Chapter Text
Buccellati owns two cars. The first, a hand-me-down from his late father. Paolo Buccellati had bought, on meager savings, a 1980 Fiat 131 the day after he found out his wife was pregnant. A fisherman by trade, Paolo spent much more time on his boat and gaining a livelihood from it. Il Vagabondo , emblazoned in faded paint on the stern.
Well, Paolo died. Buccellati turned seventeen and inherited Il Vagabondo, the two-story Napoli house by the water, medical bills, and that Fiat. Soon after, his illicit gang-related affairs had put Buccellati on the path of one Pannacotta Fugo, recently disowned with nowhere to go. Buccellati, newly solo and with no support from teammates and fresh from Paolo’s funeral, had taken pity enough to enlist this Pannacotta Fugo.
And his house was very empty, up until this point. Paolo had invested in a house with three bedrooms, an open plan kitchen, and white stucco archways.
(The other car is a pristine Ferrari with beautiful white leather upholstery. A flashy purchase, but one Buccellati cherishes dearly, judging by the amount of upkeep he devotes to it. Fugo jokingly calls it the Buccellati marbles. The mafioso would have put that car on the will before Fugo if he could.)
That was three years ago, and the Fiat is a hand-me-down once again. It’s primarily driven by Fugo, who’d graduated from high school before they met and now works exclusively keeping the books and running non-lethal errands for the previously-mentioned illicit gang-related affairs. That’s why Fugo lives in that two-story yellow house, anyway.
He doesn’t really know what Narancia’s utility is. Abbacchio, he can understand, is an adult that helps Buccellati collect money or chop people up or whatever they do. Maybe before he got to know Narancia, Fugo would’ve questioned what the other teenager brought to the table; now he’s spent enough time in the dusty corners of Buccellati’s childhood home to understand this arrangement is an emotionally-charged, mutually beneficial one. Fugo, Abbacchio, and Narancia (and recently, Mista) get a place to exist freely (barring a few rules) and Buccellati gets to take care of other people in the pathological mothering that you’d normally only see in some species of North American bears.
So: Fugo handles paperwork, Abbacchio and Mista do… gang… stuff, and Narancia studies and works his ass off to graduate. Maybe only a year or two late, God willing. Buccellati really only puts up a fight about Narancia becoming further entrenched in his lifestyle; everyone else in their circle already has the kind of shitty, unemployable track record that guarantees illegal work to survive. Abbacchio’s been blacklisted from any government agency, Mista shook off multiple homicide charges, and Fugo…
Fugo doesn’t think he’ll get his degree anytime soon.
Anyways, that’s why Fugo’s driving a shitty Fiat at midnight on a Friday. Narancia is drumming the dashboard to the beat of one of the pirated, crackly cassettes he’d shoved in the center console slot while the younger boy wasn’t looking. Snoop Dogg’s illegally acquired intellectual property blares from the speakers. They pull up to the Burger king drive-thru window and Narancia rattles off his order, leaning over Fugo to stick his head out of the window and his knee in whatever fleshy parts of Fugo he can. “Gimme uh… a whopper with onion rings and- Oh! mozzy sticks. And a medium chocolate shake. Grazie!”
“The hell’s a mozzy stick ?” Mista raises his head tiredly from the backseat, bag of frozen peas balanced delicately on his head. He’s so delirious from a head wound that he’s temporarily lost the social ability to brush over Narancia’s brand of speaking.
“We’re here, Mista. What do you want?” He squints at the LEDs outside the window.
“It’s fucking Burger King, man. Just get me some fries, I don’t know.” He drops out of view of the rearview mirror, turning over and squeaking his stupid Gucci tiger print leather pants. If he gets blood on the seats Fugo’s… not going to clean it, probably. It’s not like he cleaned the last two bloodstains.
The thing is, no one’s first choice is to eat at Burger King. Or second, if we’re being honest. Narancia will eat anything you put in front of him if he’s desperate enough, but will always, always vote for pizza. Mista’s less stubborn overall and a good team player, but his one hang up (besides the tetraphobia and miscellaneous related superstitions) is that McDonalds is bad luck. This is on account of a story Fugo’s heard at least ten times, involving two of Mista’s cousins and the playplace in a McDonalds near Melfi being permanently shut down. Fugo can’t stand most takeout food in general, something rubbed off on him that thinks fast food is cheap and unhealthy. Which, to be fair, it mostly is. Fugo will still eat it because of this instead of in spite of it, something nice about the feeling of mutually assured destruction between man and burger. The three boys’ conflicting opinions lead to a compromise that none of them are really happy with.
