Seto Kaiba visits the afterlife regularly. He hands the priests a tablet so the King's paperwork goes faster, because faster paperwork means more time for Duels. This is, in his own accounting, purely self-interested.
The afterlife does not see it that way. The market sweeps his route. The priests begin to worry that their King has been single for three thousand years. And there is one gentleman, everyone agrees, who would do very nicely.
Atem can see exactly where this is going. Unfortunately, so can Kaiba — and he has no objection whatsoever, provided the arrangement guarantees him a permanent opponent.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 囲い込み婚
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
In the afterlife this was, by now, an ordinary thing, and among the residents it had come to be treated as something close to a topic of weather.
And yet. Even so.
"He's here again today."
"Oh, so he is."
"That face of his is as lovely as ever."
The women of the market on the main street murmured to one another, stealing glances.
At the end of that gaze, one man walking.
Advancing with a white coat billowing — a coat plainly not made of any material from the afterlife — was Seto's standard operation. And he had no particular business at the market; the shortest route to the palace simply passed through it, so he passed through it.
Even so. Still.
The usual route Seto took had, at some point, come to be swept clean.
Nor was that all.
The fruit seller, for instance, would rearrange the glossiest fruit at the height of Seto's eye line at the front of the stall. The other shops were much the same. Everyone knew perfectly well he wouldn't buy anything, and still they arranged it beautifully.
Of such heartbreaking effort on the part of the market's people, the man himself was unaware.
Because in Seto's recognition, the market on the afterlife's main street was a thing that was swept clean, and a shopfront was a thing that was in order. He had already registered it as such.
The world ought at all times to be optimized toward him, and in the case where it actually is, there is no noise in it, and it is received as a matter of course. That is all there is to it.
An orderly route is the afterlife's standard specification. In Seto's mind, that was the recognition.
It wasn't only the market that pursued Seto.
At the palace, a priest was holding up a thin board.
"Lord Seto. Thanks to this board — this calculator — our work progresses."
The surrounding priests let out sighs of admiration. What was being held up was, in fact, not a calculator but a smallish tablet.
Naturally, nothing of the sort had existed in the afterlife until then.
Atem had been the first to use the calculator function and call it the calculator, and that had simply stuck.
Seto had handed it to the priest of finance on one of his visits, some number of them in.
The reason was simple. Within the king's official duties, the time expended on calculation occupied a considerable weight. Cut that away, and Atem's hands would be free; with his hands free, the time for Duels would increase.
—— In short, it was for his own sake.
But the priests did not receive it that way.
"There is no one else who gives such thought to His Majesty's official duties."
"And he asks for nothing whatsoever in return."
And yet. That was wrong.
He was asking, and he was receiving. The return that was time for Duels, Seto collected in full every single time.
But in the eyes of the priests, the hours in which the king and his guest took their measure of each other and faced off in earnest were reflected as something else, something special that was not a return at all.
And in this manner, the afterlife's regard for Seto Kaiba piled up, indiscriminately and without restraint.
"Your Majesty."
At the end of a day's official duties, an elderly priest stepped forward. The other priests, too, had somehow fallen into ranks behind him.
For some reason, the eyes of every one of them were shining the way they had when they got the calculator.
"Your Majesty, if you are to take a spouse, we believe now is the time."
Atem raised an eyebrow and stopped his brush mid-stroke.
"......What is this about?"
"Your Majesty has been alone for longer than the span of your reign."
Counting the sealing, the number comes to three thousand years and a little more. The priest appeared to have adopted the longer figure.
There was a temperature in the priest's voice, something like solicitude. The priests seemed to be, in all seriousness, worried about their king being past marrying age.
"The people, too, are concerned."
"The people? There's no need for concern."
"There are a great many who say, if it were that gentleman......"
"......"
Who that gentleman referred to needed no asking.
As to the one with the highest regard in the afterlife, he had a notion.
Atem started to open his mouth, and closed it.
He could give his rival a word of warning. Though supposing he did, that man was not one to listen.
But the trouble was that the pushing came from the unmixed goodwill of the people and the priests. Words that would slight goodwill were not something Atem, as king, possessed.
And if he said nothing to either side and simply left it alone, he had a rough idea of what would happen.
The whole of the afterlife would raise itself up and begin the lock-in of Seto Kaiba. Not that he thought the man would be locked in so easily.
Atem looked at the bundle of papyrus set out before him. Today's portion was oddly thin.
"Hm? Today's documents......"
"As we were informed that today is a day of Lord Seto's visit, we have adjusted His Majesty's official duties."
The priest answered with a truly excellent smile.
The lock-in, it seemed, had already begun.
On the next day of his visit, the place Seto was first shown to was not the usual guest room.
It was a room in a detached palace. There was a garden.
A garden of sand. There is water in the afterlife, in a manner of speaking, but presumably not enough to be drawn into this garden. In its place, fine sand flowed down in a thin stream and fell into a pipe resembling bamboo. By what principle was unclear, but it was working a shishi-odoshi with sand.
Kapon.
A dry sound.
A waterless shishi-odoshi of sand.
A karesansui, upgraded.
Japanese forms had been transplanted into the ancient Egyptian afterlife — from where, and for what purpose, unknown.
In the room facing the garden, seats had been arranged opposite one another. On a low round table there were sweets, and it was a layout with neither a seat of honor nor a lower seat.
Atem, arriving afterward having finished his official duties, noticed something after taking his seat.
He knew this. It was a Japanese form, and moreover, it was the seat of an omiai.
