It’s Valentine’s Day, and Yugi is at the Kaiba mansion, chocolateless and deflated. In flashback: Atem asks Kaiba his type. He says strength, a strategy that defies expectation, instinct. She tells him he’s talking about something else entirely. He says he didn’t know either — past tense. Yugi catches the past tense. Atem does not. On Valentine’s Day itself, Kaiba comes to her room, says her name, and hands her flowers. Nothing else. Atem sits with them for a long time, afraid to let herself understand what they mean.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 08 バレンタインに花束
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor₋yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
The city was giddy with it — pink and chocolate everywhere you looked. And yet, in one room of the Kaiba mansion, Yugi was sitting there deflated.
Téa was in America. No chocolate coming his way. Atem offered what comfort she could.
“Cheer up, Aibou. I’ll give you some friend chocolate.”
“No, I’m good. Give it to Kaiba.”
“To Kaiba? Why?”
“You’re just — honestly.”
Clearly, straightforwardness was the only option.
“Because you’re going out.”
“Not you too, Aibou... You’ve been spending too much time with Téa.”
Atem insisted that wasn’t the case. Yugi didn’t believe her for a second.
Who was it, exactly, who had gone pink at a bouquet of flowers on Christmas? That voice. That overwhelming, inescapable pull. He’d had a moment of genuine concern that he might himself wander somewhere inadvisable if he wasn’t careful — and that was with Atem and Téa right there as ballast. Seto Kaiba was a hazard.
The fact that Atem had received all of that head-on and was apparently fine — or at least claimed to be, which she wasn’t — suggested something had gone wrong somewhere in her wiring.
Seto hadn’t made the slightest effort to conceal his feelings. That had been true even with Yugi in the room — so he almost certainly wasn’t concealing them here either.
He didn’t hide his feelings. In one sense, that was entirely consistent with the Seto Kaiba Yugi had always known.
And yet — if Atem was telling the truth — somehow, impossibly, this one particular form of feeling had failed to land on this specific natural wonder.
Despite it being that obvious. He genuinely, truly could not believe it. And he deeply wished it were a joke.
“He apparently only eats chocolate from farms he has contracts with. That hot chocolate you’re drinking right now is from the same source.”
KaibaCorp had apparently expanded into confectionery at some point without him noticing.
Yugi took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was sweet. The kind of thing Atem would love.
“Is Kaiba into sweet things?”
“He’s not particularly picky, I think. But that one isn’t something he drinks — it’s a product. You can get it at affiliated hotels apparently.”
“Huh.”
Hotels — not the Kaiba Land official hotel, probably. More likely the lounge of something considerably more expensive.
It was the best chocolate he’d ever had, in a way that made him wonder what he’d been drinking before.
“Anyway — it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“I know. It’s the day you give gifts to someone important to you, right?”
Important. Well, that was one word for it.
The person being slowly, obliviously, exquisitely tortured by this natural wonder was — in all probability, with essentially no margin of error — the very person in question, Seto Kaiba. Or possibly himself. He wasn’t entirely sure anymore.
Was this some kind of patience contest — waiting to see who broke first? Or was Seto genuinely some kind of ascetic?
At minimum, Yugi was not going to last much longer.
“Important, or — someone you like. Like that.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t really understand that kind of feeling. I don’t think I have anyone like that.”
Chin resting on her hand, looking for all the world like there was genuinely nothing there.
Doubt. He wanted to say it out loud. If only it would land.
How could this be so frustrating.
“Have you ever talked to Kaiba about this kind of thing?”
“Oh — you mean koibana, right.”
Renba. Well, that was one way to put it. She must have learned the word recently — she looked pleased with herself, perking up at the topic. Source almost certainly: Téa. Thanks very much, Téa, for teaching her things at the worst possible time.
“He’s been getting a lot of deliveries lately, apparently, so I did ask once.”
She was talking about her person of interest’s love life. With visible enthusiasm. Yugi had no idea what to do with this.
