Yugi comes home from the Memory War to find an envelope with no address and no stamp: a Kaiba Corporation pass, and a note in a neat hand saying only that it is valid at all times. The other me has things he wants to say before he goes — his name, and the place his soul is meant to return to. Two things. Kaiba agrees to hear one.
What follows is not the conversation Atem came for. By morning he is sitting on a desk above Domino City, watching the sun come up beside a man who has never believed in anything he couldn't see, and who somehow already knows his name, the shape of ten years, of two hundred, of three thousand. Kaiba insists he did nothing at all. Atem has a month left, and one of them is lying.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 01 オカルトな彼
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Bone-tired. His mother greeted Yugi, home from the Memory War, exactly as she always did. Then she handed him an envelope.
There was no address on it, and no stamp.
When he asked, it seemed someone in a black suit and sunglasses had come and delivered it in person.
Inside was a single pass, and a note that said, in a neat hand, only: valid at all times.
Kaiba Corporation. The face of its president came to mind.
This was, without question, addressed to the other me — to Atem.
"Here, this one's for you. Go whenever you like."
"He'd normally just drag me there by force. Is it a trap?"
I've had my fill of that sort of thing, Yugi thought, but did not say it. It would be no joke at all if the lie turned out true.
The other soul, they said, had a place it was meant to return to.
If a parting was coming between the two of them, whom he had thought of as eternal rivals, then at least once they ought to face each other properly, Yugi thought. In whatever form. Even if it was a trap.
Though he couldn't imagine the Kaiba of now doing anything of the kind.
Seto Kaiba. There had been a great deal between them. Bad blood, and — Atem had even felt something like comradeship.
Whether Kaiba believed it was another matter, and he might well refuse to take it seriously and call it occult nonsense, but there were things Atem wanted to tell him all the same.
"It doesn't have to be right away. Sometime — after school, perhaps."
"Then it's settled."
"I leave it to you, Aibou."
"Oh, no. You're going yourself, from the very start. Honestly, what am I going to do with you."
Through the main entrance, and when he asked at reception where the president was, he was asked his business. Of course he was. Not knowing what to answer, he showed the pass that had been sent to him, and felt the concierge's whole manner sharpen.
The route to the president's office was explained to him, and he decided to head there for now.
With this pass — this key card — he could apparently use the direct elevator at the very back.
To the elevator hall, then into the elevator. Every last step required a touch of the card. It probably recorded who had used it, when and where, too. Tight, he thought, and made for the top floor.
To his surprise, the key card he had been sent opened even the door of the president's office when he tried it against the reader. Oh no, he thought. If Kaiba wasn't in, this would be extremely awkward. And in fact, the person he had come for was there. The master of the room turned his eyes toward the sound. They met Yugi's.
"So you came."
"Um, Kaiba. I came today because A— no, because the other me has something to tell you."
Whether any of it was actually being listened to, he had no way of knowing, because he was Yugi and not Atem. Seto Kaiba had a way of not listening to people. He could hear you perfectly well — he simply wasn't listening.
But he couldn't back down here.
"Um—"
"Wait a moment."
Ah — he was listening, Yugi thought. Given the Kaiba he had known until now, it was a fair enough thing to think.
After a while the sound of the keyboard stopped, and there was the sound of him getting to his feet.
"You said you had something to tell me. There is one thing I want to ask you. So I'll hear one thing from you."
It made no sense, but perhaps, by the logic inside his head, that balanced out.
"All right. I'm switching."
The sensation of drawing his consciousness back was a familiar one by now, but the thought that there was only a month of it left made Yugi feel sentimental.
The weight of a body; consciousness surfacing. Before him stood Seto Kaiba, the man he had acknowledged, and been acknowledged by, as his rival for life.
"Hey. Hear me out, Kaiba. The truth is, my real—"
But Kaiba, with the very mouth that had just said he would listen, cut Atem off the instant he began.
"System, engage. Lock."
"Lock complete. Security level?"
