Archive of Our Own ^beta

Exam season hits Fugo like a punch to the scrotum. Despite spending the entire semester working as diligently as he can to stay on top of his assignments, somehow, all his teachers got the same heavenly premonition before winter break to assign as much work as humanly possible. Whoever gave them the okay for that needs to get a taste of Fugo’s knuckle sandwich. 

The stress is starting to bleed over to his weekly Libecchio’s hangout with his Passione friends. He can’t relax like usual when he’s exhausted, sleep deprived, and at a peak with his cortisol levels. He tries his best to seem normal, but when he gets the results back from a history quiz he bombed, he’s not dumb enough to think his friends don’t notice the tear streaks on his cheeks after an impromptu bathroom break, even if no one calls him out on it.

Ever so slightly, the group dynamic adjusts. Bucciarati is careful to regulate mentions of school or schoolwork in the conversation. When Mista starts bitching about an old teacher of his who had come by his shop to get her car fixed, all Bucciarati has to do is send an absolutely lethal glare before Mista excuses himself to sit at the dipshit table. When Fugo keeps checking his phone to refresh his grades, Giorno a little too brightly suggests they all go out for a joyride in Mista’s pickup. Even Abbacchio does his part, because he’s putting conscious effort into being a little bit less standoffish than normal, and scowling less. He even tries to pat Fugo’s back randomly. Fugo jumps when he feels Abbacchio’s freakishly cold hands on him. 

“Just, forget about it,” Abbacchio mutters when Fugo opens his mouth.

Fugo is grateful, obviously, for the squad’s thoughtfulness. He’s grateful that they’re trying their best to be supportive, but they just don’t get it. They can try, but Passione is a whole different world compared to the suburbs where he’s from. 

Passione is the “wrong side of town”, as his parents would try to delicately put it. Whereas Fugo’s high school proudly showcases the dozens of students they feed into the Ivy League black hole, Passione has a graduation rate of 55%. With his parents, his school, his classmates, the underlying assumption in every conversation is that Fugo is trying to get into a pretentious university with pretentious classmates to take pretentious classes and then start a pretentious career. Most Passione kids are dropouts and are lucky to get into community college.

Fugo loves Passione and his Passione friends because they’re the only people he can stand, most of the time. So he tries to find a place in his life for both of his parallel lives, but reconciling when the two worlds collide is not easy. The worst part is that he doesn’t think he can articulate these thoughts to any of his Passione friends without them getting offended, or worse, pitying him. So he learns to take the well-intentioned, but misplaced kindness where can get it and just deal. It’s what he’s always done. 

The only person who doesn’t seem to change around him is Narancia, which simultaneously is a sigh of relief and ticking Fugo the fuck off. Whereas everyone else seems to be dancing around him, Narancia is still his irritating self. If anything, Narancia is being even more annoying. 

Case in point: He’s struggling to finish his math review at Libbecchio’s, because he’s calculated that the only way he can even hope to finish all the assigned review worksheets is to do them during their weekly hangouts. The rest of his friends have long since given up trying to convince him otherwise. 

Fugo is grappling with whatever the hell Sigma notation is when he feels a friendly knife poke his upper thigh. He doesn’t even need to look up to know who it is. 

“Narancia, I’m trying to work.” he says frustratedly, as patiently as he can when he’s operating on two cans of Red Bull in his system. 

Narancia peers over Fugo’s shoulder to try and read the worksheet. “Who’s Sigma?” he asks, wrapping an arm around Fugo’s neck. “Is she hot?”

“W-what?” Fugo splutters. “It’s a Greek letter, obviously, it’s not a person. Why would it matter how attractive they are?”

Narancia levels his head way too close to Fugo’s face and pokes a finger against his burning cheeks. He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Hehe, are you jealous?” 

Fugo’s cheeks grow redder, but for a different reason. “That is the most ridiculous thing that’s ever come out of your mouth!” he shrieks, slamming Narancia’s face into the table. “You stupid delinquent, when will you learn not to mess with me?”

“What the fuck, man?” Narancia snarls when he lifts up his head. His Swiss Army knife latches open and nearly draws blood against Fugo’s wrist. “You’re getting a taste of this metal now-”

“What is going on here?” Bucciarati’s voice booms. Fugo immediately lifts his hands in the air. Narancia drops his knife. 

“Nothing, Bucciarati,” Fugo says nervously. “We were just messing around, honest.” 

“Fugo got pissed again,” Narancia says with a nasally voice. Fugo turns to him and realizes his nose is bleeding. 

Bucciarati frowns. “Let me get you some ice. Fugo, go clean Narancia up.”

Fugo lowers his head in shame. The classic Mom Bucciarati glare he was on the receiving end of right now was never fun. He coughs and unsteadily gets out of his chair, feeling the prying eyes of the rest of the patrons burn holes into his clothes when he exits the restaurant to go to the parking lot and get the first aid kit out of his car. He slams the restaurant door shut behind him, and stalks off to his Honda Civic, humiliation and resentment boiling in his gut.

“Your car is so busted,” a pinched voice says behind him. Fugo jumps and whips around. 

“Narancia, how the hell did you sneak up on me like that?” he yelps, when he sees a familiar head of floppy dark hair looking up at him. He opens up his trunk with a shaky breath. 

“I’ve been behind you this whole time,” Narancia says. “You’ve just been too stupid to notice.”

“Whatever,” Fugo says, reaching into the trunk of the car to dig out the first aid kit buried underneath a pile of textbooks and a change of clothes from a spontaneous sleepover the Passione friends had that he never bothered to put back. He closes the trunk shut and then sits on the hood, patting the metal to invite Narancia to join him. 

“Come on,” he says with faux-annoyance. “You’re gonna get blood all over my car if you don’t. Just sit still.”

Narancia nods, but flinches anyway when Fugo dabs a rubbing alcohol-soaked cotton pad on his nose. 

“Jesus, man, that stings!” he shrieks, nearly falling off the hood. “Do you have to do that?”

“I’m trying to disinfect the wound,” Fugo says with as much patience as possible. “Otherwise, your nose is going to get infected, and we’ll have to chop it off. You don’t want to look like Voldemort, do you?”

“At least Voldemort gets bitches,” Narancia mutters. He tenses in an attempt to not move, but he still twitches when the alcohol hits his skin. Fugo, without really thinking, wraps an arm around Narancia’s waist to prevent him from falling off the hood. 

“Hold still, already,” he bites. “Don’t be a baby.”

He doesn’t notice the way Narancia magically shuts up and nearly stops breathing when Fugo leans in close to wipe away the remaining blood. Fugo does notice the way that his arms feel warm in Narancia’s body heat, like they were molded to fit perfectly to hold the two of them together, and the thought makes him pause what he’s doing to get a good look at Narancia.

Now that the blood is off of Narancia’s face, he looks the same as usual, but like if Fugo was looking at him through some rose-tinted Instagram filter. Fugo’s never noticed before the way Narancia’s sharp jawline, long lashes, and permanent pout looks like something straight off a runway. In the dim light of the streetlights, a halo forms around Narancia’s head, illuminating the purple in his eyes and the messy way his hair falls over his face.

Fugo doesn’t know what he is trying to do when he lets the cotton pad fall to the pavement. His face is inching closer and closer and it would definitely look like he’s going in for a kiss to an outsider looking in. But that doesn’t make any sense, because why would he want to kiss Narancia? Immature, infuriating, goofy, loyal, cute Narancia?

Narancia’s eyes flutter closed. Fugo leans in.

And then, someone coughs loudly. The sound startles Fugo, who leaps off the car and crashes into the asphalt parking lot. 

“Mista,” someone hisses. Fugo stares woozily towards the entrance of Libecchio’s to see Giorno and Mista standing a little too close to each other, watching the scene before them with vague amusement (Mista) and a bag of ice (Giorno). 

