Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Wait, begin at the beginning,” Joseph says.

Jotaro is practiced in being inscrutable. He has been mastering this front since the 1980s, he knows how to keep as blank an expression as possible, but the old man is his grandfather. For the better or the worse, he knows Jotaro’s tells. And Jotaro’s hands may not be shaking as he sips from the cute ceramic mug at the local cat cafe, Jolyne’s favourite place, and fuck, but the thought of his kid makes his already thrumming anxiety get a billion times worse.

She’s in their house with Holly, just seven, but astute. Smarter than he was at her age for sure, sharp in a way that keeps him on his toes perpetually. She already knows that her mother is not coming home.

“The divorce proceedings have been initiated. And I suppose it was a good idea to have just my name on the mortgage, so we got to keep the house. Thank you for lending me your car.” He sighs.

“You didn’t call me out here to say that,” Joseph says, and it’s gentle in a way that he rarely ever is. Jotaro wonders how visibly rough he must look, for his usually brash grandfather to offer comfort like this. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Lauren thought Jolyne was possessed by demons,” Jotaro says, blankly. “She wanted to exorcise her, and get her in a vigorous Sunday school programme. I said no.”

The day their lives had gone topsy-turvy went a bit like this. Allegedly, Jolyne had claimed to have a “magical friend who looks like blue spaghetti and is made of my white blood cells” – her exact words. Oddly specific and oddly imaginative, but Jotaro wasn’t fazed, until he got a call from his then-wife, asking him to come home.

“I’m scared,” she’d said, sounding like she was hyperventilating.

“Of Jolyne’s imaginary friend?” Jotaro asked.

“You don’t understand,” Lauren had said. And it had sounded scathing and rude, but in a way he was used to. The way teachers used to talk to him in high school, the way people insinuated that there was some deeper meaning that he just wasn’t understanding.

His autism diagnosis, obtained in college, had helped Jotaro realise two things – one: there was nothing wrong with him, and two: no fucking way was he going to let anyone talk to him like that again.

Lashing out here wasn’t going to help though.

“Wait for me,” he’d said. “I’m coming home.”

When he did reach home, after the lock turned in the key, there was no-one there to greet him in the foyer, but Jolyne came running down the stairs, as if she’d heard the door opening from her bedroom. Lauren, he presumed, was in their personal library, as she was wont to do when upset.

Jolyne’s eyes were red, like she’d been crying, but for once she didn’t launch herself into Jotaro’s arms or cling to his leg like she usually did. It took Jotaro asking whether he could give her a hug before she nodded, and grabbed hold of him.

She didn’t cry. She was eerily silent, like she’d run out of tears.

“What happened, baby?” Jotaro asked, quietly.

“Mom thinks I’m cursed,” Jolyne whispered. “She wants it out of me, but I’m fine the way I am. But she’s scared. She thinks there’s something wrong with me.”

“Why does she think that?” Jotaro asked. It was a tone that may have come across as cold or clinical to someone who didn’t know him, but Jolyne had always understood the care behind his lackluster statements.

“Because I have magic,” Jolyne said. “Can I show you?”

“Okay,” Jotaro whispered. Expecting some kind of childish game. Not expecting his hat to fly off his head, hovering above both of them.

He swore without meaning to, and Jolyne flinched.

“Sorry, baby,” he said, and he meant it with every neuron in his body. “I was just surprised. When you said magic, I didn’t expect it to be so powerful.”

“Dad, is there something wrong with me?” Jolyne said quietly.

Jotaro felt his heart breaking. “No, honey,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with you, or with your magic. Could you go on up to your room, please? I need to speak to your mother.”

Joseph nods. Orders them both another two coffees. Jotaro wants to ask, should you be drinking this much caffiene at your age , but hey, it’s Joseph. Old man does what he wants to do.

