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His breathing rattles, rattles, the way it has for months, like his lungs aren’t flesh but plastic, like his air is heavy and solid. It rattles like the final candy in the jar, desperate to escape but impossible to remove. It rattles like something trapped in a vacuum, like the final wheeze before total collapse.
And then his eyes open.
He doesn’t know where he is, how he got here, why his eyes won’t focus properly, why he can’t crane his neck to look around, he doesn’t know so many things and all he knows is-
Kakyoin.
Kakyoin’s head is resting next to him.
He can’t make out a lot of his features - for some reason his eyesight is still blurry, no matter how hard he blinks, and he can’t seem to move his hands to wipe his eyes - but it’s definitely him, head resting on crossed arms, ginger hair a little longer than he thought it was, apparently asleep.
He tries to speak, but his words won’t come out, for some reason, like his mouth can’t form the words - he tries to ask Kakyoin what’s going on, what happened, is his mom okay.
He manages to cough, but it’s weak, and Jotaro barely recognises the sound. It’s not the heavy, smoker’s cough he knows, but something smaller, something he didn’t know he could sound like - Kakyoin wakes, though, immediately at attention, bolting upright in his chair and staring with abandon. His eyes seem… brighter, somehow. More purple. Jotaro can’t quite place it.
“Jotaro?” he gasps, and his voice is hoarse, almost like it hasn’t been used. “Jotaro!”
He starts to smile. Really smile. It’s like he’s seeing something in Jotaro that Jotaro himself can’t, like a big neon sign above his head is telling a joke that Jotaro can’t read.
“Miss Holly!” he shouts, without looking away- he won’t even blink, for some reason, it seems- “Miss Holly, he’s awake!”
Kakyoin gets closer, just a little, scanning something in Jotaro’s eyes, and Jotaro notices something that wasn’t there before: deep, but healed, gashes across Kakyoin’s face, reaching easily past his cheekbones, that kind of maroon that scars always seem to turn. He means to ask what happened, but the words still won’t come, like his jaw is bound with gauze, and then it hits him.
He was… in Egypt, he thinks, maybe. It’s… fuzzy, but he remembers something about Kakyoin being in hospital, going to visit him perhaps, seeing him with bandages. His head feels heavy, but not with weight - it’s more like thinking is painful, like it’s far more effort than he’s used to. He’s sure thinking wasn’t always this hard. He’s sure his head is… suspended in mist, of some kind, that’s slowing him down, simmering him til all his fat renders out.
A stand attack, perhaps? He has the faint feeling there was one like that, that surrounded him in fog, but he can’t place it. He feels… untethered, somehow, like his body is present but his mind is wandering, like his muscles won’t flex until he can anchor himself. Move, think - he doesn’t seem to be able to do much of either.
Kakyoin is still in front of him. He’s not used to him being so close, looking so deeply - he looks concerned, almost, and Jotaro resents that, hates when people worry for him, even if having Kakyoin’s eyes on him and him only was… exhilarating in a way Jotaro didn’t think he could explain.
“Somethin’ on my face?” he tries to force, and he finally manages to make a sound - granted, it’s not the words he was trying to say, but a grunt, a “suh?”-type growl, that was progress.
Kakyoin’s eyes get even bigger, and he finally blinks. “You can talk?”
A low growl comes from the back of Jotaro’s throat. It, again, is not his intention, but it serves its purpose- Kakyoin nods, dryly says, “maybe not,” and purses his lips.
Jotaro can’t help but feel like he’s missing something. He’s still not really sure where he is - it feels familiar, somehow - or why nothing in his body seems to move, or why Kakyoin just will not look away.
Kakyoin takes a deep breath, and his slender chest puffs up ever so slightly, and as Jotaro stares at the buttons - he tells himself he’s just looking down to hide his face, like he always does, but it’s something he’s said for a while and he has long since recognised that it’s a lie - he notices his vision is a little sharper, but still hazy. The coat Kakyoin’s wearing is black. It… wasn’t always black, was it? He’s sure it was a different colour before, but as hard as he tries, he can’t figure out what it was.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Kakyoin’s voice comes out far softer than Jotaro is comfortable with, and he furrows his brow, like he didn’t mean it to come out like that either.
If Jotaro could shake his head, he would - and he tries, really tries, feels his neck move ever so slightly and maybe that’s enough for Kakyoin to understand. It seems to be. Maybe Kakyoin was better at reading him than he let on.
Kakyoin sighs. Purses his lips again.
“You were shot.”
Oh.
Jotaro’s eyes dart down to look at his body, searching for wound dressings, any indication of where the bullet could’ve been lodged and then-
“Between your eyes.”
Kakyoin looks away, now, can’t meet his face, like he’s embarrassed to speak - and he’s hushed, as he adds, “we didn’t think you’d make it.”
Jotaro’s… almost angry.
