Chapter Text
Giorno had received the whole carrot and stick treatment even before qualifying for a conversation with the nihon horsepower who called himself “possibly his cousin or uncle – wait what if I am an uncle again??” after seeing the star shaped birthmark in his shoulder.
Yeah, the whole carrot and stick, at the very same time! That, the thief calculated by the velocity of his young muscles exploding and regenerating themselves with the same intensity by the second.
It seems that his life had been spared by his biological father’s lecherousness, after all. Little wonders!
(He had no idea that the other man never had had a bodycount nor thought of having one.)
The dark horse of a japanese mastodon next to him was happily chattering about Joestars (whoever those people were) and birthmarks. Yeah, he had no time to enter the conversation that the boy was leading onesidedly – he had been not able to even listen to it correctly as well because while the taller man was still chirping his uh Ghost Protector was still punching him at what he approximated to 300 km/h. Gold Experience gently weeped at his side while also receiving the explosive damage of the pink apparition’s punches. Or so he hoped. He was still getting used to read his metallic ladybird Ghost Protector (it seems it was shy enough to not say much more than MUDA. Useless useless useless).
Jesus fucking Christ. First time he finally finds someone with a Ghost like his and it happens to be one that was able to nullify some of the effects of his own ability. The suitcase, the traitor that he had stolen earlier that day, that was decidedly not a frog anymore, shone in the afternoon’s sun directly in Giorno's eyes, as it laughing at his luck.
After a while of being barraged he fell like if thrown from a second floor over soft grass, he was able to feel the bones and muscles around his battered soul reorganizing with loud POPs! Hell, he thought while difficultly dusting his tailored pants, he felt like five concrete breakers decided to do some breakdance over his body and made holes all through it. However, the uncomfortable feeling stopped when he was finally able to face his attacker. You know, like in the movies, one look and all pain is gone, see, theat kinda "love-y" doki doki in movies and comics – not that he really knew much of those to use as examples, though, his life had lacked seriously in childhood moments and of good memories overall.
Giorno thought he was also lacking in puberty moments since he lacked the time of having romances when he was scheming and scamming tourists but... shit that wasn’t a stud but a stallion of a man. A man who was offering him a hand alongside some words he didn't put attention on at all.
He wondered what terms he would be accepting if he took it.
“Sorry about that, I got excited. Come on, care to chat for a bit?” The tall fallen angel offered his hand with a smile, a promise of sure pain for the future, he knew.
Well, too bad for his brain, his libido informed. Losers had to accept the terms of the winners, and seeing the young twinkles on the man’s manly shaped face Giorno decided that he would surrender his dream to him if he asked. If only for a day. Or two.
He took his hand and held onto it.
It was wide. And very warm.
“I am Josuke Higashikata” Josuke said, in delightfully accented italian. “I-it just ocurred to me that you might have not understood anything I said no? Ahahaha, sorry, its my third language only. I am not very used to use it in real life…”
“Don’t worry, Josuke, I can understand you just fine” Giorno said, cracking his back. He hadnt’t mentioned he could understand japanese, maybe the reason of why he could that could come later. Giorno knew japanese was all about hospitality and making other people comfortable, and boy he knew he could excel at that. He, then, put his best mascara of a smile, hoping for no more beatings in the future.
Josuke smiled at him as well, a full toothy smile. Then punched him once more in the face. “That’s for my hard earned cash, bastard.” went accompanied with a “Oh, but your nose will not be cracked anymore so don’t worry, I kinda fixed that now.”
... Had his nose been cracked before?
Oh well, a petty thievery deserved a petty sucker punch. But he had already forgiven him once for the damage done in the past two minutes so he guessed his revenge will have to come later.
---
So it seemed that Giorno Giovanna’s Dream had been suckerpunched to death because pizza.
No wait, scratch that. Pizza Margherita was the main character but there was a forest hiding behind That tree.
Both men sat on a small café store, far away from the airport plaza where they fought for the first time. Josuke asked for a Vanilla Capucchino with some cookies, Giorno decided to just go for cheap pudding.
