Chapter Text
To Rohan's eternal disgust, he actually kind of likes Jotaro Kujo. He doesn't want to be friends with the guy or anything, but he appreciates his general straightforward, no-nonsense attitude. It's just too bad that he's related to that idiot Josuke: clearly, Kujo got all the common sense in that bloodline. So when Rohan notices that suddenly a lot of stuff is missing from his house, he hesitates only for a minute or two before calling Kujo at the Grande Morioh Hotel.
Kujo picks up after two rings with a gruff, "Hello."
"Jotaro," Rohan says, trying to sound friendly (what does friendly sound like? Rohan does not know and does not really care). "You don't happen to have anything going on right now, do you?" (Wait, maybe that's too friendly. Can't let him think Rohan actually wants to hang out.)
"I'm working on my thesis. Did something happen?"
"Yes. I've been robbed," Rohan says. He feels dramatic saying that. He's been robbed.
There's a pause. "Not… to be rude, or whatever, but. That's not really something I can help with. I advise you call the police."
"No, see, I think it was a Stand. I've have a state-of-the-art security system ever since the renovations from when Josuke burned my fucking house down. If it were a normal burglar, there would have been an alarm. Also, there's stuff missing that isn't actually valuable."
"Hm," Kujo grunts. "Like what."
"Like a framed picture of Reimi," Rohan says. He's exposing himself a little here-- Rohan had a friend and he misses her! -- but whatever. It drives the point home. Also, he suspects that it would not even occur to Kujo to care, so.
"Hmmm," Kujo says. "Maybe they stole it for the frame."
It was a pretty nice frame. Rohan would not blame a thief for thinking they could resell it. But-- "They also took some shitty plastic friendship bracelets she made me. There's no way you could resell that stuff." He almost says, Not even a five-year-old would take them, but, well, a five-year-old did take them. A five-year-old who would grow up to have impeccable taste in everything he did.
"Hm. That is weird," Kujo admits. "I'll drop by this afternoon to take a look around. If my grandfather's feeling okay, I'll bring him too."
"Great. See you," Rohan says, and hangs up. With that interaction out of the way, he's free to work until Kujo shows up. Getting set up to draw is always kind of nice: the thick white paper, the nib that fits neatly into the pen, the light blue pencil that doesn't show up in the scanner. Turning thumbnails into full pages. Getting the line weight just right. The quiet scratch of pen on paper, almost unnoticeable underneath Joan Jett's smoky voice from his tape deck.
He looks up. His tape deck.
His tape deck , which should be right there. He narrows his eyes at the space on his desk where his tape deck usually sits. God damn it.
--
Kujo shows up around noon with Mr Joestar in tow, as promised. Rohan shows them the security system, and then points out where he kept all the things that vanished: inside cupboards, on his dresser, in drawers, on his desk. Some things were in plain view; some things were hidden. Some things had monetary value; some things were without value to anyone who wasn't Rohan. There didn't really seem to be any sort of rhyme or reason.
"Hm," says Kujo. "You explained it pretty poorly over the phone, but you're right-- this is pretty suspicious. You should still report the missing items to the police though. Call right now, ask them if they've had any similar calls recently."
Rohan does so. The three of them sit around the phone to listen to it on speaker.
"Gosh," says the dispatcher when Rohan describes what's missing. "You know, you're maybe the fourth or fifth person this week to call in about such a strange diversity of thefts. We have a team on this case already, I'll forward your details to them and we'll see what we can do."
Gosh, Rohan mouths to the others with a roll of his eyes. "All right, thank you," he says to the dispatcher. "Please keep me posted." He hangs up.
"Young man, you have terrible phone etiquette," Mr Joestar admonishes, as if Rohan could possibly care about his opinion on phone etiquette . "Still, it's interesting that you're not the only one. We should tell the kids what's going on, see if they have any ideas." By the kids, of course, he means Koichi and his friends. (Oh, God, he'll have to deal with Josuke again. Christ.)
Kujo says he'll talk to Josuke, and Rohan assumes, like an idiot , that they'll do some weirdo magic sleuthing and they'll get his shit back and the whole thing will only take a week or two.
--
Three weeks later, they're still nowhere near getting Rohan's shit back, and actually more of his shit has disappeared, and it sounds like their guy got something of Okuyasu's too, and Rohan is ready to cut a bitch.
"Okay," he says, the next time they're all together. "Listen. I was fine with dealing with this for two weeks, but now it's been three weeks and we still haven't gotten anywhere. I feel like I wake up every other day and something is gone from my house. Aren't you, like, part of some fancy Stand union or something? I feel like I remember that. Can't you just call people in?" People who aren't completely incompetent , he means.
Joseph (they're on first-name basis now, joy ) makes a pensive face. "Well. There's a thought. Jojo, you wanna call someone in from the Speedwagon Foundation? We could see if Polnareff's free," he suggests.
Jotaro looks interested, or at least less stormy. "We could probably use some fresh eyes," he agrees.
"What's a Polnareff?" Josuke asks, because of course he's here too. "I feel like every time you mention one of your friends the names get weirder."
"I'm gonna tell him you said that, and the shitty thing is that he'd be thrilled he was mentioned at all," Jotaro says. "Polnareff's this weirdo French guy we know, you'd like him."
"Then it's settled," Joseph says, even though they haven't settled anything. "Jojo and I will go back to the hotel and call the Foundation, and we'll see if we can't get someone to come help us."
"Great," says Rohan, before anyone points out that they haven't really talked about it. "Good talk. Okay, everyone get out of my house, time to go back to work. Shoo, shoo."
They all leave with minimal grumbling. Koichi, Okuyasu, and Josuke all seem excited at the prospect of finally meeting Stand users who are already their allies. As if anyone worthwhile could stay their enemy for long , Rohan thinks, and then he deeply regrets the fact that Heaven's Door can't make him forget thinking anything, because that's the worst thought he's ever had.
At least soon there'll be experts on the scene. Then all this silliness will be resolved and he can get back to working in peace.