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It was only dawn as they stood by an old alleyway on the outskirts of Napoli, surrounded by two dead bodies.
It was supposed to be a simple—if confidential—business errand; one not dissimilar to ones they had already run before. Instead, they’d been met with two unfamiliar faces smirking at them in a cocky display of confidence that said: we’ve figured you out .
Despite the enemies being Stand users, the fight didn’t take long; this wasn’t the first attempt at overthrowing Giorno’s rule of Passione, not by a long shot. Mista was used to this, used to protecting Giorno—to the two of them protecting each other.
What he wasn’t used to—what he would likely never get used to—was losing his gun during a fight. One of the enemies’ Stand managed to snatch it from him during a brief moment of his inattention. No. 5’s cries reverberated around him in an anxious display as the other Pistols started arguing, all trying to blame each other for the situation.
And it was Gold Experience, in its silent scrutiny, who diffused that situation; just a simple glance at them, its eyes lingering on the Pistols for a few seconds, for them to fly over to Giorno and help him win this fight, together. A hushed whisper from Giorno to the Pistols, a plan already created in his head, and the enemies were defeated not long after.
As the Pistols celebrated their victory, Mista’s gaze was transfixed on Giorno: at his figure situated against the rising sun in the sky, his chest rising heavily with every breath, his brows furrowed as he stared at Mista’s gun in a stranger’s hand; he seemed more bothered by this than even Mista himself was. The enemy was unconscious by then, most likely already dead, but Giorno still bent down to rip Mista’s gun from her limp hand and, with no hesitation, put a bullet through her head.
Giorno stood in place for a while, his back facing Mista, but his head bowed slightly down, like he was considering the gun in his hand. A few moments later he turned around, walked up to Mista, took his hand in his, and handed him his gun back.
The smell of gunsmoke lingered in the air as they shared a glance between each other; they didn't have to say anything. It may have only been a few months that they knew each other, but there was something about the two of them that made them click. Mista hadn’t yet figured out what it was, exactly, but he was certain that a connection like that was precious, rare like a pearl. Rare in a way that people like Giorno himself are.
Mista vaguely registered Giorno reaching into the pocket of his pants to take out a handkerchief. The press of it against Mista’s cheek brought him back to reality, and Mista studied Giorno for a moment: his eyes examined Mista’s features but avoided his eyes, now, betraying a confusing combination of guilt and affection. Mista was curious, but knew better than to ask. An open display of emotion from Giorno was not an everyday occurrence, after all—why risk losing it?
Giorno's hand lingered on Mista’s cheek after a failed attempt to clean the blood that had already dried, the handkerchief the only barrier between them. It was soft against his face and it smelled like roses and wood and freshly cut grass.
It smelled like Giorno.
In the morning, they were back at the office; back to their routine, like nothing had happened before they got there.
Mista stood against the wall by an open window, cleaning his gun to try and combat the drowsiness brought on by the sleepless night. There was a shuffling noise coming from the desk in front of him: the sound of paper being flipped again and again and the low buzz of the paper shredder working overtime, as Giorno rummaged through Diavolo’s old documents, trying to find anything that might help them make sense of their earlier encounter. He was alternating between doing that and working through their present-day paperwork, just in case anyone were to walk through the door. Classic Giorno, ever so careful.
Mista kept glancing at him, trying to assess just how much this situation had affected him, but from where he was standing he could just barely see his face—just the back of his jaw, the slope of his neck, and the braid lying against it. His hair was still somewhat disheveled due to the prior battle: the victory rolls just a tad crooked now, and a few strands here and there sticking out of the braid and swaying slightly thanks to the wind coming from the window.
It was— it was a good look on him, even in its current chaos; in a word, his hair was pretty . It wasn’t the first time this had come to Mista’s mind—they had spent so much time together that it didn’t surprise him that he'd taken an interest in the way Giorno looked. And maybe it was because Mista was only half-awake, but today Giorno was especially pleasing to look at, with his hair framed by the sun and moved lightly by the breeze. The sunlight made it even more golden that it already was and Mista always considered gold—the color of royalty, of success—to fit Giorno best.
One of the locks fell onto Giorno’s face and Giorno put it behind his ear, his earrings catching light, reflecting it, and—
Giorno shifted in his chair, a minute movement of his body, straightening his back, rolling his shoulders. He must have felt he was being stared at.
“What is it, Mista?” Giorno asked without looking away from the paper he was reading. Like he didn’t need to glance at Mista to know something was going through his mind.
“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering—” Mista moved from his place by the wall to sit on Giorno’s desk. He smiled, hoping to lift up the mood of the room. “When did you pierce your ears?”