“Sorry, are we interrupting something?” Mista says with a smug grin. 

“No,” Fugo bites. He stands up and brushes the dirt off his clothes, trying to preserve as much dignity as possible. “I was just helping Narancia with his nose, that’s all. I don’t know whatever you two thought you saw, but it’s wrong.”

“Just two bros, lending a helping hand, giving each other brojobs,” Mista mutters loudly. Giorno elbows him in the ribs. When Mista doubles over, wheezing, Giorno ignores him to rush to Narancia’s side. He cradles Narancia’s face and then sniffs with a wince.

“Did you use rubbing alcohol to clean Narancia’s cut, Fugo?” he says sharply. “You know hydrogen peroxide can harm the tissue and prevent the wound from healing correctly, right?”

Fugo blanches. Narancia laughs victoriously. “I knew it!” he says, his voice congested as all hell. “Who’s the real Voldemort now, huh, Fugo?”

Giorno helps Narancia up to his feet and guides him back inside the restaurant, presumably to clean his wound properly. Fugo mutters an apology when they pass by him. He can’t help but feel a whirlwind of emotions as he watches Narancia lean on Giorno’s shoulder, Narancia babble about outsmarting Fugo and Narancia’s ass sway in the skin tight jeans he’s wearing. He tears his gaze away to see Mista looking absolutely giddy beside him. 

“Shut up,” Fugo says. 

“What? I didn’t say anything!” Mista yelps. 

Fugo crosses his arms. “You were thinking it.”

To say that Fugo is even capable of processing his newfound attraction for Narancia is a lie, because he can’t. Even if he wasn’t in one of the most stressful stretches of exam season yet, he’s not good with emotions stuff, and even less when it’s Narancia-related emotions stuff. He wasn’t even aware he had other emotions for Narancia besides vague exasperation. 

Thankfully, Narancia doesn’t appear to even remember their almost kiss, because he doesn’t bring it up. The day after, the only difference in his usual barrage of texts is that he intersperses normal bathroom selfies and funny TikToks with pics of bloody tissues with a =:), Voldemort lookalike emoji. It would be comforting if Fugo wasn’t trying to cram for his math final in just a couple days.

By selfie #7, Fugo gives up trying to understand the push and pull struggle between frustration and fondness in his chest and throws his phone onto his bed. He refocuses on the stupid logarithms review sheet he’s been putting off all day. He struggles to keep his eyes open through the sea of numbers and Greek symbols, and nearly lets himself succumb to exhaustion, when, after a long stretch of silence, he hears his cell phone buzz against his pillow. He doesn’t even get the chance to think that it might just be his parents texting him about the business trip they’re currently on or a classmate asking about one of the math problems, because then his cell phone buzzes insistently over and over and over again and then he knows exactly who is texting him. 

He takes a breath and gets out of his desk to unlock his phone. Sure enough, Norange Gaygirl (contact name courtesy of Mista) is texting him furiously to open his window. In the spam, each message misspells the words a little more incorrectly, so that by the hundredth reiteration, it just says “wdow”. 

Fugo groans and throws open his window to see a dark streak of purple running in his backyard. 

“Narancia?” he hisses. “What the hell are you doing at my house? It’s midnight, for god’s sake!”

The boy proudly lifts up a stuffed backpack. “I brought refreshments straight from the tiddy of Target herself!” he hollers. His voice rings so loudly throughout the entire neighborhood that Fugo already braces himself for the fourteen noise complaints the HOA are going to tack on their door the next morning. 

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, but you’re not staying the night again. My parents nearly found out last time because you left your Monster cans all over my room.” 

He reaches for the rope ladder tucked behind his bookshelf (and away from the prying eyes of his mother) to toss it out the window. Narancia beams and scrambles up it, his backpack hanging precariously over his shoulder. In a flash, a breathless Narancia appears beside the opened window panes. 

“Hey, Juliet,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “Wherefore art thou?”

Fugo wonders why he ever bothered trying to teach Narancia the classics. “That’s not the right reference at all,” he says, deadpan. “Shakespeare is turning in his grave right now.”

“That motherfucker’s dead, who cares?” Narancia says. 

“I’m really regretting letting you in,” Fugo grumbles as he tugs the rope sharply, forcing Narancia to tumble onto his carpet with a yelp. After making sure no nosy neighbors are watching the scene, he shuts the window closed.

Narancia scrambles to his feet and sits, with his legs crossed, on Fugo’s carpet. “Haul time!” he says victoriously, turning his backpack over and dumping its contents on the floor. Fugo winces with each particularly loud thump on the floor. 

Fugo really should be working now, but it couldn’t hurt to take a quick break and see what Narancia has going on, right? Against his better judgement, Fugo leans against his bookshelf and eyes the cornucopia of snacks spilling onto his carpet. There’s Takis (extra fuego), Doritos, salt and vinegar chips, gummy worms, and some Arizona teas. Classic Narancia haul. 

“Bone apple tea,” Narancia says with a flash of his teeth. “Chow down.”

Fugo grins and pops the Arizona peach tea open to take a long sip like a dehydrated man in the Sahara. He hasn’t eaten anything all day, since he’s been too caught up with studying for exams and completing missing assignments, so he’s secretly grateful. He wants to communicate his gratitude to Narancia for taking care of him in his weird, Narancia type way. 

“Great job forgetting to get normal chips again,” Fugo’s mouth says instead. 

“Man, you’re so white.” Narancia points a Taki at him threateningly. “I’m tryna build up your spice tolerance so you can handle one of these bad boys one day, you know?” He points to the now half-empty bag of Extra Fuego Takis. 

“I totally can,” Fugo says petulantly. “Try me.”

“Without any water?” 

Fugo pauses. “Whatever, it doesn’t even matter,” he says, crossing his arms. “At least I still have my taste buds intact to enjoy the finer pleasures of life.”

Narancia scoffs. “You get no pussy, what the hell are you talking about?”

Fugo flushes red. “Shut up!” he barks. “That’s not what I- you know what, never mind. Doesn’t matter. I need to finish this assignment, anyway.”

With a shrug, Narancia lies up against the couch and tilts his head back to stare at Fugo upside down. “Boring,” he says, blowing an overgrown strand of hair out of his face. “You’re always doing boring shit.”

“Because I actually care about my future,” Fugo gripes, his knuckles turning white. “I don’t get to always be all lackadaisical and cavalier about my life like you. There’s so much pressure-”

Narancia spins around to level him with a dead-eyed stare. “Fugo,” he says. “Give me one reason why the one assignment you’re about to do is going to mean you’re not gonna be a big-shot business dude, or whatever else the fuck you wanna be.”

Fugo clenches his jaw. “Of course it matters!” he yells. “Everything matters, I have to keep up with it all. If I don’t, everything I’ve worked so hard for for my whole entire life is going to come crashing down! Y-you don’t get this shit, Narancia, this is my whole life!”

He sounds so much like his parents that it pains him. He can hear the sobs of his mother and the screams of his father in his ears, along with the pounding of his heartbeat in his head. 

Narancia barely flinches at Fugo’s outburst. He never does. It’s a quality Fugo both admires and hates about him. 

“Okay, go do your fucking schoolwork then, see if I care,” he says, taking out his pocketknife and waving it at Fugo threateningly. “But you’re not getting any more of my hard-earned refreshments until you’re done. I almost got caught by Target security this time.”

“Fine,” Fugo huffs, and sits down by his laptop. He knows, in the back of his head, that Narancia is infuriatingly right, but it doesn’t lessen the wounded feeling in his chest. He takes another sip of Arizona. 

