Chapter Text
Haruno doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t even know where here is, but it’s dark, he’s outside, and he can’t see his mother or his step-father anywhere.
It’s not all that strange for them to leave him alone—that happens all the time—but it is strange that’s he’s alone outside ; they usually go out and leave him at home.
Haruno tries to stand, and immediately trips, his limbs getting caught up in too much fabric. He looks down at himself, grasping the fabric bunching around his chest to examine it. It’s hard to tell what colour it is the dark, but it’s not too dark to tell that there is way too much of it—these clothes aren’t his.
“What the fuck— Giorno!” yells a man’s voice, startling Haruno. Only bad things happen when men raise their voices. Haruno knows this from experience.
Haruno looks around; this man has long lilac hair, and he’s glaring. Haruno is certain he’s never seen him before in his life, and it frightens him that he has no idea what he could have done to make him mad.
Usually Haruno knows, or at least can deduce, why someone is mad. He is watchful, and he spends long hours afterwards contemplating angry encounters, cataloging them in his mind, planning the ways he can avoid the same trigger in the future.
Haruno is very good at avoiding the obvious ones; crying, making noise, drawing attention to himself, but other things are beyond his control. Like whether his step-father’s racehorse wins or loses. Whether or not there is enough liquor in the house for him to drown his losses deep enough that he falls asleep before he remembers Haruno exists.
The man with long purple hair starts to march towards him with great big distance eating strides, his robes billowing out behind him menacingly, and Haruno recognises the expression on his face. This man wants to hurt him, and Haruno is small and useless, so all he can do watch with wide eyes for what direction the blow will come from so he can cover his head. He knows from experience that trying to run or hide is an exercise in futility. It’s more expedient to make himself as small a target as he can, and try to breath through it until it’s over.
In the end the man doesn’t touch him, something else does—a monster . It seems to erupt out of the angry man’s body, like his fury is too great to be contained inside of him. Like it needs its own corporeal form.
The monster has no nose, no mouth, and its eyes are unblinking and pupil-less. It lifts Haruno clear off the ground with a bruising grip on his upper arms, and slams him against a nearby wall, pinning him there.
Haruno remembers going on a field trip to the museum a few weeks previously, and how he’d looked at trays of colourful butterflies. When he’d asked his teacher why they weren’t flying, she’d said it was because they were pinned down. When he’d asked if they would fly if the pins were removed, she told him no, because they were dead.
He feels like one of those butterflies now—helplessly pinned, waiting to die.
The monster raises a fist, and Haruno knows exactly what happens next. He wants to cover his head with his arms, but they’re trapped at his sides. His legs strain trying to find purchase, but he’s too far from the ground.
“What did you do to Giovanna, you little shit,” demands the angry man.
That… that’s his step-father’s name—technically his name now, too—but Haruno still doesn’t know how to answer the question.
His step-father yells lots of things that sound like questions at him when he beats him, and he never expects Haruno to give him answers. He just likes to yell.
Maybe this is like that.
The monster delivers a sharp slap to his cheek. It doesn’t hurt as bad as the belt can, but it does make his head fly to the side so fast it hurts his neck.
Cold fingers wrap around his throat and squeeze .
Panic squeezes Haruno’s chest as his ability to breath is restricted, and he kicks his legs more desperately. His eyes well up making everything blurry, and he lets out a whimper.
Oh no. His step-father hates it when he makes sound, hates it when he cries, Haruno knows this. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have done that—
“I asked you a question, answer me .” The monster pulls him forward a little, only to smash him back against the wall again, and then it loosens its grip on his neck. The man really wants him to speak.
“Maybe… maybe he’s at h-home?” Haruno chokes out, voice high and wavering.
“At home?” The man sounds less mad, more confused.
“We—we live near San Giovanni a Carbonara , a few b-blocks from there.” Haruno walks past it on his way to and from school each day, and on Sundays he hears the church bells.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” snaps the man.
Haruno stays silent; he doesn’t want to risk giving the wrong answer twice.
“I asked what you did to Giovanna.” The monster shakes him. “Tell me your stand ability, what does it do.”
