(Rated M for language)

Where was that thin place? The threshold between chilly and melty, that edge of sand close enough to the fire to redden your cheeks, yet close enough to the ocean that your spirit might still hover over the ink-black waters?

They'd all claimed some part of it—either fully or with one foot, one limb here or there. Yuugi sat closest to the fire by necessity. He toasted each marshmallow with delicate, steady turns of his wrist, passing them to Anzu who sat cross-legged on her faded beach towel, waiting to squash them between two graham crackers poised like lion's jaws.

Honda sat with his back toward the ocean and worked the tuning knobs of his secondhand guitar. Jounouchi reclined next to him, his feet propped perilously close to the flames. He lifted his head to drink from his third bottle of Hitachino Nest classic ale and jabbed Honda's calf with his toe.

"You gonna play something or do we gotta wait all night?"

"Hey, I don't see anyone else stepping up to provide free entertainment," said Honda, snapping a capo onto the neck and hoisting the strap over his head. "What should I play?"

"Well, start with 'Happy Birthday,' huh?" Jounouchi grinned to his left, where Mokuba, grinning back, lounged with his elbows in the sand and his chin in his hands.

"How old are ya?" asked Jounouchi with affection. "Old enough to crack one open with the boys yet?"

"No." Seto sat back from the fire, only his feet dipping into the red-orange glow. His black, long-sleeved, KC-branded swim shirt melded him further into the shadows.

Jounouchi grimaced. "I didn't ask you, you puritan."

Seto toasted Jounouchi with his half-empty bottle—his second of the night. "Yeah, this is just a prop," he said. "I've been dumping it out and silently damning you all to hell."

"You say that like we don't already know it," said Jounouchi, eyebrows raised.

"Would you prefer to share Circle Nine with Judas, or should I have a tenth level installed?"

"Custom, please. You've got the funds."

"You got it." Seto sipped his beer. "We'll call it the Amateur level."

Jounouchi kicked sand at Seto; he missed and drenched Anzu's s'more-in-progress instead. She scoffed.

"Watch it! You're eating this one."

"Fine by me! I don't mind a little sea salt!"

Yuugi rapped his marshmallow stick against the sand like a scepter. "Let's sing!" he ordered.

Honda rolled his eyes and strummed the opening refrain. They all leaned closer to the fire, and it wasn't clear whether Mokuba flushed from the heat or from the affection he felt for his friends.

"Happy birthday to yoooou!"

"Thanks, guys!" Mokuba pantomimed blowing out a candle over the bonfire flames, and they laughed and applauded. Anzu passed him a fresh, non-sandy s'more.

"What did you wish for?" she asked him.

"For Jounouchi and Nii-sama to be nice to each other," he teased, savoring a bite.

Seto sighed. "Well, kiddo, part of growing up is learning that wishes don't always come true—"

"Yeah, every year I wish for Kaiba to shut up and leave me alone, but here we are—"

"What should I play next?"

Honda set into his summer repertoire, and his audience, lulled by full stomachs and the accompanying rush of waves, swayed and sang along.

As he sang—more like mumbled here and there—Seto gazed between himself and Yuugi at the flickering face of Atem. Atem lounged in that perfect place, where the fire caressed every curve and faintly defined each chiseled line; his sheer coverup caught the wind from the sea, billowing like a cape, teasing the edge of Seto's towel with a smattering of sand.

Atem smirked. Seto returned it. If his little brother was happy, he was happy.

Not so little anymore, Atem's wistful eyes reminded him.

Nah. Seto knocked the cap off another beer. Seventeen was still a kid.

"Intermission," Honda soon declared, resting the guitar. "Who's got a good campfire story?"

Yuugi untied the bag of marshmallows and hummed a leftover bit of song. "Hm," he said, popping one into his mouth. "I never went to camp."

"Really?! Never?"

"Did you just stare at the wall all summer, or what?"

"Hey, I never went, either," said Mokuba. He drew his towel around his shoulders. "I know a ghost story, though."

Atem laughed, flashing a wry smile. "I've got one, too."

Seto chuckled. "We all know that one."

Yuugi shook his head. "I don't!"

"Let's hear it!" Honda prompted Mokuba, who nodded and cleared his throat.

"Alright...well, I'll start by saying, this really happened to me…"

Mokuba set the scene. He led them down a lonely avenue of his childhood, those years he spent wandering the halls of Kaiba Manor alone, those caverns, those catacombs, dreadful and ominous. Around the darkest corner waited a Presence, one that Mokuba soon felt following him everywhere, a half-seen reflection in every window that leapt out of sight whenever he turned around.

The gang paid rapt attention, twisting with apprehension. The roar of the ocean crescendoed to a horrific buzzing. Even Seto found himself enthralled—he'd never heard this before.

"And …" Mokuba fanned his hands with intense drama, amplifying his and Seto's resemblance. "The Presence spoke to me...It said, over and over, 'I am the Viper...I AM THE VIPER'…It advanced on me, raising Its arm—I backed away—but It kept coming—"

"Aw no, aw NO—"

"SHIT—"

"And I saw what It brandished at me—it was a squeegee—"

"Ahh—wait, what?!"

"And It said, 'I AM THE VIPER! I'M HERE TO VASH AND VIPE YOUR VINDOWS!"

"WHAT?!"

"What the hell?"

Mokuba cackled. Anzu groaned, and Jounouchi collapsed face-down in the sand. Seto was tempted to join him—his heart still raced in his throat. Atem and Yuugi laughed along with Mokuba.

