Thirty-six invitations arrive, all of them wanting to see the King of the Underworld and his consort in person.
Seto proposes classifying the diplomatic tour as a honeymoon, on efficiency grounds.
Z — xy proposes covering it. The afterlife, having somehow acquired distribution rights to the magazine, formally requests to host the honeymoon and assigns a dozen priests as a camera crew.
The photographs turn out to be extremely good. One of them does not get submitted.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: 愛と理論 12 王、新婚旅行へ行く
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
But by now that name had become an international symbol, beyond culture and beyond indulgence.
The royal households, governments and research institutions of every nation send invitations one after another.
The reason is one thing alone: "we want to see the King of the Underworld, and his consort, with our own eyes."
Kaiba Manor.
Before the invitations piled up on the table, Seto folds his arms.
"I've looked as far as the thirty-sixth. ...Every one of them seems to want to summon you under the pretext of sweets diplomacy."
"Diplomacy is also a venue for deepening mutual understanding. If we're invited, let's go."
Atem wears his usual calm smile and took up one of the letters.
"The problem is that my name is lined up alongside it."
"Naturally. You are my partner. As the King's consort, isn't it natural for you to come with me?"
"...I have nothing but the feeling of being dragged in."
When Seto narrowed his eyes slightly, Atem laughed under his breath.
"Then be at my side as the King's theory. With your composure, every nation will receive us correctly."
"The King's words are weighty."
"And they're the truth."
The first destination was a kingdom in northern Europe.
The banquet hall was wrapped in decorations imitating snow crystals, and the air was perfectly clear.
When the doors open, Atem appears, clothed in golden light.
At that majesty, the air of the room trembled.
Seto, following behind, is clad in a deep navy suit, cold and finely made.
Less conspicuous than anyone, and yet drawing the eye more than anyone.
That existence is almost like reason itself standing beside a king.
If Atem advances a step, Seto matches that stride half a pace behind.
If someone speaks to them, Seto receives it and returns it accurately.
The venue of diplomacy changes shape by the breathing of the two alone.
The King, and his theory.
That is what people called them.
The waiting room at night.
The banquet finished, Atem said while turning a glass with his fingers:
"Seto. Today's function... it was almost like an act of faith."
"The boundary between faith and diplomacy is a vague thing."
"Did people come to see me, or did they come to see us."
"The latter."
Seto answered at once.
"The world is seeking the possibility of love and theory both holding at once. You are the symbol, and I am the proof of it."
Atem smiles quietly and leans his body toward Seto.
"Then let us prove it in the next country as well."
"...Very well."
The glasses touched and made a soft sound.
The night of diplomacy had quietly begun to light the next stage.
The destinations went on increasing.
In Europe "a symbol of a new monarchy," in Asia "the ideal form of a married couple," in America "a fusion model of next-generation AI and ethics."
The world at present was mad for the King of the Underworld and the man of theory.
A palace in London.
Reporters and diplomats crowd in, and to catch a single glimpse, human shapes extend even into the gaps in the curtains.
The sight of Atem walking the red carpet is almost a living golden myth.
At every step, even those of the royal house catch their breath.
Seto, walking beside him, gave off just as much of a pressure.
But that is not a light like Atem's; it is structure.
Like a perfect work of theoretical architecture, a beauty that is quiet and does not collapse.
"Seto. ...The eyes of everyone are dazzled again."
"It's only that you're dazzling."
Seto's answer sounds composed, but that voice was somehow proud.
"But today's agenda is politics. Do you intend to finish an international negotiation with one smile from the King?"
"There is nothing the King can do that you cannot."
"Your logical grounds?"
"Love."
At that one word, Seto loses his words.
Somewhere in the press seats, a camera shutter was quietly released.
The next day's newspaper headline was this.
Reason and Love, Standing at the Front Line of Diplomacy — Atem, King of the Underworld, Charms the Heads of State Accompanied by Seto Kaiba, King of Theory.
An age has come at last in which political papers and economic magazines alike put romance in the headline.
Next, a banquet in the Middle East.
The kings of the nations treated Atem as a king of equal rank, and showed Seto the respect due a ruler of theory.
Atem raises his cup while mixing in a prayer in the ancient tongue.
"Civilisation does not end. So long as love and theory are together, all of it will bloom again."
Beside him, Seto sets down his cup and continued quietly.
"Love is outside the structure, and theory is inside it. But at the moment the two touch, the system is completed."
Silence.
And afterward, thunderous applause.
Atem and Seto, while speaking different languages, were speaking the same truth.
Night. The balcony of their lodgings.
Stars are scattered across the desert, and in the distance the lights of an oasis waver.
Atem looks up at the sky and says:
"Seto. The world was seeking it this much, wasn't it."
