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In retrospect, the unfamiliar car on the Kakyoin home’s driveway should’ve been the first sign. Mrs. Kakyoin egging him to go upstairs should’ve been the second sign.
When he finally enters Kakyoin’s room, the third sign stares him right in the face. Happy Birthday written in crayon and glitter glue on shoddy paper hangs above his head.
“Birthday? It’s your birthday? ”
“Not even a hello?” Kakyoin chuckles– a little too sardonically for Jotaro’s liking. Despite the bedrest he’s as lively ( hah ) and alive as ever, “But yeah, you never asked,” Kakyoin deadpans, half sitting up with baby snot up his pajama sleeve. “And we had other things to think about.”
“Hello Kakyoin.” Jotaro grits his teeth. Yeah. Other things. Like how the fuck are we going to beat the shit out of the next stand user that crosses our path or how much hairspray does Polnareff use up every morning or are they convincing enough to con Gramps out of cash for the forty-seventh time this trip. “Gimme a fu – ” Jotaro’s eyes go wide when his eyes sweep to the kid with a suspiciously similar hairstyle hiding behind the snotty pajama sleeve, “– Reaking break, Kakyoin. Who’s the kid?”
“This is Ryoko, she’s my little cousin. Ryoko, this is my friend, Kujo Jotaro.” He motions to the taller, older man, “She and her parents are visiting for my birthday, so be polite, Jotaro.”
Jotaro clicks his tongue when his eyes meet Kakyoin’s own, “Jotaro.” Jotaro tips his hat lower and looks away, “Your cousin gives me too much credit.”
“Kakyoin Ryoko, I’m seven!” She bows to him, shaky hands still clasped tight to Kakyoin’s sleeve.
“She’s not one of your fangirls, Jojo. There’s no reason to be rude,” Kakyoin drawls, a small chuckle escaping his lips. “Take her out for ice cream for me at least?” Kakyoin asks, and Jotaro does because it’s Kakyoin and Kakyoin saved his ass back in Cairo. “I can pay you back.”
“It’s your birthday, it’s really nothing. I’ll get you an actual gift soon,” Jotaro grumbles, looking at Kakyoin’s familiar lavender eyes then at the younger Kakyoin’s teary identical pair. Jesus. She’s a Mini-Kakyoin, from the looks of it. Is she a stand user…? No, Kakyoin mentioned being the only stand user he knew and–
Kakyoin turns to the kid, “Go down and tell Auntie that you’re going out, Ryoko. I have to talk to this guy for a bit.”
Kid only grips at Kakyoin’s sleeve tighter, “But–”
“No buts, Ryoko. I’ll still be here when you two return.”
“No more disappearing?”
“Yeah. No more. I promise.”
She hesitates a bit more, still clinging to a pajama sleeve before letting go. “Ice cream?”
“We’d go get something later,” Jotaro tells her, “it’s on me.”
Mini-Kakyoin nods and quickly vacates the room. Kakyoin’s stare lingers on her. “She seems strangely attached to you,” Jotaro remarks softly, seeing the door shut with a quiet thud. He pulls a chair up to Kakyoin’s bedside and sits, “Thought you hated kids.”
“All our other family members are at least ten years older than I am. I’m the closest thing she’s got to a cousin her age, relatively speaking. And that ‘baby’ was a stand user that tried to kill me, that doesn’t fucking count.”
Kakyoin play-punches his shoulder. There’s a part of Jotaro that wants to laugh, “You suddenly so concerned about some kid?”
“Jotaro. It’s a long story, but she was with me when we went to Cairo last year.”
“Oh.”
“Play nice, okay? Ice cream. I’ll make it worth it. Hopefully. I’d do it myself if I weren’t you know. ” Noriaki gestures to his still covered torso, “Just… try to cheer her up, Jotaro. She’s really upset about all this.”
“Good fuckin’ grief. You really know how to string me around, Kakyoin.”
“String. Hah. Jotaro, are you trying to be funny?”
“Is it working?” Jotaro asks with a small chuckle, it’s painful sounding.
“No.” Kakyoin’s tone is about as blunt as a sledgehammer, “I appreciate the effort though.”
Jotaro sighs, “How’s… how’s the scar doing?”
“I’m doing better now, I guess? The scar’s healing over, and I can at least sit without dislocating anything.” Kakyoin does some vague hand gestures to his torso, “SPW Doctors visit every other day or so, and I should be starting intensive PT soon. At least, so I’m told.”
