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For the first time in a long time, Giorno wakes up to the sound of birds singing. As someone who likes to familiarize himself with the local flora and fauna of Napoli, he’s surprised to notice that he doesn’t recognize the lilting birdsong around him. He takes a moment to let his unusually drowsy brain catch up to his surroundings, enjoying the pleasant, vibrant tune — oddly harmonic and melodic for wildlife, the back of his brain notes.
And then, he feels a gentle nudge against his hand, and his brain hits lucidity at 75 kilometers an hour.
His eyes fly open to see a deer with sleek brown fur and three white spots on its head rubbing its snout against his hand. Giorno scrambles out of the sheets to sit up in a brief, fleeting moment of pure panic. He watches, frozen, as the animal gazes up at Giorno with big, doe eyes and nuzzles against his palm affectionately.
Giorno relaxes. The deer obviously had no ill will towards him. Hesitantly, Giorno lifts his hand and pets the top of the deer’s head, who makes a small noise of appreciation. Perhaps this was one of Gold Experience’s sleep-creations, he rationalizes. It had happened before. Except, when he attempts to transform the deer back to its object form, the deer merely stares at him with a curious expression before seeking Giorno’s touch once more.
He feels another brush of fur against his leg and realizes a white bunny rabbit is curled up on his pillow. Now that he mentions it, there’s woodland creatures all over his bed, either sleeping atop the covers or aimlessly ambling around him, as if drawn to him by some magnetic pull. Giorno summons his Stand to return them all to object form, but instead, Gold Experience Requiem appears, standing by his bedpost, and picks up a squirrel to cuddle in its arms. No matter how he commands it, GER merely smiles at Giorno gently and strokes the backside of the squirrel’s tail. What was going on?
From somewhere all around him, Giorno suddenly hears the swell of violins and other string orchestral instruments play — a sound that didn’t so much as begin, as suddenly demanded attention. Had that music been playing in the background this whole time? He must be dreaming, or dead. Just to make sure, he pinches his arm and yelps in pain.
“GIORNO!” is all the warning he gets before a swarm of yellow blurs fly towards him. He widens his eyes before he recognizes the high-pitched squeal of the Sex Pistols clambering around him. However, instead of crowding around him for food, as usual, they each grab onto pieces of his hair and fly past him. Giorno, on instinct, squeezes his eyes shut, fearing he was about to become forcibly hairless, but after a moment, the grip on his hair dissipates. Giorno opens his eyes and stares, flabbergasted, as Three and Two tie his braid off with a neat, purple ribbon. He lifts his hands to feel that the Stand had effortlessly formed his coiffed victory rolls and braid in a matter of mere seconds (in a sequence that must have been planned, right?).
“Good morning!” someone chirps. Giorno turns his head to see Five floating beside his head, looking up at him with a flushed, happy grin.
“Morning to you as well,” Giorno greets him. Except, his voice doesn’t sound raspy from disuse, as it usually does in the morning after a late night at the office; but breathy, soft, and what has got to be a Transatlantic accent straight out of 1930s film.
Giorno balks, his hand reaching up to clutch his chest. Has his hand ever done that before? “Why do I sound like this?” he says, his voice refusing to return to his normal register.
“Sound like what?” Five says, eyes wide and shimmering with confusion. “You sound pretty like always, Giorno!”
“Thank you,” Giorno says warmly, the little soft spot in his heart for the Stand briefly overshadowing his growing gut feeling that something was off this hazy, absurd morning.
It is at this moment that he hears violins begin trilling again. He swivels his head to find the source of the music, but the sound seems to come from all around him. Did Mista hire a string quartet to serenade him? While he certainly wouldn't complain if he did, it doesn’t seem like something an underboss would normally do for their boss, though Giorno never claimed to be an expert in normal mafia coworker relations.
The music continues to build, repeating one chord languidly as if prompting Giorno to act; which is, of course, a ridiculous thought, because Giorno doesn’t know what he possibly should be doing besides get out of bed and find something for breakfast. He looks down to see Five and the other Sex Pistols staring up at him expectantly.
“Well?” Two says in annoyance. “Aren’t ya gonna sing?”
“What?” Giorno startles. “What do you mean? I don’t sing.”
“Yeah, you do,” Seven says, crossing his little arms. “You sing every morning. It’s a whole thing. So just do it.”
Giorno frowns. “Are you all playing a prank on me?” he says suspiciously. He checks the dresser beside him for his phone — was it April Fools? — but to his surprise, there’s nothing on his bedside table besides an oil lamp and a hairbrush. Giorno furrows his brow and begins patting his hands around him, looking for where he might have misplaced his phone. And that’s when he takes notice of his surroundings.
The bed he is sitting in is placed in the center of a sparsely decorated room. Every wall is bare granite, save for a simple mirror beside the exit. His dresser and bookshelf are missing, and there’s none of the careless opulence and ornate gold finishes that Giorno had insisted on when he began remodeling his apartment. In other words, he’s almost certainly not in his bedroom, but this is the strangest prison cell he’s ever been in.
“Where am I?” Giorno asks frantically, looking to the Sex Pistols for guidance.
“You’re in the Magic Kingdom,” One says matter-of-factly. “Where else would you be?”
Giorno balks. “The amusement park in Florida?”
Sex Pistols glances at each other before Three says, “We don’t know what that is. We’re in the Magic Kingdom, on the outskirts of the local village.”
He gestures out the window. Giorno stares in horror at the unfamiliar view. The windowsill is lined with thick tops of forest, but just above them, he can just make out red tiled roofs of short, stout village buildings and homes. In the distance, so tall and far it is almost shrouded in clouds, is a large, ornate, gleaming castle looming over the surrounding town.
Giorno, who is not someone who often curses, feels these circumstances warrant it. “What the-”
Before he can say his next word, the violins (and flutes, it seems) play so loudly it nearly bursts Giorno’s eardrums.
“-are you talking about?” he finishes. The music dies down as soon as the curse word leaves his lips. Giorno attempts to override the coincidentally well-timed dynamic change to curse again, but is once again deafened by the music (and now a clarinet solo!). Is he being censored?
He takes a moment to mentally recap every strange detail he's learned about this morning. He apparently lives in a vaguely feudal European kingdom, talks like an old movie star, can’t curse, attracts woodland creatures, and keeps hearing music that he’s meant to sing to. That could only mean one thing.
“Oh my god,” Giorno says, eyes widened. “I’m in a Disney princess film.”
“Congratulations,” a woman’s voice says. Giorno swivels his head wildly around the room until his gaze locks on the mirror — once just simple glass, now a shifting mirage that slowly crystallizes into very familiar dark blue eyes and an iconic pink updo, one that could only ever belong to one person.
“Trish?” Giorno says, rushing to get out of his bed and approach the mirror. “What are you doing here?” He knocks his knuckles against the glass, searching for an opening of some kind. “Have you been trapped in there by some enemy-”
“No, I’m a figment of your imagination, dumbass,” Trish snaps. Giorno sheepishly drops his hands to his sides.
Trish lets out an impatient sigh and brings her perfectly manicured hands up to adjust her poof of hair. “Anyways,” she says primly. “You’ve figured out how my Stand works. Pretend I’m holding a medal for you.”
The woman in the mirror takes notice of Giorno’s shocked face, she says, “Yes, my Stand, King Princess. It traps you into the world of a random movie as one of its characters. The only way to get out is to finish the story.”
At the mention of the Stand’s name, some memory tugs at Giorno’s brain. He remembers telling Mista about this Stand, King Princess, although he wasn’t aware of how it worked until now. But if Mista was sent to fight the user, why was Giorno now suffering from her attack? Has something gone wrong?
Not-Trish sees the way Giorno clenches his fist and adds, “Your Stand doesn’t work in this mirror world, so don’t even bother trying.” She smiles sinisterly, a look which looks foreign on Trish’s face, and glances down to produce a DVD of the 1950s film, Cinderella, which she dangles to show Giorno like it’s a dog toy.
“Looks like you got this movie,” Not-Trish says brightly. “A lucky roll. My last victim got Saw.” She laughs manically, practically howling in amusement like a hyena, although Giorno fails to see if she said anything funny.
Giorno glances behind him to look for an exit, some way out, but stops when he realizes the world around him is grey and still. Sex Pistols’ mouths are open mid-scream. The animals around his bed are frozen in place, snouts mid-yawn or still gazing up towards where he used to be sitting.
“Don’t look so surprised. The set pauses when you speak to the director, you know,” Not-Trish says idly.
Embarrassed to be caught off-guard, Giorno straightens his shoulders and glares at the woman in the mirror. “Where’s Mista?” he says coldly. “Or is his Stand also a figment of my imagination too?”
Not-Trish claps, the sudden sound alarming Giorno. “Oh, your cute little bodyguard?” she coos. “He’s here too. It’s a surprise, though, which character he is.” She leans in close, or as close as she can with the mirror as a barrier between them, and stage-whispers, “Hint. You’re going to meet him tonight.”
Giorno frowns. He finds himself wishing he had a childhood that involved his parents reading him bedtime stories and fairytales, if just to get a good sense of who Mista is in this universe and what exactly Cinderella is about, anyways. Rather than show this weakness to Not-Trish, however, he says, “There must be a catch. What stops me from just staying in my room and forcing my way out? What’s in it for you?”
Not-Trish has a far too innocent look on her face. “Oh, King Princess and I are just very invested in creating good movies. I’m an amateur filmmaker and film critic, myself,” she says. And then, a little too casually, she adds, “Also if you stay here past midnight, you will be trapped in here forever.”
Giorno’s eyes, against his will, widen in fear. Not-Trish grins toothily. “But that’s neither here nor there,” she says in a sing-song voice. “Come on now, Giorno-rella. It’s time for your iconic song.” Her gaze turns decidedly menacing when she says, “The show can’t go on without it.”
Not-Trish waves, disappearing into the darkness of the mirror. Giorno widens his eyes and attempts to bang his fist against the mirror, successfully shattering the glass, but only leaving the metal backing behind. The world around Giorno slowly comes back to life, and he turns in dread to see Sex Pistols and the animals look up at him expectantly. The music starts up once again, repeating the musical motif that Giorno now knows for sure must be the beginning of a solo.