He hates depending on people. It’s hardly a secret; he hates being looked at with pity, that much-too-patient attitude school counsellors have, being - no, not revered, Kakyoin doesn’t revere him, he’s sure he looks at everyone like that - babied. He wants to ask why they bothered to save him, but even if he could form the words, he has a feeling in his gut that Kakyoin would say something lightly humoured, all too playful, entirely insincere. Jotaro can’t place how he knows it, exactly, but he’d no doubt say something teasing, like “who knows? I couldn’t say.”
“Mmm…” he grunts.
“Your mom?”
A minute nod.
“She’s fine, Jotaro. We managed to-”
As if on cue, Holly bursts into the room, throwing the sliding door aside, not even knocking. Excited to see him, presumably - he wishes she’d slow down, meet him at his pace (but not, he might add, out of pity).
It pisses Jotaro off when she doesn’t knock, but there’s no real venom in his anger - least of all now, when he can’t even snarl at her. The last time he saw her she was lying on the tatami mats, surrounded by doctors. The last time he saw her, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again - he can’t reach inside to visualise it, can’t place the memory or the reason right now, but it’s something he knows so deeply he can’t forget it. He can allow her some of her quirks, when so recently it felt like he might lose them.
She’s far too happy to see him, but somehow he gets the feeling she always is. From this distance it’s hard to see her properly, but Kakyoin straightens up when she enters the room, and his hands move quickly as if hiding something from her - Jotaro didn’t manage to see what - and when he nods, she smiles at him.
There’s something odd in the way Kakyoin’s hair moves - stiff - as if it’s oily, unwashed. Somehow, Jotaro knows it’s unlike Kakyoin to let his hair get like that. He wonders how long it’s been since he showered. He’s not foolish enough to try to ask.
Kakyoin is pretty like this. Pretty in the way that men are, in that way straight men look at each other, of course - pretty with hair he hasn’t washed for some reason, purple eyes that linger, a gakuran that’s always been remarkably form–fitting.
Holly wobbles at the door, sliding it slightly further open with one of her feet - she doesn’t wear shoes indoors, only slippers, very Japanese - her hands full of items Jotaro can’t make out. He tries to squint, but try as he might, his vision won’t come back to him fully, like his eyes are out of practice.
Kakyoin jolts up to help her with it - Jotaro can’t help but notice how his long, slender, perfectly manicured fingers linger just a moment too long on white bedsheets, like they’re reaching out for something - and takes a mug between his hands, blowing on it gently. He sips ever so slightly, mutters - “still a little hot” - before walking back to Jotaro, sitting back down in what appears to be a folding chair, and placing the mug down just out of his field of view. Behind him, Hierophant Green fusses with a tray, his green skin still difficult to look at for too long, the way it moves disorientating, like he’s a full-body lava lamp. He seems to be helping out, and from the way Holly just accepts it, it seems it’s not the first time; it finally hits Jotaro that this is a routine, a ritual, something they’ve been settled into for God-knows-how-long, and the way Kakyoin still won’t look away makes sense now.
Light trickles in from a window, just out of Jotaro’s line of sight, and he realises that he doesn’t even know what time it is - from Kakyoin’s eyebags he seemingly didn’t notice, to his mom’s slightly sluggish wobble, and even the way Hierophant allows his tentacles to drag on the floor, Jotaro assumes it must be late. He wonders if any of them have slept at all.
Holly steps in from the doorway, rushing to her son’s side, carrying a vase and a smile. She doesn’t look so ill, anymore, and seems more than happy to reach over Kakyoin to show Jotaro her spoils (a clean, chic, green glass vase with a frilled lip - one she got in America as a child - that glows in the dark).
“What flowers do you want?”
Even if Jotaro could speak, he wouldn’t dignify the question with a response. He’s hardly the kind of man who accepts flowers, least of all from his bitch mother, of all people.
Holly reads the dark expression on his face.
“Okay! Mommy will give you a range, and then you can decide if you like one of them best!”
Her eyes are sunken in, with heavy blue bags, and her smile lines seemed a little deep, but the look on her face is one of such elation that even if Jotaro could speak, he wouldn’t ruin this moment for her. She places the vase in Kakyoin’s hands, and Kakyoin grins ever so slightly, like he knows what’s coming.
She poses. Jotaro manages to roll his eyes.
“With my stand, Mother Nature’s Son, I’ll show you exactly what I can do!”
In only a moment, the room feels warm and the stagnant air suddenly feels fresh, as thriving vines materialise in the vase, twisting and blooming into a thousand colours and shapes; variegated leaves and delicate petals and buds that turn to flowers in seconds all combine into a thick bouquet, pollen floating down onto white blankets.
“Do you like it, honey?”
Obviously, Jotaro says nothing - he isn’t sure what his mom expected, but she smiles, like she can read his face. She can’t, he insists, but somehow she always knows when Jotaro’s acting tough or pretending to be mad.
“That’s a yes!” She turns to Kakyoin, before adding, “do you think he can handle solid food?”
“Mmm…” Kakyoin begins to reply, feeling around Jotaro’s jaw (while Jotaro pretends not to lean into his touch - his big hands are warm and safe and he’s always liked the brief seconds of contact they give him, so now, despite his circumstances, he can’t help but want more of them). “He managed to move it earlier. As he comes to, he seems to be getting better.”
