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Chapter Text

The first thing he becomes aware of is pain.

He is floating in an endless ocean, weightless and formless, hovering somewhere between life and death. Even if his lips were capable of forming words, he doesn’t remember that he is Noriaki Kakyoin, let alone how he came to be in such a state. He is a worm on a dissection tray flinching reflexively away from the scalpel. A rabbit with a snapped neck, a broken body still clawing at the earth after its heart has stopped beating. If his fingers twitch, if he trembles or tears fall from his eyes, it is not because of any conscious effort on his part. He is merely reacting to stimuli.

The pain does not ebb and flow. It is not sharp or dull, neither burning hot nor cold and creeping. To quantify it according to a number on a scale would have been as meaningless as counting every grain of sand on a beach. There is no time before pain or the possibility of existence after pain. It simply is.

A brief sensation of…something? flickers into existence just outside the edge of his awareness. Coolness. The faintest hint of pressure. A presence hovers above him, or whatever remains of him. Soft reverberations press teasingly against his eardrums but seem to get lost on the way to his cerebral cortex. Viscous liquid flows sluggishly through the large veins of his arm, creeping towards his heart. In that instant, he has a body again. He can feel the throb of his heart, too bright light filtering through his closed lids. His lips are dry and cracked. Stray hairs tickle his cheek, fluttering in the dry, tasteless air.

Then pain ever so slowly gives way to a cloying numbness, and the fragments of reality he’s been painstakingly piecing together begin to crumble, dissolving beneath a rising tide of oblivion. The only feeling left is a bone-deep primal fear that he somehow knows he's felt only once before, months and months ago, trapped in a filthy alley and staring certain death in the face. Acting on pure instinct, he fumbles blindly, reaching out, though for who or what he doesn’t know. All he can manage is a feeble jerk of his hand. He thinks he might be crying. Then his thin fingers are enclosed in warmth, followed by a gentle squeeze.

He sleeps.

***

An indefinite amount of time passes, and Kakyoin's head immerges from a well deeper and darker than anything he could have ever imagined. Oxygen seeps in from somewhere outside the lightless abyss, bringing with it sound: noises above him, to his left and right, running beneath him and pulsing through him, beeping, whooshing, rustling. They dart in and out of existence like the little fish in mangrove forests of West Bengal, flashes of color nipping playfully at his toes before hiding beneath the tangled roots. Hazy images form behind his still closed lids, and he starts to connect the ambient noise to doors clicking and plastic crinkling, shoes squeaking on linoleum, things dropping into a trash can. Reverberations become hushed voices and clipped orders. Though he still can't parse out individual words, there's an undeniable note of unease that prickles at his spine. They're worried. And so is he.

Then he realizes he can't breathe.

His jaws are painfully stretched open, his teeth cutting into something hard. His throat spasms as cold, too sterile air buffets his exposed tongue and gums and he instinctively tries to swallow. The muscles clamp down on something scraping against the tender pink insides of his airway that his body absolutely insists does not belong there.

He can't speak. He can't make a single sound. And worst of all he can't breathe.

A dozen different alarms blare, and there's a frenzy of activity all around him. His world somersaults as he feels himself being maneuvered into an upright position, blood pressure struggling after spending god knows how long laying flat. Shadows fall across his face, and he can feel rather than see figures looming over him. Unseen fingers tug and pinch, fiddling with what feels like a hard plastic shell fixed firmly around his neck. He braces himself for whatever is lodged in his windpipe to be torn free.

What feels like hundreds of hands are touching him all over, manipulating his feeble, nerveless limbs as if he were a doll. Tension travels through the frantic touches like a live wire. Shouts echo in the enclosed space, bringing with them more strangers pressed shoulder to shoulder, more hisses and thrills of machinery, more nauseating jolts as he's hauled across sweat-drenched sheets, wasted muscles and tendons screaming in protest.

It's too much. He wants to scream, he wants to curl up in a ball and cry, he wants to fall to his knees and empty his stomach, but he can't. He can't do anything. He can't even take a single breath. Why don't they take the awful thing in his throat out? Why aren't they helping him?

Then he feels a hand in his own, somehow warm beneath layers of nitrile. A thumb brushing soothingly across the bandaged skin. The hand is smaller than his own, the fingers slender. A woman's. She's smoothing his hair from his face, whispering gentle words pitched low enough that only they can hear. All he can decipher is a lilting cadence, his tired mind unable to translate the soft sounds into his native Japanese. There's something inherently comforting about the lightly accented English. It almost reminds him of Avdol...

Then he remembers.

***

Avdol, Joseph, Iggy, Polnareff. Jotaro. Where are they? Are they in danger? Are they even alive?

He's cold. He's so cold, colder than he's ever been in his short life. His heart quivers in his chest; there's almost no blood left to pump. Water is rushing past him, a fountain of lurid carmine red that swirls like spilled ink before fading into a pinkish-red tinge.

It happens, quite literally, in the blink of an eye. A split second ago, Noriaki Kakyoin was standing on a spire, the entire cityscape fanning out below him. His shoulders were squared, his jaw set defiantly. Raw elemental power crackled through Hierophant's tendrils, stretched across the rooftops of Cairo like a massive spider's web. In the center of it was Dio, gazing up at him for the first time. He looked the vampire directly in the eye, and he blinked. Or more specifically, reality itself blinked. All he remembers afterward is a tremendous rush of air and an agonizing hollow sensation where his stomach once was. Then there was an ear-splitting squeal of twisted mental and then nothing at all.

Amazingly, his eyes snap open as his system seems to reboot. He catches a faint glimmer of emerald green light, pulsing, flickering, fading. All he can do is watch as the web flutters to the streets below in tatters. They float like motes of dust above the dazzling lights of the city, growing dull as they lose their magic and crumble away. For one moment before reality sinks in, it's almost beautiful, like cherry blossoms in the early spring breeze.

His soul has been torn to shreds.

For some reason, his first coherent thought is that he expected it to hurt more. It's as if his body isn't capable of processing what happened to it, the nerves overloading before they can spread the alarm. All he can feel is blood draining from his face, the weight of his eyelids drifting shut. Blood is everywhere: in his hair, his teeth, splattering on his shoes and matting in his eyelashes. It trickles down his arm and lands with a tiny echoing splash like a 100 yen coin dropping in a wishing well. His breath catches in his throat as he unconsciously listens for the next drip, and with it comes a bright bloom of searing, clawing agony as his brain shudders to life.

If there's one thing Kakyoin knows about himself, is that he's damned smart. It's the only thing he's ever liked about himself. It made him special, Dio had said, stroking his cheek with a taloned hand. Mr. Joestar once told him he was going to discover the cure for cancer or build the bomb that starts World War III. Dio turns his back to him without a second glance. Somewhere out in the distance, the old man cries out in pain. The pieces of the puzzle finally lock into place, and Kakyoin's bloody lips curl into a smile.

He can't move. He can't talk. He can't feel the lower half of his body. He can't even turn his head. Blood is starting to congeal in his throat, running sluggishly down his chin.The only thing left is his mind.

He summons up every last fiber of strength of his soul, focusing it to an impossibly keen edge. Energy surges through the battered remains of his body, a burst of color and emotion and something beyond human perception. It floods his bloodstream, forcing the nearly empty chambers of his heart to beat for a few more precious seconds. It's all he needs.

Blood sprays out of his mouth. The minefield that was once his ribcage convulses, and the shot misses its mark. His vision goes white, and when he forces his eyes open, the edges of the world are dissolving. He tries again. The clock tower shudders with the impact of his final emerald splash, but he's never going to find out if the others can understand his last message.

It's quiet now.

The water flowing around him and through him is slower now, almost gentle. His head falls forward, and he sees a dark pool beneath his feet, glistening in the moonlight. The water is clear now; he has no more blood left to spill. Despite the blackness at the edge of his vision, he thinks he catches a glimpse of evening stars in the gently rippling surface. For one mad moment right before the end, he sees his entire life reflected in water.

Somewhere in the ripples, he sees himself sitting alone on the school roof, picking joylessly at his bento. Laughter and chatter echo from the floor below. It's the old Kakyoin, the one who wordlessly slips past his mother every day after school to entomb himself in his room, blasting trashy pop music to fill the silence. He's a ghost, a pale shadow of a boy flitting from his family's apartment to school and back. A life entirely confined to his sketchpad and thick books.

The memories from the last two months are much stronger. He remembers when Polnareff broke down on the dusty roads of Calcutta when they got to the place where Avdol "died". Kakyoin let him get tears and snot all over his uniform as he clung to him like a child, squeezing his midsection until he squeaked in pain. He remembers helping Joseph push their jeep up a hill, but then the old man started clutching his chest and Kakyoin had to fetch his heart medicine.They sat together in the shade of the jeep, Joseph filling Kakyoin's ears with nonsense about Aztec gods and poisoned rings. Avdol flashes through his mind, brewing chai just the way Kakyoin likes it and reading passages from Freedom at Midnight when he couldn't fall asleep. Even Iggy managed to worm his way into his good side eventually, helping him steal tourists' wallets and riding on his shoulder.

And Jotaro...

Kakyoin closes his eyes, and he sees himself pressing fresh cut ginger onto Jotaro's face. He winces no matter how hard Kakyoin tries to be gentle, and Kakyoin wants to drag Steely Dan out of the rubble and kick his ass all over Karachi again. Jotaro swims in his mind, hiding a snicker when Kakyoin volleys a particularly good insult at Polnareff, gulping down ice water and sweating bullets after trying some of Kakyoin's piro aloo, surreptitiously peeking over his shoulder as he draws, shaking him awake when he's trapped in a nightmare. For all the bizarre and wondrous things he's seen and done, it's the ordinary moments that linger as his mind shuts down, so crisp and clear he can taste it. For Kakyoin, it's a whole lifetime's worth of first times crammed into fifty days.

He doesn't want to die. No one wants to die at sixteen years old, but Kakyoin desperately, hopelessly, maddeningly clings to life, wanting it more than he's ever wanted anything. There are important people waiting for him for the first time in his life. But numbness is creeping up his limbs, centimeter by centimeter, the boundary between warm, living flesh and dead tissue spreading, working toward his heart.

He doesn't want to die. He's fighting it, fighting it with his will and his stubborn pride and the last scattered drops of his fading consciousness long after his body has given up, snapping and snarling at the soft quiet voice in the back of his mind telling him to sleep. He doesn't want to die, but more than anything, if this truly is the end, he doesn't want to face it alone.

He can't taste blood in his mouth anymore. The darkness eats up his eyes. As his senses fail one by one, he strains his ears, desperately listening for some sign of life on the battlefield.

All he can hear is water.

***

Someone is holding his hand, but their fingers are starting to slip from his grasp. He panics, his fingers clutching instinctively around empty space. He doesn't know whether he's crumpled up against the water tower, whimpering in his sleep in a hotel bed next to Jotaro, stumbling down the long mountainous road to Meido. The hand returns, this time stroking his hair. There are no more words, only soft shushing noises. A memory stirs in Kakyoin's heart, and he wants to lean into that touch. Jotaro used to run his fingers through his hair. Jotaro always loved his red hair, making excuses to touch it. His face swims in Kakyoin's vision, his fingers winding around Kakyoin's long trailing curls as they lay in bed together. Kakyoin presses into his warmth, gazing up at him just in time to catch a rare smile. He's beautiful in that moment: truly, hauntingly, achingly beautiful. The sight of Jotaro Kujo with his eyes half-closed, lips parted, so open and soft and unguarded is reserved for Kakyoin and Kakyoin alone.

But Jotaro isn't here. Kakyoin doesn't even know if he's alive, if anyone's alive, if he's that last survivor or if there were no survivors at all. Is Dio still out there somewhere? What about Miss Holly?

All the regret and fear and desperation comes bubbling up from beneath a miasma of medicated drowsiness. Moisture beads beneath his closed lids, spilling down his cheeks. He screws up his face, willing himself to stop because he has things to do and people need him and he can't lay around in bed feeling sorry for himself, but tears seep out despite his best efforts. The owner of the hands dabs at his face with something soft as coldness creeps up his arm once more. Fog rolls in, settling into the folds and crevices of his brain. It's becoming harder and harder to organize his thoughts. He's sinking into a bottomless black swamp. The hand in his hair, the soft shushing noises, and even his own body are trying to soothe him to sleep. But he's afraid, more afraid than he's ever been in his life because he's more dead than alive and he doesn't know if he's going to wake up.

***

A hiss of air and a faint, electric hum jars him back into consciousness. Something is wriggling around in his mouth, grazing his painfully dry tongue and scraping against his teeth. He gags, and there's this horrible clogging sound that makes bile rise in his throat. A new, unfamiliar voice says something sharp, and bony fingers dig into his chin, holding him still. His eyes roll in his panic, and as his eyelids flutter, he catches flashes of white. His mouth is invaded once more, and he revolts, squirming and trying to bite. Light pricks his eyes, and he wills them to open despite the pain.

Everything looks...wrong. The hard edges of the world are all running together like melting wax. Every subtle moment becomes a blur of motion, completely out of sync with his internal clock. His spatial awareness goes haywire, overwhelmed after so many hours of processing with limited sensory input. Instinctively, he seeks out a single bloom of color in a field of white, a wobbling orb floating to his right. The color trails down toward where he thinks his arm is, outside of his extremely limited field of vision.

Red.

Red like blood.

Blood, they're administering blood, they're...

He's in a hospital.

Everything clicks into place. His vision is still blurry, but he starts to particularize individual shapes. An oval of warm, earthy brown hovers over him, peering into his eyes. He knows her, knows her calm voice, her gentle hands, the pace of her steps, the scent of floral laundry detergent and coffee. She's saying something. He forces the gears of his brain to turn. He hasn't referred to his Japanese to English dictionary since he was seven years old, and he doesn't need it now.

“...Looks like you're finally awake.”

He feels the ridiculous urge to nod, but his head is rigidly locked in place. He tries to fall back on his words as he has so many times before when he's in an awkward situation, but there's something steel-hard, cold, and horribly alien jammed painfully deep inside his throat. He starts to thrash in panic, convinced that he's suffocating, but then a pair of familiar hands take him firmly by his shoulders. He looks up into a pair of brown eyes through a veil of unshed tears.

“I need you to calm down.” All he can see are her eyes, dark and dewy and a calm authority. He listens. “Don't fight it. Just relax, and let the machine breathe for you.”

He can feel it now. His diaphragm contracts on its own, his lungs deflating and reinflating like balloons. He can see his chest rhythmically rise and fall as a blanket is tucked around his shoulders.

She turns away from him. “He's got a chill. We need to get him warmed up.” How can she tell?

“Well, he's certainly not in the mood for mouth care,” the sharp-voiced woman grouses.

“Then be a little gentler next time?” He doesn't even need to look at the other woman to know she's rolling her eyes. “That's Rhonda. Don't mind her. Her bark is worse than her bite.”

As she leans forward to adjust something just outside of his field of vision, he observes her profile. She's covered from head to toe in loose-fitting white plastic that makes her look like she's cleaning up radioactive waste, not helped by the full face shield, mask, and netting over her hair. The woman in white is in constant motion, flicking switches and adjusting gauges with the ease of long practice, emptying drains full of noxious-looking fluid, jotting down numbers. It's only then that he realizes that every square inch of the room, his room, is occupied by stacks of medical equipment, an array of blinking lights and flickering displays that make his head swim. Other staff members filter in and out, too far away for him to make out anything but blurry outlines. After several uncomfortable minutes of silence, something pleasantly warm floods his veins, making him realize just how cold he was. He was just too weak to shiver.

This nameless figure reappears at his bedside, having traced countless hoses and plastic tubing and multi-colored wires back to him. It occurs to him in that moment that the machines aren't just keeping him alive, they're part of him, and he's part of them, just another piece of equipment to be inspected, labeled, cataloged. His life has been reduced to numbers. The woman shines a light into his eyes, peering down his throat, and he grimaces as she gingerly adjusts that awful tube, sliding it to the right side of his mouth. More gloved touches follow, and he squeezes his eyes shut because that's the only thing he can do. Worst of all, everything she does hurts, because there's not a single part of him that isn't broken. Every touch makes his atrophied muscles strain helplessly against whatever casts and braces are holding him together. He feels soft and half-formed, like freshly poured resin curing in a mold. An irritating beep startles him out of his humiliating thoughts, followed by a now-familiar rush of medicated fluid inching towards his heart. The pain washes away.

No matter how gentle her touched are, he's utterly at her mercy, and he hates it, hates it with every fiber of his being. He's so tired. He's tired of hurting, tired of being poked and prodded, of loud noises, of no one telling him anything, of being locked into this broken wreck of a body. He has less control over his own muscles than when Dio's flesh was squirming in his brain.

“Noriaki?”

He's managed to thrash around so much a clump of sweat-matted hair falls into his eyes, and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. Then comes a butterfly light brush of fingertips, and the offending lock is gone, tucked neatly behind his ear. He blinks, and he's staring into her brown eyes again. She's sitting next to him from a small stool instead of looming over him, comfortably close but keeping her hands off him as if she's awaiting his permission.

“I understand this has been very hard for you. You've been in an extremely serious accident, and you've got a long, long road to recovery. We almost lost you several times, but you've made so much progress in just a few days.” He forces himself to stay awake, even though his mind is burning with exhaustion. “Please believe me when I say it isn't going to be like this forever. You're strong. I know you're not ready to give up.”

He wants so desperately to believe her. He doesn't know if he's ever truly had faith in anything. Then a memory stirs in his brain

Late November. Leaves turning, the promise of snow on the wind. The smell of tobacco and drying blood. Waking up on the Kujo family's tatami mats, staring into the eyes of the boy he'd been sent to kill.

Don't move, Kakyoin.

He didn't.

Jotaro didn't flinch as Dio's tentacles snaked up his arm. The vine pulsates in his neck, tunneling into the small veins of his face. If he flinched, Kakyoin would die, and Jotaro wasn't letting that happen on his watch. He was terrified, nearly in tears. Huge hands cupped his cheeks, calloused and rough as oak bark. Star Platinum gave one last almighty yank, and the thing that had held him prisoner in his own body for months crumbled into dust. He was free. He remembers Jotaro's eyes then, blazing with conviction. He remembers that brilliant turquoise color and thinks of sea glass washing up on the beach, the surface weathered from decades of exposure to oceanic currents yet still glinting brightly in the sun. He wants to see them again.

"You've been through a lot today, and now, it's time to rest." He doesn't have time to rest. He can't let his friends wait for him any longer. But...he's so tired. He can't fight anymore. He's sinking beneath the waves again, but the water is clear and sun-dappled, full of green growing things instead of brackish and reeking of decay, the silt warm and soft beneath his fingers. He closes his eyes, knowing he's going to open them again.

“My name is Nahla, by the way. I'm going to be your nurse today.”

Chapter Text

The next time Kakyoin opens his eyes, very little about his hospital room has changed. To his left is a plexiglas wall dominated by a sliding door that he thinks leads to the nurse’s station. Everything else is an endless field of stark white and stainless steel with the occasional flickering monitor screen to interrupt the mind-numbing sterility. Pixelated numbers and waveforms wink back at him like a thousand glittering insect eyes, a mass of flies and yellowjackets drawn to the stench of blood and sickness. The only ones he can even vaguely make sense of are his vital signs and his ECG rhythm. It's slow. He silently wills his heart to beat faster with predictable results.

It's yet another tally on the endless list of frustrations. His brain is the only part of him that's even vaguely functional, and he might as well be a premature infant whimpering in a NICU incubator for how much he knows about what's happening to him. He's used to being the smartest guy in the room, having all the answers. Even after Dio shoved a fucking mind-controlling parasite into his brain, some part of him never stopped fighting back. He thinks back to how he used to huddle up on his pallet every night, pretending to sleep while he sent Hierophant slithering through sewer grates and cracks in the plaster. He'd smiled to himself, silently gathering secrets to his chest like rare jewels. It was his only form of rebellion.

Now his mind is racing, desperate to fill in all the blank corners of his mental map. Something bubbles beneath his skin in response, and he reaches out with his mind almost unconsciously, calling out to Hierophant as he had every day for as long as he can remember.

Hierophant doesn't answer.

Imagine casually reaching out, expecting your fingers to close around a book or perhaps a cup of hot tea, only to see a bloody stump where your arm used to be. Kakyoin reels back in shock as much as the mattress allows, but the sudden burst of adrenaline quickly overwhelms his weakened body. Sweat pours down his face as spots dance before his vision. Still, he calls and calls, the frantic pitch of his cries echoing in his mind. Reality hits him like a hammer to the chest, and he realizes that he is alone, truly alone for the first time in his life. He catches the faintest movement at the edge of his vision, and he twists his neck painfully, only to see a trembling, bone-white limb, half-buried in IV tubing and red splattered gauze, grasping at empty air. He stares at his own arm in fascination, as if he can't believe that it's actually connected to him.

It's only just starting to register that he can't hear the constant clicking and purring of machines anymore when the monitors erupt in a crescendo of alarms. Men and women in white surge into the room, and he wants to beg them not to touch him. He thrashes against the gloved hands and they pin him down. He's never been completely helpless against ordinary humans before, and the thought terrifies him. A tall, thin, bald-headed man in a lab coat barks orders, and like clockwork, a nurse advances on him with a syringe. His heart begins to slow. Something soft presses against his wrist, and he can't move it anymore.

“How many times are we going to keep pumping him full of Haldol? And right after surgery, too.” What kind of surgery? When did it happen?

“As long as he keeps flailing around and fighting the ventilator. Do you want him to pull out his stitches thrashing around like that?” He thinks it might be the bald man speaking. Kakyoin decides he doesn't like him. More gloved touches follow, and the figures hovering over him jabber back and forth in medical jargon. The only time anyone makes eye contact is to beam an irritatingly bright light into his pupils.

“What'd you reckon got him all stirred up? Can't be pain, he's on enough opioids to tranquilize a horse.”

“Nightmare, maybe?”

Soft fingertips cup his jaw, and he finds himself staring into a familiar pair of warm brown eyes. The briefest ghost of a smile forms on his lips as he recognizes Nahla, and the corners of her eyes crinkle in return. She is the only constant in a reality that seems to flake apart and reform every time he wakes up. Yet he can't stop himself from wondering if she, too, will disappear in between blinks. Just like Jotaro, the rest of the Joestar group, his parents. Even Hierophant.

“Can you do that again?”

He almost misses his cue when he realizes that she's speaking to him. He smiles as best he can around the thin plastic tube jutting out of his mouth, then turns his head from side to side as she instructs, blinks, swallows, sticks out his tongue. He has a vague notion of what is being assessed, and he needs to show them that he's awake and aware, not some specimen floating in a jar of formaldehyde. She starts tapping away at a nearby computer console with this wondrous infectious enthusiasm but doesn't say anything to the doctor as he'd hoped.

Staff members gradually filter out of the room again, leaving him and Nahla alone. To his disappointment, she seems to have run out of little challenges for him and he's back to square one, staring dully at the light fixtures as she runs a stethoscope over his chest and checks his pulses. Desperate to keep his mind occupied, he fumbles in the dark for Hierophant.

Nothing.

He blinks back tears in helpless fury, glaring at Nahla when she dabs at his eyes with a tissue even if his heart clenches a little when she turns away. Even if he could speak, he knows she can never understand. Half of him is missing, and he doesn't know why.

***

Kakyoin forces himself to stay awake longer and longer. His eyes burn. Exhaustion lickes ceaselessly at him, consciousness turned to dry tinder twisting and blackening in the flames. He refuses to lay there in a drugged stupor. Hierophant isn't there to protect him anymore.

“Hopefully, you're in a better mood today.” He turns as much he is able to see Rhonda, the nurse's aide with the sharp voice. They stare at each other, both wanting to get this over as soon as possible.

Rhonda raises the head of his bed to brush his teeth, allowing him to look down at his own body for the first time, a formless lump of blankets except for two hills in the sheets he recognizes as his knobby knees and his long bony feet.

He tells himself that he has no business being surprised that he can't feel anything. He tells himself that he's lucky that they managed to save his life even if they couldn't save his spine. Still, he stares at his toes as Rhonda shuffles his blankets around and screams and screams and screams in his mind, willing them to curl just a little, to fill that awful hole in his perception with the tiniest flicker of feeling, wills with every fiber of mental energy he can muster. They disappear beneath dull green fabric that he can't feel. He sinks back into his pillows, half wishing Dio had killed him.

His scalp tugs unpleasantly, and he realizes she's attacking his hair with what feels like a wet comb. Exhausted, he feels his eyelids flutter in spite of the pain, and he sinks into the pillows, half dreaming.

Then he feels Dio's thick fingers tangling in his hair.

He's always had a special talent for pissing Dio off. No matter how many books he's read on anthropology and philosophy, he's never been good at reading others, and now his life depends on it. Black-painted talons graze his skin, twisting in his thick hair at his crown where it hurts the most, forcing their eyes to meet. Kakyoin's eyes bulge with terror; Dio's narrow into amber slits, promising punishment and pain.

There's no possible way Dio could still be alive, not with Kakyoin recuperating in what is most likely a very expensive bed in the intensive care unit. But Dio's fingers are still there, cold and hard as marble. The white walls of the hospital room disappear, and his nostrils are filled with the sickly sweet stench of blood and incense. Cold breath washes over Kakyoin's neck, right above his carotid artery.

Rhonda is saying something, but he can't hear her. He can't move, he can't speak, he can't even breathe, his heart just beats faster and faster, fluttering like a sparrow in the coils of a pit viper. He scrabbles madly for Hierophant in his mind's eye, digging at whatever barrier is separating them until his nails are cracked and bloody. To his shock, his arm lifts off the bed in the waking world, trying to snatch at Rhonda's wrist. Not his good arm. His bad arm. It's locked in a steel cage, bolts and screws sinking straight into his flesh down to the bone, and he's jarred their moorings so thoroughly blood oozes onto the crisp white sheets. A wave of white-hot, splintering agony travels up his wrist, scorching everything in its wake, but worse of all is the scream building up in his throat, blocked by plastic tubing. His chest heaves, struggling to contain its insane energy, his abdominal muscles clenching around a gaping wound where his guts used to be.

Alarms blare, and yet another phalanx of hospital personnel invades the tiny space. Through a haze of pain, he watches silently as their faces flash past his bed, eyes downcast and tired. Nahla isn't among them. A surgeon is called, probably dragging whoever is on duty out of bed. He can't tell if it's night or day. There's more bloodwork, more ECGs, more drugs, hands digging into the half of his body he can still feel, wheels squeaking as he's carted deep into the bowels of the hospital on a gurney. He squeezes his eyes shut and he's not sure if he wants to open them again.

***

Kakyoin isn't aware of how much time has passed. All he is aware of is pain. The pain never stops. It saps his strength until he slips into unconsciousness, and he wakes up with his nerves screaming at him. There's no one holding his hand, no more whispering gentle reassurances in his ear. He wonders if they're getting frustrated with him.

Something inside of him cracks right down the middle, and it's the last part of himself that has remained whole. It doesn't matter how much he wants to live, the human body isn't built to sustain this kind of catastrophic damage and survive. The only way he's going to leave this cramped, windowless room is in a body bag.

“Fuck, I could use a cigarette.” Kakyoin startles. He doesn't have the strength to crane his neck in Rhonda's direction, but something about her dry, scratchy voice grates on his nerves in a way that makes him want to stay awake.

“What the hell do you think you're doing, scaring folks like that?” He blinks at her, unsure of how to respond. Her eyes are a watery pastel blue, contrasting oddly with her thickly penciled black eyeliner and the hawkishness of her gaze. He can't see the rest of her face, but he can imagine thin lips curling into a scowl, maybe painted with some garish lipstick that makes her over-processed blonde hair look even more like taffeta fraying at the edges. She's old enough to be his grandmother.

“Dr. Ismat says if you drag her out of bed at 3 am one more time, she's going to wring your neck. Well, she didn't exactly put it like that, but you get the picture.” It's strange, being part of even a one-sided conversation after hours of being whispered about and silently tended to as if he were a particularly expensive fern.

“Nahla's been asking about you. Seems like you're the apple of her eye.” He squirms just a tiny bit as if he thinks he can push himself up on his elbows, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his chest. “You settle down now. We've had enough drama for one night, don't you think?”

He feels the most ridiculous urge to sigh in relief. Some childish part of himself wondered if he had done something to drive Nahla away.

“So! It's high time we got you looking presentable. I can't stand looking at that messy hair anymore, and I'm sure you're sick of it, too.”

Soap, lotion, nail clippers, a comb, washcloths, towels, a basin full of hot steamy water, even shaving cream and a razor are each laddled out assembly line fashion on his bedside. She moves at the relentless pace of a wound up toy soldier, filling the sterile room with chatter as she works. At last, she turns to him, and he stares hard at the ceiling tiles. It's the closest he can come to granting his permission in this state.

“Think of it like a spa day.”

Rhonda's idea of a spa day makes him feel like a very grimy saucepan being held under a faucet and scrubbed. She's a blur of motion: changing out rinse water, lathering soap, working from clean to dirty in surprisingly delicate patting motions. It quickly turns into a two, then a three-person job as other aid joins the first, and they gingerly log-roll his slight frame onto its side; a nurse he's never seen before pumps him full of pain killers and something that keeps the dizziness and nausea at bay, not taking any chances.

Kakyoin learns not to think. It's completely unnatural, so perfectly antithetical to the image he's built up of himself, but it is the only survival strategy capable of keeping him sane. He turns his head away from foul odors and suspicious stains on the used washcloths, trying to pretend it's someone else's body, someone else's bad dream. The warm water and the scent of clean terrycloth relax his aching muscles, and by the time they bundle him back up in freshly laundered bedding and a new gown, he falls into a troubled sleep.

***

“OK, now, take a couple of slow, deep, steady breaths.”

Nahla is standing beside the respiratory therapist, peeling saline-soaked gauze off of the pins holding the shattered remains of his arm in place before dabbing at them with cotton swabs. His gaze keeps drifting toward her as he struggles to follow the man's instructions. Her presence is calming, somehow, especially now that his ribcage feels as if it's about to shatter like a champagne glass in a tumble dryer. He takes another greedy gulp of air and holds it until his chest is a band of fire.

It's bitter work. Before his “accident”, he was never forced to push himself past his limits, physically or mentally. The Noriaki Kakyoin before mid January was all brains, talent, and aplomb, following his passions and perfecting his art as he pleased. Now he's summoning up every scrap of willpower in his broken body just to take a single breath on his own.

He has no doubt that he's been examined from head to toe over the last several hours by every specialist for every organ in his body and more besides. There's a pulmonologist, a neurologist, a thoracic surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, a vascular surgeon, an infectious disease specialist, a wound care nurse, and even a nephrologist, even though he's pretty sure his kidneys are missing. He learns from Nahla that the horrible metal cage on his left arm that he's expressly forbidden to aggravate is called an 'external fixator' and not much else. And no, the pins can't come out yet.

“I know you've been working very hard, Noriaki,” the respiratory therapist says brightly, trying to catch his eye. His name tag reads 'Jerry', and Kakyoin thinks he looks like a bearded egg wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and an ugly tie. No one but his mother has called him Noriaki since elementary school, and now no one calls him anything else. He's not even sure if Kakyoin exists anymore. Kakyoin wouldn't tolerate that overly cheerful, coddling voice everyone uses on him. Everyone except Nahla and Rhonda.

“Looks like you're just about ready for that tube to come out.”

He studies the man's face intently, almost afraid to hope. Nahla squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. Over the past few days, the two of them have cobbled together a sort of simple sign language: one squeeze of the hand for yes, two for no, and so on. Shift after shift, she remembers all his little signals for when he wants to be repositioned, or the lights to be dimmed, or just to drown out the ever-present hum of the machinery around him with the tiny television in the corner. He erupts into a now familiar coughing fit after the respiratory therapist finishes suctioning his airway, and she pats his back, rubbing little circles between his shoulderblades as he rests his sweaty brow on her shoulder. As his breathing evens out, he taps the first two fingers of his good hand on his bedside table.

“What's he doing?” Jerry mouths to Nahla, as if he thinks Kakyoin is deaf instead of mute.

“It means, 'thank you',” Nahla says simply.

***

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Nor...noriaki...K-Kakyoin”

The plastic catheter that has been lodged in his throat day after day is lying on a water-proof underpad draped over his chest, and he wants to grind it to dust beneath his heel. He's panting into a mask that makes him feel like he's running fast-first into an 80 kph windstorm and his throat is on fire, but he can breathe and speak and press his chapped lips together and god, it feels so good. There's the usual flurry of activity, what feels like a thousand hands on him at once as medical tape is peeled off his jawline and someone presses a cold stethoscope to his neck, but he shuts it out. He's basking in triumph right now.

There are so many questions he wants to ask. When can he have something to drink? Is he ready to be discharged soon? Where are his friends? To his consternation, everyone but Nahla and Rhonda quietly files out of the room, the doctor scribbling something on her clipboard with a worryingly solemn expression on her face. The two women tuck warm blankets under his chin and switch off overhead lights in what he recognizes by now as his bedtime routine. He's not getting any answers tonight. The world washes away, drop by drop, and he doesn't fight it, knowing he'll need his strength for tomorrow.

...never seen injuries like this before...

...coded on the operating table...

...only sixteen years old...

...have to consider palliative care...

Kakyoin's eyes snap open. His room is bathed in the flickering blue-green light of a half dozen monitors, but as he peers into the shadowy recesses, it quickly becomes obvious that he is alone. The hallways beyond the plastic partition are still and quiet. He strains his ears, but all he can hear is the bubbling of his oxygen tank.

It's not the first time he's heard voices. Years ago, he developed a theory that Hierophant was able to transmit vibrations through their threads like a flexible aluminum wire. But if this was the work of his stand, why now? None of it makes sense, and he just misses Hierophant more. He remembers the feel and smell of his old friend, like warm silk, pulsing with the beat of his heart.

The ticking of the clock draws his eyes toward the whiteboard where Nahla has written today's date in big cartoony letters so he can see it from his bedside. It's January 23rd. Jotaro's eighteenth birthday is only two weeks away. He's most likely back in Japan right now, just starting his third semester. Even though he and Jotaro are in different grades, there was a time when he imagined the two of them walking to school together. Polnareff probably managed to sweet-talk Avdol into traveling the French countryside with him. Mr. Joestar no doubt booked the first flight back to New York. He tells himself that they have their own lives to return to, that's why they haven't visited him, but there's a yawning emptiness in his heart that seems to grow more and more with each minute.

His thumb is pressing down on the call light before he even realizes what he's doing. He's never felt the need to use it before. He doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't use the toilet, and up until this evening, he was surrounded by machinery that breathed for him, warmed him, turned him, filtered his blood. The door slides open with a soft click, and a familiar face peers down at him with quiet concern.

“Nahla...?”

“What can I do for you, Noriaki?” She looks as tired as he feels. It wasn't her voice that woke him up earlier, he decides, but she's no doubt aware of the gravity of the situation.

“Is it...is it raining...outside?” She blinks, nonplussed. He doesn't know what made him say that. They're in Egypt, of course it's not raining.

“It's quite nice out, actually. You can even see some stars out on the balcony.”

"I wish...I could see them.”

She looks like she might be worrying her lip through her mask, trying to think of something reassuring to say. “Nevermind,” he whispers, not wanting to make things awkward.

“Can I sit up?” She obliges. He nods, and she takes a seat next to him. There's nothing in the room that needs to be assessed or measured or scrubbed clean, so she settles for smoothing some of his hair out of his face like she used to.

“My prognosis...it isn't...good, is it?” He takes care to enunciate every word. He doesn't need to be consoled and reassured. He needs answers.

“No, it isn't,” she says after a too long pause, her voice soft, but measured and professional. “You've met the parameters to remove the ventilator, but the damage to your abdomen is catastrophic. Your kidneys, your liver, your stomach, even sections of the intestines, they're either to too badly injured to work anymore or just...gone.”

Nahla's words seem to dry up like a old riverbed, stones and sand where water once flowed. Kakyoin's throat burns. He's so thirsty.

“We began dialysis almost immediately. Blood transfusions, antibiotics, respiratory therapy...we're doing everything we can. Everything.” She squeezes his hand so tightly it almost hurts, and when their eyes meet, he thinks he catches a sparkle of tears. “You're getting fluids and even a little nutrition through that IV in your right shoulder, but it's...not enough. Unless we do several organ transplants at once, we're only prolonging the inevitable.”

“We're talking about an extremely long, complex surgery on multiple organ systems, and you're...not an ideal surgical candidate, even now. Beyond that, you're at a huge risk for transplant rejection, and that's if we can find suitable donors in time.”

“Why?” he rasps out, hating how weak he sounds. He can feel the insides of his throat scraping together like rusting sheet metal. “Why put me through...all this...if there's no chance?”

“I'm sorry,” she breathes. “We--I should have told you the truth earlier. But you were trying so hard. All of us noticed. If there was the slightest chance, we couldn't take that choice away from you.”

“It's my decision?”

“It always has been.”

She's been stroking his hand with her thumb for the last minute or so, as if she doesn't realize that she's doing it. He turns away, more to give her privacy than himself, and pretends he doesn't hear a quiet sniff. They stay like that for a time.

“I meant to tell you earlier this evening,” Nahla says at least, breaking the spell. “Dr. Kimathi thinks you're well enough for some visitors tomorrow.”

“Visitors? You mean...”

“They've been asking about you since you came to the ICU. An older gentleman, from America, I think, and a young man with a French accent.” Kakyoin's heart skips a beat.

“Oh, and another boy about your age.”

Chapter Text

Cool water rushes past his ankles in waves of turquoise, sending a delightful shiver through his body that makes his bare toes curl into the powdery white sand. It's so clear he can see the soft green and yellow tips of coral gardens in the distance. The water is teeming with tiny fish so bright they look like mistakes, drops of paint sprinkled on a royal blue canvas. Something small and sparkling tumbles out of the sea foam, and he holds out his hand, cautious but curious. In his palm is a dusky bluish-green chip of frosted sea glass about the size and shape of a good skipping stone. He holds it aloft, tracking the descent of the blazing Egyptian sun through its translucent surface.

“Kakyoin!”

He pockets his prize and trots back to the group. “Always with his head in the clouds, this one,” Joseph grumbles as he sets down a heap of kindling. He catches a glitter of green eyes beneath his fedora, crinkled in amusement, and Kakyoin's shoulders relax. “Well, are you gonna show us what you found or not?”

The rest of the camp gathers around as Kakyoin fishes in his pocket, feeling a bit sheepish with four pairs of eyes on him. “What a color! That's pure teal blue sea glass—just about the rarest thing you could find on a beach. Bet you could get a couple hundred bucks for it.” Joseph crows, clapping Kakyoin on the back so hard he nearly topples over.

“I think I'll keep it,” Kakyoin says, cheeks a little pink. “Something to remember our journey by, you know?”

“I don't think I could forget all the crazy bullshit we've seen in the past few weeks if I wanted to,” Polnareff pipes in. “Not even after a lifetime of Bière de Garde and therapy.”

“Imagine sitting on a porch when we're old and gray, reminiscing about that time I pulled an enemy stand out of your left nostril,” Kakyoin says with a grin that he knows will make Polnareff roll his eyes and Jotaro snicker from beneath his cap. Every day it gets a little easier. He's learning not to mumble or slouch, how to not jerk away reflexively whenever one of them brushes against his little bubble.

It's the first peaceful afternoon they've had in a good two weeks. Cairo is less than a day's drive away, but the agents of Dio are watching the roads, forcing the Joestar group to set up camp on the rural outskirts of Soma Bay. Rather than unease, there's a feeling of quiet determination among the five companions. In less than eight days, they'll free Holly Kujo from Dio's curse, or die trying. But for now, they're whole and healthy and together, and they're going to make the most of it.

A polite cough jars Kakyoin out of his musing. Flushing a bit, he turns back to the fresh-caught sea bass he's supposed to be toasting over the fire. Avdol was showing him how to season and score them and wrap them in banana leaves. The flames pop and snap, and the smell of fava beans and fried onions envelops them.

He knows Avdol can see the indentations of Dio's fangs on his wrists when he rolls up his sleeves, but there's no judgment in his eyes. Only a quiet understanding.

“You're collected quite a few souvenirs, haven't you?” Avdol says after a thoughtful pause. He lights a thin, hand-rolled cigarette wrapped in a dried tendu leaf with a touch of his stand's talon. Smoke curls serenly around the driftwood, making Kakyoin think about the coffee house in Jordan. Avdol had taught him how to take a slow drag from the ornate crystal hookahs. He vividly remembers Avdol swallowing his laughter and handing him a cup of cold rosewater tea as Kakyoin coughed and sputtered. Every day they spent together, Kakyoin had learned something new.

“After everything you've been through, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to put it all behind you. But I'm glad you don't.”

“It's odd, isn't it? For months, the only think I could think of was that I wished I'd never never met him.” Kakyoin stares hard into the flames. "What was that old Oscar Wilde quote? 'What fire does not destroy, it hardens'"

He's not the same terrified kid shivering on his knees all those months ago, pleading for his life. "If I hadn't met walked down that alley, we wouldn't have ever met, either."

Laughter and swear words echo from the shoreline as a very red-faced Polnareff hops onto Joseph's shoulders from behind, sending them both careening face-first into the surf. Jotaro futzes with the jeep's radio, trying to drown them out with tinny Egyptian pop music. Later today, Jotaro is supposed to show him his new cigarette trick, and he and Polnareff have to get to work on their comic book. Joseph had just got the part in one of his old 'war stories' where the mysterious, beautiful woman who taught him hamon was about to face off against the world's strongest man. He wants to hear what happens next.

“No matter how this ends, I don't think I'd trade that for anything.”

An alarm blares in Kakyoin's ear, and he jerks awake with a snort. The midday sun over the warm sparkling sand vanishes, replaced by the same walls of stark white plaster he's been staring at for the past three days. The sharp tang of bleach clings to his nostrils, and he tries to remember the taste of falafel and shawarma with diced tomato and parsley. A wave of nausea slams into his gut like a freight train, and he fumbles shakily for the call light.

A nurse he's never seen before glides in with a bag of IV fluid before his sweat-slick fingers find the button, her eyes focused solely on his infusion pump. Bile rises in the back of his throat as her long lacquered nails tap on the keypad with a tac-tac-tac sound, and fire spreads through his chest like he's choking on a mouthful of hot ash. He doesn't even know what will happen if he actually vomits, but it can't be anything good.

“Please...I...my stomach...” he hisses through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut. He's never been forced to beg before. Not since that day.

“I'll bring you something to help with the nausea,” she replies evenly, as if he'd asked for a newspaper, and he's alone again. Acid eats at his tongue, and he moans into the hand clamped over his mouth.  All he can do is stare at the clock, sweating and shaking as he counts down the seconds.

The second hand isn't moving. Blinking in confusion, he peers into the darkness at the far end of the room. Through the flickering electric blue light of the monitor screens, he can just barely make out a hazy black outline in a pale circle, but he's absolutely certain: the hand has not moved a millimeter. Did the clock suddenly freeze? Maybe it was never moving at all. It's exactly fifteen minutes after five, so it should be around midnight in Japan. His mother is probably already asleep...

Cold water is rushing past him, running through him. Joseph Joestar stares down at him, mouth agape in horror, reaching out, but what can he do? What can any of them do? Dio's luridly painted lips curl in savage triumph. He hears a horrid wet gurgling sound as he takes a breath, and he knows it is a death rattle.