Haruno doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He wishes he did, he wishes he knew what words would placate this man, but he doesn’t. He files away the important words for later— stand ability— to bring that out and examine later when he’s alone with space to think.
The man leans in close and looks at him, really looks at him. Haruno flinches away, but he doesn’t close his eyes. If he closes his eyes he won’t see what happens, and if he doesn’t see what happens, how will he learn? Besides, better to face pain and danger head on. Haruno doesn’t like being surprised by what’s coming.
Abruptly, the monster lets him down and steps back. The man doesn’t look mad anymore, he looks ill. The sudden change in mood is bewildering. Haruno is used to bouts of sudden anger that burst forth from nothingness, but he’s never experienced the reverse; anger extinguishing like a stifled flame.
“Could you shift to the left for me,” the man asks. Haruno trips over himself to obey, and would have kept going all the way down and street and into the night if the man didn’t tell him when to stop.
“Don’t move, just… just bear with me for a moment.” Haruno doesn’t dare disobey.
The monster steps into the exact spot where Haruno had been. Before his very eyes, the monster melts away and leaves behind a man.
His hair is golden and he’s very handsome—Haruno thinks he looks like an angel, except for the blinking numbers stamped across his forehead. He’s still as a statue, until the long-haired man makes a gesture, and then he springs to life.
“What are you doing here?” the angelic man snaps. His hands are balled into fists at his sides. A disembodied voice answers him, and it sounds tinny with distance. It is a voice that Haruno thinks he recognises…
“Brat. I never did manage to beat manners into you.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” The angelic man lifts his chin, and Haruno believes him.
“I know how to make you fear me. I know how to make your fear deadly.”
The angelic man’s face twists in shock and his mouth opens in a silent scream, arms raised defensively, and then he deflates like a balloon.
He recedes and disappears into his clothes, and then Haruno sees himself.
He sees himself sitting on the floor wearing clothes that are too big for him.
The angelic man… he became… Haruno?
The long-haired man waves a hand, and the angelic man fades back into the monster, and then the monster itself disappears.
Haruno is glad the monster is gone—it was frightening—but now it’s just him and the angry man, although he doesn’t seem very angry anymore. He seems upset.
Haruno knows the difference. When people are angry, they frown and yell, whereas they only frown when they’re upset.
Mother frowns a lot. Especially at the mirror, especially when she turns to look at herself side-on. Haruno doesn’t understand why, but he knows it makes her upset. He also understands that he is somehow partially to blame for his mother’s unhappiness with the mirror—(“I never did get my figure back after giving birth to you .”)—but he doesn’t understand exactly what he did.
His step-father must, however, because when mother is upset with the mirror he buys her gifts to cheer her up, and hits Haruno when she isn’t looking.
The long-haired man kneels down, coming down from his great height to Haruno’s level. When Haruno flinches and raises his arms over his head, the man’s jaw goes tight, so Haruno lowers them. There’s no point anyway. It’s useless. If the man wants to hurt him, there’s nothing Haruno can do to stop him.
“Giorno, is that you?” the man asks, voice soft. “Are you Giorno Giovanna?”
Giorno. That was the first name this man had yelled.
Haruno is still getting used to answering to his new Italian name. He couldn’t speak Italian when he and his mother had moved here a year ago, and no one had asked, or even told him that his name would change.
Haruno nods, and nearly changes his mind and shakes his head when that answer only makes the man look more upset.
“How old are you?”
Haruno holds up all of his fingers plus the thumb of one hand—he’s five. Nearly six.
“Do you know who I am?”
Haruno shakes his head.
“My name is Leone Abbacchio.” Mr Abbacchio pauses, as if to let that sink in. “Listen, Giorno... I’m sorry for hurting you, and scaring you, I thought you were something you’re not.”
Haruno blinks. He doesn’t think anyone has ever apologized to him before; he isn’t sure how to react.
He ends up silently staring up at Mr Abbacchio because if he doesn’t say anything, he can’t say the wrong thing.
“I thought you were an enemy stand user,” mutters Mr Abbacchio—more like he’s justifying himself rather than trying to explain for Haruno’s benefit—and there’s that term again; stand. Stand user, stand ability…
Like clouds breaking to let through sunbeams, understanding shines through Haruno’s mind; Mr Abbacchio’s mouth-less, nose-less monster has to be a stand. Stands are monsters.
