Chapter Text
Jotaro opened his eyes only to see the familiar wooden ceiling of his room at home in Tokyo… Wait, Tokyo? It took him a few moments to realize where exactly he was. While the ceiling was a sight he'd seen every morning for years, he hadn't actually lived or slept in this particular room in over 15 years. He remembered going to sleep on the bed in his apartment in Morioh, which also functioned as his workspace in a town far away from his family.
Maybe this was the work of an enemy stand user that had teleportation abilities? Stuff like this wasn’t particularly uncommon in the world of stands but this was the first time the user caught him off-guard enough to teleport him to an entirely different city while he was still asleep. This was exactly why he’d chosen to distance himself from his wife and daughter. Being the user of one of the strongest stand abilities to exist, it was an understatement to say he was well known. He was capable of protecting himself from any threats but he couldn’t say it was the same for his (hopefully) non stand user wife and daughter.
He sat up in his futon to look at his surroundings. The walls were covered with posters of the things he found interesting when he was seventeen. He recalled that his mother reluctantly took down most of these same posters back when he moved out to study in the United States at the age of twenty, so it was odd seeing them still on the walls, seemingly untouched and in pristine quality.
It didn’t strike him as too odd though because his mother was known to be sentimental at times, refusing to let go of even the simplest memorabilia. Like the countless sports trophies he’d won in grade school still getting regularly wiped to clear the dust off of them, or the embarrassing childhood photos of him still on display for everyone to see.
Admittedly, he’d inherited the same trait from his mother, but in a slightly different way. The framed photo he had on the side of his office desk being a glaring example of that.
It was going to be a pain to explain to her how and why he’d suddenly appeared in her house after months of barely any contact.
After further inspection he noticed almost everything in his room was eerily like it used to be when he was 17 years old. The CRT television in the corner of his room still had his father’s jazz music album on top of it along with a tape of the movie “Never Cry Wolf” next to it . Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t woken up feeling so rested in what feels like years.
A deep sense of unease started to settle when he raised the part of his arm previously obscured from his vision by the blanket, only to find it free from the years of scars he’d gained from his countless stand encounters. The scars on his arm looked more to be something you’d gain from a petty street fight, than from getting your skin half dissolved by a rat…
He ran a hand through his hair trying to decipher what on earth had just happened to him and found that his fingers felt thick curly hair in place of the shorter hair he’d decided on keeping sometime in his twenties.
Piece by piece, he realized he wasn’t just in the room he had when he was seventeen… He WAS seventeen again. Or at least somewhere around that age. He stood up and took a good look around his room. It was almost like a time capsule with how outdated most of the stuff was in comparison to the modern day conveniences he’d gotten used to.
The reflection of himself that was staring back at him in the bathroom mirror basically confirmed his fears. It was like he was looking at an entirely different person. The face he saw in the reflection looked a lot more youthful and free of the lines he had acquired over the long years and experiences he had lived through. He had always looked older than he was but most of that was because of him growing bigger and taller than the average person, and not due to years of having to deal with trauma and stress. His skin looked tighter and more radiant, and the dark circles under his eyes from working long gruelling hours were absent.
He pinched his cheek hoping that this was all some sort of fucked up dream but only felt soft pliant skin instead of the surreal skin he desperately wanted to feel. This definitely was not a dream. Judging from the calendar hanging on the wall adjacent to his TV, it was currently November in the year 1988. He was indeed seventeen years old again.
The implications this had were terrifying. There was zero way to confirm how this actually ended up happening. Whoever did this knew exactly how to strike a nerve by sending him to the year when it all began. More questions started to pop up in his head which he had no way of getting answers to. He still had a sliver of hope that this was all temporary and everything would go back to normal soon.
There were also a bunch of questions he himself wasn’t sure if he wanted the answers to.
A tiny part of him had dreamed of a miracle like this happening for years. Jotaro was a strong man, but he was also full of many regrets. The regrets cut him so deep he feels he’ll never truly get over them unless he can alter the past himself… Which is exactly what he can do right now.
He knew better than to get his hopes up too high though. He’d seen similar scenarios in movies, and they’d never played out how the main character wanted. Knowing his luck, he knew nothing would go as he planned it to.
What would he even do? It was true that he had knowledge of future events but who’s to say he has the ability to intervene. If he did possess that ability what happens to the future? In the ideal world he’d created in his head thousands of times, all of his friends survived and returned home safely and they’d go on to live the lives they would’ve wanted to live.
