Atem has known for some time that the door deep in the sand will soon call him back. He has not told Seto — Seto is in America, reaching for a dream, and Atem will not let his own vanishing become the thing that binds Seto's feet. On the desk lies a terminal Seto left behind half as a joke, built to connect from anywhere in the world. Atem's finger rests on the message field, and what he enters is a single sigh.
Half a world away, before dawn, a fluctuation crosses Seto's display, and something calls his name in a voice that does not become sound. He does not dismiss it as noise. What follows is a month of perfectly ordinary days, a parting neither of them argues with — and a man who declines to accept that a boundary is an ending, and starts building.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: 糸を結んだ日
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
That the door which opened deep in the sand would soon be calling for him.
Ever since he had recovered every last memory of his time as king, that call had been faintly sounding.
The afterlife had not forgotten Atem; it kept the coordinates of his soul on record, exactly.
But it was also the signal that would erase the warmth he had left behind in the living world.
He would not say it yet.
Not to Seto.
He knew that Seto was in America, reaching for a dream.
He remembered the night Seto had said, with an entirely straight face, that he would create a world.
How far the light of conviction behind those eyes had moved him.
He could not be the one to stop it.
And so he could not say it.
Before he was a king, Atem was Seto's lover, and his equal.
He did not want his own vanishing to become a thing that bound Seto's feet.
On the desk lay the terminal Seto had left behind, half as a joke.
"Use this to reach me. It's built to connect wherever in the world you are."
The face Seto had worn saying it was so thoroughly self-assured that Atem had been a little annoyed, and a little exasperated.
And yet, even so, just slightly. No — in truth it had been dear to him, and it had made him glad.
Atem stroked the terminal with his fingertips.
His finger came to rest on the message field.
But what he entered was a single sigh.
He was afraid that Seto's words would break these ordinary days.
No — he knew that the words which would break them were his own.
"…Not yet."
The murmur sank into the night sand.
The voice dissolved into the wind and vanished towards a far-off American sky.
At that same hour, Seto stood in the lab before dawn, watching a display.
A fluctuation in the data pulsed, for the space of an instant.
Not noise in the transmission wave. Something, he felt, had called his name.
He drew his brows together, and only one person surfaced in his mind.
"…Yugi?"
The instant he spoke the name, the display returned a flash of light, once.
As though in answer.
Seto was confirming the sensation left in his fingertips.
The light of the display had already gone.
But in that instant he had unmistakably felt himself called.
By name.
In a voice that did not become sound.
A phenomenon no machine could account for.
To deny it as mere noise was Seto's habit.
But this time was different.
Before logic, a circuit deep in his chest had moved.
"…I'm going."
No one stopped him.
No — no one could have.
That intensity was something everyone knew.
"Once the President has that look, nothing stops him."
With one of his employees murmuring it at his back, Seto was off down the runway before clearance for take-off had come through.
Splitting the night sky, the white aircraft climbed.
There was no hesitation in his eyes.
Seto's intuition had never once been wrong in the past.
Least of all where that man was concerned.
Nights in Domino City carried the smell of the season changing. It was not something Egypt had.
Atem went out onto the balcony and looked up at the distant sky.
The wind stroked his cheek gently.
For an instant, that wind trembled.
He is coming.
Atem knew it.
And it was precisely why he had not been able to say it.
That he was returning.
Atem had meant to see his time in the living world through to the end.
And to accept that ending by his own will.
But every time Seto's face rose in his mind, that resolve cracked.
How much weaker loving a person could make you.
In the days when he was king, he had not known.
"Even so, I have to go."
His eyes wavered; he let out a breath. Quietly, Atem stepped out into the night city.
Before dawn, Seto's aircraft came down at an airfield built inside the city.
In the smell of chilled metal, Seto let out a single sentence.
"…I need to hear it from him."
It was not an order. It was closer to a prayer.
Beyond the door, Atem rose to his feet.
He could feel the presence drawing nearer.
One step, two.
Before long the door opened, and Seto appeared.
Backlit, the two of them lost their words for an instant.
What was on each other's faces was not surprise, and not relief. It was only the cruel beauty of time.
Dawn was close.
The sun had not risen yet, and still the edge of the sky carried a pale light.
Inside the room, the wind stirred the curtain.
There was no sound.
In the stillness, it seemed only each other's breathing carried.
Seto stood.
Still in his white coat as he had arrived, breathing a little from the shoulders.
But his eyes were clear as though burning.
"…Explain."
The words were short.
That was enough.
His eyes were already those of a man who had grasped all of it.
There was nowhere left to escape to.
