[two]
From that morning onward, I met Jotaro at the staircase each day. For a while, we fell into a habit of hanging around the canal, until it became stale and boring. Then I suggested little spots in town. Jotaro had not answered, sitting on that bench, and so I had taken off on my own, unsure of what he wanted.
But I was never alone for long because Jotaro almost always followed or showed up a while later, seemingly out of nowhere.
Sometimes, I chose the park for its swings and gazebos. Other times, I drifted into stores or ate with him in restaurants. Once, I brought him to the arcade where I tried to persuade him to join me at the slot machines.
It was useless. He crossed his arms and leaned against my machine, flicking his lighter, looking for all the world like this arcade was the last place he wanted to be. And it probably was, considering how much he seemed to hate noise.
The slot machine spun and flashed.
I said, "Is it true you get into fights a lot? I heard that in school. I've been in fights before, but not real fights, you know? Like, not hitting anybody. Just arguments with other kids in class. I guess I shouldn't be too afraid of fights, considering what I can do. It's pretty new. Only started about three months ago."
Jotaro grunted.
"I slit my hand on a knife - accidentally, I mean. And it was like I could see the wound differently. I healed it with this light. It feels warm and nice, too, like sunlight itself. But I never told anyone about it because it sounds so crazy. And honestly - I didn't really have anybody to tell anyway."
Jotaro flicked his lighter.
The slot machine lit up. It had eaten all my coins without a single win.
"Damn," I huffed. "I'm out. Do you have some coins?"
Still flicking his lighter, Jotaro used his other hand to bash the machine. Its lights blared. It let out a stream of distorted, high-pitched noises as it spewed out a stream of coins, so that I had to scoop my skirt into a makeshift bag to hold them all.
"Thank you," I said.
Jotaro grunted again. His lighter clicked and clicked.
x
On the grassy slope near the staircase, where I had been the morning Asumi fell, I placed a blanket and lay on top of it. Jotaro lay down too, but he ignored the blanket.
He relaxed against the grass, tipping his hat forward to hide his face from the sun that filtered between the branches. He crossed one leg over the other, his shoe dipping up and down.
Eventually, he became still. I brought the first book in the series of Cadot novels and read it aloud to him, although I was sure Jotaro was not listening. He probably had no interest.
I wondered if he had fallen asleep. His chest rose and fell slowly.
Daring myself, I reached out to poke his hat and check his face.
I could almost feel the rim of it against my fingertip.
Without moving his hat back or moving his eyes, Jotaro said, "Don't."
Fright forced me to yank back my hand as if I had been burned. I snatched up the book from my lap, where it had fallen, and started reading a random paragraph.
"Wrong page," he grumbled.
So he had been listening after all.
x
Another day we sat playing chess in the park. His eyes followed a woman nearby, holding onto her son's hand as he tottered happily beside her, babbling. His uniform seemed too large for him, the shorts loose and the t-shirt baggy. He tripped now and then in his sneakers, but his mother held him so securely that it made no difference.
"Ren," she said, "are you ready for your first track meet?"
The little kid hopped around. "Yes, yes, yes!"
"Jotaro," I said. "It's your turn."
He was still focused on the boy. But he said, "You don't know how to play chess."
This whole time I had been randomly pushing pieces around. It amused me, and impressed me, that he could focus on two people and still notice what I was doing.
"Took you long enough," I smiled.
The large purple phantom that followed Jotaro appeared. Blobs emerged from its chest, rapidly returning the chess pieces to their rightful place.
Finally, Jotaro looked at me; the woman and her child had turned a corner and disappeared.
"This is a pawn," he said, picking up the smallest piece. "It's the weakest. You can move it forward…"
It was so rare that Jotaro spoke more than a few words that I found myself oddly entranced, unwilling to interrupt. He described each piece on the board, his voice low and pointed.
A part of me questioned what pushed him to care if I could play or not.
It was so hard to grasp his personality. Often he was brutish and acid-tongued. Other times he was silent and observant, a little distant in some ways.
Every once in a while, he was even kind.
Jotaro smacked the table hard with his hand. "Oi! Pay attention!"
Only every once in a while.
"I am paying attention."
"Yeah? Then what did I call this piece?"
"...The little horse."
Jotaro glared. "Quit daydreaming."
"Quit telling me what to do."
"Quit talking back."
"Quit telling me what to do."
"Quit being so goddamn annoying! I'm teaching you something. Is this why you skip school so much? Got no brains and can't keep up?"
Jotaro hit the table again. Two or three pieces fell, but the purplish hand scooped them up before they could hit the ground. He continued to tell me about the pieces, but it melted into the building hum in my eardrums, brought about by the thick clap of my heart in my chest.
His words had seared through me.
Tears pooled in my eyes.
But I stomped them, and the pain, down. I was cool, and could think clearly.
I stood abruptly and said, "Got brains enough to know I don't deserve to be talked to like that."
Jotaro rolled his eyes. "Gimme a break."
The chess pieces had been set up, but I already decided he could play on his own.
x
For more than three days, I avoided Jotaro. I took a different direction into town. I hid in coffee-shops and a movie-theatre, watching whatever was projected in front of me.
I had spent so much time alone in my life that it was a habit to sink back into solitude. It was a comforting blanket, a flimsy barrier between me and the world.
Sometimes, I felt like those bracelets with charms split in half for a pair of friends to share.
Only I had never found anyone who fit me. I clashed. I jutted out.
