Atem has fallen back into the mortal world with a body and no idea how to return.
The moment he registers a deck in Domino City, Kaiba Corporation's security flags him — and Seto solves the problem of an undocumented King of the afterlife the only way he knows how: by putting him on the payroll.
Toast gets burned, approvals get automated, and the afterlife gets a VPN.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 愛と理論 01 王、職を得る
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Night, and the master of the house had come home.
In Seto's private room: a coat folded neatly, the clothes that had been worn, the ornaments, and the Millennium Puzzle.
Their owner, Atem, was sitting quietly with a cup of herbal tea, in a shirt several sizes too large for him.
"...So. Atem. By what sequence of events are you in this house?"
Which was how Seto came to be taking a far too late teatime with Atem.
"You're the one who owes an explanation. You summon me here and then ask me that?"
The words were sharp enough, but since fairly early on — back when Seto had first set foot in the afterlife — the two of them had been on terms rather beyond the ordinary.
They called each other "Atem" and "Seto," and at night, of course, rather more than that. At any rate: terms beyond the ordinary.
Which meant that what Atem had on amounted to a boyfriend shirt. Borrowed without asking.
"I don't recall summoning you. The moment your existence was registered in the system, security raised an alert. That's all."
"An alert? All I wanted was a place to sleep. Nothing more."
"No one in this city lives for nothing. Without a deck registration you don't even count as a resident."
Atem had, in the most literal sense, come falling into the mortal world for "nothing."
To the Kame Game shop. To Yugi.
He had meant to return to the afterlife, but perhaps because he had a body now, he had no idea how.
With no other option, he ended up living at the Muto house for a while. Up to that point it had been a stable course.
But the instant he registered a deck in order to reside in Domino City, the summons came.
A car arrived to collect him and made to take him away without waiting for an answer.
Yugi, having worked out whose doing it was, sold Atem out with a breezy, "Kaiba can get to the afterlife, so you'll be fine."
"Heh... Aibou got the better of me. The fruit of your education, I suppose."
"A resident's obligation."
"Honestly. Civilisation is a complicated thing. That whether a man holds a card should matter more than where his soul resides."
"...If you have time for irony, go read the rulebook."
Atem took a sip of his herbal tea and answered with a composed smile.
"But the archive here is lined with manuals thicker than the Millennium Book. Those would take all night to get through."
"If you intend to read them, fine. The bedroom is at the back. The bathroom is automatic. There's a dining hall, or I can have something brought up."
"I see. Your list of instructions is stricter than any manual."
"...If you have the capacity to learn, you'll be used to it by tomorrow."
And so began their "shared life of love and theory, and a little irony."
A few days after Atem began living at the Kaiba mansion. The dining hall, morning.
Seto was reading the news, and Atem was making toast.
In the Kaiba mansion there was no need to do housework, still less to toast one's own bread.
It was a manifestation of Atem's elevated commitment to leading an ordinary life.
"Mm... the bread burned. The cause is time."
"The cause is that you turned the toaster oven into an object of observation."
"Surprising, Seto. To analyse the psychology of the observer rather than the heat. A scientist, then."
"When I've watched you work, yes. That wasn't science, only a record of a failed experiment."
"Then let us say I am a king who learns from failure."
"And yet you've shoved in another slice without learning a thing. What's that."
"Seto. Do you know what it is that teaches the difference between 'a challenge' and 'a folly'?"
Atem turned a provoking look on him and went on.
"Experience."
Seto let out a light breath.
But he was smiling. Wryly, but smiling.
"...Fine. I'll clear away the mother of success. Don't burn the next one."
"My thanks. Though it sits poorly with me, leaving a king's breakfast to a subject..."
"Who's a subject. I'm the owner of this house."
"The owner. Not so far from a king."
For a moment the air went quiet.
But it didn't turn heavy. It came undone in a light laugh.
"'I rule no one,' mind you."
"Don't lie. In that case, are you prepared to be ruled?"
"Out of the question. We rule each other. That's what makes us equals."
"Interesting. A relationship of mutual rule. Philosophical."