Fugo leans out the window, “Can I also get two orders of fries and a chicken sandwich as well?” The tinny voice on the other end tells them to pull up. Fugo presents his hand to Narancia, palm up and expectant.
“Damn, thought you forgot I offered to pay.” He fishes a couple crumpled bills out of his jeans, glumly slapping the lira in the driver’s hand.
“Sorry Nara. You promised.” Narancia had actually begged, something about wanting the trio of them to go together to cheer up Mista, and not encroaching on Fugo’s ‘claim’ over being the sole driver of Buccellati’s dad’s shitty Fiat. Narancia’s the kind of boy to never do things in halves, and to want everyone to be included because ‘ It just feels right that way .’ Probably a holdover from when he ran with petty thieves that told him life was about brotherhood and loyalty before turning around and spitting on Narancia, or maybe from when his mom died and his dad completely checked out. Bless his stupid heart.
At the window, Fugo reaches out to pass the grimey money over, receiving their food and dumping it onto a glum Narancia’s lap. “Aw, cheer up, Narancia, I’m the one paying for gas here.”
“I guess…” He reaches in, extracting a fry. “Hey, stop in the parking lot, we can smoke and then eat!” Mista groans at Narancia’s change of plans from the backseat, “Shut up man! I can’t at the house– Buccellati will just know, somehow.” That is a good point.
It isn’t until Fugo’s about to take a hit off the crusty, chewed up spliff that a shrill scream rings out. The source of the noise rummages through the oil-stained bag, frantically checking underneath it and on the floor by his feet.
“My milkshake! Where’s my milkshake!?” Narancia pivots from open distress to volatile anger, his switchblade already out with a flick of his wrist and pointed at the bridge of Fugo’s nose, “I swear to God if y-”
“I don’t drink that processed garbage, shit-for-brains!”
“THEN WHO DID, YOU FUCKING MAMMONE -”
“OH MY GOD THEY PROBABLY FORGOT IT.” Mista grips both headrests, expression pinched beyond belief. The bag of peas is now slowly thawing under the driver seat along with Mista’s drenched beanie. “Stop screaming, both of you.” He grabs a handful of fries and lays back down. Fugo’s irritated, sure, but Narancia still has his knife out and the Fiat’s seats have barely any un-sliced surface area left. The younger teen grabs both receipt and bag, popping the door open with a creak and storming towards the brightly-lit establishment.
To say Fugo’s memory is good is an understatement. He’d gotten his start memorizing times tables and monologues from television faster than most children learn to walk, and that kind of snowballed to reading Il Principe and Plato’s greater works before he hit puberty. He’d amassed an array of rich people hobbies and knowledge troves from playing the piano to horse riding, courtesy of his parents. They’d seen the potential of this brain and put it on the accelerated version of the accelerated track (against the wishes of most school administrators and notably, one expensive child psychologist) and hurtling towards the heat death of pre-law.
Pannacotta hadn’t really had a choice in the matter. Actually, in many matters. Especially not during his brief one and a half semester stint at university. But honestly, what else was he going to do with this brain of his? At the time, he’d bought into his parents' rationale about how his intelligence made him different, special, worthy of more trials and more suffering (like Jesus, though his Catholic mother would’ve slapped him for thinking that). He’d been led to believe he was destined for greatness (which meant a nice dollhouse and a nice doll family when he grew up) and what he had couldn’t be wasted on childish things. He hadn’t touched a toy since he was four years old, if that time at the Police station-
but that doesn’t count. Now, it’s almost a triumph over his shitty parents, to burn his precious brain away smoking terrible weed and sleeping all day and eating terrible chicken sandwiches and working for a man with half as much as he had with twice the will to do anything about it.
Anyways. His brain is still mostly very good at recalling things, not involving whatever neuroses it carries that make Pannacotta Fugo’s daily life worse at random intervals. He remembers ordering and paying for a shake, and he’ll remember whatever poor mammone is about to be yelled at for wasting everyone’s time.
Fugo breaks the threshold of night air, swinging double doors open to a bright and empty Burger King. The floors are sticky with cleaner ( squeak, squeak, squeak ) as he walks up to the counter. He dumps the bag in front of the cashier and sneers. He’s ready to put up a fight.
