A/N:
[All characters in this story belong to Hirohiko Araki, Lucky Land, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, David Productions, Warner Bros. Japan, and all other additional entities responsible for the creation/ownership of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.]
I'll be honest. As I was writing this, my thought process was basically "in the spirit of the source material, how can I shove as much convoluted bullshit into this while making it as angsty as possible?" and you can tell. It really shows. The actual working title for this was "Jojo's Bizarre Sellout Fic" and I'm not kidding you.
Not my best work, but I'm still proud enough of it that I posted it. As an update, all lines are now consistent with the Toonami dub. Also, if you listen to any version of "Eine Kleine" by Kenshi Yonezu while or after reading, I can guarantee you will get the Maximum Misery Experience™ out of it.
Basically: completely forget Occam's Razor. I had this giant headcanon based on the fact that Jotaro and Kakyoin are such internally-involved characters. They don't wear their emotions on their sleeves, but I liked to imagine: what if they were busy carrying each other's secrets around on top of everything else? So there's the premise (which, admittedly, was kinda uncomfy to think about, but I digress). I hope you enjoy this heaven-forsaken fic.
(Content warnings for: tense parental relationships, past brainwashing, mild blood/gore, self-harm, mild self-hatred, mentions of animal limb loss, and dubious suicidal ideation. If you'd like me to add anything else you think I missed, please feel free to comment or message me!)
-Reddie
Noriaki Kakyoin's parents had assumed the move to a new city would faze him. And it did, but not in the way they could recognize.
True, he had no one he could call "friend" in his hometown, but something about the last day of the semester, leaving almost in the middle of things, felt strange. He spent so many years as a disconnected observer, watching his peers connect so easily. He felt the absence of those bonds, long after he and his family had packed up the last of their belongings. He could still see his classmates walking and biking down the streets, bound home in the afternoon light. He could still hear them laughing in their clubrooms, smell the dust they swept up from the halls at the end of the school day.
When he thought about it, about everything he never got to have, an emptiness swelled in his chest. He thought to himself, "This is what it must be like to miss someone," but that was something he never got to have. Yes, it fazed him, but it hadn't made him sad the way his parents assumed he was. Instead, he stared in a trance at this new city with a hollow hopelessness, still believing that he would end up just as friendless here as he was before.
Noriaki kept these things all to himself, building a solid barrier between his private thoughts and the life outside his mind. Outside, the world would move by in a blur, hazy with heat and humidity from the summer season. He watched time evaporate like sweat emerging from cold skin, life around him bustling just outside the window of his father's car, of an airport, of a crowded airplane yet to leave for Egypt.
His Stand would emerge next to him, holding onto a hope Noriaki had long forsaken. He watched its golden eyes surveying the cabin, waiting for a look of surprise, a gasp.
"No one will see you," He muttered under his breath. "Please go away." His mother stirred in the seat in front of him.
"Are you feeling happy right now, Noriaki?" His mother would ask him, voice gentle, but it sounded patronizing to his ears. This was his parents' idea of cheering him up, as if a summer getaway would erase all the alienation that marked his life as a Stand user. But this trip wasn't the solution to his misery.
"Yes, of course," He would say, trying to sound sincere, but at this point, he didn't want to hear another word of it. He just wanted her to shut up. Noriaki drew his Stand closer to himself.
"Well, good," His father would chime in, voice stiffer but just as patronizing. "What do you want to see first?"
Noriaki shrugged, wanting him quiet too. "Anywhere is fine."
It was hard to answer even the simplest questions honestly anymore. Noriaki knew his truth: that a spirit walked by his side and protected him. But time and time again, they denied his reality, even as he showed them once by making his Stand move objects. But all it did was frighten them.
"I'm just clumsy," His father grumbled, hissing at the sting of disinfectant. "Nothing else."
"Dad… I didn't mean it," Noriaki defended, reaching for him, "I was just trying to show you the spir—"
"Stop!" his mother snapped, causing her son to recoil. Quietly, she begged, "Please, Noriaki. Enough is enough. No more talk about these spirits."
Silently, Noriaki nodded, eyes dancing guiltily over a broken mug and the bandage winding around his father's hand.
They could never understand him, nor would they be bothered to. They'd never be satisfied with him if he continued to assert his Stand's existence. He had given up. He played along, to keep them happy, peaceful, but as he truly was, he knew he'd never be enough.
The world moved around him. He was on the plane. He was in a car. He was in a hotel room, by himself. His parents had thought that it would please him if they booked him a room of his own. But all it did was make him feel like they wanted him out of their hair. It didn't surprise Noriaki. Of course they wanted private time to fuck instead of entertain conversation with their weird creepy son.
