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For someone known mostly for his brilliant career in racing that dated back to his early teenage years, Johnny Joestar had experienced a number of losses exceeding the number of wins by far throughout his lifetime. And although his worldview - largely influenced by his upbringing and a sort of catholic guilt imposed on him by his bastard of a father - tried to convince him that this is all a part of God’s plan, this is how it was supposed to be - Johnny could never make peace with that thought. Not after what he had gone through.
1.
Johnny cried on the day he lost Danny. He cried because he was just a kid, a child who wouldn’t understand that the mouse was better off in the wilds anyway. It felt like losing a family member, and not a pet that he’s only provided with temporary shelter. If his father were a better parent, who would try to understand his son’s point of view - like Nicholas did, when he came up with an idea to save Danny’s life and save Johnny trauma from complying to their father’s order that he drowned the poor mouse - maybe his life wouldn’t have taken this unfortunate turn. Perhaps if it wasn’t for that first loss - a domino block that triggered an avalanche - Johnny wouldn’t have to go through this seemingly endless streak of losses for years to come.
2.
The day they lost Nicholas, Johnny lost the faith in the dogma of everything happening for a reason . Simply because there was not a single reason for him to believe that it should have been Nicholas who had died, and not him.
And his father made it very explicit that he thought that, too. Nothing in Johnny’s short life so far has felt more painful than his own father telling him that ‘God had taken the wrong son’ , the phrase that has been engraved in the back of his mind ever since and never let him stop blaming himself for Nicholas’ death. Logically he knew it wasn’t Danny who startled the horse and led to his brother’s accident - mice didn’t live this long, especially in the wild, it must have been a different one for sure - but it’d been haunting him in wakefulness and in sleep. Countless were the nights where Johnny would lie down in his bed, praying to God, begging Him to give his brother back and take him instead. It’d be better for everyone this way.
But the past couldn’t be undone, therefore Johnny promised himself that if he couldn’t bring Nicholas back to life, then at least he could make sure that from now on, his wins would outweigh his losses.
3.
And so he did. From that day on, Johnny kept on winning every race he would participate in. Joe Kid, the prodigy jockey, Kentucky’s pride . And suddenly everyone loved him, and even his father was willing to look past the events of the past and pretend like Johnny was his beloved son again when he would give interviews to the newspapers about his kid’s latest successes.
But the failure had to come sooner or later, and when it did, it stung more than anything, because the first race that Johnny lost after entering the world of professional racing was on Nicholas’ death anniversary. And as if it wasn’t bad enough, he lost it to a foreigner, a British kid named Diego Brando, whose name in England was equally known as Johnny’s in the States. Therefore not only did he fail to commemorate his brother, but he also let down everyone who had been rooting for him, an All-American jockey, to win a national race and put those British bastards in their place. When he got off his horse his knees were shaking and he needed a good ten minutes to simmer down before he could face the audience and journalists.
Diego Brando was already there when he walked up to the podium to hop on the 2nd place step. As Johnny got up there, his opponent turned to him, a crooked smirk on his face, and extended a hand towards him. When Johnny accepted the handshake, Brando crushed his fingers in a tight grip, as if he was trying to hurt him.
Joestar had to restrain himself from spitting in his face.
What was supposed to be a one-off, an unexpected loss to a prodigy visitor in the American land, turned into a rivalry that spanned throughout their teenage years - and only Johnny’s accident put an end to it.
4.
When Johnny lost his ability to walk, he lost his faith in God, too.
Up until that point, despite how miserable he had felt at times, he would never even entertain the thought of ending things. It would go against what he believed in - he wasn’t a God Almighty, who could decide who lived and who died, even if it was only about his own existence - but when he woke up from a coma he’d plunged into due to the bloodloss, and the doctor taking care of him told him he would never be able to walk again, Johnny decided that if there was a merciful God out there, He would forgive him for taking his own life. A week later, on the first occasion when he was left home alone, he creeped into his father’s office and took his Remington with the intention of putting a bullet in his head.
And then a miracle happened. For whatever reason, when Johnny got to the fields behind the Joestar mansion, put the gun against his forehead and pulled the trigger, the revolver didn’t fire. For a couple long seconds the jockey sat in the tall grass, with his eyes closed, thinking that that was it , that God granted him a peaceful, painless death, as if trying to make up for making his life up until this point a hell - but then a raindrop fell on his face. Then another one. Then one more. Warm summer rain sobered him up and made him realise he wasn’t dead. The bullet got stuck in the cylinder.
Johnny took it out and carried it wherever he went from that point onwards. When he enrolled into Steel Ball Run years later, the cold piece of metal was still sitting in his pocket, a tangible symbol of his subsistence.
There was only one person who got to hear this story (and many other stories that Johnny had sworn he’d take to his grave with him).
5.
Johnny thought he had lost his head for some girls before.
And then he met Gyro Zeppeli and realized he had been wrong .
The golden hair that somehow stayed slicked-back and well taken care of, despite travelling in the pouring rain or the blazing sun for days on end; the curve of the muscular back as he rode Valkyrie; the deep timbre of his voice, the foreign melody of his speech that pointed out he was a stranger in this land, despite speaking English fluently; everything about Gyro fascinated Johnny. And that was just the first impression; when he actually got to know the Italian, he was done for, there was no turning back.
Under the starry night sky they vowed to make it to New York City together and Johnny regained the faith in love he’d lost years ago.
+
Gyro doesn’t make it to the finish line.
Johnny loses the Steel Ball Run but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because he’d lost the only thing he’d cherished and cared about. The part of his heart that he ripped out of his chest and gave away to that Italian man died with him in that sun-scorched field. And Johnny cried, he cried so much that his tears could fill the ocean that separated America from Gyro’s homeland. The sadness that losing the race brought him was not even close to the despair he felt when he had to leave Gyro’s body, get on Slow Dancer’s back and ride away.
Johnny doesn’t have much time to grieve, because as soon as he faces Gyro’s assassin, he absolutely loses it. Killing Funny Valentine helps to ease some of his pain, but even knowing the son of a bitch is going to burn in hell for all eternity wouldn’t - couldn’t - bring the love of his life back to him. When the president tries to bribe him to save his own life and offers to create a brand new version of Gyro, Johnny can't accept it - there was no way another-dimensional Zeppeli could even compare to his Gyro.
But after all, Johnny knows he’s won.
He’s won because nothing could take away the memories of Gyro from him. Cold nights by the campfire, the wine they drank to warm up; Gyro’s hands on his back, plump lips against his temple, long hair tickling Johnny’s neck as they kissed for the first time; his stupid jokes that Johnny meticulously wrote down so he would never forget them, and Gyro’s contagious laughter that never failed to make him feel better, even when they were in dire straits; the words of an Italian prayer Gyro mumbled out in his sleep when Johnny woke up in his arms after the night they’ve been with each other for the first time, the religious guilt raging inside him; the way he looked at Johnny, making the young jockey feel like he was loved , like he wasn’t just a burden and a waste of space.
He’s won since Gyro filled up the gaping abyss that Nicholas’ passing had left in his chest; he was victorious because whatever was going to happen next, it wouldn’t erase those moments they had spent together.
And if there was a life after death, Johnny knew Gyro would be waiting for him there. He’d turn back to look at him, with a golden-teeth smile and amusement in his eyes, just as he did when Johnny caught up to him during the first stage of the race. Took you long enough, he’d say. Now let’s go home.
The steel ball feels heavy in Johnny’s hand as he stares at the vastness of the ocean before him.
Let’s go home, indeed.