Jotaro’s distaste for the situation - the way they talk about him as he lies there, powerless, in the same room, something itchy in his nose and his body not doing as he tells it - melts away as Kakyoin meets his eyes.
“Hey.”
Jotaro’s mouth opens, but fuck, his mouth is so dry, he can’t move his tongue.
Not taking his hand from Jotaro’s jaw, Kakyoin picks up the mug and once again drinks from it, small sips that let his lips rest fully on the rim. “It should be cool enough now.”
Gently - very, very gently, all too patient and almost shy - Kakyoin lines the rim up to Jotaro’s lips, and begins to tip the mug. Lukewarm tea meets his lips, and then his throat, and Jotaro swallows weakly, just a tiny bit at a time. He tries not to notice that his mouth is exactly where Kakyoin’s was, rubbing his tongue on the porcelain as if trying to taste some remnant of him, entirely not noticing the pink blush high on Kakyoin’s cheekbones.
“Is that better?” Kakyoin eventually whispers, and Jotaro realises he can swallow easily now - he also notices that during this ritual, Holly left the room, leaving them alone. He doesn’t dwell on it, or whatever his mother thinks it means.
He licks his lips. “Yeah.”
Kakyoin is beautiful. Absolutely fucking beautiful. Really, really beautiful. If Jotaro could think of another word, he’d use that one too, but with his head all foggy and unclear the best he can think is beautiful.
And he’s right; Kakyoin’s thin, pointy nose crinkles just a little when he smiles, and he has dimples but only on the left side of his face, and his skinny cheeks raise slightly.
Kakyoin reaches his hand out to meet Jotaro’s face again, this time finally getting rid of that itch on Jotaro’s nose that’s been driving him nuts - pulling a tube from his nostrils and tossing it aside. “If you can eat, you won’t need this anymore.”
“How long,” Jotaro’s throat finally forms words, albeit his voice is hoarse with misuse.
Letting his hand fall on Jotaro’s neck - “just checking,” he murmurs, but Jotaro has no idea what for - Kakyoin takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s afraid of answering.
“Three months.”
When Jotaro doesn’t say anything- just sucks his tongue and lets his eyes flitter closed - Kakyoin continues, “you should be able to move, but your fine motor control will be damaged. We’ll arrange physiotherapy. You’ll get exhausted easily, too. And your stand-” he sighs, “we don’t know about Star Platinum. He didn’t manifest at all while you slept. He might not be as strong as he was.”
He looks like he wants to say something more - a small, green tendril snakes around his wrist and balls up in his palm, like Hierophant is egging him on to say something.
“Hierophant’s been wondering if he’s okay.”
Jotaro tries to summon him - still desperate to silently reassure, even in his own moments of weakness, forever a protector - but Star doesn’t come. One purple hand shimmers by Jotaro’s forearm, flexing its fingers, and then disappears.
“Fuck-”
“Mr Avdol said that might happen.”
Jotaro looks up at him darkly, increasingly frustrated.
“Three months.”
“Yeah. I’ve spent more time with you asleep than I did awake.”
“Is the bitch paying you?”
Kakyoin scowls, and he looks insulted. “Do you think so little of me that I’d have to be paid?”
“Then why? Guilt?”
“No! I wasn’t even there when it happened.”
“Then why!”
Jotaro doesn’t even know why he’s angry - he never talks this much, and his mind still won’t tell him anything, and all his thoughts are disjointed and Kakyoin seems to be saying something stupid and for some reason Jotaro thinks that isn’t like him and his body won’t move and it’s all too much and-
Kakyoin still hasn’t replied.
“You’re an idiot, Kujo Jotaro.”
It’s not an answer, not even close, but Kakyoin’s withering glare tells him the conversation is over - Jotaro pouts, but he drops the subject.
After a pause, laboured and slightly harsh, Jotaro realises something - there were others on his journey, he’s sure.
“Everyone else?”
Tracing his fingers over the tight threads of Jotaro’s blanket, Kakyoin looks over at him again.
“They’re okay. Mr Avdol lost his hands, and Iggy needed surgery but- but everything turned out alright, ish.”
“And Dio?”
“Dead. I didn't see it-” he rubs his stomach, winces, like he’s remembering something painful- “but apparently Mr Joestar has a history with vampires, and after we found out about The World, he… handled it.”
“Would it have killed the old fucker to tell us that…”
Kakyoin laughs. “You know him. I'm sure he has a lot of secrets we’ll never know about.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a secret kid or something.”
“Jotaro! Don’t even joke about that!" Kakyoin scolds, but he smiles, light and shallow. “I'm sure Mr Joestar wouldn’t do something like that.”
As the conversation lulls, Jotaro remarks how… easy it all feels. Talking with Kakyoin, joking, even the silence; it’s so unburdened, not forced or awkward. It just happens as it should, like cherry blossoms floating in a breeze; it just feels… natural. Real. He hates being taken care of, and the idea that Kakyoin has lived in his house for three months waiting for the moment he wakes up is hard to swallow, but- but if anyone was going to do it, then it’s not so bad that it’s Kakyoin.
