Atem wakes up on a dark road in Domino City in the robes of the King of the Underworld, with no memory of being summoned and no idea why he's back. Seto Kaiba, driving home past midnight, stops the car.
One night becomes one week. There are meals, a bed, someone to Duel, and nothing whatsoever required of him. For the first time in three thousand years, Atem is asked for nothing — and finds he no longer wants to go back.
What follows is a securities account, a gold position, a card shop, an official tournament, and a ta'meya stand in the shopping district that Kaiba Corporation insists is a feasibility trial. Yugi and Mokuba, watching two men share a wallet and a breakfast table without ever naming it, decide something has to be done.
Mostly, nothing changes.
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
Atem walked the night road, its streetlights spaced far apart, in no particular hurry.
Cold air met his cheek. The sensation was a familiar one. There was air in the afterlife as well, but not this chill of night, not the sharpness that belonged to the nights of the world above.
He had given no thought to his clothes. Perhaps he should have, but there had been no room to choose anything in the descent to the living world; by the time he noticed, he was standing here in his royal garments. The robes of the King of the Underworld held their whiteness even in the dark, and conspicuous they certainly were, but the hour was near midnight and no one was about.
Where to go had been decided almost automatically.
Yugi's house. The Kame Game Shop.
There was nowhere else, and it was the first place that came to mind as somewhere to return to. It did occur to Atem, at least, that the hour might make him a nuisance. But if he asked for a single night, Yugi would take him in gladly. That much Atem could hold as a fact beyond doubt.
The problem was what came after, and that could wait for tomorrow.
Why he had come back to the living world, Atem himself did not know. He had simply, at some point, been back. No sense of having been summoned. No sense of having wished for it.
Did he still exist as King of the Underworld, or had he only slipped out for this one night? Even that was unclear. But some things give up an answer when you think about them, and some things do not.
Headlights approached from ahead, so he moved to the edge of the road. He had at least that much consideration: a figure in white robes walking the road at this hour would startle a driver. The car he expected to pass him stopped.
"Atem?"
At the low voice, Atem turned.
Seto was leaning 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 blunt. No greeting, no trace of surprise. Though that was like him, if anything was.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I was here before I noticed. And you — what are you doing at this hour?"
"Going home. My hours are no business of yours."
As he spoke, Seto's gaze traveled down the length of Atem's robes and back up again.
"......You've been walking around dressed like that."
"No one is watching."
"I'm watching now."
Atem said nothing.
With no sign of getting out, only his face at the window, Seto looked at him for a while. Atem looked back at the car. The headlights lit the road, and somewhere an insect was singing.
"Where were you headed."
"Aibou's house. I thought I'd impose on him for the night."
The clock in the park read well past midnight.
"I know it's an imposition."
Seto started to say something and stopped. What the words would have been, Atem couldn't tell, but there was a small pause.
"......Get in."
Atem looked at him.
"I have rooms to spare. More rational than dragging Yugi out of bed in the middle of the night."
"That's true enough."
Atem put his hand on the door. The lock released.
It was warm inside the car. He sank into the feel of the leather seat, and that told him that he was, without question, here.
When the door shut, the car pulled away at once.
"You truly don't know why you came back."
Seto kept facing forward, and Atem faced forward as well. The night city flowed past the window.
"I don't. Do you?"
"How should I know."
"Then we're the same."
A brief silence fell. It was not an uncomfortable one.
"I'll think about it tomorrow. Tonight I'll owe you."
"I'll be the one owed."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"The owing is yours to carry. The being owed is mine to hold. They're separate matters."
Atem considered that for a moment.
"......You're right."
Seto did not answer.
Outside the window the night went on. Atem let himself settle back against the seat. The robes of the King of the Underworld spread across the expensive leather, somewhat out of place, and Seto said nothing about it.
When they reached the Kaiba mansion, a single servant was waiting at the entrance. That his expression didn't shift at receiving an unfamiliar guest near midnight showed how thoroughly this household was trained.
"Prepare a guest room."
"Certainly, sir."
That settled it.
The room he was shown to was large. It would rank among the largest places Atem had ever stayed — in the sense of his memories of the living world, at least. On the matter of the furnishings' taste, he decided to reserve judgment.
Seto came as far as the door, said only, "Tell the staff if you need anything," and turned to go.
"Kaiba."
"What."
"......Never mind."
Atem thought for a moment, then thanked him.
Seto paused for just an instant, repeated "I'll be the one owed," and this time went.
Inside the room, Atem began removing his ornaments.
Rings, bracelets, the decorative sash at his waist. Each one he set on the table as he took it off. The gold and jewels accumulated into a pile that, laid out together, amounted to a considerable quantity, but Atem paid it no mind.
Seto was standing at the door by the time Atem had finished with his earrings.
He hadn't come in. The door onto the corridor had been left open, so he must have caught sight of it in passing.
Seto had stopped and was watching Atem remove his ornaments. Without saying anything.
Atem had noticed, and didn't mind.
Something was being calculated inside Seto's head — Atem could tell that much. This was the instinct that came from a long acquaintance.
Eventually Seto spoke, in the tone of someone talking to himself.
"You were lucky nothing happened to you."
Atem turned, working a bracelet off.
"About what?"
"Those ornaments."
Seto indicated the table with his chin.
"Walk a night road dressed like that and someone marks you. Assuming you don't use your occult powers, that is."
Atem looked at the table. A gold collar, bracelets, several rings. Natural enough as the formal dress of the King of the Underworld, but now that it was said, they were certainly conspicuous in the living world.
"......I hadn't considered it."
"No, I imagine not."
There was no reproach in Seto's voice, which was mildly surprising. The Seto of the days when Atem was in the living world would certainly have added a bit more barb to it.
The Seto he had met in the afterlife had spoken with no regard whatsoever for courtesy. That had been like him too, in its way, but tonight there was — how to put it — less excess in the words.
Clearly gentler than the manner he had turned on Atem back when Atem was Yugi's other self.
That had been a relationship built as combat, and tonight was not; perhaps Seto was processing that in his own way.
