Who am I kidding? Who do I think I am, writing all of this down like I know what I'm talking about, like it's my right, like anyone cares? I'm glad my family doesn't read anything I write. I'm glad they're uninvolved, uninterested. I shouldn't be wasting my time with all of this endless drivel. I am stealing words from a father who has been there. I am stealing situational drama from a woman I know. I am stealing situational drama from a woman I used to trust. She betrayed me. I am writing it all down here like someone really gives a damn. It isn't my place—who the hell do I think I am?

{(chapter ten)}

Yami, having spent the weekday mornings alone as of late—and having despised every moment of the solitude—had busied himself around the house with mindless, obligatory tasks. It was in the middle of one of these on a particular early afternoon that it happened. Yami, having spent every moment away from Yugi in crippling fear, knew something was wrong as soon as the phone rang.

"Hello," he answered tersely.

"Yes, hello," a woman replied, not attempting to keep the urgency from her voice. "Are you the father of a young boy—he says his name is Yugi?"

"What's wrong?"

"God, I'm sorry—I just hit him with my car."

Yami sprinted the distance to the intersection where the woman on the phone had directed him, but there wasn't much to see. Yugi was sitting on the sidewalk, and he appeared to be fine. The woman, on the other hand, seemed a nervous wreck. "I'm so sorry," she said again as he approached.

"What happened?"

"Oh, he just stepped right out in front of me. I was pulling out from a complete stop, you see, so I didn't hit him very hard—just nudged him, really, but he fell. Oh, gosh, I didn't know whether to call an ambulance first or his parents—I'll pay for any medical bills—I'm so sorry, I could have sworn I had a green light."

Yami nodded at length and sighed heavily, as if it all made sense to him now. "You did," he said softly. Then, kneeling to Yugi, "You weren't paying attention, were you, honey?"

The boy's expression was blank—still in off-mode and a little shaken. "I don't..."

"Try to remember," Yami instructed. "Was the cross light red for you to stop? This is so important, you have to remember."

Yugi trembled, obviously somewhere else in his mind. "I don't know," he said at last, and his voice was small.

"Are you hurt?"

The gears were turning behind his eyes, cataloging every minor ache or discomfort. There was one that seemed to be more dire than the rest, and it burned at his elbow—the right elbow—which he lifted emphatically for his father's inspection. "Ouch," he said softly.

Yami took the boy's arm gently in his hands to study the long, grazing cut and patch of already drying blood. Undoubtedly a sign of his sudden, forceful connection with the concrete, it was no mortal wound and would be quickly forgotten after a thorough application of rubbing alcohol and a medicinal dose of ice cream and afternoon cartoons. "You'll be all right," Yami concluded. "But you have lost the privilege of walking home from school by yourself. I will accompany you from now on."

Yugi's expression fell.

"This doesn't mean that I am mad at you," Yami went on hastily, sensing the question before it was even asked. "I am a little frustrated—you need to pay attention to what's going on around you. It was this woman's turn to go, but you ignored the cross light and got hurt. So I'm sorry, honey, but I'll have to walk with you to and from school from now on. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Daddy." That rumor of tears which broke Yami's heart.

"I'm so sorry," the woman repeated, beside herself with guilt.

"There was no real harm done," Yami told her, standing to his full height again. "At least none I can see. I would like to get your information for future reference—just in case he has whiplash or something of the sort, though I doubt it."

"Of course." She turned back to her car to search for the necessary pen and paper, but stopped herself before she'd reached the door. "I must say," she said, turning again to meet Yami's eyes. "You're handling this remarkably well. At least I know if it had been one of my children...I would be livid—were I in your shoes. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of." She shook her head self-disapprovingly. "Senseless drivers. It's one of the reasons I decided to home-school my children as soon as they're old enough. I don't like the idea of entrusting them to strangers or having them outside of my sight all day. The thought of public school makes me sick. Oh, listen to me go on—I'm just so shaken up."

"It's all right," Yami replied. "He has survived worse. He'll be all right."

"I just feel awful."

"The fault was not entirely yours," he assured her. "Yugi tends to become easily distracted. It's difficult for him to set his mind to one thing and see it through—even a think as simple as walking home from school." Yugi glanced numbly in his direction.

"—And he gets into trouble because of it," the woman offered.

Yami stared at her. Could it be..."Yes," he agreed—someone else understood.