“Never mind that,” continues Mr Abbacchio, interrupting Haruno’s thoughts. “Let’s… let’s do something about your clothes. Will you hold your arms out for me?”
Haruno tentatively does as he’s told, the too-long sleeves flopping over his hands.
Mr Abbacchio takes the cuffs and folds them over and over until his hands poke out the end, first the left, and then the right. Haruno isn’t a baby, he could have pushed up the sleeves himself, but he holds still. He needs to be good and still and quiet so that Mr Abbacchio stays calm and not-angry.
“I guess this is long enough to cover you up,” mutters Mr Abbacchio to himself, tugging on the bottom of the jacket Haruno is wearing—it reaches well below his knees.
“What do you want to do about the pants?” The pants in question are so big they’ve fallen around Haruno’s ankles. Haruno lifts one leg out of them entirely, leaving behind one too-large shoes as he does. He watches Mr Abbacchio closely for his reaction, trying to gauge if this is right. He doesn’t look mad or annoyed, so Haruno pulls his other leg out too, leaving him in a jacket that’s long enough to be a dress, and a pair of socks. The socks are too big too, and bunch around his ankles.
Mr Abbacchio picks up the discarded pants and shoes with a tired sigh, and Haruno wonders if he was meant to do that.
“Come with me,” says Mr Abbacchio, straightening to his full height.
“Are… are you taking me home?” Haruno dares to ask. Although Haruno is afraid of what might await him at home—of how his step-father will react to him arriving so late, in such ill-fitting clothing, in the company of such a frightening man—at least home is familiar. He’d rather be hurt in ways he can predict.
The question makes Mr Abbacchio grimace, and Haruno’s heart sinks.
“Please, I want to go home,” he says, quiet and plaintive. Haruno isn’t stupid; bad things happen to little boys who wander off with strangers.
“Giorno, you have to come with me. It’s dangerous,” says Mr Abbacchio, as if he and his monster— stand— aren’t themselves dangerous. As if they aren’t the most dangerous thing Haruno has ever encountered in his life.
“Look—just—” Mr Abbacchio drags a hand down his face, giving off the distinct impression that he is exhausted. “Come here.” Mr Abbacchio leads him a little way down the street, coming to a halt beside a bench in front of a lonely bus stop.
“Just sit there for a minute while I figure out transport,” he orders.
Mr Abbacchio stares at him until he’s done as he’s told, gingerly hopping up onto the bench, his feet dangling. “Don’t move,” Mr Abbacchio says, punctuating each word with the stab of a finger pointed in Haruno’s direction, and then he turns on his heel and walks away.
Mr Abbacchio crosses the street and begins examining the cars parked there.
This is Haruno’s chance. If he’s careful—if he’s quiet —he cans slip away while Mr Abbacchio’s attention is on the cars.
Haruno examines his surroundings closely—there is no point is trying to slip away if he has nowhere to slip away to.
Lucky for him, there is an alleyway behind the bus stop.
Haruno slowly eases himself down to the ground, landing lightly on his socked feet. Mr Abbacchio appears to be too absorbed in whatever he’s doing to one of the car’s doors to notice.
Haruno makes it to the alleyway, and quickly hides himself behind a trash can. He folds himself into a compact ball, preparing himself for when Mr Abbacchio will notice his absence, at which point he’ll need to be very still and quiet to avoid detection. He hopes it won’t take long for Mr Abbacchio to give up on looking for him. Maybe Mr Abbacchio won’t even bother searching; more likely he’ll be relieved that Haruno is gone. That Haruno has removed the burden of his presence from him.
“Hello, little boy,” says a completely different voice. A cold, terrifying voice. It floats over from deeper in the alley, down where the light from the lampposts doesn’t reach. There’s something unnatural about the pitch-blackness of the alley.
“I’m hungry, have you got anything I can eat?”
The voice sends unpleasant shivers down Haruno’s spine, and makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end—his instincts scream danger.