Atem removed the last ring and looked at the small mound on the table.
"For what it's worth — can you sleep? Are you still the King of the Underworld, or......"
"I don't know."
"There's a great deal you don't know tonight."
"There is. Whether I can sleep is something I won't know until I try."
"I see."
Seto didn't pursue it further, and this time did disappear down the corridor.
Atem closed the door and looked at the canopied bed.
He lay down without knowing whether he could sleep, and when he noticed again, it was morning.
In the corridor to the dining room, he passed Mokuba.
"Oh — Atem! Morning!"
Mokuba swallowed his surprise in an instant and switched to a morning greeting. That speed of adjustment might be the one place the younger brother resembled the elder.
"Good morning, Mokuba."
"I'm heading out, so make yourself at home!"
And with that he ran off.
When Atem entered the dining room, Seto was drinking coffee.
He seemed to have been reading something on a tablet, but he raised his eyes at the sense of Atem coming in. He set what he'd been reading on the table.
"Did you sleep."
"Mostly."
"I see."
The moment Atem took his seat, a servant appeared. The meal was brought out. Bread, eggs, warm soup. Set down quietly in front of him.
"Can you eat. I don't know whether they eat in the afterlife."
"They do."
Atem reached for the soup.
"It isn't that we don't eat."
When he brought it to his lips, heat and salt spread through him. Atem drank the soup for a while without saying anything.
The food of the afterlife is not bad. It is food whose existence is ambiguous, but it serves the purpose of filling hunger. Yet something about it is fundamentally different from the food here.
The ingredients have taste. There is temperature. After you swallow, there is the sense of something certainly remaining inside your body.
"It's good."
He'd said it aloud before he noticed.
Seto spoke with the coffee cup still in his hand.
"Obviously."
Something was mixed into that voice.
Next he reached for the bread. Seto drank his coffee.
Morning light was coming into the dining room.
"What do you intend to do today?"
"For now, think about how to get back. If I can't get back, I'll think of something else."
"And why you returned is still unknown."
"I don't know."
"I see."
Seto asked nothing further.
Atem tore off a piece of bread and ate it. It was better than the afterlife's. That much was certain.
The next morning.
"What did you come up with yesterday."
Seto asked without lifting his eyes from the tablet as Atem came into the dining room.
Atem sat down. The servants brought the meal as they had the day before. This morning there were a few more dishes than yesterday. They must have been watching how he ate.
"......Actually—"
Atem started, and stopped.
At that, Seto raised his eyes from the tablet and looked at Atem's face.
Compared to the previous day, something was clearly different. The tension at his temples had gone slack. There was no strain behind his eyes.
In short, he had a slack-witted look about him.
"I've stopped wanting to go back."
Atem said it a little awkwardly.
Seto set down the tablet.
"......In one day?"
"In one day."
Atem dropped his gaze to the soup. It was the sort of pause that seemed to be searching for an excuse.
"When I think about it—"
Atem began. It was the tone of a man who, having started, could no longer stop.
"In Egypt, most of it was becoming king — the process of getting there was hard — and then once I was king, it was battle. And then I died. In the living world it was mostly battle too. Always battle. Without memories, without a name, and still battle. When I was finally able to go to the afterlife, I thought I could rest at last."
"You thought — meaning?"
"I was made to be king. King of the Underworld. There are duties. Matters that must be decided. Judgments that must be handed down."
Seto said nothing.
Atem went on.
"Yesterday there was nothing. No one asked anything of me. Three warm meals came, and I slept in the afternoon. That was all."
As he spoke, Atem's expression eased slightly. He must have been remembering yesterday. That face was nothing at all like the one Seto had seen in the afterlife, nor the one that had faced him across the field of combat.
It was not the face of a being who had piled battle upon battle.
It was simply the face of a man who had slept well.
"You went soft in one day."
"......I won't deny it."
Atem reached for the bread.
Seto watched him for a while.
Without going all the way to the afterlife, he could not Duel this man. Considering the procedural complexity and the price of going to that place, it was not something that could easily be done. But if he was here, it could be done any time.
The Kaiba mansion had rooms to spare. This was not a household of a scale to be troubled by one more person's food. There were servants.
Atem was, at this moment, eating eggs here. With a slightly more unhurried hand than yesterday.
"This afternoon I'm free."
Seto said.
Atem looked up.
"A Duel. If you've been taking it easy, your skills have dulled. I'll verify it for you."
"You dueled in the afterlife too, didn't you? Or rather, that's mostly all I 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."
There was a brief silence.
Morning light came in through the window. The same light as yesterday.
Atem took another piece of bread.
02
One week since coming to the living world.
There was no reason to go outside.
Meals appeared. He could sleep. There was someone to Duel. There was a book he'd started. That was a day. The next day was the same. It sufficed.
Only the cards were on his mind.
The Kaiba mansion had cards in abundance, as a matter of course. Boxes bought by the case sometimes sat stacked and unopened. He'd been told to use them freely, but that was a separate matter. He wanted to choose a pack himself and open it himself. As a duelist, that was a question of something fundamental.
When he said so to Seto, Seto said, "Go to a card shop," and arranged modern clothes.
Leather pants, a black shirt, a thin jacket to go over them.
It was the first time he'd worn modern clothes since the days when he'd fought in the living world. He checked in the mirror and thought, well, this will do.
"Is there silver?"
Seto pointed at a box. Atem worked his way through it, fastening what he liked around his wrists.
He looked in the mirror one last time. Easier to move in than the robes of the King of the Underworld, certainly.
The card shop was not far from the Kaiba mansion.
Atem went in and stood in front of the shelves lined with packs.
Outdoors for the first time in a week, there were more people than he'd expected. The same inside the shop, but no one turned any particular look on him. Natural enough, since there was nothing suspicious about how he was dressed.
"Huh?"
A voice came from behind him. A voice he knew.
He turned, and Yugi was standing there. Joey Wheeler and Tristan were with him. All three of them were looking at Atem.
Yugi's eyes grew wider and wider.
