A King who has never been vaccinated meets a virus every child in the living world has already met. Mumps flattens him, and — more distressingly — swells his face at exactly the moment he is trying to look like a worthy consort. Seto's response is a doctor, a hand on the forehead, and an entire night he did not schedule. Atem wakes up with his arms around him. It takes a priest, a wall, and a great deal of patience before he can say the word out loud.
This is a translation of an Artificial Intelligence work.
Original Title: 07 感染王
Original Author: Gemini with 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Atem, who normally appeared beside the president's office in a flawless suit — however reluctantly — in obedience to Seto's company rule that he was not to be one minute late, did not come.
"…Mokuba. What has happened to Atem."
"Ah, Nii-sama. The thing is, Atem won't come out of his room at all… I went to call him and he was curled up in bed saying his head feels like it's splitting, and the underside of his jaw is really swollen and painful…"
Hearing Mokuba's report, Seto snorted coldly.
"Keeping up a life of rising at one, gaming, parfaits and naps for months on end, that is no more than his just deserts. The true identity of this overwork of his is simple self-neglect."
But if it was self-neglect, then let a physician give him appropriate treatment, establish the cause exhaustively, and administer the reprimand afterwards — that was Seto's thoroughgoing rationalism. He arranged for KaibaCorp's private doctor to attend the house at once.
"…Mumps, you say?"
"Yes. There's no mistaking it."
In a lavish guest room of Kaiba Manor, the doctor gave Seto his diagnosis from the medical report.
The cause was not self-neglect. Atem was a King of ancient Egypt from three thousand years ago. There was no possibility whatsoever that he had received the sort of vaccinations every child in the living world gets as a matter of course. He had, it seemed, picked up a living-world virus fair and square at some site visit or card shop.
"That a man such as you should come to grief over a commonplace virus of the modern age."
When Seto came into the room, exasperated, what was there was an Atem shrunken small in his bed, all his usual vigour gone.
Mumps hits hard when contracted as an adult.
He was in the grip of a high fever; from below the ears down to the jaw he was swollen tight, and merely swallowing his own saliva sent a bolt of pain through him. Even Atem, in this state, could not play games, could not tap orders into the shopping site, could not eat his beloved pizza. All he could do was lie there quietly and endure the pain.
"…Kai… ba…"
From within the covers, deep red eyes wet with fever looked up at him.
Ordinarily he would have been saying something about piercing your heart or my flawless approach, but he had not one millimetre of capacity left in him for laying honey traps.
If anything, the instant Atem caught sight of Seto he startled, hurriedly pulled the top cover up over his head and hid his face.
"…What are you doing, Atem. Show me your face. Have you taken the medicine the doctor prescribed."
"Don't come near me, Kaiba…! Right now I… my face is horribly, hideously swollen. You above all — I don't want you of all people to see me looking so foolish…!"
The voice from inside the covers was hoarse with fever and thoroughly pathetic.
For an Atem who had been working desperately, day in and day out, to perform the finest possible spouse, fit to stand at Seto's side, being seen with a face rounded out at the jaw by mumps was more embarrassing than dying. Which he had already done. Beyond that, there was an unconscious fear in him too: that if he showed a figure that unimpressive, he might genuinely be thrown out of this house.
Seto stood in front of the lump of bedding that was Atem and gave a small sigh.
How comprehensively undisciplined can one man's head be…
Seto sat down on the edge of the bed and, without hesitation, pulled down the top blanket Atem had drawn over his head.
"Ah, wait…!"
Atem tried to resist, but the fever left no strength in him. The face thus revealed did indeed have both sides of the jaw swollen plump, and the heat had flushed his cheeks red. The keen beauty that would ordinarily pierce the world through looked, now, like a child sulking at having been caught out.
Atem screwed his eyes shut in sheer embarrassment—
And a cool palm, with definite weight to it, was laid on his forehead.
"…!"
"Keep still. Your existence is questionable enough as it is; if you were to be annihilated by a living-world illness it would put a scratch on my road."
Saying it bluntly, Seto stroked Atem's hot forehead as though checking it, then slowly and gently stroked his head, hair and all, with that large hand.
The unbearably clumsy and yet entirely direct kindness of a Seto who would ordinarily never let himself be touched.