So in the dead of night, Noriaki spitefully snuck out to explore Cairo by himself, without their permission. He summoned his Stand to cast Emerald Splashes into the lake, sending his furies crashing into the water until the fight had drained from him.
Above the cityscape, the blood moon hung high in the sky, glittering on the waters of the Nile. Sharing the visage with no one at his side, its beauty amplified the ache in his chest. That was when his Stand sidled closer to him, casting a glance around. With a heavy heart, he embraced the spirit, knowing it couldn't replace human camaraderie. He was alone. That's what he thought.
Then it happened in pulses.
Someone screamed from around a building corner. Noriaki turned to investigate, only to find two strangers bleeding on the ground in agony.
A figure, like a monster, like a god, stood above him, beautiful and terrifying beyond all power of speech.
Golden eyes clearly flickered over the spirit. Self-conscious, Noriaki pulled his Stand back. But the figure began to descend, draw nearer to him, emanating all signals of immediate danger.
Noriaki stood immobilized, like prey as the predator closes in. To think this would be how he died made his stomach tangle up in shame, in utter agonizing anxiety.
"Easy, Kakyoin. There's nothing for you to be afraid of." The figure whispered from behind, voice as soothing and sweet as honey balm, "Let's be friends, shall we..."
From the bottom of his heart, the only reason Noriaki felt relief was because he finally thought his misery had ended.
Now that he had someone to call his friend, never mind his master, he'd give his life for it.
Dio had kept him for some time, granting Noriaki's Stand the hallowed name Hierophant Green. He showed Noriaki how to make the most of his Stand's abilities, pushing the limits of his strength before sending him out to kill a classmate. Dio had easily convinced him it would be a noble cause to shed this blood.
"In case you had any doubts, let me say this to you now. The young man, Jotaro, I am asking you to dispose of is nothing to save glance for," Dio persuaded, bitingness to his tone. "He is cold, uncaring. He has viciously attacked several people with no remorse in his heart. You'll be eradicating an evil from the world before it festers into something uncontrollable."
That was all he needed to hear. Noriaki complied, "I understand. I will do this for you. I promise."
"Good."
After months of having gone missing, Noriaki finally returned home with his parents to Japan. He could hardly care how antsy they were in his presence. He could hardly even care that he'd been grounded, not when his objective was so clear in his mind. He was determined to make his first day at school the last day a force of evil could breathe.
Noriaki positioned Hierophant, set up his invisible barrier near the flagstone, and gave his subtle cue with the sweep of a brush. It was as easy as luring a fly into a spider's web.
At the nurse's office, they engaged.
"You see, the loser is always the evil one," Noriaki affirmed, securing his Stand's grasp around Jotaro. "Time to finish you off!"
That was when the world turned on its head.
The Emerald Splash had been deflected faster than Noriaki could process, before he realized Hierophant Green was about to take a serious beating.
"Then let me show you just how evil you are!" Jotaro roared.
The fists connected faster than he could blink. With the bitter tang of blood in his mouth, Noriaki fell backwards, thinking his final moment would be to bear witness to the amazing strength of Jotaro's Stand.
If evil was the loser, just as Noriaki had claimed, he hardly minded that at all.
He didn't expect to wake up, enclosed in that steady, blue-eyed gaze.
His world spun to a halt.
As Jotaro used his Stand to extract Dio's flesh bud, he could feel each and every one of his memories travelling up through Jotaro's finger tips, moving through his veins. And the further the tendril crawled into Jotaro's arm, the more he could feel his private thoughts escaping up to where Jotaro could obviously see. The stunned look hiding in his eyes said that much to Noriaki.
Throat tight, Noriaki tried to give voice to the only question plaguing his mind, "Why—are you—?"
"I would try not to move," Jotaro replied, not caring to answer to any of the things he knew he was seeing. "If I mess this up, your brain is fried."
Noriaki couldn't find it in him to move despite the burning need to. He lay still, frozen, feeling even weaker than he did before Dio and the promise of friendship. He wondered how pathetic his life must have looked in Jotaro's eyes, how much of a scumbag he had to be to stoop so low to find companionship with a monster like something out of a bad fairytale.
He watched as the tendril crept up to Jotaro's temple. And for a brief second, his consciousness had become enmeshed in that of the boy above him. Their minds were connected.
Noriaki saw one fraught memory of a prison cell, and then heard Jotaro voice a gentle, compassionate sentiment.
"Damn. I feel bad for you, Kakyoin."
Instantly, Jotaro's Stand had pulled the flesh bud completely out, snapping it in half. It flew, and then was burned to dust in under a second of its removal.
