Rated for references to and themes of child abuse.

The sun burned like caramel on Sunday afternoons. From noon until dinner, Seto was free to do as he wished. Gozaburo regulated every slow second of his week but he allowed Seto this mercy to rest the ache of his body, the pulse of his mind. On the seventh day, he always rested. Gozaburo was not so merciful as some. At least Adam got the morning off too.

Seto lay in the grass and watched white blossoms of cloud drift across the blue. The gardens were silent save for the hollow pipes of bird song and the occasional buzzing insect. He kept his head tilted back to observe the slow progress of the clouds. This prevented the collar from choking him.

He didn't mind the collar. It had at first presented a physical annoyance, but he was now accustomed to its weight and tightness. Gozaburo had loosened it once when he grew too big for its band, but now it sat tight against him again. He was too proud to ask for it to be loosened a second time.

There were worse things about the collar than its tightness.

Seto remembered little now of their life before the orphanage. That time was a watercolour of trauma, too indistinct to be painful. But he had a clear memory of one of his uncles. Seto had sat on a sofa that was clad in pale blue florals, the arms worn to white thread, and he picked at a loose string with his chewed nails. His uncle's voice was regretful, his head tilted, his mouth spread strangely. 'There just isn't room for you.'

A forgettable phrase, and yet Seto didn't forget. It had settled into his eight-year-old mind and nestled into the wet cement parts of his brain. There wasn't room. They didn't want him. If he had only been smaller, perhaps he and Mokuba would have had a home.

Gozaburo had starved him, once. It was punishment for some accidental transgression of some arbitrary rule. He had not protested. It had felt good to be hollow and know that the more empty he grew, the more his new father would be pleased with his obedience. He grew conscious of the soft bulge of his belly and anticipated greedily the shrinking of his body.

Once over a dinner that had served him with another empty plate Seto had asked, 'Do you want me to be smaller, father?'

Gozaburo had watched him in silence, his hands paused around his chopsticks, his face illegible. After a long pause he had said, 'That is not the point of this exercise.' And he had allowed Seto to eat again.

The collar meant he was wanted. You didn't collar an unwanted dog. He might have been low born but now he had been permitted to rise. Gozaburo was opportunity. Gozaburo was hard and grey and marbled blue. Gozaburo was majesty.

Seto rubbed the collar around his neck. More than anything, he wished it was better quality leather.

Footsteps approached. Heavy, even, familiar, but soft against the grass. Seto closed his eyes and inhaled the lavender that crowded the garden. Speak of the Devil. Speak of the Lord.

He stood and brushed the grass from his pants, then dipped his head in a bow. The footsteps stopped. He could see the tips of comfortable house loafers, soft blue velvet, a golden monogrammed GK.

'What are you doing?'

'Resting, sir.'

'Hm.' He wasn't smoking today. That was good. Seto could not accustom his little lungs to the pollution of those cigars. 'I will not deny the benefit of occasional rest. As long as it remains occasional. If I see you slack in your studies, then this indulgence will be denied to you.'

'Yes, sir.'

Gozaburo said nothing more. They stood there, Seto's eyes on the grass, Gozaburo looking at whatever amused him in the garden. It was beautifully landscaped. The grass, the pond, the scream of yellow daffodils. Gozaburo enjoyed beauty, Seto knew, and he wondered if this qualified as weakness.

The silence was not uncomfortable, although Seto's neck ached with being bowed. He missed the sight of the clouds skimming lazily over the vibrant sky. He watched a beetle crawl up a blade of grass and then fall, the grass bent by its weight. The beetle began to climb again. Again, the grass bent, the beetle fell.

'May I ask a question, sir?'

'You may.'

'It's about the chair in your study, sir.'

Gozaburo said nothing for a moment. 'What of it?'

'What kind of chair is it, sir?'

Gozaburo paused again, but this time only very briefly. He was inclined to vanity. 'It's a vintage Chesterfields executive chair. In oxblood leather, obviously.'

'It was expensive, sir?'

'Yes, it was expensive.'

Gozaburo did not know where the questions led, which pleased Seto. This was a game he enjoyed playing. So often his father knew the labyrinth of their conversations and Seto, the poor mouse, could only run blindly until he found the exit. But it was Sunday and this was Seto's afternoon off. He felt lovely and warm in the sun and Gozaburo seemed content to let him play.

'You take pride in your possessions, sir.'

'I do.'

'Then may I ask another question, sir?'

'You have asked several. Don't try to be clever.' He didn't sound angry. Seto wanted to look up and meet those eyes, read the foreign emotions in that face. Slowly he was learning the language Gozaburo was written in. But he had a long way to go yet.

'I apologise, sir. But there is something I would like to know.'

'Ask your last question.' Gozaburo clearly knew that this would be the punchline. His knowledge irritated Seto, who never knew when or where the conversation might end. So often he had thought he could plan his answers ahead, set up a trap, move his knight up from behind to take the rook - and yet Gozaburo would blindside him. No more questions. Checkmate. Loss, again.

But not today.

Seto looked up. The sun burned his eyes. For a moment he wished he had kept his gaze on the dirt and the beetles. Gozaburo looked at him plainly, frankly. There was curiosity in there, and disdain, and impossible distance. It was like looking at a man on the opposite side of a chasm. How could you hope to cross that divide?

'Why is this collar made of such poor leather, sir?'

It was important to add sir to the impertinent question because, first of all, this was an important rule and, secondly, it created a contrast that pleased Seto's ears. Gozaburo's face did not change. Somewhere a turtle dove trilled with urgency, unseen among the ginkgo trees.

'Do you want one of better quality?'

Seto wanted an answer to his question. Was the collar so cheap to humiliate him? Was it because Gozaburo had put so little thought into this aspect of his education? And Gozaburo's question was not one that he wanted to answer. Seto decided on evasion.

'This one is uncomfortable, sir.'

'A full grain leather collar might be even more uncomfortable.'

An obvious trap he had set up for himself. This might not be a battle he could win. But it was only a loss if the goal was to get the collar changed. The real goal was to learn.

'I prefer to wear whatever you think I should wear, sir. But if it's to be of such poor quality, I would like to know why. I would like to know what lesson I am to learn.'

He did not really think there was any lesson to be taught in the quality of the collar, but in this way he positioned Gozaburo as the expert planner. If Gozaburo conceded there was no point in the cheapness of the leather, then he was admitting to taking little interest in the care of his possessions. Vanity was a useful weakness to play on.

But Gozaburo surprised him. Gozaburo always surprised him.

'It belonged to a guard dog. Ryōshi. It became gravely injured during an attempted break in. It tore the tendons out of the man's ankles before he bashed in its skull. I shot it, to ease its suffering. That man will never walk unaided again. It performed its job well.'

Seto swallowed and felt the leather against his throat as he listened to the breeze disturb the leaves of the trees. 'Should I feel honoured to wear it, sir?'

Gozaburo shrugged. 'I liked that dog.'

The sun soaked Seto's neck and gently turned his skin a pale rose brown, although he did not notice this imperceptible change. The collar was not so tight he couldn't bear it. And when he lay in the grass, with his head tilted back, he barely felt it at all.

'Thank you for answering my questions, sir.'

Gozaburo nodded. And then he turned and went inside the house, to go do whatever he did to relax on a Sunday afternoon. Seto lowered himself into the grass once again, among the dirt and the beetles, but this time he kept his head level so he would remain aware of the collar, the dog's collar, tight and constant and firm beneath his chin, like a hand, like being touched, like being wanted, and he watched the clouds crest the break of the ginkgo trees.