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Kakyoin was strange.
There was no other way to describe him. Between his carefully-guarded ego and his backhanded explanations, he was every bit the prideful honor student that he made himself out to be. That was no surprise though. Jotaro had caught onto to that aspect of Kakyoin’s personality from the day they met.
What surprised him was just how much of that pride bled into his appearance.
It wasn’t like the idea of a sunburn was some foreign wonder to someone as pale as Kakyoin, but Jotaro was still surprised by the lengths he took to avoid coming into contact with the sun at all. He wasn’t blind to Kakyoin’s polite, but firm insistence that his uniform stay closed and fully buttoned at all times, nor did he miss the time when Kakyoin disappeared for an hour in Singapore and re-appeared with a new pair of thin white gloves over his hands. He was distinctly aware of the way Kakyoin’s scarf stayed wrapped over his head from the moment they set foot outside, always adjusted to cover as much of his face and neck as it possibly could.
At this point, Kakyoin had done just about everything in his power to make sure that no spare millimeter of his skin would so much as graze the sunlight. It was a strange habit, undoubtedly, but an understandable one. Jotaro couldn’t exactly talk about the neurosis of someone else without drawing a target on his own back, after all.
But he never truly knew the depth that Kakyoin’s worry reached until he was startled awake by the harsh sound of a zipper being yanked open.
Jotaro had to rub at his eyes in order to adjust to the heavy darkness that surrounded him, grimacing as he wiped off the thin film of sand that had settled over his face in the middle of the night. His sleeping bag barely fought off the chill of the early morning, unforgivingly cold in the barren landscape of the desert. Really, a part of him wanted to just bury his head back down and try to get what little sleep he could before the rest of the group woke up.
The rustling and muttering from the other side of their makeshift camp made sure to shatter that dream as quickly as possible though.
Jotaro let out a long groan and pushed himself up with a few choice words. Just a little ways away, he could faintly make out a blurry shadow crouched down over their bags, tearing open the zippers with a nearly violent fervor.
For a single sleep-addled minute, he wondered if a coyote or some other animal had managed to start ransacking their things while they slept. It took him a moment to realize what exactly was going on when he saw a hand reach out push aside Polnareff’s duffel bag, nearly sending it flying it as Kakyoin immediately reached out for Avdol’s instead.
“Hey,” Jotaro called out. “You looking for something?”
He tried to keep his voice low, but Kakyoin still froze the second he opened his mouth. For a moment, he stayed silent, head bowed down to search through their belongings before he finally turned to glance over his shoulder.
“My scarf,” he whispered. “It’s missing.”
Jotaro frowned. It wasn’t fun to lose your stuff, but he still couldn’t see the urgency that a scarf of all things would warrant for Kakyoin to look so stressed out first thing in the morning.
“It’s not in your bag?”
Kakyoin shook his head, the action strangely jerky for someone usually so fluid in his movements. “I always keep it with me. I don’t know where else it could have gone.”
There was something off about the whole situation that Jotaro couldn’t quite name. An odd atmosphere crept through the air, prickling at the hair on the back of his neck with the instinctive call for caution.
“You won’t find it while it’s dark out,” he said. “Just get some sleep while you can. I’ll help you look for it once the sun’s up.”
He couldn’t have explained why, but as soon as the words left his mouth, Jotaro realized that he had said the wrong thing.
Kakyoin’s entire body visibly tensed, drawn taut like a string liable to snap as he turned his head back down to the luggage in front of him.
“I think I can handle it,” he said curtly. “Thank you.”
Without another word, he pulled open Avdol’s bag and started to rummage around inside. The sound of the fabric rustling against itself was almost deafeningly loud in the otherwise undisturbed silence.
It didn’t surprise Jotaro when Polnareff let out a long groan not two seconds later, smacking his lips and fumbling to sit up with a disgruntled huff.
“No. It’s too early for you two to be muttering like this. Why are you guys even up?” Polnareff faltered, long enough for Jotaro to wonder if he was really waiting for an answer, when he suddenly burst into action.
In a flurry, Polnareff clambered out of his sleeping bag, quick enough to make even Jotaro startle as he hurried straight for Kakyoin.
“What the fuck?”
Jotaro heard Joseph and Avdol starting to stir, but he didn’t stop to think twice about them as he all but threw himself after Polnareff.
As he got closer, the darkness started to give way and finally let his vision snap into focus. Now, he could make out all the clothes and toiletries that had been strewn across the sand, some of them his own, as Polnareff struggled to gather what he could and shove them back into his bag.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Polnareff griped, shaking out a spare pair of pants and sending sand flying everywhere. “These are mine! Why are you even going through my stuff? God, I’m never going to get the sand out of this!”