He could almost hear a voice saying please, ask me about it.
Apparently Valentine’s Day wasn’t just for important people — it was also for confessing feelings to someone you liked.
Atem had acquired this information.
Mokuba had been grumbling about the mountain of deliveries that kept arriving at the company around Valentine’s, and Atem had quickly connected the dots: someone out there had feelings for Seto, who was the president. It wasn’t a difficult leap, given that according to Téa, Seto was enormously popular and had had countless women fall for him.
With that many people in the picture, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
Alone together in the room, Atem got straight to the point.
“Kaiba, do you know about Valentine’s Day?”
“It’s a custom of giving gifts — flowers, that sort of thing — to someone important to you. In Japan it takes on a different character. Do you want some chocolate?”
He pointed to the chocolate sitting nearby.
Atem unwrapped a piece and put it in her mouth.
“That’s good... but that’s not what I meant. It’s also a day for giving something to someone you like. Is there anyone you’re interested in?”
“Who knows.”
The bored tone of it made her think of his birthday. Unwanted marriage proposals arriving one after another — for someone whose whole existence was work, it probably was just noise.
Priest Seto had been the same — anything that wasn’t work would make him frown, sometimes visibly tense, as he processed it and moved on.
But she wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. Just once, she thought — get him off guard, hear something personal, make a crack in that composure.
This was, in the modern parlance, koibana.
“What kind of answer is that.”
“What about you.”
“You’re turning it around on me. But — I don’t think I understand that kind of feeling. Liking someone.”
“Is that so?”
He said it like it surprised him, which surprised her. Was that surprising? It felt surprising to be surprised about it.
But she didn’t know what she didn’t know.
“Yeah, it’s true. So — what about you, then.”
“You’re persistent.”
He set down what he was doing, shifted the display aside, and looked at her steadily with those blue eyes.
“Does it interest you that much?”
Originally — just mild curiosity. It hadn’t interested her that much. But the more he deflected, the more curious she became. That was probably just how koibana worked.
“It interests me.”
“Oh?”
Seto set everything aside completely and put a piece of chocolate in his mouth.
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and everything about his posture said ask me anything, I’m perfectly comfortable.
“All right. What do you want to know?”
“Hmm... I suppose — what’s your type?”
Even as she asked it, something unsettled was rising in her chest. She wanted to know and she was afraid to know. She tilted her head at the contradiction.
He noticed, of course. He didn’t mention it. If she wanted to hear it, he’d tell her. That was all. She was almost there — he could feel it. All that was left was to push.
Seto spoke.
“Strength.”
“Strength?”
“A strategy that defies expectation. Instinct.”
“...You’re not talking about the same thing I’m talking about.”
She watched him for a moment, and after a brief pause, Seto gave a quiet, amused huff.
“I’d never thought about it before. I didn’t know either.”
“Hmm. Well — if that’s the case, fair enough.”
If you’d never thought about it, then you don’t know. That was reasonable enough.
“So that’s more or less how it went. In the end, all he ever thinks about is cards.”
He’s busy, so I suppose it can’t be helped, Atem said — but was this actually koibana?
Atem’s version of koibana was nothing like the ordinary thing Yugi had imagined, and given that it was Seto Kaiba’s love life in question, he’d braced himself for something alarming — so the result was, in a sense, a relief.
Except.
In his relief at the Seto angle, he’d let his guard down about the other angle entirely. Atem’s love life was the whole point. And now he’d noticed, and he couldn’t un-notice.
He broke into a cold sweat despite the winter air. His heart was pounding over someone else’s romance.
Atem hadn’t caught it, because she didn’t have that awareness — but the person in question, what had he actually said?
I didn’t know. Past tense. A chill ran through Yugi that had nothing to do with the season. And he’d added either.
Which meant: we both didn’t know — but now I do. They’d been completely outmanoeuvred. Played, in the gentlest possible way.
And yet it hadn’t reached Atem. Which — natural wonder, perhaps inevitable.
