigation. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Alright,” Jotaro said, opening the car door. “Let’s do that.” He seemed more confident than yesterday. 

Jolyne got into the car. “So you’ll call him?”

That seemed to put a damper on Jotaro’s mood.

Kakyoin was in the process of convincing himself he needed a pretty watercolor pallet that he definitely did not need when his phone began to ring. Was it his monthly cold call from Polnareff? He didn’t recognize the number. 

“Hello? This is Kakyoin.” There was no immediate response, but he could hear enough background noise that it seemed like there was a person on the other end. But who would call and then not say anything? Oh, of course. “Jotaro?”

“Hi Kakyoin.” There was a pause. “Wait, how’d you know it was me?”

“Don’t worry about it. Did you get my number from Jolyne?”

“Yeah. Look, I know we didn’t exactly get a… chance to catch up.”

“…No, we didn’t,” Kakyoin said, using every fiber of his being to purge the sarcasm from his voice. 

“So Jolyne was thinking we could have you over for dinner, since you two seemed to hit it off okay, and then the two of us would also have a chance to talk.” There was another pause. “You know, to make up for yesterday.” 

Jolyne’s presence also meant the two of them couldn’t get into any of the touchier subjects between them. There was also no risk of the invitation sounding like a date. It was strategic, and probably not just Jolyne’s idea. “That sounds nice,” Kakyoin said. They would only be able to reminisce abstractly, keeping that box of memories neatly closed. “I usually work in the evening. The only night I have off this week is, well… tonight. That’s too short notice, isn’t it?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line again. “No, I think that’s fine. I’ll let Jolyne know.”

The line was dead before Kakyoin had to think of anything polite to say. He always appreciated Jotaro’s disregard for social niceties.

Josuke stopped by Okuyasu’s house about a half hour before Jolyne and Jotaro were supposed to arrive for tea. Knocking on the old wooden door was practically muscle memory. Okuyasu’s house was looking much nicer these days. He’d done a lot to fix it up over the past couple years using the money from his job at Tonio’s. 

“Come in! You don’t have to knock, dude.”

He opened the door. “What if you were changing or something?”

Okuyasu was walking down the stairs. “In the living room?”

Josuke shrugged. “I’m just being polite.”

Okuyasu’s cat appeared and made circles around Josuke’s ankles like usual. Josuke picked it up and the little guy immediately started batting at his face.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Okuyasu said and Josuke wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or the cat. It was probably both.

Being over here was so easy. He had a good half the summer left, but he was already dreading having to leave for school again… having to leave Okuyasu. Next year he was going to graduate too and then what? Would he still come back here? Would things still be like this? Was there any guarantee they wouldn’t grow apart as they got older?

There could be. If he just told Okuyasu how he felt, and if Okuyasu felt the same way, one day things might be like this all the time. But there was also a chance doing just that would split them apart forever. 

The cat had given up trying to kill Josuke and was simply dangling from his hands, staring back at him with a blank expression.

“Dude,” Okuyasu said. “Put the cat down.”

He did. “Sorry, I completely spaced out.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” He followed Okuyasu into the kitchen. As Okuyasu began washing dishes, Josuke started drying them, once again, muscle memory.

“It’s just… growing up I guess. We’re becoming adults. It’s weird.”

Okuyasu handed him a cup. Josuke dried it and put it in the cabinet with the others. “Really? I think it’s kind of nice. We finally get control over our lives. We can do whatever we want!”

Of course Okuyasu would say that. He was always so positive. But also, Josuke liked being a kid and he knew that wasn’t so great for Okuyasu. Finally getting more independence was probably huge for him. Okuyasu also didn’t share Josuke’s lofty aspirations or expectations about life and so was much better at appreciating what he had. They balanced each other out in that way.

“Hey, I know you don’t know Jolyne that well, but I want to try and talk to Jotaro alone while they’re over. Do you think you could hang out with her for a bit?”

“You’re worried about him too?”

“Yeah, of course! I was so surprised to hear about the divorce. It sounded really sudden. I don’t know if he’ll talk to me, but if he needs to I want to give him the chance.”

Okuyasu nodded, putting on a pot of tea. “I think that’s a good idea. You’re good at talking to people, so I’m sure it’ll make him feel better.”

Josuke smiled at the compliment. Because the dishes were dry and the tea was more of a one person job, he found himself pacing around the kitchen. “I’m actually kind of nervous.”

“Go sit down, Josuke.” A few minutes later, once Josuke was sitting and a little calmer, Okuyasu asked, “How is Jolyne doing with everything?” 

“I think she’s okay. I talked to her some yesterday.”

Then, as if on queue, there was a knock at the door. 

Okuyasu set out the tea and Josuke showed Jolyne and Jotaro inside. Okuyasu began showing them around the house. When Josuke and Jotaro both fell behind the group for a moment, he seized the opportunity and asked if Jotaro wanted to catch up a little, just the two of them.

That seemed to work. Okuyasu kept walking with Jolyne and Jotaro followed him out onto the back porch.

Josuke reminded himself that it wasn’t like he had to put on airs, even if his need to impress Jotaro was kind of ever present. This was supposed to be a heart to heart. They were family. And for some reason Josuke was the family Jotaro decided to turn to in all this, so he wanted to offer his support. “How are you, really?” Josuke asked.

“I’m… okay.” Jotaro said, and it sounded like he actually meant it.

“You sound surprised.” Josuke pulled up a couple lawn chairs and sat in one of them, trying not to fidget.

Jotaro took the other chair. “I am. Once you’ve failed at being married completely, you don’t have to keep failing at being married. That part is a relief.” Jotaro’s voice was quieter than usual. Josuke sort of wanted to give him a pat on the back, but he wasn’t sure if he should.

“Well, I hope now things are better. I’m sorry, though."

He was hesitant to ask about the divorce itself. He wasn’t even sure what he would ask. He didn’t have much of the story except that despite being sudden, it sounded somewhat mutual and not too messy. “Oh yeah, Jolyne mentioned you had some kind of run in with someone yesterday?”

Jotaro let out a pained exhale.

Josuke couldn’t help but laugh a little at the display. For Jotaro it was a lot. “That bad, huh?”

“His name’s Kakyoin. We had this falling out years ago that was stupid and dramatic and completely my fault. I had no idea he lived here.”

Josuke took in the visible distress on Jotaro's face. It was subtle, but still a readable emotion. What a sight. “What… happened?”

Jotaro sighed and leaned back in his chair. “He wanted to go get this fancy computer degree in Europe with Polnareff because it was this great opportunity and I got mad about it even though he was barely out of the hospital—it was a whole thing. We never talked again and I lost touch with everyone else and ended up going to school in the States.”

“Sounds messy,” Josuke said, though he felt like he was missing some key details. What Jotaro was describing sounded kind of like a breakup, but there was no way that was right.

“And now he’s facing my divorced ass over fifteen years later and I’ve got no idea what to say to him.” Jotaro was looking hard at the floor. “I just feel like I’m letting everyone down.” Josuke suspected they were circling back to the divorce.

“Hey, you’ll get back on your feet. I think coming here and being around people that care about you was the right call.” He gave Jotaro a pat on the shoulder. “And if you really feel like you screwed up with that Kakyoin guy, maybe just say you’re sorry?”

“Yeah, that’s what Jolyne said too, but then what?”

“...How’ve you been?” Josuke wasn’t sure that answer was serious enough for the conversation, which he still didn’t completely understand, but Jotaro actually smiled a little.

“I guess that would work,” he said. He turned to Josuke. “How are you? How’s Okuyasu?”

Jolyne enjoyed looking around Okuyasu’s house. The old furniture reminded her of all the weird antiques in Emporio’s room back in Florida. Okuyasu seemed to have gotten pretty good at refurbishing things and that was interesting to hear about. It made her excited to reach an age where she had a house of her own to furnish and fix up. Okuyasu sounded so grown up.

When it seemed like they’d seen everything and Jolyne had absorbed all the information she could about varnishing kitchen cabinets and reupholstering chairs, they sat down around the coffee table—recently fitted with new glass—to do what they came here to do: have tea and talk about their lives.

Okuyasu was curious about her dad, and asked more detailed questions than Josuke had. Something about Okuyasu’s easygoing attitude and seemingly endless ability to listen compelled Jolyne to just start telling him everything and before she knew it the whole story was tumbling out. 

“I think things have been tough for him for a while. He started throwing himself into work and was gone all the time.”

“And that makes you think he’s been stressed out over something.” Okuyasu tested his teacup to see if it was still too hot to drink.

“Yeah.” She’d relayed her investigation’s early findings, though she hadn’t gotten to the stuff with Kakyoin yet.

“That makes sense.” He looked up at her. “What about you? How are you doing with all this? It sounds like you and your dad were kind of on the outs and now you’re in a place you’ve never been with a bunch of his people you barely know and you don’t even really know why he brought you here, right?”

Jolyne stared at him for a moment. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way.” Why hadn’t she? It sounded pretty stressful when he put it like that.

Okuyasu lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. “Maybe you’re doing that thing your dad does, with this investigation or whatever. You’ve been throwing yourself into that so you don’t have to worry about everything that’s going on.”

Jolyne picked up her own cup. It didn’t have a handle. She supposed you didn’t need one if you were actually patient enough to let the tea cool down properly. Her wobbly little reflection stared back at her from inside. 

Okuyasu interjected, “Or not. That’s dumb, probably.”

“No, I think you’re right. I just hadn’t realized.” She hadn’t thought much about how she was doing outside of her mission or what she might want out of any of this. Even the idea that there was some convenient key out there to decoding her broken family started to look a little silly when she gave it another once over. She blew on her tea, causing her reflection to split apart, and steam to curl away from her face. “You’re really perceptive.” She looked back up at Okuyasu. “What do you think is going on with my dad?”

“I don’t know about that.” Okuyasu blushed and picked at his cheek. “This is kind of just from my experience, but I think your dad’s just lonely. I think if there’s anything he’s scared of… or anything he’s trying to get away from, it’s not any of you, it’s himself. But Josuke says I always see the best in people, even when I probably shouldn’t.”

“Um,” Jolyne felt her grip on her cup tightening, and she knew her face was turning red. “Are you guys, you and Josuke, like… together?”

Okuyasu’s eyes widened a little at the question and he started talking a little faster than he had been. “Well, we’ve been best friends since like forever. I know Josuke doesn’t care if someone’s a girl or a guy or whatever, but he could have anybody he wanted. He’d never go for someone like me.” Okuyasu’s gaze fell back down to his teacup as he finished talking.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jolyne said. She didn’t know Josuke that well yet, but he seemed anything but superficial. Suddenly, Jolyne found herself asking another question. “How did you know you, um—“

Okuyasu startled, cutting her off. “Oh I didn’t mean I—“ Their wide embarrassed eyes met each others. Okuyasu sighed and scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. I guess it was always there, I just noticed it at a point. Then it all seemed obvious.” He paused, meeting her eyes again. “Don’t tell him, okay?”

Jolyne nodded. Why did she ask that? “Sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“It’s okay,” he said. “I get it,” and he smiled.

Jolyne wasn’t sure she got it, but she felt reassured all the same.

Jotaro and Josuke returned shortly after that, and after exchanging some small talk as a group, Jolyne and Jotaro departed. When they got back to the hotel, Jolyne opened her phone to find a notification from Weather in the group chat. “How’s Japan, Jolyne?”

She dropped down onto the couch and typed out a reply as her dad started rooting around in the kitchen. It wouldn't be that long until they had to have dinner ready for Kakyoin. “It’s good! Morioh’s actually a really nice town, and my great uncle and his friends are pretty cool. I think I met some famous mangaka this morning?”

Foo Fighters responded, “How old is your great uncle?!”

“Oh isn’t this the great uncle that’s younger than your dad?” Hermes replied.

“Yeah, he’s in his twenties,” Jolyne wrote. “My dad’s side of the family is a mess.”

“What are you guys up to now?” Hermes asked.

“Preparing for a dinner party with my dad’s friend from high school.”

Hermes’ icon began typing. “Your dad has people from high school he keeps in touch with?”

“He doesn’t. So this could be really awkward.”

Hermes replied with a simple “Oh..”

“Hey, maybe you’ll learn dark secrets from his past!” Foo Fighters said.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Jolyne wrote.

“You’re hoping for that?” Weather’s asked.

Jolyne paused her typing. Something was missing here. “Where’s Anasui?”

Weather responded. “He’s playing hard to get. I think he’s mad you texted FF and not him when you got in.”

“He’s waiting for me to text him?” Jolyne asked.

“I guess. You’re more patient than him. He’ll just give up.”

Just then there was an interruption from the real world. “Jolyne, help me with this.” Jotaro was busy cutting tomatoes in the kitchen behind her. She set down her phone and joined him. They were going to make what Jotaro referred to as “pasta and stuff,” which meant putting whatever you had that you thought would taste good together on pasta. It was apparently Grandma Holly’s recipe.

“If you know what you’re doing it’s actually really good. And you can make it anywhere,” Jotaro said.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jolyne asked.

“Yes.” Jotaro said it with a long enough pause beforehand that she was a little skeptical.

They raided their fridge and pantry and ended up making a lot of Pasta and Stuff. “Oh that is actually good,” Jolyne said, taking a sample from the serving bowl. 

“Hey, don’t eat too much of that.”

She waited for him to turn away before she took another bite. They made way more than they needed anyway, and she was hungry. 

After Jolyne snuck a few more bites of pre-dinner dinner, a text came in from Kakyoin that he was in the lobby so they went to go get him. 

Jotaro was sure acting like everything was fine. Maybe it was? Jolyne smiled and waved when she saw Kakyoin waiting at one of the lobby tables.

He seemed happy to see both of them. “What have you two been up to?” he asked, as they made their way to the elevators.

Jolyne glanced at her father, but he made no move to speak. He didn’t look unhappy, so she hoped it was normal, temporary, Jotaro silence. She began to summarize the events of the morning so Kakyoin's question didn't go unanswered. 

“Oh yeah, Koichi and Yukako. They’re great.” Kakyoin interjected.

He laughed when she mentioned her staring match with Rohan. She left off the part where Yukako threatened him. She wasn’t exactly sure how to bring it up. She made it through the rest of the days’ events without Jotaro uttering a word. If Kakyoin was bothered by it, he didn’t show it.

When they entered the room, Jotaro made a sweeping gesture towards the bowl of pasta on the kitchen counter. “Pasta and stuff,” Jotaro said. Kakyoin looked between him and the bowl.

“Looks good.”

At least they were talking.

They sat down to eat and everything seemed to actually go alright. Jotaro and Kakyoin managed to carry on a conversation. Most of it was stuff she already knew or didn’t understand so she tuned out a little bit. Her dad just kept looking at Kakyoin, though. Whenever Kakyoin wasn’t looking he’d just stare, until he noticed Jolyne watching him and returned his focus to his food. God, he was being weird. This was going to be a disaster.

She realized Kakyoin actually wasn’t much better though. He was pointedly not looking at Jotaro, only giving him the occasional glance when they were talking. The two’s weird behavior might cancel each other out. 

She realized she was weirdly worried how this would go. She hated uncomfortable dinners. Distantly she wondered if with the divorce there wouldn’t be quite so many anymore. That little internal monologue of dad don’t make this worse dad don’t make this worse might finally get to quiet down.

“Oh, you’re… divorced.” Kakyoin said.

Jotaro nodded. Kakyoin didn’t seem surprised, but that was probably normal if you hadn’t heard from someone in years. Nothing would be that surprising, because everything is new, right? Oh you were married. Oh you were divorced. Was it weird he wasn’t surprised? She was overanalyzing, but she could just tell there was something she was missing about this whole situation. Somewhere, there’d be a clue.

Except things seemed to be wrapping up. They’d all finished eating, and Jotaro was getting up to clear the table. Jolyne wondered if she was wrong about all of this and it really was just her messed up way of coping.

“Hey, Jotaro, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Kakoin said. “Are your pants part of your shoes?”

“Yes,” Jotaro said. “They’re awesome.”

Kakyoin laughed and Jotaro looked like a deer in the headlights.

“No, they’re great. Just had to ask.”

Jotaro returned to the task at hand and set a stack of bowls down on the counter.

“Your hat fuses with your hair and now your pants fuse with your shoes. You’re evolving,” Kakyoin said.

“One day I’ll just be wearing a spacesuit.” Did her dad just make a joke? “I see you finally changed out of your school uniform.”

“They stopped making it in my size.”

This was weird. Something weird was happening.

She supposed she’d never seen her dad joke around with someone before, or even interact with a friend his age. She hadn’t thought those were things her dad did. For someone supposedly so worth avoiding, Kakyoin and her dad got along pretty well.

Kakyoin was finding all of this kind of surreal. Jotaro was still alive and an adult, and he had this whole life with an ex-wife and a kid. It was all hitting him now. For years Jotaro had just been someone who was out there somewhere, doing something. Now he was a real person again, a person who’d had over a decade to change, maybe even become unrecognizable. They weren’t strangers, but he couldn’t really say he knew Jotaro anymore either. And to him, Kakyoin only represented a distant past, probably an untoward secret too. Still, talking to him again was easier than he’d expected. Jotaro might’ve broken his heart once, but he had also been his best friend.

He could tell things were drawing to a close, and after Jotaro cleared the table he stood up and began to say his practiced goodbyes. 

“I’ll walk you out,” Jotaro said. They stepped into the hotel hallway and when the door shut behind them, Jotaro suddenly looked haggard. He’d thought Jotaro might try to avoid being alone with him at all, but apparently not. The two of them just stood there in the hallway for a moment.

“What is it?” Kakyoin asked.

“I’m embarrassed.” Kakyoin realized he’d been avoiding looking at Jotaro all night, like observing him might make the awkward circumstances real. Maybe it was just that he wasn’t sure how to act while Jolyne was watching. Now it seemed alright.

There was still the same humor in Jotaro’s sullen expression. He was always so easily embarrassed. It made him an easy target for Polnareff and the rest of the crew back in the day. God, he’d have to fill Polnareff in on all this. “Kakyoin, my life’s gone to shit. My daughter probably hates me. I married a woman like that was going to work. I screwed this up royally.”

“Jotaro…” He supposed he had caught Jotaro in kind of a bad spot. He’d been so busy feeling like an embarrassing secret himself that he’d barely processed it. 

“I’m sorry for being an asshole to you the other day. I’m sorry you had to come to this awkward dinner.” He frowned at the ground. “I’m sorry about everything. I was an asshole back then too.” That’s something Kakyoin never thought he’d hear Jotaro say. His heart twinged with an old regret he quashed as soon as it appeared. 

Kakyoin recalled Rohan describing Jotaro’s looks as “devastating.” Maybe that’s why he’d avoided looking at him. The delinquent thing was good, but the sad dad biologist thing wasn’t bad either. Jotaro was probably comparing the two in his mind thinking Kakyoin must see him as pathetic now, but there was a certain openness about this version of him that was good, mature. He might actually prefer it.

"Dinner wasn't that awkward. Your daughter is super cool."

Kakyoin caught a rare Jotaro smile illuminated in the dim hallway lighting. “Isn’t she great?”

Kakyoin rocked on his heels slightly. “I’m fine, okay? High school was a long time ago, and we’re friends. And you’ve got a great daughter, and a great job, and you’re not married to a woman anymore, right? It’s going to be okay.”

Jotaro nodded, fidgeting with the brim of his hat.

Kakyoin paused. “Does your ex-wife know you’re…”

“No.” Jotaro's eyes were trained at something across the hallway, maybe nothing.

“Your daughter?”

“God no.”

“Alright. Just curious.”

Jotaro finally turned towards him. “Kakyoin, I didn’t know. I thought it might just go away, or something.”

“What are you going to do now?” Did Jotaro have anyone right now? He supposed whatever family he’d come here to visit.

“I’ll figure it out.”

Kakyoin nodded. It seemed like the time to leave. Once his back was turned he heard, “It’s good to see you again.”

Kakyoin stopped. The events since their first meeting hadn’t really given that impression. He was surprised, but also not, because this is how it always was with Jojo.

He smiled. “Likewise.” And he meant it.

He was glad Jotaro wasn’t just a person out there somewhere anymore.

When Jotaro returned to the hotel room, Jolyne was busy doing dishes. She hoped he didn’t notice she’d just started. 

All he said was “I’m going to bed,” and then disappeared.

Jolyne let the water run for a moment, staring at the way it caught the light and melded the reflections and refractions of the white dishes and the sink’s stainless steel, how it ran across the surface of the plate in her hands.

Does your wife know?

Your daughter?

Listening at the door was pretty low. She knew she shouldn’t have done it. She wasn’t there long, but what she’d heard was enough to put a sinking feeling in her chest. What did Kakyoin know that she and her mom didn’t? The dinner had actually been nice too. She was beginning to let go of the idea that some big conspiracy had split her family apart, but now she’d totally ruined it, because suddenly even her wildest speculations seemed to hold weight.

She felt her phone buzz in her pocket. It was a direct message from Hermes, which was unusual. The two of them didn’t really text.

“How’d your thing go?” It read. 

She took a deep breath and let it out. Hermes must’ve been able to tell she was worried about tonight. It almost felt like she could tell Jolyne was worried right now. The fact that Hermes was thinking of her, that she went out of her way to text, suddenly made all of this a lot easier.

“Good, actually. I like my dad’s friend and…” she looked at the text on her phone. She thought back to the odd joking exchange she’d witnessed earlier, the honesty in her dad’s voice later that had originally drawn her to the door. “I like who my dad is when he’s with him.”

She thought back to her conversation with Okuyasu earlier that day.

So she’d heard something strange, and she had actual reason to believe her dad had a secret that Kakyoin was in on. Her investigation might not be that ridiculous. But what did it actually mean to her? What did she really want to do? 

She’d chased after Kakyoin. She got his number because she wanted him to stick around. That’s how her investigation started. But she hadn’t been suspicious of him then. It wasn’t about that. She kept chasing after him because she saw somebody who was important to her dad, somebody who’d been hurt. 

She saw herself. 

If they came together… maybe something good would come of it. Maybe all of them would be able to heal just a little. That’s how she’d felt.

She still felt that way, regardless of the secrets’ existence.

“That’s good,” Hermes wrote back. “I hope you guys can keep hanging out.” Three dots blinked next to Hermes’ profile for a long time, and then another message appeared. “Man, it’s boring without you here.”

A blush prickled against Jolyne’s face. The statement felt dangerous to Jolyne somehow, like she’d get in trouble… for what she had no idea. Hermes actually liked having her around? All they really did was sit and talk on Hermes’ breaks. Hermes was cool and pretty and Jolyne sort of always saw Hermes letting her hang around as a favor.

Jolyne felt like she had to choose her next words very carefully. Hermes couldn’t think she was lame or… something. “Yeah, I miss you guys.” She wrote back. Good. Neutral. Safe. She put her phone back in her pocket and tried to return to the dishes, flexing her hands so they’d stop shaking.

How did you know you—

Her conversation with Okuyasu came back into her head again. 

Yeah, hold on. Why did she ask that?

Chapter Text

A few things happened in the following days. The usual rendezvous with Josuke’s friends and occasionally Rohan continued, but more and more often, Kakyoin was invited as well. He had an easy in with the group since he already knew Koichi and Yukako. Plus, the fact that he used to know Josuke’s father and was generally more talkative than Jotaro quickly piqued Josuke’s interest. Kakyoin’s unique ability to smooth things over with Rohan also proved invaluable. Soon it wasn’t just Jotaro and Jolyne inviting him to things, and before long he was considered just another member of the group.

Jolyne would’ve been happier about the development if she hadn’t been so… distracted lately. She was starting to wonder if she was… she didn’t want to say. It was probably nothing anyway. Ever since she found out Okuyasu had feelings for Josuke, things in her mind that hadn’t caused her any trouble before just started jumping out. 

She knew the curve of the back of Hermes’ legs well enough to teach a class on it. Why the hell did she know that? It didn’t seem like useful information.

She remembered once her dad told her, “I can’t forget anything I learn about the ocean. Any fact just stays in there, forever. Eventually I figured out it must be important to me.” Maybe that wasn’t entirely applicable. She wasn’t going to become a professor of female beauty or anything, even if she did feel weirdly qualified.

The stuff filed away in the ‘do I like women?’ section of her brain was an absolute mess. There were papers all over the place, wedged hastily into the back of filing cabinets, spilling out into piles on the floor, unorganized, begging to be ignored, but somehow worth keeping all the same.

She thought of something Weather’s weird brother said once. What you remember defines who you are.

“Jolyne?” Kakyoin was looking at her. “Are you okay?”

She was still sitting in the cafe with a lemonade in front of her. It was mid afternoon. Condensation was dripping down the side of the cup. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Jolyne was one of the most determined people Kakyoin had ever met. There was an intensity to her that was unmatched even among her relatives. It was odd to see her somewhat scattered, but he figured she’d pull herself out of it, whatever was going on. “You want to take a walk?” he asked. She seemed appreciative and they left Jotaro and Koichi, the other two who were there right now, to watch the table.

A walk would probably do him some good too. He could focus on the light summer breeze on his face and keep his head in the present.

Kakyoin was grateful to reconnect with Jotaro and get to know some of his friends and family. He just wished he could pull his mind out of the past. The memories were a steady drip now. They weren’t even necessarily connected to Jotaro. It was anything from that time—conversations, events, the person he used to be, the person he’d hoped to become.

“You flirt with girls constantly,” Avdol said once, anger creeping into his typically even tone.

“So what? What’s wrong with that?” Polnareff was trying and failing to navigate with a large paper map in the passenger seat.

“It’s disrespectful.”

Polnareff twisted around to look at Avdol. “Oh come on! You’re not mad at Jojo for telling some group of girls to ‘fuck off’ just yesterday? That’s not more disrespectful than offering to take a photo?”

Joseph interjected from the driver's seat. “Jotaro, you’ve gotta stop swearing at girls, your mother included.”

“I’ll do what I want.” Jotaro said to Kakyoin’s right.

Kakyoin stifled a laugh. He always got stuck with the middle seat, which also often meant being in the middle of arguments like this. 

“I don’t get what your problem is Avdol,” Polnareff said.

“I just find it annoying!” 

Polnareff dropped the map as he threw up his hands. “Why?!”

“I—“ Avdol stopped, confusion arriving where words seemingly didn’t. “I don’t know. You might have a point. I apologize.”

Polnareff was momentarily stunned. “Did I just win an argument? Magnifique! Très bien! Vive la France—”

“Don’t let it go to your head. Your hair might grow taller,” Joseph said. “Now, can you please try and figure out where the hell we are?”

“Where are we going?” Jolyne asked.

So much for the summer breeze taking his mind off things. “I don’t know,” Kakyoin said. “Do you want to see my house?” Jolyne seemed excited by the idea, so they walked deeper into the suburbs. “That’s Rohan’s house,” Kakyoin pointed. “Mine’s not far.”

“What’s it like working with Rohan?”

“Well, he’s particular and kind of mean about it, but I don’t mind. I’m not over there that often anyway.” Rohan’s requests for help had been increasing lately, though. Kakyoin was thinking he’d have to hire a real assistant sometime soon.

“Wait, then what’s your actual job?”

“I write computer programs freelance. It’s way less exciting. It’s the reason I can afford this place, though.” He stopped in front of his house. It was pretty similar to Rohan's, just quite a bit smaller with two stories, peach siding, white trim and its own little porch out front. Jolyne seemed impressed.

“Can I see where you work?” Jolyne asked.

Kakyoin gave her a look of skepticism. It really wasn’t that exciting.

She shrugged. “Neither of my parents are tech savvy.”

He did end up showing her around inside, stopping briefly to let Jotaro and Koichi know where they were. She seemed to like his choices of furniture and had a weird amount of questions about things like upholstery and varnish. Kakyoin had to admit he didn’t do any of the renovations himself, or know the first thing about it. He did know a lot about computers, though. Jolyne stared at the wall of code on his dual monitors. “What does this do?” she asked.

Kakyoin wracked his brain to try to translate tech nonsense back into human speech. “It takes a bunch of data, cleans it up and puts it into a list in memory, then allows you to get information about it.” Technically it was a map, not a list, but close enough. “That’s what a good amount of programming is—just organizing stuff into lists and spitting it back out.”

Jolyne nodded. “Our brains kind of do that too, with memories.” She stared at the lines of code on the screen. “I wonder how we decide what’s worth holding on to.”

“I guess in either a brain or a computer’s case, the purpose is to learn something, right? Brains aren’t perfect though. It might hold onto something just because it made you feel strongly, or dig something out just because it seemed relevant, even if its not.”

“You say, our brains , but it’s still us doing it, right—even if we don’t notice it happening?” Jolyne’s gaze left the screen and turned toward him.

“I guess that’s more of a philosophical question.” Was there a part of him that wanted to unearth the memories he was fighting down, to face them, to learn? Was there anything to learn?

For a moment it seemed like Jolyne was considering saying something more, but she never did. Kakyoin’s phone began to ring.

“This must be your dad.” He pulled out his phone and glanced at the caller ID. “Oh.”

“Do you need to take it?”

“Uhh, I don’t have to, but I could. Do you want to meet another old friend of your dad’s?”

Jolyne eyed him suspiciously.

“I’m serious. Your dad had friends besides me.”

Her curiosity was obvious. “Sure, what the hell.”

“Okay, give me a second.” He accepted the call. “Polnareff!”

Polnareff’s excitement on the other side of the line would’ve made it seem like these calls weren’t a regular occurrence, which they were. It was always like this. “Kakyoin! Kakyoin, I’m doing an air handshake!”

Kakyoin rolled his eyes and did the other half of their practiced motions with his free arm, ignoring the amused look Jolyne was giving him. “Alright, yeah, me too. Hey, you’re never going to guess who I ran into in Morioh this week.” Polnareff was a pretty safe choice to put in front of Jolyne, since Kakyoin was pretty sure he still didn’t know the dicier parts of Kakyoin and Jotaro’s history.

He had to move the phone away from his ear as Polnareff reacted to the news. “JOTARO HAS A KID?!” Jolyne snickered from a few paces away and definitely also in hearing distance.

“Yes. Surprisingly, yes. Here I want to switch over to a video call so you can meet her. I’m assuming you want to meet her.” He flashed Jolyne a smile. “She’s really cool.”

“She doesn’t have a tiny hat and cigarette of her own does she?”

“No. Jotaro doesn’t even smoke anymore. What are you talking about?”

After a few minutes of fiddling with the call, he flipped the phone around so he and Jolyne were both in frame. Jolyne waved. Polnareff immediately started fawning over her and Jolyne laughed at him, because he was a ridiculous man and laughing was the appropriate response.

“Polnareff, what are you yelling at?” A voice from off screen said, and then Avdol wandered into frame. As wonderful as a rare Avdol appearance was, he was potentially a less safe option.

“Jojo had a kid, mon chéri.” 

 Avdol responded with an understandably incredulous look. He whispered to Polnareff, “With a woman? ” and god he hoped Jolyne didn’t hear that.

Jolyne turned to him, thankfully oblivious. “Who is that?”

He did his best to explain as efficiently as possible—Polnareff and Avdol, Kakyoin, her father, her great grandfather, the road trip. Jolyne was struggling to keep up. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jotaro hadn’t mentioned any of them, so it was probably a lot of strange new information.

Avdol disappeared almost as quickly as he appeared, leaving to return to work most likely. He was busier and more dutiful than Polnareff and Kakyoin, who were lazy coders that liked to ditch work and call each other.

“So, Jolyne, I’ve got loads of embarrassing stories about your dad. Which do you want?” A knock at the door pulled Kakyoin away from the call. He left Jolyne to the conversation and walked downstairs to find Jotaro waiting at the doorstep. 

“Nice place.” Jotaro glanced around the foyer as Kakyoin let him in. Kakyoin realized Jolyne’s absence was going to prompt an explanation as well as a reaction he wasn’t looking forward to. It went exactly as he expected. “You let my daughter talk to Polnareff? ” Jotaro was already on his way upstairs.

“He’s not going to convince her to go to college in France if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kakyoin called after him. Jotaro turned back to glare at him, but not with any real bite. Kakyoin followed him into the office where Jolyne was sitting with the phone.

“Oh, hi dad.”

“JOJO?” The phone said.

Jotaro’s eyebrows lowered. “Polnareff.”

