Anger Management [Meloghia]

Chapter 14: The Naming of the Beast

Friday had been very different than Melone had originally planned. It all changed with the ringing of his cellphone. His therapy session was cancelled due to Dr. Florence's absence. She had not come into the office that day. The office assured him that he would have his appointment rescheduled. That freed up Melone's afternoon significantly. He could spend the day with Junior again and continue to test him. He'd survived a week now. Junior was technically separate from him which is why he never took damage when his juniors were attacked. Usually, his juniors died by this point so he'd never seen how strong they could get or how much they could learn. The learning process was always incredibly fast for his stand but he was surprised by just how much Junior had learned thus far. Whenever Melone wasn't around Junior would research different topics on Melone's laptop.

He returned to the room to find Junior eating and teaching himself about human behavior. Melone didn't want to think about the eventual time when Junior would leave him, more than likely he would die in battle. He enjoyed the homunculus's company, even if he was just a facsimile of Ghiaccio. Junior looked up and started talking immediately as Melone closed the door.

"Mommy, what is love? I've been researching emotions and their expressions to better gauge the enemy in battle. One that keeps coming up is love, a strong affection for another," Junior rambled on. "I found many websites that detailed the expression of love and the resulting effects of copulation. Yet some loves seem different and do not entail copulation."

"Yes, there are many different kinds of love," Melone explained as he sat down on the bed next to Junior. "Romantic love is the love that involves copulation. That love is only between two unrelated people that trust and care for each other intimately. There is friendship love, which is also usually between people who are unrelated, which involves equal amounts of trust in a person but you don't feel the same emotions as you do in romantic love. There is also familial love which is between two that are related—like you and I have for each other. You can also feel that for people unrelated to you as well. I feel that for La Squadra."

"So do you and Daddy have romantic love? Daddies and Mommies have romantic love, right?" Junior asked. Melone just stared at Junior, speechless; he searched for the right words to explain his relationship.

"Uh...Ghiaccio and I...well, we're more like...friends...I guess." He wasn't even sure if that was true either. They were partners. He knew Ghiaccio didn't view him as anything more than a coworker.

"I read that in romantic love, one person may harbor feelings while the other has no knowledge of it. So if you aren't copulating, do you at least feel romantic feelings for Daddy?"

"Uh....I suppose I've thought about it before." He thought love might be too strong a word. Melone didn't find Ghiaccio unattractive but he also couldn't really imagine anything happening between them seriously. Ghiaccio held too much animosity towards Melone for something like that. He also didn't even know if Ghiaccio swung that way. That didn't stop the wayward fantasy every now and again involving his partner's feet getting intimate with a certain part of Melone's body.

"You and Daddy are both males. I searched for that as well. It seems less common for people to have two male parents. It is also impossible for birth to happen when two men copulate. So how am I here?" Junior asked. Melone was not prepared for all these questions today but he supposed it was better than being asked all this after a possibly intense therapy session. He sighed.

"That's my stand's ability. I've told you about stands and stand users. I can combine people's DNA, female or not, to make children like you." Melone smiled.

"So I have siblings?" Junior asked earnestly. As his face lit up, sadness clutched Melone's heart.

"No." Melone swallowed.