It took Giorno a few moments to reply, as if this wasn’t the question he was expecting. “A few years ago.” Giorno paused again, before continuing, “I must’ve been around thirteen or fourteen.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not really,” Giorno replied while signing the paper. “Why are you asking?”
“I’ve been thinking of piercing mine.” His smile widened. “You think it’d suit me?”
Giorno finally looked up, wearing a small smile of his own now. He studied Mista’s face for a second before answering, “I think it would.” One corner of his lips lifted higher than the other. “Not that it would actually matter, considering your hat covers your ears,” he pointed out, amusement exuding from his voice.
Mista’s hand quickly shot up to where his hat was hiding his ear. His grin faltered. “Shit, I haven’t even thought of that.”
Giorno went back to reading but a ghost of a smile was still visible across his features. “Don’t let me discourage you from doing it, though.” His voice, a few octaves lower now, turned surprisingly soft. “If you want to, you should.”
Mista just hummed in response, looking away from Giorno, his hand still playing with the hem of his hat.
Spending free time with Giorno felt… nice.
They were sitting on a bench in a park near Giorno’s house. The scent of rain could still be felt in the air, but most of the puddles were already gone thanks to the hot late-summer sun shining directly above them. Neither of them had any Passione business to attend to for the day, still waiting for Fugo to gather information on the dawn incident , as Mista came to call it, so Mista suggested going outside and relaxing. They spent too much time cramped inside Giorno’s office on a daily basis already.
A few months ago, back when they had just defeated Diavolo, it was hard to get Giorno to even consider taking a break. He was always alert and on edge, busy rebuilding Passione to be the organization he envisioned it to be. But as time went on and he got a hang of being the Don, he became more willing to entertain the idea of forgetting his responsibilities every once in a while—a feat Mista gladly took all the credit for.
Of course, it wasn’t every day that they had time to unwind—the two of them still took their job seriously, treating it as their main priority. But Mista appreciated every moment he could slack off and pretend to be living out the simple, straight-forward life he had always dreamed of. Especially if it was with Giorno.
“And that’s the thing!” Mista exclaimed. “It’s simply not fair that the best clothes are all so expensive. ‘Cause what’s a man gonna do if he sees a dope-ass sweater he likes, if not spend half his paycheck on it? It’s either that or stealing,” Mista decided.
Giorno was looking at him throughout his whole diatribe, clearly listening to all of his arguments and tangents. His gaze was admittedly a little bit distracting, especially with how well his eyes matched the green of the park—it made Mista stumble over his words here and there, in a way nothing had in quite a while. But even so, he was happy to have someone to hear out his ideas without dismissing them outright.
“I’m actually pretty good at pickpocketing,” Giorno said, apropos of the topic.
“Oh, yeah?” Mista asked in an intrigued tone.
“I could show you. Do you have any money on you?” There was a mischievous glint in his eyes.
As Mista nodded, Giorno considered him, expression unreadable. After a few beats he closed his eyes, uncrossed his arms and hid his hands in his pockets. Mista sat straighter—tried to prevent his eyes from blinking as much as possible as to keep an eye out for any suspicious moves coming from Giorno.
But Giorno smirked. “No, you don’t.” He took one hand out and in it, wedged between his pointer and middle finger, he held a 50,000 lira note.
Mista’s jaw dropped in surprise, his eyes widened, eyebrows pulling upwards. He frantically searched the pockets of his shorts, only to find them empty.
“Holy shit! How did you do that?!”
Giorno hummed. “Practice.” He handed him the note back. “Admittedly, ever since I got Gold Experience it’s gotten a lot easier.”
Mista stared at him in awe and a grin appeared on his face. He felt laughter bubbling up in his chest; a fluttering sensation. “Man, if only I knew how to do that back when I was tight on cash. Coulda spared me lots of black eyes.”
Giorno raised a brow at that, like he was asking him to elaborate.
“Look, man, some of us can’t do that sneaky pickpocketing thing like you can.” Mista brought both of his hands up in a shrugging motion. “I got into some fights, and of course , the fourth one was the first one I ever lost.” Mista flashed the numbers with his fingers as they came up to emphasize his point. “The number’s cursed, I’m telling ya!”
“In that case, you should’ve stopped after the third fight, no? Find some other way to earn money?”
Mista sighed. “See, that was my plan! I actually managed to land a job at some small movie theater, so you’d think I’d be done with it, right,” he said, crossing his arms, “but then one day after work I heard some group of guys trashing Pretty Woman and I couldn’t let that slide,” Mista said, with no sense of irony coming from his voice.