"Seeking what?"
"Theory for love. Love for theory."
"...And the human for the King, is it."
Seto steps closer and gazes at the night sky over Atem's shoulder.
"If you are the flower, then I am the pillar. Whatever storm may blow, I'll support you without breaking."
Atem turns around, narrows his eyes and smiled.
"Then I'll believe in the pillar and go on blooming."
The instant their hands overlapped, the stars blinked with a particular strength.
As though the world were recording that vow.
Their journey does not end yet.
"Still more diplomacy...?"
Having finished reading the materials, Atem gazes at the file on Seto's desk.
In the gold binding, banquets and courtesy visits with the royalty and heads of state of every nation were recorded in a long row.
"It's the effect of the sweets." Seto answers. "You moved the royal purveyors. Exactly as predicted."
Atem lets out a small breath.
"...Which is to say, I meant to bridge the afterlife and the mortal world, and ended up bridging the aristocracy of the entire world as well."
"A natural result. If you move, the world moves. It's the same as a theorem in mathematics."
Seto lifts the corner of his mouth slightly.
"And this quantity of diplomacy. But it may be just as well."
"I know what you want to say. I am your consort, but at present I am on official duty."
"Official duty or not, a married couple is a married couple. How about diplomacy as a honeymoon?"
Atem says it, smiling.
"So it is after all. You... there are limits even to mixing the public and the amorous."
"It's more efficient mixed, isn't it?"
"...I see. It's true that for us as we are now, there's a possibility it's efficient."
The party touring the nations crossed from a country wearing a crown of gold to an empire of sand, to a court of ice.
Everywhere, the gazes of the people gather on the two alone.
Once the rumour went up that the King of quantum marriage and his husband have come, the crowds overflowed into the streets, and the press flew drones as high as the sky.
A brief break in a courtyard.
Seto and Atem lower themselves beside a fountain.
Atem laughs a little.
"...The time when I can be alone with you always takes this form, doesn't it."
"Not bad."
Seto answers at once.
"You're here. That's sufficient."
At those words Atem let his cheeks loosen slightly, and suddenly stood, and made to touch Seto's forehead in accordance with the etiquette of the afterlife. It was at that moment.
"His Majesty Atem — !"
"President — ! Please look this way!"
Voices fly back and forth, and camera flashes run all at once.
Seto drops his shoulders and murmurs low, "So it comes to this after all."
Atem shrugs slightly.
"Well, the world is blessing us. It isn't bad."
In that instant, the gazes of the two entangle.
Within the clamor, there was stillness in the depths of each other's eyes alone.
Japan.
The flashes of the press once again lit the two as they came through the special gate at Domino Airport.
The King and the president, having finished a honeymoon by the name of diplomacy.
By this point, the net all over the world is already buried under bulletins of their return home.
"...As I thought, the air of home is the best."
Atem says it while taking off his suit jacket.
Seto returns it coldly while straightening the collar of his own jacket.
"Rather than home, we've merely returned to the eye of the next storm."
"Is something going to happen again?"
"...It will."
When Seto moved his gaze to the display, the largest trend news outlet in the country was showing there.
"The Quantum Marriage Couple Returns Home! The King of the Underworld and the King of Industry — What Miracle Is Next?"
At a headline that all but incites the future, Seto lets out a wordless sigh.
Immediately afterward, the intercom rang.
Before A.R.E.S. can even answer, Atem's smartphone vibrates.
On the screen, a pink logo he has seen before.
Z — xy Editorial Department
Atem looked at the screen, and his eyes shone.
"Seto! An interview about the honeymoon!"
"...About what trip?"
"The honeymoon. They want to introduce the conditions of the countries we toured on diplomacy as forms of love in the magazine. Perfectly fitting, isn't it?"
Seto pressed at his temple.
"Diplomacy is official duty. It isn't a tourist pamphlet."
"But their intent isn't bad either. To know how the people of the mortal world receive love and theory — that isn't bad, is it?"
"Stop moving. ...When you move, the world moves again."
Atem only laughed lightly.
"That too is fate, perhaps."
Behind that smile, the King's intuition may already have been at work.
That the phenomenon called the quantum marriage journey, coming after love and theory, would spread explosively across the world.
Several days later, the title of the Z — xy feature was made public.
On the cover, in gold letters against a pink background, was written:
A Love That Travelled the World: The Honeymoon Diplomacy Record of the King and the CEO
A mere hour from the opening of reservations, the first printing of one hundred thousand copies sold out.
Atem, looking satisfied, proposed to the editorial department that they make it readable in the afterlife as well.
And beside him Seto grumbled, "As I thought... this world moves by advertising effect rather than by love."
But both of them had noticed.
That the reason the world moves is neither theory nor advertising.
