"So was that when the first manifestation occurred?" Kakyoin spoke into the videoconference microphone.

Jean-Pierre Polnareff's blurry face on the computer screen scrunched up at the question. He sat in silence for a while until the corners of its mouth curved in slight amusement. "You mean if that was the first time I saw Silver Chariot?"

Kakyoin nodded and tapped a gnawed pencil on a fat stack of papers that rose in the middle of his desk like a lone monument to a job left unfinished. Polnareff let out a long sigh and moved his wheelchair closer to the camera. "Yeah, that's right. Does the Speedwagon Foundation pay you by the word or something?"

Kakyoin did not reply but felt a smile ghost across lips as he bent down to make a note of the date, October thirty first, nineteen eighty four. Two months after Sherri Polnareff was tragically taken from this world by J. Geil and coincidentally, right on Halloween when the barrier between the living and the dead was considered to be the weakest. The last fact was, of course, just a coincidence, absolutely meaningless and unscientific. The first one, on the other hand, might lead him to something extraordinary if he paid attention to the right coincidences.

He squinted in the burning glow of the screen, fighting back a yawn. Night had fallen already and a full moon hung like an unblinking eye over the city of Hondai, peering into what was now probably the only lit room in the entire building. For a moment, he regarded it with dull surprise; he could not remember seeing the light bleed away from the sky. In fact he could not remember anything at all since he had walked in this morning and sat at his desk. He had just started typing and checking his research notes and then typing again until eventually the building around him quieted down and the low droning hum of his computer was the only sound he could hear. It was not until his alarm clock sputtered to life on his desk, reminding him that he had a videoconference soon, that he noticed his stomach loudly demanding his attention and that his entire body had been running on fumes. The world swam briefly before his eyes before he forced himself to focus wishing that for once, time zones would be in his favor. He had been told that he did his best work at night but it didn't necessarily have to be every night.

"Kakyoin? Are you all right?"

Polnareff's question rang louder than he had expected, sending piercing ripples of feedback into his ears. He winced and threw the headphones off, changing the audio to the pair of dusty speakers that flanked his computer.

"I'm fine", he replied as he blinked the white aura away from his vision. "Sorry, you were saying...?

Polnareff's eyes narrowed at his response, a striking blue on his now uncharacteristically tanned face. The window behind his friend was wide open to a green hilly landscape bathed in the generous light of the Italian sun. Modest white curtains flapped under a gentle summer breeze and above them, a small glass chime threw multicolored sunspots over bare wooden floorboards. It was the picture of peace and quiet and for a second, Kakyoin's thoughts acquired a faint green tinge of envy. He would have given just about anything to have a quiet summer afternoon all to himself in some remote corner of the world. To him, summer usually meant endless research, tight deadlines and typing all the way into the little hours of the night until he fell asleep on the keyboard. His work did not always get to see the light of day but when it did, the rush of accomplishment and pride was overwhelming enough to wipe his memory clear of the misery and make him return to his desk, where the cycle began anew.

"Are you sure?" Polnareff weaved his fingers under his chin and peered at him intently. "Because you look like you could use a propping device for your head. Don't you think you've been overdoing it lately?"

Kakyoin suppressed a bitter laugh as he reached over to a coffee machine and blindly pressed a button combination he had come to learn by heart. He remembered hearing the same words a year ago, this time, coming from Joseph Joestar. He had sounded reproachful, like the curmudgeonly grandfather Kakyoin had never seen him as which made the lecture that followed even more poignant. He had urged him to enjoy life before it was over, to travel the world and to not lose touch with the friends he made. When he put the phone down after a good thirty minutes he had a smile on his face but pangs of guilt had knotted his stomach for the rest of day. There had been such longing in his voice, such bittersweet melancholy that Kakyoin wondered how often had he repeated the same speech to his other younger friends and how much time had they all spared to listen to him lately. Out of all of them who survived their chaotic trip through Egypt, Joseph Joestar was the only one with enough authority to talk about such matters. He had, after all, quite literally come back from the dead.

Then again, the man's two most hated words were "hard work" and second two were "working hard." One had to take his advice with an oversized grain of salt.

He took out a styrofoam cup from the machine and took a long sip from it feeling his tired brain buzz back to life. "Psychologists have a hard time being taken seriously already. I have to overdo it just to get people to stop laughing and listen."

He saw Polnareff's smile waver at his words and wondered if they were now thinking about the same thing. About three years ago, when he had finally managed to publish a stand-related article in the American Journal of Psychology, the backlash had been harsh and swift. Most of his peers just dismissed it outright while others shunned him and anyone who had supported him for damaging the credibility of their field. One of Jotaro's co-workers in Florida had even uploaded it to his own virtual wall of shame right next to a particularly outlandish piece about mermaids. That coworker had since left the department for reasons Jotaro was never quite clear about but the damage was already done. Kakyoin's reputation had recovered eventually after more of his articles were submitted for peer review and found to be sound but X-files posters still found their way to his work address with occasional scathing remarks written on their backs.

