The following morning, Seto had shaken off the previous day's encounter with Noa well enough to return to Kaiba's Coats, but waited until after the other employees would already be in their seats. He didn't want a repeat of what happened when Noa got him alone.
His twin eyed him as he walked past but said nothing.
After hanging his coat, Seto collected the time cards from the holder on the wall, saying nothing to anybody as he passed. A quick glance around the packed and bustling workroom pointed out the flaw in his plan to come in late. He had nowhere to work on payroll, except the service counter in the center of the storefront. Reluctant though he was to do such work in view of the clients, Seto really had no choice.
His eyes drifted to the four new employees. As expected, Wheeler was stuck on hems until Noa—no, Diamon, the real head tailor—deemed him worthy of more. Yugi worked vigorously on a set of sleeve buttons he had sewn on so tight that the fabric was puckering. But Seto didn't say a word. Quality control was not his department. That, he did leave up to Noa.
Rebecca sat at her desk, quietly focused on a suit coat—did Daimon have her taking apart a coat collar already? She leaned forward to ask another tailor questions about the process while she worked. Seto had never done the job himself, but knew which alterations required more skill than others. What did Noa have to complain about when she was increasing her abilities so quickly?
Then he passed Atem's desk, and what he saw stopped him. Atem pushed the fabric through his machine with a ferocity he'd only seen matched on his father's face. Noa could look determined, but Seto doubted he had it in him to be ferocious. The machine hammered out such a steady vibration he hadn't heard with consistency for quite some time.
Atem had been assigned a fairly mundane alteration on slacks, one Seto had seen done so many times he could probably manage it himself. But, it seemed, whatever this man was given to do, he was going to do it well.
Something about his ambition lit a fire inside Seto's chest he wasn't certain how to quench. He left the man's station feeling angry in a way he didn't understand. As he rounded the corner to exit the workroom, Seto glanced up at Atem again. The man's eyes drew across Seto's face as fiercely as his fingers drew across the fabric.
Seto returned the glare and walked out.
Once he had settled his papers across the counter and began to focus on the paperwork—the only part of owning a tailoring shop he truly enjoyed—the front bell rang and a man in a long coat stepped in. Seto silently cursed his luck of being in the front on the day he decided to pay Kaiba's Coats a visit.
Maximillion Pegasus, the most obnoxiously flamboyant, yet obscenely generous man in Domino City Seto had ever known of. His long silver hair flowed past his shoulders. Seto had always assumed it must be a dye job—Pegasus was simply too young to take on that shade naturally.
"My goodness, it has been some time since I've stepped foot into this portal of luxury," the man said over his shoulder in a childish tone. Another man followed behind him like a shadow. Croquet, if Seto's memory served him. Seto had never learned the man's given name.
Seto didn't stop his calculations while the men browsed around the dainty storefront, but did occasionally glance up, each time making certain he caught Croquet's eye. Pegasus himself appeared too delighted in the wares to even notice Seto. When he finally made his rounds and approached the front desk, his surprise was evident.
"Why, hello, Young Kaiba! I don't often see you here. Helping your father, I see?"
Seto knew the subject of his father would come up, and still wasn't sure how to handle the subject when it did. Noa navigated these conversations with much more ease than himself.
"I apologize," Seto began, though his voice dripped with insincerity. He gestured to the pile of paper and time cards. "I would normally take care of this in back, but we have a full house today."
"Oh, how wonderful, Kaiba-boy!" he cheered, making Seto cringe at the almost-forgotten nickname the man had given him at their first encounter, when Seto was a young teenager. Pegasus seemed quite young then, himself. "A house full of hard working people is a thing to celebrate."
"Indeed," was all Seto was willing to offer on the subject. "How can we be of service today?"
"I would like to have a brief visit with your father, if you don't mind. Nothing against you, of course. But your father's eye for excellence cannot be matched, and I'm afraid my wardrobe is feeling a bit drab these days. Is he in?"
Seto glanced at the man's pale red suit and just stopped himself from snorting indignantly. Drab? Then he considered briefly the thought of placing a sign in the shop's window stating that the business is under new ownership, but thought better of it almost immediately. How many of the loyal locals would KC lose for an act like that?
"Excuse me? Kaiba-boy? Is your father in? If not, I suppose I can come back later."
Seto blinked, wondering how long he had been silent for, then drew in a breath.
"My apologies, Mister Pegasus. My father is no longer with us. Kaiba's Coats is recently under new ownership."
"Oh dear. Oh," he said, as if the weight of Seto's words was slowly sinking in. "Dear. What a shame. And how sudden! Was he ill?"
"There was an accident," Seto ground out.
