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Pannacotta Fugo meets Giorno Giovanna on his seventh birthday.
Just like any birthday, it starts of shitty. It rains heavily, despite the forecast saying it was going to be sunny. As the servants try to salvage all the party items set up in the garden, his parents forced him into playing the piano to entertain the guests.
Fugo drums out a rendition of Vivaldi’s “Spring”, more as an ironic joke given the weather than the need to impress his guests-his haughty aunts and uncles, his parents’ stuck-up business partners, their equally stuck-up children. He presses each key perfectly, on automatic just like he’s been taught. He wonders what his parents will say if he plays the pop song his piano teacher taught him. She was nice, more for the enjoyment of the instrument than grace and precision like his parents assumed when they signed him up. As easy as it comes, his idea of petty rebellion vanishes like a snuffed candle.
When he finishes playing his parents’ guests (because they’re not here for his party) clap politely, small smiles stretched on dull faces. When Fugo climbs of the stool he’s met by compliments, throwaway words for the kid of the richest couple in Naples. As if Fugo’s happiness ever dictated the next person his parents will conduct business with.
Fugo’s supposed garden party has been revamped in the parlor room. Gold and silver streamers, colorful flowers that make his nose itch, trays of food and drinks he doesn’t even know the name of, bright, in his parent’s best china, gleaming ceramic with hand painted designs. On a long table are dozens and dozens of courtesy gifts, not because he has friends with these kids but because every party he’s ever been in is just a show of money, from the jewelry they wore, the food they eat, the topics they discuss, to the random gifts to a kid they don’t even know.
He hates it. If he had his way he’ll spend his birthday with his grandmother. She’ll bake him strawberry shortcake and they’ll fall asleep watching those Asian telenovelas they took a liking to. Unfortunately, he’s stuck here like a show pony, meant as a way to show off his parents’ non-existent child-rearing skills, the golden prodigy decked in the finest of Italy’s garments not because he liked it but his parents’ like to show off their wealth at any given chance.
They finally leave him alone when they sing happy birthday to him and cut the cake. Then, the adults disperse to talk business, the kids disperse to talk in their own friend groups, Fugo sits alone with his slice of cake.
He doesn’t even like pistachio and earl gray cake. That’s his mother’s favorite. He wants nonna’s cake, but he never gets anything he wants because of his stupid parents. If they weren’t there, Fugo would have thrown his plate to the floor. Etiquette be damned.
“I like your piano playing.”
Standing next to his chair, carrying his own plate of disgusting cake is a pretty boy with hair spun like gold, and the brightest eyes Fugo has ever seen.
The Giovanna family is his parents’ favorite dinner topic these days. The husband is a hotshot businessman made of new money who recently moved to Naples. The wife is a socialite who really knows how to dress and throw a party.
Giorno Giovanna looks different from the other kids at his party. Fugo and the rest of them are stuck in starchy polo shirts and tight dresses and shoes, while he’s wearing a red sweater with black spots like a ladybug. He looks comfortable in his clothing and his voice when he compliments Fugo is sincere. No fakeness, no masks, just a golden boy with quirky clothing.
Fugo remembers his graces. “Thank you.”
Giorno nudges the empty chair next to him. “May I sit with you?”
A shrug. “Sure.”
Giorno sits down, blond braid whipping. Fugo wishes his parents would let him grow out his hair like that. It looks cool.
To his surprise (and admiration) Giorno pushes both of their plates away.
“It takes like old people food.” Fugo laughs, holds his hand over his mouth to muffle it. “I have a candy bar in my pocket if you wanna share.”
“Your dad lets you hide candy in your pocket?”
Giorno frowns and it’s an expression that’s achingly familiar to Fugo. “He doesn’t really care what I do as long as I get caught.”
On his seventh birthday, nibbling on smuggled Kitkat bars, Fugo makes his first friend.
Friends don’t erase sad childhoods. They only make them better, easier to cope with. They have the same haunted look in their eyes, carry the same scars.
“We’ll figure it out,” Giorno says when Fugo visits from college on the verge of a breakdown and in silent tears. He understands the value of life, cultivates it through plants and animals, but holding his best friend and the only person he loves in the world, Giorno experiences murderous intent for the first time.
“We’ll figure it out,” Fugo says as he lays down ladybug-printed bandages on Giorno’s bleeding cuts as he shakes and shake and doesn’t stop. His blood is boiling, but anger won’t help his best friend and the only person he loves in the world, so Fugo learns to get better at doing first-aid.
They don’t know when they reached their breaking points. When you’ve experienced years of abuse, it all blurs together in a haze. Maybe it’s one harsh word too many, one hit that went too far, something that snaps whatever facade of normalcy they put together. Cracks slowly accumulating on glass, until one motion that makes it burst in shards.
Fugo climbs up the tree in Giorno’s yard. It’s hard because it’s raining again and it makes the bark slippery, but he’s running on desperation and a little bit of hope in his heart.
Giorno always leaves his window open for him, and when he approaches it clad in his pajamas and looking far too weary for a fifteen-year old, Fugo uproots both of their lives.
“Let’s run away together.”
They both have credit cards. Fugo withdraws all the money they have in the ATM. After which, he tosses the cards and their phones in the Tyrrhian sea.
Giorno steals a car. It’s a testament to their friendship when Fugo doesn’t question him and just slides into the passenger seat.
Outside the stolen car’s window, rain is falling down the city of Naples. Are they always doomed to life changing moments in the rain?
Giorno loves the rain, the feel of it of his skin, refreshing him like it’s washing away all the marks on his body and draining them in the gutter. A rainy scene is all he’ll see of Italy before he leaves, a bright city being washed of the filth in its underbelly.