A machine voice answered.
"Shut out. Put no one through."
"Level set."
While Atem stood there dumbfounded, the man — who had come to stand directly in front of him — smiled faintly and told him: now nothing would interrupt them.
This was certainly an important matter, but it was an entirely private errand of Atem's own.
You needn't go that far, he thought, and looked up. The smile was gone, but for some reason his face was extraordinarily clear. Was he plotting something? No — there should be no need for anything so conspiratorial between them any more.
At any rate, faced with a manner that finally looked like listening, Atem opened his mouth.
"There's something I have to tell you. First, my name—"
"Wait. One thing is what I said I'd hear. 'First' makes no sense. And — I'll hear it later."
His name, and the return of his soul to the place where it belonged. He had come to convey two things, and he was allowed one.
He seemed not to be listening and yet he was, so perhaps Atem could simply say his piece and go; or perhaps the two could be folded neatly into one. He was thinking along those lines when a hand reached out and touched his cheek, and lips came down and touched him.
"What— why—"
Why. The question was physically stopped by lips closing over his again, and the doubt had its thinking stopped by a kiss that only deepened.
Was he — kissing Kaiba?
The strange situation went on even after he could no longer bear the gentleness of a gaze he had never seen before and lowered his eyes.
Deep, and long. His head swam, and when he caught at the suit jacket, that hand was taken and he was lifted off his feet. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been unthinkable, but his mind would not turn.
Kaiba gently removed the Puzzle and set it on the table.
"The blinds. Draw the curtains, and leave them until I say otherwise."
"Complete."
The machine voice answered. He was the only one here not functioning properly.
That was what he was thinking, while he steadied his risen breathing a little.
"We're going to the nap room."
There was the soft sound of a door opening.
He was carried straight through, and where they arrived there was a bed; come to think of it, Atem thought, Kaiba did say nap room — and only then, at the sheer impossibility of it, did he finally begin to panic.
What had just happened, and the bed. He understood at least that much of what this meant.
"Wait, I didn't come here to do this, I only came to talk—"
"Be quiet. At last."
As if whispering, as if soothing him. His mouth was closed again.
"No... no."
A meaningless no, said now for who knew how many times. Being touched — that hand, that tongue — he did not dislike it. Far from it. It made heat.
His body, which ought to have been rigid, was touched gently, melted sweetly, until even his thoughts seemed to have been loosened.
"W-why. So suddenly."
"Suddenly, nothing. I have wanted to do this for a long time."
A hot voice, like a breath.
Atem's wet crimson eyes looked up at Kaiba. And there were blue eyes, with heat lodged in them.
His breath was taken from him, as if to stop him thinking at all, and he was caressed all over. His ears, his chest, his front. And before he knew it fingertips were at the bud, and about to enter.
"Wai— hh—"
"It hurts like that. Let the strength go."
He was kissed between the brows, and when he opened his eyes the face above him was outrageously tender. He had never known this man to wear such a face.
Beautiful, he thought, of all things, and reached out a hand.
"Ah. You really are a lovely thing."
He was stroked and played with as though in fun, and once he stopped resisting the pleasure he was given and simply took it, the pain was gone.
His body was accepting it — this situation, this man — was wanting it.
He watched Kaiba undress. A lean, beautiful body. So it was this that had been loving him until a moment ago. Drawn to it, Atem touched the muscle.
"Don't provoke me so much."
A small laugh escaped him, and one more kiss.
The tip was set against him slowly, and just as slowly it came in.
"Nn— ah—"
There was no way it wasn't tight. It hurt.
Even so, both of them knew there was no stopping here.
His head was stroked, his nipple licked; fingertips and tongue that melted him drew the strength deftly out of Atem's body and came in to the depth.
From the place where they had become one, a sweet happiness rose, and out of Atem's mouth came something that was neither voice nor breath.
"Nn— haa—"
And when he closed the eyes he had opened wide, a single line of tears spilled over.
