The Ludicrous Escapade Pt.3

Misconstrued

"Are you... comfortable, (Y/N)?" Johnny was sitting behind you while holding onto the reins, still trying to give you some space.

"I'm good. Are you, though? You seem kind of tense." You tilted your head slightly to look at him. "You can relax, you know. I'm not going to electrocute you or something."

"Ah... okay..." Johnny let himself lean forward a bit before resting his chin on your shoulder a few seconds later. Slowly he switched to holding the reins with one hand while the other arm wrapped around your waist. He smiled to himself. Riding a horse with you was kinda nice.

"What the fuck is this?" Gyro was whispering to himself, or perhaps to Valkyrie, while watching you and Johnny. "He has her right in front of him and he's barely even doing anything..."

Lucy was mostly silent, trying to think of a way she could get the heart from the President.

After about an hour of riding, you all dropped Lucy off in a secluded area near Kansas City. Having someone see her with the rest of you would have certainly ruined the little plan.

So with each of you back on your respective horses, you sprinted the rest of the way to the fourth stage finish line.

"And here he comes!" The announcer was as hyped as usual. "Gyro Zeppeli, coasting towards the finish line! And gracefully... Goal!" The crowd practically jumped from their seats as they clapped and cheered. "Following him are Johnny Joestar and (Y/N) (L/N)! And Dot Han from Mongolia is trotting behind! He just entered Kansas City!"

As the announcer continued blabbering on about the storm and the ever increasing crowd size, Gyro frantically looked around. "What place did we finish in? What number did I finish as?" Neither you nor Johnny said anything since neither of you knew the answer yet. "I'm asking you what place am I?! Shit!" He looked to the rest area. "Look over there! Pocoloco's already drinking water at the rest area! Hot Pants and Sandman are walking over there right now!"

It was then that scoreboard was put up. You and the Zeppeli unmounted your horses and walked over while Johnny remained on Slow Dancer.

Gyro saw the three right next to his name. "I thought so. Again... I couldn't win again."

Johnny couldn't let Gyro look down on himself like that. "I feel like I'm repeating myself, but you're the one that won. We took a detour to the north and we even went through that storm. We couldn't have hoped for a better placement in the race."

"You'll get 'em one of these days, I'm sure." You gave the Italian a light pat on the shoulder. "And it's honestly pretty lucky that no one has got first twice yet. So no one has been able to really secure themselves a huge lead or anything."

"That's true..." Gyro pulled you closer. He appreciated your attempt to comfort him.

"Norisuke Higashikata?" You read out loud the first place finisher for the fourth stage. You wondered if this was Josuke's ancestor or something. Though, you couldn't recall seeing him doing anything of much importance during the other stages.

"He's that man over there." Johnny pointed to a more elderly guy with a gun strapped to his back. "He's Japanese. Japanese people are polite, but that somehow makes me more wary of him." He glanced at you, remembering that you said you were from Japan. "Ah, no offense, (Y/N). Oh, and it doesn't seem like he's a samurai, either. A gun isn't something a samurai would normally use."

"Um... Johnny." You spoke up. "I don't think there are any samurai right now. We're in what, 1890? Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai class a few decades ago."

"Oh. I didn't know that." Johnny hadn't exactly kept up to date with his world history.

"Hey, guys! Look!" Gyro watched as Diego walked toward the finish line, Silver Bullet alongside him. "Shit! Thought so... It's like I said back there."