Chapter Text
Pannacotta Fugo, ever the cautious, has taken up a habit. It’s not something he’s technically been assigned to do, but you don’t just let your Don open all of his own mail when it’s incredibly likely there’s anthrax in at least one of these packages. There was, even, last week.
Or maybe it was flour, but he incinerated it anyway. (It was just junk. He would never overstep in such a way as to keep Giorno from seeing something of genuine importance, and he reports what he’s seen to him. Even if he acts like this is something he delegates. Pretends he doesn’t do it himself, anytime from the mail’s arrival to the wee hours of the night. He can’t trust anyone else with something so important. It has to be him. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.)
He’s pretty used to the kind of stuff that Giorno gets. It’s surprisingly little, mostly because the important stuff is handed over in person or through telephone. Mailing is fun, but not super efficient, and no matter how fast you mail something, a determined enough motherfucker can catch it.
So the invitation’s a surprise.
For one, there’s two names on it - Giorno’s, and then whoever in fuck Haruno Shiobana is. What’s that supposed to be? A friend or something? It’s the first inkling that this is probably a wrong-number sort of deal, just - it’s not like there are many Giorno Giovannas, but there are some others, and one of them might be married to some chick named Haruno, or have a roommate, or something. Haruno’s name is even first, and Fugo pretends that doesn’t bother him because Giorno, as Don, should always come first.
And then there’s the matter of it being some fancy ass paper, which is one of the only reasons he lingers on it long enough to read after checking it for danger. You know, various toxins, he’d make note of a death threat if it caught his eye, anything that could be contained within.
All this has is a single slip of paper. Almost cardboard, it’s so stiff, not folded, perfectly sized for the envelope.
Fugo pulls it half out, absentmindedly pausing Narancia’s borrowed radio, which was in the middle of a song about a girl. Aren’t most songs nowadays? The script is fancy, there’s a gilded lilac and purple border, and the cardstock only barely bends in his fingers.
It is designed like shit. Who the fuck did this? A toddler? Purple and a lighter shade of purple are the only fucking colors? God, they alternate between words, too, and the border isn’t centered. A child made this fucking thing, apparently. He can barely even read it.
Fugo doesn’t even like purple.
“His how many years,” he whispered to himself, eyes glancing over the text. In a matter of two weeks, Giorno’s been invited to some old asshole’s birthday party slash family reunion. Bit late for it, isn’t it? Then again, 85 is old as balls. Geezer might croak any second. It’s almost smart to send it late.
The party’s in Japan, for reasons completely unfathomable to Fugo. when he checks, he notes the international nature of the invitation. The stamp, the postage, this is from Japan.
It’s no secret that Giorno is half-Japanese, but - he doesn’t have family. That’s one of the defining features of Giorno, his fervent loneliness (not to wax poetic or anything, but damn if someone didn’t deserve it, no matter how far down he hid that shit. He’s too young for that gnawing emptiness, even if it’s gotten better over time.) This cannot be for Giorno, but fuck if it doesn’t have his name on it and everything. On the invitation, too, not just the envelope. It’s addressed to him, but there’s no way it’s for him.
Hey, guests permitted. No number limit. How nice of them.
Fugo realizes he’s snooping at about the same time that he realizes the Don’s gonna want to see this anyway, and hurriedly puts the invitation back in its rightful place. He almost wrinkles the envelope in his hurry.
Fuck it, he has to see his boyfriend anyway.