Chapter Text
Between one day and the next, the neighboring balcony burst to life.
Thick curtains still blocked the sliding glass doors into the stranger’s apartment beyond. Never once in two years had Jotaro seen anyone on the identical overlook beside his. Jotaro didn’t mind the plants. It gave him something new to look at it, during a time when such things were rare.
Crawling vines overflowed from a ceramic pot and fell as a green waterfall over the edge of a neglected patio table. Huddled verdant bunches sat well-contained in their pot, leaves glistening. Fat, squat pretenders crowded between decorative rocks in a shallow bowl.
Not long after the plants arrived, the noises did as well. First a puzzling rhythmic banging, then alto cries and bass moans, both parties distinctly masculine. Muffled enough to be embarrassing more than enraging. Inadvertently arousing, in the late and lonely hour.
Jotaro spent more time in his office or the living room. Computer or living room, bullshit online lectures or endless news coverage of the only thing worth covering. Rather than sleep or study he watched nature documentaries, classic detective shows, endless marathons of favorites.
At all hours he smoked on the balcony, keeping company with the neighbor’s plants or watching the quiet street below. He listened sometimes to music and indistinct conversations from higher and lower floors. Cutting at alarming frequencies, the wail of distant ambulance sirens. Everything was quiet and slow on the surface, an idyllic torture of bleak isolation.
And then he appeared, changing everything.
Jotaro stood smoking in the quiet late-night darkness when the sliding glass next door rattled. He turned at the sound. A shadow tugged open the curtain-clad door and stepped through into the streetlight glow.
Barefoot, bare-legged, a baggy sweater draping low but not low enough. Patterned plaid boxers peeked beneath the hem. Darkened handholds smudged sleek and pale thighs. Jotaro’s gaze skipped upward. Slim, an elegant but not excessive height, scarlet hair accenting and framing angled cheekbones and wide mouth. Beautiful.
Jotaro pulled a hard drag on the cigarette, choking himself. The coughing gave him away.
“Oh! Hello. Don’t mind me. I came to see my plants.” The young man’s voice flowed smooth and sticky, warm honey surprise coloring the announcement. He staggered forward unsteadily and caught at the edge of the table.
Jotaro moved forward without thinking. Two sets of railing and social distance separated them, not to mention the gap between and long drop. He stopped short.
The young man laughed, much too loud with a grinning flush. Unmistakably drunk. "It's too dark to find the switch."
Idiocy drew sound from Jotaro, impossible to stop. "It's by the door for the hot water tank."
The stranger turned, fumbling along the wall. Light flooded the small square of space. "Ah! You're my hero. You must have fantastic night vision."
Jotaro's gaze jerked up from mottled bruised thighs in time to avoid getting caught staring. "Your apartment is the mirror of mine."
"It's not my apartment. It's his." An odd emphasis struck over the words.
Jotaro hit back accordingly, accidentally sneering the words like a judgment. "Your boyfriend?"
He expected anger, not laughter. The young man tossed his head with a sharp-edged grin. “Is that what we are? You’d have to ask him. Do you have a problem with it? Couple of fags next door, oh, no! It’s another sign of the end times.” He clutched dramatically at his sweater, bunching the fabric over his heart.
“Fuck off.” Jotaro blew an angry burst of smoke to the side. “I don’t give a shit.”
More laughter, airy and light. “You know, I actually believe you. How refreshing. Where have you been all my life?”
Jotaro scowled. He tugged on the well-worn cap he wore, pulling it lower across his forehead. Though he ostentatiously faced the street, Jotaro kept an eye on the neighboring balcony and the captivating stranger. He couldn’t seem to look away.
The young man reached out and curled his fingers lightly over one of the overflowing lengths of green vine. “Sorry. I’m being terribly rude to you, considering we’ve just met. I don’t get to meet many people. You seem nice enough. I should reciprocate. How do we do this? Introductions, I think, is traditional -- yes? I’m Noriaki Kakyoin.”
“Jotaro Kujo.”