“We’re missing an item.” He pulls the receipt out, “A chocolate milkshake-” Fugo’s sentence sputters and dies. The cashier tilts his head, wordlessy cradling the bottom of the receipt with one well-manicured hand, shiny round eyes framed by long lashes scanning it quickly. Those eyes snap back to Fugo, who visibly startles at the intense eye contact. The figure has curly blonde hair, arranged in a neat braid with three victory rolls (?) pinned up on his forehead. The worker gives a closed smile, full lips curving up just so slightly. The cashier’s cheek dimples, and Fugo almost feels his eye twitch. Why is an Asian barbie doll working the night shift at Burger King of all places?
“I apologize. I’ll get that ready for you right now. One moment.” He runs a hand over the bumpy, freckled knuckles of Fugo’s receipt-laden hand and strides into the kitchen. He leaves Fugo alone at the register, frozen and unwillingly stuck a cloud of floral perfume trailing behind. Who does their hair like that for work? He had the look and presence of someone decidedly classy, more fit being a server at some swanky mid-tier restaurant, or an expensive cafe. Or living in a castle with long hair to climb with. Fugo suddenly feels self conscious about his aggressive entrance despite the boy’s unbothered affect, a picture-perfect service worker. Fugo smooths his rumpled shirt and frizzy bangs when the cashier returns quickly, large chocolate shake in hand. They’d ordered a medium. The cashier holds the drink and a straw out to Fugo.
The nametag pinned to his shirt reads ‘Giorno’ with a star drawn in marker. A new day.
Fugo hesitantly grabs the proffered shake, taking care to avoid the cashier/milkshake machine operator’s fingers. There’s a beaded bracelet clasped around his wrist, cheap plastic pink and gold beads catching fluorescent light and containing it in small circles of color. Fugo feels the condensation freeze his fingers. “Ah- Thanks. Sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?” Giorno says this with such genuine curiosity that Fugo can’t help but want to explain himself, for some reason. Like he cares what this weirdo dye job with long eyelashes thinks of him. The eye contact is back. Fugo’s just trying to be polite, of course.
“Uh. I don’t really know.” Fugo laughs a little, “I guess, having to bother you about this. It’s not even for me.” He shrugs, looking down at the whip cream.
“...It’s my job.” He smiles, eyes scrunching. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Fugo takes the hint.
~★~
“I’ll get a… croissan’wich. And coffee.” Fugo doesn’t know what a croissan’wich is. He probably won’t even eat it, and will opt instead to chuck it at Narancia’s open mouth like a dog when the older boy gets home from school.
He’s actually at Burger King again, this time on a Tuesday morning.
That’s the funny thing. The only reason he can order whatever a croissan’wich is supposed to be is because it’s breakfast serving hours. Fugo usually wakes up long after breakfast hours have ended at any establishment. He’d actually come yesterday evening too, but couldn’t find a head of blonde victory rolls and left without ordering anything, defeat lined in his stature. It’s not like Fugo has timed obligations, a job to clock into or homework for class. He technically does work, but it’s on his own schedule in his own environment, and Buccellati is a really nice boss (though he wonders how the mafia side of the man’s circle views him, how Fugo would view him if he was more involved). Fugo has to sort through the end-of-month books, along with the never-ending paperwork organization he chips away at with Buccellati’s filing cabinet, but, that’s most of it.
A crotchety woman who’s probably seen Pompeii in it’s prime takes his order while Giorno Marker Star flits about in the back, filling orders. His short braid trails behind, swinging this way and that and kicking up plumes of floral perfume that Fugo turns away from.
It’s actually Giorno who hands him the to-go bag, this time with a new bracelet. This one has dark blue and red beads, with metal charms that Fugo doesn’t have time to study. He murmurs a small, distant thanks. Pleasant smile intact, “Have a nice day,” the other boy breathes, elegantly turning his attention back towards the deep fryer.
~★~
“Fugo, are you eating with us tonight?” The teenager looks up from his work to the older man leaning in his bedroom doorway. Bucellati’s in a simple sweater and slacks today, probably just got home. There’s a spot of blood on his jaw that flits out of view when his hair shifts. “I’m making seared trout with asparagus.” Buccellati’s eyes catch on the state of the room, and Fugo bites the inside of his cheek, trying not to break skin again.
“... Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I was just making sure. You’ve been eating out a lot.” Fugo cringes. Hiding the empty Burger King bags in the trash would have basically been admitting to some wrongdoing, which Fugo is still somehow just prideful enough to resist.
“Yeah,” Fugo scrubs his eyes, numbers and tallies swimming in his vision, “Yeah. I’m coming.” He gets up from the small desk, throwing the papers into a folder and shoving that folder in between two dusty textbooks.