Jotaro turned his back and stepped a little bit away, perhaps feeling guilty for having invaded so many private memories. But as he glanced back, a different kind of relief melted the tension from Noriaki's body. Disoriented, he sat up and attempted again to voice his wonder.
"Tell me," He asked, keeping his voice steady, "why did you risk your life to save me?"
Noriaki held his stare, searching to find out exactly why Jotaro had felt bad for him, instead of disgusted, instead of repelled. He couldn't help but get the feeling whatever landed Jotaro in that cell couldn't have possibly been worse than what he'd done to that innocent nurse, what he'd tried to do to Jotaro. Hadn't he called Noriaki "evil" not long ago? Wasn't he right?
"Dunno," Jotaro responded, looking away. "Don't really have an answer for that."
Still, the connection lingered. Noriaki's heart curled in his chest, remembering the feeling of anxious fear in Jotaro's heart more clearly, more vividly than he'd ever remember the first time his parents had prohibited all talk of Hierophant Green.
Jotaro's pulse pounded in his ears as his Stand escaped his control, gripping at the bars. His cellmates squeaked in terror at the dents it left.
"For the last time, shut up!" Jotaro shouted at them.
Just as Jotaro began to doze off, the breaking of glass echoed inside the cell. He turned to see his cellmate, screaming with a broken bottle in hand, one of the empty beer bottles his Stand had snuck in earlier.
As the glass flew at Jotaro, his throat closed up. The phantom's hand came up to grasp it, crushing it instantly in its fist.
It roared, "Ora!"
His cellmates recoiled, crumbling to the ground, trembling. Their high whimpers grated against his eardrums like Styrofoam against glass. Overstimulated, Jotaro rammed his fist against the wall.
"I said shut it and relax!" He demanded, before lowering his voice to a mutter, "I'm not trying to hurt any of you."
They quieted at last. Regaining control, he retracted his Stand.
Noriaki didn't know what would come after this, what this meant, what they were now. He knew too little to consider Jotaro an ally, yet too much to go on pretending he was just some unfamiliar classmate from school.
But one thing was certain: neither of them would be able to forget what they saw.
Life happened in pulses for the next hours, into the next day.
It wasn't as though Noriaki had never known maternal love, but Holly's sweet sincerity and tender smile made him feel as if he had experienced it for the first time. She insisted he stay the night to recover with the same kind of gentleness he had heard in his consciousness only moments ago. Still lightheaded, he agreed.
"These were supposed to be Jotaro's," Holly explained, holding up a neatly folded square of striped pajamas. "His father sent them back as an early birthday gift, but they're a little snug on him. They look like they could fit you though!"
Noriaki accepted the offering, somewhat sheepish to put such a kind hostess through so much trouble.
He changed halfway, only into the pajama top, to find out that the sleeves were too long. Embarrassed, he decided not to say anything to Holly about it. He hid the pajamas away and fell asleep in his school uniform.
He found himself awake on a futon, warm under a cozy, heavy blanket. It instantly occurred to him he wasn't at home. Next to a pitcher of water, a note had been left for him. Without reading it, he stuffed it into his pocket and got up.
He went looking for Jotaro, but overheard conversations about Holly's condition, and ended up following Avdol. He couldn't believe his ears.
He had to do something.
He found himself aboard a plane back to Egypt. Before it took off, he looked over the note that had been left for him earlier.
I'm gonna be at school. Get some rest and don't worry about anything. Also, you can have the pajamas. I don't have any use for them.
If you wanna talk about what happened later, that's fine with me.
-Jojo
When he looked through his school bag, he found that someone had stuffed the striped pajamas into it. A mixed pang of ease and irritation flitted through his throat. When he looked around, he saw that all of his newfound allies were at rest, vulnerable to attack.
Tightness seized every nerve under his skin, pulling each vein taut as if they were puppet strings. But he pushed the concern down, trying to sleep. He wanted to prove to himself he could prevail over his anxiety. He had seen someone worth saving. And someone had seen something worth saving in him.
He would fight for that.
That was when life was no longer a pulsation of events, but a string stretched forward, a winding rocky bumpy road.
Constantly finding himself in danger with the rest of the group, Noriaki didn't have much time to think about it as the days went by. But when it did pop up in his mind between events, all contemplation hit him hard.
It hit him as he watched Jotaro remove the same kind of flesh bud from Polnareff's scalp. He didn't know whether to feel sympathy or disgust for the unconscious man until it occurred to him that Jotaro might have been seeing Polnareff's memories too.