On the plus side, Jolyne’s favourite cat, Primrose, has settled herself on Jotaro’s lap. Primrose is a senior cat, a grey tabby who likes to curl up in strange places and sleep. She is fond of Jolyne for good reason, and fond of Jotaro for god only knows why. He pats her head. He wouldn’t admit it, but she might just be his favourite cat, too.

Pity she’s not up for adoption.

“Any idea about Jolyne's power?” Joseph asks Jotaro.

Jotaro shrugs. “Apparently it has a visible form, but I can’t personally see it. She said it looks like blue spaghetti and that it comes out of her body from under her skin. Her hypothesis was that it’s made of white blood cells because it protects her, but I’m not too sure how she – or anyone, for that matter – can assert that. Magic wouldn’t necessarily follow the same patterns of physical biology, as I assume it exists on a different plane. A spectrum visible to other magic users maybe, but not to me. Assuming it’s even visible and not just her imagination – but I believe her.”

“You believe her because she made your hat float?” Joseph asks.

“Other things, too,” Jotaro says. “Her hearing is ridiculously good. She hears things that she shouldn’t be able to.”

The library wasn’t exactly secluded, but where Jotaro and Lauren were sitting was a corner that nobody could eavesdrop, far enough from the door and the windows that even pressing one’s whole body against those surfaces wouldn’t yield any results.

“It’s Satanic, and it’s terrifying,” Lauren had said. “No child of mine is going to walk around in this world with magic powers, Jotaro.”

He’d thought back to their wedding. The fact that she’d freaked out after their one night together (drunken mistake, he’d thought in the morning) – but he had gotten her pregnant and if her life was going to be totally upended by his actions, he could at least take responsibility. But nine months later, baby Jolyne was born, and from the moment he saw her – the moment he held her in his arms, he knew that come hell or high water, he was going to protect his child.

“I don’t want my child growing up thinking there’s something wrong with her for being who she is,” Jotaro had said. “Would you react like this if she was neurodivergent, or queer, or disabled? If society shuns her, would she still have a home with us – a home with you?”

They’d never discussed this. Lauren’s face went ugly and she didn’t speak, but the answer was clear.

Finally, she’d said, “I can’t have her corrupted like this, Jotaro. And those examples... it’s like you just want to hurt me for the sake of it sometimes.”

“Hurt you?” Jotaro stared. “This isn’t about me or you. This is about Jolyne.”

“We baptised her! It was suppposed to keep her safe.” Lauren began to sob, and Jotaro frowned. “We can find a way to purge it. I’ll arrange for a priest, talk to my Church group –”

“No,” Jotaro said. “She’s just a kid. She’s our kid. She’s not evil.”

“I love Jolyne,” Lauren had said. “I love you. But this is pure insolence, Jotaro. I won’t stand for it.”

There wasn’t anything more to say.

Jotaro had gone back to Jolyne’s bedroom, knocked on the door. Heard the sound of her crying softly.

“I’m coming between you and Mom,” Jolyne had said quietly. But she’d initiated the hug this time, and she didn’t look scared of him, not the way she had when he’d just come home.

“No,” Jotaro had said, too shaken up by the whole situation to question how his kid was making this assessment. “No, my sweet star. Whatever is happening between me and your mother, that was inevitable. We fundamentally disagree on something that neither of us can compromise on.”

“You’re okay with me being magic, and with me being weird,” Jolyne said, but it sounded like a question. “You don’t want me to be normal.”

“I want you to be yourself, whoever that is. Weird, magic, normal, whatever you want. Whoever you are.” Jotaro pulled her closer. “There’s nothing you could do, nobody you could become, who I would love any less. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jolyne had said. And she buried her face into the crook of his neck.

“Is that why we’re at a cafe?” Joseph asks. "So she can't hear us?" He’s begun patting one of the cats, a ginger sombre looking one named Caramel, who purrs and inches closer to him.

Jotaro nods. “Out of her range. When Holly came over to stay, after Lauren left, Jolyne could tell she was near when she was like, two kilometres away. And it wasn’t the birthmark thing – she knew her precise location, like GPS.”