"When you start on philosophy, the coffee goes cold."
He said it and took another sip. Bitterer, at least, than Atem's toast.
"Even cold coffee ought to taste good, if I'd brewed it. Wouldn't it?"
"...Atem. Have you learned to make jokes."
"A king has the capacity to learn."
He said so with total confidence, but the second slice he pulled out was burnt.
Atem broke the burnt toast in half again and held it out to Seto.
"Half of it is yours."
"I don't want it. Where did the capacity to learn go."
"It's still in progress. I'll be recording this as the result of a joint experiment."
With no other option, Seto took the half of Burnt Bread No. 2, wearing a sour face.
"...There seems to be no logic to taste."
"That is precisely the theory of love."
Seto stopped for a moment, and his expression loosened. Just slightly, a wry smile.
"Too much philosophy and too many jokes for the morning. Not that it's bad."
Atem laughed quietly too.
Night. Atem was talking to the AI with great enthusiasm.
"Is 'good morning' used only when the sun has risen?"
The current time is 22:00. Good morning, Lord Atem.
"I see. Full of contradictions. I like it."
"Don't like it. What is it you're trying to learn from that AI."
"I was drawn to the sound of the words artificial intelligence. To house an intellect in a vessel without a soul. It's a concept close to what my age called a spirit."
"...Don't drag the occult into AI. A modern program is far more logical than that."
"Is it. And at the far end of logic — do you think a soul comes to dwell?"
Seto's brow drew together.
Still unable to reach the afterlife, he had built, in its place, an Atem to restore: one with no body of its own. Seto's own recorded memory, rendered as image.
"It doesn't."
"You state that with confidence."
That thing had been of use as an AI reasonably strong at games, and had proved out the Power Vision display technology. Beyond commercial value, it had been nothing.
"...It's been proven."
Atem laughed a little.
It was an innocence very like a child's.
"Then — your reason for believing in me is?"
Seto's fingers stopped.
"...You have been proven."
The next morning.
Atem was walking through the hanging garden with a VR headset on.
"This world is an illusion, but the computation of the wind is a fine piece of work."
"Atem. It seems you've no intention of returning anymore."
"I have. But I can come and go, can't I. In that case it's only natural to learn this world before I go."
"It looks like sightseeing from any angle."
Atem was dressed as though he were at a resort, in a white linen one-piece.
Longer in the hem than what he had worn in the afterlife.
"It isn't. I am trying to understand this world."
"And in order to understand it, has the King of the Underworld any intention of holding an account in the mortal world?"
"An account — that would be something like a graveyard for currency, wouldn't it?"
"Then I'll have such a graveyard made for you. You'll learn the mortal world. ...Better still, shall I register you as an employee."
Atem took off the headset and turned around.
"An employee?"
"A formal registration, for the sake of living and of existing. If you intend to go on living in the mortal world, a title from Kaiba Corporation is bedrock."
"I see. So in this age, to serve is called to work."
"The reverse. I have no intention of serving the King — you. But I'll hire you as an employee."
"Put that way, there's a faint scent of rule about it..."
"Not a scent. A fact."
Several hours later.
Seto was working the terminal, typing away flatly.
"Name, 'Atem.' Department, 'Special Advisor.' Job description... Otherworld Liaison, near enough. Age is still nineteen, isn't it?"
"If one ages in the afterlife, then yes... No. Don't push the registration through on your own. I haven't consented yet."
By Atem's own account, he had been sixteen at the point he returned to the afterlife.
They had met again a year and some months after that, and in the roughly two years since, his height had not increased and his face was a boy's still.
Seto's guess was that one did not age in the afterlife, but he had decided not to think about it for now.
"Consent or no consent, if you are in the mortal world you need to be a legal entity. Otherwise you'll be treated as an off-record life form."
"You've a remarkably thorough grasp of this world's laws..."
"Naturally. A good many of the rules are mine."
"And so you're telling me you'll make my place to belong, as well?"
"That's right. If you object, will you go home to the afterlife?"
