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“Triple P; get it in 23, or your next one’s free.”
Fugo rolled his eyes as he listened to Mista answer the phone. That particular delivery special had been his idea, finding the rhyme fun to say and easy to remember, but Fugo hated it. For one thing, ‘Triple P’ wasn’t the name of the restaurant. It was Passione Pizza Parlor. Secondly, 23 was such a stupid, arbitrary number. It was literally only chosen because it rhymed.
“And what toppings for that?”
But Bruno had liked the idea and decided they would test it out. When he took over as the restaurant’s owner a while back, he’d wanted to bring changes that would hopefully give it a brand new reputation, and the cute, rhyming special seemed to be the right direction to take things. It was definitely better than the shady things Polpo let go on when he was still running the show.
“Okay, and the address?”
He might not have liked Polpo, but even Fugo found the manner of his sudden departure from this world rather undignified. Honestly, who chokes on a banana pepper?
“All right! We’ll have it to you in less than 23 minutes.”
Mista hung the receiver back on the wall and walked over to where Fugo was pressing dough onto a pan. “Got an easy one for ya. Large, one-topping with sausage.”
The grin on his face said that it wasn’t as easy as that. “And?” Fugo prompted.
“They asked for us to send our cutest delivery boy.”
Fugo grimaced. “Really?”
“Yes, really!”
“I thought that was the sort of thing people joked about doing but weren’t actually stupid enough to follow through with.”
“C’mon, Foogs, lighten up.”
“Don’t call me that!” Fugo paused to let out a little huff before shouting, “Narancia! Get your keys, you have a delivery to make!”
Fugo had just started to dip the ladle into the marinara sauce when Mista reached out and put his hand on Fugo’s shoulder. “Whoa whoa whoa, time out. Narancia?”
Fugo raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Narancia. Obviously.”
“Giorno is our cutest delivery boy. By a long shot.”
“You’re only saying that because he’s your boyfriend.”
“You mean to tell me that you objectively think Narancia is cuter than Giorno?” Mista asked indignantly.
Fugo slammed the ladle down with a little growl. “Yes! How many times do you want me to say it? That’s my objective opinion on the matter!”
“Narancia!” Mista called out. “Get over here, I have a question for you.”
Fugo groaned and pushed the pan down to the toppings station as Narancia slowly ambled over. “What’s up?”
Mista wrapped an arm around his shoulder like he was about to try to convince him to do something stupid, which, judging by the way this conversation was going, Fugo wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what he did.
“When you think of something cute, what do you think of?”
Narancia shrugged. “I dunno. Puppies and kittens?”
Fugo smirked. He’d already won this argument.
“What about cute people?” Mista tried again.
“Hmm.” Naranica put his hand to his chin in thought. “Oh! There’s that thing with babies when they discover their own toes. That’s kinda cute.”
“So what you mean to say,” Fugo began, sliding the pizza into the oven to cook before turning around to face his coworkers, “is that cute things are often small and evoke a sense of happiness or protectiveness.”
Narancia’s expression brightened as he nodded. “Yeah, that’s it!”
Fugo crossed his arms and gave Mista a smug grin. “There you have it. Narancia is our cutest delivery boy.”
“Hey, wait a sec!” Narancia practically yelped.
“Narancia, you tick all of the boxes,” Fugo explained. “Between you and Giorno, who would you say is the cutest?”
“Did someone say my name?”
All three heads turned toward the kitchen door as Giorno entered with a serving tray tucked under his arm. Things in the dining room were relatively slow given that it was a Thursday night, so Giorno was the designated waiter for the time being.
Mista immediately let go of Narancia and wrapped his arm around his boyfriend instead. “Gio, babe, when you think of something cute, what do you think of?”
“Gold Experience.”
Fugo had to snort back a laugh at the look of betrayal on Mista’s face. Of course Giorno would rank his pet snake above his beloved.