"Schools have no one-on-one teacher-to-student interaction," she went on, as if she perfectly understood, as if she were plucking the concerns right out of Yami's mind before he'd even put them into words, "and all the curriculum is structured for a group environment. There is no special consideration for children with dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, and any unfortunate soul with such a condition is immediately labeled a troublemaker, or misfit, and placed in the back of the classroom—and as soon as a young child is given a label, he will indefinitely assume that label and be slave to the mindset that he is no better than a troublemaker, or a misfit, and it's deplorable."

"Yes," he said at length, realizing in some part of his mind that he and the woman must have had a lot in common as parents. She seemed perfectly level-headed, protective, cautious, loving—and if she also noted obvious flaws in the system and therefore opted to keep her children out of public school, maybe Yami's own fears and misgivings were not wholly baseless. "That's why," he mused softly to himself, and at the woman's slightly confused expression, continued, "I think the reason why this happened today, is so I could encounter another parent who feels the same way about the school system. I know now there is someone else with such hesitations as I have, and were I to withdraw him from his classes, I would not be remiss."

The woman gave him a warm little smile—to let him know they were on the same level—that briefly, in that one moment, the world had condescended to allow them both to understand something of each other.

{(pagebreak)}

Yami stared at his son, at more than a loss for words, a bit amused but mostly surprised. Of all the requests in the world, his boy had to come up with this one. "Yugi," he said gently, "earrings are for little girls."

"Joshua at school has one." The kid was adamant. "He's in the fifth grade, and everyone thinks he's really cool."

"And you think if you get an earring, you'll be 'cool' as well?"

Yugi's brow furrowed, as if he were thinking deeply about it. As if it hadn't occurred to him before. He was incredible actor, but he was fooling no one. "Well, Joshua's got a lot of friends, because everyone wants to be near him, and because he plays the drums."

"Young man, you are not going to play drums."

"I don't want to play the drums," he protested zealously. "I want to get my ear pierced. Please?"

Yami sighed, glanced across the dinner table at Solomon for council, finding it rather ironic that the elder Mutou could be so opinionated about medical treatment, and yet remain ambivalent in so many other issues. The old man was grinning. "I don't know," he said. "He asked you."

Yami tried to convince himself it was a bad idea, that it was rebellious and distasteful and that he should forbid it at all costs. But then...it wasn't exactly rebellion—Yugi just thought it looked cool, and who was Yami to prevent him from expressing himself in something as harmless as an earring? After all, Yami noted against his will, it wouldn't look half bad on Yugi. An earring would add to the gothic punk style, which so clashed with Yugi's gentle personality that one had no choice but to recognize it as pretense, and adore the boy all the more for his blissful naivety.

"Pleeeeease, daddy?"

Ra help me, the eyes.

"Okay," he heard himself say, still in disbelief, and watched the expression on his son's face slowly change from pleading to overjoyed, as realization hit him.

"Thank you, daddy," he exclaimed, dashing suddenly from his seat to throw himself into Yami's arms in a possessive hug.

Yami smiled and pat him on the back. "It's your grandfather you ought to be thanking—he's the one who'll be paying for it."

Obediently, Yugi broke of his ministration there and bounded next into an eagerly accepted hug with Solomon. "Thank you, Grampa!"

The old man laughed heartily. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's clean up these dishes and leave now or else the mall will be closed," he said, and before Yami really had time to let it sink in, they had called a taxi and left the shop, and he presently found himself pacing beside the small kiosk where Yugi sat anxiously fidgeting and Solomon filled out compulsory paperwork.

Yami watched his boy wriggle in the seat when asked to pick out the stud he wanted. Yami mused silently to himself there as he watched, that Yugi's birthday was not far off, and he would be sixteen. This child writhing in joyous anticipation was not a child at all but a teenager, full of hormones and future dreams, so close to adulthood, so close to college and the job force. Soon he would be grown up and have no need of Yami. Soon he would leave and the grown-up world would have him, and where could there possibly be room in his life for a wandering spirit—he would be so spent on education and career and a family of his own. But it was entirely too depressing a thought, and Yami dismissed it from his mind out of necessity.

Yugi was demonstrating to the kiosk lady where on his ear he wanted his brand new piercing—very high in the cartilage—and in the right ear. That much was very important. The right ear. "Are you sure," the woman asked him. "It'll hurt that high up."