It wasn’t easy to catch Giorno off guard: he always gave off the impression of being five steps ahead, of having everything, every little detail figured out, like he could somehow read everyone else’s thoughts—so Mista took pride in every instance of his surprise; in the way he blinked for half a second while his whole body seemed to shift, right before catching himself, straightening his posture, and again becoming the ever-composed Giorno. “Is a different opinion on a movie really enough for you to try to beat somebody up?” Giorno asked with a breathless laughter.
“ Pretty Woman isn’t just a movie, it’s a masterpiece!”
“I’m going to have to take your word for it.”
Mista gasped, genuinely shocked. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it?!”
Giorno made a noncommittal shrug with his shoulders, his head shaking slightly. Mista stared at him for a second, stunned and at a loss for words, before a lightbulb lit up in his mind.
“Say,” Mista started, sneaking his arm around Giorno’s shoulder, just like he’d done many times before—a familiar gesture to the two of them, now. He continued, “wanna watch it together, then? I have it on VHS.”
Giorno shifted his weight onto Mista and closed his eyes. He seemed to be at ease. Content. The corners of his lips lifted slightly and Mista’s smile widened in response without him even realizing it. The sunlight beaming on Mista's face caused it to heat up, so he relaxed against the bench and closed his eyes, too. They sat there in silence for a bit, taking in the weather, listening to the birds chirping, the wind rushing through the leaves.
“I don’t see why not.”
The circumstances surrounding the dawn incident made sense one afternoon, after Fugo came back with his findings, confirming a simple theory: someone was selling Passione information to the rivaling gangs.
Giorno had mentioned this to Mista before: that he’d been suspecting this since the beginning—it wasn’t surprising that some people would disagree with the changes that had been implemented the day Giorno took over Passione. Ever since then, there had been some tension between him and other mafiosi—particularly the ones who were advantaged by the previous state of things, by the way Diavolo ran the organization. Some of them disregarded the new rules, others broke even the ones that were there since before Giorno’s ascension, thinking that Giorno would be too busy rearranging everything to notice. Giorno could understand those reactions but he was very clear with his intentions for Passione and he didn’t like to repeat himself. And Mista knew Giorno would stop at nothing to realize his dream.
“From the information Fugo and Polnareff could gather, we’re dealing with three people, most likely non-Stand users this time, though we can’t know for sure,” Giorno said, his voice entirely professional but carrying with it a hint of discreteness; Gold Experience had a hand on the ground, being on the lookout for any foreign life-energy.
Mista, standing in front of Giorno’s desk, skimmed through the paper that had been handed to him and read out three names written in emboldened text.
Giorno nodded. “There isn’t anything on them in Diavolo’s old archives, so we can safely assume those are aliases.”
Mista hummed in acknowledgement, still eyeing the papers in his hand. According to the report, the location where the traitors exchanged information was some sort of basement, five kilometers to the north of Napoli. “So, what’s the plan?”
Giorno straightened in his seat. “The most likely time when they will be at the location we tracked is Wednesday, during my regular meeting with the Capos. I am going to attend it as usual, so that we don’t raise any suspicions.” Giorno paused for a bit, making sure Mista didn't have any questions. “As such, you will be going solo,” he said, unwavering, but still looking out for any signs of disagreement coming from Mista.
Mista didn’t respond right away. Something about going alone didn’t sit well with him—the two of them, he and Giorno, hadn’t gone on any missions without one another since Giorno’s takeover. They always trained together. It was reassuring to have Giorno by his side, always there in case of an emergency. Always quick on his feet, able to come up with solutions, no matter the situation. He had come to rely on that now, for better or for worse.
He looked at Giorno, ready to voice some reservations. But his voice died in his throat when faced with the professionalism, the authority that Giorno gave off simply sitting in his chair. His eyes were clear, not clouded by any sentimentality; his mind operating on pure logic and the desire to see his vision through. There was no room for any feelings and qualms born from intuition. Mista quickly shot down any doubts that had been lingering in his mind. There was no reason to waver. Mista knew how skilled he was at assassinations—that’s what his Stand was made for, after all—and missions similar to this one were not something he hadn’t done before, with or without having other people involved.
“All I gotta do is just kill them then, yeah?” Mista’s tone of voice was as casual as ever as he dropped the papers onto the desk.
“More or less. Ideally, I would want you to get as much information out of them as you could. But that may prove difficult, as you will be outnumbered, so your main goal is to get rid of them.”
Mista nodded. Still, there was one thing he had to know. “Why not just send the assassin team after them? I mean, I’ll do it, don’t get me wrong, but they’re a whole team, made just for stuff like this. Probably could get any info you’d want out of them.”
“The fewer people are aware of this, the less likely it is for the traitors to find out that we know about them.” His eyesight briefly turned to the door, his voice dropping ever so slightly. “They are working behind our backs so they are definitely cautious as-is. Giving any mission to the assassins right now would only make them more so.”