Jolyne turned the phone to face her father. “Jojo!” The phone said.

“Been a while,” Jotaro said.

“OH! Let me get Avdol.”

“You live with Avdol?” Jotaro asked.

Kakyoin walked into frame. “Oh look at you guys,” Polnareff said, as he ran through his house. “It’s just like old times.” Kakyoin forced a laugh. Not quite. “And Avdol and I are married .”

“What?” Jotaro actually looked annoyed with the development. 

Kakyoin grinned. “Careful, Jojo’s sensitive to the ‘marriage’ word right now.”

“Good grief.”

Kakyoin glanced up at Jolyne, who was still sitting in his desk chair, watching the video call pandemonium before her with interest. It seemed like she’d been pulled out of whatever haze she’d been in, at least momentarily, and back into the state she’d been in before—the one where she studied him. He could tell she had an analytical mind like her father, but also social literacy, which was a combination that freaked him out a little. It wasn’t as bad as being studied by Rohan, but he still felt like if he wasn’t careful Jolyne would be able to crack him open like a book.

The day had brought Jolyne the revelation that her dad used to have other friends besides Kakyoin, though that was something she already faintly understood from listening to their conversations. The truly new piece of information was that her dad didn’t run from Polnareff or Avdol. He even seemed to have some established beef with Polnareff and yet he held his ground. The only one to make him act like a cornered animal was Kakyoin. Did that mean something?

After the “crusaders” on the other end of the call had given up trying to get Jotaro to catch up with them, Kakyoin said he had to get back to work, but didn’t mind them hanging around for a bit if they were sick of the hotel. Her and Jotaro were both sitting and reading in Kakyoin’s modest living room while he typed away upstairs.

Jolyne’s phone buzzed. It was Anasui. Unsurprisingly, Weather was right that he’d resurface pretty soon. Weather could predict two things with complete accuracy, when it was next going to rain, and Anasui’s moods.

“Jolyne, do you hate me?” The message read.

“Of course not. What’s up Anasui?”

“Just wanted to hear how you’re doing.”

She wanted to say she was doing fine. She should be. If it weren’t for the river of confusing thoughts flowing through her head, she’d be having a great time. Was she going to have to talk to somebody about this, at least to feel sane again? Did that mean this was real? “I think I’m okay. My dad’s friend was showing me his computer stuff.”

“I’ve taken apart a lot of computers.”

“I know. I thought of you.” 

“You thought of me??” Oh God, she shouldn’t have said it like that.

“Anasui, why do you think someone would ignore something, but remember it anyway?” Maybe she could try to talk to Okuyasu again.

“It could be something they don’t want to think about?”

“Do you think that means it’s important?”

“I don’t know, but if it’s fear stopping someone from facing something like that, they should always face it.” Fear huh? If there was any person more fearless than her when it came to his own heart, it was Anasui. His passion for clarity extended even to himself, and meant that the world was pretty much privy to whatever was on his mind for better or worse. She had to acknowledge there was a certain level of bravery in that.

If it was just fear she was dealing with, she wouldn’t back down. She had to figure this out even if it meant voicing this stuff to someone. She’d talk to Okuyasu. He’d probably have something useful to say, since he inadvertently kickstarted this whole mess.

“Something on your mind today, Jolyne?” her dad asked. Even he’d noticed?

“Do I look upset or something?”

“You haven’t turned a page in like twenty minutes.”

“I was texting Anasui.”

“On purpose?”

They ended up heading back to the hotel after thanking Kakyoin for his hospitality.

“I thought you said it was hard seeing people from back then,” Jolyne said as they walked back to the car. Morioh’s sunny streets had taken on evening blues and grays. Her shadow stretched far out across the street.

“Did I look like I was enjoying myself?”

“You didn’t run.” 

Jotaro sighed. “Yeah, I guess that was different.”

“Why?” Jolyne was startled by her own question. She hadn’t thought to ask her dad anything outright through all this. Maybe it was because her brain was working overtime, or maybe she was beginning to put the slightest bit more trust in her dad’s ability to be honest with her, but it seemed so simple then to just ask.

Jotaro seemed caught off guard as well. He looked down at her, then back ahead again and went silent. Something settled over them, like the weight of his potential answer was much heavier than Jolyne anticipated. What had she just asked? Wanting to escape whatever serious moment they’d stumbled into, she backed out before he could. “Oh look, the car,” she said, and kept the conversation moving farther and farther from that strange precipice all the way back home.

Later that night there was a sort of party planned at Okuyasu's place so everyone in town that knew Jotaro or even just Josuke and his friends could stop by and say hi. Since Okuyasu would be there, Jolyne was hoping she could catch him alone again.

She was unfortunately not that lucky. Okuyasu and Josuke were both tipsy and attached at the hip throughout the night, not to mention surrounded by their friends from town almost constantly. Jolyne was pretty quick to give up. The place was full of people she’d never met before. She didn’t have a lot in common with Koichi and Yukako and after her dad greeted the people he knew, he disappeared.

She hid it better, but she was similar to her dad in that she didn’t really like big groups, loud noises, or high levels of joyousness when she wasn’t up to the task. There wasn’t really anybody her age to talk to and she could only keep herself entertained at the hors d'oeuvre table for so long. Eventually she found herself wandering Okuyasu’s house. It had enough rooms that there were plenty of quiet empty places.

When Kakyoin caught her in the kitchen swiping a glass of wine, she was mortified, but he just clinked their glasses together and then downed his own. “Don’t drink any more than that alright?” He said, “Like, I get it, but you’ll probably regret it.”

Man, Kakyoin was cool.

Wine, on the other hand, kind of sucked. When she re-entered the party she didn’t feel any better, and now her head was beginning to throb and her vision felt slightly misaligned.

She took a seat on the couch back in the living room, resigned at this point to letting the party happen around her. Her mind was still coming back to the same confusing thoughts no matter how hard she tried to get it to move on. 

At one point Rohan came over to ask if she’d seen Kakyoin and she shook her head. “He might’ve gone to find my dad.”

“That makes sense,” Rohan said. Koichi was engaged in happy conversation with Okuyasu and Josuke across the room and Jolyne suspected Rohan was also stuck with no one left to talk to, though he didn’t look like he minded all that much. Jolyne thought he was probably the type of person to just leave a gathering early if he didn’t feel like being there anymore. “Have you ever listened to the song you’re named after?” he asked. It was an innocuous question, but the way he asked it made her feel a little like a test subject.

“Yeah, of course. Mostly when I was younger though.” Sometimes she put it on when she was feeling nostalgic and sappy, but that hadn’t really happened much since the divorce.

“Alright,” he said. There was a knowing tilt to his answer that she didn’t like. He got up to leave shortly after. Did he somehow know something about all this too? It did sound like Rohan made snooping on people part of his line of work, but she still never enjoyed feeling out of the loop. It sort of made her want to listen to the song again, but also had the opposite effect, since the last thing she wanted to do was let Rohan’s words get to her.

“I thought I’d find you out here,” Kakyoin said, stepping out onto the front porch. There was a table and chairs set up at the far end where Jotaro was sitting.

“You always last longer than me with these kinds of things,” he said.

“Still not that long, though.” Kakyoin swirled his glass of wine absent-mindedly, watching the whirlpool it formed.

“You care more about being polite than I do.” That had been true since they were in high school. “Josuke and Okuyasu sure still seem close,” Jotaro said. "I always wondered if there was something between those two.”

“Rohan said Josuke’s been writing Okuyasu love letters and throwing them away.”

Jotaro paused. “Has Rohan been going through his trash?”

Kakyoin shrugged, then took a seat in one of the other chairs, setting his glass down on the adjacent table. A street light across the way was flickering slightly. “Jotaro, why the hell did you get married?”

Jotaro didn’t seem too surprised by the question. “Joseph told me once the cure to a broken heart was to just get married right away.”

Kakyoin sputtered. “You didn’t take Joseph's advice.” A broken heart, huh? Kakyoin had no reason to be surprised, but part of him was.

“No, it’s a more complicated answer than that. I guess I thought it would help. It did help in some ways.”

“What would Joseph know about broken hearts anyway?” 

“I don’t know. Sometimes he’d get drunk and talk about some girl named Caesar.”

Kakyoin stopped. “You never told me that.”

“I didn’t?” Little moths were flying around the porch light over their heads. He couldn’t quite tell what kinds.

“Jotaro, Caesar’s a man’s name.” 

“It is? Man, I’m still bad with that. I used to think Jolene was a man’s name. Glad I had a daughter.” 

A moth was walking in circles on the surface of the light, over and over again. “Your English can’t still be shit. You live in America.”

“It’s not. It’s not. But I still don’t talk to people or watch TV so I miss things.”

Kakyoin laughed at that and his gaze drifted back out into the night across the street. “I guess you haven’t changed that much after all.” He picked up his wine glass and took a sip.

“Did you think I had?”

“Honestly? Yeah.” He leaned back in his chair. “It doesn’t seem like you get angry anymore.”

Jotaro was quiet for a moment, clearly pondering the statement. “Is that a good thing?”

“I used to like when you got angry. I kind of grew up just accepting my lot in life, but anything that held you up, you just kicked its teeth in. I thought it made you cool.” Heat rose to Kakyoin's face. Maybe that was a little too much reminiscing.

“I guess I found out there were some things you couldn’t kick in the teeth. Maybe I just stopped seeing the fun in it.” He paused, sounding almost dejected. “You don’t think I’m cool anymore?” Kakyoin was pretty sure it was a joke, and he turned towards Jotaro, grinning and preparing a comeback.

Jotaro was sitting there on the porch, steely eyes trained on the horizon, concealing some private thought that would likely remain that way forever, preserved behind that perfect poker face. He looked like he always had, brooding, mysterious and kind of… silly. Kakyoin’s voice just came out honest. “You’ll always be cool.”

The corners of Jotaro’s mouth twisted up. And that was that.

After a while sitting in silence with the street lights and the moths, Jotaro stood up. “I should probably rescue Jolyne.”

Kakyoin smiled slightly. “Yeah, I don’t think she’s much for big gatherings either.”

Jotaro paused in front of the door. “She hasn’t… mentioned anything to you, has she?”

“What do you mean?”

“She just seems kind of in her head.”

“I noticed that too.” Kakyoin frowned, turning to look at Jotaro. “Did you think she was more likely to confide in me? ” 

Jotaro brought a hand up to his hat. “She doesn’t talk to me about that stuff. Can’t really blame her. And it seems like she likes you.”

Kakyoin knew he was probably overstepping his bounds since he wasn’t a parent or anything, but he figured Jotaro wouldn’t care. “You don’t really talk to her about stuff either, do you? Maybe she would if it was a two way street.”

“Fair point,” he said and vanished back inside the house.

After returning from the party, Jolyne was finally back at the hotel and safe in her bed, but still wide awake. Her and Jotaro didn’t have separate bedrooms. His bed was just on the other side of the room and she felt like if she kept shifting around it would get annoying. This was getting ridiculous. 

She reached for her phone and sent a message to Weather. “What was that thing your brother said again, about memory?”

She set her phone down on her chest and waited for it to buzz. She might not even hear back from him tonight, and even if she did he wouldn’t have the near-inhuman reply speed of FF or Anasui.

“He said our memories define who we are.” Weather sent a second message. “Then he tried to give me a concussion. We were having a fight.”

“Did everything work out??”

“Yeah. It was a while ago and it was right after I told him that I wished he was a snail so it wasn’t completely unprompted.”

Being a snail didn’t seem that bad. She began to type, “Hermes told me once that snails can…” No, what was she talking about? That wasn’t important.

Another message from Weather came through. “I don’t really agree with him anyway.”

“Memories aren’t that important?” 

“They’re important, but personally I wouldn’t say they’re the thing that makes us who we are.”

Jolyne had been staring at these scattered fragments of herself in her mind and at this point the picture they were forming was clear. If she was facing it head on, the truth was obvious, but even that didn’t bring her much peace. Because what was she supposed to do now? Nothing had really changed. Now she just felt like she had this weird secret.

Another message from Weather came in. “I think it’s other people.”

She set her phone back down and stared at the ceiling, willing herself to fall asleep and also knowing that it wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to break out of this. To do something. She wanted to…

“I think I might be a lesbian,” she blurted out into the dark. She heard Jotaro shift his position. He was still awake. He wasn’t the person she wanted to tell. She hadn’t even expected to until the words left her mouth. She didn’t really think he’d take it badly. She was sort of gearing herself up for a one word “okay,” and then back to bed, but when that didn’t come and the silence stretched on her heart began to pound. “I don’t… I don’t know why I—“

“Kakyoin’s my ex.” Her dad’s voice came out of the darkness. She promptly stopped talking. “We know each other because he’s—he’s my ex.” He paused, then quickly added, “Congratulations on being a lesbian.”

Jolyne stilled. The silence and the darkness in the room around her dad’s small voice suddenly seemed expansive. She had no idea how to fill it with words of her own, or even thoughts at first.

What she did know began slotting into place, though. Kakyoin was different, because they were together in high school. That was what Kakyoin knew that she and her mom didn’t. That’s why her dad didn’t know how to talk to Kakyoin, didn’t expect to see him, almost didn’t want to see him. That’s why he ran.

This was the answer she’d been looking for… And the secret she suspected was at the root of all of this… was she close to that too?

She sat up in bed. 

“Dad…” She wasn’t actually sure how to phrase what she wanted to ask. She didn’t want to be more blunt than she needed to be. “Did you want to marry Mom?”

She couldn’t really see Jotaro well, but she could hear him shift in bed. “I did.”

“Did you love her?”

“I still love her.”

She frowned. “Romantically?”

A silence stretched between them. “Not… in the way you mean.”

She was doing an interrogation. The investigation was almost complete. “Have you told her that?” She tried to keep her voice even.

“No.” The suspect was finally caving, the answers she needed finally spilling out. She was just doing her job. Don’t cry. Don’t fall apart.

“But you will.” It wasn’t a question.

“I will.” There was a slight tremble in his voice. She’d never seen her dad cry, and she couldn’t see him now in the dark, but they were both crying. She was suddenly aware.

She took a stuttering breath. “Okay. Good.” 

She thought for a moment about fear, and hard truths, and that desperate and strange feeling that comes with having a secret. She thought about the cold dead feeling that took root when Anasui’s affection bounced off her and how many years her parents were married. 

She flopped back down onto her bed. For the first time she felt like she understood, at least a little. When her body’s momentum dissipated and she was still again, she spoke. “I like Kakyoin.”

“He’s the best.” Her dad said it without any hesitation. She was beginning to realize that he could be kind of childish.

Maybe she didn’t quite have all the pieces to the story yet. There was something else she was beginning to suspect about her dad. You still have feelings for him, don’t you? She could have asked, but she doubted either of them really wanted to acknowledge that truth.

Just before sleep took her, she was hit with a final revelation.

Hermes was right.

Chapter Text

Jolyne was pretty sure her dad hadn’t slept, or at least not much. They both told each other things they probably weren’t planning to last night. Jolyne felt a little lighter having more or less put her sexuality crisis to rest for now. Jotaro, however, had revealed a secret older than she was. Even she wasn’t entirely sure how to react.

What was life going to be like now? They couldn’t just act like nothing happened, but in the light of morning, that strange heavy conversation felt far away. 

Jolyne poured herself a bowl of cereal as her dad paced around in the kitchen. She was pretty sure he was trying to make coffee, but with a lot of added steps and periods of blank staring. He definitely hadn’t slept much.

When he finally sat down with his cup of coffee, he drank from it slowly while staring hard at the table. Jolyne continued to eat her cereal. After an indeterminate amount of time passed and about a quarter of her bowl had emptied, her dad took a deep breath and then he spoke, looking at her to catch her attention and then returning his focus to the table.

“I don’t regret marrying your mom, or any of the decisions I made that led to our family. I wouldn’t trade any of you for anything.” Jolyne’s spoon sat perched on the edge of the bowl. “I really wanted things to be different than this.”

“Dad, you can’t change the fact that you’re gay.”

He took another sip of coffee as the dark circles under his eyes almost appeared to deepen. She realized neither of them had actually said that part out loud before. “I know. I just want you to know that it doesn’t change that you’re important to me.”

He looked up at her, but Jolyne couldn’t meet his eyes, not because she didn’t believe him, just because eye contact was hardest when she was emotional. “I know, Dad. You wouldn’t have invited me on this trip otherwise.”

He let out a labored breath. “Good.”

Finally, she looked up. “Who else knows about this? Can Kakyoin know I know?”

Jotaro smiled. “Sure. He’ll be relieved I told you. Avdol knew about it. I have no idea if my grandfather figured it out at the time or not. I think that’s it.”

“What? That’s hardly anybody!”

Jotaro nodded. “Rohan might know.”

Jolyne swirled her spoon around in her cereal. “Why would he know?”

Jotaro shrugged. “I just feel like he would. You know what he’s like.”

It was a fair point.

The conversation trailed off and then Jolyne’s phone began to ring. The usual cafe group was meeting in a few minutes. She relayed the information to her dad and he stood up. “Is it okay if I just drop you off today? I’m sure Koichi would be able to drive you back to the hotel after.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” It would be nice to have the afternoon to herself anyway.

When he pulled away from the cafe after letting her out, she expected him to head back towards the hotel. She figured he’d want to go back to sleep, but he drove in the opposite direction. She wondered about it momentarily, but was soon distracted by Josuke and his friends calling her name.

Morioh didn’t have an aquarium store, but there was one within driving distance. Jotaro found it the last time he was here. Aquarium stores are usually easier to find than aquariums, often more ethical—since they typically don’t keep the things that you really shouldn’t put in tanks under most circumstances—and also free. He cared about the price advantage more when he was a student, but it was still a perk.

Jotaro visited places like this whenever he needed to clear his head. 

Fish simply existed. They moved through the water with grace in their own distinct patterns, guided by their instincts and their dispositions. Some were oblivious to him and the ones that were outside-aware saw him as just another creature, or maybe nothing more than a slowly moving finger that might be food. His problems didn’t matter here.

He knew gourami were slow and gentle. Catfish were typically pressed against the glass while Knifefish preferred to hide from the light. Where you saw one freshwater snail, there were bound to be several more. It was reassuringly predictable and if he was lucky, he might even notice something new.

His accrued knowledge connected harmoniously with the scenes before his eyes. It made a web of happy connections in his brain and led him to conclusions he often found hard to reach otherwise.

Maybe life is beautiful after all.

Maybe everything will be okay.

Since it was a weekday, the store was pretty much empty. A couple was asking the cashier about the moss balls at the front desk and an employee an aisle over was cleaning out one of the tanks. Jotaro stood in the faint blue glow of the tanks and picked up his phone to make a call.

“Hey, I know I said I’d visit next week with Jolyne, but would you mind if I stopped by today? I’ll still come next week.”

Holly Kujo was unsurprisingly overjoyed at the suggestion. He felt a slight weight off his shoulders. He could sense a little worry through her excitement though. She knew him well enough to know he would only reach out like this if he was on the edge of falling apart.

Was that how he felt? In his tired haze his life felt distant, murky, confusing. His own image rippled like the surface of the water. How did Jolyne see him now? How did he see himself?

He’d decided years ago that he was never going to come out. Once he’d realized that marrying a woman did not in fact make you straight, he’d still planned to stay with his wife. He knew he didn’t love her the way husbands were supposed to love their wives, but he was sure that the companionship of her and their daughter would be enough for him. He wasn't wrong about that.

The trouble was he knew at all times that if the facade slipped, the life he’d built would shatter. He couldn’t be too open or too at ease or he might make a mistake and involve them in his own internal mess. It haunted him. It made everything more difficult than he’d expected.

He remembered when his wife smashed a plate and said she would leave. He’d looked down at the pieces of porcelain on the kitchen floor and realized then that he wasn’t dreading the shattering, so much as waiting for it. A part of him finally felt at ease.

“Don’t you have anything to say?!” He’d seen tears in his wife’s eyes.

He hadn’t noticed the thing that had formed between them before, but he saw it then. It was like a sheet of glass, separating them.

He knew his expression must have been far too blank, but he didn’t know how to change it. “Okay. Let’s do it then.”

He’d let his life collapse that day, but he had no idea what was supposed to happen after. He just continued to exist in this post-failure state. At this point he was just trying not to fail Jolyne any more than he already had.

Everything was going in so many directions he never thought it would. He could hardly keep up.

He caught the employee cleaning tanks glancing at him. Jotaro had been staring blankly into the tank to his side for some time. The fluorescent light on the water rippled in mesmerizing patterns as guppies swam indifferently below. He rubbed his eyes and made his way out of the store. 

He focused on the road as he drove towards his childhood home. The landmarks began to get more and more familiar as he approached until he was cresting the hill and the front gates appeared between the trees. He’d changed so much, but the house remained just as he’d left it years ago.

Holly ran out to meet him in her slippers and wrapped him up in a violent hug. She looked older, but she greeted him the same way. Inside, things were arranged a little differently than he remembered, but the house was still overwhelmingly the same. It was horrible and comforting all at once. So much had happened over the years he’d lived here.

Holly returned to the laundry she had laid out in the living room and motioned for him to sit beside her. He started matching socks without really thinking about it. “Come on, you’re my guest. You don’t have to do that,” she said, swatting his hand away.

“I don’t mind.” He picked up a shirt and laid it flat. They folded in silence for a moment. He glanced up at the trees out the window, tall enough to nearly eclipse the late-morning sun. Kakyoin had said something once about how they weren’t native to the area, ornamental, planted by someone with an eye for color—blue needles next to green ones mixed in with the red maple trees. He said he was impressed with the layout of the grounds. Jotaro had just thought it was weird he knew so much about trees. 

“I ran into Kakyoin in Morioh a few days ago,” he said. His mom turned to him in shock and clear excitement. “I’ll bring him next visit, don’t worry.”

She smiled. Then her expression softened into something sadder as she looked at him. “Was it hard seeing him again?”

He didn’t know how to respond initially. “It’s awkward when you fall out of touch.”

Holly sighed. She put her full attention into the shirt she was folding until the edges were perfectly neat, even, restrained. 

Jotaro frowned at the scene. “What did I say?”

Holly looked startled. “Oh, nothing! Did I drift away there?” 

“No, you looked upset.”

The corner of her mouth betrayed her pleasant expression. It twitched and her eyebrows knitted and finally she spoke again. “I just don’t understand why you still lie to me about it. I’m just your mom. And it was so long ago now.”

Jotaro blinked. “Lie about what?”

“Whatever happened with you two. We lived in the same house! You were inconsolable for weeks after he left. I just always wondered why you wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

“What are you saying?”

She paused for a moment, looking at the folded shirt in her lap. She suddenly looked nervous and her voice was quiet when she spoke. “He was more than just your friend, wasn’t he?”

Jotaro stared at her. “I didn’t know you knew.”

She looked up at him. “I had my suspicions back then.”

He frowned again. “Then why didn’t you ever bring it up?”

Holly looked away as realization prickled across her face. “I suppose… I wasn’t sure how to talk about it either.” She turned her head to face the ornamental trees out the window.

He wondered briefly what his life would’ve been like if he’d had someone to talk to back then… what Jolyne’s life could be like. She’d reached out to him and he’d reached back. Maybe that was good. Maybe this is what it meant to not fail people.

“It was hard, seeing him again,” he finally said. “I didn’t handle it well, but I think now we’re becoming friends, Jolyne too, all three of us.”

The cafe group—Jolyne, Josuke, Okuyasu, Koichi and Yukako today—had been sitting and having breakfast well into lunch hour and were starting to feel guilty staying there much longer. Without any of the grown-ups around, the atmosphere had turned more raucous. Jolyne had heard the eventful and frankly somewhat-disturbing story of Koichi and Yukako’s meeting. That inspired Josuke to tell a story about how Okuyasu picked a fight with him when they first met. It was pretty entertaining too, emotional even when it got into some of Okuyasu’s family history. Jotaro had mentioned in passing that Okuyasu’s father was sick, but she never knew he’d had an older brother.

The way Josuke told the story wasn't too different from how Yukako had described her and Koichi’s romance. She was kind of surprised Josuke and Okuyasu weren’t together yet, with the way they clearly both revered each other.

As they were leaving the cafe, everybody seemed to want to keep the conversation going, so they started walking towards Okuyasu’s house. “Jolyne, do you have anyone you like?” Yukako asked.

It was a natural progression of the conversation, but Jolyne briefly floundered for a response. “I mean, there’s this guy, he likes me, but I don’t really like him that way.” Her eyes briefly met Okuyasu’s. “Because… I think I like girls actually.” She felt bold saying it, but she could. It was true. And she wanted this group of people to know.

“Oh! Nice!” Josuke held his hand out for a fistbump. Okuyasu smiled sheepishly behind him. 

“Any girls you like then?” Yukako was unfazed.

“Oh.” It was a reasonable question, but it was somehow something she’d forgotten to consider. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, hey, can we stop at the post office?” Josuke asked. “And my house I guess. Okuyasu, you finished your letter too, right?”

Okuyasu nodded. “Oh, right! We should send those. Do you guys mind?”

Everyone else shook their heads.

“It’s not like we really had plans for where to go,” Koichi said. “Is it for Giorno?”

“Giorno?” Why did that name sound familiar? 

“Oh, yeah! You might not have heard about this,” Josuke said. “Your dad found out we had a distant family in Italy a while back. He did a whole genealogy thing after they found me.” He laughed awkwardly. The Italy thing did sound vaguely familiar. She must’ve at least heard her dad talking about it. She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it to her specifically. “Anyway, he’s around my age, so we became pen pals. I wanted to go visit, but plane flights are expensive and med school is also super expensive.”

“Josuke’s the only one in touch with him because he’s a mob boss.” Okuyasu interjected. 

“For real?!” That must be why she’d never heard about this. She already wanted to meet him. 

“He’s got like no other family! He’s sort of like me, if I didn’t have my mom. I don’t care what he does for a living.”

Okuyasu’s house was closest so they stopped inside so he could get his things together.

“Okuyasu, who is your letter for?” Jolyne asked as he ran back downstairs with an envelope and folded piece of paper in hand.

“He became pen pals with Giorno’s bodyguard. I’m not sure how it happened,” Josuke said. 

Okuyasu turned to Josuke. “If I mailed a piece of salami what do you think would happen?”

“That’s gross, man. Don’t do that.”

“But Mista said that the salami in Italy is better than ours, but he’s never had ours so.”

“It probably is better. Italy is like, where salami is from.”

They moved on to Josuke’s house, which was just across the street. She hadn’t actually been inside and that surprised her, but Josuke explained that it was best to keep his mom and her dad apart. “She mistakes him for Joseph every time they meet. It’s a mess. I didn’t tell her you guys were here.” They waited on the sidewalk as he ran into the house. When he came back out, he brought a sealed letter and also a small stack of photographs. “Here, these are all the photos I’ve gotten from Giorno.”

He passed her the stack and she flipped through it slowly as they walked. There was a picture of glass enclosures in someone's room—a couple small, lush planted ones, and a larger sandy one with a heat lamp. Then there was a picture of a lizard in someone’s hand. It was strange to know the pictures were associated with some kind of mafioso, but it also made sense considering he was related to her weird family. It reminded her a little of her dad.

“He has a turtle too, but I told him I could not handle seeing that. Gross.”

The next picture showed a group of six posing together. Only one of them was smiling, but they all looked happy. 

“That’s him and his weird friends.” He pointed to a stoic blonde with elaborately styled hair. “That’s Giorno.” He pointed to the man next to him. “That’s Mista.”

Jolyne squinted at the image. “Is Giorno’s hand on his abs?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out if they’re dating or just like that. It’s like… not the only picture that’s like this.”

Jolyne laughed. 

“I mean I know it’s a thing to kiss someone’s cheeks as a greeting in France. Maybe in Italy it’s normal to just feel up a guy’s abs every three seconds.” Josuke continued to study the image. “I mean he’s got nice abs.”

They’d reached the post office and Okuyasu was pushing open the door at the front of the group. He shouted back at them. “I’m going to tell him you said that!”

Josuke ran up ahead. “Don’t you dare!”

Jolyne waited by the door with Koichi and Yukako as Josuke and Okuyasu mailed their letters. 

In all the excitement of the day, she’d almost forgotten the colossal shift in her life that had occurred hours ago. Her dad came out to her. She’d even come out too, in a smaller way. Hell, she’d just told four more people. Huge things were happening and it was somehow the first time in a while she’d forgotten to scheme, or ruminate, or even worry. Maybe that was why she felt at ease. Everything was out in the open now. Maybe things were actually more… okay?

While she was waiting there, her phone buzzed. A message? From who? She picked it up and saw Hermes’ icon on the screen. Oh, right. Last night she’d sent her a text before falling asleep that said something along the lines of, “You didn’t hear this, but you were right about my dad.” That was probably a weird thing to send out of the blue! Why did she do that? And Hermes must’ve just replied. She should look at the message. 

The reply on the screen just read, “Wait, what did I say?”

She’d have to respond later since she was out with people right now. Other people… that she now realized were all staring at her.

“Who was that? ” Josuke was grinning.

“What?” She stuffed her phone back into her pocket.

“You just went through like every emotion in the last five seconds,” Josuke said. “Who was that message from?”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then a knowing smile spread across her face. “Just my friend Hermes.”

A chorus of “Ooooooo”s came from everyone but Koichi, who was too polite to tease her.

Yukako jumped in immediately. “Tell us everything. How’d you meet? Do you think she’s interested?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. 

After the post office they’d stopped for ice cream before finally going their separate ways. Josuke had given her advice while gesturing with his plastic spoon. “When you talk to her, leave some kind of suggestion to talk more later. It’ll give you reasons to keep talking and show you’re interested in spending more time together.”

Okuyasu was desperately trying to stop a scoop of ice cream from falling off the cone as it melted. “No offense man, but have you dated… anyone? Ever?” 

Josuke held out his cup, “Here, dude, put it in the dish. Mine’s almost gone anyway.” He turned his attention back towards Jolyne. “And I am always up on the relationship drama everywhere I go. I know about this stuff!”

It did seem like good advice. She’d trust Josuke over Yukako or Koichi even though they weren’t single.

Yukako leaned over the table to look at Jolyne’s phone at one point. “She said it’s boring without you here? Out of the blue?” 

The others had raised their eyebrows at that. 

“I guess that could be a friend thing, but regardless it’s a good sign.” Yukako said.

Koichi smiled. “She clearly enjoys your company.”

Jolyne couldn’t help the bit of heat that rose to her face as she smiled in kind.

Jolyne was relieved to find the hotel room empty when she finally got back. She needed some time to herself after all that. She soaked up the quiet solitude and finally responded to her message from Hermes. “Don’t worry about it,” she wrote. “I’ll explain when I get home.”

She dropped her head back onto the armrest of the hotel couch to look at the ceiling. The world around her was changing so fast. When she’d boarded the plane here, she was still wondering if she’d end up dating Anasui. She’d thought digging through her father’s personal life was the only way she was going to get any explanation out of him. She didn’t know Okuyasu, Yukako, Koichi or… Kakyoin. 

She wanted to talk to him.

Her phone lit up with a text from her Dad. “I’m at Grandma’s. She wants me to spend the night instead of driving home this late. Do you want me to come back?”

“No, that’s okay. I can just eat the leftovers in the fridge.” They’d been getting dinner out, so they were still drowning in pasta.

She wondered if he’d talked to his mom about what happened the night before. She wasn’t on his list of people that knew about Kakyoin. 

She sent Kakyoin a message, since she still had his number. “Are you working tonight?”

His reply was surprisingly quick. “No, I decided to work in the morning for once. What’s up?”

She felt really awkward asking, but she powered through. “My dad’s away visiting his mom tonight. Can I come over?” 

“Sure. Is everything alright?”

“I think so.” She wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. 

“All I have is leftovers,” Kakyoin wrote.

“That’s fine. Me too.”

They hit a minor roadblock when Kakyoin realized neither of them had access to a car. After several minutes of silence, she got a final reply from him. “Okay, as long as we’re fast this should be fine. I’ll text when I’m at the hotel.”

When she got down to the drop off area, she found Kakyoin in a sports car. He rolled down the window. “Quick, get in.”

She lowered herself into the passenger seat. The seats were way closer to the ground than she was used to. “Where did you get this?”