"Yes," he answered. "I'm sure."

And so Yami stood there and watched, dimly aware of the several passers-by who'd paused to see the brave little kid, as the lady took the small, white piercing gun to Yugi's ear, softly commanded, "Take a deep breath," and squeezed firmly and finally the silver trigger. Yami could have sworn he heard the sound of the post connecting with the back of the earring, even over the various noise of the mall, and Yugi's reaction was instant. There was a crease in his brow, a sharp exhalation, and an instinctual tearing in his eyes, but there was not the expected crying, or complaint of pain. The boy was too excited about surveying himself in the offered mirror to dwell on the momentary stab of discomfort. A big smile upturned the corners of his mouth, and he immediately sought out his father's consent.

Though he was pleased with the outcome of this excursion, Yami was still troubled, and to his surprise he couldn't quite place the feeling. Perhaps it stemmed from the sudden impression that Yugi was slowly growing out of his control, that Yami wanted to always consider him a small child, when in truth the boy was closer to independence than childhood, this endless fear of reaching the extent of your purpose on the earth, the selfish longing to hold onto the things that make you important, and Yami never wanted to let him go. Maybe it was the effect of peer pressure on Yugi, the thought that other people had control in his life—this adult expression of sensuality—that was so uncharacteristic of his precious perfect Yugi, that Yami found so unsettling. Or a combination of everything.

Whatever the reason, Yami struggled to push the feeling aside and return an echo of the smile given him.

Cherish this moment.

{(pagebreak)}

"Daddy, a girl at school tried to kiss me."

Yami stared at him. "Where?"

"On top of the monkey bars."

It could have been funny. He didn't laugh. "No. Which part of you did she try to kiss? Your mouth?"

"Cheek."

"What did you do?"

Hesitation. "I moved the other way."

"Why didn't you tell a teacher?"

He was fidgeting. "I didn't want her to get in trouble."

"Honey, if someone is trying to touch you in a way you don't want, it's okay to tell someone, even if it means that person will get into trouble, since they probably deserve it. Do you remember when we talked about the different kinds of touching, and how you can tell the difference?"

"Well, yeah...but it wasn't really like that. There was nothing hurting in her wanting to kiss me. She just likes me a lot, but I don't like her in a kissing way." He paused. "She didn't want to hurt me, and I didn't want to get her in trouble."

Inconceivable. The father learning a lesson from the son. Yami asked himself if he wouldn't have acted in the same fashion. If, for instance, Tea had tried to kiss him... "Yugi, honey, what would you have done if she had been someone you liked in a kissing way?" This was important.

"But I don't like her in a kissing way."

Yami sighed. "Okay, but isn't there someone you do like in a kissing way?"

More fidgeting. "Yes."

"So what if whoever it is you like in a kissing way had been there instead, and had tried to kiss you, what would you have done?"

Hesitation again. He suddenly looked much older than his alleged six years. "I would have let her."

Yami frowned at him. "Honey, this is very serious. You need to be careful." A pause. "Who is it that you like in a kissing way?"

He glanced away shyly. "Serenity."

{(pagebreak)}

Yami had grown accustomed at this point to receiving bad news via the telephone, so I cannot say he was entirely surprised when the vice principal rang him one morning. She sounded rather upset, but would not disclose any details over the phone. She did say, however, that there had been some sort of accident, and apparently Yugi had been acting up. Though he found the latter entirely too difficult to believe, he was concerned about what Yugi could have been involved in to cause such a fuss, and he was equally anxious to ensure that his son was okay.

So, he set aside the various tasks of ironing and vacuuming that he'd assigned himself for the day, and quickly made his way to the grade school. After inquiring his way to the office where he'd been told to report—it was not hard to find—he informed the woman at the desk that he'd been contacted by the vice principal and told to come as soon as possible. "Oh," the receptionist said with a an obvious edge of disapproval in her voice, "you're the father."

Yami bristled. "Where is my son?"

"Ms. Krenz will be with you in a moment," she rattled off—ignoring his question, he noted—and pressed a button on contraption much resembling a telephone on the desktop. "Ms. Krenz, Mr. Mutou has arrived," she reported in a singsong tone into the device's speaker, and waited.

