Hello, and welcome to Chapter 2 of Primo :) Thanks for the follows, but I'd love some more reviews!

Last week I forgot to mention that this fic is inspired by the fanfics of Kitsune Freak, especially Clams Much? and To Reach Across Time. Her interpretation of the First Gen are hilarious and brilliant in every way, and I'll be borrowing off some of her elements in my characterisation of them. Oh also, there's no longer a dot after G's name because Microsoft Word's automatic formatting annoys me. If that bothers anyone, sorry, but too bad.

To reply to the anon KhrforeverD: as I mentioned in my A/N last chapter, Cozarto is coming, but not right now. If you recall, by the time Giotto met Cozarto, he and G were already good friends. So it would make sense to start with his friendship with G and work from there, no? :)

That's all from me this week. Hope you enjoy reading :)


"I don't get it," Giotto said, "I really don't."

He had been sitting at his desk for the last two hours now, trying to solve an algebraic equation which had become ridiculously complex, and though he tried every technique he knew, he ended up going around in circles. There were pieces of paper lying everywhere: on the table, crumpled on the floor, even piles on his bed. Textbooks were open at his feet, some leftover pasta from lunch was balancing precariously on top of a thick book of formulae. And Giotto was in the middle of it all, clutching his head in frustration, watching the numbers spin round and round on his page.

"Done!" G proclaimed triumphantly, at the exact same moment, throwing down his pen with vicious delight. "That was easy!" He was lying on his stomach, on the floor amidst the papers—in fact using some of them as a makeshift cushion.

"You're done with the first page already?" Giotto groaned. Despondently, he looked over at his best friend's work, and realised that G had not only finished the first page. He'd finished the whole chapter! "What," the blond gasped, "how did you even finish so quickly?" He himself was still stuck on the fifth question.

"Oh..." Colour rose to G's cheeks, and he quickly looked back down at his work. "Oh shit, it's cause I got everything wrong..."

Giotto frowned in disapproval. "Don't swear, G."

"You sound like my mama, you know. Look, I screwed up the whole of this page ... so much for it being easy, huh?"

"Are you sure? Let me check." Before G could react, Giotto snatched away his maths book, and flicked to the answers in his own textbook. "Wait, G, what are you talking about, this is all right!"

"N-No it isn't!" G stuttered, and grabbed his own book back again. "You're ... you're looking at the wrong section."

"No, I'm pretty sure—"

"Drop it, okay Giotto? It's wrong, so let's leave it at that. Come on, after I correct these stupid questions, I'll see where you're stuck on."

Giotto shook his head, grinning, and turned back to his own work. G was so unbelievably stubborn sometimes, but he had to let it slide. His best friend was a genius—absolutely brilliant. One time he had looked over at G's work in an exam, to find that the boy had finished some time ago, and was now inventing a code with funny skull symbols. But Giotto was not surprised. He knew that the redhead could solve university level maths, and he was only fourteen years old. A high school level maths exam was nothing to him.

But at the moment, Giotto had to concentrate on his own work. Reluctantly, he looked back down at his own page, and at the funny maths symbols swirling around, and decided that he should perhaps start this question over. He tore out the page, scrunched it up, and threw it across the room into the recycle bin.

-vongola-

"What'd you get in the maths test, Giotto?" came the question suddenly. G's voice reverberated around the room—more like the cavern, since they were currently occupying the underground basement, where G's father worked. At the moment the man was on a cruise ship promoting his paintings for an auction, so G had decided to show his friend exactly what a professional painting studio looked like.

"Hm?" was Giotto's absent-minded response. He had been absolutely dazzled by the paintings in the room. There were swirling watercolours of meadows, oil paintings of a futuristic urban cityscape, copies of classical Greek sculptures, and even pencil sketches. There was a sketch of a portrait of a beautiful woman near the corner, half-painted, and Giotto came to inspect that now, looking at the daintiness of her hands and the delicacy in her expression.

G sighed. "The maths test. Yesterday. What'd you get?"

Giotto turned away from the half-finished painting, his good mood rapidly evaporating as the memories of his horrible exam result rushed to his mind. "Bottom of the class," he mumbled dejectedly.

"Oh really?" said G, sounding strangely pleased with himself. "So you saved me then!"

"Huh?" said Giotto intelligently.

G held up a fist towards him. "Second last, thanks for cushioning me," he said, and Giotto, wide-eyed in surprise, accepted his fistbump.

"Really, G?" he exclaimed. "You? Second last?"

G grinned. "I didn't even study for it, remember? And it wasn't my best test. Come on Giotto, we can go study together. You've spent enough time looking through papa's stuff."

"But they're amazing!" said Giotto, still looking around for one final glimpse of the paintings, as he was dragged away by the redhead.

-vongola-

Giotto woke up to the sound of gunshots and screams.

Outside his window, the dark night had suddenly erupted into flame, a howling monster of heat and light and horror, eating everything in its wake. He ran to the window, horror-struck, and saw dark shapes below—men on horses, holding long weapons of metal in their arms, brandishing them about, yelling at the top of their lungs. Scream pierced the night as another house erupted into flame. Shadows of people ran out, terrified, and were pursued by horse hooves. Then they were overtaken, and the swung down, a scream pierced the night—

"Giotto!"

