There's No Love Like a Parent's
There's No Love Like a Parent's (親の心子知らずの巻, Oya no Kokoroko Shirazu no Maki) is a short story written by Ballad Kitaguni starring Ghiaccio and Melone.
It was announced in the November 2023 issue of Ultra Jump on October 19, 2023 and was published in the Winter 2023 issue of JOJO magazine on December 19, 2023.[1]
Summary
Chapter 1
Ghiaccio is taking a walk in the afternoon, having just bought red wine, Parmesan cheese, and dried raisins from an imported goods store. He also bought canned mackerel since Formaggio claimed it tastes surprisingly good with cheap red wine. He heads to the fourth floor of an apartment and enters the room where Melone was staying for his job. The room actually belonged to an employee of a Passione-affiliated casino, but Melone needed to borrow it since it had a view of his target's villa. Ghiaccio invites him to drink wine, but Melone refuses. Disappointed, Ghiaccio points out that it's been two days since Melone started the job and that he's aware of Baby Face being high-maintenance, but feels that it's taking too long this time.
Ghiaccio searches the kitchen for a plate and knife, the latter of which he uses to cut the Parmesan cheese and pry the wine's cork open. He initially considers it fine that other countries don't refer to Parmesan cheese as "Parmigiano-Reggiano", since the cheese he bought is just an imitation which he can buy as a cheap snack, making the authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy feel more special to him. However, after taking a quick bite of the cheese, he immediately starts ranting about the redundancy of calling it "Parmesan cheese" in English. Melone suggests it could just be a French pronunciation, but this angers Ghiaccio more, who thinks they should call it "Parmesan fromage" if it's French. He believes it would at least make more sense to say "Parmigiano-style cheese", furious that everyone is mocking the Italian language.
Annoyed, Melone asks Ghiaccio why he came and to stop bothering him since he's busy. Ghiaccio claims that he didn't come to argue, but the job was originally supposed to be his task. He'd love to have Risotto praise him for finishing the job well. However, Risotto considered Melone to be the one suitable for this job. Melone doesn't want Ghiaccio to interfere, since he believes someone getting involved would complicate things, comparing an assassin and their target to a man and woman in bed. Although Ghiaccio accepts that since he thinks Melone is perfectly capable, he is concerned about why Melone is taking so long this time, which is unusual for him.
Their target for the job is a movie director called Amaretti Lucano, who specialized in making extremely realistic, violent movies, which were often modeled after real gangs. Amaretti lost his parents when he was a child, as they were caught in between a gang war. He became obsessed with portraying violence after that, and would hire detectives and underground informants who spied on gangs so he could expose their inner workings in his films. His films weren't popular in the mainstream industry due to their nature, but he had a cult following. Ghiaccio also doesn't think his films are interesting, but what matters is that the Boss ordered them to assassinate Amaretti. Three days prior, a detective was caught when he attempted to find which prison Polpo was being held at in Naples. Passione interrogated him and discovered that Amaretti hired him. The Boss could no longer ignore Amaretti trying to research about Passione, as he could expose them in a movie, but it would arouse suspicion if a popular figure like him died in a way that was obviously homicide. Thus, Melone was assigned to handle it, as he could easily dispose of the corpse with his Stand.
Melone stays silent when Ghiaccio asks why the job hasn't been handled yet, but they are interrupted by a a communication from Baby Face. Ghiaccio reads Baby Face's screen and is shocked upon seeing the junior's message: "Please refrain from foolish acts like murder". Melone reveals the junior was born two days ago from its mother, but is unfortunately going through a rebellious phase. Melone felt awkward and couldn't report this to Risotto because of it being a unique problem for his Stand which others wouldn't be able to empathize with. Hearing this baffles Ghiaccio, who keeps making Melone repeat himself.
This section requires expansion.
Chapter 2
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Chapter 3
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Appearances
Gallery
References
- ↑ Vish (October 18, 2023), "JOJO magazine 2023 WINTER Releases in December With New Novels and Manga", JoJo's Bizarre Encyclopedia.