[As people speak, Giorno formulates responses. This is adaptive. If he stays one step ahead of the conversation, it's easier to navigate, to pull in advantageous or nonthreatening directions.]
[Or at least he used to think so. He doubts sometimes these days. It's because of Mista, mostly; because of things said that he could never have predicted because there is no one else in the world who says the things that Mista does. Erina has startled him a few times, too. But this . . .]
[This is mundane. A courtesy. He gave her a gift, or technically two. Usually gifts are exchanged, not given in only one direction. This is something he knows in theory. Something he should have expected.]
[He didn't.]
[She is holding a bag out to him, he realizes, the words she's saying falling over each other in his mind. Tripping. His expression opens, just a crack in the veneer at first before everything falls away and there is only Giorno, startled and tentative and just a little bit afraid.]
You got me . . .
[Because she tells him to take it, he takes it, hands cupping the bottom of the bag as though holding the world's most fragile egg. Pulls it close against his chest, looks up at her, wide-eyed and vulnerable.]
no subject
[Or at least he used to think so. He doubts sometimes these days. It's because of Mista, mostly; because of things said that he could never have predicted because there is no one else in the world who says the things that Mista does. Erina has startled him a few times, too. But this . . .]
[This is mundane. A courtesy. He gave her a gift, or technically two. Usually gifts are exchanged, not given in only one direction. This is something he knows in theory. Something he should have expected.]
[He didn't.]
[She is holding a bag out to him, he realizes, the words she's saying falling over each other in his mind. Tripping. His expression opens, just a crack in the veneer at first before everything falls away and there is only Giorno, startled and tentative and just a little bit afraid.]
You got me . . .
[Because she tells him to take it, he takes it, hands cupping the bottom of the bag as though holding the world's most fragile egg. Pulls it close against his chest, looks up at her, wide-eyed and vulnerable.]
Why . . . ?