Atem smiled faintly.
A smile with grief mixed into it.
That smile, Seto knew more than well enough.
It was the face that came before a parting.
"…Haven't you already worked it out?"
"I don't make assertions on conjecture."
Seto's voice was low, and it pierced quietly.
That quietness was unbearably familiar to Atem.
"And yet here you are, back."
"And you came here. Talk."
Seto's words were always precise, and they never permitted a way out.
Which was exactly why no lie was possible.
Atem lowered his eyes. On his chest, there was no Millennium Puzzle.
The night wind stroked the garden as though it were breathing.
Some few stars still flickered.
They went out onto the terrace.
No words. And yet each other's silence was strangely vivid.
"There is something I have remembered."
Seto turned his eyes to him at once.
Those serious eyes pinned Atem in place.
"Your memories?"
Atem nodded slowly.
"The name Atem. I remembered it. That is my true name."
The night air slipped through the space between them.
Seto narrowed his eyes for an instant, and said, expressionless:
"…Not Yugi, then."
"Yugi is my Aibou, the one who woke me. So I am no longer Yugi."
A short silence.
And then Atem gave a small smile.
That smile was nearer to stillness than to sadness.
"I wanted you, of all people, to be told. …Who I am."
"I knew."
Seto answered flatly.
"From the beginning, you were never anyone's shadow."
Atem raised his face, as though startled.
Seto's eyes reflected the light of the night sky, and looked straight at him.
"The name doesn't matter. Whether you're Yugi or not Yugi, or a king. …To me, you are one and the same."
Atem's throat made a faint sound.
If he let a word out, something felt as though it would collapse.
Even so, he managed to smile.
"…Thank you, Kaiba."
"Now let me hear the bad news."
Seto did not look away, and only said it low.
"There's something besides what you remembered."
"Sharp as ever, aren't you."
Atem looked up at the sky and let out a sigh.
"…The door to the afterlife is going to open."
Seto's eyes narrowed.
As though holding an emotion down.
And he did not turn his gaze on the emotion he had held down.
"You're going."
"…That's right."
A short silence.
The wind passed through.
The curtain swelled and swayed, as though dividing the space between them.
"When."
"…A little under a month."
"You gave yourself a good deal of grace."
"I did it so that I could tell you."
Seto's mouth moved, very slightly. An expression that was neither laughter nor anger.
But what lay behind it, no one could read.
"And having told me, what did you intend to do."
"I wanted you to understand."
"Understand?"
Seto let out a low breath.
"Do you imagine you can make me accept it?"
"I don't imagine that. But even so, I thought it was better than going without telling you."
That honesty, if anything, tightened around his chest.
Seto took hold of Atem's shoulder.
Neither hard nor gentle — only the force needed to confirm.
"Are you running?"
"I'm not running. I'm returning. …Though to you, that may be the same thing."
Their eyes met and held.
A silence in which time seemed to have stopped.
But within that stillness, love was unmistakably running.
Before long Seto spoke.
"…Promise me."
"What."
"That you won't forget me."
Atem closed his eyes.
For the space of an instant, he stopped breathing.
And then he nodded.
"I won't forget. When you cut through the wind, at the base of that wind, I will call your name. So I would be glad if you remembered me too."
"As if I'd forget. …Atem."
At being called that, Atem's eyes widened, just slightly.
It was the moment his name was unmistakably called back into the living world.
The wind stirred his hair.
Between the clouds streaming across the night sky, moonlight passed quietly over.
Seto narrowed his eyes faintly.
He gave no words back, and only drew that shoulder to him.
"Shall we go back inside."
As the morning light began to come in, they were quietly holding each other.
That day, a new wind blew through the town.
As though it were a wind meant to join two worlds.
For the month that followed, nothing between them changed.
No quarrels, no tears, not even words demanding answers.
Only days that went on, plainly.
As before, Atem visited Kaiba Manor from time to time.
Deep in Seto's room, in the colour of night spreading beyond the glass, they sat facing each other.
Talking of nothing in particular, sharing a quiet stretch of time.
"Tonight's sky is a little different."
Atem looked up beyond the window.
Seto closed his work for the moment and followed his gaze.
"The season has changed, that's all."
"I see… But the stars don't change."
"They're changing. Human timescales just don't notice it."
Atem laughed.
Seto's answers were always practical, and yet there was a strange warmth inside them.
A man who looked reality full in the face and still would not let go of a dream.
It resembled, somewhere, his own ideals as king.
"What do you think about, looking at the stars?"
At Seto's question, Atem left a small pause.
