a/n: hi there! i hope enjoy this update💗💗💗
[seven]
On the plane, Jotaro sat alone, while Avdol sat with Mr. Joestar and I took the seat beside Kakyoin. I was sure Jotaro wanted silence. I was also pleased to have a few spare hours to read the first book in the Cadot series, which had always been a ritual of mine on flights.
If I changed schools and countries, I often travelled alone, and so the only company that I had had was my worn-out copy in which Cadot started out on a journey of his own, delving into a criminal case which resembled one he had taken on many years earlier.
And the bookmark that I was using was the photograph of me and Mrs. Kujo. The folder was in my backpack, and I had left it in the overhead compartments. So I wanted the photograph close to me.
Kakyoin glanced at the cover of my book.
"Excellent choice," he said.
"You've read the series?"
"Twice," he answered.
"Which one is your favourite?"
He hesitated, pursing his lips. "Perhaps the third."
"I love the third one, too. I thought it fleshed out Malin the best."
"I agree. Before that he seemed more of a nuisance to Cadot than a threat. But the third book showed him to be far more than an ordinary villain, unlike other detective novels of the time where villains changed with each story."
"Right! But I have a soft spot for this first book. This one is the first copy I ever got, too. I wrote it on it when I was a kid. Drew some silly little pictures of Cadot on it, or at least what I thought he looked like. My Dad was furious, 'cause it was this limited edition version of the book that cost him a lot. Kinda silly, but this one means a lot to me."
I had spent so much time around Jotaro that I was sure Kakyoin would tire of hearing me talk so much. But he was so polite, and merely waited for me to finish. It might have been because he was passionate about the books too, and had plenty to say himself.
From that point onward, we discussed the books, unaware of what happened around us. When the stewardess passed with a cart, we hardly cared, hurriedly returning to the plot of the seventh novel and becoming embroiled in a heated debate about whether the victim of a crime had been an accomplice of Malin or not. It had been an ambiguous ending, and Kakyoin had at least seven theories as to what could have happened.
Soon, though, Kakyoin yawned, which caused me to yawn, too. It occurred to me that I was worn-out already.
He chuckled, shaking his head.
"We should rest," he said quietly. "Plenty of time to talk about Cadot later."
"Agreed."
Letting the book slide into my lap, I curled against my seat and finally allowed my heavy lids to drop. It was blissful to rest my eyes for a few seconds, drifting into a delicious half-sleep, lulled by the faint rock of the plane and the fuzzy hum of its engines.
At least until a horrid buzzing rose from the hum, higher in pitch, to disturb me.
From the row behind me, Jotaro stood up. His legs nudged my seat and forced me forward with a jolt, thrown from any drowsiness by the alarm on his face as I looked back at him. He pointed across the cabin.
"It's a stag beetle!" he said.
There was a fat insect floating toward us in the aisle; its mandibles dripped with thick wobbling strands of drool, its small legs twitching as it approached. Jotaro was right.
"Could Dio have sent one of his men already?" Mr. Joestar asked.
Instinct caused me to turn to Avdol for guidance, just like the others, who immediately faced him. He stared at this bug, salivating as it dipped and wove around the plane, whipping over the passengers who were now unconsciousness.
Avdol's eyes trailed toward the black spots of the plane where no light could reach.
Almost to himself, he asked, "But where has it gone?"
Kakyoin exclaimed, "Jojo! It's right beside you!"
All of us whirled around. The bug was no longer hard to tell apart from the rest of the plane. It had grown in size. It lumbered, large and heavy, floating in one spot, its mandibles secreting a foul-smelling liquid.
Its eyes were wet and rolling in its head as it hovered closer and closer. Its mouth parted to reveal a set of teeth that chomped and bit, unlike anything I had ever seen.
I was sitting closest to the window, and trapped behind Kakyoin.
What could I do against a creature like that? I felt sweat slip from my cheek as the bug moved forward, its wings cracking, legs shivering. Already anxiety was climbing my calves, numbing my thighs, turning me to stone.
Jotaro braced himself, and I cursed my cowardly heart for being afraid of a stupid little bug.
I couldn't let myself freeze up. Whatever that bug could do to me or the others, I could heal it, I told myself. I could face it. I wasn't going to be a burden. I wasn't dead weight.
I was strong enough.
"Disgusting," Jotaro said. "But I'll take care of it."
Avdol frowned. "Be careful. I've been told there is an insectile Stand that likes to rip out the tongues of its victims."
"So that's what's sticking out from its mouth," I said. "It's almost like a spear."
