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The first time Jotaro noticed it was when they were 6000 meters above the ground and plummeting.
At first he thought it was a Stand, but he quickly dismissed the idea. You could only have one Stand, and he knew what Stand his grandpa had and it definitely wasn’t that. And he knew it wasn’t a ghost—it wasn’t because he didn’t believe in ghosts—but damn did it look like a ghost.
A faint, hazy figure overlapped his grandpa, creating a strange blond-gray hulking mass. The ghost(?) wasn’t at the top of his priority list considering Kakyoin kept kicking his grandpa and thrashing about like a maniac. His attention only went back to his grandpa when he heard the tell-tale hiss of Hermit Purple; purple vines and crackling electricity wound around gloved hands and the plane’s controls, forcing it out of its nose dive.
Jotaro breathed out a sigh of relief, praising his grandpa internally—he wasn’t going to boost the man’s ego anymore than he already was, loudly whooping about his youthful aspirations to be a pilot (Jotaro couldn’t help but wonder what could have ever stopped the unstoppable force that was his grandpa). Then the apparition caught his eye because it was trying so desperately to pull the controls over to the side and he could see the controls twitching under the ghost’s (not that it was a ghost) ministrations so of course he looked out the window to see why it was trying to move the plane and—
“GRANDPA PAY ATTENTION!!!”
They crashed. And Jotaro resolved to never get on any form of vehicle—especially planes—with his grandpa again.
(He didn’t want to think about how close the engine was to making direct contact with the tree—how close they were to dying—if it wasn’t for the few centimeters they inched over to the right)
~ ⋆ ✧ ✯ ✧ ⋆ ~
The next time Jotaro noticed it they were playing cards in the hospital. Kakyoin was sitting cross-legged on the bed and Jotaro was sitting cross-legged next to him because Kakyoin didn’t want to be the only one doing it (surely it couldn’t be because their knees kept bumping together whenever they moved).
The side table was cleared and placed in front of them. They had dragged the two visiting chairs and the arm chair from the corner around the table. His grandpa immediately commandeered the arm chair, setting it up right across from Jotaro, leaving Abdul and Polnareff no choice but to sit on either side of him. They went from rummy to whist to Go Fish to Egyptian Ratscrew to hearts until they finally moved to poker.
Kakyoin had randomly picked one of them to partner up with for the previous games, but this time he was foisted onto Jotaro.
“It’s only fair that you serve as his eyes,” his grandpa chuckled, a teasing grin plastered across his face.
“You do have the best poker face out of all of us, Jotaro,” Abdul added.
Polnareff nodded. “It’ll give the rest of us a chance to win—not that I’m worried about losing!”
“Good grief,” Jotaro sighed, lowering his head to hide behind the brim of his hat. He flinched when a gentle hand landed on his bicep. Kakyoin was “looking” at him with a smile on his face.
“Don’t worry, JoJo. We’ll school them so thoroughly they’ll be begging to change games,” Kakyoin said.
Jotaro sighed and accepted the cards his grandpa dealt. A small part of him was reluctant to let his grandpa deal, but he didn’t think he’d try anything underhanded for a game with no stakes. It didn’t hurt that Abdul was next to him.
He leaned closer to Kakyoin. “Do you want me to write the kanji or the symbols on your hand?”
Kakyoin didn’t flinch, but he did tilt his head towards him. The tips of his ears were pink. “Symbols.”
Jotaro gave a terse nod, then mumbled an affirmative when he remembered Kakyoin couldn’t see him. He briefly scanned the cards before he handed them over. Kakyoin carefully shuffled the cards into his right hand and, after the slightest hint of hesitation, held his left hand out, palm up. Jotaro definitely did not have to consciously remind himself to swallow and breathe as he cupped Kakyoin’s hand in his own. Kakyoin turned towards him and Jotaro obligingly leaned closer to him.
Belatedly, he realized he overestimated how close he needed to be.