A small, twinkling golden light blooms on Kakyoin’s cheek, and he looks up; the sun is starting to rise, April morning glow dyeing the sky rosy pinks and starstruck oranges. Jotaro can’t see it, but the way Kakyoin stares, just for a moment, looks like a painting - his chin tilted up, his narrow eyes reflecting watercolour hues and his cheekbones almost poetically lit up with colours he himself can’t see. He stands, and that’s even worse, with his body now fully covered in sunrise and early-spring heaven-sent sky scenes, ones he can’t see as he tries to ensure Jotaro can.
They say you have to be cruel to be kind, but this kindness, this gentleness, is true cruelty; Kakyoin has no idea how it pains Jotaro to stare at him this way, no clue how it hurts for him to ogle and adore, no understanding of how it aches, aches, aches.
Jotaro loves him. He tried, for months, to reject it, but seeing Kakyoin like that, his chest close close close to Jotaro’s face as he leans over to open the blinds, breathing in the smell of his laundered gakuran, he can’t deny it - he doesn’t know how long he’s felt like this, unsure of how long that impatient suffocating need has choked at his breath and clawed at his chest, but he knows it isn’t new.
It’s the worst. He’s already terrified of loss, but this is something different - he can never tell him, never risk it all. He’d run if his legs would move, but they won’t; Kakyoin will stand over him, handfeed him maybe, keep trying his luck with his hands on Jotaro and eventually Jotaro will snap, devour him whole, watch the fear in Kakyoin’s eyes as he backs away from a beast he thought he knew. He knows it, dreads it, but the selfish indulgence of nuzzling into Kakyoin’s palm is too enticing. He allows himself to be pulled under the waves, terrified of the day the bubble pops and he ends up on shore, alone.
Realising love is easy. Knowing in his bones that his heart beats just right, just Kakyoin, is easy, recognising that bloom in his chest like ink in water - it’s new, but there’s only one thing it can be, all soft in his chest, a good ache. He knows from the way Kakyoin’s hands draw his eyes, and the way his voice echoes in his ears - it’s not lust, not desperate, but patient and careful and deep. Realising love is easy, but accepting it is not - he can’t bare to love Kakyoin, because to love him is to lose him, as it always is.
He closes his eyes, and keeps them closed. Maybe he can sleep it off. Maybe, after nearly five months - two waking, three asleep - one more quick rest will cure him of this ache. He knows it won’t. He sleeps anyway.
The next time Jotaro comes to, the sun is fully up and the shadows in the room - that he now recognises as his bedroom - are long, dark, silhouetting orange. It must be late afternoon, early evening, and if he could shift his damn body to see the window behind him, he’d be able to take a better guess. His vision is doing better, clearer, and he can move his arms clumsily, just enough to wipe 3 months of sleep from his eyelids, to glance at bars on the side of what certainly isn’t his bed - it’s a hospital bed, or something, something adjustable, and he wonders how many hours people have spent leaning against these bars just waiting for him.
No-one’s in the room, this time, just him and his body he can only marginally shift, and a desk Jotaro doesn’t remember owning, and afternoon glow.
His hands are clumsy and uncoordinated, but he can just about feel them, just about wave his arms around enough to simulate movement. It isn’t the precise Jotaro he’s sure he once was; his fingers barely curl, and his legs won’t move at all. He feels like he’s weighed down by sandbags, like someone’s cemented his feet - he feels like stones in water, like a dumbbell at a gym that’s coated with dust, like a car at the bottom of a lake.
More than anything, he feels tired - real tired, not coffee tired, not slam-an-energy-drink-before-class tired, not even need-a-few-more-months-of-sleep tired. It’s that kind of tired that lives in you, eats you from the inside out, that hovers in your bones and lulls you down into broken compliance. It’s the kind of tired that breathes, weeps instead of sobs, sighs instead of screams. It’s the kind of exhaustion that no man no beast no patience can ever quench.
There’s something on his chest - weightless, especially compared to his cemented-sandbagged-waterlogged legs, but not unnoticeable - resting, something like arms folded under its head. Jotaro stares for a moment - he knows its name, he’s sure of it, sure he just saw it, with its lava-lamp skin and melon-soda body and silver something-or-others, but his brain won’t fucking work, and the more he tries to think the more his own mind rejects his efforts. Whatever-it-is is asleep, he thinks, not moving, not there to measure his pulse or check his breathing, just… lying there. Lying there like it knows him. Like it likes him. Like it’s a cat and his chest is a sunspot, safe and warm and comfortable and loved, like it’s a bouquet of flowers laid to rest with love upon a grave.
His eyes linger on it for a while, watching as its skin moves and shifts, the way the sun reflects off emerald fingers and the shimmer of its body turns sage, sea green, chartreuse. Its skin moves even when it doesn’t, and he wonders if there’s some kind of glitter trapped in it somehow, as it always seems to glimmer and sparkle.