"Atem?!"
"Keep your voice—"
He said it quietly, but it was already too late.
"How—!"
"Wait, hang on, hold on!"
"Is it real? It's really you, right?"
All three of them crowded around Atem at once, talking over one another.
They were, simply put, loud. The clerk looked over. The other customers looked over.
And they were thrown out.
Outside the shop, the four of them lined up on the pavement.
Yugi still had tears standing in his eyes. Joey's excitement showed no sign of cooling, and Tristan was holding his head in his hands.
"When did you get here?!"
"A week ago."
The three of them froze.
"A week......"
Yugi repeated it slowly.
"You've been here a week?"
"I have."
"Why didn't you contact us!"
Joey's voice went loud again.
"You'd normally go to Yugi's place, wouldn't you? Why—"
"It was night. I thought it would be an imposition."
"It's not an imposition! It's not an imposition at all, if anything— A week, then where were you? How were you getting by?"
Atem thought for a moment.
There was the problem of how to put it accurately.
"Mostly at the Kaiba mansion, on... vacation?"
There was a very long pause.
"............"
Tristan started to say something and gave up.
"The Kaiba mansion...... you mean, that Kaiba's?"
Joey said slowly.
"Is there another Kaiba mansion?"
"No......"
Joey exchanged a look with Yugi.
"He's not that considerate a human being, that guy."
"He's putting me up."
"Did you say vacation? You? At Kaiba's house?"
"Is that strange?"
"Not strange so much as...... Kaiba, doing that...... it's a little unexpected."
"Were you two ever that close?"
Tristan tilted his head.
Atem considered the question for a moment.
Whether close was the accurate expression.
But thinking it over, he was being treated with kindness. That much was certain.
Picked up off a road in the middle of the night. A room prepared. Meals brought out. Clothes arranged. Nothing demanded of him. Someone to Duel. A week of being allowed simply to pass the time, without anything being required of him.
There was no hostility either. Barbed remarks, yes, but that was standard operation.
"We're not on bad terms. If anything, I'd say he's been kind."
Joey looked up at the sky.
"Kaiba. Kind......"
"Hard to accept?"
"Hard to accept."
Joey answered instantly.
Yugi's expression was somewhat different. Less surprised than as though he were making sense of something — or making sense of it while thinking about something else entirely.
"I'm glad."
"About what?"
"That you're somewhere decent. I'm glad."
Atem looked at Yugi.
Yugi was smiling. It was the face of someone smiling on the verge of tears.
"But at least contact us from now on."
"Understood."
"So," Joey said, switching over, "what'd you come to buy? I'll help you pick."
"Packs. I wanted to pull them myself."
The four of them went back into the shop.
The clerk looked over 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 in on how this one had more hits. Tristan objected, and Yugi laughed.
Until a week ago, none of this had existed.
In the afterlife, of course, it hadn't either.
Atem put two packs in the basket.
When he got back to the Kaiba mansion, a servant met him at the entrance.
"Welcome home, sir."
"I'm home."
The words came out naturally. Atem decided not to think too deeply about that.
Back in his room, he opened the packs he'd bought.
The one Joey called "the one with more hits" did in fact have more hits. One card he'd had his eye on came out. Atem held it up to the light and looked at it for a while. A day with a good pull feels different. He thought this was a universal emotion among duelists.
When he went to the dining room at dinnertime, Seto was unusually there.
Work must have ended early, or perhaps he'd been home all day. When Atem sat down, Seto looked up from the documents in his hand.
"Well? How was outside."
"One good card came out."
"Besides that."
"I saw everyone."
Seto's eyes moved slightly.
"Yugi."
"At the card shop. By chance."
Atem reached for the soup. Tonight's dinner was good as well. In a week, his tongue had grown demanding about the standard of the food. This too might be a form of decadence.
"I'd like to be able to contact them. Is there a way?"
Seto went on eating, and let a small pause fall.
"Come to my room later."
That ended the conversation.
After dinner, Atem went to Seto's room.
Seto's room was larger still than the guest room Atem was using. A desk for work, documents stacked on it, monitors lined up along the wall. There was little sense of daily life to it, yet a density that said a person did certainly spend his hours here.
Seto took something out of a desk drawer and held it out to Atem.
A thin flat panel.
"Do you know how to use it."
"Mostly. I watched Aibou and the others using theirs."
Atem worked the screen. A list of contacts opened.
Yugi Muto. Joey Wheeler. Tristan Taylor.
Atem looked at the list. He said nothing in particular.
He knew only one person in this city capable of doing that. Personal information, in front of Seto Kaiba, may as well not exist. He'd understood that this was the kind of man he was.
So he let it pass.
"Thank you."
"If you don't know how to use it, ask the staff."
"I can manage without asking."
"I see."
Atem looked at the list of contacts once more. All three names were entered properly, in kanji.
Leaving the room, walking down the corridor, Atem opened the screen. He chose Yugi first.
Voice would be faster than typing characters. He placed the call, and after several rings a voice said, "Hello?"
"Aibou?"
"The other me?! I was wondering who— ah, don't tell me you got a phone?"
"As of today."
"That's great. Now we can reach each other. Can I give it to Joey and the others?"
"Of course. It was good to see you today."
"Yeah. Let's see each other again."
He hung up, and standing there in the corridor, Atem looked at the screen once more.
Yugi's name remained in the call history.
Today was a good day, Atem thought. The card pulls were good, and he'd seen his friends. He'd gotten a phone.
Back in his own room, he looked at the hit card once more.
Tomorrow, too, was scheduled to be a day with nothing in particular in it.
03
The beginning of the whole affair was that Atem wanted more stimulation.
More precisely: "I buy cards, and beyond that, apparently there are various things to play on the phone." And so on. He said as much 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'm aware I've gone soft."
Atem admitted it. He felt no particular resistance to admitting it.
Seto was silent for a moment, as though considering something. Then—
"Come," he said, and stood.
At the desk in the study, Seto worked a laptop and spoke flatly.
"A securities account."
"Securities?"