Noriaki tried to recollect what exactly had been shared between him and Jotaro in that moment. Jotaro had seen him alone on the playground, he was sure, and seen Hierophant cause his father to drop his coffee mug. Sore but innocuous memories, for the most part, but what were the important things, things he'd never voluntarily tell just anyone? He knew at least a few of those memories had escaped.
"Now that my grandson has pulled out that fleshbud, we can all be buddies!" Mr. Joestar laughed, cradling the unconscious stranger's head in his arms. He stood next to Jotaro, watching another flesh bud burn away from existence.
Noriaki could hardly tear his eyes away from Polnareff, now pitying him, but also wondering what Jotaro had seen. What kind of life had this stranger lived to lead him to Dio? What did Jotaro think, of either of them?
"Kakyoin," Jotaro began, catching his attention, "don't people who make stupid puns all the time get on your nerves or is it just me?"
Noriaki blinked. Yes, Mr. Joestar's untasteful little joke hadn't flown over his head, but that hadn't been what he was expecting Jotaro to say. Still, there was levity to the comment, enough to elicit a small smile. For the moment, it evoked a swell of ease in his chest.
And it was just for the moment.
It wasn't as if Jotaro avoided talking to him, or even talked to him in a strained manner. But what bothered Noriaki the most was that he let on no indication that he had ever seen his or Polnareff's memories, as if he was pretending he hadn't.
Noriaki tried to wrap his head around the motivation for it, but there were too many angles to take it from. Maybe he was doing it out of consideration, trying to make them comfortable in spite of knowing their secrets. On the other hand, he could have also been playing it off because he was uncomfortable with seeing more than he should have. Maybe he wanted to brush it all under the rug so badly that he'd truly forget everything he saw.
Then Noriaki remembered the prison cell. Maybe he was trying to silently strike up a deal: "I won't ask you about anything of yours, so please don't ask about mine."
Noriaki couldn't know for sure which of these it was. All he needed was a moment alone to talk and then he could have at least some peace of mind.
The opportunity presented itself perfectly in Singapore.
"It'd make sense for Jotaro and I to share a room," He found the words passing his lips easily, quickly tacking on, "since we're both students. Does that help, Joseph?" It was still the same excuse he used to keep on his uniform, and sounded as flimsy a reason as ever, but Jotaro hadn't opposed it. With that, they headed up together.
Jotaro closed the door behind them, asking, "You mind me taking the bed by the door?"
"Not at all," He replied. Noriaki set his school bag aside, watching Jotaro settle onto his chosen bed to take off his shoes. Noriaki watched for a moment, noticing that Jotaro didn't wear socks either, before he sat on the other bed. At the movement, Jotaro shifted and stopped what he was doing halfway. Under that cold, critical blue stare, Noriaki couldn't help but tense up a little. It hadn't been that long since their fight, after all.
"Kakyoin… about the time after we fought…" Jotaro said, averting his eyes, "been meaning to say something to you."
It was like he was still reading Noriaki's mind. "Yes?"
"Just sorry. I took off your shoes while you were passed out." As an afterthought, Jotaro explained, "Mom does a lot to keep the house tidy."
"Oh," Noriaki shook his head, trying to hide his disappointment, "no, don't worry about it. Sorry for troubling your family."
"No big deal," Jotaro waved off, continuing to take off his shoes. Noriaki sighed quietly, tucking his hand into his pocket to fidget with the note, really wondering if this was something he should just drop. But then Jotaro asked, "Something else on your mind?"
"Huh?" Jotaro pointed at the corner of the note sticking out of Noriaki's pocket. Noriaki hadn't noticed that he'd pulled it out slightly, and sighed, "We might as well talk about this. Seems important."
Silently, Noriaki handed it forward, letting Jotaro reread what he'd written.
Jotaro glanced between the note and Noriaki's eyes, "Okay." Noriaki swallowed as his roommate set the note aside. "What part do you want to talk about? The pajamas?"
"No, when…" Noriaki worked the words out of his throat, "when you removed Polnareff's flesh bud. Did you see his memories, like you saw mine?"
The phone rang. Jotaro stood up to get it.
"No," He answered, placing his hand on the phone receiver, "Didn't see anything from him."
It didn't take any mind reading to see that Polnareff was an open book. He had told them his life story quite a while ago, after all. But for Noriaki, it wasn't so much an uphill battle learning to trust him as it was to respect him.
True, Noriaki found Polnareff's fluent and free-flowing English abilities—especially for a non-native speaker—enviable. He had a way of expressing himself without filter, without pretense, in a way that Noriaki could almost find admirable. To speak without caring about other people's judgments was certainly a type of bravery Noriaki had wished he too could possess.
That was, until Polnareff started spouting off at Avdol in Calcutta.
"I've been alone from the beginning!" Polnareff declared, "I've always been fighting alone!"