“And you’re telling me this assuming I’ll believe you?” Joseph asks.

“Jiji, don’t fuck with me,” Jotaro says, glaring. “I know all about you and Caesar. Your pranayama adventures and whatever else. You of all people understand that there are things that human bodies can do that we’re still on the verge of discovering.”

Joseph reaches across the table, puts his hand on top of Jotaro’s. It’s a gesture oddly reminiscent of Holly – Joseph has never quite been the type to gently touch Jotaro like this, more a fan of slapping his back hard enough to dislocate his shoulders. Then again, Jotaro wouldn’t have let him, for the longest time.

“Must you insist on using the Sanskrit? Caesar-chan and I call it Hamon, you know.”

“Pfft.”

“But yes, you’re right. I believe you about Jolyne’s magic, because I happen to have something like that myself.” Joseph closes his eyes, concentrating, and Jotaro can feel a tendril of something inching up his arm, thorny and prickly.

“Fuck, stop that,” Jotaro says. “Bad texture.”

Joseph does, immediately. He reaches out for a pencil, and takes one of the napkins. Jotaro watches, stunned, as the pencil seems to float, and draws a clear map of....

“This is the neighbourhood I grew up in,” Jotaro says, quiet and wonderingly. “That’s school, that’s our house, that’s the shrine we sometimes used to visit, and that’s the lake... There’s no way you know this place well enough to draw it by memory.”

“No, but you know this place well enough to recognise it, so this is my proof.” Joseph smiles. “Jotaro, there is a name for this type of magic. These invisible friends - they’re called stands, because they stand by you if you have one. They’re born out of a fighting spirit. Not everyone can have a stand; you need a level of inner strength for that. The Speedwagon Foundation’s been doing research which can help both you and Jolyne, and there’s also a therapy wing for new stand users and their families. If you and Jolyne both want that, it would definitely help. Lauren’s clearly out of the picture?”

“Crystal,” Jotaro says bitterly. “I didn’t even need to fight for sole custody of Jolyne.”

“She must be sad,” Joseph says.

Jotaro scowls. “Lauren?”

“No, this is a mess of her own making,” Joseph says. “I meant Jolyne. It’s hard to process that your mother doesn’t want to be a part of your life.”

He sounds wistful.

Jotaro forgets sometimes, that the old man has had his struggles and heartbreaks and hardships too. He’s always so full of bravado and cheer.

“She’s got me and Holly,” Jotaro says. Reaching out across the table, squeezing Joseph’s hand, he adds, “And she’s got you, too.”

“Always,” Joseph says. “You can count on that.”

Chapter Text

Jolyne hears the keys turning in the door from upstairs, which she shouldn't be able to do. But, staring at the space that used to be her right hand, and feeling the vibrations where her strings stretch, the super-sound isn't that strange, really. Neither Mom nor Dad had been able to tell, when she made holes in her body, but they could see the things she could do, and they could tell that she could hear more than humanely possible. She'd felt cool about it, until Mom had freaked out and gone and Jolyne knows somewhere with a certainty that feels heavy and way too serious, that her mother isn't coming back.

She isn't expecting a reaction to her strings, because nobody can usually see them. But there's a man's yell, not her dad, loud enough that she'd have heard it without the strings too. She winces at the volume, and then thinks, home invasion!

Thinking of the Home Alone movies, she grabs her dart gun, the plastic in her hands reassuring her despite its fraility, and vaults downstairs, her threads helping her more or less float down the banister. She launches herself at the stranger by the door, shooting out three darts, and - oh no - Dad's there, and he's staring at her, with that expression that could mean anything really -

The stranger - an old man, is staring not just at her, but at her strings, and as she watches, he deflects the darts easily, not with his hands, but with tendrils of his own. They're too thick to count as strings, and remind her more of vines, thorny and purple like bramble. Which means he's got magic of his own, which means Dad is in danger. She uses her string again, to shoot herself upwards and land between the old man and her dad, spiderwebbing a wall of protection.