Kaiba drank the tears away as though at a loss, and began slowly to move.
He was shaken harder and harder, cried out without end, called the man's name, wanted him. From about that point, his memory was only fragments.
Near dawn, perhaps. He woke because a gown had been put on him and he had been lifted up.
Consciousness rose slowly with the vibration that matched the stride. What now?
Where they eventually stopped was the window with its sweeping view of Domino City. Kaiba's desk. Is this the world you always look at, he thought, and looked over the city, and then at the sky. It had already begun to pale, and brightly.
The man beside him said nothing and looked into the distance. He had ended up in this relationship by simply being carried along, and at a moment like this he had no idea what to say, so he looked into the distance in the same way.
And then, before very long, he watched the risen morning sun light the city up.
"How does it look — the future with light in it, Atem."
It did not become a voice.
Had he managed to say even so simple a thing as, it's beautiful?
He had won the Memory War, but he knew nothing of what came after he vanished.
Seto would have become the new king and surely rebuilt it all. He hoped light as beautiful as this fell on that country too.
"Let me ask. Did you see the sight you wanted to see? Was there peace?"
Kaiba asked.
Wondering how on earth he knew, Atem gave the thing he had wanted to say since last night — my name is Atem — as an answer that answered nothing.
And then he noticed.
What had he just said?
How does it look — the future with light in it, "Atem."
He turned it over in his head.
"Did you — know? Are you Seto after all?"
"No. I'm not that one. I merely know the past that one trod out."
"Then why. If you knew, why—"
"Suppose I'd told you. Would you have gone up against an evil god alone? Unarmed? Without preparing for the fight?"
It was possible. Without the trials until now, the Egyptian God cards, his friends, victory would have been impossible — but it was easy enough to imagine himself throwing himself into the fight out of a sense of duty. This man knew a great deal about him.
Atem fell silent, and Kaiba did not press him further; he only smiled, gently and calmly.
Of all people — the man who had swept away everything that surrounded Atem with the single word occult.
He had thought Kaiba believed only in what he could see.
And this was the man.
"Oh, for— you're the most occult thing here."
For all his complaining, Kaiba only laughed, looking enormously satisfied. The sheer variety of smiles Atem had seen since last night was already too much information, and now all he could manage was the utterly ordinary thought that the man could make that face too.
What did it look like, the two of them perched side by side on the desk, watching the sun come up?
"Kaiba, I want you to hear this. Soon I'm going to—"
"I've heard one thing from you already. You wanted to tell me the name Atem."
"You already knew, so it doesn't count."
"No. I certainly heard it. It counts."
Ah — this was their usual pattern, neither one giving ground.
It had been light for some time; the streets were bright and he ought to be getting ready for school. No — he might be late even if he went straight home. Pulled abruptly back into reality by the high sun.
He reached out to take the Millennium Puzzle. He couldn't reach it — the desk was absurdly large. His footsteps were swallowed by the carpet as he padded around to the other side.
Good morning, Aibou. But the hand he reached out to the Millennium Puzzle passed through it with no sensation at all.
"Huh? What—?"
However many times he tried to take hold of it, the Millennium Puzzle could not be touched. He panicked. At this rate, would it be Aibou who went, in his stead, to the place where Atem's soul belonged?
Kaiba only watched Atem in this state, looking thoroughly entertained.
"Kaiba, what is this. Is the Puzzle refusing me? No — this is mine, so — Aibou—"
"Atem. Did you not hand it over to someone while you were still alive?"
He remembered. The Puzzle he had shattered and entrusted to Seto, and the future with it. He looked at Kaiba as if to say, give it back. But.
"Unfortunately, I am not that one."
That was true. Seto and Seto Kaiba were not equal to each other.
"In that case I'll call the Seto inside you out and settle it in a Duel—"
"What a violent and inconsiderate thing to say."
"Ah, you're right. That makes me the same as the usual Kaiba."
"Who's violent and inconsiderate?"
"You have no idea, do you."