But what did it matter? I survived just fine on my own.
In the dark of the theatre, I could see only shapes in the rows in front of me. I ate popcorn like a glutton, tossing each piece into the air to catch in my mouth.
Twice, I missed. But I never felt the popcorn land on me. I assumed it fell to the ground.
On the third try, I caught sight of a large armour-plated hand above me, swiping the popcorn before I could do it myself. Because I recognised it to be the phantom attached to Jotaro, I decided not to turn around.
I dipped lower in my seat, holding the popcorn closer to me.
The pause was brief. I heard him stand from the row behind me. Had he left?
But he sat beside me eventually.
"Get lost," I grumbled. "I'm trying to watch a movie."
Jotaro was silent. It annoyed me.
I asked, "What do you want?"
I shifted in my seat, turning my body toward him.
"I'm serious," I said. "We don't need to hang out just because we have these - well, these gifts or whatever. So what the Hell do you want?"
From the front row, someone hissed, "Hey, shut up back there!"
Shame-faced, I slid into my seat, burning a bright red. I had forgotten to whisper. The projector flashed. Its slanted light fell perfectly to hide Jotaro.
"It's not a gift," he said. "It's a curse. And I want you to get rid of it."
My head whipped toward him. "What?"
"In the arcade, you asked what mine does," he said. "I'll tell you. It doesn't heal. It doesn't look like sunlight, either. It harms. Grinds bones to dust. Half the time, I can't control it. Hell, most of the time. It's dangerous. I can't let it -..."
He trailed off. It was rare that Jotaro could not explain himself.
"And you think I can -..."
"What you do is cure people. Well, I'm sick. This thing is the disease. And I want it out of me."
"Jotaro, I -..."
Popcorn spilled on the ground as I was hauled up from my seat by an usher. He held me at the scruff like a kitten. I was blinded by the swing of his flashlight.
Between the spots that flashed across my eyes, I saw another man standing behind him, hands on his hips, glaring. He had likely been the one to complain about us at the back of the theatre.
Embarrassment flooded through me. I thought I might melt into the gummy floor beneath me. After all, I had never meant to disturb them, but what Jotaro had been saying disturbed me.
"Let's go, kid!" the usher snapped. "And your little friend here, too, before I throw his sorry ass out on the -..."
Jotaro stood up. I suspected the slowness of his movement was purposeful.
Even in the dim light, I glimpsed the usher's face and saw how pale it became as he watched Jotaro rise to his full height.
Jotaro dwarfed him. He was also twice as broad.
The usher stammered, letting me fall cleanly to my feet. He laughed in funny, odd bursts, quickly moving his flashlight from my eyes. I blinked through stars.
Then he hastily smoothed out the fabric of my dress on my shoulders, saying, "No harm, no foul, right?"
Jotaro let out his usual grunt. He moved out of the row.
"Come on," he said to me. "This place reeks."
Without the heavy darkness of the theatre, the street felt saturated in light. Signs flashed. Streetlights blinked.
Jotaro leaned against the wall of the theatre, kicking up one leg. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. His head dropped back to rest against the bricks.
"Jotaro," I said quietly, "I don't think it's a disease. But if you want me to try -..."
"Knock yourself out."
Golden light bloomed between my palms, encasing his hand. Jotaro watched. He blew a smoke ring like he had at the canal. His eyes were focused on the light. His jaw was tight.
There was nothing for me to find. No cold ball floating in his chest which was what signalled the flu, no groove that promised a deep cut into his flesh.
But I searched and searched.
"I can't see it all that well," I told him. "You know, this -... this thing attached to you. It's blurry for me. Like I really need to focus. You can learn to control it, too, I bet. There has to be some kind of help out there. Maybe if you -..."
"Juniper. You're talking my goddamn ears off. Gonna heal those too?"
"Screw you. I told you, I'll talk however much I want."
"You don't talk. You ramble. It pisses me off."
"Oh, yeah? Then find yourself another friend."
Jotaro was silent for so long that embarrassment crept along my spine like it had in the theatre and turned me beetroot. It had slipped out: friend.
I wished that I could have taken back each traitorous letter and stuffed them back into my throat, swallowing them no matter how much they burned me.
The golden light fizzled out.
"It isn't a disease," I said again. "I can't do what you want me to, Jotaro."
He threw aside his cigarette. It flickered on the ground. He had left it unfinished.
Jotaro retreated, his hands sinking into his pockets.
There was that sharp stinging sensation again, only it was no bee-sting this time around. It was a dagger. I could not bring myself to pull it out and see the torrent of sorrow spill out after it.
It had never even occurred to me that Jotaro could only want to use me. I should have seen it. He had wanted that phantom gone since I had first met him, and -...
"Are you coming or what?"
Jotaro's call startled me, cutting off my train of thought.
"Huh?"
Jotaro was a few feet away, looking over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed.
He said, "Quit daydreaming."
"Hey! How many times do I have to tell you -..."
Had it not been for the distance between us, I might have sworn his lip twitched.
With a huff I raced forward and matched his pace. As we walked, he reached into his pocket. I thought he might pull out another cigarette, but he handed me a folded bag - it was the popcorn bag that I had dropped in the theatre, half-full. I took it with a smile breaking out across my face.
"Thanks, Jotaro."
"Hm. You talk less when you're busy stuffing your face."
I smacked the bag against his arm. It had all the impact of a feather. "Jackass!"
Jotaro was an asshole. But he hadn't denied being a friend.
x