~★~
He truly can’t explain why he wants to see the employee so much, the lengths to which he’s been blowing his meager check (allowance) on this Sisyphean task. He has some hypotheses, however:
- He like likes Giorno.
- He finds Giorno weird enough to disrupt a monotonous and empty schedule.
- He’s developed a taste for Burger King food.
The ‘Crush’ theory obviously bears no further analysis. It’s not like Fugo is gay or anything (he thinks), though truthfully there’s not much in his experiences he’d even want to compare to.
The “Weirdo” theory is currently the strongest contender for the fact that both aspects of this theory are already true.
- Giorno is weird. He stares and never speaks loudly, and obviously spends time on his appearance for a fast food job where one is likely to get covered in fry oil and sauces. He also hasn’t looked angry, irritated, or tired even once in the now at least a dozen times Fugo’s seen him at work. He says please and thank you religiously, and has a charismatic charm Fugo’s starting to take notice of from afar, outside of the blast radius. It works spectacularly well on nonnas and swooning teenagers who need their head checked.
- Fugo is bored. It’s nice having an angel in the form of a twenty year old mafioso provide for him out of the seemingly endless kindness of his heart, but it’s not like Fugo can go back to university right now– maybe ever. The gang work Buccellati has him do is laughably easy, and Narancia is his only friend to pass time with. He is not Narancia’s only friend. (Mista doesn’t count. He could hang out with a rock and say he ‘had a chill time.’ Fugo would wager that Mista could stop wars if only they'd let him into the meeting room and pull out a deck of cards.)
The ‘acquired taste’ theory is debatable, because Fugo still wouldn’t say any of the food appeals to him. Whatever positive emotions come out of the establishment could likely be attributed to a Giorno sighting. The teenager’s pushing fries around, drawing squiggly lines on the tray with ketchup. Giorno was here today, and the sight of curly gold hair was actually enough to make him sit down inside for once. A kid screams three tables away and he has to suppress a flinch.
Fugo sighs, pushing the tray away and pulling his notebook out. He has some numbers listed out in a table on the page, sorted by time and accompanied with percent totals and grossing income. Buccellati always denied context on what the numbers he works with mean, but Fugo’s spent enough time doing this to infer he’s dealing with something immoral, something so unlike Buccellati. Something gang-like. Fugo’s spent a lot of time thinking about the cognitive dissonance between Buccellati as a person and him as a gangster, still unable to reconcile the two together. Like Buccellati only lives half of a life, tied up in a situation of his own creation, stuck. Fugo can’t relate only because the only time he’s taken the steering wheel on his own life has been a last resort. So he crunches numbers that don’t mean anything at all and doesn’t wonder if Buccellati has more blood hidden behind neat black hair. He doesn’t think about the numbers, about the car he’s running into the ground just because he can, about the ketchup on his tray and where it came from and who was underpaid to harvest it’s tomatoes, how many people that have already died in Neapolitan alleys and on produce plantations. It’s just easier to live passively, to pretend that you have no part in the carnage around you.
“Are you done with this, Pannacotta?” He’s about to politely tell whoever’s talking to leave him alone when he realizes who it is standing proudly at the end of the table, three blonde victory rolls perched on the forehead of a creepy teenage boy. The name tag peeking out of a heavily rhinestone’d denim jacket confirms what his brain hopes isn’t happening. Giorno Marker Star stands casual and open, like he’s talking to a longtime friend instead of a stranger.
“Uh. It’s alright, you can leave it. I’ll throw it away soon.” He’s obviously clocked out already. Why Giorno isn’t clutching a can of pepper spray while avoiding the dining area is beyond Fugo. Maybe Giorno is an idiot and it’s prison rules– confront the enemy to establish dominance in the hierarchy.
“No, no. It’s my pleasure.” It takes him two seconds to grab the tray out right from under Fugo’s arms and dump the contents in the trash. Giorno turns back, nodding at the other boy before disappearing through the glass doors. There’s a second where Fugo’s mouth twists, and he realizes what just happened.
“Wait!” He rushes outside and Giorno stops easily. The sun outside is blinding even as it’s dipping a little closer to the horizon, and this particular Burger King buzzes with a pre-dinner rush. “... How did you know my name?”
Giorno tilts his head with a hand on his chin, considering. The hand lets go to point at Fugo, “How do you know my work schedule,” That stops Fugo short, because he doesn’t actually know. He’s just been getting lucky some days. The alternative (that Fugo has just been here so often for Giorno to have recognized him and assumed Fugo’s excessive visits are limited to when the boy is working) is arguably worse. He looks like a crazy person whether he’s there for him or just genuinely eats fast food at least four times a week. Giorno isn’t an idiot, and won’t believe it’s a coincidence. “...Pannacotta Fugo, sixteen… one hundred seventy-six centimeters?”
