Chapter Text
Kakyoin walked alone down a bustling city sidewalk. He found it hard to breathe. His feet hurt. Adults towered over him, other children laughed and ran together. If someone looked at him, he looked away. But he watched the other children.
He saw them exchange addresses and phone numbers. Girls chatted and giggled. Boys chased each other, reenacted fight scenes from movies and poses from comics. One child tripped, fell, scraped her knee. She was helped off the ground by a smiling schoolmate, little hand in little hand. Another kid put their arm around a crying friend. A boy snapped a candy bar into several pieces and handed them to his classmates.
Kakyoin imagined being with them. Bumping shoulders, his laugh blending into theirs. Walking home together. Coming over for dinner. Playing games until the Sun set and the street lights flickered on.
Kakyoin turned a corner, away from the crowd, and walked down an alleyway. It was dark, enclosed, cold. He saw no one else. The sounds of other people faded away. Everything was quiet.
The alley morphed into a hallway, seemingly infinitely long, with an unseeable ceiling and flat walls of sandstone. Dim torches burned far apart from each other. There were pillars, off-shoots and turns that only led to more darkness, more windowless corridors. The air was chilling yet stale.
Kakyoin felt, along his back, a pair of eyes watching him. A presence that brought itself closer, stalking him.
A cold sweat and shivers escaped from his skin. There was a pounding inside his chest, spreading through his body to his trembling limbs. He felt hollow, as if he was about to vomit.
His mind was clouded; he didn’t know where he was, how he got there, or where he had been before. He forgot that there was a world, a reality, beyond the mansion and the darkness. As if in a nightmare, a numb haze, he hardly felt in control of his body. His legs struggled to hold him up, and carried him forward, fighting against some unseen force, an invisible chain, marionette strings.
It somehow got darker than before. Kakyoin walked faster, then began to run. His footfalls became quieter as the ground under his feet softened. His legs brushed against unseeable objects, his feet stumbled over bumps and holes in the ground. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could make out dark, towering shapes around him. Trees. Looking up, he saw, between the blackness, pieces of deep blues and grays dotted with small, twinkling lights. He leaned against a tree for a moment to catch his breath.
The moon emerged from behind a cloud, casted its faint silver light down onto the forest and young man below. Kakyoin could just barely see a dirt path before him. It twisted here and there, and disappeared behind trees and undergrowth. He followed it.
Many minutes passed. But after a while, through the gaps between the trees, he could make out a warm glow in the distance. As he got closer, he saw that the light was emanating from a familiar Japanese house.
Jotaro’s house.
Kakyoin quickened his pace and came to the back of the house.
A light inside the home casted a shadow on the paper wall, the silhouetted figure of a woman with her hair in a bun. She seemed to be busying herself with some indistinguishable housework. With wide eyes, Kakyoin rushed to the back door.
“E-excuse me? I-I’m sorry to startle you, Ms. Holly. My name is Noriaki Kakyoin, I’m friends with Jotaro. I… stayed at your house. May I come in, please?”
The silhouette’s head turned towards Kakyoin. She lifted her hand and gestured for Kakyoin to enter. He hesitated, thinking it strange that she said nothing, but slid the door open. The room was dark and empty.
He slipped off his shoes and stepped into the home, sliding the door behind him shut. He looked around the room.
“Ms. Holly?” He stepped into the middle of the room. “Ms. Holly? Hello?”
Kakyoin stood there and listened for some hint of life in the silence. Then, faintly, a sound emerged: man’s voice, or many men, talking and laughing.
One voice was gentle yet rough, rumbling and warm. Soft, coming from a distance. And when that voice ceased, another rose up, even and cool, and then a third voice, and a very familiar laugh.
Kakyoin opened a door that led outdoors, excited and smiling. “Jotaro! Polnareff!”
It was somehow already morning. The Sun was out.
Their faces lit up as Kakyoin’s face came into the sunlight.
“Ah, Kakyoin!” Joseph said. “There you are.”
