Atem falls in love with someone who belongs to another world.
Meeting Seto is easy.
Knowing he'll always come back is impossible.
As Atem quietly begins to wish for the impossible, Seto notices long before a single confession is spoken—and returns with an answer that could cost him everything.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 受容
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor₋yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The one Atem loved lived in a different world.
And yet, they could still meet. Seto visited the afterlife often enough.
A Duel Disk, black with a glow of red light. Not the blue glow that belonged to Seto, nor the white-and-pink that belonged to Yugi. A color scheme all Atem's own — the inverse of theirs.
Every time Atem's fingers brushed against a faintly glowing card, his heart gave a small, weightless leap.
"Atem."
The sound of firm footsteps, and a voice.
Seto, looking exactly as he always did.
"Kaiba. Here again?"
Atem said it like he was exasperated, without noticing that his own voice had a lift to it.
Seto threw himself into the game, engaging with Atem's conversation — a jumbled mix of the living world, the afterlife, the past, the future, all at once.
Sometimes he stayed the night. But in the end, he always went back to the living world.
"When are you coming next? I want to know, so it doesn't catch me off guard."
His voice, when he asked that, was different from the voice he used when speaking his true feelings.
Between them, there had only ever been genuine feeling colliding with genuine feeling. That alone was more than enough for Seto to notice something off in Atem.
Seto studied him.
"Something on your mind?"
His flat tone felt like proof that it was nothing more, nothing less than a simple question. Atem pasted on a small smile.
"No, nothing like that."
"…I see."
If he was going to hide it, then Seto wouldn't push further.
"I'll be back soon. See you."
"Yeah. See you. I'll always be waiting."
Atem waved at the retreating back, and once the figure disappeared from sight, quietly wrapped that hand in the other.
Waiting was all he could do.
Seto did, in fact, keep appearing in the afterlife, again and again. But there was no telling when he might simply stop coming. That anxiety was something Atem hadn't been able to fully erase.
Left alone with his thoughts, a terrible idea sometimes crossed his mind — what if he simply made Seto a resident of the afterlife.
Eternal life in the afterlife. Which meant, of course, death in the living world.
At first, it had only been like. Then want to see him got added. Then want to be loved.
Left to spiral, his thoughts kept leaping further and further, until he was considering ways to simply be together, permanently.
"What am I even thinking."
He muttered it to himself, and hugged his own arms against the horror of the thought.
Atem knew, of course, about Seto's dreams in the living world. Knew there was someone waiting for him to come home. Knew that was where he belonged.
"It's fine. I can't do it."
The words Atem told himself carried an edge of sorrow.
Something he couldn't do. A wave washed over him, something that felt like sadness and relief tangled together.
Atem occasionally sank into gloom, but around Seto, he could always remain himself.
Seto, for his part, was as stable as ever. Business as usual.
He'd bring cutting-edge technology into the afterlife, renovate rooms, and once that was done, push forward with modernizing the whole place.
"How far are you planning to take this civilization thing."
"Far enough that a former modern-day person can live comfortably."
"I'm already living plenty comfortably, you know?"
"Still not enough."
Atem was exasperated, but Seto answered with a completely straight face.
Today, he'd installed communication equipment throughout the castle and modernized it yet again.
The living world had developed considerably more than it had during Atem's time there. All because of the Civilization Accelerator, Seto Kaiba.
And since the afterlife was being upgraded to match his standards, there were parts of it that were now more advanced than the living world.
"Since you're the standard, I bet this place ends up more developed than the living world."
"Whichever world I'm in wins. In other words — both."
Atem found some relief in that unchanging, everyday version of Seto. At the very least, if things could stay like this, they could keep spending time together.
But at the same time, the lack of any real progress, the absence of any guarantee about the future, had started to gnaw at him with anxiety.
"My guess is you'll end up building a Seto Land here eventually."
Atem winked, teasing, and Seto answered with a satisfied smile.
"Naturally. Wherever I exist, there's no excuse for one not to be there."
"If you say you'll do it, you'll do it. I know that much about you."
