Three thousand years ago, Seto took the throne of Egypt.
Now, in the afterlife, he gives it back to Atem and steps down into the position of a priest, watching over the young king from the shadows.
What begins as observation slowly becomes something neither of them has a word for.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 二人の王
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The shadow of Seto, seated upon the throne, fell slowly across the great hall.
The priests caught their breath and knelt.
The eyes of Seto, newly come into the kingship, were like blue flame burning cold.
"From this day, in this land, any who defy my command shall be held unworthy of life."
The voice was low, and yet it reached every corner with the ring of steel.
No one could break in. The air lay heavy, carrying the premonition of death.
Seto as king was no longer the priest he had been.
His grip extended past command; it had taken on the power to govern thought itself.
A reason that let not one small movement escape, calculating the order of the years to come.
There was no joy in having gained the throne.
Only the single thread of ardour turned towards Atem remained beneath that cold precision, quietly smouldering like a banked fire.
"I will lay the foundations of civilisation, and the aftermath of ruin I will see to myself."
To those words the priests returned nothing but silence, and reverence.
The present. The afterlife.
The throne room.
Atem stood facing Seto. There was no other figure there.
Seto's gaze took hold of Atem, quiet and yet keen.
Since he had come into the kingship, that figure had become the emblem of cold precision itself, until even light seemed afraid to reflect off him.
"...Atem."
At that low, carrying voice, Atem straightened before he knew he had.
"I return the throne. This is your age."
Atem's chest leapt with surprise at the words. But at the same time he felt their weight.
This was no merely formal restitution. In Seto's eyes, a calculation that seemed to see through everything was mixed with a faint warmth.
"There is no need for you to know the burden I bore, nor the traces of the order I set. But the one who leads the afterlife from here on is you."
Atem lost his words. In silence, Seto had shown him what a king's resolve was.
And in the chest of an Atem who stood before the seat of the king, responsibility, expectation and a trace of unease came surging.
Seto took a step back and stood quietly, the majesty of a king still on him.
"It may be as it was before. There is no need to steel yourself. To be king is nothing but a duty. ...It is only heavier than anything else."
Seto's gaze, dim shadow and clear colour mingled together. Not encouragement, not counsel, and not a pushing away either.
Atem understood only the weight of a king, and the depth of Seto's will.
Against that cold, overwhelming figure, Atem carved into his chest the resolve not to give a single step. And into the hands the throne had been returned to, the future was entrusted.
Atem stood before the seat of the king and laid his hand on the Millennium Puzzle.
The moment he touched it, its coldness called reality back to him. This was his own responsibility.
"...I know."
To that small murmur Seto nodded without a word. It was a gaze that, cold as it was, left some warmth behind it.
"Your first move as king?"
Seto's voice was quiet, but the question carried weight.
Atem thought for a little while. Not only the power of the king's seat, but the people, the order of the afterlife, and the will Seto had entrusted to him. He felt the weight of shouldering all of it.
"First, with putting things in order inside myself."
Atem answered strongly. But his eyes wavered, faintly.
He could not help recognising that Seto's presence was, to the Atem of now, absolute, and at the same time the thing that held his heart up.
"As king, this time I have to protect it all the way through. ...Myself, as well."
The moment Atem said it, Seto's expression changed a little. Beneath the hard cold, the faintest smile.
Pride, or relief.
"If that is your resolve, then as you will."
Seto's words were neither a provocation nor a command, but pure proof of trust.
Atem drew a deep breath and carved the weight of the throne into his chest.
Then he turned his eyes forward. Seto was not standing beside him. Even so, there was certainly someone there pushing him on.
With that thought alone, Atem's heart filled with a resolve that would not waver.
The throne room had gone silent.
Atem rose, the throne at his back, hands lightly closed, and breathed deep.
Over his shoulder, Seto came into view, standing there. The distance seemed near and was far, and yet his presence was unmistakably overwhelming.
Atem lowered his eyes, conscious of a king's responsibility, then caught the stir of something and lifted his face.
Seto's eyes held a cold light, and somewhere within it a softness. There were no words, but a force that pushed at his back came through.