Atem laughed quietly.
But his eyes were a little soft.
"...No. I'd like to feel the wind of this world a while longer."
"I expected as much. There. Registration complete."
"Registering without the King's permission. A high-handed man as ever."
"...It's the right to stand beside you."
Atem let out a small breath.
"I see. Then, as a king's duty, let me offer thanks. I'm grateful you hired me, President Kaiba."
"A commendable attitude. Start by learning your start time."
"A king cannot be bound by the clock."
"There are no exceptions among employees."
"Nothing for it. I'll work like a god, then."
Seto let out a small snort of laughter.
"I've picked up a troublesome employee."
"You're the one who picked me up, aren't you?"
"...I won't deny it. But I have an eye for these things."
The morning light came through between the two of them.
In the space between the mortal world and the afterlife, a quiet ordinary life, logic and feeling mixed together, begins again today.
Kaiba Corporation, Special Research Lab.
The light of the terminals crossed in geometric lines, and a stillness like cold air hung over the room.
At the centre of it, Atem was writing code with a perfectly serious face.
King of the Underworld, Otherworld Liaison for the mortal world, with technical skill trained by the president himself.
A fair contradiction — and yet Atem's handling of the work was beyond human.
"...Processing speed. Two point seven times, is it."
"I optimised the construction of the logic a little. I only applied the priests' techniques of record-keeping."
"You only applied them and my entire technical division is left in the dust. It seems you learned more than I taught."
"I'm a king. A king learns management, not rule."
"So that's what you're bringing out. Then I'm the King's superior."
"If you're my superior, then I'm the deputy of a god."
"...You play too freely with words."
At the exchange, the employees around them held their breath and said nothing. Speak to the president in that manner and there was no guarantee of living to see tomorrow's sunrise.
But both of them meant every word, which made it worse.
Atem, employed at Kaiba Corporation, was seriousness itself.
In meetings he summarised the essential points precisely, read his way through enormous volumes of material, and let a king's pride show at the edges of his speech.
Seto had no complaints about that performance — was, of course, satisfied with it.
If there was one problem, it was that the King's dignity did not come off outside working hours.
"Atem, break. You're fifteen minutes over."
"...Seto, my work isn't finished yet."
"It's not mine. It's my employee's."
"...I see. In that case, I'll obey — as a subordinate."
Seto restrained the urge to demand whether it oughtn't have been as a subject.
And then, on one holiday after such days had gone by.
Atem's room, in the Kaiba mansion.
Game pieces lay scattered across the table; Atem and Seto had been in the middle of a game.
And on the sofa, Yugi, Joey and Tristan had come to check in on them and were making themselves comfortable.
It had been a while since they'd all been together.
"...Hey, other me. Weren't you going to Kaiba's place so you could get back to the afterlife?"
"Mm. But before I knew it, I was working."
"How does that even happen!?"
"Like, studying up on society before you head back to the afterlife?"
Joey and Tristan cut in.
"No, in the mortal world it seems that to live is itself to work. Which means I am simply experiencing mortal life."
"Don't carry the meaning of a job all the way into philosophy. Yugi, what kind of education did you give him. Atem has started claiming labour is the price of the soul."
"But you said it yourself, didn't you. That without results, existence has no value. So working as proof of existence should be rational, shouldn't it?"
"...I feel like that's something really deep, but I can't keep up."
"Atem always did have this side that was way too serious, huh."
"Tristan. If one isn't serious, where is the soul to return to?"
"Atem, we're only talking about work. Don't send souls anywhere. Forget philosophy."
Seto returned Atem's attention from philosophy to labour.
"Labour is the act of projecting one's own meaning as an existence onto society. In other words, Atem is doing nothing but expressing, through work, the proof that he is present in this world."
"Hold on, Kaiba, that's still philosophy, isn't it."
Yugi cut in.
"Proof — isn't that kind of a big claim..."
"It isn't a big claim, Joey. In the afterlife, existence is measured by the strength of will. In the mortal world, it's measured by work. That is this world's order, isn't it?"