Mista hummed in understanding, shifting on his feet.
“That,” Giorno added, and there was something about the way he said that word—a little louder, pointedly, with a weird sort of satisfaction—that grabbed Mista’s attention, caused him to look straight into his eyes, “and I could never trust anyone to do this task properly as much as I trust you.”
Mista knew, rationally, that this was Giorno solely assessing the right course of action. Of course he’d trust Mista, who had been in his immediate surroundings nearly every day for several months now, more than a group of people he’d met a couple of times at most; but his chest still swelled in pride upon hearing him say that—upon receiving an admission of appreciation, a recognition of his loyalty.
Mista grabbed his gun and spun it in his hand, grinning at him. “Don’t worry, Giorno. I’ll teach the traitors a lesson.”
Giorno always kept his Don persona up when he was talking business, even when it was just the two of them, but Mista still caught the faint, barely-noticeable yet unmistakable fondness in his voice as he said, “I expect nothing less from you.”
Mista’s legs gave out after he put a bullet through the last enemy’s head.
The mission didn’t go… exactly as planned. There were four traitors instead of the suspected three; and as much as Mista knows that shouldn’t affect him— It’s just three plus one, nothing special about this number , he remembered Fugo saying one time, and he’d tried telling himself, making himself believe it—Mista couldn’t quite keep a clear head throughout the battle because of that fact regardless. The additional person also turned out to be a stand user, which complicated the matters even further.
Normally, Mista would have taken them out from the shadows, hiding away and not coming into contact with them. Sex Pistols would have changed the bullets' trajectories multiple times, instilling confusion in the minds of the enemies, giving him an advantage that only a cover could provide. This should have been an easy job.
But somehow, he had been found out right away, before he could even fire the first bullet. The fourth person’s Stand must have had some sort of tracking ability, alerting its user to his presence not even a second after Mista had entered the basement.
In the end, Mista did manage to kill all of them, but not without acquiring a few injuries of his own.
He had been stabbed three times—once in his left calf and twice in his shoulder. But those were fine , they hurt as all hell but he could live with them. What he was much more worried about was his abdomen, where he’d been shot two times in quick succession.
He didn’t know how to reposition himself to minimize the strain being put on the wounds. He decided to just not move at all, staying instead on his side. He tried covering the injured tissue with his hand but it didn’t stop the blood from gushing out and pooling around him from between his fingers. The situation had become far more dire than he had anticipated. Far more dire than he should have allowed it to become.
He swallowed his pride and fished out his phone with his unoccupied hand. He scrolled down his contact list until he found Giorno’s name ( I expect nothing less from you , reverberated thickly in his mind, making him freeze for half a second; he stomped it down as best as he could—he valued his life more than his wounded ego). He started writing a short message to Giorno informing him of the situation he had found himself in. He hoped he typed it out well enough, that it was coherent enough ; the pain and vertigo made it hard for him to focus on anything, much less a small phone screen or proper sentence structure. He hit send and, as he relaxed his grip on the device, it slipped to the floor next to him with a low, empty thud.
Breathing took everything out of him, now, all rugged and labored. He tried focusing on evening it out—breathe in, hold it, breathe out, repeat—though that proved to be nearly impossible with the way his mind gradually grew more and more unable to focus on anything at all. The only thing keeping him conscious was the knowledge, the certainty, that Giorno would show up here any second now; because wouldn’t it be even worse, even more embarrassing if, after half-assing the mission, he blacked out before Giorno got a chance to come and heal him?
But as much as he tried to fight it, that exhaustion, that urge to pass out—unmistakably, it was winning. His vision was getting blurry. The only thing he could make out was a small window near the ceiling, letting in the tiniest amount of light. He would almost start regretting his decision to shoot the lamp down during the fight to disorient his opponents, if it wasn’t this exact idea that actually helped him turn the tide in his favor.
Not that he could hold a single thought for longer than a second to genuinely regret anything. He felt too cold, like there was an avalanche inside his bones and internal organs. The negligible amount of sunlight directly hitting his skin did nothing to help him from trembling.
With the back of his mind he registered his phone buzzing, muffled slightly by the blood it was drowning in, but he couldn’t muster the energy to pick it up.
He didn’t know how long he lied there before it became too taxing to stop his eyes from closing.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in Giorno’s bedroom, with his wounds all healed, and Giorno sleeping on a chair next to his bed.
Mista could tell there was something heavy in the air, though he couldn’t name what it was.
He was lying on a sofa and absent-mindedly flipping through some novel. He’d been trying to read it all morning, since Giorno had told him to just rest for the day, but he couldn’t focus on anything that was written in it. He stared at the letters and they stared right back at him. His thoughts were too occupied with the way Giorno was acting. Or, rather, not acting.
