Kaiba travels to the afterlife by a device of his own design, and after every trip he checks the logs. On his first overnight stay, they show four hours in which his body walked, sat, and talked with Atem — in his own voice, in a tone he never uses.
The one talking is Seto, the priest of three thousand years ago, who surfaces only while Kaiba sleeps. Kaiba leaves a note by the pillow telling him to stay down. In the morning, the paper has been turned over.
Notes, logs, and a second chair in Atem's room: a quiet negotiation over who gets the nights.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: もう一人のオレは相棒ではない
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The time taken on the way back, the device's power consumption, and the rest of the data it had gathered. Kaiba checked it every time. It was so he could design the next one.
The first anomaly was in the operating log.
The wearer had been judged asleep just past 23:00.
Yet for four hours after that, the posture sensor had recorded walking and sitting, by turns. The biometric readings indicated wakefulness.
In the afterlife, he does not take the device off. It carries the receiver for the return signal.
Kaiba went over the log again, reconciled the timestamps, and suspected the sleep-detection algorithm first. He tested it by actually sleeping, but found nothing wrong.
Next, he played back the audio.
The sound capture is set for environmental recording, and its precision is not especially high. Ambient noise and human voices are recorded alike.
He was playing it at double speed, but he knew at once that what he was hearing was Atem's voice. The words come through clearly; it is close. Atem was laughing.
There was one more voice. Atem's interlocutor was estimated to be the wearer's mouth.
"——You are just as you were."
Kaiba stopped the playback.
What he had heard was, without doubt, his own voice.
And it had been speaking in a tone he never used.
Kaiba saved the log, marked the timestamp, and moved it to a separate folder. He had no memory of it. He named the folder "Unsorted."
Even so, he did not change the schedule for his next visit.
Before his second visit, Kaiba raised the precision of the sound capture. He switched it from the environmental setting to conversation recording.
When he checked, the next morning's log had begun at the same time as before.
This time, as intended, it had picked up the words.
The subject was the Nile of three thousand years ago. Water levels, the number of villages, buildings, and so on. Atem asks; his own voice answers. The answering voice was calm and unhesitating, and now and then there was even a smile in it.
There were four hours of it. Kaiba went through fifty minutes at double speed and stopped.
At breakfast, Kaiba sat directly across from Atem.
"Who were you talking to last night."
"You noticed already."
"Don't give me 'noticed already.'"
Atem's hands did not pause.
"Seto."
"Who."
"'Who.' You know who."
Kaiba did not answer.
"Since when."
"Since last time."
"Why didn't you say so."
"Because you didn't ask."
Kaiba looked at his plate. As last time, it held food he had never seen before.
"Keep watch so the ancient ghost doesn't come out."
"Keep watch?"
"While I sleep."
"All right."
Atem nodded. But the corner of his mouth rose, just slightly.
Kaiba had witnessed it clearly. Before he could decide whether to pretend he hadn't seen it or to press the point further, Atem finished eating and left the table.
Before his third visit, Kaiba prepared a sheet of paper.
A tablet would have done, but he did not know whether the other party could use one. Paper was certain.
Before going to bed, he set it on the bedside table.
——Do not use another man's body without leave. Stay down.
The next morning, the paper had been turned over, and there was a reply on it.
The handwriting was certainly his own, but it looked unpractised, careful in the way of something written one stroke at a time.
——There is no need for concern. I shall limit it to a degree that does not leave you short of sleep.
Limit, it said. Not stop.
Kaiba opened the log.
The previous night's conversation had begun with the paper.
"I have received a letter."
"From Kaiba?"
"Yes. Shall I read it aloud?"
His own voice was reading what he himself had written.
"Do not use another man's body without leave. Stay down."
Hearing it, Atem laughed. He must have found it very funny; he went on laughing for some time.
"Pff… heh, that's Kaiba all over."
"Indeed. I am of the same opinion."
"So what'll you do? He's in earnest, you know."
"I expect he is. It is a perfectly proper demand."
"And do you mean to keep to it."
"…To a degree that does not leave him short of sleep, at any rate."
There was laughter again. This time, from two.
Kaiba stopped the playback there.
Of the log from the fourth visit, he listened to fifty minutes.
The fifth, an hour and twenty minutes.