"...I see. In other words, I'm on the side of those who can exist without working."
When Seto laughed, ironically, Yugi shrugged in exasperation.
"That right there, Kaiba. That's the sort of thing that makes you and the other me get along, isn't it."
Yugi set down his cup, laughing.
"But if the other me is laughing here, then I guess it's fine."
"I won't deny it. ...But those in the afterlife won't be so easily satisfied."
In Atem's pocket, a small light flickered.
A communication terminal.
The source was the one installed in the afterlife, for the King's exclusive use. Atem got hastily to his feet.
My King...! I am using this terminal knowing full well it is a transgression!
A voice in a panic. One of the priests, by the sound of it.
In the afterlife the King's power is full even now. But the King is not here. In region after region the order has begun to break down — ! My King, where are you!?
For an instant, Atem's eyes met Seto's.
At this rate the afterlife would fall into chaos.
But what rose up inside Atem was a different thought.
I don't want to go back yet.
"...Seto. Would it be all right if I used this line to issue instructions, for a little while."
"Telework from the afterlife. A very you sort of idea."
Seto folded his arms and gave a wry smile.
The priests began to move in accordance with Atem's remote instructions.
At the same time, however, a transmission was quietly reaching Seto behind the scenes as well.
Lord Seto...! How long is this state of affairs to continue!? The King told us he was on duty in the mortal world, but our stomachs — our stomachs will not hold out!
Seto sighed, and laughed low in his throat.
"Well, it isn't bad from where I stand. As long as Atem is here, the afterlife can descend into chaos and I'll have no complaints."
Atem, however, was another matter.
The transmissions came to Seto in secret, but he did not keep them from Atem.
Having listened, Atem gave a small shake of his head at Seto's side.
"If I go back to the afterlife, I have the feeling I won't be able to come here again. So — just a little longer."
Seto's gaze softened, only for a moment.
"...There's nothing for it but to investigate. How well the afterlife holds without you. I'll find out."
Atem smiled, relieved.
But even as he did, his terminal was blinking again.
My King, this time there is a disturbance at the temple of the gods — !
"The King is... on his break. I'll contact you later."
Along with the sound of the line cutting out came Seto's low laughter.
"A remote king. There are limits to work-style reform, Atem."
"I feel I've begun to understand this thing the mortal world calls overtime..."
"The moment you understand that, you're already a member of Japanese society."
A few days later, Seto quietly disappeared.
His destination was the afterlife.
His purpose: to survey the effects of the vanished King, and to grasp the current situation.
"To think I'd be taking a business trip to the afterlife..."
Seto let out a breath as he pressed down onto the flagstones.
In his ears were laments — "The King is gone..." "The order..."
The priests came running over at once.
"L-Lord Seto! You have come for us!?"
"The King told us he was engaged in business in the mortal world, but..."
"Stop calling it duty in the mortal world. It only makes things more confusing."
Shown through to the hall of administration, the priests reported the situation over one another.
"Throughout the afterlife the balance of order has collapsed, and the flow of souls is stagnating."
"For each department — no, each domain — the King's approval does not come down, and so we have fallen into a state where nothing can be authorized..."
"...In other words, the top is absent and the floor has stopped."
Seto lowered himself into a chair and tapped the desk lightly with a fingertip. He flipped through a stack of reports.
"A common enough story. If you have time to stand around saying the documents won't move without the King's signature, optimise your process."
"P-process...?"
"Reorganize the hierarchy. First, separate the authority over the circulation of souls from the authority over adjudication. Automate approvals, and configure the system to notify the King only when an anomaly occurs."
"...That is... a system that does not trouble the King's hands...?"
"Correct. You are priests, are you not — not couriers of paperwork. Build a system that lets you think for yourselves."
The priests' eyes went round.
In Atem's age there had been no such instant decisions.
"I-I see... however, communications within the afterlife are also cut off..."
"Hmph. The mistake is running your communications infrastructure on antiquated occultism. In the mortal world it's fibre optics. Soul-fibre will do for the afterlife."
"S-soul-fibre...?"
