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Every Sunday, Giorno escapes to Mista’s apartment.
The street near his place is lined on both sides by rows of buildings. Giorno glances at them and ascends the steps, balancing his feet on the uneven ground with a cautious familiarity. If he looks behind him, he will see the Tyrrhenian Sea in the distance, glittering bright blue under the morning sunlight, and if he looks a little further he will see the blurred outline of the isle of Capri in the horizon—but he doesn’t turn. It is a beautiful spring day, but he has no time to waste. They have precious little time as it is.
The air is crisp outside, sharp with the scent of morning. It is chilly when he approaches the yellow three-storey apartment block where Mista stays; it is still chilly when he pushes the door open and climbs the narrow stairs, his footsteps ringing out against the rusted metal. A middle-aged woman, one of Mista’s neighbours, appears at the top of the second flight of stairs as Giorno rounds the corner. She regards him for a moment. When their eyes meet, he blinks nonchalantly and steps aside to give her the right of way; she makes her way down and brushes past him, the plastic bag in her hand crinkling loudly, and he stands there till she passes out of sight and he can swiftly ascend once more.
The door swings open at Giorno’s third knock. Suddenly Mista is right before him, his lithe body framed by the doorway—but though the sparkle in his eyes takes Giorno’s breath away and the smile on his face makes his heart flutter, they aren’t safe just yet. “So, what’s the latest?” asks Mista, as they’d planned; “Oh, my cactus flowered yesterday,” replies Giorno, telling him that everything is fine. The door creaks as Mista opens it further and Giorno enters the apartment, carefully, maintaining a few inches’ distance between them at all times.
Click.
The key twists in the lock.
And then Mista turns and Giorno steps forward and they are pulling each other into an embrace. It is gentle at first, easy, sweet; then it tightens as Giorno curls his fingers into Mista’s shirt and Mista tugs the elastic off Giorno’s hair to run a hand through his rapidly-loosening braid. His touch is safe, reassuring. Giorno leans into it. He lowers his head. He closes his eyes and breathes in, losing himself in the comforting familiarity of Mista’s scent, losing himself in the warmth of Mista’s strong arms. Little by little, the chill that had settled over his skin melts silently away. And so, he is free—and so, he is home.
“I love you,” murmurs Giorno. A year had passed before he’d been able to say those words without wanting to flee; now that he can, he says them as much as possible. He reaches up to trace Mista’s jaw with his fingertips, admiring its firmness, and tilts Mista’s chin down to draw him into a kiss. Mista’s lips move unhurriedly against his own. His mouth tastes of sweet apple juice.
“I love you too,” he says, when they pull away at last.
Then Mista is peppering Giorno’s collarbone with kisses, and Giorno is laughing, breathlessly, as the white curtains billow in the cool spring wind; then they are stumbling to bed, grinning, as Mista’s cashmere sweater is tossed carelessly to the floor; then they are cuddling under the sheets, Giorno’s leg hooked around Mista’s torso, as he desperately tries not to fall asleep. “Just let it happen, babe,” says Mista, chuckling, but Giorno only rubs his eyes and blinks rapidly in an effort to combat the heaviness of his eyelids. They don’t have much time. They only have two hours before Giorno has to leave.
They only have two hours—two short hours, before they can be lovers no more.
No one can know about their relationship. It must remain a secret, tucked away within the four walls of Mista’s apartment, for Giorno has many enemies that will descend on Mista like raptors and tear him to shreds at the mere whisper of a rumour. And it’s not just his enemies, either. Giorno knows that he only commands his men’s respect as long as he is like cold marble, unmoved by the vagaries of human emotions. Love is permissible, respectable, if it is borne by a man for a woman; it must be hidden, unspoken, if it is anything else. In that respect, Giorno supposes that he created his own problem. He can love women. He has been with women in the past.
But one day two years ago, the man who had always made his heart race suddenly reached out to brush his lower lip with a thumb and asked if he could kiss him—and Giorno fell, and has been falling, ever since.
