Atem finds himself back in the living world one night without knowing why—in full royal regalia, on a dark road, with nowhere in particular to go.
Seto's car stops. There are rooms to spare.
What follows is three meals a day, a securities account, gold futures, a ta'amiya shop in the shopping district, tournaments on Sundays when the market is closed, and a slow, inexorable fall that neither of them is in any hurry to name.
The King of the Underworld has fallen.
He knows it.
He doesn't particularly mind.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 堕落王
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor₋yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
01 The King Arrives Unannounced
Atem was walking through the night without any particular hurry, along a road where the streetlights were unevenly spaced.The cold air touched his cheek. A familiar sensation. The Underworld had air too, but not this — the sharpness that belongs to the night above ground.
He hadn't thought about his clothes. He probably should have, but there had been no room to choose anything when he came down to the living world, and by the time he knew where he was, he was already standing here in his royal robes. The garments of the king of the Underworld kept their whiteness even in the dark of night — conspicuous, certainly — but it was nearly midnight, and no one was around.
Where he was heading had been decided almost automatically.
Yugi's house. The Turtle Game Shop.
There was nowhere else to go, and it was the first place that came to mind as somewhere to return to. Atem did have some sense that showing up at this hour might be an inconvenience. But if he asked for one night, Yugi would welcome him warmly. That much he knew with certainty, beyond any doubt.
What to do after that could wait until tomorrow.
Why he had come back to the living world, Atem himself didn't know. He had simply found himself here. No sense of having been summoned, no sense of having chosen to return.
Whether his existence as king of the Underworld was still intact, or whether he had only slipped away for tonight — even that was unclear. But there were things thinking would answer, and things it wouldn't.
Headlights approached from ahead, and Atem moved to the edge of the road. A minimal consideration — a person walking at midnight in white robes would startle a driver. The car he expected to pass stopped.
"Atem?"
At the low voice, Atem turned.
Seto's face was looking out from the rear window of the car.
Atem looked at that face for a few seconds.
"Kaiba?"
"Why are you in the living world."
The question was direct. No greeting, no surprise. That, at least, was like him.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I just found myself here. What about you — what are you doing at this hour?"
"Going home. You have no business with my schedule."
As he spoke, Seto's gaze moved over Atem's robes, top to bottom.
"…You've been walking around like that."
"No one's watching."
"I'm watching. Right now."
Atem said nothing.
There was no sign of Seto getting out of the car. He stayed with just his face out the window, looking at Atem for a while. Atem looked back at the car. The headlights lit the road, and somewhere an insect was calling.
"Where were you headed."
"My partner's house. I was going to ask for a night."
The clock in the park pointed to the small hours.
"I know it's an imposition."
Seto started to say something and stopped. Whatever word he had been about to say remained unknown, but there was a brief pause.
"…Get in."
Atem looked at Seto.
"There are rooms to spare. It's more reasonable than waking Yugi in the middle of the night."
"That's true."
Atem put his hand to the door. The lock released.
The inside of the car was warm. The feel of the leather seat settling around him told him that he was, in fact, here.
The door closed and the car moved immediately.
"You truly don't know why you came back?"
Seto was facing forward, and Atem faced forward too. The night city moved past the windows.
"I don't. Do you know?"
"None of my concern."
"Then we're the same."
A brief silence fell. It wasn't an uncomfortable one.
"I'll think about it tomorrow. Tonight I'll owe you one."
"I'll be owed."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"You carry the debt. I carry the credit. Those are different things."
Atem thought about that for a moment.
"…Fair enough."
Seto didn't answer.
The night continued outside the window. Atem leaned back against the seat. The robes of the king of the Underworld spread slightly out of place across the expensive leather, but Seto said nothing about it.
When they arrived at the Kaiba mansion, one servant was waiting at the entrance. Meeting an unfamiliar guest in the middle of the night without a change of expression — that said something about the standards of this household.
"Prepare a room."
"Of course."
That was all it took.
The room he was shown to was large. It was probably among the largest places Atem had ever stayed — in the living world, in memory. He decided to reserve judgment on the taste of the furnishings.
Seto came as far as the door, said only "if you need anything, ask the servant," and turned to leave.
"Kaiba."
"What."
"…Never mind."
Atem thought for a moment, and said thank you.
Seto paused for just an instant, repeated "I'll be owed," and this time truly left.
In the room, Atem began removing his jewelry.
Rings, bracelets, the ornamental sash at his waist. He set each piece on the table as he took it off. The pile of gold and gemstones was considerable when laid out, but Atem paid it no mind.
Seto was standing in the doorway around the time Atem finished with his earrings.
He hadn't come in. The door to the corridor had been left open, so he had probably caught sight of it in passing.
Seto stopped and watched Atem removing his jewelry. Without saying anything in particular.
Atem had noticed, but didn't mind.
He had a vague sense that something was being calculated in Seto's head. That was the intuition of a long acquaintance.
After a while, Seto said, in a tone like talking to himself:
"You came through that unscathed."
Atem turned, taking off a bracelet.
"What did?"
"Those."
Seto indicated the table with his chin.
"Walking those roads dressed like that, you'd attract attention. Assuming you didn't use any occult powers."
Atem looked at the table. Gold necklace, bracelets, several rings. Entirely natural as the formal dress of the king of the Underworld, but now that it was mentioned, certainly conspicuous in the living world.
"…I hadn't thought about it."
"I wouldn't expect so…"
There was no reproach in Seto's voice, which was slightly unexpected. The Seto from when Atem had been in the living world before would certainly have added a little more edge to that.
The Seto he had met in the Underworld had spoken without any regard for courtesy. That had been like him, in its own way — but tonight, the excess had been stripped from his words somehow.
His manner was noticeably softer than what he had shown toward the second personality of Yugi.
Perhaps Seto was processing in his own way that their relationship in those days had been one of combat, and tonight was something different.
Atem removed the last ring and looked at the small pile on the table.