"Man, that's rough," Polnareff's mouth twisted as his eyes sought the camera again. "It's good that we have the Foundation, then. They're bound to have your back no matter what, right?"

Kakyoin gave him a curt nod and looked back at his notes, feeling a familiar bitterness well up in his throat again. Learning more about stands had been his lifelong ambition, one that, he knew from the very start would not be easy to pursue. He had gotten used to criticism by now, parapsychology made you grow a thick skin in record time, but if there was any place on earth where it could flourish, it was at the Speedwagon Foundation. Since the early thirties, it had been one of the very few private institutions to put tangible resources behind the study of the paranormal. They didn't like calling attention to that, choosing instead to regal the press with their breakthroughs in other fields but behind closed doors they took their supernatural department just as seriously and were just as enthusiastic about their contributions.

Or at least that had been his impression before he joined.

"Right, sure..." He pressed his lips into a tight line and rubbed his temples, trying to concentrate on the screen in front of him. "So you're sure that there were no sightings before? You never, maybe, reached for something with your stand without noticing or read something that was several feet behind you?"

"Not really, no." Polnareff drummed his fingers on the table, his face lined with thought. "Though, I got this weird feeling sometimes, like someone was watching over me. Sherri always said that it was mom's ghost." He trailed off, blue eyes looking straight through the camera at a memory that only they could see. "You think that might have been Chariot?"

Kakyoin bit his lip pensively as he jotted the information down. Nine years ago, on an unbearably warm night in India, Jotaro told him that the first time he had felt Star Platinum's presence, he had assumed it was some sort of evil spirit haunting him. He said that with a completely straight face, almost daring Kakyoin to laugh at him for believing in such things. He wondered if Jotaro would be relieved to know how many stands users had shared that exact same feeling of paranoia. In fact, Polnareff was the first person he knew to look at his budding supernatural abilities through a more optimistic lens.

"It's difficult to say now", he replied, "but it's still useful information. Brain waves associated with stand activity sometimes remain at low frequency throughout most of a person's life until something particularly distressing triggers them. That feeling you're describing might have been their first spikes."

Polnareff stared at him for a while, the lines in his forehead growing deeper by the second. When he spoke again, his voice grew somber. "So, you think that I got my stand because Sherri died? That it was trauma or something like that?"

Kakyoin leaned back in his chair and let out a deep sigh. After more than three months of tireless work he felt like he was looping right back to where he had started. The research pool for stand users was small and not likely to grow in the near future unless Joseph Joestar had more descendants or little Jolyne Kujo took after her father. Polnareff had been one of his best and more reliable sources on early stand development but if he wanted to prove his hypothesis, he needed more, a lot more. He thought of how fascinating Abdul would have found this investigation and felt his heart ache at the memory.

"Not exactly," he replied and ran a tired hand through his uncombed hair. "I think that you've always had it with you. It just never manifested until you were subjected to extreme stress." He took another swig from the cup and made a face at the cold coffee in his mouth. "Don't quote me on that, though. It's still just a theory."

"I see."

Kakyoin saw him cross his arms in thought as if taking in the bittersweet connection he had just established between his greatest source of power and the most tragic moment in his life. For a second, he felt bad for even asking him to be a part of his investigation. Talking about stands usually meant digging deep into a person's past and there were some things in Polnareff's that were better left untouched. Kakyoin could always tell how his eyes darkened when he talked about Sherri's death. It was the same shadow that fell over his face when he talked about Abdul and Iggy, one that clouded even the happiest memories and one that would never truly disappear. He suspected that his friend had never really learned to deal with death despite the fact that it had followed him since he was a child. That was why there was a fluffy dog basket in his room covered in Boston terrier hair and why there were several books on Egyptian culture stacked on top of one another on his desk. Polnareff was the kind of person that fought tooth and nail to retain at least a tiny fragment of the people he had lost, even if it was something as small as a lock of dark, curly hair next to a faded picture. This kind of attitude sometimes worried him before he began to wonder if his own approach, keeping his departed friends only in his thoughts, was any better.

The speakers on his table registered a faint screeching as Polnareff moved his wheelchair away from the table and bent down to re-adjust his prosthetic legs. Watching him gently fiddle with the metal fasteners, Kakyoin felt a sting of pity and shame. It couldn't have been easy for his friend to live wheelchair-bound and alone in a foreign country. With his parents and sister gone, he would have nowhere to turn if he ever needed help. Despite the difficulties of the past couple of months, he had never heard the Frenchman complain. He was adapting quite well to his new circumstances and seemed happy to be alive at all. Still, every time Kakyoin glanced at that wheelchair, he felt his stomach sink at the thought of his body lying bleeding and broken at the foot of a cliff. Fate had once again chosen to spare his foolish friend and he could only hope that he was smart enough not to tempt it again.

"I'm sorry."

He was barely aware of speaking the words out loud until he saw Polnareff move closer to the camera, eyebrows furrowed. Concern flickered in his eyes before he raised his hands in reassurance. "Come on! What's with the doom and gloom all of a sudden? My sister always managed to bring out the best in people so this is kind of fitting. I just wish she had lived to see Chariot. She would have loved to have a big brother with superpowers."