Polnareff’s tirade demanded attention, but strangely enough, Kakyoin didn’t seem to be paying him any mind. In fact, he didn’t so much as look up when Polnareff started to raise his voice.
Jotaro felt a chill run down his spine as Kakyoin silently searched through the rest of the bags.
“Hey!” Polnareff threw his bag down, twisting his face up as he pointed a single accusing finger at Kakyoin. “I’m talking to you!”
Jotaro pushed his hand aside, a slow rush of adrenaline starting to run through his veins. “Knock it off.”
Polnareff immediately directed his grievances towards him, but Jotaro couldn’t bring himself to care when Kakyoin remained crouched down, almost robotically unzipping Joseph’s bag and digging around for his scarf.
“You’re telling me to knock it off? Look! He threw my clothes everywhere! Tell him to knock it off!”
“What’s going on?” Avdol asked, coming up behind Jotaro with a distinctly groggy undertone to his voice. “Polnareff, if you’re going to complain, and least wait until we can all see to do it.”
“Christ, that’s you, Polnareff?” Joseph let out a vaguely irritated sound. “I thought we were getting attacked by an eagle.”
Despite the growing commotion around him, Kakyoin didn’t stop. He kept his head down, kept looking, silent enough that Jotaro started to feel the first pangs of worry jolt through his chest.
That worry spiraled straight into outright alarm when he looked closer and noticed that Kakyoin’s hands were shaking.
“Kakyoin.” He crouched down, trying to meet his eyes to no avail. “What’s going on?”
Kakyoin didn’t look at him. He patted through one of the smaller pockets that lined Joseph’s bag, then tried to pull the zipper shut. The tremor that ran through his fingers made him fumble with the small metal latch enough that he finally gave up and left it opened.
“Kakyoin,” he said. “Do you—”
“Are you two even listening to me? My clothes are ruined!”
Polnareff leaned down to shove at Kakyoin’s shoulder, but before he could make contact, Kakyoin’s hand darted out to grab his wrist and push him back.
“Shut up.”
Kakyoin’s voice was eerily even, too calm not to be forced. It would have been too easy to mistake it as his normal composed tone if it weren’t for the distant look in his eyes and the spastic jolting of his hands.
Belatedly, Jotaro realized that jolting was actually Kakyoin tugging down the fabric of his gloves in short, rhythmic motions.
“No, no, no, you don’t get to tell me to shut up if you’re digging through all of our things at the crack of dawn!” Polnareff said. “What are you even looking for? Because I swear to god, if I find whatever it is before you do—”
“Shut up!”
In one swift motion, Kakyoin shot up to meet Polnareff, shoulders drawn back and clearly ready for a fight. He wasn’t as steady as he usually was though, knees bent and gaze still a touch too frantic to be confident. Before Jotaro could intervene though, Polnareff squared himself up.
That kind of posturing was little more than a dramatic show with no real malice behind it. Jotaro knew this. Polnareff knew this. Kakyoin had to know this.
And yet for some reason, when Polnareff made to step forward, Kakyoin flinched.
The sheer surprise on Polnareff’s face was apparently enough to make him stop dead in his tracks, but even then, Avdol held an arm out to stop him from moving any closer.
“That’s enough,” he said firmly. Avdol turned to face Kakyoin, face still stoic, but just a touch softer than it had been mere moments ago. “Were you looking for something, Kakyoin?”
“I—” Kakyoin faltered, almost seeming lost for a moment before he regained his composure. “Yes. My scarf.”
“I see.” Avdol nodded to himself. “Alright. We can look for it, if you’d like, but I can tell you right now that you won’t find it if you keep throwing all of our things around like this.”
Kakyoin blinked. His eyes trailed down across the mess of clothing and personal belongings strewn around him as if he were just seeing them for the first time. A hint of surprise lined his face.
“Oh,” he said vacantly.
“Why don’t you take a walk?” Joseph said, lumbering towards the rest of the group. “Get some fresh air in your system. We can look for your scarf once we get all this cleaned up.”
This time, the panic that flitted across Kakyoin’s expression was painfully blatant.
“I can help,” he tried to say. “Really, I didn’t mean to make such a mess. Just let me—”
“Take a walk. We’ll find it.”