“Come on, enough stalling,” Six says impatiently in a Western accent. “Singing time.”
Giorno, in all of his years of Stand fighting, has never encountered a Stand of this nature. But if there’s one rule he can extrapolate from his experience, it’s that the most costly mistake one can make is to rush into an attack. Playing by its rules, enough to get one’s bearings, is always the first step to defeating any Stand. Even if this is the most ridiculous Stand Giorno has ever had the misfortune of encountering.
He swallows thickly, then says begrudgingly, “I can attempt to sing, but I really don’t know what song I should do.”
“We get to choose?” One says eagerly. He turns to the rest of Sex Pistols and begins whispering frantically.
“Just do the one about dreams!” Five says softly, tugging at the sleeve of Giorno’s nightgown. “That one’s my favorite, anyway.”
“My dream?” Giorno says incredulously. “I don’t think it translates into a song, you know. Not much rhymes with ‘ridding Italy of all dr-”
“Just repeat after me!” Three says, pushing past Five to get in front of Giorno. In his tinny, squeaky voice, he sings, as the music swells with him in time:
“A dream is a wish your heart makes…”
Giorno stares at him blankly. “I am not singing that.”
“Come on,” Two says encouragingly, poking Giorno’s wrist. “Sing!”
From somewhere behind him, Giorno can hear a woman’s cruel laughter, and then he remembers the longer he dawdles, the likelier it is he’ll be forever condemned to the hellscape. He bites his lip and repeats reluctantly, “A dream is a wish your heart makes…”
As soon as the lyrics leave his mouth, he clamps his mouth shut from embarrassment. He’s surprised to hear his singing voice, which must be rusty with years of disuse, actually sounds warm, melodic, and vibrant. A byproduct of the Stand, perhaps.
“So good!” Seven says. “Now, when you’re fast asleep…”
“When you’re fast asleep…” Giorno mimics, a little more confidently this time.
“In dreams, you will lose your heartaches…" One warbles.
“In dreams, you will lose your heartaches…”
“Whatever you wish for, you keep…” Three sings. “Okay, Giorno! You got this!”
Giorno widens his eyes. “I don’t even know the lyrics-”
His protests are useless. Sex Pistols has already abandoned him to the orchestra, darting to different areas of the bedroom to...do chores? Giorno watches, stunned, as two pistols race to draw the curtains open, another two hang clothes over a wooden room divider, and the last two arrange slippers by the door. When he hears the background music suddenly complemented by bright chirping, he spins around to see songbirds flying in through the window to aid the Sex Pistols with their tasks, their birdsong the soprano part to the chorus. Giorno yelps when two birds suddenly clamp their beaks down on his sleeves and tugs him behind the divider.
Without his conscious command, Giorno begins the next verse. He’s positive he’s never even heard this song before, and yet the lyrics pour out of his lips easily.
“Have faith in your dreams and someday,” he sings, untying the ribbon behind his nightgown. “Your rainbow will come smiling through…”
Songbirds take the discarded nightgown away to hang up, and Giorno takes notice of the clothes set out for him. He slips on what appears to be a simple button on shirt, slacks, and an apron. As he fastens the knot around his waist, Five reappears by Giorno’s cheek and trills as the music slows, “No matter how your heart is grieving…”
Giorno grins softly as he slips on his shoes. “If you keep on believing...”
Together, the two sing in harmony, “The dream that you wish will come true.”
As Giorno adjusts the straps of his apron, birds carry the tune behind him, a kind of applause in its own way. Giorno, caught up in the moment of the theatrical performance, allows himself a brief moment to enjoy it. He feels movement below his feet and gasps quietly when he realizes a bunny is staring up at him with innocent, adorable eyes. Leaning down, he scoops the animal up in his arms and gently scratches behind its plush, pink ears.
And then, the music begins to start again suggestively, a clear buildup to verse two. Giorno’s mood instantly sours, and he snaps. He grabs the bunny in a chokehold and hollers to the broken mirror, “If you make me sing again, I’m breaking this rabbit’s neck!”
The music decreases in volume just the slightest bit, but still swells up and down, prodding his voice to join it.
Giorno narrows his eyes and tightens his grip. “Don’t think I won’t do it,” he says harshly. “I’ve killed men for lesser infractions. I’m counting to three. One, two-”
The music dies down so sharply, it’s almost comical. The bunny splutters in his hands. Giorno looks down and feels a twinge of guilt when he sees the creature’s terrified expression.
He immediately releases his hold. “I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this,” he apologises. “You should be finding a mate to procreate an average of 15 baby bunnies, not acting as a prop for my impromptu showtune.” As gently as he can, he sets the rabbit down on the floor, and it scurries away.
He looks up to see the room of wildlife staring at him in horror and shock. “Oh, please,” he says irritably. “The animal world is much crueler to you than I could ever be. Don’t act like it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Giorno turns to find the Sex Pistols to back up his claim and falters when he realizes all of them have mysteriously disappeared. That is, except for Five, who hovers hesitantly next to Giorno’s face.
“Sorry, Giorno,” Five says in a quivering voice. “The rest of them went back to Mista to eat lunch. I told them they couldn’t abandon you, but they wouldn’t listen.” His face looks remarkably downcast. “I know I’m not much help, but I wanted to help you if you needed anything.”
“Mista?” Giorno asks hopefully. Then, he clarifies, “Where is he?”
Five shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says miserably. “The others won’t tell me where he is. Probably because they don’t know either.”
Giorno nods slowly in understanding. “Thank you for your help,” he reassures, lifting a finger to nuzzle Five’s cheek, who blushes pink, if that’s even possible. “I just need one more piece of advice. Do you know exactly what I’m meant to be doing after this, ah, singing sequence?”
“Open in the name of the king!” a deep voice hollers from below him. Downstairs, most likely. “An urgent message from His Imperial Majesty!”
Five claps his hands. “That must be it!”
“I’m coming!” Giorno yells towards the floor, before turning back to Five. “Thank you,” he whispers with as much seriousness and urgency as one can do so, before turning conspiratorial. “Once I find Mista, I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Five lights up, smiling from ear to ear. “Bye, Giorno!” he squeals. With one last shy wave, he disappears out the open window.
Giorno lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The confirmation that Mista was trapped in this inane fantasy world with him was comforting, because it meant they could make it out alive. And if he was close enough that the Sex Pistols could reasonably fly to him, then there was hope Giorno would see him soon after all.
Loud knocking. Then, “Hurry up and get it! I don’t have all day, you know!”
Exasperated, Giorno turns to the exit of his bedroom door and opens it, revealing a very conveniently located staircase right outside. He rushes down the stairs as best as he can, wincing as his pinkie toes hit the sides of his apparently solidly wooden slippers and manages to make it down to the bottom in one piece.
The staircase opens to a decently sized foyer, where a man wearing a navy blue uniform and a postman’s cap stands impatiently by the main entrance. Long, silvery tendrils of hair cascade out, the ends sticking up harshly like exclamation points, and Giorno realizes with a start where he recognizes those foreboding, purple eyes glaring at him.
“There you are, finally,” Abbacchio snaps irritably. “I have a letter addressed to the Giovannas. Is that you?”
He doesn’t recognize Giorno, the blond realizes. That must be a sign that the Stand is, yet again, pulling from Giorno’s consciousness and imagination to create these characters for his story. Even so, seeing his fallen friend now very much alive after all these years forms a guilty lump in Giorno’s throat.
Giorno swallows the feeling down and says, “That would be me.” He steps towards the doorway with an outstretched hand, ready to pluck it from the postman’s grasp.
Without another word, Abbacchio throws the letter like a discus in Giorno’s face. Rather than giving him a nasty paper cut, however, the letter flutters down and lands gently in his hands like an autumn leaf. A side effect of movie physics, perhaps.
Giorno lifts the letter to his face and takes in the cream colored stationary and embossed lettering, addressed to The House of Giovanna. He flips over the letter to see a red seal with a crown and an M-shaped arrow pointing downwards towards the flap. Absentmindedly, he swipes his thumb over the wax, as if he was checking to see if it was real.
The postman coughs. “Can you hand it to me now?” he says impatiently.
Giorno raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
Abbacchio stares at him like he’s stupid. “I don’t feel particularly in the mood to stare at you while you pretend to understand the words,” he says. “Don’t tell me you’re foolish enough to think you’re literate.”
Giorno resists the urge to curse Abbacchio out and witness what sort of hellfire will be wrought in an attempt to censor him. Instead, he says primly, “I can do it myself,” before breaking the seal open with his thumb, sliding the letter out of the envelope and reading aloud:
“To whom it may concern: Tonight, the royal family is holding a ball in honor of his Highness, the Prince, and by royal command, every eligible maiden is to attend.” He turns his attention back to Abbacchio, who looks flabbergasted. He says, a little slyly, “I think that was simple enough for me to handle.”
Abbacchio huffs in annoyance, crossing his arms. “Whatever. Where are the maidens in your house, anyways?” He cranes his neck to look over Giorno’s shoulder.
Giorno blinks. “Uh, I’m not sure,” he says with uncertainty. “They weren’t here when I woke up.”
“Probably got to the palace early, then,” Abbacchio mutters to himself. “Makes sense why. Possibly getting engaged to Prince Charming is definitely something you wouldn’t want to be late to.”
“Sorry, Prince Charming is having a ball to choose a partner?” Giorno says incredulously. “How does he exactly plan on choosing if he’s inviting every eligible maiden in the Kingdom?” He shakes his head to himself. “What an outdated, misogynistic practice.”
Abbacchio harrumphs. “If you’re so mad about it, why don’t you go ask him?” he says sharply. “I have other people’s houses to get to, you know. I don’t have time to dilly dally by your doorstep all day.”
Ah, that familiar gruff and standoffish attitude that Giorno has missed. “Noted,” he says, fighting the urge to smile. “I’ll be out of your hair, then. Take care, Abbacchio.”
“Whatever,” the postman grumbles, turning around on the doorstep to shuffle through the letters in his hand. He looks down at the address on another envelope, mumbling the name to himself, before he realizes aloud, “Wait, how do you know my name is Abbacchio?”
