Canon: Remove if not applicable.Sometimes Michael caught J with a pocketwatch in his hand, staring at it with an empty look on his face.
One day he managed to catch sight of the inscription on it.
To KANAME KUJO
From MASAMUNE KUJO
A memento of his mother’s?
“What is it?” J tucked the watch back into a pocket, having sensed Michael’s gaze.
“That, was it hers?”
J’s hand froze right as he was about to retract his hand, and he dipped it back in the pocket, pulling the watch back out. “That’s right.” He turned it over in his hand, so the inscription was visible once more. The smile on his lips looked more off than it usually did.
“You look a lot like her,” he said, remembering her image in the cameras he had hijacked. J sighed, and lowered the hand with the watch into his lap.
“Well, I’d rather share similarities with her,” he said. Rather than sharing similarities with who? His father? His grandfather? He had heard Kamishima say that J’s hair was like his - Kamishima’s - grandmother’s, but his face was that of a Kujou, particularly as he had reached the upper teens. He looked so much like Kujou Otoya, too. It was so clear now, that they were brothers.
“So you’re getting over things regarding her, then?” he asked before he could stop himself, or think about a better way to ask it.
An expression that Michael couldn’t decipher twisted J’s face momentarily, but then one of his smiles made its way on it. It looked brittle, just on the edge of cracking, and Michael knew that he had asked something he probably shouldn’t have.
“Oh look, Michael-kun is trying to be funny!”
“J…” Michael swallowed, adjusted his grip on the laptop in his arms so he held it in only one hand, and walked over to him. “Sorry,” he said, and awkwardly patted J on the head. J’s head slowly tilted, and he looked up at him with an odd expression of confusion. He stared at him for several moments, which made Michael feel really awkward.
When he retracted his hand, J’s free hand raised, grasping his wrist. He averted his gaze, grasp a bit too tight for comfort, but Michael didn’t pull his hand free. “Don’t be so nosy, please.” Usually, Michael’s mind would have jumped to it being a threat, but the tone of his voice did not sound like it was one.
It rather sounded like it was as broken as his smile had been.