"Don't you DARE hurt Dad!" she yells.

"WHAT?" The man bellows. He is very loud, for an old man, and Jolyne scowls at him, certain that he is poised to attack, given his posture and the way he's staring at her like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "YOU THINK I WOULD HURT JOTARO?"

"He doesn't have magic! And you broke into our house!" Jolyne crosses her arms, taps her foot.

Jotaro groans, murmurs yare yare under his breath. Jolyne wants to glare at him too, but she can't look away from the strange old man just yet.

"Dad, he's got magic thorns," Jolyne hisses. "He can hurt you."

"Jojo, I know," Jotaro says. He puts a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. He's a friend. And Jiji, for f-frick's sake. Do you have to antagonize her?"

"Antagonize," Jolyne mouths. It's a good word.

" Now, now, Jotaro!" He puts his hands in the air. "I wasn't expecting her to challenge me to a fight! She really takes after you!" He guffaws.

Jotaro sighs like it pains him. "Jolyne," he says, in a serious tone, "This is Joseph Joestar. He's my grandfather, and your great-grandfather."

"If he's my great-gramps, why have I never seen him before?" Jolyne asks, watching as the old man puts away his purple magic, refusing to dismantle her web.

"I've been busy with work for many years," Joseph explains. He crouches down, and speaks softer, "I'm sorry I startled you. I know I can be loud, especially when I'm surprised. And while your dad told me about your power, he can't see it, so he couldn't describe it more than what you've told him. Seeing it firsthand surprised me. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Whatever, I'm not scared ," Jolyne says. She lets her threads dematerialise, but doesn't stop glaring.

"The work I've been doing for years has to do with magic, similar to what you and I can do," Joseph says. "I'm affiliated with an organisation that studies these things. That's why your dad called me here. He thought I might be able to help you with your new friend."

Jolyne considers saying that she doesn't need help, but she looks at her dad's face. He looks tense, maybe even stressed.

"Whatever," she says. "Can I have some choccy milk?"

Instead of Jotaro, Joseph answers, "Sure.

Jolyne watches with distrust as his bramble inches into their kitchen and begins to open cupboards methodically. Her distrust evolves into fascination and wonder, as she sees him navigating the kitchen with an ease that matches, if not exceeds, her father's familiarity of where things are. He gets it all right on the first try, and the tendrils turn on the stove and heat up milk, adding cocoa and sugar and pouring it out into her favourite mug, adding marshmallows and handing her the mug. When she sips, it's the perfect temperature as well.

"WHOA! How did you do that!" Jolyne asks, impressed.

"My stand - that's what these manifestations of magic are - has certain abilities," Joseph says. "It can navigate, and find out where things are. A bit like how your stand helps you with hearing, right?"

Jolyne nods. "Why's it called a stand?"

"They're connected to you," Joseph explains. "They're called Stands because they always stand by you."

"That's silly," Jolyne says. Pondering this, she smiles. "I like it, though."

Joseph gives her a smile in return. "Me too, kiddo."

"Who are you calling kiddo?" Jolyne asks, frowning.

"He calls me that too sometimes," Jotaro says, patting her head. "Let it go, Jo."

Jolyne's frown deepens.

"Also, no using your stand in the kitchen to cook, okay?" Jotaro says. "Just because Gramps did it doesn't mean you can or should."

Jolyne can tell by the look on his face that he's not going to change his mind. "Okay."

They're all silent for a moment. Joseph excuses himself, saying he needs to settle in. Jolyne watches him use his purple thorns to figure out where the guest room is.

Once it's just her and Jotaro, she asks, "Dad, are you mad at me?"

Jotaro's frown deepens. "No."

"You're mad, though." Jolyne crosses her arms, tries to stare him down. "Why?"

