[It . . . helps. It does. It doesn't help a lot; it doesn't make him feel safe, or hopeful, or anything close to good, this reassurance that someday the bottomless feeling of loss will end. What it does, instead, is fill a tiny portion of the emptiness with something. Anything. Giorno doesn't even know what it is, and in a way, what it is doesn't matter. As long as it's presence rather than absence, that's what matters.]

[Mista isn't here. Giorno is not alone, but Mista isn't here. And there's a part of him that knows, sickeningly, that he has spent more time away from Mista now than he ever knew him in person.]

[To someone else, that would matter. To someone normal, that would be unsettling. Maybe it would make them question that connection, that bond. But Giorno never will. Mista belongs to his heart. Mista is his heart--and his right hand, and his breath, and his light. There will never be a day in his life that he is not in love with Guido Mista.]

[At least, he thinks, as his breathing slows to normal and his fingers clench and unclench in Fugo's shirt, he's not alone with that, anymore.]

. . . 'm sorry.

[His voice is thick, muffled, weak. He sniffs a little, ashamed, and buries his face further, just for another couple of moments, before he has to face the world and be brave again.]

It's not fair . . . not when I know you miss him to. I just don't-- [A shudder wracks him, makes his whole body shake before stilling again. A sob, but he's killed it successfully.] Nobody understands the same way. That you do. But I'm still sorry.