To his surprise, he is actually able to focus on understanding the logarithms worksheet, the workings of each equation coming easily to him. His brain purrs like a smooth, oiled up engine, except the oil is the pure sugary goodness of Arizona Iced tea. Maybe he wasn’t a god above mortal sustenance, after all. 

He gets the assignment that he had estimated would take him an hour done in twenty minutes, which earns him a congratulatory knife poke in the bicep from Narancia. 

“Yes!” Narancia says excitedly, pumping his fist in the air. “Is it time, then?”

Fugo cannot say no to that face, which is really a weakness he should deal with at some point. But not now. With a smile, he nods and fires up his game console to load up Mario Kart. Into the late hours of night, they compete in the Retro Grand Prix, spending intermittent rounds squabbling about spice tolerance and whether or not Fugo had game. And even though he ends up wrestling with Narancia on the floor after the bastard blatantly sabotages him to get first place, the familiar routine releases some tension. He feels more like himself again. 

Fugo doesn’t realize until much later that that was probably Narancia’s plan all along. 

The next morning, Fugo wakes up to Narancia tangled in a heap at the foot of his bed, like a cat. He blinks his eyes open to glance at his phone, which informs him it is 9 AM on Saturday. Well, that explains the lack of his alarm. 

“Narancia, I told you not to stay over,” he says, kicking Narancia lightly in the stomach. He props his elbows up against his pillows. “Come on, man, get up.”

Narancia groans and rolls over to stare at Fugo with bright purple eyes. He blinks, then rubs the sleep out of his gaze. “Oh, yeah!” he says, jumping out of bed. “I forgot to tell you! I’m taking you out today!”

‘Taking him out?’ Was Narancia trying to murder him? Or date him? Do friends normally, platonically take other friends out?

“Where?” Fugo says. “Why?”

“It’s a surprise,” Narancia says with a wink. “Now come on, I told Mista I’d meet him soon, he’s going to throw a hissy fit if we don’t show up.”

Oh, Mista was going to be there. Not a date, then. Maybe double homicide?

“Show up where?” Fugo says, but Narancia is already bounding out of his room into the bathroom like he owns the place. Fugo groans. 

Fugo is not a big surprise person. For his twelfth birthday, his parents had tried to surprise him with a lavish dinner party, with all his classmates and classmates’ parents invited. Fugo gritted his teeth through the atmosphere of poorly-concealed power-grabbing networking and painfully awkward small talk. When no one was looking, he had escaped from the suffocating atmosphere to lock himself in the toilet. He spent the rest of the party fighting back tears and distracting himself with reading the bathroom magazines cover to cover. Best birthday ever, right?

He blinks hard and rubs his eyes, hoping it will wipe away the unwelcome wave of childhood trauma. Narancia wasn’t his parents. He wasn’t twelve anymore. He needed to get a grip. 

“So what is the plan for today?” Fugo asks as he steps out the front door, shoving the HOA noise complaints tacked on to it in his pockets. He notes there’s only twelve, not fourteen like he thought, but that’s because he forgot the Nelsons across the street were away on a trip to Brazil. 

“It’s a surprise,” Narancia says in a sing-song voice as he opens the door to the passenger seat of Fugo’s car. “The point of a surprise is that you don’t know what it is. It’s in the Bible.”

“No, it’s not,” Fugo says, piling into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. “Do you even know where we’re going today?”

Narancia rests his chin on his fingers thoughtfully. “We’re going to Funtown, USA, where the people have tons of fun,” he says, like that’s final. “That’s all you need to know.”

Fugo tries not to break the steering wheel off its arm. “In order to drive you somewhere,” he says slowly. “I need to know where we’re going.”

Narancia blinks. “Oh, right.”

Turns out, Narancia’s idea of a surprise is heading to the mall. Specifically, Hot Topic, where he vaguely remembers Giorno boasting about getting a job there. The idea of the blond preppy teen working at Hot Topic and beating out resident mall goth Abbacchio for the position was hilarious. Fugo muses over the universe’ humor while eating the last of his mall pretzel and walking with Narancia towards the Hot Topic entrance, who scans the crowd of mall goers and lights up when he sees a red and blue beanie. 

“Mista!” he hollers. He waves his arms in the air furiously, before taking Fugo’s wrist and waving both of their arms. Fugo tries really hard not to look too flustered at the sudden contact. 

Mista whips around and grins ear to ear when he sees the two of them approach. “Narancia, Fugo, you two made it!” He gives Narancia a noogie on the head and Fugo a clap on the shoulder. Fugo grunts at the low pain. 

“Come on, we gotta start filming our video, rush hour is almost here,” Mista says, nudging Narancia along. “I’ve already found some great interviewees. Title: ‘Would you rather have a gay son or a thot daughter?’”. 

“Genius!” Narancia crows. “Fugo, can you help us film? Your camera work is always so much better than ours.” He tugs at Fugo’s sleeve insistently, like he’s guiding a particularly depressed cat on a walk. 

“We wouldn’t need Fugo if you weren’t too ADHD to not shake the camera all the time,” Mista teases, punching Narancia in the shoulder fondly. 

As much as Fugo’s heart leaps at the chance to hang out with Narancia more, the last thing he would want to do is film for Mista and Narancia’s Youtube channel. Harassing random people in public about obscene and crude topics is not his idea of fun. The fact that their channel has nearly been taken down a few times for spammed eggplant emojis in one of the video titles doesn’t seem to bother them the slightest bit. 

Thankfully, someone else makes the decision for him. “I think Fugo would rather die in a fire,” Giorno says, with a hand on his hip. He’s wearing his Hot Topic employee uniform, which is to say, a permanent resting bitchface. 

“It would be the funnest though!” Narancia complains. Fugo’s left eyebrow twitches at the use of the grammatically incorrect term. 

“Giornoo,” Mista whines. “Don’t ruin this for us, Fugo is our only hope at making an uploadable video!”

Giorno looks unimpressed by Mista’s attempt at puppy dog begging eyes. “Come on,” he says, grabbing Fugo’s elbow. “You can help me fold shirts.”

Fugo sends Narancia and Mista a helpless shrug as Giorno leads him away. 

“Are you actually going to make me fold shirts?” Fugo says as they approach the counter. “Because, you know, I’m not getting paid, and that would technically be child slave labor.”

Giorno frowns. “I wasn’t going to before, but I am now. Go fold the emo band shirts now, or I tell Mista you’re dying to hold his gross phone while they verbally assault random teenage girls.”

Fugo searches Giorno’s face for any sign that he is joking. There are none. 

With a sigh, he reluctantly grabs a medium-sized twentyønepiløts shirt and folds it neatly into the pile. Giorno makes no move to help him, instead opting to stand behind the counter and unsubtly hide that he’s on his phone behind the cash register. 

“Don’t you have finals to study for or something?” Fugo asks, halfway through shirt three. 

“Dropped out,” Giorno says casually, not looking up from his phone. 

“WHAT ?” Fugo yelps, knocking over all of his hard work. Giorno looks barely phased by his reaction. “You’re fifteen, how did you drop out?”

Giorno glares. “You’re lucky the cams here don’t have mics, because as far as the boss knows, I’m sixteen.”

“But you’re smart,” Fugo splutters. “If you stay in school, you can get a job that pays way better than this shitty one. This dead-end job is a complete waste of your-”

“You know school doesn’t make you smart, right?” Giorno says coldly, which shuts Fugo up. “I am smart if I drop out or become the valedictorian. It doesn’t matter what my SAT scores are if I’m still going back to my step dad’s house at the end of the day. So I'm saving up to get a plane ticket to visit my actual dad.”

Fugo winces. 

“I know you’re projecting your own insecurities onto me,” Giorno continues. “So I’m not going to fault you too much for lecturing me. But I’m doing just fine climbing the ranks here. They’re already making me assistant manager, and it’s my first week here.”

