Chapter Text
Megan Branford was absolutely, spectacularly...lost.
In her right hand, she clutched a crumpled sheet of paper scrawled with desperate, barely legible directions. In her left arm, she wrestled with her school bag—which, thanks to a brief surge of hubris that morning, was hanging wide open. It bulged with textbooks, notebooks, a pencil case determined to make a break for it, and a suspiciously heavy lunch she now bitterly regretted packing.
It was supposed to be a big day.
Her real first day.
After nearly two years in Japan—two years of being known in her neighborhood as "that the blonde, blue-eyed American in the bilingual program"—Megan had finally convinced her aunt and uncle to let her attend a traditional Japanese high school. No more hybrid curriculum. No English-language cushion. Just full immersion. Full throttle. Full teenager experience.
And she’d worked for it.
Six months of late-night kanji drills, tongue twisters whispered at her bathroom mirror, and grammar rules echoing in her head until they threaded into her dreams. Her last tutor, a university grad student with dark circles and no patience for excuses, had finally given her a curt nod of approval and said, “You won’t drown.”
High praise, by Megan standards.
Too bad none of that helped her actually find the school.
She stopped at the edge of a narrow intersection and frowned up at a cluster of block numbers nailed crookedly to a leaning utility pole:
“2丁目14番.” Her paper read 3丁目7番.
That felt…far.
“Not helpful,” she muttered to herself.
Japanese addresses, she had discovered, weren’t so much directions as they were riddles with a grudge. Buildings weren’t numbered in order, but by when they’d been built. Which meant you could pass 3-5-6, 3-5-11, and then inexplicably land on 3-5-2 without realizing you’d circled the block twice.
Turning in a slow circle, she searched for some kind of sign. Preferably a literal one. Her gaze snagged on a shop across the street: “Kobayashi Liquor & Gifts.”
That name stirred a faint memory. Hadn’t she passed it during the neighborhood walk-through a few days ago?
She thought about asking the old man at the bus stop, but he was deeply absorbed in his copy of Friday magazine—specifically, the centerfold. Megan grimaced. She’d already ruined enough mornings for one person today.
“Okay,” she whispered, exhaling slowly. “It’s fine. I can figure this out. I survived Tokyo Station during Golden Week. I can find one high school.”
She turned the corner.
And slammed into a wall.
Except—no. Not a wall.
A person.
A very large person.
Warm. Solid. Definitely not made of concrete.
“Ah!” Megan yelped, stumbling back. Her hand flew out of her bag mid-reach, and she lost her balance completely. Her knee smacked the pavement with a dull scrape as her school supplies burst across the sidewalk like confetti at a very sad parade.
And, to seal the humiliation, one of her pens landed with surgical precision on the polished black toe of a very expensive-looking shoe.
Oh good. Maybe she could just evaporate.
Face burning, Megan looked up.
The “wall” was a boy. Or more accurately, a teenager—though the sheer vertical scale of him made it hard to be sure. He towered above her, casting a long, cool shadow across the pavement.
His coat was black and heavy, the hem brushing his ankles as the breeze tugged at it. Gold buttons gleamed against the dark fabric—not decorative, but commanding. A heavy chain looped from the left collar, gleaming with a theatrical flair. It didn’t seem attached to anything. It just hung there, as though suspended by force of personality alone.
His hat—black, like everything else—melded into his thick, dark hair, the brim pulled low over sharp, unreadable eyes.
Green eyes.
Unusual. Arresting. Especially here, where even the lightest brown stood out. That small detail alone might have caught her attention—if not for everything else about him.
His face looked carved, sculpted with too much precision for a teenager: a jawline like cut glass, cheekbones that deserved a warning label, a long, narrow nose that lent him an almost foreign edge. He didn’t quite fit into the sea of uniformity she’d gotten used to. Not completely Japanese, maybe. Not entirely anything she could name.
And then there was the way he stood: like someone long accustomed to taking up space. Not in the way people tried to. In the way they simply did, because the world had no vote in the matter.
He wasn’t just tall. He was composed. Coiled. Expensive.
