I think part of what appeals to me most about this story — and it's probably a theme in a few of my works, now that I think about it — is that the stakes are pretty low. Compared to YGO's canon, anyway. And, I mean, don't get me wrong. We'll get back into the magic and the Millennium Items and all that wildness soon enough.
But for now, I think I'm just enjoying the fact that sometimes, the most dramatic part of these kids' day is … picking out some clothes.
1.
Anyone watching Pegasus wax poetic on the various shirts, sweaters, vests, and jackets he's picking out—seemingly at random—would be forgiven for assuming that he worked in the fashion industry. Not so much for any kind of expertise, as the unabashed surety in his voice. He's as confident as a car salesman. Croquet finds himself wondering if his employer's talk of clashing colors and complimentary patterns is accurate, conjecture based on his experience as an artist, or pure nonsense.
Seto, for his part, is listening intently.
Mokuba looks bored.
It becomes clear why Pegasus asked Ellie to come along for this trip, when she hunkers down and calls out to the younger Yagami. "C'mere, pipsqueak. Gotta show you something."
Mokuba perks up, and wanders over. Ellie proceeds to show her young charge various t-shirts she's found on a clearance rack. She lifts up a purple offering emblazoned with an ancient wyrm wrapped possessively around a tower. The slogan Don't Go Dragon Me Down is scrawled along the bottom.
She chuckles. "Nice," she says, as she holds the shirt up to Mokuba's chest. Pinning her prize to the boy's shoulders, she turns him around to face the others. "Oi! Boss man! Yagami! Check this out."
They both turn. Pegasus laughs, prompting Mokuba to grin. Seto holds a hand to his mouth to stifle a chuckle of his own. He holds up his free hand and gives a thumbs-up. Mokuba giggles. Ellie looks like she's just won some sort of contest. "C'mon, buddy," she says, tossing the shirt over her shoulder and leading Mokuba by the shoulder. "We're gonna go find some more stuff."
"More stuff!" Mokuba parrots.
Pegasus eyes Croquet, who nods. He trusts Ellie, as much as he trusts anyone, but the master doesn't believe in being too careful. Wherever Mokuba goes, so too must Croquet go. That is his assignment for the day. Ellie is present to keep him occupied, but Croquet is here to keep him safe.
Just in case.
The gun beneath Croquet's jacket has never felt so heavy. Something about the levity of this excursion to a department store has him on edge. Croquet has never been one to believe in luck, and things have been entirely too quiet lately for his tastes.
Ellie turns a glance over her shoulder, and something about the look on her face causes Croquet to wonder—just for one superstitious moment—whether this girl can sense his thoughts, too. She doesn't speak, but there's something about the gleam in her eyes that Croquet still manages to read as: calm down.
"So what's your damage, anyway?" Ellie asks Croquet, as they distance themselves from Pegasus and Seto. "You a butler or something?"
"Not quite," Croquet says slowly. "I was hired by Master Crawford's father as a 'security operative.'" He holds up his hands and makes quotes in the air. Ellie smirks. "Which, I suppose is to say, officially makes me Master Crawford's bodyguard."
"Babysitter."
Croquet actually chuckles. "Sometimes I have had cause to think so. Yes."
Mokuba spies a sweatshirt with an eagle on it, and squeals before rushing over to inspect it.
"If I recall," Croquet says mildly, "Seto has mentioned he likes things that can fly."
Ellie smirks a little. "Yeah?" She comes up behind Mokuba before he can grab at his new fascination, and plucks him up into the air. "You like flying, there, bucko?" Mokuba laughs as Ellie settles him on her shoulders and makes various airplane noises as she saunters back to Croquet. "Ain't nobody taught you nothin'? Hands off the merchandise!"
Mokuba, too busy enjoying his new vantage point, doesn't reply.
Croquet smiles privately to himself, as he thinks back to the first time he met this girl, and marvels.
2.
Ellie apparently hasn't bothered to actually look for appropriate clothing for Mokuba; she returns to Pegasus—who is waiting outside a changing room—with several more t-shirts, a pair of light-up shoes, and a purple beach ball. She smiles, half-apologetically, and settles herself on a bench.
Mokuba occupies himself by wandering around, clapping his new shoes together and laughing at the lights; Pegasus rubs at his chin. Croquet lifts up an ensemble of his own choosing—grey pinstripe slacks and vest, with a pastel green button-down shirt—which seems to be Mokuba's size.