"One thing — can you sleep? I don't know whether you eat or sleep in the Underworld, or…"
"I do."
"Not that you can't."
"I can sleep. Whether I actually will, I won't know until I try."
"I see."
Seto pressed no further and disappeared into the corridor.
Atem closed the door and looked at the four-poster bed.
He lay down without knowing whether he'd sleep, and when he noticed, it was morning.
In the corridor to the dining room, he passed Mokuba.
"Oh, Atem! Good morning!"
Mokuba swallowed his surprise in an instant and switched to a morning greeting. That speed of adjustment may have been something he had in common with his brother.
"Good morning, Mokuba."
"I'm just heading out, so make yourself at home!"
He said it and ran off.
In the dining room, Seto was drinking coffee.
He seemed to have been reading something on a tablet, but looked up at the sound of Atem entering. He set what he had been reading on the table.
"Did you sleep?"
"Mostly."
"I see."
When Atem took his seat, a servant appeared without delay. Food was brought out. Bread, eggs, warm soup. Set quietly in front of him.
"Can you eat? I don't know whether you eat in the Underworld."
"I do."
Atem reached for the soup.
"It's not that I can't."
He brought it to his lips and warmth and salt spread through him. Atem said nothing for a while and drank the soup.
The food in the Underworld was not bad. A meal whose existence was somewhat ambiguous — but it served its purpose of filling hunger. What it had with the food of the living world, though, was a fundamental difference he couldn't name.
This had the flavor of the ingredients. It had temperature. After swallowing, there was a sense of something remaining inside him.
"It's good."
He had said it aloud before he realized.
Seto said, holding his coffee cup:
"Of course it is."
Something was mixed into his voice.
Atem reached for the bread. Seto drank his coffee.
Morning light came into the dining room.
"What are you going to do today?"
"For now, think about how to get back. If I can't, think about something else."
"Still no answer on why you came back."
"No."
"I see."
Seto asked nothing more.
Atem tore off a piece of bread and ate it. It was better than the Underworld's. That much was certain.
The following morning.
"What did you come up with yesterday."
As Atem walked into the dining room, Seto looked up from his tablet to ask.
Atem sat down. The servant brought food the same way as the day before. This morning there was slightly more than yesterday. They must have been watching how he ate.
"…The thing is—"
Atem started to say it and stopped.
At that, Seto looked up from the tablet and took in Atem's expression.
Something was clearly different from the day before. The tension around his temples was gone. The tightness behind his eyes was absent.
Simply put, he had a slack look about him.
"I don't want to go back anymore."
Atem said it with a slight awkwardness.
Seto set down his tablet.
"…In one day?"
"In one day."
Atem dropped his gaze to the soup. The pause had the quality of someone searching for an excuse.
"When I think about it…"
Atem began to speak. He had the manner of someone who couldn't stop once he had started.
"In Egypt, mostly I was… the process of becoming king was hard, and then I thought I'd become one, and it was combat. And then I died. In the living world too, it was mostly combat. Always fighting. No memory, no name, and still fighting. When I made it to the Underworld, I thought — finally, I can rest."
"You thought — meaning?"
"I was made to be king. King of the Underworld. There are duties. Decisions to make. Judgments to hand down."
Seto said nothing.
Atem continued.
"Yesterday, there was nothing. No one asked anything of me. Three warm meals, and I slept through the afternoon. That was all."
As he spoke, Atem's expression softened, just slightly. He was probably recalling yesterday. That face was nothing like what Seto had seen in the Underworld, or what had faced him in combat.
It was not the face of someone who had spent a lifetime fighting.
It was simply the face of someone who had slept well.
"You fell in one day."
"…I won't deny it."
Atem reached for the bread.
Seto looked at him for a while.
To duel this man, he had to go to the Underworld. When he considered the trouble involved and the cost of getting there, it wasn't something easily done. But if Atem was here, it could happen anytime.
The mansion had rooms to spare. One more person's worth of meals was nothing to a household of this size. There were servants.
Atem was eating eggs right now, here, at this table. With a slightly more unhurried hand than yesterday.
"I have time this afternoon."
Seto said it.
Atem looked up.
"A duel. If you've been taking it easy, your skills will have gone soft. Let me check."
"We dueled in the Underworld too — actually, that was basically all we did."
"Do it here."
Atem looked at Seto for a moment. Then he returned his gaze to the table and took a sip of soup.
"…Of course."
A brief silence.
Morning light came through the window. The same light as yesterday.
Atem took another piece of bread.
02 One Day Was All It Took
One week in the living world.
There was no reason to go outside.
Meals appeared. He could sleep. There was someone to duel. There was a book half-read. That was enough for a day to end. The next day was the same. That was all it took.
The one thing on his mind was cards.
The Kaiba mansion had cards in abundance, as a matter of course. Boxes purchased by the case, still stacked unopened. He had been told to use whatever he liked, but that was a separate matter. He wanted to choose his own packs and open them himself. That was something fundamental, as a duelist.
When he mentioned it to Seto, Seto said "go to a card shop" and arranged for modern clothes.
Leather trousers, a black shirt, a light jacket over the top.
It was the first time he had worn modern clothes since the days he had spent fighting in the living world. He checked the mirror and thought: well enough.
"Is there silver?"
Seto pointed to a box. Atem wound a few pieces onto his wrist.
He checked the mirror one more time. Easier to move in than the Underworld robes, certainly.
The card shop wasn't far from the Kaiba mansion.
Atem went inside and stood in front of the shelves of packs.
The outdoors after a week felt busier than expected. The shop was the same, but no one looked at him in any particular way. Naturally — there was nothing suspicious about how he was dressed.
"Hey?"
A voice came from behind. A familiar one.
He turned. Yugi was standing there. Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor were with him. All three were looking at Atem.
Yugi's eyes grew wider by the second.
"Atem!?"
"Keep it down—"
He said it quietly, but it was already too late.