It felt like being watched over, and it felt like being alone.
Seto did not stir in the slightest, and by his presence alone he held Atem's heart up.
For a while neither of them exchanged words; they only stood quietly side by side.
Atem carved a king's resolve into his chest, and Seto quietly acknowledged that resolve.
Distance there was, but between the two of them ran a certain trust and understanding. Without words, each knew that the other's presence was what held him up.
Before long Atem began to walk, slowly. At the sight of him bearing the throne and fixing his gaze on the world, Seto only narrowed his eyes, quietly.
"The rest, I leave to you." Seto said it inside himself and nowhere else. He did not give it a voice. There was no need. Atem already understood.
"Then, with your leave, I shall return to being a priest. Should anything arise, at any hour."
Seto made the bow of a subject, with a grace that held the eye.
"Mm. Seto..."
"Is something the matter, my king?"
"That... the way you're speaking, I mean..."
That time when they had stood as enemies and had truly fought.
When he had faced the man who had inherited Seto's soul.
To Atem, that had seemed to be Seto's natural manner.
To be treated courteously now left him with nothing but a sense of wrongness.
Seto let out a small, quiet laugh.
"...Very well. You, too, as you will."
And so the throne became, without doubt, Atem's once more.
After the accession. As king. Day one.
Morning light slanted in through the windows of the throne room.
Atem advanced slowly, on his way to the morning council. A faint tension showed in him, the tension of doing this after so long, and at the same time a king's resolve showed from his back.
As one of the priests in his service, Seto watched over him quietly.
A position where he would not stand out, but from which he could always take in what Atem did. Seto had chosen the place that had once been Siamun's.
"Still stiff." The assessment came inwardly before he could stop it. He followed the king's every movement with a keen eye.
At the morning council the subjects spoke cautiously, and Atem listened carefully as he gave out his instructions.
At the sight of it, Seto let out a small breath.
"No effect from the interval of absence."
A small word to himself, let fall as he left the room. But that gaze was certainly fixed on Atem with pride.
Noon came, and an inspection within the palace.
Atem went round looking in on soldiers and servants, speaking to them without airs.
Smiling all the while, he did not forget the fine attentiveness that left no single person behind.
Seto, keeping close like a shadow, held his distance and yet checked each of Atem's actions one by one.
The distance to his subjects is close, but there is nothing precarious in how he carries himself.
But that was like Atem, and deep in Seto's eyes a warmth mixed in, the warmth of watching over something that must be protected.
In the evening, back in the throne room, Atem looked through dispatches and thought out his next measures.
Seto stood quietly at a distance neither near nor far, and let his eyes sharpen only when it was needed.
Without saying anything, he held Atem up by presence alone. A shadow, and yet like the most trusted of companions running alongside.
The night deepened, and Seto quietly saw Atem off as he returned to the king's chamber, then vanished into the corridor.
"Day one, excellent."
The murmur was small; it reached no one. But that gaze was full of a quiet resolve to keep watch, believing in the growth the young king would show tomorrow.
Atem's days.
Afternoon light slanting into the study.
Atem read on through the dispatches, working out the palace's plans for the term ahead. Tension and seriousness mixed in that profile bent on its work.
Seto, standing beside him, watched without a word.
He did not come closer than necessary, but he placed himself at a distance from which he could put out a hand at any moment.
Atem's hand, turning a sheet of papyrus, stopped, and he knitted his brows.
Seto swiftly muted his presence and lightly straightened the brush lying at the corner of the desk.
It was a natural motion, as though he had sensed that it would be in the way where it was.
Atem, not noticing, smiled and set his work in order again.
That alone was enough for Seto to narrow his eyes, satisfied.
Atem, going out beyond the palace to inspect, walked with the soldiers and spoke to the people.
Seto, standing behind at a distance, checked even from far off the footing of a servant who looked about to stumble, and secured a position from which he could lightly steady them if it came to that.
He did not involve himself directly. But by presence alone he put the place in order. Such was the support of a shadow.
Dusk, and Atem in the study drawing up royal decrees.
The small seal left forgotten on the desk, Seto casually drew nearer to hand.
