jikan_rpg | I Wanna Take You to The Ga-- Tea Party.

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I Wanna Take You to The Ga-- Tea Party.

⌛ Who: Erina & Jonathan Joestar, Jotaro Kujo
⌛ What: A Tea Party~
⌛ When: Late July
⌛ Where: Jonathan & Erina's apartment
⌛ Warnings: None, unless you hate tea for some reason.

She was sure she was forgetting something. Erina worried her lower lip between her teeth as she looked at the small cucumber sandwiches she'd laid out. There were traditional sweets, wagashi, for the month on three small, delicate plates. She'd been able to find proper black tea (though she'd had been able to find it after a lot of confusing directions.]

He'd said he'd bring scones, but surely that won't be enough for the both of them...

[It was already such a small space in the apartment that the Joestars had discussed between themselves that finding a home wouldn't be too far out of the blue to find... they hoped. They would need a nest egg, though, and so part of the wages they earned went to that.]

I hope this is enough... Well, it will need to be because that wagashi was quite expensive.

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[he has, in fact, brought scones with him - both the Japanese kind he spoke of, but also, he went out of his way to find the more British ones, too. Because he's a surly lil brat, but he also kind of maybe wants to make a good impression. Maybe.

Anyway, he's followed the address and here he is, knocking politely]

[ Jonathan had done his best to assist Erina with all of the preparations, although making dainty, neat little sandwiches... Not really something he's found that he's very good at. Instead, he had settled for making himself useful carrying things the admittedly very short distance from their tiny kitchen to their also pretty living area/dining room.

His wife clearly has ideas about how she wants the table to look-- none of which includes the Shiba Inu dog Jonathan adopted since arriving here. Clearly now is the time to keep his furry friend away from the table- the first time Pesto had tried to stick his nose over the side to try and have a taste it hadn't gone down too well. Jonathan and the dog keeping their distance for this last part is probably for the best- the former being much too excited at the prospect of meeting another family member whom he was never supposed to.

The knock predictably causes the dog to start barking, tail wagging incessantly although Jonathan at least has him trained not to charge and to give their guests room. ] It looks wonderful, my love.

I'll get the door.

[ When the British man opens the door the first thing that hits him is the strange sense of familiarity- perhaps it's purely brought on by bias knowing that the young man standing in front of him is his however many greats grandson but it's undoubtedly there. The second thing is their seemingly identical heights. It's rare that Jonathan meets someone else who even begins to approach his 6'5 frame. He greets the other man with a bright, genuine smile, full of warmth already. This stranger is family and family is precious to JoJo. ]

Jotaro? I'm so glad to meet you! Please come in.

[when the door opens Jotaro realizes, immediately, that the few times he heard others comparing his grandfather to Jonathan wasn't hyperbole. It isn't hard to pick out the differences but the similarities are - striking isn't the word he wants, but the one he settles on. From the height to the eyes to the strange feeling he always had with gramps, he didn't need an introduction to know that this man was Jonathan Joestar.

How are you supposed to address someone like that? Someone held in such high regard in your family for the last hundred years. They had destroyed this man's body and killed Dio only a couple of months ago to save his mother and everyone else, to kill a plague that hadn't left the Joestars alone in just as many years. The scars, healed over, were still fresh.

It's surreal, and even then that doesn't seem strong enough to describe this entire situation]

Jonathan. [details in stories get lost a lot, like Jonathan appearing to be the same age as he was. That was something he hadn't known]

I - it's nice to meet you, too. I brought scones. [is his mumbled response as he ducks his head and offers the box over]

[Oh! He's here! And at that moment, Erina looks at their small table, their small room and resists the urge to plant her face in her hands in disbelief. Hopefully, they would all fit.

She peeks over Jonathan's shoulder, on tip toe, to greet Jotaro.]

Oh, good! You've made it here safely. I was quite worried our directions wouldn't have made sense.

[The fact these people worked in maps and not proper streetnames... well, she'd had her complaints about that.

[he glances up briefly when Erina speaks up before he drops his eyes again. He isn't shy - not really, he's never thought about it like that, but he definitely, definitely feels out of place.

He's about to have tea with his great great grandparents]

Your directions were fine. This Tokyo isn't that different from the one I grew up in.

Thank you, that's very kind of you.