“What’s the card order, from left to right?” Kakyoin asked. His voice was low and rhythmic and his breath tickled his ear. Jotaro flinched and resisted the urge to swat the sensation away. His eyes flickered up to the others (namely his grandpa) before dropping to Kakyoin’s hand. They were focused on their own hands. He slowly traced the numbers and symbols onto his hand.
Jack, hearts. Eight, spades. Joker. Eight, hearts. Two, diamonds.
Kakyoin nodded slowly, his fingers twitching. His palm was soft.
“We’ll be betting with these, gentlemen.” His grandpa threw a small sack of rocks onto the table.
“It’s…pebbles…” Jotaro said. Kakyoin snorted.
Abdul divided the rocks (rocks…really?) among them, swatting away Polnareff and his grandpa’s hands when they tried to stealthily add more to their stash.
Polnareff, being on his grandpa’s left side, started, pushing three rocks into the center of the table. Jotaro was tempted to ask about values, but decided they were just rocks in the grand scheme of things.
“Polnareff’s betting three,” Jotaro murmured. Kakyoin nodded, and Jotaro didn’t realize how still he normally was. A placid, disingenuous smile was pasted on his face, and without his vibrant, twinkling eyes or his hands gesticulating about, he couldn’t read him.
“Call,” Kakyoin said. Jotaro pushed three rocks into the middle.
“Call,” Abdul echoed.
His grandpa clicked his tongue. “Call,” he huffed.
Jotaro eyed him. There were a lot of reasons for that reaction—his grandpa could be a fickle man at times. Maybe his cards were bad or he was irritated that no one folded early. Maybe he was trying to feign dissatisfaction with his cards.
“Swap.” Polnareff threw down two cards, face down. Jotaro traced a two on Kakyoin’s palm.
Kakyoin gently removed his hand from Jotaro’s grasp and grabbed the Jack and two of diamonds. “Swap,” he said, and added the two new cards to his hand.
Six, diamonds. Eight, diamonds.
Polnareff pushed two more stones into the middle. “Polnareff’s betting two more,” Jotaro whispered. Kakyoin hummed.
“Raise. Five,” Kakyoin said, his face as placid as ever. Jotaro pushed the stones in.
Abdul’s face twitched. He called. His grandpa called.
“Show your hands!” His grandpa said, throwing down his cards. He had a full house. Jotaro’s eye twitched. He hated his grandpa’s luck sometimes.
Abdul had two pairs and Polnareff had a flush.
“Are we playing Jokers as wild cards?” Kakyoin asked.
“I didn’t shuffle them out the deck, did I?” His grandpa grinned.
“Then this is a four of a kind, right?” Kakyoin asked, placing down his cards.
“Bah! Beginner’s luck,” his grandpa pouted, pushing his rocks over. “Next deal!” And the game went on.
It was surprisingly fun, serving as Kakyoin’s eyes. Jotaro stared the others down and, if he thought they were acting suspiciously, he’d write out a message. Or whisper it into Kakyoin’s ear. They couldn’t let the others pick up on their code, after all. So maybe it was because Jotaro was distracted with keeping his own communication secret that he didn’t notice the other conversation going on at first.
His grandpa was moving his cards around in his hand, his index finger tapping a card back occasionally. It didn’t make sense until a hazy outline appeared over his grandpa’s shoulder. The blond not-a-ghost.
Jotaro kept his head still as the not-a-ghost slowly circled around the group, no doubt peering at their cards. The not-a-ghost stopped by his grandpa again and scribbled something that he unfortunately couldn’t see on his grandpa’s cards.
Yeah, his grandpa was 100% cheating. Of course he was.
“Old man,” Jotaro frowned, “stop cheating.”
“Ehh?” His grandpa gasped, eyes widening comically in that stupid way they did when he pretended he wasn’t doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “Whaddya mean, JoJo?”
His grandpa was shameless and hopeless. Jotaro’s eyes slid from his grandpa’s wide, twinkling blue eyes to the luminous, cider green eyes next to him. The not-a-ghost was not as shameless or hopeless, and with raised hands, it took a bow and then an exaggerated step back from his grandpa.
