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The strap of Noriaki’s bookbag digs into his shoulder as he pushes open the gate and weaves his way through the overgrown garden. The bushes closest to the house are neatly trimmed, weedless and well-kept, but the rest of the landscaping is horrendously neglected. He can barely find the stone path leading up to the front door, the rocks swallowed whole by gnarled knots of grass and moss. He has to keep his head tucked low to avoid the tangle of spiderwebs that weave through the trees over him, a few daring to settle low enough to be eye-level with him if he stood straight up.
Noriaki doesn’t remember much from what it looked like the first time he came here, but he thinks it didn’t always used to look like this. Carefully, he reaches up and knocks on the door hard enough to make his knuckles sting.
“Coming!” There’s a rustling from inside the house, hurried footsteps creaking down the floorboards before Holly pops her head through the door with a tired smile. “Oh, Noriaki! Is school already out for the day?”
Noriaki nods. “I actually got out about an hour ago. I’m sorry I’m a little late today. The printer in the teacher’s lounge was jammed, and it took a while to figure out how to fix it.”
“That’s no problem at all,” Holly says. Her stringy blonde hair is pulled back in an misshapen ponytail, her crow’s lines weighed heavy by the bags under her eyes. “Really, I can’t thank you enough for all your help. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”
“Of course,” Noriaki replies. “Is Jotaro in his room?”
“Mhm. I think he was sleeping last time I checked up on him, but you can take a look and see if he’s up.” Holly reaches up to pull her ponytail out and put it together a little more tightly. Now that he can actually see her in the entryway, Noriaki realizes that she’s dressed up, her makeup done and a pair of heels stationed by the door where there’d usually be a pair of old sneakers or house slippers.
She leans down to grab her heels. “I know this is terribly rude of me, but I have to go to a doctor’s appointment soon. I set up some snacks on the table and got the kettle out if you want some tea, but you’re more than welcome to help yourself to anything else in the kitchen while I’m out. If you want to stay for dinner though, I was thinking of bringing back some takeout, so I’ll buy a little extra for you just in case. Does curry sound alright?”
Noriaki blinks. It takes him a minute to process what she just said, staring blankly into the door before he managed to wrap his head around the slew of information she threw at him. “Ah, yes, curry’s fine, thank you. Is everything okay though?”
Holly waves him off, shrugging her heels on and beaming at him as best she could. “Yes, yes, everything’s fine!” she chirped. “Those folks at the Foundation just wanted to check in and make sure I’m healing up alright. I’ve been feeling a lot better lately though! Just a little bit of dizziness here and there.”
Noriaki knows she’s lying. He can see the still-sickly pallor to her skin, the slight tremor in her hands and the way her breathing hitches and quickens in erratic bursts. He doesn’t know the specifics behind what Stand sickness does to someone, but he doubts that she’s magically back at a hundred percent again.
He doesn’t say any of this. Politely, he smiles and steps out of the way so she could slip out the door. Recovery is a horrifically vulnerable position to be stuck in. Noriaki knows. He won’t be the one to pry into what little privacy Holly still has left.
“I hope it goes well then,” is all he says. “Thank you for letting me stay.”
Holly smiles at him, a little more gingerly this time. She cranes herself up to smooth his hair back and peck his forehead, her lips clammy against his skin.
“Thank you for coming,” she says warmly. “I’ll be back in a bit, alright? Stay safe while I’m gone!”
Noriaki waves at her as she makes her way down the path, a few of her steps a little shaky when her heel catches against the grass. Eventually, the gate creaks shut again, and Noriaki is left alone in the Kujo estate. He might have hesitated before about intruding, but he’s come over often enough that it feels like a second home to him.
He opens the door and slips inside.
Toeing his shoes off, Noriaki is struck by just how quiet it is inside. Without Holly bustling around, running the dishwasher or putting the laundry up to dry, the house feels almost hollow. He pads over to the kitchen to peer inside. As promised, there"s a kettle on the stove and two small bowls of rice pudding on the table.
He turns the burner on and starts rummaging around for some cups and spoons. For a moment, he’s tempted to try and find some fruits or nuts to add to the rice pudding, just so that there’s some nutritional value to it, but Holly probably left them out for a reason. Noriaki remembers when she used to send him to Jotaro’s room with a tray of food heavy enough to make his arms shake. Together, they were able to put a good dent in it, and Holly always seemed pleased when they brought back their spoils with a bashful thanks.
Now, Noriaki doesn’t know if Jotaro will be able to finish something as small as this.