Pegasus chuckles. "Excellent."
"Miss McAllister is of the opinion that there's no need to find dress shoes," Croquet murmurs. "She says those will suffice." He gestures to the younger Yagami. "They add a touch of . . . whimsy."
Ellie, for her part, shrugs dramatically.
"As much as I would agree," Pegasus says eventually, "perhaps we should look around. Seto is quite concerned with first impressions, and . . . in the case of my father, he isn't wrong to worry." Irritation flashes in his eyes for a moment. "Maime would see the charm in it. But not him."
"Pop's a real piece o' work, huh?" Ellie asks. Something dark settles over her face for a moment. "Yeah. I get that." She stands up, a little too quickly. "C'mon, little man. We gotta go getcha some proper shoes for the big showdown."
She's gone, and back, before Pegasus or Croquet can properly formulate the right question. They both decide, independently of each other, to let the matter drop.
"Gonna guess Yagami's in there?" Ellie puts in as she sits back down. Whatever sequence of emotions had been running through her head before, they're gone for now. Pegasus nods and makes an affirmative sound in his throat. "Got 'im all set up and snazzed out."
"He seemed . . . pleased," Pegasus offers.
"Far be it from me to make suggestions, rich boy," Ellie says after a moment of silence, "but . . . there ain't really anybody back home with brand new clothes. I bet, if someone wanted to be generous, someone could talk at the director man and get everybody's sizes and all that, and maybe someone could get some cash together and dress everybody up. Don't s'pose you know anybody who'd wanna do something like that, though."
Pegasus raises a slow eyebrow. "I . . . might know some people."
Ellie smirks. "Might've heard you say at some point you wanted all the orphans in your city to live better lives. Not just the ones you like best."
Pegasus frowns. "You, young lady, are . . . not to be underestimated."
This brings out a laugh. "You know it."
Pegasus recalls Seto mentioning charity drives in December. Just as he begins working through the logistics of a large-scale fundraiser—after all, does he run a toy company or not?—he hears Seto call out, in a voice that doesn't sound like his at all, that he thinks he's ready.
"Kid sounds like he's gettin' ready to make a runway debut or something," Ellie murmurs thoughtfully. "Oi!" she calls out. "Yagami! Loosen up!" Seto's only reply is a little squeaking sound; something crashes inside the changing room. Ellie snickers behind her hand. "Whoops."
Pegasus works to school his face into something neutral.
Slowly, gingerly, Seto Yagami steps out past the point of no return.
3.
Black dress shoes, and a matching belt. Slate-grey slacks, with a crease pronounced enough to cut the air. A navy vest over a baby blue button-down shirt. A black sport coat.
He looks around at his audience, a slight—but noticeable—redness to his cheeks. A nervous smile stretches across his face, and he wipes his hands on his pants. He plays with his hair for a moment, then forces himself to stop. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, then pulls them out.
Despite this touch of nerves, Seto Yagami looks comfortable in his own clothing for the first time.
Pegasus nods approvingly, as he rubs at the smile curving his own lips. "There he is," he says, more to himself than anyone else. "There's my boy."
Croquet adjusts his ever-present sunglasses. "The young master has arrived."
"Well, well, well," Ellie intones, leaning back and eyeing her young friend critically. "That's a good look for you, Yagami. Except . . ." She scrunches up her face, stands up, and strides over. Leaning down, she tweaks Seto's shirt collar, and eventually undoes the top button. "Don't wanna button yourself up to the rafters unless you're wearing a tie." She turns a sharp eye on Pegasus. "You didn't get him a tie. Did you? Because we're gonna have words if you did."
Pegasus quirks an eyebrow. "Oh? I didn't realize you felt so strongly."
"It's a family dinner, not a Senate hearing." She turns back and looks Seto up and down. "You're lucky that vest looks good on you, kid. Anybody else, I'd say it's too much." She adjusts his jacket, particularly where it sits on his shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah, this is good stuff. Got that pop factor. You look all official-like."
Seto's blush deepens. He looks at the floor.
Mokuba, seated on the floor and struggling to remove the elastic cord tying his new shoes together, looks up suddenly and grins. Seto, his sixth sense fully intact, immediately finds his brother. Mokuba, footwear on hand rather than in hand, strikes at the floor and summons neon lightning. Seto smiles dotingly, as is his wont, and he notices what Croquet is holding. "That's for Mokie?" he asks. Croquet nods. "I can help him put it on."