“Jotaro?” Kakyoin whispered.
“Good grief,” Jotaro grumbled. His ears were burning.
~ ⋆ ✧ ✯ ✧ ⋆ ~
Actually, the first time Jotaro noticed it was when they were on their first plane towards Egypt, before they met Polnareff and suffered through the whole carousel of irritating Stand users.
Neither Jotaro nor his grandpa had been asleep in that span of time before that disgusting Stand user and his disgusting stag beetles Stand reared their heads. It wasn’t the first time Jotaro had been on a plane—he’d gone abroad to the States to visit his grandparents in New York before—but he still wasn’t used to it.
The plane’s low, steady hum gave him a headache, and it was unnerving sitting in the dark surrounded by sleeping people. His eyes kept darting around—not in panic, no, not that. He was just…looking for an escape. From boredom.
So it was only natural given how alert he was that he noticed his grandpa’s strange actions (okay, they weren’t really that strange). His grandpa was staring at the space above Kakyoin’s seat, his arms crossed and a finger occasionally tapping a random pattern on his arm.
Jotaro had stared above Abdul’s chair, thinking his grandpa was lost in thought until the faintest outline appeared in his peripheral vision. The not-a-ghost was perched on the back of Kakyoin’s seat, his legs crossed and awfully close to his grandpa’s face. The not-a-ghost’s lips were moving but Jotaro didn’t hear anything, and whenever the not-a-ghost stopped “talking,” his grandpa tapped back out a response.
Jotaro meant to ask his grandpa about the apparition but then the disgusting Stand started harassing them and he forgot.
~ ⋆ ✧ ✯ ✧ ⋆ ~
When he thought about it, the first time Jotaro noticed it was after his mother collapsed.
He watched from outside the shoji as his grandpa kneeled at his mother’s side in silence. Jotaro didn’t know what to make of his grandpa when he was like this, when there was no one for him to perform for so stillness and solemnity became his companions. He wiped his mother’s forehead with a care that made Jotaro’s chest ache.
That was the only reason Jotaro didn’t barge into the room when he noticed the not-a-ghost kneeling at his mother’s head, transparent fingers running uselessly through her sweaty hair. The not-a-ghost had a pained look on its face, one that Jotaro imagined his grandpa mirrored.
He couldn’t fathom why the not-a-ghost looked like that, as if it knew his mother—really knew her, and loved her. There was no other reason for it to look like that or to lean over until it could press its forehead against hers, royal yellow hair mixing with dusky blonde.
Jotaro knocked on the frame above the shoji and slid them open. The apparition was gone.
~ ⋆ ✧ ✯ ✧ ⋆ ~
No, when Jotaro really thought about the first time he saw it, he was three or four or one of those very young ages that tend to blur together. He hadn’t known any better when he first saw it.
His parents had brought him to New York, probably because Grandma Suzie wanted to see him and couldn’t make the trip to Japan for some reason or another. They were at a highrise restaurant for brunch and he had somehow slipped away from everyone and wandered down one too many halls.
He had been standing enraptured at a floor-to-ceiling window and getting smudgy handprints all over it, not yet struck with the realization that he was lost but starting to miss his parents when he appeared.
The not-a-ghost man towered over him then, in a blue jacket and baggy jeans and a long, patterned headband.
“Feather,” Jotaro mumbled in Japanese, eyes caught on the accessory. From the beginning, it was weird he had even stayed next to the man at all—at that age, he didn’t like talking to strangers, let alone stay in their vicinity (at least, not without his parents).
Charming green eyes crinkled in amusement and the man crouched beside him.
“Can I touch?” Jotaro asked, because his mother taught him to be polite. He also wanted to touch the purple markings on his cheeks, but he didn’t ask because you weren’t supposed to touch people’s faces.
The man dipped its head and Jotaro reached up and—
At this part, he wasn’t sure if he actually felt the feather or if his mind made up the texture.