Fugo barks a nervous laugh. He averts his eyes from Giorno’s unamused gaze. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m just...tense. Narancia has been getting on my nerves with this whole ‘surprise’ thing he’s pulling. I thought we were gonna do something, together, but he’s just, you know, roping me in with his Narancia shenanigans.”

Giorno’s eyes soften infinitesimally. “You know that’s his way of doing stuff together, right? Narancia isn’t a big rom-com gestures person.” 

As if to prove his point, Narancia interrupts their conversation with a loud whoop from across the store. Fugo turns to find Narancia and Mista filming their video by the entrance of the store. Narancia has somehow managed to find the most tacky and gaudy shades and chain Fugo has ever seen, and slapped it on his face, tags and all. He holds his phone shakily as Mista unsuccessfully attempts to chat up some random girl with witchy earrings and an astrology t-shirt, who was almost certainly a lesbian. 

“Yo, Fugo!” Narancia hollers. “This girl says you’re cancer!”

The girl says something to correct him, but Fugo can’t make out what she’s saying because she is talking at an actual human, normal decibel level. 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Fugo splutters, more to himself than to Giorno. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Giorno says. “He says it to rile you up, and it works. He wouldn’t do it if you didn’t let him get to you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Fugo asks, throwing his hands in the air. “What kind of self-help book, ‘positive thinking’, mindfulness yoga bullshit is that? ‘Your emotions don’t control you if you don’t let them’, then why the fuck do I have them in the first place?”

Giorno stares at him like his brain is recalibrating with this new outburst. Fugo squirms uncomfortably as Giorno is almost certainly using his strange ability to effortlessly psychoanalyze everyone and anyone in his path on him. 

When Giorno’s gaze starts to stare for too long, Fugo crosses his arms and jerks his head towards the front of the store. “So, when are you gonna make a move on Mista?” he says, shoving the wave of embarrassment away from his mind.

Giorno takes a sudden interest in pushing random buttons on the cash register. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, in a voice that suggests he knows exactly what Fugo’s talking about. “I am not into Mista.”

Fugo glances over at Mista, who is currently sending Giorno an eager, puppy-dog look. When Giorno follows Fugo’s gaze and makes eye contact, Mista waves with a cheeky grin. Giorno’s face doesn’t change, but he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear shyly and waves back. 

Fugo coughs loudly. “Yeah...definitely not into him,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Don't know what I was thinking.”

Unlike Fugo, Giorno is good at hiding his emotions, but like Fugo, he feels them just as intensely. “Go get interviewed by Narancia or something,” Giorno grumbles, his face the tiniest shade of pink. “You’re scaring away the customers. I work on commission, you know.”

“There’s no one else here,” Fugo tries to argue, but Giorno has left the cash register to go look busy by the figurine aisle. 

Fugo is alone, for the first time today. It’s a feeling he wants to push away as far as possible, and he clutches an arm when a familiar dull echo of a twelve year old self in his brain surfaces. He desperately searches around the store for something to distract him, and distraction comes in the form of a crashing sound of a glass shattering onto the linoleum floor. Fugo whips his head to see Narancia tackle the aforementioned lesbian girl into a glass display case of jewelry and other knickknacks. 

“What the hell did you just say?” Narancia screeches, pounding his fist into flesh. “I’ll fucking kill you! Eat shit!”

Fugo casts a worried glance at Giorno, silently pleading with him to be the responsible one in the situation. His wish seems to be granted when Giorno walks over, but all hopes of a peaceful resolution are dashed when Giorno merely stands beside Mista, who is filming the entire scene, and groans. “No, don’t do it,” he says listlessly, almost bored. “Please don’t start the only interesting thing that’s going to happen all shift and beat up some random girl, Narancia. Don’t do it.”

He glances up over his shoulder towards the ceiling, and Fugo follows his gaze to see a blinking red light of a security camera. Ah. 

Since neither Giorno nor Mista seemed inclined to actually break up the fight, Fugo supposes it’s up to him. Sighing, he walks over to grab Narancia by the shoulder and yank him away. He holds Narancia up by his shirt collar like a newborn kitten, and Narancia yowls and hisses, still trying to land scratches and punches even when dangling mid-air. 

“Why did you stop me?” Narancia says. “I was totally going in on her, WWE style, like pow! Boom! Blam!” He punctuates each sound effect with an associated punch or kick. 

“What the fuck?” the girl yelps, getting to her feet. “Dude, your jailbait boyfriend is fucking psycho! Get away from me!”

Fugo narrows his eyes and decides to forgo any pretense of rationality to drop Narancia and sock the girl in the jaw. The girl falls to the floor with widened eyes as she fearfully makes eye contact with Fugo’s murderous expression. 

“Fugo, Narancia,” Giorno hisses. “Mall cop on your six. Run.”

Fugo whips his head over his shoulder to see an angry middle aged man approach them on a motorized scooter. With a shriek, he grabs Narancia by the arm and makes a dash for the exit. 

“How many times do we have to go over this?” Fugo says, exasperated, racing past the Orange Julius stand. “Beating up random people does nothing, except get you another arrest on your record.”

“You beat up random people all the time!” Narancia says in between pants, flipping off the cop rapidly approaching them. 

“Well, that doesn’t count! They all deserved it.” Fugo says. When he hears the whirr of scooter wheels right on them, he ducks to the left, Narancia to the right, letting the mall cop barrel straight into a crowd of teenagers ahead of them. 

Fugo knows there’s a staff bathroom right next to them, and they can hide there until security is out of sight. He makes a run for it, dragging Narancia along behind him. 

They round the corner, then stop behind a column, taking the opportunity to catch their breaths. Narancia places a hand on Fugo’s shoulder. 

“Trust me, man,” he says earnestly. “The girl deserved it too. Now come on, I’m pretty sure there’s an exit back here. Paul Blart is going to be right on our ass if we don't leave right now.”

Passione is a small town, which means that there’s only two or three main attractions. The first is the mall, which is actually technically right smack dab in the middle of the dividing border between Passione and bougie-Fugoville (Narancia’s name for it, not his), so it’s way, way nicer than the surrounding area. That’s why the floors are clean and it has bougie stores like Hot Topic, Macy’s, and Forever 21.

The second main attraction is the Target right across the street, which is where Fugo and Narancia head straight to after getting kicked out of the mall. 

“You know they sell sex toys at Target?” Narancia asks, as he opens the glass doors of the department store, leaving sticky fingerprints all over it. 

“No way,” Fugo scoffs. “Target is a respected family institution, why would they sell something like that?”

“Bet on it?” Narancia says with a gleam in his eyes. “If you’re right, I owe you a lifetime supply of Arizona tea.”

“I like the sound of that,” Fugo says thoughtfully. “What’s the catch?”

Narancia creases his brow like he’s thinking, which Fugo doubts because he’s never once seen it happen. “I dunno,” he says eventually with a shrug. “You’ll owe me. That’s the deal. Shake on it?”

He spits a glob of saliva onto his hand and thrusts it outward for Fugo to take. Fugo wrinkles his nose. 

“It’s a deal,” he grimaces. “We don’t have to shake. I’m not touching whatever infestation of germs is on your hands.”

Narancia shrugs. “Whatever, I’m beating you anyway. Meet you there!” In a flash, he runs off. Fugo blinks, then follows. 

Turns out, Narancia wasn’t completely talking out of his ass for once in his life, because there is indeed a modest collection of plastic wrapped ‘adult toys’ tucked in the corner of Target’s health and pharmacy aisle. Fugo’s face falls when he sees it, and when Narancia triumphantly grabs a vibrator to wave in his face. 