"How—!"
"Wait, hold on—!"
"Is it really you? It's really you, right?"
One after another, all three crowded around Atem at once.
They were simply loud. The shop clerk looked over. Other customers looked over.
And they were asked to leave.
Outside the shop, the four of them lined up on the pavement.
Yugi still had tears forming in his eyes. Joey looked like his excitement hadn't settled. Tristan had his head in his hands.
"When did you get here!?"
"A week ago."
All three froze.
"A week…"
Yugi repeated it slowly.
"You've been here for a week?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you contact us!"
Joey's voice rose again.
"You'd normally go to Yugi's place, wouldn't you? Why did you—"
"It was late. I didn't want to be an imposition."
"It's not an imposition! Not at all, it's actually — a week, so where have you been? How have you been getting by?"
Atem thought for a moment.
There was the question of how to put it accurately.
"Mostly at the Kaiba mansion. A holiday, I suppose?"
A considerable silence.
"………"
Tristan started to say something and stopped.
"The Kaiba mansion… you mean, Kaiba's?"
Joey said it slowly.
"Is there another one?"
"Well…"
Joey and Yugi looked at each other.
"He's not that considerate a person."
"He's putting me up."
"Holiday, you said? You? At Kaiba's house?"
"Is that strange?"
"Not strange, exactly… it's just — Kaiba being… it's a little unexpected."
"Were you two really that close?"
Tristan tilted his head.
Atem considered the question for a moment.
Whether close was the right word.
But when he thought about it — he was being looked after. That was undeniably true.
He had been picked up on a midnight road. Given a room. Fed. Clothes had been arranged. Nothing had been asked of him. Seto dueled with him. For a week now, nothing had been imposed on him; he had simply been allowed to exist.
There had been no hostility. There were sharp remarks, but that was normal operation.
"Things aren't bad between us. If anything, I'd say he's been kind."
Joey looked up at the sky.
"Kaiba. Kind."
"Is that hard to accept?"
"Very hard to accept."
Joey said it immediately.
Yugi had a slightly different expression. Not so much surprised as understanding something — or understanding it while thinking about something else at the same time.
"I'm glad."
"About what?"
"That you're somewhere proper. I'm glad."
Atem looked at Yugi.
Yugi was smiling. A face that was close to tears, and smiling.
"At least contact us from now on."
"Understood."
"So," Joey switched gears. "What are you here to buy. We'll help you pick."
"Packs. I wanted to open them myself."
All four went back inside.
The clerk looked at them, but this time they lined up quietly in front of the shelves.
Atem picked up a pack. Beside him, Joey lifted a different one and started saying "this one has better pulls." Tristan took issue with that, and Yugi laughed.
Until a week ago, none of this had existed.
In the Underworld, of course, it hadn't existed either.
Atem put two packs in the basket.
When he returned to the Kaiba mansion, a servant met him at the entrance.
"Welcome back."
"I'm home."
The words came out naturally. Atem decided not to think too deeply about that.
He went back to his room and opened the packs he had bought.
The one Joey had called "better pulls" did in fact have better pulls. One card came out that he had been hoping for. Atem held it up to the light for a while and looked at it. A good day of pulls felt different. He believed that was a universal feeling among duelists.
When he went to the dining room at dinner, Seto was there, which was unusual.
Whether work had ended early or he had been home all day, Atem didn't know. When he took his seat, Seto looked up from the documents in his hand.
"How was it outside."
"One good card."
"And otherwise."
"I ran into everyone."
Seto's eyes moved slightly.
"Yugi?"
"At the card shop. By chance."
Atem reached for the soup. Tonight's dinner was good too. Over a week, his standards for food had been quietly rising. That was perhaps its own form of falling.
"I'd like to stay in contact with them — is there a way?"
Seto was quiet for a moment over his meal.
"Come to my room after."
That was the end of the conversation.
After dinner, Atem went to Seto's room.
Seto's room was even larger than the guest room Atem was using. A work desk, documents stacked on it, monitors lined along the wall. There was little sense of daily life, but it had the density of somewhere a person genuinely spent their time.
Seto pulled something from the desk drawer and held it out toward Atem.
A thin, flat rectangle.
"Do you know how to use it?"
"Mostly. I watched my partner and the others using theirs."
Atem operated the screen. A contacts list opened.
Yugi Mutou. Joey Wheeler. Tristan Taylor.
Atem looked at the list. He said nothing in particular.
There was only one person in this city who could do that. Personal information, in front of Kaiba Seto, was essentially meaningless. He had known that about this man.
So he let it go.
"Thank you."
"If you don't know how to use it, ask the servant."
"I can manage without asking."
"Is that so."
Atem looked at the contacts list once more. The three names had been entered properly, in full.
He left the room and walked the corridor, opening the screen as he went. He selected Yugi first.
Typing would be slower than talking. He called, and after a few rings, a voice said "hello?"
"Partner?"
"Other me!? I wasn't sure who — oh, did you get a phone?"
"As of today."
"Good. Now we can stay in touch. Can I give your number to Joey and the others?"
"Of course. I'm glad we ran into each other today."
"Me too. Let's meet again."
He ended the call. Atem stood in the corridor and looked at the screen once more.
Yugi's name was in the call history.
Today was a good day, Atem thought. Good pulls, and he'd seen his friends. And now he had a phone.
He went back to his room and looked at the good card one more time.
Tomorrow was scheduled to be, once again, a day with nothing in particular planned.
03 Asset Management and Other Forms of Corruption
The beginning of it was Atem wanting more stimulation.
More precisely: "I'd like to buy more cards, and apparently there are various things to do on a phone." He said this to Seto at dinner.
Seto looked at him for a while.
"How many weeks have you been in the living world."
"About three."
"I see."
"I have fallen, I'll admit that."
Atem acknowledged it without particular resistance.
Seto was quiet for a moment as if thinking something over. Then he said "come with me" and stood up.