“Babe, no, cute people. Who do you think of when you think of cute people?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You.”
Mista shot Fugo a triumphant look. “Ha! See?”
“You’re not even in the contention, dumbass!” Fugo fired back.
“What’s the question?” Giorno asked.
Fugo replied, “Who’s our cutest delivery boy, you or Narancia?”
“Oh, I see. I suppose it depends on your definition of cute. Some people use ‘cute’ as a fun, flirty synonym for handsome.”
“Which is you,” Mista chimed in.
Giorno continued, “But there’s an inherent ‘adorable’ quality to the word ‘cute.’”
“Exactly,” Fugo said. “Narancia is boyishly cute.”
“Hey, don’t call me boyish!” Narancia protested. “I’m older than you, you know!”
“I said boy-ish. Boyish can describe any age.”
“Yelling isn't very cute,” Mista noted disapprovingly.
Narancia pouted. “Fuck you! I’m not trying to be cute!”
“Well, I stand by my statement. I think you’re cute.” Giorno pulled himself away from Mista’s side. “But I suppose you’re more ruggedly handsome than cute.”
Mista let out a lovesick little sigh and gently reached out to grab Giorno’s chin. “Yeah, I think you’re cute too. But you’re also elegant and beautiful and handsome and all that.” He tried to close the distance between them for a little kiss, but the visors of their uniform hats bumped into each other and prevented that from happening.
Fugo turned around to check on the food, but he quickly realized something was awry. “Where’s my pizza?”
“I took it out.”
Suddenly, Abbacchio was towering over the group with a scornful look.
“While you four were slacking off, I took the pizza out of the oven.”
“Well, where is it?” Fugo asked.
“Probably halfway across town by now. Melone overheard that the customer wanted our cutest delivery boy, so he volunteered to take it.”
And just as quickly as Abbacchio had joined them, he made his way to the sink to wash dishes.
“I should get back out to check on tables.” Giorno lifted his hat off of his head just long enough to give Mista a peck on the cheek before turning to leave the kitchen.
Narancia began to wander off too while Fugo began preparing more dough. “I still think Narancia’s the cutest one here,” he muttered to Mista.
“Damn, not just the cutest delivery boy? Out of all of the staff?”
Fugo gave a little nod. “Yeah. Definitely the cutest one here.”
The lights were dim inside the restaurant as Narancia and Giorno worked on cleaning the dining room. Bruno was in the back working on the deposit, but all of the other employees were long gone for the night. Narancia usually liked helping Bruno close because everything was so quiet and peaceful, and he didn’t have to worry about accidentally swearing in front of a customer, but tonight his mind was preoccupied.
“Say, Giorno?”
“Hmm?”
Narancia absentmindedly spun the parmesan shaker on the table he was straightening. “Earlier, Fugo said that cute things made you feel happy and like you want to protect them.”
“That’s a good way to describe it, I suppose.”
“But then you said that cute can be another way of saying someone is handsome, right?”
Giorno nodded, “Yes, why?”
“No reason!”
Without another word, Narancia got back to scrubbing tables. No, there was definitely a reason. For weeks now, Narancia has been wrestling with these weird thoughts whenever he was around Fugo, but he couldn’t come up with the right word for them. He got this warm fluttery feeling just seeing Fugo walk through the door for his shifts, and it only got worse when Fugo talked to him.
But then, just the other day, Narancia had spotted Illuso getting in Fugo’s face about something. Narancia hadn’t even heard what the problem was, but it made his blood boil. He’d marched over and managed to give Illuso an earful before Bruno sent him home for the day. Fugo had told him that he’d been lucky Bruno hadn’t fired him. Narancia was going to say that he was sorry for causing a scene at work, but Fugo cut him off with a quiet little “thank you.” And honestly, Narancia didn’t feel that sorry about things, especially after that.
Fugo… He was an odd one. He was smart, hot-headed, definitely attractive.
Cute. Narancia thought Fugo was cute.