Three hypotheses, one notebook, and a great many nights.
They chase the regret Priest Seto left behind, the regret Kaiba refuses to admit having, and the balance between them.
A shouted argument, a Duel, a pre-opening — and Kaiba's verdict: so long as Atem finds this world beautiful, the tangle won't come undone.
Atem was staying in the penthouse on the top floor of KaibaCorp's American branch.
What was there was less a room for living in than a space for thinking.
No housework, no duties, nothing required.
Only to think, and to sink into contemplation. That was Atem's work now.
At the far end of the same floor, Seto lived and worked exactly as he always had.
Before a bank of displays he issued instructions without inflection, moving the world more realistically and more quickly than anyone.
Now and then he sent a glance across as though confirming Atem's presence, but he came no further than that.
"I have presented you a solution: that you live. Anything beyond that, you may work out yourself."
The words Seto had left behind stayed lodged in Atem's chest.
Alone, Atem thought through a long silence.
What would it take to untangle this.
He was at last beginning to understand that the question was not one of "a dead man's return" but of "a choice made as one of the living."
The thinking yielded three possibilities.
One: to resolve the lingering regret Priest Seto had left in the past life.
Two: to resolve the lingering regret Seto carried in this one.
And one more. To go beyond the very concept of regret, and level out the relationship itself.
Every road connected, somewhere along it, back to Seto.
Night.
Beyond the penthouse's great windows, the lights of the city flickered far away.
In the quiet hours after dinner, materials were spread across the table and the two of them began their "meeting."
"I've formed three hypotheses."
Atem indicated the paper at his hand as he said it.
Past-Life Regret. Present-Life Regret. Equilibrium of the Relationship.
Seto let his weight settle against the back of the chair and skimmed the page with an easy glance.
"…Past-life regret. That is the occult's field."
"For me it is reality."
"Then it falls outside my research."
Even as he dismissed it, something in Atem's gaze eased faintly.
He knew by now that Seto's denials were interest turned inside out.
Next Atem pointed to the Present-Life Regret column.
"Do you carry no regrets of your own?"
"I do not live in a way that produces regrets."
It was immediate.
But Atem had the sense that something lay behind that hardness.
Besides — the regrets of the living are, more often than not, the very ones a person fails to notice.
Last, when he indicated the phrase levelling out the relationship, Seto frowned.
"I do not follow. What does it mean to level out a relationship."
"The tangle of our souls is distorted because we were drawn to each other too strongly. Then we return that force to equilibrium."
"…An argument from emotion."
"But it is emotion that produces the tangle."
A silence passed.
Outside, the wind stroked the outer wall of the building.
Presently Seto let out a small breath, arms still crossed.
"Very well. Do them in order. The past life, this life, and that relationship of yours. We will settle all of it."
"That helps."
"Do not misunderstand. It is in order to be rid of the occult."
"Good. Then let us begin the research at once."
In the lights of the night, Atem laughed quietly.
Seto, too, raised the corner of his mouth by the barest fraction.
The first night of untangling them began that way.
Seto Kaiba's life was, as ever, a storm.
He worked from early morning to late at night, and even his meals kept no regular hour.
There were days that ended without Atem seeing his face at all.
Even so, he was unexpectedly cooperative with Atem's research.
Unless he was travelling for work, he made time somewhere in the day without fail.
Night. A room on the top floor of KaibaCorp.
Beyond the high windows, the lights of the city still had not gone out.
Seto closed his terminal and turned his gaze towards Atem.
"…Sorry to keep you."
Loosening his tie, Seto took his seat.
"It's nothing."
Atem nodded as well and spread out the notebook he had been writing in across the table.
The two men's "meeting" always began the moment Seto's work ended.
Formally it was Atem's research, but in practice the proceedings were chaired by Seto, who was accustomed to running them.
"First, the past life — the regret, then. Atem, have you no idea what that one might have left unfinished?"
Seto's voice was low and level.
Atem was silent a while, drawing his brows together.
"I caused him no end of trouble… For example. Scolding me? That sort of thing?"
"What did you do."
Seto folded his arms and pressed in on Atem.
That closeness set a faint vibration running through both their souls.
"…Slacking off inside a jar, for one…"
Atem let his eyes drift slightly aside and muttered it, ill at ease.
"You— I will have you fired. …No. What is this."
Seto's gaze swept the room.
"What's wrong?"
The air around them wavered faintly.
Interference from the goddess, Seto knew at once.
"Occult interference. The procedure for firing you will not come to mind."
Irritated, Seto wrote down the fact that Atem had hidden in a jar.
"What else did you do."
"Well…"
"Exclude the trivial. What was your greatest failure."