“That’s good to hear. Don’t push yourself too much, Kakyoin,” he grumbles, “Now, for the real reason I dropped by. Assignments. Lectures. Everything else.” Jotaro punctuates each thing by dropping several notebooks from his bag onto Kakyoin’s bedside table.
Kakyoin takes the topmost notebook and opens it, “I’m slowly catching up on academics thanks to your scarily intense note taking.” Kakyoin starts to thumb at it and stills after a moment of staring at the neat handwriting, “Wait– did you use Star Platinum to take notes? Where is he?”
Star Platinum almost tears himself out of Jotaro’s skin at the mere mention of his name, materializing in a purple haze, lingering behind the older man, “ Yes, but that’s not the point. It’s just… Noriaki, you died. You shouldn’t be worrying about this right now.”
Jotaro tips his hat lower, hiding his eyes. He could feel the comforting weight of Star Platinum on his back, lounging like a huge kitten on his shoulders. A little nudging has Star Platinum leaning over Kakyoin, looking concerned.
Kakyoin runs fingers through Star’s messy hair, petting the stand’s head, “And? I survived the damn punch, we beat the vampire, and the world is safe, etcetera. Yeah, I eviscerated my insides for a bit but I’m somehow part robot and I’m doing better than I thought I would be. Something about German science?”
“You’re acting a little too laissez faire about this,” Jotaro says, it’s taking all of his self control to not react to the head petting, “I had to revive you. Twice.”
“Polnareff teach you that word?”
A rare deep bellied chuckle, “Maybe. I’ll tell you about it next time.”
“I‘ve missed you so much,” Kakyoin mumbles, pressing both hands on Star’s cheeks. “Thank you for the notes, Star. Uh, thanks to you too Jotaro, I guess.”
Jotaro coughs. Star Platinum nods, an enthusiastic barrage of oras leaving his mouth, it makes Kakyoin laugh, and it almost sounds like a soft set of chimes. Jotaro looks away and grits his teeth. “ So. Ice cream.”
“Yes. Is anything wrong about that?” Kakyoin asks, he pats Star’s cheek one last time and looks at Jotaro with an eyebrow raised.
“No.”
“She’s not going to hate you,” Kakyoin reassures. “ I like you, and I’m fucking terrible at liking people enough to stick around.”
“I have a stand. You have a stand. Avdol-san and the old man kept harping on about fate and destiny. I’m convinced it wasn’t our choice in the first place. How’s Hierophant?”
“For someone who just saved the world by kicking a vampire on the knee, you’re pretty pessimistic. Right, Star? Your person is just a little too emo for his own good.”
Star Platinum nods, the traitor that he is, “Ora! Ora.”
“Hierophant Green’s fine. Takes too much energy to keep him humanoid right now though,” Kakyoin adds. “Don’t be surprised if you trip on the way out.”
“Kakyoin– fine, I’ll play nice or something. ” Star Platinum nods at the statement. It looks like Kakyoin is not skeptical, at least for now, “I… nevermind, I’m going downstairs. See you later.”
“You better. Can’t have you running away with Ryoko to Egypt or something.” Silence. Kakyoin groans before continuing, “I’m allowed to joke about it, you know?”
“Never said you couldn’t.” Jotaro trips when he gets to the door, and Star Platinum crouches down and greets his old friend. Hierophant Green, even in string form, seems to reciprocate in his own odd way, snaking his way up Star’s wrist.
“I told you to be careful!” Kakyoin shouts from his bed, voice laced with innocently devilish amusement.
“Geez. Thanks asshole ,” Jotaro shouts back. There’s a half-hearted ora from the purple stand. Good fucking grief. Kakyoin’s cackle could be heard from downstairs. This motherfucker–
His favorite motherfucker, Jotaro’s traitorous brain supplies. Egypt might have been hell and back, but anything– whether weird ghost powers or relationships or anything in between– that grows in circumstances like that thrive in better climates. Might as well sigh again for what seems to be the hundredth time today.
When he goes downstairs, it’s quiet. Mini-Kakyoin’s just looking blankly at the television.
“Where’re your parents?” Jotaro asks.
“Grocery,” she answers. “We could leave now.”
Fair enough. “Okay. What’d you want?”
“Ice cream sundae. I want a cherry on top.”
Simple enough. There’s a nice ice cream shop down the road near this area… Maybe they could pass by a video game store on the way– “Okay. You have a key?”
Her voice drops to a whisper, “There’s one under the second plant to the left.”
They exchange nods. It seems like Mini-Kakyoin’s pretty level headed for her age. Hopefully she’s okay under the thin facade of maturity she’s got going on.
