Chapter Text
“We are almost here,” Giorno announced. “We need to go right.”
“Are you sure?”
The way Giorno looked Fugo’s way, with brows furrowed and jaw righteously locked, you’d think the question was offensive.
Still, Fugo insisted. “Are you?”
Giorno looked back to the phone.
Sighing, Fugo took it from her hands. The google maps blinker jumped a few miles, as if jolted by the trip from hand to hand, finally settled on a point.
“What did you say the address was again?”
“I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t type it in either, okay.” Fugo frowned at the map, flipped the screen around so it made more sense. “Do you know where we are?”
“Vaguely,” Giorno said, with the intonation of someone commenting on the weather.
“Uh-huh.” A few months ago, this would have sent Fugo into a spiral of panic. But working retail, she had found, really did make one less afraid to die. “Well. You spoke with the guy?”
“I did,” Giorno confirmed. She was watching Fugo, with that unwavering gaze of hers; her hands were folded behind her back, all still and proper.
Fugo reminded herself to stop staring. “Did he say anything useful?”
“He told me which stop to get off on,” Giorno confirmed. “And to take a right, and then walk down — “
“So that’s the problem,” Fugo gave her back the phone. “We went left.”
Giorno stared.
“At the bus stop,” Fugo elaborated. “We went left.”
Giorno nodded. “I see.”
Fugo arched an eyebrow.
Giorno finally took her phone back. “Well. Good I brought you along, then.”
She turned around, promptly, and started moving back. Fugo took a moment to process the situation, then rushed after her.
“So,” she said, once she’d caught up (Giorno looked a little flustered). “What do we do once we get there?”
Giorno shrugged. “We talk to him.”
“About what?”
“About ants,” Giorno said. “And then Risotto.”
“I see,” Fugo said. “And what if he doesn’t want to talk about Risotto?”
“He will.”
“What if he gets angry, and kicks us out?” That was probably what was going to happen.
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Giorno shrugged. “He won’t.”
“Right.” Fugo took a deep breath. “But if — “
Giorno stopped without a warning, placed a gentle hand just a few inches above Fugo’s shoulders.
“He won’t,” she promised. Her fringe framed her face like a halo would have a saint’s.
“— I see,” was all Fugo could say.
The corner’s of Giorno’s eyes crinkled, a smile tugged on her lips. “The secret is in not planning for failure,” she added. Like she was sharing some secret truth of life. “If you don’t have a plan B, the plan A has to work.”
Fugo just nodded. “Alright.” She swallowed. “I mean, that is not how anything works, but alright.”
Giorno just winked. “We will see.”
“Alright.”
Once they went the right direction, going the rest of the way was easy — the building Giorno claimed the man lived in was a four-story apartment building, and if the sticky note saying ‘NO EXTERMINATORS freedom of movement for all life forms’ was any indication, this really was the place they were to be in.
“So,” Fugo said. “Do you want to think up a plan now or — “
Giorno rang the doorbell.
“I work better on the spot,” she told, to Fugo’s shocked face. “Trust me.”
“I — why would I?” Fugo said.
Giorno turned back to the door. “I mean. You trusted me this far.”
Fugo blanched.
Giorno shrugged. “I will not let you down.”
“I am not — “
Before she could say anything — she had nothing to say oh god she was being so stupid — the intercom came to life, and a nasally voice cracked through.
“Who is this?”
“Good day,” Giorno chirped (Fugo continued gawking). “This is Giorno Giovanna. We spoke?”
“Ah,” the voice hummed. “Yes. I remember you.”
The doors did not unlock.
“Would you mind letting us in?” Giorno asked.
“I do not.”
The doors still did not unlock.
“We can talk like this too,” Giorno added.
“It is tempting,” the man who needed to be Murolo agreed.
“It does have a certain charm.”
“But my neighbours would complain,” Murolo sighed. “Alright. Come up.”
The hallway was narrow and dimly lit, and featured a stone staircase and a dingy elevator. Fugo tensed up.
“He’s on third floor,” Giorno said. “Do you mind walking?”
Fugo had never minded anything less. “No.”
They climbed up in relative silence. There was a man watching them, from the third floor — he disappeared as soon as they came within polite speaking distance. Giorno, unbothered, walked up to his door.
