a/n: hi everyone! back with an update, and it's an extra long one, i'm pretty happy with the feedback and that on the ao3 version this story has hit the 150 views mark, so i figured a longer chapter could suffice as a thank you to you all for reading 💗💗💗 and i really hope you like this new chapter too! more notes at the end!

*apologies for a double email, there was a big typo i had to edit and ff doesn't have an edit button like ao3...

[six]

Emptied suitcases awaited me the following morning. It was evident that Asuka had been ordered to place them in the hall, like a nudge of sorts to prepare for my upcoming flight to France.

The sight of them caused me to brush my teeth a little too vigorously, drawing beady swellings of blood at the gums. I didn't bother to heal myself.

Peeking through the curtains of the bathroom, I saw Asuka waiting for me at the car. It was my second last day of school.

But I decided I had had enough.

My father was already sending me off to France. What difference did it make if I went to class or not today?

Besides, Avdol had asked me to return to the Kujo residence, and I intended to do just that. I hurried downstairs, scooping up my satchel, hefty with the weight of the folder Mrs. Kujo had gifted me.

I took out the school books and left them in a messy pile at the bottom of the stairs. I figured I could leave a message of my own.

Then I slipped out the back, clambering over the garden wall and sprinting from my street. I was not sure if Asuka would have chased me or not, but I decided not to risk it.

I ran until I was close to the Kujo house, lungs burning, heart alight, bent double at the gates where I buzzed for entrance.

For a while, no-one answered the call.

I almost considered climbing the wall, convincing myself that another follower of Dio had gotten inside, flesh-bud pulsing on their forehead.

But the gate creaked open eventually. Kakyoin greeted me.

Paranoia made me worry that Asuka was following, even though he had no idea who Jotaro was, or where he lived, and he likely had only just found out that I had fled. I rushed inside, causing Kakyoin to raise an eyebrow at me.

Thankfully, he didn't question me. He led me into the gardens, where the fountains still tinkled and the birds tittered and all remained as it had the night beforehand.

Except it wasn't the same.

There was some odd looming absence about the place, a kind of coldness. I saw it on Kakyoin's face, too. We had known each other only a few hours. Yet I sensed a great pain radiating from him, and it resonated with what seeped through the gardens to reach us.

Now the birdsong struck me as quiet, almost apologetic, and the fountains' trickling sound was unwelcome.

"What happened?" I asked.

"It's Jotaro's mother," he told me. "She has a Stand. But it's attacking her."

"A Stand can do that?"

Kakyoin nodded. "It has the power to kill her."

So that was the reason the house seemed so ominous, so empty, as empty as mine always felt at sunset.

I searched his face. "Is this Dio's doing?"

His jaw clenched. He turned to look at the pond under the bridge on which we stood. I swallowed against the rising fear, fear which Kakyoin shared no matter how he hid his face from me.

I saw it. I could feel it.

Avdol appeared.

"Juno," he greeted. "I assume Kakyoin has informed you of Ms. Holly's condition."

"Yes. And I'd like to help her."

Avdol's gaze softened somewhat.

"I do not think you can heal her," he said.

"Is she in pain?"

"A great deal of it."

"Then I can take some of it away. At least let me try."

"Juno - …"

"Please. May I see her?"

"Of course. Mr. Joestar and Jotaro are with her now."

The room in which Mrs. Kujo rested was shaded from the sun which blazed that morning, making up for the heavy rain overnight.

Her skin was terribly pale; her cheeks somehow seemed more gaunt and stark than they had only yesterday, as if life itself was sapped from her. It was disturbing that her health had dwindled in so short a time.

Sweat drenched her. A cold cloth on her forehead did little to soothe her. She whimpered and fought against some unseen force that floated in the black depths of her consciousness.

Jotaro stood to my right, tucking himself into the corner of the room, out of sight. Mr. Joestar was leaning over his daughter, dampening the cloth to cool her.

Avdol and Kakyoin stood at either side of me, their own auras dark and brooding at the sight of her suffering.

"Mr. Joestar," I called hesitantly.

His eyes rose to meet mine, red-rimmed and glistening with fresh tears.

"I'd like to try and help Mrs. Kujo. If you'll allow me, sir."

