After waking up and getting rescued just in the nick of time, we dropped off the baby and rented a boat to take us to Egypt, but not before the old man mentioned that we had to take a detour.
"You're just telling this to us now?" I questioned Joseph who only shrugged off my concerns about limited time.
"Don't worry everyone," He quelled our nervousness, "We're just stopping by to meet a very important man, trust me, you'll like him."
"Important man...?" Polnareff muttered under his breath as we reached a tiny piece of land. Some uninhabited island I suppose.
Getting out of the boat, the warm sunlight on my face was pleasant, but the continuous squawking of the seagulls ruined the moment a little. There's no way somebody lives here, looking around there's not a single soul in sight! Wait a minute...
I heard the bushes rustle and a face appear in the midst of the shadows, almost startling me. I mentioned to everyone what I saw, saying, "Hey guys, there's somebody in the bushes."
"What?" Jojo turned in the direction I pointed in, and the second I did, the mysterious figure ran off, away from our sight.
"Who was that?" Noriaki pondered, trying to look closer towards the direction the person ran off to while Polnareff stood still, but then as if he snapped out of a trance, he immediately gasped in realization, "No! That figure, we have to go after it!" He ran off into the bushes and everyone followed suit.
Before I followed Polnareff in pursuit, however, I wonder...That hairstyle...those clothes, that's undoubtedly Avdol! His appearance is slightly changed a little for some reason, but there's no denying that it's him. Why is he on an island though? I thought we left him at the hospital back in India?
I chased after the figure and we all ended up at a small house hidden by the trees. The look-alike Avdol was now holding a bowl filled with grain and was feeding it to a couple of chickens who were surrounding his feet.
"Wait, everyone." Joseph raised a hand in the air to stop us from approaching him. "I'll talk to him."
Walking up to the man, he took off his hat as a sign of courtesy but the man shunned him away. "Go away!" He yelled and glared at all of us, "I don't want to talk to anyone! Nobody ever talks to me if it's good news anyway!" He added and slammed the door behind us, leaving us all in shock.
"But...I'm sure of it, that was undoubtedly Mr. Avdol!" Noriaki muttered under his breath but Joseph shook his head in disagreement, "No, that's actually his father. I'm afraid that he already knows about the news..."
"Father?!" Polnareff gasped for the second time and I could see that it really got to him. He must still feel that he's responsible for Avdol's death. Which is partially true, although he didn't die of course.
"Psst." I hit Joseph in the shoulder, "You sure that's not Avdol? I thought we left him at-"
"AHEM!" Joseph cleared his throat to cover up what I said and put his arms in an X sign. "NO! I'll explain everything later but for now, don't say a peep!" He whisper-yelled
"I'm sorry," Polnareff turned away from us and looked at the sky, "Avdol's death was entirely my fault, I will bear the burden for as long as I can remember." He clenched his fist, he was furious. Furious at himself for what he believed he caused.
"Hey, it's okay," I tried to comfort him and put a hand on his shoulder but he brushed it aside, apologizing again in response. "Sorry Y/N, but I need some time alone." He said before walking away.
Me and everyone else looked at each other with concern but let him go. We all knew the truth but we had to refrain from telling it to Polnareff, we had to give Avdol a chance to recover before he joins us again to fight.
"What do we do now?" I asked breaking the silence and Joseph gave a large sigh before replying, "Just...relax for now. I'll talk to Avdol's father and restock supplies. A submarine will be provided to us by the Speedwagon Foundation sometime by midnight so we just have to wait for it to show up."
"Uhh.." Noriaki mumbled unsure of what to do but suddenly pointed at me and Jojo. "You two have fun, I'll go help out Mr. Joestar for now." He motioned in the direction that Joseph went and walked along his way, leaving me with Jojo.
"You ever had a coconut before?" I asked Jojo who wiped some sweat off of his forehead from the humid temperature of the island.
Fixing his hat, he only shook his head in response but then curled his lips upward giving a small smirk. "What? You wanna look for coconuts or something?"
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"Hey stand still!" I grumbled as I tried my best to reach out towards a coconut on a palm tree while sitting on Jojo's shoulders. He kept on moving which only made reaching the coconut even harder.
"Wait, I'm not heavy, am I? You can put me down if you want to!" I suggested, but then realized he was just acting fidgety.
"Good grief," He sighed in annoyance, "Who's the one telling me I'm buff like prime Arnold Schwarzenegger? I can throw you feet in the air if I wanted to."
"Oh be quiet," I grumbled back and then paid all of my attention to the coconut, doing my best to reach out, I could only mumble, "Almost got it..." Before losing my balance and falling off of Jojo's shoulders.
"Damn..." I groaned at the pain in my neck after falling but luckily the sand managed to cushion my fall. Attempting to stand up, I cupped my hand over my eyes to block out the sunny rays but was only met with those familiar blue-green eyes.
"Are you alright?" Jojo asked with slight concern and extended his hand to help me up. I gladly accepted it with a nod and smile in return.
"Listen, I could make a ladder to get the coconut but it would be really unstable. What should we do?" I asked and Jojo put a finger up to his chin to think, after a few seconds it seemed like he came up with an idea.
"Get Half&Half to come out, I want to try something out."
I complied and made my stand appear, as Star Platinum materialized next to Jojo as well. Star then picked Half&Half under its arms and raised it close to the coconuts. It then grabbed two, one for itself and one for us as it tossed the thing in my hands.