Joseph’s voice had taken a slightly firmer tone, his words less a suggestion than it was a thinly veiled request. It didn’t seem like that fact was lost on Kakyoin either, given the way his protest died on his tongue. His face fell, and briefly, his eyes flickered towards the morning sky, slowly starting to brighten with the coming of the sun.
For a moment, Jotaro could have sworn that Kakyoin almost looked scared.
“Fine,” Kakyoin said. “I’ll go.”
Without another word, he set off, slightly unsteady on his feet as he left a smokescreen of dust and sand behind him. Jotaro had to clamp down on the urge to follow after him. Kakyoin probably needed the space to calm down without someone like Jotaro breathing down his neck.
Once he crossed a nearby dune and effectively vanished from sight, Joseph let out a low whistle.
“Wow,” he said. “I gotta say, I didn’t think he’d hold out for this long. I mean, he’s polite enough and all that, but every kid’s gotta lose their temper at some point. Just didn’t think it’d be over something like this.”
Jotaro wanted to snap at him, if only out of sheer indignity over the fact that his grandfather couldn’t recognize the difference between a regular teenage outburst and whatever it was that Kakyoin had just done, but a stern look from Avdol effectively silenced him.
“I’m sure he has his own reasons,” Avdol said, shutting down all further debate on Kakyoin’s wellbeing. “Either way, it’s a good thing he started when he did. We’ll be able to clean all of this up by breakfast.”
Almost immediately, Joseph started to moan and groan about how he was losing his mobility at his age and really, it’s about time everyone learned to respect their elders and help an old man out. Jotaro tuned him out as best he could in favor of combing through the scattered mess around him for his own belongings.
He plucked out his clothes from the ground, beating them against his thigh to shake the sand off before tossing them back in the general direction of his bag. As he worked, he kept an eye out for a familiar white scarf, but found no sign of it anywhere.
He let himself fall into the rhythm of his work, if only to satiate the gnawing edge of worry that dug into his ribs, when Polnareff tapped him on the shoulder.
“Jotaro,” he said. “Look what I found.”
In his hands, slightly dusty and worn from constant use, was Kakyoin’s scarf.
“It wasn’t even near our bags. I found it half-buried a few meters that way.” Polnareff nodded his head to his left then let out a huff. “Looks like the wind picked it up while we were sleeping. Who’d have thought, huh?”
His tone sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but the slightly strangled quality of his voice betrayed the hint of unease that lingered behind. Jotaro had a feeling he knew why Polnareff would be feeling so unnerved. He felt the same way too.
Abruptly, he held his hand out. “I’ll take it to him.”
Relief bloomed across Polnareff’s face as he passed the scarf along to Jotaro. “Yes, thank you. I think that’d be for the best.”
He hesitated, clearly fumbling over whether or not he wanted to say what was on his mind before he finally leaned in and lowered his voice.
“You saw the way he was acting, right?”
A bitter taste clung to Jotaro’s tongue.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I saw it.”
With that confirmation, Polnareff’s worry bled visibly into his face, casting a glance behind him towards Avdol and Joseph to confirm that they were out of earshot before he continued.
“I mean, I was yelling, but he’s yelled right back at me before,” he said. “I just don’t understand what made it so different this time around. I didn’t mean to scare him.”
“I know,” Jotaro replied.
“Tell him I’m sorry, will you? It doesn’t feel right, seeing him act that way.”
Jotaro couldn’t have explained enough how much he agreed with that sentiment. “I will.”
Polnareff nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. With a final knowing glance, he turned back around to continue zipping his bag back up.
Jotaro was almost hesitant to keep holding onto the scarf out of fear that he would somehow manage to ruin it. It was a risk he didn’t want to take with something that clearly meant so much to Kakyoin.
But standing around would do nothing.
He looked around to make sure that the others were occupied before he set off for the dune that Kakyoin had wandered towards. There was no point in drawing an audience for this.
His loafers sank into the sand with every step he took, making him grimace as he struggled to make his way across the stretch of flatland to where Kakyoin had all but dropped off the face of the earth. Above him, the sky had started to melt into a river of dark orange and soft yellow, the sun starting to peak out from the horizon in front of him.
It was thanks to that light that he was able to spot Kakyoin below him, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest and head tucked down low.
Jotaro fumbled his way down the steep face of the dune, forced to dig his heels into the sand when he faced the threat of toppling over himself at the halfway mark. Kakyoin didn’t give any indication that he heard him though, almost motionless where he sat.
Jotaro wouldn’t have been surprised if Kakyoin had draped his hands over his head. That was probably the most common position related to distress, after all. Kakyoin wasn’t doing that though.