It opened before she could knock. She barely reacted.
Fugo was not sure what he’d been imagining Murolo to look like — the only thing she had to go on was the fact that he had apparently ghosted Risotto, and that Risotto was a very conveniently attractive man. She’d expected a gym rat, maybe, or one of those guys with very nicely shaped eyebrows.
That was not what Murolo looked like.
“Hello,” said the man at the door; he had a khaki sweater on, bare feet, and an a large-brimmed hat atop a gaunt face. He was squinting. “Can I help you?”
Fugo wondered how many times this guy would make them reintroduce themselves.
Giorno kept on being nonplussed. “I would like to get some elaboration,” she said. “On what you said about the ethics of keeping newly-mated queens in test tubes.”
One of Murolo’s eyebrows went up. He opened the doors wider, aimed for them to go in. “I am listening.”
Giorno turned around, and gave Fugo a winning grin.
Fugo followed Giorno into the apartment, and tried to not think too hard on the logistics of someone as attractive as Risotto falling for someone as sickly-looking as Murolo. Felt it had no wider implications, or business making her heart speed up like it did.
Risotto’s bad taste in men said nothing about any overzealous lesbians Fugo personally knew, she reminded herself as Murolo rattled on about sugar water and human-normative notions of commitment. It said nothing about anything — to think anything else would have been an unscientific reach.
__
“It was freaky,” Fugo was saying. “They have their own rooms.”
“Wow,” Sheila said, in what Giorno knew now to be feigned disinterest. “Tell me more.”
Fugo did. “Rooms, Sheila, rooms plural.” She sighed, ran a hand through her fringe. “I don’t even have my own room.”
It was the day after Giorno Giovanna and Pannacotta Fugo had paid Cannolo Murolo a visit, and they were back at the store. They’d both gotten home fairly late — partially because they got on the wrong bus on their way back — but Giorno had learned a lot, and was excited to bring her plan into its second stage. Was excited to think up a second stage, any moment now.
“Tragic,” Sheila was saying. She was holding up a box of blaze and ultimate cheddar Doritos; Fugo was grabbing bags out of it at random, and hurling them onto the top shelf. “And I know that. We share one.”
“Murolo’s ants barely share!” Fugo sighed. “God, I can’t believe I actually willingly went into his apartment. The man is so exhausting. It’s like a superpower.”
“Can you really not?” Trish Una, who was also there, asked. She was sitting up on the portable step they were pointedly not using to sort high shelves properly. “I have a few theories on why you went.”
“Shut it.”
Sheila kicked her in the shin. “You shut it.”
“Sorry.”
Giorno looked over to Trish. “Odd to see you here.”
“I know,” Trish sighed. “Buying at bulk really does not fit my general energy.”
Giorno nodded.
“God, right.” Fugo turned around. “Why are you here?”
“Jesus, Pannacotta.” Sheila dropped the box down; Giorno accepted that they were now officially slacking off. “Stop being such a bitch to my girlfriend.”
“It’s okay,” Trish said. “She has some stuff to work through. She’ll stop lashing out eventually.”
“She should stop now.”
“I take life at the pace it comes.”
“You need to stop hanging out with Mista,” Sheila cackled. “But, really now, how come you’re here?”
Trish pouted.
Sheila snorted. “Don’t give me that. You said seeing me at work bummed you out.”
“I am not afraid to be unhappy for you,” Trish said.
Sheila’s mouth made a little ‘o’.
“Oh my god,” Fugo said.
“But, no,” Trish continued. “A really creepy guy from my dad’s company showed up here, and I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Aw!” Sheila said. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know I didn’t have to,” Trish shrugged. “Yet I did.”
“How noble of you,” Fugo muttered.
Sheila kicked her again. Addressed Trish, “I thought I was the protector of this relationship.”
Trish snorted. “Uh, sure, unless there’s a spider, in which case — ”
“That’s different.”
Giorno caught Fugo’s eyes; Fugo rolled hers. She looked a little flushed.
“Who is the creepy guy?” Giorno asked.
“Ugh,” Trish slumped. “Don’t ask.”
“I already did.”
“His name is Melone,” she kicked one of her legs over the other, drummed out a beat against her knee. “And he’s just. You know.”
