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Giorno Giovanna wasn’t really like his father, Dio Brando, at all. If you interacted with Giorno first, you could tell he was a kind, well-rounded individual with a love for nature and animals. You would assume that his parents would be much of the same. If you interacted with Dio first, you could tell he was loud, brash, over the top but oddly refined, and you would end up assuming his son would be like that, too.
Well, you end up learning that Giorno was the way he was as a result of his father’s rather… interesting personality, to say the least.
So one would also be able to assume from this that open house and PTA meetings were, to say the least, absolutely batshit crazy.
When Giorno was a kid, he looked vastly different from his father. He had dark hair and it was in more of a bowl-cut style, a far cry from the impeccably-styled blonde braid he had years later. He was an especially quiet kid and well-liked by his teacher and peers. When the open house finally rolled around, people found it hard to believe that Giorno’s father was like that.
Giorno came in rather modestly dressed of his own accord and Dio, well, it was something flashier and rather gaudy.
Dio was wearing a white, feathery coat, coupled with a white turtleneck and white pants, with some sunglasses and a rather elegant pair of shoes. Wait, are those all designer? What does his dad do for a living? Why does it look like he has fangs. And in one hand was a Starbucks frappuccino he had been sipping on for the entire drive to the school.
What an icon.
“Sorry we came a bit late,” Dio told Giorno’s teacher. “My skin is easily irritated by the sun and no amount of sunscreen can help.”
“Oh! Well that’s perfectly okay, Mr. Giovanna,” the teacher replied, trying to ignore the Starbucks which was probably the reason they were late.
“Brando,” he corrected. “Giovanna is his mother’s name. Unfortunately, she left some time ago and now it’s just me and my boy.” Dio took the opportunity to ruffle Giorno’s hair, something he wasn’t quite keen on but it was something he had to roll with.
After the teacher ushered the two inside, Giorno wandered over to play with some of the blocks as his father and teacher talked to each other.
“Your son is wonderful to have in class. He’s so kind to others and is a fantastic drawer. Giorno has the best grades in the class, actually! Just don’t tell the other parents. They might get jealous,” they said with a wink.
“Is that so?” Dio said, proud smile on his face as he watched his son build a house. “Excellent! I expect nothing less from a Brando!”
The teacher took this to mean that the Brando side of the family placed strong emphasis on family and familial ties, and living up to their name, which Giorno was doing. Dio would absolutely be bragging about his son to other parents if the pair saw them out and about. He would let them know that his son was far superior and loudly boast about him...
...Which embarrassed Giorno and he would tell his peer the next day not to worry about his father and how he has a big ego. He would do as best as he could with the vocabulary of a 5-year-old.
Giorno’s 1st grade teacher was a bit less keen on Giorno and his behavior.
For some reason, this teacher just seemed to have it out for him. If one student accidentally stabbed his finger with a pencil and Giorno looked at it to help and comfort them, the teacher would pounce immediately and blame Giorno, even if the other student told the teacher it wasn’t his fault.
Something went missing? Giorno stole it.
Someone hurt themselves? Giorno did it.
Something’s broken? Giorno broke it.
His grades were still phenomenal and he did everything right, but slowly the grades started to tank. Giorno asked the teacher for help, and said that even if his answers on something matched a classmate’s, he would have his marked wrong and the classmate’s would be marked right. The teacher twisted this.
“Oh, so now you’re cheating, Giorno?”
Giorno was surprised. “What? No! I’m not! I-”
“You’re going to the principal’s office and your parents will be called.”
Dio already knew what was happening and believed his son. Why would he believe someone that was intentionally wronging a student, and a Brando at that? He refused to let their family name get besmirched by this lowly waste of space.
When the open house rolled around that year, the teacher made their thoughts known to Dio and chastised him for raising a son like this, that Giorno could and would grow up to be a delinquent if he, Dio, didn’t intervene and be a better parent.
Getting back in the car (which was most definitely not suited for a child), Dio told Giorno to wait for a few minutes and that he would be back soon. When Dio came back, Giorno asked where he had gone.
“I was just exchanging some… certain words with your teacher. It’s nothing to worry to your little head about.”
Word came the next day that this particular teacher would be out for the rest of the year, and the new teacher that came in heard from Giorno about his troubles with the one before them. They were shocked, terribly shocked someone, let alone a teacher, would do this to a student, and his grades were readjusted accordingly. Giorno’s record of supposed “misdeeds” were expunged and all was right in the world.
Then, one year later, Dio started attending PTA meetings at the suggestion of Giorno’s 2nd grade teacher, who felt he could bring a lot to the table. What exactly that was is up for debate by like, everyone, but as soon as Dio learned that he could command a stage full of parents -- read: hijack it all and run it -- he was immediately on board.
