Dio froze.
He touched his dazzling blond hair, then looked at Rock’s dark brown curls, suddenly falling into an eerie silence.
Three seconds later.
“Sigh, I thought as much.” He shook his head.
“?”
Grabbing Dio by the collar, Rock lifted him up to eye level.
“What’s that brain of yours cooking up, you little brat?”
“Even if we aren’t blood-related, I’m still your dad!”
Dio was shaken so hard his blond hair flew everywhere, but he still stubbornly pouted.
“Heh.
Do you treat Clark like this too?”
“You always favor him!
I bet he’s your real son!”
“Otherwise, how do you explain those identical curls?”
“…”
Stumped by this twisted logic, Rock set Dio down and summoned Star Platinum once again.
The purple Stand’s fists glistened with a metallic sheen in the sunlight.
“How about this,” Rock said, pointing at the two Stands that seemed utterly incompatible.
“You can keep using this thing as proof that I’m your real dad.”
“…”
On a haystack outside the mill, the father and son sat side by side.
In the distance, Clark’s figure flickered through the wheat field as he clumsily helped Martha gather scattered blueberries.
“So,” Rock mumbled, biting on a stalk of wheat.
“You’ve been picking fights with Clark all these years just because you thought I was being biased?”
“Yeah.” Dio stared at the tips of his boots, mindlessly rolling a small pebble with his toe.
“He has everything.”
His voice was so quiet it was nearly lost in the breeze.
“Aunt Martha knits sweaters for him, Uncle Jonathan teaches him how to drive the tractor, and even you…” His fingers tightened around the stalk of grass.
“Whenever the two of us are together with you, you’re always closer to him, and you always hand him honey candies.”
Rock froze.
He touched his face, realizing only now how deeply those small details he had never paid attention to had carved themselves into this sensitive boy’s heart.
“Dio,” he sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“But do you know why Clark always comes over to talk to me?”
The blond boy turned his head away, refusing to answer.
“Because you said you liked peace and quiet,” Rock said, ruffling his hair.
“And that silly kid kept asking me when he’d be allowed to talk to Dio.”
“He looked so pitiful that I spent a little extra time talking to him.”
Dio’s ears twitched.
“As for the honey candies…”
Rock pulled a crumpled paper wrapper from his pocket.
“I made a big batch back then, but you said, ‘That’s too childish, I don’t want it.’ So I ended up giving them to Clark instead.”
Unfolding the paper revealed a few melted candies inside.
Drawn on the wrapper was a childish star pattern—identical to the birthmark on the back of Dio’s neck.
The evening breeze blew softly.
Dio stared at the sticky sweets, suddenly remembering how Clark would always break his candy in half and secretly slip it into Dio’s textbook; how on stormy days, that big idiot would rather get drenched himself just to keep Dio’s backpack dry; how…
“Dummy.”
He grabbed a candy, popped it into his mouth, and cringed as the sweetness made his tongue go numb.
“Too childish.
This stuff is only good for a kid like Clark.”
“Is that so?
Then I won’t give you any more.”
Seeing the tips of Dio’s ears turn red, Rock chuckled and pointed at the wheat field.
“Look at Clark…”
In the distance, Clark tripped, spilling blueberries all over the ground again.
As he scrambled to pick them up, he knocked over Martha’s basket as well.
“That kid has super speed, but he’s always clumsy in everyday life,” Rock said softly.
“While my Dio—”
He proudly patted the boy’s shoulder beside him.
“He used his knowledge to help me fix the tractor when he was seven, and just last week he solved a calculus problem that gave college students headaches!”
The setting sun stretched their shadows long across the ground.
Dio suddenly realized that as they sat side by side, the curly hair and the straight hair in their shadows were surprisingly harmonious.
“Old geezer.”
“Huh?”
“Next time we have a family dinner…” Dio jumped off the haystack, brushing the straw and flour dust off his pants.
“I want to sit next to you.”
Watching Dio walk off toward Clark—looking like he was going to apologize—a smile touched Rock’s face.
However…
That smile quickly turned into a look of complete bewilderment.
Wait, what did that kid just call me?!
Looking at Dio, who seemed guilty and was quickening his pace as he ran into the distance, the corners of Rock’s mouth twitched into a smirk.
“Star Platinum!”
“The The World!”
Time ground to a halt.