At the desk in the study, Seto operated a laptop and said, matter-of-factly:
"A securities account."
"Securities?"
"Stocks, foreign exchange, futures. You read the market and trade. Win, and it becomes real profit."
"Read the market."
"You're good at reading opponents, aren't you. From what I've seen of your dueling."
Seto looked at Atem.
Atem thought for a moment. This was a new kind of stimulation.
"This is virtual, but real. The numbers on screen are real money moving. Do you follow?"
"Mostly."
"I've put in a starting amount. Do what you like. If you lose it all, that's nothing to do with me."
"Reading opponents — I'm good at that."
Seto sent the account information to Atem's phone, and that was the end of it.
Atem was good at the market.
Perhaps that was inevitable. The precision of reading opponents, the ability to make decisions without being swept up by emotion. Whether the opponent was a person or a market, the fundamentals didn't change much. Read the flow, know when to move and when to wait. Don't get greedy.
His assets grew steadily.
With the gains he bought more cards, spent money on a game Yugi had recommended, watched videos, and looked at the charts again.
He became somewhat of a homebody.
The reasons to leave the mansion had thinned again.
Two weeks after running into them at the card shop, a message came from Yugi.
"Want to get together, everyone?"
The meeting place was the square in front of the station. Atem arrived early and sat on a bench, looking at charts on his phone. The morning's movements had been on his mind.
"Atem!"
Yugi came running. Joey and Tristan followed behind.
"Were you waiting long?"
"No, I just came early."
Atem put his phone in his pocket.
"What were you looking at?"
"Charts."
"…Charts?"
The three exchanged glances.
They went into a nearby family restaurant and took a table.
When the drinks arrived, Joey asked: "So what have you been up to? What do you do every day at the mansion?"
"Mostly… eat, sleep, duel, and… asset management?"
A pause.
"…Asset. Management."
Tristan repeated it slowly.
"Stocks. Reading the market. I was taught how."
"By Kaiba?"
"Yes."
"Why did it come to that… that guy…"
Joey looked baffled.
"More funds for further recreation. Essentially, I wanted spending money?"
The phrasing was catastrophic, but they understood that Atem had apparently taken up investing as a hobby.
Another pause. Longer than the last.
"…Spending money."
"I want to buy more cards, there's a game my partner told me about, and I do the asset management."
Yugi made a face that said *wait, is this my fault?*
"So you're trading stocks for that…"
"Reading opponents — I'm good at that."
Joey put his elbows on the table.
"Hold on. Let me get this straight. You're the king of the Underworld, right?"
"Yes."
"The king of the Underworld is spending his time in the living world doing stocks for spending money?"
"That is the current situation."
Joey looked up at the ceiling. Tristan put his head in his hands. Only Yugi, with a helpless sort of smile, said "Atem…"
"Are you serious?"
Joey still looked like he couldn't believe it.
"Completely serious."
"That's not something a serious king of the Underworld does."
"I'm on holiday."
"How long are you planning this holiday to last?"
When Tristan asked, Atem looked slightly away.
"…Undetermined."
"Undetermined."
"I have no reason to go back at the moment."
Yugi said "Atem…" again. A slightly different tone this time. Hard to tell if it was exasperation, amusement, or something else.
Atem picked up the menu.
"What are you getting? I've mostly decided."
"Already? How are you decided?"
Joey leaned over to look.
"I looked up the menu before coming."
Tristan murmured "he's completely a modern person now…"
Yugi finally burst out laughing. Once he started, he couldn't seem to stop, and Joey caught the laughter and joined in. Tristan said "is this funny" while also laughing.
Atem looked at the menu and waited for the three of them to settle down.
Not a bad afternoon, he thought.
Gold was good.
The price movements were gentle, no sudden spikes or drops. It held its value reliably over long stretches of time. Looking at the charts, Atem could feel, viscerally, why people had sought gold for thousands of years. He added to his position here and there. He also dabbled in stocks, foreign exchange, and a few bonds. None of them were bad, but gold alone carried a different familiarity.
The thought of returning the initial funds came around the time his unrealized gains exceeded the principal.
After dinner one evening, Atem told Seto he wanted to return the starting amount.
Seto looked up from his documents.
"No need."
"Please take it. It's a matter of principle."
"It's a nuisance. That account is yours. Don't add to the complexity of my asset management."
"…I see."
"Yes."
Seto returned his eyes to the documents. Atem stood there for a while, but nothing more was said, so he went back to his room.
The principal he hadn't been able to return went back into the market the next day.
About one month in the living world.
Atem hadn't been counting, but one morning a message came from Yugi that said "it's been a month since you came to the living world," and that was how he found out. So it had been, he thought.
He felt no sign in himself of returning to the Underworld.
Whether he couldn't go back or simply wasn't going back, the boundary remained unclear.
But honestly, he wasn't thinking about it much. Today's market movements were on his mind, and he'd only opened half the card packs that had arrived yesterday.
The head of the household had never told him to leave.
There was no sign of that happening.
Mokuba paid close attention.
He had always watched his brother carefully. He thought of it as a younger brother's role, and it was genuinely necessary. Kaiba Seto was not someone who talked about himself.
In the month since Atem had arrived, Mokuba had confirmed certain things.
His brother had been kind to Atem.
He had prepared a room. Arranged clothes. Given him a phone. Set up an account. Asked for nothing in return. Dueled with him. Shared meals. Never told him to leave.
Each of these things, individually, might have a rational explanation. The room was available. Without clothes, he couldn't go outside. Without a phone, things were inconvenient.
But Mokuba knew. His brother had been kind to Atem. Not deliberately — it was the kind of kindness that had happened before he noticed it.
And Atem had leaned into it with complete naturalness.
Without malice, without reserve, but with genuine gratitude. The king of the Underworld was trading stocks and adding to his gold position from the Kaiba mansion in the living world. The two of them were entirely unbothered by the absurdity of that fact.