His pants were pressed, tailored just enough to hint at strength beneath. His olive-green shirt was mostly hidden by the coat, but she caught the glint of two belts at his waist—arranged in a way that looked both chaotic and intentional. Even his shoes gleamed with a polish that suggested they’d left marks on people who deserved it.
Megan’s brain, still lagging several seconds behind, finally registered one deeply unhelpful thought:
Oh. He’s…annoyingly gorgeous.
Not that it mattered. Not that she cared. She absolutely did not care about hunter green eyes or razor-sharp cheekbones or the slight curl of hair peeking from beneath his hat. That would be ridiculous.
And yet—she stayed frozen, body lagging behind instinct.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“…Christ, you’re tall,” she breathed—in English.
The words slipped out before her brain could catch them. Unfiltered. Doomed.
He didn’t respond.
Not with words, anyway.
His gaze flicked down—just slightly—and one eyebrow arched with slow, almost offended precision. Not confusion. Not even annoyance. Just a vague, silent: What did you just say, and why should I care?
Megan flinched so hard she nearly dropped her bag all over again.
Oh my God. I said that out loud. I SAID THAT OUT LOUD.
Heat rocketed up her spine, flooding her face in a full-body flush of mortification. If the ground had opened up right then and swallowed her whole, she would’ve counted it a blessing.
She ducked her eyes at once and dropped into frantic motion, scrambling after her scattered belongings. Her voice tripped out in a panicked blur of Japanese.
“Gomen’nasai! Hontō ni gomen’nasai,” she stammered, bowing probably deeper than someone her age should. “I’m sorry—I, I speak Japanese too. I just—I just said, 'I hope you’re not hurt!'”
A lie. A small one. But necessary. He didn’t look like he understood English, and that was the hill she’d die on today—dignity first, truth later.
She paused to catch her breath, willing the blood out of her face by sheer force. Slowly, cautiously, she glanced up again.
He hadn’t moved.
Same spot. Same stare. He looked down at her like an annoying pop quiz a teacher springs on a Friday afternoon.
Not so much as a flicker. Not even the mercy of an awkward throat-clear—the reaction most people gave her when she embarrassed herself…which was often.
Was he not understanding her Japanese either?
Or worse: was he so unimpressed by her existence that silence seemed like the better option?
Her pulse surged. Fix it. Fix it. FIX IT.
She stretched a shaky smile across her face, bowed again, and said brightly, “But don’t worry! You don’t have to help. Really. I’ve got it. It was completely my fault.”
There.
Clear. Not pushy. Apologetic.
For a beat, nothing.
Then his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Just…a shift. The barest suggestion of an eye roll.
He stepped over her fallen notebook and kept walking. Long, even strides. The soles of his shoes clicked crisply against the pavement—click-click-click—as if he were crossing a movie set and she wasn’t in the scene.
Megan stayed frozen, stunned. The Super Mario Bros death jingle played in her head.
There it is, she thought bitterly. The universal “you’re not worth my time” walk.
She winced, brushing grit from her knee with the heel of her palm. Her skin stung under her fingertips.
I hope he’s not mad. Ugh, and I hope I didn’t scuff his shoes.
A fresh wave of anxiety crawled up her spine. Those looked like they cost more than her entire closet. Maybe more than her aunt’s, too.
Still burning with embarrassment, she got to work.
No whining. No theatrics. Just quick, careful movement. She’d learned that long ago: make a mess, keep your mouth shut, and clean it up—preferably before anyone could roll their eyes and tell you to hurry up.
She snatched a paper off the curb just before it fluttered into a puddle and shoved it back into her bag. Her hands shook a little, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t let herself stop.
At last she stood, bag zipped, face burning, dignity abandoned somewhere back at that corner store. She turned to leave.
But a shadow slid across her shoulder.
Ten feet away, just at the edge of her vision, he was still there.
Still.
That same freakishly tall, impossible boy.
Just…standing. Watching.
His hands rested lazily in his coat pockets. His posture slouched in that effortless way some boys mastered by fifteen, looking as if the world couldn’t touch them.
But his eyes—those unreadable, sea-green eyes—were locked on her.
Megan’s stomach twisted.