All four of them made a face.
“Not like — like,” Trish waved her hands. “You know. He — he calls women females. He will ask you your blood type. He knows too much about astrology. And he talks about feet too much.” She made a face. “He’s like...a personification of soft masculism?” She made a face. “In the shape of a New Age twink.”
“Wow,” Fugo said. “That’s an evocative image.”
“I am a natural.”
“You are,” Sheila said. “I’d kiss you, but that description just made me swear to celibacy.”
The conversation was cut short, dramatically, with Leone cutting a corner and pausing.
“So,” she said, taking in the state they were in. “Working hard, I see.”
Giorno decided that, maybe, if she did not move, this would simply pass on.
“And I heard,” Fugo spoke up. “That you and Bruno had a late night hangout yesterday.”
Leone’s eyebrows went up. Sheila and Trish, rather dramatically, dropped their jaws.
“Hot damn, Abba,” Sheila said. “Congrats.”
“No,” Leone said. Pointed a finger at Sheila, specifically. “No.” Then, she turned back to Fugo (she’d been watching Giorno, Giorno now realized. She looked away quickly when Giorno looked her way but she had undoubtedly been watching). “How do you know about that?”
“What,” Fugo said. “I talk to Carbonara.”
“Carbonara?”
“The neighbour,” Fugo grinned. Leone’s eye twitch. “She said you met.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyways,” Trish was saying. “Does Bruno keep the customer voice going in the bedroom or — “
“Oh my god,” Leone slapped a hand to her face. “Oh my god. You did not — no — “
“No?”
“You’re twelve,” Leone was saying. “You don’t know what that means.”
“Uh,” Trish crossed her arms. “I am fifteen.”
“That really doesn’t sound as hardcore as you seem to think it does.”
“Eat me, Abba.”
A new voice entered the conversation. “Are you all on a break?”
They all froze, again. There was a man, on the other side of the aisle; his hair was a faded pink, and his shirt was see-through, and his pants seemed to be made of latex. There was some sort of a bright pink toy in his hand; he kept his eyes on it as he addressed them, then threw back his fringe.
“That’s Melone,” Trish theatre-whispered.
“Ah,” Giorno whispered back.
“We are not,” Leone said. “I mean. I am not. How can I help you?”
“I am just looking around,” Melone said. “Looking for Buccellati.”
They all tensed up, again..
“They’re not here right now,” Leone said.
The man — Melone — (Trish’ description was uncannily accurate) — arched an eyebrow. “They’re not at work?”
“They are — they’re,” Leone cursed. “They’re busy.”
“Busy?”
“Do you need them for something?”
Melone shrugged. Disappeared into another aisle.
Giorno and Trish shared a look. Then they all turned to Leone.
“Okay,” Leone said. “Okay. What the fuck — “
“I am so sorry,” Risotto Nero was suddenly floating through the ceiling, and Giorno was only a little embarrassed to admit she jumped. “I fear this is about me again.”
“No shit, Ris.” Sheila threw her hands out. “Dude, all your coworkers are creeps.”
Risotto made a face. “Pesci is nice.”
“Wow.”
“And Ghiacchio is just a little loud — anyways,” he floated down, addressed Leone directly. “I hope he won’t cause Bruno any problems.”
“Uh, me too,” Leone said. “Why are you telling this to me?”
Risotto looked confused.
Leone looked flustered. “I do not have — any specific — uh — interest, in their well being — “
“You don’t care about their well-being?”
“I do! But — “ Leone was flustered. “Not in any way. That is different. From others.”
She ducked her head, finally, said nothing. Trish started to slowly clap.
Giorno ended up stacking the soda aisle; she was mid-way through rearranging the cola bottles to look the way she kind of liked when the weird man — the Melone man — from before approached her again.
She pretended not to see him at first; he cleared his throat, pointedly, and she looked up with a polite smile.
“May I help you?”
“You were seen in Murolo’s house,” he did not beat around the bush.
Giorno, however, would. “Who is Murolo?”
He squinted at her. She beamed back.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t really care about this.”
Giorno nodded.
“I’m only doing this so Sorbet would lift my Tarantino ban.”
“Tarantino ban?”
