Amaranthine

14: Hamon

ONE MOMENT IS ALL IT TAKES TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. One decision can be the difference between happiness and regret. Regardless of the future I'd chosen, I was happy as long as Dio was there beside me. Or so I had told myself.

I had not seen Dio since that stormy night when everything I knew about the world changed. He promised he would find me as soon as he could, but three days of waiting had made me disheartened. Perhaps I was being impatient, but I couldn't help wondering why he hadn't he shown up yet. Wasn't three days enough time? Had something happened to him?

I finally worked up the courage to return to the mansion in hopes of getting some answers from Jonathan. But when I returned to the mansion, there was nothing to return to. The grand mansion that stood 3 stories tall was nothing more than a mess of rubble now. Those hallways I knew from childhood were long gone, marked only by sparse walls of stone that had yet to crumble completely. Pieces of charred wood and ash crunched under my feet as I stepped inside what used to be a grand estate. Gone was the library where Dio and I had spent so much time reading. Gone was the place that bound Dio, Jonathan, and I together.

As I walked the crumbled remains of hallways, I wondered if I'd made the correct choice. I stared at the wreckage with a frown. For three days, I had nursed my father back to full health while I waited for Dio to come for me. For three days, I stayed at home and waited for Dio. I had neglected to check on Jonathan. In my excitement, I had forgotten that Dio was not the only thing that mattered to me in this life.

I stopped in front of a crumbled statue of the Joestar's guardian, the Goddess of Love. It was broken just like the house it protected. I wondered if my relationship with Jonathan would be in a similar state now. If the mansion was in this state, I could only imagine the damage that Dio had done to Jonathan. Whatever Dio did, it was my fault. I could have stopped him if I'd told Jonathan to be careful that day.

I felt like I was looking the symbolization of my dreams burning away. There would not be a wedding on a bright spring day, attended by all my friends and family. There would not be a normal life in the countryside. There was no way I could live a normal life now; not with Dio. But when was I ever "normal"?

"Freya?"

I turned, hope filling my heart. For a moment, I thought I saw Dio standing in the ruins, his left arm in a sling as it had been 3 nights ago. But when I blinked, the illusion disappeared. It was Jonathan who stood surrounded by the remains of his home. It was Jonathan whose arm was in a sling as he neared me. I felt horrible for wishing Dio was the one standing there instead. Suddenly I was overcome with guilt.

"J-Jonathan! You're injured!" I couldn't help but exclaim the obvious fact aloud from shock.

Jonathan nodded. "It's good to see you," he smiled with a soft melancholy. "I was worried because I hadn't seen you since that night."

My heart dropped in my chest as quickly as a stone fell to the bottom of a lake. "Yes. I'm sorry," I said. "I was too worried about myself to even check on you. I didn't know the mansion had burned down like this. And I didn't know that you were injured . . ."

Jonathan shook his head. "It is not your fault," he said. "I figured that you were grieving after seeing Dio . . . killed. To tell the truth, everything happened in a blur. After you left, we started to arrest Dio. He was only pretending to give up. When I approached him, he pulled out a dagger and tried to stab me. My father," Jonathan frowned. "He protected me. And then . . . he died."

"I'm so sorry," I said quietly. I didn't know what else to say. My words felt like a hollow interjection to Jonathan's story. He simply nodded in acceptance, clearly unsure of how to respond to the fact that his father was dead. "What happened after that? How did the mansion burn down?" I prompted,