Chapter Text
It’s been eight years since Noriaki Kakyoin has seen Jotaro Kujo.
Eight years, five months, and twenty-two days, to be exact.
Not that Kakyoin has been counting - that would be foolish and sentimental, and Kakyoin is neither of those things.
But Polnareff had asked one day, and Kakyoin had been bored enough to oblige him and calculate it out - and so he knows, almost down to the hour, exactly how long it’s been since he’s seen Jotaro Kujo in the flesh.
That’s not to say they haven’t spoken - they have.
They both work for the Speedwagon Foundation, so it’s easy to keep tabs on one another, and despite everything that’s happened, Jotaro remains his best friend. They make it a point to sit down and chat at least once a month.
But they live on separate continents these days, and Jotaro has a child and classes and research expeditions that eat away most of his free time.
Kakyoin doesn’t want to bother him for more.
He’d been the one to run away, after all, when Jotaro had drunkenly confessed to Kakyoin that he thought he was falling in love with him.
He’d been the one who’d panicked and retreated and forced a wall between them while he sorted through his own tangled web of feelings, who’d not had an answer when Jotaro had called him the morning after, wounded, asking where he was, why he wasn’t in the hotel room they’d been sharing as they worked a case together in Tokyo.
He’s the reason they’re no longer as close as they used to be.
Really, this is what he deserves.
It’s not what he wants. If he could go back in time and fix things, he would.
But though Jotaro can stop time, they’ve yet to find a Stand that has the power to erase it entirely, and so Kakyoin has had to live with the consequences of his own bad decisions.
Which makes the current situation he finds himself in… difficult.
“You’re certain?” he asks the hotel concierge. “There’s no reservation under my name?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the man replies, apologetic. He’s still frantically typing away at his computer, trying in vain to pull up a hotel booking that apparently doesn’t exist. “I’m just not seeing anything. Are you certain the reservation was for today?”
He is.
He’d checked his work email religiously in the days leading up to this trip, print-outs of the confirmation in his pocket, and his travel accommodations had otherwise been correct.
Why would this be any different?
“Can you try again?” he asks, his smile wearing thin. “Perhaps it’s under the name of my employer - the Speedwagon Foundation. Have they made any reservations lately?”
The concierge dutifully types up his request.
“Ah! Yes, I do see two rooms - but I’m sorry, sir, both are currently occupied, and neither reservation is in your name.”
“That’s alright,” Kakyoin assures him, even though it is most assuredly not fine. Every part of his body hurts, and he feels a little like he’s dying; he’s in desperate need of a shower, a hot meal, and about fourteen hours of sleep. But being rude to this man won’t change that, so he sighs and digs his bulky cell phone out of his pocket, intent on getting to the bottom of this. “Let me make a few calls.”
He politely steps away from the desk to sort things out.
When the call ends, a few moments later, he feels nothing of the sort.
He’s been assured it’s a clerical error, that the person in charge of booking his room accidentally booked it for August of this year, instead of July. They’re terribly sorry, and will wire him additional funds in case he’s forced to find other lodgings for the night.
Because although this is a relatively small town, it’s also the height of tourist season, and the beaches are absolutely packed. The Grand Morioh Hotel’s fresh out of rooms.
“Perhaps you can room with Mr. Joestar?” his manager advises him, after Kakyoin calls to complain. “He’s there, isn’t he?”
Kakyoin scowls and asks his manager if he’s met Mr. Joestar.
The man confesses he hasn’t.
But he seems to gauge that that is not an option from the way Kakyoin had practically spat the question at him, and he swallows audibly into the phone.
“Well, what about Jotaro Kujo? You two know each other, right? You’re old friends?”
Kakyoin is too dumbfounded to answer.
“Yeah, that could work. Tell you what, Kakyoin - stay with Jotaro for a couple days, and we’ll see how quickly we can get you your own room. I’ll see if we can lean on the hotel, and ah… encourage them to move you to the top of their list of prospective guests.”
Before he can protest, the man hangs up, and Kakyoin is left to panic in silence.
He hasn’t seen Jotaro in years - and his manager wants Kakyoin to room with him? The way they had in Egypt, the way they had those first few years in undergrad?
Kakyoin isn’t sure that’s something he can handle.
But as a group of beachgoers passes him by, loudly discussing their plans for the rest of the evening, Kakyoin realizes he has very few other options available to him. It’s getting late, and the last thing he wants to have to do is bunker down in the lobby for the night.
And so, deeply resigned, he makes one more phone call.
“Kakyoin.”
It’s not much of a greeting.
But then, Jotaro is a man of few words. There’s a slight inflection on the last syllable of his name though, enough for Kakyoin to discern it’s a question and not a statement.