"There are two, but… most likely, that I…"
Atem's eyes wandered, searching for how to say it.
The words caught at the back of his throat.
Seto's gaze drove in sharp.
"What did you do. Say it."
"I— "
"You?"
"I died."
The instant the words fell, the air drew taut.
Atem let out a quiet breath.
"…Why did you die."
Atem was a being who had died once.
Seto had come to acknowledge as much, however faintly. Partly for the reason that the conversation could not proceed otherwise.
"To seal away an evil god… At the time, there was no other means left. My soul along with it. …You won't believe it, I know."
Seto had no memories of a past life. Naturally he remembered nothing of the kind.
And yet the scene Atem described pierced something deep in him, past all reason.
A prayer for the dead. Its content, certain.
The corpse lies still; the vessel—
"…An act of folly."
"Kaiba. You are angry now. Scold me as you please."
"I am not him. Scold you in his stead? Do not be absurd."
"I died, and then I forced everything onto him — the throne, the aftermath, all of it! I bound him to that throne along with my own last will!"
Where the anger he could not suppress had come from, Seto himself did not know.
There was, unmistakably, something like grief welling up from beneath his reason.
Seto's brow moved slightly.
In the stillness, the air creaked.
"…Atem. You will retract what you just said."
"It is fact."
"Fact, you call it? And you call yourself a king!"
Seto's voice dropped a register, and the sound of his palm on the desk split the room.
"Do you intend to justify your own death? Who do you think shouldered the aftermath you left behind? What do you think it cost me to protect the name of the king?"
"Kaiba…"
"Be silent! If you ran, I will not permit it. If you lose your pride, I will make you remember it. And if you believe that is my role, then believe it as you please!"
Seto's breathing was rough.
Within the anger, a clear pain and a clear attachment showed through.
Atem received that gaze quietly.
"…Thank you."
"Do not thank me. Never say such a thing again."
Before he knew it, Seto had been shouting Atem down.
Ancient memory and reason had nothing to do with it. It was simply the impulse never to let the fool in front of him die again.
And then, shoulders heaving, he shouted one last time.
"I am not your guardian!"
Seto turned his face away.
He felt his chest burning with an emotion he had not known was his own.
It was not anger.
It was a raw fear — that the scene of loss rising behind his eyes must never be repeated.
The tangle had not come undone.
But something, certainly, had moved.
"Next is this life — the regret in Kaiba's soul."
At Atem's remark, Seto's brow moved.
"What was that? I believe I told you I do not live that way."
There was a faint irritation mixed into his voice.
"But the bond between you and me is certainly there, is it not."
And so the two of them decided to Duel.
The sound of Duel Disks locking into place cut through the stillness.
The feel of fingertips on cards, the density of the air, the trajectory of each other's gaze.
It was not a fight for the sake of winning or losing.
It was a ritual of a kind — a stretch of time in which they confirmed each other's existence.
But there was no indulgence in that ritual.
Only each of them at full strength.
"At full strength today as well, are you."
Atem laughed, breath coming quick.
"Atem. If you hold back, this time you will get considerably worse than a scolding."
Seto smiled faintly.
His voice had the shape of a joke, but the back of his eyes was in earnest.
Atem's cheeks coloured slightly and he looked away. He only considered his next move.
Time so enjoyable that even the original purpose was forgotten.
There were no words to give back, only the next card to choose from his hand.
That alone was enough to set a quiet heat in his chest.
With every card played, the two minds crossed.
Summons, effects. Every declaration came to align like breathing.
Each time a game ended there was an enormous fuss about who had won, but during the game it did not matter.
That each of them faced the other at full strength was what mattered above all.
Seto's presence felt vivid and immediate.
His pulse, his breathing, unmistakably here in the world of the living.
Atem's heart was touching, without question, the fierceness of Seto's life.
"…So this is Kaiba's soul as it is now."
He murmured it under his breath.
Somewhere in the exchange of cards, Atem noticed something.
A slight wavering in Seto's expression. Not impatience, and not anger.
It was a quiet relief.
Something inside Seto was coming loose, little by little.
And the same was true of Atem.
More than the scolding of that night,
the breathing here in this silence resonated far deeper in his chest.
Seto's life was more eloquent than words.
It was not a matter of logic; he had the sense that the concentration of battle was loosening the tangle of their souls. With every card they traded, his heart grew clearer.
And at the same time, he had the sense that the tangle was growing deeper still.
By the time the Duel ended, the air between them had changed.
The ferocity, the shadows of the past, all of it felt somewhere far away.
In the silence, Seto smiled faintly.
"…And tonight's winner is?"
"Who can say. But… it was a good match."