The older man glanced to his friend. "Avdol?"

"I have told her that I do not think it will do anything," Avdol said. "But she is quite insistent."

Jotaro let out a scoff. It was mocking and cold. The room became heavy from that sound alone.

But Mr. Joestar looked down at his daughter. I witnessed his own pain, which matched that of Mrs. Kujo on her futon, restlessly twisting from side to side.

And so he nodded.

Kneeling beside her, I glimpsed the trellis of vines that spread along her spine and knotted at her nape; thick, thorny vines that bit flesh and filled the wounds with poison.

There was an odd electricity that encased her, but I could not see anything sparking or crackling. Her skin was hot to the touch.

Fever ravaged her. I pressed my fingertips to her cheek.

A shift came. The room grew quiet and distant from me, as if I were on a little raft that floated further and further out to sea.

I heard my name: "Juno?"

It rolled like fog to reach me. It was not Jotaro who called me. He never called me Juno, and I never called him Jojo. It sounded more like Avdol.

But he was far from me.

Because with that single touch to Mrs. Kujo's cheek, the room had changed. What sunshine poured through the doors suddenly morphed into a thick shroud of darkness, so pitch black in its opacity that I could not see much beyond Mrs. Kujo.

She, too, melted into the darkness, until I was alone.

The vines lashed at me instead of her. I felt each prick of their thorns, and the stinging burst of poison that seemed to follow.

And from this darkness came a single ray of light, though not from the sun.

It was moonlight, I realised dimly, silver and ghostly and pouring over a figure in the corner. We were no longer in the Kujo residence, but in a place much gloomier, filled with a faint and distant drumming.

I listened, straining to recognise the sound so I could plant myself on firmer ground.

Those were fists, pounding against a door.

Screams accompanied this horrible drum; female screams, a loud chorus of them, all crying out to be freed from this place because of him, him, him -...

For there was a man here, in this place, or something that had once been a man.

It was that figure beneath the moonlight, who turned his head. He looked not toward the women, because they were somewhere to the left of me. No, his gaze was purposeful, roaming first, narrowing second, to catch me and pin me where I kneeled.

Horror stirred in my chest.

Without understanding how it could be, I spoke his name aloud: "Dio."

His lips peeled upward against blood-stained teeth, not like mine had been that morning in the bathroom, as if the sound of his own name pleased him. His teeth were soaked in blood. His tongue lashed out, licking across his front teeth, and curling slowly back into his mouth once he finished. And his lips lifted again.

It could not be called a smile. It was something different. I had no name for it. I wished I had never seen it.

His skin was so pale, there was a transparency to it. His hair shone gold, a shade so brilliant and ethereal that Ancient Greek poets had surely described it with better lyricism than I could manage in my haze.

But his throat was encircled in thickened scar tissue. His shoulder bore a birthmark in the shape of a star, the Joestar birthmark, which he caressed as if he could tell that I looked at it.

Repulsion rippled through me. It sickened me to look at him, even this half of him which faced the moonlight.

He turned fully now.

He was coming toward me.

Fear burst from my chest in the form of shriek, building and building in my throat but catching on my tongue, where it stayed. Yet I was mute.

I could not bring myself to move away from him. There was an enchanting quality to his movements, a sway that lulled me closer, all the while I felt tears streaming from my eyes, soaking my cheeks.

I had never been so afraid. I had never been so mesmerised, either.

I wanted so badly to move, to fall back. But I was trapped. And his hand came closer and closer, about to touch me, waving near me with each step.

At the same moment he almost brushed my cheek, I was shoved backward by an incredible force, so strong and brutal that a rush of wind billowed around me.

I hit something - a wall. I fell against it and landed hard on the ground. It knocked the breath from me.

Soon I found enough strength to sit up, heart thundering so wildly that the thump of my own pulse stuffed up my eardrums. It took a moment to clear, and all became much easier for me to understand.

Jotaro's Stand was in front of me. It had shoved me away from Mrs. Kujo.

Panic overwhelmed me. Had I injured her somehow?

But she lay as she had when first I touched her, fighting off some phantom in her sleep.

I looked for Jotaro.

In my blind, total fear, I looked for him and him alone.

