Chapter Text
It had been about three hours since Johnny had woken up in the room of the apartment he’d be staying in for the next year. He had already gotten unpacked and moved in a few days before the rest of the student body was expected to show up. If it wasn’t hard enough trying to navigate the apartments with boxes upon boxes of things, he sure as hell didn’t need crowds of people blocking the hallways and elevators. So now, while the hustle and bustle of Steel Ball University students caused quite the commotion outside, Johnny sat in the living room and flipped through the cable channels on the TV. Not finding anything particularly interesting, he figured streaming services would provide a better boon to his entertainment and that he’d have to set up Netflix later.
He turned off the TV and looked out the window that had a prime view of the streetside. Families unpacked boxes of all different sizes from the backseats and trunks of their cars, parents rambling on about how they’re so proud and how “They grow up so fast!” His eyes got caught on one family in particular who had seemingly just finished up helping their new college student move in and were now saying their goodbyes on the sidewalk. The boy's father stood off to the side, having already finished his parting speech. What had to have been an older brother stood talking to the younger boy and patting his shoulder. They both wore SBU T-shirts, and the brother started tearing up with a smile. They hugged each other tightly before the brother pulled away. Johnny was never all that good at reading lips, but he made out the words as well as he could get from his third story window.
“I’m gonna miss you, man. I’m so proud of you.”
Johnny felt a pain in his chest and decided that he had done enough people watching for today. Just as he finished drawing the blinds closed, the front door opened with a creak.
The person who stood in the door didn’t even seem to notice Johnny as she took her key from the lock and put it in the pocket of her jeans. She wore a loose white button up, and her hot pink hair framed her face in a sharp, angular bob that just reached past her shoulders. Though it was tucked into her shirt, the beads of a rosary hung around her neck and shifted as she moved to pick up the box she had left in the hall behind her. As she stood back up with the box in her hand, she looked up and around the room for the first time where her eyes finally met with Johnny’s. There was an awkward silence between the two of them before the stranger spoke up.
“Sorry. I was told I’d have a roommate, but I didn’t hear anything from inside so I assumed you hadn’t arrived yet.”
Johnny adjusted the beanie on his head.
“I got here a couple days ago. Didn’t want to bother with all the people and stuff. It made things easier.”
They nodded.
“That makes sense. I probably should’ve done the same, though I suppose that would defeat the purpose.”
“Yeah…”
Another awkward silence. At this point it was clear to both of them that neither of them seemed the talkative type. Which worked out for them considering neither one of them was really all that good or even liked social interaction, but for the moment it made the air in the apartment ever so slightly stiff. Johnny broke the silence.
“So… you need any help? I could carry a few boxes if you need me to. Not like I’ve got much else to do.”
“That… would be helpful. I don’t have much, but there’s a few more down in my car. If you don’t mind, could you put this in my room and I can go get those?”
“No problem.”
They spent the next 30 minutes moving boxes into the other person’s room. She was right, she really didn’t have very much stuff. At most, she had about half the amount of boxes he had brought with him. They were all taped shut, and he couldn’t quite make out what was in them from their weight and the sounds they made being moved around. Though he was incredibly curious, Johnny didn’t peek into any of her things. Most people brought decorations and such from their homes to make everything feel more personal and familiar, but it seemed she really only brought the essentials.After everything was moved into the empty room, she stood in the doorway and took a deep breath to prepare herself for the unpacking and organizing ahead. She was about to shut the door when Johnny caught it with a hand.
“Wait!”
She was a lot stronger than he initially thought, and the force of the door pushed his wheelchair backwards a couple inches. But it was enough to get her attention and look back at him.
“I wanted to ask, um, what’s your name? If we’re gonna be living together we might as well at least know that much, right?”
She furrowed her brows a bit and nodded, eyes drifting every so slightly as she thought.
“I suppose you’re right… Well then, who are you?”