But by then, Giorno has already shut the door with a gentle click.
Giorno’s yet to figure out the nuances of how King Princess works, but he knows enough about film and setting up plot structure that if a big scene was devoted to addressing this ball, then he needs to go to the ball for the story to progress. And, given his deadline, he’s got to make haste to get to the castle. Even though the invitation said the ball is tonight, he sees no sense in twiddling his fingers until then. He did, after all, ascend to the role of Don in a week at the age of 15. You don’t do that and not learn to march to the beat of your own drum.
So, once Giorno has read the letter in his hands back to front and front to back, making sure he’s not missing any important details, he sets out, determined to get to the castle. He exits out the front door with gusto, his feet on autopilot stepping down to reach the first step of the staircase outside the Passione manor. Except, he’s not at the Passione manor, but this magical fairytale house, so what happens instead is that his feet reach cobblestone earlier than expected, and he stumbles, crashing onto the rocky ground. He winces his pain, and realizes his pants are torn, revealing scraped and bloody knees.
It is in this humbling moment that he realizes he doesn’t know exactly where he’s going. Looking around, his house is apparently situated on a high grassy hill. There’s a well-trodden path and an empty stable to his right — likely the path for horse-drawn carriages to gently trot down to — that winds around and disappears into the thick forest in between him and the village. The clear and obvious path, but far too time-consuming for Giorno’s taste. He turns his gaze towards the forest and squints. He can just make out a thin, small imprint of a trail that goes straight through the forest. It may be too small for a carriage, but it’s not too small for a Giorno Giovanna.
Through the forest it is, then.
As best as he can, Giorno steps through the tall, spring-green grass growing along the slope of the hill, careful not to slip on mud and further wreck his outfit. He manages to make it down with only minimal mud streaks over his shoes, settling down into the meadow, and then begins his trek into the forest.
It’s a beautiful day. The picturesque sun hangs in the picturesque sky, sending soft, dewy morning light through the leaves to illuminate the natural greenery. It’s beautifully tranquil, but it also sends Giorno’s anxious mind spiraling. With nothing to distract him but the faint sound of songbirds and whistling leaves, he begins to think back to what had happened before he got sucked into this fairytale. If he and Mista were both attacked by this stand, they must have been together during the fight. But what had happened before?
The screeching of crows above him echoes through the forest, and the sound, like the holler of a squabble, summons a sense of deja vu. A memory unfurls open in Giorno’s mind like a flower blossoming in his head, and he remembers.
It had started with Mista getting injured after another harrowing mission. Mista was lying down on the couch in the Don’s office, a now far too familiar sight for Giorno. The blond’s hands and lips are pressed in a tight line as he focuses on healing a bullet wound in Mista’s abdomen, the process complemented by a cacophony of moans and groans of anguish.
“You’re getting so reckless,” Giorno curses, taking a moment to wipe blood — Mista’s blood — off his cheek. “Your injuries keep getting worse and worse every mission. I don’t think there’s a single part of your body that hasn't been recreated by Gold Experience.”
“My dick is still in original condition, good as new,” Mista says, rasping in between coughing up blood. “And you know the human body replaces itself every seven years with new cells?” He closes his eyes and leans back. “Same thing, basically.”
Giorno pinches Mista’s wrist sharply. “Stay awake,” he orders. “I refuse to resuscitate you from the brink of unconsciousness.”
Mista hums noncommittally, eyes still closed. “Just, give me a sec,” he mumbles.
Giorno frowns. “If you refuse to listen to me, you leave me with no choice.”
Mista’s face breaks out into a wide grin. “You’re going to suck me off to keep me awake?” he says, smiling crookedly, like it’s all just some kind of joke. He looks unfairly good like that, with close cropped dark curls hanging over his forehead and a little bit of blood on his pearly whites.
“No,” Giorno says, both to his intrusive thoughts and to Mista. “I’m putting you on probation. No more missions until you’ve established that you can conduct yourself properly. And safely.” He rises to his feet, towering over Mista as an assertion of his authority.
“What?” Mista says, startled. His limbs flail as he attempts to sit up. “Boss, wait. Once you fix me up, I’ll be good as new, honest! We still haven’t caught that Stand user of King Princess, and we don’t know what she’s capable of. She could be dangerous. None of the subordinates can handle that kind of stuff.”
“You think I need you to tell me that?” Giorno snaps, producing a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiping blood off his hands. “I can handle this myself. You need to recuperate.” He turns on his heels and marches towards the exit of the office.
“What the hell, boss?” Mista sputters behind him. “No, it’s way too dangerous to go without backup. I’m coming with you.” Giorno hears shifting, rustling noises as the gunman attempts to get off the couch weakly, and then a hiss of pain.
“You think this mission is too dangerous for me, but not for you?” Giorno says levelly, keeping his gaze forward. “Please, Guido. Don’t let your arrogance undo all my hard work healing you.”
Mista doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he does, it comes out low and gravelly and dangerous. “I see how it is,” he says slowly. “The untouchable, invincible Giorno Giovanna swooping in to save me because his bodyguard can’t handle a little pain?” He grunts, and then there’s a thud against the carpet from him taking a step forward. “You know I can’t let you get killed off because your individuality complex kicked in.”
Giorno clenches his jaw. “I don’t need your permission,” he says in a controlled voice. “I can handle myself.” He reaches for the doorknob, but before he makes contact, he hears yet another thud on the carpet. He turns his head, avoiding Mista’s severe expression just enough to see Mista a footstep closer out of the corner of his eye. He lets out a harsh sigh, and then says in a steely voice:
“Don’t follow me. That’s an order.”
As the door slams, so does Giorno against the trunk of a large oak tree. He stumbles backwards, wincing in pain, rubbing his sore cheek with one hand. He was getting careless, so lost in his thoughts he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings. Shaking his head, Giorno lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the increasingly bright sunlight and realizes he’s made it through the forest, reaching the mouth of the village.
In front of him, chattering and hubbub signal a town of people coming to life. Merchants holler and sell wares, rosy-faced villagers hover around, and a lone horse-drawn carriage clatters against the cobblestone past Giorno, and then disappears towards the direction of...Giorno cranes his neck to see the castle behind the clouds, still a faint promise of elegance, but just a smidgen closer. From here, he can even see one prominent tall tower extending upwards to the sky, much higher than the other towers on the castle. Possibly the chambers of the prince or the king, then?
He was getting distracted. He needed to focus on his mission: finding Mista. For all he knows, Mista could be anyone in this story, from a baker to a farmer to the King, so he should be on constant lookout. He passes his gaze over the townspeople, seeing face after face after face of worn, but content villagers going about their day, but no Mista. He’ll likely have to head farther into the heart of town if he wants to get a better chance of finding him.
If Mista even wants to see him.
Giorno frowns. That was a ridiculous thought. Why wouldn’t Mista want to see Giorno? Sure, they had an argument, their equivalent of a screaming match if either were people capable of having screaming matches with each other. But when do two people who have spent so much of their lives together not fight, right?
He shakes his head to rid his brain of even more ridiculous thoughts. With a resolute nod, Giorno joins the small beginnings of a crowd forming along the streets. He takes notice of the bazaar lining the walkway. There’s various stalls — bakers, wares, toys, “magical” items — that Giorno fakes interest in perusing, but really uses as an excuse to scan the faces of the people that pass him by, searching for a familiar, rugged face to jump out at him. None do.
“Carriage to the Palace!” a young boy’s reedy voice calls out. Giorno absentmindedly looks towards the source of it. It’s hard to tell where the voice originates from, though, with the growing cluster of people blocking his view. “Get a carriage to the Palace for cheap!”
A carriage would certainly make his walk to the castle easier, Giorno muses, noting how sore his calves already feel from his comparatively short walk through the forest. And the Stand user had promised him he would find Mista tonight at the ball. Unfortunately, there was still the issue of payment. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his pants for loose change and finds lint and a few crumbs instead.
As if not having money could ever stop Giorno Giovanna. Casually, Giorno locates the stall of a plump banker, currently counting a large stack of coins in his greasy hands. The perfect target. Giorno edges close to the wall of a bakery behind the banker’s stall, and then casually walks past it, keeping his head high even as his hands dart to pluck a handful of coins out of the banker’s back pocket.
He waits until he’s several blocks away before he opens his hands and checks his earnings. One, five, ten. That should be enough.
With renewed purpose, he strains his ears to listen again for the boy hollering. In no time at all, he hears, “I promise ya! Dirty cheap carriage rides to the palace! Guaranteed entrance, with or without an invite! You could be that lucky maiden and the prince’s bride!”
Giorno resists the urge to scoff at the ludicrous idea of marrying at first sight. Instead, he trains his focus to identify the source of the sound and walk towards the direction. He swivels his head around stalls and people, until he sees a short, lanky boy with a mop of choppy dark hair standing on a wooden box and cupping his hands around his mouth to holler, “Cheap carriage rides!”
“Excuse me!” Giorno yells out politely, lifting a hand to get his attention. The boy turns to look at him, and Giorno’s breath catches in his throat when he realizes he’s looking straight into the violet-dark eyes of Narancia.
As with Abbacchio, a lump of guilt rises in Giorno’s throat. He knows it’s not really Narancia there, standing in front of him, but to see the boy as young and carefree as he was before he sacrificed himself for Giorno shook the don to his core. For someone who prided himself on his ability to compartmentalize, it shocks him how easily his feels like the wind has been knocked out of his chest, so stunned he is that-
“‘Scusi?” Narancia says impatiently, waving his hands in front of Giorno’s face. “Do you want a carriage ride or what?”
Giorno blinks, and then snaps back to attention. “Yes, sorry,” he says hurriedly, straightening up. “How much?”
Narancia gives him the once over and hums thoughtfully. “20 livre tournois?”
Once a thief, always a thief. Giorno narrows his eyes. “Look,” he says calmly. “I know your trade. You scam people with rides by overcharging and then bolting. But it’s not going to work. I won’t accept anything higher than five of these.” He lifts a hand to reveal the smallest silver coin between his fingers.