Everyone was so… different than what he expected. Why was everyone so peppy? Why are there only moms here? What is this agenda? Why is everyone named “Karen” or “Laurie” or “Debbie” or “Barbara” or “Sharon” or “Pam” or other generic names? Was he supposed to bring snacks? WHAT THE HELL IS A VEGETABLE TRAY? WHAT THE HELL IS QUINOA?
Dio was, much to his chagrin, hopelessly lost.
“Hello!” one woman with a clipboard said, approaching him. “I’m Debbie! Is it your first time here? What’s your name?” She extended her hand.
Tentatively, Dio shook it, introducing himself. “Yes, it is indeed my first time here. I am Dio. My son is Giorno Giovanna.”
“Oh! Really? My son and your son are great friends! We should organize a playdate!”
Playdate? Dio thought. What is that? Is she wanting our two children to go on a date? What is this woman implying?
“We have a playground at our house in the backyard that I’m sure Giorno would love .”
Oh! Dio thought again. They get together and… play. What an odd name for it. We did not call children playing together that back in my youth. Interesting.
“If Giorno would like it, then I have no complaints,” Dio responded. “What do you do for a living?” was one of the first questions of many Dio asked this poor mother before it turned into what could be called a lowkey interrogation session.
She smiled and went along with all the questions, laughing. “Such an overprotective parent! I can understand, though. There’s a lot of weird people out in the world today that harm children.”
“Yes… that’s right.” Really, Dio was just asking these questions to see if this child was suitable enough for Giorno to play with. He would not have his son interacting with any unsavory characters, children included. They would need to prove themselves. But how? Maybe he could plant a snake in the yard and see if the child ran away instead of helping his son. They would need to prove their character in any way possible.
What if he left knives out to see if they would play with them? A child that does wouldn’t be good for Giorno to be around.
Or leave them unsupervised and see if they got into anything they shouldn’t? He couldn’t have that at all.
Anything short of life-threatening would suffice. If they were not willing to help or safe his child, they were not worthy, and not worthy of being friends with Giorno, a proud Brando. Dio wouldn’t have it.
“And what do you do?” Debbie asked him.
Well he certainly couldn’t say he was a vampire, of course, not like he would actually tell anyone. Dio had acquired vast riches over the years and that is what they comfortably sat on, no jobs needed.
“I’m self-employed.”
“So you work from home?”
“I do.”
“What do you do?”
These questions were wearing his patience thin and he didn’t understand why she was the one asking so many questions now. Luckily he had rehearsed most of a reply just in case of events like these.
“I’m the CEO of a business I run from home, hence being self-employed. I have many employees faithful to me and my company, for which I am very grateful. What I do is… complicated to explain.”
“I see,” Debbie chuckled. “It’s probably got to do with management or something like that, right? Lots of numbers and complicated figures.”
“More or less.”
If one could call hiring people to sabotage anything the Joestar family did to make everything more difficult for them and paying them handsomely if they succeeded, so they would continuously return to offer their help, then sure, he was in the management business. Regardless, it was still a business.
“The taxes must be something, huh?”
Oh, yeah. Taxes. He’d forgotten about those. He should probably look into that.
“They are. I have an accountant do those for me, though.”
Eventually Debbie to his relief left to speak with other parents as Dio lingered by the snack table where the veggie tray was. For some reason he was utterly confused by it and stared at it for a few minutes and luckily no one noticed. This was something people brought to these kinds of things? Willingly? And people liked it? Next time he would bring some snacks of his own, some delicious hors d’oeuvres. Some warm brie and pear with honey, perhaps, or something with caviar.
He was broken out of his haute bourgeoisie thoughts when the meeting was called to order and everyone took a seat. Dio felt rather superior to everyone else and liked it that way; all that he needed now was to become the PTA leader, his ultimate goal (aside from ruining the Joestar’s). He would have that power and would have that position no matter the cost.
It was a rather mundane meeting and Dio found himself quite bored until it came to the point where the floor was opened to the parents who had requests or suggestions, and Dio raised his hand as he recalled a conversation he had with Giorno earlier that morning.
“What would you liked changed at your school?” Dio asked, kneeling by Giorno as ate his breakfast.
“Better food!” he declared, stopping what he was doing and suddenly taking on a serious look, surprising Dio.
“Better food?” he repeated. “But you don’t get the food there! I pack your lunch every morning!”
“Sometimes they have cheese sticks and I get those! They serve them every Friday and they need to be better! That’s what everyone else says, too!”
“Who cares about what they think! I make you delicious food every morning for you to eat for lunch and you’re eating that food ?”
“And a better playground!” Giorno said, slamming his 2nd-grader fists down on the table. “It’s so old and falling apart and we all get splinters! It’s not fun!”
Dio blinked, wondering where all of this was coming from. Giorno was relatively mild-mannered and very much unlike his father, so the fact that he was getting to extreme levels passion (even if it was over shitty cafeteria food and a playground older than Dio himself), gave Dio pause for a moment before grinning wide.
“My dear boy! What passion you have!”
Giorno looked back down at his breakfast. “It’s what everyone else thinks, too.”
