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"Hey, Giogio", calls Mista from the armchair where he's splayed over, watching a varied selection of culinary videos while Sex Pistols take a nap on his shoulders.
"Hmm?"
Giorno raises his eyes from the document he's been perusing for half an hour and looks at him.
"Did you know England doesn't have a kidney bank?"
Giorno furrows his brows.
"Why wouldn't they?"
Mista shrugs.
"Don't know. But they do have a Liverpool."
Mista won't stop giggling even after Giorno chucks three paper balls at his head.
+
"I've got a question for you", Mista says after occupying the chair beside Giorno at the dinner table. They're alone on the house, with Fugo and Narancia on a trip to Venice and not likely to come back in less than 48 hours and Sheila E visiting Trish in Rome. The night is quiet around them.
"Say it", Giorno replies.
"Can February March?"
He raises an eyebrow and taps the fork against his lips, thinking.
"... I don't think so?", he offers after a minute. Mista nods with a satisfied smile on his face.
"You're right; it cannot". Mista slurps the rest of his coffee. "But April May."
Giorno groans so loud he’s sure the rest of the gang can hear him from wherever they might be now.
+
"Hi, puddin’", says Mista, walking to Giorno's desk in long strides to give him a kiss. The nickname is terribly corny, and Giorno doesn't mind it one bit - when it's used in private, of course. "Do you want to hear about ghosts?"
The feeling like he's about to walk right into a terrible pun is a little less welcome.
"Not particularly."
Mista straightens his back, a click sound leaving his mouth as he makes finger guns at Giorno.
"That's the spirit."
He gives Mista his most unimpressed stare.
"I hope you know I’m really tempted to sic Gold Experience on you."
+
Giorno's cellphone, this time located over Stack of Paper #5, rings twice. He reaches for it and tries to retrieve it without looking up and without disturbing the fragile balance keeping all the sheets on top of the desk.
He gets it on the third try and checks the screen - it's a text from Mista, who's currently carrying out a mission in Capri. Giorno can't help but smile.
He opens the text.
"hey, lucky boy1 <3 miss u v much
also, what do u call a fish w/no eyes"
He's sure he'll have expression lines sooner than intended if Mista keeps making him frown like that.
"Missing you too, Guido.
And... I don't know, blind?"
He hits the "Send" button and leaves the phone nearby this time. Maybe it's something important for the task Mista was assigned for.
The answer comes 30 seconds later.
"nope. a fsh"
Giorno stares at the screen, not believing what he just read. And maybe laughing a bit at the ridiculous word.
How did his life come to this again?
"That's NOT what I'm paying you for, Guido."
+
"How do French cats talk to each other?"
They're on Mista's room, arms around each other's waists and Giorno's head resting on Mista's shoulder while they watch The Aristocats. There isn't a better movie to watch as you spring this kind of question on someone, Giorno thinks, as nonsense as the damn thing sounds.
"By purring and chirping?" He's glad he had complied when Narancia insisted he read the Wikipedia page about cats. "Meowing is generally reserved to mothers and their kittens, or for us humans..."
Mista silenced him with a finger over his lips.
"Love it when you're smart", he says, kissing his forehead. "But nope."
"So how do they do it?"
"They chat2."
Giorno makes a strangled sound, and spends the rest of the night trying to stiffle his giggles everytime he looks at the screen and there’s a cat talking. It's a long night.
+
One day, Giorno gives in to his curiosity.
"Where do you even learn these jokes, Guido", he asks, wiping the mirror after having spit toothpaste foam all over it because of an awful banana joke. Beside him, Mista rinses his own mouth.
"Narancia sends me lots of them". He turns the faucet off and stretches an arm past Giorno to grab a towel. "But the Les Mis one I found by myself."
"Good work on that one, by the way."
Mista smiles as if to say "thank you", and almost elbows Giorno on the face as he pulls the towel from the handle.
"I should be the one doing that, don't you think", Giorno says, going back to his task of retrieving his usual tiny hairpins from the box placed in front of him.
"Sorry", Mista says with a contrite smile. Which turns a little too radiant in a matter of seconds. "I just remembered there's still one left."
"One what?"
"One pun, of course."
"Good to know your supplies are not unlimited". Giorno's tone is mocking as he says it, but deep down he knows - and he knows Mista knows - he'd miss this if Mista were to stop. "But do go on, please."
Mista glances at him from the mirror, eyes twinkling.
"OK, like. You're a living being, you occupy space and you have mass. You know what that means, right?"
Giorno runs through the selection of random facts he has stored in his brain, to no avail. He thinks he's heard all those words together in a single context before, but he has no idea of when or why.
He shakes his head.
That's when Mista grabs him by the waist, pressing their bodies flush.
"It means you matter."
Giorno blinks at their reflection on the stained mirror, at their shared shirtlessness, at his ridiculous half-pinned hair, at Mista - who smells of mint toothpaste now - pressing a kiss against his temple.
“... Jesus Christ, that was so fucking cheesy.”
Mista makes a face at him, and that’s when he starts laughing. Which earns him an elbow to the side - this time on purpose.
“Yes, it was, don’t try to deny it”, Giorno says, trying to catch his breath. He waits until he has it under control, more or less, to tilt his head up to face Mista, a wide smile etched on his features. “Reminds me of a certain someone whom I love very much.”
Mista sticks out his tongue at him, but Giorno can feel he has a small smile of their own as their lips meet.
“What if I told you I lied”, he says, escaping Giorno’s attempts to coax him into another kiss.
“How come?”
“Well, actually I still have a lot of jokes in store.”
Giorno kisses his bare shoulder.
“What if I told you I was expecting that?”, he says against the olive skin. Mista gives his waist a light squeeze.
“‘Course you did. Anyway, did I ever tell you about the cannibals and the clown?”
Giorno rolls his eyes with a snort.
"Don't make me regret giving you carte blanche to do this."
It’s not a surprise when it goes straight to Giorno’s top ten “silliest things I’ve heard all week”.