Narancia widens his eyes. “You got it, sir!” he says excitedly. He jumps off the wooden box he’s standing on and lands on his feet, before bouncing away. “My carriage is parked in an alley just a couple blocks from here.”
Suspiciously, Giorno follows after him, starting with a power walk and then breaking into a jog when Narancia begins moving faster, darting in and out of the crowd of people around. The duo is followed by indignant cries of “Hey, watch where you’re going!” but neither Narancia nor Giorno pay them any mind.
It doesn’t take long before Narancia suddenly screeches to a halt. Giorno almost crashes into his backside, but digs his heels into the cobblestone pavement just in time to avoid it. He gives himself a moment to catch his breath, and then cranes his neck up to look around.
“Where is the carriage?” Giorno says in confusion.
Narancia rolls his eyes. “Right there,” he says matter-of-factly, pointing to a dilapidated, wooden box parked in the alleyway that was as much a carriage as Giorno was Italian. Attached to the back of the box is three wheels, and to the front, a depressed-looking, weary grey mule.
“Tada,” Narancia says triumphantly. “I call her Arrowsmith.”
This...carriage would definitely not be Giorno’s first choice for transportation, under normal circumstances, but this could hardly be described as normal circumstances. He really can’t afford to be picky — literally, since the fare is apparently every coin in his hands, according to Narancia.
With a sigh, Giorno gingerly climbs into the backseat. “Take me to the castle,” he orders. “As fast as you can.”
Narancia practically squeals in glee as he clambers into the coachman’s seat. “On it.” All Giorno hears is a “Hyaa!” before there’s a snap of reins against the mule’s back, and then suddenly, the carriage lurches forward. Giorno barely has time to extend a hand out against the far wall to hold himself steady before they’re racing off.
Giorno manages to steady his growing motion sickness by training his vision on the window of the carriage. The closer they speed towards the castle, the more the red-tipped, homey buildings of the village recede like the low tide. In its wake, the cobblestone turns to dirt road and neatly trimmed grass, which then turn into intimidatingly large hedges, standing like King’s men guarding the main entrance of the castle.
Eventually, Narancia slows the carriage, which must be at least three planks lighter at this point, and stops. Giorno peeks his head out the window and watches as a guard posted by the entrance wearing a black, royal uniform, stops the carriage in front of them with a white gloved hand. After a moment, he is handed a creamy colored invite, one that Giorno recognizes as identical as the one he received earlier that morning. The guard glances at it, nods, and then the gates push open to let the carriage through.
“Hyaa!” Narancia says once more, and then the carriage is rushed forward, Giorno along with it. Rather than stopping obediently, however, Narancia appears intent on rushing them through the wrought-iron gate. They almost make it, too, until the guard hollers “Halt!” before the mule can fit its head past the entrance. Sheepishly, Narancia stops the carriage.
Giorno takes a proper look at the guard by the castle, whose head is currently turned away from Giorno, glaring at Narancia. He can just make out one distinguishing feature of the guard, which are spikes of deep blond hair, veering on orange, jutting out from underneath his cap. With a stutter, Giorno realizes that hair can only belong to one person. The now-permanent lump in his throat rises once more.
“Narancia,” Fugo says, crossing his arms. “Trying to sneak into the castle again, huh?”
“Fugo, my best bud!” Narancia says with a forced laugh. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Fugo rolls his eyes. “I work here.”
“That you do.” Narancia leans forward to stage whisper, “Listen, I got this loaded dude in the back of my carriage, and it would be just great if you could let me through. I’ll split the money with you.”
Fugo purses his lips. “I am a member of the Royal Guard,” he says firmly. “I don’t take bribes. Especially not from commoners like you.”
Narancia’s gaze turns pleading. “Come on, please? What’s a small favor between friends?”
“Stop calling us friends,” Fugo snaps. “I can only let you in if you have a royal invitation to the ball. Direct orders from the King.” He smirks. “Take it up with him if you have an issue.”
Narancia hangs his head in defeat, likely intent on trying to pull at Fugo’s nonexistent heartstrings to convince him. That is, until an outstretched hand extends out the window of the carriage, handing Fugo a cream-colored envelope.
“I’ve got my invitation right here,” Giorno says politely. “May we please be let in now?” He waves the envelope in his hand, like an owner encouraging a dog to fetch a toy. Unbeknownst to Narancia and Fugo, Giorno’s other hand is tucked safely inside the carriage walls, hiding the way it trembles from nerves at seeing his presumed dead friend once more.
Fugo snatches the letter from Giorno’s hand and examines it carefully, likely checking to see if it’s counterfeit. After a moment, he coughs and says stiltedly, “Well, then. You’re free to go in. Not you, though, Narancia.” With a frown, the guard waves his hand, and then the gates to the castle creak open.
Narancia blows Fugo a kiss. “Thanks, bestie!” he hollers, before cracking the reins on his mule and sending the carriage careening through the fence. Giorno resists the urge to dry heave all over the carriage by slapping a hand over his mouth, although it doesn’t get rid of the queasiness in his stomach.
“Alright, we’re here,” Narancia calls out far too much time later. The carriage door next to Giorno breaks open, and the coachman’s flushed, gleeful face greets him on the other end. Giorno manages to stumble out safely, despite his dizzy headache, and nearly kisses the solid ground beneath him from pure gratefulness to still be alive.
“Never drive again,” Giorno gasps in between shallow breaths. “Before you kill someone.”
Narancia seems unfazed. “I will not take that advice,” he says cheerfully. “Take care, sir! Have fun at the ball!” In a matter of mere moments, Narancia, his mule, and his broken pile of wood he calls a carriage disappear into the distance, back outside the castle gates.
Giorno takes in one last shuddery breath, before he refocuses on his mission: finding Mista. Looking around, he sees that red carpet has been rolled out to guide the various girls in gowns and dresses heading towards the main entrance to the castle, where rows of guards are there to oversee their arrival. However, it takes only one look at Giorno’s dirtied, plain clothes to know he would painfully stick out like a sore thumb. There was no way he would make it past the guards.
Not that a poor outfit could stop Giorno Giovanna. He glances a little more to the left to see a servant wearing an apron much like Giorno’s scurry past the entrance and disappears around the side of the castle. Bingo. As unsuspiciously as he can, Giorno follows them quickly past the side of the castle, and then to the back, where the servant finally darts into a decently sized archway with a wooden door, held open by a pile of buckets. The servant’s entrance, most likely. Giorno stills and watches as similarly dressed servants bustle in and out of the entrance, holding wooden bins filled plates, tubs of water, and washcloths.
“Another bin of dishes from the Prince?” one says, as another hands them a wooden wash bin.
“You better believe it,” is the response, before they grunt and set the bin down in front of the bucket of water. They begin scrubbing away at the plates in earnest.
Giorno knows a perfect opportunity to sneak in when he sees it. Purposefully, he steps into the entrance and strides down a dark, cramped hallway, the mixed aromas of food and spice sitting in the air like a thick blanket. Doors line the walls of the hallway, and people in aprons and bandanas filter in and out of it, chattering in the midst of cooking in the kitchens.
Now that he’s inside the castle, he’s not sure exactly where to go. His concerns are quickly answered, though, when he passes by a butcher and then hears a familiar, squeaky, high-pitched voice.
“Look, cured meats!” the voice gleefully shouts somewhere farther up the hallway. The shout is followed by a woman hollering, “Hey! Where did that dish go?”
Giorno breaks out into a grin. He hears a crash of pots and pans hitting the floor, and then yellow flashes of light fly out of a door besides Giorno, landing smack dab on his face. He winces in pain, first for his cheeks, and then for his ears when he is recognized.
“Giorno!” Sex Pistols yell excitedly, swarming around his head, flying around his hair and apron. “You finally made it!”
Five hovers next to Giorno’s right eye, his usual trembling expression now also filled with relief. “You’re here,” he sobs, hugging Giorno’s nose. “We missed you.”
“Yeah, ‘cause Mista barely gave us anything for lunch!” Seven says. “We had to take matters into our own hands!” He pounds his fist against his palm.
Giorno hears hollers behind him from the butcher, probably coming to investigate where her food had gone missing. “Come on,” he says swiftly. “Just bring me to Mista, and we’ll get you as much food as you want, okay?”
“Easy peasy!” Two says, pushing past Five to meet Giorno’s eye. “He’s just in his room getting dressed. We’ll lead the way!”
Giorno’s face goes crimson at the thought of Mista in an undressed state, which is ridiculous, because it’s a sight he’s seen plenty of times before; whether it’s during a healing session, or during that one stint where the office AC had broken during the high of the summer. Still, the mental image of Mista’s broad, muscled shoulders laid bare for the world to see does something to Giorno’s insides that he wishes he were not intimately familiar with.
Thankfully, the Sex Pistols don’t seem to pick up on how flustered Giorno suddenly is, instead racing forward in the hallway without him. Crash landing back to Earth, Giorno races to follow the golden pinpricks in his vision as they zoom through the hallway. They move so quickly that Giorno has to break into a sprint to keep up, which results in every servant they pass sending him strange looks. Giorno pays them no mind.
Sex Pistols leads him through a winding maze of the kitchen area, flying into hallway after hallway after hallway, before suddenly stopping in front of a stone wall. Giorno’s slippers clatter against the stone floor after them a few moments later, reaching the wall gasping for breath. After a beat, he lifts his head and frowns. “Is this it?”
“No, we always go through here up to Mista’s room,” Six explains with a huff. “But he just pushes it to get through.”
Giorno nods in understanding. He presses his weight forward, but the wall doesn’t budge. Rather than be discouraged though, he runs his fingers over each brick, feeling for anything loose that might be a possible trigger to push the false wall forward. After a moment, his hands catch on the fifth brick up from the ground, and when he experimentally applies pressure to force it open, the wall groans and creaks backwards.
“Good job, Giorno!” Five chirps when an entrance is revealed, just big enough for Giorno to squeeze through. He lets the Sex Pistols rush forward first before he steps through and is immediately swallowed in darkness. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness, but when they do, he can just barely make out that he’s in a poorly lit hallway leading up to a looping staircase. As he steps closer, he can better see how the stairs extend upwards higher than Giorno can see, disappearing into darkness before Giorno can even try and guess how tall it truly is.