She froze. “Oh! Um…did you drop something?” she asked, blinking quickly. “I can help you look, if you want.”
No answer. Not even a blink.
Just one more long, unreadable beat of silence.
Then, as if nothing at all had happened, he tugged the brim of his hat lower, turned, and walked away. His coat swept behind him like a cape. Or a curtain. Or something else dramatic and painfully cool.
She watched him go, still hunched under the weight of her bag, trying and failing to untangle whatever the hell that had been.
“…Okay then,” she muttered, voice flat.
In her head, a thought surfaced before she could crush it:
I guess tall, brooding, and silent is the local flavor around here.
The absurdity nearly made her laugh. Almost.
Instead, she squared her shoulders, turned toward what she prayed was the direction of the school, and forced her legs to move.
*~*
By some miracle—and by “miracle” she meant sprinting, frantic street-sign checks, and pure spite—Megan did make it to school that day.
Late, yes. Breathless and vaguely resembling a heat-stroked Pomeranian, absolutely. But she made it.
When Megan pushed open the apartment door that evening, the smell of soy sauce and sesame oil drifted toward her like a warm blanket. The air was thick with steam and the hiss of something caramelizing in a pan. Pots clanged in the kitchen, and over the sizzle came her Aunt Susan’s distracted call: “You’re home!”
Danielle, Megan’s baby cousin, was already holding court from her high chair at the end of the table. Her chubby legs pumped against the footrest, bare feet smacking out a rhythm only she seemed to understand. The second her gaze landed on Megan, her whole face bloomed into a gummy grin, and she clapped with the kind of unrestrained joy usually reserved for fireworks and puppies.
“Somebody’s happy to see you,” Susan said, glancing over her shoulder with a smile as she wielded a spatula like an extra limb.
“At least somebody is,” Megan replied. She dropped her school bag by the entryway; the straps had carved trenches into her shoulders, and she rolled them back, wincing at the soreness. Crossing to the high chair, she tapped Danielle’s nose, earning a squeal and another delighted round of applause.
Susan turned down the burner and gave her a quick once-over, eyes flicking with that quiet, parental scan that always seemed to catch more than Megan wanted it to. “So,” she asked, voice light but braced in that way adults used when expecting bad news, “how was it?”
Megan hesitated, weighing her words. “Eventful?” she offered. It was true, technically, and still didn’t come close.
Susan’s mouth twitched. “You got lost, didn’t you?”
“I was taking the scenic route,” Megan said with mock dignity.
“You had hand-written directions and a neighborhood map, Megan.”
“Yes, and they were very clear…about how to get lost in style.”
Susan shook her head, laughing softly as she slid stir-fry onto a serving dish. “You are the only person I know who can turn a straight line into a scenic detour.”
Megan didn’t argue. The fact that she’d taken two wrong turns and briefly ended up at a stationery shop instead of a school spoke loudly enough.
She lingered in the kitchen doorway, watching her aunt move with the practiced rhythm of someone who could cook dinner one-handed while fending off a toddler with the other. For a few minutes, the chaos of the day thinned out, replaced by the soundtrack of home: Susan humming under her breath, Danielle babbling nonsense syllables, the savory-sweet smell of dinner clinging to every corner.
Megan let herself breathe, just a little. Tomorrow would be another gauntlet. Another day under the invisible spotlight that pinned her every step at school. But for now, there was stir-fry, a baby who thought she was the best thing since mashed pears, and the faint, fragile hope that maybe—just maybe—she could keep surviving this place.
Megan’s first couple of weeks at school had been…suffocating.
Not in any single dramatic way—just in the itchy, unshakable way of wearing a too-tight turtleneck in the middle of a heatwave. Socially claustrophobic. Every step through the school gates set a spotlight burning down on her, invisible but relentless, tracking her every move.
It became obvious within seven seconds that the otherwise uniform student body wasn’t used to someone like her. With blonde hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes, she stuck out like she’d been air-dropped from the Caucasus Mountains straight into a sea of matching uniforms and dark-brown hairstyles. One classmate had whispered to another—loudly enough for her to hear—that she looked like a Western movie character. Megan hadn’t asked which one. She didn’t want to know.
