Two men, too much wine, and reason that keeps slipping just out of reach. Seto knows exactly what Atem is trying to do, and refuses to give him the satisfaction — until a confession finally slips out anyway.
A slow-burn night-and-morning duology about intoxication, restraint, and the truth that surfaces once the drinking stops.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 飲んだくれと理性
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor₋yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The night wind brushed the rim of the glass.
The pale amber liquid, swaying in the lamplight, cast a small shadow across Atem's lashes.
Seto watched that profile out of the corner of his eye, silently tilting his wine.
Tonight, too, the two of them were stacking up drinks for no particular reason.
"...You don't handle strong liquor well, do you."
"You think so? I just feel good."
Atem laughed and held out his empty glass again.
Seto let out a short breath and, picking up the bottle, held that hand back instead.
"That's enough. Any more and your reason dissolves."
"Reason? Yours, or mine?"
A smile, almost like a challenge.
Seto's fingertips brushed, just barely, from the rim of the glass to Atem's wrist.
That single instant of contact changed the air between them.
Atem's gaze wavered.
Whether from the drink, or some other heat, he couldn't say.
"...Don't act like a child."
Seto murmured, pushing the empty glass away.
But what colored his voice wasn't reproach — it was something low, almost soothing.
"Rest a little. ...I'll stay, until you've sobered up."
At those words, Atem started to say something, but in the end said nothing.
Silence fell.
The ticking of a clock marked the depths of the night.
The moon, visible past Seto's shoulder, seemed to be measuring the distance between them.
In the silence, only the sound of glasses echoed.
Atem lowered his gaze, then slowly looked up at Seto.
"...Why don't you reach for me."
The question dissolved into the night air like an unguarded whisper.
Seto's eyes wavered faintly.
But in the next instant, his voice came back, clear as ice.
"Drunks should sleep."
Nothing more.
With just that one line, the distance returned between them.
Atem bit his lip.
This man's refusal to go along with what he wanted was infuriating — and, at the same time, dear to him.
He knew. He didn't want to test him, exactly. He just wanted, just once, to see deep into that heart.
Atem had known from the start.
Seto never touched anyone lightly, on a whim.
That was exactly why he wanted to get him drunk — to catch a glimpse through the crack in his composure.
But—
It was always he himself who fell to the drink first.
Through his blurring vision, Seto's figure softened, out of focus.
Those fingers quietly lifted the empty glass.
Even that small gesture was unbearably gentle.
"...Kaiba."
"I told you to sleep."
"...Then you look away first."
A smile rose, somewhere between a challenge and a plea.
Seto didn't answer, only drew the curtain closed, as if to block the breeze that had brushed Atem's cheek.
Night wrapped around the outline of the two of them.
Untouched, and yet, undeniably drawn together, within that distance.
Eventually, Atem's eyelids fell shut, quietly.
His broken breathing spoke of the depth of his sleep.
Seto gazed at his sleeping face for a while.
Moonlight lit his cheek faintly, dropping silver light onto his hair.
Seto's fingers traced that lock of hair, almost without meaning to.
A soft touch. Warmth.
An impulse to touch, even beyond reason.
"...If even I lose my reason, there'll be no going back for you."
The murmured words were swallowed by the night.
No one but the sleeping Atem knew what they meant.
Morning came.
Morning light, spilling through the gap in the curtains, faintly dissolved the outlines of the two of them.
Seto still hadn't gone home.
The amber liquid left in the glass on the desk spoke of what remained of the night.
Eventually, Atem opened his eyes.
Gazing softly at the light, he smiled.
"...I feel like I had a good dream."
At that voice, Seto lifted his gaze.
His expression was as flat as ever, but his voice alone carried a faint tremor.
"That's good to hear, then."
He said it briefly and stood.
The morning air was cold, drawing a clear line back toward reality.
By the time Atem sat up, Seto's back was already at the door.
Without turning around, he said:
"Next time, we talk in reality — not in the rest of that dream."
The sound of the door closing was swallowed into the quiet.
Listening to that sound, Atem checked the warmth still lingering deep in his chest.
Even if that night had been a dream.
The fact that he'd touched that man's reason, at least — that much, certainly, had been real.
The nights of the afterlife ran deeper and quieter than those above.
Whenever the wind died down, even time itself seemed to stop.
That night, Seto arrived carrying a single box.
"What did you bring?"
"First-aid supplies."
"...First aid?"
Seto offered nothing more.
Atem looked at the two glasses lined up on the table and gave a small shrug.
"...Drinking again today, huh."
He said so and picked up the bottle.
Seto sat down in the chair without a word.
The sound of the cork coming loose split the silence.
Eventually, Seto spoke, low.
"If there's something you want to say, say it while you're still sober."
His tone was flat, but it cut straight to the heart of things.
Atem's hand stilled for a moment.
The amber liquid, mid-pour, spilled a few glinting drops.
"...What makes you think that?"
He tried to keep his expression composed, but his eyes wandered.
Seto let out a small breath and didn't answer.
He only watched Atem with quiet eyes.
Atem laughed shortly and tipped his glass.
"...That's exactly the kind of thing you drink because you can't say it."
His tone was light, joking.
But beneath that smile lurked a genuine ache.
Seto thought to himself:
Even with all that drinking, you still haven't said it.
But he didn't put that into words.
He knew doing so would only corner him further.
Inside himself, Seto had already prepared to accept it.
In the silence, the two of them looked at the same glass.
It was a faint, wavering light at the boundary between past and present.
A distance so fragile and transparent it seemed it would shatter the moment a hand reached for it.
The air was cold; only the liquor carried any heat.
