Changes

It was business as usual in Giorno’s villa. Giorno was issuing orders from his computer or phone, and Fugo stood by his door. As Fugo was guarding, he heard a sigh coming from Giorno and then footsteps. The boss opened the door.

“Is something the matter, Giogio?” the purple-eyed man said.

“Panna,” his boss called him, “do you ever get tired of doing the same thing repeatedly?”

There had been a few moments where a couple of hitmen tried and failed to bring him down, but Fugo and the other bodyguards handled them. However, there were a lot of moments of just standing around, doing nothing but watching attacks that didn’t come.

“Yeah,” Fugo answered. “And I could use a day off.”

“I’m surprised you finally asked for a day off. I’ve noticed the older we get, the more Mista asks for more days off.”

“He is older than us. Hmm, that’s strange.”

“What is?” Giorno asked.

“This feeling of being old. I feel like I had felt this a long time ago.”

Giorno remembered. “We were protecting Trish, and Bruno and Mista had to fight off a guy who could age us.”

“I don’t remember that. Anyway, where are we going?”

“A place we haven’t set foot in ages.”

-

After Giorno became boss, the gang was busy getting rid of the drugs in Italy. The two tried to spend more time in Libeccio as possible, but too many things happened, so they had to stop coming.

Giorno’s driver dropped them off, and the two went inside, where the host greeted them.

“I know who you are!” the host said. “The former host who worked here showed me a picture of you. You sat at a table away from the other customers. I’ll have you guys seated over there.”

While they were walking to the table, Giorno noticed many young people recording or taking pictures of their food with their smartphones.

“Who takes a picture of their food?” the boss commented.

Fugo didn’t answer.

The two sat down at the table where the original gang used to sit. Giorno thought this would be a good idea, but then he saw Fugo’s quivering lips. And he could’ve sworn he saw a teardrop in his eye.

“Panna…” Giorno called out, concerned for his husband.

“Sorry, Giogio,” Fugo explained, “I just miss them so much.”

“I understand. I miss them too, especially Bucciarati.” He sighed and opened his menu. “We should order something.”

“You’re right.” Fugo gained his composure and opened his menu. “What the hell? Did they remove my usual?”

Giorno saw him grip the menu with force, Fugo’s arms shaking. “It’s alright. My favorite, the octopus salad, isn’t on here anymore. Try the other things. You might like it. I want the fried calamari for the appetizers and maybe the eggplant parmigiana.”

“Hmm, I have never seen this on the menu. This shrimp fra diavolo sounds good.”

“D-Diavolo?” Giorno began shaking.

“Giogio, are you okay?

“Yeah. Darling, could you please get something else?”

“Okay. You know, I just realized they removed all the dishes with octopus in them. I wonder why. Maybe I’ll ask the waiter that. I know octopus salad is your favorite.”

A middle-aged waiter came by their table. “Are you two ready to order?”

“I am,” Giorno said. “Fugo?”

“Ah, I’ll just have a Margherita pizza. I’m curious. What happened to the dishes with octopus in them?”

“A few years ago, the chief read an article about how octopuses were too intelligent to eat.”

Both of them lowered their eyebrows.

“Too intelligent to eat?” Fugo repeated. “Do you hear this?”

“Yeah,” Giorno answered. “Tell the chief that all life wants to live and thrive. Using intelligence as a metric to decide whether it’s morally right to eat an animal is strange, is it not?”

Beads of sweat ran down the waiter’s head. “O-oh. I’ll tell them that. S-so a Margherita pizza—”

“Fried calamari and eggplant parmigiana,” Giorno interrupted.

“Right. I’ll be back.”

The waiter ran off.

“Are we going to tip them?” Fugo asked.

“It’s not their fault octopus isn’t on the menu. We’ll tip them. That was an interesting conversation.”