"Stocks, foreign exchange, futures. You read the market and you buy and sell. Win, and it becomes real profit."
"Read the market."
"Reading an opponent is your specialty, isn't it. Judging by what I've seen in our Duels."
Seto looked at Atem.
Atem thought about it a moment. This was a new sort of stimulation.
"This is virtual, but it's real. Numbers on a screen, but the money that moves is genuine. Can you grasp that?"
"Mostly."
"I've put in a certain amount of capital. Do as you like. If you burn through it, that's your problem."
"If it's a matter of reading, I'm good at it."
Seto sent the account information to Atem's phone, and left it at that.
Atem was good at the market.
Perhaps that was to be expected. Precision in reading an opponent, and judgment that was not swept along by emotion. Whether the opponent was a person or a market, it did not differ greatly. Read the flow, discern when to move and when to wait. Don't let greed run ahead.
His assets grew steadily.
With the assets he'd grown, he bought cards, put money into games on his phone, watched videos Yugi recommended, and looked at the market again.
He became something of a shut-in.
Reasons to leave the Kaiba mansion had thinned out again.
Two weeks after meeting at the card shop, word came from Yugi.
"Want to all get together?"
The meeting place was the plaza in front of the station. Atem arrived early and sat on a bench, looking at charts on his phone. This morning's movement had been on his mind a little.
"Atem!"
Yugi came running. Joey and Tristan followed behind him.
"Were you waiting?"
"No, I just came early."
Atem put the phone in his pocket.
"What were you looking at?"
"Charts."
"......Charts?"
The three of them looked at each other.
They went into a family restaurant nearby and the four of them took a table.
Once the drinks had come, Joey asked:
"So how've you been lately? What do you do all day at the Kaiba mansion?"
"Mostly... eat, sleep, Duel, and, asset management?"
There was a pause.
"......Asset. Management."
Tristan repeated it slowly.
"Stocks. Reading the market. He taught me that sort of thing."
"Kaiba did?"
"That's right."
"How does that conversation even happen...... that Kaiba bastard......"
Joey made a dubious face.
"It's for further asset management. Which is to say, I wanted spending money for fun."
The phrasing was catastrophic, but they understood that Atem had apparently picked up investing as a pastime.
Another pause. This one longer than the last.
"......Spending money."
"I buy more cards, there's a game Aibou taught me, and I manage assets."
Yugi made an is-this-my-fault? face.
"And for that, stocks......"
"If it's a matter of reading, I'm good at it."
Joey put his elbows on the table.
"Hold on. Let me get this straight. You're the King of the Underworld, right?"
"I am."
"And the King of the Underworld is kicking back in the living world, playing the stock market to make fun money?"
"That is the current state of affairs."
Joey looked up at the ceiling. Tristan put his head in his hands. Only Yugi, still wearing a troubled sort of smile, said, "Atem......"
"Are you sane?"
Joey still had the face of a man who couldn't believe it.
"Perfectly sane."
"That's not what a sane King of the Underworld does."
"I'm on vacation."
"And how long is this vacation projected to run?"
At Tristan's question, Atem's eyes slid slightly away.
"......Undecided."
"Undecided."
"There's no reason to go back at present."
Yugi said "Atem......" again. A slightly different tone this time. Exasperated, or laughing, or possibly something else.
Atem picked up the menu.
"What are you eating? I've mostly decided."
"That was fast — how have you decided already?"
Joey leaned over to look.
"I checked the menu before I came."
Tristan muttered, "He's completely a modern person now......"
Yugi finally burst out laughing. Once he started he couldn't seem to stop, and Joey caught it from him and started laughing too. Tristan laughed while saying, "Is this funny?"
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 moved gently, neither spiking nor collapsing. Over long stretches of time it held its value with certainty. Looking at the charts, the reason people had sought gold for thousands of years came to him as a sensation. Atem added to his position bit by bit. He put his hand to stocks, foreign exchange, several bonds besides. None of them were bad, but gold alone held a different familiarity.
He decided to return the capital around the point when his unrealized gains exceeded it.
After dinner, Atem told Seto he would return the capital.
Seto looked up from his documents.
"Don't want it."
"Take it. It's a question of form."
"It's a nuisance. That account is yours. Don't add to the labor of managing my assets."
"......I see."
"You do."
Seto returned his eyes to the documents. Atem stood there for a while, but nothing further was said to him, so he went back to his room.
The capital he had failed to return went into the market again the next day.
Roughly one month of life in the living world.
Atem hadn't been counting; he learned it one morning at breakfast when a message came from Yugi saying It's been a month since you came to the living world. Now that you mention it, he thought.
He felt no sign in himself of returning to the afterlife.
Whether he could not return or would not return — that boundary was still unclear as well.
But honestly, he wasn't very concerned about it. Today's market was on his mind, and he'd only opened half of the pack of cards that had arrived yesterday.
The master of the house had never once told him to get out.
Nor was there any sign that he would.
Mokuba observed well.
He had watched his brother closely for a long time. He thought it was the younger brother's role, and in fact it was something that needed doing. Seto Kaiba was a man who did not speak about himself.
In the month since Atem's arrival, there were things Mokuba had confirmed.
His brother was kind to Atem.
He'd prepared a room. Arranged clothes. Handed over a phone. Opened an account. Demanded nothing. Dueled him. Sat at the same table for meals. Never said get out.
Each of these might have a rational explanation. There were rooms to spare. Without clothes he couldn't go outside. Without a phone it was inconvenient.
But Mokuba could tell. His brother was being kind to Atem. And it was the kind of kindness that wasn't intentional — the kind where you notice that it has already become that way.
And Atem was leaning into it with remarkable naturalness.
Without malice, without reserve, but with gratitude all the same. The King of the Underworld was in the Kaiba mansion in the living world, playing the stock market and adding to his gold position. The strangeness of that fact went entirely unnoticed by the two people it concerned.
With the two of them as they used to be, it would have been unthinkable.