There’s murmuring from outside the room- “yes, Mr Joestar, I’ll tell him- yes- yes, he misses you too- thank you, that’s very kind-” and it bubbles in Jotaro’s chest again that the world has moved on without him. People have lived in this place - this place he now recognises as his childhood home - without him, waiting for him, and there’s three whole months missing from his life. It was yesterday he got shot, or the day before, ish, and he might not remember it but it’s not like he remembers anything else either. He probably has a scar, too, one he can’t even see, and invasive surgeries and haircuts he didn’t want and didn’t get a choice over and he can’t even feed himself right. It’s… frustrating.
The door slides open, and the thing on Jotaro’s chest unfurls, sitting up on what must be legs, and it looks at Jotaro - its eyes are gold and metallic, robotic, emotionless. It slithers backwards, like it didn’t want Jotaro to see it, like it’s shy or like it was doing something it shouldn’t, and then Kakyoin steps into the room.
“I brought you dinner.” He’s holding a tray with plates piled high - even from here, Jotaro can see the rice, spilling out of the bowl it’s pretending to be held in. His mom always went overboard when he was sick; he was, in a way, sick now too, but thinking about it like that makes him feel worse.
Kakyoin sits down, in the folding chair he’s clearly used to using - the back is slightly sun bleached, but the seat itself is fine, and Jotaro wonders just how long he’s spent sat there, bent over - and sits the tray down on his lap, fiddling with chopsticks.
“Say ‘ah’-”
Jotaro scowls, so fast that Kakyoin doesn’t even finish the sentence. He huffs. “You could at least cooperate.”
He doesn’t want to - he really, really doesn’t want to, wants to shove Kakyoin in his pretty chest and yell that he can do it himself, but he isn’t stupid. He knows his position. He opens his mouth.
Mom’s homemade food was always good, but as he chews, he realises how much he’s missed it; sure, it was five months, but he was only really there for two of them, and it still kind of feels like he only got shot yesterday, but having lacquered wood and fluffy white rice and miso soup carefully spooned into his mouth, lavished upon him, feels almost heavenly. He is a god, a pantheon member, upon a throne of gold, and his handservant is - through some wicked, beautiful miracle - Kakyoin Noriaki, curly hair and sharp eyes included.
Kakyoin’s not a subservient kind of guy. He doesn’t nurse people, doesn’t wait by bedsides breath bated and read magazines and keep in touch with sports scores for his patients, but there he is, waiting for Jotaro to swallow to ply him with more tamagoyaki.
Kakyoin is a painting; his hair is delicate, fine, silky brush strokes, cherry-red gouache (a lucky coincidence) and oil paint, his eyes watercolour and his skin porcelain, and the way his body - his easel - curves and bends, narrow at the waist and long in the limbs and deceptively spindly, makes him look like he belongs at a riverside, lovingly sketched by an artist. He pushes more rice against Jotaro’s lips.
Without really thinking, Jotaro snarls, “I don’t want your fucking help.”
Kakyoin narrows his eyes. “Somehow I don’t think you have much of a choice. Just let me-”
He doesn’t finish his sentence, and Jotaro snaps, “no! I can do it myself!”
“But you-”
“Do you even want me to get better? Is this fun for you? How am I ever supposed to ‘heal’ if you even handfeed me like a baby?”
He’s not yelling. He isn’t even raising his voice. Holly can’t hear from wherever she is, and the neighbours can’t eavesdrop, and even the birds outside the window would have to strain to listen to him; but he doesn’t need to shout. Kakyoin understands perfectly well that Jotaro’s angry, lashing out, and he just… lets him. Even when Jotaro weakly shoves him - they both ignore that it’s weaker than either have ever known him - Kakyoin says nothing, narrow lips pursed and eyes squinting.
“Fine. Do your best. I’ll bring another spoon.”
And then he just… leaves. Not even like he’s been scalded, he doesn’t look hurt, he just… purses his fucking lips like he keeps doing and walks out, and that’s even worse.
And when he comes back with a spoon, he isn’t hostile. He doesn’t throw it, he doesn’t have some catty remark, he just hands it to Jotaro, tells him he’ll be back later, and leaves again.
There it is. The snap. The one he knew was coming. He didn’t think it’d be this soon, or over something as small as rice and miso soup, but it happened, and Kakyoin saw who he was. What he was. Kakyoin, perfect Kakyoin, temperate but slightly sadistic Kakyoin, lonely Kakyoin with the piercings and the attitude and that artistic masterpiece face, finally saw it, and like Jotaro knew he would, he leaves.
Snapping is bad, but isolation is worse; the silence, silence he once craved, creeps in through the cracks in the window sill - the shadows are starting to wane now, so the sun must’ve set - and it’s like a laboured breath, a death rattle, a deep and disappointed sigh. The silence is like the static after a thunderstorm, the heat after a bomb, the kind of stagnant air in the microwave after you take the food out. It hisses at him, hisses guilt and disparaging words, and Jotaro’s been ignoring them his whole life - losing Kakyoin, as he’s sure he’s done, is just another pain to forget about, another twinge of unstoppable, unceasing pain, right between his eyes.
But there should be someone sat at his side. Something should be lying on his chest, weightless but heavy, resting like a charm around his neck, like dangling earrings.
