[Is he still annoyed about the Bug Chariot thing? Yeah, kind of! Is he more preoccupied with how this is going to go down? Oh, yes. Is he using one to try and not think about the other? Assuredly.

It takes him another half-hour to get back home, but his eyes lock on Kakyoin the instant he walks in. How does he start this? Hey, remember that guy who killed you? Well, guess who's kid I ran into . . .]

Hey.

[Oh boy. Polnareff comes to sit next to him.]

Uh. So. I ran into the kid . . . a guy who knows me from the future.

[Know that Kakyoin has spent this hour just sitting and staring, since he's pretty sure that the second he decides to do something else while he waits, Polnareff will walk in the door. That's the half hour he has.

Anyway, thrill him. The future is already a bit raw as topics go, all things considered. He waits a beat, putting that emotion away, then-]

Alright. And?

And . . .

[He rubs his mouth, his eyes flicking around Kakyoin's face.]

So I guess I help him fight someone. I give him strategic advice. We defeat this evil together. And, uh . . . I mean, no shock, right? Turns out I still fight thirteen years later, who coulda guess. But the kid, he--

His name is Giorno. Giorno Giovanna. He used to live with his step-father and his mother, cuz his real father died not too long after he was sired.

[. . .]

In Cairo, in 1989. Killed by five different men.

Oh, him.

[Does it surprise him that Polnareff goes on to defeat more great evils? No, not at all. Is he immediately distracted by the memory that Giorno drank piss once? Definitely, which is actually a little lucky, as it softens the oncoming blow at least a little.

So, thanks Giorno Giovanna, for being a goddamn freak. Kakyoin sits back and looks at the ceiling, thinking about it. Should he also put this emotion neatly away...? Maybe not.]

Do you believe him? About the future.

Yeah.

[It's based more on a gut feeling than anything proper, but aren't a lot of their decisions? Jotaro trusting him, trusting Kakyoin . . . it was based on gut feelings, nothing more.]

He doesn't feel like DIO. There's not the same . . . I don't know. He just doesn't feel the same. I think . . . I think if he was lying, he would've been a lot slicker about it.

He's... perplexing.

[He drinks weird things and does mysterious things with bread— although, actually, Kakyoin knows all about the Polpo test now, so that's less strange in retrospect.

Also, they've met.]

Fighting some enemy with him— assuming that that's true, it's a good sign. [Although they are both guilty of tripping face-first into DIO charisma, but he'd like to think they've learned. He's picking and choosing details to think about here, and it's obvious; give him a moment.] If you believe him, then I'll do the same.

[Perplexing is a good word for it. But not evil, not the way DIO had been. Radiating it, a terrible aura even as he'd drawn people in with that charisma.]

Okay.

[There's a lot of trust packed into that one sentence, he realizes. He wouldn't blame Kakyoin for ignoring Polnareff's advice; he wouldn't blame him in the least for hating Giorno. But if Polnareff believes him, Kakyoin does as well, and that almost trips him up, because it means so much.

But he won't say anything. That would ruin it.

Instead, carefully:]

You okay?

[What do his parents have to do with anything? Kakyoin wants to say it, if only to convince himself he believes it, but the only reason he knows Polnareff and Jotaro and the others is because of a family legacy; those parents matter - Giorno Giovanna being DIO's son isn't an insignificant thing he can overlook.

He would like to, don't get him wrong; he's met the boy, and Giorno seems... decent, if nothing else. Odd but not threatening, not like meeting DIO for the first time in Cairo.]

I... don't know.

[He looks over at Polnareff, shrugging. Physically, actually, he feels goddamn terrible, heavy and sick, but logically? Having met Giorno out in the world and heard Polnareff just now say he's not anything like his father? That's just— Giorno is just another Stand user, and against the usual pattern, one who hasn't tried to hurt him. But.]

He didn't seem like a bad person. Giorno.

I mean, yeah. But that's not what makes it bad.

[He finally leans back, resting against the back of the couch, his eyes locked on Kakyoin.]

I think he's all right. I think he's like his father in some ways, though-- I mean, shit, looks if nothing else, you see him with that blond hair? But, uh . . . it's not about who he is. It's about who he reminds you of.

Reminds us of.

I know what makes it bad.

[Trust him, he understands. One of these days he'll eat something bad and his stomach will hurt and even that will remind him of DIO, so at some point he'll have to draw a line, right? Surely.]

I talked to him. It went well enough. That's not something you could say about DIO, is it? So... I'll be fine.

[He gestures vaguely. Is that enough? He really doesn't know.]

[Not nearly, not at all, not if the slight frown on Polnareff's face is anything to go by. It's not that he wants Kakyoin to start bawling or anything, but still. There's gotta be more to than just this, right? Seeing someone related to DIO, someone who looks like him--]

I nearly killed him.

[He says it quickly, like maybe it'll make it easier that way.]

I saw him and I was in Cairo again, and I nearly killed him, cuz I swear, Noriaki, I thought it was-- I thought I was gonna--

I thought that was it, you know?

[Okay, maybe don't start killing teenagers. Kakyoin frowns sympathetically; it hadn't happened to him, but he can imagine it would have if Giorno had the same menacing presence as his father— he too would have gone for the kill, probably.]

Yeah.

[Maybe if it had been someone else unceremoniously killed up there on the roof— he's spent so much time since waking up thinking about not being dead anymore, maybe he's too distracted to fight anyone? It doesn't matter; he gets it, that's the point. In that case, since that can't be all--]

Your turn. Talk to me.

[Oh, fun, now it's his turn not to know what to say. He rubs the back of his neck, grimacing slightly.]

Can you sleep the entire night through?

[He's not dodging the issue, just. Give him this.]

[Oh. Hmm. Well. If it's honesty hour.]

Most of the time. Sometimes. I haven't kept track.

Yeah, well. I haven't. Not one night since.

Sometimes you're in them.

[Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes it's Avdol, or Jotaro, or Joseph. Sometimes it's even Sherry, and those nights are the worst, because they're an awful amalgam of past and present and future.]

I can't stop thinking about it. About that night, and what I coulda done different, and--

You know, he told me I keep fighting. Thirteen years later. How many times do I fail in that time?

Don't worry about that.

[The next thirteen years, he means, but stewing in regrets isn't a great idea either. Now that Kakyoin's alive again, of course he's going to look out for Polnareff... in his way, so at least this gives him a point of reference.]

That night... I don't want to think about it anymore, but I guess that isn't up to me.

[...]

What do you do when you can't sleep?

Get a drink. Or play solitaire, or . . . I dunno. Fuck around until I'm not thinking of it.

[Of blood, of gore, of screams and dead bodies and voices begging him for help.]

If you've got any suggestions . . .

Solitaire? [boy. at least play freecell or something.]

Come and wake me up next time. I promise I won't get mad.

[He shrugs, trying to look more casual than he feels. This is earnest - as long as he's not woken up for something stupid like a dog video, he'll get up to listen. Being earnest is hard.]

[It's a surprise to him, honestly, but not so much so he comments. His eyes flick over Kakyoin's face again, just once, before he offers a little smile.]

Yeah? Cuz you can't say that now and then get all bitchy when I do it.

If you wear out your welcome I'll be bitchy for days.

[But they've had enough hotel room late nights, so what's the difference? Trauma, but. Still.]

Anyway, I'm serious.