The Frenchman's voice acquired that lighthearted sing-songy cadence he knew all too well. It was the same one he used to try and liven up the mood when things got a bit too heavy for his liking. For a moment, Kakyoin was tempted to play along and skirt around his quickly darkening thoughts but instead, he shook his head and said, "I don't mean about Sherri. I mean, about not being there when you fought Diavolo."

This time it was Polnareff's turn to be speechless. He eyed him in disbelief as if he had just told him that the earth was flat. "What the hell are you talking about? Did you forget that you nearly died in Egypt? You're what thirty percent machine, now?"

Kakyoin shifted unconsciously in his chair at the mention of his mechanical spine. There were times when he forgot about it completely except when it came to airport security checks. The look on the staff's faces was almost worth it until it became clear that they would not let him pass through without pressing their fingers against his bare skin to feel the metal underneath.

He rolled his eyes at the exaggeration. "More like thirteen percent and who cares about that? I wanted to be there to help you and then I just got sidetracked."

The last word left a bitter taste in his mouth for it rang too close to home as he had expected. The Hondai subway split neatly into two main tracks, one leading to the airport and flights to visit his friends overseas and another towards the Speedwagon Foundation Supernatural Research Facility which had been his workplace for more than four years now. In those years, he had found himself drifting further and further away from the airport line as weeks turned into months and months into seasons. He had seen Christmases roll around and collide with one another as time became a long chain of research and typing with occasional breaks for meals. On the plus side, it had eventually gotten him noticed by scientific publications he couldn't dream of reaching but that was probably because by then, he didn't sleep much anymore.

It had also kept him from a lot of birthdays and also from joining Jotaro and Polnareff trip across Europe in search of the mysterious arrows found by Enya at an archaeological dig in Egypt. After Jotaro was forced to return home due to his little bundle of joy being born, Kakyoin fully intended to replace him but by then, his work at the Speedwagon Foundation had begun yielding actual results and he was all too happy to leave the fieldwork to somebody else. It was a decision that he had regretted ever since.

He opened his mouth to speak again but Polnareff cut him off. "Look, I'm not arguing with you about this anymore. Even if you'd been there, it would have still happened. I didn't want anyone else risking their necks for me anyway." His lips formed a toothy grin as he glanced back at the camera. "Besides, you can't be going around putting yourself in danger. Who would lead the field in Standology if you get killed?"

Kakyoin let out a short laugh and threw a disheartened look at a thin tattered binder propped crookedly against the monitor. "It wouldn't be hard, I am the entire field. All they would have to do is take my place."

"You know, you weren't this negative when I met you." Before Kakyoin could protest, he saw Polnareff slam his hand on the table, eyes widened in sudden recollection. "Right, I almost forgot! We're all meeting up in September at Mr. Joestar's home in New York. Jotaro's even bringing his ex-wife and kid!" He leaned closer like an interrogator eyeing down a captured prisoner. "You're coming, right? You know, since you missed the previous one. And the one before that. And the one before..."

Kakyoin sighed and raised a hand silencing him. "Okay, okay I get the picture." He flashed an apologetic smile into the camera. "I have been too hard to find lately, haven't I?"

Polnareff beamed and backed away from the screen. "I'm told that the first step to recovery is recognizing the problem. Besides, you have a ton of stuff to catch us up on. Mr. Joestar keeps every article you publish", he added excitedly. "I'm sure your parents do the same thing, huh?"

The cheerful tone cut through him like a knife as his own fingers tightened involuntarily around the styrofoam cup. Polnareff was still looking at him, clearly expecting an answer but what he had asked wasn't really a question. His friend already had the obvious answer in his head and was merely waiting for a confirmation and giving him a chance to brag about his accomplishments a bit. Any other alternative hadn't even entered his mind and telling him the truth now felt like disappointing a starry-eyed kid on Christmas morning by telling him Santa wasn't real.

"Kakyoin? Are you sure you're all right?"

Polnareff's voice rose to uncomfortable levels again, making the speakers buzz and crackle. He nodded at the camera and managed a small smile. "I'll be there, I promise."

"Great! The old gang's finally back together!" He clasped his hands tightly and rubbed them together in anticipation. "So, now that we've got that settled it's time to get back to the matter of your ladyfriend. Or lack thereof."

The remark just made Kakyoin's eyes roll further back into his head as he suddenly realized how tired he really was. The day seemed to have started at least a week ago and he had forgotten when was the last time he had had a decent meal or a shower. He wondered what his co-workers had been seeing for the past couple of months, a drained, shambling version of himself with uncombed hair and perpetual bags under his eyes. Polnareff had been trying endlessly to get him to date every girl he exchanged two words with but the prospect had never enticed him much even when he was still a fresh-faced teenager with a head full of dreams. Now, the idea seemed more like a bad joke he wished his friend would finally get out of his head.

"Goodbye Polnareff", he sighed and ended the call.

One day, Kakyoin will catch a break. But it will not be this day.

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