'I'm going to die today'

Something raw and half-healed beneath his fleshly sewn skin lurches, sending shock waves of agony up his spine, and his head falls back against the pillow, distant splashing echoing in his ears.

***

It's not a good start to a morning. The instant whatever this new nurse injects him with starts to take effect, she hauls back his sheets and lifts up his gown without a word. A complicated-looking hard plastic brace he didn't even realize he was wearing is unbuckled, leaving him stripped bare all the way down to the compression stocking covering his calves. Before he woke up in the ICU, he has never been naked in front of a woman, and this nurse, however annoying, is young and pretty. The fact that he can't feel her gloved fingers probing and inspecting somehow makes it even more unbearable. Nahla would have covered his groin with a towel, and Rhonda would have scoffed and gossiped with her hand on her hip as if she were giving him a perm instead of rinsing off wound exudate. Still, curiosity eventually overcomes embarrassment, and he risks a tentative glance down at his exposed body.

The nurse unfastens a thick elastic band wrapped tightly around his torso, and he immediately wished she hadn't. His midsection is a shapeless expanse of gauze, white and featureless as the walls of his room, save for a vast assortment of blood-filled drains and tubes. The thick ones empty into his chest tube drainage system, Nahla had said, and the little ones lead to a rack of infusion pumps called syringe drivers. How fascinating.

'They're typically used in palliative care.'

Worst of all is the horribly unnatural dip right below his breastbone. He's overlooking the edges of a pit, as deep and wide as a cannon blast. The only thing preventing him from snapping in half must be a few bands of muscle tissue, and oh, god, he's going to be sick again. His mind shrieks at him wrong wrong wrong like some sort of demented music box, a discordant melody reverberating through his skull.

“Wha-what happened to me?” he blurts out, grabbing at her wrist more forcefully than he meant. The nurse's eyes meet his own for the first time, and she all but flinches, making the gold hoops in her ears sway.

“I...I was told that when EMS found you...it looked like something had punched clean through your stomach,” she answers in her polished customer service voice. Somewhere beneath her mask, she heaves a soft sigh of...frustration? exhaustion? fear? behind that he's not meant to hear. “I'm afraid I can't tell you anything more. Very little information has been released to the public, even to the staff here at the hospital.”

“How am I...how did I survive?” He has a better grasp of anatomy than most laypeople. The inferior vena cava and thoracic aorta would have been completely severed, cutting off blood flow to everything below the xiphoid process. Even if paramedics had reached him in a matter of seconds, these injuries are simply incompatible with life.

The nurse mumbles more non-answers, and he sinks back into the pillows with an irritated chuff, letting her work in peace. Something or someone is keeping him alive. For now, at least.

***

He's exercising his good arm and shoulder with the rolled-up washcloth Nahla tucked into his fist last night when he hears a soft knock, followed by another unfamiliar face hovering over him. The wound care specialist turns out to be an enormous broad-shouldered woman named Gladys who's probably taller than him and looks like she spends her Saturday evenings bench pressing tanks. She calls him 'dear' and 'sweetheart' and smiles so tenderly down at him as if she'd like nothing better than to give him a kiss on the forehead and shower him with sweets. He's never been babied before and he tells himself he ought to be offended. Gladys briskly orders another RN to pump him full of so many opioids and anti-emetics that he gets a little giddy and light-headed, all while handling his body like a newly hatched duckling cupped in her thick fingers.

“You don't have to force yourself to watch,” Gladys murmurs, voice soft as a cloud. Despite her size, her hands are quick and nimble, transitioning smoothly from her sterile field to his exposed skin. He wonders if she paints or plays the piano in her spare time instead of juggling tanks. “I know it's hard to look at.”

“I want to know what's going on,” he grunts, even though he feels his gorge rise. The naked torso stretched out below him looks like it belongs on a mortuary slab, the skin sunken and ashen gray, gray as the dead women strewn about Dio's bedchamber after he sucked them dry. “I'm not a child.”

She sighs. “Everyone from the orderlies to the head surgeon has been telling me that you're an exceptionally bright young man. So you should know that healing is psychological as well as physical. You've been having nightmares, haven't you?”

Gladys doesn't have the luxury of waiting for a reply; if anything, she never seems to stop, measuring his incisions, collecting samples, even snapping photographs. It would be fascinating to watch if it was someone else's body. “I've been an RN for twenty years,” she says with a quiet dignity that contrasts oddly with the honeyed voice from before. “If I ever get tired of changing bandages and emptying bedpans, I could write one hell of a book, let me tell you. So please believe me when I say that you're not the first patient who's cried or gotten sick or laid awake all night. I've seen men three times your age screaming, sobbing, absolutely losing their minds over less than a quarter of what you've had to suffer through.”

“I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I'm not looking for reassurances. I have a right to know what's happening to me.” It still hurts to talk, and he's out of breath after the first few words. His voice sounds sulky and petulant in his ears.

“I'd be more than happy to answer any question you have to the best of my ability, and if I don't know, I'll find someone who does. But please, Noriaki, for your own sake, you need to trust us.”

“I don't have much choice, do I?”

He learns a good deal about silver alginate dressings and negative pressure wound therapy that morning, but the gaping hole in his gut remains a mystery. Like a flower opening to the morning sun, Gladys returns to her usual cheery self, giggling that it's like being back in nursing school. He forces a wheezy little laugh for her sake. But even though a haze of morphine, every touch above his severed spinal cord brings more and more pain, playing his frayed nerves like violin strings, building up to a crescendo. Her ministrations are feather-light, no wasted movement, not too fast or too slow, but his skin is so raw and tender that even peeling off medical tape leaves him biting his knuckles until he nearly draws blood.

“I'm going to remove the gauze on the count of three, okay? Don't try to hold your breath. Just breathe normally, in and out, nice and slow. 1, 2, 3--”

He screams, good and loud. It echoes throughout the unit, and he hears a cart squeak to a halt in the hallway as the nurse pushing it gawks at him. Kakyoin buries his face into the pillow as much as he can, throat tight and tears in his eyes.

“Don't mind them. Just being nosy.” A wickedly sharp blade glistens on the stainless steel tray at his bedside. His head swims as her fingers inch toward it. “I need to make a very small incision, just below your fifth rib.”

“You're doing so good, Noriaki.” Blood-stained bandages are piling up in the red biohazard bags. He can't look at them.

“It's almost over, honey. Just a little bit more.” His chest is heaving, his heart fluttering. Distressed beeping sounds from the monitors ring in his ears as hands settle on his shoulders. A nurse's aide with a lined brown face like a walnut shell tries to smile encouragingly, a little figure in white who can't speak English well but holds his hand as he whimpers into her scrubs.

Finally, finally, it's over. He allows himself to feel the tiniest bit of pride that he didn't shed a single tear. Even if he's out of breath, drenched in sweat, shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. Gladys pets his hair a little as soon as she changes her gloves, making soft shushing noises at him as the other woman tidies him up as best she can, even tucking a clean blanket fresh out of the warming cabinet around his shoulders. He doesn't understand why she's helping him. He's not even her patient. His own mother would have jumped off a bridge before she wiped bloody saliva off his chin at sixteen years old.

"Let's let him rest for now," Gladys whispers after waiting for his breathing to even out, and the lights click off.

***

Any luck contacting the family?

His eyes snap open, startled, but his room is silent as a tomb, save for the hissing of machines. When did he fall asleep?

Just who exactly are these 'friends' of his?

Hierophant is picking up ambient noise again. Either that, or he's going crazy.

Think this kid was being trafficked?

Police are looking into it

“Well, good morning, Sunshine!” Rhonda bustles in, pink-faced and sour, armed with enough toiletries to sponge bathe an entire platoon. It's as if someone turned the knob on a radio, leaving nothing but white noise. He fine-tunes whatever extrasensory perception used to link his and Hierophant's minds, but all he hears is hot water splashing in the sink and Rhonda nattering.

“It's 11 am...”

“And you should have had your morning bath hours ago, but Gladys thought you needed a nap. You're going to have visitors today, so we're got to have you looking your best. And that, my dear, is going to take some work.”

Rhonda is a woman on a mission. She even washes his hair, working warm water and strawberry-scented shampoo right into the greasy strands and teasing out the mats with a comb. He can't help but notice that she's exquisitely careful not to tug on his scalp this time, and he decides to forgive her, even if she has cold, skinny witch fingers, and he hates the smell of imitation strawberries.

“What a color! And it's red all the way down to the roots.” He feels soft, springy curls on his neck as she briskly towels him off and decides it's worth frizzing up later. He's not old enough to shave every day, so she settles for scrubbing his face until his cheeks are pink and tingly, then brushing his teeth. He helps her as much as he can.

He's stripped naked for the third time today, but the curtains are drawn, and Rhonda's too busy scrubbing between his toes and telling him about how she met Rita Hayworth and her husband Prince Aly Khan in a hotel lobby when she was 23 and fainted dead away. “She just passed away last year, poor thing. Just about the classiest lady I ever laid eyes on, not like these half-naked bimbos you see nowadays.”

“She had red hair just like you, only hers was dyed, and yours is well, obviously not,” she says with a smirk as she starts lathering up aspects of his anatomy he'd rather not think about. She somehow manages to find a ticklish spot as she scrubs up to the bottom of his ribcage, and he squirms right as he's trying to give her the most withering look he can muster.

“I see you're just as classy as her.”

“First few words out of your mouth when I'm within earshot, and it's either whining or sarcasm. Doesn't matter if it's the 40s or the 80s, teenagers never change.” Before he can think of something appropriately churlish to say, he's once again skillfully maneuvered onto his right flank with a second pair of hands, and his brain promptly short-circuits, refusing to even attempt to consider what's going on behind him. At least he smells markedly better after they're finished. The other aid even empties the trash and laundry hamper, mopping all the tables and the sink area with bleach before she scurries off. Rhonda makes another crack at his expense, he suggests she do something impolite to herself, and she snorts and goes back to massaging hospital-grade moisturizer onto his prominent ribs. He settles into his crisp new sheets like a river stone sinking into the mud.

'You're going to turn red as a lobster with that complexion of yours,' Joseph scolds as he smears suntan oil all over Kakyoin's skinny shoulders. He shivers in spite of the heat as if someone just dropped an ice cube down his back, and the old man takes a step back. 'Just take it easy, son,' he whispers with surprising gentleness.

Joseph steers Kakyoin back to the campsite where the others are waiting, not close but touching, not unless he knows it's okay, that he's okay. Polnareff, however, plops Kakyoin down unceremoniously between himself and Jotaro. Sitting on a piece of driftwood with four other men, he feels like a bird on a telephone wire. Part of a flock. Someone hands him a cold beer (his first) with an overenthusiastic pat on the back, and Polnareff snickers in his ear as he takes dainty, bird-like sips, tongue faltering at the unfamiliar taste.

“Do you want to see yourself?” Rhonda says suddenly. He notices for the first time that she's holding a little mirror. “So you can admire my handiwork, I mean.”

He nods, and then he's blinking stupidly at his own reflection. He runs his fingers down his jawline with its downy ginger hair, tilting his head to study his long bony nose. The Kakyoin staring back at him isn't terribly different from the one he remembers from the hotel room mirror last week. He's paler and thinner than ever, with dark circles under his eyes and oxygen tubing in his nose, but it's still him, down to the last freckle.

“I have to admit, kiddo, you shine up like a new penny.”

***

The next few hours are absolutely jam-packed, to the point where he wonders if there are a few dozen top-flight surgeons and specialists from all over the world waiting patiently in line just outside his door. Maybe Rhonda is manning the ticket booth. A physical therapist makes him follow an exhaustive list of complicated commands and bends and flexes all his joints, scribbling furiously on his clipboard, and then a neurologist strides imperiously up to his bedside and does the exact same thing. He wonders why he didn't just ask the first guy. Then his veins are flooded with radiopaque dye, and he's trundling down to the ground floor on a gurney for a battery of imaging tests. The MRI machine is a merciless sensory overload that makes him feel as if he's in a paint shaker, but he gets revenge on the doctors by making them show him all the scans and peppering them with questions until he's out of breath.

He quickly realizes that he's being studied. Even from the perspective of the test subject, he can parse out the methodical outlines of experiments at work in everything from his wound care regime with Gladys to the exact magnesium concentration in his intravenous feedings. He wonders if his name even crops up in whatever research documents they're writing about him, or if he's simply referenced via the serial number on his wristband. The conclusion is humiliating and dehumanizing, but he quietly hopes that even if they can't save him, maybe their discoveries can help other patients.

He's startled out of his dismal thoughts by a persistent rapping sound vexatiously close to his head. He's just about to tell whatever overpaid numskull in a labcoat is hovering behind the curtains to fuck off and let him sleep when the knock sounds again, a very distinctive (and irritating) seven-bit shave-and-a-haircut knock.

He's heard that knock dozens of times, right in his ear, just before he's roughly shaken out of bed. The only one who's ever...

“It's...it's really you!”

The PVC curtain parts, and Kakyoin can't breathe. Polnareff takes one shaky step inside, and his blue eyes instantly fill with tears.

“They...they said I can't hug you, or bring you any gifts, and you can't go outside or eat anything. So I can do is...sit with you.” Polnareff stammers out, staring at his hands. It's as if he just realized how thick and clumsy his own fingers are, as if he thinks Kakyoin would shatter into a million little pieces with one touch. “Oh, God, I thought I'd never see you again.”

“I'm hanging in there, I suppose,” Kakyoin murmurs, barely above a whisper. “Please, you look so damned tired. Just sit down for a minute.” He waves to a shabby old chair looking frankly out of place amidst all the space age medical equipment, and Polnareff sinks down heavily, scrubbing his face with the heel of his hand. To Kakyoin's horror, it's missing two fingers.

“The others. Tell me about the others,” Kakyoin pleads, reaching out for that bandaged hand. “Polnareff, I know you're exhausted, but I have to know.”

please please tell me they're okay

“Everyone's alive,” Polnareff says quietly, and Kakyoin remembers how to breathe again. “You know Mr. Joestar, I swear the man has the devil's own luck. Jotaro is unstoppable as ever. Avdol and Iggy are...in rough shape. The doctors say Iggy might never walk again, and Avdol...”

Polnareff squeezes Kakyoin's hand so hard it hurts. Not that it takes much to hurt him these days. “He hasn't woken up since the battle.”

“And Dio?” Kakyoin croaks.

“Nothing but dust in the wind. Serves the bastard right.” He gently cups Kakyoin's slim hand in both of his larger ones, letting his warmth flow into Kakyoin's cold skin. “I wish you could have seen it, Kak. Jotaro split his ugly head in half like a melon. The look in his eyes right before the end...it's like he never thought anyone could ever touch him. Despite everything he's done, I almost felt sorry for him, just for a moment. He was like a scared little child.”

The thought of Dio cowering in terror, helpless and hopeless doesn't bring Kakyoin as much pleasure as he thought. Maybe there's a little sliver of himself that still loves him, in the way a beaten dog still loves its master. Maybe most of his bloodlust leaked out of him on the water tower.

“Mrs. Kujo is as good as new, by the way,” Polnareff adds with a tiny chuckle, sounding a little like his old self. “If it hadn't been for you, she—all of us—we'd all be dead. Even Mr. Joestar couldn't figure out Dio's secret on his own.”

Polnareff's massive chest heaves in a world-weary sigh. It doesn't sound right coming from his lips. “Look, I know I've teased the stuffings out of you since the day we met as free men. And good fucking hell, did you give as good as you got. Bratty little know-it-all.” Kakyoin suddenly finds his head being shoved down uncomfortably as his neatly combed hair is very thoroughly ruffled.

“But...you're amazing, Kakyoin. I mean it, from the bottom of my heart.” Kakyoin scoffs out of general principle, and Polnareff swats him (very gently) on the back of the head. “And I'll probably never say it again, so you better appreciate it.”

“When you get out of here, you've got to do something incredible with your life. Go to the best university in Tokyo, get two or three PhDs. Fuck it, write a best seller and build a rocket ship. And then go home to some big fancy house with a walk-in closet for all your nail polish and guys like me to trim your rose bushes.”

Their eyes met, and Polnareff's are red and puffy from crying, and more serious than Kakyoin's ever seen them. Kakyoin looks away.

“I know you can do it.”

“Polnareff...I know the doctors must have told you how serious my injuries are.” Polnareff's sheepish grin slides off his face, and he shrinks back into his chair, pleading with his eyes for Kakyoin to stop. “My prognosis isn't good. Hell, the entire hospital is amazed that I've lived as long as I have. The surgeons are going to try one more time this Wednesday. It's my last chance, but my odds are less than 20%...”

Polnareff leaps out of his seat with such force that it nearly crashes into Kakyoin's emergency resuscitation equipment. He starts to stomp toward the door, gingerly stepping around tubing and IV poles and ignoring Kakyoin's outstretched hand. “Polnareff, what--”

“I can't...I can't deal with this. Not right now. The man I love is in a coma, and he might never wake up. And you...you're supposed to be okay! What the fuck is all this for, if you're not going to get better!” His words reverberate in the too-tight space, and within seconds, a nurse's aide timidly peels back the partition.

“Sir, please do not shout, our patients, they try to...”

“I KNOW! And I'm sorry. It's just...I can't...I don't know how to...” He's sobbing at this point, tears streaming down his cheeks just like in Karachi. Images of Avdol's lifeless body bubble up in Kakyoin's mind. As if on cue, Polnareff's hands ball into fists, and for one horrible moment Kakyoin thinks he's going to slam them against the wall. For all his foolishness, Polnareff is monstrously strong, even stronger than Jotaro and Joseph; he could easily bring all the delicate instruments around Kakyoin's bed crashing down on his head. The nurse's aide, the stooped little gray-haired lady who washed him and warmed him up and held his hand, takes a step back with her palms raised as if she's about to be trampled by a charging bull.

“Polnareff, stop!” Kakyoin calls out, struggling to make himself heard over the din. “I thought they told you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't think you would take it so hard.”

He knows it's the wrong thing to say the instant the words leave his mouth. “I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to...fix this. I'm just trying to be realistic.”

“I'm trying. I promise I'm trying, I'm not giving up, I just...” He doesn't realize his eyes are dangerously full of unshed tears until he starts to sniffle. He's cried so much in the past few days, and he's utterly sick of it. He wants so badly to be strong for Polnareff just like when they hunted down his sister's killer. But he just doesn't have it in him anymore.

Fire never hardened either of them, only left them cracked and brittle.

“Noriaki.”

Nahla quietly slips past Polnareff and takes his seat beside Kakyoin's bed. The wall clock reads 6:35 pm, so she must have barely walked in the building to start her shift before all hell broke loose.

The clock...the hands of the clock are moving again.

Even if he breathes his last in a few days, his world didn't end at 5:15 pm.

A sob hitches in his raw, aching throat, and once it slips out, he can't stop. His forehead comes to rest against her scratchy isolation gown, and he lets the tears fall freely, trying to breathe in the scent of lavender and coffee even though his nose is stopped up. Infectious disease protocol and his spinal cord injury limit how much she can safely touch or move him, but she manages to rock him, ever so slightly, with a hand on his shoulder. He's never been allowed to cry it out before, not even when he was very small.

“Miss, I...” He knows he's being childish, but he turns his face further into Nahla's arms, not ready to face Polnareff yet.

“Noriaki, do you mind if I speak to your friend for a few minutes in the visitor's room? Then you two can talk as much as you like, I promise.”

He nods, and Nahla leads Polnareff beyond the curtain and out of sight.

Chapter Text

“I understand how you feel,” Nahla murmurs in a low, patient voice, soft as willow catkins and sounding cloying and insincere in her ears. In the eight years that she's worked in the intensive care unit, she knows the speech by heart. She knows when to offer tea and tissues, when to meet their eyes, when to look away. No one is better at dealing with grieving families than her, which is why the task always falls on her shoulders. “But I can't allow you to upset my patient. He's very-”

“Do you?” Mr. Polnareff scoffs. “I don't wanna be a jerk here, miss, but do you really?” Even in the soft light of the visior's room, she can see the tension building up in those bulging biceps. Nahla switches tactics.

“I lost my son six years ago. Motorcycle accident,” she says more calmly than she feels. “He would be twenty-four this March.”

Azizi is sealed up in a vault inside her heart, dragged out only when a visitor is making a scene. She hates it, hates the way his name tastes bitter on her tongue even after half a decade. But the anger drains from the big man's face, and he accepts a lukewarm cup of minty Koshary tea.

“It's been a rough week, ya know?” he says in a very small voice. “I think I knew that...that he didn't have much of a chance. But hearing him say it-”

“He told me he was trying to be--how'd he put it?--'realistic'. He doesn't get it, you know?” The man seems to wilt like spring flowers in the summer heat, shoulders sagging, face in his hands. “Boy's a certified genius, speaks like a goddamned Ph.D. candidate about quantum physics or whatever, but he has no idea what losing him would do to us. Mr. Joestar watched it happen, and he's got to live with that for however many days he's got left. Jotaro's practically shell-shocked. And me...I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm going to be okay.”

“I can tell you care about him a lot,” Nahla says. He nods jerkily from somewhere behind his thick arms. Even sitting, he's still a towering figure with calloused knuckles and thin silvery scars. If they'd met in the parking garage, she would be reaching for a can of mace. But now, he just looks so young. Fresh out of college at most. She's seen too much pain on young faces lately. “Noriaki's trying to be brave. More than trying, actually. He's held up better than most of the soldiers I've taken care of. But he's only sixteen, Mr. Polnareff.”

“I wish I could give you better news about Noriaki's condition. All I can tell you is that there are so, so many people who never get a chance to...say goodbye. If it comes to that-”

She doesn't realize how tight her throat has become until her voice breaks. His hand is in hers in a flash, firm and warm, and she doesn't pull away.

“If it comes to that,” she breathes, “Make the most of the next few days you have together. There's so much he won't be able to do anymore, but he can still laugh and smile. I've only known him for a few days, but...”

“He's a good kid,” Mr. Polnareff finishes for her.

***

“What did you two talk about?” Kakyoin queries from his blanket nest as soon as Polnareff awkwardly shuffles into his room. He's a hulking pillar of muscle in a yellow isolation gown (currently being retied by a scowling nurse's aide) and a pair of blue eyes peeping over a surgical mask, and if Nahla had sent him away, Kakyoin is sure he would have started sobbing all over again.

“Oh, you know, super boring stuff,” Polnareff says airily, scratching his cheek with a theatrical roll of his eyes. “Told me that they were trying to create—what did she call it—an 'optimal healing environment' and here I am fucking it all up with my loud mouth.”

“Well, you did almost put your fist through several hundred thousand dollars worth of medical equipment,” Kakyoin retorts with a raise of his eyebrow. Polnareff has never been a good liar. Rather than properly chagrined after a stiff lecture as Kakyoin would have expected, the man looks dangerously close to contemplative.

“Are you kidding? This looks like a bag full of dishwater.” Polnareff jabs a finger at the sickly yellow fluid oozing through the catheter in his right jugular vein. There are worse things Polnareff could have compared it to, he supposes. “Are you telling me it costs as much as a luxury car?”

“I'll thank you not to describe my dinner like that,” Kakyoin fires back, savoring the horrified look on Polnareff's face. “It's called total parenteral nutrition. I don't have a functioning stomach, so the surgery team had to bypass the digestive system entirely. The solution is full of amino acids, lipids, minerals, and--”

“Ugh, you're going to make me lose my lunch. Don't just drop one of those patented Kakyoin lectures on me, man.” Squeezing between the central monitor and the HFNC machine, Polnareff resets the overturned chair and deposits himself gracelessly in it.

“Did they tell you that Avdol's just a few doors down?” he says quietly, as if he's speaking more to himself than Kakyoin. For as long as they've known each other, Polnareff's eyes have been in constant motion, flitting like a warbler hopping from branch to branch. Now they are utterly still.

“This whole time?” Kakyoin gasps. “I...I had no idea. It's like being sealed up in an underground bunker here. I barely know if it's night or day. I wish I could see him.”

“I visit him every day.” Polnareff's voice is as delicate as spun sugar. “It's funny. They made me scrub my hands for three minutes and hold them under ultraviolet light just to get within twenty feet of your door. Can't have your buddies getting germs all over you until your liver's healed up. But I can just walk right into Avdol's room.”

“Gotta keep everything low-key, you know? The nurses and doctors wouldn't understand.” His fingers flex, inching toward his pocket for a cigarette before he remembers where he is. “But I think they can smell it in the air, somehow. How I feel.”

“They're not like us,” Kakyoin says contemplatively. Love between two men. It seems so natural in their world, where all they have are their stands, and each other.

“I hope that...” He falters. Hope for what? For Avdol to wake up? For him and Polnareff to live happily ever after?

'Even if I'm not there to see it,' he thinks with an unexpected tang of bitterness.

They're all hoping. Every room on this unit is full of people mumbling prayers under their breaths, desperate, waiting.

“Fuck,” he groans, letting the world disappear under a curtain of violently orange hair. “Maybe...maybe some good will come from all this shit. I don't know.”

For the next several minutes, the only sounds are the little blips from Kakyoin's cardiac monitor, slow but steady. Thick fingers cup his shoulder, and Kakyoin rests his good hand on top of Polnareff's.

“Do you remember?” Polnareff breathes shakily. “When we were walking back to town after we fought that murdering piece of shit? You asked me about Sherry. Not how she died. What she was like..before.”

Over the past two months, Kakyoin has found himself collecting little fragments of the girl who died. He sees her, poised and pretty, sweet and sharp. The little figure he dreams up is wrapped in silk and smells of pressed flowers. A bookworm, a dreamer, a sturdy farmer girl who loved the wind ripping through her hair as she lept over fences on her horse. The voice he hears in his mind is a bird-like chirrup, bouncing off the cobblestone streets of France, fitting for someone who was murdered coming home from choir practice.

Kakyoin remembers the day he and Polnareff met. It was a warm summer evening, and Kakyoin had looked up from his books to see the hulking figure stomping down the halls of Dio's mansion. Whispers followed him, whispers about a man hunting his sister's killer.

Never did Kakyoin feel Sherry's presense more strongly than the day they found the man who killed her. Found him, and ended him. As they walked down the dusty streets of Calcutta with G. Jeil's blood on their shoes, something in Polnareff seems to break. He breaks like brightly painted wood consumed by fire, blackening, splintering, reduced to ash. He clung to Kakyoin and sobbed until there was nothing wet left in him, and Kakyoin had no idea what to do. For the first time in Kakyoin's life, he's the one who doesn't understand, because how could he? He spent his whole life trying to be Meursault, standing over mamon's coffin sipping white coffee, laying his heart open to the indifference of the universe. It was terrifying to him back then, the thought of loving someone so much.

Polnareff's heart is a little like a memorial garden, he thinks. Little by little, they start to tend the flowers together.

“She loved honey. I remember how she always had a tin of lavender honey drops from Province, though that was mostly to throw me off her trail when she started smoking,” Polnareff says with a watery smile. His fingers inch toward the pouch on his belt again, but this time, he opens his big hand to reveal a folded scrap of paper, creased and tattered at the edges.

“You know what I can't wrap my head around? I feel like...you've never met her, but it's almost like you know her somehow. Because you know me.”

Kakyoin blinks in confusion.

“Sherry was everything I wasn't. Piano, ballet, chess, you name it, she excelled at it. Her teachers couldn't stop talking about her. She was the one with the future, the one who was going to fly out of our little village like a bird and see the world. I'd be lucky to end up shining her shoes.”

“I don't know why I hung onto this. Damned thing, it's not useful to anyone anymore. But I just can't throw it away.” Delicately, almost reverently, he unfolds the paper: a letter, written in French, and inside it is a glossy Polaroid. “It's her acceptance letter to the Pierre and Marie Curie University. If things had—she would have started in the fall.”

Just as Kakyoin expected, the girl in the photograph is hauntingly beautiful: porcelain skin, lustrous dark curls, sparkling gray eyes that drew one to her like a moth to a flame. He sees little hints of her brother in her long feathery lashes and the rosy bloom across her delicately sculpted cheekbones. It's hard to imagine someone like her moldering in a grave.

“Polnareff...” Kakyoin says as gently as he can. To his surprise, those blue eyes of his are dry. Either he's too worn down, too tired of crying like Kakyoin is, or his pain is simply beyond tears.

“I look at you and...It's like I catch a glimpse of her. Sometimes it makes me smile, makes it that much easier to get through the day. Sometimes it feels like it's going to drive me insane.” Whatever Kakyoin is about to say dies in his throat.

“When I saw that Speedwagon helicopter flying away with you in it...I don't know. I think I went a little crazy. I want to tell you what happened after you got hurt, but I just...can't. There are these big gaps where I just can't remember.”

“I want you to know, if...if Wednesday comes and you...you don't...I won't forget you. I won't ever stop talking about you.” Kakyoin closes his eyes against the sting of tears, and Polnareff lets him hide back under his hair. He concentrates on the warm familiar weight of Polnareff's hand, the only thing keeping him from floating away.

“I want you to know. We loved you, all of us.”

***

Raucous laughter echoes from Room 4112, and Nahla pauses in the middle of restocking her medicine cart. Her hand is hovering over the plastic curtains separating her from her patient when she hears the distinct sound of someone snickering into his fist. Glancing wistfully at the coffee mug she knows is going to turn stone cold before she takes a sip, she scoops up a tiny bag of ciprofloxacin that was due at 1800 and gets to work.

She has never heard the boy laugh before.

She's getting attached, and she knows she shouldn't. Every time she steps out of the elevator, she's taken to holding her breath, waiting to see Noriaki's bed empty, crisp white sheets neatly folded for the next patient. There are no personal touches inside those three white walls, no cards or flowers or Christmas presents. Just a boy who's probably never going to see his seventeenth birthday. It feels like she met him just to say goodbye.

Mr. Polnareff politely excuses himself as Nahla tiptoes around the machines keeping the pale figure on the bed alive. There's such a dissonance between Noriaki according to the medical records and the Noriaki calmly observing her now, sitting upright and cheeks pink with laughter. When he first arrived on the ICU, he was a gently sleeping face in a great spider's web of red-stained gauze and tubing, bone-white and deathly still even after bag after bag of blood. No one expected him to make it through the night. Yet he reached out, trembling, terrified, and when her fingers closed around his, he squeezed back.

He wants to live. Every day, he fights, a wildcat in a trap, hissing and spitting. Every day he's jabbed by sharpened stakes from all sides.

“Don't laugh too hard, you'll pull out your stitches,” she says with a wry smile. “Sounds like I missed a good story.”

“We were talking about that one time in India where Polnareff and I were offered elephants to ride. After about fifteen minutes, he hopped off his elephant to, uh, attend to a personal matter, but when he stepped out of the bushes it was gone,” Noriaki grins. He's breathing like he just ran a marathon, lungs straining to keep up with his words. This visit is tiring him out. “Then he got blasted right in the face with a trunk full of swamp water. Turns out the elephant stuffed the bell on its neck with mud so it could sneak up behind him. I told him he got what he deserved for sprinkling cologne on its back.”

“How bad does it hurt on a scale of 0-10?” she murmurs as she shifts him onto his side to inspect his bony prominences. The long narrow planes of his body are nothing but bones, covered by paper-thin skin. Judging by the size of his awkward teenage boy feet, he's going to grow up to be tall. He was already lanky when they first met, and now she can manipulate his fragile body as if he were a doll.

The boy grimaces but stays quiet. The cozy atmosphere has all but evaporated. “Noriaki, we've talked about this. It's very important that you be honest about how you're feeling.”

“Seven” he grunts. “I just got that damn tube out of my mouth, and all anyone wants to talk about is how bad it hurts when they poke me.”

“Rhonda said you drove all the doctors crazy today. Not that they don't deserve it.” A syringe full of morphine later, and his mood seems to improve. She needs him clean, dry, and unclouded by pain for what she is about to say.

“They made you feel like a lab rat, didn't they?” He nods solemnly. “You don't have anything to prove anything to them. The man I just spoke to talks about you like you hung the moon.”

Her feet are aching already, and she'd like nothing better than to sit by his side, but she's staring at an absolute mountain of work. “Talk to me. How are you holding up?”

“I don't know what you want me to say,” he says warily. “I'm cooperating. Every little irritating mindless task they've thrown at me, I've done it. Does it matter how I feel? It's all numbers in an algorithm anyway. I'm a statistic.”

“Are you a statistic to your friend Mr. Polnareff?” He turns away, pressing his still soft jawline into the pillows. “I didn't think so.”

“Have you ever read 'The Myth of Sisyphus?'” he murmurs into his sheets. “I was obsessed with the damn thing when I was in middle school. A man pushes a boulder up a mountain, again and again, only to watch it roll all the way back down right before he reaches the top. But imagine, if you will, that Sisyphus was happy. All his efforts are meaningless. Victory is hovering somewhere, maddeningly, just beyond reach. And yet he's happy. Because he realizes it's all absurd.”

“But I need it all to have meant something.” His words are jagged, raw, with them comes a spark of anger in those strange jewel-bright eyes that is almost frightening. “I know how desperate and moronic that sounds. Maybe Sisyphus became less and less of himself every day until he was too numb to realize he was miserable.”

“You've certainly been through a lot.” Nahla chooses her words carefully, observing his profile as she starts his vasopressor drip and his long slender fingers ball into fists. “But you've had some incredible adventures, haven't you? You've made wonderful friends. Isn't that worth something? Tell me, Noriaki, if I could tell you what the future holds, what would you do differently? Would it make you happy?”

“But I don't know why. Why I'm still alive,” He looks straight into her eyes, and she has to fight the urge to look away. “What's the difference between dying last week or dying next week?”

“Trying to find the meaning of life in a few days from a hospital bed sounds pretty exhausting.” Taking a risk, Nahla tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear, even though he can do it himself now, half expecting him to snarl at her. He doesn't. “I don't know if you believe in fate, but you've found yourself with an opportunity so many others don't get. It's up to you to decide how you want to spend the time you have left.”

“And for what it's worth, I'm glad I got a chance to meet you.”

***

Kakyoin and Polnareff talk and talk and talk. They talk about sports, politics, their favorite comic books, cute girls strutting down the streets in neon legwarmers and sparkly bangles, how they both hated gym class in high school. Polnareff does two-thirds of the talking, hooting with laughter and gesturing with his hands as much as the cramped space allows. Kakyoin scribbles in the margins of this morning's newspaper as best he can with his dominant hand held together by pins the size of coffin nails, grinning in spite of himself. They don't talk about the future anymore.

“Think we could catch 21 Jump Street on this hunk of junk?” Polnareff asks suddenly, gesturing to the little wood-paneled television set mounted in the corner, looking forlorn under a thin coating of dust. Kakyoin shrugs as he futzes with the bunny ears. “Hell, yeah! We're just in time for the ABC Sunday Night Movie. You ever seen Tootsie, Kak?”

“How many damned times do I have to tell you not to call me that?”

“Whatever you say, Flower Boy,” Polnareff grins, giving Kakyoin a little tap of the nose. “Oh, did I forget to mention that Jotaro told me your last name means 'temple of flowers'? I am never letting you live that one down.”

“Jotaro...how is he?” Kakyoin blurts the question out, startling them both.

“He's...physically, he got off with a busted up arm, a few broken ribs. Some really nasty cuts. I was told that they're...knife wounds,” Polnareff stammers out at last, visibly shuddering. Knives. Dio had a fascination with them, running his tongue ever so slowly down the length of the blade. Jotaro would have been the last man standing, all alone against Dio with all his fulminating hatred completely unchained.

'I should have been there’, he thinks.

“You know Jotaro, he's a stone wall. I mean, he's always a stone wall, but now he's more like a fortress. I've never been the best at knowing what's going on in that head of his,” Polnareff says ruefully, giving Kakyoin's knee a little pat. He wonders if Polnareff knows he can't feel it. “The only person who ever seems to reach him is you.”

“The doc says you're only allowed one visitor at a time. Mr. Joestar and I both wanted him to see you first, but he insisted that-”

“Seriously, Polnareff, it's fine. I just wanted to know if he's...maybe not okay, but...surviving, I suppose,” Kakyoin says. “As much fun as it is to imagine you all fighting over me, I assure you, there's enough of me to go around.”

“Are you kidding? If you get any skinnier, there won't be enough left of you to spread on a baguette!” Polnareff chuckles a bit too loudly.

Conversation fizzles out, and they both heave a sigh of relief when the overly peppy theme music starts blaring from the television. Dustin Hoffman prances around in a Dynel wig reminiscent of a bowling ball and a pair of oversized spectacles that make him look like a praying mantis, and Kakyoin wonders if the image is going to infiltrate his dreams. Staff flit in and out, tracking the rhythmic drips of his IV, counting his pulse, asking him questions as if they were sneaking glances at a teleprompter. He knows the routine by heart now, but when they inevitably scurry off, he's no longer alone.

“Getting a little sleepy over there, mon frère?” Kakyoin blinks. Someone has tucked a warm blanket around his shoulders sometime before the credits rolled. He's always cold, always in pain, but the little gesture helps. “I should see myself out.”

“Can you stay? Just until I fall asleep,” Kakyoin mumbles dreamily into his pillow. He feels like an idiot as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“Of course,” Polnareff says without a moment's hesitation. “Remember that time we tricked Iggy into letting us paint his toenails neon pink? Ooh, he looked like he was ready to chew through a parking meter when he found out...”

With his eyes shut and the outside lights dimmed, Kakyoin can almost pretend that the two of them are laying under the stars again, listening to the crash of waves.

***

“There he is! The man of the hour. How you doin', son?” Joseph Joestar barely waits for Rhonda to finish helping him comb his hair before casually striding up to Kakyoin's bedside. Before Kakyoin or even Rhonda can even open their mouths, he feels a thick hand ruffling his curls, undoing all of their work in seconds.

“Well, that's one way to make an entrance,” Kakyoin sighs. Rhonda throws down the comb and swats at Joseph with the Monday edition of the Egyptian Gazette, hissing like a cat with its tail trod on.

“Ah, please do forgive me, madam. I don't believe we've been properly introduced,” Joseph coughs politely, probably flashing Rhonda with his most charming smile underneath his mask. “My name is Joseph Joestar. I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you for taking such good care of Noriaki...”

“Noriaki, if you need me to rescue you, just hit the call light,” Rhonda huffs, sashaying around Joseph's bulk with a surprisingly nimble rotation of her pelvis that the old man definitely notices. “And you--” She pokes Joseph with her sharp nails. “I'll trust you to remember that isolation precautions are to be maintained at all times.”

“She's a smoking little pistol, isn't she?” Joseph chortles as soon as Rhonda disappears behind the curtain. He lowers himself ponderously into the chair that Polnareff was sitting in last night. “You look...well, not good, but better. You probably don't remember, but I got to see you for a few minutes right before you went to surgery.”

“I heard that my heart stopped beating while I was on the operating table,” Kakyoin says flatly. He hears a gusty sigh from somewhere to his right.

“Trust me, I've been made very well aware of your prognosis. Since we can't get a hold of that mother of yours, I've been acting in loco parentis for you,” Joseph says, squeezing Kakyoin's shoulder. “I'm truly glad to see you, Kakyoin, but this isn't just a social call. We need to talk.”

“My last will and testament, huh." Kakyoin shrugs off the offending hand. He doesn't want comfort. He just wants this fucking over with. “If I end up brain-dead after Wednesday, you know what? Just pull the fucking plug. I'd rather die than live the rest of my life in a nursing home. CPR would probably break me in half. I doubt they're worth much anymore, but they can have whatever organs they want. As for my body, if I donate it to science, it would probably be used to test out bombs or windshield wiper fluid or some stupid thing," he spits with more venom than he intended. "Let me rot in the ground.”

He takes a long, slow breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth like Jerry had taught him. He is not going to cry. Not know, not ever. “Bury my ashes under an old wisteria tree overlooking a lake. Or maybe on a cliff by the sea. Somewhere quiet. Set some sweet hydrangea tea with Kansai-style sakura mochi on my grave. Maybe a basket of cherries. The black ones are my favorite. That's all I can think of.” he says numbly. “As for Mom, she won't ask, so don't tell her anything. It's better that way.”

“I figured as much,” Joseph says at last, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Hell of a way to start a Monday morning, huh?” Kakyoin stares hard at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.

“It's not much, but I have a least some good news for you," Joseph says at last, a faint tremor in his voice that Kakyoin has never heard before. "Remember all those photos you took? Got 'em back from the developer just a few days ago. Each and every one of them turned out absolutely gorgeous.” He carefully spreads at least two dozen crisp photographs onto Kakyoin's bedside table, a riot of color in an endless field of featureless plastic and stainless steel.

Kakyoin traces the neat white edges reverently, all anger gone. “I...thank you, Mr. Joestar. I thought this camera roll was at the bottom of the Red Sea.” China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, he repeats in his head like a calming sutra. It was starting to feel like a dream. The two of them sit for a few quiet minutes, awash in memory.

“You know what the worst part of living to a ripe old age is? I've thrown too much damned dirt on too many damned coffins,” Joseph says, bones creaking a bit as he leans back in his chair. “I know you've got to be sick of me filling your head with silly stories, but can you indulge me on more time?”

“Might as well take advantage of your captive audience.” Kakyoin props himself up on his good arm, burrowing further into the duvet. When Rhonda's on duty, he always gets a warm blanket after a bath, making him feel like a cookie baking in the oven.

Joseph gazes wistfully a photo of the outrageously colorful Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Chennai. It's one of Kakyoin's favorites. “We buried my Grandma Erina back in 1968. Thought she'd outlive us all, but it seems like she was only meant to last a century. I didn't visit her as often as I should, and even less after she started forgetting things, going all foggy. Sometimes she thought I was still six years old. Sometimes she thought I was her husband. The very same day I met with her doctor to talk about hospice services, I took a notion to sit with her for a bit.

“She could barely keep her eyes open. Hardly reacted when I took her hand. I started talking just to fill the silence. I talked and talked. Mostly about real estate and our summer home in Florence and Holly waving protest signs in Detroit. But then...I don't know. Maybe it was setting foot inside the old Joestar mansion after all these years. Maybe I heard a portentous rattle in her breath.

“Out of the blue, I just started stammering apologies. Told her I was sorry for driving her crazy when I was a kid, for letting her think I was dead when I was eighteen, for not visiting her last Christmas. I was practically bawling like a baby by the end of it. But I told her I loved her and she looked at me in the eye for the first time in two years and she smiled.

“I wasn't back in London for an hour before I got the phone call. Passed away peacefully in her sleep, they said. They assured me she'd been looking worse and worse all week, that they hadn't expected her to make it through the afternoon. But I know," he sighs, the weigh of the world on his words. He sounds so old.

"She was waiting for me."

Kakyoin knows he should meet the old man's gaze, squeeze the hand in his own back, but he all knows if he does, they'll both start crying.

“Every nurse and doctor I've talked to says you're a fighter," Joseph says shakily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "They're in awe, maybe even a little unnerved. I hear them muttering in the hallways, 'Dear God, what's keeping that child alive?'

"But I think you're waiting for someone.  I don't think he's ready yet. I think he's afraid. Afraid to hope. Afraid to say goodbye.”

“So even Jotaro is afraid of something,” Kakyoin marvels. Joseph nods, smiling sadly.

“While we're on the subject, I got a little bit of insider information. You're still looking at one hell of a surgery, but this transplant business is...” Joseph bends down, so close Kakyoin catches a whiff of his expensive cedarwood cologne.

“It's taken care of.”

“What?”

