Chapter Text
as usual, it was a sunny day in italy. after diavolo's defeat, it had been difficult for all of bucciarati's gang. bruno temporarily took on the title of "boss", waiting until giorno had been relatively old enough to take over. needless to say, the battle had taken its toll on everyone, and the amount of work and stress they were put under almost immediately after did not help.
lately, however, work has started to slow down a bit. of course, with summer being peak tourist season, that would obviously be short lived. bucciarati sighed at the thought of passione’s work being thrusted upon him yet again, tenfold. thankfully, it was the week of giorno’s birthday, so he could take time off of work before burying himself inside the office.
giorno has been acting a little.. strange, to say the least. lately, he seems to be avoiding the sun more and more and often carries an umbrella. which, wouldn't be too strange considering how hot it was, but it seemed like he was avoiding any sort of light altogether.
lightbulbs, computer lights, hell, even the light tinted by the curtains seemed to bother him. he also seemed to be more active on the phone recently. talking to whomever (family?) and seeming more and more stressed as the week of his birthday arrived. bruno was, of course, worried because giorno had never seemed so utterly worn out.
later on, giorno gathered everyone in the living room, looking more tired and stressed than ever. mista was feeding his sex pistols, abbacchio seemed irritated by giorno’s very existence, fugo was trying his best to wake up fully, trish fixing her makeup, and narancia, ever so excited narancia, stared at giorno with glee.
giorno let out a heavy sigh and finally gained the courage to get to the point. "my family.. is coming to visit."
complete silence.
abbacchio spoke up first. “there's.. more of you?” giorno could only nod. abbacchio’s face twisted into one of horror.
narancia spoke next, asking, “your parents and siblings?”
“kind of,” giorno mused.
“kind of?” mista questioned.
“kind of.” giorno repeated.
"i don't see why that would be something to fuss over," bucciarati commented.
"they're.. a bit strange," and giorno ended it at that.
there was no further elaboration, and everyone scattered right after. bruno, being the man he is, only gets more worried. the issue with lights get worse and worse. giorno is more stressed than everyone in bucciarati’s mini-gang combined. as the days get closer to april 16th, giorno shuts himself in his room more. frankly, this has now grabbed the attention of everyone.
bucciarati hasn’t heard much, but he knows the others have tried confronting giorno. hushed whispers between narancia and mista. abbacchio seemingly even more irritated than normal. even trish had given him strange glances.
bruno ends up confronting giorno himself not long after.
he knocks on giorno’s door a few times, and he hears shuffling pause for a moment only to begin again. giorno cracks the door open to see who it was, and upon seeing bruno’s face his tension visibly drops.
“may i come in?” bruno asks. giorno blinks at him and for a moment he swears he saw his irises flash red. he nods, and lets him in without fuss. sitting on the bed with one another in awkward silence, bruno finally says, “about your family, why do you seem so stressed? is there something wrong?” giorno visibly becomes more tense and narrows his eyes slightly. he knows bruno has no bad intentions and is truly worried, but…
giorno quickly debates on whether to tell bruno the full truth or only some of it. he decides that some of it is the most he can handle right now.
“”my family.. is complicated. theres a lot going on with our family tree, so i won’t bother with that, but including me, there’s 8 of us.” that was definitely not something bruno was expecting to hear, but nonetheless it wasn’t enough to give him a proper idea of anything.
“i am the youngest, and the oldest is – um,” now thats something that gets bucciarati intrigued. giorno continues without elaborating further. “we all have similar names as well. it’s a little strange.”
“with your family coming to italy, are you worried about them learning about passione?” bruno muses, and giorno seems to ponder it for a moment.
“yes.. but not really. i think what i’ve been through is the most normal compared to the others. it likely won’t shock them too much.” now that definitely raises alarm bells in bruno’s head. the most normal?? all of what they went through, being the most normal compared to everyone else in giorno’s family?
“it’s a lot, but what im worried about the most is..” he pauses, “what’s going to happen when they get here. my family is quite.. unique to say the least.”
“well, what exactly makes them ‘unique’?” bruno asks.
“ah, they’re all –” and giorno seems to catch himself before saying anything more. “well, i’ll explain that later.”
…
giorno promptly kicks him out with a few scrambled up words and before he knows it, bruno is out the door.
'that was strange,' and he looks back at giorno’s door once more before returning to his office.