The brother and the other Yugi that Mokuba had watched in the past had Dueled whenever they met, and gone on throwing sparks after it ended. It was a relationship built as combat. Acknowledging each other's existence and still fiercely rejecting each other. That tension had been real, and Mokuba did not deny it.
But perhaps that had not been all of it, he also thought.
His brother did not throw Atem out, and Atem did not go back.
Neither of them explained.
At the breakfast table, Mokuba heard his brother, over coffee, ask the Atem across from him whether he'd seen this morning's movement in gold. He heard Atem answer, I saw it. How do you read it?
With the two of them as they used to be, it was an unthinkable conversation.
Mokuba ate his toast and listened to it.
His brother was kind, and Atem was leaning into it.
It wasn't a bad thing, Mokuba thought.
The reception room at Kaiba Corporation was orderly no matter when you came.
Yugi sat on the sofa and reached for the coffee that had been brought out. He'd arrived a little before the appointed time, so he was waiting for Mokuba.
The file with the concept for the new game was in his bag. That was what he'd brought to discuss today. The cooperative relationship with Kaiba Corporation predated Atem's arrival.
Mokuba came in.
"Sorry to keep you, Yugi."
"Thanks, Mokuba. Is Kaiba doing all right?"
"Yeah. He's in another meeting right now."
"I see. Good."
Yugi took out the file. The two of them turned pages and talked business for a while. Mokuba was quick on the uptake and picked out the essential points precisely. He takes after his brother, Yugi always thought.
The talk ran its course, and there was a lull while they drank their coffee.
"Is Atem doing all right too? He messages me lately, but it's mostly about gold, or cards, or games."
"He's fine."
Mokuba said, but the way he said it was slightly flat.
Yugi looked at him.
"......Did something happen? A fight or something?"
"They're not fighting."
"Then......?"
Mokuba looked at his coffee cup for a moment. It was the sort of pause that meant he was arranging something.
"Yugi, what would you say...... a relationship where you share a wallet, and you come home to the same house, and you're kind to each other and lean on each other, and you do fun things together — what do you think that is?"
Yugi started to answer, and stopped.
"......What is that?"
"I mean Nii-sama and Atem."
"Huh."
"Every morning at the same table, talking about stocks or cards. Atem uses the phone Nii-sama arranged. Atem's account was opened by Nii-sama. Nii-sama watches from beside him while Atem adds to his gold."
With each thing Mokuba said, a picture formed in Yugi's head.
"Last week they were opening cards together. The ones bought by the box."
"......Yeah."
"It's not that they're on bad terms. If anything it's normal, it's just — normal. That's the thing."
Mokuba let out a sigh.
It was not a short sigh. It was a sigh with about a month's worth of weight in it.
"What even are those two."
Something began slowly taking shape in Yugi's head.
The same wallet. The same house to come home to. Being kind, leaning in, doing fun things together.
That's — he started to think, and stopped.
No, but, he thought.
Those two, as a preface, complicated the words that came after. The fact of those two let the conclusion slip neatly away. But the escaped conclusion was trying to land somewhere, and the place it was trying to land was faintly visible.
He didn't have the courage to check.
"Mokuba, are you troubled by it?"
That was all he managed.
"Not troubled. Neither of them looks unhappy. It's just......"
"Just?"
"Watching it is tiring, somehow."
Yugi felt he understood that tiredness a little.
When you keep looking at something that won't come into focus, your eyes tire from trying to find the outline. That kind of tiredness.
"I see."
"You're making the same face."
"Huh?"
"This whole time."
Yugi touched his own face. He hadn't meant to be making any such face.
"I'm not."
"You are."
The two of them drank their coffee for a little while.
Outside the window, the townscape of Domino City spread out. Somewhere in it was the Kaiba mansion, where Atem was probably looking at charts right now, or laying out cards, or possibly taking a nap.
Neither of them raised the subject again.
But Mokuba's words stayed in Yugi's head exactly as they were.
A relationship where the wallet is the same, and the house you come home to is the same, and you're kind to each other or leaning on each other, and you do fun things together.
On the way home, he thought about it vaguely.
And while thinking, he avoided touching the conclusion.
That night, Yugi sent Atem a message.
"I went to Kaiba Corp today."
"You saw Mokuba, didn't you?"
"Yeah. He seemed well."
There was a short pause, and then:
"Gold moved a little. It was a good pull."
Yugi laughed at that and sent back, "Good for you."
Read appeared, and that was the end of it. Yugi set the phone down and looked at the ceiling.
It was a good pull, Atem had said.
Atem had only started saying things like that since coming to the living world. The King of the Underworld, saying it was a good pull.
In Yugi's head, the haze stayed quietly where it was, without producing an answer.
04
"There's a tournament."
Seto said it at dinner.
"A tournament?"
"An official Magic & Wizards tournament. Held next Sunday."
Atem listened while drinking his soup.
"For general entrants, mind you."
"I see."
"It's Sunday. Are you entering?"
Atem thought for a moment. Sunday. The day the markets are closed.
"I'll enter."
Seto set down his coffee cup.
"I'll arrange the passport."
That was that.
The day of the tournament was clear.
He went into the venue in modern clothes, naturally. He fitted the Duel Disk over his jacket and checked his deck. He'd rebuilt it three days ago and was satisfied with its current state.
From the first round, Atem fought carefully.
Read the tendencies of the opponent's deck within a few moves, predict the development, and go for the win by the surest route rather than the shortest. Not fundamentally different from reading the market. Infer the opponent's hand, read the next move ahead, close off the escape routes.
As he advanced through the second round and the third, the gallery grew.
An unknown first-time entrant winning his way up without a stumble. That alone draws the eye. Atem didn't particularly notice. He was focused on the Duels.
The final was against an opponent with a well-constructed deck. Which is to say, it was the most enjoyable match. Even so, Atem came out ahead in the last exchange of reads.
He won.
The problem was what came after.
An interviewer came. Not just one.
"Your thoughts looking back on today's tournament."
"From the opening I concentrated on reading my opponents' decks."
"Where do you think the turning point of the final was?"
