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There’s a grand piano in the ballroom.
Back when they first moved in the base, when Giorno was reordering Passione into his vision, Mista would sometimes catch him in the ballroom looking at the piano’s dusty surface in deep thought. He didn’t know what that look was for.
Then, Fugo comes back and it all starts to make sense. In a matter of days, the Intelligence Division gets a new caporegime and Giorno orders for the piano to be fixed. Dust is swept, wood is polished, strings tuned, something old brought back to life. It takes a few more days until Fugo, still shaky with his return and his new position, goes inside the ballroom.
Mista can’t call it by accident anymore, the way he always plans his routes to pass by the ballroom. He’s purposely seeking Fugo out, though he is always unaware of Mista standing in the doorway. Even from there he can hear the smooth, jazzy tunes he plays, composers he couldn’t even pronounce. With every song Fugo plays, Mista remembers the old days of the gang always coercing him to play whenever they encounter a piano. His misplaced anger ebbs away until all that’s left is the ache of a loss he’s been trying to bury.
They talk. Mista gets his friend back. He doesn’t have to stand in secret by the doorway anymore, and Giorno becomes privy to the instrument he’s lovingly restored.
An image of a Sunday morning. Mista comes home from a mission, messages Giorno and Fugo for brunch like he always does when a mission runs until morning. Giorno replies that they’re at the ballroom. Mista ignores the post-mission grime clinging to him and heads there immediately.
The curtains are drawn open, morning light falling on the tiles of the vast floor. It catches on Giorno and Fugo’s blond hairs, haloing them like angels bathed in gold and music.
Mista crosses the ballroom floor and lets himself get washed by the sound. He’s familiar with Fugo’s song choices, what he plays upon request (classical and well-known, a leftover from childhood lessons), what he plays when he thinks he’s alone (a lot of folk music and pop covers, less because he likes it and more as a “fuck you” to his former teachers), what he plays during particularly hard days (music that they like and Mista always leaves him alone on those days), and then there’s music he only plays for Giorno and Mista. It’s always soft and light, unstructured and unhurried. Fugo rarely talks about his feelings but they hear him through his music, his love for them whispered between the keys.
Fugo is speaking that love now. Giorno is leaning against his shoulder as he sits next to him on the piano bench. His braid loose and tangled with the tips of Fugo’s untied hair, intertwined gold on gold.
His golden boys , Mista thinks fondly as warmth spreads throughout his entire being. The image before him is the one he wants to come home to everyday.
Giorno looks up when he hears him approach and gives Mista a beatific smile. “How was the mission?”
Mista runs a hand through Giorno’s hair, untying his braid as he does so. “Later. I wanna listen.”
He sits down on Fugo’s other side and knocks their temples together just so Fugo know he’s there. Fugo bumps him back, a small smile on his face, fingers still on the piano and playing, speaking. Mista can’t name what he’s playing, but it’s soothing his frayed nerves, the adrenaline from his mission hours before fading for the absolute comfort that only comes from his two golden boys.
There’s a grand piano in the ballroom. It belongs to Fugo though it’s been on the base far longer than he has. Giorno is the one who arranged its (their) rebirth. It belongs to Fugo because it’s his haunt, an imprint of his presence and his membership in their inner circle, like Giorno’s private garden, Mista’s shooting range, Polnareff’s spot on the desk and Sheila’s nook in the library. Because regardless of all the pain and loss between them, Fugo is theirs and they are Fugo’s.