Croquet shrugs and hands over Mokuba's outfit. Ellie tosses over Mokuba's other new shoes.
As the two boys make their retreat, Pegasus fishes a disposable camera out of a pocket and waggles it around. "I do believe this is going to be an important moment. One that we will want to . . . immortalize, let's say?"
Ellie chuckles. "Y'know, the home's got a fuckton—er, uh . . . a lot of pictures, too. 'Scuse me." Pegasus gestures dismissively. "It's a thing. Director Dan and Big Kristine started it, when they got to workin' there. What they do is, they take pictures of everybody. They collect 'em, right? And whenever a body gets adopted, or ages out of the program, they get themselves an album. All pretty and whatever. You'll get one, when the whole thing's done."
Pegasus's entire face lights up like a child finding out that tomorrow is a snow day. "Is that right?"
"Mm-hm."
Pegasus mulls this over for a while, but doesn't miss the look on Ellie's face while he does. The pall of dark, unseemly thoughts has overtaken her again. Just for a moment. She banishes it with the ease of long practice, not unlike Seto, but not before Pegasus catches it, seizes it, cradles it.
He draws in a steadying breath.
Croquet interrupts his master's line of thinking, which is likely his precise intention, when he says: "You've given up the hope of adoption. Haven't you, Miss McAllister?"
Ellie flinches violently. ". . . What're you, nuts? Nobody adopts teenagers. They want the cute ones. The ones with no personalities of their own yet. The ones they can imprint on or . . . whatever." She stands up, kicks at the floor. "Y'know, before you showed up? Yagami got a lot of folks comin' around. They had their eyes on the little guy. But y'know what happened? Every damn time?"
"I can only guess," Croquet says slowly, carefully. "Tell us. Please."
Pegasus nods solemnly.
"They backed out. And y'know why? Because they saw it. Kid's already picked his favorite. Already got his loyalties in line. He's all about Yagami, and that ain't ever gonna change. You guys joke about 'Niisama' meaning 'Daddy,' but it ain't a joke. It's the truth. And all these good, upstanding, hopeful parents? They don't want competition. It screws up their dreams of a perfect little nuclear family. And this is with adorable little shits like those two." She gestures sharply at the dressing room. "Me? Uh-uh. No fuckin' way. Ain't nobody looked twice at me in three years."
Croquet removes his glasses to look Ellie McAllister in the eye. "I must apologize," he says. "It was . . . untoward of me to pry." He bows his head.
Ellie sneers, turns away and glares at a wall. "Man, whatever. I'm over it."
"What use is a child who will not obey?" Pegasus almost whispers. "What good does a child to its name and station if it will not reflect well on either? Better a bloodline to die than to be sullied."
"We're half-people," Ellie growls. "None of us good enough for shit. Tossed out like the fuckin' trash. Civilized society acts like it's our damn fault for . . . for . . . !"
Croquet clears his throat.
In answer to the murderous glare Ellie sends his way, he tilts his head toward where only the thinnest of walls and a rather flimsy door separates them from an impressionable toddler.
Ellie scowls, but visibly calms.
In the silence that follows, Pegasus turns inward. Reaches into the part of himself he almost wishes he could bury. "My wife . . . used to say . . . there is no flower more beautiful, no bloom more divine, than the one found in a garden of weeds. There is no dance more graceful than defiance. Stand. Fight. Look to the Heavens, rip a hole in the sky, and shout to God: I will not be denied."
Ellie watches Pegasus warily. Her anger dissipates. So slightly.
"I think I like your wife."
Pegasus smiles as a piece of his heart shatters.
". . . She would have adored you."
.
There's something special to note, I think, about this one. Aside from the fact that this chapter offered up a couple of rather poignant moments for Miss Ellie — and I dearly hope she's making an impact on y'all, because she surely has on me — there's something else that's happened here.
I build my stories using individual scenes. It's how I build my narratives. I don't usually think in sweeping arcs or plot points. I think of each scene as a brick, and I build with them.
As of this chapter, "Kick a Hole in the Sky" contains exactly 100 individual scenes.
The building blocks are coming together. And I think I'm starting to see exactly what the edifice will be.
I hope you'll join me as it's unveiled.
Brick by brick.