He was standing closer to me. His Stand faded into his chest. I wished, not for the first time, that he would lift his hat and let me look into his eyes.

Kakyoin was a step behind him. Mr Joestar remained beside his daughter. Concern radiated from him.

This time, though, it was for me.

That was what caused the gravity of what had happened to really hit me, harder than the wall ever could. I had seen Dio. He had seen me - no, I thought. He hadn't seen me, but he had at least sensed that I was there, for his hand had come close to me. But I didn't think he had been able to see me clearly.

Avdol crossed the room and crouched beside me. He reached out, almost uncertainly, to shake my shoulder.

"Juno?"

"I saw him," I whispered. "Dio. I saw him."

"Could he see you?" Because I did not answer, Avdol rocked me a little more intensely. "Juno! Could he see you?"

"I'm not sure. I thought he was looking at me. But when he reached out - it was more like he was reaching to the spot where he thought I would be. What happened?"

"You touched Mrs. Kujo and seemed to fall into a trance. Avdol tried to shake you out of it. But it didn't work. So Jotaro used Star Platinum to push you," Kakyoin explained. "He reasoned that you were not able to move on your own, or that your Stand couldn't - that you were stuck somehow, seeing something we could not see. And only another Stand could affect you. It seems he was right."

Avdol lightly pressed a handkerchief into my hands.

Bewildered, I look down at it, and then to him.

Gently he squeezed my shoulder and said, "You are still crying."

How strange it was to pat my cheeks with the folded handkerchief and find that he was right. I had hurt myself when I hit the wall, damaging my shoulder. I healed myself quickly. I was so embarrassed, worried that I had come off weak for how I reacted to Dio.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"Don't apologise," Kakyoin said. "I can't forget the first time I saw him either."

I smiled gratefully at him before looking to Avdol.

"How was it possible for me to see Dio like that?"

Avdol mulled over the question. "I believe your Stand allows you to seek out the source of illness or pain. Holly's Stand began because Dio returned. He is its cause, its source. It allowed you to see him. Dio, in return, seems to be linked to the Joestars by the birthmark on their shoulder."

"I saw it," I said. "His birthmark - Jonathan's birthmark."

"Dio sensed something," Avdol added. "Whether he saw you clearly or not, I cannot say. I think it more credible that he merely sensed something occurring with Holly, or at least a Joestar, and not you specifically."

"If Dio is the source of Mrs. Kujo's illness," I said slowly, "then you can't heal her without…"

Mr. Joestar finished for me: "Without killing Dio."

Once again the room was sullen and cold despite the sunlight. Evil had, until then, been a theme written about in my school essays. Dio was not evil. He was more than that. He embodied a darkness, a sort of black pit around which everything good withered and died.

Worst of all, it seemed to me that this was what he loved most, to revel in the pain that he brought about.

And I thought of those women, screaming, pounding at some unseen door to be released and free of him. Would he lull them into a state of serenity with his charm? Coax them into submission like he had done to Kakyoin? And what of all the other lives he would trample over?

I had not really been in a room with him.

I was safe, in Japan.

But I felt the slither of his hand along my jawline, and saw the alluring dip of his eyes to my throat, the gentle tap of his fingertips along my clavicle then, before the crush of claws and the hot thundering swell of blood.

It all crescendoed, making me want to slam my fists against a door too and scream to be let out too.

If that was the fear that I had felt so far from him, I could not begin to imagine what it was like to be in his presence. But I also thought he could not be allowed to exist. He was a leech, a vile creature crawling out from some dark and gritty sewer to latch itself onto my skin.

My eyes met with Mr. Joestar's.

"Will you do it?" I asked. "Will you kill him?"

"Yes," he said. "For my daughter, and the world, I'll do it."

"Can I join you?"

Silence fell like a blanket over the room.

Mr. Joestar was the most startled. "You want to join us?"

"Yes, sir. I don't believe Dio should be allowed to exist in this world. Besides, I can't stand what he's doing to Mrs. Kujo. I want to heal people. I want to help them. And Dio is the reason I can't do that for her."

From where he stood in the doorway, Jotaro said, "No."

I glared at him. "Why not?"