He wishes, chest barely moving with his breaths, fingers clumsily spilling food on his sheets, that he’d never grown up.
To say Jotaro catastrophised was… inaccurate. Generally he had a very grounded sense of reality - when hearing hooves, he tried his best to think of horses before zebras. He was rational, intelligent, patient, wise. He didn’t panic, didn’t assume the worst.
Loss, though… loss was something else; he had a tendency to worry when people closed doors on him. Running from him like water, escaping like sand. Leaving like a father.
So when Kakyoin does as promised, comes back despite the venom spat at him, Jotaro almost can’t believe his only-just-reopened eyes: there, in his doorway, hands behind his back as if hiding something, is Kakyoin Noriaki, unburned and unhurt.
Jotaro has been loved before, he knows that - his mother, his grandmother, girls at school and his annoying-ass grandpa - it’s all love, in a way, and he’d never felt devoid of it; it was as easy to find love as it was to find water from a faucet.
Whatever this is, though - and it’s not love, he can’t think of it like that, refuses to tell himself that Kakyoin loves him, refuses to lie - it’s something different, more patient, more attentive. Whatever this is is unlike anything he’s ever known, with Kakyoin surprising him a thousand times - whatever this is is something to study, to hunker down and research, to learn and relearn like breathing.
Because whatever this is has Kakyoin at the door, gazing - not glaring, gazing - at him, both hands tucked behind his back in a way that puffs his chest out, a little bashful. His face is unreadable - or perhaps very readable, Jotaro’s never been good at facial expressions - but his lips are curled in a way that suggests he’s biting his tongue.
“I brought you something,” he says, hesitant, as he approaches and sits down; he clearly still thinks Jotaro’s pissed at him. Jotaro pretends that doesn’t sting.
He gets far too close, far too friendly, placing something out of Jotaro’s field of view - Jotaro would crane to look at it, he thinks he probably can by now, but he much prefers looking at Kakyoin’s face. Maybe he’ll pretend to be doing worse off than he is, so Kakyoin will get closer than normal - he shakes the idea off, but he can’t pretend it doesn’t appeal to him.
Kakyoin gets closer still, closing the gap but never quite enough, and gently bounces one of the curls on Jotaro’s forehead - those long, thick, dark curls that he always hides, that he brushes out his eyes, that soften his ever-present glare - before carefully reaching back around Jotaro and placing down a hat with a signature nonchalant tilt and low bow to help hide his face. It’s the wrong hat; for starters, it’s white.
“Sorry about that. With yours being custom-made it was pretty hard to find a match, and the old one is…” and he purses his lips, like he keeps doing, his thin but pretty lips- “...dirty.”
It’s hard to say Jotaro doesn’t appreciate the gesture; this new hat is slightly more weighted, he thinks, it feels uncharacteristically heavy at the front, like it’s got accessories he isn’t used to, but it’s in exactly the right place, and he thinks he could get used to it. He tries not to wonder how Kakyoin knew the perfect placement of it - the idea that he would know his face with that level of precision is daunting, intimidating, a little exciting. He pushes the thought aside.
“You came back.”
Kakyoin looks at him like he’s an idiot; he’s increasingly convinced that he is, because he’s clearly missing something.
“I’m just here to help. Think of me as-” his voice seizes up, and he pauses, like he doesn’t want to keep talking, “-your brother.”
Jotaro makes a face. “Ew. And I don’t need help.”
“You were shot in the head and can barely move.”
He glares at him. “...fine. But I’m never going to think of you as my brother.” He’d like to think of him as something more intimate, but he can’t say it - especially not if Kakyoin thinks of him that way. “I could call you ‘nurse’.”
Kakyoin’s cheeks turn slightly pink, and Jotaro’s not sure he realises that he’s joking. “J-just Noriaki is fine.”
“Noriaki,” he says, feeling it around in his mouth. His chest aches when he says it. He wishes he could say it all the time, a million different ways - thinking about it, about only saying it like this, hurts. It has a peculiar taste - he didn’t know words could taste, they never have before, but this one definitely does - like spring and new beginnings and risking it all. It tastes like cherries, because of course it does, and green tea and sunny weather and the kind of cold morning air that makes you almost appreciate a 6am alarm. ‘Noriaki’ tastes like blooming petals and the bronze of wedding bells and the moment just after the rain stops.
Jotaro could definitely get used to that taste. He wants to feel it on his tongue late at night when no-one but the moon can hear them breathe into each other, and feel it wash over his teeth as hands roam all over him, and feel it at the back of his throat whenever he can.
“Noriaki,” he says again, decisive. “Noriaki.” A final time, just to be sure.
“Yeah,” Kakyoin- Noriaki- breathes, heavy.
The next day, precisely 4:21pm, Noriaki walks through the door into Jotaro’s bedroom, again; it’s an impressive display of his daily routine, down to the minute, as if he runs home as soon as classes end. He’s still enrolled, somehow, but doesn’t dawdle a second longer than he needs to, refusing to socialise - Jotaro remembers him mentioning once that he’d never had any friends, and based on Noriaki’s schedule, he’s starting to believe it wasn’t an exaggeration - skipping extracurriculars and clubs just to unceremoniously dump his bags down by the desk and sit as close to Jotaro as he can.
