Your Dad Will Always Be Your Dad! Cafeteria Spicy Sauce!

Dio froze.

He touched his dazzling blond hair, then looked at Locke's dark brown curls and suddenly fell into a strange silence.

Three seconds later.

"Yeah, I figured." He shook his head.

"?"

Grabbing Dio by the collar, Locke lifted him until they were eye to eye.

"What's going through that little punk head of yours?"

"Even if we're not related by blood, I'm still your dad!"

Dio's blond hair flew wildly as he was shaken, but he still stubbornly pursed his lips. "Hmph. Then do you treat Clark the same way?"

"You always favor him. I think he's your real son!"

"Otherwise, how do you explain those identical curls?"

"..."

Choked by that twisted logic, Locke put Dio down and summoned Star Platinum again.

The purple Stand's fist gleamed with a metallic sheen beneath the sunlight.

"Then how about this?" He pointed at the two Stands that seemed completely incompatible. "Keep treating me like your real dad because of this."

"..."

The father and son sat side by side on a haystack outside the mill.

In the distance, Clark's figure appeared and vanished among the wheat, clumsily helping Martha pick up scattered blueberries.

"So." Locke bit down on a stalk of wheat. "You've been picking on Clark all these years because you thought I was playing favorites?"

"Yeah." Dio stared at the tips of his boots, unconsciously grinding a pebble beneath his toe. "He has everything."

His voice was so soft it was nearly scattered by the wind.

"Aunt Martha knits sweaters for him. Uncle Jonathan teaches him how to drive a tractor. Even you..."

His fingers clenched around a blade of grass. "Whenever we're together, you're always closer to him. You even slip him honey candy."

Locke froze.

He touched his face, as if only now realizing how deeply those little details he had never cared about had carved themselves into the heart of this sensitive child.

"Dio." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"But do you know why Clark always comes to talk to me?"

The blond boy turned his head away, refusing to answer.

"Because you said you liked quiet." Locke ruffled his hair. "And that idiot has always been asking me when he could talk to Dio."

"I only spent more time talking to him because he looked so pitiful."

Dio's ears twitched.

"As for the honey candy..."

Locke pulled a crumpled paper packet from his pocket. "I made a whole pot of it back then, but you said, 'That's too childish. I don't want it,' so I started giving it to Clark instead."

The packet unfolded, revealing several melted candies. Their wrappers bore childish star designs—

Exactly like the birthmark on Dio's neck.

The evening breeze grew very quiet.

Dio stared at those sticky candies. He remembered how every time Clark got candy, he would secretly break half off and tuck it into Dio's textbook; how, during that rainstorm, the big idiot had rather get soaked himself than let Dio's schoolbag get wet; he remembered...

"Idiot."

He grabbed a candy and stuffed it into his mouth. It was so sweet that his tongue went numb.

"It's too childish. This stuff is only suitable for Clark."

"Is that so? Then I won't give you any."

Seeing Dio's reddened ears, Locke smiled and pointed toward the wheat field. "Look at Clark..."

In the distance, Clark tripped and scattered blueberries everywhere again.

He hurriedly tried to pick them up, only to knock over Martha's basket too.

"That kid has super speed, but he's always so clumsy in daily life." Locke spoke softly. "And my Dio—"

He proudly patted the boy beside him on the shoulder.

"At seven, he could use what he knew to help me fix tractors. Last week, he even solved a calculus problem that gave college students headaches!"

The setting sun stretched their shadows long.

Dio suddenly realized that when they sat side by side, the curls and blond hair in their shadows looked unexpectedly harmonious.

"Old man."

"Hmm?"

"At the next family dinner."

Dio jumped down from the haystack and brushed grass and flour off his pants. "I want to sit beside you."

Watching Dio walk toward Clark, looking as though he meant to apologize, Locke's face broke into a smile.

But...

It quickly turned into a look of utter confusion.

Wait, what did that brat just call me?!

Watching Dio seemingly guiltily quicken his pace as he ran away, Locke's lips curled upward.

"Cafeteria Spicy Sauce!"