Then he looked around and shoved his fingers in his mouth. “Where’s mama?” His voice wobbled around his fingers.
“Shall I take you to her?” The man asked. (Jotaro didn’t know what language it had spoken, but it wasn’t Japanese or English—he understood it nonetheless)
Jotaro nodded.
The man stood up. “You can hold onto my pants, okay piccino?”
Jotaro nodded again and his small hand grasped the material tightly. The man ruffled his hair and started walking, taking tiny steps that still felt huge to him.
“What’s your name, piccino?”
“I am Ku-jo Jo-ta-wo.”
“Jotaro, huh? What a nice name.”
Jotaro nodded and felt awfully proud.
“Excuse me, little sir.” A professional-looking lady stopped in front of him, crouching down carefully in her pencil skirt. “Are you lost?”
Jotaro ducked behind the man’s leg, his grip tightening. He didn’t know what she was saying.
“Do you know where your parents are?” She asked.
“Nod your head,” the man said softly.
Jotaro nodded.
“Oh. I see.” The lady looked worried, her lips pushing out into a pout. “Do you mind if I go with you to find them?”
“Nod,” the man said.
Jotaro nodded.
“Okay!” The lady said brightly, standing up with little difficulty. “Let’s go together!”
The man started walking again so Jotaro followed, but the lady started following them too. Jotaro shot worried looks at her but the man didn’t seem bothered, so maybe she was supposed to?
The man led him down a few halls and then he heard footsteps, loud and hurried.
“JO-JOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
“Mama!” Jotaro released the man’s pants and ran straight into his mother’s arms. His father and grandparents were behind her, but he had his priorities straight.
“Oh, Jojo, where were you? Mama and Papa were so worried!” His mother said, cupping his cheeks and turning his head this way and that.
“I dunno,” Jotaro said, “I was looking out the window and got a w’it’we lost.”
His mother scooped him up into her arms and stood up. “That’s okay, JoJo. Just don’t wander off again, okay?”
Jotaro shoved his fingers in his mouth. “Okay.”
“Let’s thank the nice lady for bringing you back, okay?” His mother said. Jotaro didn’t know why—his father and grandpa were already talking to the lady and she hadn’t even brought him back!
“But she didn’t,” Jotaro mumbled.
His mother gently pried his fingers out of his mouth. “What was that, JoJo?”
“She didn’t. A nice man did. His hai’w was p’wetty w’ike yours and he was big w’ike g’wandpa and he had g’ween eyes. G’ween.” He didn’t know where the man went, though.
His mother tilted her head in thought. “Oh, is that so? I mean, is that so?”
Jotaro nodded. “Yeah, and—oh! He’s w’ight the’we!” Jotaro pointed at the man standing next to his grandpa.
Both his parents looked where he pointed (as well as his grandparents, belatedly), but only his father and Grandma Suzie looked back at him in mild confusion. The man had an arm on his grandpa’s shoulder, leaning heavily against him. He waved with his other hand, a conspiratorial smile on his face.
“Oh. I suppose we have to thank him, don’t we, JoJo?” His mother said, bumping him on her hip.
“Thank you,” Jotaro said.
The man dipped his head in acknowledgement, whispered something in his grandpa’s ear, and when Jotaro blinked, he was gone.
“He’s gone,” Jotaro mumbled, his fingers back in his mouth.
“Yes, he does that,” his mother said good-naturedly.
Jotaro made a sound and rested his head on his mother’s shoulder. “I fo’wgot to ask his name.”
His mother shuffled him in her arms so he rested more comfortably on her. “Don’t be too sad, JoJo,” she whispered. “You’ll see him around again.”
“But I wanna know now,” his voice began slurring with sleep.
His mother’s laugh was soft. “His name is Caesar.”
“Shee-zar?”
His mother laughed again. “It’s okay, we have time to work on it.”
Jotaro snuggled his head deeper into her neck.
Caesar.
~ ⋆ ✧ ✯ ✧ ⋆ ~