Haruno can tell that something is moving in the darkness even though he can’t make out anything. The darkness has a shifting, slithering quality to it.
He catches a glint—light reflecting off something—but it disappears the next second, and the darkness goes unnaturally still for a beat.
There’s something there. Haruno knows there’s something there—
He hears a scrape, and then it reveals itself; a monster drags itself out of the shadows. Haruno knows instinctively that this monster is like Mr Abbacchio’s—a stand ability— and even though it has a nose, and a mouth, Haruno finds it ten times more frightening.
He has to clap a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming—this monster is grotesque . The mouth is huge and lined with razor sharp teeth, fixed in an exaggerated grin. The grin doesn’t reach its eyes, which are fixed on Haruno, and crazed.
“I’m hungry,” the monster repeats, reaching for Haruno with clawed fingers, which it digs into the ground to drag itself closer.
“You’ll feed me, won't you?”
Haruno stumbles to his feet and makes a break for it—Mr Abbacchio is scary, but this monster is something else entirely.
“You’ll feed me, won't you!” roars the monster, lunging forward in a sudden burst of speed, claws out-stretched.
Haruno screams when the monster catches him by the arm, and desperately tries to pull himself away, but the monster won’t let him. It squeezes him so hard he’s afraid he’ll snap. It hurts—it’s hurting him—and Haruno wants it to stop so badly—
“Giorno!” calls Mr Abbacchio, appearing at the opening of the alley, and then Haruno is free-falling. The monster’s grip vanishes, and Haruno shoots forwards with all the forward momentum the monster had been holding back.
He lands hard, and his cheek scrapes against the ground. It hurts enough to make his eyes prickle with tears, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it. He scrambles to turn over so he can look back, scanning the darkness of the alley with his heart in his throat, but he can see no trace of the monster. It’s gone .
The only proof it was there is the state of Haruno’s arm—his sleeve is shredded, and blood is already soaking into the fabric. He cradles his hurt arm to his chest, trembling as he stares into the darkness of the alley. Where did the monster go…?
“Giorno?” Haruno jumps in fright when Mr Abbacchio appears at his elbow. It’s instinct to curl up and away. To stay low to the ground and to try and make himself small; it feels inevitable that there will be blows coming, because Haruno fled. Mr Abbacchio’s instructions were clear: stay put , and he had disobeyed.
Mr Abbacchio touches his shoulder and Haruno flinches with his whole body.
“Jesus…” Mr Abbacchio mutters. When Haruno peeks up at him, he sees that Mr Abbacchio is staring at his hurt arm. He doesn’t look mad, he looks like he’s thinking.
“May I see?” asks Mr Abbacchio, pointing to Haruno’s bloody arm. He doesn’t mention the fact that Haruno did not stay where he was supposed to—maybe he doesn’t realise that Haruno tried to flee. That eases the horrible twisty feeling in Haruno’s gut somewhat, but not completely.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to see,” he adds at Haruno’s apprehensive expression.
Slowly and reluctantly, Haruno holds out his arm. The gouges from those claws go deep, and Haruno finds that looking at them is making him feel nauseous, so he looks at Mr Abbacchio instead. True to his word, Mr Abbacchio handles him very gently, poking around carefully.
“Doesn’t look broken,” he says. He looks relieved… “We need to get out of here, now. It’s not safe,” he continues, and then he holds out a hand expectantly.
Haruno blinks, unsure what he wants him to do. Tentatively, and while staring up at Mr Abbacchio face to monitor his expressions for hints, Haruno gives Mr Abbacchio his hand.
Mr Abbacchio rolls his eyes. “Not that one, the other one. Give me the hand of your uninjured arm,” he grumbles, and Haruno quickly does as he’s told.
Mr Abbacchio uses the grip to pull Haruno to his feet.
It’s strange and unexpected, not only that Mr Abbacchio helped him up, but that he was considerate enough to consider Haruno’s injuries. It makes Haruno feel odd, that someone he barely knows considered him this much.
“Come on. Don’t run away this time, Giorno,” he says brusquely. He doesn’t let go of Haruno’s hand as he leads the way out of the alley.
Haruno looks back, but the darkness reveals nothing.