The kettle whistles out a low, piercing whine. Noriaki turns the stove off with one quick movement, tossing a handful of powdered matcha into each cup before he pours the water out. The earthy scent of the tea clears his head as he sets his meager haul onto a platter and makes his way out onto the genkan.
There’s no sound save for the chirping of the birds and the rustling of the grass. Noriaki walks slowly, careful not to tip the tray in his hands until he makes to the door of Jotaro’s bedroom. With his hands full, Hierophant reaches over his shoulder with a stray tendril to rap on the wooden frame of the door.
For a long while, Noriaki doesn’t hear a single thing from inside. Just a dead silence. He wonders if Jotaro might still be asleep, debating the merits of waiting in the kitchen until he gets up.
Then he hears the sheets rustling.
Noriaki lets himself in without a second thought, Hierophant sliding the door open for him. The sunlight the streams into the room is almost blinding compared to the stagnant darkness that lingers inside. The air is stale and musty, a sour tang of sweat making Noriaki’s nose wrinkle. In the corner of the room, the desk is left abandoned, crushed cigarette cartons and crumpled homework assignments scattered over the surface in neglected disarray. Empty plastic water bottles catch the sun in a dull sheen, scattered across the faded tatami mats.
Tucked away in the far side of the room, Jotaro rolls over from the confines of his rumpled futon.
“Noriaki?” he mumbles.
“Mhm.” Noriaki makes his way across the room, Hierophant sweeping aside the bottles into the overflowing trash can to deal with later. Carefully, he kneels down by Jotaro’s side and sets the tray down by his arm. “I’m going to leave the door open to air the room out. I hope you don’t mind.”
Jotaro shakes his head. Greasy jet-black strands of hair cling to his forehead, his eyes hazy and unfocused when he looks up at Noriaki.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jotaro sits up, pushing himself onto his forearms. The sheets fall down to his waist, the process slow and laborious until he’s finally mostly upright. “What time is it?”
“About five now,” Noriaki says.
Jotaro’s face drops.
“Fuck,” he mutters. He looks around the room, then towards the door, pulling his legs free from the blankets in muted hurry. “It’s already five?”
“Your mom already left, if that’s what you’re so worried about,” Noriaki says. “She’ll probably be back in a few hours. Actually, she said she was going to bring back dinner too, so it might be a little longer than that.”
Jotaro’s brow furrows together. He pauses, then sighs. His whole body slumps in on itself, like the drive to move that pushed him on before suddenly burned itself out.
“Fuck,” he says again. “I was going to go with her.”
Noriaki blinks at that. He thinks about the exhaustion hidden behind Holly’s smile, the same one that Jotaro can’t hide anymore.
“I think she didn’t want to wake you up,” he says quietly. “But if it makes you feel any better, she seemed alright when she left. I don’t think she’ll have any trouble getting there by herself.”
Noriaki’s not lying to make him feel better. Holly didn’t look healthy , but she looked stable . He really doesn’t think she’s so far gone that she won’t even make it to the bus stop by herself.
Given the look on his face, he thinks that Jotaro knows that too. It doesn’t make the guilt on his face ease up.
“Yeah,” he eventually says. “I guess. Come on. I need to smoke.”
Slowly, Jotaro pats around the tatami mats until he finds a half-empty carton of cigarettes underneath a dirty t-shirt, hefting himself up and lumbering for the door. Noriaki sighs. Jotaro didn’t even glance at the food, and Noriaki’s almost certain that he didn’t register it even though it was sitting right next to him.
He picks up the tray again and follows Jotaro out.
The sun is pleasantly warm where it stretches across the garden, but Jotaro must still be cold, dressed in an old pair of pajama pants and a rumpled sweatshirt. He glances up when Noriaki sits down on the genkan next to him, smoke wisping from his lips as he taps off the ashes clinging to his cigarette.
Noriaki doesn’t waste any time setting the tray down between them, hefting his bookbag into his lap to start looking around inside.
“Drink that first,” he says firmly. “It’s matcha.”
He pulls out a skinny black binder from his bag, rifling through the dividers until he found what he was looking for. Next to him, he can hear the muffled clinking of Jotaro messing with the cups, taking another drag of his cigarette before he has a sip of tea. It probably tastes bitter beyond belief with the tobacco, but if it gets Jotaro to drink, Noriaki won’t complain.
He snaps open the rings of the binder and pulls out a handful of papers, some printed and some carefully transcribed in Noriaki’s looping handwriting.