In fact, even when he stands right at the bottom of the staircase and looks up, he still can’t see where the staircase ends. He feels breathless just looking at it. He can’t imagine how tired anyone would be trying to scale it.
“Surely, you don’t mean for me to climb this, right?” Giorno says.
“But you gotta, Giorno,” Two explains. “It goes straight up to the tower where Mista is.”
“Mista lives up there?” Giorno says, bewildered. This had to be the staircase of the tallest tower of the castle. For someone to live in that tower, they must be extremely important, enough, even, to be the…
“Prince?” Giorno realizes aloud. “Is Mista Prince Charming?”
Sex Pistols turns to look at each other, whispering amongst themselves, before One nods. “I think so. If being a prince means wearing a bunch of dumb outfits and talking to girls all day, then yes.”
Giorno blinks, briefly taken aback at the mental image of Mista flirting with girls all day in royal uniform. Rather than dwell on that, though, he says, “Right,” as non-enviously as he can. “Well, in that case. I heard the servants say the prince —Mista, I mean — had dirty dishes that needed cleaning. They must have gotten it from his room. But it’s impossible that the servants could scale this entire staircase with such heavy bins, especially with multiple trips a day.”
“I guess,” Three says with uncertainty.
“So there must be a system for him to get his plates and dishes down without making the servants scale these stairs,” Giorno says, his eyes gleaming. “Which means there must be a dumbwaiter nearby. We can use it to lift me up there.”
It takes a moment for the Stand to understand, but once they do, the Sex Pistols whoop and holler in excitement. “You’re so smart, Giorno!” Five says, tugging at his ear.
“Thank you,” Giorno says warmly. “Now. One, Two, Three, could you two go up to Mista’s room and find where the dumbwaiter is and come out the other end? That way, we can tell him to lift me up.”
“On it!” the three pistols chirp as they race up the staircase and disappear into the darkness. Giorno watches them leave until he can’t see them anymore, then sighs and leans against the bannister, taking his first real rest since the beginning of this awful day.
He feels nervous. It’s utterly ridiculous, since he shouldn’t feel nervous just to see Mista. But still, that thought continues to haunt his conscience, the thought that Mista might not even want to see him after all this.
After all, it was Giorno that got him into this mess in the first place, right? It was Giorno who had tracked down the Stand user in an abandoned theme park on the outskirts of Napoli, some imitation of Gardaland, most likely. It was Giorno who got cocky, and had allowed the user — a young girl in her twenties wearing an anime T-shirt, now that he thinks about it — time to recuperate after he trapped her down with vines and branches created by Gold Experience. It was Giorno who allowed his focus to slip when he heard gunshots sling through the air and hit the user.
And it was Giorno who missed the way the user lifted a white plastic box (which Giorno now knows to be a DVD case) and called out “King Princess!”, aiming a beam of light towards his direction. Because if he hadn’t missed it, Mista wouldn’t have needed to lunge in front of him, firing off useless gunshots even as Giorno yells, “Mista, no- ”
But by then, it’s too late. Both are absorbed into the sudden beam of light. The last thing Giorno sees when everything goes black is the sight of the user crumpling to the ground.
“Giorno!” someone screeches from the wall to their right. Giorno breaks out of his reverie and slips back into reality. He turns to see three Pistols gathered by a wall, in front of a large, ornate oil painting of a still life fruit basket. He hears more high-pitched sounds and frowns in confusion when he realizes it seems to be coming from behind the painting. On a hunch, he knocks carefully against the canvas. The sound echoes. Ah, there was an empty space behind the frame.
Giorno pushes the sides of the painting, trying to edge it towards a certain direction to get it to move. After a few errant moves, the frame finally slides to the right, revealing a decently sized dumbwaiter and One, Two and Three floating triumphantly inside it.
“Come on, Giorno!” they yell. “Get in! We’ll tell Mista to pull you up!”
Giorno’s heart skips a beat at the mention of Mista, even though he tells himself how useless it is to do so. He shuts his racing heart by squeezing his body into the crawlspace. It’s a tight fit; he doesn’t think his legs have been so tightly pressed against his chest since he was in the womb, but he manages to get all his limbs (and braid) inside before he hollers, “Pull me up!”
Sex Pistols disappear into the darkness of the tunnel above him. After a few seconds or minutes, Giorno hears the squealing groan of rope and metal links. Ever so slowly, he is pulled upward.
“Sheesh, this is heavy,” a familiar, gravelly voice says faintly from the very top. “You better actually be Giorno. If you’re not, I’m killing you and then Sex Pistols and then myself. Are you ready to have that much blood on your hands?”
Giorno could cry in relief hearing Mista threaten him again. “Shut up!” he says defiantly. “I would kill you first.”
At that, the pulley slides up infinitesimally faster. It takes just a few moments more until Giorno hears a clunk, the sound of the chains hitting the top of the stairwell, and then he is blinded by a rectangle of far too bright light. His eyes are saved by a dark, backlit figure ducking down and outstretching a hand.
“Come on, take it,” Mista says with a low chuckle. “Don’t worry, I washed them after I used the outhouse. Life before running water was a nightmare.”
“You better have washed them,” Giorno says with a laugh, but takes the hand anyway. Mista grabs on tight, and Giorno’s terrible, foolish mind hyper focuses on the rough and calloused palm, how it feels in his hand and then predicting how it might feel on other parts of his body.
Before his thoughts can spiral further, Giorno is suddenly tugged forward and then sent sprawling onto bedroom carpet. He lands on his belly with a dull thud, painfully so and grunts at the impact. Sex Pistols immediately swarms around his head, anxiously checking in on him and asking if he’s okay.
“Mista,” Two admonishes. “Now you’ve done it! You’ve hurt Giorno!”
“He’s fine,” Mista scoffs from somewhere above him. “Giorno’s ripped his own limbs off before. A little belly flop hurt no one.”
“Meesta!” the Sex Pistols screeches, their individual chatter overlapping to create a cacophony of noise. “You gotta apologize now! Do it! Say you’re sorry!”
“Hey, whose side are you on, me or his?” Mista whines.
A pause. Then, a chorus of high-pitched voices in response that pretty clearly says, “Giorno’s.”
“Traitors,” Mista mumbles. He sighs, and apparently leans down to Giorno on the floor, because his voice sounds closer when he says, “You alright there, boss?”
“I’m fine,” Giorno says, rolling over. For the first time, he gets a good look at Mista since this mess has begun.
Like Sex Pistols said, Mista is clearly in the middle of getting ready for the ball, although, fortunately or unfortunately, he’s fully clothed. He’s wearing a white, tight undershirt, which hugs his torso like a second skin. The shirt is tucked into black tights which trace the lines of his calves and leave nothing to the imagination. Giorno’s throat suddenly goes dry.
“See?” one of the Sex Pistols say. “Look at Giorno, all dazed because of you! You better hope he doesn’t have a concussion!”
Mista huffs, waving a hand to make the Pistols disappear. He extends a hand to help Giorno up off the floor. “Sorry, boss,” he says roughly. “My bad for making you fall. Consider the debt repaid for me taking bullets every day to save you.”
Giorno snorts in laughter. “Glad to see your wit is unharmed,” he says wryly. “That’s one good thing about this awful morning.” He takes Mista’s hand and gets up to his feet. Except, he miscalculates how much force he needs to do so, and accidentally thrusts himself onto Mista’s chest. His broad, very defined chest, his brain adds unhelpfully.
Giorno looks up to see Mista blink at him, and he suddenly registers exactly how close they are. He can practically count every individual eyelash on Mista’s eyes, and his eyes, which normally look almost black, are very clearly brown like pools of coffee, his dilated pupils in the center.
“Glad to see you too,” Mista says, his voice low and raspy. “It’s kind of my job to make sure you’re okay.”
Giorno smiles. “I know.”
Soft, lilting flute music begins playing. Giorno realizes with a start that the instrumental around him has never really ceased, but rather retreated to the background. It’s an observation that is quickly replaced by another far more pressing one as to the mood of this piece. Because even if Giorno would not consider himself an expert in Disney movies, by any means, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what exactly this romantic, light music is expecting the two of them to do. And for once, Giorno feels no inclination to fight back. He lowers his eyes to glance down at Mista’s lips, chapped but plush, and wonders what they taste like.
“Your voice sounds funny,” Mista blurts out. With a start, Giorno recoils backwards.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Mista nods, pink-faced. “It’s all soft and weirdly accented.” When he sees Giorno’s expression, he completely misinterprets it and quickly adds, “Not in a bad way! It’s just different.” He laughs nervously.
“Okay,” Giorno says, untangling himself from Mista’s grasp. He steps back and leans against the wall behind him. “I think we got distracted for a moment there. Let’s get back to the Stand battle at hand. Have you been visited by the user?”
“Yup,” Mista says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Woke up this morning to a woman in my mirror yelling at me — for all the wrong reasons, by the way — and telling me about her stand. She said we gotta finish Cinderella’s story before midnight to get out of here, right?”
Giorno nods. “I’m not well-versed in Disney princess lore,” he admits with some embarrassment. “Do you know exactly what the end of her story entails, exactly?”
Mista blinks. “You’ve never heard of Cinderella’s story?”
“My parents’ idea of love was not exactly to read me fairytales,” Giorno says dryly. “Severe emotional neglect would be the more accurate term.”
“Oh, right,” Mista says with a hint of embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, it’s pretty simple. Cinderella is this maid chick who shows up to the ball to get with Prince Charming, they dance and have True Love’s Kiss, and then they get married and live happily ever after.”
“I see,” Giorno says, pursing his lips. “So, if you’re Prince Charming, you have to kiss Cinderella for us to escape?” He frowns, his mood souring at the thought of Mista trading spit with an unknown maiden. “Whoever she may be,” he adds darkly.
“Oh,” Mista falters. “I mean, I thought you were-” He clams up suddenly.
“I’m what?” Giorno says, confused.
“Nothing,” Mista says hastily. “Nevermind. It’s dumb.”
Giorno squints his eyes suspiciously at Mista, but he doesn’t elaborate further. The blond shrugs, then says, “Alright. Regardless, with your knowledge of the story, we can narrow our search to filter out possible candidates for who this Cinderella may be.”