Mista looked up at Giorno—sitting in his usual place, working away—for what seemed to be the hundredth time today.
To an outside observer Giorno would look the same way he always did when he was working—focused, determined, put-together. Perfect. But there was a half-eaten sandwich lying on a plate, surrounded by two empty coffee mugs, and he was spending far too much time reading just a single page.
Mista would chuck it up to simple tiredness—Giorno did, afterall, sleep on a chair instead of in his bed last night—if it wasn’t for the expression he was making.
When Giorno wanted to, felt the need to, he was unmatched in his ability to conceal his feelings; Mista could give him that. It was admirable, really—it couldn’t have been easy to learn to do that and to stick to it, and Mista could always appreciate dedication to one’s goals. It was a useful trait in their line of work. But what Giorno failed to consider was that Mista was consistently getting better at reading him, understanding him without him needing to say a single word, thanks to, if nothing else, being with him and experiencing those emotions together. It was all about subtleties with Giorno, and Mista had figured a lot of them out by now.
This wasn’t the face he wore while working—which could only mean that he was thinking about something that wasn’t business, wasn’t Passione .
“Alright,” Mista started, closing the book and standing up. “What’s wrong, Giorno?”
“Hm? Nothing’s wrong,” he said, his voice even and clear; unbothered by Mista walking up to him.
Mista stopped before him. “You haven’t eaten your sandwich at all.” He moved the plate slightly with his finger to emphasize his point. His other hand found his hip, his fingers drumming against it impatiently. “Something’s obviously bothering you.”
Giorno just blinked. “I suppose I am a bit tired but I'm okay. Sorry to have worried you.” He picked up his coffee mug to take a sip from it before realizing it was empty. “I’m busy, so–”
“C’mon, man, you know you don’t gotta do this.”
Giorno froze up at those words, his voice cutting off in his throat. He put his cup down and leaned back in his armchair.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Yesterday’s events left me… somewhat unsettled. I must’ve stopped being used to you being hurt.”
They were getting somewhere now, at least, but Mista still eyed him, unconvinced. “I get injured all the time. And this didn’t come even close to what happened in Venezia.” Mista moved to sit down on the armrest of Giorno’s chair. “What’s the real reason?”
“I was with you in Venezia,” Giorno reminded. His gaze clouded with guilt and his eyes shifted to look outside the window. He seemed to be considering his answer—if he even wanted to answer at all. Mista knew that Giorno detested having to show—to even acknowledge —any vulnerability that he so expertly tried to bury deep inside himself, so Mista gave him the space he needed to gather his thoughts, to consider his words. The room became so deathly silent Mista could hear some indecipherable chatter coming from outside the walls of the office.
When Giorno made up his mind, without taking his eyes off the window, he said in a somber tone, “I shouldn’t have sent you there alone.” He paused for a moment, and then, somehow even softer, added, “I don’t want to be too late to save you , too.”
Mista’s chest squeezed tight with memories.
An elevator. A ball-shaped stone. San Giorgio Maggiore. A beach on Sardegna. The Colosseum. The fate that caused it all.
Mista swallowed. “I don’t think I’m fated to die just yet.” He remembered trust, the sunrise, and the resolve in Giorno’s eyes. “And I know you wouldn’t let me anyway. So I don’t mind getting shot once in a while if it's for your cause. Because I believe in your dream, Giorno. In our dream.” Mista grabbed his hand and kissed it lightly to emphasize his point, to prove his devotion.
Giorno exhaled a deep breath, like he didn’t know he was holding it. There was a deliberateness in his movement as his hand turned to cup Mista’s jaw, lifting his face in the process, making them look at each other. His thumb was gently touching Mista’s lips, lingering there for a couple of seconds before moving upward to stroke his cheek. Giorno’s eyes were filled with something akin to affection, yet it was a new look on Giorno—an emotion Mista couldn’t quite place.
Mista wanted to say something but by now he didn’t know what, so he put his own hand over Giorno’s instead, hoping it would convey whatever his brain was trying to get at. Maybe Giorno would understand it more than Mista himself—after all, wasn’t he the one that had always been better at thinking things through?
Giorno’s gaze was intense on Mista, and Mista didn’t know being stared at, studied, could make him feel like he was almost suffocating right until it happened. There was determination in Giorno’s eyes as he opened his mouth, like he was finally ready to verbalize something that’d been bugging him for a while, when a sudden knock on the door startled them both away from each other. Giorno got visibly surprised for a moment—his eyes going wide—which in a beat turned into annoyance. He cursed under his breath as he readjusted himself on his chair to face the door, turning away from Mista. The realization of how closely he and Giorno had been sitting to each other dawned on Mista and he quickly got off the armrest to take his usual place by the wall. At the last glimpse of Giorno’s face Mista noted that any surprise, annoyance, or whatever emotion he had been expressing earlier were gone.