“Here,” Noriaki says, holding out the papers to Jotaro. “Today was mostly a review day, so I didn’t bother rewriting the notes. Most of this stuff is in the textbook anyways.”
Jotaro sets his cup down and takes the papers from Noriaki, popping his cigarette between his lips as he thumbs through the slew of worksheets and homework assignments Noriaki printed extra copies of.
“This is it?” he asks, his voice muffled. “Feels pretty light.”
Noriaki grimaces. “Ah, yeah, it is. I couldn’t get your homework from your math teacher.”
Jotaro nods along, like he’s half-listening at best. “What, was she out or something?”
Noriaki clears his throat. There’s a lingering sense of secondhand awkwardness, being the messenger for something that clearly was meant for Jotaro alone.
“No,” he says carefully. “She said that if you wanted to get the work done, you’d have to come pick it up from her yourself.”
Jotaro pauses.
Nobody really openly talked about it at school, but Jotaro’s sudden disappearance was one of those things that everyone just knew about. Noriaki had his fair share of time in the limelight once he got back from Egypt, but that soon died down when people realized that he wasn’t going to be sharing the details about what happened anytime soon. It was a little hard to gossip about someone who was back and acting like nothing had happened at all.
Besides, there was something much more interesting going on. Noriaki was gone for two months. Jotaro’s been gone for nearly three now.
Jotaro’s eyes go a little hazy again. He pulls his cigarette back and blows out a slow stream of smoke.
“Figured as much,” he finally mutters.
Noriaki knows that tone. It’s Jotaro’s subtle I don’t want to talk about this anymore voice. The one he uses if their conversation starts to drift towards something he doesn’t quite want to address just yet. Unfortunately, Noriaki doesn’t think he can redirect this like usual now.
“She was pretty serious about it,” he says. He mirrors Jotaro, picks up his own cup and takes a sip of lukewarm matcha. “I didn’t tell her anything important, but I don’t think she’ll listen to me anymore. If you aren"t in class by next week, she said she"ll go to the principal to get a conference scheduled with your mom.”
The papers crumple in Jotaro’s fist.
Noriaki eases off, lets Jotaro smoke and process the information on his own for a minute. He can feel the tension stringing itself taut along Jotaro’s shoulders, punctuating the still air around them with the shallow hitch of his breathing. Noriaki doesn’t stare at him. He keeps his eyes fixed on the garden and drinks his tea quietly.
It takes a few minutes, but eventually, Jotaro talks.
“I thought I was already getting held back a year,” he says.
“I don’t think so,” Noriaki replies. “You probably won’t have the best grades, but you could still pass this year if you wanted to. Or make up whatever you fail in summer school.”
Noriaki’s not trying to be blunt, but Jotaro still shrinks with every word he says. He leans over the edge of the genkan to rub the butt of his cigarette out in the dirt, digging his bare heel into the smoldering remains. Noriaki winces at that, but Jotaro doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Maybe it won’t be such a bad idea though, if you don’t want to come back,” Noriaki says gently. “She’s been calling you out sick for a few weeks now, right? It can’t hurt to get her onboard so you can figure out what to do for next year.”
Jotaro shakes his head.
“I don’t give a shit about doing things right by the school,” he says. “I just don’t want her to stress about it.”
It"s in moments like these that Noriaki can see the blood relation between Holly and Jotaro. The way they stare when they"re thinking, the way stress lines their foreheads, the way they wear their worry quietly, never calling attention to the weight that bears down on their shoulders.
It"s almost uncanny, really.
“She always tries to look nice if the school makes her come in,” Jotaro mumbles. “So it makes it easier if people try to start shit about if I’m being raised right or whatever. It’s a lot of work though. She’ll do it if she has to go, but it’ll knock her out for a week, trying to act all professional and all.”
Noriaki tilts his head, pursing his lips together. “I see. I mean, do you even want to go back to school this year?”
“Fuck no,” Jotaro replies immediately. “I’d drop out now if I could. I just don’t want my mom to have to deal with the school because I can’t get my shit together.”
Really, that would be the ideal path. Maybe not dropping out entirely, but just taking the rest of the year off. Jotaro would have the time he needed to process the trip in its entirety, re-learn how to fit into society again at his own pace while Holly could build her strength up in peace without jumping bureaucratic hoops to excuse Jotaro’s absences.
Unfortunately, the world isn’t so kind as to wait for the likes of them to gain their bearings again.
“If you want to keep your mom out of it, then you’ll probably have to talk to your teachers yourself,” Noriaki says. “I’m sure you could get most of the smaller assignments excused. I already got the due dates for your papers extended to the end of the semester.”