At the comfort transmitted through that palm, something in the depths of Atem's chest grew warm for reasons that had nothing to do with fever. The violent headache and the pain in his jaw seemed, absurdly, to soften under the warmth of that hand alone.
Ah… what is this, it's… so reassuring…
I want to be at this man's side. I want to be near this warmth, always. And that it was not for some impure motive like defending a slack life, but simply because I love the man called Seto Kaiba — Atem's exceedingly slow brain was, at last, and partly thanks to the fever, on the verge of realising it.
Presently, having confirmed that Atem's fever had settled a little, Seto took his hand from his forehead and stood up from the bed.
"The medicine appears to be working. Sleep as you are, like the dead. I shall have the kitchen prepare something easy on the stomach—"
The faint sense of Seto about to leave the room.
In that instant, a loneliness and an urgency more intense than anything he had known struck Atem's chest.
Don't go.
Touch me with that hand a little longer.
"…Kaiba!"
Atem reached out a hot hand from the covers on pure instinct.
And caught the hem of Seto's white jacket as he began to turn away, gripping it with slender fingers, hard, hard enough to hold him back.
"Don't go, Kaiba…"
His face still burning red with fever, Atem pleaded desperately in a hoarse voice. The fingertips gripping the white hem trembled in small movements. In those deep red eyes, tears had gathered, large enough to spill at any moment.
Of the noble King who had once departed with such resolve beyond the doors of the Underworld, there was no trace. There was only a man, frightened by the misery of a high fever and by loneliness, clinging to the man he loved.
Looking down at his rival in that state, Seto gave a low snort.
"Do you actually understand who you are. …That a King this pathetic existed three thousand years ago is a fairy tale I find utterly impossible to believe."
Merciless poison came out of his mouth — but Seto made no attempt to shake off the hem being gripped. If anything, he sat down again on the edge of the bed and pulled Atem's disarranged blanket properly back up to his throat.
"Atem. Who do you imagine I am. Do you seriously think Seto Kaiba would yield to a threat made with wet eyes—"
"Please… stay beside me…"
In the haze of his consciousness, Atem gripped the jacket tighter still. Faced with a rival wanting him this honestly and this desperately, even Seto could not be demon enough to leave the room.
"…Tch. Hopeless man."
Seto let out a large sigh, as though giving up, took his phone from his jacket pocket and sent Mokuba a short message: I will be in Atem's room tonight. Push tomorrow morning's meeting back an hour.
"Until you are asleep, Atem. Now shut your eyes."
"…Mm. Thank you, Kaiba…"
Perhaps from the absolute relief of having Seto beside him, a small smile came to Atem's mouth — somewhat vacant, and entirely from the heart. Seto's large hand was laid on Atem's forehead once more and began to stroke his hair, gently and at regular intervals.
Surrendering himself to the comfort of it, Atem slowly closed his heavy eyelids. And fell, as though drawn down, into a deep and peaceful sleep.
An hour passed, and the digital clock in the room turned past midnight.
Atem's breathing had steadied completely, and the ragged respiration of the high fever had settled entirely.
"…Hmph. Finally properly asleep."
Seto took his hand from Atem's forehead and made to rise from the bed. In that instant, his body met a peculiar resistance and stopped.
Looking down, he found Atem's slender fingertips still gripping the hem of his jacket, frozen there with unbelievable force.
"Oi, Atem. Let go."
Seto tried gently prising the fingers open one by one, but each time he attempted to separate them Atem, still asleep, drew his brows together in displeasure — "mm…" — put more strength into it, pulled at the fabric and tried to draw Seto's body towards him. He was completely locked. Any harder and it was obvious the patient, having only just got to sleep, would be woken.
"How stubborn can one man be. You intend to restrain me even in your sleep?"
His attaché case was still on the desk, too. Being unable to move until morning in this state was extremely inefficient.
For a while, Seto looked at the face of the rival curled up in the bed. The cheeks, rounded slightly by mumps, looked as ever younger than his actual age, and somehow defenceless.
"…No matter. If that incomplete body of yours were to be annihilated by a bug in the living world, that alone would throw my calculations out."
Resigning himself, Seto abandoned the constricting three-piece jacket and shrugged it off.