“It's done. Anything you could ever need: pancreas, liver, even tendons and skin grafts. If you need it, you'll get it within the hour, all fresh as humanly possible and perfectly healthy,” he whispers. “Don't worry, I haven't done anything...terribly unethical, and I don't want you losing any sleep over it. But don't ask me any more questions about it,” he says. “As you can imagine, this stacks the deck in your favor. Not as much as any of us would like, but don't give up hope just yet.”

“But why? Why are you going through so much trouble for me?” The words fly out of Kakyoin's mouth like startled birds before he can stop them.

“First dumb questions I've heard come out of your mouth,” Joseph grunts. As his big hand looms over Kakyoin's face, he flinches before he can stop himself, but it's just another head pat. “I'll be sixty-eight years old this September. What am I gonna do with all that cash, buy myself a new yacht?”

“That day that your heart stopped beating on the operating table...was also the day I heard my daughter's voice for the first time since we left Japan. As far as she knows, she just had a terrible fever one day and woke up when it broke. But she remembered you. She was so happy that Jotaro had made a new friend.” He takes Kakyoin's good hand in both of his, gently brushing his thumb across the cool, ashen gray skin. “You saved her life, Noriaki. You live through this, and I'll put you through college.”

“If that's not enough...To hell with it. I don't know what exactly is going on with you and your mother, but if you need a place to stay, well, the penthouse has been feeling a little quiet lately.” Kakyoin's mouth falls open, but no words come.

“So don't break my grandson's heart, okay?”

***

The rest of the day passes much as the ones before it. His dayshift nurse is a tall, thoughtful young man from Ghana who lets him ramble about how thirteenth-century Malian goldsmiths used glass to refine precious metals as he adjusts the settings on Kakyoin's wound vac. Rhonda even gives him a sheet of printer paper to draw on. His is the only room on the entire unit with a television, so he passes the time doodling with Who's the Boss? and Jeopardy playing softly in the background. Much to Rhonda's annoyance, he mumbles every answer under his breath before the contestants' hands are halfway to the buzzer, even the one about Van Gogh poisoning himself with absinthe.

“You aren't even old enough to drink the damn stuff,” she grumbles.

He didn't realize how lonely he was until Joseph left. He's certainly kept busy: respiratory therapy sessions with Jerry, blood transfusions, dressing changes, x-rays, and a new experimental IV drip that has to be adjusted every two minutes and makes his arm feel like it's about to fall off. He learns new terms like 'continuous renal replacement therapy’ and 'immunoglobulin titration', but it only makes him feel like a lab rat.

Nahla returns in the evening, and they chat a bit about her native Kenya. He wishes he had more stories to tell about himself, but his life before the last three months seems so...empty. After an embarrassing amount of effort, he scrounges up an old memory, and he tells her about how he found a funny-looking piebald mouse in a gas station bathroom and kept him in an old birdcage for three years, taking him out to ride in his pocket and play tricks on his mother. To his amazement, Nahla laughs, high and sweet and musical. It's a sound he could get used to hearing.

Suddenly, a shadow behind the curtain catches Nahla's eye, and she pauses in the middle of starting his next antibiotic infusion. “Oh...my,” she breathes. Kakyoin puts down his pencil.

Nahla takes the tiniest step back, a hand halfway to her mouth, then promptly schools her features. “Please forgive me, sir. Are you a friend of Noriaki's?”

The thin plastic parts with an audible snap, and out steps a figure at least a head and half taller than Nahla.

“It's been a while, Kakyoin,” Jotaro says softly.

Chapter Text

He's here.

Jotaro's eyes bore into Kakyoin's own, dazzling, the brightest light in the gleaming, white-tiled room. The frosted sea glass from his dreams, green as a kingfisher's wing. When Kakyoin closed his eyes on January 16th at 5:15 pm, there had been a name on his lips. All at once, those last few desperate moments come flooding back to him. The steady plink plink plink of dripping blood. Numbness creeping up his arms, ringing in ears, vision fading like a hole burning into a film strip. Dio's leer. Joseph's outstretched hand. Pain. And after pain, this inescape sense of falling, of fading, of going.

Through it all, he wished, wished with every fiber of his being that he had more time. 'Oh, God, I never told him-'

And now he's here, the face he never thought he'd see again. His first friend, his first everything. Kakyoin's heart somersaults in his chest.

“Noriaki?” Nahla asks gently, a hand on his chest. At least three different alarms buzz in his ears. His head swims. “Take a few deep breaths.”

Careful as ever, her hands move over his body as she counts his breaths and inspects his pupils. When she speaks, her voice is warm but stern. “It's been a very long day for you. Perhaps another time-”

“What I have to say to him can't wait. Kakyoin's made of tougher stuff than you think,” Jotaro growls, yet he gingerly steps out of Nahla's path as she prepares his next antibiotic infusion with a raised eyebrow in his direction. The two eye each other surreptitiously, as if sizing the other up. Kakyoin notices for the first time that Jotaro is not wearing his cap, thick dark curls framing his features. Without the shadow of his hat, they accentuate the roundness of his lips and cheeks, making him look younger. Memories stir in his heart, of running his fingers through Jotaro's hair the last time they lay in bed together, pleasantly surprised at its softness...

Keep it together, you idiot

“Nahla, it's fine. I was caught off guard, I guess. Jotaro has that effect on people,” Kakyoin urges, tucking his forelock behind his ear as he feels his cheeks heat up in embarrassment. He might as well be one of those ditzy girls clinging to Jotaro's arm back in Japan.

“Have a seat,” he says nonchalantly, gesturing with his good arm towards the one chair in the room. At least he hopes it sounds nonchalant.

Jotaro obliges with a grunt, winching when he puts weight on his right foot. Kakyoin worries his lip when he sees Jotaro's left arm hanging limply from a sling, encased in plaster. With bandages wrapped around his skull, countless half-healed abrasions and gashes, an IV still in his forearm, he has more battle scars than Polnareff and Joseph combined.

'I was told that they're...knife wounds.'

Almost instinctively, Kakyoin starts to reach out to brush his fingertips across Jotaro's bruised face like he had so many times before, when something makes him hesitate. An uncanny energy seems to crackle around his heavy frame. “Are you-”

“For fuck's sake, I'm fine. Worry about yourself,” Jotaro mutters darkly.

“Stop interrupting people. I'm allowed to give a shit about you,” Kakyoin fires back, hating the brittle, raspy sound of his own voice. Hours and hours of therapy sessions with top-of-the-line specialists, pushing himself until he's gasping for air and drenched in sweat, yet he still can't spit out five words without his lungs screaming in protest.

They say he's getting stronger every day. He feels as if every breath is dragging him closer to death.

“I was wondering when I'd see you again,” Kakyoin says at last, then promptly blanches. The words sounded different in his head. “I heard from Mr. Joestar that Miss Holly is on the mend. I suppose you'll be heading back to Japan soon.”

“The fuck are you talking about? We'll be heading back, you mean.” Jotaro's eyes never leave his. He closes the distance between them in two long strides, gripping Kakyoin's bony hand. The fingers curling around his own are as thick as Dio's, but the knuckles are calloused, the nails blunt and unpainted. No cold gray skin, no heavy golden rings glinting in the darkness. No more fear. Dio is gone.

“I'm scheduled for surgery in two days. I don't—I don't know if—”

“We're going back home. Both of us.” Jotaro says simply. In his eyes there is nothing but absolute conviction. Before he even realizes what he's doing, Kakyoin squeezes back, harder than he should. He opens his mouth to speak, but he feels like someone dumped a mointain of sand down his throat.

It's a decidedly peculiar feeling. Throughout this journey, Kakyoin has always been the one doing the comforting. It's the only way he knows how to be around people, tending and listening and making himself useful. He's lost count of how late nights in their hotel room he has spent patiently suturing and bandaging Jotaro's cuts, handing him aspirin, water, ice bags, whatever he needs, letting him grumble about Joseph and brood over Holly until he fell asleep. It made sense to him because Jotaro had more to lose. Jotaro has a family to worry about, a home to return to. A future. Kakyoin, by comparison, is adrift. A dandelion seed floating on the wind.

And yet his first memory of Jotaro is being held. Caught, he supposes.

A comfortable silence settles in the room, as quiet as a busy ICU can be. An alarm rings approximately every ninety seconds in Kakyoin's room alone, and Nahla patiently extinguishes each little fire, taking vitals, collecting samples, checking his bandages. He wishes he didn't have to be such a pain in the ass.

As if on cue, pain starts creeping up his spine, cold fingers jabbing at his pressure points. He squirms, unable to relax. “Nahla, can you, er...” He trails off, unused to being so forward. But he's starting to slide toward the foot of his hospital bed, making his back cramp up.

“Let me see if Shani's available, and we'll help you into a more comfortable position,” Nahla replies evenly. Kakyoin groans. Thanks to his spinal precautions, it takes two staff members just to move him a few inches across the air mattress, and after two call-ins, the floor is understaffed tonight.

“He wants to sit up a little, right? I can help,” Jotaro says, standing up suddenly.

“That's really not necessary-”

“I've still got one working arm. Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it.”

Nahla sighs. “I need another person to hold the edges of the sheet under him and help me to—GENTLY—pull him up, and then turn him onto his side. It's not a one-handed job.”

“Let him help. Shani's still downstairs in ER.” Kakyoin interjects. “He may look like an ox, but he's just about the smartest guy I know. Next to me, of course.” Jotaro rolls his eyes.

Kakyoin remembers the first time Jotaro had picked him up like he weighed as much as a bag of feathers. The two of them were leaping off a speeding train from West Bengal to Odisha. Kakyoin caught his ankle in the tangled roots of a banyan tree as they bolted into the rosewood forests, the shouts of the freight crew fading into the distance. After half an hour of watching Kakyoin hobble, sweat, and mutter cursewords in three different languages under his breath, Jotaro finally had enough and hefted him on his back, ignoring Kakyoin's protests. He never seemed to tire, plodding on and on as if Kakyoin were a load of textbooks. Little by little, they began to talk. Or rather, Kakyoin talked, pointing out animal trails and rare orchids. He's a city kid, used to exploring the natural world with David Attenborough and Nature Digest instead of his own feet. A shadow of a cloud passed over them. Kakyoin let his chin rest on Jotaro's shoulder, listening to the sounds of birds and tree branches swaying in the wind, Jotaro's rythmic breathing and his heavy footfalls.

After that, it became a habit. A stray touch here and there. Finding himself suddenly pressed against Jotaro's chest when the car makes a hard swerve. Leaning into the crook of Jotaro's arm on cold desert nights, sharing Avdol's chai tea and each other's heat. Looking up from his book to see Jotaro looming over him from his huge height, only for him to flop down next to him as if they'd known each other for years, almost but not quite letting their knees touch. Kakyoin had sometimes felt like a rabbit in the hands of a clumsy child. His skin prickled, and he buzzed with nervous energy, scared and unsure after a lifetime of being untouched and unloved.

'That color...I've never seen anything like it.'

A arm around his waist, a hand in his hair, thick fingers twining around his long trailing forelock. Looking down at him almost contemplatively, Jotaro ran his thumb over the hair in his hand, again and again. Kakyoin's scalp tingled, a shiver running down his spine. He was close, too close, and Kakyoin was tensing like a spooked horse, threatening to run.

'Beautiful,' Jotaro says with a sincerity that seems to catch them both off guard.

Then a kiss.

Curiously, the first word that came to Kakyoin's mind was pain. He wondered if this is what a caged songbird felt like, taking its first flight. Or maybe a prisoner stepping out of a dark cellar into the blazing afternoon sun. Everything was so new. He felt the sheer newness so intensely it left him aching as if he'd been dancing for hours. It hurt, and Kakyoin leaned greedily into their kiss, parting his lips, tasting tobacco and sugary soda pop and Jotaro.

Neither of them could quite recall who started it or why, but they found themselves tangled up together again and again. Kakyoin would turn to say something particularly cutting during one of their many verbal sparring matches, and his next words would be lost against Jotaro's mouth. Kakyoin would nuzzle against Jotaro's neck as they read under the covers, and their lips would fall together, soft and sleepy and open. Everything about Jotaro's presence was too hard, too brisk, forceful, graceless, tough and tender, but the more he was pulled into the other boy's warmth, the more he melted in every sense of the word.

Kakyoin feels a little tug on the sheet beneath him, and he snaps back to reality. Together, Jotaro and Nahla lift him in one smooth motion, Jotaro doing about 90% of the work and without so much as a grunt of effort. To his amazement, the huge hand on his shoulder as his body is carefully manipulated into a recumbent position (with LOTS of pillows as Jotaro knows Kakyoin's preferences well) is every bit as precise and feather-light as Nahla's. For the first time since he woke up in the ICU, nothing hurts.

“Better?” Jotaro asks.

“Very.”

***

Kakyoin never thought he'd be glad to see Nahla leave, but he heaves a sigh of relief as she disappears behind the curtain with one final nod and a knowing look in her eye.

“So what is this grand, important thing that can't wait?” Kakyoin asks when he's sure that she's out of earshot. He's not about to drag Nahla into any stand business.

“I've already said it.” Jotaro leans back in his chair. “We're going home together. And not with you in a goddamn box. So stop acting like I came here to say goodbye.”

“I just had this fucking conversation with Polnareff,” Kakyoin snaps, the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes. “Even he wasn't this...this stubborn! For God's sake, Jotaro, you're no fool. The lead surgeon raised my odds of survival to 28% this afternoon. I've spoken with Mr. Joestar, made all the necessary arrangements. I'm trying to be practical-”

“Because you're always so practical,” Jotaro spits, a quiet fury in his eyes that Kakyoin has never seen directed at him. It chills him down to the marrow. “The old man told me what happened. Said even with your guts practically hanging around your knees, you figured everything out, solved the big mystery, even left him a final message before you bled out. He was so proud of you.

“It's all over. Dio's turned to dust. Mom's back on her feet. Says she's going to have all the laundry done and my favorite dinner on the table when I get back. Even Dad finally fucking called, dragged his miserable ass out of Las Vegas so he can darken our doorsteps for a few weeks.” Jotaro jams his hands into his pockets, looking like he'd very much like to kick something, and Kakyoin is about to ask if he's okay when he rounds on him again, eyes blazing.

“So you've decided now that you've played your part, you might ask well exit stage left, huh? What about the rest of us? What are we supposed to do?”

“Jotaro, what the hell are you even trying to say?” Kakyoin demands, utterly bewildered.

“That you're being a selfish prick. You say you're not giving up, then you're telling Grandpa where you want to be buried.” Jotaro doesn't shout. He never does. Instead, his voice seems to wither away, leaving nothing but a hateful whisper. Kakyoin wonders for one wild moment if Jotaro's going to slug him before he all but collapses back into his chair, exhaustion etched into his features.

“Do you remember that night on the beach? We talked about all the things we wanted to do. What country we'd visit next, what we'd study in college. We talked and talked. About the future. About us.” His good hand balls into a fist, trembling, knuckles white, but Jotaro himself seems to shrink into his chair, back bent like an old man.

“Does that mean nothing to you?” he asks very quietly as Kakyoin sits in stunned silence.

Kakyoin sees their last night before they left for Cairo every night in his dreams. The starlit beach, the tranquil roll of the tides, a halo of clouds curling serenely around the moon. Laughter. Music. Freshly caught fish roasted over a campfire. His first beer. Surrounded by people he would die for. All things he never thought he would get to experience.

***

“Seriously, Polnareff?” Avdol chides as the man in question digs a little baggie out of his jeans, along with his favorite cigarette lighter.

“Relax, mon amour, relax. A few little hits won't hurt." Chuckling to himself, Polnareff begins to spread the contents of the baggie onto a square of paper, rolling it up and sealing it. “C'mere, Kakyoin.”

“I am not responsible for what happens next,” Avdol grouses, waggling a finger at them as Joseph snickers into his palm.

"Heh. If anyone needs to learn how to relax, it's this kid. Now what you do is suck some air through the filter like you're drinking through a straw, nice and slow. Savor it, baby!"

Kakyoin's first foray into recreational drug use ends in a predictable coughing fit. Polnareff titters like a schoolgirl as he pats his back. After a few minutes of steaming eyes and ashes in his windpipe, a pleasant airiness settles into his bones, and giddy laughter rumbles in his chest. He watches, evening stars glittering in his eyes, as the horizon lights up in soft blues and pinks and incandescent orange.

The sun finally sinks beneath the waves, and shadows dance in the firelight. Polnareff takes him by the hands and twirls him around as Joseph cheers from the sidelines and Avdol steers them away from the campfire. They laugh and laugh, Polnareff picking him up and sloppily kissing his cheeks as tears roll down his own.

"Hit the poor boy like a tank," Joseph grins, handily saving Kakyoin from tripping over his own feet. He sinks down to his knees in a little heap, sitting cross-legged in the sand and giggling inanely into his fist. "Jesus, what was in that stuff?" Polnareff is too busy singing off-key and trying to high-five a growling Iggy to answer.

Pink-faced and breathless from laughter, Kakyoin rolls onto his back, folding his hands behind his head. The more experienced smokers pass around another joint, offering Kakyoin one more puff after he promises not to set himself on fire. The skies above are brimming with stars, thousands of diamonds glittering on a black velvet drape. Darkness presses against his eyes: a warm, fertile, inviting darkness, full of secrets, teaming with life. His belly is warm and full of Avdol's excellent cooking, the soft powdery sand cool beneath his back, and he feels so loose and limber he's pretty sure he could tie himself in a knot.

"Did you know?" Kakyoin muses. "That the world's oldest star chart was found at a cave along the Silk Road in 1900? Imagine it: a map of over 1,300 stars drawn with incredible mathematical precision, sealed up in a cave since the 11th century, waiting for someone to discover it?"

"Two lungfuls of genuine Acapulco Gold, and he's still up for a science lecture," Joseph laughs. "I tell you, this kid's either gonna win a Nobel Prize when he grows up, or build the bomb that starts World War III. Maybe both."

"I think it's neat," Polnareff says with a goofy lopsided grin, taking another generous swig of lager. "Tell me more *hic* about the stars, Kak." 

"There's something...comforting about them. The sky is in constant motion, but no matter how much it rearranges itself every evening, the sun still rises, and the stars move in patterns we can predict with science. There's a kind of beautiful symmetry to it," he says dreamily.

"'Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.' I've always loved that quote. But I never really got to see the stars when I was a kid, growing up in the city. I think it's what I like best about being on my own now."

"You still are a kid," Avdol counters quickly. "And you're not on your own anymore. You really need to think about what you're going to do with your life, Kakyoin. I mean it. Use those brains for something besides stealing cars and quoting Socrates." Kakyoin blows a strand of hair out of his face indignantly, his euphoria bubble on the verge of popping.

"Now's a hell of a time to start planning for the future," he grumbles. Sand clings to his lashes, and he suddenly starts to feel very foolish. "Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow?"

“Weee're going over the stars, over the stars...” Polnareff sings, looping his arm around Avdol's neck and pressing clumsy kisses to the hollows of his temples. Avdol heaves an exasperated sigh and awkwardly pats his back.

"We've made it this far," Joseph says in a unusually somber tone. Kakyoin feels a surprisingly gentle touch on his shoulder and cranes his neck to see the old man's eyes glinting faintly in the flickering light. "Don't be scared, son," he whispers. Damn it, was he that obvious?

"It won't be like the last time you went up against Dio. This time, you won't be alone."

The stars pinwheel above their heads as the five of them eat and drink and talk long into the night, and Kakyoin gradually buoys down to earth. Drifting in and out of the conversation, he rolls onto his chest and begins lazily sketching a few new panels of the comic book he and Polnareff have been working on while Polnareff whispers suggestions into his ear, half of them whiskey-soaked nonsense. He rummages through his backpack to show Avdol the shells he had collected earlier, laughs in spite of himself when Joseph tells a particularly awful story involving a nudist running into a church. He's getting better at this, Kakyoin supposes. Every day, he talks more, smiles more, leans into friendly little touches on his back and shoulders instead of flinching.

It's tiring.

Conversation dies out as the embers of the fire cool, and one by one, everyone but Kakyoin drifts off to sleep. Without really thinking about it, Kakyoin dusts the sand off his legs and carefully tiptoes past the slumbering forms of his friends. It's funny, he thinks, how the five of them always seem to end up in a ring with him in the middle. He drifts away from the warmth of the circle, leaving soft footprints in the glassy black sand to be worn away by the tides. Kakyoin can't help but wonder if, when the journey ends, he'll fade away just as quickly.

"Can't sleep?" Jotaro's voice rumbles in his ear, smooth and smokey, a hint of something sweet on his breath. Kakyoin chuckles mirthlessly but doesn't turn around.

"I just needed a little air," Kakyoin murmurs, his voice all but lost in the crash of waves. He's no fool. He know it'll be a miracle if they all make it out of this alive, and even then, they'll all drift back to their own countries in just a few weeks. He wants to drink up every last moment he has left with them, but he's fighting against his own nature.

"That makes two of us. Four hours of Gramps' bar stories and Polnareff getting progressively more wasted is one hell of a sensory overload. Avdol has more patience than Gandhi.” He cracks open another beer and takes a swig before passing it to Kakyoin. The taste lingers on his tongue, bitter but smooth, warming him up as a night breeze tousles his hair.

"What are you going to do, once this is all over?" Kakyoin asks. If there's one person in the world who could spit in Dio's eye and live, it's Jotaro.

"Hell if I know," Jotaro mumbles, stifling a yawn. "Mom's been pestering me to go to Tokyo University for ages, but I don't have a snowball's chance in hell with my exam scores."

"Jotaro Kujo, I spent a whole afternoon studying with you on the day we met, and I know for a fact that's not true. A couple more study sessions with me, and who knows? Maybe you're university material after all," Kakyoin grins impishly as he catches Jotaro's eye.

"What about you? Don't tell me you're going to tutor me until I get my acceptance letter and disappear into the night. With your exam scores, you could get into any university you wanted," Jotaro replies in an infuriatingly matter-of-fact tone. "I never thought I'd say this, but Avdol and even the old man have a point, for once in his life. I'm the last guy who should be dishing out lectures, but-"

"And then what? I go back home and study like a good boy so I can be a bank manager?" Kakyoin interjects. Turning away from Jotaro with a scowl, he petulantly thrusts his hands into his jacket pockets only to find something smooth and cool to the touch. Startled, he opens his palm to reveal the frosted blue-green sea glass he discovered at sunset, winking at him through the thick shadows.

“It's not as if there's nothing in the world that interests me," Kakyoin mutters, brushing his thumb over the cool glass. There's something comforting about the little weight in his palm. "I like astronomy. I like history, math, philosophy, art. Painting and traveling and taking pictures. Lots of things. I don't know. All I know is that when I look at what my future holds, it's like I'm staring at a blank wall.”

"Maybe. Maybe you're afraid," Jotaro scoffs, and Kakyoin stiffens as if he'd been stuck by a pin. "Don't give me these lame excuses, Kakyoin. You're better than that."

The sea glass digs into his hand, and he feels the ridiculous urge to hurl it back into the sea. Afraid? What could possibly scare him after-

“You're still scared of him, aren't you?”

Kakyoin spins on his heel like a sentry. To his surprise, Jotaro holds his hands up in surrender, which is probably the only thing that saves him from a fist in his face.

“Look, I know you've been through some serious shit, and I'm not calling you a coward,” Jotaro says quickly, then lowers his bulk onto one of the rocky outcroppings jutting from the surf. He's not wearing his leather school shoes Kakyoin notes, watching as Jotaro lets the frothy white waves wash over his bare feet.

A large crab the exact same color as a pat of butter immerses from a nearby burrow, eye-stalks waving curiously. With a look of childlike fascination, Jotaro watches it busily scuttle across the sand, careful to keep his toes out of its reach. “When I first started getting into scraps, I got my ass kicked all the time,” Jotaro states in an oddly wistful tone. “I lost teeth, broke ribs, busted my nose about a hundred times. Every shithead in the neighborhood thought I was some big tough bastard because I was taller than everyone else, though they could rise up a few notches by taking me out. I guess I turned into that bastard eventually.”

“You certainly can be,” Kakyoin says tartly. “But sometimes not.”

Jotaro huffs. “You're one to talk. Anyway, I sure as shit learned something all those years I spent kissing concrete. Guys like that, who can't feel big unless they're shoving someone's face into the dirt? They can smell fear a mile away. And Dio's another schoolyard bully, all grown up. You're never going to win like this, Kakyoin.”

“You don't know him. Not like I do.” Kakyoin whispers frantically. “He hollows you out, little by little. He takes and takes and takes until you have nothing left to give.”

“You're still alive, aren't you? So he didn't take everything. Not yet.” Kakyoin peers curiously at him. “You don't think that matters to any of us? To me?”

The tides are at their strongest now. In the morning, the sea will be quieter, exposing tidal pools formed from the rocks beneath their feet, filled with killifish, mussels, snails, sea urchins, countless little lives. He remembers Jotaro telling him how the animals and plant life have to endure hours of sun exposure, low oxygen, and wading birds, only to be submerged in fresh seawater and hungry fish during high tide. Like all wild places, every day, every hour, is filled with uncertainty.

“How do you stop being afraid?” Kakyoin says at last.

“Dream a little,” Jotaro replies thoughtfully. “It's different for everyone, I suppose.”

“I got a mountain bike for my 11th birthday. I knew it'd get yanked right out from under me if I rode it around town, so I hit this old cobblestone road behind our old house and just kept riding. Hour after hour, mile after mile. Then, things...changed. It got greener, quieter. More animals, less people. It was the first time I really felt at peace.”

“So you found your own private nirvana,” Kakyoin muses.

“I found...an outlet, I guess. A place where I could be myself. I started going there every day after school, and when I ran out of things to explore, I found new woods and rice paddies, little dirt roads no one's been down since before the war. I had a lot of time to think. About who I wanted to be, what the hell I was going to do with my life. And when the kids at school started shit with me, I hit back. Hard.

His eyes soften. “Look, I'm no philosopher, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that even a lonely little kid's stupid daydreams are better than to give up dreaming entirely.”

"I've read a few philosophy books over the years," Kakyoin says with a tight, polite smile that he knows makes his face look like a Noh mask. Even before Jotaro rolls his eyes, he's faced with the rather embarrassing realization that the words sounded a lot more impressive in his head. “Buddhists believe that earthly desires are the cause of suffering. The only way to achieve enlightenment is to extinguish them, to embrace emptiness instead. The Dalai Lama describes emptiness as a meditative state where we accept the ontological features of reality, without all our little stories we tell ourselves so we can make it through another day. Is it really such a terrible thing? We're not kids anymore, Jotaro. I'm trying to accept things are they are.”

“Ontological feature of reality? Do you even hear yourself?" Jotaro says scathingly. "You tell me. All those years of feeling empty...do you feel enlightened yet? Or do you want to forget all that depressing shit for a while and help me look for sea stars?”

He extends a hand, and Kakyoin takes it. Step by step, hand in hand, they walk deeper and deeper into the sea, until the water nearly reaches Kakyoin's thighs (and Jotaro's shins). The blue-black waves are calmer around the algae-encrusted rocks, swirling gently around their legs and catching the reflection of the moon.

“Do you see it? To your left, about two meters away.” Jotaro breathes, as if afraid to break the spell. Kakyoin squirts, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.

There! Hidden among swaying blades of seaweed is a little cluster of red-and-white speckled sea stars, sponges, and lustrous bottle-green anemones, tentacles rippling in the mild current. They remind him of Hierophant. “That's quite an impressive find,” Kakyoin says. “You know, you have a real knack for this. Have you ever thought about studying marine biology?”

“Jotaro Kujo with a goddamned Ph.D.? I barely show up to class as it is, and now you expect me to spend the next fifteen years of my life in school,” Jotaro laughs, a deep throaty reverberation that Kakyoin never gets tired of hearing. “Are you out of your damned mind?”

Kakyoin smirks. “I've read that ghost crabs like your little buddy back there serve as sentinel species so we can monitor the human impact on the environment. That could be you, sticking cameras into crab burrows. I suppose I'm not making it sound too romantic, but think about it: traveling all over the world, scuba diving, working with sea turtles and dolphins, discovering new species. About 80% of the ocean is unexplored. Who knows what's out there?”

“Hmm, I'll think about it, if only to get you off my back. It's gonna involve a lot of math, though.” Jotaro scratches the back of his neck in a decidedly Joseph-like maneuver.

“So you can win a fistfight with a shape-shifting oil freighter, but you can't pass trigonometry?” Still grinning, Kakyoin carefully steps around the shells clustered at their feet, gripping Jotaro by the arm with sudden intensity. “Tell you what, if—IF—we both make it out of this alive, I'll personally make sure you can do logarithms and stoichiometry in your sleep. We'll check out every book on nudibranchs in the library. I'll study with you every day if I have to.”

“I'd like that,” Jotaro says, flashing him a rare smile.

“And as for me, I think...I think I'd like to study the stars,” Kakyoin stammers out suddenly, and it's as if a cork is being pulled out of his soul. “Be an astrophysicist like Carl Sagan or an aerospace engineer like Qian Xuesen. There are so many things I want to do. I want to go to Nepal and Brazil and California. I want to learn to parasail. I want to see a wild snow leopard up close. I want to see the first recorded photographs of Neptune when the Voyager 2 flies past it.

“And I want...I don't know, to feel normal for a while. Go to school, have friends, have a home to go back to." Kakyoin knows that he's babbling, but he can't seem to stop. "Maybe even go out on a date.”

“A date, huh? And where exactly would you be taking this 'date'?” Jotaro grins.

“Oh, I was thinking maybe the Ueno Aquarium in Taitō City,” Kakyoin answers with a teasing smile. “I've read that it has an excellent Humboldt penguin exhibit.” Tentively, he reaches up, and when Jotaro doesn't pull back, he brushes his fingers through his thick dark curls. The two boys break apart with a nervous little laugh on Kakyoin's part. He feels the tips of his ears turning red, a pleasant squirm in his stomach as they resume their starfish hunt.

“Yeah? I was thinking of the Metropolitan Art Museum. I heard they have these 17th-century woodblock prints. Seems like the kinda shit he'd be into.” To Kakyoin's delight, Jotaro holds out his cupped hands, revealing a captured sea star suspended in water. Kakyoin has never seen a live one up close before. "And maybe...maybe he'd like to see the cherry blossom festival at Himeji Castle."

"Cherry blossoms falling all around us, like snow," Kakyoin murmurs dreamily. "That's so corny, you know?" Jotaro shrugs and very carefully returns the tiny creature to the sea, where it promptly re-attaches itself to the rocks, unperturbed. It all seems perfectly ridiculous. Jotaro Kujo eating sugary sakura mochi and flicking pink petals off his coat. And yet...

The two boys talk and talk, stories and secrets, dreams, memories both bitter and sweet, about anything and nothing at all. They are walking inside a glass jar with nothing but them and the sea and stars. As if by some invisible force, with every step the two are pulled closer and closer together until Kakyoin's jaw comes to rest on Jotaro's wool coat, and he shuts his eyes for a moment and just breathes, breathing in the scent of tobacco and sea spray. Strong arms wrap around him, firm and warm and safe. Jotaro's calloused thumb brushes across Kakyoin's bottom lip, an invitation. “If you want to stop--”

Kakyoin knots his fists in Jotaro's coat so forcefully he almost knocks Jotaro off balance, pulling him down for their mouths to meet. Not to be outdone, Jotaro lifts Kakyoin up effortlessly before he can even think of standing on tiptoe, and their lips brush together, tentatively at first, and then they're kissing harder, deeper as if they could never have enough. Their wet bodies stick together as they explore with their lips and hands.

They part, laughing wildly, out of breath, almost in awe of what they've just done, and then they find each other again, tumbling into the surf in a tangle of limbs. It's the most senseless and exhilarating thing either of them had ever done. The weight of Jotaro's body presses against Kakyoin's, and his mind goes blank, parting his lips and arching his back, crying out wordlessly. He feels the rippling strength of Jotaro's broad back beneath his thin fingers, the delicious friction of stubble against his cheek as Jotaro laps at the hollows of his throat.

Warmth floods through Kakyoin's veins, and he wants, wild and wanton, wants more fervently than he'd ever wanted in his entire life. He wants it to never end. He wants there to be more stargazing, more laughter, more kisses. He's desperate and delirious with want, and as they lay there, skin to skin, listening to the steady throb of Jotaro's heart and his own hummingbird-like pulse, he thinks about tomorrow, and all the promise that it holds.

***

“I would think that you of all people would understand,” Kakyoin says, voice strained and quiet. Slowly, achingly, the starlit beach is swept away, dissolving into the same three featureless white walls and flickering monitor screens he has woken up to for the past four days. “It meant everything to me, Jotaro.”

“Then why?” Jotaro accuses. “Why are you acting like this?”

“You asked me to dream, and I did. I dreamed about all the things I wanted to do, the life we could have had together. But that's all it was, in the end. Just a dream.”

“I don't care if they throw me out of here,” Jotaro snaps, breathing noisily through his nose. “I swear if you say one more word, I'm gonna kick your ass across this shitty excuse for a hospital room.”

“We both know you're not going to do any of that.”

“You've still got a chance. What do you think your odds of survival were when I pulled that fleshbud out of your head? When we were lost in the desert and ran out of water? All the times the old man nearly crashed our plane?” Jotaro hisses. “I didn't even know that things like stands existed three months ago. Who's to say what's even possible anymore?”

“Jotaro...”

“The Speedwagon Foundation built Gramps a fully functional prosthetic hand back in 1938. They have the finest surgeons, the most state-of-the-art medical research centers in the world, and they can't fix your broken back?” He begins to pace in the narrow space between Kakyoin's bed and the stacks upon stacks of life-saving equipment, a feverish light in his eyes.

“I only caught a glimpse of Dio's stand before everything went black,” Kakyoin replies dully. “But the one thing I remember clearly is its right fist, dripping with blood. My blood. It must have punched right through my stomach.” What little color drains from Jotaro's face, and he reels back as if Kakyoin slapped him. He never thought he would be able to hurt anyone in this state, but here is the undeniable proof.

Despondency hangs in the air like stale food, neither boy daring to speak. Kakyion tries one last time. “Jotaro, if I only have a few more days left, I don't want to spend them arguing with you.”

“Star Platinum can stop time.”

“What?”

“How do you think you survived that night? I was the one who found you on the water tower,” Jotaro says so softly Kakyoin can barely hear him. “I saw what Dio had done to you. When I reached out to you, your skin was cold. Your heart had stopped breathing. I thought you were...

“And then I realized that not just you, but everything had...stopped.

“Gramps called the Speedwagon Foundation the instant we pinpointed Dio, so police and EMTs were already crawling all over the scene, trying to evacuate everyone. It was bad, Kakyoin. A lot of people died that night.” His voice is growing more ragged, as if every word is digging into him like broken glass. “But I found you. I lifted you down and carried you to the nearest ambulance. Ran right past the smoke and the dead bodies. It felt like my heart was going to burst, but I kept running because if there was the slightest chance you were still alive, I had to take it.”

“That was you,” Kakyoin gasps. The realization hits him like a bullet to the brain. “I could barely hear this splashing sound in the distance...you must have been standing right next to me, and I never knew.”

Jotaro nods solemnly. “The instant I set you down on the gurney, everything began to move again. Your eyes opened for a second, and even though I saw that giant hole in your gut, like an idiot I thought you were going to be okay. Then you started convulsing and coughing up blood. God, there was just nothing but red, all down your chin, in your hair...you were so pale." His voice seems to gutter like a candle flame, whispy and weak. "Like a ghost."

“No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't stay with you. So I told the Speedwagon Foundation that they better fucking save you no matter what, and I ran back into the street because if I didn't stop him we'd all die,” Jotaro says. “That whole goddamned night, I had no way of knowing if you were alive. I thought Grandpa was dead. Avdol and Iggy, too.”

“So don't give me this horseshit about being 'practical',” Jotaro snaps, two spots of vivid color on his chalky gray cheeks. “Me, Gramps, Polnareff, even those poor bastards I scared the shit out when I practically dumped you in their laps, we all fought so fucking hard to keep you alive. Because you deserve to go home, too. Because you're one of us. Because you would have done it for me.”

“Jotaro, I didn't know. I...I'm sorry.” Kakyoin's mind is reeling. “I'm so sorry.”

“I keep seeing your face when you were lying on that stretcher, struggling to breathe. My clothes were soaked with your blood,” Jotaro rasps out. “All of that...for two more days together. I...it's not...you can't...” And then he shatters.

Jotaro's green eyes disappear behind his good hand, tears trickling down his cheek and pattering softly onto his lap. Everything about Jotaro, the real Jotaro that only Kakyoin and a handful of other people know, is quiet, subtle, delicate in the most peculiar ways, and so are his tears.

“Jotaro, would you sit with me for a while?” It feels like such a paltry offer, but it's all Kakyoin has left.

He stands long enough to awkwardly shuffle his chair over to Kakyoin's bedside, and his face is an absolute wreck, eyes red and puffy, mouth screwed up. His nose is running. It doesn't hurt to look at him as much as Kakyoin thought it would. For the time that they have left, he wants to see all the parts of Jotaro, not only the pretty ones. He reaches out, running his fingers through Jotaro's hair like he used to, over and over, until Jotaro's shoulders stop trembling.

Jotaro won't be alright. Deep in his bones, Kakyoin understands this. But if the only thing Kakyoin can do is hold him, he will hold him till the end.

Chapter Text

Nahla looks up in surprise as the partition rolls open with a loud snap, and out comes the same towering hulk of a teenager who stomped into room 4112 less than thirty minutes ago. Nurses and doctors scramble out of his way as he stalks down the hall, one huge fist clenched. The eyes beneath the shadow of his cap are glossy and bloodshot. His bottom lip, curled into a sneer, is trembling. Nahla knows that look. It's the look of someone who has been crying for a long time.

The figure on the bed doesn't acknowledge her presence. If not for the blips coming from his cardiac monitor, he could be mistaken for a rather dour-looking sculpture.

“Is your friend coming back?” Nahla asks, already knowing the answer.

“I don't think so,” Noriaki replies dully, and somewhere beneath her layers of spotless white scrubs and hard-nosed professionalism, Nahla's heart aches. She's seen him cry, she's heard him scream, but somehow, watching that bright and curious spark fade from his eyes hurts the most.

“Did you two have a fight?” It's her voice that finally breaks the silence. She keeps a respectful distance, bracing herself for an explosion.

“Not exactly,” Kakyoin answers listlessly. “He's just...”

“Hurting,” Nahla finishes. “Even I can see he's not made stone, however much he would probably like us to believe otherwise. Please be patient with him, Noriaki.”

“I don't have time to be patient,” he snaps. “You said yesterday that I was given an opportunity that other people don't get. But I've only gone and made things worse.”

“Were you expecting him to just accept it calmly?” Nahla asks. “No one's letting you go without a fight, Noriaki.” He grunts in response, hiding back under his flame-colored hair. Once he grows out of that gangly teenage awkwardness, he's going to be a very handsome young man, she muses. She wonders if he has gaggles of schoolgirls following him around back home like Azizi once did.

“And what if it's all for nothing?”

"Do you remember when you asked me how it would be possible to imagine Sisyphus happy?” Nahla says. “I admit I'm not as familiar with Greek mythology as you, but maybe he made some good friends on his way to the top of the mountain. Forgive me if this sound impertinent, but it seems to me that you are loved very much.”

He snorts at this, just as she expected.

“These past few days, I kept wondering how I survived,” Noriaki hisses through gritted teeth. “And now I know it's because of him. There were people dying all around him, and he chose to save me. He could have died, he could have...It doesn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense at all.”

“You're looking for a logical explanation where there is none,” Nahla says simply, smoothing his hair with an unexpected fondness. He's quite a bit more charming when he's not trying to act like a miniature adult. “Sometimes you sound like the sort of person who'd put a rainbow in a zoo.”

His bottom lip juts out in an unmistakable pout before he can stop himself, and Nahla chuckles to herself behind her mask. She's seen the expression on Azizi's face countless times.

Is there another mother out there, she wonders, waiting for her son to come home?

“Does it ever get to you? You know, when one of your patients...when they die?” Noriaki asks suddenly as if he's trying to catch her off guard.

“I suppose, with time, it becomes easier. We have to work through the pain because other patients need us. But we're only human,” Nahla says. “One of the first patients I ever lost was a six-year-old girl with burns over 70% of her body. We fought for hours to save her, but eventually, we saw that there was no hope. I sat with her when I could, holding her hand while her mother begged her to wake up. Her mother and I prayed for her all throughout the night, and in the morning she was gone.

“I later learned that her father had died from smoke inhalation trying to save her. It was one of the worst nights of my life, and I almost quit the next day. It still haunts me, even 15 years later. I was so angry. I thought, what did this poor family do to deserve this?” Nahla laments, and for a moment, all the helpless fury from that night comes rushing back. She's so damned tired of it. Some days she wants to hop on Azizi's old motorcycle and just keep riding.

 "For better or worse, we rarely get what we deserve in this life, Noriaki. If you have a chance for happiness, even a small one, take it.”

“I just want to slip away quietly. I don't want to hurt anymore, and I don't want to hurt anyone else,” Noriaki murmurs, a hint of a whimper in his voice. Nahla swallows a lump in her throat. Stop it. You're not a mother anymore. “I feel like a thorn stuck in someone's foot, painful to take out and worst to leave in.”

“Maybe you're more like a very thorny rose,” Nahla says, smiling wanly as tears prick her eyes. “It would be a shame to cut you down before you bloom.”

***

The last person Kakyoin sees before he shuts his eyes is Polnareff, bringing with him the scent of cigarette smoke and petrol. Little hints of the outside world. Tiptoeing almost daintily aground countless tubes and cords in his huge leather boots, he drags the chair out of the corner with a loud scraping sound, eyes twinkling with that sheepishly little smile Kakyoin knows so well.

“I swear you're getting taller every time I see you,” Polnareff announces, voice ringing like a bell above the robotic trills and deep reverberating thrums of the medical equipment. “How many years has it been?”

“I hate it when you're this chipper. It makes me want to dump a bucket of water over your head,” Kakyoin says waspishly, yet he feels the ghost of a smile forming on his own lips. The only man who could make Polnareff's eyes shine like that is...

“Has Mr. Avdol-” The shine dulls, flickering out so suddenly Kakyoin's outstretched hand falls to his side.

“You're almost as impatient as I am, aren't you, mon frère,” he mutters, giving Kakyoin's fingers a surprisingly gentle pat. “Not yet. Not yet.”

Kakyoin tilts his head quizzically. He feels like he's ten years old again, people watching from behind the grimy panes of his tiny bedroom window.

“I spend every day with him. You know me, I can't shut up to save my life,” Polnereff laughs mirthlessly, a thin, quivering sound that makes them both cringe. “I talk and talk and talk, but the more I talk and no one answers...it feels like I'm standing over a goddamn coffin.

“I can only spend so long listening to my own voice before I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind.” Polnareff grunts. “You and me, we both know better than anyone how that feels.”

“That we do.”

“Do you remember last Christmas Eve?” Polnareff says suddenly. “Avdol didn't get to spend it with us, so I was telling him about it. It was back in Pakistan or whatever sand-blasted hellhole was between us and Dio. We were licking our wounds in that grimy youth hostel after we fought that rat-faced little prick with the tiny stand. The one that burrowed into people's brains?”

“Are you talking about the Lovers or the bedbugs at the hostel?” Kakyoin quips. “Because they were both about as hygienic.”