"The World!"

Time froze.

Dio only saw a blur before the world spun around him.

He had been slung over Locke's shoulder!

"???"

Dio's eyes widened in shock, his blond hair hanging upside down. "When?! How could you—"

"Your dad will always be your dad, Dio."

Locke flashed a wicked grin and smacked his butt twice.

"Ah! Wait! I was wrong!"

Dio flailed in the air, flour that he had not fully cleaned out of his hair sprinkling down. "That's not fair! Why are you so fast?!"

"That's called parental privilege."

Locke gave him another smack before finally putting the red-faced brat down.

Then he looked toward the translucent panel floating in the air:

[Dio Kent, eight years old, Stand awakened: The World]

[Synchronization rate has surpassed the threshold]

[Loading parental privileges for host]

[Stand: Star Platinum (current maximum time stop: 0.5 seconds)]

Locke Kent could not help smiling. He had not expected that this thirty-three-year-old farmer still had plenty of vigor left in him.

He could actually stop time for 0.5 seconds.

Truly worthy of the Joestar Family's Golden Body.

In the blink of an eye, another three months passed.

Martha and Jonathan went to Washington State to visit relatives.

So Clark stayed at Locke Farm, joining Dio for the first summer vacation of their elementary school years.

But Kansas's scorching summer weather was always unpredictable.

The once-brilliant blue sky was swallowed by iron-gray storm clouds within ten minutes, and raindrops the size of beans battered the tractor's metal roof with loud pitter-patters.

"Easy on the gas! Push the clutch all the way down!"

Locke shouted at the top of his lungs in the torrential rain, water streaming off the brim of his cowboy hat. "Dio! Stop staring at the dashboard! Watch the road!"

The blond boy gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white.

The unseen World floated to his right, using its golden hand to barely block the rain pouring through the window that had no windshield.

"Old man!"

His wet bangs clung to his forehead as Dio gritted his teeth. "This junk tractor is older than Clark and me put together! Can't you install a piece of glass?!"

Clark, sitting in the back seat, shook all over as he struggled not to laugh, only for Dio to shoot him a glare through the rearview mirror.

"What are you laughing at?! What do you want?!"

"Sorry, I just wanted to say..." Clark timidly raised his hand, but before he could speak—

One sharp look from Locke scared him into lowering it again.

"Get serious, both of you!" Locke wiped the rain from his face. "You're driving!"

To be honest, he really missed the obedient Dio from three months ago.

At least that little punk had still pretended to be filial back then.

The tractor jolted along the muddy ridge between fields. Dio's boot slipped in a puddle, nearly stomping the gas pedal straight through the floor.

The World hurriedly reached for the controls, but as its hand passed through the curtain of rain, time suddenly froze for an instant—

Raindrops hung motionless in midair.

During that 0.1-second time stop, Dio finally managed to shift gears.

"Ha!"

He smugly lifted his chin.

As expected of me!

With reflexes this fast.

"Splat!"

Time resumed, and the flying mud plastered Dio's face.

Locke naturally could not hold back his laughter at the sight.

The silly kid clearly still did not know about his time-stopping ability. He only activated it unconsciously from time to time.

"Dio, stop! You're about to hit the fenc—"

Locke's words abruptly stopped.

Because Clark also failed to hold back a laugh, making the blond boy's face turn bright red.

"Sorry, Dio, I just wanted to..."

"You bastard!"

"Bang!"

The two boys began wrestling inside the cramped cab, and the tractor immediately started weaving S-shaped tracks through the field like a drunkard.

"You two—!"

Locke's helpless roar was swallowed by the thunder.

Seeing that shouting was useless, he immediately took a large step forward, leaped onto the tractor, and grabbed the steering wheel, only to—

See a strange sight reflected in the rearview mirror.

Deep within the wheat field, a huge figure staggered toward them, dragging a long trail of blood behind it that was quickly being washed away by the rain.

Dio and Clark stopped fighting at the same time.

A faint light gleamed in Clark's eyes as he cried out in shock, "Uncle Locke!"

"That person is bleeding! A lot!"