“It’s Rohan’s. I have keys to his house so I stole his car keys.”

Once she was buckled in he sped out of the hotel parking lot. There was a jerkiness to the car’s movements that made her wonder when Kakyoin had last driven a car. 

“He lets you borrow his car?”

“He won’t let anyone near it actually. That’s why he’s not going to find out about this.”

Jolyne snickered.

“Did you know the car’s name is Princess Serenity? ” he asked.

“Is that… after Sailor Moon?” 

Kakyoin grinned. “Yep.” 

After a particularly harsh stop, Jolyne decided to stop talking and let Kakyoin focus on the road.

They pulled into Rohan’s driveway and Jolyne had to get out as quietly as she could and make sure it was parked straight. After some trial and error she gave Kakyoin the okay and he ran to put the keys back. 

“He’s not home right now, so I think we’re in the clear,” Kakyoin said. As they walked down the block towards his house, Kakyoin turned to her and asked, “So what’s going on? Is Holly okay?”

“Grandma Holly’s fine. My dad just went up there for a spontaneous visit, I think.”

“Oh. Is your dad okay?”

Jolyne paused. “I think so. I don’t really know how he’s doing.” Kakyoin gave her a look of concern, but she waved it away. “He’s okay. I’ll explain when we get inside.”

Inside, she set the container of pasta she’d brought on Kakyoin’s counter. She’d figured if they were both eating leftovers, she might as well bring her own leftovers. Kakyoin dug something out of his fridge and put it in the microwave, then turned back to her expectantly.

She fiddled with the lid on the pasta container. “He told me the truth… about you, yesterday.”

Kakyoin regarded her with surprise and then slight suspicion. “And that truth is?” It would’ve been a clever way to get information out of him, though clearly even if she’d thought of it, it wouldn’t have worked.

“You’re his ex.”

Kakyoin visibly deflated, supporting himself on the edge of the kitchen island. “I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to hide it from you.”

Jolyne laughed at his dramatics. “What do you mean?” 

He pointed an accusatory finger at her. “I could tell you were figuring it out! You were watching me! I thought for sure I was going to slip up somehow.”

Jolyne was still laughing. “I didn’t know you could tell.” She stopped, looking back up at him. “Would it have been so bad if I did catch you?” 

Kakyoin blinked at her a couple of times. 

“Didn’t it hurt you, that my dad kept it a secret?”

“I guess I always respected his choice. I’m not sure why.” He looked like he was giving the question a lot of thought. “Your dad isn’t like most people. Even if there are things he really wants to say, sometimes he can’t say them. I didn’t take it personally. I’m also a private person, and generally I prefer people liking me to people knowing me… so I’m also inclined to hide things.”

Jolyne felt hurt by the last statement in a way she didn’t expect. “Do you want me to like you more than you want me to know you?”

Kakyoin’s response was immediate. “No, which is why I’m relieved.” His eyes glinted with a more urgent sincerity as they tried to meet hers. She nodded. She believed him. “I didn’t want to hurt your family with things that are in the past if your father wanted to keep them there.” He frowned. “I’m honestly shocked he told you.”

The microwave dinged behind him and he returned to his food, stirring and testing to see if it was warm enough. Jolyne took a few bites of her pasta, preferring to leave it cold. When it looked like Kakyoin was satisfied with the state of his reheated leftovers, she spoke up. “How did you two meet?”

Kakyoin looked at her blankly. “What?”

“I want to hear the story.”

“Uh,” he’d lost a little bit of composure. She wondered if he’d ever told this story before. “Alright. I’ll do my best.” He took a bite of his food. “Do you think your dad would want me telling you this?”

“I don’t care. Do you?”

“I guess not.”

Kakyoin tried to place himself back in the time that it all started. "I was away from home because I was visiting colleges."

He couldn't even remember the name of the one he'd been visiting at the time. He'd stopped there because it was supposed to have a good computer science program and he'd found he was decent with computers. He remembered hoping they'd have a course related to video games, but the catalogue was all algorithms and data structures and a lot that went over his head.

"That's how I met Polnareff."

A very chatty, very French, foreign exchange student in the class he ended up sitting in on insisted on giving him a proper tour of the facilities. They looked… nice, shiny, new. It was sort of exciting. People didn’t usually talk to him this much either. In his experience programmers kept to themselves, but Polnareff was, well, not like that at all.

“Anywhere else you want to see? I’ve got a decent sense of the campus now that I’ve been here for a couple months.”

He wondered why a foreign exchange student was even giving him a tour. Still, sheepishly he asked, “Is there an art building?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s just across the street! That-away.” He pointed. “Just give me a second.” He fell behind to get something out of a vending machine nearby and Kakyoin stepped out into the street. Then... well.

"And uh, while he was showing me around, I got hit by a car."

“What?!” Jolyne said.

The car came screeching to a halt and a man dressed vaguely like Indiana Jones burst out of the driver's side door. “Oh my god!” He was even speaking English. Maybe he really was Indiana Jones, Kakyoin thought faintly, only now noticing his vantage point was much lower than usual. His face was pressed against asphalt.

“Old man, you can’t just stop the car in the middle of the street!” Someone else was getting out of the passenger seat and walking over. Another high schooler? He watched a cigarette butt fall to meet the street in front of him and a black leather shoe stamp it out.

Kakyoin had to piece together the rest from his friends’ accounts after the fact.

"Your great grandfather and your father were the ones who hit me. Your dad carried me back to the car and they drove me to the hospital, because they were actually already on their way there. Polnareff came along because he felt partially responsible for what happened, even if it was an accident. I don't know exactly how, but in his panic he roped another student from his exchange program into everything and Avdol ended up meeting us at the hospital."

He had vague memories of the waiting room and people hovering around asking him questions from time to time. The strange smoking teenager in a heavily accessorized school uniform watched him doggedly. “You’re supposed to observe people with concussions.”

“Observe for what, though?” Polnareff asked.

His focus was unbroken. “I don’t remember.”

“So you’re just watching him?”

“Yeah.”

"I ended up being fine—no injuries other than the concussion. Your great grandfather was originally headed there with Jotaro to visit his daughter Holly in the ICU after she'd suddenly fallen ill. Joseph had flown all the way from New York.

"While I was being taken care of and returning to coherency everyone there had become deeply invested in Holly's plight. And soon I understood why."

“She’s an angel,” Jolyne said.

Kakyoin nodded.

"There was this medication that she needed that was not only super expensive, but having a nation-wide shortage, so somehow we hatched this bizarre plan to go on a cross country trek to find some.

“I wasn’t supposed to return to school for a bit because of the concussion anyway, so I agreed to go along."

Granted, he was probably supposed to go home and definitely supposed to refrain from making big decisions, but that didn’t stop his concussed mind from thinking it was a good idea.

Even when he was barely conscious, the cluster of concerned faces he’d watched crowd over him made him feel supported in a way he never had. He felt like part of something and he wanted to follow that no matter what. 

Back then he was just beginning to dream about who he could become. He was so naive, but in a way that was hard for him not to admire even now. He didn’t know how to face his teenage self these days. He couldn’t help but feel like something in him died back then.

“I guess the story of us actually getting to know each other is a bit longer, but that’s how we met.”

“That was a lot more… eventful than I was expecting,” Jolyne said. “I guess I should’ve been expecting it. You stole a car to get us here.”

“My life’s a non-stop thrill ride,” Kakyoin said. It was mostly sarcasm, but he did miss being impulsive and exciting. Maybe some of what he’d lost back then was coming back to him.

The conversation died down and Kakyoin apologized, saying he needed to start doing the dishes. He handed Jolyne a portable speaker. “Here, you pick the music,” he said.

Jolyne grinned, picking up the cable and scrolling through her phone. She laughed to herself as she queued up the song.

“What did you do?” Kakyoin asked. Then as the opening guitar came in he caught on, “Is this? …Oh you’re vain . You know that?”

She only laughed in response.

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I’m beggin’ of you please don’t take my man.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped to learn about her dad or Kakyoin from the story of their meeting, but she felt like she hadn’t learned it yet. The mystery of their shared past was finally at her fingertips. She just wanted to understand who Kakyoin was to her family.

“What do you think of my anthem?” She asked.

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please don’t take him just because you can.”

“Well, it’s American country music, but I do understand that it’s iconic.”

“What do you have against country music?”

“Nothing! It’s just not what I normally listen to.” He turned around to put dry silverware in a drawer in front of her, the light behind him briefly lining up and casting his red hair in a fiery glow. She wasn’t sure if the color was natural or not. It didn’t seem like a natural color, but it suited him and his complementary green outfits so well, she sort of assumed it had always been that way.

“Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, with ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.”

Jolyne went stiff and Kakyoin turned back to the sink, unaware. “This does sound like a song your dad would like. You know he used to love city pop? Never would’ve expected it.” 

He set down the dish he was washing and looked back at her with those green eyes of his. “Jolyne? Are you okay?”

“Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain. And I cannot compete with you Jolene.”

“How good is your English?” was all Jolyne could think to ask.

“It’s okay. Why?”

“He talks about you in his sleep and there’s nothing I can do to keep from cryin’ when he calls your name, Jolene.”

Jolyne’s words caught a bit in her throat. “It’s nothing, the lyrics are just… more dramatic than I remembered them.” She’d always thought it was an odd song to name someone after. It was a song about the other woman, the one who had the power to ruin everything. 

In some ways though, it was also a love song to that person. It’s a song about the man the singer fears losing. It’s also a song about the person that man secretly loves.

To her father, the person across from her was all of those things.

“And I could easily understand how you could easily take my man, but you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene.”

She was never supposed to know what this song meant. She was never supposed to know Kakyoin. It struck a very odd chord within her. This secret shouldn’t be hers. Wordlessly, she changed the song.

Chapter Text

Jolyne and Kakyoin were startled by a shout from the direction of the front door. “YOU DIRTY CAR THIEF!” Jolyne followed Kakyoin into the foyer as he opened the door and discovered a fuming Rohan.

“What do you mean?” Kakyoin’s tone was innocent, but Jolyne got the sense he was enjoying this a little.

“I would never park that close to the wall. Neither would any idiot who knows how to drive!” He pointed at Kakyoin. “That leaves you.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. What were you out doing? Going through people’s trash again?”

Jolyne thought Kakyoin was making some sort of insult, but when Rohan responded she realized he might mean that literally. “Trash tells a story! For example, I know that you ate microwave gyoza for dinner at least five days this week.” He put out his hand. “Give me your copy of my house keys. I’m revoking your key privileges.”

“Then who will bring you packaged meals from Owson when it seems like you haven’t eaten in days?”

Rohan fell silent for a moment. Just when it seemed like he was readying a reply, Kakyoin spoke up again.

“Since you’re clearly the best driver here and the one with a car, can you take Jolyne home? I’d even pay you as long as it’s cheaper than a cab.” They’d realized earlier that they might have to steal the car again if she was going to get back to the hotel. Kakyoin had said he thought he could get Rohan to take her if all else failed.

Rohan sighed. “Fine, but I know you took the car out.” He narrowed his eyes and pointed at Kakyoin. “You’re going to owe me.”

The threat put a little chill down Jolyne’s spine, but Kakyoin showed no signs of concern. “Sure, whatever.” He turned towards her. “You can stay here as long as you want, but if you want to go back to the hotel, now’s probably your chance.” 

Jolyne would’ve been fine spending the night, but she didn’t want to impose. “Yeah, I’ll go now. Thanks for having me.” 

Kakyoin smiled. 

Rohan wasn’t her favorite person, but he associated with plenty of people she actually liked, and that stopped her from thinking too low of him. Plus, she was interested in talking to him right now. He was quieter than she thought was normal as she followed him to the car. Maybe he was genuinely mad at Kakyoin. It wasn’t until they were both in the car and on the road, that she decided to speak up.

“You knew about the song, didn’t you? Was that what you were getting at before?”

He glanced over at her briefly, before returning his focus to the road. “Oh, you mean your namesake. I looked up a translation of the lyrics a while ago.”

“Yeah, and when you asked me if I’d listened to it, that was because…?” She watched streetlights burn tracks across the night sky out the window.

“I made the connection, yeah. Auburn hair, emerald green—can’t be a coincidence. Your dad seems deliberate in most of what he does.”

“I don’t think Kakyoin has any idea.”

“It’s probably better that he doesn’t know.” That response surprised her. Rohan was still focused intently on the road when she looked over at him. She’d assumed he was the sort of person to stir up drama wherever possible, but his statement seemed to reflect genuine care.

“Why do you say that?” Part of her felt like Kakyoin should know.

“I’ve never heard about Kakyoin’s history with Jotaro in my life. And I make a point to know a lot about people. It must be painful for him somehow.” 

Kakyoin had talked pretty freely with Jolyne when she’d asked about it, but there wasn’t much to his story. ‘How’d you meet,’ is usually sort of like asking, ‘how did you come to fall for each other,’ but the answer she got barely included her father. Maybe it was a weird thing to ask as Jotaro’s daughter anyway.

Rohan continued, becoming more animated. “When he let it slip they had history, I had to know all about it. To find horror, you’ve got to look for the things people don’t talk about.” That was the Rohan Jolyne knew. “A father with a crushing secret from years ago that he comes face to face with unexpectedly at his lowest point—it could be a great horror manga setup.”

He gestured at her with a free hand. “And the fact that you’re here really raises the stakes. That’s the kind of thing one might not think of without studying the real world.” He paused, glancing at her again. “How does all of this make you feel?”

Jolyne considered refusing to answer on principle, not wanting to be used as fodder for some story. She was actually coming to think of Rohan as a slightly multifaceted human being, though. And she began to wonder about what her answer to his question would even be. She thought over her strangely peaceful day since the revelations the night before. 

“I think I feel… relieved, that I know the truth. And the thing with the song makes me feel…” She’d felt this way before, back when she first met Kakyoin in the convenience store, “...like something really important might slip away.”

“Hmm.” Rohan tapped on the steering wheel, looking displeased. “So you’re actually optimistic about your father. The situation might resolve. I’d need to add the horror back in somehow for the daughter character.”

Jolyne leaned on her elbow as she watched the night fly past out the window. She let herself think about the thing lurking at the corners of her mind, the ticking clock and their impending return to Florida where everything was still broken. “The worst thing would be to make the dad disappear now.” 

Rohan nodded to himself. “So just as everything seems like it’s going to work out, it falls apart. I could kill off the father. That’s good.” That wasn’t really what Jolyne meant. She tried to stop thinking of the story Rohan was crafting as being about them.

Still, she felt a morbid curiosity towards this horror version of her future. “And what happens to the Kakyoin character? What does he want?” If his history with Jotaro really was painful for him, was all of this harder than he was letting on?

“Well, I wasn’t sure if the secret would be a person in the story. Maybe it’s a curse, a dead person, or an old villain that makes an unexpected return.”

“A dead person—like a ghost?” Something about the way Kakyoin appeared in their lives made that fit. He was a ghost from her father’s past, burdened by unfinished business of some kind, in limbo. Did that mean he would remain separate from them, trapped in the realm of the dead?

“I don’t really have it nailed down yet. I suppose that would work. It’s a little overdone.”

“What do you think my dad wants out of all this?” 

“I’d guess he’s more concerned about what you and Kakyoin want, don’t you think? That’s the tragic thing about the father character, he’s dead set on bearing it alone, even if it breaks him.”

The air felt thick with dark possibilities, the night impossibly wide. She wasn’t looking forward to sleeping alone in the hotel. “Well, I think your story is scary.” 

“It isn’t bad.” They were pulling up towards the hotel parking lot now. “You’re a great consultant.” He studied her for a moment. “I was thinking the father would be the protagonist, but it might be more interesting to have it be the daughter. If you ever want to do this again, let me know.”

He pulled up at the drop off and Jolyne got out of the car. “Sure, I guess.” She entered through the revolving doors and then made her way through the quiet and bright lobby.

Their conversation had been a weird sort of exposure therapy. She’d sure had an unsettling meeting with reality. It was easy to forget that everything was always on the edge of falling apart all the time. She grimaced. Yeah, there was probably a reason people let themselves forget about that.

She swiped the key card on the hotel door and then swung it open. She was surprised to find her father seated at the table, reading.

“I decided to come home,” he said as she entered.

She stopped and balled her fists as unexpected rage flared up. “But—the driving at night! You were so tired! Something could’ve…”

He stood when she raised her voice. She could only look at his shoes as she trailed off and he approached. He reached out and she let him until he carefully wrapped both arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… didn’t want to leave you here.”

She returned the hug as tears prickled at the corners of her eyes.

She wasn’t completely powerless. She could keep moving, try her best to stay ahead of the storm and fight for the things that were really important to her. Against the horror of the unknown, what else is there to do? After everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, she was glad her and her dad found their way back to each other.

Kakyoin was alone again. His house was the same comfortable shell around him it always was. He stood in the foyer facing a second-hand wooden coat rack he’d found at a yard sale shortly after moving in hanging below some framed prints he’d bought years ago. All the stuff in this house was his. Sometimes that was nice and sometimes it felt like an echo chamber, like an extension of himself that made him feel trapped in his own mind.

He realized he didn’t even have any pictures hung up anywhere, of anyone. 

He wasn’t truly alone anymore. He hadn’t been since he’d been hit by Joseph Joestar’s car all those years ago. He had friends in Morioh and friends that were only a phone call away. 

It didn’t seem to matter how many friends he made though, or how much time he spent talking to other people. There was a part of him that still felt lonely. He wondered sometimes if it was an inextricable part of his soul. 

Jolyne had looked so hurt when he’d said, I’d rather people like me than know me.

He was quick to tell her she was different, but had he even answered honestly? His knee jerk reaction was almost always to say what he thought someone wanted to hear. And he could tell in that moment she wanted to hear that very badly. At the time, he was taken aback. No one had looked at him with that kind of dependency since, well…

It must be the absence of that dependency that was now making the house feel so empty, too full of him. He did want to connect with Jolyne. He wouldn’t feel this way if he didn’t.

He wanted all his friends to know him, didn’t he?

Kakyoin walked into the living room and then sat down on his sofa, staring at the black screen of his TV and the bookshelves around it. His inner self was a skittish thing. Was that lonely part of himself just lonely because it was hidden? 

If he was more open with other people, would things change?

He picked up one of his throw pillows and hugged it close to his chest. He thought about the box next to his heart that had been spilling memories like tears ever since Jotaro showed up. It wasn’t some antagonistic construct of his brain. As much as he hated to admit it, it was a part of him that was probably very very lonely. He didn’t know if it wanted to learn and grow, or wallow, or tear him apart, but he wondered what would happen if it made it out into the light.

He didn’t really feel like he could sleep right now, or work. Maybe he’d call Polnareff and talk about nothing and everything would be okay. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was on the precipice of everything being… not that.

The following morning, Kakyoin showed up for breakfast to find Jolyne missing. Jotaro said she was still asleep. Rohan had said he was coming but didn’t show and Koichi offered to go check on him. Kakyoin would’ve offered instead, but he figured it was for the best that Koichi went, since Rohan was probably still mad about The Car Incident.

He took the seat next to Jotaro at the cafe table and realized both of the people they usually talked to were gone. Josuke, Okuyasu and Yukako all quickly got into a conversation and the two of them found themselves sitting in silence.

Kakyoin’s eyes fell on the croissant in front of them. “Did you know croissants were actually only invented in the late twentieth century? They’re based on the Austrian kipferl which French bakers began to replace with laminated dough.” Dear god. He was reverting to a high schooler. 

“I always thought croissants looked kind of like sumo wrestlers.” At least Jotaro was an equally weird conversationalist. Kakyoin stared at him as he pointed at the croissant. “The thing on top looks like a head and the two arms on the sides are flexing.” 

Kakyoin had to laugh.

He noticed some heads across the table turn towards him and he tried to act like he didn’t notice. Though he wasn’t always sure if it was intentional or not, Jotaro was funny, always had been. Was it weird to be laughing?

“How’s your work going?” Kakyoin asked, like a normal adult. 

He knew Jotaro loved to talk about his work, and was soon hearing about whale pods in Mexico and kelp forests in California and new species of starfish.

Like the bottles Jotaro described approaching the Pacific Garbage Patch, Kakyoin’s mind began to drift. What he was hearing was interesting, but the current in his brain was too strong to fight. He was being pulled against his will, back into the bitter past.

He looked at Jotaro in the summer sun as they sat at the outdoor tables, and he couldn’t help but remember the last time they’d talked one on one, on a nice day like this. 

They’d been at a park near the hospital. It was pretty much empty and he ended up being glad for that. He still had that stupid hospital bracelet on, because he’d been too lazy to cut it off the night before. He remembered seeing it as a bit of a badge of pride, for surviving. He actually remembered being in a good mood when he got there, but he couldn’t quite remember why. What followed ended up overshadowing everything else.

This wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about. It might actually be the last thing he wanted to think about at this moment, sitting with Jotaro at this nice cafe. There was a reason this memory sat at the bottom of a box that wasn’t supposed to open.

“You ever seen a mermaid?” Kakyoin forced out the first thing that came to mind when he sensed a lull in the conversation.

Jotaro grimaced, but not in a way that reflected genuine annoyance. “Would you cut it out with that? I know mermaids aren’t real. I was seven.”

Once Jotaro had admitted to Kakyoin that he wanted to marry a mermaid as a child and Kakyoin never let it go as a teen, or an adult apparently. “I’d been wondering if you were secretly in this line of work to try to find one. But you wouldn’t tell me if you were, would you?”

Jotaro huffed out a small laugh. The heads across the table swiveled again and he wondered if Jotaro noticed because he coughed, and fiddled with his hat.

He lowered his voice. “That was just a dumb fantasy I had as a kid—living out in the ocean where nobody could tell me what to do, with a girl who wouldn’t expect me to be anything I’m not.”

That was… honest. Kakyoin was startled by this older, more vulnerable Jotaro sometimes.

Jotaro’s voice grew quieter as he said, “I stopped looking for mermaids a long time ago.”

Kakyoin felt like he knew when that really was.

“Then go to France! I didn’t even like you that much anyway.” Jotaro looked at the ground. “I was just messing around.”

Kakyoin had been grateful no one was in the park that day because it meant no one but Jotaro was there to see him cry.

“Jotaro, I know you’re lying.” Kakyoin could still hear the venom in his own teenage voice.

“Tell yourself whatever you want! If people knew we were together, they’d laugh! You actually thought we had a future?”

That last exchange never really left his mind. He never believed Jotaro’s words were true, but they kept crawling back to him, every time his relationships since ended, when he failed, when he really wanted something. You actually thought we had a future? That’s what words like that did.

The only remark he’d ever believed was actually true, was Jotaro’s last.

“I hope I never see you again.”

“Have you been painting?” Jotaro asked and Kakyoin was wrenched into the present moment.

He blinked back the sunlight, catching up. It seemed like Jotaro was trying to lighten the mood, but Kakyoin was immediately embarrassed by his answer to the question. “Not really these days. I don’t have a studio space right now and that makes it kind of hard to set up. I help Rohan with color spreads sometimes.” 

Jotaro looked just a tiny bit disappointed. 

“Sometimes I mess with digital art, but I’m not as good at it.” Kakyoin grabbed the croissant in front of them and took a bite, distracting himself. The sumo wrestler would have to lose an arm.

“Like… on the computer?”

Kakyoin smiled, but had to sit and chew for a minute before he could respond. “Yes, you can paint on the computer.”

Jotaro was frowning like he was working through a problem. “But you could keep practicing that and get better?”

“I guess,” Kakyoin gave him a sideways look. “Why do you want me to be painting?”

Jotaro reached for his hat again. “I don’t, really. It’s just weird sometimes, how much things have changed.”

Normally Kakyoin would come up with some kind of witty response, but a pit was forming in his stomach and he couldn’t understand why. He took another bite of the croissant.

He’d gotten through the whole memory mostly unscathed. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten that conversation, and besides the occasional flare up, the wound had healed. It was nice when Jotaro apologized for being a jerk back then, but it wasn’t like he was still angry about it.

He’d always suspected it was Jotaro’s messed up way of encouraging him to follow his dreams anyway—cut his ties so he could go to France. Everybody had been encouraging him to go. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, his ticket to future success. Jotaro must’ve wanted that for him too.

Jotaro must’ve known… he’d already made up his mind not to go.

Kakyoin paled. That was what he’d been trying to forget, wasn’t it?

He was going to make the irresponsible decision, remain in Japan, finally study art, stay with Jotaro. He’d been giddy with the anticipation of it all when he’d met Jotaro at the park. He was going to throw everything to the wind, live how he wanted for once, other people’s opinions be damned. Then Jotaro had gone and done that. 

He’d backed out, labeled it a flight of fancy and packed everything up into boxes—his paints, his memories, his bad ideas—and flew to France. He’d convinced himself it was for the best, but he didn’t know if he ever actually believed that.

Over ten years of doubt and a simmering white hot regret hit him all at once. He felt like crying. What the hell had he been doing all this time? No wonder he felt so guilty when he looked back at his teenage self. What would teenage Kakyoin think of him now? Had he just given up?

“Kakyoin?” Jotaro’s face was laced with worry.

Kakyoin looked at him with wide eyes. “I think I owe you an apology.”

Jotaro didn’t get a chance to respond before Kakyoin’s phone began ringing.

Kakyoin glanced at the caller ID. It was Koichi. This couldn’t be good.

He shot Jotaro an apologetic look and picked up. Jotaro nodded in understanding.

“Hi, uh, is this Mr. Kakyoin?” A nervous voice came through the receiver. Kakyoin took a deep breath, not wanting his own mood to add to whatever Koichi was worried about.

“Koichi?” He noticed the others across the table looking up.

“Yeah, hi. I know you help out Rohan Sensei sometimes. I have to get to work, but he’s… well, would it be possible for you to come look after him?”

In the background, Kakyoin heard Rohan shout something along the lines of “Don’t bring Kakyoin here! I can handle this myself.”

Kakyoin stood up. “Did something happen?”

“I’m not really sure. Rohan Sensei was trying to play it off like he just wanted to sit around, but I don’t think he can actually move.”

In the distance Kakyoin heard. “My back is fine! I’m not getting old!”

Koichi shouted back, “We’re not even talking about that!” Kakyoin was glad the kid was willing to talk back to Rohan a little. He worried about him sometimes. 

Kakyoin sighed. “I’ll go check on him. You do what you need to do.” He hung up the phone and glanced around the table. 

Jotaro understood. “Go. It sounds important.” 

Josuke had to leave for work as well, so they ended up disbanding. Kakyoin grabbed the half-eaten croissant to eat on the way and was off to Rohan’s. 

For now he’d just have to suck it up and deal with these feelings on his own. Honestly, part of him was relieved.

Jolyne had needed to unwind after that whole mess of a day and so she’d texted with her Florida friends late into the night. It was mostly gossip from home. Weather snuck into his weird brother Pucci’s room again looking for a CD he claimed was stolen. He reported that Pucci still had the same strange contraptions in his room and notably three different editions of Dracula. 

“I know it’s not that weird, but the only other book I’ve seen him read is the Bible,” Weather wrote.

Weather seemed a little concerned, but the rest of them just found his brother’s antics entertaining. He was reclusive enough that to the rest of them he almost seemed fictional.

There were rumors about various people from school, stories from Hermes about weirdo customers in the convenience store, whatever nature facts Foo Fighters felt like sharing. It was all pretty light, exactly what she needed.

She woke up to notifications in the “NO GROWNUPS ALLOWED!” family group chat. The bed on the other side of the room was empty and light was streaming in through gaps in the curtains. The clock between the beds said it was close to eleven. Breakfast had probably wrapped up by now and her father would be on his way back soon.

The first message in the chat was from Yukako. “Does anyone know how Kakyoin and Jotaro even know each other??”

She laughed to herself as she read the message. Jolyne was one of very few people that did know the answer to that question. Josuke jumped in with the version of the two’s history he had. There was a falling out in high school where Kakyoin moved to… France? That was actually new information.

Yukako responded, “They seem awfully close for having not talked in years.” 

“I’ve never seen Jotaro joke around with someone like that,” Okuyasu wrote. 

“They do that.” Jolyne replied. “It surprised me at first too.”

“Huh.” That was Yukako.

“Yukako.” Jolyne could almost hear Koichi’s warning tone through the phone. “Mr. Jotaro was just divorced.”

“You weren’t there, okay!” Yukako shot back.

“Wait, Yukako you aren’t thinking…” Josuke’s message trailed off. 

“I got a vibe!” Yukako wrote.

Josuke’s reply was lightning fast. “Oh my god.” 

“Wait, what are you guys talking about?” Okuyasu’s message was ignored.

“Why can I kind of see it??” Josuke replied.

“You guys.” Koichi’s message was ignored.

“They were totally flirting!” Yukako wrote. 

God, what happened at breakfast?

“Wait, what? Seriously?” Okuyasu typed for a moment before a second message came in. “Tracks.”

“Are you guys forgetting Jolyne is here?” That was Koichi again. Jolyne covered her mouth. 

“Oh good point,” Yukako replied. “Jolyne, what do you think?” Poor Koichi.

She knew too many secrets to actually share her opinion on this. As she was typing Josuke replied, “Sorry, Jolyne. We’re being rude gossiping about this. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

It most definitely wasn’t nothing, but she couldn’t say that either. 

She heard the front door and closed her phone immediately. Moments later, Jotaro appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Sleep well?” He asked.

Jolyne nodded and he fell into the bed next to hers. “What are you planning on doing now?” She asked, sitting up.

“Going back to sleep, probably.” 

“Dad…” Had the others been right about her dad and Kakyoin? She lost momentum the moment she opened her mouth. He sat up a little, maybe catching the hesitance in her voice. She changed course last minute. “What’s going to happen when we go home again?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Everything’s going to be different… What if we lose the people we met here?”

Jotaro was clearly fighting back exhaustion as he laid back down again and his tone was dismissive. She was about to be annoyed, but the words he was saying gave her pause. “Everything will always change, but I’ve started to think that there’s usually something good in the change, if you look for it. 

“It’s nice because every time I want to go back to things in the past, I find things in the present I can’t bear to lose, so I keep going.”

Their family falling apart is what led to them finding Kakyoin. Is that what he meant? Had he already accepted he’d lose Kakyoin when they went home?

“You know not everything is out of your control though, right?” Jolyne looked over at him, but he was already asleep.

Walking up to Rohan’s house Kakyoin got the distinct sense he was being watched. He noticed the blinds on the downstairs window were slit open. No one came to the door when he knocked so, grateful he still had Rohan’s house key, he let himself in.

The house was dark when he stepped inside, only lit by the strips of light coming through the blinds. Rohan was on the couch, staring at passers by with that… look he got sometimes. Kakyoin shuddered. “Have you just been laying here watching people?” 

Rohan’s tone was even. “This is what I want to be doing. They’re completely unaware of me. I can see into their daily lives.” This was a man doggedly distracting himself from his problems, and also one too ashamed to admit he hadn’t left the couch all morning because he couldn’t.

Kakyoin sighed. “How’s your manuscript?” He knew Rohan’s deadline was two days away. Rohan used to finish well ahead of his deadlines, but lately chapters were taking longer.

“I’ll finish it up… soon.”

Kakyoin came to stand over Rohan on the couch. “Did you finally get a repetitive motion injury?”

“I’ll have you know I designed my workstation to be perfectly ergonomic!” He turned away towards the window. “I think I threw out my back digging through the dumpster behind Koichi’s house yesterday.”

Kakyoin immediately felt less bad for him. Only slightly sarcastically, he asked, “Can I get anything for you?”

Rohan avoided eye contact. “The manuscript… and the ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet.”

He returned with the desired sheets of manga paper, painkillers and even a glass of water. Kakyoin noticed only about half the stack of pages was inked, if that. “Rohan, there’s a lot left on this.”

Rohan sighed, stopping to gulp down the pills. “I was feeling uninspired. Hence the—“

“The dumpster diving,” Kakyoin finished. Raccoon man.

Kakyoin flipped through the still un-inked pages at the end of the manuscript. “Is there anything in this you’d let me do?”

Rohan looked back at him like he was in physical pain. Well, he was in physical pain, but it looked like the suggestion pained him more. “Let me look at it.”

