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Jotaro is at a dark, stuffy house party. He's hiding behind his hat and coat collar, unwilling to interact with anyone around him. He's not even sure why he's here; it's something to do, he supposes, getting drunk and not having to think about things very deeply.
These days, it feels like he's drifting along, letting the world carry him where it may. Go to class, do his assignments, go back to his dorm and prepare for the next day. Answer a call from his mom, asking how college is going, always with the same amount of excessive enthusiasm despite his answer being the same every time. He's doing fine, he's passing his classes. No, he hasn't made any friends, hasn't gotten himself a girlfriend yet. No, he isn't lonely, he's fine, thank you mom, love you mom. Maybe a few years ago he'd cuss her out for nagging, but since Egypt he's tried to be nicer to her.
A lot has changed since Egypt. Maybe not enough, maybe for the worse. He gained a lot of scars on that trip, some of which may never heal. He takes a swig of his drink to stave those thoughts off. It's nothing special, just whatever cheap beer college students could get their hands on. Jotaro technically wasn't legally allowed to have alcohol here, but like hell he was going through his first few years of college completely sober. He supposes he hasn't quite grown out of his teenage delinquency yet.
He registers movement in his peripheral. Someone has sat beside him, their own drink in hand. He doesn't even turn to them, just takes another sip of his beer. It wasn't the first time someone has approached him tonight, and he still wasn't interested in interacting. It'd only be a matter of time before this one was deterred as well.
"You know, my friends said you were cold and I didn't believe them. But now I see what they mean. Not even gonna look at me, huh?"
The voice was something dark and feminine, colored in amusement. He was curious enough that he flicked his eyes over, still refusing to face them and show interest.
A woman sat next to him, long blonde hair framing her face, a faint smile curled on her lips. He supposed she could be considered attractive, but in a more subdued way than the type that usually sought him out. Not that it mattered. Every woman he met that wasn't one of his relatives blurred together too much for him to care. So, he said nothing. He turned his gaze back towards his drink. He was almost out.
"I hear you're from Japan." She continued, despite his silence. "I have relatives from there. It's a nice country." He hummed at the mention of his home country, but nothing more.
"My name's Marina." She was still talking? "What about you?"
"Someone who wants to be left alone." He grunts his response, regretting it when he sees her eyes light up.
"So you can talk!" She smirks. "And I don't think you really want to be left alone if you're still here."
"I don't come for small talk. I come for the alcohol." He swirls the remnants of his drink around his cup, staring down at the dull gold liquid.
"Well, you're getting both this time."
He sighs. She really wasn't giving up, was she? Despite knowing better, he turns to face her. "What do you want?"
She raises an eyebrow. "Do I have to want something?"
"No one talks to me unless they do."
"Well," she leans a hand on her cheek, "I just want to get to know you."
He's quiet for a moment, considering her. (No one ever just wants to get to know him. Why does she sound like she means it?)
"I'm Jotaro Kujo. I'm from Tokyo. I'm here to get my marine biology degree. That's all you need to know."
She smiles, and it looks genuine. It's strange. Most people don't smile at him like that.
Marina continues to talk to him, and for once he's humoring it. He's not sure why. She's more down-to-earth than the usual women who try to chat him up, not ogling him like he's a piece of meat to be devoured.
He recalls a conversation with his mother from not long ago, when she was asking him about his love life. She's not pushy like he knows parents can be when it comes to grandchildren, but he can hear the wistfulness in her voice every time the conversation comes up. He knows she's expecting that of him, marriage and a kid, and settling down as a nice little family. It's inevitable for him, as far as he's aware. Something everyone has to do at some point. It's been low on his list of priorities.
Talking to Marina has reminded him of this. Is that where this is going, he wonders? She's certainly the most pleasant woman he's been around in a while, and she's genuinely interested in him. He supposes it's an opportunity.
Marina gives him her number before she goes.
He doesn't call her.
Jotaro meets her again sometime later when she seeks him out at yet another party. This one is more energetic, more people packing the room, music thumping through the whole house. It's a surprise she even managed to find him in here. And Marina doesn't seem upset that he never called. He wondered if she even expected him to at all.
As the night progresses, Marina asks him to dance. He obliges, even though he's not very good at it, never has been. The last time he recalls dancing was three years ago, in a shared hotel room in central Asia, a brief respite in-between fighting for their lives. He has to stop himself from stumbling, snapping his attention back to the present before he loses himself. Marina doesn't seem to mind, just laughs it off.
He can tell Marina wants more than just to get to know him this time around. She's been steadily getting closer all night, looking up at him through her lashes. He feels itchy at the thought.