The 50 days they had spent together wasn’t a lot of time, but in that short period he’d learnt so much about those unique people. Maybe the Egyptian fortune teller would’ve lived a peaceful life in a quiet place while tending to his cattle. Or he could have lived in the hustle and bustle of the Indian neighbourhoods that he seemed to love so much. The Frenchman was one of the few people that survived the entire journey, but even after the entire ordeal he never stopped to take a break. God knows how desperately he needed one after all he’d gone through his entire life.
He should have returned to the French countryside with the dog that he only pretended to not get along with.
Jotaro then thought about the red headed boy. This one is the hardest for him to think about because of the pain it brings him. Unlike the others, he really did not have any real reason to tag along with the group. He’d talked about wanting to overcome his fears but in Jotaro’s opinion it was nowhere near worth losing his own life for. He was the one that Jotaro was closest to, considering their proximity in ages. In a way he was the first “friend” he had ever had.
It wasn’t that he was a loner at school, he had classmates and acquaintances but no one he could truly connect to on a personal level. Which is why his untimely demise hit him so hard.
He was a very smart individual, perhaps even the smartest in their group. Not only was he book smart but he was also intelligent. He could’ve gotten so far in life using his skills.
Jotaro had spent countless years wondering what life would have been like if he’d stayed by his side as a friend. They could have gone to school together, studied together, went to the same university but with different majors, and maybe their story wouldn't have ended so abruptly—
He hadn’t even realized that his thoughts had spiraled again. At the moment what was more important was thinking of the future. If he intervenes and changes the course of fate, there’s no way to tell things will go like he wants them to and he might end up with a completely alternate future.
This wouldn't have been a problem if he didn’t have a version of the future he’d like to protect. Specifically his life with his wife and his daughter. After he graduated high school, he moved to the United States to pursue further education in marine biology. One of the major reasons for this was to have a change of environment after the life altering events that took place when he was seventeen. It was here where he met his current wife, Marina. She was a beautiful blonde woman that had a calm and composed demeanor and was also fairly intelligent.
She wasn’t his first love but that does not mean he didn’t love her. It wasn’t anything serious at first but one thing led to another and he eventually married her and had a daughter together. In the present timeline this happened around eighteen or nineteen years ago, though he hadn’t been a present figure in either of their lives afterwards.
It’s not that he wants to stay out of Jolyne and Marina’s lives. He knows that he needs to. It doesn’t matter if they end up resenting him for it, that's just the small price he has to pay to keep them out of danger.What was the point in being the strongest if he couldn’t even protect the people he cares for? Time and time again he’s proven to himself that he is incapable of taking any action before it’s too late. And now, once again he’s facing a dilemma.
Should he attempt to change the fates of the people he knows the future of, at the risk of losing everything else he’d gained. Or should he live through the same events that haunt him decades later, to protect what he already has. Before he could ponder on this topic for longer a familiar high pitched voice snaps him out of his thoughts.
“Jotaro! Are you awake yet? Breakfast’s ready!” said his mother from the kitchen.
According to the date on the calendar, at this point in time he hasn’t manifested his stand yet. This was confirmed when he attempted to summon Star Platinum but it didn’t appear by his side like it always does. If his memory was correct, he still had a few more days to wonder what to do next before his stand manifests and what might be some of the most important events in his life take place.
Until then, he’ll start by mending the more minor regrets he had. Especially during the journey to save his mother, he’d felt guilty about the way he treated her. Back then they were still unsure whether she would survive. If she actually ended up passing away he’s sure the guilt would have eaten him up from the inside.
He cared about her a lot, even when he was seventeen. It's just that he thought she already saw through his act. Though, it definitely wouldn’t hurt anyone if he was a little nicer to her. He was still dreading the days and months he had ahead in store for him, but also felt a weird sense of hope at the same time.
Perhaps the thing he thought was a curse would actually be a blessing. It was also completely possible that the opposite turns out to be true, but at this point, only time could tell. The best thing he could do at the moment that he could think of was going with the flow and acting as the situation calls for.
He put on his school uniform that he had altered to suit his likings at the time to go down and have breakfast with his mother. A 39 year old version of him found the uniform a bit tacky. (this is a lie, he still thinks it's cool)