Chapter Text
I wonder if our dreams speak to our greatest desires that we’d like to forget. Because there are two things I know for sure in this world -
That you are my greatest desire,
and God, I wish I could forget you.
I dreamt of you again.
We are youthful. We’d just come back from Cairo and had started attending school again, lazing on the rooftop at lunchtime. Alone. Holly had made you a bento box that you begrudgingly accepted, as you always do. As we watch the city slowly turn from summer to fall, you gently reach for my hand. I feel the warmth from your fingers run over mine.
“Jotaro, I...” I trail off quietly as your grip tightens. You are the kind of man who speaks with his actions, not with his words. At that moment, I get the impression that I don’t need to say a word for you to understand how my sentence ends. Your lips beckon me to come closer, and I begin lifting myself towards you...
I wake up grasping for you.
For those words I’d never gotten to say. For the comforting squeeze of your hands. For your mere presence.
Gasping. Out of breath.
My body reminds me that I’ve dreamed my sweetest dream and my worst nightmare.
Drenched in the rays of morning sun breaking through my blinds, I marinate in melancholy, childishly unwilling to leave my bed. As if staying here will let me feel the hard-fought happiness from my dream for just a bit longer.
There’s that one famous quote from Einstein -
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
In trying to find you, perhaps I lost my sanity long ago.
I bring a cup of bitter black coffee to my lips, sliding my fingers across the cream exterior of my phone. I know you’re busy these days. At least, that’s what I tell myself. You’ve never picked up when I've rang you in the ten years following your sudden departure from Japan. Whenever I muster the courage to dial your number, the deafening silence on the other end reminds me again and again that my words may never reach you.
Ring.
The phone lights up just as I start to move away. I sigh and pick up. “This is Noriyaki,” I say with an air of uncertainty. A jumbled string of words comes out from the other end, asking me if I’ve purchased cable television. I set down the phone and turn away to refill my empty cup.
Ring.
An unfamiliar second ring permeates through the room. How persistent. I stride over and reach for the phone. Holding the receiver to my ear, I repeat my introduction, ready to dejectedly hang up once again.
“Kakyoin... it’s me.”
I find myself touching down in a foreign airport, staring at planes landing on the hot August asphalt.
It is the Tuesday afternoon after I received your call. I haven’t stopped replaying your request in my head since.
“I’m sorry that I left so abruptly. Will you let me see you again?”
I suppose that your terse nature had stayed with you throughout the years; you’d cut so quickly to the point that I had no opportunity to ask the questions I’d been holding in for so long. But I agreed. Between my fingers, I press a piece of hastily torn paper with an address for one Kujo residence in a sleepy American suburb. My ticket to you.
The ride out of the city is pleasant, though tinged with an unsettling, agitated anticipation unfamiliar to me. As sunlight melts into dusk, I watch rows of picturesque homes with neatly trimmed lawns and white picket fences go by, suddenly lost in a daydream of what it would be like to have lived my life here, instead of Japan...
“We’re here,” croaks the middle-aged, grungy cab driver between puffs of a beat-up pipe. Lost in thought, I’d neglected to notice that the car had stopped. I step out to see an impressive two-story house, painted white. A worn tire swing rests underneath thick trees in the front yard, rustling quietly in the warm wind.
The car speeds off. I close my eyes, breathing in the damp evening air. Standing on a foreign sidewalk with nothing but a suitcase, I realize for the first time how ludicrous this is. I had been summoned, at whim, by a man who’d left with no indication as to if he’d return a decade ago. Was I stupid for answering his call? I could turn back now. Pretend like I’d never left home. Save myself from looking like a fool. The world pauses as I consider retracing my steps and running away.
The rugged softness of your hands. The warmth of your body. The beckoning of your lips.
My consciousness is flooded with these images I’ve dreamed of so many nights before. The agony of the seconds following those fleeting illusions. The tears in the corners of my eyes as I lay, drenched in the aching sadness of the morning after. Day after day, begging my mind to let you go.
I push forward, past the neatly painted gates, up the porch stairs, until I find myself in front of the mahogany doors. With bated breath, I raise my arm and knock.
A second passes.
Two.
Three.
And then, it swings open.
“Kakyoin,” you murmur in your gruff, yet gentle voice.
Standing in the doorway, towering over me, is the man I had tried so hard to forget but never could.
My greatest desire.
Jotaro Kujo.
You.