Atem sees snow for the first time, ignores every instruction about layers, buries herself in it, and predictably runs a fever.
Seto has her snowman moved into the shade before he goes to see her.
She asks whether he worried; she cannot look at him while she asks. He tells her, to a room that cannot hear him, that he is not a prince and will not take the easy road.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 07 間話。白雪姫
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Snow.
She changed in a hurry and flew out of the house.
Atem's first snow. A silver world as far as she could see.
She wasn't the type to laugh in triumph and declare that this was what she'd been waiting for, but this elation made her understand the feelings of anyone who was.
Touch a place where it had piled up and it took the print of her fingers as though it had no hardness at all. Grip it, though, and it became a solid mass.
The crunch of packing it underfoot was interesting.
Perhaps she really would laugh in triumph after all. She was thinking such things when a voice reached her.
"Atem. Are you outside dressed like that again?"
"Morning, Kaiba! It's snow!"
"I can see that. I don't mind you playing, but put on another layer first."
"It's fine, I'll be back in a moment."
"You'll catch cold at this rate."
Snowmen, snow huts, snowball fights.
Since learning of the forecast for heavy snow several days earlier, she had been researching snow play exhaustively; he knew that much.
She said she'd be back in a moment, but that she would not be back was plain to see. Unlike when she had been Yugi, there was something childlike about Atem.
Whoever among the household staff said it, she almost certainly wouldn't listen.
There being nothing else for it, Seto carried out a full set of clothing and forced Atem into it.
He was invited to a snowball fight and of course refused. It could not possibly have been a contest.
"Nii-sama, where's Atem?"
"Outside."
"Ah, right. Egypt, of course. She'd be excited."
Given where she came from, it can't be helped, Mokuba smiled.
"Sand or snow, it makes no difference."
"Well, to you, Nii-sama, both of them are probably about the same as clay."
He must have been remembering all the things his brother had built for him in the sandpit. It was a slightly nostalgic face.
But now it wasn't sand; he could actually build.
"For that application, clay would be the appropriate material."
"That's got no romance in it, I'm sure. My guess is she won't be back for another two hours."
"No doubt. ...She challenged me to a snowball fight."
"Absolutely not. Nii-sama, what's your pitching speed again?"
He had never measured it, but with a ball, around 130 km/h would be reasonable.
With a snowball the speed would drop. At most it would come to 100 km/h or so.
"With snow, unless it were the face, it would end at a bruise. A charming enough level."
"...That's not charming. Absolutely not, all right?"
"I'm hardly going to accept that battle."
Would catching a cold or something quiet her down? Not for a while yet.
That conversation was had, and Atem duly ran a fever.
"I know it's your first snow, but... you went too far, Atem."
At Mokuba's exasperated voice there was no longer any way to defend herself.
"I'm sorry. I got carried away."
"And then you're soaked head to toe, is that it? What were you doing? It wasn't rain."
"It was snowing. If it had stopped, this wouldn't have—"
"Then you could have played after it stopped."
"That didn't occur to me."
That in truth she had dived into the snow and lain buried in it for a while was something she couldn't say if her mouth were torn open.
It wasn't an infection, so that much was better, but her head was fogged with the fever.
Mokuba had been exasperated with her rather than worried, and that too was only to be expected.
"Where's Kaiba?"
"Nii-sama went off to work ages ago. I think he'll be back tonight, but there's no telling what time."
"I see. ...I have a snowman I put everything into."
If he'd thought she felt unwell and lonely and wanted to see him, apparently not. Honestly, she was like a child. Mokuba was exasperated to the core.
"At this temperature it won't melt for a while, so it'll be fine. Hurry up and get better."
"Yes. Thank you."
The town had already been cleared, but the snow within the grounds had been left as it was. Pass through the gate and the scenery turned to winter.
Halfway to the house, something that had not been there when he left sat enthroned.
A snowman.
The two stacked masses of snow were a respectable size, and it was easy to infer she had been playing for a very long time.
He had heard from Mokuba that Atem had played too much and caught a cold. Her appetite and her consciousness were apparently not a problem.
"Someone move that snowman into the shade."
Atem had by now dissolved thoroughly into the Kaiba mansion and was doted on.
Watching several of them take on delighted faces at that instruction, issued the moment he came home, Seto headed for Atem's room.
"I'm coming in."
"Kaiba? Welcome home."
"I'm back. ...Don't get up. How are you?"
"Just a fever, I suppose."
He brought up her chart and skimmed through it.
No sore throat, no nausea; unsteadiness from the fever and the like.
The cause: playing while soaked through in temperatures cold enough to snow. He had no objection whatsoever to innocence, but she was a hopeless creature.
There was no scent of anything infectious, so rather than a cold it was likely a disturbance of the autonomic nervous system. Rest would fix it. In any case, this sort of thing could only be slept off.
"Was it fun?"
"It was. Next time I'll play after the snow stops."
"You never learn."
"What's wrong with that?"
Several people must have looked in on her already. On the side table were sweets of the kind Atem liked.
She had apparently eaten a candy apple from among them. It had been returned to its bag with the core left neatly behind. Running a fever and still in a festival mood.
"You oughtn't to make people worry, though."
"Worry — did you?"
"Do you think I wouldn't?"
Why fall silent there. Looking at her, she had turned her eyes away and her face had gone slightly redder than a moment ago.
I see, Seto concluded privately about something, and smiled thinly so as not to be caught at it.
"Now. Sleep well and get better."
Seto stood.
"Wait. There's one thing I have to say."
"What is it."
"I have a snowman. That I put everything into."
"...That one I had moved into the shade. The temperature will stay low for the next several days and there won't be much sun. It will hold for a while."
He'd wondered what she was about to come out with, and it was the snowman. Worry about yourself first.
He drew the covers firmly up to her shoulders and ruffled her hair.
"Ah — your hand is cold. It feels good."
Truly, a hopeless creature.
He cooled her forehead until his hand grew warm, and only then did she seem satisfied; her face became the one she wore before sleeping.
She would sleep if he turned the lights out, and so he did.
He considered going out now and building some snow sculpture or other beside the snowman, and decided against it. It was quiet outside; the snow that had stopped had begun to fall again.
Going down together would be no use to anyone.
The colour of her cheeks was no longer the colour of apples. She had fallen asleep, then.
"Do you know Snow White?"
He knew there would be no answer.
A princess who bites a poisoned apple and sleeps. It suited an Atem who ate an apple and slept perfectly. What she'd eaten was an ordinary apple, and she was no princess besides.
"I am no prince."
No prince. Which was why, whether it was fate or destiny, he would exhaust every means available. There was surely an easier road, one where you kissed her awake, but he would not choose it.
Sleep well. He left the room and headed for his own.
He recalled that face, flushed red to the ears.
Only a little further to the fall.
All that remained was to push that little further.
In what form should he push?
Seto's design was being achieved, steadily.
Two days later, when the recovered Atem went to check on her snowman, a Blue-Eyes snow sculpture that looked manufactured had been built beside it.
There was only one person who would make such a thing.
"Oh, come on. So you did want to play in the snow, Kaiba."
Mokuba had told her about it. The traces his brother had left in quantity all over the school.
She knew that snow eventually melts.
It was good enough work that its melting away seemed a waste.
Along with the Blue-Eyes, even a Kuriboh — the one he'd endlessly mocked as small fry — had been built, and for some reason it left her feeling itchy.
What sort of face had he made while building it? She'd have liked to see, or perhaps not.
She wanted to see and didn't want to see. If she saw it, she felt something would change.
"...That supadari."
Atem took photographs of the snow sculptures and went back to her room.
The snow had begun to fall again.