"Because you're scared shitless of Dio. That's obvious," he said flatly. "Besides that, you can't fight. You freeze up. You'd be dead weight, and I'm not carrying you."

Though the men in the room could not know it, Jotaro was cutting deep. He knew that I had been scared in the alleyway, when he had been fighting those guys, and he was using it against me. So I wanted to fight fire with fire.

"I'm not dead weight, and you won't need to carry me. I'll handle myself," I bit out. "At least I'll be able to control myself."

His jaw locked. I could cut deep too.

I added, "You don't have to be such an asshole all the time, either."

His glare was the meanest it had ever been.

"Why? Gonna cry some more about it?"

It was so cruel and pointed that it struck hard. I refused to let him win, and stuffed down all that embarrassment and pain into a tight ball that I tossed aside, a crumpled wad of useless paper.

"Jotaro!" Mr. Joestar shouted. "I've told you to show respect, especially to ladies!"

"And I've told you I'll do what I damn well please," Jotaro retorted. "Juniper's no lady. She runs her mouth too much."

"And you've got a stick wedged up your ass," I replied. "Guess we both have our faults."

Because Jotaro was spoiling my chances, I ignored him and faced Avdol and Mr. Joestar instead.

"I have a Stand and it's got a lot of potential," I spoke up. "Avdol, you said so yourself. I can learn. I can train. I'll be useful to you all."

"That is true," Kakyoin piped up. "She can heal our injuries. I don't doubt that we'll have many on this journey."

I shot him a look full of gratitude. It was comforting to have someone on my side, at least, even if it wasn't the person I would have imagined it to be.

Jotaro was my friend. He was supposed to be my friend.

Yet he said, "She doesn't even have a name for her Stand."

"House of the Rising Sun," Avdol said suddenly.

All four of us swivelled our heads to stare at Avdol, who had slowly drifted across the room, seeming to reflect on the discussion in his own quiet, intelligent way. Then he smiled to himself, and turned around to face us all.

"Yes," he said. "I think that is your Stand, Juno. The heat of your healing power is not unlike a ray of sunshine, and the strength you hold, though as yet unexplored, is considerable indeed. An undiscovered powerhouse of sorts."

Mr. Joestar scratched his neck. "But to bring a young girl into this…"

"With all due respect, Mr. Joestar," I said, "being a girl doesn't make me any less capable."

"No! I know! I simply meant - girls - well - I mean - ..." His hand fell to his side. "Never mind."

Avdol asked, "What about your parents?"

"I could make up an excuse. I'll think of something."

"This is bullshit. She doesn't even know how to throw a punch properly," Jotaro said.

"Yes, I do. You showed me. And I'll practise," I snapped. "I'd be happy to use you as my punching bag, too."

Jotaro let out a scoff and stepped out of the room, ducking his head to avoid hitting the frame.

"I've got an idea!" Mr. Joestar exclaimed. "The Speedwagon Foundation!"

"Sir?"

"We could tell your parents that you've been selected to study with the Speedwagon Foundation through a sort of scholarship. Or would an apprenticeship sound better? No matter. The Foundation could draft up the paperwork and make it appear legitimate. I have good connections."

"...So you'll let me join you?"

"If Avdol approves, then so do I."

"Thank you!"

"However," Avdol intoned gravely, "you are bound to what you have said, Juno. You will learn. You will study. I will see to it."

"Yes, sir! You'll never have a better student than me!"

His smile warmed his face. "I'll hold you to your word."

"Mr. Joestar," I said, "I'm sorry I couldn't help Mrs. Kujo."

"That's not your fault," the old man said. "It's Dio's. And we'll make him pay for it."

x

An hour later, the men had left the room to arrange the trip. I had wanted to remain with Mrs. Kujo, though Avdol had made me swear that I would not to try to heal her again.

Watching her writhe and moan was torturous. The vines climbed her spine, and pricked her at each point. I dampened the cloth on her forehead periodically, talking quietly to her about nothing at all.

On the fourth time that I did this, I turned to the bowl of water beside me, wet the cloth and wrung it out.

"Juno."

Surprise made me slosh water from the bowl. Mrs. Kujo was awake, although she rubbed her eyes tiredly. She pushed herself up, leaning on her elbows.