[ And Jonathan is about to have tea with his great great grandson. Who happens to look about the same age as him. It's... a peculiar situation to say the least, but it's not as though Jonathan isn't used to those. He's still beaming as he takes the offered box and steps aside to let his many greats grandson into his and Erina's apartment. It gives a chance for the Shiba Inu to approach this stranger who seems Jonathan sized and the dog sniffs around Jotaro's feet. ]

Please don't mind him, he's just curious.

You grew up in Japan? [ Erina had mentioned as such and it makes sense given his name and- look, Jonathan wants to bombard the other young man with so many questions before they've even eaten anything yet but that's hardly the polite thing to do! ]

-Ah, please excuse me though. We should sit first. [ Like Proper Victorians. Rather than boisterously asking questions of their guest when he's just got through the door. Will they all fit around the tiny table? Hopefully. He does give Erina mildly doubtful look at the prospect but it'll all be fine. He has family here and he's delighted at that. ]

[Erina nods back, they will find the room. She moves to the left side of the table, and offers Jotaro the right side. Jonathan needs no direction. Surely the man of the house would get the head of the table!]

Jotaro, do you prefer black tea with lemon or milk and sugar?

[Erina lifts the quite-nice-looking English teapot made of bone china. Erina had been able to get it at a time surge sale for a song. And she was quite proud of the set she'd obtained.]

[he doesn't mind the dog; in fact, he leans over to offer his hand to for proper greeting sniffs, before the dog gets a careful scritch behind the ears]

—milk and sugar. Please.

[he isn't too intimidated by the small room but then again, Jotaro is very used to growing up on a country not made for Joestar-sized people. He moves to the right side as offered, and - at least he knows some things about this. Thank god for a grandmother and great-grandmother who tried to teach him proper tea things when he was younger.

Oh right, Jonathan asked a question] I'm from Japan, yeah. My mom - your great granddaughter, she moved there after she married my dad.

[ The ear scritchies are good. Once they begin to take their seats, the dog will make himself comfortable flopped underneath the table- in case any crumbs appear. Probably much to Erina's disapproval, which Jonathan anticipates with a conciliatory smile - just for today please, Erina... Even if this is probably the fourth or fifth time now.

Jonathan needs no direction to take the head of the table, although it's still strange to him as he does so. This table might be a lot different to the one he was used to back home - it's about ten times smaller for a start - but it's still strange to be taking the place that would have been reserved for his father in times gone by.

And it isn't as though he'd had much time to get used to being the head of a household before-- How much does this great-great grandson know of his history he wonders? It had been shocking enough to learn that he'd had a heir survive him, although he didn't yet know the details of his child.

As for how Jonathan likes his tea? Erina knows. It's really a case of would he like any tea and milk with his sugar... ]

So our family has travelled all that way... And here I thought the Joestars would never move away from England. [ He sounds pleased - he had always hoped to travel with his archaeology after all, although it had never come to pass. At least a part of him had gotten to do that, however indirectly. He chuckles softly. ]

I must confess, I've so many questions that I don't quite know where to begin.

[ And he's an Englishman, things are always easier to process over a cup of tea first. ]

[ She returns his conciliatory smile with a mock, long-suffering sigh and finishes pouring his well-well-well-sugared tea. She always caves to Jonathan, which is an unfortunate habit in her opinion. ]

Well, dearest, begin at the beginning. Jotaro has been kind enough to fill in some small details to me, but I know there's always more to learn.

[ Erina's tea is the normal amount of sweet, with just a little bit of cream. She isn't her sweet-toothed husband, after all. ]

[the beginning is the worst place to start, at least the beginning he knows. Because that means talking about a certain vampire and the chaos he caused, that came back a hundred years later and almost took out the Joestars completely. It's a really, really bad idea, and it isn't a topic he can shove off on someone else, because gramps isn't here]

The Joestars are based in America now . . . gramps - ah, my grandfather moved there when he was my age. But he traveled a lot . . . my grandmother is from Italy. And that's how mom met my dad - he's a jazz musician.

I don't know much about . . . family history, though. Just history that happens around us.

So many of you! [ Forgive him, great-great grandson. He didn't think he'd had even one descendant, let alone a bunch of relatives like this. Especially growing up as lonely as he had done. ] And now Erina and I get to meet you like this.