Pegasus clicked his tongue. "Automobiles can be so harrowingly dangerous. That's precisely why I don't drive myself. But you cannot account for every vehicle on the—"
Seto stopped listening as Pegasus went on about the perils of traffic. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he did he saw his father. Twenty feet below him, limbs twisted in ways they shouldn't have been. The grass he lay on glittered with shards of glass.
Seto stood at the broken window peering down at his father—his father's body, he registered slowly—with a hand on his jaw, feeling the red-hot pulse under his skin as his face began to swell.
When he opened his eyes again, Pegasus was staring at him. He resisted the urge to reach up and rub the sensation out of his jaw. He knew he was imagining it. He cleared his throat.
"I prefer not to speak about it, if you don't mind."
Pegasus's face fell in an expression of sorrow. Seto remembered dimly that the man was a widower. He suspected that his face displayed his own raw emotions with sincerity.
"Of course, of course. Oh, but with you two young men, now on your own!" Pegasus clicked his tongue. "How are you getting along?"
Seto nodded silently, forcing his mouth to turn up at the corners. He didn't feel particularly distraught in the moment regarding his father's death, but hadn't realized that talking about it to a man he had known distantly since somewhere in the middle of his childhood would make him feel so uncomfortable.
Who was this strange man in the red suit to ask how he was getting along? What right did he have to be so utterly invasive? Seto had second thoughts about the sign in the window. Perhaps new ownership would attract a fresh crowd, and repel the old loyal men who asked too many personal questions.
Seto pursed his lips and forced himself to glance down at the paperwork. He began to shuffle it and set some aside.
"I see. Well, might I be able to have a word with the new owner?"
Seto spread his arms wide in a gesture that indicated himself.
Pegasus raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"You?" he asked, then seemed to stumble over himself. "I don't mean that to insinuate that you wouldn't be a fine choice, Seto. I just supposed I had always foreseen your little brother running the show here when the time came."
Seto stuck out a thumb and pointed it over his shoulder. "He's here, and I'm going to wager that he's the one you'll want to see, if it's our father's 'eye' you're looking for. One moment." Seto spun on his heel.
He considered telling Pegasus to refrain from calling Noa the "little" brother directly, but decided to let it slide. Maybe if he could stick around long enough, he could catch a glimpse of Noa's face turning red. It might be the pick-me-up Seto needed to finally get the morning off on the right foot.
"Noa, you have a client," he said, poking his head into the back room, making a point not to name the man.
Without waiting for an answer, and without giving Pegasus any further acknowledgment, Seto returned to his bookkeeping. When the door creaked and Noa emerged from the work room a moment later, the sound of his footsteps ceased. Seto itched to peer over his shoulder, but he could practically feel the eyes boring into the back of his head.
It was all Seto could do to stifle his smirk.
"M-mister Pegasus, a pleasure," Noa said, stepping up to the desk beside Seto.
Behind the cover of the desk Noa ground his heel into Seto's toe, sporting a friendly smile the whole way through. Seto didn't allow himself to react other than to jerk his foot away as subtly as he could and purse his lips.
"How may we be of service to you?" Noa asked.
Pegasus donned a sorrowful expression, complete with a sweeping bow.
"I beg you accept my most sincere condolences on your loss, Masters Kaiba." The man spared the slightest glance in Seto's direction, but held his focus otherwise on Noa. "Gozaburo himself was a fine specimen of a man, and the loss of his talent and workmanship is one this world will struggle to bear."
Noa swallowed thickly. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, nodding every few seconds. When he looked up again, sorrow had settled in his eyes.
"Thank you, Mister Pegasus. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your words. My father may be gone, but I promise you that his ideals are not. I am setting out to ensure that the legend of the Kaiba name lives on."
Seto supposed that was what he should have said, but it simply hadn't occurred to him to make up such a lie on the spot. He supposed then, that coming from Noa the words might have been truth.
Seto swept up the remaining disorganized papers and time cards and arranged them in a pile. He spun around and headed to the back room without so much as a word or a glance. In the background he heard Pegasus whispering to Noa as if he'd already left the room.
"I'm sorry," Pegasus said in a low voice. "He seems more upset about this than I may have initially realized."
"Not to worry, sir. He'll be alright. What can we do for you today? Could a new suit be in order? I'll grab my measuring tape. Step up to the mirror, please."
Seto pushed the garment on Noa's desk aside, depositing his papers there. Before settling in to the empty chair, Seto plucked up the wrinkled garment, a pair of navy slacks with silver pinstripes. He crossed the workroom and dropped it directly into Atem's lap.
"Stop whatever you're doing and finish this," he said in tone as dark as his mood, and walked away.
"Sir, I—Sir."
"I've given you a job. Get it done. Seek assistance from your fellow tailors if you need it."
"I don't even know what alterations are being required."
Seto stared at him over his shoulder, blinking. "Figure it out."