He starts the conversation - a relief to Jotaro, who’s never been good at talking, but relishes the moments when Noriaki speaks.
“That asshole teacher gave us a 2000-word report due tomorrow. Tomorrow. I should set Hierophant on him.” His voice is level and almost sweet, and it’s one of those weird things that Jotaro’s never been able to wrap his head around - Noriaki seems so put together, so polite, even when it’s evident he has a couple screws loose.
“Niji…mura?” Jotaro tries to remember, because Noriaki has complained about this before, but thinking’s still difficult and there’s still a deep fog where his brain should be. Desperate to prove he listens, he throws anything at the wall - unfortunately, he’s wrong. Fortunately, Noriaki doesn’t seem to mind much.
“Nakamura,” he says, folding himself into the desk, reaching backwards to tousle Jotaro’s sheets ever so slightly - Jotaro’s legs can move, with effort, but he’s not even back to half strength, so Noriaki knows exactly where his thighs lie, and exactly where to rustle to touch them. “Sorry, give me a minute. I really should get started on this.”
Disappointedly, Jotaro turns to his shitty television - it’s an old model, small-screened, but big enough to distract him from Noriaki’s spine showing through his school shirt. It’s one of those cheap ones they sell at supermarkets, with cotton that’s almost translucent, and through it Jotaro can see something big and dark on Noriaki’s skin - something like a scar, maybe, but he doesn’t know how he got it. He turns back to the TV; whatever soap is on now will keep his attention, he hopes, because staring at Noriaki is something he knows he should keep secret.
Noriaki is bent over the desk, shoved in the corner of the room, pencil in hand and textbook open and not a single word scribbled on the paper. He should be studying - Holly put this desk in here specially, so he could get his schoolwork done and still care for Jotaro, but it’s hard to focus with his jacket off, his shirt unbuttoned and Jotaro unenthusiastically watching a rerun.
He wants to say something. He knows he should, because it’s weighed in his throat and chest for months, and now he has the chance - really, he should be focused on Nakamura’s stupid fucking “On Freedom Of Expression” report, but he knows he’s not gonna do it, and all he can think about is speaking up.
He can’t. He’s too scared… or so he thinks, before his mouth moves.
“I like you,” Noriaki whispers, his back to Jotaro, his hands desperately gripping a pencil he hasn’t been writing with. He surprises even himself with it - something about the soap on the TV finally finishing or the still spring air made him brave.
“Oh.”
Gradually turning around in the chair, as if he’s scared of fully meeting Jotaro’s face, Noriaki gulps - and stares.
It's hard to tell, underneath the gruff and the swagger and the confidence, the big blocky silhouette and the dark curly hair, but Kakyoin Noriaki knows something very few others know: that Kujo Jotaro is, in fact, very shy. His not speaking much is not intentional - at least, not all the time - but very much a feature of his embarrassment, his worry, his incapability to express something that may be mortifying. In hiding in his hat as he speaks, keeping his voice robotically steady and bassy and hushed, he confirms something to Noriaki - whatever he’s about to say is something he’s shy to admit, something he’s wanted to confess for a while, and something he no longer feels able to hide.
Jotaro doesn’t know how he finds it, that surge of confidence like a lightning strike, but all at once, disjointed words tumble out of his mouth. There’s nothing graceful in it, no swaggering confidence, just… a few scraps that escape and fall from his tongue, without elegance.
“Me too. Like you.”
The wind stops blowing, just for a second, and Noriaki feels his old wounds sew shut, his heart against his sternum and his breath locked in his mouth, unable to escape.
It's not a wispy "oh" like a gust of wind, as much as it's a clunk of rusted gears clicking into place. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't change anything. In a way, it doesn't even mean anything. But now the gears fit, and the clockwork is complete, and... and it's fine. It makes sense, now, but it always kind of did.
“...how long?” Jotaro murmurs.
Fully facing Jotaro now, Noriaki’s mouth feels dry, and swallowing doesn’t help. “I’m not sure. I noticed in Singapore but… I think I always… thought it, maybe.”
Jotaro grunts, but doesn’t reply, so Noriaki asks, “and you?”
Jotaro tries to bury himself in his hat. His voice is hushed.
“Before the injury, but…”
Some kind of memory surfaces, one he can’t quite reach - repeating that name, Kakyoin Noriaki, over and over so he wouldn’t forget it, pocketing a handkerchief as a keepsake. “Maybe the first time we met.”
There’s a very shallow gasp, cut short. “The whole time, you…”
“Mhm.”
“And I never…”
“Mm.”
Noriaki fiddles with one of Jotaro’s fingers, running his nails ever so lightly down the palm of Jotaro’s hand, not daring to meet his face, and-
“Can I kiss you?”
Noriaki’s head shoots up and his eyes are blown wide and he almost looks like he’ll cry.
“Do you want to?”
