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When Giorno is eighteen, he wishes his feelings for Mista would go away.
He hates being in love. He loathes it, detests it with every fibre of his being, because it sends him spiralling out of control and that scares him more than anything. Control, discipline, self-regulation—Giorno lives by those words, chants them in his head like a mantra. It’s how he got so far. It’s how he kept himself moving. It’s how he rose above the dirt of his roots to stand, firm, on the mountaintops.
But when he’s around Mista, that cool self-control dissipates like ice melting into water. Mista makes him laugh; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Mista startles laughter out of him, because Giorno rarely truly laughs and whenever he does it comes as a surprise. It’s distracting, sometimes. It’s distracting when he’s trying to work and Mista appears in his office like a flower blossoming in the dead of winter and makes a joke, or teases him about something, or even just looks at him and smiles, wide, in that beautiful way he smiles where a line appears at his cheek and his eyes liven up with mirth. Mista makes Giorno laugh with a helplessness that tilts his world on its axis. It fills Giorno’s heart with joy; it makes it sink with fear.
Mista is distracting in other ways, of course—in more physical, embarrassing ways. Whenever he gets too close, which is often as Mista is very much a hugger, Giorno’s heart skips a beat and his body tenses up; thanks to this, he’s made a point of maintaining a certain distance between them when they’re around others, lest his flustered reaction shatter his composed, dignified image. And, of course, Mista is so painfully handsome. Giorno doesn’t know how many times he’s had to tear his eyes away from his muscled navel. He doesn’t know how many nights he’s spent tossing frustratedly in an empty bed, pressing his face into his pillow as he struggles to smother a desire that will forever go unfulfilled.
After all, there is no chance that Mista could ever return his feelings. Giorno is certain of it—he will be rejected, without a doubt, as surely as the sky is blue and the earth orbits the sun. Mista isn’t attracted to men. At least, Giorno has never seen him express it, even though hope burns stupidly in his chest at the possibility. If Mista liked men, surely it would be far more obvious. If Mista liked men, surely Giorno would have noticed by now. If Mista liked men, surely his eyes would linger on them in the same way that they linger on women, in the same way that Giorno’s eyes linger on him; but they don’t, and they won’t, and Giorno’s feelings will forever be unrequited.
That’s why Giorno hates being in love. His feelings derail his thoughts, sending them barrelling pointlessly off-course; his feelings seize control of his body, making it freeze up or overheat as he desperately struggles to get back to equilibrium. It’s terrifying. It makes him feel naked, exposed, as if his heart is beating out there in the open for the world to mock. But it also makes him feel for a few breathless moments like he is floating, among the clouds, in a world where gravity doesn’t exist; everything is more beautiful when Mista is by his side, as if he is the sun casting light on all the buildings and trees, bringing out hidden facets and details in them that he had never seen before, that he will never see again…
But Giorno lies sleeplessly in bed, his chest aching, wishing he could carve his love out of his heart and throw it to the wolves.
When Giorno is twenty-eight, he wishes his feelings for Mista would go away.
He wishes it, fervently, as he rushes to a dying Mista’s side; he wishes it as he desperately sends life coursing through cooling veins, as his palms grow slick with blood and Mista wheezes at his ear. “You can’t die,” mutters Giorno, willing Gold Experience to hurry up, willing the gaping hole in Mista’s chest to stop bleeding, to knit itself back together. “You can’t die. You can’t die, Guido. I forbid it. I won’t let you. I’ll kill you myself. So, don’t you dare—”
Eventually, Mista pulls through, but it was close. It was far too close. Giorno had felt his life hanging by a thread, had felt that thread grow taut, taut, and almost snap. At the time he’d managed to stay somewhat calm and do what had to be done, but now that Mista is out of sight and the adrenaline drains from his body, he suddenly feels sick. Nausea swoops through his stomach; he falls to his knees and heaves, painfully, a hand pressed to his mouth as he desperately tries to hold back the inevitable.
In the end, Fugo finds him on the floor in a corner of his office, curled up and trembling as he retches uncontrollably into his cupped hands. “Jesus christ,” Giorno hears him say; then there’s a hand rubbing his back and another holding his hair out of his face. “You really love him, don’t you? I mean, I got this close to dying five months ago, and you were very composed about it.” Fugo pauses. “Oh, I don’t mean that as a criticism; I think that attitude’s befitting of the Don of Passione. But then…Mista has always been your weakness, hasn’t he?”
