He did not ask where.
Kaiba's hands stay at ten and two. The white dashes are born and stream away, too fast to count. Signs announce place names Atem has never heard and vanish behind them. If he asked where they were going, Kaiba would answer, and the answer would be a lie — and Atem cannot bear to make him lie.
The fuel gauge tilts left. Petrol stations stream past unremarked. Kaiba is a man who has never overlooked what ought to be seen, who has lived trusting his instruments more than anyone alive, and he does not stop. When the needle gives out, the car stops. If it stops, they are left on the road in the middle of the night.
Atem understands, abruptly, that this is what Kaiba wants. Dawn does not come to what has not ended.
This is a translation of an Artificial Intelligence work.
Original Title: 夜行
Original Author: Gemini with 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Kaiba's hands were on the wheel, at the ten-and-two position, and they did not move. Beyond the windscreen the white dashes were born one after another and streamed away. Born, and streamed away. Atem tried to count them and gave it up at once. It was not a speed that could be counted.
The car was dark inside. Only the thin light of the instruments picked out the line of Kaiba's profile, piece by piece. The jaw, the cheek, the lowered lashes. The light had a green cast to it, not the colour of a living man. And yet there was blood in the fingers gripping the wheel, unmistakably. The beds of the nails were faintly pink. Atem looked at that for a long time.
"Sleep."
Kaiba said it without looking away from the road.
"I'm not tired."
Atem answered without looking away either.
The conversation broke off there. Neither of them minded that it had. Silence was not a lack, for the two of them. If anything, it was words that got in the way sometimes.
The lights of the city receded behind them. The lettering on the signs became unreadable, and after a while there was no lettering at all. Black walls began to run along both sides of the road. Mountains, he thought. It was country Atem did not know. It might have been country Kaiba did not know either. Signs announced place names and vanished. Nothing but names he had never heard were drawn away behind the car.
Where were they going. If he asked, Kaiba would answer. But the answer would probably be a lie. Kaiba was not good at lying. He was a man who had spent his whole life in places where lying was unnecessary. So Atem did not ask. He could not bear to make him lie.
No oncoming cars came, for a long while. Now and then a single one, its white light swelling, bursting and vanishing as it passed. Each time, Kaiba's profile was dyed for one instant in the colour of a living man, and returned at once to the green of the instruments. Atem began to wait for that flicker. One second, no more, in which the man's true colour showed — that one second.
They entered a tunnel.
Orange lights ran along the ceiling at even intervals. Light, shadow, light, shadow. The regular flicker reached as far as the backs of his eyelids. Atem narrowed his eyes. It had reminded him of noon in the desert. The striped light that fell through the gaps in the awnings. That dappling, sliding across his skin each time he crossed the throne room.
——My King, someone had called.
That voice was a long way off now. A long way off, and yet the flicker of the tunnel lights carried it up close. Time had come unravelled somewhere, it seemed. The sand of three thousand years ago and tonight's motorway lay on one and the same road. Atem did not find this strange. Inside a car Kaiba was driving, for some reason, every hour was now. The past did not put itself away behind him. The future did not come towards him from ahead. There was only the dashes streaming past, and the wheel held in a grip, and the warmth of the body beside him.
They came out of the tunnel into darkness again. The flickering stopped, and only the afterimage of the lights drifted for a while at the back of his eyes.
Atem had not known one could be carried at such a speed.
Neither the king's litter nor the warhorse had been this fast. The wind did not strike his cheek; it slid along the outside of the car's shell. It was close to a sense of being protected. Simply carried, inside a cocoon of steel and glass. Commanding nothing, bearing nothing, simply. The darkness streaming past was like a river, he thought. A river of night, carrying the dead. There is one who works the oar, and only that one knows the name of the far bank. Atem looked at the oarsman's profile again. Kaiba never said the name of the bank. If asked, he would probably answer that he did not know. That was the one lie this man told.
"Kaiba."
"What."
"The fuel."