“Actually,” Mista interrupts. He swallows nervously. “When the user visited me, she was really insistent that we not take shortcuts. Like, there would be consequences if we did. So, I’m pretty inclined to not speed things up. I know Cinderella arrives at the end of the ball before midnight, so as soon as she does, I’ll kiss her.”
Giorno suddenly feels like throwing up his stomach’s contents in a way Narancia’s carriage never could. He swallows the feeling down and says in a controlled voice, “I took a shortcut to get here, and I’m fine. I say it’s important we get out of here as quickly as possible so we don’t stay trapped here forever.”
“I know that,” Mista says annoyed. “But I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s so risky, especially when I know that the story will work out if we just let it happen.”
Giorno frowns. His mind continues to play, like an old movie reel, the image of Mista holding a girl in his arms, caressing her face, and leaning down, and right as their lips are about to touch-
“No,” he says forcefully. Mista looks at him, taken aback, and it’s at that moment Giorno realizes he said that aloud. “No,” he repeats in a more normal voice. “I, uh, I think that’s not a good idea. It’s reckless and relies too much on your memory of a movie and random chance. If you don’t like my plan, I can just carry it out myself-”
“Oh my god,” Mista says in annoyance, throwing his hands up in his air. “Okay, I wasn’t going to be that person, bringing up old arguments, but this is so you.”
Giorno wrinkles his nose. “What?”
Mista rolls his eyes. “That thing where you keep putting yourself in danger just because you think your plans are going to work. Newsflash-”
He’s censored by the sound of loud commotion that sounds an awful lot like guards scuffling outside their door.
“-hole, we don’t know how dangerous King Princess is, exactly. If we just wait this out-”
“I don’t want to wait this out,” Giorno snaps, frustration and envy pooling in his chest to form a whole new beast entirely. “I don’t need you to baby me or anything. I can handle myself, and if you just let me take care of things, you don’t need to worry about getting injured. Again.”
“I was protecting you!” Mista argues. “And what about your safety? For someone who lectures me all the time about being careful, you’re always sacrificing yourself whenever you feel like it!”
“I can heal myself. You can’t heal yourself. It’s simple math-”
“No, that’s not it,” Mista says steadily, lining the words up like bullets in the chamber of his gun. “It’s because you don’t trust me. Even after all this time, you don’t trust me to have your safety and best interests at heart.”
“What?” Giorno says, flabbergasted. “Mista, where did you even get that idea-”
Before he can finish his sentence, the bedroom door bursts open. “Your Highness,” a guard says from outside the room, red-faced and panting. “We heard arguing and came as soon as we heard. Is this commoner,” he gestures to Giorno, “Violating your authority and talking back to you?”
Giorno waits for Mista to say no. Instead, his gaze turns cold and steely. “Yes, he is,” he says, straightening up. “Get him out of my sight.”
“Mista, what are you doing?” Giorno says incredulously, as members of the guard wrangle him by his arms, restraining him even though he’s not fighting back.
“You say you trust me, so trust me,” Mista says calmly. “It’s for your own good.”
Hurt blooms in Giorno’s chest, a combination of shock and anger and sadness and jealousy and a whole host of other emotions that he doesn’t know how to name. Distantly, he registers that he is being dragged outside Mista’s room, his body lying limp in the guards’ arms.
And then, an elbow knocks against his head, sending him straight into a state of unconsciousness. The last thing he registers is Mista turning away from him, towards the large window taking up half of his bedroom wall, at the slowly setting sun.
And then everything goes black.
When Giorno wakes up, he’s lying with his face pressed down on the grimy floor of a dark, damp jail cell. His fingers tremble from how alarmingly cold it is, but also because he feels a distinct sense of terror, not knowing exactly where he is.
He takes a breath and focuses. There’s no use in panicking, after all.
He can hear a distant sound of clattering dishes and pots and pans, so he can’t be too far from the kitchens. Therefore, he must be on the bottom floor of the castle, possibly the basement, which means he’s in the castle prison, left to rot until the guards decide they feel like torturing him. Giorno closes his eyes and lets out a defeated sigh.
This is the first time in a long time that he’s felt this lost, abandoned. Even when he was younger, living with abusive parents with no friends to turn to but the inconsistent presence of a gangster, he was propelled forward by his Dream with a capital D. As long as he was the Don of the mafia, he told himself, he could finally rid Napoli of all drugs and bring prosperity back to the community that shunned and despised him. And with that Dream now even more attainable than ever, he should have never felt lost again.
And yet. Throughout his ascension to Don, there was Mista by his side, a presence so constant he might as well have been his shadow. And Giorno, perhaps without him really knowing, let himself grow to rely and care for Mista, in a fierce kind of way that he’s never cared for anyone else before.
But now, that was all gone, because Mista was convinced Giorno didn’t trust him and that Giorno cared so little about himself that he had to be locked in a cell to stay out of interference. Which wasn’t true; Giorno knew plenty about self-preservation, he just instinctively understood that Mista’s survival mattered more than a limb or two.
None of that mattered now, though. Because Mista was about to have the time of his life at this ball and then meet perfect, beautiful, maiden Cinderella to dance the night away and share a True Love’s Kiss with. Of course he was going to, because the universe derived cruel satisfaction from batting Giorno’s heart around like a ball of yarn between a cat’s paws.
Around him, the ever-present thrum of music begins singing a familiar song. It takes a few moments, but then Giorno recognizes it’s an orchestral, choir version of the song he had sung earlier that morning. Despite how hopeful the tone sounded earlier, it feels pitiful, mocking, ironic now. Giorno yells, “Shut up,” above him, hoping the music will cease.
It does not.
“Useless,” he scoffs, kicking a stray pebble on the ground. He brings his knees close to his chest in a fetal position and hugs himself close. “The great Giorno Giovanna, reduced to a whimpering, pathetic mess. Tch.”
He sinks lower into his chest. To think, the Don of the mafia could feel so distinctly in over his head, thrown into a strange new world with strange new rules, just like how he was as an overambitious 15 year old marching up to Libbecchio’s for the first time. He’s trained himself not to cry over the years, but for the first time in a long time, he feels the urge to do so.
He doesn’t know how long he sits in his cell, alone. There’s no use trying to escape; he doesn’t have Gold Experience in his arsenal to use with his Stand being essentially rendered useless in this world. Out of desperation, he summons GER to try and slam into the gates. It barely leaves a dent, and then it stares at Giorno with sad, puppy dog eyes, if that’s even possible with a Stand that doesn’t have eyelids.
Giorno scoffs. “Oh, f-”
He is abruptly censored by an uproar of laughs and cheers of partygoers above him.
“-off,” Giorno finishes. He looks up in annoyance, and then realizes what that sound means. He must have been unconscious for longer than he realized, because the ball had already started without Giorno. Which meant Mista was only moments away from falling in love at first sight with some fair-haired maiden and then...
He doesn’t want to think about it. Giorno holds his face in his hands and resists the urge to tear up like some pitiful baby. He speaks brokenly alone to the silence, knowing and praying that there is no one around to hear him. “God,” he says, defeated. “I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s all you had to say,” a deep, booming voice says from the shadows. Giorno nearly jumps five feet in the air. He scrambles back towards the wall in fear as a shadowy figure approaches him. As his back hits the cold, stone wall of his cell, a face begins to take form in the darkness; one with sharp, angular features; a sleek, dark bob; and trademark, deep gold hair clips that glint in the light. It’s a sight that sends instant pain and gratification throughout Giorno’s soul.
“Bucciarati,” he breathes, his face breaking out into pure, crystal clear relief. “You’re here.”
The man stills. “You’re supposed to call me your fairy godfather, but yes.”
“You’re a fairy?” Giorno says in confusion.
Bucciarati nods firmly. “Yes, and I’m not ashamed of it.” He pauses and then says, “Also because I do magic and help people like you in your hour of need. I understand that hour happens to be eleven o’clock at night?”
He smiles wryly at his joke, likely expecting Giorno to laugh politely or roll his eyes. Instead, Giorno throws his arms around Bucciarati’s torso into a tight hug, his shoulders shaking in silent tears. The man balks, but slowly lifts his arm to Giorno’s shoulders to return his embrace.
“There, there,” he says, patting Giorno’s back a little awkwardly.
“I’m sorry,” Giorno says wetly. “For everything, not just this. I know I ruined everything by pushing away Mista and taking on this Stand alone and seeing all my dead friends who sacrificed their lives just to help me with my dream , the one I can’t even honor your deaths with because I’m going to be trapped into this world forever.” He hiccups, his throat closing up without his volition, as if trying to prevent his words from coming out of him. “I’m so lost. What kind of useless leader must I be, that I can’t even defeat this stupid of a Stand?”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Bucciarati says, hugging Giorno tighter. “It’s okay, alright? I’m alive and well, and I’m sure whatever this Stand business you’re referring to will turn out just fine. If you really had no hope, I wouldn’t be here. And here I am.”
Giorno nods and pulls away from Bucciarati’s grasp, wiping the wet spots off his cheeks. “Okay,” he says hesitantly. “What should I do?”
“Well, you have to go to the ball, of course,” Bucciarati says matter-of-factly, rolling up his sleeves.
“The ball?” Giorno says a little incredulously. “But I’m not supposed to be there. Mista needs to meet his Cinderella, and…” He swallows. “He won’t want to see me.”
Bucciarati pats Giorno reassuringly. “You wouldn’t have gotten an invite to the ball if you weren’t meant to be there,” he says a little cryptically. “And I don’t see why Mista wouldn’t want you there. I think you would be very surprised with how much he does.” He winks, although Giorno doesn’t have the faintest clue why.
“Okay,” Giorno says uncertainly, his buried instincts to obey his Capo taking over. He executively decides to leave the absurd details and plot holes up to the storyline to sort out. “In that case, I’ll need a new outfit.” He looks down at his ragged, dirty clothes. “I can’t go looking like this.”
“Worry not,” Bucciarati says all-knowingly, with a gentle smile. “Just let me get my wand.” He frowns. “Now where did I put it?” He pats his pockets and his sleeves, muttering to himself, “I just had it right here, if you could just give me a second.”