"That was a joke. But it's possible in theory."
Seto fixed the afterlife's facilities with a glare.
A cold gaze and a scientific efficiency cut through the silence.
And within a few hours he had redesigned the circuitry, stabilized communications, and constructed a two-way remote environment linking to the mortal world where Atem was.
"With this, the King can work from home. Rather than waiting on the King's approval, you will call the King's API."
"A — A, P, I...?"
"Rendered into the language of the afterlife, the Royal Command Interface. Remember it."
"Inter...?"
"The connecting part, essentially."
The priests nodded, timidly.
"Lord Seto is magnificent — ! Understander of the King, and reformer!"
"I am not a reformer. I am a rationalist. If the cause of the disorder is structure and not emotion, then it is simply a matter of correcting the structure."
At that, the terminal blinked.
A video feed from Atem appeared.
Seto. What have you done to the afterlife? It's noisy out there.
"I'm only reconstructing the order. So that it runs without issue whether you return or not."
...In other words, my own work-style reform?
"Correct. Remote monarchy, implementation complete."
A wry smile crossed Atem's face.
...So the afterlife turns even without me.
"Correct. With you there, it turns more smoothly still. That's all it is."
Seto smiled thinly.
"Return when you wish to return. When you wish to come back, I'll connect you."
For a moment Atem lost his words.
Then he smiled gently.
...Seto. There are times when you understand the King's heart better than the priests do.
"Naturally. I'm your direct superior."
On the other side of the line, Atem let out an exasperated breath.
Won't you drop that word, superior, before long?
"Impossible. Ours is a professional relationship."
...Heh. As I thought — when you come to the afterlife, the structure of the world changes.
Seto laughed, and cut the line.
"The structure always changes. But a world with you in it is preferable to me over one without."
When Seto stood, the priests knelt as one.
"Lord Seto... how are we ever to thank you..."
"Keep your thanks. In exchange, never again say that the work stopped because the King was absent. That is the excuse of the incompetent."
The air of the afterlife trembled, and light came down into the sky. With his footsteps, the order began to right itself once more.
That night.
On Atem's desk in the mortal world, a notification glowed: King's Private VPN — Connection Established.
"...The afterlife has been... networked?"
Naturally.
A message arrived from Seto.
Your work as king is on the cloud now, as well.
Atem let out a small sigh and smiled.
"...Perhaps I've been underestimating the civilisation of the mortal world."
He said it, but there was only one man who could pull off such a thing.
Some further days later, at night.
Ever since the afterlife's communication network had fully stabilized and the disorder had subsided, both Atem and Seto had settled thoroughly back into normal mode.
The study of the wide Kaiba mansion.
In the surface of the water poured into a glass, the light of the moon wavered.
"It seems it's finally gone quiet."
When Seto said it, Atem raised his head.
"Thanks to you improving the afterlife's working environment."
"Say optimising."
"Isn't it the same thing?"
"Improvement is a correction directed at the past. Optimisation is an adjustment directed at the future."
Atem laughed under his breath.
"Then my not returning to the past — was that an optimisation directed at the future?"
"...You've gotten better at playing with words."
"Your influence."
Seto let out a slight breath.
Within the quiet, a faint inquisitiveness seeped through.
"...I'll ask you one thing."
"What is it?"
"Why didn't you return to the afterlife?"
Atem was silent for a while.
Tracing the rim of the glass with a finger, gazing at the light, he said:
"Reasons are, more often than not, things one finds afterward."
"Meaning it was a whim."
"No. I didn't think it up. I felt it."
Seto's brow drew together.
"An argument from emotion."
"Is a king forbidden to speak of emotion?"
"Speak of it as you like. But the grounds are thin."
"Mm... then let me show you the grounds."
Atem looked straight at Seto.
"The speed of life that exists beside you. To me, that was something I missed, and something I loved."
Seto's fingertips stopped.
"Speed?"
"In the afterlife, time circles in the condition of its ending. But the mortal world is a straight line, forever changing its shape — headed toward the end, never returning. I wanted to place myself within that current."