“What did I say, Fugo?” Narancia crows. “I was right, you were wrong. I was right, you were wrong.” He repeats the phrase like song lyrics until he starts belting the words for the entirety of the store to hear. Fugo shushes him by slapping a hand over his mouth, which Narancia immediately licks. 

Fugo rolls his eyes, wiping his hands on Narancia’s shirt (and definitely not feeling up his chest, like Mista would say if he was here). “Whatever,” he grumbles. “I’ll get you some chips or something. Just not a lifetime supply, because I refuse to be morally implicated in funding your addiction.”

Narancia beams. He pumps his fist in victory and sprints off towards the grocery aisle. Fugo distinctly feels like a single dad who got custody of his hyperactive toddler for the day. He sighs, then trudges behind to follow. 

When he rounds the corner, Narancia is humming to himself as he peruses the chip aisle, intermittently taking a brightly colored plastic bag, studying it, then setting it back down with a shake of his head. He repeats this process for every brand of chips in the aisle. 

Fugo is transfixed. Not because of Narancia’s dedication to all things snack-related - although that certainly warrants some admiration in of itself - but because he has this air of quiet, single-minded focus around him. Narancia can never concentrate on doing homework, even when Fugo attempts to tutor him, so Fugo very rarely gets to see this side of him, this chiller version of his dorky best friend. It’s nice, honestly, to get to witness Narancia’s little hand gestures and minute shifts in his expression. 

It’s better than nice. It’s hypnotizing. Without him really noticing, Fugo’s throat goes suddenly dry, so he can’t do anything except stare. 

Fugo swallows thickly and coughs to get Narancia’s attention after what feels like five hours later. 

“So, are you planning on deciding sometime this year? This decade, maybe?” he asks, crossing his arms as if it would hide his quickening heartbeat. 

“Piss off. This is a serious choice I gotta make here,” Narancia bites, holding up two different versions of the exact same chip. He adjusts his arms slightly, weighing them in his hands.

“Ah, the woes of late-stage consumer capitalism,” Fugo says, shaking his head knowingly. “Paralyzed by choice, and yet ultimately, the money all goes straight back into the same pockets. A vicious cycle of greed and American individualism.”

Narancia momentarily breaks out of whatever chip-induced spell he’s under to stare at Fugo. “Huh?”

“Nothing,” Fugo says hastily. “You can just pick whatever you want, I’ll buy it all.”

“Sweet!” Narancia grins, and then scoops up one of every brand of chips in the aisle in his arms. “Let’s go check out!”

Fugo winces on his wallet’s behalf and follows Narancia to the self checkout counter. He helps pick up a bag of Lays that Narancia dropped on the ground and with a long-suffering sigh, takes it with him. If he just shoved it into a nearby pile of oven mitts or something, Narancia was going to chew him out so hard.

Narancia bounces on his heels impatiently when the duo arrives at the self checkout counter. Fugo presses on the corresponding buttons on the checkout screen as Narancia peers at the row of magazines and dollar candy hanging along the wall. 

“Hey, Fugo,” Narancia says. “This one looks like you.” He points to a National Geographic magazine with a whale on the cover. Fugo feels a strange sense of deja vu when he sees it, and for a moment, he’s sitting in his bathroom with a party going on without him, fighting back tears to read about aquatic ecosystems. 

Fugo clears his throat to ward the thoughts away and glare at Narancia. “No, it looks like you,” he says angrily. He scans a bag of chips that he’s definitely quadruple-scanned at this point.

“No, it looks like sigma,” Narancia says coyly. 

It is at this moment that Fugo makes a fatal mistake. “Who’s sigma?” he asks, annoyed.

Narancia grins with the maximum amount of smugness that can fit in his one hundred and twenty pound body. “SIGMA BALLS!” 

Fugo sees red. “You little shit,” he seethes, abandoning any pretense of scanning his items to wring his hands around Narancia’s neck. Narancia doesn’t even struggle against his grip and actually seems like he’s enjoying it, which only serves to infuriate Fugo even more.  “That doesn’t even make any fucking sense, so stop looking so goddamn proud of yourself for the worst joke I’ve ever-”

Someone taps him lightly on the shoulder. Fugo turns his head to see a gangly teenage employee standing beside him. “Is everything alright here?” they ask awkwardly. 

Fugo immediately drops Narancia, who falls onto the floor. “Yes, of course,” he says, smoothing his shirt. “We were just about to pay for our items. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

“Yeah, about that,” the employee says in a pained voice. “We’ve noticed you scanned the same item six times, and company policy dictates that we ask shoppers who are shoplifting to leave, so…”

“Hey!” Narancia hollers, leaping to his feet. “We’re not even stealing this time! My boy Fugo is loaded as hell, you should be grateful to take his cash money!”

The employee looks taken aback by Narancia’s sudden intrusion in the conversation, before narrowing their eyes. “Wait, aren’t you the boy who shoplifted from us last week?”

Narancia grimaces. “No?” he tries. 

“You definitely are!” the employee shrieks, before hurriedly flipping open his walkie-talkie. “Security, there are two shoplifters in checkout #12. I repeat, there are two shop-”

All the criminals need to do is share a glance before Fugo scoops up as many bags of chips as he can and sprints out the store, pushing past a gaggle of old ladies near the exit. Narancia is not far behind, panting and out of breath as they speed through the glass doors, Narancia covering the door with even more smudged, sticky prints, to make it out into the parking lot. Fugo scans his gaze wildly for his car, which is thankfully parked close to the entrance. He beelines towards it. 

“Drive, bitch, drive! ” Narancia screeches as Fugo hurriedly dumps their chips in his glove box, shoves his key into the ignition, then pumps the gas pedal, the car wheels grinding against the asphalt. In his rearview, Fugo can see two security officers gaining onto them and taking pictures of his plates. He curses. 

“Sorry, mom,” he mutters to himself, before peeling out of the parking lot and onto the main road. He doesn’t let up his breakneck speed until they’re several blocks away. Fugo lets out a sigh, not of relief, but of respite. 

Narancia whoops and throws his head against the passenger seat. “That was wild, Fugo! I didn’t know you had it in ya to commit petty theft!”

“I didn’t either,” Fugo says, nervously checking his mirrors for sirens. “But we gotta go, because they’re gonna call the cops. We need someplace to hide out until the police stop searching for us.”

Narancia hums thoughtfully, and opens his mouth like he’s going to propose an idea. Instead, though, he pops a sour cream and onion chip into his mouth. The worst flavor of chip, by the way. 

Fugo grimaces. “What’s the next place on your agenda?” he says, knowing he’s going to hate Narancia’s answer. 

“Didn’t have one,” Narancia shrugs. “Didn’t think we’d get kicked out of the mall so soon. Target was my backup.”

Fugo breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth to steady the rise of frustration in his throat. Then, he sighs, and says, “Well, what now?”

Narancia crunches loudly on another chip. “I dunno, we could try the Coast?”

Right, Passione technically has a third main attraction, called ‘the Coast’. It’s not the actual sea coast, since they’re in a landlocked state, but a big lake. Local legend has it that the explorers who discovered it were so baked that they just assumed the first large body of water they saw was the ocean, and promptly dubbed it ‘the Coast’. 

Fugo says ‘technically’, because the Coast is not in Passione town limits. It’s actually almost an hour long drive away, which is going to piss off his parents if they find out. He’s ready to immediately shut down Narancia’s idea - and he does it all the time, so it’s not like he’s out of practice - but then he glances over at Narancia and stops in his tracks. 

Narancia is doing something with his tongue where he’s trying to lick the artificial powder from his chips away from the corners of his mouth. His hair is sticking up at random angles from escaping department store security not once, but twice. His shirt is riding down the slightest bit from propping his legs up on the dashboard, so that Fugo can see a narrow expanse of bare, tan shoulder. None of these things are that attractive alone, and yet, when combined, Fugo’s brain registers it as the most attractive sight he’s ever seen. 