Atem tipped back a glass — he'd lost count of which one by now.
The afterlife's liquor wasn't especially strong. Which was exactly why it was so easy to overdo it.
Even so, Atem kept pouring, without hesitation.
"...You've noticed, haven't you, Kaiba."
His hoarse voice dissolved into the air like thin mist.
Seto watched him in silence for a while, then finally took the glass from his hand.
"That kind of drinking isn't something to admire."
"You always look so composed... like I'm the only one who's shaken."
Atem laughed. But that laugh was tinged with something bitter.
Seto paused a beat, then answered, low.
"What good does it do if we both go under."
Beneath that voice, reason and pain mingled.
He couldn't let him drink any more than this.
If he kept going, Atem would break.
Seto quietly set down his glass and looked at Atem.
"...It seems there's nothing left to do but admit it."
Those few words made the night tremble.
"I love you."
Atem blinked, and in the next moment, smiled.
"...Ah. I knew it. So that's how it is."
Letting out a breath, as if in relief, Atem let his head fall against Seto's shoulder.
"I'm happy."
The murmured words slowly dissolved into sleep.
Seto only watched that sleeping face.
He half-raised a hand toward him, then stopped partway.
"...I thought I'd taught you how to drink properly, by now."
The murmur, tinged with a wry smile, was swallowed by the night.
Eventually, morning came to the afterlife.
In the pale light, Atem opened his eyes.
"...I feel like I had a happy dream."
Seto raised an eyebrow slightly.
"That again."
Atem smiled, still half-asleep.
"Even as a dream, it wasn't bad."
Seto said nothing, only looked away.
Deep in his chest, the last embers of his reason let out a faint, creaking sound.
Atem let out a quiet breath.
The words from the dream still lingered deep in his chest.
"I'll get you some first aid."
With that, Seto went into the next room.
I love you.
He remembered the voice, the expression, exactly.
Only whether it had happened in the dream, or in reality, he couldn't be sure.
Every time he remembered it, his cheeks grew warm.
"...Strange."
Caught wry-smiling at his own heartbeat, he heard the door open.
"Don't tell me you're drinking again."
A low voice. Seto stood there.
"I—I'm not drinking."
Atem answered, flustered.
Not knowing how much of last night had been a dream made it hard to meet his eyes.
Seto glanced at him and said, calm.
"No alcohol for a while."
"What?"
Atem frowned, annoyed.
"You're taking away my one pleasure?"
"Until you forget your 'reason for drinking.'"
Seto's words were quiet, but carried a certain gentleness.
Which, if anything, only irritated him more.
But Seto said nothing further, and opened the box he'd brought.
He pulled out a teapot.
"I'll brew this instead. You're bored, aren't you?"
Steam rose above the table.
A fragrance unusually soft for a morning in the afterlife.
And the distance between the two of them was unchanged from the nights they'd spent over liquor.
"...Even without the drinking, the distance is the same, huh."
At Atem's murmur, Seto raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Is there a reason it should change?"
At just those words, Atem's heart jumped.
Somewhere between the remnants of the dream and reality, he found certainty.
Seto's eyes were, just slightly, gentler than usual.
In the teacup, the red liquid swayed.
It looked, somehow, as though it still carried the lingering heat of the night.
Beyond the rising steam, Seto quietly tipped his cup.
That single gesture alone was enough to tighten the air between them.
No drunkenness now, only reason standing out, sharp, in the morning.
Atem turned the teacup with his fingertips, opening his mouth to speak, then closing it again.
He wanted to say it.
But if he said it, everything would change.
That thought fought itself, over and over, at the back of his throat.
Seto saw through it precisely.
Last night, and now.
That in Atem's silence lay a truth more exact than any words.
"...You look like you want to say something."
At that calm voice, Atem's shoulders jumped.
He'd been remembering last night.
"No... it's nothing."
"Is that so."
At that single line, silence fell again.
But silence wasn't stillness.
Deep in Atem's eyes, something kept wavering, without end.
And Seto, watching him steadily, suddenly reached out.
He picked up a piece of red fruit from the plate and pressed it against Atem's lips.
"...!?"
Atem froze for a moment, startled, then glared back at him, annoyed.
"Are you trying to treat me like a child!"
"It's your own fault, sitting there with your mouth open and nothing to say."
Seto said it, unbothered.
Then he picked up another piece of fruit between his fingers and looped his arm lightly around Atem's shoulder.
Close.
Their breath brushed.
He wasn't drunk, and yet his head spun.
Atem, without resisting, quietly accepted the fruit offered from Seto's fingers.
A sweet fragrance spread across his tongue.
It felt, somehow, like a confession delivered in place of words.
If you won't put it into words, I'll take it from you instead.
That was what Seto's gaze seemed to say.
Atem could only let his eyes fall shut.
"...You're unfair."
Chewing on the fruit, Atem said it low.
By the time the sweetness passed down his throat, the heat had reached deep into his chest.
He shouldn't have been drunk at all, and yet his cheeks flushed faintly.
Seto didn't laugh, only kept his arm around him, gazing at Atem's profile.
"You crossed past drunk a long time ago."
His voice was almost a whisper, and at the same time, something heavy, sinking low.
At those words, Atem lowered his eyes.
He no longer needed to deny it, or agree.
Because every time their fingers touched, something more certain than words was already there.
Seto's hand gently stroked Atem's hair.
The steam-filled room fell utterly silent, only the faint sound of wind outside stirring somewhere far away.
Atem let himself rest against that chest.
The scent was tea leaves, fruit, and his warmth.
Time dissolved, slow and unhurried.
Nothing more needed to be said.
Every word was already there, held within that silence.