Seto fell silent.
The sound of his thinking moving faintly stirred the air.
"...In other words, you chose the world that waits for its ending."
"That's right. Because there is an ending, there is a quiet you can taste. That's what I think."
Atem's manner of speaking was calm.
"In the afterlife it is eternity. But eternity is, at times, suffocating. A single moment in the mortal world is surely deeper than a thousand years in the afterlife."
"I follow the logic, but it's a precarious way to think."
"Precariousness is what's alive. That's what this world is."
Atem smiled.
"...Seto. When you came to the afterlife, I thought this. That you possess the courage to refuse eternity."
Seto returned a wry smile.
"Refuse eternity? I'm only trying to redesign it."
"And that's your life, isn't it?"
The two of them exchanged no words for a while, and looked up at the night sky outside the window.
Atem murmured, half to himself.
"...Perhaps I've already lost the reason why I must return to the afterlife."
"You can return without a reason."
"But returning without a reason is fleeing."
Seto's gaze softened, slightly.
"Then there's no harm in staying a while longer, is there."
"Oh. Permission granted, is it."
"You're an employee, after all."
Atem laughed, unable to hold it in.
"Honestly. You really are a man more troublesome than eternity."
"I'm honoured. Being harder to handle than eternity suits me better."
A silence deeper than words fell between the two of them.
That silence blurred even the border between the afterlife and the mortal world.
Early afternoon at the Kaiba mansion.
Atem was sitting on the sofa in Seto's private room, working the tablet with a serious expression.
"...Why is it that cat videos are this popular."
"No idea. A waste of time."
"For a waste of time, there's a history of it on your terminal too, isn't there?"
"That's training data for the AI."
"Oh? The AI's fault, is it."
Atem laughed a little and closed the screen.
Seto, still in his chair, lifted his eyes from a report.
"Don't increase the volume of superfluous data during working hours."
"During working hours, is it."
Atem rolled the phrase around a little longer than necessary.
"Seto."
"What."
"Even so, I find that I don't want to be here only as an employee."
Seto's fingers stopped moving.
"Rather late for that."
"Late, you say?"
"From the start you haven't been on employee terms — you've been an exception. No working hours. No obligation to report. Using the main house as company housing."
"Being treated as an exception is convenient."
"Not convenient. Special."
Seto's voice was as flat as ever, but the corners of his mouth had loosened slightly.
Atem shrugged and murmured:
"You're a man who's strict about the definitions of words."
"Leave a definition vague and the relationship breaks."
"...I see. Then what I want is a change of definition."
"Oh?"
"From employee... to something else... to something special."
Pen still in hand, Seto stopped moving entirely.
Atem went on.
"No, I don't mean formally, not yet. It's only that having this relationship explained in terms of employment is complicated."
"There's something in that. But socially it makes for an easier explanation."
"Your social rationality is exasperating at times."
"Rationality is the organising of emotion."
"Then once the organising is finished — will you be able to call me something other than an employee? Something else?"
Seto looked at Atem quietly.
After a long silence, he opened his mouth.
"What I call you is irrelevant. The question is how the one being called receives it."
"Meaning?"
"Whether I call you an employee, or call you you, or even a spouse, my conduct doesn't change."
Atem slowly let a smile come to his face.
"...That part of you is unfair."
"That part of me is me."
After the exchange of quips had run its course, a quiet air settled between the two of them.
Outside, the wind was moving the trees.
Atem picked up the tablet again.
"By the way, Seto, I found something called a romance-advice AI."
"Delete it."
"There was an article on balancing work and romance, too."
"Delete it immediately."
"Heh. Meaning you've already put it into practice?"
Seto sighed.
"The AI's fault. ...To think the King of the Underworld would get this good at provoking me."
"That again. A king is a creature that learns."
"...Learn a little more quietly."
Atem laughed a little, and gave his answer.
"To be quiet, beside you is where I'm most at ease."
Seto raised his head.
In that gaze, something passed that needed no words.
For just an instant, each other's presence became something more than a part of the ordinary.