Kakyoin had a small smile, but it belied the sudden flush of warmth he felt. Memories of what was, presumably, the day and night before faded completely. Outside, the air was clean and pure. The rays of the Sun felt stronger than usual. Everyone’s hair and skin seemed to shimmer in the light.
“It’s good to see you all,” Kakyoin said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Joseph nodded to him. As a group, they all began to walk off the estate towards a road familiar to Jotaro and Kakyoin. He was reminded of when he first met Jotaro when they came to the little lane flanked by trees.
Polnareff and Joseph walked a few feet ahead of the teenagers, talking and chuckling about something Kakyoin couldn’t quite make out. Jotaro walked directly beside him.
“Oi, Kakyoin,” he said. “Have you ever seen the show ‘Columbo’?”
Kakyoin met his eyes, still smiling, but feeling as though he’d been asked this before. “No, I don’t think I have. What is it like?”
“Hm. It isn’t bad. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid.” There was a long pause, then Jotaro gripped his hat and said, “I sort of looked up to the main character.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Kakyoin waited for Jotaro to elaborate, but he waited in vain. Thinking he should have known better, he asked, “Why is that?”
“Well, he was sort of a cool detective type. Not much bugged him, you know? And he always brought the guilty people to justice.”
Kakyoin laughed softly. “He reminds me of someone I know.”
“Hm. Yeah.” Jotaro tried to hide his smile. “Me too. Good grief, since when are we this cheesy?”
A laugh like a clap of thunder erupted out of Kakyoin, and he instinctively covered his mouth. He could have sworn, though, that Jotaro and him had had a very similar conversation sometime during their journey to Egypt. It was nearly exactly the same. It was familiar, like how the busy sidewalk and the dark hallway were familiar. He felt that he had lived through these moments before. The connection he noticed, and the deja vu he felt, didn’t bother him, though.
The four of them descended the stairs and began walking directly beside one another towards a street corner.
“Hey, Kakyoin?”
He heard Jotaro’s voice as if it was all around him. For the first time, it sounded like it was shaking, wavering; like Jotaro was fighting to get the words out.
Kakyoin’s peripheral vision was blurry. The sunlight was in his eyes. He looked ahead and was unable to look around him, unable to see Jotaro. But he felt his presence. He knew he was there.
Kakyoin tried to respond. He could barely manage a whisper. “Yes?”
“I’m… I’m going to miss you,” Jotaro said.
They reached the corner at the end of the road and turned.
“I’m going to miss you so much.”
Kakyoin blinked and he was alone. Jotaro, Joseph, and Polnareff were gone. And he was not in the same place anymore.
He stood on a sidewalk he could never forget. In front of him, up a slight incline and set back behind small bushes, was a house. It was two stories, a modern, Western style, wooden, and painted a muted color. There was a brick stairway leading to the front door, which was flanked by windows with closed curtains.
Kakyoin stood and stared, mouth open. Inside he was reeling, trying to understand what was happening to him. He was home. And he did not know how.
He walked up the steps to his home and opened the door, as he had done so many times before.
Slowly, he came into the entryway, then into the living room. Before him, sitting on the ground, he saw his parents, and in front of them, himself. But he was younger; a small child, with short hair and short trousers.
Kakyoin remembered this moment suddenly. And with the memory came a flood of longing, a feeling of loss, but also a strange warmth; pain and love woven together as one.
Tears welled in his eyes. He came closer. With each step, though, the child became fainter and fainter, slowly fading away, until it was Kakyoin, his current self as a 17-year-old, who was kneeling on the ground before his parents.
His mother reached out her hand, touched his face, wiped away his tears and pushed his hair behind his ear.
“Oh, Noriaki,” she said. “I know it can be hard, but you’ll make friends someday.”
His father reached out his hand, and put it on his shoulder in a warm, unwavering grip. “And you know what? You have us. And while we’re here, you’re never alone. Never.”