He was almost tempted to shoot back with a sarcastic “I asked you first,” but figured that probably wasn’t the best first impression to be making.
“My name's Johnny. Joestar.”
She hummed in acknowledgement.
“Mm. Well, Johnny Joestar, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Henrietta, but people back home often call me HP.”
He recognized the letters that were written on all of her boxes in black sharpie.
“What’s it stand for?”
“They’re my initials.”
“Ah.”
She started to close the door again, but he tried to stop her once more.
“Can I call you Henri?”
She seemed confused at his question.
“Henri?”
“Yeah, you know, short for Henrietta? It just seems easier to say than your full name and HP feels kinda awkward, I guess.”
She lifted an eyebrow as if she had never considered this as an option.
“If you want to, then yes I suppose you could. I don’t see why not.”
“... Cool. Well, good luck with… all of that.”
He gestured to the room behind her.
“Thank you. If I bother you at all, please don’t be afraid to disturb me.”
With those parting words, Johnny thought maybe she was going to play loud music or generally be a bit obtrusive. But in reality, other than the muffled sounds of cardboard and duct tape it was hard to notice that she was even there at all. Unfortunately, this made him all the more curious about her. On one hand, he couldn’t say he wasn’t pleasantly surprised that he lucked out and got a seemingly quiet, reserved, and polite roommate for the year. But on the other hand, what college student is that quiet, reserved, and polite?
She was certainly intriguing, but it wasn’t enough for him to do any digging. Instead, he spent the rest of the day taking a digital tour of the campus so that he’d know where to go when classes started up in a few days. But until then, there was plenty of time to get adjusted.
The next day after that, Johnny was awoken by the sound of loud, confident, mediocre-at-best singing. At first he thought it might’ve been his new roommate's alarm clock.
’I knew it was too good to be true…’
He groaned and rolled over onto the side of the bed to get into his wheelchair before leaving his room and grumbling towards the door of Henrietta’s. However, he found that the door was already wide open and that she was sitting at her desk reading a book that he couldn’t quite make out while her back was turned. She also had on a pair of noise-canceling headphones, likely to block out the inconvenient singing. Johnny took a moment to notice that her room really was mostly undecorated other than an ornate metal cross hung above her desk, a few photos of what he assumed to be her family and childhood, and a couple paintings around the room including Giovanni Battista’s God the Father, The Creation of Adam, and The Virgin Mary in Prayer.
Johnny furrowed his brows and grimaced ever so slightly. Even if his roommate wasn’t loud, he had no idea she was so much of a Jesus freak. But she had seemed decently nice so far and he didn’t want to put the cart before the horse and assume she was one of those religious nuts before actually getting to know her. Meanwhile, the singing continued. Wheeling himself around the apartment, he listened for where the music got louder and discovered that it was coming from the other side of the wall right by his bed. The singing finally stopped as he rolled his eyes, and he left the apartment to knock on his neighbor’s door to no avail.
After a few minutes, he knocked again, starting to get annoyed. Johnny wasn’t exactly a morning person to begin with, and being woken up in such a manner certainly wasn’t helping his attitude. Finally, he started to hear heavy footsteps towards the door from inside. He felt bad for the people downstairs, but at the moment he couldn’t care much for them. All he knew is that he wanted to go back to sleep.
When the door opened, Johnny was about at midriff height with a man who had clearly just gotten out of the shower and wore nothing but a towel around his waist with his hair carefully wrapped in another towel atop his head. One of the first things Johnny noticed was the man’s extremely odd pattern of facial hair- perfectly sharp rectangular blocks of hair that striped up his chin and along his jawline. It took a second for the man to process that Johnny was closer to the floor than he was expecting, but he quickly looked down when he realized.
“Morning! What can I do for you, sir?”
Johnny rubbed his eyes and resisted the urge to groan again in annoyance. How could someone be so energetic and loud so early in the morning?