Atem turned, noticed, and smiled. "Ah, sorry."
Words were exchanged, but Seto said nothing further and quietly returned to where he had been.
When the night deepened, and Atem had gone, and the lamps of the throne room were being put out, Seto still watched it through from one step away.
"Ended safely today as well."
The voice was small, and vanished as though dissolving into the air.
But on Atem's back there certainly remained the ease of knowing that a comrade was watching over him.
That was the small support of ordinary days. It was Seto's part, as the guardian in the shadows.
Deep night. A faint light still remained in the king's study.
Before a mountain of papyrus, Atem let his shoulders drop and rested his forehead on the desk.
Driven all day by the decisions and the responses a new king had to make, body and heart were both near their limit.
"My king. May I have leave to enter?"
A voice was set down quietly.
"Ah, Seto. Go ahead."
When Atem answered, there came the sound of Seto's footsteps entering.
"You were still awake."
The low murmur reached Atem's ear, and his back straightened of itself.
When he turned, Seto's expression was level, but a warm light dwelt in his eyes.
"It's about time to rest."
Telling him so in few words, Seto drew the papyrus gently out of his hands and set it at the side of the desk.
Atem, surprised, lifted his face.
"...Seto."
Seto did not smile brightly at him, nor did he gently hold him.
He only kept his distance, standing as though quietly propping up Atem's back.
"Do you intend to go before your subjects tomorrow wearing that face?"
That one line, let fall so lightly, was enough to spread relief through Atem's chest.
With the study's lamp drawing their two shadows out long, Atem let the strength go from his shoulders for the first time and slowly breathed out.
Seto did not stir at all; he only watched over him.
That presence itself became rest for Atem, and comfort, and the certainty of being protected.
"You're right. ...Thank you, Seto."
At the words that had finally spilled out of Atem, Seto at last let a thin smile come to his mouth.
Words were few, but the trust and the bond between them certainly existed. In days held up from the shadows, a quiet time belonging to the two of them alone flowed slowly on.
A quiet afternoon in the study.
Atem was looking through the dispatches, but somewhere unsettled, he let his hand stop.
At the edge of his vision was Seto's figure.
The cold expression had not changed, and yet at some unguarded moment a warmth showed through in the eyes that watched over Atem.
The instant he noticed it, his chest stirred a little.
"...What was that look, just now...?"
When he murmured it under his breath before he could stop himself, Seto glanced his eyes away and dropped them to the papyrus at hand, as though nothing had happened.
That wordless manner was what stirred Atem's heart, of all things.
It was certainly cold, and yet there was the ease of being protected. At that strange contradiction, Atem lifted his face without meaning to.
Between the day's work, at the training ground, on a walk in the garden.
In some unguarded bearing, in the edges of his words, Seto's presence felt near, and felt far.
The barest instant of gentleness the moment their eyes met.
That alone made Atem's heart sway a little, and by degrees he was coming to be conscious of the weight of that presence.
Seto might not be, after all, merely cold. Atem's cheeks, as he said it to himself, coloured faintly.
It was not yet strong enough a feeling to be called love.
But it was certainly beginning to put out shoots in his heart. The king of the shadows was quietly entering his world; that much Atem understood.
He met Seto everywhere.
For instance, when Atem had been looking through ancient documents in the palace archive.
He raised his eyes, and found Seto in the same archive.
"Seto, looking something up?"
"The archive is quiet. It is best suited to thinking."
The voice was cold, and yet the barest consideration was mixed into the edge of the words.
Atem's heart jumped before he could help it.
"...Then maybe I'll use it that way too."
At the voice that came out of him naturally, Seto said nothing, only smiled slightly and let out a breath.
At that restrained gesture, Atem's eyes widened.
Then, the garden in the early afternoon. When Atem, between work, was taking his rest in the garden.
Seto was at sword practice, some way off.
The wind blew, and in the instant Seto's hair swayed as he gripped the sword, Atem caught his breath before he could stop it.
"Beautiful swordwork." At the words that slipped out inside him, Seto stopped moving for a moment and glanced towards Atem.
"My king. Is something the matter?"
A priest's manner of speech, in a place where there were eyes.