The door slammed open, and his mother rushed in. Her hair was still messed from sleep, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear. "Giotto you have to come with me, hurry, they'll be here any second! Come on!"

Giotto took his mother's hand without a word of protest, and he was pulled along, outside his room, down the stairs, and finally outside the house. "Run!" his mother whispered, guiding him towards an old bicycle that they barely used, for it was so rusted it threatened to break down any minute. It was his childhood bike, bought a few weeks after he had first met G almost six years ago. He looked at it uncertainly, then back at his mother.

The desperation was evident in her eyes. "Run Giotto, you have to get away from here."

"Not without you, mama."

"I'll be right behind you! Now go!"

Giotto knew what had to be done, though he did not like it at all. Still in his pyjamas, he jumped on the bike and kicked off, pedalling as fast as his legs would allow. The bike wobbled and groaned under his weight, but it held, and he flew off, down the road in front of the horsemen, three times as fast as the screaming crowds around him. He wove in and out of the crowd, making for the end of the road which marked the outermost houses of the village. G's house was here, and Giotto saw it come up now: standing cold and still, no light shining within.

He pedalled past it, praying that G and his family were safe, when suddenly the house caught fire.

A flaming arrow had started it, and in the time it took for Giotto to wheel his bike around and come to a halt, the flames were already burning steadily. "G!" he shouted, throwing his bike aside, about to rush into the burning building.

A strong pair of hands seized him and pulled him backwards heavily, so that Giotto landed hard on the dirt ground. He cried out in pain as his head slammed downwards, seeing bright stars burst into life before his eyes. He was dimly aware of the order, "Stay here, kid," uttered in a low, rough voice, before the man disappeared. Giotto sat up, rubbing his head and groaning, in time to see the man's silhouette disappear into the building.

His instincts were screaming at him to get up—either to rush into the building, or to jump back onto the bike and flee as quickly as he could, as far away from here as possible. But the man's voice carried a power that Giotto had never heard before. So despite everything he stayed where he was, watching the flames latch onto the timbers of G's house, climbing ever higher. The crowd was thinning out now, people scattering into the forests surrounding them as the main host of the attackers advanced forward in the distance. Giotto couldn't see his parents in the crowd, but he hoped they had found somewhere safe, that they were not caught in the crossfire behind him.

Let them be safe... Please let them be safe...

A silhouette appeared in the upper-storey window of G's house, and the window was lifted up with difficulty, since there seemed to be a bundle in his arms. The man stuck his head out and his eyes met with Giotto's. "Catch!" he roared, and tossed the bundle through the window.

Giotto saw a flash of flaming red hair, and ran forward. He caught G just in time, groaning as he fell under his weight, but nonetheless breaking his friend's fall. G was unconscious from smoke inhalation, his eyes closed, his head lolling to the side. Giotto left him there and looked up, just as the man reappeared at the window, with another bundle in his arms.

Something caught Giotto's eye, and his heart stopped. The flames had climbed through the timber supports underneath the man. "Look out!" he shouted, but his voice was lost in a roar as that section collapsed, leaving nothing but fire and rubble.

"No!" Giotto screamed, but it was futile. The rest of the house followed suit, crashing into ruin right before his eyes. At the same time the yells of horsemen drew nearer, horrifyingly loud in the night air. Without thinking, he turned back to G and began dragging his friend towards the nearest clump of bushes. "Why ... are you ... so heavy!" Giotto said between gritted teeth, as he finally reached the bush. He flattened himself to the ground, and made sure both of them were completely hidden from sight.

He didn't dare open his eyes in fear of what he would find, so he kept them tightly squeezed shut. He didn't dare move, in case the attackers spot the flicker of movement and came over to investigate. He simply pressed his nose against the ground, inhaling the earthly scent of dirt, trying to block out the yells and screams and ringing of metal and cackling destructive flames.

He lay there for what seemed like an age before the yelling and screaming gradually subsided. But even then Giotto did not dare get up. He lay paralysed for what felt like another hour before he heard low familiar voices, and cautiously lifted his head up to have a look.

The first thing Giotto saw was his bicycle, mangled and twisted out of shape by horse hooves or stampedes. Someone had put out all the fires, so he could see nothing but blackened shapes in the distance. But there were people mingling, and with a cry of relief Giotto recognised the silhouettes of his parents, his father with an arm around his mother, both of them quiet and solemn.

"Mama! Papa!"

He was out of the bushes before he knew it, sprinting towards them, throwing his arms around his mother. She took one look at him, and burst into tears. "Oh Giotto," she sobbed into his shoulder, "we thought you were dead! We saw the bike—"

"I had to, mama. I had to leave it behind." He let go, turned around, and pointed. "That's G's house there, and when I rode past—"

Giotto cut himself off, as he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. A shadow had just risen from the clump of bushes, and was making its way slowly towards him. Even under the dim moonlight, when all the other fires were put out, the boy's hair was still blatantly noticeable, like Rudolph's red nose in the dark.