Jotaro shakes his head. "I'm not mad, I'm just -"

He stops, seemingly searching for the right words. Giving up, he shifts to the kitchen, begins to make tea as Jolyne watches him, waiting. He gets like this sometimes, needing the right space to weave his thoughts together. She doesn't mind waiting.

Finally he returns, holding a mug of chamomile lemon tea in his hands. She watches as he takes a small sip before he pulls out a chair at their dining table, sitting acrtoss her.

"I'm not mad at you," Jotaro says finally. "I'm concerned. There's a lot that is happening that I don't understand and that I can't see, and that worries me."

"I understand," Jolyne says. Thinks of the look in her mother's eyes when she'd used her stand that first time, trying to show her how it all worked. "Do you want me to stop using it?"

"No," Jotaro says, and the force with which he says it surprises her. "Not in the slightest. Jolyne, it's a part of you. You shouldn't have to repress it. I am not worried by you, or your stand. I'm worried about the external world, about the way people may react, about situations in which you may be threatened or at risk because you possess a power that makes you different. Our world doesn't take very kindly to people who deviate from the norm. You know that as well as I do."

Jolyne nods. She'd punched a guy in the face once because he'd made fun of her for not being white, but still being American. People fear what they don't understand, Dad had said once. And again, she remembers the look on her mother's face. Shock, horror, fear.

Dad doesn't look like that. Hasn't looked at her like that, not once through this entire encounter. Isn't looking at her like that even now.

She finally understands. He's afraid for her, not afraid of her.

"I'm not scared," she says. "I'll learn to be strong. I'll keep training and practicing. I want to get better and better. I need to get better."

Jotaro's lip quirks upwards in a half-smile. "I need to learn more, too," he says. "The old man had a suggestion for us that I wanted to talk about with you."

Jolyne nods, waiting.

"He works with the Speedwagon Foundation, and like he said, they've been studying stands for decades now. They offer therapy to new stand users, to help them acclimatize."

"Acclimatize?" Jolyne repeats.

"Adjust. Adapt. Get used to." Jotaro takes another sip of his tea. "They also help people like me, who don't have stands, to understand what you're going through, even if I can't see it or experience anything like it."

Jolyne nods. "Okay. But why therapy?"

"What do you mean?" Jotaro asks.

"Gwess from my class had to go to therapy because she had ' anger issues ,'" Jolyne explains. "I don't have anger issues, do I?"

Jotaro smiles ever-so-slightly. "No, sweetheart. You do not."

"Then why?"

Jotaro takes another sip of his tea. "There's different types of therapy. Anger issues is one example. People go for all kinds of reasons. Grief, if someone you love has died. Relationship issues of other kinds, too. If you have something you're struggling with. If your circumstances are confusing and you need extra support. If you have a big life change that you need to deal with."

Giving her a small nod, he says, "This counts as a big life change. For you and me both."

"So what'll a therapist do?" Jolyne asks.

"To the best of my understanding, work with us both," Jotaro says. "Help you understand yourself and your stand better. Help me understand how to help you and what it is that you're going through. And help us both deal with what life is going to look like now."

Jolyne wants to ask whether Mom will be joining them, or ever coming back, but Dad's finally lost that stressed look, his frown lines faded into near-disappearance as he sips at his tea. She doesn't want to bring that stress back.

She doesn't think the answer is going to be especially good.

"What do you think? Do you want to give it a shot?" he asks her. "I think it'd really help both of us."

Jolyne looks at him. She can tell when he's telling her to do something just because she's got to, like homework, and when he's telling her to do something because he really believes in it. This is the latter case. He seems genuine.

She trusts her dad. Even if she's not quite convinced yet, even if she doesn't know exactly what to think of her bizarre great-grandfather, she'll give this whole thing a shot, if it makes Dad happy.

"Okay," she agrees. Handing him her empty cup, she asks, "But first. More choccy milk?"

Chapter Text

It starts out as a normal morning for Noriaki Kakyoin.