Suddenly, his brashness stung personally. As Avdol argued to him how they had all been tangled together by the messes Dio had made of their lives, Polnareff's insults and accusations of cowardice against Avdol felt like offenses against all of them, against their alliance. They had all fought together, bled together, and risked their lives for one another. And this was all Polnareff had to say for himself.
That he was alone the entire time.
He left them all behind in a hurry, and something like a piece of glass cracked in Noriaki. He watched the shattered shapes of Polnareff's dangling earrings shrink with every step the man took further away from them. Noriaki expected hollowness, but instead walked away with an ache he'd never known before.
"So this is what it's like to miss someone," Noriaki thought once again, rolling up the sleeves of his gift pajamas. Even if they weren't quite a perfect fit, it was nice to be able to sleep in cleaner clothes for a change. Still, he took little joy from even this simple pleasure. Calcutta stirred below the window of his and Jotaro's hotel room, and somewhere out there, Polnareff had a room to himself.
As Noriaki lay back in the quiet on his own bed, his aching feelings finally found shape in sound.
"Jojo," he exhaled, but it came out more desolate than intended, "do you think he'll come back?"
Resolutely, Jotaro responded, "I believe it."
"Sincerely?" Noriaki turned in his bed to look at Jotaro in the dim lamplight. His school cap continued to obscure his face, but Noriaki had come to find that didn't necessarily make him unreadable. Jotaro, too, had a way of expressing himself, of saying exactly what he meant.
"Yeah."
Reconsidering another purpose for his school cap gesture, Noriaki offered, "Would you like me to turn off the light?"
"Go for it."
As Noriaki got up to flip the switch off, he thought to himself that should've been the end of the conversation. He didn't have to bring up Polnareff anymore. They would see in the morning that Polnareff would come scuttling back sheepishly, with extravagant apologies and the realization that Avdol had been right.
But maybe that was just wishful thinking. And the pessimist in Noriaki was a strong one. If he himself hated the idea of being chained to someone else against his will, how could he expect Polnareff to like it? Polnareff had told them his story from the beginning. He had his own purpose in joining the journey as everyone else did.
Still, the thought that they sincerely meant nothing to Polnareff—after everything—made his blood boil.
"I'm sorry. I can't help but be angry with him regardless." Noriaki spat, somewhat exasperated, "To think he's just smugly alone in his own hotel room. I hope it feels like a prison cell." He looked back to Jotaro for a response, only to watch the other boy's shoulders twitch stiffly in the moonlight. Realizing what he'd just said, Noriaki blurted, "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"It's fine." Jotaro moved in the darkness, setting his hat aside on the nightstand.
Carefully, Noriaki asked, "Are you sure it is?" Jotaro paused at this, shifting in his bed to turn his back to his friend.
"We can't help what we saw," he answered at last. "Just keep this between us."
"Alright," Noriaki shifted to lie on his back, exhaling. He thought about asking what had landed Jotaro in there, but then decided the details weren't important. It was already too much to know, and it wasn't as though Jotaro was being nosy about Noriaki's memories.
Then, it emerged in the quiet, "In a fucked up way, it's kinda nice to know, actually."
"Oh?"
"Because we have something in common."
Noriaki chuckled, "How, specifically?"
Jotaro made a shrugging noise, "We were scared, and all alone. That's it."
But as usual, a part of it went unspoken. There were heavy implications loaded into those two sentences, and Noriaki could see exactly what Jotaro meant. Between Dio and the prison cell, both of them had come to know they shared the same kind of paralyzing fear: having been cornered, not knowing what to do, pulse racing beyond functions of conscientious speech. And no one had been there to help either of them at that moment.
So when Polnareff returned to them at last, he swore to himself he would never let any of his friends go it alone. He wasn't about to lose the people he sincerely could trust with his life.
But it didn't occur to him that those he trusted most would ever have reason to distrust him… especially Jotaro.
"Kakyoin... you didn't do that to yourself, did you?"
Noriaki snapped his eyes up to those words, spotting the distress in Jotaro's eyes, the point of his friend's finger at him. A sense of helpless desperation burned in his lungs as both Polnareff and Mr. Joestar chimed in their shock too. And it stung to know exactly what they were seeing.
They weren't processing the letters carved into his arm. No, the straight strokes of the bleeding lines sent strong memories crashing to the forefront of Noriaki's mind, of the cuts he made long ago along the inside of his biceps. He could hardly remember the specific reason he'd hurt himself all those years ago, other than the sense of some deep unbearable pressure. He had blocked out even the memory of the blade touching his skin. Only the sight and sting of red running from neat lines lingered.