By day three, she was already drafting her resignation letter from the role of Unofficial American Representative™️ .
At first, she’d tried to be friendly. Open. Polite. Smile when people glanced her way. But the attention never felt welcoming—it felt like surveillance. Her classmates didn’t know what to make of her, and Megan had no idea how to manage the humming anxiety of being observed without understanding the rules of the scrutiny.
When people did speak to her, they usually fell into two camps: the overly enthusiastic “let’s practice English” crowd, or the “interrogation disguised as curiosity” type. Every day brought a new volley of questions about America. Some were harmless: Did she have a dog? What snacks came from vending machines? Was prom really like the movies?
Others weren’t so charming. One girl had asked with perfect seriousness if Megan had ever been in a high-speed car chase.
The real kicker? At least two people had looked genuinely disappointed—crestfallen, even—that she didn’t own a ten-gallon cowboy hat or know how to ride a horse.
But sometimes, the questions shifted.
They weren’t the obvious kind anymore. Not about prom, fast food, or whether all Americans wore shoes indoors. These ones came wrapped in ribbons and sugar, their sweetness a veneer for something sharper. They were the kind of questions that started with a smile and ended like a slap. A test she hadn’t known she was taking until she’d already failed it.
“Why are American girls always so loud?” one girl asked, sing-song, her tone light but her eyes too sharp.
Megan had blinked, throat tight, words evaporating before they formed.
She didn’t speak above a whisper for the rest of the day.
Another student once leaned over during lunch and asked if American families really kept guns in the house. His tone was light, curious, like it was just trivia—but Megan caught the amused curl at his mouth, the disdain he didn’t bother to hide.
Or the time a classmate, laughing behind her hand, asked if Megan thought all Japanese people bowed “too much.”
No one else laughed. But no one stopped it either.
It wasn’t outright bullying. Never sharp enough to be named. But it scraped all the same—tiny cuts, over and over, until she ached. These weren’t questions; they were landmines, dressed up as casual conversation. And Megan walked into them again and again, too eager to blend in, too desperate to please, too blind to see the traps until they blew.
Still, she remembered the answers.
Even as her face burned with shame, even as she smiled, nodded, and mentally shredded herself for saying the wrong thing again, she tucked each exchange away like flashcards for a test with no end.
Don’t interrupt.
Speak softly.
Apologize first.
Bow deeper.
Don’t take up space.
Don’t speak unless spoken to.
Say I’m still learning.
Don’t be loud.
Don’t be annoying.
Don’t be American.
She carried those rules like armor. Thin, invisible armor forged from shame and overcorrection.
Because if she followed every one, maybe the staring would stop. Maybe the laughter would fade. Maybe she’d finally get to exist in peace.
Maybe she’d stop feeling like a walking mistake.
And then—there was him.
It wasn’t until about a week and a half into her trial-by-fire school life that she realized Mr. Unhelpful with the Low Hat also attended her school.
Apparently, he had a name: Jotaro Kujo.
Or, as the girls in her class referred to him—in tones ranging from reverent to borderline unhinged—“JoJo.”
She’d overheard the nickname at lunch, right as she bit into her onigiri. A knot of girls were swooning at their usual volume, tossing around words like tall, dangerous, and, “I swear he looked at me once and I nearly fainted.”
It took a beat for the context to click.
Wait. Wait. That guy? The brooding wall she’d body-checked outside the liquor shop? That was “JoJo”?
Color her surprised.
She hadn’t expected the World Champion Brooder to be known by a nickname that sounded like it belonged to a children’s cartoon mascot.
JoJo? Really?
And yet, the fandom around him was undeniable. Apparently, his fan club had official school recognition. As in: budget, faculty advisor, designated meeting space, actual recruitment fliers. One girl even kept her club badge in a plastic holder like it was government ID. Megan had seen less commitment from entire political movements.
Not long after learning his name, she spotted him in the hallway. Her stomach dropped with that instinctive dread born from years of expecting the worst. Was he coming over? Was this it? Was he finally going to scold her for the run-in outside the liquor shop? Demand compensation for shoe damage? Publicly humiliate her for being a clumsy foreigner?