“Delightful to meet you. I’d offer to shake hands, but for obvious reasons that won’t be possible. You’re Japanese, too, though? What a nice surprise. I suppose I should call you Mr. Kujo, in that case.”
“Jotaro’s fine.”
“You can call me Kakyoin. No one else does, so that’ll be nice.”
“Your English is pretty good.”
“Why, thank you. I haven’t spoken Japanese in so long. I’m sure it’d be terribly embarrassing if we tried.” Kakyoin spread his palms over the table and leaned forward, peering down at the massive network of vines. “Do we get morning or afternoon light here, mostly? I’m worried about Hierophant getting too much sun.”
“North’s that way.”
“So, morning sun? That’s good.” Kakyoin smiled and patted the plant fondly, like greeting a favored slipper-carrying hound.
Jotaro hated every stupid word that came of his mouth. “You named them?”
“Maybe,” Kakyoin shot back. “What’s it to you, if I did?”
Jotaro shrugged. He snubbed the shabby remainder of his cigarette into the railing. Removing himself from the situation seemed a great way to make it stop, before he said anything further he regretted.
“Wait. Don’t go. I’m sorry.” Kakyoin slipped around the side of the table, coming closer. “Please, stay. Talk to me. I’ll be nice. I promise.”
Jotaro stopped, one hand gripping the sliding door latch.
“I swear I remember how to be nice.” The smile Kakyoin offered seemed desperate, despite his teasing tone.
Briefly Jotaro’s gaze dropped to bare, bruised thighs before he forced it elsewhere. He released the door handle and returned to the railing.
“Thanks.” Kakyoin’s smile strengthened. “Wait, one minute. I’m going to get my wine. Stay here? I’ll be right back.” He turned unsteadily for the apartment, hands groping for purchase. The short raised lip up into the living room nearly sent him sprawling, but Kakyoin recovered. He disappeared inside.
Jotaro nearly called after him to put on some fucking pants. He tapped another cigarette from the half-empty pack instead. Through the knocked-askew drapery, he could see into the neighboring apartment. Lush white upholstery and sleek, modern furnishing decorated what little he could see.
Shortly Kakyoin returned with a stemless wine glass and a bottle. “You’re still here. Good. Do you want some?”
Jotaro considered the gap of empty air between their respective balcony cages. Assuming they both made a stretched lean, it seemed possible. It also seemed like a good way to watch this drunk stranger topple over the rail and splat face-first into the sidewalk far below. He shook his head, refusing the offer.
“More for me,” Kakyoin said cheerily. He poured a sloppy excess of wine into the glass and then set the bottle down on the table. “It’s a nice night, isn’t it?”
Jotaro considered the day-long grey overcast that persisted into an unseasonably chilly night. The faint blanket of stars usually visible overhead hid behind thick cloud cover.
“Listen to how quiet it is. You can almost hear the waves crashing. Do you think they’ll open the beach back up anytime soon?”
“Probably not,” Jotaro said.
“Ugh.” Kakyoin’s face scrunched. He gulped some of the wine. “I hate that you’re right. Why did I bother to ask? What a miserable topic, huh? Forget being nice, the real challenge is if I know how to make casual conversation. Let’s start over. Third time’s the charm, and all. What do you do? Or, what did you do, before all this?”
“Study.” Jotaro tapped the excess ash from his cigarette. “I’m working on my Masters.”
“Oooh.” A delectable noise, sweet like spun sugar, trilled from Kakyoin. He settled into a sideways lean against the table, wine glass cradled close. “I didn’t peg you as the academic type. I promise that’s meant as a compliment. What are you studying?”
“Marine biology.”
“Really? How delightfully impractical. I can’t imagine there’s a lot of money to be made in that. I was afraid you might be going for an MBA or something. Marine biology, though, that’s nice. I like it.”
Kakyoin smiled in such a way that Jotaro needed to look somewhere else.
"Your family must be rich then, if you're a student living here." Kakyoin’s arm lifted for a sweeping gesture. Wine dribbled from the glass in arc across the plants. It made him giggle. "Oops, sorry boys. Enjoy the treat."