He thinks about expectations. A wife and kids. A family of his own. He was never very excited about the idea when he was younger, he'd been putting it off until after college. But as Marina smiles at him, her face tinged red, he supposes that it would be a bad idea to waste this opportunity. He has no idea if he'd be able to find another woman as tolerable as her down the line.
He ignores the alarm bells ringing at the back of his mind, and leans down to kiss her.
-
A lot of things happened all at once for Jotaro.
He and Marina started dating. Not long after, Marina came to him crying—she was pregnant. He married her. They moved in together. The baby came. He took a year off college to help her.
He doesn't think he's very good at this. Killing an immortal vampire was easier for him; at least he didn't have to hold back then. But looking down at the baby (Jolyne, his daughter, he remembers, and his stomach flips) he realizes that he doesn't know his own strength, and he's terrified of hurting her. He's reminded of awakening some unexplainable force in a fight, shutting himself away in prison, yelling insults at his mother to get her to leave for her own safety. He wants to run away, to distance himself before his presence inevitably brings harm to someone he loves once again.
Not trusting his own shaking hands, he summons Star Platinum. With careful precision, the hulking stand scoops up his child, as delicately as plucking a fleshbud from the head of a former enemy. He looks down at Jolyne through his stand, and when she opens her eyes, they're the color of the sea. A mirror to his own.
Star Platinum's vision goes blurry, and he realizes it's crying.
-
Jolyne can walk now, and Jotaro has returned to his studies.
He's in the spare room he claimed as his office, finishing up a paper on animal behaviors, just one more of the dozen or so he's already had to write. It's tiring, but he finds he's okay with it. Words tend to come easier to him when he's writing, rather than when he's under pressure to speak them out loud. (His mother said it took a long time for him to start talking, that he was writing full sentences before he could speak more than a handful of words at a time.)
As he's writing his conclusion, his mind begins to wander. And when it does, it tends to take him back to the same place every single time.
He looks up, making eye contact with the lone picture frame he keeps on his desk. He's not a sentimental man, but there's one glaring exception, and it sits heavy within him, like a hole through his stomach. Essay long forgotten, he picks the frame up, looking closely at the picture he's studied a thousand times over since the day he flew home from Egypt.
He'd only known them for fifty days, but those fifty days felt like a lifetime. Avdol, Kakyoin, Polnareff, his grandfather, and even that dog, they'd carved out a place in his heart without his permission, and now most of them were dead and gone. He wasn't even sure he'd ever see Polnareff again, the man on some mission that, by Polnareff's own words, he didn't think he'd return from. He still had Joseph for now, but the man was getting up in age, and he'd recently started acting strangely. He could only hope it was the old man's usual brand of nonsense and not something more serious.
He was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn't hear the door open behind him, didn't realize he had company until a voice startled him back to awareness.
It was Marina, of course. she'd come to check on him, ask him what his preference for dinner was. She trailed off when she saw what he was holding.
"I always see you looking at that picture, you know." She approached him to get a closer look at it, face carefully neutral, maybe a bit sad. "You've never told me anything about it."
His gaze darts between her and the picture, unable to meet her eyes. He swallows, his mouth having gone suddenly dry. "It's an old trip I went on." He chooses his words carefully. There's so much she can't know, both for her sake and for his own. Even having this picture in her view is dangerous, but he's never had the heart to hide it.
"A trip, huh?" She studies the picture for a moment. "Where was it? I can see sand, but it doesn't really look like a beach."
"...Egypt." He has to fight to keep his voice steady.
"How was it?"
He has to turn away, gaze fixing on a blank section of wall. Images churn in his head, things she could never understand, things he can never share with her. Things he'll have to take to his grave.
"We..." He's trying so hard to string words together, mouth opening and closing silently. "There was... an accident. Not all of us came back alive."
He doesn't need to look at her to know how her face falls. "Oh, Jotaro, I didn't know. I'm so sorry."
He forces his eyes closed, an unpleasant feeling in his gut. She reaches forward to embrace him, and for a bitter moment he wishes it was someone else. Someone from the photo, back with him if just for a moment. Just long enough to give him time to say goodbye like he never got to.
He feels a sharp pang of guilt. He's done what he could, but he's never been able to truly connect with Marina, has he? How did he accomplish in fifty days what he's been unable to in five years? God, how does he have more of a connection to a dead dog than his own wife?
He suddenly reaches up, his hands finding her shoulders, and looks her in the eye for once—or as close as he can get, his gaze more closely fixated somewhere on the bridge of her nose.
"It's been a while. We should go on a date."
She seems briefly taken aback by his sudden change in demeanor, but takes it in stride, smiling at him. "Yeah, I think that'd be good for us."
He realizes then that, at some point, Star had manifested behind him. When Marina steps back, Star immediately takes her place, pulling him into a hug.
Marina, of course, doesn't notice a thing, because she can't.