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Jotaro snorts lightly, waking himself at the sound of rustling to his right. He’s made a habit of sleeping lightly more often—and he still hasn’t quite shaken that strange feeling he’d gotten from waking up the other day, what with Kakyoin in such a chipper mood after the madness that’d gone on the night before, and a faint nightmare at the edges of his mind.
They were still making their way through the Saudi Arabian desert, about a night or so away from reaching the Red Sea.
Rubbing at his eye, Jotaro turns over in his sleeping bag. The old man, Polnareff, and Kakyoin are all still in their respective spots, sleeping away—but one conspicuously empty bag catches his eye. Shifting his gaze up, he spots a slight, diminutive silhouette making its way towards one of the boulders at the edge of their campsite. Given the rest of their party were all respectively large in stature, that only left their lone female companion on this trip; one Natsumi Suzume, using her Stand to boost herself up onto the boulder (as her stocky height prevented her from doing it herself, otherwise).
Aside from Kakyoin, she was the only other person in their group that was the same age as him. Though that didn’t mean much, it was better than nothing—after all, if it hadn’t been for her timely intervention back during Kakyoin’s initial attack on him, he might’ve gotten himself scuffed up even worse. Though the damage done to his uniform at the time had still been pretty sizable, it really could’ve been a lot worse without an extra pair of hands to fend off Kakyoin’s Hierophant. If nothing else, he can give her credit for saving him from paying extra to have it repaired.
Joking aside, he knows that he’d been doubly lucky that she was a Stand user, and not a useless one. For whatever reason, she seems to like sticking around him, in particular—which even at the best of times can be annoying, given her penchant for trying to make small talk and that awful habit she has of crying at every sob story she happens to hear—and as a result, she’s had his back a good handful of fights against enemy Stand users.
Suzume is a reliable ally, Jotaro can admit that much to himself. He’s not sure if ‘friend’ is the word he’d use for her quite yet, but… she’s getting there. He’s found himself actively listening to her tangents every now and then recently, rather than tuning her out. And when she isn’t talking, she uses her Stand, Sonic Youth, to play music to lighten the mood. It isn’t just for him—she’ll do it during meals to keep spirits up, sometimes to help everyone get to sleep at night, and she’ll use it to blast out enemy eardrums.
She’s constantly making noise, Jotaro notes. Even when she’s trying to be quiet, like now. Shifting silently up and onto his elbow, he watches her. She has her back facing the group, sitting atop the boulder and staring up at the night sky. It’s relatively clear, with the stars lighting up their surroundings considerably.
She’s not playing music, Jotaro thinks. It’s odd—she plays music for herself, too, he’s noticed; as if simple silence is too heavy for her. But right now, her Stand is gone, leaving just her up on that rock. Stocky, shrimpy, puny, and… almost lonely, against the wide Saudi Arabian horizon.
Before he realizes what he’s doing, Jotaro slowly pulls himself out of his sleeping bag. It rustles, but if Suzume hears it, she doesn’t move to look. Getting to his feet, he crosses over to the boulder in only a few long strides, standing next to it and looking up towards her.
He doesn’t say anything. But she does, flinching a bit as she glances at him from the corner of her eye. She must’ve been spacing out—she really didn’t notice him until he was right there, looks like.
“Oh, hey,” she says, her usual chirpy voice soft. “Can’t sleep?”
Jotaro grunts in assent. Most people would take it as a clear sign that he doesn’t want to talk—which, in fairness, it usually is—but she understands it for what it is. He isn’t sure if she’s a people person or if she’s been around him long enough to pick up on his mannerisms, but it’s at least useful in some cases.
“Yeah, me neither… I sure tried, but man, it just wasn’t coming to me,” Suzume lets out a little laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “The stars are too pretty tonight to miss out on anyway, right? No ambient light out here to mess with the sky for once.”
Leaning his shoulder against the rock, Jotaro looks up at the sky along with her. She’s right; above them, there’s a long, spanning nebula, the flare of light blooming from it mixing with the violet and blue hues around it.
“Sure as heck can’t get this back home,” Suzume murmurs. “You’d have to go to the countryside to get a sky like this.”
Jotaro shifts his eyes back towards her, eyes narrowing. “Yeah.”
“I remember once,” she continues, bringing one of her legs up to hug against her chest. Though talking aimlessly is normal for her, there’s something strange about her tone; she’s usually cheery and casual, but right now, her voice is low, almost somber—like she’s talking to herself. “Back when I was a kid, my parents took my sister and I to Hokkaido, waaay far out in the country. I guess some of our ancestors came from there or something, I’m not sure—but it was fun. I’d stay up way later than I should’ve just so I could come out to look at the sky…”
She lifts her hand up, tiny and callused, and reaches up towards the night sky. Closing one eye, she continues, still not looking down towards Jotaro.