Jotaro wondered just how much he'd drank. Each laugh and smile seemed too sharp, somehow unsteady. Jotaro kept his head low and watched sideways to hopefully hide his drifting gaze. The plants themselves had been intriguing. Their owner proved mesmerizing.
"So are you?” Kakyoin asked.
Jotaro realized just how long he’d been watching in silence. “What?”
“Rich.”
“Yeah. My family's loaded.”
“Ugh. Disgusting. I hate rich people.” Kakyoin’s entire face lit up with a smile. “No offense,” he added quickly.
Jotaro forced his attention off Kakyoin. “Nah. I get it. I hate ‘em, too.”
“Rich people, or your family?”
“Both.”
Soft laughter drifted from Kakyoin, weakening down into even softer silence. Jotaro pulled a long drag of his cigarette, staring across at an empty, shuttered storefront. Somewhere below and unseen, a dog’s high-pitched yapping broke into the night. A man shouted at the dog, and the noise quieted.
Kakyoin’s voice cut into the fresh silence with a quiet overture. “I promised to be nice to you, and here I am talking about people you hate. Let’s talk about something else. You pick a topic.”
His mind went blank except for one thing. It popped out of him, horrendously stupid. “What're their names?"
“My plants?” A brilliant smile spread across Kakyoin’s face, making Jotaro regret his question all the more. “Well. This one’s Hierophant. He’s a hedera helix or common ivy, but I think that’s a bit rude. He’s anything but common, look at him. Magnificent. He used to be a lot bigger, but I had to cut him free before bringing him here… he’d gotten through the window and down the wall at my old apartment.”
“What about those?” Jotaro nodded toward the decorative rocks nestled with bizarre succulents.
“These are Lithops. I have two olivacea and one salicola. The olivacea are Jean and Pierre. The salicola is Polnareff. Aren’t they stupid? I love them. Too bad it’s the wrong time of year to see them flowering. But they’re still very pretty this way.”
Kakyoin reached out and trailed his fingertips along one of the round, bisected bulbous plants. “I haven’t had them long. They’re harder to care for than Hierophant. I accidentally killed my last batch of succulents by overwatering them. I promised these boys I’d take better care of them.”
Genuine remorse tempered his soft, drunken slur. Kakyoin sighed and then tossed back the remainder of wine in his glass. He reached for a refill. “The new one there is Danny. Some rare type of periwinkle from Madagascar -- Catharanthus roseus, I believe. It was a gift.” Bitterness lashed through Kakyoin’s voice. “I try not to hold that against him.”
“Huh.” Jotaro blew the sound out as a cloud of smoke. He’d put some effort into looking the plants up online, but he’d been way off the mark. Only the ivy he’d gotten close to right.
“They’re poisonous, you know. Periwinkles.” Kakyoin tugged at one of the glossy green leaves. “They’re called the flower of death. I read that it was traditionally planted on fresh graves. For dead children, specifically. I wonder if he knew that.”
Jotaro glanced past Kakyoin to the curtains. “Your boyfriend gave it to you?”
Kakyoin hummed a long, quiet affirmation. Silence settled into place. More of the wine disappeared. “Do you know who he is?”
“No.”
“Really?” He grinned, quick and flashing. It seemed more feral than friendly. “Does the name Dio Brando mean anything to you?”
“No. Should it?”
Laughter burst from Kakyoin, bright and sharp like cut glass. “Oh!” he gasped. “You’re precious. Should it! Lord, yes. Do you live under a rock? Rhetorical question and metaphorical rock, I mean. I obviously know where you live.”
Jotaro scowled. He muttered to himself in Japanese and tugged his hat low. Hopefully he stood in enough shadow to hide.
Eventually the laughter from Kakyoin faded. He snickered with aftershocks, small giggles that impeded his ability to keep drinking. Given his slight sway and increasing incoherence, that was probably for the best.