Fugo is right. Giorno thought so when he heard him speak, irritated as he was by Fugo’s lack of tact; he thinks so again when he’s tangled in his bedsheets hours later, soaked in sweat, his eyes burning as he shudders in fear of a world where everything is the same but Mista is no more. It’s unbecoming of the Don of Passione to feel so strongly for a subordinate. His feelings should be stamped out; they cannot be permitted to exist. Giorno would crush them if he could, but he doesn’t know how. Ten long years have passed, and he has loved Mista every second of them. He doesn’t know how to stop loving him. He really, truly doesn’t.
He’s still heads over heels in love with Mista when he’s sitting at his bedside a few days later, nervously scrutinising his every move for any hint of something being off. “Hey, you don’t have to look at me like that,” says Mista lightly, raising his arm and flexing. “I’m all good! Cheer up, GioGio. That pinched expression doesn’t look good on you.”
Giorno looks at Mista, his stomach tying itself into knots, and wishes he could tell him just how scared he is that he’ll die for him one day. “I can’t lose you,” he wants to say. “I can’t lose you, because I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you with all of my heart, I love you from the depths of my soul, because you are everything I admire that I cannot find in myself. Losing you would kill me. I would never be the same again. A piece of me would be lost forever, buried deep beneath the earth with you—so, Guido, please, promise that you will never die for me, promise that you will never throw your life away for me…”
But the words die on his tongue; Giorno lowers his head, swallows hard, and doesn’t speak.
When Giorno is thirty-eight, he wishes his feelings for Mista would go away.
This time, it’s too late to take it back, though; the words have already left his lips, and Mista is staring at him with wide eyes. “I—” Giorno’s face burns. “I apologise.” It had been an accident. He hadn’t meant to say anything. When his tongue had been slightly loosened by drink, what was a stray but commonplace thought had left his lips in the form of an accidental confession—for he’s loved Mista for so many years that his feelings have become unremarkable to him and unworthy of consideration, as he loves Mista with the thoughtlessness of breathing air. “I shouldn’t have said that.” I love you, he’d said, I love you so much, Guido. “Please, forget this ever happened.” Cold sweat is beading on his palms. Giorno doesn’t wipe his hands on his pants, for that would give him away, but he feels his heart breaking as he says, “Our relationship can remain the same moving forward. There’s nothing I expect from you.” He looks away, unable to meet Mista’s gaze. “…I’m really sorry, Guido.” His voice is brittle. “I hope you can forget about this.”
Silence. Giorno’s words hang between them, lingering there like the residual scent of rain after a thunderstorm. He forces himself to breathe evenly—in, out, in, out—like a machine. He wants to throw up, but he swallows the feeling down. Perhaps Mista will never see him the same way again. Perhaps their friendship has died tonight. Giorno’s thoughts spiral, helplessly, as he stands there under the too-bright ceiling lights. It’s his fault. Of course it’s his fault. He’s fed his feelings for years and years, and it’s pathetic that he’s so deeply and painfully in love with someone who will never love him back. There’s no point to it. There’s no end goal, nothing to be achieved; there was never anything in store for him but heartbreak, longing and regret. He wonders if he should say more. He wonders if he should reassure Mista that he will never make a pass at him. His heart aching, hating the words that he is about to say, he opens his mouth and—
“But what if I don’t want to forget?” says Mista.
Giorno’s eyes dart upwards. But before he can take in the expression on Mista’s face, he’s distracted by a warm hand cupping his cheek. He leans into the touch, his breath catching in his throat as a decades-old ache is suddenly, finally soothed. “You…” He looks up at Mista, perplexed by the affection shining in his eyes. Giorno is too scared to hope; but he hopes, nonetheless, as Mista’s hands trace the line of his jaw and linger on his chin. “You…”
“I love you too, GioGio,” says Mista, smiling. “I’ve loved you for years. I figured nothing could happen between us because you’re the Don and all, but…” He laughs, and Giorno’s chest warms and he laughs too, helplessly, as he always does. “I’m glad to be wrong.” He leans in, slowly. “I’m glad…”
And he kisses Giorno, softly, tenderly, and the years fall away under the press of their lips.
When they draw apart, Giorno can hardly speak. He feels like his heart is about to burst, like he’s about to faint; but he digs his heels into the ground, determined to express his feelings properly for the first time. “I love you, Guido,” he says, his voice shaking. “I love you so much…”
And, for the first time in his life, he doesn’t want his feelings to go away at all.
fin.