Narancia stops his futile effort and wipes away the powder with his hands. He notices Fugo’s gaze on him and frowns. “Hello? Fugo? Are we going to the Coast or nah?”

Fugo’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. He blinks and refocuses his eyes back on the road.

“Fine,” he concedes, hoping his voice doesn’t crack. “Let’s go to the Coast.”

In its heyday, the Coast is bustling with tourists and rich suburbanites who couldn’t make their private beach house reservation in time. Early December, however, is not its heyday, which is why the lake is devoid of human life when Fugo hops out of his Civic, slamming the car door shut, and looks out onto the view. 

He gets, now, why someone might think this is the seashore. There’s no forest or mountains on the other side of the lake, just smooth wetlands that reflect the overcast sky, so it makes it seem like the shoreline seem like it goes on forever. It’s a breathtaking view. He sighs and turns to Narancia, before realizing he’s not beside him.

He looks towards the beach, and to his surprise, Narancia is already running towards the sand. “Race you there!” he yells over his shoulder. 

Fugo reluctantly tears after him. His sneakers are swallowed with grimy grit as he runs from the dirt parking lot into the sandy beach.

When they approach the water, Narancia doesn’t even hesitate to tear off his socks and shoes and run towards the lake, screaming when the cold water hits his bare skin. 

“Come on, Fugo!” he yells, waving his hand from in the water. 

He’s already driven an hour to get here, so Fugo might as well commit to this, right? Fugo grimaces, shaking all thoughts of hypothermia and water leeches out of his mind, to follow Narancia in. He takes care to take off his shoes and roll up his pants before he actually enters the water. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get too soaked.

“You’re not going to splash me, right?” Fugo asks warily as he dips his toes into the water. Jesus, it was freezing. 

“Noo,” Narancia says innocently. “I would never.”

Fugo narrows his eyes. “And you know I’ll punch you right in the face if you do?”

Narancia nods and hides his hands behind his back. 

Carefully, Fugo steps further into the water to approach Narancia. Right as he opens his mouth to congratulate the other for actually keeping his word, Narancia grins goofily and splashes a tsunami of water onto Fugo’s pants. 

He guffaws loudly. “Haha, you wet your pants, Fugo! That’s so embarrassing!”

Fugo growls and splashes even more water onto Narancia’s shirt. “Shut up!” he says, shouting so that his voice can be heard over the roaring of his heart. “You’re so annoying!”

“No, you!” Narancia says, flipping him off and kicking another wave onto him. 

When the cold water hits his face, suddenly, Fugo is twelve again, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror through tears. He tries desperately to push the thoughts away, but his brain is tired of doing that today, so the wave of memories persists. 

Twelve year old Fugo stares at the red puffiness of his eyes and his cheeks, and then throws another splash of ice cold water at his eyes, feeling numb even when the water stings. He sniffles, and shuts the faucet, taking a shaky breath when hears a roar of laughter outside the door. 

The sounds of the party thrown for him continuing without him are torture, because even when people cheer and giggle and gossip, Fugo is Pluto, standing right on the edge of it, looking in. 

His mom finds him in the bathroom some time after the party ends, and stills when she sees Fugo’s ruddy cheeks. “Pannacotta?” she asks carefully, her eyes growing shiny with tears. “Are you okay? Did you enjoy the party? I worked really hard on setting this whole thing up for you, so it would be a shame if you didn’t enjoy it.”

The party wasn’t for him, because it wouldn’t be full of people who didn’t care about him if it was. Fugo wishes desperately, that someone would give a single flying fuck about him, the real him, not whoever they thought he was or whoever they wanted him to be. He hates everyone else for not loving him, and himself for being so goddamn unlovable.

There’s no point in telling his mother these thoughts, though. If Fugo appears ungrateful, his parents will be disappointed in him for not being normal enough, similar to them enough, for him to enjoy the same empty socializing that they do. 

He gives her a broken nod. She smiles a pained smile and closes the door behind her. 

He looks down at himself with clarity. He is an anomaly, a boy who is none of the things he wants to be and all of the things he doesn’t want to be. He’s been given everything it takes to be the perfect golden boy, and instead, he got himself delinquent, dropout friends and a looming sense of dread towards everything he is meant to be. Everytime he tries to force himself into one thing, another bridge burns behind him, and he hates it all. The quiet feeling pooling in his gut glows red, like magma, and he wants to destroy something, destroy everything, destroy, destroy, destroy until there’s nothing left to hate himself with. 

He’s not twelve anymore, but he feels it, and in that instant, he might as well be. 

“STOP IT!” Fugo screams, and tackles Narancia. They both fall into the water with a splash. “Stop it, stop ridiculing me all the time, stop getting on my fucking nerves, just stop it already!” He grips Narancia’s torso in blind rage, forgetting everything that he is in his single-minded focus to expel everything that he hates himself for being. 

“Fugo-” Narancia gurgles, face struggling to get air. “Fugo, what the hell-”

Fugo wrestles with Narancia and pushes him further into the shallow water. “Shut up, just shut up, SHUT UP!” he shouts into the abyss. “I’m so tired of you and this whole stupid fucking day, and I just wanna-”

He’s cut off by a not-so-friendly knife pressed against his throat. The blade digs at his skin without piercing it, threatening to draw blood without doing it. Narancia has dangerous eyes. “Tell me to shut up one more time,” Narancia says coldly. “Do it, Pannacotta.”

At the use of his first name, Fugo chokes back tears. His stupid thoughts finally stop roaring for a second enough for him to get a moment of clarity, and his hands loosen their grip without his accord, just enough for Narancia to wiggle out. 

Narancia rises from the water like Aphrodite rising from the sea, water circling around his ankles like they chase to be around him. Narancia levels with him the most gorgeous and terrifying gaze Fugo has ever seen, staring squarely at his mortal form. The knife is still in his hands, but his grasp is no longer tight on the handle, just the promise of danger instead of the danger itself. 

Some part of Fugo waits for the boy to yell at him, scream back, throw him out of his life and never look back. It wouldn’t be like Narancia to do it, but Fugo wants to, wants Narancia to push him away, because it means that Fugo doesn’t have to do it himself. When Narancia takes a breath, Fugo closes his eyes, waiting for the words. 

“Do you mean it?” Narancia says instead. His voice is quiet, low, stony. 

Fugo opens his eyes. “Mean what?” he asks pathetically, knowing the answer.

Narancia’s impassive gaze doesn’t flinch from his. For once in his life, he is completely still. “That you’re tired of me?” he says. 

Fugo stares with vitriol at his own reflection in the water. His image warps and shifts in and out of itself, until he is nothing but a funhouse mirror of waves and currents. He says nothing. The silence that hangs over them is deafening. Even the wind and the trees and the birds stop their sound to hold their breath.

Fugo almost thinks that the world has stopped turning and that time itself has stopped. Maybe Narancia will just walk away, take Fugo’s car and leave him here to drown himself in his own emotions, if not with the water. His reflection warps once more, and then is eclipsed by Narancia socking him in the jaw. Fugo crashes into the sediment.

“You stupid, fucking asshole,” he shrieks, kicking Fugo straight in the crotch. Fugo howls in pain. Narancia pants with a crazy look in his eyes. 

Fugo used to think that nothing he said while angry could bother Narancia, but he was wrong. He realizes now that Narancia was just better at hiding it than he let on. 

“I HATE YOU!” Narancia screams, using Fugo’s chest as a punching bag. “You don’t GET to be tired of me, because I’m going to always fucking be here, whether you like it or NOT! So get used to it, dickwipe!” 

He socks Fugo once more straight in the heart, just for good measure, and watches with satisfaction as Fugo crumples into the water, the dark lake absorbing him into nothingness. “ Fuck you,” Narancia spits. “I did this shit for you.”