“I’ll tell you a secret, but only because you seem nice. Are you nice? Please say you’re nice. I want you to be nice.”
“Sure,” Jotaro said. Any other answer wouldn’t be nice of him, so maybe it wasn’t the lie it felt like.
Kakyoin swapped the stemless glass for the bottle itself, cutting out the middleman. “That’s good. I was hoping you’d be nice.” He lifted the bottle to his lips. The remaining liquid inside rapidly disappeared as he chugged.
A low note of concern bloomed deep in Jotaro’s chest. He watched sideways, cigarette forgotten.
“Since you’re nice, I’ll tell you -- stay away from him. That’s not the secret. Or maybe it is. He’s so … charismatic .” Kakyoin practically spat the word. “You’d never know what a huge scumbag he is. He works for the mob, you know. All his friends are criminals. If you don’t see me again after this, don’t be surprised. I wouldn’t put it past him to know I’m out here, talking to you, even though he’s not home. I hope your rich family would miss you. They would, right?”
“I guess,” Jotaro said.
“That’s good. Keep it that way. It’s a terrible thing to realize no one would care if you went missing.”
Awkwardness tangled with concern. The growing conflict churned in Jotaro’s gut like bad indigestion. His gaze drifted, but the angle of the table blocked his view of Kakyoin’s bare legs. A question lodged in his throat, too thick to make it past a nervous swallow.
“I saw him kill someone once.” The announcement clashed terribly with Kakyoin’s cheerful, drunken smear.
“That’s the secret. I don’t even think he knows I saw it. That’s why it’s a secret. I’ve never told anyone. Is it wrong of me, not to tell anyone? I think about it a lot. Even if I did tell the police, what would it matter? I’d never make it to the witness stand, assuming the case went that far. Knowing him, it wouldn’t. He’s a really good lawyer. He helps keep murderers out of jail. Witnesses disappear all the time.”
Wildly Jotaro considered if this was all some weird, sick joke. A vivid hallucination, maybe, or a spectacularly strange dream. Kakyoin certainly felt like something out of a dream, too beautiful and haunting to be real.
Anger built in him, sudden and hard. “Stop fucking around.”
Kakyoin laughed, mirthless and short. “You think I’m lying? Some sad, crazy drunk making up stories? Good. That’s probably smart of you. I see why you’re in college, now. Unlike me. I used to think I was smart. Honor student, and all. Clearly I’m not that smart. I wouldn’t be in this mess, if I was smart.”
He swiped a hand for the empty wine bottle, perhaps forgetting it was empty. Either way, Kakyoin’s grasping sweep simply knocked it off the table. The bottle hit the concrete and shattered, glass bursting out in all directions. Kakyoin yelped.
Jotaro straightened from his lean against the railing. “You okay?”
Drunk, hysteric giggling answered him. Kakyoin wrapped an arm around his waist and bent double, laughing as if the broken bottle was the funniest joke he’d ever heard. He staggered, unsteady and stumbling.
“Hey. Careful. You’ll cut your feet.” For some reason, it mattered to him. Jotaro didn’t know why. Normally he wouldn’t give a shit if some idiot drunk wanted to dance barefoot all over broken glass.
“Oh, o-o-okay." Kakyoin retreated from the mess with big, wavering missteps. “Good thing it was already empty.”
Jotaro moved closer while still maintaining distance. “You should go inside. Lie down or something. Drink some water.”
“Heh. Okay. If the smart, handsome Master’s student says so, I should listen.” Kakyoin pushed his fingers into his hair, hopelessly ruffling the styled strands. “I think I need to throw up anyway. Yup. Nice to meet you, Jotaro.”
With that, he turned and staggered into the apartment. The sliding glass rolled shut. The curtains twitched closed.
Jotaro smoked the rest of the pack, waiting for nothing. He went to bed and stared at the ceiling for hours.
Sunrise sent him outside with a fresh pack of cigarettes and coffee for breakfast. He found the balcony cleaned of evidence. The plants remained, vibrant and green in the morning light.