"It must be you," she said.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Kujo?"

"You must be the reason I feel so much better already. Brightening up the room like you do!"

For me, it was Mrs. Kujo who lit up rooms. Even now, in her sickness, she was smiling with all the strength she had left. Perhaps she hoped it would make me feel better, and that only further proved to me what kind of person she was; worrying for others, taking care of them, when really she was the one who needed help most.

And I wanted to be the one to give it to her. It gnawed at me that I could heal, but I could not heal her.

It shouldn't have surprised me that she had woken up, either. Mr. Joestar had only told me that sometimes his daughter became much more lucid, and that it passed in waves.

She wiped some sweat from her cheek. Was she feverish now? I wanted to touch her forehead, but Avdol had been quite strict about avoiding physical contact in case it drew me to Dio again.

So I squeezed the cloth again, for distraction, and waited for Mrs. Kujo to continue.

"You're a sweet girl," she said. "How kind of you to take care of me."

"It's nothing, Mrs. Kujo. I wish I could do more."

"You're doing plenty. In fact, maybe you should take a rest now. You'll wear yourself out, fretting over me."

I laughed. "I'm stronger than you think."

"I know," she said sincerely. "I can see it."

Again, I looked into her eyes, searching for signs of a fever. But she was alert, following me as I moved. She patted my knee again.

"Before you say things like that," she whispered to me, "you should believe it for yourself."

"Holly!"

Mr. Joestar appeared in the doorway, his eyes shining with delight as soon as he saw that his daughter was awake. He hurried to her side. I was relieved that I could fall into the background, because her words had struck a chord, and it resonated through me long after she fell asleep again.

x

Jotaro did not walk me home that day. He had vanished. I crossed over the bridge and out the gates. I focused on Mrs. Kujo, and the fifty days that Mr. Joestar told me she had left. I thought about what she had told me, only a little while ago.

Every moment mattered.

x

Because the house was so silent, I turned on television for sound, and prepared some tea for myself before bed. While the kettle was whistling, the telephone rang. I rushed to catch it before the person on the other end could hang up.

There was a brief pause.

It struck me as funny that I could tell my father more by his silence than his speech.

"Juno." He waited again. "I just received an unusual call a little while ago. The Speedwagon Foundation tells me you applied to their scholarship program."

The heat of the kettle steamed the bright, orange-lit kitchen. But in the hall where the phone was, it was cold and dark.

"Yeah, I did."

"You never mentioned it."

"I didn't think they'd take me."

"I didn't either," he said. "A big organisation like that, with the reputation it has. Were you honest with them? About your grades, your truancy? About you?"

"They have my transcripts. I -... I scored really high in the other schools. And my attendance here has improved a lot lately. I've been at school every day. Asuka knows it."

"Except for today."

The lie came out quick and easy: "Because I had my final interview with the Speedwagon Foundation this morning. I didn't want to jinx it by telling anyone, not even Asuka. Anyway, the interviewers were impressed with me. And I know I can do it."

"They're footing the bill. Arranging all the transport. All that's required of me and your mother is a signature."

"Please, Dad. Will you sign it?"

There was a rustle on the other end. I pressed my eyes tightly together, afraid that if I looked at this hall, it would become my prison; that I would repeat this moment in my head for many years afterward, remembering that one crucial point when my father had denied me the trip that I wanted to take.

He knew what power he held. It filled him like all that steam billowing in the kitchen.

"Well," he said slowly, "I suppose if it means someone else is willing to take on the burden, fine. Sure. I'll sign. And I'll talk to your mother."

"Thank you."

"Don't screw this up. Don't embarrass me."

"I won't. I promise."

"All right. Goodnight, Juno."

"Goodnight."

Once the phone was placed in the cradle, I stood for a moment longer in the hall, simply staring at it. I was a little surprised that he had not drawn out the conversation and dangled his signature over me. But he had a lot of work to do. He was always busy.

The kettle switched off. The house was quiet except for the burble of the television.

And it all felt a little less cold and dark now.

x

In bed, I mulled over what Jotaro had said in his house. A part of me wanted to hold it against him, and stoke the flame of hurt that sizzled each time I thought about his words and recalled his cold, scowling face.

