Expression

Chapter Sixteen

a/n: We finally hit 30,00 words! thank you for reading so much of my work!! this part is named after love, in itself by depeche mode

Part II: Love, In Itself

The next few weeks were a strange sort of pain. They passed each other often—on the way to school, in the courtyard, in the hallways, on the way back home—never more than a moment, and never acknowledged. Their paths had split, but were not so far apart yet that they could not see each other. Their eyes would be drawn to each other, a slight turn of the head, an involuntary motion, and on meeting the other's gaze snap away as if repulsed. It would continue like this until their graduation.

This above all else made Noriaki Kakyoin wish that his school days were over already. True, the ordinary anxieties of homework and exams took a severe strain on him as they did. But they didn't occupy his thoughts so singularly as Jotaro did. The mere fact that somebody could love him when he'd been nothing but an outsider before had been enough to make him fixate on JoJo like nothing else before. Aside from the occasional joy from seeing his finished artworks or from getting a new high score in his video games, ever diminishing returns, Kakyoin's life had been empty and joyless. Jotaro, then, had been a respite. But when it was the only respite, and when that respite was a person, a living, breathing, fragile, fallible human being —that was no good.

To have gone any further would have been to develop a dependency on Jotaro, one that would consume and destroy them both, the flames of their souls briefly burning brighter before turning to lifeless ash. Even though he'd stopped things there, it wasn't enough to force his mind away from this fixation on Jotaro which after even their brief passings whispered— did I look good for him did I look awkward does he hate me how was my face how did I —endlessly, for hours on end, until something could manage to steal his attention away. It had been the right decision to end things there , Kakyoin reflected, but knowing that does nothing to make things easier.

In another time
In another world
We would have been beautiful together.

What this had made him realize was how fucked up he'd been living his life until now. It was normal to be infatuated with someone, but not normal to have every thought revolve around that person, constantly fretting about if that person really meant that "I love you," really cared, really —No. That was certainly abnormal. And I don't ever want to be in a situation like this again. I want to live... a happy life. If only this one thing was enough to possess his entire mind, then what he needed was other things to focus on.

Which brought him to digging through dusty boxes in the attic and coughing up a storm so that he could find his old video games. I haven't touched these in years... wonder if I've forgotten how to play them.

There were dozens of old titles—he'd spent all of his money that he was given as a child on these games. He ran his finger along the line of them stopping and drawing in a shaky breath when he reached F Mega . The humiliation of his defeat still stung. He'd just recovered from one loss brought about by N'Doul only to immediately face another and have to be rescued by Jotaro and his grandfather. It was pathetic, really. If he could erase that game from existence, he would. He never wanted to see it, even to think about it, again. Sighing, he took every game but that from the box, along with the console, bringing them to the living room.

Returning, he grabbed F Mega and for a moment held it over the trash, contemplating just dropping it in there. It'll do me no good to have this around. It hurts too much. And who knows what the temptation will do. His hand twitched, nearly opening, letting it fall, then stopped. Something held him back. He'd keep it around, for... for what? He didn't know. At the very least, though, I can't let this be easy to get to. He frowned to himself. At the very least, he could bury it further. He hid it away in a box of old textbooks he'd been meaning to get rid of for a while, always forgetting to do so, burying it so it couldn't be seen and then placing another box on top. I won't be able to find this accidentally, I guess. Better than nothing.