Honda swore, burying his own embarrassing adrenaline. "What the hell was that?! Some lame-ass impression of Dracula?"

"It's from a book!"

Yuugi wiped his eyes, wheezing. "You're a kick-ass storyteller! You really had us going!"

Jounouchi shifted into a half-seated position. "Yuugi's right. That was the best ghost story-telling I ever heard," he said, ruffling Mokuba's hair. Seto, hazy with alcohol and distracted by the play of the wind upon Atem's hair, was only mildly jealous.

"Thanks," Mokuba said, then caught a yawn with the back of his hand. "Ugh, sorry. What time is it? Am I totally lame for being tired?"

Anzu checked her phone. "Not lame," she said, "it's almost midnight."

"Yeah..." Mokuba glanced at Seto for approval, who smiled and nodded.

"Go to bed if you want to," he said. "Isono's had the rooms made up. We're not far behind you."

Mokuba smiled back. "Alright."

Jounouchi made a show of dragging himself to his feet, stretching, sand raining off every tanned limb. "I'm with you, kid. Let's hit the hay." He pointed toward the sleek silhouette of the beach house, perched on the low cliff behind them. "To our pad for the night! Lizard Harem or whatever it's called."

Anzu snorted, and Yuugi pursed his lips to keep from laughing.

"Dragon's Lair," huffed Seto. "Fuck off. I named it that when I was fourteen."

Honda and Anzu also stood, brushing off sand, folding towels. Seto was tired, and he wasn't; he made no move to leave. Neither did Atem.

"You guys go," said Yuugi, "we'll put out the fire and catch up to you!"

"Sounds good! Goodnight just in case!"

"Goodnight!"

All at once it was quiet, save the timeless lament of the tide. Yuugi meandered to the shore with a bucket. Seto took one last deep drink of Atem's luminescence before the water sloshed over the fire—and then all at once it was dark, too.

"I don't wanna go to bed yet," Yuugi said, tossing the bucket into the sand. "...We could walk?"

"Sure."

Atem and Seto rose. The wind picked up, and Yuugi shivered a little.

"How much of this shoreline is yours?" he asked.

Seto shrugged. "Enough. Are you cold?"

"I'm fine."

"Take a towel, anyway," said Seto, offering his own. Yuugi accepted it, clutching the corners to his chest with enough force to reveal his lie.

"Alright, lead the way."

Seto led them northward. It was awfully brisk by the water, and the cold tidewater shocked his bare feet, though he'd rather he endured it than the still-shivering Yuugi.

"You sure you're up for this?"

"Mhm."

Atem flanked Yuugi's other side, brooding, as usual. Their feet sank low and heavy into the packed sand. No one felt compelled to speak.

Something came over them in the bright silence, the hushed darkness. It was the gift the ocean always and only gave at this hour of night. Perhaps it was the thinnest place there was, the shoreline—where spirits could come and go, and go unnoticed.

At length—who knows how long—they turned back; and when the pinprick stars that were the windows of the Dragon's Lair shimmered into view, Yuugi turned to Seto.

"Did you have fun?" he asked.

"Mokuba did."

"I could tell," said Yuugi, smiling a little. "But did you?"

"Sure."

"Seto."

Atem spoke right at the moment when the tide receded and left a vacuum, an utter absence of sound.

"What?" Seto frowned, irritable. The tide swelled again. What happened to the brooding? "Why're you on my case about it? Mokuba had a good time. Everyone else had a good time. That makes me happy enough. Fun is overrated."

Atem frowned. "I don't think so."

Yuugi frowned, too. "What would've made it more fun for you?"

Seto scowled at the black ocean. "I dunno." He caught his foot in a tendril of seaweed and chucked it into the surf. "...If it was just us. Me and Mokuba and...well, I'm not saying I want anyone else to leave, but…"

They stopped just outside the faint halo of light which Dragon's Lair cast onto the cove. Seto brought his eyes up and looked between them.

"I'd have fun if it was just us," he finished. "Me, Mokuba, you guys."

Yuugi's tired eyes widened. "Oh." He followed Seto's gaze to Atem and back.

"You're seeing him tonight?"

Seto sucked in a breath. Atem watched him, warm and cold, flashing warm and cold. Seto managed to lower his head. Barely raised it up again. Yes.

Out from under the towel, Yuugi reached for Seto's hand and took it, gently. With his other hand he tilted Seto's face toward his.

"I asked you to tell me when you see him," he said.

But if I tell you, then it isn't real. "I just did, didn't I?"

Yuugi didn't push him. "Let's go inside," he said.

"Okay."

Seto and Yuugi stepped over the threshold and into the fragile light, and Seto looked round to see if Atem followed, but Atem was gone.

Over another threshold, the bedroom doorway, Seto held onto Yuugi's hand a moment longer.

"I did have fun," he said, in a voice so low it might've been the whisper of the tide.

Yuugi smiled, a wisp of a smile—soft and sad.

"And that makes me happy," he said.

They lingered there, until Yuugi stepped backward and Seto stepped forward, and the door shut behind them.

END

Doctor's Note: This was inspired by Mokuba's impending birthday and by the many beach bonfires I attended with my college friends for the four years I lived in Los Angeles. The ghost story Mokuba tells is from a book I had called "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark."

It turned into a bit of a rivalshipping piece before I knew what was happening, and ended up more melancholy than I thought it would. That tends to happen with these characters.

I miss the ocean being nearby, and the depth it brings to life!

Please let me know what you think, and thank you for reading! - Dr. MP