trigger warnings: violence/description of injuries
[four]
Ever since that day Jotaro had messed with Asuka's car, I was allowed to walk home alone after school. I figured that, so long as I had attended school, my father eased off and allowed me a little freedom.
Normally, I would slip off with Jotaro. But he had been gone for two days. Groups of girls cornered me in the bathrooms at school to ask where he was, and when he would return.
I had no answer. So I went looking for one.
The gates to the Kujo residence loomed as tall as Jotaro did. I had taken to walking in front of them each evening, hoping that he might appear.
This particular evening, I hesitated, listening to the tinkle of water on the other side. Birds clustered on the branches of the trees that I could see from the street. I spotted three sparrows, calm, serene, all the things that I was not.
"Can I help you?"
The shriek that I let out caused those three sparrows to startle and flee.
Standing at the gates was a blonde woman, wearing a pale blue dress and an apron dusted in a light coating of powdered sugar. She had beautiful features; wide, kind eyes and a small nose over plump lips, already pulled into an airy sort of smile.
She was surely Jotaro's mother.
"I'm sorry. My name is Juno. I go to school with your son, Jotaro," I said quickly. "I was looking for him. We have a project together."
Awkwardness overcame me. It had been a pretty crappy lie about the school project.
Jotaro's mother's smile faltered slightly.
"I'm afraid he's in jail," she told me. "He won't come out."
"Oh. I'm sorry," I said again. "Maybe -..."
Then her words fully sank into me.
"Wait, he won't come out?"
"Yes. But Jotaro is so stubborn. Would you like some tea?"
"Um -..."
"I'm making cookies," she said. "You know, every Friday, I used to make cookies for Jotaro as a treat before the weekend. He used to run home from school, just for the cookies. I bet he'll run from his cell if I bring some to him, and you know the food in there is so terrible -..."
Whiplash came closest to what I felt in that moment as his mother swept out onto the sidewalk, looping her arm around my shoulder and guiding me into the Kujo residence, talking all the while.
Inside, it was a sprawling landscape full of flowerbeds and small wooden bridges that led to the house, itself split into different sections. Lanterns decorated the bridge. Azaleas, magnolias and kerrias soaked the air in their sweetness.
She brought me to the tea-room and forced me to sit on the floor across from her.
"He never liked the raisin kind, my Jotaro, only the good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies, and I -..."
"Excuse me, Mrs. Kujo, but if Jotaro can leave his cell - well, why doesn't he?"
Her face fell. "He's got this funny idea in his head," she said. "He thinks he's possessed by an evil spirit. He's always been the creative type, coming up with such silly little stories. Let me show you -..."
Standing up, his mother excused herself and rushed out to another part of the house. When she returned, she handed me three hefty, overflowing folders. I opened the first to find sketches in crayon. Each page had JOJO signed in crayon at the bottom.
His mother was smiling so much, I wondered if it pained her.
Amused, I read aloud, "Jojo?"
"His friends call him that," she said. "Oh, look here - he drew some dragons. I always thought he could be an artist."
The dragons were more like worms, splattered against an intensely blue-toned sky whose edges were frantic and not fully filled-in.
Yet his mother snatched up the drawing and cuddled it against her chest, letting out a delighted sigh.
The second folder was full of photographs. Jotaro began as a small boy dressed in his school uniform, then another in which he was decorated with medals for what looked like a track competition.
"So talented," she cooed.
"You even kept notes from his teachers."
It surprised me that Jotaro had once been described as pleasant and attentive and diligent.
"Of course! I'm sure your parents have a little collection just like mine, with all your drawings and photographs."
With that, I thought of the house - my house, I was supposed to call it - and all its closets and hidden spaces, and I was sure that none were filled with folders like what Jotaro's mother kept for him.
All the uniforms that I had worn in my life, and I had never been photographed in them. All the report cards that I must have gotten, across several schools, in several languages, and none cluttered up the pages of a folder in that house - my house.
Only it was not my house. I hadn't learned its sounds yet. That, to me, was knowing a house and calling it home.