Suddenly, it wasn't so nice to remember that Jotaro specifically had seen that memory. Jotaro, who had gained his trust in safeguarding his secrets, who seen his weakest moments and still sincerely looked upon him as a person of strength, now turned those cold blue eyes upon him with disbelief. This disbelief, so much like the kind his parents had shown him at Hierophant's emergence, hurt as badly as Star Platinum's fist across his face.
This couldn't be how they ended. He had to make them believe!
Everything returned to pulses. Hierophant rushed out for the child. Polnareff struck the back of his head. Noriaki fell, looking to all of them in his fading consciousness, still trying to figure out how he could save them.
He hit the ground. He felt his friends' arms lift him. He heard his friends' voices float over him, talking about what to do with him in the morning. At the ache of the recent blow, Hierophant unraveled against the ground, a heap of dragging strings. It figured that Polnareff wouldn't knock him out correctly. So this was it.
If this was going to be the end, he wouldn't go down without fighting.
He hid his Stand. He settled as his friends tucked him into a sleeping bag. A warm weight settled against his forehead. An exhale brushed over his face.
A flash of his clean blade above the red letters rushed upwards. Jotaro made a choked sound, right above him.
Noriaki's breath caught.
"Jotaro, what the hell are you doing?" Polnareff grumbled.
The weight lifted.
"I'm checking his temperature," Jotaro called. "Making sure he doesn't have a fever."
Noriaki fell asleep at last, peace spreading across his heart. Strength had returned, and it would ensure his victory.
He wasn't about to turn back.
Tension and levity filled him as Egyptian sand went flying off behind their borrowed automobile. Up ahead, he could see Jotaro and Mr. Joestar, and he thought to himself that the hardest part was over. They were here. They had just a little further to go, and then they'd face Dio.
He cursed himself for ever having that thought as N'Doul's Stand slashed open his eyes.
There was only faint fortune in the announcement that he would not go blind. As he sat atop a hospital bed in Aswan, bleary from pain medication and unable to even stare out his window, he reconsidered: the hardest part had only begun. And with the time it would take for him to recover, it was more than possible that he would not be there to join them for the final battle. The shame of that, that his hesitance had undone everything he struggled for, weighed in his chest like an anchor against the sea bed. Of course his fate would be so roundabout, to end this journey the same way he began it: out of commission, completely alone.
But as he heard a mingling of his friends' voices from the doorway, he was glad to rest assured he was at least part wrong.
Despite the good news of Avdol's quick recovery, unsteadiness remained in the pit of Noriaki's gut. Regardless, he was determined strangle it out of his system through sheer strength. Feigning an easy spirit, he explained his condition as optimistically as possible, even bringing up a distant memory of another classmate's eye injury once upon a time. It was one of those few memories that even Jotaro hadn't seen. And it was nice to think he still had so much left to share even with him, to think they had had plenty of conversations left for the future.
Noriaki couldn't suppress a smile at that. Even if he could be forced to go home alone, at least he could look forward to eventually seeing Jotaro in school again. It was a funny feeling, almost.
"In 800 kilometers are Cairo and Dio," Noriaki affirmed, reminding his friends of the danger close at hand. Time was of the essence, and he wasn't about to slow them down. Urging, he prompted farewell, "Everyone, you must remain vigilant."
Mr. Joestar was the first to say goodbye, then Avdol, then Polnareff joined him, the sounds of their footsteps trailing behind. Jotaro had merely made a small grunt. Used to his stoic nature, Noriaki had taken this as his way of saying goodbye, but instead... no footsteps followed.
"You guys go on ahead. I'll catch up in a second," Jotaro called. Noriaki swallowed, the funny feeling twisting up his insides.
"Ah, sure, sure, Jotaro." Mr. Joestar snickered, sounding a little playful, "You two catch up then." Jotaro let him away with a short hum. Noriaki listened to the creak of the room's door as they left, wondering what to make of Mr. Joestar's tone.
"May I offer you a seat?" Noriaki joked, hardly scooting to make room on his bed. He felt the weight of someone's eyes on him ever present, and only increasing as he felt the space next to him go down quietly. Part of Noriaki told him to clarify that he had been joking, but the words died in his throat as Jotaro replied, voice grave and wistful.
"There's something I need to tell you, Kakyoin."
In that tone, that was the last thing Noriaki wanted to hear. All of his dignity had already been teetering on a thin edge, and he wasn't yet prepared to lose the last of it in front of the young man he respected the most.
To buy himself time, Noriaki replied, "Then, can I say something first?" Jotaro hummed an affirmation. And despite his attempt to control them, the words spilled over, "I'm sorry. I exaggerated the speed of my recovery. While I will be able to take off my bandages soon, I hardly suspect the doctors would be willing to let me go that quickly. To be honest… I'm not… certain I'll be able to join you all in Cairo. But I want to."