He ought to have been used to it since life, and yet, hearing it now, he still had the illusion that it was somehow unfamiliar to his ear.
"No, it's nothing."
As though hiding his reddening cheeks, Atem looked away.
And then, when Atem was putting the dispatches in order in the study at evening.
The instant his hand stopped, Seto appeared.
"You are still here."
"Yeah, there's something I have to check no matter what."
Seto took up the dispatches and set them in order, as though helping Atem with his work.
That wordless assistance gave Atem an unlooked-for ease.
"...Seto, thank you. Always."
Seto narrowed his eyes slightly.
At that expression, Atem's chest beat a little faster once again.
The meetings with Seto that piled up were sometimes chance, and sometimes not.
But they moved Atem's heart, steadily.
A story of a certain night.
Moonlight lay pale over the palace terrace.
Atem was walking alone, a bundle of papyrus held in his arms.
Quiet footsteps drew near from behind. He turned, and Seto was standing there.
"Working at this hour."
"A little more."
"You have not long been back. There is no need to put your hand to everything."
At those words, Atem's chest gave a small jump.
Seto's tone was level, but he could tell that a feeling that cared about him was contained deep in the voice.
"...Seto."
He had only spoken the name quietly, and yet his heart struck one great beat.
Atem realised it.
That the pounding of his own heart was not merely nerves.
"I..."
He searched for words, but his head was in confusion.
He, who until now had kept his reason as a king, as one who fought, was being shaken by Seto's presence.
Seto's figure, lit by the moonlight, was dignified, beautiful, carrying even something dangerous.
At that beauty, something at the very bottom of his heart was stirred, and there was the sense of something quietly melting.
For the first time, Atem recognised it.
That he was drawn to Seto.
The strength of the hand he had closed without knowing bent the papyrus a little.
Seto had not noticed yet.
But Atem's heart had certainly changed.
I might be in love. Atem could not yet put those words into his mouth.
But the feeling that had certainly put out shoots deep in his chest began quietly to swell, like a night lit by moonlight.
At the faint sound of papyrus leaking from Atem's hands, Seto stopped his eyes.
Atem's figure, lit by the moonlight, looked more earnest than usual, and somewhere fragile.
Seto noticed that subtle wavering, and let the faintest shadow fall at his mouth. Even so his expression did not change; it stayed cold.
Until now, only watching over what Atem did had been enough. But now, the sight before him gave rise to a small wrongness in his heart.
Seto had not been conscious of it, but he had been gazing steadily at Atem.
Why should it concern him so much? That question was not one the strategies and calculations he had carried until now could answer.
Each gesture of Atem's, the edges of his words, the rhythm of his breathing. All of it shook his heart faintly.
This is not interest alone. Seto let out a quiet breath.
Deep in that chest, a feeling other than the familiar face of the king was beginning to put out shoots. He was being drawn to Atem.
Atem still does not notice.
That night, the distance between the two of them had certainly closed.
There was a first sensation of something touching within the silence.
At that moment, a minute sense of distance beyond words came into being.
Without putting it into words, each one's presence spread small ripples in the other's chest.
Atem, overwhelmed by Seto's presence, recognised in himself a part that was somehow drawn to him.
Seto, quietly observing Atem's wavering heart, understood that his own feelings had certainly begun to move.
And with his expression still level, he stood quietly at Atem's side and gazed out, as though sharing the moonlight between them.
Recognising what had put out shoots deep in his heart, he did not let it into his face, and remained only an observer.
The moonlight wrapped the two of them softly, and the quiet of the night drew the trace of their hearts just as it was.
Without putting it into words, the distance between their hearts had certainly closed.
Within that quiet, a certain "beginning of feeling" existed.
In the study at night.
Seto and Atem, the two of them alone.
Atem was pretending to keep his eyes on the papyrus spread across the desk, but his heart was like a lake in motion.
"Seto. Were you watching today as well?"
It came out of his mouth before he could stop it.
Seto took a step closer and observed Atem, level, and yet carefully.
"I am not keeping watch on you. I have only been turning my eyes to what you do."
The words were composed, but those eyes did not let Atem go.