When Fugo resurfaces, Narancia is stomping back to the shoreline, back turned to him. Fugo blinks and then scrambles to get to his feet and run after him. 

“Wait, what do you mean, you did it for me?” he asks, struggling to catch his breath both from the exertion of running and from the damage Narancia probably did to his windpipe. 

Narancia sits down on a rock and ignores him. He peels off his wet shirt off his torso and hisses at the cold air hitting his skin. If Fugo were in a better state of mind, he’d gawk, but he’s not. 

“Narancia,” Fugo repeats, knowing he’s pressing up against a line. He crosses it anyway. “You did what for me?”

Fugo steps closer to Narancia and follows his gaze to their reflections in the water. Narancia takes a shaky breath. 

“I was trying to cheer you up, asshole,” he says quietly, his eyes staring intently at the tide of the water ebbing in and out of the sand. He fights to get his next words out. “You’ve been so in your own head with school stuff, and I know, I could see that you didn’t like the way Bucciarati and the rest of them tried to baby you, but they don’t listen to me.”

Narancia makes a frustrated noise and grips his bare elbows. He doesn’t look at the way Fugo hitches his breath. 

“I know I’m not good with school stuff,” Narancia says tightly. “But I could see that you were going to get so stuck, so I’m trying to help you, you know, with what I do know. Which is Fugo stuff.”

Fugo isn’t dumb. He can read between the lines well enough to know what Narancia means. Narancia tried his best to plan a whole day for him to cheer him up. It was such a Narancia move that he’s kicking himself for not realizing it earlier. 

He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t talk, doesn’t move for a solid ten seconds. Then, without him really consciously registering he’s doing it, Fugo wraps his arms around Narancia’s bare shoulders and squeezes him tightly, in an imitation of a hug. 

Fugo can’t see Narancia’s expression, but he can feel how the boy hesitates before returning the embrace a little awkwardly. Fugo, despite himself, tears up, and then furiously wipes those stupid traitors off his face. He tries his best to be as quiet about it, but he knows Narancia can feel the way he trembles against his chest.

“You better not be crying,” Narancia says. “Because that’s gay.”

Despite the shittiness out of the whole goddamn situation, Fugo can’t help but chuckle. “It’s not even funny how terrible that statement is,” he says in a pinched voice with a sniffle. “You suck so hard, man.”

“No, you suck,” Narancia bites back, releasing his grip on Fugo enough to grab him by his shoulders and pull his face back to meet his own. “Because you’re gay.”

Fugo quietly laughs and nods. “Yeah,” he says, like it’s the most profound statement in the world. “I am. But you’re the one who just stripped in front of a gay boy.” He lifts a hand to fit over Narancia’s. His eyes betray him and flicker down onto Narancia’s lips. 

“Guess we’re both pretty gay,” Narancia says fondly, cementing just how fucking stupid this entire exchange was and yet how momentuous it was for Fugo’s tiny, bastard heart. He cups Fugo’s cheek and then makes eye contact, waggling his eyebrows.

“Are you gay enough to kiss the homies goodnight?” Narancia’s stupid, pretty, stupidly pretty mouth says. It’s easily the most unromantic and dumbest thing Fugo has ever heard, and yet it still works.

Fugo doesn’t even bother trying to grace the question with a verbal answer. He smashes his lips into Narancia’s and leans in.

The kiss is nice, because Narancia is the cutest boy he’s ever seen and he’s a horny, pent-up teenager who has been waiting for this kiss for what feels like his whole life. It’s nice, because Narancia is halfway decent at this and makes the experience enjoyable when he deepens the kiss, bringing Fugo even closer. It stops being nice when Narancia breathes right up into his mouth. 

“Agh,” Fugo chokes, breaking apart from the kiss. “Dude, your breath still smells like sour cream and onion. It’s so gross.”

Narancia snorts and pushes him into the sand. He breathes into his face like a dragon spitting fire, just to see the way Fugo grimaces. “Whatever, man,” he laughs whole-heartedly. “You’re into that shit. Bet ya would still kiss me anyway.”

“Shut up,” Fugo says automatically. He averts his eyes to look away from the way Narancia studies his expression. “Let’s just get back to the car, I’m fucking soaked.”

“That’s not a no!” Narancia says gleefully as Fugo stands up and stalks off. If Fugo’s face turns red, well, it was just from the cold of the Coast water sticking to his clothes. Obviously. 

Fugo only stops when Narancia grabs his shoulder and spins Fugo around. Before Fugo can react, Narancia kisses him on the cheek. “It’s okay to admit you’re into me, dude,” Narancia says, amused. “I’m down to kiss you again too.” If Fugo’s face wasn’t red before, it is freshly cooked tomato pasta sauce red now. 

Narancia’s smile turns devilish when Fugo doesn’t stop gaping. He uses his grip to shove Fugo stumbling back towards the sand. “Race ya!” he hollers, sprinting off towards the parking lot. “Last one is a rotten egg!”

Fugo blinks, then quickly stands on his feet to follow suit. He hopes his grin doesn’t seem too dopey as he races to catch up. 

Fugo is the rotten egg, unsurprisingly. They both forget about it, though, when a chill breeze hits them both and makes them both far too aware of the wet clothing still clinging to their bodies. Thankfully, Fugo remembers the change of clothes in his trunk and hurries to retrieve them. After some digging, he scourges up a turtleneck, hoodie, and two pairs of sweats. One smells like old oranges, and Fugo grimaces when he remembers that Mista had spilled orange juice all over the pants when he saw Giorno with his hair down for the first time. 

Fugo tosses the hoodie and clean pair of sweats in Narancia’s direction. “Go change outside,” he hollers to Narancia, about to pile onto the front seat. “You’re just gonna get lake water all over the car interior.”

“Too late,” Narancia says, flopping onto the seat. “No way am I changing outside, it’s way too fucking cold.”

Fugo rolls his eyes. “I’ll warm you up if you do it, just go change.”

Narancia goes suspiciously quiet and hurriedly changes into Fugo’s warm, dry clothing. Fugo doesn’t pay much mind to it, since he’s focused on trying to not puke at the leftover residue of Mista’s pining. That boy was whipped.

When he opens the driver’s door, Narancia is staring excitedly up at him, legs bouncing in anticipation. 

“What?” Fugo asks cautiously. 

“Aren’t ya gonna warm me up?” Narancia asks with a slight waggle in his eyebrow. “You promised.”

Fugo flushes red. “That’s not what I- I just meant, like…” He sticks the key into his ignition and turns up the heater. Narancia has never looked more visibly disappointed in his life. 

Fugo clears his throat. “Uh, but the heaters are in the backseat of the car, so, you know, we’ll get warmer faster if we hang out there.”

Narancia lights up. Without so much as a warning, he scrambles over the glovebox into the backseat, sprawling his limbs all over it. “You gonna draw me like one of your Italian girls?” he says, puckering his lips in an attempt to be seductive. 

Fugo snorts. He debates correcting Narancia on the correct line, but ultimately decides his version is better anyways. He crawls into the backseat and wraps his arms around Narancia, instantly warming up from their shared body heat and the burning red of his cheeks. He sighs against Narancia’s neck and lets the feeling of hair strands tickle against his face. 

“I didn’t mean it,” he says, watching goosebumps rise on Narancia’s skin. “You know, when I said that I was tired of you. Because I’m not. I’m tired of myself.”

Narancia is quiet. For all the boy’s brashness and loud personality, he intuitively understood when Fugo needed to ramble and think out loud to get his words out. 

“I’m really tired of my school and all the pressure everyone puts on me. Everyone wants me to be a different person, and it’s so frustrating,” Fugo says after a moment. “But I like that you just want me to be me, no strings attached. I could never get tired of that.”