Jotaro just glares at him. “Duh.”
Noriaki swallows, and watching his Adam’s apple rise and fall with the movement makes Jotaro nervous. It’s… actually happening. Noriaki is actually going to kiss him. Noriaki likes him, like likes him, and his smooth pretty lips (he always applies chapstick) are going to be on his any moment now, and they’re both going to have to pretend it isn’t changing anything. They both, mere seconds from now, are going to be distinct, unrecognisable people, with lips that have touched and mouths that have met, and they both will pretend nothing’s different.
Jotaro can’t help it. He’s not unsatisfied, per se, but he always expected first kisses to be something… more. A revelation, maybe, one of those renaissance paintings that you see at just the right angle that changes your life, one of those moments stuck in time that makes it all make sense - but it isn’t. It’s just lips on lips, skin on skin, not dissimilar from the way he’d practise kissing his palm when he was 14, if a little warmer.
No, the revelation comes after - the revelation comes, with all the life-changing and sense-making, when Noriaki pulls away, eyes still closed, long lashes like black lace, like he’s a ballgown, elegant and designed for adoration. He’s one of his own paintings, threadwork, embroidery and satin and silk.
Oh.
Jotaro hears him swallow, and it occurs to him that the moment might end, but he doesn’t want to let it - he wants to preserve it in glass, a rose in a case, a butterfly in resin. He throws his hand around Noriaki’s cheek, pulls him in closer, dragging him in again - at that he makes some kind of noise, of slight discomfort and surprise. When Jotaro drags him out of his chair, he doesn’t object, clambering over slightly to continue their second kiss. Jotaro’s sure he’ll keep count, somehow. He intends to make that difficult.
“I should-”
“Don’t you dare.”
Days turn into weeks. It seems so long ago that they were counting minutes past, hours past; it feels so distant, back when they were wondering if Jotaro would survive at all.
But Jotaro survived. He’s not who he was, never will be, will always struggle with buttoning shirts and brain fog and even walking on bad days - they’ll never be able to retire his cane or his new wheelchair - but he survived, and Noriaki gets to go home to him, make sure his house feels homely, make his coffee in the mornings. Noriaki gets to come back from school and complain at him about that asshole teacher’s latest assignments (Nakamura, not Nijimura, Jotaro's trying to remember), about Mobuyama from class B who tried to copy his homework, about how his travel paints dried out. Noriaki gets to see him, slightly scarred, with his new white hat (he’s taken a shine to it), gets to have him, gets to keep him.
“How are you feeling?” Noriaki asks on one such afternoon, slinging his scarf on a nearby peg, and Jotaro almost doesn’t hear it - that breathtaking uniform is something to behold, although he’d like to skip just to the holding part, with fabric tightly hugging curves and elegantly displaying Noriaki’s tiny waist. His broad shoulders pull at it and his small - but delightfully round - ass fits snugly, the gakuran draping down to his upper thighs. As he unbuttons it, Jotaro’s breath catches, and Noriaki either doesn’t notice or doesn’t feel the need to mention the way Jotaro stares at him with something deep, primal, hungry. His long, slender arms take their time on each individual button, deftly undoing them without even looking, and when he eventually frees them from his sleeves they look marvellous against his shirt, toned and muscular, just big enough to cause the fabric to pinch.
Jotaro’s sure he should answer the question, but he’s not sure he can, because Noriaki’s standing in the doorway with the top button of his shirt undone, posing like a scolding wife, hands in his back pockets and elbows apart. Jotaro feels blessed to get to see it. Maybe getting shot wasn’t so bad.
“Jotaro.”
He tries to come back to his senses, or at least look Noriaki in the face - and oh, what a nice face. Dark, heavy eyelashes, sharp jawline, thin but soft lips and ginger curls that he’s started growing out - purple monolidded eyes that almost glow, that linger, sharp but warm, resolute but gentle. His scars, too - one on his forehead and two through his eyes - fuck, Jotaro wished they weren’t there of course, wished his Noriaki never had to suffer those injuries, but damn did they look good.
“Mm.”
“Is something wrong? Do you need anything?” Noriaki starts to say, pacing across the room with those long, beautiful legs, as concern paints his face-
“You?”
“What?”
Jotaro can’t believe he said it. He definitely did, it was his voice and his mouth, but he didn’t mean to. He buries his face in his hat. Noriaki kneels by the edge of the bed and he’s pulling that face, the one where he tries not to smile, and it makes him look kind of odd.
“Jotaro, did you say-”
“Shut up.”
“Mhm, okay. But don’t be afraid to ask,” he whispers.
Jotaro has never been loved, not like this; not like breathing, like death rattle panic attack chest heaving swallowing water breathing, like the kind of breathing you treasure most. He’s never been wanted like a person - only ever like a trophy, like a figurine in a display case - and the way Noriaki looks at him, heavy purple eyes and the dripping need to keep him, feels like he’s finally worth something. It feels now, as Noriaki weaves his hands, deceptively delicate, into his fluffy hair, that being fragile isn’t so bad if he’s being treasured; being leashed isn’t so bad when the holder grins like that.