Two months is short. Three days a week Joey gets home after ten, and Sundays keep going to stocktakes and deliveries. He practises on the floor for thirty minutes at a time, against nobody. The tournament is a Sunday at Kaiba Land, and the man who might be there has no reason to be looking. He wins it. Then, with a microphone in his hand and nothing prepared, he says the only thing he has.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 03 二ヶ月
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Got back to the apartment and opened the form on my phone before eating. Name, date of birth, address, and for emergency contact I put Tristan down without asking him. There was a field for affiliation, but Unaffiliated was an option, so I left it at that. It started because the company told me to go, but I figured this was something I was doing on my own.
The qualifiers were on a Sunday. The stocktake is the Saturday at the end of the month, so as of now they don't clash. I can do this.
I hit submit and a confirmation email came through right away. After that it seems all you do is turn up.
I ate, showered, and before bed I stood in front of the shelf.
There's the deck case. The Duel Disk is next to it.
I only wipe them, I always think. I wipe them because I don't like dust settling. I clean, but there's no reason to open it. Even if I opened it, right now I've got nobody to play.
I reached out, put my fingers on the lid of the case, and had opened it.
The contents haven't changed. Obviously, since nobody's touched them. Going through from the top, it's still in the order I last built it, starting with Red-Eyes. Stopped, since three years ago.
I laid them out on the desk one at a time. Forty wouldn't fit on the desk, so I put the rest on the floor.
I sat on the floor and went through them in order from the start.
When was it I wanted to draw this card? This card saved me.
It took time to remember. I'd been hoping my hands would remember, but they didn't. Three years is long. Nearly three years, and I hadn't touched these?
It was past one, and I was still sitting on the floor.
Two months is short.
For a start, weekdays are mostly unusable. Three days a week I get home after ten. If there's client entertainment it becomes midnight. Even so, I'd get home and for thirty minutes sit on the floor and lay the cards out. Lay them out, draw a few, break it up again.
Two Sundays went. The stocktake got brought forward, and a delivery in the East District. I didn't complain. Complaining wouldn't help — there's nobody to replace me.
With nobody to play, there's a limit to what I can do at home. Practising on my own is just recalling card effects, more like doing reps than anything. I know perfectly well it's nothing like the real thing.
In the third week I managed to get to the card shop behind the station.
Eight on a Sunday night; I was grateful they stayed open late. I couldn't work out how many years it had been since I'd walked into the place. And I used to go there all the time in high school.
The owner had changed. The play space behind the counter was still there. Two tables were already taken.
"Mind if I get a game?"
Two high schoolers looked up. One of them said sure, that's fine.
I played two, one win one loss.
When I lost, the kid said "You're good, though," but I took it for politeness. The one who beat me used his cards better.
After that I went on Wednesday nights and Sunday nights, on the days I could go. But there were more days I couldn't.
On the morning of the qualifiers too, I woke at five.
I'd set the alarm for six, but habit or whatever, I woke up early. After that I couldn't be bothered going back to sleep, so I went over the cards a few times.
On the way out I realised I had nothing to wear.
I've got suits. It's not that I've got no casual clothes either. Only they're all things I haven't worn since I started work, and the hoodie I pulled out of the closet was obviously going to be too warm. It's still autumn, and this is a winter one.
Hunting for something else to pick was too much bother, so I wore it.
I got to Kaiba Land just before eight, and there was already a line.
I got a number at reception. Apparently there are over four hundred entrants. The qualifiers run six rounds under something called a Swiss-system tournament, and the top sixteen go through to the main draw. The main draw is the afternoon of the same day. Hell of a schedule.
While I was standing in line, I looked around.
Young. Most of them are students. There are adults too, but among them I looked like one of the older ones. Three years ago I'd have blended in here without anyone thinking twice, I thought.
Inside the stadium the roof was open, and the field was wide enough that I wondered whether it had always been this wide. There's a stage built at the far end with the KaibaCorp logo hung above it.
I took my assigned seat, and before long the first round began.
When the third round finished, I noticed I'd won three in a row. It was a tournament, and I hadn't been counting wins and losses.