Polnareff snickers. “And about as much fun to squash. But seriously, that night...it was the first Christmas I hadn't spent alone since I was nineteen.” Kakyoin opens his mouth to say something rather acerbic when Polnareff shushes him with a wave of his hand. “I know, I know. Never thought I'd get nostalgic about boiling water and handing you towels while you sewed Jotaro's face up,” he says dryly, leaning back in his chair with his hands cupped behind his head.

“But...goddamn it, I don't have much family left. We buried my parents when I was in middle school. And my poor grand-mère, she just wanted to see her daughter again. She barely lasted a week after the funeral. Holidays after that were always the worst. The first year when it was just my sister and me, I set out the créché, bought gingerbread at the marché de Noël, even tried to make scallops in cream sauce like our mother used to. And Sherry...she wouldn't even come out of her room.

“That girl...” Polnareff sighs. “Catch her on a bad day, and she'd have sent the devil himself running. And yet, she had this incredible ability to love, to love so hard and so deep it just...ate her up. All the funerals, the black suits, the fucking neighbors with their pitying looks, it was just too much. She didn't mean to hurt me, but...it seems like that's all she can do anymore.” When the words leave Polnareff's mouth, his crystal blue eyes are flat panes that reflect no light. He's somewhere else in that moment, far away from Kakyoin's bedside.

“Sometimes...I just wanted to forget, even if it was just a few hours. Erase her from my mind, like she never existed,” Polnareff mutters darkly. His fingers dig into his knees, white-knuckled, guilt and self-loathing all over his face. “I've never told anyone that, not even Mohammad.”

"After I lost Sherry, I'd crawl into some seedy motel bed with a bottle of Jack Daniels on Christmas Eve and not give a shit if I woke up in the morning. But then you came along, you and Mr. Joestar, Jotaro, Avdol. Fuck, I've never been the articulate sort, even in French! It just—it hurt a little less.” Polnareff says in a shaky voice, turning from Kakyoin and blinking rapidly. “I know, I know, you've got to be so sick of hearing me talk about her, but--”

“No, it's alright, Polnareff, I get it.” Kakyoin clears his throat, sitting up as straight as he can. “Forgive me if this seems a little...strange, maybe even impertinent, but sometimes when you talk about your sister, I sort of see her in my head. I'm glad, in a way, that I got to know her. That you shared her with me.”

“She'd have liked you,” Polnareff murmurs. “Lord knows I'd never survive with the two of you plotting against me.”

“I've had a lot of time to think, trapped in this little plastic shoebox of a room. No matter what happens in the next two days, I-I think if I had the chance to do it all over again, I'd go with you and the others every time.”

“Oh, Kakyoin...”

“You know what's funny?” He leans back with a soft sigh. “All those years I spent stuck in my own head, I never realized how fundamentally lonely everyone else is. Look at all the poor fools who sold their souls to Dio, just for a sliver of affection. All of us were all locked together in a palace full of desperate, wretched people, but each of us was totally alone, more than ever.

“That night before we arrived in Cairo, Mr. Joestar told me something,” Kakyoin says quietly, and he squeezes the hand on his back. “He told me I wasn't alone anymore. And neither are you, Polnareff.”

Polnareff's face makes an odd sort of jerk as if he were struggling to raise his nonexistent eyebrows. It cracks right down the middle, forming a goofy, lopsided grin Kakyoin can see through his face mask. “Well, I'm officially freaked out. Who are you, and what have you done with Kakyoin?”

“I wonder if Kakyoin even exists anymore,” he wonders. “So much has changed. Even if by some miracle I survive this surgery, I can't live the way I used to.” I'm not even a stand user anymore.

To his surprise, the corners of Polnareff's eyes crinkle as tears dry on his face. “So if Kakyoin doesn't exist anymore, does that mean I can finally call you Noriaki?”

“That depends,” Kakyoin replies cautiously. “Are you mentally prepared for me to call you Jean-Pierre?”

"I thought you'd never ask,” Polnareff--no, Jean-Pierre says jubilantly, his eyes turned to sparkling crescents as he gives Kakyoin the mother of all hair ruffles. It leaves him slightly motion-sick.

And just like that, Kakyoin dies, and Noriaki lives.

The two of them talk about nothing in particular until Nahla arrives with his midnight medication, or Jean rather talks as Kakyoin grumbles drowsily into his pillow. His head is slipping back under the water again, exhaustion weighing him down like stones in his pockets. Jean drifts away with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder, and all he can hear is the hiss of oxygen flooding his nostrils.

***

Scowling as he brushes a sweat-matted curl out of his face, Kakyoin feels the tips of his ears heat up beneath the harsh Indian sun. All around him, the wild sugarcane grass rustles, plumy white-gold stalks waving against the blue sky. The hair sticking out of his scarf is a single drop of red in an endless field of sal trees and fragrant jasmine, more green than he's ever seen in his life. It insulates him against the noise and dust from the century-old railroad to Bolpur, giving the moss-covered woodlands a timeless feel that he's not sure if he finds serene or unsettling.

Mostly he feels guilty.

“Have you been waiting long?”

With a soft rattle of beads, Muhammad Avdol glides smoothly out of the dense foliage, past thick vines that would have sent Kakyoin stumbling headfirst into the mud. To Kakyoin's dismay, he's leaning heavily on a long knobby walking stick, wincing as he takes a step forward. His gaze softens as their eyes meet for the first time in two weeks.

“Forget about me, what about you? I thought—we all thought—that you were...” Kakyoin stammers. The memories come rushing back to him. Bright red arterial blood soaking into his green uniform. Shaking Avdol frantically, begging him to wake up. The buzz of flies. Polnareff screaming. “You must be both the luckiest and the unluckiest man in the world.”

“Give this to Mr. Joestar. Don't let the walking stick fool you. I haven't been idle these last few days. These should see you safely to Mumbai.” Reaching into his billowing robes, Avdol produces a thin stack of papers: newspaper clippings, faded photos, and a creased, water-stained map with notes scribbled into the margins. “I appreciate the sentiment, Kakyoin, but this wasn't my first knife fight and it won't be the last. I was worried about you, you know. That wasn't a battle for a kid your age.”

“Polnareff and I...we got him,” Kakyoin says quickly. “The sick fuck who killed Polnareff's sister. You should have seen it, Mr. Avdol. After I figured out how his stand worked, Polnareff skewered him like a pig and left his ugly carcass for the flies.”

“I can't imagine a more fitting end for such a despicable creature. But I wonder...” Avdol's hands disappear back into his sleeves as he heaves a world-weary sigh. Kakyoin catches a glimpse of black plastic at his belt and smiles as he recognizes the Sony Walkman Polnareff gave Avdol for his birthday.

“Will it be enough? These last few nights I admit I've found myself lying awake, thinking about the last words I said to him. He was a complete jackass, there's no question about that. But if someone I loved that much were taken from me so brutally...God forgive me, but I'd probably do the same thing.”

“He told me that he wants to live,” Kakyoin says, nonplussed. “Isn't that enough?”

“You've never lost anyone, have you, Kakyoin? Grief isn't rational, anymore than love itself is rational. It's not some pit in the road that can be filled in and paved over with petty sentimentality or revenge or even time. We can learn to love a second time, but every person we allow into our hearts is utterly unique, put once on this earth and never again,” Avdol finishes with an almost wistful smile, tracking the movement of the wispy silver-lined clouds above their heads.

Kakyoin wonders if Avdol realizes that he's falling in love.

“It doesn't feel right, keeping all of this a secret from him,” Kakyoin insists. “He hasn't been the same since you left us. If he just knew you were alive--”

“I...I want to see him. More than you can imagine.” Avdol turns to him, a hand on his shoulder. “But right now we need to be strategic. And Polnareff! Let's just say guile and subterfuge are not his strong suits.”

“Could I trouble you for a favor? I know it's not fair of me to lay such a burden at your feet, but could you be there for him, if I can't be with him right now?”

 “Of course,” Kakyoin answers immediately. “But you're coming back soon, right?”

Silence.

If there's one thing Kakyoin can't stand, it's when people refuse to answer him. He opens his mouth to protest when Avdol goes rigid, eyes tracking something on Kakyoin's left side. “Don't move. And be quiet.”

“Is it a stand--” Kakyoin whispers, but Avdol silences him with a finger held to his lip.

The tall swaying grass shivers as a low-pitched rumble makes every bird and insect fall silent. Smooth as oil flowing from a bottle, a huge head emerges from the treeline, followed by massive striped shoulders knotted with hard muscle. A pair of golden eyes lock onto theirs, and Kakyoin nearly stumbles over in shock. “Don't look her in the eye,” Avdol whispers.

“Her? You mean--”

“It's a female. Guarding cubs,” Avdol whispers. He flicks his eyes toward the muddy tree roots between them and the tigress. To Kakyoin's dismay, he can just barely make out a tiny pawprint in the dark spongy loam. “There's no time. It's her or us.”

“You're going to kill her? But she's just protecting her cubs!” Kakyoin cries, far louder than he meant to. Ears flattened against her skull and pelt bristling with rage, she charges. All three of them know they have seconds to act.

“Stay upright and whatever you do, don't run. I'll-”

“No!”

Magician's Red is fast but Hierophant is faster. In a flash of emerald green light, the stand springs forth from beneath Kakyoin's polished green nails. The tiger's two-inch long yellowed fangs snap shut an inch away from his skull. Hot foam drips down his face and he can smell her breath. But then glittering tendrils coil around her heaving chest and neck. She falls writhing and spitting with an impact that shakes the ground. Kakyoin's heart hammers in his chest. He can feel her rippling strength as she claws madly at the forest floor, ripping up clouds of soil. It takes every ounce of Hierophant's strength to hold her in place.

“Is this what you wanted? To terrorize her instead of giving her a quick death?!” Avdol snaps, eyes blazing. “Damn you, you should have let--”

“The cubs! They've got to be hiding nearby!” Kakyoin gasps, nearly out of breath from the strain. “I can't hold her for long!”

With a groan of frustration, Avdol retreats into the greenery. A tiny spark falls from Magician's burning talon, floating in the afternoon sunlight. Slowly, it weaves a path through the densely clumped trees and settles on something small. Magician spreads his massive wings, then brings them together with a thunderous clap! that sends the few remaining birds hurtling toward the skies. The thicket explodes as three little bundles of orange fur tumble out nose over tail and sprint toward the bound tigress as fast as their short legs can carry them.

“Kakyoin, do NOT let her go until I say so,” Avdol hisses through gritted teeth. “Now back away slowly.”

Step by step, Kakyoin and Avdol inch down the hill and toward the train tracks. Kakyoin's school shoes slip and slosh as rain-slick vines tangle around his legs. If he stumbles or exposes his back to the tigress, it will be the last thing he ever does. As the clearing fades into the distance, he watches as the bravest cub takes a few tentative steps toward his mother and cautiously sniffs the air. Even though the rush of adrenaline, Kakyoin can't help but smile to himself as the family reunites. He waits for the frantic thud of her heart to slow, and with a nod from Avdol, he lets her slip from his grasp.

“That was...” Avdol shakes his head, sweat beading below the bandage on his forehead. “That was foolish. Brave but foolish.”

“You make me sound like Polnareff,” Kakyoin grouses. “I won't stand for her being killed. Not for protecting her cubs.”

“You're more alike than you might think,” Avdol muses as they barely restrain themselves from outright spiriting toward the train station. Kakyoin sneaks furtive glances over his shoulder every few steps.

“I wasn't much older than you when I joined the Egyptian army,” Avdol mutters almost offhandedly after they catch their breath. “Before I knew it, taking a man's life became like second nature. It's been ten years since I've held a gun, but sometimes I feel myself slipping back into the man I was.

“It was thanks to Jean that I remembered Magician's Red could sense life as well as destroy it. Thank you, Kakyoin, for reminding me again,” he whispers almost reverently, favoring Kakyoin with a rare smile.

As he brushes the sweat from his face, Kakyoin traces the long healed scars trailing up his thickly muscled forearm. More “souvenirs” from his time as a soldier, perhaps? The only person who's seen all his scars and knows their stories is Polnareff, Kakyoin thinks glumly.

“How much longer do you expect me to keep lying to him?” Kakyoin fires back. Impulsively, he stands on tiptoes, leaning forward as if to whisper in Avdol's ear. “Don't ever tell him I said this, but sometimes he mumbles your name in his sleep. He's--”

“I know, Kakyoin,” Avdol tells him. His big hands press gently onto Kakyoin's arm, radiating so much warmth it's like sinking into a hot bath. “I promise I won't keep you wanting for long.”

Promise...

Promise...

Promise...

Sunlight strikes Avdol's dark eyes, turning them the color of honey. Heat pours out of his body, seeping into Kakyoin's cold skin. The golden eyes drift shut and sink into his skull, his cheeks hollow out, and the hands are just...gone. All that's left are stumps, circles of red meat around ivory bone. Cracked lips part, whispering in his ear. He should be afraid, Kakyoin thinks, but what he feels instead is a bone-deep sadness.

Tell him...

Kakyoin's eyes fly open, and the stark white walls of Room 4112 coalesce into being. Eyes watering, gut churning, heart in his throat, he lurches forward, a hand to his mouth. Polnareff, who was in the process of struggling out of his isolation gear, rushes to his side. “Hey hey hey, calm down, kiddo! It's just a bad dream, nothing to worry about.”

“Polnareff,” Kakyoin gasps. Memories of India twist and turn in his exhausted brain like a Möbius strip. He can still feel the sun beating down on his face, smell the jasmine-scented wind carrying ladybird beetles and velvety black windmill butterflies. A hand on his shoulder, a patient smile beneath tired eyes. “Avdol's awake.”

“What!” he stammers, nearly doubling over like a poleaxed steer. “How did you-”

“I just know. Go. I'll be fine.” With a last watery smile from over his shoulder, Polnareff barrels out of the room. He vaguely recalls a vary harried Nahla murmuring something about medication to help him sleep as she mops his sweaty face. Half laughing, half crying, he feels his head hit the pillow and knows no more.

***

“Oh my, you're still running a little fever,” Gladys frets as his day shift nurse frowns at the main monitor screen, which reads 38.5°C. No wonder he feels like shit.

“Er, do I want to know how you know that?” Kakyoin wonders, thrusting his tongue against dry lips. It's the first time he's felt lucid since he woke up this morning drenched in sweat. Even after being pumped full of antipyrectic infusions and stuffed under a hyperthermia blanket, he's still hot and miserable. The room spins when they raise him in an upright position, and he swears he can hear his brain sizzling like bacon in frying pan.

“You don't, my dear,” Gladys states with an air of quiet dignity. “The temperature probe is in an area of your body that currently has reduced sensation, and it's quite accurate. Let's leave it at that.” Kakyoin hides his face under his sheets.

“Let the world see that pretty face, Noriaki,” Rhonda chides, coaxing him out of his now very damp and sticky blanket nest so Gladys can change his dressings. “Those aids on night shift need to get off their lazy asses and try actually turning him and keeping him dry. That's how he got sick, I'm telling you. Come 1830, I'm gonna give 'em hell!”

Kakyoin groans as he is once again stripped naked in front of not one, but three women. After two full days surrounded by friends, laughing, crying, watching awful American television together, it's a sobering reminder that he's a shattered wreck of a human being who would starve to death without the IV in his arm.

“Oh, what beautiful prints! Did you take these yourself?” Gladys chirps, her eyes lighting up at his rather unenthusiastic nod. “Somehow, I just knew you had an artist's eye, Noriaki. I especially like this house with the glass walls! Wherever did you take this?”

He knows that she's trying to distract him, but frankly, he would rather stare at the glossy polaroids than watch Gladys as she holds a blood-soaked cotton swab up to a disposable measuring tape. “That's Upasna Ghar, the prayer hall in Santiniketan. It was commissioned by the Hindu philosopher Debendranath Tagore in 1863. We traveled there in rickshaws during Poush Mela...”

Gladys' brow furrows as he trails off, her eyes listless and leaden behind her thick spectacles. She's trying so hard not to hurt him. He wants so badly to smile and be brave for her. But more than anything, he wants to close his eyes and wake up in West Bengal, listening to soulful Baul folk songs and sharing coconut and cardamom crepes with Jotaro. Fucking hell, he's so thirsty. Images of the open road flash through his mind; he bites back a cry of pain until blood drips down his chin.

What's the point of waking up every day if he's only happy in his dreams?

“We're going to be switching to iodoform packing with a silver alginate dressing for wounds #2 and #6, hydrofera blue for #1, #3, and #4,” Gladys says soberly as the physician walks in. “Hmn, we're really going to have to think outside the box with this one. Unfortunately, he's not a good candidate for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. How about topical oxygen?”

“We need him stable enough for surgery right now. Everything else can wait,” the man remarks dryly. To Kakyoin's chagrin, it's the tall, bald-headed man who sedated him a few nights ago. “Is his fever down?”

“He's improved marginally after the Tylenol, but his labs just came back and the sed rate-” the other nurse begins.

“Yes, yes, I've been made aware,” he says without a glance in her direction. Before Kakyoin can even open his mouth, the man brandishes an expensive-looking stethoscope and slides the ice-cold chest piece under his gown. “I'm going to listen to your chest now. Take a deep breath.”

“What did my lab work say?” Kakyoin pipes up, peering down at his ID badge. “Dr...Walburton?”

“It's technical,” he mutters, determinedly avoiding Kakyoin's gaze, bald head bent so low the latter can practically see his reflection on it.

“I like technical.”

Kakyoin amuses himself for the next several minutes at Dr. Walburton's expense, volleying question after question at him until the man is practically gnashing his teeth between answers.

"Oh, it's perfectly fine if you don't know, doctor,” he purrs as Warburton tries to make a hasty exit. “I can ask Rhonda or Shani to bring me some print-outs later.”

“He's to have absolutely no visitors until his fever is resolved. Is that understood?” the doctor snaps, shoving Kakyoin's chart into the day shift nurse's hands as if the little plastic folder had personally offended him.

“I think he liked me more when I was pumped full of sedatives,” Kakyoin says in a stage whisper that would have made Polnareff proud, making sure to catch Warburton's eye as the door slides shut. That's right, I haven't forgotten.

“An artist's eye and a mouth full of sass,” Rhonda says, hands on her hips. “Lord, I wish I had that on tape.”

"Oh, Rhonda! Don't encourage him,” Gladys giggles.

“Can he really stop my friends from visiting me?” Kakyoin asks.

“He can't write a medical order per se, but he can persuade the higher-ups that it's for your own good. I know you're frustrated, Noriaki, but it's best not to step on any toes in the future. But don't worry! It's only for today, and you can always talk to them on the phone," Gladys replies kindly, rebundling him in a light blanket and even fixing his pillow neatly under his head. He should hate this. Day after day, totally at the mercy of near perfect strangers, gossiping womanishly and cooing over him as they patiently mopped up his blood and tears and God knows what else.

Admiring his art, listening to him ramble about newly discovered planets and his favorite books, holding his hand when he's hurting.

He wonders if this is how a mother should be.

“Then could I have a number?”

***

“Kak, er—Noriaki! I have the most amazing news!” Polnareff crows. Kakyoin has to hold the receiver a few inches from his face.

“Jean, slow down and take a breath before you pass out,” Kakyoin rasps as Rhonda drapes a cool cloth over his forehead, an uncharacteristically pensive look on her face.

“I know I said I'd never say it again, but Ka—Noriaki, you're amazing. Absolutely brilliant. Seriously, if it wasn't for those goddamn masks we have to wear, I could kiss you right now.”

“Keep that up and I'm going to assume you're buttering me up so I'll add you to my will.”

“Nori, I...you were right. Avdol woke up just for a few minutes, and I got to see him, awake, for the first time in a week,” Polnareff says. “He looked straight at me. Knew who I was. What happened in Cairo. He talked to me. I...oh, God. I'd almost given up hope that he'd open his eyes again. He's sleeping now, but the doctors say that he's made amazing progress.”

“That's wonderful, Jean!”

“But that's not the best part. Well, it is the best part, but this is important, too! Kakyo—Noriaki, he saw Hierophant!”

“He what?”

“He was having this really funny dream where a long, skinny green figure was hovering over him, and when he woke up, Hierophant was leaning over him, holding his hand. Then, they just vanished into thin air. Isn't that crazy?”

“But why? Why haven't I seen them? Why haven't they come back to me?” Kakyoin whispers plaintively as soon as Rhonda scuttles off to fetch more ice. There has to be an explanation. Hierophant would never abandon him.

Would they?

"I wish I could tell you, buddy, I really do,” Polnareff reassures him. “But I know they'll come back to you. Just like my Mohammad came back to me.”

Getting Polnareff off the line is like scraping taffy off a hot sidewalk. Joseph calls the instant Polnareff hangs up, providing him an excellent opportunity to practice his hand-eye coordination via juggling the phone, doing his breathing exercises, and being examined by four different specialists while he listens to two and a half hours of Joseph's bawdy jokes and bar stories. By the time he returns the phone to its cradle, his right ear feels hot and sore.

Hot. He's so damn hot. Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he squirms uncomfortably beneath a single sheet. His head feels too heavy on his fragile neck, as if it were filled to the brim with stagnant water, dripping in greasy strands out of his nose and mouth. As the doctors experiment with different medications, the heat ebbs and flows, but it always creeps back, sapping what little strength he's built over the past few days. The air is thick with tension like his first night in the ICU. Even Rhonda is quiet.

As much as he hates being prodded with gloved fingers and answering the same stupid questions over and over again, he begins to dread being alone. The shadows in the corners of the room are thicker than ever, eating up the gleaming white tiles. Sometimes, when Kakyoin lets his eyes unfocus, they seem to move in unnatural patterns, slithering closer and closer to his bed.

The phone rings one final time right before World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and to Kakyoin's astonishment, out of the receiver comes the voice from his dreams. It's strained, barely above a whisper, but it's him, and Kakyoin cracks a smile for the first time in two days.

“Hello, Mr. Avdol.”

“Kakyoin...good to hear your voice...knew you'd make it..you're a fighter,” he breathes hoarsely, making Kakyoin's own chest ache in sympathy. “So proud of you.”

Soon all he can he hear is slow, rhythmic breathing, followed by Polnareff presumably prying the phone from Avdol's hand to whisper a quick goodnight. Kakyoin can picture Polnareff curling himself protectively around his sleeping boyfriend, maybe sharing a blanket like they used to on the road.

Kakyoin starts to dial the number to Jotaro's hospital room and stops halfway.

Nahla finds him staring into space, the receiver inches from his hand. With a soft sigh, she bustles about the room as usual. He knows the routine almost as well as she does by now, and doesn't look up. At least whatever is lurking in the darkness shrinks back as light from the hallway floods the dimly lit room.

“Noriaki, if I may be frank, you don't look like you've had a restful afternoon,” she says at last.

“I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like I'm running hot and cold, and not just because of this fucking fever,” Kakyoin huffs, burying his face into his pillow. “Everything's happening too fast and nothing makes sense.”

“No one expects you to just nod and smile through it all.”

Nahla turns to the blinking array of machinery lining the walls, standing guard around his head, tunneling into his veins, pooling at his feet. A few hours ago, he might have asked her what the numbers meant. Now he feels like a mechanical man with his plastic guts ripped out and strewn about the room. To his relief, Nahla works quickly and quietly. His gorge rises as she empties brown-black ichor-like fluid from one of his countless drains. It reeks, filing his nostrils with the smell of sickness

Black and reeking. Like the shadows.

“I keep seeing shadows. They're always just on the edge of my perception, and when I focus, they disappear,” Kakyoin whispers, shivering in spite of the heat. “What does it mean?”

“It means you've been running a fever all day. You're exhausted and sick and under enormous amounts of stress,” Nahla says firmly as she undresses him, running a washcloth soaked in ice water down his long spindly limbs. He doesn't have the energy to be embarrassed, and quite frankly, the cold terrycloth feels nothing short of exquisite on his overheated skin. “It's not your responsibility to fix the whole world in two days, or fix your friends' lives for that matter.”

Kakyoin bites back a snicker. “You certainly don't mince words, do you. You'd think after three months of traveling with Jotaro, I'd be used to it. Forgive me, that was rude.”

“Well, you're not wrong,” Nahla says, frowning slightly. It deepens lines around her eyes that he never noticed before. She's older than he thought, probably older than his mother. “Where I come from, it's bad manners to say things exactly as they are. I suppose you could say our people like to give others the opportunity to maintain their dignity.”

“How did you end up as the odd duck?”

“Death is anything but dignified, and I've seen a lot of it.”

“Don't you get sick of it, all this death and misery?” Kakyoin asks. He can't explain why, but he feels like he has to keep her talking, keep her in the room with him. He's being selfish; he knows this, knows that she hasn't sat down in hours, that she has at least one other patient. But the thought of her flicking off the lights and plunging him into darkness terrifies him. “Don't misunderstand me, you're an incredible nurse. But do you ever wish you could do something else?”

“I've never really thought about it. It's not that simple, Noriaki. Regardless of how I feel, I have to put food on the table, just like everyone else.”

“I mean, I get it, I'm sure there are mouths to feed at home,” Kakyoin says, stifling a yawn. To his dismay, Nahla's frown only deepens.

“Not anymore.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-”

“Don't be. You didn't know.” Nahla doesn't look up as she coaxes his stiff arms into a fresh gown. “It's alright, Noriaki. I'm not angry. But you need to stop worrying about me and get some rest. When I come back to check on you, I expect you to be asleep.” And with that, she disappears behind the curtain, leaving him alone with the shadows.

Every time his eyes threaten to drift shut, he images them rising up out of the far corners of the room, inching closer and closer to where he lies, exposed and defenseless. Panting raggedly, he shifts uncomfortably, trying and failing to ease the gnawing ache creeping up of his spine. He's so hot. Even his breath feels like a volcanic vent, superheated air burning his lungs before condensing on his seering hot face. His neatly combed hair becomes matted with sweat as he writhes against his damp pillow. The white walls seem to shimmer and shift, leaving him feeling unmoored, bobbing helplessly in a boiling sea.

And then he sees it.

Standing less than a meter from the foot of his bed is an impossibly tall figure, a yawning man-shaped void of absolute blackness. It's as if some unseen force had punched through reality itself, leaving a gaping hole. At first, Kakyoin can't believe what he's seeing. It has to be a trick of the light, a piece of medical equipment he hadn't noticed before. He'll just flick on the light switch and the shadows will disappear and he and Nahla will have a good laugh and and

But his fingers aren't listening to his brain. His good arm is numb and useless, his hand laying limp just a few centimeters from the call light. His heart lurches painfully in his chest, hammering faster and faster until his lungs are heaving like a pair of bellows and his ribs burn. All he can do is stare, stare at that awful thing with skin so black if it weren't for the pale, grayish shadows at the edges of his vision, he would think he has been struck blind. The only thing he knows if it moves, his heart is going to burst in his chest.

Push the button

All he can move are his eyes. With agonizing slowness, he tears them from the hungry darkness. He stares down hard at his own hand, willing it to move, willing with every fiber of his being. Somewhere in that hideous black mass are eyes, and they are watching him. He screams and screams and screams in his mind, pleading for his frozen muscles to wake up.

Push the button

It's coming closer. On the very edge of his vision, something huge and black and hulking is creeping closer and closer, swallowing everything up. He thinks he can smell it, damp and rotting, its cold rancid breath wafting over his skin. Move move move if you don't move you're going to die

“Noriaki, are you alright?” With a soft click, the tiny chamber is flooded with light. A sob hitches in Kakyoin's throat. He doubles over, wheezing as if he'd been punched in the gut. Tears mix with the cold terror sweat pouring down his face. In a rush of white, Nahla is at his side, peering anxiously into his face. The last strands of will holding him together snap, and he unravels in her arms, a stained, tattered, shapeless mess, less than nothing.

“Just breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth, slowly, slowly. Breathe with me, Noriaki,” she whispers, rubbing little circles in his back with her free hand. “Please.”

“Nahla, I...” Like a drowning man, he clings to her, digging his nails into her arms far harder than he should.

“Don't try to talk. Just breathe. In and out. Let your chest rise and fall.”

They stay like that for a while, holding each other, breathing together. There are no words left to say.

Chapter Text

Sun-bleached gravel crunches under Kakyoin's worn tennis shoes as he crests the hill. The early afternoon light falls softly on his face, crisp and golden as a ripe peach. He pauses midstride to brush a stray curl out of his eyes, listening. The air is filled with the high-pitched rattle of cicada song. By chance, he spots one of the culprits sunning itself on the peeling white bark of a birch tree, fat and black-bodied with neatly folded wings. He scoops it up, letting it explore his hand for a minute or two until it grows bored and flies away.

It occurs to him, almost as an afterthought, that he has no idea how long he has been walking, where to, or why. A long dusty road stretches in both directions, lined on either side by clumps of wild flowers and meadow grass rippling in the summer breeze. Above him is an azure sky. In the distance he can make out the yellow heads of sunflowers growing beside a rickety wooden fence. Birds twitter in the trees above his head as he walks beneath the soft green shade, taking a long drink from a plastic water bottle in his backpack.

There's nothing else to do but keep walking, and so he does. Breathing in the scent of honeysuckle and hay, he feels a pleasant burn building up in his calve, his muscles heating up in the sun. Without really thinking about it, he plucks a handful of plump blackberries right off the vine and pops them into his mouth one by one, savoring the sharp sweetness as the juice runs down his throat.

Why does it feel so strange, so unfathomably precious, to move his limbs without pain, to eat and drink, to breathe on his own?

As he reaches the sunflowers, Kakyoin catches a glimpse of moss-covered stone steps curling around the foothills of a mountain. In front of them is a tall, red-lacquered torri gate, lined by weathered Jizō statues smiling serenely beneath a blanket of ferns and forest grass. As Kakyoin stands before the gate, he knows in the bottom of his soul that this is why he is here. Holding his breath, Kakyoin takes a step.

A barely perceptible ripple seems to pass through Kakyoin's body, as if he were popping a soap bubble. Further up the crumbling stone pathway, he can see clay-shingled rooftops and telephone wires peaking through the trees, rusted old signs in a language he can't read, the sparkle of a distant coastline. On and on he walks, until he's standing on a paved road lined on either side by old-fashioned houses made of worn wood and paper screens. He thinks he can hear a car in the distance, but the streets are empty.

“Noriaki Kakyoin! Why, I haven't seen you in almost two years! Would you care to join me?”

Kakyoin turns to see an elderly man leaning over a beautiful antique chess set, sheltering from the August heat beneath an enormous wisteria tree in full bloom. Brushing purple petals from his ratty old jeans, he smiles kindly at Kakyoin through a mouth full of crooked, tobacco-stained teeth.

“Mr. Gěi!” Kakyoin exclaims. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I suppose,” Mr. Gěi shrugs, taking a puff from a long-stemmed bamboo pipe. “Just passing through.”

Grinning, Kakyoin pulls up a chair and stares down at the neatly arranged pieces on the board, already planning his moves. As his hand hovers over the elephant piece to make his signature move, a thought crosses his mind.

“Mr. Gěi?” he says hesitantly. “Why am I here?”

***

“Ought to be a crime, moping about on a beautiful day like this.”

Fourteen year old Noriaki Kakyoin jerks his head up in surprise as he feels a light touch on his shoulders. The face staring into his is partially obscured beneath a bird's nest of a beard and layers of grime, but behind the old man's rheumy eyes, there is an unexpected sharpness. His gin-blossomed cheeks knot up into little apples as he grins, so unlike the faceless pedestrians who file past him in silence.

“I have my reasons,” Kakyoin grunts. His fingers dig into the rusted metal railing as he stares hard into the muddy waters of the Yangtze River below.

“You look like a smart kid,” he breathes hoarsely, and the boy squirms a bit under his gaze. It feels as if the stranger can see right through him. “Smart enough to think of something better to do on a summer evening than stare at the river like you're fixing to put a hole in it.”

“And what if I am?” Kakyoin snaps, glaring daggers at the intruder. Hierophant hovers over his shoulder, bristling.

“If you were gonna, you would have done it already,” the old man rasps, and Kakyoin's mouth snaps shut. “Where're your folks, boy? You don't want to make them sad, do you?”

“Like they'd give a damn,” Kakyoin mumbles into his scarf, more to himself than the stranger. “Not that it's any of your business.”

More cars roll by, more young mothers carrying wrinkle-faced infants in brightly colored slings, couriers on bicycles, grim-faced businessmen with their crisp white shirts and briefcases. None of them spare a glance at the young foreign boy with one foot on the railing.

“It's a fine day indeed.” Resting his thin, knobby frame on his arms, the man cranes his neck to the sky. Kakyoin grunts again, determinedly not looking up. The horizon is filled with colors he can't see, warmth he can't feel. “Good fishing weather. I haven't had a pole and a tackle-box in many a year. Just about the only thing I got to my name these days is time, it seems."

Kakyoin cocks his head at him quizzically.

“Clearly you don't have anywhere better to be, so how about I lend you some of mine?” he asks after a thoughtful pause. “Time, I mean. promise it'll be well spent.”

“Do you think I'm stupid? I'm not jumping in a van with whatever sick weirdo gave you enough booze money to lead me there,” Kakyoin snarls.

“Now don't get yer back up, son. Do I look like I can make you do anything you don't want to do? Look at me. If I were a horse, they'd have shot me,” the man says with a wheezy laugh that tugs at the corners of Kakyoin's mouth despite his best efforts. “Can't say I blame you for not having a whole lot of faith in humanity. But how about one last adventure before you say goodbye to this sorry world?”

The man's footfalls fade into the distance as he ambles toward the setting sun without looking back. Bathed in fading amber light, the streets of Wuhan look inviting for the first time since he stepped off the bus with nothing but a battered school satchel and a stolen wallet. With a long-suffering sigh that no one hears, he trots up to the stranger's side, making sure to scowl at the bemused twinkle in his old eyes.

***

“What flavor do you want?”

It's a far cry from the dark alley Kakyoin was half expecting. A smiling lady in a red apron catches his eye as she busily shaves a block of ice with an old-fashioned hand-cranked machine. “Um...” he answers articulately, feeling more out of place than usual in a teeming throng of fashionable young couples and pink-cheeked children clinging to their parents' hands. The stranger shrugs, motioning for Kakyoin to sit at one of the outdoor tables. His eyes widen as a fluffy, glittering mountain of shaved ice is deposited in front of him, drizzled with condensed milk. Atop the black tapioca balls and mung beans is an extra large scoop of beautiful bright red cherries.

“This...is for me? I don't understand,” Kakyoin mumbles, feeling the tips of his ears heat up as he starts to lick his lips. It's almost too beautiful to eat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Shut up and grab a spoon. You look like you've got a lot to think about, and no one does their best thinking on an empty stomach.” Muttering under his breath, Kakyoin takes a tentative bite.

It's every bit as good as he imagined and then some, a burst of complex flavors and cool syrupy sweetness on his palate after months of stale bread and cold soup out of a can. He lets the ripe fruit warm up on his tongue before biting down, wiping a dribble of red juice off his mouth.

“I take it you hated it,” the stranger grins. Kakyoin can barely restrain himself from licking the bowl clean.

“I..no one's ever...I haven't...thank you. I mean it. Don't you, er, need the money, though?” he adds sheepishly, wishing his Mandarin were better.

His new companion doesn't answer him instantly. It's as if the story needs time to cool and harden like iron in a forge. “That bridge back there...I drilled the first holes in the cement that laid the foundations back in 1955. I watched Mao Zedong himself walk all the way across from Turtle Hill to Snake Hill as the crowds cheered. We were all so damn proud of ourselves,” he says at last, shaking his head. “A lot can change in thirty years, son. And not a year goes by without at least a dozen people trying to jump off the bridge I built. Sometimes I can talk them down off the railing, or at least stall them til the police take over. Sometimes I'm the last face they ever see.”

“Speakin' of faces, how about I put a name to mine?” the old man says almost off-handedly as Kakyoin stares at him, gob-smacked. “Folks around here call me Mr. Gěi.”

“I'm Tenme—Noriaki,” the boy replies. “Noriaki Kakyoin.” He is just about to bow when Mr. Gěi closes the distance between them and clasps his hand, giving the slim digits a gentle squeeze.

“Well then, Noriaki Kakyoin, whatever you decide to do with the rest of your time, I'm glad I got to spend some of it with you.”

Kakyoin doesn't know what to make of Mr. Gěi. He sees him again on the next day, and the day after that. Sometimes he walks twenty miles a day, collecting cans, wiping windshields, doing farm work and various odd jobs meant for men half his age. Sometimes he spends the whole day staring at the river, tossing bits of old cabbage and peas to the pigeons from a park bench. Every time he sees Kakyoin, his old eyes light up.

“Noriaki! What took you so long? Pull up a chair and join me.”

The “chairs” in question are a pair of apple crates parked next to a very rusted filing cabinet. Looking as out of place as a three-tier wedding cake at roadside diner is a worn but well-maintained Chinese chess board, the wood fine-grained and well oiled. Lowering himself primly on his crate, Kakyoin cracks his knuckles and reaches for his favorite piece with a sly grin.

Eleven moves later and Kakyoin is staring in disbelief at his captured emperor, cupped in Mr. Gěi's palm. How? He's spent so many hours playing xiangqi and shogi with Hierophant...

“Doesn't matter how much you practice or how many strategies you memorize, you don't get to be a grand master playing by yourself in your room all day,” Mr. Gěi says simply. “You ever read Gulliver's Travels? Look at you, of course you have. You're up there on the flying island of Laputa, looking down at us mere mortals.”

“Well, maybe I prefer being in the clouds,” Kakyoin grumbles. “I don't have to suffer fools.”

“And yet, here you are, losing at chess against an old drunk like a proper idiot.”

Days pass. Kakyoin steals whatever he needs and sleeps wherever he cares to. No lock, no alarm system, no security guard is a match for Hierophant. He rappels up the Yellow Crane Tower on emerald threads and stays up all night reading in the Wuhan University library with a bottle of milk tea. And yet, on cold nights, he finds himself sitting beside Mr. Gěi in his little corrugated tin shelter next to the train tracks.

“I took the ferry to Mulan Qingliang village today,” Kakyoin chirps as he warms his hands against the fire crackling merrily in an oil drum. “I saw lots of ducks and the air was so clear at the top of the mountain. A man playing the erhu even let me hold his pet monkey. Then I went to this museum where I learned about the Wuchang uprising in 1911...”

At first, Kakyoin does most of the talking, filling the railyard they call home with chatter (or rather, Kakyoin's nearest aproximation thereof). Flushing with excitement, he tells Mr. Gěi about everything from the Bai Gongshan iron pipes running through the White Mountain to the Nahki People clustered at the foothills of the Himalayas. His new friend simply nods, tossing another branch into the fire with a faint smile. Every day he runs up to Mr. Gěi with his hands full of new Polaroids, live frogs, discarded insect carapaces. He keeps every little gift (except for the frogs, which are set loose with great ceremony), even pinning one of Kakyoin's flowers to his lapel. When Kakyoin sees the lurid pink petals peaking out of Mr. Gěi's weather-stained coat, he gets a pleasant squirm in his stomach he's never felt before.

If Kakyoin is feeling very generous, he lets the old man peek over his shoulder as he fills his little spiral ring notebook with sketches and snatches of poetry. When the sky purples and the street lights flicker on, Mr. Gěi tells Kakyoin about another lifetime, when he went by another name, and he flew a Polikarpov I-16 during the battles of Khalkhin Gol and came home to a wife and son.

As Kakyoin stretches out under the stars on the last night of summer, Mr. Gěi looks up from Kakyoin's glossy new copy of Red Sorghum. Drifting toward the firelight, he watches patiently as Han Street takes shape beneath Kakyoin's charcoal pencil, storefronts and food stalls nestled under elaborately carved trellises strung with fairy lights. In an oddly melancholy tone, he asks if he could keep the sketch. Beaming with pride, Kakyion hands it over without a moment's thought. Mr. Gěi folds it up with the most astonishingly delicate touch, tucking it almost reverently into his coat right under the wilted flower.

Mr. Gěi knows that Kakyoin is magical, he decides. As the months pass, he sets Hierophant loose, watching them twine curiously under the bridges and sagging docks where he finds Mr. Gěi staring at the water. Thrilled, they jump with the fish and send dried-up paint cans clattering to the brine-soaked concrete. He can feel a shiver of childlike delight running up his arm as the stand explores, even brushing ever so gently at the old man's pantleg like a stray cat begging for a pet.

“Noriaki,” Mr. Gěi calls on a cool autumn morning. Hierophant soars on the purple and gold wings of a paper dragon, tethered to a kite string. They ride the wind, unfurling across the steel gray sky in not quite natural patterns. Kakyoin cheers them on from the Yangzi riverfront, breath coming out in little clouds. “I think it's time you went on your way.”

“ What?” Kakyoin stammers, nearly letting the string slip from his grasp. “But why ? Aren't we—I thought you--”

“If I had a proper job and a real home, this would be a different story,” Mr. Gěi says gently. “But that life is long over. This is no way for you to grow up.”

“If it's about money, I'll—”

“It ain't and never was. You've got so much potential, Noriaki. And I'm not just saying that because I haven't beaten you at chess in months.” He sets his thickly calloused hands on Kakyoin's skinny shoulders in a way that adults do when they're about to tell you something you'd rather not hear. “You're wasting that big brain of yours sleeping in boxcars and listening to an old man ramble. You need to get yourself a proper education."

"But--"

“It gets better, son,” he whispers as Kakyoin hugs himself. “You have to believe that it will get better.”

“Will you be lonely? Without me here?” Kakyoin asks miserably. Carefully gathering up the kite in hands, Mr. Gěi returns it to the box it came in. The colorful paper sags against the wooden frame, its luster lost like the scales of a dead fish.

“I remember when I was just a few years older than you, stepping out into the world for the first time. One of Li Jinhui's girls was singin' “Misty Rain” at the old Paramount in Shanghai. A shimmering monument to debauchery if ever there was one, would have made Gatsby blush. All art deco and dance hall girls in silk dresses with slits all the way up to their...well, you know.

“But when the band started playing, I realized for the first time that I was just one man in a crowd. My folks were in Hubei, my girl had left me, and I didn't know a single soul in town. I was surrounded by artistes and thrill-seekers and rich yahoos puffing on cigars and wearing Italian suits, and I felt like I was on Mars.

“Everyone is lonely, Noriaki. But you start getting a lot less lonely when you realize the crowds don't matter, the gawkers don't matter, all that matters is a little handful of folks who'll be with you through thick and thin.”

He gives Kakyoin's hands one final squeeze. “Now you go on, magic boy. There's good people out there waiting for you.”

***

The shadow of a cloud rolls over their heads, dark and heavy with summer rain. Kakyoin can smell the winds changing, hear the insects growing quiet.

“I looked for you,” Kakyoin whispers, the wisteria petals and the untouched chess board growing blurry through a shimmer of tears. “I was passing through Wuhan last spring, and they said...they said that they found you in the snow. All you had were the clothes on your back and t-that picture I drew, all those years ago.”

The whispering trees seem to close around Kakyoin like a vice. He can't move, he can't breathe, can't see. He can't do anything at all.

He's so sick. His body is shutting down, heart fluttering, lungs on fire, burning burning burning. His eyes are clouding over, his hands numb. He's so sick he can't think about anything.

He is beyond pain. Pain is how the body begs for help, and nothing can help him now. Alarms scream hysterically in his ears. The partition bursts open, a dozen ghostly figures in white crowding around his bed. A familiar face swims in his vision as the rest of the world darkens.

'Noriaki, it's going to be okay, please hang on, helping is coming--'

Nahla

Nahla help me

'We're losing him!'

Please don't let me die

“I didn't make it, did I?" The words tumble past his numb lips, dry and brittle.