Kakyoin handed him the pages and Rohan thumbed through them grimacing. Finally he said, “Start by painting in the black areas and then… we’ll see.”

Kakyoin set up at Rohan’s coffee table and got to work on the pages, letting Rohan check them over from time to time. He got into a bit of a rhythm with the fills and finished the last several pages before thinking to look up again. He had a tendency to lose all concept of time while he was drawing. “Rohan is there—” He stopped when he realized Rohan was now asleep on the couch.

Kakyoin looked back down at the stack of unfinished pages, specifically the penciled-in forests and buildings behind the sketches of Pink Dark Boy’s characters. Rohan never let anyone do backgrounds, but it would probably cut his drawing time in half if Kakyoin did them. 

He glanced at the sleeping Rohan again, then took one of the complete pages as a reference and went upstairs to grab one of Rohan’s precious line work pens. The first couple strokes were the most nerve-wracking, but he worked carefully to try to replicate Rohan’s style. He glanced at the reference pages he’d set out as he filled in treelines, and detailed buildings, leaving the sketches of the characters untouched. He even fixed the perspective in a couple of places. 

He did about three pages before a knock at the door brought him out of his stupor. Rohan bolted upright next to him and stared at what Kakyoin was doing with a groggy sort of rage. Kakyoin hastily got up to get the door.

He realized his actions might have been more selfish than he’d thought initially when he remembered what he was dealing with before he arrived at Rohan’s. He wondered if he’d just been looking for a way to distract himself and got impulsive.

He opened the door to find Josuke holding a medical bag. “Oh hey Kakyoin. Koichi told me I should check on Rohan. I’m not a physical therapist, but I at least know more than the average guy.”

He came in and started giving Rohan an unofficial checkup. Rohan was being an absolute ass the entire time, even by Rohan standards. At first Kakyoin thought Rohan might just be angry over the backgrounds and taking it out on Josuke, but as things progressed it felt too personalized. He watched Josuke gritting his teeth trying to smile politely and wondered if the two just didn’t get along.

Josuke was able to do something that allowed Rohan to stand up and walk with a bit less pain and Rohan left the room to set up an appointment with an “actual doctor.” He was clearly trying not to show any satisfaction with Josuke’s work.

Kakyoin watched him go with a frown. “I don't know what his problem is.”

Josuke shrugged. “It’s good practice. I have to treat all patients kindly, and sometimes I have a hard time not getting angry.” He flashed Kakyoin a grin. “So this is perfect.”

Kakyoin rolled his eyes. “I bet he’s just going to the bathroom.”

Josuke laughed, then his eyes widened when he saw the pages in front of Kakyoin on the coffee table. “Whoa! Did you do this?”

“Just these three pages.”

Josuke leaned down, putting a hand to his chin and observing. “I can’t even tell the difference!”
Rohan scoffed, alerting them to his presence back in the room. He came to stand behind them and seemed to pause slightly upon actually seeing the pages. 

Josuke looked up at Kakyoin. “You know, you could get paid for this.”

Huh.

Kakyoin glanced back at Rohan who had grown quiet. Kakyoin noticed he was holding a bag of frozen peas against his lower back. “Josuke, get out of my house unless you want me to tell your friends about your secret trips to the mall.”

Josuke gave Rohan a vicious smile. “So glad I could help.” Then he left, taking pains not to slam the front door. Kakyoin smiled as he went. He liked Josuke. He seemed like the sort of person Jotaro might be if he wore his heart on his sleeve. He suddenly felt like Jotaro was probably aware of this fact as well, and the particular fondness Jotaro seemed to have for Josuke made even more sense.

“How much do you want?” Rohan’s voice was quiet behind him, startling him out of his thoughts.

“What?” He turned around, but Rohan wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“How much do you want for the rest of the backgrounds?”

Kakyoin spent the rest of the afternoon and evening drawing, with breaks for meals. By time he was done his panic from earlier that day had mostly subsided.

He’d just made money, making art. That was a pretty great feeling. 

Even though Rohan didn’t want to admit that Josuke had helped him, Rohan’s back was clearly doing better and he seemed confident he could finish inking the characters before the deadline. That meant Kakyoin was cleared to leave.

He cleaned up the dishes from the microwave gyoza he’d made while they were working. If Rohan picked up that Kakyoin was being petty, he didn’t comment on it when he accepted the food. With the dishes put away and the gyoza packaging safely in the trash, Kakyoin shouted a goodbye to Rohan and left.

If he could keep moving in some positive direction, maybe he could outrun the regret and frustration that came with the crushing realization that he might not have lived the life he wanted. Somehow, he’d start living it now.

Kakyoin’s lonely house greeted him with darkness and he flicked on the lights. He stared at the coat rack and framed prints that always waited for him there in the entryway. They were nicely arranged and presentable, but who cares about that? This was such a big room and he wasn’t using it for anything. 

He dug a big plastic tablecloth out of the cabinet above the fridge. He’d bought it when he’d been planning to buy a table for the porch, but he never bought the table, so now it didn’t have a use. He threw it on the floor in the foyer and then braved the back of his closet he always imagined was spider-infested. Past the winter coats and storage bins, he found five canvases and an easel against the wall. The paints were in a box nearby. He escaped only seeing a cobweb or two. There was always the possibility a spider was crawling on him that he couldn’t see, but he decided that at least would be a good story—Rohan’s influence, probably.

He pulled everything out into the foyer and then got it set up as best he could. He popped the glass out of one of his frames to use as a pallet and he had a studio, just like that. It only took about fifteen minutes.

He had no idea what he would paint, but he had a place to now. That was half the battle. At that point he called it a night.

An hour or so later Jotaro texted, explaining that he’d accidentally slept for several hours. “Was there something you wanted to say before?” he wrote.

Kakyoin sighed. Telling him now seemed like it would just compound their collective messes. What would he even say? I’m sorry I went to France? Who would that help all these years later? 

What even would’ve happened if Kakyoin had stayed?

Maybe it was better not to think about that.

You actually thought we had a future?

“It was nothing. I already forgot.”

Chapter Text

After going through the things boxed up in his mind, Kakyoin thought it might be time to go through the actual physical boxes in his house. His trip through the downstairs closet the night before had reminded him how much he’d stored there over the years. He couldn’t remember what half of the boxes he’d passed even contained. When he’d taken inventory of his paints and brushes that morning, he realized some of his favorite supplies were still missing, so he was determined to brave the closet again.

He started with the things near the entrance that weren’t a mystery to him. He hauled a couple bins of miscellaneous housewares into the hallway—mostly gifts from his parents he didn’t have the heart to give away. There was also a box with a couple old consoles in it that he could never decide on selling, playing with again, or holding onto for sentimental value. He picked up the Atari that had laid claim to an embarrassing amount of his lonely adolescence and was overcome with fondness, disgust, nostalgia and at least three other emotions he couldn’t name. Yeah. The consoles would stay where they were.

Feeling a bit bolder, he parted coats on the rack in the doorway, ducked and then ventured into the depths of the closet. He tried to imagine it was like a dungeon in a video game as he flicked on a flashlight. There were chests to open, treasures to discover and… monsters.

Kakyoin lifted a box and stumbled back when the biggest spider he’d ever seen ran out from under it. It was the size of a grape at least. It darted to the back wall and then up it until it stopped in a suitable hiding place. The flashlight beam illuminated the hairy black shape pressed into a corner of the ceiling. It was big enough to be poisonous. Maybe he didn’t have to feel embarrassed about being afraid. 

He knew where that spider was now, but if he kept going, how would he know there weren’t more under the boxes, or inside the boxes, or crawling on the back of his leg right now? He checked. No spiders… that he could see.

This was stupid.

But his favorite small flat brush… the jumbo tube of white oil paint… they called out to him like a princess locked away in the dungeon’s depths. He should be able to do this. He’d fought scarier monsters in video games than a larger-than-average spider. But even then, he was always more of a ranged fighter than a get right up close and punch kind of fighter. The approaching and grabbing and… squishing , weren’t really his thing. Normally he paper cupped spiders to avoid that, but he got the sense this dungeon-dwelling boss-spider wasn’t going to move for a very long time. It was still perfectly motionless in the flashlight beam.

He grimaced and set down the flashlight so he could finish carting the hopefully-spiderless box he’d lifted before out into the hallway. When he returned and cast the beam back towards the back corner of the closet the spider was gone. 

Okay. 

Fuck.

He didn’t need help to get this done, but maybe if he at least had someone to keep him company—just a party member he could order around—it would make the dungeon crawl easier.

Calling in from France, Polnareff couldn’t support him in the third dimension, which ruled him out. Polnareff would also probably laugh at him. Kakyoin had found it was best if Rohan didn’t go near spiders. Either way Rohan would be milking the situation for every ounce of horror-manga-potential and he didn’t feel like being cast in some sort of grim spider story.

Kakyoin marveled at the fact that he didn’t have any immediate friends in his life more useful than a two-dimensional frenchman and a freak mangaka.

He opened up his text exchange with Jotaro. “Hey, are you busy today?”

After a few minutes he got back a simple, “Why?”

“I kind of need help going through the stuff I have in storage. I’d find some way to compensate you. I could take you and Jolyne out to dinner or something.” It wasn’t a date if Jolyne was there.

“Let me check.”

After a few more minutes, he got another reply back. “I’ll come over. Jolyne’s going to call her mom while I’m out. And don’t worry about compensation. I don’t care.” 

Okay. His inner circle might also include a divorced biologist with limited people-skills. He wasn’t sure if that was much better, but he felt better. He spent a few minutes looking for the spider with the flashlight and a few going through some of the things that were already out in the hallway before he heard a knock at the door.

He was met with Jotaro’s ever-indifferent face on the other side of it. Jotaro was wearing his typical hat, long jacket and loud print ensemble. Kakyoin was still surprised to see him in such consistently bright colors. 

Jotaro stood on the doorstep and asked, “Do you ask for help with things now, or is something really wrong?”

He had used the word help hadn’t he? He hadn’t meant to do that. Jotaro didn’t seem seriously concerned, more like he might be poking fun at him. 

Kakyoin tried to recover some dignity. “I didn’t really mean I needed help help. I really just wanted company.”

Jotaro didn’t say anything, instead using his blank stare to question Kakyoin’s explanation. Kakyoin ignored him and stepped back to lead him towards the closet.

Jotaro’s gaze fell on Kakyoin’s makeshift studio now taking up most of the room. “I thought you said you weren’t painting anymore.”

Kakyoin continued towards the hallway next to the stairs where the closet was. “I’m… starting again, I guess. That’s why I’m going through the stuff back here.”

Jotaro followed Kakyoin to the closet doorway. He hoped Jotaro didn’t notice as he stopped and carefully scanned the floor, walls, and corners with the flashlight before stepping through the threshold of parted coats and into the depths of the closet of doom. Like the dutiful party member he was called there to be, Jotaro followed. There was just enough room for them to stand side by side and look at the collection of dusty boxes in waist-high stacks taking up the rest of the floor. The room widened out and the roof slanted down where the stairs were overhead. There was just a narrow strip between the stacks of boxes where one person could feasibly walk to the back wall. 

Kakyoin entered the walkway and took a few steps closer to the back wall. A cobweb swaying in the top corner of the ceiling created many-legged shadows in the flashlight beam that briefly gave him pause.

“I have a lot of experience in closets,” Jotaro said behind him. Kakyoin craned his neck to look back at him just as Jotaro added, “Metaphorical ones, though.”

The tension immediately drained and Kakyoin let out the kind of laugh he’d normally try to make sound more dignified. His head dipped and he hit it on the slanted ceiling on the way back up. He immediately raised a hand to his head as a bit of dislodged dust fell around them.

“Fuck! Ow.”

“Sorry,” Jotaro said.

“What? Don’t apologize for—Oh god.” Kakyoin took a frantic step back as the spider—assuming it was the same one—there could be a whole gang of them for all Kakyoin knew—darted over the box to his left and disappeared inside. He backed into Jotaro and almost tripped. Jotaro put his hands on Kakyoin’s shoulders to steady him, and then let go awkwardly after a beat when it was clear Kakyoin was already steady.

Kakyoin turned around and shooed Jotaro forwards. “Out. Out. We’re going out.”

Jotaro ducked under the coats and then stopped by the boxes in the hallway, looking unsure of where exactly to stand. When Kakyoin joined him, he asked. “You okay?”

Kakyoin tried to hide his efforts to slow his breathing. “I’m fine.”

Once again, Jotaro’s silent stare said everything it needed to. 

Kakyoin put his head in his hands. “There’s a spider. It went in one of the boxes. It’s… quite large.”

“Are you scared of spiders?” Jotaro’s tone was more curious than accusatory. 

Kakyoin did not remove his hands from his face. “No.” He winced. “Not… small ones.”

He peaked out from between his fingers and saw Jotaro nodding, before looking back into the closet. “They gross me out too, but I’ve gotten pretty good at catching them,” he said, putting a hand to his chin in thought. “Jolyne used to get kind of excited about spiders so sometimes we’d keep the ones we found in the house in jars for a few days before letting them go.”

Kakyoin lowered his hands. 

“She’d stare at them and then every time they moved she’d scream and run around the house, before going right back. I could never figure out if she was actually enjoying herself. They’re… interesting creatures.” He grimaced like he was trying to be charitable. That made Kakyoin smile a little.

 Kakyoin let out a puff of air. “I can do this on my own. I just wanted company.”

“Okay.” He appreciated that Jotaro didn’t push it. 

Kakyoin charged back into the closet and then grabbed the spider box. He carried it out onto the porch, set it down, and then slowly and carefully opened the flaps. “Maybe it’ll just… crawl out,” he said. He peered down into the box and didn’t see anything of immediate interest, or a spider, so he left it and returned to the closet.

“You just want me to stand here and watch?” Jotaro asked, still in the doorway as Kakyoin returned the stacks of boxes.

“Mhmm.” Kakyoin opened a couple nearby boxes and lifted them down to check the ones underneath and behind.

“Alright,” Jotaro said, but Kakyoin thought he heard a bit of a smile in his voice.

It really was nice having him there.

Kakyoin lifted the flaps on another box and gasped when he was met with a camera and a messy stack of photographs. “Jotaro, look.” He picked up the camera. “How did I end up with one of Joseph’s cameras?” He rotated it in his hand. It was a low end, nineteen eighties polaroid camera that immediately conjured an image of Joseph Joestar hunched behind the lens. “How many of those things did he end up breaking on that trip?”

Jotaro joined him deeper in the closet and puzzled at the camera in Kakyoin’s hands. “At least six.”

Kakyoin dropped the camera back into the box. “That’s a ridiculous number. This camera is lucky. Better the spider closet than Joseph Joestar.” They both chuckled at that.

Cautiously he picked up the pile of photos and straightened them into a neater stack. The first few photos were blurry pictures of scenery out the car window, then smudged visions of a much younger Avdol and Polnareff reaching towards the screen, and then what looked like a teenage Jotaro’s hand spread in front of the lens.

“I think I stole the camera,” Kakyoin said. He passed Jotaro a blurry picture of Joseph looking back at the camera, potentially mid “OH MY GOD.” Jotaro laughed behind him as Kakyoin flipped past a couple pictures that might’ve been selfies, but didn’t look like much more than smears of red hair and green school uniform.

The pictures towards the bottom of the stack were calmer. There was a picture of a fish tank in what he guessed was one of the many hotel lobbies they’d found themselves in on their journey. There were a few attempts to get a small yellow and purple fish into focus, with no success. There was a candid shot of Polnareff and Joseph unpacking the car and arguing over something and one of Avdol standing and looking out into the night sky. He realized Jotaro was looking over his shoulder. “Those are nice,” he said. 

In the next picture, the camera was flipped around. An overexposed teenage Kakyoin with blurred edges and stars in his eyes was pulling a reluctant Jotaro into frame. In the first picture you could only see the top of his hat, but in the next, he was giving the camera a small smile. 

The stack stopped there. It was Jotaro that spoke first. “We were idiots back then.” He said it fondly.

Kakyoin put the stack back in the box with the camera and set it aside. He agreed with his teenage self that the spoils of his silly camera theft were still worth saving. “I miss being an idiot sometimes.” He moved to the next box down that contained… snow pants? Did these even fit him anymore? Why did he own them in the first place?

“You were a better kind of idiot than I was,” Jotaro said.

Kakyoin moved past the snowpants box and started on the next stack without glancing up. “Back then, you said you never wanted to see me again. Did you mean that? I always thought you meant that.” He set another box aside. 

“I guess I’d accepted I wasn’t going to,” Jotaro said.

“Me too,” Kakyoin said. He caught Jotaro’s eye and found himself smiling. 

Jotaro returned the expression after a moment. 

It was funny how they ended up here.

Kakyoin moved a box in the last row and revealed something wedged in the gap between the boxes and the wall. Ungracefully, he reached over the boxes in front of him and lifted the mysterious object over his head and out of its box prison. It was a bright red portfolio case. Was this his princess?

He shook off the cobwebs as best he could, and then dragged it out into the hallway.

“What is that?” Jotaro asked, standing in the closet doorway.

He felt a couple lumps through the canvas fabric that were shaped a lot like a tube of paint and a bag of brushes. “I think this might be what I was looking for.” He unzipped the case then tipped the contents out. A white tube of paint skated across the wood floor and landed against the wall down the hallway. A bag of brushes also tumbled out along with a sizable pile of Kakyoin’s old artwork. 

The case had been packed full of everything from quick sketches from figure drawing sessions, to entire paintings. There were some weird abstract pieces, a few studies, and something a bit smaller than the rest. Jotaro had already noticed it. “I forgot you did that portrait of me,” he said, then paused. “What’s with the slash?”

Kakyoin’s hand flew to his mouth at the sight of it. He’d done a small portrait of Jotaro early in their friendship, maybe before they even really considered each other friends. It was still the only portrait he’d ever done and he’d been quite proud of it. There was a messy red slash across the bottom half, bisecting one of Jotaro’s legs. 

Kakyoin spoke through his hand still against his mouth. “God, I was a dramatic bitch, wasn’t I?” 

There was laughter in Jotaro’s words. “Was that after the breakup?”
Kakyoin nodded, picking up the portrait. “I forgot I did that.” He laughed. “I still couldn’t bear to mess up the top half. You can tell how much I liked it.”

“It’s a nice portrait. Shame it’s of such an asshole.” 

He looked up in time to catch the smirk on Jotaro’s face. 

Kakyoin looked back down at the portrait. It captured both the beginning and end of their teenage relationship. He could see the mystery and the hesitance in those first lines he made and the raw anger in the last one. It contained so much more emotion than any of his other paintings. 

He’d painted an object of his dreams—a symbol of rebellion, possibility, bravery. The red line broke it apart, but not completely. It was a painting of him as much as Jotaro. It was brilliant.

“Let’s redo it,” Kakyoin said suddenly. “I’ve got all my supplies now. How do you feel about that?” What would a picture that held all these additional years be able to say? 

Jotaro looked a bit disarmed. “I guess that would be fine. Are you sure?”

Kakyoin nodded and then rushed to start setting up.

Jolyne didn’t really know what to say to her mother about the trip. It was going unexpectedly well? Hey, I found out dad divorced you because he’s a raging homosexual? I found this weird man who’s his ex that he’s maybe still in love with or at least maybe named me after? Oh by the way, I’m also a lesbian probably?

“Yeah, it’s been going unexpectedly well,” she said.

Jolyne was still just as allied with her mom as she had been when she left, even if she did have a better understanding of her dad now. Her mom was going to get an explanation, but she couldn’t be the one to give it. She’d beat it out of her dad if she had to.

She mentioned Josuke and Okuyasu, their friends, the weird mangaka, even Kakyoin in passing, explaining that they were a good part of the reason why she was enjoying herself here.

“Things are okay with your dad? Not too awkward?” Her mom asked. 

“Yeah. He’s been good,” she said. For the most part. She hadn’t completely forgotten the whole running away and abandoning her at a convenience store thing or the many times, including today, that he’d randomly run off somewhere. She couldn’t completely fault him for that though and she liked the independence.

“I’m glad,” her mom said. 

Jolyne was sitting at the hotel room table with the window cracked open, smelling the fresh air blowing in from the sea. The morning sunlight sparkled on the water in the distance. She had her phone on the table next to her, on speaker.

She asked about Florida and she heard about how the plumber came and the fridge stopped making that weird sound, the crows that still kept eating the fruit off the raspberry bushes no matter what her mom did, a blue swallowtail butterfly spotted in the yard. Jolyne found herself aching for home. She asked about her mom’s editing jobs and heard a pretty good story about a trashy romance novel with a shockingly good twist. Jolyne suggested she pick up a volume of Pink Dark Boy when she got the chance and tell her if it was any good. Her mom laughed.

“How are you doing?” Jolyne finally asked.

“I’m alright—good, I think. It’s different living in an empty house, but it’s giving me some time to figure myself out. And eat ice cream in the middle of the afternoon.” Jolyne laughed lightly. Whenever their conversations got serious, her mom had a tendency to break it up with humor. She never really minded. 

“I started writing again, just a little bit.” 

"Oh, that's great!"

“It's a bit lonely here, but... in some ways it's good. I think I like the independence.”

Jolyne watched a seagull circling outside and smiled.

It was only their first day on the road and Kakyoin was already warming up to his travel mates. It was rare for him to find any social situation where he felt completely comfortable, but normal social rules didn’t apply in Joseph Joestar’s car. It was bringing out parts of his personality he didn’t show anyone else.

“Kakyoin! I didn’t know you were mean! You’re so mean!” Polnareff was feigning tears after Kakyoin made a particularly devastating jab about his singing.

Polnareff had been using his admittedly decent voice for evil and tormenting the car with a never ending serenade. The insult had slipped out before he could edit himself and he feared the worst, but was surprised when the car seemed to rally around him.

“The only reason you’re not crying for real right now is because I hold myself back all the time. I’m the meanest. Now be quiet and let us enjoy the sound of Mr. Joestar’s car engine. It’s an angel choir in comparison.”

Polnareff broke and let out a genuine laugh. Kakyoin’s own annoyance faded at the sight. A grin split across Avdol’s face, and most surprisingly of all, from the largely-silent appendage for black clothes and gold accessories on the other side of him, came a small sound. It could’ve been mistaken for an exhale, but Kakyoin was pretty sure it was a laugh.

The Kujo kid, Holly’s son, still had his eyes trained out the window, his head resting on his hand.

Kakyoin didn’t really know what to make of him.

Kakyoin began the underpainting in dark purple, softer than the black of his original portrait, but still nearly as rich and impervious a color. He blocked in the shadow under Jotaro’s jawline in one curving stroke. Then he started the triangular shadow under his nose. Jotaro glanced at him a couple of times.

Kakyoin looked up. “Is the light okay? Is it too bright?”

They’d set up a floor lamp next to him. The harsher lighting made it easier to see the shapes of the shadows. 

“Once I have this part done, I won’t really need it anymore,” Kakyoin added.

“The light is fine,” Jotaro said. “I feel weird just sitting still like this.”

“You can take a break whenever you need.”

Jotaro winced, the blocks of shadow under his brow shifting. “It’s more the fact that you’re watching me.”

Kakyoin lowered his eyebrows, returning to the painting and brushing in the shadow under his lip. “How else am I supposed to paint your handsome face?”

Jotaro looked unenthused. “Flattery won’t make me any less uncomfortable.”

Kakyoin grinned at him over the canvas and Jotaro rolled his eyes.

He grabbed a larger brush to tackle the massive shadow created by Jotaro’s hat that fell across one side of his face away from the light. “Will silence?” Kakyoin asked.

Jotaro sighed. “Probably.”

After checking the crusaders into the first hotel of their journey, Joseph began handing out room keys. “Jotaro, Kakyoin, you room together since you’re the same age. Same goes for Avdol and Polnareff. I obviously have seniority so I’m taking the last room.” It seemed like everyone wanted to protest, but the old man’s logic was sound, even if Kakyoin suspected it was just so he could get a room to himself. 

He glanced at Jotaro, twirling his set of keys in his hand. Kakyoin probably should’ve been hanging out with the one person there his age, but they’d hardly said anything to each other. Kakyoin couldn’t really tell if the two of them had anything in common. They seemed sort of like opposites.

Jotaro barely said a word to him as they went to find their room. They picked beds with little fuss. Kakyoin glanced at Jotaro over the travel book he’d gotten out to read, and saw him just lying and staring at the ceiling. The stuff happening with his mom couldn't be easy on him.

He was about to ask Jotaro if he was okay, when Jotaro abruptly got up. “I’m going down to the lobby,” he said.

Kakyoin wondered if he’d done something to make Jotaro uncomfortable, but set aside that worry quickly, given that they’d barely interacted at all. Kakyoin read several pages of his book before being startled by a knock at the door. He glanced at the night stand and realized the key to the room was still sitting there. It must be Jotaro wanting back in.

He opened the door to find Joseph Joestar instead. “Oh, Kakyoin. Where’s my grandson? I was going to go buy us dinner, but I can’t read any menus.”

“He said he went to the lobby. I could help, but…” He looked back at the key on the nightstand. If he left now Jotaro would be locked out. “I’ll go find him,” he said, grabbing the key and then heading off to the elevator.

Jotaro was distinctive, but when he reached the lobby he didn’t immediately see him. Had he lied or wandered off somewhere? Of course he had. What would he be doing in a hotel lobby anyway?

Kakyoin ended up finding Jotaro sitting in the corner by the fish tank, just watching it. Jotaro seemed startled to see him when he approached. Kakyoin tried to give him a reassuring smile, “Your grandfather is looking for you.” He held up the keys. “And you left these in the room.”

Jotaro just looked at him. “Thanks.”

Kakyoin paused to look in the fish tank himself. It looked like a salt water tank since there was coral. He watched a bright orange fish with dark stripes approach the glass. “Showing off, are you, fish? You’re very pretty.”

“It’s a flame angelfish.” Kakyoin nearly jumped. Jotaro was still next to him. 

He looked between Jotaro and the tank. “I can see why they call it that.” Jotaro’s expression didn’t give much away. Kakyoin narrowed his eyes and turned back to the tank. “What’s that?” He pointed to a fish that was perfectly split half purple and yellow.

“Jojo, what’s that purple and yellow fish tank fish called?” Kakyoin was mixing a light blue he thought would work for the lighter tones on Jotaro’s face.

Jotaro, maybe out of sheer boredom, had become more accustomed to modeling. He was nearly unmoving as he said, “Royal Dottyback.”

Kakyoin whipped around to look at Jotaro as he produced another fish name easily. “Why do you know that?”

Amusement flickered across Jotaro’s face, before it set back to normal. He shrugged. “Just do.”

Kakyoin found himself smiling.

Joseph eventually had to go find them and drag both of them to the restaurant with him. He handed them a menu before wandering off looking for the bathroom, leaving them alone at the front of the restaurant.

Kakyoin tipped the menu towards Jotaro. “Anything look good to you?” he asked.

Jotaro pointed to the number ten. “My mom makes this sometimes. The old man said he was going to order, though.”

“Oh, they have sundaes here,” Kakyoin said. Pointing to a picture of an ice cream dessert on the back topped with a bright red cherry. Kakyoin turned the menu back over and eyed the seaweed salad. “Mr. Joestar hates seaweed, right?”

“More like refuses to try it."

Kakyoin smirked at the menu. “Let’s make him. We're translating right? Who says we have to do it correctly?”

Jotaro’s eyes widened slightly, but he had no time to respond before Joseph reappeared. 

Kakyoin hadn't expected Jotaro to do anything, but then watched as Joseph’s order of “chicken katsu and one of those cold noodle dishes, whatever they’re called” turned into a several dishes including the number ten, two servings of seaweed salad and a cherry sundae. 

“You’re kind of sadistic, you know that?” Jotaro said later as Joseph prepared to try his dinner with exaggerated disgust. Polnareff was egging him on like he was taking a shot as Avdol added his own softer encouragement.

Kakyoin’s focus stayed on the ridiculous scene on the other side of the table. “And you’re kind of a nerd.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I heard Mr. Joestar say you got suspended for punching a teacher last year. Couldn’t you also call that sadistic?”

“That guy had it coming.”

Kakyoin snickered and when he looked at Jotaro, it might’ve been the first time he caught the ghost of a smile on his face. 

He looked attractive like that.

Kakyoin broke with his color scheme of blues and purples to render Jotaro’s eyes in a bright aquamarine so they almost glowed. It was the color they really appeared as they caught the light. He’d always had very striking eyes.

Kakyoin had gotten over Jotaro a long time ago. Of course he had. It’s not like he’d be hung up on someone for over a decade. Those kinds of wounds don’t heal perfectly and there were certainly times that he thought about him, wondered what he was up to, where he was, but that happened less and less as the years went on. Jotaro was one stone on a long pathway of life experiences. He moved on. He had other romances. Jotaro the person drifted from his mind, became Jotaro the memory, the stepping stone, an old wound and nothing more.

Meeting Jotaro now had kind of been like meeting him for the first time all over again. In some ways he was the same, but so much had changed. There was Jolyne, this whole other human now attached to the situation, not to mention Josuke and his friends. It was easier sometimes to think of Jotaro as just another new friend too.

Kakyoin caught himself spending a little too long detailing Jotaro’s lips on his painting. 

Okay.

No.

It was also easier to think about it that way because, if Kakyoin was being one hundred percent honest with himself, he was falling for that new friend a little bit. It obviously wasn’t something he was going to act on and it was silly because technically it had already happened. But what was the harm in nursing a stupid embarrassing crush? No one had to know about it. And if he was going to be more honest with himself, it had to include stuff like this.

This was kind of inevitable, so he wasn’t going to fault himself for it. Jotaro had always been attractive, with those eccentricities that just got to him. Adult Jotaro was still a dysfunctional mess, but he could also cook. He could talk about his interests or sometimes even his feelings without biting someone’s head off first. Kakyoin’s high school self would’ve been floored.

And it wasn’t like he was falling hard. So, again, what was the harm?

Like most afternoons, Josuke stopped by Okuyasu’s house after they were both done with work. He stood on the worn welcome mat, and knocked the same knock he always did.

“You really don’t have to knock,” Okuyasu said as he pulled open the door. “Don’t you have a key?”

“Well yeah, but,” Josuke frowned. “It’s not my house. It’s your house. It feels wrong to just barge in on somebody else’s place.”

“Your manners confuse me.” Okuyasu left the doorway and walked to the kitchen. Josuke followed him inside and then fell back onto Okuyasu’s floral-printed couch, laying down and taking up the whole thing. His easy smile faltered when he remembered the explanation for his behavior he could not give.

If Josuke acted like he was living here, walked in whenever, unlocked the door, entered like it was his own, it would weaken the boundary between living together and not. He’d imagined living in this house, dreamed of living in this house. He couldn’t start feeling like it was his, not while they were just friends. It would be too painful.

The cat leapt on top of his stomach, briefly knocking the wind out of him. It purred but gave him the death glare if he so much as thought of touching it.

He heard the microwave ding and then Okuyasu walked back out into the family room bearing leftovers from work in some of his parents' old fancy china. Josuke thought it was a funny juxtaposition. The whole house felt like that though, like a refuge they’d built in the shell of their pasts. They didn’t quite match the antique interior, but at the same time it was theirs—well, Okuyasu’s. This wasn’t his house.

Okuyasu eyed Josuke pinned by the happy-angry cat and taking up the entire couch with mild confusion and then took the chair across from them. 

Josuke closed his eyes and Okuyasu ate for a while. He listened to the cat’s steady purring and the faint ticking of the old clock in the hall upstairs. He heard a car pass by on the street outside. 

“Do you actually think Jotaro and Kakyoin like each other?” Okuyasu asked. “Like, they really went from good friends to… having feelings for each other?” 

Josuke cracked open his eyes and Okuyasu took a bite of what looked like pasta. Maybe it was gnocchi. 

Okuyasu was staring hard down into the bowl. Did they leave an olive in there or something? “Do you think that kind of thing happens?” Okuyasu asked.

Josuke put his hands behind his head, staring at knots in the wood on the ceiling that were starting to grow familiar. “If Jotaro has feelings for a man it might explain his divorce. I guess he could be into women too, but I’ve never seen him show a hint of attraction to women. I thought that was just because he was already married, but who knows.”

“They seem so at ease around each other,” Okuyasu said. 