He dutifully answers.
“Jotaro? I need a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Can you come downstairs and meet me in the lobby?”
He can practically hear Jotaro’s frown. “Downstairs?”
“Of the hotel. I figure it’ll be easier to talk in person,” Kakyoin explains. He pauses then, a thought occurring to him. “You are here, right? You’re not… out investigating something? Or getting something to eat?”
“No, I’m - I’m in the hotel.” Kakyoin can hear Jotaro moving around, like he’s getting up. There’s the sound of fabric swishing, of a door clicking open. “But why are you here?”
Kakyoin blinks. “For the case,” he replies. “With the Stand users and the arrow. Mr. Joestar reported back and said that things were getting out of hand; he requested backup, and the Speedwagon Foundation thought… he didn’t say anything to you, did he?”
“...not a damn thing.”
He might’ve known. Mr. Joestar is a prankster, even in his old age; he probably thought reuniting the two of them after all these years is incredibly funny.
He finds himself a bit at a loss for words anyways.
“Oh.”
Eloquent. Truly.
Luckily for him, Jotaro’s reply is equally articulate.
“Yeah. Fuck.”
He hangs up when Jotaro reaches the elevators, taking a few quick moments to tidy his hair and wipe at his face. He’s not sure why he bothers - what he needs is a good, hot bath and an hour with his hair products, and no amount of fussing will substitute. But he hasn’t seen Jotaro in years, and he wants to make a good impression, and -
He’s being dumb.
Jotaro has seen him looking far worse than he does now. He won’t care if Kakyoin’s hair is a little greasy, if he has bags under his eyes. The dirt on his shoes isn’t going to bother him, and neither are his worn travel clothes.
…still.
He discreetly sniffs himself, hoping he doesn’t smell too bad.
He’s displeased with the results.
Jotaro comes around the corner before he can do anything about it though, and Kakyoin finds his potential body odor the absolute last thing on his mind.
Because Jotaro is stunning.
The sight of him literally takes Kakyoin’s breath away.
Kakyoin had forgotten just how tall he is, how broad his shoulders are. He’d forgotten how handsome Jotaro is, his face a masterwork of sharp angles and clean lines and finely structured bone -
Save for the lips.
Jotaro’s mouth is, and always has been, soft. And though more often than not, it’s drawn down into a frown, when he chooses to smile, as he is now, it’s -
Kakyoin’s heart does something funny in his chest, and he finds he has to sit down.
Jotaro, understandably, takes this the wrong way.
“Kakyoin,” he murmurs, quickly rushing to his side. “Are you - do you need to -”
“I’m fine,” Kakyoin croaks.
“...you’re sitting on the floor.”
“Yes, well. I’m tired.”
Jotaro rolls his eyes and snorts. But he joins Kakyoin a moment later, and so Kakyoin thinks he isn’t too terribly put out to be crouched on the carpet in the corner of the room.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, peering at Kakyoin from underneath his lashes.
“I can’t believe no one told you I was coming.”
Jotaro’s face darkens. “I can. This has the old man written all over it.”
“He really didn’t say anything?”
“Nope.”
Kakyoin shakes his head, letting out a weak laugh. “Surprise?”
“Yeah. Surprise.” Jotaro pauses, looking at Kakyoin in full. “You look good.”
Kakyoin opens his mouth, already prepared to shrug off the compliment, to make some self-deprecating remark about how he’s been traveling for days. The bright, almost hopeful look in Jotaro’s eyes stops him.
“So do you,” he says instead, allowing his eyes to drift over Jotaro’s features.
Then, when he realizes he’s been staring entirely too long, he clears his throat and adds, “I like the white.”
It’s different.
Fresh.
The turtleneck is nice too, accentuating the musculature Jotaro had always seemed to try to hide as a teenager, buried beneath bulky coats and slouchy tanks.
Jotaro hums, toying with a loose string on the cuff of his jacket. “Thanks,” he mutters. “Stains easy though. Not like the black.”
“Well, hopefully baby food isn’t as hard to get out as blood.”
Jotaro shoots him an odd look. “Baby food?”
“For Jolyne,” he clarifies.
“...Jolyne’s seven.”
“Yes?”
“Kakyoin, Jolyne hasn’t eaten baby food in years.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know what kids eat, Jotaro, I’ve only met a couple-”
“Hot dogs.”
“What?”
“Jolyne likes hot dogs.”
“I see.”
“And macaroni and cheese.”
“I’m sensing a theme here.”
“Sometimes hot dogs in macaroni and cheese.”
“...that’s just disgusting.”
