[Giorno doesn't leave. He is willing, at this point, to do precisely as Jotaro asks of him - because he owes him, by blood, although which blood, even he isn't quite sure. And because it's the right thing to do. Skewed though his moral compass might be, Giorno does have one, and he adheres to it quite strictly.]
[The stem of the denuded lily twirls between his fingers as Giorno listens. He feels as stripped bare in this moment as it is, and these aren't even his memories; Jotaro must be feeling a thousand times worse.]
[The question presented does make his heart ache a little bit, though. To make them understand in the way they'd have to . . . to make them know it as you know it, to feel it as though they'd lived it, to hold the guilt and the grief and the confusion and loss in their own two hands. Such an impossible thing to attempt, because no one can really know what you've experienced. Every man is an island inside his own head.]
[Of course, is the answer to that question; of course. There is a reason he doesn't talk about his father. It's not because he's ashamed, and lately he's had plenty of people who would listen. It's that there is simply no way to communicate the nature of his relationship with this man he's never met, or how Dio's legacy affects him every day, how it's shaped him or, conversely, the ways in which he's refused to let it affect him at all.]
[He nods, and passes the stem of the lily back over his shoulder to Gold Experience.]
Yes. I have. It . . . creates a malignant space inside, in my experience. Something very hard to ignore.
no subject
[The stem of the denuded lily twirls between his fingers as Giorno listens. He feels as stripped bare in this moment as it is, and these aren't even his memories; Jotaro must be feeling a thousand times worse.]
[The question presented does make his heart ache a little bit, though. To make them understand in the way they'd have to . . . to make them know it as you know it, to feel it as though they'd lived it, to hold the guilt and the grief and the confusion and loss in their own two hands. Such an impossible thing to attempt, because no one can really know what you've experienced. Every man is an island inside his own head.]
[Of course, is the answer to that question; of course. There is a reason he doesn't talk about his father. It's not because he's ashamed, and lately he's had plenty of people who would listen. It's that there is simply no way to communicate the nature of his relationship with this man he's never met, or how Dio's legacy affects him every day, how it's shaped him or, conversely, the ways in which he's refused to let it affect him at all.]
[He nods, and passes the stem of the lily back over his shoulder to Gold Experience.]
Yes. I have. It . . . creates a malignant space inside, in my experience. Something very hard to ignore.