“Kaiba said didn’t know — past tense. Not don’t know.”
“He said either, didn’t he? If he’s agreeing with me, it means we both don’t know.”
If it was agreement, then didn’t know but now I do applied to Atem too. Like a field spell that covered both sides of the board — if he explained it that way, would it get through? Probably not.
“You’re really something, you know that.”
He was certain. Seto knew, on both sides. And Seto knew Seto knew. That was the warmth underneath it all.
His feelings weren’t hidden — he wasn’t hiding them — so the favourite type had pointed directly at Atem. Seto didn’t lie. His words didn’t bend. He never wavered.
Renba or not — that had been Seto Kaiba, exactly as always.
Atem showed no sign of jealousy whatsoever about all the gifts pouring in from admirers. Did she have nothing to say about it? Maybe not. Whether or not Atem was aware of it, she was being loved.
— In reality, Atem was jealous on a near-daily basis. But Yugi didn’t know that.
Yugi felt faintly nauseous. Not from the sweet hot chocolate. From the natural wonder in front of him. She was sitting there alone — and yet somehow, unmistakably, Seto’s presence hovered at her side.
A good while later, he decided it was time to go, and stepped out of the room — only to walk directly into the owner of the house.
“Welcome back.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“Ah.”
The person Atem was in love with.
Those blue eyes went straight to Atem first. Then to the room, saturated with the smell of chocolate. Then to the display, open to something Valentine’s-related. Then, finally, to Yugi’s expression — and a slow smile curved his mouth.
I’ve been set up, Yugi realised, with complete clarity.
He didn’t particularly object to their relationship, or wish it ill — if anything, he was rooting for it. He’d even thought, at some point, that he might give Atem’s back a nudge.
But being manoeuvred into nudging it on someone else’s schedule was a different matter entirely.
His difficulty with Seto showed no signs of resolving itself any time soon.
Valentine’s Day itself.
For reasons she couldn’t entirely explain, she received flowers.
The meaning wasn’t unclear. The why was what she couldn’t account for.
Or rather — it wasn’t that she couldn’t account for it. It was that she was hesitating to let herself.
She stared at them, arranged in her room, and let out a long breath.
She’d been told: Valentine’s Day was a day for giving gifts to someone important to you. I give gifts to people important to me — those had been Seto’s own words. So the meaning was clear.
Seto didn’t lie.
Which meant: to Seto, Atem was someone important.
Seto Kaiba — the man the whole world watched. She’d never thought about it when they faced each other across a field, hadn’t understood it then — but she understood now, well enough, what kind of person he was. And those eyes were on her.
He had come to the Afterlife by the most unreasonable means imaginable. He had answered her wish and brought her back to the living world. And since then, he had looked after her in ways too numerous to count.
She’d known she was being cared for. At the festival. In the snow. In a hundred small things, always gentle.
But to have the reason given a shape like this — something in her had no words for it.
Of course Seto was irreplaceable to her too. She’d known that. She had known it —
“That was completely without warning.”
Her cheeks were warm as she said it.
To Seto, of course, it wasn’t without warning at all. It was the natural continuation of their koibana, and the last push he had been waiting for.
He had come home, come to her room, said her name — just her name — and handed her the flowers. Nothing else.
Every word was in the bouquet.
Those blue eyes, steady as they always were. Clear and direct. His voice too — that familiar, low, comfortable sound. The same Seto Kaiba as always.
You matter to me. She looked at the flowers that carried the meaning.
“What am I supposed to do.”
If she let herself understand the why — what would happen?
Maybe she should talk to Téa. This was exactly the kind of moment for a girls-only conversation.
But she didn’t know where to start, or how, and so she said nothing to anyone. She didn’t even know what she needed help with.
She had the answer. She was afraid to let herself have it. The contradiction held her in place.
All she could do was sit with her heart beating too fast, and fold away whatever this feeling was — this nameless, almost-overflowing thing — quietly, carefully, inside herself.