Instead, he had overlapped his hands over the back of his neck, fingers interlocked and effectively shielding himself from the sky above his head. Morbidly, Jotaro thought that he looked like he was ready to be executed. He didn’t let himself pursue that train of thought any further.
“Hey.”
Kakyoin didn’t move, but Jotaro thought he saw him peer up at him from the gap between his arms. His eyes still seemed a little hazy, not quite as present as Jotaro would have liked.
Slowly, Jotaro lowered himself down to sit next to Kakyoin, close enough where he wouldn’t have to raise his voice to be heard, but not enough to touch him.
“Polnareff found your scarf,” he said. “Said he felt bad about yelling too.”
Kakyoin stirred ever so slightly. Jotaro took the opportunity for what it was.
“You want it?”
Briefly, Kakyoin nodded. Jotaro didn’t waste any more time, holding out the scarf and taking care not to let the ends drag across the sand.
In a flash, Kakyoin snatched the scarf out of his hands and swiftly wrapped it around himself, quick enough that Jotaro almost wondered if he had somehow blacked out for a minute. Seconds later, the thin cream-white fabric was firmly draped over his head, covering up his neck and coming down to hide his forehead with what little slack Kakyoin had given it.
He still kept his head down, but Jotaro noticed how Kakyoin’s lips twitched, a tell-tale sign that he had something he wanted to say that he wasn’t quite sure how to verbalize.
That was alright. Idly, Jotaro patted around his pockets for his lighter, fumbling a cigarette out of his slowly diminishing pack and lighting it up with a few brief clicks. He took a long drag, slowly letting the smoke escape past his lips to wisp out into the broad desert sky. Kakyoin didn’t make any move to tell him off, so he assumed that his company was still welcome for the time being.
Sure enough, when Jotaro tapped off the ashes that clung to the end of his cigarette, Kakyoin spoke.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize how careless I was being.”
Jotaro wasn’t sure if he was talking about his scarf or his haphazard method of searching for it. He decided on keeping his answer equally as vague.
“It’s not the worst thing you could’ve done.”
Kakyoin glanced over at him. With the way the dawn started to break, the violet of his eyes shone like stars in the fading night.
“I could’ve been more careful though,” he insisted. “Besides, you’ll have sand in your clothes now. I can help you clean them up once we get to a hotel. I really didn’t mean to make such a mess of everything.”
He sounded calm enough now, but Jotaro still heard the lingering remnants of worry creep between his words.
“Kakyoin,” he said dryly. “I’ve had sand in my boxers for the past two weeks. I don’t think you can make this any worse than it already is.”
A small huff of laughter escaped Kakyoin, the harsh line of tension that furrowed his brow easing off just a little. “I guess you’re right.”
A part of Jotaro relaxed once Kakyoin had settled down, and that revelation was as surprising as it was expected. He figured that it would be someone like Kakyoin who would make him feel so conflicted in the first place.
The air between them had calmed significantly, the rocky divots of tension smoothed out into a tentative peace. Now would be as good of a time as any to test the waters and see how willing Kakyoin was to talk about what had just happened.
“Have you always had that scarf with you?”
It was a thinly veiled question, and Jotaro was certain that Kakyoin would be able to pick up on the hidden meaning behind it. Sure enough, he pursed his lips not a second later, contemplation flickering across his face before he answered.
“No,” he said. “Not always. I think I got it just before I met you.”
Jotaro knew how to read between the lines. He wasn’t sure how much freedom Dio granted those who served him, but he had no doubt that being able to spirit away something like a scarf was a far more impressive task than it might have first seemed.
Jotaro took another drag. “It suits you.”
This time, a hint of a smile graced Kakyoin’s face. “I’m glad you approve.”
It wasn’t quite as biting as it usually would have been, but it was leagues better than the frenzied state he had been in earlier.
“Just saying,” Jotaro said with a shrug. “It’s a nice scarf.”
He fumbled with his next words, taking a moment to string them together in his head before he carefully made his offer.
“I get being stressed out about losing your shit though,” he said slowly. “Especially with something like that. The others don’t really mess with my stuff, so if you need somewhere to put it, you can leave it in my bag if you want. I don’t care either way.”
Kakyoin’s face went slack, looking over at Jotaro with an unreadable expression on his face. “Really?”
“Yeah. Might not be perfect, but at least it won’t get blown away there.”
Kakyoin went silent. The tension clung to Jotaro’s shoulders like a second skin as he tried his best to keep up his nonchalant facade.