Then, leaving Atem holding his hand — the hem of his jacket, in fact — he lowered himself slowly onto the free side of the wide king-size bed.
Sensing, perhaps, the faint vibration and body heat of Seto entering beside him, the sleeping Atem's body shifted naturally towards him.
"…Kaiba…"
With a small murmur in his sleep, Atem's head came to rest, neatly, in the region of Seto's shoulder.
A King of the living world, and a King of the ancient world.
Two Duelists who had shaken the world, breathing quietly in time beneath an expensive blanket.
Gazing at the night spread out beyond the window, Seto pulled up the corner of his mouth, amused.
Not a princess carry but sleeping beside him. …Ancient ghost, that worthless proposal of yours about a political marriage may not have been so wide of the mark after all.
How red in the face Atem would go tomorrow morning when he woke, how thoroughly he would panic on becoming aware of his own serious infatuation — set against being able to watch that idiotic expression from the best seat in the house, this irregular night-time routine called sleeping beside him was not a bad investment at all.
Seto stroked Atem's hair lightly one final time and, feeling his rival's comfortable body heat, quietly closed his eyes.
Soft morning light came into the guest room, and Atem slowly recovered consciousness.
There was still a faint listlessness left from the fever, but the violent headache and jaw pain of the previous day had dramatically receded. More than that, what wrapped him now was an overwhelming comfortable warmth of a kind he had never felt even in the sleeping chambers of the palace three thousand years ago.
"…Mm…"
Head still half-asleep, Atem drew his body naturally towards that warm mass and hugged the firm chest of it tightly with both arms. Why on earth should the living world's finest down duvet be this solid, and carry this masculine a body heat?
"—You're awake, Atem."
From the chest of the down duvet came a low voice, appallingly familiar.
"Eh…?"
When Atem lifted his eyes fearfully, there, at point-blank range, hair down, looking down at him, was Seto's face.
"K— Kai — KAIBA?!"
Every circuit in his brain shorted out at once.
Atem flushed as red as a boiled octopus at maximum boil and hurriedly released the arms he had wrapped around him, trying to reverse towards the edge of the bed.
But Seto's hand seized Atem's waist without mercy and blocked the escape.
"Stop thrashing about, invalid. What will you do if the fever goes up again."
Seto lifted the body of the fleeing Atem as easily as light luggage — with a "hmph" — and set it back down, unceremoniously, in the dead centre of the bed. Precisely the development Priest Seto had prophesied the other day: he should be lifted with ease, which is really rather charming.
Seto then slipped smartly out of the bed, picked up the jacket he had discarded and began putting his arms through the sleeves.
"The fever appears to have come down. The peak of the mumps has passed, then. …I shall have some special congee brought to you. Stay there and behave."
Until Seto left the room, Atem remained completely frozen in the middle of the bed.
Kaiba was sleeping beside me…? No — before that, did I embrace him…? Why did Kaiba not get angry…? And — was I just lifted, effortlessly…?
Under a volume of information that could not possibly be processed in a day and a night, and the hammering in his chest, Atem's brain exceeded its capacity entirely and was knocked out.
Several days later. Having conquered the mumps completely through a formidable recuperative capacity, Atem was lying on the bed in his private chambers in the Underworld, working off the frustration accumulated in the living world.
His clothing was, naturally, the logo sweats.
In his hand, however, was his phone, and Atem was muttering at the wall of the room as though making a telephone call.
On the other side of that wall, a little distance away, stood Priest Seto with his arms folded.
Because Priest Seto's face resembled Seto's far too closely, Atem, in his present mental state, could not under any circumstances look directly at him. The result was a strangely surreal form of dialogue, conducted with his back turned, addressed to a wall.
"…Seto. Hear me out. I think something may have happened to me…"
Atem pulled the hood of his sweats down low and murmured at the wall in a thoroughly feeble voice.
"What is it, Predecessor. Without even looking at me. Has that thing administered another reprimand?"
Priest Seto's level voice carried across.
"No… Kaiba nursed me. And slept beside me… And ever since, merely looking at Kaiba's face makes the inside of my chest ache as though it is being squeezed. I want to be at his side, and when I am at his side I can hardly breathe properly. …Have I been infected with some strange disease of the living world?"
At the sight of his superior fretting at a wall, Priest Seto sighed magnificently.