He shifts closer to Mista, resting his face against the nape of his neck. If he could walk around wearing Mista’s scent like a cologne, he would. He can’t, of course, so he breathes in deeply, and he thinks of gunpowder and smoke and the faint sting of spices. It is a revelation. He exults in it, in this moment that they’ve snatched for themselves, revelling in the freedom to touch and love Mista as he pleases. Giorno’s first joy will always be his job—but where his ambition fuels his soul, Mista nourishes his heart. Only with Mista can he truly shed the layers that he’s spun around himself like a cocoon; only with Mista can he let himself be discovered, and only under Mista’s lips can he allow himself to come undone. Here, lying in bed with his arms around Mista, Giorno has escaped. He has slipped through the bars of his status, fled the confines of his position. He can’t stay long. The job of a mafia don doesn’t pause for weekends, and he has to avoid arousing suspicion as best he can. And he doesn’t know how long they can keep this up. It would only take one mistake, one careless error, one errant word…
Giorno swallows hard and turns in bed, pulling Mista’s arms around himself.
And he sinks into Mista’s warmth, willing his thoughts to stay in this stolen moment, in this place where they cannot be found.
The Sunday after Mista dies, Giorno escapes to his apartment.
He ascends the familiar stairs with trembling legs, the pit in his stomach growing with every step; he shoves the door to the apartment building open and runs up the narrow metal steps and fumbles with his spare key and slams the door behind him, his chest heaving, his eyes burning. The white curtains billow in the cool spring wind, but now their elegant beauty is making a mockery of him. He sinks to the ground, pulling his knees to his chest, and sits there, shaking.
Only here can he rip off the lie that he wears like a second skin. Only here can he scream and cry and sob Mista’s name, but when he tries, it passes through his lips in a pathetic gasp. “Guido,” he breathes. “Guido.” If Mista were here, the sound of his name and the brittleness of Giorno’s voice would send him flying to his side; but he is not here, and he will never be here, and the faint whisper of the curtains as they twist in the wind is the only reply that Giorno will ever receive.
In the end, they hadn’t been discovered. One fine day, they’d gotten separated in a fight, and by the time Giorno found his way back to Mista, he was lying dead on the floor. It was quick. It was simple. And, just like that, Giorno’s heart had shattered into pieces.
He couldn’t show it, though. No—he was the Don of Passione, so he had to be stoic, strong. He stood there at Mista’s funeral, his expression solemn, his hands plunged into his pockets so they could tremble where no one could see. He brushed off Fugo’s questions. He ignored Trish’s concern. He bent before the open casket and kissed Mista’s cheek with a tenderness that he could no longer suppress, but in the end he was resolute and silent when his lover’s face was covered once more, when the earth was piled over his casket, swallowing his body forever.
The memories flash before his eyes; he is startled from his thoughts by the sound of birds singing sweetly outside. Subjected to their joy, Giorno feels hollow and distantly sick. Slowly, with great difficulty, he raises himself from the floor. He shuffles towards the bedroom. The mattress creaks as he falls into Mista’s bed. Now that he is alone, it feels achingly empty, but he crawls forward, his heart pounding painfully, and buries his face in Mista’s pillow. It smells of him. He thinks of gunpowder and smoke and the faint sting of spices, and he thinks of the way Mista’s eyes would sparkle and the way a line would appear on his left cheek when he smiled, and all of a sudden tears are running down his face. He freezes, panicking; he jerks upright and wipes his cheeks hurriedly because if he contaminates Mista’s bed with his tears, maybe his scent will disappear, vanish from the world forever. If that happens, it can only be resurrected for the briefest of moments in Giorno’s mind; so, if one day he forgets, if one day he can’t remember anymore, if one day the memory is gone—
Then he really will be trapped for good.
And so Giorno dries his tears and lies down, closing his eyes, escaping his self-imposed isolation with every inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale…
fin.