[It's probably the most that he's ever seen Jotaro type in one go- hell, he can't even imagine him saying a third of that in person- and Josuke gives it the time it deserves as he reads it over, taking his time to fully parse everything he's written.
By the time he's done, his chest aches with not only sympathy but with pride and admiration and anger and all of that shit that comes with hearing a survivor lay out their soul. Every time he hears more from him, every time he exposes just a little more of what he went through, it leaves Josuke feeling oddly winded, as though he were the one on the receiving end of DIO's punches, not Jotaro. Having that on your shoulders all the time... fuck. He can't even imagine it. Shigechi's death had been hard enough to deal with but they're so different. Jotaro's fight against DIO sounds almost dreamlike, more like a nightmare than anything that really happened, but it did and whether he knew it before now or not, he's looking at the man it created. Someone tougher, yes, but tired and full of conflict and midnight sweats and still wondering why the people he lost were willing to do it. Why he was worthy of it. Even the Jotaro he knew at home must have been silently shouldering some of the responsibility of their own battles.
And he's right. Josuke knows without a flicker of doubt that he would die for him too, if he had to.
And yet, though still far from understanding it in its entirely, the separate pieces of his anxiety are familiar. That frightening possibility that you might not be so far removed from the person you're fighting. Similarities thrown into the light where you need to focus on the differences to keep your head.]
1/2
By the time he's done, his chest aches with not only sympathy but with pride and admiration and anger and all of that shit that comes with hearing a survivor lay out their soul. Every time he hears more from him, every time he exposes just a little more of what he went through, it leaves Josuke feeling oddly winded, as though he were the one on the receiving end of DIO's punches, not Jotaro. Having that on your shoulders all the time... fuck. He can't even imagine it. Shigechi's death had been hard enough to deal with but they're so different. Jotaro's fight against DIO sounds almost dreamlike, more like a nightmare than anything that really happened, but it did and whether he knew it before now or not, he's looking at the man it created. Someone tougher, yes, but tired and full of conflict and midnight sweats and still wondering why the people he lost were willing to do it. Why he was worthy of it. Even the Jotaro he knew at home must have been silently shouldering some of the responsibility of their own battles.
And he's right. Josuke knows without a flicker of doubt that he would die for him too, if he had to.
And yet, though still far from understanding it in its entirely, the separate pieces of his anxiety are familiar. That frightening possibility that you might not be so far removed from the person you're fighting. Similarities thrown into the light where you need to focus on the differences to keep your head.]
hold on a second