Chapter Text
It's a perfect sunny day here in Daivan and of course with that goodness, comes the grim of the heavy workload. The subordinates are buzzing the place left and right and my whole office is just filled with papers and cigarette buds. Such a perfect day doing nothing but signing and answering calls left and right. You can’t have your cake and eat it as well after all.
Time flies so fast I probably skipped a meal or two or three lately. I can't even keep count but I guess this is what Bernardo went through for a while. I can't escape this after all.
Buongiorno! Its Daivan's most ferocious second generation boss, Giancarlo! Or otherwise known as Lucky Dog! Feeling my age catch up to me, I feel my own excitement die down. I'm about to be in my 30s soon but what month is it even? Shit, I'm usually the one to remember this shit but since fall is right around the corner, I guess it's near October? Doesn't explain the bright sun as much but what can I do.
"Honey, how are you holding up?", a beautiful man appeared in front of me. My most trusted right hand man, Bernardo, shows his usual smile in between the papers mounting my desk. Truth be told, I don't see anything but black ink and blank lines that needs to be signed right now so he is in fact the first thing I saw other than these.
"The usual. Feeling like I'm reading something in Greek.", I sigh and sit back at my chair. I've been doing this since last night, the day before it, and this morning. Barely had any breakfast, just good old coffee.
"My, my. I think you need to take a rest, don't you think? I can't have you knocked down with a cold after all and leave all of these to me.", the bastard grins a bit as he heads at the back of my chair. What's this guy thinking?
"Bern-"
"I'll just give you a light massage. Consider this as an early gift.", Bernardo places his hands on my shoulders and starts circling his thumbs. It feels really warm and all but what early gift is he talking about?
“Eh? Gift?”, I look up at Bernardo and damn, what a really handsome guy he is. If a girl locks eyes with this guy, they’d be swooning over him.
“Don’t tell me you’re forgetting things now? It’s already October, you know.”, he looks at me as if he found the secret of life itself. He continues rubbing small circles on my shoulder and I can feel my body relaxing with what Bernardo’s doing. If he keeps this up, I might end up falling asleep on my desk.
“October? Shit, I thought it was only about to be. I haven’t seen much of the outside lately, can’t you tell? Oh, there, it feels nice...”, I sink into my chair as Bernardo keeps his pace steady.
“It’s obvious. I think if I keep doing this your face might fall on the papers.”, he chuckles a bit and moves to the nape of my neck. He’s moving his fingers as if he’s typing on a typewriter. Not too hard nor too gentle. I can feel his fingers linger around my hair as he motions up and down with his fingers.
“You read my mind perfectly, darling.”
His hands stop moving as I move my chair to face him. He leans on the wall a bit and starts grabbing his cigarette case in his pocket. He grabs a stick and lights it like those movie stars in the cinemas. Does age have anything to do with everything you do looking elegantly? I still find myself acting like a brat every once in a while regardless how old I am.
“Do you have anything in mind for your birthday, my lord?”, Bernardo exhales the smoke and looks at my way. He looks way more relaxed than when he entered my office. There’s no one here but us so we can relax with ourselves for a bit.
“Mhm, not really.”, I swayed my head left and right. Bernardo raises his eyebrow at my response since usually I’m the one planning their birthdays for them.
Last year we did a raffle for the orphanage and even invited the folks from the Bowick Village. I remembered getting scolded till morning by Gramps and pops. I wasn’t alone in the scolding as well so I guess that's fine. Mostly Bernardo and Luchino took the heat for being the oldest and not telling me off as much but they took it like champs. Giulio just sat there and accepted the scolding while Ivan was also scolding me.
“That’s odd. Your raffle last year was well planned after all.”
“I don’t have the luxury of time, you old man. Hm, how’s that roller coaster in Coney Island I was talking about?”
“It’s up and running, as per your request. Even the second one is getting some traction by tourists. A lot of families had been there at the carnival especially the holiday seasons. Do you want to try it as well?”, Bernardo chuckles as he kills the cigarette on the ashtray beside me.
“Not really. I bought it but when we opened it up, we got swamped with the BOI that whole month. I can’t even reap what I sowed.”, I borrowed my head in my hands and groaned. Bernardo ruffled my hair and tousled it around. Man, I seriously feel depressed. If this work doesn’t end by the end of the year, I might seriously just shrivel like a raisin.
“Yes, that did happen. Don’t worry about the other details, I’ll take care of it.”, Bernardo sends me a wink as I show my face again to the cruel world. My hair probably looks like a bird nest worthy of Luchino’s scolding.
“Hm? Do you have anything planned, darling?”
“Ah! You caught me red handed. Though its a plan in progress, I just need your approval.”
“Which would be?”
“The carnival at Coney Island. I saved up early for whatever you’ll be scheming but I suppose you’re not in the mood. We can buy out the whole place for a day and maybe stay at the hotel near there.”
“We?”
“What? Don’t you want to spend time with me, honey? You’re breaking my heart. Well, of course I’ll talk the rest into it. I don’t think Giulio would say no but Luchino and Ivan will definitely resist. I’ll have them tied up in the car if that happens.”, Bernardo winks and damn it, the bastard beat me to it! Ah, well, it is nice to have someone plan things for you every once and awhile.
A carnival? I haven’t been to one ever. I grew up being dirt poor brat who can only dream of having such things. I even kept those pamphlets they were giving out and dream of the day I’d get to ride those bad boys. It’s now the time or never or seriously, my age will catch up and give me some sort of old person disease. Thinking about it is sending chills to my spine.
“Fufu, Bernardo. I didn’t think you’d come up with this and take care of the rest? That’s the best gift, you could give me. Though, you don’t need to force any of ‘em to come along.”, I stood up from my throne and placed a cigarette on my lips. I looked up at Bernardo who is as close to me as possible. He takes his lighter from his pocket and seductively lights the stick on my lips.
Before I can thank my capo, my doors start flying as if someone kicked it just to get in. of course, no other idiot would do that than…
“Heya, boy scouts. Bernardo, you’re here?! I’ve been waiting in your office and you’ve been having tea with this idiot here?”, Ivan scratches the back of his head and sits on the leather couch on the side. Bernardo lengthens the gap between us and heads over the couch to sit with this idiot.
“Who you calling idiot, idiot? You could’ve asked Zanelli or Giovanni where this bastard ran off to hide from his own paperwork.”
“Hey now, I wasn’t hiding anywhere. In fact, Ivan, you're invited to someone’s party here.”
“Is that so? Well what is it about?, Ivan grins at Bernardo as he lights his cigarette. A party to him is either work or vacation at this point.
“Well…”