“… I got in a row with my friend Okuyasu because I told him that food from Italia should taste better than what’s sold at the italian restaurant near home uhm – well I still don’t like that italian guy whom he loves that much eh, Tonio Trussardi is his name. He is a chef, manages Trattoria Trussardi too – and is a Stand user as well and --”
Wow that’s a familiar name. Weren’t the Trussardis some napoletan rich family who fell into ruin and was subsequently absorbed by Passione sometime ago? Something something with the Volpes too.
That was not what the two suited boy told Josuke, though.
“You will have to excuse me but, what is a Stand?”
The explanation he received was inmersive and interesting although a bit broken due to the man’s lack of competence in italian. Josuke tended to mix japanese, english and italian together when he got confused by verbs or conjugations, and to add at that there was something that happened more than conjugation problems; Josuke got easily sidetracked into branches and branches of stories due to his years of experience with Stands and Stand Users who were particularly hostile themselves, even more than his delinquent self. Josuke told him that he tended be a fairly sweet man with the ladies and men (haha). What was important of what he explained, Giorno thought, was that Stands were a representation of your Soul, who stood up to peril and fought alongside you. That was good to know, to have a fitting name for Gold Experience at last. Maybe he would have to ask more about Stands later, starting with his new teacher's. While silently tasting the caramel of his pudding (not good at all), Giorno decided to drop the conversation to have a better look of the other man. An enormous pompadour of hair so black that looked blue at the light, a boyish face that could have easily been modeled in the Renaissance movement yet modified and affected by his homely environment. A japanese student jacket over informal yet expensive clothes that led nothing to the imagination, definitely a man with expensive tastes (oh he could understand) --- and there, just there in his shoulder, like the first star in the early twilight, a small purplish star.
A reflection of his own, a reflection of their destiny, surely.
Sigh. A sudden – and violent once in a lifetime encounter with the Adonis of his non-dreams and turns out they could be related. The thought itself soured his mood, so he decided to drop the thought – or save it for another night when alone to start watch him gesticulate. Josuke was really expressive. And honest. And really super simple.
He was clearly a momma’s boy. But one with a mischievous spirit as well.
Maybe all wasn't that bad.
Giorno wondered how it would have been if he had lived in Morioh alongside him, too.
“… So after stealing Koichi’s passport alongside some data I uh still haven’t looked at, editing the passport’s information with Crazy Diamond and secretly buying some plane tickets with the monthly cash the old man sends me I was able to come here. So that’s it! Any questions?”
“You can really forge papers with your stand? I thought it was able to heal and restore things to its original components.”
“Ah, you see, after so many shit happening in Morioh I kind of discovered that I could modify and mould inorganic matter to my tastes!" Josuke said, flexing a bit, albeit unconsciously. "I have done so with Angelo and some rocks when I was very goddamn angry – oh shit Angelo, if you go to Morioh someday I will show him to you too – ah, so I thought ‘Well, what if I could do it when I am not angry??’ and practiced a whole lot to learn to do jobs this small but I believe I might be a genius at this, heh heh.”
Huh. Wasn’t that Useful?
One hard eyeful look to his Stand and Gold Experience found itself feigning to weep again.
“That’s very interesting.” Giorno said, his eyes now on a bigger prize now than Josuke’s tits. “Say, may I tell you my story now? Now that you already got your suitcase with all your menagerie and money inside – I can assure you I haven’t done anything to it, outside of converting it into a frog. I didn't have the time to check it or steal from it” - He said, hands on the air like giving himself out. Please don't hit me after this, he meant. He did listen to a mumbled glad it was not a turtle coming from the other’s shuddering lips and saved that information in a special side of his brain.
Josuke picked up the cues. Of course he would, no matter how much big dog energy he did they had the same blood running thru them. “You have to know that I might had just dropped you on the nearest hospital if you didn’t have that birthmark, but whatever.” The half-japanese (like him!!!) smiled, a wide smile that reflected sleazy deviousness. Predatory. “I am no saint you know? I might have uhh fucked up a friend’s life more than twice no wait, have done this and that in Morioh too, so… yeah, buy me another coffee and I will listen whatever you say.”
Giorno smiled as well, a refined mirror of his now newfounded family’s one.
“Are you that cheap, Higashikata Josuke?”
He could see the recognition twinkle in the other’s eyes. Blue blue twinkling eyes, so alike his own.
“Depends on your story, midget. It better be good.”