INBOX (noctium)

[hierophany]

« snailfacts » TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION Noriaki Kakyoin ✦ Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
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[hierophany]

I'm halfway through an entry for the Buffaloes.

[oraorarush]

I see.

Why?

[hierophany]

Because nobody else thought to add one, obviously.

[oraorarush]

I didn't know Japanese baseball was that important here.

[hierophany]

Neither did the entire userbase of gemstonepedia.

So if it's any consolation, you're not the only one who's wrong.

[oraorarush]

I don't follow baseball so I'm fine with that. I don't even live in Japan anymore to follow it.

[hierophany]

You would enjoy it. Baseball statistics are fascinating. And very useful for making people stop talking to you.

I should clarify that that wasn't intended as a hint, just as a reason you might enjoy it. If I wanted you to stop talking I would say so.

You left Japan?

[oraorarush]

If I started rattling off baseball statistics I think people would think that something was wrong with me. But they're interesting, from what I have seen.

I didn't think you were, though. You'd tell me to fuck off if that's what you wanted.

Yeah. Went to the states for university and ended up staying there.

[hierophany]

As a rule, when people think there's something wrong with a person they choose to stop talking to them. You're the exception.

And here I thought you'd have had enough of going all over the world.

[oraorarush]

See, so it wouldn't work. My usual method works fine. I think you just want me to learn about baseball stats.

You'd think that. But I do even more of it now.

[hierophany]

And here I thought I'd be able to trick you.

[ It's probably for work. Or for his studies. Or because Miss Holly lives in Japan, still, and he has to visit. It has to be one of those, because it can't be that it didn't end. He probably shouldn't need to ask, because there's any number of perfectly good reasons that one might travel that aren't the one that seems horrifying. ]

Why?

[oraorarush]

You know better than most that I'm not that easy.

For research, sometimes. I'll visit my mom or my grandma and the old man. Sometimes I go home to see my kid.

[he could leave it there. He could leave it there because it's the truth, but not all of it. He doesn't really have to elaborate.

But he does anyway]

But it's mostly doing work with the foundation. That piece of shit might be dead, but his influence isn't.

[hierophany]

[ Here's the thing about dying: you usually don't get to know what happens next. You get to live, 'live', in a world where the people you love are probably doing just fine. Where they're safe. Where this all ends, and you don't have to know about whatever's going to hurt them next.

There aren't many perks, but that's one.

He doesn't get to be dead anymore. And that's nice. He's a fan, for the most part, of not being dead. But it means he doesn't get to pretend that things stop happening once he stops happening. Time doesn't stop. Not any more than it would otherwise.

This should be over. It should have ended on a January night. in Cairo.

Also what the fuck 'sometimes'. Who sees their kid 'sometimes'??? ]

I don't think you told me that you had a kid. How old are they?

[oraorarush]

I was going to tell you the next time we met up, actually.
She's seven back home. Here she's nineteen.

[it was at the top of the list of things he wanted to tell Kakyoin, no thanks in part to talking to Jolyne about him. He had to wonder if somehow, they'd already met. That would be his luck, and how it's gone so far here]

[hierophany]

Oh.

[ He has, in fact, met Jolyne. In fact, this information kind of explains the offscreen incident that's been bothering him enough to keep him up this late making gemstonepedia articles about baseball teams instead of pointedly not thinking too much about it. ]

I have a girlfriend.

[ This is a lie. And, on the surface, kind of irrelevant. And he immediately regrets it because FUCK what is he going to say her name is when the fake name he gave Kirigiri is also Jotaro's mom's name fuck fuck fuck.

But also fuck you. He knows how kids happen. He can also enter relationships with people after he dies. ]

[oraorarush]

Do you?

[he doesn't think "that's fast" or anything like that. He doesn't think any of the things he probably should or wants to. Really, there's only two things he thinks of and he goes with the second, as the first thought blips by too quickly for him to grasp]

Congratulations?

[that's what you're supposed to say, right?]

My wife and are separated. [since they're giving their marital statuses, apparently]

[hierophany]

[ Oh.

Should he be happy about that? It would be fucked up to be happy about that. A better person would offer condolences, maybe. He isn't happy about that. He isn't really anything about that. Jotaro meets a woman who he's never going to know, and then separates from a woman who he's never going to know. It's irrelevant to him, really, except for how it isn't. For how he brought this discussion about himself, because he wanted a way to-

-fuck, he doesn't even know what he wanted to do. Lash out? Prove that he's fine and normal and not-dead and
and maybe he wanted to hurt Jotaro. Just a little. And now he doesn't. And he shouldn't have wanted to in the first place. ]

Oh.

If it's what's best for you both, I suppose that's.
I suppose that's how things are even if it's not what's best.

[ ... ]

Pitcher Hideo Fujimoto threw the first perfect game in baseball for the Yomiuri Giants.

[oraorarush]

Yeah.

[it's not that simple, but getting into it seems . . . strange. Strange because he hasn't talked about it with anyone, and strange to talk about it with someone who literally just learned everything else. Strange to share it with Kakyoin, who wouldn't know any of this if he wasn't here.

Hm]

It's for the best. Safer.

I have no idea who that is.

[hierophany]

[ One thing he has access to that he's been failing to use for the last few seconds is the delete button. So he does not repeat 'Safer' back to Jotaro.

He doesn't need to, really. ]

He's a pitcher. In 1950 he pitched the first perfect game in professional baseball.

I'm sorry.

[oraorarush]

What does pitching a perfect game mean?

[it's a dumb question to ask, because he knows the answer. But it feels like he's supposed to ask. To shift the conversation away from what it had somehow stumbled into]

Don't be.
Tell me about your girlfriend.

[hierophany]

It's a game of baseball in which no player of the opposing team manages to reach the first base. It's impressive when you watch baseball through the statistics. I imagine it would be somewhat tedious to watch as a sport, once the novelty wore off.

[ FRANTICALLY TEXTING THIS GIRL AT 3AM TO DEMAND EITHER HER NAME OR A BETTER FAKE NAME. ]

I met her when I was in the medical ward. It was off-limits to most of use, when we were all retrieved from the crater. She was trying to find out if information was being kept from us and got caught, so we decided she should claim she was looking for me.

She's a little insufferable, to be honest. She likes to act like she knows everything. I'm not entirely convinced she doesn't.

[oraorarush]

Ah. So it's just a one-sided game. Have you never actually seen a baseball game, Kakyoin?

[at this point he wouldn't be surprised]

Did she help you escape, too?

She sounds a lot like you.

[they've moved on from depressing things into something that Jotaro regrets asking, but he can still give Kakyoin shit about]

[hierophany]

I watch between innings, sometimes, when the mascots come out.

[ LOOK, he likes sumo for the strict rules and ritual elements and baseball for the stats and the cute mascots. ]

Yeah. We had a deal, that I'd help her sneak around if she would break me out when I needed to leave.

She can't see stands. She knows Hierophant is there, but she can't see him. It's weird.

[oraorarush]

But not the game part. Where the stats come from.

[yep, he's not surprised]

That was nice of her.

Yeah, I bet that's weird. At least she knows about it.

[he never managed that, and sometimes he wonders if he should have. If it would have changed things.

Probably not]

[hierophany]

I also don't watch paint dry just so I can look at finished paintings, in case you were curious.

[ The baseball is the boring part just give him the numbers. ]

Yeah.

I'm sorry. That things didn't work out. I should have. I should have known. I should have thought about it. That things wouldn't end when he did. How to deal with everything he left behind. I should have figured it all out.