But the tips of his ears were red.
Mista didn’t remember the last time he was this nervous to have someone over.
It had occurred to him earlier today that Giorno had never been in his apartment before. It made him realize that his living space was kind of a mess.
Mista didn’t exactly feel embarrassed about it, though. He barely spent time here anymore—he didn't even sleep here every night, much less doing anything else. The organization took a lot of his free time and, even when he wasn’t working, he hung out in Giorno’s office, or in his general presence. So, really, Giorno’s visit was the perfect excuse to finally get rid of all the dust that had accumulated on his furniture.
Giorno was running a bit late but Mista figured that was probably for the best, since it gave him more time to organize everything before his arrival.
After cleaning everything—from the floors, to the couch, and to the TV, even—he put some soft cushions onto the armchair, since he assumed that was where Giorno would want to sit. It was much more comfortable than his old, worn-down couch, in any case.
He had checked if the VHS player was still working—he’d been worried that it might’ve broken down since the last time he’d used it—and once he had assessed that everything was alright, he put the movie cassette inside.
Mista heard the doorbell. He went to open the door. Behind it stood Giorno, and the first thing Mista noticed was that his hair wasn’t in its usual braid, and instead rested loosely against his shoulders and back. He was holding an umbrella and Mista's brows furrowed briefly at that—he hadn't noticed that it'd started raining.
After exchanging greetings, Mista let Giorno inside and closed the door. Giorno looked around the living room. If he thought anything of it he didn't show it, though his gaze stopped briefly on the cross hanging above the door frame.
He turned to Mista. “I’m sorry I’m late. I ran into some people I know on my way here and they did not want to leave me alone.”
A sudden bout of concern straightened Mista’s back. “Mafiosi?”
Giorno made a noncommittal hand gesture, as if to dismiss Mista’s worries. “Just some old classmates.”
Mista exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. “Guess they wanted to know why you haven’t been coming to school, huh?” There was a barely contained mirth in his voice, as the image of Giorno—of Don Giovanna , the leader of the Neapolitan crime syndicate—attending something as mundane as an algebra class flashed through his mind.
“That was the main reason, yes. Though, there was this one girl that could not stop asking me to hang out with her later.” Giorno’s voice was verging on irritation, the kind that suggested that he had experienced this many times before.
Mista huffed a laugh. “That’s ‘cause you’re pretty, dude!” An emotion Mista couldn’t pin down flashed through Giorno’s face. Mista panicked, his pulse picking up. “Or, uh, handsome?” He brought his hands up defensively. “Pretty–handsome. Handsome in a pretty way.” God, what was he even talking about?
Fortunately for him, Giorno didn’t seem to take any of this in a bad way. If anything, he now looked somewhat amused by the situation—by Mista’s frantic attempts at avoiding offending Giorno.
Mista cleared his throat. “I’ll go make us some popcorn. Feel free to sit wherever you want,” he said, with the hope to change the topic. “Do you like it salty or buttery?”
“Either’s fine.”
Mista nodded and turned away. Once in the kitchen, he opened the cabinet, picked the first packaging from the top and put it in the microwave. His heart was beating in tandem with the popping corn. He needed to get himself together.
The room filled with a buttery smell.
Mista sighed deeply. There was nothing to get nervous or awkward about; he wasn't sure where this was even coming from—he and Giorno had hung out countless of times before. His fingers drummed against the counter lightly, in a steady rhythm, to help him calm down and clear his head. He walked out of the kitchen with a bowl in his arms.
Giorno was sitting cross-legged on the couch, with one of the cushions from the armchair in his lap. Mista smiled at him and sat next to him, putting the bowl between them.
“Should I prepare myself for a physical confrontation if I end up not liking the movie?” Giorno joked, looking at Mista from the corner of his eyes.
Mista, humming, performatively put his thumb and index finger under his chin. His eyes fluttered shut, briefly, feigning deep consideration. “Y’know what, for you I’ll make an exception.”
As Giorno’s lips were curling upward, Mista took the remote and pressed play.
Maybe for the first time in his life, Mista wasn’t completely focused on watching Pretty Woman . He checked Giorno’s reaction almost every five minutes, first staring at him openly, and later deciding that he should probably lay that off. He didn’t want to distract him from watching the movie.
But that didn’t stop himself from not being able to concentrate whenever their fingers brushed while they were reaching for popcorn.