Jotaro was very quiet, as usual. It was discomforting to Noriaki to know that he couldn't even see the expression he was making. Was he disappointed? Was he upset?
Paper crinkled as Jotaro dug around for something. His hand brushed over Noriaki's, turning it over so his palm faced up. Something firm and round settled into his open hand.
"That's an orange," Jotaro explained. "They left the whole bag. So eat up."
Well, that was one way of encouraging a speedy recovery. That was… one way of saying he wanted Noriaki there too, right?
"If you'll forgive the irony," Noriaki nodded, "I see. Thank you." Fumbling to peel open the orange in his hand, he asked, "Alright then, what did you want to say?"
"After the Cessna crashed, I saw your memories again," Jotaro stated. Noriaki paused in his motions slightly, uncertain of whether or not he wanted to hear this. Jotaro continued, "Your blade was clean."
"I know. I remember," Noriaki replied, voice harsher than intended.
"Sorry to bring it up. But when Avdol was released earlier, he said he was worried about you. He said something like the premonition of death hadn't left him. And I don't…" Jotaro groaned, sounding frustrated, "I don't think I took it out right. The flesh bud, I mean." At that, Noriaki's pulse jumped, pounding in his ears.
For the first time, Noriaki asked him, "What do you mean?" But he already knew where this was headed.
"I think," Jotaro murmured, speaking solemnly as if he were at someone's funeral, "you still have residual cells from Dio lodged somewhere in your brain."
Noriaki faltered, "Is there… a way to be certain?"
"Well…"
The bed shifted. Again, there was a warm weight against his forehead. A flittering thought, a meaningless moment, wandered away from Noriaki to Jotaro: the sight of a vermillion Pacific sea nettle in an aquarium, with young Noriaki's hand over the glass.
Jotaro backed up slightly, his hand pressed against Noriaki's shoulder, heavy, clinging. That felt like the only thing tethering Noriaki to Earth at that moment, as the realizations flickered together one by one. Enyaba had been killed by Dio's cells. Noriaki's wound had already closed up over the residual cells. It would be even riskier for Jotaro to try to remove them now.
Noriaki pushed the thoughts aside. He hadn't come to Egypt just to worry about saving himself. He joined them so he could protect Holly, who was waiting, who could imminently die any day now, leaving behind her son to live alone in an empty house.
It took Noriaki pushing him away to prompt him to get going.
"It's okay," he promised Jotaro, steady words hiding the waver beneath them, "I'll catch up. I'll see you again soon, Jojo."
And he kept his promise.
Through his transfer to care under doctors of the Speedwagon Foundation, Noriaki's exaggeration became a miraculous reality. As they escorted him to Cairo in one of their ambulances, every second seemed to stretch out.
All of it seemed to take forever, until he caught glimpse of a dying dog, and then four tall figures in the distance.
Just as the medic finished wrapping Iggy's stump, the dog darted off, and Noriaki chased after him, calling out a name without a second thought.
"Jojo!"
The group stopped long enough for him to catch up. Noriaki was more than overjoyed to see them all unharmed, to be welcomed back with open arms. And when he reached out to take Jotaro's hand into his, he found himself firmly grounded. Looking back into those determined blue eyes, Noriaki felt unstoppable. From there, the moments drawing closer to Dio seemed to pick up speed, as if the world had been spinning faster than he could keep up with.
Jotaro planned a pincer attack, and the rest fell into place. Noriaki followed Mr. Joestar into a borrowed car.
At that moment in the car as Mr. Joestar pointed out where Dio was behind them, Noriaki did not hesitate to strike. Death had never seemed so imminent the second Dio struck back.
Noriaki evaded, hardly having time to catch his breath as a man went flying through the back of the truck, obstructing Mr. Joestar's view. They swerved, saved in time by their Stands from death in the crash. And as Noriaki gazed down at Dio from the edge of the building, a sense of resignation flitted over him.
Within a span of hardly five minutes, he had narrowly escaped death twice. He couldn't deny he was scared. To engage Dio a third time, here and now, would be to tempt fate even further. Avdol's premonition hung in the air, and as Dio's gaze locked upon them both, Noriaki could feel a twinge somewhere deep behind his forehead. If he blinked, he could see the jellyfish again. He could feel the weight and warmth of Jotaro's forehead pressed to his. He could also imagine his own body, like Enyaba's, bloodied on the ground after months of peaceful living.