“Aww, you’ve gone soft, you big ol’ softie.” Narancia coos. 

“I take that back,” Fugo snorts. “I’m just in it for the free shoplifted Target food. I’m definitely not into you at all.”

“Me neither,” Narancia says. 

To really solidify their mutual dislike for each other, Fugo kisses Narancia when he turns over, enjoying the way Narancia quietly sighs against his lips.

“We should shoplift some gum on the way home,” Fugo murmurs. “Or breath mints. Or both.”

Narancia shoves Fugo off the seat to go sprawling, ass-first, onto the car floor.

Mista starts clapping when Fugo and Narancia enter Libbecchio’s the next time the Passione squad meets up. Fugo probably should have expected it, since Narancia is terrible at keeping secrets. The annoying gesture is incredibly short-lived, since Fugo and Giorno, the resident bitchy blonds, immediately send him a look that could kill him on the spot. 

“Aww, thanks, bro,” Narancia says, sharing a first bump with Mista as he sits down.  Fugo joins him and slinks an arm around Narancia’s shoulders, which everyone at the table notices. 

Bucciarati makes a small noise of surprise. “Oh, congrats, you two,” he says with a smile. Giorno chimes in with a nod. Abbacchio takes off his headphones, which is enough of an acknowledgement from him.

“I knew you were gay,” Mista says, nudging Narancia in the ribs. “It was the hair.”

“Bro, I’m not gay, but my boyfriend is,” Narancia says, then turns to beam at Fugo. Fugo knows for a fact that Narancia has been saving that line for ages, so he lets him bask in the glory of making no one laugh. Well, except Mista, but that’s because Mista is the only person as stupid as Narancia enough to like his jokes. 

When Fugo can’t help but snort, he realizes that probably makes him as stupid as them too. 

“That aside,” Bucciarati says with an amused voice, raising his glass. “I believe congratulations are in order to Fugo for finally passing all his exams. We’re proud of you.”

Fugo smiles, awkwardly but still genuinely, as the rest of the group clinks ice waters and Monster (in Narancia’s case) in his honor. 

He clears his throat. “Thanks, Bucciarati. I just wanted to say that I appreciate you all for doing your part in making it easier for me. Definitely didn’t go unnoticed.” He tries not to look too obviously at Abbacchio’s pained expression. “I, uh, love you guys.”

Narancia punches him in the bicep fondly. Giorno smiles. Bucciarati looks like he’s about to genuinely tear up. Even Abbacchio’s gaze softens. 

“Woah, there’s no need to get all mushy-gushy now that you’re gay,” Mista says loudly. 

“I despise you,” Fugo snaps half-heartedly, fighting back a smile as Giorno leads Mista towards the dipshit table. “You’re an awful person.”

The attention isn’t on him for long, because it’s impossible for it to be with this big and chaotic group of people. Fugo doesn’t dare think that’s the last of all of his friends’ reactions to his new relationship, though, and he’s proven right when Giorno subtly hands him a condom when passing a dessert plate, and when Bucciarati corners him on his way back from the bathroom to threaten him if he ever hurt Narancia. It’s scarring and forever traumatizing, but Fugo rolls with the punches. 

He thinks that’s the last of it, until Mista pulls him aside as the group is making their way towards the parking lot. 

“Man, proud of ya for finally getting your dick wet,” he says, clapping Fugo on the shoulder. “I really thought you’d be a virgin forever, so I’m glad you proved me wrong.”

“This doesn’t feel like a compliment,” Fugo bites, but there’s no malice in his tone. He realizes Mista’s trying to hype himself up for whatever he really wants to talk about, though, so he waits. 

“So,” Mista says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “How’d you do it?”

“Do what?” Fugo says with a raised eyebrow. 

“You know.” Mista shuffles his feet. “Ask a dude out.”

Fugo laughs. “You ask out girls all the time. It’s the same deal.”

“Yeah, but it’s like…” Mista scrunches his nose, trying to articulate the words correctly. “What if the dude is really scary and cool and smart? You know, and you don’t wanna fuck things up with him?”

Fugo wants to say that he’s not the right person to ask about this stuff. He’s not good with relationships, and has got more issues than Vogue and enough trauma for two generations. And yet, he’s found someone that still likes him despite all of it, and makes him want to be a better person and heal from it. It’s a weird feeling. But it’s not a bad one. 

Fugo’s gaze is drawn towards the commotion of Narancia putting Giorno in a headlock. Even when Narancia is red in the face and intent on beating someone up, he’s still strangely beautiful. Fugo quietly appreciates the way Narancia’s scrawny muscles flex and tense at the movement, and he almost lets himself get caught up with just staring, before realizing he hasn’t responded to Mista’s question. He turns to see Mista is also looking, transfixed, in Narancia’s direction, although Narancia is not the person he’s looking at. The thought makes him smile.

“Just go for it,” he says finally. “There’s no point in overthinking it. Me and Narancia might not even last two weeks, but I still want to try it out, you know?”

Mista glances over at Fugo’s face. “Narancia really likes you, you know,” he says quietly. “He beat up that girl at Hot Topic because she was dissing your hair.”

Fugo self-consciously pats his blond mullet. “Oh,” he says. “Thanks, man.”

“Never said I liked it,” Mista says, reaching over to mess with Fugo’s carefully gelled hair. “Just that Narancia does, for some reason.”

“Jeez, I was just gonna tell you about what Giorno thinks about you,” Fugo teases. “Guess you’ll never know.”

Mista’s face blanches. “Wait, what? Fugo, buddy-”

Just then, Narancia notices Fugo’s absence and locks his gaze on him, waving an arm wildly from across the parking lot.

“Fugo, get over here!” he yells from across the lot. “Giorno thinks he can do more push ups than me, and I need someone to ref!”

“I didn’t say that-” Giorno protests, but it doesn’t matter, because the words still have the intended effect of convincing Fugo to race over and join them. 

Before he leaves Mista, though, Fugo turns back to enjoy Mista’s flustered and shocked expression. “Sorry,” he says with a smug shrug. “My boyfriend’s awaiting.”

Once he’s by Narancia’s side, he slings an arm over the boy’s shoulder. “Alright, you got this, babe,” he says, half-jokingly, planting a wet one on Narancia’s cheek. 

Narancia lights up and throws his floppy hair back behind his headband. “That’s the powerup I needed,” he says, stretching out his arms over his chest. “I’m unstoppable, now.”

“Yeah, well, Giorno is assistant manager at Hot Topic,” Mista says earnestly from behind Giorno. “He’s a pretty big fucking deal.”

“I’m on track to be promoted to manager by tomorrow,” Giorno corrects him. “Because of how well I handled the ‘two ruffians fighting in front of the store’.”

Fugo rolls his eyes and gives Narancia another peck before Narancia leaps into position, posing for the first push up. Giorno follows suit. Fugo sets a one minute timer, and then makes a whistle noise with his fingers. 

It’s barely a competition, since Narancia is scrawny as hell and everyone has seen Giorno’s dad to know what sort of genes he has in his DNA. Still, Fugo still gets a laugh out of how easily Giorno beats Narancia with 45 push ups to Narancia’s 38. 

When the minute is up, Narancia stands up to collapse into Fugo’s arms, a move so unnecessary and over-the-top that it makes Fugo laugh with his whole heart. “You didn’t give me enough powerups, babe,” Narancia whines into Fugo’s chest. “That’s why I lost.”

“I think you just need to hit the gym more,” Fugo says, deadpan. “You’re all skin and bones.”

Narancia pretends to consider it, before shaking his head. “Nah,” he says with a gleam in his eyes. “I think I need the powerups. Now.”

Fugo gives him an exasperated smile before obliging.