The sixth, he tried listening to the end. Four hours and ten minutes.
The content differed every time. The number of pillars in a temple. How to dig a well. A spell Mahad had botched in his youth. Atem asks, Seto answers. Seto asks, Atem answers. At questions neither could answer, both fell silent. Silence remains in the log as blank space.
None of it amounted to much.
Only an age he did not know, told in his own voice. Kaiba processed it as audio data.
From the seventh visit on, Kaiba did not stay the night.
Arrive in daylight, see to his business, leave while it is still light. The device kept running, but nothing remained in the log.
The eighth was the same, and the ninth.
Atem said nothing about his not staying. He saw him off to the gate, confirmed the next date, and went back inside.
The tenth.
He arrived at night.
An error had crept into the calculation. Time in the afterlife, it seems, does not always match that of the living world. Some drift had been anticipated, but that day it was beyond anticipation.
To finish his business and then go home would mean Duelling through the night and leaving at dawn.
For the first time in a while, Kaiba stayed the night in the afterlife.
He lay down on the bed, checked that the device was running, and closed his eyes. For a moment he considered whether to leave paper by his pillow, and decided against it.
The next morning's log ran four and a half hours.
Longer than usual.
This one, Kaiba listened to the end.
The conversation began with It has been a while.
"Well, you didn't come three times."
"Was he not here?"
"Only by day."
"I see."
Seto said no more about Kaiba. He talked of pillars, of the river, of the cat Atem had kept. The cat made Atem laugh, and Seto waited for the laughter to finish before he asked,
"And how did you spend the days?"
"Same as always."
"And after the modern-day child had gone home."
"As always."
"…Hm."
There was a short silence.
"…I was thinking about the next visit."
"How many days off it is, I suppose."
"Don't say it."
"I have said nothing."
Silence again. Longer, this time.
"He doesn't think of me as a king, or as a god."
"No, he does not."
"That's all."
"Yes."
"That's all it is."
"I am aware."
There the conversation went back to pillars. It went back so naturally that Atem did not seem to notice.
Kaiba stopped the playback there, and listened again.
To Atem's voice saying That's all it is.
Then he noted the time, saved the log, and did not put this one in the "Unsorted" folder.
Nor, for that matter, did he make a new folder.
He saved it to the device itself.
For the eleventh, Kaiba deliberately calculated to arrive at night.
At the hour when he would usually head for bed, Kaiba stood outside Atem's room.
He knocks.
Atem was in thin nightclothes. It had apparently been nearly time for bed.
He began to speak, then checked Kaiba's face.
"Se— Kaiba?"
"It is."
"You're not sleeping?"
"For once, I'll keep you company while you stay up."
Atem stood holding the door open and did not move for a while.
"…Did you hear something from Seto?"
"I have no taste for talking to ghosts."
Inside the room there was one chair. Kaiba sat in it. Atem sat down on the edge of the bed.
He had come saying he would keep him company while he stayed up, but there was nothing in particular to talk about. Kaiba took out his tablet; Atem opened a book.
After an hour or so, Kaiba says just one thing.
"I hear you kept a cat."
Atem's hand stopped.
"Who told you that?"
Kaiba did not answer.
Atem watched him for a while, then, deciding no answer was coming, gave up and returned his eyes to the book.
"…It was a white cat. It had no name."
"You could at least have named it."
"I might, now. Shiro."
After that, the cat was not mentioned again.
That night, the device's log recorded nothing.
To be precise, it recorded only Kaiba's voice and Atem's.
Seto's time, there was none.
On the twelfth, and the thirteenth, Kaiba stayed up.
Somewhere in between, the chairs in Atem's room had become two.
On the fourteenth, Kaiba slept after dinner.
He had gone three days without rest in the living world. He had known it the moment he arrived in the afterlife.
The next morning, there was paper by his pillow.
——If you stay up, I find I have no time of my own.
A hand that stopped at the end of every stroke.
Kaiba opened the log. Two hours and forty minutes. Shorter than usual.
Partway through, Seto had said, "It is about time," and Atem had tried to keep the conversation going with "It's still early." But Seto had cut it short: "The owner is short of sleep."
He wrote on the back of the paper.
——It is my body. There is no such thing as your time.
On the fifteenth, Kaiba stayed up. The paper did not move.