Atem lowered his own for a moment, and felt his cheeks grow hot.
"That is keeping watch, isn't it? ...When you're looking at me... it makes me a little tense, you know?"
At the words, let out as though on a sigh, Atem surprised even himself.
Seto smiled quietly.
"Tense... is it."
Letting the shadow of some feeling fall into his voice, he did not break his posture.
"That reaction of yours is... quite interesting."
Atem raised his eyes before he could help it.
"Interesting... what's that supposed to mean?"
He asked it as though a little angry, but unable to hide that he was shaken.
Instead of answering, Seto set a hand at the corner of Atem's desk and closed the distance.
"The meaning is nothing special. ...It is that I do not want to miss the moment when you let your guard down, even a little."
At those words, Atem felt a warmth spread slowly deep in his chest.
"...What... I..."
The words caught. Seto's gaze, and the sense of distance, sounded all the way into the depths of him.
Holding that interval, Seto said quietly,
"There is no need for concern. I do not intend to ask anything of you suddenly. I only want to understand you."
Atem narrowed his eyes and, at last, smiled.
"Then... I want to be understood. ...And I want to know you, too. Little by little."
Their voices were small, but they rang certainly through the night.
Each conscious of the other's heart, the conversation slowly, but certainly, closed the distance between them.
The room, lit by moonlight, quietly became a world belonging to the two of them alone, and the feeling lying within the silence began, little by little, to take a shape.
Atem steadied his breath a little and looked up at Seto, elbows on the desk.
"...Seto, I... I don't have to hide it any more, do I. ...When I think about you, my chest won't settle."
He put strength into the words, and turned an earnest gaze on him.
Seto raised an eyebrow slightly, but did not break his composed expression.
"...I see."
A faint heat mixed into that voice, and the quiet air trembled a little.
"I understand the reason you are unsettled. I am the same."
With an expression where surprise and joy were mixed together, Atem caught his breath.
"What...? The same, you mean...?"
Seto came slowly closer to Atem and put out a hand from across the desk.
"There is nothing for it but to say it in words. ...I respect what you feel. But my feelings, too, are turned towards you."
Atem gazed at that hand, and his heart beat hard.
"...I... Seto... I feel that way about you too..."
The words broke off, and he reached out. In the moment their fingertips touched, the air grew thicker still.
Seto gently closed his own around them and turned his eyes steadily on Atem.
"You need not say it. Let us begin here, both of us. Our steps may be... one at a time; that is enough."
Atem smiled and nodded, his face reddening a little.
"Yeah... one at a time."
The study was wrapped in a world of the two of them alone, and their feelings for each other were confirmed by palms and by gaze.
Beneath the quiet moonlight, they held out to each other, for the first time, the thoughts they had not been able to put into words.
Before he knew it, the nights.
By unspoken understanding, the nights had become working hours belonging to Seto and Atem alone.
Neither the priests nor anyone else came to disturb them.
The papyrus lay in neat rows on the desk, but the eyes of the two of them were turned towards something other than that.
Atem quietly lowered his voice.
"Seto... in the council today, that one line of yours worked well."
Seto feigned a blank expression, and yet the corner of his mouth loosened faintly.
"Hm. I have no intention of hindering the king's command. But it is also true that merely watching over it is dull."
Seto's voice was low, and yet it held a warmth.
Atem heard it and laughed, a little embarrassed.
"Dull, is it... don't tell me the former king is jealous?"
Seto took a step closer and answered in a low voice.
"That is not it. I am only... assessing you as king."
At those words Atem felt his chest grow warm.
"Being assessed... makes a man tense, doesn't it."
Seto quietly set a hand on Atem's shoulder. The fingertips that touched him were slight, but they had weight.
"You are not bad when you are tense, either. Only, carelessness is forbidden. A king's duty is always at your back."
The hand set on his shoulder touched, quietly, his back.
Atem's body nearly went rigid. Feeling his heart jump, he looked at Seto without a word.
He caught his breath before he could stop it, and at the same time knew it as pleasant.
"I know that. ...But it's also true that having you at my side like this makes me feel strong, you know?"
Seto narrowed his eyes, just slightly.