So do we, Josuke thought, but the two of them might not be the best example. “It’s sad,” Josuke said. “Their friendship fell apart in the past because Kakyoin went to live somewhere else and now Jotaro’s going back to Florida sometime soon, right?”

“If they do like each other, I hope they tell each other before he leaves,” Okuyasu said, with an unexpected sadness. 

Josuke was reminded that he was leaving for college again at the end of the summer. Would he be able to tell Okuyasu how he felt before then?

Jotaro was pretty brave. He could probably tackle something like that, easy. Josuke just hoped he could be brave like that one day too.

Jotaro had lost track of how long he’d been sitting on the stool Kakyoin brought out, hoping that the feeling of Kakyoin’s eyes boring into him didn’t show on his face.

He watched Kakyoin glancing between him and the canvas at steady intervals, lost in his painting. His eyes were clouded with focus and his expression was distant. It was like he wasn’t quite aware of what he was looking at. Jotaro wished he felt the same.

What was the evolutionary purpose of embarrassment? It must be an instinct to help one fit in, stay with the group and stay safer? If only knowing this wasn’t a matter of survival made it easier to put aside the feeling.

Kakyoin had always made him feel like somebody worth looking at, worth protecting, being taken care of—like somebody important enough to be in a portrait. Part of him resented that, and part of him wondered if that’s why he’d held onto his memory so tightly. There was also the more glaring fact that Kakyoin was the only person he’d ever really gotten the chance to love that way.

Whatever the reason, Jotaro had never really gotten over Kakyoin. He knew when he thought of Kakyoin, he was thinking of a construct, a fading vision of an unattainable past. When he felt like he still loved Kakyoin, it was nothing but a mirage—water sparkling on summer tarmac he would never reach, never know, because Kakyoin wasn’t in his life anymore. He could’ve been dead and Jotaro might not even hear about it. How can you really say you love a person like that?

And then Kakyoin was in his life again and he no longer had that excuse. He was still very gay and Kakyoin had become a near daily reminder. And all of this was happening in front of his daughter. It had been a nightmare situation for him at first. Now he wasn’t sure where he stood. 

“I think I’m almost done with the first layer,” Kakyoin said. “So we can stop soon.”

The feeling of Kakyoin watching him was less uncomfortable than most other people watching him, but also uniquely difficult in its own way. 

Why did homosexuality exist? It didn’t seem to serve an evolutionary purpose, but it existed in nature and throughout history. That always puzzled him. It must be that the desire to have children is a separate thing from romantic love. Hell, he was gay and he had a kid. Maybe homosexuality could also serve as proof that love doesn’t exist solely for the purposes of reproduction. 

He glanced up and noticed Kakyoin had stopped painting and was just standing with his dirty paints and pallet. How long had he been like that? “What are you thinking about?” He asked.

“The nature of homosexuality and whether or not love transcends science.”

Kakyoin made a startled laugh. Jotaro liked when his laughter didn’t sound planned or polite. “Coming out does a number on you, huh?”

Jotaro shrugged.

“I’m going to go wash brushes,” Kakyoin said and walked off towards the kitchen. Jotaro felt like it was rude to look at the easel even though he wanted to, so he walked into the other room and tried to busy himself with the TV. 

He sat on the couch and flicked through channels, stopping when an image of a spider flashed across the screen. The channel was the news.

“There’s been an infestation of brown recluse spiders in Morioh, Japan. Native to North America, these spiders are highly poisonous. If you see a large brown spider in your home, proceed with caution and call a pest control service.”

Jotaro looked towards Kakyoin at the kitchen sink and they met each other's eyes.

Kakyoin set the brushes down, dried his hands and then joined him by the TV. The brown recluse spiders in the pictures on the TV didn’t have hair, and the one in Kakyoin’s closet did, so they might be okay. 

Kakyoin brought him out of his thoughts. “Man, Rohan’s going to have a field day with this. I bet he’ll go looking for them,” Kakyoin said.

Jotaro turned to him. “That’s your first thought?”

Kakyoin walked back towards the kitchen. “Fine. I’ll call pest control later and neither of us are going back in the closet…” he paused. “Physically or metaphorically. Happy?”

Jotaro nodded.

That first night Kakyoin and Jotaro had stayed up late talking. Kakyoin ended up doing a lot more of the talking, but it was still a conversation. The two of them had a lot more in common than he’d initially thought. In some ways they were opposites, but the thing about opposites is they’re still more similar than not. Night and day might be opposites, but they’re still halves of the same twenty four hour rotation. 

They might never have interacted if it weren’t for this bizarre situation, but he was glad they had.

Kakyoin sat down cross legged on the floor and ripped a page out of his sketchbook. “Can I paint you?” Kakyoin asked.

When he’d gone to tour colleges, he’d packed a small watercolor palette and paints. He hadn’t expected to use them, but having them with him was comforting somehow. 

He pulled them out of his bag as Jotaro came and sat across from him on the floor.

“I guess,” Jotaro said. He immediately looked uncomfortable with the attention. “Do you want me to sit different? Or stand?” 

“No, I think I’ll just wing it,” Kakyoin said. “It’s not going to be super realistic. I’m just trying to capture a likeness.”

He drew in silence for a while before Jotaro asked, “Why do you want to paint me?”

Kakyoin stared at his work and wondered what it was about Jotaro’s likeness that made him feel it needed capturing. Jotaro was his opposite, a lot of the things he wasn’t, while still being like him. It meant that Jotaro was a lot of the things Kakyoin wanted to be.

Though it could also just be more of a surface level thing. 

“Who can say?” Kakyoin said.

Across the room, Jotaro scoffed.

When all was squared away the two went to stand before the painting. Kakyoin always had a different feeling about his work whenever he walked away for a while and came back. He couldn’t really process it the same way while he was working on it.

Looking at it now, he could tell the work he’d done was impressive, technically speaking. Jotaro was rendered in evocative cool tones. It was stylized, but still clearly him—everything you’d want in a portrait. It was just…

“It’s sort of… sad.” Jotaro said. “Do you see me as being this sad?”

“No. I don’t think so.” 

Jotaro didn’t really look sad in the painting. It was the way he was cast, off center and slightly distant, like he was underwater or just out of reach, as unchangeable as the past and as murky as the present. 

“I’ll rework it,” Kakyoin said. 

“It’s really good.”

“I know, but…” He sighed. “It’s not right like this.”

They lingered in front of the painting, pulled in by its gravity, its meaning beyond words. The distance that still remained between them rendered perfectly in its strokes. 

Chapter Text

Kakyoin managed to break away from the painting. He'd called pest control earlier and they'd probably be there soon. He took a step back and said, “It is so like Morioh to have a spider outbreak. Did you know we had two serial killers here in the past twenty years?”

“I did,” Jotaro said. There was a hint of amusement in his voice that Kakyoin didn’t really understand. 

Even as Kakyoin went around putting the last of his supplies away for the day, Jotaro remained parked in front of the painting. It was making Kakyoin start to feel self conscious about his work. For the last part of his cleanup, he lifted the canvas off the easel. “I’m just going to put this away for now,” he said, giving Jotaro a look that he knew was probably apprehensive. Jotaro nodded. Jotaro had that look he got when he was trying to say something difficult, so Kakyoin stilled where he was, just holding the canvas.

“Is it hard for you, me being here?” Jotaro asked.

Kakyoin opened his mouth to respond—though he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say—when a knock came at the door.

Kakyoin rushed to set the canvas down by the wall, turning the painting to face inward, then went to talk to the pest control guy, leaving Jotaro and his question waiting patiently inside.

Jolyne wrapped up her phone call with her mom and then scanned the recent notifications in the groupchat with Josuke and his friends. Koichi was complaining about trying to stop Rohan from hunting venomous spiders for… some reason? 

“Well, as long as he’s careful and they don’t bite him, he should be okay, right?” Josuke was saying.

“I think he wants to get bitten,” Koichi replied.

“Lmao what??” 

“Josuke, this is serious. Isn’t there something I can tell him to make him stop?”

“If I look up spider facts, I’ll have to look at gross pictures of spiders. I’m not doing that. Rohan’s not worth it.”

Jolyne snickered and began to type. “Like ninety-percent of the time, you should be fine with a brown recluse bite, but there’s a slim chance you die. They can literally rot your skin too.”

“What?! That makes me kind of want to look it up,” Josuke responded.

They went back and forth on how to distract Rohan from his spider quest. It was rare Jolyne’s spider knowledge came in handy. She’d always had a sort of morbid fascination with them. Once as a child, she’d sat and watched a spider meticulously build a web in front of the window and the image had never left her mind.

The poisonous spider facts had come from Hermes, who was kind of a font of gross bug facts. It was unexpected, but it was one of the ways Jolyne had learned that Hermes could make any conversation topic charming to her—including brown recluse spiders and their ability to inflict necrotic wounds.

Jolyne really should’ve realized she liked Hermes sooner.

She looked longingly at the ocean out the hotel window and the perfect puffy summer clouds in the sky. “Does anybody want to go to the beach?” Jolyne asked the group chat. “My dad is M.I.A. again and I’m bored.”

The proposition was met with unanimous enthusiasm.

Jotaro followed Kakyoin out onto the lawn as Kakyoin spoke. “We have to vacate the house while the pest control guys do their thing so…”

A notification on Jotaro's phone distracted him from the rest of Kakyoin’s sentence. 

He pulled up a message from Jolyne that read, “Hey Dad, we’re going to the beach. You should join us when you’re done with whatever you’re doing.”

Without regard to whether or not Kakyoin was still talking, Jotaro asked, “Do you want to go to the beach with Jolyne and the others?”

Kakyoin turned to look at him, stopping on the sidewalk. “Uh, sure. Do you need to change?”

Jotaro didn’t feel like that needed a response. 

Kakyoin grinned, “Yeah, me neither.” They hardly wore anything other than their school uniforms throughout their road trip way back when, rain or shine… or snow, or even by the hotel poolside.

Jotaro got in contact with everyone else and Koichi offered to drive them. The beach couldn't have been that far from Kakyoin’s house, but Jotaro was hesitant to spend that long walking just the two of them. Kakyoin hadn’t gotten the chance to answer his question and now he wasn’t sure if they would just pick up where they left off next chance they got, or if it would go unanswered and he’d have to bring it up again. If the conversation didn’t pick up where they left off, did that mean Kakyoin didn’t want to answer and he shouldn’t bring it up?

Kakyoin acted perfectly comfortable around him, but the painting gave him the sense that maybe underneath all that there was something very sad. 

“Jotaro,” Kakyoin said. “Koichi’s here.” Jotaro glanced up from the phone screen he’d been blankly staring at and saw Koichi’s car. They both took seats in the back.

Kakyoin made polite conversation with Koichi and Yukako during the drive over, but Jotaro found himself silently watching the scenery outside. The car window always drew him in, the gently moving landscape had a way of calming him down.

He’d always liked observing things through the glass. 

In Kakyoin’s piece, it seemed like there was something in between that painterly Jotaro and the viewer. Jotaro had seen something like it when he looked at his ex-wife—a pane that separated them. He felt distant from people in that way a lot of the time, but he thought he was the only one that could see that metaphorical sheet of glass. But if Kakyoin could paint it so well, he must’ve seen it too. That was unsettling to him.

The car stopped in a sandy parking lot and Jotaro opened the door to the salty air off the sea. He followed the group through dry bushes and out onto the sand. He never went to any of Morioh’s main beaches in the summer. They were always packed with tourists and he grimaced at the sight of people scattered across the sand as far as he could see. He and the others walked past running wet dogs and beach balls and crying children, but when Josuke and Jolyne came into view, smiling and splashing each other in the waves, Jotaro found his annoyance near evaporate. 

He glanced over at Kakyoin and noticed Kakyoin was already looking at him, smiling. “What?”

“You smiled first,” Kakyoin said.

Jotaro schooled his features back to their default, somewhere between resting and a glare. 

They met up with Jolyne and Josuke. Then, after Koichi handed off the umbrella and towels they’d brought, Jotaro went to set up a shady spot past the tide line. Kakyoin joined him and the two of them ended up sitting in the shade there together. They watched in silence as Josuke and Jolyne tried to set up beach volleyball with little to no cooperation from anyone else.

Jotaro was happy to be with everyone, but in this case he felt more like observing. Kakyoin was the same. He’d always thought of Kakyoin as being an outsider like him. Had that changed? Why were they now on opposite sides of the glass?

Jotaro’s eyes lingered on a place just above Kakyoin's hip, and he wondered if under Kakyoin’s layers of weather-inappropriate clothing, the scar was still there.

Jotaro had spent the better part of yet another day sitting in the car and was actually bored enough to resort to self reflection. It ended up being more of a meditation on the person sitting next to him. Jotaro had never had a friend like Kakyoin before. Friends were more of a means to an end in school. They could back him up in a fight, say agreeable things like, “Yeah, Jotaro, that teacher had it coming. See you after you’re done being suspended.” They didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up. They didn’t know what he did in his free time. And he never felt it was necessary for them to know that kind of stuff. He liked it that way.

Polnareff was snoring loudly in the front seat and Avdol was passed out against the window. His grandfather was singing along quietly to the radio. In the middle seat, Kakyoin was talking away. “You like fish, right, so you’ve probably heard of flamboyant cuttlefish. I was looking at pictures of them in this guidebook my mom had and you’d think with how ornate they are they’d be decent size—you know the size of a normal cuttlefish. But they’re actually tiny. I never would’ve guessed. They only grow up to about eight centimeters long.”

Jotaro had never had someone he could relate to like this. Flamboyant cuttlefish were remarkably small and he was so glad someone was finally talking about it. He could kiss Kakyoin on the mouth—figuratively. When the car was quiet like this, Kakyoin became a sort of radio station, constant chatter most of the other passengers tuned out. Jotaro found it very easy to listen to, even when it wasn’t about things he was interested in. It was easier to listen to passionate people.

“Do you have any favorite fish facts?” Jotaro startled. Kakyoin didn’t usually ask him questions. Kakyoin talking and him not talking worked really well. He wasn’t sure he wanted to try anything else.

He looked at Kakyoin’s expectant expression and after a very long pause, began to try to answer. “The abyss, um. There’s no light down there, but lots of things live there—off of the stuff that drops down from above. There is probably a ton of life down there humans haven’t discovered, even things as big as giant squid.”

Kakyoin smiled and Jotaro turned to watch empty fields and rice patties out the window. He heard Kakyoin’s voice over his shoulder.

“It’s sort of creepy isn’t it—that we don’t know what could be down there? Sometimes the things we don’t know are more interesting than the things we do.”

Jotaro nodded. Kakyoin talked for a bit about the myth of the Kraken and whether or not it could be founded in reality. “Do you have any more facts?” Kakyoin asked.

Jotaro saw his own grimace reflected in the car window, a ghost over leafless winter trees rushing past. He did answer, though. “Sea otters tie themselves to kelp when they fall asleep so they don’t drift away. I always wanted to go to California—in America—where the kelp forests are.”

Joseph grinned in the driver's seat. “That’s adorable.”

“Shut up.”

Sometimes the things we don’t know are more interesting than the things we do. Kakyoin knew everything and he could talk forever, but for some reason Kakyoin wanted to know about him. Polnareff and Avdol were also getting to know Jotaro better than friends of his ever had in the past. Everyone in the car could talk easily now and they all had a sense of each others’ personalities. He hadn’t experienced anything like this before.

There was still something a bit different about Kakyoin, though. The abyss. The two of them went deeper, into the twilight zone where things other people didn’t see about him lived, even sometimes pulling out the things he didn’t know about himself. He usually avoided that sort of thing at all costs. That stuff was embarrassing. That’s why it lived in the dark. But he kept spending time with Kakyoin and letting him learn things he’d meant to keep to himself, because Kakyoin just seemed so genuinely interested.

And Jotaro wanted to get to know Kakyoin just as badly.

Kakyoin had stopped talking in favor of reading. Joseph was singing along to a ballad on the radio in English. Jotaro didn’t understand all the words, but he could tell it was a song about love. There, sitting quietly in the car, he glanced over at Kakyoin’s profile reading and briefly entertained the idea of kissing him, not figuratively. 

That wasn’t the kind of thing he should be entertaining. He wasn’t sure why it even occurred to him. It was probably a fluke and he certainly didn’t want to take the time to process what it said about him.

Then again, Jotaro knew his thoughts couldn’t cause any trouble as long as he kept them to himself. No matter what horrible thing wriggled its way up out of the abyss, it would all be fine as long as he didn’t tell anyone about it.

Kakyoin pulled his knees to his chest and glanced at Jotaro, who was still staring at his family members trying to play beach volleyball. Kakyoin had noticed he was a little quieter than normal in the car, but there was no indication he wasn’t at ease. Jotaro didn't seem upset that his question had been left hanging, but Kakyoin knew Jotaro well enough to know that didn’t really mean anything. And he knew whenever Jotaro asked something seriously it was because he really wanted to know the answer.

Kakyoin listened to the sound of the waves for a moment, felt the breeze flecked with sand, the heat of the sun through the beach umbrella. “About your question, from earlier, when we were interrupted.”

Jotaro hadn’t looked tense, but Kakyoin realized he was as he watched Jotaro’s shoulders drop slightly. The rest felt a little easier to say. “It’s not your fault, but seeing you again made me realize that I sort of gave up on my dreams as a teenager.” 

Jotaro looked over at him. It didn’t look like that was the answer he expected.

Kakyoin sighed, letting his head rest on his knees so he was nearly as small as possible. He knew it was cartoonish. “I have a job I’m pretty indifferent to. I’m single. I barely put time into my artwork anymore. This isn’t who I wanted to be.”

Kakyoin turned his head so he could see Jotaro. Jotaro’s eyes were now fixed back on the horizon, maybe the volleyball game. It was hard to tell. “I don’t know if it’s possible to be the person you want to be,” Jotaro said.

Kakyoin grimaced. “That’s an unhappy thought.”

Jotaro didn’t react, just continued. “To me, it’s a relief to give up trying to be someone else all the time. All you can do at that point is try to be the best you can as what you are.” Jotaro actually looked like he was smiling slightly. “When you fail at being who you want to be you just… are yourself. It’s not so bad.” As difficult as the divorce must’ve been for Jotaro, it seemed like it had been good for him. 

Regardless of what he was, Kakyoin still had no way of fighting his regret. He hugged his knees tighter, fighting back a prickle in his eyes. “I never wanted to go to France, Jojo. That’s what I was going to apologize for. I’m sorry I never told you.” He banged his head against his knees once. “Why’d you have to convince me to go like that?”

When Jotaro didn’t answer, Kakyoin looked up to study Jotaro’s expression and found it was one of confusion. “When did I try to convince you to go?” Jotaro asked.

“When you said all that awful stuff, I thought it was to get me to go.”

“I thought you wanted to go.”

Kakyoin’s expression turned to one of incredulity. “Were you really just mad that I was moving to France??”

“It was what set me off, I guess.” Jotaro sighed, ducking his head. “Do I really have to talk about it? I was being a complete ass, like I said. I was completely in the wrong.”

Kakyoin felt confused now. “But it seemed like you were trying to break up with me in a way that would stick. Why?” Jotaro hadn’t really meant the things he’d said back then, right?

“I just broke. I’m sorry.” 

“What do you mean? Even if I was going to France, I still wanted to be with you. Even if I hadn’t secretly wanted to stay, we didn’t have to break up.” Kakyoin was getting more frustrated than he expected to. The angry teenager in him that never got to say his piece was still somewhere inside.

Jotaro looked slightly surprised. Maybe that was news to him. “I know we didn’t have to break up, but you know it wasn’t about that.”

Kakyoin thought for a moment, but it only confirmed that no, he had no idea what Jotaro was talking about. “What do you mean?”

Jotaro turned and studied Kakyoin’s face for a moment. “Kakyoin, you almost died. My mom almost died. Maybe you’re not where you wanted to be right now, but at least you’re alive. ” He stopped himself. Kakyoin realized it was the first time he’d seen Jotaro get angry in a very long time.

“Sorry.” Jotaro let out a breath, looking at his knees, then began again. “It’s just. Why did you do that—for me, for my mom? I think I was always a little bit mad at you for it.”

Jotaro’s teenage words came back to him one more time. You actually thought we had a future? Did Jotaro say that because he was mad at Kakyoin for nearly throwing that future away?

Kakyoin finally uncoiled, stretching his legs and adopting a more grounded position. He felt the sand depress through the towel under his hands. “I think I was trying to prove myself, maybe. It wasn’t really a conscious decision.”

It turned out the medication they needed was having a shortage because it had considerable value on the street. It was being prescribed off label by questionable doctors and the company making it kept hiking up the prices as demand increased. To the two teens, exchange students and the old man from New York all blind with rage, that was just confusing and frustrating. There was no accepting it. Holly Kujo’s life was at stake. 

By some miracle of anger, questionable planning, and their remarkable effectiveness as a team, their journey ended in a successful pharmaceutical company heist. Then, what they were carrying home put somewhat of a target on their backs.

The crusaders’ circumstances in their journey, from beginning to end, never failed to be ridiculous. Kakyoin had felt like he was in a movie sometimes, hanging off the hero’s arm, playing a part in something slightly too fantastical to be real.

And then it was very very real.

“I just wanted you to have a future,” Kakyoin said.

Everyone had gone into a grocery store while Jotaro stayed to watch the car. Kakyoin was the first to return, with Jotaro’s stupid jerky and cigarettes in a plastic bag over his arm. 

As Kakyoin approached the car he saw a man asking Jotaro for directions, leaning on the side door in a way that seemed too familiar, too confident. It immediately set Kakyoin on edge. As the man gestured, his jacket shifted and Kakyoin caught the glint of a knife tucked into the lining. 

Somehow the man knew what they were carrying home. He was going to take it by any means necessary. 

Jojo didn’t know.

Then the man was reaching into his jacket.

It was the bravest thing Kakyoin had ever done, and he didn’t completely understand it. Maybe the feeling he was in an action movie hadn’t worn off. Maybe he just cared that much. He lunged forward and grabbed the man’s wrist, bringing the knife into full view.

The pain and chaos that followed had smoothed the details over, like holes had been cut in his memory, matching with the scar on his waist. Somehow the knife had ended up lodged there. Polnareff and Avdol ran to them. Jotaro threw several punches. Joseph arrived shortly after. Kakyoin bled all over the backseat of Joseph’s car and Jotaro’s school uniform, but he lived. They’d all lived.

Jotaro’s eyes were still trained on his knees. A nervous twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth. Kakyoin wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him like this—emotional. He looked a little like his mom.

“I thought you must’ve known what it had been like for me. My Mom was all I had and I almost lost her. And that happened to you. Everything good around me had come so close to falling apart.” Jotaro frowned harder at his knees. “They wouldn’t let me see you in the hospital and when they asked why I wanted to, I couldn’t tell them what you were to me, even then. I still couldn’t tell anyone. And you were going to sacrifice yourself? For a coward? I was so mad. The whole thing scared me shitless and you were already moving away. I just gave up. ‘Thought you were better off.”

So many times, the picture Kakyoin had built up of Jotaro was forced to change. He was always making new discoveries. He’d thought the breakup had been about himself, his opportunities in France, but of course it was about Jotaro and all the pent up fears he’d never voiced. Maybe Kakyoin had just been projecting, looking for an excuse to take the safer option and leave for France. Jotaro had taken his own safer option too.

“How was I supposed to know that, Jojo? You never told me any of the things you were scared of. I was left thinking you were some kind of action hero.” Kakyoin looked over at Jotaro, who seemed to have relaxed slightly after getting all his words out. Jotaro’s eyes moved back up to the horizon, still pointedly not acknowledging the presence of the person next to him. Kakyoin didn’t mind.

Kakyoin watched the light dance where the darker blue ocean met the sky, “I convinced myself it was for the best too in the end.” Kakyoin hesitated. He felt like continuing might break everything, but honesty won out. “I wonder if it was.”

“I think so,” Jotaro said immediately.

Well that wasn’t the response he was expecting.

Jotaro startled, maybe realizing he’d said something rude. “Look at how skewed it got in both our heads. We could hardly talk to each other.” He smiled a little. Kakyoin followed Jotaro’s gaze to the beach volleyball game playing out in front of them as he spoke. “I got to have a family and a career. You got to stay close with your friends and the money to settle down in one of Japan’s nicest towns.”

Kakyoin frowned. “But what if…” What if they’d all stayed in touch? What if Kakyoin had become an artist? He couldn’t finish the sentence.

He watched a large wave curl back and push water far up the beach, startling the volleyball players and overtaking their match. Jolyne screamed and held the ball over her head laughing as Josuke almost tripped trying to stop the net from washing away. She looked so bright and bold there in the sun and sea spray.

She wouldn’t exist.  

If they hadn’t broken up, Jolyne wouldn’t exist. Kakyoin didn’t want to imagine a world without her.

He found himself remembering day trips to The Louvre, dinners with Polnareff and tours they gave Avdol when he visited, memories he couldn’t turn his back on, memories that led him to the place he was now.

“Hey, mon ami, don’t cry.” It was one of their first nights at school. Polnareff never asked why Kakyoin was crying. He just sat in his new dorm room with him, talking for most of the night. Kakyoin taught Polnareff the basics of several different video games. Polnareff listened when Kakyoin started rambling about how they might’ve been programmed. They talked about school, their futures, their favorite movies. Even though Jotaro was gone, the warmth he felt being with the crusaders still remained. He remembered feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that he wasn’t alone anymore, that he might never be alone again.

Without the past as it was, would he even have the wisdom to see better possible paths for himself? It wasn’t necessarily a happy thought. All the things he had and all the things he could’ve had couldn’t exist together. It was a tragedy of such a large existential scale, he realized how powerless he was in the face of it. The flap of a butterfly’s wings in Florida could set him crying in France. His life existed in a great web of causality, governed by fate, or a giant spider, who knows, but he wasn’t the one in charge.

The silver lining in that existential spiral was that maybe the place he’d ended up wasn’t entirely his fault. And he’d still managed to find good things along the way, even enjoy himself at times. In the face of that whole mess, it was quite the feat.

Kakyoin stood up. Jotaro did as well, but said, “Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of joining the game down there now.”

Kakyoin grinned. “I was, but…” The conversation was ending. They’d reached a resolution, but there was still something he needed to ask. He faced Jotaro. “You were lying back then, right?”

“Of course I was lying.” Jotaro looked back in his direction, brow furrowed. “I was always serious about you. I always cared about you. I’m sorry I wasn’t proud of my feelings and that I kept them secret." Kakyoin nodded, but Jotaro’s voice rose in intensity and he continued. "You are one of the most important people to me. You’re one of my favorite people in the world.”

Jotaro paused briefly, head lowered in thought. Kakyoin noticed the switch to present tense and was about to ask about it, but then Jotaro seemingly found the words he was looking for. He looked back up at Kakyoin, confident.

“I’m the abyss and you are a deep ocean submersible. You illuminate darkness. You find a way to get to know me. Of course I care. Of course I like you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else.”

Kakyoin stared at Jotaro. “You mean… that’s how you used to feel?”

He watched Jotaro catch up with the present in real time, horror passing over his eyes. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, but he’d said it with so much conviction they both knew it couldn’t be anything but honest.

There was no escaping his mistake now.

Jotaro opened his mouth to speak, but then instead, he just ran.

This wasn't the first time this had happened.

The two of them had been hiding in a broom closet that one time. It was Kakyoin’s brilliant idea when they were trying to avoid Joseph for… some reason. Maybe it was after Kakyoin stole his camera, or they’d done something else to get themselves in trouble. It happened enough that picking out the particular incident after this much time was impossible. Kakyoin remembered listening to Joseph's footsteps go by outside and praying his stifled laughter wasn’t loud enough to hear. Jotaro had gotten oddly quiet.

When Kakyoin looked away from the door he realized something had shifted in the atmosphere. It wasn’t a large broom closet, but about half of the space that could be between them wasn’t being used. The two of them were on some sort of precipice. The air crackled with it. He didn’t step back, but his nervous compulsion to state the obvious reared its head. “We’re standing very close together,” he said.

“Sorry.” Jotaro took a quick step back. 

“It’s fine.” Kakyoin forced a laugh and grinned. “Just tell me if you’re trying to kiss me or something.” It was a joke. He was pretty sure it was a joke.

“I wasn’t!” Jotaro looked genuinely taken aback. 

Whether or not it was a joke, he hadn’t expected Jotaro to take it seriously. “I was joking,” he said.

“Oh.” There was an excruciatingly long pause in which Kakyoin tried and failed to astral project somewhere else. “It’s just… I think I was.”

It took him a minute to process that one. “You were?” An indeterminate amount of time passed and then heat rose to his face and he found himself studying the cleaning supplies behind them. “Do you want to try again?”

“No.” Jotaro swiftly exited the broom closet, leaving Kakyoin to emerge a moment later and watch his brisk walk down the hallway and away. 

Alright then. 

What?

Oh yeah, they had just pretended that whole thing didn’t happen. That wasn’t when Jotaro ran for real.

They were in a hotel room with a balcony. The guard rail had metal bars just wide enough that you could sit and stick your legs through and dangle them over the edge. That’s what Kakyoin was doing. Jotaro was sitting next to him cross legged with his head resting against the bars. They were both watching cars pass by on the road below. The rest of the world looked so distant and small.

Kakyoin decided the mood was calm enough to broach the subject. “I’ve never understood why people make such a big deal about gender when it comes to people you like—romantically, you know. I got that I was only supposed to like girls, but like… why, you know? Why is that a rule?”

“Isn’t anything else… unnatural?” Kakyoin thought whatever people felt naturally was perfectly natural, but he held his tongue. It looked like Jotaro had more to say. “I’ve never really liked any girls.”

“So you’ve never liked anyone?” Kakyoin focused on the tiny people below. Why should those tiny people and their arbitrary rules have any say in their lives?

“I don’t know anything about romance.”

“Me neither, outside of movies.” Kakyoin tilted his head. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Jotaro was silent for a long time. His voice was uncharacteristically hesitant, quiet, when he finally spoke. “Are you… Are you talking about this stuff because you feel the same way?”

Kakyoin turned sharply to meet Jotaro’s eyes as he sat up.

“I don’t have feelings for you,” Jotaro said in a hurry. The specificity didn’t help his case. After a beat Jotaro winced.

“Jojo—” Kakyoin tried to make his tone calm, to balance out Jotaro’s obvious panic. He didn’t get more than a word out before Jotaro well and truly bolted.

Kakyoin forgot how annoying running on sand was. He was not wearing the right shoes for this. He wondered if Jotaro’s stupid boot pants kept sand out of his socks. Maybe they did have a function. 

Jotaro was motivated and already to the bushes at the edge of the beach. Kakyoin had gotten a little lax with his workouts lately, but he wasn’t going to let Jotaro get out of sight, or earshot.

“You asshole! You are not using the Joestar Secret Technique on me a third time!” Kakyoin made it to the bushes as Jotaro crossed the parking lot. Between breaths Kakyoin shouted, “Joseph gives terrible advice! Why do you always listen to him?!”

Despite still running like all hell, Jotaro shouted over his shoulder, “He’s the closest I have to a father!”

“Dear God, Jojo.”

This was so stupid. Kakyoin hadn’t even gotten a chance to sort through his feelings or whether or not being compared to a submarine was adorable or vaguely insulting. And now he was participating in what might be the stupidest thing he'd ever participated in. He realized the fact that he was running after Jotaro at all probably said enough about his feelings.

There was a lot Jotaro was running from and it was the same almost any time he ran: feelings he felt like were going to wreck everything, people he had the potential hurt, the threat of putting his heart on display, the possibility of embarrassment or Kakyoin laughing at him, the inevitability that loving someone meant the possibility of losing them one day, and a higher number of emotions than he necessarily knew what to do with. He could funnel those emotions into propulsion and reach astonishing speeds.

Jotaro was determined and he was willing to run forever, for his whole damn life if he had to. He could feel however he wanted to, but no one was going to give him anything back. Whether he was out on a boat in the ocean far from his wife’s questions and his daughter’s worried expression or dodging crowds of Morioh tourists in a pointless attempt to avoid a conversation with a man he'd accidentally admitted romantic feelings to, no one would be able to catch him.