“Yeah, it’s like 7AM and I can hear your singing through the walls. Can you keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep, you know.”
The man smiled, either having not noticed Johnny’s bitterness or electing to ignore it. When he did, Johnny saw that his entire mouth was full of golden grills, and on his front-most teeth were engraved letters that spelled out Go! Go! Zeppeli.
“My bad! I didn’t realize you could hear me! But hey, did you like the song? What do you think?”
Johnny raised an eyebrow at him and felt one of his eyelids twitch.
“What…?”
“Well, what do you think? Do you think it was good? It’s a Gyro Zeppeli original, you know! Do you think it’ll get popular?”
He figured ‘Gyro Zeppeli’ must be this guy’s name. Johnny was left speechless for a good few seconds before looking around to see if anyone else was watching this exchange or if he actually was still asleep and dreaming all of this up.
“I mean… I don’t know, man. I’m just really tired and- Wait, an original…? As in, you wrote it yourself?”
“Yeah! Well, I haven’t written it down yet, but I came up with it all on my own! Was it good?”
Johnny tried to continue speaking through a yawn.
“I don’t know… I wasn’t really paying attention, I gu-”
“Oh, do you want me to sing it for you?”
“No! No, that’s… Not right now, at least. I just wanna get some sleep…”
“Hey, so you live next door, right? If you could hear me through the walls, you gotta live in one of the apartments right here, right?”
Johnny looked back at his door for a second.
“Yeah, right over there.”
“Ah, so we’re neighbors, then! That means we’ll probably be seeing more of each other throughout the year! The name’s Gyro!”
Johnny’s earlier assumption was proven to be correct.
“Johnny. So are you, like, a music major or something?”
“Ha! You really think I could be?”
“Are you… not?”
He was too groggy and irritated to have considered anything else.
“Nope! Pre-med! What about you, Johnny?”
“Just… general studies.”
“Testing the waters, then, eh? I’m sure you’ll find your niche in time!”
“....Right. So, anyway-”
“Hey, by the way! You got a roommate, right? I should probably meet him, too! Try to form some community, y’know what I mean?”
Johnny sighed deeply, thinking back to HP. She had the right idea with those noise-canceling headphones. He’ll have to ask her where she got them later.
“Yeah, but she’s studying or something right now-”
“SHE?! You lucky dog! Is she pretty?”
“She’s…”
To be fair, Johnny hadn’t really taken a good look at her yet. She had been too busy moving in and reading, and she seemed like the kind who doesn’t like to be disturbed. Then his mind returned to all of her biblical decorations.
“She’s… something, I guess. Hey man- Gyro, I mean. I’m gonna be honest with you; I’m really tired and I kinda just want to get back in bed. If you don’t mind-”
“Yeah, of course! Hey, maybe after classes start and we get adjusted we could have a get-together and all get acquainted! What do you think, Johnny?”
“Yeah… sure…”
“Nyo-ho! Perfect! Well, rest easy! I’ll try to be more mindful of my beautiful voice!”
Gyro shut the door before Johnny could fully process the conversation. He rubbed his forehead with a disoriented and confused scowl before turning around and rolling the five feet to his own apartment door. As he reached for the doorknob, an unpleasant voice spoke up from behind him with an all too familiar co*ckney accent.
“If it isn’t ol’ Johnny boy! Didn’t think I’d ever see you again after you and yours fled the country!”
Johnny grimaced and suddenly felt an oncoming headache. He turned his head to see the one person he hoped he’d never run into again in his entire life. He was oceans away from Britain, after all. It didn’t seem like too much to ask of fate.
“What the f*ck are you doing here, Dio.”