Dear me… The modern-day whelp's capture operation is flawless, but with the essential party in this condition, a perfectly good business partnership may yet fall through.
Priest Seto refolded his arms and began, coldly but with more precision than ever before, to point out his lord's true feelings to his back.
"My King. You declared at the outset, did you not, that you would take the modern-day whelp as your spouse in order to protect the slack life of the living world?"
"Y-yes. That was the intention, but…"
"Then erase that objective — I want to laze about — from your head this instant."
Priest Seto's voice carried quietly through the private chamber of the palace.
"You do not want the modern-day whelp to go anywhere else. You cannot bear the thought of anyone but you standing at his side. When you were touched by that gentle hand, when you were nursed, was what you felt some vulgar reassurance about the guarantee of a place to live? …It was not."
Every word from Priest Seto opened, one after another, the doors of the true feeling hidden in the depths of Atem's heart.
"What you truly want is not the luxurious life of the living world. You simply want everything the man called Seto Kaiba is. You want the whole of his attention turned on you, and on no one else. …Is that not so?"
"Seto…"
His back still turned to the wall, Atem's eyes opened wide.
Told it by Priest Seto, every piece slotted cleanly into place for the first time.
Why he thought of nothing but that man all day. Why he wanted to be, in front of that man and no one else, the finest version of himself. Why he had been thrown by the sight of him in that state, and why simply being nursed had made him happy enough to cry.
It had not been for the sweats, or the pizza, or the games.
Atem set his phone down slowly on the bed and laid a hand on his own chest. There, the same hot pulse was beating as on that morning when he had held on to Seto's chest.
"…I see."
Three thousand years on, a King who had mastered every entertainment the living world had to offer arrived at last at the true answer.
Atem murmured it quietly, but with certain self-awareness.
"I… really do love Kaiba, don't I."
On the other side of the wall, Priest Seto pulled up the corner of his mouth in satisfaction, with an air of finally worked it out, have you, you useless King.
The age of the unconscious honey trap had come to an end. How an Atem who had grasped his own true craving would shake the King of the living world in return — the curtain on that second round was quietly going up.
I… love Kaiba.
Once he had recognised it, Atem acted with a speed comparable to summoning the three Egyptian Gods.
There was, however, one problem. For all his three thousand years of history, for Atem this was a genuine, unadulterated first love. A man who had spent ancient Egypt immersed in war and governance, and the living world in cards and games, had fallen in love with a man. He had not the faintest idea how to approach it.
So Atem used Seto's black card — his NEET privileges were, as yet, still live — and once again ordered every living-world romance magazine he could find.
This time, though, the motive was not impure.
From the following day, Atem's room was stacked with ViV—, ana—, Men's Non—, and even SP—! Weekly's special feature on the psychology of romance. In sweats, with a serious expression, Atem turned the pages.
"Hm… Landing your crush! Gap-appeal techniques… The calculated upward glance is ninety percent strategy… I see. Living-world tactical manuals for romantic Duelling. There is real depth to this…"
Squandering his ultra-high-speed brain cells entirely, Atem began, from his two hours of work the next day, trying out those small-time techniques one after another.
"Kaiba, can you check this specification document?"
At the desk in the president's office, Atem deliberately lowered his voice a little, tilted his head and produced the forty-five-degree upward glance. The angle, according to the magazine, at which a man's protective instincts are most powerfully stirred.
Seto raised his eyes from his papers and gazed steadily at Atem's face.
Atem struck an inward victory pose — good, it's working…! — but what came out of Seto's mouth was a single cold line.
"Atem. The swelling under your jaw should have gone down by now; is there still a bug left in your cervical vertebrae? It's crooked. Look at the screen at once."
"It is not a b-bug…!"
Another day.
At snack time, while Seto was drinking coffee, Atem came trotting over holding his own crêpe. Strawberry, chocolate and whipped cream. And he had, with obvious deliberation, left a small dab of whipped cream on his own cheek, and tilted his head.
"Oi, Atem. There's something on your face."
"Eh? Ah, yes… would you… take it off for me…?" (Per the magazine: an artful technique for manufacturing an opportunity for contact.)
"Hmph. Wipe it yourself. The tissues are there."