He gets ready for work, choosing an eccentric blue shirt with dinosaur print, along with dark green skinny jeans and converse. He grabs his glasses, the ones with green frames, and gets the keys to his secondhand beat-up car, one that looks about 3 minutes away from conking off and dying. He drives to work, and is the first to get there, which allows him to make himself a coffee at the machine using his favorite hazelnut brew that he specifically gets from home and makes before anyone else gets there, because he doesn't want to share it with anybody else.

Well, except Polnareff sometimes, if the man asks.

Coffee acquired, he goes to his desk to look through his day, and run through his documentation. He has a session with Hayato, an eleven year old he's met a couple of times, and is still building a rapport with. Hayato has a stand that's called Baby's in Black, and while they haven't figured out exactly what it does, he has an uncanny ability for being able to tell if someone's lying, as well as an ability to inspect or scrutinize certain actions of their day.

It's kind of a combination of Leone and Bruno's stands, Noriaki has observed, which is funny. His two married coworkers have a plethora of adopted kids, so it's an odd twist of fate to observe a random client having the kind of stand he'd imagine their biological child to have.

Not that he dwells on that; that'd be unprofessional.

Noriaki's job involves seeing a client or two every day, and when he's not seeing clients, research. He is working on a genre of research and a plethora of papers that don't involve his clients whatsoever - but rather, look at medicine, psychiatry, psychology, therapy, alternate medicine, indigenous knowledge, and other similar fields, and sees how practices, diagnoses, behaviours, and treatments can be adapted or tend to change when stands come into the mix. He's always believed it's not a coincidence that the average stand user is neurodivergent in some way or the other, but he doesn't want to prove that one way or the other as much as he wants to adapt treatment to be as inclusive as possible.

Noriaki knows how psychiatry can be a tool of oppression, of shutting someone up, of forcing them to conform to society. He's determined to drain it of that power, and to put the power in the hands of the people accessing the service instead; to give them the respect and autonomy that was denied to him when he was a child and his parents wanted him to just be fucking Normal.

So now he works with kids. Not the youngest ones, those are mostly Polnareff's area of expertise, but the slightly older ones. Any kid from age eight to around age thirteen. Bruno and Leone tend to usually take teenagers, though Bruno's also taken older clients before, and Avdol is usually the one who takes adults. They have Mikitaka, a sign language interpreter, who knows multiple different sign languages, and Koichi, the overly hard-working intern.

There are other SPW offices with other therapists who sometimes they refer clients to if they need more specialized help that they can't give. Tonio, for instance, specializes in eating disorders and addiction. Aya has specific training for crisis management, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and past trauma. Yuuya is a relationship counsellor. Rohan does art therapy specifically for nonverbal people. He jokes that it's because the only voice likes to hear is his own, but he's actually an amazing therapist. Reimi works with grief, and survivors of domestic abuse.

There are definitely more folk under the Speedwagon umbrella, but these are the ones Noriaki knows.

He's sipping his coffee, going through a scientific paper on his laptop, as his colleagues trickle in. Bruno and Leone come together as always, wearing subtly matching clothes. Koichi runs in as if he's late even though he's twenty minutes early. Avdol walks in, looking as if there's nowhere he'd rather be than there, in stunning violet robes. Polnareff shows up exactly one minute late, his flattop styled to perfection but his cargo pants crumpled, with a faded ketchup stain on the right knee. Mikitaka arrives fifteen minutes late, holding an umbrella with holes in it as they waltz inside.

So yeah, another day ending with Y. At least it is until Avdol calls them all together.

"We have some prospective new clients, so I hope you have the bandwidth," he says. "They're family friends of mine, a father and his daughter. Daughter has a stand, father doesn't. Bruno, if you can, I think you'd be a good fit for the father. Do you think you have the slots needed to take that on?"

"Sure," Bruno agrees. "But may I ask why?"

"I can't be his therapist because I know him too well. But because I know him too well, I think your style of simplifying things logically, encouraging questions and deep reflection may be good for him. Take him out of his shell. He's a bit of an introvert." Avdol nods.