“Yeah. Kids are gross.”
The look on Jotaro’s face is fond, belying his words, and Kakyoin allows himself to smile. “Worth it, though?” he asks.
Jotaro nods. “Worth it.”
They fall into an amiable silence, and Kakyoin tries to think of how to broach the subject at hand. It’s not as easy as he would have hoped; though he and Jotaro have kept in touch, they’ve fallen out of each other’s orbits, and the thought of rooming together… Well, they might as well be strangers now. It will be like Hong Kong all over again, when they’d first been forced together after a long day's travel.
Hopefully, there won’t be Stand users waiting to ambush them this time.
“Speaking of disgusting things,” he finally says, gesturing down at himself, “I really, really need to shower. But the person at the foundation who made my reservations got the dates wrong.”
Jotaro blinks, uncomprehending.
“I’m, ah, out of a room,” Kakyoin continues. “My manager suggested that I… stay with you until they can get me one of my own.”
“Oh.” Jotaro looks away then, flushing for some reason. He seems to consider Kakyoin’s unspoken question for a moment, before he exhales out a breath and runs a hand over his face. “Kakyoin -”
“I’m sorry,” Kakyoin quickly interjects, interpreting his hesitation as embarrassment. “I know you probably don’t want to room with me.”
Jotaro frowns, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “No, it’s not that. It’s…”
“Yes?”
“Kakyoin, I have a single.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Ah. Well. Is there a couch?”
His limbs are long and lanky, but he’s small enough, he could make it work - far easier than Jotaro could, that was for certain. But Jotaro shakes his head, squashing that particular idea, and Kakyoin quickly wracks his brain for another suggestion.
“The floor, then? If you throw me some pillows I can probably manage-”
Jotaro scowls. “Kakyoin.”
“What?”
“We’re way too old for that.”
Probably. They’re approaching thirty, after all, and a lifetime of injuries incurred fighting Stand users have only exacerbated the normal wear and tear of age.
And that’s saying nothing of the fact that Kakyoin has an artificial spine.
Normal mattresses sometimes aggravate his lumbago - what would the floor do?
Still, he tells himself, they can pad the carpeting with some extra blankets, and he can put a pillow under his back. It’ll work, surely.
“I don’t really see any other options -” he starts, trying to ease Jotaro into the idea.
Jotaro immediately shuts it down. “I’ll do it, then. I’ll take the floor.”
Kakyoin shakes his head, resolute. “No,” he says. “Absolutely not.”
“What? Why?"
“Because it’s - it’s your room, Jotaro. I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed!”
Nor, he thinks, does he really want to sleep in a bed that smells of Jotaro, that has been somewhat molded to the shape of his body - not without him in it, too.
But that is - he is not suggesting that, he is not, even if his very tired, very lovesick brain thinks it is the most perfect solution to a problem he has ever heard.
“What’re you gonna do, then?” Jotaro challenges. “Because I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, either.”
“You’re not letting me?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I hardly think you can stop me -”
“The fuck I can’t -”
“The tub, then. I’ll sleep in the tub.”
“Bathroom only has a shower.”
Fuck.
At a loss, Kakyoin throws his hands up in the air. “Could you point me in the direction of a different hotel, then?” he snaps, irritated enough that his speech has become clipped, terse. “I’ll try to find somewhere else.”
“There is nowhere else,” Jotaro snaps back, equally frustrated.
A mistake.
Calling Jotaro was a mistake, and he should have just sucked it up and roomed with Mr. Joestar, after all. The old man is loud, and obnoxious, and Kakyoin has no doubt his snoring has only gotten worse with age, but at least he would have had no problem with Kakyoin sleeping on the floor, or in a chair, or anywhere else in the room with a horizontal surface. Instead, he was dealing with Jotaro, who was nothing if not the most stubborn, pigheaded, mulish person Kakyoin had ever met in his entire fucking life, and -
“We could - share.”
Kakyoin startles, looking up at Jotaro with wide eyes.
“Nothing we haven’t done before, right?”
Kakyoin searches his face, looking for some indication that Jotaro is joking. But there isn’t one, the man’s face as stoic as ever. If he’s feeling a certain type of way at the thought of sharing his hotel room, his bed, with his erstwhile best friend, he’s keeping it to himself, and that is -
Hmm.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Jotaro scoffs at that. “Kakyoin.”
He sighs, waving a hand. “I know,” he murmurs. “If it bothered you, you’d say something.”
Still, he hesitates.
It seems… too good to be true. Too easy. Too close to wish fulfillment.