"At your side. Is that enough to satisfy you? ...Well. If you wish it, I can lend you my hand as much as you like."
Atem laughed lightly, drew his eyes away from the papyrus and looked at Seto.
"...Say a thing like that, and I'll rely on you without holding back."
"Do not take me too lightly. There will be nothing left for you to do."
Seto's voice came near as a whisper and reached Atem's ear.
The hand that had been at his back travelled down his arm and touched his fingertips.
Between the two of them, words were few, and yet trust and a faint sweetness flowed quietly.
Atem laughed a little and nodded, but no words would come.
Instead he stood leaning his back against him, just slightly, and laced their fingers.
Seto did not close his own in return, but neither did he let go; he left them touching.
From there a quiet, faint warmth was born.
The contact was dim, and it reached the heart more than words did.
The reigning king and the former king, their positions different, sharing a secret time in which their hearts passed into each other. Seen by no one.
Only quietly confirming the temperature of each other's presence, they shared an intimacy beyond words.
The faintest strength came into Seto's fingertips.
At that warmth, Atem, still holding his breath, drew his eyes away from the papyrus on the desk.
"...Seto."
A small voice.
"What is it?"
After hesitating a little, Atem quietly closed his hand around Seto's in return.
From the place where their fingertips touched flowed a tension and a heat that words could not describe.
Seto let the faintest smile come to him.
"...Touching like this is not bad either."
At that voice, Atem's cheeks took on heat.
"...Yeah... not bad..."
Atem's voice was small, but his heart beat like an alarm bell.
Seto brought himself a little closer, tilted his head and touched the ends of Atem's hair lightly.
Atem shrank back before he could stop himself, and yet he took in the comfort of being inside that distance too.
"...There's no... getting away, is there."
When Atem murmured it quietly, Seto let a smile come and nodded lightly.
"That is right. And that is exactly why I can look at you properly."
Their breaths mixed at a distance where they faintly touched.
Their hands did not go so far as to clasp; with the warmth of touch alone, their hearts passed into each other.
Only a sweetness beyond words remained.
Atem, and Seto as well, felt the warmth that had put out shoots little by little deep in their hearts.
A faint and certain sense of distance, born between the two of them.
The contact was small, but it deepened what was between them, certainly.
Atem and Seto, their fingertips still touching.
Just as they were, Seto slowly traced his fingers across Atem's palm.
For a moment Atem held his breath. The warmth of the palm came through to the depths of his chest.
"...Seto..."
At the voice that spilled out before he could stop it, Seto let a small smile come and closed his hand firmly around Atem's.
"I want to see it while you are still able to stay composed."
At those words, Atem's face flushed red.
The warmth coming through his palm and the ring of that quiet voice slowly broke down the limits of his reason.
Seto brought himself nearer still and set his brow against Atem's temple.
At that nearness, Atem's breath stopped for an instant, and his chest beat hard.
But Seto did not hurry; he held that distance steadily.
"There is no getting away. But... there is no need for you to be afraid, either."
Within the calm voice dwelt a certain strength, and will.
Fingertips, palm, brow. The range of the contact was small, but the distance between the two of them closed, certainly.
Atem, his heart taken by the size of the presence before him, put strength into their laced fingers before he knew it.
"Seto..."
At the voice that spilled out again, Seto smiled a little.
Atem's eyes fixed on Seto like a quiet flame.
Without words, the heat inside his heart dwelt in that gaze.
Seto took that gaze and, still smiling, looked straight back into Atem's eyes.
"What are those eyes appealing for?"
The calm, settled voice stirred the beating of Atem's chest still further.
Atem tried to steady his breath, but the heat ran through him to his fingertips, and a feeling that would not become words coloured his cheeks.
"...I... Seto, I—"
"...I asked knowing the answer."
At Seto's calm voice, Atem's heart regained a little of its steadiness.
But the strength of the gaze stayed as it was, closing the distance between them to the very edge.
Atem reached out before he could stop himself and touched Seto's shoulder.
At that solidity, at that certain warmth, his gaze took on more heat still, and he went on gazing until he forgot to breathe.
