If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

- Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

Jotaro had never been a fan of videogames.

He had received a shiny new NES as an ill-thought-out present from his father on his sixteen's birthday but it had never interested him much. He owned two games in total, both of them gifts from classmates who seemed to be eager to get rid of them and he had played each only once. There was a pinball simulator that he had found incredibly stupid from the get-go and a racing game that only made him want to learn to drive for real. Occasionally, a bright-colored case of a new title would catch his eye but he never stopped to look at it twice. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was a waste of time anyway.

Kakyoin was different.

His eyes lit up like fireworks whenever his hands closed around the plastic controller and somehow, that made all the difference in the world. His unbridled enthusiasm was contagious, as Jotaro's second gamepad attested, and even though he lost to him ninety percent of the time, it all felt worth it. The game came alive in his classmate's hands, no longer stumbling clumsily through stages and progressing at a snail pace like it did in his own. Sometimes, he felt like he would buy every game in Japan if he could just sit next to him and watch him play.

He found himself doing just that on a dark, gloomy evening with the rain drumming irregularly against the windowpanes. The dense clouds blocked the dim light of the autumn sun, leaving the large living room flooded by grey shadows. He lay spread out on the couch, a can of cheap soda in his hand while, one level below him, the large television screen cast multicolored reflections on Kakyoin's face. The redhead sat on the wooden floor, knees drawn up to his chest, face creased in deep concentration. His thumbs flew over the buttons in short quick motions for a while before devolving into a desperate irregular rhythm, like a dying man's heartbeat. Jotaro saw him bite the inside of his cheek, a clear sign that things were not going according to plan. Sure enough, a few seconds later, he saw his character freeze in place and emit a pained scream before crumpling to the ground and slowly blinking out of existence.

Kakyoin clicked his tongue in disappointment and let the controller rest on his knees. "Damn it, so close…"

Jotaro sipped his drink, watching the words Game Over written in pixelated blood slide down the screen. "What happened?"

Kakyoin threw his head back, catching Jotaro's eyes in the half light. "Time limit; you only have two minutes to run out of this building before the monster catches up with you. You really have to memorize the map well or you're done for."

Jotaro shrugged and drew up his legs, leaving free space on the couch. "Why would I need to? I have you for that."

Kakyoin laughed and climbed up, accepting his silent invitation. "This is your game, you know? It was your birthday present and I feel like I've played it more than you."

Jotaro nodded quietly as behind him, Star Platinum's fingers crushed the empty can into a neat tin ball. The fragile plastic cartridge had appeared on his desk on the last day of spring, wrapped in discreet blue gift paper. Jotaro had no doubts about who it was from though the reason for the gift took some time to catch up with him. His actual birthday had come and gone while they were still in Egypt, but amidst killer Stand users, dangerous weather and his grandfather's flying skills, there were more important things to worry about. His coming of age had gone ignored even by himself so he assumed that it was his nosy mother who had tipped Kakyoin off. His classmate's explanation had been a nonchalant "better late than never" so Jotaro just shrugged and stuffed the cartridge into his pocket without a second thought. It was only when he got home that day that he realized that he, in turn, had no idea when Kakyoin's birthday was. For all he knew, it had been forgotten in Egypt too.

He saw Hierophant Green materialize to his left, pick up the controller and hand it to its master. Kakyoin turned it around in his hands for a while before looking up a Jotaro. "You're sure you don't want to have a go? I've been hogging this thing all evening."

He shook his head. "Knock yourself out. I just want to see how it ends."

Kakyoin let out a long sigh and leaned back waiting for the game title to roll into the screen. "Some people find the ending more rewarding if they get to it themselves".

Jotaro rolled his eyes at the subtle jab. Before meeting Kakyoin, he wasn't even aware of genres in videogames but after he began paying closer attention, he found himself enjoying the ones with complex plots and storylines. Being good at them was a whole other story and since getting good implied actual effort, he usually ended up dropping them until one of those days rolled around when he had nothing to do, the house was empty and Star Platinum's company was not enough.

He let his gaze drift towards the flickering screen. "I'm not those people."

"Yeah, you're lazier." A brief smirk danced on Kakyoin's lips before they pressed into a tight line as his hands clasped the controller. "It probably ends the way it's supposed to. They kill the evil wizard, escape the island and live happily ever after. Except for Yuki, that is."

Jotaro stretched his arms and reached for another can. "Which one was Yuki?"

Kakyoin hovered the cursor over an intricate sprite with a white and blue color scheme. "She's the healer girl with the magic staff; I read some spoilers in a gaming magazine and apparently she sacrifices herself for you and the others right before the ending."

He turned away with a frown, tapping the buttons frenetically while his character glided through the stage, barely keeping ahead of a giant hulking monster. Jotaro watched him in silence, trying to ignore the sudden hollow feeling settling in his stomach. He treated the game like a long, interactive movie that he only came back to every once in a while so his memories of it were a bit muddled. However, he did remember the healer character and her story arc better than the others and for a second, he felt a sting of pity for her. From what he could gather from her dialogues, she had led a somewhat sheltered life and had always been on the fence about her value to the team. Surviving the haunted island, would have probably honed her skills and made her stronger in the long term.

Then again, it would take her a while to chase the nightmares away. Nearly a year of ordinary high school life hadn't managed to do that for him.

He ripped out the tab so hard he almost took off the top of the can. "That's disappointing."

Kakyoin threw him a quick glance as his lips spread in a wide grin. "I thought you'd like her, she's kind of a fandom darling. Some people were so upset about her death they even tried to hack the game to re-code that part and give her a proper exit from the story."

Jotaro did not reply, instead pretending to follow the colorful action on the screen. There were times when he didn't understand half of the words that came out of Kakyoin's mouth, especially when he slipped into topics like videogames or movies or anything remotely similar. He lived in a world where people took those things way too seriously and obsessed over them way too much. Sure, he enjoyed movies and books as much as the next person but it had never occurred to him to think about them twice. They filled up an afternoon of his life and there was nothing more to it, not even a shred of that emotional attachment that sometimes made his mother bawl her eyes out at a heartfelt kiss or at a particularly gut-wrenching death scene. Those moments always made his skin crawl with second hand embarrassment. Surely, his mother understood that those were figments of other people's imaginations, not worth wasting her tears over.

Except that here he was, uncomfortably close to genuine sadness over a bunch of cleverly organized pixels. Life had gotten needlessly complicated in the last couple of months.

He saw the main character dash through a large door, slamming it on the monster's claws. As the next stage flashed up before him, Kakyoin quickly sipped his forgotten drink and went on. "Still, that's why the creators threw her fans a bone in the second edition. If you replay the game in Hard Mode, there's a special item in your inventory that you acquire in act three. If you keep it through the entire game and don't let it get destroyed, she survives and rejoins your party later."

Jotaro remained silent, his eyes locked on the main character's sprite fending off hordes of enemies swarming around it in a green and black blur. "Hard Mode?" he replied eventually.

If Kakyoin had picked up on his disheartened tone, his face did not reflect any of it. "Makes you earn your happy ending, I guess." he said before slamming the pause button to slide down to the floor again. "It's a pity that the sequel scrapped that and declared that the True Ending is the one where she dies after all."

Jotaro shrugged, resting his chin on his fist. "So what? I wasn't planning on playing it."

Kakyoin just smiled and turned back to the frozen screen where a dismembered zombie hand clawed at the main character from below. "You're not really playing this one either."