"Looks like it," Kakyoin replied. "It's hideous."
Jotaro summoned Star Platinum, who lashed out at the bug - and missed.
Never had I even thought it possible for Star Platinum to miss its target; its speed had, until that moment, seemed unmatched.
Yet this bug had dodged.
It bobbed back toward Jotaro with a fresh pool of saliva dripping from the spear-like appendage protruding from its mouth.
"Where can its user be hiding?"
As soon as Kakyoin asked that question, the spear shot out from the insect's mouth.
Star Platinum's hand was sliced clean through. The spear had been aiming for Star's tongue, but it clenched its teeth in time to catch the spear's tip.
Despite that, Star's hand was bleeding profusely, which meant that Jotaro's hand bled as well. His shoulders tightened against the onslaught of pain.
"That's it! Its name is Tower of Gray!" Avdol said suddenly. "It symbolises destruction and calamity, and the interruption of journeys. It's responsible for mass murders, which it makes look like accidents."
While Avdol spoke, Kakyoin moved forward on his seat, angled to grasp everything that happened behind us. It allowed a small gap. I squeezed past, hunkering low to the ground.
Jotaro was inches from me. I reached out to grasp hold of his ankle, missing him by a mere second as he moved forward. His Stand sent a barrage of punches at the insect. It dodged each one.
And then it spoke through its laughter, its tone a crackling pitch.
"Even if you fired ten guns at me from one centimetre away, not a single bullet would touch my Stand!"
Another spear slid wetly from its mouth.
Jotaro recoiled from its range, unknowingly stepping right into mine.
I touched his ankle, and felt the roots of my own Stand rise through his body to soften the pain radiating through his hand where the bug had cut so brutally into his skin.
Jotaro stood very still. As soon as he was healed, I pulled back. His head turned. He nodded at me, his eyes flashing under the rim of his hat.
But the bug zipped from sight. His attention was drawn away.
Mr. Joestar whispered, "Which passenger is it? Who could the user be?"
"It's impossible," Avdol answered. "How could we begin to -..."
"It's over there now!" Kakyoin cried out.
The insect let out that horrid, chiming laugh again, right as it shot forward through the headrests of several seats, ripping out the tongues of different passengers.
Blood showered the aisles. Its mandibles licked at the pools and, with a heavy sway, the bug swung itself toward the front of the plane where it used the blood to paint a single word on the wall: MASSACRE.
Without Kakyoin to block me or Jotaro in front, I could move into the aisle, and grabbed onto the first passenger, whose mouth was a cavernous pit of blood; a dark stub bulged where the tongue had been.
I tried to heal the man in front of me, noting that the stub was almost cauterised by my touch, but the tongue did not reappear or suddenly return to the man's mouth.
I can't heal what's been lost, I thought to myself. But what if I had the tongue?
Standing up, I turned around toward the front of the plane, intending to find the tongues. Akiyama, the boy injured in the nurse's office, still had his eye in the socket. Even if it had been punctured, I had been able to heal it.
I figured, for that reason, that if the body part was still near its original place, I could heal it.
It was a grotesque thought, and perhaps a pointless one, since I could hardly tell whose tongue belonged to whom on the plane. Was it possible that I could put the wrong tongue into the wrong mouth? Would a mouth take a tongue that wasn't its own?
It was nauseating and gross. But I still wanted to try to help.
The bug swung into my path, and I stopped in my tracks.
A sudden yawn startled me from my right-hand side. An older man leaned forward in his seat, letting out a soft groan as he rubbed his forehead. He stood, brushing past me.
He grunted, "What's with all the ruckus? Something happen? Hm. Might as well take a walk to the bathroom."
Kakyoin was quick to slip between the aisles and knock out the old man. Now he stood close to me.
The buzzing filled the cabin, coming from all sides.
"What can we do?" Mr. Joestar asked.
"Damn thing's too fast," Jotaro said.
He was right. Its speed was what made it so powerful, so impossible to hold in place.
Unless there was a way to hold it in place.
"Kakyoin," I whispered.
He leaned close. I cupped my hands against his ear.
"I can keep it in one spot. But I can't kill it."
Kakyoin's eyes drifting toward the bug. I spotted a smile growing on his lips.
"I can," he said. "Here's what I need you to do."
The plan was simple, whispered into my ear as the bug taunted the others.
As I stepped away from Kakyoin, though, he grabbed my wrist.
He asked, "Are you sure about this?"
I nodded. "I can handle it."
Uncertainty burned in his eyes. But there was little time, and he knew it. He nodded.
"Okay," he said. "I'll take the right side and -..."