Bruno nods back.

"As for the daughter," Avdol says. "She's seven. I'm not too sure about what approach to recommend for her, I haven't seen her in years, but I'd like either Polnareff or Kakyoin to take her on. Which one of you would be better suited... you both have your questionnaires, don't you?"

Polnareff grins. "Oh yeah! I love it when a kid's on the cusp. We can do this!"

Noriaki nods. "Alright, should be okay."

"No objections?" Avdol asks them both.

Noriaki mentally runs through his scheduled clients for the next five or so months, and once he's certain, nods. "I can take on another client if I need to."

Polnareff beams. "So can I!"

Polnareff is way too enthusiastic sometimes. Noriaki doesn't understand how he does it, but he supposes that's why Polnareff works with the youngest children they usually get. He understands them. He cherishes childlike joy.

"Perfect," Avdol says. "Any slots today that work?"

After some checking their calendars and moving things around, they settle on a time and Avdol says he will relay the message.

Bruno goes back to meeting some of his clients, and Polnareff and Noriaki talk quietly, as they often do. Their desks are next to each other, and Polnareff, to put it bluntly, is a chatterbox.

"So one of my clients only watches that cartoon TV show about Martha the talking dog, and won't talk about anything whatsoever without referencing it in some way, right, so I've been watching the show to get a sense of what they're saying, and Kakyoin it is such a good show, the episode I watched last night, she ate the wrong alphabet soup and she started speaking Spanish, and everyone was so confused, and I was like merde, because it felt like such a powerful metaphor! And it helps that the dog is so damn cute. Man, I wish Iggy was that cute."

"You need to stop comparing Iggy to every fictional dog ever," Noriaki says, only half-listening as he runs through his new-client documents. "He's no Clifford or Blue... or Martha, it sounds like. Also I'm beginning to think you only chose this profession so you could watch children's television under the guise of work. Hm, I forgot a cartoon dog. What's Oswald's dog called? Wendy?"

"Wendy?" Polnareff sounds as offended as he'd likely be if Noriaki had insulted his mother. "WENDY?"

"Okay, so not Wendy." Noriaki amends. But he never gets to figure out what the dog is called, because their work laptops beep, reminding them that there are fifteen minutes until the new client shows up.

"Aaaaa, merde merde merde! Where is my new client questionnaire!!" Polnareff sounds like he's on the verge of sobbing.

The man's a genius, but terrible at housekeeping his computer system. Noriaki sighs, shifts over to Polnareff's cubicle, and glances at his desktop. There are so many files on there that you can't even see what his wallpaper is, but Noriaki grew up playing I-spy with his cousin Ryoko, so it takes barely a minute for him to locate the correct folder. He shifts the cursor onto it, and leaves an effusively grateful Polnareff to it.

Moments like that make Noriaki feel more capable than he actually is, like he's super professional and on top of everything.

The illusion shatters as the door opens, and the new clients walk in. The daughter's all dressed up, wearing blue jeans with butterflies embroidered on them, and a blue tshirt with a caterpillar on a mushroom, perhaps an Alice in Wonderland reference (thanfully, no hookah.) But it's not the daughter that's the problem. The problem is the dad.

He's around 6'5" with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and jeans that fit his legs as if they've been painted on, giving Noriaki prime understanding of this man's muscular thighs and soccer player shins. He wears a lab coat that obscures his figure, but in a way that feels teasing and makes him look alluring, like a detective of some kind, even though he could very well be a pharmacist or something. He has on white lace-up shoes with purple laces and purple patterns, and his hands look big and strong, like he could give a killer handshake or a killer handjob. His expression is impossible to read, and his eyes, though shadowed by the brim of a hat he insists on wearing indoors, are impossibly blue, like the sky. His jaw is chiselled, his lips look soft — and Noriaki prides himself on being a professional, but he has to practically force these thoughts from his mind.

The dad is basically just sex on legs. Noriaki is so fucked.