He knew that the go-between arranges the seats, sets the parties facing each other, and then, judging the moment, says a fixed thing and leaves.
Probably looked it up on the calculator, Atem thought.
An attendant carried in tea.
He set the two vessels down where they wouldn't be in the way, and bowed deeply.
"Well then, we shall leave the rest to the two young people."
He actually said it.
He actually left.
For all the talk of being long unwed, there was some question as to whether three thousand years old fell within the definition of young. But that was not where the problem lay.
Atem looked at Seto through the steam of the vessel. Seto had already taken a mouthful of tea and was watching the flow of sand in the garden. He hasn't noticed this form. Which stands to reason. In this man's dictionary there can be no such word as omiai. Unfortunately for the priests, even if there were, it would have been processed with the single word inefficient.
If he had noticed, there was a possibility of a table being flipped, but there was no sign of it.
The only one who has noticed is himself, here.
Atem quietly put strength into the hand holding the vessel.
Kapoon.
The shishi-odoshi sounded.
"What do you intend to do about it?"
Seto said, still looking at the garden.
Atem lifted his face.
"......About what."
"About this situation. The line from the man who brought the tea, the arrangement of the seats, this garden. Your country's people are assembling a marriage proposal."
He had noticed.
Something broke inside Atem. It was light.
There was a human being besides himself who recognized this situation as strange. Which is to say, an ally. With an ally, he could counter it. He could open a hole in the priests' cordon of goodwill from the inside.
"Kaiba, so you'd noticed as well. Then this is simple. They mean no harm. But refusing head-on would give offense. First we should——"
"There's no need for that."
"......What?"
Seto set down the tea vessel.
"The conclusion is settled."
The sand of the garden went on flowing without a sound, its principle still unknown.
"If you stand before me, I don't care what form it takes."
Atem's eyes went round, and then he looked at Seto flatly.
"Don't care, you say — you...... that's......"
"Married or whatever else. I'm saying that so long as a system in which you stand before me is permanently secured, the nominal designation is of no consequence. That lot's marriage proposal functions as that mechanism. Then there's no reason not to make use of it."
It was a duelist's reasoning. From beginning to end, a duelist's reasoning. Standard operation.
And within this man, that made the whole line of argument consistent. Which is to say, he was saying it in his right mind.
—— In short, it is for his own sake.
He was not an ally. If anything, he was a bomb.
The cordon's final hope. And the innermost one, at that.
Kappoon.
The shishi-odoshi sounded once more.
Light had broken in. It had only broken in.
The sound of salvation being cut off was, as expected, a dry one.
Everything after that was fast.
By what route was unclear, but it had reached the priests as His Majesty has won him himself. A closed-door meeting no one was supposed to have witnessed had, by the following day, already become that.
Preparations advanced steadily.
Garments were tailored, the order of ceremony was assembled, the railing of the palace terrace was polished anew. On the day the proclamation went out to the people, it is said that at the market the fruit seller rearranged every piece of fruit in the shop in order of glossiness. For whose viewing was something nobody considered. That is what a festival is.
Atem watched all of it from his office.
He had already exhausted his examination of the means to stop it. Halt it by royal command, and it takes the form of the king slighting the goodwill of the people and the priests. Try to have Seto refuse, and Seto himself is the core of the cordon.
One concern remained.
Seto had said he didn't care what form it took. But whether, at that point, he had anticipated this speed. When he came next and saw the palace dyed entirely in wedding colors, might he not fly into a rage that this was not what was discussed. This time, surely, the table would be flipped.
Yes — if he would only rage, there would still be a way to stop it.
Atem was, to the extent that he thought such things, still in his right mind.
The next day Seto came was, as expected, the day of the marriage rite itself.
The road leading to the palace had been packed with people since morning. Flowers of the afterlife were scattered, a song began somewhere, another song began somewhere else, and partway along they merged into one great mass.
As for Seto, unexpectedly, he did not rage.
He was wearing the white wedding garments of the afterlife that had been prepared, with a standard-operation face. He was even issuing instructions to the dresser: don't fasten that, it restricts movement.
Atem, listening to that voice from the adjoining room, understood.
The lock-in was complete.
By the people, by the priests, by the whole of this country's goodwill, that Seto Kaiba had been locked in. No one could stop it any longer. Himself included.
The hour of the rite arrived.
The two of them stood side by side on the palace terrace.
The plaza below filled with a cheer fit to split it open. Flowers were thrown, fell short of the terrace, and still went on being thrown.
Behind them, a priest read out the pronouncement of marriage. It was old language. It was a considerably long language.
Listening to that voice, Atem opened his mouth without looking beside him.
"......Was this really all right with you."
It was too late for it. The pronouncement was already half through. Even so, he had to ask.
A man who had only gotten aboard a convenient mechanism was standing in the middle of this cheering.
Whether he was truly in his right mind. That had left a knot somewhere, right up to the end.
Seto answers, still facing toward the people.
"I simply think it isn't bad, you standing beside me."
The murmuring around them grew a little louder.
Atem was not listening to the rest of the pronouncement.
It wasn't before.
In that garden room, this man had certainly said if you stand before me. As a duelist, he had been talking about the far side of a field.
But this, now, was different.
He said beside.
—— In short, for whose sake had it been?
"What...... so it wasn't before after all."
Atem took the arm of the Seto beside him.
The cheer from the plaza went up to the height of the sky.
The man who only wanted more time for Duels finds himself, before he knows it, championed by the entire afterlife.