[ The Joestars being based in America is... a kind of bittersweet irony in a way. It's the place where he and Erina had been travelling to on their honeymoon when it all ended for him.

Still, he feels a sense of pride and love for all of these family members that he's never met and was never destined to. Until now that is. ]

..."Gramps"? Is that what you call him? [ How strange and informal sounding! And still he's smiling. ]

I suppose all of this also makes me your "gramps". [ Great-great gramps. How terribly informal. He looks delighted at the prospect regardless. Basically, he's saying you can call him "gramps" if you ever want to, Jotaro. ]

[The fact they're only just older than their great-great-grandson some how makes this more amusing to Erina, who hides her smile behind her teacup.]

I suppose so, though that sounds awfully informal. Is it, Jotaro? Or is it how language has developed?

[he cannot call the head of the family gramps oh my god his grandmother and his great-grandmother would never stop yelling at him for the disrespect. It's one thing if it's Joseph - but Jonathan? He can hear the yelling already]

That's how language developed . . . mostly. It's not as formal. [how does he even begin to explain language when he's so bad at words] My grandparents are gramps and Grandma Suzi - and my dad's parents, I call them something different in Japanese. Little more formal, because - it's different in Japan.

[...]

Calling either of you any of that seems a little weird when you're both - my age? I think.

I suppose it would be rather strange being called that at my age.

[ Regardless, Jonathan still doesn't seem all that fazed or offended by the idea. And the whole head of the family thing - he simply has no idea that his descendants hold him in such high regard. He's not even sure how much of his story they even know. Last he was ever aware, his tale had been consigned to the bottom of the ocean on that ship with only Erina knowing what happened.

To his great-great grandson's questioning tone he answers. ] Twenty. [ That was... the age he died at anyway. ] Although I have had a birthday since arriving here so twenty-one now.

You do look of a similar age to both of us.

If your grandfather is still around then he must still retain the Joestar lordship though. [ yeah he really has no idea. Not that he cares so much about the actual title, he's just delighted that this young man still appears to have so much family still around him. If Jonathan had it in him to be remotely envious then he would be. It sounds far less lonely than his own adolescence. ]

Edited 2021-08-21 15:36 (UTC)

And I am nineteen, but I shall be twenty at the end of next month. So I suppose we are of similar ages. Perhaps just "Jonathan and Erina" shall do? You are, family, of course. And I would not think to insist you call me aught else if it is too odd.

[She pulls apart one of the British-style scones and swipes a bit of jam across the tear before politely nibbling at it. She speaks again when she is finished.]

Actually, Jotaro, if I may be so bold: when is your birthday.

. . . I'm seventeen. My birthday is in February. I guess . . . technically I'm 18 now, since it was January back home when I was brought here, but - [a shrug. It doesn't really matter to him either way] If just Erina and Jonathan isn't too familiar, I'd like to use those.

[. . . wait]

Lordship?

Jonathan is not too familiar at all, not for family. Truthfully, I've often gone by JoJo.

[ He seems puzzled by Jotaro's second question for a moment. It's not that the title is important to him... He'd much rather this descendants led happier and longer lives than anything else. It just seems odd that his great-great grandson doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. At all.

Strange. ]

Yes, the Joestar lordship. Our title as a landed noble family. I understand that the family no longer resides in England but your grandfather is still a lord.

[ Yeah, he has absolutely no idea that got dropped. ]

Exactly as Jonathan said. And though I know what happens, I can't imagine I would insist that we give up the land. It is a responsibility, after all. And repairing the hall, as I insisted begin after we were engaged.

[She feels a bit terrible for Jotaro. All those years between whoever child Erina and Jonathan will have and their great-great-grandson and somehow they'd misplaced not only a title, but also an entire manor. She will have to insist they not do so.]

I suspect it is a shock to you?

Ah - the girls at school call me JoJo, so does gramps, sometimes. But it's more his nickname than mine.

[it sort of tapered off, which he was fine with. And it would get confusing, with people calling both him and Joseph that - more annoying than confusing, but -

Speaking of gramps - ]

I don't . . . know anything about it? Gramps might - but he's never mentioned it to me. [and that is absolutely something Joseph Joestar would bring up, with glee] I know he still owns the estate in England?

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