He said it, but nothing came back; Kaiba only smiled faintly.
Kaiba's hand reached out and lifted the Puzzle. So you are Seto after all — the words nearly came out, and Atem held them back.
"Ten years. He worked himself to the bone rebuilding, transferred the power of the Millennium Items into his own soul, and ended his life. Because he pulled off something that brutal, he wore his soul down too far. Then he split that soul and rebuilt it — himself to the land of the dead, the remaining vessel of the soul into the cycle of rebirth."
"Split — his soul?"
"A soul is a vessel for memory. It is born and filled with memory; at death the memory goes to the land of the dead, and the empty vessel circles on into the future. That one wrote the power of the Millennium Items into his own soul in order to blunt it, and crossed over to the land of the dead. On its own, of course, that would be meaningless as preparation for fighting an evil god in the future."
"But he wasn't wrong. The power of the Millennium Items was too strong."
That may be so, Kaiba said, and lowered his eyes.
"Two hundred years. For the decisive battle to come, he left the stone tablet, scraped away the name inscribed in the royal tomb, and put the line of the Tomb Keepers in order. To carry all that out, a little memory had been written into the rebuilt vessel of the soul. Thorough of him. The reincarnated soul used it as its guide and laid the groundwork."
Atem's eyes widened. What came next would surely be—
"Three thousand years."
As he thought. Ten years, two hundred years — the groundwork had been laid. After that there was nothing left but the present.
"He waited. Using the power of the Millennium Items carved into the soul, making fine adjustments to preparations for the decisive battle that were forever on the verge of going astray. Reincarnation was repeated over and over. It's enough to make your mind go dim."
Beyond comprehension, Kaiba said, and let out a breath.
Those eyes that seemed to be looking into the distance — what were they looking at? Three thousand years' worth of someone's memory, perhaps.
The face that turned slowly back to him was very calm, and soft. As though it might enfold him.
"And then, now. But being put to convenient use by that one's memory doesn't suit me. I don't use that power either. I did — nothing."
A lie. The one who had faced him again and again as a rival, the one who at times had given him strength by refusing to permit him to lose to anyone but himself, was this man and no one else.
Without the existence of Seto Kaiba, he could never have grown strong enough to fight that battle to the death.
Peret Kheru. He had carried out exactly what was inscribed on the stone tablet.
To have been held in someone's thoughts to this degree. To a degree that even he, who had thought himself slow about such things, could feel it.
Atem's chest was suddenly full, and the tears spilled over. They came in fat drops, one after another after another.
"What— why am I crying?"
He had thought he was alone. Even after regaining his memories, he had thought the sealed soul had been alone.
But he had not been fighting by himself after all. If anything, having its memories, waiting for an Atem who might never wake at all — Seto's soul must have been far lonelier.
"Cry much more and you won't be able to go outside."
"I know that."
As if he knew even the meaning of the tears, the arms that came around him were very gentle.
"Atem. I'll be on this side for a month. Come whenever you like."
A month. Egypt was a month from now. Did he know even that? If he could use the power of the Millennium Items, then he ought to have the power to see the future as well. Or was that overthinking it — the Millennium Necklace could not see the future of anyone who held a Millennium Item.
Unable to quite read what the man was thinking, Atem looked at him steadily to urge him on.
"In a month I'll be in America. Will you come?"
How good it would have been if he could have said, I want to go, I want to be with you.
"I can't go to America."
He murmured it, a little sadly.
Kaiba looked at Atem like that for a while, then grinned. That expression he knew.
"Then I'll simply come to where you are. Wherever that may be. Next time, you're the one who waits. Release the curtains."
"Understood."
As that machine voice answered, the Millennium Puzzle vanished out of Kaiba's hand. And a little way off, a Millennium Puzzle appeared.
"Solid Vision."
He'd been had. The tears had already stopped.
What was there was only a calm present.
Don't worry. I won't keep you waiting long. Carrying those words in his chest, Atem left the room.
