Title: Barking To Disaster (PBFF)

Author: Glue Project

Rating: PG-13?

Pairings: SetoJou

Spoilers: Err. None?

Disclaimer: Nothing mine. Not even the bunny. Written for the Plot Bunny contest thing at A Dragon's Lair.

Summery: TEXT BUNNY #22-

What if the school were to take a fieldtrip to China? Seto doesn't want to go but he's already riding the borderline to disaster from his last warning from the principal about not participating in class field trips. So he's off to China with the rest of the them. Once in China they go to study the ancient springs.

While studying the different springs, Jou and Kaiba get into an argument over something or other. During their argument, Kaiba gets the insane urge to shove Jou into one of the cursed springs. After all, Kaiba doesn't believe in curses. At first, everyone doesn't think that Jou will surface, but when he does, he's a dog! ...

Prologue

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Seto wasn't happy. The newest project at Kaiba Corp. was hitting snags, sales were down, and to top it all off, the latest virtual game, released only yesterday, had tanked.

Great. Just great. What a wonderful way to start out the day. And he hadn't even left home yet.

Maybe he could take some aggression out on the mutt. Yelling at him and getting him angry with just a few well placed comments always made him feel a little better.

However, that hope was stolen from him once he saw that Jounouchi was absent. Looking to the blackboard, he saw something that made him want to hit his head against the wall.

'MANDATORY END OF SCHOOL TRIP'

Maybe he could get his Blue Eyes to dig a grave for him now...

He knew he couldn't get out of this one. He'd gotten out of the last two trips by strategically hosting a tournament when it came time for the mandatory field trips.

However...there was no way he could slap together a tournament in time. School ended in two weeks. He had thought he would be safe.

The bell rang, and the teacher stood up.

He was a good-natured man, shorter than Yuugi (amazingly, in Seto's opinion) and a bit...wide... around the middle.

The teacher reminded him of...Professor Flitwig?...from the first Harry Potter movie that his brother had forced him to watch.

Forced, as in tying his brother up whist he was sleeping, and then putting the movie in Seto's laptop cd-drive.

Flitwick's human double stood on a chair to gain the attention of his students. All chattering died promptly.

"As you can see behind me, it says 'End of School Field Trip'. This year, it is mandatory," he stressed the word while looking pointedly at Seto, "as we are going to learn on springs."

One of the students in the class started to sing. "Oh, the wonderful things about tiggers, are tiggers are wonderful things, their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs..."

The teacher smiled as laughter coursed around him. "No, not that kind of springs." When the class didn't seem to get the gist, he made 'little' swimming motions until he fell off the chair and reduced the class into laughter once more.

Seto rolled his eyes. The teacher was also the class clown. Well, at least it was never boring in here...

The short teacher once again appeared over the edge of his desk and straightened his clothes with a comic air. His comical antics turned serious a moment later. "We are going to go study the ancient springs in China. I want each of you to pair off into groups of three, strictly with those in this room. These other two people that you will be working with will be your partners in the report that will be due on the first day of school, next year. They will also be your 'seat buddies' since the plane which we will be riding in is three seats across." He paused to gain his breath. "Now, move to find your partners."

Seto took a quick count of the room. There were twenty five people in the class, which meant that he had a very good chance of working alone.

Seto leaned boredly on his elbow while reading a book (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens). His fellow students bustled about him, never actually acknowledging his presence.

The teacher noticed. He was also perceptive enough to notice the small downward droop of his mouth and the slight narrowing of his eyes.

Like a kindergarten teacher, he slapped on a happy expression and clapped his hands. "Every one paired up then? In groups of three?" He noticed that everyone nodded and no one noticed the silent one among their happy, chattering mass. That made him crestfallen that they couldn't see that someone was clearly not at all happy. "I'm going to pass around a piece of paper. Write the names of those in your group, and if you really want to, a name for your group." He added another fake, wide grin.

There. Seto would get the paper last.

The rest of the class went off without any major hitches, sliding along smoothly until the bell had rung.

The teacher grabbed up the piece of paper and approached the much taller CEO. "I'm going to put Jounouchi in your group, if you don't mind." He didn't receive anything other than a pair of slightly wide eyes and an almost nonexistent twitch upward of the lips. "Do you want to choose a group name?"

Seto muttered, "Dragon," before continuing on his way to his next class.

The teacher trudged back wearily to his seat, a smile about his face.

But damn, didn't he also feel like he was match-making for trouble?

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Hehe. The next chapter jumps a bit in time. However, I liked how this chapter/prologue thing turned out, even if it came out a little odd.

I also like the idea of a rather perceptive and short teacher. Seto seemed a bit too OOC and sulky though.

--Glue