“I'm sorry, son. I wasn't looking to see you again so soon,” Mr. Gěi says with that same sad smile Kakyoin remembers from the last day he saw him alive.

“I tried. I tried so hard.” Kakyoin moans. “No matter how much I loved them, I couldn't stay with them. It wasn't enough. I wasn't enough."

***

All around them, the trees rustle, ever-shifting leaves casting a subtle emerald light over the town. Something about the strange, almost phosphorous glow sounds alarm bells in Kakyoin's brain; it's like the sky right before a tornado.

“Where are we?” Kakyoin has never given much thought to what comes after death. He's spend too much time staring over the edge of bridges to be comforted by the thought of an afterlife. He doesn't want heaven or hell or to be reborn as a butterfly. He just wants the pain to end.

But this? This is...unexpected to say the least. He's not sure if he trusts it. Kakyoin swallows nervously, a painful lump in his throat. He can feel the sunburn on his cheeks, taste berries on his tongue. How can feel anything, he wonders, if his spirit is no longer connected to a body?

"I'm not too sure, myself,” Mr. Gěi says thoughtfully. “We call it 'the green place'."

“We?”

“Look there, do you see them?” Kakyoin follows Mr. Gěi's outstretched finger to one of the well-maintained little gardens. There's the faintest hint of an outline, pale gray against the snow-bright petals of the white morning glories. It shifts in the sun, and for a split second, Kakyoin thinks he can make out the rounded tips of a woman's fingers.

“The longer you stay here, the clearer they become. And then you start to hear them,” Mr. Gěi whispers. “Don't be afraid. They're just like us. We've become good friends over the years.”

Shadows flit down from the eves of the empty houses and the motionless cars, peeking at them from behind the trees. Kakyoin doesn't realize he's trembling from head to toe until Mr. Gěi gently takes his hand in his own. His fingers are firm and warm, not at all how Kakyoin imagined the touch of a ghost. “Oh, the stories they could tell you...”

“I don't want this,” Kakyoin hiccups, sniffling into the sleeve of his jacket like a child. “I'm not—I'm not ready.”

“Walk with me,” Mr. Gěi offers. “Let's have another adventure.”

***

By the time Kakyoin and Mr. Gěi reach the coastline, ominous-looking thunderheads are gathering at the horizon. A fat raindrop splatters on Kakyoin's long bony nose, making him blink stupidly as he faces the ocean.

He's a ghost. Why is he worried about a little rain?

“Ever heard of water memory?” Mr. Gěi asks mildly. “Some scientists think that water 'remembers' whatever you pour into it no matter how many times you dilute it, even down to the last molecule. Come to think of it, I think you were the one who told me that...”

“See those tidal pools? Look closely,” he says, pointing to the countless mirror-like surfaces winking like precious stones against the rocky shoreline. “Each one of them is full of memory.”

Feeling rather foolish, Kakyoin peers into the nearest pool. At first, all he can see is his own face, annoyingly babyish with its too wide eyes and chubby, freckled cheeks. He doesn't want to imagine himself on his deathbed looking like a frightened child. Suddenly, the frizzy red curls darken and grow lank, framing sharp cheekbones and a pursed mouth. Dark circles gather under his eyes, now flecked with cheap mascara and dimming to a nondescript brown. The person staring back at him looks just like--

“Mother?”

Instinctively, he reaches out, desperate to touch her for the first time in six years, only to grasp a handful of silt at the bottom of the pool. The dark browns and muted grays that painted this strange portrait of Kaede Kakyoin swirl around his outstretched fingertips, mixing, reforming. He sees her, staring pensively past the curtains of a tidy-looking picture window, so unlike the dingy little flat where he grew up. He catches the glitter of a ring on one thin finger, a fading bruise on her cheek. So she remarried, he thinks sullenly before he realizes how ridiculous it all sounds.

“What am I looking at?” he asks. “Is this...real?”

“This is how we watch over the living,” Mr. Gěi says. “We can see them, but they can't see us. They can't hear our voices, can't feel our touch. Sometimes they catch a fleeting impression, nothing more.”

Kakyoin casts his gaze into the pools clustered at his feet. A million little movies play, shadowy and indistinct, dissolving and reforming as a second raindrop splashes down, then another. “Not the best weather for it,” Mr. Gěi' mutters. “Perhaps another time--”

“ No! I-I want to see them," Kakyoin insists. I never got to say goodbye.

His mother's face vanishes from the rippling surface, replaced by an all-too familiar spotless white. Dread coils in Kakyoin's gut. Is he going to see his own corpse, wheeled down to the morgue on a gurney?

Polnareff is sitting beside a hospital bed, head in his hands, tears flowing endlessly down his cheeks. “I can't stand this waiting,” he croaks. “I feel like I'm going mad.”

Kakyoin startles at the sound of Avdol's voice, stronger than he remembers from their phone call, but dull and listless. Avdol tries to muster a feeble smile for Polnareff's sake that makes the man cry harder and Kakyoin bite back a whimper. Something about his chest and shoulders looks...odd. Too narrow.

To his horror, he realizes that Avdol doesn't have arms.

Scene change. Fade in. A new dramatis personae. Joseph Joestar is leaning heavily against a pay phone, his back to Kakyoin. “I was right there, for fuck's sake,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “I should have protected him. I should have healed him with hamon. I should have done something .”

His shoulders droop even further, and Kakyoin is sure he hears a sniffle this time. “Just a goddamn kid.”

'It wasn't your fault,' Kakyoin wants to say.

But Joseph can't hear him.

Kakyoin catches a flicker of motion out of the corner of his left eye. He turns to see a familiar head of honey blonde hair resting against the shoulder of an old lady dressed in green, her pale yellow hair shot with silver. “Mama, I know you're not telling me something,” Holly Kujo cries, green eyes red-rimmed and puffy. He wonders if she knows he traded his life for hers. “Has something happened? Where are Jotaro and Papa??”

“Oh, Holly...” the old woman (presumably Mrs. Joestar) says soothingly, rocking her daughter in her arms as if she were very small. “They're headed to the airport first thing Monday morning. They've just got to...tie up loose ends in Cairo.”

The last bits of clear sky disappear beneath rolling storm clouds, casting everything in shadow except for the pools. In a minute he's going to be soaked, yet still he sits on his haunches, eyes locked on the water. Nurses and doctors whisper in the glossy white corridors. Patients snuffle in their sleep beneath oxygen masks, watched over by tired faces. Alarms blare every few seconds, drowning out snatches of prayer and muffled crying. He finds Rhonda staring out the streets from a deck, a cigarette burning to ash in her hand.

“Rhonda, it's time to go home,” Gladys calls gently. “You've been 'finishing your smoke' for almost an hour.”

“I got a damn watch, Gladys,” Rhonda growls. “Is it a crime to look at the stars every once in a while?

The glow of her ciagrette throws Rhonda's features in sharp relief, deepening her laugh lines and the creases on her brow. It's like he's watching her wilt before his eyes. “He wanted to study them,” the old woman says suddenly, her rasp softer than usual. “The stars, I mean. He wouldn't stop talking about quasars and dark matter and all that sciency crap. And now, he's...”

“It's not your fault. I keep telling you, we all keep telling you. There's nothing you could have done,” Gladys murmurs, taking off her thick spectacles to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief. She's wearing that watch he likes with the cat wearing sunglasses printed on the face. He thinks of Gladys with her kitschy watch petting his hair and admiring his photos, and he feels the ridiculous urge to say sorry. “He didn't have much of a chance.”

“I know, goddamn it, I just...”

Somehow, watching Rhonda break down hurts the most. Gently as always, Gladys wraps a thick, soft arm around her bony shoulders, letting her weep into her shoulder. Hand to his mouth, Kakyoin turns away, fresh tears mingling with the rain.

Is this what it feels like, to attend your own funeral?

One last image flickers across the surface of the water before rain begins pouring down in sheets. Thin, careworn, dark as burnt sugar against her spotless white scrubs, Nahla's face swims in his vision, bent over in prayer as she faces Mecca. He catches his name on her lips before she, too, disappears, and he knows that she is praying for him.

“That's enough for one day, don't you think?” Mr. Gěi urges. “Noriaki, whatever happens in their world, you have to understand that nothing can hurt you here. Nothing can hurt you ever again. This is a place of rest. Now, let's get you out of this rain.” He lends Kakyoin his shoulder and hauls the boy up with surprising strength, his chest solid and sturdy, old lungs clear of that troubling whistling noise Kakyoin remembers in life.

“You have to wake up.”

Kakyoin's ears perk. He knows that voice.

“I know you're tired. I know everything hurts. But you have to wake up.”

Cold water laps at his shoes, soaking his socks. He doesn't care.

“Don't do this to me. Please.”

The wind howls. Whatever Mr. Gěi is saying is lost in the crash of thunder.

“Please. Please just wake up.”

Whirling around so fast he nearly loses his footing as the water rises to his ankles, Kakyoin races back to the tidal pools, ignoring Mr. Gěi's outstretched hand. He practically throws himself onto his knees in front of the craggy rocks, desperately searching the rising tide for Jotaro's face. A particularly strong wave blasts him squarely in his own face, nearly knocking him onto his back and forcing saltwater into his lungs.

The voice echos in his mind, growing fainter and fainter every time it bounces of the walls of his skull. Did he imagine it? Arcs of electricity flash in the swollen storm clouds above. With a deafening clash, a piece of driftwood explodes just a few meters away from them in a cloud of cinders and flaming branches.

“Jotaro!” The tidal pools disappear completely, swallowed up by waves of shadowy purple-black water. Raindrops hard as bullets hammer them mercilessly. “Where are you?”

“I'm right here. I'm right here for you, you just have to wake up.”

“Noriaki!” Mr. Gěi wails, all but grabbing Kakyoin by the scruff like a stray kitten. “This is where our world ends. Even I don't know what's out there.”

“I never told you. All those goddamn nights we spent together, and I never had the guts.” Jotaro's voice rings out from somewhere in the stormy horizon. It's so dark he can't see more than a few meters ahead of him. “I thought there'd always be...more time."

Mr. Gěi's grip on Kakyoin's hand loosens just long enough for his head to slip under the water. As saltwater presses against his closed lids, something blue-green shines in the distance like a lighthouse on a foggy night, and Kakyoin gasps. Jotaro's eyes are staring into his from across time and space.

“The goddamn irony of it. I learned how to stop time, just so I could watch you die again.” Jotaro's face crumples. Kakyoin reaches out to brush away a tear as it rolls down his cheek only to watch the other boy press a kiss onto a pale hand, so thin and frail-looking in his huge hands.

“You want me to say it, don't you, you selfish bastard?” Jotaro whispers in Kakyoin's ear, more tears dripping onto his sleeping face. “Fucking fine. Have it your way, as usual.

If they don't turn back now, they'll both be swept away. The dry land is receding fast, even the tallest rocks consumed by the rising tide. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kakyoin knows that this is no mere storm they're facing. This world—or at least the part of it that Kakyoin occupies—is flaking apart, crumbling away into the darkness where the shadows from his daytime nightmares spawn.

Jotaro kisses him one last time. Kakyoin can feel the warmth on his lips.

“I love you."

“I have to go. Please, you have to let me go,"  says Kakyoin. He's standing in the eye of the hurricane, filled with a perfect stillness, an absolute clarity he has never felt before and will never feel again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gěi. It looks like this is goodbye.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Mr. Gěi pleads. Over his shoulder, Kakyoin can just barely make out one last filament of green light, and for an instant, he can smell fields of heather, hear birdsong and the lowing of cows. “I've found...something here, Noriaki. Something I never had on earth. Comfort. Forgiveness. Friends. After seventy-eight fucking years of loneliness and pain, nothing hurts anymore. I'm finally free. You could be free, too.”

“You've earned it. You deserve to rest. But I...I can't leave them. Not yet." Kakyoin gives his withered hands one last squeeze, and in the last rays of watery sunlight, the old man's eyes glint in silent understanding.

“I don't want to see your face around these parts anymore, you smart-mouthed little brat. Not for a long fucking time. You hear me, magic boy?” says Mr. Gěi with an air of finality, smiling through his tears.

And he lets go.

“Follow the light!”

Chapter Text

What light? Kakyoin wonders as he's swept out to sea.

His world twist and turns as his body is tossed like a chip of seaglass. Every rock and tree from the coastline vanishes, leaving an endless expanse of churning black water in all directions. His only light comes in bursts of electricity above his head, turning the seafoam incandescent orange for a few precious seconds. What little he can see is absolutely terrifying: towering mountains of shadow and saltwater swell up like mushroom clouds, so tall Kakyoin can't even see the crests. All he can do is try to keep his head above the water as he feels himself rise, hopelessly caught; the waves build and build, surging skyward with unimaginable power. Kakyoin gasps as he looks down to see that his fragile body is suspended hundreds of meters in the air, higher than the tallest skyscraper on earth.

He plunges. Faster and faster, the trough rushes up to meet him, swallowing him up. The sound of thunder fades as water rushes over his head; with black clouds above and thousands of miles of sunless ocean below, he is left in absolute darkness. All of his senses shut off one by one except for touch, and all he can feel is the ocean pushing him down as his lungs scream for air.

This is an in-between place where neither the living nor the dead are meant to tread, a vacuum that threatens to pull his soul apart. He's never felt something so violently and grotesquely wrong before, leaving his mind numb with primordial dread. He wracks his brain for every swimming technique Jotaro taught him when they broke into the pool back in Singapore a lifetime ago, forcing his muscles to expand and contract with desperate strength.

On and on he swims, focusing every single synapse in his brain into keeping his arms and legs moving. His muscles and tendons are burning. Cold stabs his skin in a thousand tiny needles. Fire spreads from his fingertips with every stroke, the muscles in his shoulders spasm, his legs turn to jelly, crushing pain spreads through his chest from lack of oxygen. It hurts. It hurts so much, hurts more than anything he's ever felt in his short life, but he can't stop, can't think about anything but treading water. His heartbeat slows, numbness creeping up his arm. The water is getting heavier, or he's getting weaker. Yet there's no soft, quiet voice telling him to sleep. His body and soul are in complete sync, one single thin thread of determination, and they both know, instinctively, that whatever lies at the bottom of the ocean is worse than death.

He can feel himself dying. Every cell in his body is exploding in a chain reaction, his thoughts disintegrating into static and then nothing at all. Right before the end, he catches a glimmer of soft emerald light from somewhere behind his closed lids. His last conscious thought is of Hierophant, his first, oldest friend, and in one last burst of strength, he reaches for the light.

***

“Dad, where are you going? It's not time to go to work,” Noriaki's little voice pipes up, peering at his father's back from the door of his bedroom.

“Work. That's right. All I do is work.” His father never looks up, struggling into the heavy overcoat he wears when he leaves for the train station every morning. “Have to keep the lights on, right? Have to keep food on the table for you and your bitch mother.

"All I do,” he mutters, and when their eyes meet his eyes are bulging and bloodshot. Noriaki shivers in his pajamas all the way down to his bare toes. “...Is fucking work.”

“Dad, are you...”

“I work and work and work,” he says. “And this is the thanks I get. Raising some foreigner's shitty fucking kid. Tell me, boy. Have you ever met him? That redheaded bastard. The one who fucked my wife.”

“Stop it! Stop telling him all those awful things!” his mother screams from the kitchen, clutching a wine glass. “He's yours, Chikao! What will it take for you to accept the truth? A lie detector? A DNA test?! Why can't you--”

“Were you bored, Kaede? Not enough excitement in your life?” His father spits. “I tried, I tried so many years to make you happy, but it was never enough. I was never enough. Couldn't give you the life you deserved.”

Tears are dripping onto his collar. He takes off his glasses, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I'm so goddamn sick of it.”

“YOU'RE sick of it?! I'm sick of THIS!” Cheeks scarlet and hair in disarray, his mother waves her arm at the battered kitchen cabinets and the peeling linoleum, her voice bouncing off the tiny space. “I'm sick of this wretched little shoebox of an apartment. Sick of having to borrow money from my sister. And worst of all, I'm sick of your constant useless fucking moaning. BE A MAN. Be a goddamn man.”

The wine glass shatters a few feet from his father's head, crimson liquid seeping into the tatami mat. “You're a failure," she snarls. "A disgrace. I'm ashamed to be seen with you. Stop blaming me for everything that's wrong in your miserable life.”

For a few seconds, all Noriaki can hear is Kaede's breathing, her mouth pressed into a thin line, fist clenched. Then with a whirl of her celery green dressing gown, she stalks off, the door to her and his father's bedroom snapping shut.

“You want me to be a man? You want me to take charge? Fine,” Chikao says to empty air. “Fuck you, Kaede. Have a nice life.” He jams his hat on his head and reaches for the doorknob.

“D-dad?” Noriaki whispers, cowering in the doorframe. He's seen his parents argue before, but not like this. He knows he has to do something.

“Never enough, never enough, never enough,” his father moans over and over again, very softly. Just as Noriaki is about to reach for him, to touch his hair gently as if he were a wounded rabbit, his father's fist slams into the wall so hard picture frames clatter to the floor in a shower of glass, and the plaster cracks. Noriaki yelps, covering his head with his hands. “GODDAMN IT!”

“Dad, it's okay,” Noriaki whispers as his father slides to the floor, blood dripping from his tattered knuckles. His head is bent so low they're nearly at eye level when Noriaki tiptoes up to him with the first aid kit from the bathroom. “It's okay. P-please just let me--”

“Stop,” his father breathes, rising to his feet. “Just stop.”

“I just want to--”

“To what? Help me?” Chikao says. “If it wasn't for you...”

“We were happy, the two of us. Before you came along. Now every time I look at her, all I see in her eyes is disgust,” he mutters. “You ruined it. You ruined everything.”

“Please don't leave! Please” Noriaki cries, fumbling with the lid of the first aid kit with shaking hands. To his dismay, all of the supplies topple to the floor.

He's asking nicely like he's supposed to, he tells himself. Asking nicely never works with either of his parents, but he has to try.

“I...I won't sit by myself during lunchtime any more, even if the other kids are mean. I won't draw weird pictures. I won't make the teachers mad. I won't t-talk about Mr. Worms anymore. I'll be good. Just please don't leave. Please.”

“A failure. Of course, she would say that. It's true. I've failed at everything.” His father rises to his feet, prying Noriaki's fingers from his coat. His glasses are askew, eyes staring at nothing. “Why. Why am I even alive.”

“Dad, wait! I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry, okay?” Noriaki wails as the doorknob turns. “Don't leave!”

His father's back goes rigid, one hand clutching his chest. For one wild moment, Noriaki thinks he's having a heart attack like he's seen on the television. Then he turns with a strange creaking noise like rocks grinding together. His hand lands a little too hard on Noriaki's shoulder, but he's smiling, smiling for the first time Noriaki can remember so it must be okay.

“Don't worry, Noriaki,” his father says, and just for a second, he thinks he can hear the low reverb of a second voice underneath Chikao's. “I'm not going anywhere. Your mother and I were just having a little spat. Everything is okay.”

“Really? You're not going away?” He drops to one knee, arms open, and Noriaki eagerly leaps into them, barely stifling a delighted squeal. He giggles as Chikao scoops him up, cradling him against his chest. Sniffling into his father's coat, he lets himself be soothed by the hand in his hair, his tears drying.

The door to his bedroom creaks open, and he finds himself gently deposited in his father's lap. He's never, EVER been held like this by anyone except Grandma. He's six now, old enough to know that she doesn't come to visit anymore because she died, but he still misses her. Suddenly, his father tucks him in the crook of his arm just like Grandma used to and reaches for his favorite storybook, the one she read to him over and over again when he was three.

Something isn't right.

“Can you read it to me?” His father's glasses are still askew, leaving one eye magnified. Too much white is showing, the pupil turning into a bloated black disk, the veins distended above the red meat of his eye socket. “You're so smart, Noriaki. I bet you're the best reader in the whole school. Better than the big kids. Better than the teachers. Noriaki can do anything!”

“Dad...” Noriaki pushes uselessly against his chest. He catches a flash of green light reflecting off of his father's glasses.

“What's wrong, Noriaki? Do you want a different book? Do you want to stay up late? How about some ice cream?” His father says except it's not his father speaking. “Let's go to the park!”

“Who...who are you?” Noriaki gasps.

“I'm your friend. Your first friend, your best friend,” the thing inside his father says. Chikao's fingers are squeezing his little arms until the skin turns white as if the thing doesn't know how strong it is. It's clumsy inside its new costume made from his father’s skin. “I love you. Please let me love you.”

“Let go of Dad,” Noriaki whimpers. “Please please please let him go.”

“Don't be sad, Noriaki. I can make him love you. He won't ever leave you.” Yellow eyes are peering at Noriaki from inside his father's throat, wide and tearful.

“Let go let go let go!” Noriaki sobs, thrashing in his father's tightening grip. “You're hurting him! Stop it, Mr Worms!”

His father's eye rolls in its socket, nothing but white on red. Something seems to bubble under his skin before a slender green tentacle slithers out of his eye socket with a wet pop. Dripping with blood and thicker things, it bursts forth, straight at Noriaki. He lets out of shriek that reverberates through the walls, bucking wildly as glistening green tentacles burrow under his fingernails and disappear. Mr. Worms is hiding somewhere under his skin now, and Norikai tears at his own hands until his fingers bleed, wailing in terror, desperate to get them out. With a sickening thud, his father topples off the bed, and his eye...Noriaki can't look at his eye.

“Momma!” Noriaki flees, bawling, stumbling over toys and skinning his knee when he slips on one of his teddy bears and crashes painfully into the doorframe. Blinded by tears, he drags her by the hand back to his bedroom with all the strength his little body can muster. “Momma! Daddy's hurt!”

Oh no no Daddy isn't moving he can't be dead no please don't let him be dead

“What did you do.” Kaede grabs him by the shoulders, ice in her voice. Her polished nails are curved like claws, digging into the fragile meat on his arms as he squeals in pain, stammering apologies. “Noriaki. What did you do.”

***

Reality snaps back like a rubber band. The feeble illumination from the lamp on his nightstand flickers out, his childhood bedroom disappearing with it.

“What…what is this? Some sort of vision? Why? Why are you showing me this?” Kakyoin calls out, though for who or what he does not know. “I don't want to remember this!” Memories trickle into his brain, unwanted, violating, stinging him again and again like a swarm of jellyfish. 

“Stop…please.”

He never saw his father again that night; Chikao checked himself out of the hospital and was last seen boarding the first bus out of Tokyo. He didn't even show up to the office to collect his last paycheck.

The next several years were hard. With the rent due next week and Chikao's hospital bills looming over their heads, Kaede scrambled to find work, waiting tables during the day, heading out to massage parlors and clubs at night in low-cut dresses and too much makeup. There were whispers in the neighborhood about the beautiful young housewife turned aging hostess and her freak son, rumors that she did other things to keep a roof over their heads.

Then and now blur together in a nauseating smear. Kakyoin can barely process what he's seen. Ten years. He hasn’t seen his father’s face in ten years. His mother didn’t even keep any pictures of him.

He feels like he should be crying. It occurs to Kakyoin, very suddenly, that he can’t feel that horrible crushing, burning, spasming sensation anymore. The cold, the pressure, panic, exhaustion, all of it has been swept away, replaced by...nothing. He can't feel the breath in his lungs, the beat of his heart, his fingers and toes or the stray hairs fluttering against his cheek. There's a hole in his proprioception so vast he is everywhere and nowhere at once, completely disconnected from whatever is left of his flesh and bones.

A light flickers somewhere in the darkness. He's not seeing it with his eyes, not swimming toward it with his limbs, but it glows brighter and brighter as if he's coming closer to it. Once more, he is enveloped in green light, and he falls back to earth in another time and place.

***

“Mom, why are we here?” Noriaki grumbles as they step off the bus in front of a western-style house, a two-story, squarish edifice of weathered brick and a sagging tin roof. It's at least three or four times larger than their apartment with what looks to be several additions hastily tacked onto the front entrance, giving the roof a jagged, unwelcoming outline. Noriaki pulls closer to his mother when he notices vines are curling around the chain-link fence surrounding the parameter. A tire swing hangs from a single tree in the backyard, somehow making the whole picture even more forlorn.

Mother sighs. “We've talked about this, Noriaki. We're here for a meeting.”

“Why do I always have to talk to all these counselors and specialists and psychologists?” Noriaki whines, taking care to pronounce all the words correctly as he kicks at one of the empty cans littering the street. He's learned quickly that when people think you're crazy, they also think you're dumb. “My grades are perfect. I never miss a day of class unless the medicine makes me sick. I'm the fastest runner in fourth grade. I'm fine!”

“Noriaki, just come on . I'm tired of arguing with you.” Kaede snaps, dragging him toward the door by his arm. “This is why you're here. You never listen to me. You won't talk to any of the other children. All day long, you either sit in your room with your nose in a book, drawing that awful thing over and over again, or you disappear all day and I have no idea where you are.”

“Let go!” He yanks his arm back. “I don't like this place. I want to go home.”

“Fine,” she says, breathing noisily through her nose just like she always does when she's really furious. “You can go sit on the bench out back while I talk to the lady inside. But you will stay there until I come and get you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Mother,” he says numbly. There's no arguing with her when she gets like this.

“Nori...wait,” she says so softly he barely hears her. When he cautiously peeks over his shoulder, she's rummaging through her purse. She beckons him over, and to his astonishment, she presses a brand new copy of Watership Down into his hands with a smile that softens the hard angles of her face.

“You bought it!” Noriaki cries, hugging it to his chest. He's been wanting to read it for months, and not just because there are rabbits on the cover. “None of the libraries have it!”

“It's in English, but I know you'll manage. You can read it while you wait,” Kaede says. He's almost too busy reading the description on the glossy dust jacket to notice that she's been quietly gazing down at him the whole time, as if she's trying to preserve the image in her mind. “Here's some money for the soda machine, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom,” he says.

She leans down to brush his hair out of his face, tucking one long curl behind his ear. Her eyes are too bright, and they don't crinkle when she smiles. “Be good. Please, Noriaki, be good. I know you can do it if you try.”

Worrying his lip, Noriaki watches his mother's retreating back until the door shuts with a groan of rusted hinges and her familiar blue housecoat disappears. With nothing else to do, he parks his bottom on the hard wooden slats of the nearest bench. It's too cold for soda, so he munches on peach-flavored gummy candy, kicking his feet and reading. He knows perfectly well that he's being bribed, but she never lets him have candy, so he's going to savor it.

It's taking such a long time. Aren't they ready to meet him? The candy has run out, and although he's engrossed in the story, his legs are getting sore from sitting. Tucking his new book in his jacket, he wanders toward the empty playground and claims a swing for himself. The brisk autumn wind rips through his hair as he kicks off, leaning back and watching the clouds. Taking a risk, he closes his eyes and thinks of a huge, beautiful, squashy leaf pile right in front of the swings. Counting down the seconds as he pumps his legs, he cracks one eye open to see every leaf in the entire yard has been deposited at his feet. When the sun hits them just right, he can see a network of gossamer threads sheltering under the leaves, shivering in anticipation. They're friends again, him and the nameless thing that used to be Mr. Worms. A little friend you could carry around in your pocket. He knows that they didn't mean to hurt Dad. With the loudest whoop he dares to make, he soars through the air and lands with a delightful crunch, scattering leaves everywhere.

It's great fun at first, reading in peace and not having to share the swings and the sandbox, but the hours tick by with no sight of his mother or this mysterious new counselor. The last bus is due to leave soon. He wants to look for her, but she told him to wait. She gave him a new book and let him play outside instead of studying and she smiled at him for the first time in years. The thought of doing anything to jeopardize that smile fills his heart with terror.

The stars are nearly out by the time the back door slides open and a thin, knobby woman in her 60s peers out, brows furrowed as her eyes rake over him. “Noriaki Kakyoin? Is that your name?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he replies dutifully, sheepishly plucking leaves out of his hair. “Where's Mom? Is she--”

“It's getting dark, Noriaki. Come inside, I've got supper waiting for you.”

Are they staying the night? This doesn't look like an inn. “O-okay.”

She guides him inside with a hand on his shoulders, unsmiling and watchful but not looking angry, either. “Wash your face and hands and have seat at the table. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I expect you to be polite and share with the other children. I’ve been told that you can be a little stubborn sometimes, and I don't want any nonsense from you.”

The interior of the house is dark, smokey, and claustrophobic, not at all like he was expecting from the great swathes of brick outside. He can smell fish frying in what he thinks might be the kitchen, but the oily smell just makes his stomach roil. By the time he reaches the table, his knees begin to shake. Nine other children of various ages are all staring back at him, and he's suddenly very conscious of his dirty knees and vivid curls. “Red, red,” a tiny girl who looks no older than two mumbles in a sing-song voice in between chewing on the ear of a stuffed rabbit.

“So this is the new one,” an older boy a foot taller than him says.

“Woooah, are you from America?”

“Are you just going to stand there? Tell us your name already.”

“You don't look sick,” a girl his own age pipes up. “Are you sick? That's why you're here, right? Do you have to take medicine like me?”

Noriaki stumbles backward in shock until his back hits the wall, making the nearby china cabinet wobble. “What is—I don't--”

“Oh, dear, I knew this would happen,” the old lady scolds, drying her hands on her apron. “They didn't explain anything to you, did they? Come with me.”

Tears and snot are running down his face by the time she ushers him into her office, a cramped but comfortably furnished room with diplomas on the walls, filing cabinets, and squashy armchairs. He sees a folder with his name on it resting on her desk. “Mom left without me. That's what happened, right? That's w-why she was being so nice.” He sinks to the floor, hiding his face behind his knees. “She was saying goodbye because she doesn't want me anymore and she's never coming back.”

“Blow your nose,” the old woman admonishes, her expression softening a bit as she hands him a tissue. “You're a mess, you poor thing. No, Noriaki, that is not what happened. Your mother just wants to help you. She's just not able to take care of you anymore. That's why she brought you here. This is a special school where we teach children with certain...difficulties.”

“I don't have difficulties!” Noriaki shouts. “You think I'm too dumb to understand you, but I'm not. I don't have a developmental disability or anti-social personality disorder or schizophrenia or any of the other shit you think I have! I'm not taking any more medication or seeing more counselors. There's nothing wrong with me!”

“Noriaki,” she says sternly. Her neck creaking as she leans down, the old lady decides he hasn't done a good enough job of wiping his face and does it for him, patting him soothingly on the back. “I just watched you play outside for over an hour, laughing and talking with someone who wasn't there. You need to accept that this...thing, this person you keep drawing over and over again isn't real.”

“He's real,” Noriaki whispers, hugging his new book until the pages crumple and the paper is stained with tears. She sighs, placing a tray of food beside him since he won't come out of her office. “Why won't you believe me?”

***

Her name was Mrs. Kobayashi, but the littlest children simply called her 'mother'. Despite their promises, no one's parents ever came to visit them. Most of them didn’t even get phone calls or presents on their birthdays except for a little gift here and there from the staff. A more tempting target for bullying had yet to be invented; as such, they were the laughingstocks of the local elementary, jeered and tripped and pelted with all manner of unpleasant things the second they ventured beyond the chain-link fence. By the time Kakyoin would have started middle school, he knew that no perfect test scores, no beautiful sketches, no poetry, no fastest time on the running track would ever erase the stigma of being from That School.

“Don't make me force you, Noriaki,” a stocky, middle-aged woman in a nurse’s uniform groans in frustration, trying to coax a cup of pills down his throat. As she grabs his jaw, trying to peel his lips back, something in him snaps. No matter how hard they tried to silence him, Hierophant didn't disappear beneath a drugged stupor of high-level anti-psychotic medication, tranquilizers, treatments, and therapy. They only got stronger, sneakier, angrier. Barely resisting the urge to bite, he shoves her down, hard, nearly breaking her collarbone as she stumbles into the heavy iron bed frame. It's the only thing that saves her from Hierophant wrenching her head from her neck.

He runs.

Things change, for better or for worse. He learns how to steal with his stand, how to open locks and pick pockets and hotwire cars. Sometimes he curls up in a feather bed in some real estate mogul's vacation home, other times he sleeps in an open field with a hand on his pocket knife. Those old jeers and soft pitying looks linger in his mind even now, so he spends long hours studying in the library or camping out on park benches with a stack of textbooks and a stolen steamed bun. He's going to be smarter than all of them, just wait. His body changes, too, the childlike chub vanishing as he rappels up buildings, replaced by lean muscle and long clean limbs. He earns stares for different reasons now, oftentimes from unsavory types who lick their lips when he walks by and end up getting sliced. His little friend isn't so little anymore; their name is Hierophant now, and they keep Noriaki safe. 

He travels West, hopping train cars, jumping in the backs of trucks when no one is looking, sneaking aboard ships. Somewhere out there is someone like him. There has to be.

He meets Mr. Gěi. They part ways far too quickly. Kakyoin hugs him harder than he should, knowing that they won't likely meet again. He keeps walking. On and on he walks, through Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and now Cambodia. Rumors reach his ears of a man in Egypt with strange powers, a tall dark figure with golden hair searching for others with gifts like his. He swipes a first-class ticket to Africa from a tourist's pocket and stretches his legs out in the richly upholstered luxury cabin.

Things change again. He wears a beautiful brand new olive green uniform to his classes at the finest private school in all of Cairo. He treasures it, keeping it perfectly clean and ironed because it looks so much like the gakuran he would have worn if his mother had taken him with her when she returned to her hometown in Morioh. His teachers are positively captivated by him, praising his mathematical skills and his paintings in equal measure. He doesn't quite make friends, but he is admired and respected for the first time in his life.

Lord Dio is waiting for him when he returns to the mansion after a long day of classes and studying. The man, if he could even be called one anymore, enraptures and terrifies him. He is beginning to understand that he is an investment. Dio needs that now famous mind of his, having already factored it into his plans, needs him focused, clear speaking, and well-educated. But his new friend wants something more, wants deeply and greedily. He cups Kakyoin's jaw with surprising gentleness and then brings their faces close together as if to kiss him. Kakyoin sighs in anticipation, eyes falling shut, cheeks flushed, before he feels the vampire's fangs plunge into his neck.

He spends the next three months in a nightmare from which he cannot wake. Dio hurts him every day, hurts him so intimately and deliberately that he just shuts down, watching passively as his mind drifts further and further from his body. He obeys unthinkingly, dropping to his knees in abject submission before he fully comprehends what he's doing. He loses track of time. He stops drawing and reading for pleasure. He has no pride, no freedom, no dreams. Dio has taken everything.

Time moves like a song played from a badly damaged record: discordant, prone to skipping randomly. The next time he wakes up, truly wakes up for the first time in months, he's staring into the most brilliant green eyes he's ever seen. It hits him instantly, short-circuiting his brain, stopping his heart mid-beat, probably rewriting his genetic code. The boy who beat him up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour is pulling a mind-controlling parasite out of his brain. Strangers are shouting all around him, he can't remember if he did his English homework, both he and his savior are almost certainly about to die, and Kakyoin knows in an instant that he is tortuously, irrevocably, maddeningly in love.

Green threads wrap around the two Kakyoin's: one, the principal actor, the other, a spectator; one friendless and alone, the other mourned and wept over; one living, one less than a ghost. The threads bind them, past and present becoming one. Kakyoin reaches to touch the gossamer strands, only to find a hand in his own, made of emerald light.

“So here we are at the end of the world,” Hierophant says. “Do you hate me?”

The question startles Kakyoin. How many times had he screamed those exact words to Hierophant, pushed them, thrown rocks at them, anything to cut threads that tethered them together?

“No. Not anymore.”

“I hurt you. I made everyone afraid of you. I took your family away. You suffered and died because of me. You should hate me.”

“You lead me to them. To him,” Kakyoin counters, his voice soft and far away.

Memories of the open road flash through his mind. He sees himself playing table tennis in his bathrobe with Polnareff, telling Avdol about Tibetian prayer flags and yak butter tea, reading groan-worthy puns out of a joke book to Joseph, pressing kisses to Jotaro’s neck under the stars.

“I was there. My life mattered. I don't know what kind of life I could have led without you, but at least I got to feel this. I got to love and be loved in return. Even if this is the end, I could never hate you for that.”

“Are you scared?” Hierophant asks.

“No,” he repeats. “Not anymore.”

“Scared,” Hierophant pleads. “Don’t want to go.”

“It’s okay,” Kakyoin says. “It’s okay. Hierophant. Thank you for being my friend.”

“Love you. Always loved you,” Hierophant whispers.

They're fading fast, and so is he. He doesn't know where exactly he's fading to, if anything. Maybe he’ll even wake up in his hospital bed. He doesn't where they are, if this bizarre plain of existence even exists at all, or if his brain is simply telling him what it needs to before it shuts down forever. All he knows is that he doesn't have a body anymore, and his spirit is scattering like dandelion seeds in the wind. He can't hold Hierophant anymore, but he hopes beyond hope that his voice can reach them one last time.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, and disappears.

Chapter Text

It's time to get up

Light presses against his closed lids, rich and warm as melted butter. Instinctively, he leans into its touch, luxuriating in pure sensation as he shakes the cobwebs from his mind. The light filters through his long lashes, scattering into a thousand rainbow-hued fractals.

Any second he's going to be shaken awake by Polnareff and informed that he has three seconds to get his lazy butt out of bed before they tie him to the roof of the jeep. Mr. Joestar is probably just beyond the door, half-dressed with a piece of toast in his mouth. He'll be ready to lecture him about staying up all night reading manga with Jotaro...

His eyes flutter. Painful little sparks travel up his optic nerve as if he'd never used his eyes before. At first, all he can see is a single square of hazy yellow light, casting strange halos around the dark shapes in his peripheral vision. As he peeks out from behind his fingers, yellow-white begins to bleed into brilliant blue. Wisps of cloud drift lazily across a sky so blue he could never capture it in colored pencil or acrylics if he studied for a million years.

Sunlight. Actual sunlight streaming through his window. Actual sunlight after so many days of waking up to plastic curtains and featureless plaster walls, not knowing if it were day or night. He reaches out with one trembling limb, watching the rays of the mid morning sun light up his gray, clammy skin.

It's over. It's finally over.

The sheer weight of the realization doubles him over, spots dancing before his vision as his body struggles to keep pace with his racing mind. He's died twice, maybe three times, and now he's wide awake and blinking sunlight out of his eyes. Kakyoin sinks back into his pillow, hysterical laughter bubbling up his chest until his stomach muscles ache from the strain. Less than a 30% chance of survival, and he won . He fucking won. He and Jotaro beat Dio once last time.

And Jotaro...

The other boy's face swims in his mind. His whole body aches for him, his touch, his voice, all the kisses and arguments and comfortable silences. They're going home together. Over and over, he whispers the words in his mind like a prayer. If he has to sit in this bed one minute longer, he's going to sprint out the door and leap into his arms.

An irritating nibble of chill startles him out of thoughts. He looks down to see his bare toes sticking out from under the duvet. With a grunt, he flicks the covers back over them with his good hand. Already tired out, he nuzzles sleepily into his blankets and promptly rips them right off the bed in total shock.

He can feel his toes.

All he can do is stare at his own bare feet. In one nightmarish rush, his brain is flooded with the sounds and smells of the ICU: orderlies grunting as they hauled his deadweight across the linens, staring helplessly at the light fixture waiting for someone to turn him. That terrible feeling of disconnect, as if he were a pair of eyeballs floating above someone else’s body.  How many times had he caught a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, only to see Nahla leaning over to check his pedal pulse or Rhonda attacking his nail polish with a bottle of acetone? And he never would have known they were fucking there.

Heart hammering, breath caught in his throat, he concentrates with every fiber of his being. please please please

His toes curl effortlessly.

Every little movement leaves his wasted muscles quivering in protest. His ribs burn when he tries to take a deep breath. But that's nothing, NOTHING compared to the feeling of being whole, his top and bottom half tethered together again. For the first time since his “accident”, he feels...normal. There's no oxygen tubing in his nose, no bags of antibiotics and IV fluid hanging beside his bed, no cardiac monitor, no chest tubes, no cervical collar. He can hear fabric rustling as he moves, and he looks down at the light blue scrub bottoms stretched across his skinny thighs. The horrible metal cage around his shattered left arm is gone, the skin unbandaged with only a few faint circular scars to mark where bolts were once drilled into the bone. He rotates his shoulder, giving his wrist an experimental twist without so much as a twinge of pain.

No, this can’t be right. Nahla said this type of injury took months to heal.

Something is terribly wrong.

Kakyoin's heart jolts unpleasantly as the door pops open without a knock. A young, round-faced nurse maybe a few years older than he is bustles in, a plastic jug of pinkish-brown liquid held tight against her white uniform. He opens his mouth, a half-formed question on his lips, but she walks right past him to the sink. His expression shifts from confusion to irritation, then finally concern as she sets up her workstation next to his bedside, tracing his lines and checking the setting on his equipment just like he's seen Nahla do countless times. Except she never looks at him, methodically reaching for body parts as if it never occurred to her that they were connected to a human being. It's only when their eyes meet that she stumbles back in shock.

“Y-you're awake!” she squeaks. He breathes a sigh of relief when she takes those cold, probing fingers off of him. He tries to speak, but all he can manage is a barely audible moan. His mouth is so dry.

“Can you hear me, Mr...uh,” The nurse glances at the name written on the whiteboard. “Noriaki?” He nods. Questionable bedside manner aside, her Japanese is flawless. It would be a relief to finally talk to someone in his native tongue if she weren't so annoying.

“I'm supposed to start your feeding, so I'll, uh...just go and do that then.” Feeding? She reaches again for his face, and for the first time, he realizes that a long tube is dangling out of his nose. He paws at it instinctively. “No, don't pull on it!”

The next several minutes are nothing sort of excruciating. He pieces together through her stammering explanation that the goopy stuff in the bottle is supposed to be pumped into his stomach via the tube inserted into his left nostril, and he swats at her every time she tries to touch it. Finally, she gives up and backtracks through the door mumbling something about asking her preceptor. Kakyoin never thought he would be the sort of person who'd ask to speak to the manager, but damn.

His thirst is back with a vengeance. Surely, he's allowed to have water now? Fumbling on his bedside table for something to drink, he catches a whiff of something sweet. He turns to see a crystal vase of fresh-cut summer flowers, a glossy paperback with a bookmark in the middle, and a pretty card with red and yellow kites against a blue sky. Before he can reach for it, he startles again at a soft knock.

“What...what happen...” Kakyoin rasps as a plump, middle-aged lady strides in authoritatively. A faint flicker of unease makes his mouth even drier. He’s seen that expression on the faces of countless doctors and nurses, counselors and psychologists: pensive, constrained, cloyingly sympathetic. Pitying. He doesn't like this. Not at all.

She pulls a metal stool out from under one of the cabinets near the sink, taking a seat beside his bed. “Can you tell me your name?” She asks, again in Japanese. He notices for the first time that the characters on the whiteboard are all in kanji. He croaks out an answer that seems to satisfy her.

More questions follow. She's scribbling something onto a clipboard, held close to her chest so he can't see. She heaves a tiny sigh as if she's steeling herself for something, and he suddenly finds his hand in hers. In her eyes is the same look that Mr. Gěi wore when he sent him away.

“Noriaki, can you tell me what today's date is?”

He wracks his brain. His surgery was scheduled for January 27th, so it must be...

“I'm going to tell you something that might be difficult to hear,” she says patiently, and ice creeps into Kakyoin's heart. The summer flowers, his fully healed arm, all the clues are in place, but he pleads with his eyes for her to stop. Hearing the words will make it real. “I need you to stay calm, okay?”