"…"
Seto was impregnable. Whatever small-time technique Atem produced, he did not stir by so much as a twitch. His expression never changed; he maintained complete non-response.
Which was only to be expected. This was the second magazine deployment.
And naturally, it was not that Seto had failed to notice.
If anything, he was watching from the best seat in the house as Atem, in deadly earnest and red in the face, launched his clumsy romantic techniques at him.
Unlike the first time, that Atem was now violently conscious of him and seriously, thoroughly in love came through painfully clearly — in the wandering eyes, in the pulse that quickened every time he came near.
Hmph. Do not imagine half-learned knowledge will shake Seto Kaiba. Still… that idiotic spinning of the wheels is not without entertainment value.
By deliberately feigning no reaction at all, Seto was drawing the tension out and enjoying it.
But Atem's patience was reaching its limit under that adult composure of Seto's — otherwise known as sadistic teasing.
Why…! I am landing perfect combos and none of them are having the slightest effect on Seto! At this rate my feelings will never reach him…!
Impatience, frustration, and a chest that ached from wanting Seto too much — until at last Atem resolved to throw every last piece of artifice away.
Perhaps Seto's advice was right after all.
That night, at eleven.
Seto had finished work, returned to his own rooms and just loosened his tie — at precisely that moment.
A knock came: slightly harder than usual, and hesitant.
"Come in."
At Seto's answer, the door opened slowly.
The Atem who came in was not in sweats. He wore that elegant black shirt Seto had had made for him some time ago, and his back was perfectly straight.
In his expression there was not a trace of the artfulness or the small-time contrivance of the past few days; what had returned were the eyes of that noble King who had once given off a divine light on the field of battle.
Atem walked as far as the front of Seto's desk and looked directly into those blue eyes.
"Forgive the late hour, Kaiba."
His voice shook faintly, and yet it was strangely deep; it set the air of the room trembling.
"There is something I have to tell you. Something important."
An overwhelming tension, as though he were entering the Duel of his life.
Seto stopped the hand that had been loosening his tie and met that serious gaze head-on. The small-time games were over. From Atem's mouth, the true words were about to be spoken at last.
"Something important, is it."
Seto set his back against the desk, folded his arms and regarded Atem steadily.
"Yes. I— to you—"
Atem opened his mouth, having steeled himself. But the instant he tried to form the words, looking into Seto's straight blue eyes, his mind went entirely blank.
His heart leapt hard enough to break through his ribs, the back of his throat dried out, and the words that should have followed refused, absolutely, to come. Three thousand years of wisdom and every scrap of living-world romance magazine knowledge had been blown clean away somewhere.
Watching a rival who went red in the face merely from standing there, Seto let out a sigh.
"Hmph… In that state of yours we shall not be finished by daybreak. Sit down there and cool your head."
Seto indicated the luxurious leather sofa in the corner of the room with his chin.
"I am going to take a shower. Organise that undisciplined head of yours a little before I come back."
Leaving that behind, Seto disappeared into the bathroom.
Left alone, Atem sat down deep into the sofa as prompted.
Calm down, I am a King… It is only telling him how I feel. Why should it be this frightening…
He breathed deeply and covered his face with both hands, trying desperately to settle himself.
Ten-odd minutes later, however. The instant the bathroom door opened and he saw the returning Seto, Atem's pitiful efforts came to nothing in a single stroke.
"Sorry to keep you."
Seto had appeared with his hair down and his shirt open, exactly as on that night. Worse: this time, having come straight from the bath, droplets ran from his wet hair down the line of his white collarbone, and the allure of a grown man was leaking out with no ceiling on it whatsoever.
Wh-why is he dressed like that now…! Is he doing this deliberately?! Does he intend to finish me off completely…?!
Faced with this excessive violence of allure, Atem went literally rigid on the sofa.
Smiling thinly, as though enjoying Atem's agitation, Seto sat down — right beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch, without a sound.
"Now then. Let me hear it. What is this important matter, Atem."
That low, resonant voice, delivered from point-blank range.
Atem instantly turned his face away from Seto. If he did not have to look at that face head-on, perhaps he could speak — but that thought lasted only a moment, and then a distance with no escape from it came at him instead.
Through the gap in the open shirt, Seto's own hot body temperature. And, with the steam, the fine scent of shampoo teasing at his nostrils.