In the old days, this would have been unthinkable.
The brother Mokuba had known then, and the other Yugi, would meet, duel, and keep striking sparks at each other even when it was over. It was a relationship of combat. They recognized each other's existence while still fiercely refusing each other. That tension had been real, and Mokuba didn't deny it.
But perhaps that hadn't been everything.
His brother didn't drive Atem out. Atem didn't go back.
Neither of them explained it.
At breakfast one morning, Mokuba heard his brother ask Atem, over coffee, "did you see the gold movement this morning?" He heard Atem answer "I did, how do you read it?"
In the old days, an unthinkable conversation.
Mokuba ate his toast and listened.
His brother was being kind, and Atem was leaning on that kindness.
Not a bad thing, Mokuba thought.
The reception room at Kaiba Corporation was always orderly whenever he visited.
Yugi sat on the sofa and reached for the coffee that had been brought out. He had arrived slightly before the scheduled time and was waiting for Mokuba.
The file with his new game concept was in his bag. That was what he had come to talk about today. The working relationship with Kaiba Corporation had existed before Atem arrived.
Mokuba came in.
"Sorry to keep you, Yugi."
"Thanks for seeing me, Mokuba. How's Kaiba?"
"He's fine. He's in another meeting right now."
"Got it. Good."
Yugi took out the file. The two of them turned pages together and talked through the work for a while. Mokuba was quick to absorb things and picked out the key points accurately. Like his brother, Yugi always thought.
When the work talk wound down, there was a pause over coffee.
"Is Atem doing well? I get messages from him lately, but they're mostly about gold, or cards, or games."
"He's fine."
Mokuba said it, but his tone was slightly flat.
Yugi looked at him.
"…Did something happen? Did you two argue?"
"We didn't argue."
"Then…?"
Mokuba looked at his coffee cup for a moment. A pause like he was sorting something out.
"Yugi — what would you call a relationship where two people share a wallet and share a home, and are kind to each other and lean on each other, and do fun things together?"
Yugi started to answer and stopped.
"…What do you mean."
"I'm talking about my brother and Atem."
"Oh."
"Every morning at the same table, talking about stocks or cards. Atem's using the phone my brother set up. My brother made the account Atem uses. My brother watches while Atem adds to his gold position."
With each thing Mokuba said, a picture formed in Yugi's head.
"Last week the two of them were opening cards together. A box they'd bought."
"…Right."
"It's not that things are bad between them. It's more that it's just — normal. That's what's strange about it."
Mokuba let out a sigh.
Not a short sigh. One that carried the weight of about a month.
"What are those two, anyway."
Something in Yugi's mind began slowly taking shape.
Sharing a wallet. Sharing a home. Being kind to each other, leaning on each other, doing fun things together.
That's like — he started to think, and stopped.
But, he thought.
The prefix of *those two* complicated what came next. The fact of *those two* kept making the conclusion slip away. But the conclusion was trying to land somewhere, and the place it was trying to land was dimly visible.
He didn't have the courage to confirm it.
"Are you troubled, Mokuba?"
That was all he managed to say.
"I'm not troubled. Neither of them looks unhappy. It's just…"
"Just?"
"Watching them is somehow tiring."
Yugi thought he understood that tiredness a little.
When you look at something unclear for a long time, your eyes grow tired from searching for the outline. That kind of tiredness.
"I see."
"You're making the same face, Yugi."
"What?"
"Just now."
Yugi touched his own face. He hadn't thought he was making any particular face.
"No I'm not."
"You are."
The two of them drank their coffee in silence for a moment.
Outside the window, the Domino City streets spread out. Somewhere in them was the Kaiba mansion, and by now Atem was probably looking at charts, or sorting cards, or possibly taking a nap.
Neither of them said anything more about it.
But Mokuba's words stayed in Yugi's mind exactly as they had been said.
Sharing a wallet, sharing a home, being kind to each other and leaning on each other, doing fun things together.
On the way home, he thought about it vaguely.
While thinking, he was careful not to touch the conclusion.
That night, Yugi sent Atem a message.
"I went to Kaiba Corporation today."
"You saw Mokuba, I expect."
"Yeah. He seemed well."
After a short pause:
"Gold moved a little. Good timing on my end."
Yugi laughed at that and replied "good for you."
The read indicator appeared and then there was nothing more. Yugi put his phone down and looked at the ceiling.
Good timing on my end, Atem had said.
Atem saying things like that had started since he came to the living world. The king of the Underworld saying *good timing on my end.*
The vagueness in Yugi's mind stayed quietly where it was, without arriving at an answer.
04 What the Market Is Closed For
"There's a tournament."
Seto said it at dinner.
"A tournament?"
"An official M&W tournament. It's being held next Sunday."
Atem listened while drinking his soup.
"For general participants, mind you."
"I see."
"It's Sunday. Are you in?"
Atem thought for a moment. Sunday. A day the market was closed.
"I'm in."
Seto set down his coffee cup.
"I'll arrange the registration."
That was all it took.
The day of the tournament was clear.
He went to the venue in his modern clothes, of course. He strapped the duel disk over his jacket, checked the deck. He had revised it three days before and was satisfied with its current state.
From the first round, Atem dueled carefully.
He read the opponent's deck tendencies within a few turns, predicted the development, and went for the most reliable route rather than the shortest. The fundamentals were no different from reading the market. Anticipate the opponent's hand, read ahead, close off the escape routes.
As he advanced through the second and third rounds, the gallery grew.
An unknown first-time entrant advancing without a stumble. That alone was enough to draw attention. Atem paid it no particular mind. He was focused on the duels.
The final was against an opponent running a well-constructed deck. In other words, the most enjoyable match. Even so, Atem came out ahead in the final exchange.
He won.
The problem was what came after.
Interviewers arrived. More than one.
"A word on today's tournament, looking back."
"I focused on reading my opponent's deck from the opening."