“Today's date is...”

Hours later, Kakyoin's gaze drifts out the window into the setting sun. Staff drift in and out. The nasal gastric tube is in the biohazard bin after he passes his speech therapy evaluation and he doesn't need it anymore. A cup of water remains untouched on his bedside, the ice long melted. His throat is too tight to drink.

His space is invaded by the attending physician, who listens to his lungs and tuts fretfully when he thinks Kakyoin can’t hear him. He tries to sit up by himself and fails. Everything takes so much damned effort. Muscles he hasn’t used in months burn every time he takes a deep breath, the flesh on his arms hanging off his bones like dough. His brain burns with exhaustion but whenever his eyes drift shut, he jolts painfully awake the second his heartbeat starts to slow.

Instead, he finds himself rereading the card over and over again, as if it could tell him anything different. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Still, he stares at the brightly colored kites, wishing he were wherever the photograph was taken.

Happy 17th birthday! Wishing you a speedy recovery. We miss you!

- Love, Holly Kujo

***

The stars are out when he hears footsteps outside his door, but Kakyoin gingerly maneuvers himself to face the wall with a pained grunt, ignoring them both. Seven months. Seven months of his life just…gone. The first birthday he could have spent with friends and he slept right through it.

“He won't talk to us, doesn't even look up when we enter the room. He's not drinking. Dr. Kitagawa is worried. Please, can’t you talk to him?” the nurse insists, and the door slides open no matter how much Kakyoin determinely wills it to stay shut. Why can't they leave him alone?

“Noriaki? Are you awake?” Kakyoin slides the blanket off his head, cautiously peaking out. “Can I come in?”

Light floods the dark corners of the room, illuminating the figure of Holly Kujo. Her honey blonde hair is pulled up in its usual chignon instead of lank and matted with sweat like the last time he saw her, face browned by the summer sun. She’s still beautiful, her smile warm and sincere, but an indefinable weariness has settled around her. It reminds him of a day-old rose. At Kakyoin's affirmative mumble, she alights gracefully in the visitor's chair just like Polnareff, Joseph, and Jotaro has all sat at his bedside seven months ago.

“I was told you haven't had a drop of water since you woke up, so I brought you a few things,” she says mildly, setting down a paper bag he hadn't noticed before. “The doctors said you get cold easily. Here, this will warm you up.” In spite of the balmy night air he can only imagine on the other side of the window, gooseflesh is forming on Kakyoin’s bare arms. A handmade patchwork quilt is draped around his bony shoulders, little squares of green fabric in every shade from deepest jade to seafoam. A lucky guess, or did someone tell her his favorite color, he wonders.

She pours him a cup of something hot and smelling of freshcut flowers and citrus out of an old thermos decorated with cartoon characters. He would bet money that it once belonged to Jotaro. “Careful, it's hot!" Holly chides gently as he breathes in the herbal steam, letting the heat suffuse through his thin chest. "That's pure manuka honey with fresh ginger and radishes. I grew them myself!”

“It's not time to pick radishes,” Kakyoin grumbles, eyeing the vegetable slices floating in the mixture. ‘I can't believe this is the first thing I've said to her since I left Japan’, he thinks as she gingerly guides the cup to his mouth, letting the honey coat his aching throat. It has roughly the same effect as shaking the dust out of an old mattress and airing it in the sun.

“Oh! You haven't met my stand yet, have you?” Holly chirps, grinning at his confused face. “Say hello to Zuzu's Petals!”

Holly shushes him with a finger to his lips just as he’s about to ask a most likely inane question. He’s so tired of being the last to know everything. She concentrates for a second, and motes of golden light begin to swirl in the dry hospital air, chasing each other as they weave around the outline of a tall but distinctly feminine figure. Green mixes with gold as slender vines trail along their skin, crisscrossing over their chest and lacing their arms up in leaf-like sleeves. Clusters of blood-red berries glitter at their ears, fingers, and long, swan-like neck. But what makes him gasp are their eyes: almond-shaped holes set in a white porcelain and gold filigree mask. Pink and blue petals drip from their face like tears, disappearing before they touch the floor. They're the most bizarre and beautiful stand he's ever seen, looking eerie and sorcerous against the standard hospital beige and off-white palette.

“She's been helping me out in the garden. Any seed I plant pops up like a daisy after a week at most, even if it's the wrong season,” Holly explains with a bashful little titter. “My roses have never looked better!”

“I hope you didn't mind that I started reading your birthday present,” Holly says, feeding him more of her strange magical radish juice. Zuzu hovers over them, half visible, as if she's waiting for Kakyoin's opinion. He smiles awkwardly at her. “J-Jotaro and Papa said you like science, and the bookstore said everyone was just dying to read A Brief History of Time--”

“Jotaro? Is he here in Tokyo with you?” The question comes out in a tangled rush, making his head swim from lack of oxygen.

A cloud seems to pass over Holly’s face. “Jotaro left Japan months ago. A university in Florida offered him a work-study program, and…he took it. He’s actually doing very well! The last time I talked to him, he told me he's studying to become a marine biologist!”

So Jotaro didn’t need Kakyoin to help him study after all.

“Anyway, I-I’ve never had much of a head for physics. But I've been reading passages here and there,” Holly says quickly, not quite meeting his eye. Zuzu fades away in a gentle shower of petals that disappear into the glazed tiles of the floor. “When I started reading to you, sometimes you’d open your eyes, even say a few words. I remember the first time you turned toward me in your sleep, as if you'd heard me.”

“I'm sorry,” Kakyoin murmurs. He's not even sure why he said it. Maybe it’s the tremor in her voice, the sharpness of her cheekbones that wasn’t there last year. “Sorry it took so long.”

“Oh, honey, no. Please don’t ever be sorry,” Holly says, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. “Papa told me what happened. How that man from Egypt…hurt you. You were only sixteen. You should never have had to make such a sacrifice.”

“I chose to go,” Kakyoin says, trying to push himself up on his elbows. Every square inch of him wants to drift away, the warm drink and quilt begging him to curl up in a warm ball. But he’s tired of lying there like a lump of meat, tired of being tired. He swallows thickly, trying to cudgle his clumsy tongue into forming words. “I appreciate it. What you’ve done. Really I do, Miss Holly–er, Mrs. Kujo. But I had my own reasons for returning to Egypt. Please don’t feel any obligation toward me.”

To his surprise, the corners of Holly’s lips quirk, some of the color returning to her cheeks. “Actually, it’s Mrs. Joestar now. But you can call me Holly,” she laughs, a high and lilted bird’s chirrup that eases the tension in his shoulders. “This is my choice to make, too. I’m here because I want to be. So stop looking so serious, okay? Just concentrate on getting better. I want to take you for a walk in my new garden.”

***

Holly helps him get ready for bed before she leaves for the night. No matter what he needs help with, there’s no hesitation in her gentle touches, no flush on her cheeks, no judgment. He’s dying of embarrassment before she even hands him a towel, but the thought of one of the nurses hovering over him with a hand on her hip as he brushes his teeth threatens to make his soul shrivel up and die. He’s utterly sick to death of having his body handled by total strangers.

“I know how scary it is. That feeling right before you’re about to fall asleep, when you’re so tired but you’re afraid,” she whispers, tidying his hair as much as its natural waviness allows. “Afraid that if you close your eyes, you'll never open them again. But you’ve made so much progress in just a few days. Please, just let yourself rest. We’re all going to be there when you wake up, I promise.”

Her perfume lingers in the air long after she leaves, floral and powdery, the way he always imagined a mother should smell.

‘Sleep’ , he tells himself. A childish part of him wants to disappear into a dream. He doesn’t want to be in this room anymore, in this body. ‘Just close your eyes. Relax. You’re going to wake up again. ’

What if the next time he woke up, another seven months had passed? Or a year? Ten years? His entire life? Every time he closes his eyes, he can feel the breath stilling in his lungs, the blood congealing in his heart. The French call it ‘La Petite Mort’, or little death for a reason. He’s almost relieved when the phone rings.

“Kakyoin! I just got the news! Oh, you don't know how happy I am to hear your voice.” Joseph's voice crackles on the other line, warm and booming, exactly as he remembers from the day before surgery. A day that was last Sunday for him, and seven months ago for Joseph.

The conversation ambles on, Kakyoin sitting quietly with his hands neatly folded in his lap while Joseph fills the hole in his memory. Joseph hopped right back into his old life as New York’s premier real estate tycoon. Polnareff and Avdol are traveling the French countryside with Iggy tucked in a basket. Jotaro is in Florida. Kakyoin was transferred from Cairo to Kyoto University for long care back in March following an extensive battle with septicemia that resulted in a febrile seizure.

 “I know you must be exhausted, so I won't keep you up long. I'd like to see you soon—is that okay?”

“Is Jotaro coming, too?” Kakyoin asks before he can stop himself. It’s 10 am in Florida right now. Jotaro should be awake right now. Why hasn’t he called yet?

“Well, he just started his fall semester, so it, er, might be a bit short notice. Anyway. I've got some business to discuss with you. Don't worry, you're not in trouble. It's...complicated...” Joseph trails off. Kakyoin’s lips press into a thin line. “My wife Suzi, she's decided to take an extended sabbatical in Japan. You'll meet her soon. Now get some rest, okay, kiddo?”

Kakyoin murmurs something into the phone only to realize the line has gone dead and the receiver is digging into his cheek. He blinks, peering owlishly around the four corners of the room without seeing any of them. Rest. Can’t rest yet. Things to do. Eyes fluttering, Kakyoin fumbles for his birthday present and barely stumbles through the first sentence before his forehead hits the crisp new pages. This uncomfortable new reality pops and fizzles like a burnt-out lightbulb.

He wakes in the wee hours of the night to something he hasn't felt in a long time, and unfortunately, it's not the sun on his face or the taste of melon soda. His neglected bladder throbs painfully, sending a dull ache up his artificial spine. After a quick glance around the room, he realizes that he has no idea what to do. He can make out a wood-paneled side door in the darkness. Is that the bathroom? Could he walk to it? He tries to maneuver himself onto his flank, ribs creaking in protest, thinking he can push himself up on his arms and swing his legs over the side of the bed. Instead, his shoulder buckles under his weight, dumping him on his face and wedging him awkwardly against the side rail with his knee hanging off the mattress. His spine screams at the unkind treatment, sending white-hot needles of pain straight into his brain. Worse, nausea boils in the mass of healed tissue under his breastbone, the room spinning so violently from the sudden moment that he wonders if he somehow ruptured his eardrum. He clamps a hand over his mouth, tasting bile before he comes to the horrible conclusion that he's hopelessly stuck and he's going to need to be cleaned up.

All he can do is wait. If he opens his mouth to cry for help, he's going to vomit. He has no idea where his call light is, or if he even has one. His eyes water from pain and humiliation as he counts down the seconds, watching the silver of light under his door, cold, wet, and miserable.

Finally, finally, someone comes, and he thanks his lucky stars that it's not that nervous little airhead from earlier. An older man with a neatly trimmed beard hauls him unceremoniously across the rumpled bedding. He covers his reddened face with his hands, desperately trying to block out the next several minutes as tears pool in his eyes. The man's touch is quick and mechanical, wire spectacles glinting in the dim light as gloved fingers tug and prod and damp terrycloth scrubs away the mess. Kakyoin comes to the nauseating conclusion that both of them have been in this position many, many times over the past several months.

“I-I'm sorry,” he whispers.

“It happens,” the man grunts as he strips off his gloves. “Get some sleep.”

'It's not going to be like this forever,' Nahla's voice whispers in his ear, thousands of miles away, months and months ago.

He wishes he could believe her.

***

Kakyoin glowers at his breakfast tray and silently curses whoever decided he should be on a liquid diet. Nibbling moodily at his jello brick, he reads through the list of exercises he's going to be performing with his physical therapist today. Joseph is going to fly in from New York in a few days, and he is NOT going to greet one of his old friends as an invalid who can't even take a piss by himself.

He’s alone most of the day, only seeing a nurse between medication times and hourly rounding if he presses his call light, and even then, he has to wait several minutes. Based on the obnoxiously cheerful mural outside his room, he quickly deduces that he’s in a children’s ward. He can hear boys and girls that sound like they’re half his age in the rooms next to his, watching cartoons and occasionally whimpering in pain.

Pain. It has become a constant in his life. The nights he spent in the ICU were filled with a different sort of pain, wave after wave of blinding, hysterical agony that tore the breath from his lungs and made him feel like was going to die. He was driven solely by survival instincts, too weak to scream and cry because his lungs were struggling to inflate beneath a minefield of shattered ribs. Now, he’s so much more aware of his body’s needs, of gloved touches on his oversensitized skin and unfamiliar faces staring down at him even in the most intimate moments. It’s a cruel irony; Kakyoin has kept everyone at an arm’s distance for as long as he can remember, only to wake up in a reality where he has to be washed and dressed and fed by strangers every day.

The pediatrician makes his rounds. He actually smiles a little as the doctor shows him a model of his artificial spinal column created using a new technology called 3D printing. It's a marvel of modern engineering, fully articulated with functional intervertebral disks and constructed using the highest-grade shatter-resistant polymers. The grin slides from his face when he hears that they'll have to administer “more tests” to discover if he's suffering from any long-term brain damage. Panicking a little, Kakyoin spends the morning speedreading through A Brief History of Time right up to Holly's bookmark. It's actually a little too basic for him, which he decides is a good sign.

Whatever semblance of a good mood he's managed to achieve evaporates as soon as his session with the physical therapist starts. Blinking sweat out of his eyes in spite of the air conditioning, he screws up his face, breathing noisily through his nose; he has to walk again. He HAS to. He can feel the muscles and tendons straining in his thigh, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't lift his foot even a millimeter off the mattress. It's as if every bone in his leg has been hollowed and filled with cement.

'There comes a time when you gotta push past the point of pain,' Rhonda's voice echoes in his mind, cross but somehow tender. He sees himself stretched out in a different bed, nearly sobbing from frustration during one of his respiratory therapy sessions with Jeff. Or maybe his name was Jerry. 'You can scream, you can cry, you tell us all to fuck ourselves and the horse we rode in on, but you gotta do it. No matter how tired you are or how much it hurts, you've got to make yourself do it.'

He tries and tries and tries. He bites his lip until blood beads beneath his teeth, pain shooting up his hip, willing the atrophied muscle to contract with every fiber of his being. All he manages is a feeble jerk, feeling the bones of his ankle grind together like rusted gears. His chin falls onto his chest with a click as he struggles to catch his breath, completely defeated.

“We'll try again tomorrow,” the therapist says simply.

***

August fades into a cool and uncertain September. Rice, vegetable salads, and boiled eggs start showing up on his breakfast tray beside the usual miso soup. The mountain of brightly colored, bitter-tasting pills that come with every meal and at bedtime shrinks little by little. His labwork improves, no doubt aided by the fact that Holly seems to be determined to drown him in fresh fruits and vegetables. He stays awake longer, doing his breathing exercises and reading in the sun, combs his hair and brushes his teeth without any help. Two hours pass, then four, then six in between doses of pain medication. His friends call. Everyone except Jotaro.

Sometimes in the twilight between consciousness and sleep, he has the barest recollection of…something in between the night before surgery and waking up here. Somewhere. The smell of wisteria blossoms and a strange green glow on the horizon. Withered hands holding onto him, someone calling his name. He remembers a little less of it every time he wakes up.

Holly visits several times a week, her arms brimming with new books, puzzles, fidget toys, and even some of Jotaro's textbooks. He meets her new boyfriend, a paunchy, balding, kind-faced man who owns a hardward store and shows Kakyoin pictures of his dog. Other times Holly is accompanied by Suzi Joestar, an extraordinarily chatty woman of seventy with a boundless vitality that would put a 25-year-old aerobics instructor to shame. She flits about the small space in jaunty, hummingbird-like motions, a blur of fluffy yellow hair and sparkling blue eyes contrasting oddly with her kitten heels and smartly tailored suits. It’s hard not to like her, even if she did pinch his cheeks that one time. He thanks her for the nice quilt she made him and even manages a few bites of her famous Sicilian cassata.

“My, I’ve never seen such a studious boy in all my life! I remember when I used to help Joseph study for his exams,” Suzi muses as Kakyoin slogs through Jotaro’s 12th-grade world history book. “I practically had to tie him to a chair and stand over him with a ruler like the nuns at St. Augustine’s! Oh, he would make me so mad, sneaking naughty magazines in his textbooks and setting pigeons loose in the classroom on exam day. But then we would go for a spin on his candy apple red Harley-Davidson when the leaves were turning, and I would take my scarf off and let the wind rip through my hair. The autumn days were magical…”

“I think what Mama means to say,” Holly laughs, handing him dark, tart pomegranate seeds and slices of dragonfruit. “Is that you’re very dedicated.”

A part of Kakyoin, the less polite part he always seems to be biting back these days, fights the urge to scoff. The only thing he can do besides lay awake listening to the sound of his own breathing is read, periodically shifting his weight so he doesn’t get bedsores. He hasn’t felt the urge to draw since he woke up. There are things lurking at the edges of his imagination that he’s not ready to bring into the waking world.

Joseph calls him on a crisp Sunday morning, his voice heavy like a cloud laden with rain.

“Kakyoin, that, er, ‘business’ I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. It’s about your family,” he says. “I wanted to tell you in person, but all three of us wanted to fly out to Japan together and I’ve been…involved with a certain project, shall we say. Believe me, I wish I could be here with you when I tell you this, but I can’t keep you in the dark any longer, ethically or legally.”

“They’re not—Dio didn't–oh, fuck,” Kakyoin moans.

“No, no, no, they’re both very much alive and in good health,” Joseph says quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. As I’m sure I’ve told you before, I’ve been acting in loco parentis for you since you’re not legally of age and we had no way of contacting your parents. I didn’t want to pry into your personal affairs, but there’s a lot of legal business to be sorted out. Namely, who’s going to be looking after you when you’re discharged from the hospital.”

“I’ll be okay by myself,” Kakyoin insists. “You don’t have to–”

“Now don’t start that nonsense. You’re a smart kid, Kakyoin” Joseph says. “You know you’re not just out of condition because you woke up from a coma. I’ve been in contact with your doctors. They tell me you’re working hard every day with a physical therapist. I know how hard you’re pushing yourself. I know how much you want this. You should be proud of yourself, we all are. But the damage done to your body was absolutely catastrophic. You’re…”

There’s a slow, deliberate intake of breath on the other line.

“You’re going to be disabled for the rest of your life.”

“You’re not sticking me in some fucking nursing home,” Kakyoin spits, a tiny quiver of hysteria in his voice that they can both hear. The room is spinning and he’s going to be sick. “I’m not going to live like that, not someone else’s sufferance. I’d rather fucking die.”

“That’s enough of that. We didn’t spend half a year waiting for you to wake up just so you could opine about wanting to die,” Joseph chides, a sharpness in his voice that makes Kakyoin’s jaw click shut. “Your mind still works, doesn’t it? How about your hands? Don’t you go thinking your life is over because there are things you can’t do anymore. You can regain some independence, but it’ll take time. In the meantime, you need to swallow that damn pride of yours and admit you need help.”

Joseph allows him to indulge in several seconds of sulky silence before barreling ahead. “Which brings us back to your family situation. My associates have spoken to your mother and–”

“You have?!” Kakyoin blurts out, manners be damned. “Then where is she? Why hasn’t she at least–”

“Kakyoin.” Joseph stops him with the gentlest tone he has ever heard him use. “I need you to understand that she’s not going to visit you. I know this is hard to hear, but I can't stand the thought of you lying awake, waiting for a phone call or a letter that's never going to come.”

“But…but… why ?” He feels himself sinking, slumping bonelessly in a heap at the bottom of the bed. He curls protectively around the skin graphs on his stomach, shivering despite the mountain of blankets. “I’m right here. After all this time…”

“After she surrendered you to the state when you were nine, your mother cut officially cut all ties. She doesn’t have any legal responsibility toward you anymore. For your own sake, I don’t want you to try to contact her,” Joseph says with an air of resignation. “None of this is your fault, Noriaki. I like to think I've gotten to know you pretty well since November, and you're one of the finest men I've ever met. I owe you my life, my daughter's life, even my stubborn punk of a grandson's life. You deserve so much better than this. But please believe me when I say that sometimes a parent just can't be what you want them to be, no matter how hard you try.”

“What am I supposed to do,” Kakyoin croaks from a too-tight throat. His eyes are burning, a sob hitching in his chest. He bites the too-soft flesh of his palm as it tries to fly out of his throat, letting its wings beat against his ribcage. Her face swims in the tears he won't allow himself to shed, her eyes staring down at him, hard, accusing, mouth twisted up in contempt. "She's the only family I have."

“Well, there might be a silver lining in all of this,” Joseph says. “Since your mother no longer has custody over you, that means that you are officially up for adoption. Noriaki, I know you haven’t had the best of luck with family, but Suzi and I…we’d like to give you a home.”

“Mr. Joestar, what are you saying?” Kakyion hiccups when he finds his voice again. There's no way he heard that right. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

“I mean exactly what I said.” Joseph Joetar's voice is rich as newly tilled earth. “The choice is yours, but if you say yes, I’ll sign the papers the next day. I’m not asking you to move to New York or change your last name, but you’ll be part of the Joestar family. You’ll be our son.”

“It’s a lot to think about,” the old man manages as Kakyoin hugs the phone to his chest, not trusting himself to speak. “Try to get some sleep.”

***

He's making amazing progress.

Or, at least that’s what everyone tells him. Just when he starts to believe those gentle reassurances, to allow himself a few seconds of hope, he tries to scoot up the top of the bed or let his legs dangle over the side. Like clockwork, those few inches of movement leaves him gasping for air, sweat-slick palms grasping the side rail until his knuckles turn white. No one would believe that he used to spend his summers hopping fences and climbing trees and jogged every morning. Every time he looks down at himself he sees someone else’s body. Hard muscle is gone, bones poking from beneath a paper-thin layer of skin and fat. This pallid, spindly thing that won’t listen to anything he tells it isn't him. What if this is the new normal? Was he a fool for believing that he would get better?

His tailbone throbs and his back spasms beneath his brace just from sitting up long enough to finish reading the newspaper. There's talk of tearing down the Berlin wall, and the Summer Olympics are about to start in Seoul. The paper twists in Kakyoin's thin fingers as he bites into one of the cherries Holly grew for him without tasting it; the world is moving on without him.

He can’t think about Joseph’s offer. Every time he starts to consider it, he feels like he’s disarming a bomb, a 50-megaton payload of emotions about to explode in his face. It should be an easy decision. He loves Joseph, and Suzi is starting to work her way into his good graces. But he loved his mother. He trusted her. He tried to change for her. He wanted to protect her smile. And she still left him.

Every time he loves, that love turns into another jackal, tearing away strips of his heart and wolfing them down. His father, his mother. Even Dio.

The phone rings after he’s sulking off a particularly grueling physical therapy session. Foggy from pain medication, Kakyoin swears as his nerveless fingers send it crashing to the floor. He hauls it up by the long curly cord on the fifth ring, slurring worryingly around a mouthful of sleep-thick spit.

“Kakyoin.”

“J-Jotaro!” Kakyoin yelps. “Fucking hell, Jotaro. It’s been so long. They told me you’re all the way in America…”

He prattles on for nearly a minute before he realizes Jotaro isn’t saying anything. “Jotaro? Are you still there?” The entire exchange feels so surreal he nearly convinces himself he imagined Jotaro’s voice.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” Jotaro’s voice sounds tired and strained. “I need to hear you say it, Kakyoin. Tell me you’re going to be okay.” 

“I-I’m okay,” Kakyoin parrots. “My bloodwork and x-rays and stuff are all good. I’m doing physical therapy every day. The therapist thinks I could be walking again in as early as two months. I can eat solid food now. I still have a lot of pain, but I–”

“Good,” Jotaro says, and Kakyoin is now sure that he’s been drinking. “It’s good to hear your voice, Kakyoin.”

Click.

***

On the two-week anniversary of waking up in Kyoto, his door slides open to reveal a tall, strong-jawed woman with a salt-and-pepper plait resting on her shoulder. She introduces herself as Dr. Sterling in an American accent, apparently a prominent neurologist from New York. “Noriaki, today we're going to be performing a series of memory and cognition tests. Some of them you will be able to do, and some of them you might not. But no matter what, I want you to pay close attention and always do your best, okay?” Without waiting for him to respond, she reaches into her leather satchel and hands him the first of a stack of workbooks, scratch paper, a calculator, and a pencil.

Four hours and a half hours later, Kakyoin finds himself absently chewing on the plastic straw in his water cup, the last fidget toy he had yet to give away to one of the younger children clutched in his palm. He turns the little trinket over and over, watching purple glitter slowly drift across the clear plastic as ice forms in his stomach. He's read most of Jotaro's textbooks cover to cover by now, but he's missed months and months of school now. What if there's some little piece of his brain that atrophied like his muscles while he was trapped in unconsciousness?

Dr. Sterling's face hovers in the doorway, and he desperately struggles to read her face. His body is already broken. If his mind is broken as well...

The neurologist lowers her ponderous weight on the metal stool he's started to think of as the Bad News Stool. She's sitting too close. There are onions on her breath and her nail polish is ever so slightly chipped and all these details are churning inside his overheated brain into colorless slurry, a merciless sensory overload that tastes like acid in the back of his mouth. “I've just finished reviewing your exam results,” she says. “Your caregiver says you've been studying every day.”

“Did I...did I not do well?”

“Trust me, Noriaki, you have nothing to worry about,” she laughs, a deep throaty chuckle that eases the tension in his shoulders. “Your results are phenomenal. You're a remarkably bright young man, and if your college entry exam scores are anything like these, you could get into any university in the country. With your guardian's permission, I'd like for you to be re-enrolled in high school once your condition stabilizes. I believe we can convince the school to let you complete the majority of your coursework either here or after you meet your physical therapy goals, at home.”

The words flit about his head like excited hummingbirds. Therapy goals. High school. Coursework. Any university in the country.

Home.

Chapter Text

Kakyoin can't get used to the desert.

It's a far cry from the steamy heat of the jungle. He thinks back almost fondly to the rainforests of Assam: the ever-shifting green light filtering through the leaves, the spongy black loam at his feet, the low echoing whoop of bird calls. The crowds here are almost as tightly packed as Tokyo but carry a different feel and smell. The air is murky with wood smoke and the aroma of heavy spices and livestock. Ceaseless racket from the teeming souk below reverberates through the ancient crumbling wall of their tiny two-room hostel. Even in the shade, his clothes are plastered to his skin, and his tongue feels like it belongs on a museum curator's shelf next to a petrified sand dollar. With agents of Dio watching the roads, the Joestar group has no choice but to lick their wounds and wait for their chance to slink out of Karachi.

But that's nothing, NOTHING compared to how Jotaro must feel.

The other boy hisses in pain as Hierophant gently dabs at the jagged cut on his right cheek with a ball of saline-soaked cotton. Jotaro's face is a mess: bloody nose, split lip, both eyes blackened and blood-shot, ugly purple-black bruises blossoming on his forehead and jaw. His knees and palms are skinned and pitted with flecks of gravel, his pants ripped and splattered with more blood. Every inch of skin is raw, angry red. Kakyoin can imagine him blasting himself with scalding hot water from the mildewed showerhead, scrubbing and scrubbing at the blood caked under his broken nails. Kakyoin has done it himself plenty of times when he felt...unclean.

“I bet I could steal some really good painkillers for you,” Kakyoin whispers, almost afraid to break the silence. Even worse than the blood and bruises is the leadenness of the one eye that hadn't swelled shut, how he flinches every time Kakyoin's shadow falls over him. “Just a little something to take the edge off.”

“I don't want to lie around in a fucking stupor,” Jotaro groans, his ribs creaking from the effort. It's a weak, anemic noise that doesn't belong in his throat.

“You need to get some fucking sleep. We're not going anywhere until sunrise. Hold still for a second. Okay, maybe several seconds,” Kakyoin fires back as Hierophant coils around a tube of greasy, pungent ointment, coaxing Jotaro out from behind his arms and carefully cupping his bruised face.

His hands are shaking. Kakyoin takes a deep breath and tries to imagine that he's painting a scene inside a Qing dynasty snuff bottle like that old man they met on the Yangtze river, his shoulders are aching from the strain of fine-tuning Hierophant's every movement. The stand is agitated. They miss Star Platinum, yearning to twine about him affectionately. After his encounter with Steely Dan, Star seems to have cocooned himself deep inside Jotaro's soul.

Predictably, Jotaro jerks away from Hierophant's nimble fingers before the latter could admire their handiwork. At least Jotaro doesn't look like he fought World War III by himself.

“It's alright, Jotaro. Just rest. We'll hold down the fort.” With a sigh, Kakyoin hands Jotaro an extra large ziplock bag of water mixed with rubbing alcohol fresh from the freezer, watching with grim satisfaction as Jotaro leans into the cool gel. The entire first aid kit has been gutted in less than fifteen minutes. Kakyoin doesn't care if the nearest clinic is twenty miles away by car and their last camel died of heat stroke. Jotaro is getting the best care possible, and Noriaki Kakyoin doesn't come in second place at anything.

“You mean like the last time I tried to sleep?” Jotaro snaps. “And I woke up Polnareff getting his brains chewed out by zombies? Or how about when we stopped to get a bite to eat and a fucking parasite crawled into the old man's skull? Tell me, Kakyoin, when exactly am I supposed to get any rest?”

“There wasn't anything you could have done differently,” Kakyoin assures him, an edge of irritation in his voice as Hierophant winds gauze around Jotaro's arm. He's exhausted. In pain. Weak. Maybe even a little afraid. Kakyoin knows this. They all think he never looks up from his books, turning a blind eye to the world and the people in it. But he knows. And there's only so many times Jotaro can slap away his hand before he stops reaching out.

“We had no way of predicting how that bastard's stand power works. What were you supposed to do, beat his ass right then and there and get Mr. Joestar killed?”

“I couldn't do anything,” Jotaro mutters. “I'm only alive thanks to you.” It's not a compliment, and they both know it.

“How many times have you saved me? Saved Mr. Joestar? And dear god, Polnareff. He's a veritable damsel in distress with a flattop,” Kakyoin says with a halfhearted chuckle that hangs in the too still air like ozone after a lightning strike. Jotaro shoots him a withering look, and Kakyoin pretends to clear his throat. “No matter what happens, we all have each other's backs.”

Jotaro's only response is to retreat back underneath his arms, tucking his limbs close to his body like a sparrow with a broken wing. A creature that should fly free instead of lying broken and bedraggled on the ground. At this point, Kakyoin is not sure which is more tense: Hierophant's coils, or his own muscles. Before he can stop them, the stand wraps protectively around Jotaro, whispering in his ear in a voice like cicada song, furious and fearful and so unfathomably sad. It's yet another new sensation in this strange and unfamiliar world, hurting because someone else is hurt.

Worrying his lip, Kakyoin stares pensively at the dark patches on Jotaro's tank top. “This is probably the last thing you want to hear, but that shirt's gotta come off. You're bleeding pretty bad under there.”

“Goddamn it, you don't have to fucking...try this hard,” Jotaro says. “You fucking won, alright? You beat down the fucker that I couldn't beat. Go crawl into bed all pleased with yourself and stop fussing over me. I'm not gonna drop dead the second you turn your back.”

“You're really going to sulk all night with God knows what kind of injuries because you lost a fight?” Kakyoin scoffs, ignoring Jotaro's indignant bristling as he dumps out the rinse water and refills the bucket. “Unless you want a staph infection to go with your broken teeth, you better get some inner fucking peace and let me help you, Jotaro Kujo.”

“Fucking A+ bedside manner there, Dr. Kakyoin,” Jotaro deadpans. “You've never lost an argument in your life, have you?”

Whatever cutting remark Kakyoin is about to make dries up and dies in his throat as Jotaro gingerly peels off his shirt, sticky and dyed the color of rust. Beneath it are more cuts and bruises than unmarked skin, a particularly dreadful gash stretching across the left side of his ribcage. A crushing injury, judging by the bruising and jagged edges, probably from falling hard onto a sharp corner.

Or being held down and stomped on.

Kakyoin nearly covers his mouth in shock. “Christ, Jotaro, what did he do to you?”

“I'm done, okay? I don't want to fucking talk about it any more,” Jotaro says, swallowing painfully around a mouthful of blood. “Just do what you gotta do.”

Kakyoin and Hierophant work in silence. Wincing at the hard-packed debris digging into Jotaro's ragged skin, he manages to cobble together makeshift syringes from various bottles, irrigating the wound with sterile saline until the solution runs clear. Jotaro's knuckles are white, holding his breath no matter how many times Kakyoin tells him not to. Each tiny pain-wracked shudder threatens to make Kakyoin splash himself in the face with wound exudate.

Kakyoin grits his teeth and keeps his eyes trained on his work. It's better than gangrene or sepsis, he tells himself. But he can't pretend the overheated skin beneath Hierophant's fingers is some art project or a particularly vexing math problem. There's a boy not much older than him under the blood and grime, the huge fists and sharp words and piercing blue-green gaze, a boy who needs to feel clean, to heal, inside and out. So he cleans and cleans, knees digging uncomfortably into the sagging, splintery floor. With a flick of his wrist, silver-green threads shoot out from beneath Kakyoin's nails, stitching every last laceration shut.

“Mr. Joestar brought you some of his clean clothes,” Kakyoin says, gingerly guiding Jotaro's head onto a pillow made from their folded jackets. Hierophant is covered in blood, but Kakyoin's white dress shirt is spotless. It doesn't seem fair, somehow. “You don't have to change in front of me. I'll bring you some water--”

Jotaro snags his sleeve as Kakyoin rises to his feet. His head is bent, hair falling into his eyes. “Stay. Just a minute.”

“A-alright.” Kakyoin tiptoes back behind the folding screen that shields Jotaro's makeshift recovery space from the merciless midday sun streaming from the window, the coppery tang of blood and ointment lingering in the breathless heat. There's something Jotaro isn't telling him. Should he try to coax it out of him, or would that only make it worse?

“Talk to me,” Jotaro mumbles. “Just...it's noisy as shit outside. I'd rather hear your voice.”

Kakyoin tries, he really does. “Did you know that the Victorians used to mix arsenic right into the paint when they started mass manufacturing wallpaper? There was this really popular color called Schleel's Green that killed dozens of people when the ink flaked off and they inhaled the dust particles...”

“Oh, good fucking grief, do you think I want to hear about arsenic right now?” Jotaro grumbles, and Kakyion winces. “And don't go telling me about those haunted sandstone carvings we drove past, either. I want to hear about you. You never talk about yourself, you know that? What kind of music do you like?”

“I never got a chance to listen to much,” Kakyoin muses. “The sort of places I grew up didn't have an abundance of tape decks. But there was this one song by Sting I really liked.”

“ Sting ? Seriously?” Jotaro scoffs. He rolls over to face Kakyoin, head propped under his good arm. “I thought you were going to say Mephisto Walz or Sisters of Mercy. The Police are way too normal for you.”

“You've got a very strange way of expressing your gratitude,” Kakyoin says with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe next time I'll reattach your arm to your body and you can insult my taste in anime.”

“This shit fucking hurts. Excuse me if I'm not exactly Miss Manners right now,” Jotaro grunts.

Conversation evaporates faster than the sweat beading on their foreheads. Red-faced from too much sun and too much of each other, both boys claim a few square meters of floor for themselves like two tomcats sharing a barn during a thunderstorm. Polnareff sheepishly pokes his head in, carrying an armful of water bottles and towels, and Jotaro struggles into Joseph's spare pajama bottoms. After checking Jotaro's bandages to make sure they aren't saturated for what feels like the hundredth time, Kakyoin is debating whether he could read his new copy of I, Robot in the dim light when he feels a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“I knew you'd figure it out. When you ran after the old man, when I was alone with him...it's what kept me going. No matter what he said. No matter what he did to me. Knowing that if there was one person on earth who could beat an invincible stand, it was you,” Jotaro whispers, crawling on his elbows to Kakyoin's side. He's close, close enough to feel the heat radiating from Jotaro's body as he watches his naked chest rise and fall, broadly sculpted muscles flexing beneath his golden skin. What the hell is wrong with me, Kakyoin thinks, a flush creeping into his pale cheeks. Jotaro's so bloodied and bruised, and here he is, staring at him...

“If I'd been a little faster,” Kakyoin says. “I could have stopped...this. If I'd stayed there with you, I could have stopped him.”

“You performed brain surgery on my damn grandpa,” Jotaro says. He gingerly massages his jaw, which looks markedly less swollen. His eyes are clearer, the painful wheeze in his lungs gone. “You stopped him from taking that kid hostage. You fixed my face and my fucked up ribs. Jesus, you've done enough for one day.”

As the blazing desert sun slowly reaches its zenith, only the shadows move, Jotaro weighed down by exhaustion and injury, Kakyoin by the huge hand he inexplicably finds in his own. “You're so damned beautiful,” Jotaro murmurs, eyes half-lidded. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“You're being weird,” Kakyoin mumbles into his folded arms, feeling the tips of his ears turn red. He hates it when Jotaro makes him blush. It makes his whole head look like a tomato. He starts to wind the thick curl resting on his neck around his pinky finger before he realizes what he's doing. When he looks up, he almost gasps to see Jotaro's thick fingers curling around the lock of hair, gently stroking the auburn strands with his thumb. They catch the light and flash, the only color in the room besides Jotaro's eyes.

“I mean it. Sometimes it hurts to look at you,” Jotaro murmurs, slurring a little. Punch-drunk, maybe? “It's like...it makes me sad, somehow. Like looking at the cherry blossoms when you know they'll fade away in a few weeks.”

“I'm not that fragile,” Kakyoin grumbles. Definitely a little punch-drunk. Jotaro clumsily traces his jaw with his index finger, a smile in his eyes if not his lips. It's hard not to feel delicate beneath those thick fingers, but there isn't a single piece of Jotaro Kakyoin can so much as breathe on without hurting him. Jotaro, however, can explore and touch.

“Fuck, if there's one thing today proved, it's that you're not the one who needs protecting,” Jotaro says. “But you're still beautiful. You should hear that every day. I wish you could just...see yourself the way I do. Your eyes, your smile. The way your hair shines. It pisses me off, because that look on your face says that you've never heard that, even once.”

“Dio told me once,” Kakyoin says flatly. Jotaro wilts. “But you're nothing like him. Dio is a miserable fucking coward who hides in the dark all day, sipping blood out of a wine goblet like he's Augustus on his throne. You're brave and curious and unpretentious. And...kind,” he says at last, studying Jotaro's face, frowning at his disbelieving snort.

“Everyone at school called you an angry, arrogant punk. They said I should stay away from you. That'd you'd beat me up. Well, you did, but I tried to garrote you, so that's fair. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you actually give a shit about other people.”

“If I was so kind, you wouldn't have had to stop me from killing that bastard Dan,” Jotaro grunts.

“Star turned him into a human speedbag and left him to bleed in the gutter after I made you take out the fleshbud. I didn't want you to have a murder on your conscience. Killing someone in cold blood changes people, Jotaro,” Kakyoin counters. He already misses the hand in his hair. “Who knows what sort of person he was before Dio invaded his mind? Maybe he was like me.”

“He was nothing like you,” Jotaro growls, hauling himself upright only to double over in pain, hissing through gritted teeth. He doesn't have the strength to shrug off Kakyoin's hands as he steadies him, and that worries him. “Thanks for saving my life. I mean it. But you weren't there. You have no idea what he was like. You don't know what I'm like. You're so fucking sincere, and so trusting, and you don't know anything.”

Before Kakyoin can even open his mouth to protest, Jotaro shuts him up with a glare. For the first time in his life, Kakyoin doesn't want to argue. “I know what it's like. To kill in cold blood. I knew that, long before I met you.”

“Jotaro...” Kakyoin says slowly. “You're serious, aren't you?”

***

“It happened a few months back, in mid August. The night I met Star Platinum,” Jotaro replies. His chest is still, too still. He's holding his breath like he did when Hierophant was still digging through the abrasions on his ribs for glass shards. “Have you heard about the Kabukichō murders? The ones that happened in that Don Quijote store?”

“Of course I have,” Kakyoin breathes, the blood draining from his face. “It was all over the news.” Wait, there's no way that Jotaro...

He wouldn't. He couldn't .

“My bike ran out of gas,” Jotaro says. “Wasn't paying attention. Stupid mistake. Rolling it up the station a few miles back would have been a pain in the ass. I was outta cash, so I decided to stop by the ATM, maybe even get a soda bottle and gas jug it.

“Everything was so...normal at first. That stupid jingle they always play, cheap plastic crap stacked up against the wall that looks like it's about to fall on your head. I remember so many weird little things I never usually notice. The little remote controlled sushi car in the bargain bin, the crinkling sound of some guy outside unwrapping a rice ball. The smell of cigarette smoke on people's clothes. I remember," he shakes his head. "Everything.”

Once he starts talking, he can't seem to stop. Words are drawn from his throat like infection drawn from a poultice.  “And then, everyone stopped moving. I looked up from the ATM and..and..."

Their eyes meet, and it takes everything in Kakyoin's power not to look away.

"This guy in these stupid fucking aviator glasses and a surgical mask walked up to the register and pulled out a gun."

It's as if all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room. Kakyoin can only stare.

“The girl behind the counter was probably younger than me, maybe even younger than you. Another fifteen minutes and her shift would have been over, cuz it was a school night. If he'd walked in fifteen minutes later, she would still be alive. She was shaking, crying, but she did everything she asked, emptied out the whole register. She even told a little kid in the corner not to cry. And then he put his finger on the hammer. He made her beg for her life and then he shot her point blank range in the face."

“She fell forward, and I could see...what was left.” His and Jotaro's eyes meet, and there's nothing but pure fear there, the kind of fear that sucks the breath out of his lungs and makes the sweltering room feel cold as death.

“I was one, maybe two meters away from her. It was so loud all I could hear was this loud, metallic ringing for a few seconds. I felt something trickling down my neck and I thought my ears were bleeding. I tried to wipe it off and when I looked down at my hand, there was this pinkish-gray stuff all over my fingers.” His eyes are dull, like leaded glass buried beneath decades of dust. “It was her brain."

“Thank God the mom grabbed her kid and ran while he was distracted. He kept muttering under his breath, 'three bullets left, three bullets left'. One for the old lady who screamed when the shot rang out, one for some poor bastard who walked out of the john at the worst possible time. And one for me.

“It happened so fast. Before I could even blink, I was the only one left alive. He barely came up to my shoulder. Not even some Yakuza type, just some fucking pencilneck geek in a business suit. But my back was against the wall, and he was between me and the door." His fingers dig into his own arm, threatening to draw blood.

"There was nothing, nothing I could do. I couldn't move, I couldn't think. He looked me dead in the eye. Took one step toward me, then another. And another. Couldn't look away. Couldn't see his face. But somehow, behind that mask, I knew he was smiling."

He's squeezing Kakyoin's hand almost painfully, clutching it to his chest. Kakyoin lets him have it. They've kissed and fooled around and seen each other half-dressed, but something about the way Jotaro clings to him is so achingly intimate, so naked and raw, that it frightens him.

“He pulled the trigger, and then...I opened my eyes and the bullet was hovering right in front of my face. At first, it was just sort of suspended in midair. Then I could see this huge hand, holding it in place."

"A hand?"