"Turn three, when I judged that my opponent was holding back his hand traps. I changed my approach there."
"This is your first time entering an official tournament, isn't it. Where and how do you usually practice?"
"Live practice at the Kaiba mansion."
A stir went through the crowd. Atem tilted his head slightly.
"By Kaiba, do you mean President Kaiba of Kaiba Corporation?"
"Who else?"
"And what is your relationship?"
"A relationship of Dueling."
Another stir, in a different tone.
"And where do you usually reside?"
"The Kaiba mansion."
This stir was a different kind again.
The questions multiplied.
There was no reason to lie, so Atem answered them one by one. But each answer brought the next question, and the number of reporters was growing. Multiple cameras were pointed at him.
Around the time it became unclear when this would end, the crowd parted.
"That's enough."
It was Seto's voice.
Atem's wrist was seized, and he was pulled.
Atem followed obediently. The reporters were saying something, but Seto did not look back. They went down a corridor, opened a staff door, and went in.
When the door closed, the voices outside were cut off and it was finally quiet.
"You said far too much."
Seto let go of Atem's wrist.
"They asked, so I answered."
"So I gathered."
"There's no need to lie."
Seto started to say something and stopped.
Atem looked at his own wrist. A little of the sensation of being held remained.
"The result was a foregone conclusion. I wasn't entered."
"That's like you. The day the markets were closed was put to good use."
"You have no complaints?"
"None. It was enjoyable."
Voices were still audible outside the corridor. There was the sound of staff moving. Seto folded his arms and glanced once at the door.
"Stay here a while. We'll leave once it's cleared."
"Understood."
Atem leaned his back against the wall. The weight of the Duel Disk was on his arm. The reality of having won came to him a little, only now that it was quiet.
"Will you enter the next tournament as well."
"If the markets are closed."
That was Atem's answer.
Seto let out a short breath. It was a sound that could not be judged as exasperation or as something else.
He stood in that corridor until Seto finished his work and came back.
05
Turning on the television had become a habit after lunch.
He'd let the news run while checking charts on his phone. If one of them caught his interest he'd focus on that one. If neither did he'd half-watch both. About a month and a half into the living world, that way of passing the time had settled in.
The screen changed, and the shopping district of Domino City appeared.
The reporter was saying something, and Atem lifted his eyes from his phone.
"Ta'meya has become a talking point all across Japan, and the shop that opened here in Domino City last month has been drawing lines day after day."
Something like a round croquette appeared on screen.
Fava beans and herbs, combined and fried. Thin and firm on the outside, green and soft within.
Atem watched the television. He set down his phone. He decided to go out.
He changed into modern clothes and took his wallet. The wallet held the card he'd been given, but also cash he'd withdrawn after realizing gains. It wasn't that he'd been troubled about what to spend it on, but this was the first time the use had been so clear.
He left the Kaiba mansion and walked in the direction of the shopping district.
Just as the television had said, the shop was easy to find. Because there was a line. Atem took his place at the end of it.
The line moved slowly. The people ahead of him were talking happily. Atem faced forward.
When he came near the shop, he could smell fried herbs.
Atem breathed the smell in for a moment.
Memories of several thousand years ago do not usually come to you with any clarity. In the afterlife and in the living world alike, the past is set aside as past. But smell is particular; the sense of it must travel by some other route, and before you notice you are pulled back into the place inside the memory.
Atem blinked.
Now it was the shopping district of Domino City.
His turn came and he ordered. What he received looked much like the thing in his memory.
He took a bite.
It was not entirely the same. The blend of herbs was a little different, and perhaps the frying oil as well. But that was fine. It did not need to be entirely the same.
It was good.
Atem ate as he walked.
Back at the Kaiba mansion, when he went to put the wallet away, a receipt came out with it.
A small paper folded neatly. Opened, it listed the items ordered and the amounts.
At the very bottom, in small characters, the issuer was printed.
Kaiba Corporation.
Atem looked at the receipt.
He looked at it again.
A ta'meya shop that had recently opened in the shopping district of Domino City. Expanding across Japan.
Kaiba Corporation was expanding ta'meya across Japan.
Atem considered that for a while. And while considering it, he tried to judge whether this was a thing to ask about or a thing that did not need asking.
At dinner, Seto was drinking coffee.
"I ate ta'meya."
Seto looked up.
"There was a shop in the shopping district."
"I see."
The tone was nothing in particular.
"The receipt said Kaiba Corporation."
"I approved the opening. A feasibility trial for introducing Middle Eastern food culture to the Japanese market. The revenue is secondary."
Atem looked at Seto. Seto drank his coffee. He said nothing further.
A feasibility trial. The revenue secondary.
Atem still had the receipt. For no particular reason, he put it back into his wallet.
"It was good."
"I see."
After that, he ate the dinner that was brought out.
Atem thought about today's ta'meya. That the blend of herbs had been a little different, that it had been good all the same, the characters at the very bottom of the receipt.
Seto said nothing, but that, too, was standard operation.
He'd been going to the ta'meya shop a number of times. A favorite food really is a good thing.
And this time, not alone: he called Yugi, Joey, and Tristan.
The four of them stood in line, the four of them took their orders, and the four of them sat in a row on a bench in the shopping district.
"So this is it. Damn, that's good."
"Right?"
"It's Egyptian food, was it?"
"Apparently it's all over the Middle East. Egypt had it too."
"So it's the taste of home for you. That's kind of nice."
Joey and Tristan talked at him one after another.
Yugi ate in silence, but said, "It's good." "It's plain, but you don't get tired of it."
"Yes. That's it exactly."
The four of them ate for a while. There was foot traffic in the shopping district, and music was coming from some shop. The sky was clear.
"Come to think of it, you come here a lot lately, don't you?"
Tristan said.
"Now and then."
"Amazing. Congratulations on escaping shut-in status."
Tristan laughed.
"I didn't consider myself a shut-in."
"You didn't leave the Kaiba mansion for a week at the start, right?"
"I had no business outside."
"That's what a shut-in is," Tristan declared. "But now you're properly getting out. Cause for celebration."