"Time. However brightly a star burns, its light stops reaching us eventually. But even when it can no longer be seen, that star is still there. Perhaps the distance the light has yet to cross is what we call eternity."
Seto gave nothing back to that.
Instead he reached for the glass beside him.
Bubbles rose here and there. They caught the stars, and grains of light wavered.
"The concept of eternity is inefficient."
"That's very like you."
"But it exists, presumably."
At Atem's smile, the corner of Seto's mouth moved slightly.
Whether he had laughed was impossible to tell. Only, the air had softened.
That night they went out onto the balcony of the manor and looked up at the stars side by side.
There was little conversation.
But the silence was not heavy.
If anything, they were filled to the point where words were unnecessary.
"…Are there stars in the sky over there, too?"
Seto asked it, out of nowhere.
Atem thought a moment before answering.
"I don't know. There may not even be light."
"Then I'll deliver it to you."
Atem looked at that profile.
The eyes were sharp as a beast glaring down the future, and yet somewhere gentle.
"…It's a problem, you saying that in earnest…"
"Have I ever once made a joke?"
Saying it, Seto quietly raised his glass.
There was no sound of a toast.
Only starlight, lighting the fingertips of them both.
That night was the calmest stretch of time.
Each of them having understood the other completely, and still trying to change nothing.
A silence not for ending, but for continuing.
It was like a single quiet night that exists only just short of eternity.
Morning in the afterlife begins out of stillness.
Sunlight came down, a pale blue mist wrapped the buildings of the royal capital, and dropped a faint glow onto the stone pillars of the temple.
Atem sat on the throne, listening to the reports of his retainers.
The voices reporting, the sound of running pens, the sound of rites echoing from far off.
All of it was familiar to Atem, and yet somehow distant.
It seemed unchanged from the world he had guarded and governed three thousand years ago, and it was different.
He should have recovered the time he had lost, and still, deep in his heart, one small fragment remained.
The council ended, and he left the hall.
Walking the stone corridor, Atem stopped without meaning to.
A wind blew.
A wind that should not have been possible passed through the palace of the afterlife.
It stirred the hem of his robe, and stirred the gold of his fringe.
In that instant, Atem felt it.
Grains of light wavered.
A familiar white. A cold serenity. It resembled Seto's presence.
He tried to speak the name, and it did not become sound.
Only, with his fingertips, he brushed the direction the wind had come from.
"…Kaiba."
The whisper faded, and the wind stopped too.
The voices of the priests calling for their king echoed at a distance.
Atem gave a small shake of his head and began walking again.
He had duties as king.
Neglect them, and the order of the afterlife would waver.
And yet.
At night, back in his bedchamber, Atem gazed at the lamp on the table.
Each time the flame swayed, the light reflected on the ceiling and drew intricate patterns.
Those patterns, for a moment, looked like the light of cards.
The countless Duels he had crossed with him, once, in the living world.
That fierce collision of wills. The heat of it seemed to be alive somewhere even now.
"…Perhaps it isn't over yet."
He murmured it as though telling himself, and closed his eyes.
Atem's sleep was deep, and quiet, and yet by no means peaceful.
At the bottom of that dream, he thought he heard someone calling his name.
Atem.
The wind blew again.
The next morning.
The sky over Domino City was a little whiter than usual.
An ambiguous light, like something on the border of seasons.
In the wide study of Kaiba Manor, one man was standing.
Seto was looking down at the communication device set on the desk.
Traces of operation checks repeated through the night.
Cables, circuits, the blue blinking light of a terminal.
All of it in order. But not complete.
"…So it still isn't reaching."
The words to himself vanished into the inorganic air.
Atem had disappeared from Seto's hands.
Like an illusion, with no warning of any kind.
But Seto understood.
That was not an ending. Only a change of location.
He brought up display after display.
Lined up on them: quantum theory, ancient incantations, structural formulae of the soul, coordinates of the electronic network.
A research domain of his own making, in which the boundary between science and the occult had been left deliberately vague.
Seto had named it the Afterlife Communication Channel.
The purpose was one thing only.
To exchange words with Atem again.
"The boundary between the living world and the afterlife presupposes that it is unobservable. But… there is a way to break that."
The nib ran. The pressure of it was heavy, full of conviction.
"If the wavelength of a soul can be fixed at a constant value, then calling out from this side is possible. He'll notice, without fail. …Wind or light, it makes no difference."
The ceiling lights went down.
The stillness before dawn returned.
Seto did not spare a glance for the cold coffee, and worked the terminal again.
A graph of the transmission waveform rose.
Within the minute noise, a response ran for an instant.