But then I started to think about why he had said it.

Because Jotaro chose his words for a reason. And I figured he had a point. I could heal, but I had never fought anybody. With Avdol's guidance, I was sure I could learn.

But then that niggling little doubt burrowed into my brain. My thoughts drifted to my father and the word he had used for me on the phone: burden.

Then came all its synonyms, thundering down like an avalanche. He had called me most of those, too, at some point in my life. And he had had a point like Jotaro did.

Suddenly I started to panic.

Jotaro was right that I froze up sometimes. My father was right that I could be trouble, that I could be difficult. I stood from the bed, intending to run to the phone to call Mr. Joestar and pull out of the trip.

He would understand. He might even be relieved.

But my knee banged against my desk; a folder toppled from its edge, falling onto the ground in front of me. It was the folder that Mrs. Kujo had given me. I opened it.

Our photograph was inside.

I stared at her face, tracing her rosy cheeks and bright smile. She had tried to smile like that, when her fever had momentarily broke earlier that day. But there had been no colour, no life.

I placed the photograph beneath my pillow, returning to bed, knowing that she was counting on us - on me.

I was strong enough for this trip.

Before you say things like that, you should believe it for yourself.

I touched the photograph one more time before I let myself fall asleep.

x

At noon the following day, a car pulled up to the front of my house. Mr. Joestar emerged, waving enthusiastically at me. He hurried up the path to greet me, surprisingly in an upbeat mood despite the journey that we were about to take.

He looked around me, spotting only a pretty small backpack at my feet.

"Is that all you're bringing, Juno?"

"Yes, sir. I won't need much. And I figure it'll only slow us down if we're lugging too many suitcases around."

"Good point."

"I brought the camera Mrs. Kujo gave me. I thought it might be..."

I was overcome by a rush of embarrassment in front of him, feeling like a stupid little kid in sneakers and a dress, shrinking beneath his imposing height. I wished I had worn my uniform like Jotaro and Kakyoin did, so I could look a little more serious, and he might take me seriously, and it made me shrink and shrink and shrink.

I mumbled, "I don't know. Maybe it's silly. I could leave it behind, I guess, but I thought it would be like a piece of her with us, on this trip, maybe, or - …"

He surprised me by crouching to my level, resting his hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Juno. Here, let me!"

Mr. Joestar picked up the backpack for me, taking its weight. I thought suddenly of how often Jotaro had done that for me, too, carrying my satchel so I wouldn't have to. It was the first similarity I had seen between him and his grandfather, other than their appearance.

My eyes drifted to the car.

The windows were tinted, but Jotaro was undoubtedly inside, brooding probably, picking over the gristle of our argument. I was strangely nervous to see him.

"I spoke with your father yesterday," Mr. Joestar said.

"Oh, yes. He called me. Thank you for convincing him, Mr Joestar. If it wasn't for you, I don't think he'd have agreed to let me go on this trip so easily."

I stepped off the porch to my house. But Mr. Joestar didn't follow me. I looked back at him. His brows were pinched together. His gaze was cast to the ground, almost like he was lost in his own thoughts, unaware of the car idling a few feet away.

"Sir? Are you okay?"

"Hm? Of course!" He grinned, and reached out to pat my shoulder again. "I think you're gonna be a great addition to the team, you know."

Surprised, I stared up at him. "T-Thank you, sir. I meant what I said to Avdol. I'll train hard. I'll do what you ask of me."

"I know. I know you will," he said gently. "Now, let's get going! It's a long trip ahead!"

x

In the car, I sat beside Kakyoin. He seemed much better, in both his physical health and his attitude. Jotaro, on his other side, simply stared out the window. I settled back in my seat, picking at the hem of my dress.

Mr Joestar had been right.

It was a long trip ahead.

x

At the airport, Mr. Joestar and Avdol checked us in for our flight. Kakyoin left to find some water. I wandered around the check-in area while Jotaro stood nearby, his hands in his pockets, his eyes staring out through the high windows, seemingly following the planes which landed and took off every few minutes.

"Juniper," he called suddenly.

"What?"

"Come here."

"Why?"