Atem smiled back, calm.
For just an instant, that smile went straight through Seto's chest.
The stillness that wrapped around the two of them.
It was an ending named not victory but understanding.
That day was the pre-opening of Kaiba Land USA.
The voices of the press flew back and forth, and countless flashes bleached the night sky white.
Standing at the centre of it, Seto was more composed than anyone.
He took the microphone and looked straight ahead.
"To bring enjoyment to children all over the world. That is KaibaCorp's mission."
A powerful voice.
A gaze without a fragment of hesitation.
It was the expression of certainty that belongs only to those who have turned a dream into reality.
Attending in an employee's capacity, Atem felt a heat rise in his chest.
Cheers, applause, light.
All of it was a blessing on the way Seto lived.
"Kaiba. Congratulations."
He said it quietly, but with pride.
Seto looked back just once, and smiled, calm.
"This is only the beginning."
That smile was so natural it was like the sun itself.
Had the light of the living always been this dazzling.
His chest ached, just slightly.
He had the sense that he no longer stood beside that light.
Atem lost his words, and only watched that back.
Every hour Seto was not doing research, he poured into work.
Morning or night made no difference; he worked as though moving the world.
He conceived new games, gave them shape, and sent them out.
And each time, Atem was made to understand what the act of "living" meant.
Fulfilment.
Passion.
And a gaze that ran on into the future.
The vividness that belongs to one who is truly living in the now.
An emotion spread quietly through Atem's chest.
Not envy, not awe — but a pure and simple respect.
The way Seto lived was so vivid, so dazzling, that it seemed almost to cast a shadow across Atem's own soul.
Deep in his chest, something warped faintly.
It was not sharp enough to call pain, nor soft enough to be soothed by a stroking hand.
The more he touched Seto's future, the more quietly he seemed to be told that his own time lay beyond a door closed long ago.
"The research has not progressed. Is there nothing you want to do, while you still have the time?"
At Seto's question, Atem faltered for a moment.
"Something I want to do…"
He tried to put it into words, and nothing came.
He had ended a lifetime as a king, had the seal broken, had fulfilled his duty.
What more should one who has finished his duty wish for.
And in the first place — was he permitted to wish.
Because if he let himself want, he felt he would reach into territory he had no right to.
The instant he traced the outline of that fear, something in his soul gave a small shudder.
An emotion with no name was breathing there, unmistakably.
"And if you leave regrets behind. What then."
He had no regrets.
And yet.
Seto took on new challenges one after another, carving open the future.
As Atem went on watching that figure, a heat he could not put into words settled in his chest as well.
The outline of his consciousness wavered.
"…True enough."
Atem murmured it quietly.
He did nothing in particular.
Simply watching Seto as he was now was enough to stain his heart through.
The force of this life was too vivid; it drew him in.
There was no resisting it.
He could not help but be conscious of the existence that was Seto.
The tangle of their souls had ceased to be interference, and become guidance.
They tried a great many things, but the research could not be called successful.
They had arrived at the point of concluding that there was something at the core "which reason could not untangle."
Even so, Seto stayed cooperative with Atem's research.
Level, methodical, and sometimes edged with sarcasm, Seto received Atem's thinking every night.
As though untangling the threads of a snarled soul alongside him.
Seto's workspace and Atem's thinking space had no partition between them, but their roles were clearly divided.
That boundary, however, grew vaguer by the day.
One morning, as Atem was about to spread out his materials, Seto set down a mug without a word.
"Coffee. I have kept the caffeine low."
No explanation, no insistence. Only when he sensed Atem was concentrating did Seto quietly leave a cup behind.
That way of closing the distance was neither an order nor a kindness.
It was simply the quiet consideration owed to someone breathing in the same space.
Atem drew in the smell of the coffee and felt a faint warmth in his chest.
This man would not step in, but he would never draw away either.
That manner of remaining was softening Atem's thinking, well before it did anything about the tangle.
The tangle would not come undone by equations, nor by the power of darkness.
Perhaps it responded instead to emotion, to memory, to the tremors of the heart.
Within a distance they could not directly touch across, they held time in which their senses and feelings stirred against each other.
Which is to say, the levelling out of the relationship.
Through action rather than words.
And as though confirming something between them.
One night, in the interval between research, the two of them went out onto the roof.
Wind between the buildings swept through, and the city lights flickered far away.
In the stillness, the night air touched skin.
After a long silence, Atem opened his mouth.
"…The past life and this life both. Unless they are put in order, there is no moving forward. And they have been put in order, to a degree…"
Seto sat down beside him without speaking, and held out a can.
Atem took it, their fingertips brushing faintly.