Not to mention dangerous. He’s spent the better part of the past five years cursing himself for running all those years ago, for ignoring the way Jotaro had always made him feel like someone bigger than himself, someone better. Though he’s tried to forget him, tried to make new memories, with new people, he always comes back to Jotaro, and that’s -
He will be playing with fire, here. Treading on very, very shaky ground.
Because Jotaro has moved on, surely. Whatever he had felt for Kakyoin - what he’d thought he’d felt - has evaporated by now, subsumed back into the easy friendship they’d formed when they were seventeen. He’s certainly never tried to broach the subject of feelings with Kakyoin again, even after Kakyoin had apologized for running away like he had.
He might not even remember having said anything in the first place, with the amount of alcohol Jotaro had consumed before this great revelation of his.
Kakyoin has never been sure whether that was a comfort or further cause for despair.
But regardless of what Jotaro does or does not remember, that time in their lives has passed. They are not the kids they used to be, and Kakyoin doesn’t believe fate would be so kind as to gift him another chance at loving his best friend.
He’s already gotten his miracle, after all. He won’t get a second.
No, Kakyoin’s feelings are his own, and he’ll manage them as he always has.
Silently.
On his own side of the bed, god help him.
“Well,” he says finally, pushing to his feet. “If you insist. It is the logical solution.”
Jotaro nods, picking up the suitcase at Kakyoin’s feet. “I do.”
Kakyoin forces a smile he doesn’t quite feel.
“Lead on, then."
He feels better after a shower.
A little less frazzled.
But the warm water has only served to make him sleepier, and he resolves to get some rest tonight, his sleeping companion notwithstanding.
When he exits the bathroom in a pair of pajamas, still toweling at his damp hair, he finds Jotaro already propped up against the headboard, scowling down at a sheaf of papers in his lap. He’s wearing glasses, Kakyoin notices, and there is ink smudged on his cheek - like he’d been playing with his pen and hadn’t realized.
He looks up when Kakyoin clears his throat, tossing the towel to the side.
“The glasses are new,” he offers, tilting his head in question.
Jotaro snorts, pulling them from his face and setting them off to the side. “Yeah,” he mutters, rubbing his face. “Too many hours in the lab staring at tiny computer screens.”
“They suit you,” Kakyoin says. He reaches for his brush, running it through his hair a few times before gathering it all over one shoulder and tying it in a loose braid. “Very… professorial.”
Kakyoin second guesses himself as soon as the words leave his mouth.
Is that even a word? Or something stupid Kakyoin has said in an attempt to keep things light?
Luckily, Jotaro doesn’t seem to care, shrugging off the compliment the way he always does.
“I’m not a professor yet,” he reminds Kakyoin.
“You’re working on your doctorate though, right?”
“...yeah.”
“You’ll be one soon enough, then. The point stands.”
Jotaro huffs out a laugh. “Sure.”
He watches as Kakyoin ruffles through his bags, pulling out the couple of medications he’s still taking. He doesn’t speak again until Kakyoin’s tossed them back, gulping down the rest of a cup of water for good measure.
“Your hair-”
“I need to cut it.”
“It’s… I was going to say it’s nice.”
Kakyoin hesitates, toying with his split ends. “Oh.” Then, because Jotaro has just complimented him, and it’d be rude not to acknowledge that, he adds, “Thank you.”
“Jolyne likes to braid her hair. It’s about the same length as yours.”
Kakyoin looks up at that. “Really?”
Jotaro nods.
“Is she any good at it?”
“No.”
His candor startles a laugh out of Kakyoin, and he slaps a hand over his mouth. But Jotaro’s eyes have crinkled at the edges, and he’s looking away, the way he always had when they were younger and he’d been trying to hide his amusement.
“Most of the time, I end up braiding it for her,” he admits.
Kakyoin grins. “Ah, I see. Chauffeur and stylist.”
“Cook, too. Sometimes.”
“Please tell me you can make more than that awful pasta you used to force on me.”
“I can make more than pasta,” Jotaro huffs, annoyed. “And it wasn’t… that bad.”
Kakyoin shudders. “No, no, really, that stuff was terrible. I never knew how to tell you -”
“Fuck off.”
“- but it tasted like cardboard.”
Jotaro pouts as he gathers up his papers, placing them on a neat stack on the end table beside his glasses. “You didn’t have to eat it,” he mutters, shooting Kakyoin a dour look.
“Aw, but you were always so proud - cooking your grandmother’s homemade Italian recipes.”
He yelps when Jotaro throws a pillow at him, barely catching it before it hits him and ruins his carefully plaited hair.
“Rude,” he huffs, hugging the pillow to his chest.
“So were you,” Jotaro retorts.
He guesses he was.