Jotaro glances at him. “You mean I’ll have to make up the past few months by the end of the year.”
Noriaki doesn’t try to sugarcoat it. “Probably more than that. You still have to catch up with what everyone else is learning in class right now if you go back.”
Jotaro already knows this. Noriaki knows he knows this. It doesn’t stop Jotaro from staring off into the garden like there’s some magical alternative hidden in the bushes that’d give him just a few more days to hide and lick his scarring wounds in peace.
“I don’t know how you did it,” Jotaro finally mutters. “I can’t go back like everything’s normal again. Feels like I forgot the easiest shit about functioning like a regular person. M’tired all the time, and I can’t fucking eat a regular meal anymore.”
Noriaki barks out a laugh at that, abrasive and scratchy against his throat.
"I think you"re assuming a lot about how well-adjusted I am," Noriaki replies dryly. "I still can"t think about next year, or graduating. I used to have a four-year plan written out, but I can barely conceptualize the idea of making it to the next semester healthy enough to learn."
Jotaro lets out a long, slow breath. His hand wavers against his thigh, drifting towards his cigarettes.
"How"d you do it then?"
"I had you here."
Jotaro shoots him the most disbelieving look Noriaki"s ever seen in his life. "Fuck off," he mutters.
"I mean it," Noriaki says. "I"m not trying to stay with my parents. I can barely concentrate on anything while they"re home. Being able to come here and have a table to write on in peace does more than you"d think."
Noriaki leans back on his palms, the wood under his hands pleasantly warm to the touch in the sun. "Besides, I can"t fall behind in class if I have to tutor you."
Jotaro scowls. "So what, I have to find someone else at rock bottom first to pull myself up?"
Noriaki kicks at his leg and clicks his tongue. "Don"t be stupid," he says. "You just need a reason to start trying."
Jotaro goes quiet.
"I don"t think it"s fair, but nothing"s going to wait for us to get better," Noriaki says. "The longer you take to start functioning again, the further behind you end up. Things like school aren"t going to stop if you do. Even if you can"t do it, at some point, you just have to suck it up and try. You"ll just keep falling behind otherwise."
Noriaki knows the look on Jotaro"s face. He knows it because he felt it too, carted to his parents’ doorstep with a shiny new wheelchair and the vague idea that maybe things would have been easier if he had just died on that stupid water tower instead.
Jotaro"s never been like that. Noriaki was always the one second guessing every step of their trip and bracing himself for the worst. It"s strange to see him like this now, sitting on the genkan, giving up on the stupidly unobtainable idea of getting better, but Noriaki wonders if maybe Jotaro had felt this way the whole time too.
Maybe they"re more similar than either of than wanted to admit.
Jotaro stays silent, staring out into the overgrown bushes and weeds that swallowed the once-neat garden whole. Looking it it from here, it"s impossible to tell where the pathways once were, or where you would even be able to safely step in order to start cleaning it up.
"They"re really gonna make my mom come in?" he asks again.
"By next week. Maybe sooner, if your other teachers start talking to each other."
Jotaro sighs. Looks back into the mess of his room.
"Fuck." He pulls out another cigarette, digging around his pockets for a lighter. "Can"t even see my desk anymore from here."
Noriaki shrugs. "I don"t mind working in the kitchen."
It"s not a permanent solution. Jotaro won"t be able to concentrate in his room, and Noriaki can"t blame him. It"s stressing him out just thinking about cleaning it up. But they have to start somewhere.
Jotaro takes a drag.
"You’re not letting me get out of this, are you?," he asks. Noriaki just smiles at him. "Figured. Fuck it, sure. But I"m going to the store first. M’not doing this without another pack.”
“I’ll go with you,” Noriaki replies. “I’ve been craving those baked sweet potatoes lately. How about we split one? We could even get one for your mom too.”
When Jotaro levels him with a blank stare, Noriaki’s polite smile doesn’t waver. The untouched bowls of rice pudding sit innocently between them. He’ll put them in the fridge later, maybe pitch it as a mid-study snack, but Jotaro still needs to eat something before he tries to throw himself back into his schoolwork.
“Fine.” Jotaro pushes himself up with a grunt, tossing his last cigarette out. “You’re eating most of it though.”
Noriaki probably will eat most of it. He doesn’t really care. He follows Jotaro and thinks about study guides and test revisions, and where to go from here.
The answer for now is the convenience store around the corner. Whatever comes after that is up to Jotaro.