My fourth-round opponent was a guy about university age, and I had a vague sense of being pushed back partway through. While I was being pushed back, my hand moved on its own. I set a card. He came in to attack, and I flipped every set card. That did it.
Why I set that card, I couldn't work out even thinking about it afterwards. But I won anyway.
I won the fifth round too, and lost the sixth. Five wins, one loss, ranked eighth. I made the main draw.
During the lunch break I went outside and sat on a bench. Bought a rice ball at a convenience store and ate it. My lower back hurts when I sit down, probably because I'd been standing the whole time.
I checked my phone for no particular reason and confirmed there was nothing from work. It's a Sunday, so obviously there wouldn't be, but I check anyway.
Yugi's message is still sitting there from three weeks ago. That one, I haven't answered.
The main draw started at 2:00 p.m. This one's a normal knockout.
Sixteen. When I came back from lunch there were four fields set up by the stage, and the winners move up in order. From the semi-finals on it's up on the stage.
I won the first round. I won the second too.
Partway through the semi-final, the air in the stadium changed, somehow.
How to put it — there was less sound. The heckling and the talking that had been coming from the stands cut off. I was in the middle of my turn so I didn't look up, but I could tell my opponent's eyes had gone to something behind me.
"My turn! Draw!"
I carried on anyway. Carried on, and won.
The one in the final turned out to be seventeen. He gave his school name when he introduced himself. Two schools over from Domino High. I gave only my name.
It became a long match. He was faster than me. Not just faster — careful with it. By the time my hand was down to two cards, the board was almost entirely his.
From there it took three turns.
Set, drew, pushed it through. At the end, Red-Eyes was what was left.
When it was settled, I couldn't have explained how I'd won.
The kid put out his hand, so I took it. He was sweating. My hand was sweating too.
"You're Wheeler — Joey Wheeler, right?"
"Yeah."
"The Battle City top four."
Hearing it, I thought, that's right.
That's right. I was one of those four.
Battle City. Second year of high school, so four years ago.
It's not that I'd forgotten, but in the three-plus years since I graduated I never once thought of it. There was no occasion to. There's no field for it on a business card, and it isn't something you say when you introduce yourself. Nobody asks in the first place.
"Could I shake your hand?"
"Heh. We're doing it right now."
The kid laughed, and I laughed too.
The presentation was done right there on the stage.
I take the prize certificate and the box with the new-model Duel Disk, the additional prize. Flashes went off, photos were taken. While they were being taken my own face was up on the screen at the front. I'd won, and my face looked worse than I'd expected.
The woman presenting stood next to me with a microphone.
"Today we are also joined by President Kaiba of KaibaCorp, the host of this tournament."
The stands erupted, and everyone turned the same way at once. The direction my semi-final opponent had looked.
I raised my head.
Straight ahead, the centre of the second tier. In the front row of a partitioned block, a white coat was sitting.
He'd come.
He'd actually come. Two months, and I'd moved on nothing but a possibility. Not one piece of grounds for it. And it landed.
It's more than fifty metres. I can't see his expression, but I could at least tell he wasn't looking this way.
"Now, if we could have a few words from our champion, Mr. Wheeler."
The microphone was turned towards me.
I hadn't thought about it at all.
Two months, and all I'd thought about was winning. What to do once I'd won, I figured I could think about after I'd won.
I'd figured I could think about it, and nothing came.
Nothing came, and my hand grabbed the microphone.
"Kaibaaa!"
My own voice rings out.
"Duel me!"
It went quiet.
Four thousand, five thousand people in the stands, all silent at once. That silence — I don't know how many seconds — was there.
In the second tier, the tall white coat stood up.
A staff member was hurrying over carrying something. I saw him take it — a microphone.
——Hmph. You never learn.
The voice came out of the speakers.
But very well. I do not run from a Duel I have been challenged to.
The stands erupted — frenzy. Men and women alike, Seto Kaiba's fans went off. Something like screaming went up, and phones came up all at once.
I will crush you utterly.
He tossed the microphone away and turned his back.