A pale fluctuation, as though someone had drawn breath.
The corner of Seto's mouth lifted slightly.
"…So you are there."
Day broke.
The light coming in through the gap in the curtains interfered with the Solid Vision on the desk.
The shape of that light faintly formed a human figure.
The outline of Atem.
An afterimage with no voice, that could not be touched.
But unmistakably, Seto felt, he was there.
"Not much longer. Wait for me."
And he entered new code into the terminal.
The sound of it running filled the quiet room.
The research went on across the night.
For Seto, the concept of an ending did not exist.
As long as he sought it, a path would open.
And beyond that, they would meet again.
The sky of the afterlife is blue, and deep. Each time the wind blows slowly, the light wavers.
At the heart of it, deep within the palace, the throne room.
Atem sat quietly. Robed as king, gazing into the distance.
His thoughts were clear, but somewhere unsettled.
The layers of light swayed.
Something had the air of crossing the boundary.
"…It can't be."
At the same moment as the whisper, the space split open.
Grains of light danced, and a wind blew through.
Out of it, a single man walked forward. A white coat. Cold eyes. And yet, deep in them, a faint heat.
It was Seto.
He said nothing.
Only walked slowly forward, and stopped at the foot of the throne.
For an instant, time stopped.
A king and an entrepreneur, soul and reality, the afterlife and the living world.
Every boundary dissolved.
Atem rose.
There was neither surprise nor joy on his face. Only a quiet smile.
Seto smiled as well.
It was the first step of a rebuilding. No explanation was needed.
The wind passed through the space between them.
The ceiling of the throne room returned a faint light.
Before long, Atem spoke.
"…How did you get here?"
"I built it."
A short answer, full of conviction.
At that voice, Atem narrowed his eyes.
"You've been reckless again, haven't you."
"Standard operation."
The two of them let out a breath at the same moment and, at last, laughed.
The laughter was brief.
After it, a silence came down.
It was not the joy of reunion, but the sense of ordinary days about to begin again.
Before long Seto lowered his gaze slightly.
"There's something I never got round to saying."
Atem nodded.
"So do I."
"When I heard you were returning, anger came up in me. I couldn't believe it. And… I finally understood what that anger really was."
"That is…"
"It's the same for you, Atem."
"At that time… what was in my heart was…"
"That's right. Grief."
Silence.
Atem's fingers trembled faintly.
"…And you're telling me that now."
"Now is when I can say it. Because you're here."
Atem walked towards him.
The distance was only a few steps.
The wall that had stood between the throne and reality was nowhere any more.
"Kaiba. I regret returning and leaving you behind. But even so… I did not think it was an ending."
Seto narrowed his eyes.
"That reading is correct. I didn't let it end, either."
A calm wind blew.
As though the whole of the afterlife were letting out a breath.
Atem smiled.
"…Can we spend our days as we used to, then?"
Seto gave a small nod.
"We can. No explanations, no reasoning required."
Atem returned to the throne.
Seto stood beside it.
The two of them simply felt the wind, quietly.
There was no longer any of the tension that follows a parting, nor any of the elation of reunion.
There was only the outline of a relationship that goes on.
At the bottom of the light, once again, they were together.
The throne room of the afterlife was quiet today as well.
None of the clamour of the old monarchy, none of the stir of ceremony.
What was there now was only a strange coexistence of the ancient and the modern.
"…So it's blown up again."
Seto's voice carried.
That communicator of his, the one that connects wherever in the world you are. On the far side of it, something like metal being struck.
Atem let out a sigh.
"So it appears. The cause?"
"Uneven power supply. The energy values on the afterlife side aren't stable. Does that palace of yours still not have solar panels?"
"There's no sun here of the kind Earth has."
Seto fell silent.
And then he laughed.
"Then it can't be helped."
On the far side of the line, Atem was drawn into laughing as well.
Being able to laugh together like this had become possible again.
From his laboratory in the living world, Seto had been building out the communication environment with the afterlife.
Quantum coupling lines, what Seto called interference control for the occult, and the stabilisation of data referred to as the soul signal.
Every one of these technologies was a combination unthinkable by common sense.
But to Seto, common sense was a thing that existed in order to be surpassed.
Atem watched the progress of it as king of the afterlife, and now and then offered advice, half in jest.
"Kaiba, the structure of that circuit is practically a pyramid."
"That shape is structurally stable."
"But you're not planning to put a mummy inside it, I hope?"
"…No one but you."
"Heh. I'll take that as a declaration of love."
Seto went silent, and turned his face slightly away.
Between transmissions, a wind of the afterlife blew through.