Kaiba did not answer. Atem looked at the needle on the dashboard. It had tilted further to the left than before, unmistakably. He remembered the signs for petrol streaming past behind them, more than a few. There was no possibility that Kaiba had not seen them. This was not a man who overlooked what ought to be seen. He was a man who had lived trusting his instruments more than anyone else in the world.
And still he did not stop to fill the tank.
The clock on the dashboard seemed to have been showing the same figures for some time. It advanced whenever he looked at it, and yet gave no sense of having advanced. Only the needle of the fuel gauge tilted to the left, slowly, surely. That alone was the one proof of time running in this night. And Kaiba was deliberately letting that one clock run.
When the needle gave out, the car would stop. If it stopped, the two of them would be left behind on the road, in the middle of the night. ——That was what he wanted, Atem understood abruptly. It was an understanding that did not fit any reasoning. But it fitted.
——They had parted once.
When that had been, Atem could no longer say exactly. There had been the smell of sand. There had been the sound of a stone door closing, grinding as it went. Someone had watched his back as he walked towards the light. Atem had not looked round. Because he knew that if he looked round, his feet would stop. Because he knew that if they stopped, he would not be able to take another step. So he walked into the light without looking round. At the time, he had believed that was the right thing.
That someone was now holding the wheel beside him.
Rightness had changed its flavour, little by little, since then. Whether going to the side of the light had truly been right, Atem no longer knew. Not knowing, he was being carried along a night road like this. Being carried — the words sat oddly well with a man who had been a king. He had been the one who led. The one who was prayed to. The one who commanded. And now he was being carried, simply, through country he did not know, at a speed he did not know.
Strangely, it did not feel like defeat. If anything, it was profoundly peaceful.
He remembered the field.
The duelling field had been much the same. Facing each other, looking only into each other's eyes, and in fact speaking of nothing but the board. What they truly wanted to confirm was never once said aloud. And still, each time a face-down card was turned over, something was handed across, unmistakably. Win or lose, it did not end. If it ended, the reason to face each other would be gone. So the two of them invented ways of not ending it, more skilfully than anyone alive. A rematch, and another rematch. The world called that obsession. No, Atem thinks. That was the clumsiest form of prayer, made by men who did not want it to end.
This night road, then, was one more field. Instead of a board, there is darkness. Instead of a face-down card, there is a destination. The one card that has never been turned over, Kaiba keeps hidden beneath the wheel, and has all along. Atem did not let him turn it. Turn it and the match is decided. Decide the match and it ends.
"Kaiba."
"……"
"You don't intend to arrive anywhere, do you."
Kaiba did not answer. A few more white dashes streamed past and were gone.
"If we arrive, we have to get out." Atem went on. It was not the voice of someone pressing for an answer. It was not even the voice of someone confirming something. He had simply said it aloud. "And if we get out, you think — that I will go somewhere again."
Kaiba's fingers tightened slightly on the wheel. That was all. He neither denied it nor confirmed it. To deny it would be a lie; to confirm it would be to admit it. The man did neither. Instead he pressed the accelerator down, very slightly further.
The needle tilted towards speed. As though fleeing. Or else as though pursuing.
"I like your reasoning," Atem said. "You always decide it's the world that has it wrong."
Atem checked that the eastern sky was still night, and the feeling with which he checked was something like prayer.
——Prayer. He nearly laughed a little, at having used the word of himself. A man who had been prayed to was now praying for the night not to end. To whom. To the profile of the man beside him, most likely.
When the night ended, the sun would rise. The light belonged to the side that had once called Atem. Come over here, it said. Beckoning with brilliance, with kindness, with rightness. He had obeyed that voice once. Obeyed it, and closed the door. Turned his back. Not looked round.
Now he did not want to obey.
He had no intention of answering a second beckoning. Even if it came from the side of the world's rightness. Atem knew that he had changed. Or perhaps he had not changed; perhaps he had only at last become able to say the true thing. There are things a person cannot say until he has died.