Yami decided to not contend the surname, and instead seated himself in one of several chairs lining the wall. And he sat there a good five minutes, and when he'd nearly had enough of these peoples' ignorance, a woman in her early fifties, her hair up in tight curls and her thin lips pursed in a tolerant smile emerged from a long corridor. "Mr. Mutou, I presume," she asked, and before he'd given his reply, she continued, "Pleased to meet you."

Yami sensed that she was, on the contrary, not at all pleased. "Ms. Krenz, I presume," he echoed hollowly.

"I'd like to speak with you for a moment, in my office," she intentioned, motioning with a hand for him to follow her down the long hallway and through the door at the far end. There was a desk inside the room, with both a computer and a phone on it, and a green plastic watering can nestled on the floor beside a fake tree in the corner.

"Please sit down," the vice principal instructed, also taking her respective seat behind the desk. After a brief pause of settling in, she began. "Mr. Mutou—"

"—Just Yami will do, if you please."

There was noticeable annoyance in her body language, as if to announce she was quite put off at having been interrupted. "Yami," she stressed haughtily. "I fear I must bring attention to the unchecked behavior of—"

"I'm sorry," Yami interjected, stunned by the woman's attitude. "Have I...offended you in some way?"

She pursed her lips. "Not directly," she admitted, "but rather by the lax discipline of that child."

He fought to suppress his rage. "That child? What exactly happened, may I ask," he mocked her false regality.

"I was preparing to tell you until I was so rudely interrupted," she defended.

"You could have told me over the phone," he reminded her, his voice rising with his growing impatience, emphasizing each word in the tone that those who knew him well were conditioned to fear, "but you decided to so draw this thing out, I have no choice but to be curt with you, now tell me where my son is."

She stared at him, stricken with horror, it would seem. "Your son," she replied, "made a scene in class. He was disobedient and stubborn and had to be physically removed."

"What happened," he asked slowly, to make sure she didn't miss any part of his request, an obvious insult, but he was tired of skirting around it.

"The boy interrupted his writing class and was insistent upon being granted a restroom break."

Yami understood now. "Thoth give me strength," he whispered under his breath, rubbing his jaw in an effort to keep from lashing out at her.

"I beg your pardon?"

He ignored her. "He was denied, I assume," he asked, already sure in his mind of the truth.

"Well, yes," Ms. Krenz agreed. "He was in the middle of Mrs. Rhefeldt's writing class, and she had made it perfectly clear that she was not to be interrupted during her lectures. And besides, all of the children are allowed a bathroom break directly after lunch—your boy is merely impatient and spoiled."

"Excuse me?"

"He defecated on himself," she exclaimed, openly disgusted and outraged. "I would have thought he'd have the common sense and decent humanity to control himself, but obviously—"

"—You have no idea," Yami said forcefully, standing suddenly to his full height, "what he's been through. Things that other children take for granted do not come so easily to him, and he has worked very hard to understand the signals his body gives him and what they mean, and by denying him something so basic, you fly in the face of everything he's learned. You have no right, and I am appalled that you assumed as much!"

The old woman looked as if she'd been struck. "Your son displayed a shocking lack of self control," she argued.

"No kidding—he's got nerve damage." Yami was fuming though a sharp edge of exasperated amusement had crept into his voice. "Honestly, I don't know why I'm surprised at all of this. You know, lady, I was so close to telling you everything. When I enrolled him here, it entered my mind to inform you people of everything he's been through—but you don't deserve that. I don't want you to know. I want you to go on believing whatever the hell it is you believe about Yugi—whether you think he's just stupid or disobedient—it doesn't matter. I don't give a damn about your opinion. Now," he growled, "you are going to tell me where my son is, so help me."

She'd lost. "Th-the nurse's office," she stammered, her ego visibly wounded. Then, straightening herself in an effort to reclaim her dignity, she added in an afterthought, "Where I come from, Mr. Yami, women are treated with a measure of grace and respect."

Yami had already turned to leave, having acquired what information he needed, but at her comment, he was oddly inclined to look over his shoulder at her one last time with a mischievous smirk on his face and reply, "And where I come from, women are given as party favors." He hesitated not in slamming the door as he left.

{(pagebreak)}

Unresponsive.

At best.

A part of him had broken inside—that confident part, the self-image part. He knew he could not go back, all of them laughing, dodging him. He could not go back—what would they say? Surely they wouldn't have anything to do with him now. So he shut down. He was happy, in some part of his mind, to see his father finally come for him, and he didn't want to stay in his filth in the nurse's office, but somehow he just couldn't find it within himself to say anything.