It is the unmistakable quantum reaction of love and theory. Which is to say, their own existence itself.
Several weeks since the magazine with the pink cover sold out all over the world.
Before the heat of the release commemoration event even had time to cool, contact came once again from the editorial department to Seto and Atem.
"The response to the feature has been tremendous, and we'd like to put together a spin-off!"
The editorial department's proposal document had, on a glittering cover, written large: The World's Love as Seen by "Quantum Marriage."
This time it centres on location coverage — which is to say, another travel project.
The instant he read that line, Seto knitted his brows conspicuously.
"...Which is to say, you intend to drag us around the world again."
"It's different from dragging around, isn't it? But... I think it's a good proposal."
Atem smiles brightly while turning the pages.
"It's billed as the Honeymoon Edition. Truly fitting for us, isn't it."
"Diplomacy, and now travel. ...Does the world have nothing to do."
Even while offering that irony, Seto consented.
Conditionally.
"We'll take the photographs ourselves. Accompanying staff are unnecessary. Ordinary humans can't go to the afterlife."
"...The afterlife?"
Yes, that was where the problem lay.
Right around the same time, what arrived in Kaiba Corporation's representative mailbox was an official document from the Afterlife Bureau of Public Relations.
On the envelope's address, written in gold hieroglyphs, was this:
We welcome the King's return. Accordingly, we would have you select the afterlife as your honeymoon destination.
Atem's eyes shone.
"Seto, the afterlife is inviting us too! This is fate!"
"...The ones who read that magazine, is it."
"That's right. It seems the data reached the afterlife's royal library as well. It says they were profoundly impressed."
"Which is to say, the magazine's distribution channels have extended as far as the afterlife."
Seto let out a deep sigh.
"Then there's one condition. I run it. I won't let anyone interfere."
Atem smiled, looking happy.
"Of course. With you there, wherever it is, it will be the finest journey."
And so, on the third attempt, the honeymoon finally began.
When they came down onto the earth of the afterlife, what awaited them was a dozen or so priests.
White robes with gold embroidery, cameras at their chests, lights in their hands.
From any angle, a camera crew.
"O King, welcome back to us! Here are the photography points along the itinerary!"
"...Photography points?"
"Yes! By instruction of the Afterlife Bureau of Public Relations, we are to record the conditions of the stay of the King and the Prince Consort!"
Seto cuts in at once in a low voice.
"Photography is unnecessary. We'll do it ourselves."
"B-but..."
"Our love and theory is not a photographic subject. It's a phenomenon."
The priests nodded deeply as though understanding in an instant, and
"...As expected of quantum marriage...! Sublime!"
let slip voices of admiration, and thereafter accompanied them like shadows in the role of assistants.
Wherever they went, every time the doors of a temple opened the people raised cheers, and in the streets of the afterlife banners reading "Welcome, Quantum Marriage Honeymoon!" line up.
At the eaves of the bakery, at the florist's, and among the children of the afterlife, that pink magazine had been distributed.
"...The whole afterlife is a readership."
"A fine thing."
"No, a terrifying thing. Atem, when did you bring it in..."
Ignoring Seto's murmur, Atem laughs and answers.
"This, precisely, is the linkage of civilisation, Seto. The afterlife and the mortal world, past and future, all of it goes on connecting."
And that night.
On the terrace of the afterlife's royal palace, before a sea of sand shining like stars, time alone together arrives.
"...It's quiet."
"Because you said don't let anyone interfere."
"Hmph. With this it's finally become something like a honeymoon."
Atem laughed a little and nestled in beside Seto.
The wind of the afterlife stroked its way slowly between the two and passed on.
A room in the afterlife's royal palace.
The morning after the banquet celebrating the King's return ended, Seto and Atem were taken out by the priests' guidance to something called a "special inspection."
Proceeding down a white flagstone cloister, people are drawn up in ranks filling a plaza, incense is burned, and a sweet fragrance drifts.
At the centre of it, a priest raised his voice loftily.
"O King, and O Prince Consort of the King! From today, we shall commence the rite of afterlife-style hospitality!"
"...Atem, what is this state of affairs?"
Seto asks without moving so much as an eyebrow.
Atem answered with his chest out, proud to the last.
"O-mo-te-na-shi."
"As I thought. ...You had them invite us again."
Seto's eyes narrow, only very slightly.
"It seems those who were impressed by the previous café inspection of the afterlife prepared it of their own volition."
"Rare to find a place where the word of their own volition is this untrustworthy."
Atem laughed without a trace of guilt.
"But it isn't bad, is it? That the people of the afterlife should welcome the King and the King's consort is a matter for rejoicing."
Dishes, flowers, music, served one after another.
The smoke rising from the censers sways like gold thread, and the air softly takes on light.