For a moment, I could not even say if I had competed in a sport in any of the schools that I had attended. I could hardly remember the difference between them, let alone what I had done while I was there.
A photograph of Jotaro fluttered to the ground. He was in front of a cake which showed it was his sixth birthday. I had never seen him smile like he did in that photograph.
And that was when it occurred to me that I had never had photographs taken at my birthday party, because I had never had a birthday party like that. I was usually moving from one country to another. So there was never much time, or any guests I could invite.
There was no sad revelation in that. Only a minor prick of pain. It passed quickly.
"No," I said. "I don't think so."
His mother's eyes searched my face. "Well, why wait! You can start a collection anytime you want!"
"Huh?"
She leaped to her feet and hurried out of the room again. I heard a distant crash from another part of the house. She returned with a folder under her arm, a stick of glue, and a Polaroid camera in her hands.
Before I could comprehend what she intended to do, she dropped to her knees beside me, placed her arm around my shoulder and snapped a shot of us both.
She let out a squeak of happiness, taking the Polaroid and shaking it out.
"There! The first piece of your new collection!"
Then she took the stick of glue, smearing it over a spot in the folder. She pasted the Polaroid against it. It cleared; I saw her bright smile, brighter than even the flash could contain, and my own startled expression in comparison.
"Photographs are important," she said. "Every moment matters. Even when you think it doesn't."
x
For three hours I stayed at the Kujo residence, mostly because his mother insisted that I eat dinner with her. She, too, hated an empty house. Her husband was travelling. Jotaro was sitting in a jail cell across town.
That meant that there was too much food, she assured me, for a woman on her own. She had prepared it with the hopes that Jotaro would be home, and he ate huge quantities.
Without him, it would go to waste.
So I remained with her, knowing that it might infuriate Jotaro, especially when his mother cleaned away our food and pulled out some home videos of him playing on a beach or at a track meet.
I thought of that day we had played chess in the park.
His mother allowed me to leave only once she had wrapped a pile of cookies for me. Once the gates closed behind me, I started to walk. I was only a few steps away when I heard them wrench apart again.
"Juno! Wait!"
His mother ran toward me. She handed me the camera.
"So you can fill up your collection," she told me.
"Thank you, Mrs. Kujo."
As I walked home, I ate a few of the cookies. I could understand what had made Jotaro run home as a little boy to eat them. Each one had a crispness about its edges, but a soft pudgy middle, oozing with chocolate chips that melted in my mouth. I imagined her at the gates of the house, waiting for him, still in that powdered apron.
In my satchel, the folder she had given me sat snug and protected from the light mizzle that dripped from the dark clouds. I covered the camera with my sweater, itself coated in a light smattering of crumbs. I wanted to capture Jotaro in the next photograph for my collection, so I could remember him properly when I was in France. I ate another cookie.
While I walked, I asked myself if Jotaro knew how lucky he was.
x
Asuka left an envelope on the backseat of the car, where I always sat on the way to school. It was sealed with the wax emblem of the letter 'J' for my surname.
I opened it to find a one-way ticket to France.
The flight was in seven days.
I stuffed it in my satchel, unwilling to look at it a moment longer.
x
Right before the bell rang out for our first lesson of the day, a small group of girls surrounded my desk. Sako Fumi stood in the middle of them all, the apparent leader, or perhaps simply the one who had plucked up the courage to speak to me on behalf of her friends.
Leaning forward, she took hold of my desk at either side and asked, "Hey, Juno, is it true after all?"
"About what?"
"Jotaro," she said. "I heard it was a pretty bad accident."
Fear shrivelled up my stomach. "Accident?"
"You didn't hear? He fell on the way to school today. For now they're keeping him in the nurse's office until they can move him to a hospital. You know, in case his leg needs to be amputated. At least, that's what Hikashi Aiko heard from Yamata Akira who heard it -..."
With a loud screech, my chair scraped against the floor. I grabbed hold of my satchel and sprinted out of the stuffy little classroom, which seemed suddenly much too small, too crowded.
In all the time I had known him, Jotaro had never fallen or stumbled.