"Where do you think the turning point in the final was?"
"The third turn, when I determined my opponent was holding back hand traps. That's when I changed my line."
"This is your first official tournament, isn't it. Where do you usually practice, and how?"
"Practical dueling at the Kaiba mansion."
A murmur went through the room. Atem tilted his head slightly.
"Kaiba — do you mean Kaiba, the president of Kaiba Corporation?"
"Yes."
"And what is your relationship?"
"We duel."
A different kind of murmur.
"And your current place of residence?"
"The Kaiba mansion."
This murmur was a different variety again.
The questions multiplied.
There was no reason to lie, so Atem answered them one by one. But with each answer another question came, and the number of reporters had grown. Several cameras were pointed at him.
He was beginning to lose track of when this would end, when the crowd parted.
"That's enough."
Seto's voice.
Atem's wrist was taken and pulled.
Atem went along without resistance. The reporters were saying something, but Seto didn't look back. They moved through the corridor, opened a staff door, and went inside.
The door closed and the noise from outside was cut off, and finally it was quiet.
"You said too much."
Seto released Atem's wrist.
"I was asked, so I answered."
"I imagine you were."
"There was no reason to lie."
Seto started to say something and stopped.
Atem looked at his own wrist. There was still a faint residual sense of where it had been held.
"The result was as expected. I wasn't there."
"That's very like you. The market being closed was put to good use."
"Any complaints?"
"None. It was enjoyable."
The sound of voices was still audible outside the corridor. The sound of staff moving. Seto crossed his arms and glanced once at the door.
"Stay here for a while. We'll leave when it clears."
"Understood."
Atem leaned his back against the wall. The weight of the duel disk was on his arm. The reality of having won came quietly, only now that it was silent.
"Are you in for the next tournament?"
"If the market is closed."
That was Atem's answer.
Seto exhaled shortly. Whether it was exasperation or something else, the sound was impossible to place.
They stood in that corridor until Seto had finished what needed to be finished and came back.
05 Receipt
The television in the common room was on when Atem passed through.
He wasn't particularly watching it. He sat on the sofa and opened his phone, checking the market.
The screen switched and footage of the Domino City shopping district appeared.
A reporter was saying something, and Atem looked up from his phone.
"The ta'amiya shops that have been drawing attention across Japan — last month a new location opened in Domino City, and it's been drawing long queues every day."
On screen, something appeared that looked like a round croquette.
Fava beans and herbs, fried together. Thin and firm on the outside, green and soft within.
Atem looked at the television. He put his phone down. He decided to go outside.
He changed into his modern clothes and took his wallet. Inside it was the card he had been given, but also cash he had withdrawn from his profits. He hadn't been short of things to spend it on, but this was the first time a use had presented itself this clearly.
He left the mansion and walked in the direction of the shopping district.
The shop was easy to find, just as the television had said. There was a queue. Atem joined the end of it.
The queue moved slowly. The people ahead were talking cheerfully. Atem faced forward.
As he got closer to the shop, the smell of fried herbs reached him.
He breathed it in for a moment.
Memories from several thousand years ago don't usually come so clearly. In the Underworld or the living world alike, the past rests as the past. But smell is different — it comes through some other channel, and before you know it you have been pulled back into a place that existed only in memory.
Atem blinked.
He was in the Domino City shopping district.
His turn came and he ordered. What he received looked very much like what he remembered.
He took a bite.
It wasn't exactly the same. The herb mixture was slightly different; the frying oil might have been too. But that was fine. It didn't need to be exactly the same.
It was good.
Atem ate as he walked.
Back at the mansion, when he put his wallet away, a receipt came out with it.
A small paper, neatly folded. Unfolded, it listed the items ordered and the amount.
At the very bottom, in small print, was the name of the issuer.
Kaiba Corporation.
Atem looked at the receipt.
He looked at it again.
A ta'amiya shop that had recently opened in the Domino City shopping district. Expanding across Japan.
Kaiba Corporation was running ta'amiya shops across Japan.
Atem considered this for a while. While considering it, he tried to determine whether this was something to ask about or something to leave alone.
At dinner, Seto was drinking coffee.
"I ate ta'amiya."
Seto looked up.
"There was a shop in the shopping district."
"I see."
His tone was entirely ordinary.
"The receipt said Kaiba Corporation."
"I authorized the opening. It's a proof-of-concept for introducing Middle Eastern food culture to the Japanese market. The revenue is incidental."
Atem looked at Seto. Seto drank his coffee. He said nothing more.
Proof-of-concept. Revenue is incidental.
Atem still had the receipt. He put it back in his wallet without quite thinking about it.
"It was good."
"I see."
After that, the dinner that had been brought out was eaten.
Atem thought about the ta'amiya from today. The herb mixture being slightly different. It still being good. The small print at the bottom of the receipt.
Seto said nothing, but that was, as ever, normal operation.
He went back to the ta'amiya shop several times. A favorite is a favorite.
And this time he didn't go alone — he called Yugi, Joey, and Tristan.
The four of them queued together, received their orders together, and sat in a row on a bench in the shopping district together.
"This is the stuff. It's good."
"Isn't it?"
"It's Middle Eastern, right?"
"Found across the whole region, apparently. It was in Egypt too."
"A taste of your homeland, sort of thing. That's nice."
Joey and Tristan talked over each other.
Yugi ate in silence, then said "it's good." "Simple, but you never get tired of it."
"Yes — that's exactly it."
The four of them ate for a while. The shopping district had foot traffic, music drifted from a shop somewhere, and the sky was clear.
"By the way, you've been coming here a lot lately, haven't you?"
Tristan said.
"Sometimes."
"Look at that, congratulations on leaving the house."
Tristan laughed.
"I wasn't aware I had stopped leaving."
"You didn't go out of the mansion for a week at the start."
"There was nothing I needed to do."
"That's called not leaving the house," Tristan declared. "But you're coming out properly now. Worth celebrating."
