Every day I wake up and it's Sunday.
Whatever's in my head won't go away.
The radio is playing all the usual.
And what's a wonderwall anyway?

- Travis, Writing To Reach You

The cold November wind chilled Jotaro to the bone as he walked out of the school through a crowd of teenagers that parted around him like the sea before a ship's prow. Occasionally he would hear a girl's voice calling his name breathlessly through a choir of screaming voices and the sound never failed to make him sigh in frustration. Fridays were usually the days when his female classmates would insist he'd join them for a drink on town and today was no exception. Jotaro thought they would take the hint after three years of curt refusals but their interest in him seemed to have increased after his fifty-day disappearance. He had come back with a couple of bruises, a broken arm and a profound lack of interest to answer questions which had kept them mostly at bay. Still, there were days when the question surfaced in the eyes of a curious classmate and immediately sank like a stone when they were met with his expression. He hoped that their impending graduation would make them forget about it and focus on something else for a change.

Maybe then he'd finally manage to forget about it himself.

He slowed down, waiting for the rushing crowd to leave him behind until he was alone in the schoolyard. The wind had picked up unexpectedly, tugging at his coat and nearly snatching his hat off his uncombed hair. He pulled it over his eyes, fighting to overcome a persistent uneasiness that had been sitting at the back of his mind for the entire day. He would never admit it to anyone but there were days when Star Platinum's presence became a real nuisance. The stand seemed to have a consciousness of its own and, though limited, it was aware enough to pick up on insignificant details Jotaro's mind would usually filter out. That facet had been extremely useful in Egypt with an enemy stand always ready to attack but here in Japan, it was more a distraction than anything else. It felt like having an extra pair of eyes on the back of his head that were always vigilant and clinically paranoid.

Hierophant Green's presence seemed to calm it down though. Maybe it felt like if there was another stand around keeping watch, things were less likely to go awry.

The thought made him stop in his tracks and turn towards the school building. Hierophant's master was supposed to meet him outside after classes but unlike him, he always seemed to have a reason to linger in the classroom. By now, Jotaro had come to expect it. He used to be the last one to leave way back in spring when he still was in a wheelchair and his face had that pale, sunken look that only people who have had a close brush with death could bear. Being in different classes, he hadn't had the chance to hear Kakyoin's explanation for their unannounced departure but the state he had been in back then was probably enough of a deterrent for anyone willing to push the issue. When he finally ditched the wheelchair and moved on to crutches, Jotaro had been sure that he was going to break in half.

He shrugged and began to retread his steps to the front door, turning up his coat collar against the biting wind. His eyes drifted unconsciously towards the long stairs carved in white stone behind the school. Looking at those bone-white stairs gave him an eerie feeling, like he was staring at a past that did not recognize its future. He had fallen all the way down those nearly, no, exactly a year ago, struck down by the same stand user he was waiting for now. Their meeting had marked the beginning of a lot of unpleasant events yet there were times when they both looked back upon those days with genuine nostalgia. Despite that, Kakyoin's smile had wavered more than once at the mention of Abdul and Iggy and he himself had found his stomach flip-flopping at the memory of them. The same sinking feeling had returned to haunt him today from the moment he realized what day it actually was. Anniversaries made him uneasy; they never felt like a new beginning but like the end of an era.

He shuddered as a gust of freezing wind enveloped him whole. At the corner of his eye the world grayed out and stirred ever so slightly.

As if in response to his quickly derailing train of thought, Star Platinum loomed at the back of his mind only to be abruptly suppressed. Cursing at his stand's restlessness, Jotaro cracked his neck loudly and walked up to a beat-up vending machine leaning against the brick wall of the school. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between all the students to kick the thing at least once so it was covered in dents and paint peeled off here and there. He slid out a five hundred yen bill from his wallet and pushed it through the slot absentmindedly.

The machine began dutifully whirring, brewing hot lemon tea. It got a couple of seconds into the process before it sputtered and coughed, its internal mechanism clanging in despair. Eventually, it shook in place and came to a complete stop. Jotaro sighed and did his duty as a student slamming his foot against the machine as hard as he could. It quivered pitifully again disturbing the gravel it stood on and spit out the money.

Something white peeked from underneath the bill.

He reached for the crumpled paper but found it firmly stuck between the gears. He pulled at it, gently at first but the machine was not about to give it back after the kick. Tired of fumbling around, Jotaro let out a frustrated groan and ripped it out.

The bill came out fine, though slightly damaged at the edges. With a frown, he stuffed it into his pocket and focused on the thing that had cost him his tea. A strip of paper lay on the ground, torn awkwardly in half and stained by machine oil. There seemed to be something written on it and when Jotaro picked it up, he recognized his own handwriting.

I, Jotaro Kujo will wager my friend, Noriaki Kakyoin's soul, and offer it if I lose.

For a second, he could not breathe.

He stared at the mangled IOU in a daze, surprised at his own sudden distress as his hands became moist with sweat. He ran his fingers over the shoddily-written kanji, noticing for the first time how the pen had almost ripped through the paper when he had signed his name. It had probably been in his wallet for months and it just had to reappear today of all days.

The school at the edge of his vision turned a darker shade of gray.

Something cold and hollow swelled up in his chest, his heart beating against his ribs like a trapped animal. He stood still for a while, clutching the ripped piece of paper as his mind tried furiously to catch up with the sudden, paralyzing dread overwhelming it. Somewhere deep within, common sense rose up to tell him that nothing out of the ordinary was going on. He had simply put the paper in his wallet after their fight against Daniel D'Arby and it had remained there until he accidentally pushed it into the slot along with the bill. It had outlived its intended purpose long ago, in fact, he was sure he had gotten rid of it that same day after the wretched game of poker came to an end. If that was true he didn't remember. He could not remember anything clearly anymore except the multicolored glow of the television screen reflected in Kakyoin's eyes and how much he wanted to see it again.

Did today count as Act Four?

The treacherous thought was almost followed by a shaky fit of laughter. It made no sense, none of the thoughts that were running through his head made any sense but the cold hand gripping at his insides was definitely real. Inside him Star Platinum tensed up like a bowstring, an action that was usually followed by a vicious hurricane of punches but there was nothing to attack here. Instead, he heard his stand emit a long, low hum as the world around him dimmed and flickered.

Time had resumed.

For a second, Dio's smug grin floated in his mind's eye. He shook his head, chasing the image away and looked around but things seemed perfectly normal. A pigeon was pecking at crumbs on the ground, branches swayed in the wind, time went on but Jotaro's mind had crashed to a stop as he finally recognized the hollow, queasy sensation. He had experienced it before, what felt like an eternity ago in a place that now seemed like a dream. When he had used The World for the first time, he had felt nauseous, as if time was a mighty ocean and when he stopped moving with it, he felt the force of the tide rocking him to his core. Except that this time, there was nothing around to cause it, he hadn't used Star Platinum to stop time since that fateful night and the only other person to possess that power lay scattered in dust across the Egyptian sands. There was no possible way for anything like that to happen, no matter how much every inch of his body screamed that something was horribly wrong.

Around him reality shifted, like water in a wobbling glass, gently resetting itself. To his madly darting eyes, however, the world continued to spin as usual.

Kakyoin was really late now.

He turned around and ran inside the school, letting the heavy wooden door slam behind him.