So he wanted this night to go on without end. For the first time, Atem felt he had understood correctly why Kaiba would not stop for fuel. The man was trying to burn the night up. So that the petrol would give out before the morning came. So that they could stop partway along the road. And once they had stopped, the night could not — end. Dawn does not come to what has not ended.
It was an absurd calculation. Like him, Atem thought. The only man in the world trying to starve out the dawn.
The road entered a town.
There was no sense of anyone there. The houses were black, no lights in the windows. Whether they were asleep or whether no one lived there any longer, he could not tell in the dark. Shop signs stood in a row, switched off. It was a town quiet enough to make one doubt the hour.
In the middle of that town, a traffic light was red.
There had been no lights for kilometres. And yet here, only here, red. A red for no one at all, burning at an empty crossroads. Kaiba slowed. Slowed, and stopped. Only the sound of the engine filled the car, low.
Atem had not known that stopping could weigh so much. The instant the tyres ceased to turn, he sensed the night catching up with them. The needle stopped, the scenery stopped, and the two of them alone were left behind under the red light. If this is what it means to arrive — Atem began to think, and stopped. Kaiba's profile was dyed red. He could see that the jaw was set hard.
The light changed to green.
Kaiba did not move off at once. One second, two. He watched the green as though confirming it. Then, quietly, he put the car in motion. The town streamed away behind them and the darkness came back. Atem let out a breath. Having let it out, he realised he had been holding it. Apparently even the dead hold their breath sometimes.
"Kaiba."
"……"
"There isn't enough fuel."
"I know."
"If there isn't enough, we stop. But even if we stop, the night will end. Your calculation, this time —"
Has broken down, he had meant to say. Your reasoning loses to the world, this once. The fuel would give out, and still the east would pale, and the sun would rise. It was not a thing that could be held back. He had known that better than anyone since the days when he was king. The sun disc does not halt for anyone's wish. Even if his own blood had run down from that disc.
Kaiba was silent for a while. Then, in a low voice, he said:
"Atem."
He had been called by name.
The man did not usually call him that. He called him you. He used the name only when he was confirming something. That voice, from across the duelling field, at the moment of setting the last card face down. Atem looked at his profile. Kaiba was looking only ahead. Without moving his lashes or his lips.
"I have never made an error in a calculation."
"I know."
"I have not made one tonight either."
What that was an answer to, Atem did not know. Not knowing, he felt something burn quietly deep in his chest. Like noon in the desert. It was not pain. It was something else, very like pain. The kind of thing that breaks if it is named. So Atem did not name it. Neither of them had ever given a name to the things that mattered. That was how they had come this far.
The sky turned indigo.
Not black — indigo. They were past the deepest part of the night now. Atem could tell. One who has lived a long night can tell from the colour of the sky where in the night he is. This was a colour heading for the end.
Kaiba did not ease off the speed. The needle of the fuel gauge was already touching the letter E. And still the car ran on. By any reasoning, it should long since have stopped. The needle pointed to E, the east was beginning to pale, the world was tilting towards morning. Every instrument indicated the end. And the car did not stop.
Atem decided not to look at the tear in that reasoning. If Kaiba said he had not made an error, then he had not made one. Even if it was the world that had it wrong. The man always decided it was the world that had it wrong. And strangely, beside this man, the world truly did give way. It had happened many times. On the field, and in the darkness.
The east paled, faintly.
Atem reached out. He laid his own hand over Kaiba's, on the wheel. The man's fingers were warmer than he had expected. His own, laid over them, were colder. Which of them was the living one and which the one who had found his way back — at that temperature, there was no longer any telling.
"Sleep."
This time it was Atem who said it.
"Even if you sleep, I will not get out."
Kaiba said nothing.
But the fingers on the wheel came loose, and gripped Atem's hand in return. Hard enough that the shape of the bones could be felt. Without saying I won't let you go, without saying don't leave. Put into words it would be a lie, and admitted it would come nearer the end. So he only gripped.
The car is still running.
Along the very edge of the night. Towards what has not yet fully broken.
The needle points to E, and still, metre by metre, it eats into the night.
The east pales. But it is not morning yet.
Not yet.