"Congratulations," Yugi laughed too.
"So food was what it took."
Joey laughed as well.
"The king of the Underworld."
"I'm aware I was lured."
"You're aware of it?"
"I am," Atem said, and then thought for a moment. "Although…"
"Although?"
"Whether what lured me was the ta'amiya."
Atem looked at what was in his hand.
"Or whether it was set up from the beginning."
The three looked at him.
"Do you have someone in mind?"
"One person."
Joey broke into loud laughter.
"Don't tell me it was Kaiba? Going that far?"
"He called it a proof-of-concept."
"That's an excuse."
Joey said it laughing.
"He's embarrassed. Covering it up."
"Would Kaiba cover something up out of embarrassment?"
"Can't say for certain he wouldn't, from what I've been hearing lately."
Atem took a bite of ta'amiya.
If it had been set up, it was a very elegant setup. A Kaiba Corporation shop opens in Domino City. It gets featured on television. Atem sees it. He wants to eat it. He goes outside.
He might be reading too much into it. It might genuinely be a proof-of-concept.
But Seto was not someone who left things to chance. Atem knew that well.
Yugi hadn't said anything.
Atem looked at Yugi. Yugi was eating ta'amiya with a faraway look. An expression that could have been deep in thought or trying not to think — impossible to tell.
"Partner."
"Hm? Oh, what?"
"Is it good?"
"It's good," Yugi said with a smile. He smiled a little quickly. "Really good."
"I see."
Joey and Tristan were still talking and laughing. That Kaiba had opened a shop in Domino City to get a shut-in to go outside, that was going too far surely, but then again this was Kaiba.
Yugi listened to that conversation, and looked a little faraway again.
Today was clear. The ta'amiya was good. He was sitting on a bench beside his friends.
"Let's come again."
Atem said it.
"Yes," Yugi nodded. This time his smile was natural. "Let's come again."
The message from Mokuba came that night.
A short message arrived on Yugi's phone.
"We should probably do something, right."
Yugi replied immediately.
"I think so too."
"Do you have any ideas?"
Yugi thought for a while. While thinking, he organized what he was trying to think about. Those two — sharing a wallet, sharing a home, looking after each other and being looked after — a method of turning them into something that could be put into words.
"I have one."
That was what Yugi sent back.
"Tell me."
The plan was simple.
Yugi would make a move on Seto in front of Atem. Atem would see it and realize his own feelings.
"Isn't that a bit thin?"
Even Mokuba had reservations.
"But I couldn't think of anything else."
"Well. Let's try it."
The opportunity came sooner than expected.
There was a meeting at Kaiba Corporation, and afterward Seto himself appeared. Atem had also been brought along today, for some reason, at Mokuba's invitation.
"I'm going."
Seto started to say.
"Kaiba."
Yugi called out.
"What."
Yugi turned toward Seto and, as he had practiced, angled his gaze slightly upward. He arranged a smile.
"Today's meeting was such a help. Things go so much faster when you're there."
"Naturally."
"You're so reliable."
Seto's eyebrow moved fractionally. That was all.
"Is that everything? If you have nothing else, go home."
Seto was operating at normal.
Yugi kept his smile and glanced sideways at Atem.
Atem was looking at Yugi.
With a puzzled expression. Head tilted slightly.
"…Partner? Are you all right? Are you feeling unwell?"
"What? Why?"
"Something seems off."
"Nothing's off."
"Your eyes are different from usual."
"Don't look that closely."
Mokuba, behind them, put his head quietly in his hands.
Back at the mansion after dinner, Atem sat on the sofa and thought about Yugi from today.
You're so reliable, he had said.
With that upward glance. With that smile.
Atem turned the scene over in his mind. He didn't understand what Yugi had intended by doing that. The reaction had been cold, but Yugi's manner had been different from usual.
Why had he done it. What had he expected to happen as a result.
As he thought it through, one hypothesis surfaced. Atem considered it for a moment. And then decided to test it.
Seto was in the study.
He knocked, a "come in" returned, and Atem opened the door.
Seto was looking at documents at the desk but looked up.
"What."
Atem walked to stand before him.
"I hadn't thanked you properly for the tournament. You arranged things. I was able to compete because of it."
"And?"
Seto started to say.
Atem adjusted the angle of his gaze the way Yugi had done.
"I rely on you."
Seto's hands stopped.
Holding the documents, stopped, looking at Atem.
"……"
Then two blinks.
Atem watched that.
Watched it, and what Yugi had done today took on shape and outline.
Yugi had done it to Seto.
Seto had not reacted to Yugi.
When Atem did it, he reacted.
Atem stood quietly for a while.
Seto was quiet too. With the documents still in hand, his gaze shifted slightly away from Atem.
"Is that all you came for?"
His voice was lower than usual.
"Yes."
"Then get out."
"All right."
Atem left the study.
Walking the corridor, he thought about the blink just now, and about what state he himself was currently in.
There was something in the region of his chest, different from usual. What to name it, Atem didn't yet know.
But it wasn't something bad.
The next morning he sent Yugi a message.
"Yesterday — was that what I think it was."
A reply came after a while.
"…How much did you work out?"
"Most of it."
The read indicator appeared and stayed there for a while.
Then: "Atem, you weren't oblivious after all."
Atem put down his phone. Outside the window, the morning had begun.
06 Most of It
"Most of it" had been the truth.
But most of it was only most of it.
Atem was on the sofa in his room, sorting through what had happened.
Yugi had made a move on Seto. Seto hadn't reacted. When Atem did the same, Seto reacted. So Seto was looking at Atem, not Yugi — that much was clear.
But his interpretation of why Yugi had done it had gone spectacularly wrong.
Yugi liked Seto. So Yugi had made a move on him. But Seto was looking at Atem. Yugi hadn't realized that.
Roughly — that was the conclusion Atem had arrived at.