Jotaro was silent, so I did what he asked and stepped in front of him, though I grumbled and huffed a little bit to show him I was still irritated by what he had said. Jotaro still looked out at the planes.

In a flash, his right hand snapped out and clapped my ear, without his eyes ever moving to look at me. I flinched away from him, eardrum ringing.

Once I righted myself, I slapped at his arm.

"Damn it, Jotaro! That hurt! What the Hell was that for?!"

Calmly, he said, "Think about how you can defend yourself."

I lowered my hands. The pain was really not so brutal that I even needed to heal it. It had been the shock that had gotten to me, because Jotaro had never done anything like that before.

Yet I saw that he was serious, that he was showing me something vitally important. And he was showing me, in his own stubborn way, that he would accept me on this trip.

"Okay," I said. "I'll try."

"Good. We'll start small," he told me. "And build from there."

"Avdol's the one who's supposed to be teaching me self-defence, you know."

Jotaro shrugged. "He'll cover the Stand stuff."

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Jotaro. That's really -..."

Again he struck my ear. I reeled back.

"Asshole!" I bit out. "I wasn't ready."

"An enemy's not gonna wait for you to be ready."

"Don't you think I know -..."

He did it again.

I grit my teeth. "Okay," I said. "It's on."

x

By the time the others had returned, I was clinging onto Jotaro's arm like a rabid animal, trying to bite through the sleeve of his uniform. He was counting out his cigarettes, unbothered by the way I gripped his arm and kicked at him, too.

Kakyoin asked, "What's Juno doing?"

"She's frustrated," Jotaro said. "Can't dodge a hit. Guess she thinks she can bite the enemy instead."

"So you've begun the training already," Kakyoin said, smiling.

I slid off Jotaro's arm, plopping to the ground with a huff. He had smacked my ear a hundred times. It burned a bright red. I refused to heal it.

"He's too fast," I muttered.

Jotaro paid me no mind. He pressed a cigarette between his lips, his gaze sliding to Kakyoin.

"She said she wants to learn. Well, I'm teaching her."

"I can heal myself no matter what the enemy does anyway," I muttered.

His tone was as monotonous as ever. "Don't rely on that all the time. It'll get you killed."

"Least then you'd get some silence, right?"

He rolled the cigarette in his mouth.

"Jotaro, you might as well put that cigarette away," Mr. Joestar said. "We're boarding in a few minutes."

Kakyoin followed the older men toward the long line of other passengers boarding for Egypt. I watched the three of them and sighed to myself, still sitting on the ground where I had landed.

Jotaro surprised me by holding out his hand.

I took it, once again basking in the sweet fuzziness that overcame me whenever Jotaro showed the slightest bit of decency.

In the nanosecond it took for him to begin to pull me up from the ground, I realised that he had offered me his left hand. That was unusual. He normally held out his right.

But I knew he had been using his right hand to smack my ear for the last hour, testing me over and over.

It caused a warning to light up in my brain: he's about to hit your ear again.

And I fell backward in an arch, practically folding into a backbend to dodge his right hand, which lifted, like I had guessed, to clap my ear.

He missed. His hand swung right over me.

The air shifted and passed with it.

Despite what his grandfather had told him, Jotaro had not put his cigarette away yet. Between his lips, it bobbed, which was the sole sign that let me know what had just happened.

I had surprised Jotaro.

Not that he showed it other than that small twitch of his cigarette. He still held onto me, keeping me firm and steady, so that I would not fall to the ground. I hoisted myself up with his assistance, my mouth agape, my eyes blown wide.

"I did it!"

Jotaro took out his cigarette and put it back into the packet that he kept in his coat.

He said only two words: "Good job."

x

additional a/n:

1. in the ao3 version, i specified in the first chapter that i won't do every episode in detail, it would cause this story to be 100 chapters and most would be needless filler… 💀 i know i said slow burn but i don't intend for it to be that slow! So some episodes will be condensed or skipped if not relevant to the story to avoid filler.

2. i totally plan to do the trope of the love interests forced to share a bed lol i find that trope so great and hope you are all willing to indulge in it too lol

3. i'm excited to get to polnareff, i love him, i think he'll be a fun addition.

and with all that, I am wishing you a happy weekend and a great week coming up!