On the sixteenth, Kaiba slept. In the morning, the paper had been turned over.
——Understood. In that case, I shall take the time that is left free.
Kaiba glared at it. The time left free meant the time Kaiba spent asleep — in other words, nothing has changed.
On the seventeenth, Kaiba slept.
The next morning's log ran three hours and fifty minutes.
The conversation did not begin the usual way.
"Seto. Hey — did you say something to Kaiba?"
"What, might I ask?"
"He knew about the cat."
"The story of the cat is one you told."
"But I told it to you."
"Yes. And I heard it."
"That's why I'm asking."
"I have told him nothing."
There was a short silence.
"Liar."
"Perhaps it is only natural that you cannot believe me."
Seto offered no further defence. He had denied it once, and after that simply listened in silence. Atem asked the same question several times, phrased differently each time, but Seto's answer was always the same.
When Atem still tried to ask, Seto gave a small laugh and said,
"Ask me, and you will only ever get my answer."
"……"
"If you mean to press someone, why not press the man himself?"
"Like I could."
"That, I'm afraid, is really no concern of mine."
From there, Atem mumbled and grumbled, and it took forty minutes to get back to pillars.
Kaiba listened to the end.
Seto had been falsely accused, left it be, and steered the talk back to pillars. Kaiba did not rate this as a technique of self-defence.
Obviously. He had known this man could talk Atem round with ease.
So what he rated was something else.
If Kaiba is asleep, Seto comes out. Just as he had written: I shall take the time that is left free.
He wrote nothing on the paper.
Writing would have made no difference.
On the eighteenth, Kaiba went to Atem's room after dinner.
He did not sit down. He laid two sheets of paper on the desk.
Atem picks them up. He read the front, read the back, and read the other sheet.
Kaiba stayed standing until he had finished.
"…What's this?"
"The ancient ghost is still coming out."
"Yeah. I know."
"I believe I told you to monitor him."
"I'm keeping watch, all right."
"You're doing nothing but talk."
Atem put the paper back on the desk.
"Did you hear it from Seto?"
"I told you, I have no taste for talking to ghosts."
"Then how… about the cat…"
"My device keeps records."
There was a silence.
Atem looked at Kaiba, then at the device. The one strapped to Kaiba's arm as always — that must be it.
"…Since when."
"From the start."
"All of it?"
"All of it."
Atem sat down in the chair and said nothing for a while.
His eyes were on the paper on the desk. While he looked at the paper, he did not look at Kaiba.
"Then the cat."
"You said it yourself."
Atem fell silent.
He had told Seto, certainly.
Seto's ears, he realised, had been Kaiba's ears.
Atem's ears were red. From where Kaiba stood, he could see it.
"Delete it."
"I will not."
"Kaiba."
"It's my device."
Still red in the face, Atem let out a breath. It was close to a laugh.
"You really are…"
He did not say the rest. Instead he picked up his book, opened it, and, having opened it, did not read. The page did not change.
Kaiba sat in the other chair. He takes out his tablet.
After a while, Atem picked up the paper. He read the front and the back again.
"Can I have these?"
"What would you use them for."
"I wouldn't."
"Then you have no need of them."
"I do."
Atem slipped both sheets into his book.
"There's the first one too, isn't there. The one that says 'Don't use another man's body.'"
"……"
"So there is."
Kaiba did not answer. That was the answer.
That night, Kaiba did not sleep.
The log kept two voices.
The next morning, there was no paper.
The one who would have written it could not come out.
On the nineteenth, Kaiba stayed up.
Two chairs. A tablet and a book. As always.
After an hour and a half or so, the sound of pages turning stopped.
Kaiba looked up from the screen.
Atem had his head resting against the back of the chair, the book still on his lap. His eyes are closed. His breaths are long.
Kaiba went back to his tablet.
Ten minutes later, he looked again. Nothing had changed.
Asleep, then. He did not wake him.
He took the blanket from the bed and laid it over him. He retrieved the book from his lap, memorised the page it was open at, closed it, and put it on the desk.
He went back to his chair, opened the tablet, and, having opened it, did not look.
In his own voice, an expression he cannot make is turned towards Atem. That is what the logs would yield on analysis. He knows only the voice. But that face is, presumably, here now, in this room. Though he cannot see it.