In another world he may have dedicated his life washing Italy free of its filth, drugs, corruption, abuse, but in this world, his life is in the shape of Fugo and that’s all he cares about.
“Where will we go?” Fugo asks, squinting through the windshield at the traffic before them. It’s always sluggish in the rainy season. They’ve been stuck in the same spot for a long time.
“I have family in Japan. Aunt Holly tried so hard not to let me go with madre to Italy. I figured she’d never give us up.”
Us, as if Fugo already has a place in Giorno’s family. Giorno is returning to the land he came from, Fugo is uprooting himself from the only place he’s ever known.
Warmth. Fugo looks down, sees Giorno’s hand on top of his. “They’ll love you. Aunt Holly might adopt you on the spot.”
But pessimism has always been one of Fugo’s flaws. “And what if they don’t? What then, Gio?”
“Then I stay with you. We’ll figure it out.”
It’s always been their mantra. In the clusterfuck of their childhoods, it’s something that keeps them strong, keeps them reaching for each others hands. We’ll figure it out. The two of them, against whatever this unforgiving world will throw at them-Fugo leaving for college, Giorno’s bullies, their brief encounters with gangsters, every single abuse from their parents. We’ll figure it out. Hands twined, not once letting go, turbulent waters, being each other’s anchors.
They still haven’t moved in traffic. Fugo lifts their hands, kisses Giorno’s palm softly.
“We'll figure it out.”
Somewhere down the road a light turns green, the traffic moves again. They pull away from each other, more for safety than actual desire to let go.
It’s a long way to the airport. Giorno reviews their plans over in his head as he navigates the roads.
Japan is familiar and safe, Giorno’s happy place before everything. By the time they land there, it will be a new day in Italy. Their parents will find out they’re gone. They might call the police, go through the motions of a parent worried for the child, but in the end he knows they’ll give up. Japan is 8 hours ahead, separated by a continent and the sea. Giorno knows they’ll never look that far even if they have the resources for it, and that’s probably the saddest part of this entire affair.
Even if they do find them in Japan, Aunt Holly is a formidable woman who loved Giorno like her own son. She’ll fight their families before they can take them away again. His cousins who are lovable in their own ways know how to get violent if it’s needed. Jotaro is almost two meters tall and growing, with a face that can scare away the bravest souls. Josuke is more soft-hearted but he is fiercely protective of his family. Worse comes to worst, they’ll get Joseph involved. Even the richest people in Italy can’t hold a candle to Joseph Joestar’s influence and the backing of the rest of the Joestar family.
Giorno deeply regrets ever changing his name. Just as the Fugo name is recognized in Italy, the Joestar name is recognized throughout a world they can bend to their will.
The car is silent. The more distance they put in between their houses, the trauma of the years finally sinks through their bones in rattling relief. The lights of the cars before him bring a dull orange haze beneath his eyelids. A chain of metal and lights tiredly crawling forward to their own destinations. The patter of the rain drops against the roof and windows makes his head pound.
Fugo shifts next to him. The traffic lights make his hair look bronze.
“Pull over. Let me drive for a while.”
Giorno wants to protest. God knows Fugo has been through a lot more than him, but trauma isn’t quantifiable. He should give Fugo some more credit. He’s stronger than he’ll ever know.
A hand on his knee, the only friendly touch he’s known since he moved here at four.
“Let me take care of you. Please.”
They don't have an umbrella. When they pull over to make the switch, Giorno braves the rain outside, feels it soak into his hair, in his clothes. Refresh, wash away the marks, drain it from his body. A cold intake of a breath of a new day. It’s only a few seconds but he feels freedom within his reach.
When he settles in the passenger seat, warm from Fugo’s imprint, Fugo is switching on the radio. Rosi Golan’s soft voice fills the space. Her voice and the patter of rain lulls Giorno to sleep.
At the break of dawn, Giorno wakes up to the sun in his face, hysterically says buon giorno giorno to himself. The radio has long been turned off, replaced by Fugo humming the song Giorno slept to.
Like sunlight won't you come. Lay your ray down, you're the one
If he wants to, Fugo could probably play that song on the piano. They’ll find a public piano somewhere in Japan. Fugo will play, not because he needs to entertain people, but because in his heart he does love the piano and playing for the sake of playing. Giorno will sit next to him, head on his shoulder and heart at peace for once. He’ll bring Kitkats and it will be like when they first met.
The rain has stopped. Giorno can almost smell petrichor in the landscape. Naples is still sleeping in this time of day. In a matter of minutes, the city will wake up and continue its motions, not minding that two of its inhabitants will be gone. By this time, Giorno’s mother will be coming home from whatever party she went to. She’ll pass out on the couch. She won’t check up on him.
Giorno finds it in himself to miss her, but the feelings comes and goes as they pull up in the parking lot of the airport.
The car will be the only evidence they’ll leave behind. Giorno wipes down the keys before tossing them in the driver’s seat. Fugo unpacks their sparse luggages, just clothes and valuables too important to leave behind.
Japan is 8 hours ahead, separated by a continent and the sea. It’s a densely populated country made up of islands. Morioh-cho on its own is a geographical enigma. For his and Fugo’s sake, he hopes they’ll leave them alone.
“We’re here,” Fugo says, looking up at the airport. There’s a small smile on his face. He turns to Giorno, haloed by morning light. Is this what freedom looks like? Is that what Giorno looked like when Fugo climbed up his bedroom window and changed both their lives?
Just like when they were seven and each other’s only source of comfort, Giorno takes Fugo’s hand in his. It thrums in his hand with pulse, with energy, with life, with a palpable relief that they’re leaving everything behind. Giorno smiles up at him, his world, his heart, his everything. The early morning light makes Fugo look soft, vulnerable, something precious worth protecting and dropping everything for.
Together, they walk hand in hand towards an uncertain future.