Within it, Atem narrows his eyes, looking satisfied, and suddenly murmured:
"...Seto. I want to build a sa-ten here."
Seto was silent for just an instant, and quietly took a deep breath.
"...That isn't travel, it's work."
"No, as one part of the afterlife's cultural exchange..."
"Which is to say, work."
"...I see."
Atem laughed and withdrew without resistance.
Seeing that, Seto thinks in his heart. When he's this obedient, it makes you uneasy instead.
On the final day of the journey, the priests lined up in good order before the two.
A priest holds out a stone tablet clasped to his chest.
"The record of the stay of the King and the Prince Consort of the King. All of it rendered into data, footage and stills both already organised."
"...So you were photographing after all."
In Seto's voice, half a ring of resignation is mixed in.
"Rest assured, we are formally registered as a camera crew."
says the priest, throwing out his chest.
"Furthermore..."
On another scroll held out to them was written, "Unofficial Photographic Material."
"These are things the people photographed of their own volition..."
Seto pressed at his temple.
Atem, meanwhile, peers into the screen looking charmed.
"Look, Seto. The angle is good. The way the light enters is perfect too. ...The priests of the afterlife are excellent."
"...Too excellent. On the level of surveillance cameras."
"But it's proof that we're loved that much, isn't it?"
"That thing of yours is close to a religion by now."
Atem laughed lightly and held the data as though it were precious.
"As the king is, so are his subjects."
Seto murmured it quietly, and
"Whether to give up or to educate them... a difficult point."
thinks it over, half in earnest.
Into the sky of the afterlife, golden light comes down slowly, shining as though seeing the two of them off on their return.
The two, returned to the mortal world, carried with them the footage and still-image data the priests of the afterlife had carefully assembled.
When they handed it over to the editorial department of that magazine with the pink cover, the editor-in-chief's eyes literally shone.
"Wh-what is this quality...!"
"The lighting is perfect, the composition is perfect, the expressions of the two of you are like a scene from a film...!"
In the photography credit it says Afterlife Priest Unit.
The editorial staff nearly asked, for an instant, "which production company are the priests with?", but at once realised it was useless to ask.
The magazine issued that number as a grand feature.
With an enormous page count, and on the cover a gold-foil-stamped title:
Honeymoon, Afterlife Edition: Love and Theory, and Eternity
Bookstores were in a state of panic from immediately after release.
Both the reserved copies and the shop-front copies sold out in an instant.
Online retail temporarily went down from excessive access.
Tens of thousands of signatures for a reprint were gathered the same day.
And several days later, contact comes from the editorial department again.
"By all means, a photo book with this content!"
The editor-in-chief's voice on the phone was a mixture of excitement and tears of emotion.
Leaving the call connected, Seto puts a finger to his forehead.
"...This has deviated from the concept of that magazine by now, surely."
"No, that's wrong, Seto."
Atem, who had been sipping herbal tea beside him, says it like a saint.
"They understood it instinctively. That love and theory is, precisely, an eternal theme."
"...Don't switch it over into philosophy."
Atem continued further.
"You'd do well to put off-shots in the photo book. Readers want to know the reverse side."
Seto narrows his eyes at once.
"Every time you try to show that reverse side, the world gets noisy."
"But sincerity is necessary in a king as well."
"Your sincerity is always of the transmitting type, though..."
At an Atem who would not stop, Seto let out a small breath.
Stopping him is useless; he'll photograph anyway.
And the day of the shoot arrived.
Atem sets up a camera and is taking aim at Seto.
But this is Seto. He did not let slip the instant of carelessness when Atem peered into the lens.
The shutter sound rings out.
When Atem raised his face, Seto had already finished photographing on his own terminal.
"...You photographed just now, didn't you?"
"I merely recorded the figure of a hardworking employee."
"Then let me fulfill my duty as a consort as well."
Atem releases the shutter again.
That gesture was somehow proud, and delighted, and almost like a child's.
In that photograph was the profile of Seto, smiling softly.
Perfect composition, beautiful light.
Atem submitted it to the editorial department without hesitation.
Meanwhile, the Atem captured in Seto's camera was a defenceless figure, cheeks loosened a little, the strength gone out of his shoulders.
Far too endearing; after gazing at that image for several minutes, Seto quietly separated out a save folder.
"...This can't be released."
And so,
Love and Theory ~ Afterlife Honeymoon Off-Shots ~
became a topic before release, and once again sold out in an instant.
Atem said, looking satisfied:
"Seto, the off-shots were necessary after all."
Seto closes the magazine and returns it evenly.
"What was necessary was your self-restraint."
Atem laughs.
"That... appears to exist neither in the afterlife nor in the mortal world."
Seto laughed a little at those words, and
"I know."
returned only that.