For someone who really only wanted to get back in bed and sleep for the next two to three hours, Johnny was getting a bit fed up with all the surprises he was getting. Diego strode down the hall with an air of confidence. His hair was significantly longer than the last time Johnny had seen him, but to be fair that was at least ten years ago at this point. As he got closer, Johnny could see that he also had noticeable scars stretching across his face from the corners of his mouth and up to his ears. When he was in front of Johnny, he squatted down to be at eye level with him. Johnny rolled his eyes at the act of condescension and turned the handle to open the door to his apartment. Unfortunately, Diego stretched out his arm and leaned on the door with all his weight, causing it to shut again with a thud. Johnny could feel his blood start to boil. Diego smirked and adjusted the expensive jacket he wore.
“What does it look like I’m doing here? I live here, Joestar! At least for the year.”
A vein popped out of Johnny’s head, but luckily his beanie covered it. If Diego knew how he got under his skin, it’d only make the stuck-up brit more meddlesome.
“Don’t tell me…”
“Surely you’re not here for school as well?”
Johnny took a deep breath. He could only hope they wouldn’t have any classes together.
“I am, actually. What’s it to you? And I’m shocked you’d come all the way here just for college. Last I checked, you didn’t like the states very much.”
“You’d be right, I don’t. But this place’s got one of the best Equestrian programs out there, so I make my sacrifices.”
“You’re so noble. Can you get out of the way now?”
Johnny yanked on the doorknob again. It shocked Diego and threw him off balance for only a second, but he quickly regained his composure and slammed the door shut again. He stood up at his full height, which wasn’t entirely a sight to behold to the average person but he easily towered over Johnny in his chair. He sneered down his nose at the man below him, keeping one hand on the door to keep it shut and the other moved to grab hold of one of the armrests on Johnny’s mobility aid.
“If you get in my way, Joestar, I’ll end you. I have big plans for my future, and I’ll be damned if I let you f*ck it all up for me.”
Johnny scoffed and looked up at Diego, his eyes void of fear or hesitation.
“Is that a threat, Dio?”
For a split second, Johnny thought he saw the pupils of Diego’s eyes narrow into an oval shape, but they dilated back to their usual size before he could really say for certain that they changed at all.
“It’s a promise.”
They stayed like that for about 10 seconds more, neither one of them wanting to be the one who backed down. Finally, Diego stood up straight and let go of the wheelchair. He threw his hands in the air innocently and took a couple dramatic steps backwards.
“Was I blocking your way? Sorry, I hadn’t noticed! By all means, don’t let me stop you.”
He started walking towards the opposite end of the hall. At the very least, they weren’t directly next door to each other. Johnny opened the door and wheeled himself back into the apartment with a sigh of relief. As much as he wanted to crawl back in bed, as soon as he saw that it was already 8AM he decided to make some coffee instead. As the Keurig whirred to life, he could hear a door close followed by HP promptly strolling into the main living area. She gave him a passing glance as she walked over to the keyholder by the door.
“Good morning. I have a feeling you confronted our opera singer friend next door about his performance?”
Johnny chuckled.
“Yeah, I did. He said he’d keep us in mind, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up yet.”
She nodded.
“I’m going grocery shopping. If there’s anything you want or need, just text me and I’ll tell you how much you owe me when I return.”
Johnny was glad they swapped numbers over takeout last night. He wasn’t expecting for that to come in handy so soon, but he did admit to himself that relying on fast food until school started probably wasn’t the healthiest idea. He noticed that Henri had a purse draped around her shoulder and resting against her hip. In one of the side pockets, he could see the imprint of what looked to be some kind of aerosol can. He simply assumed it was mace and brushed it off as she put in a pair of wired headphones and dropped her phone into the purse after putting on a playlist of some kind. As she stepped out the door, Johnny muttered under his breath.
“Watch out for snakes…”
HP whipped around and took a single earbud out of her ears.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Just be careful. Drive safe, and all that… or something.”
She raised an eyebrow at him but otherwise didn’t question his comment. She shut the door quietly behind her and headed for the stairs. After Johnny was done with his coffee, he found his way back to his bedroom to take care of his beloved pet rat Danny before figuring out what to do with the rest of the day.
