PSEUMINO, VENTO AUREO.

G. GIOVANNA

═ ☆. HE TOOK A SEAT calmly and without ceremony. He was so unaffected that you would never know he had been gone campus for the better part of two weeks. There was no trace of sheepishness. He only slung one leg over the other as though he had never been anywhere but this table.

You didn't greet him. You wouldn't give Giorno the satisfaction of opening your mouth first. Evidently, he wouldn't either, as not once did his green eyes slide toward you. You might as well not have been there for all the attention he was giving you.

You tried to be just as impassive as he was, keeping your attention doggedly on your laptop. Occasionally, Giorno would call out to a student who passed by, light and breezy as ever. He would smile; it was hard to miss that even with your laptop.

"Where have you been, Giorno?"

"Milan. It's wonderful there."

"Really? Just out of the blue? Where were you at the fundraiser?"

"I was there."

All the curious questions directed toward him were evaded. For the next twenty minutes, Giorno only answered in the bare minimum. The students would move on, peering curiously at the person Giorno was sitting across from but not speaking to.

What was he doing here, if not to talk to you? Why didn't he just leave instead of sitting there? He had classes to catch up on and parties to go to. The day was nice, but not nice enough to warrant him sitting there for so long.

Milan must have been kind to him. Giorno's hair was immaculately styled, his skin smooth, movements easy. An artfully baggy collared shirt, open to bare the curve of his collarbone. Silk pants whose wrinkles somehow looked manufactured instead of sloppy. Both in a shade of pretty geranium pink. He had nothing else on him. It seemed he had nowhere else to be.

Eventually, his indifference became too much. You had to cave, or you knew Giorno would've continued sitting at the table, quietly smiling at everyone but you. He was exactly the type of person petty and driven enough to do that. The air around him was casual, but since when did Giorno do anything without reason?

"What do you want?"

Giorno didn't answer, the bastard. He didn't even acknowledge the words. He was a dignified portrait, staring somewhere across the green lawn.

"Why are you sitting here if you don't want to talk to me?" You shut your laptop in frustration. "There are plenty of empty tables open. Even if they weren't, they'd be happy to let you sit."

Giorno folded his hands into his lap. It was then that you noticed the earrings he had on. Tiny ladybugs shining on his ears.

Maybe if you made your words sharp enough, a few would pierce through this ridiculous façade Giorno was putting up. "I know you healed everyone with Gold Experience. I would've expected you to hang around and gloat about it, but imagine my surprise when I heard you were in a goddamn different city? Right after I nearly died? How do you think I felt when I kept waiting for you to show up? I wanted you to say something. To tell me I did the right thing. That my Stand being gone was nothing to worry about, and that it didn't mean—"

You cut yourself off. You didn't really know how you wanted that sentence to end. Giorno brought up a hand to scratch the back of his neck absently.

"You were the ringleader of this whole thing. You set off Black Sabbath, made the meetings, came up with the plans. All you wanted was to get rid of Signor D. So why weren't you there when we did? It felt like you didn't care at all. Like it was all a little game you got bored of. Were you ashamed of healing us? Did you think it wasn't worth your Stand's power? You just couldn't stand us for some reason, so it was off to Milan? Was all of that about protecting Naples just some nice bullshit to add to your profile?"