Nope.
No scowl. No sharp words. Instead, he replayed the exact sequence she remembered: paused, stared at her with those unsettling green eyes—like she’d accidentally wandered into the wrong dimension—and then turned sharply, striding away.
No words. No expression. Just that blink-and-you-miss-it reaction, as though her existence had pressed “pause” on his brain for a split second before he resumed his day.
Megan froze like a prey animal and waited a full thirty seconds before daring to exhale.
From that point forward, her coping strategy was simple: avoid eye contact, neutralize your existence.
Every time she sensed him in the halls—or more accurately, felt the weight of that dark, imposing aura from twenty feet away—she lowered her eyes, kept her mouth shut, and tried to project “harmless ghost energy.” Not because she was afraid of him, exactly. But because drawing his attention felt like tempting fate.
Besides, she’d already been on the receiving end of some vaguely territorial side-eyes from upperclassman girls, and she had zero interest in sparking a high school turf war over who dared glance at the school’s resident walking enigma.
If anything, Megan was perfectly content to keep her head down, ace her classes, and be as invisible as humanly possible.
Well…as invisible as a blonde American in a Japanese high school could ever hope to be.
*~*
One afternoon, her aunt asked her to run a quick errand on the way home: pick up a nightstand lamp from a small repair shop across town. On paper, simple enough. What her aunt, once again, hadn’t factored in was Megan’s complete inability to navigate Tokyo’s subway system without suffering a low-grade existential crisis.
The Tokyo Metro was a sprawling, multicolored web, each line more confusing than the last. Transfer stations demanded the spatial awareness of a cartographer and the mental clarity of a monk. Megan—who once got turned around walking home from her own neighborhood school—was neither.
Still, she’d said yes. Of course she had. She never argued—especially not when her aunt was juggling an eight-month-old baby on top of the usual chaos. Megan understood her role as the teenage child living in a household that hadn’t planned on raising her: don’t complain, don’t make things harder. Be helpful. Be grateful. Above all, don’t be a burden.
And it wasn’t like she had anywhere better to be. There wasn’t exactly a waiting list of people eager to hang out after school, and trudging home to another quiet evening of pretending she wasn’t lonely didn’t sound much better.
So she’d thought: how bad could it be?
Spoiler: very bad.
She stepped off what she thought was the Ginza Line toward Shibuya, clutching a hand-drawn subway map that had gone soft at the edges from her sweaty grip. The underground air gave way to a breath of overcast afternoon light, and the second she surfaced, her stomach twisted.
The street was wrong.
Vinyl signs stacked haphazardly above narrow buildings. Garish lettering in pink and gold. Love hotels crammed shoulder to shoulder, their facades neon-bright and unapologetic. Hostess club ads plastered across every blank space, peeling at the edges.
The air carried cigarette smoke, cheap cologne, and something else—something sharp, desperate, like decisions made at three a.m.
Her throat went dry.
Shit.
This wasn’t Shibuya. This was Shinjuku.
A rookie mistake. In Tokyo, practically unforgivable.
She glanced at her map again, then at the glowing signage that loomed around her: The Lover’s Den. Hotel Juicy. Not exactly the place you’d pick up a refurbished nightstand lamp.
Her pulse fluttered high in her throat. The leather bracelets around her wrists pressed warm against her skin, the familiar weight grounding her without her thinking about it.
“Okay,” she murmured, trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest. “Just go back to the station. Retrace your steps. Act like you know what you’re doing.”
She turned sharply on her heel, unfolding the map again, scanning the pencil marks she’d scrawled earlier that morning. If she could just puzzle out the transfers, maybe she could still salvage this.
Then came the voice.
“Hey, American girl.”
The English was thickly accented, pitched low enough that it might have sounded casual—but there was something coiled beneath it, something that made the skin on her hands prickle. The map trembled in her grip.
Megan froze. Slowly, she turned.
Three men stood in the shade of a narrow awning, its windows covered, its sign written in looping gold katakana. Their suits were well-cut, fabric catching the dim light with an expensive sheen—but not the kind bought with a paycheck. Their jackets hung unbuttoned, ties loosened, shoes scuffed from nights that had nothing to do with offices or schedules.