Knowing this, Kaiba sat for a while.
Towards dawn, Atem opened his eyes.
He noticed the blanket, looked at Kaiba, and said nothing.
Kaiba said nothing either.
After Kaiba went back, the blanket was folded and hung over the back of the chair.
On the twentieth, Kaiba slept.
He had gone some four days without rest in the living world.
The next morning's log ran three hours.
The conversation began as usual, and changed partway through.
"I had a blanket put over me."
"By whom?"
"You know who."
"Well, yes, that would be…"
"Don't say it."
"But I have said nothing."
There was a short pause.
"Was it warm?"
"…Yeah."
"I am very glad to hear it."
Seto said only that, and did not change the subject. He was silent for a while. In the log, silence remains as blank space.
"Kaiba told me."
"What, might I ask?"
"About the logs. You're being listened to as well."
"I see."
Seto said only that, and was silent a moment.
Then the voice changed direction. What had been turned towards Atem was turned straight ahead. Towards the front, where no one was.
"Seto Kaiba. You are listening, I trust."
Kaiba did not stop the playback.
"You need not set aside any time of mine. For as long as you stay up, I cannot come out. That is quite all right. …Now, tonight's share, I shall take."
There was the sound of Atem laughing.
The conversation went back to pillars.
Three hours passed. Seto said, "It is about time," and Atem tried to keep things going with "It's still early," but then came the sound of a door.
Footsteps echoing down a stone corridor. The sound of another door.
Kaiba's room. The sound of someone sitting down on the bed.
Then, in the empty room, Seto murmured.
"He has grown strong. It was you who made him strong. I was watching, you see. That is all I have to say."
There the log switched to a sleep reading.
Kaiba listened to the end.
When he had finished, he took out paper.
——Stay down.
The next time he looked, the paper had been turned over.
——To a degree that does not leave you short of sleep.
When he mentioned it at breakfast, Atem held out his hand.
"That one too."
Kaiba handed over the paper.
The very first sheet, he handed over before the day was out.
All the paper is inside Atem's book.
In Kaiba's hands, only the logs remained.
On the thirtieth, Kaiba slept in Atem's bed.
When it started is not in the log.
The night the line was crossed was not recorded. Because it was a night Kaiba was awake. While he is awake, the log picks up only conversation. Time without conversation remains as blank space.
What is blank, it does not record.
That night, Atem was sitting on the bed, changed into his thin nightclothes.
Kaiba held out a different set of nightclothes.
"Put them on."
"Pyjamas?"
"Put these on."
Atem looked at the pyjamas from the living world, then at Kaiba.
"Why these?"
"Because I'm going to sleep."
There was a brief pause.
Then Atem doubled over, and laughed for quite a while.
"…You— this is too much, really."
"Put them on."
"He's you, you know?"
"That one is not me."
Atem was still laughing. But laughing, he took the pyjamas, put his arms through the sleeves, and did up the buttons.
"Will this do?"
The top two were undone. That would not do. Kaiba did them up, leaving just one.
"This will do."
Atem came close, and the distance was gone.
Their mouths touched, briefly. As they parted, Atem says,
"Goodnight."
"Mm."
Kaiba lay down on the bed, checked that the device was running, and closed his eyes.
The next morning's log was an hour and twenty minutes.
Short.
The conversation had begun on the bed.
"…This is… I see."
"What?"
"Nothing. I understand."
"Understand what?"
"The matter of the nightclothes."
The sound of Atem laughing. Then the creak of the bed.
"I shall rest in the chair."
"You can sleep here. He's you."
"No. That one is not me."
"But if he wakes up in the chair…"
"It would be awkward for you."
"Seto!"
"Then, if you will excuse me. …This will do, I think."
"Thorough, aren't you."
Another creak, and from there the conversation turned to pillars. After an hour or so, Seto said, "It is about time," and this time Atem did not say "It's still early."
"Goodnight."
"Yes. Goodnight."
Kaiba stopped the playback.
Beside him, Atem was asleep.
Kaiba had done them up only as far as the second button.
Yet every button of the pyjamas had been thoroughly done up.
And the collar, too, had been set more neatly than when Kaiba had fastened it.
Shiro is simply Japanese for "white" — about as plain a name as a white cat can get.