But it is just so easy to fall back into the swing of things with Jotaro, the cadence of their conversations natural and teasing and light. He’s glad to see that that hasn’t changed, that despite everything that’s happened, they’re still capable of maintaining their camaraderie. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he were to lose it.
Polnareff and Avdol are nice, sure, and he’s made a few other friends at the Speedwagon Foundation’s European headquarters in Paris. He is not the lonely teenager he was when he and Jotaro met.
Something about Jotaro, though, has always felt different.
Their relationship had been deep and true, right from the start - when Kakyoin had tried to kill him, and Jotaro had responded by saving his life. It wasn’t so lightly tossed aside, not even with all the distance and heartache and loss that lay between them.
Heartache that is, if Kakyoin’s being honest, mostly his fault.
He used to tell himself that he wasn’t ready. That they were too young for the kind of relationship Jotaro had wanted, the memory of Egypt still too near. They’d both been so angry, so hurt, so traumatized, and it - it would’ve blown up in their faces, surely, leaving them barely able to look at one another.
Now, he’s not so certain.
Maybe they could’ve made it work. Maybe he should’ve given a relationship a chance.
It would’ve saved them both a lot of grief.
But then Jotaro wouldn’t have had Jolyne, and Kakyoin wouldn’t have gotten the chance to go to school in Paris, and… a hundred other things that separating had granted them. It’s a double-edged sword, and Kakyoin doesn’t really like thinking about it too much. It makes him morose, and wistful, and sour, and that is -
Not how he wants his first time seeing Jotaro in nearly a decade to go.
“Kakyoin?”
He looks up, drawn from his thoughts, to find Jotaro watching him, brow furrowed.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, automatic. Then, to cover his tracks, he smiles, fluffing the pillow in his hands and carrying it over to the bed. “Just tired, I guess. The flight was… long.”
Jotaro hums. “I bet. You come in from Paris?”
Kakyoin nods. “Thirteen and a half hours to Tokyo,” he replies. “And then another hour and a half by train to Morioh.”
“Shit. Kinda hard to believe you’re still standing.”
“I had some help,” Kakyoin admits. “The amount of caffeine I’ve ingested today would probably kill a small animal.”
“Is that good for you?”
Kakyoin laughs. “I’m not sure it’s good for anyone, Jotaro,” he replies. His gaze is pointed as he looks over at Jotaro’s research notes. “But it’s not like you have any room to talk. Don’t you drink coffee like it’s going out of style, mister graduate student?”
Jotaro makes a grumpy noise. “It’s either coffee or cigarettes,” he mutters.
"And you quit the cigarettes," Kakyoin replies.
Jotaro nods. "Yeah. I did."
It takes Kakyoin a minute or two to work up the courage to join him on the mattress. His movements are slow and measured, and finally, after what feels like a lifetime, he manages to sit down. When Jotaro doesn’t so much as twitch, he swings his legs up onto the bed, tentatively slips under the blankets.
There.
He’s settled.
…he’s perched as far on the edge of the bed as he can manage without falling off, but he’s settled.
Jotaro notices, much to his chagrin, and huffs out a laugh. “I’m not gonna bite,” he says.
Kakyoin’s response is incoherent, lost in the flush of heat that rises to his cheeks.
Because it’s not his teeth Kakyoin is worried about.
It’s his unconscious actions, his tendency to seek out warmth and heat in his sleep.
It’s the fact that Jotaro is, for lack of a better word, a cuddler.
It’s something Kakyoin had learned very quickly in their friendship. Though his waking self was averse to touch, preferring to keep his hands to himself, in sleep, Jotaro is a different person. He sprawls, arms and legs tossed haphazardly across the bed, and will curl up to whoever happens to be sharing the mattress with him.
He wonders, suddenly, if Jotaro had been like that with his wife. If he'd liked to hold her while they slept, if he'd pressed his face into her hair, and -
No.
That isn’t helpful.
In fact, it’s uniquely distressing, and Kakyoin shoves the thought from his mind as he rolls over onto his side, turning away from Jotaro and squeezing his eyes shut.
“Don’t let me sleep in too late,” he says, clearing his throat. “The jet lag’s bad enough as it is.”
Jotaro says nothing for a moment.
Kakyoin can feel the weight of his eyes on his back, and he fights not to tense. He half-expects Jotaro to say something, to tease him about being so easy to rile up.
But Jotaro just sighs, and turns the opposite direction, his fingers fumbling for the light, and before Kakyoin knows it, they’re enveloped in darkness.
“Sure. Night, Kakyoin.”
Kakyoin swallows, his voice very small as he replies.
“Night, Jotaro.”