The spear cut through the padding of the seat to my left, puncturing my cheek and driving right into my tongue.
Pain burst through me, searing hot. Blood pooled in my mouth; it dripped heavily onto my chest, soaking through my dress. It was warm, horribly warm.
Like it wished only to punish me more, the bug turned its spear, laughing, its wings beating against the stale air of the cabin. My tongue moved with the spear, twisting, about to rip from my mouth.
Avdol's shout rang through the plane. "Juno!"
With its spear embedded in me, the bug was still able to speak, its laughter so loud and piercing.
"Did you not think I would overhear you, you little fools? You can't outsmart me! You can't even catch me!"
Kakyoin darted into the aisle, facing the bug.
"Hierophant Green!"
It was the first time I had ever seen his Stand. It flowed like water from between the seats, rising and rising. It was a collage of different shades of green. From its end trailed a paper-like tail, which followed its movements between the rows of seats.
Kakyoin shouted, "Emerald Splash!"
Emeralds burst from Hierophant's hands. The insect darted by each of them in turn, spinning, laughing, and it tugged and tugged at my tongue each time that it did.
All around us shone the intense, bright green light of each emerald, missing the insect by millimetres.
More emeralds flashed. It lit the plane in such a beautiful, eerie light.
The bug shrieked, "You missed! How pathetic! You can't even save your little girlfriend's tongue!"
The cabin was still aglow in the glittering green shade of Hierophant. This light cast itself over the hideous features of the bug as its eyes darted slickly back and forth, its wet mandibles clapping as it tried to retract the spear - tried, and tried, and tried again.
It was realising that the spear was trapped in the muscle of my tongue, and that meant it was trapped, too.
It screamed, "What are you doing? Release me!"
Kakyoin let out a soft laugh.
"If you must know, we were quite certain you would overhear us, and we were equally certain you would attack. In fact, we were counting on it."
The bug tugged and lashed, drooling heavily as it fought to pull out its spear.
Here was the simple reason it was so trapped: each time the bug tried to pull its spear from the hard muscle of my tongue, it caused a new wound, which I healed. The healing forced the new muscle to fuse to the tip of the spear, holding it in place, only for the bug to rear back and tear apart this new muscle. It couldn't pull out the spear because the muscle healed faster.
It was a cycle, one that was incredibly painful for me.
But it was working.
Without even understanding it, the insect was the cause of its own trap.
"You believed that I was attempting to strike you so that you would release Juno," Kakyoin added. "But the truth is that I was hoping Juno wouldn't release you."
Now its wings tired, and it struggled to maintain itself in flight, buzzing so furiously, fighting so wildly against me. I hated the sensation of its spear within my mouth, because it scraped against my teeth and sometimes sliced against the fleshy softness of my other cheek.
And still I held it in place.
Kakyoin smiled. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Well, let us show you then. Juno?"
That was all the signal that I needed to rip out the spear on my own.
At that same moment, the bug had been trying to pull it out, too; the force caused its heavy body to swing back due to its own momentum - driving itself directly into the spiked shard that had been hovering behind its spine the whole time, which Hierophant Green had planted earlier.
The bug impaled itself with a squelch.
As soon as its body hit that shard, several other 'threads' shot out from the cabin, catching it in a makeshift cobweb that Hierophant Green had been weaving this whole time.
The bug was punctured by shards from all sides.
"Seems a fitting end for a disgusting little fly like you to die in a cobweb," Kakyoin said. "Good riddance."
The 'threads' of Hierophant's cobweb separated in a split second, tearing the bug apart.
Wads of fat and guts fell against the ground. Lumps squelched against the walls and splattered the seats. What greenish light remained in the cabin died with that bug. It was over.
Gold sparked in my palm. The flesh of my cheek healed in seconds, but my tongue was much more difficult. Thick muscle might have been the cause. But I was also drained.
Avdol appeared beside me.
"Juno," he said, "how did you know you could hold it in place with your healing?"
With a half-healed tongue, my words were slurred.
"A wasp stung me a couple of weeks ago. First time ever in my whole life that it happened to me. I was pretty afraid, because there's a character in the Cadot series who dies from a wasp sting, and I don't recall being tested for allergies like that when I was a kid -..."
"Juniper!" Jotaro barked. "Quit rambling!"
"Right. Well, I tried pulling out the stinger while healing myself at the same time. I learned if the object is still stuck in the wound, then my Stand will try to heal it anyway, fusing with the object. It meant I had to rip out the stinger and start again. Otherwise, it would have stayed in the wound. Probably forever."