Her gaze fell before she could stop it. One man’s sleeve had slipped just high enough to reveal the curling edge of a tattoo. The lines were sharp, deliberate, the kind that told a story she didn’t need translated. Her chest tightened.
Yakuza? Maybe. Maybe not.
It didn’t matter.
Every instinct she’d honed screamed the same thing: high alert.
“Pretty American girl,” the man said again, this time in a singsong lilt, rolling the words on his tongue as if testing their weight. His eyes weren’t cruel exactly—but unnaturally still, as if he couldn’t decide whether he saw her as novelty or prey.
Don’t react. Don’t react. Don’t react.
Her mouth betrayed her before her brain could intervene. She bowed at the waist, low and deliberate. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said in her clearest Japanese, her voice draped in formal politeness meant to smother trouble before it started. “Please excuse me. I must return to the station. I’m trying to get home.”
Humble. Apologetic. Small.
The leader’s smile widened—not amused, but satisfied. Like a gambler pleased the game had more rounds to play.
“Well, look at that,” he said to the others in his native tongue, voice heavy with mock praise. “The American girl speaks Japanese.”
The other two chuckled on cue—not loud, just practiced, the kind of laugh born from habit rather than humor. The sound raised gooseflesh along her arms.
Megan edged a step back, the folded map slick in her grip, knuckles whitening around it. Keep moving. Keep polite. Keep breathing.
The man’s smile stayed fixed, but his eyes cooled as he moved closer. “Ever been to a bar, American girl?” he asked. “A kyabarē, maybe? We know a few nearby."
It wasn’t lewd. He didn’t lean in or lower his voice. But there was no question in it either—delivered like certainty, not choice.
She dipped her head again. “Thank you very much for the offer,” she said softly. “But I really must go. I’m very sorry.”
Another step closer. The other two shifted with him, not blocking her outright but hemming her in, the narrowing space as subtle and relentless as the pull of a tide. Megan's ears filled with a high-pitched hum, her pulse quickening until it felt detached from her body.
“Don’t be like that,” the leader said lightly. His hand lifted—unhurried, casual—toward her wrist where her bracelets peeked beneath her sleeve. “You’ll like it.”
The words were quiet, but his tone had the gravity of someone unaccustomed to hearing no.
That hand kept reaching—deliberate, inevitable. Her skin prickled, the leather at her wrists suddenly too tight.
Deep down, she knew: if those fingers closed around her, it wouldn’t matter where he led her. She wouldn’t come back the same.
Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.
Her mind scrambled for a reaction—yell, run, hit him, something—but nothing broke through the static roaring in her ears. The weight of the night pressed down heavy and suffocating, the kind of weight that promised you wouldn’t walk away whole.
Then—something flickered at the edge of her vision. A shard of color. Deep, cold blue, sharp as glacial ice. It rippled the air for an instant, distorting the space around it, then vanished before she could decide whether she’d imagined it.
The air shifted. Denser. Waiting.
Before the man’s fingers brushed her sleeve, another arm appeared. It closed around his wrist with precise, effortless force—so sudden, so certain, it seemed to jolt the space around them.
“Yare yare daze…”
The voice came from just beyond her shoulder, low and rough-edged, carrying the calm of someone who had no reason to fear what came next. “Are you really that thick-headed that you can’t tell when someone’s trying to ditch you?”
The words cracked through her panic. Recognition snapped her upright before her body caught up. She knew that voice.
She turned, heart already hammering with the answer.
Jotaro Kujo stepped out of the shadow of the station entrance. His long black coat swung with each deliberate stride, the gold chain at his collar catching a muted glint of light. He didn’t look rushed. He didn’t look winded. He just looked…immovable. Like a storm front rolling in, single-minded in its purpose: to ruin someone’s day.
Relief hit first—raw, overwhelming relief that someone, anyone, was here. But it twisted into dread almost instantly. Because it wasn’t just anyone.
This wasn’t a stranger she could thank and vanish from. This was someone she knew. Someone who knew her. And now, because of her, he was stepping straight into danger.