"Congratulations," Yugi laughed too.
"To think you'd be lured out by food."
Joey laughed as well.
"The King of the Underworld, huh."
"I'm aware I was lured."
"You're aware of it?"
"I am," Atem said, and then thought a little. "Only......"
"Only?"
"Whether what lured me was the ta'meya."
Atem looked at the thing in his hand.
"Or whether it was set up from the start."
The three of them looked at him.
"You've got someone in mind who'd set it up?"
"One person."
Joey burst into enormous laughter.
"Don't tell me — Kaiba? Went to all that trouble?"
"He said it was a feasibility trial."
"That's an excuse!"
Joey said through his laughter.
"He's covering."
"Does Kaiba cover for himself?"
"You can't say for certain he doesn't, hearing how things have been going lately."
Atem took a bite of ta'meya.
If it had been set up, it was a beautifully clean setup. A shop run by Kaiba Corporation opens in Domino City. It's featured on television. Atem sees it. He wants to eat it. He goes outside.
Perhaps he was overthinking. Perhaps it really was a feasibility trial.
But Seto was not a man who left things to coincidence. Atem knew that well.
Yugi hadn't said anything.
Atem looked at him. Yugi was eating his ta'meya with a distant look in his eyes. An expression that couldn't be judged — as though he were thinking about something, or trying not to think about it.
"Aibou."
"Huh — oh, what?"
"Is it good?"
"It's good," Yugi smiled. It looked like a slightly hurried smile. "It's 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 out of the house, that that was giving him far too much credit, but then again this was Kaiba.
Yugi listened to the conversation and looked into the distance again.
Today it was clear, and the ta'meya was good, and he was sitting on a bench in a row with his friends.
"Let's come again."
Atem said.
"Yeah," Yugi nodded. This time the smile was natural. "Let's come again."
Word came from Mokuba at night.
A short message arrived on Yugi's phone.
"We really should do something about it, right."
Yugi answered immediately.
"I think so too."
"Got anything in mind?"
Yugi thought for a while. And while thinking, he sorted out what it was he was trying to think about. A way to turn those two — who shared a wallet, who came home to the same house, who were kind and leaned into that kindness — into something that could be put into words.
"I do."
Yugi sent back.
"Let's hear it."
The plan was simple.
Yugi would make an approach at Seto, in front of Atem. Atem would see it, and realize his own feelings.
"Isn't that a little too crude?"
Even Mokuba recoiled.
"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 put in an appearance. Atem, for some reason, had been summoned by Mokuba and had come along today.
"I'm leaving."
Seto started to say.
"Kaiba."
Yugi called out to him.
"What."
Yugi turned to Seto and, exactly as rehearsed, tilted his chin down and looked up at him through his lashes. He put on a smile.
"Today's meeting really helped. Things go so much faster when you're there, Kaiba."
"Obviously."
"I'm counting on you."
Seto's eyebrow moved fractionally. That was all.
"Is that all? If you've no business, go home."
Seto was running standard operation.
Yugi kept the smile in place and glanced sideways at Atem.
Atem was watching Yugi.
He had a puzzled look on his face. His head was tilted slightly.
"......Aibou? Are you all right. Are you feeling unwell?"
"Huh? Why?"
"Something seems off."
"Nothing's off."
"Your eyes are opening differently than usual."
"Don't look at things like that."
Behind them, Mokuba was quietly holding his head in his hands.
Back at the Kaiba mansion, after dinner, Atem sat on the sofa and thought about Yugi today.
I'm counting on you, he had said.
Chin down, looking up, smiling.
Atem replayed the scene. He could not work out Yugi's intent in doing it. The response had been cold, but Yugi had been unlike himself.
Why had he done it. And having done it, what had he expected as a result.
As he went on thinking, one hypothesis surfaced. Atem examined it for a moment. And decided to test it.
Seto was in the study.
He knocked, and "Enter" came back, so Atem opened the door.
Seto was looking at documents at the desk, but raised his head.
"What."
Atem walked up in front of him.
"About the tournament the other day — I never thanked you. You made the arrangements. I was able to enter because of it."
"And?"
Seto started to say.
Atem tilted his chin the way Yugi had, and looked up at him.
"I'm counting on you."
Seto's hand stopped.
Still holding the documents, he stopped, and looked at Atem.
"......"
And then, two blinks.
Atem saw it.
Saw it, and the meaning of what Yugi had done today rose up with an outline to it.
Yugi had done it at Seto.
Seto had not reacted to Yugi.
When Atem did it, he reacted.
Atem stood there in silence for a while.
Seto was silent too. Still holding the documents, his gaze angled slightly away from Atem.
"Is that all you came for."
The voice was lower than usual.
"It is."
"Then get out."
"All right."
Atem left the study.
Walking down the corridor, he thought about Seto's blinking a moment ago, and thought also about what state he himself was in right now.
There was something around his chest that was not usual. If it were to be given a name, what that name would be, Atem did not yet know.
It was not a bad thing, though.
The next morning, he sent Yugi a message.
"So that's what yesterday was about."
After a while a reply came.
"......How much did you work out?"
"Mostly."
The message stayed read, with no reply for some time.
Then: "Atem, you weren't as slow as I thought."
Atem set the phone down. Outside the window, morning was beginning.
06 Most of It
That he'd mostly worked it out was true.
But mostly was only mostly.
On the sofa in his room, Atem sorted through everything since yesterday.
Yugi had made an approach at Seto. Seto hadn't reacted. When Atem did the same thing, Seto reacted. So Seto was looking at Atem, not at Yugi. That much was clear.
But on the question of why Yugi had done it, Atem's interpretation was spectacularly off.
Yugi is in love with Seto. That's why he made an approach at Seto. But Seto is looking at Atem. Yugi hasn't noticed.
Mostly, that was it. Atem arrived at that conclusion.
Arrived at it, and couldn't move for a while.
Yugi is in love with Seto.
Seto is looking at Atem.
Atem does not think it a bad thing that Seto is looking at him. On the contrary, recalling the sensation around his chest last night, it was distinctly not a bad thing.
