"C'n I help you?"

"Two for –" Seto glanced down at his brother.

"Crazy Pumpkin Massacre Summer Camp Attack 7," Mokuba hissed.

"...For Crazy Pumpkin Mass-"

"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha." The disinterested theater employee printed their tickets with a lazy flick of his wrist. He slid them across the counter. "Nine bucks," he grunted.

Seto had his wallet out, but Mokuba reached over him and slapped a membership card down hard on the glass.

"Subtract it from my balance," he said with casual authority. "This one's on me."

The employee snorted, but ran the card through. Seto watched Mokuba tuck the card back into his pocket, and felt something old and sweet pass over his heart.

"Is it worthwhile to ask why there are pumpkins at a summer camp?" said Seto as they filed over to the snack bar.

"You find that out when you watch the movie," replied Mokuba with a cryptic smile.

"I figured."

Seto, poised to order whatever Mokuba wanted, was startled when the employee behind the snack bar handed them an extra-large popcorn and two overflowing sodas. She grinned at Mokuba around her lip ring, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

"Your friends were here without you yesterday," she said, brushing back a curtain of black hair. "You were def missed!"

Mokuba shrugged. "We'll see it again together!" He gestured to Seto, who followed Mokuba past the cashier ("I paid everything upfront back in June!") and down the dark hallway to Theater 4.

The whole place was in need of an update, and Theater 4 continued the trend. Their shoes scuffed against threadbare carpet patterned with stained and fading film reels and clapboards. In the back, an embarrassingly obsolete projector peeked through a box to point at the tall, quivering screen.

It was not without surprise that Seto found himself standing next to Mokuba smack in the middle of the front row. But Mokuba took a seat like it was the most natural thing in the world, leaning back and tilting his neck up to the heavens. He rolled his head to look up at Seto, who stood there clutching their refreshments and staring down with a blank look.

"We're not sitting here," Seto said, half questioning, half suggesting the obvious. Mokuba didn't seem to understand.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I always sit here."

They looked at each other for a minute, neither one comprehending the stubbornness of the other. Then Mokuba blinked, and his face shifted into an expression of mild horror.

"Oh! Oh, we don't have to sit here," he said, scrambling to his feet. "Here, I'll take that," he added, and he took the popcorn and his drink out of his brother's hands. He bit his lip and cast a hasty, surveying glance across the sparsely populated audience. "We can sit anywhere. Where do you want to sit? There's lots of open seats."

Seto recalled Mokuba's membership card – the feeling it had given him.

"Here's fine," he said calmly.

Mokuba was still tense. "Are you sure?"

"I'll tough it out," Seto nodded. He sat down; and Mokuba, now the awkward standing one, hesitated before following suit.

Two full, pumpkin-loaded hours later, the brothers crouched low in their seats and rubbed their necks. Seto had already administered a self-massage several times throughout the movie, without much effect – he would regret this at work tonight. Yet in spite of the soreness, Mokuba was smiling.

They continued their kneading intermittently during their limo ride home. It was the heat of the day, and their darkened limousine shielded them from the mighty August sun. Mokuba endeavored to discuss the particulars of the film – if one could call it that. It being the seventh in the series, the movie wasn't well understood by Seto. But then, there was not a whole lot to understand in the first place.

"I wish Rhonda hadn't died," Mokuba said with a wistful shake of his head, followed by a wince. "She was my favorite."

"I liked Pumpkin Scythe," said Seto benignly. Mokuba gave him an incredulous look.

"What! No one's supposed to like him!"

"I did, though." Seto dug the heel of his palm into a particularly gnarled knot. "He was the only one with any sort of depth."

Mokuba shook his head again. He leaned back in his seat and was silent for a while. They passed several quaint houses which began a gradual morph into larger ones. Two, maybe three blocks from the largest house in the city.

Suddenly, Mokuba spoke. "Do you remember my fourth grade concert?"

Huh? Seto didn't repeat it aloud. Mokuba was staring out his window, turned away from him.

"I had a part in the acting sequence," Mokuba went on. "And I didn't think you'd come. But halfway through I –" He took a breath. "I thought I saw you in the crowd."

This was coming out of nowhere. Why on earth had Mokuba decided to bring this up? There had been a karaoke scene in the movie, where all the characters stood up to sing for each other and their parents. Was that why he'd been thinking of it? Perhaps Mokuba was thinking of trying out for another play at his new school?

All this ran through Seto's head to distract him from his simple, heavy answer: No.

But he said nothing. And Mokuba seemed to be finished, too. The limousine pulled into the Kaiba Manor driveway.

As soon as they ducked out of the backseat, Mokuba dashed around the trunk to his brother and wrapped his arms around his waist. Seto held him.

"Thanks for taking me out today," said Seto, "and...broadening my cinematic outlook." He smirked a little. Mokuba mumbled something into the folds of Seto's shirt. "Hm?"

Mokuba looked up. His smile was sad. "No problem," he said. He let go of Seto and disappeared into the house.

Alone in the driveway, the chauffeur gone in the garage, Seto stood under the sun. He let the heat wash through him from top to bottom, bottom to top, radiating up from the blacktop. He let himself feel the pain in his neck as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

Yugi, so ridiculous with his spikes and chains, so enamored with puzzles – giving them out to everyone else, shackling the poor souls with finding the solution whether they liked it or not. Whether or not it tore them apart from the inside out. Whether or not it was even possible to solve.

Mokuba's smile had been so sad. Seto couldn't waste any more time. He had to finish his puzzle.