It was weird to be so aware of how their bodies were touching, when before he hadn’t paid it any thought.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad sort of weird—just one he’d noticed. A contrast to how he'd felt previously. They were sitting so close, now, that Mista could hear every laugh Giorno huffed under his breath. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to move away from Giorno or move closer to him. It was a bit overwhelming, yet somehow, not enough at the same time. He was glad Giorno was paying attention to the movie because otherwise, this would be pretty embarrassing. But maybe Giorno could notice his behavior regardless; Mista wouldn't put it past him—multitasking was a valued trait in their line of work, and Giorno seemed to be created for it, born to be the leader of their organization and acting like it, always: even when they weren't working. Mista had known that for such a long time, but something about it—today, right now—pulled at his heart. He grabbed more popcorn.
Mista managed to get used to this feeling, when he realized, with a pang in his chest, that Giorno was relaxed —after how stressed he was not so long ago, worrying about Mista's wellbeing, he was here, in Mista's apartment, enjoying Mista's favorite movie. He glanced at the cushion in Giorno's lap, at the way his fingers were playing with it, kneading it, and Mista felt his lips pull upward in a fond smile. After that, he could go back to enjoying the movie and every little comment they both made about the plot.
They were about halfway through the film, when the TV turned off out of nowhere, surprising both of them.
“What the hell!” Mista exclaimed. He rose from the couch and bent down in front of the screen to look for what might have caused this. He reached for the extension cord, started unplugging various devices from the sockets, cables piling around him on the floor. So much for him cleaning up earlier today.
Giorno stood up as well. He walked up to the lightswitch, tried turning it on and off, but to no avail. The lights didn’t work either.
“I think there’s been a power outage,” he said, pointing at the window.
As Mista's eyes turned toward it, he saw—not much but for the sky, covered with deep, dark, almost-purple clouds. Through the silence that befell between him and Giorno, he could now hear the rain chattering heavily against the concrete outside. He stood up to take a closer look. With his hands on the windowsill, he looked out of the window: there was no artificial light anywhere: other people’s apartments were as dark as his, and the streetlamps were not lit up, either. It was dark enough to barely make out anything, the sunset completely obscured by the thick clouds, when suddenly, bright lightning split the sky in two, followed a few moments later by a loud rumble of thunder.
Behind him, Mista could hear Giorno walking up to him to join him by the window.
Mista sighed, resigned. “That— explains it, I guess. Not much we can do but wait it out.”
Giorno was standing next to him, when Mista turned toward him again; but instead of looking outside, Giorno’s eyes were trained on the framed pictures placed on the windowsill, his face showing the slightest hint of affection: it was in his eyes, the slightly raised eyebrows, the tiniest curl of his lips.
There were three pictures there: two of them being Mista’s old childhood photos, showing Mista and his family in the Campanian countryside, and the remaining one was of Buccellati's team, from when Mista had just joined the mafia.
“That dog is almost as big as you,” Giorno mused when he picked one picture up, his voice soft around the words.
Mista grinned at him, any remaining irritation over the blackout situation washing out of him.
“He was huge ,” Mista replied. He looked closer at the photo and considered it for a moment. He still remembered how soft the dog’s fur was, how big and fluffy it felt when he was petting it. “When I was a kid, my grandma would let me get on his back and ride him like a horse.” There was a trace of nostalgia in his words, followed by a chuckle.
Giorno hummed at that, as if to confirm that he was listening. He put the picture down, resting his hands on the surface of the windowsill, as his eyes glided over to the next photo—the one of Team Buccellati.
Giorno didn’t pick it up. The atmosphere turned more serious, Mista could feel this in the air, as Giorno’s back straightened slightly and his expression became more subdued and pulled-back. He looked as if he was having a conversation with himself in his mind: gaze clouded, thoughtful, almost unreadable. But there was a hint of guilt in his eyes, just beneath the cold exterior. He didn’t share any thoughts about this picture, and the two of them remained silent.
Mista's hand lingered just above Giorno's shoulder, just centimeters from touching him; he didn’t know if he wanted to comfort Giorno, or share his pain—but he knew that he wanted to let him know that he got it, whatever it was that he was feeling. At the same time, maybe it was better to let him work through this himself, not distracting him.
Mista lowered his hand, finding himself at an impasse. Instead, he lowered his own eyes to the picture and took a deep breath. He missed them; he missed Narancia’s laughter, Buccellati’s stern advice, and even Abbacchio’s grumpy attitude. They should be there with them, and Mista could feel his heart sink—heavy, as if made of lead—when he thought of how much life they were going to miss out on.
He bit his lip and looked away.
In the corner of his eyes, he noticed a flicker of light from some distance away—an apartment block near his own seemed to get their electricity back. He decided to see if this also applied to his own home, so he moved from where he was standing to check if the lightswitch worked. But, as he turned, his foot caught on the cables that were still scattered on the floor. He felt himself losing balance, when—
Giorno's hand grabbed his arm with a solid grip, preventing him from falling, grounding him firmly on his feet again.
