PSEUMINO, VENTO AUREO.

✦.⁺ conviction.

═ ☆. GODDAMN. AND ALL OF THIS happened yesterday?"

"Yeah. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it."

Trish had sent you and Narancia a text last night telling you the meeting she'd talked about would be today at noon. You wouldn't be meeting at Trish or Giorno's place, much to your and Narancia's disappointment. The address Trish had attached led to the row of brownstone apartments a little ways from Sapiena. Home to mostly elderly ladies, according to Narancia.

"That means that if you hadn't followed those guys, Risotto would've gotten his ass beat," Narancia said. "Did he even thank you?"

"He was hurt pretty badly." You weren't sure why you sounded so defensive.

Narancia scoffed. "He didn't? Alright, now he's less of a badass and more of an asshole. I actually kind of admired him before you told me that." The irritation on Narancia's face disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "You saw his eyes, right? Are they actually like that, or are they contacts?"

You rolled your eyes. "Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to ask."

You and Narancia stopped at a traffic light to cross the street. As peppy as Narancia was, you could tell he was trying to hide how put-out he felt that you'd gone after Sale and Zucchero without him. Even though it would've been nice to have him around, you had told him you wouldn't have wanted him to get deflated. Just thinking about Zucchero's Stand still made you shudder.

"Well, I guess one good thing is that you were able to use your Stand again." The two of you followed the stream of people across the street. "I think it's pretty cool that it was able to pick Risotto out like that."

To be honest, you didn't care for your Stand at all. So far, all it could do was suffocate people and somehow track their location. You still couldn't control it, at least not like how Narancia could.

"I'd still rather be able to shoot bullets," you muttered.

"Are you sure about that? I've been thinking about it, and I don't think my Stand can do anything but shoot bullets. If it came down to muggers on the street, yeah, great. But my little airplane doesn't seem very versatile."

"Versatile or not, you didn't have any problem shooting down Black Sabbath." You felt a twinge of resentment that the bullets hadn't done anything to the Stand. It would've been nice to get rid of it and make sure no one else did the lighter test. Not that it was really your call.

You were only a few feet from the apartment in the address. It was quiet. A few cars passed by, and the cypress trees rustled pleasantly overhead. Once you finished university, you thought it would be nice to live in a neighbourhood like this one.

"Here we are," Narancia said as they went up the front steps to the apartment. "Do you think we were supposed to bring chocolates or something?"

"This isn't a housewarming party."

You noticed the worn placemat was a faded scene of Naples's coast, one lone fishing boat heading off to sea. It looked like it held some sentiment, and you wondered what the story behind it was.

Narancia rang the doorbell. The two of you waited for a few minutes before the door was opened by a bored-looking individual. Lavender hair covered one of his eyes, and the other stared at Narancia and you through purple-tinted glasses.

"Yes?"

"Uh, we're here for the thing?" Narancia said.

The guy blinked.

"You know ..." Narancia gestured vaguely. "The thing?"

"Narancia, we're not here to deal drugs," you said.