Eloquence

Flame

Kakyoin shivers against the tiles under the sound of the rain with darkness filling his lungs until he thinks he might suffocate. Time has lost its meaning. He can all but feel the sheets of a hospital bed on his skin, can hear the noises of doctors wandering about speaking a language Kakyoin knows but does not understand, that means "maybe," maybe he will see again, maybe he won't, the path of his life and the future of his art decided on what feels like a coin flip but with worse odds. When they speak to each other, the doctors' words can float by without purpose, but when they explain Kakyoin's situation they tell him horrors that make his throat feel thick and clogged, as if he somehow inhaled his oil paints and they are oozing through him, choking him. The doctors add that he is lucky to be alive, should be grateful with or without his sight. The words should be comforting, but they taste as acrid as paint thinner, burning his throat (Kakyoin can imagine himself vomiting up his oil paints, then his heart, turning inside out and all his organs bared to see the light his eyes cannot detect). He wants to be grateful, so he tells the doctors how much he appreciates their hard work - which he does, really, but he also isn't sure how to go on living if he can't draw anymore. Once DIO is gone, he thinks, in the long silent hours that look like nothing and feel like only bandages stretched across his eyes, once that's gone... maybe...

Footsteps snap Kakyoin out of his reverie. The faint orange circle means a candle, means that Jojo is coming back with sight to burn away the old nightmares. 

Jojo isn't looking at him - has turned his face away, eyes fixed resolutely on nothing at all, somewhere outside of the candle's beam. Kakyoin wonders what he could have done to offend the man so deeply, before the light reflects off of his own bare skin and he scrambles for a towel.

"Uh. Sorry. For that. And for. Um. Freaking out before. Uh. I. Thanks for the candle."

Jojo shrugs, somehow a response to all three. He reaches over Kakyoin, who is still on the ground, and puts the candle down. He's nearly out the door before Kaykoin gets his words in order again. 

"Don't you need the light?"

"Not here," says Jojo, with a different kind of shrug than before, or maybe the same one seen from a different angle, but meaning something different anyway. It means that this is his home, where he has grown up since infancy, so of course he doesn't need to see to find his way around. The house is a part of him and he knows every corner of it. The sound of his shoes against the floor echoes confidence even after the door has shut Kakyoin in with light and the lingering smell of strawberries.

"Right." Kakyoin scrubs the towel over his hair and dries off, then dresses hastily. The tiny flame of the candle keeps flickering, and Kakyoin can feel his heartbeat falter in response each time. He's still shaking, he realizes, though his body has adjusted to the chill in the bathroom. He shudders at the thought of the light disappearing again, leaving only white slashes of lightning to keep his mind away from memories he hopes one day to forget altogether.

Wrapped in borrowed pajamas (he should send for some of his own from home, now that his family understands the circumstances, shouldn't he? It isn't nice to keep making Miss Holly do so much), Kakyoin scoops up his candle and follows the sound of soft voices to the kitchen.