"We can go home now, honey."

He was aware in some part of his mind that he cried. And when he stood before his father in the bathroom in his home, and allowed his clothes to be stripped off, and he stood there naked and shivering in his filth, he cried. And while his father's gentle hands were on him, cleaning him with care because he could not help himself, he cried. Those hands were on him, and they didn't mind his filth—it was the helping kind of touch, and it made him feel better.

He was aware that he was lifted, so carefully, and placed in the tub, and he didn't resist, and he didn't respond. There wasn't much water in the bath, but it was warm, and it would help him to feel clean. Yugi hugged his knees as he sat there in the porcelain tub with head hung low, and he said nothing.

"It's okay, honey."

Yami's hands went over him carefully, cupping bathwater along his back to soothe him, pausing to trace the shelf of his ribcage, the jutting, square-ish lines of his shoulder blades. Every part of him perfect and smooth and strong. It was when Yami noticed the bruises. Their dark shadows were just settling into Yugi's upper arms, previews of the blue and purple monsters that were soon to come. Yami covered one experimentally, gently mimicking a motion of grabbing the boy by the arm violently. The mark was a haunting match to his fingers, and Yugi shied from the light touch as if it hurt him.

"Who did this?"

The boy hugged his knees tighter, trying to hide himself, trying to avoid reply as long as possible. When he finally spoke, his voice was small. "Mrs. Rhefeldt," he said, "told me to go to the office, but I didn't want to go, so she had to take me there. She kept saying I was in big trouble, and shaking her head, and she said she was going to tell the principal, and call my parents, except I told her I just have my Daddy, and Grampa, but she wasn't listening." He'd worked himself up at this point, and was crying again, and rested his forehead on his knees to further hide himself.

Yami's fingers were raking through his hairline at the base of his neck. "Yugi, honey, this was not your fault. It was an accident. You tried your best to explain to your teacher, but she didn't understand what you needed. You are not in trouble."

Yugi stirred. "They were all laughing at me," he whispered tearfully, "calling me 'gross.' I yelled at them not to look at me. I didn't want them to see."

Yami brushed long golden bangs behind the boy's right ear, his fingertips lingering on the silver piercing high in the cartilage. Yugi was so brave. "Honey," he said, "I will not make you go back to school if you do not want to, but I will not force you to stay home, either. I will be proud of you, whatever you choose."

He raised his head to look at his father, happy though his expression remained unreadable. A very long silence slipped between them until, at length, some fear passed through Yugi's eyes. "Daddy," he asked, relishing the comfort of his father's strong hands on his back, on his arm, "don't you think it's gross?" Meaning, don't you think I'm gross—the things that come out of me, that you have to clean and wipe away and smell when you're near enough?

Yami looked in his eyes with utmost seriousness while he gathered his reply. "Yugi," he said, absently entwining his fingers in the boy's thick hair, "I think that your body is beautiful, but it's hurt right now and until it heals, days like today are bound to happen. I don't think it's 'gross,' it does not disgust me; it just makes me very sad that you have to go through it all. There is nothing that can come out of you that would make me not want to hold you, help you take a bath, sleep in your bed close beside you—so close you feel me while you dream, and are not afraid. I'm your father. It's my job to take care of you, and because I love you so very much, it is easy for me to do these things for you." He stroked the boy's face affectionately. "Nothing about you is gross, sweetheart. You are so beautiful."

Yugi looked up at his father, his chest rising and falling unevenly with the great constriction of impending sobs. Wordlessly, he leaned over the rim of the tub and climbed up Yami's front. He was a little boy then—Daddy, hold me—and for the first time in his reign as father, Yami felt no discomfort, no awkwardness, in this intimacy of closing his arms around the small frame. And it was then just as the moment became etched in the minds of the pair. Every lasting detail—the fluorescent lighting in the room, the way Yugi's soft cries and Yami's answering whispers of, "It's okay," echoed off the tiled floor, the faint sloshing of the water in the tub as Yami repositioned himself to better cradle the half-sitting, half-laying boy draped over the wall of the tub and against his chest—every bit was ingrained in their memories as one of the defining moments of their bond. Yugi was wet, and naked, against his father, and he was not ashamed.