But accidents happened, even to him. Right?
I skid at the corner which led to the nurse's office. Bile rose to my throat at the thought of Jotaro in a bed, seeing a bloodied stump propped on a pillow. Perhaps he had been unable to find me, so I could heal him.
I found myself wondering if I could heal him.
Before I reached the nurse's office, two students came tumbling out. One was Hanyu Daichi, who bumped off my shoulder and continued his maddened sprint away from the office. The other was Akiyama Kenji.
Hanyu was able to run off, but Kenji was injured. When we collided, I had not realised how bad his injury was. But now I stumbled back from him, winded by the force of his body against mine, and looked up at him.
Blood poured from his left socket. He slipped in the puddle that formed at his feet and crashed against the wall in a half-blind scramble. I caught his arm, barely avoiding his swinging hand as he tried to grasp the wall and push me away all at once.
His left socket was an oozing pit, dark, seeping blood and a whitish liquid. Even with his injuries, he understood that I was not attacking him, and his pushing hand suddenly locked me in place, gripping my shirt.
His words were punctured by gasps and sobs.
"Run - the n-nurse - she - …"
"Hold still," I told him gently.
Instinct was always what made it possible for me to look beyond the gore of injuries and heal others. The viscous liquid that pooled in his socket no longer bothered me like it had when I first saw it.
I held his cheek, cupping it with the lightest touch and murmuring to him like he was a wounded bird, calming him.
He was confused. His good eye rolled through the pain.
Even from the hall, I could hear the thrash and scrape of furniture in the nurse's office.
Seconds later, an explosion burst through the hall, its heat whipping over Akiyama and I.
Paint and plaster fluttered from the ceiling. Flames roared and simmered from the other end of the hall.
Akiyama was all that I focused on.
If he hadn't been injured, I likely would have screamed and ran like other students. But the wound to his eye was deep. Something had penetrated his socket and I felt each groove carved into the muscle.
Soon, Akiyama's twitching and groans faded.
He whispered. "I - I can see -..."
"Go outside," I told him. "Get away from the nurse's office."
"But what are you…"
Akiyama's voice melted into the cacophony of sound in the school; the shouts of staff, the frightened babble of students, and the scrunch of glass shards beneath my shoes as I rounded the doorway into the nurse's office.
The nurse lay motionless on the ground.
I dropped to her side, pressing fingertips against her throat to find her pulse. I could feel lacerations on her the inside of her throat. Her skin was hot and clammy.
I began healing her. It was like tunnel vision. I hardly heard or felt anything until the last of the cuts came together and sealed.
It was then that the sound of someone speaking registered in my brain: "Juniper, get up!"
I blinked. "Jotaro?"
He stood above me, his thick brows pinched to match his scowl.
"Finally," he huffed. "Come on. We need to leave."
Over his shoulder was a limp, unconscious student.
"I can heal him too," I said. "Quickly, put him down -..."
At the same moment I reached out toward the boy, Jotaro swung him away from me. I tripped only slightly, not because of the broken wood and glass strewn all over the floor, but because a sudden wave of dizziness rushed through me. It was so intense that the room seemed to tumble sideways.
Like it had at the playground, Jotaro's phantom wrapped its arm around my waist and planted me on the ground.
Jotaro's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?"
"I just felt dizzy all of a sudden. I think it might be from healing Akiyama and the nurse. I never healed two people together like that, one after the other. And their injuries were intense. I guess it got to me. But I can help this boy. Just let me try."
His gaze searched my face. "You're not going anywhere near him."
The severity of his tone caught me off guard.
He turned his head, his hat obscuring his face.
He added, "My Grandfather will want to look at him first."
"Your Grandfather?" I looked around the room, splintered and damaged by the explosion. "What happened here, Jotaro? What's going on?"
"Quit asking questions," he said. "You're pissing me off."
"And you're pissing me off by not answering!"
Jotaro strode toward the window.
I stared at him. "We're leaving?"
With one leg already over the windowsill, he glanced back at me.
Deadpan, he asked, "Are you gonna shut up and follow me or do I have to drag your ass out of here too?"