G walked towards him slowly, every step causing him to wince with pain. "Giotto?" he said hesitantly. "What's going on?" A pause. "Where's mama?"

-vongola-

When the weak, watery daylight finally crept over the horizon, the survivors of the attack began to repair their village. Giotto was relieved to find that his house was amongst those still standing. The windows were broken and the door had been thrown off its hinges, but there was nothing really missing—their family was not a rich one, and they had few precious heirlooms.

School was not even an option, so for the next few days Giotto and his family set about repairing all the houses that could be fixed. Those whose houses were beyond repair were forced to say goodbye and move somewhere else, heaving what little luggage they had onto their backs or—if they were lucky—a pack pony. Giotto watched them go sadly, waving a hand in farewell. Amongst them were several of his classmates at school, along with some locals whom he had gotten to know over the years. He had always just assumed that their peaceful life would go on forever. Nothing ever happened here—wasn't that what G said? He had loved it just the way it was, but now everything was gone.

For G's part, he spent most of his time simply sitting on the ground, staring at the rubble of what once was his house. He did not cry, and Giotto admired his friend for that—no tear ever made its way past those hard brown eyes. He simply sat there, gazing, and when Giotto had time to spare, he too sat in front of the house in silence.

On the third day, some of the villages dug out the charred remains buried underneath the rubble—G's parents, and the man who had rushed in to save them. All three corpses were charred, with burns visible all over their bodies and faces. Giotto turned away, unable to handle the sight as bile rose to his mouth, but G stared at the corpses in stony silence. He stayed there, frozen, for such a long time that Giotto feared perhaps his friend had been so permanently traumatised that he would simply stand there for the rest of his life. But then, quite suddenly, the redhead turned and said, "Giotto, can I borrow some money?"

Giotto's eyes widened. "W-What?" he said, taken-aback. "S-sure, I guess?" He ran to his house, grabbed his whole box of savings hidden under his mattress, and sprinted back to G. "Here," he said, thrusting the box at him, "take as much as you want."

G took two hundred lire (1), gave Giotto a grateful nod, and turned away without a word. He began to walk towards the edge of the village, and Giotto blinked at him in confusion. "G? Where are you going?" His friend ignored him, and Giotto stepped forward again. "G, what are you doing? W-Where are you ... why are you just ... G!"

But nothing Giotto said made the slightest difference. G did not even turn back. He simply trudged on, dark eyes colder than ice, leaving Giotto to stare helplessly at his retreating back.

-vongola-

G came back at dusk.

Giotto had been helping repairs on his neighbour's house, when he saw his friend's unmistakable red hair appear from behind the buildings. With a shout of delight, Giotto abandoned his work and rushed over. He had been so certain his friend was going to leave them all behind, and just walk until ... well, Giotto didn't know. But G was back and safe and that's all that mattered.

"G, you're back, what—Oh my God!"

Giotto skidded to a halt, his mouth hanging half-open, his eyes staring blatantly at G's face. "W-What did you do?"

G smirked. "Here's your change, Giotto," he said, and thrust a handful of coins into Giotto's limp hand.

"I ... I..." Giotto was lost for words.

G's face, once tanned and smooth, was on fire. Bright crimson flames climbed from the base of his neck, across the right side of his face, licking at his right eye and climbing above it. Even the slightest movement or change in lighting made the flames look as though they were moving, living creatures.

"You tattooed your face? With flames?"

"Yeah," said G, and he smiled. But it was hesitant, and his eyes searched Giotto's for approval. "It looks good ... right?"

"It..." Giotto stared at his friend's face long and hard, his eyes tracing the movement of the tongues of flame until it disappeared behind G's fringe. "Actually, it looks really cool!"

G pumped his fist in the air, his smile splitting into a full grin. "I knew it! I knew it'd look badass!"

Giotto could not help but smile in spite of himself. "But, G ... why?"

G pointed down the road, towards the rubble that was once his own house. "The man back there," he said, "the one who saved me. I don't know who he is, and nobody can recognise him now that..." He hesitated, and shook his head. "Well, he had a nasty burn across the right side of his face. So I thought I'd get this. For him. Plus," he added with a grin, "it looks damn awesome!"

"That it does," Giotto agreed, and both of them laughed. For that one moment, all their troubles were forgotten. They were children again, laughing together under a clear blue sky.


Lire (1) - Plural of lira, the Italian currency before the Euro. Assuming Giotto lived sometime in the early 19th century, he would have used lire. According to Wikipedia (100% reliable, of course /cough), the lira was set equal to the franc in 1865, and it was only after that that massive inflation occurred. So I'm converting under the assumption that it's equal to the modern franc, which is set at about 1.11 US dollars.

So, that was my take on why/how G got his tattoo. I hope you liked it :) As I said last chapter, 90% of the story is already written up. I just need motivation to post... such as reviews. Reviews make me post faster, yes.

Until next time, ciao!