He’d managed to face people a few times after the divorce, but it was awfully hard. Maybe he was more suited to a life of aimlessly racing across Japan. 

Teenage Kakyoin managed to near sprint down the hotel stairs without falling and keep up with Jotaro as he vaulted over railings to maintain a ridiculous pace. He couldn’t help laughing as they crossed the lobby. He wondered what impression the lady at the desk got of the situation. 

What were they even doing? Playing some kind of repressed-gay-feelings tag?

Jotaro shot out of the revolving doors and Kakyoin followed moments later. 

As they raced down the city block, Kakyoin could tell he was gaining on Jotaro. He was just one poorly timed crosswalk light or wrong turn away from catching up.

Adult Kakyoin was finding he was not quite the runner he was in his teens. As they ran past rows of Morioh’s touristy beachside shops Jotaro was clearly pulling away. Kakyoin would have to be smart about this if he was going to catch up.

There was an alley behind the shops that ran parallel where the good antique stores and a small gallery were. Jotaro would be slowed down by the flow of people along the main street, but Kakyoin could run through the alley unimpeded. Jotaro didn’t seem to notice him split off, and when he rejoined the main street he was able to find him again, now much closer.

Jotaro startled at his sudden appearance nearby and the two of them ended up running out into a suburb Kakyoin suspected neither of them were familiar with. 

Kakyoin decided he had no qualms with cutting through strangers' yards and managed to catch up to Jotaro as he was crossing an empty street.

“You’re not going to get away! We’re still staying in the same room anyway! What’s your plan?!” Kakyoin of the past rounded a corner in hot pursuit. Jotaro still refused to acknowledge him even when he was within arms length. But that was okay. Sometimes words didn’t cut it.  

Kakyoin of the present reached out his hand in time with the memory and closed it around Jotaro’s, pulling his racing body and mind to a gentle stop. Time compressed, their eyes met and adults and teenagers became one and the same. 

Jotaro tensed, his hand stiff as a statue in Kakyoin’s grip. Kakyoin’s other hand lifted to Jotaro’s face, to try to better convey the words Kakyoin was saying. “It’s okay,” he said. “I like you too, you weird freak.”

And then he was shifting forward and guiding their faces together. When their lips met, it was awkward. It was easy.

Just like that, they were high school sweethearts, giddy seventeen year olds, all over again. 

Down the road from the two of them, there was a house neither had ever visited or spared a second glance. What reason would they have to believe its goings on would affect their lives? 

In that house there was a couple trapped in a loveless marriage. Perhaps it was the wife yearning for a bit of excitement or their son’s strange penchant for spy cameras that drew Kosaku Kawajiri to his fate. It’s hard to say if anything in particular causes a freak accident.

But regardless of whether fate or folly guided his hand, Mr. Kawajiri climbed into the attic, was drawn in by the strange assortment of camera equipment he’d never seen before, and was bit by a brown recluse spider. Having not seen the news, he thought little of it and continued investigating.

Mr. Kawajiri was unfortunately part of the low percentage of people bitten by brown recluse spiders who have a highly adverse reaction and when his wife found him lying unconscious she called an ambulance as fast as she could. That ambulance came screaming down the neighborhood streets in their direction.

Kakyoin felt a hand on his back and one on his face, he remembered how oddly gentle Jotaro’s touch always was, like he held everything precious as if it were about to break in his grasp.

Everything is always on the edge of falling apart. The unexpected is waiting, hungry, ready to tear anything good to shreds, stab it with a knife in a grocery store parking lot or pump it full of venom and leave it lying on the floor. Jotaro and Kakyoin knew that better than most, but they also knew good things could still be found amid the change and the confusion caused by the things they couldn’t control or foresee. They were focused on the good, on holding it close.

The fact that they lived in different places they’d inevitably return to, the fact that everyone still at the beach was probably wondering where the hell they were, the fact that they were standing in the middle of a street, like sirens in the distance, for now, those thoughts were ignored. 

Those sirens in the distance got very loud very quickly.

Jotaro was the first to notice it, but by then the ambulance headed for the Kawajiri residence was quite close. In a move that he wouldn’t see the irony in until later, Jotaro immediately pushed Kakyoin towards the sidewalk.

And then in a blur of red light and metal, Jotaro’s memory of events cut off.

Chapter Text

The former Mrs. Kujo pushed through the Orlando airport with tear-stained cheeks, collecting stares as she made her way to the terminal desk. The intercom’s message was blaring a second time from the overhead speakers as she spoke. “What do you mean the flight is delayed? Is there another flight I can get on?”

She was met with nothing but polite “I’m sorry ma’am"s from the attendants behind the desk. 

Rage simmered underneath her puffy eyes. “My ex-husband was hit by an ambulance.”

The attendant gave her condolences, before more forcefully asking if she “could please sit down.”

With a sigh and a few extra tears, the former Mrs. Kujo did as she was told. She sat at her gate watching planes take off out the window in the burning peach light of the early morning and tried to swallow her nagging, overwhelming impatience.

If only she could just get on a plane and be with her daughter and her stupid, stupid ex-husband. 

In the end it was lucky she waited a few extra hours. Just as her flight finally began boarding she got a text from Jolyne. “He’s going to be fine. Everything is okay.”

That allowed her to sleep for most of the flight.

Experiencing an accident was one thing, but actually taking the steps to deal with it was another. You not only had to accept that the accident happened, but then somehow come up with a way forward. It gave Kakyoin even more respect for paramedics and people who do that kind of thing all the time, who can look at chaos and tragedy with steely eyes and do their best to make it right. He was grateful they were there to handle most of him and Jotaro’s care.

Jotaro’s emergency contact was still his ex-wife, who was across an ocean. The news had undoubtedly been passed back across that ocean to Jolyne, but Kakyoin wondered if he should still call her. He wondered this while sitting on the curb with road burns on his palms waiting for their own separate ambulance to take them to the hospital.

What was the right thing to do in this situation?

He ended up just sitting and staring, unsure if he should force himself to catch up with reality and clinging to the cold comfort of disbelief.

Jotaro was being tended to on a stretcher behind him, not dead, but not awake or lifelike either. Kakyoin knew it was a big deal, but having been the one on the stretcher once, it turned into a strange sort of out of body experience.

He was able to find the tiniest bit of amusement in the fact that Jotaro had the audacity to push him out of the way after getting mad at Kakyoin for doing nearly the same thing years ago. It was petty and probably inappropriate for the situation, but it was the only happy thought Kakyoin had to hold on to. 

Maybe if everything worked out, he could give Jotaro a hard time about it someday.

The two of them rode to the hospital and then Jotaro was taken back into an operating room. At some point someone bandaged Kakyoin's hands. Still in a daze, he found his way to the lobby where Jolyne was waiting for him. She ran up and then wrapped him in a tearful hug. That was when it finally occurred to him to cry.

He wasn’t sure he was even crying for Jotaro. He was crying because he was a part of something. Jolyne buried her head in his jacket and he had someone to cry with. Back down the hospital hallway, he had someone to lose. These people had dropped into his life and in the span of a few weeks they’d come to care about each other like this. What the hell had happened? Was this feeling a sign of some permanent shift, or would he lose it as quickly as it had come? The tears fell and he held Jolyne tight.

Jolyne and Kakyoin had already been somewhat close, but the chaos had dissolved whatever boundaries they had left. Even after the doctor came out to tell them Jotaro was going to pull through, just couldn’t see them yet, they were still emotionally exhausted enough it didn’t change anything. Josuke and the others were in and out, but Jolyne and Kakyoin both stayed in the hospital together for hours, falling asleep leaning on each other in the uncomfortable lobby seats. They leaned on each other even when they were awake. It was just nice not to be alone.

Jolyne didn’t ask him what happened and she never suggested he go home. They were there together.

When they finally got to go see Jotaro he was hooked up to an IV and covered in blankets and bandages—weirdly the most striking thing to Kakyoin was that he was without his hat. The first thing out of Jotaro’s weary mouth was, “Well that was pretty stupid.”

That made Kakyoin laugh uncontrollably and Jolyne threaten to pull his IV out. 

For an afternoon and evening, Jolyne had felt like she really was living something out of Rohan’s horror manga. She went from playing at the beach to finding four calls from her mom on her phone and a horrible new reality where her father had been in a terrible, ridiculous accident. Had her mom really said he’d been hit by an ambulance? She didn’t think ambulances typically did the injuring. And they had super loud sirens. How did her dad even end up in that position?

The confusion of it all had contributed to the feeling of unreality. There was an incredulity in her mom’s voice as she broke the news that made Jolyne think she must’ve felt the same way.

Now, sitting in the hospital lobby, Jolyne opened her and her mom’s text exchange again. The most recent message from her mom, sent five minutes ago, read, “My flight just touched down.”

Farther above she saw one of her own messages from earlier that day that still pinched her heart to look at, “I felt like I was actually breaking through to him. I know that could be like closure, but it makes the idea of losing him now even worse.” 

She caught one of the messages from her Mom. “Do you think they got another ambulance to take him to the hospital, or did they just drive him in the one that hit him?” Jolyne couldn’t help but laugh a little at it now. Coming from anyone else, it might reflect a lack of care, but it was just her mom’s way of comforting people. 

Her and Kakyoin’s conversation with Jotaro when they’d first gone in to see him had been short. After he’d pissed her off by making light of the situation, she’d asked how he even managed to get hit by an ambulance anyway.

This question was met with an uncomfortable silence and no answer from Jotaro or Kakyoin. It was pretty strange. If they weren’t all traumatized and Jotaro gravely injured, she would’ve pressed it. Maybe she would later.

Instead, her anger left her body like steam off a hot drink. In a calmer, quieter tone she said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Jotaro just reached out and grabbed her hand.

“I would’ve killed you for dying,” Kakyoin said behind them. “So I’m glad you’re okay too.” She tried her best not to read into the fact that Kakyoin and Jotaro seemed to be avoiding looking at each other. 

“Mom’s coming,” she finally said and the mood in the room instantly turned uneasy. The unexplained awkwardness between Kakyoin and her dad only seemed to get worse after that.

Most of Josuke’s crew had stopped by to see Jotaro and leave flowers or something. Koichi brought in a plush dolphin that he’d dug out of his sisters’ old stuff because he didn’t have time to buy anything. Koichi seemed ashamed of his gift, but Jotaro had looked close to tears.  

Rohan was on his way out now. He nodded at her as he passed her in the lobby. “I know I suggested killing off a facsimile of your father in a horror manga, but I swear I had no hand in this.”

“I know, Rohan,” Jolyne said. “It was nice of you to visit.”

Someone had brought in Kakyoin’s laptop for him and he was currently watching nature documentaries with Jotaro in the room. She’d left them to it and stepped out to coordinate with her mom on the phone. She didn’t really need to be in the lobby to text her mom, but she’d thought maybe Kakyoin and Jotaro could use some time to talk alone.

She got another text from her mom that read, “Just got to the taxi, on my way,” and she knew she’d have to relay the information to her dad. She figured the more warning he had, the better. Her mom was coming here because she cared, but Jolyne suspected neither her nor her dad knew exactly what was in store. Her parents hadn’t said more than a few words to each other since the divorce was finalized.

When she got back to Jotaro’s room she found Kakyoin and Jotaro still watching nature documentaries in silence, with no change in atmosphere to suggest they’d done anything other than that the entire time. Whatever.

They both looked up when she entered. “Mom’s on her way,” She announced. “I’m going to meet her outside when she gets here.”

Jotaro almost had a look of determination on his face as he nodded. She hoped that was a good sign. Kakyoin sort of looked ready to bolt.

She left them to figure it out and went to meet her mom.

Jolyne had certainly become more comfortable in Morioh over the past couple weeks, but she didn’t realize quite how much she missed home until she saw the taxi pulling up outside the hospital. Something in her chest loosened and tears of joy began to blur her vision.

Mom was here.

The feeling of relief only intensified when her mom actually stepped out of the taxi and was there, in front of her, smiling. They ran to each other.

No one in the world hugged her as tight or as passionately as her mother. She could hardly breathe and she was almost lifted off the ground, but she didn’t mind in the slightest. She knew she was holding on just as hard.

“Well, these may not be the best circumstances, but it is so lovely to see you Jojo. I swear you’re taller. You keep growing.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jolyne said into her mom’s shoulder. It was weird to be speaking English again. She had to remind herself not to correct it.

With one arm still around Jolyne, her mom began to walk them towards the hospital. “I should go see your dumb dad, huh?” After passing through the automatic doors and into the lobby, they separated. “Do you want to come with me?” Her mom asked.

Jolyne shook her head, stopping in the center of the lobby. “I’ll give you your privacy.”

Her mom’s expression turned to one of sympathy. “I’m not going to yell at him,” she said. “Even I can respect the fact that he almost died. Besides, I have nothing to be mad at him about anymore.”

“Hey, that’s not true! He still owes you an explanation for everything!”

Frustratingly, her mom just shrugged. She patted Jolyne’s shoulder and said, “I hope one day it isn’t awkward for all of us to be in the same room again.”

“I hope so too,” she said. It was her nicest way of saying no.

Things had been turbulent between her parents for a long time. She’d witnessed a couple fights—her mom yelling, her dad quiet, and far more icy rifts that opened regularly and closed a little more imperfectly each time. Her dad would disappear for work and her mom would growl at the message tone on the landline. She got used to him not making it to things, being out of reach, being gone. 

Imagining being in the middle of all of it again made her feel sick. Things hadn’t settled yet. Until they had, she was going to avoid being around it.

Her mom nodded, gave her another warm smile, and then left in the direction of Jotaro’s room.

Jolyne didn’t know what they were going to talk about. Maybe they wouldn’t talk at all. She couldn’t say she really understood her parent’s relationship. She’d spent a lot of this vacation trying to do just that, but now it was out of her hands. She supposed it always was.

The first thing Jotaro did after he graduated high school was put an ocean between himself and everything he knew. Somewhere out there he had a mother and a grandfather who cared about him, towns he recognized, friends he didn’t talk to anymore, a dad on yet another “tour,” a boy that was probably alive and probably in France. The important part was, none of it was close to Florida.

Jotaro was cleaning out the research tanks like he usually did at night. He liked working when no one else was around. It was quiet. The tanks would bubble. The piping in the walls made its own rhythmic industrial sounds. Then there was the sound his footsteps made on the linoleum.

He could focus on the few sounds that were there and the task at hand and relax. His mind wouldn’t wander.

A woman he’d never seen before walked up to the room, placing a hand on the doorframe and peering in cautiously. She wasn’t one of the research students. He didn’t recognize her.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked.

“Working. I clean the marine biology lab.”

“Oh. At night?”

“Yeah. Don’t touch anything.”

“Of course not! I was just curious what all this is for.” She was leaning over a cluster of five tanks.

“The students decide on projects. I don’t know what all of them are doing.”

She glanced up from a microscope she was studying. “What would you do for your project—if you had one?”

He gave a short answer, but when she actually seemed interested he gave her a longer one. He had actually given a lot of thought to what his future project might be when he took the class. It was nice to get to really talk to someone about it. She leaned over his work attentively. 

Finally, he thought to ask, “What are you doing here?”

“I left some of my stuff in bio lab.”

He looked at her. That wasn’t really an answer.

“I saw you down here a couple other times when I was here late studying. I just wondered what you were always doing.”

“Are you a biology major?”

“No, I just have to cover a science credit. I’m an English major. Biology seemed like… less math than Physics or Chemistry.”

“That’s true. English was always one of my worst subjects.” He realized English in an English-speaking country probably looked a lot different, but he’d still probably be bad at it.

She stared into the research tank nearest her for a moment. There was a cluster of sea urchins at the bottom. The light off the surface of the water rippled on her face. “You just seemed… sad,” she said. 

“I did?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, I just thought maybe you needed a friend.”

He didn’t realize it at the time, but it might’ve been the thing he needed most in the world.

Jotaro looked up from his hospital bed to see his ex-wife with her hand on the doorframe, peering into the room. Their eyes met for the first time in months. She looked worried, a little sad, maybe a bit unsure of what to say. She still looked like his friend.

She looked like she had all those years ago.

He got the odd sense they were starting over.

Once, long ago, Jotaro Kujo had been a mysterious, nameless hot guy that haunted the biology wing of the science building at night. She’d wondered if he was some kind of janitorial apparition the first time she saw him, but later decided that if she talked to him, he’d either dissipate into the air as a figment of her imagination or just be a real guy who might be kind of lonely. He might need a friend.

Jotaro did need a friend, and she liked his company, enough that she began to wonder if they could be like this… for life. 

She made the first move and they dated. He proposed and then they were getting married and having Jolyne. It was this whirlwind dream.

Jotaro had always had a sadness about him she didn’t quite understand and she was okay with that, but it grew over the years into something cold and withdrawn. In those early days, before all the business trips and spurned advances, there was something calm and happy she thought might be healing.

When they both looked at baby Jolyne all those years ago she had this overwhelming feeling they were all in the right place, at the right time, exactly where they should be. She knew Jotaro felt the same way, because he’d said something along those lines.

“Is it me?” She remembered asking on some quiet night many years later, on the opposite side of the bed, seemingly still an ocean away.

“Of course not. It isn’t anything.”

“I can tell something’s wrong. You can feel that we’re growing apart, can’t you?”

“I’m sorry.”

What was he always apologizing for?

“Isn’t there some way for me to make it better?” she’d asked.

He never answered.

She gave up trying to be the good wife pretty quickly. She stopped blaming herself and started getting angry. Eventually she spit out some ultimatum and he took it like a lifeline.

Had he been wishing for a way out all that time?

At least he was working hard to stay in Jolyne’s life. It was a blessing they’d been able to get through the divorce on okay terms. Through the whole process he never gave her a reason to get angry, even though a lot of times she wanted one. She still had no idea how to feel about him, especially during those few hours where he could’ve died.

She stared at Jotaro in his hospital bed, rumpled, exhausted, inexplicably a little brighter than last she’d seen him.

After standing in the doorway for a bit longer than was typically normal, the former Mrs. Kujo walked over to sit by Jotaro’s bedside. “I still care about you, you know,” she said, taking his hand.

His face softened. “You’re so kind to me.”

She laughed a laugh with an edge to it. “You think so?”

“Sharp too. You’re so good. It’s why I married you.”

She sighed, squeezing his hand. “Where did we go wrong?”

She drifted back into her rosier memories, only pulled back when Jotaro let go of her hand. “I’m wrong,” he said quietly.

She waited for him to elaborate, but he just frowned at his bedspread.

Tentatively she asked, “What do you mean?”

Still no answer. She had just been expecting another apology at first, but this was beginning to seem like something more important, something she hadn’t heard before. She felt alarm rising in her chest as she stared at his silent face.

Maybe there was an affair? Was he regretting the divorce? She didn’t really want to get back together now. She didn’t know how she’d react if he said something like that. What if he has some kind of terminal illness he’s been hiding like in a sad teen movie or…

“I’m gay,” Jotaro said.

A surprised laugh escaped her mouth and she slapped her hand over it, but it was too late.

Jotaro raised his head. He looked scandalized—as much as someone as stoic as him could. “Don’t laugh!”

She felt horrible, especially as his incredulous face caused her to struggle to contain more laughter. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to laugh! That just… wasn’t what I was expecting.” She reached for his hand again and ended up just resting her hand on top of his. “I thought you wanted to be married to your job or some other woman.” She stopped momentarily, considering. “There wasn’t… right?”

“No, no. Of course not. I’m not my grandfather.” He paused and looked away. “I did pretend you were… celebrities sometimes.”

Now she looked scandalized. “What?! Who? ”

“Forget I said anything.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his hand. She wondered if he was wishing for his hat. The air left his lungs and with it the lighter mood. He lowered his head and stared at his lap. “I’m such a screw up.”

“Hey, I married a gay guy.” She peered up at him, trying to get him to raise his eyes. “I thought I had such a catch too! I should’ve known I wasn’t that lucky.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

She smiled, then sat up in surprise when she saw a droplet hit the blanket below Jotaro’s hung head. “Are you crying?”

“No.”

Tentatively she reached over and wiped a tear from his face. His voice was very quiet and their faces were close together when he finally said, “Why don’t you hate me? ”

She smiled a sad smile. “Well, first of all, I love you. And I can’t be mad right now, because you’re telling me the truth. I’ve spent a lot of time being mad already.” She paused. “It probably also helps that reality hasn’t really set in." She frowned. "Do you resent me?” She asked it with no malice, just curiosity.

He shook his head. “Why would I resent you?”


“Well, regret being with me?”

“Of course not. If we hadn’t gotten married, we wouldn’t have Jolyne, our family.”

She smiled at that.

Then she slapped his hand lightly. “You could’ve died without telling me all that, you jerk! How’d you manage to get hit by an ambulance? They’ve got giant sirens on them!”

Jotaro gave her a flat look. “No comment.”

“No comment?!” This time she did nothing to restrain her laughter. She even managed to get a chuckle out of Jotaro himself. She realized she had technically broken her no-yelling promise to Jolyne, but she figured it was probably okay. It had been years since the two of them had the heart to joke around like this.

Huh. She’d spent all those years married to a man who liked men. She decided not to think about that one yet. “Hey who was that guy outside? He saw me and bolted.”

She got another rare Jotaro laugh, though she wasn’t sure what she’d done to earn it. “Red hair? Sort of stiff?” he asked. She nodded. “That’s Kakyoin. We knew each other in high school. ‘Ran into each other here.” She could see amusement creeping into his expression. “He really ran away from you?”

“Well he left pretty quickly when he saw me. He probably just wanted to give us some space.”

Jotaro’s reaction made it seem like that was not, in fact, the case. She narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t ask. 

“On your way out, let him know he can come in here.”

She nodded, and gave his hand a final squeeze. As she approached the doorway, over her shoulder she heard, “I love you too.”

She turned around. Jotaro looked apprehensive again. “I’ll be back,” she said. “I’m going to go see how Jolyne is doing.” Jotaro nodded, slightly more at ease. “I know we probably have a lot to talk about and we will, but right now you should focus on getting your rest. Give me some time to process everything.” Finally, she added, “Thank you for being honest with me. I’m sorry I laughed,” and then slipped out the door.

She had a message to relay to the elusive Kakyoin.

Jolyne had watched a number of people with various ailments pass through the hospital lobby, but there weren’t many like her that were just waiting. 

As the people had moved in and out, one kid remained, hunched over an old laptop.

Jolyne knew she had somewhat of a maternal instinct, or at least a soft spot for worried little kids. She’d grown very protective of Emporio over her years babysitting. They all had. Even Hermes said she looked the other way when his mom shoplifted occasionally at the convenience store.

She walked over and sat next to the kid, about to strike up a conversation, when she caught sight of the laptop’s screen. The kid slammed it shut, but she’d already seen. It was a feed of a hospital room similar to her dads. A man was laying on a bed with a woman sitting almost motionless in a chair nearby. 

Her and the kid stared at each other in alarm for a moment.

“I didn’t mean to snoop,” Jolyne said. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.” The kid turned away from her, hunched over the closed laptop. “Is that a room in this hospital?” she finally asked.

“It’s my dad’s room,” the kid said without looking up.

She nodded at no one. “My dad’s here too. He woke up a few hours ago.”

“My dad’s still asleep.” Tentatively, the kid looked up at her as if looking for permission and then opened the laptop again. They both stared at the live feed of the sleeping man.

“Do you normally spy on your parents?” Jolyne asked. She figured her tone would make it clear it wasn’t an accusation. She wasn’t really in a place to criticize that kind of thing anyway, given her reason for coming to Morioh in the first place.

The kid nodded, still looking intently at the feed. “I can tell when something’s wrong, but they always try to keep it hidden from me. If I can see what they do when I’m not around, I’ll be able to understand.”

With a pang, she realized she could see a younger version of herself saying the same sort of thing. The woman in the feed still hadn’t moved. She was staring in the corner of the screen, not even at the bed, somewhere beyond. “I’m sorry they don’t talk to you about their worries.” 

“Adults always think I’m too young to notice that everyone around me is scared.”

That’s a lot for a kid to bear.

Jolyne wanted to wrap an arm around the kid, but they were strangers. It didn’t seem right. “I don’t think people really talk about why they’re scared even when you get older,” she said. She’d once thought investigating people was the only answer to that problem too. Now, as her own parents both sat in some identical room, out of view and out of her control, she wasn’t sure how she felt, what exactly had changed. “It’s not a mystery you have to solve,” she said. “It’s a barrier you have to break through by caring about each other and being honest.”

The kid nodded, then just said, “I think it’s impossible to completely understand other people.”

Jolyne stared at the kid. “Damn, aren’t you like, eight?”

The kid’s eyes didn’t leave the video feed. “I’ve been told I’m exceptional for my age.”

“Well, I don’t think you have to understand someone completely to care about them.” She hoped her parents were working it out in there, or at least that they were both happy.

“I still care about my parents,” the kid said.

She smiled. “Me too.” Then she said, “you should go be with them,” and stood up. 

“Where are your parents?” The kid was looking up at her now.

“Talking. I wanted to stay out of it, but I’m going to go check on them.” She smiled and waved goodbye. “It was nice to meet you. My name’s Jolyne.”

The kid gave her a small wave goodbye as well. “Hayato.”

To Kakyoin’s—he hoped well masked—horror, the former Mrs. Kujo was walking up to him.

He had just been sort of wandering the hospital hallways, unsure of how else to busy himself. He’d never been to this hospital, despite living in Morioh for quite awhile. It was actually interesting to explore. He recognized some of it from Rohan’s drawing reference photos.

He’d wandered back closer to the lobby, and unfortunately ran into the person he’d been sort of avoiding.

He knew Jotaro once had a wife. He wasn’t sure what he pictured, but now a bright american woman faced him. She looked so… normal. She was open and emotive, so opposite to Jotaro, but with a certain toughness about her he couldn’t place. Was it something about how she stood, a sincerity in her eyes?

Her Japanese was surprisingly clear as she smiled and said, “Hey, I’ve been looking for you.”

He held out his hand. “Kakyoin.”

She smiled and shook it. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said, finding anything close to eye contact challenging. 

“Really? It sort of seemed like you ran off earlier.”

His stomach hitched up into his throat. “Oh I just—“

“Joke. Don’t worry.” She stared at him, studied. It reminded him a little of Jolyne. “If you’re waiting to go in and see him, you can now. Jotaro wanted me to let you know.”

Kakyoin nodded, resisting the urge to take the opportunity and cut the conversation short. He looked longingly down the hallway, envious of its distance from this situation.

She seemed apprehensive as she began to speak again. “He told me the truth, about the divorce, or some of it at least.” Kakyoin’s gaze snapped back to her. “Do you know what I mean?” She knitted her eyebrows into a serious expression.

“I… do.” He hoped he understood what she meant. 

She sighed, her expression melting into a weary smile. 

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. Honestly? Yeah. I don’t think I’ve had an open conversation with that man in years.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Same.” Then he realized he needed to explain himself. “We dropped contact after high school. It’s not the same really… but I get what you mean.” It was more similar than he was willing to admit.

“You two were close?”

“We were.” He found himself studying a particularly pedestrian painting of a bouquet of purple flowers hung on the opposite wall. He forced his gaze back to her. Be normal. “I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I just didn’t want to impose. You’re family.”

She grew quiet for a moment. Her tone softened slightly as she asked, “Are you?” She locked him in direct eye contact. He knew what she was trying to ask.

He broke away and frowned at the floor. “Look, uh, not really. I don’t know. In high school, Jotaro and I were sort of seeing each other, so things have been a little weird. I just, I feel like a dirty secret around your family. I know it’s not my fault.”

“Who dumped who?” Instead of providing any reassurances she seemed to have gotten wrapped up in the story.

“It was messy, but I think technically he dumped me,” he said.

Her face lit up. “It’s the worst isn’t it?” She grinned. “At least with me he had a pretty good reason.” 

Kakyoin found himself cracking up as some of the tension drained away

“So you’re getting along better now?” she asked.

That was a complicated question wasn’t it? He figured a “Yeah,” would cover it, even if it left some major details out. “I think it helps that he's kind of a mess right now. It must make him more open.”

“Being around his daughter softens him. That’s what I’ve observed anyway. He’d never admit it.” Kakyoin took the new information in with interest. “Don’t feel like a dirty secret. It’s nice to know someone gets a bit of how I feel. I could probably rant at you for hours.”

Kakyoin smiled. “I did manage to get over him, so it’s possible, if that helps.”

“It does.” She sighed. “I must seem weird right now. Sometimes when the unexpected happens I just start making jokes. I think poor Jolyne inherited it from me.”

“If anything you seem like you’re handling things remarkably well.” Kakyoin preferred weird company anyway.

“I just never thought I’d have closure. Part of me is ecstatic for that, and the rest hasn’t really set in. Maybe it never will and I’ll be making light of the situation forever.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be so bad.”

Kakyoin smiled and soon after that they parted ways. He wandered back in the direction of Jotaro’s room. 

So you’re getting along better now?  

The question almost made him laugh. Jotaro had run from him on two occasions, three if you count when they were in high school, four if you count the breakup. Still, they’d managed polite conversation, something close to friendly banter, and then a deeper level of honesty than they’d ever reached when they were young. They’d kissed on the mouth—well enough that even ambulance sirens couldn’t bring them out of it apparently. Was that considered getting along better?

He wanted to pretend it never happened, to disappear from Jotaro’s life in an instant, as much as he wanted to kiss Jotaro again.

If he let himself think about it, he was at a familiar crossroads between the way he’d planned for his life to go, and feelings that almost felt worth chasing. Now though, he knew how much good and bad would undoubtedly be on both sides. 

He decided it was better to think about anything else.

Had Jotaro really said he'd never felt that way about anyone else?

Maybe it would be best if they stuck to the nature documentaries and silence for now.

“Mom!” Jolyne ran into her on the way to Jotaro’s room. Her mom wrapped her up in a tight hug again and after a moment Jolyne felt her mother’s breath hitch. She was crying? Jolyne didn’t know why her hugs were having that effect today.

She pulled away and led her mom back to the lobby. “What happened?” she asked as her mom wiped her eyes.

Her mom just hugged her again. 

“Oh my god he told you,” Jolyne said. Wow. Mission accomplished? Weird.

Jolyne then had to explain that yes she knew, and that he had told her as well. She decided not to bring up the circumstances around why he told her. She figured her mom had enough revelations for the day. 

She ended up going back to her mom’s hotel room with her later to get some decent rest. She hoped Kakyoin would head home soon too. He was asleep in Jotaro’s hospital room last she checked. She figured Jotaro would make him go home once he woke up.

Hayato and his laptop were missing from the lobby when they left. She hoped he and his family were doing okay. Her mom had apparently run into his mom at one point and found out it was Hayato’s dad’s ambulance that had hit her dad. Weird.

Her mom’s hotel room was smaller, but cozier than what she’d been living in. It was just a room with two beds, a bathroom, and a tv. Her mom said she’d only be staying a couple more days. 

Jolyne and Jotaro still had a little over a week left of their trip.

She flopped down on one of the hotel beds and checked her phone for the first time in hours. She did her best to send semi-coherent replies to her worried friends. News must travel fast in her neighborhood.

Her mom emerged from the bathroom with her hair still wrapped up in a towel sometime later. She was holding a blow dryer, but abandoned it in favor of flopping down on the bed next to Jolyne. The two of them laid there for a length of time in silence—Jolyne suspected it was how long it took her mother to get bored. “Hey, what’s the situation with Jotaro and Kakyoin? Do you know?” her mom asked.

“It might be beyond human comprehension,” Jolyne said. “Besides Mom, are you sure you want to know?”

The former Mrs. Kujo had momentarily forgotten the news could potentially affect her negatively. She’d just been wrapped up in the gossip of it all. She took a moment to think about how she actually felt about the idea of Jotaro ending up with someone new. 

It was always somewhat of an inevitability to her after the divorce. Before she’d imagined some kind of dramatic affair, some mistress he was left with no choice but to run away with. It had filled her with a righteous anger before. The whole idea seemed ridiculous now. 

She’d never imagined something… calm—Jotaro with someone he could fall asleep watching nature documentaries next to, that worked for him in the ways she hadn’t. That was a very different vision. “I guess the idea that he could be happy with someone is… nice,” she said.