“They don’t let me reference Tarantino,” Melone leaned against the shelf, and sighed. His hip was pushing Giorno’s carefully arranged cans out of order. “On Buzzfeed. Anyways. What are you doing?”
Giorno shrugged. “Minimum wage labour.”
“Bet.” He pulled out his pink toy again; he caught Giorno watching, and smiled conspiratorially. “Do you know what this is?”
Giorno blinked. “It looks like a Tamagotchi.”
Melone did not seem to hear her. “This is a Tamagotchi.”
“Yes.”
“I know kids today don’t know what they are.”
“We do.”
“But they were a big hit in the early 2000s.”
“Yes,” Giorno nodded. “People mention them online a lot.”
“I am very interested in the parasocial parenting technology allows us to do,” Melone continued. “I have many ideas about the future of tamagotchis.”
“Alright.”
“I think bioengineering will be involved.”
“I cannot wait to outlive you.”
“Anyways,” Melone pocketed his toy again. Giorno watched him do it, wheels in her brain already turning. “I will go now. Uh.”
Giorno locked eyes with him again.
He seemed to waver under her intensity. “See...you around.”
Giorno said nothing. Melone walked away without a word.
__
Bruno was just done filing away the newspaper report when someone knocked on the office doors; so used to the kids just barging in whenever, they almost flinched at the basic politeness.
“Come in!” they managed to recover; were not surprised to see it was Leone. She was, after all, the only other adult presently at the store. And the only one polite enough to knock.
“Hey,” Leone waved. Still from the doorway, she nodded at the paperwork in Bruno's arms. “All finished?”
“Yes,” Bruno breathed a laugh. “Thank god. Was everything alright with the registers?”
Leone held up a bag of cash, smiled. “All good.”
“Nice.”
“Any bonuses?”
Leone flashed them a conspiratorial grin. “No.”
It was a rule of Bruno’s, that Leone had taken up to following, that the cashiers got to keep any extra cash in the register. Bruno returned the grin.
“So,” Leone spoke up, midway through unlocking the safe. “Uh. The kids have been — is that a tamagotchi?”
Bruno followed Leone's eyes of vision; there was, indeed, a bright pink tamagotchi, in one corner of their desk.
“Yes,” they said, and laughed. “GIorno gave it to me? How odd.”
“Huh,” Leone was frowning. “Giovanna gave it to you?”
“Why do you insist on using her last name?”
“I did not see those in forever,” Leone commented. “Well. Until today.”
“Yeah,” Bruno agreed. “I have no idea where she got one.”
Leone’s smile seemed forced. “A mystery.”
Bruno decided not to prod at it. “So. You were saying something?”
“What?” Leone blinked, visibly confused; quickly flushed again. “Oh. Yeah.”
Bruno raised an eyebrow.
Leone laughed. “I — nevermind.”
“Was it about the shark-soup?”
Leone’s turn to blank out now. “Shark soup?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Bruno laughed. “I have no idea what the shark soup is either. I just got a call about it.”
“A call about — what?”
Her faces were really funny. Bruno kept laughing. “Yes, uh, from Mista — Narancia got put in mall jail.”
“Mall jail?”
“Yes," Bruno confirmed. "Because he spilled soup all over the food court,”
“Huh.”
“And Mista wanted me to come get him out — “
“Can you get him out?” Leone asked. “I mean. You are not his guardian.”
“Oh,” Bruno waved it off. “Not legally.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Of course.”
“Anyways,” Bruno shrugged. “I did. And then they tried to convince me there was a shark in his soup.”
“A shark?”
Bruno nodded. “Not a real one, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A toy, I think. But they lost it.” Bruno ran a hand through their fringe. “I stopped following at that point, to be honest. And Narancia had bit down on his tongue, somewhere during the adventure, so it was still swollen and he was not really comprehensible.”
“I think it’s extremely generous to pretend he’s ever comprehensible.”
She said it with so much gentleness Bruno’s chest constricted. They beamed at her.
Leone held their eyes for barely a moment. Finished locking up the safe. “Don’t.”
Bruno’s face fell. “Don’t — what?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Leone said. “Uh. This is weird.”
Bruno frowned.
“Sorry, I — “ Leone shook her head. “Anyways. I wanted to tell you something.”