Giorno nods politely, despite knowing Bucciarati is not looking in his direction and can’t see him.
“Oh!” Bucciarati says, straightening up. “I forgot. I put it in my zipper dimension.”
Giorno widens his eyes and watches as Bucciarati unzips a zipper on the side of his leg that wasn’t there before, he doesn’t think. The fairy godfather pulls out a long, thin wand, the tip of which sparkles, illuminating the whole cell in a pale, ethereal light.
“There we go,” Bucciarati says self-assuredly. “We’ll have to hurry. You don’t have much time, and miracles take time, you know.”
He turns to Giorno and looks him up and down with a critical eye. “You really need a new outfit,” he says to himself. “Let’s see, the size, the shade of your eye...you’ll need something simple, but daring too.”
Bucciarati hums thoughtfully, then lights up. “Just leave it to me. All it takes is a couple magical words.” A xylophone and bright flute begins to flutter all around Giorno as violins play the first few notes of what he can now tell is the opening to a musical number. In panic, he slaps a hand over Bucciarati’s mouth.
“Don’t sing,” Giorno says hurriedly. “I really need to get to Mista as soon as possible. Please, just do the magical transformation and be done with it.”
Bucciarati frowns, but slowly nods. Giorno drops his hands.
With a sigh, Bucciarati says listlessly, “Bibbity bobbity boo,” and on command, sparkles of magic appear around Giorno, like fairy lights draped over a Christmas tree, showering him with elegant droplets of brilliant diamond light. Giorno looks down in euphoric shock to see his clothes transforming from the worn, torn clothes of a commoner, into a blue-grey, shimmery suit that glitters with opulence. It fits him like a glove, with light blue puffs at the sleeve and a cinched waist that accentuates his lean frame. Giorno feels his braid sway, and he turns his gaze to notice his hair has been pulled into a perfectly positioned bun, wrapped up in a sparkling blue ribbon.
“Oh, wow,” he breathes, twirling around. “This is beautiful. It fits like a dream.” He glances down at his feet and realizes his black slippers have also been transformed into glittery, crystal clear slippers. Glass slippers, now that he looks closer. Now where had Giorno heard that phrase before?
Bucciarati produces a zipper in the cobblestone wall of the cell. “The other side of this wall is a stairwell which leads up to the coat closet. Once you step out, you’ll be able to enter the ballroom.” He clicks his tongue. “Now remember, you only have until midnight. You must hurry if you don’t want to miss your chance.”
“Miss my chance?” Giorno says, confused.
His fairy godfather fully ignores him in favor of unzipping the zipper, revealing an open space and a walkway to pass through. Bucciarati nods his head in the direction of the other end of the wall, and gestures for Giorno to step forward. Hesitantly, he does so.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Bucciarati says with a gentle smile. “Go on now. Dance. Be gay.”
Giorno swallows and takes a leap of faith over to the other side of freedom. Once his slippers land on solid ground, he turns back and gives Bucciarati a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” he says. “Truly. For everything.”
Bucciarati nods knowingly, and for a moment, the movement is so close to the man himself that it sends a pang of nostalgia through Giorno. “Of course,” he says. “Hurry along now.”
With one last thankful look, Giorno races up the stairwell, his glass slippers clinking like champagne bottles with each step. He’s got to get to Mista, and time is only working against him, after all.
A few moments later, Giorno comes out of the closet to enter a small foyer. He glances down to see a red carpet leading straight out into a large doorway with gold carved features around it, where a glittering ballroom awaits him. Crystal, gleaming tile lines the floor where people crowd the edges of, the main feature clearly being the twin thrones at one end of the room, directly facing where Giorno is standing.
On the higher throne is the King, resting his chin on one hand and looking so politely interested in the two girls bowing in front of them that he could not more obviously seem bored to Giorno. On the lower throne is Mista, who is sitting cross-legged and barely concealing a yawn. Giorno can’t help but smile at the sight. A true gangster, through and through.
He swallows his nerves and steps forward, out of the coat closet and into the ballroom. He stops next to a marble column and watches, admiring without his conscious command how nicely Mista looks dressed up. He’s wearing a dark navy blue suit, black dress pants, and gold details on his shoulders and lapels, the picture of royal elegance. In contrast, Giorno feels rather foolish in his magical suit, like he’s a preteen at the school prom, but all his thoughts wash away when Mista looks up and meets his eye from across the room.
The violins that seem to follow Giorno wherever he goes swell like a lover’s sigh. Mista’s expression immediately shifts from apathy to something else entirely, and the prince stands suddenly. For a moment, Giorno worries that Mista is going to yell at him again and order him to be banished from the premises, but instead, Mista pushes past the two girls bowing before him and crosses the distance between them. In just a few moments, he’s by Giorno’s side to take his hand.
“You’re here,” Mista breathes. “Thank god. I thought that I-” He swallows. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too.” Giorno allows himself a moment to take in Mista’s royal outfit up close. From this perspective, it looks even more regal and magnificent and definitely does his broad shoulders and long legs justice. “You clean up nicely.”
“You think so?” Mista says, his face strangely flushed. “You look nice too. More than nice. You look hot.” He widens his eyes. “I mean, pretty. Pretty gorgeous. Pretty good. Looking.” He swallows. “I am going to stop talking.”
Giorno’s cheeks turn crimson. “Thank you,” he says lamely after a beat. It is at this moment that his ears pick up the growing hushed whispers around him, and his gaze flickers from Mista’s face to the staring crowd of partygoers behind them, openly gossiping to one another.
He frowns. “Let’s get out of here. I’d rather talk with you without a captive audience.”
Mista looks over his shoulders and blanches. “Yeah, for sure,” he says hurriedly. He wraps his fingers around Giorno’s hand. “There’s a place I was scoping out earlier. I think you’d like it.”
Giorno allows himself to be led out the crystal ballroom, past a large, open staircase winding down into the foyer, and then out the exit into a quiet, secluded garden. Mista is right; Giorno loves the way the garden sprawls with natural beauty, a decidedly tranquil aura hanging over it in the pale moonlight. Flowering bushes line the walkway, featuring buds of roses and light purple lilacs mid-bloom which face the crystal fountain of water in the center. The low babble of water streaming out is the closest thing he has heard to true silence all day.
“Wow,” Giorno says, stunned. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” Mista echoes. Giorno turns to look up at his face, expecting his gaze to be trained on the breathtaking view, but instead, Mista is looking right at him. Giorno, for some inane reason, feels the tips of his ears burn in embarrassment.
“What are you two doing out there?” someone yells. Giorno whips his head to look up at a balcony on the castle, where the king and some guests are leaning out over the bannister, staring over them.
“Dancing!” Mista hollers shamelessly with a broad grin. “We’ll be back in a bit!”
Reluctantly, their audience leaves them alone. Mista turns to Giorno, and a little slyly, extends a hand in silent invitation.
Giorno levels an unimpressed gaze at him. “Don’t tell me that I not only am meant to sing, but also dance.”
“Think about it like this,” Mista says with a laugh. “It’s just coordinated posing and movement to keep people off of our backs, like fighting a Stand battle. Nothing more to it.”
“I suppose,” Giorno says doubtfully. “But you’re giving me an update on your progress with finding Cinderella the whole time, so I don’t have to worry about how foolish we’ll look.”
Mista grins widely. “Will do.” He bows forward with slow sensuality, almost reverently leaning down to ghost his lips over Giorno’s knuckles. Every point of contact suddenly becomes hypersensitive, sending bursts of electricity up his spine, and Giorno knows his face must be positively red. Mista’s eyes scan upwards, and then he says in a low voice, “May I have this dance?”
Giorno nods, because he doesn’t trust his vocal chords to maintain his composure, and allows Mista to take his hand and place it on his hip bone. Slow, lush string instruments begin playing, flutes trilling and the world fades into sunset hues of orange and pink as Mista takes Giorno by the waist and lifts their interlocked hands.
With a crooked smile, he guides Giorno into a twirl around him, slowly swaying his hips in time with the tempo. Giorno copies him as best as he can, and after a few missteps in which Mista winces in pain, he gets the hang of it enough to stay on his feet. Hesitantly, he places a hand on Mista’s shoulder, and then it’s much easier for him to move in time, holding on as Mista steers him to where he is going.
“I’ve met about every girl in the kingdom at this point,” Mista says casually. “No one named Cinderella on the guest list, although that would probably be too obvious. Nobody with two stepsisters and a stepmother. No blonds have been standing out to me either.”
“I see,” Giorno says, instead of what he really wanted to say, which is What about me? He averts his eyes to stare out at the flowering bushes, a beautiful species that he should cultivate when they get back to Napoli. If they get back.
Speaking of. “You should go meet the rest of the girls then,” Giorno frowns. “You’re not going to find Cinderella out here all alone with me.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mista stare at him with a searching gaze, intensely, almost enraptured. Giorno very selfishly thinks to himself that he would like Mista to stare at him like that forever.
“Is that what you want?”
“Sorry?” Giorno says, taken aback. “Of course I want you to find Cinderella. It’s the only way for us to get back to our real world.” He swallows. “I’m trusting your method.”
The two come to a rolling stop but keep their hands intertwined. Giorno pauses to catch his breath, taking in sweet, evening air. Mista’s eyes still don’t leave his face.
“Sure,” Mista says. “But when will we ever get a chance to do this?”
Giorno snorts. “Dancing? You go clubbing all the time.”
“No,” Mista says, bringing his hand up to brush against Giorno’s jawline. His thumb gently slides over Giorno’s increasingly flushed skin, as if he was holding the most precious item in the world. “Spending time together like this, without work or responsibilities. Just the two of us.”
Giorno feels a lump rise in his throat. “Mista,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
Giorno turns his gaze away. “You need to get your True Love’s Kiss with Cinderella.” He scoffs incredulously. “God, it sounds so ridiculous saying it aloud. But that’s how this story goes, right? That’s what needs to happen.” He looks up at the watchtower in the distance, the minute hand dangerously closer to the 12 at the top. “And we don’t have much time left before midnight.”