What the fuck?
“I just like Burgers. A lot.” He doesn’t try to hide the voice crack. The other boy is angled toward the sidewalk, not the parking lot. His white sneakers are very, very scuffed.
“...”
“...”
They’re in some sort of stand off, eyeing one another. Or, more like Fugo is having a staring contest with someone who’s patiently waiting to excuse himself. The setting sun sends waves of heat, the humidity choking them both.
“Do you need a ride?” In the time Fugo had spent looking, Giorno’s facial expressions usually shifted in small increments, an eyebrow twitch here, a pause in a sentence there. Even his body language is subdued, like he’s one of those primadonna ballerinas that bathe in ice water and practice their monotone ‘don’t fuck with me’ face in the mirror. People who can balance the grace and poise that comes with knowing your body intimately well with a deadly level of composure.
He doesn’t look like a primadonna right now, eyes comically wide. “Well?”
Giorno’s gaze narrows, expression emptying to polite neutrality once more. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“I insist, really. Unless you’re too busy enjoying this weather?” A drop of sweat travels down Giorno’s temple, soaking into his work shirt’s collar. He understands Giorno’s hesitance, really. He just suddenly can’t stand that this weirdo is now getting steadily harder to figure out the longer Fugo knows him. Shit, what if he knows about his assault charge? How else would he have so much information? “I’m not trying to, like, kidnap you or anything.” Giorno’s eyebrows hikes up a little, “It’s hot out. You’re probably tired from work.”
“...”
“I’m trying to do something nice here.”
“... Alright.”
~★~
Giorno makes no comment about the state of Buccellati’s Fiat, politely avoiding stepping on loose murder-ridden papers and empty food wrappers. One of Buccellati’s old cassettes was left in, the engine starting up with smooth jazz pouring into the space between two sweaty teenage boys. Giorno pokes the fuzzy dice and they knock into the yellowed air freshener. Once the AC finally sputters awake, cool air hits them both and Giorno lets out a sigh, removing a hefty amount of pins from his crown that clatter together on the dashboard. The other boy’s nose might have wrinkled at the heady mixture of weed and strawberry Plum Fog, though Fugo could have imagined it. Fugo isn’t letting himself fully turn to his right, lest he find Giorno staring right back.
He peels out, suddenly much more conscious of his driving and hand placements, and general state of the car. It’s not perfect, nothing like what he’d been chauffeured around in as a child, or the sleek and untouchable cleanliness of Buccellati’s current car.
“Do you go to Vittorio?” Giorno speaks up and it chips at the ice collecting on their heads. The local high school, he picks Narancia up sometimes. Maybe Giorno didn’t dig up his criminal record or news articles. Or maybe he did and is testing him now, who really knows?
“No, I graduated early.” Fugo grips the steering wheel. There’s no reason to lie. “My brother does, though.”
“I’m sorry for him. It’s a shithole. Ah, you missed the turn.” Fugo hits the brakes a little harder, pins sliding this way and that, falling in the endless crevices of car seats.
Fugo counts to ten. “Please say so earlier next time.” He stops at the light, shining a veil of red on the dashboard. “Do you study at Vittorio?” Giorno laughs lightly and Fugo’s pulse jumps in surprise at the birdsong erupting in his– Buccellati’s car. It feels like an odd combination, this beautiful stranger laughing in a red-wash like this is some horror movie or one of Narancia’s X-Men comics where something’s about to happen.
Of course, this isn’t a comic, or a book, or a show. This is real life, where Fugo does mafia homework and drives to Burger King multiple times a week just to see a boy.
“I wouldn’t really call it studying.” So Giorno does, and doesn’t care for it. He’d say it’s like Narancia, but Giorno’s indifference feels less like needing help and more like needing out.
“Must be hard, balancing work and school.” Giorno snorts, and Fugo’s eyebrows climb up a little.
“I just need to get through it. I’m not a genius or anything but it’s unavoidable.” Fugo deliberates on this.
“My brother– he kind of sucks at schooling. I tutor him sometimes.” A car behind them honks, and Fugo turns. “He says it helps, anyways.”