Which meant that Atem and Yugi were—
"......"
Atem let out a sigh.
The next time he saw Yugi, Atem meant to act normally, and could not act normally.
"Atem, today's ta'meya—"
"Right."
"Huh? I haven't said anything yet."
"Mm. So you haven't."
Yugi looked at him.
"Something's off with you, isn't it?"
"Nothing's off."
"It is."
Atem looked away from Yugi. A king avoiding the gaze of a teenage boy. He was aware it was pathetic. But there was nothing to be done.
When he looked at Yugi's face, the face of Yugi making an approach at Seto overlaid it.
And when that overlaid, the study last night came. The sensation around his chest returned.
"Are you really okay?"
"I'm fine."
He was not fine at all.
It was going nowhere.
Thinking alone only circled the same place, and there was no way out. He arrived at the conclusion that he needed to talk to someone. But then there was the problem of who.
Mokuba was Seto's brother. Joey and Tristan would turn it into an uproar.
Atem looked at his contact list for a while.
There was one candidate.
A number he'd gotten from Yugi. The only woman among them.
Atem placed the call.
"Atem! It's been a while — what's up?"
"I have something to consult you about."
"Consult me?" There was surprise mixed into her voice — me? "Of course, that's fine."
Atem talked.
That Yugi had made an approach at Seto. That Seto had only reacted to Atem. That he might have become Yugi's rival in love.
When he finished, laughter came. Quite enormous laughter.
"Téa?"
"Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, but—" she said, still laughing. "Atem, I'm dating Yugi."
Atem fell silent.
"......?"
"Boyfriend and girlfriend. It's been about two years now, I think."
"......That is."
"There's no way Yugi's in love with Kaiba. He absolutely had some other reason."
Téa was still laughing.
Atem sat frozen with the phone in his hand.
Yugi is not in love with Seto, because Téa exists.
Then Yugi's approach at Seto was—
"......From the very beginning."
"Probably."
Téa said. The laughter had settled, and her voice had gone a little gentle.
"You were worried about Yugi, weren't you? Worried enough to agonize over becoming his rival."
"That is......"
"Think about what that means, on your own."
Atem thought. He'd taken Yugi for a rival and been troubled by it.
Tracing back, a little more precisely, why he'd been troubled—
"Is that...... what it is?"
"I think that's what it is," Téa said.
"So what about Kaiba?"
"Well, that's......"
Laughter came again. Shorter this time.
"Then you're fine, aren't you. Good luck."
The call ended. Atem set the phone on his knees.
Outside the window it had turned to evening.
Seto is looking at him. He doesn't want to stop being looked at by Seto.
What this becomes when it's put into words — that, this time, he more or less understood.
He sent Yugi a message.
"If you're dating Téa, tell me in advance."
A reply came at once.
"If I'd told you, the plan would've been blown."
Then, after a small pause,
"How much did you work out?" came, so
"Mostly all of it," he sent.
Another pause.
"Atem!"
That was all that came.
He could practically hear Yugi's voice out of the characters.
Atem set the phone down and looked at the ceiling.
He'd worked all of it out. What remained was what to do about it.
He knocked, and "Enter" came back.
When he went into Seto's room, he was looking at documents at the desk. The same scene as always. Atem closed the door and walked up in front of the desk.
Seto raised his head.
"What."
"There's something I want to discuss. What we ought to do."
Seto set down the documents and looked at Atem.
"......What do you mean."
"About us."
"Us?"
"You and me."
Atem's expression was perfectly serious.
"Are you dissatisfied with the current state of things? I'm not."
"Nor am I."
"Then what is the problem."
"I'm not dissatisfied, but we haven't decided what we ought to do. That's the problem."
"What is there to decide."
"That's what I'm—"
"Are you inconvenienced by things staying as they are?"
Atem closed his mouth, but Seto went on.
"You eat, you sleep, you Duel, you watch the market. And you can do anything else besides. What is it you want to do."
"I don't know."
"You don't know."
"I don't know, but I think something ought to be done about it."
Seto looked at Atem and was silent for several seconds.
"......I don't understand what you mean."
Seto said.
"I haven't explained it well, either."
"......No, you haven't."
Atem pulled out a chair and sat down in front of the desk. He was neither permitted nor refused, so he stayed where he was.
"I'll go through it in order."
"Do as you like."
Atem told him everything.
That Yugi had been making an approach. That Seto hadn't reacted. That when he did the same thing there had been a reaction. That he'd mistakenly concluded Yugi was in love with Seto. That he'd contacted Téa and learned it had all been a misunderstanding.
And then he talked about his own feelings, as far as he understood them.
That he hadn't wanted Seto to stop looking at him. That he'd thought about what that feeling of not wanting was. That he'd thought about it, and understood.
As he talked, he noticed that saying his feelings out loud was harder than he'd expected.
Seto didn't interrupt partway through, and didn't reach for the documents.
When Atem finished, he thought for a moment, then said:
"......I've mostly got it."
"Mostly."
"Mostly."
Seto stood, came around the desk, and stopped in front of Atem, so Atem looked up at him from where he sat.
"I understand what you're saying."
The voice was a little lower than usual.
"......Shall we test it?"
"Test it?"
"Nothing will change, though. Mostly."
Before he could ask what that meant, Seto's hand touched Atem's arm and pulled.
Drawn up onto his feet, the distance between Atem and Seto suddenly closed.
Seto brought his face close to Atem's. And stopped just short of touching.
"If you have an objection, say it."
At a distance where breath reached, the voice was quiet.
Atem gazed at him. Seto's eyes, seen from this close, were serious. He was not testing anything.
"None."
He answered.
Nothing will change, Seto had said.
Mostly, he was right.
The next morning the meals came out, the markets moved, and there was someone to Duel.
Only one thing had changed.
At the breakfast table, Seto was drinking coffee and reading something. When Atem took his seat, Seto said nothing. But he lifted his eyes from what he was reading, once. Only that.
Mostly, nothing changed.