Mr. Joestar made a face of disgust that didn't escape me.
"I see," Avdol said. "Did it pain you to maintain your hold on the Stand? Or did the healing numb it?"
"No. It hurt, all right. I felt like Kakyoin talked more than I ever have."
Jotaro scoffed in disagreement.
"That was quite risky," Avdol said. "The Stand showed an incredible amount of strength, much more than that of an angered wasp."
Shame throbbed more than my tongue. "Avdol, I'm -..."
He held up his hand.
"You acted bravely," he said, before his eyes rose to Kakyoin. "Both of you. Well done."
Tears welled in my eyes. I turned my head, pressing into my shoulder, pretending that it was for the pain.
Yet all that pain was forgotten, because Avdol had been proud; it made my heart lift. I floated, uncaring of how my tongue ached, and my body was battered. I was so dizzy, so horribly dizzy that the cabin whirled and spun around me as if I was lying back on that roundabout in Japan.
But it was a beautiful kind of dizziness because of what Avdol had said. I heard it over and over in my head: well done.
How long had it been since I had heard something like that from a teacher? That was what Avdol was to me, after all, even if we hadn't had any formal lessons yet. And I smiled to myself, half-drunk on relief and happiness that I hadn't screwed up.
It was a good omen, a good start.
"You're dizzy again," Jotaro stated.
"It'll pass," I told him. "It only lasts a few minutes."
"Here."
Jotaro's arms snaked under mine. He lifted me up with ease. It was the closest that I had been to him, I thought, pressed chest to chest.
For all the time I had known him, I had noticed that he was tall and strong and sturdy. It was hard not to see it, so none of that was a shock to me.
Even the colour of his eyes had passed over me like a bird coasting on an errant wind, that day we had argued at the canal. The hue had seemed so unimportant, so useless to know.
Yet now I was forced to look into his eyes, and I noted a ring of blue in all that green; my brain fizzed, crackling at the scent of his musk and the grip of his hands, and now I wished that I had a name for that shade. Nothing seemed bright enough.
Jotaro placed me on a seat. "Keep still," he said. "It makes it easier."
It frightened me that I had looked at him differently. So I blamed the dizziness and beating the Stand for causing me to think in such a silly schoolgirl way about him.
Once the dizziness cleared, I would laugh it off.
Already the adrenaline was dwindling. The cold truth of what Dio had done was seeping into me, like the blood on my dress. He had sent Stands. And how many more might find us before we made it to Egypt?
"Dio knows we're coming," I said.
"My grandfather and I sensed him earlier."
"What does it feel like? When you sense him?"
Jotaro thought about it for a moment.
"Like you're in a crowd somewhere," he said, "and you feel someone's near, watching you. But each time you look for them, each time you come close to finding them, they're gone."
"It must be so horrible. At the house, when I saw him…"
The words were balanced on the edge of my tongue but I couldn't bring myself to say them aloud. I melted against the seat instead, pressing my hand firmly to my cheek and focusing on the healing.
Jotaro was quiet. "For a second there," he said, "I really thought it was my lucky day."
"What do you mean?"
"If that old bastard had taken your tongue, then the rest of this trip would have been nice and quiet," Jotaro said. "To tell the truth, if Kakyoin hadn't diced him up like he did, I would've thanked the guy."
Because it was so absurd that we had fought an insect, and because I was so light-headed, I laughed hard, letting out an embarrassing half-snort.
What passed over Jotaro's lips was faint.
But it was, without doubt, a smile.
I was sure that I had seen him smile like that before, sure that it was etched somewhere in my memory. It hit me. It had been a photograph that his mother had shown me for his sixth birthday.
I wondered if it had taken him all this time to find that smile again.
And I wondered, with another quick glance at him, if he hadn't tried to make me laugh to make me forget about Dio for one tender moment.
"I would have healed myself, jerk," I grumbled.
"Not if you couldn't find the tongue."
So he had seen me trying to help the other passengers.
"Then it's not your lucky day. It's mine. I'm keeping my tongue."
To prove it, I stuck my tongue out at him. He shook his head, sighing.
"Jotaro!" Mr. Joestar shouted from the front of the plane. "We're crashing! Get up here!"
I tried to push off the seat.
"Stay there," Jotaro said shortly. "If we're falling to our deaths, it won't make a difference if you're at the front or back of the plane."
He turned, heading for the front.
That was Jotaro. Blunt and direct.
A little while later, a stewardess appeared. She held out a life jacket to me. Her colleague passed, similarly placing a life jacket in the laps of the passengers now beginning to rise from their sleep and question what had happened.
