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“Giogio?”
Giorno hears a knock on the door and immediately looks up. Standing in the doorway, light surrounding him from behind, almost looking like a chaotically dressed angel, is Fugo. He looks nervous as all hell.
Giorno puts down the report he was reading. (He may be a mobster, but he was a damn efficient one.) “Fugo, come in,” he says with an easy smile.
Fugo almost looked like he was walking into the principal’s office, marching to his death.
“Are you familiar with Antigone?” he asks.
“Is there a hidden meaning here?” Giorno asks back.
Fugo’s expression changes completely, as if he was mulling over whether or not it was worth the effort to get angry about that comment. It took an emotional face journey of two seconds for him to decide that it wasn’t.
“That’s besides the point. What I’m asking is, next Tuesday, there’s a performance, at that neoclassical style theater, down by that bakery that makes the best pupa cu l’ova? You know the one?” Fugo begins, suddenly nervous.
“I know the one,” Giorno responds.
“Yea, there’s a mural and shit on the ceiling, and I was wondering if you’d like to go together?”
“The whole unit?” Giorno asks, almost enjoying how much Fugo was struggling to ask him out.
Fugo was getting red. “No, just you.”
“As friends?” Giorno asks, trying to hide the smile behind his hands.
Fugo slapped his knee as he jumped out of his seat, “Fuck, Giorno, I’m asking you out on a date,” he almost shouts.
Giorno swears he hears a noise suspiciously like Narancia gasping right outside of the doorway of his office.
“Of course, I’ll go out with you, Fugo, I’d love to,” Giorno replies once Fugo takes a steadying breath and sits back into the seat.
“It’s a date then,” Fugo says with a nod, and then abruptly leaves Giorno’s office.
Moments later, Giorno hears a slap and a loud yelp coming from Narancia.
———
They sat down in red velvet seats, in the middle, towards the back of the theater. Giorno was almost impressed, these must have cost Fugo a good portion of money. At the same time though, Giorno expected nothing different from the man who always wanted to weigh his options.
The small talk happened in bursts. One or two questions about the actors, or a comment about the woman’s hat a few rows in front of them. Giorno wished that Fugo would calm down, he was fidgeting, and looked so nervous. He kept tapping his feet or he would tap his thighs with his hands, head swiveling all over the theater.
“Pannacotta, I’m not going anywhere,” Giorno says as he pats his leg, weakly attempting to calm him down.
The house lights dim and come back up once, twice, three times. After a few more moments, the theater goes dark and a hush sweeps over the audience. Giorno slowly reaches for Fugo’s hand, humoring the poor wreck.
Fugo opens his mouth to say something, but the curtains open before he can say anything.
———
“I personally enjoyed how the actor played played Creon. He had a certain anguish about him that really drove home how much he was clouded by anger originally,” Giorno says, making small talk in the gelato shop a block away from the theater.
Fugo nodded and grunted in agreement as he licked at his cone of vanilla. “I’ve seen this play a few other times, and usually actors play him a little more pathetically?” he says, as if he’s asking if “pathetic” is the best way to describe it. “Sadder?” Definitely more suffering than somber, for sure.” Fugo reflects.
Giorno hums in agreement and then nods his head towards the door to signal that they’ve been sitting in the shop for too long.
“Let’s go for a walk, Pannacotta.”
They walked through the streets and ended up perched on the ledge of a fountain in the middle of the square close to the gelato shop. They were quiet, absorbing their surroundings, half out of habit, half out of awkwardness.
“Giorno,” Fugo began, chewing on the last of his gelato. “I’m sorry, for everything.”
The confession hung in the air. Giorno turned his body to look at Fugo.
“I already know that,” he says, staring down his date.
“Yea, but I want to say it again, especially after seeing the play. Like you know how Ismene says, ‘I beg the dead to forgive me,’? That’s how I feel. Nobody’s dead, but sometimes, somebody will give me a look like they think I will leave again and they wish I just would already. I was scared then, and I left to keep myself safe. Now, I realize that nothing will harm me with you being Passione’s leader.” Fugo admits, looking winded after saying it all.
Giorno sat quietly, absorbing what Pannacotta admitted. It all made sense, in some weird way. He looked up to look at his date, and noticed Fugo was waiting for a response.
“Fugo, I will never blame you for what you’ve done. You did what you thought what was best for you, and I cannot fault you for that,” Giorno consoled, while licking the gelato that began to drip down the side of his cone.
“But Giorno,” Fugo began, trying to prove his point. “You should be angry with me, shouldn’t you? I ran away, I betrayed your trust. Yours, Narancia’s, Abbachio’s, Mista’s, Buccacelli’s, everybody’s! Even that fat bastard Polpo, God rest his soul.” He stops his rant to kiss the cross around his neck and lifts it towards the sky. “I was afraid of dying, and felt like I could die during what was about to go down, but I should have trusted you.”