“That’s nice. I’m right here.” He raises a manicured nail to tap on the window, rolling up to a one-story house that’s… probably seen better days. He hadn’t expected a mansion purely based on his workplace, but it seems wrong for shining polite beautiful Giorno Marker Star to emerge from such a barren womb. Fugo chastises himself doubly for making assumptions and looking down on the other boy’s home, he’s sure it’s fine, that it’s full of love.
“Thank you for the ride.” Giorno sounds far away, gazing at the house beyond. There’s a cracked driveway, devoid of any car. The lights are off. “Would you like to come in for a bit?”
What? “ What? ”
“As a thank you, if you’d like. It’s only fair.”
Fugo thinks about how he sets a curfew for himself, independent of Buccellati’s (lack of) rules. How he has no friends. That he hasn’t been able to set foot on any campus without the real threat of throwing up. How his blood family got rid of him the second he became a sunk cost. How he’s so unbelievably unsuited for any type of romance, so twisted and poisonous and ugly . How he spends all his time in his room scratching at acne scars or in a Fiat he’s running into the ground, eating shitty calorie bombs and crying into the wrappers for no reason other than that he’s Pannacotta Fugo.
Fugo shyly drags himself out of the car, a newborn fawn learning how to run.
It’s nicer inside, at least, if barely.
There’s one picture frame that he sees. A beautiful Asian woman with silky black hair, wedding dress cascading around her and fluffing around the legs of an unassuming man with half a head of brown hair and a lopsided smile. Fugo doesn’t see a hint of Giorno anywhere in these people or on the walls.
“Would you like water, or tea? I have Green and Jasmine.” Giorno’s poised in front of his kitchen cabinets, waiting. If Giorno wanted to poison him he already had multiple, easier chances to do so.
“Jasmine.” It seems the sweeter option of the two, not that Fugo’s an avid tea drinker. Giorno nods, setting a kettle on and pulling two mismatched mugs out of a cabinet. One has a hairline fracture among faded pictures of cartoon animals, the other an untouched, pristine white.
“So, did someone give you my work schedule? Was it Antonella?” Ah. Maybe this is still an interrogation. Maybe Giorno has some thugs waiting in the hall closet, ready to waterboard Fugo (and wouldn’t that be funny, a mafioso’s accountant getting jumped).
“No, it’s… I just go a lot. I don’t know your schedule, I promise.”
“You leave if I’m not there, though. My manager noticed.” Fuck , he really does look like a stalker. Fugo can feel a splotchy blush prickle across his cheeks, uncomfortably hot. “Not like he cares if you actually wanted to hurt me, which I doubt, at this point. He probably just thought I was too dumb to notice and didn’t want to have to find a replacement for my shifts last minute.” Giorno doesn’t look the least bit perturbed by that, which is the weirdest part. It makes Fugo’s teeth clench in anger. How dare this Burger King manager he doesn’t know treat Giorno Marker Star, the best advertisement that shitty fast food place will ever have, as replaceable?
“...”
“No excuse, huh.” The kettle whistles, and Giorno pours steaming water into the two mugs. Tea bags float up, buoyed by the darkening water. Giorno pushes the unbroken mug towards him.
“I wasn’t… following you, or anything like that. I don’t have a record of where you go or when you’re there. I just need a place to do work, and you’re the least likely to tell me to fuck off.”
“Why not a cafe or park then?” What a reasonable, logical question to ask. It doesn’t make Fugo any less uncomfortable about it.
He isn’t used to wanting to know, and coming up short. Not knowing an answer is like gambling with fate, and he usually has terrible odds.
“... That Burger King reminds me of my brother. The one that goes to Vitorrio.” There’s a small pinch of truth in the response. Fugo does get melancholy about the lack of a normal teenage life, how he and Narancia could have gone to school together and walked those hallways, eating lunch and going to plazas after school. Late nights spent on projects together and camaraderie over a shared hell. But his parents had to find some new way to other him from his peers.
He could’ve gone to school with Giorno. The realization sends a wave of retroactive anger through his head. It prickles in his scalp and ears and his eyes feel too tight, the stale air suddenly suffocating his skin. He wraps bony fingers around the mug and barely feels the shock of heated porcelain. Giorno looks at him straight on in that way he does, illuminating and insistent like a spotlight.
Fugo takes a sip, cringing. It’s too hot. Wait, he almost forgot.
“How did you know my name? And the other stuff, too?” Giorno quirks his lips, trying to hold back a laugh. His hand comes up to his cheek and it’s such an endearing thing to do that Fugo forgets to be annoyed.
“You keep your money right next to your driver’s license.” Fugo spills Jasmine tea on his cardigan.