She loops her hand on Jotaro’s little finger when they go out, and Star Platinum is losing his mind and hovering over the poor kid like a papa seahorse guarding his eggs.
Jotaro could only tip his hat lower, at least the Mini-Kakyoin can’t see Star Platinum practically tearing his hair out and panicking.
“Do you mind if we go to a video game shop first? It’s on the way,” Jotaro asks. Might as well try and get a gift, right?
“Not really,” she replies.
The game store is open and stocked and Mini-Kakyoin hands him a video game named Mother that’s apparently a new game that just released.
The ice cream store is thankfully not crowded, only staff and a straggler or two by the counter. It’s almost like something from the fifties movies Jotaro’s mother used to watch– all tile and retro red seats. Mini-Kakyoin gawks at everything, clinging to the ends of Jotaro’s gakuran.
“I’ll get what she’s having,” Jotaro says to the waitress, pointing to the kid.
“An ice cream sundae please, with a cherry on top,” Ryoko says to the lady by the counter. The waitress nods, writing on a sheet of paper.
“Anything else?” She asks, clicking the pen.
“No. Thank you,” Jotaro says. “Kakyoin–”
Mini-Kakyoin turns to him, pointing at a secluded spot by the corner, “There.”
They wait in silence. When the two ice creams arrive, Mini-Kakyoin stares at the heaping pile of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.
“Cherry?” Jotaro asks. He digs his spoon to where the singular cherry is on his own ice cream and offers it to her.
Her eyes go wide, “Yes please, thank you.”
Mini-Kakyoin– Ryoko– grabs the cherry between two tiny fingers. “Do you like cherries too?”
Those lavender eyes are boring holes into Jotaro’s soul. Jotaro actually has to choke back a scream with gritted teeth, “No.”
God. Kakyoin and cherries. The image of Yellow Temperance wearing the redhead’s face and eating cherries in that manner is forever going to live in Jotaro’s nightmares. Thankfully Ryoko is no Kakyoin Noriaki when it comes to cherries, and she eats them like a normal person would. She looks at her sundae and pokes it with her spoon.
“Nori-nii likes them.” She takes a spoonful of vanilla and shoves it down her throat, “He steals all the cherries and he eats them really weirdly.”
“Weirdly is an understatement,” Jotaro grumbles, sticking a spoon into his own sundae, “It’s more deranged than weird.”
They eat their sundaes in relative silence, and Ryoko actually stares at the cherry on the top of her ice cream. Huh. Is liking cherries a Kakyoin family trait? Are those things even genetic?
“Kujo-san?”
“Yes?”
“How did you meet Nori-nii?”
There are two ways to answer this, tell the truth or to tell her a sanitized version of the truth… and Kakyoin’s not going to like what Jotaro’s going to say either way.
“He punched me in the face. I punched back. We’re friends now.” Jotaro shoves the spoon back into his mouth.
Jotaro could already see the gears turn in the little girl’s head as he returns his spoon to the heaping pile of vanilla ice cream, she’s staring at her own cutlery and blanking out. Maybe he shouldn’t have started with that weird tidbit about their friendship.
“Okay,” Ryoko answers. Jotaro feels like a weight is taken off his shoulders at that very moment, “Do you like him?”
He lets out a small sigh, “He’s my friend, of course I do.”
He definitely does, right? Kakyoin’s the same sort of odd as he is, incredibly smart, ridiculously tenacious… but Ryoko’s eyes still bear holes into Jotaro’s soul. God, did Jotaro survive Egypt just to get his ass (metaphorically) handed to him by a little girl?
“Okay,” she answers again. “‘Cause that DIO guy was scary. ‘N he wanted to be Nori-nii’s friend too, but I think you’re okay.”
Ah.
Kakyoin did tell him that she was in Cairo too. Of course she was there when DIO–
There’s no use ruminating on it. Egypt was halfway across the world. Away from here, away from right now. DIO’s practically the dust on his shoes after exposing that fucker to sunlight. Jotaro could feel the gentle, grounding press of Star Platinum’s hands on his shoulders. She looks at him again, and now, it doesn’t feel like daggers to his throat.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” he says with finality, “He’s not coming back. I made sure of it.”
Then Ryoko starts to cry and Jotaro does not know what to do. He’s no Kakyoin, he’s not the cousin she cares for too much and sees too little of. He’s Jotaro, a stranger who’d suddenly appeared in her cousin’s life and is shoehorning his way into her own.