My teeth sank into my tongue. I crossed the room, hoisting myself onto the windowsill after he jumped out.
"You're so lucky the nurse's office is on the ground floor," I muttered. "Or I would have pushed your stupid face right out and let you fall."
Rubbing off the dust and plaster from my skirt, I hurried after him. Jotaro was a few yards away. He turned around, uncaring of how it caused the boy on his shoulder to swing limply from side to side.
He said, "Don't run. It'll make the dizziness worse."
Surprised, I slowed down. But he wasn't looking at me anyway.
When we were safely out of the school gates, I took a closer look at the boy Jotaro carried. He was tall, as tall as Jotaro, I suspected, albeit slimmer in build. His hair was a beautiful red shade; his brows were straight, with a small crease in the middle, as if he was troubled even in his unconscious state.
"My mother told me you came to the house looking for me," Jotaro said suddenly.
"Yeah. She said you were in jail and wouldn't leave."
Jotaro was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, "I couldn't control Star Platinum. It's dangerous. I told you that in the movie-theatre. I beat those guys harder than I should have. I figured it was for the best that I stay locked up."
"...Star Platinum?"
Jotaro let out a long sigh. "I don't feel like explaining it. The old man will do a better job anyway."
My eyes ghosted over Kakyoin. "Okay. You know I -..."
My voice failed me. I was embarrassed.
"Never thought I would say this," Jotaro grumbled. "Spit it out, Juniper."
"I'm glad you're out," I said quietly. "I was worried that I wouldn't get to see you before I left for France."
Jotaro's expression never changed. I found myself studying my shoes as we walked. I cared about him. I really did.
But his face was stony, his focus entirely on the horizon bobbing in front of us. I slipped into self-doubt, convincing myself he didn't care, because he was silent, and the mood was so sombre.
Suddenly, though, he asked, "Has the dizziness passed?
He startled me, and I stuttered because of it: "Y-Yes."
Jotaro shrugged off the answer, hoisting Kakyoin up before he could slip further from his grip. In his distraction, he may not have noticed the small smile that graced my lips.
He asked, "How did you know where to find me?"
"Some of the girls told me you fell and -..." A blush spread over my cheeks, realising how silly it all sounded out loud. "Well, they said you'd had a bad accident and your leg - …"
"What about it?"
"They said it was going to be amputated."
His eyebrow rose. "Amputated. In the nurse's office."
"No! They said they were taking you to a hospital. Why didn't you come to me? I could have healed you, like I did - …" The pieces fell together. "Wait a second. Have you been avoiding me because of what happened in the alleyway?"
His silence answered for me.
"Jotaro! You big moron! You should have come to me. I would have helped you."
"You were freaked out."
"Not because of you -..."
He let out a scoff. "You're a bad liar."
"It's not like that. I just - I froze up. But I know you were defending yourself."
Jotaro left me unanswered.
"I'm sorry I left," I said. "Maybe I should have stayed with you. I've never been in a cell before. It would've been a cool experience."
"Hm. You think your father would agree with that?"
Somehow the image of my father in a dark, dank prison amused me. I began to laugh, until the image morphed, and I saw his cold stern face, heard the low rumble of his voice, and my laughter fell away.
"Let's not talk about him," I said.
Jotaro's eyes followed me. It burned in a way I could not heal.
"You know," I continued, "I wish I knew how to fight."
"Sure."
"It's true! At least you can defend yourself. Can't you teach me some stuff?" I balled my hand into a fist. "Come on. What do you think?"
"I think you're gonna break your thumb."
I frowned at my fist. "Really?"
"Keep your thumb on the outside," he said. "If you tuck it into your fist, you'll break it."
"First lesson," I grinned. "Hey, do you remember that fight scene between Cadot and Malin in the seventh book? When Malin is masquerading as the butler of that mansion, and he's about to get the jump on Cadot when he's coming down the stairs and Malin -..."
He rolled his eyes. "For crying out loud," he sighed. "I wish I never left that cell. I finally had some peace and quiet."
"Jackass!"
x