all-american :: jotaro x reader

piece seven :: tadpoles

Fall was just beginning to dip its toes into the water, but the sun decided it would swim in the blue skies for a little longer.

The sun beat down on their backs, already wet with pond water and grass cutlets, allowing sweat to drop down over their eyes. They waded in the pond, with its waves just deciding to lap at the surface last minute. Ankle-high in water, the boy and the girl decided now would be the best time to catch the tadpoles - all the frogs were out and about.

"Lookit this one," said the boy, holding the tadpole by its tail, "it's got legs."

"You think it can run?" Asked the girl, letting another one go.

"I think." The boy set it down on the sandy banks of the pond and let it flop around, the grains of sand sticking to its slimy skin. Eventually, it stopped moving altogether.

"What happened?" Questioned the girl, and the boy shrugged. The girl carefully picked up the animal and tried to use her hand - and a nearby stick to pry the tadpole on its legs again. "He's just tired. You gotta help him."

She moved him along, his feet dragging behind him. Again, she tried letting him stand, yet he flopped sideways again.

The boy picked it up and tossed him back. "Let's try with another one."

They were quick and skilled at catching the unsuspecting tadpoles - they backed away from their left hands into their right, which would then scoop them up and place them right into the yellow pail the girl had so generously brought along to their adventure.

This time the boy placed it on its legs, and then again, they flipped around on the sand then laid still.

"I still don't think that how it goes," the girl mentioned, "my mommy says that when an animal isn't moving, I'm not allowed to touch it."

"Why?"

"Cuz after my gramma's dog bit me." She lifted her hand and let him gawk at the scarred tooth marks over her knuckles.

"Well, tadpoles don't bite. They don't even got teeth." The boy looked at the most recent motionless tadpole and inspected if for a mouth, and was unable to find one. "Nope."

"Let's keep trying," said the girl, determined, as she caught yet another tadpole.

And they did. Until the sun set father into the sky and until the fall air grew too cold for comfort, and until the tadpoles started to float to the surface like green, slimy bubbles.

The girl noticed this, and tapped the boy on the shoulder nervously. "Hey, Jotaro, I don't think they're supposed to goldfish like that."

"Goldfish? What do you-" his eyes laid sight on them floating to the surface and he too, grew worried. "Dang. Mommy's not gonna let us play in the inn pond if she sees them floatin' like that."

"Jotaro!" The girl cries, covering her mouth.

"What?"

"Don't say the D-word!"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Let's go get them."

They waded in about three feet until an algae plant wrapped around the girl's ankle and she ran out, squealing.

"Where ya goin'?" Asked the boy, wading farther, the girl shaking water off her hands. "Not there!"

"C'mon! We gotta get 'em out of the pond!" Called the boy, annoyed with his best friend's courage (or lack thereof). She shook her head.

"I'll carry you!" The boy promised.

She considered.

She agreed.

She allowed herself to wade a little further into the pond, enough for the boy to put his hands on her. "Are you sure you're strong enough?" She asked him, nervously eyeing the koi swimming around and the though of their gross skin against her.

"Trust me." He placed her arms around his neck, the same way he'd seen the pilots in his morning cartoons do to their female counterparts, and she jumped - which in effect, was like a WWE move on the both of them, and the weight of her body around his back caused them both to fall on the gravel at the bottom of the pond.

The boy was fine - grass stuck to his face and a tadpole floated dangerously close to his torso, and was lost in his own self-awareness before he remembered the girl hated pond water and looked upwards worried, expecting to see her in tears or bruised or worse, cut-

But she sat there with her mouth open, almost as wide as the koi retreating to their caves, and he watched her expression turn from shocked to a smile brimming with disbelief, and soon, she was deep in her own laughter.

The boy didn't get what was so funny, but he laughed anyways.

With youth comes the bliss of being naïve, doesn't it?