In that instant, body heat passed between them, unmistakably.
Time like this, they were laying down day after day.
At night, the room filled with nothing but the sound of Seto's work and the breathing of Atem's thought.
Even without words, the silence was never heavy.
The speed at which Seto struck the keyboard, the movement of Atem's fingers turning a page.
Before either of them noticed, those slight rhythms had come to align, as though tuning each other.
Neither had intended to synchronise.
But it was the soft wave of breathing that forms naturally between two who have gone on living a long while in the same space.
It struck Atem suddenly — here was quiet time spent with another of the kind he had never once been given in his past life.
The life of the living, he came to understand deep in his chest, was the accumulation of differences this small.
Before them, a notebook and black tea.
Beyond the penthouse window, the townscape shining in the distance.
Seto tapped a single memo with his finger.
"This hypothesis of yours, about tracing regrets — at the least, my side has produced a result."
"So it has. You have always taken responsibility for your own choices."
"Then is the problem not on your side after all?"
Atem narrowed his eyes slightly.
"My side?"
A short silence.
Still gazing at the cup in his hands, Atem let out a low breath.
As for regrets on Seto's side, it did seem they had exhausted the possibilities.
But applying the word regret to himself met with a strange resistance.
"Me, is it…"
After a pause, he chose his words slowly.
"But I have no regrets, you know?"
Seto's brow moved faintly.
"…And yet for all that, you remain in this world?"
"That is because of the tangle."
"The cause of the tangle lies in the way you exist. Not the past, not this life. It is you as you are now."
The voice was quiet, but the observation drove into the core without mercy.
Seto's voice dropped low, carrying certainty.
"The tangle arising is a result. There must be a cause elsewhere. Find it."
Atem raised his face quietly and looked into Seto's blue eyes.
They were level, and yet there was a faint heat at the bottom of them.
Atem gave a small, wry smile.
"…A demanding teacher, as always."
"I am not your teacher. I am your employer."
Seto's remark rang out as though cutting the air.
Atem nodded, a faint smile surfacing.
That night's meeting ended more quietly than usual.
But deep in each of their chests, something had begun, slowly, to move.
The night view blurred through the glass.
On Seto's desk lay a single notebook the two of them shared.
Atem quietly closed the page.
"…I thought it over the way you said. In the past life and in this one both — I don't think I have any regrets."
"You declare it yourself."
Seto's voice was cool, and at the same time it had the sound of testing something.
Atem smiled wryly and let his weight settle into the backrest.
"I died when I ought to have died. I fulfilled my duty as king. …For the man I was then, there was nothing beyond that."
Seto said nothing, only watching Atem out of the corner of his eye.
"And yet you remain in this world all the same."
The words caught in Atem's throat, and he looked out the window.
The lights of the buildings, the flow of cars, the lamps of the town swaying in the night wind. Not one of them had existed in Atem's era.
"…Your world is dazzling."
"Dazzling?"
"The world of the living — the sounds, the smells, the textures. All of it is vivid."
Seto looked away and raised the corner of his mouth just slightly.
"You made such a noise about returning, and now you envy the living."
"I do not envy it."
Atem denied it at once.
But at the edge of his voice there was a faint hesitation.
Seto did not miss the waver.
"Then what is that expression."
Atem did not answer, only narrowing his eyes at the night view.
Deep in his chest, something creaked faintly.
Seto let out a small breath, arms still crossed.
"So long as you find this world beautiful, the tangle will not come undone."
"…Perhaps not."
Atem smiled quietly.
There was something boyish in that smile, and at the same time it bled the loneliness of a king.
The night air moved quietly.
Within that silence, an emotion with no name yet was breathing, unmistakably.
The sound of the wind. The distant lights of the town.
The heat of Seto's life, breathing there beside him, unmistakably.
That certainty of existence stirred Atem's soul quietly.
What is it to live.
Ended as a king, unsealed as a soul, and now merely existing.
Could that truly be called living.
The more he came to know how Seto lived, the more quietly that question ate into Atem's chest.
The tangle would still not come undone. But it was beginning to feel more natural to draw close to it than to try to undo it.
From that night on, the two of them changed a little at a time.
Without needing to exchange more words than necessary — as though when one of them drew breath, the other let it out.
Moments in which the heart wavered began to mix into the ordinary day.
That this was not the end of the research but the beginning of a relationship, neither of them had yet noticed.
Atem turned his gaze to the window without thinking.
Far off, the lights of the town that never sleeps were flickering still.
Seto lives facing towards the future.
And what of me. The moment he asked it, his chest ached faintly.
"…What is it, to live, I wonder."
The words were directed at no one, and simply vanished quietly into the air.