Seto nodded, slowly.
"That heat. I will not let it go to waste."
With the smallest of smiles, calmly, and yet with a certain resolve, he took Atem's hot gaze upon himself.
The exchange of gazes alone scattered quiet sparks.
Stronger than words, and certainly, it was a moment in which their hearts passed into each other.
As though answering Atem's hot gaze, Seto slowly closed the distance.
He put a hand quietly to Atem's waist and drew him in lightly.
"There is no need to endure it any longer."
With the calm voice, Seto brought his face near.
Atem caught his breath for an instant, but then there was nothing for him to do but give his body over.
Their breathing overlapped, and Seto's lips touched Atem's brow, quietly.
Then, quietly, their lips met.
Lightly, and yet certainly warm.
When their lips lightly touched, Atem's body shivered before he could stop it.
Seto's warmth, his breathing, the faint movement of his fingertips. In that brief contact, Atem's chest beat hard, and his hands went naturally to Seto's back.
Each single thing felt as though it were being carved into his chest.
Seto held him gently drawn in, and put his arms around Atem as though wrapping him.
Held in Seto's arms, Atem fell into a sensation of all the strength leaving his body.
Bewilderment and joy mixed together, and, to his own surprise, he gave his body over honestly.
His heart beat like an alarm bell, and his head went blank for an instant.
Unable to hold down the part of him that meant to stay composed by reason, he grew hot deep in his chest.
Seto, for his part, put strength into the arms drawing Atem in, and felt something come softly undone deep in his chest.
That boy is looking at him this straightly.
Holding the reason of a cold king, he still felt a warm wave come surging in somewhere in his heart.
"From here on as well, I will be at your side."
At those words, Atem finally felt able to give something back, and smiled, weakly but happily.
"...Be there."
For a while they exchanged no words, only felt each other's warmth and heartbeat.
A quiet, certain bond that needed neither gaze nor words.
It was like a small miracle born between the two of them.
Seto let the faintest smile come at that response, and drew him in more gently.
"You may give yourself over."
Those words rang not as mere assurance, but as a promise that took everything in.
He gave his body to Seto, and quietly closed his eyes.
A feeling that could not be put into words, a first sweet relief.
Seto, too, behind his cold reason, felt his chest tighten in the same way.
Steadily, they listened to each other's warmth and heartbeat.
Without words, confirming it now and then by gaze alone.
It was a bond stronger than words, and certain, and belonging to the two of them alone.
And then morning comes.
Around the time the morning light lit the throne room softly, Atem quietly woke.
Beside him was the former king, Seto, who would ordinarily wear an air of tension. But this morning was different. His eyes were narrowed thinly, and he was watching over Atem with a calm expression.
"A good morning."
At Seto's low, settled voice, Atem smiled naturally. Deep in his chest a warmth spread slowly.
"Good morning... Seto."
A little tension mixed into the words. Last night, the change in the distance between them. That embrace, that quiet kiss, still felt like a dream.
Seto quietly straightened the covers and set a hand on Atem's shoulder. The way he touched him was a gentleness that only drew near, nothing more.
"About yesterday..."
Atem tilted his head a little, and his face reddened.
"Hm. Do not be so conscious of it that you neglect the rest."
Seto smiled lightly and took Atem's hand, as though it were nothing.
Even without putting it into words, what each of them felt came through.
"I know that."
"As king. Is it going well?"
A faint question.
"Yeah. The former king is keeping watch on me, after all."
At Atem's answer, Seto let his mouth loosen slightly.
"I am only turning my eyes to you."
Few as their words were to each other, the quiet trust and closeness carrying on from the night before wrapped the morning of the "two kings" softly.
"We will begin the morning council. Let us not waste the king's time."
"Seto, I don't intend to be as strict as all that, you know? The rest of you, be at ease."
Atem looked at Seto, a little troubled.
"No. The king is somewhat too kind, I think. Should there be any lapse, I shall instruct them sufficiently."
The troubled face became a truly troubled one, and Seto let a smile come where only Atem could see it.
In the quiet of the throne room, one could tell that the bond between the two of them dwelt even in their breathing, even in their faintest movements.