“Yeah," Jotaro grunts. "The guy just stood there, pulling the trigger again and again, but the gun was empty. Fucking coward got all shaky, backing away. I could see his eyes, and they were so afraid I...I don't know. I didn't exactly feel bad for him. He fucking deserved what he got. He just looked sort of...pitiful. Then the hand made a fist, and his whole head was just...gone. In an instant.

"I remember watching his body slump over, and all I could think of was why? How could he have looked that girl in the eyes and pulled the trigger?"

He turns to Kakyoin as if expecting an answer. For the first time in his life, Kakyoin has none to give.

"I thought about it every day for months. And you know what scares me the most? What if he was just some normal guy who snapped one day,” Jotaro mutters. They're so close he can feel the throb of Jotaro's heart. It skips a beat. “I'll never know. I heard he got buried in an unmarked grave, because there wasn't enough left to identify him.

"I don't remember what happened after that. I woke up in my bed with blood all over my sheets. It smelled horrible. I wanted to scrub my skin off. All I could think of is that I couldn't let Mom see me like this. After that day, everything felt...different."

"Different?"

“It's like...things didn't taste right. I couldn't hear what the teachers were saying. I couldn't laugh or cry or smile anymore. Being in a crowd made my skin crawl. Being alone made me want to scream."

He's not crying. Kakyoin thinks it would be easier if he were. He knows how to wipe tears, how to fetch water and stitch up wounds. He doesn't know how to fix this.

"All I knew was that I had a monster in my gut and it had blood on its hands.”

“He was protecting you,” Kakyoin insists when he finds his voice. “Hierophant would have done the same for me. All stands love their masters.”

“I've often thought about what my life would have been like I hadn't been born a stand user. If I'd been just like everyone else. Normal. But I now I'm really starting to wonder if we're sort of fated to have them,” Kakyoin says. Jotaro scoffs. “Star Platinum isn't a monster, and neither are you.”

When Jotaro doesn't answer him, Kakyoin lets Hierophant drape themselves over his shoulders like a finely spun silk blanket. He can feel the faint tremor in his muscles, damp with sweat that has nothing to do with the blazing eastern sun.

“Jesus, Jotaro, this is...a lot. Have you told anyone else?” Kakyoin says shakily. God, he wishes Avdol was here.

“Gramps forced it out of me back in Singapore, nosy old vulture. What I am gonna do, tell a therapist that my body is haunted? He said this isn't normal. Not healthy. I know that, damn it. But I don't know how to fix it,” Jotaro grunts, struggling to find a comfortable position. Kakyoin bites his lip as Jotaro quickly burns through what little strength he has managed to build up and collapses in a heap with his cheek awkwardly pressed against Kakyoin's knee. Somehow, they find each other like they always do, fumbling and unsure. “How do you turn your feelings back on?”

“Jotaro, I've seen you laugh and smile,” Kakyoin says, brushing a lock of black hair from Jotaro's face. His best friend is staring up at him, his head now cradled in Kakyoin's lap. Is that what they are? Is this what best friends do? He wish he knew. “I've seen you get all red-faced and embarrassed. I've seen you freak out when we found that rat in the toilet. I've seen your face light up with joy. They're still there, all those things you used to be able to feel."

"I see it in the way you watch me draw and when you snicker behind your hand at Polnareff's dumb jokes. Maybe...maybe I don't know everything about you, but I know you care about your mom, and your grandpa, and your friends," Kakyoin assures him, willing him to believe.

Wisps of purple light wink in and out of existence out of the corner of Kakyoin's eye. The faintest outline of a hand forms, hovering tentatively over Jotaro's battered body. Hierophant's fingers curl around his, tugging gently, coaxing him out of Jotaro's head and back to reality. His stand whispers in Star Platinum's ear in their cicada song voice. Hierophant never speaks in words unless they're piloting a human body, but he knows Star can understand them. The guardian spirit manages a faint, tired smile as his master pillows his head against Kakyoin's thighs.

“It's easier not to give a shit,” Jotaro says sullenly. “To just...run. Stop caring.”

“You know, it's kind of..ironic, I guess. All you want to do is run away. I was always running off in search of something,” Kakyoin replies, propping his back up against the wall with a sigh. Jotaro outweighs him by a good 30 kilograms, so he's not going anywhere. “It cost me a lot.”

“Did you ever find it?” Jotaro asks, letting his eyes drift shut. His brows furrows as his breathing evens, and Kakyoin knows he's going to wake up far too quickly in a cold sweat.

Kakyoin thinks he has an answer. But he's not sure if either of them are ready to hear it.

Chapter Text

Kakyoin is getting far too used to the hospital.

Every day, he's getting closer and closer to taking his first step, to walking out of this drab little room forever. Yet very little changes from one day to the next: only the newspapers and the shifting cloud formations outside of his window differentiate one from the other. He knows exactly what to expect every time one of men and women in white enter his room, which pill is due when and what it does. He no longer squirms and turns brick red at the brisk familiarity with which they handle his body. He's getting stronger, his mind sharper than ever from weeks of studying around the clock, but his heart and soul atrophied, like fruit left to rot on the vine. He never thought it would be possible to forget how the wind felt on his face.

Sometimes, when he can't fall asleep, he tries to remember a warm familiar weight in his lap, the sound of quiet breathing and soft hair beneath his fingers.

Just as the sun is setting on another long and tedious day, Kakyoin's door groans and bends inward as if someone were pushing on it before reluctantly rolling open. “Confounded things,” Joseph mutters before his eyes meet Kakyoin's, and he just stares, hat in his hands. By now, he's been separated from his friends for far longer than they were together.

“Hearing your voice is one thing,” Joseph says, a faint British crispness creeping into his throaty Long Island accent. “But seeing your face? Jolly good—er, good thing I took my heart pills this morning.” Wiping at his eyes, he quickly closes the distance between them and grasps Kakyoin's hand. “I guess we've come a long way from planning your funeral, huh?”

“Can we please not talk about funerals?” Polnareff's whine echoes in the hallways. “I didn't spend seven hours on a plane with Iggy in my carry-on to listen to you dredge up that depressing crap. Nori doesn't—oh, God, Noriaki. We waited so long...I thought you were never...”

“Jean, we talked about this,” Avdol chides from behind Polnareff's shoulder. “Take a deep breath."

The hand in Polnareff's glints in the sunlight streaming from the window, and Kakyoin can see the tiny seams in each mechanical joint. They've all changed in subtle ways: Polnareff is now sporting a neatly trimmed goatee, Joseph is wearing glasses. Behind them are deep wrinkles Kakyoin doesn't remember from before.

 "And you, Kakyoin...Fuck, it's good to see you,” Avdol finishes, breaking out in broadest grin Kakyoin's ever seen on his face. Joseph snorts and Polnareff breaks into a bonafide giggle fit. One by one, they all join in, gathering around Kakyoin's bed and laughing until their sides hurt.

“I know you've got this thing about touching, but can I...can I hug you?” Polnareff asks. “Promise I won't break your ribs.” Barely waiting for Kakyoin's nod, he sweeps him into his arms, crushing Kakyoin against his chest despite his promises. He can feel tears dripping onto his collar, and he buries his face into Polnareff's bare shoulder, starved for skin on skin contact after being isolated from human touch by isolation gowns and sterile gloves. The three of them form a circle around him, holding him tight. Avdol's prosthetics feel cool against his skin and his back brace gets in the way, but he doesn't care. He's alive, and they're alive, and nothing could taint this moment for him.

Except for one thing.

“Where's Jotaro?” Kakyoin asks once he has room to breathe. “Isn't he with—”

“He's...focusing very hard on school right now,” Joseph says lamely. “He tells me he has an internship and--”

“Why hasn’t he told me himself?” Kakyoin asks. “He called me yesterday, and he seemed…off. I’m a little worried, to be honest.”

“Polnareff, Avdol, could you give us a minute?” Joseph says tacitly “I need to borrow the boy for a bit. I'll give him back in a few minutes, trust me.”

Joseph parks himself on the Serious Discussion Stool as Avdol and Polnareff shuffle out of the room with their eyes downcast. He wants to hurl it through the window. “Kakyoin, I need you to promise me you're not going to get upset. You've made a lot of progress, but you're looking an one hell of a recovery period.”

“Just tell me already,” Kakyoin snaps. He racks his brain for an explanation, but he can't think of anything that would keep Jotaro from him.

“I know it feels like it was just a few weeks since we talked,” Joseph says, looking like he's poking the innards of a bomb. “But it's been more than half a year for us. We stayed in Cairo for almost a month, but there was nothing. Seven months of nothing. Everyone, every surgeon, every specialist, every damn labcoat-wearing egghead in the Speedwagon Foundation, they all told us there was almost no chance of you ever waking up. You coded three times in the OR alone. I don't know how you found your way back to us, but what we're seeing right now is nothing short of a goddamn medical miracle.”

“We were all devastated, but Jotaro...it almost destroyed him. When we came back to Japan he shut himself in his room for days,” Joseph tells him. “He needed an outlet. There was a school in Florida offering him an internship in marine biology and he took it.”

“That's it? That's why he won't see me? I know he took it hard, but for fuck's sake, I'm here now. I'm going to start school in a few weeks. I'm going to start walking. The physical therapist says I'm doing so well,” Kakyoin moans. He doesn't realize he's crying until a teardrop splashes down on his lap. Joseph reaches out as if he were about to wrap an arm around his shoulder, but his hand falls limp at his side. “I'm not a fucking ghost.”

“I know how you feel about him, son. We all do. You kids couldn’t have been more obvious if you tried,” Joseph says slowly. “But it’s been more than half a year now. A lot can change. He’s made a whole new life for himself, and now he’s trying to figure out how you fit into that. Give him time, Noriaki. That’s the only thing I can tell you.”

***

“Oi, Nori, how long do you think it’s been since you’ve been outside?” Polnareff says over breakfast. Kakyoin looks up from poking morosely at his egg to glare at him. “You better eat that. You’re going to need your strength for today.”

“Ahem. What this lunkhead means is: It’s a beautiful day outside. Don’t you want to see it?” Avdol says from the doorway. To Kakyoin’s astonishment, he’s pushing a wheelchair.

“But I can’t even stand up, how am I supposed to–”

“All you have to do is finish your breakfast. I have books in our van that weigh more than you. You think we can’t get you out of bed?” Avdol says with a downright audacious grin. “I’ll show you how strong these metal arms are.”

“So what if we're two weeks late?” Polnareff chortles as Kakyoin bolts down his food, even the natto, barely noticing the slimy, stringy texture. “Nothing's gonna stop us from throwing you a proper birthday party.”

Hands raised to catch him, Kakyoin’s nurse hovers anxiously over the two of them as Avdol places his cool, metallic fingers on either side of the boy’s painfully thin waist. “Put your hands on my shoulders and pull yourself up. I’ll support you.”

Taking a deep breath, Kakyoin wraps his arms around Avdol’s warm, sturdy neck and pulls, digging his fingers into the man’s back as his biceps bunch up with effort. He hates the way the muscles quiver, the dizzying flutter of his heart he knows Avdol can feel through two sets of clothing. His jaw aches from clenching his teeth. He wants this so bad.

Finally, finally, his weight shifts to his legs enough for Avdol to get a hand under each thigh. He feels strong hands on the small of his back as Polnareff steadies him, applying just enough pressure to stop him from toppling over backwards. Either of them could have easily scooped him up like a child back when he was healthy, but they both know how much he needs this. The nurse swoops in, fastening a belt firmly around his waist and helping him maneuver his slippered feet into the correct position.

“Slowly, slowly,” Avdol says. “Catch your breath before you try again.”

Kakyoin sucks in a greedy gulp of air, chest muscles straining against the confines of the back brace. Sweat beads on his forehead, and his palms are so slick he can barely maintain his grip. You can do this. Let your strength build up. Keep your core tight. Breathe in. Breathe out. 1, 2, 3…

"Even if you fall, we'll catch you," Polnareff adds with a friendly little pat. "Just trust us, buddy."

With a sound somewhere between a strangled gasp and a warcry, he launches him off of Polnareff’s hands and into Avdol’s arms, clinging to him as if he were dangling from a skyscraper. For one horrible minute he's sure he's about to lurch backward into empty air, but he rocks on shaking knees, sagging between his two friends as he waits for the room to stop spinning. When he forces his eyes open, Kakyoin realizes that he’s standing up for the first time since the World plunged his fist into his stomach.

“Nori, you did it! You actually did it!” Polnareff crows, clapping him on the back. “Jesus Christ, you’ve gotten tall.”

Kakyoin straightens himself, looking around like a rabbit poking its nose out of a burrow. Everything looks so different. He can’t help but preen a little when he notices that Avdol and Polnareff are nearly at his eye level. He’s almost disappointed when they lower him into the wheelchair, but then the chair starts to move, and he’s sitting outside of a godforsaken hospital room for the first time in months.

“There’s a nice little outdoor dining area on the first floor with a rose garden,” Avdol says pleasantly. “Let’s go on an adventure.”

Kakyoin’s mind is a blur as they descend the elevator. Glossy white walls and staff members flash past him, but his brain is playing a never-ending loop of outside outside outside. Avdol takes the handles of the wheelchair from Polnareff as he starts to push Kakyoin a little too fast, probably thinking of racing the surly-looking orderly currently rolling an empty stretcher down to the ER.

At last, the chair rolls to a stop, and glass-paneled doors slide open to reveal a small courtyard. Kakyoin leans forward and just breathes, smelling sun-warmed earth and pollen, the lingering scent of petrichor from an early morning shower. “Let’s not keep the princess waiting,” Polnareff says chivalrously, maneuvering Kakyoin’s wheelchair next to one of the outdoor tables before he can punch him in the arm.

“I can’t believe this is finally happening,” Kakyoin says. “I’ve waited so long. It doesn’t even seem real.”

“You know what your problem is, Nori?” Polnareff laughs as Avdol hands him a cup of coffee. With a wave of his stand’s scarlet wings, the scattered raindrops on their seats evaporate, leaving their hair slightly frizzy and their drinks steaming. “You gotta just learn to kick back and appreciate it when life is good. It doesn’t happen a lot so savor it.”

“I know it’s been…difficult for you, Kakyoin,” Avdol says. “You might not believe me, but when I woke up, I was in a position not so different from yours.”

“You didn’t lose seven months of your life,” Kakyoin glowers at him. “I know you’re trying to help, but please don’t patronize me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Avdol holds his hands up in surrender. “And you’re correct in that I have no business comparing what you’ve lost to my own suffering. But I didn’t come out of this whole, either.”

Avdol holds his arms out for Kakyoin to inspect. “These new limbs are actually a fairly recent addition. I lived two months of my life with just stumps, then another three with prosthetics that couldn’t bend at the elbows. I felt like I had broom handles taped to my shoulders.

“Even after I left the hospital, Jean had to do everything for me,” Avdol says. “Everything. Both of my kneecaps were shattered. I couldn't even bend my legs for months, let alone stand or walk. I couldn’t shave or dress myself or eat without him hovering over me as if I were a child. Not to be crude, but at least you weren't awake when someone else had to wipe your ass for you. No matter how much he tried to reassure me, every day was one humiliation after the other. Even now, there are things I still can’t do, that’ll never be able to do again.”

Kakyoin notices for the first time that Avdol’s hair isn’t woven into its usual elaborate bantu knots. Longer than ever, it spills down his back in thick braids, pulled back in a loose ponytail and banded with golden beads. “I did a good job, huh?” says Polnareff proudly. “Maybe I’ve got a career cut out for me as a hairdresser!” Avdol pats his hand with a patient smile.

“If you like, we could just pretend you’re still sixteen,” Avdol says. “I’ll have to return your birthday present, though.”

“I’m surprised you don’t want revenge on me for that awful bread pudding Jotaro and I made for your birthday,” Kakyoin says. “Wait, you got me a present? Where is it?”

“You’re looking at it!” Avdol laughs, gesturing broadly to the rose garden. “Just kidding. Here you go.” With that, Avdol carefully deposits a crinkly bundle of green paper tied with a horribly lopsided bow into Kakyoin's hands. From his sheepish smile, Kakyoin knows he wrapped it himself.

“No, no, no, me first!” Polnareff cheers. “Sorry, Mohammad, but I just have to see the look on his face.” Before Kakyoin can even process how he managed to hide a paper bag behind his back the whole time, Polnareff, with much flourishing of his hands, presents Kakyoin him a small, rectangular package wrapped in shiny green paper with red polka dots. Someone, probably Polnareff himself, has drawn leaves and stems on all the dots, making them look like cherries.

“Hey, you know what would be fun?” Polnareff says. “Why don’t we let Phanty open this one? I know they love ripping stuff apart!”

“‘Phanty–wait, are you talking about Hierophant?” Kakyoin asks. “Jean, don’t you…back in Cairo, I told you…Hierophant is gone.”

To his surprise, Polnaeff’s smile never wavers. “For fuck’s sake, Nori, haven’t you figured it out by now? Jeez, I can’t believe I used to think you were smart.”

“Why are you acting like you know something I don’t?” Kakyoin snaps. “You know I hate that!”

“Jean, stop teasing him,” Avdol chides. “Kakyoin, what he means to say is that Hierophant has been with you the whole time.”

“What?” Kakyoin stammers. “But…but I called and called and they never came! No matter how much I needed them, there was just…nothing.”

“Hierophant couldn’t manifest when you were in the ICU,” Avdol explains. “Because they were deep inside of you, holding you together. When you were…impaled, Hierophant sort of lashed themselves to the two ends of your spine. Like a suspension bridge. The surgeons had to maneuver very carefully around them when they inserted your prosthetic spine."

"I heard the lead surgeon sprayed sort of dye right on Hierophant's tentacles so they could stitch around them," Polnareff says with a shudder. "Just thinking about it gives me the willies."

"They didn’t want to let you go until they knew you were safe," Avdol elucidates.

“This whole time…?” Kakyoin mutters.

“I think they’re a little gun shy,” Polnareff adds. “Chariot can see them. They’re kind of…hiding inside of you. I think you gotta coax them out, kinda like lurking a cat out with a can of tuna.”

“Magician says he can see them, too,” Avdol says. “Call them. Do you remember how? They need to hear your voice.”

Kakyoin takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He tries to remember the way their skin felt and smelled, like warm silk. Ribbons dance in his brain, shining with the same pale, unearthly light as the green place in his dreams.

Hierophant…please come back

The late summer air is filled with the sound of shredded wrapping paper and cardboard, fluttering around them as if someone were running around the table tossing confetti into their coffees. In the center of the chaos is a tall, slim figure, brilliant bottle green and holding out its cupped hands. They open their palms to reveal a nondescript brown box.

“Really, Jean?” Avdol scoffs as the dust settles. “You couldn't have picked a less dramatic way to open a present? I’m going to be picking wrapping paper out of my hair for a week. You’re lucky they didn’t rip everything inside it to shreds.”

“Ever heard of a little thing called showmanship? Chariot wanted to see the little green booger again, and who am I to refuse a beautiful maiden's request? She's waited all this time...”

Polnareff and Avdol’s voices fade into the background as Hierophant curls around their master again and again, squeezing him almost painfully tight. Missed you missed you reverberates in his skull.

“I missed you too, buddy,” Kakyoin rasps, throat too tight to say any more.

***

They spend as much of the morning outside as they can. In all the commotion, Kakyoin almost forgets what he is actually supposed to be excited about. From Avdol, he receives a tiny, handsomely embossed metal compass on the end of a silver chain. Neatly printed on the back is the date November 28, 1987.

“The day we met,” Avdol reminds him. “One day, you're going to leave this hospital. You're going to travel again, go on more adventures. And when you do, I want you to be able to find your way.”

Flushing slightly, Kakyoin pulls back his hair so Polnareff can fasten it around his neck.

Inside the brown box, however, is a glossy new book, but not anything on his summer reading list. “No fucking way,” Kakyoin exclaims. “You actually had it printed??”

Fifty days' worth of his and Polnareff's drawings are staring back at him, all neatly tucked into a professionally bound volume like a manga tankōbon.

“That's all twelve chapters of 'The Adventures of Black Tiger,'” Polnareff says proudly. He opened the dust jacket and began to read. “Ahem. 'The wandering samurai and his four-man (er, animal) band of brothers travel through Japan during the fading days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, to right the wrongs of the evil daimyo they once served.' Jeez, who writes this stuff? Oh, yeah, us."

“They're all there, aren't they? Look, there's me!” Avdol grins, pointing to a man-sized crane dressed in scarlet robes. Beside him is an anthropomorphic frog with nunchucks strapped to his back trying to steal a kiss from a disdainful courtesan. “And here's you, Polnareff.”

“Excuse you, Ogawa the bandit is definitely not me! He doesn't even have my gorgeous hairstyle.”

“Frogs don't have hair, and they didn't have flattops back in 19^th century Japan.”

“At least Mr. Joestar got to be something cool like a monkey prince with a magic rope,” Polnareff muses, staring down at the pages with his fists under his chin like a little kid. “Noriaki's design is soooo fucking neat, though. A white fox with Kabuki makeup on his fur? It's so stupid it's actually kind of amazing.”

“Sums up the whole comic book, honestly,” Avdol shrugs.

“I never meant for the story to get so...autobiographical? It was SUPPOSED to be an original manga about a rogue samurai and his fellow ronin who maybe happened to resemble Jotaro and me a little, but then Mr. Joestar kept reading over my shoulder and decided he wanted to be in it. Then you joined in,” Kakyoin points at Avdol, who doesn't look even slightly admonished. “And the rest is history.”

“A harrowing tale of honor and betrayal where everybody just happens to be a wolfman or a talking rabbit or some shit. You're not fooling anyone, buddy. Hey, If we ever meet Hol Horse again, you should tell him about how you turned him into a weasel. Not that it could ever make up for when he nearly...you know...” Polnareff adds quickly, patting Avdol's metal fingers.

Kakyoin flips through the pages, smelling as if they were fresh off a printing press. Each one is a curious combination of Kakyoin's wispy charcoal art and Polnareff's thick-lined cartoony drawing style, which somehow works. It's hard to connect the Kakyoin who drew frogs weilding nunchucks with the Kakyoin who can't stand up without three people helping him.

"I couldn't bring myself to publish it while you were asleep," Polnareff explains. "After all those months we spent working on it together, I wanted you to be the first person to see it."

"The first step toward building Polnareffland," Avdol hums.

A strange sadness stirs in Kakyoin's soul at the sight of the last page, whispy and clearly half-finished. A fox with pale lavender eyes stands proudly at Black Tiger's side as they walk into the sunset together.

“That was the last thing I ever draw,” Kakyoin whispers. Even Polnareff looks glum as he hands Kakyoin another small present. “That night at the hotel in Cairo...before it all happened.”

“He'll come around, Kakyoin,” Avdol assures him, squeezing Kakyoin's shoulder. “Trust me when I tell you that no one wants to see you more than him.”

***

It's nearly lunchtime by the time they wheel Kakyoin back to his room so he can rest up for tea and cake this afternoon. He takes one last look at the sun, high in the early autumn sky as they leave the little garden. His skin is still far too gray, like a flower wilting in a basement.

Everything hurts. His back, his shoulders, his hips and tailbone, even his toes. He's pretty sure his clothes hurt. Eating hurts. Taking deep breath hurts. Sitting upright hurts. Little birds made of ice are plucking his nerves, digging into his spine until their beaks are soaked in blood. His jaw aches from gritting his teeth for the last hour, counting the minutes until his next dose of pain medication. Sweat is beading on his forehead by the time his nurse marches up to him with a syringe in his hand. A chemical taste coats his tongue as the fluid rushes through his veins. All he can do now is wait.

His room is more colorful than he remembers it thanks to new potted plants from Holly soaking up the sun in the windowsill. He isn't sure how he's supposed to take care of them or where he's supposed to plant them after they've overgrown their pots. They're beautiful and fragile and he doesn't deserve them.

He doesn't deserve any of this. Every gift he has ever been given before he met Jotaro and Joseph and the rest has come with a hefty price tag. Dio had showered him in luxury: designer shoes and watches, centuries-old jewelry set with precious stones. Cologne to mask the smell of blood, a flowing white scarf finer than anything he had ever worn to hide the bite marks on his neck.

He have no money, no family, no home, not even the clothes on his back anymore. He can't work, can't even go to school like a normal kid. How can he ever pay any of them back?

“I don't understand,” Kakyoin mumbles into Polnareff's chest as he lift him. The morphine always makes his head swim. “Why? Why are you doing this for me?”

“Again with the dumb questions. Pretty soon you're going to lose that genius cred, mon frère,” Polnareff says with that goofy lopsided grin Kakyoin remembers so well. “Get some sleep. We'll see you when you wake up.”

“It's as Jean says,” Advol whispers. “You're our brother.”

He hates to admit it, but right now his brain is as overstimulated as his muscles, practically screaming for a few minutes of darkness and quiet. He barely registers Polnareff scooping him up and gently settling him onto the bed, asleep before his head hits the pillow.

Like clockwork, the phone rings just as Kakyoin's brain is about to enter the R.E.M. cycle. Cursing and rubbing at his eyes, Kakyoin fumbles for the receiver.

“H-hello?” he yawns, smiling groggily as he spots new presents from Joseph and Suzi on his bedside table. At least they haven't forgotten.

“Happy birthday, Kakyoin,” he hears Jotaro whisper from the other end of the world.

Chapter Text

“J-Jotaro?!” Kakyoin wheezes from a too-tight throat and promptly dissolves into a coughing fit. Jotaro can practically feel his ribs creaking from the strain.

Jotaro finds himself holding his own breath. He counts the seconds as the other boy’s breathing begins to slow, the phone pressed so tightly to his ear he can almost feel Kakyoin’s pulse: thready and so very, very weak. The plastic is slick with sweat.

“Just breathe. I-in and out.” There’s a hint of a quaver in his voice before he quashes it. “Keep breathing, nice and slow.”

Please.

Please just breathe.

Please be okay.

“I-I'm fine.” The voice on the other line draws in a shaky breath. “I just--fuck. You just startled me, that's all. Where are you?”

“Miami.” The words are thick and clumsy on his tongue, tasting of greasy gas station hamburgers and stale cigarettes. “Classes just started, and shit's getting intense. I've been studying my ass off.”

“You're coming to see me, though, right? Polnareff, Mr. Avdol, Mr. Joestar, they're all here. Even Iggy. Your grandmother and Miss Holly and her boyfriend, too,” Kakyoin says, something raw and aching in his voice that has nothing to do with his atrophied lung tissue.

“I know you're busy, but...”

“Soon,” Jotaro assures him. At least he hopes it sounds assuring. “It might have to wait till winter break, though. Lots to do.”

“Sure,” Kakyoin says after a time. Jotaro imagines him pressing his lips into a thin line like he always does when he swallows a bite of food he doesn’t like. “Miss Holly says that you're in your first semester of university already. Studying marine biology of all things.”

“Like you said,” Jotaro replies. “All those months ago, back on the beach. I got a knack for it.”

“Guess you didn’t need me to help you pass twelfth grade after all.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

The minutes tick by, and somehow they manage to cobble together some semblance of a conversation. For the first time since Jotaro has known him, Kakyoin doesn't have much to talk about. Medication regimens and therapy goals. Bland hospital food. Mind-numbing daytime talk shows playing endlessly on the grainy little television. Stack after stack of textbooks with intimidating titles.

He doesn’t draw anymore.

Despite the odd leadenness in his voice, there’s something desperate and almost pitiable under it that doesn’t suit Kakyoin at all. Hungry, like a starving wolf gnawing at a stripped carcass. 

“It keeps me busy, you know? I have a lovely view of the parking lot from the window, but you can only look at it for so long.”

Conversation fizzled and dies and neither of them have the tools to jumpstart it. Kakyoin’s world is so small now, and Jotaro’s is so big. A month ago he would have given anything to hear Kakyoin’s voice one last time, to tell him about everything he’s seen and learned and done. Like that day he found a mint condition candy apple red Fender 75th Anniversary Stratocaster electric guitar at Hoggtowne Music. Being practically frogmarched out of the library by his roommate to a tailgate party. Laughing and swappping stories around the campfire at the beach, the taste of grilled hotdogs and ice cold beer. How the wind ripping through his hair as he tore through backcountry roads on his bike.

He strains his ears, trying to listen to Kakyoin’s quiet breathing. The whole world is way too fucking loud. The Wind Symphony and the Gater marching band are practicing in the Steinbrenner Band Hall and people are laughing and talking in the hallway and he can't block it all out like he used to.

Suddenly, it all seems so frivolous. How could he be excited over college football and an overpriced guitar when his best friend was in a coma?

“I get to work with animals now,” Jotaro tries again. “There was this hawksbill sea turtle that we were taking care of down at the Whitney Laboratory in St. Augustine. Had a fibropapilloma in her right eye. Doc had to take the whole thing out, but it was all worth it, watching her swim back into the ocean.”

“Healthy and free, the way she should be.” Kakyoin’s voice has grown oddly coarse, as if he weren’t used to speaking for long periods. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m raining on your parade. It sounds like you’re doing really important things. I-I’m happy for you. Really, I am.”

“I’ve finally got my shit together, after all these years of fucking up,” Jotaro says. “I just…it means something to me. Being here, getting an education."

An awkward chuckle bubbles up in his throat. “Everything in the US is so big. Even the hamburgers and the boardwalks. There’re these endless swamplands in the South and the cornfields up North. I could ride my bike for hours and still be in the same county.”

Kakyoin makes some sort of polite affirmation, barely audible over his roommate popping popcorn while shitty grunge music blasts through his headphones. Everything on the other end of the receiver seems so still and dead.

“I didn't mean to wake you up. I should let you get some sleep.” Fuck, he needs a cigarette. They've only been talking for maybe fifteen minutes or so, but it feels so much longer.

“I've slept enough,” Kakyoin replies, so softly Jotaro can barely hear him.

“I'll see you soon,” Jotaro hears himself say. “I mean it.”

He stares numbly at the receiver long after he has returned it to its cradle. His shoulders are just as tense as they were twenty minutes ago.

***

Kakyoin is alive after months and months of lying in that damned hospital bed.

The longer he watched him, day after day, one week, then two, the harder it was to remember that he was looking down at a person. It would almost be easier if he looked like a corpse. By now, Jotaro knows what death looks like. He's dissected enough specimens, handled enough animal carcasses washed up on the beach. Watched enough people die. He's seen the way the eyes lost their luster, the jaw slackened and tongue lolled out. Congealed blood turned purple-black in the veins. Corneal opacity. Dependent lividity. Rigor mortis. He knows all these words.

But he can't connect those words to Kakyoin. Not the Kakyoin he knew, the boy he slept beside in the jeep, shared countless train cars and tents for fifty days. The thought of Kakyoin packed up in a coffin and rolled into a crematorium eats at his soul like acid. The images plays in his mind over and over again: Kakyoin's red hair burned away, his skull disintegrating in the flames with all the thoughts and feelings and memories that they shared together turned to ash.

No, what Kakyoin looked like right before Jotaro left for Japan was a husk, trapped in a spider’s web of wires and tubes, his soul sucked out. As he held Kakyoin's hand on last time, he couldn't help but think death would have been kinder.

***

Kakyoin died on January 23rd. Jotaro had watched him die over and over again.

He wasn’t supposed to see it. Wasn’t even supposed to set one foot outside his own hospital room. The old man even asked the doctor to give him something to help him sleep. Fuck that. He shoved the nurse back into the hallway before she even uncapped the needle. Got to find him, he said. He ran through the maze of endless identical corridors. Got to find him. Everything hurt. He ignored it. Signs flashed past him. At last, one of them said "Operating Room".

Kakyoin was lying on a stainless steel table, skin waxy and corpse-like. Jotaro watched through Star Platinum’s eyes, hovering above half dozen grim-faced men and women.

Each time Kakyoin’s heart stopped beating, Jotaro stopped time longer and longer, just to keep him alive. Just one second longer. Crushing pain surged through his chest. The third and final time, Jotaro had walked into the sterile room, so close to Kakyoin that the sharp tang of blood and antiseptic made his eyes water, saw him split open from his sternum to his pelvic bones with dark, shiny loops of guts in a plastic tray beside the gurney. Ghost-like figures in scrubs stood frozen, gloves caked in blood.

He reached past them with Star Platinum’s fingers, cupping Kakyoin’s good hand in Star's. Jotaro begged him, begged him with every scrap of strength in his soul, prayed to any gods that were listening to give Kakyoin back.

“Y ou want me to say it, don't you, you selfish bastard? Fucking fine. Have it your way, as usual.”

The nurse standing near the foot of Kakyoin’s bed was crying. A teardrop was suspended in midair, waiting to splash down onto the glossy white floor tiles. She looked young, probably not much older than him or Kakyoin. Jotaro wondered if this was the first time she had seen someone die.

“I love you."

A man who can stop time is the loneliest man in the world.

When time stands still, he is utterly and absolutely alone in the universe. Nothing moves, not even a single drop of water. Kakyoin can’t die, but Kakyoin can’t feel him, can’t hear him. The hand in his will always be limp and lifeless.

He lets go.

***

Later that evening, the doctors told Jotaro and the others that they had “brought Noriaki back”. That meant he had a pulse, and nothing else.

Seven months of lying there, rotting under those waxy, bone-white fluorescent lights like a sun-bleached carcass on the side of the road. He stopped wondering what Kakyoin was dreaming about. His thoughts turned bitter. He shrugged off Joseph's hand on his shoulder, ignored the rice pudding Holly had left for him beside his bed. Holly started mowing the lawn and even feeding his fish. For weeks, he couldn't go near them, afraid he'd hurt them somehow.

They started talking about taking Kakyoin off life support sometime late in the night a few weeks after Joseph and Jotaro returned to Japan, whispering in hushed voices when they thought he was asleep. For a few minutes, all he could hear was Holly crying quietly.

“It isn't your fault,” Joseph was telling her.

Jotaro replayed the scenario over and over in his mind. If only he hadn't left Joseph and Kakyoin to face Dio alone. If only he had been strong enough to hold Dio off long enough for Joseph to heal Kakyoin with hamon. If only he had protected Iggy and Avdol so that they could have fought Dio as a team.

In that moment, he wished that there was a tiny scrap of Dio left, even if it was just a gravestone he could spit on. With no physical trace that the man had ever existed, there was no one left to hate. Or to blame.

He festered. Everything normal, every boring little reminder of being alive curdled in his stomach and made his temples throb. His whole world had been warped around a hole, the shape of a boy who should be here but wasn’t. Someone who was never going to hear a song or have coffee or brush his hair or walk in the sunshine ever again.

He saw the beach again and again in his dreams. It was the first thing he thought of when he woke up in the morning and the last thing he thought of when he went to bed.

“That's quite an impressive find.” Kakyoin's voice echoed in his mind. He was surrounded on all sides by water, glimpses of tiny sea stars beneath the waves.

“You know, you have a real knack for this. Have you ever thought about studying marine biology?”

“Tell you what, if—IF—we both make it out of this alive, I'll personally make sure you can do logarithms and stoichiometry in your sleep. We'll check out every book on nudibranchs in the library. I'll study with you every day if I have to.”

“About 80% of the ocean is unexplored. Who knows what's out there?”

It was Joseph who brought up the idea of a work-study program in the United States. He could pull a few strings, he said.

“You’re a bright kid, Jotaro,” Joseph said. “All those dreams you and Kakyoin used to talk about…it’s an insult to his memory, letting them rot on the vine.” That’s all Kakyoin is anymore. A memory.

“This isn’t healthy.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“He wouldn’t want this.”

“You need to move on.”

All he wanted to do is throw the blankets over his head and shut out the world, but home didn’t even feel like home anymore. Sadao Kujo walked out of his and Holly’s lives one last time less than a week after Jotaro’s birthday, leaving them alone in a cavernous mansion neither of them ever wanted. They were both exhausted, lonely, hurting. This wasn't something he could protect her from, and she couldn’t smile through her tears for him anymore.

In the three months since he had left Kakyoin behind in Cairo, every source of familiarity in his life had been methodically stripped away. He was standing before the wrought iron gates of the University of Florida's main campus, a wheeled suitcase clutched in one hand and a pitifully light duffle bag hanging from the other. He didn't want any reminders of what he had left behind.

He had set foot in the United States maybe ten times in his life before he met Kakyoin, and here he was, hanging his shirts up in the closet of the dorm he would be living in the next four years. He stared down at the faded Seikima-II t-shirt he almost packed for the trip to Egypt and made a mental note to buy new clothes. Holly called. He answered on the sixth ring and hung up less than two minutes later.

He met her in late spring when he was staring out into the waters of Lake Alice. He spent far too many mornings there, watching families of soft-shell turtles and blue herons swooping for largemouth bass, sending ripples across the glass-like surface. Kakyoin would have loved it. He could almost see him sitting primly on the rippling grass and palmetto bushes, sketchbook in hand, frowning when Jotaro tried to peer over his shoulder. Maybe he would be taller now, his red hair grown out.

Jotaro opened his eyes to the sound of footsteps. A sorority girl, her chestnut hair lighting up in the sun as she stepped out from beneath the shadow of the laurel oaks. She slowed her early morning jog as she caught his eye. She saw the Intro to Oceanography textbook in his lap, and instantly, they had a connection.

“There's an ancient Alachuan burial mound about 100 yards away from here,” Marina said pleasantly. “Have you ever been there?”

He found out that day that their dorm rooms were on the same floor: now he could connect the soft trickling of piano keys he would hear on quiet afternoons to her practicing in the game room below. Her sorority house wasn't too far from the greenhouses and the Bat House Woods where his botany professor sometimes held outdoor classes when the weather was nice. He was amazed at how easy it was to talk to her. She seemed to know all the best cafes, museums, little hole-in-the-wall shops, and bike trails in the city, how to stay cool in the sticky summer heat and where to catch baseball games.

If someone had told him five months ago that he would be sitting on a picnic blanket in the middle of a blooming meadow with a pretty girl in a sundress, he would have probably punched them in the mouth. Yet here they were, sipping terrible coffee out of the vending machine and trashing the jocks and the preppy kids.

“I'm studying to be a teacher,” Marina would say. “The teachers in my school always acted like they just got a degree in education to pick on someone smaller than them. I never want to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Bitter. Judgmental. Like they took one look at you and instantly decided that you're trouble,” she said soberly. Then she smiled. She had the most beautiful mouth, like a blooming violet that curled into a little bow and turned her eyes into shining crescents. “Something tells me that you know what that's like.”

He wondered why he had never noticed her before.

Marina wasn’t like any girl he had ever met before. There was such a softness to her, the rare but welcome touch, her warm floral scent, her doe-brown eyes and the gentle bird-like chirrup of her voice. She never pestered him for attention, never peppered him with awkward questions. The more he saw of her, the more she saw of him: the jolt he tried so hard to hide when someone approached from his blindspot, the dark shadows and smell of alcohol on his breath.

She was a clever girl, and it didn’t take her long to figure out that he was walking wounded on his best days. On a bad day, he woke up with a scream lodged in his throat. On his worst, he felt Kakyoin's blood drip down his cheek even when he was awake. But when he wakes up, Marina is there, charming and funny and endlessly patient, warm and solid and alive. Safe. It's safe to be with her, safe to care for her. His mind and body are covered with scars, but they're starting to crust over.

At least that's what he thought until about two weeks ago.

***

Jotaro works up the courage to call Kakyoin the next day. Kakyoin had by all accounts a lovely birthday party with Joseph, Polnareff, Avdol, Iggy, Grandma Suzi, Holly, and even her new boyfriend all crowded around Kakyoin’s hospital bed. Suzi had even baked the heirloom fuji apples Holly had grown with honey, cinnamon, and rosemary like she always did when Jotaro was sick.

“Mr. Hirawa brought his cocker spaniel, Botan, and he even let me pet her! I’ve never pet a dog with such soft fur. She didn’t bark or try to jump on me or anything. Just crawled into my lap after dinner and licked my hand,” Kakyoin was saying. “He told me he would give me some money if I painted her picture. When I’m feeling better, I mean.”

Kakyoin had been gifted with new sets of paints, colored pencils, a sketchbook, and a book on figure drawing and perspective. Joseph and Suzi had even taken to making still-life arrangements in the windowsill. “It’s their way of telling me to get off my ass and stop feeling sorry for myself. I have to admit that it’s downright subtle for Mr. Joestar.”

“Did Polnareff thumb through your new anatomy book, looking for pictures of naked people?”

“Sure did. It took him less than five minutes.”

"So when are you going to get off your ass and give that mixtape I sent you a listen?"

"Whenever I decide that I want to distract myself from how bad my back hurts by making my eardrums bleed."

Long before they ever set foot in Cairo, Jotaro had known exactly what present he was going to get Kakyoin for his birthday. He was going to introduce Kakyoin to all his favorite bands, Anthem and Loudness and E-Z-O in the East, AC/DC and Van Halen in the West, and they'd spend hours lying side by side with a walkman in between them, just listening. So many little moments they could have had.

Jotaro and Marina had spent most of the first Saturday after Kakyoin had woken up at the local music store, sifting through album after album. He had heard from his mother that Kakyoin was doing physical therapy, so he set out to make the ultimate workout mixtape, stocked with the fastest, loudest, angriest hard rock and heavy metal he could find. Marina had heard from Jotaro that Kakyoin liked to read, so she had “whipped up” (her words, not his) a batch of slow, synthesizer-heavy pop and soft classical for studying. Jotaro stared down at the tasteful array of 18th and 19th-century piano concertos and string quartets and wondered if Kakyoin even liked classical music.

There was so much he couldn't remember. All his favorite manga, his laugh, the satiny feel of his skin, the exact shade of red of his hair.

"You're a good friend," Marina had said.

***

They’re trying so hard, all of them. They bring him cards and fresh-cut flowers, a calendar with photos of historic sites and wild green places Kakyoin had always dreamed about exploring. Suzi makes him drink turmeric milk simmered on the stove the old-fashioned way with ginger and a pinch of black pepper. Holly helps him massage peppermint oil onto his aching joints and plays board games with him in the evenings when she visits. Avdol and Polnareff show him pictures of their little cottage in the French countryside.

“Sometimes…I wish I could just tell them to stop,” Kakyoin tells him a few days later. “They think they’re helping, and I can’t take that away from them. But it gets so tiring. I’ll never be able to pay them back for any of it, not if I live to be a thousand years.”

“No one expects you to.”

“It’s almost worse, in a way. Being constantly surrounded by all these cards and flowers and pictures. All these fragile, pretty things…that’s all they are to me. Just something for me to look at and keep safe on the bedside table. I just want to walk out of here and never come back,” he sighs. “I want my life back.”

Another week passes. Jotaro really meant to call, but he never seems to get on top of his homework like he thought he would. He probably would have barely kept his head above the water if not for Marina, who helps him make study guides and quizzes him with flash cards. They spend long hours in the library, chugging coffee with a rainbow highlighter in one hand and the graphing calculator in the other. She puts her early education skills to good use, drawing scientific diagrams on sticky notes with glitter pens and putting stickers on everything.

“You don’t have to make picking up the phone for five minutes sound like such a chore,” Kakyoin snaps. “If you’re just talking to me out of obligation, don’t bother. The last thing I want is your pity.”

“For someone who doesn’t want to be pitied, you sure sound like you’re feeling sorry for yourself,” Jotaro fires back. “I have to study. Not everyone can eat textbooks for breakfast like you.”

“Mr. Avdol’s working on his Ph.D. and he answers my calls. And he actually flew all the way here out of France. Stop making excuses, Jotaro,” Kakyoin says venomously. “It’s beneath you.”