Bruno, beyond confused now, nodded. “Here?”
“Sure,” Leone sighed. Then hesitated, and closed the doors.
“That won’t stop them,” Bruno warned. “The kids.”
Leone arched an eyebrow.
“From listening in,” Bruno ducked their head, suddenly embarrassed. “If — if that was what you were worried about.”
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“Well.” Leone glanced to the door. Visibly inhaled. “Well. Fuck it.”
Bruno’s eyes widened, but they said nothing.
“So,” Leone addressed them again. She was staring at the door. “Erm.”
Bruno smiled, and chose not to rush her.
Leone inhaled again. “The kids think we hooked up.”
Bruno forgot how to speak.
“And — I just,” Leone’s face was very red. “I didn’t — didn’t, want, to have to keep stumbling around that — “ She was wrangling her hands together, clearly tense. “You know, the elephant in the room, whatever — so.” She cleared her throat. “I tried to tell them, nothing had happened, but I don’t think they believed me, so — “ She ducked her head again. “I’m sorry.”
Bruno made themselves respond. “Why are you sorry?"
Leone shrugged. “For — I don’t know.”
“Did you tell them we hooked up?”
“No!”
“Then,” Bruno tried to fake a casual laugh. It was almost convincing. “Kids entertain themselves any way they can. It’s not like I would have held anything against you.”
Leone’s shoulders slumped in clear relief.
“I hope you are not too uncomfortable,” Bruno added. “I’ll tell them to knock it off, if you are.”
“I'm okay,” Leone said. Paused. “Thank you.”
There was a beat of silence.
“I just didn’t want you to — “ Leone started. Stopped. “Nevermind.”
Bruno frowned.
“I know you are not interested in me like that,” they decided to say (Leone’s head snapped up). “I understand — the kids, they, they like playing matchmaker, and you are the first person within my age range I could even theoretically be attracted to, so they went all out, but I do not expect — “ They let out a nervous string of giggles. “Uh, any kind of, I don’t know, favours?”
“I know you don’t,” Leone sounded horrified.
“Because that would be extremely inappropriate — “
“Do you even have any — any power, to wield over me?”
Bruno did not. They fell quiet.
Leone laughed.
“Well,” Bruno fought the urge to hide under the table. “I know — you are not interested — so — “
Leone made a face.
Bruno fell quiet.
Leone kept looking mortified.
“— uh,” Bruno said.
“I know you are not interested,” Leone muttered. “I respect that you are not interested.”
“But — “
“I am not like — being nice to you — just because of that.”
“You are — “
“I am into you,” Leone said. “Yes. Maybe. A little.”
Bruno stared.
“But — more than that — “ Leone’s face was fully red. “I admire you as a person. And want — want to, continue being your — “ She grimaced. “Friend? Is that presumptuous?”
“That is not presumptuous,” Bruno said.
Leone nodded. “Okay.”
“I — “ Bruno’s mind was overheating. “Leone. I am — “
“Don’t.”
“I am flattered — “
“Bruno.”
“But I can’t — I am not in a state to — “
“Bruno, I am not coming onto you.”
Bruno paused.
Leone was looking anywhere but at them. “I am — in no state to date.”
“Ah.”
"Anyone."
"I see."
“Even if you were interested.”
Bruno decided to wisely keep their mouth shut.
“I really just — “ Leone paused. “Well. I’m starting to question this entire conversation, to be honest.”
Bruno laughed. “No,” they said, after a moment. “No, I am glad we had it.”
Leone finally looked their way.
“I am also,” they grimaced. “In no state to date.”
Leone bit her cheek.
“But I am — happy to have met you,” Bruno added. “So.”
Leone kept biting her cheek. “Friends?”
Bruno smiled. “I’d love that.”
Leone returned the smile. “Then friends it is.”
They stood silent, for a moment longer; then, from outside, a theatre-whisper could be heard.
“Fuck off, Fugo, I'm being quiet!” It was Sheila. Leone rolled her eyes. “No, they’re just friend-zoning each other.”
They stood quietly for a moment longer. Then, Bruno started laughing.
“Wow,” Leone rolled her eyes again. “I might need to kill them.”
Still laughing, Bruno nodded along. The fondness in Leone’s voice still made their head spin a little.