Knowing he might not be languishing in regret after the divorce also gave her a little more confidence to move on herself. Maybe she’d talk to hot single dad Jeff at the next PTA meeting. 

She was so caught up in her bold future plans, that she didn’t notice Jolyne’s building worry next to her, until it occurred to her that Jolyne wasn't talking. She waited with growing concern as her daughter worked up to whatever it was she wanted to say. When Jolyne finally did speak, her voice was quiet and silence pooled around each word. Her mannerisms were so much like her fathers' when she was trying to say something she was afraid to. 

“Do you think Dad’s going to stay here?”

Chapter Text

Dear Okuyasu,

You are…

When I met you, I didn’t have many people I considered family. I can’t imagine life without you.

So how am I supposed to ask for more than what we have? How do I tell you that I want you to be there forever?

I keep thinking maybe just being your best friend is enough. Like, remember that time we thought we won the lottery and then Shigechi ended up with all the cash? Maybe I shouldn’t push my luck. If I dream too big, we might crash and burn. What if we don’t make it to forever or we stall on the track?

But I guess you lose all the lottery tickets you don’t buy. No, wait. Gambling is bad. Bad metaphor. Look, I just mean, my only shot at forever is if I tell you how I feel.

And even if you don’t feel the way I do, I think you should know that somebody out there has these feelings for you. 

I have really big important feelings for you, Okuyasu.

So big and important I’m always spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to get them all out.

I think any day where I came home and saw you at the end of it would be a good one. Anything you want, anything that makes you happy, I want you to have it.

You’re kind, and you make people smile and you’re considerate in a quiet way where no one seems to notice, but I do. You see light where I can’t find any and it brightens up everything you’re around. You feel safe. It’s so easy for me to be around you.

I don’t know if this is like, weird to say, but I think being with you would come just as naturally.

I don’t think you know how many people care about you, how much I care about you and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart harder than if you crumple up this letter and throw it away, so I have to tell you this…

somehow. 

Josuke crumpled up the paper and tossed it towards the bin across the room. Going, going, gone. That one was nowhere close to good enough. He was just writing them out of habit at this point. He needed to tell someone how he was feeling, even if it was just an empty page. 

His first ever confession had to be perfect. And somehow also not totally burn his chances of staying friends with Okuyasu afterwards. This was a big deal!

His phone lit up with a message from Koichi, “Rohan said Jolyne and her mom went to rest at the hotel and he drove Kakyoin home a bit ago. Maybe someone should go check on Jotaro, see if he needs anything?”

“I’ll swing by,” Josuke wrote back. They’d all stopped in at least once. He’d stopped in frequently to dote on Kakyoin and Jolyne while they were waiting to see Jotaro. He was pretty sure he was the reason both of them ate and had as much coffee and tea as they wanted. He’d also brought flowers for Jotaro’s room. When his mom asked where their vase went he fumbled and said he broke it. He didn’t know what he was going to tell her after the flowers wilted and it showed back up in the house. He miraculously fused it back together? Fat chance.

This whole thing with Jotaro had him going over his bucket list and his unfinished business a little more closely. He felt like he should really start getting that stuff done soon, you know, just in case. You never know what could happen. Jotaro’s near demise definitely proved that. Like, an ambulance? What?

Josuke pocketed his phone and ran downstairs. He told his mom he was visiting Okuyasu since that excuse worked for pretty much any time of day and then grabbed his bike and headed for the hospital. It used to be Koichi’s bike, but Koichi didn’t need it anymore now that he had a car. He’d given it to Josuke, possibly just to get him to stop pestering him to drive him places.

He ended up liking the bike, though. He could get to all his favorite spots in Morioh and it was good exercise. The hospital was a little outside of his comfortable range of travel, but hey, exercise.  

He was only a little out of breath when he wandered into the hospital lobby and waved to the girl working the desk. He was pretty sure he knew her. He knew a few of the nurses. This was a nice hospital. He really hoped they hired him when he got out of med school. Otherwise he might have to go somewhere outside of Morioh and possibly even live somewhere else which meant being far away from all his friends and his mom and maybe he’d never see Okuyasu again and look there’s Jotaro’s room!

He knocked on the doorframe as he peeked inside. Jotaro was awake and reading. He looked up as Josuke walked in.

“Hey, Koichi told me I should come check in,” Josuke said as he cleared away a hospital food tray on the table next to Jotaro's bed. It looked in danger of falling off. There was hardly room for it with all the flowers people had left and the… stuffed dolphin? Huh.

“That’s nice of him,” Jotaro said. “Nice of you too.”

Josuke smiled and then realized he had no idea what to do with the compliment. He just sort of laughed and dumped the stray packaging on the tray he was holding into the trash. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Jotaro said. “Why haven’t you told Okuyasu how you feel?”

Josuke froze, still gripping the plastic hospital tray. That was about the last thing he expected Jotaro to ask at a time like this. Or maybe now was the perfect time to have this sort of conversation. Everything was just so weird right now.

After another beat of Josuke not responding, Jotaro asked, “What are you scared of?”

“It’s just…” Josuke decided to skip over how the hell Jotaro even knew about his feelings and just answer. Josuke had no reason to hide anything from Jotaro. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

Jotaro seemed to contemplate this. “Do you think he’d take it badly if he didn’t?”

Josuke sighed, looking away. “No, probably not. Things could maybe get awkward. But I’m leaving for school again anyway and I feel like we might drift apart either way if I don’t say something.” Josuke realized all he’d done was make a pretty good case for why he should tell Okuyasu. “I already know I have to tell him. It’s just not that easy!” He couldn’t just go out and do it, he had to… Something occurred to him just then. “What if he does feel the same way?” What then?

Jotaro smiled. “That’s the scary part.”

Josuke frowned, nearly scoffed. “What? Come on. I love love!” He gestured to the heart pin on his blazer with the hand that wasn’t still holding the hospital tray. “It’s like part of my whole thing!” 

Jotaro slumped back a little bit. “I guess I’m not really in a position to be giving advice on this kind of thing,” he said. Then his expression turned resolute. “I lied about how I felt and I lost someone. You’re better at being honest than me. I want you to be able to tell people how you feel.”

Josuke fidgeting with the pin on his lapel with the hand not holding the damn tray. He lifted said tray. “Jotaro, um, where do these go? I just wanted to help clean up, but now I’m stuck with this thing.”

“Nurses come in and take them away sometimes. Just set it on the other bed or something. I have no idea where they go.”

Josuke did as he was told, then managed to refocus. He took a seat next to Jotaro’s bed to prevent himself from fidgeting anymore. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I do worry about something going wrong. I’m really serious about this. I don’t want to mess up, but I don’t know what I’m doing! I’ve never done this before! What if we end up like you and your ex-wife?”

“My ex-wife?”

Josuke met Jotaro’s gaze with puzzlement. “Isn’t that who you were talking about before, when you said you lost someone?”

“Oh.” Jotaro frowned at his bedspread. “I guess that would also be an applicable situation.”

Josuke couldn’t help being amused. “Did you mean someone else??”

“I was talking about Kakyoin.”

“What?!”

“I thought I told you what happened.”

Kakyoin had managed to fall asleep in Jotaro’s hospital bed. To be fair, they both had. Jotaro had to shake him awake, which was embarrassing, and by then most everyone had gone home, which was also kind of embarrassing. Jolyne and his ex-wife weren’t even there anymore. How had he managed to pull more hours in the hospital than them?  

“Rohan’s going to drive you back to your place so you can get some real sleep,” Jotaro had said.

Kakyoin had done his best to shake off the fog of sleep. Napping at weird times of the day was so disorienting. He realized then that he would be leaving, having spent longer in the hospital with Jotaro than his ex-wife and child, and they still hadn’t talked about anything that happened. It was what he’d thought he wanted, but it felt wrong.

After Kakyoin had gotten his things together he’d lingered in the doorway. Jotaro was looking at him in a way that suggested he was at least trying to start talking. Maybe he felt the same way.

Words came to Kakyoin, maybe not the best words, but words good enough to make himself smile as he said them. “You finally got to visit me at the hospital,” he said. It was backwards. It didn’t quite make sense, but he hoped Jotaro understood what he meant. History had repeated itself in an odd way. In the past they went through it separately, but today they got to be together. 

He’d thought Jotaro might laugh. He was pretty sure what he said was a joke. Instead, the words brought Jotaro close to tears. Kakyoin felt like he’d made some kind of mistake. This is exactly what he was afraid of. Everything about this situation was so fragile.

While Kakyoin was contemplating apologizing or making a graceless exit, Jotaro looked up at him with watery eyes. He’d evidently found the right words too. “I understand now,” he said simply. Kakyoin hadn’t known what he meant and clearly it showed on his face.

Jotaro didn’t look like he wanted to elaborate, but he did, almost inaudibly. “I understand why… you did that, now.”

Kakyoin’s breath hitched. He lifted a hand to his scar reflexively. He didn’t know what kind of confession that was. He felt a little like crying himself then. Instead, he let out a steadying breath and smiled weakly. “And I understand why you were so mad about it.”

Then Jotaro did laugh.

Kakyoin clearly hadn’t woken up all the way, because he didn’t get a chance to register that Rohan had offered to drive him home. Kakyoin was pretty sure he still wasn’t allowed within ten feet of Princess Serenity, besides the fact that Rohan refused to drive him anywhere regardless. Rohan didn’t just go back on things like that. It wasn’t until he was outside the hospital waiting for Rohan to pull up that he realized he was probably walking into some kind of trap. 

He was in that trap now, sitting in the passenger seat of the car he’d stolen a week or so ago. “You’re just driving me so you can grill me on the horrors I witnessed, aren’t you?”

Some of the usual bite was missing from Rohan’s voice when he answered. He sounded… tired. And not in the manic, work-obsessed way Kakyoin was used to. “How else were you going to get home?”

“Koichi could’ve driven me.”

“He’s at work.”

“Oh.”

 A silence stretched between them and Kakyoin realized he was dangerously close to falling asleep in Rohan’s car. He didn’t want to fall asleep in front of Rohan. 

Then words pulled him out of his liminal state. “You almost died too, you know.”

That actually hadn’t occurred to Kakyoin. “It’s happened before. I guess I’m used to it?”

He expected Rohan to pounce on that piece of information, because he was pretty sure he’d never shared it before. He was almost baiting Rohan to act normally, but it didn’t work. “Jolyne really cares about you. Jotaro too. There are people that would miss you if you were gone.”

Kakyoin smiled slightly. “Are you saying you’re one of those people?”

Some of Rohan’s usual sharpness returned, but it was a little agitated, dissonant. “Oh, don’t get smug.”

Kakyoin had sometimes wondered why Rohan always made half-hearted attempts at blackmail to get him to help with his manga, like Kakyoin wouldn’t have come over and helped anyway. He’d always assumed that Rohan just preferred to act like a villainous mastermind rather than admit he couldn’t always do things alone. Kakyoin hadn’t stopped assuming that, necessarily. 

But he wondered if maybe Rohan was also making those threats, because he wasn’t actually sure if Kakyoin would come by otherwise. Sometimes it didn’t even seem like Rohan needed much help and Kakyoin just ended up talking to him while he worked.

Something that should’ve been obvious clicked into place for the first time. Rohan probably wasn’t that good at making friends.

“Sorry,” Kakyoin said, his own exhaustion settling into his voice. “I’m glad I’m alive,” he said. “I’m glad you’re alive too.” Once again, it didn’t quite make sense, but he hoped it still expressed the sentiment. He’d miss Rohan if he was gone too.

“That’s good, because I’m still planning on living forever.” Rohan sounded self assured again. 

“I know,” Kakyoin said.

“And what kind of genius would I be if I asked you about what happened? I know you haven’t told anyone, so I wouldn’t expect you to just tell me. I’m obviously going to go look for eye witnesses.” Rohan thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “As if the best I could think of was to trap you in my car. How could you think so little of me?” 

Kakyoin supposed he’d assumed the same thing Rohan had, that there was no way he would show up just because they were friends. That seemed slightly more reasonable though, considering Rohan’s personality. Kakyoin grinned. “Sorry I didn’t acknowledge that you were just doing this out of the goodness of your heart. It really is so kind of you.”

That had Rohan fuming.

Alright Josuke, Josuke thought. You’re going to tell him today.

His conversation with Jotaro had cemented his feelings of urgency and he pedaled back from the hospital at record-breaking speed.

He needed advice from someone who actually knew about romance. If he was telling Okuyasu, then Koichi would find out soon anyway. It would be embarrassing to talk to Koichi about this, but it had to be done. 

He couldn’t wait. He pulled off the road to fish out his phone and ask when Koichi got off work. 

They met up at the cafe later that afternoon. “Josuke, you’re overthinking this. Just speak from the heart,” Koichi said.

Josuke gave him a wary look across the table. “Why don’t you sound surprised by any of this?”

Koichi sighed. “I mean, I sort of guessed a while ago. But, then, well…”

Josuke knew that particular hesitant expression. This could not be good. “What? What don’t you want to tell me?”

Koichi sighed and rooted around in his bag. Then he handed Josuke a massive magazine. “I bought this week’s issue of Jump on the way home from work.”

Josuke took the magazine, but wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to tell him.

Koichi continued in that tone Josuke knew meant Koichi was worried he would start something—and judging by past experience he probably was about to go start something. “There’s a character in Pink Dark Boy who’s been failing to confess to his crush for chapters now.” Koichi’s voice brightened as Josuke’s face darkened at the mention of anything Rohan related. “The readership is really rooting for him. I think Rohan was hoping he wouldn’t be popular.”

Josuke flipped to the right section and his eyes landed on a pretty stock delinquent character. “Wait, you think this is supposed to be me?”

Then his eyes caught the words on the page, more specifically, in a letter the character was writing. I’ve lost count of how many letters this is now. Should I have just written ‘I like you’ on a card and been done with it? You just deserve more. You deserve piles of letters until I find my best words.

Josuke slammed the book shut. Not cool. “I’m going to Rohan’s and you will not be stopping me.”

Josuke stood up and then already began moving in the direction of Rohan’s next ass-kicking. “Fine, but I’m not paying for your coffee,” Koichi said.

“Oh, whoops.” Josuke turned back and then slapped his wallet down on the table. “I’ll come back for this,” he said. Then he set off again.

He heard Koichi on the phone behind him in the distance. “Yukako, you were right! He’s finally doing it!” God, did everyone know about this? He was seriously going to kill Rohan. He walked in a blind rage for however long, until the sound of a familiar voice stopped him.

“Oi! Josuke!” If there was one person who could reel him in at times like this, it was Okuyasu. He was standing on the opposite side of the street waving. Despite how angry he’d just been and how anxious he was earlier and how generally messed up everything was right now, suddenly it was a good day, because Okuyasu was there.

Josuke looked both ways very carefully and then crossed the street to meet him.

“Um, why are you holding that magazine?” Okuyasu asked. 

Josuke looked down at his hand. He didn’t even realize he was still carrying the dang thing. “Oh, shit this is Koichi’s.” 

“Well, we can stop at his house on the way back.” 

Josuke nodded, then paused. They were already walking. “On the way back?”

“You’re coming over, right?” Oh, of course. They both ended up in the same place so naturally they’d hang out. That’s just how they worked. 

Josuke had been sort of busy, but maybe that could wait. He glanced over at Okuyasu, walking next to him like today was any other day. The light was beginning to turn gold in the late afternoon and he looked just perfect. Josuke tried to take a mental picture. He never wanted to lose this. He wanted his mental photo album to be full of stuff like this.

He’d wanted more time to prepare, but maybe this was his opportunity. He walked with Okuyasu to drop off the magazine—and get back his wallet that he totally forgot about. Then they headed back towards Okuyasu’s house.

Josuke couldn’t help walking a little fast and if Okuyasu noticed, he didn’t comment on it. He lost track of the conversation a few times because he was trying desperately to cobble together some sort of script in his head. 

He beat Okuyasu to the door and didn’t bother waiting for him to catch up. He was antsy to get inside. He nearly dropped his keys because his hands were shaking, but he managed. He stepped inside and turned back to hold the door for Okuyasu, but Okuyasu was just standing there on the porch, staring.

Josuke stared back.

“You used your key,” Okuysasu said. “You finally used your key.”

Josuke laughed, because he hadn’t even noticed it was the first time. Okuyasu smiled in kind and followed him into the house. He’d already crossed some kind of threshold and he hadn't even noticed. This could be his house too one day. He could do this.

He was about halfway to the living room seating area, but he just stopped in the middle of the room. “Okuyasu.” He turned back to face Okuyasu, who’d stopped behind him. 

He tried to remember some of the things he’d written in the letter he threw away that morning. “I know that I’m going to go back to school, and graduate, and have a busy job and a lot to do, but… I want things to stay like this. I want to keep coming back here. I want it to stay like this forever.”  

Josuke wasn’t sure if what he’d said even qualified as a confession yet, but Okuyasu already looked dejected and stepped back slightly. Josuke panicked and fumbled for more words to say to back-pedal or fix it or do something. Everyone told him this would be okay! Why did he listen? What the hell was he doing?

“I don’t want it to stay like this forever.” Okuyasu said slowly. “If it went on like this that long… I don’t know if I could handle it.”

Josuke felt his heart sinking into his knees. “Oh, okay.”

Okuyasu kept talking. “I mean I could, but I’ll just keep wanting things to change! I don’t want to keep settling for what I have forever, I… want more. ” Josuke looked up, but now Okuyasu wouldn’t meet his eyes. He looked embarrassed.

Josuke frowned, processing. “Like you want other friends, or…? Are you friendship breaking up with me right now? I can’t tell what’s happening.”

Okuyasu’s eyes shot back up. “No! I’m trying to confess!”

“That’s what I was trying to do! Forever is like a love thing, man! Wait, you're not rejecting my confession?”

“What confession?”

Their mutual confusion faded in favor of dawning realization.

Josuke reached it slightly sooner. “Wait, were you saying you wanted to be more than friends?”

Okuyasu nodded. Josuke’s eyes widened. “But I was trying to say that if you’ll have me I want to be in your life forever and ever because you’re the man of my dreams!”

It almost looked like there were tears prickling in Okuyasu’s eyes as he looked back down at the floor. “That’s—I mean, that’s what I was trying to say too, but I’m not as good at putting words together.”

Josuke’s brain was catching up to the situation in small bursts, but at that point, one important connection was made. “So if I kissed you on the mouth that would be like… fine?”

Okuyasu’s face was getting red. “Yeah.” After a beat of silence he looked up with a bit more composure. “Are you… are you going to?”

Josuke grinned. “No.” He was bursting with excitement. It made him want to bounce on his heels. “I don’t know when I’m going to do it. It’s gonna be awesome though.”

Okuyasu smiled sheepishly.

Then Josuke abruptly smacked his own forehead. “I forgot! I still need to kill Rohan!” Something in Josuke’s brain—maybe panic—dictated that this absolutely could not wait and he needed to go right now. “Wait for me!”

Okuyasu seemed distressed as Josuke suddenly made to leave, but then his expression softened. “I’d wait forever.”

Josuke hit his head on the doorframe on the way out.

Jolyne flicked idly through the groupchat as the rest of her family discussed who was looking after Jotaro. It looked like Josuke had biked all the way there earlier that day. Her mom also mentioned Grandma Holly was planning to stop by some time soon as well.

If this had happened in Florida, it would’ve only been her and her mom visiting. But here, his hospital room could barely contain the outpouring of support. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her dad might be happier here in Morioh. Would it be selfish to expect him to come home to Florida? 

The messages in the chat also confirmed that Kakyoin was home now and hopefully resting. Apparently his house was also spider free thanks to pest control which was a concern she didn't even know was worth having. She hoped he was doing okay.

Her and Jotaro only had one week left. How was she going to resolve everything by then?

She sighed. What had she said to Hayato? This wasn’t something that could be solved. The only way out of this was to be honest about how she felt. 

She startled when the phone she was holding began to ring in her hands. Okuyasu appeared on the caller ID. This should be interesting.

None of that had really gone how Josuke hoped. They’d sort of both accidentally rejected each other and confessed feelings? What the hell just happened? There was so much he’d wanted to say to Okuyasu for so long, but now he was at a loss for words. He didn't know how to make this right.

Josuke tried to instead focus on how mad he still was at Rohan for publishing his secrets in goddamn Shounen Jump. Punting Rohan into the sun would definitely ease his anxiety.

He banged on Rohan’s stupid door until the man answered. He looked uncharacteristically disheveled and Josuke remembered that they had both spent a lot of time at the hospital helping their mutual friends who almost died today, but… whatever. It didn’t let him off the hook.

Rohan took one look at Josuke and attempted to slam the door in Josuke’s face. Obviously, Josuke was prepared for this and kicked it back open before it could close all the way. “Rohan! Listen to me very carefully!”

Rohan crossed his arms. “Why would I do that?”

“You are going to shut up, give me back my FUCKING letters and you are going to give that stupid delinquent character one hell of a happily ever after! Okay?!”

Rohan seemed surprised by the last part. Frankly, Josuke was too. He wasn’t sure why he added that. “Happy endings aren’t really my style. It’s a horror—”

“Fuck your style! Fuck you! Give me my goddamn trash back!”

“You should at least recycle all this paper.”

“FUCK PAPER.” Josuke was so mad he wasn’t even sure what he was saying, but he hoped that added to the intimidation factor. 

Rohan just squinted at him.

Josuke grinned and cracked his knuckles. “You know I’ve always wanted to try setting a broken nose.”

He didn’t follow through on his threat, of course, but he did leave the house with a stack of un-crumpled letters. He was pretty sure Rohan was still going to kill his character off next issue, but at least the embarrassment was behind him. 

He looked at the top letter as he walked back towards his house and read his own weird rambling about things he’d almost said, oddly specific hopes for the future, things he’d scribbled out. It was weird and embarrassing and so honest. No one was supposed to see this, other than, well…

He abruptly changed course.

Josuke finally opened the door to Okuyasu’s house and knocked on the doorframe, just to check if he could come in. Okuyasu was still in the living room and gave him a look that said, Really? This is what you’re doing now?

He didn’t say it aloud because he was on the phone. “Uh, Jolyne, I've got to go. He’s back.” There was a pause. He hissed into the phone, “Shut up! I know. I will. Bye.” He sounded annoyed, but he was clearly smiling. Okuyasu hung up the phone and looked up at Josuke like he’d caught him red handed. 

Josuke had no context though. “What was that about?”

“Just checking in with Jolyne.” That did not seem like the full story, but Josuke wasn’t about to press it. It was cute the two of them had built up some rapport. 

Okuyasu's eyes fell on the letters in Josuke’s hands. “What do you have there?”

Josuke wordlessly walked over and handed him the stack. “I spent a long time trying to figure out what to say and I totally botched it, so here’s everything I could’ve possibly said. This is how I feel.” Part of him felt like running out of the house again. “You don’t have to read it all now.”

Okuyasu was staring at the stack. “I already said you’re better with words. This is hardly fair!” 

They both laughed, and then for some reason they didn’t stop. They laughed until there were tears in their eyes, or maybe they were just crying. It was hard to tell.

Kakyoin woke up wearing the same clothes from the day before. It seemed all he’d managed to do when he got home was kick off his shoes before falling into bed. Was it… morning? Afternoon? He squinted against the light coming in through his blinds.

Then he realized his phone was ringing. It was still in his pocket. He remembered just then that he hadn’t thought to tell Polnareff what happened. The news must have reached him… somehow? Would Holly have called him? Would Polnareff be mad?

When Kakyoin actually got his phone in front of him and saw the caller ID, he blinked, then put the phone to his ear.

“Avdol?”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Avdol asked. Kakyoin pretty much never called anyone other than Polnareff. The politeness and lack of yelling was almost disquieting.

“No, uh, I just woke up.”

Avdol paused. “Isn’t it two pm there?”

“Is it?” Kakyoin glanced at the clock by his bed. Goddamn it was. “It’s been a weird, uh, forty eight hours.”

Did Avdol not know? He couldn’t think of a time when Avdol had called him like this without Polnareff also being there. Why would he be calling if he didn't know?

“Well, I can call back some other time if you’d like. I just wanted to check in. I meant to get to it sooner, but time got away from me.”

So this wasn’t about the accident. “Check in about what?”

“Are you doing okay with Jotaro being there? I’m still the only one that knows, right? I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

Kakyoin broke into a smile. Avdol really was the best person who could’ve possibly caught him making out with Jotaro as a teen. Avdol had never said a word about it other than to offer a shoulder to cry on. Clearly, none of that had changed after all these years. Kakyoin hadn’t realized how badly he needed to talk to someone about all this until that exact moment.

“Avdol, this has been one of the weirdest months of my life.”

Avdol laughed, because he knew how big of a statement that was. And then Kakyoin told him everything. He made himself breakfast, found a fresh change of clothes, made the bed—which he never did—all with the phone somewhere nearby and his mouth running. He told Avdol about the convenience store, about meeting Jolyne, the dinner with her and Jotaro, how he got to know Josuke and his friends. He talked about his regrets, his paintings, his conversation with Jotaro at the beach.

He told the story up to… well, this didn’t seem like the time to break the news that Jotaro was in the hospital. “Something came up,” was how Kakyoin ended up summarizing the situation. 

“Something came up,” Avdol repeated, because it was comically vague.

“Look, I don’t want to get into it right now. There was an accident. Everyone’s fine, but we’re all rattled. I met Jotaro’s ex-wife.” He also cried for the first time in a really long time. He hugged Jolyne. He spent the night in the hospital. He even worried Rohan somehow. He didn’t talk about any of that. He didn’t know how.

“Did she know about the…?”

“No, so I just had to look her in the eye and pretend I hadn’t impulsively kissed her ex-husband on the mouth the day before.”

Avdol laughed again. He was kind enough to only laugh when Kakyoin was clearly making a joke, even though parts of his story were ridiculous enough to prompt laughter. Polnareff wouldn’t have held back.

“So what are you going to do now?” Avdol asked.

“Good question.” Kakyoin was now standing in his foyer-slash-studio. His painting was still where he’d left it against the wall. He turned it around and sat on the floor across from it.

He understood what was so sad about it now. He’d painted Jotaro like he was already gone.

“How do you feel about him leaving again?” Avdol asked.

“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I can do about it, right? He has to go home. He already has a family.” The last sentence just kind of slipped out. It left sort of a bad aftertaste.

“You’re right. You can’t change that, but there’s always something you can do. You’re not the type to just let things happen. You’re a fighter, always have been.”

Kakyoin stared at the painting. That wasn’t how he would’ve described himself. “Why do you say that?”

“I know you said you gave up earlier, on your dreams, but you don’t give up. You didn’t! The first thing you did was get your paints out again. You’ve been working with Rohan all this time so you still got chances to draw. Now he’s actually paying you. You never focus on what you can’t do. You’ve always been like that.

“‘There has to be something we can do for Miss Holly. I won’t accept this.’ Wasn’t it you who said that? And then you insisted on coming along. You tackled a guy with a knife. I was always worried sick about you, because you’d just run into the impossible, but you’d find a way to win. You fought so hard for the life you have now.”  

“Avdol, you’re going to make me cry.” Kakyoin wiped at his eyes, still watching the painting. It was looking less and less like anything, just strokes of blue and purple, smearing together through the filter of welling tears. “I just think I was fighting for other people’s futures a lot of the time, you and Polnareff, Holly and Jotaro—all my friends.”

“Then that’s commendable. But fight for yourself now.”

All Kakyoin could think to say was, “Thanks for calling me, Avdol.”

“I guess I’m trying to do what Joseph did for me,” Avdol said. “He talked some sense into me a long time ago. I doubt you need that, but I wanted to be there for you regardless.”

“I feel like Joseph’s been through a lot we don’t know about.”

“He’s a Joestar,” was all Avdol said. Kakyoin laughed. Avdol continued, “I’ve spent a lot of my life reading fortunes for people who are worried about their futures. They see the cards and it tells them something, because they already know what to do. Regardless of what we can’t predict or control, we get to choose how to move forward.”

Kakyoin smiled. “The world hasn’t killed me yet.”

Avdol laughed. “Remarkable, really.”

“I’ll figure this out.”

“I know you will,” Avdol said. “Because you’re good at this.”

Okuyasu did eventually read the letters. It took him a while because he wasn’t the fastest reader and Josuke’s writing varied in legibility. He wanted to get every word, and it felt weird to ask Josuke for clarification, so he buckled down and worked it out letter by letter when he had to. Slowly but surely he worked his way through the stack.

Some of the letters were kind of weird, or kind of funny. There were some that were so kind he was trying to memorize every word so he could come to understand them. Most were a mix of both. It was all very Josuke.

There was one consistency he noticed, though, a phrase that didn’t appear in any of the letters, always danced around.

Okuyasu wasn’t the best at stringing words together, but he felt like he could answer this whole pile of them with just a few. He’d thought there was no way he could top this. It almost seemed too easy—so easy he didn’t know how Josuke missed it. Still, for the first time, he felt just a little confident he was up to this.

Josuke was over at his house between work and his plans to stop by at the hospital again later. Okuyasu insisted on cooking something when he realized Josuke hadn’t gotten lunch yet. The only reason Josuke wasn’t in the kitchen trying to help was because the cat had commandeered him again and he was stuck on the couch. Okuyasu peered at the two of them quietly from the kitchen. In a rare moment of calm, the cat was actually letting Josuke scratch under its chin. Josuke was smiling slightly.

He felt a little bad interrupting the moment, but he did anyway. It just seemed like the right time. 

“Hey Josuke,” he said. Josuke looked up, and Okuyasu smiled. “I love you.”

Chapter Text

It was Jotaro’s third day in the hospital which meant in a couple days he would be discharged, and her mom was going to fly back home. Then, in a little under a week, Jolyne and Jotaro’s trip would come to an end.

That morning she got a text from Kakyoin reading, “Are you free today?”

She rolled over and looked at her mom in the bed next to hers. “Am I free today?”

“Who’s asking?” Her mom said, not looking up from the hotel travel guide she was reading. Jolyne wasn’t sure why she was reading it.

Jolyne replied to Kakyoin’s text, “I think so, why?”

“I want to paint another portrait,” he wrote back. 

That didn’t make complete sense to her as an explanation, but she relayed the information to her mom. “Kakyoin’s painting a portrait? I don’t know. I think he just wants to hang out.”

Her mom glanced over at her. “You two have gotten close, huh?”

Jolyne studied the curtains past the other bed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, I don’t think we have anything important going on today. I can visit Jotaro at the hospital by myself—if there aren’t a million anxious twenty-somethings already doting on him.”

Jolyne laughed as she sat up and then told Kakyoin she was on her way. 

“You want to paint me? ” Jolyne asked. Kakyoin nodded and directed her to a stool set up by an easel and drop cloth that she was pretty sure hadn’t been there the last time she was at his house.

She sat down and Kakyoin was quick to get started mixing paints at a little side table by the easel. Jolyne glanced behind her and noticed a portrait of her dad leaning on the wall. That must’ve been what Kakyoin meant when he said another portrait. When had he painted that? Did her dad sit for it?

It was an unusual painting. The colors and composition would have almost made her dad look distant or sad, if it weren't for the clean line that cut diagonal across the top corner of the painting, dividing it in two. It was the same bright aqua Jotaro’s eyes were painted in and almost seemed to glow against the darker backdrop. It sort of reminded her of the light in a cracked-open doorway.

The painting looked a lot like her dad—a strong facade, with something small always slipping through.

Maybe everybody was always looking at each other through a crack in a doorway. You only get just a little of the full picture, but it’s enough.

“Jolyne, can you face this way?” Kakyoin asked.

She whipped back around. Kakyoin had his brush to the canvas now. 

“It’s boring when I can’t see what you’re painting,” Jolyne said.

“You can see when I’m done.” He made a few strokes then asked, “Have you always liked butterflies? I noticed you’ve always got a shirt or a necklace or something.”

Jolyne looked down and realized her top today did have a butterfly in the center. “Yeah, I guess. I’ve always liked bugs. My friend Hermes does too.”

She caught Kakyoin smiling over the top of the canvas as he worked. “Who’s Hermes?” She had no idea why she brought up Hermes.

“Just a girl I know back home. She’s a year older than me, but she always takes her break when I show up at the convenience store so we can talk.”

“That sounds nice,” Kakyoin said. “I bet you’re excited to see her when you get home.”