Walking towards the exit. The men in black hurry after him. I watched it from up on the stage.
All the eyes that had been fixed on him swing to me at once. The backs of my knees started feeling strange.
I did it.
I've gone and done it.
I came down off the stage and was packing up my things in the corridor.
It's the corridor leading to the staff entrance, and crew were carrying equipment through. I had my backpack open against the wall and was trying to get the Duel Disk box into it, but the box was too big and wouldn't go.
"Mr. Joseph Wheeler, I take it."
I looked up.
A man in a black suit was standing there.
Isono, if I remember right. The one who acted as referee during Battle City.
"Yes."
"It has been some time. Regarding the matter just now, we will arrange a date on behalf of Seto Kaiba."
"Uh — sure."
"Might I have your contact details?"
I dug through the backpack and got out my card case. Habit — I'd brought it with me.
There were nineteen left in the case. One I'd left at the KaibaCorp reception desk last week.
Isono took it with both hands and looked it over. It seemed like there was a beat at the company name, but that might have been my imagination. We're a sub-subsidiary, so it wouldn't be strange for him to know it.
"We will be in touch at a later date."
"Um."
"Yes?"
"Is he actually serious about this?"
The man looked at me.
"Do you imagine that Master Seto would go back on a challenge to Duel?"
This guy has it rough too, I thought.
"If you'll excuse me."
He said that, bowed, and left.
Monday, I got to the office at 8:15.
The moment I opened the door, everyone looked at me.
Before the morning meeting the office is everyone booting up their computers, opening email, getting hold of sites. That's the usual Monday 8:15.
Today everyone had their heads up.
"Wheeler."
The section chief came out from the back. He's got his phone in his hand.
"This is you, isn't it."
The screen was turned towards me.
It was me. Me up on the stage with the microphone in my hand. Someone in the stands must have shot it; it's a bit shaky, but the sound came through loud and clear.
Kaibaaa! Duel me!
My own voice played out across the office.
There was a seven-digit number where the view count goes. You've gotta be kidding.
"It was going round by last night. This morning I got a call from Mr. Ando at Omiya. Half past six. The phone rang at half past six. Do you understand what that means?"
"…Sorry."
"It's going round the neighbourhood association group as well. My wife showed it to me."
The section chief lowered his phone. Having lowered it, he said nothing for a while.
He looked like he was hunting for words.
"Wheeler. Do you understand whose work we're doing here?"
"I understand."
"The East District. All of that is tied to KC's plan. And at the top of that plan, one of our own, in front of the public."
"I entered unaffiliated. I didn't give the company name."
I didn't. I didn't, but I handed Isono a card.
"Even if you didn't, your face is out there."
He was right. If anyone wanted to work out who I was, it'd take no time.
I said nothing. If I say nothing it ends. For over three years, mostly this is how it's ended.
"Have you looked at the comments on the video?"
"Haven't, sir."
"Better not to."
The section chief sighed. Probably all sorts written there, reckless and whatever else. Though in Battle City he was top four the same as me.
"Mr. Ando was laughing. But that means he thought it was worth bringing up. A young lad from a place like ours, his name coming out of an Omiya department head's mouth — that isn't normal."
I looked at the section chief's face. He really is angry. His voice is loud and he looks fierce.
But his eyes were different.
"So, is that all of it?"
"Huh?"
"I'm asking whether there's anything else."
I hesitated over whether to say how things stood.
"…A date's being arranged."
The office went quiet. Of course it did — they must all be thinking, a private Duel with President Kaiba, of all things.
A phone rang and nobody picked it up. On the second ring one of the admin staff hurriedly got it.
"A date for what."
"For the Duel. The KC guy took my card, so I think they'll be in touch."
More than think they'll be in touch — there's no way he runs.
The section chief sat down slowly in his chair. Once he'd sat, he looked at the desktop instead of at me.
"Wheeler."
"Yes."
"You — say that kind of thing sooner."
He'd been shouting until a moment ago, and his voice had changed.
It wasn't a telling-off voice.
What it had become, I couldn't tell at the time.