"The handsome boy in the hat says to make sure you put this on," she told me, bowing politely. "And to fasten your seatbelt securely."
"O-Oh. Thank you."
The plane was sliding sideways.
She chimed, "Thank you for flying with us!"
She held out a small offering of a chocolate bar, wrapped in crinkling silver with the company logo on the front. I stared at her as she moved onto the next row, like the plane was not sliding toward the ocean at rapid speed.
Faintly, I mumbled to myself, "You're welcome."
x
Hours later, we stood on a street in Hong Kong. I ate the chocolate in pieces, offering squares to the others. We were all so famished that the chocolate seemed a feast.
Once Mr. Joestar returned from his phone call across the street, he too was grateful for a piece of chocolate.
"I suppose we ought to look for something a little more substantial," he said. "Let's go to my old favourite!"
Mr. Joestar began to stride off in the opposite direction, seemingly familiar with the streets around us. Although he was easily distracted, turning to flashing neon-lit signs over windows and shouting to Avdol to look at some toy he had spotted. Kakyoin was much more reserved behind them, observing passing cars and strangers instead.
Something bumped against my arm. I turned.
Jotaro held out the first book of the Cadot series - it was my book, that I had been reading on the plane before the Stand had attacked. In the chaos of the fight, and then the evacuation afterward, I had forgotten it.
I let out a loud: "Jotaro!"
A scowl laced his lips. "Take it down a pitch," he huffed. "You're gonna shatter glass."
"Thank you," I said sincerely. "If I had lost this -..."
There was no bookmark between its pages. I looked up at him, heart dipping in the fear that it was gone forever.
Before I could ask, he pulled the Polaroid out from his inner-left pocket. He held it face-down, as if he could not bring himself to look at his mother in that photograph where her cheeks were still full and red, and her smile so bright.
It was all he had of her on this trip.
It was all that he might ever have of her, if we failed.
I reached out to take it from him.
But then I asked, "Could you keep it safe for me?"
His hat lifted. His eyes met mine.
"Please?" I asked softly. "I'm forgetful. I'll lose it."
Without a word, he slid it back into that same pocket.
"Juno, Jotaro! Are you coming?" Mr. Joestar shouted.
I cupped my hands at either side of my mouth. "Yes, sir!"
Hong Kong was full of sound and beautiful colours that fell over Jotaro like a kaleidoscope. A strong blue from the flashing lights of a store behind him cut his cheekbone in its sharpness; a softer pink splashed across his throat, like he was a chameleon, changing before me.
It seemed like it was me who was changing, though.
All his colours had simply become a little brighter to me, so that I noticed him more than anyone else on the street no matter how loud they shouted, and I noticed him more than the drops of rain which fell in pathetic drips and drabs. I noticed him like I had been colour-blind until that moment.
I noticed him.
"I like Hong Kong," I told him. "Once we save your Mom, I'll come back here."
Now it was purple spilling over his shoulder to brighten his jawline. He said, "We haven't even been here an hour."
"I know. But there's just something about it."
And there was. It was a beautiful place. I thought that I would return to it many times, in my mind's eye, and find comfort in it. Comfort, like the comfort I found in the weight of my Cadot book where it sat in my pocket, and comfort in the occasional bump of Jotaro's arm against mine as we waked.
The others were a few yards ahead. We followed slowly, at our own pace. Jotaro's hands were in his pockets. I had a habit of looking through the brightly-lit windows which stood on either side of us, drinking in the trinkets on sale.
Lanterns lit the path ahead. The night was balmy.
"Do you want another piece of chocolate?" I asked him.
Instead of an answer, he held out his hand.
The chocolate was cheap but it smoothed the rumble of our stomachs; mine growled that little bit louder, making me blush. I crinkled the chocolate to cover the sound, but I doubted it did much.
"Old man," Jotaro called. "How much farther is this place anyway?"
"Another block, tops!" Mr. Joestar replied, grinning back at us. "Just another left - ... Hold on, was it right?"
"Do you want some more?" I asked Jotaro, holding out the bar of chocolate. "I prefer milk chocolate myself. Did you ever try those blends? Like, orange and chocolate, or strawberry and chocolate, or mango and chocolate. When we lived in Germany I tried them all. I really liked orange and chocolate. It turned out to be pretty delicious. Maybe we could find it here and -..."
Jotaro tipped his head back, staring at the sky.
Under his breath, he grumbled, "For crying out loud. Please let the next Stand remove vocal chords."
"Asshole! I heard that!"
x