“I know all of that,” Mista swallows, his Adam’s Apple bobbing in his throat. “But, and please pretend I never said this,” he says thickly. “What if you’re Cinderella?”
Giorno closes his eyes. “Mista-”
“It’s true,” Mista says insistently, grabbing Giorno’s hands and bringing them up to his chest. “I don’t feel like kissing any more blondes-”
“Any more?”
“-When I know that I really feel like kissing you right now,” Mista says hurriedly. “And you have all the traits of a Disney princess, with the whole animal whisperer and singing shtick, and I might just be a little biased because there’s no one else I want to kiss right now except you.” By now, his face is well and truly red. “Even if it doesn’t save us. I just… I want to know what it would be like.” He averts his eyes. “I probably said too much. You can-”
Giorno does possibly the stupidest thing he could do at this moment and sits up on his tiptoes to press his lips against Mista’s. As he leans forward, he wonders why the music in the background isn’t fluttering like his chest is in anticipation of this climactic moment. Still, he insistently presses their lips together and waits with far too much hope than is deserved, praying that this kiss is It and that everything will go back to normal once it’s over. So he waits.
And he waits.
And he waits.
And then when he breaks away and looks around to still see Mista, dazed, in his royal uniform, the crystal fountain and palace surrounding them, his face falls.
“Well, there you go,” Giorno says stiltedly, stepping back out of Mista’s embrace. “You got the kiss. Nothing happened. Clearly your theory was wrong.”
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Mista says with uncertainty. “I mean, I’m not an expert, but I thought it was pretty good.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Giorno says forcefully. “You said it yourself. Once Cinderella and Prince Charming kiss True Love’s Kiss, that’s when they get their happily ever after. And yet, here we are, still firmly under the Stand’s control.”
“But it’s not just the kiss,” Mista interrupts. “There has to be a moment of connection too, right?”
“We are plenty connected,” Giorno says incredulously. “I work, play, and spend almost every free second of my life together with you. How much more connected could I possibly be to you?”
Mista scratches the back of his neck and says hesitantly, “Okay, hear me out. Maybe you feel really connected with me, but I don’t feel as connected with you.”
Giorno freezes. “What?”
“Yeah,” Mista says with a quick nod, the words rushing to leave his mouth. “You always shut me out to handle things yourself, putting yourself at risk so we can’t work as a team. And that’s not really a connection, is it?”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” Giorno says, spinning on his heel and turning away so Mista can’t see his expression. “I’m not shutting you out, I’m...purposely keeping you at a distance to protect you. If you’re not in the line of fire, you can’t get hurt.”
“But it’s my job to get hurt for you,” Mista says, uncharacteristically softly. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t care for you. You are someone worth getting hurt for.”
Giorno shakes his head insistently. “No, no, no, that’s not going to happen,” he says. “Too many…” he swallows thickly. “I care too much to allow it. That’s what it means to care — to maintain that distance to protect them from yourself. It’s how my father cared for me, my mother cared for me, and the injured gangster cared for me.” He wraps his arms around himself in a tight embrace. “You have to do what’s best for the ones you love.”
He turns to look up towards the clock tower, the face of the clock now just one tick away from midnight. His heart sinks even lower in his chest. With only a minute left, there was no way they would make it in time to find Cinderella and escape King Princess. They were going to be stuck in this world forever, and it was all because Giorno selfishly tried to snatch a kiss from Mista off some fantasy of how the world worked, and now he was a failure of a Don and a person, and all the deaths were for nothing, and-
“Giorno,” Mista says, breaking him out of his reverie. There’s a rustling noise as he stands up and places a hand on Giorno’s shoulder. “Giorno, look at me.”
Giorno, reluctantly, stops hyperventilating and looks over his shoulder to see Mista, in silvery pale moonlight, stare at him with unmistakable fondness. It’s so loving, it’s foreign. Shivers run down Giorno’s spine.
“I’m not good with words like you are, so you have to bear with me,” Mista says. He furrows his brow and says, “Your childhood was just massively f-”
An owl hoots loudly from a tree and then flies away towards the forest.
“-ed up,” Mista finishes. “And that is awful, but that’s not how caring for others works.”
He grabs Giorno’s wrist, caressing his thumbs over the vein. Openly, earnestly, he says, “If you’re going to love me, you have to love me in a way that won’t leave me.” He swallows, then says carefully, “The same way I love you.”
Giorno stares at him, wide-eyed. His heart thunders in his chest, a steady drum that threatens to break out of his ribcage and leave him slack-jawed and stupid by Mista’s side. “You love me?” he says in a tiny voice.
Mista laughs, not in a mocking way, but in an awkward, nervous way. “Yeah,” he shrugs helplessly. “I have for a while. I tried to fight it but, well.” He shakes his head. “You did not make it easy for me.”
“Oh,” Giorno says, absolutely dumbfounded. “I- I don’t know what to say.”
“Giorno Giovanna, failed by his golden tongue,” Mista says, with a nervous huff. “Who would have thought?”
Around them, violins start playing with gusto, a tune that sounds awfully familiar. Giorno shakes his head, internally laughing to himself. Of course a musical movie must have a reprise. What would it be without one?
“I am going to do something incredibly stupid, forgive me,” Giorno says apologetically, before he sings, only a little off-key, “A dream is a wish your heart makes…”
“Oh my god,” Mista says, his face breaking out into a grin.
“So when mine came true…” Giorno sings, red-faced. “I thought it would take the heartache, that comes when I look at you…”
The violins and flutes continue to trill melodically as Mista smiles down at him. “You have a nice singing voice,” he murmurs. “Can I join?”
Giorno raises an eyebrow but nods tightly. Mista squeezes his hands around Giorno’s hands before he sings, with a warm, dulcet baritone that he was not expecting, the next verse. “I trust in your dream that someday…”
Giorno closes his eyes, in part to appreciate Mista’s voice, in part to avoid melting on the spot from his warm gaze. “Your resolve will come shining through…”
Mista leans his head closer. “Now that it has, more than you’ve known…”
Giorno mimics the movement. “From faith in yours and my own…”
Together, in harmony, they sing, “Our dream has led me back to…” Dramatic pause. Giorno dips his gaze to find Mista’s lips.
“You.” Giorno sings alone, the word single and final. As the clock strikes midnight, the music soaring and gliding into a triumphant finish, he stands on his tiptoes and kisses Mista with all the resolve in his body. When their lips meet, Giorno experiences the universe and infinity in one singular moment. He lets out a quiet sigh as he does, squeezing his eyes shut, looping his arms around Mista’s neck to hold the two of them in place and never let this moment go. It’s so spectacular it feels like fireworks go off in the sky. Sounds like it too.
And then, Giorno realizes the sound he’s hearing is not fireworks, but the unmistakable ricocheting of bullets in the air. He opens his eyes to realize they’re back in a grimy abandoned knock-off Gardaland amusement park.
In front of him, the Stand user stands weakly to her feet, wobbling in place. “You- you thought that you’ve defeated me by escaping my King Princess’s hold, huh?” she rasps. “Little do you know, my stand is actually a reflection of your-”
“Hey, boss?” Mista says loudly, turning to Giorno. “Can you take me off probation real quick?”
Giorno wordlessly nods.
As soon as he does, Mista plucks his gun out of his pants and shoots the Stand user — twice in the chest, thrice in the head — and doesn’t stop until she collapses once more. “Sorry,” Mista says, sounding very much not sorry. “I don’t really give a crap about how her Stand works. As long as she’s dead, that’s all that really matters, huh?” He pauses. “Oh shit, is it good to curse without censoring.”
“Fuck,” Giorno says experimentally, then grins. “It does feel good.”
“You’ve got one dirty mouth, boss.” Mista grins crookedly and presses a kiss against his lips.
A weak, scratchy voice behind them croaks, “But little do you know, your cute couple dynamic actually feeds—”
Mista turns around and shoots the Stand User one last time. And then another one last time. And then one final last time.
Giorno watches impassively, and then, once he can no longer feel her life energy with Gold Experience, says, “I’d feel bad. Except, I’m never forgiving her for making me a peasant living in a small house overrun by wild animals, while you get to be a prince of the entire kingdom.”
“It was swanky as hell,” Mista says. “Loved having maids waiting on me hand and foot. Definitely wouldn’t mind getting used to it.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Noted,” Giorno says with a small smile. “Speaking of possible improvements, can you ask Sex Pistols to help me with my hair in the mornings from now on? It would make my daily routine so much more efficient.”
“God, no,” Mista scoffs. “I won’t reduce my badass stand to just your personal hairdresser. You know, it might get a lot of flack, but Sex Pistols is actually-”
His Stand appears suddenly, as if just summoned by a mere mention of their name without Mista’s conscious command, judging by the surprised expression on their user’s face.
“Of course we will help with your hair!” One chirps.
“Anything for you, Giorno!” Three says.
Five floats in front of Giorno’s face, his expression open and bashful. “Now that Mista has admitted he loves you,” he says timidly. “Does that mean we get to spend more time with you?”
Giorno smiles gently. “Of course,” he says, lifting his index finger to nuzzle Five’s cheek. “If that’s alright with you, Mista.” He turns, eyebrow raised expectantly.
Mista looks between Giorno and his Stand’s pleading expressions, then throws his hands in the air and groans. “They’ll do it whether I want them to or not,” he says crossly. “They’re such simps for you, it’s embarrassing. Traitors, all of you.” He waves a hand, and then Sex Pistols disappears.
Giorno politely does not mention how Stands are a reflection of their user’s soul. Instead, he hooks his hand around Mista’s elbow and says, “Come on. Let’s go get gelato. I’ve been wanting one all day.”
“Oh really?” Mista says, a sinisterly teasing look spreading over his face. “Was it your dream to? A wish that your heart made-”
“Shut up,” Giorno says, red-faced. “We’re never speaking of my brief musical career ever again.”
The two walk off towards the sunset, leaving a bloodied corpse of a woman lying on the ground behind them. Giorno leans his head against Mista’s shoulder, allowing himself a moment to breathe in deeply and take in the blissfully violin-free world around him colored in hues of pink and orange. For the first time in a long time, he strolls through his city to the sound of birds singing.