“Yes, but-!” Dio lifted Giorno up onto his shoulders, with the latter being excited he could touch the ceiling with his hands. “-You showed me true passion! You have made me prouder to be your father today! Those foolish parents, they do not know what is coming this evening! They are not prepared for me, Dio!”
And here Dio was, bringing up those topics his son raised, and the other parents agreed with him. It turns out, their children were saying the same thing about the food and the playground. School supplies were then brought up, saying the art teachers needed far more funding. (Though this was not something Dio would become concerned with for handful of years now, he would later come to the conclusion that he did not like that his son’s creative abilities were being limited by football which, it turns out, is a different sport depending on where you live in the world, and that wasn’t something Dio knew. He was, in a word, displeased, especially when he learned rugby isn’t widely available in most American public schools.)
Wildly the meeting got out of control more and more, with more topics being brought up than the woman running everything could handle. After ten more minutes of squabbling, she declared the meeting over and the next meeting time and place would be sent home with their child or children.
Dio had an ace up his sleeve, though. Using The World to stop time for a moment during the debating/arguing, he slipped the agenda for the meeting into his pocket. The chaos the meeting fell into distracted the lady too much and she sped out without checking to make sure she had everything.
While he might not have intended to throw the meeting into utter chaos, he took responsibility for the points made by everyone. He didn’t even have to say it himself; all the mom’s were thanking him for bringing up such points and opening a wider discussion, making more and more good points as new ones were brought up. Dio was having his ego stroked and he was loving it. (An unintentional side-effect however was single moms trying to ask him out for coffee. Not only was he not interested, it was not feasible. Literally. He would die.) Perhaps he should attend more of these “Parent-Teacher Associations” after all.
On the way home, after Dio picked him up from the daycare at the school where the other children of PTA mom’s were, Giorno asked, “So? How did it go? What did the other parents say about my ideas?”
Dio raised an eyebrow and looked in the rear-view mirror. “Your ideas?”
“Well, yeah.” Giorno went sheepish all of a sudden. “I brought them up to everyone first, that things weren’t that great. And then everyone agreed with me! So I thought I should tell you to tell everyone else.”
He looked back at him in the rear-view when he finished and let out a low chuckle. “My son, I am immensely proud of you today. Your ideas reflected well upon me, and by extension, us. The Brando’s are not a force to be trifled with. It’s USELESS! ”
“USELESS!” Giorno shouted back, hands raised up excitedly. For the rest of the ride back, the two of them screamed “USELESS” and “MUDA” repeatedly. To Dio, Giorno could do nothing to him that would upset him.
Until the next day, when Giorno told his father that there was a new student in the class as he cooked dinner that evening.
“Really?” Dio replied, paying attention more to what was cooking in a pan on the stove and not staining his custom “LIVE, LAUGH, MUDA” chef’s apron. “What are they like?”
“She’s super cool!” Giorno said. “Her family’s from Japan. Her name’s Jolyne and some of her hair is blonde and the rest is black! She really likes butterflies and we drew some together. I met her dad, too!”
For some reason, he had a not-so-great feeling about this girl and her family, for whatever reason. Dio always trusted his gut, but he was too busy working on dinner to inquire any more about her. “That’s nice, son. Maybe we’ll see them tomorrow when the school bus comes.”
And they did.
Giorno stood down at the end of the driveway as Dio stood in the shade of the screened-in porch, keeping an eye on him as he drank his cup of coffee, once again with his “LIVE, LAUGH, MUDA” apron on from breakfast. He scanned up and down the sidewalk, when he heard a girly voice from across the street shout, “GIORNO!”
“JOLYNE!”
His eyes shot up and saw a small girl dash across the street to see Giorno, where they talked.
“Oooh, your house looks super cool!” Jolyne said.
“Thanks! It’s really big. It’s so much fun to play hide-and-seek in. There’s so many places to hide!”
“Maybe I can come over sometime and we can do that!”
“Yeah!” Giorno turned to his father. “Is that okay, dad?”
Before he could answer, Jolyne shouted, “Hi, Mr. Brando!”
And before he could answer her, a man’s voice joined in.
“Good grief, Jolyne. What have I told you about looking both ways before crossing the street?”
“Sorry, dad.”
Looking up from a sip of his coffee, Dio stopped, froze, and with an increasingly strong and shaky grip, shattered his coffee mug. (Oh good, now his apron was stained, too.)
Jolyne’s father stood next to her, hand resting on her head as he said, “Hello, Giorno. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Kujo!”
Kujo?
“My dad’s on the porch. His skin is super sensitive to the sun so he tries to stay out of it as much as he can.”
“That’s fine,” Mr. Kujo responded, looking up in that direction. “I’m sure I-” Then they locked eyes.
They stood in silence as did their children, looking back and forth between their parents, before looking back at each other and shrugging their shoulders. When finally, at long last, shouts broke the silence.
“JOTARO!”
“DIO!”