“You know, I thought you would at least ask why,” he finally said. “This kind of behavior isn’t normal. I’m sure you’ve noticed that by now.”
Jotaro struggled to find the right thing to say. It felt like he was threading a string through a needle, at risk of falling short with every potential option in front of him.
“None of this normal,” he replied. “I think it’d be weird if you tried to handle it normally.”
Kakyoin seemed to take in that response with some degree of resignation. “You’re right. I’m not sure how I was trying to rationalize that to myself.”
“It happens. Not like it’s your fault.” Jotaro stubbed his cigarette out into the sand and then flicked the smoldering remains out into the distance. “I’m not going to push you to talk about it. That’s your business. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to go through it alone if you don’t want to.”
Slowly, the first hint of the sun started to edge out from the other side of the sky, a slight curve of muted yellow that offered a hint of warmth to the cold sand below him. Kakyoin stared at it with unblinking eyes, lost in thought for a long moment before he finally pulled his scarf down and turned his head away from the dawn to meet Jotaro’s eyes.
“Not now,” he said. “I don’t think I could explain any of this now even if I wanted to. But maybe after all of this is over, I wouldn’t mind if you asked.”
“Alright,” Jotaro replied easily. “You still wanna keep your scarf in my bag?”
A hesitant smile bloomed across Kakyoin’s face, and Jotaro could have sworn that it lit up the empty desert around him.
“Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
Jotaro could have sat there for hours, just the two of them, watching Kakyoin smile at him as the sun started to rise in the sky. But he was sure that the others had caught on to his disappearance, and the last thing he wanted to do was throw more fuel to the flames that had led to such a disastrous outcome earlier.
“I’m gonna head back,” he said, dusting off his pants as best he could. “You wanna come with?”
“If you don’t mind the company,” came the easy reply.
That was enough for Jotaro. He pushed himself up to stand and then held a hand out for Kakyoin to take. A shiver ran down his spine when his slender fingers curled around his own, bracing himself as Kakyoin pulled himself up with ease and dipped his head ever so slightly in thanks.
The walk back to camp was done in an amicable silence. All of the words that needed to be said between them had already been said. There was no need for either of them to disturb the air again.
As soon as they got within sight of the others though, Joseph shot his arm up to wave them over, as if they weren’t already looking directly at each other.
“Looks like you’ve cooled down, huh?” he asked, booming out a laugh as he reached over to ruffle Kakyoin’s hair. “If we had a bucket we could fill up, I’d tell you to stick your head in it. Did wonders for me when I was your age. Ah well, guess we’ll have to settle for getting you some water.”
Avdol looked nothing but unbelievably confused at the slew of words that just left Joseph’s mouth, but all he did was shake his head. “I think I saw your flask by your bag, Kakyoin. It should still have a good amount of water left in it.”
His tone was casual enough, but his eyes scanned over Kakyoin for any sign of injury almost fast enough to be missed completely. Jotaro wondered if he had also caught on to the strange nature of Kakyoin’s disappearance, but he didn’t have the chance to question him about it before Polnareff jumped into the conversation.
“Glad to have you back in the land of the living,” he said. “Next time you feel like doing some redecorating, let us know beforehand, yeah?”
It was blunt. It was so unbelievably blunt that Jotaro kind of wanted to stick his head into the sand and blot out Polnareff’s presence entirely.
But thankfully, Kakyoin didn’t seem to take any genuine offense to it.
“Of course,” he said. “But I don’t see what good it would do you. It’s not like you had much taste to begin with.”
It was the exactly the kind of ramshackle olive branch that somehow managed to work just right for a pair like Kakyoin and Polnareff. Naturally, Polnareff took to complaining about the insult right away, but he kept his voice noticeably lower the entire time.
Throughout Polnareff’s monologue though, Jotaro was able to catch Kakyoin’s eyes. He soon found himself stunned by just how quickly he had managed to shrug off the stress that had latched onto him. Kakyoin still looked a little pale, and every so often, he would fiddle with the hem of his scarf to pull it down over his face, but for all intents and purposes, he seemed better.
There was an iron vein that ran through him, and Jotaro was sure that Kakyoin was more than capable of keeping himself steadfast with that kind of sheer determination. But if he ever needed it, then he would be more than happy to help him stay upright.
Silently, Jotaro watched as Kakyoin straightened his back and stood strong under the sun. Strange as it may have been, it was the kind of thing that someone like Kakyoin deserved. Jotaro would just have to make sure that Kakyoin knew he deserved that too.