Kakyoin could tell that his mother was holding back tears. Her eyes watered, glistened, and her voice wavered only for a moment as she spoke. “Oh, my baby. Come here.”
Kakyoin let his tears stream from his eyes, and a sob broke out of him. He leaned forward into his parents’ arms. He wailed.
The moments passed. Kakyoin stopped crying, and kept his eyes closed. But he and his parents still embraced each other.
Kakyoin and his parents stayed there. Nothing changed. Time did not pass.
He took a deep breath in, a deep breath out.
Nothing changed. Time did not pass.
To Kakyoin, it felt like an eternity, in just that moment, with him and his mother and father.
When Kakyoin opened his eyes, his arms were empty. He saw no one, heard no one, felt no one. He put his hands on his knees. There was a darkness that he’d never seen before; a total darkness, where even imaginary lights and colors didn’t dance in his eyes.
Time in the dark passed. Pieces of the darkness became gray. Vague shapes began to distinguish themselves from the shadows. Kakyoin began to see what was around him; he could just barely make out the earth beneath and around him.
His eyes continued to adjust to the darkness. He began to see, faintly, blades of grass and budding flowers that sprung from the soil. The sky was clear but dark, a muted, dull indigo. The air was chilling and flowing. Tree leaves trembled, rustled, and whispered. Kakyoin could see, between the black tree branches, a waxing moon that gave a golden light.
He closed his eyes again, and did not see that he was not alone.
Suddenly, something soft, warm, and firm gripped Kakyoin’s shoulder; someone’s hand. His head and heart jumped.
He looked up. Illuminated in the dim light, he saw a billowing overcoat… shining, golden jewelry… a strong face, dark skin, dark eyes, and a familiar smile that radiated heat like a bonfire...
“Mr. Avdol?”
Avdol took Kakyoin’s other arm, lifted him to his feet, and embraced him.
In an instant Kakyoin was wrapped up in Avdol’s arms in a warm, unchanging embrace. Kakyoin put his arms around his friend, his eyes watering.
They pulled away simultaneously. Avdol’s hands still held Kakyoin’s shoulders. Tears glistened in their eyes, but they were beaming.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Kakyoin,” Avdol said.
“It’s wonderful to see you, too,” Kakyoin said. “I… I didn’t think that I would see you again.”
“I once had the same fears that you did,” Avdol said, “but I think that we shall fear no more.”
Kakyoin suddenly felt something scratching at his ankles. He looked down to see a small black and white dog, whose face, to Kakyoin, looked surprisingly soft and warm. He knelt down, grinning, and pet Iggy’s head. Iggy wagged his tail and barked.
They could all see that the sky above was changing; it was growing lighter.
“Sunrise,” Kakyoin said.
“The dawn is coming,” Avdol said. He looked about, and saw the trees around them and, not too far away, a wide, tall hill.
“Kakyoin,” he said, “perhaps we would have a better view of the dawn from a higher place.”
As the three ascended the hill, color came into their surroundings more and more: the grass was a deep, vibrant green, the sky a pale blue. Small flowers, swaying softly in a faint breeze, were white, pink, gentle yellows and sweet, rich indigos. The dew shined like silver, and within the drops one could see glimmers of gold, rose, blue and red.
Avdol reached the hilltop first, extending his arm back to Kakyoin to help him up, and Iggy followed.
They stood, overlooking a vast, glorious landscape, and watched the Sun rise.
Kakyoin felt the same way he did when Jotaro saved him... like a second Sun had risen at Dawn.
They all felt ice and frost melt off of them, turn to water, and that water turned to vapor, and the vapor turned to golden specks and stardust.
Years, perhaps a lifetime of darkness, of bitter tears, agonizing loneliness, biting winds, numbing cold, unspeakable suffering... it all changed, seemingly swept away... it was redeemed, rewarded… like thin, weak clouds in a summer breeze rushing away to reveal a kaleidoscope sunrise.
The Sun rose inside the three of them, and would never set again.