Maybe he should step back, so as not to get in the way of Seto's dreams and obligations in the living world.
The thought surfaced — but Seto kept treating him exactly the same as always. And when he did that, Atem couldn't bring himself to cut the feeling off.
"For now it's just infrastructure investment, but eventually I'll build the most advanced environment there is, based on this."
"Well, I'll look forward to it."
The intensity he brought to things was always full force. Probably the same, wherever he was.
Every time Atem watched Seto being exactly, unwaveringly himself, no matter how many reasons he searched for, he could never quite manage to give up.
"Look forward to it all you like. Maybe I'll train engineers here in the afterlife, so we can build out the infrastructure properly."
"Kaiba. If you're coming here this often, you might as well just—"
Live here? Atem caught himself, snapping his mouth shut. A chill ran down his spine at his own words.
That wasn't something he should say.
He hadn't said it.
But it was the exact moment Seto understood everything.
The reason behind Atem's strange behavior. The wish he'd been keeping hidden. All of it.
Seto, who had visited the afterlife so frequently, suddenly stopped showing up at all.
He must have finally sensed something off, Atem thought, and sank into a quiet depression at his own greed.
He should have been satisfied with simply "being able to see him."
Trying to smother the mounting restlessness, Atem spent his days building decks, ready for whenever Seto might come.
Then, one day, the man he loved appeared without warning.
Paying no mind to his surroundings, Seto walked straight toward Atem. The same steady presence, business as usual. Despite the long gap, nothing about him seemed different.
But the first thing out of his mouth was:
"I'll grant your wish. Say it."
That's what he said.
A composed expression, no wavering in his eyes. Arms crossed, as always, watching Atem steadily.
"Wish… no, nothing in particular…"
Atem's wish. It was to be together, with certainty. That one time, he'd wished for Seto's death. There was no way he could say that out loud. A quiet, squirming guilt stirred deep in his chest.
Whether he knew or didn't know what Atem was feeling, Seto's mouth curved into the faintest smile.
"Can't say it? Fine, then. I've come having already cleared away every one of your worries. Does that get through to you?"
The words, delivered with a direct, unwavering gaze. Their meaning.
Even Atem, who'd been half-resigned to giving up, understood.
This time, Seto had finished everything he needed to handle in the living world, and had come to the afterlife prepared to die.
Atem's eyes went wide.
"Kaiba, don't tell me you—"
His voice shook. A sharp sting pricked behind his nose, and no more words would come.
Seto said nothing, only kept watching him.
For a while, silence stretched between them.
"There's no way… I could do something like that to you…"
The words he finally managed to force out came out trembling.
Even hearing that, Seto didn't waver. If anything, his gaze grew even more intense.
Under the sheer weight of that stare, the air in the afterlife tightened, just for an instant.
"If it's you, I don't mind giving up everything."
A quiet voice, almost a whisper. The words echoed loudly inside Atem's head.
There was no way he could take a life in the living world. No way he could do that.
And yet, to Atem, those words were unbearably, achingly happy to hear.
Atem's face twisted into something that looked like it might cry, might be troubled, might be happy — none of those, and all of them at once.
"So? Do whatever you want with me."
At those words, warmth swelled inside Atem's chest.
He couldn't manage a reply, couldn't hide how shaken he was. He could only stare.
"I…"
Still looking at Seto, Atem lost the words and could say nothing at all.
"…Kaiba."
Atem's voice dissolved out of him, melting together with his breath.
Words weren't necessary anymore.
The distance between the afterlife and the living world, the uncertainty of the future — all of it simply dissolved, now, into the passage of time.
A decision that should have been heavy, and yet Seto carried it lightly.
Their hearts were bound together, firmly.
"Whenever. Whatever you choose. Either is fine."
Seto smiled faintly, as though accepting everything completely, and gently pulled Atem into an embrace, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
What filled Atem's chest wasn't sweetness, and it wasn't relief.
It was simply the overwhelming weight of proof — proof so heavy it nearly crushed him.