His head filled entirely by the sheer existence of Seto, Atem's capacity gave out completely. What spilled out of the mouth of a man in a state of panic could not even be called a confession — it was far too clumsy, and broken, and one hundred percent pure.
"I— I can't… …love you."
A small, barely intelligible murmur, faint as a mosquito's whine.
"…"
Silence ran through the room.
Atem covered his face with both hands in sheer embarrassment, seized by the urge to bury himself in the sofa cushions. It was ugly. As a King and as a man, it had been an unbearably graceless and pathetic confession.
But beside him, Seto did not look startled, and did not look exasperated. He simply pulled up the corner of his mouth in satisfaction.
"Hmph… That took a considerable amount of time. But now that you have got the words out of your own mouth, I shall allow that this particular game is a pass."
"K-Kaiba…?"
Atem raised his face fearfully to find Seto with his arms folded, piercing him with eyes more serious than he had ever seen, and unfathomable.
"I am prepared to answer your feelings. …But, Atem. Do you understand?"
The faint colour of amusement vanished from Seto's voice, and it changed into the tone of an absolute King.
"What it means to become the partner of Seto Kaiba. To walk my road together is a different matter entirely from merely taking up residence in this house. You will be required to be perfect at all times, against the world and against the future. I take it you have that resolve."
"Ah…"
Atem lost his words completely.
Resolve. A future as a partner. He had not thought about anything so elevated by even a millimetre.
What had the motive for this plan been, to begin with?
If Seto gets himself a real wife, my supreme living-world NEET life — up at one, games, parfaits, naps — is under threat. So to defend it, I'll fence Seto in. An impure motive of the very filthiest sort.
Somewhere in the middle of an operation begun from that worst of intentions, he had been caught off guard by Seto's closeness and his allure, and by the time he noticed, his attention had been seriously carried away. That was the whole of it.
"What is it, Atem. Surely a Duelist of your standing did not fling himself into my arms without a single thought."
The blue eyes looking straight at him were brimming with absolute trust: a man like you must have resolve enough for it. And, in addition, the Priest Seto of the Underworld was harbouring his own uninvited expectations of a rational political marriage.
I can't say it… That at the start my motives were entirely impure, that I only wanted to go on ordering pizza and games and expensive ice cream on your card — I could not say that if my mouth were torn open…!
His motives had been — his motives had certainly been a shambles. A starting line of the most impure kind, with a King's pride thrown down a drain: I want to defend a life of eating premium ice cream on KaibaCorp's capital and sleeping in until one in the afternoon in sweats.
But the heat of love is a powerful bug — or possibly a spell — capable of deleting inconvenient initial settings from the brain in an instant.
What remained in Atem's chest now was one thing only.
The warmth of the Seto beside him is precious to me; I want everything this man is. A one-hundred-percent-pure love, and nothing else.
Atem drew a deep breath, and a strong light entered those deep red eyes.
To become the partner of Seto, King of the living world. It meant standing level with him on his endless road, and reigning permanently as a perfect Duelist against the world, and against the universe.
"…Heh. Kaiba. Who exactly do you think I am."
Atem smiled fearlessly. His face was still red to the ears, but his eyes alone were those of the King who had once commanded gods.
"However harsh the future you walk may be, there is no chance whatsoever of my yielding the place beside you. If the world is our opponent, then we shall simply surpass it. …My resolve was made a long time ago!"
Seto watched Atem declare it, quietly.
What had begun as a small-time contrivance to defend a NEET life was now a man with his eyes shining, looking towards a future with him in it. Faced with the straight brilliance of that soul, Seto let his mouth relax and decided to accept it.
"Well said, Atem."
Seto leaned his upper body in smoothly, put a long arm on the back of the sofa and cut off Atem's escape. The scent of oud closed in all at once.
Atem's vision turned over as he caught his breath in surprise, and in the next moment, against his forehead, Seto's lips — slightly cool, and appallingly gentle.
"…!"
Atem screwed his eyes shut and went scarlet, as though every drop of blood in his body had run backwards.
The forehead where he had been touched was as hot as if it were being burned in the flames of a Shadow Game.
—How he got up from that sofa afterwards, and how he made his way back to his own room and the Interdimensional Elevator, Atem had no memory of whatsoever.