"Oh wow!" I marveled at the coconut, "We should have just done this from the beginning if it was that easy."
"Give me," He motioned for me to give it to him. When I did, without even using Star Platinum, that man squeezed the coconut so hard it literally started to pop. Then he grabbed a rock to help him finish cracking it, and the coconut finally split into two pieces.
I was left with my mouth agape at what I just witnessed. Like, Jesus what does his mom feed him back at home to be this strong?!
He tossed the other half of the coconut to me and we began to walk to the shore of the beach and enjoyed the tasty treat as we sat down on the cool and grainy sand. Our stands behind us seemed to be communicating in a way we didn't understand. Star cracked open a coconut for Half&Half and then it gave Star a hug as a way of saying thank you.
"We don't have a lot of beaches in Japan." I chuckled awkwardly, pointing out the obvious. The sun was setting, but at this point, I didn't even care. It was beautiful.
"Yea." He muttered back nonchalantly, "I heard there are some whale sharks in these waters. They're harmless though so don't worry."
"Wana go look for one?" I gave a smirk and stood up from where I was sitting, brushing some sand off of my bottom. Jojo stood up as well.
"If we find one, let's just leave it be. All it wants is to look for food."
"Yea captain obvious, your acting like we're gonna fry it for dinner or something. I can make a camera and just take pictures of it." I suggested and stepped into the shallow part of the sea. Meanwhile, Jojo rolled up his pant legs and stepped in as well.
"Look what I found," Jojo exclaimed enthusiastically and pulled something out from the water. It was a starfish of medium size, and it had a pinkish tint to it.
"Wait hold still!" I raised one hand in the air and prepared to take a picture and snapped many shots of him and the starfish. Then I felt something bump into my leg.
It was a whale shark! For a second I nearly jumped out of my skin but I understood I needed to be quiet to not scare it off. After all, it was only trying to find food here in the shallow end. Snapping pictures of it, I saw Jojo come close to it and admire it. He respects nature a lot, marine science really is his thing.
"Let's go back to the shore," I suggested since it was finally getting pretty dark outside. Jojo agreed and we both headed back to shore and admired the little stars that started to pop up in the night sky.
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"You know, I've been thinking," I muttered as I played with the sand on the beach with my hands. "That man we saw from before, it was actually Avdol and not his father."
"How do you explain the grey hair then?" He eyed me for a response.
"I don't know, stress, hair dye, something else maybe? For all I know is that Avdol isn't dead, we left him back at the hospital remember?"
He gave small sigh as his gaze lowered to the ground, he was speaking so low that I could barely hear him. "Sometimes I'm actually glad that Avdol isn't with us...It's not that I don't like him but..."
"But it's because you care about him." I finished his sentence.
He slowly nodded in agreement, "Right now, nobody is attacking him and he doesn't have to worry about a threat on his life again while being incapacitated. This trip...is extremely dangerous for all of us. I don't even know why you chose to come with us." He added.
My previous smile then turned into a small frown, "Listen, I chose to come with you guys for a reason. It was of my own volition, if anything happens to me it is my own fault."
"That's not the point!" He growled, "I...care...about you as well. I don't want you to get hurt on this trip." He whispered that last part
My small frown softened from hearing those words, I put a hand on his shoulder as a sign of comfort and said, "Either way, disregarding all of the bad parts you can't deny that we're all having fun. If anything, this trip brought us all even closer together than ever before."
Giving a small chuckle he muttered, "I guess." But I could see that it was still bothering him a tiny bit.
"Listen..." I mumbled as I looked up at the stars once more, "As a certified bookworm, I can finally admit that I'm finally reading for fun. I don't have to read anymore to feel comforted and accepted, because I feel that way whenever I'm around you guys, especially you." I pointed at him.
Then I hugged my legs to my chest and added, "I think I've found my meaning. I'll fight, fight for my friends, those I care about, and myself. Maybe the meaning of life is for you to decide your own meaning, and I think I have finally found mine."
"I see..." Jojo looked back at me, thinking about everything I have said and I think he was actually understanding what I meant.
I smiled and couldn't help but stare at those beautiful eyes, that wavy-curly hair, and that little mischievous smirk he rarely has that I can't help but love. As the moon shone more brightly than ever at us, my breath hitched for a second as my heart skipped a beat.
I began to lean forward and I could see Jojo lean in as well, our faces near inches away from each other as I closed my eyes and leaned in for a-
"GUYS!"
We both heard a voice shout and immediately pulled away, "GUYS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHO I FOUND!" The voice, who sounded a lot like Polnareff added.
I tried to hide a massive blush from my face as Polnareff began rustling through the bushes and ran to us.
"I finally found you two! Anyway, come with me, right now! I swear you will freak when I tell you who I found!" Polnareff fidgeted and could barely control his excitement.
I only grumbled and muttered, "Way to ruin the moment..." under my breath.
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A/N: I can't believe we already reached 3K READS! Thank you each and every one of you for all of the support! :)
Ps. I have some bad news, I'm starting school in a few days which means I will have less time to post chapters and keep up with my usual schedule. But hope is not lost, I will just change my schedule up to a weekly one and try to post every Sunday if possible.
I will not post a chapter this Sunday, but a small surprise awaits you all. Can't wait to see you all next Sunday, love you all! :D