Star Platinum taps his shoulder, a quiet and worried ora directed at the younger Kakyoin. Jotaro feels Star recede back into his skin, almost egging him to reach out and–
“Thank you,” she says in between hiccups, barely a whisper. “For bringing Nori-nii back. He was acting really weird when we came back here then he disappeared and–”
“He brought himself back, Ryoko,” Jotaro says. It’s the truth, Kakyoin figuring out the secret of The World was the reason they fucking won in the first place– Kakyoin willing himself to live past whatever the fuck DIO did was another. “We both wouldn’t be here without him.”
She dries her tears on her arm and stands up. “I’m okay now, could we go back home?”
“Alright.” Jotaro would never admit it to her, but the ice cream did bring a smile to his face, even if just for a moment. They leave two empty bowls of ice cream in their wake. He hands her something from one of his jacket pockets, a small kerchief with the kanji for Kakyoin embroidered on one side.
Ryoko blinks once, twice, then looks at him with curious eyes.
“I forgot to return it to him. Might as well give it to you,” he says. The kid thankfully doesn’t press any further. She wraps it around her tiny wrist, gripping on it like a lifeline.
The walk back to the Kakyoins’ home is uneventful, and there’s a feeling of relief when they finally reach the correct door and no one has even spared them a glance. Ryoko runs upstairs, after a sloppy race to get her sneakers off her feet. Jotaro tucks the tiny pair of shoes next to his before he goes up to join her.
She’s animatedly talking to Kakyoin, and he’s laughing as well. Jotaro could only sigh in relief. Teal and lavender eyes meet.
Kakyoin mouths a quick thank you to him as Ryoko pulls him into a hug. “I like him, Nori-nii,” Ryoko says suddenly. She pulls away and looks at Jotaro, “Kujo-san’s cool. ”
“I just bought you ice cream, that’s hardly cool,” Jotaro counters. He shuts the bedroom door behind him.
“You don’t steal cherries though,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Nori-nii always does.”
“I guess I don’t,” Jotaro muses.
Kakyoin bursts into soft laughter, “Of course you don’t. But I was under the impression that you didn’t like cherries, Ryoko,” he teases, pinching the little Kakyoin’s cheek. She screeches like a howling walrus. It’s almost funny.
“I do though. You know this.” Ryoko frowns and puffs her cheeks at her older cousin. “Are you gonna visit tomorrow, Kujo-san?”
Good fucking grief, at this rate both Kakyoins are going to have him (Star Platinum, mostly) wrapped around their little fingers, “We’ll see, kid.”
“Ryoko!” Someone shouts from downstairs. “Could you help out here for a bit?”
Ryoko’s eyes dart from Kakyoin to Jotaro to the door. “Oh shoot !”
She runs downstairs, not even bothering to close the door. Kakyoin sighs, eyes lingering where Ryoko once stood, “I don’t know what you told her but thank you. I was getting pretty worried.”
“It’s nothing,” Jotaro replies, “Got you something. Apparently it just came out the other day.” Jotaro brings out the video game from his bag and hands it to the redhead. “Happy birthday Kakyoin, wish I could’ve prepared something more substantial.”
“I mean, I kinda sprung it up to you without warning.” Kakyoin laughs, tracing the game title with a finger, a smile on his pale face, “And you really didn’t have to, but I do appreciate having something other than F-Mega. Jesus, how do you just casually have enough cash for this?”
“I stole the old man’s wallet before he left. Really, it’s nothing. Ryoko picked it out. Should be going home in a bit, don’t want to intrude much.”
“Aren’t you staying a little more? I’m sure Holly-san would understand if you explain later,” Kakyoin says. “We could probably start on the video game after dinner. Besides, I’m pretty sure Ryoko’s started worming her way into that stone cold heart of yours.”
There’s a lilt of teasing to his tone, Jotaro doesn’t have the heart to tell him to piss off for once.
“Don’t you have to sleep?” Jotaro blurts out. The change in topic is jarring and definitely something Kakyoin’s going to make fun of in the future. Jotaro can’t get himself to give a fuck right now, though.
“It’s my birthday, I do whatever the fuck I want,” Kakyoin deadpans, “ Except eat ice cream or cake or anything of substance. Stomach’s still recovering.”
“ Fine. But we start the video game tomorrow. You still need to rest.”
“Fair enough.” Kakyoin says, he’s smiling, shoulders relaxed and eyes half-lidded and sleepy. “Thank you.”
“No,” Jotaro says, “thank you. ”
They stay there for a good while.