Noriaki decided that if he had a cutoff date, then he didn't want it to be when the residual cells imploded. He stepped forward, fully knowing that by facing Dio head-on, today may as well have been the end. But as long as he could help save them all in that span of time, every risk imaginable was worth it.
Life ended in three pulses: a realization, a smashed clock tower, and the sound of his name.
Jotaro never quite processed that Kakyoin was dead.
On an intellectual level, he knew it was something that happened. It wasn't a lie. He heard Dio announce it to him in the form of a taunt, and then heard his grandfather confirm it for him long after the battle was over. But even as he watched Dio's lifeless body erode away in the sun, the reality of Kakyoin's death did not quite register. Even as his mother asked where his friend from school had gone, it did not register. Even as it sunk in during school with a cold shiver that Avdol and Iggy would never resume daily life, it did not register.
Jotaro had already gone with members of the Speedwagon Foundation to track down his friend's parents, to tell them honestly what had happened to their son and give his formal condolences. Kakyoin's mother had even struck him at the end of the conversation, hard enough that he incurred a black eye. So when he heard his homeroom teacher mutter about a transfer student who had gone missing the day before he planned to visit, he felt an overwhelming hollowness pervade his chest.
There was an empty desk reserved for nobody other than Kakyoin, and even though Jotaro knew better, he kept somehow expecting Kakyoin to come in any morning now, dressed in a new uniform. He kept expecting that polite and gentle bow and apologies before the teacher for his prolonged absence, expecting a sly smile from across his desk. He kept expecting to catch Kakyoin around at lunch, to invite him up to the roof where it was a quiet place to smoke in peace, where he could listen to the sound of his friend's voice without interruption. He kept hoping that maybe someday he could hear Kakyoin's stories about all the things he hadn't seen, or explanations for the things he had. He kept hoping the day would come when they would grow close enough, and it would feel natural to call him Noriaki.
It always felt like Jotaro had seen him just a moment ago, back in Cairo before they split up for that pincer attack. But suddenly, he had graduated high school a year later than the rest of his class, and Kakyoin wasn't going to be part of the ceremony.
The summer before Jotaro started attending university, it finally sunk in. He had been alone in his room, reading an old issue of a long-beloved shonen series as he remembered a younger Kakyoin having read these exact same pages.
On that day, Kakyoin had been alone too, sitting beneath the shade of a tree on his elementary school's playground. Hierophant stood nearby, as if searching for someone, anyone who could see him. His chest had been thrumming with hope.
That memory reverberated through Jotaro's heart like Kakyoin's nervous pulse thrumming through his temples at a hospital in Aswan. Now that he couldn't feel that pulse anymore… that was when it felt like losing someone.
Later that day, he decided to go visit Kakyoin's grave.
As he drove there, Jotaro recalled how his grandfather had once told an aching story, one of another man who had given his life to protect him long, long ago. Joseph had remarked the regret that he had done nothing to stop such a preventable death. But with Kakyoin, even as Joseph did reach out to try and save him this time, it had been no use. He had been cornered. There was nothing he could do.
"I think about Kakyoin," Joseph had shrugged, gaze sagging in a way that added more age to his eyes, "and how he died the same way as that man before him. I can't help but feel like there's a bigger curse at work on this family. Something in our blood that ends up dragging it out of others. Like we can't love anyone without hurting them in the long run."
He came up to the grave, feet flagging. As the tears finally formed in his eyes, he remembered what he asked his grandfather.
"The man you talk about. Did you love him?"
"Well," Joseph smiled, but with pitying eyes and a low voice, "how much did you love your friend?"
Jotaro didn't respond with words. But he could see the jellyfish floating away and covered his mouth with his hand. And in that second, he remembered everything he had seen from Kakyoin that fateful day he saved his life. He remembered seeing every lonely moment and thinking how bad he felt for him, how he wished he had known him sooner so he could have been there to walk next to him, to hold him close while he cried and tell him everything would be okay. He wanted to go back and tell Kakyoin he'd never be alone again.
He would have given the world to know the answer to the question his grandfather was asking him now. But what he knew was he had found someone he wanted to protect beyond explanation. What he knew was he wished he had more time, to tell Kakyoin everything he wasn't brave enough to say before. So was that love, and in what form? He'd never get to know.
Joseph nodded, "Then you have your answer."
As Jotaro traced his eyes over the names carved upon the stone, he thought bitterly of all the many more years his friend did not have the chance to live through.
"Idiot," Jotaro mumbled, ducking his eyes to his sleeve. "I didn't risk my life for you to throw yours away."
He walked away. Briefly, he thought about what a future could have looked like with Noriaki in it, and let the thought fly off with the wind, floating past reach like a jellyfish behind glass.