What are you doing here!? Leave. You need to leave. They’re dangerous. You’ll get hurt because of me.
The thought clawed at her throat, frantic and useless, as if sheer willpower might force him to hear it. Her mouth stayed locked, words too heavy to drag free.
Jotaro’s eyes swept over the three men in a slow, deliberate pass. His gaze narrowed into something suspended between boredom and readiness. The leader’s smirk faltered—barely, a twitch he probably didn’t even notice—but his stance tightened.
Jotaro didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The silence itself carried the warning: Leave. Walk away. Or learn what happens.
“What’s your problem, kid?” the leader said, the edge in his voice blunted by the first flicker of uncertainty. “This isn’t your business. Keep walking.”
The other two shifted behind him, closing in without rushing.
Jotaro’s hand stayed loose at his side, but the air thickened—quiet, heavy, charged with something dangerous.
Megan’s feet moved before her brain caught up, one instinctive step closer to him. Safety. Or as close as she was going to get.
“You should go,” he said, eyes still forward.
“Yup. On it.”
Her voice pitched higher than she meant, but she obeyed, turning fast and putting distance between herself and the tightening circle. She’d barely made it a dozen steps down the stairs when the sound hit her: fists colliding with flesh, the blunt thud of impact, a muffled grunt.
She froze.
They were fighting.
Jotaro looked strong—impossibly strong—but there were three of them.
Relief evaporated, replaced by a cold, gut-deep terror. She’d left him alone in it.
Her pulse spiked. She spun back, bolting up the stairs. Not away this time—toward the fight. Every nerve screamed to act, to do something, anything, to keep him from being swallowed whole.
And then—she saw it.
It wasn’t just around Jotaro. It was coming out of him.
A colossal figure blazed into being, lit in ultraviolet fire. Humanoid, but impossibly vast, its broad shoulders blending with the light of the streetlamps. Power poured from its form in sharp, crystalline lines. A stylized helmet framed its face, and its eyes—white, searing—locked forward with such intent her skin prickled.
It didn’t trail behind him. It was him. Every motion mirrored his perfectly…only faster, stronger, as if it already knew what he’d decide.
One of the men lunged. Megan’s mind reeled. Why? Why would anyone still charge forward after seeing this? What kind of hunger for violence could keep a person moving toward something so impossible?
The purple figure’s arm drew back, motion so fast the air itself seemed to contract. Then it shot forward with a force that cracked like thunder ripping down a hallway.
“ORA!” the creature bellowed.
The blow caught the man square in the jaw.
He didn’t just fall. He flew—lifted clean off the ground, body twisting midair before slamming into the pavement. He skidded across the concrete like a ragdoll hurled by a god.
Megan’s lungs forgot how to work.
What…was that?
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink. Her mind stuttered, replaying the last two seconds on a relentless loop. Not only because it was impossible, but because something in it felt eerily familiar. That flicker of blue she’d glimpsed earlier, before Jotaro even appeared. The strange heaviness in the air. The prickle of heat racing over her skin.
It had felt…similar.
And now she couldn’t unsee it. Couldn’t unhear the way reality itself had just folded in half as if it were nothing.
The laws of physics weren’t broken—they’d been politely asked to leave.
And Jotaro Kujo—dodging another punch without even glancing—had somehow summoned this thing from within himself, a creature of impossible strength tearing through three grown men as though they were made of paper.
Her jaw slackened. Wide-eyed, she dissolved into one unhelpful, looping thought:
What the actual hell is going on?
A startled sound slipped past her lips before she could stop it.
Jotaro moved instantly—whirling toward her so fast the air itself seemed to fold. His arm and the violet figure’s mirrored the motion, cocked back in perfect, terrifying sync for a strike that could have taken her head clean off.
They moved as one: shadows in different shades of reality.
Megan’s breath locked. Her hands flew to her face, eyes squeezing shut until sparks of color burst against her lids. The air shifted again—sharp, tense, charged the way it feels just before lightning splits the sky.
And then—nothing.
Seconds stretched thin before she dared crack an eye open. Jotaro’s fist was lowering, slow and deliberate. The purple figure was gone, as though it had never existed. Only a faint ghost of violet lingered between them, unraveling like mist in sunlight.