Giorno didn’t want to sound like a broken record while consoling Fugo, but he was about to. There was no way to get Fugo to believe him that he understood where he was coming from, but he truly did. Giorno understood how hard it was to put trust in somebody, to know that he was safe. All of Passione knew in fact, and there was only so much to say. Maybe actions would speak louder than words, he would have to talk to the rest of the gang, but for now he’d have to reassure in his own special way.
“Panacotta, look at me,” Giorno demanded, putting his two thumb and forefinger on either side of Fugo’s chin, yanking him to look Giorno in the eyes. Giorno stared him down and looked him up and down.
“I don’t know what else to say to you besides that you don’t need to explain your actions to me.” Giorno relaxed his fingers, but they still stayed in place. He began to stroke Fugo’s jaw with his thumb. “We all are so happy you’re here, Fugo. I’m happy you’re here. Sometimes people get angry and upset because expectations and reality are two different things, however, you create your own fate,” Giorno admits.
Everything seemed magnified to Girono, suddenly. The trickling of the water in the fountain behind them, and the clinking of silverware hitting porcelain espresso cups and saucers. Even the soft music coming from the live band in the corner of the square felt suddenly too loud once the confession left his lips.
Fugo’s eyes darted around the square, trying to look anywhere but Giorno’s face, until he realized that Giorno was the only thing he really wanted to look at.
“It’s, it’s a learning process. Everything is,” Fugo says, wiping a drop off metled gelato off of Giorno’s hand.
Giorno inched himself forward, closer to Fugo. “Sometimes, I can’t help but being a pain in the ass to you. I love setting you off sometimes, like when you asked me out and I toyed with you a little, but I want you to know that moments like these, when you’re telling me these things that make you nervous, I am always going to take you seriously, and I hope you know that Panacotta. I’m not just a leader, or a Gang Star, I’m your team mate, and maybe,” Giorno paused and licked his lips. “Something more.”
Giorno couldn’t tell if Fugo was blushing or if the sun setting around them was giving Fugo a reddish glow.
“Giogio, I,” Fugo began, and then relaxed his shoulders and let out a sigh. He attempted to speak again, “Something else sounds good, but I don’t know if I should have feelings for you. I think I have feelings for you, big feelings, but I’m not sure if they’re good feelings.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you had feelings, Panacotta,” Giorno whispers.
Giorno watched Fugo’s face turn a brighter shade of red. It definitely was a blush and not the fading light. He was also clearly thinking something, because he was scowling as if he just made a realization.
“What’s on your mind?”
Fugo took a steadying breath. “As wild as it sounds, I think I left because, because I love you. I think I’ve always loved you, Giorno. The thought of dying without being with you is what also led me to get off that boat, I didn’t realize that then, but now I do. I’m no longer going to hide this. Giorno Giovanna, I’m in love with you,” Fugo admitted.
It was as if the dam broke. Giorno was shocked, he didn’t know that Fugo could even talk that much, and yet, here he is, hearing that this man was in love with him. It was shocking almost, this confession of love, and yet it made so much sense, despite being so sudden.
“I don’t know if I love you, yet,” Giorno quietly replies, “but I do want to get to know you better, and maybe someday, I can love you the way that you love me.”
Slowly, Giorno rested his forehead on Fugo’s forehead.
Giorno has never had a chance to look so closely at Fugo’s eyes. They were a rich brown, as dark as the wenge wood desk in his office. He looked up and down Giorno’s face, as best as he could. From far away, Fugo has such pristine skin, but up close, Giorno was able to notice where some of the concealer blended in with his natural color, and he could see a pimple under his left eye was beginning to form. This all made Fugo seem so much more human and real, and Giorno liked it.
“Giogio,” Fugo whispers, his hot breath tickling Giorno’s nose.
“Yes?”
“Can I kiss you?” he asks, uncertain, but excited.
Without answering, Giorno leans in, and kisses him softly. Before the kiss could deepen, he pulls away to smile. “Thank you for tonight,” Giorno says.
Fugo leans in to kiss Giorno to continue where they left off. It was obvious that now that he experienced kissing Giorno once, Fugo was never going to let it go again. After a few moments of kissing in the light of the sunset, for everybody in the square to see, the two pulled away a second time.
“We should probably go home,” Giorno admits. “It’s beginning to get cold, and before you know it, Narancia and Mista will start a search party for us,” Giorno says, stroking Fugo’s cheek.
“Pains in the asses,” Fugo mutters to himself.
Giorno chuckles at the comment and laces their fingers together, pulling Fugo up to stand with him. As he stood, Fugo leans into Giorno and hugs him.
“Let’s go,” Giorno says one more time, a little more pleading, breath close enough to tickle Fugo’s sensetive neck and make him shiver.
After hearing the request, Fugo pulled away from the embrace but did not let go of Giorno’s hand.
“Alright, Gang Star, let’s go home.”
Slowly, they walked into the night, fingers intertwined, lips tasting like gelato, and playbills tucked away into their pockets.