Dio felt his vision blur, and in the next second, the The World spun upside down.
He had been hauled up onto Rock’s shoulder!
“???” Dio’s eyes widened in shock, his blond hair hanging upside down.
“When?!
How can you—”
“Your old man is always your old man, Dio.”
Rock flashed a wicked grin and raised his hand, delivering two solid slaps to his rear.
*Thwack!
Thwack!*
“Ow!
Wait!
I was wrong!”
Dio thrashed in the air, leftover flour fluttering down from his hair.
“That’s not fair!
Why are you so fast?!”
“It’s called Parental Privilege.”
Rock gave him one more slap before finally setting the red-faced brat back on his feet.
He then looked at the semi-transparent panel floating in the void:
[Dio Kent, age eight, awakened Stand: The The World] [Synchronization rate exceeded critical threshold] [Loading Parental Privilege for Host] [Stand: Star Platinum (Current time-stop duration: 0.5 seconds)]
Rock Kent couldn’t help but laugh softly.
He hadn’t expected an old thirty-three-year-old farmer like himself to still have it in him.
To think he could actually stop time for 0.5 seconds.
Truly worthy of the Joestar family’s golden physique.
In the blink of an eye, three months passed.
Martha and Jonathan went to Washington State to visit relatives.
So Clark stayed at Rock’s farm, welcoming the first summer vacation of their elementary school life together with Dio.
However, summer heat in Kansas was always unpredictable.
Within ten minutes, the once-clear blue sky was swallowed by iron-gray storm clouds, sending heavy drops of rain hammering against the metal roof of the tractor.
“Easy on the throttle!
Step on the clutch all the way!”
Rock yelled at the top of his lungs through the downpour, rain dripping off the brim of his cowboy hat in streams.
“Dio!
Don’t stare at the dashboard!
Look at the road!”
The blond boy gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white.
Unseen by anyone else, The The World hovered to his right, using its massive golden hand to barely block the rain pouring through the window without a windshield.
“Old geezer!”
With his bangs plastered wet against his forehead, Dio grit his teeth.
“This piece-of-trash tractor is older than Clark and me combined!
Couldn’t you install a piece of glass?!”
In the back seat, Clark was shaking from trying to hold back his laughter, only to get a sharp glare from Dio in the rear-view mirror.
“What are you laughing at!
What do you want!”
“Sorry, I just wanted to say…” Clark raised his hand meekly, but before he could finish speaking, a glare from Rock made him pull back in fear.
“All of you, get serious!” Rock wiped the rain from his face.
“We’re driving here!”
To be honest, he actually missed the obedient Dio from three months ago.
At least back then, the little bastard would pretend to be dutiful.
The tractor bumped along the muddy ridge, and Dio’s boots slipped on the floorboards, almost jamming the gas pedal through the floor.
The The World scrambled to reach for the gear shift.
As the Stand’s hand passed through the veil of rain, time suddenly froze for a brief moment—
Raindrops hung suspended in midair.
In that 0.1-second time-stop, Dio finally managed to shift gears.
“Ha!”
He raised his chin proudly.
*As expected of me!
To have such fast reaction time!*
*Splatter!*
Time resumed its flow, and a splash of mud plastered itself across Dio’s entire face.
Seeing this, Rock couldn’t hold back a burst of laughter.
The silly kid clearly didn’t realize he had a time-stop ability yet, triggering it only on occasion by accident.
“Dio, stop!
You’re going to crash into the fence—”
Rock’s words abruptly cut off.
Because Clark couldn’t hold back his laughter either, driving the blond boy completely red-hot with rage.
“I’m sorry, Dio, I just wanted to…”
“You bastard!”
*Bang!*
The two boys started wrestling in the narrow cab, and the tractor instantly began weaving S-curves through the field like a drunk driver.
“You two—!”
Rock’s helpless shout was drowned out by a clap of thunder.
Seeing that yelling was useless, he immediately lunged forward, leaped onto the tractor, and snatched the steering wheel—only to catch a strange sight reflected in the rear-view mirror:
Deep inside the wheat field, a massive figure was stumbling toward them, dragging a long trail of blood that was quickly being washed away by the rain.
Dio and Clark stopped fighting at the exact same moment.
A faint light flickered in Clark’s eyes, and he shouted in shock, “Uncle Rock!”
“That person is bleeding!
A lot of blood!”