He arrived at it, and for a while couldn't move.
Yugi liked Seto.
Seto was looking at Atem.
Atem didn't think it was bad, Seto looking at him. In fact, when he revisited the feeling in his chest from last night, it was clearly not bad. If anything—
So Atem and Yugi were—
"……"
Atem exhaled.
The next time he saw Yugi, Atem had intended to act normal. He couldn't.
"Atem, today's ta'amiya—"
"Right."
"Wait, I haven't finished."
"Ah. True."
Yugi looked at Atem.
"You seem off."
"I'm not off."
"You are."
Atem looked away from Yugi. A king, avoiding the gaze of a teenage boy. Pathetic, he thought. But there was nothing to be done about it.
Looking at Yugi's face brought the image of Yugi making a move on Seto overlapping with it.
When that overlapped, the scene in the study last night followed. The feeling in the region of his chest came back.
"Are you really okay?"
"I'm fine."
He was not fine at all.
It was getting nowhere.
Going around in circles alone, no exit in sight. He concluded he needed to talk to someone. But who, that was the problem.
Mokuba was Seto's brother. Joey and Tristan would make a scene.
Atem looked at his contacts list for a while.
There was one candidate.
A number he had gotten from Yugi. The only girl among the group of friends.
Atem called.
"Atem! It's been a while, what's going on?"
"I need advice."
"Advice?" The surprise of from me? was mixed into her voice. "Of course, go ahead."
Atem talked.
That Yugi had made a move on Seto. That Seto had only reacted to Atem. That he might have become Yugi's rival.
When he finished, laughter came. Quite a lot of laughter.
"Téa?"
"Sorry, I'm sorry, but—" she was laughing as she spoke. "Atem, I'm dating Yugi."
Atem went silent.
"……?"
"Boyfriend and girlfriend. It's been about two years now."
"…That means—"
"There's no way Yugi likes Kaiba. That was definitely something else going on."
Téa was still laughing.
Atem was frozen with his phone in hand.
Yugi doesn't like Seto, because there's Téa.
Then why had Yugi made a move on Seto.
"…From the beginning."
"Probably."
Téa said it. The laughter had settled, and her voice had become a little gentler.
"You were worried about Yugi, weren't you? Enough to agonize over having become his rival."
"That's…"
"Think about what that means yourself."
Atem thought. He had been troubled at the thought of Yugi being a rival.
If he traced a little more precisely why he had been troubled—
"Is that… what it is?"
"I think that's what it is," Téa said.
"So, where does Kaiba stand."
"Well, that's…"
Laughter came again. Short this time.
"Then you'll be fine. Good luck."
The call ended. Atem placed his phone on his knee.
Outside the window, it had become evening.
Seto was looking at him. He didn't want to stop being looked at by Seto.
When he put that into words, what it was — this time, he understood it fairly clearly.
He sent Yugi a message.
"If you're with Téa, you could have told me earlier."
A reply came immediately.
"If I'd told you, the plan would have been obvious."
Then, after a short pause:
"How much did you work out?" — so he sent back "pretty much all of it."
Another pause.
"Atem!"
Just that.
He could almost hear Yugi's voice through the text.
Atem put down his phone and looked at the ceiling.
He understood all of it now. What remained was what to do.
He knocked, and "come in" returned.
He entered Seto's room to find him looking at documents at the desk. The same scene as always. Atem closed the door and walked to the desk.
Seto looked up.
"What."
"I want to talk. About what we should do — the two of us."
Seto set down his documents and looked at Atem.
"…What do you mean."
"About us."
"Us?"
"You and me."
Atem's expression was entirely straight.
"Are you dissatisfied with the current situation? I'm not."
"Neither am I."
"Then what's the problem."
"I'm not dissatisfied, but I haven't decided what we should do. That's the problem."
"What needs to be decided."
"That's what I'm saying—"
"Is the current situation not working for you?"
Atem closed his mouth, but Seto continued.
"Eat, sleep, duel, watch the market. Anything else is possible too. What do you want."
"I don't know."
"You don't know."
"I don't know, but I think something should be done about it."
Seto looked at Atem and was silent for several seconds.
"…I don't follow."
Seto said.
"I'm not explaining it well either."
"…I suppose not."
Atem pulled out a chair and sat down in front of the desk. He was neither given permission nor refused, so he stayed.
"I'll go through it in order."
"Do as you like."
Atem told him everything.
That Yugi had made a move on him. That Seto hadn't reacted. That when Atem did the same thing, there was a reaction. That he had misread it as Yugi liking Seto. That he had contacted Téa and found out it was all a misunderstanding.
Then, about his own feelings — as much as he understood them.
That he had hated the thought of Seto stopping looking at him. That he had thought about what that feeling was. That he had worked out what it was.
As he spoke, he noticed that putting his own feelings into words was harder than expected.
Seto didn't interrupt, and he didn't reach for his documents.
When Atem finished, Seto thought for a moment and said:
"…I follow. Mostly."
"Mostly."
"Mostly."
Seto stood up and came around the desk to stand before Atem, so Atem looked up at him from the chair.
"I understand what you're saying."
His voice was slightly lower than usual.
"…Shall we try something?"
"Try?"
"It probably won't change much. Most things."
Before he could ask what that meant, Seto's hand touched Atem's arm and drew him in.
Atem ended up standing, and the distance between him and Seto closed suddenly.
Seto brought his face close to Atem's. And stopped just short of touching.
"If you object, say so."
At a distance where breath carried, his voice was quiet.
Atem looked at Seto. Seen at close range, Seto's eyes were serious — not testing.
"I don't."
That was his answer.
It probably won't change much, Seto had said.
Most things, that was true.
The next morning too, meals appeared, the market moved, there was someone to duel.
But one thing had changed.
At breakfast, Seto was drinking coffee and reading something. When Atem took his seat, Seto said nothing. But from what he was reading, he looked up just once. Only that.
Most things didn't change.
