[Back home, it has barely been a month since the last time he saw Fugo. Even with so little time past, people already whisper about him. They whisper, some of them, sometimes, when they think he doesn't hear: Fugo is a traitor. Fugo betrayed the boss. A messy, twisted lens through which to see reality, but one that is becoming frustratingly pervasive.]
[Although from a practical perspective, from a logical and hierarchical perspective, this might be true, Giorno has never felt betrayed by Fugo. Fugo would never have had to prove himself, he believes, if Fugo had not so desperately needed to prove loyalty to himself. Fugo has never, ever done something that has caused Giorno to lose faith in him.]
[As he listens, Giorno realizes . . . the same can no longer be said for Riley.]
[That's the basic problem here, isn't it? This is something Fugo would never do. Trish wouldn't. Mista wouldn't. Of course Bruno wouldn't. He would never in a thousand years have thought something like this would come from anyone he cares about, but if it had, not Riley. Never Riley. Not Riley, who understands what it's like to feel so helpless and so small that existence is terrifying. Surely she would put herself in the position to imagine what such a thing would feel like for her, if she were the child shoved into a strange place and not the righteous avenger punishing the world for her hurts.]
[He was wrong.]
. . . She said she didn't know me very well after all.
[His voice is hoarse, his knuckles pale where he grips his glass of water. Its surface tremors. After too many too-long seconds, he realizes it's because he's shaking. With great care, he wraps a vine around the glass and sets it on Fugo's bedside table. His hands end up bunched in loose fists on his lap.]
But we've talked about everything. There is almost nothing she doesn't know about me. She knows what's most important to me. She's told me what she most fears about herself and I told her that those things don't frighten me, because they don't. It never occurred to me that she would do something like this. That she would be this careless with children. Use them as props in this — pageantry. She clearly cares about them, but not enough to do this right, and that's not good enough.
[It's not. It's not acceptable. His throat is dry, knuckles white again, eyes wide and voice soft. Fugo is right: he's angry. This is his anger in its purest form, undiluted by grief or shock. Anything but this, anything at all, he could tolerate.]
I'm rarely wrong about people. But I'm beginning to think I put too much faith in Riley.
[From someone like him, who uses his own resolve as a guiding star, it's a condemnation. Of Riley, yes, but of himself, too. He trusted too much this time, it seems.]
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[Although from a practical perspective, from a logical and hierarchical perspective, this might be true, Giorno has never felt betrayed by Fugo. Fugo would never have had to prove himself, he believes, if Fugo had not so desperately needed to prove loyalty to himself. Fugo has never, ever done something that has caused Giorno to lose faith in him.]
[As he listens, Giorno realizes . . . the same can no longer be said for Riley.]
[That's the basic problem here, isn't it? This is something Fugo would never do. Trish wouldn't. Mista wouldn't. Of course Bruno wouldn't. He would never in a thousand years have thought something like this would come from anyone he cares about, but if it had, not Riley. Never Riley. Not Riley, who understands what it's like to feel so helpless and so small that existence is terrifying. Surely she would put herself in the position to imagine what such a thing would feel like for her, if she were the child shoved into a strange place and not the righteous avenger punishing the world for her hurts.]
[He was wrong.]
. . . She said she didn't know me very well after all.
[His voice is hoarse, his knuckles pale where he grips his glass of water. Its surface tremors. After too many too-long seconds, he realizes it's because he's shaking. With great care, he wraps a vine around the glass and sets it on Fugo's bedside table. His hands end up bunched in loose fists on his lap.]
But we've talked about everything. There is almost nothing she doesn't know about me. She knows what's most important to me. She's told me what she most fears about herself and I told her that those things don't frighten me, because they don't. It never occurred to me that she would do something like this. That she would be this careless with children. Use them as props in this — pageantry. She clearly cares about them, but not enough to do this right, and that's not good enough.
[It's not. It's not acceptable. His throat is dry, knuckles white again, eyes wide and voice soft. Fugo is right: he's angry. This is his anger in its purest form, undiluted by grief or shock. Anything but this, anything at all, he could tolerate.]
I'm rarely wrong about people. But I'm beginning to think I put too much faith in Riley.
[From someone like him, who uses his own resolve as a guiding star, it's a condemnation. Of Riley, yes, but of himself, too. He trusted too much this time, it seems.]