Her arms dropped numbly to her sides, but she didn’t really move. She just stood there, dazed, vision blurred at the edges, pulse rattling like loose glass in her chest.
A beat. Then another.
“Hey.”
The word cut through her haze like a blade. Low. Rough. Heavy. It landed on her shoulders more than her ears.
She blinked hard, forcing her gaze up. Jotaro stood in front of her, broad and still, his posture making him seem taller than ever. His brow was drawn, his jaw clamped so tightly she could see the flex of muscle in his cheek. The ghostly edges of that violet apparition still shimmered faintly around him, burning away like mist off glass.
And he was angry. She could see it. Not yelling-angry. Not posturing-angry. The quieter kind—like glowing embers that could ignite into wildfire if disturbed.
Her stomach clenched. Of course he was pissed. Why wouldn’t he be? She’d ignored him. She’d run back up the stairs instead of leaving when he told her to. She’d dragged him into this mess in the first place.
“Didn’t I tell you to go?”
His tone was flat. Final. Less a question than a verdict.
The words landed exactly as she’d feared—not shouted, not sharp, but laced with a cold certainty that left no space for doubt. A command, immovable as stone.
Her mouth parted, but no sound came. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to apologize or argue—and either way, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Before she could choose, the air shifted again.
A sound pierced through the static in her head: rising, urgent, unmistakable.
Sirens.
Her head snapped toward the street. The wail grew louder, bouncing between buildings, threading through the alleys. Several officers were already jogging toward them—one pointing, another barking into a radio, voice sharp with urgency.
Her stomach dropped.
They were coming here.
Jotaro had just flattened at least two men—maybe three—and some of them were still groaning on the pavement. How many officers had seen it? How much would they believe? How much could they possibly understand?
He could get arrested. Maybe worse.
He saved you.
You can’t just walk away. You can’t let him take the fall for this.
This was your mess, whether you meant it to be or not.
Every instinct screamed at her to stay. To plant herself between him and the police if she had to. To explain to anyone who would listen that Jotaro Kujo wasn’t some violent delinquent looking for trouble. He’d been violent because trouble had found her. Without him, she might not be standing at all.
Her pulse rattled, but she forced her legs to move. One careful, deliberate step closer.
“But—”
“Now.”
The single word cut like a blade. Not shouted. Not even harsh. Just absolute—an order that left no air around it.
She didn’t move. Not yet.
Her gaze darted to the flashing lights in the distance, then back to Jotaro. Then to the police again.
Her thoughts warred, loud and relentless. One side snarled that she had to stay—that she had to do something—that walking away meant leaving him to take the fall for protecting her. The other side urged her to run, to not make it worse, to not give him one more thing to carry.
And beneath it all lay the ugliest truth: if she disobeyed him right now, Jotaro Kujo might make her regret it.
She looked at him one last time.
There was no fear in his face. No panic. Only the calm of someone who had already chosen what came next.
The realization struck cold. He knew he was going to be arrested. He’d accepted it. And still—he was telling her to go.
Her throat tightened. Guilt pressed down, hot and suffocating. She grimaced, her expression caught between apology and confession—I’m sorry for ruining your night, maybe your whole life—and then she turned and ran back into the station.
This time, she didn’t look back.
Not when the shouts cracked behind her—
“Hands where we can see them!”
“Face the wall!”
“Now!”
Not when the pounding of boots shook the pavement.
Not when she pictured the cold bite of cuffs snapping shut around his wrists.
Not when her vision blurred with tears.
She kept running.
Down the steps. Through the tunnel. Onto the platform.
The train doors slid closed with a dull, final clang, and she clung to the cold metal pole at the center of the car, holding it like it was the only solid thing left in the world. Her breath came fast, shallow, her chest aching with the effort of keeping herself upright.
But behind the rush of panic and guilt, something lingered.
That flicker of blue.
Faint. Protective.
Not Jotaro’s.
Hers.
She didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know what it meant. But for the first time since the nightmare began, she understood one thing with startling clarity:
It hadn’t been fear alone keeping her moving.