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"You look like hell."
Noriaki Kakyoin's soft and gentle non-sequitur came as Jolyne made her way up the stairs and stood on the balcony beside him. She was dressed in bruises and the occasional open wound, each one of those having blood dripping down from them in some form or fashion. (All of them had clotted, but while some of them had fresh blood, some of them were already dry. Must've been a long fight.)
"Must've been a long fight," he said out loud, chuckling. "…..did you win?"
"I guess," she muttered, throwing her braid over her shoulder and turning to look at him.
And it was then, after seeing the little pin on her lapel, that he had to remind himself that Jolyne was nonbinary and actually used they/ them pronouns, and goddammit, Noriaki, if you could do it with Jotaro, why can't you do it with Jolyne?
"..as long as you're okay," he said, glancing behind him on the balcony. "…..did you check on your father on the way in?"
"No," they said all too quickly. "I heard him snoring... that's enough, right?"
"... I guess it is," he said with a soft reluctance, looking back outwards across the balcony. The Kujo household was an oceanfront home, and over the balcony, you could see the expansive ocean, and faintly, the land on the opposite side. It was a home that Jotaro in particular was quite fond of, to the surprise of no one in the house.
Kakyoin sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a box of Jotaro's cigarettes. Kakyoin himself didn't smoke, but he always kept a box and a lighter in his pocket, just in case his husband had forgotten his own and really, really needed that smoke.
"You know those are bad for you, right?" Jolyne remarked. (Kakyoin didn't think they had seen him pull out the box in the first place.)
"You try telling your father that," he remarked, putting them back. "...l'm... sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Jolyne asked, stepping across to the other side of the balcony to be closer to Kakyoin as they talked.
"Just sorry. Sorry that l'm not your biological father, sorry that your dad and I aren't always home at the same time, sorry that... I don't spend enough time with you." It was a heavy weight. But it was one that he really needed to drop.
Jolyne paused, shoving their hands in their pockets. "It's not your fault you're not the person who knocked him up," they said rather bluntly. “...and it's kinda my fault that we're not closer, anyway."
Kakyoin sighed."...would you... want to be closer?"
"Yeah," Jolyne said without any hesitation.
...thanks, little JoJo," he said, and turned to the balcony door, opening them up and going down the hall. As he opened the door to his and his husband's shared bedroom, he came upon the sight of Jotaro, still snoring lightly and laying in bed.
He climbed up onto the mattress beside Jotaro. (They slept on a king sized mattress-it was best because they were both rather tall and bulky, so they needed a lot of room.) With a smile, Kakyoin draped an arm over his husband. "Jolyne and I are gonna be getting along," he said softly.
Jotaro wrapped an arm around Kakyoin in return. "That's good," he said sleepily, clearly only half processing the conversation. It would be a miracle if he remembered it in the morning. Kakyoin smiled and laid down with him, and they fell asleep in one another's embrace.