“Woah, that was a close one,” Mista said once the adrenaline rush was finally dying down. His eyes dropped to Giorno's hand, which still hadn't moved from where it was holding Mista, but the press of it was lighter now, almost soothing; in some weird way it was making Mista's mind short-circuit. "You really are my lucky boy,” he said under his breath, the words spilling from his throat unwittingly, barely a whisper.
A beat of silence between them. Then, Giorno quirked one eyebrow up. “Your lucky boy?”
Mista blinked, his brain finally processing what he’d said.
“Yeah, y’know, you’re always there for me, helping me out and bringing me luck and—” he started rambling, saying whatever came to his mind. “But, uh, you can just be a lucky boy if you’re uncomfortable being,” Mista paused for a second and added a quieter, “mine.”
Something in Giorno’s expression shifted. The change was so minute that Mista wouldn’t have been able to catch it if it wasn’t for how close they were standing to each other, still at arm’s length. Giorno remained silent, focused entirely on reading Mista, and the stare felt so intense, so piercing, that Mista had to avert his own eyes. He bit his lip and went through what he said once again in his mind.
“Oh! Fuck, sorry, Giorno. Wrong phrasing.” Mista forced a nervous laugh out of himself. “I can’t seem to say anything properly today, huh?”
Even now, Giorno’s stare was unrelenting, and Mista could not stop the sweat gathering on his hands, or the way his mouth started to dry, no matter how many times he tried to swallow. Giorno’s hand slid to Mista’s wrist, igniting every nerve in Mista’s arm on its way down, the weight of it making him feel the urge to shudder. In his peripheral vision, he saw Giorno’s eyes searching for something in Mista’s face, in his expression, before they closed. Giorno leaned forward, and tugged Mista lightly toward him.
It was a simple brush of their lips that couldn’t have lasted longer than a second, so short and fleeting that Mista hadn’t even gotten the chance to close his own eyes, and yet it made everything finally click into place.
A choke from the back of Mista’s throat escaped his lips, high and abrupt, a mix of realization and understanding. He blinked twice while staring at Giorno’s lips, like he couldn’t decipher if he’d imagined what had just happened or not.
Mista’s face felt hot. That couldn’t possibly be due to the sunlight this time.
“Mista.” He met Giorno’s eyes and felt himself inhale involuntarily. The resolve they held, usually reserved exclusively for his dream, now directed at him— only him—combined with a faint, pink blush sitting high on his cheeks made Mista’s heart jump out of his chest. “I don’t mind being yours, as long you’re mine as well.”
Mista didn’t know how to respond, completely at a loss for words, so instead he grabbed Giorno’s face in his hands and kissed him. Giorno hummed into the kiss and returned it, their lips gliding against each other. Giorno’s lips were so soft, a velvet against his own chapped ones; in the back of his mind, Mista decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to invest in some chapstick.
When they parted, Giorno—with a mischievous glint in his eyes—took Mista’s hand in his and brought it to his lips, placing a small peck to the top of it.
They were in Giorno’s office again one late evening, after hours—if that concept even existed for the two of them. The only source of light in the room, pouring in through the window, were the street lamps and the moon, visible thanks to the clear night sky.
Giorno was sitting in his armchair with Mista in his lap, the paperwork on his desk long forgotten. One of Giorno’s hands was on Mista’s cheek and the other rested on his hip, keeping him close. Mista’s hands were playing with Giorno’s braid, tugging every now and then. Their lips were connected in a lazy kiss.
Without breaking the kiss, Giorno’s hand traveled upward, his fingertips slowly finding their way under Mista’s hat until they felt something unexpected. He leaned back to look at Mista, moved his hat out of the way to look at his ears and his face broke into a smile so bright, Mista thought it might blind him.
“Ladybug earrings?”
“I figured you’d appreciate the sentiment.”
Giorno’s eyes turned soft as they stared into Mista’s, his eyebrows rising higher.
“I do appreciate it,” he whispered.
With him being so close, Mista could appreciate every detail of his face, basked in the moonlight. From the color of his hair, somehow still beautifully golden even without the sun to accentuate it; to his soft lips; to his eyes and the way his eyelashes framed them. To the way he stared right back at Mista, with an expression full of something Mista was finally beginning to recognize.
His thumb started slowly making small circular motions over Mista’s hipbone, almost mindlessly, and a shiver ran up Mista’s spine. Mista sighed in contentment and untangled his hands from Giorno’s hair to put them behind his neck, pulling him closer to make his lips meet his.
And with his heart rate increasing, and his cheeks pink, Mista decided that this new way of spending time with Giorno felt nice, too.