The cycle repeats at least two or three more times over the next month. Jotaro buries himself deeper and deeper into his schoolwork. The phone rings. He lets it ring, sleeps through it, knocks the phone out of its cradle after too many drinks and doesn’t bother to pick it back up in the morning. Kakyoin’s quiet frustration turns into snaps and snarls. Jotaro apologizes. Promises to do better. Then he fucks up again.

"You’ve been drinking.” Kakyoin’s voice is flat and lifeless. “Don’t bother trying to hide it. You need to get help, Jotaro. Try talking to a counselor instead of pretending you care for thirty seconds once every two months.”

His grades are slipping. The thick flesh of his arms is starting to droop from his bones, the golden tan lost from hours of sitting alone in the dark. He doesn’t remember what day it is. Kakyoin calls and gives up after he doesn’t answer on the fourth ring.

“Nori’s worried about you.” Joseph calls the dean, who calls the guidance counselor, who sends the RA to knock on the door when Jotaro doesn’t answer. “You won’t talk to him, won’t talk to Holly or Jean. What’s eating you? You’ve got your best friend back, I would think you’d be thrilled! Do you have any idea how much I would give for that?”

“I don’t know. Everyone keeps asking me, and I don’t know,” Jotaro mumbles into the receiver. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Maybe letting you come here was a mistake,” Joseph says after a time. “I thought a change would do you good, but you’re floundering, Jotaro. With everything you went through in Cairo, then jumping right into college, maybe it’s too much. I think you need to come home.”

“I’m not giving up,” Jotaro snaps. “I can do this. I just need to study harder.”

“How much harder can you study?”

“This is where I want to be. This is my dream.”

“Is it? Or is this Kakyoin’s dream?”

Eventually, something has to give. It’s not Kakyoin or Jotaro or even his perpetually scowling Animals as Organisms professor, but Marina.

“Just one session,” she promises. The two of them are standing in the parking lot, the University of Florida’s Counseling and Wellness Center to the north and the long, winding road into town stretching out behind him. It would be so easy to drink another day away. Everyone notices his height and bulk before his age, and no one ever asks for his ID.

The pecan trees are swaying in the wind, carrying the scent of magnolias and mulberries. Just for a second, Jotaro closes his eyes. Lake Alice is starting to turn pea green and slimy, throttled with algae blooms and invasive water hyacinths while the fish suffocate below. He signed a petition to help the ecology students save it, but he could do so much more.

He thinks back to two weeks ago when his class visited the big cat preserve. He remembers stroking the spotted pelt of a 6-week-old lion cub, a bundle of soft golden fur dozing in the veterinarian’s arms after finishing her bottle. Her mother and littermates are all dead, more victims of the exotic animal trade.

'She's a little fighter', his teacher had said.

All of this may have started out as Kakyoin's dream, but it's his now. He wants to be here.

He doesn’t want his life to be defined by all the things he couldn’t save.

“Please, please just try. If you can’t do it for yourself right now, do it for the people who care about you.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You won’t be alone.”

Marina slips her hand in his. They sit together in the waiting room.

The door to the therapist’s office shuts behind him with a soft click.

Chapter Text

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus

"...Diaphragmatic excursion is the measurement of the downward shift of the thoraic diaphram as the patient inhales. Bones and connective issue will sound dull on percussion, but healthy lung tissue should sound tympanic, higher pitched and buoyant sort of like a drumhead. We locate the diaphram by asking the patient to take a breath and hold it, then percussing down the posterior chest wall, listening for when the sound changes from tympanic to dull,” the instructor continues, methodically tapping her fingers over Kakyoin's ribcage as he holds his breath. He feels something brush against his skin right above the margins of his scar. “Then we mark the spot.”

"Now exhale."

He does.

She starts tapping again.

“Diaphragmatic excursion is normally between 3-5 cm in healthy individuals,” the professor tells the medical students clustered around the exam table where Kakyoin sits with his back to them, shirtless, each hand on the opposite shoulder to spread his scapula. His face is hot and flushed, either from lack of air or embarrassment or both. As the students scribble down notes, one predictably asks if tympany can be heard over scar tissue.

Kakyoin doesn't need the professor to tell him that the two lines she drew on his back aren't three to five centimeters apart. Nothing about his body is normal or healthy anymore. It's the price for surviving something no one else ever has. Which is, of course, why he agreed to let Kyoto University's best and brightest watch countless doctors test his cranial nerves and his reflexes, brushing cotton balls over his dermatones and deciding if he has fasciculations or abnormalities of the anterior gray matter column.

The chattering crowd files out of the room, and Kakyoin rebuttons his shirt. He has actual clothes now instead of a hospital gown. He's making progress. The researchers studying him like a lab rat are learning new things about neuroscience, robotic engineering, reconstructive surgery, and countless other scientific inquiries every day that could save lives. Stifling an annoyed grunt, Kakyoin allows himself to be gently pivoted back into his wheelchair, his thoughts far from the mechanical marvel that is his artificial spine. He's 132 lb of gray skin and wasted muscle stretched over a 6'1 frame, and it still takes two people to get him out of bed.

Staff parts around him like the red sea, leaving him with nothing but small children and anxious parents to dodge and weave around. The nurses know better than to touch the handles of his wheelchair by now. Even if it takes him twenty minutes instead of five, he's determined to roll his way down the obnoxiously cheerful hallway toward his room on his own power. A girl who looks like she's in first or second grade zips past him. A tangle-haired Licca-chan doll dangles from her good arm, the other wrapped in a plaster cast with a dozen names and little doodles in childish handwriting. There aren't any other kids his age on the unit right now. Would it have even made a difference?

Was he always this bitter, he wonders as the door to his room shuts behind him.

He's losing himself. The more days that pass, the less that little voice inside his brain sounds like Noriaki Kakyoin and more like Boy A, a dozen top flight surgeons and specialists' prized science fair project. 'Or how about Room 5219?' He thinks bitterly. He's heard the nurses gossiping in the hallway, even the nice ones who give him cherry popsicles. It's Kakyoin-sama to his face, #19 when they're having coffee at the nurse's station. His humanity has long been replaced by numbers.

With a sigh, he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' by Def Leppard blasts through the little clock/radio/cassette player combo on his night stand. Kakyoin curls and uncurls his arm, sweat pouring down his face. His knuckles turn white around the dumbbell clenched in his fist. Up and down, up and down. Bones pop in and out of place and tendons creak. When he can't do any more curls, he hauls his hot, heavy body onto its left side and manages to raise his right leg a whole three inches off the mattress, his hamstrings quivering in protest. One, two, three, four...his heart thumps painfully in his chest, louder and louder until his vision swims. Sweat mats his hair and drips down his neck, making the bedclothes damp and sour-smelling. When he can't do more leg lifts or knee curls, he pulls himself up with the trapeze bar above his head. Pain slithers up his spine on cold scales, venom dripping from needle-sharp fangs. His abdominal muscles clench nauseatingly around the hole in his gut.

He has to get stronger. He needs to feel the sun on his face like he needs oxygen. Every day behind these four beige walls feels like another hook digging at his skin. Every time he stops to catch his breath, the hooks sink deeper into his flesh, threatening to twist and pull and wrench him apart. Another little tug here, another frayed thread here, and the whole skein will unravel. No more Noriaki Kakyoin.

***

His lashes flutter. When did he fall asleep? It's almost dark outside, the first hint of evening stars above the hazy bubble of light from the tightly clustered apartments and street lamps. A cold, phosphorescent glow flickers across his face, the sweat turned cold and sticky. Flashes of light in eerie foxfire blue dance across his closed lids as he sits up, blinking in the stillness of his room. He must have forgotten to close his door; the lights are coming from down the hall.

The intercom crackles to life, sending an unpleasant jolt down Kakyoin's spine. “Code Blue: room 5217. Code Blue: room 5217,” says a cool female voice.

Room 5217...that's just two doors down from his own room.

There's a fucking kid in there. And they're not breathing.

Years later as Kakyoin thought back to the events that transpired on that day, he would wonder why he did what he did in that moment. He's not sure how much of Kakyoin is left, but he's spent enough time shut up in this damn room, dead to the world. He's not going to roll over and fall back to sleep listening to a child die twenty feet away from his bed.

Like marionette strings, loops of Hierophant wrap around his atrophied thighs muscles and over the sharp knobs of his spine, and he's standing, standing up completely on his own for the first time in over a year. He takes one shaky step, then two toward the blue light.

The scene outside his door bursts into life like a dry tinder catching fire, nurses and aids all stampeding down the hall with the respiratory therapist and ER doctor hot on their heels. A young girl's voice rings out, wailing for help into the still night air. As Kakyoin rounds the corner, he can see a man struggling in a nurse's arms, glasses askew and tears dripping down onto his necktie. The father, maybe? A little girl clings to him and sobs before a flustered nurse's aide hustles them into the hallway. The charge nurse makes a mad dash for the backboard just as the code team arrives with the bright red crash cart, and together, they slide the thick plastic under a boy who looks no older than nine or ten.

Everything seems to be going wrong. The nurses are all talking at once; a dozen pairs of hands are pumping rhythmically on the boy's chest, pasting electrodes to his ribs, feeling for a pulse. The body beneath them hangs limp and lifeless, the boy's face ghastly white under the bag valve mask. It's brutal, loud, ugly, frantic—nothing like the medical dramas he's seen on TV. And it just keeps going on and on. Why can't they bring him back?

Minutes tick by. Supplies are dwindling. The once tidy room descends into a blood-soaked warzone as two separate emergency supply carts are gutted, torn wrappers and unnameable odds and ends crunching under everyone's shoes.

Kakyoin's mind races. He has to do something. But what? What can he do?

Suddenly, the physician rounds on a young woman shivering in her formerly spotless scrubs, tears rolling down her round, freckled cheeks as she mixes up another syringe full of normal saline and epinephrine to give to the medication nurse. Staring down at her like a cobra pondering a small rodent, he barrages her with question after question, his lip curling into a sneer as he barks out orders over his shoulder.

To his chagrin, it’s that nurse, the one who was about to pour a gallon jug of slimy brown enteral nutrition formula down the tube in his nostril when he first woke up here. Kakyoin cocks his head. With a round face on a thin, lanky body, she looks a little like a pumpkin tied to a stick. She squeaks out answers from a too-tight throat, but she never falters, no once. She never freezes, keeping her chin up even when her knees are practically knocking together.

She’s brave, at least. Braver than he ever was.

“Matsuri!” calls another nurse, limbs trembling and face beaded with sweat. She's exhausted. They all are. “Take over compressions!”

Looking like she's about to swan dive out of an airplane, Matsuri climbs the metal stool beside the boy's bed, her hands poised over his chest.

“You can do this,” Kakyoin whispers.

As Matsuri counts under her breath, a memory trickles through his brain: Rhonda resting the creaky old bones in her shoulder against the sliding glass door that lead to his ICU bed, nattering away with another nurse's aide. Aside from sweat trickling down into her caked-on blue eye shadow, you would never have known that she had been doing chest compressions for over thirty minutes.

“If you ever wonder if you're going too fast or too slow, just imagine 'Staying Alive' blasting in your ears at full volume.” Rhonda was clutched a stitch in her side with one hand. With the other, she began snapping her fingers to a funky disco beat playing on an imaginary turn table.

Matsuri's rhythm is perfect, but her strength is flagging quickly. A blueish tinge starts to creep into the boy's lips. They need a miracle.

Kakyoin sucks in a quiet lungful of air, shutting his eyes before letting himself slide to the floor with his useless legs neatly folded under him. Hierophant's tentacles grow slack around his own body, gliding silently past the nurses and doctors, slipping beneath the pale, sweat-dewed skin and the splintered ribs and binding the child's heart in glittering green strands.

He squeezes in time with Matsuri's chest compressions, forcing the stopped heart to beat. They're connected, the three of them, bound by gossamer thread. He lets his own body heat flood into the boy's thin chest, warming him up. Unlike the humans around them, Hierophant doesn't get tired. They are everywhere and nowhere at once, holding the boy's tongue to the side so the respiratory therapist can insert a lighted scope into his throat, helping a nurse guide a needle into place. He hums to the beat of the Bee Gee's song.

“Dr. Kurosawa,” one of the nurses rasps. Kakyoin hears a crackly mechanical woosh from the doppler pressed against the boy’s femoral artery. A little bump appears on the long, flat line running across the heart monitor, then another. “We've got a pulse!”

“Damn it, he's fibrillating!”

“Analyzing heart rhythm...” comes an unnervingly calm, tinny voice from the AED. “Shock advised.”

“Everyone stand back!”

The machine powers up, and suddenly, the boy's chest jolts so hard that his back is lifted several inches off the bed. “Shock delivered.” Well, duh.

The nurses jabber back and forth to each other in medical jargon, clustering around the bed so tightly Kakyoin can't see over their hunched shoulders. Finally, one of them turns to the team leader.

“I think...” she pants. “I think we've done it.”

“ROSC at 2155,” an authoritative gray-haired lady in a white lab coat pipes up, wiping steam off her glasses. “That was a long one...over half an hour! Alright, we're headed to ICU!”

“And Matsuri...” the older woman pauses for a second, resting a heavy hand on the young nurse's shoulder. “Good job tonight.”

The bed rolls into the elevator down the hall surrounded by more medical equipment than Kakyoin has ever seen in his life, which is saying something. As the crowd surges out of the room, he is suddenly very aware of the cold floor tiles digging into his knees.

“Will he be okay?” he asks to no one in particular.

“I-I think so?” Matsuri is leaning over him, hands braced on her knees. With her girlish blunt-cut bangs and rosy cheeks, she could pass for a particularly baby-faced Licca-chan doll. “I hope so. It's out of our hands now.”

Kakyoin hears a soft squeak of worn leather as his wheelchair rolls up next to him. “You...you helped me, didn't you? I saw you across the hall, staring at us so intently...then it was like Tetsuo's chest was moving on its own.”

He supposes that there's no point in denying it. “Hmm. It's a decent enough theory. Is that his name? Tetsuo?”

“Sorry, that's confidential.” The corners of her mouth lift, tear-stained cheeks dimpling. “But yes. He wasn't even my patient, you know. I was just helping out Misao-san. He's a good kid, Misao says. Likes baseball and video games.”

“Was that your first code blue?” As if that wasn't obvious.

“Yeah. Totally came out of nowhere. Misao said he was sitting up and talking one minute and then he seized.”

“I don't know what I want to study when I get out of here,” Kakyoin muses. “But I definitely don't want to be a nurse. No offense.”

“None taken. But you'd be good at it.” Hand in hand, they rise together, Kakyoin’s arm around her shoulders. Either she’s strong, or all those arm exercises are paying off. Maybe both.  “Have you always been magic?”

It occurs to Kakyoin at that moment that he's never really talked about Hierophant with anyone except other stand users. He always expected normal people to be afraid. But Matsuri knows what real terror feels like, and she faced it head-on.

They banter back and forth for a while as the adrenaline ebbs out of their systems, and the intercom stays silent. It's 2330, and Tetsuo is still alive. Kakyoin swallows his evening medication with a spoonful of applesauce and sinks down into his pillows, bones still humming with nervous energy above the usual crescendo of pain.

***

Another week passes, then two. Kakyoin takes his first step, then another, and another. He wobbles, falls, jostles everything painfully on the way down. His knees bruise. He curses. He's red in the face and drenched in cold sweat and everything hurts. But he hauls himself off the floor beside the balance beam and tries again. And again. And again.

Tetsuo returns to the children’s ward at the end of September. Kakyoin hears whispers outside of his bedroom that the kid might be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life. The father sniffles into his hand, and the mother practically floods the hallway with tears. He never hears the boy crying, not once. Tetsuo has taken to rolling up beside Kakyoin as he makes his daily circuit around the unit on his crutches. Sometimes they talk a little, about video games and the Yomiuri Giants and what it’s like to have a metal rod in your back. Kakyoin shrugs.

Smiling softly to himself, Kakyoin opens another care package from Jotaro just as the leaves outside his hospital room are starting to turn. It's another book, this time filled with glossy photos of Jotaro's new special interest: big cats. He turns to a two-page spread of a snow leopard peering up at him with crystal blue eyes, her fluffy tail dangling from of her mouth. Snowflakes fall onto her neat little rosettes, melting on her pink nose as she watches her cubs play fighting in a fur-lined den. Kakyoin resolves right then and there that he's going to pet one someday, even if he gets his arm chewed off. He sets to writing Jotaro back right away, filling the letter with drawings of tigers and black jaguars and little African black-footed cats.

He's not sure what they are to each other anymore, whether they're each other's best friend or their first love, a bittersweet memory or a cautiously hopeful future. But he's alive, and Jotaro's alive, and that's all he needs right now.

It's the first time he's drawn anything in a year. Kakyoin leans back, sketching out the rough shape of an ear before filling the widw-eyed, sharp-toothed face below it with spots. A serval sails through his sketchpad on long spindly legs, resurfacing on the next page with a mouthful of mouse. It's comforting, somehow, thinking of wild creatures in the heart of the savanna or the frigid steppes of Mongolia. He supposes they're too busy to sit around feeling sorry for themselves. They lick their wounds, pull the burrs out of their coats, and keep on living. Maybe that's why Jotaro likes them.

No one changes overnight, least of all someone as stubborn as Kakyoin. Bitterness filters out slowly, little drops of poison leaking out. 

“You're turning into a real crazy cat lady,” Joseph whistles during one of his suprise visits, casting a bespectacled gaze at the whirlwind of sketches scattered around Kakyoin's bedside. Lions and pumas, cheetahs, ocelots, margays, fishing cats, caracals. He's the keeper of a veritable menagerie now. “I didn't even know half of these damned species existed. But have you ever thought about getting yourself a real cat?”

“And where do you propose I keep one? The only way I'm getting something with fur and claws past security is if I somehow convince them it's a therapy pet or it's taxidermied.”

“How about in your new home?” Joseph settles himself in the nearest chair with an audible pop of his bad knee. “Word on the street is that your doctor is working on a discharge plan for you.”

“Really?!” Kakyoin blurts out, sitting up so fast it makes him dizzy. “It's been so long. Months and months of waiting...they finally...but where would I go? I still can't walk more than a few steps without my crutches.”

“The truth of the matter is that you've got a choice to make. Doesn't take a mind reader to figure out that Suzi's taken a shine to you. I know we've discussed it before, but whatever you decide to do, our door is always open.” Joseph gives his hand a little pat. “But ours isn't the only door open for you. Not anymore.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, let's just say I'm not just here to wish you a happy Halloween,” Joseph says. “There's someone waiting just outside that door for me to introduce her, someone who's very anxious to meet you.”

“Sorry, I'm not following at all,” Kakyoin asks. “Who would—?”

“Mr. Joestar, can we come in now?” a little girl's voice pipes up.

“Of course you can, my dear,” Joseph calls out cheerily over a sigh and much tut-tutting of what sounds like the child's mother. The door slides open with a soft click, and a little face peers out behind a thin, knobby middle-aged woman who looks almost exactly like...

“Aunt Ajisai?” Kakyoin calls out incredulously. “And is that—”

“Her name is Ryoko, Noriaki.” Ajisai greets him with a polite nod, hands never leaving Ryoko's shoulders. The girl is practically bouncing up and down, her short red-brown ponytail waving in the dry hospital air, as if she'd sprout wings and fly to Kakyoin's bedside if Ajisai wasn't weighing her down. “If I recall correctly, you got to hold her once when she was very small. That was—you were—different. Our family was...different. I suppose you've never been formally introduced to her, not since my sister-in-law...but that was a long time ago.”

“It's been almost eight years,” Kakyoin rasps, finally remembering how to breathe. “Mom always thought I, er...that we wouldn't get on.” More like Kaede Kakyoin was convinced that he couldn't be trusted around her. That he—that thing would hurt her, just like it hurt his father.

“Have you heard from Dad at all?” He knows at once that is the wrong thing to say, because Ajisai's grip on Ryoko's shoulder tightens. The half-hearted smile on her face falters.

“Not in front of Ryoko,” she hisses. “We can talk about it later.”

“Noriaki, can I see your pictures?” Ryoko beams up at him, soft brown eyes wide as a doe's and copper bright. Aunt Ajisai sighs again, her thin chest inflating and then sagging in defeat like a temperamental soufflé. “You draw sooo well! What's this? Is that a cat? It's so cute!”

“Yes, actually.” Kakyoin meets her gaze. “It's a rusty spotted cat. They live in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and parts of India. See those big green eyes with the slit pupils? That helps them see in the dark. They're the tiniest cats in the world, about 1.5 kg or the size of a bag of sugar. They may be cute, but they're one of the deadliest hunters in the whole animal kingdom...if you're a mouse or a bird, that is.” He punctuates his impromptu zoology lecture with a conspiratory wink when Aunt Ajisai isn't looking. Ryoko's whole body seems to buzz in delight from her rust-colored curls to her polka-dot socks.

“We have a cat,” she says with a shy smile. “She's orange and white with black spots.”

The two of them promptly forget about the adults in the room as Ryoko admires his menagerie, barely waiting for him to finish before she asks another question, then another. It's odd, catching little pieces of himself in her: the solemn tilt of her upper lip, her upturned nose, chubby little hands turning into long and tapered fingers. Kakyoin hasn't seen another member of his family since he was nine years old.

“Kids, huh? The things they get up to,” Joseph says. “Let's give 'em a minute or two to get acquainted.”

***

“I know it's a lot to ask, and it's not fair to spring this on you so suddenly,” Joseph mutters, fingers tracing over the fine saddle-soaped leather of his hat again and again. “We'll pay for everything, of course. Medication, clinic visits, physical therapy, you name it.”

“I haven't seen Ryoko smile like that in ages,” Ajisai whispers almost apologetically. “She's been so lonely since we moved back to Morioh. She's always been a little different, you know. Never quite fit in. Once she started going to school, she stopped smiling, stopped running up to show me things and chattering all day. The teachers say she sits by herself at recess. Some of the children have been...unkind. Until all this started, we all thought Noriaki was the only one who was...”

“Strange?” The words cast a shadow over the two of them like a cloud heavy with rain. Ajisai doesn't answer.

She takes a deep breath as if steeling herself. “The situation between my brother and this boy is...complicated to say the least. I've heard so many rumors about him. Strange things, terrifyingly things. I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. But I can't defend what my family did to him. We want to at least give him a chance. That's more than either of them ever did,” she finishes as if the words tasted bitter on her tongue.

“He's a good kid who's been dealt a raw deal.” The bite in his voice startles them both. “That spinal cord injury...that wasn't some random accident. He damn near died saving my daughter's life. And my life, and my grandson's life.”

“Saved your lives? But how—” the woman gulps, blanching.

“Whatever he might have done before we met—or your brother or that sister-in-law of yours thinks he might have done—he's paid his debts, believe me,” Joseph turns toward the setting sun, not quite meeting her eyes. “I'm getting old, Mrs. Kakyoin. I know I don't look it, but...you get to my age, and the years start to weigh you down, like stones on your pocket. Every day, God adds another stone. I don't know how many years I've got left before I sink, but I need to know that the people I care about most are...maybe not 'taken care of' per se, but headed down the right path.”

“It seems to me he already is.” The wrinkles around Ajisai's eyes crinkle. Until then, it was hard for Joseph to imagine her smiling.

***

“Ma, can Noriaki have dinner with us, when he's feeling better?” Ryoko chirps. “He says I can have some of his drawings! Did you know he likes video games, too? There's this arcade next to the boardwalk in Morioh...”

“Yes, yes,” Aunt Ajisai says with a wave of her hand. She doesn't look like the sort of mother who says yes very often. She turns to him so suddenly that Ryoko's chattering mouth snaps shut, taking her hands off her hips and smoothing her neatly pressed suit as if she were trying to look more inviting. “I was actually thinking that Noriaki might like to stay with us for a while? I understand that you're about to be discharged from the hospital.”

“Are you sure?” There's no way. He had to have misheard her. “I still need my wheelchair, and I have to go to physical therapy three times a week, and I'll have tons of doctor's appointments...”

“Nori, it's fine. Really,” Joseph says. “It's all taken care of. If this is what you want, I mean.”

“Are you...?”

“I am,” Aunt Ajisai replies. “I know we haven't seen each other in a very long time, but we're your family, Noriaki. That should mean something to you. It means something to me. I think...it would be good for us all. A fresh start. If you're willing to study hard, be a good influence on Ryoko, and keep out of trouble, we'd be delighted to have you.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he answers dutifully. Better get used to saying that, some dark part of him mutters.

“No one's going to force you to do anything.” Joseph raises an eyebrow. “You have plenty of options, and no one expects you to make a decision today.”

The words swirl around inside Kakyoin's head like a mountain stream splashing down into the open sea, all darkness and salt and uncertainty, long after Ajisai bids them a polite good evening and ushers a positively buoyant Ryoko out the door.

Family. It should mean something. It did once.

“ We were happy, the two of us. Before you came along. You ruined it. You ruined everything.”

“ Your mother wants to help you. She's just not able to take care of you anymore. That's why she left you brought you here.”

“ I work and work and work. And this is the thanks I get. Raising some foreigner's shitty fucking kid.”

“ He's yours, Chikao! What will it take for you to accept the truth?”

“ He's real. I'm not crazy. I'm not sick. Why won't you believe me?”

“ What did you do. Noriaki. What did you do.”

Family means something very different to him now.

Chapter Text

Kyoto, 1988

There’s a certain fearful symmetry to it.

Kakyoin’s journey around the globe, battling enemy stand users with the four men who became his first friends began in November of last year. It ends, totally and irreversibly, on a crisp fall morning. He will see them again, at the odd reunion or a friendly visit here and there, but it will never be the same.

He made the decision less than a few hours before he was due to be discharged. His aunt and uncle are due to pick him up at 2pm sharp and begin the long drive to the Kakyoin family home in Morioh. Aunt Ajisai thanks him very properly for his show of family loyalty and humility, and he accepts her generosity with a polite nod of his head. He didn’t do it for either of them. The instant he saw her, he felt a spark between himself and Ryoko. He loves Joseph more than he could have imagined loving his own father, the sad, empty man with his glasses eschew, but he has a chance to give a lonely little kid a friend, and he’s not going to waste it.

“There will be new adventures for you.” Mohammad Advol lays a cool metallic hand on his shoulder. Even if he has to balance himself on crutches, Kakyoin is determined to say his goodbyes standing face to face. Moisture gathers in his eyes, but he refuses to yield to it. “Whatever you do with your life from now on, it will be your choices, led by your own heart and mind that define your path. You will never be a prisoner or another man’s plaything again. And I have no doubt that you’ll be brilliant.”

“Don’t look so sad, mon frère.” Jean-Pierre Polnareff’s free arm is draped casually around Kakyoin’s shoulder, the other around Avdol’s. He wanted to hold onto this forever, when the three of them held each so tight that they only cast one shadow. “If you cry, I’ll cry. Today is a happy day.”

“Everything is going to be different now,” Kakyoin whispers. “Everything’s happening so fast, and I–”

“For those fifty days, the five of us walked down the same path. Now that we’ve reached the end, we’re each headed into different futures. That’s the nature of journeys,” Avdol murmurs into Kakyoin’s shoulder, his breath hitching ever so slightly. Kakyoin feels something wet on the fabric of his coat. “But it’s thanks in no small part to you that we even have a future at all.”

“Dio used to talk about this paradise he was going to build for people like us where we wouldn’t have to live in secret anymore.” Kakyoin’s throat tightens at the mention of the name, even now. Two pairs of hands rub his shoulders when they start to tremble. “A place where lonely little kids born with stands wouldn’t have to be afraid. I was so stupid, so naive and pathetic to believe him, and yet…”

He sighed. “Now I realize that what he truly wanted was to turn as much of the world as he could into his own private fiefdom where he could rule over us like a god emperor, and normal people would have been turned into cattle, if not worse. Whatever the future holds, I’m glad Dio’s dream died with him.”

“There will be others,” Avdol cautioned. “There are dozens of us now, maybe even hundreds. More are being created every day. All it takes is the power of a stand falling into the hands of the wrong person, and we’ll have a brand new enemy on our hands, maybe even more dangerous than Dio.”

Polnareff strokes his chin, thinking for a minute. “And you’re not the same lonely, naive kid anymore. All this talk about change, and you still haven’t figured it out: you’ve changed, too. You’ve, well, you’ve grown up.”

“That’s right, you are now a very mature and distinguished gentleman of seventeen,” Avdol says thoughtfully. “But Jean is right. I know you don’t feel like it right now, but you’re older and stronger and wiser than you ever have been.”

“I want you to understand something, right here, right now.” Polnareff turns to Kakyoin. He looks more serious than when he stood over J. Geil’s corpse, blood dripping from Silver Chariot’s rapier. “I haven’t said this to another human being in so long. God knows I didn’t say it to Sherry nearly enough when I had the chance. When you nearly died, when you actually did die, when you spent all those months in that goddamn fucking coma, I thought I had lost the chance forever. Look at me.” He places his thumb under Kakyoin’s chin, gently lifting it up.

“I love you. We all love you. That’s something that can’t ever be lost or traded or stolen, or put on a shelf and forgotten about, or just crushed underfoot and thrown away. I know you’ve been hurt by people who were supposed to love you, people you thought were your friends. This shitty fucking world hasn’t given you a lot of reason to trust anyone. But when you finally leave this goddamn hospital room for good and walk out there into your new life, I want you to know that the four of us love you. We’ll never stop, even if we all live to be a hundred and fifty. Even if we can’t see each other every day. Even if we’re far away. We’ll never stop loving you.”

This time Kakyoin really does cry, and he doesn’t stop for a long time.

***

Cairo, 1991

Nahla Oyawale clumsily maneuvers the bags of groceries into her right arm while she fishes in her pocket for her car keys. She always hates shopping for groceries right after work, especially after working a double shift and her mind and feet burning with exhaustion. Especially knowing she'll have to walk through this neighborhood. Predictably, they slip from her fingers and tumble beneath the rusted rim of her ancient Chevy’s front wheel. Her joints groaning in protest, she reluctantly gets down on her hands and knees, cursing under her breath before fumbling blindly in the flickering streetlight. Dirty asphalt digs into the worn knees of her scrubs, and her back aches.

She freezes. She is almost certain that she heard a scrape of a shoe just behind her, followed by a low rumble of laughter.

“Who’s there?”

“Well, look what we got here,” comes a voice from the shadows. “The shit in her purse probably ain’t worth much, and neither is this rusted hunk of junk. But you on the other hand…”

It takes a second for the words to register in Nahla’s brain. ‘We?’ Then her eyes flick to the darkened alleyway behind her, almost of their own volition. Before she can even think of trying to stand, four figures begin creeping up out of the darkness toward the flimsy little soap bubble of light. Toward her.

The leader toes one of the paper bags resting against the tire. The one with her insulin in it. If he steals the tiny glass bottle inside or just carelessly crushes it under his huge boot, she won't be able to afford another one. Without it, she could die. “Please don't,” she whispers, a pathetic little mewl that doesn't sound like herself.

“Aw, where’s the fun in that?” one of them chuckles. She catches the glitter of a knife in his hand. The blade begins to swing--

“Nahla, please look away,” another voice calls out. A very familiar voice, deep but soft and fine as mohair.  “It would be better if you don’t see what happens next. Stay low and don’t move.”

What happens next is a blur of motion somewhere above her head. Even with her hands clamped over her head, she still hears a shriek of agony and pure animal terror, followed by the sound of a body crashing into the wall with a sickening crunch, then nothing at all. All she can see is aged plaster crumpling onto the grimy streets and scattered drops of a dark, glossy liquid. She knows that sharp, metallic tang very well.

Though it feels like hours, it’s over in just a few seconds. As she tentatively peeks over the hood of the car, she watches those same four figures staggering back the way they came, bawling and howling in pain the whole way.

“Are you alright?” the soft voice asks. And Noriaki Kakyoin is staring down at her.

“What did–how–there were four of them. What on earth did you do to chase off four men?” she stammers. “Is it really you, Noriaki? What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood, and I took the opportunity to see an old friend,” Kakyoin shrugs, casually flicking some blood off his cheek with a thumb.

His voice is warm, and so is his body as he stoops down to help her up. The faint sunburn brings out the freckles on his cheeks. Even through his leather bomber jacket, she can feel the wiry strength in those long limbs that she never could have imagined when he was lying in his hospital bed, so pale and thin and so very, very frail. He’s grown so much; she barely comes up to his shoulder now. In the years since they last saw each other, his cheekbones have been softened with proper food, his jaw firmed, and his ginger hair grown long and gold-streaked by the summer sun. A motorcycle helmet is tucked under his free arm.

“Looks like I got here just in time. I didn’t kill any of them, if you’re concerned about that. But please don’t ask me anything else. It’s better if you don’t know. This is a side of myself I never wanted you to see.”

“I won’t,” she promises. “I knew from the beginning that there was something special about you, Noriaki. You and those friends of yours...you've been on some incredible adventures, haven't you?”

They settle for coffee at the little 24/hr diner down the street after the groceries are put away. It’s her one day off, but she knows sleep won’t come for a long time. She doesn’t protest when Kakyoin pays for everything and promises to walk her back to her apartment.

“The last few months have been pretty much booked solid,” Kakyoin says. “I’m studying physics at NYU, but my friends and I have some unfinished business to take care of in Cairo. There are worse ways to spend your summer break, I suppose. I’m glad I got to see you before I head back to the states.”

“Off on another adventure,” Nahla murmurs. “You don’t know how happy I am for you, Noriaki. That night when we thought we'd lost you...I've been a nurse for longer than you've been alive. It's such a terrible weight, knowing that for so many people, my face might be the last thing they ever see. But that night...that night was hard. Rhonda did chest compressions on you until she damn near had a heart attack on the floor. ”

“Give her my best regards, the sweet old windbag. Gladys, too. Even Jerry. All of them.” Kakyoin raises his coffee cup in a mock toast. “It’s been quite a journey.”

Their cups clink together. “That it has.” 

“Do you remember that last conversation we had, about why you became a nurse? Do you still feel that way?”

“I don’t know.” Nahla looks away. “I’ve been a nurse for so long, it’s like it’s soaked into my skin. For better or worse, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

“I had meant to give this to you. Back when I thought that I was…that I was going to die,” Kakyoin says, taking her hand in his. In his palm is a pristine diamond-shaped piece of teal sea glass, hoary with age and as wide as four of her fingers, without a single crack or chip. “I had it appraised by a jeweler a few years ago. It’s worth at least seven hundred dollars.”

“Noriaki…I can’t accept this. You’ve already saved my life.”

“Take it.” Kakyoin's eyes bore into her. They're just as bright as she remembers, but now they radiate a quiet strength. It's a rare sight, to watch pain leave someone softer rather than harder, never calcifying into something chipped and brittle.

“You’ve seen the kind of company I keep. I don’t need money, and I have enough souvenirs from that trip, believe me. You were kind to me, kinder than you had to be. That means something to me. You’re a wonderful nurse, but whatever you decide to do, I don’t want you to feel trapped. I know better than most people what it’s like to be caged.”

“I’ve…I’ve always wanted to work with children. There’s this beautiful children’s hospital in Alexandria that does some incredible cancer research. The best thing about it is that it’s right beside the sea,” Nahla says dreamily, studying the way the light reflects off the frosted surface of the sea glass, scattering into a thousand tiny fractals. It's the most beautiful thing she's ever owned. “You know, I’ve only seen the ocean a few times in my life. I always kept meaning to, but something always got in the way.”

“There's nothing standing in the way, for either of us now.” In a surprisingly bold move, he winds his fingers around hers and brushes his thumb across the back of her hand, just like she used to all those years ago. “You're going to be absolutely brilliant, Nahla. I wish you the best of luck.”

“You as well, Noriaki.”

***

As Nahla waves at him from the fire escape of her apartment, Kakyoin takes a moment to breathe in the cool night air. His eyes drift toward the skyline where it all happened. The shattered clockface has been replaced with a modern digital version that clashes horribly with the city's ancient architecture. The water tower and the shabby apartments below it are gone, replaced by a library and a bakery. Aside from that, little about these streets has changed, except the man who walks them. He’s not the same Kakyoin choking back tears and shivering at Dio’s feet, and he’s not the same Kakyoin who spent months building up the courage to stand up to the man who humiliated and betrayed him, only to be crushed underfoot like an insect.

Dio had been trapped at the bottom of the ocean for a century. What an agony that must have been for a bright and agile mind like his, and so close to victory he could taste it. Kakyoin wondered if that was why he fled as far from the sea as he could and built his new empire in the desert, a hundred miles away from the coast. When he settles into his scratchy hotel sheets in the wee hours of the morning, he dreams of the ocean, always in motion, always transforming. His whole life, he has been terrified of drowning, terrified of being touched, being seen, being loved. Now he lets the waves wash over him, filled with every life he has ever touched, every memory he has been a part of.

Jotaro rings him in the morning, far earlier than he would like. Marina just got home from her ultrasound appointment. To their home, carrying her and Jotaro's child. It's bittersweet, hearing the smile in his voice whenever he says his new baby's girl's name. It’s so easy to imagine her tiny pink fingers curling around his huge hand, the familiar Joestar green creeping into her baby blue eyes as she grows up.

“I’d like you to see her, when she comes.” Jotaro's voice is tempered but painfully tight. He's treading carefully. “The baby, I mean. I know things are…complicated between us. But I still want you to get to hold her. She’s here because of you.” There is a pause. Kakyoin is half convinced Jotaro was waiting for his wife to leave the room.

“I miss you.”

“Me, too.”

Kakyoin remembers reading about a rare wildflower in his botany textbook called the bee orchid. Such a beautiful little thing, lavender petals curling like wings around a small, fuzzy body banded with yellow and brown. Shaped evolution to resemble the female of the species, the flower was once pollinated by an ancient bee species that left no trace of itself after it went extinct. It's almost romantic, in a morbid kind of way. Lured by the sweet scent, a male bee visited a flower millions of years ago, covering himself in pollen and spreading new generations of flowers wherever he went. The bee is now long gone, and the only memory of it remains, painted on a flower.

No matter how far apart they are, separated by oceans or the pressures of adulthood or even death, Jotaro and Kakyoin's hearts have been molded and shaped around each other, and the memory of the dream they once shared.

***

New York City, 1993

New Year’s Day

“Noriaki! It’s been too damn long!” Forgoing Kakyoin's offer of a handshake in favor of a full body tackle, Polnareff effortlessly sweeps Kakyoin up in his thick arms and tosses him in the air.

“Good to see you, too, Jean,” Kakyoin wheezes after Polnareff, with some prodding from Avdol, loosens his grip enough for Kakyoin’s lungs to expand. “How’s France?”

“Mohammad and I have been keeping ourselves busy,” Polnareff preens, squeezing Avdol's shoulders. “We managed to track down a lot of the Polnareff family heirlooms and even some of our family photos! My dad’s art books, my mother’s piano…Oh, and you should see the new cottage. I know it’s not much, but…”

“You’re going to have to try harder than that to pull him away from his textbooks,” Joseph says. “Just started graduate school at Cornell University. My boy, the kid I sent to school, growing up to be an astrophysicist. Number one in his class, can you believe that?”

“It’s Noriaki, of course we believe it.” Avdol tucks his arms into his sleeves, nodding sagely. “If you had told me he got an -A, I would assume that Golden Temperance was back in town. Iggy sends his regards, by the way. He’s getting on in the years, so he likes to spend his winter days in his basket beside the fireplace. I knitted him the cutest little sweater…I mean, a very handsome and dignified sweater that is not cute at all.”

“I am. So. Damned. Proud. Of this kid,” Joseph crows, giving Kakyoin the absolute granddaddy of all hair ruffles. Kakyoin has significantly more hair to ruffle now, making the gesture that much more impressive. “Did I tell you the thesis he wrote got featured in the Annuals of Mathematics? And he’s been working with this bigshot scientist from Harvard who just won the Kavli Prize! I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds neat!”

“Joootaro, when are we going to get to meet the little lady?” Polnareff interrupts. If he hadn’t, Joseph would probably have kept talking until he was out of breath. “Oh, wait, make sure she’s dry first before you pass her to me. Ugh, just the thought of a dirty, wet diaper on a cold day like this!”

“First the old man won’t shut up, now you,” Jotaro grunts, poking his head out of the bistro. “I’m not taking her outside right now, you idiot. It’s snowing.” With a roll of his eyes, Polnareff leads the three men inside where their table is waiting.

The air is warm and pleasantly scented with balsam and cedar. When they look for Jotaro, they find him in a corner booth next to a crackling fireplace. Bundled up under his coat is a tiny baby girl with curly whisps of black hair peeking out of a little brown knitted cap with bear ears. She snuggles deeper into the cozy little cocoon her father had made of his arms, murmuring sleepily. Jotaro is a father now.

It really has been six years, hasn't it. 

“Hold out your arms.”

With the exception of a certain someone whose name doesn't bare mentioning, Kakyoin has never held an infant before. Her entire head fits neatly in the palm of Jotaro's hand. As he very, very gently lowers her warm little weight into his friend's outstretched arms, Kakyoin is scared to even breathe at first. Even her smell is new, her skin so thin and pink and fragile-seeming. Jolyne's body feels firm and ripe under the bundle of blankets, like a peach warmed by the sun, her nails and ears and the upturned button of her nose so impossibly delicate, so unimaginably perfect. Kakyoin could never recreate that perfection, this feeling, with all his paints and canvases in a thousand years.

“Who would have thought after a lifetime of misadventures, I'd get to hold my great-grandchild,” Joseph whispers almost reverently when it's his turn to cradle the baby in his arms, but the mischievous glint soon returns to his old eyes. “Oh, she's going to grow up to be a real beauty, just look at those eyes! Jolyne looks just like Holly did at that age. Not you, though, Jotaro. You were an ornery little brat who kept throwing all his toys out of the pram. I remember this one time you–”

“Jolyne Kujo,” Kakyoin repeats, rolling the words around on his tongue. “Another Jojo. God, Dio would hate that. I bet he’s looking up at us while he’s shoveling shit in hell with murder in his eyes. She’s absolutely perfect, Jotaro. I mean it.”

“What’s he gonna do, glare us to death? I hope the devil takes his largest pitchfork and jabs it into his ass—er, backside.” Polnareff adds, looking like he's barely resisting the urge to hug Jolyne even harder than he had Kakyoin. “Say hi to your uncle Pol-Pol, ma chouchoute.”

“Even so,” Avdol interjects, giving Jolyne's head a dignified stroke before returning her to her anxious mother, a slender slip of a woman who looks like she would have been split in half birthing a Joestar. Kakyoin swallows his bitter thoughts, feeling a bit like he imagines Iggy must feel after getting a dewormer shoved down his throat. Today isn’t about her. He waves at Jolyne from behind Marina's retreating back. “It’s been a while since we’ve all been together, hasn’t it? It’s a beautiful day, snow and all. Let’s make the most of it!!”

Warm plates of savory crepes and hot coffee are soon set in front of them, filling the booth with fragrant steam. “How about another group photo?” Polnareff grins about a mouthful of buttered toast. “I’ve been in a shutterbug mood lately after finding my old family photo album. I’ve been dying to add some new ones!”

“Alright, everybody strike a pose, and let's ring in the new year properly!” Joseph beams, brandishing his latest camera. “Here's to another year together! To family, new and old, whether bound by blood or by comradery on the open road.”

“Good grief, you're getting sentimental in your old age," Jotaro mutters, but his eyes soften as his and Kakyoin's meet. He leans forward, taking Kakyoin gently by the hand as they watch the snow fall outside. “Do you hear that, Dio? We’ve taken back everything that you stole from us. Everything… and everyone.”

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
-- Robert H. Goddard