“I wanted so bad to just jump up and scoop the stars into my hand, but I couldn’t, no matter how high I jumped.” Suzume closes her hand into a loose fist, lowering it to her side. Jotaro isn’t sure why he’s spending more time watching her than the sky. But she laughs again, finally tipping her head down to look at him. “I even got so frustrated about it, I bawled my head off to my sister about it, like that’d change anything.”
Jotaro doesn’t know what to say to that. Luckily, she doesn’t appear to be looking for an answer; she sighs instead, scooting forward until she slides down to the front side of the boulder, letting out a bit of a yelp when she hits the ground. Jotaro moves around to stand next to her, pausing before he decides to lower himself to sit, too. There’s still a wide margin between their respective heights; even for her age, one hundred and fifty centimeters is pretty short. Though he’s the one that’s pushing two hundred, so maybe he’s not one to throw stones.
“The thought of something just… being out of reach,” she says, her head tipped down, eyes on her feet. “It kinda cheeses me off.”
“You know,” Jotaro speaks up, fishing for a cigarette from his pocket. “You were on a roll, sounding real deep and all… right up until you said ‘cheeses me off.’ Now I can’t tell if you’re trying to be serious or if you’re just fucking around with me.”
Suzume’s head shoots back up, shaking it from side to side as she waves her hand frantically. “No way, I’m being totally serious! It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Not being able to just do something when you know you want to, and… knowing it’s important?”
Lighting up, Jotaro inhales slowly, making sure to blow the smoke away from her. “Sure it is. But you’re not just talking about plucking stars out of the sky, are you?”
Sliding his eyes down to her, Jotaro watches as she bites her lip. Suzume starts pulling lightly at her hair, tugging until the ends are straight and letting them go, the dark locks bouncing back into its usual upward curl. “That obvious, huh.”
“You’re not that great at keeping secrets,” he says, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Or keeping quiet when you want to sit and brood in the middle of the night.”
Suzume splutters. “I was not brooding, for starters! I’m just—god, it’s such a pain in the ass! It’s just—it’s been a month, right? We’re running short on time and even though a plane is the fastest way to get there—”
“Never again,” Jotaro reminds her. “Not with the old man.”
“I know, I’m just as eager not to get another one, trust me,” she concedes, shooting him with a pout. “But that’s the fastest way to get to Egypt, and we can’t even do that. Taking the long way is still getting us in hot water, too, what with Dio sending assassins and soldiers and every frickin’ loser that can’t resist him under the sun after us, and… wait, would it be under the moon instead, since he’s a vampire? Anyway…”
She goes on like that for a while, and Jotaro doesn’t stop her. She’s just as determined as the rest of them to find and kill Dio, which he really hadn’t been expecting. He didn’t really ask for her reasons, given she was more or less roped into it by happenstance, but… if nothing else, she’s loyal, and oddly fixated on personally putting the hurt on Dio. Which is a funny mental image, in a morbid kind of way.
“—just wanna kick some blonde British guy’s ass so we can save your mom! And… the longer we bum around across the world, the sicker she gets, and…” Suzume starts winding down in her rant, kicking her legs out straight in front of her. “Holly-san’s counting on all of us, and… ugh. It’s just frustrating.”
There’s a pause, where it seems like she wants to say more, but can’t word it. Jotaro doesn’t interject. It’s not like what she’s saying is wrong, it’s just stating the obvious. Everyone’s getting strung out, especially now that they’re getting so close to Egypt. Jotaro, himself, hasn’t been able to stop thinking about how little time they have left. Hearing it come from someone that isn’t even related to him is kind of… he’s not sure what to call it. Like he wants to tell her to shut the hell up and get over it, it’s not even her mom that’s in danger, why are you getting so worked up over it?
“You’re probably feeling it ten times worse than me, though…” Suzume finally adds, her big, dark eyes moving to rest on him. “I mean, no duh, right? Of course it’s worse for you… that’s part of what makes me so mad that we can’t just fix it all in one go.”
Jotaro can feel his eyebrow lift, just slightly. “What do you mean?”
“Like,” Suzume gestures vaguely in the air with one hand. “We’re in the same year, still in high school, and all this is happening when our biggest concerns should be entrance exams creeping up, or whatever dumb gossip is cropping up, or… you know, stuff like that. The fact that I can’t just make things go back to normal for you and your family just… I don’t know. I wanna fix things.”
Jotaro blinks slowly at her, slowly taking another drag off his cigarette. “We will. Being impatient won’t make things move faster.”
“I know, I know…” she tips her head back against the boulder, frowning. “Still! It sucks, doesn’t it? I just… you, Joestar-san, and Holly-san are really good people, you’re the last people this kind of horrible business should be happening to.”
Silence settles between them, after that. Jotaro doesn’t know how to respond—well, he does, but he doesn’t want to make her cry by being too blunt about how nonsensical she’s being. Mostly because it’d be annoying, partly because he really, truly doesn’t want to see her cry. Partly. But he also doesn’t want her getting worked up over this. How to phrase it...