At the illusion that it had reached as far as the living world, Seto narrowed his eyes.
"Atem."
"What is it?"
"I'm making this line permanent."
"…Left connected?"
"Yes. Work reports, idle talk, ridiculous jokes. All of it can be done on this line. That way, wherever you are, you're part of the sphere I live in."
Atem laughed slowly.
"To be built into your daily life. I'm honoured — and I'm king of the Underworld."
"King or anything else, it makes no difference."
Seto's voice was flat, and yet somewhere soft.
For a while, silence ran.
But that silence was different from the stillness of parting of before.
A comfortable, calm soundlessness.
Atem murmured across the line.
"…Kaiba. If you say you'll connect it, then I'll continue it."
"Continue?"
"Yes. If it's connected, then keeping it from breaking is my part, isn't it."
Seto laughed, and then closed his eyes.
"Then it's a perfect system."
The conversation between them did not end there.
From that day on, an afternoon spanning the living world and the afterlife repeated itself.
Between research reports, talk of the affairs of the afterlife.
Sometimes the weather of the living world relayed across, and the sound of the afterlife's wind returned.
Days that had been cut off were connected again.
Nothing special, only calm, endlessly quiet afternoons.
But the faint sound of breathing that came across from the far side of the line was what told each of them, unmistakably, that eternity was alive there.
The sky of the afterlife is blue as ever.
A light like the border of day and night dissolved together lit the stone paving faintly.
Atem came slowly down the steps of the throne room, gave brief instructions to the priests, and then found himself walking towards where the wind was passing.
A quiet wind grazed his cheek.
In that instant, grains of light flickered in the air, and there was the sense of someone's presence.
The faintest, most familiar wavelength.
Atem stopped, and smiled.
"…So you were here again."
Speaking aloud brought no answer.
But the air stirred.
That alone was enough.
Before long, out of the shadow of a stone pillar, what appeared was Seto, wearing the air of the living world.
In the afterlife, he could hardly be called a complete existence.
But the gaze and the voice were unmistakably there.
"Trespassing without the king's permission. A sinful act."
"The king appears to be turning a blind eye to me."
"…Listen to you."
The air of the afterlife trembled faintly, and their laughter overlapped.
A few seconds of stillness, comfortable in a way it had not been before.
"You've got work on this side too, I take it?"
"Research. I'm investigating the structure of this world of yours."
"So you're attempting another breakthrough."
"Not another. Always."
At that answer, Atem let a breath escape him.
An answer entirely like Seto.
But he had only lately realised that every time Seto came to the afterlife, he found himself listening with something like delight.
There was a part of him looking forward to whatever the man intended to pull off this time.
"Then perhaps I'll have you help with the research on this side next."
"Purveyor to the royal household. I'm honoured."
"I'm not joking, I'm in earnest. Your logic and your point of view are interesting."
"I'll take that as praise."
The wind flowed between them.
Silence, too, had become part of the conversation now.
The connection that once could not be put into words was unmistakably here.
Within that light, Atem said, in a slightly softer voice:
"Kaiba. Is it nearly dawn in the sky of the living world?"
"It is. The boundary is thinnest just before dawn."
"Then come again at the same hour. Next time, let's talk a little longer."
"…Any time."
Seto's outline wavered faintly, and before long dissolved into the light.
Following the afterglow of it with his eyes, Atem quietly closed his lids.
"…Let's meet again, in the wind."
Morning in the afterlife begins quietly today as well.
Epilogue: The Eternal Everyday
The wind crossing the sky of the afterlife strokes the sand quietly today as well.
Between the light and the shadow, there were the figures of two people.
Once, there had been walls: life and death, the living world and the afterlife.
But now that boundary is no more than a single route back and forth.
Science and prayer, reason and feeling. Where these cross is where the days of the two of them are.
Seto continues his research. The communication channel, the door to the next dimension, the passage to and from the afterlife.
The purpose is one thing only.
Not for reunion, but for continuation.
Atem fulfils his duties as king, and when the same hour comes, he listens for the wind.
In the instant the grains of light waver, a familiar voice reaches him.
That alone was enough.
"The living world keeps you busy, I imagine?"
"Being busy is proof of being alive."
"Then this quiet must be alive as well."
The conversation dissolves into the wind, and before long carries across time.
That connection is no longer of the afterlife, nor of the living world.
The place where the two of them are together — that was the true identity of the thing called eternity.
After a silence, Atem smiled quietly.
Seto, too, nodded without a word.
Words are unnecessary.
The wind, the light, the world, connecting the two of them.
And those days go on today as well.
For ever, and for ever.