Jolyne contemplated that—going home. The idea of being surrounded by her friends again filled her with longing. She missed her house, her favorite restaurants, Emporio’s room, the curb outside the convenience store, the butterflies in the backyard. That was home. “I am,” she couldn’t say it without some sadness in her voice, though. Silence stretched on for a moment before she added, “My dad said that every time something changes, there’s usually something good about it.” 

“I guess that’s true,” Kakyoin said.

Jolyne frowned. Maybe she hadn’t wanted him to agree. “I don’t know. It sort of bothered me. They’re not really fighting words. It’s like you’re just going to let the best things about your life come and go as they please.”

Kakyoin paused after a brush stroke and looked at Jolyne. The bottom half of his face was still obscured by the canvas. “You don’t think your dad tries to hold on to the good things in his life?”

She had to think about that. She understood why her parents' marriage fell apart now, but what about all the people like Kakyoin that he left behind before that? Her dad definitely had a tendency to run. “It seems like he just let go of everything when he moved to Florida.”

Kakyoin smiled and returned to his painting. “That was a pretty big change for him.” She watched Kakyoin scrutinize the stroke he just made and then go over it. “Aren’t you the good thing that came out of it?”

What was it her dad said? I find things in the present I can’t bear to lose? By running away to Florida he found her mom and their family. When he found out about Joseph’s affair and their extended family nearly fell apart, he found Josuke and his friends, and this town, and years later he still returned to visit. 

Had this whole trip, and inviting her on it, been his effort to hold onto the good things in his life? Was this his way of fighting?

Kakyoin didn’t seem to mind that she hadn’t answered and continued talking. “In chaos theory, there’s an idea that the future of a very complex system can be determined by the most minute things. The flap of a butterfly's wings could cause a storm somewhere far away. The butterfly might not know what it’s doing, but it has power over the entire system.” 

“Change happens to us and we create it too,” Jolyne said. 

She caught Kakyoin’s eyes over the top of the canvas. “Oh yeah. I guess it is kind of a neat metaphor.” Kakyoin shrugged. “I just thought it was a cool fact.”

Jolyne chuckled. “It is a pretty good butterfly-related fact. I’ll add it to the bank.” She pointed to her head. 

Kakyoin nodded. 

They talked about bugs for a while after that. Kakyoin did know a lot of strange and specific information and she was starting to see where her dad’s joke about his omniscience came from. He wasn’t really omniscient though. If he was, he’d know what she really wanted to talk about.

“I think I’m done for now,” Kakyoin said, before taking a jar of brushes to the sink down the hall.

Jolyne hopped off the stool and turned off the lamp they’d had shining on her. She walked around to the other side of the canvas and… there she was.

Kakyoin had gone for an array of greens rather than the blues and purples of her father’s portrait. Her expression in the portrait was somewhat blank, but it seemed like she was thinking hard about something. She got an odd sense the portrait was studying her with those intent eyes, or maybe they were just sparkling with determination. She looked tough. She looked like the butterfly at the center of the storm.

Her portrait had the same abstract lines in bright aqua as her dad’s. Rather than simply cutting across the painting, her line curved around her back, forming wings.  

When Kakyoin walked back into the room, she asked, “What do these lines represent? There’s one in my dad’s painting too.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Kakyoin said. “Maybe it’s the thread that binds us.”   

Jolyne smiled.

A day later, Jolyne leaned over her dad’s hospital bed, trying once again to get him to tell her how he managed to get hit by an ambulance. “You should tell me now, because soon it’s going to become socially acceptable to laugh at whatever happened. And I can tell it’s something stupid. You should really use this grace period.” This attempt, like the others that came before it, was failing.

“Your mom would laugh whether or not it’s socially acceptable,” her dad said.

That was a fair point. “Then don’t tell her. Tell me,” she said.

“I won’t laugh either!” Josuke added as he walked into the room.

Jolyne looked up. “Hey, congratulations.”

Josuke gave her a confused look. 

“Okuyasu told me about you guys,” she said.

His eyes lit up. “Oh! That’s what that phone call was about. Thanks!”

Jotaro glanced between the two of them, but then he just closed his eyes and leaned back onto the pillow. Apparently he didn’t care enough to ask.

“Your dad still hasn’t told anyone what happened with the accident?” Josuke asked.

Jolyne shook her head.

Josuke shrugged, grabbing a vase that was low on water to go fill up. “We’ll find out through Rohan eventually.”

Jotaro, who was now pretending to sleep, grimaced.

As Josuke left to go find a sink, Jolyne turned to her dad. “Has Kakyoin visited since Rohan took him home the other day?” 

“No,” her dad said, still with his eyes closed.

Jolyne gave him a flat look she knew he couldn’t see. “If you’re not going to talk to us, you should at least talk to him.”

Her dad didn’t respond.

Her mom appeared in the doorway moments later bearing the soup she’d insisted on making. They had to go to the grocery store earlier and then use Okuyasu’s kitchen. It was hassle, but her mom got along well with Josuke and Okuyasu. She and Okuyasu had bonded over needing to do kitchen renovations, while Jolyne and Josuke sampled ingredients and tormented the cat out of boredom. “Is he asleep?” her mom mouthed, pointing at Jotaro.

“No, he’s faking,” Jolyne said. “He doesn’t want to talk to us.”

Her mom made an exaggerated frown and her dad rolled over, now facing away from them.

“You need to stop grilling him on the accident. It was probably traumatic!” Her mom said.

“He said it would make you laugh,” Jolyne responded.

Her mother’s face fell and she turned to Jotaro’s back. “I’m still so sorry for laughing!” She did sound genuinely apologetic, but also like she was holding back laughter, so it sent a mixed message. Her mom set the soup down on the table by Jotaro’s bed. “I brought you dinner.”

This caused the “sleeping” Jotaro to stir. After peering at them with a wary eye, he sat up and took the soup. “Your mom laughed when I came out to her,” he said.

Jolyne turned on her mother. “Mom!”

“It was a small laugh of surprise!” Her mom put her head in her hands. “He’s never going to tell me anything ever again.”

“He’s not.” Jolyne said. 

Jotaro smiled over his soup.

Jolyne felt a jolt of anxiety as she realized that her and both her parents were now all in the same room talking to each other. It didn’t feel tense like it used to, at least. It wasn’t like they were a big happy family again either, though.

Josuke came back briefly to return the vase he’d filled up, but then left pretty quickly, maybe not wanting to intrude. The three of them were stuck together for the time being.

Her mom caught them up on the goings on in Florida and they shared stories from Morioh. It wasn’t that bad. It was the sort of stuff they would’ve talked about in the past, so it was easy. The conversion meandered around. They laughed sometimes. Sometimes they drifted into silence.

Jolyne realized she knew this feeling. This one time her softball team got absolutely creamed by one of the fancy rich kid schools. The girls on the other team were so mean and her and her teammates all made embarrassing mistakes, despite how badly they wanted to win. It was just a crushing loss. But they’d all planned to go out to pizza after, so they still went. 

Her family sort of felt like her team had in that pizza place, all crammed into a booth together, having just experienced that same loss. It wasn’t a bad night. The pizza was good and she remembered laughing so hard soda had almost come out of her nose. She could still feel that weird burning sensation in her sinuses mixed with bubbling laughter whenever she pictured it.

They were losers, but at least they were together in it. Plus, there was good food on the table between them.

Maybe this is just what it felt like when you failed at something. It wasn’t so bad in small doses.

Kakyoin knew he should go back and see Jotaro. He’d just gotten busy and… nervous and he knew he’d do it eventually so why do it right away? When he got word Jotaro was being discharged he had to scramble to still fit a visit into his schedule. He had to leave for the bus stupid early the next morning with a messenger bag full of manga supplies because he wouldn’t have time to stop at home after. He’d only made everything more stressful. Why hadn’t he just gone earlier?

He glanced around the bus wondering how many passengers were visiting people at the hospital too. Were their stories happy? Sad? He wondered, a bit morbidly, if any of them were about to see someone for the last time. 

Then he realized he might be doing just that. No wonder he’d put this off.

A few others did get off at his stop and if he was in a better mood, he might’ve asked them what brought them to the hospital, but instead he just made his way to Jotaro’s room.

He paused in the doorway when he realized he hadn’t prepared anything to say. Jotaro was sitting there reading. He’d need to say something or Jotaro wouldn’t even know he was there. Eventually he just settled on, “Hey.”

Jotaro sat up slightly. “Hey.” He looked completely calm. Kakyoin had no idea if it was because he actually was, or if whatever was in his brain just hadn’t reached the surface.

He’d once thought he understood Jotaro, thought he could always read him. He was better at it than most, but he’d accepted that sometimes he wasn’t going to know. He wasn’t always going to get it right. That was okay.

“You know I’m going back to the hotel in just a couple hours right? Jolyne and her mom will be here soon,” Jotaro said.

“I tend to procrastinate,” Kakyoin said with a nervous smile.

“It’s better than straight up running away.” Jotaro smiled with a weary fondness that made Kakyoin feel like there was suddenly a spotlight on him. He didn’t know what to do with his hands and he found himself picking at the skin around his thumbs. He clasped them in front of him so he’d stop.

“I guess so. It’s sort of a variation of it.”

“Well, I’m not running now.” Jotaro gestured to the cast on his leg. “It’s the perfect time to talk.

Kakyoin was still standing in the doorway so he took a few steps forward. He still had no idea what to say. At least he’d made it this far.

“What’s in the bag?” Jotaro asked.

Kakyoin glanced down at the messenger bag over his shoulder. “Oh. Watercolors. I have to go to Rohan’s after this. They’re releasing a collectors edition of Pink Dark Boy for its ten-year anniversary and they want him to do a bunch of new covers. He’s paying me to help with the color work.” Kakyoin knew he was rambling. He could start playing nervous habit bingo at this point and probably make a killing. It was better than reciting the history of hospital beds or something, at least. “I don’t know why he agreed to take on so much work during all this, but at least he sort of has an assistant now.”

Jotaro smiled that same way again. Kakyoin felt sick to his stomach and he put the fourth mental chip down on his bingo board. “You’ve really built a life for yourself here,” Jotaro said. 

Kakyoin knew exactly what he meant, or at least he was pretty sure he did. “And you have to go home with Jolyne.” Kakyoin forced out a laugh, just so he wouldn’t cry instead (nervous laughter—that had to be a bingo, right?). “Why does this always happen to us?” 

History was repeating itself in the cruelest way. So what if he was a fighter? What was he supposed to do? Their paths diverged long ago. Now they were so far from each other, even if they’d met again. 

Kakyoin looked up at Jotaro in dismay, but Jotaro was somehow still seemingly serene. “We’ll stay in touch,” he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. It wasn’t the platitude the phrase typically was. Jotaro stated it with conviction. “Isn’t that what you said? We didn’t have to break up last time.”

Kakyoin paled. “Are we together?”

Jotaro frowned. “I don’t know.”

Kakyoin surprised himself by laughing. It was more of a squawk. He covered his mouth, but Jotaro laughed too, with an honest-to-god eye crinkling smile and Kakyoin let his hand drop. His head felt light and pressurized at the same which meant he was probably blushing, but he let himself laugh too. How could someone make him feel this way?

He felt something he’d felt a long time ago, the last time one of them got hit by a goddamn vehicle. Something pulsed through his concussed teenage mind when he saw four strangers looking down at him with genuine concern, that told him no matter what, he had to follow that feeling.

He realized it was that same feeling he’d felt when Jolyne hugged him, when he’d cried. He felt it now, seeing Jotaro Kujo smile like a seventeen-year-old. That feeling came with being a part of something.

Maybe not now, but someday, he was going to run away with Jotaro Kujo and his messed up family again. It was inevitable, potential energy in his bones ready to race in that direction the moment gravity took hold.

He knew time or distance or stormy weather wouldn’t be able to get between him and that eventual destination. But he kept it close to his chest. It was too soon to know for sure. It was too soon to know if Jotaro already felt the same way.

“We’ll stay in touch,” Kakyoin said, with finality. 

He’d worked out he needed to catch the next bus to stay on schedule. How long had he been here? He gripped his messenger bag. “I think I need to go. Sorry, I didn’t have much time.”

Jotaro nodded as something like sadness briefly passed over his face.

Kakyoin paused. Then, before leaving, he definitely-one-hundred-percent-ironically grabbed Jotaro’s hand and lifted it to his lips. “Until we meet again,” he said. So cheesy. Why did he do it. 

He turned for the door quickly.

“I thought you only did the princely thing when you were apologizing to girls for me.”

Kakyoin turned back to see Jotaro’s amusement. “I’m full of surprises?”  He noticed Jotaro’s eyes were bouncing around the room and notably not landing on him. Was he flustered? Seriously?

Kakyoin was almost out the door, when he heard Jotaro’s voice behind him again. “How about just one date.” His voice dropped in volume and confidence. “Before I leave.”

Kakyoin turned around a little slower than he probably needed to. Maybe it was his flair for the dramatic that had seemingly taken over all of a sudden. Then he smiled and said, “Sure.” 

The following couple days progressed about how Jolyne expected them to. Jotaro was released from the hospital with crutches and a pamphlet on rehabilitation. Jolyne went back to staying with her dad and they did a lot more hanging around the hotel than they had previously. They didn’t see much of Josuke or his friends, or Kakyoin. Her mom took them out on a scenic drive at one point, so it almost felt like vacation again. Then they were hugging in the airport drop off, and her mom was headed back to Florida.

Jolyne and Jotaro were left in Morioh to finish out the remainder of their trip.

The next morning Jolyne grabbed what she could from the hotel breakfast buffet downstairs and brought it back up to their room to share. The two of them sat at the table by the window buttering little slices of bread and watching the morning progress outside. Jolyne’s phone lit up on the table.

It was a text from Hermes in the group chat. “When are you coming home again?”

Jolyne smiled, typing out, “Do you miss me?”

“Of course,” Weather replied. “Anasui is the most dejected I think I’ve ever seen him.”

“Even worse than the time you had that job at the summer camp?” Weather had barely been able to text them with the spotty cell service and Anasui was dangerously bored. Keeping him out of trouble became an exhausting group effort. 

“I guess I wasn’t there for that,” Weather wrote back.

Jolyne felt bad she hadn’t contacted them in a while. She’d just got so caught up in everything happening here. “I’ll be home at the end of this week,” she said.

“Thank god,” Foo Fighters replied.

Anasui joined the conversation. “Isn’t it the same for you whether she’s here or not?!” 

“She’ll have more time to talk to us when she’s home,” Foo Fighters replied. Foo Fighters and Anasui were always arguing. Jolyne didn’t really understand why.

She glanced back out the window for a moment, watching the clouds inch across pale morning sky over the ocean. She’d miss this view. 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you guys,” she typed out. “I sort of figured out I was a lesbian while I was here. I just wanted you all to know.” She stared at the text for a moment. It wasn’t even that hard to hit send. She could’ve waited until she was home to say it in person, but they had all kinds of thoughtful conversations over text and Foo Fighters wouldn’t have to hear it after the fact this way. She didn’t want to wait. She just wanted it out there.

She closed her phone and let it buzz in her pocket as she glanced across the table at her dad. Maybe that had been somewhat of a communicating-important-feelings trial run, a warm-up.

She had the next few days, then there would be a going away party at Okuyasu’s house, then the next morning they would be going home. She’d already accomplished what she thought she’d wanted to at the start of the trip. Her mom had an explanation for the divorce.

When she’d met Kakyoin, she’d thought that she was just trying to further that initial goal when she chased after him. But she was also reaching for someone she thought might understand, another broken piece of her dad’s world. She’d wanted all of them to heal somehow.

Had they healed? Would leaving Morioh undo all of it?

She knew she had to find a way to say everything that was on her mind before it was too late.

The final days of their trip were subdued, and a little melancholy, but not empty. They visited Grandma Holly and Kakyoin ended up coming along because Holly requested it so vehemently. This was a joy to everyone but Jotaro, who Holly seemed to take it upon herself to tease relentlessly. Jolyne didn’t even join in. Holly was such an expert at it she didn’t feel like she could compete.

“He was in such a bad way that summer you all left,” Holly told Kakyoin. 

“Is that so?” Kakyoin said, clearly amused. Jotaro looked ready to fake his own death and start over.

“He wouldn’t leave his room for weeks!” Holly said, as a smile creeped through her look of sympathy.

“Must’ve been pretty sad to see me go?” Kakyoin elbowed Jotaro, but Jotaro had stopped responding to anyone a long time ago. Jolyne just watched the scene unfold, failing to hold back her laughter.

Kakyoin was largely elusive after that because Rohan was in some kind of nightmare deadline crunch and the two of them had been painting Pink Dark Boy characters until shape and color lost all meaning. She accompanied Koichi to Rohan’s house once and it was cool to see where he worked, but it was like a war zone in there. She was glad they were only stopping in to grab something. 

She got to see a lot of Josuke and Okuyasu, who seemed a little more at ease these days. She was happy for them. She even ended up having dinner at their house one night when her dad mysteriously disappeared for the evening. She returned to find him sitting at the table like nothing happened and he only gave vague answers when she asked about it. Whatever. Not like it was the first time it happened.

One night when Jolyne was washing dishes her hand just froze. She watched the water run uselessly over the soapy cutlery as her other hand turned off the sink.

“Dad.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you should ask Kakyoin out while you have the chance. I mean, you care about him, right? Don’t you want to be with somebody you actually have feelings for?”

She turned back to face her dad. He had sort of a deer-in-the-headlights look she didn’t exactly know how to read. Was it that much of a surprise to him that she picked up on what he was feeling? Finally his attention dropped to the floor. It looked like he was working something out in his head. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he said. 

Jolyne opened her mouth to say something, but struggled to find any response. Technically she didn’t need to worry about it. “I just want you to be happy,” she said, with only mild embarrassment.

Her dad smiled a little awkwardly. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Jolyne knew it wasn’t everything she wanted to say, and it was a little later into the week than she’d hoped to start saying this stuff, but it was a start nonetheless.

She thought her dad might want to be with Kakyoin, but the fact that Kakyoin lived here unfortunately came with that. Telling her dad to go for it without being willing to say that he should stay was kind of mean, wasn’t it? 

What she’d thought was an accomplishment left her feeling sick and she ended up heading to bed early, just to be alone. She didn’t sleep for a long time, letting her thoughts grow large like monsters in the dark.

They got together for breakfast at the cafe one last time the following morning. Then, frustratingly soon, the day of the party was upon them. When she woke up she couldn’t help thinking, I’ll only sleep in this bed one more time. Breakfast by the window felt the same way. How many times would she use this sink, shower in this bathroom? How many more times would she lock the hotel door behind them? If saying her goodbyes to even the hotel room was this hard, she dreaded what it would feel like to say goodbye to the people at the party.

They spent another lazy day in and around the hotel until Koichi came to drive them to Okuyasu’s. They arrived before most of the guests, so it gave Jolyne ample time to wander around the house and make silent goodbyes to all her favorite pieces of antique furniture. As the house slowly filled with chatter and warmth, Jolyne found herself keeping to the edges like the last time they did this, but not feeling like quite as much of an outsider. 

Okuyasu was the first to wander over to her. “Hey, um. I just wanted to say. Thanks for talking to me. You’re actually the first person I told about Josuke. I think it helped me to say it aloud, you know?”

Jolyne smiled. “You helped me realize some important things too. I’m glad everything worked out.”

Okuyasu smiled, and she followed his eyes to where Josuke was having a lively conversation in the center of the room. “Me too.” 

She ended up having brief conversations with quite a few people. Josuke wished her well with starting high school and reminded her that he was only ever a phone call away. “Seriously, I’m like always checking my phone. Even in class!” he said. 

Yukako tried to impart some last wisdom about crushes and romance that was dubious and a little violent before Koichi dragged her away. “Love is probably going to surprise you,” he said. “But it does make life a lot more interesting.”

Grandma Holly actually showed up for a little bit and stopped by to pinch her cheeks and act like a typical doting grandma. Jolyne had been under the impression that things were still too awkward with Josuke for her to come to something like this. She hoped maybe this was a step in the right direction. She knew Holly and Josuke would get along if it weren’t for the situation.

At one point, Jolyne even ended up getting into a conversation with a complete stranger who had long hair and cool piercings—apparently a friend of Josuke’s. The two of them had a pretty in depth conversation about their favorite stars and constellations.

“Oh man, you got to talk to Mikitaka?” Josuke said later. “That guy rules. He moved away so we hardly get to see him. He said he was going to go back to his home planet, but I don’t think it panned out. I’m glad he’s still at least within driving distance.”

It was a sign of how well Jolyne had acclimated to Morioh that she didn’t even ask.

It was around then that Jolyne felt like she could use a break. She hadn’t seen Kakyoin in a while and when she stepped out onto the porch to get some air, there he was. He was leaning against the railing and looking out across the street. Jolyne joined him.

“I sort of expected you to be Jotaro,” he said. “I guess he can’t hide for once. It’s his own going away party.” Jotaro had been sitting on the couch in the middle of the room the whole night and actually seemed marginally involved in the conversations happening around him. She thought he must be making a real effort to give everyone a proper farewell.

“Technically it’s my going away party too,” Jolyne said. She wanted to have fun, but she just couldn’t shake off the melancholy of what this night was. Even now she found herself wondering, when will I ever stand on this porch like this again? The air had that strange feeling it only got at night. The glow of the porch light was warm and inviting. She could hear murmurs of night wildlife in the bushes and trees beyond. It was perfect and all she could think about was the temporary nature of this moment.

When would she stand next to Kakyoin like this again?

“Do you want to know a secret?” She said, leaning on the porch railing as well.

“If it has to do with your sexuality, for the sake of transparency, your dad already told me what you told him. I’m sure he only said anything because he knows I’m not straight, but he still probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Oh. I don’t mind you knowing. It wasn’t that.” She tugged on the porch railing, swinging back and letting it support her weight. “If my dad told you one of my secrets already, I don’t feel as bad telling you one of his.”

She looked out into the dark distance, her voice growing quieter. “I think I’m named after you.”

“What?” Kakyoin just sounded confused.

“Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, with ivory skin, and eyes of emerald green. You could have your choice of men, but I could never love again. He’s the only one for me, Jolene.” She hesitated slightly, tugging nervously on the railing. “That’s you right?—How Dad sees you.”

She looked at Kakyoin, but he was still staring across the street, towards the lights in the houses. “He did say he used to think Jolyne was a man’s name.” Kakyoin sighed, something sad settling into his posture. “You really think he’s been hung up on me all this time?”

“Do you know how stubborn my dad is?” He laughed slightly. “And maybe not all this time,” she said, “but at least until I was born.” Jolyne searched the sky for the moon, or any of the stars she’d been talking to Mikitaka about. “I know it’s probably not my place to say. It’s just weird to know I’m named after somebody, not just some lady Dolly had the hots for.” The moon was behind a cloud, but she could see the glow. If she focused on that, she could almost pretend she wasn’t talking to anybody at all. That this wasn’t as important as it was to her. “I’m glad I met you.”

Kakyoin’s voice had an uncomplicated kindness to it. “I’m glad I was able to meet you too, Jolyne.” 

She looked over at him, wincing as she continued to speak. “It—God, I’m sorry if this is weird—but it sort of feels like, in some backwards way… we’re family?” Jolyne was mortified saying it, but they were her true feelings. She had a dad, but, come on, she was a little starved for fatherly affection. She couldn’t tell Kakyoin he’d become some kind of weird father figure to her, but she wanted to get at least some of what she felt across.

“If we’re telling secrets, I’ve got one,” Kakyoin said. “Your Dad took me out to dinner the other night.” Jolyne got very quiet. “First date we’ve ever actually been on.”

“How’d it… go?”

“Good. A little weird, but good.”

She stepped back abruptly as realization hit. “Wait, the other night? You mean like earlier this week?!”

Kakyoin frowned. “Yes…?”

“I told him to ask you out a couple days ago and he didn’t say anything, even though he already did it! He just let me make a fool of myself!”

Kakyoin snickered. “You told him that?

She sighed, dropping her head into her arms slung over the railing. “He’s my Dad. Even I want to see him happy. And I…” I didn’t want to lose you either. “I don’t know.”

She fell silent and Kakyoin fell silent. It wasn’t uncomfortable because she could tell he was working through something in his head.

“No matter what happens with your Dad, the two of us are family. How about that?”

It didn’t feel like it fixed all the turmoil in her heart, but she did feel just a little more at ease. Maybe talking like this really was the way to get through this sort of thing. Even if she couldn’t hang onto this moment, the connection she felt—the ties of family —wouldn’t just disappear. She smiled. “Yeah, okay.” 

She wanted her dad to be happy. Did she want her dad to be happy more than she wanted him to come home with her? She wasn’t sure she did. 

If he’d already asked Kakyoin out, what did that mean? 

When the party drew to a close she was left in the car with her dad again. It was a taxi this time, since Jotaro wasn’t exactly fit to drive with the cast. It was pretty late, but Jotaro asked the driver to take them to his favorite beach one last time. 

Jolyne couldn’t object. It seemed like a nice way to cap off the trip. After all, it would be straight to the airport in the morning.

It was too dark to see much more than moonlight tracing the tops of waves when they got there. It was certainly too dark to attempt to scramble across the rocks, so the two of them just sat on the first outcropping and looked out into the night. They listened to the sounds of waves they couldn't see steadily breaking until Jolyne asked the question she’d been dreading all week. 

“Dad, do you want to stay here?” The moment the words left her mouth silent tears suddenly began to fall from her eyes. It was too dark for her dad to have any idea. It was too dark for her to see his expression either. He was no more than a dark shape next to her, identical to the specter that haunted the house when he was away on business.

“Of course not,” he sounded surprised.

Jolyne knew once she spoke, she probably wouldn’t be able to hide her tearfulness. “But, so much of your family is here! Wouldn’t you be happier…” Far away?

He’d spent so much time away from their family. Wasn’t that what he wanted? His marriage was over. He had no reason to return. A very old insecurity reared its head, that a dad so anxious to leave, must only be burdened by his family.

“I wouldn’t.” Her dad said.

“I don’t want you to just keep being my dad out of obligation, alright?! You tried to hide it from me, but I know how you feel about him. And I know how much you love our family here.” She buried her face in her knees. The sound of the ocean had raised to a roar in her ears. 

“Jolyne.” Her dad paused, waiting for her attention. He had no way of knowing if he had it, but maybe it was something you could just feel, because when she raised her head, he continued. “It doesn’t matter. In any choice, I would choose you.”

She sniffed, loud enough that he probably heard. 

Quietly, he said, “Why would I ever want to leave the person in my life who’s brought me the most joy?”

She hugged her dad there on the beach and it was a messy, snotty affair. She wanted to feel guilty for how much she felt like her dad was giving up for her, even embarrassed about this brazen display of mushy emotion, but she was far far too relieved to care.

When Kakyoin left for college overseas, only his parents were there to say goodbye. Polnareff was already back in France waiting for him. Avdol was in Egypt again and Joseph was in New York. He didn’t know where Jotaro was. His feelings about him at that moment landed somewhere between, “good riddance” and “this is what he probably wanted for me.” It was clearly what his parents wanted for him. This outcome was making everyone in his life happiest. Doing something rash probably wouldn’t have ended well.

And even if Jotaro was there, he wouldn’t be able to say a real goodbye anyway—not when they were just friends to the outside world.

He might’ve realized he’d been clinging to a few lies and assumptions if he’d studied his feelings closely. But, he’d managed to find optimism all the same. That’s what he’d learned to do, find courage and a way forward. For the first time he had a friend waiting for him at his next destination and whatever happened, he could make the most of it.

Kakyoin found it sort of surreal, walking Jotaro Kujo, Jolyne Kujo and all their luggage through the airport. He accompanied them all the way to customs, where they knew they’d finally have to part. Everyone else had said their goodbyes at the party, or in Koichi’s case, at the airport drop off, but what the hell. Kakyoin was family—at least to Jolyne. He was whatever a long messy history and an uncomplicated first date meant he was to Jotaro. 

The date itself was way less noteworthy than any of their teenage hijinks. They’d just gone to a nice restaurant and talked about their lives. If they ever did it again Kakyoin was going to have to plan some kind of wacky adventure for them to go on, or at least a way to trick Joseph Joestar into eating seaweed again. They’d set the bar high in their teens. He could tell just plain dating wouldn’t be their style.

He wasn’t sure why he was planning for the future, when right now, this was goodbye.

Jolyne gave him a hug. He didn’t entirely know what to do with it, but he did his best to reciprocate. Then, he faced Jotaro. To his surprise, Jotaro hugged him too. It was short and almost crushed him, but it was still a sweet gesture.

“Bye idiot,” Kakyoin said, when Jotaro stepped back.

“Bye, um. Bye.”

Kakyoin raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t think of an insult?”

Without even a change in expression Jotaro said, “None really apply.”

Kakyoin nearly shoved him, but quickly wiped his eyes instead. Under his breath he said, “Fuck. I like you so much.”

Jotaro just smiled before turning away, grabbing Jolyne’s shoulder as they disappeared into the crowd.

Kakyoin watched them go and wondered how the hurricane that had blown through and uprooted his life over the past three weeks could leave so quietly.

Kakyoin had been dreading returning to his empty house again for the rest of the day. He’d weirded Rohan out by actually trying to find more work to do that evening. Eventually going home seemed better than explaining himself. 

It was late when he finally opened his door and he winced as he turned on the lights. Instead of taking in the sight of his same lonely foyer this time though, his eyes landed on the two paintings he’d recently hung on the wall—a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

Jolyne sat at the airport gate next to her father waiting for the intercom to tell them it was time to go. She was too exhausted to read a book or do much of anything more than stare blankly at a spot on the wall across from their seats. When her phone buzzed though, she looked at it.

A message from Foo Fighters read, “I can’t believe you’d send something like that and not deal with the fallout. Anasui’s on a warpath.”

Jolyne smiled, typing out and sending, “He’ll get over it.”

“I know, but right now I fear for my safety. You’ve gotta get home so you can beat him up.”

“Well, I’m in the airport right now.”

“Good.” Foo Fighters’ icon spent just slightly more time typing than usual after that. “Did you figure out what you wanted to over there?”

Jolyne smiled again, wider this time. “Yeah, I did.” She sent a second message. “I’ll beat Anasui up if you need me to, but he can’t hurt you through the screen.”

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s probably other things I should be more afraid of.”

Jolyne frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?? Do I have to beat up somebody else?” Where did Foo Fighters even live? Would she have to get a ride there? Fly? She had no idea.

“I actually have to go. Text me when you get back to Florida. Sorry.”

She couldn’t think of a time that Foo Fighters was ever the first to go. Usually they talked for as long as Jolyne was available. That actually seemed weirder than their sudden exit. Didn’t most people have commitments that interrupted them from time to time? She didn’t have long to think about it though, because their plane started boarding.

“You take the window seat this time,” Jolyne said as they found their way to their row. “I think I’m just going to sleep.”

Jotaro agreed and they took their seats.

As the plane left the ground she’d more or less accepted that their distance from Morioh would steadily increase for the next several hours. They were leaving. She watched the landscape of Japan turn miniature over Jotaro’s shoulder and it occurred to her that somehow she was leaving Morioh with more family than she’d entered with.

When the seatbelt sign eventually turned off and all she could see was clouds outside, she figured it was a good time to start trying to sleep. She looked over at her dad to let him know and noticed he had something in his hands. 

“What is that?” She leaned in closer to see it was a slightly-munched photograph of five people. She picked out a teenage version of her dad. She forgot how much of a little delinquent weirdo he was. Then she found Great Grandpa Joseph, two figures she realized were probably Polnareff and Avdol, and a teenage Kakyoin. And a… dog? Who’s dog was that? It had sort of a sinister aura.

“I tucked this in my wallet a long time ago, but I never took it out to look at it again. I never thought I’d be able to.” She wrenched her focus away from the weirdly human-looking dog and glanced at her father. He smiled at the picture and then turned to look back out the window.

She smiled in kind, then put her earbuds in, and closed her eyes.

She actually felt ready to return home.

Things were never going to stay the same, but that was okay. Threads from Jolyne’s heart now stretched across the globe. Her dad was next to her. And both of them were hanging on to what they had with all their might. Through time or distance or stormy weather, that wouldn't change.