“You’re so weird.”
Suzume turns towards him. She’s not crying, so that’s a start, but her cheeks are puffed out, brows furrowed so hard that it looks cartoonish. “And what the heck’s that’s supposed to mean, huh?”
Oh good, I got a ‘heck’ instead of a ‘hell,’ he notes. He’s not sure when he picked up on the fact that if Suzume swears, she’s being dead serious or she’s pissed off, but it’s a fact he has to live with now. It’s weird how she’s so clean-mouthed most of the time, even when she’s cursing the world up and down for, quote, stealing away all the extra centimeters she had before she was born and giving them to her sister, or something along those lines.
… just when did he start actually listening to her when she got like that?
Jotaro takes a drag on his cigarette and files that all away for later, trying not to crack a smile at her ridiculous puffy cheeks. “You know, you’ve got a family waiting for you to come back home, too. Most people would worry more about that than how someone else’s family is doing.”
Her cheeks deflate a little, her brow relaxing into something more melancholic. “My family’s fine, I know they are—I mean… they aren’t even directly affected by all this. I don’t even think Dio knows or cares that I exist—I’m not a Joestar or someone he once had under his control, I’m just… you know, some straggler as far as he’s concerned, right? Probably thinks that I’m on the same level as a flea.”
Jotaro levels her with a look, saying nothing.
“Yeah, I know,” she continues, picking up on what he wasn’t verbalizing. “It doesn’t matter what that jerk thinks, right? And I totally agree, it doesn’t! I just… that’s my point! He doesn’t give a crap about me, so my family should be fine, as long as we manage to get to him before he tries anything! But—what I’m saying is, your mom doesn’t have that luxury, so…”
The wind picks up, biting into their clothes as Suzume goes quiet again. She begins to shiver, pulling her legs up against her chest and hugging them tightly. Then, in a soft tone, she turns towards him and says, “I just… if this was happening to me, I’d feel fucking terrified. And I just don’t want you to think that like—there isn’t anyone your age that you can talk to, you know? You’ve got Kakyoin, and—I mean, maybe Polnareff, he means well, but you know him, he’s not the best at… being eloquent about this kind of topic. And…”
She does something, then, that Jotaro didn’t see coming. She reaches out and places her hand over his, the one he’d been keeping on the ground at her side.
He doesn’t flinch, but the urge is there. He’s used to girls grabbing onto him without his permission, and usually without him looking—girls hanging off his arm, most often—but this is the first time Suzume has gone out of her way to touch him. Sure, there was the time against Yellow Temperance, when they were cramped in that cable car, or the time when she kept her hand on his shoulder the entire time Steely Dan was goading him. He would be lying if he said that hadn’t helped a bit, back then.
And this kind of touch feels different, somehow. It isn’t invasive, like those girls grabbing at him without asking, or threatening, like the grasp of a punk trying to pick a fight with him. In a lot of ways, it’s a more intense version of the hand she’d held to his shoulder back in Karachi—it’s meant to calm him down, urge him to maintain a level head; it’s a soothing touch, one that isn’t expecting anything of him, there for his benefit.
Her hand is rougher than he thought it would be. Of course it is—it’s not like they make an effort to pack moisturizer, she’s complained about that once or twice early on—but it’s not distracting. Her palm is a little clammy, and he’s not sure if it’s nervousness or if she’s just always got clammy hands, and he’s kind of getting off track now, because seeing her hand on top of his is doing weird things to his head right now.
“We care about you, Jotaro,” she says, bringing his eyes back to hers with her serious tone. “I… care a lot about you. I won’t make you talk or anything when you don’t want to, but just… when, and if, you wanna talk about this kind of stuff, I’m here.”
Jotaro stares down at her. Can she tell what he’s thinking now? He can’t even tell what he’s thinking right now, he’s drawing blank after blank, he’s not used to this, can he tell her to shut the fuck up? No, he wouldn’t mean it, and he’s fairly sure his voice would come out weird if he talked right now. Weird, weird, weird, this is all weird.
But he pauses, really taking this at face value.
Suzume is telling him that she’s here for him, that she and Kakyoin are here for him if he needs them. That she cares, even if he doesn’t want to open up. She’s serious about caring about him, even after the weeks and weeks of him giving her the cold shoulder up until very, very recently—
He pulls his hand out from under hers. She smiles sadly, as if hurt but understanding, but he doesn’t intend to allow its existence for more than a few seconds. Jotaro shifts where he sits, pulling his arm out of his sleeve, grabbing one end of his gakuran and holding it out, scooting it behind Suzume until he can wrap it around her little shoulders. She’s small enough to fit against his side without stretching the material, and she’s lucky for it—or, that’s what he tells himself.
Jotaro says nothing, just fits his hand against hers again once she’s settled in, out of the desert winds. Suzume, for once, doesn’t have anything to say, either. They sit together, in a silence that is far lighter than the one that started this encounter, and they gaze up at the stars.